Talk-Polywell.org

*

http://www.ecnmag.com/News/Feeds/2010/1 ... ativity%2f

*

The full 11 pages article is available here:

http://www.aphysrev.org/index.php/aphys ... ad/369/175

Happy reading.

I'm having a look. I believe Feynman did something similar based on the radiated field from a moving electron. i.e. photons. So this may be a new way of looking at an old idea.

What everybody is dancing around here is that relativity describes what object A looks like from reference frame B, not what properties object A actually has. The underlying fundamental assumption, not often overtly stated, is that you can see object A from reference frame B.

The implication from the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction factors going not-real for velocities above speed-of-light, is "you can't see object A", not that "object A cannot travel that fast". That's what a not-real result usually means when you solve an equation: one of your underlying assumptions was wrong.

Yep, we really can fly faster than light. Nope we don't know how to do it, yet. And, without some better physics theories, navigation is going to be hell.

So if someone were to construct a tube and pulls it down to absolute zero and evacuates it, then electrons could be sent down it at greater than light speed?

Cobblers.......

It is so obviously flawed that the thing I totally despair over is that these folks actually have careers and are getting paid for such things!!

Think about it, people!!!... Take a super TeV accelerator and throw a given current, I, of electrons down it at near light speed. Now keep everything else equal and stick 2I of electrons down it. They should now go twice as fast, nearly 2c, if their previous speed limit was being caused by a finite and otherwise identical amount of ambient EM energy to the first case!

A given amount of ambient EM energy will have a given effect on particles running through it, so they should have half the per-particle effect for twice the number! Where does the extra EM energy come from, co-incidentally with the extra particle numbers???!?

I thank the many people who have commented on the press release. I would like to make a single response to a number of posts on the following websites:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-rel ... ogist.html
http://www.parascientifica.com/forums/v ... =23&t=6659
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2994086
http://204.74.214.194/forum1/message1264746/pg1
viewtopic.php?p=51584&sid=1fa39d95e50ec ... ef8af43ac3
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.news ... Light.html

I think you will see that I have definite and convincing responses to the comments that challenge my theory:

There have been a number of comments that relate to the suggestion that the reason that charged particles cannot exceed the speed of light is because the mass becomes infinite. Currently, major proponents of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity claim that mass is not velocity-dependent but invariant. For example, N. David Mermin writes in, It’s About Time. Understanding Einstein’s Relativity (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2005, see p. 153):

“As so defined, the mass of a particle continues to be an inherent property of the particle, having nothing to do with how fast the particle might be moving in other collisions in which it might subsequently find itself. It is an invariant, independent of frame of reference. If there were a particle whose mass were not invariant, then we could distinguish one inertial frame from another by performing in each frame a low-velocity collision that determined the mass of the particle. (In the early days of relativity, it was sometimes the practice to give a different relativistic definition of mass that made the mass of a particle depend on its velocity. Compensating changes were made in relativistic definitions of energy and momentum so that those expressions were the same as those we shall now construct. Today, however, the mass of a particle is always defined to be independent of its velocity.)”

In the following pages of chapter eleven, Mermin explains that while the mass is invariant, at speeds close to the speed of light, the relativistic momentum is velocity dependent as a result of the relativity of time and the necessity of using the time as reckoned in the particle’s inertial frame of reference. I want to be clear that I think that it is neither the relativity of mass nor the relativity of time that prevents charged particles from exceeding the speed of light. I claim that it is the counterforce provided by the Doppler-shifted photons that prevent charged particles from exceeding the speed of light. The only time that is relevant is that reckoned by the observer doing the experiment (not the time of the particle in the experiment nor the time of an non-existent aether).

There have been a number of comments that suggest that light/photons/electromagnetic waves are mass-less and thus do not have momentum. They do. J. H. Pointing described light pressure in The Pressure of Light (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1910). Here at Cornell University, E. F. Nichols and G. F Hull measured the pressure of radiation (Physical Review 17: 26-50, 91-104, 1903). In 1908, Johannes Stark characterized the momentum of photons as h⁄λ (J. Stark, Neue Beobachtungen an Kanalstrahlen in Beziehung zur Lichtquantenhypothese, Verh d. Deuschen Physicalischen Gesellschaft 10:713-725, 1908) and in 1917 Einstein used the momentum of photons to craft his Quantum Theory of Radiation and Atomic Processes (A. Einstein, 1917, in The World of the Atom, eds. H.A. Boorse, L. Motz, Basic Books, New York 1966, p. 888-901). The Compton and Inverse Compton effects are best described by the exchange of momentum between photons and charged particles. I want to be clear in stating that light/photons/ electromagnetic waves have momentum.

I also refer you to my book, Light and Video Microscopy (Elsevier Academic Press, Amsterdam, 2009 where all royalties go to Habitat for Humanity) in which I describe the use of optical tweezers to probe the mechanical nature of cells (p. 199). In the appendix of this book, I present a model of the photon (pp. 277-284). In this model, the photon, which has momentum, is not an elementary particle, but a composite made of two particles such that the sum of the masses equal zero.

There have been a number of comments that the interaction between a photon and an atom is conservative and that the particle should not change its velocity after the interaction. This is only true under the assumption that there is no friction. I think I have clearly showed that, as a result of the Doppler effect, at any temperature greater than absolute zero, the radiation that particles move through will result in a counterforce, friction, a viscous force or a dissipation of energy; however you wish to quantify it. Book One of the Principia, which presents Newton’s Three Laws, assumes that there is no friction. Book Two, which is, rarely read, cited or contemplated, discusses that in the real world there is friction that must be taken into consideration. If Book Two had not been forgotten, it would have served as the basis for understanding motion at velocities close to the speed of light. Some comments state that according to my analysis, all particles will slow down and according to my theory, Newton’s First Law would not be absolutely correct. I believe that Newton’s First Law is only absolutely valid at absolute zero, which is unattainable according to the Third Law of Thermodynamics (http://th-www.if.uj.edu.pl/acta/vol41/t11.htm reference 131). Some comments state that according to my theory particles could exceed the speed of light at absolute zero. My theory however, is based on the Laws of Thermodynamics that state that absolute zero is unattainable.

There are comments that my theory applies only to electrons. This is not true it applies to any charged particle, any particle that is composed of charged quarks, and any neutral particle that has a magnetic moment (neutron or neutrino (footnote 132 in http://th-www.if.uj.edu.pl/acta/vol41/t11.htm). That is, it applies to any particle that interacts with electromagnetic radiation.

There have been comments concerning the fact that I am a biologist and that I am using that experience to help me see physics differently. In order to find more information of the historical and productive relationships between biology, chemistry and physics, I refer you to my book: Plant Cell Biology from Astronomy to Zoology (Elsevier Academic Press, Amsterdam, 2009—all royalties go to the Profile in Courage Award given by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation) and to my paper on charged particles (http://th-www.if.uj.edu.pl/acta/vol41/t11.htm).

There have been comments on the impact factor of the journals that published my work. If you are wondering why my paper on why charged particles cannot go faster than the speed of light was not published in the Annalen der Physik, the journal that published Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and the first journal I submitted my manuscript to, I give you the editor’s review:

Dear Prof. Wayne,

I have discussed you papers with some collegues. It seems to us that the derivations seem correct. We nevertheless prefer not to publish the articles in Annalen der Physik. We suggest to publish them in a different more suitable journal.

Best wishes

Bernhard Kramer
(11/5/08)

Annalen der Physik also rejected my manuscript on the relativity of Simultaneity (which was recently published in the African Physical Review http://www.aphysrev.org/index.php/aphysrev). Here is their response:

Dear Professor Wayne,
I am sorry but this manuscript -- like previous ones submitted to Annalen -- is not acceptable for publication in this journal. You must know that SRT has been treated in numerous theoretical papers and books, and confirmed in many experiments beyond any doubt. I enclose two papers published by us in 2005 which may be of interest for you. Hence I do not see any need for a discussion like the one you are providing.
Best regards
Ulrich Eckern
Editor in Chief (9/26/09)

I suggested to the editor that the real value of science, according to Richard Feynman, is the freedom to doubt.

I have been called a crank and a crackpot. “The Crackpot Index,” was published by the mathematical physicist John Baez (1998) as an instrument to provide “A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html),” and, in an article commemorating the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, theoretical physicist Clifford M. Will (in Einstein 1905-2005, Poincare ́ Seminar 2005, Birkha ̈user Verlag, Basel, 2006) wrote, “we see that the theory has been so thoroughly integrated into the fabric of modern physics that its validity is rarely challenged, except by cranks and crackpots (http://physics.wustl.edu/cmw/index.html).” I assure you that I am neither a crackpot nor a crank.

Cornell University and the person in the Press Relations Office who wrote the press release as well as Acta Physica Polonica B and the reviewers of my paper have been attacked in various posts. It is possible that given the probability of being attacked for supporting and publishing something so different they have showed courage and a certain amount of charity. I thank them.

It is very good that you post in response. However, I'd just like a reply to my point, that if it were so then you should be able to take a particle beam to saturation, with respect to this theory, such that there can only be a finite amount of radiation slowing particles down, so if you put enough particles in then they'll start going faster than the speed of light.

But you arguments here seem to focus on discrediting existing theories, rather than extolling your own (such as explaining why this effect is not variable, with respect to particle beam current and local temperature).

Put it another way; there are other theories that explain why we observe nothing travelling faster than light, and so criticizing the current paradigm is fair enough, but it does not add to the substantiation of your own theory, unless you seek to overturn all other current theories and prove it by the law of Sherlock Homes [Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth]

The test of my theory is to see if the impulse necessary to accelerate electrons to a given velocity is temperature dependent. I predict that the greater the ambiant temperature in the accelerator, the greater the counterforce produced by the Doppler-shifted photons and consequently the greater the impulse necessary to accelerate the electrons to the given velocity.

By neglecting the thermodynamic environment through which the electrons travel, the Special Theory of Relativity makes no predictions about the effect of the temperature of the environment.

While this is how to distinguish the two theories dynamically, I also present a way to distinguish the two theories kinematically. Look at the paper in the African Physical Review. It shows that the Special Theory of Relativity is sufficient but not necessary to explain the relativity of simultaniety. Thus I present a kinematic and a dynamic argument that the Special Theory of Relativity is sufficient but not necessary. After doing the experiment proposed above, we will see if the Special Theory of Relativity is sufficient to explain the experimental results!

My feeling is that this is already well-proven, because accelerators already operate at -270C (liquid He cooled bending magnets) and a vacuum of 10^-12 torr, yet no matter how high the luminosity of the beams (between different accelerators in different countries, LHC being now the highest illuminating device) they all top out at c.

This is my point, it is already known that if you put a given current of charged particles at near absolute zero through an accelerator, the max speed is not dependent on the particle current. You can sit there all day winding the beam current up and down, yet they still all get up to the same speed. Your theory needs to explain this, because I do not see how it follows at all as there is only a finite amount of radiation present in those accelerator tubes, sot heir effect should be proportionate wrt beam current.

While some accelereators run at 2.7 K (e.g. Jefferson Lab LINAC), others run at 300 K (Stanford LINAC). Accelerator operatirs at the two labs could compare their electric bills and see which one is more efficient...although I would prefer to see a dedicated experiment--even using the simple setup used by William Bertozzi!

I don't understand the connection between efficiency of acceleration, and maximum speed.

OK, so let us take, as accepted, the notion that particles will experience a retarding photonic pressure, and, thus, will experience more of it at higher temperatures. Why does this have a bearing on their upper most permissible speed?

We are talking about the maximum attainable speeds between two accelerators, and your claim appear to be that the maximum speeds would be different between two different accelerators. Am I misunderstanding your thesis in some way? OK, so if ambient accelerator A is more inefficient than superconducting B and uses twice as much energy, are you saying that if you actually put in 3 times as much energy into the beams in A then the particles should still go faster in A?

I claim that the maximum speeds would be the same, but the accelerator will be less efficient at higher temperatures as a result of the counterforce provided by the increase in Doppler-shifted photons. This is a result of the increase in photon density at higher temperatures.

RandyWayne wrote:I claim that the maximum speeds would be the same, but the accelerator will be less efficient at higher temperatures as a result of the counterforce provided by the increase in Doppler-shifted photons. This is a result of the increase in photon density at higher temperatures.

I've no argument with that. I don't think that conflicts with any current paradigms.

So I guess the next question is to understand why/whether you think those 'maximum speeds' (relative to lab-frame, of course) will be the same for two runs in the same accelerator for two beam currents of different intensity.

I don't know enough to answer your question. Sorry.

Did you not have an article called "Charged Particles Are Prevented From Going Faster Than the Speed of Light by Light Itself: A Biophysical Cell Biologist's Contribution to Physics"?

If so, then I would have expected your answer to be 'yes' and for you then to explain why you think a finite number of photons, each with a finite momentum, have the same decelerative effect on different numbers of particles such that, no matter how many charged particles there are, this finite number of photons restricts them to the same speed?