Note: You must be registered in order to post a reply. To register, click here. Registration is FREE!
T O P I C R E V I E W
Ben Wiens
Posted - 05 Sep 2003 : 17:16:34 It seems to me that in Einstein's General Relativity Theory, the gravity force was due to curvature in the space continuum and not gravitons. I believe that sometime later someone devised the idea that forces were the result of force particles. I believe at some point these types of theories were called qauge theories. In gauge theories the magnetic force is carried by the photon and so forth.
Who first suggested the forces are the result of force particles? And what year was this?
What evidence was gauge theory based on?
In the ether theories, what were forces thought to be the result of?
Could it be that forces are actually not the result of force particles? What do you think?
quote:[123...]: About gravitons: if they are all traveling at the same speed and a planet like Pluto is moving, wouldn't the gravitons slow it down to a dead stop eventually?
Yes. The absence of drag by gravitons at a detectable level is one of the experimental constraints on the model that allows us to set limits on graviton mass, speed, and (absorption or scattering) cross-sectional areas. See the Slabinski article in Pushing Gravity.
BTW, presumably gravitons have a Maxwellian speed distribution, much like air molecules. We speak of a single "speed of gravity" only as a statistical average. -|Tom|-
Posted - 07 Sep 2003 : 04:14:58 About gravitons: if they are all traveling at the same speed and a planet like Pluto is moving, wouldn't the gravitons slow it down to a dead stop eventually?
quote:[Don]: are elysons particles in the physical sense, as MM gravitons are?
Yes. They are the constituents of elysium, the light-carrying medium. Elysons are the analog of water molecules in the ocean.
quote:The business about elysium being the gravitational potential still has me confused.
The key is to note that the gravitational potential "field" and the graviton medium are two completely different things. The confusion arises mainly because they are mathematically related: "force is the gradient of potential", which for some reason makes us want to explain both with a single medium or process. But in general, functions and their derivatives are independent entities that simply have a causal relationship. The simplest and most obvious example is velocity and acceleration. A given velocity can be accompanied by any acceleration. And a given acceleration can apply to any velocity. It is only necessary that, given some starting value, there is a one way causal connection between the two. So given an initial velocity and a series of accelerations, the velocities at all later times are implied.
Applying this to gravity, we now realize that force (the analog of acceleration) drives potential (the analog of velocity), and not the other way around. So given some value for potential (density of elysium) at "infinity", gravitational force determines the value of potential (density of elysium) everywhere else.
quote:If elysium is a cooling medium that can penetrate into baryonic matter to carry away heat then doesn't it require the ability to absorb momentum and so must it not be physical.
Certainly elysium is physical, and is composed of particles (elysons). But as with the ocean, we are more aware of waves in the medium (e.g., light) than of the calm background medium itself. Anything happening to any particle has the potential to set off elysium waves, which must show up somewhere in the electromagnetic spectrum.
quote:Does it retain the particle wave duality it has in GR?
As I tried to explain in chapter 5 of Dark Matter, ..., duality is unnecessary in any current theory. Light has all 14 wave properties but only two particle properties (neither of them being particle signature properties), and these two (the photoelectric effect and the Compton effect) both have wave interpretations. So light and all other electromagnetic waves can be pure waves. (Did anyone ever think of radio waves as particles?)
quote:And if it is physical, then why cannot light penetrate baryonic matter?
Light can and does penetrate baryonic matter, as is obvious with water or air or glass. It is only a question of the efficiency of absorption. And even when matter absorbs one range of wavelengths, it is often transparent (or more nearly so) at other wavelengths. But sooner or later, a deep-enough body will absorb all the light. It is irrelevant that the elysium exists throughout the body. Imagine an ocean containing a large school of fish. If an underwater wave tries to pass through the fish, each fish blocks part of the wave. If there are enough fish, no part of the wave can get through even though water surrounds everything. -|Tom|-
quote: These two different usages of the term "graviton" have very little in common. In my rendering of this type of gravity model, part of the "Meta Model" that Don mentioned in his reply to you, the force carriers are the real gravitons and the QM spin-2 "gravitons" are called "elysons" and are constituents of a medium called "elysium". Waves in that medium are spin-1, and are therefore just very-long-wavelength photons. So as you see, the models have little in common.
So, are elysons particles in the physical sense, as MM gravitons are? The business about elysium being the gravitational potential still has me confused. If elysium is a cooling medium that can penetrate into baryonic matter to carry away heat then doesn't it require the ability to absorb momentum and so must it not be physical. Does it retain the particle wave duality it has in GR? And if it is physical, then why cannot light penetrate baryonic matter? Uremia erythroplasia heparinoid rheostat ethics; apyrexial stepless. Shingles lunch constipate, cummin. Asset proleukemia recoiler symport.
quote:[Ben]: It seems to me that in Einstein's General Relativity Theory, the gravity force was due to curvature in the space continuum and not gravitons.
That is a common misunderstanding apparently started by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler (MTW) in 1971 with their mantra: "Mass tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move." It was picked up on by later authors, especially Wald, and taken to ridiculous extremes. However, in GR, space does not curve, as we show at http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/spacetime.asp. Only "spacetime" curves in GR, and it turns out that "spacetime" does not mean "space + time". As we show at the preceding link, it is more like proper time, and has no space-like component.
Although MTW may have started this notion, they were not fooled by it themselves. On p. 32 of their large book "Gravitation", we read:
quote:[MTW]: Curvature of what? Nothing seems more attractive at first glance than the idea that gravitation is a manifestation of the curvature of space, and nothing more ridiculous at a second glance. How can the tracks of a ball and of a bullet be curved so differently if that curvature arises from the geometry of space? No wonder that great Riemann did not give the world a geometric theory of gravity. Yes, at the age of 28 (June 10, 1854) he gave the world the mathematical machinery to define and calculate curvature (metric and Riemannian geometry). Yes, he spent his dying days at 40 working to find a unified account of electricity and gravitation. But if there was one reason more than any other why he failed to make the decisive connection between gravitation and curvature, it was this, that he thought of space and the curvature of space, not of spacetime and the curvature of spacetime.
quote:I believe that sometime later someone devised the idea that forces were the result of force particles. I believe at some point these types of theories were called qauge theories. In gauge theories the magnetic force is carried by the photon and so forth.
That is an understandable confusion created by terminology. Quantum physics invented something called a "graviton" to stand for the "spin-2" entities that comprise the "spacetime medium". They are supposed to supply the momentum changes that occur in target bodies moving near a gravitational source mass, and therefore to unify all the fundamental forces. However, no one has yet put together a successful unified theory while thinking along these lines.
On this MB, we use the term "graviton" in the classical sense of the momentum carrier in a Le Sage-type model, in which gravity is a pushing force rather than pulling. You will find much more about these in my book and in recent issues of the Meta Research Bulletin (MRB).
These two different usages of the term "graviton" have very little in common. In my rendering of this type of gravity model, part of the "Meta Model" that Don mentioned in his reply to you, the force carriers are the real gravitons and the QM spin-2 "gravitons" are called "elysons" and are constituents of a medium called "elysium". Waves in that medium are spin-1, and are therefore just very-long-wavelength photons. So as you see, the models have little in common.
quote:Who first suggested the forces are the result of force particles? And what year was this? What evidence was gauge theory based on?
I'm not sure who was "first" because the term and many concepts have been batted around for centuries. But the modern post-standard model theory of spin-2 gravitons is usually attributed to Kaluza-Klein. It was not based on specific evidence, but was rather a theoretical attempt to explain the puzzling results of many experiments combined with the need for a momentum carrier. (New momentum has to come from somewhere.)
quote:In the ether theories, what were forces thought to be the result of?
Again, there are too many theories to be specific. In the Meta Model, both the high-speed gravitons and the "light-carrying medium" (ether, spacetime medium, elysium) have an essential role.
quote:Could it be that forces are actually not the result of force particles? What do you think?
In mathematics, one can imagine anything as a force carrier. But in pjysics, only two forms of tangible substance are known -- particles and waves. Gravitational force has exclusively particle properties. By contrast, light and electromagnetic waves (which may include gravitational waves as a subset) have all 14 known wave properties, and only too possible particle properties that also have wave interpretations. So the simplest models now have light and gravitational radiation as waves and gravitational force as carried by particles.
quote:I've already read most of Tom's papers here and it appears that he just accepts that forces are created by particles.
If you have just read the web site, you are way behind. By Meta Research Board policy, nothing except press releases and research notes goes onto the web site until at least two years following publication. You may want to see the book Pushing Gravity and my article "21st Century Gravity" in the June 2001 MRB. To see how all this fits into a cosmological and QM context, read the overview in Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets. -|Tom|-
quote: These questions look like your first homework assignment assignment in Physics 101 but I'll help you with the first question anyway.
I'm not a student actually, and the questions wouldn't likely come up in a universtity course. I've already spend days researching these questions on the Internet and looked through piles of books with little luck. I could buy Tom's book but I wonder if the topic is really explained. I've already read most of Tom's papers here and it appears that he just accepts that forces are created by particles. But if I'm wrong let me know.
Posted - 05 Sep 2003 : 18:03:43 These questions look like your first homework assignment assignment in Physids 101 but I'll help you with the first question anyway.
quote: [list][*]Who first suggested the forces are the result of force particles? And what year was this?
Not a cut and dry question. Nicholas Fatio de Dullier proposed a mechanical explaination for gravitation in 1690 which was for a while embraced by Newton, who has been described as an intimate of Fatio - or rather, vice versa. Fatio's theory bore the essentials of what later became the theory of 'ultramundane corpuscles' of George-Louis LeSage in the mid-1700's.
quote: It seems to me that in Einstein's General Relativity Theory, the gravity force was due to curvature in the space continuum and not gravitons.
More or less true.
quote:I believe that sometime later someone devised the idea that forces were the result of force particles.
Smells like bait but I'll take it. See the answer to your first question. Of course, the idea of a mechanical cause for gravity has never really died, it's just been overshadowed by two centuries of Issac Newton. Today the lastest and most comprehensive version of LeSage gravity is encompased by the Meta Model, which is what this site is all about.
quote:What evidence was gauge theory based on?
What's a gauge theory?
There's a book that's sold here that you should read if you really want to understand LeSage gravity models - Pushing Gravity. It discusses Fatio and LeSage and the history of particulate models generally, including some fascinating work by Majorana. It's also got an intriguing chapter on earthquake origins. I'd also recommend Tom VF's book Dark Matter for a follow-on discussion that will make you start thinking that maybe Issac and Albert weren't completely correct. Also recommended is Seeing Red, in which Halton Arp considers a new model for the origin of matter (in contradiction of the BB).
quote: Could it be that forces are actually not the result of force particles? What do you think?
I think there are at least two as-yet undiscovered particles, one responsible for gravity and the other for light.