Readers' Choice: Much Ado About Nothing

Dear Peter,

Oh, I'm not giving up on the hyper-drive. I'm just trying to grasp what the laws of physics are really saying to us; what the experiments, like M87, are trying to tell us.

"Imagine you're floating in the ocean, at any one moment your position may be anywhere on any wave, both your position and the likelihood of water being over your head will depend on where you are and whether youre going up or down. " Are you talking about probability waves? Or electromagnetic energy waves. In my opinion, probability waves really are electromagnetic waves when there are too few photons too go around. It's like the universe shooting the dice to decide which bill collector to hand the money (energy) to.

Dear Peter,

So when we use a Discrete Field Model, we mean space A moving at some velocity v_A compared with space B moving at v_B...Discrete reference frames.

OK, I have a question. Why are black holes black? It sounds like I'm making a joke, but I'm serious. Answer: the speed of light, c, is just too slow to escape the gravitational force of the black hole.

Here is another question: is the event horizon black all the way down until an observer is centimeters from the event horizon? The reason I ask is because I'm exploring a possible scenario. For a photon of energy E=hf_1, doesn't it give up energy trying to escape out of a gravity well?

If I drop your car into a blackhole (how could I be so mean) as it crosses the event horizon, every particle in your car gets converted into energy, gamma rays, right? After all, shouldn't protons and neutrons give us back gamma rays as energy? But we only see X-rays, which don't have as much energy as gamma rays.

I'm trying to make the argument that photons loose energy when they climb out of a gravity well. I'm also trying to make the argument that two inertial reference frames, A and B, will differ by some gravitational potential energy. I want to use this idea to figure out what happens when that 6c jet comes into contact with some slow moving particles. Yes, I remember what you told me about the slowly changing reference frame. I am trying to relate that to a gravitational potential energy. Basically, some kind of Doppler shifting.

In a deSitter universe, even if we start off with zero temperature, the system will converge to the deSitter temperature. There's no globally timelike Killing vector in deSitter space, and so, no state with minimum energy.

Consider a patch of a deSitter universe with some volume, and let the universe expand twice in size, and now subdivide the volume into two. Does the entropy double? The entropy of each half remains the same as the original entropy, but the total entropy of expanded volume is the sum of the entropy of the individual parts plus the "mutual entropy" describing correlations. In quantum theory, because of quantum entanglement, this mutual entropy can be negative. So, the sum could actually remain constant despite the expansion.

Peter,

I think I've figured out how hyper-drive physics is set up, and how to unify GR and QM. OK, I'm still excited and haven't entirely thought it through, but it's very simple.

The speed of light c, is absolute. Whether you are an M87 jet traveling 6c or a hyper-drive space ship going 30c, you can still shine your headlights. Now remember, there is no time travel allowed. No matter how fast you go, you can't violate causality.

So you're Captain Pickard, and you're shining your laser ahead of you. Whatever comes out of the HeNe laser, it's moving away from Captain Pickard's head, and is being received by the observer at the speed of light, c. But something funny happens. As Capt Pickard passes the observer, moving 30c, the wave front from the laser are striking the detector at speed c. However, the energy from each peak is going to be smeared out. What was once a laser point is now going to have its energy smeared out into a line, an energy per unit angle (or unit length). Does "smearing" sound familiar? Doesn't quantum mechanics, in effect, smear the location of the particle?

While Capt Picard is approaching, his laser would be massively blue shifted. Likewise, as he passes by and moves away, massively red shifted.

My comment about energy from each wavefront being smeared out, it has a quantum mechanics feel to it.

I'll have to sit down with a pencil/paper and see if I can't quantify it a little better. But I think this way, c remains absolute.

Dear Anonymous,

I looked up Killing vector; the definition has something to do with preserving the metric. I think what that means is that a Killing Vector preserves the distance from Boston to Seattle (3000 miles or so), no matter how you travel it. But you said that there is no globally timelike Killing vector for deSitter space. I think that means the distance between two points, I assume two far away points, is not absolutely required to be preserved.

I have suspected that some forms of FTL travel might change the perceived distance, but I am not sure exactly how.

I'd like to take another stab at hyper-drive physics. Let's say that my spaceship has a mass of 100 metric tons. I need to calculate the entropy of my spaceship, basically, the number of protons, neutrons, electrons, ... Each of those particles has to be coupled to its existence in space-time an interface with hyperspace (one for each particle). I have to multiply that times some coupling energy. I have to be able to generate such a coupling field, one for space-time and one for hyperspace. If I reduce my coupling energy for space-time, then my spaceship vanishes into hyperspace.

Phew! There's a lot there Jason.

J;"In my opinion, probability waves really are electromagnetic waves"

Probability waves are of course a metaphysical description, but seem an obvious probabilistic analogue of the fluctuation of properties in real em waves. The simple model of condensed 'particles' works well with both, perhaps as concentrations of the energy of the dark energy/EM field. If they're propagated by perturbation there's another uncertainty analogue relating to their existence at any particular time and position.

J;"the speed of light, c, is just too slow to escape the gravitational force of the black hole." Sorry Jason, very naieve. If we look properly at nature we find gravity red shifts light rather than violates CSL. This certainly saps its energy, sometime to below what our eyes can register. Ergo; Black Hole.

The event horizon is therefore only a function of our eyes. To a hawk it will be in a different place. It may be that getting closer to it will also shrink it as our eyes can pick up the energy a little better. In relativistic theory of course it also contracts and time slows down. I wonder if the shinking waves turn blue again?

J;"If I drop your car into a blackhole .. as it crosses the event horizon, every particle in your car gets converted into energy, gamma rays, right?"

Wrong. The event horizon is etherial. If the star is near the limit - once we get close the event horizon may shrink till it disappears and we could see a red giant.

J;"I'm trying to make the argument that photons loose energy when they climb out of a gravity well. I'm also trying to make the argument that two inertial reference frames, A and B, will differ by some gravitational potential energy.

Unarguable, except that wave bundle 'photons' as such are probably absorbed back into the feild with energy loss. It's also largely unrecognised mainstream physics that more vlocity as well as more mass gives more gravity, so A and B will always differ. More relevant however is the quantum boundary process between the two, physically keeping velocity and frequency inversely constant. Doppler shifting in QFT is the key to resolving the issues with SR.

J;"Whatever comes out of the HeNe laser, it's moving away from Captain Pickard's head, and being received by the observer at the speed of light, c.

Sorry Jason, you've forgotten the root process; When Pickard sends a (normal) radio message it propagates across space at an absolute speed 'c' "irrespective of the speed of the emitter." i.e. If she's at rest it takes the same time for the signal to cross space as when she's heading that way at warp 0.9. And here it is; The Enterprise has it's own em field. The signal goes at 'c' with respect to (wrt) the Enterprise for a very short distance. It then crosses the boundary shock into the background 'dark energy' field and crosses space wrt that - slowing down wrt the Enterprise.

What else in the Universe could the Enterprise be doing 0.9c wrt? than a background field?? We now know it's there. We're just a bit slow with logic!

Enterprise would have a crescent of blue shifted/gamma ray light ahead of her track. If we look though Hubble we can see some, Orionis for example (look it up on the NASA site) visible as it's going through the gas nebula. It will have a similar signature to the wavefront of the M87 jet and our planetary shock, all dependant on relative speed.

I suspect you'll need to invent something hyperthetical for hyperdrive, or go back to Ted's columnar motion for an M87 type hyper'tube'. String theory has lots of spare dims, perhaps use one of those?

Peter

Dear Peter,

I do appreciate you patience with me on these topics. When I think about what's happening around black holes, it warps my head. My gut tells me that geodesics will diverge wildly, like rays of light through a glass sphere. I will tread with humbleness around black holes. Before I can trust my intuition, I have to make sure I understand the universes priorities: local speed of light comes first, conservation of energy, ... global speed of light, killing vector, perhaps?

"If we look properly at nature we find gravity red shifts light rather than violates CSL. This certainly saps its energy, sometime to below what our eyes can register. Ergo; Black Hole. " I agree with that.

"The event horizon is etherial. If the star is near the limit - once we get close the event horizon may shrink till it disappears and we could see a red giant. " I suspect that you're right. But, it is here that space itself starts to warp, severely, and my assumptions need closer examination.

"When Pickard sends a (normal) radio message it propagates across space at an absolute speed 'c' "irrespective of the speed of the emitter." Certainly so if the enterprise is traveling .9c. If it's traveling 9.0c, like that M87 jet, then it looks like the light leaves the enterprises emitters at c, but falls behind again, and eats the enterprise's 9.0c dust.

"It will have a similar signature to the wavefront of the M87 jet and our planetary shock, all dependent on relative speed." I remember looking up Bow Shock for the earth's magnetic field...mmm...

Peter, I can come up with inter-dimensional hyper-drive mechanisms all day long. However, I think it can be a lot simpler. The laws of physics really only care about waves, energy, entropy, conservation laws, stuff like that. Here is what I want to do. An alien spaceship lands outside of the MIT physics department. Aliens come out, enter the building, walk into a physics lecture, and wrestle the chalk away from some college physics professor. He pulls a control device out of his pocket, presses a button, and a silvery box appears out of nowhere. It has smooth edges, and is hovering above the ground.

The alien scrawls on the chalkboard: Trans-Space Coupling Field Generator. The alien begins to speak:

If you wanted to transport one hydrogen atom from earth to Alpha Centauri, here is what you must do.

First, you must acknowledge that the atom is coupled to this physical universe, what we will call standard space-time. The entropy of a hydrogen atom can be quantified as two particles, a proton and an electron. Each of those particles is already coupled to standard space-time with a coupling constant of K_std; std is short for standard space-time. The coupling energy for the hydrogen atom is E_std = 2 K_std. If there were N particles in your system, then the coupling energy is E_std = NK_std.

If you want to travel around the galaxy using this form of hyper-drive, then you must provide the additional energy cost necessary to couple the hydrogen atom to fast-space, what you would call hyper-space. The coupling coefficient for fast-space is K_fs. The energy necessary to couple the two particle system, the hydrogen atom, is E_fs = 2K_fs. For this example, we will not count quarks, photons, or neutrinos, but will absorb their energy cost into K_std and K_fs.

Conservation of energy also requires that you put in an additional amount of energy, E_G which would be the energy required to remove the hydrogen atom completely from the gravitational field. The result would look like the silvery field generator that you see before you. Technically, you must also include the gravitational energy for whatever exists within fast-space, but we will ignore that for the moment.

The field generator allows you to vary the degree of coupling and also the degree of gravitational compensation.

Let us perform an example. Let us say that you wanted to travel to another star system, many light years, but within a short period of time, perhaps a week or two. You would use energy to compensate for both the standard space-time's quantity of particles, their coupling; you would also supply energy to compensate for gravity. If you do nothing else, then your spaceship will vanish from standard space, and, in fact, not exist anywhere.

Next, you will accept the energy that comes from coupling with fast-space (hyper-space). In doing so, the particles of your spaceship will become interfaced with the faster space-time, complete with all of the rights and privileges of existence in fast-space; including the use of a faster speed of light.

Did I forget to mention that a small amount of coupling energy must be used to sustain the existence of a minimal amount of standard space, enough to allow the spaceship to exist and evolve in time. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.

The alien presses a button, and everything vanishes...

OK Peter, maybe the aliens were a bit over the top. I was using them as a communication prop. But I guess that didn't go over very well. I thought of a simpler way to accommidate a hyper-drive, I'm tyring to figure out an easy way to explain it. I am wondering if gravity potential and/or gravity flux lines might prove useful.

Hi Jason

Sorry about delay. I was off doing some wave and bow shock experiments with my 42 footer.

Your silver box reminded me of 'Unishift'; a machine I 'built' at college. Having accepted the limit of 'c' my hero Cedric Slide (Slide rules ok!) realised that he didn't have to move himself at all to go 'superluminal'.

As there was nothing outside, or 'around' the universe there was nothing to stop it moving, so it would take virtually no energy to move it! All he then had to do was keep himself motionless and move the universe around! The trouble was there could only ever be one machine to do it. He built it and called it 'Unishift'. It was a bit like a short tv remote. It only moved in short jumps as he had to check out there was no space junk to hit him, - the same problem with columnar field motion in gas jets.

The point is we can all invent little boxes. Actually proving they can DO something is different. If I had a pound for every crazy idea that had no basis in reality ..I'd be fatter than Jabba the hut!

Interestingly the gravitational potential thing may have potential elsewhere. See the current new scientist, where they've found what appears to be a massive anomalous shock around a massive object, and postulate it's related to its gravity field. Of course the DFM predicts exactly what they've found, but does that make the gravity field bit nonsense? Perhaps not entirely; If we're continuing Einsteins quest for a unified field theory - there is little to stop the em field of an object being related in some way to the gravitional field, and indeed it's the etherosphere that ensures conservation of energy in the Doppler shifting process.

Food for thought. Combined 3 way local fields, moving with all mass, whose magnitude increases with relative velocity through the interstellar medium, and em waves can't travel through it at anything but 'c'.

Exactly what we observe, except without anomaly. Maybe they have a point.

Peter

Dear Peter,

I hope you don't mind if I repeat part of my post from the blog. I started with the principle of invariant light speed.

If the speed of light in a vacuum is always an invariant c, which is independent of the state of motion, can't I rewrite that to say the following:

1. All relative motion is made possible by signaling with photons (virtual or real), which move at speed c.

If you all can agree to that. what about this?

2. Space-time itself is emergent.

3. Without the constant flow of photons (virtual or real) emitted and absorbed between each and every particle, there can be no relative position or flow of time between them. There is no final arbiter of position or time; there is no object called space-time. There is only the continuous flow, the constant signaling at the speed of light, by virtual/real photons.

4. Geometry itself in emergent from photons.

Lawrence Crowell has been modeling the surface physics of black holes and the entropy (information content) relationship to surface area. I borrowed some of this and came up with a hypothetical fifth force which I am calling: M2 holographen.

Holographene would be able to pass, block, regulate or translate the information flow that crosses the closed surface around any object. You can also think of holographene as a thought experiment tool to better understand the physics.

Let's say we have a spaceship that is orbiting the earth. For that spaceship to exist in space-time, there has to be a continuous bidirectional flow of physics information between it, the planet below, and everything else around it. The flow of physics information would be in the form of virtual and real photons which move at c. We can easily imagine a closed surface around this spaceship. objects beyond that closed surface will accept and receive virtual photons from the spaceship. It is these virtual photons that make it possible for the spaceship to be physically real to objects around it (like space debris, radiation, meteors, other spaceships, the planet, the moon, etc...).

If I replace this imaginary closed surface with a fifth force called holographene, that holographene is in a position to regulate or even block the flow of virtual/real photons that cross its surface. In this way, it may be possible to hide or cloak the spaceship from view.

It may also be possible to create a type of holographene that can translate "physics information" into hyperspace format. In doing so, the spaceship would be removed from space-time, and become an object in hyperspace; affording it all rights and privileges of a faster speed of light, c.

"I was off doing some wave and bow shock experiments with my 42 footer." Lucky you! Did you catch any fish?

Hi Jason

I was off doing some wave and bow shock experiments with my 42 footer. "Lucky you! Did you catch any fish?"

No, the worms wouldn't stay on the hook. I was testing the Lorentz transformation. At the edges of the Solent the water flows slowly and they're easy to catch. Out in the deep bit the current goes at a hell of a lick. The fish swim along with it at exactly the same speed (call it 'sea'), but are doing v v wrt me!

Heindrick was wrong. The fish always swim at 'sea' LOCALLY!

So 'sea' is constant, and we can OBSERVE them from a distance doing v v, but if we try to drop a baited hook in, the bait immediately slows to the local speed of 'sea'.

But the waves were doing a different speed to the water. They always do. (Many don't understand that). And there were waves on waves on waves on waves, superposed at all sizes. But information transfer was all at 'sea'.

Now your holographene;

It looks a bit like a silver box I saw recently - but nice thinking none the less. I think your first postulate is false for reasons of cause and effect. EM waves (whether parcelled up in local lumps or not) don't 'make anything possible', but are 'created by' motion. If they ceased to exist there would be no motion so no energy so nothing would exist.

Then you can travel as fast as you like. (but you wouldn't get anywhere).

Now if we managed to clear a bit of interstellar medium of all its vacuum energy and stuff, get the 2.7 degrees down to zero, then stuff could maybe go through it faster than 'c'!!

In fact, if you carried a big fridge that would do it, clear the interstellar medium away, freeze and/or hoover up the dark energy, and we've cracked it!

We could call it 'Freeze Drive').

Simple enough?!

Peter

Hi Peter,

Virtual photons are actually what implements electromagnetism, and coulomb charges. Virtual photons, as opposed to real photons, have action less then the Planck constant. For tactile contact, charges comes close to charges and virtual photons kick in. In fact, virtual photons are carriers of causality.

I'm not sure what to call the universe that we seem to live in. The Ocean of Cause and Effect. The Ocean of kx-wt. The aether. The Giant Universal Photon. Space-time is not a crystal because crystals are hard and not relativistic. But there have to be eigenstates for frames of motion.

Look at the derivation for the Cosmological constant. It was off by some 120 orders of magnitude. I think I know why. Most of those eigenstates go unused. However, when M87 erupts with this humoungously violent amount of energy, those eigenstates fill up pretty quickly, and new space-time is created. In fact, it can be created as fast as six times the speed of light.'

What do you think?

Hi Jason

Interesting thought process, but I'm a firm believer in falsifiable reality, so it's of in a direction I only see as fanciful, based on some iffy assumptions and concepts, like the interesting one that "virtual photons 'impliment' em". Use the word 'virtual' and you're straight back through the looking glass, which is not the way to correct physics!

No, I don't think the energy of the gas jets creates more space time either. You cannot create of destroy matter or energy, only convert it. It is always conserved but it may be spreading out, in which case I predict the 2.7 degree temperature of dark energy field is reducing. If GR is correct this would also make time go faster, (less gravity) so maybe not just something we perceive we imagine!

M87 is all about columnar 'fields within fields' streaming motion, which is very simple. we only observe rate of change of position. Nothing is Lorentz invariant locally.

I've considered your crazy superluminal drive a little more and beleive the 'Freeze drive' can be the only answer. All the time that stuff at 2.7 degrees is there I beleive you won't crack it. But if you can drive a tube through it, or suck it in, use the energy, and chuck it out the back, then you may be in business.

Peter

Hi Peter,

I was thinking about that M87 jet. You said "columnar fields" but I was envisioning cylindrical fields, cylinders within cylinders.

The virtual photon implementation of causality might be "looking glass" physics, but it's not necessarily wrong. If particle to particle interactiveness and causality is caused by virtual photons, one has to ask: what frequencies? You remember how the cosmological constant derivation was off by 120 orders of magnitude? That puzzle piece fits. But here is what happens, the virtual photons have to range from a few hertz to 10^18 (gamma rays). There is a range of frequencies (energies) that allow space-time and causality to be implemented.

I mentioned the cylinders within cylinders. In order to maintain the speed of light, those frequencies have to span the cylinder thickness. I'll explain more later.

The reason I am talking about a range of virtual photon frequencies, from f0 to fmax, is because I want to require that the velocity of light is always c within this range. Withing this range, there can be blue shifting towards fmax or red shifting towards f0. For multiple layers of sliding cylinders of space-time, the inner cylinders might be able to reach higher velocities than c, relative to the outside. But they are outside of the range from f0 to fmax, and therefore, they are not in touch causally speaking because there are no photons outside of these two ranges.

Jason

Very good, and yes, cylinders is a good analogue, but what would happen is;

Each cylinder wall would contain a range of frequencies, a 'spectrum', graded from inside to out, because each cylinder lives in a dynamic universe where it's outer skin is doing close to'c' wrt it's neighbour, and being slowed, and the inner skin is effectively doing close to 'c' the other way, and being accellerated by it's inner neighbour with fresh impetus. ('Impetus' being that stuff we had before Newton and 'momentum'!).

But in reality Max Planck rules, and the whole columnar structure (actually Ted Jacobsons word - I used to use the 'stream/flow' analogue) is a graded speed thing, ok, just like the centre of a stream moving faster than beside the banks.

No particle is doing more than 'c' in it's own locl bit of the universe. Have you considered the fact that Maxwells em is only a 'local' theory. It is entirely incomplete when it comes to considering the relationship between the many fields within fields we have in reality. That's where the DFM completes it.

Any more thoughts on my Freeze Drive concept? Shall we develop it together?

Best wishes

Peter

Hi Peter,

Freeze drive? Uh, er, well, it's catchy! I don't think we'll be able to transport FTL just by lowering the temp to 3 kelvin.

"Each cylinder wall would contain a range of frequencies, a 'spectrum', graded from inside to out"

Exactly!!! That, to me, sounds like the causality carrying virtual photons. If there are such things as virtual photons that implement relativity for space-time, is it too much to ask if there are virtual photons that implement relativity for a fast space-time (hyper-space)? Find that, figure out how to interface the two, then, whammo! You've got a spaceship inside of a closed surface; that closed surface is treated like a particle in hyperspace. Then, you've got it!

We can cool it down if you like.

Hi Jason

3k isn't low enough. Using e=mc2 it would have to be absolute 0 to get all the 'medium' out of the way to exceed 'c'. Lena Hau's lab at Harvard has already shown we can slow light down to whatever speed we want with supercooled BEC. In theory this should mean there would be no upper limit to mass either. No energy = no mass = no medium = no resistivity or brakes!

Essentially we're just clearing the interstellar medium out of the way, and using it's energy for propulsion.

And forget relativity - SR is wrong, which has misguided us for years. To complete Maxwells equations we need the link between locality (the equations are solely local) and reality that Einstein was latterly searching for. He got it right with his; "space without ether is unthinkable", (1921) and "ininitely many spaces (within spaces) ..in relative motion" (1952). This simply comes from nor letting the frequncy modulation (FM) function of virtual electrons (or 'photoelectons') go to waste. Nature doesn't waste things like that! The FM is what gives the doppler shift and keeps em waves at 'c' locally. Occam was right, it's simple. So, unfortunately it seems, are we!

Peter