Refractive gravity and starlight deflection
RSI models gravity as a refractive index gradient in the Eternal Consonance and recovers the observed 1.75 arcsecond bending of starlight by the Sun.
General Relativity describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime. RSI proposes instead that gravity is a gradient in the refractive index of the Eternal Consonance. The refractive index (n) measures how much a medium slows light. Just as a glass lens bends light by slowing it, a mass creates a denser region of the medium that slows light. The speed of light is therefore a local limit set by the tension of the medium.
The paper defines the refractive index of the vacuum at distance r from a mass M as n(r) ≈ 1 + 2GM/(rc²). It states that this recovers the physical effects of the Schwarzschild metric on a flat, Euclidean background.
As a test, the paper calculates the bending of starlight grazing the Sun. The Newtonian prediction of 0.87 arcseconds is incorrect. General Relativity and RSI's refraction model both give the observed 1.75 arcseconds.
From the paper: Chapter V, Gravity: The Macro-Scale Gradient. Read the full section
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