Banned
Although the last place one would want to read about the ether is the Apocalypse forum http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/...gi?read=179461
is there any experiment or discovery that would absolutely clinch it for or against the existence of the ether?
Or will its existence or not, be by definition be forever beyond our apprehensibility?
Bad Post-Doc
The fact that people don't acknowledge the validity of the experiments shows more about them, in this case, than the experiments.
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
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Order of Kilopi
emphasis mine...Originally Posted by Harry Palmer
Science does not prove non-existance. The ether idea IS an extraordinary claim and as such, it is up to proponents of the idea to provide convincing evidence.
They have not done so...
Last edited by R.A.F.; 2007-Jun-02 at 09:51 PM. Reason: edited to remove "it's" :)
The facts, gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching. Isaac Asimov
Order of Kilopi
Are you, in this thread, going to provide evidence for existence of ether and answer questions about it? Failing that, what is the point of this thread in ATM?
That is what I call an "invisible elf question," based on the question in my sig. It isn't a scientifically useful question.Or will its existence or not, be by definition be forever beyond our apprehensibility?
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Established Member
As far as I can tell from reading in BAUT forum, science doesn’t “prove” anything, it simply measures evidence and matches it to theories, and vice versa. The “ether idea” linked to seems to provide evidence, but what is “convincing” evidence? And what is it evidence of? The mainstream seems to accept the “fabric of spacetime”, or the “spacetime continuum”, or the idea that “space tells matter how to move, and matter tells space how to curve”, or the idea that “space is expanding” - all subject to the caveat that “space” as a physical entity does not exist, since “space” is only measurable distance! Whether you would class these as “claims” or not, it seems odd to accept them. Do proponents of an unphysical spacetime geometry (now apparently including the equally unphysical power of a non-zero cosmological constant to boot) provide “convincing evidence” of something that doesn’t physically exist? That seems like an unprovable assumption to me. And if “space” does physically exist, isn’t it just a kind of “ether”? And at that point, where is the mainstream?
Banned
Have "dark matter", "dark energy", "curved space", "neutron stars", "black holes" and "superluminal jets" ever been proven to exist?
Order of Kilopi
....and what is "is"??
Re-defining words to mean whatever you "want" them to mean leads only to choas.
The facts, gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching. Isaac Asimov
Order of Kilopi
Relevancy...ZERO.
edit to add...hey, that would be a good name for a band.
The facts, gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching. Isaac Asimov
Order of Kilopi
"What is the evidence for . . . (insert mainstream subjects here)" would be good questions for the Q&A forum, though I'd suggest a search for prior discussions.
I'm still not seeing the point of this ATM thread.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Moderator
Neither am I. Harry, do you have an ATM concept you wish to present? If you do, please present it in your next post and be prepared to defend it.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.
Doctor Who
Moderation will be in purple.
Rules for Posting to This Board
Established Member
Not speaking for Harry Palmer, it may nevertheless be the “chaos” of mainstream physics translated into ordinary English that moves questions such as his. Below is a link not directly related to the question of ether and space, but touching on the confusion and incoherence which characterizes not only “physics English” but also the foundation of modern “theoretical physics“.
http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thomp...CarverMead.htm
The ruled and regulated speech in this BAUT “ATM forum” seems far from any connection to pursuit of the understanding of nature, but very close to a desire to support the status quo.
Order of Kilopi
Why not start a thread on this, in the General Science section?
Wrt John Cramer, I think you'll find TI may give rise to just as much chaos, confusion, and incoherence as the CI.
And while Carver Mead certainly has some strong opinions, it might be fun to explore the extent to which he has, in fact, been able to do what he claims in that interview ...The said rules are explicitly about challenging and questioning ATM ideas as presented; "pursuit of the understanding of nature" is what astronomers and space scientists do ... the vehicles for communicating their pursuit are (primarily) papers published in relevant peer-reviewed journals, and (secondarily) conferences, workshops, symposia, etc.The ruled and regulated speech in this BAUT “ATM forum” seems far from any connection to pursuit of the understanding of nature, but very close to a desire to support the status quo.
Banned
Respected French physicist Jean-Pierre Vigier, the best-known contemporary promoter of the de Broglie-Bohm-Vigier version of QM, would probably want to get a word in edgewise here as well in defense of a subquantum ether responsible for the Bohm quantum potential.
Apart from the 376 ohms impedance of space, the ether bears both the Planck Density and the Planck Temperature. Mainstream science transposes such Planck units to the pre-Big Bang regime, because it feels obligated to account for them somewhere in the universe, but not that the properties belong to the ether at the present time, in the universe we now know.
Established Member
I think it may be a bit of a reach to hypothesize Heisenberg's uncertainty principal into a tangible quantum ether. Nevertheless, I would be interested in seeing what experimental and theoretical data you can produce to support this hypothesis.
Planck density, like Planck time and distance are not physical entities; they are mathematical representations of the smallest possible unit. But if you have proven experimental data I would be interested in seeing it.
Oh Please! If you have a legitimate case to make for a quantum ether, please do so and leave out the anti-mainstream diatribe, which does nothing whatsoever to support your claims or credibility.
Moderator
Harry, I asked you to either present an ATM concept and be prepared to defend it, or not to post to this thread. Your latest post doesn't seem to fit either criteria.
I will ask again: Do you wish to present (and defend) an ATM concept?
I cannot urge you strongly enough to be clear and direct in your response.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.
Doctor Who
Moderation will be in purple.
Rules for Posting to This Board
Banned
Yes!
ATM concept:
Markov has shown how a fluid made of maximon particles functions as a quasi-isotropic space.
If the ether hadn't been ruled out a priori, scientists deriving these Planck units would have treated them for what they prima facie are: current properties of the universe we have in hand today.
The unjustified, arbitrary translation of these properties to the Big Bang event is sleight-of-hand, a tactic not supported by the derivations but imposed on them from without.
One must marvel that scientists talk about the "laws of physics" breaking down at that alleged point in pre-cosmic time prior to the Big Bang, but somehow all the constituents of the Planck Density, (c, G, h, and pi) are amazingly preserved without distortion.
This evidences how completely arbitrary such hand-waving mainstream tactics really are. "The ether doesn't exist... in the mean time, we're taking these mysterious properties reflected in the derived Planck units and assigning them to something else distant in time that we can never hope to directly observe, and we hope you have faith in our integrity in so doing."
I am now prepared to defend it.
Established Member
What evidence? So far all I see are wholly unsupported opinions.
Defend what? You have not presented anything to defend. Do you have any papers, reference material, observational analysis, experimental data, physics, equations, etc. or is this all just something you are visualizing in your own mind?
.
Banned
I think it may be a bit of a reach to hypothesize Heisenberg's uncertainty principal into a tangible quantum ether. Nevertheless, I would be interested in seeing what experimental and theoretical data you can produce to support this hypothesis.
One critic of the de Broglie-Bohm-Vigier type ether charged that the subquantum particles being real rather than virtual means their position is so narrowly defined that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is violated — as if the principle read something like “you can’t know a particle’s position with this kind of accuracy.” But as you know, that is NOT what the principle states. It refers to simultaneous knowledge of a particle’s position AND velocity (relating the product of the uncertainties to the Planck constant). Published remarks on the ultradense ether (maximon fluid with restricted mean free path) will see a reference to its temperature (the Planck temperature), which, once incorporated into the picture (rather than willfully neglected by earlier hasty critics), provides the necessary counterbalance to the argument. One could go further and point out that de Broglie, Bohm, Vigier, and quantum researchers on the Causal Stochastic (rather than Copenhagen) side of the house believe that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle arises OUT of this subquantum domain, rather than being subject to it. In fact, they believe it likely that a classical regime can be recovered in the subquantum domain (and say so), and quantum effects be reinterpreted in terms of Bohm’s (not Bohr’s) quantum potential theory. (I.e, the “noise” in the system is due to the real particles that constitute the firmament and their extremely rapid constrained motion. These constraints, applied to Markov’s “maximon fluid” described in “The Very Early Universe” edited by Stephen Hawking, Siklos and Gibbon, are what drive the density to the Planck density, denoted by rho.)
The reason some theorists maintain that spacetime foam is made of real rather than virtual particles arises from the influence of the published research of Redmount and Suen (in Physical Review D) concerning the inherent instability of spacetime foam. There is a GR problem with the virtual particle model of spacetime foam, namely, that it results in the spontaneous creation of topological anomalies that grow and coalesce into wormholes (and worse) at rates high enough to have been detected millions of times over. THIS is a datum that needs to be confronted, since nobody apparently disputes Wheeler's 1953 topological argument for the existence of the foam (it's taken for granted), but few recognized Redmount & Suen's limitation on its nature and the impact THAT has on the topic under discussion here. You'll find the first paper by R&S here: Physical Review D, Third Series,
Volume 47, Number 6, March 15, 1993, pg. R2166ff, Redmount and Suen : "Is Quantum Spacetime Foam Unstable?"
Planck density, like Planck time and distance are not physical entities; they are mathematical representations of the smallest possible unit. But if you have proven experimental data I would be interested in seeing it.
Don't see how an enormous density approach 10E94 grams/cc is the "smallest possible unit," or the stupendous Planck temperature exceeding 10E32 Kelvin is the smallest temperature. Explain that. Further, you're mistaken that they are not "physical entities," since these are applied by cosmologists to the so-called Planck era tied to the Big Bang event with textbook regularity. Even the Wikipedia asserts that the Planck temperature IS the temperature reached at the Big Bang event during the first interval of Planck time, and that at this point the universe was at the Planck density. They are NOT treated as fictional abstractions, contra your assertion to the contrary.
Oh Please! If you have a legitimate case to make for a quantum ether, please do so and leave out the anti-mainstream diatribe, which does nothing whatsoever to support your claims or credibility.
Actually I stand by my statement in sum and in its several parts. MS DOES transpose the units to the Planck era, treating them as upper limits of density and temperature at that point that cannot be exceeded. Thus, that is where they are applied: in the macro domain, and not at the subquantum domain. MS preselects for one domain over the other, without justification, imposing a supposedly benign neglect. Further, Markov arrived at the quasi-isotropic space effect when the density got to the Planck density in the analysis of the theoretical fluid he studied at the Nuffield Workshop in collaboration with Hawking. What justifies neglecting this published result? Do you not detect some a priori hand-waving when mainstream science asserts that at the Planck temperature the four universal forces re-unite and all the broken symmetries restored? This presupposes that the symmetry-breaking model inherent in the Big Bang is the right one -- this is a self-reinforcing argument with the Planck quantities pasted on like a Groucho nose & glasses.
Order of Kilopi
There is an old ATM thread in which these ideas were, it seems, presented.
That thread was locked before the new ATM policy came into effect.
Also, the BAUT member Caryn (who was presenting the ATM idea in that thread) was banned, as a sock puppet.
Is Harry Palmer yet another sock puppet? That's a matter under investigation.
In any case, it seems there is no particularly good case for having yet another thread on an ATM topic that has been covered at least once before.
Thread closed.
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