Elastic Model of Space-Time Continuum

Shashi Prakash

B.Tech in Civil Engineering

shashiprakash2301@gmail.com

Abstract

Keywords: General Relativity, spacetime continuum, grand unification, Shear and

normal strain

1. Introduction
Contrary to the accepted notion that electromagnetic waves travel without a
medium, a theory of spacetime as an elastic medium is presented here. This medium
have been called by others as Aether since time immemorial. A. Einstein in his papers
have remarked the possibility of this medium. In his theory of general relativity he
has only considered extension and contraction of time and space respectively.
However there is also a possibility of shearing of spacetime continuum. Theories on
these lines were considered by Weyl, Einstein and others in the pursuit of grand
unification but have been partly successful. These theories on torsion of space time
also allow an alternate way to understand gravity, they should rather not because
torsion has handedness while gravity do not. A recent work by P.A. Millette showed
that mass arises from dilation of spacetime, while electromagnetic potential arises
from distortion of spacetime continuum.

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 All of these theories fail to incorporate strong and weak forces. The solution to
this is given by bifurcating the time dimension. Such that we have three space
dimensions and corresponding three imaginary time dimension which would form a
complex C3-manifold. This sounds bizarre at first, but this is the precise model of
universe that we have been missing. As the time dimension is imaginary we don’t
have an intuitive sense of it, and we have been clubbing all three of its dimensions
into one. As we will see all the four fundamental forces are unified in this model of
spacetime.

2. Postulates of the Model

All the required postulates of the model have been proposed here.

1. Every point in spacetime has three spatial and corresponding three

imaginary time co-ordinates (X, iT). Together they form a complex C3-
manifold.

2. Spacetime is quantized: Space and time are made of individual springs of

size of Planck’s length and Planck’s time having different elastic constants.
This is different from other theories where spacetime continuum has one
combined elastic modulus.

3. Speed of anything including photon is governed by:

𝐿 − ∆𝑙
𝐶=
𝑇 + ∆𝑡
Where L and T are Planck’s length and time and ∆𝑙 and ∆𝑡 are
maximum possible length contraction and shortest time elongation
in spacetime springs at any particle position. Which means that a
particle at each instant probes its immediate neighborhood. It stays
at rest if it finds no unevenness and jumps to the nearest point in
maximum possible time- so it is lazy.

4. Dark Energy: Bare mass is unstable and keeps on stretching

spacetime and hence increasing its mass unless it is stabilized-or
more precisely contained- by shearing of spacetime (has charge,
colour or weak interaction). Black Hole is an example.

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3. Origin of Universe
The universe started with spacetime having volume of unit Planck’s length and
time. The space began contracting and the time began expanding creating an ever
increasing mass. Until the volume became zero and when it had reached Planck’s
mass, the Big-Bang occurred. This may also be the future of our universe, when all
the black holes at the centre of each galaxy have stretched spacetime to its full limit.
Now we have a much heavier mass to work with. During the big-bang and this is
mysterious this heavier mass is split into many smaller masses and we have a much
larger spacetime volume. This process might have been repeated many times, until
we got a volume which could be stretched for enough time for human life to happen-
which is the current universe. During the chaos of Big-bangs some of these bare mass
particles might have got contained in the shearing of spacetime and form the stable
everyday particles.

This can be modelled as a 2-sphere rubber balloon with constant air flow into it
and a concentration of rubber mass on its surface. It keeps on expanding, but when
there is a swirl or knot around the rubber mass it is stabilised.

4. Fundamental Forces
1. Gravity: As postulated by A. Einstein Gravity and acceleration can’t be
differentiated. So Gravity, acceleration and velocity are manifested by length
contraction and time dilation. This has been proved and widely accepted. Strain
matrix at a point in principal direction (wrt direction of motion) around a particle
moving with constant velocity, or accelerating or simply at rest having mass would
be given by a diagonal matrix.

2. Electro-magnetic Force: Shearing of time dimension along spatial dimension is

manifested as Electromagnetic force. Since shearing of time along space is opposite
of shearing of space along time, we get positive and negative charges.

3. Strong Force: Shearing of Time dimension along other time dimensions is

manifested as strong force. This is new and has not been tapped in earlier researches
due to the preconceived notion of one dimension of time.

4. Weak force: Shearing of space dimension with other space dimension is

manifested as weak interaction.

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 TABLE 1 STRAIN TENSOR

ε Tx Ty Tz Lx Ly Lz

Tx +G x S xy S xz Ex B xy B xz

Ty S xy +G y S yz B xy Ey B yz

Tz S xz S yz +G z B xz B yz Ez

Lx -E x -B xy -B xz -G x W xy W xz

Ly -B xy -E y -B yz W xy -G y W yz

Lz -B xz -B yz -Ez W xz W yz -Gz