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The Physics Book.

Absolute Motion

June 25, 2019 – 5:12 PM

Absolute motion is motion that does not depend on anything external to the moving object for its existence or specific nature. Thus, the motion that qualifies being absolute is acceleration. Acceleration is the change in velocity relative to the velocity of the object. The velocity of an object relative to itself is always zero.

But there is a motion (speed) that is intrinsic to an object because it depends on the density of the object. A substance can be atomic (such as, matter), or non-atomic (such as, light). [See Matter, Light and Substance]. Any substance, whether it is a particle or a quantum, has the property of density. [See Particle, Quantum and Density].

The higher is the density of a substance, the greater is its duration at a location. For example, matter that has a very high density can endure for a long time at a location, whereas, light that has almost infinitesimal density can hardy endure at that location before it moves away.

The intrinsic motion of the substance is reciprocal to its duration at a location. Therefore, we can say, the higher is the density; the lower is the intrinsic or absolute motion of substance. The following sketch gives an idea of this relationship.

Since density is three-dimensional, but motion (velocity) is linear, we may say:

Intrinsic or absolute motion = constant / cube root of density

If the density of the substance is not changing then its absolute motion is not changing either. This explains the Michelson-Morley’s Null Result. Since the density of Earth and light is constant, the difference between their absolute motion is also constant.

The change in the direction of movement of earth shall not provide different velocities of light.

This also explains why atoms agitate, which leads to Brownian motion. Atoms have intrinsic velocities and very low momentum. When a number of atoms are in close vicinity, they continually collide because of their inherent motion.

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The Dimensions of Physical Location

June 25, 2019 – 9:00 AM

In his 1920 Book, “Relativity: The Special and General Theory”, Einstein started out by questioning the axioms of Euclidean geometry (see Physical Meaning of Geometrical Propositions). Einstein says,

The concept “true” does not tally with the assertions of pure geometry, because by the word “true” we are eventually in the habit of designating always the correspondence with a “real” object; geometry, however, is not concerned with the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical connection of these ideas among themselves.

Einstein points out that the propositions of Euclid’s geometry have been formalized to conform to idealized logic. When these propositions are satisfied for those real things we have associated with the geometrical ideas then geometry may be treated as a branch of physics. Einstein then goes on to establish a system of co-ordinates based on rigid bodies. Rigid bodies expand and contract, and so do their space (see The System of Co-ordinates).

Physics is essentially dealing with space that acts as extents of physical substance.

We may expand on Einstein’s argument by pointing out that locations in physical space shall have dimensions, although Euclidean geometry represents locations by points that do not have any length, area, volume, or any other dimensional attribute. A location in physical space may be infinitesimal, but it is not dimensionless. It is also continuous with the surrounding space, just like irrational numbers are continuous on a number line.

Euclidean space is defined as a set that includes points as elements. The physical space, however, is continuous with the locations within it. This makes the physical space a primitive notion and not the point location.

The physical space is a primitive notion, which then allows the notion of point locations.

We may now establish a system of co-ordinates based on the concept of quantum. A quantum of space is a point location. A point location not only has extents but these extents expand and contract. As the extents contract the density of point location increases; and as they expand the density decreases. Thus, in addition to the three spatial dimensions a point location has an additional dimension of density. As density increases, the point location gains endurance. This makes the dimension of density, or duration, imply varying rigidity. Ultimate in density, or duration, is complete rigidity.

A physical location has the dimensions of length, width, height and duration (density).

This dimension of duration is not the same as the dimension of time. Duration is real and objective, whereas, time is abstract and subjective.

Einsteinian space is rigid as it is based on material substance. It assumes the infinite density and duration of the atom. The physical space, on the other hand, implies varying rigidity of the non-atomic substance. This is expressed through the dimension of duration (density). The rigidity of the atomic substance then becomes a limiting condition.

This may have some fundamental implications on the way the Relativity and Quantum theories are currently interpreted.

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Eddington 1927: Consequences of the Contraction

June 24, 2019 – 5:43 PM

Reference: The Book of Physics

Note: The original text is provided below.
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Summary


Eddington believes that a scale will undergo Fitzgerald contraction, with as simple an action as changing its direction. He came to this conclusion based on Michelson Morley’s experiment. He then looks at the consequence of such change on all measurements in physics.

He admits that the amount of change cannot be determined because there is no absolute reference point. But just this knowledge that all measurements are “fictitious” has the effect of trashing the conclusions of classical physics.

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Comments


Eddington believed that the length of the measuring scale is based on its relative velocity. In truth, change will occur only during acceleration when an external force is being applied to the body. So there is no problem with measurements in physics. A contraction may occur only in situations where very high accelerations are involved, but such contraction can be calculated.

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Original Text

This result alone, although it may not quite lead you to the theory of relativity, ought to make you uneasy about classical physics. The physicist when he wishes to measure a length—and he cannot get far in any experiment without measuring a length—takes a scale and turns it in the direction needed. It never occurred to him that in spite of all precautions the scale would change length when he did this; but unless the earth happens to be at rest a change must occur. The constancy of a measuring scale is the rock on which the whole structure of physics has been reared; and that rock has crumbled away. You may think that this assumption cannot have betrayed the physicist very badly; the changes of length cannot be serious or they would have been noticed. Wait and see.

Let us look at some of the consequences of the FitzGerald contraction. First take what may seem to be a rather fantastic case. Imagine you are on a planet moving very fast indeed, say 161,000 miles a second. For this speed the contraction is one-half. Any solid contracts to half its original length when turned from across to along the line of motion. A railway journey between two towns which was 100 miles at noon is shortened to 50 miles at 6 p.m. when the planet has turned through a right angle. The inhabitants copy Alice in Wonderland; they pull out and shut up like a telescope.

I do not know of a planet moving at 161,000 miles a second, but I could point to a spiral nebula far away in space which is moving at 1000 miles a second. This may well contain a planet and (speaking unprofessionally) perhaps I shall not be taking too much license if I place intelligent beings on it. At 1000 miles a second the contraction is not large enough to be appreciable in ordinary affairs; but it is quite large enough to be appreciable in measurements of scientific or even of engineering accuracy. One of the most fundamental procedures in physics is to measure lengths with a scale moved about in any way. Imagine the consternation of the physicists on this planet when they learn that they have made a mistake in supposing that their scale is a constant measure of length. What a business to go back over all the experiments ever performed, apply the corrections for orientation of the scale at the time, and then consider de novo the inferences and system of physical laws to be deduced from the amended data! How thankful our own physicists ought to be that they are not in this runaway nebula but on a decently slow-moving planet like the earth!

But stay a moment. Is it so certain that we are on a slow-moving planet? I can imagine the astronomers in that nebula observing far away in space an insignificant star attended by an insignificant planet called Earth. They observe too that it is moving with the huge velocity of 1000 miles a second; because naturally if we see them receding from us at 1000 miles a second they will see us receding from them at 1000 miles a second. “A thousand miles a second!” exclaim the nebular physicists, “How unfortunate for the poor physicists on the Earth! The FitzGerald contraction will be quite appreciable, and all their measures with scales will be seriously wrong. What a weird system of laws of Nature they will have deduced, if they have overlooked this correction!”

There is no means of deciding which is right—to which of us the observed relative velocity of 1000 miles a second really belongs. Astronomically the galaxy of which the earth is a member does not seem to be more important, more central, than the nebula. The presumption that it is we who are the more nearly at rest has no serious foundation; it is mere self-flattery.

“But”, you will say, “surely if these appreciable changes of length occurred on the earth, we should detect them by our measurements.” That brings me to the interesting point. We could not detect them by any measurement; they may occur and yet pass quite unnoticed. Let me try to show how this happens.

This room, we will say, is travelling at 161,000 miles a second vertically upwards. That is my statement, and it is up to you to prove it wrong. I turn my arm from horizontal to vertical and it contracts to half its original length. You don’t believe me? Then bring a yard-measure and measure it. First, horizontally, the result is 30 inches; now vertically, the result is 30 half-inches. You must allow for the fact that an inch-division of the scale contracts to half an inch when the yard-measure is turned vertically.

“But we can see that your arm does not become shorter; can we not trust our own eyes?”

Certainly not, unless you remember that when you got up this morning your retina contracted to half its original width in the vertical direction; consequently it is now exaggerating vertical distances to twice the scale of horizontal distances.

“Very well”, you reply, “I will not get up. I will lie in bed and watch you go through your performance in an inclined mirror. Then my retina will be all right, but I know I shall still see no contraction.”

But a moving mirror does not give an undistorted image of what is happening. The angle of reflection of light is altered by motion of a mirror, just as the angle of reflection of a billiard-ball would be altered if the cushion were moving. If you will work out by the ordinary laws of optics the effect of moving a mirror at 161,000 miles a second, you will find that it introduces a distortion which just conceals the contraction of my arm.

And so on for every proposed test. You cannot disprove my assertion, and, of course, I cannot prove it; I might equally well have chosen and defended any other velocity. At first this seems to contradict what I told you earlier—that the contraction had been proved and measured by the Michelson-Morley and other experiments—but there is really no contradiction. They were all null experiments, just as your experiment of watching my arm in an inclined mirror was a null experiment. Certain optical or electrical consequences of the earth’s motion were looked for of the same type as the distortion of images by a moving mirror; these would have been observed unless a contraction occurred of just the right amount to compensate them. They were not observed; therefore the compensating contraction had occurred. There was just one alternative; the earth’s true velocity through space might happen to have been nil. This was ruled out by repeating the experiment six months later, since the earth’s motion could not be nil on both occasions. Thus the contraction was demonstrated and its law of dependence on velocity verified. But the actual amount of contraction on either occasion was unknown, since the earth’s true velocity (as distinct from its orbital velocity with respect to the sun) was unknown. It remains unknown because the optical and electrical effects by which we might hope to measure it are always compensated by the contraction.

I have said that the constancy of a measuring scale is the rock on which the structure of physics has been reared. The structure has also been supported by supplementary props because optical and electrical devices can often be used instead of material scales to ascertain lengths and distances. But we find that all these are united in a conspiracy not to give one another away. The rock has crumbled and simultaneously all the other supports have collapsed.

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Particle, Quantum and Density

June 20, 2019 – 4:19 PM

We all are familiar with the idea of a particle of matter. At chemical level the smallest particle is considered to be an atom. An atom is a particle of matter. It has mass.

The idea of quantum was born out of the study of black body radiation in an effort to explain the radiation spectra.

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Black Body Radiation

The above graph shows the relationship of Spectral radiance to wave-length of the radiation. Spectral radiance is the radiance of a surface per unit wavelength. It is also called “specific intensity”. It provides the specific rate of energy transfer.

The Classical theory assumes that vibrational modes can increase infinitely. It predicts an energy output that diverges towards infinity as wavelength approaches zero. Measurements of the spectral emission of actual black bodies reveals that the emission agrees with the classical theory at large wavelengths but diverges at low wavelengths; reaching a maximum and then falling, so the total energy emitted is finite.

Max Planck found a mathematical expression fitting the experimental data satisfactorily. But he had to assume that the energy of the oscillators in the cavity could only change its energy in a minimal increment, E, that was proportional to the frequency of its associated electromagnetic wave. In other words, energy could be released only in packets (quanta) that were proportional to the frequency. Such quanta become fewer at high frequencies (low wavelengths), and, as a result, spectral radiance decreases.

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Maxwell’s omission

Fifty years prior to Planck, Faraday had expressed in his lecture on Ray Vibrations that radiation could be expressed as vibrating lines of force. Such lines of force could increase in numbers (intensity), but also in density. The energy output was determined by both intensity and density. Maxwell modeled Faraday’s lines of force (or field) mathematically to come up with his theory of Electromagnetism. Maxwell, however, accounted for the intensity only. He omitted the density because he did not associate any substance with the lines of force.

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The Quantum

These lines of force are not just mathematical entities as treated by Maxwell. They not only have substance, but also have densities. Per Classical theory the energy output per vibrational degree of freedom is the same. If the energy output depends on both the number as well as the density of the lines of force, it is easy to see that intensity shall decrease as density increases. The density is proportional to the frequency. We may relate Planck’s quantum to the density of radiation.

Radiation is a substance that has density. Planck’s quantum can be explained in terms of density of radiation.

As density, the quantum is a continuum, similar to frequency. It does not occur in jumps.

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The Photoelectric effect

In explaining the photoelectric effect Einstein says,

“If every energy quantum of the incident light transfers its energy to electrons independently of all other quanta, the velocity distribution of the electrons, that is, the quality of the resulting cathode radiation, will be independent of the intensity of the incident light; on the other hand, ceteris paribus, the number of electrons leaving the body should be proportional to the intensity of the incident light.”

These observations are consistent with experimental results and prove that energy transferred to electrons is proportional to the frequency of incident light and not its intensity. The concept of quanta is thus real. It is not just a mathematical device as was assumed by Planck.

Einstein, therefore, concludes:

“According to the assumption considered here, when a light ray starting from a point is propagated, the energy is not continuously distributed over an ever increasing volume, but it consists of a finite number of energy quanta, localised in space, which move without being divided and which can be absorbed or emitted only as a whole.”

The ever increasing volume affects the intensity of but not the density, which depends on the frequency of light. This density, like mass, contributes to the momentum, which expels the electron. This density (quanta) is the characteristic of light, which is uniformly spread out in space. It is not “localised in space” as assumed by Einstein.

Light is thinned out in space (less intensity), but it maintains the same density (quanta) throughout the space.

Quantum does not occur in discrete “jumps” in space either. Quantum provides the dimension of density for the substance of radiation.

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The Quantum Particle

As outlined in Einstein’s 1905 paper on light quanta, a light quantum has particle-like property. But this characteristic of particle comes from density and not from any discrete appearance.  Just like a matter of different densities can have discrete appearance of any size, similarly, radiation of different densities can have discrete appearance. This discrete appearance may be called particle, but it does not have a fixed size.

Compared to matter, radiation has extremely small density. If you take a “point particle” of matter and spread its mass over several square miles, it would appear as a field of certain minimal density. This is a quantum. Thus a quantum is unique only in terms of its density, and not in terms of its discrete size.

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Wave-Particle Dilemma

The key difference between a matter particle and a quantum particle is that a matter particle has a structure, and, therefore, it has a center of mass.  A quantum particle, on the other hand has no structure. It is kind of sloshing around, and the disturbance within it is traveling at the speed of light. So it has no center of mass.

Therefore, a quantum particle behaves like a mass particle around obstacles that ar much larger than it. But it acts like a wave around obstacles that are smaller than it. This representation puts to rest the wave-particle dilemma.

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Summary

Light is a substance. As a substance it has density. It does not require an external medium (aether) to travel because light is its own medium. The light quantum refers to the density of light, which is proportional to its frequency.  

The interesting fact is that mathematics can be accurate, while it may have inaccurate interpretation. An accurate interpretation of mathematics shall be consistent with reality. If certain mathematics cannot be interpreted then the understanding of the underlying phenomenon is missing.

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Matter, Light and Substance

June 17, 2019 – 9:52 AM

It appears that matter is a substance like wood. Momentum refers to the amount of motion there is, such as, in a moving log. Kinetic Energy is the work done in stopping the moving log.

When two billiard balls collide, their motion changes, and the work is done in changing that motion. But, according to the conservation laws, the net change in motion is zero, and the net work done is zero also. If the motion of a ball has increased, the motion of the other ball has decreased. If one ball did work on the other then the other ball did work back on the first one.

We started out with some substance in a closed system, and that substance has remained the same in spite of the interactions within that system. That is the case with our universe.

Here the word “substance” means that which is substantial and undergoes changes, but the total motion and energy remain the same.

Our perception of substance comes only through FORCE. The more is the force, the more substance, we feel, is there. This was the great experimenter Faraday’s view.

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The Innate Force

We all have experienced that if something does not resist then we cannot push it. We cannot change its motion or energy. In other words, we cannot even detect it. We can detect substance because we can interact with it through our sense channels and with other instruments of detection. The primary characteristic of substance is that it is substantial enough to be interacted with and, thus, detected.

Therefore, the core of substance is the resistance it puts to being pushed. A substance always reacts to force by returning force. If there is no force returned in any shape or form, then there is no substance. Once there is force there is also motion and energy, but that is secondary. The force defines the substance. This innate force in matter was called INERTIA by Newton.

Anything that can be detected is a substance with innate force.

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Is Light a Substance?

Nobody questions matter being substance. When we stub our toe by dropping a brick on it, we know that brick has substance. Is light a substance? We can detect light by our eyes and with other instruments. There is change in motion and energy. Underlying that change there is force. Light has innate force.

But if light is substance, it is very different from matter. It obeys laws of nature which are very different from the laws that matter obeys. Still light has innate force. We may not call it inertia because the word “inertia” is used in the context of matter only.

Light can be detected; therefore, it is a substance with innate force.

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Past Views of Light

In Newton’s time, the recognized substance was matter. He saw light as made up of particles (corpuscular theory) but these particles did not follow the laws of mechanics like matter particles did. Therefore, he did not associate inertia or innate force with them.

Einstein also viewed light to be made up of particles, which he called light quanta. He implied these particles to be packets of energy that had discrete existence in space. These particles carried enough momentum to expel electrons from the surface of certain metals. We may say that Einstein implied light to be a substance and associated innate force with it.

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Summary

Light has momentum and energy. It must have resistance when it is pushed because its speed is finite. If light had no resistance its speed would be infinite. Therefore, light must be a substance with a very small amount of innate force. The current physics does not look at light that way. That is a big misunderstanding.

We may say that there are two types of substances: atomic and non-atomic.

Matter is an atomic substance. Light is a non-atomic substance. Both are detected by their innate force or inertia.

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