Fix Physics! – Reverse Engineer Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Standard Model, Get Rid of Outdated Assumptions, Consolidate, and Reconstruct on New First Principles by Vladimir F. Tamari

Dear Vladimir,

How refreshing well illustrated essay. Even if I may not fully agree in every aspect of your questions or proposed approaches I think you touch many of the main questions that puzzle or should puzzle physics as a whole field, specially now that we seem to have reached some kind of closed road to continue making progress at least at the same exciting pace as it was just a few decades ago. Perhaps it is that we are exhausting our theories of physics (hence starting to come up with clouds of strings disconnected from your main building of physics) and it is time to focus effort in areas that look much more promising, like genetics, new materials and many others. Congratulations for your artistic talent, if you'd make it a business and you could illustrate my own papers I would be more than interested.

Vladimir,

Your analysis of the constancy/inconstancy of the speed of light is insufficient. You wrote:

"Unfortunately by proposing that the speed of light (c) is constant, Einstein imposed a strange requirement on Nature: Space itself expands and contracts, and time dilates, as measured from a moving inertial frame. He made measurement absolute, i.e. (c) is constant (light being the 'tool' that measures distance and time), but the universe itself became relative - there is no absolute ether in which events occur. This is the exact opposite of what happens in the Lorentz transformations that inspired (SR), whereby the universe is absolute (a universal medium or ether exists) but it is measurement that is relative (clocks slow down as they move, not time itself, and measuring rods physically contract, not space itself, and (c) need not be fixed. In any case both in (SR) and in Lorentz' theory, the measured speed of light ends up being the same."

If, according to the ether theory that you defend, the speed of light "need not be fixed", just give an example showing how the speed of light varies.

Are time dilation and length contraction RECIPROCAL according to the ether theory that you defend? That is, does any observer see any other observer's clock running slow?

Pentcho Valev

In Lorentz ether theory time dilation and length contraction are not reciprocal, Vladimir. This fact is usually ignored but still some authors do mention it:

W.L. Craig, The Tenseless Theory of Time, p. 26: "Kroes, however, disputes Dieks' s claim in this regard. He charges that Dieks has overlooked the fact that in Einstein's theory these relativistic effects are RECIPROCAL. Lorentz's dynamical interpretations of the shortening of rods and of time dilation only make sense because they are not reciprocal."

Pentcho Valev

Dear Vladimir,

What a great essay! When I read the sentence "Clever mathematics allows defining the same phenomena in different ways: in geometry a circle is realistically defined by its center and radius, but a relatively complicated algebraic definition is also possible - the latter however gives no idea of its shape." I said, there's a man after my own heart, an art-science creator unbound by a single category. It's hard not to think of the successful math that proved for eighteen-hundred years the Sun circled the Earth.

An artist friend, Harry Holtzman, long gone, used to say that, "Hardening of the categories leads to art disease." Isn't something like this true also of science? I remember a Robert Oppenheimer interview in which he emphasized the need to create or maintain bridges between disciplines, the most likely fertile ground for making new discoveries.

My argument is against the bullying long ago by the Copenhagen powers that excluded forever students with strong visual sensibilities and talent from participating in the world of quantum physics. Since 1930 people have been scared to death even to hint that the atom might possibly be a real and logical device. Sorry, Vladimir, but I've set off my personal tick, that hidden spring that gets me started the moment I think atom.

I admire greatly your image of science as a dwelling with many separate rooms disconnected from one another. Looking at your brilliant illustrations it occurred to me that one day when you've mulled over the architectural possibilities you might find yourself sketching an improved architecture, a co-op to house the different disciplines but with connecting rooms.

With great admiration and best wishes,

Ken Snelson

Dear Vladimir,

In the framework of the Theory of Infinite Nesting of Matter (my essay) I answer your question in such way: 1). The world consist of numerous objects (particles, stars, galaxies and so on). The matter of every objects consist of particles of low levels of matter. The physical state of matter of different objects is different. But it is possible to find coefficients of similarity between similar objects at different levels of matter and with them predict properties of objects. The wave quanta may be represented as changes of density of fluxes of gravitons which consist of neutrino, photons and charged particles similar to cosmic rays (all of it was born at low levels of matter by particles much more less then nucleons). Space is mathematical construction and realized only throw real particle and material reference frame. Flexibility of space is the same as flexibility of all reference frames - it is no more then mathematical trick. 3). How we can understand that speed of light c is constant in all inertial systems? This question is well seen in Extended special theory of relativity . It is shown that constancy of speed of light in all inertial systems may be a consequence of constancy of speed of light in isotropic reference frame where the speed is the same in all direction and may be connected with isotropy of fluxes of gravitons. Another reason is procedure of space-time measurement in special relativity which uses two-way propagation of waves. With such procedure averaging of speed of light take place giving the value of c. But real speed in a direction may be not c. See Metric theory of relativity. Ether consist of fluxes of gravitons. 4). Gravitation change only paths of photons and their energy, not the spacetime itself. Since space-time measurements use electromagnetic waves then the metric of space-time is changed in the field of gravity in relation to the Minkowski metric. So some one thinks that spacetime is warped. 5). The model of photons is in paper Cosmic Red Shift, Microwave Background, and New Particles.. The photons consist of numerous charged tiny particles, rotating around axis of motion. The model of electron is in the book: The physical theories and infinite nesting of matter.. 7). There is the model of quarks and in the model quarks are quasiparticles not real particles.

Sergey Fedosin

Vladimir,

Great discussion. I for one think that the vacuum of space can change or be changed to break the constancy of light speed.

For this contest, I decided to go through and comment on essays of interest and see what responses I got to my own essay. There are over 250 entries, so I narrowed down my evaluations. For only those who responded, I decided to reread and provide my evaluations before time expired, not making it a popularity contest but keeping in mind that I entered for an exchange of interesting ideas, whether I agree or not. Some concepts are superior and more persuasively supported.

I think yours comes under that guideline.

Jim

The problem with the speed of light is existential, not just scientific, Vladimir. If the speed of light does depend on the speed of the light source, that is, if Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false, an unavoidable conclusion is that not only Einstein's relativity but modern physics as a whole has been long dead. Einstein hinted at this in 1954 but hid the real problem behind a euphemism:

Albert Einstein (1954): "I consider it entirely possible that physics cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air, including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of contemporary physics."

Joao Magueijo is more explicit:

Joao Magueijo: "In sharp contrast, the constancy of the speed of light has remain sacred, and the term "heresy" is occasionally used in relation to "varying speed of light theories". The reason is clear: the constancy of c, unlike the constancy of G or e, is the pillar of special relativity and thus of modern physics. Varying c theories are expected to cause much more structural damage to physics formalism than other varying constant theories."

Pentcho Valev

Dear Vladimir,

I've read your very interesting paper and taken a peek at your website. I have a great appreciation of the artistic way you have expressed yourself, both verbally and pictorially. Your diagrams really are beautiful. I very much agree that the spirit of investigation and specifics you define in the title of your essay is just what is needed for the advancement of Physics today. I haven't had prior communications with members of FQXi so perhaps I'm a little behind the ball in knowing what each essay stands for besides what is actually presented within it.

I'd like to ask if you find in the contents of this essay a very real and very rigorous realization of the command "Reverse Engineer Relativity"? The mathematics may be a bit heavy in places so I wouldn't expect many to be able to follow every item, except for plasma physicists who routinely deal with the constitutive relations. But there is possibly enough verbal description to understand what is taking place there.

With best wishes,

Steve

Dear Tamari,

Thank you for an interesting essay. You are one of the few in this contest who has discussed a number of different assumptions and this reflect your broad worldwide vision of physics.

We agree in many more forms that I can write here. For instance, you quote Einstein saying that the speed of light has to "vary with position" when light curves in a gravitational field. We obtain the same conclusion from the field theoretic approach to gravity presented in my Essay. The velocity that we obtain (in the weak field limit) is

[math]v = c - \frac{2GM}{cr}[/math]

where M is the mass of the star (e.g. Sun) and r the distance. The above expression gives the observed light bending due to the gravitational field. In my essay and in the cited references I also show how the geometric interpretation of gravity is only valid as approximation, in agreement with comments you made in your Q4.

We also agree on the artificial character of the particle-wave duality. I have presented in my FQXi forum (1356) a new formulation/interpretation of QM that avoids the usual paradoxes and puzzles and demonstrates that Einstein was right in his ensemble interpretation of QM, whereas Bohr was not in their individual/Copenhagen interpretation. I loved your intelligent use of the term "zombie cats" for referring to the Schrödinger cat paradox. In future, I will use your term "zombie cats" when discussing about this paradox.

Regards

So the speed of light decreases as the light leaves the gravitational field of the star. If this light then comes here on earth, is its speed still decreased? Is the gravitational redshift we measure evidence for this decreased speed?

Pentcho Valev

If the speed of light varies with the gravitational potential, as Vladimir and Juan claim, does it vary with the speed of the observer in gravitation-free space? The answer is "yes":

"Doppler Shift. As long as the velocity of the observer, v, is much smaller than the speed of light, c, (for the case of sound waves much smaller than the speed of sound) then the expression that we derived is a very good approximation. Taking into account v may be in the opposite direction: f'=f(1±v/c). At this point you might ask why the shift in direction from the discussion of the equivalence principle. Soon, as we shall see, we can put this together with the equivalence principle to derive the gravitational redshift of light! In 1960 Pound and Rebka and later, 1965, with an improved version Pound and Snider measured the gravitational redshift of light using the Harvard tower, h=22.6m. From the equivalence principle, at the instant the light is emitted from the transmitter, only a freely falling observer will measure the same value of f that was emitted by the transmitter. But the stationary receiver is not free falling. During the time it takes light to travel to the top of the tower, t=h/c, the receiver is traveling at a velocity, v=gt, away from a free falling receiver. Hence the measured frequency is: f'=f(1-v/c)=f(1-gh/c^2)."

The stationary observer measures the speed of light to be c'=c(1-gh/c^2)=c-v. The equivalence principle converts the stationary observer into an observer "traveling at a velocity, v=gt, away from a free falling receiver". This observer also measures the speed of light to be c'=c-v.

Pentcho Valev