Wave Theory

You were right to use the word "metaphorically" because the author of the site is a good example of a crackpot. I think his score must be in the hundreds. Mention of the "aether" should warrant at least 50 points.

Yup any theory that starts along the lines of
"You ask any scientist and he wont be able to explain this"
...usualy implies:
"which thankfully means I can say anything I like and hide in the shadow of doubt".

Dunno though, I read the opening paragraph, made the above assumption, smelt fish and left it well alone.

I move this thread be shifted to the lounge.

It is typical crackpot material, but failure to understand rather basic physics, including some of the main themes of the text like group and phase velocity of waves, puts this theory well ahead of the competition.
@radioteeth: for "modeling physics, netcode architectures and graphics" you need solid science and proven mathematics, not metaphors.

Admittedly, he had some pretty fun-to-watch 3D wave videos..... ;)

All I can say is has he ever heard of the double slit experiment. I would blow his whole little theory out of the "Aether".

theTroll

Quote:

Original post by Daerax I move this thread be shifted to the lounge.

i vote for the loony bin.

interestingly enough, i haven't seen a rebuttle to the content of this website. i've only wittnessed biased claims that the man is a crackpot before thouroughly examining the material on his website.

the double slit experiment reinforces the propositions made on this website.

could someone enlighten me as to what the flaws are in the man's reasoning? i'm really anxious to see how people can be sure he's a crackpot before they even examine the entirety of his theory.

innocent until proven guilty. he's right, as far as i'm concerned, until someone proves his theories wrong.

anyone up for the challenge? i'm very interested to hear someone's reasoning.

Quote:

Original post by radioteeth could someone enlighten me as to what the flaws are in the man's reasoning? i'm really anxious to see how people can be sure he's a crackpot before they even examine the entirety of his theory.

I consider a theory worth reading if it correctly predicts phenomenons not explained by current theories. I haven't seen such a claim on the website => I'd rather learn the currently established theories than something that is at best an alternative equivalent theory and most probably just bullshit.

Crackpot or not, he's put a lot of work into it.

To put a huge hole in his theory just read the thousands of article on how light is a particle. Lights duality as a wave and a partcle is not explained at all by the author, without this explanation it is not even a fair theory.

theTroll

Quote:

Original post by TheTroll To put a huge hole in his theory just read the thousands of article on how light is a particle. Lights duality as a wave and a partcle is not explained at all by the author, without this explanation it is not even a fair theory.

ok, i'm going to find articles about photons..

here's a quote from wikipedia about photons and the slit experiment

Quote:

For example, when shooting single photons through a slit, a detector can detect each photon when it hits - but over time, the detector will detect the same diffraction pattern as it would if the photons were given off all in one burst. This is because any given trajectory the photon could take has a certain probability that is dictated by the properties of an electromagnetic wave.

'photons' are particles that behave like waves. interesting.

Quote:

According to the quantum electrodynamics of the Standard Model, photons have zero rest mass and zero electric charge, but they do carry energy, momentum and angular momentum.

sounds a lot like a plain old wave. waves are not matter, they are energy moving through a medium.


the wave-particle duality wiki says:

Quote:

Light was believed to be a wave, as Thomas Young's double-slit experiment and effects such as Fraunhofer diffraction had clearly demonstrated the wave-like nature of light. But as the 20th century turned, problems had emerged with this viewpoint. The photoelectric effect, as analyzed in 1905 by Albert Einstein, demonstrated that light also possessed particle-like properties.

Ok, so the photoelectric effect is responsible for the reinforcement of the idea that light is a particle. While other experiments point toward a wave-like nature of light. Let's examine why the photoelectric effect 'proves' the particle theory of light:

Quote:

In the photoelectric effect, it was observed that shining a light on certain metals would lead to an electric current in a circuit. Presumably, the light was knocking electrons out of the metal, causing them to flow. However, it was also observed that while a dim blue light was enough to cause a current, even the strongest, brightest red light caused no current at all. According to wave theory, the strength or amplitude of a light wave was in proportion to its brightness: a bright light should have been plenty strong enough to create a large current. Yet, oddly, this was not so.

The 'crackpot' proposes that light spawns as prominent wave undulations. These undulations can have varying wavelengths of the 'electromagnetic spectrum' but at a fixed amplitude. Perhaps these undulations are what have been labeled as 'photons'.

According to photon theory:

Quote:

Normally, light is formed from a large number of photons, with the intensity related to the number of them.

Thus, we can conclude that it's not the amplitude of these 'photon' undulations, but their numbers that determines the intensity of the resultant light. Thus the only properties light may have are the numbers of undulations (brightness), and their wavelengths (color), but not their amplitudes (constant).

This completely blows the particle-wave duality out of the water because particle theory implies light intensity is due to numbers of photons while wave theory of light implies light intensity is due to amplitude of the wave, but nobody thought there could be more than one wave (ahem, white light anybody?).

However, light's resultant effect on specific metals to produce an electrical current is determined by the susceptability of the electrons in the metal's molecular structure to the wavelengths of the light. Different molecular structures determine what circumstances an electron will yield to.

This also works in reverse as different molecules are capable of producing different colors of light.

There's the explanation. So maybe the crackpot does have a fair theory.

As for the claim that the mention of aether warrants the suspect of a crackpot theory, I believe it's equally (if not more) archaic to propose everything is made of particles without knowing what these particles are made of. A curious proposition, in my opinion.

Quote:

Original post by radioteeth interestingly enough, i haven't seen a rebuttle to the content of this website. i've only wittnessed biased claims that the man is a crackpot before thouroughly examining the material on his website. ... could someone enlighten me as to what the flaws are in the man's reasoning?

The problem with his "reasoning" is that there is very little to reason to it. Let's look at his proof that standing waves in his Aether are indeed electrons:

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/matter.htm This wave shows all of an electron's properties. It is unlikely that this wave is known, else it would have been systematically mentioned as an example to illustrate the Lorentz transformations. Indeed, it conforms to it in a spectacular way and even allows the theory of Relativity to be explained. For instance it shows very well many vertical and parallel zones traveling toward the right. Each zone indicates places where the Lorentz t' time is the same, as a result of the time shift. Even better, this wave manifests all of the electron's properties. Everything indicate that it actually *is* an electron. This wave is an electron. Let's repeat : this wave shows all of an electron's properties.

Sounds more like religion than science to me. And "vertical and parallel zones" traveling forward in this wave don't prove anything. But let's read on:

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/matter.htm This wave spectacularly conforms to the Lorentz transformations. It seems at rest if one moves along with it. It even seems to act and react, in every Galilean frames of reference, as if it were at rest. From its perspective, another wave's Doppler effect only manifests according to its relative speed, which explains Relativity.

So if I understand correctly, he is saying that if you move along with this pseudo-standing wave you will not know whether you and the wave are moving or are at rest (an absolute requirement for Special Relativity to hold!).

But this very notion is contradictory to what he was saying just half a page above (emphasis added by underlining):

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/matter.htm One can also produce ingoing waves by using a large hoop. These waves will culminate at the center then go back, becoming outgoing waves and meeting the ingoing waves. The following animation shows how the superposition of ingoing and outgoing waves produce a well-known undulatory structure: standing waves.

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/matter.htm The Doppler effect. If the hoop is slowly moved forward while producing such standing waves, they become compressed forward and dilated backward. This is the Doppler effect, which acts in the same way on ingoing and outgoing waves. This produces a very special wave. Let's call it a pseudo-standing wave, because it is not a "standing" wave any more : [PICTURE] It is represented in its own moving frame of reference, where its relative speed is null.

So now he is saying that a moving hoop will produce different waves than a hoop at rest would, even if you are moving along with the hoop. This is in obvious contradiction with what Special Relativity would predict.

The contradiction arises from the fact that these waves are supposedly a part of the Aether, which is presumed to be universally at rest. On the other hand Special Relativity postulates, that no object (Aether included) can ever be said to be absolutely at rest. Indeed one of the most famous predictions of Special Relativity is that there is no Aether!

That alone would blow his whole theory out of the water (excuse the pun), but that's not all:

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/matter.htm Thus, the presence of a "solid" particle is no longer needed to explain matter. It is even excluded. An electron isn't a metal marble covered in chrome. An electron cannot be made of matter. It is rather matter that is made of electrons.

How exactly was he able to arrive at this conclusion? We already know from Quantum Mechanics that particle-wave duality exists (albeit it is in no way connected to his Aether and pseudo-standing wave theories!), but to postulate that all matter is only electrons is a bit absurd.

Why would electrons be so special? Why not say that all matter is pions, neutrinos or even quarks? And how exactly does he plan to explain particles that are lighter than an electron (neutrinos are a prime example)?

He goes even further when he says that there are electrons hidden inside baryons (protons and neutrons for example):

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/sa_electron.htm Positrons cannot survive in such an environment, but one can suspect that, because of the beta-plus and beta-minus decay, the neutron and the proton may contain a certain number of electrons and positrons hided between their three quarks.

This shows two obvious holes:

1) He postulates that there are electrons and positrons hidden in-between quarks, thus acknowledging the existance of quarks. But remember he was saying before that there is no other form of matter but electrons! And how exactly would one be able to cram electrons in-between quarks?

2) He clearly doesn't accept matter-energy equivalence, also one of the most fundamental predictions of Special Relativity. According to this equivalence beta-minus decay means that a neutron transforms itself into a (lighter) proton, while the rest of its mass goes into creating an electron and an electron antineutrino and giving them both some kinetic energy.

And as if that wasn't enough, here comes his self-righteous quasi-religious babbling once again:

Quote:

From http://www.glafreniere.com/sa_electron.htm The electron explains all. Matter is made solely of electrons. The electron explains matter and all forces. This is very demanding for a simple wave. But the point is: this wave does explain everything.

And that's just the main highlights of the first 2 pages of the total of 23!

But I suppose I needn't go on any more, since this post is beginning to seem a bit long already.

P.S. To learn about the currently accepted theory of particle-wave duality I suggest you look up Quantum Mechanics. I believe it will prove to be much more illuminating than the afore mentioned website.

Referring to the mathematical theory of general relativity, "Einstein's explanation was an insult to our intelligence."

...

His intelligence?

I also like how he rounds 2/3 to .666

Quote:

1 - "The speed of light is the same in all inertial frames of reference". This proves to be totally false. 2 - "The same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good". This is fully true

This doesn't make much sense because you can derive the speed of light from the laws of electrodynamics, so if 2 is true then so is 1.

Not to mention the hotmail email address and no information about the author. But in any case it's always fun to read through crackpot papers and look for holes, it's just too bad this one's so obvious.

Bojan

Quote:

Original post by radioteeth Thus, we can conclude that it's not the amplitude of these 'photon' undulations, but their numbers that determines the intensity of the resultant light. Thus the only properties light may have are the numbers of undulations (brightness), and their wavelengths (color), but not their amplitudes (constant). This completely blows the particle-wave duality out of the water because particle theory implies light intensity is due to numbers of photons while wave theory of light implies light intensity is due to amplitude of the wave, but nobody thought there could be more than one wave (ahem, white light anybody?).

Every photon has an energy determined by its wavelength only. The "amplitude" of a photon is pretty meaningless, it's not a water wave; the analogue of amplitude are the electric and magnetic fields that make up the photon.
The size and shape of a photon (e.g. as a superposition of TE and TM modes in a waveguide) is irrelevant, it is the same quantum of light stretched differently.
Light intensity and power density of a beam and energy of a single photon are three different things.
You really should study quantum mechanics from good textbooks.