Yes, the physics mainstream does seem to be settling into a particularly muddy rut at this stage of history.

Best, Tom

Dear Thomas,

John Archibald Wheeler left to physicists and mathematicians a good philosophical precept:"Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers."

When physicists and mathematicians speak about the structure and the laws of Universum for some reason they forget about lyricists. I believe that the scientific picture of the world should be the same rich senses of the "LifeWorld» (E.Husserl), as a picture of the world lyricists , poets and philosophers:

We do not see the world in detail,

Everything is insignificant and fractional ...

Sadness takes me from all this.(Alexander Vvedensky,1930)

It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise,

as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye;

but that is sufficient guidance for all our life.

We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period,

but we would preserve the true course. (Henry David Thoreau,1854)

Do you agree with Henry David Thoreau?

Kind regards,

Vladimir

    I do not have any particular religion of my own. That would partly close my mind, which I prefer to keep open. I do, however, have a sort of frankly irrational suspicion -- which is akin to faith -- that when we understand the fundamental ways in which nature works we shall be far more stunned, shocked, amazed than even the lyricists, poets, etc. have it in their power to imagine.

    Best, Tom

    Welcome outsider from another mainstream outsider with a radical new model of the big and the small. I'm also retired and went back to my original love - physics.

    We join Einstein (a clerk because he was rejected by the academic community when he first publish), Newton (he isolated himself), some who were excommunicated, and others outside the status quo.

    Respected Sir,

    Once again you have proved the adage: old is gold. There is so much similarity between your views and our essay "REASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATHEMATICS" here that one author wanted us to comment on the central theme of your marvelous essay. We have covered the same points in a different style to finally suggest the need for scrapping the modern text books and rewrite physics afresh.

    Mathematics describes only the quantitative aspect of Nature - how much one quantity, whether scalar or vector; accumulate or reduce linearly or non-linearly in interactions involving similar or partly similar quantities and not what, why, when, where, or with whom about the objects. These are subject matters of physics. Thus, you have correctly described them as parallel tracks. Welcome to read our essay on this forum.

    Regards,

    basudeba

      Hello, are you maybe mixing Lorentz covariance with vector contravariance? In relativity Lorentz covariance is a local phenomenon. Also spacetime symmetry does not mean space and time symmetry. You deny the mathematical foundation but what you propose instead? GT does not work in particle accelerators. It does not even work for planet Mercury. Anything else you may suggest?

        Thanks for your kind words. I am glad we agree in principle.

        I will look up your essay.

        • [deleted]

        • Post #32

        Dear me! So, "universal covariance" has gone out of style, and covariance is now a "local phenomenon." I would doubt that it is a phenomenon at all, as I understand the word. But let us not quibble.

        Is it true that spacetime symmetry has acquired a new, more subtle meaning than what the words suggest? I suppose this should not surprise me, as relativity can evolve only toward the more arcane. By this time Einstein might say of physics, as he did of mathematics, that he no longer could understand it.

        I thought I was specially explicit about the alternative I support -- namely, invariant formulations of Maxwell's field equations and relativity. I freely admit that although it is easy to propose a crucial experiment, and I have done this elsewhere (Physics Essays), I have not tried to analyze the huge number of experiments credited with supporting conventional relativity.

        The form of GT I support uses GPS time for the time parameter. This automatically brings in time dilation via the "Lorentz factor" correction for motion but it does not bring in a spatial Lorentz contraction. Any empirical evidence for that immediately refutes my proposals.

        Maybe, comments on Maxwell-Hertz Equations by Branko Petrovic will open the eyes of Newman and many others who don't believe you.

        In order to conveniently access my last essay, you might click here . While I understand and respect your firm trust in standard mathematics, I cannot hide that e.g. Heaviside and perhaps also Gibbs are to blame for not following Hertz. I am fully aware that average mathematicians will reject my criticism too.

        Above I gave you already an opportunity to simply click my essay 1364.

        Best, Eckard

        • [deleted]

        • Post #34

        Thomas,

        Many, many thanks. From the bottom of my heart, many thanks.

        Your explanation of how clock timing for the GPS system works is something I have desired to know for years. It makes perfect sense to me. All the clocks are adjusted to be consistent in the receiver's frame of reference. I may use your essay as a citation for this subject.

        The v/c correction that you include in the equation for Lorentz force is very interesting to me. I am working with quaternions and attempting to express physics using them. I have proposed that the LT be expressed as follows:

        LT = cos(theta) i*sin(theta) = sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) (v/c)*i.

        I have not yet attempted to place this into the Maxwell Equations, but when I do, I suspect that the term you have added will be present. Now I have a plausible explanation for it.

        Best Regards and Good Luck,

        Gary Simpson

          Thanks for our favorable words.

          I have always been interested in quaternions, but never found a way to use them.

          It is good that someone is keeping abreast of the problem.

          Best, Tom Phipps

          Dear Tom,

          It is a saying in Africa that if you want to hear the truth, go to an elderly man. At 90, you are no longer looking for money, grants, job promotion, etc. All you wish for now is that Truth should rise again in our physics. Only those you called 'first class citizens' will oppose you.

          Your analysis of the Maxwell equations was superb. Although you mentioned GPS, I observe that you did not make mention other experiments showing that earth motion can affect light arrival times, contrary to the Michelson-Morley findings. The challenge is how to reconcile the two seemingly discordant findings. I use Galilean transformation and invariance principles to suggest a solution in this paper.

          My essay is also here, and I will be happy for a truth seeker to view and criticize.

          Best regards,

          Akinbo

          4 days later

          Dear Tom,

          It's great to hear from you again after all these years! (Jeff K. of "The Alternate View" fame was quite happy to be told you had appeared here.) I'm sorry that we just went unconnected for awhile. I appreciate your giving a good Referee report to get my first journal publication, for Physics Essays. I find your gadfly Socratic challenges to be refreshing and thought-provoking, even if I am not convinced of your grand vision. I do think it's important to look into longitudinal field issues, whatever the explanation.

          You (and others) will surely be interested in my own offering this time. It's about EM interactions extrapolated to higher-dimensional spaces. In particular, I take up the problem you referred to in Heretical Verities as the "left-behind potential hill". This is in essence the "4/3 paradox" about electromagnetic mass, and how does one explain it "directly" in terms of primary EM interactions PLUS that special correction from the internal stresses. I show how to solve that not just in 3-D space, but all spaces with analogous physics - and find that it will not work OK unless D = 3, number of spatial dimensions (taking one of time for granted.)

          Then I give my philosophical thoughts, which I hope are interesting but I'm proud I could provide some actual physics meat there too. Well an email address is given in my essay, so drop me a line sometime. And still going strong at 90, that is great. You remind me of my 87 y.o. mother. Cheers.

          Hi Tom,

          Once again you have encapsulated so concisely and elegantly the philosophical and mathematical woes of the current physics paradigm. I think specifically your discussion of the GPS clocks makes clear the inconsistencies that many present physicists are happy to accept. Fortunately the GPS system was developed by engineers who were quite happy to accept "Newtonian" time if that was required to make the system measure unambiguous locations on earth. This demonstrates that the mathematics of falsifiable engineering is always more useful than the fanciest of untestable field theories.

          I thought your development of a new way of expressing the Ampere force by combining the methodology of Ampere, Neumann and Weber is an interesting development and one I look forward to exploring further.

          In the meantime, I encourage your continuing efforts to try and make the scientific funding bodies aware of how unimaginative and wasteful their current grant awarding strategies are. Maybe this essay will bring this to their attention and we can see more research into longitudinal forces in fusion plasmas and other technologies in which unclosed or flexible circuits will highlight the existence and potential benefits of longitudinal EM force.

          Congratulations on a very encouraging and poignant essay.

          Regards

          Neal

          6 days later

          Tom

          This is one of the best essays, I've read in a long time. All of it was good including your comments on relativity and Maxwell's Eqs. Particularly good were your comments about covariance and invariance. Many are with you on the surface problems (e.g., relativity), but those comments provide even deeper insight!

          Nick Percival

          Dear Nick,

          Thanks for the words of encouragement.

          For Neal Graneau:

          I have been thinking a bit more about the plasma instability problem. Deep within the body of a plasma there must be perfect symmetry in all directions. So, any new force term can be expected to exert no net observable effect. But near any boundary there is asymmetry, and a new force term may produce unexpected results. That is as far as I can go without calculation.

          Best, Tom

          8 days later

          Tom,

          I see the "genuinely modern physics" as that which uses the quantum world to explain the macro to be quite intriguing. I marvel at the unfolding understanding of the classical world by studying the very small in the field of quantum biology regarding navigation of birds, DNA, and the LHC. I do believe "reality checks" can be warped by false interpretations, but see progress in modern studies like peer-reviewed BICEP2 and searching for the origins of Earth's water -- asteroids vs. comets -- by landing on comets and studying them.

          Not being a mathematician, I don't know if "over-mathematized" is a continuing threat. I do believe that its worship as divorced from pure physics is not good.

          I also see too much attribution of the classical world's behavior to the quantum world.

          Enjoyed your essay, Tom. Thanks for sharing.

          Jim

          Dear Jim,

          Yes, the quantum world is much used to explain the world of our senses. But the opposite is also true. For instance there is the Drude theory of electrical and thermal conduction, which uses the classical kinetic theory of gas dynamics to treat the valence electrons in a conductor as a gas. And so on. That might fit your observation about "attribution of the classical world's behavior to the quantum world."

          I am glad you could tolerate my essay. I think most physicists would not feel that way about it.

          Best, Tom

            Incidentally, Tom, I worked for a short time at NOTS, later called Naval Weapons Station, in 1968. The sand was bad for my pregnant wife and we went to the Naval undersea Warfare Center.

            Jim

            6 days later

            Dear Professor Phipps,

            I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

            All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

            Joe Fisher