Principle of particle physics, part 5
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Principle of particle physics, part 5
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The theory of relativtity has puzzled scientist ever since its invention by Einstein. The theory is a paradoxon in itself. Many attemps have been made as to prove Einstein's mathematical treatment wrong, which - after all - had been evaluated first by Lorentz and Fitzgerald for modelling ether particularities.
Einsteins merits - with respect to relativity - are in the interpretation of the "Lorentz- Fitzgerald- transformations".
I think, we should bear in mind one important thing about physics and mathematics: Physics deals with natural phenomena. A soon as physicists start describing these phenomena, they use mathematical equations. And as any comparison or "equation" can only be valid, if there are other things, which are "equal" in one respect or another, all equations in physics show similarities to other fields of our personal experience. An equation can only be meaningful, if there are other things within the range of experience of the people adressed, which show some "equality" to the phenomenon discussed.
Einstein has done just one aspect to this. He typically argued with "thought experiments", by asuming an observer in an elevator cabin in an empty space; the observer does not see anything autside the elevator cabin, and he just feels his stomac going up and down. This was to become the leading picture and self understanding for physicists in this century: ...the observer in a cabin with - at most - only a small window in an otherwhise empty universe.
The concept of emptiness was new in physics. And it seems generally accepted by scientists. Cosmology today sees the universe as empty, with just a little bit of dust scattered over the vast space, and hardly nothing in between.
Einstein interpreted the Lorentz contration formulae as an indication that no translatory coordinate system is preferenced to others. He therefore contradicted the old ether model, which was asumed to preference the coordinate system, which rests with the ether.
There are two aspects to relativity, which are hard to understand: The masses and distances of any body seem to depend, how fast the observer passes the body. If he is very fast, the body seems to have a much higher mass than before. And the body seems much shorter.
Furthermore, any coordinate system has its own time; e.g. the clock in another system is quicker, as faster the system moves.
These particularities of the relativity theory seemed paradox, and many work has been done to it. It is still one of the great intellectual mysteries of this century.
The problem certainly comes from the idea that the matter moves in an otherwhise empty universe, but exactly this was suggested by the outcome of the Michelson experiment.
To emphasize this point: After Michelson showed that no drift of the earth in the ether can be measured, Einstein abandoned the ether concept altogether. From now on, physicists asumed that the empty space is empty; there is no such medium as water, which transduces the light and radio waves in quite the same sence, as water guides the water waves along the surface of a sea. And all phenomena - such as light, electromagnetic forces, even gravity - was asumed to take place by direct interactions, imploying real or virtual particles, which just move within the empty space. Even the very strange effects of "random walks" of elementary particles is not caused by any obscure ether property, but it is - according to the present state of the art - an effect of "many parallel worlds interfering", and all we see is the most probable world; the random walk is therefore an effect, which has its origin in the fact that different worlds are most probable at different times.
The point, which is very hard to understand, is the influence of the observer on the object as quoted by relativity: so, when the masses, the distances and even the time of an observed object depends on the speed of the observer, there must be some mysterious interaction, which is completely outside of our present day experience. This interaction cannot have any physical background, as the space between object and observer is asumed to be empty.
So, physics has made up its mind with respect to the emptiness of the space, and this finds its manifesto in the "standard model" of physics.
On the other hand, physicists do generally recognise the standard model as controversial in itself. Sometimes, they are full of self pity, because the two basic theories - relativity and quantum mechanics - have consistently withstood any attempt for building a unified theory, and - on the other hand - they fiercfully fight against anybody, who pinpoints his fingers on the weaknesses and inconsistencies of the present "status quo". D. Lindley, lecturer of the "nature" magazine, discribes this mimosic attitude of the whole science very lively in his recent bestselling book "the end of physics". He - as many others writers between science and science fiction - prophezises the end of physics research to come very soon, but he adds that there will always be unanswered questions, and physics will never come to an end. All this reminds me at the search of a needle in a giant hay stack, and all there is to say is: "the end of the search is very near, because we have searched almost everything." In fact, Lindley and his fellow writers foresee the end of physics in some miraculous figures and mathematical acrobatics, but they also claim to see the end of physics to come with the discovery of even more energetic elementary particles or the long promised proof of the decay of protons.
This sort of physics resembles a secterial confession, and it has nothing to do with what I was educated in; I feel involved, because the whole science of research physics is tied to the "standard model" and the "big bang". Thereby the standard model of physics ties up the scientist minds, it limits the range of possible explanations of natural phenomena, and - what makes things worst - it makes scientists to live with paradoxa. I have seen many people living with ideological and religious paradoxa, and I have learned that this prohibits people from seeing open questions and unsolved issues. Any question to it inevitably leads to the sentence: "...the people up there will know, what they are doing. It's not my business, to enquestion the system." Instead, the physisist should feel encouraged in opening the minds and doing some work on their own, bases on the principles of physics, such as the applicability of physical laws to all places and all times.
What Einstein and others never really attempted, was to raise the question: "Are there any classical models, which are in line with the traditional physics and the finding of Michelsons experiment and other mystical findings?"
After all, the old ether model had been abandoned, because light did not behave as people asumed; but this asumption of light to propagate as a water wave was wrong from the start anyway, since nothing like a "water surface" can be identified in the open space, as light propagates. So the old ether model had to be modified anyway, in order to allow "transversal waves" to be inlcuded in the model.
After I have done some work to the ether model, I see no problem with the Lorentz transformations. This may be explained with the following simple reasoning:
As soon as the ether has properties, which lead to the transformation formulae of Lorentz and Fitzgerald, there is no possibility (at least not a simple one) as to identify, which is the prefered coordinate system. All coordinate systems seem to have "equal rights".
So, in order to demystify the relativity theory, all we have to do, is to show that the ether model does conform with the Lorentz transformations.
I want to show that this is in fact possible with very simple efford:
Let's start with the most mysterious phenomenon of relativity first: the time dilatation, which is the said effect of different coordinate systems seeming to have different clocks.
The solution is quite simple indeed: Every clock, we use, is a system of mass and spring (we may forget for the moment the pendulum clocks). So, when the ether conforms with a change of mass, as soon as a system is moved, we must expect that the clock of the moving system ticks differently.
So it is clear that the ether model may conform with different "times" in different translatory systems. As to the quantitative difference of the clocks, there might be some arguements. But, I think, this must not necessarily be discussed here. It may be sufficient to show, that the books on relativity are paradox in themselves. This is best shown using the "twin paradox": The propontents of relativity state that a twin brother, who is moved with great speed e.g. to another star and then returnes, has not aged as much as his brother. This of course, is a complete nonsence in the sence of relativity, since both brothers see the other one to move back and forth with the same speed as the other one; the relative speed of observer A with respect to B is exactly the same as of observer B to A; so, in the end, both brothers should have aged the same. It does not matter, who was at rest, because the moved brother must consider himself at rest with the same justification as the other one. So, this example shows that not so much has to be taken serious in relativity anyway. But, it may be seen that in the ether model, - due to different mathematical treatments, following different principles than Einstein - there might be a system of formulae, which is in line with Michelson's findings and other experiments, but which may not be full of internal conflicts.
The important issue of thinking is in relativity the "thought experiment" of an observer in the lift cabin in an otherwhise empty universe. This was not at all a new idea. E.g. the great Isaac Newton argued quite a lot with relative movements on a moving ship. He was intruigued by the finding that an observer on the ship feels the stone fall straight down, as if the shop was standing still and the river and landskape moving instead. Newton used this view in order to defend his mathemaical formulation of the inertial force. He was attacked by the bishop Berkeley, who said that "it does not make sense to talk about relative movements (and inertial forces) in an otherwhise empty universe."
When I read this remark of Berkeley first, I had the feeling that there is a key question. One solution, which came to my mind, was to interprete the inertial forces as an interaction of a body with its own gravitational field. This idea lead me further and further and in the end, the idea had changed completely. And the result was that all discrepancies can be solved with the ether model.
But there was another issue, which eventually became evident to me: Newton's force of inertia is not real. Instead it is a trick in order to write the interaction of a body with its surrounding forces in a simple mathematical equation. And Newton had to introduce another force, which is the "reactional force", in order to make things right. So, Newton got a totally new set of equations, which we know as Newton's axioms. They made the whole science to be attractable by mathematical equations, which - in principle - can only describe a "balance" of effects. So by introducing a new force of inertia, and with his "mirror trick" of "actio and reactio", Newton succeeded in putting physics on a mathematical basis. This is also expressed in the title of his fameous book "de principiae mathematicae naturalis....".
In order to show that it really is a sort of mirror trick, we might consider, what a "force" is: by visualising a force, we may use a sping and see, how it is compressed. So, the force is the phenomenon, which leads to the compression of an elastic spring. The force does therefore bear its "reaction" in itself. A single force can be represented by two vectors oposing each other, rather than a single vector, as we are used to in physics. It was Newtons trick to separate these vectors and put them on either side of an equation. And that is - in the end - the foundation of our mathematical treatment of physics.
I have seen that many other sciences, such as medical science or psychology, are a bit envious about the physicists, who happen to have the mighty instrument of mathematics. Sometimes I think, there must be a sort of mirror trick as well as to put these other sciences onto a mathematical basis.
With respect to the "observer in an elevator cabin in an otherwhise empty universe", this consideration means that he has to be very careful not to sit in a mirror cabinet. Ironically enough, the force of inertia is - as long as the observer's stomac is his only metering device - the only force, he means to feel, and this force is just the force, Newton invented to enable the separation of "actio" and "reactio".
In fact, Einstein's reasoning does partially aim at trapping the reader in a thought experiment. By putting the reader menthally into the cabin, Einstein would not allow for the reader to make up his own mind about the physical effects, he would otherwhise observe outside the cabin. So, by excluding all other observations, the reader would accept Einstein's view more easily.
There is a story, which may help to understand Einstein and his way of arguing: When Einstein went to the USA by ship in the early 30s, he happened to use the same ship as the later president of Israel Weitzmann and his wife. Einstein persistently followed the Weitzmann couple whereever they went on the ship, and he explained his theory of relativity without end. After the jurney, Weitzmann was asked about Einstein, and he said: "he explained his relativity theory at least 8 hours each day, and after that jurney I have the feeling that he has understood it."
Coming back to relativity formulae and the ether model:
One aspect to the time dilation in relativity might be added:
As I said before, there is a universal clock, which gouverned all processes in the ether. This clock has a puls time, which is just as large as the time, the light needs to pass a distance of the elementary length.
I asume that this pulse is present in the universe at all places simultaneously. So, every coordinate system will encounter the same pulses. And this might be the "time", which can be associated with the "resting" coordinate system.
The science is alreade in the state as to meter elementary processes, which happen withing time intervalls comparable to the universal pulse, it might eventually be possible to directly prove the "quantisation" of time and to determine the relative drift of our laboratories in the ether.
It is known that acoustic phenomena are subject to a space transformation, when the sound source is moved in the medium. The transformation equations (e.g. as published in the handbook of physics) are virtually the same as the Lorentz transformations in relativity. So, we can expect that a detailed analysis on the ether model might in the end show the same transformation equations. It is, as I said before, not a question as to prove the ether model, but to adjust the model to make it compatible with the experimental findings. So, when the transforms apply for moving sound sources in air, they might - with the according detailed modelling - similarly apply for a moving cavity and the associated crack pattern in the ether.
The ether model does furthermore include a number of aspects, which directly can show the applicability of relativistic mass increments at high speeds in very simple and illustrative pictures.
It may be accepted that any cavity, which is required to allow for ether bricks to turn, may be larger, as the whole cavity system moves quicker through space; the turning ether bricks push the other ether bricks apart more violently, and - since the bricks are larger as well - they need more cavity space to turn.
Thereby it is evident that the mass increment (which is the same as the cavity increment) is real. So a high speed particle has a larger cavity and therfore a larger energy content. It is not just a virtual effect, as suggested by relativity theory, and therefore it is in full agreement with all principles about energy conservation etc.
date of last issue: 21. 4. 1997
