Testing a conjecture on the origin of space, gravitation and mass Christoph Schiller * Abstract A Planck-scale model for the microscopic degrees of freedom of space and gravitation is explored in detail. The conjectured model is based on a single fundamental princi- ple that involves fluctuating one-dimensional strands. First, the fundamental principle is used to deduce classical and quantum properties of space and gravitation, from the field equations of general relativity to gravitons. Secondly, the fundamental principle is used to deduce a detailed list of predictions. They include the lack of any change to general relativity at all sub-galactic scales, the validity of black hole thermodynamics, the lack of singularities, the lack of quantum foam, the lack of unknown observable quantum gravity effects, the maximum local momentum flow or force c4/4G,andthe maximum local luminosity or power c5/4G. All predictions are tested against exper- iments and are found to agree with observations so far. Finally, it is shown that the fundamental principle implies a model for elementary particles that allows deducing ab-initio upper and lower limits for their gravitational mass values. Keywords: general relativity; quantum gravity; particle mass; strand conjecture. PACS numbers: 04.20.-q (classical general relativity), 04.60.-m (quantum gravity), 12.60.-i (models beyond the standard model). * Motion Mountain Research, Munich, Germany, and Varese, Italy,
[email protected] ORCID 0000-0002-8188-6282. 1 1 The quest to uncover the microscopic aspects of space and gravitation The nature of physical space and gravitation remains a matter of intense research. What are the microscopic degrees of freedom of black holes, the microscopic nature of the vacuum, and the microscopic details of curvature? Many possibilities have been proposed and explored [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12].