The moon, in contrast, stores much less of its
energy in its gravitational field, so its gravitational field will make a much smaller contribution to its motion toward the sun.
Convection is not necessary for the autonomous thermal gradient which is the equilibrium
state in a gravitational field as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Steve Capps wondered if gravity could affect atomic clocks: «Since time
slows in a gravitational field, are atomic clocks so sensitive that perhaps moving them from the ground floor to the second or third floor of a building would have a measurable effect, given that gravity would be less on the higher floors?»
In 1960 a Harvard laboratory measured the warping of
time in a gravitational field, and some 20 years later researchers found indirect evidence for the existence of gravity waves.
Could their relations be reversed such that the order of coming to be was from greater to less entropy, from more evolved and developed to less evolved and developed, or from downward falling to upward falling
objects in a gravitational field?
Indeed, Eddington was able to show that Whitehead's formula for the track of a
particle in a gravitational field was exactly equal to that given by Einstein's equations (Nature, 1924, p. 113).
These two thoughts — free fall feels the same as being at rest in gravity - free space, and accelerating upward through space feels the same as sitting at
rest in a gravitational field — form what is known as the equivalence principle.
The last ingredient, which transforms Bondi's equations into those of Einstein's theory, is to include the gravitational red shift — the way in which radiation moving
upward in a gravitational field loses energy.
In 2002, researchers at the ILL demonstrated that neutrons falling
in a gravitational field do not drop like a stone but instead descend in distinct quantum leaps.