[David Cooper (OP)]

I was thinking about gravity last night and it occurred to me that some of the things about it that seem magical needn't be so magical after all. The biggest problem is where the "potential energy" is stored when you lift an object. The answer's simple though - it's stored in the fabric of space.

For an object to exist in deep space, there is energy making up the material of that object, and there's also kinetic energy if the object's moving through space, but there's also some extra energy, and quite a lot of it too, which is stressing or distorting the fabric of space at that location. When two objects move closer to each other, the amount of energy stored in this way in the space fabric reduces, and it now appears as an increase in kinetic energy as the objects accelerate towards each other. That is what powers the acceleration. If they collide and stay together, the kinetic energy remains, but as movement of atoms, and we then call that movement heat. That energy can then be radiated off as infra-red light, and this energy that moves away from our objects is energy which was previously held as stress in the fabric of space.

When you lift an object, you are causing the fabric of space to accommodate it differently, and that involves putting energy into that fabric. This is like with bubbles in washing-up water which can accelerate towards each other as the surface tension rearranges the shape of the surface in order to minimise the amount of energy stored in it - that stored energy is turned into kinetic energy in the same way, and then it becomes heat. Once we understand where the potential energy is stored, it's all becomes obvious - all we have is a stressed fabric trying to get to a lower energy state.

We see the same thing in chemical bonds where high energy bonds are less stable than low energy ones - again it is the fabric of space in which that extra energy is held, and it's held as stress or distortion. Many fools laugh at the people who came up with the idea of phlogeston, and yet the idea wasn't far wrong at all - it was simply potential energy held in the fabric of space.

The same applies to magnets. A north or south pole stresses the space fabric, meaning that wherever there's a magnet there is extra energy accompanying it which is held in the space fabric. If you move a north pole close to a north pole (or a south pole close to a south pole), that adds to the stress and requires you to put more energy in. If you move a north pole next to a south pole, that reduces the stress on the space fabric and allows stored energy there to be released. With the magnets stuck together, they are in a lower energy state and you need to put more energy in to move them apart because moving them apart needs to distort/stress the space fabric more.

What seemed to me like magic yesterday no longer seems very magical at all because I can now see where the energy goes to and where it comes from - it doesn't just appear out of nothing. This also means that gravity and magnetism works without depending on force carriers moving backwards and forwards between different pieces of matter (although there may still be an equivalent to force carriers of some kind operating in the fabric to shift the pattern of stress/deformation as matter moves along through it). We have a rational mechanism for all forces, and it depends on a space fabric with properties able to accommodate them with different forces stressing it in different ways.

[jeffreyH]

Food for thought. I am going to do some thinking about your ideas.

[David Cooper (OP)]

I should also comment on the word "field". Whenever I heard people talk of magnetic fields or gravitational fields, it never made real sense to me in that I couldn't convert from that word to anything with a rational mechanism underlying it, but all a field is is a pattern of different amounts of stress in the space fabric.

I also want to comment on the decay of matter and on radiation. The space fabric is stressed less by holding radiation as content than matter, so it drives matter to become radiation as that puts the fabric in a lower energy state. There may still be some energy associated with a photon that's not the photon itself but energy stored as stress in the fabric of space where that photon exists, so it may be impossible to remove all the stress energy from the space fabric as it will always have to be released as radiation which would always have to be accompanied by some stress energy.

(And for anyone new to the forum, I should explain that the LET in the title refers to Lorentz Ether Theory.)

[trevorjohnson32]

When you lift an object, you are causing the fabric of space to accommodate it differently, and that involves putting energy into that fabric.

I think the energy that an object gives to the gravity field of the planet its on reduces and gains energy when you lift it up and conversely falls. The outside edge of the objects' gravity field grows slightly in strength as it ascends upward into weaker regions of the planets gravity field.

[GoC]

I was thinking about gravity last night and it occurred to me that some of the things about it that seem magical needn't be so magical after all. The biggest problem is where the "potential energy" is stored when you lift an object. The answer's simple though - it's stored in the fabric of space.

For an object to exist in deep space, there is energy making up the material of that object, and there's also kinetic energy if the object's moving through space, but there's also some extra energy, and quite a lot of it too, which is stressing or distorting the fabric of space at that location. When two objects move closer to each other, the amount of energy stored in this way in the space fabric reduces, and it now appears as an increase in kinetic energy as the objects accelerate towards each other. That is what powers the acceleration. If they collide and stay together, the kinetic energy remains, but as movement of atoms, and we then call that movement heat. That energy can then be radiated off as infra-red light, and this energy that moves away from our objects is energy which was previously held as stress in the fabric of space.

When you lift an object, you are causing the fabric of space to accommodate it differently, and that involves putting energy into that fabric. This is like with bubbles in washing-up water which can accelerate towards each other as the surface tension rearranges the shape of the surface in order to minimise the amount of energy stored in it - that stored energy is turned into kinetic energy in the same way, and then it becomes heat. Once we understand where the potential energy is stored, it's all becomes obvious - all we have is a stressed fabric trying to get to a lower energy state.

We see the same thing in chemical bonds where high energy bonds are less stable than low energy ones - again it is the fabric of space in which that extra energy is held, and it's held as stress or distortion. Many fools laugh at the people who came up with the idea of phlogeston, and yet the idea wasn't far wrong at all - it was simply potential energy held in the fabric of space.

The same applies to magnets. A north or south pole stresses the space fabric, meaning that wherever there's a magnet there is extra energy accompanying it which is held in the space fabric. If you move a north pole close to a north pole (or a south pole close to a south pole), that adds to the stress and requires you to put more energy in. If you move a north pole next to a south pole, that reduces the stress on the space fabric and allows stored energy there to be released. With the magnets stuck together, they are in a lower energy state and you need to put more energy in to move them apart because moving them apart needs to distort/stress the space fabric more.

What seemed to me like magic yesterday no longer seems very magical at all because I can now see where the energy goes to and where it comes from - it doesn't just appear out of nothing. This also means that gravity and magnetism works without depending on force carriers moving backwards and forwards between different pieces of matter (although there may still be an equivalent to force carriers of some kind operating in the fabric to shift the pattern of stress/deformation as matter moves along through it). We have a rational mechanism for all forces, and it depends on a space fabric with properties able to accommodate them with different forces stressing it in different ways.

This is what I have been saying since I started posting. Energy is of space and not mass. Spin c is the energy of space. Magnetism is spin alignment of the electrons complimentary for south going into north. The mirror images of spin direction is opposite. Rotation the same and rotation as opposite.

Gravity is simpler it is a density of energy issue where the spin particles increase their distance from each other because of a loss of energy in moving electrons. Mass is attracted to a lower energy density which causes less friction in moving electrons. E=c from space and E=mc^2 in the presence of mass. Electrons rotate around energy particles. E=c is the only reason we can move through space in the first place. Electron and photon are connected by c.

[David Cooper (OP)]

This is what I have been saying since I started posting. Energy is of space and not mass. Spin c is the energy of space. Magnetism is spin alignment of the electrons complimentary for south going into north. The mirror images of spin direction is opposite. Rotation the same and rotation as opposite.

Gravity is simpler it is a density of energy issue where the spin particles increase their distance from each other because of a loss of energy in moving electrons. Mass is attracted to a lower energy density which causes less friction in moving electrons. E=c from space and E=mc^2 in the presence of mass. Electrons rotate around energy particles. E=c is the only reason we can move through space in the first place. Electron and photon are connected by c.

It may or may not be compatible with what I said, but it doesn't appear to say the same thing. It's possible though that you and a number of other people have had the same idea and put it across in such an obscure manner that no one else has picked up on it, with the result that no clear explanation of gravity and magnetism ever found its way through to me. But I can now pick up a pair of magnets and push them together or pull them apart while understanding clearly what must be going on, and nothing I've ever read or heard before has discussed the key points about how the potential energy is stored up as stress or distortion in the fabric of space as you lift a magnet or push two alike poles of magnets together. When two magnets pull together, I can now understand where the energy comes from that accelerates them together, and then when I pull them apart I can understand why I'm having to put so much energy into this and where it's ending up being stored. If I repeat the process, I can see how each time there is an overall reduction in the amount of energy stored up as stress or distortion of the fabric of space, because each time I pull the magnets apart, I'm having to call in energy from elsewhere which again involves taking energy which is stored in the same manner to replace the energy turned to heat which is ultimately lost as radiation. Chemicals obtained through food are being changed into different molecules with lower energy bonds, the freed energy (which was again stored as stress/distortion of the space fabric) then going on to become movement of muscles. I can now see how pushing two north poles together is little different from squeezing a spring, even though there's a gap between them - the invisible part of the mechanism is the space fabric, but I can now imagine the energy being forced into distorting or stressing it such that there is no more room for magic in the functionality of the magnets. I've long seen the gap as a thing, but I had never understood before how energy was building up in that space and that some of it always accompanies matter. With a spring, it's little different - atoms are being moved into relative positions which put more stress/distortion energy into the space fabric again, and it is then released from there again when the spring is eased.

[guest39538]

I was thinking about gravity last night and it occurred to me that some of the things about it that seem magical needn't be so magical after all. The biggest problem is where the "potential energy" is stored when you lift an object. The answer's simple though - it's stored in the fabric of space.

I have snipped it there at the first sentence because it is wrong, energy is not stored by a lifted object and you have no idea that Ke of a lifted object is not gained PE but in fact gained speed and acceleration, F=ma. no kE involved.

[guest39538]

For an object to exist in deep space, there is energy making up the material of that object,

Deep space is questionable ,

There is energy and ''dense'' space making up the material of the object.

and there's also kinetic energy if the object's moving through space,

No, the object is moving because it is attracted to the field ahead of it.

but there's also some extra energy, and quite a lot of it too, which is stressing or distorting the fabric of space at that location

Gibberish and means nothing

When two objects move closer to each other, the amount of energy stored in this way in the space fabric reduces, and it now appears as an increase in kinetic energy as the objects accelerate towards each other.


That is what powers the acceleration. If they collide and stay together, the kinetic energy remains, but as movement of atoms, and we then call that movement heat. That energy can then be radiated off as infra-red light, and this energy that moves away from our objects is energy which was previously held as stress in the fabric of space.

Just no

[GoC]

It may or may not be compatible with what I said, but it doesn't appear to say the same thing. It's possible though that you and a number of other people have had the same idea and put it across in such an obscure manner that no one else has picked up on it, with the result that no clear explanation of gravity and magnetism ever found its way through to me. But I can now pick up a pair of magnets and push them together or pull them apart while understanding clearly what must be going on, and nothing I've ever read or heard before has discussed the key points about how the potential energy is stored up as stress or distortion in the fabric of space as you lift a magnet or push two alike poles of magnets together. When two magnets pull together, I can now understand where the energy comes from that accelerates them together, and then when I pull them apart I can understand why I'm having to put so much energy into this and where it's ending up being stored. If I repeat the process, I can see how each time there is an overall reduction in the amount of energy stored up as stress or distortion of the fabric of space, because each time I pull the magnets apart, I'm having to call in energy from elsewhere which again involves taking energy which is stored in the same manner to replace the energy turned to heat which is ultimately lost as radiation.

Energy of space is perpetual and the attraction will be the same. Put a spring on a magnet that is not touching another magnet close enough and the attraction stays the same.

Chemicals obtained through food are being changed into different molecules with lower energy bonds, the freed energy (which was again stored as stress/distortion of the space fabric)

You lose the reason for stress and distortion!

 then going on to become movement of muscles. I can now see how pushing two north poles together is little different from squeezing a spring, even though there's a gap between them - the invisible part of the mechanism is the space fabric,

Yes but to you it is just the word mechanism without a understandable cause.

 but I can now imagine the energy being forced into distorting or stressing it such that there is no more room for magic in the functionality of the magnets. I've long seen the gap as a thing, but I had never understood before how energy was building up in that space and that some of it always accompanies matter.

Separate from matter but moving the electrons. The orientation of the rotating electrons cause the attraction and repulsion.

 With a spring, it's little different - atoms are being moved into relative positions which put more stress/distortion energy into the space fabric again, and it is then released from there again when the spring is eased.

The fabric is the energy!!!!!

[David Cooper (OP)]

I was thinking about gravity last night and it occurred to me that some of the things about it that seem magical needn't be so magical after all. The biggest problem is where the "potential energy" is stored when you lift an object. The answer's simple though - it's stored in the fabric of space.

I have snipped it there at the first sentence because it is wrong, energy is not stored by a lifted object and you have no idea that Ke of a lifted object is not gained PE but in fact gained speed and acceleration, F=ma. no kE involved.

If I lift an object off the floor and put it on a table, the potential energy gained is quite distinct from speed and acceleration - it wasn't moving when it was on the floor and it isn't moving once it's on the table, so how is the potential energy stored (the potential energy which leads to the object accelerating downwards if I push it off the table)? When the object hits the floor, it generates heat which is energy that was not there with the object at the start before it was lifted and put on the table. That heat energy is the energy that I put into the object by lifting it and putting it on the table, and it held that potential energy for a long time while it wasn't moving.

For an object to exist in deep space, there is energy making up the material of that object,

Deep space is questionable ,

All it means is that the object is far away from massive objects with strong gravitational fields.

and there's also kinetic energy if the object's moving through space,

No, the object is moving because it is attracted to the field ahead of it.

What attraction to what field? An attraction would accelerate it, but it doesn't change speed.

but there's also some extra energy, and quite a lot of it too, which is stressing or distorting the fabric of space at that location

Gibberish and means nothing

Your inability to understand is the issue there. The extra energy is the potential energy, and it has to be stored somewhere. Without it, two objects cannot accelerate towards each other when gravitationally attracted together.

When two objects move closer to each other, the amount of energy stored in this way in the space fabric reduces, and it now appears as an increase in kinetic energy as the objects accelerate towards each other.

That is what powers the acceleration. If they collide and stay together, the kinetic energy remains, but as movement of atoms, and we then call that movement heat. That energy can then be radiated off as infra-red light, and this energy that moves away from our objects is energy which was previously held as stress in the fabric of space.

Just no

There never was any chance of you understanding any of this (or indeed anything else anywhere).

[David Cooper (OP)]

It may or may not be compatible with what I said, but it doesn't appear to say the same thing. It's possible though that you and a number of other people have had the same idea and put it across in such an obscure manner that no one else has picked up on it, with the result that no clear explanation of gravity and magnetism ever found its way through to me. But I can now pick up a pair of magnets and push them together or pull them apart while understanding clearly what must be going on, and nothing I've ever read or heard before has discussed the key points about how the potential energy is stored up as stress or distortion in the fabric of space as you lift a magnet or push two alike poles of magnets together. When two magnets pull together, I can now understand where the energy comes from that accelerates them together, and then when I pull them apart I can understand why I'm having to put so much energy into this and where it's ending up being stored. If I repeat the process, I can see how each time there is an overall reduction in the amount of energy stored up as stress or distortion of the fabric of space, because each time I pull the magnets apart, I'm having to call in energy from elsewhere which again involves taking energy which is stored in the same manner to replace the energy turned to heat which is ultimately lost as radiation.

Energy of space is perpetual and the attraction will be the same.

The energy is being depleted from that storage system with the energy ending up as electromagnetic radiation instead.

Put a spring on a magnet that is not touching another magnet close enough and the attraction stays the same.

You'll need to elaborate on that.

Chemicals obtained through food are being changed into different molecules with lower energy bonds, the freed energy (which was again stored as stress/distortion of the space fabric)

You lose the reason for stress and distortion!

How? It is potential energy which is held as stress or distortion in the space fabric, and when chemical reactions produce heat, that is where the heat energy comes from. The same applies to batteries and capacitors - they store energy as stress or distortion of the space fabric. Most sources of energy work that way. One that doesn't is a flywheel - the energy stored with that is kinetic energy. Another, nuclear, takes power from dismantling matter, although some component of the energy released will also come from the stress or distortion of the space fabric.

then going on to become movement of muscles. I can now see how pushing two north poles together is little different from squeezing a spring, even though there's a gap between them - the invisible part of the mechanism is the space fabric,

Yes but to you it is just the word mechanism without a understandable cause.

The understandable bit is where the energy is stored and then released from - it doesn't just go into nothing. Previously, it looked as if potential energy was just magic with the energy appearing from nowhere, but now that bit of magic has gone from the model. There's still plenty left that I don't understand, but it makes a big difference getting rid of the most magical part of the puzzle. A spring didn't seem anything like as magical as a pair of magnets repelling each other, but now I see the latter as no more magical than the former - they both store the potential energy in the same way.

but I can now imagine the energy being forced into distorting or stressing it such that there is no more room for magic in the functionality of the magnets. I've long seen the gap as a thing, but I had never understood before how energy was building up in that space and that some of it always accompanies matter.

Separate from matter but moving the electrons. The orientation of the rotating electrons cause the attraction and repulsion.

That can't serve as a store of potential energy to turn into kinetic energy as magnets are attracted together.

With a spring, it's little different - atoms are being moved into relative positions which put more stress/distortion energy into the space fabric again, and it is then released from there again when the spring is eased.

The fabric is the energy!!!!!

The fabric may be more complex than that and might not be energy. When we're dealing with potential energy, it's something that's held in the fabric as stress/distortion, and can be released from it to become kinetic energy or radiation. Of course, whatever form it's in, it's still there with the fabric, but it's relationship with the fabric changes.

[trevorjohnson32]

When the object hits the floor, it generates heat which is energy that was not there with the object at the start before it was lifted and put on the table. That heat energy is the energy that I put into the object by lifting it and putting it on the table, and it held that potential energy for a long time while it wasn't moving.

When the object hits the floor the pieces of it absorb energy when it breaks apart as well as the momentum energy of it scattering across the floor. Its sort of the same energy if you used a firework to blow it up. consequently you could use the same firework energy to send the object back up onto the table if you kept it from falling apart.

[guest39538]

I was thinking about gravity last night and it occurred to me that some of the things about it that seem magical needn't be so magical after all. The biggest problem is where the "potential energy" is stored when you lift an object. The answer's simple though - it's stored in the fabric of space.

I have snipped it there at the first sentence because it is wrong, energy is not stored by a lifted object and you have no idea that Ke of a lifted object is not gained PE but in fact gained speed and acceleration, F=ma. no kE involved.

If I lift an object off the floor and put it on a table, the potential energy gained is quite distinct from speed and acceleration - it wasn't moving when it was on the floor and it isn't moving once it's on the table, so how is the potential energy stored (the potential energy which leads to the object accelerating downwards if I push it off the table)? When the object hits the floor, it generates heat which is energy that was not there with the object at the start before it was lifted and put on the table. That heat energy is the energy that I put into the object by lifting it and putting it on the table, and it held that potential energy for a long time while it wasn't moving.

For an object to exist in deep space, there is energy making up the material of that object,

Deep space is questionable ,

All it means is that the object is far away from massive objects with strong gravitational fields.

and there's also kinetic energy if the object's moving through space,

No, the object is moving because it is attracted to the field ahead of it.

What attraction to what field? An attraction would accelerate it, but it doesn't change speed.

but there's also some extra energy, and quite a lot of it too, which is stressing or distorting the fabric of space at that location

Gibberish and means nothing

Your inability to understand is the issue there. The extra energy is the potential energy, and it has to be stored somewhere. Without it, two objects cannot accelerate towards each other when gravitationally attracted together.

When two objects move closer to each other, the amount of energy stored in this way in the space fabric reduces, and it now appears as an increase in kinetic energy as the objects accelerate towards each other.

That is what powers the acceleration. If they collide and stay together, the kinetic energy remains, but as movement of atoms, and we then call that movement heat. That energy can then be radiated off as infra-red light, and this energy that moves away from our objects is energy which was previously held as stress in the fabric of space.

Just no

There never was any chance of you understanding any of this (or indeed anything else anywhere).

You are quite ''mad''.  When you lift an object up and put it on the table , the energy of the object remains the same, the density of the table stops the object falling to the ground, gravity makes the object accelrate and fall tot he ground, the speed and F=ma is what makes the force of impact when it hits the ground. kE is not a real energy and of the imagination and very poor interpretation, perhaps you should not  be allowed to post with your garbage hey?

You quite clearly do not understand .

[David Cooper (OP)]

When the object hits the floor, it generates heat which is energy that was not there with the object at the start before it was lifted and put on the table. That heat energy is the energy that I put into the object by lifting it and putting it on the table, and it held that potential energy for a long time while it wasn't moving.

When the object hits the floor the pieces of it absorb energy when it breaks apart as well as the momentum energy of it scattering across the floor. Its sort of the same energy if you used a firework to blow it up. consequently you could use the same firework energy to send the object back up onto the table if you kept it from falling apart.

I was picturing something that would hit the floor like a bean bag with no bounce. The kinetic energy from the fall will be turned into heat. When it was sitting on the floor before, that heat energy wasn't there. Clearly I put that energy into the system by lifting it off the floor onto the table, so I added the energy in by lifting it, and it clearly wasn't stored as kinetic energy while it sat on the table. It wasn't stored as heat either. It was stored as "potential energy", and potential energy needs to be a rational storage place rather than a magical one, and it's clear to me now that the fabric of space is that energy store. Change the object for a ball and it can bounce, so when it falls it takes that stored energy which accompanies the ball in the space fabric, turns it into kinetic energy, loses some on impact as heat, but maintains most of it as kinetic energy which is then transferred to storage as stress/distortion again in the fabric of space as the ball decelerates.

A firework also uses the same storage location, but it's done through the kind of chemical bonds. O2 and H2 gas, for example, have high-energy bonds, and when they explode they create H2O (which is a kind of ash) with low-energy bonds, so it moves from highly reactive chemicals to one that doesn't react much at all. The energy released as movement/heat was stored as stress/distortion of the space fabric forced into it by the arrangement of matter in the chemicals.

[David Cooper (OP)]

When you lift an object up and put it on the table , the energy of the object remains the same, the density of the table stops the object falling to the ground, gravity makes the object accelrate and fall tot he ground, the speed and F=ma is what makes the force of impact when it hits the ground. kE is not a real energy and of the imagination and very poor interpretation

You're giving me the old view which I've now moved away from, but only in one small way. When you move the object from the floor to the table, the energy tied up in the material of the object remains the same as it was before, but it now has more potential energy associated with it than it did before, and that potential energy shows itself if you remove the table, because the object falls and generates heat when it hits the floor. That heat is energy which wasn't with the object at the start when it sat on the floor (before it was put on the table). Where did that heat energy come from? It came from the kinetic energy that the object acquired while falling. But where did that kinetic energy come from? It came from a store of potential energy that accompanied the object when it was sitting on the table, and that's where I've changed my understanding of things, because previously that store of potential energy was unexplained with nothing there to hold the energy. Of course, I've long thought of space as being a fabric which may be just as substantial when empty as when it contains matter, but I was thinking of forces in terms of energy transferred by force carriers moving between objects at the speed of light, and there are real problems with that. Sometimes a force carrier would need to add energy to the object (e.g. a falling object) while at other times it would have to remove energy from it (a ball being thrown upwards). It simply doesn't make sense, unlike my new way of looking at things where the shift between adding energy and removing energy makes full sense.

[jeffreyH]

Let's say I have an object on the top shelf of a cupboard. I reach up and pick it up and lower it very, very slowly down to the bottom shelf. All the time gravity is acting against my arm. Since I am lowering the object I am removing potential energy. However I am using a lot of energy over the extended time period. So how much potential energy have I removed?

[guest39538]

Let's say I have an object on the top shelf of a cupboard. I reach up and pick it up and lower it very, very slowly down to the bottom shelf. All the time gravity is acting against my arm. Since I am lowering the object I am removing potential energy. However I am using a lot of energy over the extended time period. So how much potential energy have I removed?

You haven't moved any pE , you have slowed down the speed of fall taking away the force of collision between the two masses.   The collision releases  some atomic energy from the force of impact contracting the molecules causing pressure in the entropy of the mass. There is no extra energy involved, the pE already exists in the state of matter , the pE only increases when the E entropy of the matter is increased by radiation increase absorbed by the matter by means of ''light''. An object in state of expansion has more pE than an object in state of contraction. However in the entirety of kE is there no extra energy involved,

[guest39538]

When you lift an object up and put it on the table , the energy of the object remains the same, the density of the table stops the object falling to the ground, gravity makes the object accelrate and fall tot he ground, the speed and F=ma is what makes the force of impact when it hits the ground. kE is not a real energy and of the imagination and very poor interpretation

You're giving me the old view which I've now moved away from, but only in one small way. When you move the object from the floor to the table, the energy tied up in the material of the object remains the same as it was before, but it now has more potential energy associated with it than it did before

No , the object has more potential to release its energy. Like you agree the state of E entropy when you place the object on the table is the same. When the M1 and M2 collide, some of the energy is released.

[guest39538]

If we look at it this way,

pE_max=(F=mc²)

I am trying to explain that two bodies in a collision will unlock the maximum pE at the fastest speed .

[David Cooper (OP)]

Let's say I have an object on the top shelf of a cupboard. I reach up and pick it up and lower it very, very slowly down to the bottom shelf. All the time gravity is acting against my arm. Since I am lowering the object I am removing potential energy. However I am using a lot of energy over the extended time period. So how much potential energy have I removed?

In the course of moving the object down from the top shelf to the bottom shelf, you've removed the same amount of potential energy from it as you added to it when moving it from the bottom shelf to the top shelf. The energy that you're losing while holding the object against the force of gravity is not coming out of that store, as we can see by comparing you holding the object out at arm's length and getting tired as you use lots of energy to hold it up while a robot could hold it up in the same way but lock its arm so that it can keep the object there without using up any energy.