Abstract

The force of gravity is shown to be a small average residual force due to the fourth order terms in v/c of the derived universal electrodynamic contact force between vibrating neutral electric dipoles consisting of atomic electrons vibrating with respect to protons in the nucleus of atoms. The derived gravitational force has the expected radial term plus a new non-radial term. From the radial term the gravitational mass can be defined in terms of electrodynamic parameters. The non-radial term causes the orbits of the planets about the sun to spiral about a circular orbit giving the appearance of an elliptical orbit tilted with respect to the equatorial plane of the sun and the quantization of the orbits as roughly described by Bode's law. The vibrational mechanism that causes the gravitational force is shown to decay over time giving rise to numerous phenomena, including the expansion of the planets (including the earth) and moons in our solar system, the cosmic background radiation, Hubble's red shifts versus distance (due primarily to gravitational red shifting), Tifft's quantized red shifts (Bode's law on a universal scale), Tifft's measured rapid decay of the magnitude of red shifts over time, the Tulley-Fisher relationship for luminosity of spiral galaxies, the unexpected high velocities of the outer stars of spiral galaxies, and Roscoe's observed quantization of the luminosity and size (Bode's law) of 900 spiral galaxies. Arguments are given that this derived law of gravity is superior to Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation (F = Gm₁m₂/ r²) and Einstein's General Relativity Theory (G_?v = ?8?G/c² T_?v).