What is “Fundamental” – Is “C” the Speed of Light? by AVTAR SINGH

Dear Avtar,

I hope you will read my essay again, as I do not believe you have understood its potential significance for your work. You dismiss it because you say your photon model depends on special relativity, as it matches the observed universe expansion data. But that is not based on the relativity of simultaneity as you imply. Cosmic microwave background on which all cosmology models are based is essentially Machian, and time is considered absolute with respect to this background. So contradicting "the relativity of simultaneity" does not seem relevant, as it is not involved in cosmological 'universe expansion' models. My impression is that you reached this point and decided not to go further. This is unfortunate, as Hertz's extension of Maxwell's equations address the problem you address, but as "disturbances in the ether", with implied local energy density. Moreover, the recent observation of colliding neutron stars has demonstrated that gravitational disturbances propagate at the same speed as electromagnetic disturbances in the field. There is no "acceleration time" involved!

This Hertzian extension of Maxwell's theory envisions energy flow in a body, while Maxwell/Einstein envisions energy flow between systems. It seems de facto true that cosmology 'universe expansion' observations concern energy flows within the cosmological frame, not asimultaneous flows between frames. (When one frame is the universe, what is the other frame?)

The problem here for your model, is that there is no acceleration. As soon as a disturbance occurs in the field, it immediately propagates at the speed of sound (the generic term for perfect fluid models) - no acceleration.

The significance for you is that this lack of acceleration required to reach speed c implies that light never has value v < c. Of course you refer to recent experiments in which light impinges on a semiconductor material and is absorbed, whence it photons become 'excitons'. In my opinion, such interactions are phonon-like, not pure photons, and are more likely explained as many-body phenomena, rather than pure photons. Of course I may be wrong, there is not enough information to determine this yet. If the phenomenon is essentially one of absorption and re-emission then formulas with the inverse square root of (1-(v/c)**2) are undefined. These are in most of your equations, since you seem to conceive of local 'photon' mass density as a material body, instead of the equivalent mass density of the disturbance in the field. The v-based equations for the photon are inappropriate in the Hertzian framework, which you seem not to have understood in my essay. In spite of this, and for reasons too long to include in a comment, I do find your Postulate 1 on page 5 to be is very astute and appropriate to the problem. It is that which first excited me about your essay.

Some readers, as soon as anything contradicts the received wisdom from Einstein, quit thinking, and dismiss all following information. That is unfortunate. There are a least a dozen interpretations of quantum mechanics, yet all deliver essentially the same calculations. Why should one recoil from a second interpretation of relativity, one that retains the Lorentz equations, but interprets them in terms of energy-time asymmetry, not space-time symmetry?

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Avtar,

Yes, I gave your essay a highest public rating I presume qualified to give as an amateur, the day prior to my comment. I did not submit an essay myself, I'm not quite there yet. Good Luck.

Good to know. I think that the shape of the photon is critical to the kinetic translation of its energy, it would go to the rate of change on the slope of a curve which influences strength of electromagnetic induction or rate of ballistic transfer of momentum (not even light stops instantaneously). The arguments about c+v omit that frequency is not independent of wave number of which we have no experimental means to count. For equivalence of wave (photon) number in relation to frequency, to be constant with light velocity, there must be some physical attribute of the wave/photon that makes absorption lines distinguishable as number while the Doppler shift moves the whole spectrum blue-ward or red-ward. I stick with wavelength as a measurement tool, regardless of discrete photons modeling, because it provides means of quadraticly projecting shape that would correspond with observation. I go with a orthogonal length contraction limiting at a covariant c proportion in the direction of motion and a corresponding expansion orthogonally to give a diametric cross-section taken as the amplitude of A = (f/c)^1/2. With an arbitrary benchmark of spherical at 1 centimeter wavelength it produced a prolate spheroid at greater than 1cm and oblate spheroid at lesser than 1cm, and a constant parametric volume across the spectrum consistent with a Planck Quanta e=hf. Not to piggy-back on your article, but as reason for physical shape's importance. Its my principle objection to the QM nondefined particle, it can only be assumed that QM decoheres a spherical photon. I'm going to want to get a new calculator and get back into this, and acesss some of your detailed analysis and that of Klingman, Kadin and others. I don't need people to agree with me to learn a little from them, and appreciate your reply. Thanks - jr

Prof. Tejinder Sing:

You are an excellent writer!

"We shall define `fundamental' as the process by which the human mind

converts Things into Laws."

You are, of course, correct, as far as the prevailing human culture goes. Unfortunately, such "fundamental laws" have been steadily changing, whether meant for social engineering or nature engineering, without knowing where we are going. Although, we can claim that we have been advancing.

However, as an experimental physicist, I have defined "fundamental" as follows:

"Physicists have been searching for the fundamental building blocks and the fundamental laws that govern the universe since ancient times. I will define those sets of building blocks and those sets of laws of interactions as fundamental, which are minimum in number and yet models and explains the maximum number of observable phenomena."

Chandra.

Avtar,

Thanks for your comments on my string, though it was all about your own essay. I won't follow suit but hope you'll also get to properly read and analyse mine.

I judge yours a good essay, well written and explained at around the right level, though the propositions demanded more (which I know you provide elsewhere). I agreed with all the fundamental analysis and identification of wide shortcomings, anomalies and inconsistency under current theory.

You propose some novel, original and interesting solutions, well explained though not falsified. As an astronomer also working on optics, plasma, plasmonics etc and wide analyses of the vast data stream we now have, to similar ends, I don't find all your assumptions consistent, but we must explore all possible hypotheses, and indeed 'agreement' isn't a scoring criteria. So some questions;

1. You seem to start with an assumption that photons are particles, so not waves and not requantized. Are you aware that in quantum optics Huygens construction is the only coherent paradigm, explaining re-quantisation at the Schrodinger sphere plane wave surface interactions, i.e. with fermions. I can just see how your model may be made to fit that but only with changes, i.e. 'excitons' would be the requantized energy before spreading, unless focussed into a helical beam structure. Can you see another way of gaining consistency with optics?

2. You seem not to have considered the re-emitted photon speed as 'acceleration' rather than 'powered' by the emitter, i,e. the constant fermion spin energy after coupling (absoption/re-emission). Have you considered and discarded that apparently very consistent model? if so, why?

3. You describe galaxies at z=8 as 'mature'. How do you arrive at this description when we have no model or sequence of secular evolution. I assume a 'red' stellar population? In any case this implies a life cycle' of galxies. i.e. what do you assume 'happened' to the old ones from 11bn yrs ago? (I don't challenge anything but I do have a coherent cyclic sequence answering that).

4. You may have noted I've been working on QM the last 3yrs essays. I agree all you say (of SR as well as GR). You suggest the inconsistencies are 'resolved' but I've looked very hard and can find no actual full resolution defined, including to the EPR paradox. For the QM must be derived classically with CSHS >2, (or GM be proved completely weird!). On reading mine you'll see that's precisely what it does. Please study and identify any similarities.

None the less I think your essay is of high quality and I look forward to discussing the science further, of both on both our strings.

Very best.

Peter

Thank you Avtar...

It's good to encounter you here once again, and to see your kind remarks about my essay. I'll begin reading yours now.

All the Best,

Jonathan

I am reminded that...

We became friends at CCC-2 in Port Angeles, Avtar, where you presented your ideas on how the limited lifetime and decay of protons could explain the excess of background energy that drives the accelerated expansion of the universe. We sat together at the banquet for that event and exchanged stories about our Engineering background and how we got into Physics. Sometimes these chance meetings have afterwards been quite meaningful. At FFP11 in Paris; I sat with Andrew Beckwith, who is also in this contest, and we became friends afterward.

But I am still taken by the sense that people must be dense to rule out the possibility that unbound protons have a limited lifetime, the same as unbound neutrons, and I think it is quizzical. My thought is that the rapid decay of free neutrons is due to the fact that their electrical neutrality is a gauge setting mechanism that requires something positive or negative to be measured against, where the proton is more stable or enduring. But as we have discussed; it too should have a finite duration or half-life - a limited lifetime.

Re-examining the obvious omitted possibility should be mandatory. I will need to read this essay to the end, but the first part seems quite interesting and it reads well. I already know you have something worthwhile to share.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Dear Avtar,

Thank you for the comments you posted on the page for my essay. Thank you also for bringing into the discussion your paper, "A Universal Model Integrating Matter, Mind, & Consciousness Resolves the Hard Problem & Cosmic Conundrum." The following comments refer both to that paper and of course to your essay for the present contest.

There seems to be an understanding common to both papers that human understanding of reality is still incomplete. Hardly anyone would dispute this. In both essays you mention the fact that currently there is no explanation for dark matter and dark energy, which are the bulk of what exists within the physical world. It is very interesting that in the essay for this contest you confine the discussion mainly to topics relevant to the physical universe, but in the earlier essay you widen the discussion to include phenomena of consciousness also. I am not sure that I fully understand the relationship between the solution of the strictly physical problems related to the possibility of a mass for the photon and the solution of the other problems which involve consciousness as well as physical phenomena. Perhaps the relationship is in the concept of spontaneity. As you say in the paper on matter, mind, and consciousness, "Thoughts or emotions are free willed activities in this sense, similar to the generation of a photon, a kinetic energy wave packet, via self-induced decay of quantum particles. Both processes are spontaneous or self-induced without the presence of an external physical force." This is a useful way of making the connection.

I think that your discussion of experimental results and future empirical tests is a very good step. Sometimes theoretical discussions lose this link to experience. From what you say, it seems that presently available results are encouraging. That is a good sign for the future.

Laurence Hitterdale

Dear Dr. Avtar Singh,

I have read your essay and suggest that you read Dark Matter http://vixra.org/pdf/1303.0207v3.pdf

QM claims that an electron can be both spin-up and spin-down at the same time. In my conceptual physics Essay on Electron Spin, I have proved that this is not true. Please read: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3145 or https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rajpal_1306.0141v3.pdf

Kamal Rajpal

Avtar,

I cannot pretend to understand the Universal Relativity Model (URM) but can recognize the need for it, and from your past essays, gather the weight and understanding of your approach. Certainly we can agree that "fundamental" is universal, pointing to an ultimate universal reality that is not fragmented. We all look for a ToE that is fundamental, as I mention in my essay. I garner my argument from a more generic definition of fundamental, "that which is necessary for existence." Current mainstream theories -- GR, QFT, BBM do need to unify the dynamics of a mass-energy duality. I believe your work is making inroads in that direction and deserves high marks. Hope you get a chance to check out my essay.

Jim Hoover

Dear Avtar Singh,

I've been reading your essay, I have a question about wave function collapse. I like your way of putting: 'Could quantum uncertainty be the fundamental foundation of nature and reality or merely a measurement induced artifact?' It's true that our views of what it might be range all the way from that to that.

A spontaneous change from energy to matter, if you're saying the change from waves to particles is also that, is an idea I've never heard. But it sounds like an objective collapse model, if it happens literally spontaneously - I'd be interested to know what you think sets it off in the lab. And does it also happen elsewhere, without anything setting it off?

It's good to think about truly new ways of seeing these things, I do think new ways of seeing them are needed. I'd appreciate it if you'd rate my essay (it only has 6 ratings, and it needs 10, or the average doesn't count). It's about conceptual physics, and how new concepts are needed if we're to find the underlying picture, which both Einstein and Wheeler said we'd one day find. I try to work out just what can be worked out, rather than guessing, and there are some things in the essay that have been worked out using conceptual thinking.

Anyway, best wishes,

Jonathan Kerr

Avtar,

Thank you for reading my essay and your kind words. As the end of the contest approaches, I tend to revisit essays I've commented on to make sure I've rated them. This I did on 2/19/18 with an 8.

Regards,

Jim

Dear Avtar

If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please?

A couple of days in and semblance of my essay taking form, however the house bound inactivity was wearing me. I had just the remedy, so took off for a solo sail across the bay. In the lea of cove, I had underestimated the open water wind strengths. My sail area overpowered. Ordinarily I would have reduced sail, but this day I felt differently. My contemplations were on the forces of nature, and I was ventured seaward increasingly amongst them. As the wind and the waves rose, my boat came under strain, but I was exhilarated. All the while I considered, how might I communicate the role of natural forces in understanding of the world around us. For they are surely it's central theme.

Beyond my essay's introduction, I place a microscope on the subjects of universal complexity and natural forces. I do so within context that clock operation is driven by Quantum Mechanical forces (atomic and photonic), while clocks also serve measure of General Relativity's effects (spacetime, time dilation). In this respect clocks can be said to possess a split personality, giving them the distinction that they are simultaneously a study in QM, while GR is a study of clocks. The situation stands whereby we have two fundamental theories of the world, but just one world. And we have a singular device which serves study of both those fundamental theories. Two fundamental theories, but one device? Please join me in questioning this circumstance?

My essay goes on to identify natural forces in their universal roles, how they motivate the building of and maintaining complex universal structures and processes. When we look at how star fusion processes sit within a "narrow range of sensitivity" that stars are neither led to explode nor collapse under gravity. We think how lucky we are that the universe is just so. We can also count our lucky stars that the fusion process that marks the birth of a star, also leads to an eruption of photons from its surface. for if they didn't then nebula gas accumulation wouldn't be halted and the star would again be led to collapse.

Could a natural organisation principle have been responsible for fine tuning universal systems? Faced with how lucky we appear to have been, shouldn't we consider this possibility?

For our luck surely didnt run out there, for these photons stream down on earth, liquifying oceans which drive geochemical processes that we "life" are reliant upon. The Earth is made up of elements that possess the chemical potentials that life is entirely dependent upon. Those chemical potentials are not expressed in the absence of water solvency. So again, how amazingly fortunate we are that these chemical potentials exist in the first instance, and additionally within an environment of abundant water solvency such as Earth, able to express these potentials.

My essay is an attempt at something audacious. It questions the fundamental nature of the interaction between space and matter Guv = Tuv, and hypothesizes the equality between space curvature and atomic forces is due to common process. Space gives up an energy potential in exchange for atomic forces in a conversion process, which drives atomic activity. And furthermore, that Baryons only exist because this energy potential of space exists, and is available for exploitation. Baryon characteristics and behaviours, complexity of structure and process might then be explained in terms of being evolved and optimised for this purpose and existence. Removing need for so many layers of extraordinary luck to eventuate our own existence. It attempts an interpretation of the above mentioned stellar processes within these terms, but also extends much further. It shines a light on molecular structure that binds matter together, as potentially being an evolved agency that enhances rigidity and therefor persistence of universal system. We then turn a questioning mind towards Earths unlikely geochemical processes, (for which we living things owe so much) and look at its central theme and propensity for molecular rock forming processes. The existence of chemical potentials and their diverse range of molecular bond forming activities? The abundance of water solvent on Earth, for which many geochemical rock forming processes could not be expressed without? The question of a watery Earth? is then implicated as being part of an evolved system that arose for purpose and reason, alongside the same reason and purpose that molecular bonds and chemical process arose.

By identifying process whereby atomic forces draw a potential from space, we have identified means for their perpetual action, and their ability to deliver perpetual work. Forces drive clocks and clock activity is shown by GR to dilate. My essay details the principle of force dilation and applies it to a universal mystery. My essay raises the possibility, that nature in possession of a natural energy potential, will spontaneously generate a circumstance of Darwinian emergence. It did so on Earth, and perhaps it did so within a wider scope. We learnt how biology generates intricate structure and complexity, and now we learn how it might apply for intricate structure and complexity within universal physical systems.

To steal a phrase from my essay "A world product of evolved optimization".

Best of luck for the conclusion of the contest

Kind regards

Steven Andresen

Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin