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.