Einstein's Gravity And "Anti-Gravity" Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 40):

Yet so strong was the belief in a static universe that it persisted into the early twentieth century. Even Einstein, when he formulated the general theory of relativity in 1915, was so sure that the universe had to be static that he modified his theory to make this possible, introducing a so-called cosmological constant into his equations. Einstein introduced a new “antigravity” force, which, unlike other forces, did not come from any particular source but was built into the very fabric of space-time. He claimed that space-time had an inbuilt tendency to expand, and this could be made to balance exactly the attraction of all the matter in the universe, so that a static universe would result.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, gravity corresponds to the contraction of space intervals due to the presence of matter, and so "antigravity" corresponds to the expansion of space intervals due to the absence of matter.  On this basis, the expansion of the universe confirms that space does have "an inbuilt tendency to expand", just as Einstein claimed.

However, contrariwise, gravity corresponds to the expansion of time intervals due to the presence of matter — the time between clock ticks expands — and so "antigravity" corresponds to the contraction of time intervals due to the absence of matter.  On this basis, the expansion of the universe confirms that time has "an inbuilt tendency to contract", which corresponds to processes having a tendency to to unfold more quickly.