Gravitation for the simple mind(ed)

The book is intended first as matter of fact presentation of the theoretical problems connected to the treatment of gravitation. Then its main aim is a critical discussion of the General Relativity achievements and of its debt to Special Relativity. Thus the “three fundamental tests” are shown to be obtained directly in the Painleve’ Gullstrand metric which embodies the weak equivalence principle and the local invariance of the velocity of light. Also the energy loss of the binary PSR B1913 16 system which is advertised as a fundamental support of General Relativity and an indirect proof of the existence of gravitational waves can be simply obtained in an effective vector formulation of gravitation also based on Special Relativity. Finally particularly critical is the cosmological extension of the low energy formulation of General Relativity. As a consequence dark energy is shown explicitly to be model dependent, the presence of the cosmological term disproved and missing mass to derive from an incorrect Newtonian picture of far away objects. The main disputable point is however the assumption of matter conservation which cannot explain the birth of our Universe. This has been replaced by the its black hole condition, where self energy plays a fundamental role, accounting for inertial forces (Mach’s principle playing the role of an extended action-reaction law) and alters the chronology of the expansion thus disposing also of a presumed acceleration.