Tag Archives: ether

Ether to Relativity: The journey from light to darkness

March 31, 2014 – 3:43 am

We know that for waves to travel in space they need a medium. As a wave travels in a medium, the particles of the medium oscillate to and fro or up and down depending upon the type of the wave. For example as sound waves travel in air medium, the particles of air move to and fro, and this movement of particles results in alternate compressions and rarefactions in the medium. We know that sound waves also travel in liquid media (e.g. water) and some solid media. The particles of all these media also execute a similar to and fro waving motion when sound waves propagate through them. And we know that as water waves (or ripples) propagate in a pond, the particles of the medium (which is obviously water) oscillate up and down. So we consider water waves as transverse waves in contrast to sound waves which are longitudinal waves.

Then what about light? First of all, to the physicists of the pre-modern era, it was not clear whether light is composed of particles or waves. After centuries of debate on the nature of light, Young’s double slit experiment (1803) had confirmed that light behaves like waves. Half a century later, Maxwell, building upon the equations of electromagnetism, had calculated the speed of light waves as 3×108m/sec (referred to as ‘c’ by the physicists). These two developments posed two very difficult questions to the physicists of those days:

1) If light is a wave, then what is the thing which does the ‘waving’ or oscillation? In other words what is the medium for light waves? As far as scientists knew, there wasn’t any medium in the outer space. But if there isn’t really any medium in the outer space, then how could light, which behaves like waves, reach us from the Sun and other stars?

2) The next question that bothered physicists was that, if light travels at speed ‘c’, it is with reference to whom? Whenever we mention the speed of an object, there is always a reference frame to it whether explicit or implicit. For example when we say that a car moves at 100kmph, we mean that the car moves at 100kmph speed with reference to the road (or to a stationary observer on the road). Obviously the said speed is not with reference to someone who is inside the car or to someone who is following the car on a bike. Similarly the propagation speed of a wave is always mentioned with reference to the medium in which the wave travels. When we say that sound waves travel at speed of 330m/sec, the said speed, though not explicit, is always with reference to the medium in which the waves travel. So, when Maxwell calculated the speed of light as ‘c’, it implied that this speed must be with reference to the medium in which light waves should be travelling. But as just been mentioned, there isn’t any medium in the outer space as far as scientists know. But if there is no medium in the outer space, the speed of light that Maxwell calculated is with reference to whom?

Before the advent of modern physics with all its weird theories, scientists believed in the existence of an ever pervading medium called Ether. Everything in this universe including planets, stars etc were thought to remain suspended and move about in this stationary universal medium. And this putative Ether medium was thought to act as the medium for light waves (hence the name ‘lumiferous Ether’). Though there was no proof of its existence, the Ether hypothesis had enjoyed good support from the physicists of the pre-modern era as that was able to explain how light waves from outer space could reach us on Earth and also was able to provide the answer for the reference frame problem. But over a relatively short span of time, the above Ether hypothesis gave way to the weird theories of the modern physics. And we must talk about three things here which made physics ‘advance’ in the wrong direction.

Michelson- Morley experiment: Michelson presumed that when Earth moved through the stationary Ether medium, it would result in what is called as Ether wind. So he predicted that light beams made to travel to and fro in perpendicular directions i.e. one light beam passed parallel to the Ether wind direction and another beam passed across the wind, would take different times to cover the same distance. But to the astonishment of the scientific community, Michelson’s famous experiment failed to detect any difference in the times taken by the two light beams and thus ruled out any such thing called Ether wind. From this and other observations (aberration of star light), scientists concluded that there isn’t anything like Ether in our universe. (We will discuss later why scientists are wrong to assume so and will expose the misconceptions upon which this famous experiment was devised).

Light and Electromagnetic radiation: From the work of great physicists like Faraday and Maxwell, scientific community had learnt more about electro-magnetism and electromagnetic radiation. It became known that electromagnetic waves get generated from relative motion between electric and magnetic fields. And the scientific community had realised that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation and that visible light comprises only a small part of the total spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. And having discarded the Ether medium, the intelligent physicists had ‘understood’ electromagnetic waves as ‘self propagating’ transverse waves with electric and magnetic fields oscillating at right angles to the direction of propagation. While we the ordinary minds may not correctly grasp the physicists’ imagination of these ‘mythical’ waves of transversely oscillating electric and magnetic fields, the point to note here is that, according to the intelligent physicists, electromagnetic waves (i.e. light waves) do not require any medium to propagate in space unlike mechanical waves (e.g. sound waves).

Emitter theory: But the above ‘understanding’ of the scientific crowd on EM waves had made the second question even tougher to answer i.e. if EM waves are self propagating and if they don’t require any medium , then Maxwell’s calculated speed of electromagnetic waves is with reference to whom?

At this juncture, some scientists believed that the calculated speed of EM waves must be with reference to the source that generated them (Emitter theory). But observations on neutral pion decay didn’t seem to support the ‘emitter theory’. Scientists observed that light photons (EM waves) travelled at the same speed ‘c’ whether they were emitted by fast moving particles (neutral pions) or slow moving particles. In other words, light photons’ velocity didn’t vary with the velocity of the source unlike the case with projectiles in our everyday world!

Another argument against the emitter theory was that Electromagnetic waves get generated when there is relative motion between a magnet and a conductor (e.g. copper wire). In other words, a source of EM waves contains two basic components (a magnet and a conductor) both of which move relative to each other. So if we assume that Maxwell’s calculated speed of EM waves is with reference to the source, which one of the two components of the source shall we consider as representing the source? I.e. shall we swear upon the magnet’s frame or the conductor’s frame as representing the reference frame of the source as a whole?

Imagine that we kept a magnet at rest and moved a copper wire with speed ‘v’ with respect to the magnet and generated EM waves. Here we may assume that the so generated EM waves travel at speed ‘c’ with reference to the magnet because this was the one at rest. In that case obviously the speed of the same EM waves becomes ‘c+v’ in the reference frame of the copper wire. But because motion is relative we can argue that it was actually the copper wire that was at rest and hence the Maxwell’s calculated speed ‘c’ must refer to the copper wire’s reference frame and not to the magnet.

But how can the generated EM waves travel at the same speed with reference to both the magnet and the conductor which are moving relative to each other? In other words, how can a light beam travel with the same speed ‘c’ with reference to two different objects in two different reference frames?

Emitter theory thus failed to solve the reference frame issue and the scientific turmoil continued. Amidst this scientific turmoil came Einstein with his weird and ‘wonderful’ theory of special relativity which mesmerised the confused scientific folk and ‘solved’ the reference frame issue. He said that the speed of light waves (i.e. electromagnetic waves) remains the same to every observer irrespective of one’s state of motion or reference frame. Special theory of relativity woven upon this weird law of constant speed of light then lead to the weird propositions of time dilation, space contraction etc and later paved the way for another weird theory called general relativity.

Now we will analyse each of the above things that mislead the scientific crowd and allowed the weird theories to sprout and flourish in the realm of science masquerading as modern physics.

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By Dr Srinivasa Rao Gonuguntla | Posted in Science with Sense | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (14)

Photon Ether: Many Mysteries, One Answer

March 29, 2014 – 8:29 am

Reinstating Ether into our understanding of Nature explains two great mysteries in this universe without resorting to the stupid propositions of quantum mechanics and relativity. One is that it provides logical explanation for the results of double slit experiment i.e. how particles produce interference patterns and appear to travel in multiple slits simultaneously. Next is that it explains why there is something called gravity. In fact, it provides so simple and logical explanation for these two phenomena that they both can be argued as proof of existence of Ether.

Ether theory provides a logical explanation for:

  1. Double slit Experiment
  2. The phenomenon of Gravity
  3. Explains EM waves and electromagnetism in crystal clear terms
  4. Mass and Inertia
  5. Explains red shift and cosmic background radiation and dispenses with the absurd theory of big bang
  6. Explains all those observations that are claimed as proof of relativity and QM

The ‘Photonic’ Ether Model

I propose that our entire universe is permeated by a fluid substance or medium called the Ether. Everything else in this universe remains suspended in this ocean of Ether just like how various things exist in an ocean of water. And just like how water is made up of water ‘particles’, I propose that this Ether is made up of photon particles. Electromagnetic waves are nothing but waves travelling in the Ether medium. Just like how a local disturbance in a pond of water gets dissipated throughout the pond as water waves, disturbances in Ether medium travel as electromagnetic waves throughout the Universe. As is the case with water particles, the particles of the Ether medium simply oscillate locally and do not get permanently displaced while transmitting the EM waves.

Mass and Energy: Our great physicists preach that mass and energy are equivalent. They believe that mass can get converted into energy and energy into mass. And they believe that mass and energy just represent different forms of the same thing. I am sure every one of us is familiar with the equation E=MC2 which is hailed as the greatest triumph of modern science. But unfortunately this greatest equation has got its roots in the most absurd theory in science namely the theory of relativity. That itself makes the above mass/energy equivalence formula equally absurd. Having already discussed why relativity is the weirdest theory put forward by mankind, we don’t have to break our heads about the weird mathematics that lead to the above weird equation.

But it is worth mentioning the following: While energy is a vector, mass is a scalar quantity (of course not many physicists would realise that). This obviously prohibits conversion of one quantity into another. Say for example 1gm of mass upon ‘burning’ yields ‘X’ joules of energy. But in what direction and with reference to whom this energy is produced? Is it towards a stationary observer standing by the side of the mass or away from him, or towards the north or towards the south? One may argue that the energy gets released in all directions equally so as to avoid specifying the direction. But that makes the situation even worse – we end up in a situation where our mass gets vanished but the total energy in the system doesn’t increase.

The most fundamental form of energy that we know comes in the form of electromagnetic radiation and we have seen above that photons, the particles of EM radiation, are not mass less. So when our mass gets converted into photons, it doesn’t get destroyed in true sense but simply gets broken down into the tiniest particles of mass. If we manage to add the masses of all these particles produced, that will surely add up to the original mass. The law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation of energy must be seen as two different laws, each holding true independently i.e. mass and energy get conserved separately without one compensating for the other.

Having said that, energy always manifests itself as motion of physical objects i.e. energy has no independent existence without mass as far as we understand Nature. But what actually is mass? We know very well that mass is something that gives inertia to an object i.e. the tendency to remain at rest and oppose motion. So while energy is the one that moves an object, mass is the one that gives inertia to the object and resists any motion. Thus mass and energy are responsible for opposite forces in Nature. But why is it that mass has inertia or how do we explain this property of mass? Why isn’t that objects just move? What stops them from doing so? In other words, why do objects need energy to move? Why do more massive objects need more energy to move? These questions may sound silly but are so fundamental to understand Nature at a deeper level. We can explain many of these questions by drawing attention to the above Ether model.

Cosmic Ocean of Ether: As discussed before, we can propose that all material objects remain ‘held’ in place or remain suspended in a divine fluid medium pervading this whole Universe. One may call this as Ether or Higg’s field or simply universal medium. To move through this ‘cosmic ocean’ of Ether, an object has to overcome the ‘resistance’ offered by the same. This resistance is what we experience as inertia. Obviously objects or particles need energy to overcome this background resistance and to move through the space. The more massive an object is, the more will be the resistance, hence the more will be its inertia. The above model of cosmic ocean of Ether puts the Newton’s law of inertia of motion in jeopardy because an object that is set into motion doesn’t go on moving in the cosmic ocean for ever. Any moving object is ought to come to rest in the absence of further energy supply (unless the Ether itself is streaming under the influence of a more massive object moving in the vicinity- we will come to this soon). That means we have to abandon another great law in physics which we have recited for centuries. EtherJust like an object spinning inside a pond of still water also spins a ‘layer’ of water around it, massive bodies spinning in the cosmic ocean also spin a layer of Ether around them. And this spinning of water or Ether is not an all or none phenomenon: the layer of water that is just adjacent to the spinning body gets spun faster than the layer that is farther away from the body. This differential agitation or spinning of Ether in the cosmic ocean is what probably causes the gravitational attraction between the celestial bodies (Bernoulli principle). And, just like a boat sailing in a lake sends water waves ahead of it, celestial bodies moving in the cosmic ocean also send Ether waves or gravitational waves.

So reinstating Ether into our universe explains many things- inertia/mass, gravitational attraction, gravitational waves and the delusion of wave particle duality. We know that every disturbance in a pond, big or small, gets conducted to everywhere else in the pond in the form of water waves. Of course the waves get attenuated as they move farther and farther from the place of origin.  Similarly every disturbance in the Ether medium from anywhere in the universe gets transmitted to the entire universe in the form of electromagnetic waves or Ether waves. Similar to water waves, the EM waves get attenuated as they travel farther. And they get interfered with waves from other sources. So every bit of space possesses information from everywhere else in the universe i.e. every bit of space represents the entire universe. That explains the Hologram model of our universe put forward by some physicists.

But what constitutes this ‘cosmic ocean’ or Ether? As has been proposed earlier, it is possible that Ether is made up of photons (see chapter- explaining double slit experiment) but knowing or understanding what constitutes Ether doesn’t lead us to the last and final secret of Nature. The concept of Ether immediately rises two questions i.e. what constitutes a photon particle? And what lies in between the photon particles? Like physicists, one may imagine that photons are fundamental particles and the space in between them is empty. But as a logician, I find it difficult to believe so- how can any particle be considered indivisible? And how can there be space that has nothing in it? So by no means, we can consider Ether or photons as the most fundamental stuff in Nature. It may be that there is Ether and there is ultra-Ether in between the Ether particles and there is ultra-ultra-Ether and so on. Understanding each of them simply takes us to a deeper layer of reality but by no means gives us the complete picture about Nature – it is just like peeling another layer of an infinitely covered onion. So it is true to say that we can never understand the ultimate reality or reach the deepest layer by clinging to the material science. This is where the importance of ‘Spiritual science’ comes. Only spiritual and philosophical thinking can help us understand and experience the Nature through to the deepest layer of reality and help us achieve Enlightenment and realise the ultimate truth.

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By Dr Srinivasa Rao Gonuguntla | Posted in Science with Sense | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (32)