In experimentally confirmed quantum field theory, the vacuum can only be polarized above a threshold electric field strength on the order 10^20 v/m. This is basically the IR cutoff of the field, the lower limit at which electromagnetism involves vacuum pair production and polarization phenomena. The pairs produced are polarized within a range of 1 fm from an electron, shielding part of the charge as seen at long distances. If there was not a threshold of 10^20 v/m, and Maxwell's theory was correct, then the vacuum would be capable of polarization (and charge shielding) so long as any uncancelled charge remained. If Maxwell's theory was correct, all charges would be cancelled out within a fraction of a millimetre by vacuum polarization. It isn't correct: there are no displacement currents in the vacuum due to vacuum charge polarization except above the IR cutoff or in an exceptionally intense static or oscillating electromagnetic field. In ordinary radio waves and transmission lines, Maxwell's displacement current is a travesty of the facts. The equation still holds when IR cutoff effects are ignored, but the mechanism for the equation below the IR cutoff is electromagnetic radiation exchange between fields!

Maxwell’s Displacement and Einstein’s Trace
(http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath103/kmath103.htm):

'There’s a remarkable parallel between Maxwell’s development of the field equations of electromagnetism and Einstein’s development of the field equations of general relativity. Recall that when Maxwell began his work there had already been established a set of relations describing the forces of electricity and magnetism. ... Maxwell then added another term to Ampere’s law, which he called the displacement current. The magnitude of this term was far too small to have been perceptible in the experiments performed by Ampere and Faraday, so its inclusion by Maxwell was motivated purely by theoretical considerations.'

This is a falsehood. Every time you turn on the switch, electricity proceeds towards the light bulb at light speed. The circuit is open until completed by the arrival of electricity at the bulb, because the resistance of the circuit is determined by the bulb. Hence Ohm's laws and Kirchoff's laws don't apply to any transient real system like turning on the light, they are only steady-state approximations.

The major fallacy in the claim that electricity is a pushing of electrons down a wire is simply shown by the case of a brief logic step, 1 foot long, which takes 1 ns to pass you. What is pushing the last electron in that 1 foot length pulse, and how is that last electron able to push all the others without slowing down due to resistance? A second fallacy in electricity as electron 'pushing theory' (McEwan's explanation that electrons flow like a row of ball bearings lined up in contact being nudged at one end) is his model's complete inability to explain why the logic step speed is that of the insulator around and between the two conductors.

IN ALL REAL SITUATIONS, 'DISPLACEMENT CURRENT' (WHICH IS DUE TO RADIATION, NOT THE MECHANISM MAXWELL THOUGHT) IS VITAL. It allows these transients to flow before the pulse of electric current has completed the circuit. For example, the diagram below (which is not entirely accurate) purports to show how a capacitor charges up. (Maxwell didn't know how fast electricity goes, so he ignored the spread of electricity along the capacitor plates, which reflects back off the far end and adds to further incoming energy.)




This illustration (due to Ivor Catt, Wireless World December 1978) is false because Catt draws the steps as being vertical increments. This is because he falsely assumes zero rise-time at the front of the long pulse energy current flowing into the capacitor (which is an physics error that goes right back to Heaviside). I've already corrected it:

D = permittivity*E (electric field strength)

dD/dt = permittivity*dE/dt

I distinguish between D and dD/dt in the illustration above.

Ivor's "Catt Question" diagram states dD/dt = 0 at all places except the vertical step front where dD/dt = infinity!

Catt claims a capacitor is a transmission line, where dD/dt would represent charging. But how can dD/dt represent real charging, when dD/dt in Catt's diagram is always 0 or infinity?

To get around this problem of the discontinuity, Ivor needs to admit that he has never seen a discontinuity in your life, and his oscilloscope traces of logic steps are not square waves. Hence, he was just duping himself and trying to dupe others with his "question" based on the falsehood of a discontinuity which can never actually occur in the real world.

These people pretend to be interested in science, but instead of welcoming the facts and revising their arguments, instead they just obfuscate and ignore the facts. (See comments section.)

What actually happens in the sloping part of the real logic step is that electrons are accelerated in non-zero time, and in so doing radiate energy like a radio transmitter antenna. Because the current variation in each conductor is an exact inversion of that in the other, the fields from the radio waves each transmits is capable of exactly cancelling the fields from the signal from the opposite conductor. Seen from a large distance, therefore, there is no radio transmission of energy whatsoever. But at short distances, between the conductors there is exchange of radio wave energy between conductors in the rising portion of the step. This exchange powers the logic step mechanism. Behind the rise part of the step, there dD/dt = 0 so the mechanism for the logic pulse and electric current drift there is the magnetic field effects of each conductor upon the other. The electron drift in each conductor is there due to the magnetic field from electron drift in the other conductor. Using these two mechanisms (radio emission producing the effects attributed to "displacement current" dD/dt, and magnetic field from current in the other conductor inducing current where dD/dt = 0), electricity flows. That's why the speed of a logic pulse is the speed of light for the insulator between and around the conductors.

When electric current (or a long flat-topped logic pulse), enters a capacitor plate, Maxwell thought it continued straight on to the other plate, without any change of direction, via aethereal displacement current. Hence in Maxwell's displacement current of the vacuum, i = e.dE/dt = dD/dt, the direction of both i and dD/dt is perpendicular to the plane of the plates, so it is from one plate to the other.

But since Maxwell got the direction wrong (the current spreads along the plates), and since x-rays/radioactivity showed wires to be like an aether (nuclear atoms with enormous spacesbetween electrons, not by any means a 'solid metal), the 'displacement current' is actually a displacement of real charge in the conductor itself. Hence in the equation i = dD/dt, the direction of i and dD/dt is parallel to the conductor, and i is real current not aethereal current.

The 90 degree direction change of current is vital, see http://www.wbabin.net/physics/cook.htm:

'This "capacitor is a transmission line" conclusion directly contradicts Maxwell, Article 610:

"One of the chief peculiarities of this treatise is the doctrine which asserts, that the true electric current, I, that on whichthe electromagnetic phenomena depend, is not the same thing as i, thecurrent of conduction, but...

I = i + dD/dt (Equation of True Currents)."

'This quotation pins down the gross falsehood in today's physical science, based on (Maxwell's) electromagnetic theory; the correct equation due to Catt, Davidson, and Walton is: 'I = i = dD/dt

'In this equation, there is an "=" sign whereas in Maxwell's equation there is a "+" sign. This says it all. In other words, Maxwell treats wire electricity (i) as being different to the current flow in the vacuum dielectric of a charging or discharging capacitor (dD/dt), whereas Catt. Davidson, and Walton have proven that there is no distinction for pulses ofelectromagnetic energy in wires. Hence, Maxwell is mathematically wrong.' {However, Ivor Catt refuses to scientifically comment on this clarification of his writings, or on the diagram above.}

The problem that people may have is the direction of electric field E. The potential involts is varying from 0 to v over a distance x along the plate. Once a current has been induced on the other plate, there is a charge there and so there is then a field gradient between the plates (with E pointing from one plate towards the other, the E vector being perpendicular to the plane of the capactor plates or transmission line wires). The E field I'm talking about is that parallel to the plates, because the current must turn 90 degrees and must spread along the plate after entering it (not proceed as Maxwell thought straight in the direction of one plate to the other).

The mathematician claims: 'Maxwell decided that this [Ampere's law] equation was incomplete, and the right hand side needed to be augmented by an additional term which he called the displacement current. ... His explanation evolved over the years, as his ideas about suitable mechanisms changed, but in essence he argued that the current density j at a given location does not actually represent the total current flow at that location (even though that is essentially its definition). According to Maxwell, a dielectric medium can be considered to consist of couples of positive and negative charges, and an electric field E pulls these charges in opposite directions, stretching the links between them until they achieve some kind of equilibrium. If the strength of the field is increased, the charges are pulled further apart, so during periods when the electric field is changing there is movement of the electric charge elements of the dielectric medium. This movement of charge is what Maxwell calls the displacement current, proportional to dE/dt, which he adds to Ampere’s original formula ...

'However, Maxwell’s rationalization of this extra term is questionable in at least two respects. First, it’s reasonable to ask why the displacement current is not already included as part of the total current density j at the given point. By definition, j is supposed to represent the flow of electric charge at a given location and time. Since Maxwell conceives of the displacement current as literally a flow of electric charge, one could argue that it should already be included in j, especially since the experimental results did not indicate the need for any additional term. Second, after introducing the concept of displacement current in dielectric media (where the existence of coupled electric charges is somewhat plausible), Maxwell goes on to apply the extra term to the vacuum, where the presence of coupled electric charges (being pulled apart and held in equilibrium by a stationary electric field) is questionable. He certainly could not point to any evidence of such disembodied charges existing in the vacuum. It’s true that some aspects of modern quantum field theory can be expressed in terms of pairs of oppositely charged virtual particles in the vacuum, flashing in and out of existence within the limits of the uncertainty principle, but surely virtual particles were not what Maxwell had in mind when he conceived of his tangible mechanistic models of the luminiferous ether. Without the uncertainty relations such particles would violate conservation of charge ...'

Charge conservation implies div.j = -d(charge density)/dt, which in plain English states that if you diverge an electric current, spreading the charge outward, then the charge density falls with time. It isn't a mathematical law, just plain common sense to anybody with any.

The mathematician then states 'Coulomb's law is div.E = charge density...' which is not directly Coulomb's law but is Gauss' law (Coulomb's is the inverse square force law for charges, whereas Gauss' is the mathematical law of electric field). Anyway, he uses Gauss's law to show that div.(dE/dt) = d(charge density)/dt, and then comments that this should be added to charge conservation law to give div.(j + dE/dt) = 0. But anybody can see where this is wrong.

Charge conservation div.j = -d(charge density)/dt combines with div.(dE/dt) = d(charge density)/dt not by addition but by equality, showing div.j = -div.(dE/dt), or j = -dE/dt. This is the whole point. The mathematical nonsense can't understand that j (displacement current) is not necessarily real, and since it is dimensionally equivalent to dE/dt (multiplied by the permittivity of free space of course, which the mathematican invariably ignores as too down to earth or trivial), as a physicist you have to suspect that what is going on is a field mechanism not an aethereal displacement current. I'll come back to this later. The mathematician goes on:

'Thus the combination of charge conservation and Coulomb’s law implies that the divergence of [div.B = j] vanishes, whereas the divergence of equation [div.B = j + dE/dt] does not vanish. This immediately shows that equation [div.B = j + dE/dt] must be correct, i.e., we must add dE/dt to Ampere’s law, purely for mathematical consistency, because the left hand sides of equations [div.B = j + dE/dt] and [div.B = j] are the curl of the magnetic field, and it’s easy to show that the divergence of the curl of any vector field is identically zero.'

The mathematician then writes out the equations to show that a divergence of a curl is zero, but if you switch to physical thinking you can do it without equations as such. A wire carrying a current is encircled by B field lines which have curl because they are circles, closed loops. The B field line at every point is an equal distance from the wire, hence it doesn't diverge outward. Thus, the divergence of the curling magnetic field is physically equal to zero. But of course this is too arcane for the great mathematicians, who want to make things crazy:

'One finds in the literature three basic justifications for introducing the “displacement current” term to Ampere’s law. First, it is sometimes claimed that it can be justified simply on the grounds of symmetry, i.e., since Faraday’s law indicates that a changing magnetic field is associated with an electric field, we would expect by symmetry that a changing electric field should be associated with a magnetic field. However, the glaring asymmetry due to the absence of magnetic monopoles tends to undermine the cogency of this argument. The second justification, found especially in historical treatments, is Maxwell’s heuristic rationale based on the idea of a dielectric medium consisting of charge couples that are pulled apart by an electric field. Lastly, the most common justification is consistency with Coulomb’s law and charge conservation, noting that the divergence of the curl of B must vanish. Thus we begin with Ampere’s hypothesis that the curl of B equals j, but then we note that the divergence of j does not vanish, whereas the vector j + dE/dt does have vanishing divergence (due to Coulomb’s law and the conservation of charge), so we add this term to complete the field equations of electromagnetism in a mathematically and physically self-consistent way.

'It’s interesting how similar this is to the process by which Einstein arrived at the final field equations of general relativity. The simplest hypothesis involving only the metric coefficients and their first and second derivatives, is that the Ricci tensor R_uv equals the stress energy tensor T_uv, but then we notice that the divergence of T_uv does not vanish as it should in order to satisfy local conservation of mass-energy. However, the tensor T_uv - (1/2)g_uvT does have vanishing divergence (due to Bianchi’s identity), so we include the “trace” term -(1/2)g_uvT to give the complete and mathematically consistent field equations of general relativity

R_uv = T_uv - (1/2)g_uvT

which can also be written in the equivalent form

R_uv - (1/2)g_uv = T_uv

'Just as the inclusion of the “displacement current” in Ampere’s formula was the key to a Maxwell’s self-consistent field theory of electrodynamics, so the inclusion of the “trace stress-energy” in the expression for the Ricci tensor was the key to Einstein’s self-consistent field theory of gravitation. In both cases, the extra term was added in order to give a divergenceless field.

'Incidentally, to the three common justifications for the displacement current discussed above, we might add a fourth, namely, the fact that the inclusion of the term dE/dt in Ampere’s equation leads to transverse electromagnetic waves propagating in a vacuum at the speed of light. Of course, this is ordinarily presented (triumphantly) as a consequence of the added term, rather than as a justification or motivation for it. However, someone as mathematically astute as Maxwell could hardly have failed to notice that the standard wave equation would result from the known system of electromagnetic equations if only Ampere’s law contained a term of the form dE/dt. Indeed Faraday (Maxwell’s primary source and inspiration) had speculated that the electromagnetic ether and the luminiferous ether might well turn out to be the same thing, suggesting that light actually is a propagating electromagnetic disturbance. Also, Weber had shown that a speed on the order of the speed of light is given by a simple combination of electromagnetic constants, and many other people (including Riemann) had pursued the same idea. The objective of explaining the wave properties of light was certainly “in the air” at that time. Is it conceivable that Maxwell actually reverse-engineered the displacement current precisely so that the equations of electromagnetism would support transverse waves at the speed of light in a vacuum? If so, he would have been consistent with a long tradition [of pretenders]...'

The mathematician then quotes Einstein's comment on displacement current in a letter to Michele Besso in 1918:

'No genuinely useful and profound theory has ever really been found purely speculatively. The closest case would be Maxwell’s hypothesis for displacement current. But there it involved accounting for the fact of the propagation of light (& open circuits).'

I'm going to repeat the end of my last post on this blog here:

‘What they now care about, as physicists, is (a) mastery of the mathematical formalism, i.e., of the instrument, and (b) its applications; and they care for nothing else.’ – Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, R.K.P., 1969, p100.

Displacement current, i = Permittivity x Voltage divided into (Time x Distance) or, i = eV/(tx)

This equation is simplified to a constant gradient slope in the electric field (voltage/distance), so we get away from differential equations.

It vital that in order for there to be displacement current, voltage increment V occurs over: (a) time increment t, and (b) distance increment x. Because electricity goes at speed c, the time increment t is given by: t =x/c. Hence displacement current i = eV/(tx) = eVc/x². Alternatively, written in terms of rise time t, we get displacement current i = eV/(tx) = eV/(ct²). This is a very useful formula. The displacement current for a uniform rise in voltage V over time t is equal to i = eV/(ct²).

The voltage variation with time and distance in the ramp at the front of electric pulse delivered by a transmission line causes the electrons in that ramp part to be accelerated. As a result they transmit energy perpendicular to the direction of their acceleration, which also occurs in radio transmission from an aerial (radio emission occurs in proportion not to thecurrent in the aerial, but to the rate of change of the current, hence to the acceleration of the electrons). Therefore, there is electromagnetic energy emission from the accelerating electrons in one conductor to those in the other. This constitutes the mechanism for the effects normally attributed to "displacement current". All the objections people can think up against this new mechanism are discredited here.

So, to be scientific, we must examine what the quantitative role of traditional displacement current is over this radiation mechanism. Maxwell-type displacement current in the vacuum (motion of aether particles) is trivial compared to radiation. I'm pointing out that it is not the most important mechanism. This is not an all or nothing situation. Displacement current in the vacuum must exist, but the evidence I have is that it is trivial compared to the radiation mechanism which delivers the energy. You have to accept two mechanisms for displacement current: radiation and Maxwell's charge polarisation.

The time-dependent Schroedinger equation and the Dirac equation (which is a relativistic time-dependent Schroedinger equation) are both statements of Maxwell's displacement current equation, when you grasp the radiation mechanism for the field that I'm explaining.

The rate of change of the field's wavefunction determines the energy delivery in the Schroedinger/Dirac time-dependent equations. The physics of displacement current is not current = e.dE/dt where e is permittivity, but net energy transfer rate (which is caused by or causes an electric field in a real conductor) is proportional to the rate at which the field varies.

On the topic of the advancement of understanding in general relativity, see D R Lunsford's comment at http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=319#comment-7160:

D R Lunsford Says:

January 3rd, 2006 at 11:14 pm

Lee Smolin said:"The issue is not about knowing how to write the Einstein’s equations down or find simple solutions. It is about the interpretation of observables on the space of solutions."

This is absolutely not the issue! and it is flat wrong for you to annouce it as such.

I think you people are not very bright - you completely miss the point about GR, which is how you end up abusing it so much.

The issue is the measurement problem without assuming an apparatus = a background. This does honor to both GR and QM. You will instantly understand if you think for 10 minutes that the entire ethos of the measurement problem is antithetical to the idea of background independence. Any attempt to go farther than this is doomed. You must either change one, or the other. Your crowd ignores the actual physical import of GR because it is easier to hide one’s canoe in the metaphyical tributaries of the of “interpretation”.

“Wave function of the universe” - case closed!The only people who take both GR and QM seriously are Finkelstein, Dirac, Einstein, Pauli, and Schroedinger. The very people who get ingored now.

-drl

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=307#comment-6424:

Chris Oakley Says: December 8th, 2005 at 8:23 am

"Why do referees do such a poor job? They block the good and interesting, and let through confused stuff like this."

This may have something to do with the fact that LS has a prestigious job at a prestigious university.

The same comment I made about Weinberg also applies here: if one is in a position of influence then one is duty bound to try to encourage people to do one’s subject rather than to try to scare them off. Telling people that String theory is nonsense but still the only idea in particle physics worthy of study is not going to make anyone want to sign up.

Of course, there are alternatives to String theory, but the String-theory-dominated research establishment does its utmost to make sure that these particular suckers never get an even break. In the long run, though, if leaders like Susskind and Weinberg convince taxpayers that theoretical particle physics is not worth funding, then who are the real suckers?

Luboš Motl, http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/12/shut-up-and-calculate.html:

Monday, December 12, 2005

Shut up and calculate

I would not promote overly technical lecture notes, especially not about things covered in many books. But the interpretation of quantum mechanics in general and decoherence in particular - a subject that belongs both to physics as well as advanced philosophy - is usually not given a sufficient amount of space in the textbooks, and some people may be interested in Lecture23.pdf.

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=316#comment-6808:

anon Says: December 25th, 2005 at 12:09 pm

Lunsford, a turkey breeding (or string theory) community can’t afford a diversity that would make the most popular theory (strings/turkeys) look silly. I suggest you give up on trying to reform dictators; they just try to suppress all criticism and shoot the messengers. Instead of telling them what they don’t like to hear and having them doing the shooting, you need to adopt more sturdy methods and go on a turkey cull. So I suggest you try building on alternatives to strings until one succeeds in doing more than string theory, then shoot, stuff and slowly roast the turkey.

Merry Christmas

What does Dr Motl define as a deep idea? A piece of string?

Extract from Michael Faraday's letter to James Clerk Maxwell, dated 13 November 1857:

November 13th, 1857.

My dear Sir,

There is one thing that I would be glad to ask you. When a mathematician engaged in investigating physical actions and results has arrived at his own conclusions, may they not be expressed in common language, as fully, clearly and definitely as in mathematical formulae? If so, would it not be a great boon to such as we to express them so - translating them out of their hieroglyphics that we might work upon them by experiment? ...

If this be possible would it not be a good thing if mathematicians, writing on these subjects, were to give us their results in this popular useful working state as in that which is their own and proper to them?

Ever, my dear Sir, most truly yours.

The whole unification business is concerned with the Dirac sea of vacuum charges. Firstly, the spacetime fabric of general relativity needs to be unified with the Dirac sea of quantum field theory. Quantum field theory and general relativity aethers are different: quantum field theory has a particulate aether, general relativity has a continuum aether.

Above: everybody agrees that the vacuum contains virtual particles, but there is controversy over the energy density and the mechanism (although Heisenberg's energy-time relation governs the duration that any given amount of energy lasts before annihilation, it doesn't rule out causality, such as a model in which chaotic gas-type collisions cause the energy fluctuations and virtual particles). What are the detailed dynamics of the vacuum particles? Is the net energy of the vacuum zero or very high? Is Maxwell's displacement current model of light (where displacement current or vacuum charge motion in conjunction with Faraday's law of induction causes a cyclical field variation which is light propagation) correct and complete in every detail, or is the true model of vacuum dynamics different? How can a seething foam vacuum deflect light smoothly as it does in photographs of starlight which has been deflected by the spacetime fabric (gravity field) of the sun during an eclipse? Surely if the vacuum spacetime fabric comprised of a chaotic gas of particles, then light photons would be scattered and the light deflected by the spacetime fabric would be defuse and not sharp? A more realistic picture of the vacuum might well combine elements of both the chaotic radiation model and a more stable condensed matter-type (crystal or fluid-like) spacetime fabric. After all, in a real material there is energy dispersion both by collisions (conduction) and by radiation.

The idea that there was one system only for energy transfer and temperature was called the theory of caloric, and it was obsolete when the true, more complex, nature of heat became apparent: a combination of kinetic theory (impacts, hence heat conduction by electrons in solids and molecules in gases), and radiation theory (every body at constant temperature is both emitting and receiving quantum radiation at an identical rate as first suggested by Prevost in 1792; this sensible idea would have been tossed out as overly complex and crazy-looking by crackpot mainstream defenders of Occam's razor and Caloric, etc.).

For example, it could be that the vacuum particles form positronium atoms (positronium-electron orbital systems) briefly and similar matter-antimatter pairs of other particles, if they don't have too much energy. We really don't know, because we don't have the energy density of the vacuum (some think it is zero, some people think it may be negative and others believe it is nearly infinite). For this reason, sensible people like Lee Smolin and Peter Woit don't mention the aether any more than they mention life elsewhere in the universe; it is considered widely to be a topic overrun in the media by abject speculations and vulgar gibberish or crackpotism (like 'string theory' which is run by funny crackpots like Edward Witten, Jacques Distler, Lisa Randall and Lubos Motl). As such it is not a subject fit for scientific evaluation. But there are ways to calculate and predict phenomena which don't rely on specific structural or energy density.

The work by Dr Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute (his ongoing lectures are viewable on line at the Perimeter Institute site) is to unify the two by a description of the vacuum as an abstract spin network. If you sum all the interaction graphs for such a spin network (these were invented by Penrose) you get the Feynman path integral. This equates to general relativity without a metric.

How do you introduce a metric? I've showed this, but nobody listens. You look at the physical cause of the contraction in special and general relativity and relate them to a physical mechanism, by means of the widely accepted heuristic interpretation of quantum field theory: namely, that all forces result from energy exchange processes between charges. You need LeSage gravity mechanism for this.




In quantum field theory, I've shown that the polarisation of the vacuum around every real charge is what reduces the core electron charge from 137e to just e. Since 137e is the strength of the strong nuclear force at low energies, we are on to unification dynamics using simple concepts. Coupling between the electron and the Dirac sea causes the 1 + 1/(twice Pi times 137) = 1.00116 Bohr magnetons quantum electrodynamic first correction to the magnetic moment of the electron core, which Dirac's theory gives wrongly as exactly 1 Bohr magneton. (Further couplings give this magnetic moment to 10 decimals or whatever, which is the chief success of quantum electrodynamics, together with the Lamb frequency shift calculation).

Contraction mechanism:

Although Einstein presents two axioms or principles, he doesn’t show that his derivations are unique or have underlying mechanisms nor does he rule this out. Indeed, Einstein repudiated one of the assumptions of special relativity as follows:

‘… the constancy of the velocity of light. But … the general theory of relativity cannot retain this law. On the contrary, we arrived at the result according to this latter theory, the velocity of light must always depend on the coordinates when a gravitational field is present.’ - Albert Einstein, Relativity, The Special and General Theory, Henry Holt and Co., 1920, p111.

Since gravitational fields are always present, Einstein’s SR light velocity postulate has the same credibility as Euclid’s fifth postulate which claims parallel lines must meet at infinity (which also ignores the curvature due to gravity).

‘… the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo must be modified, since we easily recognise that the path of a ray of light … must in general be curvilinear…’ - Albert Einstein, The Principle of Relativity, Dover, 1923, p114.

So string theory is only doing what SR did before Einstein and Hilbert discovered GR, with its spacetime fabric. In 1949 a spacetime fabric like a crystal was shown to mimic the SR contraction/energy formulae, in work of C.F. Frank, ‘On the equations of motion of crystal dislocations’, Proceedings of the Physical Society of London, A62, pp 131-4:

‘It is shown that when a Burgers screw dislocation [in a crystal] moves with velocity v it suffers a longitudinal contraction by the factor (1 - v^2 /c^2)^1/2, where c is the velocity of transverse sound. The total energy of the moving dislocation is given by the formula E = E(o)/(1 - v^2 / c^2)^1/2, where E(o) is the potential energy of the dislocation at rest.’

Given this length contraction, the spacetime principle gives us an identical time-dilation factor (because distances and times must be both shortened by the same factor). Given the energy variation factor above, we get the mass variation formula because of E=mc^2 which is implies by electromagnetic theory (i.e., light with energy has momentum which implies that the way to relate energy and mass is E=mc^2).

This procedure is empirically validated unlike the 'special relativity' (SR) of 1905 which Einstein later repudiated when he developed general relativity (quotations above). General relativity, which is validated with its over-riding principle of general covariance, the principle that the laws of nature are not merely invariant over inertial motions, but over any change in coordinate systems.

I mentioned mass increase just now. This is empirically validated, but doesn't support SR (any more than general covariance is the same as special relativity). Electroweak theory and its supporting empirical evidence lend support to the concept that mass is not merely a mathematical manipulation, but a physical effect with a mechanism of the sort we are describing: mass results because charges couple to virtual particles in the surrounding vacuum, which results in a miring like trying to move in a fluid (molecular fluids actually adds both inertial resistance and some velocity-dependent drag to the normal vacuum inertia of an object, but the vacuum's inertial resistance is not accompanied by velocity drag because the fundamental particles which 'feel' inertial resistance do so by long range force fields, not by physical impacts as occur between molecules).

There are four electroweak gauge bosons, the photon and the massive but uncharged Z, plus two massive charged W+ and W-. The last three were detected at CERN in 1983. The photon is involved in electromagnetic interactions, and the other three mediate weak interactions (i.e., beta radioactivity, which is the major means by which fission products decay; the weak force controls the decay of neutrons in protons, electrons and antineutrinos).

Electroweak symmetry breaking is involked to explain why of these four all but the photon are very short-ranged. Basically, at high energy they are all alike with a long range. By high energy, I obviously mean energy exceeding the energy of electroweak unification.

Below that unification energy, the vacuum attenuates the Z, W+ and W- bosons. The electroweak symmetry breaking is the process by which those particles go from being short-ranged to infinite ranged by gaining more than a certain threshold of energy (the electroweak unification energy).

Why does this occur? Well think about a small particle moving through a crystal. It gets attenuated since it has to continually break chemical bonds to make progress on its journey. However, if your particle has a higher energy, its transverse wavelength is shorter (remember the de Broglie particle-wave duality formula).

A more energetic particle appears smaller than the scale of the crystalline lattice and slips through without breaking bonds and losing energy. Hence, above the threshold energy for te vacuum, the Z, W+ and W- have an infinite range.

The vacuum field gives inertial mass to the Z, W+ and W- bosons at low energies (as well as giving mass to all other charged fundamental particles in the Standard Model).

At higher energy, ie at the energy of electroweak unification, these bosons are no longer attenuated (or whatever) by the vacuum field, and their range becomes infinite. The question is exactly how the vacuum field operates.

The mainstream mechanism is that the vacuum field is composed of Higgs bosons, which have never been observed. My approach is to build on heuristic quantum field theory, and this explains the masses of all observed fundamental particles: http://feynman137.tripod.com/

John Baez does an excellent job of contrasting the conflicting ideas about the vacuum energy at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/vacuum.html

In Dirac’s sea, there are pairs of virtual particles which annihilate rapidly because they don’t have enough energy to escape and become real.

A lot is experimentally known about the vacuum, including the fact that it isn’t detectably radioactive, hence the random collisions of virtual particles don’t allow them to escape. Therefore, there is no evidence that the virtual particles are an energetic foam or chaotic gas, as usually assumed. They are more like condensed matter such as a crystal, with enough vibrational energy to upset the classical motions of electrons in atoms.

If you move at the speed of light past an electric field, you see only a magnetic field of intensity E(ie, electric field)/c.

What is the mechanism for the magnetic field?

Normally we don't feel magnetism from most atomic electrons because their intrinsic magnetic moments cancel each other due to their adjacent opposite spin alignments (Pauli principle).

Is the magnetic field we experience when moving past an electric field just an uncancelled magnetic field due to the asymmetry due to the motion?

Lorentz's E = v x B law is the key. For a TEM wave or electromagnetic energy generally, E = c x B. If this is a universal law (if mass is electromagnetic energy), it tells us about the nature of magnetism.

The normal cancellation due to the Pauli pairing of spinning charges gives us a mechanism for obtaining Lorentz's E = v x B law from the fundamental E = c x B.

What happens is that energy in quantum field theory travels along electric field lines between charges at light speed, delivering momentum and forces. It is normally in equilibrium. But when you cut across that field at speed v, you experience a net magnetic field because your speed interfers with the appearance of the cancelled magnetic field. At light velocity, there is zero cancellation and you see a magnetic field strength of B = E / c.

What is really important to realise is that magnetic field doesn't get made from the electric field you are moving past. Instead, it is already there in a cancelled form, and your motion just uncancels part of the magnetic field, allowing it to be seen.

Therefore the fundamental way to analyse the magnetic field is with E = c x B as the fundamental case, and Lorentz's E = v x B law as the resultant of a mechanism based on the asymmetry of cancellation caused by the observer's motion.

You then see that E = c x B as fundamental may imply that magnetism is transmitted by the spins of gauge boson radiation emitted in diffrent directions by a spinning electron. Gause bosons transmitted outwards along the plane of the spin will not have any net spin or magnetism, while those emitted along the axis of the electron's spin will be similarly spinning at full speed.

Hence the magnetism is strongest at the poles, and each pole is equal and opposite because the spin of the photons emerging from one pole will be clockwise while that from the other pole will be anticlockwise.

Similarly, if you fire a bullet from this spinning planet using a non-rifled gun, it not have any spin if fired from the equator but will have a clockwise spin (looking towards the earth) and one fired from the south pole will have an anticlockwise spin. The angular momentum of energy is a conserved quantity and so it is probably the magnetic force mechanism.

Comments on Guy Grantham's paper about Prof. Simhony's electron positron lattice vacuum:

http://www.epola.co.uk/dwnlds/epola%20in%20brief.pdf.

It is a very well written and interesting paper. Unfortunately a few points it makes are bogus: it confuses the real radiation energy of the microwave background (2.7 K) with a virtual kinetic temperature of the vacuum. This is a falsehood, because the vacuum doesn't stop real radiation. It relies on a mediation mechanism by which real radiation passing through the vacuum give it kinetic energy. This seems wrong because gravity and electromagnetism don't depend on real temperature. Whatever causes gravity is independent of the temperatures ofthe planets and sun, and just depends upon their masses. Obviously, at very high temperatures you get unification, but it is absurd for the quantum vacuum inside me to be increased from 2.7 K (if I were in outer space, frozen) to 310 K now, without it affecting the radioactivity of the carbon-14 inside me and the potassium-40. It is plain wrong.

The vacuum does not heat up when real radiation passes through it, or the radiation would lose energy with distance and be attenuated. This may occur for short-ranged nuclear force boson radiation like W+, W-, and Z gauge bosons, but it certainly does not occur for photon radiation, which the cosmic background radiation is.

To clarify:

(1) Real radiation and real matter: quantum photons (light, gamma rays,radio waves, etc), real electrons and other real particles. The kinetic theory of matter and the quantum theory of radiation relate the temperature of this radiation with that of this matter.

(2) Vacuum gauge boson radiation and vacuum fabric: gauge bosons (mediators of nuclear and electromagnetic forces, and gravity), virtual particles. The cosmological model which suggests dark matter and energy is a falsehood: http://feynman137.tripod.com/ (this site also shows how you get all fundamental particle masses and fundamental forces from the effect of the vacuum)

Here is a discussion on the aether in a 2003 book by the U.S. National Research Council

Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century

Committee on the Physics of the Universe
Board on Physics and Astronomy

Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS

Washington, D.C. www.nap.edu

Page 19:

'THE VACUUM: IS EMPTY SPACE REALLY EMPTY?

'While the notion of a vacuum brings to mind the ultimate state of nothingness (indeed, this is what was pictured by 19th-century physics), quantum theory changes all of that. Nature’s quantum vacuum is anything but empty; instead, it is seething with virtual particles and condensates. To 20th-century physicists, the vacuum is simply the lowest energy state of the system. It need not be empty or uninteresting, and its energy is not necessarily zero.

'Quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle tell scientists that the vacuum can never be truly empty: the constant production and then annihilation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs make it a seething sea of particles and antiparticles living on borrowed time and energy (as shown in Figure 2.2.1). Although the Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows the pairs to last for only very short times, they have measurable effects, causing shifts in the spectrum of atomic hydrogen and in the masses of elementary particles that have been measured (e.g., W/Z bosons).

'The unanswered question is whether empty space contains any energy. The weight of the vacuum is certainly not great enough to influence ordinary physical processes. However, its cumulative effect can have profound implications for the evolution of the universe and may in fact be responsible for the fact that the expansion of the universe seems to be speeding up rather than slowing down (see the discussion of dark energy in Chapter 5).

'The second way in which the vacuum may not be empty involves vacuum condensates of fields. For example, the Higgs field in the Standard Model has a nonzero, constant value in the lowest energy state. The effect of this is to give masses to quarks, leptons, and other particles. The lowest state, the one we perceive as “nothing,” need not have zero field. Rather, the field everywhere has the value that gives the minimum energy. The nonzero field in the vacuum is often called a condensate, a term borrowed from condensed-matter physics.'

Further information: http://nigelcook0.tripod.com/

Assistant Professor Luboš Motl has sense in dismissing the string theory landscape of 10^350 unphysical solutions

String theorist Luboš Motl of Harvard:

Dear Custard soup,

I essentially agree with you. And indeed, there are plans that are remotely similar to your joke, to investigate properties of 10^{350} unphysical solutions of string theory in pretty big worldwide projects. I am equally unimpressed by these things because it is, much like this "climate modelling", just a method to shoot random numbers.

Best
Lubos

Lubos Motl Homepage 04.19.06 - 9:20 am #

For information about his research see this site. He has 22 papers listed by SPIRES, to date.

Interestingly, he co-authored a 6-page paper with 'landscape' originator Professor Leonard Susskind of Standford University back in 1997, albeit on a different topic than the landscape: Finite N heterotic matrix models and discrete light cone quantization, hep-th/9708083.

For comparison, another string researcher, Harvard physics Professor Lisa Randall, has 118 citations on SPIRES (which includes here book Warped Passages with its analogies to Alice in Wonderland's looking glass and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's wonkavator).

She has quite a few papers in Physical Review Letters, the journal with the editor who unsurprisingly thinks real physics is merely an 'alternative' to string speculation:

Sent: 02/01/03 17:47
Subject: Your_manuscript LZ8276 Cook
Physical Review Letters does not, in general, publish papers on alternatives to currently accepted theories … Yours sincerely, Stanley G. Brown, Editor, Physical Review Letters

Supersymmetry: imagined superpartners, imagined grand unification

Supersymmetry is the invention of imaginary new particles for every particle we know, to allow a neat unification of Standard Model forces at an energy we will never reach, 10^16 GeV.

But heuristic QFT shows that the mechanism by which forces vary at short distances (ie high energy collisions) is penetration of the polarised vacuum field, which shields the core charge of a particle. Extending this approach shows that supersymmetry is unnecessary for unification, because the abstract Standard Model QFT could be missing some kind of physical constraints like the requirement for the conservation of the total energy of vector bosons when unification energy (ie complete breakthrough of the polarised vacuum field) is approached.

In addition, if you want string theory, then Tony Smith has pointed to a way of avoiding supersymmetry in string theory using the Lie algebra E6: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/search.py?recid=730325&ln=en

String theory is not predicting anything about supersymmetry. The source below is strongly pro-string, pro-supersymmetry:

http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/jhs/strings/str121.html:

‘… supersymmetry requires the existence of a new elementary particle for every known one. … It is believed that the reason that these particles have not yet been observed is because supersymmetry is a broken symmetry …

‘Unfortunately, current theoretical ideas are insufficient to accurately predict the superpartner masses … there are three distinct arguments that make qualititative predictions of the masses. … should be in the range of 100 GeV to 1000 GeV. …

‘The three arguments are the following:

‘First, supersymmetry leads to a softening of the short distance singularities of quantum field theory. If we require a sufficient softening so that the Higgs mechanism can break the electroweak symmetry (SU(2) X U(1)) at the observed 300 GeV scale, in which case the Higgs particles have masses of the same order of magnitude, then the scale of supersymmetry breaking must also be approximately the same.

‘The second argument concerns the unification of the electroweak and strong nuclear forces at very high energy (around 10^16 GeV). One can argue that such a unification is inconsistent with the current experimental data, if one includes the effects of only known particles in the extrapolation, but that it works if supersymmetry partner particles with masses in the 100 GeV to 1000 GeV range are included.

‘The third argument concerns the possibility that the lightest SUSY particle could be a form of dark matter accounting for a substantial fraction of the mass of the universe. This also requires the same range of masses!’

All this supposed 'evidence' fits into the category of UFO 'evidence', alien crop circle 'evidence', and Uri Geller's spoon bending 'evidence'. There is no science going on in 'string theory' which isn't even a speculative physical theory, just a nice exercise in mathematics being passed off as science with the help of obfuscating to get funds. I don't really see the point in Dr Peter Woit's latest attempt to generate interest in Susskind's book on string theory:

Susskind Turns Down Templeton Prize

OK, maybe they haven’t offered it to him yet, but over at the Edge web-site, in a comment about John Horgan’s recent piece about the Templeton Foundation, Susskind writes:

I don’t understand the idea that a convergence between science and religion is taking place. I don’t believe in any such convergence. Throwing huge amounts of money at scientists who claim to see such a convergence can only lead to a dangerous blurring of boundaries.

I hereby pledge to refuse any prize for advancing the so called convergence between science and religion.

I missed Susskind’s recent public talk here in New York, about his book which the New York Academy of Sciences describes as “revolutionizing the field of physics”. There is a podcast recorded just before his talk. He makes his usual points including claiming that the situation of the string theory anthropic landscape is similar to that of Darwin and the theory of evolution. He also claims that anyone who thinks it doesn’t have experimental implications is wrong, pointing to Weinberg’s “prediction” of the cosmological constant.

Woit is just giving publicity to an attention seeker with a post like that. Susskind has nothing to say about science. Who cares about Susskind's religion or lack thereof? It would be more educational for Woit to write a post about Distler's attempts to teach string theory in Texas.

Observer's frame of reference in spacetime

Quantum field theory is the most precisely tested physical theory in history, and forms the Standard Model of particle physics. The quantum electrodynamics part has been tested to many decimals - not for masses or force strengths, but for correction factors to small magnetic coupling errors such as a 0.116 % increase in the real magnetic moment over the simple Dirac prediction for that value, and half lives for particles.

According to this theory, forces result from the exchange of radiation which is not otherwise detectable. You can't detect the vector boson radiation that causes force in any way other than by forces (because of inertia, which is a resistance of mass to accelerations).

A radio, for example, will not detect vector bosons from charges, unless of course the charges are accelerating with a frequency that the radio is tuned to detect. The radiation power in watts from a non-relativistic accelerated charge is simply P = (e^2)(a^2)/[6(Pi).(Permittivity)c^3] where e is electric charge, a is acceleration, and c is velocity of light. The radiation occurs perpendicular to the direction of the acceleration.

If the electrons have a velocity approaching that of light (in a straight line), the equation becomes more complex. For a logic step, the electrons at the front can undergo a large acceelration, so because in this situation each conductor (wire) is carrying an inverted image of the field and current in the other, they each radiate and exchange energy at the logic front. Furthermore, the exchange is perfect. There is no loss to the surroundings, because the radiated signals from each conductor cancel each other out perfectly beyond the transmission line. Hence the entire energy radiated due to the step in each conductor is radiated to the other conductor, so each causes the signal to propagate in the other. See the diagram and discussion here.

Technically, this is very sweet. Ivor Catt is supposed to be interested in this, but despite my having written several articles about his work, including his award winning computer development, he doesn't reply in a civilised way to these developments.

This is because he is fixed in a false simplified paradigm of Heaviside from 1893 and Catt has developed a whole philosophy of suppression since 1976 to defend it. He is stuck in his paradigm and cannot advance. Likewise, the string theorists are stuck in an unattractive conjectural framework which I've proved to be wrong by proving that the correct gravity is simply unified with electromagnetism by the vector boson exchange dynamics of electromagnetism:

Quantum field theory accounts for electrostatic (Coulomb) forces vaguely with a radiation-exchange mechanism. In the LeSage mechanism, the radiation causing Coulomb's law causes allforces by pushing. I worked out the mechanism by which electric forces operate in the April 2003 EW article; attraction occurs by mutual shielding as with gravity, but is stronger due to the sum of the charges in theuniverse. If you have a series of parallel capacitor plates with differentcharges, each separated by a vacuum dielectric, you need the total (net) voltage needs to take into account the orientation of the plates.

The vector sum is the same as a statistical random walk (drunkard's walk): the total is equal to the average voltage between a pair of plates, multiplied by the square root of the total number (this allows for theangular geometry dispersion, not distance, because the universe is spherically symmetrical around us - thank God for keeping the calculation very simple! - and there is as much dispersion outward in the random walk asthere is inward, so the effects of inverse square law dispersions and concentrations with distance both exactly cancel out).

Gravity is the force that comes from a straight-line sum, which is the only other option than the random walk. In a straight line, the sum of charges is zero along any vector across the universe, if that line contains an average equal number of positive and negative charges. However, it is equally likely that the straight radial line drawn at random across the universe contains an odd number of charges, in which case the average chargeis 2 units (2 units is equal to the difference between 1 negative charge and1 positive charge). Therefore the straight line sum has two options only, each with 50% probability: even number of charges and hence zero net result,and odd number of charges which gives 2 unit charges as the net sum. The mean for the two options is simply (0 + 2) /2 = 1 unit. Hence electromagnetism is the square root of the number of charges in the universe, times the weak option force (gravity).

Thus, electromagnetism and gravity are different ways that charges add up. Electric attraction is as stated, simply a mutual blocking of EM "vector boson" radiation by charges, like LeSage gravity. Electric repulsion is an exchange of radiation. The charges recoil apart because the underlying physics in an expanding universe (with "red-shifted" or at least reduced energy radiation pressing in from the outside, due to receding matter in the surrounding universe) means their exchange of radiation results in recoil away from one another (imagine two people firing guns at each other, for asimple analogy; they would recoil apart). Magnetic force is apparently, as Maxwell suggested, due to the spins of the vacuum particles, which line up.

More here.

Professor Phil Anderson has sense:

'the flat universe is just not decelerating, it isn’t really accelerating ... the “phlogiston fallacy” ... I even conditionally accept inflation, but how does the crucial piece Dark Energy follow from inflation? – don’t kid me, you have no idea.'

We already know Professor Anderson isn't a fool, because he talks hard facts: “string theory is a futile exercise as physics” - http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_10.html#andersonp

The big bang is the mechanism behind gravity and the contraction of general relativity, which means the whole of the Einstein-Hilbert field equation. Gravity is an effect, not a universal law.

Let me make this clear: you see a car coasting along. Is that 'evidence' that the driver is pressing the accelerator with one foot and the brake with the other?

Nope. But if you are stuck in a paradigm which believes the brake is always on (gravity) without a calculated mechanism for quantum gravity, then you have to invent a false 'dark energy' to overcome that braking (gravitational retardation), giving the coasting observations you see from distant supernovae redshift data. It's an epicycle, it's false.

See my response here.

The mainstream approach is to take GR (general relativity) as a model for the universe, which assumes gravity is not a QFT (quantum field theory) radiation exchange pressure force.

But if you take the observed expansion as primitive, then you get a mechanism for local GR as the consequence, without the anomalies of the mainstream model which require the cosmological constant, and its dark energy.

Outward expansion in spacetime by Newton's 3rd law results in inward gauge boson pressure, which causes the contraction term in GR as well as gravity itself.

GR is best viewed simply as Penrose describes it:

(1) the tensor field formulation of Newton's law, R_uv = 4Pi(G/c^2)T_uv, and

(2) the contraction term which leads to all departures from Newton's law (apart from CC, cosmological constant).

Putting the contraction term into the Newtonian R_uv = 4Pi(G/c^2)T_uv gives the Einstein field equation without the CC: R_uv - ½Rg_uv = 8Pi(G/c^2)T_uv

Feynman explains very clearly that the contraction term can be considered physical, e.g., the Earth's radius is contracted by the amount ~(1/3)MG/c^2 = 1.5 mm

This is the way to unify general relativity and quantum field theory. Forget special relativity, and accept the reality of the absolute coordinate system of general relativity. See the recent review of quantum field theory:

Klaus Fredenhagen, Karl-Henning Rehren, and Erhard Seilerpp, Quantum Field Theory: Where We Are, arXiv:hep-th/0603155, v1, 20 Mar 2006, pp. 18-19:

'Classical gravity being a field theory, QFT is expected to be the proper framework; but QFT takes for granted some fixed background spacetime determining the causal structure, as one of its very foundations, while spacetime should be a dynamical agent in gravity theory. This argument alone does not preclude the logical possibility of perturbative quantization of gravity around a fixed background, but on the other hand, the failure of all attempts so far which split the metric into a classical background part and a dynamical quantum part, should not be considered as a complete surprise, or as a testimony against QFT.

'Taking the geometrical meaning of gravitational fields seriously, it is clear that the framework of QFT has to be substantially enlarged in order to accomodate a quantum theory of Gravity. It is an open question whether this can be done by formal analogies between dieomorphism invariance and gauge symmetry.'

Mario Rabinowitz, A Theory of Quantum Gravity may not be possible because Quantum Mechanics violates the Equivalence Principle, http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0601218, (revised v3): Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:56:21 GMT:

'Quantum mechanics clearly violates the weak equivalence principle (WEP). This implies that quantum mechanics also violates the strong equivalence principle (SEP), as shown in this paper. Therefore a theory of quantum gravity may not be possible unless it is not based upon the equivalence principle, or if quantum mechanics can change its mass dependence.'

The mainstream approach to seeking quantum gravity at the abstract level is vacuous:

'We cannot help it because we are so constituted that we always believe finally what we wish to believe. The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it and become blind to the arguments against it. The moment we want to disbelieve anything we have previously believed, we suddenly discover not only that there is a mass of evidence against, but that this evidence was staring us in the face all the time.' - George Bernard Shaw.

Above, I included a diagram which shows that from our observable frame of reference in spacetime (where time past increases with observable distance of stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc.) - which is the correct frame of reference for calculating gravity because gravity goes at light speed just like light - galaxies and sueprnovae occurring near the visible horizon of ct, i.e., close to say 15,000 million light years away and 15,000 million light years past, will not receive any vector boson radiation pushing them towards us. Hence they will not be slowed down by gravity. This was predicted via EW in Oct 1996, and confirmed experimentally about two years later by astronomers with automated CCD teelscope observations of distant supernovae.

The facts also predict the strength of gravity accurately. I want to do something wicked here, by commenting on heresy. Take Mark McCutcheon's book The Final Theory that is being advertised via Lubos Motl's blog and the top bar on my internet page. First thing, I'm not interested in McCutcheon's book or his theory, mainly because he is secretive about it and wants people to spend money to get his stuff. Lubos Motl, a Harvard professor of 'string theory' (horseshit), has attacked McCutcheon for being critical of science.

McCutcheon says he has a masters degree in physics while Motl has a PhD, so the matter is settled by 'might is right' fascist philosophy which is the one surviving piece of Nazism - namely propaganda - which wasn't defeated in World War II. I have to say, that however much horseshit McCutcheon's 'theory' is, and however much money he makes from selling it, I certainly admire his attack on the drivel of special relativity (which is obsolete via 1. the hard fact that quantum field theory vacuum looks different for observers in different frames of reference and 2. general relativity discredits the principle of relativity in SR and instead has the much weaker - and absolute motion compatible - principle of general covariance) and vacuous 'string theory'.

The bottom line is, McCutcheon doesn't have any predictions, or doesn't promote any science. So I have zero sympathy with him on that score. I think the reason McCutcheon doesn't put any science on the internet for free is because he doesn't have any. I wish people like him would try selling the correct facts here. String theory crackpots won't develop quantum field theory, so perhaps others will. Dr Peter Woit is locked into the abstract geometric representation of quantum field theory using Lie spinors and Clifford algebras, and trying to understand gigantic Feynman integrals. Woit is certainly not on to a dead end, as he has already shown that he can represent the Standard Model in a simple way. However, the public - and particularly the physics community - never want to know reality. This is why fiction like string theory is loved.