I Am. When? - Physics

Quack Science

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:12:00 -0800

xkcd had this great comic strip up today (shown above). Of course it got me thinking about how I have been neglecting my own pet physics notions and that I really fall into the same realm as the comic (what scientists respectfully call "quack science") with those notions. Let's face it, I do not have a degree in Chemistry or Physics (let alone a PhD), but I do have a few things going for me.

First, I have studied all the stuff I spout off about before I spout off about them. Actually, I studied advanced physics some 15+ years ago. Now, the ideas I come up with... well that is another story, but I do at the very least make sure I know what I am talking about before I talk about it.

Second, and this is actually one of the more import points, is that I outright asked for help/confirmation/criticism right when I came up with my idea in my first physics article entitled Spacetime and Quantum Mechanics. I even went so far as to sit down with the head of the physics department at a local college. It was what that physicist said that made me start my next series of posts on the subject, but we will get to that later (hint: he pissed me off).

Third, I am smarter than the average bear. Actually, my IQ is someplace well over a 100 points above average. To my surprise, there really was an "off the charts" when it came to intelligence quotients, so while I do not know my exact IQ as a result of this, I can comfortably say that I am probably smarter than any other scientist you have met. Unless you had met Tesla when he was alive and then I might have to amend my last statement. Of course Tesla practiced Quack Science, so I am good with that.

Lastly, after never getting any type of solid answer and/or feedback from any physical science type people, I have intentionally left tidbits of information out of each of my physics entries. I had hoped at least one person might bite and point out the opening I left so that I could start a discussion, but we already know no physicists (or even chemists) read my blog. It was a futile attempt, I know, but it had to be done.

So in the name of real science, let's correct a few of those wide open holes I left for the science community:

Orbitals Do Not Exist
Every Chemist, Physicist, Engineer, and (hopefully) first year college student (in previously mentioned fields at least) know that Orbitals Do Not Exist. They don't. Orbitals are graphical representations that correspond to the statistical likelihood that you will find an electron in a given area around the nucleus of an atom. They aren't real, they are statistics that say "yep, 90% of the time an electron is gonna be here if we look."

The problem is with the "if we look" part above. In order to see where an electron is (or was) you hit it with a light particle. Electrons travel very fast, so it is no longer there before you even had a chance to record the spot. Worse than that, when you hit that electron with a light particle, you transfer energy to that electron so that it is now travelling completely differently than it was previously. Basically, by looking at the electron path, you change that electron path. Oops. So scientists use orbitals because they have never been able to accurately predict the exact orbits (i.e. they have no mathematical law).

That was actually the point of this article. That there really is a mathematical formula that can accurately predict the orbit of an electron in an atom, and even model it through a graphical computer algorithm. But I lack the math background to come up with that exact formula thus far (I am working on it), so I threw everything out there that any scientist would need to know to create that model. No one has created that model because they all suck (partially joking).

The Nature Of Light
Pretty much everything I covered in my slit experiment section is dead on, except for the small part I left out to hook in a physicist: The actual wave disruption patterns created by light; i.e. the areas where overlapping light particles that cancel out, much like two waves on an ocean reaching the same point. It's kind of a big one, so I figured I would get at least one comment out of it. But no...

Anyway, the problem with this whole wave cancellation pattern thing of light is that all particles do this. Light, electrons, alpha particles, etc. Any free particle does this. The question is: why? The answer is NOT because they cancel each other out like the waves on an ocean, but rather because two particles occupying the same space are not the same thing as one particle.

Confused? Ignoring for a second the whole fusion thing, if you perform the slit experiment using hydrogen particles (not alpha particles, but actual hydrogen) and you recorded the pattern that the hydrogen hits a plate at, you would get a wave formation similar to light (and electrons and everything else). The reason is that you are looking for hydrogen atoms. When two hydrogen atoms occupy the same space, they are no longer hydrogen atoms. Instead you have one helium atom, but you weren't looking for that, you were looking for hydrogen. So you get a wave pattern on your plate, with blank areas wherever helium happened to have formed instead of the expected hydrogen. Same thing happens with light; you are looking for red laser light and instead get something else in those areas. Not cancelled; changed.

Einstein, bless his little heart, sort of understood this when he said that light can be treated as both a particle and a wave. EVERY particle can be treated as a wave, so he was dead on. But treating something like a wave and it actually being a wave are two totally different things. When you actually get down to the nitty-gritty of how light (and every other particle) behaves, you can just use that instead of wave mechanics.

This leads me to Einstein, or rather the religious zealot following of his theories in the science community. Whenever I have spoken with a physicist about my theory it inevitably winds up with the physicist saying these exact words, "because Einstein said so." Yea, that's solid science for you. Didn't work for my parents as a reason for anything, won't work for a physicist either.

Now, don't get me wrong, Einstein was brilliant and advanced physics a ton. Not as brilliant as Tesla, but that is neither here nor there. The problem is that he was wrong. The second problem is that his theories cover every possible contingency (almost) so that he can't be disproved. Thus, my own theory has to sit in limbo until he can be disproved, which set me about all the rest of these posts I have been covering. In order to prove my own theory, I have to disprove Einstein on several fronts.

Lucky for me, I do have a way of doing that. Unlucky for me, I do not have the time, money, or equipment to do that. As I mentioned once before, a modified Shapiro experiment will disprove Einstein (and most current physics theory). So here it is:

1. Put a satellite in low orbit around Jupiter (big enough gravity force that it should show the Shapiro Time Delay effect).
2. Sync the clock on it without using Einstein's theories to do so (which is what has allowed for GPS satellites to have their clocks in sync) by sending several signals and responses back and forth until you get it right.
3. When the satellite is alongside the planet (by line of sight) in that low orbit, you ping it with a radar signal.
4. Instead of an echo, the satellite waits until a specific time (synced to time on Earth as mentioned above) to respond back. That response is just the time that the satellite received the radar ping, and nothing more.

What the results should (will) be is that the signal to the satellite takes less time than the return signal, despite the distances being the same. If I am right (and I am in this case), this would disprove the whole space-time thing and allow my theory to actually be taken seriously. But, someone needs to run the experiment first, and what are the chances of that?

The nice thing is, despite my not having the resources or academic clout to get my theory out there and accepted, I know it is true (or as close to true as science can ever be). This means that someday I will get to utter those words to the physics community that I have said to every other community I have disagreed with: "I told ya so." And I am good with that (for now).

The Nature Of Light

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:55:00 -0700

At 8:00am I wake up, drink some coffee, shower and am into work at 8:30am. You work directly with me and spend the entire morning from 8:30am until 12:00pm along side me, following my every movement. At 12:00pm we go to lunch together, returning to work at 1:00pm. From that time until 5:00pm you never leave my side. At 5:00pm we leave work and head out to dinner together where we discuss the day's findings and observations. At 9:00pm we depart the restaurant and each head to our separate homes. At 9:15pm I have a few glasses of mead at home and go to bed at 9:30pm.

While this is completely unrealistic for my actual schedule and does not allow for separate bathroom breaks at the work place it will suffice for the topic at hand; and that is the nature of light. Of a 13 hour and 30 minute day, you would have spent 12 hours and 30 minutes with me, or 92.6% of my waking day. From the time spent with me you could observe that I am capable of walking in a straight line. As a matter of fact, you could infer that 100% of the time I am capable of walking in a straight line. With me so far?

What you do not see is the 2 minutes when I first wake up and wander to the coffee pot for my first cup of coffee, often bumping into the walls of the hallway on my journey for caffeine. Nor do you see the 2 minutes between when the alcohol from the mead kicks in and I make my way back into bed. For those 4 minutes or 0.49% of the day I am not capable of walking a straight line. 4 minutes of the day that 99.99999% of the world will never observe, unless you were stationed with me in the Navy, at which case you saw me stumbling drunk a lot.

The nature of light is like this. Just as you will never get the chance to observe those 4 minutes where I am incapable of walking a straight line, the circumstances that cause light to behave against the established rules are extremely unlikely to be observed. Thus we infer that light travels at a constant speed of 299,792,458 meters per second and that it behaves like a particle and a wave.

If you have ever met me or read my blog prior to this moment you already know I am going to tell you that light does not travel at a constant speed nor is it both a particle and wave. It is just a particle that usually travels at 299,792,458 m/s. Being who I am, you really should just take my word for it, but I know you will want some sort of proof of this outlandish claim.

The slit experiment is a good place to start. Before I say anything else on the subject, let me just state that the slit experiment, or double-slit experiment, is viewed as a thought experiment by quantum physicists as opposed to actually showing anything explainable. Basically they know that something interferes with the particles of light to make them appear as a wave, but aren't sure why that could be and so call it a thought experiment instead, pretending that light (and other particles) behave as both a particle and a wave.

Now that I have that out of the way if you happen to have access to the proper lab equipment give the following a try:
1. Perform the double-slit experiment, recording the pattern of photons that collect on the screen using the same material for the entire barrier (the thing that has the slits cut in it).
2. Perform the experiment a second time, exactly the same way. You should observe a similar wave pattern formed on the screen.
3. Now replace 1/2 of the barrier (i.e. one of the slits) with a different composition of material, ensuring the slit has the same dimensions and is located in the same location. The result should be a different wave form on the screen from the previous two runs. Cool stuff, right?
4. For something really cool, perform the double-slit experiment in a vacuum using a barrier composed of black body single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Lacking access to a NASA Space Shuttle, astronaut training, lasers and black body material I can't prove what you will see in experiment #4, but what it should be (and I would put large sums of money on this) is a lack of wave forming. You see, the waves of the slit experiment are not formed because light is a waveform, but rather because of the photons coming near and bouncing off a combination of the sides of the slits in the barrier and the molecules present in air.

When light hits a given atom or molecule at a particular angle, it behaves in a very predictable manner. That predictability is tied in to the frequency of the orbits (both electron and nucleus) of an atom. When you remove the deflection from the walls of the barrier using a black body material and the interference caused by molecules in the air, you take away light's ability to mimic wave behavior. Instead you get the real nature of light, which is particles. Now fly up to space and try it out, I'll continue on by covering the speed of light while we await your return.

The first thing I should cover is the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy does not just disappear, or rather does not get used up. Instead energy changes forms, from one type, like kinetic, to another type, like potential. The amount of energy available stays the same.

Photons, or light particles, have a specific amount of energy in the form of kinetic energy. When that photon impacts something, that energy gets transferred to that something, usually in the form of thermal energy (heat). Plants are really good at absorbing all that energy instead of allowing it to become thermal energy, solar cells are not so good. This is why a leaf does not get as hot as a solar cell in bright sunlight.

A photon is only capable of holding so much energy, which as I said takes the form of kinetic energy, allowing the photon to travel through space at a rate of 299,792,458 m/s; usually. It would take additional energy to allow that photon to travel faster than its normal speed, but it can't hold that additional energy. I would guess that super energy saturation is theoretically possible, but unlikely to occur naturally, so light does not travel faster than the speed of light very often (just on open roadways with no police cars around).

Photons can be slowed down though. Light gets affected by intense gravitational forces such as that present in stars and black holes. It also gets affected by planetary gravitational forces, hence the lens effect seen around planets (light gets curved around it). When gravity acts upon light to slow it down, or any moving object for that matter, the kinetic energy does not go away, but rather becomes potential energy. Once the gravitational field is no longer acting upon the photon, the potential energy turns right back into kinetic energy and off the little particle goes.

Now, if you happen to be a physicist reading this you are no doubt spouting off about it being spacetime distortions caused by gravitational fields. Of course no physicists read my blog, or they are too afraid to respond, but in the unlikely event that you are a physicist; let me tell you that you are only spouting off about spacetime because you have been taught it as sound scientific theory. It doesn't really exist.

Ok, ok. Andrew's a whack job. Probably wears an aluminum foil hat to keep out the mind control rays. I assure you I do not, the aluminum foil hat is just fashionable and I only wear it with the proper ensemble. All kidding aside, let's try a thought experiment of our own, assuming you haven't drunk too much of the grape Kool-Aid already.

Assume for just an instant that Einstein had never come up with any of the theories of relativity or spacetime or any of that stuff. You send a radar signal at the planet Mercury and record the amount of time for the round trip. You know the distance to Mercury and the speed of light, so you should have a good idea of how long it should take before you "hear" that echo. Only when you send that radar signal out to Mercury such that it passes very close to the Sun, it takes longer for the signal to make its round trip than it should.

Now either Mercury jumped out of its orbit and further away from Earth for that instant, or something else happened. Disregarding spacetime, make your inference. If you put down the Kool-Aid, you will infer that something slowed down the radar signal, with the likely culprit being the gravitational force of the Sun. We do know, after all, that gravity can affect light particles.

The above experiment should look familiar to physics students, as it is the same experiment used by Irwin Shapiro to test general relativity and produce the Shapiro Time Delay effect. Simply because general relativity is accepted we call it a time delay, rather than gravity slowing down a photon.

The reality is that photons get slowed down by the gravity of the sun. Just a tiny bit, because they are travelling so very very fast to begin with (back to my theory there). Even more so, the photon gets curved ever-so-slightly around the Sun, but luckily enough, on the return trip the Sun curves the trajectory back on path to be received by the awaiting radar dish.

This is all just food for thought for the time being. The proof of this concept comes from a modified version of the Shapiro test and also explains why the frame-dragging effect really occurs. I'll cover that in a later entry, but for now I have rambled on long enough. In the mean time, put down the Kool-Aid and start thinking logically.

Orbitals Do Not Exist

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:31:00 -0700

Once upon a time in the land of Bohr's atom, scientists tried to explain electrons floating around the nucleus and came up with the magical faerie tale of orbitals. Orbitals are on par with medieval Christian medicine; that is, the physicians explained ailments in terms of demons, curses and sin. Sometimes the physicians got lucky with the diagnosis and treatment, but there was no concrete method to prove when they were wrong, it was just the sinner’s disbelief that killed them, not a misdiagnosis. You have just got to love absolute truths. Orbitals are one of those truths.

Orbitals are a faerie tale. A story. A guess. An educated guess perhaps, but a guess all the same. When you describe something as being "90% likely to be located someplace in this region" you are guessing, just like medieval physicians did. They based their guess work on the religion of the Christian God; modern scientists base their guess work on one incorrect theory, which in turn grew to hundreds and thousands of incorrect theories. Or at least, incorrectly based theories.

Let's put a little truth back into those theories. For simplicity's sake we are only going to talk about the "original three" subatomic particles: electrons, protons and neutrons. The remainder of the particles actually fall in line and make much more sense with what I am going to point out. Ready then?

Electron's move in logical, predictable orbits around the nucleus of an atom.

Bold and brash, right? Wrong. Here's the simple understanding of it all.

1) Electrons are influenced by the positive-to-negative electromagnetic pull of the nucleus of the atom. Given this, an electron should get sucked into and become part of the nucleus of the atom (this is why physicists first started to make stuff up).

2) The distance between the source of a given force and an object the force is acting upon changes the strength of that force. Meaning an electron located in North Carolina is not going to get sucked into the nucleus of an atom located in Virginia. Still means that electron is going to get sucked into its own nucleus though.

3) Enter my Hypothesis (I'm about ready to do a nice write up to move this officially to a theory, as well as a slight rewrite to bring it more inline with scientific wording): The faster an object is moving relative to a source of energy/force, the less influence said force exerts upon the object. You can read my initial write-up entitled Classical Mechanics Rule to see how this affects an electron. Basically, electrons move too damn fast to allow the electromagnetic pull of the protons to suck it into the nucleus; instead the force gets reduced thanks to the electron's speed and a stable orbit is created.

Based on this first part, a hydrogen atom in a complete void would have an orbital pattern that looks exactly like what everyone thinks an orbit should look like. There is even a mathematical formula for this orbital pattern, because it is the same mathematical formula for any circular orbit. Of course, not all atoms are hydrogen atoms and none reside in a complete void, nor are all hydrogen atoms simple one proton nucleus atoms. This is where things really are complicated. If only there was a mathematical formula that could accurately describe that complicated orbit just as well as one describing a circular orbit, but surely if there was such a mathematical formula someone would have come up with it by now (and won a Nobel Prize as a result).

The good news is there is one. The even better news is that, to my knowledge, no one has won a Nobel Prize for it yet. There might have been, and I just missed it, but given that the world is still using (and teaching) quantum physics, I am fairly certain that no one has released said formula. What is the mathematical formula then? I don't know. Crap, so much for that Nobel Prize.

Alright, that is partially a lie or I wouldn't be bothering to write up an entry about all this. I know almost all the pieces of the formula, or rather I know what all the pieces are and the mathematical formulas for most of those pieces. Being a nice person, and thinking science should be expanded for sciences sake, here are the components that make up the mathematical formula of a stable orbit (planets, electrons, black hole event horizons, etc):

1. The mathematical formula for a standard orbit (Trigonometry, baby).
2. The mathematical formula for force applied based upon distance (available in Physics or Chemistry books incase you don't know it by heart).
3. The mathematical formula for force applied based upon speed (yea, this is the missing one, but can actually be easily figured out. Heck, someone might actually know it already, but if not, there are simple experiments).
4. The mathematical formula for force applied to an object through specific barriers (neutrons are a barrier, as are certain solar phenomena).
5. The constant values of each force for each object.
6. The speed of each object.

Pretty simple right? Number five is a "gotcha" in that not only does a proton pull on an electron and a star pull on a planet, but electrons repel one another and planets have gravitational forces of their own. Number six is an easy one, except when additional energy is applied, but that can be factored in; we do after all know the speed of an electron in a vacuum, and, well, between the electron and the nucleus is a vacuum (pretty clever).

When you throw all this together you can model a complete, stable orbital system. Sooner or later I will get around to producing this formula in its entirety. Of course this will require all the textbooks to be rewritten as well as many of the existing theories (like, because I mentioned them previously, a ton of the stuff on black holes), but that is what science is all about. Change based on new information, and currently the new information is that Orbitals do not exist. Do the math and you will agree.

Classical Mechanics Rule

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:25:00 -0700

In the entry I Bit My Tongue Off, I spoke about getting thoughts on my brain and needing to let them out. Well, this hypothesis is one of those things. It has had me bouncing ideas off people all day. It has had me reading up on physics, which I have not studied since Nuke school in 1992. It has wormed its way so far around my brain that I just climbed out of bed to write about it.

I do not know if my hypothesis holds water or not. I do not know if it is even an original idea or not, but it is stuck in my head and so I have to try and find out. Let me start by stating the hypothesis again.

Hypothesis: The faster an object is moving relative to a source of energy/force, the less influence said force exerts upon the object.

At this moment, to me, it really is not a hypothesis. More of a postulate (meaning it is a given, a natural fact). But it disrupts so much of the world of physics that I can not assume it to be a fact. Even I am not so arrogant. Ok, maybe I am. So allow me to explain what this hypothesis implies.

Quantum mechanics is a sub-field of mechanics in the realm of the physical laws (physics), the other being Classical mechanics. Quantum mechanics deals with really really tiny things (atomic level and below), while Classical mechanics deals with normal sized things. Basically, everything you can see falls under classical mechanics, everything too tiny to see falls under quantum mechanics, and they both have entirely different rules.

The reason for these two sub-fields is that when physicists (like Einstein) try to explain the behavior of atomic sized particles they run into road blocks with the classical mechanics (the laws and theories people like Newton came up with). The rules seemed to not apply, such as how an electron can just fly around the nucleus of an atom without a degrading orbit (i.e. why doesn't the electron get sucked in by the electromagnetic force of the nucleus). Like good scientists, they made up new rules: Quantum Mechanics. And rather than dealing with absolutes (or things that make sense), quantum mechanics deals mostly with probabilities (or guess work).

Yes, I know; that is a little over simplified and not completely accurate. Bite me.

The implication of this hypothesis is that the classic rules (Classical Mechanics) apply to really tiny things once again. It means that time is linear (no more spacetime). It means that faster than light travel is possible. It means there is only one universe. And it means if you can get going fast enough, you can travel straight through a planet without messing up a hair on your head. Pretty cool, right?

The thing that has really kept this thought going in my head is that all of the evidence I can find to support quantum theories also support (prove) this hypothesis. Even better, the stuff I can find that throws a wrench in quantum mechanics support this hypothesis. I have to go with Occum's Razor on this one.

Let's just cover one of the founding principles of quantum mechanics: stable electron orbits. According to classical mechanics the electron should get sucked in by the nucleus of an atom because of electromagnetism. They don't, so obviously classical mechanics don't apply. Unless you throw in the above hypothesis and then things start to make sense with classic physics.

1. Fact: Electrons travel extremely fast. They travel even faster in an atomic orbit than free flowing. Let's call the speed of an electron M.
2. Fact: Electrons are negatively charged. Protons in the nucleus of an atom are positively charged. This generates an electromagnetic field producing a certain amount of force. Let's term this force X.
3. The amount of force applied to an object varies with things like distance to the source of the force, etc. Let's call the actual applied force on an object A
4. As M approaches zero (0), A approaches 100% of X
5. As M approaches infinity, A approaches 0% of X

The faster the electron travels, the less the electromagnetic force can influence the electron. Electrons do not travel at 0; they travel very fast relative to the nucleus of an atom. Considering the base strength of X is not super strong and with the electron traveling at electron speeds, A has barely enough influence on the electron to keep it in any kind of orbit at all. Just enough force under normal conditions.

Electrons also do not travel in consistent orbits, but the nice thing about an orbit is that the speed relative to any given point on the edge of a nucleus varies. As an electron gets closer to the nucleus, its speed relative to the closest point of the nucleus increases; farther away and it decreases. This provides for a natural adjustment to the change caused in A due to varying the distance between electron and nucleus.

In layman's terms: if you are standing still, I can reach out and grab you with my hand and pull you towards me. If you are walking past me at 3 mph, it is more difficult to do. If you are running at 50 mph, I will probably just break my hand trying. Not an exact comparison, but enough of an analogy that the point should come across.

Anyway, that is the basis of the hypothesis. It explains a lot more than what I have here, but this will work for the time being.

Please tell me where this hypothesis is wrong or what I am missing. Thank You.

Spacetime and Quantum Mechanics

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:21:01 -0700

Hypothesis: The faster an object is moving relative to a source of energy/force, the less influence said force exerts upon the object.

Can some physicist explain to me what is wrong with the above hypothesis (postulate) and why it doesn't get rid of quantum mechanics and spacetime entirely? Thank You.