Null Physics anyone?

[Wangler]

It's called "null" physics for a reason

So I am surmising from this that Mr. Witt's theory purports to say:
- Our universe has no begining, no end, and no outter limit.

Are you sure that you read all the excerpts? In the excerpt from chapter 8, Witt claims that the 4-dimensional size of the universe is on the order of 10e-25 s-m^3.

And in the exerpt from chapter 2 presents the now famous infinity divided by infinity formulation, which helps support the argument that "....The full extent of reality consists of an infinitely large exterior (infinite largeness) that bounds an infinitely small interior (infinite smallness)." (quote from the excerpt).

See, he thinks that the universe is infinitely large, but that's o.k., because it's also infinitely small!

Why hasn't this come out of the Standard Model? Because mainstream physicists don't want it too! Mua-ha-ha!

All of us are bound to become excerpt-experts at this pace.

Where has Mr. Witt gone?

Keith

 

[thubbathubba]

A few more questions:

1) "...billions of years to cause a significant energy deficit in individual photons..."

By "deficit" does Mr. Witt mean to imply that photons under his lumetic decay hypothesis experience a net loss of energy?

2) "Since the light given off by all luminous objects decays over time, the cumulative energy in space associated with any luminous object is limited."

Is the energy contained within but not yet emitted by the luminous object not considered "energy in space?"

3) By "limited" does he mean "declining" cumulative energy?

Limited cumulative energy seems like a pretty conventional thing to say about either a star, all the light it has emitted, or both as a 'balanced' system. The statement doesn't seem to logically follow this idea of energy loss due to lumetic decay (if that's what "lumetic decay" is.)

4) I'm pretty sure I was wrong in my last post about stars having to glow brighter if by "balancing" photon-decay-to-source-output he means the lost photon energy returns to the source star. I suppose stars could just glow longer. But it's obvious neither of these can be what Mr. Witt means by "balance," so I'm still left with the question 'where does the energy go' as these photons decay?

Again, I am completely out of my depth here, but I was not aware that photons will lose energy unless they interact with something else. Is this true?

5) Finally, and most vexing: If the universe is "infinite" as Null Physics seems to posit, then how can the universe be experiencing any kind of "power loss?"

That seems to clearly imply a very certain end to everything... eventually.

 

[thubbathubba]

Are you sure that you read all the excerpts? In the excerpt from chapter 8, Witt claims that the 4-dimensional size of the universe is on the order of 10e-25 s-m^3.

Yeah, I read it all; never claimed to understand it all (ugh).

I didn't pick-up on the fact that he has an equation expressing the finiteness of space (unless that "m" is related to his infinity-cubed-divided-by-infinity-cubed constant?) Guess I was focusing to much on the words, such as "infinite universe."

Or do you suppose "infinite universe" has a different meaning under Null Physics as well?

 

[Wangler]

I'm not sure anyone could fully understand null physics, besides Mr. Witt.

As far as where the photon's energy goes, I'm not sure where null physics sends it, but my personal belief is that the red-shifted photons transfer energy to space-time, resulting in a universe whose expansion is accelerating.

Or, (photon energy loss) = (dark energy)

 

[~enigma~]

I'm not sure anyone could fully understand null physics, besides Mr. Witt.

As far as where the photon's energy goes, I'm not sure where null physics sends it, but my personal belief is that the red-shifted photons transfer energy to space-time, resulting in a universe whose expansion is accelerating.

Or, (photon energy loss) = (dark energy)

Are you basing this on photons as particles or as a wave?

ETA - instead of looking at the red shift as a doppler effect, look at it as a result of the expansion of space.

 

[Wangler]

Enigma,

I don't honestly know...a wave, I guess, because I know that a change in wavelength implies a change in energy.

I could also see an interaction of some type between a photon particle, and the structure of space-time.

As an analogy, picture the photon as a marble, moving on a non-frictionless rubber sheet (rubber sheet = classic general relativity example). Assume that besides kinetic energy, the photon is also vibrating, or it is at a certain temperature.

The photon experiences friction, which would cause a normal particle to slow down.

The photon cannot slow down, so the vibrations diminish, or the photon cools.

What happens to the photon's lost energy? It's transferred to the rubber sheet, which heats up, or perhaps grows in size.

 

[~enigma~]

Enigma,

I don't honestly know...a wave, I guess, because I know that a change in wavelength implies a change in energy.

I could also see an interaction of some type between a photon particle, and the structure of space-time.

As an analogy, picture the photon as a marble, moving on a non-frictionless rubber sheet (rubber sheet = classic general relativity example). Assume that besides kinetic energy, the photon is also vibrating, or it is at a certain temperature.

The photon experiences friction, which would cause a normal particle to slow down.

The photon cannot slow down, so the vibrations diminish, or the photon cools.

What happens to the photon's lost energy? It's transferred to the rubber sheet, which heats up, or perhaps grows in size.

Did you read the ETA in my post? Looking at the red shift as a doppler effect (which is velocity) wil give you a paradox. Looking at a red shift as a result of space's expansion will resolve the paradox.

 

[Wangler]

Does looking at a red shift as a result of space's accelerating expansion avoid a paradox?

 

[thubbathubba]

I must have gone to the fridge for a snack while watching the Discovery Channel or something, but I think I need someone to get me up to speed on the basics here:

My impression has always been that the total energy of red-shifted light from a distant star was not reduced; rather, it was stretched out as the star receded. (Does that put me in the "wave" camp?)

When you reduce the segment of the light wave you're examining to an individual photon, do you actually observe a mysterious energy loss?

 

[Yllanes]

When you reduce the segment of the light wave you're examining to an individual photon, do you actually observe a mysterious energy loss?

There is nothing mysterious about it. The energy of a particle is not a relativistic invariant: an object will have different energies in different frames. Consider a proton. In non relativistic physics it will have a kinetic energy of 1/2 m v² in a frame where it moves with velocity v. In its rest frame, though, its kinetic energy is 0.

In relativistic physics, in its rest frame its only energy will be E = mc². In the laboratory frame where it has a velocity v its energy will be E² = gamma * mc², where gamma = (1 - v² / c²)^-1/2.

The fact that the energy is different in different frames doesn't mean it has to go anywere or that there is a paradox.

With photons things are a bit subtler, because they move at c in every frame, but the conclusion is similar: they have different energy in different reference frames.

 

[Wangler]

Yllanes, please bear with me, as all of this is confusing.

Don't you mean that the energy of an object, or a particle, may take different forms in different reference frames?

Isn't energy conserved overall, across all reference frames? Or does Special Relativity not jive with the conservation of energy?

I also thought that the particles mass increased in it's rest frame, so that as it's laboratory frarme energy increased (due to increased kinetic energy in the laboratory frame), it's energy in the rest frame would also increase.

Doesn't Energy (rest frame) have to equal Energy (laboratory frame)?

 

[Yllanes]

Yllanes, please bear with me, as all of this is confusing.

Don't you mean that the energy of an object, or a particle, may take different forms in different reference frames?

No. Energy, just like velocity, is not invariant across different reference frames. This is not new to Special relativity, it is also true in Newtonian Physics.

Isn't energy conserved overall, across all reference frames? Or does Special Relativity not jive with the conservation of energy?

The fact that energy is different in different frames does not mean energy is not conserved. A quantity is invariant if it takes the same value in all frames. A quantity is conserved if its value does not change with time (although it may be different in different frames).

For example, the mass of a particle is a relativistic invariant. But the total amount of mass need not be conserved: a particle of mass M may disintegrate in two other particles whose masses m₁ and m₂ are m₁ + m₂ < M. The masses of the three particles are the same in all frames.

With energy we have the opposite picture. Before and after the first particle disintegrates the total energy of the system must be the same. But its value is different in the rest frame of the original particle than in a laboratory frame.

Doesn't Energy (rest frame) have to equal Energy (laboratory frame)?

No. What's invariant is the mass of the particle. The energy E and momentum p of a particle take different values in different frames, but the quantity

m²c⁴ = E² - p²c²
is invariant. In a different frame we will have energy E' and momentum p' but E'² - p'²c² will still equal m²c⁴.

Energy and momentum are the components of a vector and they change when we change frames. Mass is its magnitude and it doesn't change. Think of ordinary three dimensional vectors in Euclidean space: if you perform a rotation the components change, but the length of the vector doesn't.

 

[sol invictus]

It is true that, in an expanding universe dominated by radiation, the total energy in radiation decreases because of redshift. That's the reason why, although the early universe was radiation dominated, it became matter dominated later in the expansion (since matter moving at non-relativistic velocities does not experience this extra redshift).

However no energy is lost in this process, because there are terms in the total energy associated with the gravitational field as well, and in general relativity the total energy is always conserved. Those extra terms do not take the form of a cosmological constant, so the idea does not work in any known theory of physics.

 

[Wangler]

Yllanes,

Thank you! I think that this is beginning to make sense to me, at least for particles with a rest mass.

What clarifies it is when you say that energy and momentum are components of a vector or a tensor, and mass is basically the invariant magnitude.

How this all relates to photons and red-shift will probably take me years to figure out.

Null physics' (mentioned so as to keep thread on target) or other's versions of different types of "tired light" seem to make intuitive sense, at first glance.

It's hard to see the contradictions at first.

 

[Yllanes]

What clarifies it is when you say that energy and momentum are components of a vector or a tensor, and mass is basically the invariant magnitude.

How this all relates to photons and red-shift will probably take me years to figure out.

For photons the difference is that m = 0, so E² - p²c² = 0. It is very easy to deduce the formula for the Doppler effect. The four momentum of the photon is

[latex]
\footnotesize
\[
(k^0, \boldsymbol k) = (\omega / c, \boldsymbol k),\qquad (k^0)^2 - \boldsymbol k^2 = 0 \quad \Longrightarrow\quad k = \omega/c.
\]
[/latex]

where omega is the frequency, of course. Let [latex]\footnotesize$\omega_0$[/latex] be the frequency of the photon in the reference frame where the source is at rest and let [latex]\footnotesize$\vec v$[/latex] be our velocity with respect to this source, which we will assume is along the x coordinate. The components of the momentum in both reference frames are related by a Lorentz transformation:

[latex]\footnotesize
\[
k^0_0 = \frac{\omega_0}{c} = \frac{k^0 - \frac vc k^1}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}
\]
[/latex]

Now, if theta is the angle between the direction of propagation of the wave and the x axis, then k¹ = k cos theta = omega/c cos theta. So we arrive at the formula for the Doppler shift:

[latex]\footnotesize
\[
\omega = \omega_0 \frac{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}{1- \frac vc \cos \theta}
\]
[/latex]

As you see, we have arrived at this formula just by assuming that the four momentum of a photon satisfies (k⁰)² - k² = 0 in every reference frame. The mass of a photon is zero in all frames, but its energy (proportional to omega) is different.

I should mention that the cosmological redshift is not a Doppler shift and arises from a different mechanism.

 

[Wangler]

I should mention that the cosmological redshift is not a Doppler shift and arises from a different mechanism.

The cosmological redshift is due to the expansion of space, correct?

When the universe was a few picoseconds old, the "luminosity" was very large. As the universe expanded, this "luminosity" was spread over a greater total area, and has since diminished into the 2.7 K background radiation?

Is this right?

What if we visualise a universe filled with a uniform distribution of particles, with a homogenous velocity distribution. Is it correct to consider the possibility that the contraction of this particle distribution (via gravity) could be precisely counteracted by the expansion of the universe?

Perhaps I should start a different thread?

I know that this latest conjecture might seem different than my red-shift photon questions, but I am really just trying to grasp how the expansion of the universe affects reality.

 

[thubbathubba]

... they have different energy in different reference frames.

That sounds more familiar. I think I was confused by Mr. Witt's apparent use of the terms "power loss" and "energy deficit" interchangeably to refer to the total of all forms of energy associated with a particular photon.

However no energy is lost in this process, because there are terms in the total energy associated with the gravitational field as well, and in general relativity the total energy is always conserved. Those extra terms do not take the form of a cosmological constant, so the idea does not work in any known theory of physics.

So is it correct to say that these "tired light" and null physics theories propose that the total energy is not conserved as the brightness of red-shifted light decays?

 

[ben m]

So is it correct to say that these "tired light" and null physics theories propose that the total energy is not conserved as the brightness of red-shifted light decays?

If I interpreted Witt correctly, his version of "tired light" is supposed to conserve energy and momentum, because he makes high-energy photons decay by emitting collinear microwave photons. This is trivially ruled out by experiments, but he gets credit for trying.

 

[Wangler]

I seem to recall other aspects of "tired light" (Witt's or other's) that disagree with observation.

Isn't there some sort of "widening" of emission or absorption lines from objects with high Z, that can't be explained by Doppler or other means?

Keith

 

[thubbathubba]

If I interpreted Witt correctly, his version of "tired light" is supposed to conserve energy and momentum, because he makes high-energy photons decay by emitting collinear microwave photons. This is trivially ruled out by experiments, but he gets credit for trying.

Is it safe to interpret Mr. Witt's "lumetic decay" theory as describing the Cosmic Background Radiation as x-rays produced by the decay of light, which we observe as red-shifted?

1) Are there some simple laboratory results that contradict this (in terms understandble to this layman?)

2) Would his "lumetic decay" principle predict results different from our conventional model when measuring red-shifted light from a single light source over time from the different relative locations/velocities of Earth's in space (or am I over-applying Doppler to cosmological red shift?)

3) For nearby galaxies like Andromeda, aren't astronomers able to detect a red-shift/blue-shift difference between the light coming from the stars in its receding spiral arms and the light from its advancing arms, as well as the arms at apogee and perigee relative to Earth)?

• If that is the case, wouldn't the "lumetic decay" theory for red-shift predict results that vary considerably from the Big Bang explanation for red shift?
• If red shift is due mainly (or I suppose even minutely) to something like this "lumetic decay," wouldn't we detect more red-shift in the older light from the stars in Andromeda that are furtherst away from us (which would be near orbital apogee and very little apparent motion relative to Earth), when compared to the younger light from stars closest to us (whose orbit is at relative perigee but also with little apparent motion, thus elimintating most Doppler effect difference between the apogee/perigee stars in an infinite/static universe model)?
• Do we have this kind of data (or does some fault in my analysis make it irrelevant?)

4) Speaking of Andromeda: I recall that it is one of the few blue-shifting light sources relative to Earth. If null physics predicts something called "lumetic decay" for red-shift, does blue shift light imply "lumetic increase," or could there be some other explanation?

5) While I'm on it, what does our Big Bang model of the universe say about all the blue shifted light that must be traveling opposite all the red-shifted light we detect here on Earth (or am I again over-applying the Doppler effect?)