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comes about because an electromagnetic force acts upon the charge lurking inside matter. A more parsimonious view is not even that there is charge lurking inside matter, but that there is only charge. The presence of charge and its interaction with ZPF creates the forces we all experience and attribute to the existence of matter, even for an apparently electrically neutral particle such as the neutron which, at a deeper level, consists of charged quarks.
According to Einstein, inertia and gravitational mass are indistinguishable. If so, then ZPF, which gives rise to inertia, must in some way generate gravity. This idea was proposed in 1968 by Russian physicist, Andrei Sakharov, and developed by another Russian, H.E. Puthoff within the framework of stochastic electrodynamics. The underlying principle is remarkably intuitive. If a charged particle is subjected to ZPF interactions, it will be forced to fluctuate in response to the random jostlings of the electromagnetic waves of the ZPF (is this the Lamb effect?). Fluctuating charge emits an electromagnetic radiation field, the result of this being that all charges in the universe must emit secondary electromagnetic fields in response to their interactions with the primary field, the ZPF.
The secondary electromagnetic fields turn out to have a remarkable property. Between any two particles they give rise to an attractive force, regardless of whether the charges are positive or negative. This attractive force may be identified with gravity. The fluctuations are relativistic, moving at, or close to, the speed of light. The energy associated with them is interpreted as the energy equivalent of gravitational rest mass. Gravitational mass is not the source of gravitation, its source is the driven motion of a charge, not the attractive power of mass. To interpret Einstein's equation, E = mc2, we need to say that mass is not equivalent to energy, mass is energy.
ZPF is treated as real, not virtual. The real force seen in the Casimir force between two parallel plates would be attributable to it. In quantum theory, the Casimir force is attributed to virtual particles. In the Sakharov--Puthoff model, the ZPF does not itself gravitate. The gravitational force results from perturbations of the ZPF, and the uniform ZPF does not contribute to the curving of the universe.
How can this new theory of Newtonian-like gravity be reconciled with 20th century measurements of effects predicted only from general relativity? Sakharov suggested accounting for the effects of general relativity by introducing the concept of an elasticity of space analogous to the curvature of space-time. (Urantia Book, p.123: "we do not know the actual mechanism of space respiration; we merely observe that all space alternately contracts and expands.")
It is early days yet and time only will tell whether these ideas will be verified. Its authors submit that a theory that offers new insights with such elegance and simplicity is a compelling approach to reality. A similar argument was put forward by Paul Dirac when he proposed to account for a solution involving the negative root of a quadratic equation by attributing it to antimatter. At the time, many thought that Dirac's proposal was quite preposterous. Nowadays, antimatter is manufactured as a matter of course. No doubt the progress of these ideas will be followed by Urantia Book readers and compared with what appeared to be a somewhat naive treatment of gravity, relativity, and quantum theory in the Urantia Papers.
Reference
B. Haisch, A. Rueda, and H.E. Puthoff. (1994) The Sciences, 34, 26-31 (New York Academy of Sciences, N.Y.)
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