The Weakening Gravity-Dominated Cosmos Theory
Jul 23, 2009

Neutron stars were first proposed as a theoretical possibility in 1933 by Baade and Zwicky. In seeking an explanation for the energy released by supernovae (a term coined by Zwicky), they proposed that a supernova was the result of a normal star transitioning to a neutron star.

They calculated that the supernova energy could be explained by the equivalent transformation of a stellar mass to energy following Einstein’s E=mc^2 equation. Baade and Zwicky's new theory was founded on the assumption that the only energy available to a star is in the star itself. Unfortunately, at that time, no one understood that a star could be part of an immensely long electrical transmission line storing vast amounts of energy.

However, in the late 1930s, Oppenheimer and Volkoff produced a theoretical equation of state that validated the neutron star concept. Ironically, despite this early theoretical work, even today there is no acceptable equation describing the state of neutron stars. Regardless, in 1968, shortly after the first pulsar was discovered, Thomas Gold proposed spinning neutron stars as a mechanical explanation for the pulsed radio emissions.

Over the forty years since the spinning neutron star model has been proposed for pulsars, the astrophysics community has been regularly forced to update the rotational speed limit and has met with a long list of “surprises” in new observations. There have been a number of issues:

* pulsars spinning faster than theoretically believed possible (XTE J1739-285 at 1122 Hz)
* pulsars spinning more slowly than theoretically predicted (PSR J2144-3933, once every 8.5s)
* pulsars with too much mass, in the wrong orbit, and with the wrong binary companion (J1903+0327)

All these observations were contrary to predictions but have not been credited as falsifying the accepted theory of pulsars. However, some of the most important predictions with neutron stars and pulsars concern their role as gravitational wave generators (as predicted by the General Theory of Relativity).

Indeed, millisecond pulsars (whose theoretical upper speed limit of ~750Hz is supposedly throttled by the gravitational waves they generate) are significant gravitational wave generators. Luckily, the $400M LIGO installation is built to measure just such gravitational waves from pulsars and neutron stars (not to mention black hole collisions).

So if inspiralling neutron stars, or millisecond neutron stars, do not generate gravitational waves, either Zwicky and Baade’s vision of neutron stars is wrong or Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is incorrect, or both are wrong.

LIGO has had some recent opportunities to observe gravitational waves. In 2007, the Konus-Wind Integral, Messenger, and Swift gamma-ray satellites observed a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that originated in the direction of M31, the Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. GRBs are thought to be the result of two ultra-massive objects (like black holes or neutron stars) coalescing.

Theory predicts that a GRB should have a gravitational wave counterpart. The GRB was within LIGO's measurement range and should have produced gravitational waves within the instrument’s limit of resolution. There were no gravitational waves. This, of course, was heralded as a success in that the non-detection was itself informative—although the fact that the information falsified the theory was disregarded.

A similar “non-detection is good” argument was put forward when the LIGO was brought to bear on the Crab Nebula pulsar, PSR B0531+21. The Crab Pulsar shows more “deceleration” than other pulsars, so energy release through gravity waves was proposed as a dominant mechanism for its “braking.” In an excerpt from one report:

“LIGO scientists monitored the neutron star from November 2005 to August 2006 and looked for a synchronous gravitational-wave signal using data from the three LIGO interferometers, which were combined to create a single, highly sensitive detector.

"The analysis revealed no signs of gravitational waves. But, say the scientists, this result is itself important because it provides information about the pulsar and its structure.”

And another surprisingly positive view from the same report:

"This is an exciting result which adds to LIGO's continuing success. The project has allowed us to study the Crab Pulsar in a new and unique way and has provided us with some fascinating information," says Professor Keith Mason, Chief Executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which funds UK involvement in gravitational waves.

In fact, LIGO, in its several years of operation, has never registered a single gravitational wave even when theory predicted it should. So of course plans are proposed to build a more sensitive Advanced LIGO that will be 10x more sensitive than the original LIGO. In such an instrument, theoreticians predict gravitational waves will be detected daily by the time it’s operational in 2014.

The dogged adherence to gravitational waves and neutron stars in the face of falsifying data has reached a point where one could agree to fund such a device if the failure in detecting gravitational waves in 2014 would cause the astrophysical community to consider a Universe that includes the obvious presence of electrical currents in space.

Donald Scott, in his book “The Electric Sky,” argues the impossibility of neutron stars and proposes an electrical alternative to their periodic electromagnetic pulses. He postulates that pulsars are oscillator circuits. The regular frequency is not mechanically generated by spin rates but instead is the product of the capacitive, resistive and inductive attributes of the star’s electrical environment. Indeed, simple relaxation oscillator circuits, using resistor-capacitor (RC) or inductor-capacitor (LC) pairings have been used by electrical engineers for decades. A regular, periodic electrical oscillator is very easy to construct from a simple RC or LC circuit. Such oscillators can be variable frequency oscillators (VFOs) that are tuned by the capacitive loading. An electrical model for pulsars was proposed in a seminal work by Peratt and Healy (1995).

If one abstracts the electromagnetic oscillation from the mechanical system itself, one finds there is no such thing as the “wrong” frequency, or the “wrong” kind of radiation, or the “wrong” binary companion, or the “wrong” mass. Instead, the focus becomes the electrical nature of the entire system. One begins to study instead the current density for the pulsar or pulsar binary. Then the problem may be broken down by quantifying the absolute current density, the capacitive and resistive values in the system, the magnetic fields generated by the inductive interaction of a binary pair.

Much as Hannes Alfvén has done for the sun and the galaxy, circuit diagrams may be drawn to describe the oscillator circuit responsible for single and binary pulsars. Just as Wallace Thornhill has made successful predictions about electrical phenomena in our solar system, a list of predictions for pulsars based on an Electric Universe model needs to be written.

LIGO will never detect gravitational waves. Black holes and neutron stars do not exist. There are no mass densities great enough to test General Relativity at that scale. And what is to be gained from testing General Relativity when it merely describes gravity in unphysical geometric terms and doesn’t explain it?

LIGO II (or its equivalent) will likely be built and it will not detect gravitational waves. If the gravity-dominated view of the Universe collapses, it will be from failures on many theoretical fronts. One key theoretical front will be the failure to detect gravitational waves. Another will the failure of General Relativity.

There is no cosmological electromagnetic event hitherto explained by black holes, neutron stars, or their various collisions that is accompanied by gravitational waves. In addition, over the next few years there will be increasing evidence of electrical currents at an immense scale in our own solar system. Probes like Cassini and others continue to amass large quantities of data and images substantiating the role of electricity in space. Change is coming.

Contributed By Thomas Wilson