tjr@ihnet.UUCP (Tom Roberts) (04/23/84)
I am entering this discussion late, but could not resist. Gravity (as I understand it from Einstein's General Theory) IS NOT instantaneous (NOTHING is). Note however, that it is NOT a quantum field theory, SO MATTER CANNOT BE CREATED (e.g. virtual e+e- pairs) without energy having been present (locally) before the creation of the matter. In this theory, matter is NOT created, but merely transformed from some other form of energy; as the presence of that energy would imply a gravitational interaction, "creating" matter would not cause major changes in the gravitational fields (only minor ones due to the new distribution of matter/energy in the immediate vicinity of the newly "created" matter). In fact, I know of NOTHING you could do at one point in space that can cause MAJOR fluctuations in the gravitational fields at a distant point in space (either "instantaneously" or delayed by L/c). Because of the conservation theorems, the (local) configuration before an interaction must have been "close" the the configuration afterwards; the fields at a distance would thus be similar, before and after. Tom Roberts ihnp4!ihnet!tjr