Much Ado About Nothing by Peter Jackson

Peter,

There was NO assumption that dark matter cannot interact - that was established by the evidence - the location of the identified lens effects relative to the point of collision and the non-interacting galaxies (I'm specifically referring to the Bullet Cluster here). Again, this is not just my interpretation but, as best I can determine, the consensus interpretation of the astrophysics community. Whatever produced the lens effects could not have physically interacted with any other material during the collision.

The disperse x-ray emitting gas from the two galaxies did interact, that is why they remain near the point of collision - unlike the non-interacting galaxies and whatever produced the lensing effects.

I asked one thing of you - to explain how disperse ionized gas or plasma particles could have proceeded far beyond the point of collision, as did the galaxies. You have not complied. Instead you dismiss the compelling visual evidence that the lensing source (including the clusters' galaxies) did not interact during the collision.

That the lens effects remain coincident to the galaxies following collision indicates that the galaxies almost certainly contribute to the identified weak gravitational lens effects. No dark matter would be necessary if there were some systematic error in the estimation of collective galactic mass, but I am not capable of identifying any such error, so I cannot make that claim. The alternative is that weakly interactive massive particles are present contributing to the lensing effect also produced by the clusters' galaxies.

There is no need to complicate this analysis - as established by consensus, the location of the lens separate from any gaseous matter is clear evidence that the identified weak gravitational lensing effects could not have been produced by any disperse gaseous material, including molecular gas, atomic gas, nucleons or electrons, since disperse particles within the two colliding galaxy clusters would have interacted as did the x-ray emitting gas.

The onus is on you to disprove the consensus interpretation that the separation of lensing effects from gaseous galaxy cluster intracluster media precludes their contributing to the identified weak gravitational lensing effects.

Jim

Peter,

When the observer starts moving TOWARDS the light source with speed v, the frequency he measures shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c+v)/L. When the observer starts moving AWAY FROM the light source with speed v, the frequency he measures shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c-v)/L. Can you justify these frequency shifts based on your light-changed-speed-on-arrival theory? You write in your essay:

"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

Peter,

This discussion is about your proposal - I'm suggesting to you why the astrophysics community will receive your proposal, that the effects most generally attributed to dark matter (WIMPs) are instead caused by ionized gas or plasmas, with a great deal of skepticism. Feel free to ignore my advice about your proposal.

Jim

Peter,

You wrote: "In the Doppler shift case, due to motion (in non-zero time) it is distance that changes. So shifts in f are found because effective L [L is wavelength] changes on interaction with a detector."

When the observer starts moving TOWARDS the light source with speed v, the frequency he measures shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c+v)/L. Is this frequency shift due to a change in the wavelength? If yes, start from the wavelength change and derive the frequency shift. If not, the frequency shift is due to a speed of light shift: relative to the observer, the speed of light shifts from c to c'=c+v.

When the observer starts moving AWAY FROM the light source with speed v, the frequency he measures shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c-v)/L. Is this frequency shift due to a change in the wavelength? If yes, start from the wavelength change and derive the frequency shift. If not, the frequency shift is due to a speed of light shift: relative to the observer, the speed of light shifts from c to c'=c-v.

Pentcho Valev

Hello Peter, hope this finds you well. Inspired by you, I have taken to encouraging essay writers to read and rate their fellow contest contributors' work.

This is group message to you and the writers of some 80 contest essays that I have already read, rated and probably commented on.

This year I feel proud that the following old and new online friends have accepted my suggestion that they submit their ideas to this contest. Please feel free to read, comment on and rate these essays (including mine) if you have not already done so, thanks:

Why We Still Don't Have Quantum Nucleodynamics by Norman D. Cook a summary of his Springer book on the subject.

A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory by Eric Stanley Reiter Very important experiments based on Planck's loading theory, proving that Einstein's idea that the photon is a particle is wrong.

An Artist's Modest Proposal by Kenneth Snelson The world-famous inventor of Tensegrity applies his ideas of structure to de Broglie's atom.

Notes on Relativity by Edward Hoerdt Questioning how the Michelson-Morely experiment is analyzed in the context of Special Relativity

Vladimir Tamari's essay Fix Physics! Is Physics like a badly-designed building? A humorous illustrate take. Plus: Seven foundational questions suggest a new beginning.

Thank you and good luck.

Vladimir

Peter

Yours is the only essay exposing new underlying physical reality. I've just read it again, and there was far more detail embedded than I recalled from the first read. It's a bit of a brain teaser folowing the implications of 'evolving interaction' as you put it, but an eye opener. I'm very please mine is compatible and describes the 'frame boundary' physics. I particularly like you 'fluid dynalic coupling' (or 'magnetohydro'-dynamic..) analogy.

I think you desereve to win by far. Quite brilliant thinking.

Very best of luck in the final results. Let's hope you find an intelligent and open minded judge who can see it.

Peter

Peter,

"we also know JUST AS WELL that wavelength changes with frequency in Doppler shifts..."

This is simply not true. At least for waves other than light waves, when the observer starts moving with speed v towards the wave source, the frequency shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c+v)/L, the speed of the waves relative to him shifts from c to c'=c+v and the wavelength remains unchanged: L'=L. This is trivial, Peter.

Pentcho Valev

Peter.

I will reply to your post here under your thread, in two parts. This is part I.

You wrote about my essay: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1549

"Viraj, We agree about the inherent foundational errors and seemingly most other things. Perhaps we view the world similarly, ....... Super essay, I agree with almost all, and a good score coming. I felt while reading that I could almost have written it myself, but probably not as clearly. ...... I decided a while ago that we need "to find ways to explain these phenomena as in terms of states of changes of energy."

I hope what you wrote is your genuine and sincere opinion about my essay.

But something that I am non-plussed about is that if your essay and mine are so similar in content, how is it that your essay is in about the 15th position in Community rating and mine is at around the miserable 140th position and keeps going down whenever someone hints at giving it a high score? It so happens as a rule, hints of mutual back-scratchings always end up in backstabs!!! I am in this competition not to play such games.

I wonder whether your 'play' is about fact or fiction. Certainly it seems the Act 1 (in your essay) is based on some whimsical fiction - that the frequency f is a derivative of distance and speed; and lamda is a primary entity. This whimsical notion about the frequency befits more about playing "Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark" than 'Much Ado about Nothing' for the following reason.

In a photon the general formula for its energy E = mc2 takes the form hf. So f has to be fundamental. Also frequency f and wavelength L (lamda) are variables such that f x L = c . This is similar to the conjugate variation of pressure and volume under Boyle's law.

On the other hand h although outwardly appears as an immutable constant, it has its own internal composition where h = mcL and these components m,c, L, vary against each other while maintaining their product constant at h as follows.

(1) When there is a change of medium or a change of gravitational potential, c changes to c', conjugately varying with m (to m') while L remains constant and f changes to f' so that f' x L = c'.

In the case of a change over to a medium of a higher refractive index, since c' less than c, m' is greater than m., and f' is less than f.

Since hf' is less than hf, this implies that the photon has lost the fraction of energy h(f-f') to the field. When it emerges back in the original medium, the process is reversed and attains the value for its energy E = hf by influx of the fraction of energy h(f - f') from the field.

(2) When moving within a given medium, and when the photon confronts a constraint, the internal composition of h = mcL changes in a different manner. In this case mass m and lamda L vary conjugately to m' and L' while the linear velocity c remains constant.

At the same time f and L also vary conjugately such the f x L = f' x L' = c. When energy is in the mode of photon, unlike a fermion, it responds to constraints (within a given medium) by changes of frequency INSTEAD of changes of linear velocity. In a Doppler shift, when the receiver has a velocity -v relative to the photon, the relative velocity of the photon does not become

c-v, INSTEAD its frequency directly changes to f' = f(c-v)/c. In such a case since f' is less than f, L' is greater than L, and in turn m' is less than m. This means hf' is less than hf, which can only happen by losing the fraction of energy h(f- f') to the field.

THIS IS HOW THE VELOCITY OF LIGHT C', REMAINS CONSTANT LOCALLY, IN A GIVEN MEDIUM OR AT A GIVEN GAVITATIONAL POTENTIAL.

The whole constipated situation about the constancy of the velocity of light has been because both proponents and opponents of SRT have taken up a kinematic standpoint instead of a dynamics one. And in addition SRT cannot offer the above solution because it starts by shooting itself in the foot, by postulating that a photon has no mass (when what it does not have is the property of inertia).

Best regards,

Viraj

Dear Peter,

I feel the need to highlight your powerful words of wisdom here:

"The subject of this competition was ideal for finding new physics to rid us of the confusion, but it seems we all have to dig deeper still to extract the hidden assumptions."

We would probably all like to rest easy. But not only do we all seem to need to work hard to properly understand one another, the understanding we reach together is yet another challenge going forward.

Thanks for your observation,

Steve

Peter,

Nice use of literary allusions in your essay. I want to answer the charges Viraj had made about possible backstabbing and scoring in this contest as that might seem untoward. Beyond the quality of the essays which of course differ, there is likely to going to be a strong correlation with the number of people who read and score one's essay. You are one of the most friendly of all the contestants and have commented on many of the essays in this contest. In fact, you have also promised a large number of the essays good scores, as can be seen be doing a google search using: site:fqxi.org "jackson" "score" '2012". So it is understandable that if some percentage of these folks actually read your assay and find it interesting, you will receive more good scores than an essayist that is not as well known.

Fred

Dear Peter,

Here is Part II

(I am attaching this same text since there is a diagram which will not show on the blog directly. So it would be better if the readers open the attachment right away. And also on this blog what will appears as sin q, is sin(theta), cos q is cos(theta)

Peter wrote: "I suggest a 'simplest conceivable NON mathematical idea' was yet to be found, and describe one that seems to work very well. It involves kinetics and waves, but as someone used to the dynamics of boats negotiating waves I assume that's not a problem. It's a multi part self build ontological construction with foundations in logic, that seems to me too unify relativity and QM. I'm really interested in your view as to whether you see it as heading 'the right way.'".

Nature's processes are inherently mathematical for the simple reason information is not written in English or French or Chinese. Natures Information is written in short hand in the form of Geometric Algorithms. I hope you remember Galileo's statement: . "Philosophy (i.e. Physics) is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and ITS CHARACTERS ARE TRIANGLES, CIRCLES, AND OTHER GEOMETRIC FIGURES without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth"

So I cannot agree with your proposition to embark on a journey, setting the very first step itself in the wrong direction (simplest conceivable NON mathematical idea). If we take that direction we will go still deeper into the dark labyrinth. That's for sure.

Nature's processes are non-linear. However Physics has started off from the very beginning with linear approximations of what are non-linear relationships and still proceeding on the same trail. This is one of the main reasons why physics today is ad hoc and fragmented as Bohm has pointed out. It cannot give a coherent explanation to a group of interrelated phenomena in their concatenation. For all the talk about holistic physics, if this vulgarization of non-linear relations into linear approximations is not remedied, no unification will be possible. Non-linear mathematical representations must begin from the most basic level of development of physics. And it should not throwing of complex equations into the bargain half-way down the line when things have already got muddled up. In my work non-linearity is established by discerning trigonometric relationships with reference to geometric algorithms at the very basic level.

We need to set aside the dichotomy between particles and waves. Both fermions and photons need to be considered as quanta of energy in general. Photons are quanta of energy behaving in a different mode to that of fermions. Photons have no inertia, therefore they do not need another quantum of energy (pc) to excite them into motion. Yet a photon too has a mass. And a photon consists dynamically of an oscillation piggy-backed on a linear motion. In perspective it looks like a wave. Oscillation is defined by c = fL (L for lamda) and linear velocity c.

You are quite right about: (1) In the variability of the velocity of light in different media and (2) in the recognition that refractive index is determined by the 'Lorentz factor'.

From these we can demonstrate the algorithm of photon motion. (i.e. a "Simplest conceivable mathematical idea").

Energy of the photon E = hf in air represented by AB when moving in air (say).

When moving from this medium to another the energy AB resolves into two components AD and BD. (See the basic principles of Geometrodynamics in my essay http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1549 ). In this process the photon loses energy equal to B'D = hf(1 - cos) to the field.

AD = hf.cos q (the "reduced component") and BD = hf.sin q (the induced component). The induced energy comes from the field and is used to overcome the constraint of the medium.

As an illustration, consider a boat moving (at velocity c) in a flowing river of flow speed v, trying to reach the opposite bank exactly at right angles by pointing the bow at angle q. By this the boat forms a component c.sin q = v, equal and opposite to the drift. (AB = c, BD = v, sin q = v/c).

In the heavier medium photon has a similar behaviour. The component of energy hf.sin q is used up to overcome the constraint of the medium. And consequently the energy available to move relative to the medium is hf.cos q.

In this case when f has changed to f' = f.cos q, the wavelength L (lamda) remains the same. But the internal composition of h changes from h = m.c.L to h = m.sec q.c.cos q .L.

Then we have c' = c.cos q = f.cos q.L

Refractive index = c/c' = c/(c.cos q) = sec q.

When sin q = v/c, sec q = 1/(1 -v2/c2)1/2.

So your notion that the refractive index is given by the "Lorentz factor" has some truth, if we assign the value mvc to the component of energy BD induced from the field to overcome the constraint of the medium. (It must not be mistaken that v is the velocity of the medium as in Fizeau's experiment).

Best regards,

VirajAttachment #1: Refractive_Index.doc

Peter,

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.

Jim

Hi Fred,

Thanks for your impartial observations.

I would like to clarify one point. You seem to think that the essays with the highest aggregates of scores are automatically at the top of the list. Not necessarily.

How the ratings work is, if you get even one very good score, at this stage you are high on the list. It is the average that works. So at this stage even if a few have read and rated your essay, your position on the list depends on the average and not the aggregate.

But come the end of the rating process, your average needs to be in the highest 35 with at least ten ratings to enter the finals. That's all you need,

If one has a lot of good scores aggregated early enough by canvassing, then it is difficult to bring the average down by the other authors ganging up against you and giving you low scores.

I think the contest is not properly organized. The authors should not have been given the option to do the ratings. It should have been left for an independent panel.

Who in the Community will have the time to read all 270 odd essays and do a systematic rating? In such a situation, FQXi should not put ( as they are doing now) a few "Top Essays" only in their main site highlighting them in the Community Forum, while leaving no opportunity for other essayists lower down to get the attention to their essays, of the Community who are the real voters. By this highlighting of "Top Essays", by FQXi, it is those essays that will tend to get rated by the Community and not others. (Others only randomly if at all).

Instead of the funds being used for Prizes, these funds should have been given to independent reviewers to select the best 35 essays for the Judges to decide. (No Prizes means only those who are serious would have entered).

Best regards,

Viraj