I've suggested (& published in 21 journal papers) a new theory called quantised inertia (or MiHsC) that assumes that inertia is caused by horizons damping quantum fields. It predicts galaxy rotation & lab thrusts without any dark stuff or adjustment. My University webpage is here, I've written a book called Physics from the Edge and I'm on twitter as @memcculloch. Most of my content is at patreon now: here

Sunday 7 April 2019

Models, Experiments & Theory

So much has happened over the last few months and thanks to my newly-funded collaborators, research into QI is now running on three cylinders instead of one: it was just theory, now the work includes models and experiments as well. My post doc, Dr Jesus Lucio is working very well. I asked him to write a matlab script that simulates wide binaries with ordinary Newtonian physics, and MoND and QI. His script has produced a very nice animation (see below) that shows that when you model a real wide binary, only quantised inertia (red) predicts the stars to be bound together (as they are in reality). Newton and MoND (blue and green) predict wrongly that the two stars should zoom off to infinity, and so they are falsified. He has extended this tool to also simulate the Solar system. It compares the predictions with the observed orbital trajectories. We are having fun simulating Oumuamua at the moment.


The other project I asked him to do is to develop a numerical COMSOL simulation of the asymmetric Casimir effect that underpins quantised inertia (reference 1). The process by which when you accelerate something to the right, say, relativity and the speed of light limit, implies there is a region of space to your left that you can no longer see and a horizon forms that damps the intensified (Unruh) quantum vacuum on the left side of the object leading to a net quantum force that resists the object's acceleration: inertia. Unfortunately COMSOL is having a hard time modelling a particle at the tiny Planck scale (10^-35 metres wide) moving within a cosmos approximately 8.8x10^26 metres wide. So, our first crude plan is to use a particle the size of a galaxy cluster, and then slightly smaller, and we will use the difference to extrapolate down to the Planck scale.

The two experimental teams I employed as part of my funded project are also getting started building light-emdrives. The Dresden team are building resonators, but the Madrid team are already experimenting and have seen some thrust of the hoped-for kind, that is over six sigma outside the noise. However, it will be a long struggle to show it is definitely The Big One. They are now slowly eliminating mundane effects that could also be causing it.

As well as thinking about thrust, I am trying to generalise and further extend QI to explain gravity. After reading a book by A. Unzicker (ref 2), it seems that Einstein may have been on a more QI-compatible course until 1911 when he was redirected into bent space by his geometer friend Marcel Grossman. The variable speed of light version of general relativity (VSL-GR) that Einstein published in 1911 had a flaw at the time, but that flaw was corrected by Dicke (1957) (ref 3) and this version is far simpler and agrees with all the predictions of standard general relativity. This VSL-GR is far more satisfactory to me than normal GR since it relies on a process (slowing photons) that can be measured directly, as opposed to standard GR which relies in bent space, which is an abstract thing that you cannot measure directly, except by virtue of the moving objects it was designed to predict anyway. I have had some success in building a mathematical bridge between quantised inertia and VSL-GR. I am still trying to decide whether the piles I built the bridge on (the assumptions) are solid or not. The best way to do this is to jump up and down on them a lot. I'll let you know if there is a splash.

References

McCulloch, M.E., 2013. Inertia from an asymmetric Casiir effect. EPL, 101, 59001. https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2775

Unzicker, A., 2015. Einstein's Lost Key. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Einsteins-Lost-Key-Overlooked-Century/dp/1519473435

Dicke, R., 1957. Gravitation without a principle of equivalence. Review of Modern Physics, 29, 363-376.


12 comments:

mikenyc said...

Evidence of bent space may be inferred from LIGO interferometry data and gravitational lensing. Presumably both phenomenological sets of data need to be accounted for in any alternative theory.

Simon Derricutt said...

Great progress, Mike! I hope we don't hear a splash.

Julien said...

Two things considering variable speed of light (VSL):

1) Does Dicke's VSL-GRT preserve Lorentz invariance? Most VSL theories break it.

2) Nowadays, we know that the fine-structure constant α = e²/(4π ε0 ħ c) is very important; especially for the formation of atoms in the universe. As one can see in the equation, for any VSL model, the fine-structure constant varies according to 1/c. So if c varies, α varies too, and atoms can no longer form. How does Einstein-Dicke VSL model cope with this?

qraal said...

Hi Mike
Interesting new direction. Of course any local change in c is equivalent to a change in the 'refractive index' of space-time, which is another way of looking at 'bent space-time'.

Julien said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Julien said...

[New comment replacing a previous terrible typo, posts not editable here]
@qraal I think you're talking of the PV (Polarizable Vacuum) model, initially developed by (what a surprise) Robert H. Dicke, then mainly Hal Puthoff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizable_vacuum
See also Todd Desiato's (aka WarpTech on NSF forums) recent article in JBIS (2015): The Electromagnetic Quantum Vacuum Warp Drive (behind a paywall, but presentation slides available there)

If there is a bridge between VSL-GR and QI, maybe there is also a link between PV and QI?

phildelltablet said...

Hi Mike,

A few things:

1) Does your post-doc knows to normalize the coordinate system?

In molecular dynamics simulations, and this keeps accuracy at the correct scale (since you'll probably be using DP numbers - there are other options to gain higher numeric accuracy, they are just *slow* ). Writing simulations has a lot of learned lessons over the last century!

2) please write in *python* for publication! Many of us use Matlab when in well funded institutions, otherwise post it to Github where a forked version can be pushed ;-)

Regards

PD

Ireland as seen from America said...

PD - perhaps it would be easier to use a program such as GNU Octave, which is designed with some MatLab compatibility, rather than rewriting it all in Python. Personally, I'd prefer the python but it's not always practical.

phildelltablet said...

Hi "Ireland",

Well I'll see if I can get Octave to work - but python is very flexible and would probable be easier to develop for large scale deployment.

Is there a github link yet?

I assume Mike wants to scale the calculations for much larger systems?

Using Matlab at scale is not practical (though I'm sure they will sell you a license to try ;-) ) , whereas python is well supported at the various computing centres and thus, can be replicated by other parties.

PD

Robert said...

I'm interested in knowing how the light EmDrive works and what kind of thrust do you expect? Thanks.

The True Nolan said...

I fear I may embarrass myself in front of my scientific superiors, but I am puzzled by the animation. The "ordinary Newtonian physics" stars seem to separate with no interaction at all, each of them moving in an apparent straight line with no curve from mutual gravitational attraction. What am I missing here?

Mike McCulloch said...

Unknown: The mutual orbital speed of the two stars is so great that, in normal physics, they do just shoot off as shown - their inertial mass makes them travel in a straight line. In QI-physics their inertial mass is much less so gravity can bend them into an orbit.