Summit Clock Experiment 2.0: Time is Absolute

[Clete]

Relativity has an aether. It's called space-time.

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I wish they were this consistent. They do not think that light is a propagation of space-time. Any such propagation through the space-time would be considered gravity waves. The fact that they believe that such waves propagate at exactly the speed of light is just sort of ignored. You'd think that such a perfectly identical speed of propagation would suggest a link between light and gravity but I've never read a word anywhere that suggests that any such connection has even been suggested nevermind investigated.


Clete

 

[User Name]

Relativity has an aether. It's called space-time.

I wish they were this consistent. They do not think that light is a propagation of space-time.

.

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[Stripe]

I wish they were this consistent. They do not think that light is a propagation of space-time. Any such propagation through the space-time would be considered gravity waves. The fact that they believe that such waves propagate at exactly the speed of light is just sort of ignored. You'd think that such a perfectly identical speed of propagation would suggest a link between light and gravity but I've never read a word anywhere that suggests that any such connection has even been suggested nevermind investigated.


Clete

Oh, I never said they would like the comparison.

However, it is entertaining to suggest the comparison and watch them squirm.

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Sent from my SM-A520F using TOL mobile app

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Sent from my SM-A520F using TOL mobile app

Sent from my SM-A520F using TOL mobile app

Sent from my SM-A520F using TOL mobile app

 

[gcthomas]

There is no meaningful way to refer to electrons or molecules in terms of wavelength and frequency. And you cannot have a frequency without a propagating wave and you cannot have a propagating wave without a medium.

Nope. Imagine a bird flying along, flapping its wings up and down - the wing tips trace out a wave pattern. But the bird is not a wave. That is how to picture what a photon of light or an electron is doing - they are tracing out a wave pattern and interfere in a way that makes the same patterns as actual waves in a medium.

You seem to have missed out on a century of wave-particle duality. Every moving particle has a wave side to it; electrons, photons, protons, atoms, molecules, …

My own Physics classes diffract electron beams through graphite crystals as part of their course, and they use measurements of the interference pattern to deduce the atomic spacing of graphite. The interference is very strong you know, and exactly the same as the interference of light. Measuring electron interference is a standard high-school experiment over here. Didn't you study Physics at school?

Now, I was asked a question and I answered it. There is plenty of reason to think that an ether exists. There is ONE experiment used as "proof" that it doesn't. Not even the supervising scientist who performed the experiment agreed that it was proof of the non-existence of an ether. The only reason it's taken to be such is because Einstien's theories require it.

Clete

ONE experiment? Is that what you really think? No, that is so far from the truth. There are a huge number of experiments that verify the principles of relativity, with some more recent ones operating to a fantastic level of precision. The second Michelson-Morley experiment has a precision of about 1% of the effect predicted by the æther model, while modern versions reach a precision one thousand trillion times better (1 in 10 to the 17th power), and still no effect measured. And there are much more sensitive experiments available (any æther effect would royally screw up the gravitational wave detectors like LIGO).

And the absence of any æther detections is not the only pillar of evidence: there is the Maxwell-Lorentz electrodynamics, the abberation of light and the Fizeau class of experiment, the moving magnet and conductor problem … . The list goes on.

You are focusing too much on one low precision experiment from the 19th century — you will have to pull down more than one pillar to damage such a successful theory, Clete.


Good luck. :up:

 

[gcthomas]

I wish they were this consistent. They do not think that light is a propagation of space-time. Any such propagation through the space-time would be considered gravity waves. The fact that they believe that such waves propagate at exactly the speed of light is just sort of ignored. You'd think that such a perfectly identical speed of propagation would suggest a link between light and gravity but I've never read a word anywhere that suggests that any such connection has even been suggested nevermind investigated.


Clete

All massless particles (photons, and the hypothetical gravitons) must travel at the speed of light in relativity theory, so it is not a surprise, although the speed of gravity has only been measured to a low precision. Indeed, a high precision experiment proving gravity travelled at a slightly different speed would severely limit the application of special relativity.

 

[Stripe]

The bird is not a wave.

:darwinsm:

You can't be this stupid.

 

[Clete]

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Cool!

I'm the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the Higgs field. I'm very skeptical just because my intuition is the Higgs Field exists on a mathematician's chalk board and it likely to be undetectable, unverifiable, untestable, unfalsifiable "theory". I put theory in quotes because it isn't a theory unless its testable and falsifiable. I hope I'm wrong about that but given the state of modern cosmology, let's just say that I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Clete

 

[Clete]

Nope. Imagine a bird flying along, flapping its wings up and down - the wing tips trace out a wave pattern. But the bird is not a wave.

Two things wrong with this. One, the wing is an actual thing doing the waving. And two, there's more there than a mere tracing out of a wave pattern. The wing creates pressure waves the propagate through the air. This is why you can hear bird fly by. The pressure waves propagate in all direction and eventually come to your ear. They then move your ear drum which is then converted to electricity and sent to your brain where it is perseived as sound. Pretty neat!

You can try again if you like but you won't ever come up with an example of any propagating wave that doesn't exist in some sort of medium.

That is how to picture what a photon of light or an electron is doing - they are tracing out a wave pattern and interfere in a way that makes the same patterns as actual waves in a medium.

This is not correct. Electromagnetic waves actually are waves and actually do interfere with each other just exactly like any other wave does. It is not mere mental picture ot some sort of analogy.

You seem to have missed out on a century of wave-particle duality. Every moving particle has a wave side to it; electrons, photons, protons, atoms, molecules, …

Give me a break, will you?

The first book that I can recall reading about this stuff was called The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav way back in the mid 80's. It totally captured my mind to the point that I was all but obsessed with theoretical physics and astronomy all through High School and into college. It turned out that I hated the actual doing of the science. Scientists seem to have a great tallent to wringing out all of the fun that might potentially exist in anything they do. The stuff they make you do for decades before allowing you to do anything cool is the most tediously boring and endlessly repetive crap you can imagine. So I'm no scientist nor do I claim to be any sort of expert but I am certainly not completely ignorant to the extent that I'm not familiar with the wave-partical duality of light.

What you don't seem to understand is that you cannot have you cake and eat it too. It isn't that science believe that light is a wave when you want it to be and that it's a particle when you don't want it to be a wave. The do believe that it is BOTH thing at all times. In other words, your pointing out that light is a particle, doesn't solve your problem because light, whether it's a partical or not, is a wave and as such must be propagating through something.

My own Physics classes diffract electron beams through graphite crystals as part of their course, and they use measurements of the interference pattern to deduce the atomic spacing of graphite. The interference is very strong you know, and exactly the same as the interference of light. Measuring electron interference is a standard high-school experiment over here. Didn't you study Physics at school?

No. Obviously I'm a complete dumb-*** who hasn't a clue what the hell he's talking about.

Good-bye.

 

[Nihilo]

Cool!

I'm the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the Higgs field. I'm very skeptical just because my intuition is the Higgs Field exists on a mathematician's chalk board and it likely to be undetectable, unverifiable, untestable, unfalsifiable "theory". I put theory in quotes because it isn't a theory unless its testable and falsifiable. I hope I'm wrong about that but given the state of modern cosmology, let's just say that I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Clete

'Interesting. What's your take on dark matter and dark energy then? Because my gut feel for these things, are much that same as is your intuition wrt the Higgs Field.

 

[gcthomas]

What you don't seem to understand is that you cannot have you cake and eat it too. It isn't that science believe that light is a wave when you want it to be and that it's a particle when you don't want it to be a wave. The do believe that it is BOTH thing at all times. In other words, your pointing out that light is a particle, doesn't solve your problem because light, whether it's a partical or not, is a wave and as such must be propagating through something.

No, they believe it is NEITHER of these things if your understanding is of your everyday experience of material waves and sizeable particles. They behave differently to both, so the language used is 'behaves like a wave' or 'behaves like a particle'.

The fact is that electrons have wavelengths and do not need a æther to travel through, and the same is for the light photons. The photons don't actually move up and down like my bird wing image, but really it presents an alternating electromagnetic field. (And before you go for the electric field being the æther, the field operates by the exchange of virtual photons travelling between the electron and whatever it is interacting with.)

So I'm no scientist nor do I claim to be any sort of expert but I am certainly not completely ignorant to the extent that I'm not familiar with the wave-partical duality of light.

That's great, I really like the fact you have maintained an interest in science — *so many people just live as if it doesn't exist. But although you are aware of the pop-science presentations of the duality, duality itself is a historical term to describe the odd experimental results where the light or electrons can behave 'like' a wave and 'like' a particle depending on which exact arrangement of the sensors you have. Really, these are just shadows of the Schrödinger Wave Equation, which describes the propagation of a wave-like mathematical equation which, when the results are, squared give a probability distribution for the locations of the particle.

You see, particles don't even really travel along just one path: they travel in some way along all the possible paths from A to B. The world is queerer than we can imagine, and it is a mistake to draw conclusions from imagining that quantum objects behave like things that you are more familiar with. That is the mistake than is made all throughout this thread.

 

[Clete]

'Interesting. What's your take on dark matter and dark energy then? Because my gut feel for these things, are much that same as is your intuition wrt the Higgs Field.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy are postulated because the standard model presupposes that gravity is the only force of significance doing any work in the universe at large. This is also true of other unobserved things like neutron stars and black holes. If this "gravity is king" presupposition is abandoned and things like electromagnetism, which is almost infinitely more powerful than gravity, by the way, are considered as possible sources of things like pulsating radio emissions and astrophysical jets and all kinds of other phenomena that can be recreated electrically in a laboratory, then the need for most of the standard model goes away.

You'd never know it by watching science television or by sitting in a public school class room but the fact is that we do not know most of what science claims to know. We do not know for a fact that nuclear fusion is what powers stars - it's a theory based on gravity only processes. We do not know what causes supernovas, it's a theory based on gravity only processes. We do not know how solar systems are formed, it's a theory based on gravity only processes. We do not know that heavy elements are only created in supernova explotions, it's a theory based on gravity only processes. We do not know for a fact that the craters on the Moon and other planets and asteroids are caused only by impacts, it's a theory based on gravity only processes.

If you simply plug in electromagnetism into the mix, suddenly a lot of the mysteries sort of vanish. The things that keep on surprising the scientific community, causing them to say that their theories need revisiting but that are never significantly altered, are expected in an electrically powered universe. And since electromagnetism is something like 39 orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity, suddenly there is no need for things such exotic, unobserved things like dark matter, dark energy, black holes and neutron stars.

Clete

 

[Clete]

As an addendum to my last post, I wanted to share the following video. Not just with Nihilo but with everyone participating in this thread.

The video discusses confirmation bias, although I don't recall the speaker ever using that term. It's just shy of a whole half hour long so I know that almost none of you will watch it but those of you who do will have a clearer understanding of the way I think, not just about the issues discussed in this thread but in general. It feels to me like I am constantly on guard against confirmation bias. In fact, it's such a focus of mine that it has actually occurred to me that I have to guard against seeing confirmation bias where it doesn't actually exist. Having to guard against a confirmation bias of confirmation bias is a rather sticky epistemological mess, to say the least, but that's the world in which I live inside my own mind.

I should also point out that, in spite of my last post and my having shared the following video, I do not whole heartedly endorse the Electric Universe Theory. I do accept portions of it and I don't disagree with a syllable spoken by the speaker in this video but there are a lot of things that the EU Theory entails that seem quite far fetched to me. They seem to think, for example, that the planets were very much closer to the Earth than they are today and that they moved (electrically of course) to their current positions only several thousand years ago. They make their arguments in support of such ideas but I don't buy it. What I do buy is that plasma physics (i.e. electromagnetism) clearly plays an important role in the cosmos at large and that the reason why regular scientists don't see it is because of one form or another of confirmation bias.

Clete

 

[gcthomas]

Electromagnetism is, of course, thoroughly understood by cosmologists and astrophysicists, along with gravity. The role of magnetism in galaxies and solar systems has been long studied, so to claim that scientists have ignored its role is far from the truth. Plasmas also are well studied and the role of plasma in stellar processes, for example, is a well established sub-specialism.

The processes of science are specifically and deliberately set up to reduce the effects of confirmation bias, and it would be great if the fringe alt-science and crank brigades, as well as the more doctrinally bound religious groups, would do the same thing, and keep their own houses in order.

Incidentally, Clete, you should know that the theories of nuclear fusion depend critically on including expermientally verified interactions with electromagnetism, so I don't understand how you can claim that it has either been somehow ignored, or that including it will change the conclusions. Both statements are demonstrably false, if only you put the time in to understand the details of the arguments. But you dropped out of that hard process, as most people have to, for it is surprisingly challenging in both time and intellect, so you are now reduced to shouting inaudibly from the sidelines, with only cranks and nutters for company. Good luck with that.

 

[Clete]

Electromagnetism is, of course, thoroughly understood by cosmologists and astrophysicists, along with gravity. The role of magnetism in galaxies and solar systems has been long studied, so to claim that scientists have ignored its role is far from the truth. Plasmas also are well studied and the role of plasma in stellar processes, for example, is a well established sub-specialism.

The processes of science are specifically and deliberately set up to reduce the effects of confirmation bias, and it would be great if the fringe alt-science and crank brigades, as well as the more doctrinally bound religious groups, would do the same thing, and keep their own houses in order.

Incidentally, Clete, you should know that the theories of nuclear fusion depend critically on including experimentally verified interactions with electromagnetism, so I don't understand how you can claim that it has either been somehow ignored, or that including it will change the conclusions. Both statements are demonstrably false, if only you put the time in to understand the details of the arguments. But you dropped out of that hard process, as most people have to, for it is surprisingly challenging in both time and intellect, so you are now reduced to shouting inaudibly from the sidelines, with only cranks and nutters for company. Good luck with that.

When did I ever say that electromagnetism was ignored in regards to anything other than cosmology? You don't understand me because you aren't paying attention. You are presuming somehow that I mean something more than what I've said or else something entirely different than what I've said. You then jump on your misunderstanding and start calling people cranks. Brilliant!

Look, you're wasting my time. I'm through discussing it with you. I've been as patient and substantively responsive as can be, in spite of your insults. And in spite of your entrenched group think, I've forced you to think more thoroughly about these issues than anyone since you started college but I'm the crank and the nutter even though I've defended every word I've said and I'm a religious zealot even though I've not said one single word about God or the bible or anything remotely religious. Instead, it is you who have failed to refute one single solitary point made in the opening post in spite of it being explained to you over and over again. So, when you fail on rational grounds, you rush to ad hominems. Not that I'm afraid of some name calling when appropriate, but the point is that there has been no call for it here. All anyone has done here is respond as substantively as possible to every point you've made.

This is not a life or death issue. If you disagree then that's perfectly fine by me. But it isn't that you disagree. You have some sort of emotional investment. I suppose that's understandable since the ideas discussed in this thread call into question the foundation of your livelihood if not your entire life. As I mentioned the first time you gave me your resume, there's no hope of ever convincing you of anything. You'd have made an interesting person to discuss this stuff with because your experience adds weight to my side of the argument when you prove to be incapable of even addressing the arguments never mind refuting them. That value, however, has now been spent - and then some. You're no longer even addressing the things I say. You've gone into an emotional reactionary mode where you're refuting positions no one holds and mixing that waste of time with insults. Go find someone else's time to waste.


GOOD

BYE!

Clete

 

[Nihilo]

I see the Michelson-Morley experiment as an aether detector that didn't detect the aether.

It may be a fable, but I heard that Einstein, in response to the Experiment's negative result, called the aether a "ghost," and that its supposed fictional status prompted him to think through the nature of electromagnetic radiation (light), resulting in his Special and then General Relativity theories.

I'm aware of at least one similar experiment that attempted to detect dark matter (involving a deep underground chamber designed to isolate dark matter from other variables), and this experiment failed to detect dark matter.

Much like many contemporary scientists' response to the failed MM experiment (performed in the late 1800s), many current scientists' response to this dark matter detection failure has simply prompted a redoubled effort to think through a better experiment, or a better detector design for dark matter.

I heard a few years ago a public radio interview with some sort of scientific expert, wherein the expert was asked to identify some key issues still left for science to fully determine and understand, and I think they listed something like five things. One of those things was the nature of gravity itself, and I remember thinking that three of the remaining four things could very well be other facets of gravity .. the expert presumed that dark matter and dark energy were independent issues from gravity for instance.

The other tie-in here is the graviton. I've read where this particle could only be theoretically directly detected, if the detector was roughly the mass of the planet Jupiter.

So overall, my question is, is there some way in which perhaps within the nature of gravity itself, there is the explanation for why the galaxies arrange and move as they do? My layman intuition has fallen upon the "gravitation constant:" is it possible that it somehow changes when objects like galaxies are involved, but remains as we've determined it to be with smaller objects like stars and planets?

Clearly, I am way beyond my depth here, but I wondered if anybody had any light to shed upon these musings of mine.

 

[gcthomas]

So overall, my question is, is there some way in which perhaps within the nature of gravity itself, there is the explanation for why the galaxies arrange and move as they do? My layman intuition has fallen upon the "gravitation constant:" is it possible that it somehow changes when objects like galaxies are involved, but remains as we've determined it to be with smaller objects like stars and planets?

This is a very good question, and one that has bothered a lot of scientists for a long time. There have been plenty of formulations of alternative physics that give the same predictions as relativity for close observations (essential because of the huge successes of relativity) but differ at great distances. One example (MOND and TeVes, iirc) that has gravity weakening at less than the usual inverse square law rate for large distances, which would make gravity stronger at the edges of galaxies, obviating the need for dark matter. Other theories were suggested, and so experimental observations continued to see which theory best predicted the observations.

However, the evidence for dark matter comes from lots of different sources, so ALL of the alternative theories fall down on some observations or other.

Contrary to Clete's assertions, the hypothesis involving general relativity and actual dark matter remains the only model that actually describes what we actually see.

 

[Clete]

I see the Michelson-Morley experiment as an aether detector that didn't detect the aether.

It may be a fable, but I heard that Einstein, in response to the Experiment's negative result, called the aether a "ghost," and that its supposed fictional status prompted him to think through the nature of electromagnetic radiation (light), resulting in his Special and then General Relativity theories.

I'm aware of at least one similar experiment that attempted to detect dark matter (involving a deep underground chamber designed to isolate dark matter from other variables), and this experiment failed to detect dark matter.

Much like many contemporary scientists' response to the failed MM experiment (performed in the late 1800s), many current scientists' response to this dark matter detection failure has simply prompted a redoubled effort to think through a better experiment, or a better detector design for dark matter.

I heard a few years ago a public radio interview with some sort of scientific expert, wherein the expert was asked to identify some key issues still left for science to fully determine and understand, and I think they listed something like five things. One of those things was the nature of gravity itself, and I remember thinking that three of the remaining four things could very well be other facets of gravity .. the expert presumed that dark matter and dark energy were independent issues from gravity for instance.

The other tie-in here is the graviton. I've read where this particle could only be theoretically directly detected, if the detector was roughly the mass of the planet Jupiter.

So overall, my question is, is there some way in which perhaps within the nature of gravity itself, there is the explanation for why the galaxies arrange and move as they do? My layman intuition has fallen upon the "gravitation constant:" is it possible that it somehow changes when objects like galaxies are involved, but remains as we've determined it to be with smaller objects like stars and planets?

Clearly, I am way beyond my depth here, but I wondered if anybody had any light to shed upon these musings of mine.

Contrary to gcthomas' assertions, the hypothesis involving general relativity and actual dark matter DO NOT describe what we actually see.

The difference between what his assertions and mine is this...

Want proof? Watch the discovery channel on almost any night of the week and count how many times the scientists mention having gotten surprised by the data. They are continuously surprised by the data. Every single time the data comes in, they're surprised by it. It doesn't matter what they're looking at or what they're studying especially if it has to do with cosmology, everything they look at tells a story different than what they predicted. Everything from the shape of "old" galaxies to geological activity on Pluto to red shift measurements to the nature and behavior of comets to what the Voyager probe detected at the edge of the heliosphere to you name it.

The Electic Universe people have a Youtube channel that is seemingly devoted to pointing out the specifics of their surprise. Again, I'm not suggesting that they have things all figured out but if you want to know just how bad of a job the standard model does of describing what we see, watch some of the Thunderbolts Project videos. Even if you don't buy their alternative explanation, it'll prove to you just how far we are from understanding the processes of the cosmos at large.

As for your question about gravity and the gravitational constant. The idea that it decays at a different rate at galactic scales is, it seems to me, just wishful thinking. There is no evidence that gravity does anything but diminish according to the inverse square law.

There is a force that we already know about and that we can interact with and test and experiment with in a laboratory. A force that scales to whatever magnitude you care to think about. A force that we don't have to guess about or mathematically force it to do anything that we cannot observe and that is very much more powerful than gravity. I don't have the skills required to do the math it would require to verify it myself but the idea that electromagnetism and plasma physics have an important role to play in the formation and evolution of galaxies and other large scale cosmological phenomena seems very plausible to me. In fact, it is precisely the fact that it is a force that we already know exists and that can be tested through controlled laboratory experiments that permit specific predictions to be made that are based on real experimental results rather than mathematical computer models that can be manipulated in any imaginable way that lends the idea so much credibility in my mind.

No time for editing. Sorry if the sentences run on a bit. Let me know if I need to clarify something.

Incidentally, if we go much further down this road, I'll ask Knight or another moderator to seperate this conversation out and set it up with its own thread just so that we don't completely hijack this thread away from its intended topic.

Clete

 

[Stripe]

I see the Michelson-Morley experiment as an aether detector that didn't detect the aether.

It was set up to determine Earth's orbital velocity, assuming some form of aether. It did not detect a velocity of 30-odd kilometers per second. However, it also did not show 0kps, as no aether would have given.

It returned about 8kms.

The most likely explanation for these results is bad math.

 

[gcthomas]

It was set up to determine Earth's orbital velocity, assuming some form of aether. It did not detect a velocity of 30-odd kilometers per second. However, it also did not show 0kps, as no aether would have given.

It returned about 8kms.

The most likely explanation for these results is bad math.

That 8 km/s was probably within the experimental error for their tiny experiment.

Recent tests of Lorentz invariance have reduced the differences in the speed of light to one ten-billionth of the second MM experiment you refer to, and the result is still indistinguishable from zero, limiting a postulated æther speed to less than 1 micrometer per second, for an Earth orbital speed of 30 km/s.

See here for one such example: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.020401

 

[Clete]

It was set up to determine Earth's orbital velocity, assuming some form of aether. It did not detect a velocity of 30-odd kilometers per second. However, it also did not show 0kps, as no aether would have given.

It returned about 8kms.

The most likely explanation for these results is bad math.

Don't you think it's likely that the math has been thoroughly checked over the last hundred years?

Clete