Opening the Pathway to the Stars.
Removing the imaginary blockages.
To hear an audio version of this post (17 mins), click the arrow below:
This post is a summary of all the previous posts to date, in sequential order, with a link to each.
First, though, there’s a question that really needs answering - one that appears to have been swept under the carpet for the past hundred years or more:
Whatever happened to the Luminiferous Aether?
Since well before Einstein’s time physicists had been puzzling over this mysterious substance. The reasoning went like this: every effect needs some substance to travel through - sound, heat, whatever. So what substance does the effect known as light travel through? Not just around us, between us and the things we see, but through the millions of light years of ‘empty space’ between the stars? There must be something for starlight to travel through to get here so we can see it.
They named this ephemeral something The Luminiferous Aether (or Ether, for those from the USA). Extensive experiments were conducted to detect it and identify rules for its behaviour. When light was found to travel as waves, arguments for the aether were even more compelling: a wave is a variation, an oscillation of something: waves in the ocean are effects, oscillations in water; sound waves are oscillations in air; a wave can’t exist without something for it to oscillate; what’s the something that light is an oscillation of? Answer: the aether. Ok, so what’s that?
When James Clerk Maxwell identified light as an electromagnetic field phenomenon, he himself (as an expert on electromagnetic fields) was certain that those oscillating fields must be effects in something. We have electric and magnetic fields in metals, even in our atmosphere: think of lightning, the Aurora Borealis… So what are those fields propagating through, what are they varying, on their way across interstellar space? Maxwell was a confirmed advocate of the Luminiferous Aether.
Around 1900, though, various puzzling findings were cropping up with respect to the motion of light; some of those findings appeared inconsistent with a static substance, like air or water, acting as a medium for light to propagate through.
Einstein (apparently) solved this dilemma by concluding that in fact the Luminiferous Aether doesn’t exist, that light propagates without any such medium, travelling at the same speed relative to any other object or state of motion. Problem solved.
Except that it’s not solved. This issue only arose because, as a wave effect, light needs some medium through which to propagate. Denying the existence of such a medium doesn’t actually resolve that need. So what exactly is light propagating through?
Some propose that, because the speed of light is the same with respect to all reference frames (states of motion), it doesn’t need any form of medium to propagate through. There’s no scientific basis for this, rather it’s an ‘explanation’ of the form: “We can’t explain how it could - so it doesn’t need to”. Take that as you will…
The now more widely cited rationale is that the medium is the field: the whole universe is permeated by an electromagnetic field which has a specific value at every point, including possibly zero in many places; light propagates through this field by creating fluctuations in the strength of electrical and magnetic components along the path that the light is creating for itself.
This makes a great deal of sense and appears consistent with the concept of a wave propagating through a medium. It does, though, overlook - or sidestep - one rather important point: it works on the premise that at every instant each point in space will have a specific electromagnetic field strength; one specific value for every point in spacetime.
This would make this Universal Field an ideal candidate for the Aether. But this would also make it an ideal basis for reference in relation to all states of motion: the velocity of light through the field would be determined by interaction between electric and magnetic field components in elements of the field itself - not by any state of motion superimposed upon that field. A field that consists, in any instant, of specific field strengths at every point cannot be co-moving with every possible frame of reference (state of motion) in the cosmos.
One specific frame of reference - as appears to be implicitly proposed for The Field - is totally incompatible with The Theory of Special Relativity. But it’s 100% compatible with the notion of light-formed particles of matter - the Spun Light theory of matter.
It’s no coincidence that my first (2007) book on this subject is titled Tapestry of Light: The Field can be seen as a three-dimensional non-material ‘fabric’ into which is woven every aspect of our physical reality. One consideration that made it difficult for those earlier physicists to spot this (and today’s not-so-earlier ones) is the fact that matter also propagates through this field, and is woven into it, in exactly the same way as light is. Pre-1900s thinking on the aether appears to have envisaged it as similar to matter itself, rather than matter actually being just a variant of light, a slightly different configuration of electromagnetic waves given form in oscillating patterns in the substance of the aether.
The Field corresponds to what some refer to as Subtle Matter, which underpins our physical reality. Whilst this is generally regarded as somewhat insubstantial, that’s totally down to our perception: this is the foundation, the bedrock on which the whole of what we experience as ‘reality’ is founded - the canvas on which our day-to-day experience of reality, including our own physical bodies, is painted in brush-strokes of electromagnetic radiation.
It goes without saying, then, that if we are to get past what we see as limitations of this physical reality we must fully get to grips with this underlying substrate. It’s very clear from effects such as ‘collapse of the wave function’ across vast areas of space and ‘nonlocal interactions’ between particles vast distances apart that the physics of this substrate offer potential opportunities not apparent at the level of our surface reality. Who knows what possibilities may lie hidden in this sub-surface layer?
One thing that’s absolutely certain: if we have any hope of addressing the challenges facing us in respect of interstellar travel, we need to lift up that carpet mentioned in the first paragraph and really get to know the science of what lies beneath it.
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Now those references to past posts (in order):
Relativity: Unwrapping a mystery (free post - includes audio version)
A close look at the foundations of a theory that redefined the universe.
Looks at one of Einstein’s two fundamental ‘proofs’ of Relativity that isn’t proof at all.
So where is the proof?
The Facts Behind Fizeau’s Experiment (free post)
For those interested in the Maths and technical background.
Relativity? What Relativity? (free post - includes audio version)
Watching the Evidence Evaporate: Stage II.
Another key ‘proof’ of Relativity Theory dismantled - with the full endorsement of an international panel of top experts. (Plus a bit of applied commonsense.)
Unlocking the Mystery of Light (free post - includes audio version)
Why we're still in the dark about light.
Some straightforward scientific reasoning (with peer-reviewed evidence) showing exactly why light appears to do exactly what it appears to do.
Time dilation in complex energy-flow structures (premium post)
Technical details for the post: 'Unlocking the mystery of light'.
With a substantial dose of maths, including detailed diagrams.
Light Speed: The Inside Story (free post - includes audio version)
No smoke, no mirrors, no bizarre effects - just light.
Looking at light from the perspective of a moving observer makes it all very clear: that moving observer has their own take on reality ‘tilted’ to give precisely the impression that Relativity claims is the true picture. The fact of an objectively static rest frame (denied by conventional Relativity), from which the motion of that observer can be measured, is demonstrated from cosmic observations (as well as by The Field, as referred to at the beginning of this present post). At a stroke, this does away with all the counter-commonsense assertions of Special Relativity.
Quasiluminal: The Maths (premium post)
Why the speed of light appears absolute.
Detailed maths for the post: Light Speed: The Inside Story
A cosmic view of the Christmas story
Includes stellar nucleosynthesis, extreme gravitational collapse, etc, etc
A seasonal departure from the main theme of these Substack posts.
Relativity Unmasked: How energy flows shape our experience of Reality.
(free post - includes audio version)
Transforming Reality in a Universe of Light-Formed Particles
A not-too-technical overview of the Lorentz Transformation as used in Relativity, showing how the spun-light perspective on material particles gives rise to exactly this transformation as a perceptual experience in a moving observer or object. Includes shifting from static to moving frame and vice versa, also shifting between one moving frame and another - all mirroring the claimed ‘objective reality’ of Special Relativity.
Relativity: A New Flat Earth Perspective? (free post - includes audio version)
The facts and fables of Lorentzian Contraction.
Considering the scientific fact of physical contraction of objects moving at speed, the Relativity-based fable of reciprocal contraction of static or near-static objects when observed from a fast-moving object, and the implications of this notion.
An In-Depth Look at The Lorentz Transformation (premium post)
The maths behind the illusion of Relativity's frame symmetry.
A thorough mathematical breakdown of how the light-formed nature of material particles gives rise to the illusion of the Lorentz Transformation as an objective reality, rather than simply a perceptual experience. Supporting maths for the free post: Relativity Unmasked: How energy flows shape our experience of Reality.
As detailed in this In-Depth Look, this illusion has led to:
(1) A false belief in an absolute cosmic speed limit;
(2) A false belief in the risk of a catastrophic disruption in the flow of time;
(3) A failure to understand, or even consider, the nature of time itself;
(4) Spurious assumption of obstacles blocking our understanding of gravitation;
(5) Total misperception of the nature of inertia (i.e. resistance to acceleration);
(6) Preoccupation with false assumptions, obstructing vital future research.
Coming shortly:
An in-depth look at the whole issue of inertia: why force is needed to accelerate any object; why every object gets heavier with increasing speed, approaching infinite mass as it approaches the speed of light; and why the Higgs boson could well turn out to be a red herring. A natural follow-on from this is why E equals mc squared - and why that’s nothing to do with Relativity, either.
A full explanation of how gravity works is a little further down the line.
In the meantime, be sure to check out Transfinite Mind for books, plus articles, multimedia presentations and other free resources.