Dale wrote:
I have been posting for a few years on Usenet about an alternative theory that has not received a lot of support but then again it has not received much criticism either.
It looks at the idea that since gravity can be shown to slow time,that this slowing or dilation of time can in turn can be shown to contract matter in such a way that it will also expand the surrounding space.
You need to see my web site www.alttheories.com if you want to see some gedankens to to get you thinking about why this is probably true.To save time and posting time I am just going to review one of the suggested experiments here that could be used to test this theory and you can see how this type of expansion would so neatly give the same predictions as those of inflation theory now.
Everyone now knows how time is supposed to be slower near black holes, neutron stars and to lesser extents any planets with gravity. For the sake of clarity it should be pointed out that this time slowing or rather most commonly referred to as time dilation works on objects even if they no longer experience gravity by for example just starting their free fall deep inside the gravity well.
So assuming this theory is right then an object experiencing time at about 1/2 of our time would relatively speaking of course then that object to us would also appear to have contracted by 1/2 to our prospective.
Now for the hypothetical experiment.
Free falling objects would contract around their centers of gravity as they fall towards such things as neutron stars or black holes.Two cubes placed near each other would contract and appear to travel away from each other much the way that by analogy 2 cubes of jellow left to dry out would contract around their centers of gravity and leave more space between them. But the problem with using this method to test the theory is that objects in free fall towards a planet will also fall towards a common center and as a result would travel towards each other however this could be avoided if you had our planets all strung together in such a way that we have the one axis along lengthwise where objects do not have to fall towards a single point and then we have that one axis where we can observe the effect without it being swamped out by the need to fall towards a single point.
What would be seen to happen on our hypothetical space ship in free fall is that the 2 cubes would contract around their common centers of gravity and would at the same time appear to move away from each other.Its to be noted here that our space ship must also contract with ten ends becoming closer adding to the appearance of movement.Note how this type of movement is the same as if new space were being created between the cubes and that they are not actually moving at all.
This theory appears simplistic but when applied to the creation of black holes results in similar predictions for hypothetical observers inside of the black hole while it being created.Remarkably similar to those of inflation theory.Occam's razer would probably favor this theory.
There is a lot more to this theory thats not even on my web site yet but it has been examined quite completely mostly in sci.physics under my name Dale.

Newton's third law is more restrictive than Anonymous' reformulation. Anon claims that makes the reformulation better.

Next up, restating the principles of relativity to allow for faster-than-light travel of one of a pair of interacting particles as long as their center of mass travels slower than the speed of light.

Or redefining the uncertainty principle to allow perfect determination of both position and momentum of one particle as long as another particle that interacts with it has twice the uncertainty.

C'mon, Anon, you need to do better than that!

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

The sum of forces equals zero works for your two body case and for shooting pool and hanging clothes on a close line.

While you may or may not be able to resolve complex forces into two, the summation to zero at equilibrium is still true for more than two.

It also works for single body in a magnetic or electric force field. It's the forces not the bodies.

Gadfly, I accept your bite, but Anonymous' redefinition of Newton's third law must not be allowed to pass without comment.

Anonymous claims:

Newton's Third Law does not tell us forces exist in pairs. Newton's third law tells us the sum of the vector forces is zero.

Here's what Wikipedia says, in agreement with every reputable source I have seen in the 48 years I have been studying physics:

Third law
Whenever a particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction. The strong form of the law further postulates that these two forces act along the same line. This law is often simplified into the sentence "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction".

The Wikipedia article also includes Newton's original Latin wording and the precise English translation, which is accurately summarized in the quoted portion directly above.

I put it this way in the introduction to my history of 20th-century physics (page xx), where I discuss the importance of conservation laws:

Conservation of Momentum. The oldest conservation law in physics results from two of Newton's three laws of motion. The third law, commonly known as the law of action and reaction, states that forces always occur in equal and opposite pairs. Whenever one body exerts a force on another, then the second body exerts the exactly same amount of force on the first, but in the opposite direction....

Newton's second law states that when a force acts on a body, it produces a change in a quantity called momentum, which is commonly expressed mathematically as the product of mass and velocity. The longer the force acts on a body, the greater the change in the body's momentum. When two bodies exert equal and opposite forces on each other, they produce equal and opposite changes in momentum. Thus if no other forces are acting on them, the change in total momentum of the two bodies must be zero.

Anonymous, would you care to tell us why we should accept your definition rather than Newton's original words?

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

As the galaxies approach the Boundary, the velocity increases and the redshift z=v/c=cosv increases. At the Boundary, z=1=v/c=cos(angle zero), radial velocity at v=c.

The redshift is the indicator of the equilibrium condition as the galaxies acccelerate toward the Boundary. The acceleratin at the boundary is c^2/R=c^2/158E24 where Radius is 158E24 meters.

Prior to the Boundary the galaxies have a rotation velocity around the center and a radial velocity less than the speed of light. At the Boundary there is only a radial velocity at the speed of light.

Newton's Third Law does not tell us forces exist in pairs. Newton's third law tells us the sum of the vector forces is zero. The actual mathematical form of Newton's Third law is the vector counterpart of the equilibrium law.

0= m(dcv/dR + cDelxv - Del u/R)= m(dv/dt + cv/R sinv + cv/R cosv)

In words the sum of the vector forces sum to zero. The term mdv/dt is the hypotenuse and the other two terms are the radial and transverse components.

That's the geometry of Newton's Third law.

The total equilibrium equation is:

0= f=ma =X(-mu/R + mcv)= m(u/R^2 - cDel.v) +
m(dc/dR + cDelxv - Del u/R)

Newton's third law is the continuity vector equation.

The scalar continuity equation gives the balance of the centripetal and centrifugal forces.

Newton's First and Second and Third law is the Equilibrium (Bounded Finite Universe) equation:

0 XE = f = ma =(d/dR + Del)(-mu/R + mcv)

1. 1st law aceleration equal zero, no change in motion.
2. law force = ma
3. sum of forces equal zero.

Another denier of Newton's third law has appeared, only this one speaks of centrifugal force instead of Super Force.

In both cases, we have a force exerted on a body without that body exerting a corresponding force on anything. Would either of them care to explain that?

Both of them make a mish-mash of relativity, and this one does it with odd algebra and mangled geometry.

But the Gadfly bite goes to Fred for encouraging this deluded pair (and the others who are lurking waiting to add to this craziness)! You should have known better than to have engaged the Galileo-complex-mind of Hamilton!

This bite of realism brought to you by "Gadfly."

P.S.: No matter how bad this gets, Gadfly will only bite this once.

The power of this finite universe is P=c^5/G= 3645E49 watts!

The redshift is an indicator of equilibrium not expansion. The universe is in dynamic equilibrium due to conservation of gravitational energy. The math simplified is
Gravitational Energy E=-mu/R + mcv. Newton and Einstein left out the "mcv" kinetic energy. This kinetic energy is responsible for "dark energy".

Conservation of energy gives: mu/R^2= mcDel.v= mcV/R cos(v). The CentriPetal (center seeking ) acceleratin is v^2/R and the CentriFugal (center fleeing) acceleration is mcV/R cos(v).

At equilibrium mv^2/R= mvc/R cos(v) give cos(v)=v/c=z!

z is the redshift, derived from the equilibrium condition. Hubble viewed the redshift as "an unknown principle of nature". Unfortunately, the redshift measurements have been mis-intepreted as expansion. The redshift is the indicator of dynamic equilibrium, the balance of forces. Gravity creates the velocity and as such the centrifugal force. In a way gravity is responsible for the the dark energy also. v=Sqrt(GM/R) the larger the gravity the larger v and the larger mcv. The redshift is cos(v)= v/c=sqrt(Gm/Rc^2). the angle of the cosine is a measure of redshift. Cos(v) is teh beta of Relativity Theory and Lorentz's Factor is 1/sin(v)=1/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2)= 1/sqrt(sin(v)^2)= 1/sin(v).

At the boundary of the Universe, v=c z=v/c=1=cos(v) and the velocity is all radial. The Universe Radius R=158E24 meters. Hubble's constant = c/R = 3E8/158E24= 1.8987E-18= 58.48 km/s/MPc.

The age (cycle) of the Universe is 16.69 Billion years. The shape of the Universe is cuboctahedron and the density is 22E-27 kg/m^3. This density is consistent with a closed universe.

The falling galaxies is correct. The Universe is Finite and closed. The redshift is mis-interpreted by physicists.

See my book:

http://www.lulu.com/content/1839449

Fred - I'll stick with my outrageous predictions and you can believe whatever you want. To me "The Finite Universe" theory makes alot more sense then any of the stories your espousing above. Take care now and have a good life.

Best regards, Don Hamilton

http://novan.com/mind.htm The Mind of Mankind: Human Imagination, the source of mankind's tremendous power!

Don,

This is getting tiresome. You refuse to address my questions about huge problems with your finite, static universe model. But I'll try once--and only once--more to address yours.

My response to the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe is not to throw out Newton's third law and relativity. I see several more reasonable explanations, including these two.

1. It is possible that the acceleration is only apparent, since it is based on "standard candle" supernovas, and occasional deviations in the behavior of those supernovas have been observed. If further observations ultimately show that we are making incorrect assumptions about those "standard candles," then the acceleration may prove to be an illusion.

2. It is possible that the acceleration is real and correctly measured. In that case, it may well be an acceleration of spacetime itself, consistent with a particular Cosmological Constant in General Relativity.

Either of these is much more believable than your model, for reasons stated many times earlier in this thread.

Your other issue is with the cosmic inflation. In my book, I put that idea in perspective, leaving open the door for further discovery that may unite the grainy ideas of quantum mechanics and the spacetime continuum of general relativity. I write:

How could that be? In 1981, Alan Guth (1947- ), a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed an explanation for that odd result. [See note below] His idea, which he called inflation, blended a grand unified theory (GUT) with the physics of phase transitions, such as the freezing or melting. As he explained it, during an unimaginably short time after the Big Bang, the entire universe underwent a phase change, during which space itself expanded at a rate much greater than the speed of light. Before that phase transition, all matter/energy was unified. That led to thermal equilibrium between all regions of the universe, including those regions that were too far apart to communicate after that transition. At about the same time as Guth proposed cosmic inflation, John Schwarz and Michael Green (1946- ) modified string theory by adding another dimension and calling it superstring theory. As the decade proceeded, other physicists added even more dimensions, the precise number depending on the particular version of superstring theory that the physicists preferred. The number of physicists involved in string theory research increased rapidly in the 1984-86 period, as they realized the mathematics could describe all the subatomic particles and their interactions.

GUTs, superstrings, and cosmic inflation provide useful mathematical descriptions that tie together cosmology—the study of the behavior of the universe as an entity—and the physics of subatomic particles. Those approaches were developed to provide a foundation for a wide variety of observed physical phenomena, but none of them has yet led to a prediction of a testable but unobserved phenomenon. Until that happens, some physicists are reluctant to consider any of those approaches as a full-blown "theory," since scientists usually reserve that term for ideas that are not only supported by a large body of evidence but have also demonstrated their predictive power. This book follows the common terminology, using "string theory" and "grand unified theory" for example, even though calling them theories probably overstates the case.

Though Guth's idea has not yet reached the level of acceptance of the Big Bang (which made some remarkably accurate predictions about the ratios of the various isotopes in the universe), and string theory continues to be dubious, they are both consistent with the evidence and with both of the still un-unified quantum mechanics and general relativity.

In other words, they have survived the questioning of the entire physics community and are regarded as viable ideas.

Neither makes predictions as outrageous as yours, yet you continue asserting without responding to my questions.

If anyone is selling a bridge in Brooklyn, at this point it appears to be you. Show me the deed to your bridge and I might give your claim a bit more respect.

In other words, answer my questions already, Don. I won't respond further to yours until you do.

Note: The "odd result" refers to the apparent thermal equilibrium, as seen in measurements of the cosmic microwave background, of regions of space that are so far apart that they could never have interacted in the Universe's 13.7 billion year lifetime.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

Fred - My evidence is the same as yours - The redshift indicates that the galaxies are moving away from each other. Until recently the scientists all thought the galaxies were moving away from each other as the expansion (big bang) of the universe ran its course and would be slowing down and would eventually fall back only to repeat this action again - but they found out they were wrong in 1998. They realized the galaxies were actually accelerating outward - so their theory fell apart. They had to do some major rethinking to repair their theory so they invented dark energy and resurrected Einstein's cosmological constant.

I had already surmised that the galaxies where accelerating (falling) when I published my book two years before in 1996. To me it looked like the galaxies are simply falling toward an unseen attractive force.

My "Finite Universe Theory" with the galaxies falling (accelerating) toward its boundary makes more sense then the "patched up" big bang theory with its exploding singularity, rapidly expanding space and the eventual entropy as the galaxies fly off into the unknown and the universe freezes over.

Come on now Fred - does this really make sense to you? If you buy that - I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell to you cheap.

Best regards - Don Hamilton

Don,

Since you asked a direct question, I'm back for one more comment--probably my last one this topic.

I don't care about what category you put my imagination in. All I ask is that you address my questions. If you can't provide evidence for your conjectures, that doesn't make you a crackpot or the theory a crackpot theory. That just makes this discussion unproductive.

As for whether they find the Higgs particle, it doesn't matter whether we place a bet. All that counts is what Nature tells us. If they find the particle, I just hope it is soon enough that Peter Higgs and some of his colleagues will still be alive. [If you are not living, you can't be considered for the Nobel Prize (much to the chagrin of those who think Rosalind Franklin has been cheated out of her full recognition for her work on DNA).]

Speaking of what Nature tells us, Newton's third law and its most important consequence, conservation of momentum, seem to be valid descriptions of Nature, but your theory tosses them out without comment.

According to Relativity, there is no privileged inertial frame of reference, but you theory asserts there is (with its origin at the center of the fixed finite universe) while providing no way to locate that frame's origin or our position with respect to it.

Your theory also postulates a Newton's-third-law-violating Super Force without laying out its properties. No observations seem to require it. Even the accelerating expansion of the Universe has explanations in Relativity. Why leap to such an assertion without any basis?

You also dismiss the Big Bang theory without considering its considerable successes, such as a very accurate prediction of the mix of elements in the Universe, without proposing an alternate explanation. (See my book or its sources, such as The Magic Furnace by Marcus Chown or Stardust by John and Mary Gribbin.) The Big Bang is on a much firmer theoretical footing than the proposed incredibly short but important interval of faster-than-light inflation, which is probably what you are referring to in your questions. My book discusses that, too.

In short, yours is not a crackpot theory but a useless one (and in my view incorrect) without the support I've been asking for.

Make your case by responding to your challengers, and don't concern yourself with whether anyone else thinks you are a crackpot. You seem to be reveling in that designation, but I suggest a different one.

Have you considered whether Renaisauce's "Galileo Complex" post applies to you? My judgment is that it does.

Perhaps you'd rather be called a crackpot than a paradigm of that condition.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

Fred - I didn't mean to disparge 20th century physics discoveries - it was an incredible century - but your book is old stuff - thats what history is all about - its very important to study the history of physics - that's what going to college is all about - I hope your book can help students clarify their learning. But I'm interested in the future of discovering new ideas and challenging the weaker ideas.

You are obviously a very intelligent person who was able to learn all that the colleges have to offer and probably graduated magna cum laude but do you have any original ideas in your head, stuff that is so radical, that you could be elevated by your peers to that of a "crackpot". There are a lot of great scientists who went through that stage before their ideas were accepted. (By the way thank you for promoting me to being a "crackpot" - your not the first to do so.)

Fortunately I do not work for a university and have no status in science education so I do not have to fear losing my job if I buck the wrong people or offer radical ideas that no one accepts for now. That's why I published my book in 1996 - to put my ideas out there for all to see. Thanks to the internet they have been sent all over the world.

I'll bet you 5 bucks they never find the Higgs particle!

Best Regards, Don Hamilton

Fred - check out: http://novan.com/pwr-imag.htm (I put you in the second category - what do you think?)
dlham@prodigy.net

...I suggest you read it.

I'm responding only to defend my work.

Since you clearly don't understand the significance of the remarkable developments in 20th-Century Physics, then there is no way to appreciate what lies ahead in the 21st.

Here is the closing section of Physics: Decade by Decade in a concluding chapter called "Cosmic and Terrestrial Challenges for the Twenty-First Century."

...The only reasonable conclusion is that the future of the science is as unpredictable now as it was 100 years ago.

David Gross (1941- ) of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, would agree. Gross shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics for the development of Quantum Chromodynamics (the strong-force version of quantum electrodynamics) during the 1970s and has been a strong proponent of string theory. His work made him a natural selection to give the closing address at the 23rd Solvay Conference in Physics, held in Brussels, Begium, in December, 2005, a prestigious event with a history going back to the 1911, the year that Rutherford announced his discovery of the atomic nucleus. "Many of us believed that string theory was a very dramatic break with our previous notions of quantum theory. But now we learn that string theory, well, is not that much of a break."

He compared the present state of the theory with the puzzling discoveries of radioactivity, which was discovered by Becquerel in 1896, described in detail by Rutherford and Soddy in the first decade of the 20th century, but was not explained until quantum mechanics was well developed. Physicists "were missing something absolutely fundamental" at the time of the first Solvay Conference, he noted. "We are missing perhaps something as profound as they were back then."

Some might view Gross' words about the future of physics as discouraging, but they should not be interpreted that way. The missing theoretical ingredient is a challenge, not a failure. Physicists are, as always, engaging in difficult quests. New Einsteins, Rutherfords, Paulis, Meitners, Feynmans, Bardeens, Gell-Manns, Alvarezes, Hawkings, and Ledermans are already at work, looking for new ways to view old problems. Will 21st-century physics yield the Higgs particle, a theory of high-temperature superconductivity, or a theory of everything? Will physics-based technologies lead to fusion power, quantum computers, and remarkable materials?

The answer to many of those questions is almost certain to be yes.

Like any good history, its real point is to provide insights into the present and future. But since you reject Newton's third law and the fundamental basis of relativity, I don't feel bad that you are rejecting my much less significant insights as well.

I'm now signing off of this thread. I leave in anticipation that you will claim that your theory is as ground-breaking as all the others I mention. The difference, which you apparently do not see, is that those theories have withstood challenges and have been supported by observation and experiments.

Yours is nothing more than a set of outrageous assertions with nothing to support them. You have still not answered the questions and challenges that I, along with an anonymous poster, have raised.

If you want credibility, you need to respond to such questions. Attacking the questioners or their work may succeed in politics, but it does not "cut it" in science.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

Not only does that violate causality, but it also reinforces one question you didn't answer, namely what evidence do you have that this central region exists (counter to the basic premise of Relativity)?

The same evidence that you have for the big bang singularity suddenly coming into existence and expanding from the origin outwards in all directions - faster then the speed of light! That infers a central region!

ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE- A NEW PRINCIPLE
Propounded by Dr. Hari Om, Sr. Scientist Agronomy CCS HAU, Hisar (Kurukshetra)

According to this principle, which is called 'Principle of Cipher Zone', the universe was originated in a series of four steps, i.e., four sub-principles are involved in this process. These sub-principles explain the origin of universe, its dissolution, basis of its expansion and status of energy in a star.

The Principle of Cipher Zone propounds that the theory of 'Big Bang' is not responsible for the origin of universe, but this process advanced in a series of steps, which did not involve any vast explosion of the energy like Big Bang. It started as the process of formation of a star initiates. Today, the completion of this process takes lesser ?time' as it was taken for the formation of first star, because in the present universe, the material required for the formation of a star becomes readily available, but initially it was not so and this process proceeded very slowly. When the energy of this first star was burnt, it converted into a black hole; but before this conversion, the process of the formation of other stars and planets was initiated and they started revolving around this initially appeared central star. In this way along with the central black hole (converted from the first star) the surrounding stars also formed their own families and kept on revolving around the central black hole. Slowly and slowly, the first Milky Way came into existence. The black hole, which was initially formed, now occupied the central space of the first Milky Way thus formed and simultaneously this central black hole of the central Milky Way went on increasing its size by feeding the surrounding old stars. This way, other Milky Ways also came into existence around the central Milky Way and started revolving around it. All these later formed milky ways also had their own central black holes and found their base of stability from the initially formed central black hole and the central Milky Way like a string tied to the neck of the surrounding Milky Ways with the central one. When all the surrounding black holes merged into the initially formed gigantic black hole, the whole of the universe realized dissolution i.e. Maha Pralya.

Now after dissolution, there remained only one universal black hole in which the energy of the whole universe turned into waves of almost compatible character with a stable centre of least moving energy having very dense core at the centre. Slowly and slowly the fast moving energy present at the periphery of this black hole went sluggish and slowed down which got scattered with the passage of time. The movement of the energy at the periphery gets faster and faster upto when the outside material in the form of stars, planets, or Milky Ways remains available for feeding, but it starts slowing down once the whole material is immersed in the central universal black hole. In this way, the whole black hole scattered with the passage of time. After that, the process the creation again started. These two processes of creation and dissolution proceed simultaneously through the creation of new stars and galaxies at the outer periphery and simultaneous dissolution of stars and surrounding galaxies into the central black hole of the central galaxy.

The expansion of universe is also not due to Big Bang, but it is attributed to the size of the continuously increasing black hole at the centre of the Milky Ways. As the size of the central black hole increases, the expansion as well as the speed of the Milky Ways running away from the centre will go on increasing, but a time will come when the outer expansion will be ceased due to extraneous increase in the size of black hole or we can say that increasing density of the central black hole will not allow the further expansion of the galaxy. The incoming energy of the system will dominate over the outgoing energy. With this advancement in the increase of the black hole size, the whole universe will fall and rest in the centre. Every existence or system has a zone of neutral energy at its centre and in its surrounding where its energy ends and the periphery of another system starts. When these two neutral energy zones are merged into one, then the system or existence ceases to work and collapses or we can say that the differential strata of energy of that system are converted into more compatible and unified form of energy or we can say that it is the expansion of the central zone of neutral energy which compels that system to collapse. During the process of expansion, the central zone or black holes of different galaxies goes on increasing. This increase in the area and density of black holes in the middle of the galaxies allow the expansion of the galaxies. The ratio of increase in the area or volume of the black holes in relation to the expansion of outgoing and expanding energy can be assessed with the increase in the ratio of expansion of the nucleus of an atom and the overall expansion of that atom in the form of its mass and energy.

The working of the system depends on the presence of energy at different levels and the inter- and intra-facial tension in those energy fields. When these fields are merged together, the system collapses or dissolved. In this way, the different systems or existences either small or large are converted into energy waves and this way the process of dissolution proceeds until a sole, gigantic and universal zone of neutral energy or Cipher Zone is formed, which brings the final dissolution.

This present theory also refutes the finding that a star has the maximum temperature at its core. This theory propounds that a star has highly peaceful zone at its centre; it is not explosive. Every star or system has two types of energy; incoming and outgoing, working entirely at different level and in different direction. The larger is the system or existence, the greater it will have the zone of neutral energy at its centre i.e. a peaceful zone providing stable base to the whole system. The greater is the expansion of the zone of peace and stability at the centre, the more explosive or vibrating will be the surface energy either it is a star like Sun or vast ocean or galaxy. This is true only when the star or the system is composed of similar type of energy at its centre. If the system, like earth, has different type of energy particles at different levels, then the energy will be explosive at its core because of the admixture of different form of energy in the central zone. This is due to the interfacial stress among different types of energy resting at the same level.

The central zone is nothing but the zone of neutrality, the zone of satisfied energy either it is at the level of smallest particle existing as an atom or largest systems like sea, star or galaxy. The unsatisfied or vibrating or tension creating charge at the surface is the result of the degree of vastness of the internal satisfied power of the system; if measured at the surface of the sea, there is a possibility of the prediction of future rains and devastating thunderstorms or catastrophic Tsunami outbursts. This charge may have its impact on the El-Niño effect and difference of temperature in seawater. If it is measured inside the earth, there can be a possibility of the prediction of earthquakes.
Radhasoami

DR . HARIOM , SR . SCIENTIST – AGRONOMY , CCSHAU – HISAR (KURUKSHETRA)TO ASK hariomkvk@gmail.com jasdeep.sindhu@gmail.com& PLZ VISIT TO KNOW MORE www.radhasoamitaradham.com

[Note: Don's "explanation," if you can call it that, probably doesn't even merit this reply. Gadfly, bite me now!]

Okay, so you toss out Newton's third law with

The super force at the boundary of the universe is not a wall, it is simply where the laws of nature cease to exist, it is where space ends. Nothing can penetrate the boundary - not even the full force of a galaxy crashing into it. Beyond the boundary there are no laws to guide matter or energy, therefore they cannot exist in this lawless void.

because the Super Force is exerted by nothing, and thus there is an action without an equal and opposite reaction.

Since the third law leads directly to the conservation of momentum, this proposal also tosses out a fundamental conservation law.

You also postulate an instantaneous effect due to a cause tens of billions of light years away by writing

the matter spontaneously appears in the central region at the same time as the matter is absorbed at the boundary

Not only does that violate causality, but it also reinforces one question you didn't answer, namely what evidence do you have that this central region exists (counter to the basic premise of Relativity)?

You didn't provide anything that describes the mathematical properties of the Super Force or how we can detect it in the universe. The expansion and acceleration of that expansion have explanations that fit within the conventions of Relativity, so you can't claim those phenomena as evidence that the Super Force provides a better explanation.

In short, your response is so far from sufficient that I am unwilling to continue this discussion. Call me a stick-in-the-mud if you will, but I need more than platitudes to overthrow conservation of momentum, causality, and relativity, not to mention centuries of observational and experimental evidence that support those ideas.

Show evidence and provide the missing specifics of your theory. Otherwise its claims can only be regarded as outlandish at best and "crackpot" at worst.

And now, having drawn some more of Don's more outrageous assertions into the light, I leave it to others to defend them or comment further. My work is done here, as "Gadfly" might say.

[Final note: I just noticed Don has replied to Anonymous with an answer that includes a rejection of entropy. There goes thermodynamics and information theory out the window as well! That response also indicates that we live in the central region of the universe, yet Don has made no suggestion of how we can detect all the massless matter that is suddenly appearing here. This has now reached the point where I officially declare this a waste of everybody's time, and I am only posting this because it is already written.

If you've read this far, what is wrong with you? :) You'd be far better off discovering my history of physics in the Twentieth Century, Physics: Decade by Decade (Facts on File, 2007).]

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2008-05-18 01:00.

This theory, if it can even be called on, disagrees with experiment, and is therefore false.

1. The universe is falling off in all directions. If your idea described our universe, the observed acceleration of all studied galaxies away from ours would occur only if our galaxy happened to be in the center of the universe, which we must expect is not the case for the idea to be a valid scientific theory.

The galaxies, in our observable part of the universe, are all falling in the same general direction to their repective part of the boundary. Even though they are all falling in the same general direction they are all moving away from each other as the volume within the universe's sphere grows larger toward the boundary (except those that are close enough to be gravitationally attracted to each other).

2. The cosmic background radiation is uniform in all directions. Again, in a universe that was steady-state, there would be a non-uniform distribution of light energy, as you described. This is not how our universe happens to be.

The universe is filled with radiation no matter what direction we look.

3. There is no center of the universe. Even if the universe happens to be finite, it does not have a "center" in the 3-dimensional classical sense. If there was a center, it must be set apart from every other point in space by some characteristic. No such characteristic has been observed.

There is a central region that may even be as large as our observable universe. This is were the massless matter is created ( to replace the matter being absorbed at the boundary) and begins its journey outward, slowly accelerating toward the far off boundary. Since it begins its journey as massless (or nearly massless) matter, it would have little or no gravitational power. The Super Force (the fifth force) is a unique force, it is not gravity - it attracts matter, not the mass of matter.

4. Your idea disagrees with special relativity by defining a preferred frame of reference. If such a frame of reference existed, it would have been detected by the Michelson-Morley experiment.

The only thing the M/M experiment discovered was that matter does not move relative to space itself - which the scientists rejected as too far fetched.

The most obvious problem for your idea stems from the mistaken attempt to satisfy the conservation of energy. If we define a thermal system that has boundaries that act as you describe, it would amount to a perpetual motion machine. This is known to violate the only scientific law explicitly stated herein.

The finite universe is a perpetual motion machine, it has been going on for a long time and will continue - probably forever. The universe is completely sealed - nothing can escape from it - no energy or matter. There is no entropy!There are no laws beyond the boundary therefore no radiation or matter can journey beyond it. It is 100% efficient.

Don Hamilton
Refer: The MIND of Mankind http://novan.com/mind.htm

So besides a point-by-point answer to my original questions, I am looking for answers to the following as well:
Q1:
Where does that "new massless matter" appear, and how can it appear immediately when the absorption event took place tens of billions of light years away? And if the new matter is massless, it must be traveling at the speed of light, right? And what does "mass/gravity/energy of the matter" mean for massless matter?

Since nothing can be lost or gained in the "Finite Universe", the matter spontaneously appears in the central region at the same time as the matter is absorbed at the boundary - it does not travel to the central region. The Finite Universe is a closed system, everything within it remains constant. Not even one photon or proton is lost (or gained). The total contents of the universe always remains exactly the same - forever. Galaxies come and go but the total contents remain the same.

As the space energy level (mass) of the stars in the galaxies, continue to increase (with the acceleration) the stars must emit more and more energy to keep form over massing. Eventually their mass increase is overwhelming as they approach the outer region of the universe, they give off tremendous amounts of radiant energy (just as they do in a cyclotron when a particle approaches the speed of light). This is the radiant energy we see as quasars. These radiant quasars will become more abundant as times passes and our observable universe moves closer to the outer universe (nearer the boundary). This however, may be billions of years in the future.

Q2:
Have you considered the enormous amount of energy you are talking about here? A galaxy accelerates toward the outer edge steadily for tens of billions of years, which means it probably attains a speed so close to the speed of light beyond anything we can achieve for subatomic particles in the world's greatest particle accelerator. Then it is absorbed by the boundary. Poof! All that energy is gone only to reappear in some unspecified location as massless matter. Can you see why this idea doesn't seem credible?

Most of the energy of the Super Force raises the body's space energy level (increases its inertial mass). A relatively small amount is used to increase the galaxys' velocity toward the boundary. The energy of the four forces is always available to do their respective actions, as needed within the universe. The Finite Universe continues on its endless existence (it is the perfect perpetual motion machine - it loses no energy or matter to the outside).

Q3:
Newton's third law tells us that forces exist in pairs. If the boundary is attracting the galaxies outward, they must be pulling the boundary inward with an equal force. What is the boundary made of that it can exert a "Super Force," and how can it withstand the Super Force that the accelerating galaxies exert on it? Again, the idea of Super Force makes little sense when viewed from this perspective. If the boundary has no physical substance, then the whole theory you are citing violates Newton's third law.

The super force at the boundary of the universe is not a wall, it is simply where the laws of nature cease to exist, it is where space ends. Nothing can penetrate the boundary - not even the full force of a galaxy crashing into it. Beyond the boundary there are no laws to guide matter or energy, therefore they cannot exist in this lawless void.

Q4:
This is actually a repeat of one of my previous questions, but it also relates to Q3. We need to understand the character of Super Force. All the other forces other than gravity--electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces--are mediated by an exchange of gauge bosons. Gravity may also be mediated by gravitons. Each force interacts with a certain property of the fundamental particles (quarks and leptons). Gravity interacts with mass, electromagnetism with electric charge and spin, strong force with the "color" and flavor" of quarks, and the weak force with leptons. What property of matter is involved with this Super Force.

The Super Force interacts with matter causing the matter to rise to higher space energy levels, increase its inertial mass, (inertia) and therefore its gravitational power. Electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are all forms of energy that interact with matter and are governed by the laws of nature.

I hope this answers your questions Fred.

Don Hamilton
Refer: The Mind of Mankind

This theory, if it can even be called on, disagrees with experiment, and is therefore false.

1. The universe is falling off in all directions. If your idea described our universe, the observed acceleration of all studied galaxies away from ours would occur only if our galaxy happened to be in the center of the universe, which we must expect is not the case for the idea to be a valid scientific theory.

2. The cosmic background radiation is uniform in all directions. Again, in a universe that was steady-state, there would be a non-uniform distribution of light energy, as you described. This is not how our universe happens to be.

3. There is no center of the universe. Even if the universe happens to be finite, it does not have a "center" in the 3-dimensional classical sense. If there was a center, it must be set apart from every other point in space by some characteristic. No such characteristic has been observed.
4. Your idea disagrees with special relativity by defining a preferred frame of reference. If such a frame of reference existed, it would have been detected by the Michelson-Morley experiment.
The most obvious problem for your idea stems from the mistaken attempt to satisfy the conservation of energy. If we define a thermal system that has boundaries that act as you describe, it would amount to a perpetual motion machine. This is known to violate the only scientific law explicitly stated herein.

In short, this idea is it's own worst nightmare and a quite poor attempt at armature science.

I would suggest you read these books in order:

"Relativity" by Albert Einstein
"The First Three Minutes" by Steven Weinberg
"The Trouble With Physics" by Lee Smolin

Don,

You apparently posted this in response to my request to move the discussion away from my blog entry on dark energy.

So that means I probably owe you at least one comment. By posting here, you open your theory up to challenges, which I hope you will take in the spirit of scientific inquiry.

I will repeat my last comment and then follow with further questions. Frankly, I don't think you addressed most of my questions at all, and the one you did address raises more questions. I'm afraid you need to go beyond your "Mind of Man" book and respond directly to these questions in order for your theory to be at all credible.

Here goes:

--------Begin Previous Comment--------

You seem to be saying that the universe has a boundary which has the property of attracting everything inside of it. That attraction causes the accelerating rate of expansion.

This assumption leads to two major questions and some lesser ones.

First, there is the question of a privileged frame of reference. If the boundary is finite, it has a definite center. That creates a privileged frame of reference in violation of one of the cardinal principles of relativity. Furthermore, if the boundary is not spherical, then it also leads to a privileged direction in space, namely its longest axis.

No astronomical or physical measurements have ever shown that such a center exists. It would, for instance, show up as an anisotropy in the red shift between galaxies on our side of the center of the universe and galaxies on the opposite side.

So the first challenge to your theory is to propose a way to find the center of the finite universe and its principal axis if it is non-spherical. All measurements to date support the idea that the universe has no center and no axis. At this point, all the evidence supports the conventional relativistic view.

An aspect of your proposal that you have not discussed are boundary effects. What happens when a particle or quantum of energy reaches that boundary?

We already know by red-shift measurements that the most distant galaxies are moving away from us at large fractions of the speed of light. Do they simply disappear when they reach the edge? If so, what happens to the law of conservation of mass/energy?

Even if the boundary is too far away for us to detect it directly, the boundary conditions would surely produce some effects inside the universe. What observations do you suggest so that we can detect those boundary effects?

Another point that needs to be addressed--it's really a consequence of both the apparent absence of both a center and boundary effects: the universe is nearly 14 billion years old. That is plenty of time for the outer edge to have accumulated a lot of mass while the region nearest the center to have been depopulated. Yet as far as we can tell, the distribution of mass in the universe appears to be quite uniform. (The same kinds of galactic sheets with the same densities everywhere.)

Finally, there is the question of the mathematical nature of the boundary force you describe. It can't follow an inverse square law in a static universe, as an anonymous poster pointed out. So let's flesh out your theory with some details. What force do we feel from the boundary here on Earth, and how will it change as we accelerate closer to the edge? What observable effects will that produce, and why haven't we observed them?

That's quite enough questions for you to address.

I suggest you start with the issue of the center and the boundary effects in a new posting in your own blog.

--------End Previous Comment--------

The only point your latest excerpt from your book touches on is what happens to the matter when it reaches the edge, and it is very confusing:

All the matter and energy that strike the boundary are absorbed. At the same time new massless matter is created to replace the absorbed matter. The energy that was absorbed at the boundary becomes the mass/gravity/energy of the matter as it accelerates toward the boundary.

So besides a point-by-point answer to my original questions, I am looking for answers to the following as well:

Q1:
Where does that "new massless matter" appear, and how can it appear immediately when the absorption event took place tens of billions of light years away? And if the new matter is massless, it must be traveling at the speed of light, right? And what does "mass/gravity/energy of the matter" mean for massless matter?

Q2:
Have you considered the enormous amount of energy you are talking about here? A galaxy accelerates toward the outer edge steadily for tens of billions of years, which means it probably attains a speed so close to the speed of light beyond anything we can achieve for subatomic particles in the world's greatest particle accelerator. Then it is absorbed by the boundary. Poof! All that energy is gone only to reappear in some unspecified location as massless matter. Can you see why this idea doesn't seem credible?

Q3:
Newton's third law tells us that forces exist in pairs. If the boundary is attracting the galaxies outward, they must be pulling the boundary inward with an equal force. What is the boundary made of that it can exert a "Super Force," and how can it withstand the Super Force that the accelerating galaxies exert on it? Again, the idea of Super Force makes little sense when viewed from this perspective. If the boundary has no physical substance, then the whole theory you are citing violates Newton's third law.

Q4:
This is actually a repeat of one of my previous questions, but it also relates to Q3. We need to understand the character of Super Force. All the other forces other than gravity--electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces--are mediated by an exchange of gauge bosons. Gravity may also be mediated by gravitons. Each force interacts with a certain property of the fundamental particles (quarks and leptons). Gravity interacts with mass, electromagnetism with electric charge and spin, strong force with the "color" and flavor" of quarks, and the weak force with leptons. What property of matter is involved with this Super Force.

As you can see, I don't think you have proposed anything credible here. It seems to violate Newton's Laws as well as the fundamental notion of relativity that there is no privileged inertial frame of reference.

Furthermore, you have offered no evidence to support your theory, while relativity is supported by an enormous body of experiments and observations. Relativity even offers a straightforward explanation of the apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe, namely the Cosmological Constant.

I can't take any more time with this, but perhaps others will pick up on it if you respond to this critique.

Note that a lack of further response is more likely due to a continued lack of credibility of the theory rather than a concurrence with it.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)