New Interpretation of Equivalence Principle in General Relativity from the viewpoint of Micro-Macro duality

TL;DR

This paper offers a novel interpretation of the equivalence principle in general relativity, suggesting gravity emerges from microscopic condensation effects and is meaningful only within certain empirical regimes, challenging traditional views on spacetime and quantum gravity.

Contribution

It introduces a micro-macro duality perspective, linking gravity to phase transition phenomena and redefining the physical basis of spacetime in general relativity.

Findings

Gravity as a condensation effect of microscopic motions

Spacetime meaningful only within empirical validity of mass constancy

Impossibility of observing gravitational waves challenges quantum gravity

Abstract

We propose a new interpretation of the equivalence principle underlying Einstein's general relativity: a free-falling frame with gravitational force eliminated locally in a small spacetime region shows the existence of a boundary level, below which gravity is absent and above which \textit{gravity emerges as condensation effect of microscopic motions} within each such frame and interrelates free-falling frames at different spacetime points. In this picture, gravitational field as a mediator of different free-falling frames shows a remarkable \textit{parallelism with an order parameter to specify "degenerate vacua"} in different thermodynamic pure phases due to the \textit{condensation effects} in phase transitions. As the physical basis of general relativity is found in the universality of mass point motions due to the constancy of [inertial $m$]/[gravitational $m$], the general relativistic notion of "spacetime" should be meaningful only in the validity regime of this constancy, which is \textit{of empirical nature}, contrary to the usual consensus. At the end, we comment on the impossibility to observe gravitational waves which would make gravitons and quantum gravity questionable.