Speed of Light

Dear 'Anwers in Genitals' (if that is correct)No, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Profesor Compton.In the current state of physics there are so many so busily 'plouging their own furrows' that they sarcely have time to see over the hedges. One looks forward to the time when it all comes together. If you see that gentleman again, please give him my best wishes.By the way, I am not a card-carrying 'Professor'. So any bids for qualifications I have made in that particular area have been cloaked in controversy. This was from the time when my mentors discovered that I was a heretic. It is certainly a truism that society doesn't encourage heretics, far less fund them.Thereby hangs a tale, which might provide some insight into what I said in an earlier posting, about Socrates being executed and so on. I'd love to tell that tale, but hardly on this particular forum thread, even though that tale is all about my views on light and relativity.Thanks.Viv Pope

Dear 'AnswersInGenitals.
Many thanks for your kind and supportive comments. It seems as though you have experienced these sorts of difficulties yourself, when it feels as though the discussion is taking place under water. Indeed, sometimes the mismatch between what one is saying and what is heard/read is so huge that it is as if one is from a different planet.The trouble is that in putting any new idea forward, that idea has somehow to navigate through a minefield of precepts. In my view, the fault lies with our system of Education. A colleague of mine remarks that in her teaching she is appalled to find so many, even adult students, who scarcely know what logic means, who cannot distinguish a logical argument from a string of mere opinions. Some of these people talk about ‘my’ logic and ’your’ logic and respond to a well-formed argument with pure rhetoric — or else just noise. But, of course, logic has not been taught in schools nor even universities — not in provincial ones at any rate — for some generations. The worst offenders, I find, are Physicists who cannot follow a logical argument that is not full of mathematical formulae. I have known some who, if you said that a bachelor is an unmarried man would surely demand mathematical and experimental proof of that statement. In a discussion with one person, he challenged me to describe what I meant by ‘logic’. I said to him, If I tell you that the biscuits are in the tin and then say that the tin is in the cupboard, then you can deduce from that that the biscuits are in the cupboard. Right? He looked at me uncomprehendingly for a full minute. Then, clutching his forehead, he said: Gee, that does my head in! And, believe it or not, this guy was studying a book on String Theory!Thanks for correcting me about SLAC. I now understand that this is the acronym for the Subterranean Linear Accelerator Centre. Strange that I have been in touch, for many years, with someone from SLAC without knowing that! (This gentleman, by the way is Professor Pierre Noyes.)Thanks again,Viv Pope.PS.
Thanks, by the way, for giving me the opportunity, here, of saying something of which I think all members of this forum should take note. This is that there is a very common logical fallacy which all too many Physicists commit. It is to assume that P implies Q, necessarily implies Q implies P. One prime example of this fallacy is to assume that because all velocities are distances divided by time, all distances divided by time (such as c) are velocities. Another example is to assume that because all receding galaxies are redshifted, seeing a galaxy redshifted is the same as seeing that galaxy receding. This is like saying that because all dogs have four legs, anything with four legs is a dog. These fallacies are far from trivial. All current light-theory and Big Bang cosmology are based on this sort of fallacy, which is surely worrisome for the state of Modern Physics and Cosmology..

Off-topic content hidden. See Message 120 for explanation. Meta comments about discussion in this thread should be taken to Peanut Gallery. Discussions on other topics should be taken to other threads, or new threads may be proposed at Proposed New Topics. --AdminDear Bolder-dash And that’s where the rot starts. Whereas the subject matter of both kinds of physics is the same — that, is, physical PHENOMENA — the Machian, or relativist approach to phenomena is based on direct or unmediated observation. On the other hand, the standard paradigm, the quaintly called ‘Realist’ approach, is to regard phenomena as mediated by light as the space travelling ‘middle man’ between real physical objects and our observations of them. These two opposite, incommensurable ways of thinking simply do not and cannot possibly gel. The fact that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity seeks to combine them makes that Theory the greatest mind-twister in the history of physical science. Those who claim to understand it just have to be deluded, since they claim, in effect, to understand the impossible, that is to say, to ‘understand’ something that is, in fact, completely self-contradictory and incomprehensible. And this, of course, is where, in Physics, Logic began to be abandoned.By contrast, in the Machian approach to physics, there is no such contradiction, because there is no ‘middle-man’ in the shape of ‘light-velocity’, so that the deal, as it were, is between the ‘consumer’ and the ‘producer, direct. Moreover, in the Machian — or, rather, now the Neo-Machian — physics paradigm there is none of the conflict between relativistic and quantum physics that has bedevilled the Extant Theory since its very inception. The Machian approach, at its very root, is as quantised as it is relativistic, which, if it were instituted, would change the whole complexion of physics and physics teaching. This, of course, threatens a serious social upheaval, so that it is only to be expected that any prospect of its actually happening will be opposed on grounds more political than rational. Do I make myself clear?Viv PopePS,
I am well aware that Physicists, nowadays, are taught next to nothing about Philosophy, a subject which scientists typically regard as taboo. I suggest that in order to break down that barrier and grasp what I am saying, the reader should, at the very least, acquaint himself/herself, on Google, with what ‘Phenomenalism’ and ‘Normal Realism’ mean. Also, anyone interested should key-in the buzz-word Neo-Machian. There you will see, in this twenty-first century, what has matured out of Mach’s nineteenth-century phenomenalism.Thanks,Viv Pope Edited by Admin, : Hide off-topic content.

Off-topic content hidden. See Message 120 for explanation. Meta comments about discussion in this thread should be taken to Peanut Gallery. Discussions on other topics should be taken to other threads, or new threads may be proposed at Proposed New Topics. --AdminDear Bolder-Dash, Thanks,Viv Pope. Edited by Admin, : Hide off-topic content.

Dear Percy (Moderator),
I understand that you wish to hide my last posting on this topic. In your message 20, you state very clearly and unambiguously that the topic is issues related to the speed of light. Just to check, then, that this discussion is still on track, Relativity is definitely an issue related to the speed of light. So are Quantum instantaneity and Mach's developed contribution to physics,. Indeed, this whole discussion is about issues related to the speed of light except perhaps, for this latest tte--tte with Bolder-dash about logic, which is, perhaps marginal, although the logic and maths we discussed was in relation to the argument about light-speed.Anyway, Ref’s decision stands. So, okay, let’s get back firmly on track.TO ALL MEMBERS
Re. the discussion on Light-Velocity in relation to relativistic and quantum-digital physicsWe kick up a dust and complain we cannot see’.BerkeleyThere is no logical reason why nature should be so confusing to us. Further to my last posting on this subject, let me say that what I am doing on this forum is nominating Mach’s Phenomenalism as the ‘New Physics’ that John Anderson of NASA and others talk about as what is needed to solve the anomalies that have been found to be inexplicable in terms of standard Extant Physics. In its latest Neo-Machian form of Normal Realism (click on Google), not only does it explain, perfectly, without theoretical contrivance, NASA’s ‘Pioneer Anomaly’ (as due to NASA’s neglect of spin angular momentum); it also explains, in the same way, the astronomers’ ‘Missing Mass Anomaly’ without having to postulate the nonsensical and completely undetectable ‘dark matter’. This latter anomaly arises, just like the former, due to the neglect of the spin angular momentum of practically all orbiting bodies, from planets and satellites to spiral galaxies. (Newtonian ‘gravitation’ which NASA uses to track its satellites and which astronomers use to calculate ‘the mass of the universe’, typically neglects the spin angular momenta of orbiting bodies.)This New Physics, of Machian origin, is no ad hoc emergency response to these anomalies. It is of almost two-centuries-long standing, and these recently discovered anomalies are simply proof of its validity. In addition to explaining these recent anomalies, the Neo-Machian method solves the notorious EPR controversy between Bohr and Einstein regarding the question of whether action-at-a-distance (IAAAD) is instantaneous, as quantum physics requires, or is limited to the ‘velocity of light, c’ as Einstein’s Theory demands.Moreover, in Machian phenomenalism light is simply what you see — that is, phenomena. All physical phenomena are ultimately reducible to discrete amounts of energy-interaction which Mach called ‘sense-data’. In the developed, Neo-Machian synthesis, these ‘sense-data’, which I have called light-pixels, are identified with Planck’s quantum h. So as well as being, at root, relative, or observer-centred (empirical, as opposed to absolutist), Mach’s method is quantised, which means that it is, by definition, a Quantum Relativity. So, if it is ‘New Physics’ we are seeking, then what are we waiting for? Neo-Machian Digital Physics (click Google) or Normal Realism does it all.

Anyone who doubts this claim is welcome to challenge it in logical argument with myself. All necessary information regarding it will, of course, be supplied on request.

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Viv Pope.

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FOOTNOTE

NR deduces time-dilation in the simplest way possible from geometrical first principles, i.e., directly from Pythagoras in four lines of algebra. It solves the ‘Unified Field’ problem (by dispensing with ‘fields altogether), solves the EPR Paradox (reconciles quantum instantaneity with relativistic time-delay), solves the mystery of the Two-Slit Experiment (click Google on ‘The Tantalising Two-Slit Experiment’). It deduces the Balmer spectrum formula directly from the time-dilation formula (by inverting it to express frequency).

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NR also closes the Educational gap between Arts and Science and, not least, creates a seamless join between Science and the Humanities. In addition to all this, NR solves the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, together with the ‘Missing Mass Anomaly’. It reveals the logical fallacy of interpreting the Hubble redshift as galactic recession (‘All receding bodies are redshifted’ does not imply that all redshifts show receding bodies) On this basis it opposes ‘Big Bang’ cosmology, It also dispenses with ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ (by including spin, see above). It demystifies the concept of ‘black holes’. (They are just ordinary angular momentum barycentres, like the eyes of hurricanes, cyclones, etc.) Any and every one of these items will be explained on request.

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It is to be borne in mind that the key to all this is the alterative, non-speed interpretation of the constant, c. Once this is is grasped, the story tells itself.

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V.P.

Dear IblisThanks for your comment and your question. You say more of this, please. Fair enough. Here is something I was working on in anticipation of a request such as this. I hope it helps.Pythagorean Relativity (for the EvC forum.)This is just to show you how easy relativity is to deduce and understand —
and teach — in Normal Realism as described in my last posting.Once we get rid of the idea that light has a ‘speed’, it all becomes very simple and easy. Let me show you what I mean .Just imagine yourself back at the time of Pythagoras. You look out on the world and you observe, as Pythagoras did, that the world has three rectangular dimensions, length, breadth and depth. You wouldn’t know anything, of course, about ‘light-speed’ and all its associated trappings, such as, ‘Michelson and Morley’, ‘ether’, ‘electromagnetic waves’, ‘photons’, ‘Faraday’, ‘Einstein’, ‘Minkowski’ or anything like that. Light is simply what you see in those three dimensions, the opposite of dark.Also like Pythagoras, you observe that a body travelling, say, east whilst it also travels north, travels a distance whose length is the resultant of the two component distances, which is the square-root of the sum of the squares of the distance north and the distance east, the relation known as Pythagoras’ Theorem.But now you start thinking about the speed of the travelling body, which is the distance travelled by the body in a certain time, that is, the distance s divided by the time t. In this way, you come to realise that in addition to the three dimensions of space there is another dimension, the dimension of duration, or time.Then you ask yourself how that fourth dimension is to be projected’ You reflect on the fact that the defining characteristic of all three dimensions you already know is that they are projected in such a way as not to encroach on each other’s domains, and the only way of doing that is to project them at right-angles to one another, that is, orthogonally. From this you conclude that, by that same token, the dimension of time must be projected at right-angles to the other three, in the same way that those three are projected in relation to one another. And in the same way that the distance s travelled by the body is the square root of the sums of the squares of the three spatial dimensions, the composite, space-time length of the travelling body is the square root of the sum of the squares of all four dimensions.Now it goes without saying, of course, that the measures of all four of these dimensions have to be in the same units for the formula to have any geometrical meaning. Besides, for what possible reason would you want to choose different units for any one or more of those four dimensions? It follows, then, that whatever units you might use for measuring time would be the same as those used for measuring space, and vice versa. So this extended version of Pythagoras’ theorem to include time would, in effect, make the whole thing a geometrical time-formula. In that case, if the intrinsic duration (proper-time) registered by the body in travelling the distance s is the time-measure t, then that duration relative to the observer of that motion istR = (s2 + t2),where tR is the resultant of the two component measures. [Note that the missing symbol in these formulae signifies the square-root sign, and that R is a subscript whereas the 2s in places are superscript.]This, no more and no less, is, the pre-Einstein, pre-Minkowskian, pre-modern physics formula for relativistic time-dilation. To prove this, let us use the same units of modern seconds for all the variables, uniformly, and let the observational speed, or relative velocity, of the body be v = s/tR . From this it follows that s = vtR Substituting this expression vtR for s in the Pythagorean time-equation and simplifying the result producestR = t /1 — (v2/c2),which is, of course, Einstein’s formula for relativistic time-dilation, from which all modern relativistic physics stems. (Recall that in this formula, c is not the customary ‘speed of light’; it is simply a constant made necessary to equate conventional units of metres and seconds.In the New Physics of Normal Realism, c has no significance apart from that.Viv Pope.----------------------------------------------------------------------Neo-Machian quantum theory.This is just to show you how easy quantum physics is to deduce and understand — and teach — without thinking of light as having a ‘speed’. This is as in Neo-Machian Normal Realist physics, described in my last posting.In Mach’s phenomenalism. all phenomena reduce to discrete bits of observational information which the followers of Mach called ‘sense-data’. If we extend this concept of ‘sense data’ to include instrument-data, as in Normal Realism, then since all objects, anywhere, can be instruments of perception, these ‘sense-data’ of Mach’s can be identified with Planck’s quantum of energetic physical interaction, h. [Note that the missing symbol in these formulae signifies the square-root sign and that R is a subscript and the 2s in places are superscript.]tR = t /1 — (v2/c2)
,Now v-squared, in standard modem physics. is e/m (from e = mv2, where E is potential energy, which is twice the kinetic energy K) Substituting this energy expression E/m for v-squared in the above formula and stating the formula in terms of E producesE = mc2[1 — (t2/tR2)]Taking t as the coefficient of the formula, and expressing tR in integer multiples n of t. we haveE = mc2[1 — (1/n2)]Note that for n equals infinity this formula states, simply, the famous energy-mass interconversion formula:E = mc2 .This means that energy and mass are totally inter-convertible only in the case of n being (theoretically) infinite. For all other values of n the formula produces a step series of quantum values for E, expressed by;E = mc2[(1/n12 — (1/n22)]where n1 and n2 are intermediate values of n, with n1 being the fixed and n2 the running terms, respectively. [Note that the 1 and the 2 directly following the ns in these formulae are subscripts.]Now anyone who knows his physics will see, straightaway, that this Pythagorean derivative formula has the exact shape of the Balmer formula for simple spectra. For instance, with n1 given the starting value of two and the rising series for n2 = 3, 4, etc., this formula expresses the whole series of energy-values of the spectrum of hydrogen.Dividing the formula by Planck’s constant h then expresses it in terms of frequency, f, viz.:f = flim. [(1/n12 — (1/n22)],where f.lim. is the constant of the series, like the Rydberg constant in standard spectroscopy.What this says is simply that energy is fundamentally quantised at its very root, that modern quantum theory —which, as Feynman says, nobody understands - is, in fact, very easy to understand — unless, of course, we seek to understand it in terms of the labyrinthine theoretical ‘Escher’-like structure of Extant Theoretical Physics.All this, of course, can be only the starting point for the proposed Neo-Machian New Physics which is, of course, relatively young compared to the much older and more grizzled, Extant Physics. Give it some years in maturing and I’m sure it will be a natural replacement for current physics, which is now, due to long-time theoretical overindulgence and consdequent hardening of ts intellectual arteries, dying on its feet.Viv PopeNow, Iblis,
to your question of the sun warming your face or a photo-electric cell — or, you might say, a rock, a pebble or indeed the earth itself. The answer is that these interactions consist of statistical numbers of quanta transferred from the sun to the object in accordance with the ordinary Second Law of Thermodynamics, sometimes called the Law of Entropy. Recall that these light-pixels, or quanta, have the dimensions of energy-multiplied-by-time, or action. Recall, also, that in Neo-Machian Normal Realism, these proper-time-instantaneous interactions don’t take place just between objects and human percipients, as in the early phenomenalism of George Berkeley. They take place between all objects whatsoever, only some of which may be our eyes, cameras and photoelectric cells. So, where does that power come from? It comes from the sun in the ordinary way known to the science of thermodynamics —excluding only ‘photons’ and ‘light-speed’. Again I hope this helps.VP Edited by Viv Pope, : Missing signature.

Dear Iblis,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I see that you are very much au fait with what I am saying.And, yes, as soon as I can get around to it, I will certainly tackle ‘this business of angular momentum’, plus its relation to gravity and the limiting ‘speed of light’. In the meantime I have to deal with some cynics who are trying to refute my argument by attacking me personally, the age-old ploy known as argumentum ad hominem. As you doubtless know, this sophistic method means: ‘If you can’t defeat the argument then attack the person. (Percy, please note).I look forward to discussing with you further, if and when these cynical attacks on me finish.Viv Pope

Dear Percy,
My apologies for the mess-up with the formulae. As someone from a different era, dealing with the Internet is like going from riding a bicycle to flying a B29 bomber (old dog, new ticks and all that).
All those formulae can be read, anyway, by anyone truly interested, on those websites I have mentioned, eg., The Website of Science-Philosopher Viv Pope and http://www.poams.org also http://www.vivpope.com

Dear Cavediver.
Here we go again! These points of yours have been answered already, more than once. But you still don’t get it, do you? This discussion should be about the logical and physical implications of dispensing with the traditional light-speed interpretation of c, NOT questioning the personal veracity of Viv Pope!Why do you remain so hostile to my argument? I can’t see any reason other than that it is frightening you.Viv Pope.PS,
In my last posing to Iblis I talked about argumentum ad hominem. I suggest you take a good look at that. Oh, and by the way, your point about scale constant is irrelevant. The only 'scale constant in these arguments is c, unless one substitutes for the limit of the spectrum formula (f.lim.) the value of the Rydberg constant, cR.VP

Dear Cavediver,
You really are 'gunning’ for me, aren’t you? The fact is that in proper science it is standard procedure to make an hypothesis which may have no relation with actual values and then develop the logical implications of that premise — or premises — towards a valid logical conclusion, If that conclusion is empirically verified, then that validates the premise{s). It’s like what happens in forensic science when, by guesswork, memory and imagination, an artist constructs an identikit picture which matches the characteristics of a criminal. This is what my argument does. By hypothesis, I choose integers for the sequence of multiples of t. (In Diophantine terms, anyway, what else would these numbers be but integers?). Then by working these premises to their automatic logical conclusion and finding that this produces an exact facsimile of the spectral series, without any reference whatsoever to either ‘light-speed’ or the usual electrodynamics of Bohr, et al., then I declare those premises valid. I’m surprised that you seem to know nothing about this empirical, or inductive method. Or is it that you do know but insist on being negative and obstructive in whichever way you can?Viv Pope.

Dear Cavediver.Pythagoras is obviously pre-Einstein. What on earth are you talking about? Surely you can see that by simply adding one dimension to Pythagoras’ theorem to make it four-dimensional, and deriving the time-dilation directly from it with no reference whatsoever to the ‘light-speed’ postulated in Einstein’s Second Axiom — is pre-Einstein — logically prior. of course, not as a matter of historical fact, to stress which would be completely absurd.Viv PopePS
By the way, as someone reminds me, how come my highly qualified maths colleagues and science co-authors accept this reasoning of mine without demur? And how come you feel you can pontificate in the way you do without reading the stuff? If I was trying to evaluate some thesis I would first have to familiarise myself with it through and through and not criticise it until I felt I‘d fully understood it. Some teacher you must be if you reject any thesis just because it is new and because, perhaps, you could not understand it straight off! Far from being a teacher of Physics you’d be more like a Medieval monk.VP.

Dear Iblis,
Again, I agree with much of what you say. I’m glad that you don’t see anything in my argument about dimensions that is confusing or unsatisfactory.There is something I’ve already explained, which is that there is much confusion over this business of ‘spooky action- at-a-distance’ There is simply nothing ‘spooky’ about it. The fact is that in relativity there simply is NO CONTRADICTION WHATSOEVER BETWEEN QUANTUM INSTANTANEITY AND RELATIVISTIC TIME-DELAY. In Relativity, any travelling body has TWO VELOCITIES. One is the distance travelled by the body in the time of the observer of the motion (the relative velocity), and the other is that same distance travelled by the body in the time registered by the body itself (the proper time), both velocities as measured by THE SAME OBSERVER — in a telescope, say. The first of these velocities tends towards an upper limit of c while the other tends towards an upper limit of infinity (instantaneity). So how can it be said that instantaneous and time-delayed action at a distance are contradictory, when they are just complementary aspects of the SAME MOTION?So there is no contradicting whatsoever in saying that the quantum light-interactions are instantaneous, while the delayed time, s/c of the light beam applies to statistical numbers of these instantaneous quantum interactions in accdance with the statistical Secnd Law of Thermodynamics. As I’ve already explained, a natural intuitive model for this is a movie, where objects are instantaneously connected in the photographic stills, while they travel at finite speeds relatively to one another in the running of the film. (Key-in on Google, ‘cinematic model, Pope’)As for the angular momentum connection, again as I have already explained, in Normal Realism all bodies in the universe are instantly paired and balanced in orbital angular momentum relations (forget ‘gravity’), such that their distances apart, are the lengths of their orbital radii, proportional to the amount of their orbital momentum — give or take some minor effects of vector orientation on the distribution of that amount between orbit and spin (Key-in 'Pioneer Anomaly, Pope', on Google). Being reciprocally (i.e., instantly) balanced with one another any change in the motion of any one of the bodies affects, i.e., perturbs, each and every other, so that the whole set of motions is ‘choreographed’, as it were, without involving Newton’s seventeenth-century postulate of an ‘in vacuo gravitational force holding everything together.Why do bodies weigh what they do on earth? Why did Newton’s apple fall? Because bodies on the earth’s surface don’t have enough angular momentum to orbit at that distance from the earth’s centre of mass In falling, Newton’s apple was seeking to orbit at a distance of 289/290ths of the distance below our feet to the earth’ centre? And because the earth’s surface prevents jt from doing that, the object bears down on it with the reactionary force we customarily call its ‘weight’. Gravity’ doesn’t come into it.By the way, what’s all this ‘fee-fo-fi’ stuff? Is it some comment by someone in off the street who has been smoking something? I don’t get jt.Anyway. I hope this explanation of how Lightspeed and quantum instantaneity can live together.Viv Pope

To Catholic Scientist,Yes, of course I can explain it.- and have explained it, many times. Don’t you read the posts?I'll have to be brief on this, since I am now being inundated with questions.I’m surprised that you can’t see the difference between talking about light-waves in water and light-waves (allegedly) in vacuo. For instance, what is there to wave in a vacuum?We’ve all seen the sort of demonstration you describe. For all their vividness, they say nothing of the LOGIC of this argument about light. Besides, did you not see — or not read — my posting on the ‘Ten Proofs That Light Doesn’t have a Velocity?’‘Spamming my paper to you'? What on earth do you mean by that? Why do I have to convince YOU? I don’t see you as the arbiter on this. There are many others who are familiar with my work who disagree with you completely.So, if my short explanation doesn’t convince you then please don’t contact me further. From your tone I feel that any further discussion with you would be useless.Viv Pope.

No, Iblis, you are not wrong. Nor are you wrong in assessing that not everyone in this discussion will have the same understanding of the argument as you. That is shown to be eminently so in some cases on this forum.And yes, I had already decided not to ’take the bait’ dangled by those in this forum who are interested only in being obstructive/destructive — although it suits my Welsh temperament to relish responding in kind. Any such attacks in future I intend to ignore (Moderators please note).There is, however, the fact that some people are simply infuriated by any sggestion that there may be omething they don't already know. I mean, it’s not as though we have an academic Examinations Board here, charged with being completely dispassionate and objective, is it? Very far from it, it seems. These forums are still diagnostic; they aren’t yet fully tried and tested. There is still, for instance, too much opening for infiltration of sheer daftness and general stupidity that you wouldn’t get in a staff-student seminar, for instance. There are also psychological problems to be considered, some connected with the freedom anonymity gives, dissonance reduction and so on, all of which militates in one way or another against sensible discussion. This makes it implausible to assume that there is some ideal advisable way of dealing with these things. It is still very much a matter of trial and error, I’m afraid.Also, let’s face it, it has always been standard procedure for revolutionaries to be persecuted in one way or another. And sometimes the clearer the presentation the stronger the opposition. So we mustn’t forget that much of such hostility is only to be expected.There is also something else with these forums which is that an idea, especially one that is the least bit complex, has to be presented in bits to people who don’t necessarily read all the relevant postings and get the thing together. This means that the idea can’t be presented and assessed as a whole, or Gestalt. It’s as though one were constrained to tell a shaggy dog story in different bits to different audiences in different halls on different occasions. How could the penny ever drop?In my last posting to you I addressed, to some extent, your question to me about angular momentum in Normal Realism, about how it reconciles quantum instantaneity with light-speed. I hope you find that necessarily abridged explanation helpful.Viv Pope

To Cavediver.
I can’t see any mileage for either of us in this. Yes, the discussion is — or at least should be — about the logical, physical and philosophical consequences of the neo-Machian shift in interpretation of light, from ‘light-in-space to ‘space-in-light’. but you are obviously going to contest every word, stop and comma.The best I can do in these circumstances is to send you, here, a posting I constructed earlier in response to what you said about your role as a ‘mainline physicist. I’m not sure why I didn’t send it. Anyway, here it is, for your information — and possibly others who, like you, remain suspicious of me and my motives.Dear Cavediver,
I don't think that a sudden lurch forward in scientific understanding is an occasion for despair. Yes, sure, there are all sorts of claimants to be the ‘next Einstein’. Just as sure, however, is that, some day — and it will have to be soon — some individual or group has to make the necessary breakthrough, and it would be a shame to miss it on account of mere cynicism — as it is said, to throw the baby out with the bath water. Just think: Einstein made such a breakthrough, showing that it can be done. But that was over a century ago. How would you rate the chances of Einstein being the last thinker on earth ever to do something like that?Anyway, ‘handsome is as handsome does’. I have examined many such claims, and those which aren’t obviously ‘barking mad’ I have studied and analysed in the proper scientific way. Some of my ideas have been taken from such proposals, and I have been careful to accord precedence to their authors in accordance with academic propriety. As it just happens, I have not, so far, found anything that measures up to what is claimed. One finds theories that are logically incoherent, or else, if coherent, reach nonsensical conclusions (reductio ad absurdum). I have seen theories that are internally inconsistent or contradictory ones which go so far then leap the logical track. To examine these theories is my expertise as a Logician and Philosopher of Science. This is what I do. And, of course, I subject my own ideas to that same scrutiny and analysis. Indeed, I regard myself as my own strictest critic.In a conference, someone said to me, cynically: Viv, you’d be very happy, wouldn’t you, if tomorrow everyone accepted your theory. Yes, I replied, unles someone were to convince me that it was fundamentally wrong. In that case, I’d drop it straightaway, like a hot brick and be the first to announce its falure. This is like the philosopher Wittgenstein who, finding he was radically wrong, announced to his followers that he was now the first non-Wittgensteinian. There was also Alfred Ayer who did much the same — in answer to a question from the auditorium in the middle of his giving a public lecture. (I mention these things only to illustrate to the cynics in this forum that honesty does exist — among philosophers, at any rate. )Now, as I said, having applied that analytic method diligently over half a century, I have so far not found anything that measures up to its claims to be the next Einstein-like breakthrough, On second thoughts, that is not strictly true. When, in my twenties, I first realised how much easier it was to understand relativity without the ‘speed of light’ I became disconcerted, if not traumatised, to think of the world I was familiar with without thinking of light shooting around in it all over the place. It is not too much to say that it ’turned my mind upside down’. Then an astronomer friend of my father’s, learning of the fix I was in, advised me to study Berkeley. This I did, and found, to my amazement, a whole new, logically consistent way of understanding the world without having to think of light as having a speed in space — in effect separating me from the world by 3.3 nanoseconds for every metre which, I learned, was called the ‘veil of perception’. In due time, of course, I found some faults in Berkeley’s theory which, as I discovered, others had spotted before me and already put right, and then I found, in turn, faults in what those others were saying, which Ernst Mach had put right. Then, discerning some shortcomings in Mach — he died before reaching logical fulfilment of his method — I decided to follow in his tracks and put right those shortcomings myself. In that way I developed a whole new approach to physics along neo-Machian (neo-Berkeleyan or phenomenalist) lines which gave me an entirely new insight into nature which solved all those paradoxes in physics and philosophy which had plagued me earlier. Having taken up the baton that Mach had, in effect, handed me and run it so much further, I decided that since it seemed that no-one else was doing it, I might have to be the one to take it to the finish line — or at least, if it wasn’t to be me then I’d hand it on to someone who, perhaps, was. Looking for someone to take up that baton without fumbling it is what drives me to join in discussions such as this. on this particular forum — and in other places, of course, internationally.However, in the main I have found that too many of these forums just provide opportunities by being incognito, for some people to act in ways they wouldn’t dare to otherwise, and in other cases, simply to be obstructive to radically new ideas of the very sort which these forums were designed to encourage and promote.So, my dear Cavediver, may I ask you: in a forum such as this, what is there that a member can do for Mainline Physics that hasn’t already been done, over and over, many, many times — as I’ve said, like chewing on a cud that has long lost all sustenance? Surely, to think about a whole new paradigm of theoretical physics in the direction envisaged by Mach is an adventure, not a disaster! Mainline Physics has had its day, ending with Einstein, more than a century ago. Don’t you think it is now high time to move on?Viv Pope.For anyone truly wishing to understand what I am proposing:Think NON-light-speed, think New Physics, think Mach.PS,
I’m not sanguine of receiving a decent reply to this posting, although it would be a nice surprise if I did, so as to stop the rattle and ‘get this show on the road!