Introduction
I feel like I have to apologize for this topic. I am not a scientist, not a physicist, not even a mathematician. Yet, I want to question the very foundation of modern physics, from a philosophical point of view. I can somewhat claim to be a philosopher! Cosmology is a proper topic for philosophy -- and it has been entwined with physics for most of the last hundred years.
This monograph has a simple purpose - to point out an alternative paradigm for the cosmology that seems to underlie all of modern physics -- a new paradigm which would radically solve many seeming paradoxes. We all carry around a mental model of "how things work". It gets adjusted now and then, but it is pretty stable. Physicists have a mental model based on particle physics - and then another one based on quantum physics. The genius part is to get a third perspective, where both models work!
This idea is amazingly simple, and solves some of physics' most interesting problems. How can light be both particle and wave? How can gravity and electromagnetic phenomena ever be reconciled under one theory? The root philosophical concept described here was first introduced to me by a professor of theology, Father Gordon F. Knight, C.S.Sp., who died in 1961.
Several years after his death, a former student of his sent me a copy of a monograph by Daniel P. Fitzpatrick, Jr., which had the same basic approach as Knight, but much enhanced. That work was published in 1966 and is entitled "Unification of the Fields of Gravity, Magnetism, and Electrostatics Using a Law of Relative Motion". There is a PDF version of that document attached below this page.
In Oct. of 2007, the author of that piece, Daniel Fitzpatrick, Jr., found it here on the web, and sent me a note. In 2006, he had published a much more comprehensive work, which took the basic idea and extended it considerably. It is entitled "Universities Asleep at the Switch". Fitzpatrick has managed to glean the best of a lot of other people's work, and to put it together in a comprehensive fashion to fundamentally explain the nature of matter. It's all based on scalar standing waves. The general approach is described in the literature as WSM, Wave Structure of Matter, but he carries it to the nth degree, incorporating gravity and making predictions that should be verifiable. If you are interested in this stuff at all, I recommend you read his work. You can find information about him and the book here: http://www.amperefitz.com/reviews.html. His web site has many resources. I recommend you start with this one:
http://amperefitz.com/answer.htm. The most recent update on all of this, in a very succinct form, is here: http://amperefitz.com/scalar.htm
I highly recommend the book. Almost every page has some startling insight. How gravity works, the speed of light, quanta, wave - etc. It is pretty amazing.
My Purpose
This current document is primitive indeed, compared to what Mr. Fitzpatrick has accomplished. On the other hand, this piece might help explain a bit the basic philosophy or cosmology that underlies his approach. If nothing else, you can see some of the history of the development of the ideas. I would encourage the reader to focus on the basic ideas here presented, and not on the naivete of this author. We need a real physicist to grasp this and expound it -- perhaps that can be you!
A Different Paradigm of Interaction
Father Knight was a theology professor, but he had this penchant for trying to make sense of the whole universe. He came up with a radically different 'paradigm' of the physical world, based on philosophical assumptions that were a departure from the norm. Most scientists work within a basic philosophical paradigm or set of assumptions, that are themselves rarely examined.
Given that apology, as you read, give your imagination some freedom here, and see if the resulting paradigm doesn't feel much simpler than the prevailing view, even though the premise seems outlandish at first.
Effect versus movement
One of the basic problems with our current view of reality is that subatomic "things" look like both waves and particles -- depending on how you detect them or study them. Something about an uncertainty principle. We have discrete quantities of energy that seem to have wave properties -- they even seem to split and impact two different "things" at the same time. Or, a resulting effect, a wave pattern, is caused long after the 'particles' departed the light source, and they seem to have anticipated the interference in their path. The problems is that our need to conceptualize the "effect" that one thing has on another is so rooted in the old philosophical construct of "matter" that we must have "something" moving from one "thing" to the other, be it a wave in a medium or a particle.
If one can let go of this macro view of things, where objects have to bump into each other, and operate in a world were they simply “affect” one another, some amazing possibilities open up. This solves the problem of the so called “dividing photon” and it does not violate any “rules of common sense”, if you accept this one modest assumption about how the cosmos operates.
The assumption is: what if all electromagnetic phenomena are simply effects propagated through space at a discrete speed in OUR space time continuum (the speed of light), with nothing, I repeat, nothing, actually traversing the distance. The other shoe of this, see further on, is that this effect is an interaction that occurs instantly in the sub-atomic space / time continuum, and over a longer period in our space / time. If that seems totally crazy, read a bit more about "entanglement" in today's physics literature. Scientists today are "entangling" sub atomic particles, that then share a common state. Changing one, instantly changes the entangled on in our space time, no matter how distant they are from each other.
Just make the assumption for a moment, that things simply affect other things with an "effect" which is propagated at a finite speed -- the speed of light! Imagine that an electron, in a specific "energy level" is really an oscillating "charge" which basically can affect every other electron, tending to make them oscillate in harmony with itself, which "effect" is propagated at some finite speed in our framework. Other electrons which are harmonically tuned to the transmitting frequency will more readily absorb this energy transfer. Thus the receptors in my eye detect visible light because they are "resonant" at these frequencies. In reality, these electrons are standing waves, rotating in or out of phase with respect to others. When they "effect" each other, a quantum of energy is passed - a photon!
What we have here is the old philosophical bug-a-boo, “actio distans” -- action at a distance. Thomas and Socrates and Plato could not admit this, so it is no wonder the rest of us tend to think that this unthinkable premise is not worth considering. If "A" affects "B", then something needs to have passed between them! But what if this simplistic macro view is the source of our problems?
The assumption we all make is that “something” must move from here to there to effect a change over there. It's how everything seems to work in our macro world - but in fact, we know that it does not. Nothing ever really touches anything - the electron shells in the skin on my fingers are pressing up against the electron shells in the plastic keyboard. None of those elemental particles actually “touch” - whatever that means at this level - in order for me to effect a change.
If the phenomena we know as light and radio waves are actually only an “effect”, propagated at the speed of light, then all of the problems dealing with photons and the like seem to evaporate.
Relative Motion
Here's how this professor explained it me some few decades ago. If I set electrons oscillating in a wire, call it an antenna, they tend to make every other electron in the universe oscillate in a similar fashion. Now this “effect” cannot propagate immediately, else everything happens all at once, and the net result is that nothing happens. If some other group of electrons in a wire happen to be in an electronic circuit resonant at the same frequency, then the effect is amplified enough that we can even detect it - using something called a radio! Our eyes work the same way, with resonant detectors for the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum called visible light.
Nothing travels, nothing needs to travel, the effect is propagated. Opacity and sensitivity to the effect are determined by whether or not an electron in other affected body is sufficiently resonant at the emitter's frequency to allow for detection. Bodies in the way, other resonators, reflectors, whatever, modify the effect, and can amplify or nullify it. And, in fact, only one electron is interacting with one other - not a mass of things - all discrete components. When the sun blasts out an electromagnetic "wave" of light - it is actually the combined effect of a whole bunch of electrons that are interacting with others in the entire universe. Up to the Hubble limit, that is.
Space Time Continuum
You also need to understand that we all operate in a specific Space / Time Continuum. That means that our mass, our space, and our time are tied to the space / time continuum we occupy. If we accelerate within this framework, our time actually slows down, and our mass increases. We are at the kind of middle level of space time - between subatomic entities and the galaxies that make up the known universe. At our level, in our continuum, light is the constant measure of most interactions. Everything interacts at the speed of light - more or less. Now, just make the leap that at the subatomic level, there is an entirely different space / time continuum. At that level, components can interact across huge apparent distances in our space / time, with NO DELAY. You have no doubt heard of "entanglement". We have discovered that we can entangle two subatomic particles such that affecting one of them will instantaneously change the other - no matter the distance between them. What have done is to bring that effect which is normal at the subatomic level, up to our space time continuum.
If you take these first leaps, most everything else works very, very well.
In the "split photon" problem, that single photon is not divided; it does not determine which path to take far ahead of time. The "effect" of the emitter and the receiver interact, depending on the detector, and the "stuff" in between. If we let go of the need to send ANYTHING AT ALL, but just propagate a quantum of EFFECT or better, an INTERACTION, at the speed of light, things seem to make a lot more sense. Anything we do to detect the effect, actually modifies it, in flight, as it were.
Particle and Wave
Given this premise, this problems disappear. Nothing travels, an effect is simply propagated. This electron's movement or spin tends to make another electron move that is harmonically tuned -- not shielded, "influenceable" if you will. The effect is the discrete energy level associated with the shift in electron orbits, that is effectively propagated in all directions where it is not canceled out by a tuned reflector that absorbs or cancels or shields its effect. This effect would reasonably look like both particle and wave if your paradigm requires some transmission entity. In fact, Fitzpatrick (see below) says it is actually this law of in-phase binding:
“When an electron in your eye binds in-phase with an electron on a distant star, to give you a quantum of light, there is NO spacetime whatsoever between the closest sides of those two, spin up - spin down, binding electrons — with their closest sides binding in-phase — even though much spacetime exists between you and that distant star.”
Energy Absorption Rates
Another result of this paradigm shift is that energy itself is a propagated interaction -- not a discrete packet of any thing. All electromagnetic "radiation" seems to exhibit this kind of effect. If energy is the effect of one oscillating entity on another, then the propagation of that energy depends on some other entity receiving it, by being influenced. That means that it is not possible to simply "radiate" energy into empty space. There has to be something to "absorb" the energy, or interact with it, in order for there to be any transfer of energy! It can be very far away, but it accepts the energy transfer.
Hubble Limits and energy dispersion
It also turns out that this "effect" is not propagated forever - it only extends to the Hubble Constant. Electromagnetic radiation as we know it does not go beyond that distance. And, the effect does NOT diminish with distance. It may appear to be weaker, because the audience or scope of things affected expands by the square of the distance, but the actual effect is just as powerful at 1 light year, as at 100 light years. The star looks dimmer because the area of its effect increases with the distance, but each individual light effect retains the same power - produces the same result. The electron in our eye is not AFFECTED by the one in the star - it INTERACTS with it. They acknowledge each other and respond so that a discrete quantum of energy is transferred.
Gravity is similar
Fitz says gravity operates in the same fashion, but at a much higher perceived speed in our space time continuum, and beyond the Hubble Constant. He also has words about dark matter and dark energy that are drawn from that insight. You have to see what he says about that.
More and Better
Fitz seems to have given up on getting others to recognize his approach. But he has not given up thinking about how things work, and he is paying attention to new research. As I understand it, Einstein did his absolute genius work by doing thought experiments. Fitz operates in much the same way. In April 2019, I sent him a reference to a recent article that said some researchers found a way to control the speed of light and to even send it backwards. I told him it made no sense.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-researchers-develop-way-to-control.html
This was his reply:
Even though the binding goes in both directions, the light energy can only travel from STAR (high energy area) to your eye (lower energy area).
But this is normal starlight that ONLY electrons give us.
This and magnetic and electrical forces has a limit of the speed of light (the speed of the circumference of the electron as it spins).
But the quark spins much faster. Some LASERs emit light via actually manipulating quarks and this light can go much faster than the speed of light limit.
In reading his work for many years, this certainly never occured to me - but it was obvious to him. The speed of light generated by an electron is limited by the speed of the circumference of the spinning electron. If you generate a force - call it Q-light - using a quark, it is going to travel at the speed of the spinning quark! Amazing. What could we accomplish if we could get the scientific community to see the potential of this?
Conclusion.
That's about as far as I can go with this. Please read the monograph (http://www.amperefitz.com/), or just skip to the book. Thanks for your patience in reading this far.
BEST short summary for a physicist:
Created March, 1999
Copyright Carl Scheider 1999, 2002, 2007, 2018, 2019, 2020