Disjointed Nature

Something I'm becoming more sure about is that I do not like the curved spacetime of general relativity, because, as Mach might have put it, bent space, just like absolute space, is a "thought thing" that one cannot directly observe. I would much rather base a theory, and I have based MiHsC, on things that can be better observed. For example: masses, distances, accelerations (more robust than velocities since they are independent of the reference frame) and also boundaries like the Hubble-scale, which can be seen in the sense that they are a boundary to what can be seen.

The curved spacetime of general relativity is the ultimate product of the Newtonian or differential toolbox, the idea of a continuous field. In my opinion it has not worked because nature is full of abrupt event horizons, and I think the way forward is going to be based on observables like masses, accelerations and boundaries.

A Drop Tower Test

The cover story of last week's New Scientist (19th January, 2013) was a well-written article by Stuart Clark called "Sacrificing Einstein" that discussed the equivalence principle (Einstein's "happiest thought") which could be said to be the elephant in the room of modern physics since everyone assumes it without understanding why. He also discussed MiHsC :) The article is here (you'll need a free registration to read it).

Stuart Clark also mentioned the Bremen drop tower, which is 110 metres high and can be evacuated to a near vacuum. Capsules can be dropped down it, producing freefall conditions inside lasting 4.74 seconds, and allowing tests of the equivalence principle. This made me think of a possible test, because although with MiHsC the inertial mass is no longer equal to the gravitational mass, the particular way it is different means that two different dropped masses will still fall together, but they will both fall slightly faster, since their inertial mass will be very slightly less than their gravitational mass. This means that in 4.74 seconds they would drop about 7.5 nanometres (in 110m) more with MiHsC then without it. It may be that due to uncertainties from the remaining air resistance or other parameters this effect is not detectable, but it is worth mentioning as a possible test of MiHsC.

Maybe this could also be done by dropping a known reflective mass from the International Space Station and tracking it down by bouncing a laser off it, and accounting for the momentum imparted by the laser light (on reflection, the ISS experiment wouldn't work because both the ISS and mass would be falling).

Modification of Inertia

MiHsC assumes that inertia is due to Unruh radiation (which objects are predicted to see only when they accelerate, akin to Hawking radiation) and that this radiation is subject to a Hubble-scale Casimir effect. The agreements I have demonstrated between MiHsC and various anomalies go some way towards supporting these two assumptions, but the best, most unambiguous, way to test them would be in a laboratory experiment in which other effects can be eliminated and the effects of MiHsC, if present, can be isolated. The experiments will not be easy, since the effects of MiHsC on Earth are subtle, but I have suggested a few. Two of them in particular are interesting not only as tests, but also for applications, if they work.

In the first paper listed below (in section 4 of it) I suggested that the Unruh waves seen by an object may be bent around it using metamaterials, reducing its inertial mass. This idea can be thought of as 1) bending the Unruh waves around the object to make them less effective in imparting inertia to it, and thereby reducing its inertial mass, or 2) bending the local Unruh radiation to change the Hubble-scale Casimir effect into a more local Casimir effect, which would 'damp' the Unruh waves and reduce inertia.

One problem with Unruh radiation is that for normal accelerations (9.8 m/s^2) their wavelengths are ridiculously long (7x10^16 m) so they are beyond our technology. However, for extremely high accelerations the waves become shorter. In the second paper listed below (also in section 4 of it) I suggested that a particle accelerator, like CERN, could be used to accelerate particles so much that the Unruh waves they see are short enough to be 'interfered with' by manmade electromagnetic waves (Unruh waves include em waves). Someone then emailed me to point out that NEMS (Nano-Electro Mechanical Systems) also produce very high accelerations..

Both suggestions are speculative and incomplete as yet, but I think it's important that I do my best, and have the courage, to suggest ways that MiHsC can be tested, and applied. Proposing experiments can also strengthen the link between the theory and nature, and helps keep the theorising on a useful, testable, course.

PS: Just before Christmas I submitted a paper suggesting a neat, and more specific, mechanism for inertia & MiHsC, which also suggests more specific experiments. Hopefully it will be accepted!

McCulloch, M.E., 2008. Can the flyby anomalies be explained by a modification of inertia? J. British Interplanetary Soc., Vol. 61, 373-378. Preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3022

McCulloch, M.E., 2010. Minimum accelerations from quantised inertia. EPL, 90, 29001 (4pp). Preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.3303

The Andromeda Pancake

Astronomers (Ibata et al., 2013) have just managed to show that many of the satellite galaxies of the large Andromeda galaxy M31 are co-rotating en masse about it in a plane, just like the planets in the Solar system orbit the Sun. The satellite galaxies' orbits may also be aligned with the rotation of the Milky Way. There is no known way to explain this with standard models of galaxy formation. Their article is here:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7430/full/nature11717.html

These satellite galaxies are definitely in the regime of MiHsC, with a very low acceleration which makes me wonder. Are they orbiting like this to maintain their acceleration above the MiHsC minimum: 2c^2/Theta? Or, since they are some way from the mass of the Andromeda galaxy, is their inertial mass being influenced also by more distant matter? Is there an inertial interaction between galaxies that makes them align like magnets? Anyway, it is a nice anomaly to think about.

The Eye as Well as The Mind

In 2000 I attended a two week course on Geophysical & Environmental Fluid Dynamics (GEFD) organised by DAMPT in Cambridge. I was inspired by it, because we were taught fluid dynamics using the mathematics, but then given some experimental work to test it, eg: dropping blobs of ink into spinning tanks..etc. We exercised outside to balance all the academic work, went punting on the Cam and were invited to play our musical instruments in an evening concert in Isaac Newton's rooms. I have not forgotten this lesson in balance, which is not to say I've completely lived up to it since! Anyway, I volunteered to play my flute in the concert. The fellow before me stood up and played part of a piano concerto from memory. Then I stood up and played a simple folk song on the flute, and felt inadequate by comparison!

This is one case where I can safely point to myself and accuse myself of the error of judgement that I think modern physics often makes. Complexity requires a prodigious memory but does not necessarily make something better. Sometimes when the difference in music or theories can't be easily measured or understood, people rely on something more easily measurable: complexity. They assume that what they can't understand is impressive, whereas in proven science it has been found delightfully that it is usually the opposite: the simple ideas are often true (Ockham's Razor).

I have been told that MiHsC is 'too' simple, but I do not agree. Nature's laws often are simple, because only simple balances last (see "underlying randomness"). So I think that the criteria for a good theory in order of decreasing importance are: 1) it predicts the observations well, 2) it is simple and 3) it is self-consistent. In modern times this order has been reversed. String theory is self-consistent, apparently, but it is not simple and it is not predictive.

I have read a lot about the work of the scientific greats, and have worked rather on the applied edge of physics and avoided the pressure to conform, so I have designed MiHsC using the old-style criteria 1 and 2. Its funny how the same old "look at messy nature" and "nullius in verba" empirical method keeps cropping up in the productive parts of science, only to be neglected when people decide they can progress by thought alone.

Many a person fails to become a thinker,
because his memory is too good.
F. Nietzsche.

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

Comments to NASA

A few months ago, NASA asked for comments from the general public. One of their questions was: What is your understanding and opinion of NASA's current vision, mission and strategic direction? If you think NASA's vision, mission and strategic direction should be different from the above, please state what they should be and why. Part of the answer I sent in, slightly edited, was this:

I think the NASA vision ("Improve life here, extend life to there, and find life beyond") should have the 'extend life to there' first, and 'improve life here' second, not because the latter is unimportant, but because NASA's unique goal should be the outwards push. This push will improve life here eventually since science and technology are always spurred to develop by people coping with new environments, but other government bodies exist primarily to look inwards. NASA alone is pushing out, and that shouldn't be diluted in my view.

NASA is developing a system to take humans to target an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by the 2030s. I think the target should be more immediate (within ten years), bold but achievable, and most important: permanent. By permanent I mean the infrastructure that is set up should be permanent and can grow with time, rather than being doomed to destruction like the ISS or the shuttles (great achievements, but they fade rather than growing). There are limits to growth on an asteroid. The easiest target that fits these criteria is a permanent base on the Moon. Of course, NASA has been to the Moon before, but I'd like to point out the difference between the abortive Viking visits to America and the Pilgrim fathers who settled and 'grew' into something new that contributed to human culture and science (and unfortunately displaced the native Americans, but happily there's no one to displace on the Moon). So I'd suggest a permanent base on the Moon: and Mars later on, since it is little better in terms of livability and too far away for easy travel and interaction. These goals would be more achievable if NASA utilised companies like SpaceX who have proven their efficiency.

 

Also, I think NASA needs to start thinking more about game changing technologies for Earth-Moon-Mars travel and fund people to look into it (ahem). Further, making NASA independent of political control with a fixed budget would enable it to follow a steadier course. Decisions are sometimes not being made logically by scientists, but emotionally by politicians to please states or groups, and this decreases efficiency.