A New "Constructivist" Experiment

Long Exposure of double pendulum with LED at end of each pendulum

Here is a suggestion for a Couder-like constructivist experiment, to attempt to get similar stable effects as results. The key elements for such experiments have to be in the tuneable interactions of mutually affecting oscillations, underpinned by a constant applied vibration, that also interacts significantly, but is also the crucial energy supply, which keeps the resultant system going.

It is hoped that a final, overall rotation will again deliver the required cup de grace – Quantization!

To deliver the appropriate conditions, let us choose a Compound Pendulum as our starting point, for even without any of the intended extra additions, these produce fascinating and complex behaviours. So, that if it is successively modified and appropriately “tuned”, it will take us through a range of stabilities, and even a final extra example of quantization – entirely as a result of oscillations and rotations alone.

But the usual form of a compound pendulum will require several additions in order to tune it into the possible stable forms that we are seeking. The diagram below shows the necessary construction.

This new form would commence by changes to the structure of the pendulum and the overall vertical vibration to attempt a “Walker-like” stability. Once this has been achieved, we could add a horizontal rotation via the included motor, and see the effects achieved at different rates.

If the discoveries of the Couder “Walker” experiments are applicable generally in appropriate circumstances, when driven by an overall vibration as a key component, that is also a continuous source of energy, we should expect to get both the establishment of a stable system, and, even more important, the clearly quantized results of the various added horizontal rotations.

Who fancies having a go at this task?

Greece: On the threshold of revolution?

Significant things are happening in Greece. Could the country that gave the World Democracy, now establish a European Socialist State?

The 2008 Slump was a clear indicator of the bankruptcy of Capitalism. Even its usual methods of exporting all their problems to the Third World isn’t working as it used to. Now, we will have a return to Nation-State rivalries and even war in Europe.

The "West versus Russia" confrontation is between Capitalist States. No easy Communist targets remain!

So, once more, the Working Class is the major target for regaining some sort of re-establishment of the Old Regime. They will be made to pay!

Greece proves it!

The pensioners and the youth are increasingly being made to pay by enforced poverty. The first break in the Phalanx of Pro-capitalist parties, including those saying they are socialist, is NOW occurring in that great Cradle of Civilisation.

Victory to the People of Greece!

Kick out Capitalism for the only rule for and by The People: S O C I A L I S M!

Persisting Resonances

Let us muse about the natural oscillations of a fixed set up.

The simplest is that of a fixed taut string anchored at both ends. For, such has a whole quantized series of possible natural oscillations. If a disturbance (such as a pluck) were applied near the centre of the string, it would oscillate with the so-called fundamental frequency of that particular length, weight and tension of the string. You don’t have to apply a necessary frequency of disturbance – anything will do, as it is the addition of energy that will set it vibrating at its natural frequency.

In other words, the fundamental frequency is a property of that precise set up only. But if the agitation of the string were applied at precisely one quarter of the length of the string, it would then vibrate at twice the fundamental frequency. And similar agitations at particular precise points, along the length of the string, will produce other so-called harmonics – frequencies simply related to the fundamental. But, such a device is not rigidly controlled, so variations in string tension will change the set of related frequencies that are produced. Nevertheless, we have a very simple construction, which naturally possesses Quantized Frequencies.

NOTE: this infers that elsewhere-in Nature, when such quantized frequencies occur, might also have very similar causes, as we will see!

Now, if our string is totally still, but elsewhere, its exact fundamental frequency is made to occur elsewhere, but clearly hear-able at our string, that would begin to vibrate too in resonance with the separately situated source.

The intervening substrate (the air) will have itself been set into that same oscillation, and communicated both the original’s frequency and its energy to our originally quiescent set up, and by resonance, set it too into motion. But, in addition, many initiators may well be mixes of many frequencies, but even they can set our string into resonance, but only at one or another of its harmonic set.

The frequency of a marching squad of soldiers crossing a bridge, will not all be in perfect unison, but could be enough to set the bridge in resonance and even shake itself to dissolution. 

The key thing is the transference of energy.

Now, various questions are posed.

The main one is concerned with the fact that to set our string in motion at its fundamental frequency, it doesn’t have to be initiated by a direct input of that same frequency. It can be almost any mix of frequencies as long as some related one is present. So, we can conceive of a non-specific energy from without.

This poses questions about persistence of oscillation.

In Yves Couder’s famous Walker set up, he had a constant input of energy, at a particular frequency of the whole set up, which was externally driven, and this was certainly what kept the formed Walkers as persisting entities.

Now, considering the processes in Couder’s work, using examples involving vibrations of strings, may well mislead, as further work seems to indicate that it isn’t fixed frequencies that are the key, BUT related frequencies in all the participating vibrations. Indeed, it seems likely that the same could be achieved with a different set of frequencies, as long as they are appropriately related via careful tuning.

Of course, Couder’s Experiment was different in that a second and different oscillation was set in motion by the applied persistent oscillation – the falling drop of the same oil onto the main oil bath. That was sent back up to, thereafter, deliver regular kicks via its persistent bouncing, and finally the surface of the oil in the bath also had a surface oscillation, which because of the bouncing drop was turned into an interacting standing wave.

Clearly, there is no reason why basically similar stable arrangements could not be set up in other appropriate media.

Our task is to relate these findings to the phenomena within the atom, by including consideration of an undetected universal substrate, even within the atom itself.

The Atom and the Substrate series is being published on Shape Journal. The first issue The Substrate is available now. Part 2 on The Atom will be published in the next week or two.

 

The Crucial Missing Ingredient?

When considering, more generally, the significance of the creation of Yves Couder’s Walkers in his famous experiments, the role of the substrate was crucial, because that was the only material thing involved. So, the question of a universal substrate seems, once more, to be back on the agenda.

Let us see why!

The remarkable thing about Couder’s experiments is that they needed only this substrate, plus various oscillations to actually create a stable entity, which, if that substrate were both universal and undetectable, would seem to have arisen entirely out of energy alone.

So, quite apart from the specifics of Couder’s experiments, these discoveries seem to pose much more general questions.

Instead of inert matter being set into various phenomena by disembodied laws, and energy alone, we are confronted with the possibility of there also being a substrate, with the capabilities revealed in Couder’s important experiments. Indeed, if such a universal substrate were composed of known material entities, but constructed in such a way as to be undetectable, the whole assumed basis for all phenomena is totally transformed, indeed, returning things back to the old positions based upon the assumption of The Ether.

And, that is not all!

Just by adding an overall rotation of the right kind, Couder managed to impose quantized orbits upon his Walkers. The possibility of a substrate within the Atom becomes not only a possibility, but also may deliver a physical explanation for quantized electron orbits, no longer down to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory. Clearly, a full explanation, of Couder’s macro experiments, could turn out to revolutionise Sub Atomic Physics too.

So, what exactly happened in these experiments and “Why?”

The primary question of the Couder experiments is, “What causes the creation of a localised stable structure, seemingly entirely out of vibrations within a single medium?”For usually, oscillations in such a medium naturally propagate right across it, and are not restricted to some self-made locality. How on earth can they be concentrated into a small locality within the medium, and one, which then persists and acts as a stable entity, with properties of its own?

Posed as I have put it above, there seems to be no possible answer to this question, but, of course, it turns out that there are several oscillations involved, which affect one another to produce such an entity. The Key addition is that of a falling drop of the very same substrate, that in appropriately tuned circumstances actually bounces back up from the surface of the substrate. This drop, which then continues to bounce, defines a particular point, where the drop and substrate interact, which then becomes the centre of the ultimately produced Walker.

But, even this doesn’t fully describe what occurs. Clearly, resonances are involved between the bouncing drop and the constantly vertically vibrating tray of substrate. But, on its regular return, the bouncing drop gives a regular kick to the surface skin of the substrate, and this causes a standing wave in the surface, surrounding the bouncing drop. So, we also have recursion occurring too.

Now, we can conceive of a forced vibration in a pond, which would simply produce continuous outward moving waves. But in the Couder experiments, we have a nexus of resonant and recursive processes, which are self re-enforcing, and with energy derived from the constantly vibrating substrate, these become the famous Walker.

When you attempt to trace through causes and effects, we see that it isn’t a simple linear sequence, but related cycles, so that quite apart from resonances, we also have causes producing effects, which then recursively become causes.

This is the basis for the walkers!

But, Couder didn’t merely set up the various experiments and they immediately worked. On the contrary, he had to adjust the overall vibrations of the substrate, and the size and height of the released drop until it gelled into -

1. His bouncing drop
2. The vibrations of the whole substrate
3. A standing wave in the surface of that substrate
4. The combined stable entity called The Walker.

Clearly, even the nature of the substrate would be crucial in allowing what occurred, for would it also work with water, for example. Clearly, the surface tension and even viscosity would have to also be right. The physical explanation of such a localisation and balanced self-maintaining stability is crucial here. For, its occurrence, even in Couder’s carefully arranged cases, must also change the general way we think about things. They do not happen in Empty Space, but always and ever within a substrate.

Considering only a proton and an electron as can exist within an atom, would now be under question If such entities exist within and affect a universal substrate, which itself also affects the entities involved, we will have to rethink the features that we find there, and explain them very differently. For, it is ONLY with such a substrate that the necessary feedback can take place to produce that entity’s evident stability.

Part I of The Atom and the Substrate is now available.

New Special Issue: The Atom & the Substrate I

This new issue of the journal is the first in a landmark series outlining an entirely new approach to Sub-Atomic Physics. This will consist of two substantial issues containing work of truly great significance.

Such fanfare is not hyperbole. In the second of these installments there will be a full refutation of the too long incumbent Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, both in general, and as a study of the Atom. Finally this regressive interlude in Physics can be stopped and the science re-orientated upon a wholly new path. For not only is this a debunking of Quantum Theory, but of the flawed pluralist position that preceded it.

These two new issues will be published online in quick succession, starting here with The Substrate and followed by The Atom. The issues tackled within are fundamental both philosophically and physically, and present for the first time, a purely physical explanation for quantisation.

Read it here.

Big Blip: Seeking Answers in the Knacker’s Yard

The Rejuvenated LHC?

In yet another celebration of the Large Hadron Collider, on the occasion of its resuscitation after a two-year refit, New Scientist (3022) recently proffered an article by Elizabeth Landau entitles The Big Blip.

It is a muse about what may be discovered by the updated device, and the possible questions posed on the consensus standard model of the collection of “fundamental particles" in the Sub Atomic realm, the by the confidently expected “new evidence”.

A major concern seems to be about matter and antimatter – indeed concerning a purely theoretical concept of their differences and origins. In what has become the usual theoretical route, these were defined to match known evidence, but without any idea as to why they came to be.

And, using this prodigious machine, an experiment has been devised to reveal more evidence, and enable its encapsulation into yet more formalist relations - NOT, I must emphasize, as any sort of physical explanation, but merely as a set of formalisms which can be massaged (via the usual methods) to fit the revealed evidence.

It is important to consider such events and their purposes, knowing that explanation in general had long ago been abandoned as mere self-kid. (In 1927 at Solvay the significant turn was made). And, thereafter, the only accepted, reliable encapsulation of what was found, were a zoo of fundamental particles, and various formalisms about them embodied in mathematical equations.

And, with such a “revolution”, the means for further study unavoidably narrowed into a series of ever more powerful Accelerators (Colliders), of which the LHC is the latest and most powerful version. In addition, the methodology was also similarly restricted solely to smashing up such entities to see what they might be made of.

Indeed, such a History has produced a unique realm of concepts and rules, which are worked out by very competent mathematicians on blackboards – effectively working exclusively in abstractions. It has produced a compelling realm, which is necessarily compilation in its own realm, and is situated a very long way from the believed basis of the preceding Classical Physics.

The main imperative has been to reveal the Origins of Reality itself solely in terms of these ultimate, descrete and abstract entities – to supposedly lay bare the true determining basis for absolutely everything.

It is, of course, a lost cause! And, the reason is that it has become no longer a study of Reality, but something very different indeed. It is a study of abstract concepts, elicited from certain phenomena, but most definitely NOT a comprehensive and meaningful extraction, but, on the contrary, a selection according to a set of formal criteria, leaving absolutely everything that doesn’t so conform behind. Consequently it necessarily becomes a study of an entirely Formal World with the narrowest of connections with Concrete Reality.

Indeed, if you are to subscribe to this approach, you will no longer be investigating Reality-as-is, but, instead, only addressing a selection of simplified and idealised extractions, which are usually ONLY obtainable from intensively-farmed Domains within Reality. So, clearly, what is then studied in current Sub Atomic Physics is a version of that very same Formal World – the realm of Pure Form alone, which is termed Ideality, and served by its methodology, which we call Mathematics!

Yet, in spite of truly gigantic amounts of funds, resources and competent mathematicians, all invested into experiments such as those on the LHC, it certainly cannot be said that the original source, Reality itself, has been clearly defined.

On the contrary, the only way that the theorists involved have coped is by the adoption of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, due initially to Bohr and Heisenberg, which embraces a supposed Reality with Wave/Particle Duality at its very heart, and Formal Description, which is deemed to be more profound and even determining than any attempted Physical Explanation.

Indeed, a “New World” is said to exist down there, which cannot be dealt within any other way, and most particularly not in the “old ways” applied universally before the quantum! And, this essentially different realm must henceforth be dealt with solely according to the bases, assumptions and methods of Copenhagen.

Of course, it is also true that many of the premises and principles of Classical Physics were, indeed, wholly inadequate in these deeper investigations of the nature of Reality. Yet, instead of solving the evident shortcomings of that established approach, the denizens of Copenhagen turned the other way, and “on principle” looked solely to Forms as the true essential drivers of absolutely everything.

But, clearly such things are ONLY abstractions from Reality, mostly carefully arranged-for, to enable reliable predictions in given contexts, and which are totally unable to explain properties and causes.

Indeed, without a moment’s doubt, equations are now seen as the actual “causes” of phenomena, rather than being merely formal descriptions of them. Clearly, Copenhagen and its whole consequent realm is entirely an idealist retreat!

In the next few weeks, two new Special Issues of the SHAPE Journal will be published, which explain Quantization in a very different, physical and materialist way. 

Part I of The Atom and the Substrate is now available.

Gravity is a push force!

This diagram is from a forthcoming new series called The Atom and the Substrate, which postulates that a heterogeneous sea of particles permeates the entire universe, allowing for the propagation of light, magnetism and even gravity. 

The idea that a substrate may cause gravity through collisions of inert particles came from Newton, via Glenn Borchardt. Wedded to my hypothetical Neutritron paving we start to get a new model of the ether than begins to explain a whole range of phenomena, and poses a serious threat to Quantum Physics as a whole!

Part I of The Atom and the Substrate is now available.