Hi:

The following is an interesting quote: see my remarks and cautions afterward:

"There's really no ambiguity here---I can't imagine why, looking at the equations, you would think there was.

In these exact solutions, gravity propagates at c, in the following precise sense. Start with a ``source'' and a ``target'', and examine the effect of the source on the target at time t, in any coordinate system you want. There is some earlier time t' such that light emitted from the source at time t' will have just reached the target at time t. (Technically, t' is the intersection of the source world line with the past light cone of the target at time t.) Then in these solutions, nothing that happens to the source after time t' can affect the target at time t.

In fact, this is a universal feature of general relativity, as long as space time is globally hyperbolic (which means, roughly, that nothing can move backwards in time). There's a nice proof by Low in Class.Quant.Grav.16 (1999) 543.

To reiterate: it is an exact feature of general relativity, both of the field equations and of the exact solutions representing moving bodies, that no gravitational influence travels faster than light. If you have a theory that predicts otherwise, it is not general relativity. Period."

POINT NUMBER ONE:

Lets face it: a theory of gravity (GR) good to better than 30 decimal places is pretty darn GOOD. Yet, scientists know that within the Planck realm, we cannot use GR. This is a very good example of a situation where a theory of gravity can be experimentally verified right up to the limits of technology- and beyond- yet possibly be WRONG. THERE IS A PART OF THE REAL UNIVERSE WHERE GENERAL RELATIVITY DOES NOT WORK, AND CANNOT BE USED... AND IT IS IN THIS VERY REGION THAT WE FIND GRAVITY.

POINT NUMBER TWO:

IA SUPERNOVA RESULTS WITH ACCELERATION OUTWARD INDICATE THAT SPACE TIME IS,WITH A HIGH PROBABILITY MARGINALLY CLOSED AND SPHERICAL...NOT HYPERBOLIC (ALTHOUGH EVEN HYPERBOLIC SPACE CAN BE CLOSED).The formulae of General Relativity are themselves based on spherical geometry and periodic momentum. It is difficult to understand how one minute we can discuss the relationships of objects in orbital free fall around the Earth, and in the next breath offer a cosmology based on hyperbolic space. This is especially true since we are almost certain that space is observationally FLAT...exactly what higher dimensional GR predicts. Note the person in the quote above uses the word "globally" (relating to spherical geometry). I'm aware, of course of the place of the hyperbola in spherical geometry, but there is a basic conceptual problem involved in talking about space in an entire General Relativity universe being "globally hyperbolic".

POINT NUMBER THREE:

ACTION AT A DISTANCE IS A SCIENTIFICALLY OBSERVED PHENOMENON and has been reverified by recent experimental work.

POINT NUMBER 4:

PHOTONS DON'T "MOVE" WITH RESPECT TO EACH OTHER BECAUSE (in this model) THEY ARE PART OF THE SAME THING. What a "photon" (white hole, doing work, entropy reducing phenomenon) is observed to be is a matter of ones frame of reference in the "two/sphere".

POINT NUMBER 5:

IN THE SUBMICROSCOPIC PLANCK WORLD, MATTER TAKES SINGULAR CHARACTERISTICS, AND SINGULARITY IS A TIMELESS, ALBEIT VERY REAL ENTITY.

Alan Guth devised "inflation" in the "Planck Era" as a means of creating a workable model of cosmic expansion. To avoid contradicting GR, he made sure he KEPT inflation in the Planck Era! In the Einsteinian static universe, we must remember that the Planck Era is still there, below 10 to the -33rd Cm. EVERYWHERE..all the time. Guths brief almost infinitely rapid expansion of the universe (suspension of time) is conceptually linked to Flanderns instant communication of gravity! In that matter, Flandern is in good company. Sir Isaac Newton also intuitively felt that gravity was instantly propagated! Dr. Newtons intuition matches up very nicely with modern mathematical concepts about singularity. As I already said, the fact that GR gravity works so well is not really, in this case, a good reason to trust it conceptually as an accurate reflection of cosmic reality.

Somehow, some day, science must come to grips with the "Horizon Problem". A good dose of conceptual consistency, and applying what we know about singularity and the quantum realm from observation and experience will, I'm sure lick this critical "problem" once and for all.

REGARDS...Sam Cox