Science, Physics, Relativity, Faq's and Feedback

Historical Overview #2

This homepage is now roughly 13 years old and again it is time to give an overview of what I have done.
This is not my first Historical Overview. 7 Years ago I wrote my first. To read it go to: Historical Overview #1

Science

Universe

If you want to study the Universe one of the best ways to start is have a look at The Extended Local Group of Galaxies part of Enceclopaedia Galactica
What this picture IMO should represent is a 3D sketch showing the position of all the Galaxies (Including all the stars and planets) of a certain area of the Universe at a certain moment. For Example 1 Jan 2000 at 12.00 hours.

What this picture does not represents is what We See from a certain point in space. For Example 1 Jan 2000 at 12.00 hours from Earth. If you want to see what you see at that particular moment from any particular point you have to take the speed of light into consideration.
The same reasoning applies if you want to make this sketch based on observations; you have to take the speed of light into consideration.
Because what you See is the position in the past.

To do this even more accurate one more concept has to be included: The bending of Light.

Why is this picture so important ?

• IMO the most important reason is that this picture is the staring point to perform simulations i.e. to calculate the same sketch ( the position of the galaxies) in the future.
• IMO a second reason is that if you study the Micro Wave Background radiation from a fixed point in this sketch you will not observe Velocity relative to CMB anisotropy
• The third reason is as a base point to study Special Relativity.

Astronomy & Mercury

One of my main interests in Astronomy are the movements of planets in our Solar System around the Sun. Specific the movement of the Planet Mercury and what is involved if you want to simulate this.
In order to simulate two things of almost equal importance are:

1. Observations i.e. the positions of the planets involved over a certain period of time
2. A Model or algorithm in order to calculate the future positions.

One of the easiest algorithms to be used is Newton's Law.
If you want to simulate the positions of planets of our Solar system using Newton's Law 2 things are important:

1. Initial conditions of all the planets and the Sun. This are the positions and velocities of each at a certain moment t0.
2. The masses of each.

The question is how do you calculate those ?

The answer is "simple" by using Newton's Law and by using the observations.

In practice this is not so simple.
If you start from scratch, you begin with the Sun and 1 planet and you make an estimate of the initial conditions of both objects and of both masses. You calculate the positions and an overall error compared with the observations. You repeat the process for example 10 times and you search from those solutions the one with the smallest error
Next you include planet #2 and you repeat the whole process. You calculate an error each time and you search the solution with the smallest error. Next you include planet #3 etc untill all are done.
Now you have the best estimates of all the initial conditions and masses which closest match observation and you are ready to calculate the positions of any moment in the future.

Newton's Law

• First during such a long trip the Sun can encounter and be influenced by different stars. This in turn can influence the planet Mercury.
• Let us exclude this and replace the whole galaxy as one Mass in the centre.
• What we get is a system which is equivalent to a Sun, Earth and Moon configuration. With the Sun being our Galaxy etc.
• The issue is the gravitational fields involved. There are three types: One from the Galaxy, One from the Sun and one from "The planets"
• The center of gravitational field of our Galaxy is considered fixed. That means the direction of the gravitational field from the Galaxy (As observed bij the Sun) always points to the center of the Galaxy.
• The center of the gravitational field of the Sun is not fixed, because the Sun moves in our Galaxy. As such the direction of the gravitational field from the Sun (As observed bij the planets) does not point to the direction of the present position of the Sun but to a point in the past.
• A similar problem exists if you consider the Moon which turns around our Earth.

The effect that the direction of the gravitational field does not point to the present position but to the past is identical as why we see the position (obseved from the Earth) of the Sun in the past.

The issue is are the speeds of both effects identical? Light is propagated by photons. The gravitational force is propagated by gravitons. Are those speeds identical ? Why should they be ? What is the physical relation between both concepts ? None ?
That is my opinion.

The interesting part is it is relatif easy to make a simulation of The planet Mercury including the famous 43 arcsec movement when you assume that the speed of gravitation is 100 * c and when you take the speed of the Sun into consideration.
What you can learn from such an exercise that this 43 arcsec angle is not constant.

Special Relativity

Why is this sketch so important to study Special Relativity ? IMO there are many reasons.

• First of all what does this sketch represents ?
  More or less the same as I have identified in My"Historical Overview #1"
  What you see is a 3D grid of fixed length rods. At each of the cross sections of those rods there is a clock. All the clocks run symultaneous.
  What is important: there are no moving clocks involved.
• Does that mean that you can not study the behaviour of moving clocks using this sketch ?
  Of course you can. IMO a moving clock is equivalent as a moving a object. What will happen if you move a clock through this maze it will run slower compared with a fixed clock. For example cesium clocks as part of GPS systems wil run slower.
• What about Length Contraction ?
  IMO there is no length contraction in this frame.
  In fact there are two types of length contraction with a moving rod:
  1. The rod moves in a straight line. Suppose the rod at rest has the same length as the distance between two grid points. There are also two lights at each grid point. Suppose there is an observer halfway between the two grid-points/lights. Length contraction implies that the observer should see both light simultaneous (when the rod is inbetween those two lights). IMO it does not happen.
  2. The rod moves in a circle. Again no length contraction wil be observed. In fact I raised this same question in many occasions with in "audience" in favour of length contraction. The responds was: No answer.
• What about mass ?
  Accordingly to SR the mass of a moving object is not constant.
  
• This raises a serious problem: How is the mass established in the first place ?
  Under Newton's Law, each (moving) object has a fixed mass. This mass is calculated by applying Newton's Law using a set of observations as previous discussed.
  Under SR is object has a rest mass. How this rest mass is calculated for the planets is not known.
  It should be pointed out that the mass of an object under Newton is different compared to Einstein.

For a discussion in Usenet about this topic see: CBR Rest Frame, Special Relativity and the Twin Paradox

Light

How important is Light ?
In fact there are two questions:

• How important is light as a physical phenomena.
• How important is light as a tool to describe the physical reality.

Light is Electric radiation with a certain frequency created by certain (chemical) reactions.
IMO from a physical point of view it is of average importance. From a human point of view it is of immence importance, because, described by the concept of evolution, we have eyes in order to see.

The second question is much more difficult.
First a slightly different questions: Should the descriptions of Nature (ie the laws of Nature) be any different if there were no human beings (or if human beings would have no eyes)?
IMO not. The laws of nature are completely independent of humans.
On the other hand I have the feeling that the concept of light (the speed of light) is not always used correct. Of course we have laws which describe the physical behaviour of light and photons direct. Those laws are not under discussion.
Also we use light to observe astronomical objects. As such we need the speed of light in order to convert all observations to one particular reference frame.
What is not clear to me that we need the speed of light in order to describe the behaviour of the objects in one particular reference frame such as the one shown in Enceclopaedia Galactica
To be more specific why should the speed of the gravitons be identical as the speed of the photons ?

Teleportation

The most recent discussion is about Teleportation i.e. Quantum Mechanics.
My interest comes from two questions:

1. How is it possible that two highly respected scientist could have a disagreement about a subject that apparently both could not solve.
2. What is the current position of the scientific community. Who is right: Einstein or Bohr ?

The current solution comes from the Bell Inequalities, named after John Bell.
Common understanding is that if you perform an experiment and the outcome is in agreement with the Bell Inequalities than EPR is correct, otherwise it is quantum mechanics and Niels Bohr wins.
Current experiments by Alain Aspect are in disagreement with the Bell Inequalities. As a consequence Albert Einstein is wrong.

I have great doubts. Specific how you can mathematical demonstrate how physics works. Specific to make a distinction between local and non local.

IMO you can only demonstrate that by performing experiments.
and I think that that is not possible.

I have also doubt that certain experiments demonstrate that teleportation is involved.
Specific I advise the reader to study the experiments using domino pieces: Question 6: Teleportation in slow motion

Dark Matter

In Historical Overview #1 Dark matter was indicated as an issue but no details were shown.

The concept of Dark matter is introduced to match physical behaviour with calculated bahaviour. The two different areas to study that require Dark Matter are: Galaxies and the Universe.

• The whole discussion about dark matter in Galaxies should start with an estimation how much visible (normal) matter there is in a Galaxy.
  
• It is clear that if you put all the mass of one Galaxy in one point that the resulting Galaxy Rotation Curve does not match observations.
  
• In fact such a rotation curve matches the rotation curve of Our Solar system.
  
• On the other hand if you look to the rim of the visible disk of a Galaxy and you observe that the stars at the rim have a clear rotation speed (not equal to zero) it is rather simple to assume that there is no normal matter outside that rim consisting of smaller objects.
• In fact there can be many small objects scattered through the whole galaxies, making the whole concept of a "new" form of matter rather speculatif.

Literature - Comments

• 11 June 2009 Existence of collisional trajectories of Mercury, Mars and Venus with the Earth
• 2 April 2009 Dark matter and dark energy

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