Abstract

A different physical interpretation of floating of bodies - the so-called “Archimedes’ Principle” - relates the gravitational process to its essential characteristic: its spontaneity. Gravity is a spontaneous physical process - similar, for example, to the process we interpret as ‘heat transfer’ between bodies at different temperature; similar to the process which occurs when masses of gas in contact with each other are at different pressures; similar to the process we call ‘friction’. Gravitation has all the characteristics shown by other spontaneous processes, and, like them, its cause is disequilibrium, between matter in contact, in a ‘quality’ of that matter. In the case of gravitation, the quality of matter is related to its intensive property we call ‘density’.

Just as the process we call ‘heat transfer’ is the spontaneous process by means of which the Universe reduces and eliminates disequilibria that exist between its parts, due to differences in ‘temperature’, what we call ‘gravitation’ is the spontaneous process by means of which the Universe reduces and eliminates disequilibria between its parts, due to differences in ‘density’. This is achieved by moving bodies. Ceteris paribus, the process moves a body in the direction in which the difference in density between the matter of the body and the matter of the fluid surrounding the body is reduced.

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