Posted on 11/02/2009 9:29:43 PM PST by Kevmo
Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?
EVER since Arthur Eddington travelled to the island of Príncipe off Africa to measure starlight bending around the sun during a 1919 eclipse, evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity has only become stronger. Could it now be that starlight from distant galaxies is illuminating cracks in the theory’s foundation?
....
Yet it is still not clear how well general relativity holds up over cosmic scales, at distances much larger than the span of single galaxies. Now the first, tentative hint of a deviation from general relativity has been found. While the evidence is far from watertight, if confirmed by bigger surveys, it may indicate either that Einstein’s theory is incomplete, or else that dark energy, the stuff thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, is much weirder than we thought (see “Not dark energy, dark fluid”).
The analysis of starlight data by cosmologist Rachel Bean of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has generated quite a stir. Shortly after the paper was published on the pre-print physics archive, prominent physicist Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena praised Bean’s research. “This is serious work by a respected cosmologist,” he wrote on his blog Cosmic Variance. “Either the result is wrong, and we should be working hard to find out why, or it’s right, and we’re on the cusp of a revolution.”
.... At this stage, it’s hard to say what would happen if the deviation from general relativity was confirmed. Cosmologists have already considered some modifications to general relativity that could explain the universe’s acceleration (see “Not dark energy, dark fluid”).
....
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
You’ll get roundly rounded around here for suggesting such a thing....
I still think Einstein didn’t really tell us anything about the what, he just ended up talking about the when and the where. He described geometry, not particles.
I think we are witnessing the Timothy Leary Effect on astrophysics...
Thanks, Civ.
It turns out that New Scientist is on the excerpt/link list now also.
Along the same vein :
The Suppression of Inconvenient Facts in Physics
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2266921/posts
Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:50:26 PM · by Kevmo · 78 replies · 1,750+ views
Suppressed Science.Net ^ | 12/06/08 | http://www.suppressedscience.net/
The End of Snide Remarks Against Cold Fusion
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2265914/posts
Friday, June 05, 2009 5:56:08 PM · by Kevmo · 95 replies · 1,907+ views
Free Republic, Gravitronics.net and Intrade ^ | 6/5/09 | kevmo, et al
Re-Analysis of the Marinov Light-Speed Anisotropy Experiment
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2270920/posts
Friday, June 12, 2009 11:25:41 PM · by Kevmo · 27 replies · 1,138+ views
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0612/0612201v2.pdf ^ | Reginald T. Cahill
time is not a constant.
Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out?
Yep. Seems like the universe is a bit more psychedelic than we had at first suspected!
Well, something is way out of whack.
Dark matter, used to explain something that didn’t fit.
Dark energy, used to explain something that didn’t fit.
What’s next?
Dark light used to explain something that doesn’t fit?
A suitable theory that gravity has a local component to it would clear all this up so quick it would make your head spin.
And I’ve never seen any valid rebuttals to Sakharov and Putoffs work that talks about that exact thing.
It never was.
But C, the speed of light, was postulated to be a constant by Einstein. Now it’s looking more like a decaying function.
“We all live in a Yellow Submarine...” Its all about what you think its about. None of this makes any sense. I think G-d is keeping s from knowing this stuff because its not important for us to know it. Not that we shouldn’t try, mind you. Its just that our brains aren’t big enough to figure it all out. If we knew it, we’d be G-d. And we ain’t G-d!
It's just that you've gotten used to some of it.
A suitable theory that gravity has a local component to it would clear all this up so quick it would make your head spin.
***Got links? I’m not sure I’m familiar with this angle.
Bad idea, disrespecting einstein... you are wrong BTW...
Nothing in the theory of relativity is a constant, it is all relative to the observer. Not time, speed, distance, energy, mass, or speed of light. Speed is a measure of time vs. distance, and if time is relative or distance is relative, than the speed of light has got to be relative.
.....Bob
Bad idea, disrespecting einstein... you are wrong BTW...
***It isn’t a disrespect of the man Einstein any more than Einstein was disrespecting Newton. One theory is just a correction factor for the other to allow for the newest observations.
So, I call
01100010 01110101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110100
< http://www.paulschou.com/tools/xlate/ >
Brilliant! This is excellent!
I have long wondered if the redshift were actually caused by decay of photons (the speed of the particle constant, but the wavelength decreasing). If so, the universe may not be expanding at all. If neither the speed nor the wavelength of light is constant, what do we really know?
Also interesting is ‘knot theory’ physics...
So... how does that suggest that gravity has a local component?
I think photon decay would be testable in the lab.
Since I’m already in way above my head, I’m pinging my 2 favorite cosmologists, Alamo Girl and Betty Boop.
Because gravity becomes not a distortion of space or a stretching of time, the gravitational acceleration effect we see is because of the interactions of the zero point energy field.
The pointer I gave you is for the abstract, the article is available online, but you have to really, really dig for it.
Here’s another presentation Puthoff gave to Nasa.
http://www.keelynet.com/gravity/putnasa.htm
And from the paper I just cited...
“Sakharov came to the conclusion that the entire panoply of general relativistic phenomena could be seen as induced effects brought about by changes in the quantum-fluctuation energy of the vacuum due to the presence of matter.”
Now, Sakharov himself ain’t no slacker.
He is credited as being the father of the Soviet H-bomb!
Keelynet is still around! Cool.
I usually don’t trust Targ & Puthoff after James Randi handed them their hats with his simple demonstrations proving their research into psychic phenomena was a waste of time. But it looks like an interesting read.
Question: Is this the origin of the phrase “Zero Point Energy”? I noticed that even Sci Fi started using this phrase a while back.
Not sure, but I doubt it is the origin.
Photon decay would imply via the Uncertainty Principle that the range of the electromagnetic force was not infinite. To the precision that we can measure, it is infinite.
There are two postulates of Special Relativity:
Hey, guys, too much overthinking it here.
It’s simply obvious that redshift is caused by the Palin wave.
;>D
That isn't exactly what relativity theory says. Einstein's first choice to name his theory was invariance theory. I have often regretted that he didn't keep the first name. That might have cleared up some misconceptions. Perhaps his theory is incorrect, but it would be important to represent his theory accurately.
Special Relativity is in big, big trouble. Cf.: Questioning Einstein, by Tom Bethell.
Hint: The ether is back! And it’s the gravitational field.
There IS ether drift!
bookmark for later
I don’t believe Einstein said there is no ether.
I believe he said the ether cannot be detected.
The constants are relative. The Lorentz contraction being infinite shows the limitations immediately.
WANTED - Schroedinger's Cat, Dead or Alive.
Found - Both.
Actually, the Michelson-Morley experiment appeared to show there was no ether wind. But there is: It’s just much slower than Michelson and Morley thought it should be. They were looking for an ether wind caused by the earth’s motion in orbit, whereas the actual ether wind is only about 700 mph on the earth’s surface at their latitude. The earth’s gravitational field travels with the earth’s center—but it does not rotate with the earth.
Who is that? She’s not listed in the current directory. The picture I posted was the young lady behind the article.
Lisa Randall, Harvard theoretical physicist. She’s got some interesting ideas concerning gravitation some of which can be viewed on YouTube.
Excellent observation, djf!
TY!!
I’m not sure that I actually buy the idea that there is something radically different in Einsteins work as opposed to Newtonian principles.
If you take Newtons stuff, and you toss in the Lorentz equations, you basically end up with relativity.
I seem to recall that Einstein himself was quoted as saying that Hilbert was the most brilliant mind he had ever encountered.
I’m not sure that I actually buy the idea that there is something radically different in Einsteins work as opposed to Newtonian principles.
Einstein was thoroughly moored in Newtonian principles, so much so that he insisted on a direct correspondence between his relativity theory (Newtonian mechanics as he modified it for large-scale phenomena) and its verbal form of communication. And then Niels Bohr came along and made the correspondence principle among "domains" explicit: It doesn't matter how "strange" the "behavior" of the small-scale world of quantum mechanics might happen to be, it could finally only be described in Newtonian language.
From which I infer that the Newtonian formalism constitutes a kind of final, universal language by which "simple systems" in nature — which would be the particulate, inorganic, material systems — can be effectively described and reliably understood. Actually, I have little doubt about that these days, and pay homage to Newton for the magnificence of his achievement.
Yet the biological world does not seem to boil down to "simple" matter and mechanics. Newton can help with the "material basis" of life. But there's nothing in Newton that seems terribly useful to the study of biology beyond its physical basis.
People who say there is nothing beyond physical basis seem to be unqualified in the field of biology. Newton, for instance, cannot help us elucidate the causal relations/behavior of complex systems in nature. My main takeaway here: biology does not "reduce" to physics/mechanics.
If you take Newtons stuff, and you toss in the Lorentz equations, you basically end up with relativity.
I'm not an expert mathematician; but based on what I've read, your statement appears highly confirmable. Newton's formalism inspired amazingly effective mathematical derivatives, such as the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms, which are such important (and empirically effective) mathematical tools in physics today. One beauty leads to others....
But it seems to me such "beauties" refer to this day only to "simple" systems in nature — "particulate" matter of whatever scale, and the basic (Newtonian) mechanical laws. It seems to me biological studies require more than this.
I seem to recall that Einstein himself was quoted as saying that Hilbert was the most brilliant mind he had ever encountered.
Einstein was first and foremost one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. David Hilbert was yet another. It is no surprise to me that Einstein would admire him. Yet as Robert Rosen has pointed out, Hilbert's "pet project" of formalizing Number Theory ended up in total shipwreck — for reasons that Kurt Gödel later made manifest.
It kind of "hit the rocks" in the same way that Einstein's "cosmological constant" did. (Who knows, the CC might yet return in some fashion. But probably we'd have to get to the bottom of "dark energy" first.)
God bless all these men for what they imagine and try. They are all trying for Truth — or so it seems to me. FWIW
BB,
Thank you for your most excellent and interesting analysis.
In the late ‘80’s, early ‘90’s, I became interested in deriving a universe density/time relationship based on Plancks constant and Newtons gravitational constant.
I eventually derived a simple equation that seemed to show the universe was gaining mass over time, but was expanding even faster, so the density was going down, and the universe would expand forever.
No biggie... I’m not a professional, just a hack of sorts...
Then, I was reading an abstract relating to universal expansion written by Sima and Sukenik of Bratislava university in Czechoslovakia. They have written a long series of abstracts and papers showing what they term the “Expansive, Non-Decelerative Universe” meaning not only is the Universe expanding, it is speeding up, not slowing down, and will go on forever.
You will note this is exactly what has been deemed to be recently observed and is the basis for the whole “dark energy” idea.
Lo and Behold!!!
On page three, in the middle of the page, there sits the equation I developed about 1992. In an abstract put together in 1999!!
I patted myself on the back a few times...
And, BTW, very gross guestimates about the current density of the universe I put together plugged into my equation yielded:
Abt 18.5 billion years
May very well be off, but it’s not orders of magnitudes off...
Like I say, not bad for an amateur!
Heavy time.
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