Readers' Choice: Much Ado About Nothing

Jason

I think Ted Jacobson would agree we need more open thinkers like you in physics, who aren't afraid of the fascist self appointed rulers pointing boney fingers and shouting 'crackpot' at anyone who won't toe their line.

Your last line was interesting; "..builds on the ability to take an island of space-time and cloister it within a coexisting hyperspace." You obviously haven't looked up Teds other papers on arXiv yet, or studied Messier 87 etc. Have you read Einsteins '52 paper; "..space is actually infinitely many spaces in relative motion."

He was thinking 'systems of co-ordinates' but looking for 'Reality/Locality'. Conceive the Discrete Field Model if you can;

Every star/planet/galaxy/lump of mass frame drags an 'Island' of space. Envisaging each one as a magnetosphere is close enough. Small ones simply travel though larger ones.

Light goes through each one at 'c'. It changes speed at the boundary shocks/halo's/quantum clouds, to do so.

Now see if you can find any observation that disproves that. I can tell you I've looked everywhere and there are none. Indeed it resolves every anomaly I've come across. Thats the DFM. As Feynman said; "Nature will always find a simpler way than man can imagine".

The trouble is - it follows the SR postlates, but not ensuing assumptions, like the assumption the signal we see from M87's gas jet carries the same information as the EM waves of the jet itself, so we can't see it at more than 'c'. Nonsense of course. M87and dozens of others are still considered major anomalies and not talked about. God help us!

I'm still searching for some intellegent life in the solar system to perceive how simple it is. Is it you Jason?

Do consider the above first, but for hypertravel? Just send a stream of particles in advance. The later ones will move wrt the earlier ones, like Russian dolls within dolls. Pretty soon you can ship off at 6c wrt the source. The problem is, you can't go far if going from a moving 'island' unless the stream is aimed either forwards or backwards, which is tricky if it's from something going in circles!

Peter

Hi Peter,

"Every star/planet/galaxy/lump of mass frame drags an 'Island' of space. Envisaging each one as a magnetosphere is close enough. Small ones simply travel though larger ones."

Space itself is mysterious. I've wondered if space can be treated as some kind of a field.

I think locality is going to be hard to rely upon because quantum mechanics is so fundamental. Under Newtonian mechanics, there was one clock for all observers; but that just means that information is fully available for all observers. In our universe, one observer or reference frame doesn't have omniscient information about other observers/reference frames. It takes light/virtual photons to provide that information.

Anyway, the hyper-drive is a difficult challenge. There are quite a few assumptions that have to be made for it to work.

Dear Peter,

Causality and conservation of energy are two fundamental principles that I consider solid footing. In contrast, the physics community considers the speed of light to be solid footing, sacred and absolute.

I was thinking about the super massive spinning black hole that you described. It sounds like you're saying that locally, particles are confined to the speed of light with respect to each other, but that over the range of 100 light years, the front and the back have a 6c (six times the speed of light) velocity spread.

If we agree on that point, then it suggests that the universe wants to keep the change in c versus distance: dc/dx as close to zero as possible. In other words, dc/dx should be energetically unattainable. The troglodytes of the physics community would insist that dc/dx = 0, absolute and sacred.

If the light was traveling as either a wave or a particle,or both,could a kind of training or rear ending of photons boost some light ahead of some photons that are traveling independently of those those photons that have been emitted later or behind the initial burst?

What I'm trying to ask if if,for instance,you had two pencils on your desk.One would be short,one would be long.If they were traveling at the speed of light,would the point of the longer,reach,at an observation point,faster than the shorter.

Please bear with me,I'm trying to learn and conceive some of what you speak of.

If I may ask another silly question?Does time exist in an absolute Bose-Einstein condensate?

Hi Jason.

Close, but let me draw a better picture in your mind. You must first remember space is a medium, we don't know of exactly what, but know it's at 2.7degrees.

Imagine it as the sea, and you, swimming, can only do 3mph.

A ship comes past at 3mph, but it's hull is one vast pool of water. The guy in it is swimming at 3mph, but doing 6mph with respect to (wrt) someone watching through a telescope from the land. Floating in this pool is a smaller boat hull, also filled with water, being towed towards the front of the ship at 3mph. A guy dives in it and swims at 3mph. The guy on land sees him doing 9mph! And so on and so on.

Each hull and each swimmer create a 'bow shock' wave as they move through the water. In the medium of space that's what propagates the excitable particle activity we see (synchrotron radiation and 'photoelectrons'). The particles are concentrated at the front of the field, at the boundaries between 'lumps' of field, they are NOT the field itself.

Similarly, if there's a water jet blasting into the pool from under you, and you dive into that, you'll do 3mph wrt the water in the jet.

If you search the web you'll find a movie of the gas jets of Messier 87. The mass being sucked in isn't constant, so neither is the stream coming out, it's a bit 'blobby', but the blobs are moving at 6c viewed from our telescope. (which could also be on a 'ship' moving the other way!).

In other words; If you're a swimmer jumping in a pool you don't care a jot what speed and direction the ship you're on is moving, and you don't have to do 3mp wrt someone watching from another ship doing 20kts the other way! You always do 3mph LOCALLY through the water you're moving through.

In M87 there are probably ionised particles being ejected with their own local field 'medium' around them, these ejected lumps of space could do 'c' wrt the medium that went before, the stream spreading out with distance. The fastest speeds will therefore be seen close to the black hole, as everything will gradually slow down.

I hope you can now visualise the very simple and familiar physical process? - combining Locality with Reality.

Peter

Hi Mr Ed.

Hopefully my reply to Jason has helped. If you haven't read it do so now.

The pencils would be seen at the same time. They couldn't actually travel at 'c' locally (no mass can), but if they're on Concorde, and moving from tail to nose next to a fibre optic cable keeping pace with a light pulse, (0.67c), someone in a nearby balloon could add the planes velocity to the pencils without worrying about the fibre optic cable ripping off the plane as it contracted!

But if you're learning physics don't try to tell anyone that as you'll be failed! It's essential to learn Relativity before exposing precisely what's wrong with it. And Einstein well knew the problem when he said;

"I hope that someone will discover a more realistic way, or rather a more tangible basis than it has been my lot to find." (letter to Born '44) And "one should not desist from pursuing to the end the path of the relativistic field theory."

And importantly; "..it must now be remembered that there is an infinite number of spaces, which are in motion with respect to each other." ('52).

Brilliant question about time in BEC. I haven't a clue as the best definition I've heard of time is Einsteins; that it exists to stop everything happening at once. For all practical purposes, yes, as there's no motion or energy. The term 'frozen in time' doesn't just apply to relativist academics!

They promised that when a more consistent theory came along, that unified physics, things would move on. It seems they were fibbing as they now seem incapable of recognising one!

Peter

Dear Peter,

I understand you example. But what puzzles me is that, if some guy with a telescope is going to be able to watch all this, then he or she (they) have to receive photons. Those photons have to travel through each medium of space, locally, at the speed of light; and then arrive at the telescope at the speed of light. I guess it's like watching special effects at the movies. The angles are ranged more widely then they should be, when you know that the phenomena is no closer than some distance L. You see it, but it looks like 6c is occurring.

I think the technical version of the speed of light restriction says that "information cannot be transmitted/signaled faster than c, the speed of light." What you are seeing is similar to frame dragging. Space-time is revealing to you that it is a "something", a brane, an aether of some kind... Frame dragging is related to this.

This phenomena appears to violate what you call reality (speed of light restriction). But fooled the observer. You saw what looks like a speed of light violation, but the information was transmitted no faster than c.

To transmit information/stuff/spaceships/people faster than the speed of light, you have to be swallowed into the belly of a hyper-space object that moves no faster than c', where c' >> c. While in the belly, you are completly isolated from space-time; this ensures that there is no violation of c.

Dear Peter,

There is an idea that is forming in my mind, it's still a bit murky. But here goes.

Photons are wave functions that are emitted and travel in all direction at the speed of light. They have to demonstrate such flexibility because the universe must always appear to have a speed of light, c, that is absolute.

If, in a given volum of space, 99.99999999999999% of the mass/energy is traveling to the left at some velocity .8c, then all of the black body radiation will be emitted from a center of mass traveling at .8c. The one particle, one part in a zillion, that is traveling to the right at .8c, will emit photons as well.

It's not supposed to be possible to predict where the photon will be detected within an h-bar of accuracy. But is it possible that the photon from the loner particle might experience some pressure for the need to uhpold the appearance of a constant speed of light? In such a way as to create a bias?

I'm talking about physics here. Any thoughts?

Dear Peter,

I hope you don't mind, I am trying to formulate a possible explanation for gravity.

Virtual particles, by defintion, can't be detected. Just as a crazy thought, what happens if every particle and quantity of energy emits a virtual photon (virtual graviton?).

All particles detect these virtual photons. Particles want to be at inertial rest. They will take every virtual photon (graviton?) and perform a calculation which includes (1) how far away did it come and (2) how fast was it moving. Particles want to be at rest with respect to everything around; so that when they emit a virtual photon, that particle will be at rest with respect to the emitted virtual photon that travels out as a wave front.

If there is a planet, star or black hole very close tot he particle, it will receive a significantly higher number of virtual photons (gravitons) that will skew the particle's calculation, giving the appearance that the position of rest is in the direction of the planet, star, blackhole, etc..

21.03 Post.

Excellent thinking and question Jason.

You're half way to the answer, which 99.99999% of physicists are not!; The wave energy/signal information, contained in the light pulse being observed, travels at 'c' locally. The information the pulse is emitting during that journey is different, and also travels at 'c' towards the observer.

What the observer calculates from the light received is a 'rate of change of position', wrt the observer, which may be almost zero, or over 10xC. This is just like a shadow retreating across the infinitely fine angle of a planets surface.

I'm afraid you'll find mainstream physics a bit dim in this regard. Some of the 'explanations' for the 'superluminal motion' of M87 etc. are amusingly naieve. People rely too much on maths and forget how to use potentially the most powerful quantum computers in the universe, their brains.

Yes; 'Frame Dragging' - But perhaps better conceived as; one unified quantum field associated with each and all massive objects, with different characteristics; Gravity, Electro-Magnetism, and a local EM wave speed limit of 'c'. fields within fields - "..infinitely many.. in relative motion", as Einstin said.

Swallowed in the belly? OK, Or think of a particle stream. Send it out at light speed, then send a 6 stage emitter up it, each emitter sending more out at light speed wrt the last. It'd need long term preparation! And you'd have to go where you first aimed the stream. Put me down on the credits when you build it but I'll pass on the 1 way ticket!

Peter

OK Jason, reply to Last Post. 00.10

I think your idea has the same chance of being right a loopy quantum gravity or knotty strings. The latter 2 can't be falsified as they both predict the same as Relativity, unlike the DFM, that predicts superluminal motion, (M87 etc), 3yr plus lensing delays, Voyager anomalies etc.

I did also look brifly at quantum mechanisms consistent with the DFM, but few were excluded. If you'd like to see it check out; http://vixra.org/abs/1001.0010

It does also suggest centres of mass might have zero not infinite gravity, rather like the 5 Lagrangian points at the local centres of mass around our sun/earth/moon etc, system. We constructed a 7m ton symmetrical test bed a while ago and it seemed to check out with microgravimmetry, but difficult to prove anything. It's at Cheops if you'd like to try yourself, but I'm quite busy and don't like wasting too much time on the unfalsifiable.

I hope this has all helped.

As both Einstein and Feynman suggested, It would be simpler to understand if you were 8. But of course seemingly impossible for a 60yr old professor!

Peter

Dear Peter,

I think a Discrete Field Theory model would just about send Occam, and his razor, running out of the physics department, screaming. Ive considered variations of DFM; I agree that its a lot closer to the truth then anything we have so far. But if we were relying upon a simple explanation to explain the universe, I suspect that no simple AND complete description of the universe exists.

As for hyper-drive physics, we might have to hire a contractor that actually lives/exists in hyper-space. With our space-time space-ship, and a

hyper-space component of the spaceship, it might be possible to creatively get the two parts to couple in a way that removes our spaceship from space-time.

I wouldn't buy any hyper-drive stock this year; it's going to take a while to figure this stuff out.

Dear Peter,

Please forgive my obsession with hyper-drives. I believe that it provides a useful tool to help figure out what the physical universe is all about. Causality and conservation of energy are held as absolute in my models; everything else can be changed, but only if I can explain it.

For example, DFM is a usable in my hyper-drive approach. Let's say that I want to build a hyper-drive similar to the ones in the movie Independence Day. I want spaceships that can hover and glide over cities. Allow me to list my assumptions.

First: I assume the existence of a hyperspace that is very similar to our space-time, with c'>>c, and I can change the Planck constant.

Second: Such a hyper-space has its own photons, charges, etc. But that hyper-space is un-coupled with our space-time.

Third: I can control the coupling however I want, so long as I can explain the consequences in some plausible way.

Here is what I get. I need two spaceships, one in our space-time (STSS), and one in hyper-space (HSS). They coupling occurs via a trans-dimensional DFM generator. When the appropriate amount of energy is supplied, the DFM generator can transition the STSS and the space around it, and move it into hyper-space as sort of a space-time bubble. The energy requirement of this transition will have to account for gravity effects, and the mass of the STSS, will have to be converted into an effective hyper-space mass using E=mc2=m'c'2.

The transdimensional energy field will remove the STSS from our universe. That will permit a hyper-drive propulsion system to operate with a very reasonable amount of energy. There is just the energy gap to move the STSS into hyper-space, and the energy cost to shift the gravitational burden from the STSS to the HSS.

For transitions of energy between two universes, I'm not allowed to violate energy conservation. If I do, it will generate a gravity field between the two universes.

Hi Jason

The problem is that you have to drop to the same level of logical consistency and falsifiability as string theory, M theory and much cosmology - rock bottom! And they don't predict anything different to relativity, which all reduces any value to that of science fiction. You can make any starting asssumptions you like! I could make a couple of slightly different ones to make hyperdrive easier still! Visualisation is essential, but science also has to pass tests of empiricism and logic.

That's where the DFM is different. It predicts different things, like the ability to observe superluminal motion from a 3rd frame, 'Shapiro' Einstein lensing delays of well over 3years, a quadropolar assymmetry in the CMB, perpendicular assymmetry in the planetary bow shock, Apparent Lorentz violations in ranging results, significant additional accellerations at the edges of magnetospheres, etc. etc. It turns out all these things are actually exactly as observed, and are currently considered anomalous.

On Occam. Feynman said the true answer when found would look strange at first, then almost too simple. The DFM is actually too simple for those - as Einsteins said, unable to see past their own view of things, to believe. It's Relativity that's impossibly complex. The DFM says that; if a kiddy is riding his trike on a train on a planet that is moving through space, an observer out in space watching would be able to simply add the velocities of the planet, train and trike.

At present, the train in would have to contract more than the rails it's running on, and the trike shrink more than the train. It's logical inconsistency from circular 'Alice in Wonderland' maths. If the observer were a visitor searching for intelligent life, and knew we believed in contraction, he'd be off to search elsewhere!

The Discrete Field Model actually proves the postulates of SR, but without the silly assumptions we've added, and with a simple known quantum mechanism to acheive equivalence and unify physics. Unfortunately it seems Einstein and the visitor were correct!

I'm impressed and encouraged if you understand it - but can you see it's implications?

Peter

PS. I'm off sailing so wont reply for a few days.

Hi Peter,

Welcome back from sailing; lucky you!

This is becoming a loose nail that needs to be hammered down. Locally, two objects cannot pass each other any faster than the speed of light; that much is intuitive.

There are reports of galaxies, millions of light years apart, that are moving apart at multiples of the speed of light. Even you have provided examples of huge spinning black holes that spit out a layer of material moving at .999...c - the ship; within that, there is another layer, the swimmer, that moves .999...c relative to the first layer; etc, etc...

Do we need to estimate the velocity of a layer of space in addition to its speed of light? I'm also getting hung up on DFM. Fields themselves are things that are supposed to obey the speed of light restriction; not overturn it.

Setting my hyper-drive ideas aside, at the end of the day, do we have a way to travel long distances faster than the speed of light? Or is there something that we've overlooked?

A planet is passing us at 0.9c; on the planet is a bullet train that travels .8c; on top of the bullet train is an ADHD kid on a tricycle who is peddling 0.7c. That kid drops its candy and, as bad luck would have it, it goes right through our window; but how fast? That piece of candy is going to hit our ship very hard when it hits us at .995c; not 2,5c.

In addition, if we wanted a trade route with a colony 10 light years away, are we going to use 10 stage rockets, where each stage is guaranteed to advance the remaining stages to .9c? According to what you are saying, this will give us a velocity of 9c to our colony. So what happens when we pass through the asteroids that we didn't account for? OK, not you and I, but some very unfortunate travelers? Moving faster than c should remove the spaceship from space-time itself, right? If not, then those poor travelers are going to hit the asteroid at some .999999c, for a very bright explosion that will be visible from earth and the colony 10 light years away.

My point is this: DFM probably can account for frame-dragging and these other FTL phenomena. But at best, it is fools gold FTL. It is not anything that can be used like an alcubierre drive or a star trek warp drive. I've solved most of that riddle, but it's way beyond anything we can do now.

Sailing brill, beat 2 TP52's and an Americas Cupper in 2 races.

You asked; "Do we need to estimate the velocity of a layer of space in addition to its speed of light? I'm also getting hung up on DFM. Fields themselves are things that are supposed to obey the speed of light restriction; not overturn it."

Yes. But all fields are Lorentz invariant wrt their immediate surrounds.

The piece of candy will be quickly slowed to below the local 'c' by, and with respect to, all fields it passes through on it's way to our window.

Big asteroids will get many travellers unless we also send a decent particle 'barrier tube' down the tubes. Smaller ones, and those on a similar trajectory will be deflected. But it's even trickier; The starting point must be the same wrt the next larger field. i.e. We'd have to build a station outside our galaxy and go there to start each journey. As the galaxy heads off into the distance we'd need to keep building staging posts! The reality really isn't very practical for hyperdrive I'm afraid.

But the DFM is a lot more than useful than for fantasies like warp drive. Half of the physics we use is well past it's sell by date and can't be used with the other half. The coherent reality physics of DFM will release us to make leaps and bounds in all directions.

That's if we're bright enough of course, which it seems most may not be. There are still only about 7, and you?, who've looked properly and understand it. Another 30m and we're there! Any ideas on how to get there?

Peter

"Another 30m and we're there! Any ideas on how to get there?" Ooh, ah er??? I'll keep looking up at the stars and asking the aliens to visit some university physics departments.

The warp drive, aka Alcubierre drive, is a bit impractical. I heard they think they could do it if they could just convert Jupiter into pure energy.

I understand that real physicists have to work with plausible tools like barrier tubes. As a physics hobbyist, I have the luxury of being able to work backwards from the assumption that hyper-drives are possible. It's a bit complicated, but in principle, it would work this way.

DFM is a good model for space. I am using two variations of that to describe the existence of a necessary multiverse with coexisting universes whose imaginary time lines are orthogonal and non-interacting with ours. A separate imaginary time line is one way to describe a space-time. This allows me to make "space" available to place a universe. It also succinctly refers to both QM and relativity by the use of the imaginary number, i. Imaginary time-lines refer to the oscillations of wave-functions, photons, electromagnetic fields. The ict term, squared, refers to the Lorentz transformation. Each universe has its own imaginary time line. I also have to assume that the physics constants can be different; in fact we will require a coexisting universe with a speed of light c' >> c in order to trek around the galaxy in any reasonable time frame.

The other way I model space-time is with a tessellated lattice of pentachorons that adhere to Causal Dynamics Triangulation; in effect, time travel is now restricted and impossible. This a really a solid state/semiconductor physics model of space. It lets me describe fermions as the vertices and bosons as the struts. Obviously, we agree that space cannot be rigid like a quartz crystal. This type of model should reproduce DFM. By the way, such a lattice has to account for inertia, carry its own fermions and bosons, and account for gravity as being the fermion/boson load on the lattice.

Here is the hard part. Such a tessellated lattice, imaginary time line or DFM is going to be similar to a very elaborate wave function. I need to be able to generate a space-time lattice within a chamber. The chamber will generate the artificial space-time which holds the crew and cargo.

Here is the other hard part. I need to be able to transition that artificial space-time chamber from our physical universe into a coexisting faster space-time (hyper-space), in which I have a hyper-drive propulsion system already constructed. In effect, I will have the propulsion system built out of hyper-space fermions/bosons. The space-time generating chamber will be transitionable between our imaginary time line and the coexisting hyper-space imaginary time line.

That is as succinctly as I can describe a hyper-drive propulsion system. Logically, I believe it makes sense. However, such technology is laughably beyond our grasp.

Dear Peter,

I wrote an abstract that is more succinct.

In order to achieve the result of interstellar travel on a reasonable time scale using an apparent faster-than-light propulsion system, the following description of necessary technologies must first be understood. We begin with two models of the physical universe: (1) imaginary-time and (2) a tessellated lattice of Causal Dynamical Triangulation adherent pentachorons called the CDT Lattice. An artificial CDT lattice of space-time is to be generated by the Vacuum Lattice Chamber. The Vacuum Lattice Chamber allows the 19 physics constants to be configured in such a way as to generate, as a standing wave, the CDT lattice. The Vacuum Lattice Chamber itself is designed to transition between the two imaginary time lines of this space-time, and the coexisting faster space-time (hyper-space). The Vacuum Lattice Chamber is a time-line shifting projection from the hyper-space constructed propulsion engines. These propulsion engines obey relativity relative to the faster speed of light, c' >> c.

Hi Peter,

"The piece of candy will be quickly slowed to below the local 'c' by, and with respect to, all fields it passes through on it's way to our window."

Even in the vacuum of space, you have virtual particles bouncing around at the ZPE ground state. Don't those also have sufficient reach to slow the piece of candy down? I was employing the idea of a CDT lattice. In a way, the earth's crust is like a crystal that rides on the molten lava beneath it. Do we have to look at some similar kind of metaphor?

I was looking up the discrete field model when I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_motion

It said that the magnetic field that is generated by M87, or the earth, are sufficient to establish its own preferred frame of reference. Obviously that preferred frame of reference can be different from some other frame of reference which makes the speed of light, c, dependent upon whichever frame of reference.

Transitions between frames of reference follow what rules?