ABSTRACT
Purpose
This paper considers a perspective on particulate matter as being formed from closed loops of waveform energy flow, consistent with observations by de Broglie, Schrödinger and others and supported by recent research findings. It demonstrates that all experimentally verified findings of Special Relativity (SR) may be derived directly from such a model. It further shows a clear form of auto-adaptive behaviour exhibited by such structures.
Design/methodology/approach
A generalised closed-loop energy flow model is analysed from first principles.
Findings
Motion-dependent time dilation, invariance of the measured speed of light, the Lorentz transformation, mass-energy equivalence (E=mc2) and speed-related increase in apparent mass all follow naturally from this structure. Given this view of matter objective invariance of the speed of light relative to all inertial states of motion is an unnecessary and insupportable assumption. A unique objective rest frame (subject to Hubble expansion of space) is identified. All elementary sub-atomic particles owe their longevity to a non-destructive state-change response to energy input, referred to as 'motion'. A radically new perspective on time is presented. A possible causal explanation for particle-antiparticle asymmetry is identified.
Research Implications
Closed timelike curves are not a possibility. Further implications for all fields of physics are very extensive.
Practical Implications
No conflict between superluminal technologies and causality. Over and above this, possible practical implications are too extensive to be enumerated.
Originality/Value
Totally original and of significant potential value in various respects.
INTRODUCTION
Over recent years a great deal of research effort has been invested in unifying
the various fundamental forces of nature, with considerable success (Glashow,
1980; Weinberg, 1980; Salam, 1980; ’t Hooft, 2000; Veltman, 2000). Inclusion
of the strong nuclear force and gravitation has focused on attempts to link them
at the time of the Big Bang and show divergence of those forces as the universe
expanded.
Perhaps surprisingly, no such major effort has been made to unify the two
known types of physical entity created in that primordial event, photons of
electromagnetic energy and the elementary particles from which all matter is
formed. This is all the more remarkable as there is known to be a very strong
link between those two entities: photons are constantly being emitted from and
absorbed by particles of matter, transitioning between forming part of the
energetic composition of an atom and existing as free energy; particle
antiparticle pairs are known to be capable of annihilating one another totally,
transforming pure matter into pure energy (Cabibbo and Gatto, 1961; Cabibbo
et al., 1962; Di Vecchia and Greco, 1967; Schwitters and Strauch, 1976;
Bernardini, 2004). The reverse process is also well established (Landau and
Lifshits, 1934; Barbiellini et al., 1974; Baldini et al., 1979; Cooper, 1988;
Ginzburg, 2006).
More than this, extensive evidence supports the premise of Special Relativity
that every particle of matter has energy content proportional to its mass, whilst
Quantum Mechanics defines a particle in terms of a wavefunction that has been
shown to relate directly to its physical behaviour (Davisson and Germer, 1927).
Given these considerations it is highly pertinent to query why a one-off
spontaneous event should so coincidentally generate two quite different types of
entity that just happen to interact so effectively with one another. As with the
fundamental forces, it is appropriate to consider whether they are, rather,
different manifestations of essentially the same phenomenon.
The generally accepted view of the Big Bang creation event as starting with a
singularity of infinitesimal size overwhelmingly dominated by high-energy
photons offers very fertile ground for a virtually infinite variety of electro
magnetic constructs resulting from the tight confinement of those photons.
(Stretching of photons by Hubble expansion of space indicates that spatial
expansion is not a simple concomitant of photon propagation). In the first
instants after that event motion would have necessarily been non-linear, giving
rise to interactions – including self-interactions – resulting from electromagnetic
field effects significantly more complex than those found in the familiar solution
to Maxwell’s equations that describes conventionally propagating electro
magnetic waves.
Of those accidental constructs many would not have survived under the
conditions that prevailed at that time or since. Any that did would only have
done so by virtue of a structure that automatically accommodated frequent
energy inputs and interactions with other energy constructs. In the immediate
post-big-bang field of unlimited possibilities it appears that this may indeed have
been the case for a tiny proportion of those earliest photons, giving rise to
auto-adaptive self-perpetuating energy patterns that we now refer to as ‘particles’.
Louis de Broglie was the first physics Nobel laureate to be awarded this
distinction on the strength of his PhD thesis, which proposed a wave function for
an elementary particle (de Broglie, 1925). That wave function was given
explicit form by Schrödinger to become the Quantum Mechanical description of
matter The Copenhagen interpretation of that wave function regards it as simply
a statistical description of particle behaviour, but de Broglie himself saw it as
indicative of a deeper truth (de Broglie, 1927), as did Einstein (Einstein, 1926).
Schrödinger first identified a jittery motion (“zitterbewegung”) in the behaviour
of an electron (Schrödinger, 1930), a fluctuation in position at the speed of light
around its median location. This phenomenon is clearly indicative of a cyclic
component in the fundamental structure of an electron (Huang, 1952; Barut and
Bracken, 1981; Hestenes, 1990).
It has now been demonstrated that zitterbewegung corresponds to a physical
periodic oscillation in the substructure of an electron (Catillon et al., 2008). It
has also been shown analytically that a closed-loop electromagnetic wave
construct could account for the characteristics of spin, magnetic moment and
static charge as measured in an electron (Williamson and van der Mark, 1997).
These observations create a compelling case for considering the compatibility of
such a construct with other aspects of particle behaviour and its possible
causative role in related well-established effects.
It is shown here that the cyclic-energy model of matter provides a complete
explanation for all of the experimentally validated findings of Special Relativity
(SR): motion-based time dilation; measured invariance of the speed of light from
all inertial states of motion; Lorentz transformation; mass-energy relationship
E = mc2; speed-dependent increase in energy content (hence also effective mass)
of any object.
It is further shown that the measured invariance of the speed of light is a direct
consequence of that particle structure, a subjective experience of an object in
motion rather than an absolute reality. From this it follows logically that the SR
assumption of frame equivalence is not only redundant for explanation of
observed phenomena, it is actually incompatible with this fully consistent
perspective on the physical realm.
The existence of a unique objective reference frame, as shown here, and the
subjective nature of perceived event sequencing from all other reference frames
rules out any possibility of superluminal communication leading to breaches of
causality, which depend on differing objective orderings of events in different
frames.
The new view of time presented by this model also discounts any possibility of
closed timelike curves (a subject of ongoing debate: Hawking, 1992; Sushkov,
1995; Bonnor, 2003; Friedman and Higuchi, 2006). Threats to causality from
any future scientific or technological developments are thus nonexistent from
this perspective.
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[Body of paper]
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CONCLUSION
The cyclic-photon perspective on particulate matter has been shown to account fully for all verifiable tenets of Special Relativity, in a manner that is consistent with a wide range of other experimental findings. It further shows every long-lived elementary particle to be an auto-adaptive structure in which self-balancing electromagnetic field effects automatically ensure transitions between stable states in response to energy exchanges with its environment. This, virtually by definition, makes the elementary particle the earliest adaptive system in the universe.
The notion of inertial frame equivalence, as assumed in Special Relativity, has been shown to be not only unnecessary but also incompatible with this fully consistent explanation of a substantial body of experimental evidence. A unique objectively static reference frame has been identified, setting aside any possibility of conflict between superluminal communication and the principle of causality.
A radically new and coherent perspective on the nature of time has been shown to also be consistent with this view of particle structure and with that supporting evidence. A possible causal explanation has been advanced for particle-antiparticle asymmetry, consistent with the structure of matter proposed here and the extensive scientific evidence supporting that proposal.
This new insight into the nature of material structure offers very significant opportunities for scientific and technological developments in a wide variety of arenas.
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References (33)
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Notes on standard tests of Special Relativity (not included in paper)
Certain investigative studies involving practical tests have become widely regarded as confirmation of the tenets of Special Relativity, including: (a) the absolute invariance of the speed of light in all inertial reference frames; (b) the equivalence (symmetry) of all inertial reference frames with regard to fundamental physical principles; (c) relativistic time dilation, including what is generally termed 'second order (or transverse) Doppler shift'.
These notes present an analysis of those aspects of reality tested by the four primary studies cited in support of Special Relativity, illustrating how those aspects of reality appear in the light of the perspective presented in this paper and how that compares with the perspective of SR in each case. The studies considered are:
(1) Fizeau (1859);
(2) Michelson & Morley (1887);
(3) Ives & Stilwell (1941);
(4) Hasselkamp et al. (1979).
(1) Fizeau demonstrated that the speed of light through water was affected by motion of the water, but not by way of simple addition of the two speeds. The resulting light speed was shown to agree closely with that given by the SR formula for addition of velocities, i.e. considering the speed of light to be invariant in the rest frame of the body of water (or other translucent medium), whether static or moving.
An analysis of the factors involved from this new perspective yields a result, using Fizeau's own experimental data, that agrees with the result given by SR to fifteen significant figures. When considering the difference from the result given by simple addition of the two speeds, that difference as analysed from the perspective given in this paper agrees with that given by SR to eight significant figures - an exceptionally high level of agreement for such a fine detail. Given that Einstein himself regarded Fizeau's experiment as a strong endorsement of SR, it must be seen as an equally strong endorsement of this new perspective.
[For light passing through water moving at ten thousand miles an hour - considerably faster than in Fizeau's own experiment - this new view agrees with SR on resultant speed of light to nine or ten significant figures, depending on whether the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction factor is applied to the moving body of water. On a measure of difference from simple addition of speeds, there is agreement with SR to four or five significant figures, which is a rather greater degree of accuracy than that offered by any known experimental protocol.]
(2) Michelson & Morley demonstrated that light travelling transverse to the earth's motion takes the same time to travel the same distance (on earth) as light travelling collinearly with that motion. This was taken as conclusive evidence that the speed of light is independent of the reference frame from which it is measured.
This paper neither refutes nor endorses Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction (which is also a feature of SR - i.e. rejection of L-F contraction implies rejection of SR). However such motion-based contraction is fully consistent with the perspective presented here and stands in its own right as a well-documented concept independently of SR - Lorentz himself declared it to be ". . . the only possible [interpretation of the facts]" and observed that it could be directly extrapolated from already-known facts relating to effects of motion on electrostatic forces.
Application of Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction in the context of this new perspective yields results that are in every case indistinguishable from those of SR or of Michelson & Morley's own findings.
(3) Ives & Stilwell modified Michelson & Morley's experimental setup to include a test for relativistic time dilation. Since the new perspective presented here predicates time dilation precisely in accordance with the formula given by SR, subject to the minor additional consideration that the laboratory frame will itself almost certainly be in motion in absolute terms (an effect which is self-cancelling to a varying degree), any experiment to test for motion-based time dilation will inevitably result in a very high degree of agreement between SR and the perspective presented here. [This issue is considered further in case study (4) below.]
(4) Hasselkamp et al. measured the phenomenon referred to as 'second order (or transverse) Doppler effect' - actually an artefact of time dilation affecting emission and absorption of photons by particles in motion. Their experiment was based on the premise that the detector was static in the laboratory frame and measured time-dilated emission frequencies of particles moving at relativistic speeds.
From the perspective presented in this new paper the laboratory and detector are themselves in motion in absolute terms, arguably at speeds of up to 600 km/second, giving time dilation effects at the reception as well as the emission stage. For typical emitter particle speeds as used in the Hasselkamp experiment and a receptor moving at 600 km/s: if emitter particles are moving transverse to laboratory motion, results from this new view agree with those from SR to six significant figures; in the worst-case scenario where emitter particles are moving collinearly with laboratory motion, variation between results from this view and from SR is comparable to the error margins as observed in the Hasselkamp experimental findings.
In summary: None of those experimental findings, which are regarded as strong evidence for Special Relativity, give any reason whatsoever for favouring the conventional view of SR over the view presented in this paper. All of those findings can equally be regarded as strong evidence that the the perspective presented in this paper constitutes the true representation of the nature of reality.