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

[John Duffield]

Graham:

 

There's some interesting stuff there. I agree with most of what you're
saying, but I view things like Pythagoras' theorem as explaining why SR
works rather than explaining why it's unnecessary. Can I make a couple of
points which I hope you'll find interesting:

 

When you think of an electron (or a muon) as "a photon going round and
round", you can simplify it to a ring of light. When you then take one point
on the circumference and move the electron, that point now marks out a
helical path. When you take all points on the circumference, what was a ring
now looks like a cylinder. Now imagine that you are that electron. You are
lengthened by this motion, so everything else looks length-contracted. But
you are not length-contracted. Nor is a photon. Its wavelength is not
reduced to zero because it's moving at c. 

 

This is incorrect:

 

Maxwell's equations describe how the variations in magnetic field give rise
to the fluctuating electric field, and how those electric field variations
in turn give rise to the varying magnetic field; in this way those electric
and magnetic components together perpetuate that process, travelling through
space at exactly the speed given by Maxwell's equations. But, reasoned young
Einstein, for one travelling at the same speed as that photon - an equally
valid point of observation to any other - there would be no fluctuation;
that wave would simply hang in the air, unmoving from that perspective. And
if the electric field component was unmoving it wouldn't generate the
magnetic component.

 

Variations in magnetic field do not give rise to the fluctuating electric
field and vice versa. They are two aspects of the same thing. The field
concerned is the electromagnetic field. See this Jefimenko quote
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefimenko%27s_equations#Discussion>  and the
Wikipedia electromagnetic radiation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation#Derivation_from_elec
tromagnetic_theory>  article where you can read that "the curl operator on
one side of these equations results in first-order spatial derivatives of
the wave solution, while the time-derivative on the other side of the
equations, which gives the other field, is first order in time". One's the
spatial derivative, the other's the time derivative. If it was an oceanic
swell wave coming at you and you're in a canoe, the tilt of your canoe
denotes E and the rate of change of tilt denotes B

    

One does not cause the other. If you were travelling at the same speed as
the oceanic swell wave because you were pacing it in a helicopter, you would
see a hump of water on the surface of the sea, apparently unmoving.  

 

Regards

John D

 

 

From: General
[mailto:general-bounces+johnduffield=btconnect.com at lists.natureoflightandpar
ticles.org] On Behalf Of Dr Grahame Blackwell
Sent: 20 June 2016 11:05
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
<general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org>
Cc: Phil Butler <phil.butler at canterbury.ac.nz>; Anthony Booth
<abooth at ieee.org>; Stephen Leary <sleary at vavi.co.uk>; Mark, Martin van der
<martin.van.der.mark at philips.com>; Solomon Freer <slf at unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [General] PS: Matter comprised of light-speed energy

 

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 <mailto:John.Williamson at glasgow.ac.uk>  

To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
<mailto:general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org>  

Cc: Phil Butler <mailto:phil.butler at canterbury.ac.nz>  ; Anthony Booth
<mailto:abooth at ieee.org>  ; Stephen Leary <mailto:sleary at vavi.co.uk>  ;
Mark,Martin van der <mailto:martin.van.der.mark at philips.com>  ; Solomon
Freer <mailto:slf at unsw.edu.au>  

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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