T HE T HIRD O PTION : S POTTING FALSE D ICHOTOMIES Greg Volk Electric Universe Conference: The Human Story January 7, 2011

W HO IS G REG V OLK ? 1.Attended Stanford Electrical engineering / physics 3.OCR, CAD software, stock broker, music arranger, mortgage and real estate broker, landlord, investor 4.Christian / young earth creationist

W HAT IS G REG V OLK U P T O ? 1.Speaking at an EU conference 2.Editor, World Science Database (WSD) Editor, Proceedings of the NPA - conf19.worldnpa.orgconf19.worldnpa.org 4.International Science Foundation (ISF) -

T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLES G AME

Science - a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws - dictionary.reference.comdictionary.reference.com

T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLES G AME Science - a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws - dictionary.reference.comdictionary.reference.com

T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLES G AME Science - a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws Knowledge - acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation

T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLES G AME Science - a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws Knowledge - acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation

T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLES G AME Science - a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws Knowledge - acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation Acquaintance - personal knowledge as a result of study, experience, etc.

VISH!VISH!

T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLES G AME Science - a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws Knowledge - acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation Acquaintance - personal knowledge as a result of study, experience, etc.

L IBERAL ? 1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs i.e. likes more government 5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression i.e. likes less government Getting the definitions right is a BIG DEAL!

W ORDS C ARRY B AGGAGE Do you react to: “Aether” “Neutrino” “Zero Point Energy” “Dark matter”

W ORDS C ARRY B AGGAGE Can we Express ideas without words? Define key concepts as we choose? Not if they are to express reality mathematically Define them as commonly understood? No, this is precisely the problem Getting the definitions right is a BIG DEAL!

"Language creates spooks which get into our heads and hypnotize us.” - Robert Anton Wilson

F ALSE D ICHOTOMIES : N OT E VEN WRONG An argument that appears to be scientific is said to be not even wrong if it cannot be falsified (i.e., tested) by experiment or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world. - Wikipedia Coined by Wolfgang Pauli

#1) R ELATIVITY VS. A BSOLUTE M OTION Define “ relativity ” A. Stuff moves relative to other stuff B. Einstein’s theory (motion defined in terms of light) Does accepting A require accepting B? Define “ absolute motion ” A. A “correct” frame exists from which motion can be accurately and absolutely determined B. The “correct” frame is a property of space itself, the same everywhere, and independent of matter Does accepting A require accepting B? Are “ relativity ” and “ absolute motion ” mutually exclusive?

#2) E VOLUTION VS. I NTELLIGENT D ESIGN Define “ evolution ” A. Stuff changes over time B. Darwin’s theory (given time, rocks become people) Does accepting A require accepting B? Define “ intelligent design ” or “ creation ” A. Complex stuff (design) demands intelligence (designer) B. Biblical account (God did it in 6 days) Does accepting A require accepting B? Did Darwin usurp the term “ evolution ”? Does the Bible usurp the term “ creation ”?

#3) S PEED OF L IGHT : C ONSTANT OR N OT ? Third option : Is “ light ” a “ thing ” that has “ speed ”? “ All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to the answer to the question: what are light quanta? … Of course, today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.” - Albert Einstein

W HAT IS L IGHT ? Does ‘ light ’ travel from A to B? Or is it permanently attach to both A and B? Could ‘ light ’ be an interaction rather than an independent ‘thing’? Wavefronts interact to create wavefronts. Does the wavefront exist independently? Interference => Interaction.

W HAT IS THE C ONSTANT ‘ C ’? Does space itself impede motion? Constants e, m & h : properties of matter Planck derived k via particle interactions Is ‘ c ’ alone the only property of space? The Weber-Kohlrausch experiment (1856). Circulating particles explain ‘ c’ via matter.

E INSTEIN ’ S P OSTULATES 1. The laws of physics are the same in all frames (no matter how you “ look ” at it) 2. The constant ‘ c ’ is the same in all frames. Should “ light ” redefine space and time, or should space and time redefine “ light ”?

#4) C HARGE : P OSITIVE OR N EGATIVE ? Third Option : Does charge itself carry “sign” or rather only charged particles (systems)? “Charge” itself is never measured. Only interactions between objects and detectors. Interactions are attractive or repulsive. Could we account for them in a different way?

T HE C HIRAL F ORCE ? 3D flow circuits -> helicity Repulsion between adjacent ‘fibers’ balanced radially by parallel motion Balance between cross sections -> motion around cross sections -> helicity Two types of helicity in 3D: RH & LH

#5) M ATTER : C ONTINUOUS OR D ISCREET ? Third Option : Circuits, rotation, expansion are all group phenomena. Elements of matter can only rotate, expand or contract w.r.t. other elements in a group Quantization need not be assumed Closed loops are a consequence of finiteness. Quantization from the interaction of frequencies. The structure of elementary particles must consist of closed loops.

#6) M ASS : G RAVITATIONAL OR I NERTIAL ? Third Option : Is mass a property of matter itself or of dipole systems of matter? Mass is not a thing, but a property Resistance to motion (inertial), not stuff (gravity) Like charge, mass itself is abstract. All we KNOW is the attractive interaction. If objects hold together by internal motion, the greater the internal interaction, the less an object will be influenced by external fields

L UCAS M ODEL OF G RAVITY Hasn’t anybody thought of dipoles before? Static dipoles produce a directional force. Gravity is an omnidirectional force. Lucas dipoles are dynamic and oscillating. What do we know about atoms? Dipole: positive nucleus, negative shells Particles oscillate with amplitude and frequency

#7) E NERGY : P ARTICLES OR W AVE ? Third Option : Can’t continua have discreet points of inflections, saddle points, “nodes”? Where is the energy of an object? “ Space is not nothing, or the mere location of bodies and forces, but a medium capable of supporting the strains of electric and magnetic forces. The energies of the world are not localized in the particles from which these forces arose, but rather are to be found in the space surrounding them.” -- Michael Faraday

#7) E NERGY : P ARTICLES OR W AVE ? Not two “things”, two accounting systems “It is mainly with the hope of making Faraday's ideas the basis of a mathematical method that I have undertaken this treatise.” -- James Clerk Maxwell Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 1873

#8) I NSTANTANEOUS AAD OR RETARDED ? Third Option : Does delay in transmission mean delay in interaction ? Mach’s Principle : Stuff moves relative to other stuff Matter is stuff BY DEFINITION. If there were any other stuff, it would be matter, too. Delays in interaction would imply that matter REALLY moves w.r.t. a second kind of stuff “Field” stuff or “aether” stuff How many kinds of stuff are there?

D OES S IMULTANEITY = I NFINITE S PEED ? Not unless something “travels” If energy is not localized to the object, can the energy of an object be transferred to instantaneously though nothing moves ? Pre-Maxwell derivations of “ c ” transmission speeds based on instantaneous interactions G. Kirchoff (1857), “On the motion of electricity in wires”, Philosophical Magazine 13 : R. Kohlrauch & W. Weber (1857), “Elektrodynamische Maassbestimmungen insbesondere Zurueckfuehrung der Stromintensitaets-Messungen auf mechanisches Maass”, Abhandlungen der Koenigl. Saechs.Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft mathematisch-physische Klasse 3 :

#9) L IGHT M EDIUM : A ETHER OR N OT ? Third Option : Does “aether” define matter or does matter define “aether”? If “light” is not a “thing”, why need a medium? Are “ photons ” simply “nodes” in an EM field? Why do we use fields? Mathematical devices to track the location and motion of other matter “ Aether ”: energy density function of EM fields

#10) E XPANDING, C ONTRACTING OR S TABLE ? Third Option : Relative to WHAT? Infinite or finite universe? 2D boundary or 4D enclosed space (closed)? Balloon analogy: how to detect expansion? There’s no thickness to our 3D “skin” Expansion of space vs. contraction of matter 2 nd Law: Stuff spreads out Indistinguishable from contracting space

#11) A GE OF THE U NIVERSE : O LD OR Y OUNG ? Third Option : Do light-years (distance) require years (time)? Is “light” is a “thing” that “travels” or an interaction between rotating things? Hubble’s original redshift data based on Redshift varies with distance. Time enters only if we ASSUME that light “travels” at “ c ”.

#12) D IMENSIONS : 3, 4, 5, 10 OR 26? Third Option : Are we talking about physical dimensions or “degrees of freedom”? “Moments” add spatial “dimensions” Moments provide info about structure Dimensions simplify complex structures MonopoleDipoleQuadrupol e Electric QQLQL 2 Magnetic QL/T (?)QL 2 /TQL 3 /T Mass flow ML/T (Momentum) ML 2 /T (Ang. momentum) ML 3 /T (Twist- mentum?) Force ML/T 2 ML 2 /T 2 (Torque) ML 3 /T 2 (Torsion)

#13) M OTION C AUSES A TTRACTION OR A TTRACTION C AUSES M OTION ? Third Option : Two inseparable parts of a whole. (Ampere’s Law) #14) R OTATION C AUSES S HEAR OR S HEAR C AUSES ROTATION ? Third Option : Two inseparable parts of a whole. (Faraday’s Law)

#15) E C AUSES B OR B C AUSES E? Third Option : The principle of negative feedback. (Relativity from electrodynamics) #16) E NTANGLEMENT : C OUPLING AT C LOSE R ANGE OR L ONG R ANGE ? Third Option : Interconnectedness of all things at all times. (Mach’s Principle)

#17) S UN : N UCLEAR OR E LECTRIC ? Third Option : Are nuclear reactions ultimately electrical in nature? (Cold fusion) #18) C ANYON F ORMATION : W ATER OR E LECTRIC D ISCHARGE ? Third Option : Are the forces that move water ultimately electrical?

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Study resolves century-long debate over how to describe electromagnetic momentum density in matter Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the University of British Columbia have shown that the interaction between a light pulse and a light-absorbing object, including the momentum transfer and resulting movement of the object, can be calculated for any positive index of refraction using a few, well-established physical principles combined with a new model for mass transfer from light to matter … debate-electromagnetic-momentum-density.html December 29, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Study resolves century-long debate over how to describe electromagnetic momentum density in matter Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the University of British Columbia have shown that the interaction between a light pulse and a light-absorbing object, including the momentum transfer and resulting movement of the object, can be calculated for any positive index of refraction using a few, well-established physical principles combined with a new model for mass transfer from light to matter … debate-electromagnetic-momentum-density.html December 29, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION A 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved by supercomputer If one goes far enough back in time, space is indeed extended in 9 directions, but then at some point only 3 of those directions start to expand rapidly. This result demonstrates, for the first time, that the 3-dimensional space that we are living in indeed emerges from the 9- dimensional space that superstring theory predicts. This calculation was carried out on the supercomputer Hitachi SR16000 (theoretical performance: 90.3 TFLOPS) at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics of Kyoto University. It is almost 40 years since superstring theory was proposed as the theory of everything, … superstring-theory-supercomputer.htmlhttp:// superstring-theory-supercomputer.html December 23, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION A 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved by supercomputer If one goes far enough back in time, space is indeed extended in 9 directions, but then at some point only 3 of those directions start to expand rapidly. This result demonstrates, for the first time, that the 3-dimensional space that we are living in indeed emerges from the 9- dimensional space that superstring theory predicts. This calculation was carried out on the supercomputer Hitachi SR16000 (theoretical performance: 90.3 TFLOPS) at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics of Kyoto University. It is almost 40 years since superstring theory was proposed as the theory of everything, … superstring-theory-supercomputer.htmlhttp:// superstring-theory-supercomputer.html December 23, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION A 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved by supercomputer If one goes far enough back in time, space is indeed extended in 9 directions, but then at some point only 3 of those directions start to expand rapidly. This result demonstrates, for the first time, that the 3-dimensional space that we are living in indeed emerges from the 9- dimensional space that superstring theory predicts. This calculation was carried out on the supercomputer Hitachi SR16000 (theoretical performance: 90.3 TFLOPS) at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics of Kyoto University. It is almost 40 years since superstring theory was proposed as the theory of everything, … superstring-theory-supercomputer.htmlhttp:// superstring-theory-supercomputer.html December 23, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION A 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved by supercomputer If one goes far enough back in time, space is indeed extended in 9 directions, but then at some point only 3 of those directions start to expand rapidly. This result demonstrates, for the first time, that the 3-dimensional space that we are living in indeed emerges from the 9- dimensional space that superstring theory predicts. This calculation was carried out on the supercomputer Hitachi SR16000 (theoretical performance: 90.3 TFLOPS) at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics of Kyoto University. It is almost 40 years since superstring theory was proposed as the theory of everything, … superstring-theory-supercomputer.htmlhttp:// superstring-theory-supercomputer.html December 23, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION A 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved by supercomputer If one goes far enough back in time, space is indeed extended in 9 directions, but then at some point only 3 of those directions start to expand rapidly. This result demonstrates, for the first time, that the 3-dimensional space that we are living in indeed emerges from the 9- dimensional space that superstring theory predicts. This calculation was carried out on the supercomputer Hitachi SR16000 (theoretical performance: 90.3 TFLOPS) at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics of Kyoto University. It is almost 40 years since superstring theory was proposed as the theory of everything, … superstring-theory-supercomputer.htmlhttp:// superstring-theory-supercomputer.html December 23, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Cosmic research picked in breakthroughs of 2011 Every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart, millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. When these dark hearts of galaxies actively accrete matter they become incredibly bright. These are quasars, and they outshine everything else in the universe. Astronomers from the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute have developed a groundbreaking method for measuring long distances in the universe using light from quasars. Quasars are active black holes and their light surpasses all other sources of light in the universe. This new groundbreaking method was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in September, and now Physics World, the magazine of the UK's physical society has chosen this research as one of the most important breakthroughs in physics in 2011 … breakthroughs.htmlhttp:// breakthroughs.html December 19, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Cosmic research picked in breakthroughs of 2011 Every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart, millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. When these dark hearts of galaxies actively accrete matter they become incredibly bright. These are quasars, and they outshine everything else in the universe. Astronomers from the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute have developed a groundbreaking method for measuring long distances in the universe using light from quasars. Quasars are active black holes and their light surpasses all other sources of light in the universe. This new groundbreaking method was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in September, and now Physics World, the magazine of the UK's physical society has chosen this research as one of the most important breakthroughs in physics in 2011 … breakthroughs.htmlhttp:// breakthroughs.html December 19, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Cosmic research picked in breakthroughs of 2011 Every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart, millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. When these dark hearts of galaxies actively accrete matter they become incredibly bright. These are quasars, and they outshine everything else in the universe. Astronomers from the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute have developed a groundbreaking method for measuring long distances in the universe using light from quasars. Quasars are active black holes and their light surpasses all other sources of light in the universe. This new groundbreaking method was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in September, and now Physics World, the magazine of the UK's physical society has chosen this research as one of the most important breakthroughs in physics in 2011 … breakthroughs.htmlhttp:// breakthroughs.html December 19, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Cosmic research picked in breakthroughs of 2011 Every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart, millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. When these dark hearts of galaxies actively accrete matter they become incredibly bright. These are quasars, and they outshine everything else in the universe. Astronomers from the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute have developed a groundbreaking method for measuring long distances in the universe using light from quasars. Quasars are active black holes and their light surpasses all other sources of light in the universe. This new groundbreaking method was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in September, and now Physics World, the magazine of the UK's physical society has chosen this research as one of the most important breakthroughs in physics in 2011 … breakthroughs.htmlhttp:// breakthroughs.html December 19, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Cosmic research picked in breakthroughs of 2011 Every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart, millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. When these dark hearts of galaxies actively accrete matter they become incredibly bright. These are quasars, and they outshine everything else in the universe. Astronomers from the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute have developed a groundbreaking method for measuring long distances in the universe using light from quasars. Quasars are active black holes and their light surpasses all other sources of light in the universe. This new groundbreaking method was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in September, and now Physics World, the magazine of the UK's physical society has chosen this research as one of the most important breakthroughs in physics in 2011 … breakthroughs.htmlhttp:// breakthroughs.html December 19, 2011

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative theories of quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity has never been experimentally tested. Now in a new study, scientists have found that, when black holes evaporate, the radiation they emit could potentially reveal “footprints” of loop quantum gravity, distinct from the usual Hawking radiation that black holes are expected to emit. In this way, evaporating black holes could enable the first ever experimental test for any theory of quantum gravity. However, the proposed test would not be easy, since scientists have not yet been able to detect any kind of radiation from an evaporating black hole. quantum-gravity.htmlhttp:// quantum-gravity.html January 3, 2012

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative theories of quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity has never been experimentally tested. Now in a new study, scientists have found that, when black holes evaporate, the radiation they emit could potentially reveal “footprints” of loop quantum gravity, distinct from the usual Hawking radiation that black holes are expected to emit. In this way, evaporating black holes could enable the first ever experimental test for any theory of quantum gravity. However, the proposed test would not be easy, since scientists have not yet been able to detect any kind of radiation from an evaporating black hole. quantum-gravity.htmlhttp:// quantum-gravity.html January 3, 2012

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative theories of quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity has never been experimentally tested. Now in a new study, scientists have found that, when black holes evaporate, the radiation they emit could potentially reveal “footprints” of loop quantum gravity, distinct from the usual Hawking radiation that black holes are expected to emit. In this way, evaporating black holes could enable the first ever experimental test for any theory of quantum gravity. However, the proposed test would not be easy, since scientists have not yet been able to detect any kind of radiation from an evaporating black hole. quantum-gravity.htmlhttp:// quantum-gravity.html January 3, 2012

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative theories of quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity has never been experimentally tested. Now in a new study, scientists have found that, when black holes evaporate, the radiation they emit could potentially reveal “footprints” of loop quantum gravity, distinct from the usual Hawking radiation that black holes are expected to emit. In this way, evaporating black holes could enable the first ever experimental test for any theory of quantum gravity. However, the proposed test would not be easy, since scientists have not yet been able to detect any kind of radiation from an evaporating black hole. quantum-gravity.htmlhttp:// quantum-gravity.html January 3, 2012

S POT THE A SSUMPTION Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative theories of quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity has never been experimentally tested. Now in a new study, scientists have found that, when black holes evaporate, the radiation they emit could potentially reveal “footprints” of loop quantum gravity, distinct from the usual Hawking radiation that black holes are expected to emit. In this way, evaporating black holes could enable the first ever experimental test for any theory of quantum gravity. However, the proposed test would not be easy, since scientists have not yet been able to detect any kind of radiation from an evaporating black hole. quantum-gravity.htmlhttp:// quantum-gravity.html January 3, 2012

C ONCLUSION Assumptions necessary, but often hidden Confusion between idea and reality Can you extend the list? Reconsider any long-held assumptions?

C ONVERGENCE VS. C ONSENSUS Better an environment where individuals can respectfully disagree than yet another enforced dogma. To get an Aristotle, it takes an Athens.

Thanks for listening