Aether Matter Waves

[Niekie]

I believe that conceptually it is possible to describe matter (rigid matter) as a standing resonance wave within the aether. The reasoning goes as follows:

1. There are two kinds of waves possible in any substance. They are longitudinal waves (also called compression waves - which is the term I will use going forward) and transverse waves. (Also called shear waves - which is the term I will use going forward.)
   
2. It is well accepted that electromagnetic waves are shear waves, and that electromagnetic waves propagate by an inductive mechanism. Obviously if we believe that there is no aether, then the term "shear wave" does not make a lot of sense, but if we have come to believe that it is reasonable that there is an aether, then the term makes sense.
   
3. We will make the assumption at this stage that mass is in some way associated with the compression wave "component" of the aether. I will get back to this, but let us assume this for now.
   
4. It is also well accepted that electromagnetic waves have no mass component. From that perspective we draw the tentative conclusion that electromagnetic waves have no compression wave component. In other words, electromagnetic waves are "pure" shear waves.
   
5. It is generally accepted that shear waves are not possible in fluids, only in solids. We also know from observation that the speeds of compression waves and shear waves are typically different in solids such as metals. On average, the speed of compression waves are twice as fast as that of shear waves in metals. The exact numbers differ between metals, and are a function of the shear modulus compared to the bulk modulus. (Young's modulus in engineering terms)
   
6. The problem is that a "pure" shear wave is not really possible when constrained within the "infinite" bulk of a solid. If we think of a "sine wave" as a shear wave, then when the material distorts in the "sideways" direction as the wave passes, there will be compressive strains placed in the material at those locations at 90° to the direction of wave propagation. The only "pure" shear wave is actually a circular motion in a frictionless fluid. (This type of thing is seen in superfluids. If you induce an "eddy" into a superfluid, it just keeps going around.) Only problem is that a circular motion is hardly a wave! It does not go anywhere!
   
7. But we need to again remember that electromagnetic waves propagate by an inductive mechanism. Conceptually I like to think of a "ring" of shearing aether resulting in a magnetic "field" which in turn induces another ring of aether to start rotating due to this magnetic field. As the second ring of aether starts "spinning up" due to inductance, the first ring of aether "spins down". Once the second ring of aether reaches a "critical" strain rate, then it in turn starts spinning up a third ring of aether etc. In other words, as long as a "critical shear rate" is established, then we get this inductive "cascade" happening. We have a local "spin" of the aether while the direction of wave propagation is linear. This linearity is dictated by the "new" aether ring spinning in a location diametrically opposed to the "collapsing" aether ring, due to the electromagnetic forces.
   
8. In other words, conceptually I think of it as "bangles" of aether spinning up and spinning down as the next intersecting (at 90°) bangle starts to spin up in turn. I have no doubt that it is probably more complicated, like for instance it could be two "bangles" spinning up together at say 45° to each other, or it could be discs, or spheres or whatever. For now, this is not important, because we are only thinking conceptually. The bottom line is that electromagnetic waves are shear waves that manifests locally as a pure shear rotational motion of the aether, and that as long as the shear rate of the aether is high enough, then we get the inductive propagation normally associated with "light" waves. It will propagate at the speed of light "c".
   
9. While we know that transverse waves are not possible in a fluid, if we associate electromagnetic properties with the "shearing" aether, then suddenly shear waves within such a fluid is totally possible. Also keep in mind that from a "mechanical" point of view we are assuming that the aether is massless and frictionless. The inductive properties do however have a "resistance" in as much as the electric / magnetic properties of the shearing aether causes resistance to the shearing, and will ultimately slow the aether down if it is below the "critical shear rate" required for the inductive cascade for light propagation.
   
10. Now let us look at the compression wave component of the aether. Let us imagine that we have a totally symmetrical compression wave propagating from a point. The compression wave will therefore move out in 3 dimensions. As this wave has no shearing associated with it, there will be no electromagnetic disturbance generated by this wave. It will just disappear into the infinite distance, slowly decreasing in amplitude. It will never actually stop, because there is not "friction", but it will eventually become so low in amplitude that it will effectively disappear.
    
11. What kind of speed will such a wave travel at? I certainly do not know, but I would assume that it would be significantly faster than the speed of light. Maybe 2 times? Maybe 100 or 1000 times? Maybe a million times? I can only speculate, but given that I am speculating that the mass component comes from the compression wave, and that we know that mass and electromagnetic "energy" is equated by E=mc^2, then it is not unreasonable to believe that the speed of the compression waves could be many orders of magnitude larger than the speed of light.
    
12. Now let us consider that the compression wave is NOT symmetrical. When it now propagates, there will be "edges" where the compression wave will induce a shearing motion into the aether as it propagates. If the compression wave is travelling at many times the speed of light, and there is a large enough "pressure gradient" then the shear rate could exceed our "trigger" shear rate for electromagnetic wave propagation. At that point, the inductive nature of the shearing aether will be triggered, making the first "very tiny bangles" of an electromagnetic wave. In so doing, it effectively changes a small portion of the compression wave momentarily into an electromagnetic wave. The problem is that the aether in the wake of the compression wave is "rarefied", therefore there is a "snap back" of the aether to actually create a compression wave travelling in the reverse direction. This happens much faster that the electromagnetic "bangles" can start cascading into "light waves", so in effect the reversing compression wave "segment" forces a reversing of the inductive "bangles". Once this "resonance" has been established between the compression wave and the electromagnetic forces due to the shearing aether, we have a "standing wave" formed.
    
13. Just like a pendulum (or guitar string) translates between kinetic and potential energy, so the standing wave translates between compression and shear waves, to form a resonance. Once formed, such a resonance would be very stable. In fact, "free" compression waves would probably be relatively rare, as their great speed will tend to "scavenge" them into standing resonant waves with the electromagnetic shear created by their motion through the aether.
    
14. As with all resonant systems, there will be more than one resonant frequency possible. As the resonance frequency changes, so the proportion of the "compression wave" to "shear wave" will be different. It is however clear that some resonances will be stable, so will easily manifest, while other resonances will not be stable and will "decay" to different resonances, or just simply transform entirely to an electromagnetic shear wave. So, one stable resonance could typically be an electron, another could be a quark / proton / neutron or whatever.
    

So, now we have the basis for the "aether matter waves". We can later discuss how this relates to all the "forces" we experience:

• strong force
  
• weak force
  
• electromagnetic force
  
• gravity
  

I know that this is totally conceptual, and will only be able to create a fuller picture if some calculations are done, (which is outside my present abilities) but it will be good to get some feedback at this point.

[Schmelzer]

I think such an aether model which contains only simple longitudinal and transversal waves is far too simple to obtain all the waves we need to obtain all the standard model particles together with gravity. 

To obtain standing or slowly moving waves out of usual waves is not really a big problem, essentially this is an automatic consequence of some reaction terms. If the basic wave equation is \(\square \phi = 0\), then all we have to add, mathematically, to get something with lower velocity is \(\square \phi + m^2\phi= 0\). This will already behave like a massive particle (with the relativistic formula for dependence of energy and momentum on the velocity).  This is, essentially, the simplest case of a reaction of the field with something else, in this case a reaction with itself.  Another classical example is light in a medium. It slows down simply because of reactions with the charged atoms of the medium.  I remember this was nicely explained in the Feynman lectures.

Pure shear waves are not a problem too.  The point is that there may be longitudinal waves too, but they simply go through without interacting with the charges. This is the so-called gauge freedom.  The mainstream makes a big deal out of techniques to get rid of them, but once one is not a positivist, and has nothing to object if there are also some dark-matter-like longitudinal waves, so what?  For a realist, these unobservable gauge degrees of freedom are not a problem at all. Once they don't react with charges, they become invisible.  The point being?  No problem at all.  

What is more difficult is to obtain more degrees of freedom. Here, we need some material properties of the ether which go beyond density, velocity and stress tensor.  What can be defined by density, velocity and stress tensor is the gravitational field.  For all the other forces and particles we need something else, they have to be other material properties.  

A model which has enough degrees of freedom to get all the particles of the standard model (as the fermions, as the forces) I have here.

[Niekie]

I think such an aether model which contains only simple longitudinal and transversal waves is far too simple to obtain all the waves we need to obtain all the standard model particles together with gravity. 

To obtain standing or slowly moving waves out of usual waves is not really a big problem, essentially this is an automatic consequence of some reaction terms. If the basic wave equation is \(\square \phi = 0\), then all we have to add, mathematically, to get something with lower velocity is \(\square \phi + m^2\phi= 0\). This will already behave like a massive particle (with the relativistic formula for dependence of energy and momentum on the velocity).  This is, essentially, the simplest case of a reaction of the field with something else, in this case a reaction with itself.  Another classical example is light in a medium. It slows down simply because of reactions with the charged atoms of the medium.  I remember this was nicely explained in the Feynman lectures.

Pure shear waves are not a problem too.  The point is that there may be longitudinal waves too, but they simply go through without interacting with the charges. This is the so-called gauge freedom.  The mainstream makes a big deal out of techniques to get rid of them, but once one is not a positivist, and has nothing to object if there are also some dark-matter-like longitudinal waves, so what?  For a realist, these unobservable gauge degrees of freedom are not a problem at all. Once they don't react with charges, they become invisible.  The point being?  No problem at all.  

What is more difficult is to obtain more degrees of freedom. Here, we need some material properties of the ether which go beyond density, velocity and stress tensor.  What can be defined by density, velocity and stress tensor is the gravitational field.  For all the other forces and particles we need something else, they have to be other material properties.  

A model which has enough degrees of freedom to get all the particles of the standard model (as the fermions, as the forces) I have here.

Thanks for the feedback.

In a "resonant standing wave" model like I have described, there can be many different "resonances", which can potentially have many different properties from a mass and electromagnetic perspective, so conceptually I don't think there is a problem with being able to get the different "standard model" particles. It is like getting many different resonant frequencies (harmonics) from the same structure.

Also, some of the SM particles are not stable under "normal" or "isolated" conditions, so we could debate whether they should be part of a model in any case. As an example, let us consider quarks. If quarks can't hang around in a stable fashion for any extended length of time, then how can they "combine" to make a hadron? It is however easy enough to explain how a stable resonance can be "destabilised" (e.g. in a high energy collider) to change into a number of different "meta-stable" resonances that then "decay" into more stable resonances, giving off electromagnetic waves in the process.

Obviously the mathematics to describe such resonances will be a lot different to the normal mathematics associated with explaining the SM using "quantum fields". I suspect that it may have similarities with the string theory calculations, but this is only speculation on my part. (Minus the extra 9 dimensions that the string theory guys need!)

You also seem to dismiss the compression waves as something that does not interact with the shear waves, so they can just be ignored. I would disagree with this assessment. I believe that the compression waves are the key to "matter", mass and gravity. The pure shear waves only give us electromagnetic properties, so we really need those compression waves!

You mentioned gravity. So, here is my model for gravity:

1. Compression waves can only exist if they distort the aether. You can think of it like a vibrating string. For the string to vibrate, the "tension" in the string must increase due to the added "curvature" needed for the string to vibrate. In the same way, when a compression wave is present, the aether needs to "rarefy" just before and behind the wave. Given that I am an engineer, I will just call this a strain field in the aether.
   
2. When we have a "standing resonant" wave, (a particle) then this strain in the aether will be experienced all around the particle. In other words, the presence of a particle distorts the aether. Sound similar to matter distorting "space time" does it not?
   
3. The more of these particles that are present in close proximity, the more distortion will be experienced around the "body". In the case of a planet, there is a lot of aether distortion taking place. (As a metallurgist I liken this to precipitates that are present in a metallic material. It tends to distort the metal's crystal structure locally, giving rise to a "strain field" that influences the diffusion of atoms around it.) This distortion of the aether will be proportional to the mass, and "dissipate" as a square of the distance you move away from the body, due to purely geometric reasons.
   
4. This strain of the aether will tend to change the "elastic modulus" of the aether in the strained region.
   
5. When two bodies are in proximity, then their "strain fields" will combine in the space between them. In essence the strain field between the bodies will have a higher modulus than the strain field on the sides away from the adjacent body. In other words, the mass of the bodies have resulted in uneven strain fields in different directions, meaning that the "modulus" of the aether is different in different directions. In particular, the modulus is greater in the direction where the bodies are closest together, due to the greater strain.
   
6. Let us now again consider that all the "particles" making up the body (e.g. planet) are resonating compression waves. The higher "elastic modulus" between the bodies will result in the resonating waves moving towards the direction of higher modulus. This can be seen to be similar to a mass vibrating between two springs. If you make one of the springs "tighter" (higher modulus) then the mass will vibrate closer to side of the tighter spring. In other words, when bodies are close enough together that their strain fields "reinforce", then the bodies will tend to move towards each other due to the strain gradient present in the aether.
   
7. In the case of a "small" body (e.g. a person on the planet surface) in the distorted strain field caused by the larger body, (the planet) there is still the "strain gradient" associated with the planet, so the smaller body still experiences the gravitational effect associated with the mass of the planet, and is accelerated towards the planet.
   

So, in this model of the aether, the "bending of space time" is exactly mirrored due to the presence of the compression waves. The compression waves give us all we need for gravity to work, and to mimic the main outcomes of general relativity. (We will however need to discuss the equivalence principle, which this aether model suggests is not entirely correct from a conceptual point of view.)

Even the gravitational lensing of light that is observed, can be explained by this distortion of the aether.

What are your thoughts on this model of gravity within an aether model?

[Schmelzer]

A compression wave is a scalar wave, it is characterized by only one scalar function, pressure. Gravity needs more, a full tensor, 10 components \(g_{\mu\nu}(x,t)\). There is no viable scalar theory of gravity with maximal speed as the speed of light and only a scalar function. This was, essentially, known already before general relativity - based on the scalar Newtonian gravity (which has infinite speed), they have measured the minimum possible for a maximal speed of gravity, and the result was much larger than the speed of light.

Poincare has tried 1905 in the hope that the old objection would not remain valid with the new mathematics of special relativity, but this hope failed. Scalar relativistic gravity is not viable.

In my theory of gravity, I need all the fields of classical condensed matter theory - density, velocity, and the whole stress tensor one needs for solids. No degrees of freedom left for other matter fields, not even the EM field.

The objection that some of the elementary particles are not stable is not very relevant. They transform into other particles (other quarks, or other leptons). So, some aspects are preserved. Then, particle conservation does not really matter - the fields are more fundamental. Particles in field theory are nothing but excitations (discrete energy levels) of the field. Same as phonons in acoustics.

[Niekie]

A compression wave is a scalar wave, it is characterized by only one scalar function, pressure.  Gravity needs more, a full tensor, 10 components \(g_{\mu\nu}(x,t)\).  There is no viable scalar theory of gravity with maximal speed as the speed of light and only a scalar function.  This was, essentially, known already before general relativity - based on the scalar Newtonian gravity (which has infinite speed), they have measured the minimum possible for a maximal speed of gravity, and the result was much larger than the speed of light.  

Poincare has tried 1905 in the hope that the old objection would not remain valid with the new mathematics of special relativity, but this hope failed.  Scalar relativistic gravity is not viable.  

In my theory of gravity, I need all the fields of classical condensed matter theory - density, velocity, and the whole stress tensor one needs for solids.  No degrees of freedom left for other matter fields, not even the EM field.

The objection that some of the elementary particles are not stable is not very relevant.  They transform into other particles (other quarks, or other leptons). So, some aspects are preserved.  Then, particle conservation does not really matter - the fields are more fundamental.  Particles in field theory are nothing but excitations (discrete energy levels) of the field.  Same as phonons in acoustics.

Thanks for your reply.

Can you perhaps explain how your theory of gravity works from a conceptual point of view? Explain it to me like I am a high school kid. No big words or equations, just a conceptual explanation.

I know that it is possible to generate gravitational equations based on assumptions (like Einstein's general relativity theory, or even Newton's) but these equations do not really have a conceptual basis. They just show mathematically what the logical conclusions are, based on fundamental assumptions and observations. By that I mean that they cannot really be explained conceptually without "going out on a limb". Einstein's equations show that "space time" is curved due to the presence of mass, but seeing as space is "vacant", what exactly is being distorted? What is a "field" when there is nothing there?

Obviously you agree that there is an aether, so you believe that space is not vacant, but it looks to me (and I may be misunderstanding your points) like you are using the same basis for your theory as those on which the standard model is built. But if you believe in aether, then you by definition do not believe in the same basis as that which results in the theories surrounding the standard model.

I guess what I am saying is that the mathematics is great, but only in as much as they help us "quantify" the conceptual theories. Mathematics can even guide us towards the conceptual theories, but mathematics cannot replace conceptual theories.

I have read a number of books by leading physicists that attempt to explain gravity conceptually, but so far I have yet to find any conceptual theory for gravity that actually holds any water.

So, can you please explain your model for gravity conceptually, without the mathematics or big words?

[Schmelzer]

Think about it in the following way: There are experiments, and these experiments allow us to find out which functions we need to describe what we observe. There is an electric field? There is. And there is a magnetic field too. This is nothing which follows from some abstract theory. It was a consequence of observing electric and magnetic effects. Maxwell has got the equations for these fields right, and it appeared that these equations can be used also to explain light. Fine. But what are these electric and magnetic fields? Nobody knows. It does not follow from observation.

Same for temperature and pressure. That there is such an animal like temperature and pressure is something which follows from observation. The equations for them can be, then, postulated (guessed), and if they are guessed wrongly, this will be easily found out because the equations would not give the solutions we observe. But this is quite helpless to tell us what temperature and what pressure is.

Then came atomic theory, which made guesses what temperature and pressure is. It would have been foolish for those atomic theorists to invent new fields or new equations, instead of trusting what experimenters have observed, and used the equations physicists have found to describe them. They have not rejected these equations, but explained them, deriving them from some atomic models. The same ideas of the atomic model - to construct some models which would give the fields which have been observed - was also the base for old ether theory.

And this is what I try to repeat, and I'm quite successful with this program. So, I take the fields and the equations of the fields which have been found by modern physics. What I reject is the interpretation for these equations given by the mainstream. I search for an interpretation of these equations in terms of a classical ether. It would be as stupid for me to reject the GR and the SM fields and equations as it would have been for the old atomic theorists to reject thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. I take as given what experimenters have found in their accelerators. This is the starting point.

But this does not mean that I have to take over, together with the equations, also that strange curved spacetime interpretation. So, I do not think that these GR fields \(g^{\mu\nu}(x,t)\) define some "curved spacetime" or so. No. I use the classical Newtonian concept of absolute space and time. Then, the components of the "spacetime" split into parts connected with space - the components with indices 1,2,3 - and with time, which are the components with index 0. And I have found that I can, instead, identify the GR function \(g^{00}\sqrt{-g}\) with the density of an ether. And that I can identify the relation \(g^{0i}/g^{00}\) with the velocity of the ether. And in this case, very nice additional equations often used in GR to simplify the formulas - the harmonic conditions - which fixes preferred coordinates, simply appear to be the classical continuity and Euler equations for the ether.

So, the equations are used, the fields are used, but interpreted in a completely different way. In GR, harmonic coordinates were simply a quite nice choice of coordinates, they essentially simplified the formulas, fine, but they had no fundamental importance at all. To give them any fundamental importance would be anathema. I give them fundamental importance, they define the Euclidean coordinates of the Newtonian space as well as absolute time. And the harmonic condition becomes a well-known equation of classical condensed matter theory.