Einstein said that there has to be more mass in the universe than we can actually see. He predicted that there would be patches of invisible super-gravity from which not even light could escape. ibid.
It is possible the predominant force in the universe is not gravity, but something else ... A new theory is being proposed ... It is in fact a synthesis of the disciplines ... The Electric Model offers us a new interpretation of the workings of the universe. PSTV.tv – Thunderbolts of the Gods, Wallace Thornhill
The secret to Gravity lay in the nature of Space/Time ... It’s the warping of Space/Time caused by the objects within it. Brian Greene, Beyond the Cosmos, National Geographic 2012
There’s something that fills space and counteracts the pull of ordinary attractive gravity. ibid.
3,202. We don’t exactly know when inflation happened – most likely it happened when Gravity had split off from the other three Forces, but at a time when the other three Forces were likely unified. Professor Alan Guth
3,279. Inflationary cosmology is a new twist on the big-bang theory. It doesn't in any way do away with the big-bang theory. It’s completely consistent with everything that’s been talked about in terms of the big-bang model. What it does is change our conception of the history of the first small fraction of a second of the big bang. According to the new theory, the universe during this sliver of time underwent a period of inflation, a brief era of colossal expansion.
There are two key features that are different in inflationary cosmology from the standard big bang. One is that the inflationary model contains a mechanism by which essentially all the matter in the universe can be created during the brief period of inflation. In the standard big-bang model, by contrast, it was always necessary to assume that all the matter was there from the beginning, and there was no way to describe how it might be created. By the way, the inflationary production of matter is consistent with the principle of energy conservation, even though it can literally produce a universe from almost nothing. Energy is still conserved – this is all calculated in the context of standard classical general relativity. The unusual feature is that gravity plays a major role in the energy balance. It turns out that the energy of a gravitational field – any gravitational field – is negative. During inflation, as the universe gets bigger and bigger and more and more matter is created, the total energy of matter goes upward by an enormous amount. Meanwhile, however, the energy in gravity becomes more and more negative. The negative gravitational energy cancels the energy in matter, so the total energy of the system remains whatever it was when inflation started – presumably something very small. The universe could, in fact, even have zero total energy, with the negative energy of gravity precisely cancelling the positive energy of matter. This capability for producing matter in the universe is one crucial difference between the inflationary model and the previous model. Alan Guth, A Universe in Your Backyard pp278-279
Looking back to the instant of creation is a relatively new idea. The Big Bang theory is widely accepted. But the concept is less than a century old. But all this changed in 1929. At California’s Mount Wilson Observatory Edwin Hubble studied the light from galaxies. He observed that the farther away the galaxy, the longer the wave-lengths of light it emits ... If a galaxy is moving away from us, its light-waves stretch, becoming longer and redder. It’s called red-shifting ... Nearly all galaxies are receding from us at a million miles an hour ... The universe is expanding outward from a single point ... Out of the fireball, the four fundamental forces of nature formed. These forces underpin everything around us. Gravity is the reason stars and planets formed ... Electromagnetism lights our cities, runs our phones and connects our computers. And the two nuclear forces, strong and weak, bind the particles that make up our bodies and power the furnace of our sun ... Without them the universe would be a featureless fog of radiation ... How was mass developed in the first second of the Big Bang? Big Bang
If the universe sprung into existence and then expanded exponentially, you get gravitational waves travelling through space-time. These would fill the universe, a pattern of echoes of the inflation itself. Neil Turok
A singularity is a point of infinite gravity – where space and time become meaningless. But that is ridiculous. A singularity is basically a word for saying I don’t know. It’s a word for saying I’m clueless. Professor Michio Kaku, interview How the Universe Works
We can summarize electricity, magnetism and gravity into equations one inch long, and that’s the power of field theory. And so I said to myself: I will create a field theory of strings. And when I did it one day, it was incredible, realizing that on a sheet of paper I can write down an equation which summarized almost all physical knowledge. Michio Kaku
In some sense, gravity does not exist; what moves the planets and the stars is the distortion of space and time. Michio Kaku
Gravity is compressing the outer layers of the star. We have this constant tension between gravity which wants to crush a star to smithereens, and also the energy released by the fusion process which wants to blow the star apart. And that tension, that balancing act, creates the star. Michio Kaku
What goes up must come down. Early 20th century proverb
We think it’s a region in which a great deal of mass has been compressed down to a very small size. The gravitational field is so strong that nobody, not even light can escape. So black holes cannot shine. Professor Sandra Faber
When the Earth crushes down to just five centimetres across that’s the density of a black hole. It would be about the size of a golf ball, yet weigh the same as the Earth with the same amount of gravity. How The Universe Works s1e2: Black Holes, Discovery 2010
When massive stars ten times heavier than our sun die gravity crushes them creating a huge explosion. A supernova. But some stars are even bigger than that. These supermassive stars weigh one hundred times more than our sun, and have one hundred times our gravity. When one of these stars dies it sets off the biggest explosion in the universe: a hypernova. And this is the birth of a black hole. ibid.
Black holes are born from dying stars. And most are small. And thirty kilometres across. But now scientists have discovered some black holes are much bigger: they’re called supermassive black holes. They’re the same size as our entire solar system. And one of these monsters lies at the heart of our own galaxy. ibid.
Inside a real star fusion continues for billions of years. The reason is simple: size. Fusion at the core of the stars generates the force of a billion nuclear bombs every second. Gravity and fusion are in an epic battle. How the Universe Works s1e4: Stars
Astronaut [Don] Pettit had discovered something huge: in the zero gravity of space particles of dust don’t float apart, they clump together. How the Universe Works s1e7: Solar Systems
In our own solar system there are just eight planets. But orbiting six of those planets are moons. Lots and lots of moons. More than three hundred of them. And each one of them is different. How the Universe Works s1e8: Moons
Each moon is unique, but they all have one thing in common. All moons are natural satellites held in place by gravity. But moons do more than just orbit planets. They help stabilise the planets in their orbits and keep the machinery of the solar system running smoothly. ibid.
On the international space-station astronaut Don Pettit was experimenting in zero gravity. He put grains of salt and sugar inside a plastic bag, and instead of floating apart they began to clump together. This is how planets and moons build up. ibid.
The story of moons is the story of gravity. Gravity holds moons in orbit. It heats up their insides and shapes their surfaces. In the end it controls everything about moons, even their survival and destruction. ibid.
It was the tiredness of time lived, with its days and days. It was the tiredness of gravity – gravity, which wants you down in the centre of the earth. Martin Amis
Gravity explains the motions of planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done. Isaac Newton
A classic example is Isaac Newton’s Theory of Gravity. Which he could never have come up with without the prior work of Royal Society founder Robert Hooke. Even geniuses can benefit from teamwork. Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? Channel 4 2011
The force of gravity is much weaker than the other forces. Professor Lisa Randall, Harvard University
There are quite a few stories about things that seem to be anti-gravity, and I’ve seen a few things over the years also. Objects that rise slowly, sort of hang motionless for minutes at a time, and then suddenly dart half way over the sky in a second or two and stop instantly. Or make a high-free V-turn. You never know what you are going to see. They’re testing all sorts of things here. Chuck Clark, Area 51 specialist
The Laws of Gravity are very very strict
And you’re just bending them for your own benefit. Billy Bragg, She’s Got a New Spell