A Photon Aether
(Note: I'm in the process of modifying this essay and there
may
be duplications of statements and statements may not be in the best
order
0062608)
by Reason McLucus
Some believe in the possibility of an aether used for propagation
of light waves. Such an aether ( comprised of photons) could
exist undetected in an energy space without interacting with the shared
space. Only energy pulses (waves) passing through it would
actually interact with the shared space and be detectable there.
Perhaps an aether extending throughout the areas of the
universe considered a vacuum would have sufficient mass and
be the serve as the “dark matter” some physicists believe exists.
Contrary to a popular belief, the Michelson-Morley experiment didn’t
disprove the existence of an aether. The experiment suffered from
several logical fallacies. Michelson suggested that if an aether
existed there would be an aether “wind” produced by the earth passing
through the aether and this wind would affect the speed of light.
In empirical science the fact that a physical phenomenon doesn’t have
an expected characteristic doesn’t mean the phenomenon itself doesn’t
exist. For example, disproof of an hypothesis that information
cannot escape from a black hole would only disprove the hypothesis
about information escaping not the hypothesis about existence of black
holes in general.
Michelson based his hypothesis on a false analogy
of a person swimming
in water to the propagation of an energy pulse (wave) through a
medium. A swimmer swimming across a current would take a
different time to swim a given distance than one swimming with and
against the current. [Note:some versions suggest that the analogy was
to a boat.] Swimming requires the swimmer continuously
changing the position of the body as it displaces water so that the
body can move from one location to another. A swimmer’s speed can
vary from one stroke to another in addition to being affected by the
current of the river. Moreover the affect of the water varies not only
with the current, but also with the surface area hit by the
current. The current would have a greater impact on the
swimmer going across the current than the one going upstream because
the current would hit more of the body.
An energy pulse involves energy being passed from one set of elements
in a medium to adjacent elements rather than any physical object moving
from one location to another. An analogy involving waves might
consider the speed of waves created by a swimmer or boat, but not the
swimmer or boat itself.
Michelson may not have been aware of it, but the speed of tsunami
waves moving through the ocean are unaffected by the velocity of any
current. The speed of a tsunami
wave is determined solely by the depth of the water and the
gravitational constant.
His efforts to determine differences in velocity also suffered from a
flaw by using interference caused by the light beams crossing each
other. The same interference would be observed if beam one
intersected with beam two at an interval of 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 etc.
waves.
Michelson assumed that an aether would be fixed in space even though
stars and planets are in constant motion. If the aether were
moving, it's relative motion with respect to earth would be
unknown. The earth itself is moving around the sun, the solar
system is moving around the galaxy and the galaxy is moving through
space. The earth's velocity can only be determined relative to
other moving objects. There is no fixed object that would allow
determination of some absolute velocity.
At any given time a portion of the earth would be hitting the aether
head on. If the apparatus were on that portion of the earth, then
any aether wind would be blowing down on the apparatus rather
than
across it. If the apparatus were on the opposite side
of the earth, there might be no aether wind affecting the lab.
The earth's orientation to any wind would be changing constantly as the
earth rotates to the east at 1,000 mph.
The earth moves in a curved orbit which would mean the earth's
orientation with respect to any wind would not necessarily be
determined by which portion of the earth is facing the sun. The
direction of travel of the solar system with respect to any aether
could also affect which portion of the earth were going into the
wind.
If an aether existed that portion of the aether surrounding a planet
might move with the planet the way planetary gases do and there would
be no wind for the surface of the planet to pass through. Gravity
has been shown to bend light. Perhaps it does so by affecting the
aether which in turn affects the path of the light.
In an closed lab, the aether like the air in the lab would not be
moving relative to the apparatus unless there were some device to
circulate it. If visible light couldn't pass through the walls of
the lab the aether wouldn't either. Those outside an
airplane traveling at over the speed of sound would hear the sound of
the plane after the plane passed, but within the plane people
would be able to talk normally.
Light and sound can pass through both air and water. A light wave
might only be propagated through an aether in space. Air or water
might displace the aether on a planet and be the medium through which
it is propagated instead of an aether. Sound waves passing
through a wall use the wall as a medium because the air cannot move
through the wall. Sound waves can even be transmitted along a
string between two cans. The speed of sound varies depending upon
the medium through which it is passes. The speed of light also
varies according to the medium through which it passes. Light may
move slower through air than the "vacuum" of space because air is the
medium of transmission rather than the aether.
Sound waves moving through air move air molecules.
Electromagnetic radiation might only affect the electrons which in a
transparent medium would transmit the energy as waves. The
conversion of radiation to heat energy would occur when the medium
resisted the passage of electromagnetic waves in an analogous
manner to the heating that resistence to passage of electricity
causes.
The “duck test” would be a more appropriate way of determining the
existence of an aether. That is if something looks like a duck,
acts like a duck, etc. it most likely is a duck. If light
functions like a wave it probably is one and thus some type of aether
must exist in space through which it would be propagated.
Sound waves can effectively transfer complex information from one
location to another. The sounds produced by a large orchestra or
chorus can be accurately transmitted through the same air space to
listeners in the audience, or from the speakers of a stereo to
listeners in a smaller room.
Complex color patterns can be transmitted over long distances.
Individual photons presented with the "option" of two gates may go
through one gate one time and the other gate at another time. If
individual photons were carrying color information over significant
distances the color information would likely lose its pattern as
individual photons took slightly different routes. Waves carry
information in an organized fashion. The sound of a drum comes
from the location of the drum rather than the location of a
violin. If color information is transmitted accurately over long
distances it is most likely transmitted in an organized manner by
photons organized as waves than as individual photons.
Free Energy, Gravity and the Aether by Dan A.
Davidson. http://www.keelynet.com/davidson/npap1.htm
http://ebtx.com/theory/michelson-morley.htm
http://brainflux.org/Physics/Special_Relativity/Michelson_Morley/
http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/faq/Michelson-Morley.html
Invalidation by J
Raymond Redbourne
http://ca.geocities.com/rayredbourne/docs/b2.htm
The purpose of this essay is to examine a different approach to the
idea of a photon aether rather than to make a definitive
description.
The only logical explanation for the wave like behavior of light is the
existence of some form of aether in space and the transfer of light
waves by
electrons through matter, including an atmosphere.
Light is propagated through the disturbance
of a photon aether that in a zero energy state exists as a separate
3-dimensional
space. The space would be a true Euclidean space because photon are
essentially
dimensionless. For non-mathematicians, a Euclidean space is composed of
points that have zero dimensions.
Energy can be transmitted by propelling an object from one location
to another. For example, if someone throws an object he
puts
energy into the object with the throwing motion. Energy that
isn't
lost in transit, such as through friction with the air, is transferred
to whatever the object hits.
Waves transfer energy by elements of a medium passing along the
energy
from element to adjacent element. This process allows more rapid
movement of the energy because the elements of the medium don't have to
travel any significant distance. Sound waves travel through air
at
the earth's surface at a much higher velocity than wind speed which
even
in the most powerful tornadoes seldom exceeds 250 mph.
Transfer of energy by waves provides greater dispersal of
energy.
A single drop of water on a solid object would be unnoticed.
However,
the same mass of water dropped into a pool or basin will produce a wave
that expands over a wide area. A star emitting energy in the form
of waves would be more likely to transfer that energy over billions of
light years than a star emitting energy through "throwing"
particles.
Thrown particles would become so dispersed that they would be
undetectable. However, the transfer of energy from photon to
photon in an aether would allow light to travel extremely long
distances and still be detectable, particularly by focusing the
wave. A elevation of a tsunami tidal wave created by an
underwater earthquake may be undetectable as it speeds across the
ocean. However, when it comes close to land, the energy may be
sufficiently focused for the wave to have sufficient height to wash
over buildings.
The elements of the wave transmitting medium don't move in the
sense of going from one place to another. Rather these elements
pass
along the energy of the wave. The elements of a wave propagating
medium can be compared to spring loaded dominoes. The placement
of
dominoes in a long line allows someone to knock over one domino and
have
that domino knock down the next one in line, etc. Placment of one
domino so hits two dominoes allows someone to knock over many lines of
dominoes by knocking over just one. If each domino had a spring
that
allowed it to pop back up, the effect would be similar to what happens
when a wave passes through a medium. The elements of the medium
return
to their original position after passage of the energy pulse. The
elements of the medium transfer the energy to adjacent elements.
Photons in the aether would normally be in
some type of zero energy state, much like the surface of a perfectly
still
body of water. The emission of photons by a light source would create
waves
in the aether like a stone dropped into still water would. The aether
is
3-dimensional like the air that carries sound waves.
A wave is created when something disturbs
the
medium that comprises the wave. For example, in a water wave something
pushes water away from a spot. Those molecules of water at the point of
the disturbance bump into neighboring molecules as if they were
organized
in concentric circles. Molecules continue moving outward much like
dominoes
being knocked down in sequence. The circles widen as the wave moves
away
from the source because the water molecules tend to hit multiple
molecules
like dominoes stacked so that one domino falls against two dominoes.
A photon aether would function in the same
way. Instead of a light source emitting photons which then take off at
the speed of light while spreading out like a wave, the photons emitted
by the light source bump into neighboring photons like water molecules
bumping into their neighbors.
An aether composed of photons would make
light
more understandable without conflicting with accepted concepts about
the
behavior of photons. One problem with explaining light as a wave is
that
waves normally need some type of medium to flow through.
Light waves could flow across or through a
photon aether like a sound wave passes through air. Photons could lodge
in molecules when a wave passes around or through molecules the way
water
droplets lodge in a log when a water wave washes over the log.
Waves such as a tsunami or sound waves move
much faster than the medium they move through because the energy is
transmitted
directly from one element of the medium to another rather than using
the
energy to move the individual elements the entire distance. Light waves
could move through a photon aether at high speed, with high energy, for
similar reasons.
The movement of photons emitted by a laser
could be similar to the movement of electrons through a wire. An
electric
generator doesn't send individual electrons to an appliance. It pushes
a line of them toward the appliance. The laser wouldn't so much send a
stream of photons as it would push a line of photons.
The random choice of a photon between going
through
one of two gates could result from the angle at which the emitted
photon
hit the other photons or the placement of photons relative to the
gates.
Alternatively, the movement of individual
photons
might be analogous to water being shot from a water gun.
The emission of waves by molecules seems
problematic
without a photon aether. Individual molecules would seem incapable of
emitting
sufficient photons at one time to produce a wave. However, a molecule
could
produce a wave by "dripping" photons into a photon aether. The impact
of
the photons could produce a wave much like water dripping from a faucet
into a bathtub produces waves.
The fact that light waves demonstrate interference patterns is one of
the main reasons light has been described as a wave. The
pulse and anti-pulse characteristic of a wave allows waves to add
to each other(positive interference) if pulses of one wave coincide
with pulses of another, or to subtract from each other(negative
interference) if pulses of one wave coincide with anti-pulses of
another wave. This result can occur because waves
don't alter the volume of the medium through which they
move. The pulses and anti-pulses cancel each other out without
without eliminating elements of the medium.
If light consisted of particles, destructive interference would seem to
require the destruction of the particles. These particles would
also have to go through some type of phase changes, such as switching
from "positive" to "negative" or perhaps go through an anti-particle
phase.
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