100 Years of Relativity Theory - Is the Universe its Own Singularity? - What is the Speed of Gravity at Work and is Gravity the same as Dark Matter?

A Century Ago, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Changed Everything is the title of an article by Dennis Overbye at the New York Times in celebration of one hundred years of relativity theory.

Our take on relativity theory 100 years later, especially in view of the postulated Higgs Field, which reminds of the "fudge" of Einstein's cosmological constant, is that theoretical physics consists of "measurements" and formulas, and special "constants" in those formulas to cover up the unknowns.

To us, the primary questions in comprehending the universe then are:

• what are we measuring?
  and
• what are our measurement rulers?

Ultimately, the universe we describe by sheer observation and the shorthand of mathematical notation is limited by our measurement stick, a limit which thus far consists of light itself. If anything traveled faster than light, how could one measure it? in the dark.

Accordingly, however, we have the famous equation E=mc2 where c is the velocity of light squared. Now that is FAST. But that defines energy per se.

We think that the key force in the universe is gravity, i.e. the force by which matter is attracted or repelled, which was Newton's main realm of inquiry.

We ask:

• what is the velocity viz. speed of gravity (is it a constant?),
  or, put differently, and more to the point,
• at what distance does gravity stop working "instantaneously"?

We postulate that the answer to the identity of so-called "dark matter" that is currently said to permeate the universe is none other than gravity.

Energy is defined by the equation E=mc2 where m is "mass" so that c2 must include everything else, including "dark matter".

The Higgs so-called "standard model" equations leave out gravity (!), and replace it with the so-called "Higgs field", a quantum mechanics (and Nobel Prize-winning) slight-of-hand running along the lines of: "Hey, guys. We know how the universe works. We just have to leave out gravity." LOL. On the other hand, when dealing with particles of small mass at infinitesimally short distances, gravity may be a tough thing to measure, but not zero.

We think that the Higgs Field is nothing other than gravity as the primal attracting and repelling force of the universe, which we think is its own singularity in the universe and thus impossible to measure directly. Only if an object is attracted or repelled can it have mass, given to it by gravity.

Quite obviously to us, gravity permeates everything and moves so fast it covers the known universe instantaneously in terms of "possible" measurement.

See in this context the discussion at Does Gravity Travel at the Speed of Light?
where it is noted that gravity must be assumed to work instantaneously, rather than travel at the speed of light, or the equations on the movement of bodies in our own Solar System fail.

Is the actual velocity of gravity then possibly the same as c2 (the speed of light squared) in Einstein's equation (that is about 35 billion miles per second)? Or is the force of gravity a changing constant measured at a given distance?

We refer here in this context to a discussion of "gravity waves" at https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/velocity-of-gravity-wave.429166/ where "measurable effects of gravity" are perhaps confused with gravity itself.

It might be true that measurable "gravity waves", like "light waves" may have a base velocity of "simple c", the speed of light, because we can not measure beyond that speed. How could we?

"Gravity waves" are merely the "effects" of gravity and not the same as gravity itself, much like the ripples viz. waves of water from a boat traveling on a river are not the speed of the boat nor that of the water current.

If the universe is its own singularity and gravity its primal force, then the Higgs Field in our view can only be "gravity" and everything else can only be "relative" to that.

Hat tip to CaryGEE.