Questions About the Constants of Physics and Their Possible Dependency on the Environment by Karoly Kehrer

Thanks for your help Gery

Karoly,

As Frank mentioned, there are some interesting experiments with variations of radioactive decay rates. Not only do they seem to vary with the Sun-Earth distance, but they seem to signal coronal mass ejections!

This Physics World article provides background.

The mystery of the varying nuclear decay

This paper provides the latest details.

Additional experimental evidence for a solar influence on nuclear decay rates

And these slides from Recontres de Moriond tell the whole story.

Evidence of Solar Influences on Nuclear Decay Rates

Enjoy,

Jonathan

Jonathan J. Dickau

Thanks for your comments, it greatly helps me

Sincerely

Karoly

Dear Karoly,

I want add some words that the speed of light in vacuum may be relative and absolute. The relative speed of light in special relativity is the constant c. Such speed is a convention of the theory and is known as postulate of constancy of speed of light. See Extended special theory of relativity. The absolute speed of light may be measured in one-way light experiments, see Metric theory of relativity. In the theory of gravitation the speed of light depends on the position of observer. For local observer it is equal to c (again a convention), and for coordinate observer the speed of light is smaller in strong field.

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Sergey

Thanks, I do agree. The question I was thinking about what the effect of the variability of the constants would have on our word view?

Could yo share of your thoughts on this?

Sincerely Karoly

Karoly

Most enjoyable read and pertinent observations. I agree entirely with your analysis. I hope you'll read my essay which follows this to arrive at what seems a major breakthrough. I start with (agreeing) there is no such thing as a non medium 'perfect vacuum', as your;

"When the relativity theory was formulated it had assumed this (MM) negative result as a positive proof, that the interstellar space-vacuum consists of nothing, it is an absolute void."

I also agree that local density has a significant effect and derive space-time curvature including kinetic effects in agreement with; "...it is probable that permeability and permittivity of the free space - μ0 and/or ε0 - may depend on the interstellar energy/mater density."

A concise, clear and logical essay, and earning a good score from me. I do hope you get to read mine, which may take a little longer to assimilate, but I hope you agree worth the effort.

Best of luck

Peter

Dear Peter

Thanks for the kind words. I am still working my way trough the submitted papers. Yours will be next.

Keep in touch

Sincerely

Karoly

After studying about 250 essays in this contest, I realize now, how can I assess the level of each submitted work. Accordingly, I rated some essays, including yours.

Cood luck.

Sergey Fedosin

Hi Karoly,

Just gave you a high Community rating: best wishes for the Contest...

Regards,

Declan Traill

Hi Karoly,

It is a nice simple essay that is important as it makes us think more carefully about these so called 'constants'.

Three thoughts;

i) It is also an assumption that the universe is expanding from a big bang, the empirical fact is a red shift with distance (a very different thing). We should always be careful about the difference between empirical facts and theoretical interpretations of these facts. This applies to the velocity of light - it is an empirical fact that it is always measured the same, it is a theoretical interpretation that it is constant (I believe it changes but so does wavelength / dimension such that the velocity is always measured the same, seems Nature is very deceptive but ultimately logical!)

ii) Dark energy (Einstein's cosmological constant), required to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe in big bang theory, seems necessarily (in WSM cosmology) to simply be gravity from matter further distant in infinite space.

iii) Black holes, in the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM), cannot occur, infinite energy densities are impossible in reality (only occur in mathematics!)

Cheers and good luck.

Geoff

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1548

Dear Geoff

"We should always be careful about the difference between empirical facts and theoretical interpretations of these facts"

I do agree along with your other insightful remarks.

"infinite energy densities are impossible in reality (only occur in mathematics!)" What I cannot comprehend why so many physicist believe in absurdities.

Thanks

Sincerely

Karoly

Dear Declan Sorry for a typo.

Karoly

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

Thanks I did not know this

Sincerely

Karoly

Dear Karoly,

Nice essay! A few thoughts come to mind.

1. Regarding the "Higgs Aether" view you mention, I think this is something worth thinking about, in the following sense: suppose the Higgs boson had been discovered in 1900 rather than 2010-2012. Would not the scientific community then have concluded "this is the aether?" It's funny how much the view of "spacetime" as "empty void" has changed since Einstein argued in his SR paper that light requires no supporting medium.

2. I agree with the statement that "all this tells us that understanding the fabric of the vacuum is the most important thing if one want to understand physics." (page 3)

3. Regarding the cosmological "constant," the causal set theorists have some interesting ideas on this. I am working on a similar approach myself.

Thanks for the enjoyable read! Take care,

Ben Dribus

P.S. There has been a lot of "ratings chaos" the last few days, and one hesitates to comment on people's threads for fear that the author will suspect one of giving a low rating. I want to assure you that I admire your contribution and gave it the rating it deserves.

Dear Ben Dribus

I have get more compliment than I deserve.

What I try to do is to question (and get rid of) dogmas that always were , and always will be part of natural philosophy.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

Sincerely

Karoly