arthur jackson

Surely predictions (or, since this is a model, statements which agree with current theory) can be specific without being mathematical, and different models will always be coming up with predictions to explain things that are already known. Only two of my 16 predictions/statements have actually been queried: polarization and angular momentum. I still haven’t had an explanation why my photons aren’t polarized, and I didn’t actually say ‘free electron’. Even if my original statement was wrong (but hardly ‘falsified’) I’ve freely admitted that I am learning, so surely learners are allowed to make mistakes as long as they accept corrections. It’s difficult because I just don’t understand a lot of the advanced maths and physics terms in the comments (which is why I’m just not able to give the mathematical proofs you’re asking for), but have answered all questions and points as fully and honestly as I can. As I say, this isn’t a mathematical but a conceptual model. Surely a thread on the Bohr model of the atom would be allowable, even though the predictions it would make are similarly already known, and much of the mathematics would actually now be seen as wrong – it would still be valuable as a learning exercise. It now feels like you’ve decided to delete the thread. Fair enough: your site, your rules and I was actually surprised I wasn’t called a quack and banned after the first post. Shame, though, because I am still learning and have unanswered questions. Could you just ignore the thread for a while and leave me in the tender hands of other posters if I’m annoying you? I don’t think it will last too much longer, so delete it by all means when it’s done.

Can I just point out before moving on that when I say something I'm getting "This shows a remarkable lack of understanding of basic Physics, which is no good for your attempt to provide hand waving explanations for your proposition. " When a website says the same thing it's " quite good but a bit too elementary". I do have two nearby charges - the charge pairs - in fact there are lots of "two nearby charges" in the array. I was talking about a single charge pair when I was referring to two nearby charges. Pulling out a couple of electrons, say, would give the two nearby charges floating above the aether that I think you mean, but I wasn't referring to them. I was answering the question what happens in a static electric field, in which I said I thought the charge pairs would align along that field. The charge pairs are static (+/-/+/-) until they're hit by an external energy which causes a twist which, if it is large enough and lasts long enough, causes a 360 degree rotation so produces a photon. And when they are twisting they are indeed no longer static. I drew the electric field with the magnetic field at right angles on my diagram of a photon - which again indeed aims to show how electromagnetic radiation works. Thank you for the diagram, but surely the dipoles you show are on the macroscopic scale, so involving electrons rather than charge pairs. I made more than a dozen specific predictions on the front page of the thread. They seem to me to follow logically rather than mathematically. OK I think I understand - I've been talking about charge pairs but you are talking about the fields around (for example) electrons and protons as electric charges. There are three parts to the description I've done. I've largely been talking about part 1 which deals with photons. Give me a couple of days and I'll show a pdf of part 1 which hopefully will clear up any confusion from the summary I've given up page. I'll then show a pdf of part 2 which deals with electrons, protons and electric/magnetic fields. Eta: they're quite short, honest

But it's not a mathematical model. It's an analogy which I'm intending to use to explain the basics to people who are fresh to the subject. I'm not trying to convince anyone that the model is mathematically rigorous - it's just an analogy. One of the main problems I've found with trying to understand atomic physics is the advanced mathematics that is needed - as I say you need a degree in the subject to understand the textbooks. Yes I know you need to understand the mathematics to properly understand the subject (please note that!). However, giving a model helps people visualize what is going on and once they have that they can then tackle the mathematics.

Can we take this step by step? You asked about electric fields, not magnetic fields . I didn't mention magnetic fields but said "I’d imagine any ‘lines of force’ would (for example) go from positives to negatives. A quick web search gives: Electric field lines or electric lines of force are imaginary lines drawn to represent the electric field visually. Since the electric field is a vector quantity, it has both magnitude and direction. Suppose one looks at the image below. The arrows indicate the electric field lines, and they point in the direction of the electric field. https://www.sciencefacts.net/electric-field-lines.html How is that different to my remark? The frequency is the frequency of the photons: how many photons (twists) per second you get. i.e. the ν in E = hν. Eta: or are you saying that the quantum of energy is Planck's constant?

No they're not physical twists in space in the SM model - it's just my model that they're seen as twists of the charge pairs in space. Why would my photons not pass through a polarization filter? The diagram I put up showed the sinewave electric field, and this is in the same plane as the rotating twist, and at 90 degrees to the sinewave magnetic field. I'm hoping it's my diagram that isn't clear. The twists are actually just photons, so they are seen in all the experiments and in fact light up everything we see. Rather than a photon headed off into space my model says that all the charge pairs remain in their original position so none move, but one of them twists round through 360 degrees and this twist is passed on to a straight line of them. Each of them in turn twist, and that twist is what heads off into space at speed c. I'm not sure what you mean by always close. Each charge pair is close to the next charge pair which is why you get the twist being passed on, and it's that twist and its effect on the surrounding charge pairs which rotate some of the way (i.e. the virtual photons) that gives the electromagnetic field. The effect dies away at a distance around a wavelength of the photon.

OK when you said 'cancel' I thought you meant merge into each other. They'd be similar to protons/electrons in that case - you'd have to get close to see the charge distribution. We have detected the particles: virtual particles bubbling up out of a vacuum, and again the ones that have been hit with enough energy to form stable electrons, protons etc. If you mean it would be harder to 'twist' because the charge pair is in a different orientation because of a static field I don't think so - it still just needs a whole twist to form a photon.

First apologies for this long post - the site has concatenated all of my replies, I've tried to answer the various questions below. Why they don’t cancel has to be an additional premise, for example like protons and electrons don’t cancel (I've read) because of the Uncertainty Principle when they’re close to each other in a hydrogen atom or (I presume) a nucleus where the charges look like they cancel from outside, but I presume they remain separate. I see the charge pairs as virtual (imaginary) particles that form the surface of space. When hit with enough energy a charge pair is pulled out to form a real electron above space and a balancing ‘unreal’ (whatever that might mean) positron below space. Hit with much more energy the charge pair is similarly pulled out to become a proton/antiproton. So yes the particles will have size and mass, although with much less mass than an electron since there I'd imagine there have to be huge numbers of charge pairs but dark matter I understand makes up only 85% of the matter of the universe? Presumably hitting the charge pairs with large amounts of energy adds to the mass. I think the charge pairs would rotate to align themselves with a static electric field. Two more predictions by the way: that there is dark matter, and that, since the big bang, space is expanding (the charge pairs are gradually moving apart). I’m thinking that the twist that is a photon sticks to the electron and adds to its energy until something happens and the photon escapes again. So no, not a photon with no angular momentum. Sorry I still don’t understand, why won’t my photons be polarized? Are you viewing the axis of twisting as being along the direction of travel? I’m viewing the axis of twisting to be perpendicular to the direction of travel like wheels on a conveyor belt. So a twist and its electric field would be oriented vertically as on that second diagram I gave. Using the Catherine Wheel analogy again, the electric field corresponds to the sparks flying round. A polarizing filter could therefore surely block all orientations except the single orientation it allows through. Another good point on anisotropy. Properties would indeed look to be different if the wave was for example travelling diagonally rather than vertically or horizontally (having a hexagonal shape like Maxwell’s would improve this but not really solve it, and I don’t want to add the complication). The charge pairs could perhaps be self orienting – a charge pair twisting in a particular direction could attract the next charge pair closer to it so properties weren’t anisotropic? I don’t think I’ll try to address this, though, just add a note that it is an imperfection in the model. I'd agree that field theory does all of this more elegantly but I'm not sure about more simply. I’ve not seen a description of field theory that is half way understandable to anyone who doesn’t actually have a degree in the subject they’re supposed to be studying. The twist model has just two or three relatively simple premises (although initially somewhat difficult to visualize but I think good gif images would make it much clearer – I’ve had a go at this but have so far failed spectacularly) and seems to introduce the major concepts of atomic physics as long as there’s a clear statement of the limitations. They do also have different aims. Field theory aims to give as accurate a description of the world as possible. I’m just aiming to give a simple model to get across the basic concepts. I’m specifically not talking about sub-atomic particles, partially because I can’t see how the model would apply but mainly because I have no idea what’s going on in sub-atomic processes. I’m limiting it to photons, electrons/protons and atoms: to make sense of the electronics I learned at uni. I’ve not thought of this as a mechanical model but in one sense I suppose it is – the charge pairs along the direction of motion do act like gears meshing together to pass on the motion. No real idea, I’m afraid but I’d imagine any ‘lines of force’ would (for example) go from positives to negatives. Here, too, I wouldn’t plan to address this since I’m only really interested in explaining photons, electrons and protons. It would be interesting to know what it might be but I feel the getting into the possible mechanics of the aether would be a distraction. Again fair point about why no electric field surrounding the electric charge, but I think any electric field would stay on the ‘surface’ of space (within the aether). It would not show up in the real world, where it’s the rotation of charge pairs that cause an electric field. I think. Yes behind every point in space (or rather on the surface of space) is a charge pair. And yes as above they can’t really be point charges. The charge pairs don’t actually move through space, it’s the twist that moves to give apparent motion of the photon. When a charge pair is hit with enough energy to form an electron or proton, those particles are freed from the surface of space to move frictionlessly across the top of space (which I think means there would be no ‘aether wind’ so the Michelson-Morley objections to the aether wouldn’t I think apply). You say there are clarification issues I've not addressed. I've just gone through all the questions again and tried to answer them – are there any others? Again, why are the photons I describe not polarized? And again I’m not proposing the aether as replacing anything in physics theory, but only as a concept to help with understanding and be thrown away once someone has a picture of how things could work. I’m also only looking at the physics needed to build up a model of the atom. Coming back to this, when I said energy isn’t quantized I was using the word in it’s commonly used sense, as in the equation E = hν. In that equation involving Planck’s constant, it not the energy that is quantized. For example, the first search (and there are many more) for ’quantum of energy’ throws up “In the realm of quantum physics, energy is not a continuous quantity but rather comes in discrete packets, known as quanta. ” That is what I take issue with. Aside from (I understand) some arcane theories energy is infinitely variable like frequency is infinitely variable. It’s not energy that’s quantized, but action. I know what they mean but it’s not really accurate. I would still though like to lob 20 quid into the server fund as a thanks to people for their time – I did check on the site but can’t see how to do this. And as a footnote - thanks for that I actually understood it pretty well up to the point it involved zeta so I'll go back and take a look at it again.

On reflection yes you're right (I copied that from a physics book - I'll delete it ). I can see the point though, they're not quite like electrons and atoms.

I wrote the following before seeing the other comments and problems. Some very good points and I’ll have to go and study them but am not sure I’ll be able to give answers. In the meantime, some more background. Part 1 of my description discusses pretty well what I’ve said so far. I’ve missed out some of the description so this is from the end of Part 1: The charge pairs alongside the central line but perpendicular to the direction of the paper also try to follow the central pairs round. They align 'end on', however, and briefly gyrate clockwise (call it “north”) or anticlockwise (“south”), as in Figure 3. So, perpendicular to the electric wave (y direction) and distance (x direction) is a magnetic wave in the z direction. … The 'wobbling' of the surrounding charge pairs appears as virtual photons, which must exist for a time <ħ/2ΔE or they would form actual photons. We cannot detect virtual photons but suspect they are there by their effects. They tumble out at speed c, leaving a brief Catherine-wheel-like trail approximately the photon's wavelength across as it travels along its path. Part 2 discusses photons with enough energy to form electrons and protons. Yes I’ve purposely avoided mentioning the aether, I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone though . I’d not come across the hexagonal aether, interesting. I’ve read that Einstein was comfortable with the aether given certain conditions that I totally failed to understand. If Maxwell used it to develop his equations, it has to have something going for it. From Wiki Aether theories: Physicist Robert B. Laughlin wrote: "The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. ..." We may know better now as you say, but I’ve not seen a description that is half way understandable without actually having a degree in the subject we’re supposed to be studying. There look to be just two premises: that the +/-ve charge pairs underlie space and can rotate to form photons, and that they don’t collapse into each other. The rest seems to follow. I’ve often seen the aether being dismissed because of Occam’s Razor. I’d say quite the opposite – it seems to give a simple model for a lot of physics theories (virtual photons, gravity etc.) Relativity must be the definitive way to visualize things, but that’s just not accessible to people beginning study. I’m not really proposing charge as a magic substance, rather a property of the charge pairs. On second thoughts they may well have mass – as I say Part 2 of my text discusses photons with enough energy to produce electrons and protons, which indeed do have mass.

Sorry I don't really understand. Does this diagram help? Surely it just shows a transverse wave that can be oriented in any direction. I don't think there would be one around the charge pairs in that first illustration - it's the rotation of the charge pairs that I'm defining as the virtual photons that produce an electromagnetic field. These surround the central line of charge pairs that rotate to form the photon, and are attracted to this central line but not strongly enough to form photons themselves. The central line is shown in the second diagram I've just posted. (sorry, I'm not sure this is very clear I'll come back and clarify in a bit). Incidentally I've seen different versions of the electromagnetic fields produced by a photon - with the electric and magnetic fields in phase, or (hopefully) 90 Degrees out of phase as I've drawn it. I'm not sure which would be correct). Thanks for all the comments, people, again much appreciated. I tried to like the posts but the site informs me that I've liked too many posts today already I'm just off into the garden for a bit of weeding to take advantage of the good weather. I shall return and address a couple of the other posts. .

The twists have a particular orientation so can be polarized along that orientation – again like wheels of a conveyor belt. Similarly the twist is in the direction of travel of the photon rather than normal to it. Not sure what you mean about the fields not changing orientation, though. How do you mean about the charge pairs cancelling? I’m assuming that the +ve/-ve charges can coexist alongside each other, and can rotate round each other. Yes, I’d see the charge pairs as having charge as a property. I’m not sure whether they’d be better seen as particles or point charges, I don’t think they’d have mass. I’d see them as ‘below’ the surface of space. I think they’d take up a particular orientation to point along a static electric field. *here as elsewhere I'm flailing around in the dark somewhat I hope my replies are vaguely pertinent.

Thank you for this - I'll go back and look at what I've written. So what I've said above ("The photon’s momentum is transferred to the electron, along with its angular momentum to give 3ħ/2.") would only be true for an electron in an atom, for example? Otherwise, as you say, free electrons are accelerated by virtual photons, for example from an electric field. Apologies again - I studied electronics at uni but have never worked as an electronics engineer, I'm retired now but worked as a technical/technology writer. I meant the general statement that I learned at uni that "energy is quantized", which always confused me. When I say that it's not quantized, I mean that it's actually action (energy * time) that is quantized: you can only have a complete photon. Eta: I'm now going to have to go and think about the next questions. I may be some while

Hopefully the diagram inserts ok (sorry it's unnecessarily large). With no external energy the +/-/+/- charges will be stable. A brief, small amount of energy (below Planck’s constant) will kick one of the charges so it rotates slightly. Then, the positive half of a charge pair in the top row for example will rotate so it begins to point to the positive halves of the surrounding charges. That means they tend to repel, so increasingly resisting further rotation. When the impulse is released the surrounding charge pairs have stored the energy and release it so they vibrate. The whole is stable in the sense that nothing changes (the charge pairs just vibrate). If the impulse reaches Planck's constant the charge pair makes a full rotation, and drags the next charge pair in line round, and the next - like the wheels of a conveyor belt turn but don't actually move. You say: “if you don't introduce some restrictive 'force' that impedes negative charges fall into the positives (and viceversa)” That’s a fine point that I’d not considered. It would be another premise that the charge pairs attract/repel each other but don’t fall into or disappear into each other, so like electrons and protons don’t normally fall into each other. I wouldn’t say you need electric charge to generate space. More that a model of space should include explanations of positive/negative charges and electromagnetic waves (as well as gravitation etc). That make sense? Interesting, thank you. Apologies for not replying sooner - it takes me time to work out replies. I will get to them all.

Taking questions in order. Please bear in mind that this is intended as an visualization of what happens rather than a new theory. I may be using ‘predicts’ a bit flexibly and I’d perhaps replace it with ‘is compatible with’. So, starting from the premise that space is underlain by positive/negative point charges that can rotate to form photons, I’d say the model predicts that: * the electric and magnetic waves associated with a photon are sine waves and perpendicular to each other. * it takes a certain energy a certain time to produce a photon, or h=Et (along with E=pc and pλ=h) * angular momentum is the average value of energy*time around a complete twist, so h/2π * photons can be polarized, synchronized and can diffract (because the charge pairs around nearby twists can add/subtract and so interfere with each other) * the charge pairs continue to wobble slightly after a photon has passed, so twists can even interfere despite being separated in time so (I think) representing the hidden variables required by EPR model, and so similar to the pilot wave suggested by De Broglie and developed by David Bohm * virtual particles can be created in a vacuum as long as ΔEΔt < ħ/2 * if a photon has angular momentum ħ, then electrons, positrons, protons and antiprotons each have angular momentum ħ/2. * particles or photons can pass through every possible path allowed by lenses or openings (QED interpretation) * electric and magnetic fields are generated by virtual photons * electric fields are much stronger than magnetic fields (although I can’t see that it predicts that E = Bc) * the charge pair being pulled out to form a particle leaves a gap which distorts space as the surrounding charge pairs pull together, so leading to the effects of gravity. * particles have a Compton wavelength: the wavelength associated with the particle’s mass * With E=pc and p=mc we get, simply, E=mc2. * hitting a particle with a photon accelerates it, so the electron swirls to a new wavelength and is compressed along the direction of motion because virtual photons entering and leaving the front and back of the object are both travelling at the speed of light. I originally wrote this as an introduction to atomic physics because I wanted to know whether it all worked, and to understand things I need to write them down to see what makes sense and what doesn’t. It does work as a prediction of atomic structure, and I got as far as Schroedinger’s equation and it does seem to work for that, too. ETA: While we’re on predictions, here’s a challenge to anyone on the site. My model also predicts (and shows quite clearly) that Planck’s statement that “energy is quantized” (which has confused me ever since I was at uni) is wrong. I believe I can demonstrate this to you using my model in a single sentence. If I’m wrong I’ll donate $20 to the server fund, you can delete this thread and ban me from the site (although you can clearly do this anyway ). So any takers? Who holds that energy is quantized?

Fair play - although as I say the model predicts that - given the angular momentum of a photon is ħ - then that of an electron is ħ/2, and that for an electron hit by a photon is 3ħ/2, two photons it is 5ħ/2 etc. I have gone through the basic atomic physics equations and it does 'predict' all the major ones that I can see from my electronics degree (1970s admittedly). It 'predicts' the effects of gravity, electric and magnetic forces for example. I put 'predict' in inverted commas because I'm working backwards as I say, but it does seem compatible with them. I'll include a few if that would help. I took them out because I wanted to just give the basic idea.

I hope this is allowable. I’ve read your Guidelines and ‘Are you a quack’ pages and I suspect you’ll think I am but please bear with me. I’ve often wanted to understand the atomic physics I was taught for my electronics degree. While I was trying, a possible model in the spirit of Bohr occurred to me which (I think) helped me to better understand the basic ideas and equations of atomic physics. It seems simple and logically consistent, but not being a physicist, what would I know? I’m not saying any current theories are wrong. I just think this is a simple way to visualize photons and particles. So, this is a request for (specific, please ) comments, preferably as simple as possible: where have I gone wrong? --------- View space as being made up of ‘imaginary’ positive/negative charges: ±e. These arrange themselves in pairs +/-/+/- in three dimensions, so all is stable. Briefly hitting a charge pair with a small pulse of energy rotates it slightly. When the pulse stops, it and the surrounding charge pairs vibrate or ring. A photon – a twist in space If the strength of the energy pulse reaches Planck’s constant, the charge pair rotates half way round. Then, positive points to positive and negative points to negative so the charges start to repel, and the charge pair continues round for a complete rotation. That is a photon: a ‘twist’ in space. The effect (action) travels off at speed c. None of the charge pairs actually moves, but the rotation passes on from one to the next in a straight line like the wheels of a conveyor belt. The charge pairs along the photon’s path make a full rotation. The surrounding pairs try to follow them round but aren’t strong enough to form another photon, and instead form virtual photons. The strength of their rotations die away as the cube of the distance as they spread out. Along the photon’s path, these rotations form the electric wave. Across its axis at 90° is the magnetic wave coming from the side-on attraction of the surrounding charge pairs. The electric and magnetic waves show as sine waves: something rotating. The charge pairs continue to ring slightly after the electric/magnetic wave has passed on. This seems compatible with polarization, diffusion, and also the double slit experiment? Particles A twist with high enough energy pulls out a real electron with a balancing positron. Immediately around an electron, the charge pairs align so their positive charges are attracted inwards and their negative charges point outwards towards the world. So from the outside, the electron looks like a negative bubble or cloud of charge. With h being the energy over time needed to make one twist, the average value around a complete twist is h/2π: the angular momentum. Since a photon has spin ħ and splits into an electron and a positron, each carries off a spin ħ/2. Both still spin around their axes at speed c, which therefore appears in the relevant equations. The electric and magnetic fields are now concentrated around a particle, and the electron acts as a magnet with a north and south pole. The mass of the electron can be seen as the ‘electric self energy’ – the total energy needed to bring the electron’s negative charge from infinity to itself, working against the repulsive force keeping it apart. The surrounding charge pairs pull together to fill the gap, distorting space around the particles slightly to give the effect of gravity. Hit an electron with a photon and they stick together, (-+ - or + - + depending on the particle), swirling off as they go so the twist again behaves like a wave. The photon’s momentum is transferred to the electron, along with its angular momentum to give 3ħ/2. With higher energy, a charge pair produces a real proton and a balancing anti-proton. … and on for a model of how atoms are formed, which also seems to follow quite simply and logically. --------- So, is this a useful way to visualize things on the way to learning how they’re actually explained? In some ways it does make predictions as your website requests: like the angular momentum of a photon is ħ and that of an electron is ħ/2, but that hardly makes sense since I’ve worked back from there.