Ask any question you want about Physics

a reply to: blackcrowe

I do have videos online. Several years ago I put together videos on these links: A Derivation of Maxwell's Equations from an Assumed Aether and the ABC Preon Model. Recently I added a video to my YouTube channel on a return to realism and absolute theory, which can be found on a thread here on ATS. The Preon Model and Maxwell Derivation videos are a bit dated now, as I've made additional progress in the years since I posted them. But they are still quite close to my present thinking.

My updated aether theory is actually going well now, but slowly.

As for Arbitrageur's questions.

1) I have found most physicists have a sense of morality and integrity. I think the chances are near zero that a whole lab of scientists and other staff could be bought off for money. If that were the case they would have gone into another line of work.

2) Here's my guess on the railway tracks. My guess is that they stretched; metal can do that if under enough stress. A lot of stretching could occur if a fissure went back and forth. From the photo it appears that after the movin' and shakin' ceased, the land ended up back close to where it began. There could have also been a resonance involved, with each shake adding to the next stretch of the metal.

a reply to: delbertlarson

Thanks delbertlarson.

I did play your last video released earlier this year. I hadn't realised you already had the others.

They seem easier than reading the papers. But. The calculus is beyond me at present.

TextMy updated aether theory is actually going well now, but slowly.

As long as it's in the right direction. I'm sure you'll be content with slowly for now.

Thanks for answering the other questions.

Hopefully, others might too.

a reply to: delbertlarson
Sorry for going on again with some conceptual brainstorming but I finally thought of a clearer way of getting at what I was wondering. In your aether theory it seems the suggestion is that space is full of 'aeather' particles, I have asked you before just off the cuff about thoughts on how they might be attached to one another or their size, density, how 'what charge is (what physically is it) is physically differently effected by it' etc, and stuff about modes of propagation. Well let me just get to this conceptual visualization question about em radiation, aether attachment to charge and response to its movement.

Imagine you had 100 marbles on your table, arranged 10x10, I dont know if it will come into play but if it does they can be labeled a1-10 -- j1-10.

A representation of the aether, though to be more accurate I suppose you can answer to as if there were also 10 rows of 10 stacked on top, but maybe that can be separate after thought, though entirely relevant, bare bones first things first.

So imagine if you placed your fingers on 2 marbles in the front in the middle (e1 and f1 I guess) and you shook your fingers back and forth (mimicking the acceleration of an electron in relation to the EM field/aether).

(Am I at least pointing anywhere in the vicinity, very crudely, into any coherent relationship of possible cause and effect response between charge and EM/aether?)

So you just touched the first 2 marbles (related are my questions about 'how the aether touches the charge', the volumeic size of aether particles related to charge, as you can fit less marbles touching the sides of a baseball as you can a basketball), and for this to in anyway even .001% mimic the EM radiation/propagation/wave reality, from your finger acting as electron acceleration it would have to create a wave of energy away from it, so, crudely we could first imagine the central 2 columns of middle marbles to wave side to side mimicking the side to side acceleration of your fingers.

But, we would quickly consider that it may be impossible for just the central 2 columns to react, and I guess I now may see that if you shook the two marbles side to side, if any approaching representation of understanding of reality, the propagation would not be in the away from your body direction (forward: you sitting at the table, reaching out in front) but side to side, and that is why I mentioned newtons craddle, you shake the two marbles side to side, and they hit their neighbors and so on, but thats not really an up and down snaking wave, like if the two center marbles were now attached by string running through the center, and you wiggled them with a little more force, we can imagine them wiggling back and forth that center column. But it may be wave registered in the pulseness of it, difficult to tell with just one single, back and forth once, but if you did it repeatedly, and now we imagined 1000 x 1000 marble set up, and could detect along that first row, as you newton cradled the middle 2 side to side into their neighbors, you may detect some frequency of collision along the row, related to your force of moving them.

Because I was going to say, if somehow you shook the center 2, and then expected the entire 2 columns starting with the 2 you touch up away from you shaking back and forth, this is why I have asked questions about how might the surroundings react, how is an em wave so singular and small-ly contained, if it is this material that is moved back and forth, how would the wave not be provoked into all the material directly surrounding the accelerated charge.

Then there are interesting things to consider about even the possible circumstances under which a charge can be accelerated, and it is rare/unlikely you can just have your fingers there, just a stationary electron and then just shake it once, or a few times, but that to mimic what would have to be done in the fingers example, your fingers would have to be a distance away moving in some vicinity towards the marble set up, and then something must cause the electron/fingers to accelerate (!) and that something it self is likely associated with charge and/or em radiation already (?!)

A lot of what I just said may be wrong and foolish, but I think there may be a sliver of a seed of interesting that could grow an interesting consideration/answer of yours.

a reply to: DanielKoenig

Your description of particles and marbles is an atomic viewpoint. The aether may be atomic, or it may be continuous. If the atomic nature is small enough it can be considered continuous, and my modeling has been of a continuous aether. Secondly, there are two types. You can consider red and blue marbles if you wish, and the best way to think about that is with overlapping red and blue, each occupying the same space. The red are a solid under tension; the blue are a solid under tension. Each blue marble is typically connected to a red one overlapping the same space, and you can envision the connection by an internal spring between the two. As you pull them apart you get a restoring force. It is possible to split the red from the blue and disconnect one from the other. When that is done you form a detached red one and a detached blue one. That is what charge is - detached aether. Lastly, when aether flows through other aether there are flow forces.

The above is a model along your lines of atomic thinking. Instead I do continuous analysis. There really aren't springs, it is just that a spring has a kx force law which is common for substances to first order. Things aren't really red and blue, there are just two substances.

Also, when you do your movement thought experiments don't forget it is three dimensional.

originally posted by: delbertlarson
Your description of particles and marbles is an atomic viewpoint. The aether may be atomic, or it may be continuous.

Don't know about using the term 'atomic' to describe it considering that is describing something very particular, but speaking of particular, maybe by that term you mean 'particleular', though this is exactly what I was attempting to get at, what can possibly be meant by a 3d/4d volume of material/substance/'real field' that is 'coninous' or 'particle-less' or 'part-less'.

Because if you have a 3d/4d volume of 'stuff'(/non nothing)/your supposed possible continuous aether, and there is a particle in this volume, an electron or a bowling ball, does the particle/electron/bowling ball not displace the aether: where electron body exists would it not be true that aether cannot exist there, if electron is located at space B7 (aas well as taking up other slots in the volume grid) because its not a 1d point particle) couldnt aether/em field not be located at B7, implying that the 'continuous' em field/aether is parted, meaning it would have 'edges'? Meaning the 3d/4d medium of EM field substance/aether is full of gaps in its continuity, breaks, displacements, where all non Em field/aether substance exists.

Anyway, what would it mean for any 3d volume of substance to be composed of no parts, well if we suppose an electron is not a 1d point like particle which reality strongly tells at least me and you could not be the case due to the nature of 'real 3d distance' and the fact that a quadrillion theoretical 1d particles stuck together would not reach half a planck length of distance due to the tautological definition of 1d. So this implies fundamental particles, are such an example of a 3d volume that is a continuous substance itself. Which provoked my previous thought experiment about if there was some type of particle (used electron like as an example, just to get into mind a 3d continuous micro bit of substance) that you could place a billion of them together and they would perfectly seamlessly smoosh together into one continuous volume of substance, like how water and jello and a diamond appear to our atomically distant eyes, as one continuous substance. But it is interesting to note that there is no evidence of large continuous substances, if electron is an example that a particular 3d volume can be itself a continuous substance (partless) electron is...ahem...very very small, what are the next bigger 3d volume substances, nature cannot create any thaaat much bigger than electron (considering how much bigger a diamond and jello is to an electron) that the next example of a 3d volume of continuous substance is the size of the universe?

It is very hard to think about this, if the EM field/aether is perfectly partless continuous substance, my mind wants me to ask the question, by the very fact that this 3d volume aether looking at every accelerating charge within it, how their movements create various movements in the aether, called radiation, that is this radiation, these waves, these relatively independent aether movements within he whole 3d volume, imply that those movements are the parts of the whole, are the semi separate parts of the whole?

What you are suggesting with the idea of continuous is that something conceptually like water, like a swimming pool can exist and not be composed of atoms, parts, but possess the ability for at many places inside the volume to have different directions of movements,.. its just, how to even think about such a concept. Well, if there is some material like water where we cant even tell that water is composed of parts, its motions are so smooth and continuous, and the atoms are attached to one another and act as one singular substance. I guess it comes down to what I said about an electron displaces, parts, the aether meaning that maybe theoretically bits of matter, electrons could completely spherically surround a volume of aether, cutting it off from all the rest, and thus making it not continuous, thus making there a 'particle' of sorts. Then would you need to say, all the rest is composed of these possible cuttable particles, but that they are so well smooshed together, they require certain material that is not them to be able to displace them?

Furthermore in 3d/4d continuous volume how would wavelengths and frequencies function? What "part would be specifically, particularly waving"?

If the atomic nature is small enough it can be considered continuous,

I believe we may be getting a bit semantically dicey here, I mean for practical terms maybe one can consider water and lava to be continuous, if continuous means, something like sharing some characteristics of liquids ability to continuously take the shape of a volume and flow fluidly, but I mean technically maybe I can say a brick and an orange are continuous because I cant see any space in them, but this all has to do with how words are agreed to be defined and the value of their use and what is trying to be said with them, the importance and meaning of what is trying to be said, the significance of the possible reality meaning of continuous. The idea of 3d/4d volume of substance (a mm, a cm, a planck length, 500 planck lengths) and the possibility of that volume of 1 particular substance to either be composed of parts, or to be able to take up that space and be 'partless' and what that could possibly mean. If something can be composed of parts and said to be continuous, I dont know how much differentiating between 'atomic and continuous' means or signifies.

Also, when you do your movement thought experiments don't forget it is three dimensional.

Yeah, thats what I meant by this:

A representation of the aether, though to be more accurate I suppose you can answer to as if there were also 10 rows of 10 stacked on top, but maybe that can be separate after thought, though entirely relevant, bare bones first things first.

quote I missed continued

originally posted by: delbertlarson
Secondly, there are two types. You can consider red and blue marbles if you wish, and the best way to think about that is with overlapping red and blue, each occupying the same space.

A red is non pointlike/non 1d, does it have extent, take up 3d space, (less important for this line of questioning but interesting and important) does it have mass?), and blue is the same? Then certainly you dont mean they could physically occupy the exact same space, as in if the center of a reds body is located at planck length/infinity point in space X,Y,Z: 55, 222, 834 then the center of blues body cannot exist at 55, 222, 834 at the same time? Perhaps the surface of their bodies could touch at that point, but I wouldnt call that exactly precisely occupying the same space.

The red are a solid under tension; the blue are a solid under tension. Each blue marble is typically connected to a red one overlapping the same space, and you can envision the connection by an internal spring between the two. As you pull them apart you get a restoring force.

Any theory on how that may be mechanically possible? Its one thing to say "when I put this N pole near this S pole the N and S poles move towards each other on their own accord", and "____________ and thats physically mechanically how". I have spent some time trying to think of and understand that how, so naturally am equally curious how the red might connect to the blue when you say later, there really aren't springs.

It is possible to split the red from the blue and disconnect one from the other. When that is done you form a detached red one and a detached blue one. That is what charge is - detached aether. Lastly, when aether flows through other aether there are flow forces.

Which charges are they? Preons, everything is made of preons, even what is detected as electrons and quarks? It seems from prevailing physics theory and claimed experiment, electrons and quarks are fundamental, and it is guessed quarks have different charge ratio, so how do you get these possibly 3 fundamental things from your suggested 2?

a reply to: DanielKoenig

A red is non pointlike/non 1d, does it have extent, take up 3d space, (less important for this line of questioning but interesting and important) does it have mass?), and blue is the same? Then certainly you dont mean they could physically occupy the exact same space

The analysis is 3d. As for two things occupying the same space, consider a salt chrystal of NaCl. Only when you get down to atomic scales do you see individual Na and Cl. From larger scales, like microns or millimeters, you have Na "stuff" and Cl "stuff" occupying the same space. As you shrink from meters to millimeters it looks the same. For the Aether Model, the two solid, continuous 3d substances attached to one another are postulated to occupy the same space. Ultimately the substances may be atomic, but it isn't important to the analysis I am doing now.

Analysis assuming a continuous substance means you can shrink your cube of analysis and the density stays the same. For an atomic point-like assumption this is not true, since as you shrink toward the point the volume decreases but the mass (or charge) of the point remains the same, so the density increases.

An ancient question is whether the basic building blocks of nature are point-like, or do they have size? If point-like, infinities arise as our analysis volume goes to zero. If not point-like this implies a continuous nature of things once we reach some small enough volume.

Any theory on how that may be mechanically possible?

The F = kx force physically arises often for small disturbances even if the full force equation is different at large disturbances. F = kx is the first term in the Taylor expansion, dominating for small distances.

Which charges are they?

When one type of aether is freed from the other type, the freed aether is what we know as electric charge. One freed type is positive charge, the other negative charge. This is the origin of charge conservation.

it is guessed quarks have different charge ratio, so how do you get these possibly 3 fundamental things from your suggested 2?

Quarks have never been isolated, and I believe quarks are merely bookkeeping artifacts that enable the standard model to map to experiment. For a better underlying model, see The ABC Preon Model, in which charges only come in integer units (not fractions like the one third used in quark theory).

Note that it would be very helpful for further discussion if you would click on the links and study what is linked to. To be clear, the links to click are:
The ABC Preon Model
The Aether

Hi, I'm back.. happy to be back

who has missed me ??

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Once again you demonstrate you have no clue what you're talking about and you especially don't know how to do even simple math, which is all that's needed in this case.

Hi Arbitrageur, nice numbers !

but you calculate as if all the "photons" are moving in one line, they do not !

EM emitter (moved charge) emits spherical, sure if the wave is bounded by a cavity you can "see" just the part of the wave that was not obscured by the cavity surrounding the emitter... like sphere..small hole in it... EH coming just out of that small hole. And it is not a laser that accumulates the EM.

lets assume the radio station has a good antenna and it emits cylindrical ( up and down motion of the exited electrons... )

so if the emitter is 0.2 meter in radius, and 1 meter in height
Total Surface Area = 1.50 meters2

this is the "photon" count you have calculated (50K watts)
1.078E32 photons per second

100 meters away from the emitter ( cylindrical surface ) the wave surface is
Total Surface Area = 63460.17 meters2... factor 10 thousand less

so... if the "photons" are particles, I assume they do not "grow" with the distance they propagate ? right ??
( photons are point like particles with no area, volume or what so ever )

1000 meter away, the count drops to E25

10 KM -> E23
and so on

so.. how high is the "photon" count needed for an receiving antenna to actually get a signal ?
in 100 km it drops to E21 from E32

not to forget, air is absorbing too...
and yes, antennas use all the EM energy it receives, you can not move electrons using just a part of the energy from the EM wave.
Energy conservation low, EM -> electron motion

in truth, antennas do more some "capsule" emission what makes it E20 by 100KM down from E32
and as I've said, calculation without any losses by the air...


one more.. you calculate the emitter is 100% efficient ... it is not !
go down to some percentage for the power put in and the actual emission energy.

Is there any reason for snow?

Besides the change in aesthetics and the joy it brings during Christmas, is it really needed?

Just wondering why this is a feature on Earth.

originally posted by: Steffer
Is there any reason for snow?

Besides the change in aesthetics and the joy it brings during Christmas, is it really needed?

Just wondering why this is a feature on Earth.

Earth atmosphere contains water. When this water freezes you get snow.

If you take a website full of intelligence and mix in politics, is it now proven that it makes people more divided ?

thus

ATSxBS=PEO/PLE

Happy for these types of thread as I actually learn and so do others, just from reading, thanks to all contributors

originally posted by: ErosA433
When the energy density decreases due to expansion, you reach a point of a kind of freeze out, this is a point at which guons and quarks cannot exist in unbound states becomes important and dominant. At this point, nucleons become discrete objects. The process isn't quite as hard as you might think, but the concept is that conservation and natural physical law means the process occurs and you indeed end up with discrete nucleons. You sort of miss a big question that you should be asking here should you understand the physics behind what is being described... though ill let you figure out what that question is.

Daniel didn't take the bait on your description of hadronization but I will, are you referring to the unsolved baryon asymmetry problem?

originally posted by: ErosA433
Thats the whole point. When you say classical, you are sort of missing what it means to say classical. Quantum mechanics and quantum descriptions are fuzzy sometimes sure, but this idea that you want everything explained in a straight classical idea of "This does that" is extremely limited and obsolete and is preventing you seeing the woods for the trees so to speak. The reason? Well because in reality we do observe that 'this does that' is more like... this does... about 30 different things

Yes, Daniel is still trying to take classical-like models and impose them on the universe, rather than starting with experiments and trying to come up with models that can explain those. Of course it helps to become familiar with experimental results in order to follow this path, rather than continuing to ask overly simplistic questions which don't consider all the complexities.

originally posted by: ErosA433
I am in a manner of speaking, currently tired of trying to explain what I/we understand to be the current working model at great depth, for it to be (sometimes purposely) pushed aside by members who clearly don't want to or don't feel like they need to put any effort in to understanding even the most basic principles. What has been shown in my replies is perhaps a little rude, but is born of exacerbation at exactly this. The lines of questioning and the leading statements show that they are questions being made from a stand point of

"Im going to give you leading questions because I want to do a follow up and say you are wrong"

And what is more frustrating is then to read a wall of text that is absolutely meaningless waffle that proves nothing, and doesn't at all emanate a sense of "This person knows what they are talking about" and more a "I have my head in the "what if" clouds so deep that i don't know where the ground is anymore... but thats fine because if i just repeat questions over and over again, it shows I am a great seeker.

As I said I wasn't too optimistic that this would change, but I did hold out some small hope that Daniel would read and appreciate your excellent answers, but sadly, I see little to no evidence he actually did that. In fact I've avoided posting to this thread for some time after your excellent answers, to avoid distracting Daniel from your answers so he could really respond and follow up on some real science instead of "head in the clouds", largely classically based hypothesizing.

originally posted by: delbertlarson
3) The more recent discussion has gotten into quantum mechanics vis-a-vis human understanding. Here, it is only the principle of relativity - a mere philosophical stance - that gets in our way of a common sense understanding. If we simply assume that nature involves the truth of underlying waves, and that those waves can only take on quantized values, all experiments are quite amenable to understanding.

I have to disagree strongly here. Einstein recognized the quantum, one of the earliest folks to do so earning him his Nobel prize for his work on the photoelectric effect. But what's common sense about assuming nature must be quantized? Take the example of a car accelerating from zero to two KPH. Our experience tells us that in order to get from zero to two kph, the car must accelerate so it travels at all speeds in-between to get to 2 kph, including 1 kph for example.

If you scale this common-sense idea down to the quantum world, it's not at all intuitive that a quantum particle may jump from one energy level to another energy level without having any energy level in-between. In the classical world this would be analogous to the car jumping from 0 to two kph without traveling at any speeds in-between, so it's more like "stair-stepped" energy levels rather than a "smooth acceleration" described by classical physics. In fact the car probably does have a stair step type of acceleration but because the car is so large and the steps are so small it merely appears to smoothly accelerate.

I am also asking Daniel to watch this video which shows people reacting to the double-slit experiment, in response to his inquiry noted below. These reactions have very little to do with your claim that relativity somehow will affect these perceptions, as far as I can see.



The youtuber who posted that video took a lot of heat for using the demo that showed the "eyeball" as the observation tool when such experiments are not done by an eyeball-shaped detector and the electron does not act "almost as if it knows it's being observed" as the video misleadingly says, so she then had to post an apologetic follow-up video clarifying that miscommunication in the original video, but setting that aside, the reactions would still genuinely be similar confusion about how such behavior can make sense with our classical understanding, when it can't. If the waves are always quantized why do they sometimes behave in the quantized, particle-like fashion and other times not? Of course that's at the heart of wave-particle duality and quantum theory for which we have mathematical models but not the deeper understanding as lamented in the opening post video by Sean Carroll. Here's the follow-up video clarifying that the "eyeball detector" is not really an eyeball and it has nothing to do with whether the electron knows it's being watched:

originally posted by: DanielKoenig
Didn't read the rest of the post yet but whats with the all or nothing, black and white, non quantum logic, putting words in my mouth that because I asked a few questions about some things you said this means that anywhere in my writing I uttered the words 'you know nothing' as in "leading claims that we know nothing"?

You didn't exactly say he knows nothing (though ImaFungi probably said that and we all know who that was, right?), but you did say more or less that what he thinks he knows is wrong. To make such an attack is analogous to tilting at windmills because the entire scientific method has as its basis the possibility that our models might be wrong, and good scientists don't claim they are 100% confident all our models are right, just that they are consistent with observation. So as with the epicycles model or the Mayan astronomers example where they could mathematically predict eclipses without fully understanding planetary orbits etc, what's needed to show there's a better model than the mainstream model currently in use is to do the same thing we can do with the epicycles model or the Mayan astronomers mathematical eclipse model, which in both cases we can clearly demonstrate how the new model is better. Unfortunately your "deep questioning" is not really leading us to such a solution but rather shows a bias for classical thoughts which we know are not consistent with experiment.

originally posted by: DanielKoenig
"Most people don't like it when they first learn about it, because the experimental results don't agree with what we think is logical"

Give a list, a general list of the concepts, aspects, topics, things that you think are these experimental results that are not logical, that people don't like.

1) Watch the video "People See the Double-slit Experiment for the First Time" in the previous post, and look at the reactions.
2) A car seems to accelerate smoothly, but a quantum particle has "quantum jumps" between energy levels, which is not at all like the car or classical ideas. It may be perfectly logical to nature, but it's not how humans have thought for as long as we existed, until about 1905.
3) Reviewing your posts I see you have expressed puzzlement over quantum entanglement so that should be a personal example you are struggling with which has no classical analogy.
4) Since we already touched on this, electron orbitals can't be classical.

originally posted by: DanielKoenig
This is an example of what I tried to express with my statements on the meaning and catch all use of the terms classical and quantum and what it actually refers too: what about electrons having orbitals is forbidden by classical physics?

originally posted by: ErosA433
To say this is to fundamentally not to understand or consider the models. Classically, electrons should spiral inward to the nucleus as there is nothing preventing them from doing so. You may say this is the same for planets too... though the scale is very different and most orbits are not fundamentally stable.

Correct, that classically electrons would spiral in toward the nucleus very quickly. I'm sure you know why it's different from planets though you didn't mention this difference, is that classically it was known that accelerating electrons causes them to radiate energy, and of course a classical orbit is in a sense a constant acceleration toward the nucleus, so unlike the planets which do not need to radiate energy while they accelerate toward the sun, the electron would radiate energy and because energy is conserved that would mean it loses energy, causing the death spiral to the nucleus to happen very quickly according to classical theory.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

So. It's a matter of how it's being watched. Not that it's being watched.

I knew that. The concept seems quite clear.


Of course, Dr. Quantum is a follower of Ramtha, so who knows?

originally posted by: KrzYma
Hi Arbitrageur, nice numbers !

but you calculate as if all the "photons" are moving in one line, they do not !

I made no such calculations. You implied some kind of photon shortage and I calculated there were plenty of photons to go around. I didn't try to calculate how many were received, but that turns out to be way more complex than your calculation, if you want to do it accurately.

in truth, antennas do more some "capsule" emission what makes it E20 by 100KM down from E32
and as I've said, calculation without any losses by the air...

OK so you're saying that maybe a radio receiver only gets a trillion photons at 100 KM from the radio station, is that what you're saying? No wait, E20 is 100 million times that much, so 100 million trillion photons per second? And you're trying to suggest this isn't enough to run a radio receiver? Because some are lost in the air?

one more.. you calculate the emitter is 100% efficient ... it is not !
go down to some percentage for the power put in and the actual emission energy.

No, I'm not assuming that. The license allows the station to broadcast 50,000 watts. They can send for example 70,000 watts to the electronics for the transmitter if that's what it takes to actually broadcast 50,000 watts. You're really focusing on the wrong things here if you want to know how far away the signal can be received. There are so many photons coming from that radio station that a shortage of photons at 100 km from the station is not a problem, 100 million trillion per second, less some losses according to your own numbers though I didn't check your math but yes it will be a lot. Even after accounting for the losses you seem so concerned about there will still be many millions of trillions per second which sounds like more than enough to me.

The real problems with greater distances in this particular example are related to the curvature of the Earth. In this regard the height of the antenna plays a major role in not only the "line of sight" capability, but at the low frequencies of AM there are some factors which allow reception beyond line of sight, such as refraction by the atmosphere, and also the conductivity of the ground or water over which the radio waves travel impacts how far away the signal can be received.

You didn't even seem to really consider the line of sight issue, but that's one method of AM transmission, and for these calculations, atmospheric refraction is usually included.
Ground transmission is another method.
Reflections from the ionosphere is a third method, which with AM radio you don't get much during the day, but can extend the reception distance at night. Here are some schematics explaining these concepts:

www.ccs.neu.edu/home/rraj/Courses/6710/S10/Lectures/AntennasPropagation.pdf

so.. how high is the "photon" count needed for an receiving antenna to actually get a signal ?

You're the one who seems to think 100 million trillion less a few losses isn't enough, so you tell me!

This isn't exactly an apples and apples comparison since the antennas are parabolic reflectors on both ends, but still it can get you thinking about how many photons are really needed to receive a signal. The Voyager spacecraft is over 142 AU from Earth, or about 21 billion kilometers. The transmitter is only 22 watts but even though the transmitting antenna is parabolic, very little of those 22 watts reach Earth. Also because the frequencies used are much higher than with the AM radio station, far fewer photons per watt are generated, since each has more energy.

It turns out we can get a signal from this amazing distance so to answer such a question you have to specify a lot of other parameters like the size or gain of the antenna, the amount of noise at the relevant frequency, and the amount of signal to noise ratio you are willing to live with. For example very distant AM radio stations can sound "noisy", so you still get a signal but would you actually listen to that? I suppose it depends on how interested you were in the programming and how much the noise annoyed you.

Your simplified calculations reminded me of a statement a physics professor i knew liked to use, he said "assume a perfectly spherical hippopotomus". In addition to creating humorous imagery, it's rather insightful that we sometimes do make some simplified calculations just to get a rough idea or "put a stake in the ground" so to speak for referencing the more complex calculations. For example the calculations for the angular momentum of a homogeneous sphere rotating at 1 rpm are not complicated, but they would get complicated for a real hippopotamus considering how irregular and complex the mass distribution is compared to a simple sphere. But if you did the calculation for a sphere and you know the hippo will have more angular momentum then doing the sphere calculation wasn't useless, and likewise your calculation of 100 million trillion photons isn't useless, even if it's not correct it does give an idea using a simplified model.

But the bottom line answer for the AM radio example is that even with atmospheric refraction and ground wave propagation skirting past the strictly line of sight issues, and allowing for some "bending" or following the Earth's curvature, you could still probably get better reception at a given distance by simply increasing the height of the transmitting antenna, and transmitting at the same 50 kW power, since the signals can only follow the Earth's curvature so much, and this also depends on the frequency and what part of the AM band the station operates in.

These complications are also why some so-called "engineers and scientists" who are using radio waves to prove the earth is flat fail to do so because they have failed to take into account these features of atmospheric refraction and ground-wave propagation as I mentioned earlier in the thread. This is one of the things that makes science interesting, that you can master some simple concepts like you using inverse-square calculations, but real life calculations end up being much more complicated depending on how much accuracy you want.

The coverage map for the radio station we have been discussing illustrates this, since it tries to take some of these complexities into account, which is why the reception rings are not circular, and you have multiple reception rings depending on the desired signal to noise, the last one being "fringe".

radio-locator.com...

a reply to: Phage
It's sort of sad so many people get misconceptions from that video, so I was hesitant to post it, but I hoped that showing the apology might help put it in perspective for some people who watched it and got the wrong idea about electrons having consciousness because they behaved differently when they were being watched, or whatever the video was trying to imply in that regard. The core concepts shown are correct, but then the video doesn't know where to draw the line and goes on to the Ramtha nonsense and many viewers have no idea where the quantum science ends and the quantum nonsense begins, and the quantum science is a little odd so who can blame them? Maybe watching the apology video can help.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Hi Arbitrageur - great to see you back. There were several things that have come up in the past two and a half weeks I thought you might respond to. blackcrowe asked for an answer to your Oct. 19 questions on the top of page 373. I thought you likely knew the answers already, but since blackcrowe asked for an answer I took a shot. What do you think of the answers I provided? Are they the ones you had in mind? Or close? blackcrowe also posted something about Feynmann's Ratchet I thought you might respond to.

And then there is "the question of truth". I tried to be a bit provocative. I had stated that truth was the sum knowledge of all past events. After posting I realized that truth may incorporate more than just historical fact, as there can be truth in physical laws and truth in fundamental beliefs. (So maybe this is "loading up" the term "truth".)

--

As for common sense and quantum mechanics, a car, or any free particle, does indeed have the ability to take on any energy whatsoever. The quantization only comes in when boundary conditions result in a bound state. Even in the bound states, if you take a square well potential and let the walls go to infinity the size of the quantum energy steps go to zero. But free positive energy particles can have any energy whatsoever.

Einstein's proposal that light was made up of quanta solved the photo-electric-effect puzzle. But light quanta are a different quantum issue than the quantized energy steps found in bound states. Rather, it is that light is made up of quantized units. The photo-electric effect came about because there was a bound electron (which is in a quantized bound state) being freed by a single quantum of light (the light is not in a bound state), and hence the light quanta must have sufficient energy to free the electron - turning up the number of light quanta won't do it, since it is an individual light quanta doing the job. However, the light can come in any energy whatsoever.

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The common sense I am referring to is that we can fully understand QM if we set relativity aside and view the situation as one of real, diffuse entities collapsing whenever they have a momentum exchange. The mystery of wave particle duality itself collapses if we adopt a philosophy that the square root of the density is given by the wave function and then follow this collapse hypothesis. We can envision a real, physical, extended object undergoing an instantaneous collapse to another size. Bell's theorem results are understandable. Realism can be retained.

The two slit experiment is also understandable via the above philosophy. Each particle of light (or electrons, or neutrons) has a wave function that is allowed to expand so that it covers both slits on a first wall. Some of the particles hit that first wall away from the slits and collapse on the first wall to a small point, since those that hit the first wall exchange energy with it. For those that do not hit the first wall, the collapse occurs to the region where no collapse is required - at this point the particle occupies the region of both slits and it is split in two. From there, both parts travel to the second wall, and since there are no holes in the second wall it will collapse when it arrives there. Interference is easily calculated under this explanation to arrive at the known results. Realism can be retained.

The only thing in the way of all the above simple understandings is relativity, since relativity precludes instantaneity of spatially extended events. And that is why relativity must go. We can simply return to absolute theory and our world will make sense once again.

originally posted by: delbertlarson
I thought you likely knew the answers already, but since blackcrowe asked for an answer I took a shot. What do you think of the answers I provided? Are they the ones you had in mind? Or close?

I have as many questions as I do answers. I've been on this conspiracy site 9 years, and most conspiracies are utter hogwash, like moon landing hoax, etc. But then I find what looks like a real conspiracy on the closure of the Solar observatory, but it's only half a conspiracy theory. Why half? Because it's extremely obvious the official story that it was closed while conducting a manhunt for the janitor who was kicked out of his home and thus moved into a brightly colored tent 20 meters outside the main entrance doesn't make any sense.

I can't imagine any reality where that story makes any sense, but I don't know what really happened, and the people that know, won't say, so that's why it's only half; I don't know what really happened. I did read a hypothesis posted in the main thread that sounded at least plausible but I don't know if that's what really happened, and don't wish to re-hash that main thread here, but I know some scientists post here and the only question I had for them here is how much cash payment are we talking about to not talk about what happened at your workplace like an observatory, or how much cash payment would you need to not talk about what happened at a lab you worked at, like say the accelerator you worked at, if someone paid you money to not talk about what happened there, how much would it take? Nobody really answered, maybe nobody can answer, and maybe it's not 100% confirmed that really happened but nothing about what really happened is confirmed, except it doesn't seem likely a huge manhunt was going on for a man living in a tent right there in plain sight at the main entrance.

For the other question, I tried to provide a big clue on the track deformation with the accompanying video. blackcrowe apparently watched the 1 minute of the video I suggested to get the hint, and I can only surmise that you didn't watch it because your answer in no way correlates with what is seen in that video like blackcrowe's answer does. Asphalt roads apparently don't have nearly the compression or tensile properties that railroad tracks have. Under compressive stress asphalt road surfaces seem to buckle as seen in the video, and I imagine if they are stretched they might stretch a bit in warm temperatures but if stretched suddenly in an earthquake I expect we would just get one or more gaps in the asphalt surface, since the tensile strength can't be very high.

I started looking into railroads and found some interesting things. Apparently until about the 1970s, rails in north America were typically constructed of 39 foot segments which just fit into the 40 foot long transports. To allow for thermal expansion and contraction they were not butted against each other when connected but gaps were left which could close when it got hot to prevent rail distortion from compression stress. That solution did prevent stress but it had a lot of maintenance issues at the gap and the "clickety-clack" sound the old tracks made were sort of audible evidence of the stresses being placed on those joints, not to mention a bit noisy, so apparently in the 1970s some new technology was implemented called CWR or "Continuous Welded Rail" where they butt the ends of the track together and heat them up to weld them, leaving no space for thermal expansion like they used to. So this leaves an interesting question, how does this deal with thermal expansion? Apparently the answer is, sometimes it doesn't, and a number of train derailments every year result from "sun-kinks" which result from distortion of the track when it gets hot. OK so that these "sun-kinks" occur should be no surprise to any physicist or engineer, right? When the track expands too much such that the existing restraints are insufficient to restrain it, the restraints give way and the track distorts. Here's an example of a sun kink from the Iowa DOT website:

www.iowadot.gov...


There are 4 questions you could ask here:
1. Was the correct neutral temperature selected? (temperature where the track is neither under tension or compression)
2. Is the ballast poor?
3. Were there unclipped sleepers?
4. Were there loose ties?

Since we seem to be setting more record high temperatures than record low temperatures, it's possible some tracks are just exceeding their design limits when a new high temperature is set, regardless of the track construction. But if the temperature is just hot but within the expected range, the failure could result in a particular spot due to one of the other three reasons.

Ground shifting in an earthquake can obviously exceed the design limits of the track which is what happened in the case I asked about but what I thought was interesting was why the track was kinked in such a pattern in a relatively confined length of track, and why that particular spot when the surrounding terrain doesn't show much distortion.

But if you look closely some people have said the fence holds some clues and that it's not taut like it previously was is more evidence of some horizontal compression occurring in the ground in that area. I read somewhere that the estimated ground shift was maybe 4 meters, so how that results in 9 extra meters of track seems a bit odd unless it was hot so the extra 5 meters came from thermal stress that was already in the track and was relieved in the earthquake once it started buckling due to that stress. Why that particular shape of distortion looking almost sine-wavy instead of the whole kink just being pushed off to one side? I don't know. Could some spots be anchored better than others? Could there have been some kind of resonance or pattern in the earthquake waves or the type of shaking which contributed to that shape? Again I don't know. I think I have some answers, like the cause being sudden compression stress, but not all of them, like why that shape happened, so it was really an honest question to see if anyone had better answers than I thought of.

a reply to: delbertlarson

As for common sense and quantum mechanics, a car, or any free particle, does indeed have the ability to take on any energy whatsoever. The quantization only comes in when boundary conditions result in a bound state. Even in the bound states, if you take a square well potential and let the walls go to infinity the size of the quantum energy steps go to zero. But free positive energy particles can have any energy whatsoever.

Apparently bound states covers a lot, because even if you take stars, made of plasma where the temperatures are high enough to ionize matter, we still see the quantum effects in spectral lines which give us clues to the stars composition. And of course in more earthly conditions bound states are quite common. Anyway my point is that we didn't have the intuition to think of these quantized energy levels. As far as I can tell it took some puzzling experimental results we didn't understand to lead us to start hypothesizing such quantized explanations for those results, hence my claim that such quantum behavior was not intuitive to humans before it was discovered.

The two slit experiment is also understandable via the above philosophy. Each particle of light (or electrons, or neutrons) has a wave function that is allowed to expand so that it covers both slits on a first wall. Some of the particles hit that first wall away from the slits and collapse on the first wall to a small point, since those that hit the first wall exchange energy with it. For those that do not hit the first wall, the collapse occurs to the region where no collapse is required - at this point the particle occupies the region of both slits and it is split in two. From there, both parts travel to the second wall, and since there are no holes in the second wall it will collapse when it arrives there. Interference is easily calculated under this explanation to arrive at the known results. Realism can be retained.

I recognize that at one time we thought protons and neutrons were fundamental particles and didn't know their composition. I don't really follow your explanation because the concept of "part of an electron" is foreign to me. I can't deny that like the proton and neutron we may someday discover that electrons too can have "parts", but I don't really understand your proposal here. So if the electron splits into two parts to go through the two slits then you can have half an electron (two halves)? Then with three slits, the electron could split into thirds, and so on so it's infinitely divisible into as many parts as there are slits? I'm not sure how then it's still a particle, which seems more like going back to the wave description. Now perhaps if I could see some experimental evidence of "half an electron" which went through one of the slits, I might be persuaded, but it's not apparent to me at all that's what is happening in the two slit experiment.

The only thing in the way of all the above simple understandings is relativity, since relativity precludes instantaneity of spatially extended events. And that is why relativity must go. We can simply return to absolute theory and our world will make sense once again.

I've read that claim of yours before, and setting aside whether that claim has any merit or not (which I don't know the answer to that), I still say if you go up to any of those people watching the double slit experiment for the first time, and tell them that, it's not going to make any more sense to any of them. They are going to be more puzzled by what you say because they weren't even thinking about relativity and they have no idea what relativity has to do with anything they just saw in the two slit experiment. From their perspective, you're talking about a somewhat esoteric modeling issue, while they are trying to grapple with whether the electrons are waves or particles and why they behave one way one time and another way another time.