Absolute Space

Observed Space

1. A cubic metre of observed space would contain any massy particles which were either suspended in space or happened to be passing through the cubic metre 'sample' at the instant when it was taken.

2. Gravitational Fields
   1. a cubic metre of observed space in situ would be permeated by a background gravitational field which would be the vector sum of all the gravitational fields from all the massy bodies in all the rest of the Universe. In an infinite Universe the background gravitational fields would be isotropic.

   2. a cubic metre in situ would also be permeated by gravitational fields of massy bodies in the locality e.g. Sirius, which would be directional and diminishing with the square of the distance from the body. This component would be isotropic with respect to the massive body from which it originated, but anisotropic with respect to the axes of the cubic metre.

   3. The resultant gravitational field which permeates the cubic metre would therefore be the vector sum of the background and the local gravitational fields. The vector sum would have a component in the direction of the path from an observer to the cubic metre sample, which the observer could in principle detect, and a component perpendicular to it, which the observer could not detect.

   4. there would also be distortions caused by disturbances to the combined gravitational field by local phenomena.

3. Electromagnetic Fields
   1. similarly there would be a background electromagnetic field, which would be isotropic, and a local electromagnetic field which would be the result of local phenomena, and therefore anisotropic with respect to the axes of the cubic metre. There would also be transient electromagnetic disturbances.

   2. there would also be any electromagnetic radiation, say photons, which was passing through the cubic metre at the instant the 'sample' was taken. This radiation would be directional.

4. Because of all these phenomena every cubic metre would be different from every other. Space would be differentiated.

5. What is detectable depends on where the cubic metre is located relative to an observer. The observer would be faced with different paths in every direction. Each path would be characterised by the sum of all vectors along the path. Thus as far as the observer is concerned, space would have a differentiation specific to his own location. For an observer space is anisotropic.

6. Paths reaching other observers in different locations in space would be differently differentiated.

7. Phenomena which depend on transit through space will be influenced by the differentiation of all the cubic metres along the way. So if the frequency of light is attenuated by passage through space, the degree of attenuation will depend on the direction of the path towards the observer. The size of the redshift will depend on the direction of the source from Earth.
8. Spatial Reference Points

   Points in space are established by reference to the directions of light from stars. However, if space is differentiated as proposed, it may seem that each cubic metre could be identified independently of the rest, a sort of reference point. The problem is that it could be identified only by the redshift of stars, which is redundant if their direction is already being measured. Gravitational differentiation is different, and a point of gravitational reference would have to be established by accelerating a mass through it.