Room-temperature superconductivity?

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

happyjack27 wrote:
tomclarke wrote: Students don't make connections when learning stuff: they are just not good at it till third year uni (and some don't learn even by then). But good ones do.
oh my god i certainly hope that is not true, that sounds just awful! developmentally speaking a person's brain develops that ability in their early teens. by then their brain is fully capable of doing that kind of thinking and as ready as it will ever be. to think that it lies dormant for another ten years in an entire population out of mere choice is just unfathomable!

if what you say is true then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with our education system and/or culture.
All these things are relative. But in science subjects "good" unis tend to teach a very large amount of theory, new math, concepts, etc. It is examined in a very concentrated way, much of this is bookwork and the ability to understand (enough) and do complex math.

these things need to be taught, you can't do proper science or engineering without them. But the intensity does not leave much time to reflect, do design work, see that the 8 different subjects you have just learnt all have some similar core concepts.

But as students learn more they begin to make the connections until at the end they can think in a much more complete way. Even then, they may not be much good at design work...

CaptainBeowulf
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Post by CaptainBeowulf »

Both sides of the argument have an internal logic but the satellite clock data which ladajo has repeatedly posted appears to agree with the mainstream interpretation of both GR and SR, including time dilation. There seems little point in continuing the debate of the last several pages (we know the two positions; either both twins experiences are symmetrical in terms of movement vis-a-vis each other or else their relative movement, as in Minkowski space diagrams, results in different elapsed proper time, as also represented by the Doppler effect changes in the light pulses sent). I also appreciate the detail everyone has gone to - it's been very interesting. However, Johan, if you feel you are correct can you explain how we would have come to the right conclusions for the wrong reasons in terms of the clock adjustments for both SR and GR in the satellites.

Edit: I believe you commented once or twice on why you think the satellites clock adjustments are as they are about a dozen pages ago, but it was a side-topic and didn't seem fully addressed.
Last edited by CaptainBeowulf on Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

CaptainBeowulf
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Post by CaptainBeowulf »

But as students learn more they begin to make the connections until at the end they can think in a much more complete way. Even then, they may not be much good at design work...
Agreeing with Tom on this one. Quite frankly, some things I learned in undergrad only finally made sense when I was writing my Phd dissertation. It has nothing to do with the fact that a person's brain develops the ability to make connections in their early teens (in fact I think this also depends on the person - I think some very young children already have that ability while others take until their teens to develop it). It has to do with amassing knowledge and experience to the point where you have the perspective to make connections.

Higher education fails when it produces academics who lack the ability to achieve meaningful real-world understanding. That's why in some cases people with little to no formal education who've worked in fields for years have to on occasion correct university grads. But that's not what Tom is talking about.

I personally do not doubt that if we could live for hundreds of years (in a healthy, relatively youthful state, not extended geriatrics) many of us would make many more connections and discoveries than we currently will, because we would have time to achieve even more perspective.

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

CaptainBeowulf wrote:
Agreeing with Tom on this one. Quite frankly, some things I learned in undergrad only finally made sense when I was writing my Phd dissertation. It has nothing to do with the fact that a person's brain develops the ability to make connections in their early teens (in fact I think this also depends on the person - I think some very young children already have that ability while others take until their teens to develop it). It has to do with amassing knowledge and experience to the point where you have the perspective to make connections.

I personally do not doubt that if we could live for hundreds of years (in a healthy, relatively youthful state, not extended geriatrics) many of us would make many more connections and discoveries than we currently will, because we would have time to achieve even more perspective.
Yes that's how I've perceived it too. Alphabet soup effect. Lots of uncoordinated bits of knowledge until the bits grow and start touching each other. And then you start having eureka moments as it all (or most of it anyway) comes together.

johanfprins
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Post by johanfprins »

ladajo wrote:Johan,
Can I simply that to say that you mean that Dilation occurs only in the presence of Acell, Decell, or Gravity? And that your entire point is that during the phase of travel at constant speed, there is no rate difference?
My point is that the Lorentz transformation is only valid for a linear relative speed. The word relative is very important here since it means that this speed is not measured from a third reference frame, but only from one of the two inertial reference frames that are moving relative to one another. Owing to this relativistic symmetry either one of the two inertial refrence frames can be used as the stationary one since the Lorentz transformation gives the same results using either one of the reference frames. If you want to argue that one of the reference frames can be chosen as "different" from the other as tomclarke is arguing you are arguing about physics that is not modelled by the Lorentz transformation and is therefore not part of the Special theory of Relativity.

According to Tom's so-called diagrams he used one inertial reference frame (K) as the stationary one, then argues that the other reference frame (Kp)moves away, stops instantaneously and then moves back; and therefore the twin in Kp is now younger. But since we only have the Lorentz transformation, and since the Lorentz transformation is symmetric BECAUSE the speed v is relative, Tom could just as well have chosen inertial reference frame Kp as stationary and generated an alternative rubbish diagram to show that it is reference frame K that moves away, stops instantaneously, and returns; so that now it is the twin in K that is younger. The Lorentz transformation does not distinguish between these two possibilities, and therefore the one twin cannot be younger than the other when only Special Relativity applies.

In my analysis I went into even more detail, and showed that when the two twins send light pulses to one another when their clocks read the same time on their dials, the clocks must keep the same time rate for the whole journey and thus when at starting off they are synchronised, they must still be synchronized at the end of the journey if the Lorentz transformation is correct.
If this is correct, then could we run an experiment with a centrifuge where we measure the rate of change in the clock rate during spin up, at speed, and spin down? Although my initial take thinks that angular momentum would apply.
Since the Lorentz transformation is only valid for linear motion"
In thinking about the orbiting satellites, that would mean also that incurred SR is merely a component of the angular momentum.
Correct when it comes to linear and rotational motion one has to be very careful. It has happened far to often in modern physics that the two are equated to be the same when they are not. They are never the same! As an aside: It is this same same mistake that Feynman has made with his paths-over-history interepretation of electron waves, and this has led to the wrong interpretation for the Aharanov-Bohm effect, as well as for Josephson tunnelling.
So what we really need is a comparison of a non-orbit clock, like the one on a transiting space craft not in orbit, nor in a course correction cycle?
Correct! But to compare a clock on a linear journey with a clock that stayed behind, the clock that at first moves away must decelerate. Special Relativity says nothing about clock rates during acceleratiion. Einstein's General Relativity assumes that this deceleration acts like gravity and this will time-dilate the clock. In fact, this was also Einstein's explanation why the returning twin will be younger. But if this is the reason, the age difference is caused solely by the deceleration, and NOT by the legs of the journey when there is no acceleration. This is also what I directly derived by applying the Lorentz transformation during thes legs of the journey. Each twin sees a time dilation on the other twin's clock, while in reality the two clocks keep synchronous time all the time.

Although Einstein claimed that normal acceleration (not involving an actual gravity field) is the exact same as gravity, this has never really been experimentally satisfactorily verified. This is why I have proposed the "loom-shuttle" experiment where a shutlle made of a radio-active material is launched to and fro, and after many such inear trips, compared with an identical radio-active shuttle that stayed behind. Since the shuttle is impulse-launched and stopped with each cycle, it will travel most of the time with a constant speed relative to the shuttle that stayed behind. One can then clearly separate the total time spent when accelerating and decelerating and the total time spent travelling with the same constant speed, and calculate the expected time dilations for the two types of linear motion. Note that the field of gravity does not change and you do not have rotational motion.

There will be three possibilities:

1. Time dilation will be measured for both the lineaer motion described by Special Relativity and for acceleration and decelleration as if these stages are equivalent to gravity (as toclarke will probably argue).

2. No time dilation will be measured for the linear motion described by Special Relativity but only for acceleration and decelleration as if these stages are equivalent to gravity (as Einstein has argued).

3. No time dilation will be measured for both the linear motion described by Special Relativity and also not for acceleration and deceleration as if these stages are equivalent to gravity.

I suspect that no. 3 will be correct result.

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Thanks for your answers (again).
So really the core of the entire discussion centers on whether SR Dilation is a function of the Accell/Decell cycles (which implies it is directly related to GR), or that it is function of purely the difference in velocity.

My take is that the outstanding question, which I have not been able to find an experiment or data yet that clearly points to an answer, is whether SR Dilation continues when at constant speed in an absence of any accellerational component.

We, to date, seem to have lots of work that appears to always include some sort of accelleration component.

I also think that it would not be neccessary to bring the clocks back together to compare. If we can isolate a clock to its rate component while at a constant V, with no accelleration component, and signal this rate externally, it will tell us what we are looking for.

My take right now, is that it would also seem the the Lorentz Transformations seem to be a way to calculate the "SR" component by mathmatically arrving at potentially the same answer as the Accell and Decell components required to get the speed difference.

This line of thinking in my mind says that it is key to see if the SR Dilation remains when the clock is at speed, but with absolutely no accelleration component.
On these logical lines it makes more sense that the SR component would exist only during the rate of change build up, constant accell, and then rate of change removal back to a state of constant speed where the SR Dilation no longer occurs.

Thus, on this reasoning, the "Heart of the Matter" would be "Does SR Dilation continue when a clock is at a constant speed with no accelleration component?" and the answer is one of two possible; "We may not actually know yet" or "Experiments and data <insert refs here> indicate <choose yes/no here>".

I do not mean to be pedantic or repetative in any way, I am merely seeking to boil this down to the root issue in a clear manner. This also helps me understand better.

Thank you all for your patience with me in this.

happyjack27
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Post by happyjack27 »

CaptainBeowulf wrote:....However, Johan, if you feel you are correct can you explain how we would have come to the right conclusions for the wrong reasons in terms of the clock adjustments for both SR and GR in the satellites.
if i may say something to this regard, you didn't "come to any conclusions", you simply posted a chart you found on the internet. and likewise thus the reason this chart is "right" is because the person / people _WHO MADE IT_ happened to know ENOUGH to make an accurate chart in this regard.

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

I found this recent experiment very interesting:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 2611000210

Hmm.

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

And this one which I think is along the lines of Johan's proposed experiment:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5999/1630.short

happyjack27
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Post by happyjack27 »

ladajo wrote:I found this recent experiment very interesting:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 2611000210

Hmm.
omg, they're confirming hyptohesis regarding the speed of light with advanced scientific equipment, and they post their images to the internet as DITHERED GIFS?!?!

johanfprins
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Post by johanfprins »

ladajo wrote:Thanks for your answers (again).
So really the core of the entire discussion centers on whether SR Dilation is a function of the Accell/Decell cycles (which implies it is directly related to GR), or that it is function of purely the difference in velocity.
The SR dilation cannot be a function of the Accel/Decel cycles since the Lorentz transformation has ONLY been derived for constant LINEAR, RELATIVE speeds v and -v.
My take is that the outstanding question, which I have not been able to find an experiment or data yet that clearly points to an answer, is whether SR Dilation continues when at constant speed in an absence of any accellerational component.
SR dilation is real WITHIN THE REFRENCE FRAME OF THE OTHER TWIN, NOT ON THE CLOCK OF THE TWIN FROM WHICH THE TIME DILATION IS CALCULATED INTO THE REFRENCE FRAME OF THE OTHER TWIN. THUS, ALTHOUGH EACH TWIN WILL CONCLUDE THAT THE OTHER TWIN'S CLOCK IS GOING SLOWER, THIS NOT REALLY OCCURRING ON THE CLOCK OF THE OTHER TWIN. BOTH CLOCKS KEEP EXACTLY THE SAME SYNCHRONIZED TIME WITHIN THEIR OWN INERTIAL REFERENCE FRAMES.

Thus, if you do an experiment where muons move relative to you at high speed you will conclude that the muons live longer than a stationary muon within your reference frame: However, within the reference frame that the moving muons are (at rest), their clock keeps exactly the same synchronized time as your clock. This means that if the clock travelling with the muons have been synchronised at any time with your clock the two clocks will at any instant in time on either one of them show the same time within their own inertial refrence frames. What is so difficult in undersatnding this?
I also think that it would not be neccessary to bring the clocks back together to compare. If we can isolate a clock to its rate component while at a constant V, with no accelleration component, and signal this rate externally, it will tell us what we are looking for.
This is exactly what I have done in my derivations above and the Lorentz transformation proves impeccably that the two clocks must stay synchronised for the WHOLE journey and will show exactly the same time at the end of the journey. As I have said over and over again, if the two clocks show different times at the end of the journey owing to linear motions relative to one another, the Lorentz transformation must be wrong!
My take right now, is that it would also seem the the Lorentz Transformations seem to be a way to calculate the "SR" component by mathmatically arrving at potentially the same answer as the Accell and Decell components required to get the speed difference.
There is no Lorentz transformation for accel/decel: So SR has NOTHING to say about accel/decel at present.
Thus, on this reasoning, the "Heart of the Matter" would be "Does SR Dilation continue when a clock is at a constant speed with no accelleration component?" and the answer is one of two possible; "We may not actually know yet" or "Experiments and data <insert refs here> indicate <choose yes/no here>".

I do not mean to be pedantic or repetative in any way, I am merely seeking to boil this down to the root issue in a clear manner. This also helps me understand better.
Time dilation AND LENGTTH dilation is observed within your reference frame when light speed is involved, while it DOES not occur within the moving reference frame.
Thank you all for your patience with me in this.
Thanks!

happyjack27
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Post by happyjack27 »

i can say that in my nbody polywell simulations, i took SR into account by converting to "proper inertia" via a function based on the lorentz transform before doing the force/acceleration calculations (F=ma, a=F/m, v=v+a*dt...), and then converted it back via the function's inverse. this worked very nicely as it took very few cpu cycles, and with those few cycles i could now brag about how my simulation is so awesome that even particles traveling at relativistic velocities are modeled correctly!

an observer at rest would see this as it taking more force to do the same acceleration as the particle approached the speed of light. thus, they might think the particle was gaining mass. but if they had converted to proper inertia before doing the calculations, they would see that the mass had in fact stayed constant.

on a side note, if the particle were in fact going exactly the speed of light, that would introduce a zero in the denominator, and thus its mass could no longer be mathematically determined. no surprise then, that we measure the mass-energy of photons by their wavelength. this is in a sense the renormalized version of "mass" at light speed. notice then that when a photon decays into an electron and a positron it gets its mass back, such that the total mass-energy of the products is exactly equal to that of the source.

johanfprins
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Post by johanfprins »

happyjack27 wrote:i can say that in my nbody polywell simulations, i took SR into account by converting to "proper inertia" via a function based on the lorentz transform before doing the force/acceleration calculations (F=ma, a=F/m, v=v+a*dt...), and then converted it back via the function's inverse. this worked very nicely as it took very few cpu cycles, and with those few cycles i could now brag about how my simulation is so awesome that even particles traveling at relativistic velocities are modeled correctly!

an observer at rest would see this as it taking more force to do the same acceleration as the particle approached the speed of light. thus, they might think the particle was gaining mass. but if they had converted to proper inertia before doing the calculations, they would see that the mass had in fact stayed constant.
Just an idea: I think that one should always distinguish between "rest mass m(0)" and dynamic mass m. So I assume that you have concluded that rest mass m(0) stayed the same. There is, however, a possibility that as an electron (for example) approches light speed, its rest mass m(0) might approach zero.
on a side note, if the particle were in fact going exactly the speed of light, that would introduce a zero in the denominator, and thus its mass could no longer be mathematically determined. no surprise then, that we measure the mass-energy of photons by their wavelength. this is in a sense the renormalized version of "mass" at light speed. notice then that when a photon decays into an electron and a positron it gets its mass back, such that the total mass-energy of the products is exactly equal to that of the source.
Wonderful logic!! You are definitely thinking like a real physicist ought to think; and thus standing out like a shining beacon amongst the mediocre masses of mainstream physicists (especially theoretical physicists) who think that mathematical singularities actually model Nature. My contention is that Nature hates actual singularities and, even when mathematics throws them up, Nature will find a way for them NOT to physically really manifest; but not through mathematical Voodoo like renormalisation.

I found that there is no stronger force that unifies mankind than mediocrity. If you try and shake off the latter albatros, you are immediately viciously attacked. But do not let this put you off: You are on the right track! Congraulations!

kcdodd
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Post by kcdodd »

Rest mass cannot change by definition in SR. Rest mass is just whatever the mass is in the rest frame. It can't be different just by looking at it from another frame. I don't suddenly change mass because someone looked at me from a spaceship passing by. You go on pages arguing that physics has to be the same in all frames and then say something like that.

In SR E^2 - p^2*c^2 = m^2*c^4 = invariant for all frames. Which gives the For a photon of course: E^2 - p^2*c^2 = 0.
Carter

johanfprins
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Post by johanfprins »

kcdodd wrote:Rest mass cannot change by definition in SR. Rest mass is just whatever the mass is in the rest frame. It can't be different just by looking at it from another frame. I don't suddenly change mass because someone looked at me from a spaceship passing by. You go on pages arguing that physics has to be the same in all frames and then say something like that.

In SR E^2 - p^2*c^2 = m^2*c^4 = invariant for all frames. Which gives the For a photon of course: E^2 - p^2*c^2 = 0.
I agree that you are making a good point. But I believe that there is something missing in our physics. To argue any point in physics by stating that "it is per definiotion so" is stating that a definition is more important than what Nature is trying to tell us. It is also quite a viable definition to state that the "earth is per definition stationary". Many physics problems are solved by using this "definition"; which is really an "assumption" that works when solving many mechanical problems.

The fact is that the concept of rest mass can "per definition" not change is most probably not correct. This concept comes from the idea that matter with mass ("a particle like an electron") behaves differently from an electron-wave and we can only understand it by assuming that God has created this duality without wanting us to understand why Nature acts in this manner. It is my contention that as soon as you reason in this manner in physics (as introduced by Bohr, Heisenbergh and Born) you are steering physics away from science to become a superstition.

By your own derivation above, we do agree that a light wave moving through space with speed c has no rest mass. Why has it got no rest mass? The most obvious explanation is that it is always moving with speed c relative to any intertial reference frame. But you can stop a light wave to become a standing wave within an inertial refrence frame. It's energy is then not moving with momentum p=E/c anymore, so that p in your equation above becomes zero! But the light wave still has energy E which now does not manifest as momentum at all. Thus according to your own equation above this energy is now m*c^2. The light now has rest mass.

Now assume that an electron wave is a standing wave within the inertial reference frame in which it has rest mass. Since it is a lowest energy localised wave, its phase angle is totally in phase at every position within this standing wave. But when yo "look" at this wave from another inertial reference frame, this wave is moving relative to you and is now a running wave. To model this running wave you must use the Lorentz transformation to transform the standing wave into being a running wave. And when you use this, you find that the length of the wave increases and the phase angle now changes with position along the direction in which the wave moves so that the wavelength is the de Broglie wavelength: i.e. the transformed wave is not a standing wave anymore but is is now a coherent running wave that can diffract.

Since the intensity of the wave is its energy, the standing electron wave must within its own inertial refrence frame have an intensity determined by its rest mass. It thus has a centre-of-mass. When you view this wave from another reference frame, its energy is higher so that it has a higher mass-energy: But it still has a centre of mass. Therefore this centre-of-mass follows aclassical path even though the electron is now a coherent running wave that will diffract when it encounters a diffraction apparatus. Does the concept of rest mass still apply in this case?.

Furthermore, a free electron has a minimum energy given by its rest mass. When the electron bonds with a proton to form a hydrogen atom its energy must become less than this minimum free energy. Thus, its rest masss energy MUST decrease. Now what happyjack has posted, is also the problem I am working on: The possibility that when an electron approaches light speed its mass energy does not become "infinity" but the electron becomes more like a light wave that has no rest mass energy.

I think that I can derive this directly from Maxwell's equations that it must be so, and also derive a "Schroedinger equation" which is more general in that it does not require rest mass as an input parameter. After all "rest mass" must be the solution of such an equation for a free electron that is stationary.

Just a few ideas which might, and I believe will, return physics to reality and stop us looking for a Higgs boson in order to explain mass energy. Mass energy is naturally there when an electromagnetic wave moves slower than the speed of light c. The equation you used above is totally commensurate with this conclusion.

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