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Reference: The Book of Physics

Note: The original text is provided below.
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Summary

Eddington is interpreting the electrical theory of matter to mean that the motion of the measuring equipment will result in Fitzgerald contraction and that would influence the measurements. He believes that this would occur even when no accelerations are involved. He, therefore, concludes that the Newtonian length of an object cannot be determined. And, therefore, the present-day physics is based on fictitious measurements. This has now resulted in the whole structure of classical physics tumbling down. 

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Comments

In truth, there are no problems in measurements unless very high accelerations are involved. But, in those cases, the resulting contractions can be calculated and corrections made.

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Original Text

This thought will be followed up in the next chapter. Meanwhile let us glance back over the arguments that have led to the present situation. It arises from the failure of our much-trusted measuring scale, a failure which we can infer from strong experimental evidence or more simply as an inevitable consequence of accepting the electrical theory of matter. This unforeseen behaviour is a constant property of all kinds of matter and is even shared by optical and electrical measuring devices. Thus it is not betrayed by any kind of discrepancy in applying the usual methods of measurement. The discrepancy is revealed when we change the standard motion of the measuring appliances, e.g. when we compare lengths and distances as measured by terrestrial observers with those which would be measured by observers on a planet with different velocity. Provisionally we shall call the measured lengths which contain this discrepancy “fictitious lengths”.

According to the Newtonian scheme length is definite and unique; and each observer should apply corrections (dependent on his motion) to reduce his fictitious lengths to the unique Newtonian length. But to this there are two objections. The corrections to reduce to Newtonian length are indeterminate; we know the corrections necessary to reduce our own fictitious lengths to those measured by an observer with any other prescribed motion, but there is no criterion for deciding which system is the one intended in the Newtonian scheme. Secondly, the whole of present-day physics has been based on lengths measured by terrestrial observers without this correction, so that whilst its assertions ostensibly refer to Newtonian lengths they have actually been proved for fictitious lengths.

The FitzGerald contraction may seem a little thing to bring the whole structure of classical physics tumbling down. But few indeed are the experiments contributing to our scientific knowledge which would not be invalidated if our methods of measuring lengths were fundamentally unsound. We now find that there is no guarantee that they are not subject to a systematic kind of error. Worse still we do not know if the error occurs or not, and there is every reason to presume that it is impossible to know.

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Reference: The Physics Book

Within the hydrogen atom, the  mass of the surrounding electron is 1/1836 times the mass of the embedded proton, while the volume of the surrounding electron is about 9999 times the volume of the embedded proton. There appears to be a kind of inverse relationship between the mass and volume of subatomic structures.

We postulate that, at the quantum level, the volume is inversely proportional to mass.

We notice that the mass density of electrons is so small that they do not have centers of mass, and the laws of mechanics do not fully apply to them. This also means that the electrons may not exist as discrete “particles” because they cannot be differentiated from one another due to lack of centers of mass. Electrons are more like a “thick” fluid.

The electrons flow like fluids and their mass density appears as their “viscosity.”

The electrons have both mass and fluidity. This generates the idea of electrons being “particles” and “waves” at the same time. But this is an anomaly only if we assume the electrons to be “discrete particles.” 

Electrons are neither discrete particles nor made up of discrete particles.

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The Position of Electron

Introduced first in 1927 by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, the uncertainty principle states that the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be predicted from initial conditions, and vice versa. There is further explanation available here.

Origins of Uncertainty principle – Possible Flaw

This principle has been applied to the location of an electron within an atom. But since the electrons are not discrete particles, instead they fill the atom like a fluid, they do not have locations. They simply have fluidity with certain viscosity. The quantum numbers assigned to electrons indicate patterns within their fluidity.

Not being discrete particles, the electrons do not have locations within the atom.

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The Boundary and Charge

The interface between the nucleus and the surrounding electronic fluid comes closest to being the matter-void boundary. At this boundary there is a sudden drop in mass density. This sharp gradient in mass is the source of charge. The charge is a surface phenomenon.

Charge may be compared to the “surface tension” as it exists in drop-like free sub-atomic particles, such as, protons and electrons.

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Reference: The Physics Book

The classical physics starts with the concepts of matter and void. These two concepts are connected in the sense that void is conceived as the absence of matter. 

Essentially, matter exists and moves within the void. 

Matter is conceived as the substance of the universe. It is concentrated in astronomical bodies. Such material bodies consist of material objects that can be broken down into smaller and smaller material particles. 

The smallest particle of matter is an atom this is considered to be infinitesimally small and spherical in shape. 

The laws of Newtonian mechanics apply to material bodies, objects and particles because they have a center of mass. Without a center of mass there is no material particle.

A material particle down to the atom is defined by a center of mass.

A material object consists of atoms. There is void among these atoms. As this void expands, the form of matter changes from solid to liquid to gaseous. 

All forms of matter—solid, liquid or gaseous—consist of atoms and a void among them.

There seems to exist a sharp boundary between matter and void at macroscopic level. Is that still the case at atomic level?

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The Force Field

We observe that the astronomical bodies influence each other from great distances. Newton (1642 – 1726) determined that this influence depended upon the mass of the material bodies and the distance between them. It was described as the force of gravity, and identified as the property of matter. This force could barely be detected between two material objects. But it was postulated to exist between two material particles down to the atoms. 

It was postulated that matter extends itself as the force of gravity throughout the void.

Roger Boscovich (1711 – 1787) developed a concept of “impenetrability” as a property of hard bodies which explained their behavior in terms of force rather than matter. He found that the continuity of force is a necessary assumption for determinism. He, therefore, saw atoms as centers of force.

Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) found that the concept of atoms as centers of force resolved the anomaly of electrical conduction in matter. He notes in his paper, Electrical Conduction & Nature of Matter, January 25, 1844:

“If we must assume at all, as indeed in a branch of knowledge like the present we can hardly help it, then the safest course appears to be to assume as little as possible, and in that respect the atoms of Boscovich appear to me to have a great advantage over the more usual notion. His atoms, if I understand aright, are mere centres of forces or powers, not particles of matter, in which the powers themselves reside.”

Faraday, thus, rejected the notion of “particles of matter surrounded by a system of powers.” He identified a “force field” as the basic substance that was concentrated in the atoms, and which filled the void among atoms.

Faraday defines matter to be essentially a “concentrated force field.”

Faraday further resolved the anomaly of light requiring an impossible ethereal medium by the concept of lines of force extending out from atoms. Essentially, matter, as a force field could thin out as lines of force to fill the void among material objects and bodies. This idea he presented in his paper, Thoughts on Ray Vibrations, April 15, 1846. 

Matter conceived as a force field that could thin out may explain the nature of light, and, possibly, the nature of gravity.

Faraday was convinced that the “conservation of force,” as in force field, could more than replace the principle of conservation of matter. He emphasized this with great intensity in his paper, On the Conservation of Force, February 27, 1857.

The force field may be able to substitute both matter and void as the sole substance of the universe.

Thus, we may look at matter, electricity, light, and heat as different concentrations of force field. Within an atom itself, the force field may exist on a gradient with maximum concentration at the center and least concentration at the periphery.

This hypothesis makes the void a very thinned out force field, and puts matter in continuum with that field while existing and moving within it.

The sharp boundary between matter and void, when looked closely, may be found to consist of a gradient of force.

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