Null Physics anyone?

[gratuitous python]

Professor Yaffle -- No, I never heard of Terry Witt before I saw his ad in Smithsonian. My background is in marketing, not physics, and what interested me was the quality of his ad -- it seemed a brilliant way to sell what seemed -- and still seems -- a questionable product.

Anyway, I googled "null physics," and that led me to JREF. I signed on to take part in the thread because I was disappointed in what I saw as a dogmatic and overly emotional rejection of Witt's book by people who had never read it.

I like to think I'm about as skeptical as anyone, but I try to keep an open mind until I have all my facts. After following the ensuing discussion, I'm inclined to think that Terry Witt is no crackpot, but rather someone who knows a lot but not enough about his subject.

While ben m and Schneibster are probably correct in their critique of Witt's work, I'd be more comfortable with their views if I didn't detect such a high level of anger in what they write. What would be far more convincing to me is a level-headed analysis of "null physics" by someone with with the requisite background in physics who had actually read the book.

 

[Soapy Sam]

General points of information.

1. The James Randi Educational Foundation owns and operates, but is a separate legal entity from, the JREF Forum.
2. Schneibster's comment that opinions expressed by him are solely his own extends to all posters on the forum. In particular, no opinion posted on the forum is an "official" JREF opinion. JREF is not a scientific regulatory body and nobody at JREF or the forum is pretending that it is.
3. "Woo" or "woo-woo" is either a noun for a person who holds beliefs which are not consistent with relevant evidence, or an adjective describing such behaviour. It appears to be a word which originated on this forum. It is generally used in a critical or derogatory fashion, though the degree varies. I do not know enough physics to fairly describe Terry's theories as "woo", but on the forum we often see sole, radical thinkers convinced by a theory which appears to generate strong resistance among more conventional thinkers. When I find someone appearing to criticise standard theories on the grounds that they are based on fitting theory to empirical evidence, I feel concern.

 

[terrywitt]

So close and yet so far

Since it has been thus far impossible to achieve a productive discussion of my ideas, I thought I would try a different approach and post a chain of reasoning and let one of my many fans identify where the departure lies. In other words, which of the following premises, by number, are incorrect:

1. The Standard Model, (SM) which I’ve praised a number of times, is in spectacular agreement with empirical results.
2. In order to achieve its close correspondence with observed events, the Standard Model relies on around 20 constants that have experimentally determined values; ad hoc.
3. A number of theorists would like to improve on the SM by reducing the number of its many constants, and replace it with a theory that required fewer parameters, parameters that might have more physical significance.
4. Although it is not possible to prove that a more eloquent formalism of the SM exists, working toward that goal is an worthwhile project.
5. The theory that will eventually supplant the SM will not be created instantaneously. In its formative stages, it will necessarily be less complete than the SM, and might also use a different architecture.
6. When the new theory is complete, it should meet or even exceed the SM predictive ability, yet do so in a more eloquent fashion with fewer parameters. In the best case scenario, it will also encompass gravitation.

Does anyone disagree with statements 1-6? If so, which one and in what way?

 

[gratuitous python]

Points well taken

However, I think what Witt was trying to say was that the Standard Model was built to accommodate existing empirical data but still doesn't answer some key issues or satisfactorily account for new data that appears, the result being that all sorts of patches, e.g. dark energy and dark matter, are necessary to keep it afloat. He's not dismissing empirical evidence.

As I stated in an earlier post, I see in the Standard Model parallels to the accretions added to Ptolemy's solar system in order to maintain the conventional wisdom of a geocentric universe filled with perfect circles.

This is not to say that Witt isn't a "woo-woo." He well might be. I just don't feel he's getting a fair hearing from people who make statements like "I wouldn't read the book, even if it were free." I'm also concerned that some of the criticisms of his theory are that it doesn't agree with certain assumptions or conclusions of the Standard Model. Of course it doesn't -- he's already stated that he sees flaws in the Standard Model.

Now, I'm not a physicist nor a mathematician, although I take an active interest in both and try to keep reasonably up-to-date on current thinking. And ever since being the first kid in my class to bust the Santa Claus myth, I've been a life-long skeptic with little tolerance for what you call "woo-woo," so I find it strange to find myself defending what is most likely a bit of hokum. I'm just asking that we all play fair.

When I read about string theory, I have to say I'm still not convinced and am quite surprised how so many bright minds are willing to buy into it with no real empirical evidence. Yet this guy comes along with his "null physics," and the pit bulls attack without making much of an effort to find out what he's talking about. I'd like to see Witt's critics concede that the Standard Model isn't the final word and then give him a chance to lay out his case before dogmatically dismissing it, mostly, it would seem, because his ideas are radical and come from outside the guild.

 

[jsfisher]

Since it has been thus far impossible to achieve a productive discussion of my ideas, I thought I would try a different approach and post a chain of reasoning and let one of my many fans identify where the departure lies. In other words, which of the following premises, by number, are incorrect:

1. The Standard Model, (SM) which I’ve praised a number of times, is in spectacular agreement with empirical results.
2. In order to achieve its close correspondence with observed events, the Standard Model relies on around 20 constants that have experimentally determined values; ad hoc.
3. A number of theorists would like to improve on the SM by reducing the number of its many constants, and replace it with a theory that required fewer parameters, parameters that might have more physical significance.
4. Although it is not possible to prove that a more eloquent formalism of the SM exists, working toward that goal is an worthwhile project.
5. The theory that will eventually supplant the SM will not be created instantaneously. In its formative stages, it will necessarily be less complete than the SM, and might also use a different architecture.
6. When the new theory is complete, it should meet or even exceed the SM predictive ability, yet do so in a more eloquent fashion with fewer parameters. In the best case scenario, it will also encompass gravitation.

Does anyone disagree with statements 1-6? If so, which one and in what way?

The first two are premises. Others more knowledgeable of the subject can comment on their validity.

Statements #3 and #4 aren't really premises. They are more of the hopes and desires category.

Statement #5 is a premise, I suppose, but do you have a basis for me to believe its validity?

Statement #6 is self-fulfilling.


So, I reject #3 and #4 out of hand as premises, and I question #5.

ETA: I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on the Internet.

 

[Yllanes]

. I just don't feel he's getting a fair hearing from people who make statements like "I wouldn't read the book, even if it were free."

Professional physicists read the journals [1] and they have a lot of reading to do just with that. The only real way to have his models evaluated is to submit them to a journal (or to the arXiv, which is easier and only needs an endorser). The time when new, complete, theories were presented in books is long gone.

__________
[1] Actually, professional physicists read the arXivs.

 

[ben m]

Since it has been thus far impossible to achieve a productive discussion of my ideas, I thought I would try a different approach and post a chain of reasoning and let one of my many fans identify where the departure lies. In other words, which of the following premises, by number, are incorrect:

1. The Standard Model, (SM) which I’ve praised a number of times, is in spectacular agreement with empirical results.
2. In order to achieve its close correspondence with observed events, the Standard Model relies on around 20 constants that have experimentally determined values; ad hoc.
3. A number of theorists would like to improve on the SM by reducing the number of its many constants, and replace it with a theory that required fewer parameters, parameters that might have more physical significance.
4. Although it is not possible to prove that a more eloquent formalism of the SM exists, working toward that goal is an worthwhile project.
5. The theory that will eventually supplant the SM will not be created instantaneously. In its formative stages, it will necessarily be less complete than the SM, and might also use a different architecture.
6. When the new theory is complete, it should meet or even exceed the SM predictive ability, yet do so in a more eloquent fashion with fewer parameters. In the best case scenario, it will also encompass gravitation.

Does anyone disagree with statements 1-6? If so, which one and in what way?

1) Not just agreement; *prediction*. Vernon Hughes didn't measure the muon magnetic moment, then adjust the Standard Model constants until it agreed. He took the fine-structure-constant measured with atomic physics, did a deterministic SM calculation, and then measured the muon moment---and found agreement all the way out. Jerry Gabrielse took the same atomic data and measured the electron magnetic moment out to 14 decimals, finding perfect agreement. (The way you talk about it, you'd think that we took two data points, fit them to a two-parameter straight line, and then went off bragging about how intermediate points also lay along this line. )

2) The Standard Model's 27 parameters are not ad-hoc in the way you're picturing. 12 of them are just masses (six quarks, six leptons); if you go out, discover the muon, and measure its mass, in what way is that ad-hoc? It'd be nice to have a universe where, e.g., the muon and tau masses are just some simple function of the electron mass. But what makes you think we live in such a Universe?

3) Fewer free parameters, yes. "more physical significance", no. The leading directions for beyond-the-standard-model physics and up getting most of the masses and mixings from Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking. I doubt, Terry, that you'd find a new theory "satisfactory" if it finds 10 obscure quantum parameters in an obscure high-energy limit, and shows that they predict some mass ratios in the low-energy world.

4, 5, 6) Um. You're assuming, Terry, that the Universe was designed to suit your preferences---who promised it would be eloquent? Who promised it would be intuitive to our hunter-gatherer brains? You're designing a historical arc which justifies your work. In practice, Grand Historical Arcs have about as much predictive power as ... well, as Null Physics.

 

[ben m]

While ben m and Schneibster are probably correct in their critique of Witt's work, I'd be more comfortable with their views if I didn't detect such a high level of anger in what they write.

Are my responses angry? I didn't mean them to be, but I'm definitely annoyed. I would point out that Mr. Witt did not come forward saying "Please let's share this idea, which I think is neat", he came forward saying "Physicists are closed-minded and utterly ignorant of the huge philosophical problems with their theories, which are so obviously flawed I shan't trouble to learn how they work." This is remarkably similar to the attitude brought by creationists ("Darwinists are stupid, amoral, and value their careers above all"), warming denialists ("Climate scientists are idiots; I can disprove their theory in a few minutes' thought"), and so on. It's tiresome.

I remember quarks being treated as point-like in the Standard Model, but frankly I don’t remember whether quarks are hyperdimensional strings in string theory, or whether they are points connected by hyperdimensional strings. The reason I don’t remember such things is because I have a wealth of compelling evidence that neither quarks or strings are accurate representations of physical entities

Name one example of a successful, paradigm-changing scientist who wasn't a practiced expert on the old paradigm. Copernicus? Newton? Harvey? Kepler? Einstein? Maxwell? Watson & Crick? Boltzmann? Mendeleev? Planck? Feynman? Gell-Mann? Hubble? Lyell? Agassiz? Darwin? Deliberately ignoring your predecessors might be a good strategy in entrepreneurship. It is emphatically not in science.

My point is that theories that are manufactured to fit empirical data, with little to no underlying natural philosophy, are dead ends.

Terry, this statement is so badly flawed that I can't even think of why you believe it---except that you need to believe it to justify your work. Theories built on "natural philosophy" were complete and utter dead ends for over 2000 years. Ptolemy's geocentrism, Hippocrate's humours, Aristotle's physics, Hahnemann's law of similars, the dozens of pre-Newton dabblers who guessed at whether cannonballs moved in straight lines or arcs, the biologists who guessed whether the Vital Force resided in the heart, spleen, or brain. History is littered with forgotten, entirely useless theories based in "natural philosophy"; everything we think of today as a "successful theory" was pieced together laboriously to account for and describe data; even Einstein's work was basically a frame-transformation of Maxwell's.

Null Physics has remarkable explanatory power, but cannot currently match the descriptive power of the Standard Model or General Relativity. It has, however, enormous descriptive power for a physical theory that only requires a single constant, and it can even tell us why this constant exists and why it has the value it does.

By "descriptive power", you seem to mean "I can describe any phenomenon using my theory". Dan Visser can do the same with his "Complex Cosmos"; the creationists at Common Sense Science have a weekly newsletter elaborating more "descriptions", and Carezani's Autodynamics has "described" muons, pions, nuclei, accelerators, and the Pioneer Anomaly. (Heck, my still-developing Tau Bootes Leprechauns theory does pretty well in the description department.) Sorry, Terry, but descriptions are surprisingly easy. I know you've worked hard on yours, but there are thousands upon thousands of ways to "describe" data. You have found one of them. Good for you.

The hard part is deciding whether your description is the right one or the wrong one, and for that we'll get right back to the detailed numerical tests.

The Standard Model can approximate the results of the universe’s underlying geometry using concepts like quarks and 20 or so arbitrary constants, but it will never tell us much about it. Another phenomenon? Let’s add another particle.

Um? The Standard Model was built at a time when the known mesons could all be built from four quarks. Kaon "oscillations", however, had been observed, and the quark model forbids such oscillations unless there are six quarks instead of four. So, the original electroweak unification theory was written for a six-quark theory. We discovered a family of heavy mesons in the early 1980s, which fit into the fifth-quark slot that awaited them (only the mass had been unknown), and the top quark in the mid-90s (whose mass had been predicted from LEP data), which fit into the sixth-quark slot that awaited it. How many new particle did we "add", then, in response to the dozen B-mesons, the hundred-odd B meson decays, the B0 oscillations, the K0 oscillations, the top quark mass peak, the LEP data, and so on, that we've discovered since 1975?

What's up with Null Physics? You don't have any idea what the particle masses are; you're guessing that you can describe them with no free parameters. You have no idea what their decays are; ditto. You have no idea what atomic physics, collider physics, cavity QED, etc., results are; you have no idea whether your theory will describe them. Your theory doesn't yet describe the world with fewer parameters than the Standard Model. You just hope that it will. You guess that it will.

Then you say that an electron is

compressed to that size by the proton’s intense fields.

We know what happens when you expose an electron to the proton's intense fields. This is called a "hydrogen atom". We see no evidence, in atoms or in scattering experiments, of any stronger force than the E&M one, and the E&M one does not hold the proton to the electron any stronger than 13.7 eV.

When the theory reaches the stage where it is possible to simulate high-speed proton collisions with this geometry, I’m confident that it will exhibit evidence of “quarks”,

You're confident that the theory will describe data because you're confident that the theory is correct. You're confident that the theory will be correct because you're confident it will describe data.

In Null Physics, evidence suggests that neutrinos are the bound state of photons much in the way that bound electrons are bound into neutrons.

This pretty much speaks for itself. Terry, since you have shown yourself so adept at adding spins together, please demonstrate how you plan to combine two spin-1 photons to make a spin-1/2 neutrino. Then explain why, despite the existence (if you are right) a strong photon-photon attractive force, photons do not interact at all at cross sections down to 10^39 cm^2?

Speaking of spin, all of your posts on the neutron suggest that you're unaware of the left-handed nature of weak interactions. You ought to look this up.

End of criticism, beginning of advice

I hope you'll accept some constructive criticism.

• You need to learn more mainstream physics. Go to your local university bookstore and find the high-energy physics textbooks that a first-year graduate student would use: probably Perkins, or Griffiths, or Halzen & Martin. Read them and do the problems.
• You need to work on theory-experiment comparisons. Why are you wasting time calculating "average nuclear densities"? What experimental quantity were you hoping to compare this to? You need to think, and think hard, about what you can calculate that has been measured, unambiguously and accurately. Don't tell me the 3He "nucleon separation", tell me the charge radius. Don't tell me the "average nuclear density", tell me the Bethe-Weizsacker coefficients, the magic numbers, the decay modes and lifetimes, the low-energy excitations. Don't tell me the "density of a neutron star", which nobody knows: tell me the spindown rate, maximum spin, and the maximum glitch size. Don't tell me the density inside of a black hole; tell me the orbit frequency of the inner edge of the accretion disk.
• Compare your theory to the old models. If you can show, mathematically, that "My theory reduces to QED when X is true, and differs from QED when X is false", this saves you the trouble of solving all of the QED situations by hand. In the end, your theory must reduce to (as appropriate) Newtonian gravity, Maxwell's Equations, General Relativity, Schrodinger's Equation, QED, the Fermi theory of beta decay, Yukawa theory, QCD, and the Standard Model. If it does not reduce appropriately to all of these, it is wrong. Quit complaining about "I'm not ready to do the full Standard Model" and get to work on Maxwell's Equations, or Newton's, or something.
• You need to re-prioritize. Pick some sort of precision physics, a lot of which is done at low energies, and pound on it until you can make a prediction. If you can predict the electron magnetic moment with any accuracy at all, this is worth 100 times as much as a whole book full of cosmology speculations.
• Don't take it personally. If the theory is wrong, it's Nature's fault, not yours. The only thing can be your fault, not Nature's, is your reaction.

Good luck; it's a hard road you've chosen.

 

[Loss Leader]

Earlier in the thread, I asked Terry five questions. He has answered me by PM. My questions and his responses follow:

1. What experiments have been done that produce results consistent with your model that are inconsistent with the prevailing established physics model?

The Standard Model (SM) has been built to fit experiments, and fit them well. That said, my model can calculate things from foundational principles that the SM needs ad hoc constants for. With its 20 or so constants, there are a wide range of phenomenon that the SM can describe that Null Physics cannot (yet).

2. If no such experiments have been done, what experiment could you suggest that would give an answer consistent with your model and rule out whatever everybody else is using.

I've already made some predictions that are listed as Appendix A at nullphysics.com. I am establishing some relationships that might allow these predictions to be tested in the near future.

3. Earlier, it was said that shooting a proton at a neutron does not produce two protons and an electron. This is inconsistent with your model. How do you explain the fact that scientists cannot extract a proton and electron from a neutron.

First, no one on the blog has read my book, so there's a lot they don't know about my model. It is not inconsistent with the collision of two protons. And actually, it's easy to extract a proton and electron from a neutron. Just send one flying into free space, such as off of a nuclear reactor, and the neutron will decay (in an average of 10.2 min) into an electron, proton, and (anti)neutrino.

4. Where have you been all these years? Einstein may have written his first works as a patent clerk but he was young and he spent most of his life in established academia. Any physicist would be required by his university to publish. So where have you been?

I started in physics in 1975 at O.S.U. with the intention of becoming a theoretical physicist. Even then, I noticed that this community was about as open to new ideas as the Omish community, maybe less so. I switched to Electrical and Computer engineering, founded a biomedical company, and sold it recently. If you Google "Terence Witt" it will have the details of the sale. So I've been busy. If you want to know why I haven't published, you can use the current blog as an example, or read Lee Smolin's excellent book, "The Trouble With Physics". It's quite a eye opener.

5. What's the deal with that show The Big Bang Theory? Those two guys are supposed to be physics professors but they live like children and appear to spend no time at all either teaching or researching. Still, it's pretty funny so far and I plan to watch it. Your thoughts?

There's a lot of subsistence positions in physics, such as assistent professorships, post-docs, etc, that pay next to nothing. As to the show, I thought the one I saw was a hoot, particularly when he responded to a noise in the middle of the night with a light saber toy.

I have to say, I agree with him about The Big Bang Theory. It's a funny show.

The rest of his answers are a little unsatisfactory. I like my physical theories to explain experimental evidence that other theories can't. This doesn't seem to be the case here.

Incidentally, from last night's episode of The Big Bang Theory:

Penny: So, what's new in the world of physics?
Leonard: Nothing.

 

[terrywitt]

Hard road? You have no idea...

Goodness. Interesting way to answer a few simple questions. What is truly mystifying is the following statement:

"Physicists are closed-minded and utterly ignorant of the huge philosophical problems with their theories, which are so obviously flawed I shan't trouble to learn how they work."

I have never said that, nor even intimated it. And the bloggers have apparently forgotten that I was originally drawn into this “morass masquerading as an open discussion” by being called a “nutcase” and “crackpot”. I have repeatedly shown a great deal of respect for both the Standard Model and Relativity. The kind of misdirection evident in comments such as the above usually has an underlying cause unrelated to the discussion at hand. But I’m not a psychologist, so let’s get back to physics.

I’m glad ben trotted out most of the typical excuses for the conceptual incompleteness of the current paradigms. In no particular order: what makes you think our ape brain can understand the underpinnings of reality, what makes you think there is any deeper reality, etc. What makes you think there is a pure unification beneath the complexity of matter? This is a good defense. After all, if there is no reason the universe has all of these constants, the current models are not conceptually incomplete! QED. Sorry, not good enough, and neither is the anthropic argument.

Natural philosophy did reach a dead end over 2000 years ago, because it was unable to correlate with the burgeoning empirical evidence that was being acquired, and was not designed to do so. Science then shifted to a heuristic approach. This “modern” approach can be used to successfully describe (AND PREDICT) a wide variety of phenomena because IT IS RELATED TO THE UNDERLYING GEOMETRY. I get that; I’ve said that. Do I need to sign something? Prediction is the whole point of description, this is not a news flash. GENERALIZATION leads quite naturally to PREDICTION. It’s that next telephone pole you find after you’ve seen a few along the road. There are any number of patterns within the rich geometry of which matter and energy are composed.

Natural philosophy died away a couple of thousand years ago, but the questions they asked did not, such as “why does the universe exist?” They persist to this day. That they were never satisfactorily answered does not make them meaningless, or worthless. The relationship between “why does the universe exist?” and the properties that the universe exhibits is not a strained association. Why else would so much work go into the unification of the Standard Model of cosmology with the Standard Model of matter? The purpose of Null Physics is to bridge this gap.

Ben, your knowledge of contemporary models is evident and you’ve gotten some good practice exercising it during this discussion, but you really don’t understand enough about Null geometry to be giving me advice as to how to precede with it. This will no doubt be labeled as a typical woo woo response, but allow me to elaborate. Null Physics is not a mathematical model, and as such it does not, and does not need to, reduce mathematically to other mathematical models. Null Physics provides a pure, rich, nonlinear geometry that has a number of unique characteristics. As noted elsewhere on this vitriolic blog, various solutions of this nonlinear geometry have produced compelling results; calculations that Ben et al have somehow managed to appraise without review. Barring some sort of psychic connection, in clear violation of one of JREF’s fundamental tenants, I’m not quite sure how they managed to pull that off. “Put it in the journals and we’ll review it!” A reasonable request, to be sure, but the theory really does require 480 pages for its full support, and since it is not related to the current mathematical models it would be rejected out of hand, as has happened on this blog. There is also a little speculation in the book, such as neutrinos as “bound states of photons”, and mesons as “high-energy” states of electrons, but these are included in Appendixes so as not to detract from the primary theme. I've included speculations in this discussion because I am continually, and annoyingly, grilled about areas of physics yet to be addressed by my geometry.

So, in closing, consider the following concept, an observation and a supposition. OBSERVATION: As students progress through various levels of math, they solve equations, resulting in analytic expressions, etc. Then they go out in the real world, and analytic solutions are few and far in between. The spring heats when it is compressed. Matter in a gravitational potential emits slightly different photons, etc. Everywhere you look, the most accurate representation is a nonlinear solution or simulation. ASIDE: When Earth was thought to rest on the backs of elephants, a reasonable question surfaced: What do the elephants stand on? The answer was “oh, it’s elephants all the way down…”. SUPPOSITION: Since our surroundings are so predominantly nonlinear, interspersed with traces of analytical patterns, it is reasonable to suppose that the fabric of reality itself is nonlinear, “all the way down”. This inherent nonlinearity can be described AND PREDICTED using mathematical models of various levels of complexity, but we still lose something in the translation – that “why” thing. Null Physics works bottom up from a rich nonlinear geometry, not top down from empirical results. This is why its continued empirical application is a work in progress, and a work that shows great promise, for those who have the opportunity to understand and review its calculations.

 

[Paul]

Just a minor point Terry, but I feel it does highlight your attention to detail:


THIS IS NOT A BLOG





and stop wining about what you think would happen if you attempted peer review, do it and find out.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Terry, in your post above I think you meant "proceed", not "precede" and "tenets" , not "tenants".
Typos are common. (I make many)- but are generally random keyboard errors. These look like actual misapprehensions about the words themselves.

That's not an attack. It's intended to be helpful. As Paul said, you may have slightly misunderstood the environment here. It's not anyone's blog, it's just a discussion forum. (A Bulletin Board in Oldspeak). You are welcome to defend your POV any way you like , within the forum rules, with those who are equipped to follow your arguments. Whether you convince anyone or not is only important if it matters to you personally to do so. This is not a formal adjudication centre on matters of science, just an Internet forum.
You are also free to post elsewhere in the board on anything else that interests you.

Don't feel you are in any sense restricted to this thread. Look around. Relax. There may be other threads of interest or amusement to you.
You don't actually have to be right , or profoundly well informed (on anything) to post here. Interesting folk are always welcome. If you do choose to restrict your posts to defense of a single point of view however, you must expect to be challenged by those with similar interests and knowledge. If they didn't think you worth arguing with, they would ignore you.

 

[Yllanes]

Null Physics is not a mathematical model, and as such it does not, and does not need to, reduce mathematically to other mathematical models.

This is probably your way of saying that your model doesn't actually predict any numbers, but is a collection of qualitative descriptions. If this is true then it is dead on arrival. In physics the only thing that matters is

1. Your theory produces some real quantitative predictions. Some real numbers, in short (cross sections, half lives, etc.)
2. Another guy then does an experiment and gets the same numbers.

That is all. That is what we call 'prediction'.

 

[blobru]

Several investigators have found that the further away a supernova is (i.e., the larger its redshift), the longer it appears to last (i.e., the wider its light cone). The direct linear relationship, apparent duration ≈ redshift, is almost exactly what you'd expect with an expanding universe; however, it contradicts Null Physics' tired light hypothesis: if the redshift is due to light expanding over distance and not space expanding over time, nearby supernovae and distant supernovae should on average appear to be about the same duration (measured by light cone).
How does NP account for this?

 

[terrywitt]

Thanks

Paul: Thanks for the blog terminology clarification. Is the correct term for others on this post “posters,” since “bloggers” is clearly in error? “Forumers” just doesn’t seem to roll off the tongue.

Soapy: Also thanks. I don’t really think it’s primarily a function of wanting to be “right”; from the beginning I’ve just been trying to describe what Null Physics “is”, in the absence of anyone here reading the book. I do know the difference between tenet and tenant, precede and proceed, just as you are no doubt aware that typos can take that form, as the brain is processing to the keyboard. The usual one for me is there and their. I’ll relax, and I have found the discussion very productive in terms of distilling my message to an audience that hasn’t seen the book as well as how to properly offend the physics literati. I certainly did not want to come off as anti-physicist or anti-empiricism. It’s just that when I’m pushing my rusty shopping cart down the interstate, trying to sell books, I can’t understand why people don’t like me.

Yllanes: No, my theory is not qualitative. It has a large number of analytic solutions as well as numerical solutions that result in real numbers - real values. That’s why all of its predictions, listed at nullphysics.com, are testable. Moreover, the source code for some of these calculations can also be found on nullphysics.com.

Blobru: I sit in stunned silence, in the distance, a dog barks. Someone just asked me a great question about my theory!!! Please give me a second to compose myself. Signal dispersion is the prima facie evidence against the original version of tired light. Refractive dispersion is important as well, because if the light were interacting, in any way, with matter, then photons of different frequencies would be dispersed along their path from a distant object, producing chromatic aberration. So we know for a fact that light is not losing energy by interacting with anything in the intergalactic medium, to include “gravitons”. The reason why signals are red shifted and dispersed is because the same dv/dx (gravitational curvature) that stretches photons also separates them along their paths. This is counterintuitive, because it means that two photons leaving at slightly different times, taking the same path, actually move away from each other. Yet this is precisely what space with a four-dimensional curvature ought to do. If it were perfectly rectilinear, two photons, leaving from a source one second apart, would arrive at their destination one second apart. But space is not rectilinear, so this is not what happens. The dv/dx induced by the universe’s average curvature spreads photons as well as the distance between them, because it is immaterial whether or not the dx in dv/dx is within a photon’s wavelength or the separation between two photons in a signal. The next thing to account for is the loss of energy. Photons lose about half of their energy every ~10 billion years. This means that the universe’s entire legacy luminous output is halved every ~10 billion years. This is a prodigious energy loss. Where do you suppose it goes? Microwaves. Deep space photons, when exposed to the expansion of dv/dx, emit microwaves. Since the microwaves are emitted parallel to the photon’s trajectory, energy and momentum are conserved.
Thanks for asking.

 

[Complexity]

This is not to say that Witt isn't a "woo-woo." He well might be. I just don't feel he's getting a fair hearing from people who make statements like "I wouldn't read the book, even if it were free." I'm also concerned that some of the criticisms of his theory are that it doesn't agree with certain assumptions or conclusions of the Standard Model. Of course it doesn't -- he's already stated that he sees flaws in the Standard Model.

Now, I'm not a physicist nor a mathematician, although I take an active interest in both and try to keep reasonably up-to-date on current thinking. And ever since being the first kid in my class to bust the Santa Claus myth, I've been a life-long skeptic with little tolerance for what you call "woo-woo," so I find it strange to find myself defending what is most likely a bit of hokum. I'm just asking that we all play fair.

When I read about string theory, I have to say I'm still not convinced and am quite surprised how so many bright minds are willing to buy into it with no real empirical evidence. Yet this guy comes along with his "null physics," and the pit bulls attack without making much of an effort to find out what he's talking about. I'd like to see Witt's critics concede that the Standard Model isn't the final word and then give him a chance to lay out his case before dogmatically dismissing it, mostly, it would seem, because his ideas are radical and come from outside the guild.

I'm the one who made the comment about not reading the book, even if it were free.

I read a great deal, but I think I'll be able to continue to so for perhaps another ten years.

I seem to be taking about a year to give a serious reading to a good-sized technical book outside of my field (e.g. Lewin's Genes, Janeway's Immunobiology).

I can read a great many non-technical science books in a year (e.g. Greene's The Elegant Universe, Susskind's The Cosmic Landscape, Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful).

I also read a great deal of history, fiction, and books in other areas.

Nonetheless, I will be able to read at most 10 or 15 serious technical books outside of my area during the rest of my life.

Now, why should this guy's book be one of those?

I'm not a physicist. I'm an interested amateur who spent two years as a physics major and gave it up for other things. I will never have the mathematics or physical background required to read uninterpreted physics. I have to, and am happy to, rely on researchers such as Greene and Susskind to interpret for me.

There are several people who participate on this forum who are either gifted amateur or professional physicists. I pay attention to what they have to say. I also have a functioning woodar (and gaydar) and have learned to pay attention when it chirps.

I am not competent to interact with this guy on physics - however wrong he may be, he knows more than I do.

I'm not going to spend my time reading his book - I truly have better things to do. I hope to be reading and thinking long enough to educate myself on some evolutionary developmental biology. That will take many years. It is something that I would love to know more about.

One further point - there are more people demanding that their theories get a full hearing than there are hours each day. You have to pick and choose what is worth even cursory study, let alone a deep reading.

This guy doesn't make the cut, for me. If he does for someone else, great. I'd be interested in a short digest from someone I respect. But I certainly don't expect anyone to invest their time unless the guy makes their cut on his own.

 

[terrywitt]

So long, but thanks for all the fun

This has been an absolute hoot, and I wanted to thank all the posters for a great time and the lively discourse. I wish you all the best. TW

 

[Taffer]

That's a shame, Terry. You really should listen to some of what has been said here.

 

[Broes]

TW:
If your theory is so describtive of reality and makes science shudder at it's most fundamental roots, why are we hearing about this on an obscure internet forum and not in a mayor scienific journal with peer review?

 

[ben m]

( Did I miss him? I just read his explanation of how photons "decay" instead of redshifting. )

Aha, the decay photons are collinear with the source photons? That means that the microwave "decay" photons must point back to their sources. In other words, you're not predicting a microwave background, you're predicting that all high-redshift objects are microwave point sources. This is experimentally not true. You're predicting that higher-redshift sources should *always* have higher microwave-to-primary-light ratios. This is also experimentally not true.

So that's that.

(If I understand the cosmology correctly, you're also not solving "Olber's Paradox"; since you don't remove energy from any line of sight, but just move it from a few optical photons into many microwave photons, you're just shunting the problem from optical frequencies to low frequencies.)