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THE ETHER This article is under review, and is not recommended reading.
Once upon a time, light waves were thought to propagate through a medium, which was known as 'The Ether'. THE ETHER WIND It was thought that when solid matter moved through the Ether, it would disturb the medium and have an effect, which is similar to an object moving through the air. RELATIVITY An Ether wind was never detected, the speed of light was always observed to be constant, and those observations led to the theory of Relativity. PHOTONS Light was then thought of as tiny virtual particles, known as 'Photons'. Photons were thought to travel through the vacuum of space like tiny bullets. ENERGY There are two established formulas for energy, E=mc² and E=hf. So it is possible to calculate the mass of a photon, when you know either its energy or its frequency. When you know the mass, you can calculate the kinetic energy of a photon. E = ½ mv² and since the photon is moving at the velocity of c, its kinetic energy must be ½ mc². So where has the other half of the energy gone. WAVES It is a well-established fact that particles and waves coexist, which is of course, known as 'Duality'. Therefore, photons must have a wave property! I have calculated the energy of this wave property to be ½ mc². In my opinion, there can only be one answer! When you add the wave energy to the kinetic energy, you get: ½ mc² + ½ mc² = mc² If you imagine a Riffle bullet, this has two energy values also, kinetic energy, and rotational energy. Since waves have angular momentum, a photon must have a similar property to a Riffled bullet. SUPER STRING Consider the 'Super String Theory'? It is meant to explain how mass and energy is able to coexist, and form particles. However, Super String fills the entire Universe, and yet objects seem to pass through it without affecting the speed of light. Does that sound familiar? DARK MATTER Now the Universe has been filled with another substance, which also permits matter to pass through it without affecting the speed of light. WHAT'S IN A NAME? So we now have a Universe, which is full of either 'Dark Matter' or 'Super String' which allows matter to pass through it, without affecting the speed of light. Why don't we just call it 'The Ether'? WHAT HAS CHANGED? All we have done is gone round in a circle. Proving that scientists are much the same as politicians and managers. Cleary, the Universe is full of a substance, which in some way propagates mass and energy. THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE The explanation for the expanding Universe, is that space itself, is expanding! If space is empty, how can it expand? So obviously, this must prove that space is not empty. A LARGE PARTICLE Magnifying an atom to appear to be the size of the Solar System, it is thought that a Super String would be the size of an average Tree. If Super String were the medium, waves would have to cover a lot of distance, using this scale. For example, the Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth. So hopefully, you can get some idea of the scale? Super Strings are extremely small, even when you compare them to Atoms. Therefore, any energy inside of an Atom would have to propagate a relatively large distance, if Super String is the medium of propagation. PROPAGATION Hopefully, you are familiar with the idea of waves propagating through a medium? Because what I am going to suggest is that particles are bubbles of energy, and this energy propagates within the confine of that particular bubble. So when a particle moves, the energy, which it contains, propagates together with the bubble. MOVEMENT In my opinion, the Ether wind was never detected because matter also propagates through the medium. RELATIVITY When you consider that matter is made from energy, it must also possess the same properties as a wave, which of course, it does! When you change the energy of a wave, you also change its frequency, its wavelength, and its period. In other words, its values of Space and Time are changed. Relativity has this effect on both waves and particles. FREQUENCY Using Photons as an example, their mass is directly proportional to their energy. So using the formula E = hf, it can be seen that their frequency is also proportional to their energy. So the effect of Relativity is quite obvious, the values of space and time change in proportion to the energy. PARTICLES Particles such as electrons and Protons are different to Photons, because they have mass when they are travelling slower than the speed of light. Whereas Photons always travel at the speed of light, and only have a 'Virtual' mass, which is derived from their energy. So if, for example, a Proton were moving at a high velocity, you would use the complete energy formula: E2 = m2c4 + p2c2 It can be seen that part of the energy is related to the momentum p, and the other part relates to the conversion of mass to energy. Note that E = mc² is a simplified version of this formula, which assumes that the momentum p is small enough to be ignored. MODULATION Using Radio waves as an example, there are two waves, one is the carrier wave, and the other is the modulation wave. The carrier wave has a high frequency, and the modulation frequency would be relatively low, normally audio frequency. However, if you apply this idea to a moving particle, there is a big difference. If you consider the energy conversion of mass to energy, this energy would have a much higher frequency, than the energy, which relates to the momentum. So in this example, a low frequency is being modulated by a high frequency. WAVE SPREADING Erwin Schrodinger was quoted as saying, "I can see no reason for particles", since he was calculating the wave properties inside of an Atom at the time. The objection to this idea is that waves spread, and therefore, waves would lose energy, whereas the particles don't. PARTICLE SPREADING We have known about wave and particle duality for some time now. It seems to me that waves must be trapped inside of sub-atomic particles. When particles are broken, as for example, when matter and anti-matter meet, the energy escapes. So it appears that a particle is a packet of energy. In other words this packet prevents the waves from spreading. If the packet is broken, the waves spread. ENERGY PACKET The logical conclusion to draw is that providing the packet isn't broken, the waves will be contained. Also, if the particle were given some energy, what would stop a packet of energy from propagating? So in my opinion, a particle is some kind of confinement field, which stops waves from spreading. STABLE PARTICLES Why are particles such as Electrons and Protons stable? Electromagnetic waves do not experience time, and so Photons never decay, until an Atom absorbs them. So in my opinion, the energy that is contained within a particle, behaves similarly to a Photon in space. Jim Redgewell © 2005 |