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 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 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”.
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