Quantum Mechanics and Light Intensity

Bill Westmiller asks:

I'm confused on a quasi-technical question you may be able to answer.

The energy of a light wave is directly related to its frequency, as in E = hv.

But, this equation seems to take no account of the intensity of light. For example, red light always has the same frequency ... so one might assume it always has the same energy.

Is there something inherent in E or h that reflects or assumes a particular light intensity standard?

Bill:

Good question. Quantum mechanics (QM) deals with the “smallest quantity of motion.” Although my blogs have pointed out the numerous philosophical errors in QM, physicists have used Max Planck’s brilliant work to explore the theoretical properties of the smallest microcosms, not without some experimental success. Nonetheless, because of the attendant philosophical obfuscation, QM gets extraordinarily complicated. Let me try to explain what I think it is about in simplified terms.

In neomechanics, we stress the collisions between microcosms. The quantum would be a description of collisions involving the smallest microcosm known, in this case, the photon. In regressive physics, including QM, the photon is the particle that carries light from source to observer. In neomechanics, of course, we consider aether_-1 particles to be the constituents of the medium for light. In our theory light is simply wave motion in which aether_-1 particles collide with each other as in any other wave motion. The emitted motion from the source travels microcosm-to-microcosm to the observer, as it would in any other medium. As in water waves, the individual aether_-1 particles pretty much stay at home. I am not sure, but these aether_-1 particles could just as easily be photons. We could call them that, except for the unfortunate connotations given them by Einstein. True, there could be even smaller particles, such as the aether_-2 particles that Steve and I hypothesize as the constituents of aether_-1 particles.[1] They also would be responsible for the “subquantic” motions hypothesized by physicist David Bohm.[2] It is doubtful, of course, that we will ever be able to detect aether_-2 particles, much less hypothesize much about them. For now, let us continue with the smallest of everything, which invariably must use Planck’s constant (h = 6.62606957 × 10^-34 m² kg / s).

From the neomechanical perspective, I speculate that today’s “smallest quantity of motion” would be one “cycle” in the Planck equation you mentioned:

E = hv

The “v” in the equation is the frequency in cycles per second. High frequency light (e.g., blue, with a short wavelength) produces more collisions per second than low frequency light (e.g., red, with a long wavelength). That is about as close as one gets to intensity when working at the photon/aether_-1 level of the universal hierarchy.

The next level involves a qualitative change with billions of collisions instead of the individual collisions modeled by QM. Wave-particle duality requires that the photon travel without a medium, bringing its own waves along with it. I must admit that I could never understand that conjecture even though I once believed in the 3 in 1 god stuff. Some of those photons must be gigantic, with some electromagnetic waves being over 10 km long. As a practical matter, we measure light intensity at the next level of the hierarchy in various ways, depending on the discipline (sorry for getting a bit elementary here). Many of these, especially astronomy, assume a spherical light source emitting in all directions. Intensity follows the inverse-square law for light, as it does for gravitation, atomic interactions, and many other phenomena:

Intensity is proportional to:    ______1______

                                                        Distance²

A good illustration of the inverse square law is:[3]

The gist of the inverse square law is that the motion produced by a particular microcosm is transmitted geometrically in the 3-D universe, with its effect being scattered over ever-larger spheres. We see this all the time when practicing archery. If all your arrows hit a 4” circle at 20 yards, expect them to hit a 16” circle at 40 yards. The spread will increase by four times when you double the distance. Similarly, an observer or detector will see only a tiny fraction of the light emitted from a distant body, depending on the subtended angle. Astronomers often indicate this fraction in terms of angular diameter as seen from Earth. Looking straight up and from the western horizon to the eastern horizon would comprise an arc of 180 degrees. The Moon has an angular diameter of less than 34 arc-minutes, while Venus has an angular diameter of less than 66 arc-seconds simply because it is much farther away. If all luminous celestial bodies were identical, it would be a simple matter of estimating their distances by measuring their light intensity. Because they are not identical, much more is involved, but you get the point: intensity is multiple rather than singular. A single water molecule, like the lone fan in the stadium, does not a wave make.

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[1] Puetz, S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal cycle theory: Neomechanics of the hierarchically infinite universe: Denver, Outskirts Press ( www.universalcycletheory.com ), 626 p.

[2] Bohm, David, 1957, Causality and chance in modern physics: New York, Harper and Brothers, 170 p.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

Are there constants in nature?

I thank David de Hilster for sending me a heads up on a YouTube video by parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, who was to be part of an officially sanctioned TEDx conference in West Hollywood. TED is a platform for mainstream ideas that are supposed to be highly innovative. This one, however, had a lot more woomeistering than normal, what with Sheldrake and other blatant indeterminists comprising most of it. There were many complaints about the program from mainstream scientists, who are ever ready to censor both sides of the paradigm. Eventually, TED Headquarters revoked the license for the conference.

What with his opposition to the scientific worldview and his sponsorship of ESP, telepathy, and psychics, Sheldrake’s ideas generally are pretty nutty. Nonetheless, at 9:50 to 15:30 in this video about the nonconstancy of so-called constants he is right on, even somewhat humorous. I had little idea that the velocity of light had changed by 20 km/s between 1928 and 1945:

http://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg

The 20 km/s is probably due mostly to improvements in measurement, although I am not completely sure about that—the 1928 measurements were supposedly much more precise than that. As Sheldrake points out, the solar system rotates along with the galaxy at about 300 km/s. This puts us in a constantly changing aether field. As in the solar system, most of this aether is probably entrained, with relatively constant density, but I cannot imagine it being perfectly constant either. In UCT[1], Steve and I had an extensive discussion declaring that there actually are no real constants in nature. Of course, indeterminists such as Einstein have thought otherwise, hypothesizing that the velocity of light in vacuum is constant. The only problem: there is no such thing as a perfect vacuum or perfectly empty space in which c could be constant. The ends to which Einstein ventured to preserve the hypothesized constancy are well known, starting with aether denial. Whenever the constancy of c was threatened, something else had to give. That is how we got the absurd “dilation of time.” It is absurd, of course, because time is motion, not matter. Only material objects can dilate.

Constants are not possible because the universe is infinite, in tune with the Eighth Assumption of Science, infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions). The only way one could assume that constants exist, is to use the opposing assumption, finity. Granted, some “constants” do not seem to vary much, but they are really not constant, in the same sense that Pi is really not 3.14159265, but also includes millions of non-repeating digits without end.

I got a kick out of Sheldrake’s half facetious suggestion that the so called constants, especially those Steve and I associate with aether density (e.g., velocity of light, 300,000 km/s; acceleration of gravity, 9.81 m/s), should be monitored daily—just like the stock markets. I would bet that they probably would correlate nicely with the UWS cycles responsible for the expansion and contraction of Earth.[2]

BTW: Being born an idealist, I was shocked when I found out that gravity varies from place to place on the Earth--I always thought it was a constant. During a short assignment as a geophysicist, I even got the chance to use a gravimeter in studying the densities of rocks offset along faults. If you are still an idealist with respect to gravity, then maybe the figure below will be edifying:

Satellite measurements of variations in gravity for Antarctica showing high values (red) typical for the extremely dense rocks of the mountainous areas and low values (blue) typical for the sediments of the valleys. Most of these features are covered with ice.[3]

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[1] Puetz, S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal cycle theory: Neomechanics of the hierarchically infinite universe: Denver, Outskirts Press ( www.universalcycletheory.com ), 626 p.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bouman, J., Floberghagen, R., and Rummel, R., 2013, More Than 50 Years of Progress in Satellite Gravimetry: Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, v. 94, no. 31, p. 269-270.

Milky Way Star Older than the Universe

Lucy, looks like the Big Bangers have some ‘splaining to do! The ages of the oldest stars in the Milky Way are supposed to be about 13.2 Ga (billion years), about 600 million years younger than the “age of the universe” calculated from Big Bang Theory. Unfortunately, star HD 140283, only 190 million light years away, dubbed “Methuselah,” seems to be between 14 and 15 Ga. And within that range, astronomers have difficulty getting an age much below 14.5 Ga. There is only a slight chance that the poor precision of the estimate (+0.8 Ga) still might allow it to fit the theory:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/08/astronomers-find-ancient-star-methuselah_n_2834999.html

No doubt, the theoreticians will make some adjustments. After all, the universe just keeps on getting older. Why, just the other day it was 13.7 Ga—before they recently changed it to 13.8 Ga. Gosh, looks like I need to make some revisions for the second editions of a few books… 

Systems Philosophy and Lab Babies

By Fred Frees

The Scientific Worldview [Borchardt, pg. xxv, 2007], states that “Systems Philosophy” is the Twentieth Century world view, which draws imaginary boundaries around portions of the universe and calls them “systems.” Systems Philosophy concentrates on these “systems” and ignores everything else.

And here in the 21^st Century, it seems that Systems Philosophy is alive and well. In this case, the “system” is a human baby.

A recent segment on 60 Minutes asked the question:

Are human beings inherently good? Are we born with a sense of morality? Or, do we arrive blank slates, waiting for the world to teach us right from wrong? Or, could it be worse? Do we start off nasty, selfish devils, who need our parents, teachers, and religions to whip us into shape?

This topic was apparently so important to the producers of 60 Minutes, that they felt it necessary to air the segment twice (once this year, 2013, and once last year, 2012).

Enter the Baby Lab. Here, experimenters (alleged experts in behavior and psychology—one of them from Yale), put on puppet shows to see how babies as young as 3 months react.

In the first experiment, the babies watch as three puppets act before them. In the center is a box. The center puppet tries to open the box, without success. At times, the puppet on the right helps the center puppet successfully open the box. At other times, the puppet on the left, prevents the center puppet from opening the box by forcefully jumping on it.

After watching this, the baby is presented with the left and right puppets, and is encouraged to choose between them. The babies seem to prefer the “nice” puppet over the “mean” puppet. In the case of the 3-month olds, some of them would look at the “mean” puppet for a few seconds, then look at the “nice” puppet for an extended period of time. We should note, however, that babies continually develop a sense of purpose with their first cry for food. Screaming and shouting (considered bad behavior at times) gets you food; doing nothing gets you nothing.

In another experiment, three puppets attempt to play catch with a ball. But, one of the puppets refuses to play, and won’t let go of the ball. Later, when the same “selfish” puppet tries to retrieve the ball from a box, one of the other puppets helps him and the other prevents him. Of the babies tested, 67% of them showed a liking for the puppet that prevented the “selfish” puppet from getting the ball, supposedly because the “ball-thief” deserved to be punished.

In other words, babies have memory. They remembered what happened the last time he got it: the show was over. Babies (cats watching birds, too) love to watch things—it’s how they learn about the world. Stopping the show is like stopping the world (they are solipsists, after all). What is missing in all this is: What does the baby get out of making a particular choice? What does this say about the 33% who could not remember the show stopping or really were not interested in the show (sleepy? dimwitted? bad eyesight?).

In a third experiment, the babies were offered a bowl of Cheerios and a bowl of Graham Crackers.

Once the preference was made (it didn’t matter which one), two puppets were introduced, pretending to eat out of each bowl. The babies seemed to prefer the puppet that liked the same food choice, and rejected the puppet that made the opposite choice. This supposedly showed how humans are born with prejudices against those who are different, and prefer those who share similarities.

What is overlooked here, is the need for closure. To quote Dr. Glenn Borchardt from his blog:

“To make a decision, we need to have closure. Thus, once we have chosen an auto or a spouse, we must “close our minds” to other possibilities. Closure reduces cognitive dissonance and makes our lives simpler. For most of us, life would be impossibly inefficient if we had to choose an auto or a spouse each morning. Like Newton’s object once in motion, we favor least motion, which allows us to go humming down life’s track with least effort. We will still have millions of decisions to make, but the ones that have already experienced closure will not need to be among them.”

At: http://thescientificworldview.blogspot.com/2013/02/sidetracking-big-bang-theory.html

Their conclusion: Human beings are born with an innate sense of morality (right over wrong) and justice (the need for punishment). And, apparently, we are also born bigots.

The program ends with older children showing more signs of generosity (a learned behavior). And all this, they say, is attributed to biological evolution. At least we can be glad they kept religion out of the equation.

But, how do these experiments fare in the light of Univironmental Determinism? Can the assertion that “human beings are born with an innate sense of morality” be fallacious?

As far as the experiments are concerned, the results were not even close to 100%. That a majority of babies chose a certain way could be caused by various factors: Maybe they liked the color of a given puppet. Maybe their choices were arbitrary. Maybe their consensus was coincidental. Or, maybe, the conclusion that humans are born with these behaviors, is just wishful thinking.

Fortunately, we have Univironmental Determinism to guide us. We know that behavior isn’t something that can be passed biologically from generation to generation [Borchardt, TSW, pg. xxv, 2007]. So, how can babies be born with any sense of morality or justice?

Behavior is not a “thing.” It doesn’t have x,y,z dimensions, and doesn’t “exist.” Behavior is an interaction between things [Borchardt, TSW, pg. xxv, 2007]. When viewed univironmentally, we can surmise that babies react through learned behavior the minute they are born. The psychologists at the Baby Lab could stand to read The Scientific Worldview in order to release themselves from the shackles of Systems Philosophy.