I've suggested a new theory called quantised inertia (or MiHsC) that explains inertia as horizons damping quantum fields. It predicts galaxy rotation & lab thrusts without dark stuff or adjustment. My University webpage is here, I've written 4 books, see below right. Pls subscribe at patreon: here or support me at My Paypal
Showing posts with label galaxy rotation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label galaxy rotation. Show all posts

Saturday, 11 October 2014

In support of empiricism


I find it strange that those who support theories like dark matter, dark energy and string theory always respond to MiHsC by saying that it needs more evidence, as if they had some irrefutable evidence tucked away in a drawer somewhere! They have none. They are putting dark matter into galaxies because they blindly trust general relativity (GR), and they want it to predict the right rotation curve given the stars they can see, but they have absolutely no reason to trust general relativity here, because it has never been tested at low accelerations, only at high accelerations, for example with Gravity Probe B, orbiting binary pulsars and the perihelion of Mercury. The acceleration of a star at a galaxy's edge is more than ten orders of magnitude lower. The last time someone tried to extrapolate a theory ten orders of magnitude was when they tried to apply classical physics to the atom, and that went well...

It is clear to me how proper physics was done by the people I admire: Strato of Lampsacus, Galileo, Newton, the early-Einstein, 'Back of the Envelope' Fermi, Stommel & dear old Feynman and partly because of this, and my background in the more testable physics of the ocean, I have developed MiHsC consciously by looking directly at the observations (empiricism), particularly interesting anomalies, and deliberately avoiding the mainstream hypotheses and fashions, because to be frank they are vague, unimaginative, overly-complex and untestable.

As a result of this data-driven approach I can model the Pioneer anomaly well (yes, controversial), the flyby anomalies fairly well, the Tajmar effect well, dwarf galaxy, spiral galaxy and galaxy cluster rotation without dark matter, cosmic acceleration without dark energy, and the low-wavelength CMB anomaly. It seems all the mainstream can do is patch GR using dark matter in increasingly bizarre shapes and forms: they may as well attribute it all to 'God's stirring spoon' and join the clergy. Revered theories die hard, especially if there is no evidence for them!

Sunday, 30 December 2012

Minority Report


I've been trying to put some information about MiHsC onto the wikipedia pages for "Dark Matter" and "Galaxy Rotation Curves" and have been deleted by anonymous editors because of "undue weight". I don't see five lines about MiHsC among several pages about dark matter as being undue weight. MiHsC is a far better theory than dark matter. Both hypotheses fit the data but dark matter has infinite adjustability: you can add dark matter where you like to make general relativity fit the galaxy rotation data, so it is not surprising it fits, whereas MiHsC has no adjustable parameters so it is surprising that it fits.

Another complaint of the anonymous was that MiHsC is the view of a tiny minority (ie: me). I'd like to point out that scientific progress does not work by democracy, and certainly not by committee, but I have been through the peer-review process. At least let peer-reviewed new ideas be discussed, otherwise what is the point of it?

Anyway, I here reproduce the text I wrote for the dark matter and galaxy rotation curve pages, in the sections on: alternative explanations for the galaxy rotation problem:

Another possible explanation is Modified inertia due to a Hubble scale Casimir effect (called MiHsC, or quantised inertia). This model assumes that inertia is due to Unruh radiation and that the waves of this radiation have to fit exactly within the Hubble scale, like the waves between the plates in the Casimir effect. MiHsC predicts a new loss of inertial mass for very low accelerations, since the Unruh waves become long and a smaller proportion fit within the Hubble scale. The predicted loss of inertia for stars at the edges of galaxies means that they can be pulled into a bound orbit even by the visible matter of the galaxy, and MiHsC predicts the observed rotation curves correctly (within error bars) without dark matter, and has no adjustable parameters.

References:

McCulloch, M.E., 2012. Testing quantised inertia on galactic scales. A&SS, 342, 2, 575. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10509-012-1197-0
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7007