Speculative Theory

ENTRAINED SPATIAL MEDIUM GRAVITATIONAL SINK MODEL
FURTHER SPECULATIONS SECTION

By Henry C. Warren Jr.

Regular Mail : 928 Benjamin St. Port Angeles, Washington
Tel. : (460) 457-7610

[BACK HOME] FOR A PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION - Acrobat .pdf Format

FURTHER SPECULATIVE CONSIDERATIONS

This document deals with some ideas which are more speculative and exploratory than those presented in the main model and is a work in progress. To facilitate exploration of novel ideas, it is also a less formal presentation, being written in the first person and conversational in tone. Over time ideas have come and gone from this document, several being added to the proposed Entrained Spatial Medium Gravitational Sink Model as they became better documented and others discarded as not having stood the test of time.

The Casimir Effect

Once I realized that the Michelson – Morley apparatus was inherently incapable of detecting ether drift, I realized that the dismissal of a spatial medium could well be in error. From there I started by trying to explain gravity using a model based solely on the Casimir Effect and shadowing. It may be worth taking a detour and to discuss the Casimir Effect Paradigm briefly. I still have a soft spot for and am still open to the Casimir Effect playing a modulating role on the proposed model with one eye on it possibly helping bridge the gap between gravity and electromagnetic phenomena.

Now instead of the Entrained Spatial Medium Gravitational Sink Model (ESSMSG) using the Casimir effect to explain gravity, it posits that gravity by thinning the space between two masses causes or contributes to or modifies the Casimir effect. Experiments dealing with the Casimir effect have attempted to factor out the effect of gravity between the plates involved. But ESSMSG posits that the thinning of the spatial fabric between two massive bodies could also impact the vacuum dynamics between them, providing a mechanism for the operation of the Casimir effect. So the Casimir effect is tied to gravity in ESSMSG. At a minimum the Casimir effect suggests that the fabric of space is something real.

Recently it has been called to my attention that Tom Van Flandern’s Meta Model⁽¹⁾ also used a similar shadowing principle. His asserts that his model can fulfill all the key predictions upon which the acceptance of general relativity is based. A unique aspect of the Meta Model - not in my model - is the super-lumeninal speed of “gravitons”. His model also has the density of the gravitational medium increase near the massive body, which is the opposite of the density gradients in ESSMSG.

Now that dark matter and dark energy and the Einstein constant are in vogue, a number of people are looking at the Casimir effect more seriously. Einstein’s constant was initially added ad hocly, then removed ad hocly, and has been added again ad hocly, apparently with an error of 10⁵⁵ in the calculations for the energy density of the vacuum. Whoops! By the way, I would not bet my life that lambda is constant throughout the expansion of the universe as conventional wisdom assumes. I find the arguments for such a notion resistible.

Other possible models (using shrink wrap as an analogy)

There is another basis upon which one could model gravity. Not too long ago I was working on the electrical system of a boat and used shrink wrap to protect the electrical connections. Shrink wrap works by shrinking when heat (energy) is applied. This could serve as an analogy for a model in which masses somehow shrink the spatial medium in their vicinity. For example, one can visualize the surrounding space as a three dimensional net work similar to the way some of those who loop space do.

The most direct version results in the spatial fibers shrinking more near the mass than distally. Thus, similar to the Meta Model, the density of the spatial fabric would be densest near the mass. The result is a mirror image of the way the Entrained Spatial Sink Gravitational Model (ESSGM) proposed by me treats the spatial fabric surrounding a gravitational body and the math associated with this version would have to assume that denser spatial fabric must slow light here in order to bend light toward the mass, i.e. The light must jump across more nodes to propagate a the same absolute reference distance.

One can play with other versions. For example, mass could tug on the surrounding network stretching the fibers. In a sense this is what occurs in the rubber sheet analogy i.e. the rubber sheet is stretched in the vicinity of the bowling ball, but the operating principle is different. One could base a model on the principle that mass, instead of causing fibers to kink, somehow causes them to relax.

In all cases curvature would be a reflection of a deeper process, but these models might be closer to general relativity’s view of things. At any rate the shrinkage paradigm makes a better analogy for GR than the rubber sheet analogy.

The reason I pursued ESSGM was that I kept getting confirmation of certain key ideas in it from others and from my reading.

a. The author did not know about the Casimir effect when he first started his shadowing model. Learning of the Casimir effect told him that there was a sub-electromagnetic world in which an underlying reality existed.

b. Learning of the permittivity of the vacuum in Friedman universes did likewise.

c. Learning that Newton had proposed a similar model to the author’s, but had not taken the resultant density gradient of the ether and the resulting diffraction of light into account.

d. Learning that Einstein had attributed half of the bending of light to Newtonian processes and half to “curvature”.

e. Learning that Einstein had done calculations based on the gravitational diffraction of light.

f. Learning that others had successfully calculated that an inflowing medium gave the Schwarzschild solution.

g. Learning that the universe is presently flat.

Einstein and Fizeau

In his book Relativity⁽⁵⁾ Einstein, using his theory of addition of velocities based on special relativity, derived the formula W = (w + v)[1 - (vw/c²)], which he asserted was to the first order of approximation the same as Fizeau's (Fresnel’s based on Fizeau’s experiment) formula W = w + v[1 - (w²/c²)]. I believe that Einstein was mainly trying to show that at low velocities special relativity gave the same results as the Fizeau/Fresnel formula.

For what it’s worth, the model does likewise at least in form (See Table A in the model for meaning of symbols). Its formula for the measured velocity for radially falling light is: c_f = v_p + v_g[1 - (v_p v_g/c_o²)]. For rising light, two processes are opposed and the later portion of the expression on the right becomes negative: c_r = v_p - v_g[1- (v_p v_g/c_o²)]

These formulas can be combined as c_c = v_p + v_g[1-( v_p v_g/c_o²)]. This result is not too surprising and may not signify much.

The Graviton

One is the differences between GR and QM is the character if the graviton⁽¹¹⁾. In GR it is a unit of curvature while in QM it is a particle. Meanwhile the QM assigns the phonon to sound as the carrier of force. In my model the graviton is very like the phonon and as such bridges QM and GR. The hidden variables⁽¹²⁾ approach to uniting QM and GR could easily be derived from my model and treating the graviton similar to a phonon.

Electromagnetism and the theory of everything

The handed rules of electromagnetism tell me that nature has a personality at the deepest levels. No theory of everything will be complete until the cause of this behavior is explained in full. Just as the behavior of the “by the wind sailor”, Velella velella, a hydroid like animal of the oceans which always veers to the right in a wind or current, is a result of its structure and just as the rotation of light by various chemicals reflects their structure, I suspect that the behavior of electrons speaks to their structure.

Supporting this thinking is the concept of spin. Point particles cannot have spin. But a structured particle can. See comments on dimensions below.

A Definition

One can define time anyway one wishes, because time is a construct of the human mind, a bookkeeping tool that permits keeping tract of a sequence of events. Over the millennia the most significant clocks were the rising and setting of the sun and the seasons, which we now know is due to the spinning of the earth and the fact that it orbits the sun with a tilt. But it is important to realize that the rising and setting of the sun is not time per se.

Einstein defined time as the observer perceived ticking of clocks. This model (and others)^(2,3) proposes that with increased velocity and in a gravitational field clocks really do slow and so do chemical processes. Thus people really age more slowly in accelerated systems. Defining time as equivalent to clock rates might seem reasonable enough at first blush. But just as in the preceding paragraph it was important to realize that the raising and setting of the sun is not time per se, so it is important to realize that clock rates are not time per se.

Failure to make the distinction between the measurement of time and time per se leads to misleading consequences. The Entrained Spatial Sink Gravitational Model is not the first to propose that stationary atomic clocks in outer space, absent a gravitational field, can serve as a reference for “absolute” or background time⁽³⁾. The model proposes that the real speed of light through the spatial medium varies with the stage of expansion of the universe.

The model references what might be called the background gravitational field as the theoretical keeper of "a universal or background reference time". The real point is that the velocity of light and all other processes are influenced by the background spatial density. Those who propose that the Cosmic Background Radiation can serve as an ultimate reference frame are close on the mark, tying that role to background Big Bang processes. Any failure on their part to realize that the real speed of light varies with the stage of expansion of the universe is unfortunate.

I agree with both Marmet and Beckmann that clocks really do run slow and that rods really do change length.

Some problems with the present conventional wisdom of theoretical physics

The first is failure of physicists to recognize that the Michelson –Morley experiment was inherently incapable of measuring ether drift. As explained in some detail in the gravitational sink model, the fact that light obeys gravity and the experiment was conducted deep within the earth’s gravitational field meant that light was subject to tight control by the earth’s gravitational field and was not influenced by the passage of the earth and said field through the background spatial medium.

General relativity does not specify how gravity warps spacetime, which must involve the exercise of a true force.

One of the problems I have with standard big bang theory is the notion that space expands while material matter does not. I do not see how this can be true since most matter from atoms on up to galaxies (and maybe down to basic particles) are mostly composed of space.

I have with a problem with the accepted explanation of twin paradox. I feel that the conventional explanation for the lack of aging of the twin sent into space as compared to that of the one who remained on earth is a little quixotic. According to SR both should see the other as accelerating and acquiring a higher velocity, so each should see the other as younger when they meet again. The conventional answer is that the fellow in space reverses direction. But that does not wash. Reverses direction relative to what? If there is no background space then relativity dictates that both should see the other reverse directions. Clearly here both must be using the earth’s reference frame for the given explanation to work or there must be a background frame. The proposed model avoids this conundrum by referencing the universe as a whole during any stage of expansion as a background reference frame. This incidentally provides a bridge to QM.

In addition to the vacuum energy problem there is the need for renormalization in QM. Physicists are well aware of these problems, but given the difficulties reconciling GR and QM one might think they might be a little more open to rethinking the basics. Talking to theoretical physicists is often like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. For example, one might challenge the proposed ESSGM model by asking “With reference to what does the spatial medium drift?” while at the same time maintaining that GR does not need such a reference for curvature as it is an intrinsic property. Hold on a minute! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Some cows and a cat

The finite speed of light justifies the concept of spacetime and leads to observer based differences in the appearance of realities, consistent with Einstein’s dream about the farmer, his cows, and the electric fence⁽⁴⁾. However, I find the description of the flow of the electric current in that dream to be faulty with the result that the cows all jump at the same time while the farmer and Einstein would see them jump in opposite sequences. I regard the time delays in observations as a measurement problem which does not change the underlying reality, only the perception

An analogy would be an object that looks different in size to observers at different distances from it, but which has only one size in reality. Another has to do with reflected images of myself in a double pained window when it is dark outside and I stand in different positions in my exercise room. In one position I see two of me with the front image being bigger and to the right. When I move a few feet the bigger image moves to the left. Yet I think that I am real and not particularly schizophrenic.

Beckmann asks us to consider two trains side by side whose tracks lead to a precipice. When one commences to move a passenger may not initially correctly detect which train is moving though his fate might hang in the balance. One of these trains has acquired additional momentum while the other has not.

This brings me to a related issue: the so called observer dependent reality based on waveform collapse. I am assuming that the reader is familiar with the Schrodinger cat parable in which a cat is put in a chest along with a radioactive substance from which a radioactive particle can be emitted by chance and kill the cat. Now silliness goes berserk with the supposed belief that the cat is neither alive nor dead until the chest is opened. What the heck does putting a chest around the cat have to do with the events that occur?

The idea that something does not exist unless it is observed by a humans - who have existed for the merest twinkle of an eye in the history of the universe - is absurd on the face of it. According to this thinking the universe could not exist until humans came on the scene. But humans owe their existence to a preexisting universe. A particle does not know if it is being observed by a human. Most animals and events never are. In any measurement the particle does not interact with humans, but photons or other particles, etc. Einstein also believed in an objective reality independent of observation

Time reversal

A statement that "time flows backward during contraction of the universe" is equivalent to the nonsense statement that "time flows backward whenever a clock pendulum changes direction". I would observe that the only meaningful definition of time reversal would entail the precise retracing of every chemical, atomic and nuclear reaction in exact reverse order with a film of all world events being run backwards being a good analogy.

Dimensions

At times it is useful to treat the gravitational field of the Earth as if it originated from a point, but the Earth remains a three dimensional object. In other cases certain problems are more easily solved by treating situations as functioning on surfaces. But a car traveling from California to New York remains a three dimensional object traveling on a three dimensional Earth. The author asserts that all matter and space has three dimensions and no less. There are no two dimensional, single dimensional, or zero dimensional objects or processes in reality.

Focusing on less than three dimensions may be useful as an interim measure, but is always incomplete and a number of mysteries disappear when once this fact is accepted. An example is the passing of 70.7% of a monochromatic beam of light through two polarizing filters oriented at a 45 degree angle with respect to each other. A good deal of the mystery associated with the diffraction of electrons through slits disappears when one considers that the sides of the slits are composed of three dimensional atoms with three dimensional electrons in three dimensional orbits emitting electromagnetic waves which must influence the electrons being scattered. Both Van Flandern and Steven Rado⁽⁶⁾ have recognized the need to deal with waves three dimensionally. Even a surface wave on a body of water has three dimensional aspects to it.

Infinity, mathematics and chance

I am not aware of any infinite thing, only processes. When one divides by zero, one is saying, "I can decide not to divide as many times as I wish." Likewise, there is no limit on the number of times one body can orbit another if wear and tear, friction, etc. can be eliminated. Nor is there any theoretical limit on how long something can last, if certain laws of nature are suspended. Likewise there is no limit on how far an "island universe" can expand into the nothingness beyond, save for any internal constraints possessed by the universe itself. But there is no scientifically documented infinite thing.

Mathematics is a powerful language without which we would not understand much of the world as well as we think we do today. Even ad hoc mathematical approaches have lead to profound insights, but a warning flag should go up when ad hocness is stacked upon ad hocness. As with any other language when pushed to extremes, math is prone to misstatements. Because one can describe a pink elephant verbally does not require nature to provide one. Nor is nature obligated to provide singularities, time to run backwards, or the laws of cause and effect to be suspended, just because such processes can be described mathematically. Beautiful simple formulas exist which describe centrifugal and Coriolis forces, yet no such forces exist in reality, both being expressions of inertia. Too often it appears that mathematical mysticism sometimes replaces old fashioned superstition.

Chance, whether we apply it to the toss of a coin or radioactive decay or any other event, is the name we use when the number of causes are so numerous or the chain of events is so long or obscured that it is difficult to track cause and effect meaningfully and one must resort to statistics. That does not excuse scientists ceasing to think in terms of cause and effect.

Nature recycles

Einstein’s island universe is explainable using cause and effect if it recycles. So is a universe which is embedded in a larger superverse. Universes could appear and disappear much as sunspots do on the surface of the sun and be explainable in terms of cause and effect. The author’s understanding is that Guth’s inflationary universe is postulated to have arisen from such a superverse. Why Guth made the statement about the universe being “The ultimate free lunch” beats me. Based on the laws of cause and effect and inertia, there must be an eternal, but finite existence whose character changes, recycles, or fluctuates between Alpha and Omega entities. It may that that the personality expressed during each cycle is not identical. The concept of a serial multiverse is perfectly consistent with cause and effect. So is the concept of multiverses embedded in a superverse. But our island universe or the superverse has to be eternal or finite to be explainable by cause and effect. One universe is probably all we can hope to understand, though if the evidence for a Big Bang and a universe which is expanding at an increasing rate still holds, a reasonable inference is that our universe may be embedded in something greater.

The calculations showing that the expansion is speeding up depend upon measurements of the Hubble redshift and the assumption of the existence of standard candles. It may be that Bill Sumner's paper "On the Variation of Vacuum Permittivity in Friedmann Universes" is relevant to the mystery presented by those calculations.⁽⁷⁾ By the way, should the speeding up of the universe hold true with its implication of an antigravitational force, an additional argument against singularities is provided.

Nothing leads to dimness

One of the most bizarre concepts in modern cosmology is the idea of the universe appearing out of nothing as the result of a quantum fluctuation. If nothing exists, what is there to quantum fluctuate? Mathematically you can multiply by 0 an infinite number of times and the result is still 0. Some intellectual giants point out that there was an eternity for this to occur and purport that given enough time even the most improbable events occur. But these are the same folks that say that there was no time before the Big Bang. Some disrespectful persons may have called this notion "The Theory of Quantum Flatulation". Shame on them!

Nearly all the major past cosmological models fall into the trap of having to create something out of nothing, either from a singularity or continuously.

Electromagnetism and knowledge

When one speaks of the speed of light he or she is speaking of the speed of electromagnetism. It follows that electromagnetism in all its forms cannot travel faster than the speed of light (electromagnetism). All forms of material matter consist of compilations of electromagnetic stuff. Thus, it follows that matter cannot exceed the speed of light. Alain Aspect's work and Bell's theorem suggest to me the possibility that non-electromagnetic processes may exist which might exceed the speed of light. Bohm's pilot waves may fall into this category.

At any rate, humans and all of their measuring instruments are electromagnetic in nature. I suggest that this is the basis for the uncertainty principle and the apparent wave-particle duality of electromagnetism. When one tries to measure the full personality of electromagnetism using electromagnetism, one is forced into using circular logic and obtains confusing results, but this is no reason to abandon cause and effect. Richard Feynman⁽⁸⁾ observed that if QED procedures were followed, "...There is no need for an uncertainty principle."

Rapheal Bousso⁽¹²⁾ of the University of California at Berkeley has derived the uncertainty principle using the holographic limit. But concepts surrounding the holographic limit, that the ability of an entity to store information is a function of its surface area and not its volume, seem to be at odds with the notion in GR that the attractive power of a mass is a function of both its energy density and its pressure.

The uncertainty principle as a mathematical concept may define a limit of possible human knowledge regarding electromagnetic processes, which is a pretty profound statement. But some of the screwy ideas associated with the principle, wherein the improbable is rejected and the impossible accepted, need to be treated as the pseudo science they represent.

Frequencies and wavelengths

Change in wavelength is not always associated with a change in frequency. Only when the velocity of light is constant are the two locked together in an inverse relationship. But Einstein asserts that the velocity of light varies in a gravitational field. The reader is also alerted to distinguish between a Doppler effect based on a moving emitter such as an approaching or receding train emitting a whistle and that associated with a photon once emitted from a stationary emitter.

Now consider the refraction of light in a physical medium, such as when light passes from air into glass. The velocity and wave length change, but the frequency does not. Blue remains blue, but the velocity of light is slower in the glass than in the air. Also consider a wave imposed upon a long string composed of two sections with two different densities. The velocity of the wave is faster in the portion of the string with less density - and the wavelength is likewise longer - than in the portion with greater density, but the frequency remains constant throughout the string⁽⁹⁾.

Of course in the Entrained Spatial Sink Gravitational Model the velocity and wavelength effects are reversed because light travels faster in a denser spatial medium and slower in a less dense one. Per the proposed model a falling photon will experience a decrease in its internal ability to propagate through the spatial medium as the density of the spatial medium thins. So the head (leading edge) of the photon is continually experiencing more retardation of internal velocity then the "tail" of the photon. Thus, the tail tends to catch up with the head shortening the wave length. But the falling photon will also be dragged at a faster rate due to the increasing flow of the spatial medium. Thus, the head of the photon will tend to pull away from the tail stretching the photon. The two processes cancel so that the shortening of the wavelength by the density gradient is offset by the lengthening of the wavelength by the velocity gradient. In both cases no change in frequency occurs. The net result is that there is no impact on either the frequency or wavelength of light falling in a gravitational field after it is emitted.

But the same does not hold for photons rising in gravitational fields. Now as the photon propagates it experiences an increased ability to propagate as the density of the spatial medium thickens. Thus the head of the photon experiences easier conditions for propagation before the tail can and the head pulls away from the tail stretching the photon, increasing the wave length. But the tendency to increase wavelength is no longer offset by the flow of the spatial medium. Indeed it is abetted, for now the spatial flow, which is in opposition to the photon flow, decreases in strength as the photon rises. It is as if someone was easing up on the brakes and the negative dragging becomes less. The effect is that the head of the photon once again pulls away from the tail stretching the wavelength. No change is frequency occurs, but the wavelength gets longer.

At first blush it might seem as if gravitational systems could be regarded as generators of increased electromagnetic wavelengths, except that gravitational fields generate their own self correcting processes. For the moment pretend that the universe is static. Then the condensation or absorption of the spatial fabric in the vicinity of gravitational masses and their associated systems must, as they grow and operate over time, have a thinning effect on the overall spatial fabric outside of and between these systems separate from that associated with expansion of the universe. The result is that light propagates slower through the thinner background spatial medium creating shorter wavelengths, but no frequency shifts. This process offsets the former process so that no net effect occurs.

The expansion of the universe is another matter which independently causes a “shallowing of gravitational wells”⁽¹⁰⁾ with the passage of time, that is the overall thinning of the spatial medium weakens the propagation of gravitational forces. But the head and tail of a propagating photon are affected simultaneously with no impact on wavelength. The redshift due to expansion is due to stretching.

EVEN FURTHER LIGHT HEARTED CONSIDERATIONS

Once upon a Time

Consider this tale given in a light hearted manner, but which has serious consequences. The issue at hand was treated in a more mathematical fashion in the main model.

King Henry recognizing the need for a system of measurement has modestly declared that the master unit of distance shall be one tenth of that run by his own royal self in ten seconds using one of his two favorite clocks which tick at the same rate. The king has also asked Prince Henry Junior to do likewise in the Land of Oz using the second clock. Both distances are to be run and marked off on royal carpets which are to be maintained as official standards of measurement.

The following events are testified to by Merlin, King Henry’s royal counselor, and the Wizard of Oz, the Prince’s advisor. They use magic whenever necessary to communicate and ascertain the Real Truth. But they decided to play a trick on the king and prince by making clocks in Oz tick only five times per each ten clicks of the clock in the Home Kingdom and stretching the carpet in Oz to double the length of that in the home kingdom.

The magicians made sure that both the king and the prince started their races at the same universal time and verified that their velocities were identical. The king quit at the end of ten clicks and Merlin marked off the Home Kingdom’s carpet into 10 equal master units.

But the prince’s clock had only clicked five times so he kept running for five more clicks, after which the Wizard marked off 10 master units on the carpet which became the official standard for the Land of Oz.

The king believing that by definition he was running 1 unit per tick was certain that he had run ten units. Viewing the prince’s effort, he felt that Junior had run twice as far as he was instructed to do.

The Price likewise regarded his own achievement as accurate and he could not understand why the king had quit when his job was only half done. He must be getting old.

Merlin and the Wizard, who were beside themselves with mischievous joy, asked the prince to measure the standard reference rod in the home kingdom using the reference rod from Oz, which they froze in length. The prince found the rod in the home kingdom to have apparently contracted, which is what Merlin and the Wizard knew that special relativity predicted.

They told the king to measure the reference rod in the Land of Oz using the standard reference rod of the home kingdom, which they also froze in length. The result confirmed that the reference rod in the Land of OZ had expanded. The King called in the magicians to explain what was happening. Using their magic they were able to show king and prince that the clock in Oz was ticking at half the rate of the Home clock and that calculations based on said clock used with the longer rod produced the same velocity as would the king’s Home clock and shorter rod.

The king asked the magicians why he should not lop off their heads. Their defense was that they wished to provide the king with an important insight regarding the way the universe functioned and a concept called timeliness. They explained that their trick was accomplished by having the Land of Oz fly through the universe with a much greater velocity than the Home Kingdom possessed.

ENTRAINED SPATIAL MEDIUM GRAVITATIONAL SINK MODEL FURTHER SPECULATIONS SECTION

ENTRAINED SPATIAL MEDIUM GRAVITATIONAL SINK MODEL
FURTHER SPECULATIONS SECTION