In terms of the present hypothesis, a screen can be regarded as a plane of material bodies (atoms), each of which might intersect, or not, with a photon depending on the distances of each material body from the light source as the photon is deposited, the spatial orientation of the photon (determining the relative wavelength of the masses), and the spatial trajectory of each mass at the moment its wave-front crosses the location of the photon. The light that "passes through" a slit in a screen will be specifically out of phase with all the trajectories of the masses of the screen as the latter radiate across the space between the screen and light source.
The relationship just described between a photon and the first screen is represented in figure 3:
The semicircles represent spacetime wavelengths, along which spatial trajectories transmit, presumably returning to the same trajectory once per each wavelength. The solid vectors emanating from the slits a1 and a2 represent the trajectories of masses at the slits if they are closed, or the missing trajectories that would allow the photon to "pass" the screen if the slits are open. The dashed vectors represent the trajectories of the relative position of each slit when the wavefront of the other intersects with p. Whether a photon "passes" a slit in the screen or is absorbed by the screen is determined by the moment of emission, the distance between the source and an atom in the screen, and the wavelength of the screen relative to the spatial orientation of the photon.
Figure 4 represents the relationship between photons from the source that have intersected with one or the other slit at s1 to impinge on s2. The waves emanating from s2 represent the motion of atoms b1 and b2. Screen s1 is depicted with dashed lines to emphasize that it is radiating in parallel with s2, not being (as it might appear) intersected by the masses of s2.
If only one slit is open, a series of photons will impinge on s2 in an intelligible manner, tending to group in a region of s2 closest to the slit, determined as in the non-intersection of photons with s1, by factors of time, distance, and wavelength. When a second slit is opened, the curious phenomenon first noticed by Young is the appearance of an interference pattern on s2, suggesting that the particles of light are suddenly behaving like waves. But in terms of the present hypothesis, with atoms in the screen conceived as radiating toward the photons, the phenomenon can be explained by an exclusionary principle that would limit absorption by atoms of photons to, perhaps, once per cycle, and the consequent preemption of absorption by atoms at one location by atoms at another: If for example with the opening of slit a2, atom b2, being closer to a2 than a1, tends to absorb photons from a2, sometimes instead of photons from a1. And having absorbed a photon from a2, if the photon it would otherwise have absorbed from a1 is preempted by some other atom (not b1), b2 is available to preempt the absorption of a photon from a1 that would otherwise be absorbed by b1. The particularities of photons that have avoided absorption in s1 - their orientations in spacetime, the coincidence of the moment of their emission with the trajectories of the masses in the screens, will determine a pattern of preemption in their absorption at s2. Thus, the dark regions appearing on s2 with the opening of slit a2, as if due to interference, can be interpreted as locations where intersections with photons are preempted by other masses due to harmonics of time, distance, and wavelength.
There is no basis in the present hypothesis for actual interference between or among photons and material bodies. If photons don't actually move, and if material bodies radiate approximately in-phase, with only minor variations at the subatomic level, their apparent interference can be no more than a pattern, as on a screen, that we identify by analogy with interference found in material media. What is commonly called electromagnetic interference would be described instead as the manifestation of regularities in photon emission that makes intersection with masses at consistent distances moving along particular trajectories more or less likely. Similarly, light can be considered coherent when photon emission is precisely sequenced and oriented in space to be intercepted by masses along specific trajectories at regular wavelengths.
Another important aspect of light that has defied explanation is its peculiar non-local behavior, often described as quantum entanglement. It has been confirmed, in terms of the conventional concept of light, that a photon propagates in an expanding wave of probability that might be intercepted at any point on its wave-front, even if the wave-front is light-years in diameter. Bell (1964) has demonstrated that a correlation between a pair of photons can be instantaneous and indifferent to distance. We could account for such non-local phenomena in terms of the hypothesis by recognizing the motion of our analyzers and detectors as moving across space relative to the photons, and we could define locality at any moment in terms of the parallel trajectories of the components of the apparatus along their expanding wave-fronts. The otherwise incomprehensible simultaneities associated with light could thus be attributed to manifestations of motion in time perpendicular to space, whereby a point in space becomes an expanding sphere, and a contracting sphere becomes a point.
Other phenomenal aspects of light, such as reflection, diffraction, and its apparent retardation in various media can be explained, if the hypothesis is confirmed, in terms of the physics of absorption and re-emission at the atomic level, and needn't detain us here.
Gravitational Energy
The hypothesis that mass, by moving in time, is in absolute motion across space, bears directly on the definition of gravitational energy.
With Einstein's publication of General Relativity, gravitation was associated with the geometric distortion, "the curvature", of spacetime in the presence of mass. This concept provided a most accurate description of orbital phenomena, and cosmological relationships in general. But the energy expressed when bodies directly interact due to the influence of gravitation - most commonly with the manifestation of weight pressing against a surface - does not immediately follow from the idea of spacetime geometry. Gravitation theory has accommodated the energy involved in gravitational phenomena by recourse to the pre-relativistic notion of a "force of gravity", and by the development of mathematical analogies with electromagnetism. Various problems with the theoretical combination of geometry and force remain dubious, if not unresolved, as when a test particle in a box orbiting (accelerating around) the earth gives no indication of being acted upon by a force.
The problem may be best clarified by means of a thought-experiment:
Imagine two test bodies gravitating toward the earth from some considerable distance. For the sake of simplicity, consider the earth to be at rest and the test bodies to be gravitating directly toward its center of mass. (They appear to be simply "falling" from a perspective on the earth's surface.) One body is an immense hollow sphere of negligible mass, the other is relatively small in size -- an extra-vehicular scientist, let's say -- and also of negligible mass. Notice that while the test bodies are falling toward the earth (or more accurately, while the three bodies are converging) there is among them a purely relative transformation of potential energy to kinetic energy as each moves uniformly in its own frame of reference -- there is, at least as yet, no occasion for an exchange of mass-energy in the form of the putative gravitational energy. Let the sphere and the scientist be placed initially close together so that as they approach the earth their geodesics (uniform motion in spacetime) converge enough to bring their surfaces in contact some time before the larger impact. (It is the fantastic size of the hollow sphere that allows the surfaces of the two bodies to meet somewhere above the earth's surface). From the moment the sphere and the scientist come in contact until they reach the surface of the earth an inertial acceleration between them will intensify as each tries to conform to its own geodesic at an ever greater angle to the other. The situation will, if viewed in isolation, come to resemble the gravitation of a small body pressed against a planetary surface (although the gravitation between them is actually insignificant due to their negligible masses) and the scientist will even be able to stand upon the sphere. This development of an increasing inertial acceleration between the test bodies is the only aspect of the situation that changes from the moment they meet; the earthward component of their motion continues as before, a relative gravitation. Force has developed in the resistance to what is in this case a convergent gravitation of two bodies toward a third. And once the two reach the earth the situation remains essentially the same: Each one, now in conjunction with the entire conglomerate of the earth, presses toward the center of mass with the same sort of conflict of geodesics as was observed between them when they were gravitating from a distance. Along with the other components of the earth at and below the surface, they are resisted, and thereby accelerated, by those further below, due to the coincidence of the common inclination toward the center of mass and the subordinate obstructions.
The thought experiment illustrates that there is no evidence of energy in gravitation until geodesics come in conflict. The energy we associate with weight is not itself gravitational, it is an expression of the resistance to gravitation. Unlike when two relatively small free-moving bodies collide and diverge along new geodesics, when a body's geodesic intersects with a sufficiently massive body, "gravitational energy", as expressed in the conflict of gravitation and the resistance to gravitation, is relentless. How then does a geometric distortion produce a relentless dynamic?
