This rather long and meandering paper, though originally intended merely
as an argument for the existence of the Evolution of all Matter (as
well as Living Things), rather rapidly had to address a wholly new,
Holistic standpoint for scientific investigation and explanation, and
thus was inevitably diverted into delivering at least some important
contributions to that area. For the usual standpoint in Science is NOT
holistic, but pluralistic, and though perfectly suitable in areas in
equilibrium, is entirely unsuitable for dealing with systems in
qualitative change. Now, as it very quickly became a rather extended
piece, it could not be allowed to deal fully with all aspects so
generated by this alternative stance. So, they have been somewhat
truncated, with the suggestion, for those requiring a more comprehensive
treatment, to address the much fuller accounts published in the 50
issues of SHAPE Journal on the Internet by this author.
To say the least, my current deliberations are getting more than a little ”hairy”, and I feel that I am skating upon very thin ice. For, in chasing the basic conundrums of Modern Physics, it has become very clear what had always been avoided, to a significant extent, and were now almost totally ignored, were the actual explanations of phenomena. And, this had been achieved by taking the much easier, alternative path of merely describing, and then formulating the purely quantitative data from phenomena into deemed-to-be essential equations.
But, this route can no longer be followed, and I am forced into uniquely tight corners, by the inherent contradictions generated by the one-sided, and indeed, the aberrant and misleading methodology that is usually employed.
For, in attempting to base yourself on past achievements (in which you can have no choice), you invariably find yourself constantly seeking causal sequences of explanation, yet always hitting the premature termination of each uncompleted series, and having to attempt to “do it for yourself”!
For example, my professor, many years ago, at Leeds University was world famous for his “Stoner’s Sub Groups”, but in my efforts in attempting to integrate atoms into a non-empty background, I had then, unavoidably, to explain the Copenhagen Interpretation’s probabilistic methods in terms of an actual filling or substrate of Empty Space, actively interacting with a nucleus-electron system within an atom.
The “usually necessary”, almost total isolation of investigated subsystems, and the consequent separate theories and equations, invariably meant that many transitions could not possibly be included. And changes of system always meant the abandonment of one theory and equation for another. You rummaged about in the “bag of solutions” to find a form that fitted, and the causes of the transitions were never properly addressed.
So returning to Stoner’s Sub Groups, I reckoned that my earlier suggestion of the actual existence of a space-filling paving might be relevant within an atom, and an explanation of Stoner’s discovery might well throw important light upon what was happening concretely inside an atom with its own internal substrate.
I reckoned that such a substrate, as I had postulated for my Theory of the Double Slit, would, in this particular set of circumstances, have to not only surround the atom, but also exist within it too!
If this were the case, the orbiting electron would have to negotiate through the internal substrate, as it attempted to respond to the electrostatic relationship between the electron and its nucleus.
After all, I have never understood how the demotion of the orbit of an electron in an atom (with its clearly physically caused electrostatic and magnetic properties due to a concrete set of circumstances), could transform the energy released into a wholly disembodied form that maintained complex electrostatic and magnetic properties in an infinite oscillation. The question, surely, had to be , “How?”
But, elsewhere, in attempting to explain Fields in a vacuum, surrounding a charged particle, and the effect of the “field” on any other interloping charged entities, if I had also to deal with action-at-a-distance, and I was forced to again define a substrate that could articulate all these effects.
NOTE: as you can see, each thing led to another. And, if a genuine causal chain (which is always assumed to be there) was to be found, and itself explained, you quickly zoom off to you know not where.
One thing incessantly led to another, and I found myself having to explain Stoner’s Sub Groups in terms of the inter-relation of orbits, fields and substrates within an atom.
So, as you can see, the imperatives involved are Real Physics, and not just the usual, formal descriptions, but I have to admit to frequently becoming swamped by what appeared to be “infinite regress”.
But, that is, of course, unavoidable, and was why for hundreds of years pluralist-based Science has dominated. For, it tidily avoided such precipitous routes!
The advantages, of pluralist assumptions, are that all such causal sequences are unnecessary for effective use of a single equation in its appropriate Domain. You could isolate! And, such considerations were sidelined as “theoretical” or even “academic”, and Science motored “ahead” with its small “steps in isolation”.
“Can we use it now?”, was the insistent cry. “I don’t want to know “Why?”, all I need is ”How?”
So, as soon as you decide to take the holist route, the endemic pluralist simplifications of past Physics no longer deliver the crucial essences of Reality, but are merely pragmatic simplifications, and manipulations of “the appropriate ground”.
The fact that these simplifications also were effective in revealing dominant factors, and hence facilitating “situation farming”, made accelerated (though aberrant) paths very easy to construct and follow, while everything else was ignored. And, the justification, the Principle of Plurality, made this methodology “sound”, as all extractions were deemed to be “separable”, and hence independent of context.
In addition, the collection of individual relations was sufficient for most practical applications, and the crucial drive towards inclusive, and indeed, ever more comprehensive theories was abandoned, with a measure of “justification”.
But, the Principle of Holism (the opposite of the Principle of Plurality) is that you cannot do that!
You can simplify, but NOT to reveal Essence, but only to reveal the more dominant contributions, and then in a purely formal, idealised and usually entirely quantitative form of relations - Equations. And, of course, such procedures are fine in limited and controlled contexts: the dominant factors can be made to work “almost alone” and in an idealised form. But, such an approach makes the important transitions from one qualitative situation to another impossible to address in an explanatory way.
“This happens when that threshold is passed”, is NOT an explanation. It is a placeholder for a missing explanation!
Causality becomes increasingly impossible, for each and every local truth has been found by actually removing what in unfettered Reality takes the situation to a very different set of phenomena.
The dynamic of a rich and changing Reality has been surgically removed, and replaced by only a series of artificially “true” snapshots of what was really going on.
Current Science is no longer the philosophic standpoint, from which the meaning of Reality-as-is can be addressed, but instead an equation-led, pragmatic bag of practical, unchanging equations!
It is increasingly breathtaking just how much is never explained, and how eclectic are even the very best of scientists. Without a qualm, such scientists will put aside one theory and pick up another, better-fitting one, and leave any explanation for the caused transition completely unaddressed.
Now clearly, such tasks are not individual, and limited in their content: they are too complex for one person to deal with. If ever there was a form of investigation that MUST be addressed socially, it is the current Crisis in Physics. There has to be too many balls in the air for a single juggler to cope with. You need a team, and a trained and integrated team at that.
Modern Physics is dying fast, and the present ideas and paradigms are simply not up to the tasks presented in the current era.
The more I think about Couder’s Experiment, concerning the behaviour of silicone drops bouncing upon a liquid silicone substrate, the more that I realise it also contains crucially revealing analogues for what happens at the sub atomic level, in spite of it being carried out solely at a macro level.
To briefly recap upon what occurred in his experiment, he has a shallow tray filled with silicone liquid, which is kept vibrating vertically. Onto this “substrate”, he very carefully allows a single drop of the same silicone liquid to fall.
You might reasonably expect that it would merely be absorbed into the tray of liquid, as they are both of exactly the same substance. But, that isn’t what happens at all!
The drop actually bounces back up into the air, after eliciting a depression at the point of closest approach.
Two things then happen, the surface tension of the liquid opposes the depression and after reaching a maximum, it begins to move upwards again. While at the same time, the drop continues to move upwards, but opposed by gravity, so that it also reaches a maximum, then begins to fall again. Now, something very similar occurs on the next closest approach (and a continuing sequence of these), and these continue as long as the same conditions are maintained.
But there is another important feature of this sequence – it is synchronised by the multiple approaches of the bouncing drop, so that the oscillations at the liquid surface in the local area of closest approach is linked to the regularity of the bouncing drop.
Yet, each approach does NOT actually touch the liquid substrate surface, it, somehow, elicits the described behaviours both of drop and substrate, without actual contact. The succession of depressions, as you might expect, moves outwards and declines in amplitude as it does so, but NOT only determined by the properties of the liquid substrate, though clearly the vertical vibration of the whole tray of that substrate, and its frequency will be involved. Clearly the vibrating substrate delivers both a frequency component and energy into the system!
So, after the initial release of the silicone drop, and without any further intervention, we have a seemingly stable bouncing drop, maintaining its separate integrity, but eliciting and then moving with an associated set of waves in the substrate (see the picture included here).
Now, various interesting extractions can be made from this experiment.
First, we can only assume that literally all the energy, for the continuing phenomenon, must come from the vibrating substrate. So, we have an interesting behaviour initiated by the original fall of the drop, but thereby eliciting a tapping into the resident energy of the substrate, to then produce a complex, stable and continuing system.
And such stability (as with all such systems) must be based upon reciprocal mutual effects between drop and substrate.
Now, it was an entire consonant feature to this, which allowed the author of this paper to explain the famed Double Slit Phenomena by means of a substrate being present there, in what is always assumed to be a background of totally Empty Space.
So clearly, we have a class of causally-unrelated phenomena, one of which not only applies at the macro level with Couder’s experiment, but another almost certainly happens also at the sub atomic level too.
The resonances of systems, such as this, are clearly important, yet different from the usually purely quantitative Forms, which are represented in Equations. For, these, very different cases, involve qualitative forms, and are delivered by explanations and not merely by universal qualitative equations, which, of themselves, explain absolutely nothing!
NOTE: Elsewhere, this researcher has been slowly gathering together examples of these “explanatory forms”, the most dazzling of which was surely Darwin & Wallace’s Theory of Natural Selection, which is certainly NOT merely encapsulated in a quantitative equation. And Nobel Laureate Hunt’s discovery of cyclin in fertilised egg divisions, which was also entirely qualitative.
Now, the use of a proposed Paving of Empty Space, comprising vast numbers of undetectable particles, which could propagate electromagnetic radiation, subtend fields around charged objects, and even facilitate Action-at-a-Distance phenomena, has clear resonances with Couder’s Experiment, if not in specifics, then surely in qualitative form?
Now, this theory, which directly opposes the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, has already cracked the Double Slit phenomena (see video above, links to relevant papers are in the description on Youtube), and the propagation of electromagnetic radiation, is also very close to dealing comprehensively with the subtending of electrostatic Fields, in that same “Empty Space”.
The suggestion is NOT a rehash of the Ether theory, for it deals adequately with observed quanta phenomena, and it changes fundamentally just how many phenomena are assumed to occur.
Throughout these hypotheses, the origin of the necessary energy for many phenomena is shown to often reside solely within a universal Paving of Space. And the definition of the pavings constituent particles also clearly hides a very substantial undetected store of both Matter and Energy, which seems to have an important bearing upon the suggestions for both Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which is at present yet-to-be-detected anywhere else.
Now, in my theory, this substrate is composed of small and undetectable descrete entities, closely related to positronium particles, which consist of a mutually-orbiting pair of one electron and one positron.
The natures of these sub particles means that both matter and antimatter, and positive and negative charges, render the combined form currently undetectable.
Nevertheless, they can hold individual quanta of energy by the promotion of these mutual orbits to a higher energy level, and also emit such quanta, by a subsequent return to the base level.
Also, as with so-called Empty Space, this “filling” will always contain some protected energy and matter of constitution, and hence even without any propagate-able energy, would contain unavailable stores of both of these.
The supposition that such a paving would be the source of energy in Field construction and effects, and also be able to provide the propagation of electromagnetic energy, both seem very sound to me.
So, let us return to the “bouncing drop”, with a more interesting basis for revealing its content and forms.
For though the “drop” appears to be the cause of everything (just like a charged particle does for the subtending of an active Field), it certainly is no such thing!
It hasn’t got any energy of its own (just like the unit charge hasn’t either). In both cases, the only on-going source of energy is the paving or substrate. Yet the drop is set in subsequent motion by close contact with the substrate, and also has the effect of synchronising the waves elicited in the substrate, with its repeated closest approaches of that drop. Clearly, we cannot simply divide our interacting elements into simple cause-and-result – they actually interact recursively – each influenced by, and influencing the other.
Let us carefully change tack, and instead consider a matrix of atoms in a solid.
NOTE: In the Couder video, a whole series of bouncing drops and their associated “waves”, line up like an evenly spaced matrix, though why this should be so wasn’t made clear.
From the outside of such an atomic matrix, energy is taken into the atoms, which then oscillate about their apparent, equilibrium positions with an increased amplitude, and the overall solid then expands in consequence.
The oscillation and equilibrium position are both caused by the balancing inter-atomic attractions, so that if an atom moves too far, the balance of forces is changed to bring it back. Unavoidably, over-shooting causes the opposite direction force causing an oscillation, which is then maintained by the prevailing local energy level of the surroundings.
Couder’s unusual set up allows a conjunction of phenomena not usually seen at the macro level, but amazingly close to what is thought to happen at the sub atomic level, especially if we replace totally Empty Space by a universal paving (substrate), which stores energy, propagates electromagnetic disturbances, and communicates Action-at-a-Distance.
There are other things in the Paving Theory of Empty Space apart from its obvious constituents – the active elements. Perhaps one of the most important is the role of recursion – or reflexive effects.
In the solution of the anomalies, observed in the Double Slit Experiments, a moving entity – an electron, causes electromagnetic disturbances in a universal and effectible paving, which moving much faster than the electron, gets to the Double Slits first, passes through both, and causes an “interference pattern” on the other side. So that when the electron arrives, and passes through either of the Slits, it then encounters the pattern, which channels its subsequent movement according to its initial path into that pattern.
The cause – the electron, created the disturbances within the paving, which later, after “interfering” duly caused the modified path through to the detection screen.
Such reflexive processes are crucial in explaining what was going on.
In merely beginning to read yet another article by Michael Brooks in New Scientist (2928) on entanglement and other things in Quantum Theory, I realised that the properties (all ascribed to a disembodied quantum of electromagnetic energy) simply could NOT be correct! I don’t mean, of course, that they don’t exist, but I do mean that some, at least, are definitely not properties of the conceived-of Photon.
Brooks chooses to bring in Spin, and though he can only really describe it as the property of an extended material object, there is also little doubt that he is also insisting that it is a property of the Photon – conceived of as a totally disembodied gobbet of electromagnetic energy.
Now, immediately to a physicist, such as myself, the warning lights begin to flash (in fact several of them!). The first is triggered by the idea that you can have a gobbet of pure energy, totally separate from any matter whatsoever. The second is set off by the idea of such a gobbet actually spinning, or undergoing whatever it is that is termed “a spin”.
And, in the same few initial paragraphs, he makes it clear that we have absolutely NO choice, but to accept such consequences of Quantum Theory (or more precisely the Copenhagen Interpretation of it), because its statistical/probabilistic equations deliver very accurate predictions as long as the problems are posed overall, rather than for particular individual entities.
But why?
The Ptolemaic Theory of the Solar System, in its most developed form, gave accurate predictions, but it was, nevertheless, totally wrong!
Are we really to promote mere Forms, or Patterns, to be the determining essence of all things? We cannot possibly do that, for a very simple reason.
A particular Form can be used to predict in a whole causally unrelated range of phenomena. Forms are universal patterns, and not common causes. And this means that though they can exist all over the place, to make them the determinators of Reality is foolish.
How can these very different phenomena, which conform to a single Form, be assumed to have the exact same cause, and a purely formal one at that? That would only be the case if that Form were capable of being a physical cause itself! And, the language of these scientists always gives away their erroneous standpoint. They say, “This equation makes the phenomenon happen in this particular way!” They are clearly idealists and have actually abandoned materialism! They insist that things don’t happen due to concrete physical causes: they happen in conformance to the appropriate abstract equation.
You have to ask, “Why?”
I could go on with this line of argument, but it will never convince the Copenhageners – so, I’ll take another tack.
Gobbets of entirely disembodied electromagnetic energy (Photons) cannot exist, and certainly cannot move across totally Empty Space at the Speed of Light! In fact, nothing can move at that speed.
So, how does propagation occur, for we know that it does?
If we do assume that particles of matter can exist in such an environment, these will also be prohibited from moving at the speed that has been established for electromagnetic radiation. So, how can we transcend the seeming impasse?
We can do it via the presence of a Universal Paving of so-called Empty Space, populated with relatively stationary material entities (or receptacles), which can not only hold gobbets of E-M energy, but also pass it on, bucket-brigade-fashion across the paving, The material entities involved must act as receptacles for such gobbets of energy, NOT as is sometimes assumed, to carry it across the Empty Void, but to merely pass-it-on.
Now, such suppositions DO NOT, as they stand, deliver any sort of acceptable theory. Many questions still need to be answered, and a wholly new approach made clear.
To achieve an acceptable theory we must:
- Explain how these receptacles hold individual quanta of E-M energy
- Show how these receptacles can be wholly undetectable
- Explain the constant Speed of Light in a very different way
The model for addressing the first question is very clearly the atom, which has no difficulty in fulfilling this requirement. So, an analogous structure to the atom will have to be involved.
The second question can be resolved with the example of the positronium, which is itself undetectable, being constituted from a negatively charge, ordinary matter, electron, and a positively charged, antimatter positron. And though this has certainly been indirectly detected in high-energy accelerators, its very short lifespan in those extreme circumstances doesn’t have to pertain in Empty Space.
The constant Speed of Light becomes a property of the Paving, being the speed of induction of a quantum of E-M energy from one receptacle to the next.
Now, this is by no means a thoroughgoing definition of this Paving and its constituent parts, and we must here forego such a detailed exposition. But, the papers delivering this are already available on SHAPE Journal, so can be accessed very easily when required. Search the journal for Empty Photons.
But, we must reiterate an important difference with this Theory. The quanta never exist outside of such receptacles in propagation. Neither do the receptacles themselves move across Empty Space to deliver their E-M cargo. The movement is ONLY of the quanta, but not as moving, independent entities in Empty Space, but as induced gobbets passed from receptacle to receptacle.
So, within the purpose of this paper, we have a dilemma –
“Which of the evident features that we discern in experiments, are properties of the electromagnetic energy (the always temporary contents of our receptacles), and which are properties of the receptacles themselves?".
Of course, to answer these questions, it matters what the receptacle is made of, and how it can hold a single quantum of electromagnetic energy, and the answers are already known.
Our receptacle must have much in common with the atom! It must contain at least two sub particles with one orbiting the other, to allow it to be able to carry out the very same getting, holding and delivering of quanta that an atom can do.
Indeed, though initially defined purely theoretically, our proposed receptacle has been found to actually exist.
Now, it took a long time to find it, not least for alternative theories for so called Pair Production, did not include such an entity, but it was finally identified as the source of such events in High Energy Accelerators (as already mentioned above).
After this discovery, it became abundantly clear that this positronium, was indeed made from a mutually orbiting pair of an electron and one positron, and with these cancelling out both in Matter and in Charge, the invisibility of the particle in space was easily explained.
Now, the proposal for a universal paving of all of Empty Space had also long been discounted, because no such paving had ever been detected. But, if it was composed of these positroniums, that would explain the pavings invisibility too. And as the sub particles mutual orbits could be promoted to higher energy levels, it was clear that the required functions of getting, holding and delivering quanta (as in the atom) would be available.
Clearly, the instability of the positronium in High Energy environments, at first argued against it being able to carry out these roles, for its lifespan was momentary in such conditions. But, of course, the main habitat for these entities in this theory would be in Empty Space, where their stability would be assured.
Returning to the “messenger and the message”, the problems stated by Brooks fall away, as the various properties detected would be from TWO related entities – the messenger – positronium, and the message – the carried quantum of E-M energy.
Such phenomena would, henceforth, have to include an extra and transforming player – the Paving. And, instead of Wave/Particle Duality, and the other anomalies of Copenhagen, we would be able to attach the contradictory properties to different constituents.
This is another unusual set of papers! And to address the problems involved, the author has had to include several fairly long-in-the-tooth articles that were, in their time, and still are, among the clearest that are available concerning key issues involved in Programming Languages.
There is one from 1998, and another from 2003, and I have to admit that several topics raised in these papers show their ages, via many of the pieces of ancillary kit and software packages that are no longer in use (or even remembered). But, these historically-defined details do not, in any way, undermine the general points made, for the causes for these diversions are still with us to this day. So, the dated references have not been removed or replaced.
In addition, in discussing the pros and cons of programming that were raised in Michael Brooks article Code Red in New Scientist (2920), it became evident that Computer Languages, as such, were unavoidably imbued with certain incorrect, and diverting assumptions carried over mainly from Mathematics (and to a lesser extent from Science itself), which certainly guarantee that certain vital natural processes and indeed, developments, are unobtainable, within the confines of these entirely formal means. So a short paper has also been included, that at least begins to address this problem in some detail too.
The historical papers on C++ and Flash (Actionscript), may be referring to older versions of these systems, but the points made are still to this day, entirely valid, and I also couldn’t just ignore Michael Brooks’ evident lack of any real understanding in the area of programming and Programming Languages, without delivering a strong criticism of his position. Publishing these papers has allowed me to do just that.
