Among the quandaries faced by regressive physics is Einstein’s ad hoc
involving his claim that light particles were massless. Now, light is motion—a
wave in the aether. Motion, like time itself, is not material—it is what matter
does. Matter exists; motion occurs. Motion does not have mass; only the things
in motion have mass. Einstein’s youthful denial of aether required his adoption
of the particle theory of light. This objectification of motion was his
greatest error.[1]
That is where all the paradoxes and contradictions of relativity come from. Today,
as always, the theoretical choice is clear: photons or aether.
Of course, to be accepted as a respectable mainstream physicist, one
must believe in photons and deny aether. The aether hill constructed by the
Einstein propaganda is just too difficult to climb. Even especially
materialistic physicists such as professor Sadri Hassani have difficulty
reaching the top of that massless mountain. Dr. Hassani’s website, https://skepticaleducator.org/, is one
of the best at combating misbegotten attempts to use science in support of religious dogma. He is an expert on the immaterialistic woo common to what he calls
“Post-Materialist” science.[2] That is why I was shocked
to see his overtly strange title starkly indicating what Einstein had done to
physics. If any mainstream physicist could straighten that out, it would be
Hassani. Unfortunately, as his title suggested, I was to be deeply disappointed.
Why
Massless Particles Cannot Exist
We first need to get a few definitions straight. Be mindful that
Hassani and other professional physicists subconsciously use definitions more in
line with traditional indeterminism and immaterialism. In particular, you will
notice their professionally obligatory assumption of finity is at the heart
of their confusion.
Mass: The resistance to acceleration. We measure mass by trying to
accelerate an object. You can do this yourself by trying to push a small car or
a large truck. Both have stuff inside them that makes it difficult, but
sometimes not impossible to accelerate them. And that is the key: mass requires
an object to have stuff inside it.
Matter: An abstraction for all things, which are xyz portions of the
universe containing other things and being surrounded by other things. Readers
familiar with neomechanics will recognize these portions as “microcosms,” with
their insides consisting of “submicrocosms” and their outsides consisting of
“supermicrocosms.”[3]
Obviously, a microcosm with nothing inside it could not have mass. If
we accept the above definitions, we would not accept the idea that anything
could be “massless.”
According to Special Relativity Theory, if you accelerate a particle
with rest mass, mo to a velocity, v, then the moving mass is
supposed to be equal to:
quora.com
The mass approaches infinity as the velocity of the particle approaches
c. Einstein
realized this would never do, so the rest mass of his imagined light particle had
to be zero. In other words, the photon had to be perfectly empty, just like the
space that surrounded it. This is the point in the history of science where the
idealism of mathematics replaced the realism of physics.
Now, on to some of the “logic” Hassani tries to use in support of the
claim made in his contentious title. Right away he states: “the myth of
nonmateriality of massless particles is just that—a myth.” He then mentions
some things that actually are nonmaterial: ghosts, gods, spirit, energy, field,
etc. Eschewing a proper Basic Science meter,[4] Hassani uses three simple
criteria he thinks will do the job:
The sensuous test:
Putting on his empiricist/positivist hat he writes: “what is common
among them is that they cannot be seen, heard, touched, or subjected to any
quantitative measurement.” In other words, he assumes infinite
subdividability is impossible. For if that were true instead, there would come
a time when his empirical criteria would fail. There would always be a particle
smaller than what could be detected. He relies on the by-no-means certain criterium
“that nonmaterial objects are not detectible.” He then expands on
detectability as measured by our senses, with one notable mistake in which he
writes: “sound…is material because it is transmitted to our ears through
material air.” This, of course, is false. Sound is wave motion in a medium
filled with matter. Above all, it is motion, not matter.
The interactive test:
Here he mentions the causes for events, the interactions between
things. This is good because it is an amplification of Newton’s Second Law of
Motion (F=ma). In other words, a “cause” is defined as the effect one thing has
on another. If there is no acceleration or deceleration, the hypothesized thing
does not exist. In other words, this interactive test detects the collisions of
material things with other material things. Thus, wave motion in the aether
produces collisions with your eye, proving aether’s materiality in the same way
nitrogen in the air produces collisions with your ear drum, proving the
materiality of nitrogen. Light is the motion of aether particles in the same
way sound is the motion of nitrogen particles. In other words, both light and
sound are motion. They do not exist; they occur. Unfortunately, Hassani’s
imagined massless photons do not pass the interactive test. If the mass of a
photon was zero, then F=ma also would equal zero. A massless particle cannot
accelerate anything.
Microscopic:
This is where Hassani gets off the deep end reiterating: “Light
consists of photons, which are massless particles. And the supposed matter-antimatter
annihilation (or the decay of certain elementary particles) into photons,
falsely identified as “pure energy,” [that] gives mystics and pseudoscientists of
all denominations the opportunity to exploit E=mc2 and claim” support
of the immaterial soul crucial to most religious thought. Of course, there is
no evidence that either “antimatter” or photons or souls actually
exist. As readers know, the physical meaning of E=mc2 requires the
existence of aether. It simply involves the transmission of internal motion to the
environment.[5]
Ironically, the hypothesized photon would not be subject to that famous equation.
We wish Dr. Hassani well in continuing to slay those religious dragons
as they continue to attack the ship of science. Maybe he will devise a better
BS meter to do the same for physics, but don’t hold your breath.
[1]
Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Einstein's most important philosophical error, in Volk,
Greg, Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, 18th Conference of the
NPA, 6-9 July, 2011: College Park, MD, Natural Philosophy Alliance, Mt. Airy,
MD, v. 8, p. 64-68 [10.13140/RG.2.1.3436.0407].
[3]
Borchardt, Glenn, 2007, The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein:
Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 411 p. [http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/];
Borchardt, Glenn, 2017, Infinite Universe Theory: Berkeley, California,
Progressive Science Institute, 343 p. [http://go.glennborchardt.com/IUTebook].
[4]
Borchardt, 2017, ibid, Ch. 13.4.
[5]
Borchardt, Glenn, 2009, The physical meaning of E=mc2, Proceedings
of the Natural Philosophy Alliance: Storrs, CN, v. 6, no. 1, p. 27-31 [10.13140/RG.2.1.2387.4643].
