Gravitation, inertia, and the vacuum

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the modeling of inertia and gravitation, particularly in relation to electromagnetic (EM) fields and zero-point energy (ZPE) fields. Participants explore theoretical implications, challenge existing models, and discuss the potential for new approaches to understanding gravitation.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants reference a paper that models inertia and gravitation as effects of EM fields, questioning the assumption that ZPE fields are flat and suggesting they can exhibit polarization and densification.
  • There is a critique of the authors Haisch and Rueda, with some participants labeling them as "clowns" and expressing skepticism about their scientific credibility based on citation counts and perceived lack of traction in the scientific community.
  • Others argue that NASA's previous funding of Haisch and Rueda's work lends some credibility to their theories, despite the lack of acceptance in mainstream science.
  • One participant suggests that Einstein's treatment of the EM ether and gravitational ether may have overlooked a unified model that could explain both forces without inconsistencies.
  • There is mention of upcoming experimental results from the Athena project at CERN that could provide insights into gravitational behavior of antimatter, which some believe could lead to a new understanding of gravitational interactions.
  • Concerns are raised about the need for revolutionary ideas to gain traction in the scientific community, with skepticism expressed towards claims that lack substantial support or experimental backing.
  • Participants discuss the impact of scientific awards on researchers' reputations and the dynamics of scientific discourse, using Frank Wilczek as an example of a respected figure who has navigated the balance between mainstream and non-mainstream ideas.
  • Some express a desire for concrete experimental proposals to validate or challenge the theories being discussed, indicating a preference for empirical evidence over theoretical speculation.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants exhibit a range of opinions, with clear disagreements regarding the credibility of Haisch and Rueda's work and the interpretation of their models. There is no consensus on the validity of the proposed theories or the implications of the discussed papers.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights limitations in the current understanding of gravitation and inertia, particularly regarding the roles of EM and ZPE fields. Participants note unresolved issues related to the mechanical processes of gravitation and the need for further experimental validation.

Who May Find This Useful

Readers interested in theoretical physics, particularly those exploring alternative models of gravitation and inertia, as well as those engaged in discussions about the intersection of mainstream and non-mainstream scientific ideas.

turbo
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Here is a paper of special interest to me. The authors model inertia and gravitation as effects of the EM fields.

http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0504/0504061.pdf

Unfortunately, they still model the ZPE fields as if they were pretty flat. This is not logical, because if the ZPE fields have dynamical effects on the massive bodies embedded in them, the fields are capable of polarization and densification. Without a mechanism to explain the dynamical effects of the masses on the fields, as well as the effects of the fields on the masses, they are missing something critical. Particularly the optical effects of the polarized ZPE fields on EM propagating through them.
 
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turbo-1 said:
Here is a paper of special interest to me. The authors model inertia and gravitation as effects of the EM fields.

http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0504/0504061.pdf

Unfortunately, they still model the ZPE fields as if they were pretty flat. This is not logical, because if the ZPE fields have dynamical effects on the massive bodies embedded in them, the fields are capable of polarization and densification. Without a mechanism to explain the dynamical effects of the masses on the fields, as well as the effects of the fields on the masses, they are missing something critical. Particularly the optical effects of the polarized ZPE fields on EM propagating through them.

There has been a lot of speculated_insight_Wave's_Hand..non more than on PF forums:https://www.physicsforums.com/archive/topic/t-32436_Why_does_Expanding_Space_have_a_2_to_1_Ratio_with_Contracting_Space?.html

here:https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=39328

here:https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=285319#post285319

are just three links from a pool of hundereds, many have stagnated due to the lack of scientific qualifications of the authors.

It seems the authors of your linked paper have suffucient quality to weather the storm?
 
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Haisch and Rueda are clowns by my accounting system.
 
Chronos said:
Haisch and Rueda are clowns by my accounting system.
By your accounting system, everybody that explores options to the standard model are clowns.

NASA evidently did not believe that these guys were clowns, since until NASA's funding got slashed by the Bush Administration, they financed work done by California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics to explore the mechanics of gravitation under the auspices of the Breakthrough Propulsion Project. The GR model of gravitation as "the curvature of space-time induced by the presence of mass" is a mathematical representation of the effects of gravitation. It does not speak to the mechanical processes through which gravitation arises, although since stars and planets do not know how to do the math (so they will know how to behave under GR), we should reasonably assume that there is a universal mechanical process that every massive body follows without exception. We cannot find the mechanical process if we limit ourselves to what is already accepted in GR, because the process is not addressed by GR.

Here's a BIG clue. One thing deliberately left unaddressed by Einstein (as he explained in his 1920 address at Leyden) was the nature of the EM ether. He was absolutely certain that an EM ether had to exist to allow the propagation of EM waves through space, but since he had not managed to incorporate it into GR, he punted, and said that it must have NO sensible properties. He needed a dynamical gravitational ether to mediate gravity, so he modeled that, but he found irresolvable inconstencies with the EM ether, and needed to make the EM ether insensible so he could ignore those inconsistencies. I believe that he either neglected to consider (or found the idea unappealing) that the gravitational ether is also the EM ether. This simplification (one ether mediates both the gravitational and the EM forces) will remove Einstein's "no sensible properties" problem, and it will allow us to model the differences in the speed of light through the vacuum fields and the refraction of light through those fields using just classical optics. We will be able to determing the amount by which the vacuum fields are polarized by the presence of mass by studying the mass/luminosity of the visible matter of clusters and quantifying the lensing effects produced by that cluster.

Haisch and Rueda haven't gotten to this state yet, although others are closer. A key result from the Athena project at CERN will be the measurement of the gravitational infall rate of antihydrogen. If it differs from that of hydrogen (likely due to matter-antimatter attraction) then we have a natural, universal mechanism by which the virtual particle/antiparticle pairs of the vacuum are polarized and densified. Just with what we already know to exist (matter, virtual particle pairs, and EM waves for the basics) we can model the universe with no DM, DE, gravitons, Higgs bosons etc. I know you're laughing at me, Chronos, and are preparing to write another dismissive (cowpie, crackpot, clown, etc) riposte, but I urge you to step back and take a look at the situation before letting loose. This solution lies at the convergence of too many problems to be ignored.
 
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turbo-1 said:
By your accounting system, everybody that explores options to the standard model are clowns.
I would call that an unsupported claim, not unlike the ones Haisch and Rueda have been asserting since 1998. The fact their papers have hardly any citations by anyone other than themselves suggests the scientific community also does not take their work very seriously. Equating US government funding with credibility is not very compelling. I like to think I'm receptive to new ideas [although admittedly slow to warm to them]. But, revolutionary ideas can only hang around for so long without gaining any traction before I start hearing cowbells.
 
Chronos said:
I would call that an unsupported claim, not unlike the ones Haisch and Rueda have been asserting since 1998. The fact their papers have hardly any citations by anyone other than themselves suggests the scientific community also does not take their work very seriously. Equating US government funding with credibility is not very compelling. I like to think I'm receptive to new ideas [although admittedly slow to warm to them]. But, revolutionary ideas can only hang around for so long without gaining any traction before I start hearing cowbells.

There are certain scientific awards, that once awarded to individuals, appear to contribute to altering some of Humankinds most un productive notions, for instance, in area's of certain research, it would be best if individual's maintain a low profile, whilst continue their chosen research interests.

Whilst one cannot compare literally the PF scientific award 'scheme', to that of Nobel, one can see the Human traits that surface after an award gain, do bare similarities, espescially to the individuals ego.

A perfect recent example is Frank Wilczek, and the exercise he undertook just after his nobel commission? example here:http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0502074

is a further research from this:http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9907001

It appears evident that the low profile of such a great thinker (Wilczek)..has bounded across the accepted formulized mainstream standard approach, before his nobel commission, and thus just after, was helping to promote others in their 'not-so-standard' modelling?
 
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I hold Wilczek in high regard. He is no clown. His modeling is good and I'm willing to take my lumps for being a skeptic. I also think he has pushed the envelope and has more to prove. What he has not done is propose the kind of experiment I would like to see. It appears you like to hover just under the radar, spin. I understand that. We all have opinions.
 
I look at the equations and in particular at part 7 and get pretty skeptical. Specifically, Haisch and Rueda purport to derive Newtonian gravity from first principles, rather than from simplification of their version of the GR equations (which are absent from the paper entirely). Moreover, while they claim that their theory is equivalent to GR, they do so by stating that it shares certain assumptions, yet state their theory without so much as a single tensor in evidence.

While not every single aspect of GR has been perfectly confirmed by experiment (although no experiement has definitively disproven any aspect of it either), the notion that gravity is wickedly more complex than the simple Newtonian formulation would suggest under certain conditions is completely ignored in this paper, as if the authors aren't even aware of the complexity that they are ignoring.

Where are the pressure and stress-energy inputs?

Tensors are the usual means of formulating GR equations because they render the equations transparently independent of coordinate system. How is this achieved here?

My skepticism of Haisch and Rueda is also intensified by knowledge of their previous NASA work which basically seems to claim that one can turn off inertia if you do it right, in what sounds to me like it has conservation of energy issues.

There is also the issue of why an electro-magnetic field would have any interactions at all, regardless of its source, within a non-charged particle. Yet, neutrinos, a spin 1/2 particle with no charge appears to have a non-zero mass. Likewise, while there is a claim that their results could be derived from QED, there is not a single QFT equation in the article.

Simply put, it doesn't add up.
 

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