Particle physics – a brief history of
time-wasting?
Readers respond to an article that argued that the field of physics is too obsessed with discovering new particles.
Readers' Letters - The Guardian newspaper.
Fri 30 Sep 2022 17.11 BST
It would of course be tremendously
tedious to rule out every last outlandish possibility (Hossenfelder’s octopuses
on Mars, for example), and so we need a set of principles to guide us on where
to look. There is general disagreement about what works best, but many of the
hypothetical particles mentioned in the article have been designed with useful
functions in mind – breaking cherished principles of the standard model for
instance, or adding new features to it. What we’re testing are the principles
themselves, not the particles; while some of them might really exist, others
are simply straw men to help us formulate useful tests.
Dr Phil Bull
Reader in cosmology, Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics
Sabine Hossenfelder argues that
particle physicists are far too eager to speculate about new particles,
suggesting that this is done for reasons of career advancement, rather than a
sincere desire to advance our understanding of the universe. In fact, we
develop and propose new theories and new particles because there are real
puzzles and open questions that our best current theory, the standard model,
cannot address. This is how science is supposed to work.
The neutron was proposed in 1920 and
discovered a dozen years later. Similarly, positrons, pions, neutrinos, quarks
and so on were each hypothesised by physicists well before they were observed
in any experiment. Most recently, the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012,
having been proposed a half-century earlier. I wonder how many of these discoveries
would never have been made if physicists had taken Hossenfelder’s advice about
their approach to science.
Hossenfelder’s claim that the standard
model “works just fine the way it is” is simply not true. The standard model
predicts that neutrinos should be massless (they aren’t), that the neutron’s
electric dipole moment should be large (it’s undetectably small), and that
there should be equal abundances of matter and antimatter in our universe
(there are not). Furthermore, most of the matter in our universe consists of
dark matter, which is not described by the standard model. These are not the
characteristics of a theory that “works just fine the way it is”.
Of course, most of the particles that my
colleagues and I speculate about will not turn out to be real, and that’s fine.
No one would expect every suspect in a criminal case to eventually be found
guilty either. The point of these investigations isn’t to be right all of the
time. Instead, it’s to rationally consider the possibilities, investigate their
consequences, decide which experiments to construct and carry out, and
ultimately to learn as much as we can about our universe.
Dan Hooper
Professor of astronomy and astrophysics, University of Chicago
Particle physics is
a great deal more than just inventing and searching for new particles, or “bump
hunting” as we call it. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built with two main
goals: to find the Higgs boson, predicted by the standard model of particle
physics, and to search for new phenomena needed to explain some of the
fascinating details of our universe for which we have at present no
explanation, such as dark matter.
There is no nice model to guide us where
to look for empirical evidence, just lots of theories, some predicting new
particles. We are feeling around in the dark, looking for evidence to send us
in a new direction. Part of this is bump hunting and, as Sabine Hossenfelder
rightly pointed out, this method has not yielded new discoveries and is less
likely to do so now as many of the possibilities have been ruled out. But the
unknowns are still there and the universe has once again proved to be subtle
and mysterious. What we at the Cern LHC are doing now is making more and more
precise measurements with the data we have, looking for small deviations from
the standard model to guide us to where we should look for new phenomena.
There are many analogies in the history
of science for this process – Albert Einstein tweaking Isaac Newton some 250
years after the Principia, and more recently the Cern LEP machine, a precursor
of the LHC, finding anomalies that guided us where to look for the Higgs boson.
Just because there is no low-hanging fruit, it does not mean there is no fruit
to be found.
Roger Rusack
Professor of physics, University of Minnesota
As a professional astronomer, I
fully share Sabine Hossenfelder’s point of view on physics. Unfortunately the
situation is no different in today’s astrophysics, which is full of pointless
articles on the properties of dark matter and dark energy, on which countless
brilliant careers have been built.
As in the case of physicists, privately
many astrophysicists would question the existence of these entities, even
though no one is openly stating it (let alone writing it in a paper). The
situation is ridiculous to say the least.
Any voice contrary to mainstream
astrophysics is in effect shut down by the referee system, which ensures that
only orthodox results appear in technical journals. The James Webb space
telescope will most likely provide enough evidence to change the status quo,
with important consequences for fundamental physics.
Dr Riccardo Scarpa
Breña Baja, La Palma, Spain
Sabine Hossenfelder provides a
valuable insight into how the mechanical application of mathematics may be
falsifiable, satisfy peer review and meet funding requirements. But her central
point, that there is little point in theories that are falsifiable but
untestable, has wider lessons.
Thinktanks and institutes have generated
much social and economic theory and, as with particle physics, there is no
shortage of well-researched, peer-reviewed and well-funded ideas to inform
policy in government, business and our private lives. Like dark matter and dark
energy, inequality, poverty and lack of opportunity may be measured, analysed
and theorised from every angle. But does this intellectual output improve
matters in proportion to the effort extended? Many think not.
More insight and less rote ideology is
the call. Economists and social theorists, please take note.
Les O’Leary
St Albans, Hertfordshire
PHYSICS 14 September 2022
MICROSCOPE tested the weak equivalence principle over two years
CNES
The most precise test yet of one of Albert Einstein’s ideas about gravity has once again shown he was right. The finding means that physicists may need experiments that are even more accurate to figure out where his general theory of relativity breaks down and potential new forces and phenomena kick in.
For decades, physicists have looked for violations in general relativity in the hope of shedding light on phenomena missing from Einstein’s theory, like dark matter, and leading to a theory of gravity that includes quantum effects. “General relativity is a very good theory that works very well, but it doesn’t explain all the observation in our universe,” says Manuel Rodrigues at the French aerospace lab ONERA.
One area of focus is a pillar of general relativity called the weak equivalence principle. It states that all objects, regardless of their shape or what they are made of, fall with the same acceleration when gravity is the only force acting on them. The principle has been tested many times and has always held up.
To test it with even greater accuracy, Rodrigues and his colleagues launched a small satellite into space. On board were two devices known as electrostatic accelerometers that could measure how objects experienced gravity. Inside each device was a pair of cylinders – a smaller one nestled inside a large one. One accelerometer contained cylinders that were the same material and the other had cylinders of two different materials. The weak equivalence principle says gravity should act the same on both cylinders regardless of these differences. However, if for some reason it didn’t, the electrostatic accelerometer would be able to pick it up.
The experiment was in an orbit 710 kilometres above the Earth for two-and-a-half years, but it didn’t detect any gravitational differences. The set-up was sensitive enough to detect changes as small as a hundredth of a trillionth of a per cent, making it the most precise measurement of the weak equivalence principle so far.
Rodrigues says that the new measurement is a hundred times more precise than previous tests, most of which were on Earth. With the satellite, there weren’t disturbances like people walking in nearby rooms or even the imperceptible shaking of lab buildings that could disrupt the experiment.
Philippe Bouyer at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who didn’t participate in the mission, says that the results will help justify future attempts to test fundamental physics theories in space. The project involved controlling a satellite extremely precisely and developing data analysis techniques that account for even the smallest disturbances such as friction between the satellite and space dust. This means it could become a foundation for ten or a hundred-times more precise satellite-based experiments in the future, he says. He and collaborators are planning one such mission that would use a quantum device instead of an electrostatic accelerometer.
Physicists will continue looking for violations of the equivalence principle, says Eric Adelberger at the University of Washington in Seattle. “There’s more to physics than we understand, that’s pretty clear. And this is a pretty likely place to look [for something new].”
Journal reference: Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.121102
I READ IT IN NEW
SCIENTIST
UPDATE 3rd September 2021.
LETTER TO NEW SCIENTIST
Several of the paragraphs in Quantum
Frontiers (NS 28th Aug 21) assume an “objective-observer”. This is understandable
but impossible. Everything we analyse, regardless of the complexity of our
equipment, is observed and reported via human senses. Everything at all scales
is “seen” only by the signals emitted or reflected onto the periphery of the energetic
expanding globe broadcast by the object; and only then “seen” or known by
ultimately a human observer’s energetic expanding globe; where the two globes
interfere.
E.g. a subatomic particle broadcasts its
minuscule presence at every point, multitudes of points, on its visible globe.
Our relatively massive observing globe, carrying our energy, vision and
knowledge, meets the object’s globe that carries its data. The meeting, observation
point occurs in a no-mans-land between the observer and observed globes. Closer
contact merges them into one object. If we observers shift position, we see another
projected image of the observed particle at a different angle. Equally, our
record of the sighting (via our viewing projection on our globe) changes the angle,
distance etc.
The observer and observed never meet,
they know of each other as projections on screens. When we deliberately interfere
with (measure) the object’s image, we disturb the globe which carries the image
and thus alter all the images at every point on the observed globe; these changes
on a large, expanding globe we interpret as spooky-action-at-a-distance. There
cannot be an impartial, non-interfering, non-human observer of any phenomena;
that has any meaning or relevance for us.
UPDATE: 25 June 2021.
IN THE BEGINNING WAS DARKNESS.
The universe's original (intelligent?) fundamental ocean of pure electromagnetic energy or light continually precipitates or crystallises the smallest particles (Fred Hoyle) - maybe quarks (fractals?). The quarks each condense large amounts of energy from a large area, E=MC2. Thus the coherent electromagnetic ocean is momentarily less dense and it expands. This is Dark Energy. The quarks collide, accidentally or purposefully (depending on your religion). Between the particles Casimir exclusion occurs, The inside exclusion is a shadow or partial vacuum from the totality of the pressure or presence of the universal ocean of energy which uniformly presses on the outside. The quarks are drawn together and a multitude of them cooperate to form matter. The matter forms gravitational objects. The shadows are Dark Matter. The rest, as they say, is history. Both Dark Energy and Dark Matter are vacuums not undiscovered particles. There it is. QED.
UPDATE: NS 27th May 2021 : The speed of light may not necessarily be constant. Light travelling through a plasma can appear to move at speeds both slower and faster than what we refer to as “the speed of light” – 299,792,458 metres per second – without breaking any laws of physics.
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278564-laser-pulses-travel-faster-than-light-without-breaking-laws-of-physics/#ixzz6w4CGDfB1
SUMMARY
LIGHT
HAS MASS – HISTORY HAS MASS
History has mass:
Last week I attempted to
explain this concept to my wife, Pauline. She is a psychotherapist, used to
complex thinking and analysis, with little interest in physics. After an hour
of patiently pumping out similes, analogies, metaphors and logic, my logic,
Pauline failed to grasp or even engage with the concept that History has Mass.
I realised that my explanations needed explaining. As Einstein said, “If you
cannot explain it simply, you haven’t understood it well enough.”
So, here goes. A simple
outline of why I think that History has Mass, and why it is a revolutionary
revelation in physics.
The space between objects
of any size is not empty. It might not even be curved. The space between me and
the sun is packed full of radiance. I can see and feel the radiant energy of
the sun, 96 million miles away, on my skin. If I sun-bathe for a few hours, the
radiance from the sun burns me. According to my skin-cancer doctor, most of the
damage which he treats by carving off bits of me at great expense, occurred by
the age of seven – from, would you believe, an excess of Manchester, UK
sunlight, a city most renowned for continuous rain and clouds. But the sun beams broke
through and in those days of yore there were no protective sun-creams, so
post-war kids such as me burned, blistered, popped the blisters – and blistered
again. Such a tortuous process occurred on what we called a “holiday.”
I am also radiant, like
the sun but a little less powerful. The sun digests hydrogen and radiates
energy. I consume food and radiate energy at about 38 degrees centigrade. Both
the sun and I radiate our energies as globes – as do all objects in the
universe, though some reflect second-hand energy rather than radiate. Let me
explain. If I hop into a NASA space-ship and fly to the other side of the sun
it will look pretty much the same as it does from this side. In fact, we can
dispense with NASA because my planet, Earth, orbits the sun annually, so if I
wait patiently, I can see the sun from the other side. And, yes, it looks the
same. The sun is a radiating globe. I and all objects are radiating globes of
energy – a few as primary sources of radiation, most as secondary sources by
reflection.
How do I know that the
sun exists? How do I see it? I do not fly to it and stick my face into its
white-hot, roiling surface. I sensibly stand 96 million miles back from it and
wait 8 minutes for its radiation to reach me. If we can anthropomorphise the
sun as a deity, the man /person in the sun, rather than the man in the moon,
how does that demi-god see me? I am also radiating energy, also as a globe,
albeit with a glowing 6-foot element, my body, at the core. Thankfully, the
sun-god does not emit a solar-flare in my direction, touch my skin and say. “Ah
Yes. Another man-thing,” before incinerating me in a flash.
I “see” the sun as an
image projected 96 million miles onto or by its radiant globe. I see it in my sky as about the
size of a silver-dollar – but brighter. Let’s call the radiant globe, the sun’s
“event-horizon,” and later draw analogies with what we think we know of black-holes.
Wherever we examine the sun’s event-horizon, as we orbit it, we see the same
image – a glowing silver-dollar sized orb. That image is one of a literally
uncountable and unique images on the globe-event-horizon. The multiplicity of images
is the radiant event-horizon that has reached my observation point. Each image
is unique; if I move, I see a similar image from a different angle – or
distance. The radiant orb, the one which is 96 million miles and 8 minutes out
from the sun, carries an infinity of points – of dimensionless points, hence
validly an infinite number – of the real-sun which is at the core of the event
horizon globe.
So, I ask again, what do
I see when I look at the sun (through a glass-darkly to protect my sight)? I
see a coin sized image of the sun on the event-horizon that reaches me and then
sweeps past me, at the speed of light, on its journey to the horizon of the
observable universe – about 46 billion light years distant (b.l.y.).
If the sun’s-event-horizon
is like a single tidal-wave or tsunami; a massive action and energy flung out
from the sun, which passes, behind it would be a flat calm, a nothingness, The
sun would disappear from my sight. It would cease to exist (stand-out) for me. We know that it does not disappear. The sun
radiates another event-horizon, and another and another, that speed past me;
endless waves and globes of energy that inform me of its continued existence –
for a few more billion years.
These rapidly propagating
event-horizons radiating from the sun, these life-giving waves of warmth, seem
to emanate through time in a continuous flow. Or, following Planck’s quantum
theory, are they separated by periods of Planck time, thought to be the
shortest possible time – and thus are quanta or quantised? In either case the waves
keep coming. They persist to casually assault and burn my damaged Mancunian
skin before skittering off to the edge of the universe.
Just as I do not touch
the surface of the sun but read its radiation from a distance, the sun-god
detects my minuscule presence on the surface of planet Earth from a distance. I
too radiate an event-horizon which broadcasts just as persistently as the sun;
if a little less strongly. The sun’s radiating globe and my radiating globe
meet – probably at a short distance from my puny presence. I too radiate an
image or images of me onto my event-horizon. It is there, where our horizons meet or in
scientific terms “interfere” that
the sun-god sees me. My broadcasts flow as continually as the sun’s broadcasts.
Our respective cores, the real sun and the real me never meet. If we did
penetrate each other’s event-horizons our cores would merge into a new object.
I suspect I would come off worse in the encounter.
The sun and I detect each
other only where our broadcasts interfere; where our images (which are
energetic and so have mass) meet. This
is the case for every object in the universe. Keep a respectful distance or merge into a new
thing.
So, what’s all this about
history having mass? The 96 million miles and 8 minutes distance between me and
the sun is not empty space or space-time. As long as we can detect each other
our broadcasting globes, our event-horizons are communicating our essence, our
characteristics, our unique existences to the universe. The sun’s radiant globe
that reaches me is followed by an infinity of radiant globes. The 8 minutes of propagation of light waves is the sun's history; I see it 8 minutes back in time. If I move a
further million miles away from the sun, the history-space between us is still filled
with energetic radiance. It keeps coming. I can see the sun as it was 8 minutes
ago. If I shift to another galaxy, say, a billion light years away (the
distance light travels in a billion years) the sun’s radiance will still reach
me and persist. I will be informed of the sun's billion-year history, which I might choose to analyse. And vice-versa. Between us the space is not empty. It is filled
with radiance that informs us of each other’s state. The space is filled with
information. If not, we would cease to exist for each other. That information
takes time to propagate – in both directions – it faithfully carries our
respective histories. The energy that carries the information is structured.
Cosmologists can read the histories of galaxies 10 billion light years from us
– ten billion years in the past. Those broadcasts have mass. E=MC2.
(energy = mass x the speed of light squared – n.b. the speed of light multiplied by the speed of light is 90 billion).
This is true for any and
all objects of whatever size, from quarks to the universe.
To draw another picture of the weight (mass) of history: Babies are leaky, noisy but otherwise often adorable little objects. Immediately they are born – say a few days old – they have little or no conversation and have interesting characters evident only to deluded, devoted parents. But offer one a teat and warm milk and it will instantly suck at it, as if it has been born to it – doing it all its life. Its immediate present is backed by millions of years of history and habit.
Similarly, take a
revered rheumatic professor, say 60 years old. Her immediate present, or
presence, on first meeting, can be impressive. We immediately form a first
impression; psychologists tell us we read such information in micro-seconds.
This mature academic is clearly more than the sum of her frail corporeal parts.
If she is unfriendly, we proceed with caution; not because we are afraid of
physical attack that we might easily overcome but because in the micro-seconds
of first impressions, we sense, we recognise that in her life she has developed
an iron-will, a razor-sharp mind and a cutting-edge tongue. Her present is
informed by her history. Minute by minute, second by second, time adds another
layer of history to her formidable energy patterns. We might observe that “This
lady has gravitas.” If she remains integrated, her power will be palpable and can act in the "real" world. Her history is integral to her organised matter or mass, and we recognise it. We
do measure people’s consolidated history.
When she dies, the noble
professor will disintegrate, her matter and mass scattered to the winds. But
she has been broadcasting her presence, thoughts, words and deeds for a
lifetime; with more power than a mobile -phone. Like the solar radiance, such broadcasts are propagated to the
horizon of the universe, which may be infinite. Her very real history and
presence are carried in coherent waves of electromagnetic energy; and fill the
universe; perhaps existing forever. There is no empty-space-time.
We read people’s
accumulated history, consciously or unconsciously, and be they regal or
beggarly, we adjust our behaviour and responses accordingly. All people carry their history into the
present moment. All are considerably more than a skinful of sea-water stretched
over a bony skeleton. All of us have history, acquired over times past. This is
also true of animals. A long-abused horse might rebel and kick you. You see its
hefty mass and judge its history. Is it friend or foe? It is conditioned by its
history – which is analysable, assessable and real.
All objects – all things
– portray their history. We judge stones found in the Arctic as meteorites,
billions of years old, from other planets. Such stones carry their history –
which we can read. Skulls embedded in ancient clay reveal their histories; we
can read the subtle information that they carry. Information is energetic;
energy is mass. Similarly, we read DNA strands from tens, or hundreds or
thousands of years past. We stop short of reading the history of protons –
thought to persist unchanged for billions of years. But we can read the pasts
of subatomic particles arriving from billons of light years away – and from back
in time, approximately from about 100,000 years after the alleged Big-Bang.
Whatever object we see,
we can examine and determine its history. History is information. Information
is energy. Energy has mass.
Why is “History has Mass”
important?
Science in 2021, based on
The Standard Model and The Quantum Theory, can find only 5% of the mass or
matter of the universe. 95% is missing. This is extrapolated from the rotation
of galaxies - galaxies of which we can estimate their mass of stars and dust.
Galaxies should fly apart. They do not have sufficient mass to hold them
together. They lack sufficient gravity. We do not know what gravity is but
thanks to Newton and Einstein and thousands of other brilliant latter-day
scientists, we do know what gravity does. It holds us on the ground and tugs
space-ships journeying in the solar-system. Ultimately gravity forms
black-holes. I think that black-holes are part of the cyclical processes of the
universe – contrary to popular “Cold-Dark-Soup” interpretations of the 2nd
Law of Thermodynamics. The Lifeforce pulls stuff together to create organisation
of matter and, of course, of organisms and so of intelligence. But I digress.
Science proposes
additional or other sources of gravity or mass that comprise the missing 95%.
These other forces /energies are dubbed as Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Both are
utterly invisible, so far, and undetected, so far. The Mass of History might
fill the void of knowledge and provide the required mass.
Reverting to the sun,
endlessly pumping out radiance that travels to the horizon of the observable
universe (46 b.l.y. Billion Light Years away)
– and perhaps beyond that horizon – we can imagine racing ahead of the
radiance to overtake it 13.6 b.l.y from us (being the age of the universe and
in miles or kilometres, being a long, long, long way from planet Earth) and having
overtaken the sun’s rays, like Einstein, we wait for it to show itself. Ah hah! There it is,
in the Milky Way galaxy. The light is just arriving. Remember that the sun is
the core of its huge, expanding globe of light-energy. As illustrated earlier,
the radiating globe is constantly re-filled with radiance, electromagnetic
energy, ordered in accordance with quantum-theory, which has a radius of 46
billion light years (from Earth and the sun). However diffuse the
electromagnetic energy is when it reaches the horizon of the universe, it is
not nothing. It is something. It is a massive amount of energy. With great
instruments we can sit at the horizon and trace back the sun’s radiance; and
with great computing power we can recreate its historic journey across the
universe and analyse the source, the sun, our sun. With even greater computing
power we can estimate the mass of the energy, the mass of the history,
radiating from the core, the sun, to the horizon of the observable universe.
This is equally so for every object in the universe. Does it amount to 95% of
the mass required to hold the universe and galaxies together?
History has Mass.
Light has Mass
Casimir Gravity
My theory of Casimir-Gravity that focuses on what gravity is rather than what it does, requires that light, photons and other electromagnetic sub-atomic particles have mass. They weigh something. They do not weigh nothing. Professor Casimir might have been inspired by seasoned seamen who know that two tall-sided ships, put close together on a wave wracked ocean are drawn ever closer to each other. This apparent attraction is not due to gravity but to the simple fact that the waves, water waves, between the ships are far smaller than the waves outside the pair of ships. The outside waves, created by wind and currents across the vast ocean, are far larger than the waves between the ship because only small waves can exist in the space between the ships. The outside-waves push the ships together and the inside-waves become ever smaller. Or, perhaps, Professor Casimir was not pre-occupied by ships and seamen but by sub-atomic particle physics.
He experimented with two
extremely flat non-metallic plates, possibly like most plates made of baked
clay, ceramic, that he placed side-by-side, like the tall-sided ships, and held
them apart with minuscule wedges. The plates stuck together – apart from the
gap made by the wedges – due to the outside-waves, in this case electromagnetic
waves (light) being stronger than the electromagnetic inside-waves between the
plates. Just as at sea, large light waves or particles cannot exist in small
spaces. Casimir’s work was of course largely ignored and unknown. The only
photograph I have of him shows a gloomy, sad Dutchman gazing stonily at the
cruel world beyond the camera. A world that had ignored his work.
However, his conclusions
remain valid. The universal pressure of “light” pressed the plates together
because the “light” between the plates was limited; it was less. It is now
scientifically accepted that light exerts pressure. Given the immense, possibly
limitless, size of the observable universe that has a radius to the horizon of
46 billion light years (b.l.y.) which is a long, long way from you, me and the
Earth at the centre of the or our observable universe, the deep ocean of light
needs only the slightest mass ascribed to electromagnetic waves and particles
to amount to an almost infinite pressure.
It needs saying here that
“mass” only acquires measurable “weight” near to large objects – gravitational
objects. You and I possibly weigh, say a trim 12 stones, 168 pounds, 76
kilograms – on the planet Earth. On the moon, we would have the same body-mass
but only about 1/6th of the weight. Drifting off in our space-suits to a
celestial Lagrange Point, where centres of gravity cancel each other, thousands
of miles from Earth, we would be effectively weightless but have the same mass.
If we were foolish enough to land on the sun, our mass would be the same
(briefly before a flash of incineration) but our weight would be 28 times more
– 392 stones. Zealous Weight-Watchers need only re-locate to a smaller planet
to instantly lose kilos of weight – but their mass remains the same.
The Casimir facts led me
to extrapolate plate after plate being layered in a stack. To mirror the Earth,
the plates need to be curved like the surface of the Earth. The outmost layer
receives the full impact of the 46 b.l.y. of light from the entire ocean of the
observable-universe. The layer below is sheltered or shadowed by the one above,
and some light is excluded. As each material layer is laid on, more and more
wavelengths or subatomic particles are excluded. The outside universal light
pressure is however undiminished and relentless. Add enough layers, each
excluding more waves, and the planet Earth is formed with a centre of gravity.
Keep adding layers and the planet ultimately becomes a black-hole with
universal pressure outside and a near infinite vacuum inside. Black holes are
observed to create galaxy-sized laser-like beams of radiation from their poles.
Such reaction could be when the external pressure overwhelms the internal
vacuum, and the object implodes – not explodes. Black holes might be like bubbles
in space. I think they are not permanent gravity sinks – but are part of the
cycle of physical processes. Approach with caution.
The electromagnetic
spectrum, the stuff of the universe, includes visible light, which is our
rainbow of colours. The central colour is green. The wavelength of green is
halfway between infra-red and ultra-violet – both these visible extremes can
damage human tissue. We are very frail and fragile. Other parts of the
spectrum, such as X-Rays, can penetrate our flesh and bones and at high
intensity can disintegrate us. The impact of radio-activity is well documented.
These waves or particles or wavicles can all be defined as “light.” Light is
very powerful. Lazars cut through steel and surgically adjust optic-lenses. Recent experiments have produced slow-light,
even stopped-light and, for example, light sculpted into Mobius Loops. Solar
Sails demonstrate that light-pressure propels space-craft; expeditions are
planned to set sail for the nearest stars.
The speed of light varies
with the medium it is travelling through (propagating). A brick wall stops most
of the light spectrum. Only in a perfect vacuum, in totally empty space, does
the speed of light follow the scientific rules and propagates at “C” 300,000 km
per second. There are no perfect vacuums in our universe. Every point in the
universe is criss-crossed by light-waves, which enables us to see the universe
and everything in it, from any location (point) we choose. There is nowhere
without such energies.
The invariable speed of
light varies hugely. Such variations indicate that the constituents of light
are subject to forces than can and do impact and manipulate them. It is most
probable that light beams of photons are subject to gravity and so bend around
gravitational bodies, as does all matter and mass. If so, if photons have even
the slightest mass, the mathematics and concepts of curved space-time need to
be re-examined. If photons have the merest whisper of mass, which modern
experiments imply, then they are also gravitational bodies and are subject to
Newtonian rules.
*******
My 300 PAGE compilation (click here) of 20 years of articles based on hundreds of magazines and dozens of books – leavened with 3 years of physics studies, expands on the two central and novel concepts above. The 500 or so articles provide evidence of what is claimed here, with a list of sources.
Noel Hodson – Oxford UK –
8 April 2021.
********
My
300 PAGE compilation of 20 years of articles from my ancient
website and my more contemporary blogsite, courtesy of Google Blog, is
presented with the most recent articles and conclusions at the beginning, in 2021, and the earliest
dates at the end. This ten-page summary starts conventionally at the beginning
and says what the compilation contains, to let you decide whether to dip into it.
I was15 years old when I
bought the first edition of New Scientist, I have read it weekly ever since.
Now at 78 years old I have just received Issue Number 3321. Divide that by 52
weeks and it tells me, ignoring publishing anomalies, that I have read nearly
64 years of their reporting of scientific news and comments. What stamina – on
both our parts.
The weekly 30 or 40 pages
of New Scientist, dismissed by some “real” scientists as no more than a flimsy,
flippant comic, lured me into reading hundreds of other magazines and books –
and eventually, at a late age, into attending particle and astrophysics evening
classes for three years on Oxford Continuing Education courses. I was the
oldest in the class. Despite a 50 year gap in grappling with mathematics –
other than arithmetic for accountants – I did manage to successfully complete
all the homework we were set. But don’t ask my aged brain to attempt such
calculations today. You will not need maths to follow the articles; maths is
mostly translated into English.
Having absorbed and
weighed 64 years of information, making written notes for the last 20 years, I
have impertinently formed heretical but interesting and perhaps credible
opinions about gravity, dark-matter, dark-energy, and other scientific
mysteries. No one can accuse me of acting with undue haste.
My earlier essays range
across several background physics and science topics. Students dipping into
them might find these interesting, informative and diverting.
For the convenience of
busy and impatient readers, the compilation starts with 28 brief slides that
sum-up, that conclude, my conclusions. The slides are later explained in the
text. Some readers might like to track the logical path backwards – which is
the body of the collation. My reputation most certainly does not go before me,
I have no academic status to lose – so if, like me, you need to know “who the
hell is this guy” – on the next page is my short CV.
The 300 page document is
a set of diary notes. It introduces an explanation, or an idea, of what Gravity
is as contrasted with what Gravity does. And tracks back on my trail of
information and thoughts that led me to that idea. In the process it skates
across numerous scientific topics – which might be useful to students and
inquisitive elders.
What the document lacks
in authority, it makes up for with repetition. Readers can dip-in anywhere and
probably find interesting news, old news, and texts from celebrated experts.
My current exploration of
“Casimir” Gravity is about 12 years old. In the years before that, ten or
fifteen years or more, I worked on the idea that gravity was caused by the
Hubble expansion of the universe, “Expansion Is Gravity” or EIG. So, many of my
older dairy notes relate to that concept. I now think EIG cannot work – but the
articles explored are nevertheless valid in their own right – and involve some
interesting physics. Throughout these notes, I have reached the view that
Einstein’s Aether did and does exist. He did not deny the Aether – he said that
he did not need it for his calculations.
Because I was writing a
diary – not writing for publication – albeit that my website and blog are
publicly accessible, over the 20 years I liberally quoted extracts and
sometimes entire articles written by scientists or journalists. Often, I did
not cite sources or references and it is too onerous a task, 20 years later, to
now trace-back and provide them. But it is clear, I think, which lines of
purple-prose are mine and which are the experts’ texts.
Since starting my blog on
October 2012 https://noelhodson.blogspot.com/ it has received to date, 1st March 2021,
295,000 visitors. There are 586 blog posts, about 1/3rd being on science topics
– say 98,000 visitors. Of those at a rough count and guesswork, about 20,000
visitors have looked at articles on gravity. My most visited single blog-essay
is about tax-evasion for the super-rich. I was once an accountant, and once
specialised in Tax-Back-Duty cases.
My website http://www.noelhodson.com vanishes back into the mists of time and
cyberspace. There was never a visitor counter on the site. I think I designed
it as a DiY project and started it in 1992’ish. The main topic in those early
days was Telework (using advanced telecommunications to work from home or on
the move). Science essays would be only 20% of the content. Prior to my website
there lurks the dark, lost days of pre-history; I didn’t even keep all the
back-copies of New Scientist. To reconstruct the dates, I would need to delve
into rock-art on cave walls. The last of the coloured slides, Slide 28, indicates the sources I was using; the list of sources is also shown in
easy-read print on page 22 (or thereabouts, as decided by Microsoft Word.
Noel Hodson – March 2021.
*******
Copyright and
Illustrations.
Authors or owners of any
texts used here or creators and owners of images, please contact me at noel@noelhodson.com
- This diary was written over a 20 year
period – and not originally intended for
publication but is now being made available to the public. I am happy to comply with the usual, normal
copyright restrictions including credits. The anticipated audience for this
compilation, in print and or electronic form, is below 50 persons per annum.
WHO IS HE?
(Mr) Noel Hodson – CV http://www.noelhodson.com/SW2000/Take-the-Plunge-NH-CV.pdf
16 Brookside, OXFORD, OX3 7PJ, UK
Tel
+44(0)1865 760994 & 07713 681 216
E:mail noel@noelhodson.com
Business Advisor:
Tax
and Audit Manager, specialist in negotiating & settling Back-Duty-Tax
cases.
Treasurer
– Lausanne CH, for a Commodities Trading Partnership.
Founder
& Programmer – TMP - Cobol Computerised Accounting (UK’s 1st)
Founder
& Managing Partner – McVeigh Hodson – Blackstone Franks Accountants
Founder
& Managing Director - Hodson & Associates – Morton Hodson & Co
Business Expansion Specialists (38 UK Offices).
Founder and Principal Consultant:
SW2000
– Telework Studies, SW2000 - Intelligent Transport, and SW2000 -
Take-the-Plunge. (SW2000 = Strategic Workstyles looking ahead to the year 2000)
Founder and Project Co-ordinator - The Foodtubes Project. (Green freight transport).
Directorships – North Wales Supplies Ltd. - Mallalieu Cars & Mallalieu Engineering Ltd - Oxford Research Science Park Ltd - ITAC (International Telework Association and Council) – ISUFT (International Society for Underground Freight Transport) – West Midlands Tomorrow Ltd. - WISE (Work Information Society Employment) Vienna.
“Green” Projects -Co-ordinator: European Commission – €0.5M Experts Unlimited EXPUN T2012 and €2.3M The European Charter for Telework. 1987 Telework - 2006 The Foodtubes Project.
Awards: 2001 International Excellence in Telework – 2008 St Andrews Prize for the Environment.
Publications: Inventors to Investors 1/4ly Magazine – Strategic Workstyles Newspaper – Economics of Telework (BT) – Teleworking Explained (Wiley & Sons). Trainer & Tutor: to business consultants and at Kuwait Oil Industry College. Workshop Leader and Conference Speaker – Europe and USA.
Hobbies:
Studying
physics . SF Novelist and other writing.
To
Editors at New Scientist.
- Gravity (New Gravity) – Is my radical idea of what
gravity is, how it works, rather than what it does.
- History has mass – I think the time between “real”
objects radiating their presence and our observing them is energetic i.e.
the 8 minutes distance to the sun is filled with radiation. Thus, this
history has mass. I argue that the same is true for all objects – and for
us humans. It could account for dark-matter and dark-energy.
My aim is to create a print and e-book, much of which is based, as I said, on New Scientist. I am advising you of this in the hope that you might (A) assist and cooperate with the project and, given my age, to (B) put a copy in your safe hands for posterity. This collection or collation might contain clues for new directions for research.
Currently, Version 8 is a rough draft which I park on my website between editing sessions. With professional help, it will be updated and re-titled several times over the coming months. Does it interest you?
(Mr) Noel Hodson.
Sci-Fi & Socio-Economics
16 Brookside, OXFORD OX3 7PJ, UK
Tel 01865 760994 Cell 07713 681216
Books:
Isaac Newton’s 21st Century Entanglement
Dancing on the Half-Beat 1942-1962
HEAVY LIGHT:
David Hambling reports in New Scientist 13th March 2021, No. 3325, that powerful lasers, Photonic Laser Thrusters, have accelerated a 750 gram instrument along a track using "Light Pressure" - at Y. K. Bae Corporation in California - funded by NASA; to experiment with using lasers to push satellites in space - e.g. between Earth and Mars.
Yet another demonstration that light has mass. I think that light-pressure is the energy that creates Casimir-Gravity, resulting eventually in black-holes. - NCH
