classical physics vs relativity: parallel electron beams

[Grits]

I'm not sure if you missed this post of mine...

Wow are you serious, did you just quote yourself and respond to yourself...wtf...am I missing something here...

[Physicist]

You attempted to belittle him, that was not simply a dismissal. And that it did not "make sense" (to you) may be a reflection of the training you have received.

I made no attacks. My comment was an observation which taken in context relates specifically to those who assert that black holes are beyond any reasonable doubt a reality, usually because they are not 'allowed' to think anything else.

Cheers, Dave.

Dave - I apologize if I gave the impression of belittling Mr Crothers.

No, that it did not "make sense" to me is not a reflection of the "training" I've receieved - it's a reflection of the fact that Mr Crothers implies in that paper that the distance between a point and itself is nonzero. Check it out yourself. It would be strange training indeed that led one to accept that conclusion!

1. 'supergravity' implies that 'normal' gravity is inadequate, so they gave it superpowers!

Mike - that's not actually the technical meaning of the phrase

We don't need to, we can study the effect on a smaller scale, since the effect is scalable.

Grits - suppose I can make a block of wood burn by heating it up to 500 Kelvin. Perhaps I can get a block of wood half that size to burn by heating it up to 250 Kelvin? Is that how your "scaling" thing works? I think you need to explain it to us more precisely.

[jjohnson]

@ Nereid,
You asked, "What are they (the laws governing electromagnetic forces)?"
Some, possibly many, plasma physics textbooks start out with just that discussion. I have but 5 because that's about all I can afford to own, but I wanted to look at them and draw comparisons and see where they overlap and where they could supplement each other.

E.g., Dr. A. Peratt's 1992 text, Physics of the Plasma Universe, SPringer Verlag, 1992, starts right in describing plasma in a cosmic context, stating, "While all matter is subject to gravitational forces, the positively charged nuclei, or ions, and the negatively charged electrons of plasmas react strongly to electromagnetic forces, as formulated by Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925), but now called Maxwell's Equations, after James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). "

Below this paragraph he lists the four differential equations that comprise Heaviside's simplified version of Maxwell's quaternion form, which had 20 equations with 20 unknowns, off-putting to all but the most ambitious mathematicians.
He goes on to add, "...and the equation of motion due to Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928):"

Dr. Paul Bellan (Prof. of Applied Physics at Cal Tech) in his graduate-level textbook, Fundamentals of Plasma Physics,Cambridge University Press, 2006, Starts not with those basic equations (assumed familiar to his readers from undergraduate courses) with a short history of the term "plasma" (from Irving Langmuir, Nobel winning chemist) and of plasma physics, including Alfvén's work with hydromagnetic waves (inventing MHD and getting the Nobel prize for that along the way) and his proposal that "these waves would be important in astrophysical plasmas." Bellan plunges right into Plasma Parameters such as particle density, temperature, magnetic field, Debye length, Larmor radius of charged particles' motion in a magnetic field and much more. On page 4 Dr. Bellan finishes up discussing the various examples of different types of plasmas, and outlines (1.5) the Logical framework of plasma physics. By page 5 Bellan has brought in the Lorentz equation and the Maxwell Equations and shows the interrelation between the two sets in his first figure 1.1.

J.A. Bittencourt, of the [Brazilian] National Institute for Space Research, Sāo Josédos Campos, Brazil, in his textbook (of the same name as Dr. Bellan's book) Fundamentals of Plasma Physics, 2004, Springer Science + Business Media. He intends his book for the advanced undergraduate to graduate student level, so he dives in by defining what a plasma is and notes (1.2) that Plasma is the fourth state of matter, and goes on to familiarize his students with some basic plasma phenomena and the factors that control its peculiar behavior. Bittencourt introduces charged particles and electric potentials on a sphere, and even Debye shielding concepts, next, and diagrams the interplanetary magnetic field in the ecliptic plane. In 5.1, General Considerations on a Self-Consistent Formulation, Bittencourt notes that "The interaction of charged particles with electromagnetic fields is governed by the Lorentz force" and proceeds with the Lorentz equation of motion, followed by Maxwell's electromagnetic field equations after noting, "A self-consistent formulation must be used since the fields and the particle trajectories are intrinsically coupled, that is, the internal fields associated with the presence and motion of the plasma particles influence their motions, which, in turn, modify the internal fields."

Lorentz's equation(s) covering particle motion and Maxwell's equations governing electromagnetic field interactions, and their interdependent relationship, ARE the laws which are basic to the study of cosmic plasma, and other types of plasmas as well, although in this forum most are primarily interested in the cosmic application to better understand the phenomena which are, so far, mostly based on an electrodynamic interpretation of the phenomena and and data gathered by astronomers and astrophysicists. There is a lot of often very difficult math which goes into descriptions and modeling of plasmas, but fundamentally the laws were written down in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is my observation that most scientists would agree that these laws are well-known and acceptable and do a good job explaining a lot of basic electrodynamics. They have been extended into practical applications all over the planet, from the power grid to circuit theory and development. It is also my observation that many people interested in the observations and viewpoints of the Electric Universe model do not deny that gravity exists, that it is a dominant force wherever the intrinsically stronger electromagnetic (EM) force has been neutralized. There are lines of thought that wonder if gravity and the EM force are unified at some fundamental level as being manifestations of an underlying electric force, but I don't care to speculate on that, and know next to nothing about it other than it could be an absorbing subject.

However, it is widely known now, particularly in the solar and radio astronomy communities, that plasma has a unique ability to maintain charge separation due to double layers and very large currents manifest them in space, sometimes in the dark mode where they are identified primarily by magnetic fields and their characteristic asymmetrical line splitting (Van Allen Belts, galactic currents, the solar "wind"), sometimes in plasma glow mode (gaseous nebulas for example,) and also in the intensely bright arc mode, such as stellar photospheres, prominences and CMEs, and extremely high energy phenomena (GRBs, novas and supernovas,) as well as plain old planetary lightning.

Similarly, those who bother to read probably understand that QCD and its associated mathematics have produced a very accurate model in terms of subatomic particle interactions, energies, and other phenomena at the quantum or sub-atomic level. We know that not all its predictions have been borne out yet (else the LHC wouldn't be drawing as much power as it is, looking for Master Higgs's boson!) Being of a scientific mind-set, my own opinion is that science is never "finished", and that today's theories and models are just awaiting the next improvement or breakthrough or "aha!" moment at the hands and minds of humans. Knowledge expansion is what we seem to be built to do, in part.

My hope is that, if the EU model (we both know it can't be termed a theory, yet, but it might be the beginnings of one) has some validity to it, and that its utility in helping to understand cosmic phenomena is better than current day thinking which tends to dismiss charge separation and electric currents in space, that it be further developed and carefully and critically analyzed. If it doesn't work, it doesn't. If it helps, I'd like to see its virtues incorporated into the way people think of this Universe,and that it clarifies and enlightens our understanding, and not be dismissed simply out of hand because it's not "mathy" enough, or NIH. The EU concept and idea factory, plainly put, is still very much a work in progress, and it is still early days.

Some people seem threatened by the EU model. Some in the EU crowd seem to want to threaten the consensus thinking or Standard Model with EU ideas. I abhor both responses. No model can be perfect. Physics theories are not "proven" in the same sense that mathematical theories are proved. We all compete in the world of ideas. In the EU model, despite what is widely printed, there is a long history of electrodynamic theory and mathematics. The math you can read in books like Somov's Fundamentals of Cosmic Electrodynamics or Fortov, Iakubov and Khrapak's Physics of Strongly Coupled Plasmas are dense and thorough and based on observation, experiment and mathematical support and logic.

The math and concepts of plasma physics at scales large enough to accelerate particles to 10^21 eV are messy and complex and likely too large to handle at the particle basis which is needed to follow the currents in space without most of the simplifications used for MHD, which is, as its inventor pointed out in his Nobel address, a theory for fluids, very little of which he found could be applied to matter in the plasma state. There's the rub.

Speaking of that large value for, say, gamma rays, which at lower energies are produced on the Sun, and at higher ones seem to be produced by quasars and Seyfert galaxies active galactic nuclei. Peratt, in his interesting Example 6.7, p. 250, notes that large interacting Birkeland currents undergoing Biot-Savart can be simulated to show development of a quasar, in which the time scale lengthens due to the immense galactic scales involved. The z- or Bennet pinching of the current filaments "...creates only synchrotron radiation at relatively low levels in the first 5-10Myr frame along the cross-sections of the interacting filaments where the double-layer E-field occurs. At about 20Myr, the intensity reaches some 10^37W while diffuse interfilament plasma has been collected into the elliptical core and channel regions." The acceleration of particles to such high energies occurs because the electric fields spanning megaparsecs continue the acceleration over very long periods of time, with relativistic particles the result, as are observed by radio astronomers today with active galaxy jets.

To sum up, there are laws governing plasma phenomena, which are the basis for EU observations and ideas gathered and deduced from the flood of broadband, high-accuracy data and observations which flood in daily to observers all over the world. When these observations continue to, as the press releases are unfortunately fond of trumpeting, "amaze, puzzle and surprise" the astronomical community, it seems to me that perhaps they should take a look at some of the observations, reasoning and predictions being put forth by the nascent EU interpretations. It could be a useful tool set. —And there are mysteries and surprises enough yet to go around.

Jim Johnson

[upriver]

Motion is not relative. The Sagnac effect proves that. Mode one is locked to Sidereal time. The fringes in a laser gyro are locked to the distant stars. Not only that the same effect manifests itself in a linear fashion in a fiberoptic test devices. The thing about the Sagnac effect is that you cant put the laser gyro physically into another rest frame besides sidereal. You can only change frames by math.

Generalized Sagnac Effect
RuyongWang, Yi Zheng, and Aiping Yao
St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota 56301, USA
(Received 18 March 2004; published 27 September 2004)
Experiments were conducted to study light propagation in a light waveguide loop consisting of linearly and circularly moving segments.We found that any segment of the loop contributes to the total phase difference between two counterpropagating light beams in the loop. The contribution is proportional to a product of the moving velocity v and the projection of the segment length l on the moving direction, 4v l=c. It is independent of the type of motion and the refractive index of waveguides. The finding includes the Sagnac effect of rotation as a special case and suggests a new fiber optic sensor for measuring linear motion with nanoscale sensitivity.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0609/0609235.pdf

[mharratsc]

Nereid said:

For example, gravitational bending is achromatic; the deflection is the same, no matter whether the 'light' is gammas, x-rays, UV, visible light, IR, microwaves, or radio. As far as I know, deflection (or bending) due to passage of electromagnetic radiation through a material medium (i.e. one made up of atoms, electrons, ions, etc; specifically a plasma) is chromatic: the amount of bending of red light (say) is different than the bending of blue light, where the light is passing through the same medium (this is why, in part, a prism splits white sunlight into a rainbow, or why raindrops do). So an obvious test, irrespective of what the medium might be, is the extent to which the observed bending is chromatic ...

That's a fair assessment, in my mind. The trick is going to be determining how much of each is taking place- achromatic vs chromatic. Each observational subject we view is definitely going to show a shift of some magnitude due to it having some form of a plasmasphere, but being able to determine if there is an achromatic shift over and above the distortion shift of the local stellar medium would put this argument to bed, I would think... unless there are additional physics involved to which I am unaware.

Can anyone comment on that?

[jjohnson]

Mike,
It seems that, if one compared the spectrum of the star well away from the influence of the Sun (which would include any prior shifts due to intergalactic and interstellar medium effects) with its spectrum when it may be imaged "relatively" close to (i.e., within the effect of) the Sun, one should be able to discern any differences attributable to the Sun. This could include chromatic differences if they are large enough to be observable. This experiment may well have already been conducted as Nereid postulates.

The difficult part (to me, a completely amateur astronomer) is getting the light to pass through the gravity field of the Sun (where it is still strong enough to be perceivable by our instruments) without passing through very much "matter". The corona and solar plasma outflows and inflows extend out a long but rather amorphous and changeable distance from the surface of the Sun, and the gravity field falls off as 1/r^2, so it's sort of a guessing game as to where you want the star to be when you take the second spectrogram. One of the difficulties in astronomy can be arranging experiments to get good, sensible before-and-after cases clearly defined. We don't wield a lot of control out there, so have to select the best times for the desired arrangement to occur from our viewpoint.

The second consideration to at least consider is that the light has to travel through a long column of not only intervening matter, but also continuously through the ambient or background gravity that exists continuously between that star and the Earth. Also, it seems like to avoid the Earth's gravitational effect, the star should be viewed along an axis that is radially aligned with our own gravity vector, and that the observation should be from a vantage point in space because the only place you can look at a star from an earthly location is "straight up" the gravity well, which would be near noon for the view of the star near the Sun. You also don't want a planet very closely aligned along the viewing axis, either. You can probably think of a lot of other aberrations to guard against, as well, to minimize experimental error.

It is curious as to why a matter medium causes chromatic aberration whereas a gravity field does not. The study of lens design makes it clear that chromatic aberration is always something to try to design out, and you can only reduce it to a minimum within the desired bandwidth. Why is gravity an equal opportunity wavelength bender?

Halton Arp, in Seeing Red, discusses gravitational lensing extensively. One of his subjects is the Einstein Cross, an arrangement of 4 bright objects with large redshifts around a central object with a much lower redshift. Without getting into his arguments about the meaning and relevancy of red shifts, it would seem useful if one could look at the amount of spectral shift throughout the entire group, to see if the gravitational lensing that is supposed to be responsible for its appearance causes large but achromatic shifts in the 4 lensed images, or if they are chromatically different from one another, and see what conclusions might be drawn. Of course, Arp argues that these are not lensed images of a single quasar centered behind the central galaxy at all, and would say the issue of their spectral shifts is more one of age and "intrinsic" redshift rather than anything to do with gravitational or velocity shifts. And, he only refers to redshift (in which the entire spectrum is shifted as might be expected from a gravitational lensing event) and there is no mention of chromatic differentiation which might be involved if the matter distribution around the central object varied across the field of view. Unfortunately, this is not an example where one could obtain a before-and-after comparison of spectra to make such a determination. But it's an interesting discussion!

[Nereid]

mharratsc, jjohnson,

If we stick with the bending of light (meaning, in this case, any electromagnetic radiation, EMR) by just the Sun, for now at least, then the amount of bending to be expected by the plasma which surrounds the Sun should be easily calculated; from plasma physics we know how each wavelength (or frequency) of light is bent, depending on key properties of the plasma (such as electron density) - we know this either from lab experiments or from the plasma scaling laws - and we know a lot about the plasma itself, from it situ measurements by spacecraft and by observations of the light the plasma itself emits and absorbs.

I am not aware of any material, by an EU/PC theorist, which gives the expected bending, as a function of wavelength, or even region of the EM spectrum; are you?

Given the precision to which the bending of light, by the Sun, has been measured, in both the visual region and the radio, over quite a range of angles from the Sun, accounting for all those observations by bending due to plasma would be a big plus for EU theory.

[Nereid]

Wow are you serious, did you just quote yourself and respond to yourself...wtf...am I missing something here...

Yes; in another thread, the TB Forum member I referred to gently reminded me that I had not responded to one of his posts, and offered some possible reasons why that might be so. Upon reading that post, I was curious to know whether this one of mine (that I quoted) had been accidentally overlooked or not.

[Nereid]

Jim Johnson/jjohnson,

Thanks for your lengthy response to my question about electromagnetic forces.

There's a lot in it, and while I intend to respond, it will take me a few days to do so; in the meantime, I wanted you to know that I appreciated your post.

[mharratsc]

Nereid said:

I am not aware of any material, by an EU/PC theorist, which gives the expected bending, as a function of wavelength, or even region of the EM spectrum; are you?

Sadly, I am not. :\

However, there are some folks running around here like Mike G, or Solrey, whom might be aware of something along those lines, if such exists.

Guys? Lil help here plz?

[Physicist]

mharratsc, jjohnson,

If we stick with the bending of light (meaning, in this case, any electromagnetic radiation, EMR) by just the Sun, for now at least, then the amount of bending to be expected by the plasma which surrounds the Sun should be easily calculated; from plasma physics we know how each wavelength (or frequency) of light is bent, depending on key properties of the plasma (such as electron density) - we know this either from lab experiments or from the plasma scaling laws - and we know a lot about the plasma itself, from it situ measurements by spacecraft and by observations of the light the plasma itself emits and absorbs.

I am not aware of any material, by an EU/PC theorist, which gives the expected bending, as a function of wavelength, or even region of the EM spectrum; are you?

Given the precision to which the bending of light, by the Sun, has been measured, in both the visual region and the radio, over quite a range of angles from the Sun, accounting for all those observations by bending due to plasma would be a big plus for EU theory.

I admire Nereid's politeness

The bending of light around the sun (actually radio waves I believe) has now been measured very precisely, and is in accordance with general relativity to within an accuracy of something like one part in several thousand.

Do you guys seriously think that plasma refraction could provide a better explanation?

[GaryN]

Pardon my obtrusion, had this in my bookmarks:

Following those difficulties, and since it has also been demonstrated that the deflection of light by a gravitational potential is not compatible with the principle of mass-energy conservation, we show that no one can seriously claim that light is really deflected by the Sun.

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/eclipse/

[Physicist]

Pardon my obtrusion, had this in my bookmarks:

Following those difficulties, and since it has also been demonstrated that the deflection of light by a gravitational potential is not compatible with the principle of mass-energy conservation, we show that no one can seriously claim that light is really deflected by the Sun.

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/eclipse/

There is a desperate situation among scientists for not being able to show, with the most sophisticated technology, what is considered to be the basic principle of general relativity on which rely most of modern science, while this was claimed to be demonstrated by Eddington in 1919 using a simple four inch amateur size telescope. Of course, a trillion or quadrillion dollar equipment will never reveal clearly the deflection of light if such a deflection does not exist. It is hard to predict for how many more decades this race will last and how much money has to be wasted before scientists, at last, admit that there is no deflection.

Interestingly, it was less than one decade after this was written that the Cassini probe experiment was done - and the results were that the predictions of general relativity were borne out to at least one part in several thousand. As for how much money was wasted, I have no idea

[Aristarchus]

GaryN,

Yes, it appears some of the research in the field of physics is not all too ready to accept the principle of radio wave measurements being an indicator of deflection of light around the sun:

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/eclipse/

Relativistic Deflection of Light Near the Sun
Using Radio Signals and Visible Light

This paper reports a detailed analysis of one of general relativity's predictions, which claims that light should be deflected by solar gravity. The experimental data related to that prediction are analyzed. The substitution of the direct experimental test for the deflection of visible light during solar eclipses by the indirect measurement of the delay of radio signals traveling between a space probe or from extra galactic sources and the Earth is examined.

Three different causes of the delay in the transmission of light near the Sun are examined. They are the relativistic delay, the delay caused by the plasma surrounding the Sun or for a geometric reason. The delay predicted by general relativity is equivalent to a reduced velocity of light in vacuum, in the Sun’s gravitational potential. Since the value of c is defined on Earth, inside the solar gravitational potential, this leads to a double value for the velocity of light on Earth. Furthermore, Einstein’s general relativity predicts that photons slow down when approaching the Sun, so that their velocity must be reduced to zero when reaching the surface of a black hole.

This paper shows how all the experiments claiming the deflection of light and radio waves by the Sun are subjected to very large systematic errors, which render the results highly unreliable and proving nothing. A previous preliminary paper (*) giving an analysis of the experiments using visible light already appeared on the subject. Furthermore, the internal incoherence of general relativity, which leads to a double velocity of light on Earth, adds to the weakness of these tests. Following those difficulties, and since it has also been demonstrated that the deflection of light by a gravitational potential is not compatible with the principle of mass-energy conservation, we show that no one can seriously claim that light is really deflected by the Sun.

Dr. F. Schmeidler of the Munich University Observatory has published a paper [49] titled "The Einstein Shift An Unsettled Problem," and a plot of shifts for 92 stars for the 1922 eclipse shows shifts going in all directions, many of them going the wrong way by as large a deflection as those shifted in the predicted direction! Further examination of the 1919 and 1922 data originally interpreted as confirming relativity, tended to favor a larger shift, the results depended very strongly on the manner for reducing the measurements and the effect of omitting individual stars. So now we find that the legend of Albert Einstein as the world's greatest scientist was based on the Mathematical Magic of Trimming and Cooking of the eclipse data to present the illusion that Einstein's general relativity theory was correct in order to prevent Cambridge University from being disgraced because one of its distinguished members was close to being declared a "conscientious objector"!

The Deflection of Light by the Sun's Gravitational Field:

[Aristarchus]

Interestingly, it was less than one decade after this was written that the Cassini probe experiment was done - and the results were that the predictions of general relativity were borne out to at least one part in several thousand. As for how much money was wasted, I have no idea

Not necessarily:

A note on the incorrect derivation of light deflection by a gravitating body in general relativity theory

In this article, it is shown that the calculation of the light deflection in the field of a gravitating body in general relativity theory (GRT) is incorrect since it does not follow the well know Fermat principle from optics. Instead an ad hoc principle is used that violates the basic tenets of relativity in order to force an agreement with observations. The Fermat principle has to be satisfied since it follows from the wave equation that guides the photon propagation. This is a fatal problem for the GRT with the root cause traced to the Schwarzschild metric, which does not describe the reality correctly. When the author’s new metric is used, the standard Fermat principle can be generalized and used leading to the results agreeing with observations and experiments. This article also briefly comments on the role of coordinates in measurements concluding that the natural coordinates are the ones that correspond to reality.

The classical result thus slightly overestimates the real deflection that should be observed. The recent measurements with the Cassini Space Probe [1] have reached the value of  1  2.1 2.3105 , which is not too far from the accuracy needed to unquestionably establish this difference. The deflection of light rays by the Sun therefore agrees with the GRT formula, provided that the coordinate distance is replaced by the physical distance. The deflection angle is evaluated to be  1.753 (401) arc seconds, which is a well-known value considered today to be the correct number for this phenomenon. However, the GRT computation based on the variational principle in Eq.5 has no corresponding equivalent in physics, and since the Schwarzschild metric is not 6 physical and should not be used, this coincidental agreement with the measurement is not a confirmation of the theory. The variational formula in Eq.5 can thus be considered only a lucky guess.