What is the Aether?
in [Relativity]
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From: Richard Schultz on 19 Jun 2007 07:31 In sci.physics.particle FrediFizzx <fredifizzx(a)hotmail.com> wrote: : "Richard Schultz" <schultr(a)mail.biu.ack.il> wrote in message : news:f55he2$t0e$2(a)news.iucc.ac.il... :> Or, as the author of our textbook put it, :> :> For a treatment of the fundamental physics of fields and :> matter, [the MKS system] has one basic defect. Maxwell's :> equations for the vacuum fields, in this system, are :> symmetrical in the electric and magnetic field only if H, :> not B, appears in the role of the magnetic field. . . . :> On the other hand. . . B, not H, is the fundamental :> magnetic field inside matter. This is not a matter of :> definition or of units, but a fact of nature, reflecting :> the absence of magnetic charge. Thus the MKS system, as :> it has been constructed, tends to obscure either the :> fundamental electromagnetic symmetry of the vacuum, or :> the essential asymmetry of the sources. : : This is perhaps as bad as John thinks only from the other direction. : Any consistent system of units CANNOT change physics and CANNOT have : "defects". SI and CGS are fully consistent systems of units. I really : doubt that there is any problem in physics that couldn't be solved : properly using either one. This is what the author of the textbook was saying. He was defending his choice to use CGS units. He felt, as he explained, that when CGS units are used, it is easier to see the symmetries of the underlying physics, not that MKS units cannot be used to solve physics problems -- in fact, in the same appendix that I quoted above, he explicitly says that MKS units are more convenient for solving engineering problems. :> But then again, the author of the above was only a Nobel Prize winner :> in physics, and hence can't really be expected to know what he was :> talking about. : : Well, who? Nobel Prize winners are not always right. I would guess that they are right about elementary aspects of their fields more often than not. In this case, the textbook from which I quoted was written by the appropriately named Edward M. "EM" Purcell. ----- Richard Schultz schultr(a)mail.biu.ac.il Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University ----- "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."
From: Androcles on 19 Jun 2007 09:04 "Richard Schultz" <schultr(a)mail.biu.ack.il> wrote in message news:f58eq3$bra$1(a)news.iucc.ac.il... : I would guess That's the difference between a scientist and a mathematician. 'Nuff said.
From: Florian on 19 Jun 2007 09:10 Greg Neill <gneillREM(a)OVEsympatico.ca> wrote: > > Could be a swirl or a stationnary wave, anything that is not random. > > To the limits of experimental precision, electrons are > point particles with no structure. Electrons are not point particles. They are certainly stationary waves. > They don't fragment > into smaller bits when they are collided (although their > energy of motion can spawn new particle pairs). How > does charge conservation work? Which aetheron carries > the electric charge of the electron (or proton)? Etherons would not have charge or mass or spin. Those properties would be macroscopic properties derived from the motion of etherons that form the particle. > > If electrons are a collection of swirly bits, they should > be decomposable into smaller bits. And you should be able > to add more swirly bits; there should be a whole > continuum of masses of particles, but there isn't. There would be a continuum only if intermediate state are stable. Obviously, experiments tell us that intermediate state are not stable. That's why there are quanta. Quanta are bit of energy that can be absorbed by a particle to jump from one stable level to the next one. > > No force. Collisions like any wave. Right? > > There no such thing as a true collision -- all interactions > are mediated by forces. Atoms don't touch, their fields > do. At a particle scale, you can certainly consider that etherons make collisions. That's an approximation of course. But there is no need to complicate the picture trying to figure out what etherons are. Let's proceed sequentially. > Waves carrying energy usually transmit their energy via > the electromagnetic force. Right. How does a wave transmit energy to particle though electromagnetic force? In other words: what is that energy? What is an electromagnetic force? What is a particle? How do they interact? ;-) > > Why would I avoid relativity? what's wrong with relativity? > > With relativity there is no need for an aether. There is no need for ether but at the same time it does not rule it out. Sometimes, the simpler model is not the best one. > > There is repulsion in GR? > > Pressure causes repulsion. Also, the cosmological > constant of General Relativity introduces a repulsive > component -- Which is a mathematical trick to make it work. Otherwise, GR would imply that the universe would collapse. > you've heard of the recently discovered > acceleration of the expansion of the universe? The > so-called "Dark Energy" is its manifestation. I know. we need to invent more trick to make it work. At some point there would be so many tricks (MOND theory, dark matter, dark energy) that it will certainly be time to find a better model. Right? I wonder if the physicist who will find a better model is born yet? A side question. You mentioned the expansion of the universe. Do you think that the Big Bang theory is definitively proven? > > Of course it does! We're discussing concepts, are we? Nothing is frozen. > > I remark that you don't make no suggestion yourself? Don't you have > > ideas for a concept? > > I'm happy with (most of) the standard model, including > Special and General Relativity and no aether. I also > think that the standard model of particle physics is > doing pretty well. I'm sure you don't like status quo and wouldn't mind making some progress? > > Because the density of the flow would depend on the mass. If the mass is > > large enough, most etherons will continue to wander. > > I don't understand that. Aren't they attracted to mass? > Otherwise why would you say that their flow is radial to > mass? They would be globally attracted to a mass like the particle of a gas would be attracted by a low pressure center. A lower pressure attract a higher amount of particles. You can't say that the particle of the gas all move toward the low pressure, right? > > "It" means all etherons? Because the strength of the flow is > > insufficient? > > I should think that the "strength of the flow", whatever > that means, would be irrelevant for a finite volume if > the particles move at c. If the etherons move at c, would that imply that ether moves at c? > > How could a box be impermeable to etherons? > > You said that they move radially into mass. The > box is composed of matter (atoms) to which all > aetherons must therefore flow radially. One can > easily posit a box where the sides are thus > opaque to aetherons, simply by assuring that the > thickness of the sides is several times the mean > free path length of the aetherons given the > cross sectional area of the atoms comprising it and > their lattice spacing. You assume that all etherons would flow toward the atoms. See above. Second, can you make a box made of water that can prevent water to go inside that box? ;-) Third, let's imagine that you find a way to block etherons from going inside the box. If the global movement of etherons is dictated by low pressure, would an equilibrium soon be reached when the amount of etheron inside the box decreases. -- Florian "Tout est au mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles" Voltaire vs Leibniz (1-0)
From: John C. Polasek on 19 Jun 2007 10:00 On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:53:55 -0700, "FrediFizzx" <fredifizzx(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >"Richard Schultz" <schultr(a)mail.biu.ack.il> wrote in message >news:f55he2$t0e$2(a)news.iucc.ac.il... >> In sci.physics.particle John C. Polasek <jpolasek(a)cfl.rr.com> wrote: >> >> : Cgs is clearly a bastardized system in which q will work once, but >> it >> : won't work twice. You can work with cgs by following cgs rules, but >> : you won't know what you're dealing with, and you will have tacitly >> : declared that vacuum does not have permittivity. >> >> When I took E&M in college, we were taught that the CGS system of >> units >> is derived by taking the constant in Coulomb's Law (F= k*q1*q2/r^2) to >> be equal to 1, while the MKS system is derived by setting k to >> whatever >> value will give a force in newtons if the charges are in coulombs and >> the distance in meters, with the coulomb defined from the force >> between currents rather than from the force between charges. > >That sounds correct. It is totally arbitrary as to what k_e can be >because the magnetic constant, k_m, can be changed to accommodate >whatever you set k_e to. What we know is that k_e/k_m = c^2 >experimentally. That's not true Fred. The relationship is subject to another constraint, which is their quotient in Zspace = sqrt(mu/eps) = 377 ohms. One proof of the latter is that H = E/Z In Ch. 24 of my Dual Space book I worked out a radio station of 50,000 watts isotropic which at a range = 10 km Prec = 3.0978e-5 W/m^2 (received power) P = E^2/Z where Z = 377 ohms E = sqrt(Po*Z) = 0.122 V/m H = E/z = 3.240e-4 amp/m Being self-referential it's not a proof, but proof of principle. >> Or, as the author of our textbook put it, >> >> For a treatment of the fundamental physics of fields and >> matter, [the MKS system] has one basic defect. Maxwell's >> equations for the vacuum fields, in this system, are >> symmetrical in the electric and magnetic field only if H, >> not B, appears in the role of the magnetic field. . . . >> On the other hand. . . B, not H, is the fundamental >> magnetic field inside matter. This is not a matter of >> definition or of units, but a fact of nature, reflecting >> the absence of magnetic charge. Thus the MKS system, as >> it has been constructed, tends to obscure either the >> fundamental electromagnetic symmetry of the vacuum, or >> the essential asymmetry of the sources. > >This is perhaps as bad as John thinks only from the other direction. >Any consistent system of units CANNOT change physics and CANNOT have >"defects". SI and CGS are fully consistent systems of units. I really >doubt that there is any problem in physics that couldn't be solved >properly using either one. It's a matter of suppressing information re eps and mu and taking a hit on the consitutitve equations, B = H, D = E, which can't be true, or if true, don't convey useful information. >> But then again, the author of the above was only a Nobel Prize winner >> in physics, and hence can't really be expected to know what he was >> talking about. > >Well, who? Nobel Prize winners are not always right. > >Best, > >Fred Diether >Moderator sci.physics.foundations
From: John C. Polasek on 19 Jun 2007 10:25
On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:31:15 +0000 (UTC), schultr(a)mail.biu.ack.il (Richard Schultz) wrote: >In sci.physics.particle FrediFizzx <fredifizzx(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >: "Richard Schultz" <schultr(a)mail.biu.ack.il> wrote in message >: news:f55he2$t0e$2(a)news.iucc.ac.il... > >:> Or, as the author of our textbook put it, >:> >:> For a treatment of the fundamental physics of fields and >:> matter, [the MKS system] has one basic defect. Maxwell's >:> equations for the vacuum fields, in this system, are >:> symmetrical in the electric and magnetic field only if H, >:> not B, appears in the role of the magnetic field. . . . >:> On the other hand. . . B, not H, is the fundamental >:> magnetic field inside matter. This is not a matter of >:> definition or of units, but a fact of nature, reflecting >:> the absence of magnetic charge. Thus the MKS system, as >:> it has been constructed, tends to obscure either the >:> fundamental electromagnetic symmetry of the vacuum, or >:> the essential asymmetry of the sources. The author is anxious for us to understand that only B, not H, is the "fundamental magnetic field inside matter". But he's in a poor position to argue the point further because for the vacuum case, he endorses B = H, that is, they are one and the same. One should have the name field intensity (H) and the other flux density (B). From a practical standpoint, field intensity H can be induced with turns of wire and current, but B cannot. A further defect of B = H is that it's not possible to assign convincing unit names, that have to be different for the same entity, or the same for different variables. Interesting physics equations generally have one side as cause and the other as effect, which can be seen in mks' B = muH and D = Eeps, for which the cgs counterpart fails. In physics one cannot say B & H are different on a 'wink-wink' basis if we then have to write B = H on the blackboard. Neither is such an equation interesting. >: This is perhaps as bad as John thinks only from the other direction. >: Any consistent system of units CANNOT change physics and CANNOT have >: "defects". SI and CGS are fully consistent systems of units. I really >: doubt that there is any problem in physics that couldn't be solved >: properly using either one. > >This is what the author of the textbook was saying. He was defending his >choice to use CGS units. He felt, as he explained, that when CGS units are >used, it is easier to see the symmetries of the underlying physics, not >that MKS units cannot be used to solve physics problems -- in fact, in >the same appendix that I quoted above, he explicitly says that MKS units >are more convenient for solving engineering problems. I believe eps0 and mu0 were "discovered" long after cgs had made its inroads. We all recognize the sequence: our professor is writing on the blackboard from his student notes of 30 years ago, which in turn were copied off the blackboard by the professor while a student 30 years.... Well, you get the idea. SI just became popular in the 60's. But that's not sufficient for our old professor to change from a system that everyone agrees, is "just as good, maybe better". >:> But then again, the author of the above was only a Nobel Prize winner >:> in physics, and hence can't really be expected to know what he was >:> talking about. >: >: Well, who? Nobel Prize winners are not always right. > >I would guess that they are right about elementary aspects of their >fields more often than not. In this case, the textbook from which I >quoted was written by the appropriately named Edward M. "EM" Purcell. > >----- >Richard Schultz schultr(a)mail.biu.ac.il >Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel >Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University >----- >"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and >if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." |