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Originally Posted by John Dlugosz
So how does the dipole nature of EM become the quadrapole nature of gravitation, as the frequency increases? Does it happen suddenly, or gradually?
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We are used to looking at fields as smooth lines of force, whereas the gravimetric component is extremely chaotic. The polar orientations that align with gross atomic structure are almost meaningless in the wave regions below the Planck cutoff. A quadrapole is only a good first order approximation of gravity, and it leads to grossly understated and overstated masses of moons and planets, depending upon their gravitational environment.
Venus is lighter, while Titan, far from the sun and in orbit about Saturn, is about two times as heavy as Newtonian predictions from orbital calculations and flybys. We will see the degeneracy of these orbital predictions in the gravity runs of Cassini, with gross positive anomalies appearing at every closest pass.
The best 2d model I can visualize for the orbits of the planets, is a series of trails circling a round, eroding mesa. At the bottom, the road is smooth and the planets orbit cleanly. But moving closer to the mesa, the rocks get gradually larger, and you would have to trade your ride for first a sports utility vehicle, then an ATV, then a horse, and finally rock climbing equipment to negotiate the boulders. This is how I think the path through space increases, as anything gets closer to the sun. Notice also, that while it takes more kinetic energy to follow a closer path, this energy is stored in the random oscillations of the path, so unwinding from the center returns more energy than Newton predicts. This is why the solar wind accelerates, after reaching escape velocity and the radiating corona is so much hotter than the surface of the sun.