Sources and Gravitons

Gravitational theory is reconstructed from the source description of gravitons. As indirect evidence for this starting point, the theoretical basis for the four tests of Einsteinian gravitational theory is produced by elementary arguments. Following the electromagnetic example, the source description is recast as a numerical field theory characterized by an action principle. After recognizing that the physically restricted theory possesses invariance with respect to infinitesimal coordinate transformations, it is generalized to exhibit invariance under arbitrary coordinate transformations, which supplies the primitive interactions for multigraviton processes. There is a discussion of the necessary dependence of graviton sources upon the gravitational field, and a simple model is constructed. The qualitative structure of the modification that multiparticle exchange introduces in the graviton-propagation function is exhibited, with the corresponding modification in the Newtonian potential. There are some speculative remarks about Mach's principle and the accompanying interpretation of the gravitational constant. The paper concludes by pointing out empirical scaling laws that interconnect the cosmos, the laboratory, and the atom.