Luminiferous Aether Exists!
- Thread starter Mazulu
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Then it needs the tooth fairy. You can't explain how nature measures time and distance in space. You can't explain why astronomers observe Kepplers law. Sure you can write up some math for it. But what you're telling me is that Kepplers law, gravity and spacetime metrics are all performed by tooth fairies performing relativity calculations, and then pushing the planets and stars where they need to be.
When you shine a flashlight, you see this at all different frequencies. You see oscillating electromagnetic waves. When you shut the light off, those waves still exist even when there is no energy in them. Those waves (energy or not) fill all space and are used to measure time and distance throughout the universe. Nothing else explains why we observe the invariance of c.
The universe operates according to the laws of physics. Or more properly, The universe operates. The laws of physics are the formalized descriptions of how everything interacts.
It doesn't need god, it doesn't need the tooth fairy, and it doesn't need Mazulu who simply can't understand.
It doesn't need god, it doesn't need the tooth fairy, and it doesn't need Mazulu who simply can't understand.
It just operates? It just operates? You're afraid to ask why it operates the way it does. You hide behind mountains of mathematics, but you are scared to ask: why is the speed of light invariant for all reference frames; how does nature accomplish such a clever trick?
The aether is not Lorentz invariant, the quantum vacuum which the virtual particles are oscillations in is.
They are defined by that, just as $$v = f\lambda$$ is not something special to light, it's pretty much a definition.
There's no need to postulate an omniscience, omnipotent intelligence which formed it all and controls it. There's no need to postulate god.
There's nothing wrong with asking why. You obviously have no knowledge of what actual physicists do, you just make up your ignorant suppositions. The issue comes from postulating things like a god, which makes so many assumptions it completely undermines your case. It's an issue if you ask questions like "Who did all of this?" rather than "What did all of this", since the former implies an agency, not just a cause. Hell, even supposing the universe has a cause is a logical fallacy. You recently said it's reasonable to say "That which exists has a cause". Does god? If god has a cause he/she/it isn't the original creator. What caused that creator? And it's creator? etc etc. If god doesn't have a cause then you undermine your own argument, since there's something without a cause. Why not just suppose the universe doesn't have a cause, since you'd make less assumptions than assuming the creator of the universe is needed.
You're working on a mound of ignorance and logical fallacies.
I am not trying to prove the existence of God. I only bring up God and the tooth fairy as the alternatives to medium. The medium doesn't have to be (in fact it's not) an aetherial point-particle gas. But nature does need a medium that can keep measurements of length and time over large distances. Without that, then Keppler's law wouldn't be observed. Without some naturally occuring medium to interconnect everything gravitationally, then gravity won't work. Hubble's law says that that light seen from other places in the universe if redshifts linearly with respect to distance. If there is no medium, then what prevents errors from creeping in along a billion light year journey?
This is my point: I don't believe that the laws of physics can operate without a medium that calibrates distance, time, or attempts to conserve energy. This medium must extend throughout the whole universe. This medium must make gravity and Keppler's law work. The laws of physics will not work without a medium.
Unjustified assertions. Clearly it is possible to construct mathematical formulations of physical systems which do things like Kepler's laws without needing an aether. For example, you can derive general relativity and thus Kepler's laws from string theory. String theory just starts from the principles of quantised string oscillations. Space-time is then a massive ensemble of closed strings. No aether yet Kepler's laws can arise.
You're asserting as fact things which are demonstrably false. If there were no way to arrive at Kepler's laws without an aether model then string theory wouldn't exist. It is a counter to your baseless assertion.
I'm sorry your mind is so limited you cannot fathom that there are things you do not understand (the fact you don't understand being an example) but you're making an argument from ignorance. Just because you cannot think of an alternative that doesn't mean any random supposition you put forth is the only answer. In 1700 Newtonian gravity was the only game in town but does that mean because Newton, possibly the greatest physicist ever up to that point, couldn't think of anything else then Newtonian gravity is certainly correct? Of course not.
Demanding other people provide you with alternatives (which we have done, you just don't understand) isn't how you present a scientific argument for your position. What other people can or can't answer is IRRELEVANT to you presenting justification for your claims. Your claims stand or fall on the evidence you can provide for them, not the evidence you perceive others as unable to provide for their claims or ideas.
This is just one of the examples of why you don't understand science, even on a conceptual level.
Quite frankly I couldn't give a toss what you believe. Your opinion counts for nothing. You lack of imagination counts for nothing. Your lack of knowledge counts for nothing. What matters is what you can justify. Clearly it's possible to construct physical models which lead to Kepler's laws or virtual photons or Hubble's Law which do not involve an aether. The mainstream has plenty of such examples. Thus you saying "It cannot be done any other way" is wrong, just flat out wrong. The question then should become "Can these ideas which lead to Kepler or Hubble's laws accurately model them? Can they be tested and made to predict other things? Which provides the most while assuming the least?". That is the scientific method.
I hate to break it to you but you are not the measuring stick by which reality works. You once had a go at me because I dared to tell Nature how to work. Now you're here pronouncing nature MUST be this way as you can't believe any other way is possible. How staggeringly arrogant, hypocritical and down right stupid. You lack vision, knowledge and imagination. I pity your narrow minded view of the world.
If superstrings really exist, then superstrings are the medium. That would be common sense. Personally, I think that superstrings are close, but don't quite make work. The reason I don't think superstrings exist is because they are said to vibrate in 10 or 26 dimensions; but physicists never justify how dimensions can exist at all, without a medium of some kind.
Johannes Kepler looked through the telescope and observed nature to behave in a certain way. He wrote up the mathematics of Kepler's laws. Nature might act like mathematics, but nature is still a physical system. But physicists like you forget that. You forget that nature is still a machine, and it has mechanisms. The invariance of the speed of light and particle-wave duality are the biggest clues to figuring out how the laws of physics are implemented.
Your mathematical model doesn't tell you everything about the physical universe. The mathematical model doesn't tell you the mechanisms it uses to implement gravity and acceleration fields. But the hints are there. I actually told you what the mechanism was, and I told you what experiments should be performed to test those mechanisms.
If you think that superstrings and branes embody the laws of physics, if you think that superstrings really exist, then why don't you come up with an experiment. Why don't you find a mechanism that implements gravity/acceleration fields, and then use whatever we have available (atoms and electromagnetic energy) to make those superstrings give us some acceleration fields/gravity that we can use for propulsion. But you can't. The reason you can't is because the included gravity as part of what the superstring is.
In other words, you can't tamper with the mechanism of gravity because you put it inside the superstring. That makes it too fundamental to work with. Try again.:shrug:
Let's see, the electromagnetic field tensor is Lorentz invariant. So I would think that $$\vec E(x,t) = E_0 cos (k_x x + k_y y + k_z z - \omega t$$ would be invariant as well. Since a volume of empty space can pass any ray of electromagnetic radiation, in any direction, and at any frequency, then I just want to make the medium out of that. I want the medium to be made out of waves that can support electromagnetic energy, even if there is no energy at that frequency. Now, I have a medium with two uses:
1. it transmits electromagnetic energy at any frequency in the bandwidth;
2. it measures distance with wavelengths from one of each of 10^27 different frequencies.
If nature measured distances like that, then it wouuld be easy to see how Kepler's laws and gravity can work over large distances.
Joke: How many physicists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: None. Physicists don't believe in an aether medium, so why would they believe in lightbulbs? When the lights go out, physicists just huddle around in the dark until maintenance comes along and changes the lightbulb for them.
Why is the permitivity the same everywhere in the universe? Why is the permeability the same everywhere in the universe. In fact, without a common medium, a common standard, why should anything be the same in the universe? How can the speed of light be the same everywhere in the universe without some way to calibrate everything to the same standard. Why don't the speed of light, permitivity, permeability, gravitational constant or other constants drift? According to physicists, there is nothing in space to maintain those constants as universal standards. It just happens. :shrug:
Whisper: maybe physicists should take a break from their mathematical postulates, and take a look at the laws of physics as if they were part of a physical system. In other words, if physicists really want to understand nature, then they have no business taking the laws of physics for granted.
What makes the laws of physics work? What are the mechanisms?
Answer: None. Physicists don't believe in an aether medium, so why would they believe in lightbulbs? When the lights go out, physicists just huddle around in the dark until maintenance comes along and changes the lightbulb for them.
Why is the permitivity the same everywhere in the universe? Why is the permeability the same everywhere in the universe. In fact, without a common medium, a common standard, why should anything be the same in the universe? How can the speed of light be the same everywhere in the universe without some way to calibrate everything to the same standard. Why don't the speed of light, permitivity, permeability, gravitational constant or other constants drift? According to physicists, there is nothing in space to maintain those constants as universal standards. It just happens. :shrug:
Whisper: maybe physicists should take a break from their mathematical postulates, and take a look at the laws of physics as if they were part of a physical system. In other words, if physicists really want to understand nature, then they have no business taking the laws of physics for granted.
What makes the laws of physics work? What are the mechanisms?
Is it stupid to ask for infrastructure to uphold the laws of physics?
Is it stupid to ask for a medium made of waves so that light can behave like a wave?
Is it stupid to expect nature to track distance very accurately so that Kepler's laws can occur reliably?
Is it stupid to expect a medium to pervade the vacuum everywhere in the universe so that permittivity and permeability are constant everywhere?
Is it stupid to expect universal physics constants to be tied to a common all pervasive medium so that errors don't creep in.
Is it stupid to expect something as reliable and precise as the laws of physics to require an infrastructure with an amazing ability to measure time and distance?
What you cannot endure is the lie promulgated by the physics community that no medium is necessary; and you are obligated to believe it.
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Calling something which isn't a medium a medium doesn't make it a medium. You really need to get past your believe your opinion defines reality. It's a very child-like mentality.
We've already been over examples where your common sense has failed. Anyone familiar with physics will know that common sense is not a perfect guide. You're trying to use an intuition developed for everyday life to apply to things completely outside your experience. It's extremely daft.
I don't think you have any idea what superstrings have to say. You're unfamiliar with electromagnetism and special relativity, things taught to freshman, why should I think you're familiar with things left till PhD level?
So your argument is you don't understand something therefore it is wrong.
It must be terribly claustrophobic being in your mind, being penned in by all your assumptions and preconceptions.
Firstly I'm a mathematician by degree, masters and profession. I did my PhD in a physics department but I didn't go near an experiment. Secondly, I don't forget that maths doesn't define reality. It is a description, a logical construct onto which we associate labels and physical properties in order to try to describe the behaviour of physical phenomena. Maths no more controls reality than English or Chinese does. However, your constant "What are the mechanisms", in terms of asking almost for the purpose, the why things exist, is equivalent to asking leading questions.
No, you've stated what you think they are. You have no evidence, no formal description, no justification. You have, quite frankly, self delusions.
You make it sound like people aren't proposing ways of testing various aspects of string models.
Who made your opinion categorical fact? Oh yeah, the voices in your head.
Which it obviously isn't. You're clearly unfamiliar with the electromagnetic field and Lorentz invariance. The EM field tensor is not Lorentz invariant, it's obviously not given it isn't a Lorentz scalar. However, electromagnetism as a whole is Lorentz invariant and it's very easy to show it when you know the right way of formalising it all. Which you obviously don't.
That isn't Lorentz invariance. Just like $$v = f\lambda$$ isn't a sign of Lorentz invariance or something special. Classical, non-relativistic, waves satisfy that formula too.
And I want a trillion pounds and a super model wife whose got a PhD in mathematics or theoretical physics (hell, make it both!) but unfortunately what you or I want isn't an automatic valid reflection on reality.
No, you don't have any of that, you have a concept in your head which you haven't formalised properly, which cannot predict anything, which cannot properly model anything and which you have no evidence for.
You haven't shown Kepler's laws come out of your claims. This is what makes actual science different from your nonsense. There's logical derivations in it, where people show how they go from a set of postulates to a set of conclusions in an unambiguous way. The derivation of Kepler's laws in string theory is pretty straight forward, provided the reader is familiar with quantum field theory and differential geometry. It's categorical proof your statement a medium is needed is itself false.
Child-like mentality? :bugeye:
At my job, there are frequency counters with an external reference frequency that comes from the GPS satellites. Every one of those satellites has an onboard atomic clock (I'm sure you know what those are). Errors creep into the GPS satellite system. When they do, the satellites have to be re-calibrated against some standard. If GPS has to be recalibrated, then why wouldn't nature have to be recalibrated so that your physics equations can remain reliable? How does Pluto continue to move in an orbit predicted by GR when there are always errors creeping in? How does nature recalibrate? If we knew how nature recalibrates, or had a guess how nature recalibrates, couldn't we perform an experiment to see if we're right?
Let me cut this short. All your physics equations assume that nature will act that way, reliably. But you take nature's reliability for granted. You need to ask: how does nature remain so reliable? How does gravity stay so accurate when errors are always trying to creep in? If you knew that, you could perform an experiment that probes gravity's calibration mechanisms. If you can disrupt gravity's calibration mechanisms, then, in theory, you can take over gravity and make it do anything that you want.
Or are you the caveman who only understands "rock", "kill", "food", "fire"...?
Yes, child-like. Someone gives you an example of something which isn't a medium, isn't an aether, which counters your claims and you just say "That's an aether", regardless of what understanding you have of the thing in question, such as string theory or a quantum field theory vacuum.
Repeating already retorted assertions time and again is also a child-like mentality. If you believe it hard enough it'll become true.
You obviously don't understand the purpose of the recalibration. They aren't to correct for mistakes in the equations, they are actually determined by the equations. They are required due to imperfections in our technology (ie our clocks are only so accurate) or variations from ideal circumstances like perturbations to the orbits and how different timing conventions aren't perfectly aligned.
It's like someone putting you in a room and asking you to count to 60 again and again. After doing that 60 times would you have counted precisely 1 hour? No, you'd likely have been a bit too slow or too fast so if someone steps in after exactly 1 hour and says "Start again" they are recalibrating your 'clock'.
Wow. I'm honestly very surprised you have such a terrible grasp of what the corrections are about. And you say this pertains to your job? Seriously?
Any attempt to describe reality assumes that implicitly. If there's absolutely no order to the universe then we cannot make any prediction since anything could be just as likely to happen as anything else. Clearly that isn't a very useful point of view, much like solipsistic points of view aren't terribly informative. Given our experiences with the universe obviously there is a modicum of reliability to how things behaviour and we build upon that.
No, we constantly check via experiments and verifications.
How does gravity stay accurate with respect to what? We have to calibrate the GPS network because it's measuring something in reality, the position and motion of the Earth via it's gravitational field. We're measuring something in Nature and getting creeping errors due to technological short comings. Nature doesn't measure Nature. Gravity doesn't need to calibrate, since by definition it is what it is. What errors could gravity have 'measuring' gravity (which in itself is a meaningless notion)?
You're failing to even construct coherent mental abstractions. Obviously formalising logically coherent notions is something you're not well practiced in.
'In theory'? No, what you mean is "By my random, unjustified, incoherent and even self contradictory view of things, you can make gravity do whatever you want".
Much like the question "Can god make a rock so heavy even he cannot lift it?" I'm wondering with you "Can Mazulu make such a ridiculous pile of incoherence even he cannot believe it?".
I'm absolutely certain that my grasp of mathematics and physics is beyond yours. You can't even grasp basic scientific methodology, never mind stuff freshman learn in university. You can't do things I grasped a decade ago. Seriously, some of the stuff you're not getting is kids stuff.
Oh and I'm still waiting for you to answer my question. You said it was reasonable to take as a guiding principle that all things which exist had a cause. What caused god?
Mazulu,
Space or spacetime, is the medium for the propagation of EM radiation of all types. That includes light.
Space is not an empty box.., however, we have no diffinitive definition for the intrinsic substance of space, at least from a lay oriented perspective. Space does require some intrinsic substance to interact with matter as it certainly seems to.
While waves, of both EM and gravitational origins must propagate through space, even to the extent that gravitational waves should affect the shape and curvature of space, the waves in an of theirselves are not the substance of space or an independent medium. They are things that move through or propagate through the medium, space/spacetime.
This is a very difficult subject to discuss. We are generally conditioned to see and understand things, the world, from a macrocosmic classical perspective, defined by the action, reaction and interaction between things, we can at least metaphorically, reach out and touch and manipulate. We have a hard time doing that with space. In some ways it is like a fish moving its fishbowl around. We are trying to describe something from a outside objective perspective, while we are confined to seeing it, only from the inside.
Earlier I linked to a paper discussing inertia as emerging from the acceleration of an object through the ZPF. The general idea as I see it in most of the similar papers I have read, is that the ZPF is universally present throughout what we call empty space, and thus might be thought of as a kind of ether or substance of space. None of the papers I have read have been without unresolved problems. They sound good but cannot explain experience as well as GR and QM, which to some extent they attempt to merge.
It would seem just as likely that the ZPF of vacuum energy is itself emergent. That is it the presence and kinetic action of charged particles or matter that creates the ZPF.., through an interaction between the charged particle and the undefined substance of space.
All of this is highly specualtive and incorporates a generous helping of imagination. The point I am trying to make is that, this whole subject is being actively worked on by many more qualified than ourselves, and there are still no real answers. More and more questions, but few if any real answers.
Space is not empty and yet we cannot successfully define and describe it, in classical terms, consistent with everyday experience.
Anyone can always say, God did it. And though there are even many accomplished scientists who may believe it to be so, that is not an answer of science. It is a statement of belief. It stands before those who bow before it, as did the edges of 16th century maps of the world, with their colorful descriptions that, "Beyond here there be dragons or monsters" and other such threats. Once one falls back on such arguments, there is no further he or she can move toward understanding the underlying truth. And yes what I suggest is that even if this was all created by God.., for my own part that does not make it magic. For my part there must remain some underlying mechanisms upon which all of what we know of the world, is based and comes about.
Science always tries to look beyond those limitations to prove what is believed to be or discover what actually lies just beyond what we currently know. Because God said so or God did it has no place in science, even for those who believe in God. The reason this is so is because, from there, there is no where to go and nothing more to discover. Science must assume that we can ultimately find new truths and answers to old questions, even on the face of the limitations associated with a variety of "belief systems".
Whoa! This really got off onto the tangent.....
Back to the point, space itself is the medium and waves exist in and travel through space, without being space. Even in the case of vacuum energy and virtual particles, we are talking about things in space and not space itself. While it is not unreasonable to suggest that "waves" affect many, if not all things, they cannot be the medium for their own propagation.
Space or spacetime, is the medium for the propagation of EM radiation of all types. That includes light.
Space is not an empty box.., however, we have no diffinitive definition for the intrinsic substance of space, at least from a lay oriented perspective. Space does require some intrinsic substance to interact with matter as it certainly seems to.
While waves, of both EM and gravitational origins must propagate through space, even to the extent that gravitational waves should affect the shape and curvature of space, the waves in an of theirselves are not the substance of space or an independent medium. They are things that move through or propagate through the medium, space/spacetime.
This is a very difficult subject to discuss. We are generally conditioned to see and understand things, the world, from a macrocosmic classical perspective, defined by the action, reaction and interaction between things, we can at least metaphorically, reach out and touch and manipulate. We have a hard time doing that with space. In some ways it is like a fish moving its fishbowl around. We are trying to describe something from a outside objective perspective, while we are confined to seeing it, only from the inside.
Earlier I linked to a paper discussing inertia as emerging from the acceleration of an object through the ZPF. The general idea as I see it in most of the similar papers I have read, is that the ZPF is universally present throughout what we call empty space, and thus might be thought of as a kind of ether or substance of space. None of the papers I have read have been without unresolved problems. They sound good but cannot explain experience as well as GR and QM, which to some extent they attempt to merge.
It would seem just as likely that the ZPF of vacuum energy is itself emergent. That is it the presence and kinetic action of charged particles or matter that creates the ZPF.., through an interaction between the charged particle and the undefined substance of space.
All of this is highly specualtive and incorporates a generous helping of imagination. The point I am trying to make is that, this whole subject is being actively worked on by many more qualified than ourselves, and there are still no real answers. More and more questions, but few if any real answers.
Space is not empty and yet we cannot successfully define and describe it, in classical terms, consistent with everyday experience.
Anyone can always say, God did it. And though there are even many accomplished scientists who may believe it to be so, that is not an answer of science. It is a statement of belief. It stands before those who bow before it, as did the edges of 16th century maps of the world, with their colorful descriptions that, "Beyond here there be dragons or monsters" and other such threats. Once one falls back on such arguments, there is no further he or she can move toward understanding the underlying truth. And yes what I suggest is that even if this was all created by God.., for my own part that does not make it magic. For my part there must remain some underlying mechanisms upon which all of what we know of the world, is based and comes about.
Science always tries to look beyond those limitations to prove what is believed to be or discover what actually lies just beyond what we currently know. Because God said so or God did it has no place in science, even for those who believe in God. The reason this is so is because, from there, there is no where to go and nothing more to discover. Science must assume that we can ultimately find new truths and answers to old questions, even on the face of the limitations associated with a variety of "belief systems".
Whoa! This really got off onto the tangent.....
Back to the point, space itself is the medium and waves exist in and travel through space, without being space. Even in the case of vacuum energy and virtual particles, we are talking about things in space and not space itself. While it is not unreasonable to suggest that "waves" affect many, if not all things, they cannot be the medium for their own propagation.
What does God have to do with this conversation?
A more on topic question might be: what caused the laws of physics? My answer is that the aether medium is made of un-energized electromagnetic waves that extend throughout space. It is an infrastructure for light, gravity, and everything. How it got here? Who knows. Who created it? Don't know. Don't care.
What I do care about is coming up with an experiment that will give us access to the mechabisms that cause gravity.
There are more of your questions I want to answer, but I work for a living. I have to go fix boards that don't work. They won't work unless everything in the circuit works correctly. In fact, if light (or gravity) are not properly supported, they won't work correctly either.
Well you're the one who is saying you get your information from god.
Furthermore I'm giving it as an example as to why your attempts to say "Common sense says..." are flawed. You said it was reasonable to work with the common sense notion that anything which exists was created by something. Your god is a counter example to that for the reasons I've explained. This is an illustration of how you aren't even following your own views. It's an illustration of how you have massive gaps in your logical reasoning capabilities which you are unaware of, even when they are pointed out.
So, can you concede the statement you said was common sense, that everything which exists has a cause, is invalid? Or you going to continue being intellectually dishonest?
And as I've explained, the fact other people cannot yet provide justified answers to such things doesn't mean your unjustified answer is somehow elevated.
To give an analogy, since you have terrible understanding problems, someone gaining weight does not make you thinner.
And yet microchips are designed by people who understand quantum mechanics, which doesn't have an aether. Technology is a testament to the success of science. It's a testemant to the success of things like quantum mechanics, which can describe many phenomena very well but which doesn't involve an aether. Likewise the GPS network, nano-second timings guided by our understanding of gravity via general relativity. No aether in the model yet the model is accurate.
I work for a living too. I do maths upon which said technology is based. I do maths which describes the electro-magnetic effects, the P-N transistor energy gaps, the laser etching process, the underlying principles which are needed to design and manufacture the boards you plug into one another. Without quantum mechanics we wouldn't have transistors, meaning we'd not have computers. You have a job plugging together pieces of technology whose very existence is a demonstration your assertions are false. An aether is not needed to accurately describe electromagnetic phenomena, quantum or classical, those boards are manifest proof.
I never said the equations had mistakes in them. I asked how does nature continually meet those "perfect standards"?
The technology that we use isn't perfect, so errors creep in. How does nature overcome imperfections that might creep in?
With respect to the earth maintaining an elliptical orbit. With respect to acting like your space-time continuum model says it should. :facepalm:
That is where your ability to conceptualize falls apart. Why should Pluto, 6 trillion km away, have an elliptical orbit? Why should Pluto be influenced by the sun at all? If there is no medium, they why should the gravity of the sun have any way at all of influencing the orbit of Pluto? No medium means no long range forces like gravity.
All of this is an attempt to dodge the issue. There is no reason to believe that universal constants like G, c, h, permitivity of free space, permeability of free space just exist for no reason. There is no reason why the speed of light should be the same for all observers; but you can't quite grasp that nature is doing something odd.
You can't grasp that nature is an organized physical system. If there were no organized system that stretched across the whole universe, there would be chaos and none of your equations would predict anything. Instead, we observe order. But all you can see is empty space filled with nothing.
Space is definitely not an empty box.onlyme said:
You're right. How can I expect you to have common sense about the real world when you live in a mathematical world. I will let you off the hook because you are not capable of understanding that mathematics is a description of the real world, but it's not a substitute of common sense, ingentuity, or even basic relationships between objects. I can tell an engineer what I've told you, and they grasp that the laws of physics are a physical system that might act like mathematics, but it's still a physical system that has to keep errors out and has to make gravity work across light years. It's a pretty amazing physical system that you just aren't capable of understanding. Oh well. :shrug: