Einstein showed us that mass and energy curve spacetime. But what if spacetime itself arises from energy—not the other way around?

Einstein's general relativity stands as one of humanity's greatest intellectual achievements, revealing how mass and energy curve the fabric of spacetime to create what we experience as gravity. Yet for over a century, this magnificent theory has harbored a fundamental conceptual tension: energy supposedly curves spacetime, but energy itself is defined by the very spacetime geometry it creates. This circular relationship—where energy determines geometry while being determined by it—represents what physicists call the "problem of energy" in general relativity.

What if this circularity could be broken? What if spacetime geometry emerged directly from energy, eliminating the conceptual paradox at the heart of gravitational physics? This question drives our ongoing research into General Relativity 2.0—an energy-first reformulation of Einstein's field equations that resolves the problem of energy by making energy truly fundamental.

Our research focus for GR2 focuses exclusively on solving the problem of energy in GR by leveraging our efforts on Special Relativity 2.0 to understand how curvature and relativistic effects from gravity can be directly sourced from the energy scalar field.

Our research approaches the problem of energy through four interconnected pathways. First, we investigate how to reformulate the metric tensor diagonals to be entirely energy-responsive, primarily by redefining the diagonals of the metric as the relativistic energy of curvature, rather than simple gravitational potential. This then allows us to incorporate this relativistic energy into our formulation of Γ and Γ̂. This in turn redefines the metric used in our tetrads to not only reflect kinetic energy differences, but curvature-bound energy as well. Our goal is to restructure the metric diagonals to be entirely energy-responsive and seamlessly incorporate these changes into our existing SR2 framework.

Second, we research how to source the metric tensor directly from the energy scalar field rather than the stress-energy tensor, focusing on the off-diagonal originations in the universal scalar field (e.g. shear, stress, pressure, etc. and second order spatial derivatives). A promising alternative is to apply the tetrad directly to the stress energy tensor, with the outcome redefining the tensor in the energy domain. Surprisingly, we have found that this formulation reflects not a remapped tensor, but an actual map of the energy field itself.

Third, we explore using this energy-sourced metric tensor to reconstruct the complete gravitational framework—researching how Christoffel symbols, Ricci tensor, and Ricci scalar can be derived to create modified Einstein field equations sourced directly from the energy scalar field. Finally, we investigate whether our energy-first approach can recover established solutions like Schwarzschild and Kerr metrics, ensuring that GR2 maintains empirical equivalence with Einstein's theory while establishing energy as the foundational principle.

This systematic reconstruction promises to resolve the problem of energy in general relativity by establishing energy as ontologically prior to spacetime geometry. By eliminating the circular relationship between energy and curvature, GR2 creates a framework where quantum and gravitational physics share the same foundational principle—energy as the primary variable from which all physical phenomena emerge.

Research continues, though this represents our most challenging theoretical frontier. We are targeting completion of our paper on GR2 before the end of 2025.