Much Ado About Nothing by Peter Jackson

Stephen,

What dispersion at c locally achieves in my model is a differential in the speed of energy propagation within different spaces (frames), by implementing a boundary interface mechanism so that different parts of waves progress at different speeds.

The key here is that relative closing, or APPROACH velocity, is v + v, so therefore also c + v, but that at the moment of interaction (detection, or 'absorption'), because the absorbing boundary particles can only emit at c, then the speed is changed to the NEW, particles own, c. This then fully meets your (agreed) requirement"

"Refraction requires there to be a differential in the speed of energy propagation between different points, or some type of boundary interface so that different parts of the wave progress at different speeds."

It is so simple and self apparent that it seems it does take a massive intellect and visualization skills to assimilate and rationalise, though I was pretty sure you were already most of the way there.

But the Lorentz transformation does 'fall by the wayside' except as a close replica of, for instance, the synchrotron frequency curve of a bunch of protons being accelerated towards c in the LHC. This curve closely matches the increasing electricity bill they face during the acceleration process. At almost c almost infinite energy is needed.

If we study the increasing 'virtual electron' (pE) density around the bunch, and look at the oscilloscope reading, it is quite intuitive that we CAN discern a 'speed' in the vacuum, and that the LT curve is a resistance 'power' curve.

The LT itself is then simply the acceleration between media in different states of motion (frames), or rather it's effects.

All this is embedded quite deeply in my essay, and each part of the essay evidences a crucial component of the ontological construction. It seems that just a cursory read, or using old assumptions, will mean it's missed.

The essay shows just the tip of the iceberg, which seems to me to be about the biggest advance ever in physics, so I suppose if it was that easy to initially comprehend it would have been done in the 1800's. Or am I missing something.

I hope you didn't hop off the moving train just behind someone else, the Doppler effect of the LT would have compressed the pair of you, leaving you a bit bluer!

Peter

Very good Essay, Peter. I am going to give you an high score.

Cheers,

Ch.

Peter,

The following "simple answer" of yours is absurd (and accordingly catapulted your essay to the top of the community rating list):

"If light travels at a speed of distance d divided by time t (d/t = km/sec) then how can it be found always at c (~300,000km/sec) by all moving observers? A simple answer would be that light changed speed on arrival. Light would then travel at c= d/t through a background medium, but change to local c when meeting an observer."

Pentcho Valev

Dear Peter,

You have written yet another essay in defence of SR and I appreciate your saga regarding that.BTW,please go through the essay of Benjamin F. Dribus who, like your DFM, wants to use 'quantized reference frames' inorder to describe reality.

Please,go through my essay too and send in your comments to my forum.

(http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1543--Sreenath B N.)

Warm regards and good luck in the essay contest.

Sreenath.

Fortunately I hopped off the train last, well behind everyone else. However the train had just come to a stop so that the dwindling Eddy currents sparked into a micro wormhole catapulting me several tens of minutes into the future where I could safely step out ahead of everyone else ;^)

I'll have to peek more at your paper...

Steve

And this is both absurd and mysterious (the combination is highly valued by Einsteinians):

"In SR only one case was assumed for observing 'speed' with constant c. We describe a second case, where c is unaffected but where an 'apparent' speed c+/-v is also allowed."

Pentcho Valev

Dear Peter,

While I think you do make some useful observations regarding the importance of plasma in the universe, I am compelled to point out a crucial misrepresentation of the right image in 'Figure 1'. The superimposed image caption states: "Visible 'Dark Matter'. Galaxy Cluster CL 0024+17."

The Figure 1 caption states:

"Space. Different constituents of the Inter-Galactic Medium (IGM) are visible at each waveband. X-ray (left) and visible (right) 'dark matter' around clusters, galaxies and stars. The 'clouds' represent a diffuse plasma medium of ions, CO and molecular gas..."

It's not entirely clear what 'clouds' you're referring to, but I'm certain that the so-called "visible" dark matter is not visible in any waveband. As briefly explained in both the NASA announcement and Wikipedia - CL0024+17, the image shown in your essay attributed to "visible" 'dark matter' is actually a composite telescopic image overlayed with a 'gravity map' illustrating dark matter as it seems to be inferred from identified gravitational effects. Those gravitational effects are very tenuously identified from minute optical distortions of likely many thousands of background galaxies, statistically evaluated to derive the location of the weak lensing medium. The total mass required to produce the identified weak gravitational lensing effects is compared to the estimated mass of the clusters' galaxies and the intracluster medium (thought to represent most of the cluster's mass) - the difference is thought to be the mass represented by the inferred dark matter. This exceedingly complex process is subject to significant error.

The illustrated CL 0024+17 dark matter is not visible, and cannot consist of any ordinary detectable matter and does not emit any EM radiation including X-rays. Since this identified peripheral dark matter ring circumscribing the galaxy cluster, conveniently aligned to the Earth's line of sight, is thought to have been dispersed by some collision, it is not collocated with the hot, X-ray emitting intracluster medium. Hubblesite contains a newsy discussion and interviews, concluding with the statement: "Cl 0024+17 is the first cluster to show a dark matter distribution that differs from the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas."

Most tellingly, both the NASA announcement and Wikipedia entries referenced above includes both the unaltered telescopic image of CL 0024+17 and the illustration overlay you described as "visible" 'dark matter', for ease of comparison.

Of course, if you read my essay entry Inappropriate Application of Kepler's Empirical Laws of Planetary Motion to Spiral Galaxies Created the Perceived Galaxy Rotation Problem - Thereby Establishing a Galactic Presence for the Elusive, Inferred Dark Matter (you did post a comment) you should have found that I argue that imposing the specific laws of planetary motion on vast spiral galaxies is invalid, and artificially produces the falsely perceived galaxy rotation problem that seems to require the compensatory mass thought to be provided by imaginary dark matter. As shown in the "Supplemental Information" section of my essay, there are a number of physicists that have produced models of spiral galaxies that accurately describe their observed rotational characteristics without requiring any dark matter or modified gravity.

Best wishes,

Jim

Dear Pentcho,

We haven't been taught to think about, let alone understand the actual physical processes involved where fluctuating EM fields interact with charged particles in the general sense that Peter's essay explores. So it is no surprise that you might think an exploration of its effects "absurd". I could point out a number of papers here which propose highly extravagant new types of physics (which conflict with rather than compliment known physics). But of course none of that is necessary. It has been shown that the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force law are perfectly able to say exactly what the physics are.

Steve

Steve,

The absurdity is in Peter's claim that the speed of light is variable (c'=c+v) prior to the light meeting the observer but then on arrival miraculously becomes constant c'=c (so that Einsteinians can safely sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity").

http://www.haverford.edu/physics/songs/divine.htm

DIVINE EINSTEIN: No-one's as dee-vine as Albert Einstein not Maxwell, Curie, or Bo-o-ohr!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PkLLXhONvQ

We all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. Everything is relative, even simultaneity, and soon Einstein's become a de facto physics deity. 'cos we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. We all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity.

Pentcho Valev

Dear Pentcho,

It's the beauty of having identified a homomorphism between relativistic 4 vector equations and Newtonian-Galilean 3 vector equations that for most common problems you may choose which framework you wish to work within and the numerical results will be equivalent to what you get in the other framework. That homomorphism is:

[math]\Delta E = f(t, x, y, z, q, m) \qquad \rightarrow \qquad \Delta E = f(-ct, x, y, z)[/math]

Where the left hand side is what could be called the Maxwell-Thomson-de Broglie relations and the right hand side the Poincare-Einstein-Minkowski relations. A similar homomorphism may be written for momentum also.

James

Dark matter must be denied as well as supported, that's science, and I think you make as good a fist of it as possible. I also agree your comments and that interpretations (as they must) vary. I set out to falsify it myself some years ago and followed exploration as well as the two competing teams and eventual 'task force'. I tended to read some 30 papers a week (the MNRAS alone had 56 in just one of 3 Sept volumes so far). I was initially astonished by the data, much of which, with respect, you ignore or are not aware of, but eventually a clear picture dawned on me, not matching most interpretation, but more consistent with the actual findings, of all sorts. I know I won't change your mind, but must explain anyway.

I now do not agree with your comment that dark matter; "cannot consist of any ordinary detectable matter and does not emit any EM radiation." It can indeed consist of baryonic matter despite assumptions. Plasma considered as 'stem cell' type pairs is not detectable except kinetically and gravitationally. There is a plethora of both gravitational and kinetic evidence. A whole pile of other anomalies are then resolved by such a model, from Interstellar Faraday Rotation, through ellipticity to the Voyager anomaly, lensing and light delays.

We now estimate the rotational velocities of galaxies via the red and blue shift of the dark matter haloes. The related kinetic Sunyaey-Zeldovich effect has been known for decades, and a recently derived kinetic term from Atlas 3D work is referred in my essay. Related light delays can be over 3 years!!!

i.e. The dark matter couples with all em waves, re-emits them at c within the halo as it rotates (so slows it down one side and speeds it up the other) then when it leaves' it's out of phase, but does c across the intervening spce.

Please refractive index n=

Peter,

Thanks very much for your courteous response. While I am a lay person, I have spent >30 years identifying and solving critical operational issues in some of the world's very largest computer systems. I'm quite used to encountering many conflicting interpretation of observational data. As the primary goal of this contest is to "Encourage and support rigorous, innovative, and influential thinking about foundational questions in physics and cosmology", I don't think it would be appropriate to bow to any interpretation of 'dark matter evidence' based solely on the credentials of the interpreter. Nothing personal.

If I understand correctly, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect has been used to detect galaxy clusters since, unlike dark matter, the vast, hot plasma comprising the intracluster medium physically interacts with the photons of the CMB, producing large scale optical distortions in the microwave background signal. The independence of supposed galaxy cluster dark matter, inferred by identified weak gravitational lensing, and the gaseous intracluster medium has been established by their spatial separation due to galaxy cluster collisions. Interestingly, the weak lensing effects are not separated from the clusters' galaxies by those collisions...

I am not aware of any peer reviewed published reports using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect to identify galactic dark matter halos. In the interest of rigorous investigation, can you provide some references for visible dark matter?

Sincerely, Jim

Peter,

Thanks again for your reply, which was to some extent helpful in identifying the source of confusion. However, I must point out that you've not addressed the specific reference to the image caption referring to "Visible 'Dark Matter'. Galaxy Cluster CL 0024+17." As demonstrated by the NASA & Wikipedia references, this is definitely a misinterpretation.

Your last response stated:

"Just to give you a flavour, a Sept AGN paper abstract is here, discussing the high density jets of re-ionized matter. And one thing I forgot the Milky Way certainly DOES 'still have' and AGN. (iro Sagattarius A) Not (back) up to any great speed yet, so the 14 hypervelocity stars it has spat out recently are still in one piece, but there's also plenty of ions and gas."

The Milky Way certainly does NOT exhibit the relativistic jets characteristic of an AGN. As I understand, the enormous gamma-ray emitting polar bubbles of plasma are thought to be the remnants of past galaxy nucleus activity. Please see the NASA press release, NASA'S Fermi Telescope Discovers Giant Structure In Our Galaxy.

Your Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, Eliot Quataert reference abstract makes no mention of dark matter. I could not find a free version of that paper, however, I think much more to the point, an FQXi essay entry attributes the observed rotational velocity of spiral galaxies to those very same AGN outflows producing spiral arms moving to the galaxy periphery. This proposal also does not require dark matter to explain the observed rotational characteristics of spiral galaxies. Please see A New Model Without Dark Matter for the Rotation of Spiral Galaxies: The Connections Among Shape, Kinematics and Evolution by Mario Everaldo de Souza.

Still trying to understand the source of confusion regarding visible dark matter, I could not find any accessable Claude-André Faucher-Giguère papers in arXiv, but I did find some with contributor Eliot Quataert. Specifically, I found a very curious report, On the Structure of Hot Gas in Halos: Implications for the Lx-Tx Relation & Missing Baryons. As the title implies this model evaluation of, as I understand, hot gases in the intraclustr medium of galaxy clusters is also applied to the composition of galaxy dark matter halos. It also suggests that galaxies were formed from primordial dark matter.

What I think may be occurring is that researchers studying the characteristics of hot gaseous intracluster media (ICM) (perhaps produced by AGN outflows) are applying their results to supposedly galactic dark matter halos thought to have been accreted from the hot gas/presumptive dark matter ICM, depleted of baryonic gases.

I can understand how confusing this is from the varying perspective of those studying hot gases in the ICM and the presumedly colocated galaxy cluster dark matter, and those that specified the presence of dark matter to explain the non-Keplerian rotational characteristics of spiral galaxies.

Keep in mind that the visible ICM matter is thought to be twice as massive as the visible galactic matter of all galaxies within a galaxy cluster. It's difficult to understand how the more massive visible ICM could have been ejected from the relativistic jets of less massive AGN.

Moreover, galactic dark matter halos are thought to be about 10x the visible mass of spiral galaxies - this mass seeming to be necessary. It's also very difficult to believe that AGNs produce much more massive dark matter galactic halos.

At any rate, I have yet to see any reference to "visible 'dark matter'" in galactic halos. I don't think there's any support for this interpretation in any of the literature.

I hope this helps, Jim