Series: GUT Check - The Timothian Model: A Mechanical Grand Unification of Physics
The Nature of Gravity
Gravity as Buoyancy in a Stratified Chunk Medium
This paper develops the Timothian Model’s explanation of gravity as a purely mechanical phenomenon in a real, stratified medium of subatomic chunks. In this framework, the same primordial soup that once congealed into atoms never vanished; part of it remains as a mass-bearing chunk medium that fills all of space. Atoms and larger bodies displace and stratify that medium, which responds with a restoration push that we experience as gravity. On larger scales, bodies float at their buoyant points within stratified density profiles of the medium, making orbits and “falling” behaviors consequences of Archimedes-style buoyancy in a subatomic ocean instead of mysterious action at a distance.
In this issue I:
Define gravity as displacement + stratification + restoration + buoyancy in the chunk medium.
Show how simple gravity arises for a single body in the medium.
Show how interactive gravity emerges when many bodies co-displace and share the same medium, leading to stable orbits.
Recast Newton’s law into F = G′(environment) · m₁m₂/r² with a medium‑dependent G′ rather than a universal constant G.
Interpret Einstein’s curvature, time dilation, and gravitational lensing as compressed summaries of medium stratification, rate modulation, and refraction — not as evidence that the medium is absent.
Detail how motion, medium variability, and effective displaced volume modulate gravity.
Explain why there is no antigravity in this model, only different buoyant outcomes in a stratified medium.
The goal is to make gravity mechanically obvious: if you understand why a rock sinks in water and a balloon rises in air, you already understand the core of gravitational behavior in the Timothian Model. The rest is about recognizing that the “fluid” doing the work is the chunk medium that fills the cosmos.
From within the Timothian series:
Model Ontology of the Timothian Model — canonical definitions of chunks, chunk medium, seeds, stratification spheres, PCS vs lubricant chunks, flows, stratifications, and deprecated concepts like “vacuum” as emptiness or spacetime curvature.
First Principles of the Timothian Model — no action at a distance; same physics at all scales; all forces as mass–pressure–flow interactions; no true vacuum; waves as motions of matter; entropy as homogeneity; time as absolute.
The Nature of Space — what the chunk medium is; how it stratifies, carries oscillations, responds to displacement, and obeys the no‑vacuum rule.
The Nature of Motion — motion through the chunk medium, inertia as simultaneous backfill, relative solidity, disintegration velocity, and frame‑dragging analogues.
The Nature of Pressure — species‑resolved pressure, hydrostatics, shocks, species‑specific pressure regimes, and why “vacuum” chambers aren’t empty.
The Nature of Thermodynamics and The Nature of Entropy — agitation, equalization work, entropy as homogeneity, and the chunk‑level microsprings that drive the medium toward even sharing of deformation; how gravitational stratification fits the tension ledger.
The Nature of Stable Orbits — orbits as buoyant paths in a rotating, stratified medium; Archimedes in spherical coordinates.
If something here feels hinted at but not fully unpacked, here’s where it lives:
“What exactly is this chunk medium that can do all this?”
→ The Nature of Space + First Principles + Model Ontology.
“How do planets and moons end up in stable orbits instead of crashing?”
→ The Nature of Stable Orbits (buoyant points in a rotating, stratified medium).
“Why do high speeds and rotation matter for gravity?”
→ The Nature of Motion and The Nature of Pressure (relative solidity, bow waves, disintegration velocity, pressure maps).
“Does gravitational clumping decrease entropy?”
→ The Nature of Entropy and The Nature of Thermodynamics (local order vs global homogeneity, tension ledger).
“What about black holes, horizons, and jets?”
→ The Nature of Black Holes (event horizons as transmissivity limits; interiors as continuous chunk stratification).
“How does time ‘slow down’ in gravity in this model?”
→ The Nature of Time (rate modulation of processes by medium tension and stratification, not time itself bending).
Scope
This issue focuses on gravity as:
The restoration push of the chunk medium on bodies that displace it.
The buoyant positioning of those bodies in the resulting stratification profile.
The shared medium that couples bodies so that each influences the buoyant point of the others.
I will:
Build from atomic‑scale displacement up to planetary and galactic gravity.
Distinguish simple gravity (one body in the medium) from complex gravity (many bodies sharing displacement and buoyancy).
Introduce the G → G′ recast of Newton’s law.
Translate Einstein’s curved spacetime picture into chunk‑medium language.
I will not re‑derive all of orbital mechanics, black hole physics, or the full chunk‑medium thermodynamics; those are treated in their own issues and referenced here when needed.
The universe is filled with a chunk medium: subatomic pieces of matter with mass, size, and density that obey Newtonian mechanics at all scales.
Every atom displaces nearby chunks; that displacement creates an outward push on the medium and a corresponding inward restoration push from the medium onto the atom.
All the atoms in a body collectively displace a region of the medium, generating a radial stratification of chunk species, packings, and tensions around the body.
Other bodies moving in that stratified medium experience buoyancy: they drift toward the radii and directions where their own density and displacement match the local medium profile — their buoyant points.
Simple gravity is the restoration + buoyancy story when one massive body dominates a region of the medium.
Interactive (complex) gravity arises when many bodies co‑displace and share the same medium; they all adjust to shared buoyant points in the composite stratification.
The gravitational “constant” G becomes a gravitational variable G′ that depends on medium conditions: chunk density, species mix, stratification tension, and the motion and rotation of the medium.
Newton’s inverse‑square formula is retained as a useful summary law in regimes where the medium is slowly varying and nearly isotropic. Einstein’s curved spacetime is retained as a geometric encoding of the same stratification profile. The ontology beneath both is the chunk medium.
Classically, Newton wrote down a law that works extraordinarily well:
F = G · m₁m₂ / r²
but he never gave a physical mechanism for how the masses “know” about each other. Gravity is simply a pull through a vacuum.
Einstein replaced the pull with curvature: masses tell spacetime how to curve, spacetime tells masses how to move. This adds geometry but keeps the vacuum: there is no real substance in between.
The Timothian move is simpler and more radical:
The primordial soup that formed atoms never vanished.
Part congealed into atoms; the rest remained as a mass‑bearing chunk medium that fills all space.
Once you grant this medium, gravity no longer needs action at a distance or curved nothingness. It becomes:
Atoms and bodies displacing the medium.
The medium stratifying by species, packing, and density under that displacement.
The medium pushing back (restoration) on the displacers.
Bodies floating to buoyant points in that stratification.
The same chunk medium:
When oscillated, carries light and electromagnetic waves.
When stratified, manifests as gravity.
When driven into flow, manifests as magnetism, induction, and jets.
When overstuffed and tensioned, stores potential that can be released via radioactive decay, atomic rearrangements, or infall into black holes.
Gravity, in that sense, is not a separate fundamental interaction. It is a particular pattern of mass–pressure–flow behavior of the same medium that explains light and magnetism.
Postulate B1 — Local Interactions Only
Individual chunks in the medium interact physically and bidirectionally with the chunks inside atoms according to their masses, velocities, and Newton’s laws.
Consequences:
Both atoms and medium are made of chunks.
There is no clean boundary between “matter” and “field”; the medium is matter.
Every atom is a small, persistent displacer of medium chunks.
Postulate B2 — Atomic Displacement
Each atom displaces a finite volume of nearby medium chunks. That displacement defines the atom’s local displacement force on the medium.
Consequences:
The mystery “how does one atom generate gravity?” is resolved mechanically: it does so by pushing medium chunks aside, not by emitting an invisible pull.
There is no need for infinitesimal influences spread instantaneously across the universe.
Postulate B3 — Body Scale Displacement
A body’s total displacement is the cumulative displacement of all its atoms.
Consequences:
The medium around a macroscopic body feels the sum of all microscopic pushes.
A planet, star, or galaxy is a macro‑displacer by the summed chunk–medium interactions of all its atoms, not by arbitrary definition.
Postulate B4 — Directional Displacement
When a body maintains a roughly fixed position relative to the medium, its displaced region settles into a radial, outward displacement pattern.
Consequences:
The medium responds by setting up spherical stratification layers around the body.
Those layers are not monolithic spheres of a single chunk species. At each radius, larger chunks tend to occupy more volume per chunk, medium‑sized chunks act as fillers in the gaps between them, and smaller chunks occupy the remaining interstitial gaps that can more easily deform elastically. The species mix and deformation state therefore vary with radius.
In practice, “denser vs less dense medium with radius” is shorthand for this hierarchical packing: what really changes outward from the body is both which chunk species dominate and how much each is deformed in order to fill space.
Different chunk species and deformation states respond differently to flows and oscillations (detailed in The Nature of Pressure), so the hierarchical packing profile also selects which frequencies and processes are most effective at a given radius.
Despite this microstructure, the macroscopic effect still matches the inverse‑square character of Newtonian gravity: the same net displaced volume is spread over larger spherical shells at larger radii.
Postulate B5 — Static vs Flow Displacement
Displacement can arise from:
Static structures: a body sitting in the medium (atoms, planets, stars).
Persistent bulk chunk flows: long‑lived streams, jets, and other moving medium structures that actually relocate chunk mass.
Consequences:
Static structures create relatively steady stratification patterns anchored to the displacer.
Persistent bulk flows rework the ambient stratification by moving chunk mass from one region to another: they can relieve tension where they depart and increase density and tension where they converge. Over time, this reshapes the baseline medium profile that other bodies float in.
Oscillatory waves (including many gravity waves) primarily produce back‑and‑forth compressions and rarefactions around an existing background stratification. Averaged over many cycles they often transport little net mass, but they still do equalization work, converting tension and deformation into agitation and small adjustments of the stratification profile.
Both static structures and persistent flows therefore build and maintain the medium’s long‑lived stratification. Waves ride on that background, modulating tension and buoyant points without always leaving large permanent density changes in their wake.
Postulate C1 — Stratification as Structured Tension
Stratification of the chunk medium is the redistribution of chunk species into layered density and packing profiles, driven by persistent displacement and gravity itself.
Consequences:
Stratifying the medium adds structure and tension: the medium is less homogeneous and holds stored potential. At the chunk level, this tension lives as elastic deformation of individual chunks and their packings.
In Timothian entropy terms, a stratified region is locally low entropy relative to a perfectly homogeneous medium — but the tension ledger includes both the interior and the surrounding medium. The drive toward homogeneity comes from countless microsprings trying to unwind and share deformation more evenly across the medium (see The Nature of Entropy).
Stratification is not “space being stretched.” It is chunks being rearranged into different density, species, and tension states, with elastic deformation stored in how those chunks are packed.
You already know buoyancy in fluids:
Objects denser than the fluid sink toward deeper layers.
Objects less dense than the fluid rise toward shallower layers.
Neutral buoyancy occurs where object density matches fluid density.
The chunk medium behaves the same way, but in spherical, multi‑species, stratified form.
Postulate C2 — Buoyant Points
Any body immersed in a stratified chunk medium drifts toward the radii and orientations where:
its effective density and displacement
match the medium’s local density, species mix, and tension profile.
Those radii and orientations are its buoyant points.
Consequences:
Near Earth, a stone dropped from a tree moves “downward” because “down” is toward deeper medium layers where the stone’s displacement better matches the local environment.
The ground simply acts as a structural stop, like an ocean floor: the stone reaches its buoyant point depth only if there is a path through the lattice.
Gravity, in this picture, is buoyancy in a stratified, subatomic ocean.
“Simple gravity” here means: one dominant body plus the medium.
Imagine a lone planet‑mass body suspended in the chunk medium, far from any others:
Its atoms displace nearby chunks.
The medium responds by stratifying:
Heavier chunk species, packings, and more strongly deformed chunks tend to “settle” closer in.
Lighter, more easily deformed species populate outer layers and interstitial gaps.
A radial density/tension profile forms: ρ_medium(r) and T(r).
The inward restoration pressure of the medium on each unit area of the body’s surface is what we experience as the body’s own gravity at its surface: g_surface.
In regions where:
The medium is static in the body’s rest frame.
The species mix and deformation state change smoothly with radius.
No large flows or extreme rotations are present.
the net radial restoration force on a small test mass at radius r is well approximated by:
F(r) ≈ G′_zone · m_body m_test / r²
with a G′_zone that is effectively constant across that local zone. In this regime, Newton’s law with constant G is an excellent approximation, and G′_zone is simply the local value of G′(medium state) in that region.
Even in the simple one‑body case, the motion of a test object relative to the medium matters:
Moving through the medium increases the encountered chunk mass per second → more collision and backfill work → inertia and drag (see The Nature of Motion).
A test mass in steady orbital motion settles into a buoyant path in the rotating stratification; at the right combination of altitude and tangential speed, it “floats” in a stable orbit.
We’ll formalize “simple vs complex gravity” later, but the essence is:
Simple gravity is the medium saying,
“Given this one big displacer and my own properties here,
this is how hard I push back on everything nearby.”
Real celestial systems are messy: stars, planets, moons, gas clouds, and captured medium are all sharing the same chunk substrate.
Once you abandon the vacuum and introduce a medium, you must accept:
The medium’s baseline density, species mix, and tension are not constant across the universe.
Every new body added to a region re‑stratifies the medium.
Bulk flows (gravity waves riding on stratified backgrounds, magnetically driven flows, jets) continually re‑weave those stratifications.
This means:
Gravity is never just “m₁m₂/r²” with an immutable G.
Gravity is always “masses interacting via the medium they jointly displace and stir.”
It is helpful to put a label on the two main components:
Pillar I — Displacement and Restoration Forces
Bodies displace the chunk medium.
The medium pushes back inward (restoration) to resist that displacement.
Pillar II — Buoyancy and Equilibrium
Bodies float to buoyant points in the stratified medium created by all displacers.
Orbits and stable configurations are just buoyant equilibria in that composite profile.
The two pillars bring several benefits:
Unification and balance: gravity, orbital motion, and stability all come from the same mechanics — displacement, stratification, and buoyancy.
Orbital stability: planets are not perpetually “falling and missing”; they are floating at buoyant points in a rotating stratification shaped by star + planet + captured medium.
Reframing gravity as spherical buoyancy: gravity is reclassified from a fundamental pull to a buoyancy problem in a spherical fluid.
When multiple bodies share the medium:
Each one’s stratification profile is distorted by the others.
Buoyant points for each object are shifted by everyone else.
The medium itself is rotated and stirred, especially around spinning stars and black holes (see The Nature of Motion and The Nature of Black Holes).
This is why:
Planetary orbits precess and migrate.
Tidal interactions exchange angular momentum.
Galaxies show complex rotation curves that standard models attribute to “dark matter”; here, part of that behavior is encoded in baseline medium stratification and flows.
Newton’s law is a superb empirical summary for many situations. But it encodes a hidden assumption: that G is universal and the medium is a vacuum.
Newton’s gravitational law:
F = G · m₁m₂ / r²
assumes:
Vacuum between bodies — no mass, no structure, no drag.
Constancy of G — the same everywhere, everywhen.
No medium — nothing that can be displaced or stratified in its own right.
In the Timothian Model, all three assumptions are false:
There is no true vacuum; the chunk medium is always present.
The medium has mass, density, species structure, and elastic deformation.
Displacement and stratification depend on who is nearby and how the medium is already arranged.
We therefore recast Newton’s law as:
F = G′(local medium state) · m₁m₂ / r²
where G′ is a shorthand for:
Local chunk medium density and species mix.
Local stratification tension, deformation, and anisotropy.
Local motion and rotation of the medium.
How much of the medium is already captured and partially locked by existing bodies.
In many familiar environments (Earth’s surface, near planetary orbits in calm regions), G′ ≈ constant, and we measure something that looks like “universal G.”
In more extreme environments, G′ should differ. That leads to the Earth‑clone thought experiment.
Consider three identical Earth‑clone planets, all with the same mass and internal structure, in three different environments:
Intergalactic Earth Clone
Floating halfway between galaxies in a very relaxed chunk medium.
Baseline medium tension and stratification are low.
The clone’s own displacement must build up the local stratification from a quiet background.
Result: medium restoration forces are modest → gravity feels weaker.
Multi Black Hole Earth Clone
Placed in a region dominated by several massive black holes and dense clusters.
The medium is already heavily stratified and tensioned.
Adding Earth’s displacement to that environment increases local tension and deformation sharply.
Result: for the same mass, the inward medium push is greater → gravity feels stronger.
High Speed Intergalactic Earth Clone
Same as case (1), but the Earth clone is moving rapidly through the medium.
Relative motion increases effective displaced volume over time (see H.2), increasing medium reaction force.
Result: even in a relaxed region, motion makes gravity effectively stronger as the medium’s back reaction grows.
These scenarios illustrate:
The perceived strength of gravity is not just about mass and distance;
it is about mass + distance + the state and motion of the medium.
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (GR) captures many gravitational phenomena in a compact geometric language:
Spacetime curvature near mass.
Gravitational redshift and time dilation.
Light bending near massive bodies.
Gravitational waves.
The Timothian Model does not deny those observations. Instead, it reinterprets what the mathematics encode.
GR: masses curve spacetime; freely falling bodies follow geodesics in that curved geometry.
Timothian translation:
Masses displace and stratify the chunk medium.
The medium’s density, species, and tension profiles define effective index gradients for both motion and wave propagation.
Bodies move along paths of least resistance in this stratified medium — buoyant paths and pressure‑balanced trajectories.
The curved metric gᵤᵥ of GR is reinterpreted as a summary geometry of the underlying medium stratification and its influence on motion and oscillation.
GR: clocks in stronger gravity run slower; time is “dilated.”
Timothian translation (see The Nature of Time):
Clocks are processes that cycle; their rates depend on how easily the local medium can reconfigure, backfill, and equalize.
In deeper stratification (lower altitude, stronger gravity), the medium bears more overburden and has higher tension and deformation. More equalization work must be done per cycle → processes slow down.
At higher altitudes (weaker gravity), tensions ease; the medium can reconfigure more readily → processes speed up.
So:
Time itself is absolute and uniform.
What changes is process rate due to medium tension and stratification.
Einstein’s time‑dilation formulas remain excellent for predicting relative rates between clocks, but the ontology shifts from “time flows differently” to “clocks tick differently in different medium conditions.”
GR: light follows curved geodesics in curved spacetime; near stars it bends.
Timothian translation:
Light is an oscillation in the chunk medium (see The Nature of Light & Electromagnetic Waves).
The medium around a massive body is radially stratified in density and species; this changes the effective optical properties of the medium.
As waves pass through regions of varying medium density and tension, they refract, just as light bends passing through a glass lens or layers of air at different densities.
Eddington’s famous eclipse experiment, which measured starlight bending near the Sun, is reinterpreted as:
Light refracting through a stratified chunk medium shaped by the Sun,
not light sliding along curved emptiness.
GR: accelerating masses launch ripples in spacetime curvature — gravitational waves.
Timothian translation:
Strong disturbances in mass distribution drive bulk equalization flows in the chunk medium — waves in stratification and tension riding on the existing hierarchical packing.
These flows travel at characteristic speeds set by the medium’s stiffness and density. They alter local buoyant points and pressure maps as they pass.
Detectors like LIGO are sensing tiny modulations in the medium’s strain and tension as these equalization waves pass.
Again, the mathematics of GR remain powerful summaries; but the underlying actor is the chunk medium, not an empty manifold.
Having sketched the high‑level picture, we can now enumerate specific modulators of gravitational strength and behavior.
The medium’s inward restoration push on a body depends on:
Medium density — denser medium means more chunk mass per unit volume available to push back.
Species mix — some chunk species carry pressure more effectively; others act as lubricants.
Stratification tension and deformation — higher tension and more unevenly shared deformation mean the medium is further from homogeneity and “wants” to push back harder.
Permeability and lubrication — how easily chunks can flow through and around bodies and their stratification spheres.
Motion of the body relative to the medium — faster motion requires more rapid backfill, increasing reactive forces.
Gravity is therefore context‑sensitive. Identical masses can experience different gravitational behavior in different medium environments.
Two complementary notions are important:
Instantaneous Displaced Volume
At any given moment, each atom displaces a certain volume of the medium.
For a stationary body, the instantaneous displacement per atom is constant.
Effective Displaced Volume Over Time
When an object moves through the medium, it sweeps out a larger effective volume per unit time.
The medium must backfill all the positions the body no longer occupies.
The faster the body moves, the more chunk mass per second it encounters and displaces.
Consequences:
At higher relative speeds, the medium’s reactive push is greater — not just as drag, but also in how much restoration work is being done per unit time.
This increased restoration work per second effectively amplifies gravitational effects for moving bodies, particularly in extreme environments (high‑speed Earth clone, infall near black holes).
This dovetails with The Nature of Motion: relative solidity and disintegration velocity are extreme expressions of the same principle — encountered chunk mass per second.
Because the chunk medium is not uniform:
Different regions of space have different baseline stratifications, species mixes, and tensions even before new bodies arrive.
Galaxies and clusters seed long‑range stratification patterns that influence gravity on large scales.
Cosmic “voids” are not empty; they are regions where medium density and tension are lower, changing G′ and the behavior of bodies within them.
Some phenomena attributed to dark matter in standard cosmology — unusual rotation curves, lensing anomalies — can be reframed, at least in part, as consequences of:
Baseline medium mass and tension being non‑negligible.
Gravity acting through that already structured medium, not through a vacuum.
Textbook problems often treat two‑body systems in isolation. In the Timothian Model:
There is always the medium.
There are almost always other distant displacers whose contributions to stratification are small but not zero.
Even a “simple” star–planet system is embedded in the stratified field of the galaxy, which is itself embedded in larger‑scale medium structures.
Consequences:
Exact isolation is an idealization; G′ is always “contaminated” by other contributions.
Long‑term orbital evolution, precession, and subtle anomalies are expected, not surprising.
Finally, what this model doesn’t allow:
There is no true anti‑gravity in the sense of a negative mass that reverses the sign of the medium’s restoration push.
The medium always pushes toward homogeneity and tension relief; it does not pull space apart magically.
“Repulsive” behavior can arise from:
Bodies moving to higher‑altitude buoyant points as medium stratification changes.
Flows and equalization patterns that redirect motion away from certain regions.
Bulk expansion of the universe encoded in changing baseline medium density and tension.
But in all cases, forces are still pushes from the medium, driven by local gradients and the unwinding of deformation, not magical pulls or sign‑flipped gravity.
In the Timothian Model, gravity is:
The restoration push of a real, mass‑bearing chunk medium against bodies that displace it.
The buoyant positioning of those bodies in the stratified medium they help create.
A medium‑dependent phenomenon, not a parameter‑dependent mystery in a vacuum.
Newton’s law survives as a powerful approximation when the medium is quiet and near uniform in the relevant zone; Einstein’s curvature picture survives as a clever encoding of medium geometry and rate modulation. But the ontological ground is shifted:
No action at a distance.
No curved emptiness.
No true vacuum.
Same Newtonian mechanics at every scale.
The payoff is unification:
The same chunk medium that carries light and magnetism also creates gravity.
The same buoyancy that governs stones in water also governs planets in orbit.
The same stratification and microspring logic that shapes atomic spheres also shapes black hole interiors and galactic structures.
From here, the natural next steps are:
To connect this gravity picture even more tightly to The Nature of Stable Orbits (Archimedes in spherical coordinates).
To integrate explicit G′(medium) parameterizations that future collaborators can formalize mathematically.
To explore observational signatures where G′ ≠ G should appear — in galaxy clusters, near black holes, and in controlled, high‑precision experiments that gently perturb the medium.