Quantum Gravity And Gravitational Waves Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 70):

In the quantum mechanical way of looking at the gravitational field, the force between two matter particles is pictured as being carried by a particle of spin 2 called the graviton. This has no mass of its own, so the force that it carries is long range. The gravitational force between the sun and the earth is ascribed to the exchange of gravitons between the particles that make up these two bodies. Although the exchanged particles are virtual, they certainly do produce a measurable effect — they make the earth orbit the sun! Real gravitons make up what classical physicists would call gravitational waves, which are very weak—and so difficult to detect that they have not yet been observed.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the attempt to model gravity in terms of quantum mechanics is an attempt to model a relation between matter and space-time as interactions between matter particles.  Gravitons are still undetected and remain "hypothetical".

Gravitational waves, on the other hand, are propagations of relative space interval contractions and time interval expansions through space; that is, the spatial propagation of the effects of matter on space-time.  Gravitational waves have been detected and are no longer "hypothetical".