I want to do this in hopes of illuminating “the trouble with physics,” for sure, but I also want to include some of the mathematical and theoretical discussion, which might or might not be found on my other two blogs on this site. The reason for this kinda amalgamation is that I intend to post it on FB too, to sort of re-activate things there also.

Ok, so I’ve already posted a few things on the LRC’s FB page, talking about the new number system that I’ve had the audacity to call the “Reciprocal System of Mathematics,” or the RSM. I wrote about the fact that the subatomic particles can be regarded as their own number system. Naturally, when I discovered this, I doubted whether or not I was going to end up with egg on my face, but as it turns out, quite the contrary. I believe we’re on to something here.

Stay tuned.

In a conference in Germany, as reported in a Quanta Magazine article, the heaviest of the heavy discussed it for two days.

The photo above, heading up the article, conveys the angst of it all. Because of untestable string theory, these physicists find themselves in a “battle for the heart and soul of [legacy] physics.”

However, the trouble with physics started long before string theory first beguiled physicists into redefining elementary particles of matter, as elementary vibrations, in hopes of solving the dilemma facing them when trying to reconcile the incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

It was Dewey B. Larson, the amateur investigator friend of Linus Pauling, who pointed out to them long ago that they were fooling themselves, by not recognizing that there cannot be any such thing as autonomous forces, as legacy physics has come to regard them.

These physicists have been led down a dead-end road by their impressive successes for more than half a century, and they just can’t let it go after all these generations of stellar university careers and elite professions, which have built and played with Western civilization’s magnificent colliding machines.

That they can understand and predict the paths of debris coming from highly energetic collisions of elementary particles is intoxicating, but the inevitable hang-over comes with the dawn of realization that they can’t get there from here. In the words of Stephen Weinberg, “[They] are stuck.”

In an article last month, Professor Lance Dixon of Stanford University, explained his group’s non-string theory approach to searching for a successful quantum theory of gravity, a theory that would be compatible with quantum mechanics and the standard model of particle physics.

The article is written for a general audience, so Dixon begins by declaring: “Our world is ruled by four fundamental forces,” and then he proceeds to explain how three of these theoretical forces are understood, but the fourth is not

With the exception of gravity, we can describe nature’s fundamental forces using the concepts of quantum mechanics. In these theories, which are summarized in the Standard Model of particle physics, forces are the result of an exchange of tiny quanta of information between interacting particles. Electric charges, for instance, attract or repel each other by exchanging photons – quanta of light that carry the electromagnetic force. The strong and weak forces have corresponding carriers called gluons and W and Z bosons, respectively.

We routinely use these theories to calculate the outcome of subatomic processes with extraordinary precision. For example, we can make accurate predictions for the complex proton-proton collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful man-made particle accelerator.

But gravity is different. Although Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity explains gravity on larger scales as the result of massive objects distorting the fabric of space-time, it doesn’t tell us anything about what happens to subatomic particles gravitationally. Quantum gravity is an attempt to combine Einstein’s general relativity with quantum mechanics. In analogy to the other forces, we predict gravity to be mediated by a force carrier as well, the graviton.

“Mediated by a force carrier,” he says. If you find this statement perplexing, you are not alone. To get to the bottom of its meaning, you’re welcome to delve into the stacks of books and papers on particle physics trying to explain it, but, in the end, you will probably benefit more from the young man explaining it in the following video than from anything else:

How Bosons Mediate A Force

Professor Dixon and the rest of legacy physics theorists do not hesitate to exclaim how impressively successful this theory of virtual particles, different ones carried by various elementary particles, has been. Even Linus Pauling, way back in the days of Richard Feynman, tried to convince his friend Dewey, that the thinking for fundamental physics had been done and that it was a waste of time and resources to entertain any alternative.

Of course, today they are all deceased, but the younger generation, as we can see in the video above, are not taught and have no idea of the errors that are being propagated, by this belief that there is no alternative to the thinking that constitutes the program of Newtonian physics, still in play today, which assumes that reality consists of fundamental particles existing on the stage of space and time, ruled by fundamental forces.

Clearly, they should ponder the picture above.

He disavows the first, he explains that the second is misunderstood, but he takes the third controversy head-on. He has a new replacement theory, based on a reconsideration of the postulates of traditional quantum mechanics, which he claims “has given rise to a closed form solution of a Schrodinger-like wave equation, based on first principles.”

In general, his contention is that traditional QM is mathematical, not physical, and that’s why the physical interpretation is so mysterious. He asserts that all the trouble stems from the assumption of the boundary condition of the Schrodinger equation, which assumes that “the wavefunction goes to zero as the radius goes to infinity.” In his theory, “an extended distribution of charge may accelerate without radiating energy.”

Unlike Larson, however, he produces a prodigious mountain of mathematics to accomplish his work, which is impressively comprehensive. He writes:

From two basic equations, the key building blocks of organic chemistry have been solved, allowing the true physical structure, charge distribution, and parameters of an infinite number of organic molecules of boundless extent and complexity to be obtained including proteins, RNA, and DNA. These equations were also applied to other major fields of chemistry, fundamental forms of matter, bonding, and behavior such as the allotropes of carbon, the solid bond of silicon and the semiconductor bond, the ionic bond, the metallic bond, bonding in condensed matter such as dipole-dipole, hydrogen, and van der Waals bonds, bonding of silicon, tin, aluminum, boron, organometallics, coordinate compounds, and other classes of compounds and materials, reaction kinetics, and thermodynamics.

Also like Larson, he doesn’t stop there at the microcosm, but is audacious enough to go on to treat cosmology, as well:

Further, the Schwarzschild Metric is derived by applying Maxwell’s Equations to electromagnetic and gravitational fields at particle production. This modifies General Relativity to include conservation of spacetime and gives the origin of gravity, the masses of fundamental particles, the acceleration of the expansion of the universe (predicted by Dr. Mills in 1995 and since confirmed experimentally), and overturns the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe.

Quite impressive stuff, indeed. Yet, the LST community is not exactly beating a path to his door. He is not invited to speak at their theoretical conferences, or awarded any of their prestigious prizes, primarily because his theory justifies a form of hydrogen the energy of which is claimed to be a fraction of the known “ground state” of hydrogen, which makes him a pariah among the professionals.

According to traditional QM theory, these fractional states of hydrogen, dubbed “hydrinos,” by Mills, cannot exist, and therefore modern physicists in the LST community criticize Mills’ work and reject the physical evidence he presents, even though it is claimed to have been confirmed by independent investigations.

The fact that Mills has been trying to patent and commercialize the production of hydrinos, since the late Twentieth Century, doesn’t help matters, though. To be fair, however, the establishment actively resisted his patent efforts politically, attempting to have his patents denied, based on scientific, if not economic and thus political bias, delaying his success for eleven years.

Indeed, I’m surprised that the man is still alive, given the iconoclastic nature of his ideas and the incredible social impact of their potential, if brought to fruition. That’s because producing energy from hydrino technology would not only make it possible to dramatically reduce energy costs across the board, making it so inexpensive and ubiquitous that it ceases to be a significant factor in the course of human affairs, destroying oil-based economies in the process, but it would also revolutionize physical theory, destroying QM-based acacemia and research institutions, that depend upon the mystery of QM to maintain the funding of their aloof fiefdoms.

Yet, in spite of all the opposition, Mills may be on the verge of triumph. He demonstrated the key components of his technology last July and reportedly demoed a prototype “SunCell” to investors, raising $16 million dollars in production funding, in September, as a result. Now the world is waiting with bated breath, as 2015 gets underway.

In the meantime, I was curious to understand how the LRC model of hydrinos would fare. It didn’t take long to discover that it fares well, although it may take some courage to publish it. It’s easy to see that our preon model of the electron and the photon allows for increasing the energy of the hydrogen atom from the ground state to an excited state, by absorbtion of photons:

  +   =
When the electron absorbs the photon, the S|T unbalance (qualitatively indicated by the color at the nodes a, b and c, in the figure above) is not affected. Thus, no change in the “charge” of the electron, going from ground state (1/2, red), to an excited state (1/2 + 1/1 = 2/3, red) is realized, even though the actual number of the S|T units in the ratio is doubled, by the event.

However, going to a lower state, a fraction of the ground state, is not so easy, since obviously it can’t be done by adding S|T balanced units of the photons (S|T = 1/1, green) to the unbalanced S|T units of the electron (S|T = 1/2, red), as happens in the excited state transitions.

In Mills theory, the electron gives up energy from its central field to a catalyst, through a “non-radiative” process of energy transfer, more like a potential - kinetic energy exchange, which, of course, he must do, in a theory formed within the Newtonian system of theory, based on the vectorial motion of classical physics.

The LRC model, however, has no recourse to such motion, since our model is strictly based on the scalar motion of the Reciprocal System of Physical Theory (RST). Consequently, we are forced to add the unbalanced units of another boson to the electron, the W- boson, in order to “lower” the energy of the hydrogen-bound electron by some “fraction,” and form a hydrino.

Certainly, this is going to be problematic, since the W- boson incorporated into the standard model is so short lived, it can only be presumed to exist. Nevertheless, in our RST-based model, it is a combination of S|T units that must exist, because it is one of the 20 possible combinations of S|T units (16 fermions and 4 bosons). Whether it is short lived or not, would depend on the environment in which it finds itself.

Nevertheless, combining this boson with an electron bound in an hydrogen atom, in our toy model, is as straightforward as combining such an electron with a photon boson:

   +    = 

But now, by this process, the unbalanced S|T ratio (charge) doubles! It goes from S|T = 1/2 to S|T = (1/2 + 1/2) = 2/4. Therefore, the electron charge changes from -1 to -2, and the electron’s orbit moves closer to the nucleus (in the LST model), by a fraction (1/2) energy-wise in the new hydrino state.

Now, this may still take place “non-radiatively,” if there is an equivalent phonon vibration in the catalyst equivalent to the W- boson. In other words, it may be a kinetic - potential energy exchange just as Mills theory requires.

Well, I wrote to Mills and we have had a few short discussions about it, but, understandably, he is in no position to comprehend the LRC’s RST-based model, and so remains unconvinced, seeing it as numerology. I imagine that only empirical evidence would be convincing enough to get him to consider it, but his people are not looking to see a change in e-, so it’s not likely to be discovered, by them, if it actually exists.

The exciting thing for us, though, is that this just might prove to be a prediction of the LRC’s RST-based model of scalar motion combinations.

Wow.

Update: March 13, 2015

So, given this reality, the question that arises is, “What are the rules of physics without spacetime?” He has no answer, of course, but the legacy system of theoretical physics (LST), “is alive and well,” he assures us, because it is in this “period of utter confusion.”

The only idea he foresees with any hope is to switch the system from one originating in fixed-space concepts, extending to the dynamics of space-time (quantum gravity), to one somehow originating in time, extending to space-time, where fixed-space is emergent.

The trouble is, of course, he knows of no one who knows how to do that, or even where to begin. Hence, the LST community is “stuck,” as Steven Weinberg put it many years ago, and David Gross just puts the same grim conclusion in more expansive terms, when he asks, “What is the framework of theoretical physics?” The “True answer is,” he says, “we have no idea!”

He goes on to say, “We have no idea how to even formulate it, what the boundaries are, or what the rules are, the equations, the thing that replaces the path intregal, the action, or anything like that.” To be a true framework of theoretical physics, the current collection of “tools” used to calculate quantum states that are consistent, must have a principle that is missing, he proclaims. This missing principle, or theory, of symmetry, of dynamics, of consistentcy, of (whatever), would lead us to a UNIQUE solution of cosmology, not a vacuum, but a space-time.

Well, as you can imagine, this talk is just as provocative for those of us familiar with Dewey B. Larson’s works, as his earlier talks, given about eight years ago, when he said essentially the same thing:

In string theory I think we’re in sort of a pre-revolutionary stage. We have hit upon, somewhat accidentally, an incredible theoretical structure…but we still haven’t made a very radical break with conventional physics. We’ve replaced particles with strings—that in a sense is the most revolutionary aspect of the theory. But all of the other concepts of physics have been left untouched…many of us believe that that will be insufficient…That at some point, a much more drastic revolution or discontinuity in our system of beliefs will be required. And that this revolution will likely change the way we think about space and time.

His confidence in string theory may have waned somewhat since then, but the same “revolution, or discontinuity in our system of beliefs,” is still required, according to Gross.

That the Reciprocal System of Physical Theory (RST) is just such a revolution in the frameword of theoretical physics is clear, but only amatures and little league professionals are able to recognize it at this point. It is the missing principle, a system based on the concept of scalar motion coming before the vectorial motion of matter. One which forms the boundaries of a fixed reference system, at the moment a space/time oscillation (a SUDR, or a TUDR) comes into existence.

When such an entity exists, a zero-dimensional point is definable. When two such entities exist, a one-dimensional line between them is definable. When three such entities exists, not all in a line, a two-dimensional area between them is definable. When four or more of these entities exist, not all in a plane, a three-dimensional volume between them is definable.

Thus, because the distances between these points is measurable, in terms of elapsed space/time, so-called space-time, or geometry, emerges. The known rules of geometry and physics apply to this newly defined space, over time, and effect further combinations of the two oscillating entities, in ways that are observed.

Matter emerges in the pattern of logical combinations of these entities, as they form, from simple to complex. The properties of these combinations, including “charge,” “mass” and “spin,” proceed from the nature of these combinations, or relations between them, but, ultimately, they are nothing but combinations of scalar motion, the new principle of space/time reciprocity. which is missing from the current framework of theoretical physics.

They talk about virtual particles in a vacuum being nothing, because they can’t be measured, but becoming real, when, say, a positron and electron are produced, the energy and charges of this pair of particles balancing out to zero. This is a highly unlikely and unsatisfying manipulation of ad hoc definitions to my mind. 

I agree, though, that the definition of nothing has to be modified to something that is nothing, because it can’t be measured, like the balance of a scale. It points to 0 when it’s balanced, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that nothing is on either side. It can also mean that two, equal quantities are on opposite sides of the scale, which can be changed, unbalancing the scale and therefore producing something.

Interestingly enough, the definition of nothing as something that cannot be measured, brings up the question of law. If we define nothing as something undetectable, which turns into something detectable, it has to do so as a matter of law. A law must govern nothing that transforms it into a lawful something.

However, in the LST community, an anthropomorphic set of infinite environs now sits opposed to this legalistic determinism of traditional thought. The 10^500 possibilities of the vacua facing string theory imply that there are that many possible sets of laws that can be observed by any observer who may be part of a given system, meaning nothing has meaning in an absolute sense, which has led to the idea of multiverses.

Unfortunately, Larson’s ideas cannot be brought to the LST table of discussion, but we can see their power and beauty, by imagining that they were permitted. Larson defines nothing as a perfect balance between the rates of changing quantities of space and changing quantities of time. Given a change of unit space, for each change of unit time, defines a unit motion that cannot be measured.

The law of this nothing that is something is the fundamental law of algebraic relations, the greater than, less than or equal to relations of these two changing quantities that define nothing, when they are in equilibrium. This law of algebraic relations governs the universe of motion, for by it something comes from nothing, when the equilibrium of the two rates of change is altered.

It is astounding to me that from this law all the elements of the standard model emerge. The less thans are connected to the more thans, and these become the equal tos, which are compounded into different equal tos, of greater and greater power, and these three are compoundable into combinations of balanced and unbalanced more thans, less thans and equal tos, which just happen to form the exact number of different kinds of particles and anti-particles found in the standard model of LST particle physics.

But then, if that were not enough, these fundamental combinations compound, still following the same algebraic law, into combinations identical to the protons and neutrons of the LST nuclear physics, which, along with the electron, compound into the 117 elements of the LST chemistry, forming the periodic table of elements. 

It remains to learn more about how they combine and uncombine and otherwise relate to each other, but even this much would make for a much more interesting discussion at the LST table than the boring speculation about the multiverse that their current discussion inevitably devolves to.

The thing that struck me the most, however, as the discussion went along, was how the concept of energy was central to all aspects of the discussion. Finally, with about seven minutes to go, a lady in the audience asked the obvious question, which Brian Green answered (see 1:32:0 in the video).

“What causes the vibrations of the strings?” she asked. Brian’s answer was as simple as it gets: “I don’t know,” he confessed. This is a question of where in the universe is the energy to move the strings coming from? The question is profound, not because we need to know, we don’t, but because it reveals the fundamental paradigm of the legacy system of physical theory (LST), which is important to understand, if we want to understand the nature of the trouble with physics: Energy is required to move. 

The motion of massive entities requires energy and the motion of massless entities requires energy, and the ultimate source of that energy must be assumed to exist, in the LST paradigm. In an earlier observation by another panelist, it was noted that the understanding of theoretical physicists working on the unification of the forces of the LST community’s standard model with gravity is that these four forces are really one force at some very high energy.

My reaction to the view points of the panelists, which are really different views on the correct path to seeking the answer to the question, “Why is there something, rather than nothing,” as Brian Green put it, was almost visceral, because I’m convinced that the energy paradigm, as I’ll call it, is so misleading.

If we assume that motion itself is an entity in it’s own right, without regard to changing the locations of massive or massless objects, then we are actually, in a sense, inverting the LST energy paradigm, from energy, which is the inverse of motion, to motion: A new paradigm based on v = Δs/Δt, rather than the old paradigm based on E = Δt/Δs, changes everything profoundly.

The amazing fact that this change immediately places our thoughts in the realm of fundamental magnitudes, dimensions and “directions” of geometry and algebra, as found in the ancient tetraktys, and enables us to convert units of motion (s3/t3) into units of mass (t3/s3) that occupy relative locations in space and time, and units of mass into units of momentum (t2/s2), which is mass changing relative locations of space and time, and units of mass into units of energy (t/s), which converts mass back into motion, presents us with a wonderland of units of motion, combinations of units of motion and relations between units of motion that literally teases us out of thought, with its transcendent beauty and intriguing mysteries.

The fact that all of this comes out of unit motion at high speed, instead of out of unit force at high energy, is very encouraging. 

The trouble with physics is the failure to recognize that the energy of the universe comes from the motion of the universe. It would be a great step forward to remedy this error, even though it won’t answer the real question, “Where does the motion of the universe come from?”

I am happy to be back, after a six-month hiatus, but certainly never expected to be greeted with such good news. For some reason, I didn’t know about Lincoln, or that anyone other than Sundance Bilson-Thompson took preons seriously.

The Scientific American article is entitled “The Inner Life of Quarks,” which is only available online with subscription, but you can read it under another title here.

My first impulse was to contact Mr. Lincoln and see if he could be enticed enough by the success of our own preon model to investigate the Universe of Motion, but alas I’m afraid I’m too late as he is about to achieve escape velocity on his way to star status with his Scientific American article and a possible TED lecture next year (see here.) Now he will undoubtedly be swamped with so much attention and email that he will be virtually unreachable. 

Already, people like Lubos Motl and Peter Woit have weighed in to explain why preons can’t exist, and I doubt that Sean Carroll could be far behind. However, as always we must remember that new wine requires new bottles.

Our new bottle is not going to break under the pressure of arguments such as those pressed by Motl and Woit, because it’s a new system of theory that doesn’t posit that matter exists in space-time, but rather that matter consists of space and time. They argue that quarks and leptons are already “point-like,” whatever that means, thus excluding anything smaller. I wrote previously about some of the difficulties with that line of thinking here.

The trouble with physicists looking for smaller particles to fit inside their “point-like” particles are many, but our preons are not particles and our particles are not “point-like.” Our preons are S|T units, consisting of combinations of SUDRs and TUDRs, which are unit 3D oscillations of space and time respectively.

The LRC’s preons are not massive, but their combinations as quarks and leptons are massive. Yet, this is not a matter of cancellations of mass and energy contributions, in effect masking massive preons, but rather a matter of mass emerging from geometric configuration: The S|T units are massless (i.e. they propagate at c-speed relative to matter,) until they form quarks and leptons, which prevents them from propagating relative to matter. In other words, they become “massive” precisely because they can no longer propagate at c-speed, when they combine, for geometric reasons.

That’s not to say we don’t have major theoretical challenges with our theory. We do, but they are entirely different problems than those presented by the legacy system of theory (LST). And who knows, now that the preon theory is on the table in a more prominent fashion, maybe we will attract more interest in the Reciprocal System of Physical Theory (RST).

That would seemed deserved from the fact alone that our preon sub-structure of quarks and leptons turns out to be so similar to that described in Lincoln’s article. Notice the table of the 1979 preon model of Harari and Shupe that Lincoln illustrates in his article:

Table 1. The Harari and Shupe 1979 Preon Model of Quarks and Leptons

According to Lincoln, Harari and Shupe came up with the same model independently. This is amazing in itself, but then we came up with the same model just from developing the consequences of the RST. To be sure, our clue came from Sundance, and he undoubtedly knew of Harari and Shupe’s work, but we didn’t and the natural fit was readily accepted to advance the development of our RST-based theory, not to discover an underlying order to unify superficially different particles of matter, in an LST-based theory.

We were not positing the existence of +/- 1/3 and +/- 2/3 LST electric charges, with no theoretical definition of them. We were just exploring the combinations of well-defined unit space and unit time speed displacements, two simple building blocks that are logical consequences of the RST, and they ended up forming the same pattern as the successful preon pattern that LST physicists have devised.

The difference between the LRC preon model and the H&S model is, again, the difference between space and time speed displacements and fractional electrical charges. Our preon model defines the negative charge of the electron in terms of more space speed-displacement than time speed-displacement, and the positive charge of the positron in terms of more time speed-displacement than space speed-displacement.

Table 2. The Harari and Shupe 1979 Preon Model of Bosons

We only have one version of the Z boson and the +/- W bosons are different in that they consist of unbalanced S|T units in the parallel configuration. This highlights the difference between the LST entity of 0 charge and (0) anti-charge, and the RST entity of balanced speed-displacement (-)<—->(+) and its inverse (+)<—->(-).

For example, our -W boson is configured as three net negative combinations,

(- -)<—->(+)
(+)<—->(- -)
(- -)<—->(+)

and our +W boson is configured as three net positive combinations,

(-)<—->(++)
(++)<—->(-)
(-)<—->(++)

which makes the Z boson configuration three balanced combinations of three SUDRs and three TUDRs each, or the combination of the -W and +W bosons,

(- - -)<—->(+++) 
(+++)<—->(- - -)
(- - -)<—->(+++) 

That this leads to a correct understanding of beta decay, not to mention things such as quantum spin and quantum gravity, is just one more indication that the RST-based theory, and its preon model is able to seriously play with the big guys.

When do we get an article in Scientific American?

The reason is that they treated space and time as “spacetime,” focusing on Einstein’s discovery of how vector motion affects time. It doesn’t occur to any of them, as far as I can tell (and I am familiar with the ideas of most of the physicists on the program), that the reason motion affects time is that time is an aspect of motion. Instead, they view time as something mysteriously apart from motion.

They make a big deal out of the arrow of time, and the fact that the forward direction of time is not incorporated into the laws of physics (i.e. the equations can be reversed as far as time is concerned without changing the result.) However, they don’t seem to notice that, if all motion stops, then so does time, since time can only be measured by motion.

Sitting there, I thought, what if all motion in the universe really did stop, so that it became frozen at absolute zero? Then, what if all the frozen objects were removed from the universe? Would anything be left? According to the big bang theory, the amount of space in the universe, as well as the amount of matter, is finite. Therefore, the amount of space in the emptied universe would be some measurable quantity.

Now, if this quantity of space in the emptied universe were to be subsequently increased somehow, it would have to be increased over time, or if the amount of space were decreased, it would have to be decreased over time. Clearly, there is no other way, and we know that space is indeed increasing in the universe.

Similarly, if time were increased… - but wait a minute - what does it mean to increase the amount of time in the universe? When all objects are removed from a frozen universe, does a finite amount of time exist in it at that point? I guess their answer would be that a certain amount of spacetime exists (imagine a loaf of bread containing slices of time), but what does this mean? Does it mean that for every cubic light-year of space there is a cubic light-year of time?

Certainly not. We can’t say this, because time is zero dimensional; that is, it is a scalar magnitude, with no direction in space. So, then, how much time is in the hypothetically frozen universe? The only way to express it is as a scalar quantity, a number that tells us how many moments passed since the beginning (i.e. since the big bang in their cosmology). But what does the number representing the elapsed time of the universal expansion mean, if not that a certain quantity of motion, or a certain increase of space over time, occurred since the big bang?

The trouble is, of course, this scenario requires a point of view that is outside the universe, since no observer can exist in the frozen universe by definition. However, if we admit this God-view, then it is clear that time would have to continue for the observer, but if we don’t admit it, then the observer’s observation stops at the moment the universe is frozen, and we must conclude that time stops as well.

But what do we mean, then, when we say space and time are frozen? Obviously we mean that the continuous increase of space and time has hypothetically ceased. Now, what should be just as obvious, is that the subsequent increase of either one cannot begin without the increase of the other; that is, an observable change in the magnitude of space requires some change in the magnitude of time, while an observable increase in the magnitude time requires some change in the magnitude of space.

One might argue that, while space can’t increase without a corresponding change in time, time could conceivably increase without a concomitant increase in space. The trouble with that argument however, is that one could never know. Time can only be measured over space, just as space can only be measured over time. Without a change in space, it’s not possible to detect a change in time. The bottom line here is that a change in space requires a change in time as well, and vice versa.

Yet, an LST physicists might want to still argue that motion is defined as a change of position, not a change in size, and in a universe without objects, motion itself is not detectable. How can one determine that the size of an empty universe is changing? There aren’t any grid lines to indicate a change of scale. He would be right, of course, but, by the same token, he would also have to believe that the space of a universe that was expanding with matter, could reasonably be expected not to expand without matter. This is a pretty difficult argument to make.

It’s easy to see that the discussion would quickly lead to consideration of the so-called dark energy and dark matter, but we will have to wait for a future episode of the program to get into that. 

However, these “facts” are unraveling. They are proving to be quite elusive for researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. So far, they have found no evidence that the strings of finite length, which are supposed to be composed of vibrating nothingness, exist in the extra dimensions that the theorists have imagined to contain them.

Without strings, or more precisely, without the extra dimensions in which to imagine length of strings in various modes of vibration, the concept of the fabric of space that somehow can be twisted and warped enough to move objects, exposes the contradiction between the “facts” of general relativity that lead to small distances in extremely warped space and the “facts” of quantum field theory that posits virtual charges popping in and out of warped space at the same time.

This situation must embarrass LST theorists to no end, but they don’t act or talk like it does. Instead, they make movies for the masses, playing with computer graphics, like children in a high tech science museum, who don’t understand the science, but are fascinated by the displays and models that can be played with anyway.

Here’s the point: There is no point. There is no point that can be consistently defined as having no spatial extent, but yet can carry a charge on its non-existent surface, like an electron or positron. If nothing is perfect, something must be imperfect, by definition, but then how can something come from nothing?

Thus, the very definition of particle, let alone that of space, is jeopardized by their convoluted theories. Regardless, they press on, looking for a Higgs “particle” to get them out of the impasse, by providing a field to generate a force of gravity, which presumably would do away with the concept of warpable space, generating gravity without force.

We have to give them credit, though, because, even though they are looking through a glass darkly, they get many things right. They have the speed of light right and the relations that govern the electromagnetic fields right. These form the corner piece of the puzzle they are seeking to solve, and there’s probably no going back from those first principles, but to replace the dark glass with something more transparent, they are going to have to recognize the fudges that they have accepted in several of their fundamental concepts, most notably in the concepts of motion and force, but also in the concept of points. 

However, to get the concept of point right, they have to get the concept of motion right first. A start would be to consider that the simplification of Dirac’s equation for the electron, through the application of Feynman’s model, invoking quantum field theory, described by Penrose’s “zigs” and “zags,” the “zitterbewegung” of Dirac’s theory and the crux of Hestenes’ work on the electron, could really be a three-dimensional, space/time oscillation.

A three-dimensional space/time oscillation has to be scalar motion, by definition, since it involves a change of size, a simultaneous 1D, 2D and 3D change of size. However, by the failure to recognize such an oscillation as an example of scalar motion, and, therefore, the redefinition of a point that this requires, the mathematicians keep getting all tangled up in their universe of imaginary numbers. Clearly, as John Baez now admits, this experience is like “wading through molasses” (see here.)

Redefining space and time as simply the reciprocal aspects of motion changes the rules of the game entirely, but without throwing out what we already know that is true, just what we know that is not true.

The next episode of Brian’s NOVA program is entitled, “What is time?” A concept even more enigmatic than the concept of space, to be sure.

Resisting the urge to rant over this, I just want to point out for the record, in this the most obscure of blogs, that Larson’s Reciprocal System of Physical Theory (RST), the universe of motion, is proving to be much more successful than Newton’s system of physical theory, which we refer to as the Legacy System of Physical Theory (LST), in the fundamental assumptions each brings to the table vis-à-vis the observations of experimentalists.

The LST’s fundamental assumption is that nature can be explained in terms of a few fundamental interactions among a few fundamental particles. These particles are assumed to exist within the framework of space and time. True, the framework has been greatly modified over time, as the LST transformed it via the enigmatic and incompatible principles of relativity and quantum mechanics, but Newton’s system of physical theory, his program of research, we might say, has remained unchanged.

In contrast, the program of research that pertains to Larson’s universe of motion is based on the assumption that there are no fundamental particles playing upon the stage of space and time. His new system assumes that space and time do not exist as independent entities, but are merely two, reciprocal aspects of the one component of the universe, motion, which exists in discrete units forming the observed particles of matter and anti-matter and explaining their interactions.

Fortunately, this radical difference, in the fundamental assumptions of the two systems of physical theory, enables investigators to compare how well observations conform to either system. For example, to explain the particle interaction of gravity, the LST postulates that the nature of space must conform to the principles of non-Euclidean geometry, while the RST emphatically insists that the universe conforms to Euclidean geometry: Recent observations confirm that the geometry of the universe is exceedingly flat (Euclidean.) Hence, RST 1, LST 0.

To avoid the difficulty of explaining how a charged point particle (a particle of no spatial extent) can avoid the embarrassment of the infamous singularity that has plagued the LST for many decades, scientists resorted to the concept of strings, but this could only be proffered along with a concomitant introduction of extra physical dimensions, something the RST rules out: Very recent observations coming from the experiments of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have greatly diminished the hopes of ever finding evidence of more than the three observed dimensions of space and the one of time. Hence, RST 2, LST 0.

Finally, in what may be the final iconoclastic blow to the LST, scientists have discovered that non-oscillating neutrinos, traveling from the LHC in CERN to Italy, seem to be arriving some 60 nanoseconds ahead of when they should, if they were traveling at the speed of light. Of course, it wasn’t long ago that neutrinos streaming in from the Sun were found to oscillate between flavors, giving them a slight mass, which slowed them down below the speed of light. Now, if the new results are valid, the faster-than-light neutrinos would have to have what we might call, for lack of a better term, anti-mass, or imaginary valued mass. 

To say the least, there is no room for such superluminal particles, called tachyons, in the LST. In the RST, on the other hand, they are a necessary and integral part of the system, inhabiting the cosmic sector of the universe of motion. Hence, RST 3, LST 0.

Perhaps today, Wikipedia is not the place to announce the score in this tête-à-tête contest of the two systems, but my bet is that, in some future version of this venerable member of the online community, there will be a place of honor for Dewey B. Larson and his new system of physical theory.