View 295 November 2 - 8, 2009 (original) (raw)
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009
A speculation on relativity:
The major evidence for the special theory of relativity is the Michaelson-Morely experiment, which demonstrated that there was no "ether wind" due to the movement of the earth through it. (For a thorough discussion of the experiment including the precise results, not just the conclusions, see Tom Bethel, Questioning Einstein, which presents the alternative theory of Dr. Petr Beckmann; note that this questions special, not necessarily general, relativity which is another matter. The book also looks at data that may not be consistent with special relativity (aberration in spectroscopic binaries, synchronized clocks in the GPS system, gaining and losing time when sending clocks around the Earth).
Einstein's special theory dismisses ether as not required to explain the known data. That leaves us with the oddity that light is a wave but there is no medium it waves in. Petr Beckmann postulated there is an ether, but it is the gravitational field, which means it is entangled with the earth; there are implications for the Michaelson-Morely experiment. Clearly an entangled gravitation field has diminishing influence as you get farther from Earth and into more dense fields such as the solar gravitational field -- and beyond that one to interstellar space.
My speculation: we are beginning to postulate both dark energy and dark matter to explain gravitational anomalies: there just isn't enough matter in the universe to explain what we see.
Could dark matter be the "ether"? In which case it would certainly react to gravitational fields, and in effect do what Beckmann's theory predicts. It would also provide a medium in which light can wave. I haven't the mathematical acuity to work out the details of this, and I suspect it's obviously wrong, but it was a thought I had while on my walk yesterday morning. I still don't understand waves without something to wave in, and I've heard most of the explanations. A sound wave can be described as a series of rarefactions and compressions in air, and it's easy to understand. Waves through an ether are a bit more complex (there's the polarization phenomena) but again they're comprehensible. Waves in an utter void are a bit tougher to visualize, which is one reason why the corpuscular theory of light hung on for so long. In any event, I think that "dark matter" as "ether" would behave about the same as Petr Beckmann's ether as the local gravitational field since the dark matter would be as entangled as the gravity field. It would eliminate "spooky action at a distance", and for that matter would explain gravity waves...
I put this as a "cocktail party" theory, one I will defend casually but I can't claim to have investigated with any thoroughness. Another of my cocktail party theories is that dogs were critical to human evolution: they used their forebrains to develop a sense of smell, we used that part to get smart; the symbiosis meant that villages with dogs had more surviving children, etc., etc. As I said, a cocktail party theory but one I've had for many years and I haven't seen any actual refutation. Of course that implies an ethical obligation: long ago our ancestors made a deal with dogs whereby we looked after each other's offspring. Leave that: the interesting theory just now is "Dark Matter is Ether."
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Yesterday's by-election was encouraging. New Jersey, as blue a state as you can get, now has a Republican governor. In Virginia the Republicans had a landslide. In upstate New York the country club republicans and rinos got an interesting message. Across the country the results have been encouraging, to the point that the Senate Democrats are now talking about further delays in the Health Care Bill That Was Demanded Before September.
If you are concerned about the rush to nationalize health care and carbon use, yesterday was a good day. Not as good as it might have been, but a good day. We'll take what we can get in this year of grace...
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JOB NOTICE
(I don't post job offers very often, but this one comes from someone I can hardly refuse)
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Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.
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From the Club for Growth on the upstate New York Congressional election:
Party labels aside, conservatives lost nothing last night, as Scozzafava and Owens are both avowed liberals in support of Nancy Pelosi's agenda in the House of Representatives. Doug Hoffman was our only chance to bring real change to Washington, and in little more than a month, we almost helped him pull it off.
Recall that the reason the seat was vacant is that McHugh (formerly the Republican incumbent in that seat) accepted a position in the Obama administration. Winning the seat would have been encouraging, but the loss is not critical to conservative principles. The lesson to Republican Party officials is that the country remains center/right. When Clinton pronounced that the era of Big Government was over, a majority of the nation cheered. When Gingrich left Congress and the Republicans pulled the stake out of Big Government's heart and resurrected it, they lost support. Obama did not campaign as far left of Bill Clinton. He governs left but he didn't run from the left. He'll have to consider his options now.
For those who favor limited government and federalism the news from yesterday was good, perhaps not bracing, but certainly not depressing.
Coming up: another assessment of Afghanistan. What would we consider a victory in Afghanistan? Is that achievable? If so, is it achievable at a cost we are willing to pay? If not, and we must abandon Victory, then what must we do now?