Re: The aether is made out of ordinary protons and electrons

From: Bjoern Feuerbacher (feuerbac_at_thphys.uni-heidelberg.de)
Date: 01/06/05 

Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:44:58 +0100

franklinhu@yahoo.com wrote:
> Bjoern Feuerbacher wrote:
>
>>FrankH wrote:
>>
>>>Bjoern Feuerbacher <feuerbac@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote in
>
> message news:<cok7kr$fem$1@news.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>...
>
>>>>>Collisions could
>>>>>knock lose an aether neutron from the ordered array.
>>>>
>>>>Hint: the mass of neutrinos is much lower than the mass of
>>>>neutrons, their interactions are totally different, they
>>>>don't decay like neutrons, there are three different types
>>>>of them (which even can change from one to the other), etc. ad
>>>>nauseaum.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>This is where slipperyness comes into effect. In addition to
>>>surface
>>>area, we should consider that a bare proton and electron has a lot
>>>of
>>>excess electrostatic force and it makes it more sticky to the
>>>aether
>>>particles. An aether particle has little excess electrostatic force
>>>and is less sticky. So while it might have the same physical volume
>>>as
>>>a neutron, it is not as sticky and is thus more slippery and
>>>registers has having less of what we measure as "mass".
>>
>>*sigh* You don't have any clue how one actually measures the
>>mass of neutrinos, right?
>>
>>Hint: it has nothing at all to do with determining which force
>>one needs to accelerate them.
>>
>>Try looking up the beta decay spectrum and neutrino oscillations!
>
>
> What is clear is that the mass is very small. What I have done is to
> more precisely explain what is meant by "mass" in terms other than
> "mass".

That is not needed. We already have a definition for mass:
"a measurement of the inertia of a body", i.e. how much force
is needed to accelerate it.

And that *still* has nothing at all to do with how the mass
of a neutrino is actually measured!

> Mass is measured as the force required to separate aether
> particles to allow the particle to flow through the aether.
> This force is expressed as F=ma
> whereby m is proportional to the energy required to break the aether
> bond and a is the acceleration of the particle. For a given quantity of
> force, a particle of small m can be acclerated to a higher degree than
> a particle of high m.

You still have not explained *why* F should be proportional
to the acceleration. You made some handwavy arguments that
F should not depend on the velocity - but jumping from that
to "F has to be proportional to the acceleration" is one of
the worst false dichotomies I've ever seen.

> Based on what I have read about neutrino's in
> http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~jgl/nuosc_story.html, it would appear that
> neutrinos are thought to be 50 billion times more common than
> electrons. At this ratio, I would say that the neutrino is the best
> candidate for the aether particle at this point by just sheer number of
> particles.

Vigour handwaving...

>>>I will have to study this further to determine if multiple
>>>neutrino types are compatible with this model.
>>
>>Good luck. Hint: this is rather essential, since the existence
>>of three different types of neutrinos is the basis for one of the
>>methods for measuring their masses! (actually, the mass differences)
>
> The above mentioned article seems to imply that neutrinos oscillate
> from one type to another,

Indeed.

> so they might be a different phase of the
> same fundamental particle.

Please explain what you mean with "phase" here, and how that
hypothesis would explain the observed oscillations. Pay special
attention to the mixing matrix, please. (you might also try
looking up the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix (sp?))

>>>>>but since the particle is still part of the aether and neutrally
>>>>>charged it is undetectable.
>>>>
>>>>But neutrinos *are* detectable...
>>>
>>>
>>>How about not detectable in the usual way through ion trails in
>>>cloud chamber like devices.
>>
>>Movement of goalposts noted.

Ignoring of my comment noted.

Why on earth should "the particle is still part of the aether"
imply "it is not detectable by ion tails in cloud chambers"???

[snip]

>>The neutrinos are bound in the "salt crystal" like structure, right?
>>Hence if one wants to knock an existing neutrino into motion, one
>>has to spend first the binding energy, right? Hence the sum of
>>the energies of the neutrino and the electron should be smaller
>>than the total energy released by the beta decay (i.e. the mass
>>difference between the neutron and the proton), right?
>>
>
>
> According to the book "The Electron, Proton, and Neutron" by Isaac
> Asimov, when a neutron decays, the amount of kinetic energy from the
> electron and proton in a neutron decay does not equal the total
> expected kinetic energy. This extra kinetic energy is what is used to
> break the binding energy of the aehter matrix and send the neutrino in
> motion. This missing kinetic energy was the motivation for having the
> neutrino.

Err, I wrote above "the sum of the energies of the neutrino
and the electron". I.e. I already took the kinetic energy of
the neutrino into account! Do you *really* thought I was
ignorant of such a basic fact of nuclear physics?

And now please read again what I wrote, and answer the question.

[snip]

>>>Just like
>>>stuffing an extra sodium atom into a salt crystal, it doesn't fit
>>>and it distorts and compresses the surrounding matrix.
>>
>>But the same is true for a neutrino which has been "knocked out" of
>>the matrix.
>
>
> I am stretching it a bit when I say that there is a difference between
> a neutrino flowing within (and is part of) the matrix and a neutron
> which is not part of the matrix. If the neutrino were truely knocked
> out, it would leave a hole (anti-neutrino).

Err, in another post you said that the holes are positrons
or anti-protons. depending on their surroundings.

> It may be that what we are really observing is
> that the kinetic energy is being passed from aether particle to aether
> particle just like if you line up billiard balls and you hit one end of
> the balls, another ball at the end goes flying off.
> The kinetic energy is transferred, but
> the intervening balls do not move significantly.

Such an energy transfer only works if there is a force between
the particles. What would that force be in this case?

And if a neutrino is only a "stream" of kinetic energy in
the aether, then why does it appear to have a mass and a spin?
And why do there appear to be three different types of it?

[snip]

>>>Neutron decay could
>>>be due to the compression forces causing the proton and electron to
>>>separate.
>>
>>Where should these compression forces come from?
>>
>
>
> The compression would arise from the slight attraction of each aether
> particle.

Why should they attract? By what force?

>>>The combination of the compression forces and the
>>>differences in how a neutron is bound compared to an aether
>>>particle
>>>all contribute to it's being not very slippery through the aether
>>>and causing it to register a high mass.
>>
>>A lot of handwaving, but no explanation.
>>
>
>
> I believe I have given a qualitative explanation compatible with
> classical mechanics.

As I said: handwaving. See directly below, under point 10.

> The differences between neutrino and neutron mass
> are explainable in a mechanical sense by the billiard ball examples I
> have given.

Only by not thinking this through thoroughly.

>>>>>10. The aether can explain the slowing of atomic clocks in gravity
>>>>>fields.
>>>>>
>>>>Yet again, you think that "explain" means "make up some hand waving
>>>>qualitative claims". Hint: in science, explanations should be
>>>>*quantitative* and have *predictive power*. As long as you don't
>>>>manage to do this, you don't do science. You merely spew wild
>>>>fantasies.
>>
>>Apparently you choose to ignore that.
>>
>
>
> I believe that the equations required to describe this effect are
> exactly those used in SR.

Why should they be? Why should these equations follow from
your model? Show your work, please.

BTW, SR says nothing about gravity fields. Replace "SR"
with "GR" everywhere below.

> The explanations I give are the mechanical
> reasons why these equations are the way that they are.

That's a totally unsupported assertion.

Have you ever read the stuff by Ken Seto in this newsgroup?
He does do the same thing as you: develop a strange model
of particles and the aether and then simply claim, without
any support, that the equations of his model are the same
as in standard physics.

> The terms used to describe warping of
> spacetime in SR do not explain what kind of "warping" this is.

Are there different kinds of "warping"? What do you mean?

BTW, GR does not talk about warping of spacetime
(apparently you have yet again relied to much on popular science).
It talks about the *curvature* of spacetime. And it is *precisely*
*defined* in GR what the "curvature" of spacetime is. Try looking
up "differential geometry" and "Riemannian geometry". (good luck!)

> I think that this warping is the aether density
> which give the "warping" a very
> specific physical realization.

What on earth does the aether density have to do with warping
of anything, and why on earth should it be described by the
equations of GR?

> If this is correct, then I would think
> that you should be
> able to derive the equations of SR from the aether model.

The crucial word is "if" here...

Before you can't demonstrate that, your above assertions
remain unsupported.

[snip]

>>Right. But we were not talking about paper pieces here - we were
>>talking about *particles*, and I thought you meant *elementary*
>>particles. In contrast to paper pieces, elementary particles are
>>not polarizable!
>
>
> My model has always postulated that the aether particles are slightly
> polarizable and will therefore be attracted to regions of higher
> electrostatic potential.

So they consist themselves of a medium, which is charged and
can be deformed?

Any evidence for that?

>>>Neutral matter is always attracted to areas of
>>>higher electrostatic field strength. This is normallly attributed
>
> to
>
>>>the dielectrophoretic force, but I think that on the macroscopic
>>>scale, this doesn't apply since this force is not a 1/r^2 force and
>>>depends on orientation.
>>
>>So what?????
>
>
> I am making the very significant assertion that at the macroscopic
> level, the forces we calculate for the iteraction of the dipole in an
> electric field are invalid.

I.e. you assert that basic math is wrong. Great idea.

Or that Maxwell's equations are wrong on the macroscopic
scale. Almost as great an idea.

I have to give you a point for originality: all other
people who I have seen to far arguing with predictions of
Maxwell's equations claimed that they are wrong on the
*microscopic* level. ;-)

> In a larger sense, the force we calculate
> for macroscopic neutral bodies to electrostatic forces is not describe
> by the force.

And you really think that despite centuries of experiments
about electrostatics, no one has noticed that so far?

>>>I have experimentally measured the attraction
>>>of a neutral mass to an electrostatic force to decrease as 1/r^2
>>>just like gravity. See my post:
>>>
>>>
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl942172497d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=46484c9f.0410022207.2f46538a%40posting.
> google.com
>
>>Sorry, but this simply makes no sense. You probably fooled up
>>your experiment somewhere.
>>
>>It is a simple *fact* that the attraction between a dipole
>>and a point charge goes with 1/r^3. This only could be wrong
>>if either math is wrong, or the principle of superposition is
>>not right in electrodynamics.
>>
>>If you could repeat this experiment under carefully controlled
>>conditions, the Nobel prize would be yours!
>
>
> I have given a lot of thought about what could have gone wrong with the
> experiment. The math is very simple and there is a big, big difference
> between an 1/r^2 and 1/r^3 relationship. It would have been impossible
> to get even
> close to the result I got if the force were 1/r^3. The experiment is
> very elegant in that it doesn't require any precise weights or specific
> field strength to get it's result. Things which could have gone wrong
> include the fact that I wasn't using a point electrostatic force. I
> repeated the experiment using a PVC pipe and a balloon. The balloon
> should be closer to a point source, but is extremely difficult to
> control and may actually act more like a *** than a point.

Depends on if its shape is more spherical or more elliptical,
I would say. But i the second case, I would expect it to act
a bit like the pipe - not like a ***.

> Another
> possibility is that there was inductive charging on the aluminum test
> ball, such that when a negative source was brought close, it became
> inductively positively charged (and therefore no longer neutral). I
> tried to eliminate this possbility by positioning the aluminum test
> ball at the pointed end of a bamboo stick which you would think would
> not allow a flow of charge to occur, so that inductive charging would
> be highly unlikely. I will have to repeat the experiment and try to
> rule out these other possiblities by using a more reliable and point
> electrostatic force and use other methods of suspending the aluminum
> ball. Since this does appear to be something that real scientists would
> find interesting, it is well worth pursuing and could be my key to
> getting out of crack-pot-dom.

If you really manage to set up a carefully controlled
experiment documenting your claims, then yes, you will loose
your reputation (at least in my eyes...).

Unfortunately, I have worked only in theoretical physics and
are therefore not in the position to judge if an experiment
is really carefully controlled, or to give you hints what
you have to consider. I recommend to you contacting some of
the people participating in the old thread and politely
asking for help (although I don't have too much hope that
they are willing to invest time on this).

>>On the web page you cited,
>><http://www.ibmm-microtech.co.uk/pages/science/dep.htm>,
>>quite a lot of references were given. Did you ever try to look
>>them up in order to find out what experiments were done on
>>this already by other people?
>>
>
>
> Most everything I have researched had to do with manipulationg
> microscopic particles like cells. I have seen nothing trying to show
> the dielectrophoretic force on a macroscopic scale.

If this prediction of Maxwell's equations is wrong on the
macroscopic scale, then there should be a serious flaw in them,
right? Shouldn't that have produced other wrong predictions then, too?
Why was this never noticed?

[snip]

>>>>>I have many posts discussing the details of how this can work
>>>>
>>>>You have many posts ignoring counterarguments to your proposals.
>>>
>>>
>>>As far as I can see, I have explained the counter arguments except
>>>for
>>>the problem that gravity is unsheildable, while the electrostatic
>>>force appears easily sheilded.
>>
>>The main counterargument, that the force should not be proportional
>>to 1/r^2, still stands. Your crude experiment does not disprove
>>that. In order to prove your claim that the force goes indeed with
>>1/r^2, you would need a much more carefully designed experiment,
>>and you would also have to look up the already published literature
>>on this effect and explain the results reported there.
>>
>
>
> I'd at least say I have put a big hole into your counterargument unless
> you can come up with an experiment which does show a 1/r^3 relationship
> on a macroscopic level.

If I have time, I will try to do an experiment for myself.
But probably I won't have time for that in the next few weeks,
sorry. :-(

[snip]

>>>If you take a pith ball and charge it up with a rod, you can
>>>get it into a state whereby at large distances, it repells, but if
>>>you
>>>force it close enough, the pith ball ends up sticking on the rod,
>>>even
>>>though both the pith ball and rod are similarly charged. I presume
>>>the
>>>attraction of the neutral matter to the charge overcomes the
>>>repulsion over short distances.
>>
>>What neutral matter? Aren't both the ball and the rod charged
>>here? Or why do they repel at large distances?
>>
>
>
> Both the ball and rod are negatively charged at this point. You would
> normally only expect repulsion out of thisarrangement due to the
> electrostatic charges. However, not all of the matter actually bears
> the charge. Just because something is negatively charged, doesn't mean
> that 100% of the atoms are negatively charged. In fact, there is
> probably only a very small fraction (say 1%) that are actually
> non-neutral that generate the observed charge. This
> leaves the rest of the 99% of the atoms to remain neutrally charged.
> Just why they attract at short distances is a bit of a mystery having
> to do something with the attraction of neutral matter to the charge.
> The repulsion is what
> we would normally expect out of this arrangment.

I would expect that at short distances, the air between the
both acts as a conductor, and the charge gets redistributed.
Maybe that could explain this effect...

[snip]

>>>In my post, intergalactic repulsion may be due to electrostatic
>>>gravitational repulsion.
>>
>>If you can reproduce the observed supernova light curves with
>>this proposed repulsive 1/r^2 force, feel free to show your work.
>>
>
>
> This is an area of further research.

As about 98% of your ideas...

> I would have to explain why this
> works with pith ball and rod before I can explain it at the galactic
> level, but I think the same physical mechanisms may be at work here.

Do you propose that the repulsive force goes with 1/r^2
or not?

[snip]

>>>>And why on earth should the time dilation be proportional to the
>>>>gravitational potential?
>>>
>>>
>>>Higher gravity potential means a denser aether.
>>
>>Why? And even granting this: why should the density be *proportional*
>>to the potential?
>
>
> I don't know about it being exactly proportional, but it would
> definitely be more dense since the aether acts like any other particle
> on the Earth and just as the air density becomes higher as get closer
> to ground level, the aether would become more dense.

Hint: the air density is *exponentially* depending on the height (and
therefore also on the gravitational potential). Not proportionally!!!!!

> Due to the
> experimental validity of SR, I would agree that it would have to be
> exactly proportional to the gravitational potential. I would imagine
> that it is possible that the ather density relies only on the
> gravitational potential

Why not on the temperature, like it is the case for all other
mediums?

> since the density is only determined by slight
> difference in force between aehter particles stacked on top of each
> other.

Sorry, I do not understand what you wanted to say here.

> In this case the force of a aether particle on top of another
> one is proportional to the gravitational force over the distance
> between the aether particles.

Huh???

>>>Higher density means harder to travel through.

That would imply a dependence of mass on the gravitational
potential. That is not observed.

>>>Harder to travel through means takes
>>>longer to travel through,

Why? If the velocity is the same (and it is the same
if the body is accelerated with the same force and has
the same mass), the time will be the same.

>>and thus slower time.

Non sequitur.

>*Qualitative* hand waving, as usual...
>>
>
>
> Quantitatively if I have particles number 1-10 and it takes 1 second
> for kinetic force applied from one particle to the next particle, it
> will take 10 seconds for the force to pass from 1 to 10.

Huh? We were talking about moving particles here, not about
forces passing from one particle to the other. Or did I
misunderstood you?

> If I increase
> the number of particles from 1-20, it will then take twice as long for
> the energy pass from 1-20. More particles mean slower transmission.

Why should the time for passing the energy from one particle
to the second remain the same? If they are closer together,
I would say that that time becomes shorter. And the total
time remains the same.

>>>>And how does this explain other effects, like light bending at the
>>>>sun?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Just like light bends when hitting denser water, it bends when
>>>hitting denser aether - easy isn't it?
>>
>>Qualitative hand waving, isn't it?
>
>
> What is qualitative about this?

No actual numbers and dependencies.

> This is simple refraction explained
> quantitatively in any physics text book.

Yes. My point was not that you are not able to explain
that bending happens at all. My point was that you can not
explain the *specific* light bending that we see, i.e.
the dependence of the bending angle on the distance to the
sun etc.

[snip]

>>Before trying that, perhaps you should go back to where this all
>>started and first try to come up with Rutherford's formula, don't you
>>think?
>
>
> While this is still an interesting area of research, they are largely
> unrelated at this point.

Clear. I simply wanted to point out that perhaps you should
first complete one thing before going to the next.

> And I do believe I have come up with some ways
> of explaining all the dependencies of the Rutherford formula based on
> the cubic model. (By far not complete, but promising.)

The angle dependency is still an unsolved problem. You
have made only a *very* small attempt to address this
quantitatively.

[snip]

>>>>And conveniently ignore the observational (read: *quantitative*)
>>>>success
>>>>of SR, GR and theories like QED, which are based on it?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Certainly there is much going for these theories, while the math is
>>>correct, it really doesn't do a good job of explaing exactly how
>>>these equations are physically manifested.
>>
>>If you mean by "explaining" here: "reduce all of the effects to the
>>behaviour of small billiard balls", then you are right. But why
>>should one do that?

Hello? You have said several times now that this is your
goal, but I don't remember you ever explaining *why* one should
try that.

>>>My goal should be to reproduce
>>>these under a physical framework.
>>
>>Hint: you have another idea of what a "physical framework" is than
>>most physicists.
>>
>
>
> In researching, I found the lecture delivered by Albert Einstein, on
> May 5th, 1920, in the University of Leyden.
>
> http://www.rigidether.org/Ether.html
>
> Curiously, this appears to be a very pro-ether discussion. An ether
> does not directly contradict SR.
>
> "More careful reflection teaches us, however, that the special theory
> of relativity does not compel us to deny ether. "
>
> "Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of
> relativity, space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense,
> therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of
> relativity space
> without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be
> no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for
> standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore
> any space-time
> intervals in the physical sense."
> -Albert Einstein

Einstein is equivocating there. What he calls an "ether" here
has almost nothing to do with the original idea of an aether.

> I also found his explanations of why "action at a distance" is not a
> comfortable position.

Fortunately, that problem is solved by QFT.

> I would propose that action at a distance which
> means that particle a can directly influence particle b without every
> coming in physical contact with actions from particle a is impossible.

Please define "physical contact" (their surfaces touching?) and "action".

> There must always be some chain of events that causes particle a to
> influence particle b.

Fortunately, QFT agrees with that.

> Theoretical physics has largely abandoned this
> concept,

No, it hasn't. Why do you think so?

> so I would agree that what most physictsts consider a
> "physical framework" doesn't need to have anything to do with the real
> world - which in my opinion, is wacky.

Well, you base that opinion an a false premise. See above.

>>>>>These are just a few of the musings I've had about the aether.
>>>>
>>>>Stop musing. Learn some physics.
>>
>>Apparently you won't.
>>
>
>
> I appreciate any references you can give me. I assure you, I research
> and learn from them.

Simply reading short texts on the web won't help much. You need
a solid physics education. I know that this is long and expensive
- but there is simply no "Koenigsweg" to physics, just as there
is no such way to mathematics.

In this order, read:
* Styer's "The strange world of QM"
* Feynman's "QED"
* The Feynman lectures, all three volumes.

Then go on with more detailed books, like the book by
Haken&Wolf on atomic and molecular physics, Schwabl on QM,
Jackson on electrodynamics, Povh and Perkins on particle and
nuclear physics, perhaps Kittel on solid state physics, and
perhaps even Ryder or Peskin&Schroeder on QFT, and/or
Stephani on GR.

If you have absorbed all that is written therein, have looked
at the data, have understood the reasoning and the evidence
which led to the theories we have today - *then* you are in
the position to try to develop your own ideas.

This is *not* intended for indoctrinating you somehow - the
crucial point is simply that you are utterly ignorant of
most of the evidence and the reasoning used for arriving
at the theories we have today. And hence you are simply not
qualified to come up with alternative explanations. If you
don't know what there is to explain - how can you try to
explain it?

[snip]

>>>Aether dragging. It is exceedingly difficult to prove something
>>>doesn't exist.
>>
>>If you propose aether dragging, you might try looking up Fizeau's
>>experiment.

Sorry. Replace this with "stellar aberration".

[snip]

> Wow, that was a very interesting discussion.

Indeed.

Unfortunately, as long as one is not constrained by actual
evidence and *quantitative* arguments, one can make up all
kinds of fancy-sounding "explanations"...

> Took way to long to
> respond, but lots to think about. Thank you very much for the valuable
> information you have provided in your posts.

I repeat: please get an education in physics if you want to discuss
physics.

Bye,
Bjoern