When I wrote my first diary and introduced myself as a physicist a commenter suggested I write about my original research and not just politics, so here it goes.
If you read or listen to popular science articles or videos you may have heard that space is never empty. Starting in 1900, Max Planck was trying to describe the light spectrum of the sun, which is called a black body spectrum. He made the assumption that there was a minimum energy and came up with the constant h to describe it, and was successful at describing black body radiation. Over the following decade he went on to show that all systems have a minimum energy that equals Planck’s constant times the frequency. Einstein called this zero-point energy some years later, but before that, Einstein realized that photons were made of discreet packets or quanta of energy, an idea that led to his Nobel Prize.
In 1906 Hendrik Lorentz stated in a lecture at Columbia University, that he wondered if space is filled with Planck resonators. Finally, over a century later, most physicists are convinced this is true. In standard quantum theory these resonators are considered to be matter-antimatter pairs of particles that exist for a very short time. These are sometimes called virtual particles, but the linguistic implications of the word “virtual” often confuses non-physicists. Quantum fluctuations are very real. Note that Planck’s energy is the same as the energy of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle which means these quantum fluctuations are very difficult to observe directly, but real nonetheless.
Back body radiation in a vacuum occurs because Plank type quantum fluctuations interact with a body getting some of its heat energy. This turns the quantum fluctuation into a photon. More recently it has been found that a rapidly spinning mirror can also turn quantum fluctuations into photons in what is known as the dynamical Casimir effect. The actual Casimir effect occurs when two objects that are close together are pushed together (usually but not always) due to forces that develop between bodies called van der Waals forces. The pressure pushing two pates apart is reduced when compared to the force pushing them together, because mostly longer wavelength quantum fluctuations cannot exist between the plates.
Van der Waals (VDW) forces occur whenever we have a sea of electric charge dipoles as those dipoles interact with each other causing space to essentially vibrate. Johannes Diderik van der Waals was an early Nobel prize winner for his research on those forces. The quantum oscillation between dipoles pushes on bodies of stable matter in all directions. But if that pressure force is changed, differentials in quantum pressure can push bodies together or apart.
My theoretical research specialty is what I like to call elementary quantum field theory. I sometimes use the term zero-point field theory, but disreputable free-energy researchers like to use that term and have spoiled its use among serious scientists. I consider what conditions the quantum field composed of particle pair dipoles places on physics. The quantum field is the most fundamental substance of space, so it plays an important role in everything, including all forces.
When I was writing my book on atheism, God Hates Science, one of the god proofs I tackled was the myth that the physical constants can be fine-tuned. The physical constants arise naturally from quantum field theory and form a unique set that is not tunable. To start that analysis, I began with some observations by American physicist Robert Dicke who recognized in a 1957 paper that the particle pair model of the quantum field means that space is polarizable and magnetizable. Among other things that means;
A. Electric and magnetic fields form from polarized and magnetized quantum particle pairs.
B. The electric and magnetic constants, permittivity (ε0) and permeability (μ0) arise naturally from the quantum field.
C. And, since the speed of light (c) is a function of those two constants, it also is a quantum field effect.
These are things that should be taught at the beginning of any course on electromagnetism, but I was taught in school, as where most people my age, that electric and magnetic fields are not real, that they are only a mathematical tool. But, in quantum field theory they are very real. Notably, the speed of light is less fundamental than permittivity and permeability.
Dicke, however, did not know the underlying physical cause of those constants and made a poor guess that it is due to Mach’s principle, meaning that some unknown interaction with all the matter in space causes it. That is problematic as there is much more quantum field energy in the tip of your pinky than all the stable matter of the visible universe. The quantum field energy in mass units is at least 1094 grams per cubic centimeter, while the total mass of the visible universe is 1056 grams.
What I knew instead is that the existence of the Casimir effect necessitates that the quantum field interacts as a sea of dipoles which produce VDW forces. And, one of the VDW forces is VDW torque. You can think about torque in terms of when a dipole tries to rotate in response to a moving object it forces other nearby dipoles to rotate. But those dipoles don’t want to move, they prefer to stay in the same place. So, consequently there is a torque opposing the dipole motion. You can think of it like Newtons first Law, that an object will stay at rest or in motion until a force is exerted on it. This is also called inertia.
The quantum VDW torque, though, is the physical origin of inertia. It regulates all linear and rotational motion and even the wavelengths and frequencies of the quantum fluctuations that make up the quantum field. It is also what resists the polarization and magnetization of the quantum field of space, and so it is the source of the permittivity and permeability constants. It is the quantum VDW torque that is the underlying cause of each and every one of the physical constants.
The quantum VDW torque is the lowest in one frame of reference, and consequently the speed of light is the highest in that frame of reference as first determined by Maxwell. That reference frame is the quantum field’s rest frame, although Maxwell called it the aether rest frame. Note that this rest frame has been measured in measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB is a nearly perfect black body spectrum that comes from the vacuum of space. As such, each CMB photon started out as a quantum fluctuation prior to interacting with whatever gave it the energy to turn it into a photon. That is why we can say the CMB rest frame is the quantum field rest frame. That, and the logical impossibility that there could be two different rest frames. This is a problem for special relativity theory since Einstein assumed there is no preferred rest frame, and quantum field theory tells us there absolutely is a preferred rest frame. This is an important way in which special relativity and quantum theory conflict. Fortunately, Poincaré, Lorentz, and others developed forms of relativity theory that include a preferred frame of reference, and in practice we always need a preferred frame of reference to perform calculations.
Every quantum fluctuation has energy, frequency, and a wavelength. The frequency and wavelength are related by the speed of light, which is due to the permittivity and permeability. The existence of quantum wavelengths tells us that the quantum field has physical dimensions, and since the quantum fluctuations are the must fundamental material in space, space gets its physical dimensions from the quantum field. Frequency is in cycles per second, so in order to have frequency, the quantum field must have the property of time. The frequencies of the quantum field are the must fundamental clocks of space. So, the wavelengths and frequencies of the quantum field in its rest frame determine the physical dimensions and clock rate in the preferred reference frame of space.
When the VDW torque increases, the clock rate of physical clocks slows and permittivity and permeability are at their lowest. There are four ways to change the VDW torque of space that can change physical clock rates, permittivity, permeability, and the speed of light.
1. Velocity with respect to the rest frame makes the VDW torque increase.
2. Acceleration likewise leads to an increase in VDW torque.
3. The presence of stable matter, namely electrons, protons and neutrons, increases VDW torque.
4. In a Casimir cavity where the range of quantum fluctuations is limited, the VDW torque decreases causing the speed of light to increase. This is called the Scharnhorst effect and it has not yet been observed in experiments.
All four of these effects are electromagnetic effects. None are due to “gravity.” Changes in VDW torque due to velocity lead to relativity theory, while changes due to the presence of stable matter leads to a non-gravitational general relativity theory. Acceleration causes effects that are similar to what happens near stable matter, which led to Einstein’s equivalence principle. The Scharnhorst effect is still considered controversial among mainstream physicists, but it is consistent with quantum field theory. I feel that it will be experimentally proven in the not too distant future.
It is important to recognize that just because an object or person is moving relative to the quantum rest frame, that does not mean the physical dimensions, specifically lengths, change. The dimensions of space are still set by the quantum field. Those dimensions do not change in a million different ways for a million differently moving observers as is supposed to happen in special relativity theory. Einstein even realized in 1907, that with respect to the Michaelson-Morley experiment, he could either apply a length correction term or a clock rate correction term, but not both. He concluded that the clock rate correction was the correct one. But then, he somehow failed to recognize that he needed to change his theory of special relativity.
The existence of a quantum field rest frame that sets the dimensions of space also means that space does not curve near matter. This is another area where Einstein had the correct answer in his grasp but chose the wrong one. In 1907 and 1911 Einstein was working on a general relativity theory where the speed of light changes instead of space dimensions. In 1911 he calculated the deflection of light due to the speed of light changing for light passing close by our sun. His result was half the correct value as he did not include the other half of the deflection, which is due to clock rate slowing.
Then in 1915 he published the result with the correct light deflection value based of space curvature and clock rate slowing, but the result was correct for the wrong reason. What is interesting is that all three correction factors, speed of light, clock rate slowing and space curvature, give half of the correct value. Only two of these possible causes of light deflection are correct. We know now from experiments with atomic clocks, especially those in orbit in GPS satellites, that physical clock rates really do change at different distances from the Earth’s surface. Logic, on the other hand, tells us that space cannot curve. Space does not have any physical dimensions on its own, since space by itself is not physical. So even the idea that space could curve is fallacious. I personally consider space curvature to be a religion not a science since it has no physical basis. The physical cause of physical dimensions is the quantum field, which does not introduce curvature.
That means that a quantum theory of general relativity is purely electromagnetic. It requires that clock rates slow and light slows due to increases in VDW torque near stable matter like our Sun or Earth. Dicke and others have shown that a flat space, variable light speed, variable clock rate form of general relativity theory is equivalent to general relativity. They unfortunately missed out on other fundamental problems with the theory of gravity because physicists have failed to bother to physically explain inertia or acceleration due to electromagnetic forces.
Most physicists don’t know how to explain how two magnets attract or repel. In quantum field theory the explanation is obvious. The quantum field does it. As with the Casimir effect, the quantum field normally pushes on an object equally in all directions, so it doesn’t move. But there are conditions where a differential in quantum pressure occurs. When we line up the north pole of one magnet opposite the south pole of another magnetic, polarization of the quantum field reduces the quantum pressure pushing the magnets apart. This causes them to be pushed together. If we put two north poles or south poles together, the quantum forces pushing the magnets apart are greater than the forces pushing them together. Electric charges do the same thing. In the field between opposite charges the quantum force pushing the charged bodies apart is reduced and in between like charges the quantum force pushing them apart increases.
There is another way to get an electromagnetic force differential that was first discovered by a contemporary of Newton’s named Fatio, an idea later popularized by LeSage. Fatio realized that two bodies shield each other from the pressure of space, in effect casting a shadow. This causes two bodies to be pushed together. Prior to the existence of quantum field theory, scientists thought that such a force would vaporize everything. But now we know the quantum field exists, it does push on bodies, and does not vaporize everything. By combining Fatio’s theory with Casimir’s we have a purely electromagnetic cause of acceleration due to “gravity” that has nothing to do with gravity.
In the 1890’s one of the most brilliant mathematician/physicists Oliver Heaviside was busy condensing the 20+ Maxwell’s equations down to the four Maxwell’s equations we know today. One thing he is less known for was being the first to recognize that gravity can be described by the same set of four equations. Since then physicists have worked to improve his gravitomagnetic theory and keep failing. One key problem is the gravitational force between two bodies made of matter is attractive while like charges are repelled. Another problem was the idea that the unit of charge had to be mass, which is only positive and not negative. A Maxwell force theory needs both positive and negative charges.
And still another problem is the electrically neutral Lorentz force that comes with it must be accounted for. That is a force on a body moving tangentially to another body, such as a planet orbiting our Sun. This causes a planet to have a Lorentz force on it pushing it toward the Sun. Since the neutral Lorentz force is missing from current gravitational theory it helps to explain most of the so-called “dark matter” which has really been a part of a missing force all along.
More generally, anytime we try to come up with a physical explanation for inertia, we have to take into account that the speed of light limit is the same as for electrically charged particles. That means the cause is the same and the mechanisms are the same. The magnitude of the permittivity and permeability constants are the same. When any object moves it must cause the quantum field to rotate and the rotating quantum field keeps the object moving. Quantum VDW torque limits the velocity of any object made of stable matter to the speed of light.
But once we have inertia in that form, we must have a complete electrically neutral force that has its own set of Maxwell’s equations. We also must consider that dark energy is a part of that force since matter must repel other matter. So we should never have been trying to change the direction of the neutral Maxwell force as Heaviside and many others have tried. We need a theory that explains dark energy. The Fatio-Casimir effect, and neutral Lorentz forces are strong enough to explain “gravitational” attraction. Newton’s gravitation “constant” G is a combination of all the neutral Maxwell forces including the Fatio-Casimir effect, and it is not a constant since the Lorentz force and other forces vary. Changes in the Lorentz force is the reason why gravity is attractive in solar systems and galaxies but repulsive between most galaxies.
The mass problem is easily solvable by recognizing that the dipole responsible for the neutral Maxwell force comes from the other polar property of elementary particles. That property is matter and antimatter. The charge in the neutral Maxwell force is the amount of matter present. This is roughly proportional to mass but is not mass. I call the neutral Maxwell force the matter force and I have been writing about it for nearly 20 years.
But, since all electrically charged bodies are already made of matter, the electrically neutral Maxwell force is already a part of the electromagnetic Maxwell force. So that gives us a combined electro-matter force with both forces being part of existing quantum field theory when we are dealing with electrically charged objects. In addition to explaining dark energy and dark matter, the neutral Maxwell force also gives us a better way to explain the precession of the perihelion of Mercury and other planets as a result of the Sun’s rotation. It similarly provides a better explanation of tidal forces and other rotational effects current lumped in with general relativity. The neutral Lorentz force also explains the formation of spiral galaxies which is not well explained by gravitational theory.
By combining the effects of quantum general relativity, the Fatio-Casimir effect, and the neutral Maxwell force components of the electromagnetic force, we can explain gravity as a part of the electromagnetic Maxwell force. Gravity is not a separate force from electromagnetism. Both forces are described by a single equation or set of equations. That equation is also a unified force equation as it explains electromagnetism, gravity, weak interactions, mechanical forces, and even the strong force. The Casimir effect between protons and neutrons has the same range and energy as the strong nuclear force, but yet you won’t see that in any textbook.
Links to my books and a few relevant papers. I will be presenting some of this research at the Physics Beyond Relativity conference in Prague is two weeks.
The Zero-Point Universe
The 100 Greatest Lies in Physics
The Maxwell force as a unified force theory including gravity
General relativity as a quantum van der Waals torque effect
Physical Constants as Properties of the van der Waals Torque of the Quantum Field
The Nuclear Force Computed as the Casimir Effect Between Spheres
God Hates Science
My name is Ray Fleming and I am a semi-retired physicist and author. My books include The Zero-Point Universe, The 100 Greatest Lies in Physics, and God Hates Science. I have written numerous physics papers, primarily on quantum field theory. I retired outside the US because of the high cost of living, in particular the high cost of medical care and insurance. I follow politics as I hope that things someday change in America.