Photon in an acceleration field

It can take up to a week before the essay posts. OK, which definition don't you like? Do you mean the definition of an aether medium? Yes, I altered that definition significantly. The aether is a light bearing medium. All this other stuff about aether drift and moving through the aether is bunk (IMO).

We need an aether, as distinct from a field, because an aether addresses ontological questions. A field only tells you what we measure. Having the correct ontology of space-time is going to help you see possible technologies that, w/o the aether, you would never have thought of.

 

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"We" might need an aether, but light certainly doesn't.

So how does that tie in to the question of ontology (?), it goes like this:

It means light has an ontology only when it gets measured (i.e. we "attach" a frame of reference).
So shouldn't the ontological question be about the frame of reference and measurement?

I think it should, and I have a nagging idea that so do a lot of other people.

 

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Let's pretend we are talking about a murder mystery novel. We can substitute some other words into the logic.

Crazy detective Mazulu: "The victim was obviously poisoned (SR postulates hold). My guess is he was bitten by a snark (Mazulu thinks luminiferous aether allow gravity beams). We don't know much about snarks. No one has ever seen one. Most people say they don't exist. But someone poisoned the victim. I don't see anything else around that could have killed him. That means snarks must have fangs with poisonous venom (aether satisfies SR). Therefore, it was a poisonous snark that perpetrated this murder (there is a luminiferous aether). Case solved!"

That is the logic of your argument. There is no substance to it. You admitted that you just arbitrarily defined luminiferous aether to be the cause of SR. There is no theory here. There is no evidence of a relativistic let alone any luminiferous, or any other kind of aether. And all of this is a shoddy framework you invented try and support your highly improbable shift photon theory. Actually, highly improbable gives it too much credence.

If this is all you have for your FXQi essay then I can only laugh. Did you include part about the space aliens telepathically communicating this theory to you? That would make for some interesting chat in FXQi forum.

 

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I guess it's perfectly alright to make a continual fool of yourself in this 'Alternate Theories' category. You've proofed that. They should rename the category 'orbiting the dunce stool'.

 

I got a good laugh, thanks. I didn't know that the postulates of relativity were called into question. Are they? I simply came up with an ontology that would reproduce them. For that, I am called a practioner of shoddy work! Imagine that.

 

Your reading comprehension is very bad. In the story the victim being murdered by poison was a given (TRUE). If you notice, I equated that fact to the postulates of SR holding. It was the detective's wild explanation that was most likely false. The snark is a good analogy for the luminiferous aether.

But it was not that the snark is a fictitious animal that was my point. It was that the detective jumped to a conclusion with no evidence. He might have even been correct (if it has been a poisonous snake or something). But the fact that he just came to a conclusion with no thread of logic to back it up, that was my point.

It occurs to me that there really is something organically wrong with your brain. You are totally unable to process logic. This is why you don't like including any real mathematics in your arguments. Sure you have a wikipedia snippet here and there, but nothing that follows a thread of logic or argument. You are totally unable to distinguish what you know, from what you believe and even from what you want to believe. Space aliens an such. While some people have trouble with logic, it is most often due to lack of education or some acquired disfunction. You would think that mathematics and physics at the university level would have given you some capability there. But that appears to not true in your case. Your education claims smell fishy.

 

If you build your aether from waves, you might be able to get the math to work, but then it becomes superfluous.

When you say aether waves, it seems you are just creating another term for photons- from what I can see, there's nothing stopping them from being one in the same concept in your model. Why postulate it at all if the concept can be collapsed into and explained in terms of photons themselves?

 

Demonstrate that assertion with calculations.

Or rather you cannot provide retorts for my explicit demonstrations you've been wrong on numerous things so you're going to ignore them. It's okay, everyone else can read my posts and see how you are wrong.

Firstly, the fact I did string theory doesn't necessarily mean I think it's a certainty. I actually view it more as a motivation for research into a variety of areas of mathematics and mathematical physics which will at some point hopefully provide machinary and methodologies which give us insight into quantum gravity, even if that quantum gravity model isn't string theoretic.

Secondly, my research career has, for the last 2 years, been in real world applications of mathematical physics. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, optimisation, fluid mechanics, quantum mechanics (the regular kind), all of those are areas I've done original research in. In each of them methods and principles I learnt and developed during my PhD came in handy. For example, the same methods I used to solve U duality generalised Lie algebra constraints on an isotropic orbifold also solve a particular problem in control system design. The same method I used to compute the mass spectrum of strings stretched between 3 and 7 dimensional black branes is also the method used by quantum chemists to work out molecule behaviour. The company I work for is recruiting and when it comes to having broad mathematical skills it seems those people who did theoretical physics are almost invariably in a better position than those who did pure mathematics, because it typically requires people know a wider spread of things, if only to a shorter depth. Clearly string theoretic research helps give mathematical researchers a good primer for future real world work.

Even if string theory were killed tomorrow it would still be fruitful for research but as a framework for mathematicians. It has motivated massive development in generalised geometry, cohomology theory, special holonomies, extended field theories, gravity/gauge dualities. All of those things have worth in and of themselves and will undoubtedly play a part in future theoretical physics research, with or without string theory. MHV methods originally had their development in string theory, it was a direction no one would have thought of before string theory, but then it transpired the method was valid even in the absence of string theory and now it's being applied to understanding gluons interactions in QCD. Likewise gravity/gauge duality came from string theory but it's much more general than that and is also providing insight into QCD and other strongly coupled phenomena.

I'm proud of the fact I have a string theory PhD. I'm also proud of the work outside of string theory I've done. Methods which might have seemed abstract turn out to apply to real world problems. This is always the way in mathematical physics. There is no area of mathematics which doesn't have some utility in real world physical problems. So this "Oh you're just worried you've contributed nothing!" says more about you than it does me. It sounds like you're trying to validate yourself, rather than me trying to validate myself. I get my scientific worth from the results of my research. Just this week I've come up with a solution to a quantum mechanics problem which is more than an order of magnitude better than the literature. It's a very rewarding feeling to actually produce something which is demonstrably valid, something which you can apply to a real problem and which produces results better than anyone else. You should try it some time, rather than this delusional nonsense you insist on continuing with.

Except you cannot formalise anything. You complain string theory is without measurable results yet you provide nothing. String theory has plenty to say about gravity (it gives the Einstein Field Equations with perturbative quantum corrections!) and strongly coupled gauge theory (condensed matter physicists make extensive use of models within it), both qualitative and quantitative. If I knew absolutely no quantum field theory or general relativity but only string theory (which is difficult, seeing as string theory is a quantum field theory involving space-time) then I'd be able to use string theory to build a correctly working GPS network, because I'd be able to predict accurately the time dilation effects on the satellites. I'd be able to model the universe's expansion and the CMB power spectrum properly, as well as having a simple explanation for inflation and dark energy. I'd be able to construct effective models of strongly coupled phenomena in QCD and make statements about their transport properties. I'd be able to explain mass towers in strongly coupled gauge theory, as well as the mass gap. All of those things have quantitative models associated to them in string theory. All of them use mathematical methods which have applications in more 'run of the mill' areas of physics like non-relativistic quantum mechanics, fluid mechanics, electromagnetics etc. These are used to design microchips, telecommunications, lasers, model graphene's properties etc, billion dollar/euro/pound industries.

It's staggeringly hypocritical of you to complain about the supposed lack of real world results from string theory when your claims are only lacking in any substance but often demonstrably false. And that's ignoring the facts string theory has plenty to say about the real world and the methods in its various areas can have real world application. I'm certain I've solved more real world problems using stuff I learnt doing a string theory PhD than you'll ever even know about.

But please feel free to prove me wrong. Provide one quantitative accurate model pertaining to a real world phenomenon, of your liking, which you've derived from base principles of aether concepts, including its derivation from said principles, and demonstrate it accurately models said phenomenon. Saying "I get the same as the mainstream" is insufficient, as you're required to demonstrate you can indeed reach the same quantitative conclusion as the mainstream. For example, in string theory there's a step by step derivation of the Einstein field equations from the 1st quantised string action. This shows that string theory reproduces general relativity despite it not having assumed space-time can be warped. Can you provide such a thing in your work? If you cannot then you're just a hypocrite with nothing to say but excuses.

 

FTLinmedium, Mazulu must have gone to bed. So I will explain the entire story to you. I hope that Mazulu will correct anything I get wrong.

Mazulu sat on a lawn chair in an open field one night and “asked the sky” to tell him how to build a FTL drive. The aliens / God contacted him in a non-verbal manner, probably telepathy, and answered his question. They wanted to share their knowledge of FTL drives with humans because they are compassionate.

He believes that the formula c = wavelength * frequency is the key to FTL drives. If he could change the frequency of light (redshift) then he can create a gravity beam, now called the acceleration field. His original plan was to get some LEDs of different colors and flash them in color sequence over and over really fast and this would cause an acceleration field (I guess along the beam). This would simulate a frequency shift of photons and stimulate the acceleration field to manifest. His claim was that a space ship powered by this can easily achieve relativistic speeds and even FTL. If you search for “Shift Photon” or “Photon Theory” you can read his original ideas.

Later, he decided that he needed to be able to explain how this simulated frequency shift could accomplish his goal of FTL. He decided that he needed the luminiferous aether which he decided is made of the waves of quantum mechanics. How could he change light if light was just ... light. He needed some medium for the light and then he could just manipulate the medium to do his bidding. He decided that these aether waves were the source of distance and time. And that if you could manipulate them then you could do just about anything, including disintegrate objects.

He believes that he can test this by building either the LED flasher or now he wants to chirp a 1 GHz to 2 GHz EM wave. This simulated photon frequency shift should cause a postal scale to register at least 0.01 gram change. Then he just needs to refine the techniques to get his mastery over space and time, the FTL drive, the disintegration ray, and I assume free energy.

So you see, Mazulu is a piece of work. And he is on a mission from aliens / God to get someone to believe this and / or to build the experiment out of LEDs or chirping EM waves. He is unable to do it on his own.

People have tried to explain the problems with the alien story, the “simulating” frequency shift of photons, and how frequency is an effect and not a cause. Nothing will change his mind because he knows that he is correct. The aliens don’t lie. I personally do not think that encouraging him is a good idea for several reasons. He has been kicked out of physforums several times for failure to connect with reality. If you can get him to actually explain how it is all supposed to work it should amuse (and annoy) people in this forum. He talks a lot but never really gets around to explaining his theory. But the experiment is pure insanity.

 

Cheezle,

Yes, I know. But thank you very much for the concise summary.

I probably won't post any more replies on the topic.

 

Without comment on the thread generally.., I have followed the conversation only intermittently and even then superficially, I would make a general comment relative to the above post...

I would like to further qualify my comment, as not being an attempt to present or support an ether theory or model. Only as a logical exercise, assuming the existence of some form of undifferentiated and otherwise undefined ether, having no independent quantifiable structure, which underlies the quantifiable substance of matter we currently understand.

_____________​

If one were to assume that some form of ether does exist, as an essentially undefined intrinsic substance, either associated with or filling space, would it not also be possible that the photon itself is emergent from an interaction between charged particles or atoms, and waves propagating within the ether?

Would it not be logical, that since it is well established that the state, energy or mass, of charged particles or atoms and matter, transitions or changes in quantifiable increments, that it is during those transitions that the particle or photon form of the wave emerges. In this situation, the photon would essentially be emergent from the interaction between particles/atoms and waves, in an otherwise undefined field, at the time of interaction.., and further, be defined by the character of the particle/atom itself. Not all photon/waves interact with an atom, in the same way. Only those with a wavelength that matches the specific energy transition characteristics of an atom are absorbed or emmited as photons. And is it not, only those wave particles which are absorbed or emitted, which can be unequivocally characterized as photons?

 

OK, it appears that I will make another post.

That's fine, but he postulated that the aether was composed waves- which would make it unable to fill the role it is assigned, and a mere superfluous addition to the description of light that doesn't really add anything useful to our understanding. In order to facilitate, for example, a reactionless drive as hypothesized, the aether would have to be immovable firmament itself- and this has been largely disproved through experimentation.

There are a potentially endless number of ways to describe photons that are all mathematically accurate. That doesn't make them useful.

We could, equally, describe gravity as a repulsive force of unmatter which accelerates time. We can talk about current propagating in the opposite direction of that we currently use. We can relabel anything and everything, reversing all numbers and their frameworks. That doesn't make it something different- and that's important to understand.

 

I should have been more specific and said that I was not attempting to address Mazulu's "aether made of waves" and FTL drive. I cannot myself see any way that, that discussion is in even peripherally in agreement with what we observe.

In reading your earlier post it struck me that though by the nature of our limitation, to the observation of quantifiable changes in our environment, our understanding of "matter" has understandably evolved to be quantifiable.., that cannot preclude the possibility, that the quantum or quantifiable nature of what we do observe and measure, emerges from an underlying "substance", which has no inherent and independent quantifiable character.

It was perhaps a mistake to use the word ether earlier, as it carries a great deal of baggage... But there is no contemporary word in the lay vocabulary to convey the concept of any substance which has no quantifiable parts. This is perhaps why the concept of the ether or an ether, continues to be raised in so many lay oriented discussions.

This is a philosophical issue, however the point I was attempting to make was; We cannot or should not extend and project the limitations of our ability to observe and measure the world around us, which is inherently quantifiable and full of edges, shapes, bits, pieces and change, to be a complete and absolute description of the world around us. This assumes that the fundamental character of the universe is limited to the limits inherent in our ability to observe it. As I said this is a philosophical issue and stands apart from the general discussion of the thread.

 

I don't want to be drawn into an argument, but I will say simply:

This is not useful or logical. It has no place in science- which deals with the quantifiable and comprehensible.

If there is something incomprehensible, it is enough outside our domain to be irrelevant. If we can not hope to comprehend it, it has no place in science- which makes a practice of comprehending things.

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Some have postulated non-overlapping magisterium to try to explain this distinction. I won't, but you can look into that if it helps explain things.

This is a reasonable assumption (within the bounds of the possibility of observation- not simply current observation). If something is outside of our causal sphere- and thereby impossible to observe in any way (bear in mind many things are observed only by their effects)- it has no effect on us, and so for all practical purposes does not exist. If something affects us, it is inherently measurable for that very reason.

Really, either it's in or out. Can't have your aether and eat it too.

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The only philosophically valid deductions are those which are deduced logically- not assumed through gnosis without evidence or line of reasoning. So, this kind of thing wouldn't quite qualify as legitimate philosophy either.

This is a matter of religion- something I can't say I want to talk about, haha. If somebody has faith in it, I guess that's the end of it and it's his or her right. But... it's not science.

 

Wrong.

Yes, frames of reference are necessary to give you you're clock and meter stick. But light has an ontology even when there is nothing around for it to interact with. If a source radiates 1GHz for one second (in its reference frame), that's a "train" of 1 billion cycles of EM radiation that are traveling through the vac at speed c. That train of cycles can undergo gravitational lensing, grav redshift, pass through countless different reference frames with different clock rates, pass through a transparent medium, as long as that train of waves isn't absorbed, then eventually some detector somewhere is going to detect 1 billion cycles in some time frame. Without a medium for those waves to pass through, you basically have an open circuit; you have a lamp with no light bulb. Mediumlessness is a space that does not support the properties of light. Such a space has no permittivity and permeability, therefore, the speed of light is undefined. Just because you've never seen the characteristics of another universe does not mean you can justify mediumlessness. If another universe, with different laws of physics, and different physics constants existed, it would need its own unique medium to uphold those different laws o physics.

 

Photons are excitations of the medium. Aether medium waves still exist in the absence of photons or particles.

How else do you explain the physics constants and the long reach of gravity without a medium? A field only tells you what you measure at some point in space. It doesn't actually give you an ontological explanation. Like I said before, the idea of aether medium waves was motivated by wave-functions AND the EM spectrum. The postulates of relativity were a major influence as well. Nobody wanted to discuss the ontology of the invariance of the speed of light for all inertial reference frames. So I defined the medium as the set of waves that satisfy \(c = \lambda f\). When such a wave is energized, it's a photon and/or EM radiation. The waves themselves do not exist as material substance; they are made of aether. Physics constants like c and h are just the characteristics of this medium. Gravity exists as an image of energy and manifests as acceleration. Gravity is just an image.

The wavelength and frequency of aether waves are perfect for measuring distance and time in the space-time continuum. In fact, the reason that a space and time are a continuum is because of the naturally occurring measurement system that uses wavelength and frequency of wave cycles. I'm sorry it's not more obvious. The only hints that you have are that:
1) speed of light, c, shows up in several physics equations;
2) the simplest wave functions are waves which, coincidentally, have the same propert as EM radiation;
3) light is everywhere: black body radiation, spectroscopy, optics, ...
4) gravitational time dilation...

Black hole gravitational time dilation was such a shock and a surprise. A black hole is supposed to be this thing in space that gobbles up everything that gets near it, including light. Gravitational time dilation just shatters that image. Why o' why does nature have to mess around with time? The answer is obvious (OK, not obvious). How can light accelerate as it falls into a black hole without changing its frequency? It can't. So why can't it just blueshift without all of this gravitational time slowing business? Because that would violate conservation of energy. So gravity has to slow the clock to avoid violating conservation of energy.

 

Sure. The time dilation of an accelerating box is given by \(T_D = e^{\frac{gh}{c^2}}\). Notice the square of the speed of light? That tells you that the speed of light is important for some reason. Anyway, to simulate a frequency shift from f to 2f, the progression of time has to slow down, across some distance h=300 meters, for a time dilation of \(T_D = 2\). Alphanumeric probably learned to do logarithms in kindergarten. So we have, \(g=log(T_D)\frac{c^2}{h}\). Just plug those numbers into your calculator, and you get 90 trillion m/s^2 or 9 trillion g's. More than enough to crush Alphanumeric's giant ego.

 

In a nut shell, you need a medium for the following reason. Nobody has ever seen another universe or proven one to exist. But we can still perform a thought experiment. Imagine there is a universe similar to ours. It has relativity, quantum mechanics and gravity just like ours. But the physics constants are different. Relative to our physics constants, it has:

c' = 100c,
h' = 3h,
G' = 2G.

If our universe doesn't have a medium to set the physics constants, then what causes this universe to have different physics constants?

 

You're clueless. c has dimensions L/T. c^2 has dimensions LL/TT. The G and c^2 are included because you're using conventional units. c^2 isn't speed. Divide G by c^2 and you convert the expression to geometric units. I showed you this stuff several times over the last 2 years. Idiot wind. It's complete proof you're lying about having a degree in physics. That's Chapter 2 in a high school physics text. I despise liars. Your intellectual dishonesty is worthy of being banned with the 'never' behind it. I despise liars. You're a liar and way to stupid to take advantage of learning something from AN.

 

If you think you found a mistake, that's fine. But you don't have to be verbally abusive about it. Look here, \(gh/c^2=\frac{(L/T^2)(L)}{(L^2/T^2)}\) The units cancel out. If you want to take issue with the kind of units, you can do so without creating a hostile forum environment. In any event, it doesn't matter what units you use, metric, English, cgs, etc., because the argument of an exponential is unitless.