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Author Topic:   Speed of Light
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 170 of 268 (539381)
12-15-2009 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by cavediver
12-14-2009 1:00 PM


Re: Spin and Perception
If you think that is cheating then you don't know your science.
End of conversaton,
Viv Pope

This message is a reply to:
 Message 147 by cavediver, posted 12-14-2009 1:00 PM cavediver has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 172 of 268 (539390)
12-15-2009 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by Admin
12-14-2009 1:46 PM


Re: Spin and Perception
Dear Adnmin
Mea culpa. But if I react in the way I do, then I feel, justifiably, that those who attack me (as opposed to fairly and properly questioning the logic of my argument) deserve all they get in return. Should I apologise to this forum for the temperament that nature has given me via my Celtic genes?
There are two confusions, here. One is that in my posting to which you refer, I inadvertently wrote ‘Moderator’ instead of ‘Cavediver’, as I’d intended. So we can forget about your cautionary remarks on that. I was in no way meaning to report discussion problems. I am well capable of handling these myself (Sorry for the mistake!).
The second confusion is not mine. I feel that your caution to me about ‘fighting words’ and so on is misplaced. You should, I think, be cautioning those individuals who are being so blatantly negative and obstructive to shape up to the intentions of the forum, which should be to advance new ideas, democratically, without let or hindrance. You seem to be cautioning people like me whilst allowing, in some cases, moronic inputs from those attempting to be facetious or else just plain ‘bloody-minded’.
Sorry for my own my mistake, at any rate,
Viv Pope.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 148 by Admin, posted 12-14-2009 1:46 PM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 183 by Admin, posted 12-16-2009 9:16 AM Viv Pope has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 173 of 268 (539393)
12-15-2009 3:01 PM
Reply to: Message 152 by cavediver
12-14-2009 2:35 PM


Re: Spin and Perception
Cavediver,
That is a fair question. The answer is that it comes from both Einstein (1905),and Gilbert Lewis,(1927) who was the first to talk about 'quantum touching' (click this phrase on Google). Einstein knew this but didn't know what to do with it in the way that his mentor, Mach would have done and which Mach's Normal Realist followers actually have done (click 'Neo-Machian Normal Realism' on Gooogle.)
Viv Pope.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 152 by cavediver, posted 12-14-2009 2:35 PM cavediver has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 174 of 268 (539448)
12-16-2009 1:09 AM
Reply to: Message 160 by Iblis
12-14-2009 4:53 PM


Re: Spin and Perception
Iblis.
You are presuming to give me at my advanced age,, a lesson in diplomacy on behalf of the forum generally, as though you were a consultant to Saatchi and Saatchi.. Suppose I ignore your advice and say I don’t give a damn about diplomacy but only in getting a well-formed rational idea understood and fairly commented upon. Does this give you the ‘clout’ to get me ‘cast out into the outer darkness’ It sounds very Medieval to me.
Anyway your remarks about integers are wide of the mark, especially, since I have already discussed this roundly with my benighted ‘hair-shirt’, Cavediver, Did you not read that? Anyway, I shall repeat for you the nub of that argument.
It is normal procedure in science to construct hypotheses or premises from just guesses, hunches or sheer imagination. Why talk about irrational numbers, such as pi. The fact is that any rational number whatsoever can be expressed as a fraction in which both the numerator and denominator are whole numbers (integers). Such series are known as Diophantine (from Diophantus of Alexandria, 3rd century A.D.). So there is nothing that says I shouldn’t hypothesise a situation involving these integers. For instance, I can legitimately assume that there is a level of physical analysis such that there is a microphysical measure of time, t, all other measures of which are integer multiples, n, of fractions 1/N of t What justifies me in doing that? Absolutely nothing.
So why do it? Because I find that by doing so I get a result, which is that certain algebraic transforms of the relativistic time-equation yield a significant result in terms of frequency. And what is that result? It is that such a transform has the exact shape of the Balmer formula for the sets of series of lines in atomic spectra, whose variables have precisely the dimensions of energy, mass, frequency and so on in all the right places — but no values. yet, of course.
As I described to Cavediver, what is produced in this purely inductive, syllogistic way is an exact ‘identikit’ picture of an empirical situation that is well known to have been discovered by Balmer simply by trial and error, just ‘playing with numbers’ (integers, in fact), albeit later rationalised in terms of electrodynamical theory by Niels Bohr. Now who but a complete fool, presented by an exact identikit picture of someone, would reject it on the grounds of its being "not the right size", that it is either too small or too large to epresent a real life-sized person. Such an objection would obviously be laughed out of court.
So why on earth, when presented with an exact replica of the light spectrum formula, obtained by purely logical means, just reject it out of hand? Surely, it should stir your curiosity to see such an exact ‘identikit’ picture of nature. What kind of mind is it that can immediately just rubbish it — and for what possible reason? It sure beats me!
Besides, if you assume — as well you might , and quite legitimately — that t is basic and irreducible, then what else can multiples of that irreducible unit be, but integers?
For God’s sake, THINK!.
Viv Pope

This message is a reply to:
 Message 160 by Iblis, posted 12-14-2009 4:53 PM Iblis has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 175 of 268 (539475)
12-16-2009 5:56 AM
Reply to: Message 165 by hooah212002
12-15-2009 6:30 AM


Re: light travels
Dear Hooah,
What a dreary and mindless comment!.
Are you so frightened of what I say that you have to close ranks against it? Why do you have to go into a huddle with your friends? Can’t you think on your own?
What you are saying, in effect, is simply that you don’t understand my argument about light-velocity and its logical implications for both physics and philosophy, that it has all gone way over your head. Don’t come this You’re not in my gang bit. Is that what you think this ‘Science’ forum is, just a haven for personal security?
I have met so many people in my time who speak with all the overweening authority of pure ignorance. Please don’t tell me that you are just another one of those. If so, then I hate to think that this may be the standard for your ‘gang’ as a whole! It would certainly explain the amount of sheer negativity and apathy with which my progressive suggestion of a New Physics based on an alternative interpretation of ‘light-velocity’ has so far been met.
Viv Pope.
PS
No proofs, you say. What about the ‘Ten Proofs’ that light does not travel, with which I opened this theme? I have also laid out in detail the logical implications of these proofs. You’re not really ‘getting it together’, are you!
No information? You’ve jut GOT to be kidding!
Who am I? I am just who I am (I don’t hide behind silly pseudonyms). I am Neville Vivian (Viv) Pope, retired college lecturer, one-time telephone engineer, living in Swansea, South Wales, UK.. I am seventy-nine years of age, registered disabled but still active as a Research Associate of Keele University in collaboration with Dr. Anthony Osborne of the Department of Mathematics as well as with my long-time associate, Professor Alan Winfield of UWE, Bristol (These guys, too, are extremely knowledgable"). I write and edit books on Modern Physics, concentrating on Relativity and Quantum Theory, and the philosophical foundations of those theories, My CVs can be read at the click of a button on those websites I have mentioned. I am also aware that this is the second time on this forum that I have given this account, A major part f the problem with communication, here is that you and your ‘gang’ evidently don’t read — far less study — the relevant postings.
VP.
VP.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by hooah212002, posted 12-15-2009 6:30 AM hooah212002 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 177 by hooah212002, posted 12-16-2009 8:29 AM Viv Pope has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 176 of 268 (539478)
12-16-2009 6:41 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by New Cat's Eye
12-15-2009 10:13 AM


Re: light travels
Dear Catholic Scientist,
If you don’t have time to read my stuff, then I have no time to read yours. Fair enough?
I see you wish to abandon logic. That tells it all! It’s enough for me!
Best wishes,
Viv Pope.
PS.
CAN’T you see that you CANNOT argue against logic without USING logic? You guys are really in a mess, aren’t you. I can’t see why you bother!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-15-2009 10:13 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-16-2009 9:08 AM Viv Pope has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 178 of 268 (539492)
12-16-2009 8:37 AM
Reply to: Message 171 by cavediver
12-15-2009 2:02 PM


Re: Spin and Perception
Cavediver,
We're obviously not speaking the same language. I've explained. ad nauseam, that this alternative, Neo-Machian paradigm I am proposing and the Extant Mainline paradigm you are defending are incommensurable This means that there is no simple one-to-one correlation between concepts in the one paradigm and those in the other, any more than there is a one-to-one correlation between a map of Wales and a map of China. Without this being understood, especially if, like Catholic Scientist, you wish to make the abandonment of logic standard form for this forum, then we might as well all be just yodelling at one another. For instance, what do yon think all my talk about Linguistic Analysis, Scientific Method and so on, was about? So far, I have found no-one on this forum who has the slightest clue about that.
Best wishes.
Viv Pope.
PS (to all)
Is there ANYONE on this forum with the nous and the nerve to understand what I am saying?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 171 by cavediver, posted 12-15-2009 2:02 PM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by cavediver, posted 12-16-2009 8:42 AM Viv Pope has not replied
 Message 181 by Admin, posted 12-16-2009 9:01 AM Viv Pope has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 191 of 268 (539741)
12-19-2009 11:08 AM
Reply to: Message 180 by Admin
12-16-2009 8:57 AM


Re: Spin and Perception
To Percy (Moderator)
Re.: the issue of ‘light-speed’.
Thanks for the ‘slap on the wrist’. I would like to comply with your instruction if only it were that simple. It has to be faced, though, that not everyone on this forum or any other is quite as honest and well intentioned as you seem to assume. There have, for instance, been attacks on me from those who can only be characterised as ageist; and there are others who are definitely dedicated to de-rail the discussion at every turn. And there have been those who have committed the sin of argumentum ad populum by obviously ganging up on me, citing how many and how clever their companions are. How can I stick to the topic of light-speed when these people obviously don’t wish to? And how can these people not be ‘categorised’?
Anyway, while I was under ‘suspension’, in contemplative mood I wrote the following inter-round analysis of the discussion, for the eyes of all concerned. I’m sure those outsiders who are keeping a watching brief on these discussions would like to see — as, of course, I would — what the response, if any, will be.
SUMMARY OF THE LIGHT-SPEED DISCUSSION TO DATE.
I am grateful for the short lay-off from the glut of questions that have been directed at me — not that I resent having to answer those questions but simply because of the difficulty of dealing with them without having to spread my attentions too thin.
Anyway, having encountered, from the start, a veritable rock-slide of negativity, this discussion on light-velocity has now crashed. Let’s see if we can clear away the crap and get the thing back on the road.
The aim of this exercise was originally simple. It was, as it were, to road-test a theory about light which has been more than a half-century in the making and testing. In academic circles it has been declared a ‘dangerous theory’, a heresy, being too fast, as it were, for the current motorway restrictions. In the words of one professor, it should be accompanied by ‘a government health warning’, and another has declared Mon Dieu, but thees ees dynamite! I’d better tell the whole story.
It all begins with a letter from Einstein, which I received in 1954 in answer to a critical question to him about his Theory of Relativity. I was then a young telephone lineman with no academic pretensions whatsoever. From my letter to him, Einstein must have seen it as a question posed by some young person out of nothing more than sincere, nave curiosity. Although he was renowned for his chariness in answering correspondence, even among his peers, he congratulated me on my well formulated question and gave me an answer which was the start of my lifelong philosophical odyssey. (That letter is preserved in the County Archives, and they tell me it is worth some thousands of pounds.)
When this letter from Einstein came to the notice of the press (in an Open Day at the local astronomical society) it was given some wide coverage and has since been featured a number of times in the national dailies, plus on radio and TV. However, as soon as it became public, apart from one or two exceptions, this publicising of a ‘new theory of relativity’ was met with a wall of cynicism of the Who the hell do you think you are? variety — much as it has on this forum. It was assumed immediately to be motivated, not by disinterested curiosity but by some kind of bid for intellectual stardom.. From its beginnings in sincere philosophical curiosity, it was thrust into the fast lane of the ‘rat-race’ where all recognition of its honest beginnings were trampled under.
Be that as it may, this honest curiosity of mine led to me being taken out of the cold, as one adviser put it, to pursue my philosophical interests in the relative security of a university. With the prompting of my wife — an English scholar — I took up this offer and eventually became, albeit reluctantly, an academic myself — more as a loose cannon, you might say, than a subscriber to the Educational System.
Remember that this is still about my theory of ‘light-velocity’. Throughout all this — and it’s necessarily a long story — my constant aim, against the present tide of creeping commercialisation, has been to preserve, promote and encourage among students the disinterested philosophical curiosity and initiative with which this whole enterprise of mine started. In pursuit of this aim to encourage initiative in students, my wife and I were invited by the then Liberal MP, Clement Freud, to attend meetings in Westminster. As for making any headway on that front, we might as well have been invited to swim up the Niagara Falls!
Again, recall that are still talking, here, about the underlying ‘speed of light’ issue. Anyway, to cut that long story short, encouraged by Einstein, my insatiable curiosity in that philosophical direction, particularly regarding the concept of the ‘speed of light’ in relativity theory, led early on to the idea that has since been declared a heresy and a danger to society. This was to discover, after his demise, that Einstein’s theory of relativity could be greatly simplified by leaving out all reference to ‘light-velocity’ — indeed without reference to light altogether. Some time later, this simplification was corroborated by Herman Bondi, the Cambridge (UK) astronomer and Science commentator, not excluding my long time ‘partners-in-crime’, Dr. Anthony Osborne of Keele University, Professor Alan Winfield of UWE, Bristol and the late Alan Smart of British Telecom. Swansea.
So far, so good. However, the danger to society threatened by this suggestion of getting rid of light soon became apparent. This was when it transpired that, believe it or not, it led a small number of students to seek psychiatric help.
So now we come to the full — indeed, the vital — relevance of all this to the subject of ‘light-velocity’. For a start, you may glean from all this that this idea of mine, kick-started by my early initiative in contacting Einstein, is far from trivial. Also, any truly thinking person must see that, from this point in the discussion, in no way can the issue be kept within the narrow confines of ‘Physics’ as that subject is classified nowadays. It naturally spreads into the dreaded domain of Philosophy — at which point we will no doubt lose most of any remaining readers on this thread. Specifically, the reason for this broadening is as follows.
As you have seen, (See my ‘Ten Proofs’ on this thread, none of which has been refuted), light cannot have a ‘velocity’ in space (in vacuo, as Einstein assumed in his notorious ‘Second Postulate’ of Special Relativity). So, what else can the ‘constant c’ be in our Physics textbooks if not the ’velocity of light in space’? The answer is supplied by the Logic which some member of this forum says he would like to be purged from this discussion. The logical answer is that the fact that all velocities are distances divided by time does not imply that all distances divided by time (such as c) are velocities. This means that c may, without contradiction, be interpreted as just a dimensional constant, with no connotations of ‘light-velocity’ whatsoever. Put this together with the consequence of the ‘Ten Proofs’ and it affirms, both logically and practically — even commonsensically — that our classical idea of light as something ‘travelling in space’ is a misconception, an over-interpretation of the actual observational and experimental facts, which makes it conceptually redundant.
But it cannot just stop there. Among logically-minded thinkers, apart from its significance to Physics as a New Approach to Relativity (Journal of Ed. in Maths, Sci. and Tech., 1987 — click ‘New Approach, Pope’ on Google), it causes, as I have already indicated, some consternation among students confronted with this proposition that there is ‘no such thing as light in space’. It strips away one’s traditional precepts about objective physical reality, seemingly without replacing them with any satisfactory intuitional alternative.* It was this, undoubtedly, which sent those students I mentioned to seek medical help and which marked it as a ‘dangerous idea’ in the estimation of those academics I cited.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This is the philosophical position called Solipsism’, the idea that everything is no more than a dream.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, where do we go from here? Well, as I have tried, strenuously, to explain, the only palliative left, if we abandon the concept of ‘light-speed’, is to adopt the mindset of the alternative-Physics Philosopher, Ernst Mach, as later developed under the title of Neo-Machian Normal Realism (click on Google). This is still Physics, but a much, MUCH broader and more embracing kind of physics which students are taught.. But the question is: notwithstanding its ‘danger’, might it not be the prime candidate for the role of the ‘New Physics’ that NASA calls for? If not, then will someone please tell us what is?
What sorts of questions should this change in interpretation of the constant, c, raise in a forum such as this? Well, for instance, some perceptive thinker is bound to ask If you get rid of light in space, then what about ‘gravity’? Other intelligent questions would be: If there is no light or gravity in space, then how do bodies influence one another at a distance? What makes the planets orbit the sun? How does this solve NASA’s Pioneer problem, the EPR paradox, the Unified Field problem, the Missing Mass anomaly and other outstanding problems of Extant Physics which current standard textbook knowledge of the subject has so eminently failed to solve? Such serious, intelligent questions are well worth answering, and some of them have been answered in this forum. Indeed these sorts of questions have been raised and answered over the last half-century, although there have been some completely daft ones, like How does Normal Realism explain the Resurrection? What does it say about the Holy Trinity? and suchlike. Some questions on that same intelligence level have been, What’s your experimental evidence for there being no light in space? Where are your mathematical equations? and so on. What does one do in such cases when the member insists on having answers to his daft questions and appeals to the Moderator of the forum that his questions aren’t being answered to his satisfaction? This is not a rhetorical question. What happens is that one gets banned, as I have been, permanently, from another forum such as this (BAUT), on the trumped-up, incredibly ridiculously charge of my being a ‘multiple user’ — merely because, like most people I have two Christian names, Neville and Vivian. Plainly, this was no more than an excuse get this ‘dangerous thinker’ off their backs, so as not to disturb their complacency with such radically new ideas.
The trouble is, of course that, as on this present EvC forum thread, what begins as a narrow Physics issue of whether or not light travels in space broadens, untidily, into a philosophical, psychological and, indeed, sociological issue. How does the poor Moderator deal with this? How can the rules of such a forum be hedged against this inevitability?
Some people I’ve discussed this with are sceptical about the use of these forums altogether. They’re only playing games, says one , They’ll never understand you, says one colleague, They’ll make every excuse to ban you, says another. Another says: The only response you’ll get will be silly ‘Yah Boo!’ replies. and yet another colleague says: It will frighten them shirtless — or, at least, that’s what it sounded like.
So the question I have to answer is this: How on earth is one to suggest involving, in the call for a New Physics, those who are Educationally crimped into conformity with the existing System? And why does one find so many people of that ilk in these so-called ‘Science’ forums? To get these people to THINK is like pulling teeth or trying to pick winkles out of their shells. They resist any move forward, taking every serious suggestion of advancement as an affront to their own self-esteem For someone like myself it beggars belief that in these forums there is such an impenetrable wall of pure ignorance against any significant chance of moving forward.
What, then, does one do with people who hammer away at one’s proposed idea without studying it first, who aren’t prepared to access the recommended sources, who are scarcely inclined even to click a mouse on the suggested buzzwords, who are too lazy even to read the relevant postings, far less read any of the books and free publications mentioned on the websites? How does one deal with those who are not concerned with the provenance of the presented material on the one, single thread without seeking immediately to rubbish and demean it? So I ask myself, what sorts of people are these, and what the hell do they imagine they are doing for Science, if not simply to ‘queer the pitch’ and trip up the true thinkers? Please tell me, dear Moderator, how I can fend off these idiots without seeming to be ’rude’ to them simply by pointing out their logical mistakes?
So why, you may ask, do I do what I do? The reason is that it’s an experiment to ‘test the waters’, as it were, for public reaction to my ‘Dangerous Idea’. This is in defiance of my more academically cloistered colleagues, who regard this democratic sallying forth among the ‘great unwashed’ as infra dig, and will have no part of it. Ideally, however, my life’s aim, as an educator and someone rooted firmly among that ‘great unwashed’, has been, right from the start, to free philosophical knowledge from the fetters of a traditionally divisive Education System. In other words, it is to engage Ordinary Commonsense in the affairs of science, so as to curb those intellectual and financial extravagances of Modern Physics and Cosmology which have become so apparent recently with the abortive, and extremely expensive search for the ‘God Particle’, ‘reading the Mind of God’, and so on.
So, again, may I ask you, as Moderator of this forum thread, from what we have seen so far, how do you rate my chances of pursuing this democratic ideal in this present forum? Is it likely to extend the thread or, perhaps, unravel the whole garment? From the fact that the revered Einstein saw fit to correspond, extramurally, with an ordinary, non-academic telephone lineman, I feel I owe it to him to extend that privilege, in my turn, to others who may be as receptive towards new ideas as I was to Einstein’s. But where are those ‘receptive thinkers’? Where are those who can follow the full logical implications of dispensing with ‘light in space’? One wonders whether this or any other similar forum is the place to do it. Is it a foregone conclusion, as some say, that it is just a waste of time? Also, how representative are these forums of the mindset of the public at large? Are they seen as no more than the vulgarisation, or dumbing-down of true scientific knowledge? These are genuine questions and, for me, the jury is still out on them. Let’s just see how we go from here, eh!
Viv Pope (no pseudonym)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 180 by Admin, posted 12-16-2009 8:57 AM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 192 by lyx2no, posted 12-19-2009 12:41 PM Viv Pope has replied
 Message 193 by Admin, posted 12-19-2009 12:54 PM Viv Pope has replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 194 of 268 (539823)
12-20-2009 6:22 AM
Reply to: Message 193 by Admin
12-19-2009 12:54 PM


Re: Spin and Perception
To Percy (Moderator)
I’m surprised, if not staggered at your ‘take’ on what I wrote. I thought I’d made it a abundantly clear that what I wrote was about LIGHT-VELOCITY. In NO WAY was it meant to be a complaint to the Moderator. How could you possibly have thought that? My whole point was that, starting with the narrow issue of’ light-speed’ the consequences of the argument spread automatically into talking about Relativity, Einstein, the philosophy of light and perception (involving light, of course), hence into perception psychology, all stemming from the original question of ‘Lightspeed’. And insofar as this automatically involves Einstein and Relativity, it is, surely, more than just trivially relevant to mention Einstein’s correspondence with myself on the subject of LIGHT-SPEED in his (Einstein’s) theory.
Now I appreciate that you must be pushed for time but I respectfully suggest that you should read my text carefully again and reconsider your opinion of it. I think you will then see that read as a ‘complaint to the Moderator’ it would seem very bizarre indeed!
In other words, Percy, you should note that the piece was addressed, not so much to yourself as to the ‘LIGHT-SPEED GROUP AS A WHOLE and to be recorded as such as an integral part of the LIGHT-SPEED discussion. Otherwise, if I were to do as you advise — that is, to take the discussion at this crucial point away to some other thread — that would be tantamount to abandoning the discussion at that point and preventing it from reaching its logical conclusion. That would be fine by me, just as long as you made it plain that I had been removed from the thread by the Moderator for being too abstruse, too philosophical or whatever, rather than for it to be assumed that, under pressure if argument, I had just ‘cut and run’. For me it would make my point, very clearly, that I had been removed from the discussion for those very reasons cited in my text.
So the upshot is: shall I now just finish with this discussion — albeit prematurely — or will you let my piece stand as the logical outcome of the discussion on light-speed?
It’s up to you, Percy. Shall I go or shall I stay?
Respectfully,
Viv Pope.
PS.
I suggest that for decency’s sake this conversation of ours should not be hidden but should be recorded for democratic review by those who may have been following the argument from scratch, and whose views on it may be different from yours and, of course, mine.
VP.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by Admin, posted 12-19-2009 12:54 PM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 196 by Admin, posted 12-20-2009 8:24 AM Viv Pope has replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 195 of 268 (539830)
12-20-2009 7:21 AM
Reply to: Message 192 by lyx2no
12-19-2009 12:41 PM


Re: A Working Model
To lyx2no
Thanks for your reply. Your piece from Hemmingway is very apposite. It looks as though I won't be allowed on this thread for long since the conclusion I was coming to on this question of ‘Lightspeed’ seems close to being disallowed.
Here is something else to ponder on:
‘How happy is he born and taught, That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill.’
[Sir Henry Wooton].
Viv Pope.
PS,
Yes. If you should understand what I am talking about, then with a bit of ordinary commonsense logic, from the simple premises I have presented, unencumbered by the usual precepts, you — indeed, like anyone — should able to construct the whole argument yourself. The trick js to free yourself from the clutch of the dead hand of conventional physics education.
VP.
-

This message is a reply to:
 Message 192 by lyx2no, posted 12-19-2009 12:41 PM lyx2no has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 197 by Admin, posted 12-20-2009 8:42 AM Viv Pope has replied
 Message 203 by lyx2no, posted 12-21-2009 11:14 AM Viv Pope has replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 198 of 268 (539854)
12-20-2009 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 197 by Admin
12-20-2009 8:42 AM


Re: A Working Model
PERCY
Wyy are you so afraid of me replying? It certainly makes my point.
All I asked was: should I stay or go. It seems you say 'go'. Well, okay, so I'm gone.
Best wishes
Viv Pope

This message is a reply to:
 Message 197 by Admin, posted 12-20-2009 8:42 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 200 of 268 (539860)
12-20-2009 10:47 AM
Reply to: Message 196 by Admin
12-20-2009 8:24 AM


Re: Spin and Perception
Percy,
You've obviously looked in all the wrong places and have not really read and understood a thing. Try Edwin Mellen Press, Nova Science. Physics Essays. Hadronic Press, Journal of Theoretics etc. Strange behaviour for someone who is not afraid! I didn’t study psychology for nothing. It’s called ‘dissonance reduction’.
Anyway, as I’ve already said, , I’m out.
No more of this, please.
Best wishes,
Viv Pope

This message is a reply to:
 Message 196 by Admin, posted 12-20-2009 8:24 AM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 201 by Admin, posted 12-20-2009 11:03 AM Viv Pope has not replied
 Message 202 by Iblis, posted 12-20-2009 11:13 AM Viv Pope has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 204 of 268 (539993)
12-21-2009 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 203 by lyx2no
12-21-2009 11:14 AM


Re: Where to Stand
To lyx2no
I've explained it all. If you haven't the capacity to understand, then it's hardly my fault. Not all levels of intellect are the same.
Anyway, I'm no longer active on this thread. So, please, DON'T SEND ME ANY MORE OF THIS .
Viv Pope
PS (Moderator please note.)
It's remarkable that you are allowed to get away with such personal insults to which I'm not allowed to respond. That's why I'm out.(Please don't reply)
ENDS
VP

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by lyx2no, posted 12-21-2009 11:14 AM lyx2no has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 205 by Admin, posted 12-21-2009 3:02 PM Viv Pope has not replied
 Message 206 by lyx2no, posted 12-21-2009 4:01 PM Viv Pope has not replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 208 of 268 (540372)
12-24-2009 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 207 by Iblis
12-22-2009 12:07 AM


Re: Spin and Perception
Reply to Iblis (post 407)
From Viv Pope,
Thank God for someone on this forum thread with a bit of sense. I hope others who are free-minded enough will read what you said and think hard about it. You are exactly right about the quantum source-event and sink event being observationally indistinguishable. But what a pathetic response it was for someone to reply ‘Oh yes they are!’ which sounds like the sort of stereotypical audience response to the pantomime dame in the old music hall comedies.
Anyway, thanks for showing me that perhaps all is not lost on this thread. May I suggest that now that you realise that the beginning and end of a quantum interaction are one-and-the-same event, you might like to consider the next logical move which, mind-bending though it might be, is to conclude from this that it is not the interaction that takes place in space but that the space takes place in the interaction — that is, as an observational projection out of such events as directly observed. But, of course, neither distance nor anything else can be projected from a single quantum event, any more than dimensions of a video scenario can be projected by the viewer from a single screen pixel. In that same way, observational distance (space) cannot be projected relative to the observer (in relativity) other than in statistical, i.e., information-statistical numbers of these quantum pixel-events in the eye of the observer, a camera or some other similar instrument or, as I’ve said in one of my postings, in statistical numbers of purely random quantum events, as in heat-flow between bodies in accordance with the statistical Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Next, in logical order, comes the dreaded bit, the mental switch from the one tradition, or paradigm, of physics into the alternative tradition, or paradigm, of phenomenalism suggested by the eminent 19th century physicist, Ernst Mach. Not everyone, it seems, can contemplate this mental switch, even if they were aware of what ‘phenomenalism’ means or how Mach relates to it. For my heinous sins so far as the forum was concerned, this was what I was trying to suggest to the forum members as, possibly, the replacement ‘New Physics’ that NASA calls for. I thought that a whole half-century’s dedicated work on developing Mach’s relativistic physics into what has become modern Normal Realism. might have been of interest to members of what is claimed to be a ‘science’ forum. So far, the results of this experiment have been far from encouraging. This was to the extent that I was fully prepared to call a day with this particular forum but now I think I’ll give it another whirl.
Please don’t think I am pressurizing you in any way with what might seem like this brain dump.
Best seasonal wishes,
Vv Pope (no pseudonym)
TO THE MODERATOR (PERCY)
Percy, this posting by Iblis prompts me to continue with this ‘light-speed discussion for a while more. So please cancel, for the moment at least, my notice of abandoning the thread. This will be until some clown starts insulting me again, when my natural response will undoubtedly get me banned.
So far as I am concerned, this issue of quantum instantaneity and observational light-speed continues, because Iblis is definitely on to something, and it might be instructive to other members of this forum thread if this sensible line of logical reason may be allowed to continue, hopefully as a model to show how it should go and should have gone from the very first instance.
Viv Pope (no pseudonym).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 207 by Iblis, posted 12-22-2009 12:07 AM Iblis has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 209 by Admin, posted 12-24-2009 2:59 PM Viv Pope has replied
 Message 210 by AZPaul3, posted 12-25-2009 12:30 AM Viv Pope has replied

  
Viv Pope
Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 75
From: Walesw
Joined: 06-29-2008


Message 216 of 268 (540793)
12-29-2009 6:12 AM
Reply to: Message 210 by AZPaul3
12-25-2009 12:30 AM


Re: The Ultimate Question
Dear AZPaul3,
That is a very, VERY good question and I am more than glad to answer it. As a matter of fact, from the way this idea was received from the start, I was prompted, when I later went to university, to study Psychology and Sociology as subsidiaries to my major subject, the Philosophy of Science. What my studies revealed supported my personal experience, namely that the ideal I had entertained of science being disinterested and objective was palpably false. That ideal, as you describe it, is that
No matter how new or paradigm-shifting, no matter from what venue it should arrive, a powerful viable hypothesis would cause much interest and debate in the physics community.
That’s exactly what I thought before I entered the fray. Then I was forced to ask myself the question which you have very directly and sincerely asked: Why has this not happened with Normal Realism? Why has such an explanatory hypothesis with such powerful attributes not been studied by the community of physicists? Are one’s peers telling one and one’s colleagues what they see as the failings of Normal Realism?
What feedback, you ask, am I receiving from my peers? Well, first let me say that my immediate peers, Dr, Anthony Osborne of Keele university and Prof. Alan Winfield of the University of West of England, Bristol (UK) are in complete agreement with the thesis, not least because, together, we all debated each point of development as we went along. Indeed, my protg, Osborne, has taken it over from me as an official research project at Keele and he is the first author of our latest book. Meanwhile, Winfield, as well having lectured on the subject of Normal Realism at Cambridge, is a main editor of the same book, having written the commendatory foreword for it. Another member of the group was the Telecommunications Engineer, Alan Smart, unfortunately now deceased. He, too was instrumental in the development of Normal Realism, right from the start. Supporters of the thesis were Sir Herman Bondi and Sir Karl Popper, both also deceased. These, to some extent, surely, are my peers in this enterprise of mine. Also, the thesis is mentioned in the peer review organ, the Citations Index. Moreover, it was first recommended for publication by Prof. Pierre Noyes of SLAC California. This was in the journal Physics Essays. I trust that answers to some extent your question about one’s ‘peers’. And I apologise if I am just repeating, here, something I posted earlier.
Anyway, to return to the question of why, if this is such a hotshot theory, it was not immediately embraced by the scientific community. Well, certainly, if you discover some new polymer or some new way of, say, stabilising the plasma in the magnetic bottle at the fusion research laboratory then, yes, fortune will beat a path to your door. However, Science is by no means uniquely free of vested interest, This, of course, is due to the competition for the funding of sometimes very expensive research projects. Now let us imagine that you produce a theory to the effect that there can be no such things as ‘gravitons’ or ‘gravity-waves’ in vacuo. Then what happens to all those funds for producing the costly apparatuses for the detection of these things that are destined to end up as junk left lying around in places like the site around Fermilab? And supposing — perish the thought — that your theory happens to prove that there can be no such thing as the Higgs boson, or ‘God Particle’, then what about the sixty billion dollars that have been spent on producing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN? Moreover, if your theory proved that there js no such thing as ‘dark matter’, then what about the moneys spent on detecting particles of this theoretical substance (WIMPS) at places like the deep-mine laboratory in Boulby, Yorkshire? Do you think that all those people steadily employed in that research, or if they happen to have spent their best years as bona fide lecturers in these things, are likely to study your suggestion and welcome it with open arms? Well, of course not, and in my university studies into the Psychology and Sociology of Science I discovered just how naive I had been to suppose that that such would be the case. (There is a book called ‘Betrayers of the Truth’, written by two sociologists, William Broad and Nicholas Wade, which tells it all.)
This, of course, is why there have been ideas in the past, particularly in Medieval Science, which have been regarded in their day as ‘dangerous’, or ‘heretical’ — dangerous, often more to the presenters of those theories than to the Authorities. As history attests, this goes right back to the time of Socrates who, as is well documented, was executed for his honest philosophical criticisms of the knowledge of his time. And, of course, there was Galileo who was threatened with torture if he did not withdraw his theory of planetary motion, and Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for that same reason, all for the sake of an idea which was accepted eventually by the science community.
Well, this is precisely what my thesis has been charged with, that is to say, heresy, or a ‘danger’ to the current status quo. Why? Because as soon as I presented to the authorities my simple geometrical version of relativity, produced out of pure curiosity by means of nothing more than a pair of compasses and a ruler, it ran into trouble. A vicar asked to comment upon it, panned it because, as he reported — believe it or not — it says nothing about the Holy Trinity. At the local university, having at first authenticated the idea, they later spurned it because, as they were happy to assume, it was proposed by some untutored, in-off-the-street bum claiming, over their heads, to be ‘another Einstein’. And then I was removed from my job for being an embarrassment to my employers, the GPO (General Post Office) Telecommunications section, for hobnobbing with Einstein while in their employ he was satisfied to remain a menial telephone lineman instead of using his time seeking promotion.
Here is a piece out of something I wrote for posting to this thread but which I did not send:
I had to consider the psychological truism that aggression is always a response to threat, real or imagined. So, what else could explain this aggression towards my idea than that it threatened these people in some way. This wasn’t surprising to me, since that is the sort of aggression that this idea of mine has encountered over the almost half century since it first came to the notice of the press in 1964. I mean, if what I was saying was just uninteresting or trivial it would have simply been ignored instead of creating the consternation that it did. Thus was a dead giveaway of the fact that fear, in effect, was the motive behind that aggressive reaction to my proposal of a New Physics based on the ideas of Berkeley, et al. instead of the traditional atomic materialism of Democritus. I mean, what else could it possibly be? This suggestion, backed up by some historical examples. instead of being considered as a real objective possibility, was taken, on their part, as nothing more than a personal slight. This was manifest by so many silly ‘Yah-Boo and ‘Sez you!’ types of answers, as if my aim in citing these examples of fear-reaction was to accuse these people of fear personally
. All this gives me pause, yet again, to reflect on this idea which some authorities have stated to be ‘dangerous’ and ‘immoral’. This means that the issue raised by my alternative idea of light-speed is not so much a logical or scientific issue as a psychological and sociological one. How does one deal with that? Gee, I don’t know. But certainly not on these ‘physics’ forums it seems! My experience on this EvC forum thread simply confirms, yet once again, as previously on the BAUT forum, what a ‘dangerous’ and socially unacceptable idea this one is. Whether the idea is true or not doesn’t come into it.
So, dear AZPaul3, that js my (highly abridged and condensed) answer to your question. Basically, it is that dispensing with ‘light-velocity’ sets physics on a train of logical implications which it dares not follow for fear of a complete philosophical upheaval of physics on a truly Copernican scale. For instance, just one of these logical implications is to dispense with in vacuo processes altogether, not only of light but also the assumed ‘fields of ‘gravitation’, electrostatics, magnetostatics etc. Even Bondi, who had concurred with my original simple idea of dispensing with ‘light-velocity’, refused to follow its implications that far.
As for NASA’s Pioneer Anomaly, the solution which Normal Realism suggests for this is to include the spins of bodies, such as their space probes, in the total angular momentum of an orbiting body, which is to question the validity of Newton’s revered ‘gravitational’ mechanics which NASA employs in tracking their space-probes. With that small but radical adjustment to orbit theory, the answer to NASA’s problem is embarrassingly simple, as may be seen by anyone who studies it. (I can supply the details of this simple solution on this forum to anyone who might be interested.)
Viv Pope
PS,
By the way, AZPaul3, Milgrom’s suggestion for varying G is purely ad hoc. He gives no specific reasons for it. Nor does he follow up the logical implications of such changes in G for physics generally — and certainly not for the philosophy of physics. Nor does he link his changes in G with the spin angular momentum of orbiting bodies such as the spinning space-probes and spiral galaxies in the way Normal Realism does. Normal Realism solves both the ‘missing mass’ and the Pioneer anomalies in a single stroke (again to be explained in this forum on request).
PPS,
I trust that the Moderator (Percy) will appreciated that none of this is ’off-topic’, that it all has to do with the issue of the ‘speed of light in space’.
VP.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 210 by AZPaul3, posted 12-25-2009 12:30 AM AZPaul3 has not replied

  
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