[General] PS: Matter comprised of light-speed energy

[Dr Grahame Blackwell]

Hi John, John and others,

Thanks, John & John, for your respective responses to my earlier email.  I acknowledge the points that you have both made, however I get the strong impression that you both take the view either that I'm naively ignorant of significant facets of SR and GR (including notably the apparent correspondence of fact with theory re SR over a wide experiential landscape) or that I'm over-simplifying either or both.  I'd like you rather to consider the possibility that I'm aware of all of these things but, having looked a little more deeply than most into certain aspects of SR (presumably because others saw SR as a done deal, with no looking-into needed), I have found reasons to question its fundamental premise as it's virtually universally applied.

John D, I agree 100% with your observation that speed of light is measured as c from within ANY reference frame (including non-inertial), essentially because of: (a) the cyclic-photon structure of observers and measuring instruments ('rulers and clocks'); (b) the 'electromagnetic texture' of space in a gravitational field [a subject I look at in some detail in my book, including derivation of The Equivalence Principle, and in less detail in a paper published in Kybernetes, Nov 2011].  I believe it's been widely understood for over a century that light speed in a gravitational field is NOT measured as c from a reference frame static wrt that field but not within it - I don't see that as a failing of SR, nor of authors such as Penrose et al.  I agree that the idealised state (inertial frame) of SR exists virtually nowhere, however since GR builds on SR it's essential to get the facts straight wrt SR.  That's why I've focused here on SR (as I hoped I'd made clear).

John W, you say in response to my query re evidence for SR: "Yes, lots!" [of support]  "There are loads of supporters!"  First I'd say that 'loads of supporters' for a theory doesn't make it right - just ask Lavoisier about phlogiston.  Second I would say that my query was explicitly stated in terms of practical evidence for the postulate (as SR is universally interpreted) of objective inertial frame symmetry.  NONE of the examples that you cite constitute evidence of such an objective truth, as I see it.

John, you say, over and over, "It works!"  Well of course it works!  Nobody in their right mind could believe that four generations of highly intelligent physicists, including many of the best brains on the planet, would continue to rely on a theory that didn't work!!  I myself am one of the foremost proponents of the fact that the Lorentz Transformation, as practically applied, works.  More than this, I go into meticulous detail in my book to show WHY it works - i.e why measured interactions between reference frames, of the types you describe, are consistent with the theory - in a universe in which material particles are formed from closed-loop photons.  I further show WHY speed-related time dilation happens, as an objective reality (though not symmetrically - and no known evidence exists for such objective symmetry), for both a multi-particle object or system and for an indivisible elementary particle such as a muon (for which RTD evidence exists, of course).  More than that, I show that ALL of this is consistent with a universe having a unique universal rest-state relative to which all other 'rest frames' are in objective states of motion.  [And that NONE of the experiential data offers ANY evidence for the 'frame-symmetric' universe posited by the (restricted) Principle of Relativity as it's universally interpreted.]

John, you referred in another email to your Equation 21 in your 'toroidal photon' paper.  In that equation you identify (very correctly, in my view) the 'time-like' and 'space-like' components of the frequency of the formative photon of a particle in motion.  You appear to imply, again correctly in my view, that the space-like component would not be apparent (some might say 'would not exist') in the particle's own 'rest frame'.  I'd like to walk through a simple thought experiment based on that perspective.

Consider an observer in the lab frame who has a device capable of counting the cycles of the formative photon in a particle at rest; this shows as a counter notching up number of cycles as time passes.  To this device is added an atomic clock calibrated to run at precisely the same rate as the resting cycle-rate of this particle: the two counters will remain precisely in synch when counter and particle are both at rest in the lab.

The lab observer then sets this device moving at constant speed alongside the particle, which now moves at that same speed.  As I believe we're agreed, the 'space-like' oscillation frequency will not be apparent to the meter moving alongside, but the 'time-like' oscillation will - at the rate, from the lab observer's perspective, as given in your Equation 21 (since this is the equation for the moving particle as apparent to the lab observer), i.e. the same 'time-like' rate that this observer would expect to see for a static particle (since that's the term in your equation).  However the atomic clock will be subject to speed-related time dilation and so will run slower from the perspective of the lab observer.  That lab observer, and so also an observer moving with the particle and meter, will see the two readings getting out of synch - which would not happen in the lab frame.  But these are just two inertial frames, which are equivalent according to SR.

[Note that this thought experiment is presented totally from the perspective of the static lab observer, to avoid any possibly spurious assumptions re the view from the moving frame.  Of course no time-dilation adjustment is needed for the cycle reading on the counting device as this is event-driven rather than time-driven - using as a reference the events as documented in your Eq'n 21 for the moving particle.]

I've attached the pdfs (& 1 Word) of my relevant posts for you and others who don't take to Java.  I'd be most interested in your thoughts.
[The PDFs don't include the web-page preamble, but should be self explanatory.]
In my view SR is not just lacking "at the margins"; the way that it is applied (which it need not be, according to Einstein's wording as I read it) is fundamentally flawed at its core.  If we continue to fail to recognise that then, yes, we'll continue to do experiments that work - including some very clever experiments - but we'll also continue to fail to identify crucial aspects of reality that could be of inestimable benefit.  Again, if we'd stuck to just experimenting with visible frequencies we'd always have proved ourselves 'right' (it would always work) - but we wouldn't have most of the technological marvels that we have around us today.

[Note also that I'm NOT advocating ditching SR as practiced, at the LHC or elsewhere; as an engineering tool it is invaluable.  However I AM advocating, very strongly, that we do not tie our own hands in ANY area of scientific research by mistaking subjective observation and measurement for objective reality.]

Best regards,
Grahame


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Williamson 
  To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion 
  Cc: Phil Butler ; Anthony Booth ; Stephen Leary ; Mark,Martin van der ; Solomon Freer 
  Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 3:56 AM
  Subject: Re: [General] PS: Matter comprised of light-speed energy


   Hello John, Richard, Viv and Grahame and everyone.

  Sorry, many of you will get this twice, as I forgot to include the more general mailing list.



  Reg too, if you are out there.

  Richard and Viv are so right, you too Grahame (in a different way) and  you too John (in yet a different way). Being right however, does not make something else "wrong". A theory is something which, as a theorist, one steps into and out of like a suit of clothes. It is appropriate within its realm of validity. It is a childs model of the universe, valid in some respects, and helpful to us in aiding thinking. Einstein was a great thinker, who thought many thoughts, and any specific quote of his cannot be taken to circumscribe that thinking or be definitive of the truth. I agree: Einstein would be horrified at us holding him up as an authority. So would any proper scientist!


  We have had a discussion, at length, earlier on this forum. You can download the stuff and there are hundreds of pages from me alone on this topic – so I can not and will not reproduce that all here. Some disconnected jottings follow, however.


  Now Graham, I have not been able to look at your web-pages yet. They use Java, which I do not allow to run on this machine. Do you have anything on the same stuff in plainer form?


  I am with you on this Grahame: the base postulates of special relativity are not completely correct in all possible scenarios (for example in the presence of gravitational fields as John mentions). Having said this, for all practical purposes, the corrections to SR of GR are negligibly small and theories attempting to use this to confine the electron, such as geometrodynamics do not work because the resultant forces are just far too small. I am also aware that many of the experiments purported to “prove” SR may be interpreted as arising from different effects such as variations in the stuff of which the measurement equipment is made. There are also experiments to support the existence of an “absolute” frame. One of the major exponents of this, Reg Cahill, gave an interesting talk at SPIE but has not been involved in discussions further on this forum. None of this matters. Even if SR is wrong in detail, it is very very right in many respects in that it provides, over a wider range of phenomena in my view, a better description than anything else of equal simplicity and beauty. Now, for my theory, I do not start with SR, but with a deeper principle I call absolute relativity (AR!). This comes about, for me, from trying to understand what the elementary process we call multiplication and division actually MEAN when we apply them to such things as “space” and “time”. That is what does “division” parallel in the underlying natural universe when we divide “space” by “time” and get “velocity”. Now this underlying process, whatever it is, is well-described in an engineering sense, by SR. On the other hand, I can derive the base relations of SR from a deeper set of principles. That is what I am after: the basis on which the natural world resides, and from which the phenomena of the natural world (all of them) can be described. I am just curious as to how everything works. For me, I try to understand this by rigorously defining “multiplication” and “division”, maintaining tokens representing space and time and such things as areas and volumes in space-time through my new theory. The result seems to be – if one does this, one derives continuous electromagnetism more elegantly than in standard textbooks, derives forces capable of turning a localized photon and forming the double loop, derive the basis of quantum electrodynamics capable and also derive a theory which precisely parallels SR in one limit. I think this is quite cool.


  For me, as an engineer, what is most important is what works. What is important for me as a theorist is finding as complete a description of as much of the natural universe as is possible, based on as few and as natural a set of starting parameters as possible.  I keep putting on taking off my various theoretical “hats”, looking at it this way and that, and trying to puzzle out what makes most sense, and what leads to the most complete description. For me, as for you, and as for many of us here, at present that seems best viewed through the prism of light, its underlying basis and light inter-actions. For me the basis of this is deeper than field, or even than space and time, but has to do with the root of “space” and “time” and “energy”. Theory is not a chocolate box where one can pick what one likes and forget the rest – lots of it impacts elsewhere. New theory must maintain and underpin the old where this works well. Old practical theory (by “practical” I mean stuff that allows one to engineer new stuff, not airy-fairy stuff pulled out of your nose and further useful for nothing- like string theory) is not usually “wrong”, it is just not quite fully “right” in every respect.
  Now you ask: is there any support for SR out there? The answers is: yes lots! There are loads of supporters! Although not familiar in everyday life to most, as a professional at CERN one uses it to design the machines which accelerate particles (it works!), to describe the increase of energy with velocity, limited by lightspeed, (it works!), to understand the apparent (many hundreds of times) longer lifetimes particles exhibit if they are moving at close to lightspeed (it works!). To describe the limiting of particles to lightspeed, whatever the added energy, (it works). To describe, equally, things accelerated hitting objects virtually at rest with respect to the distant stars, and the same objects hitting each other in a colliding beam machine (I have worked on both sorts of experiments – it works, believe me) It works, works and works again. Now I understand that competing theories work in many respects, but I have yet to see one which does them all (the killer for many is getting the observed time-dilation right). Now for me it is fine to discard or deepen the conceptual basis. That is what I am trying to do. It is NOT fine, however, to throw any theory away unless you replace it with something equally good or better – and that precisely parallels what one observes in reality, that allows one to engineer a particle accelerator, and that allows one to understand the measured properties of particles as observed in experiment.  



  SR may be “wrong” in detail at the outer margins, but it is very, very right in practice. Whatever replaces it had better reproduce it where it counts – or it will be contradicted not just by “experiment” but by actual standard engineering practice. 



  Regards - John.


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