Hi Peter,

Thanks for posting at my paper; I just responded to you there. Glad to see you and Edwin are getting high marks from the community; congratulations!

Best Wishes,

Willard Mittelman

Peter,

We practice our trade and hone our tools. I like your recent comment to Lawrence: "I agree SR simply tells us 'c' is constant IN all frames. I suggest another way of conceiving that; If you're not ON that bus going past you're not IN the same frame. (after all - all light you receive FROM that or any frame you receive at 'c' in your frame, so nothing breaks the rule!!)!"

Someone recently mentioned receiving a photon in an interstellar rocket-ship and wondering how light could 'know' how fast the rocket-ship was traveling.

I think "If you're not ON that bus going past you're not IN the same frame" is one of the simplest and clearest expressions of the essence of the problem.

Like Eckard, I came into this contest thinking that special relativity was a 'done deal', and now have a whole new perception, in which your ideas and the C-field interaction with photon momentum present new perspectives. FQXI truly is a valuable forum.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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    • Post #157

    Hi Peter,

    You describe the propagation of light through a medium as discrete intervals of "c" and absorption/ reemission interactions - somewhat like a hurdler who slows slightly to clear a hurdle, but then regains his normal sprinting speed. It sounds as if you are representing some possibly continuous effects with discrete approximations. In principle, one might think that we could improve our digital sampling (beyond a red-laser DVD or CD, beyond the better blue-laser Blu-Ray, and beyond to a large sampling - say 10^41), and "digitize" any "continuous" effect. But such a "digitized" representation might not properly explain interference and non-linear effects such as "feedback".

    Are we distorting our view of reality by reducing possibly "continuous" effects into a collection of digital samples?

    Regarding the speed of light, the "vacuum" has a speed of light, c = Sqrt(1/eps*mu), where eps is the permitivity of free space (implies the polarization of the vacuum) and mu is the permeability of free space (implies a residual magetization of the vacuum). If the "vacuum" is a continuous vacuum, then we should expect these quantities to have a continuous nature. If we can represent the "vacuum" with the Dirac Sea (as I did in my essay), then this may have "Blu-Ray" type characteristics (a large number of discrete quanta).

    There is a visible second-order rainbow caused by a double-internal-reflection within a water drop. This rainbow has colors that are reversed from the normal rainbow, lies outside of the normal rainbow (larger scattering angle), and is dimmer than the normal rainbow. Weather conditions must be nearly perfect to see this phenomenon - the last time I saw it was about a year ago and I even managed to photograph it.

    Good Luck in the Essay Contest & Have Fun!

    Dr. Cosmic Ray

      Dear Peter,

      Thank you for commenting on my essay. It is really nice to see several correlations in ideas. Your essay is very interesting and you have provided several good thought experiments and examples. It seems your essay has a solid set of core assumptions that are applied to a wide range of relativistic effects.

      In my essay I try to define internal motion of particles as being driven by a single sustaining potential, and I tend to evaluate other ideas in relation to the essay's core assumptions. Of course, the most important thing is how well the idea fits with experiment. So I hope you don't mind if my following notes are in relation to my own thoughts instead of the standard theories. I also realize I may not fully understand your ideas, but I'll give it a shot.

      I think your core assumptions are pretty well defined in your 3 axioms if I can paraphrase: Particles in space produce a dielectric controlling the speed of light; particles (even a fair distance away) essentially absorb and re-emit photons at the local c; and keeping the theme that objects are spatially extended, the third axiom is that massive bodies are surrounded by a plasma shock with its own dielectric constant.

      I think your essay has a fairly unique way of looking at relativity. As I compare it with my essay's core ideas I do think you have captured some of the same flavor. On the changing speed of light, I see a particle as pure motion with its mass determined by the internal velocity being driven by a sustaining potential giving the idea that photons and massive particles are nearly the same (somewhat like Jason Wolfe's idea of everything made from photons). A secondary potential (electromagnetic-gravitational) is produced extending away from the particle that ends up controlling the local speed of c. Surprisingly your idea of an object being spatially extended and controlling the local c is quite similar. My equations seem to indicate the absolute speed change is small (on par with general relativity time dilation) and the primary change comes from the circuitous route caused by electromagnetic acceleration, so I'm not sure how the exact mechanism compares with yours. It is interesting, however, how most other theories rely on a constant speed of c.

      On the topic of mass changing in different reference frames, I agree this is possible because if mass is related to the internal velocity of the particle (my essay gives the units and how to convert to kg with the constant G.), the internal velocity can increase, going right along with your idea of changing mass. When viewed in relation to a sustaining potential, the concepts of gravity, mass, and velocity have a common denominator.

      I would like to leave off for now by noting how interesting your essay really is, and how much I enjoyed it. It will get a high mark from me soon. It is fun to see the correlations and how your core assumptions have given you a pretty solid view of how things work.

      Kind regards, Russell Jurgensen

      Dear Peter,

      I read your essay with interest some time before, but it happened in the weeks when I was having cataract operations. Now that thankfully I have successfully regained my vision (it still needs eyeglasses to get to 20-20 !) I enjoyed reading it again. I totally agree with you regarding the necessity to regard the speed of light in gravitational and other fields as intimately linked to local refractive index changes. It is an important and venerable idea (vide Thomas Young who un-famously considered diffraction as due to a thickening of the air around a mass, and Eddington who interpreted GR that way) that needs to be revamped. As you can see from my own ideas this emerges naturally from considering the vacuum as containing angular momentum, an idea you yourself present in your paper. I also like your intuition regarding the gravitational field "If a massive body were to suddenly stop dead, the field itself continues."

      This agrees with my conceptions, and I have tried to imagine the details of a universal ether 'mechanism' that does all of the above and more. Unfortunately I am working alone outside of academia and do not have the skills (not to mention the energy of youth) to simulate, develop and ultimately prove the ideas in my fqxi paper and the earlier 2005 Beautiful Universe paper on which it is based. I had first explored the gravitation = refractive index idea in an earlier paper of 1993, United Dipole Field Oops the room seems to have acquired angular momentum of its own, a minor earthquake in progress! Ah Einstein's stress tensor has regained its former eigenvalues, or whatever it needed to do to regain its former state - in my theory GR is interpreted differently, only in terms of local changes of ether density, causing a refraction index change - and I can safely sign of with best wishes for your success

      Vladimir

      Dear Edwin

      I like your "I came into this contest thinking that special relativity was a 'done deal'". I too thought that some years ago also about GR, when correspondence with the courageous late Caroline Thompson convinced me that Einstein's Relativity was not sacrosanct. He very cleverly and unnecessarily recast Lorentz and others' ideas where the universe is absolute (space and time) but observation is relative (measured length and clock time) into a theory where the universe is relative (flexible space and time as dimensions) and observation is absolute (fixed c). This worked fine in SR but vastly complicated GR and still causes conceptual problems. In the process he also banished the ether, a substance that is now clamoring to re-enter physics after a hiatus of a century! I explore all of that mostly qualitatively in my essays (see links in another post today in this thread). Cheers

      Vladimir

      Dear D.C.R (Dr. Cosmic Ray)

      I am still having fun, and just read your comment "vacuum" has a speed of light, c = Sqrt(1/eps*mu), where eps is the permittivity of free space (implies the polarization of the vacuum) and mu is the permeability of free space (implies a residual magnetization of the vacuum). In my papers (see links in my other comments today in this thread) I theorize that everything, including the vacuum, is made up of dielectric spinning nodes. That would be the source of eps and mu. I wish I had a more thorough grasp of electricity and magnetism to analyze that further in the context of my theory.

      Cheers, Vladimir

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      • Post #162

      Heh heh, I see that reaching out has worked out nicely for you. That's Justice, in a way.

      I read your essay and enjoyed it very much. Honestly can't provide any more feedback as you don't need the Publicity, looks like--lol.

      What a wonderful morning FOUR OUT OF FIVE PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND THE MODEL !!!!! No statistical conclusions possible, but I felt that first Eureka moment all over again. Thanks guys, I feel real progress at last. I'll respond to your points, - below or on your strings.

      Dear Ray

      Thanks for your post, and having an initial go, but you're not quite there with your hurdler. That's not what I'm saying. Did you read the 'bus' analogy in Lawrence's string? (repeated by Edwin in mine above).

      If one hurdler jumps on a passing bus he's IN a different inertial frame (via acceleration). He may well run along the bus at the same speed as the others, but unfortunately is DISQUALIFIED from being observed in the same terms as the others without a mathematical adjustment. i.e. The camera at the finish is perfectly allowed to see him at an APPARENT C plus V, but there is only one VALID inertial frame, that of the running track.

      There may be dozens of hurdlers around, on bikes, in cars, planes on infinitely many vectors, but only those in the SAME INERTIAL FRAME of the observer comply with the rules that the maximum possible speed is 'c'.

      This means light on the bus will do 'c' with respect to 'wrt' the bus. (Let's imaging a pulse going through a gas on the bus.). The gas molecules scatter light sequentially, at 'c'. It goes through the window (n=1.5) and air at c/n, and everyone else will recive it at 'c'. The fact that to all them it may APPEAR to be doing C plus V DOES NOT MATTER, because in reality it isn't!!

      (This is precisely what Georgina is saying, also consistent with Edwins, Constantinos Regazas and many other good essays here, as the posts above).

      Yes it IS different, Yes it IS reasonable huge, and yes it does meet and explain both the SR postulates, and identifies how Equivalence works.! The boundary (between the bus and the track) in space is the quantum mechanism of diffraction of plasma, ionised particles, which form all shocks and may well prove to be the core constituent of dark matter. (Eddington was wrong). GR then slots in neatly as the ions condensed with speed ARE mass, with inertia.

      The emipirical evidence is unbelievably consistent once we look. I't the discrete field model,(DFM), and you heard it here first, can you see it too? Have fun exploring it!

      Best wishes.

      Peter

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        • Post #164

        Dear Vladimir,

        I like your idea because it ties in with Gingras' Magnetic Spin Ice (a quasiparticle analogy of Dirac's Magnetic Monopole) and because it ties in with some of the ideas in my book (specifically HyperFlavor-ElectroWeak), and I'm trying to put together the right model to incorporate all of these ideas. It currently looks a lot like an SO(32) torus...

        I hope that your sight recovers well enough for you to resume your art. My wife is also an artist. Sometimes my physics representations start looking a little bit like her art.

        Have Fun!

        Dr. Cosmic Ray

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        • Post #165

        Hi Peter,

        No, Your thread is long enough that I had overlooked the bus analogy.

        You said "The fact that to all them it may APPEAR to be doing C plus V DOES NOT MATTER, because in reality it isn't!!"

        SR also gives this result. What's new? the interpretation of a discrete vs. continuous reality? If reality is fully discrete, then I want you to explain the "vacuum", the permitivity of free space, and the permeability of free space (all of these terms are important in defining the speed of light in a vacuum) in terms of discrete phenomena. I think that the discrete answer to this question should tie into my FCC lattice of the Dirac Sea, and Constantin Leshan's quantum spacetime holes. We are closer to the same bus route than you may realize...

        I did not enter this contest to challenge SR and GR - I think that they stand fairly well in their realms of applicability. Certainly, we observe some apparently super-luminal jets. Is this an optical illusion due to gravitational lensing effects, or would the unknown Theory of Quantum Gravity explain it all?

        Rather than overthrow SR and GR in their present form, I prefer to try to understand how Quantum Gravity should behave (based on anticipated symmetries), and use it to "modify" our understanding of SR and GR.

        Have Fun!

        Dr. Cosmic Ray

        Ray. Hmmm, you need to slow down a bit (to below C?). I make it clear I'm not trying to overthrow anything!! And yes, the jets are also explained without needing optical illusions.

        Firstly; Of course SR gives the same result ('c') this IS SR. But, - as we understand it it has paradoxes, unfalsifiable contraction & circular logic, is non compliant with QM, and can't have the fields of GR and now the CMBR! Lets' get real Ray, it's not perfect it's a mess, so all I say is; - Hey! if we think carefully there's a way SR may work without ANY of the messy bits, and unified with QM!

        So.. are you saying; "Don't be silly, it's all fine as it is, the theory can't possibly be right so I'm not even going to bother checking it out."??

        For those who HAVE made the effort and SEEN it Ray, someone who says that... ..well I'm sure you can imagine how they'd be perceived. I rate your perception higher than that, but do understand how unlikely you may feel this is.

        Unless of course you're using the standard model of new physics!; - (ignore, criticise, deny, then claim it's self apparent). I that case It's way further on than I'd hoped!

        Frankly I already wrote long ago it's able to be consistent with the Dirac Sea, as with lattices, as it ALLOWS (though not necessarily demands) a background frame, (not one giant bus but 'infinitely many') and provides a quantum matrix (ions & scattering) to implement change to em energy propagation (rate/f/lambda).

        The superluminal jets are simply 'Incentric' streams, - small buses within bigger buses within bigger buses, on planets in solar systems in galaxies etc. Light changes speed at plasma shocks around matter to do 'c' in the local 'bus.' THAT'S what's new! and suddenly all else slots neatly into place at last. I really do hope you get this as it seems we could be heading for an astonishing ridiculous situation where it's only (some) physicists who can't understand how physics might really work!!! It needs bright physicists to help falsify it, fine tune it and work on the quite vast consequences.

        there are some other papers to read in the string and in the references (stacks of empirical evidence) which may also help. With the 1st paper already in Peer Review this is no joke Ray, and I hope you can maybe give it a just a little respect.

        And I really hope you give understanding it a decent shot.

        Very best wishes

        Peter

          Russel

          Brilliant to see such excellent comprehension! Most just skim over so miss the pot of gold.

          Your equations may be important as it seems I for one certainly need to accurately test the equivalence of plasma diffraction to curve space time.

          I do get the impression yours moves a little beyond the falsifiable in places. i think you need to research things like Birefringence, PMD, Stokes Scattering, Huygens construction, Harmonics, and complex superposed waves, Certainly wave, signal, group and phase velocity are still very poorly understood, even in Optics!! But to mix metaphors we don't need to throw mainstream babies out with the bathwater if not demostrable/y essential.

          Best of Luck

          Peter

          James

          Sorry, struggling to keep up. Thank you kindly.

          I think you're certainly no more of a nut than I am.

          Watch out for the men in white coats!

          Peter

          Talking of that.. Steve! where are you you crazzy Bruger? I've actually got some spinning spheres built in! - see the link to viXra somewhere above here. Have you got your head round the real moving buses yet?

          P

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          • Post #169

          Hi Peter,

          Did I disrespect you? I read your essay, and felt that it underemphasized the importance of the vacuum, and the permitivity and permeability of free space. I did not say that I disagree with your results - in fact, we may not be as different as you think. By the way, I haven't rated your essay yet either - I like to think about ideas for a few days before I vote on them.

          Of course, I learned the Standard Model in graduate school, but if you have read any of my FQXi essays, recently published articles, or book, then you would know that I consider the Standard Model an insufficient guess at reality. You are trying to clarify the understanding of SR and GR. I am not fine-tuning our understanding of SR and GR because I'm working towards a Theory of Quantum Gravity and a TOE. What good is a "TOE" that doesn't explain Quantum Gravity? Read some of the earlier posts on my thread that explain the possible stability of the gravitational near-singularity, and confirm your expectations of the importance of tori. I don't quite equate changing buses with quantum gravity.

          Please read Sections 5.5 and 7.5 of my book(You may need to click on the "Preview" button under the picture of the front cover for a free partial preview). It will give you an idea of just how "non-Standard" my ideas are.

          My ideas also include tachyons that travel faster than the speed of light. If you recall, I am a "Cosmic Ray" whose newest vehicle has 150K miles on it, is 11 years old, and would probably blow up if I pushed it over 80 mph (130 kmph). So I'm not very familiar with traveling faster than c, my analogies are just different from everyone elses!

          Have Fun!

          Dr. Cosmic Ray

          Vladimir.

          You have no idea how nice it is to find comprehension after reading comments from disparagers who probably could but don't want to comprehend. I forgive them as they know not what they do, but it makes it harder work than it should be.

          Sometimes Physics seems very different to the Architectural profession, there are many awards there but no cash prizes. It seems to be true that money may be the root of all evil as it certainly seems to make it more difficult to be wise, supportive and charitable. Of course there is competition but the whole ambience is one of mutual respect and co-operation, with no 'superior than thou' attitude. But, though sad, I must make it clear it seems only a minority and I've found some super nice intelligent people here too.

          Surely science is about securing and improving the future of humankind not of massaging short term ego? - But down off my own high horse (white charger) now!

          When you mention my reference to the field 'carrying on' if a body is stopped, this is of course precisely what happens to EM fields, which is why they're considered to have inertia. It may however logically be the local carrier field that continues. the em field does of course 'fall' and regenerate radially at 'c', which oft considered 'anaomalous' fact can tell us much.

          With respect to your field ('C' field/ether/condensate) density derivation to gravity, it seems our research reversed as I explored that, and left it as unfalsifiable. I'll try to get to your earlier paper but the greater logic does seem to apply to condensed matter, which does all jobs at once, embodying the inertial mass for equivalence with gravitational mass, at the same time as dragging light down to 'c' locally (or up) using Chistian Dopplers sums. If these are 'REAL' (have inertial/Gravitational mass) they will of course also have inertia, so ensure no anomaly.

          The general poor understanding of f/lambda realtionships realtes to motion and inertial frame dynamics, giving apparent, not real, effects. Georgina is having the same trouble I am convincing those indoctrinated that black is white to even consider, as Edwin says, that the basis of 30 years of work trying to find what is wrong, may have been wrong.

          Anyone who fully understood that first time should understand DFM dynamics pretty quickly!

          Hope the house is still up, and your eyes are still improving. I find things like that do give us perspective on our values.

          Very Best wishes.

          Peter

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          • Post #171

          Peter A. Jackson

          I read your article and I understood it. I was amazed! Our ideas are along the same theoretical path! You supported your article with cosmic emperical ideas, whereas, I used microscopic empirical ideas such as the interrelation of the existing universal constants of nature to support my article. It is just my opinion, but I believe that your ideas of a DFM is on track with what will be discovered in the future: that GR has a particle structure that is compatible with the QM particle structure.

          Your explanation of how the doppler effect would logically alter the discrete space field exactly parallels my mathematical ideas of how the doppler effect changes the discrete proton space structure into the discrete neutrron space structure. Your condense matter idea is the same as my idea of compressed matter into the Planck length realm leaving mainly the discrete space field.

          remarkable!

          Guilford Robinson

          Peter,

          Hi, I have read your essay a couple of times. I am looking at it again just picking things out. I am interested in your perspective on some questions. Here are a few for now:

          "Particles absorb signals, re-emitting them at the local c."

          If a particle in motion emits a photon forward and then emits a photon backward, does that particle measure both photons as moving at different speeds. (The particle is the observer)

          "A massive body in motion is surrounded by a discrete area of space bounded by a plasma shock of n=?."

          In a general sense, how does the plasma density compare front to back?

          "As individual protons can't physically increase in size the proton bunch would have to propagate, or condense, a surrounding plasma 'cloud' of temporary or 'virtual' particles to hold the mass. This would have a density and frequency subject to relative motion through the field. As no massive particle would ever quite be able to reach the new local c, this propagation would follow the Lorentz exponential curve. The power requirement for acceleration of mass towards c follows a similar curve."

          Can you explain why you expect a similar curve? Are you assuming that this must be true or have you worked it out mathematically?

          If I am taking things too much out of context or misrepresenting anything, please point that out. I appreciate accuracy. Thank you.

          James

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          • Post #173

          'Remarkable' and 'Amazed' (as Mr Guildford above) just doesn't say it Mr Jackson!

          I sometimes view this site, and it's never offered anything foundational, but now I don't regret that. Bravo! At Last. I would like your babies.

          Please talk to me of waves and Takamak black holes as that is my life.

          A new paradigm in science is about to begin and I am at it's birth, forget the fools and speak to me, I will Email you.

          Nadia

          Guildford

          Thanks for your kind comments. A 'Mensa' badge is on the way! It does seem to need all three of; Willingness, Conceptual ability and Empirical knowledge to be able to see it.

          Feynmann was spot on saying when the solution came it would first appear difficult to understand because it was different, then it would reveal how simple it really was.

          Mind you, instead of citing a hungry philosopher his answer to the student asking whether we saw an object or light bouncing off it, perhaps should have been; "It's light emitted from the objects surface particles when excited by light impacting on them." That may have led earlier to the DFM, it's explanation of fine structure, and the understanding that for light moving within a different frame (bus, train or plasmasphere) we only see a sequence of signals from different emitters NOT anything breaking 'c', - which is where Lorentz had gone wrong. Just a simple misunderstanding. It now seems Huygens, Fresnel, Doppler, Planck and Stokes were the real stars all along.

          I agree key elements of our theories are in agreement, and also consistent with a number of other very good essays here, including the apparently brilliant mathematical Planck tautology (in the essay) and photoelectric derivation of Regaza.

          Best wishes.

          Peter