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The Quantum Luminiferous Aether. Videos. Publishing. Philosophy.
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Videos are now Online
Videos covering The Quantum Luminiferous Aether are now online. To access the videos, just click on the link in my signature at the end of each of my posts. The videos give a good overview of the most important parts of the longer paper, and yet you can get through them in less than 10% of the time. (The main paper derives everything in full detail, including intermediate mathematical steps so it is quite long. The videos emphasize the main course of the derivations while eliminating vast amounts of the minute details.)
Attempting Publication
The next step for this work is to attempt publication. I plan to start with the Physical Review's online journal PRX. If the Physical Review rejects the work, I'd like to try other journals. If anyone can suggest a good alternative I'd appreciate it.
Background Philosophy
Papers on fundamental physics always have some underling philosophical grounding whether it is admitted or not. At any given point in history, there is typically some underlying philosophy that is dominant and shared almost unanimously by the expert physicists of the time. With this near unanimity of opinion, the philosophy is typically not even be mentioned, but it is there nonetheless.
In Einstein's time, the underlying philosophical grounding included a belief in a physical aether, as well as absolute notions of space, time and simultaneity. However, philosophers had already begun to question these foundations. Kant had questioned whether space and time was real or just an appearance due to a priori thoughts of the human mind. Einstein was influenced heavily by Hume and perhaps less so by Mach (See here where Einstein is quoted saying "Mach, and, even more, Hume, whose Treatise of Human Nature I sudied with passion".) The positivist approach of Mach was based on the philosophy of Hume, who argued that underlying modeling can not be trusted, and that the best we could do is to trust our repeated observations. This philosophy leads to Einstein discarding the earlier notions of space, time and simultaneity, and in his early years he discarded the aether as well. (In later years Einstein made supportive comments about an aether, but it wasn't the aether of Lorentz and I do not believe Einstein's aether was ever well-defined.)
In our time the underlying philosophical grounding for physics is that of Einstein. We now rely on mathematical models alone. The earlier physical models have been discarded. It may profit us to review a more thorough history of how we got to this point.
In the timeline to follow I've listed some important players in our historical understanding of natural philosophy. We can categorize these players as either scientists (S) or philosophers (P) or both (PS). In the timeline to follow, mention is made only to individuals who played important roles in the philosophy of physics. For instance, Michelson was of great importance to physics, but while his work led (and still leads) to questions about the philosophy of physics, he did not himself (to my knowledge) propose any changes to the philosophy of physics. As a counter example, Maxwell proposed equations that might not be seen as a philosophical contribution either. But in Maxwell's case his equations greatly re-ordered our thinking about things as they brought unity out of disparate views. So in terms of the timeline to follow, Maxwell is included but Michelson is not. This isn't a judgement about who was the greater between the two; it is merely a comment on who was relevant to the advance of natural philosophy. Likewise, the timeline to follow only includes philosophers who contributed significantly to the philosophy of physics, and not to other branches of philosophy. With that, the timeline will appear next.
Videos covering The Quantum Luminiferous Aether are now online. To access the videos, just click on the link in my signature at the end of each of my posts. The videos give a good overview of the most important parts of the longer paper, and yet you can get through them in less than 10% of the time. (The main paper derives everything in full detail, including intermediate mathematical steps so it is quite long. The videos emphasize the main course of the derivations while eliminating vast amounts of the minute details.)
Attempting Publication
The next step for this work is to attempt publication. I plan to start with the Physical Review's online journal PRX. If the Physical Review rejects the work, I'd like to try other journals. If anyone can suggest a good alternative I'd appreciate it.
Background Philosophy
Papers on fundamental physics always have some underling philosophical grounding whether it is admitted or not. At any given point in history, there is typically some underlying philosophy that is dominant and shared almost unanimously by the expert physicists of the time. With this near unanimity of opinion, the philosophy is typically not even be mentioned, but it is there nonetheless.
In Einstein's time, the underlying philosophical grounding included a belief in a physical aether, as well as absolute notions of space, time and simultaneity. However, philosophers had already begun to question these foundations. Kant had questioned whether space and time was real or just an appearance due to a priori thoughts of the human mind. Einstein was influenced heavily by Hume and perhaps less so by Mach (See here where Einstein is quoted saying "Mach, and, even more, Hume, whose Treatise of Human Nature I sudied with passion".) The positivist approach of Mach was based on the philosophy of Hume, who argued that underlying modeling can not be trusted, and that the best we could do is to trust our repeated observations. This philosophy leads to Einstein discarding the earlier notions of space, time and simultaneity, and in his early years he discarded the aether as well. (In later years Einstein made supportive comments about an aether, but it wasn't the aether of Lorentz and I do not believe Einstein's aether was ever well-defined.)
In our time the underlying philosophical grounding for physics is that of Einstein. We now rely on mathematical models alone. The earlier physical models have been discarded. It may profit us to review a more thorough history of how we got to this point.
In the timeline to follow I've listed some important players in our historical understanding of natural philosophy. We can categorize these players as either scientists (S) or philosophers (P) or both (PS). In the timeline to follow, mention is made only to individuals who played important roles in the philosophy of physics. For instance, Michelson was of great importance to physics, but while his work led (and still leads) to questions about the philosophy of physics, he did not himself (to my knowledge) propose any changes to the philosophy of physics. As a counter example, Maxwell proposed equations that might not be seen as a philosophical contribution either. But in Maxwell's case his equations greatly re-ordered our thinking about things as they brought unity out of disparate views. So in terms of the timeline to follow, Maxwell is included but Michelson is not. This isn't a judgement about who was the greater between the two; it is merely a comment on who was relevant to the advance of natural philosophy. Likewise, the timeline to follow only includes philosophers who contributed significantly to the philosophy of physics, and not to other branches of philosophy. With that, the timeline will appear next.
Underlying Philosophies in Physics - A Timeline
(PS) Aristotle (384–322 BC) produced an ontological categorization of nature; things have their place and tendencies which can be cataloged (fire rises, stones fall); celestial spheres orbit the earth and exist within the aether.
(S) Copernicus (1473–1543) proposed a heliocentric system to replace the celestial spheres.
(PS) Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was the father of empiricism (knowledge comes from observations of sensory experiences) and later founder of the scientific method involving skeptical and methodological inquiry. Began separation from Aristotelian ontology.
(S) Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) separated from Aristotelian ontology to do controlled experiments and observations; Galileo proposed constant acceleration of falling objects, and he observed orbits of the moons of Jupiter, lending support to the Copernican and Keplerian view.
(S) Kepler (1571–1630) made important contributions to the heliocentric system with his laws of planetary motion.
(P) Descartes (1596-1650) championed rationalism (truth comes from reason and deduction) and concluded that we really can't be sure of anything other than our own existence.
(S) Isaac Newton (1643-1727) authored three laws of motion and a law of universal gravitation. Newton defined a gravitation force, but gave no reason for why that force existed. Newton proposed empirical formulas for physical phenomena.
(P) Hume (1711-1776) accepts the uncertainty of Descartes, but places a hierarchical ranking such that observations have a dominant primacy over metaphysical modeling.
(P) Kant (1724-1804) postulates through his transcendentalism that certain a priori thoughts can be valid building blocks for knowledge while allowing the existence of metaphysical models of real things-in-themselves; space and time are appearances of our a priori thought and not part of the real things-in-themselves; our metaphysical models must be limited by our observations, as without such bounds our ideas can lead us to contradictory positions.
(S) Maxwell (1831–1879) develops equations for electricity and magnetism assuming an aether exists. Like Newton, the equations were empirical, but Maxwell did make efforts to derive his equations from an underlying physical model.
(P) Nietzsche (1844-1900) discards objective reality as always being a subjective construct.
(PS) Mach (1838–1916) championed phenomenonalism, which is a philosophy that only sensations (observations) are real. This is an extension of Hume and a support of positivism.
(S) Lorentz (1853–1928) developed transformation equations of space and time assuming the existence of an aether.
(PS) Poincare (1854–1912) made important contributions to both the Lorentz transformation equations and to relativity.
(PS) Minkowski (1864–1909) interpreted space and time as a four dimensional space-time.
(S) Einstein (1879-1955) developed the special and general theories of relativity. The influence of Hume and Mach were both referenced by Einstein, and their influence is clear in his works, as even space and time become secondary to an observationalism under relativity.
Philosophy of The Luminiferous Aether
In my works I've always had in mind an underlying physical objective reality. The Lorentz Aether theory gives identical mathematical expressions to special relativity, and it allows us to understand quantum mechanics as a collapse of a real wave-function. Here, the wave-function represents the square root of the density of the collapsing entity. Here, the wave-function is NOT a probability of where a point-like particle is, but rather, it is related to the density of the entity itself. This makes all of quantum mechanics clear. However, one now needs a replacement for general relativity and that is supplied by the development of the theory of the Quantum Luminiferous Aether.
But when considering quantum mechanics, what does "reality" mean? My thinking has always been that entities really exist whether we measure them or not, and it is when we measure them that their wave function collapses to a size dx = hbar/2dp, where dp is the momentum exchange during our measurement process. (Indeed, this collapse occurs whenever dp is exchanged, even if it is not part of a "measurement".) This philosophy means that wave-functions are real things. But what is INSIDE of the dx after the collapse? If we believe in realism all the way to its core, there must be something real inside that dx. But we didn't measure it. So my philosophy is this: 1) Descartes was right, we can't be sure of anything; 2) So we should simply propose a hypothesis containing physical models and axioms and see if those foundings lead to testable mathematical relations that agree with experiment. If our models and experiment agree, we can then have some faith that they may be correct, or at least an approximation of what is correct. If our models and experiment do not agree we should search for adjustments to our models. Toward the goal of supplying a physical hypothesis, the Fundamental Axiom is:
A Partially Observable Reality Exists
The above axiom begins our hypothesizing. It places reality in a position of primacy over that of observations. Since the reality is only partially observable, Heisenberg's relationship now tells us where the boundary is between what is observable and what is not. This is a considerably different philosophical grounding from present day consensus, yet I believe it is well founded. From there, the physical model is proposed through a series of additional postulates. See the videos linked to in my signature below for further details.
As always, I look forward to any and all comments.
(PS) Aristotle (384–322 BC) produced an ontological categorization of nature; things have their place and tendencies which can be cataloged (fire rises, stones fall); celestial spheres orbit the earth and exist within the aether.
(S) Copernicus (1473–1543) proposed a heliocentric system to replace the celestial spheres.
(PS) Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was the father of empiricism (knowledge comes from observations of sensory experiences) and later founder of the scientific method involving skeptical and methodological inquiry. Began separation from Aristotelian ontology.
(S) Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) separated from Aristotelian ontology to do controlled experiments and observations; Galileo proposed constant acceleration of falling objects, and he observed orbits of the moons of Jupiter, lending support to the Copernican and Keplerian view.
(S) Kepler (1571–1630) made important contributions to the heliocentric system with his laws of planetary motion.
(P) Descartes (1596-1650) championed rationalism (truth comes from reason and deduction) and concluded that we really can't be sure of anything other than our own existence.
(S) Isaac Newton (1643-1727) authored three laws of motion and a law of universal gravitation. Newton defined a gravitation force, but gave no reason for why that force existed. Newton proposed empirical formulas for physical phenomena.
(P) Hume (1711-1776) accepts the uncertainty of Descartes, but places a hierarchical ranking such that observations have a dominant primacy over metaphysical modeling.
(P) Kant (1724-1804) postulates through his transcendentalism that certain a priori thoughts can be valid building blocks for knowledge while allowing the existence of metaphysical models of real things-in-themselves; space and time are appearances of our a priori thought and not part of the real things-in-themselves; our metaphysical models must be limited by our observations, as without such bounds our ideas can lead us to contradictory positions.
(S) Maxwell (1831–1879) develops equations for electricity and magnetism assuming an aether exists. Like Newton, the equations were empirical, but Maxwell did make efforts to derive his equations from an underlying physical model.
(P) Nietzsche (1844-1900) discards objective reality as always being a subjective construct.
(PS) Mach (1838–1916) championed phenomenonalism, which is a philosophy that only sensations (observations) are real. This is an extension of Hume and a support of positivism.
(S) Lorentz (1853–1928) developed transformation equations of space and time assuming the existence of an aether.
(PS) Poincare (1854–1912) made important contributions to both the Lorentz transformation equations and to relativity.
(PS) Minkowski (1864–1909) interpreted space and time as a four dimensional space-time.
(S) Einstein (1879-1955) developed the special and general theories of relativity. The influence of Hume and Mach were both referenced by Einstein, and their influence is clear in his works, as even space and time become secondary to an observationalism under relativity.
Philosophy of The Luminiferous Aether
In my works I've always had in mind an underlying physical objective reality. The Lorentz Aether theory gives identical mathematical expressions to special relativity, and it allows us to understand quantum mechanics as a collapse of a real wave-function. Here, the wave-function represents the square root of the density of the collapsing entity. Here, the wave-function is NOT a probability of where a point-like particle is, but rather, it is related to the density of the entity itself. This makes all of quantum mechanics clear. However, one now needs a replacement for general relativity and that is supplied by the development of the theory of the Quantum Luminiferous Aether.
But when considering quantum mechanics, what does "reality" mean? My thinking has always been that entities really exist whether we measure them or not, and it is when we measure them that their wave function collapses to a size dx = hbar/2dp, where dp is the momentum exchange during our measurement process. (Indeed, this collapse occurs whenever dp is exchanged, even if it is not part of a "measurement".) This philosophy means that wave-functions are real things. But what is INSIDE of the dx after the collapse? If we believe in realism all the way to its core, there must be something real inside that dx. But we didn't measure it. So my philosophy is this: 1) Descartes was right, we can't be sure of anything; 2) So we should simply propose a hypothesis containing physical models and axioms and see if those foundings lead to testable mathematical relations that agree with experiment. If our models and experiment agree, we can then have some faith that they may be correct, or at least an approximation of what is correct. If our models and experiment do not agree we should search for adjustments to our models. Toward the goal of supplying a physical hypothesis, the Fundamental Axiom is:
A Partially Observable Reality Exists
The above axiom begins our hypothesizing. It places reality in a position of primacy over that of observations. Since the reality is only partially observable, Heisenberg's relationship now tells us where the boundary is between what is observable and what is not. This is a considerably different philosophical grounding from present day consensus, yet I believe it is well founded. From there, the physical model is proposed through a series of additional postulates. See the videos linked to in my signature below for further details.
As always, I look forward to any and all comments.
edit on 29-5-2023 by delbertlarson because: Typo correction
(trying to be helpful)
They won't take it. A paper is generally 5 to 25 pages long (some run a little longer than that, but not by much.) No journal takes something that's almost 300 pages.
Secondly, your citations aren't in a format that they will accept for publication. For example, your reference #10 SHOULD read Karukes, Ekaterina V., et al. "A robust estimate of the Milky Way mass from rotation curve data." Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2020.05 (2020): 033.
instead of what you have ([10] Karukes, E. V., et al., arxiv.org... )
Your citations are few and very sparse. They will also reject your paper based on that. Some of your references are old; although you discuss the Michaelson-Morris experiment, you don't discuss the more recent ones such as the Ives–Stilwell and Kennedy–Thorndike experiments, and you don't make a case for rejecting THEIR rejection of the aether hypothesis.
In general, scientists have to show how the foundation is built, so they often have the first few paragraphs chock full of references. Take the Karukes paper that you cited, for example:
See how they sprinkle the introduction with citations there? There's almost one citation per sentence... and what that does is that it shows the foundation ("philosophy" as you call it) and you're not just pulling stuff out of your ear.
Anyway, I think you should give it another look-see before submitting it and perhaps take some of my remarks into consideration.
They won't take it. A paper is generally 5 to 25 pages long (some run a little longer than that, but not by much.) No journal takes something that's almost 300 pages.
Secondly, your citations aren't in a format that they will accept for publication. For example, your reference #10 SHOULD read Karukes, Ekaterina V., et al. "A robust estimate of the Milky Way mass from rotation curve data." Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2020.05 (2020): 033.
instead of what you have ([10] Karukes, E. V., et al., arxiv.org... )
Your citations are few and very sparse. They will also reject your paper based on that. Some of your references are old; although you discuss the Michaelson-Morris experiment, you don't discuss the more recent ones such as the Ives–Stilwell and Kennedy–Thorndike experiments, and you don't make a case for rejecting THEIR rejection of the aether hypothesis.
In general, scientists have to show how the foundation is built, so they often have the first few paragraphs chock full of references. Take the Karukes paper that you cited, for example:
In the standard cosmological paradigm, only ∼ 15% of the total matter density in the Universe is in the form of ordinary matter, while dark matter makes up the other 85% [1]. The
existence of dark matter has long been inferred from its gravitational interactions with ordinary luminous matter on scales ranging from galaxies to the Universe as a whole (for reviews
see e.g. [2, 3]).
See how they sprinkle the introduction with citations there? There's almost one citation per sentence... and what that does is that it shows the foundation ("philosophy" as you call it) and you're not just pulling stuff out of your ear.
Anyway, I think you should give it another look-see before submitting it and perhaps take some of my remarks into consideration.
a reply to: Byrd
Thanks for trying to help, and especially for offering specific suggestions. Especially helpful is your comment regarding Karukes! I will work to improve that and other references. I am aware of general length limits, but in one category the Physical Review says there is no limit. In any event, the shorter paper is presently 56 pages long, double spaced, which in print would run something around 20 pages I believe. I plan to submit that one, not the full version. (I need to get the shorter version up on my website also, but it is a work in progress. It closely follows the videos.)
Of course, the shorter version leaves out a lot of detail. I presently refer to the longer version (available online) for details, and that could also be problematic. The main issue is I'm proposing a new foundation for all of electromagnetism and gravity and there is a lot to cover, so it gets long.
I didn't want to be negative with the OP so I cut out a few lines about my strong doubt that the Physical Review will take it. I am aware of the difficulties I face. If you navigate to my webpage to the "Space and Time" tab you will see a 29 year old paper with 47 references, including Kennedy and Thorndike (ref. 19) and Ives and Stillwell (ref. 24). The Physical Review would always reject my work even when it met all the requirements. When I was in leading labs and universities I would at least get reviews (which are helpful) but I'd always still get rejected, sometimes on spurious grounds. The Physical Review rejected my work questioning the length contraction (a paper similar to the one on my "Space and Time" tab) by stating that special relativity has no length contraction. After leaving for an IT career I started getting rejections immediately from a Physical Review editor and don't even get reviews. I began working with Physics Essays as an author and reviewer, but I'd like to try higher impact journals first. Each step in a review process can strengthen the work. Even if there is no error, it is often possible to improve the presentation.
Can you suggest other journals also? I still plan on trying the Physical Review first, but it would be good if I had a list of top journals to try.
Thanks for trying to help, and especially for offering specific suggestions. Especially helpful is your comment regarding Karukes! I will work to improve that and other references. I am aware of general length limits, but in one category the Physical Review says there is no limit. In any event, the shorter paper is presently 56 pages long, double spaced, which in print would run something around 20 pages I believe. I plan to submit that one, not the full version. (I need to get the shorter version up on my website also, but it is a work in progress. It closely follows the videos.)
Of course, the shorter version leaves out a lot of detail. I presently refer to the longer version (available online) for details, and that could also be problematic. The main issue is I'm proposing a new foundation for all of electromagnetism and gravity and there is a lot to cover, so it gets long.
I didn't want to be negative with the OP so I cut out a few lines about my strong doubt that the Physical Review will take it. I am aware of the difficulties I face. If you navigate to my webpage to the "Space and Time" tab you will see a 29 year old paper with 47 references, including Kennedy and Thorndike (ref. 19) and Ives and Stillwell (ref. 24). The Physical Review would always reject my work even when it met all the requirements. When I was in leading labs and universities I would at least get reviews (which are helpful) but I'd always still get rejected, sometimes on spurious grounds. The Physical Review rejected my work questioning the length contraction (a paper similar to the one on my "Space and Time" tab) by stating that special relativity has no length contraction. After leaving for an IT career I started getting rejections immediately from a Physical Review editor and don't even get reviews. I began working with Physics Essays as an author and reviewer, but I'd like to try higher impact journals first. Each step in a review process can strengthen the work. Even if there is no error, it is often possible to improve the presentation.
Can you suggest other journals also? I still plan on trying the Physical Review first, but it would be good if I had a list of top journals to try.
For reference, the revolutionary finding of the double helix was a 1 page report if I remember right. Succinct brevity is likely ideal if you don't
have any foot in the door to these particular publishing realms. I was interested in reading until I saw it was over 200 pages...
..I'm still interested, but can you highlight one or two equations or empirical observations that are most compelling for your case?
..I'm still interested, but can you highlight one or two equations or empirical observations that are most compelling for your case?
originally posted by: cooperton
..I'm still interested, but can you highlight one or two equations or empirical observations that are most compelling for your case?
I made a series of videos. When they were complete I realized that even that series might be more than some will wish to watch. So I made a single video with just the highlights and put it at the top of the video list on my website. Please have a look at that highlight video, and if you have more interest please watch the others as you have time. You can use the controls to speed up the playback, as the audio will remain clear when you do that. Then please let me know if you have further comments or any questions.
As for one or two equations, I'd say Eq. (272) and (275) are probably the ones of highest present interest. They describe observations of dark matter as well as the advance of the perihelia. But of course there is a lot more in the full work; it allows for an understanding of physics based on a physical model. So it got quite long.
I confess that I also gave up after 40 pages. I did skim it, however.
That's a convenient... well, not a fib. They'd publish a book if it was the right kind of material (a collation of papers, for instance.) But they're reviewing things and not many reviewers are going to sit down with a book manuscript to review unless they specifically review books. Everyone else is going to read until they hit the first thing that's "off" to them and then reject it.
Oh...and a 'book' (like a dissertation) needs a table of contents and a reference section. He re's an example of a doctoral dissertation
You would do better to write a paper first establishing the whole concept and then toss individual papers about topics.
Another point: Your introduction (the history of the idea), while well written is very light on references... AND is unnecessary in a scholarly paper. You're not trying to introduce physicists to the history of "aether." They've heard of it. A few sentences (with references) will suffice.
You also need to put any degrees that you have after your name (as the doctoral student previously cited did)
Why is that important? You possibly won't like the answer, but it tells the reviewer how much in-depth material you had access to. It's possible that a well-read person on any topic has found them, but I can tell you from my own degrees that there's a lot of nuances and terms and material that the average person wouldn't find that WOULD be found by an academic librarian (college or university librarian if you asked them to do a "literature search") - that leads to the latest and most up to date information on a topic.
A person without degrees can still make contributions but you will have to show a great familiarity with the subject in your writing.
They are correct. You can dispute it if you like, but I bet if questioned, they could show you the papers and experiments that back this statement up.
Sorry, not my field.
ALSO (and this may sound unkind though I don't mean it to be) if you don't know what the top journals are, this means the information you have about the field is quite limited. You should know most of the main ones and should be reading some of the authors there. At the university we had a "journal club" (when I was getting a Masters') and regularly shared articles from New England Journal of Medicine and many others and discussed the ideas there. It's an experience that the independent researcher sadly lacks.
The level of writing is a bit informal for most physics papers, by the way.
A good pattern to follow would be this one (on dynamic aether) - noting that for the paper they skip history and leap right into the heart of the matter. And you should probably eyeball their citations as well since this one did achieve publication in a small journal.
originally posted by: delbertlarson
I am aware of general length limits, but in one category the Physical Review says there is no limit.
That's a convenient... well, not a fib. They'd publish a book if it was the right kind of material (a collation of papers, for instance.) But they're reviewing things and not many reviewers are going to sit down with a book manuscript to review unless they specifically review books. Everyone else is going to read until they hit the first thing that's "off" to them and then reject it.
Oh...and a 'book' (like a dissertation) needs a table of contents and a reference section. He re's an example of a doctoral dissertation
You would do better to write a paper first establishing the whole concept and then toss individual papers about topics.
Another point: Your introduction (the history of the idea), while well written is very light on references... AND is unnecessary in a scholarly paper. You're not trying to introduce physicists to the history of "aether." They've heard of it. A few sentences (with references) will suffice.
You also need to put any degrees that you have after your name (as the doctoral student previously cited did)
Why is that important? You possibly won't like the answer, but it tells the reviewer how much in-depth material you had access to. It's possible that a well-read person on any topic has found them, but I can tell you from my own degrees that there's a lot of nuances and terms and material that the average person wouldn't find that WOULD be found by an academic librarian (college or university librarian if you asked them to do a "literature search") - that leads to the latest and most up to date information on a topic.
A person without degrees can still make contributions but you will have to show a great familiarity with the subject in your writing.
If you navigate to my webpage to the "Space and Time" tab you will see a 29 year old paper with 47 references, including Kennedy and Thorndike (ref. 19) and Ives and Stillwell (ref. 24). The Physical Review would always reject my work even when it met all the requirements. When I was in leading labs and universities I would at least get reviews (which are helpful) but I'd always still get rejected, sometimes on spurious grounds. The Physical Review rejected my work questioning the length contraction (a paper similar to the one on my "Space and Time" tab) by stating that special relativity has no length contraction.
They are correct. You can dispute it if you like, but I bet if questioned, they could show you the papers and experiments that back this statement up.
Can you suggest other journals also? I still plan on trying the Physical Review first, but it would be good if I had a list of top journals to try.
Sorry, not my field.
ALSO (and this may sound unkind though I don't mean it to be) if you don't know what the top journals are, this means the information you have about the field is quite limited. You should know most of the main ones and should be reading some of the authors there. At the university we had a "journal club" (when I was getting a Masters') and regularly shared articles from New England Journal of Medicine and many others and discussed the ideas there. It's an experience that the independent researcher sadly lacks.
The level of writing is a bit informal for most physics papers, by the way.
A good pattern to follow would be this one (on dynamic aether) - noting that for the paper they skip history and leap right into the heart of the matter. And you should probably eyeball their citations as well since this one did achieve publication in a small journal.
edit on 30-5-2023 by Byrd because: (no reason given)
a reply to: Byrd
For our continuing discussion here, I should perhaps share some of my background. I wrote a dissertation. I have a Ph.D. in accelerator physics. My thesis project involved the design, successful construction and operation of a 2.5 million volt (MeV) electron beam accelerator. I was an adjunct professor of physics at UCLA, was leading the longitudinal dynamics efforts at the Superconducting Super Collider at the time of its demise, and went on to design and be the lead accelerator physicist on a 10 MeV 3He accelerator at Fermilab. During those years I had three sole-author Physical Review Letters publications, along with the usual dozens of other publications. For 20 years I served as a reviewer for Physics Essays on papers written mostly in the areas of relativity and elementary particle physics. When I reviewed, I was only concerned if I could find a flaw or not and if the work was truly new; I was unconcerned about the credentials of the author. Perhaps others are, but that was never a point of concern for me when considering the merits of ideas.
The long paper is intended for students. I have both a son and daughter who are physics majors. They report to me that most of the history of the aether is no longer being taught, and that they just jump directly to relativity now with only a very passing commentary that an older aether idea was discredited.
I am working on a shorter version of my paper now. The problem there is that I will likely be asked for more details, since big claims require big proof, but I shall try to be sufficiently succinct.
As per style, I'd like to avoid the terse jargon typical in publications. That style is off-putting for students and the general public, and in my view it obfuscates rather than clarifies.
In replying to my statement that the Physical Review rejected my work questioning the length contraction you wrote:
The Physical Review allowed an appeal, which I did, and they then found another reviewer who agreed with the first and then they summarily rejected the paper and told me they would respond to no more inquiries and participate in no more debate. On the other hand, the theorists at the SSC (there were many) agreed with me that the Physical Review had blown the review. Nonetheless, the SSC leadership told me to stand down and not attempt to publish anymore nor to contact the Physical Review again. I see no merit in an assertion that the Physical Review was correct. Special relativity derives the Lorentz transformations, and a length contraction is a critical part of it.
Oh...and a 'book' (like a dissertation) needs a table of contents and a reference section. He re's an example of a doctoral dissertation
You also need to put any degrees that you have after your name (as the doctoral student previously cited did)
For our continuing discussion here, I should perhaps share some of my background. I wrote a dissertation. I have a Ph.D. in accelerator physics. My thesis project involved the design, successful construction and operation of a 2.5 million volt (MeV) electron beam accelerator. I was an adjunct professor of physics at UCLA, was leading the longitudinal dynamics efforts at the Superconducting Super Collider at the time of its demise, and went on to design and be the lead accelerator physicist on a 10 MeV 3He accelerator at Fermilab. During those years I had three sole-author Physical Review Letters publications, along with the usual dozens of other publications. For 20 years I served as a reviewer for Physics Essays on papers written mostly in the areas of relativity and elementary particle physics. When I reviewed, I was only concerned if I could find a flaw or not and if the work was truly new; I was unconcerned about the credentials of the author. Perhaps others are, but that was never a point of concern for me when considering the merits of ideas.
You would do better to write a paper first establishing the whole concept and then toss individual papers about topics.
Another point: Your introduction (the history of the idea), while well written is very light on references... AND is unnecessary in a scholarly paper. You're not trying to introduce physicists to the history of "aether." They've heard of it. A few sentences (with references) will suffice.
The level of writing is a bit informal for most physics papers, by the way.
A good pattern to follow would be this one (on dynamic aether) - noting that for the paper they skip history and leap right into the heart of the matter. And you should probably eyeball their citations as well since this one did achieve publication in a small journal.
The long paper is intended for students. I have both a son and daughter who are physics majors. They report to me that most of the history of the aether is no longer being taught, and that they just jump directly to relativity now with only a very passing commentary that an older aether idea was discredited.
I am working on a shorter version of my paper now. The problem there is that I will likely be asked for more details, since big claims require big proof, but I shall try to be sufficiently succinct.
As per style, I'd like to avoid the terse jargon typical in publications. That style is off-putting for students and the general public, and in my view it obfuscates rather than clarifies.
In replying to my statement that the Physical Review rejected my work questioning the length contraction you wrote:
They are correct. You can dispute it if you like, but I bet if questioned, they could show you the papers and experiments that back this statement up.
The Physical Review allowed an appeal, which I did, and they then found another reviewer who agreed with the first and then they summarily rejected the paper and told me they would respond to no more inquiries and participate in no more debate. On the other hand, the theorists at the SSC (there were many) agreed with me that the Physical Review had blown the review. Nonetheless, the SSC leadership told me to stand down and not attempt to publish anymore nor to contact the Physical Review again. I see no merit in an assertion that the Physical Review was correct. Special relativity derives the Lorentz transformations, and a length contraction is a critical part of it.
originally posted by: delbertlarson
For our continuing discussion here, I should perhaps share some of my background. I wrote a dissertation. I have a Ph.D. in accelerator physics. My thesis project involved the design, successful construction and operation of a 2.5 million volt (MeV) electron beam accelerator. I was an adjunct professor of physics at UCLA, was leading the longitudinal dynamics efforts at the Superconducting Super Collider at the time of its demise, and went on to design and be the lead accelerator physicist on a 10 MeV 3He accelerator at Fermilab. During those years I had three sole-author Physical Review Letters publications, along with the usual dozens of other publications. For 20 years I served as a reviewer for Physics Essays on papers written mostly in the areas of relativity and elementary particle physics. When I reviewed, I was only concerned if I could find a flaw or not and if the work was truly new; I was unconcerned about the credentials of the author. Perhaps others are, but that was never a point of concern for me when considering the merits of ideas.
....err... as an adjunct professor, why aren't you following standard academic formats then?
Not that I doubt you, but it's very curious.
The long paper is intended for students. I have both a son and daughter who are physics majors. They report to me that most of the history of the aether is no longer being taught, and that they just jump directly to relativity now with only a very passing commentary that an older aether idea was discredited.
Fair enough, then. I assumed you were going to try and toss it to a journal, and it didn't seem suitable for any journal.
The Physical Review allowed an appeal, which I did, and they then found another reviewer who agreed with the first and then they summarily rejected the paper and told me they would respond to no more inquiries and participate in no more debate. On the other hand, the theorists at the SSC (there were many) agreed with me that the Physical Review had blown the review. Nonetheless, the SSC leadership told me to stand down and not attempt to publish anymore nor to contact the Physical Review again. I see no merit in an assertion that the Physical Review was correct. Special relativity derives the Lorentz transformations, and a length contraction is a critical part of it.
Most interesting, and I suspect you hit a nerve with one or more people.
My abilities in math, however (and physics) are not that strong and so I can't comment on the actual work. But since it's designed for students I will give it another try.
After reading a little further, here's some additional thoughts that I hope you will find useful.
* Please, please put your academic titles after your name. You earned them. It adds weight to your ideas. Most people who have paid attention have learned that "aether" is an old and discarded concept. Without that academic embossing, your material is not immediately distinguishable to the casual observer from that of Jed OrdinaryBody, "independent researcher." They may read a few pages and then give it up.
* Please cite more often. Your material can be a very valuable resources to people interested in exploring the idea, and a volume with a lot of citations may look intimidating to some but will be very welcomed to the scholar and researcher.
* to that end, you might want to hit up a librarian to do another search for you to see if there's new and interesting stuff to cite or note for the reader.
* with the publishers, I think you're in the same position as those who are publishing on "Intelligent Design." The main journals will probably reject it on that basis; your best course might be conference publications (yes, I know... "low hanging fruit") and specialty journals. Can't suggest any, as my field is anthropology and while I can understand what's going on in a very general way, the math just crosses my eyes.
* I urge you to think about the question "who is the target market for this?" It can't be 'everybody.' And it's not really for the math-intimidated (like me) who can't tell if the math you're doing is valid or garbage. I think this will help focus your writing more.
...anyway, back to reading (after I get my chores and my writing done).
* Please, please put your academic titles after your name. You earned them. It adds weight to your ideas. Most people who have paid attention have learned that "aether" is an old and discarded concept. Without that academic embossing, your material is not immediately distinguishable to the casual observer from that of Jed OrdinaryBody, "independent researcher." They may read a few pages and then give it up.
* Please cite more often. Your material can be a very valuable resources to people interested in exploring the idea, and a volume with a lot of citations may look intimidating to some but will be very welcomed to the scholar and researcher.
* to that end, you might want to hit up a librarian to do another search for you to see if there's new and interesting stuff to cite or note for the reader.
* with the publishers, I think you're in the same position as those who are publishing on "Intelligent Design." The main journals will probably reject it on that basis; your best course might be conference publications (yes, I know... "low hanging fruit") and specialty journals. Can't suggest any, as my field is anthropology and while I can understand what's going on in a very general way, the math just crosses my eyes.
* I urge you to think about the question "who is the target market for this?" It can't be 'everybody.' And it's not really for the math-intimidated (like me) who can't tell if the math you're doing is valid or garbage. I think this will help focus your writing more.
...anyway, back to reading (after I get my chores and my writing done).
a reply to: Byrd
Thanks for the continued comments. They are helpful. Since I have little respect for authority, I have not paid enough attention to my own titles. I used "Dr." for about a week after earning my Ph.D. The other thing is that this entire work really humbled me. I was wrong more times than I can count. Not surprising, really, since I've tackled a problem (quantum mechanics v relativity) that has been known for over 100 years. I had over 40 versions of the paper, built over close to five years, before putting the first one up on my site. Each version had many changes itself, and I'd add notes of all the mistaken approaches as I went. When it got long enough I'd clean everything up for the next version. What I seek now is validation or invalidation. I can't find mistakes anymore in the main body. Perhaps someone else can - provided they at least give it a look. Or perhaps it is now fully sound other than typos. If so, it is arguably the biggest thing to hit physics in a long, long time.
Your criticism also hit home with respect to the astrophysics stuff. I'm new to that within the last year or so. I can dig to add references, but I am not an expert, and criticism is entirely warranted. For instance, in the present work I list a neutron star calculation for a Type 1A SN remnant. Rookie mistake. I will clean that up in the next version. I may have other mistakes in Appendix J also. On the other hand, Appendix J is meant to be somewhat speculative and to indicate a path for others to speculate as well. That's why it is relegated to an appendix. The main paper and the other appendices should be sound, and I am an expert on those matters. (The other appendices mostly contain tedious details that are needed for thoroughness, but often are near copies of a previous analysis.)
For much of my work, any citations will go back many decades. You are correct that the aether has been discarded. Serious scientists typically dismiss it. There is a small community of amateurs, and some exceedingly rare professionals, who refer to the Lorentz Ether Theory, but I don't believe anyone else (other than me) has done any viable work in that field since Lorentz. As mentioned, I reviewed for a couple of decades at Physics Essays, but I quit doing that something like 15 years ago. I was wondering at the time if I was reviewing 50% of the special relativity alternatives in the world, as I'd get them pretty frequently. Some had some good things to say. But most just didn't understand the special theory.
You've clarified two areas that likely have been damaging me when I've presented things. I guess I need to pay more attention to providing citations and titles. I have always hoped that others would simply study the works on their merits alone, but I guess that was naive. Of course the world is filled with imposters, and what you suggest may help.
In case anyone else is reading this thread, there's this:
Just search google to set doubts aside. "D J Larson UCLA", "D J Larson SSC" are two searches that get enough to see that I worked there and published while there.
While reading is good, you might want to take some time with the videos first. They contain the key equations and also explain things more concisely. I'm now working from those videos to get a much shorter paper. The long one was not only for students, it was also for me. There are places in there where I've even color coded equations to show which portions cancel out. That was so that students and I can check and recheck the math. This paper makes the enormous claim of a replacement for Einstein. Not an advance from Einstein, but a replacement. Big claims need big proof, and that is what the big paper provides. But to learn the theory the videos are probably better.
I was going to refer you to the video toward the bottom of the page for help with your math. Vector calculus isn't widely known, so I added a video for that to my site may years ago. I see now though that the vector calculus video isn't working. I'll need to fix that or remove it.
Thanks for the continued comments. They are helpful. Since I have little respect for authority, I have not paid enough attention to my own titles. I used "Dr." for about a week after earning my Ph.D. The other thing is that this entire work really humbled me. I was wrong more times than I can count. Not surprising, really, since I've tackled a problem (quantum mechanics v relativity) that has been known for over 100 years. I had over 40 versions of the paper, built over close to five years, before putting the first one up on my site. Each version had many changes itself, and I'd add notes of all the mistaken approaches as I went. When it got long enough I'd clean everything up for the next version. What I seek now is validation or invalidation. I can't find mistakes anymore in the main body. Perhaps someone else can - provided they at least give it a look. Or perhaps it is now fully sound other than typos. If so, it is arguably the biggest thing to hit physics in a long, long time.
Your criticism also hit home with respect to the astrophysics stuff. I'm new to that within the last year or so. I can dig to add references, but I am not an expert, and criticism is entirely warranted. For instance, in the present work I list a neutron star calculation for a Type 1A SN remnant. Rookie mistake. I will clean that up in the next version. I may have other mistakes in Appendix J also. On the other hand, Appendix J is meant to be somewhat speculative and to indicate a path for others to speculate as well. That's why it is relegated to an appendix. The main paper and the other appendices should be sound, and I am an expert on those matters. (The other appendices mostly contain tedious details that are needed for thoroughness, but often are near copies of a previous analysis.)
Most people who have paid attention have learned that "aether" is an old and discarded concept.
For much of my work, any citations will go back many decades. You are correct that the aether has been discarded. Serious scientists typically dismiss it. There is a small community of amateurs, and some exceedingly rare professionals, who refer to the Lorentz Ether Theory, but I don't believe anyone else (other than me) has done any viable work in that field since Lorentz. As mentioned, I reviewed for a couple of decades at Physics Essays, but I quit doing that something like 15 years ago. I was wondering at the time if I was reviewing 50% of the special relativity alternatives in the world, as I'd get them pretty frequently. Some had some good things to say. But most just didn't understand the special theory.
You've clarified two areas that likely have been damaging me when I've presented things. I guess I need to pay more attention to providing citations and titles. I have always hoped that others would simply study the works on their merits alone, but I guess that was naive. Of course the world is filled with imposters, and what you suggest may help.
In case anyone else is reading this thread, there's this:
....err... as an adjunct professor, why aren't you following standard academic formats then?
Not that I doubt you, but it's very curious.
Just search google to set doubts aside. "D J Larson UCLA", "D J Larson SSC" are two searches that get enough to see that I worked there and published while there.
...anyway, back to reading (after I get my chores and my writing done).
While reading is good, you might want to take some time with the videos first. They contain the key equations and also explain things more concisely. I'm now working from those videos to get a much shorter paper. The long one was not only for students, it was also for me. There are places in there where I've even color coded equations to show which portions cancel out. That was so that students and I can check and recheck the math. This paper makes the enormous claim of a replacement for Einstein. Not an advance from Einstein, but a replacement. Big claims need big proof, and that is what the big paper provides. But to learn the theory the videos are probably better.
I was going to refer you to the video toward the bottom of the page for help with your math. Vector calculus isn't widely known, so I added a video for that to my site may years ago. I see now though that the vector calculus video isn't working. I'll need to fix that or remove it.
originally posted by: delbertlarson
a reply to: Byrd
Thanks for the continued comments. They are helpful.
Glad the feedback is useful.
Since I have little respect for authority, I have not paid enough attention to my own titles. I used "Dr." for about a week after earning my Ph.D.
Outside of academic circles I mostly use mine when I'm delivering a lecture.
The other thing is that this entire work really humbled me. I was wrong more times than I can count.
Ah, the joys of having a PhD. I'm perpetually frustrated and gobsmacked by how much I DON'T know about.... everything!
Your criticism also hit home with respect to the astrophysics stuff. I'm new to that within the last year or so. I can dig to add references, but I am not an expert, and criticism is entirely warranted.
Can't help you there, I'm afraid. One of my best friends is a PhD astrophysicist... who lives on a sailboat(!) and is now sailing somewhere off the coast of Florida.
The problem in dealing with concepts that are derived from multiple fields is that you need experts to help you navigate the ones that your in-depth knowledge doesn't cover. I toyed with the idea of a model of communications based on some of Shannon's works, but when I took it to mathematicians they pointed out all sorts of flaws. Back to the drawing board for me.
For much of my work, any citations will go back many decades. You are correct that the aether has been discarded. Serious scientists typically dismiss it. There is a small community of amateurs, and some exceedingly rare professionals, who refer to the Lorentz Ether Theory, but I don't believe a nyone else (other than me) has done any viable work in that field since Lorentz.
A search of Google Scholar (just now) show several interesting papers including Zuntz, Joseph A., P. G. Ferreira, and T. G. Zlosnik. "Constraining Lorentz violation with cosmology." Physical review letters 101.26 (2008): 261102. (and Grünbaum, Adolf. "The falsifiability of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction hypothesis." The British journal for the philosophy of science 10.37 (1959): 48-50. -- that also looked pertinent)
I think another search might be useful to you, if only to highlight which journals and conferences are open to your material.
You've clarified two areas that likely have been damaging me when I've presented things. I guess I need to pay more attention to providing citations and titles. I have always hoped that others would simply study the works on their merits alone, but I guess that was naive. Of course the world is filled with imposters, and what you suggest may help.
Again, it depends on the audience. But if you're trying to reach people who may wish to build on your work, a hefty list of references is pure gold.
While reading is good, you might want to take some time with the videos first.
That's actually a hard "nope" for me.
Here's why... like you, my brain works very quickly - far faster than most people's. Videos often plod through things I already know or have grasped from a brief introduction and there's no convenient way of saying "skip this." In text, if I have a question about a term or a concept, I can stop and accurately google for that particular term without guessing the spelling. In a video, I have to stop, rewind to whatever point it is, replay it until I'm certain I've heard the word correctly and THEN look up the term.
Waste of time, IMHO.
In addition, I have a sort of "superpower" - I read several hundred words a minute; far faster than most people can talk. Information delivered via video tends to be very shallow for my needs and very very slow to acquire.
Videos are great for...someone else. But they may not be of interest or even useful to a hardcore scholar.
This paper makes the enormous claim of a replacement for Einstein. Not an advance from Einstein, but a replacement.
Yup. I got that. I think that's why it's a hard sell.
I was going to refer you to the video toward the bottom of the page for help with your math. Vector calculus isn't widely known, so I added a video for that to my site may years ago. I see now though that the vector calculus video isn't working. I'll need to fix that or remove it.
Heh. Although I'm "math terrified" (my brain tends to run away screaming when it sees formulas) I actually taught business calculus at the university when I was a teaching assistant. I was pretty good at it, too because I understood that business majors didn't want to know "here's how we derive this formula" (which math majors love) and said "okay. You need to know how to assess THIS for your business. Step 1: take this symbol here and..." and walk them through how to solve it step by step. Never had to curve exam results.
I do "understand" (vaguely) vector calculus since I'm married to a very delightful engineer with degrees in Math. During our early marriage, when he was trying for his PhD, we'd walk in the evening and talk about the problems assigned in his coursework. I can follow concepts even if I tend to clutch my pearls and retire to the fainting couch when someone throws formulas at me.
(and thanks for the interesting conversation. I'm enjoying this.)
A further note: although you may find no interest in your concept, a good work reviewing the history and philosophy of the aether concept WOULD be far
more acceptable to most journals. You've got a good start on that already, and you might be able to highlight some of the academic brawls that took
place over certain parts of the ideas.
a reply to: Byrd
Even though you won't watch the videos, I fixed the vector calculus video since it was broken. I am guessing the problem is that support for swf files ended. My ABC Preon Model videos are also failing, so I will need to repair those as well. I see a Preon video still works on YouTube, so it isn't a problem with censorship this time.
I have had problems with censorship in the past. I mentioned the problem with the Physical Review rejecting my work on the spurious grounds of their claim that special relativity does not have a length contraction. However, I had problems with them on many other works also. And they were not alone. I tried several journals and kept getting rejections. One that I remember went something like "the author proposes a thorough rewrite of everything we know. Therefore the paper is to be rejected." Now, it wasn't a rejection of everything, it was just a rejection of the foundations. But that is the sort of vacuous nonsense I'd get. So my work was blocked from publishing. I eventually found Physics Essays.
I also had my ABC Preon Model up on Wikipedia for some months. It wasn't long before the censors came. Then it was deleted. I recall this was around 2015 or so, before the cancel culture even really got going. I had come to know that while I was free to publish, I could only do so in venues where only few would find it. The Wikipedia page was getting quite a few hits before Big Brother eliminated it.
Since YouTube has been censoring quite a bit, I thought I'd put my videos up on Rumble this time. Once complete, I sent an email to an aether researcher in France so that he could view them. He wrote back showing a screenshot that France had banned Rumble, because Rumble would not accede to some of France's censorship demands. He also mentioned how France had a scientific censorship committee around 20 years ago.
For the new vector calculus video I just put it up directly on my site. I am learning how to program in the speed controls, and once I get that looking OK I should likely do that with all my videos. Everything takes time of course, and I must still earn a living during the week, so my progress is slower than I would like.
You seem to clearly have enough math skills to handle almost all of my work. The calculus is usually just integrations of constants or integrations of kx, and most of the math is just an enormous amount of algebra, some of which gets complex before cancellations simplify.
I'm presently working on the shorter version of the paper that I plan to submit to the Physical Review. I'll post it to my site when done. I likely won't add my past professorial titles to the byline since I no longer work at those institutions, but I will include this information right away in the cover letter that is part of the submission process. I plan to run down some additional citations also, but I expect to put the short version up on my web site prior to that.
Even though you won't watch the videos, I fixed the vector calculus video since it was broken. I am guessing the problem is that support for swf files ended. My ABC Preon Model videos are also failing, so I will need to repair those as well. I see a Preon video still works on YouTube, so it isn't a problem with censorship this time.
I have had problems with censorship in the past. I mentioned the problem with the Physical Review rejecting my work on the spurious grounds of their claim that special relativity does not have a length contraction. However, I had problems with them on many other works also. And they were not alone. I tried several journals and kept getting rejections. One that I remember went something like "the author proposes a thorough rewrite of everything we know. Therefore the paper is to be rejected." Now, it wasn't a rejection of everything, it was just a rejection of the foundations. But that is the sort of vacuous nonsense I'd get. So my work was blocked from publishing. I eventually found Physics Essays.
I also had my ABC Preon Model up on Wikipedia for some months. It wasn't long before the censors came. Then it was deleted. I recall this was around 2015 or so, before the cancel culture even really got going. I had come to know that while I was free to publish, I could only do so in venues where only few would find it. The Wikipedia page was getting quite a few hits before Big Brother eliminated it.
Since YouTube has been censoring quite a bit, I thought I'd put my videos up on Rumble this time. Once complete, I sent an email to an aether researcher in France so that he could view them. He wrote back showing a screenshot that France had banned Rumble, because Rumble would not accede to some of France's censorship demands. He also mentioned how France had a scientific censorship committee around 20 years ago.
For the new vector calculus video I just put it up directly on my site. I am learning how to program in the speed controls, and once I get that looking OK I should likely do that with all my videos. Everything takes time of course, and I must still earn a living during the week, so my progress is slower than I would like.
You seem to clearly have enough math skills to handle almost all of my work. The calculus is usually just integrations of constants or integrations of kx, and most of the math is just an enormous amount of algebra, some of which gets complex before cancellations simplify.
I'm presently working on the shorter version of the paper that I plan to submit to the Physical Review. I'll post it to my site when done. I likely won't add my past professorial titles to the byline since I no longer work at those institutions, but I will include this information right away in the cover letter that is part of the submission process. I plan to run down some additional citations also, but I expect to put the short version up on my web site prior to that.
edit on 3-6-2023 by delbertlarson because: Grammar
edit on 3-6-2023 by delbertlarson because: Grammar again.
a reply to: delbertlarson
Your ABC Preon Model can be found in Wikibin: www.wikibin.org...
YouTube also has your videos on the model:
Just my opinion, but you really need to write a short, concise article that could be published in QUANTA Magazine. The sequence of your logic which includes the detailed mathematics gets bogged down in too much detail. You need to express your experimental results and conclusions in a way that compares the previous interpretation with your interpretation. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Your ABC Preon Model can be found in Wikibin: www.wikibin.org...
YouTube also has your videos on the model:
edit on 3-6-2023 by Phantom423 because: (no reason given)
Just my opinion, but you really need to write a short, concise article that could be published in QUANTA Magazine. The sequence of your logic which includes the detailed mathematics gets bogged down in too much detail. You need to express your experimental results and conclusions in a way that compares the previous interpretation with your interpretation. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
edit on 3-6-2023 by Phantom423 because: (no
reason given)
edit on 3-6-2023 by Phantom423 because: (no reason given)
a reply to: Phantom423
Thanks for commenting. I had seen the wikibin, but it dropped all the graphics and cross links. I don't know how much traffic it gets. I also put the ABC Preon Model on Infogalactic, but again, I don't know how much traffic goes there either. In my above reply I noted that the preon videos were still up on YouTube. My point was just that YouTube has done some censoring (of others) so I tried Rumble this time.
I agree wholeheartedly with simplification! That has always been the goal! I recently reduced the 270 page paper to two hours of videos, and then further reduced the two hours of videos to one nine minute highlights video. I am now working to get the two hours of videos into a paper that might be publishable, and at the moment the shorter paper is 55 pages double spaced. The highlights video might be amenable to the publication you mention, as that could be pretty short.
Yet of course the first effort was to rigorously derive everything from the original rather simple hypothesis of a two component, solid aether. As attributes were added the hypothesis gained some complexity. There are now four types of aether, free-positive, free-negative, attached-positive and attached-negative. These aether substances displace and flow, and there are tension and quantum-pressure forces to deal with. The presence of charge and mass leads to two additional forces. It's still not an overly complex physical model, but with four types of aether interacting with four force fields the math did get rather long since I insisted on proving all of the various scenarios in the long version. A full proof was needed somewhere, as everyone is likely to doubt any alternative to general relativity.
My view is that it is the physical model that should be simple, as that is what nature is made of. The math may get complex. The aether model is pretty simple, as the four aether types and four force fields lead to all of the complexities of Maxwell, the Lorentz Force and the General Relativity results.
Thanks for commenting. I had seen the wikibin, but it dropped all the graphics and cross links. I don't know how much traffic it gets. I also put the ABC Preon Model on Infogalactic, but again, I don't know how much traffic goes there either. In my above reply I noted that the preon videos were still up on YouTube. My point was just that YouTube has done some censoring (of others) so I tried Rumble this time.
I agree wholeheartedly with simplification! That has always been the goal! I recently reduced the 270 page paper to two hours of videos, and then further reduced the two hours of videos to one nine minute highlights video. I am now working to get the two hours of videos into a paper that might be publishable, and at the moment the shorter paper is 55 pages double spaced. The highlights video might be amenable to the publication you mention, as that could be pretty short.
Yet of course the first effort was to rigorously derive everything from the original rather simple hypothesis of a two component, solid aether. As attributes were added the hypothesis gained some complexity. There are now four types of aether, free-positive, free-negative, attached-positive and attached-negative. These aether substances displace and flow, and there are tension and quantum-pressure forces to deal with. The presence of charge and mass leads to two additional forces. It's still not an overly complex physical model, but with four types of aether interacting with four force fields the math did get rather long since I insisted on proving all of the various scenarios in the long version. A full proof was needed somewhere, as everyone is likely to doubt any alternative to general relativity.
My view is that it is the physical model that should be simple, as that is what nature is made of. The math may get complex. The aether model is pretty simple, as the four aether types and four force fields lead to all of the complexities of Maxwell, the Lorentz Force and the General Relativity results.
a reply to: delbertlarson
Very brief answer, since I'm getting ready for bed (very early appointment tomorrow) - but you're in the same position (giving an example that I and Egyptologists believe is very wrong) as the guy who insists that Egyptian hieroglyphs were derived from the most ancient Chinese characters. He occasionally tosses out a translation (of single names, not something like the Papyrus of Ani) that's completely different than what the current dictionaries say (translations that are supposedly proving that the early kings of Egypt were actually Chinese.)
So if an Egyptologist sees "Egyptian hieroglyphs come from China", they're going to toss it in the bin without giving it a second try. Likewise if a physicist sees "aether" they're gong to give it a toss.
What you need to start with is "what's the main point where relativity goes off the rails and leads to a lot of insoluable issues - issues that can be solved by a return to the aether concept?"
Nobody's going to kick a main concept to the curb on the basis of "it doesn't make sense." You've got to identify the places where it falls apart.
Also (from the novice's standpoint) you don't actually define what an "aether" is (beyond that it's a 'frame' and if you're writing for the general public, this term isn't anything that they have a reference ground for.)
Meanwhile... off to get ready. More tomorrow or Tuesday.
Very brief answer, since I'm getting ready for bed (very early appointment tomorrow) - but you're in the same position (giving an example that I and Egyptologists believe is very wrong) as the guy who insists that Egyptian hieroglyphs were derived from the most ancient Chinese characters. He occasionally tosses out a translation (of single names, not something like the Papyrus of Ani) that's completely different than what the current dictionaries say (translations that are supposedly proving that the early kings of Egypt were actually Chinese.)
So if an Egyptologist sees "Egyptian hieroglyphs come from China", they're going to toss it in the bin without giving it a second try. Likewise if a physicist sees "aether" they're gong to give it a toss.
What you need to start with is "what's the main point where relativity goes off the rails and leads to a lot of insoluable issues - issues that can be solved by a return to the aether concept?"
Nobody's going to kick a main concept to the curb on the basis of "it doesn't make sense." You've got to identify the places where it falls apart.
Also (from the novice's standpoint) you don't actually define what an "aether" is (beyond that it's a 'frame' and if you're writing for the general public, this term isn't anything that they have a reference ground for.)
Meanwhile... off to get ready. More tomorrow or Tuesday.
a reply to: Byrd
I believe that the videos already do what you suggest, and the upcoming shorter paper closely follows the videos. In the upcoming shorter paper, the title for section A.1 (the very first section) is "Present Problems in Physics". And the title for section B.1 is "The Hypothesis of Our Proposed Aether". Within B.1 there is a description of what the aether is. While you've mentioned it is a hard no for you to watch all the videos, if you could watch the first two minutes of the Highlights video, you will see exactly what you are proposing, I believe.
Progress is going very well on the shorter paper. I've done three electronic-checks looking for issues, and I expect to complete the first hard-copy checking this week. Once done, it will be posted on my site. Not too long thereafter I plan to submit it to the Physical Review.
I believe that the videos already do what you suggest, and the upcoming shorter paper closely follows the videos. In the upcoming shorter paper, the title for section A.1 (the very first section) is "Present Problems in Physics". And the title for section B.1 is "The Hypothesis of Our Proposed Aether". Within B.1 there is a description of what the aether is. While you've mentioned it is a hard no for you to watch all the videos, if you could watch the first two minutes of the Highlights video, you will see exactly what you are proposing, I believe.
Progress is going very well on the shorter paper. I've done three electronic-checks looking for issues, and I expect to complete the first hard-copy checking this week. Once done, it will be posted on my site. Not too long thereafter I plan to submit it to the Physical Review.
originally posted by: delbertlarson
a reply to: Byrd
While you've mentioned it is a hard no for you to watch all the videos, if you could watch the first two minutes of the Highlights video, you will see exactly what you are proposing, I believe.
I did.
Sadly, since I am neither a mathematician nor physicist, it didn't explain as much as you believe it does (some of the concepts are "word salad" to my brain - the slide point "infinities within QED require a renormalization" is a good example of this. I have no idea what a "normalization" is.)
However, I will try to work through the concepts.
As I understand it, the main issue with the Lorentz Aether (the only really accepted one) is that it adds a layer of stuff that doesn't really do anything, and the Michaelson-Morely experiment and subsequent experiments disproved the others.
Back to digging through the web...
a reply to: Byrd
The first experience I had with renormalization was back in graduate school. As explained to me at that time, an integral that went to infinity was replaced by a finite value. Once this was done, the results matched what was shown by experiments. Basically, if particles are assumed to be point-like, and yet they have mass and charge, then fields go to infinity as the analysis volume surrounding the particle goes to zero. The modern theory is that when you get close to zero volume, the electron and the electromagnetic field begin to do strange things. The field itself can create electron-positron pairs. The electron can radiate and reabsorb a photon. Or the electron can radiate photon one, radiate photon two, and reabsorb photon one. And so on. These processes reduce the problem somewhat, as there is some "screening" of charge, but in the end we still have infinite integrals. Yet by assigning a finite number to the integrals in just the right way, everything works out. The original issue that renormalization was meant to solve was the Lamb shift, which was a detection that something wasn't quite right with atomic spectra.
In any event, renormalization was first done for quantum electrodynamics, or QED. The original creators of QED all agreed there was a fundamental problem with the whole thing. Upon learning about renormalization I came to the same conclusion. It is fundamentally flawed. After all, the integrals are infinite and there is no good reason really to replace them with something just because it works if you do so. And the central problem all comes from assuming things are point-like. With points you get infinities. So I didn't follow up on it too much after that, as it never came into play when I was designing accelerators or working on fusion. I understand more modern physicists believe things are OK, but the originators did not think it was, and neither do I.
There is a claim that QED is the most accurate theory ever developed by man. I believe I've seen quoted accuracy as something like 10 to 30 decimal places of accuracy. I don't know what the official stance is. But whenever I looked into it, it is simply definitional. That is, the theory is used to define masses and charges. I raised that point in graduate school when I first saw the proposal, and the professor basically shrugged his shoulders and agreed. We had a bit of a discussion here on ATS also. My present understanding remains that the whole thing is not much more than "cooking the books".
I HAVE NOT replaced QED. The main thing to tackle was an alternative to general relativity and that is now done. My thought has been that the Lamb shift likely arises from a physical size of the electron and nucleus, but I haven't pursued that. In principle the elimination of the point-like requirement for particles should eliminate infinities though. (And, to be redundant, it is relativity alone that demands the point-like requirement.)
One infinity I HAVE addressed is the singularity that general relativity has for supermassive objects. I put forward a speculative modeling that gives results for supermassive objects that matches what we observe, and my modeling involves objects of rather large physical size rather than points.
Sadly, since I am neither a mathematician nor physicist, it didn't explain as much as you believe it does (some of the concepts are "word salad" to my brain - the slide point "infinities within QED require a renormalization" is a good example of this. I have no idea what a "normalization" is.)
The first experience I had with renormalization was back in graduate school. As explained to me at that time, an integral that went to infinity was replaced by a finite value. Once this was done, the results matched what was shown by experiments. Basically, if particles are assumed to be point-like, and yet they have mass and charge, then fields go to infinity as the analysis volume surrounding the particle goes to zero. The modern theory is that when you get close to zero volume, the electron and the electromagnetic field begin to do strange things. The field itself can create electron-positron pairs. The electron can radiate and reabsorb a photon. Or the electron can radiate photon one, radiate photon two, and reabsorb photon one. And so on. These processes reduce the problem somewhat, as there is some "screening" of charge, but in the end we still have infinite integrals. Yet by assigning a finite number to the integrals in just the right way, everything works out. The original issue that renormalization was meant to solve was the Lamb shift, which was a detection that something wasn't quite right with atomic spectra.
In any event, renormalization was first done for quantum electrodynamics, or QED. The original creators of QED all agreed there was a fundamental problem with the whole thing. Upon learning about renormalization I came to the same conclusion. It is fundamentally flawed. After all, the integrals are infinite and there is no good reason really to replace them with something just because it works if you do so. And the central problem all comes from assuming things are point-like. With points you get infinities. So I didn't follow up on it too much after that, as it never came into play when I was designing accelerators or working on fusion. I understand more modern physicists believe things are OK, but the originators did not think it was, and neither do I.
There is a claim that QED is the most accurate theory ever developed by man. I believe I've seen quoted accuracy as something like 10 to 30 decimal places of accuracy. I don't know what the official stance is. But whenever I looked into it, it is simply definitional. That is, the theory is used to define masses and charges. I raised that point in graduate school when I first saw the proposal, and the professor basically shrugged his shoulders and agreed. We had a bit of a discussion here on ATS also. My present understanding remains that the whole thing is not much more than "cooking the books".
I HAVE NOT replaced QED. The main thing to tackle was an alternative to general relativity and that is now done. My thought has been that the Lamb shift likely arises from a physical size of the electron and nucleus, but I haven't pursued that. In principle the elimination of the point-like requirement for particles should eliminate infinities though. (And, to be redundant, it is relativity alone that demands the point-like requirement.)
One infinity I HAVE addressed is the singularity that general relativity has for supermassive objects. I put forward a speculative modeling that gives results for supermassive objects that matches what we observe, and my modeling involves objects of rather large physical size rather than points.
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