- Revisiting old questions

Do photons require a medium to propagate?

One of the key elements of my gravity model is describing why light bends, or why light is shifted in the presence of a "gravity field". Another question important to ask then, does the photon have mass? And if so, is it this mass the reason enough why photons are affected?

If you recall that section, I stated it's not the photons per say that are being pulled in, it's the atoms (ether, space-time structure) that is being pulled in, and it's the photons nature to propagate and travel via atom's or atom exchange. So you can conclude if that is correct, the photons essentially being a part of this structure, they appear, or are, pulled in with it. This model does not require the photon to have mass, nor does it deny it, it's simply irrelevant.

Here is where it gets complicated. Lets ask it again, Is the speed of gravity, the speed of light? The answer is no. What you are measuring is not really the speed of "gravity" but the light itself. It is an illusion. In other words, you are not measuring the speed at which mass is being attracted, but the optical disturbance of that system - that being passed along by photons and subsequently measured as the speed of light. Again, you are observing/measuring the optical output, not the physical.

Gravity information IS and is carried by the motion itself, not passed along by a single particle as it the case with light information for comparison. I believe that the real speed of gravity is similar to the model and conditions that represent the speed of sound. Just as sound is a mechanical wave, so to is a gravity wave.

GRAVITY IS A MECHANICAL WAVE

...And as such, does not, and cannot, travel at the speed of light.

(If anything, Einstein's model should agreed with that unmistakenly as well, it is quite dumbfounding I did not realize it earlier, just think about it and it will hit you)

There are two distinct 'information sent' varibles for any moving body that has mass. A physical one and an optical one. The speed at which the physical one is measured shall be known as the speed at which the mechanical wave transverses through the medium in which it is affecting. The speed at which the optical one is measured is the speed of the photon, know as the speed of light.

//I'll repeat this again for what it's worth. What is interesting now is that you can observe and measure the optical varibles and know what the physical varibles are. You could even theoretically, measure the physical varibles and know what the optical output varibles would be. All being of course with the aid of a far advanced technology and a database of known frequency/motion (optical/physical) varible links.

//Lets imagine an experiment to test this theory. Imagine a physical body in space (a probe) 1 AU from you and your equipment (Earth). You send a radio wave intruction to that probe to "dance the jig", make it move however just as long as it physically disturbs the space around it. In my theory, that physical motion will have a optical output along with a physical one that radiates in all directions. Now the key is to collect that optical info or those photons that are emitted back on Earth. Now imagine an identical probe in your lab. Once the optical info starts coming in you can recreate what motion that space probe has and make your lab probe do the same motion but with information different than what you sent your space probe. This information that the lab probe will use to move is the optical info sent directly from space probe. So the chain of event is like so - Optical info sent to space probe, turned into physical info, turn into optical info, turned into physical info by lab probe. Here is a key condition. The motion created by space probe must be random and not known by Earth lab. Earth lab only knows what motion the space probe is making when the optical info of that disturbance is sent to Earth and translated by computer and given to lab probe to execute. In the process, we map and create a database of known optical info that correlates to physical motions. The most important thing to note here is that the optical info you sent to the space probe is different than the optical info recieved in the sense that what you send is created by technology and what is created is a naturally occuring optical output phenomenon of physical motion. If your thinking your only recieving a fraction of total information, your right. The sections of the probe in motion aft or away from Earth will not be detected by Earth and that is the major flaw of this experiment. But with all that said, I still have to prove that a body in motion will emit such a optical output that correlates to it's physical motion - different then what we already know.
And this space experiment granted is probably not the best idea, a similar one could probably be accomplished better here on Earth. I sited this example though to give you perspective of "seeing" the object move before you "feel" the object move.

This optical output as I call it, am I talking about gamma rays, ultraviolet, infrared, visible, x-rays? No. Am I talking about radio waves? Maybe, or am I talking about an unknown/undetected class of EMR? To tell you the truth I'm not sure myself, but this is what is in my head now and I'm getting it out. (ok enough of that nonsense) In any case, what would be the point of detecting such optical output? You for example can just Look at a moving body and the visible light that is reflected off it will tell you it's motion. Indeed. But what of blackholes? Dark matter? We don't actually know what lies at the center of a blackhole as far as shape and motion. We think we can safely assume though that a blackhole's "singularity" is spinning rapidly by the effects on it's surroundings. But really, what shape is it? How big is it really? If my theory holds true, we may be able to reconstruct what the shape and motion of that mass is. By no other means have we been able to do so. But then again, what if this optical info in the form of whatever EMR carried by the photon, does not have the means and ability to escape the blackhole? According to me, it would be able to. In fact visible light would be able to. Here is the short version...

Since matter is being pulled into a blackhole at less than the speed of light, light if created must be able to escape out of a blackhole. It's a theoretical fact that matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Why is it though that no light is coming from a blackhole? I believe that the quantum mechanical processes by which light is created and emitted is being halted. I don't actually believe light is being created, and I don't immediatly know the reason why but I know that it is not. However there is this phenomenon of gamma rays jet streams that are emmited in polar directions from the center of a blackhole that agrees with me that light can and will escape if it is created. On a side note, I believe the source of these gamma rays has something to do with Positron Annihilation but I'm not sure.

Now here is the standard accepted theory of why light cannot escape according to general relativity. If your guessing it has to do with the bending of light and the fabric of space, bingo!

"Photons always travel at the speed of light, but they lose energy when travelling out of a gravitational field and appear to be redder to an external observer. The stronger the gravitational field, the more energy the photons lose because of this gravitational redshift. The extreme case is a black hole where photons from within a certain radius lose all their energy and become invisible. Indeed, light in the vicinity of such strong gravitational fields exhibits quite bizarre behavior.

Event Horizons
The event horizon is the point outside the black hole where the gravitational attraction becomes so strong that the escape velocity (the velocity at which an object would have to go to escape the gravitational field) equals the speed of light. Since according to the relativity theory no object can exceed the speed of light, that means that nothing, not even light, could escape the black hole once it is inside this distance from the center of the black hole. A more fundamental way of viewing this is that in a black hole the gravitational field is so intense that it bends space and time around itself so that inside the event horizon there are literally no paths in space and time that lead to the outside of the black hole: No matter what direction you went, you would find that your path led back to the center of the black hole, where the singularity is found.

Black Holes and the Speed of Light
Black holes almost certainly exist, and one of their basic properties is that they trap light. However, it is also true that nothing exceeds the speed of light. In fact, the theoretical prediction of black holes is due to the General Theory of Relativity, which is built on the principle that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. The analogy of a cannonball falling back to Earth with the trapping of light in a black hole is only a crude and suggestive one that is not correct at a fundamental level (for one thing, the cannonball has mass, but light does not; it turns out that this difference is critical, because massless particles MUST travel at light velocity, but massive particles CANNOT travel at light velocity).

To understand fully why a black hole can trap light but the light still always travels at constant velocity requires an understanding of the General Theory of Relativity, but the essential point is that the black hole curves spacetime back on itself, so that all paths in the interior of the black hole lead back to the singularity at the center, no matter which direction you go (an analogy in two dimensions is that no matter which direction you go on the surface of the Earth in a "straight line" (what mathematicians call a "geodesic" or a "great circle"), you never escape the Earth but instead return to the same point. Imagine extending that analogy to the 4 dimensions of spacetime and you have a rough explanation for why light travels at light speed, but cannot escape the interior of a black hole."

It seem clear to me, since I do not believe in the bending of space that I cannot accept this explanation. However I do acknowledge a severe "bending of light" around the region. According to my theory of gravity it is explained by the increased velocity of ether attraction to source mass. Light as a function of travel over distance, interacts with space and in doing so it gets pulled inward for that brief moment that it is in an occupied state of the atom.
Imagine it so, photons jump from one atom to another almost instantaniously (figuratively speaking) as a function of travel, now put those atoms in rapid motion and you start to get the idea that light will appear to bend. How much it bends is clear, it's how fast the ether is moving.

The speed of light is not constant according to my logic

The speed of light is directly calculated by the current velocity of ether attraction over the measured areas.
In other words, since light as a function of travel will act upon space, the velocity of space must be accounted for. If for example, space is relatively still (emtpy space) light will travel at X speed. If you now put space into rapid motion M (near a massive body) in D direction through points A and B and light traveling from the opposite direction starting from B moving to A, light will essentially be "swimming upstream" which can according to M, dramatically slow the time at which light reaches A. An increase in time taken to travel can be percieved as a decrease in the speed of light. By the same token, light can be accelerated if it were to move "downstream".

I know what your thinking, you want us to abandon the idea that the speed of light is constant? If we are to consider all things together, all observed phenomenon, we must come up with a model of everything that fits all phenomenon. I have no problem with the idea that the speed of light is constant, everything agrees well with it, BUT in the rare cases of blackholes, an alternate theory of gravity to explain them, we must also ammend our ideas of the speed of light if that theory is to be accurate. The consequences of such are actually few if any. What we must accept is that the measured speed of light is accorinding to the state of the medium in which in travels. FOR the most part, we see little to no difference to the speed of light around our solar system, that is why we assume it is constant. The most dramatic change should be seen near our sun however. It may be that no one has been looking for it, or it may be that it is too subtle to notice, or that no experiment or observation could prove it. I can immediatly think of an experiment to test the speed of light (from our perspective) that would involve a series of space probes. Remember, time is relative and here is our problem...

The experiment is as such. Place a space probe A between the Earth and the Sun, very much near the Sun. Now place a second probe B the exact same radius from Earth towards Mars and beyond so that the Earth (North polar region) is the exact center of the two. Now sending a simulatanious radio signal to both probes will find that the signal reaches probe A faster than probe B to an outside observer, this is because light will be traveling downstream as it were, due to the mass of the Sun. BUT the signals that travel back to Earth will reach at the same time because light from probe A will now be traveling "upstream". Know that the downstream and upstream effects on light traveling to probe B are greatly reduced due to the increased distance from the Sun. If you are to factor in the Earth's pull you will find the results to be identical regardless. As you may have figured out, there is no way to measure the speed at which each signal is traveling, while it is traveling. Only an outside observer has such privilage of perspective. The only thing you can measure is the time taken for a round trip and thus deduce the speed of light, but falsely so.

One last thing to mention
Is the speed of light in a vacuum constant? Of course it is, why wouldn't it be? That's the simplest concept. But let me add this "in the presence of a constant gravitational field". Or to extend that thought "In the absense of a varied or fluxtuating external force"

Know also that is not saying the speed of light is X speed. What it is saying is that the speed of light is X speed according to that particular vacuum. Understand that the environment in which said vacuum lies constitutes as an external force, an external gravitational force.

Time dialation near a blackhole

It is true that time from the perspective of the object near a blackhole is slowed down proportionally to the velocity of said object. Proportionally may not be the right word but basically the faster you go the slower time gets. If you recall way back I covered my thoughts on this and came to the conclusion that the faster you go the more resistence is forced on an atom. The very nature of the progression of the mechanical atomic cycle in the larger scale is what we know as time. If you were to restrict the atoms ability to complete a cycle, perhaps we can call it "quantum friction", what you are really doing is slowing down time.

Well of course time is slowed down near a blackhole, that conclusion is easily reached on your own so why do I even bother mentioning it? Because time dialation may play a pivotal role in the observed phenonmenon and even lack of light from a blackhole.

April 25 2004

I'm still in search of what component of ether is being absorbed, and being absorbed into what specifically that defines the gravity engine.

One of the basic arguments against the model as I see it is such. We can't say that mass absorbs an ether component at a constant rate without also explaining why mass does not over time continue to gain mass or energy.

Consider the following solution.

The atom will absorb and convert/decay a component of ether into work energy as a means by which it continues to spin or operate atomic functions. Ask yourself, how is it that an atom's particle's maintain there spin? Free perpetual motion? No, motion is energy spent. You cannot have spin without using energy. Ironically, I believe it is the spin of those particles that is the attractive component, at least in part. There are many ways the atom could attract the ether, your guess is as good as mine this early, however what we need to understand is that whatever is absorbed must be used - otherwise we end up with mass gaining mass/energy over time.

Another thing that is really going to get me with this model is explaining how and why the air molecules around us for example, can be relatively still if there is this constant downforce of particles. In other words, there should be physical and even visible signs of this downforce in some way shape or form, yet that doesn't seem to be the case. And I could be wrong, there may be evidence of such I'm just not aware of it at the moment, I'm hoping that is true.

Concerning mass weight at the surface of the Earth opposed to deep underground

Gravitational force is given by GMm/r2 where G is the "universal gravitational constant", M is the mass of the earth, m is the mass of the object, and r is the distance from the center of the earth. It is pretty easy to show that, because of the "1/r2", that the total mass from a sphere outside that radius is 0: opposite parts cancel. So the "net" force is only due to the mass between the object and the center of the earth. Assuming a uniform earth (reasonably accurate), the mass "below" the object is 4/3 times density times r3 so we have
Gm(4/3 density r3)/r2= (4/3) Gm density r. That clearly decreases as r decreases and is 0 exactly at the center of the earth.

No one has ever measured anything at the center of the earth but there have been experiments on object a couple of miles down which support the calculation.

Relating that to GR, we can say that the curvature of space is greater at the surface.

Relating that to ether theory we can say that downforce that is caused by an ether attraction is less than on the surface. Or not...

Assume for the moment that the Earth is a perfect sphere with uniform matter. You would feel no gravity at the very center. The same principle can be applied regardless of the circumference of sphere, so you would feel no gravity at the center of the Sun also. This is explained perfectly by GR believe it or not, right? There is no curvature of space at the center. The center of a uniform spherical mass in emtpy space lies exactly on the surface or horizen of that space correct? Against all my better judgement that a bending of space is illogical, doesn't works in this example?

How can I say that the ether absorbtion or downforce is exactly zero at the center of a sphere regardless of circumference of that sphere?

Upon further thought I don't know that that statement is accurate. How can we say that the curvature of space is zero at the center? A blackhole would not agree with that too well for one. Nor would even a significant mass such as our Sun. So if no curvature of space equals no gravity felt, then you must conclude that any curvature of space equals gravity felt... Believe that? Yet that is not the case if the space at center of the Sun for example is curved.

The only conclusion you can reach is that at the center you are being pulled equally in all directions, therefore no gravity felt even though you are lying on curved space. With that understanding, we still don't prove a curvature of space is the cause of gravity or even that a curvature exsists. And I take that back, my model does work accordingly.

Another thought.
Why the velocity of local ether increases more with regard to density not volume of mass. This is because the denser an object is the more atoms that it is made of naturally, so the greater the number of atoms in a given area, the greater the net spin effect (I've talked about this before). That verses if you had fewer atoms in the same volume of space, the net spin effect would be less, hence the velocity of local ether absorbtion is less.

It is the atom's nature to attract this component of space, just like opposite charges attract, this ether component must be an opposite charge of whatever is attracting it - that is, if we are to link this to electromagnetism, which I'm leaning towards now as a possible solution. Will update if that works out and yes it could very well be that my model for attraction is best explained as an electromagnetic theory where we substitute net physical spin with net charge attraction. And I use the word "spin" loosely all along, not commiting it to mean actual physical spin, because as in the case of electrons, spin is used to describe associated charge.

May 06 2004

Here is an article from space.com regarding a recent observation that concluded the speed of gravity was light.

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"Physicists leveled heavy criticism Thursday on a report from last week that claimed the speed of gravity had been determined by observation and was equal to the speed of light.

One physicist called the interpretation of the finding "nonsense". Others were more diplomatic, suggesting that the experiment, involving observations of the bending of light from a distant galaxy as the light sped by the planet Jupiter, had instead measured other phenomena.

The brewing controversy, which illustrates the fits and spurts with which science sometimes grudgingly moves forward, appears to have ground to a stalemate for now as the two scientists who conducted the experiment categorically defended their work.

"The claim that they've measured the speed of gravity is simply incorrect," said Clifford Will, a physicist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and an expert in the field.

Interestingly, Will is friends with one of the researchers whose work he knocks.

In a telephone interview this morning, Will hailed the intricate observations as possibly "a great achievement" but said the interpretation of the data "clouded what would otherwise have been a really cool result."

Defending the claim

Ed Fomalont of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Sergei Kopeikin from the University of Missouri in Columbia, performed the experiment. They watched light from a faraway galaxy bend as the planet Jupiter passed almost directly between the galaxy and Earth. Their theory stated that the bending would occur due to the gravitational influence of Jupiter.

By noting the extent of the bending, the researchers claimed to have measured whether gravity acted instantly or somewhat more slowly, at light-speed.

Proving that gravity works at the speed of light would add support to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and place limits on fringe theories in cosmology. Most physicists are confident that this is the case, but no one has ever confirmed it by direct measurement.

Isaac Newton long ago argued that gravity instead propagates instantaneously. The suggestion has not died. If it were true, a big door would open to wild theories of how the universe might work on the grandest scales, including its possible interaction with other universes or other dimensions. Even a slight difference in the speeds of light and gravity would give theorists nifty wiggle room to craft bizarre ideas about the mechanics of the unseen universe.

Fomalont, an observational astronomer, calmly refuted the criticisms one-by-one this morning.

"We're really confident that we've measured the speed of gravity and that our interpretation of the results of our experiment are as stated," Fomalont told SPACE.com.

Behind the scenes

The finding, announced Jan. 7 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), was controversial well before it was reported to the general public. Two papers on the work had in prior weeks been submitted for peer review and possible publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. One describes the technique, another details the results. Both are still being reviewed.

Will, the Washington University physicist and a self-proclaimed longtime colleague and friend of Kopeikin, was asked to review the theoretical paper for the journal. Will recommended it not be published. The paper has since been sent to another referee.

Will explained his reasoning: A moving body, like Jupiter, produces additional gravitational effects that Kopeikin did not take into account in his theoretical calculations. Will was surprised that the findings were announced last week, before the papers had been accepted for publication.

It is not uncommon for discoveries to be presented to reporters at AAS meetings prior to having been through peer review. Numerous other findings, by NASA scientists and others, are announced in press releases every year prior to any formal peer review. Scientists are sometimes critical of this so-called "science by press release" process. Others see it as a natural and inevitable flow of information into scientific and public hands.

Ultimately, Will said, the scientific community will sort out the truth in this case.

"Will is one of the giants in this field," Fomalont said. He added that Kopeikin and Will have gone politely back and forth on their differing interpretations of subtleties in what might be observed in the experiment, and are simply at loggerheads over which approach is correct.

Kopeikin said he has found a mistake hidden deep in Will's calculations, and that other mathematicians concur. "He does not agree," Kopeikin said of Will today. "But mathematics is against him."

Kopeikin, too, said the review process would ultimately reveal the truth.

Long-running debate

Kopeikin began circulating his theoretical idea for the experiment more than two years ago, and criticisms began well before the observational work was carried out last September.

Japanese physicist Hideki Asada published a paper, also in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, about a year ago arguing that Fomalont and Kopeikin would actually be measuring the speed of light, not gravity. That paper has been a thorn in Kopeikin's side ever since. During the AAS press conference last week, when questioned about Asada's work, Kopeikin was visibly frustrated and said Asada had made a mathematical mistake.

Fomalont said this morning that Asada's paper was "not valid." But because it was published, however, it had been given "a standing which it does not deserve."

Today, also in the Nature Science Update article, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, a physicist at Stony Brook University in New York, called the interpretation of the results by Fomalont and Kopeikin "compete nonsense," but the comment was not expanded upon.

Fomalont chose not to respond to van Nieuwenhuizen's choice of words. He also said he had no regrets over announcing the results prior to peer-reviewed acceptance in a journal.

The whole issue seems to have caught many physicists by surprise.

Fomalont notes that during the two or three years that scientists had to review the idea, most did not think the measurements could even be made (regardless of what was being measured) so few spoke up about the potential interpretation of the results (that the speed of gravity could be determined).

"Then they see that we can measure it, and that fostered a lot of bubbling up of criticism," Fomalont said.

There remains little doubt that something was measured last September when the largest planet in our solar system fortuitously passed in front of a bright galaxy some 9 billion light-years away. What remains is for physicists to agree on what was seen.

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Quote

"Japanese physicist Hideki Asada published a paper, also in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, about a year ago arguing that Fomalont and Kopeikin would actually be measuring the speed of light, not gravity."

May 19 2004

A thread I found on a science forum today.

"I, personally, am inclined to believe that gravity is only a secondary force, like that of the force of the wind. I believe in the existence of an ether (something comparable to an extremely thin gas) pervading all space, for the reasons explained below. I further believe this ether is dynamic, and descends vertically on to, and in to, the earth, engaged in some dynamic process we have not yet caught on to, but in its verticle descent it causes the effect we call gravity. If this is the case the ether would have escaped detection by the Michelson-Morley team back in 1887 because their equipment (and premises) was orientated for horizontal detection only. They left it up to the rotation of the earth to provide them with all the other possible orientations. However, they missed the vertical possibility. But a steady descending ether still would not have shown up in the type of test they where using.

My reasons for favoring this point of view are the following.

Einstein made a point of letting everybody know that accelerating a body in free space produces the same back pressures as holding a body still against gravity. I fail to see any more mystery in that relationship than in noting that it takes the same amount of steady force to accelerate a body, in still water, up to a fixed speed, say 25mph, as it does to hold a body still in a moving stream of water, moving at 25mph. In the case of acceleration, in an environment where we are plagued with friction, the steady applied force gradually becomes balanced against friction, and we can no longer see the remaining acceleration, which continues as friction. Aside from that lack of visible continued acceleration I see no difference in the mechanics of water, air, and the apparent ether, except that, in the ether the trade off between body (particle) acceleration and frictional acceleration doesn't start to become apparent until the body approaches the speed of light.

You might say that since gravity gets stronger with increasing proximity to bodies it cannot be likened to a stream of water. But a stream of water moves faster when the stream space narrows. Since a flow of ether towards the earth would be approaching a narrower and narrower available transverse cross section of space, it would, also, have to move faster and faster.

I believe the unavoidable invisibility of the ether has given it a mystery it doesn't deserve. Also, if there is an ether, I would expect it to be at least a little more involved than just a dead sea of ether.

Fairfield 8/17/01"

On the bending of light near massive bodies.

I'm questioning if this hasn't been confused by myself and others as appearing to be caused by gravity, but in reality it is caused by the magnetic fields of such planets, and stars. That sure would simplify things in regards to a gravity model, no longer would we have to account for gravity bending light. Nor would we have to explain why light would not bend More near the surface. The magnetic field's greatest effect is at X altitude or X radius from the surface of a given planet or star due to the orientation and development of magnetic field lines that transverse from surface to orbit. In any case, the strength and region of the "gravity field" should be similar to the magnetic field so one could understand if they were confused.