a little of topic but anyone have an answer?.
We are taught that you cannot create energy from nothing as this violates the laws of thermodynamics, but a few nights ago i watched a programme describing the beginnings of the universe and how it was supposedly formed!.
Well this is all well and good but they said that the whole universe came from a single point in space........essentially it came from nothing (Their words not mine!).
How can this be true?, if we are taught you cannot create energy from nothing how does all the mass and energy in the universe come from.......well nothing?, doesn't this violate the laws the scientists stand by?.....or will the laws not apply as the universe which they are based around hasn't been created yet?.
Anyone?.
Energy from nothing?.
Moderator: scott
Energy from nothing?.
What goes around, comes around!.
re: Energy from nothing?.
Its a good argument for god to exist.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so all the energy must have existed at that point to begin with.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so all the energy must have existed at that point to begin with.
re: Energy from nothing?.
Gravity is something... a huge real stuff... far from 'nothing'!
Best!
M.
Best!
M.
re: Energy from nothing?.
It's a big subject - it's also a matter of perspective - I'll try & keep my answer short & relatively to the point though it's almost impossible not to wander - don't quote me ;7)
It's about perspective because we live in & experience the macro world [the big] - our laws of thermodynamics describe this world very well - Kepler, Newton, Einstein all attempted to explain the observations of how things worked & the relationships between things that underpinned these workings.
Einstein's theory was from a different perspective than Newton for example but he couldn't tie in gravity particularly well so he went back to the drawing board to include gravity, but still he had constants [washups of the unknown or incomplete math] - the 4 forces were known about [nuclear, strong & weak electromagnetic, & gravity] but it was Einstein who came up with E = mc^2 [based on Mickleson Morley (sic)]; which meant that all matter was energy.
Then along came quantum mechanics, yet another perspective - it explained the very small including gravity & looked to be a more complete model than Einstein's - it gain favour when explaining the very small.
One thing became apparent - the vast empty spaces in an atom - they were mostly empty - a nucleus the size of a marble would have electrons in the first electron shell 2 miles away [3 1/2 kms] scaling up - this meant there was tons of volume inside a single atom - so the likes of Hawking came up with a theory of black holes where a super massive star ran out of hydrogen & helium fuel so that the nuclear reaction thrust could no longer hold off gravity & the equilibrium was broken & the star collapsed - the gravitational forces so great that it could overwhelm the 3 other forces - so, because of the size of unused volume inside an atom it became possible to see how a star could condense down inside the 2 mile radius, giving incredibly dense matter - this became the center of a black hole called a singularity - later other astrophysicists realized that a black hole formation event was essentially the same as the postulated formation of the universe in reverse - Hawking called it the big bang.
The point to all this is that it looks like the the big bang started form a singularity which is sometimes described as a point of infinite gravity - clearly that's nonsense as you can't have infinite gravity, you can have very big gravity but not exponentially to infinite.
What does this mean ? - it means that energy & matter are interchangeable & like black holes it appears our universe started from a singularity - but you can't have infinite gravity or infinite energy or infinite matter - so this means that we need yet another perspective, a smaller one than quantum mechanics because it can't explain things at these very very small dimensions - so along come some more theoretical physicists who tinkered with quantum mechanics with things like branes [membranes, m theory], string theory, super string theory, in an attempt to get down to fundamentals, even more basic building blocks of understanding - whole careers & tenure are based on theories but no experiments can be thought of to prove them.
The upshot is that the laws of thermodynamics hold very well in the macro world, even the quantum world but seem to break down at levels below that - I would suggest that thermodynamics would still hold true & the unified theory when it is finally delivered will explain how they hold true at the very very small & how you can have almost infinite gravity, matter & energy.
P.S. where is this energy/matter parked in a singularity ? - perhaps there is also other volume available besides inside the electron shell to nucleus radius i.e. inside the nucleus itself - even greater distances relatively speaking ?
It's about perspective because we live in & experience the macro world [the big] - our laws of thermodynamics describe this world very well - Kepler, Newton, Einstein all attempted to explain the observations of how things worked & the relationships between things that underpinned these workings.
Einstein's theory was from a different perspective than Newton for example but he couldn't tie in gravity particularly well so he went back to the drawing board to include gravity, but still he had constants [washups of the unknown or incomplete math] - the 4 forces were known about [nuclear, strong & weak electromagnetic, & gravity] but it was Einstein who came up with E = mc^2 [based on Mickleson Morley (sic)]; which meant that all matter was energy.
Then along came quantum mechanics, yet another perspective - it explained the very small including gravity & looked to be a more complete model than Einstein's - it gain favour when explaining the very small.
One thing became apparent - the vast empty spaces in an atom - they were mostly empty - a nucleus the size of a marble would have electrons in the first electron shell 2 miles away [3 1/2 kms] scaling up - this meant there was tons of volume inside a single atom - so the likes of Hawking came up with a theory of black holes where a super massive star ran out of hydrogen & helium fuel so that the nuclear reaction thrust could no longer hold off gravity & the equilibrium was broken & the star collapsed - the gravitational forces so great that it could overwhelm the 3 other forces - so, because of the size of unused volume inside an atom it became possible to see how a star could condense down inside the 2 mile radius, giving incredibly dense matter - this became the center of a black hole called a singularity - later other astrophysicists realized that a black hole formation event was essentially the same as the postulated formation of the universe in reverse - Hawking called it the big bang.
The point to all this is that it looks like the the big bang started form a singularity which is sometimes described as a point of infinite gravity - clearly that's nonsense as you can't have infinite gravity, you can have very big gravity but not exponentially to infinite.
What does this mean ? - it means that energy & matter are interchangeable & like black holes it appears our universe started from a singularity - but you can't have infinite gravity or infinite energy or infinite matter - so this means that we need yet another perspective, a smaller one than quantum mechanics because it can't explain things at these very very small dimensions - so along come some more theoretical physicists who tinkered with quantum mechanics with things like branes [membranes, m theory], string theory, super string theory, in an attempt to get down to fundamentals, even more basic building blocks of understanding - whole careers & tenure are based on theories but no experiments can be thought of to prove them.
The upshot is that the laws of thermodynamics hold very well in the macro world, even the quantum world but seem to break down at levels below that - I would suggest that thermodynamics would still hold true & the unified theory when it is finally delivered will explain how they hold true at the very very small & how you can have almost infinite gravity, matter & energy.
P.S. where is this energy/matter parked in a singularity ? - perhaps there is also other volume available besides inside the electron shell to nucleus radius i.e. inside the nucleus itself - even greater distances relatively speaking ?
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path_finder
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re: Energy from nothing?.
Dear Chad,
The Omega point concept of Teilhard de Chardin could give some answer to your question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
see in particular the paragraph named Teilhard's phenomenology
The convergence between the matter and the consciousness (god?).
The Omega point concept of Teilhard de Chardin could give some answer to your question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
see in particular the paragraph named Teilhard's phenomenology
The convergence between the matter and the consciousness (god?).
I cannot imagine why nobody though on this before, including myself? It is so simple!...
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Bill_Mothershead
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- Location: Phoenix, AZ
re: Energy from nothing?.
Good post, Fletcher.
I would go a step further and say that there might not
be any such thing as conservation of matter and energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
It seems that "empty space" is really a quantum froth of
particles and energy that just pop into existence and then
just as easily and quickly pop back to somewhere "else".
Leads to experimental verification of effects like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casmir_Effect
Even "normal" particles, when moving toward a barrier,
can pop out of existence and reappear on the other side
of the barrier. It is as though, for a time, they took a path
through "other space" where the barrier didn't exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling
The "big bang" is not so strange. It may not even be right.
Hard to come up with experiments that would either
confirm or disprove it.
All this kind of reminds me of our current problem....
let's call it Bessler's law of the anti-conservation of
gravity wheels. If anybody invents a working gravity
wheel, it will quickly pop out of existence leaving no
working equipment behind but only confusing drawings
or old newspaper photographs with interviews with
people who swear it was real but have no clue as to
how it really worked.
I would go a step further and say that there might not
be any such thing as conservation of matter and energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
It seems that "empty space" is really a quantum froth of
particles and energy that just pop into existence and then
just as easily and quickly pop back to somewhere "else".
Leads to experimental verification of effects like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casmir_Effect
Even "normal" particles, when moving toward a barrier,
can pop out of existence and reappear on the other side
of the barrier. It is as though, for a time, they took a path
through "other space" where the barrier didn't exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling
The "big bang" is not so strange. It may not even be right.
Hard to come up with experiments that would either
confirm or disprove it.
All this kind of reminds me of our current problem....
let's call it Bessler's law of the anti-conservation of
gravity wheels. If anybody invents a working gravity
wheel, it will quickly pop out of existence leaving no
working equipment behind but only confusing drawings
or old newspaper photographs with interviews with
people who swear it was real but have no clue as to
how it really worked.
re: Energy from nothing?.
I don't believe in the big bang theory. As you correctly point out, it explains nothing. It's just a theory - right up there with the Earth being supported on a turtle's back.
The basic problem is that Einstein threw out the baby with the bath water. His peers and predecessors, of which he stole so liberally, required an Aether for their theories and formulas to work. We talk freely about waves of all descriptions, but a wave is meaningless unless there is a medium in which to create and support those waves.
We have an inverted view of the universe, which is a large part of the problem. We are taught that space is mostly empty - and that only matter and energy have any value in this big empty universe.
There are many reasons to believe that this simply is not the case. IMO, matter and energy are aberations in a universe that is infinitely powerful, infinitely present (i.e, there is no place where the universe is not - no matter how far we travel, or how finely we dissect the fundamental particles - there is "something" connecting everything), AND infinitely intelligent.
This seems too far out? True. But it is no more far out than suggesting that the universe existed as a singularity at one point in time, which contained all the mass/energy of the universe, AND all the "laws" and intelligence that makes the whole thing work the way it does.
Both views are outrageous. But my view that matter and energy can pop out of the aether at any time makes more sense and fits more of the facts.
Quantum Tunneling just suggest to me that the waveform in the aether that IS the original particle hits the barrier, and the waveform gets propagated to the other side and continues on it's way as a new version of the same waveform. Exactly like sound can travel through a barrier. Nothing spooky or time travely required. Although I don't believe we are limited to just 4 dimensions, and so time travel is a possibility.
I take issue with the basic concept of Energy at a more basic level. It's a maths trick that serves some purposes well, but I don't believe it is a fundamental truth of the universe in the way that conventional scientists stake their faith.
The mere fact that Velocity is a completely relative quantity (not absolute, and dependent on frames of reference) means that Energy (being 0.5 x Velocity Squared) is on shaky ground as being any sort of absolute quantity as far as the universe is concerned ...
The basic problem is that Einstein threw out the baby with the bath water. His peers and predecessors, of which he stole so liberally, required an Aether for their theories and formulas to work. We talk freely about waves of all descriptions, but a wave is meaningless unless there is a medium in which to create and support those waves.
We have an inverted view of the universe, which is a large part of the problem. We are taught that space is mostly empty - and that only matter and energy have any value in this big empty universe.
There are many reasons to believe that this simply is not the case. IMO, matter and energy are aberations in a universe that is infinitely powerful, infinitely present (i.e, there is no place where the universe is not - no matter how far we travel, or how finely we dissect the fundamental particles - there is "something" connecting everything), AND infinitely intelligent.
This seems too far out? True. But it is no more far out than suggesting that the universe existed as a singularity at one point in time, which contained all the mass/energy of the universe, AND all the "laws" and intelligence that makes the whole thing work the way it does.
Both views are outrageous. But my view that matter and energy can pop out of the aether at any time makes more sense and fits more of the facts.
Quantum Tunneling just suggest to me that the waveform in the aether that IS the original particle hits the barrier, and the waveform gets propagated to the other side and continues on it's way as a new version of the same waveform. Exactly like sound can travel through a barrier. Nothing spooky or time travely required. Although I don't believe we are limited to just 4 dimensions, and so time travel is a possibility.
I take issue with the basic concept of Energy at a more basic level. It's a maths trick that serves some purposes well, but I don't believe it is a fundamental truth of the universe in the way that conventional scientists stake their faith.
The mere fact that Velocity is a completely relative quantity (not absolute, and dependent on frames of reference) means that Energy (being 0.5 x Velocity Squared) is on shaky ground as being any sort of absolute quantity as far as the universe is concerned ...
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
re: Energy from nothing?.
Gravity is the consequence of other factors.
Of course it ca be managed and under mind skills.
Cheers!
Murilo
Of course it ca be managed and under mind skills.
Cheers!
Murilo
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Re: re: Energy from nothing?.
The math is relative to the reference frame - that's why you take a moving mass [a Kinetic mass] & get it to do some work [force x distance] to find out its absolute energy.greendoor wrote:The mere fact that Velocity is a completely relative quantity (not absolute, and dependent on frames of reference) means that Energy (being 0.5 x Velocity Squared) is on shaky ground as being any sort of absolute quantity as far as the universe is concerned ...
N.B. work done & energy [capacity to do work] are in the same units.
Only when the Kinetic mass has performed work on an object can you know if the reference frame you used for the math was the correct one to use - fortunately experiments can easily prove this.
Chad's original question was where does the energy come from if it all originates from a single point in space time ["nothingness"] - the answer I gave was that if all matter were condensed into a single point then it would also contain all the energy there ever was or will be as explained by Einstein's equations.
Whilst that is not proof of a singularity & a big bang conservation of momentum means we can track back to a single region of space time where things began to accelerate apart - whether that be a singularity, a marble, a soccer ball, a planet, or a solar mass size is neither here nor there.
I too once thought that an aether made most sense - after all every wave needs a medium so its hard to visualize how waves & energy can propagate across space time without a medium - I guess big brains have heavily invested in both the aether scenario & Einstein's theories but you'd think an aether could be proved conclusively if it exists - it must be a real & tangible substance able to be measured i.e. have inertia & viscosity etc !?
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Trevor Lyn Whatford
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re: Energy from nothing?.
Hi All,
The Universe must end, but it cannot end, so I suggest to you all that each of us have our own universe that will end when we end, I take heart that I will never end as what ever happens to me I will all ways be part of the universe in what ever form I take, even when my own universe is ended, may the force be with you!
Regards Trevor
Edit, Saturday 18th 2010, got up had breakfast read the paper, read Fletchers post then made every body immortal not bad for a mornings work : )
The Universe must end, but it cannot end, so I suggest to you all that each of us have our own universe that will end when we end, I take heart that I will never end as what ever happens to me I will all ways be part of the universe in what ever form I take, even when my own universe is ended, may the force be with you!
Regards Trevor
Edit, Saturday 18th 2010, got up had breakfast read the paper, read Fletchers post then made every body immortal not bad for a mornings work : )
I have been wrong before!
I have been right before!
Hindsight will tell us!
I have been right before!
Hindsight will tell us!
Re: re: Energy from nothing?.
The need for an aether was obvious to the biggest brains in physics - a wave needs a medium to wave. Otherwise not just light needs to be a particle, but the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and gravity too ... a force cannot propagate instantaneously through nothing ...Fletcher wrote:... but you'd think an aether could be proved conclusively if it exists - it must be a real & tangible substance able to be measured i.e. have inertia & viscosity etc !?
The need for an aether is overwhelming .. so on what basis was it thrown out? The 'best brains' that you mention will refer to Michelson Morley ... which is one of the many embarrassing frauds and cover ups of physics.
The stupid assumption that made an ass out of Michelson, Morley, Einstein et al was the assumption that IF an aether existed, that the Earth was rotating relative to it. Why was this assumption made? Logically (to me at least) IF all mass is composed of Aether, then Earth will be so completely embedded into the Aether that there can be no relative difference in velocity at all ...
Anyhow - on the basis of measuring the speed of light traveling with the rotation of the earth, and comparing the speed of light traveling against the rotation of the earth, they found no relative difference. Actually - there is reason to believe that the actual results of this and subsequent tests at higher altitude had a lot of noise and this conclusion was fairly fraudulent anyway. But even supposing that there is actually no relative velocity difference - is this sufficient reason to throw out the requirement for an aether medium for waves?
Some of the academics who we venerate were just 20 something year old kids who, in all probability, didn't have the life skills to fix their car if it broke down. We have a strange faith in the ability of these people to be able to think straight ... academics don't necessarily live in the real world. Just because they can baffle us with bullshit about the intellectual house of cards they have constructed doesn't mean it actually models our universe.
I can't see any valid reason why the aether was dispensed with so thoughtlessly. And I see not logical response to the question that won't go away: what is the medium that is being waved?????????????????????????
The Kasimir Effect gives us a solid reason to believe that empty space has substance. But that's essentially just restating the obvious that space IS full of waves which can be shielded. A study of the night sky should convince us that waves DO travel through space, and that they can be shielded. Or do we just dispense with waves?? That would make much more sense, if we have to dispense with the wave-medium. But then we must call all waves particles and assign them with mass. And then what about the experiments that proved that waves were waves and not particles ...
Throwing out the aether was just dumb, and served no purpose. It greatly assists the faith of those who believe that God does not exist. I suspect that is the greatest appeal of this concept. It is far more difficult to dispense with the concept of God in the face of an invisible yet all powerful, all present, and apparantly all intelligent medium pervading an infinite universe ...
But in it's place, it creates a requirement to believe that all the matter and energy, and all the rules of the universe, existed at one time in a singularity that exploded ... solves nothing, and doesn't explain anything at all. Just postpones the inevitable.
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
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Trevor Lyn Whatford
- Devotee
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- Location: England
re: Energy from nothing?.
Hi all,
I do not believe in one big bang theory as the universe must have been there to start with, this whole argument is circular as it is all speculation, so I will say that energy can be created but at a cost to something else, the big question here is, can gravity be converted to do work? the answer is yes as it is doing work all the time!
Regards Trevor
I do not believe in one big bang theory as the universe must have been there to start with, this whole argument is circular as it is all speculation, so I will say that energy can be created but at a cost to something else, the big question here is, can gravity be converted to do work? the answer is yes as it is doing work all the time!
Regards Trevor
I have been wrong before!
I have been right before!
Hindsight will tell us!
I have been right before!
Hindsight will tell us!
re: Energy from nothing?.
Well greendoor, I'm remembering back to my form 3 & 4 physics classes - dumbed down fundamentals I know but a few of the experiments stuck & raised an eyebrow.
Light [photons] supposedly had both particle & wave like properties which was an enigma - photons [with mass] shone on a radiometer [like a wind anemometer with white & black sides in a vacuum casing] made the device rotate - black face away from the light source IIRC - you'd have thought it was the white face moving away, bouncing those little suckers thinking thru Newtons laws etc - so someone thought maybe the radiant heat was expanding what little air was inside the vacuum causing a pushing force as it was expanding against the black face ? - I can't remember any other experiments in 1973/4 that were used to support light being a particle & none come to mind now either.
Then there was the shine a light thru a slit & see it form a bar graph wave pattern because of interference, just like sea waves as I was shown in another experiment - later, when I was older someone did an experiment where they fired just a single proton at a slit i.e. one proton at a time - guess what - the interference pattern still showed up - that had scientists scratching their heads & so was born the theory of parallel universes with overlap between universes so this experiment caused a shadow in another universe doing the same experiment.
Later still, I read about Michelson Morley - it seemed a good idea to try & prove the speed of light - it seemed logical to measure the speed of light from an advancing & retreating perspective from a light source - you'd think that doppler effects would show up - blue & red shifts to prove that light had one speed & if you were moving toward or away from it you'd see a colour shift [just like sounds waves when I biked on back country roads & a cattle tuck went past] - but M & M didn't find any doppler shift - this caused a stir - later still Einstein took their equation of E = mc^2 & used it in his theories - but he turned the problem around - he thought that if there was no doppler shift as you approached or retreated from a light source there could only be one explanation - that light had a constant speed irrespective of the relative velocity of the observer - so you could never pass a light beam, even at 99.9% the speed of light - he reasoned that even at 99.9% the speed of light light would still be pulling away from you at 186,000 miles per hour - something had to give & that was that the time variable had to be different for each observer depending on their velocity.
But I notice that scientists are quite happy to note blue & red shifts of far away galaxies as they try to date the universe & expansion - so apparently the doppler shift is ok far away & light speed can be variable after all ?
Anyways, what's the point of all this walking down memory lane ? - fundamental experiments prove to be dumbed down kiddies versions that are actually deceptive - grownups experiments contradict each other raising bizarre theories of parallel universes - light speed is or is not constant in space - space is empty or full of energy - photon's are particles with mass or waves - if waves they do or do not need a medium.
If aether exists & the earth is moving thru it relative to aether then we should be able to see direct or anecdotal evidence of eddy's & vortices due to viscosity & inertia of the aether medium & this should be experimentally predictable.
So theories are great, everyone can have one for christmas - the real skill is designing fundamental experiments to prove the theory with a very high level of confidence.
The more I read the more I distrust what I read previously.
Light [photons] supposedly had both particle & wave like properties which was an enigma - photons [with mass] shone on a radiometer [like a wind anemometer with white & black sides in a vacuum casing] made the device rotate - black face away from the light source IIRC - you'd have thought it was the white face moving away, bouncing those little suckers thinking thru Newtons laws etc - so someone thought maybe the radiant heat was expanding what little air was inside the vacuum causing a pushing force as it was expanding against the black face ? - I can't remember any other experiments in 1973/4 that were used to support light being a particle & none come to mind now either.
Then there was the shine a light thru a slit & see it form a bar graph wave pattern because of interference, just like sea waves as I was shown in another experiment - later, when I was older someone did an experiment where they fired just a single proton at a slit i.e. one proton at a time - guess what - the interference pattern still showed up - that had scientists scratching their heads & so was born the theory of parallel universes with overlap between universes so this experiment caused a shadow in another universe doing the same experiment.
Later still, I read about Michelson Morley - it seemed a good idea to try & prove the speed of light - it seemed logical to measure the speed of light from an advancing & retreating perspective from a light source - you'd think that doppler effects would show up - blue & red shifts to prove that light had one speed & if you were moving toward or away from it you'd see a colour shift [just like sounds waves when I biked on back country roads & a cattle tuck went past] - but M & M didn't find any doppler shift - this caused a stir - later still Einstein took their equation of E = mc^2 & used it in his theories - but he turned the problem around - he thought that if there was no doppler shift as you approached or retreated from a light source there could only be one explanation - that light had a constant speed irrespective of the relative velocity of the observer - so you could never pass a light beam, even at 99.9% the speed of light - he reasoned that even at 99.9% the speed of light light would still be pulling away from you at 186,000 miles per hour - something had to give & that was that the time variable had to be different for each observer depending on their velocity.
But I notice that scientists are quite happy to note blue & red shifts of far away galaxies as they try to date the universe & expansion - so apparently the doppler shift is ok far away & light speed can be variable after all ?
Anyways, what's the point of all this walking down memory lane ? - fundamental experiments prove to be dumbed down kiddies versions that are actually deceptive - grownups experiments contradict each other raising bizarre theories of parallel universes - light speed is or is not constant in space - space is empty or full of energy - photon's are particles with mass or waves - if waves they do or do not need a medium.
If aether exists & the earth is moving thru it relative to aether then we should be able to see direct or anecdotal evidence of eddy's & vortices due to viscosity & inertia of the aether medium & this should be experimentally predictable.
So theories are great, everyone can have one for christmas - the real skill is designing fundamental experiments to prove the theory with a very high level of confidence.
The more I read the more I distrust what I read previously.
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Bill_Mothershead
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re: Energy from nothing?.
...sorry Fletcher..."photons have no rest mass"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
...and for a better read on how a radiometer works, try:
http://www.weburbia.com/physics/light-mill.html
(it DOES NOT work at all in a vacuum...
so it is driven by heated gas, NOT momentum of photon's mass.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
...and for a better read on how a radiometer works, try:
http://www.weburbia.com/physics/light-mill.html
(it DOES NOT work at all in a vacuum...
so it is driven by heated gas, NOT momentum of photon's mass.)
re: Energy from nothing?.
Exerts from your references Bill - I think I already covered your points when I posted this morning.
P.S. I wasn't offering my current thoughts & understanding - just making the comparison to that of a 13 & 14 year old who'd just learned about Newton.
The point is every theory must be proved beyond reasonable doubt & aether fits snugly right in there.
Rest Mass :
The invariant mass, rest mass, intrinsic mass, proper mass or just mass is a characteristic of the total energy and momentum of an object or a system of objects that is the same in all frames of reference related by Lorentz transformations. When the system as a whole is at rest, the invariant mass is equal to the total energy of the system divided by c2, which is equal to the mass of the system as measured on a scale.
Photons:
— they exhibit properties of both waves and particles. For example, a single photon may be refracted by a lens or exhibit wave interference with itself, but also act as a particle giving a definite result when quantitative momentum is measured.
Crookes's Light Mill or Solar Engine:
The correct solution to the problem was provided qualitatively by Osborne Reynolds, better remembered for the "Reynolds number". Early in 1879 Reynolds submitted a paper to the Royal Society in which he considered what he called "thermal transpiration", and also discussed the theory of the radiometer. By "thermal transpiration" Reynolds meant the flow of gas through porous plates caused by a temperature difference on the two sides of the plates. If the gas is initially at the same pressure on the two sides, there is a flow of gas from the colder to the hotter side, resulting in a higher pressure on the hotter side if the plates cannot move. Equilibrium is reached when the ratio of pressures on either side is the square root of the ratio of absolute temperatures. This is a counterintuitive effect due to tangential forces between the gas molecules and the sides of the narrow pores in the plates. The effect of these thermomolecular forces is very similar to the thermomechanical effects of superfluid liquid helium. The liquid, which lacks all viscosity, will climb the sides of its container towards a warmer region. If a thin capillary is dipped into the superfluid it flows up the tube at such speed that a fountain effect is produced at the other end.
The vanes of a radiometer are not porous. To explain the radiometer, therefore, one must focus attention not on the faces of the vanes, but on their edges. The faster molecules from the warmer side strike the edges obliquely and impart a higher force than the colder molecules. Again these are the same thermomolecular forces which are responsible for thermal transpiration. The effect is also known as thermal creep since it causes gases to creep along a surface where there is a temperature gradient. The net movement of the vane due to the tangential forces around the edges is away from the warmer gas and towards the cooler gas with the gas passing round the edge in the opposite direction. The behaviour is just as if there were a greater force on the blackened side of the vane (which as Maxwell showed is not the case), but the explanation must be in terms of what happens not at the faces of the vanes but near their edges.
Maxwell refereed Reynolds's paper, and so became aware of Reynolds's suggestion. Maxwell at once made a detailed mathematical analysis of the problem, and submitted his paper, "On stresses in rarefied gases arising from inequalities of temperature", for publication in the Philosophical Transactions; it appeared in 1879, shortly before his death. The paper gave due credit to Reynolds's suggestion that the effect is at the edges of the vanes, but criticised Reynolds's mathematical treatment. Reynolds's paper had not yet appeared (it was published in 1881), and Reynolds was incensed by the fact that Maxwell's paper had not only appeared first, but had criticised his unpublished work! Reynolds wanted his protest to be published by the Royal Society, but after Maxwell's death this was thought to be inappropriate.
P.S. I wasn't offering my current thoughts & understanding - just making the comparison to that of a 13 & 14 year old who'd just learned about Newton.
The point is every theory must be proved beyond reasonable doubt & aether fits snugly right in there.
Rest Mass :
The invariant mass, rest mass, intrinsic mass, proper mass or just mass is a characteristic of the total energy and momentum of an object or a system of objects that is the same in all frames of reference related by Lorentz transformations. When the system as a whole is at rest, the invariant mass is equal to the total energy of the system divided by c2, which is equal to the mass of the system as measured on a scale.
Photons:
— they exhibit properties of both waves and particles. For example, a single photon may be refracted by a lens or exhibit wave interference with itself, but also act as a particle giving a definite result when quantitative momentum is measured.
Crookes's Light Mill or Solar Engine:
The correct solution to the problem was provided qualitatively by Osborne Reynolds, better remembered for the "Reynolds number". Early in 1879 Reynolds submitted a paper to the Royal Society in which he considered what he called "thermal transpiration", and also discussed the theory of the radiometer. By "thermal transpiration" Reynolds meant the flow of gas through porous plates caused by a temperature difference on the two sides of the plates. If the gas is initially at the same pressure on the two sides, there is a flow of gas from the colder to the hotter side, resulting in a higher pressure on the hotter side if the plates cannot move. Equilibrium is reached when the ratio of pressures on either side is the square root of the ratio of absolute temperatures. This is a counterintuitive effect due to tangential forces between the gas molecules and the sides of the narrow pores in the plates. The effect of these thermomolecular forces is very similar to the thermomechanical effects of superfluid liquid helium. The liquid, which lacks all viscosity, will climb the sides of its container towards a warmer region. If a thin capillary is dipped into the superfluid it flows up the tube at such speed that a fountain effect is produced at the other end.
The vanes of a radiometer are not porous. To explain the radiometer, therefore, one must focus attention not on the faces of the vanes, but on their edges. The faster molecules from the warmer side strike the edges obliquely and impart a higher force than the colder molecules. Again these are the same thermomolecular forces which are responsible for thermal transpiration. The effect is also known as thermal creep since it causes gases to creep along a surface where there is a temperature gradient. The net movement of the vane due to the tangential forces around the edges is away from the warmer gas and towards the cooler gas with the gas passing round the edge in the opposite direction. The behaviour is just as if there were a greater force on the blackened side of the vane (which as Maxwell showed is not the case), but the explanation must be in terms of what happens not at the faces of the vanes but near their edges.
Maxwell refereed Reynolds's paper, and so became aware of Reynolds's suggestion. Maxwell at once made a detailed mathematical analysis of the problem, and submitted his paper, "On stresses in rarefied gases arising from inequalities of temperature", for publication in the Philosophical Transactions; it appeared in 1879, shortly before his death. The paper gave due credit to Reynolds's suggestion that the effect is at the edges of the vanes, but criticised Reynolds's mathematical treatment. Reynolds's paper had not yet appeared (it was published in 1881), and Reynolds was incensed by the fact that Maxwell's paper had not only appeared first, but had criticised his unpublished work! Reynolds wanted his protest to be published by the Royal Society, but after Maxwell's death this was thought to be inappropriate.