Quantum gravity physics based on facts, giving checkable predictions

Sunday, April 30, 2006

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 Ruv equals the stress energy tensor Tuv, but then we notice that the divergence of Tuv does not vanish as it should in order to satisfy local conservation of mass-energy. However, the tensor Tuv - (1/2)guvT does have vanishing divergence (due to Bianchi’s identity), so we include the “trace” term -(1/2)guvT to give the complete and mathematically consistent field equations of general relativity

Ruv = Tuv - (1/2)guvT

which can also be written in the equivalent form

Ruv - (1/2)guv = Tuv

'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.

47 Comments:

At 4:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=389#comment-10727

knotted string Says:

May 13th, 2006 at 5:44 am

‘… Without well-defined Hamiltonian, I don’t see how one can address the time evolution of wave functions in QFT.’ - Eugene Stefanovich

You can do this very nicely by grasping the mathematical and physical correspondence of the time-dependent Schrodinger to Maxwell’s displacement current i = dD/dt. The former is just a quantized complex version of the latter.

Treat the Hamiltonian as a regular quantity as Heaviside showed you can do for many operators. Then the solution to the time dependent Schroedinger equation is:

wavefunction at time t after initial time = initial wavefunction.exp(-iHt/[h bar])

This is an general analogy to the exponential capacitor charging you get from displacement current.

Maxwell’s displacement curent is i = dD/dt where D is product of electric field (v/m) and permittivity. Because the current flowing into the first capacitor plate falls off exponentially as it charges up, there is radio transmission transversely like radio from an antenna (radio power is proportional to the rate of charge of current in the antenna, which can be a capacitor plate).

Hence the reality of displacement current is radio transmission. As each plate of a circuit capacitor acquires equal and opposite charge simultaneously, the radio transmission from each plate is an inversion of that from the other, so the superimposed signal strength away from the capacitor is zero at all times. Hence radio losslessly performs the role of induction which Maxwell attributed to aetherial displacement current.

Schroedinger’s time-dependent equation says the product of the hamiltonian and wavefunction equals i[h bar].d[wavefunction]/dt, which is a general analogy to Maxwell’s i = dD/dt.

It’s weird that people seem prejudiced against the integration of classical and quantum electrodynamics. The Klein-Gordon and the Dirac equation are relativized forms of Schroedinger. Why doesn’t anybody take the analogy of displacement current seriously?

 
At 4:13 AM, Blogger nige said...

The mechanism of electricity is explained at:

http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/01/solution-to-problem-with-maxwells.html

Despite this, ignorance and deception still continue to be peddled by Catt, because despite my continued efforts he and Forrest refuse to listen:


From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
To: "Forrest Bishop" forrestb@ix.netcom.com; "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; epola@tiscali.co.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; Monitek@aol.com; jvospost2@yahoo.com
Cc: marinsek@aon.at; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; graham@megaquebec.net; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ivor@ivorcatt.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: The Catt Question (itself is not even grasped)


> No Forrest.
>
> Displacement current i = dD/dt. When the voltage is steady (after the rise
> of the logic step), dD/dt = 0, hence i = 0. So in a wire carrying current
> with a steady 10 volts, there cannot be displacement current. Hence the
> Catt anomaly diagram disproves displacement current since for no time is
> voltage shown to be time-varying (the discontinuity at the front which Catt
> shows would result in a field/current rise in NO time, which is dD/0 =
> undefined, which Catt and Forrest brush under the carpet just as Feynman's
> renormalized quantum electrodynamics ignores infinities).
>
> If you could get that through Ivor Catt's head, you could make your case
> against displacement current to people much better: THE STANDARD TEM WAVE
> DIAGRAM PROVES NO DISPLACEMENT CURRENT.
>
> Electric displacement D = permittivity x E, where E is electric field
> strength measured in volts per metre. Displacement current is time varying
> displacement.
>
> When a current flows into a capacitor, the current is sustained entirely by
> displacement current at the ramp, i = dD/dt. However the textbook TEM wave
> description used by Catt assumes a discontinuity, where dD/dt has two
> solutions only:
>
> displacement current dD/dt = 0 when voltage is not varying with time (the
> flat topped portion of the energy current), HENCE NO DISPLACEMENT CURRENT.
>
> displacement current dD/dt = dD/0 = mathematically undefined (infinity??) at
> the logic step.
>
>
> Catt's question should be rewritten to ask:
>
> WHERE IS THE DISPLACEMENT CURRENT, dD/dt, IN THIS DIAGRAM? NOT ON THE LEFT,
> BECAUSE dD/dt = 0. NOT ON THE RIGHT, BECAUSE dD/dt = undefined/infinity.
>
>
> Then Catt would have to get out of his armchair and do some work, revising
> the book and his theory. But what is the old saying? "Let sleeping dog's
> lie"?
>
>
>
>
> Nigel
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Forrest Bishop" forrestb@ix.netcom.com
> To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com;
> ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; epola@tiscali.co.uk;
> imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; Monitek@aol.com;
> jvospost2@yahoo.com; nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
> Cc: marinsek@aon.at; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au;
> graham@megaquebec.net; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net;
> andrewpost@gmail.com; ivor@ivorcatt.com; ernest@cooleys.net;
> george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
> Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 5:10 AM
> Subject: Re: The Catt Question (itself is not even grasped)
>
>
>> This is an important discovery. Not only do the proponents of the old
>> (e-m) theory not understand the new (e-m) theory (Khun), and not only do
>> they not understand their own, old theory, they become incapable of even
>> grapsing the simplest possible Question regarding their own theory. This
>> discovery belongs to a different field from physics.
>>
>> "The Catt Question" itself has been shown to be not understood by a
>> number of Theory N practicioners. It is the simplest possible Question for
>> a Theory N practicioner, as "do moons circle Jupiter?" would be the
>> simplest possible Question to put to a Ptolemaic astronomer.
>>
>> Aside from the silent and abusive responses;
>>
>> We have seen this from GL, who wished to add a current-limiting resistor,
>> and claimed the answer was to be found somewhere in the equations. ["Solve
>> the Epicycles, everyone know the answer is in there."]
>>
>> We saw this from NC, who mistook "D" for "dD/dt", then insisted it was a
>> trick Question. ["You used the wong symbol for Jupiter."]
>>
>> We saw this from DT, who thought it had something to do with the plates of
>> a capacitor, and with some murky process going on inside the conductor.
>> ["We don't know if moons circle other stars."]

 
At 7:59 AM, Blogger nige said...

Trapped light speed Heaviside/TEM energy current constitutes charge, because the electric field add up without cancellation from the
trapped/reciprocating Heaviside/Poynting energy flows in equilibrium (with similar flows of
energy back and forth in each possible direction, or around in a loop), while the magnetic field curls do cancel out exactly, apart from the magnetic dipole you get if an energy current flows around in a loop (electrons have a magnetic dipole moment of ~1 Bohr magneton).

Catt's confusion over whether electrons exist mean that nobody need pay attention to him. My success in disproving Ivor Catt's confused hogwash at
http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html shows how he responds to progress: he ignores it. He isn't interested in
progress. Really, the TEM wave to Ivor is what extra dimensions are to string theorists: a snub to reality. This is why Ivor persists in not comprehending advance.

It is very sad.

NC

 
At 3:23 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
To: "Brian Josephson" bdj10@cam.ac.uk; "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; jvospost2@yahoo.com; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; epola@tiscali.co.uk; ivorcatt@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; graham@megaquebec.net
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ivor@ivorcatt.com; Monitek@aol.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: TEM waves or TE waves?

Capacitance is just an effect of the potential energy of an electric field which has been created by inductance, in turn due to quantum field theory effects:

Start with Maxwell's crucial amendment to Ampere's circuital law: (dQ/dt) + (dD/dt) = i. The dD/dt is Maxwell's displacement current. Errors:

(1) dQ/dt is a nonsense at low electric drift currents, because discrete electrons are passing by, so it is discontinuous => you can't use calculus for low dQ/dt (under 1 electron per second, for instance).

(2) dD/dt is a nonsense because we know in quantum field theory that no polarization and displacement current in the Dirac sea is possible below the IR cutoff, which occurs at paticle collision energies of 0.5 MeV, ie, at a radius of 10^{-15} m from a unit charge where the electric field is ~10^20 v/m, the threshold for pair production.

We have to replace dD/dt with a physical mechanism which does the same thing without requiring Dirac sea displacement current below 10^20 v/m in a radio wave! Done here: http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

Inductance is due to Yang-Mills exchange radiation, as there proved. If you don't like the idea that accelerating electrons at the leading edge of the energy current radiate energy, causing inductance, then you're anti-physics, because I'm building entirely on established facts and can show you a radio transmitter which proves that accelerating charges radiate, or if you prefer we can produce some x-rays from coulomb scatter of beta particles (high energy electrons), the Bremsstrahlung (German: "braking radiation") effect (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremsstrahlung for nice graph).

Yang-Mills radiation from electrons: see solution to Catt's anomaly at
http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

See my Maxwellian calculation of the classical radiation from an electron in
an atom, which corresponds to YANG-MILLS quantum theory:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/11/01/after-reading-a-childs-guide-to-modern-physics/#comment-131020
(copied below):

The ground state energy level is the Yang-Mills corresponds to the
equilibrium power the electron has radiate which balances the reception of
Yang-Mills radiation with the emission of energy.

The way Bohr should have analysed this was to first calculate the radiative
power of an electron in the ground state using its acceleration, which is a
= (v^2)/x. Here x = 5.29*10^{-11} m (see
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hydr.html ) and the value
of v is only c.alpha = c/137.

Thus the appropriate (non-relativistic) radiation formula to use is: power P
= (e^2)(a^2)/(6*Pi*Permittivity*c^3), where e is electron charge. The ground
state hydrogen electron has an astronomical centripetal acceleration of a =
9.06*10^{22} m/s^2 and a radiative power of P = 4.68*10^{-8} Watts.

That is the precise amount of background Yang-Mills power being received by
electrons in order for the ground state of hydrogen to exist. The historic
analogy for this concept is Prevost's 1792 idea that constant temperature
doesn't correspond to no radiation of heat, but instead corresponds to a
steady equilibrium (as much power radiated per second as received per
second). This replaced the old Bohr-like Phlogiston and Caloric philosophies
with two separate real, physical mechanisms for heat: radiation exchange and
kinetic theory. (Of course, the Yang-Mills radiation determines charge and
force-fields, not temperature, and the exchange bosons are not to be
confused with photons of thermal radiation.)

Although P = 4.68*10^{-8} Watts sounds small, remember that it is the power
of just a single electron in orbit in the ground state, and when the
electron undergoes a transition, the photon carries very little energy, so
the equilibrium quickly establishes itself: the real photon of heat or light
(a discontinuity or oscillation in the normally uniform Yang-Mills exchange
progess) is emitted in a very small time!

Take a photon of red light, which has a frequency of 4.5*10^{14} Hz. By
Planck's law, E = hf = 3.0*10^{-19} Joules. Hence the time taken for an
electron with a ground state power of P = 4.68*10^{-8} to emit a photon of
red light in falling back to the ground state from a suitably excited state
will be only on the order of E/P = (3.0*10^{-19})/(4.68*10^{-8}) =
3.4*10^{-12} second.

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/11/01/after-reading-a-childs-guide-to-modern-physics/#comment-131870 :

.... that's exactly why I calculated the emission time using that mechanism
for the ground state using the radiating power of the electron in orbit! It
is a check of the quantum mechanism with observations!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Josephson"

 
At 4:00 AM, Blogger nige said...

Part of a recent email:


From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "David Tombe"
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: Theory N v. Theory C

"The McEwan position is most likely to be correct." - David Tombe

All mainstream answers are wrong; McEwan is wrong because the speed of the signal in each conductor depends on what happens in the other. Catt tries to get around this by saying there's nothing in the wire, and everything is in the intervening space. Problem there is that if the transmission line is unterminated, the energy between the two conductors doesn't go on propagating in free space (like a bullet fired out of the barrel of a gun), but reflects. So it does "know" the wires are there, even the field in the middle "knows" that. So Catt's insistence that there is no transverse energy exchange breaks down or becomes metaphysics ("the energy knows when the wires stop and so reflects, by metaphysics" would be the clearest Catt could do, if you could induce him to stop obfuscating, patronising, and being political).

The real explanation based entirely on proved facts is here:
http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

Ivor Catt should SCIENTIFICALLY EVALUATE these facts, discuss them with me, and publish them as a riposte to his Catt question, but he has refused to listen to me for ten years, and will continue to do so. ...

Nigel

 
At 4:02 AM, Blogger nige said...

I should say in the comment above that the speed of the signal in or on the conductors depends on the dielectric medium between teh conductors, proving the presence of a controlling transverse influence on what is occurring in or on the conductors.

 
At 5:42 AM, Blogger nige said...

See http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

The electrons are influenced both by the electric field in the longitudinal direction (longitudinal is here a field vector arrow parallel to the conductors of the transmission line) - which is McEwan's argument - but also by the transverse field of radiation due to charges accelerating in the other conductor (field vector arrow perpendicular to the conductors, ie, transverse direction is from one conductor to the other).

The McEwan mechanism doesn't account for the speed of the logic step, which depends purely on the insulator between and around the conductors. The electricity propagates at the velocity of light for the INSULATOR. If McEwan's nudging explanation was right, there would be no influence on speed due to the surrounding vacuum.

Also, notice that the length of the logic step can be very short. Catt queers it by taking infinitely long step in his "question", but it would immediately discredit McEwan to take the case of a short step, say a logic pulse 5 cm long drawn in the middle of a 10 cm long transmission line on the diagram.

How the hell is the last electron at the back edge of the pulse in this case being pushed? It clearly isn't being pushed. McEwan's push idea is only sensible for infinitely long pulses!

Catt's inability to grasp this, and to grasp the facts, is a tragedy for science.

His approach is total hogwash.

Nigel

 
At 1:56 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "David Tombe"
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: Who knows not?


"I obviously failed to persuade either Guy, Nigel, or Jonathan that there was a flaw in established ionic bonding theory." - David Tombe

Suppose you did find what you consider a flaw. What would that prove? The establishment doesn't claim perfection, just the ability to do chemistry. Similarly, the Catt anomaly would be discredited.

Notice that Catt should have considered not what is happening with the electrons in each conductor at the front end of an infinitely long logic pulse,

but he should have drawn (on the same kind of diagram) a brief pulse and asked what is pushing the electrons along at the REAR end.

Notice he won't ever respond to this. He doesn't want progress.

Nigel

 
At 8:18 AM, Blogger nige said...

From http://quantumfieldtheory.org :

Science is not religious consensus but factual evidence: ‘Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation ... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.’ - R. P. Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, 1999, p187

In 1954 Einstein wrote to his friend Besso: ‘All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry [ie, every stringy theorist] thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. ... I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics.’

However, renormalization in quantum field theory implies that continuous fields (electromagnetism and gravity or the basic field equation of general relativity) rule accurately at distances beyond those of the "IR cutoff" (ie, the lower energy limit for loops of particles to appear in the vacuum). This IR cutoff is a collision energy of 0.511 MeV per particle; above that energy the particles can approach close enough (against coulomb repulsion) that they are in electric field strengths on the order of 1020 volts/metre, which is a distance of about 1 fermi-metre or 10-15 metre from the particle core. Only within that tiny radius does Einstein's continuous field equation structure break down (because the field strength has such a high energy density that it unleashes or creates pairs of charges in the vacuum which briefly polarize in the field - shielding it, a "self-interaction" process - before annihilating in an endless "loop" of matter-energy conversions).

The processes which occur by which matter annihilation-creation "loops" affect the field above the IR cutoff are very complex (there are many possibilities, each one being represented by a Feynman diagram). But by summing over all the possibilities (called histories or interaction graphs), you can easily work out the net effect. This mathematical procedure is quantum field theory. In general, all quantum phenomena are affected by vacuum loops and the averaging of these effects is done by "path integrals" for reactions - which are simply that, statistically averaged interaction calculations which take account of all possible paths by which mass-energy transfer can occur. In 1954 time renormalization was just starting to be taken seriously. Renormalization in quantum field theory alters the size of charges (electric charge for electromagnetism, mass for any possible quantum gravity theory) according to how the charge couples with its own field.

Apart from the Yang-Mills equation discovered in 1954, the Schwinger-Feynman-Tomonaga renormalization of charge is the essential development in quantum field theory beyond Dirac's equation of 1929. The most recent Nobel prizes in the theoretical high energy physics have been for applications of the Yang-Mills Standard Model which is a renormalizable quantum field theory encompassing electromagnetism (electric charge), strong nuclear force (so-called colour charge), and weak nuclear charge (Weak hypercharge), using 19 parameters mainly associated with the mass problem (since mass is the unit of gravity charge and there isn't a renormalizable quantum gravity available yet - string theory being merely consistent with a spin-2 "graviton-like" mediator but lacking any detailed dynamics for gravity so far - masses remain a problem and there are several ideas about a mass mechanism driven by aetherial "higgs field boson(s)" which haven't been detected but are supposed in the mainstream to be responsible not only for mass but for electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model).

Einstein remarked: ‘Since the theory of general relativity implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles or material points cannot play a fundamental part ...’ However, as explained, continuous fields exist below the IR cutoff of quantum field theory, ie, beyond about 1 fermi-metre from an electron or a proton. Only at shorter distances is the field strength high enough that it makes the continuum-fluid like structure of the vacuum boil into a foam of particles. Einstein was also correct when claiming: 'I think that matter must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.' This internet site shows you the full facts and the complete unification of the Standard Model with gravity, making predictions, with full experimental evidence. By dealing with gravitational and inertial charge (mass) properly, quantum gravity is made into a Yang-Mills theory which predicts the Standard Model from a mechanism.


Einstein tried to build general relativity at first by working with a gravitational analogy to Gauss' law, but it violates energy conservation so Einstein had to use a contraction to correct it. All this stuff is just mathematical modelling. There is nothing wrong with it except incompleteness. Where the mainstream application of general relativity goes wrong is for the limiting case of cosmology where it assumes general relativity applies everywhere perfectly. First, there is a landscape of solutions so that it can model anything you observe by selective use of density (dark matter correction) and cosmological constant (dark energy correction). Second, it neglects quantum gravity: Yang-Mills QFT suggests that the continuum radiation ('gauge bosons') get redshifted between receding masses as field energy is exchanged. This would weaken gravity where the masses are receding from one another due to cosmic expansion. Hence, the lack of Friedmann-type slowing down of distant galaxies from gravity is not 'acceleration' but is 'absence of gravity slowing them down'.

Quantum field theory is the description of the force fields and particle interactions in the universe. The Standard Model is the best checked quantum field theory and is known as a Yang-Mills theory; it describes force fields as the result of force-causing radiation exchange between charges (however, the Standard Model in its present form does not describe or predict gravity). The Standard Model is better checked than any other physical theory; it has made thousands of accurate predictions which have been verified by experimental tests. In its current form officially it uses 19 empirically determined parameters (mainly to deal with mass effects, which are not fully described by the Standard Model because the mass-giving 'Higgs mechanism' is still unconfirmed), but it is nevertheless stronger with predictions than general relativity which has a 'landscape' of solutions to cosmology and so can be made to fit, like Ptolemies epicycles, any universe (general relativity is therefore only well tested and therefore confirmed as regards the basic field equation which models energy conservation in gravitational fields, something neglected by Newton's gravity).

‘... the Heisenberg formulae can be most naturally interpreted as statistical scatter relations, as I proposed [in the 1934 German publication, ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery’]. ... There is, therefore, no reason whatever to accept either Heisenberg’s or Bohr’s subjectivist interpretation of quantum mechanics.’

– Sir Karl R. Popper, Objective Knowledge, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 303.

Notice that Popper is not remembered for this debunking of Bohr and Heisenberg, but for a false claim that theories need to be built on fairies not on solid facts (Popper absurdly claimed theories need to be falsifiable, which disqualifies every solid theory immediately).

The multi-body problem introduced by loops in the Dirac sea would be expected to create chaotic deflections of particle motion on small seas. Poincare showed in the 1890s that the determinism classical physics is bunk because the universe doesn't ever just consist of two particles:

‘... the ‘inexorable laws of physics’ ... were never really there ... Newton could not predict the behaviour of three balls ... In retrospect we can see that the determinism of pre-quantum physics kept itself from ideological bankruptcy only by keeping the three balls of the pawnbroker apart.’

– Dr Tim Poston and Dr Ian Stewart, ‘Rubber Sheet Physics’ (science article, not science fiction!) in Analog: Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol. C1, No. 129, Davis Publications, New York, November 1981.

‘The Michelson-Morley experiment has thus failed to detect our motion through the aether, because the effect looked for – the delay of one of the light waves – is exactly compensated by an automatic contraction of the matter forming the apparatus….’

- Professor A.S. Eddington (who confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1919), Space Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1921, p. 20.

There is no disagreement between the Lorentz transformation of relativity and aether. Einstein merely said in 1905 that the Maxwellian aether is superfluous because it’s effects are not detectable (at least, that is so in low energy below the IR cutoff of QFT; at higher energy there are “vacuum loop corrections” needed). I wish people would get the facts right on aether.

Bohr in 1916 simply wasn’t aware that Poincare chaos arises even in classical systems with 2+ bodies, so he foolishly sought to invent metaphysical thought structures (complementarity and correspondence principles) to isolate classical from quantum physics. This means that chaotic motions on atomic scales can result from electrons influencing one another, and from the randomly produced pairs of charges in the loops within 10^{-15} m from an electron (where the electric field is over about 10^20 v/m) causing deflections. The failure of determinism (ie closed orbits, etc) is present in classical, Newtonian physics.

Once you know that the Yang-Mills theory suggests electric and other forces are due to exchange of radiation, you know why there is a ground state (ie, why the electron doesn’t go converting its kinetic energy into radiation, and spiral into the hydrogen nucleus).

The way Bohr should have analysed this was to first calculate the radiative power of an electron in the ground state using its acceleration, which is a = (v^2)/x. Here x = 5.29*10^{-11} m (see http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hydr.html ) and the value of v is only c.alpha = c/137.

Thus the appropriate (non-relativistic) radiation formula to use is: power P = (e^2)(a^2)/(6*Pi*Permittivity*c^3), where e is electron charge. The ground state hydrogen electron has an astronomical centripetal acceleration of a = 9.06*10^{22} m/s^2 and a radiative power of P = 4.68*10^{-8} Watts.

That is the precise amount of background Yang-Mills power being received by electrons in order for the ground state of hydrogen to exist. The historic analogy for this concept is Prevost’s 1792 idea that constant temperature doesn’t correspond to no radiation of heat, but instead corresponds to a steady equilibrium (as much power radiated per second as received per second). This replaced the old Bohr-like Phlogiston and Caloric philosophies with two separate real, physical mechanisms for heat: radiation exchange and kinetic theory. (Of course, the Yang-Mills radiation determines charge and force-fields, not temperature, and the exchange bosons are not to be confused with photons of thermal radiation.)

Although P = 4.68*10^{-8} Watts sounds small, remember that it is the power of just a single electron in orbit in the ground state, and when the electron undergoes a transition, the photon carries very little energy, so the equilibrium quickly establishes itself: the real photon of heat or light (a discontinuity or oscillation in the normally uniform Yang-Mills exchange progess) is emitted in a very small time!

Take a photon of red light, which has a frequency of 4.5*10^{14} Hz. By Planck’s law, E = hf = 3.0*10^{-19} Joules. Hence the time taken for an electron with a ground state power of P = 4.68*10^{-8} to emit a photon of red light in falling back to the ground state from a suitably excited state will be only on the order of E/P = (3.0*10^{-19})/(4.68*10^{-8}) = 3.4*10^{-12} second. So it is predicts observations!

I'd like to raise the issue of public perception of what Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) is about. Anyone can understand what string theory is about: string.

"Loops" is confusing because most people think it is about the loops of pair-production charges which only occur above the IR cutoff and annihilate to radiation which undergoes pair production, and so on in a cycle of rapid transformations.

“Loops” is ambiguous unless clearly explained in the context of Loop Quantum Gravity; most people think perhaps it means particles are like loops, or they think you are talking of the annihilation-creation loops above IR cutoff energies. Actually, the loops in Loop Quantum Gravity are those in which gauge bosons are exchanged between gravitational charges (masses).

The loops of quantum gravity are clearly a physical representation of the curvature of spacetime. Woit explains this clearly in his book: the rotation of vectors as exchange radiation travels between two masses gives rise to the loop quantum gravity representation of general relativity (GR).

The mathematics Lee Smolin explains in Perimeter Institute lectures is summing the interaction graphs for a Penrose spin network to get a QFT path integral which gives GR with background independence (without metric).

If the Penrose spin network nodes in spacetime for gravity are real masses, then what you are modelling mathematically in Loop Quantum Gravity is the correct Yang-Mills exchange radiation scheme, see http://feynman137.tripod.com This looks very naive (physical radiation pressure shadowing, etc) but it does reproduce the unequivocal features of GR (gravity and contraction).

The redshift (energy loss) of gauge boson radiation being exchanged between masses rapidly receding from one another over large distances in the universe was predicted in 1996 to modify general relativity in the way it was experimentally confirmed to be in 1998; there is simply no long-range gravitational retardation on expansion, so there is no slowing down and no acceleration needed to "correct" general relativity (instead, you correct general relativity by simply introducing the redshift of gauge bosons in quantum gravity, which kills gravity over radii approaching the size of the universe). Hence, no need for dark energy, because the distant galaxies simply aren’t being decelerated; so the apparent acceleration which is needed when you falsely use GR with distant-independent G, is not real because GR is simply wrong for neglecting this redshift effect on quantum gravity.

 
At 1:32 AM, Blogger nige said...

Copy of an email to Ivor Catt and others:

What Catt could do is to admit that the clocks experiment of 1974 proves special relativity is fake:

In 1995, physicist Professor Paul Davies - who won the Templeton Prize for religion (I think it was $1,000,000), wrote on pp54-57 of his book About Time:
‘Whenever I read dissenting views of time, I cannot help thinking of Herbert Dingle... who wrote ... Relativity for All, published in 1922. He became Professor ... at University College London... In his later years, Dingle began seriously to doubt Einstein's concept ... Dingle ... wrote papers for journals pointing out Einstein’s errors and had them rejected ... In October 1971, J.C. Hafele [used atomic clocks to defend Einstein] ... You can't get much closer to Dingle's ‘everyday’ language than that.’
Now, let's check out J.C. Hafele [1]:

J. C. Hafele is against crackpot science: Hafele writes in Science vol. 177 (1972) pp 166-8 that he uses ‘G. Builder (1958)’ for analysis of the atomic clocks. We then need to follow the paper trail to source by finding the Builder article. It is astonishing:

G. Builder (1958) is an article called 'Ether and Relativity' in the Australian Journal of Physics, v11, 1958, p279, which states:

‘... we conclude that the relative retardation of clocks... does indeed compel us to recognise the causal significance of absolute velocities.’ (Emphasis added.)
So, the clock experiment actually discredits special relativity, instead of confirming it!


Notice that Catt refuses/fails (one tactic of his is not to reply to emails and letters, although I know from my email server and recorded delivery that he has received them) is written by me (Nigel) not by Ivor. Anything coming from anyone else is not welcome if it is substantial and not trivial. Hence, you won't find my Riposte to the Catt Anomaly, the Riposte being http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html , anywhere linked on Ivor's pages, despite hundreds of letters and emails requesting this Riposte link, and despite Ivor Catt's own (now disproved) fake assertion:



"Riposte
I make the commitment that anyone wishing to counter any assertion made on this site will be guaranteed a hyperlink to a website of their choosing at the point where the disputed assertion is made.
(Possibly we need a standard word for this. I suggest "Riposte", or the symbol [R] .) Ivor Catt. 24dec98. (Later developments.) (Continued.) " - http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/




Because of the hypocrisy involved in Ivor denying me any Ripostes despite the above false claim (which he should delete), I'm publishing this email as a comment on my electrogravity.blogspot.com blog. If Ivor does delete the Riposte claim (or, impossibly, link to my Ripostes on various subjects where he has not put them) I'll add another comment saying so. What will happen in the end is that Ivor's paid-for sites will disappear when he gives up, like Raeto West's did (which were mainly nonsense) because he has no back-ups on free (advertising funded) sites. He could link to proofs which would give substance. However, I'm actually glad he has since first acquaintence in 1996, been abusive towards my physics without discussing its content - his sites are so full of junk and speculative clap-trap, that it would harm my case more to be acquainted with him than if he did allow Ripostes from me on subjects I have factual evidence on (electron, particle physics, modern physics generally, gravitation, electromagnetism mechanism via exchange radiation and how an abstract representation of that is simply summed over by path integrals to give quantum field theory substance).

What I really hoped for was a physics discussion with Ivor. However, he doesn't know - nor care about - 99.9999% of physics, and areas he claims to debunk are areas he doesn't understand anything about. If is not a nice situation being in a slightly flooded boat as someone who thinks the best way to keep the boat afloat is to drill a hole in the bottom to allow the water to drain out! No matter how much explanation you give the fool, they "debunk" you. When finally you give up and the boat sinks, they will probably say "why didn't you tell me?" or something silly. Ivor is probably "genuine" in that (very fascist) way, not that it makes any difference. I had a hearing defect in school and was constantly sneered at by teachers who would shout (loud garbled noise) instead of speaking clearly. These "people" are out to enhance their own egos, not

The most abusive thing anyone has ever said about me is a Catt-like comment by John Gribbin that I'm not going the right way about making friends when I point out errors in physics: of course I'm not, why should I want to be friends with egotistic people who are in error. I want facts, and won't allow friendships to get in the way of the facts, mate.

Nigel

 
At 1:35 AM, Blogger nige said...

Second to last para above ends:

These "people" are out to enhance their own egos, not to further human understanding.

 
At 2:12 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
To: "Ivor Catt" ivorcatt@hotmail.com; sirius184@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; jvospost2@yahoo.com; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; dmsiegel@wisc.edu; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; graham@megaquebec.net
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; Monitek@aol.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: Catt's Aether

http://www.ivorcatt.com/4_1.htm is false because you can't have a vertical (step) logic pulse. The rate of change of current, di/dt, flowing past a point goes instantaneously from zero to infinity as the step passes. Because radio emission is given for low speed (electron drift) currents (theoretically and EMPIRICALLY) by the equation: power P = (e^2)(a^2)/(6*Pi*Permittivity*c^3), where e is electron charge, we see that radio power is proportional to the square of charge acceleration. An infinite acceleration of charge due to a vertical (step) fronted logic pulse would produce an infinite burst of radio power with infinite frequency, destroying the universe. So it seems that there is a mistake involved.

If the mistake is Ivor's then he should Riposte http://www.ivorcatt.com/4_1.htm to Nigel's page http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html.

I'm publishing this response to the abuse from Ivor (his email below) on the latter page as evidence of his tactics (more usually expressed by shouting me down on the phone than by calling me a "Charlie" in an email). We are getting somewhere at last.

Just to repeat, I said I also want a Riposte to the Catt Anomaly page to say that McEwan's "explanation" of a long line of ball bearings pushing one another (longitudinally) is disproved by:

(1) the fact the speed of the logic step is dependent not on the nature of the conductor but on the nature of the insulator between and around conductors (ie in the region of magnetic field overlap, which surrounds each conductor), and

(2) the fact that a brief logic step (like a Morse Code pulse in a telegraph line or a 0 or 1 code signal in a computer) would not exist in McEwan's model because the electrons right at the back (end step) of the logic step would have nothing pushing them! So those electrons couldn't push the electrons further forward (nearer the front). This is plainly obvious, and Catt should produce a few new Catt anomaly diagrams to show such problems in McEwan's position. Just draw a short logic step and put a red circle around the end of it, and ask "what is pushing the last electron along, and how can it push all the other electrons along (against line resistance) without grinding to a halt?"

The true picture of what is occurring depends crucially on things like the empirically observed logic step, which has a non-vertical front. Heaviside was wrong there.

Nigel


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ivor Catt" ivorcatt@hotmail.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com; sirius184@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; jvospost2@yahoo.com; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; dmsiegel@wisc.edu; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; graham@megaquebec.net
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; Monitek@aol.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: Catt's Aether


>
> Why did Tombe claim he had read my stuff? He must have skipped, or not
> understood, the most important pages.
> Cook told me he spent a year working hard through my book
> http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/em.htm
> How did he come to miss p30? - now at
> http://www.ivorcatt.com/4_1.htm
> What a couple of Charlies, wasting so many people's time with spam.
> - Ivor
>
> See
> http://www.ivorcatt.org/digihwdesignp05.htm pub. Macmillan 1979
> or
> http://www.ivorcatt.com/4_1.htm
> or
> http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/4_1.htm
> or
> http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/4_1.htm
> or
>
> IEEE Trans Comp (vol. EC-16 no.9) dec1967, p761

 
At 2:52 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@hotmail.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; jvospost2@yahoo.com; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; Monitek@aol.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: Displacement Current


Dear David,

Instead of physical understanding, Catt uses religious worship of Heaviside to settle arguments, and then gets into religious wars with Pepper et al who worship different authorities (which are equally wrong but at least less ancient).

Catt doesn't understand that "displacement current" i = permittivity * dE/dt by its mathematical definition (let's leave the dynamics of what that physically represents for the moment).

This tells us that unless the electric field (ie voltage gradient volts/metre) is varying as a function of time, there is NO displacement current whatsoever.

Catt plots a "Catt Question/Anomaly" diagram in which he does NOT admit any variation in electric field strength at all. He claims as per Heaviside that the logic step can be correctly represented with no realistic variation in E whatsoever, dE/dt is 0 before the step arrives and 0 after it arrives.

Does all of the displacement current flow for the vertical part of the step, which has a duration (Heaviside and Catt claim) of 0 seconds (yes, zero time) and therefore an intensity of i = permittivity * dE/0 = infinity amps!

It is curious that Forrest and Ivor don't notice that the Emperor Heaviside is naked, and is proposing a displacement current which has infinity amps lasting for zero time!

What we see in response from them is no comment while I am being polite, until I suggest that maybe Ivor is now being economical with truth, and then I get objections for being allegedly rude for saying that.

At no stage does Ivor recognise Nigel's skill at spotting this error in the question/anomaly, and resolving the whole issue based on solid scientific evidence. Very strange indeed!

Traditionally what happens are the following 3 stages:

‘(1). The idea is nonsense.

‘(2). Somebody thought of it before you did.

‘(3). We believed it all the time.’

- Professor R.A. Lyttleton's summary of inexcusable censorship (quoted by Sir Fred Hoyle in ‘Home is Where the Wind Blows’ Oxford University Press, 1997, p154).

That is how things occur.

“If you have got anything new, in substance or in method, and want to propagate it rapidly, you need not expect anything but hindrance from the old practitioner - even though he sat at the feet of Faraday... beetles could do that... he is very disinclined to disturb his ancient prejudices. But only give him plenty of rope, and when the new views have become fashionably current, he may find it worth his while to adopt them, though, perhaps, in a somewhat sneaking manner, not unmixed with bluster, and make believe he knew all about it when he was a little boy!”

- Oliver Heaviside, “Electromagnetic Theory Vol. 1″, p337, 1893.

Best wishes,
Nigel



----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
To: ivorcatt@hotmail.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; nigelbryancook@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; jvospost2@yahoo.com; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; Monitek@aol.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: Displacement Current


> Dear Ivor,
> You totally sidestepped my allegation that your equations are
> not telling us any new physics.
>
> Instead you are trying to make the crowd believe that my points
> are not worth replying to, but without telling them why.
>
> The very displacement current equation which you are so keen to
> get rid of, was very much present in your own equations. It is present when
> you differentiate the capacitance equation with respect to time.
>
> Even if Dr. Chalmers is right about the Pierre Duhem error,
> it is irrelevent because Maxwell does not use displacement current in the
> elasticity equations in question.
>
> Yours sincerely
> David Tombe
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: "Ivor Catt" ivorcatt@hotmail.com
> To: forrestb@ix.netcom.com, nigelbryancook@hotmail.com,
> sirius184@hotmail.com, ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk,
> jvospost2@yahoo.com, chalmers_alan@hotmail.com, dmsiegel@wisc.edu,
> epola@tiscali.co.uk, bdj10@cam.ac.uk, imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au,
> graham@megaquebec.net
> CC: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au, jackw97224@yahoo.com,
> geoffrey.landis@sff.net, andrewpost@gmail.com, Monitek@aol.com,
> ernest@cooleys.net, george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov, tom@tomspace.com
> Subject: Re: Catt's Aether
> Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:22:02 +0000
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> X-Originating-IP: [86.135.22.1]
> X-Originating-Email: [ivorcatt@hotmail.com]
> X-Sender: ivorcatt@hotmail.com
> Received: from bay0-omc2-s37.bay0.hotmail.com ([65.54.246.173]) by
> bay0-imc3-s38.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2444); Fri, 8
> Dec 2006 01:22:06 -0800
> Received: from hotmail.com ([65.55.140.84]) by
> bay0-omc2-s37.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2668); Fri, 8
> Dec 2006 01:22:06 -0800
> Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC;
> Fri, 8 Dec 2006 01:22:05 -0800
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> HTTP;Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:22:02 GMT
> X-Message-Info: LsUYwwHHNt3enaDC9Ag8/W7huTJCCcki0DvgfST8/uQ=
> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Dec 2006 09:22:05.0361 (UTC)
> FILETIME=[53A7B210:01C71AAA]
> Return-Path: ivorcatt@hotmail.com
>
> Forrest,
> Laced with his typical insults and rudeness, Cook asked me to add a Riposte
> to one of my key articles http://www.ivorcatt.com/4_1.htm
> I succeeded in adding it at the end without apparently disrupting its
> layout. I also added it to ivorcatt.co.uk
> Extraordinarily, I find that he got me to hypwerlink to the page where he
> commits the obvious blunder about what a D line means on a diagram, etc.
> This is the general area where he usually asserts that The Catt Question
> requires a step of zero rise time. You have said that rise time is not
> relevant to The Catt Question. ...

 
At 10:10 AM, Blogger nige said...

For the benefit of people who don't know the background to Ivor Catt's anomaly, it originated around 1981 from a commentator on Catt's theory articles in Wireless World (not from Catt). The letter writer in Wireless World suggested that Catt look at the situation of where charges comes from at the leading edge of a logic step in each conductor of the transmission line.

Catt then adopted this as "the Catt Anomaly" and much later (1998/99) he renamed it "the Catt Question" to make it sound less egotistical.

Nevertheless, it is used in his books such as "Electromagnetism 1" (1994) as a FALSE proof by contradiction that electrons don't exist in electricity because if they did, it would "collide with the Catt Anomaly".

In maths, "proof by contradiction" means taking the opposite to your theory and finding a contradiction in that.

By default, you have proved your theory. Catt's naive theory is Heaviside's theory of "energy current" which Heaviside mentions just twice. Heaviside made false predictions with energy current, such as dismissing boxed waveguides for microwave energy feet to antennae. Heaviside saw the waveguide (a metal conducting box) as a shorted parallel-plate transmission line (ie, a pair of parallel metal strips with another pair of parallel metal strips added at right angles to the first, short-circuiting the first and making a long rectangular metallic box.

Heaviside believed that electric logic pulses travel as light (transverse electromagnetic, or TEM, waves) "guided" (somehow, no mechanism given!) by the conductors of the transmission line (he got this model experimentally while working with Morse Code telegraph signals in the undersea cable between Newcastle and Denmark in 1875).

Therefore he thought that radio waves would be unable to travel within an enclosed conductor (a waveguide) due to a lack of an electrical return (or due to the presence of a short circuit, if you see it that way). For him, radio worked because an aerial works as a waveguide with the wave guided around the outside of the aerial, inducing a current in the receiver aerial (some distance away, but parallel to the transmitter aerial).

But the presence of electrons and their incisive role in conductors carrying wave energy was only established after Heaviside's theory, since Heaviside came up with his theory around 1875 and published his main work in 1893, and electrons were confirmed by J.J. Thomson after that in 1897. The electromagnetic field is real and carries most of the actual electrical energy we use, ie, gauge boson energy in the Standard Model of quantum field theory, but that doesn't discredit electrons.

The presence of a massive contradiction, as I've proved, in "the Catt Anomaly/Question" totally discredits it as the means to debunk electrons.

What annoys me about Catt is that he isn't interested in the facts about nature. His approach seems to be that only a charlatan would make revisions or improvements to knowledge or theories. This argument is pseudoscience, because only a charlatan would deliberately ignore the facts.

Suppose Ptolemy after publishing his false earth-centred universe had later retracted it and replaced it by the solar system.

If so, then his scientific competency would be increased. The media can sneer that improvements to factual knowledge, especially radical improvements, discredit facts because they show that science can be seriously wrong/incompetent.

However, facts aren't about whether Dr Hocus Pocus and his colleagues made a mess of things.

It is actually far worse to have a cover-up, which seems to be the natural reaction from Ivor Catt, than to correct errors and move on to new facts which are improvements to knowledge.

I can't see why anyone thinks they have something to lose by improving ideas and acuracy.

(What happens probably is the "pet theory" effect, where the person believes in the idea like a pet animal, and if the idea turns out to be wrong, the person correcting the error is perceived to be trying to disturb the "pet". It is extremely important not to get into such a psychologically fragile and decrepid state if you value facts about nature more than egotism. If there is an error, you just have admit the problem and see what that implies. You are trying to understand nature, and you must have a desire for factual knowledge above all else, and a contempt for confidence tricks and other fiddles/scams.)

 
At 3:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is Ivor fascist ?

‘Fascism is not a doctrinal creed; it is a way of behaving towards your fellow man. What, then, are the tell-tale hallmarks of this horrible attitude? Paranoid control-freakery; an obsessional hatred of any criticism or contradiction; the lust to character-assassinate anyone even suspected of it; a compulsion to control or at least manipulate the media ... the majority of the rank and file prefer to face the wall while the jack-booted gentlemen ride by. ... But I do not believe the innate decency of the British people has gone. Asleep, sedated, conned, duped, gulled, deceived, but not abandoned.’ – Frederick Forsyth, Daily Express, 7 Oct. 05, p. 11.

‘The creative period passed away ... The past became sacred, and all that it had produced, good and bad, was reverenced alike. This kind of idolatry invariably springs up in that interval of languor and reaction which succeeds an epoch of production. In the mind-history of every land there is a time when slavish imitation is inculcated as a duty, and novelty regarded as a crime... The result will easily be guessed. Egypt stood still... Conventionality was admired, then enforced. The development of the mind was arrested; it was forbidden to do any new thing.’ – W.W. Reade, The Martyrdom of Man, 1872, c1, War.

‘Whatever ceases to ascend, fails to preserve itself and enters upon its inevitable path of decay. It decays ... by reason of the failure of the new forms to fertilise the perceptive achievements which constitute its past history.’ – Alfred North Whitehead, F.R.S., Sc.D., Religion in the Making, Cambridge University Press, 1927, p. 144.

‘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.’ – Sir Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, R.K.P., 1969, p100.

‘... the view of the status of quantum mechanics which Bohr and Heisenberg defended - was, quite simply, that quantum mechanics was the last, the final, the never-to-be-surpassed revolution in physics ... physics has reached the end of the road.’ – Sir Karl Popper, Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics, Rowman and Littlefield, NJ, 1982, p6.


In the last quotation try a rewrite:

‘... the view of the status of Catt's electromagnetism which Catt and Bishop defended - was, quite simply, that Catt's electromagnetism was the last, the final, the never-to-be-surpassed revolution in physics ... Catt's electromagnetism has reached the end of the road.’

 
At 12:59 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: Nigel Cook
To: ivor catt ; jonathan post ; Forrest Bishop ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; dmsiegel@wisc.edu ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; graham@megaquebec.net
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; Monitek@aol.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: Defamation and Dirac; Re: Catt's Aether


"I think the Cook libels are just "silly season". They are just too extreme. Cook only damages himself" - [Ivor Catt]

No, Ivor, you claimed you are objective and wanted a question resolved. Then you dismissed as libel the factual evidence of errors in the Catt question:

(1) The vertical logic step you draw is unable to move electrons because ahead of the step there is no electric field, and behind the step there is only steady voltage (which doesn't cause any electron drift; in the steady v volts section of the logic step there is no potential energy to be gained by electron drift).

(2) There is no displacement current i = permittivity*dE/dt at any point in the Catt anomaly because there is no time varying electric field: a step as Catt and Heaviside draw is not a differential time varying field. You assume in a vertical step that the voltage varies from 0 to v volts over no distance and no time, ie, a discontinuity.

Correcting this "minor" or "major" error in the Catt question yields the solution: http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

It is curious that Catt responds to these facts with completely ad hominem rubbish: "An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally argument against the person), personal attack or you-too argument, involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself. It is a logical fallacy." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

We are forced to conclude that Catt doesn't want to use scientific reasoning, and prefers to lie about libel and make up other false personal (irrelevant) allegations.

Best wishes,
Nigel

 
At 1:14 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: Displacement Current

Dear Arden,

The polarizable pairs only occur within a distance of 1 fm (10^-15 metre) from the middle of a particle with unit electronic charge. The evidence from many experiments seems to confirm the idea that the electric field is universal, and the polarizable vacuum pairs are not. Only very close to a particle do you get pairs. The electric field needs to be above about 10^20 volts/metre for any pairs to form which are polarizable.

Hence your suggestion is back to front. In particular, the direction of the radial electric field resulting from polarization is the opposite to that from the electric field which is causing the pair production. Hence, the effect of polarization of pairs in the vacuum is to cancel out most of the electric field (the energy of which is used in short-ranged weak and strong nuclear forces within the 1 fm range).

Because the vacuum pairs don't exist as free (polarizable) charges beyond 1 fm from matter: light crossing the vacuum is not helped by vacuum polarization, as there isn't any in a vacuum beyond a tiny distance from real matter! What happens in place of displacement current is radiation: http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html contains the information. This is based on empirical evidence, and is not a pet theory. It is based on the best evidence available which conforms to a wide range of experiments.

Best wishes,
Nigel

----- Original Message -----
From: Monitek@aol.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 5:45 AM
Subject: Re: Displacement Current



Dear All,

The displacement current is the evidence for the separation of e-p pairs in the vacuum, which is in turn the polarization of the vacuum, which is the electric field. The motion of the e-p pairs during polarization of the vacuum creates the magnetic component of the electric field.

Alternating polarization of the vacuum is the electromagnetic wave and propagation of the wave is via the magnetic component, the electric field, ie the associated e-p pairs, is static (no pun intended).

Regards,

Arden Barker

 
At 1:38 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "David Tombe"
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: Displacement Current and its Perpendicular Sister

Dear David,

I disagree. The polarization is caused by the electric field acting on the spacetime fabric. Polarization can't cause the underlying electric field, it just opposes it.

The electric field which results from polarizations points in the **opposite direction** to the electric field which is causing the polarization.

Suppose you have a positive plate and a negative plate. If there is polarization of the material between the two plates, then the electric field is reduced because the polarization draws some of the polarizable negative charge towards the positive plate (partly cancelling its observable charge) and likewise the negative plate draws positive charges from the polarizable material near it, partly cancelling its charge.

Hence, electric polarization always works to oppose the electric field. You can't confuse the electric field which is causing the polarization for that which is the result of the polarization: they are vectors pointing in opposite directions.

Best wishes,
Nigel

PS - http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0510040 is a recent analysis of quantum field theory progress that contains useful information on pair production and polarization around pages 70-80 if I recall correctly. For an earlier review of the subject, see http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0608140.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
To: Monitek@aol.com; nigelbryancook@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@hotmail.com;
forrestb@ix.netcom.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk;
jvospost2@yahoo.com; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk;
bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com;
geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net;
george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 8:01 AM
Subject: Displacement Current and its Perpendicular Sister


> Dear Arden,
> I'll go over your letter point by point.
>
> "The displacement current is the evidence for the
> separation of e-p pairs in
> the vacuum, " Arden Barker
>
> I agree with that one hundred percent. It is in fact my
> original reason for deciding that we live in a dense sea of electrons and
> positrons. However, my problem with Ivor and Forrest is in trying to
> persuade them that displacement current exists at all. I have been trying
> to point out that the mathematical expression for displacement current is
> built into things like Gauss's law/equation of continuity of charge, as
> well as things like the time derivative of the capacitance equation. They
> don't even seem to be swayed by the argument that if it doesn't exist,
> then the EM wave equation falls too. Once I can get them to accept that
> this displacement current equation exists, then we can get on to the next
> stage of analyzing its physical significance.
>
> "which is in turn the polarization of the vacuum," Arden
> Barker
>
> I don't disagree. Your terminology is a little bit too
> 'Dirac Sea' for my liking. I know exactly what you mean, but then the very
> fact that such an electron positron sea exists, means that it is no longer
> a vacuum.
>
> "polarization of the vacuum, which is the electric field."
> Arden Barker
>
> I might have a slight problem with 'cause' here. In my view,
> an electric field is what causes polarization. But I do agree with you
> that in an electron positron sea, that electric field and polarization go
> very much hand in hand together. I am of course aware of your own
> particular theory that when there is no electric field, the electrons and
> positrons virtually collapse together into an amorphous liquid, and so I
> know why you link electric field and polarization more closely together
> than I do. You basically see an electric field as creating something very
> similar to Simhony's epola. Ie. you believe that the lattice occurs when
> there is an electric field.
>
> "The motion of the e-p pairs during polarization of the
> vacuum
> creates the magnetic component of the electric field." Arden Barker
>
> Until recently, I might have gone along with this too. In
> fact what you say here is essentially written in the double helix theory,
> but in different words. Even in the double helix article when
> magnetization is being explained, I have done it in conjunction with
> polarization. The result is cumbersome. It involves a polarization that
> collapses when the steady state is reached. I didn't like the picture, yet
> felt compelled nevertheless to combine the two phenomena. The maths of the
> dynamic state seemed to dictate that we always combine polarization with
> magnetization.
>
> In a recent article 'The Unification of Electricity and
> Magnetism', I have divorced polarization from magnetization. I have
> isolated magnetization into a purely rotational phenomenon that can exist
> independently of displacement current and polarization. I have justified
> the maths by introducing a sister component to displacement current at
> right angles to displacement current. See,
> http://www.wbabin.net/science/tombe3.pdf
>
> Yours sincerely
> David Tombe
>
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: Monitek@aol.com
> To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com, sirius184@hotmail.com,
> ivorcatt@hotmail.com, forrestb@ix.netcom.com,
> ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk, jvospost2@yahoo.com,
> chalmers_alan@hotmail.com, epola@tiscali.co.uk, bdj10@cam.ac.uk,
> imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
> CC: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au, jackw97224@yahoo.com,
> geoffrey.landis@sff.net, andrewpost@gmail.com, ernest@cooleys.net,
> george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov, tom@tomspace.com
> Subject: Re: Displacement Current
> Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 00:45:48 EST
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Received: from imo-m25.mx.aol.com ([64.12.137.6]) by
> bay0-mc4-f6.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2444); Fri, 8
> Dec 2006 21:50:21 -0800
> Received: from Monitek@aol.comby imo-m25.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v38_r7.6.)
> id i.57d.8e372b6 (14502);Sat, 9 Dec 2006 00:45:50 -0500 (EST)
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> X-Mailer: 9.0 SE for Windows sub 5019
> X-Spam-Flag: NO
> Return-Path: Monitek@aol.com
> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 09 Dec 2006 05:50:22.0019 (UTC)
> FILETIME=[EA494930:01C71B55]
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> The displacement current is the evidence for the separation of e-p pairs
> in
> the vacuum, which is in turn the polarization of the vacuum, which is the
> electric field. The motion of the e-p pairs during polarization of the
> vacuum
> creates the magnetic component of the electric field.
>
> Alternating polarization of the vacuum is the electromagnetic wave and
> propagation of the wave is via the magnetic component, the electric field,
> ie the
> associated e-p pairs, is static (no pun intended).
>
> Regards,
>
> Arden Barker

 
At 4:21 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "David Tombe"
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: Displacement Current and its Perpendicular Sister


Dear David,

"What I'm not so sure about however is the degree to which the induced electric field cancels out the applied electric field." - David

That's the whole issue. Take a look at http://nige.wordpress.com/ which
gives evidence that normally polarization of the vacuum within 1 fm from a charge centre screens the charge by a factor "alpha" which is 1/137.036...

I get this factor from comparing a simple quantum theory for electric field force to the empirical Coulomb law for two electrons. The Coulomb law is
weaker than the quantum theory by 137.036... times. The mainstream position on this is extremely wishy-washy and they don't do the analysis like I do, but they do have to renormalize the charges in quantum electrodynamics to
make it work, and they do that by using "coupling constants" (which are relative charges) of alpha for both electric charge and the mass of the electron.

Apart from understanding magnetism, an immense problem is explaining how mass can be renormalized. The successful calculation (very accurately) of
the Lamb shift and the anomalous magnetic moment of leptons (both electron and muon) implies that renormalization of charge and mass is correct.

Renormalization of charge is simply saying that the observed charge we see far from an electron is about 137 times weaker than the bare core strength at a fraction of 1 fm distance (where there is no polarization shielding).

Renormalization of mass is altogether harder, because you can't have pairs of positive and negative mass which move in opposite directions in the force
field applicable to mass (which is gravity). Nobody has ever observed a "negative mass" which falls upwards instead of falling downwards. Hence, direct polarization as a mechanism for the mass renormalization is suspect.

Clearly, mass is being associated with the charge, and is being indirectly renormalized through that association.

Best wishes,
Nigel

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Displacement Current and its Perpendicular Sister


> Dear Nigel,
> I largely agree with what you said below. I think you must
> have read my reply to Arden wrongly. It was Arden who was equating
> polarization to electric field.
>
> I certainly only see polarization as being a consequence of
> an applied electric field.
>
> The polarization itself will then cause an induced electric
> field in the oposite direction. I mentioned this in my early articles in
> connection with Lenz's law.
>
> What I'm not so sure about however is the degree to which the
> induced electric field cancels out the applied electric field. I can't
> work that out. It might be very relevant in determining the degree to
> which permittivity affects the magnitude of the Coulomb force. On the
> other hand it might not. Maxwell seemed to think that it did have an
> effect. I'm not so sure. I lean the other way.
>
>
> Best Regards
> David
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
> To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: Displacement Current and its Perpendicular Sister
> Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 09:32:31 -0000

 
At 12:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Copy of a comment

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=499#comment-19808

a Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

December 12th, 2006 at 3:20 pm

“Had he not died so young, Maxwell would almost certainly have developed special relativity a decade or more before Einstein.”

That article states:

“A velocity appeared in his theory also, but with a different numerical value that had no obvious physical meaning. Maxwell plugged Weber’s force ratio into his equations and discovered to his utter astonishment that the velocity exactly equalled the speed of light, which was then known experimentally to an accuracy of 1%. With excitement manifest in italics, he wrote, “We can scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.”

This isn’t true, (1) the ONLY numerical value by dimensional analysis using the electric and magnetic constants is was 300,000 km/s, (2) Maxwell did not predict c.

Dr Alan F. Chalmers’ article, ‘Maxwell and the Displacement Current’ (Physics Education, vol. 10, 1975, pp. 45-9). Chalmers states that Orwell’s novel 1984 helps to illustrate how the tale was fabricated:

‘… history was constantly rewritten in such a way that it invariably appeared consistent with the reigning ideology.’

Maxwell tried to fix his original calculation deliberately in order to obtain the anticipated value for the speed of light, proven by Part 3 of his paper, ‘On Physical Lines of Force’ (January 1862), as Chalmers explains:

‘Maxwell’s derivation contains an error, due to a faulty application of elasticity theory. If this error is corrected, we find that Maxwell’s model in fact yields a velocity of propagation in the electromagnetic medium which is a factor of [root 2] smaller than the velocity of light.’

It took three years for Maxwell to finally force-fit his ‘displacement current’ theory to take the form which allows it to give the already-known speed of light without the 41% error. Chalmers noted: ‘the change was not explicitly acknowledged by Maxwell.’

Weber, not Maxwell, was the first to notice that, by dimensional analysis (which Maxwell popularised), 1/(square root of product of magnetic force permeability and electric force permittivity) = light speed.

The whole story is an insult to any physicist of integrity. Fairy tales distorted from historical facts don’t have a place in physics.

Maxwell never wrote the Maxwell equations in vector calculus. He had 20 differential equations and never summarized 4 or 5 key equations, which were written by Heaviside. Hence the doubtfulness of the popular claim made http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath103/kmath103.htm that Maxwell considered the need for a divergentless field using vector calculus and was led to his discovery in the same way Einstein invented general relativity:

‘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.’

The most important thing Maxwell did do, which he isn’t given credit for, is predicting the electron in the 3rd ed of his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. (J.J. Thomson, editor of Maxwell’s Treatise, is given credit for discovering the electron when he just measured the charge to mass ratio.)

 
At 5:20 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: Nigel Cook
To: Ivor Catt ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; Monitek@aol.com ; forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: The Catt Question

Dear All,

Notice that there is still no link on that page to http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html , despite eight years of my polite (and recently increasing frustrated) requests to Ivor for this and despite Ivor's claim at http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/ that "I make the commitment that anyone wishing to counter any assertion made on this site will be guaranteed a hyperlink to a website of their choosing at the point where the disputed assertion is made." If Ivor cannot link to my disproof, can be remove his claim to guarantee a link?

Traditionally Ivor's response to facts is the following three steps in sequence, never discussing the facts, but just engaging "ad hominem" attacks: "An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally argument against the person), personal attack or you-too argument, involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself. It is a logical fallacy." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ):

‘(1). The idea is nonsense.

‘(2). Somebody thought of it before you did.

‘(3). We believed it all the time.’

- Professor R.A. Lyttleton’s summary of inexcusable censorship (quoted by Sir Fred Hoyle in ‘Home is Where the Wind Blows’ Oxford University Press, 1997, p154).

“If you have got anything new, in substance or in method, and want to propagate it rapidly, you need not expect anything but hindrance from the old practitioner - even though he sat at the feet of Faraday... beetles could do that... he is very disinclined to disturb his ancient prejudices. But only give him plenty of rope, and when the new views have become fashionably current, he may find it worth his while to adopt them, though, perhaps, in a somewhat sneaking manner, not unmixed with bluster, and make believe he knew all about it when he was a little boy!”

- Oliver Heaviside, “Electromagnetic Theory Vol. 1″, p337, 1893.

If Ivor can't do this, can he at least stop spamming my email please?

Best wishes,

Nigel





----- Original Message -----
From: "Ivor Catt" ivorcatt@hotmail.com
To: sirius184@hotmail.com; jvospost2@yahoo.com; Monitek@aol.com; nigelbryancook@hotmail.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 9:32 AM
Subject: RE: The Catt Question


> http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/cattq.htm
> "The Catt Question" was stated more than twenty years ago, and has never
> been altered. It is important not to restate it.
> Any restatement by Post, should he unwisely fall for the tombe trick, should
> be called "The Post Question".
> The objective of true scientists is to avoid, not to cause, confusoin. Is
> Tombe a true scientist, searching after truth?
>
> This game has been played in the past more than once. Someone calling
> himself "Weaver Mouse" published a letter in Wireless World asking for
> attention to be given to the positive charge on the upper wire. I replied
> that that should be called "The Mouse Question." I added that any
> combination of the two should be called "The Catt and Mouse Question".
> However, nobody rose to the bait. That was a very good thing.
> Recently, a major article in "Electronics World" said I should be asking
> about the charge on the top wire! I hope Forrest adds it to his collection.
> In true science, one important objective is to achieve maximum clarity.
> Forrest finds it difficult to believe that anyone could fail to comprehend
> "The Catt Question" He is collecting a large number of red herrings laid
> across the path of a very very simple, very clear question.
>
> Of course, the most ridiculous intervention has been the claim, made man y
> times, that "The Catt Question" is wrong. It was specifically turned into a
> question to ensure, among other things, that it could not possibly be wrong.
>
> Ivor Catt 17dec06

 
At 5:37 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; ivorcatt@hotmail.com; jvospost2@yahoo.com; Monitek@aol.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: Alan Chalmers and Pierre Duhem

"Prove to me that there should be a factor of one half inside the square root sign of equation (132)." - David.

There is no evidence that space is an elastic solid, and Maxwell indirectly admits the error by dumping elastic space and in 1865 going over to a gearbox aether instead! There is no evidence for equation 132 having anything to do with space.

The onus (burden of proof) is on you to prove it, not on me to force you to accept that science requires evidence. I've already told you how Maxwell fabricated it, in detail, from knowing via Weber that the root of 1/product
of permittivity and permeability = c in 1856, years before Maxwell's bogus "Eureka moment".

Nigel

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe"

 
At 8:52 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "Ivor Catt"
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: The Catt Question


Ivor, there is no link to my page at http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/cattq.htm which is where the Catt anomaly is.

You claim at http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk "I make the commitment
that anyone wishing to counter any assertion made on this site will be guaranteed a hyperlink to a website of their choosing at the point where the disputed assertion is made."

Please remove that claim, since you refuse to keep to it. Or do what you claim.

That's all I've been asking for eight years. No more excuses, please.

N



----- Original Message -----
From: "Ivor Catt"

 
At 2:11 PM, Blogger nige said...

(The hyperlinks will be missing from words in the message copy below: for the message with hyperlinks see the version of it on http://nige.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/loop-quantum-gravity-representation-theory-and-particle-physics/ )


http://physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?p=6242#post6242

Path integrals are due to Yang-Mills exchange radiation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aspect/Bell result has the most crackpot analysis you can imagine (Bell's inequality is anything but a model of Ockham's simplicity) with two contradictory 'interpretations' so doesn't prove anything at all (interpretation 1: dump light speed as a limit of action at a distance and accept instantaneous entanglement, OR interpretation 2: accept that the correlation of spins dumps the metaphysical 'wavefunction collapses upon measurement, not before' interpretation of the uncertainty principle, it is just empty minded arguing or bigotry, like string theory assertions to 'predict gravity' made by Witten in Physics Today, 1996).

This will be my last comment here as you are clearly a religious believer who likes the interpretation which has no evidence. There is no evidence for indeterminancy, parallel worlds, or anything. The dice land one way up on the floor under the table, and are not indeterminate until you find them!

‘The world is not magic. The world follows patterns, obeys unbreakable rules. We never reach a point, in exploring our universe, where we reach an ineffable mystery and must give up on rational explanation; our world is comprehensible, it makes sense. I can’t imagine saying it better. There is no way of proving once and for all that the world is not magic; all we can do is point to an extraordinarily long and impressive list of formerly-mysterious things that we were ultimately able to make sense of. There’s every reason to believe that this streak of successes will continue, and no reason to believe it will end. If everyone understood this, the world would be a better place.’ – Prof. Sean Carroll, here

Dr Thomas Love sent me a paper proving that there is a mathematical inconsistency between the time-dependent and time-independent forms of Schroedinger's wave equation when you switch over at the instant a measurement is taken. The usual claim about wavefunction collapse from the mathematical model is due to mathematical inconsistency, not nature.

Bohr simply wasn’t aware that Poincare chaos arises even in classical systems with 2+ bodies, so he foolishly sought to invent metaphysical thought structures (complementarity and correspondence principles) to isolate classical from quantum physics. This means that chaotic motions on atomic scales can result from electrons influencing one another, and from the randomly produced pairs of charges in the loops within 10^{-15} m from an electron (where the electric field is over about 10^20 v/m) causing deflections. The failure of determinism (ie closed orbits, etc) is present in classical, Newtonian physics. It can’t even deal with a collision of 3 billiard balls:

‘… the ‘inexorable laws of physics’ … were never really there … Newton could not predict the behaviour of three balls … In retrospect we can see that the determinism of pre-quantum physics kept itself from ideological bankruptcy only by keeping the three balls of the pawnbroker apart.’

– Dr Tim Poston and Dr Ian Stewart, ‘Rubber Sheet Physics’ (science article, not science fiction!) in Analog: Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol. C1, No. 129, Davis Publications, New York, November 1981.

‘… the Heisenberg formulae can be most naturally interpreted as statistical scatter relations, as I proposed [in the 1934 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery]. … There is, therefore, no reason whatever to accept either Heisenberg’s or Bohr’s subjectivist interpretation …’

– Sir Karl R. Popper, Objective Knowledge, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 303.
*****************

The physics of the photon requires first and foremost and understanding of Maxwell's special term. Faraday's law of induction allow a time varying magnetic field to cause a curling electric field. To get the photon to propagate, you need to generate a magnetic field from the electric field somehow. Maxwell's final theory of the light wave works by saying that the vacuum contains charges which get polarized by by an electric field, thereby moving and creating the magnetic field which is needed to allow wave propagation.

But QFT shows there's a cutoff on the electric polarizability of the vacuum, so there's no polarization beyond 1 fm from an electron, etc. Goodbye Maxwell's displacement current.

Instead of there being displacement current in a capacitor or transmission line as the capacitor or transmission line 'charge up', there is radiation of energy through the vacuum.

It is vital to compare fermion and boson. The fermion has rest mass, half integer spin, and can remain at 'rest'. The boson has no rest mass (although it has gravitational mass in motion according to general relativity, because the effect of gravity is due to both mass and field energy), integer spin and can't remain at 'rest'.

Fermions (electrons in this case) have to flow in opposite directions in two parallel conductors to allow light-velocity energy (TEM wave, or transverse electromagnetic wave) propagation to work. The reason is that a single wire would result in infinite self-inductance, ie the magnetic field created is uncancelled.

So you need two parallel conductors, each carrying a similar electron current in an opposite direction, to allow a light velocity logic pulse to propagate using electrons. This was discovered by Heaviside when he was sending Morse Code messages to his brother via the Newcastle to Denmark telegraph line.

Heaviside is wrong to impose a discontinuity (step) rise on the electric pulse. If the electric field at the front rose as a discontinuity, the rate of change of the current there would be infinite, and the resulting charge acceleration would result in an infinite amount of radiation with infinite frequency, which doesn't occur. All observed logic steps have a non-instantaneous rise.

During this non-infinite electric field strength rise in time and distance at the front of the logic step, charges do accelerate and do radiate (just like radio transmission antennas/aerials). Because the direction of charge acceleration in each conductor is the opposite of the other, the radiation from each is an inversion of the signal from the other. The two conductors swap radiation energy, which permits the pulse to propagate, and this effect takes the place of Maxwell's vacuum charge 'displacement current'. Behind the rise of the step, the magnetic field from the current in each wire partly cancels the magnetic field from the other wire, which prevents infinite self inductance.

In a photon of light, the normal background gauge boson radiation in spacetime provides the effective 'displacement current' permitting propagation. Since the Maxwell wave has the 'displacement current' take place in the direction of the electric field vector, ie perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the whole photon, the gauge boson radiation flow in the vacuum which we need is that in the transverse direction to the direction of light. This is why there is a transverse spatial extent to a photon, because when it comes very close to electrons or matter (eg, a screen with two small slits very nearby), the gauge boson field changes strength increases dramatically:

‘Light … "smells" the neighboring paths around it, and uses a small core of nearby space. (In the same way, a mirror has to have enough size to reflect normally: if the mirror is too small for the core of nearby paths, the light scatters in many directions, no matter where you put the mirror.)’

- Feynman, QED, Penguin, 1990, page 54.

‘… when the space through which a photon moves becomes too small (such as the tiny holes in the screen) … we discover that … there are interferences created by the two holes, and so on. The same situation exists with electrons: when seen on a large scale, they travel like particles, on definite paths. But on a small scale, such as inside an atom, the space is so small that … interference becomes very important.’

- R. P. Feynman. (Some of this may be from his book Character of Physical Law, not QED, but it's all 100% Feynman.)

'I like Feynman’s argument very much (although I have not thought about the virtual charges in the loops bit bit). The general idea that you start with a double slit in a mask, giving the usual interference by summing over the two paths... then drill more slits and so more paths... then just drill everything away... leaving only the slits... no mask. Great way of arriving at the path integral of QFT.' - Prof. Clifford V. Johnson's comment, here

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by NB Cook : Today at 03:02 PM.

 
At 4:56 AM, Blogger nige said...

From my last comment at:

http://physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?p=6286#post6286

... One more thing, about the photon. The key problem is how you get the electric field to result in radiation which closes the cycle involving Faraday's induction law, without requiring Maxwell's vacuum charge displacement current (which can't flow in weak fields below the IR cutoff according to QFT).

My argument is that the electron needs to be seen for the collection of phenomena it is associated with, including electric field. When the electric field of the electron is accelerated, it radiates energy. (This radiation does the stuff which is normally attributed to Maxwell's vacuum charge displacement current.)

The photon likewise has an electric field. In a reference frame from which the electric field of the photon is seen to be varying, it constitutes the source of radiation emission - just like the radiation emission from an accelerating electron. So you've got to accept that it is possible to explain the photon with a correct theory. There is progress to be made here. Problem is, nobody wants to do it because it is not kosher [religiously correct rubbish] physics. I don't really care much about it myself, beyond ruling out inconsistencies and getting together a framework of simple, empirically defensible facts. ...


(28 December 2006)

 
At 1:51 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; ivorcatt@hotmail.com; Monitek@aol.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: Where is the Pierre Duhem Error?

Dear David,

On page 49 of the linked PDF (page 49 on the PDF reader, page 22 in the
text) Maxwell's equation 132 is V = sq. root[m / Rho] and states "where m is
the coefficient of transverse elasticity". The transverse elasticity is
only half of the total elasticity of the medium. A wave is a circular
motion, electric field variations exist along the direction of propagation
in tradition to the transverse direction.

Maxwell is dealing with elastic solid aether. So the correct analogy is
S-type earthquake waves: Primary (P) waves are longitudinal (compression)
but Secondary/Shear waves are transverse.

See http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves/WaveDemo.htm

The problem is in what Maxwell claims he is doing with this S-wave type
light wave. On the previous page of Maxwell's paper (page 48on the PDF
reader, page 21 in the text) states:

"We may suppose either that E units of positive electricity move in the
positive direction through the wire, or that E units of negative electricity
move in the negative direction, or, thirdly, that 1/2 E units of positive
electricity move in the positive direction, while 1/2 E units of negative
electricity move in the negative direction at the same time."

It is total drivel, Maxwell doesn't use dimensional analysis correctly.
Equations 130-131 show the drivel. He isn't doing physics, just fiddling.

Nigel



----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
To: epola@tiscali.co.uk; nigelbryancook@hotmail.com;
ivorcatt@hotmail.com; Monitek@aol.com; forrestb@ix.netcom.com;
chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; bdj10@cam.ac.uk;
imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com;
geoffrey.landis@sff.net; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net;
george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 4:26 AM
Subject: Where is the Pierre Duhem Error?


> Dear All,
> There are alot of people ducking and twisting the issue in
> question.
>
> Maxwell uses Newton's equation for the speed of sound at (132)
> in his 1861 paper. see,
>
> http://vacuum-physics.com/Maxwell/maxwell_oplf.pdf
>
> That equation is not in dispute. It is totally irrelevant if
> Newton himself used the wrong elasticity constant because he didn't take
> into consideration adiabatic changes. All that about Halley and Newton
> arguing was a total sidetrack.
>
> Maxwell proposes a solid medium comprised of rotating cells
> surrounded by electrical particles. He considers the tangential action of
> a force on these cells. (I have deduced that EM radiation is a propagation
> of rotations in a sea of wheels).
>
> He obtains the speed of light from his elasticity manipulations.
>
> He is now bombarded by allegations of fudging, cheating, and
> working backwards.
>
> Prof. Siegel says that Maxwell should have divided the elastic
> constant in equation (132) by 2 and got the wrong speed of light.
>
> Dr. Chalmers, Nigel Cook, and Prof. vos Post have all agreed with
> what Prof. Siegel says. Can any of them please justify this allegation.
>
> It seems to me that there has been alot of Maxwell bashing going
> on by people who have never even looked at the paper in question. Part III
> of the web link above makes a very interesting read. Why not read it and
> get back to me when you can tell me exactly why there should be a factor
> of 1/2 introduced to equation (132).
>
> Yours sincerely
> David Tombe

 
At 1:55 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; Monitek@aol.com;chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 9:44 AM
Subject: Re: Where is the Pierre Duhem Error?

Dear David,

As Maxwell states that, in his equation, "m is the coefficient of transverse
elasticity".

It would appear that he should have used m/2 for the coefficient of
transverse elasticity.

I've quickly looked through Maxwell's papers in the PDF link
http://vacuum-physics.com/Maxwell/maxwell_oplf.pdf

On page 49 Maxwell states the velocity equation v = [(coefficient of
transverse elasticity)/(density)]^0.5, and claims that his theory of elastic
solid aether allows the two parameters to be inserted, giving Weber's
result. However, there are issues with Maxwell's assumption that all the
elasticity of the aether is in the transverse direction, and it has been
argued that only half should be in that direction which means Maxwell's
result is not light speed but less than c by the root of 2 (41%).

Maxwell ignores such issues and on the same page, Maxwell writes:

'The velocity of transverse undulations in our hypothetical medium,
calculated from the electro-magnetic experiments of M.M. Kohlrausch and
Weber, agrees so exactly with the velocity of light calculated from the
optical experiments of M. Fizeau, that we can scarcely avoid the inference
that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which
is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.'

That is absolutely crucial. It is usually mis-quoted by cutting out the
first half of the sentence, so that it reads very dramatically: 'we can
scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in the transverse
undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic
phenomena.'

When you read the whole thing, you see that Maxwell is not justifying this
claim by anything from his equations, but from aether, and that the velocity
of light wasn't produced by Maxwell from electric and magnetic constants but
five years earlier by people like Kohlrausch and Weber, although they (like
Maxwell with his aether) didn't have a consistent theory of light.

Best wishes,

Nigel



----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com; epola@tiscali.co.uk; Monitek@aol.com;
chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; bdj10@cam.ac.uk;
imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au
Cc: pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 6:07 AM
Subject: Re: Where is the Pierre Duhem Error?


> Dear Nigel,
> The equation (132) in the 1861 paper (On page 49 of the
> linked PDF (page 49 on the PDF reader, page 22 in the text))
> http://vacuum-physics.com/Maxwell/maxwell_oplf.pdf
> is the standard equation for the speed of a wave in a solid.
> It doesn't matter what problems Newton had as regards applying it to a
> gas. This is still the standard equation used for the speed of a wave in a
> solid, irrespective of what kind of solid or what kind of wave.
>
> The numerator on the right hand side is Young's Modulus. It
> doesn't matter what name Maxwell gives to it.
>
> I think that you seem to be overlooking the fact that part III
> of this paper actually contains no details whatsoever of Maxwell's EM wave
> theory. The wave theory doesn't begin until his 1864 paper. It is in his
> 1864 paper that he starts to use the displacement current equation.
>
> This 1861 paper is purely about elasticity and Hooke's law. The
> elasticity equation is equation (105). Equation (105) is a Hooke's
> law/simple harmonic motion equation. The spring constant will have to
> relate to Young's modulus in (132).
>
> He also shows how the spring constant links to Weber's constant.
> That's what all the manipulations from (80) to (132) are about.
>
> Prof. Siegel wrote to me again yesterday. He was quite adamant
> that Pierre Duhem was correct and that equation (132) should have a
> coefficient of 2 on the bottom line of equation (132). Yet this suggestion
> defies classical elasticity theory and it would produce a wrong value for
> the speed of light.
>
> So why do you choose to believe Duhem, Chalmers, and Siegel?
>
> Yours sincerely
> David Tombe

 
At 3:29 AM, Blogger nige said...

http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/01/01/happy-2007/#comment-167307

nc on Jan 1st, 2007 at 6:19 am

Do you think that the results of the LHC experiments will definitely be interpreted and presented correctly? There is an eternal tradition in physics that someone makes a mainstream prediction, and the results are then interpreted in terms of the prediction being successful, even where the prediction is a failure!

Example; Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory ‘predicted’ an aether, and Maxwell wrote an article in Encyclopedia Britannica suggesting it could be checked by experimental observations of interference on light beamed in two directions and recombined. Michelson and Morley did the experiment and Maxwell’s theory failed.

But FitzGerald and Lorentz tried to save the aether by adding the epicycle that objects (such as the Michelson Morley instrument) contract in the direction of motion, thus allowing light to travel that way faster in the instrument, and preventing interference while preserving aether.

Einstein then reinterpreted this in 1905, preserving the contraction and the absence of experimental detection of uniform motion while dismissing the aether. The Maxwell theory then became a mathematical theory of light, lacking the physical displacement of vacuum charges which Maxwell had used to close the electromagnetic cycle in a light wave by producing a source for the time-varying magnetic field which by Faraday’s induction law creates a curling electric field, which displaces other vacuum charges causing a new magnetic field, which repeats the cycle.

Experimental results lead first to mainstream theories being fiddled to ‘incorporate’ the new result. In light of historical facts, why should anyone have any confidence that the phenomena to be observed at LHC will be capable of forcing physicists to abandon old failed ideas? They’ll just add ‘corrections’ to old ideas until they match the experimental results ... string theory isn’t falsifiable so how on earth can anything be learned from experiments which has any bearing whatsoever on the mainstream theory? (Sorry if I am misunderstanding something here.)

 
At 7:26 AM, Blogger nige said...

http://kea-monad.blogspot.com/2007/01/m-theory-lesson-10.html

nige said...

That's a general problem. People, from Thomas Young (1803) to Richard P. Feynman (1963), used the example of water waves as a transverse wave analogy to the transverse waves of particle physics.

But water waves are non linear - ie, their velocity depends on their amplitude.

So they totally different to light waves, whose velocity is independent of velocity, although there is a similarity with massive particles.

de Broglie states that

wavelength, lambda = h/p

which applies to all transverse waves. With slow massive particles, p = mv, while with photons p = E/c = E/(lambda * f).

Thus for slow massive particles,

lambda = h/(mv)

and for photons

lambda = h/[E/(lambda * f)]

= lambda * f * h/E

which tells us E = hf.

So for fermions, the velocity varies to accommodate changes in wavelength (or vice-versa), while for massless bosons the frequency is proportional to the energy.

There is a lot missing from the description of the photon. Maxwell's equations have the problem that the only way you can generate a curling magnetic field is to have an electric field which varies in time, which necessitates what Maxwell thought of as vacuum "displacement current".

Problem is, there is no displacement in the vacuum below the IR cutoff at about 1 fm from a charge. So according to this interpretation of QFT, there should not be any Maxwell radiation beyond the IR cutoff, when of course there is.

The problem is quite deep and is not mathematical as such. Maxwell's equations are a good model but the physical mechanism is more subtle.

Radiation does not require moving real charge: an electric field can do it, see http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

The time-varying electric field in the photon acts just like accelerating charge, from the point of view of electric field acceleration causing the radiation which has the "displacement current" effects normally attributed to the displacement of charges.

4:24 AM

 
At 7:48 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com>
To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com; ivorcatt@hotmail.com; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; epola@tiscali.co.uk; jvospost2@yahoo.com; Monitek@aol.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com; jackw97224@yahoo.com; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: Experiments [Re: The Credibility of Reports]

Dear David,

No, it's nothing to do with the Higgs model which has no evidence at all. It's quantum field theory which debunks displacement current by showing that there is no polarization in the vacuum below the infrared cutoff, corresponding to 10^20 volts/metre electric field strength or 1 fm distance
from a charge. See Dyson's Advanced Quantum Mechanics notes on QFT which are available free online, or see http://quantumfieldtheory.org for links.

If the entire vacuum could be polarized without such a limit, then it would be, and there would be no electric charge left. The vacuum would immediately polarize around any real charge, cancelling out its electric field. This only occurs within about 1 fm distance from a charge. Hence, in a light or radio wave moving from sun to earth, there's no displacement
current whatsoever. The only things known in the vacuum beyond 1 fm from a charge are electromagnetic fields and gravitational fields.

What takes the place of displacement current in a 2-wire electric power DC transmission line is radiation from each wire to the other. This is entirely consistent with Feynman's path integrals in quantum field theory;
perfectly cancelling interference between each HF radio emission due to accelerating electrons (electrons are accelerating in opposite directions in each wire relative to the other, hence the radio signal from the front of
the logic step in each conductor is an exact inversion of the radio emission from the other wire) in the sloping step at the front of the logic pulse in wire, causes no radio energy to escape to long distances. Radio energy is
merely exchanged, therefore, between two wires at the logic step region where electrons are
accelerating. This crucial radio energy exchange between the wires performs the role normally attributed to "displacement
current" and also accounts for why the speed of electricity is the velocity of light in the medium between the two conductors, instead of the speed depending purely upon the properties of the wires.

In a light wave in a vacuum, there is no charge acceleration but instead components of the electric field are accelerating and this is equivalent to accelerating charge from the perspective of producing radio emission. So in a photon, accelerations of electric field lines produce radio emission which
does the role normally attributed to displacement current. The correct model of a photon is likely similar to the model of the transmission line, but with vacuum background electric fields in place of charges. There are
thus two ambient electric field accelerations occurring side by side in opposite directions at the light speed propagating front. Instead of displacement current of vacuum charge, there is continuous exchange transversely within the photon between theses two accelerating electric field.

Best wishes,
Nigel


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com;
ivorcatt@hotmail.com; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au;
epola@tiscali.co.uk; jvospost2@yahoo.com; Monitek@aol.com;
ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com;
bdj10@cam.ac.uk; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au;
charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com; jackw97224@yahoo.com;
andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov;
tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: Experiments [Re: The Credibility of Reports]


> Dear Nigel,
> Your being unconvinced of point (1) (ie. the displacement
> current issue) lies exclusively with the fact that the implications are at
> variance with the Higgs Standard model. You're measuring the argument
> against the Higgs Standard model, and not on it's own merits.
>
> The point is that,
>
> (1) if we don't have displacement current, then the EM
> wave equation disappears too. (Hardly Likely)
>
> (2) If we do have displacement current, then we must have
> a dielectric medium too.
>
> That argument is bullet proof. You have clouded the argument by
> introducing some irrelevancy about maximum ranges, and polarization
> cancelling out electric fields. You have completely missed the point that
> the implication is the existence of a very real elastic medium
> commensurate with EM theory. I am not talking about the Dirac Sea. You are
> talking about the Dirac Sea. So effectively you are twisting the argument.
> You are replacing an 'implied commensurate medium' with an 'incommensurate
> medium' and then arguing that it is incommensurate.
>
> But at the end of the day, if you are of the school of
> thought in which waves can propagate in a vacuum, then I'm not surprised
> that the argument doesn't convince you.
>
> At any rate, you are still left to explain how the
> displacement current expression can be justified physically within
> Ampere's circuital law.
>
> Yours sincerely
> David Tombe

 
At 4:06 AM, Blogger nige said...

From: "Nigel Cook" nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
To: "David Tombe" sirius184@hotmail.com; jvospost2@yahoo.com; geoffrey.landis@sff.net; admin@clerkmaxwellfoundation.org
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com; ivorcatt@hotmail.com; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au; epola@tiscali.co.uk; Monitek@aol.com; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com; mjr36@cam.ac.uk; bdj10@cam.ac.uk; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au; jackw97224@yahoo.com; andrewpost@gmail.com; ernest@cooleys.net; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Summing Up

"The displacement current in Ampere's circuital law has to be a
real current otherwise there can be no justification for adding it in. It must conform to the original derivation of Ampere's circuital law. " - David
Tombe.

Dear David, you could equally say phlogiston or caloric must be real or there would be no justification for people to have added it to physics in the first place. Mistakes do happen. The displacement current equation, i
= {permittivity} * dE/dt , doesn't prove there is a displacement of vacuum charges. You could equally have just a changing electric field, the right hand side of the equation.

**********************************

From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current

The polarization is the motion of electrons in the direction of the electric field vector, which is the electric field lines pointing (with conventional arrows) from positive to negative charges, and the motion of positrons the other way.

A medium is polarized by an introduced charge when similar charges in the medium are repelled by the introduced charge, and unlike charges to the introduced charge are attracted to it. This process by which the medium is polarized is called "displacement current", because the flow of charges in each direction constitutes a current.

----- Original Message -----
From: Monitek@aol.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current


In a message dated 22/01/2007 18:30:51 GMT Standard Time, nigelbryancook@hotmail.com writes:
You can't get vacuum polarization, because the
field strength is far too weak.

What exactly is your definition of polarization?

Regards,
Arden

***********************************

From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 6:21 PM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current

The variation of the electric field with time!

The "displacement current" is just i = {permittivity} * dE/dt. So why not dump displacement current? The magnetic field source comes is directly the variation of the electric field, without the interim step of vacuum charges moving around.

Nigel


----- Original Message -----
From: Monitek@aol.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 6:49 AM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current


In a message dated 22/01/2007 18:27:01 GMT Standard Time, nigelbryancook@hotmail.com writes:
Since the vacuum can't polarize beyond 1 fm, there is no displacement
current beyond 1 fm from an electron. Hence there's no displacement current
in light waves.

Nigel

If there is no displacement current in light waves where does the magnetic component of EMR come from?

Regards,
Arden

*********************************



Here's a failed idea:

1/alpha or 137.036... crops up a lot since it is one of the very few simple dimensionless ratios you can form from the constants of quantum mechanics and electromagnetism. I've explained how I derive it logically for the
purpose I've used it, a shielding factor for electric charge due to
polarization of the vacuum out to 1 fm range from an electron.

Regarding the fact the orbital speed of an electron in the ground state of hydrogen is c/137.036... = alpha*c,

See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hydr.html . The radius of the electron orbit for the ground state of hydrogen is: R = (h bar)/(alpha * mc) = 0.0529 nm, where {h bar} = h/(2*Pi). Notice that alpha (1/137) occurs in the denominator, along with c. So the inclusion of
velocity in the denominator is as c/137.037...

The radius of the electron orbit is determined by the centripetal force from the Coulomb interaction between the electron and the proton in hydrogen, the centripetal acceleration is: a = (v^2)/R where v is speed and R is radius of orbit. The force is therefore F = ma = m(v^2)/R.

Notice here that orbit radius is inversely proportional to force. Cut the Coulomb force down (by vacuum polarization), and the radius of the orbit increases by
that factor, if you ignore changes to speed v.

Going back to the Bohr formula R = (h bar)/(alpha * mc), we see that
velocity is inversely proportional to R.

Hence, the polarization of the vacuum around the electron reduces the electromagnetic force by a factor 137, which increases the orbit radius by a factor 137 because of the relationship between force and orbit radius in the formula F = ma = m(v^2)/R, which in turn means that the velocity falls by alpha due to the proportionality between radius and velocity (alpha*c) in the formula R = (h bar)/(alpha * mc).

The "logic" above is wrong because it ignores the change to v in F = m(v^2)/R due to the alpha shielding.

The Coulomb strength has been shielded by alpha to give the long range observed electron charge. If there wasn't polarized vacuum around it out to 1 fm, then it would have a charge 137e. This has really little to do with the question of why the speed of an
electron in the ground state is alpha*c.

But maybe there is an answer and the road forward somehow is in this question (which was proposed by Guy Grantham) of why the electron in the ground state . - NC

**********************************


From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current


"... you know you can not produce a magnetic field without moving charges."

Well you are simply wrong, because a moving electric field (not necessarily a moving "charge") produces a magnetic field, E / v = B. This is the standard Lorentz theory; it is the motion of the electric field which causes a magnetic field. The electric field lines are moving relative to the observer, and that gives a magnetic field. It isn't the moving mass of a charge that produces the magnetic field, but the moving electric field.

All you need to produce a magnetic field is an electric field moving past you and thus changing with time as you measure it:

curl.B = {Permeability}*{Permittivity}* dE/dt

There's no displacement current, just displacement of fields of space. ...

*********************************

From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:41 AM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current


Renormalization, based on cutoffs or limits to vacuum polarization, comes from the application of Dirac's equation, i.e., quantum field theory. Dirac explained that the vacuum is a sea of positrons and electrons. A gamma ray with the threshold energy to create or release a real electron and positron as a pair from the Dirac sea can do so if it has the energy of that pair. The rest mass energy equivalent of an electron or positron is 0.511 Mev so a pair has the energy of 1.022 Mev.

You can check this easily in the lab. Caesium-137 emits gamma rays with a mean energy 0.66 Mev and doesn't create any electron+positron pairs.

Cobalt-60 gamma rays have a mean energy of 1.25 Mev and do produce electron-positron pairs.

However, this process only occurs in a very strong nuclear field. You have to put a sheet of a high Z number element like lead near the radioactive source in a cloud chamber with a magnetic field and wait for a pair of particles curving in opposite directions outward from the lead surface.

The point is, pair production doesn't occur in the free vacuum. You can fire 10 MeV gamma rays through the vacuum, and you get no electrons and no positrons forming. So there is a limit to the Dirac sea. It only exists as such at high energy, ie very close to a charge.

See http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0510040 around page 70 onwards and http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0608140 .

Best wishes,
Nigel
http://quantumfieldtheory.org/


----- Original Message -----
From: Monitek@aol.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; bdj10@cam.ac.uk ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current


In a message dated 23/01/2007 18:22:10 GMT Standard Time, nigelbryancook@hotmail.com writes:
The polarization is the motion of electrons in the direction of the electric field vector, which is the electric field lines pointing (with conventional arrows) from positive to negative charges, and the motion of positrons the other way.

A medium is polarized by an introduced charge when similar charges in the medium are repelled by the introduced charge, and unlike charges to the introduced charge are attracted to it. This process by which the medium is polarized is called "displacement current", because the flow of charges in each direction constitutes a current.
This is a text book answer. I agree with it entirely. What puzzles me now is that you say there is a minimum energy below which the electrons and positrons do not polarize. Where does this come from?

Regards,
Arden

 
At 11:02 AM, Blogger nige said...

Copy of a comment:

http://asymptotia.com/2007/01/25/i-love-it-every-time/#comment-25632

15 - Nigel
Jan 26th, 2007 at 10:59 am


"... the problem is fixed by Maxwell’s realization of the existence of the displacement current term."

Maxwell's original papers on this from 1861 are online at http://vacuum-physics.com/Maxwell/maxwell_oplf.pdf

It's all about "theory of molecular vortices" and pressures in the aether; see page 38 (on your PDF reader) for Maxwell's graphical illustration of the "displacement current" mechanism. Page 49 on the PDF reader (labelled page 22 on the document) gives Maxwell's claim to have predicted the velocity of light; using the formula for transverse waves in an elastic solid he gets the right answer and immediately declares in his own italics:

"... we can scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena."

That 1861 quotation is quote common, but Maxwell rebuilt the mathematics of the theory in 1965 in a more abstract way and that averts some of the physically suspect theorizing (aetherial gear cogs and idler wheels in space) that the 1861 papers contains. Nowadays, the mathematics is all that is important.

It is curious that a lot of Maxwell's problems seem related to the Dirac sea issues of quantum field theory, for example if the vacuum is polarizable without any limits, it would be able to polarize around an charge just enough to completely cancel it's electric field completely.

This is clearly one reason for assuming lower limit electric field strength for polarization in quantum electrodynamics. What amazes me from studying lecture notes like http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0510040 is that there are no vacuum loop effects beyond 1 fm from a fermion. The field below the IR cutoff is qualitatively different and more classical in nature than the close-in field which is affected by loops of charges appearing and annihilating. This isn't made clear in popular accounts, which always seem to say that the vacuum is filled with pairs appearing and annihilating everywhere. Clearly the IR cutoff, requiring an intense field strength or frequency to create loops, prohibits any polarization of the vacuum and thus "displacement current" in radio or light waves, which don't contain strong enough fields to polarize the vacuum.

Instead, a time-varying electric field is a curling magnetic field (4th Maxwell equation) just as a moving electric field (relative to observer!) is a straight magnetic field; the Lorentz force law, which assumes E = v x B, is literally to be interpreted as saying that "an magnetic field is a moving electric field". (Maxwell's detailed mechanism by which the electric field polarizes vacuum charge inducing "displacement current", to create a magnetic field, is just complex and superfluous. You simply don't need moving charge to create a curling magnetic field, because a varying electric field will do the job directly.)

This is a reversion from Maxwell's aether to Faraday's 1846 paper Thoughts on Ray Vibrations which argued how that oscillations of electric and magnetic fields could constitute light.

 
At 1:53 AM, Blogger nige said...

(Apologies for the bad proof reading of previous copy of a comment.)

Copies of recent emails on topic (most recent first):

From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current

If the vacuum could be polarized without a lower limit, it would immediately cancel out all real charges completely by polarizing around them until their electric field was cancelled. It doesn't. That's your proof. Beyond 1 fm, the measured electric charge doesn't fall any more, and the field strength merely falls by divergence of field lines (inverse square law). Closer than 1 fm, the electric charge varies with distance due to the amount of polarized vacuum between observer and electron core.

The experimental proof is Koltick's measurement of the variation of electric charge with distance from an electron published in PRL 1997 and cited on my site. This firmly disproves any vacuum polarization at lesser fields than that at about 1 fm distance ( 0.5 MeV/particle scattering energy) from an electron, ie 10^20 v/m electric field.

----- Original Message -----
From: Monitek@aol.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current

In a message dated 29/01/2007 14:13:50 GMT Standard Time, nigelbryancook@hotmail.com writes:

Your argument that a displacement current is not required therefore it does not exist is non sequitur. Its like me saying I do not need a wheelchair therefore wheelchairs do not exist."

Wrong, I've explained that displacement current is a result of polarization and the vacuum can't be polarized below the IR cutoff, which means it can't be polarized by electric fields below 10^19 volts/metre or thereabouts (range of 1 fm). Hence no displacement current. Then I explained the mechanism which occurs in place of displacement current in a light wave. So I disproved displacement current, then showed what really occurs. You need to read more carefully. Thanks


Where does it say this? Where is the proof that the vacuum can not be polarized below 10^19 volts / metre. As far as I can see the IR cutoff is a mathematical method of ignoring the small effects of vacuum polarization in order to limit the number of calculations. It is an assigned value below which it is considered there will be little difference between calculated and experimental values. This is in no way precludes the polarisation at lesser voltages. So you have disproved displacment current. Roentgen wont be pleased he measured it! So you say he was mistaken?

Take a look at the electric fields of radio waves, etc. Electric fields do exist without nearby charges we can observe.
Best wishes,
Nigel


Now you have agreed by default that one can not produce an electric field without recourse to the use of charged particles, let us turn our attention to the magenetic field. You can not produce a magnetic field without a flow of charged particles. Again where does one find the charged particles in EMR to create the magnetic component?

Regards,
Arden
-------------------------------------

From: Nigel Cook
To: Monitek@aol.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current


"Your argument that a displacement current is not required therefore it does not exist is non sequitur. Its like me saying I do not need a wheelchair therefore wheelchairs do not exist."

Wrong, I've explained that displacement current is a result of polarization and the vacuum can't be polarized below the IR cutoff, which means it can't be polarized by electric fields below 10^19 volts/metre or thereabouts (range of 1 fm). Hence no displacement current. Then I explained the mechanism which occurs in place of displacement current in a light wave. So I disproved displacement current, then showed what really occurs. You need to read more carefully.

Thanks

Ref: http://nige.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/loop-quantum-gravity-representation-theory-and-particle-physics/
http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

----- Original Message -----
From: Monitek@aol.com
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com ; sirius184@hotmail.com ; geoffrey.landis@sff.net
Cc: forrestb@ix.netcom.com ; R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com ; ivorcatt@hotmail.com ; imontgomery@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; epola@tiscali.co.uk ; jvospost2@yahoo.com ; ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk ; chalmers_alan@hotmail.com ; pwhan@atlasmeasurement.com.au ; charles_g_boyle@hotmail.com ; jackw97224@yahoo.com ; andrewpost@gmail.com ; ernest@cooleys.net ; george.hockney@jpl.nasa.gov ; tom@tomspace.com
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 8:06 AM
Subject: Re: The Implications of Displacement Current

In a message dated 26/01/2007 14:57:46 GMT Standard Time, nigelbryancook@hotmail.com writes:

"The electric field only exists around a charged particle. If you measure an electric field then you have a charged particle close by. If I am so wrong can you show me how to produce an electric field without using charged particles?" -
Arden

Take a look at the electric fields of radio waves, etc. Electric fields do exist without nearby charges we can observe.

Best wishes,
Nigel


Nigel,

You have not read my question correctly, I asked you to PRODUCE an electric field without using charged particles. Last time I looked it up EMR is produced by accelerating charged particles so I am sorry EMR can not be used as an example of electric fields without using charged particles. Your argument that a displacement current is not required therefore it does not exist is non sequitur. Its like me saying I do not need a wheelchair therefore wheelchairs do not exist. Its the fact that EMR is initiated with charged particles which should give you a clue as to how it propagates.

My premise that an electric field is a phenomenon which occurs near charged particles still holds.

Regards,
Arden

 
At 12:20 PM, Blogger nige said...

Copy of a comment, 26 Feb 2007:

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/02/photons-behind-bars-breaking-loose.html

Hi Louise,

For decades Niels Bohr's Complementarity Principle was thought to prevent the wave and particle qualities of light from being measured simultaneously. Recently physicist Shahriar Afshar proved this wrong with a very simple experiment. As a reward, the physics community attacked everything from Afshar's religion to his ethnicity. Prevented from publishing a paper, even on arxiv, he "went public" to NEW SCIENTIST magazine.

Bohr's Complementary and Correspondence Principles are just religion, they're not based on evidence.

The experimental evidence is that Maxwell's empirical equations are valid apart from vacuum effects which appear close to electrons, where the electric field is above the pair-production threshold of about 10^18 v/m.

This is clear even in Dyson's Advanced Quantum Mechanics. There is a physical mechanism - pair production - which causes chaotic phenomena above the IR cutoff, that is within a radius of approx. 10^{-15} m from a unit electric charge like an electron.

Beyond that range, the field is far simpler (better described by classical physics), because the field doesn't have enough energy to create loops of particles from the Dirac sea.

What Bohr tries to do is to freeze the understanding of quantum theory at the 1927 Solvay Congress level, which is unethical.

Bohr went wrong with his classical theory of the atom in 1917 or so.

Rutherford wrote to Bohr asking a question like "how do the electrons know when to stop when they reach the ground state (i.e., who don't they carry on spiralling into the nucleus, radiating more and more energy as Maxwell's light model suggests)?"

Bohr should have had the sense to investigate whether radiation continues. We know from Yang-Mills theory and the Feynman diagrams that electric force results from virtual (gauge boson) photon exchanges between charges!!!!

What is occurring is that Bohr ignored the multibody effects of radiation whereby every atom and spinning charge is radiating! All charges are radiating, or else they wouldn't have electric charge! (Yang-Mills theory.)

Let the normal rate of exchange of energy (emission and reception per electron) be X watts. When an electron in an excited state radiates a real photon, it is radiating at a rate exceeding X.

As it radiates, it loses energy and falls to the ground state where it reaches equilibrium, with emission and reception of gauge boson radiant power equal to X.

I did a rough calculation of the transition time at http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/11/01/after-reading-a-childs-guide-to-modern-physics/#comment-131020

Once you know that the Yang-Mills theory suggests electric and other forces are due to exchange of radiation, you know why there is a ground state (i.e., why the electron doesn’t go converting its kinetic energy into radiation, and spiral into the hydrogen nucleus).

The ground state energy level is the Yang-Mills corresponds to the equilibrium power the electron has radiate which balances the reception of Yang-Mills radiation with the emission of energy.

The way Bohr should have analysed this was to first calculate the radiative power of an electron in the ground state using its acceleration, which is a = (v^2)/x. Here x = 5.29*10^{-11} m (see http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hydr.html ) and the value of v is only c.alpha = c/137.

Thus the appropriate (non-relativistic) radiation formula to use is: power P = (e^2)(a^2)/(6*Pi*Permittivity*c^3), where e is electron charge. The ground state hydrogen electron has an astronomical centripetal acceleration of a = 9.06*10^{22} m/s^2 and a radiative power of P = 4.68*10^{-8} Watts.

That is the precise amount of background Yang-Mills power being received by electrons in order for the ground state of hydrogen to exist. The historic analogy for this concept is Prevost’s 1792 idea that constant temperature doesn’t correspond to no radiation of heat, but instead corresponds to a steady equilibrium (as much power radiated per second as received per second). This replaced the old Bohr-like Phlogiston and Caloric philosophies with two separate real, physical mechanisms for heat: radiation exchange and kinetic theory. (Of course, the Yang-Mills radiation determines charge and force-fields, not temperature, and the exchange bosons are not to be confused with photons of thermal radiation.)

Although P = 4.68*10^{-8} Watts sounds small, remember that it is the power of just a single electron in orbit in the ground state, and when the electron undergoes a transition, the photon carries very little energy, so the equilibrium quickly establishes itself: the real photon of heat or light (a discontinuity or oscillation in the normally uniform Yang-Mills exchange progess) is emitted in a very small time!

Take a photon of red light, which has a frequency of 4.5*10^{14} Hz. By Planck’s law, E = hf = 3.0*10^{-19} Joules. Hence the time taken for an electron with a ground state power of P = 4.68*10^{-8} to emit a photon of red light in falling back to the ground state from a suitably excited state will be only on the order of E/P = (3.0*10^{-19})/(4.68*10^{-8}) = 3.4*10^{-12} second.

This agrees with the known facts. So the quantum theory of light is compatible with classical Maxwellian theory!

Now we come to the nature of a light photon and the effects of spatial transverse extent: path integrals.

‘Light ... "smells" the neighboring paths around it, and uses a small core of nearby space. (In the same way, a mirror has to have enough size to reflect normally: if the mirror is too small for the core of nearby paths, the light scatters in many directions, no matter where you put the mirror.)’

- Feynman, QED, Penguin, 1990, page 54.

That's the double-slit experiment, etc. The explanation behind it is a flaw in Maxwell's electromagnetic wave illustration:

http://www.edumedia-sciences.com/a185_l2-transverse-electromagnetic-wave.html

The problem with the illustration is that the photon goes forward with the electric (E) and magnetic (B) fields orthagonal to both the direction of propagation and to each other, but with the two phases of electric field (positive and negative) behind one another.

That way can't work, because the magnetic field curls don't cancel one another's infinite self inductance.

First of all, the illustration is a plot of E, B versus propagation dimension, say the X dimension. So it is one dimensional (E and B depict field strengths, not distances in Z and Y dimensions!).

The problem is that for the photon to propagate, the two different curls of the magnetic field (one way in the positive electric field half cycle, the other way in the negative electric field half cycle) must partly cancel one another to prevent the photon having infinite self inductance: this is similar to the problem of sending a propagating pulse of electric energy into a single wire.

It doesn't work: the wire radiates, the pulse dies out quickly. (This is only useful for antennas.)

To send a propagating pulse of energy, a logic step, in an electrical system, you need two conductors forming a transmission line. In a Maxwellian photon, there can be no cancellation of infinite inductance from each opposing magnetic curl, because each is behind or in front of the other. Because fields only travel at the speed of light, and the whole photon is moving ahead with that speed, there can be no influence of each half cycle of a light photon upon the other half cycle.

I've illustrated this here:

photon

If you look at Maxwell's equations, they describe hoe cyclically a varying electric field induces a "displacement current" in the vacuum which in tren creates a magnetic field curling around the current, and so on. They don't explain the dynamics of the photon or light wave in detail.

One thing that's interesting about it is this: electromagnetic fields are composed of exchange radiation according to Yang-Mills quantum field theory.

The photon is composed of electromagnetic fields according to Maxwell's theory.

Hence, the photon is composed of electromagnetic fields which in turn are composed of gauge bosons exchange radiation. The photon is a disturbance in the existing field of exchange radiation between the charges in the universe. The apparently cancelled electromagnetic field you get when you pass two logic steps with opposite potentials through each other in a transmission line, is not true cancellation since although you get zero electric field (and zero electrical resistance, as Dr David S. Walton showed!) while those pulses overlap, their individual electric fields re-emerge when they have passed through one another.

So if you are some distance from an atom, the "neutral" electric field is not the absence of any field, but the superposition of two fields. (The background "cancelled" electromagnetic field is probably the cause of gravitation, as Lunsford's unification suggests; I've done a calculation of this here (top post).)

Aspect's "entanglement" seems to be due to wavefunction collapse error in quantum mechanics, as Dr Thomas S. Love has showed: the when you take a measurement on a steady state system like an atom, you need to switch over the mathematical model you are using from the time-independent to the time-dependent Schroedinger equations, because your measurement causes a perturbation to the state of the system (e.g., your probing electron upsets the state of the atom, causing a time-dependent effect). This switch over in equations causes "wavefunction collapse", it is not a real physical phenomenon travelling instantly! This is the perfect example of confusing a mathematical model with reality.

Aspects experimental results show that the polarizations of the same-source photons do correlate. All this means is that the measurement paradox doesn't apply to photons. A photon is moving at light speed, so it doesn't have any internal time whatsoever (unlike electrons!). Something which is frozen in time like a photon, can't change state. To change the nature of the photon it has to be absorbed and re-emitted, as in the case of Compton scattering.

Electrons can have their state changed by being measured, since they aren't going at light speed. Time only halts for things going at speed c.

So Heisenberg's uncertainty principle should strictly apply to measuring electron spins as Einstein, Polansky, and Rosen suggested in the Physical Review in 1935, but it shouldn't apply to photons. It's the lack of physical dynamics in modern physics which creates such confusion. The mathematician who lacks physical mechanisms is in fairyland, and drags down too many experimental physicists and others who believe the metaphysical (non-mechanistic) interpretations of the theory. That's why string theory and other unconnected-to-any-experimental-fact drivel flourishes.

 
At 12:35 PM, Blogger nige said...

The link to the "photon" illustration above should be http://thumbsnap.com/v/CW93pyt3.jpg

26 Feb. 2007.

 
At 12:39 AM, Blogger nige said...

[Although you might naively expect the classical Maxwellian radiation emission rate to be greatest in the ground state, you need also take account of the effect of electron spin changes on the radiation emission rate in the full analysis; see 'An Electronic Universe, Part 2', Electronics World, April 2003. I will try to put a detailed paper about this effect on the internet soon.]

27 Feb. 2007

 
At 5:20 AM, Blogger nige said...

Correct fact 1: Catt's argument from the steady charged capacitor, that
energy goes into the capacitor at velocity c, has no mechanism to slow down,
and exits at velocity c when discharged. Hence, there is every scientific
reason to draw the conclusion that the electromagnetic field energy (while
trapped on and between capacitor plates) is always going at velocity c.
Catt explains satisfactorily that the magnetic field curl from each
contrapuntal (opposite travelling) half of the energy in the capacitor at
any given time exactly cancels out the magnetic field curl from the other
half of the energy, which is going the other way. Hence, he has
experimental evidence that electromagnetic energy in a trapped capacitor is
present as an electromagnetic field, the magnetic portion of which is
invisible to an observer because the two opposing magnetic curls cancel (by
analogy, two equal and opposite waves pass and their amplitudes exactly
cancel, although the energy is still there and needs to be accounted for).

Correct fact 2: vacuum charge polarization by electric fields below 10^18
v/m is impossible. If it were possible, we wouldn't exist because no atoms
would exist. All electron charges would have their electric fields opposed
and cancelled by the vacuum polarizing without a distance limit. The only
limit to the amount of polarization would be that the vacuum would
increasingly polarize around each and every electric charge in the universe,
until each of those charges had been cancelled out. We observe electric
charges, and this disproves that idea that there is any polarizable charge,
and thus any displacement current (which is the motion of virtual charges
during polarization by an electric field), beyond 1 fm distance from an
electron or quark. Since almost all (1 - 1/137.036...) of the normal charge
of the electron is cancelled out by the polarized vacuum out to 1 fm
distance (where the electric field is above 10^18 v/m and pair production
polarization occurs), it is evident that there is no pair production - no
charges polarizable by an electric field - where the electric field is below
10^18 v/m. This is proved by experimental observations on the electron
charge at different distances from an electron. Beyond 1 fm, the electron
charge is fixed. Within 1 fm, it increases gradually as you get closer to
the middle because the vacuum polarization is shielding the core.
Similarly, today the sky is cloudy. But if you get in an aircraft and move
up through the shielding cloud, the light would be brighter.

Correct fact 3: as a result of correct fact 2 above, there is no
displacement current of polarizing charges in an electric field is the
electric field is below 10^18 v/m. Hence, we have a definite conflict
between Maxwell's theory of aether (with disagrees with the blackbody
radiation spectrum and other quantum phenomena) and modern quantum field
theory which is supported by all experiments to date. The resolution of the
question of what physical effect produces the phenomenon which Maxwell
attributed falsely to polarization displacement current in a vacuum when a
light wave passes, is here:
http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html
. Basically, the Maxwell aetherial light wave is total rubbish, and
everything is really caused by complex exchange radiation effects which are
consistent with Feynman's path integrals.

However, while I understand the mechanism for electric fields (I'm writing a
new paper on them, which will be a considerable clarification and step
forward in understanding the details), gravity and mass in detail and make
full predictions, I want to know the detailed mechanism behind magnetic
fields. Mathematically, it is not a problem since the mathematical
relationships are known and easily deduced. What I want to know physically
is whether magnetic fields are purely an effect of photons which in effect
propagate independently of any background Dirac sea, or whether magnets work
by magnetic polarization of magnetic dipoles in the vacuum Dirac sea.

Although it is not possible for the distance between Dirac sea charges to be
changed by electric fields below 10^18 v/m, and hence no electric
polarization/displacement current of the vacuum is possible in weak electric
fields, it could well still be possible for magnetic polarization to occur,
since magnetic polarization is simply an alignment of the directions of the
individual dipole moments of vacuum charges. Hence magnetic polarization
does not produce any change in the average distance between Dirac sea
particles, it merely aligns their spin axes.

The reason why I' interested in this is that it may help to clarify the
nature of vacuum beyond 1 fm from electric charges. It does make me upset
that you lack any interest in the solid experimental facts we actually have,
and suggest instead complex and speculative ideas which don't explain,
predict or help science in any way. By the way, I've improved the brief
abstract on my old blog to read:

Standard Model particle mass, gauge boson forces and General Relativity
mechanism
The Standard Model is the most tested theory: forces result from radiation
exchanges. Masses recede at Hubble speed v = Hr = Hct in spacetime, so
there's outward force F = m.dv/dt ~ 10^43 N. Newton's 3rd law implies an
inward reaction, carried by exchange radiation, predicting forces,
curvature, cosmology and particle masses. Non-receding masses obviously
don't cause a reaction force, so they cause asymmetry => gravity.

- http://electrogravity.blogspot.com

 
At 5:23 AM, Blogger nige said...

Copy of latest post to
https://nige.wordpress.com/

March 1, 2007
Simple, accurate and checkable dynamics for Yang-Mills Quantum Gravity
Filed under: About — nige @ 11:37 am
Copy of comment to Louise Riofrio’s blog: Hi Louise,

I agree there is evidence for dark (unidentified) matter, but the claimed precise estimates for the quantity are all highly speculative. Regards galactic rotation curves, Cooperstock and Tieu have explained galactic rotation ‘evidence’ for dark matter as not being due to dark matter, but a GR effect which was not taken into account by the people who originally applied Newtonian dynamics to analyse galactic rotation:

‘One might be inclined to question how this large departure from the Newtonian picture regarding galactic rotation curves could have arisen since the planetary motion problem is also a gravitationally bound system and the deviations there using general relativity are so small. The reason is that the two problems are very different: in the planetary problem, the source of gravity is the sun and the planets are treated as test particles in this field (apart from contributing minor perturbations when necessary). They respond to the field of the sun but they do not contribute to the field. By contrast, in the galaxy problem, the source of the field is the combined rotating mass of all of the freely-gravitating elements themselves that compose the galaxy.’

- http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0507619, pp. 17-18.

If that is true, and I’m aware of another analysis of the galactic rotation curves which similarly explains them as a calculational issue without large quantities of dark matter, then that’s the major source of quantitative observational data on dark matter gone.

Another quantitative argument is the one you have, where you calculate the critical density of the universe using the Friedmann-Walker-Robertson solutions to GR by fitting a solution to cosmology evidence like the Hubble constant and alleged CC, and then compare that critical density to the observed density of visible masses in the universe.

The problem with that is the assumption that Einstein’s field equation with fixed constants is a complete description of the effect of gravitation on the big bang.

I’ve evidence that it isn’t a complete description. It is not compatible with all the other better understood forces of the universe, because if gravity can be unified with the other Yang-Mills quantum field theories, the exchange radiation should suffer redshift (energy loss) due to the relativistic recession of masses in the expanding universe.

In addition, it’s clear that the only way to make an empirical prediction of the strength of gravity, for instance the gravity constant G, is for gravity to be interdependent (i.e., partly a result of) the big bang.

Yang-Mills exchange radiation will travel between all masses in the universe.

If a mass is receding from you in spacetime and behaving the Hubble recession v = Hr, then in your frame of reference, the mass is accelerating into the past (further from you).

If you could define a universal time by assuming you could see everything in the universe without delays due to the travel time of light, then this might be wrong.

However, in the spacetime which we observe whereby a greater distance means an earlier time, there is an apparent acceleration.

Suppose you see a galaxy cluster of mass M is receding at velocity v at an apparent distance r away from you.

After the small time increment T seconds have passed, the distance will have increased to:

R = r + vT

= r + (Hr)T

= r(1 + HT).

If the Hubble law is to hold, the apparent velocity at the new distance will be:

V = HR = Hr(1 + HT).

Hence the small increment

dv ~ V - v = {Hr(1 + HT)} - {Hr}

= (H^2)rT.

The travel time of the light from the galaxy cluster to your eye will also increase from t = r/c to:

(t + T) = R/c

= {r(1 + HT)}/c

= (r/c) + (rHT/c).

Hence the small increment

dt ~ T.

Now the observable (spacetime) acceleration of the receding galaxy cluster, will be:

a = dv/dt

= {(H^2)rT}/T

= (H^2)r.

This result is the outward acceleration of the universe responsible for the Hubble expansion at any distance r (it is not the alleged acceleration which is claimed to be required to explain the lack of gravitational slowing down of matter receding at extreme redshifts).

Calculating the total outward force, F = ma, where a is acceleration outward and m is matter receding outward, for the normal big bang is then fairly easy. Two problems are encountered but easily solved.

First, the density of the universe is bigger in the earlier spacetimes we see at the greatest distances. This would cause a problem because material density for constant mass should fall by the inverse cube of time as the universe expands. Hence, seeing ever earlier times means that density should rise toward infinity at the greatest distances.

But this problem is solved by the solution to the second problem, which is the problem that an outward force will, by Newton’s 3rd empirically confirmed law, be accompanied by an inward reaction force.

The only thing we know of which can be causing an inward force is the gravitational field, specifically the gravity causing exchange radiation. This solves the entire problem!

By Newton’s 3rd law, any mass which is accelerating away from you in spacetime will send gravity causing exchange radiation towards you, giving a net force on you unless this is spherically symmetric.

However, if the receding mass is receding too fast (relativistically), then the gauge boson radiation sent towards you is redshifted to a large degree, which means that matter receding at near the velocity of light doesn’t exert much force on you: this is another way of saying that the Hubble acceleration effect breaks down when the recession velocity v approaches c, because once something is observably receding from you at near a constant velocity (c) it is no longer accelerating much!

Hence, even if the density of the universe approaches infinity at the earliest times, this doesn’t make the effective outward force infinite, because the acceleration term in F = ma is cut. The first problem was that the masses, m, at extreme distances (early times) become large, making F go towards infinity. The solution to the second problem shows that although m tends to become large, the effective value of a falls at the greatest distances because the spacetime recession speed effectively becomes a constant c, so a = dc/dt = 0. Hence the product in F = ma can’t become infinite for great distances in spacetime.

There is a straightforward mathematical way to calculate the overall net effect of these phenomena, by offsetting the density increase with redshift from the stretching of the universe.

Now we have the outward force of the big bang recession and the inward reaction force calculated, we can then see how exchange radiation works to cause gravity.

The exact nature of the gauge boson exchange radiation processes are supposed to be gravitons interacting with a mass-giving field of Higgs bosons, and there are physical constraints on what is possible. If you can assume each mass to be like a mirror and the gauge bosons to be like light, a pressure of is exerted each time the gauge bosons are reflected between masses (exchanged). (A light photon has a momentum of p = E/c if it is absorbed, or p = 2E/c if it is reflected.)

Because the universe is spherically symmetric around us, the overall inward pressure from each direction cancels, merely producing spacetime curvature (the gravitational contraction of spacetime radially by the amount (1/3)GM/c^2 = 1.5 mm for planet earth), a squashing effect on radial but not transverse directions (this property of general relativity is completely consistent with a gravity causing Yang-Mills exchange radiation).

What is interesting next is to consider the case of a nearby mass, like the planet earth.

Because all masses in a Yang-Mills quantum gravity will be exchanging gravity causing radiation, you will be exchanging such radiation with planet earth.

However, as already explained, for there to be a net force towards you due to exchange radiation from a particular mass, that mass must be accelerating away from you (the net force of radiation towards you is due to Newton’s 3rd law, the rocket effect of action and reaction).

So because the earth isn’t significantly accelerating away from you, the net force from the gauge boson radiation you exchange with the masses in the earth (which have small cross-sectional areas) is zero.

So the fundamental particles in the earth shield you, over their small cross-sectional areas, from gauge boson radiation that you would otherwise be exchanging with distant stars (the LeSage shadowing effect).

Gravity results because the tiny amount of shielding due to fundamental particles in the earth, reduces causes an asymmetry in gravity causing gauge boson radiation hitting you, and this asymmetry is gravity.

Besides predicting correctly mechanism for curvature of spacetime due to local gravitational fields in general relativity (the radial contraction can be calculated), this also predicts the correct form of gravity for low velocities and weak fields (Newton’s law), which produces a relationship between the density we observe for the universe and the parameters G and H, which is different from the Friedmann-Walker-Robertson metric.

The dynamics of gravity differ from the Friedmann-Walker-Robertson solution to GR due to physical dynamics ignored by GR, namely gravity being (1) a result of the recession (or rather, interdependent on the recession, since the exchange of force causing gauge boson radiation between all masses sheds light on the mechanism for the Hubble law continuing after the real radiation pressure in the universe became trivial), and (2) due to exchange radiation which gets severely redshifted to lower energies in cases where the masses which are exchanging the radiation are receding at relativistic speeds.

You can completely correct GR by setting lambda = 0 and using a calculated value for G which is based on the mechanism. Hence, Einstein’s GR is fine as long as you make the gravitational parameter G a vector which depends on various physical dynamics as described in outline above. The details maths for what is above is at http://quantumfieldtheory.org/Proof.htm.

There is some dark matter (no where near as much as the lambda-CDM model suggests) but no cosmological constant or dark energy. The result I get suggests that the Friedmann critical density is higher than the correct formula for the density (from the dynamics above) by the factor (e^3)/2 ~ 10, where e = base of natural logs. This comes from a calculation, obviously, at http://quantumfieldtheory.org/Proof.htm. (When I discussed this result about a year ago on Motl’s blog, I think Rivero suggested that it was just numerology. This is the problem where you have a detailed mathematical proof. Where you give it, nobody reads it or will publish it. When you give the results from it, people just assume it has no proof behind it. Whatever you do, there is no interest because the whole approach is too different from orthodoxy, and orthodoxy is respected to the exclusion of science.)

On my old blog, I have an abstract of the theory very briefly at the top:

“The Standard Model is the best-tested physical theory. Forces result from radiation exchange in spacetime. Mass recedes at 0-c in spacetime of 0-15 billion years, so outward force F = m.dv/dt ~ m(c - 0)/(age of universe, t) ~ mcH ~ 10^43 N (H is Hubble parameter). Newton’s 3rd law implies equal inward force, carried by exchange radiation, predicting cosmology, accurate general relativity, SM forces and particle masses.”

I think the message isn’t getting home because people are unwilling to think about velocity of recession being a function of time rather than space! Hence, ever since Hubble discovered it, the recession has been mathematically represented the wrong way (as a recession velocity increasing with distance, instead of as an acceleration). This contravenes spacetime. A nice description of the lack of this in popular culture is given by Professor Carlo Rovelli’s “Quantum Gravity” book, http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/book.pdf :

‘The success of special relativity was rapid, and the theory is today widely empirically supported and universally accepted. Still, I do not think that special relativity has really been fully absorbed yet: the large majority of the cultivated people, as well as a surprising high number of theoretical physicists still believe, deep in the heart, that there is something happening “right now” on Andromeda; that there is a single universal time ticking away the life of the Universe.’ (P. 7 of draft.)

Best wishes,
Nigel

I’ve now rewritten my brief abstract at the top of my old blog:

The Standard Model is the most tested theory: forces result from radiation exchanges. Masses recede at Hubble speed v = Hr = Hct in spacetime, so there’s outward force F = m.dv/dt ~ 10^43 N. Newton’s 3rd law implies an inward reaction, carried by exchange radiation, predicting forces, curvature, cosmology and particle masses. Non-receding masses obviously don’t cause a reaction force, so they cause asymmetry => gravity.

Update: Copy of a comment to Clifford V. Johnson’s blog:

‘… at one level they are right, what I can infer is either that there is unseen matter (dark matter) or that the laws of gravity must be modified to explain the data. But my listeners seldom accept that I cannot just introduce a modification of gravity for the distant galaxies and leave the laws of gravity the same for predicting satellite motion. They have no sense that the universality and immutability of the fundamental laws is the basic postulate of all science. No matter how many tests have shown us that the laws of physics do not change with time and place in the local region around Earth, how can I assert that I know these laws apply elsewhere in the universe? Again, I must argue from a chain of inference, from self-consistency, and, if you like, from Occam’s razor—it is superfluous to introduce new laws to explain distant observations when existing laws can be used.’ - Helen Quinn.

It’s an existing law that if two bodies are exchanging radiation while moving apart at high speed, the radiation each receives is of much lower energy that emitted. The redshift does this. Yang Mills theory is the exchange of massless radiation, so you’d expect it to be shifted to lower frequencies by redshift, so the energy per quanta received, E = hf, will be reduced.

This isn’t the whole story behind how you need to ‘modify’ cosmic scale gravity to include quantum effects. But is is an important problem, and leads to predictions and tests. You need to modify the universal gravitational constant so it gets smaller when two bodies are receding from one another, otherwise you are ignoring the redshift of gauge boson radiation. That will violate conservation of energy, because if the frequency shifts then by Planck’s law, so does the energy of the quanta received. If there is less energy per gauge boson, the gravity charge/coupling constant will fall. This is nothing to do with the inverse square law, obviously. It is a dependence on G on the recession of masses. There are other, more complex, possibilities for a dynamic understanding of quantum gravity in the universe, but the claim that existing laws don’t predict a modification to GR when dealing with receding gravitational charges (masses) is wrong. You can only say that if you specifically exclude quantum gravity phenomena such as redshift of gauge bosons exchanged between receding masses, and other complex but well established phenomena (spacetime for example, where varying velocity with distance is also varying velocity with time past, giving acceleration, outward force of receding mass, and inward reaction force carried by gauge boson radiation…).

Another update: Professor Johnson has kindly added a link here from Asymptotia. I have a further comment about Popper and physics, but to avoid cluttering Asymptotia further, I’ll add it here:

Popper was criticised by Lakatos for insisting on falsifiability, which is basically the same as insisting on speculative theories. Theories which have been so well confirmed that they are no longer falsifiable might not seem to be a problem. It is possible to take one set of facts and use that set to predict/postdict other things. If the other things are all already known empirically, then Popper’s naive criterion would exclude the theory from science.

So Popper’s criterion in the end is absurd because it says that if a theory is constructed after experimental data are all in, it is not a scientific theory, but if by chance some of the data come in only after the theory is constructed, then the theory is confirmed and is scientific.

This is absurd because it makes the definition of a scientific theory a matter of chance in the chronology. If the positron had by chance been discovered by Anderson a few months earlier, when Dirac was still claiming that the antielectron was somehow the proton (a massive difficulty that he gave up on just in time), then it would have been an ad hoc theory by Popper’s argument of what science is. Popper based his reasoning on the empirical defenses used to support relativity and quantum theory. If experimental evidence hadn’t come along, these theories would still have been defended on scientific grounds because of the incompleteness of physics without some bridging theory. Dirac’s equation bridges special relativity and the quantum mechanics.

I don’t really see how Dirac’s equation or the Einstein-Hilbert can be falsified; they might be incomplete, but they are based on pretty secure physical foundations. If a prediction from a model based on secure foundations is experimentally disproved, this is always interpreted as implying the existence of extra physics, not the need to throw away everything already known.

Comment on http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/03/enceladus-and-rings.html:

Those rings are amazing. They really symbolise classical physics for me.

A massive planet with orbital dust lined up in a flat plane.

Obviously the way the dust gets injected in the first place determines this in part, but the small mass of each grain of dust in comparison to the massive planet helps keep the system stable.

My understanding is that if you have any orbital system with masses in orbit around mass which all have fairly similar (i.e., no more than an order of magnitude difference) masses to each other and to the central mass, then classical orbitals disappear and you have chaos. Hence you might describe the probability of finding a given planet at some distance by some kind of Schroedinger equation.

I think this is a major problem with classical physics; it works only because the planets are all far, far, far smaller than the mass of the sun.

In an atom, the electric charge is the equivalent to gravitational mass, so the atom is entirely different to the simplicity of the solar system because the fairly similar charges on electrons and nuclei mean that it is going to be chaotic if you have more than one electron in orbit.

There are other issues as well with classical physics which are clearly just down to a lack of physics. For example, the randomly occurring loops of virtual charges in the strong field around an electron will, when the electron is seen on na small scale, cause the path of the electron to be erratic, by analogy to drunkard’s walk Brownian motion the motion of pollen grain which is being affect by random influences of air molecules.

I think therefore that:

quantum mechanics = classical physics + mechanisms for chaos.

Another mechanism for chaos is Yang-Mills exchange radiation. Within 1 fm of an electron, the Yang-Mills radiation-caused electric field is so strong that the gauge boson’s of electromagnetism, photons, get to produce short lived spacetime loops of virtual charges in the vacuum, which quickly annihilate back into gauge bosons.

But at greater distances, they lack the energy to polarize the vacuum, so the majority of the vacuum (i.e., the vacuum beyond about 1 fm distance from any real fundamental particle) is just a classical-type continuum of exchange radiation which does not involve any chaotic loops at all.

This is partly why general relativity works so well on large scales (quite apart from the fact that planets have small masses compared to the sun): there really is an Einstein-type classical field, a continuum, outside the IR cutoff of QFT.

Of course, on small scales, this exchange of gauge boson radiation causes the weird interactions you get in the double-slit experiment, the path-integrals effect, where a particle seems to be affected by every possible route it could take.

‘Light … “smells” the neighboring paths around it, and uses a small core of nearby space. (In the same way, a mirror has to have enough size to reflect normally: if the mirror is too small for the core of nearby paths, the light scatters in many directions, no matter where you put the mirror.)’

- Feynman, QED, Penguin, 1990, page 54.

I really do believe that everything above is well validated experimental fact. It’s not controversial. People just choose to research string theory and extra dimensional unification schemes because they think it is more exciting.

They are right in the sense that they can more easily generate a lot of mathematical papers by taking string theory, setting N = 10 or N = 11 dimensions, and writing about the resulting landscape.

Looks mathematically impressive, but is it really anything new mathematically? Is it really physics?

The problem is harder to confront the real evidence and explain it mathematically. For example, building a classical + chaos mechanisms replacement for quantum mechanics is quite an undertaking, particularly as the subject is so heretical nobody is likely to read the resulting paper or publish it.

Comments (0)

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4 March 2007

 
At 5:15 AM, Blogger nige said...

copy of a fast comment:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/03/sheldon-glashow-vs-isaac-newton.html

"Newton has discovered all kinds of things, for example the formula for the velocity of sound, "v=sqrt(pressure/density)", although his original argument was not the most direct and the most comprehensible one (that's often the case in science that simplified arguments without useless components are only constructed later). But he invented ad hoc arguments to create the impression that his theory behind the formula agreed with reality much more accurately than it actually did." - Lubos Motl

The speed of sound includes gamma = 1.4:

v=sqrt(1.4*pressure/density)

Newton's error was getting v=sqrt(pressure/density) dimensionally right, but missing out the dimensionless factor of 1.4.

He then selected experimental data which agreed with his incorrect equation (ignoring a lot of data which was more accurate and disagreed with it), and claimed it was experimentally verified.

Laplace finally explained that Newton is wrong physically because sound isn't constant temperature (isothermal). Instead, sound is adiabatic: the pressure change within the sound wave heats up the air, increasing the speed of sound by the factor 1.4^0.5 or 18%.

Maxwell's original (1861) theory of light (superseded by his 1865 paper) is in fact it's basically the same as Newton's theory of sound.

Weber in 1856 had discovered empirically that

c=sqrt[1/(permeability.permittivity)]

Maxwell then came up with an aether in which permeability and permittivity are proportional to the density and the reciprocal of the pressure of the aether, so Newton's

v=sqrt(pressure/density) = [1/(permeability.permittivity)] = c

The problem here is that c=sqrt(pressure/density) is equivalent to

c=sqrt(energy/mass)

which is the same as E=mc^2.

Maxwell thought there was an error since he believed that E = (1/2)mc^2.

Actually, it depends on whether the aether particles have rest mass or not. Maxwell spent the next four years working out a new theory which didn't require E=mc^2. This is the one with his "displacement current" term added to Ampere's law. Combining displacement current with Faraday's law allowed him to get the right speed of light from electromagnetic field variations acting in a cycle, without E=mc^2.

04.01.07 - 8:17 am | #

 
At 5:42 AM, Blogger nige said...

Copy of an email to Ivor Catt on consensus in science:

From: Nigel Cook
To: ivorcatt@hotmail.com
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 1:37 PM
Subject: Consensus is aim of science by Professor Ziman Wireless World editorial July 1981


"A clue to the attitude which could have led to these two extracts is given in the assertion by Professor Ziman on television, quoted in the July 1981 editorial, "the aim of science is to achieve consensus." His assertion that science is monolithic is supported by the fact that the medieval method of achieving consensus, or suppressing heresy, in religion, using anonymous censors, has been copied in today's science." - Ivor, Conquest of Truth, Electronics and Wireless World jan88 pp48,54, http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/Conquest%20of%20Truth.htm

Actually, http://www.med.yale.edu/therarad/summers/ziman.htm

PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE
An essay concerning the social dimension of science
J. M. ZIMAN, F.R.S. Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Bristol
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968.

In this book a practising scientist and gifted expositor sets forth a new point of view on the nature of science and how it works. Professor Ziman argues that the true goal of all scientific research is to contribute to the consensus of universally accepted knowledge. ...

Chapter 1: WHAT IS SCIENCE?
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind: ROM xiv- 5

...

The answer proposed in this essay is suggested by its title: Science is Public Knowledge. This is, of course, a very cryptic definition, with almost the suggestion of a play upon words. (There is also, unfortunately, the hint of an antithesis to Personal Knowledge, the title of Polanyi's book to which I have already referred. No antagonism is meant. Polanyi goes a long way along the path I follow, and is one of the few writers on Science who have seen the social relations between scientists as a key factor in its nature.) What I mean is something along the following lines. Science is not merely published knowledge or information. Anyone may make an observation, or conceive a hypothesis, and, if he has the financial means, get it printed and distributed for other persons to read. Scientific knowledge is more than this. Its facts and theories, must survive a period of critical study and testing by other competent and disinterested individuals, and must have been found so peirsuasive that they'are almost universally accepted. The objective of Science is not just to acquire information nor to utter all non-contradictory notions; its goal is a consensus of rational opinion over the widest possible field.

In a sense, this is so obvious and well-known that it scarcely needs, saying. Most educated and informed people agree that Science is true, and therefore impossible to gainsay. But I assert my definition much more positively; this is the basic principle upon which Science is founded. It is not a subsidiary consequence of the "Scientific Method"; it is the scientific method itself.

The defect of the conventional philosophical approach to Science is that it considers only two terms in the equation. The scientist is seen as an individual, pursuing a somewhat one-sided dialogue with taciturn Nature. He observes phenomena, notices regularities, arrives at generalizations, deduces consequences, etc., and eventually, Hey Presto! a Law of Nature springs into being. But it is not like that at all. The scientific enterprise is corporate. It is not merely, in Newton's incomparable phrase, that one stands on the shoulders of giants, and hence can see a little farther. Every scientist sees through his own eyes - and also through the eyes of his predecessors and colleagues. It is never one individual that goes through all the steps in the logico-inductive chain; it is a group of individuals, dividing their labour but continuously and jealously checking each other's contributions. The cliche of scientific prose betrays itself "Hence we arrive at the, conclusion that..." 'The audience to which scientific publications are addressed is not passive; by its cheering or booing, its bouquets or brickbats, it actively controls the substance of the communications that it receives.

In other words, scientific research is a social activity. Technology, Art and Religion are perhaps possible for Robinson Crusoe, but Law and Science are not. ...


**********

Notes by nc: your thesis that Ziman is arguing for consensus in the suppressive sense is ill-founded. He is saying that consensus is POSSIBLE for science because unlike art, religion, technology, politics, etc., science is unique in being based on facts that can be proved right or wrong. In this sense it is the only subject where consensus is both possible, and perhaps, the only subject where it is desirable. Your efforts to muddy the water and claim that consensus on facts ... is not or should not be the primary objective of science, is wrong.

 
At 6:59 AM, Blogger nige said...

copy of a comment:

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/04/thomas-gold-was-right-and-wrong.html

anonymous,

See http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0034-4885/66/11/R04, a publication in Rep. Prog. Phys. 66 2025-2068 states:

"We review recent work on the possibility of a varying speed of light (VSL). We start by discussing the physical meaning of a varying-c, dispelling the myth that the constancy of c is a matter of logical consistency. ..."

The fixed velocity of light was only accepted in 1961, and it is fixed by consensus not by science.

Similar consensus fixes are Benjamin Franklin's guess that there is an excess of free electric charges at the anode of a battery which he labelled positive for surplus, just based on guesswork.

Hence, now we all have to learn that in electric circuits, electrons flow in the opposite direction (i.e., in the direction from - to +) to Franklin's conventional current (+ toward -).

This has all sorts of effects you have to be aware of. Electrons being accelerated upwards in a vertical antenna consequently results in a radiated signal which starts off with a negative half cycle, not a positive one, because electrons in Franklin's scheme carry negative charge.

Similarly, the idea of a fixed constant speed of light was appealing in 1961, but it would be as unfortunate to argue that the speed of light can't change because of a historical consensus as to insist that that electrons can't flow around a circuit from the - terminal to the + terminal of a battery, because Franklin's consensus said otherwise.

Sometimes you just need to accept that consensus doesn't take precedence over scientific facts. What matters is not what a group of people decided was for the best in their ignorance 46 years ago, but what is really occurring.

The speed of light in vacuum is hard to define because it's clear from Maxwell's equations that light depends on the vacuum, which may be carrying a lot of electromagnetic field or gravitational field energy per cubic metre, even when there are no atoms present.

This vacuum field energy causes curvature in general relativity, deflecting light, but it also helps light to propagate.

Start off with the nature of light given by Maxwell's equations.

In empty vacuum, the divergences of magnetic and electric field are zero as there are no real charges. Hence the two Maxwell divergence equations are irrelevant and we just deal with the two curl equations.

For a Maxwellian light wave where E field and B field intensities vary along the propagation path (x-axis), Maxwell’s curl equation for Faraday’s law reduces to simply: dE/dx = -dB/dt, while Maxwell's curl equation for Maxwell’s equation for the magnetic field created by vacuum displacement current is: -dB/dx = m*e*dE/dt, where m is magnetic permeability of space, e is electric permittivity of space, E is electric field strength, B is magnetic field strength. To solve these simultaneously, differentiate both:

d^2 E /dx^2 = - d^2 B/(dx*dt)

-d^2 B /(dx*dt) = m*e*d^2 E/dt^2

Since d^2 B /(dx*dt) occurs in each of these equations, they are equivalent, so Maxwell got dx^2/dt^2 = 1/(me^{1/2}, so c dx/dt = 1/(me)^{1/2} = 300,000 km/s.

However, there's a problem introduced by Maxwell's equation -dB/dx = m*e*dE/dt, where e*dE/dt is the displacement current.

Maxwell's idea is that an electric field which varies in time as it passes a given location, dE/dt, induces the motion of vacuum charges along the electric field lines while the vacuum charges polarize, and this motion of charge constitutes an electric current, which in turn creates a curling magnetic field, which by Faraday's law of induction completes the electromagnetic cycle of the light wave, allowing propagation.

The problem is that the vacuum doesn't contain any mobile virtual charges (i.e. virtual fermions) below a threshold electric field of about 10^18 v/m, unless the frequency is extremely high.

If the vacuum contained charge that is polarizable by any weak electric field, then virtual negative charges would be drawn to the protons and virtual positive charges to electrons until there was no net electric charge left, and atoms would no longer be bound together by Coulomb's law.

Renormalization in quantum field theory shows that there is a limited effect only present at very intense electric fields above 10^18 v/m or so, and so the dielectric vacuum is only capable of pair production and polarization of the resultant vacuum charges in immensely strong electric fields.

Hence, Maxwell's "displacement current" of i = e*dE/dt amps, doesn't have the mechanism that Maxwell thought it had.

Feynman, who with Schwinger and others discovered the limited abound vacuum dielectric shielding in quantum electrodynamics when inventing the renormalization technique (where the bare core electron charge is stronger than the shielded charge seen beyond the IR cutoff, because of the effect of shielding by polarization of the vacuum out to 1 fm radius or 10^18 v/m), should have solved this problem.

Instead, Feynman wrote:

‘Maxwell discussed ... in terms of a model in which the vacuum was like an elastic ... what counts are the equations themselves and not the model used to get them. We may only question whether the equations are true or false ... If we take away the model he used to build it, Maxwell’s beautiful edifice stands...’ – Richard P. Feynman, Feynman Lectures on Physics, v3, 1964, c18, p2.

Feynman is correct here, and he does go further in his 1985 book QED, where he discusses light from the path integrals framework:

‘Light ... "smells" the neighboring paths around it, and uses a small core of nearby space. (In the same way, a mirror has to have enough size to reflect normally: if the mirror is too small for the core of nearby paths, the light scatters in many directions, no matter where you put the mirror.)’ - Feynman, QED, Penguin, 1990, page 54.

I've got some comments about the real mechanism for Maxwell's "displacement current" from the logic signal cross-talk perspective here, here and here.

The key thing is in a quantum field theory, any field below the IR cutoff is exchange radiation with no virtual fermions appearing (no pair production). The radiation field has to do the work which Maxwell thought was done by the displacement and polarization of virtual charges in the vacuum.

The field energy is sustaining the propagation of light. Feynman's path integrals shows this pretty clearly too. Professor Clifford Johnson kindly pointed out here:

‘I like Feynman’s argument very much (although I have not thought about the virtual charges in the loops bit bit). The general idea that you start with a double slit in a mask, giving the usual interference by summing over the two paths... then drill more slits and so more paths... then just drill everything away... leaving only the slits... no mask. Great way of arriving at the path integral of QFT.’

This is also the approach in Professor Zee's "Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell" (Princeton University Press, 2003), Chapter I.2, Path Integral Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.

The idea is that light can go on any path and is affected most strongly by neighboring paths within a wavelength (transverse spatial extent) of the line the photon appears to follow.

What you have to notice, however, is that photons tend to travel between fermions. So does exchange radiation (gauge boson photons) that cause the electromagnetic field. So fermions constitute a network of nodes along which energy is being continuously exchanged, with observable photons of light, etc., travelling along the same paths as the exchange radiation.

It entirely possible that light speed in the vacuum depends on the energy density of the background vacuum field (which could vary as the universe expands), just as the speed of light is slower in glass or air than in a vacuum.

Light speed however tends to slow down when the energy density of the electromagnetic fields through which is travels is higher: hence it slows down more in dense glass than in air. However, it is well worth investigating in more detail.

 
At 8:40 AM, Blogger nige said...

copy of a comment

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/04/thomas-gold-was-right-and-wrong.html

"One also has to bear in mind that there are incredibly stringent experimental bounds on the breaking of Lorentz symmetry, as Magueijo refers to at the end of the abstract you linked to. Any theory where c changes (in a meaningful way, not as the result of an odd choice of units) will break Lorentz invariance and be subject to such constraints." - Anonymous

Lorentz invariance is allegedly broken in many ways already.

First, as Smolin and others say in discussing "doubly special relativity", quantum field theory seems to have some fixed minimum grain size in the vacuum. That breaks Lorentz invariance because the length scale of the grain size doesn't obey Lorentz invariance.

Ie, the Lorentz transformation contraction apply to the vacuum grain size, which is usually taken to an absolute size irrespective of motion of the observer, such as Planck length.

That's the basis of Smolin's argument, described on p227 of his book "The Trouble with Physics."

I don't find Smolin's argument there totally convincing, purely because all the Planck scale length is supposed to be the smallest length you can obtain from physical units but it isn't. If you take the black hole event horizon radius 2GM/c^2, for an electron mass M this distance is far smaller than the Planck scale.

Nobody has any theoretical, let alone experimental, basis for the Planck scale. There are loads of ways of combining fundamental constants to get distances. So until there is evidence, say from a particle accelerator the size of the galaxy that can probe the Planck scale, it's speculative.

But there are other indications that Lorentz invariance is just the result of a physical mechanism and not a universal law.

Quantum field theory implies that the number of virtual vacuum particles an observer interacts with is not independent of his or her motion, but depends on absolute motion:

"... what we learned has important applications to the study of quantum fields in curved backgrounds. In Quantum Field Theory in Minkowski space-time the vacuum state is invariant under the Poincare group and this, together with the covariance of the theory under Lorentz transformations, implies that all inertial observers agree on the number of particles contained in a quantum state. The breaking of such invariance, as happened in the case of coupling to a time-varying source analyzed above, implies that it is not possible anymore to define a state which would be recognized as the vacuum by all observers.

"This is precisely the situation when fields are quantized on curved backgrounds. ..."

- p 85 of Introductory Lectures on Quantum Field Theory by Luis Alvarez-Gaume and Miguel A. Vazquez-Mozopage, http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0510040 (Emphasis added in bold to reason why Lorentzian invariance is violated by quantum field theory, which is the fundamental physics of the standard model of particles.)

In addition, the whole basis of general relativity is a move away from the fixed Lorentzian background dependence of special relativity; it is a move away from a definite Lorentzian metric. In general relativity, the metric is the result of the field equations for specified conditions.

About 99.9% of people using general relativity and writing about it don't understand Einstein's general covariance. So you get "Lorentzian covariance" being discussed. However, general covariance, which is the basis of general relativity, is actually very simple, as I found out in reading Einstein's original paper:

‘The special theory of relativity... does not extend to non-uniform motion ... The laws of physics must be of such a nature that they apply to systems of reference in any kind of motion. Along this road we arrive at an extension of the postulate of relativity... The general laws of nature are to be expressed by equations which hold good for all systems of co-ordinates, that is, are co-variant with respect to any substitutions whatever (generally co-variant).

– Albert Einstein, ‘The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity’, Annalen der Physik, v49, 1916. (Emphasis here is Einstein's own italics in the original paper.)

So the widely held idea of "Lorentzian covariance" is just a nonsense. What matters is general covariance, which is background independence, i.e., the Einstein field equation without a fixed assumed metric.

The metric is the result of solving the field equation.

The Lorentz contraction is a physical result of moving a charge in an exchange radiation field. You are going to get directional compressions. It's a consequence of Yang-Mills exchange radiation under certain conditions, not a universal law. There's a simple analogy to the gravitational contraction you get in a mass field. In each case, exchange radiation is causing contractions in the direction of gravitational field lines or the direction of motion relative to some external observer.

Really, general relativity is background independent: the metric is always the solution to the field equation, and can vary in form, depending on the assumptions used because the shape of spacetime (the type and amount of curvature) depends on the mass distribution, cc value, etc. The weak field solutions like the Schwarzschild metric have a simple relationship to the FitzGerald-Lorentz transformation. Just change v^2 to the 2GM/r, and you get the Schwarzschild metric from the FitzGerald-Lorentz transformation, and this is on the basis of the energy equivalence of kinetic and gravitational potential energy:

E = (1/2)mv^2 = GMm/r, hence v^2 = 2GM/r.

Hence gamma = (1 – v^2 / c^2)^{1/2} becomes gamma = (1 – 2GM/ rc^2)^{1/2}, which is the contraction and time dilation form of the Schwarzschild metric.

Einstein’s equivalence principle between inertial and gravitational mass in general relativity when combined with his equivalence between mass and energy in special relativity, implies that the inertial energy equivalent of a mass (E = 1/2 mv^2) is equivalent to the gravitational potential energy of that mass with respect to the surrounding universe (i.e., the amount of energy released per mass m if the universe collapsed, E = GMm/r, where r the effective size scale of the collapse). So there are reasons why the nature of the universe is probably simpler than the mainstream suspects:

‘It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of spacetime is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities.’

- R. P. Feynman, Character of Physical Law, November 1964 Cornell Lectures, broadcast and published in 1965 by BBC, pp. 57-8.

 
At 2:42 PM, Blogger nige said...

copy of a comment

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/04/thomas-gold-was-right-and-wrong.html

"I'm afraid the supernova data is not in fact consistent with R~t^{2/3}. Indeed it was precisely the supernova data that first showed that the universe is no longer matter dominated, and that the expansion is accelerating. If your solution is equivalent to that of matter-dominated FRW, as it looks, you will find thousands of papers explaining why that simply does not fit the data. It was just this mismatch that forced cosmologists to posit the existence of dark energy." - anonymous

You may well have reason to be afraid, because you're plain wrong about dark energy! Louise's result R ~ t^{2/3} for the expanding size scale of the universe is indeed similar to what you get from the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric with no cosmological constant, however that works because she has varying velocity of light which affects the redshifted light distance-luminosity relationship and the data don't show that the expansion rate of the universe is slowing down because of dark energy, as a Nobel Laureate explains:

‘the flat universe is just not decelerating, it isn’t really accelerating’

- Professor Phil Anderson, http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/01/03/danger-phil-anderson/#comment-10901

Louise's main analysis has a varying light velocity which affects several relationships. For example, the travel time of the light will be affected, influencing the distance-luminosity relationship.

What prevents long-range gravitational deceleration isn't dark energy.

All the quantum field theories of fundamental forces (the standard model) are Yang-Mills, in which forces are produced by exchange radiation.

The mainstream assumes that quantum gravity will turn out similarly. Hence, they assume that gravity is due to exchange of gravitons between masses (quantum gravity charges). In the lab, you can’t move charges apart at relativistic speeds and measure the reduction in Coulomb’s law due to the redshift of exchange radiation (photons in the case of Coulomb’s law, assuming current QED is correct), but the principle is there. Redshift of gauge boson radiation weakens its energy and reduces the coupling constant for the interaction. In effect, redshift by the Hubble law means that forces drop off faster than the inverse-square law even at low energy, the additional decrease beyond the geometric divergence of field lines (or exchange radiation divergence) coming from redshift of exchange radiation, with their energy proportional to the frequency after redshift, E=hf.

The universe therefore is not like the lab. All forces between receding masses should, according to Yang-Mills QFT, suffer a bigger fall than the inverse square law. Basically, where the redshift of visible light radiation is substantial, the accompanying redshift of exchange radiation that causes gravitation will also be substantial; weakening long-range gravity.

When you check the facts, you see that the role of “cosmic acceleration” as produced by dark energy (the cc in GR) is designed to weaken the effect of long-range gravitation, by offsetting the assumed (but fictional!) long range gravity that slows expansion down at high redshifts.

In other words, the correct explanation according to current mainstream ideas about quantum field theory is that the 1998 supernovae results, showing that distant supernovae aren’t slowing down, is due to a weakening of gravity due to the redshift and accompanying energy loss by E=hf of the exchange radiations causing gravity. It’s simply a quantum gravity effect due to redshifted exchange radiation weaking the gravity coupling constant G over large distances in an expanding universe.

The error of the mainstream is assuming that the data are explained by another mechanism: dark energy. Instead of taking the 1998 data to imply that GR is simply wrong over large distances because it lacks quantum gravity effects due to redshift of exchange radiation, the mainstream assumed that gravity is perfectly described in the low energy limit by GR and that the results must be explained by adding in a repulsive force due to dark energy which causes an acceleration sufficient to offset the gravitational acceleration, thereby making the model fit the data.

Back to Anderson's comment, “the flat universe is just not decelerating, it isn’t really accelerating”, we find supporting this and proving that the cosmological constant must vanish in order that electromagnetism be unified with gravitation, is Lunsford’s unification of electromagnetism and general relativity on the CERN document server at http://cdsweb.cern.ch/search?f=author&p=Lunsford%2C+D+R

Lunsford’s paper was censored off arxiv without explanation.

Lunsford had already had it published in a peer-reviewed journal prior to submitting to arxiv. It was published in the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, vol. 43 (2004) no. 1, pp.161-177. This shows that unification implies that the cc is exactly zero, no dark energy, etc.

The way the mainstream censors out the facts is to first delete them from arxiv and then claim “look at arxiv, there are no valid alternatives”.

"it is certainly not the case that (Lorentz invariant) quantum field theory by itself has a minimum size or violates Lorentz invariance spontaneously," - anonymous

You haven't read what I wrote. I stated precisely where the problem is alleged to be by Smolin, which is in the fine graining.

In addition, you should learn a little about renormalization and Wilson's approach to that, which is to explain the UV cutoff by some grain size in the vacuum - simply put, the reason why UV divergences aren't physically real (infinite momenta as you go down toward zero distance from the middle of a particle) is that there's nothing there. Once you get down to size scales smaller than the grain size, there are no loops.

If there is a grain size to the vacuum - and that seems to be the simplest explanation for the UV cutoff - that grain size is absolute, not relative to motion. Hence, special relativity, Lorentzian invariance is wrong on that scale. But hey, we know it's not a law anyway, there's radiation in the vacuum (Casimir force, Yang-Mills exchange radiation, etc.), and when you move you get contracted by the asymmetry of that radiation pressure. No need for stringy extradimensional speculations, just hard facts.

The cause of Lorentzian invariance is a physical mechanism, and so the Lorentzian invariance ain't a law, it's the effect of a physical process that operates under particular conditions.

"... and that is not what Alverez-Gaume and V-M are saying in the quote you give." - anonymous

I gave the quote so you can see what they are saying by reading the quote. You don't seem to understand even the reason for giving a quotation. The example they give of curvature is backed up by other stuff based on experiment. They're not preaching like Ed Witten:

‘String theory has the remarkable property of predicting gravity.’ - Dr Edward Witten, M-theory originator, Physics Today, April 1996.

"One other thing you might recall is that all smooth manifolds - including all the solutions to the equations of general relativity that we can control - are locally flat (and therefore locally Lorentz invariant)." - anonymous

Wrong, curvature is not flat locally in this universe, due to something called gravity, which is curvature and occurs due to masses, field energy, pressure, and radiation (all the things included in the stress-energy tensor T_ab). Curvature is flat globally because there's no long range gravitational deceleration.

Locally, curvature has a value dependent upon the gravitation field or your acceleration relative to the gravitational field.

The local curvature of the planet earth is down to the radius of the earth being contracted by (1/3)MG/c^2 = 1.5 mm in the radial but not the transverse direction.

So the radius of earth is shrunk 1.5 mm, but the circumference is unaffected (just as in the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction, length is contracted in the direction of motion, but not in the transverse direction).

Hence, the curvature of spacetime locally due to the planet earth is enough to violate Euclidean geometry so that circumference is no longer 2*Pi*R, but is very slightly bigger. That's the "curved space" effect.

Curvature only exists locally. It can't exist globally, throughout the universe, because over large distances spacetime is flat. It does exist locally near masses, because curvature is the whole basis for describing gravitation/acceleration effects in general relativity.

Your statement that spacetime is flat locally is just plain ignorance because in fact it isn't flat locally due to spacetime curvature caused by masses and energy.

 
At 2:49 PM, Blogger nige said...

A correction to one sentence [in previous comment] above:

...Wrong, spacetime is not flat locally in this universe, due to something called gravity, which is curvature and occurs due to masses, field energy, pressure, and radiation (all the things included in the stress-energy tensor T_ab). ...

 
At 2:40 AM, Blogger nige said...

copy of a comment

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/04/thomas-gold-was-right-and-wrong.html

"I don't think it will be productive for either of us. If you want to learn something, take your favorite metric (which can be a solution to GR with or without a non-zero T_{\mu \nu}, you choose), expand it around any non-singular point, and you will discover it is indeed locally flat (locally flat doesn't mean flat everywhere - it means flat spacetime is a good approximation to it close to any given point). Or if you are more geometrically inclined, read about tangent spaces to manifolds - or just think about using straight tangent lines to approximate a small part of a curvy line, and you'll get the idea." - anonymous

Anonymous, even if you take all the matter and energy out of the universe in order to avoid curvature and make it flat, you don't end up with flat spacetime because spacetime disappears itself, in the mainstream picture.

You can't generally say that on small scales spacetime is flat, because that depends how far you are from matter.

Your analogy of magnifying the edge of a circle until it looks straight as an example of flat spacetime emerging from curvature as you go to smaller scales is wrong: on smaller scales gravitation is stronger, and curvature is greater. This is precisely the cause of the chaos of spacetime on small distance scales, which prevents general relativity working as you approach the Planck scale distance!

In the quantum field theory you get down to smaller and smaller size scales, far from spacetime getting smoother as your example, it gets more chaotic:

‘It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of spacetime is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities.’

- R. P. Feynman, Character of Physical Law, November 1964 Cornell Lectures, broadcast and published in 1965 by BBC, pp. 57-8.

anonymous, your argument about flat spacetime curvature on small scales requires putting a uniform matter distribution into T_ab which is the sort of false approximation that leads to misunderstandings.

Mass and energy are quantized, they occur in lumps. They're not continuous and the error you are implying is the statistical one of averaging out discontinuities in T_ab, and then falsely claiming that the flat result on small scales proves spacetime is flat on small scales.

No, it isn't It's quantized. It's just amazing how much rubbish comes out of people who don't understand physically that a statistical average isn't proof that things are continuous. As an analogy, children are integers, and the fact that you get 2.5 kids per family as an average (or whatever the figure is), doesn't disprove the quantization.

You can't argue that a household can have any fractional number of children, because the mean for a large number of households is a fraction.

Similarly, if you put an average into T_ab as an approximation, assuming that the source of gravity is of uniform density you're putting in an assumption that doesn't hold on small scales, only on large scales. You can't therefore claim that locally spacetime is flat. That contradicts what we know about the quantization of mass and energy. Only on large scales is it flat.

 
At 2:11 AM, Blogger nige said...

CONCISE SUMMARY:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=568#comment-26204


anon. Says:

June 19th, 2007 at 10:51 am

It’s a bit hazy in my mind, but I do know there’s all sorts of problems in defining various “fundamental” things in classical E&M.

Put current into a transmission line (pair of wires) by connecting them to a battery, and you get a continuous flat-topped logic pulse propagating along the transmission line at light speed for the insulator.

This violated Ampere’s law of circuits because the current pulse doesn’t know in advance if there is a complete circuit at the far end of the line, or an open circuit.

Maxwell’s whole genius was adding an ‘extra current’ to Ampere’s law which can flow across space between the two wires (even across a vacuum), completing the circuit while a transient flows into an open circuit!

What happens when you do the experiment with sampling oscilloscopes is you find that the energy reflects back from the far end of the transmission line. If it’s an open circuit at the far end, the reflected current adds to the energy flowing in, so the transmission line charges up, a little like a capacitor.

All the same sorts of problems that show up in QFT as a matter of fact.

Maxwell’s extra current was supposed to be due to the displacement of virtual fermions in the vacuum, which polarize in an electric field. The vacuum ‘displacement current’ consequently flows in direct proportion to the rate of change of the electric field, dE/dt.

Nice theory, and it predicts light. Problem is, QFT involves a vacuum polarization due to pair production of virtual fermions, only at high energy (above Schwinger’s electric field strength threshold for pair production, or the IR cutoff energy for particle scatter). So below the IR cutoff, Maxwell’s displacement current mechanism is in difficulty. However, the correction is easy to see: electrons are accelerated by electric fields in the conductors, so they radiate transversely. Each conductor behaves as an antenna radiating an inverted version of the radio signal from the other one. At large distances from the power line, the superimposed radio signals cancel out perfectly. The conductors are therefore just swapping this radio energy, and the resulting effect of the swap is equivalent to having a ‘displacement current’. So you still justify the Maxwell equations when you dig deeply, though his original theory is wrong.

 
At 4:16 AM, Blogger nige said...

copy of some material from

http://nige.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/the-mathematical-errors-in-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics/ (see that post for vital diagrams and updates):

copy of a relevant email:

From: “Nigel Cook”
To: “Guy Grantham” ; “David Tombe” ; ; ; ; ;
Cc: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 10:10 AM
Subject: Re: The Effect of Gravity on Light

Dear Guy,

Light is an example of a massless boson. There is an error in Maxwell’s model of the photon: he draws it with the variation of electric field (and magnetic field) occurring as a function of distance along the longitudinal axis, say the x axis.

Maxwell uses the z, and y axes to represent not distances but magnetic and electric field STRENGTHS.

These field strengths are drawn to vary as a function of one spatial dimension only, the propagation direction.

Hence, he has drawn a pencil of light, with zero thickness and with no indication of any transverse waving.

What you get occurring is that people look at it and think the waving E-field line is a physical outline of the photon, and that the y axis is not electric field strength, but is distance in the y-direction.

In other words, they think it is a three dimensional diagram, when in fact it is one dimensional (x-axis is the only dimension; the other two axes are field strengths varying solely as a function of distance along the x-axis).

I explained this to Catt, but he wasn’t listening, and I don’t think others listen either.

The excellent thing is that you can correct the error in Maxwell’s model to get a real transverse wave, and then you find that it doesn’t need to oscillate at all in the longitudinal direction in order to propagate! This is because the variation in E-field strength and B-field strength actually occurs at right angles to the propagation direction (which is the opposite of what Maxwell’s picture shows when plotting these field strengths as a variation along the longitudinal axis or propagation direction of light, not the transverse direction!).

Maxwell’s drawing of a light photon in his final 1873 3rd ed of A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism is actually a longitudinal wave because the two variables (E and B) are varying solely as a function of propagation direction x, not as functions of transverse directions y and z which aren’t represented in the diagram (which uses y and z to represent field strengths along x, instead of directions y and z in real space).

The full description of the gauge boson can be found in figures 2, 3 and 4 of:

http://nige.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/the-mathematical-errors-in-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics/


Best wishes,
Nigel

—– Original Message —–
From: “Guy Grantham”
To: “Nigel Cook” ; “David Tombe” ; ; ; ; ;
Cc: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: The Effect of Gravity on Light

>
> Dear Nigel
> My cynicism has been tweaked again … just what *is* a “massless boson”.
> ie what *is* a photon in your QFT? (What *is* a hole in a
> semiconductor)?
> Is it real and how would you know it from a figment of the imagination
> having the convenient function it is said to accomplish?
> I can accept it as pseudo particle representing the action of a wave
> transferring energy but that requires a medium in which to propagate.
> I do not understand how energy can travel as a slab through totally empty
> vacuum space, as previously described.
> I can accept that mass is not apparent when fully bound and but not that a
> particle has *no* mass.
>
> Would you please explain it to me.
>
> Best regards, Guy

Comment by nc — July 27, 2007 @ 9:12 am

copy of another relevant email:

From: “Nigel Cook”
To: “David Tombe” ; ; ; ; ; ;
Cc: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: The Effect of Gravity on Light

Dear David,

The electrons and positrons we see are not the same thing as an “aether”, or
the vacuum would be full of matter (electrons and positrons), which could be
polarized.

The complete absence of vacuum polarization at electric field strengths
below 1.3*10^18 volts/metre, Schwinger’s threshold for pair production in
QED, dispenses with your (and the Simhony/Grantham) electron-positron ether
as a medium which allows radiation propagation at field strengths below this
threshold.

As stated about a year ago to you, if the vacuum could polarize at low field
strengths, the effective electron charge seen from a large distance would be
exactly zero. It isn’t, because of the IR cutoff on the running coupling
for the screening of the electron’s charge by the polarized vacuum.

More information:

http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2006/04/maxwells-displacement-and-einsteins.html

This dispenses with the idea that an electron-positron “aether” has any role
in allowing the propagation of radiation. Ignoring these facts doesn’t make
your model more rigorous.

Best wishes,
Nigel

—– Original Message —–
From: “David Tombe”
To: ; ; ;
; ;
;
Cc: ; ; ;
; ;
; ; ;
; ; ;
; ;

Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: The Effect of Gravity on Light

> Dear Nigel,
> You are confusing two separate issues here. We need to
> distinguish between what goes on between the electrons and positrons and
> what is the wider effect of the electron positron sea as a whole.
>
> I don’t encounter any of the frictional problems that you
> are talking about for EM theory because in my view, EM radiation is about
> the manner in which angular acceleration is propagated from one electron
> positron dipole to the next.
>
> In the wider electric sea we may have friction for fast
> moving bodies. On the other hand, centrifugal pressure and solenoidal
> alignement should have a significant effect on reducing friction or maybe
> even eliminating it.
>
> Yours sincerely
> David Tombe
>
> —-Original Message Follows—-
> From: “Nigel Cook”
> Reply-To: “Nigel Cook”
> To: “David Tombe”
> ,,,,,,
> CC:
> ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
> Subject: Re: The Effect of Gravity on Light
> Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:34:13
>
> “Gravity and EM radiation both involve aether flow.” - David.
>
> Dear David,
>
> You might as well say
>
> “Gravity and EM radiation both involve Wakalixes flow.”
>
> (For information on what Wakalixes are, please see
> http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm .)
>
> Don’t you think that aether of the kind you’re suggesting would behave
> like a gas, and slow down things, contrary to Newton’s 1st law of motion?
>
> That kind of drag occurs because the electron-positron aether is comprised
> of fermions, which obey the exclusion principle and interfere with one
> another, so energy gets spread out in that kind of aether (if it existed
> as in your picture), making moving bodies lose energy and slow down.
>
> Massless (no rest mass) bosonic radiation has the advantage that the
> bosons which interact with a body don’t dissipate energy by interacting
> with one another, so they behave as a perfect fluid and don’t slow things
> down. The bosonic field doesn’t heat up in causing forces, unlike a
> fermion composed sea such as your electron and positron aether.
>
> Best wishes,
> Nigel
>
>
> —– Original Message —– From: “David Tombe”
> To: ; ;
> ; ;
> ; ;
>
> Cc: ; ; ;
> ; ;
> ; ; ;
> ; ; ;
> ; ;
>
> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 12:46 PM
> Subject: The Effect of Gravity on Light
>
>
>>Dear Nigel,
>> It’s true that I can’t predict the electric permittivity of
>> the pure aether. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that the only
>> function that satisfies E in EM radiation is -(partial)dA/dt where curl A
>> = B.
>>
>> -(partial)dA/dt must therefore represent tangential
>> acceleration.
>>
>> Gravity and EM radiation both involve aether flow. But EM
>> radiation is a vortex flow of rms velocity c. Gravitation is a radial
>> flow that imparts its acceleration to particles.
>>
>> It would of course probably follow that if the gravity
>> inflow velocity were greater than the speed of light, that light would be
>> unable to escape as it wouldn’t be able to overcome the flow.
>>
>> Yours sincerely
>> David Tombe
>>
>>
>>
>>—-Original Message Follows—-
>>From: “Nigel Cook”
>>Reply-To: “Nigel Cook”
>>To: “David Tombe”
>>,,,,,,
>>CC:
>>,,,,,,,,,,,,,
>>Subject: Re: Irrotational Flow in Little Switzerland
>>Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:34:31
>>
>>Dear David,
>>
>>I seem to think otherwise because the mechanism predicts gravitation
>>accurately as well as predicting electromagnetism accurately, and many
>>other things, see http://nige.wordpress.com/about/ . I don’t see the
>>evidence for your claims. Yes you can cook up vortex formulae that you
>>seem to think look like Gauss’s law and Newton’s law, but you can’t also
>>predict the values of the fundamental constants which determine the
>>strengths of gravity and electromagnetism, etc.
>>
>>This is why your claims that I’ve got it wrong are a bit of political
>>spin. If I’ve got it wrong, then it’s a coincidence that I’m predicting
>>all the constants accurately!
>>
>>If I were wrong, it would be better than being “not even wrong”, not
>>making any checkable calculations… It’s pretty easy to say everything
>>is due to aether swirls.
>>
>>Best wishes,
>>Nigel
>>
>>
>>
>>—– Original Message —– From: “David Tombe”
>>To: ; ;
>>; ;
>>; ;
>>
>>Cc: ; ; ;
>>; ;
>>; ; ;
>>; ; ;
>>; ;
>>
>>Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 11:26 AM
>>Subject: Re: Irrotational Flow in Little Switzerland
>>
>>
>>>Dear Nigel,
>>> You’ve got it all wrong. Centripetal acceleration has got
>>> absolutely nothing to do with the EM radiation mechanism. In fact
>>> neither does centrifugal acceleration.
>>>
>>> The component involved in EM radiation is the ‘angular
>>> acceleration’ which doesn’t even exist in Keplerian orbits. EM radiation
>>> is linked to vorticity. Radiation exchange may well occur but it doesn’t
>>> actually cause gravity as you seem to think. It is part of the same
>>> overall mechanism as gravity.
>>>
>>> Yours sincerely
>>> David Tombe
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>—-Original Message Follows—-
>>>From: “Nigel Cook”
>>>Reply-To: “Nigel Cook”
>>>To: “David Tombe”
>>>,,,,,,
>>>CC:
>>>,,,,,,,,,,,,,
>>>Subject: Re: Irrotational Flow in Little Switzerland
>>>Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:31:52
>>>
>>>Irrotational flow is fine, just admit the possibility that there is
>>>exchange! Traditionally, the fact that electrons in orbit should be
>>>radiating due to centripetal acceleration has been ignored, because Bohr
>>>thought electrons would lose energy by radiating. Clearly, he was
>>>assuming that only one electron in the universe was radiating while
>>>orbiting an atom! When you take account of the fact that all electrons do
>>>the same thing, the radiation emitted is soon in equilibrium to that
>>>received: it’s the exhange radiation.
>>>Similarly, Hawking’s idea that black holes must evaporate if they are
>>>real simply because they are radiating, is flawed: air molecules in my
>>>room are all radiating energy, but they aren’t getting cooler: they are
>>>merely exchanging energy. There’s an equilibrium.
>>>
>>>Moving to Hawking’s heuristic mechanism of radiation emission, he writes
>>>that pair production near the event horizon sometimes leads to one
>>>particle of the pair falling into the black hole, while the other one
>>>escapes and becomes a real particle. If on average as many fermions as
>>>antifermions escape in this manner, they annihilate into gamma rays
>>>outside the black hole.
>>>
>>>Schwinger’s threshold electric field for pair production is 1.3*10^18
>>>volts/metre. So at least that electric field strength must exist at the
>>>event horizon, before black holes emit any Hawking radiation! (This is
>>>the electric field strength at 33 fm from an electron.) Hence, in order
>>>to radiate by Hawking’s suggested mechanism, black holes must carry
>>>enough electric charge so make the eelectric field at the event horizon
>>>radius, R = 2GM/c^2, exceed 1.3*10^18 v/m.
>>>
>>>Schwinger’s critical threshold for pair production is E_c =
>>>(m^2)*(c^3)/(e*h-bar) = 1.3*10^18 volts/metre. Source: equation 359 in
>>>http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0608140 or equation 8.20 in
>>>http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0510040
>>>
>>>Now the electric field strength from an electron is given by Coulomb’s
>>>law with F = E*q = qQ/(4*Pi*Permittivity*R^2), so
>>>
>>>E = Q/(4*Pi*Permittivity*R^2) v/m.
>>>
>>>Setting this equal to Schwinger’s threshold for pair-production,
>>>(m^2)*(c^3)/(e*h-bar) = Q/(4*Pi*Permittivity*R^2). Hence, the maximum
>>>radius out to which fermion-antifermion pair production and annihilation
>>>can occur is
>>>
>>>R = [(Qe*h-bar)/{4*Pi*Permittivity*(m^2)*(c^3)}]^{1/2}.
>>>
>>>Where Q is black hole’s electric charge, and e is electronic charge, and
>>>m is electron’s mass. Set this R equal to the event horizon radius
>>>2GM/c^2, and you find the condition that must be satisfied for Hawking
>>>radiation to be emitted from any black hole:
>>>
>>>Q > 16*Pi*Permittivity*[(mMG)^2]/(c*e*h-bar)
>>>
>>>where M is black hole mass. So the amount of electric charge a black hole
>>>must possess before it can radiate (according to Hawking’s mechanism) is
>>>proportional to the square of the mass of the black hole. This is quite a
>>>serious problem for big black holes and frankly I don’t see how they can
>>>ever radiate anything at all.
>>>
>>>On the other hand, it’s interesting to look at fundamental particles in
>>>terms of black holes (Yang-Mills force-mediating exchange radiation may
>>>be Hawking radiation in an equilibrium).
>>>
>>>When you calculate the force of gauge bosons emerging from an electron as
>>>a black hole (the radiating power is given by the Stefan-Boltzmann
>>>radiation law, dependent on the black hole radiating temperature which is
>>>given by Hawking’s formula), you find it correlates to the
>>>electromagnetic force, allowing quantitative predictions to be made. See
>>>http://nige.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/quantum-gravity-mechanism-and-predictions/#comment-1997
>>>for example.
>>>
>>>You also find that because the electron is charged negative, it doesn’t
>>>quite follow Hawking’s heuristic mechanism. Hawking, considering
>>>uncharged black holes, says that either of the fermion-antifermion pair
>>>is equally likey to fall into the black hole. However, if the black hole
>>>is charged (as it must be in the case of an electron), the black hole
>>>charge influences which particular charge in the pair of virtual
>>>particles is likely to fall into the black hole, and which is likely to
>>>escape. Consequently, you find that virtual positrons fall into the
>>>electron black hole, so an electron (as a black hole) behaves as a source
>>>of negatively charged exchange radiation. Any positive charged black hole
>>>similarly behaves as a source of positive charged exchange radiation.
>>>
>>>These charged gauge boson radiations of electromagnetism are predicted by
>>>an SU(2) electromagnetic mechanism, see Figures 2, 3 and 4 of
>>>http://nige.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/the-mathematical-errors-in-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics/
>>>
>>>For quantum gravity mechanism and the force strengths, particle masses,
>>>and other predictions resulting, please see
>>>http://nige.wordpress.com/about/
>>>
>>>
>>>—– Original Message —– From: “David Tombe”
>>>To: ; ;
>>>; ;
>>>; ;
>>>
>>>Cc: ; ;
>>>; ;
>>>; ; ;
>>>; ; ;
>>>; ; ;
>>>
>>>Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 1:14 AM
>>>Subject: Irrotational Flow in Little Switzerland
>>>
>>>
>>>>Dear Forrest,
>>>> If you liked the picture and want to go there, I’ll
>>>> tell
>>>>you how I first discovered it.
>>>>
>>>> That picture was one of many pictures high up above
>>>> Snake
>>>>Alley in Taipei. I first saw it in 1998 but it took more than two years
>>>>for
>>>>me to actually find out where the place itself is.
>>>>
>>>> It is in the hills above Tainan in southern Taiwan in
>>>> a
>>>>region called ‘Little Switzerland’ in Chinese. (Taipei means
>>>>Taiwan-North
>>>>and Tainan means Taiwan-South).
>>>>
>>>> It is a piece of Japanese engineering from the early
>>>>1960’s and its purpose is to divert water down a tunnel to a nearby
>>>>reservoir.
>>>>
>>>> A fence keeps you from getting too close to it. There
>>>> is
>>>>no safety grid across the sink. You climb over the fence and go near it
>>>>at
>>>>your own risk.
>>>>
>>>> If you want to go there, you better take this picture
>>>> with
>>>>you and get somebody to write down ‘Little Switzerland’ in Chinese
>>>>characters.
>>>>
>>>> Yours sincerely
>>>> David Tombe

Comment by nc — July 27, 2007 @ 9:15 am

 

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