The Structure of the Universe
The supporting medium - Motion and structure - The
condensation of matter - A universe of matter and fields - The
geometry of structure
Where are we?
This has to be one of the most intriguing questions ever to challenge the human intellect. Our immediate impression is that we are under a dome of a dazzling night sky that bears no direct association with anything of our experience. To the Ancients the sun, moon, and stars were the faces of gods who ruled over the earth and the affairs of man.
The Greeks, who strove to set to order the movements of the celestial bodies, could not envision a limitless universe. They were geometrists who thought in terms of line segments and closed systems. The thought of a void and infinity to them was abhorrent. The Greek Cosmos, therefore, became a series of circles and concentric spheres encasing an immobile earth in Archimedean space.
Only after Copernicus did we realize that we are looking out into a vast space where stars are scattered helter-skelter like dust motes in an boundless room. This was the worldview that emerged after the shattering of the celestial spheres and the renaissance of science in the seventeenth century in Europe. It was modified by Einstein for his theory of relativity, although in principle its image has remained essentially the same. The universe is some immense void populated by an enormous number of diverse stars and galaxies.
There are, however, serious problems with the void concept.
The void is a product of our perception, and perception is notoriously unreliable. It was perception that told us that the earth is stationary and all things move relative to it. To evaluate external reality we must use experiments that do not depend on our seeing things from our perspective. And when we do this we discover that perception has given us a misconception of space.
The impression we have of a void is from the way we perceive motion. We perceive and think of reality in three dimensions. When we see or envision bodies moving relative to each other we think of them moving in a volume of space. Since space is invisible the background that we imagine is created mentally to complete the stage. There is a space, but what it is we cannot tell by perception. Bodies move through this space without interference, and we therefore presume it to be a uniform and unreactive emptiness. This is what gave rise to the belief that space is some great void in which bodies move relative to each other under the influence of gravitational attraction.
The void of perception has no actual existence.
Newton devised a mechanistic model where bodies course in the void on a balance between inertial motion and mutual attraction of their masses. The Newtonian view was an analytical image of discrete bodies separate from their surroundings. By invoking action-at-a-distance he was able to bypass a direct causal interaction between objects and their space environments. It was a practical, remarkably workable, model, but it was contrived. Inertial motion does not in reality exist. The impression that a propelled object would go in a straight line indefinitely were it not pulled down by gravity is an illusion. There is no inertial motion, and gravity is not a force acting across space.
Newton believed light to be corpuscular and assumed it moved through the space void the way matter moves through space. But in 1803 Thomas Young clearly demonstrated that light travels as waves, and wave motion is the way energy is transmitted through a medium. After discovery of the wave motion of light scientists speculated on the character of a medium that could transmit waves at such an enormous velocity. The earlier wave theorists, including Huygens of a century and a half before, regarded light as longitudinal oscillations along the line of propagation as with sound waves. Young had suggested that light might be transverse waves with oscillations at right angles to the line of propagation as in the case of water waves. The French physicist Augustin Jean Fresnel liked the transverse wave theory and adopted it as a premise.
Fresnel went on to theorize that ordinary light consists of waves oscillating equally in all possible planes at right angles to the line of propagation. This theory received wide acceptance by being able to explain the double refraction of light by Iceland felspar, a phenomenon that neither the particle theory nor the longitudinal-wave theory could explain. According to the transverse-wave theory light could be refracted through different angles because one ray could consist of waves oscillating in one particular plane, while the other ray could consist of waves oscillating in another plane perpendicular to the first plane.
The transverse-wave theory, however, created problems for the ether hypothesis. As long as light was regarded as longitudinal waves, the ether could be considered as a very thin gas-like substance undetectable by ordinary instruments. Transverse waves, on the other hand, are transmitted only through solids. For light waves to be transverse the ether would not only have to be a solid, it would have to be extremely rigid to account for the enormous velocity of its waves. This, of course, was contrary to the fact that the planets move through it without interference. There were, therefore, two conflicting conditions that are not reconciled by current physics.
The transverse waves of light require a solid medium.
If we assume that space is a medium, then light's velocity is determined by the tension of the medium. And from that it should be possible to calculate the velocity of light. This calculation was made 140 years ago by James Clerk Maxwell when it was believed that an ether filled space and served the role of a luminiferous medium. Maxwell found that to make a coherent account of the electromagnetic equations he had to assume a medium consisting of an elastic solid. The assumption of elasticity suggested that the electromagnetic medium could support wave motion. Any elastic substance with density p and a shear modulus m can transmit transverse waves with a velocity v = (m/p)1/2.
Maxwell found that for a medium having magnetic permeability m equal to unity, v was almost equal to the velocity of light. He concluded that the inference is unavoidable that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. From this theoretic approach he calculated the velocity of light to be 193,088 miles per second, within 1% of the measured value of 186,282 miles per second.
The physical analysis indicated that the medium for light waves must be an extremely rigid solid, but this could not be reconciled with bodies moving through it. Maxwell believed initially that light waves were electric deformations in the electromagnetic medium. Later he suggested that it is possible to drop the electromagnetic medium and treat light as alternating electric and magnetic fields propagating themselves through space. Maxwell's suggestion that light can self-propagate allowed the image of space as an unreactive void to prevail. Light was a segment of a broad spectrum of electromagnetic waves moving through space populated by material bodies, and the Newtonian cosmology was preserved.
Then in 1887, Michelson and Morley tried to measure the movement of the earth through the ether by its effect on the motion of light. To their astonishment and everyone's dismay they could not detect any change whatsoever. It was not that the null reading was disappointing, it was was simply incomprehensible. If light and matter both move through space how is it possible for the earth to be hurtling through space at 18.5 miles per second and have no effect on light?
At this point physics took a fateful direction. The Michelson-Morley result meant either of two conditions. Either light and matter have unrelated motions and move to different space references; or light and matter move through space alike as Newton assumed, and light's velocity is always constant because changes in the physical state of bodies in motion prevent measuring any effect on the motion of light.
If the first supposition is correct, then there is a medium for light and we have to readjust the way we think of space. If the second supposition is correct, then space is an unreactive void and we have to change our thinking about the effect of motion on the physical conditions of matter. It was this latter supposition that Einstein followed in developing his theory of relativity.
Einstein kept Newton's physics and his assumption that light and matter move alike through a space void. The difference is he dismissed Newton's universal space as a background reference and made all motion relative. Time was equated to the velocity of light and reality was centered on the observer. In order to account for light's constant velocity, Einstein employed "relativistic effects" in which length contracts, mass increases, and time slows, as objects move faster.
Relativity is a form of dynamics, and dynamics is committed unconditionally to the void. Einstein, therefore, dismissed the ether as unnecessary and followed Maxwell's suggestion that light is self-propagating. This does not, however, account for its wave motion, its constant velocity, or its non-materiality. Light is pure motion, and when it stops moving it ceases to exist. Relativity did not resolve the Michelson-Morley paradox simply because the use of "relativistic effects" to maintain light's constant velocity in the line of motion does not explain why light's velocity coming from all other directions should be constant. The paradox actually suggests that the earth is stationary in the space medium while light moves through it at a constant velocity.
This means that there are two types of motion, two types of space in which they move. There is an extremely rigid space medium through which light moves but matter does not, and there is the space void which is an abstraction from perception in which bodies move, and which physicists have used as their background space for relative motion presumed to occur due to forces between masses. Bodies suspended in the space medium move relative to each while remaining centered because of non-uniformity of the medium by gravitational fields.
There are two kinds of motion; two kinds of space
Eight years after Einstein published his theory of relativity in which he dismissed the ether as unnecessary an experiment was carried out which proved unquestionably that a medium exists. In 1913 Georges Sagnac, a French physicist, modified Michelson's experiment so that instead of doubling the path of the light beam back upon itself a split beam of light was directed around the edge of a 20-inch turn table. When the table was rotated and the light beam was brought on itself there now were interference fringes. The edge of the rotating table did indeed move relative to the light waves, or more correctly stated, relative to the medium of the light waves. In 1925 Michelson with Henry Gale adjusted his original experiment so that it was measuring the earth's rotation, and this too showed the Sagnac effect. Since the Sagnac effect was used to develop the optical gyroscopes that are widely employed in navigation, there is no question of its validity.
There is then a medium. It is the extremely rigid solid-like gel in which light waves travel. It fills the universe and we are inside, but we have been completely unaware of its existence until experiments with light proved it. We couldn't have perceived it simply because, unlike light and electromagnetism, we have no direct interaction with it. It is invisible, non-material, and unreactive. Only the force of electricity can disengage its tension.
Light moves as waves in the medium; matter is suspended in it.
The answer to the Michelson-Morley paradox, therefore, is not the second supposition upon which Einstein developed relativity, but the first which asserts that light and matter have unrelated motions. The motion of light consists of waves through the rigid medium and is absolute; the motion of matter is relative, and matter is suspended in the medium by its gravitational fields.
2. Motion and Structure
The astonishing thing about matter is how unsubstantial it is. The volume on every level with only a few components in motion delimiting the size, is almost entirely space. Without structure there is little else. The vacuous nature of matter is possible by the screening of the volume by enclosing moving components that prevents general mixing. Particles and atoms are readily penetrated by things smaller, but appear hard and impenetrable to things larger. When this framework is completely broken down the nature of matter reveals itself.
There is a structural hierarchy of particles, atoms, and gravitational systems assembled solely on motion. Remove motion from each of the systems and it collapses to the next lower tier. Between atoms and gravitational systems are the aggregates and the combinations of atoms from which gravitational systems form. But without motion, atoms become particles, and particles reduce to the infamous Black Hole.
The collapse of matter to a Black Hole does not reduce to a concentration of quarks or any other hypothetical constituents of particles. Nor do they form any intermediate stage. There are no quark stars like there are neutron stars. Moreover, what remains after the structural collapse cannot be the concentration of the space void of our perception. It has no properties to concentrate. What remains are the conditions of the space medium around which atoms and gravitational systems formed, the fields of electromagnetism and gravity and/or their precursors.
Motion, not energy, is the frame upon which matter is assembled. Like light, without motion the structures cease to exist. Motion, therefore, is an integral part of matter's structure. And in actuality, there is no motion outside the structure of matter.
Matter is structured on motion.
The "pure" motion that lies at the foundation of matter's structural hierarchy is what remains when the house of cards collapses. It is motion without any structures of matter. It is pure energy, not energy in the abstract. It is energy in its only real form. Energy at this fundamental level is electromagnetism. Matter originated from electromagnetism. And electromagnetism as waves in the primal gel is the primordial source from which the material universe originated.
3. The Condensation of Matter
The pre-material medium that is the primal gel of all that exists has the tensegrity to sustain wave action through it. Waves, therefore, as electromagnetism, move out in all directions indefinitely. In the moment of matter formation highly energetic wave motion closed upon itself and detached from the gel. The motion then was no longer waves in the medium but motion closed upon itself as structural motion of self-contained particles.
When matter condensed it detached from the gel.
Matter in the form of particles condensed from electromagnetism generated in the solid-like medium. Matter, however, did not remain confined to its particulate state. It had within its creation the potential for the evolution of more complex compositions. Atoms formed, combinations and aggregates followed, gravitational systems developed.
4. A Universe of Matter and Fields
The condensed particles possessed two types of structural motions, and these generated fields of standing waves in the surrounding medium. The encircling self-containing motion spirals in either of two directions and creates the opposed electric fields with the force of attraction equal to the tensile strength of the medium itself. The pulse of the particles produced the unpolarized reverberations that we know as the gravitational field.
Fields are from the structural motion of particles.
Physicists have always been astounded and puzzled by the incredible weakness of gravity in comparison to electromagnetism. According to the force concept both forces decrease by the square of the distance, but the span between them is enormous. The electric force between an electron and a proton according to Coulomb's law is e2/r2, while the force of gravity between them by Newton's law is Gmemp/r2. The ratio, therefore, is e2/Gmemp, and the numerical difference is 2.3 X 1039. This is an enormous number. It takes forty digits to write in full. So weak is gravity in comparison to electromagnetism that a hydrogen atom held together by gravity would be nearly as large as the universe.
Both forces follow the inverse square rule, but there is a distinct difference between gravity and electromagnetism. For every positive charge in the universe there is a negative one. The gravitational field, which is neutral and unconsumed, extends indefinitely, whereas the electric field, because it has an opposite counterpart, is always interrupted. Atoms are formed, and the entire electric fields of the electrons and protons are contained within the confines of the neutral atom. Their gravitational fields, on the other hand, being unreactive, extend in all directions to the far reaches of the universe.
Gravity and electromagnetism appear so extremely different in strengths, therefore, simply because of the way they are measured. We aren't measuring whole fields, we are measuring an imaginary attraction on a line between two points. The material world, however, is made up of compositions, not a skeletal frame of forces. The entire electromagnetic fields of two opposing charges is contained within a neutral atom, while their gravitational fields extend out indefinitely. To encompass the entire gravitational field the electron would have to orbit out on the edge of the universe. In an elementary particle, therefore, there apparently is no difference in the amount of gravity and electromagnetism produced.
The fields produced by matter form and shape the universe as we know it. The particles of opposed electric fields condense quickly to form atoms, while the gravitational fields spread out into the surrounding medium. There is no void. There are only gravitational fields reverberating throughout the gel from bodies of matter suspended in it. These fields have an effect on the movement of bodies in them, and this is what we witness as bodies move relative to each other in what seems to be a space void.
The universe, therefore, consists of the fields produced by structural motion of matter. The fields are deformations of the gel, but it is the fields with which objects interact, for they make the space environment in which we exist. Only light and other electromagnetic phenomena are in direct interaction with the gel.
From dynamics and its image of a void we have the impression that we can fly through space freely the way we fly through the air, but this is an illusion. Because of the centering compulsion of matter, motion in space is as rigidly controlled as moving through any restricted environment. We can only follow the contours, and the contours of space are around large masses. This is readily realized by the space program. When the space shuttle wants to go to a satellite that is in a larger orbit, it cannot head for it directly. It has to expand or make more elliptic its own orbit so that it intersects that of the satellite at the exact time when the satellite is there. It sounds complicated but there is no other way.
Fields shape the contours of space.
Gravitational fields weaken the tensegrity of the gel, and this slows the velocity of waves in it. Light and the equilibration of other gravitational fields are slowed by a strong field. An object in space is under compulsion to remain centered in its own field. When an object is in a stronger field extending as a diminishing intensity gradient out from a large mass the object moves spontaneously into the gradient. Its own field equilibrates more slowly on the inward side of the gradient so the object moves to equalize its own field by the Doppler effect.
Relative motion of bodies in space is a secondary effect.
This phenomenon can be demonstrated by particles in a material medium. Two oscillating particles in a medium will tend toward each other for the same reason as bodies in space. The field which each generates weakens the ability of the medium to transmit waves and the imbalance imposed on each particle's field causes it to move spontaneously to correct it.
5. The Geometry of Structure
Fields are the environment within the gel in which atoms and gravitational systems form. They are not fields in space, they are the space itself of the material world. Space is the gravitational fields of matter suspended in the gel and moving to remain centered in the non-uniformity of other fields. There is nothing else. This is why space and gravity have the same singular property of being all-pervasive. Neither can be shielded against. They are coincidental with the presence of matter.
The motion of matter in space is in response to the non-uniformity of the environment of gravitational fields. This is the only motion, and it is dependent on the gravitational fields. There is no motion, therefore, outside of gravity. It isn't possible to leave the world of matter because there is no motion without it. There is wave motion independent of fields through the gel, but that is only by electromagnetism.
With this perspective it is possible to gain insight to the relationship between the structure and motion. Dynamics is founded on the impression that inertial motion is a straight-line motion that goes on forever if not diverted by a force. It does not and cannot exist. In reality all lines of motion are closed. And that is why the material universe came into being.
Bodies are suspended by their gravitational fields in the gel, and shift spontaneously to the non-uniformity of its tension weakened by gravitational fields of other bodies. Any movement of a body in space takes it on a course that potentially closes on itself. The effect of matter and its accompanying gravitational field means that all lines of motion in space are closed. Gravity creates the spontaneous motions of bodies in it and all motions of objects in space are potentially orbital. The endless lines of inertial motion postulated by Newton as a part of current physical theory simply does not exist.
Motion in space is potentially closed.
There is a three-tier hierarchy of matter - particles, atoms, gravitational systems - structured on motion and is self-contained. Any motion based on the centering of objects in a field environment localized around larger bodies becomes closed orbital movement. And because the motion is closed, any motion added to it from displacement by an applied force adds to the length of the orbit.
Displacement of a body in space adds to the orbit length.
Orbital motion can be studied analytically as relative motion and be regarded as a balance between inertial motion and an attracting force, but these are mathematical devices and nature is not based on them. An orbit has to be considered in its entirety, because it is the orbit length, not its motion, that is absolute. An orbital system is a structure. It has size, and it has definition only as a whole system. There are no half structures in nature.
Geometry is conventionally static with distance metrical and absolute. This is the geometry to describe buildings and bridges. The structures are static, and so is their geometry.
But in structures assembled on motion, distanceis interdependent of velocity and time. Orbital systems, therefore, are more appropriately described by kinematic geometry. In this geometry distance, velocity, and time are interrelated by d = vt. Force, which in dynamics produces acceleration in relative motion (F = ma), in kinematics translates directly to structure as a displacement span added to the orbit, or F = ml.
Kinematic geometry then makes rational a common phenomenon that has challenged philosophers and scientists throughout history. Why does a propelled object continue to move on a path after its propelling force is removed? In other words, why are we able to throw things?
Why, for instance, is a batter able to strike a baseball and send it sailing out into center field. On close examination we discover that current physics simply does not account for this phenomenon in real terms.
The concept of inertial motion dates from the seventeenth century. Until then it was believed that force was necessary for sustained motion. In his studies of trajectories and falling objects Galileo concluded that motion was a state like being at rest, and it was the change of motion that has to be accounted for. Newton then used inertial motion and gravity as a force of attraction to describe the orbital motions of the moon and planets. Einstein in his general theory dispensed with gravity as a force and curved space-time, but he kept Newton's inertial motion.
Newton's worldview consisted of a cosmic image and objects falling due to gravity. What Newton saw in the orchard, therefore, was an apple being pulled to the earth by the attraction of the greater mass. If, however, we think of the earth as a point mass, as Newton had to do for his calculations, the apple would have behaved quite differently.
When the apple dropped from the tree it would not have been stopped in its fall. It would have continued to fall at an ever increasing rate, zoomed past the earth-point at an enormous velocity, continued in its flight on the other side, decelerating as it goes, then stopping momentarily only to fall back again to complete an extremely elongated orbit and return to the tree with no net gain or loss in energy. What Newton saw was only a small slit of this much larger action. The reason the apple fell to the earth was simply because the earth bulged out and got in the way.
When an object is thrown, therefore, it does not take on a continuous endless inertial motion. Any object released in space goes into an orbit, or what can be described as potentially an orbit. Any dropped object begins an orbit, and any motion added to it becomes a part of the orbit length. A thrown object adds the length of forced motion across its elongated elliptical fall and widens it on one end. To us it looks like a continuous motion that could go straight if thrown hard enough, but that is a misimpression. No more motion is created or continued than the forced displacement and the spontaneous motion of the fall.
When a batter hits the baseball the ball is propelled against its inertia only for the instant of the hit and the distance it is accelerated. That equation is d = vt, or for the average velocity during acceleration: d = 1/2v2t. To translate this distance to the length it would add to an orbit it is the fraction of the orbital velocity of a circular orbit at that position in the gravitational field: d = v2t/2vo. That is the distance of motion given to the ball.
The baseball is propelled against its inertia only for an instant by the bat and then goes into what potentially would be an orbit. Because geometry is static, we think of distance as metrical and independent of velocity and time. But in kinematic geometry distance is interrelated with velocity and time by the classic equation, d = vt.
Kepler's second law states that for orbiting planets a line connecting the sun and planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. In other words, in the kinematics of orbits where distances are related to the velocity and time, distances for equal areas are equivalent. Areas swept by an orbit are comparable because the distance covered is dependent on the velocity and time.
When the baseball is hit it gains a high velocity in a very short time and distance. That span becomes an arc of the ball's potential orbit. The ball then continues on its orbit, slowing down and taking longer. The distance it covers is considerably greater than when it was accelerated by the hit. Both distances, however, are equivalent by the equation d = vt. Our problem is that we think of the distance to center field in terms of static geometry, when in fact it is an arc that is equal in area swept to that when it was being propelled. As far as the ball is concerned, it is in orbit and nothing more is changing.
6. Why galaxies?
Galaxies are the units of the universe. These stupendous beacons of stellar masses are nearly as numerous as the billions of stars which compose them. As far as the emissions will carry, they are found alone or in groups - clusters, superclusters, long strings billions of light years long - suspended in space and moving in response to the ebbs and flows of the universe.
The origin and evolution of stars is fairly well understood. Apparently stars originate from huge clouds of gases and dust undergoing gravitational concentration. As the elements and dust compact the temperature rises until the thermonuclear fires ignite. Stars, therefore, fit into a narrow size range bracketed by aggregates too small to ignite and conglomerates so large that they are too unstable to persist. There is little reason to doubt this explanation. Galaxies, on the other hand, present a problem.
The initial question concerning galaxies is: Why galaxies? If stars form by the concentration of gases, why have they not formed independently of galaxies? To the contrary, they all seem to be within galaxies, and nowhere else. Apparently, almost all concentrations of matter is contained in galaxies with very little in the intergalactic space.
The current theory is that all energy was originally concentrated in a small volume and burst in the Big Bang from which galaxies spawned soon thereafter. The Big Bang is a rather simplistic concept that has been an obstruction to any rational explanation for the origin of the universe and all the matter in it.
Matter originated as particles and assembled hierarchically. A hierarchy has the resemblance of a step-pyramid in which the number of units comprising a stage in ascending progressively decreases. Each stage of the hierarchy is made up of units of matter which underwent concentration until they collectively formed a new unit of the next higher stage. Concentration, then, is an essential process in stepwise tier development of a hierarchy. It was probably a process that was as essential in the beginning as at any subsequent stage building.
Each tier of a hierarchy is formed from a concentration of units.
Size becomes an important parameter in assessing a hierarchy. There is an extremely large step from one tier to another. At the same time, there is an equally dramatic reduction in the number of units in ascending from one tier to another.
The current theory calls for galaxies to have formed the same way as stars. These huge bodies are believed to have come into being from great clouds of light elements with the stars in them forming either simultaneously or in later evolution of the galaxies. Hydrogen, deuterium, and helium are presumed to have been synthesized in the singular Big Bang to fuel galaxy formation, while the heavier elements came later by enormous pressures and temperatures of exploding stars. Which seems odd because the synthesis would have been even more likely from the more favorable conditions of the Big Bang. It is apparent that cosmologists are trying to apply the information about star formation by reductionism to the formation of galaxies, but in evolution two identical processes seldom follow.
There was no Big Bang. It is a concept that did not originate from scientific rationalism and is being perpetuated by deliberate interpretations of data to support it, instead of viewing each new information that comes in more rationally.
It is more likely that galaxies themselves are the cauldrons of particle synthesis and did not come about the way stars did. One assumption made by proponents of the Big Bang, because it fits their theory, is that the galaxies formed close to the same time But there is no basis for this assumption. Galaxies can be seen in various stages of evolution like the stars, and it is from this that their mode of rotation is determined. What is significant is that they don't rotate like bodies formed from a collapsing cloud.
When a rotating cloud collapses the spin of the inner portions accelerates faster than the parts farther out. Galaxies, on the other hand, rotate like a wheel. All parts turn at the same rate. This is characteristic of the swirling effect of something being spun out from a rapidly rotating center like a pin-wheel.. In this case the material moves outward while maintaining the same angular momentum. Galaxies appear to have been the precursor of matter swirling rapidly and slinging out matter as it condensed, leaving in its wake the concentration and ignition of stars.
Galaxies are the cauldrons in which matter forms.
Galaxies would have been spawned from the primal gel. Transmissions through the gel are electromagnetism. We have then to imagine that in some way these motions concentrated in great swirling vortices so concentrated that particles of matter condensed in stupendous numbers and were slung out to give birth to the material world.