Rethinking Einstein\'s Rotation Analogy by Richard J Benish

Hi Richard,

I really enjoyed reading your essay, very nicely explained from the two contrasting viewpoints of Earthians and Rotonians.聽

I too challenge the accepted fundamental theories in my essay Rethinking Geometry and Experience

Regards

Anton

Your essay is very well written, and the idea is presented in a very creative way. Good work!

By coincidence our essays both "Rethink" something to do with Einstein by appealing to an imaginary civilization! Had I been aware of your essay before I posted mine I would have chosen a different title, but I would not have changed the content.

I am especially eager to point out that the conflict between the Rotonian and Earthian perspectives is so dramatic as to be testable with a laboratory experiment that should be much less costly than many gravity experiments that have been proposed, are underway or that have been recently carried out.

Curiously, the experiment is one that Galileo proposed over 400 years ago.

Dear Richard J Benish,

Thanks for a very interesting and well written essay. As one who is strongly focused on gravito-magnetism -- which is essentially the rotational component of gravity -- I have realized that there may yet be much we have to learn about rotation and gravity. You have given me some new ideas to think about.

I invite you to read my current essay, The Nature of the Wave Function, and hope that it also gives you some new ideas.

Good luck in the contest,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Agrees with Anonymous. Very nice, though I doubt there really is a case here.

The GPS sattellites passes between the earth and the moon and their recorded motions may be seen as an experiment of a body falling through a body, though the effect may be too small to draw conclusions by. There was also some japanese space probe that surfed the borders between the gravity fields of the earth, the sun and the moon to get to the moon with minimal use of fuel. Forgot its name.

I also recommend Greg Egans book Incandescence. It is something right up your alley. Aliens living inside a rotating rock in outer space, trying to deduce natural laws from experimenting with moving stones in their experimental chamber in the center of the rock.

Richard

Einstein's limitation on what constituted movement in SR is a function of that being a depiction of a theoretical circumstance where there is no gravity, and hence a force which can cause both alteration in momentum and (supposedly) alteration in dimension (in the line of travel). So SR is limited to uniform rectilinear and non-rotary motion.

His placement of clocks here, there, and everywhere was to depict time, which was deemed to alter, whereas in fact, a) it cannot do because it does not exist, b) it was dimension that was originally said to vary (which it may or may not do), but that got substituted by time.

Leaving that side, what constitutes gravity and rotation, and why they occur, is certainly something that ought to be understood.

Paul

All efforts to resolve the quantum dilemmas that you've addressed are to be commended. It seems obvious to me that we are missing something big here as well. The trick, of course, is to devise an alternative that is not just a change in interpretation. To prevail, an alternative needs to predict physical behavior that conflicts with the predictions of the standard interpretation, and then be shown by experiment to be truer to reality.

Though my model (playfully called the Rotonian model in my essay) does not address these issues directly, I think it does yield some clues by virtue of its application to cosmology. Not mentioned in the essay is the fact that the model leads to a prediction for the value of Newton's constant as a product of other constants, which relate back to quantum theory. We get

G = 8(rho_mu/rho_N) (c^2 a_0/m_e),

where the ratio in the first parentheses is the mass-equivalent of the density of the cosmic background radiation to the nuclear saturation density, and the second ratio is the light constant squared times the Bohr radius to the electron mass.

This can be rewritten in terms of h and the fine structure constant, alpha:

G = (4/pi * alpha) (rho_mu/rho_N) (h * c/m_e).

The measured value of the nuclear saturation density is variably quoted over a range of a few percent. The cosmic background energy density has been more accurately measured. So this relation is at least very nearly true--either by coincidence or by "design." (No divinity intended.)

Note that calling the cosmic background energy density (as with its temperature) a constant is not an accident. In Big Bang cosmology this number changes. In my model it doesn't because I don't think there was a Big Bang.

If the "Rotonian" ideas about gravity are correct, many of our ideas about the physical world would need to change.

We could determine that these ideas are wrong and the standard (or other) ones should prevail by empirically answering the simple question in the essay: To oscillate or not to oscillate?

I'll have to look up Greg Egans book.

As for trying to resolve the case by consideration of motions of probes in the exterior fields in the solar system, I think you are incorrect. As you say yourself, "the effect may be too small to draw conclusions."

Even in a controlled laboratory experiment using, for example, lead spheres, the Newtonian oscillation period is about an hour. I don't think any extrapolation of the motions of probes flying around the solar system bear on the extremely different circumstance of being totally surrounded by a dense concentric array of matter.

The question is about an extreme case. What do we find when one body is allowed to fall through the center of another? Clearly the best way to answer the question is to arrange such an extreme case, either in a laboratory or an orbiting satellite.

Correction: electron mass on the right side of the latter equation above should be squared: (m_e)^2.

Correction: Galileo's thought experiment to drop a cannonball into a hole through the Earth appeared in his "Dialogue," which was completed in 1629--almost 400 years ago, not over 400 years ago.

Richard

Lagrangian points (of equilibrium) at centres of mass are experimentally verified, and we're even exploring the 5 in the Sun Earth Moon system, yet current theory persists in crushing all who venture there! Rather like it does all consistent theories I suppose.

Well doe, nicely written essay. I do like well presented analogies and metaphors. I hope you'll read my essay which is jammed full of them, and offers some real mechanisms to help both prove most but perhaps also falsify the odd assumption you use.

But as a past Rotatarian I do agree with Rotonians that "clocks are motion sensing devices unto themselves because of their change in frequency due to velocity." Again I offer a quantum cause and would greatly value your views, although the ontological construction does require some absorption.

Dan Benedict commended your essay to me unread, he was right. A good score coming I think. I hope you may agree mine worth the same. Last point. I agree an asymmetry as you propose, but for a 'closing velocity, NOT once the signal is 'detected'!(absorbed and re-emitted).

Best of luck n the competition.

Peter

Dear Richard,

This is interesting, and I appreciate it particularly because it's something I wouldn't have thought of. What do you think would be the best way to test this experimentally? It seems naively like it could be done with reasonably-sized masses in the lab without too much trouble, since one knows how to account for the effect of earth's gravity. Take care,

Ben Dribus

Ben,

I appreciate your positive comments especially as you have latched on to the most important thing: testability.

The "purest" way of doing the experiment would be in an orbiting satellite. The idea of doing so was proposed by David Levi as an entry in a NASA-sponsored Space Lab contest a few months ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWiUcf-o7DA

(David makes an error about orientation of the apparatus, but otherwise his presentation is well argued.)

Ironically, similar experiments had been proposed in the 1960s and 1970s as possible ways to improve on measurements of Newton's constant, G. But the possibility of improving on Earth-based G measurements and the expense involved left those proposals on the drawing board. (Look up papers by Larry Smalley)

Which leaves us with the most practical alternative--a modified Cavendish balance in an Earth-based laboratory. This is discussed in the following paper:

http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2011/PP-24-03.PDF

When I thought I might have access to funding a few years ago I engaged briefly in a dialog over price and feasibility with the head instrument builder at TeachSpin in Buffalo, New York. They specialize in making physics apparatus for institutions. Dr. Herold told me that, prior to learning of my work, he had been thinking about doing this experiment himself. I never did get a price, but I got the distinct impression that the idea is certainly feasible. Herold agreed with my guess that a magnetic suspension system similar to the one used by Faller and Koldewyn would probably work best.

Galileo was the first one to propose essentially the same experiment almost 400 years ago. Maybe someday physicists will get around to doing it. I'd say the sooner the better. I happen to think the result will be a big surprise. But even if it isn't, there really isn't any excuse for not finding out, one way or the other.

Richard Benish

Richard,

Thanks for the details. It seems like a test like this could piggy-back on an existing space mission without adding too much cost or trouble. But as a mathematician, I sometimes overlook experimental difficulties. Take care,

Ben

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Sergey Fedosin