The science of physics has a good quantitative agreement with a wide range of experimental data, but as noted by David Bohm, falls short of an even half-comprehensible description of the nature of reality.
This page lists but a few quirks, anomalies and shortfalls of contemporary physics, some of which have bothered me for years and others that have only recently become apparent. All of these are clarified by the Theory of Objectivity from Konstantin Meyl in his book: “Scalar waves: a first Tesla physics textbook”.
- The kinetic theory of gases
- Quantum wave function nonsense
- Covalent bonding
- Too many ‘stuffs’ and fundamental constants
- What is ‘heat’?
- What is ‘time’?
- Proton radius puzzle
- Avogadro’s number
- Electric charge is a redundant concept
- ‘Mass’ and ‘energy’ are not fundamental to physics
The kinetic theory of gases
Mainstream science posits that the molecules in a gas are whizzing around all over the place and bouncing off each other and that this is responsible for the phenomena of Heat and Pressure. The vibration of specks of dust in sunlight (Brownian motion) is said to be caused by this.
Molecules are conceived as having finite size, hard boundaries and bounciness. They move around in an otherwise empty vacuum and can somehow transmute energy from infra-red radiation to kinetic energy and back again. None of this is true as usual but physicists prefer to not think about it too much.
Heat (temperature) and pressure are described as almost synonymous with speed of motion of molecules and equations from Einstein give some credence to this.
Ok, but how do molecules fly around in a liquid such as water and what about solids? Steel or quartz for example will certainly get hot but the molecules are not flying around but maintain a regular lattice structure. How is temperature then independent of pressure?
If I hold a cup of hot coffee, the molecules bounce around the liquid, make the cup molecules vibrate and then somehow convert the vibrations to infra red radiation so that the heat can be felt at a distance. The heat makes the molecules in my hand whizz around but not so much that it disrupts cellular activity.
I think this is nonsense and Konstantin Meyl and Gerald Pollack at least are in agreement with this.
This is important, as descriptions of DNA construction for example rely upon the random movement of molecules to drive the replication process and if none of this is true then they need to rethink. Similar concerns apply to the functioning of ion channels; diagrams and animations show molecules randomly hurling themselves at the channels and being selected on a statistical basis to achieve the required balance. The equations seem to work but that does not mean that the mechanism is correct.
Further reading: “The Fourth Phase of Water” – Gerald Pollack
What is heat? (Meyl)
Atoms are complicated vortex structures within electromagnetic fields and the ‘vortex radius’ is what is taken to be the size of the atom.
The vortex structure theoretically extends to infinity and so the ‘space’ between atoms is not empty but consists of an extended field structure which serves to keep atoms at a distance from each other and is the basis of ‘pressure’.
A photon of light or infra-red is a sort of linear vortex that can roll up into a spherical vortex at any time or become absorbed into an existing atomic vortex. In this way, gases, liquids and solids can absorb arbitrary amounts of energy, there is no ‘quantum’ of energy needed.
As vortices increase their energy they can expand meaning the liquid or solid may also expand owing to increased repulsive forces. This stored energy is latent heat. Heat transfer is by vortex gains and losses as field energy moves from one vortex to the next.
Vortices can ‘oscillate’, they can expand and contract rhythmically. Whole domains of the substance can vibrate in synchrony and form large areas of coherent oscillations. In gases and liquids this can give rise to Brownian motion.
This is not the same as the kinetic theory if gases where long distance movement of molecules is assumed. Vortex may account for Brownian motors if they exist but not suitable as an explanation for ion channel function or the DNA replication cartoons.
Measured temperature is ‘rate’ of heat loss and is via vortex losses. Stirring water reputedly makes it cooler which means that although there is greater energy stored, it is losing energy more slowly as the vortices somehow retain the energy on a semi-permanent basis. Again, energy is stored as a field structure and not as the kinetic energy described by mainstream physics.
Shining light into a liquid may have a similar effect if a single wavelength causes coherent oscillations on a macro scale and retains the extra energy instead of dissipating it.
High energy vortices can lose energy in the form of quanta which can unroll into photons and be measured as infra-red radiation. The point here is that matter, energy, light, vortices are all the same substance; there is no need to wonder how kinetic energy can be converted to a photon for example.
Meyl uses the term ‘heat’ to describe the amplitude of vortex oscillation and the term ‘temperature’ to refer to the frequency of oscillation. The two are quite different.
A spinning vortex can absorb a photon of a particular frequency but emit one of a different frequency (and energy), thereby acting as a transducer. This is used in biological systems according to quantum physicists.
Further reading: “Scalar waves: a first Tesla physics textbook” – Konstantin Meyl
Covalent bonding
Shown is the covalent bonding between Carbon and Hydrogen atoms to form a larger molecule. Each atom ‘shares’ an electron with the other and those electrons share a common orbit pair.
A electron is claimed to be a small particle that orbits a nucleus according to an attractive force pulling it inwards balanced by centrifugal force pushing it outwards, much like planets and gravity.
This may seem to be plausible until you try to imagine the electrons ‘orbiting’. How do they move? What keeps them to their orbits? How can an electron be in two orbits at the same time? The elephant in the room: In what way does a shared orbit constitute a ‘bond’? – How is a mutually attractive force created in this way?
A supposed explanation arises from quantum mechanics whereby an electron has no defined position, does not move around an orbit and isn’t really a particle.
An electron ‘cloud’ exists and part of it is shared with another atom but it isn’t ‘real’ and is only a distribution of probabilities until measured. But of this is so then again: How is an attractive force generated from a theoretical probability field?
The model proposed by Konstantin Meyl is much simpler, requires no shared orbits, weak atomic forces or quantum probability fields, Atoms are described by electromagnetic vortices having enclosing electron shells of spinning electric fields. The spinning field creates a magnetic dipole and atoms will stick together attracted by their dipole fields. The negatively charged electron fields will repel each other to maintain a distance between the atoms and give them a characteristic size and ‘shape’. Atomic structure: Meyl The atom
No forces are needed apart from electromagnetism and Meyl makes quantitative predictions about the size of atoms which agree with experimental evidence.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
The laws of thermodynamics are based upon the notion that atoms are a bit like billiard balls, bouncing around all over the place at random and that, left to themselves, they will eventually spread out all over the universe in a uniform ‘heat death’ with no real energy left and no possibility of organising themselves into a coherent structure.
They are, at best, hypotheses and not laws by any stretch of the imagination. They are in any case refuted by the field equations of Konstantin Meyl and by observations of actual reality.
“One of the simplest (formulations of the second law) is the Clausius statement, that heat does not spontaneously pass from a colder to a hotter body.” – Wikipedia
Meyl proposes a simple experiment whereby two metal spheres are placed near to each other, one being warm and one being hot. A parabolic mirror behind the warm sphere will focus the radiated heat towards the hotter sphere which immediately refutes the postulate. Random heat fluctuations have become directed and structured by a simple geometric arrangement of matter.
Complaints will be made that this arrangement is somehow ‘cheating’ but it seems allowed by the definitions from Wikipedia:
“Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.” – Clausius
“It is impossible for a self-acting machine, unaided by any external agency, to convey heat from one body to another at a higher temperature.” – Kelvin
Entropy
The second law is closely related to the concept of entropy as a measure of disorder which is said to increase with time, with the Universe becoming increasingly disordered and chaotic as time proceeds. If this were to be true then it would mean that if we look back in time, the Universe would appear more and more orderly, with everything perfectly arranged somehow just after the big bang and slowly deteriorating ever since.
This is contradicted by mainstream theory that sees galaxies and stars constructed out of almost nothing and life emerging from ‘soup’. Living things become more complex whilst the orbits of the planets synchronise via the phenomenon of resonance.
The Laws of Thermodynamics seem reasonable according to the billiard ball model so the observations we make should lead us to question that model. The Newtonian view of the Universe is essentially one of a flat featureless space inhabited by rather dull objects whose main interaction is via the radial forces of gravity. It is hard to imagine matter organising itself under these circumstances.
So the model is wrong and the theories of Meyl should be considered. Space is filled with a living and energetic field which has ‘movement’ built into it. Basic matter consists of forces that are ‘moving’, ‘spinning’ and are long range attractive but short range repulsive. Magnetic type forces and electrical forces act at right angles to each other and the natural and inevitable result is the formation of complex vortex structures with built in ‘energy’.
With this being the fundamental fabric of Reality there is little chance of anything fizzling out to any sort of heat death, the main characteristics are going to be continual cycles of movement, change, creation, organisation and reorganisation.
All movement is controlled by the Laws of Physics and there is no ‘randomness’ here, no true ‘disorder’.
Proton radius puzzle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_radius_puzzle
Scientists tried measuring the radius of the proton but get a different answer depending upon which element or isotope they use as the source of the protons. One obvious inference is that the proton is a different size within each element.
Konstantin Meyl has a model of an atom which is a bit like a bunch of nested soap bubbles (electron shells). The outer bubble is always the same size (fixed by the speed of light) and everything else squashes up to fit within the nesting arrangement. So in particular, a proton will shrink according to the number of electron shells or the type of particle eg muon) that sits in there adjacent to it.
Avogadro’s law
Avogadro’s law states that “equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules.”
Another way of writing this is “The same number of molecules of each gas has the same volume”. Or, setting the number of molecules (atoms) to one: “All atoms are the same size”.
So if the size of an atom is the radius of the outer electron shell, then everything else must be squashed up inside. This is consistent with the atomic model of Konstantin Meyl: Atomic structure: Meyl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro%27s_law
Electrical ‘charge’ is superfluous
The idea of electrical charge is surplus to requirements as far as the field physics of Konstantin Meyl is concerned. It is only a theoretical ‘convenience’ in classical physics and even there is an unnecessary distraction as to what is actually happening.
Objects possessing an electrical charge are said to attract or repel other charged objects by virtue of a static electrical field emanating from that charge which in turn affects the charge on the other objects. The charges are attracted and somehow drag their host ‘matter’ along with them. See: Static electricity
We know that charge exists by the field it creates and we can measure the strength of that field by the effect it has on other charges. So we don’t measure the charge directly, only via the field it has ‘created’. We don’t ever see the charge or the creation of the field.
The effect of one charged particle on another is only ever observed when the particles are a distance apart so that the two charges never interact with each other directly and always use a field to somehow transmit the effect over a distance.
A particle, charged or otherwise is never really acting in accordance with another distant object but only as a consequence of local field conditions. Moreover, the substance of the ‘object’ itself does not seem to be of any relevance to any of these interactions with ‘matter’ itself seeming to exist merely as a vehicle for ‘charge,’ with ‘charge’ acting as a sort of intermediary to justify the presence of a field.
This is all starting to sound very circular and we should be starting to think that if charge and matter don’t really do anything within our theoretical framework then they shouldn’t really be there at all and all that is required is some rules for an electromagnetic field theory.
The whole thing is sounding like ‘sticky-plaster’ science whereby, one by one, concepts have been added to an existing framework as and when required, or as is fashionable.
How did this come about?
‘Charge’, as a ‘property’ of the familiar ‘matter’ was sufficiently ‘matter-like’ for the existing materialists to stomach and certainly something is needed to explain the observed effects. This new ‘property’ of matter (charge) seems to have effects at remote distances so it must somehow be responsible for creating a force-field.
Better to have ditched the idea of ‘matter’ and gone straight for a field theory.
Electrical torsion fields stabilise into spherical vortices which have the impression of solidity via their stability and propensity to bounce off each other owing to the repulsive forces generated by a field-negative vortex radius.
Mass
The concept of ‘mass’ is similarly redundant and attempts to define it just result in a confused mess. Newtonian physics has three types of mass which are all the same somehow, whilst relativity tries to define mass as the degree to which space is bent by an object but also at the same time as the degree to which an object will accelerate when placed in space that was bent by the some other object.
Mass is not coincident with matter but a property of it somehow in Newtonian physics and in relativity it is some complex interaction between objects and ‘space’ which is itself somewhat undefined.
Mass cannot be measured directly but can only be calculated from it’s imagined gravitational effect on other masses or from the gravitational effects exerted upon it by those other masses.
Mass is therefore a theoretical construct derived from observations and measurements made concerning other quantities. The concept of a ‘field’ is necessary to explain the behaviour of objects in space but not mass or charge.
The idea that there is something that is radiating gravity out into space is fanciful nonsense and at odds with observations. See: The nature of gravity Newton’s gravity
Energy
The idea of energy is even more confused. There are units to quantify it but, as with charge and mass, there is no way of measuring it directly and it must be calculated from other quantities.
The principle of conservation of energy lies at the heart of physics for many: “The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time” – Wikipedia
But according to other physicists there is no such thing as ‘absolute’ energy and nor is it conserved: [video].
To see this in a simple way, imagine you are out in space and I fly past in a spaceship. I am travelling fast relative to you and so have great kinetic energy. Now imagine you turn on your rocket engines and catch up with me We are now stationary relative to each other, stationary relative to local ‘space’ and therefore have no kinetic energy – so where did the energy go to?
Something which has no absolute value surely cannot be ‘conserved’ in any sensible way.
Potential energy
Energy is said to be of different ‘types’: kinetic, potential, gravitational, heat, chemical electrical etc. It is said to transmute from one sort to another and be conserved along the way, but what is it that is ‘conserved’ exactly? If energy is always of one specific ‘type’ or another then what exactly is ‘energy’ itself? Why is the same word used for lots of different things?
If I hold an apple 10 feet above the ground it will have a certain quantity of potential energy and if I move it to 100 feet above the ground it will have considerably more potential energy. However, if I now move it all the way to the neutral point between the Earth and the moon it suddenly has no potential energy at all – so again, where did the energy go?
The concept of energy is a useful tool under specific circumstances but it is not absolute, not conserved, not directly measurable. It is not ‘a thing’ and therefore cannot be considered fundamental in any sense.
Photon absorption
Heat transfer is said to happen via various mechanisms including the following: A photon of light will fly close to an atom and the energy will be absorbed by an orbiting electron. The electron will make a discrete jump from one orbital to another with the difference in energy levels matching the energy of the original photon. The photon disappears from the universe.
Questions:
- How close does the photon need to go and why?
- Where does the photon go to after being absorbed?
- How is one form of energy converted to another? What is the mechanism?
- What if the photon has too much energy for the orbit? Where does this extra energy go to?
- What if the energy of a photon does not precisely match any electron orbital? Does it simply pass through the material?
- What does it mean to say a photon has ‘energy’?
- What laws of physics control this procedure?
Electromagnetic radiation such as light is described by a wave equation and that is all. There is nothing in the equation to say how this wave turns into the ‘velocity’ of a nearby electron or how the wave itself might disappear. Similarly the orbital of an electron is described in terms of atomic forces (or now in terms of a probability cloud) and there is nothing in these laws that say how a probability cloud can be enhanced by, or absorb, a portion of electromagnetic field.
If I drop an apple to the ground, it does not deplete, or cause to vanish, the gravitational field that drew it there; so why should an electron cause a magnetic field to vanish? Where are the laws of physics that describe this?
This phenomenon and others are always described in terms of energy transfer instead of the basic equations of electromagnetism or gravity.
What is Energy?
We therefore have a physics that consists of a set of seemingly incompatible equations for electromagnetism, gravity, atomic forces etc. each providing a ‘law’ for a different physical ‘stuff’ and these are all somehow glued together by the concept of ‘energy’ and the conservation of energy. A set of fundamental constants allows for the theoretical conversion of different measurement units but there seems to be no description of how different energies are converted to each other or even what ‘energy’ consists of.
How does a magnet lift a weight off the Earth? Do we use the laws of gravity or the laws of magnetism? Both laws are clearly in play but are separate theories with neither theory compatible with the other. The two are somehow welded together via some fundamental constant, but where is the theory describing how this fundamental constant acquired the value that it did?
Think again of letting an apple fall to the ground. The increase in speed seems reasonable as we have equations relating the force of gravity to the acceleration and mass of the apple – but try to think of this in terms of energy conservation and the math gets easier but the understanding gets harder! The apple falls by having its potential energy converted to kinetic energy! How? What process performs this magical alchemy? Are the two energies the same thing or not? Why does it need ‘converting’?
The idea of energy seems to work for practical purposes but as an aid to actually understanding what is going on it is really just a sleight of hand technique, a universal wallpaper to cover the cracks in the plaster veneer that is theoretical physics.
Quantum wave function
At the heart of quantum physics is the Schrödinger wave equation. This describes ‘matter’ as a continuous wave function in a physical ‘field’ but physicist were still stuck on the idea of matter as consisting of particles and so they interpreted a perfectly good theoretical construct accordingly.
A wave is just a wave but it seems now universally accepted that the wave function represents a probability function who’s value at any point is the probability of finding a particle at that particular position in space. We therefore have both particles and field quantities described by the same construct. Fair enough, maybe, as long as it is recognised that this is just a theoretical construct.
However, it seems to be commonly accepted now by many people that the wave function is a ‘real’ thing and that the particle ‘exists’ as both a wave and particle at the same time, that it exists in several places at once and that it is brought into physical being by a physical ‘collapse’ of such a function. We even have people saying that the act of collapsing is instrumental in the creation of consciousness.
And all this this despite the obvious facts that:
- Nobody has directly measured such a function and nor can they can ever do so
- The mechanism of collapse is not described
- Such a collapse would violate the principle of causality (spooky action at a distance)
- It is not related what is meant by something being two different things at once, existing in two different places at the same time or being alive and dead at the same time. This is just linguistic trickery.
- There is no description of how a probability function turns into ‘matter’
A probability function is a mathematical construct and was never posited to correspond to anything real, it was just a means of describing the aggregated output of multiple events. The quantum physicists have put the idea of randomness at the heart of physics. They have, without justification, created the notion of a random process at the heart of reality, thereby destroying any hope of a deterministic description of the universe.
‘Randomness’ in mathematics is a description of an outcome, not the means of generating that outcome. However this is what it seems we are asked to believe, that a completely fictitious process with no defined mechanism and unfettered by any sensible or realistic laws, is in fact at the root cause of everything that happens in the Universe.
This is surely a complete abrogation of all intellectual acuity.
See: Random events.
What is time?
We have no direct way of measuring time and the best we can do is to count the number of oscillations of an atomic clock and declare the result to be representative of elapsed time. A big problem with this is the following chart taken from Meyl’s book: “Scalar Waves..”, which shows that two atomic clocks in the same room but oriented differently will keep very good time with each other – except during an eclipse!
We do not therefore have a direct way of measuring time independently from all the other variables of physics such as length, energy frequency etc. All we have of Reality is a collection of observations of instrument readings and from this we induce various quantities according to a theoretical model.
‘Time’ is no different and the exact nature this ‘entity’ will depend upon the model used to interpret the measurements.
Try to imagine that time were to ‘speed up’ and all the workings of the universe, including our perceptions were to speed up accordingly. In this case we simply would not notice what had happened and would carry on regardless. What then is the purpose of ‘time’?
Too many ‘stuffs’
The basic problem here is that there are far too many fundamental ‘stuffs’ in physics, too many basic ‘entities’ such as matter, charge, energy etc., too many different ‘forces’ (gravity, electric, magnetic..) and no single unified theory. Each of these entities needs some constants to enable integration into the system but these constants have also been declared ‘fundamental’ as they must, since they connect together ‘fundamental’ quantities.
The declaration of everything as fundamental and irreducible obviates the necessity for further research and so physics as it is currently formulated can never progress in this regard.
Thinking that mere ‘artefacts’ (theoretical constructs) of the system really represent ‘real’ entities further confuses the issue and leads to speculations that are beyond absurd.
The Theory of Objectivity from Konstantin Meyl assumes only one type of ‘stuff’ and that is a Field quantity of electromagnetic nature; everything else is an emergent property of that field and no fundamental constants are needed.
Fundamental particles are calculated as field vortices and their sizes and weights can be calculated directly with no additional information. See: Atomic structure: Meyl
Gravity is an emergent property of the field and so are mass and charge; there is no need for these extra concepts and no need for hand-waving arguments to show how the one might affect the other.
The case of the photon lifting an electron to a higher orbit is a good example. A photon is a ripple in the field structure but so is an electron or a whole atom a more complex vortex structure in the same medium. Both obey the same laws of physics.
Imagine a ripple in a river encountering a whirlpool and becoming absorbed by it. The whole activity happens according to the laws of fluid dynamics and there is no need to suppose an intermediary of ‘energy’ conservation to explain the phenomenon. There is no transmutation between electricity, energy and matter as everything is made of the same ‘stuff’; all we witness is water behaving according to the fundamental laws of water.
In this case, nobody imagines that the ripple is made of a different fundamental substance to the whirlpool and nobody seeks to add a new law to the lexicon of physics. It is acknowledged that the laws of fluids should either suffice or be discarded.
A larger, more vigorous whirlpool will have a greater effect, a greater persistence and this can be quantified (simplified) as ‘energy’ but that doesn’t mean that there is a separate substance called ‘energy’ or that it is conserved. A vortex has a certain identity’ or character of its own and will demonstrate distinctive and repeatable behaviour which can no doubt be studied in its own right, but it is still made of water and must ultimately obey the same laws as the rest of the river.
Certain behaviours will appear random and difficult to predict but that doesn’t mean that there exists a fundamental uncertainty concerning rivers and there is absolutely no need to invent an infinite number of alternative rivers in order to ‘explain away’ any constants that might arise as simple artefacts of the theory.
Related pages
References:
The website of Konstantin Meyl – http://meyl.eu
Scalar waves – Konstantin Meyl
https://www.amazon.com/Scalar-Waves-Konstantin-Meyl/dp/3980254240