Category Archives: Science

High Energy Gamma Rays

March 1, 2026 – 5:38 AM

This post is written to preserve the following news article.

High Energy Gamma Rays Go Slower than the Speed of Light?

This is a demonstration of the The Fourth Law of Motion.

High Energy Gamma Rays Go Slower Than the Speed of Light?

By Fraser Cain – October 03, 2007 04:36 PM UTC | Physics

The speed of light is the speed of light, and that’s that. Right? Well, maybe not. Try and figure this out. Astronomers studying radiation coming from a distant galaxy found that the high energy gamma rays arrived a few minutes after the lower-energy photons, even though they were emitted at the same time. If true, this result would overturn Einstein’s theory of relativity, which says that all photons should move at the speed of light. Uh oh Einstein.

The discovery was made using the new MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov) telescope, located on a mountain top on the Canary island of La Palma. Since gamma rays are blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere, astronomers have figured out a clever trick to see them from the ground. When the gamma rays strike the atmosphere, they release a cascade of particles and radiation. The Cherenkov technique detects this cascade, and then works backwards to calculate the direction and energy level of the gamma rays. With a 17-metre detector, MAGIC is the largest telescope of its type.

The international team of researchers pointed the telescope at Markarian 501, a galaxy 500 million light-years away that contains a blazar – a supermassive black hole that periodically releases bursts of gamma rays. More material is falling into the black hole than it can consume, and so it gets squeezed into jets that fire off from the poles of the black hole at close to the speed of light. What astronomers call a “blazar” is when the jets of a supermassive black hole are pointed directly at the Earth.

Researchers sorted high- and low-energy gamma ray photons coming from the blazar with each flareup. Since all the radiation was emitted at the same time, and the speed of light is the speed of light, you would expect the high-energy photons to arrive at the same time. But nope, the high-energy photons showed up around 4 minutes later.

So what’s happening? Nobody knows, and this could turn into an entirely new field of physics. The researchers are proposing that maybe the radiation is interacting with “quantum foam”. This is a theoretical property of space itself, and predicted by quantum gravity theory – a competitor to string theory.

UC Davis News Release

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By vinaire | Comments (0)

Substance and Consistency

November 24, 2025 – 4:23 AM

Reference: Essays on Substance

Light has no mass, but it has momentum. This indicates that, according to Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2, light could have a “mass” of the order of 1/c2 in mass units. This amount is so small that it is ignored as mass. But it is still significant as momentum; and we can call it consistency.

CONSISTENCY means “a degree of density, firmness, viscosity, etc.” The use of ‘consistency’ in place of ‘mass’ establishes an equivalence between radiation and matter as two different categories of substance.

The terms SUBSTANCE and CONSISTENCY have not been used in the vocabulary of science because they have not had precise definitions in the past. The Theory of Substance now assigns them precise definitions as follows:

SUBSTANCE
“Substance is anything that is substantial enough to be sensed. We can sense matter, radiation and thought; and, therefore, they are three different categories of substance.”

CONSISTENCY
“Consistency is the measure of the substantiality of substance. Matter has very high consistency called MASS. Radiation has no mass but it has consistency of the order of 1/c2 in mass units. Thought has a consistency so small that it can be sensed only mentally.” 

To be part of scientific vocabulary, a term must have precise definition. Newton introduced the terms FORCE, INERTIA, MASS and GRAVITY to science by assigning them precise definitions. We now introduce the terms SUBSTANCE and CONSISTENCY to the scientific vocabulary.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Physics Book | Comments (0)

Space, Mathematics and Einstein

November 4, 2025 – 5:23 AM

Einstein, in his general relativity, gives pure space a structure. This structure is influenced by the presence of physical mass. Where does this structure of space come from?

Space can curve. If this is an analogy, then the only description of space curving is through mathematics. Mathematics is based on postulates that are in coherence with each other. These postulates, axioms, or rules are all pure thought

So, a structure for pure space is being postulated in GR. Light is shown to follow this structure. Gravity of planets is also explained when planets are seen to follow this structure of pure space.

Basically, GR is postulating a coherence between physical structure of matter and radiation on one hand and the structure of pure space on the other. Matter, radiation and “space” are shown to be in some kind of coherence, or equilibrium, with each other.

We can sense the physical structures of matter and radiation through our physical senses. But we can sense the structure of pure space only through the thought put in mathematics. We can sense thought through our mental sense. And this makes thought a substance on its own right.

This is because SUBSTANCE can be defined as “anything substantial enough to be sensed.” We sense thought differently from radiation and matter; but thought, radiation and matter can all be sensed.

We may, therefore, say that pure space is made of thought.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Einstein | Comments (4)

Eddington 1927: Chapter 3 Summary

October 15, 2024 – 6:57 AM

Reference: The Book of Physics

Note: The original text is provided below.
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Summary

The frame of space is defined as the system of location in space. It is extended to the frame of space and time, which is location of events in space and time. We look at everything through the rest frame of Earth.

The multiplicity of frames depends on relative velocity because there is no absolute velocity. Therefore, there is no absolute simultaneity either. But there is an absolute world-structure based on the absolute velocity of light. 

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Comments

The rest frame of Earth is the rest frame of matter. Different frames of space and time occur based on absolute motion/inertia, and not based on relative velocity of matter.

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Original Text

In this chapter the idea of a multiplicity of frames of space has been extended to a multiplicity of frames of space and time. The system of location in space, called a frame of space, is only a part of a fuller system of location of events in space and time. Nature provides no indication that one of these frames is to be preferred to the others. The particular frame in which we are relatively at rest has a symmetry with respect to us which other frames do not possess, and for this reason we have drifted into the common assumption that it is the only reasonable and proper frame; but this egocentric outlook should now be abandoned, and all frames treated as on the same footing. By considering time and space together we have been able to understand how the multiplicity of frames arises. They correspond to different directions of section of the four-dimensional world of events, the sections being the “world-wide instants”. Simultaneity (Now) is seen to be relative. The denial of absolute simultaneity is intimately connected with the denial of absolute velocity; knowledge of absolute velocity would enable us to assert that certain events in the past or future occur Here but not Now; knowledge of absolute simultaneity would tell us that certain events occur Now but not Here. Removing these artificial sections, we have had a glimpse of the absolute world-structure with its grain diverging and interlacing after the plan of the hour-glass figures. By reference to this structure we discern an absolute distinction between space-like and time-like separation of events—a distinction which justifies and explains our instinctive feeling that space and time are fundamentally different. Many of the important applications of the new conceptions to the practical problems of physics are too technical to be considered in this book; one of the simpler applications is to determine the changes of the physical properties of objects due to rapid motion. Since the motion can equally well be described as a motion of ourselves relative to the object or of the object relative to ourselves, it cannot influence the absolute behaviour of the object. The apparent changes in the length, mass, electric and magnetic fields, period of vibration, etc., are merely a change of reckoning introduced in passing from the frame in which the object is at rest to the frame in which the observer is at rest. Formulae for calculating the change of reckoning of any of these quantities are easily deduced now that the geometrical relation of the frames has been ascertained.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Physics Book | Comments (0)

Eddington 1927: Chapter 2 Summary

October 6, 2024 – 8:29 AM

Reference: The Book of Physics

Note: The original text is provided below.
Previous / Next

Summary

We are confronted by the fact that we do not know the absolute motion of bodies in space by comparing it to a body at complete rest. We only know their relative motions. Each body has its own frame of space within which perception occurs and measurements are made. The measurements are consistent within each frame of reference, but they do not have an absolute basis just like the motion of the body has no absolute basis.

We may accept all measurements to be relative. But then we do not have an absolute view of the universe. We run into mystery about cosmic phenomenon, such as, gravity.

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Comments


The solution to the problem of relativity requires a universal invariant such as a body at complete rest. Einstein used the velocity of light to be invariant. But, this is not fully verified. The velocity of light appears as an invariant only because it is so large compared to the motion in material realm, and for no other reason. It does fully resolve the problem of gravity.

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Original Text

Let us take a last glance back before we plunge into four dimensions. We have been confronted with something not contemplated in classical physics—a multiplicity of frames of space, each one as good as any other. And in place of a distance, magnetic force, acceleration, etc., which according to classical ideas must necessarily be definite and unique, we are confronted with different distances, etc., corresponding to the different frames, with no ground for making a choice between them. Our simple solution has been to give up the idea that one of these is right and that the others are spurious imitations, and to accept them en bloc; so that distance, magnetic force, acceleration, etc., are relative quantities, comparable with other relative quantities already known to us such as direction or velocity. In the main this leaves the structure of our physical knowledge unaltered; only we must give up certain expectations as to the behaviour of these quantities, and certain tacit assumptions which were based on the belief that they are absolute. In particular a law of Nature which seemed simple and appropriate for absolute quantities may be quite inapplicable to relative quantities and therefore require some tinkering. Whilst the structure of our physical knowledge is not much affected, the change in the underlying conceptions is radical. We have travelled far from the old standpoint which demanded mechanical models of everything in Nature, seeing that we do not now admit even a definite unique distance between two points. The relativity of the current scheme of physics invites us to search deeper and find the absolute scheme underlying it, so that we may see the world in a truer perspective.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Physics Book | Comments (0)