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  • Post #275

Dear Peter,

Thanks for your reply. I will address the theoretical aspects in a later post.

You wrote: "But my most sincere apologies must come for your rating, as I've checked, and did not indeed get to score your essay despite my genuine notification of intent".

I appreciate your position.

You also wrote: "It seems even with a 9 it would still have been well out of contention".

Yes I agree it will be out of contention if you are the only one to score, and my average will not go up to the level of the first 35. But the average will go up from 3.1 to 3.4 that will make it jump about 30 spots. And do you know the essay in the 35th spot only has an average of 4.2. (The difference of averages between my essay and the 35th essay is only 1.1)

This means if there are 10 others like you who would score on the merit of the content of my essay (giving 6 -7), it will reach a position within the first 25.

All I request you is that you do is to fulfill your promise - do the needful and give it a start

Best regards,

Viraj

    Hi Raf.

    Far far simpler than that I suggest. The Doppler effect simply compresses the waves due to the motion of the medium during the interaction.

    What nobody has ever bothered to do in the past is stop and think through the mechanism and effects of that.

    Mechanism: Absorption at relative c+v closing speed, re-emission at new locl c.

    Effects; CSL, and the Postulates of SR proved.

    It is only the problematic assumption of 'no background frame' that is proved wrong. No 'absolute' frame is relevant locally, but there is always a local background frame.

    So Pentcho's words are is correct, just not the previous understanding. To render everything consistent; Light DOES change speed, to the new local c.

    I'll hope you may read my essay again, as it should now all make complete sense.

    Best wishes

    Peter

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    • Post #277

    Peter,

    Since you admit that "the refracted waves R are indeed not recognised by SR", then you should further admit that they are irrelevant INSOFAR AS special relativity is concerned. True or false, special relativity is a deductive theory and derives its conclusions from the assumption that the speed of what you call "incident waves", relative to the observer, is invariable. So you can attack special relativity by attacking THIS assumption. However considering processes of which special relativity says nothing is irrevevant, even if these processes are extremely important in other contexts.

    Pentcho Valev

    Pentcho

    I agree, but all you'd be attacking is one 'interpretation' of SR, allowing it to transmorph as it does so well. Many already agree flight velocity dt anyway. To really nail it for good, the specific fundamental wrong assumption it uses must be identified and falsified.

    The assumption is: 'There is no background frame'.

    It is true that there is not one SINGLE or 'ABSOLUTE' background frame, but there IS a LOCAL background frame for all motion. This can then be shown consistent with ALL the effects SR was conceived to explain, but WITHOUT the paradoxes.

    That is the only way SR can be nailed without it's exponents simply slipping away and re-interpreting the same old rubbish. The BETTER SOLUTION needs to be ready and standing complete and square in the path of the slithy toves. It needs help to be completed, not squabbling.

    As I say, bashing our heads against the stone walls of the troglodyte citadel is one way, but there is a better way. Fancy doing some science?

    Peter

    Viraj

    What your thesis finally says is far more important. You forget, scoring was over at midnight Eastern US time. That's why I was up past 2.30 am UK time trying to apply scores. The ability to score was switched off at that moment. I'm sorry, but there are also very many other good essays outside the top 35.

    Let's get the complete ontology together, which should after all be our aim. I think your formulations may prove to be a useful or even key part once working within a full framework, possibly in a wide collaboration. I believe can get a couple of mathematicians to look over them. But first we'd need to ensure we fully comprehend each others thesis. I hope you can read mine again slowly and ask questions of the parts that don'rt seems to fit with yours.

    best wishes

    Peter

    Hi Peter,

    First of all: congratulations for making the final list.

    Many thanks for the APS link and for trying to stop the rumour from spreading further. Let it be known that Lawrence did exactly the opposite some months ago. He tired to spread that malicious rumour right here, on a FQXi page.

    I did briefly look at your essay about a month ago, but as you know I have my hands full with my own fight. I will have a look at it again when I get a chance.

    Best of luck for the remaining part of the contest,

    Joy

    Eckard

    This 'Nature' paper confirms the superluminal jets, which are seen as up to 9c. You only have to look at Wikipedia and the hundreds of papers (all by 'serious experts') http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v354/n6352/abs/354374a0.html

    My last post somehow got 95% 'chopped!' I explained the two component causes. The first the well known Rees-Sciama effect (geometric) but with limited angular domain. The second; jet collimation. Simplified; Inside a flow of material is a rest frame, through which a flow may do max c, and a pulse in that flows rest frame may do max c etc. From the Hubble frame apparent 3c-6c is very common = local max c.

    I'm surprised you're still questioning this as it's such common knowledge. Just type 'superluminal jets' into Google.

    Your comments; 'vehimently argue' and 'defend myself' are a bit alien to me. As a scientist and Astronomer I can only 'point out' the evidence and 'explain the logic' of what I see as the most logically consistent interpretation. I see us as in a discussion and 'learning' not 'adversarial' forum.

    It's also clear from the second part of your post that you haven't assimilated or retained the fundamental points in my paper, which considers the inertial frame of each electron the approaching waves meet, i.e. it's 'first encounter' with ANY and all matter. You blandly state; "this does not change the frequency" but offer no evidence, logic or explanation, which means it can be no more than a belief. Please read through the essay again now carefully, and you should then fully comprehend my reply to that part of your post (very shortly).

    I should say by the way that your stated position is not a shock to me, it is the assumed position which I am pointing out has kept mankind in the dark for so many decades. All you have to do is some 'science', which is to 'suck it and see'. The results ability to finally explain all observation without paradox is as strong evidentially as the logic of the mechanism. If you wish to disagree then please find fault with either of those more critical aspects rather than use prior assumptions, which I point out are poorly evidenced.

    That is after all the whole aim of this competition! Yes?

    Peter

    Eckard

    Close your eyes, spin round 3 times then approach afresh. I hope you'll by now have re-read what I wrote and better understood it. If the detector

    1. Is not made of matter. (i.e. does not exist), or

    2. Misses the incoming photons/waves (they carry on by).

    Then you would be correct. Relative frequency would be caused just by motion. However. He cannot detect the photons in either of those cases.

    The ACTUAL situation is that the photons hit (or are propagated when the waves hit) and are absorbed by the very first surface free fine structure electrons of the detector. NOTHING can be detected unless this happens. You personally may best understand this zone as Maxwell's TZ. The moment these particles start re-emitting at c, the wavelength has changed because the particles are moving (in the detector frame).

    You suggest it's the retina cells that work out the frequency. Certainly they may do so if they're given their own calculators, but even then they are way behind the implementation of delta lambda. The frequency changes THE MOMENT the wavelength changes, which is why they do so inversely, and the MOMENT they are absorbed and re-emitted.

    Now you may take your blindfold off and see what has REALLY been going on. It is not the simplistic metaphysical thing we have assumed, it is the real quantum mechanism of atomic scattering, involving re-emission at c.

    This real quantum mechanism naturally produces the same effects that SR was cobbled together to try to explain, (with all it's paradoxes and avoiding any link with quantum mechanisms).

    There is ONE good reason NOT to believe the above, but only this one; The reason is that it is entirely new to us, unfamiliar, and contrary to what we have believed all our lives so is ingrained. We are religious creatures with brains still evolving, some more advanced than others, so most will not be able to assimilate such a change for that reason. I accept that, but of course unfortunately it doesn't relieve me of the task to explain, for those that can.

    Entirely thankless task I'm afraid, but I seem lumbered.

    Best wishes

    Peter

    Peter,

    Your hint to a 1991 article about apparent superluminal jets does not confirm your idea. I see it one more reason not to trust in what you are offering. Even if there was evidence for a really superluminal motion, this would not imply that waves can propagate faster re medium than given by the property c of that medium.

    Your reasoning starts with the wrong for waves in the far field assumption that the wave speed re medium depends on the emitter.

    You are questioning my completely rejecting judgment of your wishful thinking even concerning acoustic waves and the physiology of retina. Your lack of knowledge in these areas is obvious to every expert.

    Even those who feel unable to judge your idea should be deterred when thy realize your inappropriate habit of rewarding those who are distinguished by swallowing your idea.

    I am curious whether or not an expert like Steve Sycamore will support you.

    Eckard

    Peter, congratulations on making the list of finalists!

    And sorry for the delay. I needed a break from physics and enjoy some birthdays going around. I don't do physics all the time, like most people here. For me it's a compulsion that comes and goes and usually does not last this long. Suddenly I felt exhausted. But it's not over for you, lol. Enjoy the ride!

    Re time, no matter how good an explanation you come up with, I cannot agree, simply because my conception of time is totally different. To me, it is what emerges locally and completely dependent on local conditions. I understand that we are wired in such a way that we examine whatever process in the framework of absolute time in our heads, but I do not believe that this abstraction exists in reality. Just like some people here argued for absolute reference frame. The same there, to me it's an abstraction that cannot be head in reality. But let's see what the panel of experts will say on these matters. Perhaps I simply do not understand your point.

    Thank you for your comments on my essay in my thread. I understand that you read it very fast and based on this formed an opinion of it having "lost touch with underlying reality with... extra dimensions". Oh well, lol, I understand your take, even though I hoped that I did a good job explaining on the example of Flatland how we could live in 4D and not know it. See, in 4D the paradoxes vanish and a very coherent scheme of the universe emerges. I especially thought that my idea of how gravity works in 4D was interesting, explaining why voids are empty (that's where repulsive aspect of gravity lives) and even referenced a paper that describes the deformation of a dwarf galaxy in a nearby void, very much in line what the logic of the scheme I proposed.

    Don't know if you will feel like reading my essay again. You probably have not read quite a lot of essays too. I know I have not and need to catch up. It was just impossible to read them all in a short time and give each a deserving evaluation. That's what makes your interest in my essay especially valuable to me and also understandable why you did not see it the way I did. I should have written it better! lol

    Again, congratulations on making the list of finalists and good luck with the rest of the competition!

    -MV

    Hi Peter,

    I am curious. Do you have a direct link to the APS blog comment in question? I don't do LinkedIn so the link you provided will not connect for me. Sorry to see it, if someone is stirring up trouble, though.

    Jonathan

      Hi Jonathan,

      The comment in question has been removed from the APS blog, perhaps because I flagged it to be inappropriate, or perhaps because I threatened the author with a legal action. It was part of the character assassination campaign against me that has been going on in some private blogs for some time. A couple of bloggers (who are physicists, computer scientists, a statistician, and one failed essayists of our contest) have gone as far as manufacturing comments on their blogs on my name (i.e., as if the comments were by me admitting something or other or saying silly things). The idea behind the campaign is to discredit my work by discrediting me personally. Such character assassination attempts usually work. Since the rumours are circulating and added to for over a year now, some young and inexperienced students fall for them and spread them further, and that was the case in the now removed comment on the APS-Linkedin blog.

      Joy

      Jonathen, Joy.

      If you're an APS member just email your member No to pede@aps.org for "immediate access to the discussions." They say "Non-members are encouraged to participate in discussions, but comments may take up to 2 business days to post."

      Fred commented, and I did also send another, pointing out such comments showed the standard of professionalism in physics in the poorest light. It wasn't posted, but may have helped removal of the offending post, and the subject leader then posted;

      "I meant for this thread to be light, but I think Peter has a very good point. Thanks, Albert also for the link. It also says some of what Peter is saying.

      I don't know that I want to close this thread yet (by the way, just in case, how does one do that?) as I hope it does not turn into heated discussions about theories between people who will never reach any understanding.

      I had an officemate in graduate school who once asked whether people would have taken Einstein seriously if he had been yelling out his theories on the streets wearing a white robe (that's a reference to one of the Tintin albums for those familiar with the series) instead of talking in university seminars."

      (The link was to Margaret Worthiams book)

      As I'm both an FRAS and RIBA I can draw some comparisons between the professions. Let me say that it appears there is room for improvement in some science education at present. Inclusivity and general attitudes can be very poor, top to bottom. As has been said here, A PhD gives us a right to be wrong, not the right to be right that the more arrogant try to assume. It's no wonder scientists are loosing public trust!

      Peter

        I'm curious myself to know what happened. I responded to Peter's link on my linked-in account, then got a message that my access to the APS discussion group was "awaiting approval" though no such approval has yet been granted.

        Tom

        Eckard

        You suggest my; "reasoning starts with the wrong for waves in the far field assumption that the wave speed re medium depends on the emitter."

        Quite the contrary. So that error explains your erroneous view. The far field waves in my model are entirely dependent on the far field rest frame. i.e. the medium. It is only the degree of Doppler shift that ais derived from emitter speed. Only the NEAR field waves have any relation to the emitters motion. I'm perplexed that a few weeks ago you'd grasped and agreed with my essay, now you have forgotten or changed you mind. Is there an explanation?

        I'm also not sure I understand how you can have "one more reason not to trust" my model from my citing a Nature paper and giving sources for hundreds of others. I assume perhaps, as seems to be your way of working, you did not use the sources or read the papers? I have also made it very clear many times that NOTHING exceeds the speed of light locally. i.e. in ANY medium. Any observed 'superluminal motion' is then only ever 'apparent'.

        You had neglected to mention you were an expert on the physiology of the retina. My co-author John Minkowski (optics/opthalmist, and son of quantum optics Professor Jan Minkowski) asks you to provide evidence for your assertion and accusal of 'wishful thinking' and 'lack of knowledge'.

        If your criticism of collimated motion was about just providing one link, I then provide more. Please advise how many you may desire. If you'd also like some on the Rees-Sciama effect I'll be happy to oblige.

        http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.2448

        http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0004256

        http://rmp.aps.org/abstract/RMP/v56/i2/p255_1

        http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v334/n6181/abs/334410a0.html

        http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v334/n6181/abs/334410a0.html

        http://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1086/159962

        http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.0617

        http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9611023

        http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Superluminal.html

        Finally you say you're; "curious whether or not an expert like Steve Sycamore will support you." I defer to Steve's views, but you may again change yours when you hear them. If you had looked at Steve's comments on my blog you would see he, unlike many, did manage to understand the model, so supports it. I'm sure Steve will be happy to confirm his view.

        I'm now at a bit of a loss to see what your disagreement is, or why the vague insults. The way I do science may be a little different. I don't try to prove my theses but to disprove them. Mostly I succeed, but with this one I failed. I am quite happy if others succeed, but 'judging against beliefs' can't do so. Do you not agree?

        Best wishes

        Peter

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        • Post #291

        Dear Peter,

        If a macroscopic mechanical spring operated mantle clock is moving close to and horizontally to the surface of the Earth at a constant velocity, will it physically undergo length contraction and/or time dilation. Will its time keeping function slow? Will the clock keep slower time than an identical clock sitting stationary on the surface of the Earth. Will its size or shape change compared to an identical stationary clock sitting on the surface of the Earth?

        If a macroscopic mechanical spring operated mantle clock is moved from a stable high position above the Earth, stationary with respect to a point of the surface of the Earth, to a stable position on the Earth, will it have changed size or shape and/or rate of its time keeping function due to General Relativity type effects? Will it physically undergo length contraction and/or time dilation?

        I am not asking about photons or doppler effects. I am not asking about any effects due to accleration. There is no acceleration of either clock with respect to the Earth. There is no velocity for the stationary clock. There is constant velocity for the clock moving parallel to the Earth. Please disregard any atmospheric resistance to the clock's motion. The moon could be substituted for the Earth.

        James

        Dear Peter,

        Congratulations with being in the top 10, you deserve it.

        I ended up 3,7, but got a lot of encouraging posts , which is for me important too, you know my subject "consciousness" is not an exact mathematical one.

        I am also following your APS comments (as you could see with the thumbs up I sent you.

        I wish you a lot of luck in the final votes.

        Wilhelmus

        • [deleted]

        • Post #293

        Wil,

        Thanks for the 'thumbs up,' keep em coming! and you congrats. I'm very happy with 7th both last year and this. If the judges simply passed it over again this year perhaps some fundamental questions should arise. It's been pointed out it's the only one actually providing a logically and mathematically consistent advance in fundamental understanding both years, which is after all the purpose of this site and contest we assume. Last years position was shown wrong at 10th at the time, which may of course have made the difference.

        I agree your own essays topic doomed it to ignominity. I recalled you were going to have another go at absorbing and assimilating mine. It's a daunting task, requiring suspension of some long held assumptions, but it's very rewarding, so I hope you do.

        Let me know how you get on. I really need to get a handle on presentation of the ontology. I suspect it needs moving pictures, which would need financing.

        Best wishes

        Peter

        • [deleted]

        • Post #294

        Peter,

        While your basic idea, its weakness, and its appeal are easily understandable, you managed to hide this simplicity like a magician behind various detractions. Let me assume that electromagnetic waves largely behave in principle like acoustic ones. Basically, you argue that the location where the wave has been emitted, e.g. the air within an air plane, can be called the local medium. Seen from the air outside, the speed of sound differs from c. You are calling this the apparent global view. The problem with your idea is that the medium (ether) has so far been considered like only one solid or a fluid (see the essay by Perez) without moving relatively to each other local regions of reference. It would still be acceptable if you merely did hypothesize maybe non-uniform streaming of dark matter although I guess there is no experimental indication that could justify such hypothesis in case of light, and seemingly increased in excess of c speed of acoustic waves due to non-uniform air flows is perhaps meaningless. Moreover the idea of dragged ether is not new.

        There are two reasons why I cannot accept your claims: One is wrong further argumentation.

        The other one is questionable maneuvers as to win support including unproved claims like this one: "Having undergone the pain of extraction of assumption 1 from our belief systems and used wide evidence to rebuild ontological foundations we find the quanta and classical physics unified, consistent with the SR Postulates and with Einstein's final conceptual monologue of 1952.4 The tale unfolds."

        You argued that light is always emitted with c relative to the local medium. However, the near field cannot play any role concerning the speed of a wave. It does not propagate. A re-emitted wave propagates independent of the motion of the emitter relative to the medium. This implies that the speed of sound can provable not exceed c relative to the local air. The same is certainly true for light. Now you seem to admit that superluminal speed is always an apparent one, i.e. an illusion.

        Of course I tolerate minor mistakes of you like "193,500k/sec". Inappropriate stage rhetoric, dominates your essay, e.g. you wrote: "a clearer light is now thrown on the stage so the mists should start to evaporate. Those with deeply embedded assumptions will be feeling the initial discomfort of unfamiliarity of the new views of nature". This is anything but concise, unusual in science but also not yet a serious imperfection. I even can guess that the smaller than symbol after c in "nothing, anywhere, is really moving at c" means in excess of c.

        However, I see you wrong when you claimed: "Unlike us, Einstein was not able to explore space and find it's qualities." I do not refer to your spelling of it's but I see Einstein definitely not stupid while most likely misled via Lorentz and others. You wrote: "Each medium or local 'space' is defined by a kinetic state and represents it's own 'space-time geometry'." This is definitely nonsense for acoustic waves.

        What about the references you quoted in your attempt to defend yourself, I wonder if they are backing your idea that nested re-emission can cause a speed of light in excess of c like in case of a multistage rocket. I guess the referred papers just reported apparent superluminal speed.

        While you seem still to assume that the speed of light can globally exceed c, I did not find the word global in your essay. If I recall correctly, LC used it in the discussion. Anyway, the attribute local makes only sense in opposition to something else.

        I did not vote on your essay. If I were forced to do so I unfortunately had to rate it worst. Sorry for that.

        Eckard