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To: Jordi
If there's a sort of potential 'repulsive' gravity (like the 'dark force' of wich the universe seem permeated), go on,

Actually, standard gravity does have a repulsive phase. (Note that this has nothing whatsoever to do with these antigravity claims, for which there is neither theoretical support nor verified experimental evidence.) If we postulate a scalar field (such as electric potential, but with a fixed global energy minimum at some value of the field), and further postulate that it is possible to place a region of vacuum stably into a higher potential state (that is, that there would exist a deep local energy minimum at some different value of the field), then gravity becomes repulsive. This causes the region of space to inflate--a new Big Bang!

I've heard that some theorists now believe that such a metastable "false vacuum" is not necessary for inflation. If a region of vacuum can be kicked unstably into a higher potential, it can "surf" along at the higher potential as the space inflates, just as a surfer maintains his elevation on a wave while falling down its slope the whole time.

63 posted on 07/31/2002 6:06:58 AM PDT by Physicist
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To: Physicist
It's also worth noting that this is not doubt bogus because if you could invent an anti-gravity machine, you could control time. The world as we know it, excuse the pun, would be turned upside down.

It's fun to read and think about being a boy in a band who spends a summer with a wacky scientist in a time-travelling Delorean, but other than that--phooey.
65 posted on 07/31/2002 6:36:17 AM PDT by Viva Le Dissention
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