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The following is a more developed version of the paper I posted on Science Blog about a year ago. I describe the motion of mass in time with a more visual example, and I give a more detailed alternative account of Young’s double-slit experiment. I’ve also added a section linking the hypothesis with the energy commonly attributed to gravitation.
The physical ambiguity of mathematics in gravitation theory has led to an overextension of the mathematics and resulted in theoretical misdirection.
Modern taxonomy consists in the classification of organisms primarily according to their genetic proximity. With this emphasis there is insufficient attention to levels of organization whereby interdependent but merely composite associations of cells would be distinguished from supra-cellular individuals. An examination of the structural requirements of individuality suggests that plants, jellyfish, starfish, and others are best defined as complex systems of cells rather than as individual entities. It is concluded that when cellular systems are discriminated as such, true animals are more clearly profiled not as associations of organisms, but wholly developed organisms of organisms, in recognition of which taxonomic revision would be appropriate and advantageous.
Science is at a peculiar juncture. Despite all that has been written it has yet to be comprehensively defined both in contrast to earlier world-views and in terms adequate to include and discriminate its historical variations. And the distinction among what are called science, technology, and philosophy remains unsettled, if not neglected.
This article is an attempt to define science in contrast to technology and pre-scientific world-views, to identify science as a form of philosophy, and to make a case for the importance of a larger perspective and a more professional temperance in scientific society.
It is proposed that light is at absolute rest, its apparent motion being the reflection of the motion of mass in time. The hypothesis resolves the paradox of the apparent wave/particle duality of light, accounts for its speed being invariant and a physical limit, and explains other peculiarities of its behavior.
The parabolic geometry of the Minkowski Diagram is attributed to an implicitly pre-relativistic perspective. An alternative diagram is offered, taking a relativistic perspective within spacetime, which consequently retains a Euclidean geometry. The alternative is examined for its ability to parallel the mathematics of Special Relativity and for the immediate insights it provides into the nature of spacetime and light.
It is argued that the attempt to assimilate gravitation in quantum theory is inconsistent with the principles of science. Two thought experiments are employed to demonstrate that the quantum concept of gravitation is incompatible with the general theory of relativity, and without either theoretical foundation or empirical support. It is concluded that the philosophical reliance on mathematical constructs in contemporary physics, to the exclusion of conceptualization, has resulted in wasteful and meaningless pursuits.
