Aether Science Papers: Part I: The Creative Vacuum
Pages 36-40
Copyright © 1996 Harold Aspden
PHYSICAL REASON
As we have just seen, it is not a satisfactory argument to say that something can be explained in terms of a `principle' that emerged from Einstein's thoughts.
Quoting from Professor A. M. Taylor's Imagination and the Growth of Science (John Murray, 1966), this being the published version of the Tallman Lectures 1964-5 which he delivered at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, U.S.A.:
"Einstein, as a schoolboy of sixteen, was struck by the electrodynamic paradox, and for ten years he puzzled over it."
The paradox concerned the breach of Newton's third law: that action and reaction must always be equal and opposite. The action of a moving magnet on a stationary electric charge appeared to be different from the action of a moving electric charge on a stationary magnet. This is contrary to Newton's third law. Hence the paradox.
So, as Professor Taylor stated:
"Einstein postulated that the phenomena of electromagnetism, as well as those of mechanics, possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest; from which it followed that the action of a moving magnet on a stationary electric charge is equal and opposite to the action of a moving electric charge on a stationary magnet. There is in fact no meaning in the words stationary and moving; one ought to say rather that action between a magnet and an electric charge depends only on their relative motion."
So we are told that, based on the experimental findings of the 19th century, certain conclusions were reached about how electric charges and magnets interact. These conclusions were 'paradoxical' and young Einstein worried about it for ten years from the age of sixteen and finally concluded that when we say a magnet is moving it is not really moving and when we say it is at rest it is not really at rest. He told us that we must look at the problem in just such a way as to avoid the paradox by, as it were, putting on special spectacles. These allowed us to see the situation from either perspective, that of the electric charge and that of the magnet and we could rely on the prescription of those spectacles to contrive to make sense of the paradoxical situation.
Now, to me, this is not physics, but illusion. No 19th century physicist would ever say something is at rest or in motion without admitting a frame of reference. The question really at issue, so far as electricity and magnetism are concerned, is simply that of whether one needs to adopt, as that frame of reference, the aether through which body Earth moves in its motion with and around the sun.
Whether or not there is a real aether filling all space is not something to be determined by Einstein pondering on the matter for ten years. The empirical properties of interacting electric charges and magnets are the facts from which to decipher the properties of the aether, because the aether is the 'unknown' parameter in the physical equations which apply. One can be sure that, if there is a paradox, it is not because Nature has a problem, but rather because some human intervention has led us astray in interpreting the evidence.
Surely the so-called electrodynamic paradox is not to be regarded as the consequence of something akin to Fermat's Last Theorem, where we found a problem to think about but could find no immediate solution. Indeed, on the basis of the Einstein philosophy, Fermat's Last Theorem can be proved by virtue of a postulate that says the problem has no meaning and therefore can have no solution.
To say there is no aether on the basis of the problems encountered by the Michelson-Morley experiment is a statement that the person reaching that conclusion has decided that the aether is like a single sheet of graph paper providing a fixed frame of reference on which one can plot the motion of all light waves whatever their source. The paradox posed by that experiment can then be dismissed by declaring, not that there is no aether, but that the analogy with the graph paper is incorrect. The only open question is that of determining the true nature of the aether and this author is not at all disposed to accepting that Einstein's thoughts have rendered that problem meaningless.
We will therefore now target Einstein's interpretation of 'time dilation' for attack, to see how it can stand up to scrutiny on the basis of experimental facts.
Suppose I am at rest on body Earth and I am looking at an atom moving in uniform translational motion, relative to me and past my field of view at a speed u. The atom is subjected to excitation and radiates photons of a certain frequency which I measure and take as the timing of an atomic clock.
Apart from any doppler effects, Einstein's theory tells me that that clock runs slower, so far as I can judge, owing to that motion at speed u. In other words, if I could jump into the atom and share its motion, so that I would then see the atom as at rest from my new perspective, it would beat to a faster time rhythm, even though there is no variation of clock rate as viewed from that Earth-based observation position.
Well, this is a very curious clock because it seems able to send its time signals to Earth and somehow lose a few on the way! That is a paradox in itself, but those who advocate this philosophy approach the problem differently, by saying that the clock loses 'time', the faster it travels. They will even tell you that it has all been proved by transporting atomic clocks in jet aircraft and comparing their time with clocks on the ground.
Those statements do not stand up to scrutiny, however, because we are concerned with non-accelerated motion and any clock transported by an aircraft is subjected to acceleration.
So the experiment to take note of is the one in which atoms radiating photons are transported in a laboratory experiment at very high speed across one's field of view, the atoms being part of a discharge through an evacuated tube.
Einstein's theory does not explain how an atomic clock works. It is Bohr's theory of the hydrogen atom that provides the basic insight into how the atomic clock has a time rate. The photons emitted have a frequency determined by the energy released as its electrons change state.
Now, when we first learn about Bohr's theory, we are concerned with atoms which we see as being at rest. This means that the only significant forces acting between the atomic nucleus and the electrons are the electrostatic forces and the only significant energy involved is the related electric potential energy plus the kinetic energy of the electrons.
The theory assures us that the electron suddenly drops from its excited state to one of lower potential and spontaneously there is emission of a photon having a very well defined frequency proportional to that energy.
The timing of the clock must therefore be a function of how fast the energy can be wrapped up, as it were, in a quantum package and receive its 'stamp' of value, its frequency characteristic, before being dispatched at the speed of light. Neither Einstein nor Bohr were concerned with this exercise in logistics. It is like an artillery officer giving the order 'fire' and taking it for granted that his men have loaded the gun. That officer needs to know that the logistics are in place to assure that the shells of the right calibre are in position. Regarding the atom as such a gun, the photon energy to be shed is dispersed through space in the field enveloping the atom, but somehow the act comes together as if everything is instantaneous and the energy is duly dispatched by virtue of rules which we accept as being simply the facts of quantum theory.
In a real world, someone needs to express an opinion on that logistics exercise and the opinion I offer is a simple one, namely that the interaction energy adjustments in what is termed the 'Coulomb gauge' do occur with an action that is virtually instantaneous. If Einstein's followers say otherwise, then let them explain the logistics, as otherwise all they are firing from that 'gun' are a few words and mathematical symbols, but not energy.
Accepting the proposition of 'instantaneousness', the question then of interest is that of understanding what happens if the atom is moving at that speed u when it sheds the photon. In theory this should introduce electrodynamic forces as between the charged atomic nucleus and the electrons and it should introduce electrodynamic field energy considerations, which are not subject to the instantaneous action but are affected by retardation at the speed of light. Even before we embark on the task of accounting for the effects of motion of the atom, we know, therefore, that we can be sure that the photon package will not be able to capture that electrodynamic energy fast enough to define sharp spectral lines. The clock frequency, however, must be affected by that motion but we confront a mystery in how to factor the electrodynamic effects into the analysis of the problem.
Einstein's theory gives an easy answer by saying that the atom itself is not moving anyway, so it emits the photons with the same timing that applies for the atom when presumed to be at rest. There are no electrodynamic problems to consider. The physical processes involved are pushed aside as if they do not exist. Instead, one takes the clock frequency and simply declares that `time' itself is transformed as the photons are viewed by an outsider watching the atom move across his field of view.
Now, I am not willing to accept that argument. It seems to me that, bearing in mind the photon is emitted spontaneously when the atom is 'at rest', it must be emitted spontaneously when the atom is 'moving' at speed u. This means that the electrodynamic energy component cannot contribute to the photon energy, but note, however, that the electromagnetic forces which determine the separation distance between the electrons and the nucleus do affect the electrostatic and related kinetic energies which do, in turn, govern the energy released and so the photon frequency.
I expect, therefore, to be able to deduce the effect of motion on the atomic clock rate and the key question is how this compares with the result indicated by Einstein's theory and how both stand up to test against what is observed by experiment.
Note that we are here facing the simple issue of whether atomic clock motion supports so-called `time dilation' or whether we are dealing with the loss of clock rate owing to physical reasons connected with the electrodynamics of the moving atom.
At this stage I ask the reader to have the good sense to understand that, before one can say an atomic clock when in motion runs slow, solely because Einstein said time itself `dilates', one should at least examine how the physics of the Bohr atom are affected by motion. I admit that I find it outrageous and beyond belief to see physics taught as if everything stems from Einstein's way of looking at the world when our textbooks do not even explore the normal physics of the problem.
This is all the more concerning when one sees that the alternative very logical physics treatment gives an atomic clock rate as a function of speed of the atom that is in full accord with experiment.
More to the point, the physics involved provides answers helpful in resolving the problems of the Unified Field Theory, which defeated Einstein!
The formal paper already mentioned will now be presented, followed by the text of the referee rejection.
The expression β will be used to represent (1-u2/c2)1/2. The reader's knowledge of the binomial theorem will be needed to compare the expansion of this expression as:
1 - (1/2)(u/c)2 - (1/8)(u/c)4 - ...
with the difference of two energy expressions, one concerning electric energy potential and one concerning kinetic energy, being 2β2 and β5, respectively.
These are therefore:
2 - 3(u/c)2 + (3/4)(u/c)4 ....
and:
1 - (5/2)(u/c)2 + (15/8)(u/c)4 .....
which differ by:
1 - (1/2)(u/c)2 - (9/8)(u/c)4 ...
It follows that, for small values of u/c, the expression β is the same as that for (2β3 - β5), except for a term of the order (u/c)4.
I am going to base my case on the fact that the time dilation formula as used by Einstein has not been tested to this level of accuracy by atomic clock experiments.
For the benefit of readers who understand the theory of relativity, I point out also that the fact that fast moving cosmic mesons exhibit a longer life in proportion to 1/β has nothing to do with 'time dilation' and all to do with the enhancement of energy with speed. The added kinetic energy materializes as a statistical presence of mesonic particle pairs of opposite polarity and this adds mesons which can act in an 'understudy' capacity if the primary meson is hit by a decay influence. The decaying meson merely replaces one that is part of the pair-creation and annihilation system. This causes the mean lifetime of the meson, as measured, to be increased approximately in proportion to 1/β. For a detailed account of this process see particularly reference [32], but also reference [33] for onward experimental confirmation.
We are here concerned, not with muons which have a decay lifetime, but with electrons which exhibit no such lifetime, except as part of their ability to tunnel through potential barriers, as they decay only to be promptly reincarnated in the same form in the near vicinity of their demise [38].
In criticizing Einstein's theory of relativity, I have no intention to allow its advocates to squirm out of the argument by trying to sidetrack from the main issue by appealing to other evidence about some other aspect of the theory. The immediate task at hand is the problem of the atomic clock and its relevance to the electrodynamic interaction between two discrete charges sharing a common component of motion at speed u. Einstein said that the clock would run slow as seen by an observer witnessing that motion. I say that it will operate at a lower frequency because of those electrodynamic forces and that its frequency will not be the same as that derived using Einstein's time dilation formula.
I further say that I am making this a point of issue because the correct understanding of the true nature of the law of electrodynamics is going to bring us to the point of success in unifying the gravitational and electromagnetic force. We shall see that the electrodynamic force between two charges moving together at the same velocity is a force acting directly along the line drawn between the two charges and not one of the form prescribed by Lorentz or Einstein.
Next we come to the rejected paper in question, as submitted to Physics Letters. Note that the references in the paper are identified by a number sequence applicable only to the paper and do not relate to the main bibliography of this work.
