The Gravity of the Situation - It's All in the Ether

Today’s article is a bit off the beaten track, but an area of interest for NostraDavis.  Let’s explore Dark Matter and the Higgs Boson - and the never-ending search for them - and why it is never ending.

Dark Matter

I caught the following article on physorg.com the other day…

“(www.PhysOrg.com) -- In the never ending search for proof that dark matter really exists, new findings have emerged from a team working under a big mountain in Italy. The group, from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, have pre-published a paper on arXiv, and have also given a talk at the Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics conference in Munich where they describe how their CRESST II detector has recorded 67 events which they say cannot be explained by anything other than Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPS), a type of dark matter…”

Looking a little closer, however, we see that the “new findings” were just events that the researchers could not explain -- a far cry from actually having discovered something.  I suspect they came out with the announcement because it would never get past a peer review. 

Why are we looking for Dark Matter ?

The concept of Dark Matter was created in response to observations of the apparent movement of galaxies which do not match our gravity models.  We speculate that there must be some mass out there somewhere that accounts for this unexplained movement.

The dark matter enthusiasts seem to be blind to the idea that perhaps the models are wrong. Or perhaps there is another explanation.

Higgs Boson

Like the search for the elusive Dark Matter, there is a search for an elusive Higgs Boson.  Why are we looking for a Higgs Boson, you ask ?

“The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. Its existence is postulated to resolve inconsistencies in theoretical physics.  Experiments attempting to find the particle are being performed using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and the Tevatron at Fermilab.” -- From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

Like Dark Matter, the Higgs boson is predicted, not by the model, but by a gap between what the model predicts and what is observed.

Soon, it is predicted that scientists at CERN will know if there is a Higgs Boson – or not.    

An interesting place to read about what is happening is: http://www.quantumdiaries.org/

 

Similarity

Both of these searches are looking for an explanation for something about mass (gravity being the warping of space-time by mass).  Both of these searches are looking for something that is postulated to exist because our models have an apparent 'gap'.

It’s All in the Ether

I would like to suggest that we look in an entirely different direction.  Consider the following:

From ScienceWeek  (http://scienceweek.com/2005/sw050708-6.htm)

In the late 19th century, what we now call "classical" physics incorporated the assumed existence of the "ether", a hypothetical medium believed to be necessary to support the propagation of electromagnetic radiation.

The famous Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 was interpreted as demonstrating the nonexistence of the ether, and this experiment became a significant prelude to the subsequent formulation of Einstein's *special theory of relativity. 

Although it is often stated outside the physics community that the ether concept was abandoned after the Michelson-Morley experiment, this is not quite true, since the classical ether concept has been essentially reformulated into several modern field concepts.

The following points were made by Frank Wilczek (Physics Today January 1999):

1) Isaac Newton (1642-1727) believed in a continuous medium filling all space, but his equations did not require any such medium, and by the early 19th century the generally accepted ideal for fundamental physical theory was to discover mathematical equations for forces between indestructible atoms moving through empty space.

2) It was Michael Faraday (1791-1867) who revived the idea that space was filled with a medium having physical effects in itself... To summarize Faraday's results, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) adapted and developed the mathematics used to describe fluids and elastic solids, and Maxwell postulated an elaborate mechanical model of electrical and magnetic fields.

3) The achievement of Einstein (1879-1955) in his paper on special relativity was to highlight and interpret the hidden symmetry of Maxwell's equations, not to change them. The Faraday-Maxwell concept of electric and magnetic fields, as media or ethers filling all space, was retained by Einstein. Later, Einstein was dissatisfied with the particle-field dualism inherent in the early atomic theory, and Einstein sought, without success, a unified field theory in which all fundamental particles would emerge as special solutions to the field equations.

4) Following Einstein, Paul Dirac (1902-1984) then showed that photons emerged as a logical consequence of applying the rules of quantum mechanics to Maxwell's electromagnetic ether. This connection was soon generalized so that particles of any sort could be represented as the small-amplitude excitations of quantum fields. Electrons, for example, can be regarded as excitations of an electron field, an ether that pervades all space and time uniformly. Our current and extremely successful theories of the strong, electromagnetic, and weak forces are formulated as relativistic quantum field theories with local interactions.

The Prediction

NostraDavis predicts that the Higgs Boson and Dark Matter will turn out to be nothing but a bad idea. 

So what might be a better solution?  Maybe “space” is not just an “empty nothing” after all – a lack of everything.  Maybe space is a “something” – AN ETHER! - in which fields may exist (said another way, in which the fabric of space-time may be warped).

After all, we talk about warping it with mass and we talk about electric fields.   Maybe mass is not a property of matter, but a property of space time in the presence of matter.  Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong place for the God Particle.

And, maybe we should be thinking about what else could warp space-time.  It might be there is something else going on – something that might make galaxies behave is if there were Dark Matter.

Newton, Faraday, Einstein, and Dirac were on to something.  Michelson-Morley was misinterpreted.

C'mon guys. You're looking in the wrong place.  It really is “All in the Ether”.

Layered Realities – a walk into the near future

I’ve seen some forms of these ideas in a number of places.  I don’t remember where, but I'm definitely not claiming to have invented any of them.   My goal today is to put together a bunch of interesting ideas and tell a little story. 

The Prediction

Unlike some of my other articles, this entire article is the prediction. All or nearly all of the technologies necessary to implement Layered Realities exist today.  What is lacking, is apparently the will to do it.  Perhaps we can help change that.  

Let me know what you think.  And, tell me if you know of people out there who are building solutions similar to those described here.  -- NostraDavis

Stepping into the layered world – a musical encounter.

Imagine, if you will, using your Internet connected camera, cell phone, or virtual reality glasses as your window to the world.  I’ll imagine it as if I were using my iPhone.  I will turn on my camera, and hold the phone out in front of me, viewing the world by both looking directly at it (over the top of the phone) and by looking at it through the virtual lenses of the phone.  

Through my virtual lenses, I can see the same world that I see directly with my eyes immediately in front of me.  Well, maybe not entirely the same.  

Up ahead, there is a sign on the wall, advertising the latest music video.  Look closer. It’s a Harry Potter poster – the characters in the poster are all moving – and they are looking directly at me – making eye contact!   Then  I back away and look without using my virtual lenses.  I don’t see it.   Looking again through my phone, I see meta data around the poster.  I touch a virtual button, and I can hear the song in my earphones.  One of the musicians offers to sell the track to me,  to download it onto my phone immediately.  No Thanks. I click off and walk on.

That advertisement is layered on top of reality and only visible to those with virtual lenses.  This is a clever application of location technology, pattern recognition (the building and the place on the wall), image projection (to the viewpoint of my iPhone with even apparent eye contact), and advertising dollars.  All this technology is available today.   It is just waiting for someone to put it all together in the right way.

The Crime Scene.

I’m a police inspector.  Over there – across the road.  Someone has recorded the details of a crime scene, a nasty car accident.  There is the wrecked car, over there are the skid marks (highlighted in bright yellow so you cannot miss them), and over there is a body (blinking in and out of view), someone who was hit by the careening automobile.   As I get closer, I can see all sorts of meta data tags floating in the air over the various components of the crime scene.  These can be used to call up information related to this crime scene – invoking additional layers of information.  

This layer has been recorded by the police, investigating an accident.  Parts of it might be made available to insurance investigators. The investigators can even add to the information stored in the scene.  All of the relevant facts and spacial relationships between accident features are recorded enabling a complete walk through by investigators.

Out for a walk one night.

This evening, I’m wearing VR glasses – they let me see the physical scene directly, and layer displays of additional virtual realities on top of my view.  The VR glasses will also go translucent, displaying only what my portable applications tell them to display.  These apps live in my next generation cell phone.

There is a figure walking down the street – visible using the virtual lenses, but not visible without.  I can see him and he can see me.  I walk up to him, and using my device, select a meta data icon that establishes communication between he and I.  My cell phone serves as both the projection conduit and the communications conduit.  His image and other layers are made visible on top of the physical layer.

I  ask him what is going on.  Turns out, he is on an adventure, looking for clues in a murder mystery.  Some of the clues are in the real world, some are in layers.  As we join him in this quest, additional layers (those provided by the  game system) become visible to us.

Over there, across the street and up in a tree is a bird, singing.  As we approach it, the bird utters a clue in French and flies into a building using a door that is not really there.  We follow.  There, by the entrance to the building is another clue, a statue that displays a carved tablet as we approach.  Hundreds might be taking part in this adventure - from all over the world.

Some other chance encounters.

Later, I visit a virtual art exhibit on the street, next to a taco stand.  There are paintings, statues, and 3D video clips on display.  I can walk around them and talk to the other viewers of the exhibit.

On the subway home, people who have windows to other reality layers are treated to a live performance by a famous rock musician who just happens to be "in the mood" that evening.

Police, approaching a vehicle stopped for speeding, see a hidden gun, under the arm of the driver, courtesy of imaging equipment in their police cruiser, and see metadata indicating the driver’s rap sheet in the air over his head as they approach.

And, wouldn’t it be fun to see what’s behind that door over there.  The one that’s not on the physical wall ?

Postscript - References and Credit

The concept of layering is hardly new.  We see it in TV "green screen" weather reports on a daily basis.  And, I am reminded, we see it in football games - arrows on the field, and advertisements on the wall behind home plate in baseball.

Of course, the military has had a similar concept in their "heads-up" displays in aircraft and other weapon systems.  Even Cadillac offered a windshield projected infrared reality overlay a few years back.

The idea of virtual art that is tied to a GPS location is from William Gibson, an American-Canadian author.  It is mentioned in a number of his more recent books - he calls it Locative Art.  http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/