ARPI Insight

Gravity Without Curvature

Resonant Closure as the Organising Principle

A Closing around Boundary Conditions.

For more than a century, gravity has been described as the “curvature of spacetime.” The metaphor was useful, but it also froze understanding inside a geometric picture that quietly assumes an empty background being bent by mass.

A deeper description is now possible.

From Force to Geometry to Closure

Newton described gravity as a force acting at a distance between masses. His equations were extraordinarily successful, and within their domain they remain so today. Newton himself, however, did not claim to explain what gravity is — only how motion responds to it. The force language was a powerful abstraction, not a statement about underlying structure.

Einstein took the next step by removing force altogether, describing gravity as a consequence of how energy and motion are constrained by spacetime. Objects no longer attract one another; they follow the available paths permitted by the structure of space and time itself. Curvature became the language used to express that constraint.

This work takes the next step again. It does not treat gravity as a force, nor does it rely on geometric metaphors. Instead, gravity is described as the natural consequence of resonant closure: the progressive restriction of allowed motion as energy organises into persistent forms. What we experience as gravity is not an interaction added to the universe, but a boundary condition arising from coherence itself.

Gravity has never been a force acting through emptiness. It has always been a constraint on how motion is permitted to persist.

Einstein’s central insight was not curvature.

It was this:

Motion is not free to do whatever it wants.

The presence of energy restricts the set of allowable paths.

Curvature is a visualisation of that restriction — not the mechanism itself.

When energy accumulates, motion becomes constrained.

Trajectories narrow.

Temporal freedom compresses.

Phase relationships tighten.

Nothing is being pulled. Nothing is being bent into something else. The system is closing around boundary conditions.

Gravity as Resonant Closure

When Zero is treated as a boundary rather than emptiness, gravity emerges naturally:

Gravity is the progressive reduction of available motion as energy approaches closure.

Mass is energy arranged in patterns that can persist. Persistence itself restricts the motions around it.

That restriction is gravity.

No force is exchanged.

No signal is sent.

The environment of motion is altered by what has already stabilised.

Why Everything Falls Together

Objects do not fall because they are attracted. They fall because free trajectories no longer exist in that region.

All objects follow the same constrained paths because:

• The constraint applies to motion itself

• Not to the properties of the objects

This is the equivalence principle — not as a coincidence, but as a necessity of closure.

Light, Gravity, and Boundary Guidance

Light does not slow down, and it does not resist gravity. It simply follows the remaining allowable paths.

Gravity guides light because:

• Light always rides the boundary of what is causally permitted

• Gravity reshapes that boundary locally

Light does not “respond” to gravity. It reveals it.

Why Gravity Is Stronger Near Earth

A natural question follows from this description:

Why does gravity feel stronger on Earth than in space?

The usual answer is that Earth “pulls harder.” But this explanation reintroduces force language that obscures what is really happening.

In this framework, gravity is not a strength applied to objects.

It is a degree of constraint on allowed motion.

Earth contains a large amount of coherently organised, persistent mass–energy.

That persistence enforces tight boundary conditions on motion in its vicinity. Near Earth, the number of available trajectories is sharply reduced.

Objects fall not because they are pulled, but because alternative paths are no longer available. “Downward” motion is simply what remains when other possibilities are excluded.

Farther from Earth, these boundary conditions loosen. Motion becomes less constrained. Gravity appears weaker — not because it fades away, but because closure is distributed across a larger region.

This also explains orbital weightlessness. Astronauts are not beyond gravity. They are still within Earth’s boundary conditions, but they are moving along allowed free-fall paths. Weight only appears when motion is blocked by a surface.

There is no region of zero gravity. There are only regions of stronger or weaker constraint.

Gravity is stronger near Earth because Earth enforces tighter boundary conditions on motion than open space does.

From Gravity to Life

Here is where physics quietly meets biology.

Living systems are not defined by forces.

They are defined by stable closure:

• Membranes

• Cycles

• Phase-locking

• Energy capture without dissipation

Life is what happens when energy:

• Flows

• Encounters constraints

• And forms self-sustaining resonant loops

Gravity is the largest-scale expression of this same principle.

It gathers energy into regions where:

• Persistence becomes possible

• Structure can form

• Time can be locally organized

Stars, planets, and cells differ only in scale — not in principle.

Gravity as the Precondition for Ecology

Without gravity:

• No stable atmospheres

• No long-lived temperature gradients

• No sustained chemistry

• No metabolism

Gravity does not create life. It permits closure at scales large enough for life to arise.

In this sense, gravity is not a force of collapse. It is a condition for coherence.

Black Holes Without Singularity Mythology

A black hole is not infinite density. It is complete closure.

All degrees of motion terminate.

All trajectories converge.

Zero is reached as a boundary — not as nothingness.

The failure occurs in our coordinates, not in reality.

A Unified Statement (ARPI Core)

Gravity is not curvature, attraction, or force.

It is the structural consequence of energy approaching resonant closure under boundary constraints.

This description:

• Preserves Einstein

• Removes metaphor

• Extends naturally into living systems

Why This Matters Now

When gravity is seen as resonant closure:

• Relativity becomes compatible with coherence-based physics

• Life stops looking accidental

• Zero becomes generative rather than destructive

This reframing opens a path toward:

• Non-force-based physics

• Boundary-first mathematics

• A civilisation aligned with persistence rather than extraction