We all confront gravitation every moment of our
lives, yet nobody can explain how gravitation works.
What is actually going on? What, exactly, is the
mechanism that pushes everything down? Nobody
knows. And that leaves the door open for a new way of
thinking that provides a clear, intuitively satisfying
explanation. Here is where we stand presently.
We say Newton showed that gravitation is caused by the
gravitational field surrounding all massive bodies.
WRONG. Newton said no such thing. Newton
developed empirical equations that accurately describe how
objects move in response to gravitation. But he did
not say that a field caused this motion. In
fact he disparaged such thinking. He felt that
there must be some agency that made direct
mechanical contact to cause motion. And he was
blunt in saying so:
"It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it." I. Newton. [1]
Neoetherics provides this direct mechanical
contact that Newton said had to be there.
The relativistic viewpoint is a little better,
positing that the space/time structure near a massive body
is "warped" in a way that brings about the phenomena we
refer to as gravitation. But
this does not explain why such a thing might take
place. Warped relative to what? Can anyone
really visualize this? In a famous astronomical
experiment performed in May of 1912, Arthur Eddington
observed that light from a distant star was slightly
deflected when it went past a closer star. Although
his data was shaky at best, this was taken as proof of
Einstein's warped space-time gravitation theory.
But neoetherics makes the same prediction based on different
reasoning. So Eddington's experiment could equally
well be seen as confirmation of neoetherics.
The Michaelson-Morley interferometer experiment
[2] done in July of 1887 was intended to detect the ether
wind caused by the earth plowing through the
stationary ether as it orbited the sun. They were
hoping for an answer of around 30 kilometers/sec. They
failed to detect a velocity anywhere near that
magnitude. This was widely regarded as a null result,
proving that the ether did not exist. WRONG.
What they actually reported in the fall of 1887 was
that their data showed a value of between 5.0
and 7.5 kilometers/sec. This was not a null
result and the significance of this observed ether velocity
was never examined. [3]
At the outset I want to make clear that I am well
aware of how grandiose this sounds. Another nut with a
grand theory that explains everything. Could be.
But it is also possible that what follows is a glimpse
into the deep hidden reality of the world around
us. It is possible that these ideas might come to the
attention of others, more talented that I, who will be able
to make productive use of this line of thinking.
Now for the details of how neoetherics works. Crazy though it may be, it is carefully thought out and presented in great detail. The fact that these ideas seem crazy should not necessarily be regarded as a bad sign. Consider the following:
"For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy,
there is no hope."
F.J. Dyson [4]
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question
which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a
chance of being correct."
Niels Bohr (referring to a paper by Wolfgang Pauli)
THE "SINK" CONCEPT
Gravitation, on the face of it, is a sucking in toward any massive body. So I visualize an inward-flowing fluid. For want of any better word I call this fluid "ether." Of course, I am aware that the concept of an all- pervasive ether is not part of current scientific dogma. But that is of little concern -- this whole line of speculation is crazy anyway. A little ether will be inconsequential in the context of a truly grand heresy. Besides, what I propose here is different from earlier ether models.
I do not say that matter is somehow immersed in a sea of ether. My contention is that nothing exists but ether. The phenomenon called matter is an action of ether.
If this notion seems regressive, it is. But at least we are in good company. Take note of this statement:
"...we arrive at what may be one of the grandest generalizations
of modern science -- of which we are tempted to say that it ought
to be true even if it is not -- namely, that all the phenomena of
the physical universe are only different manifestations of the
various modes of motion of one all-pervading substance -- the ether."
A.A. Michelson [5]
In order to see what I am getting at, do the following thought experiment:
Imagine a closed vessel, perhaps like a large hot water tank. See Figure 1. The vessel contains air under pressure. Now imagine a thin hollow tube, like a drinking straw, that pierces the side of the vessel and reaches near the center. Air is leaking out. Air is moving in from all directions toward the opening at the end of the tube inside the tank.
Now keep your eye on that region around the upper
end of the tube and let the tank and the tube vanish.
But imagine that the sink remains in place. What we
are left with is an air sink, floating free. Air flows in
from all directions, then simply disappears. It is
annihilated.
Now imagine two of these floating sinks fairly close to each other. See Figure 2. Each sink is affected by the inflow of air moving toward the other sink. If they are free to drift, it seems apparent that they will tend to drift together, eventually coming in contact.
MASS DEFINED
I submit that "mass" and "ether sink" are identically equivalent. I am not saying that the presence of mass causes an ether sink. I am saying that mass is an ether sink.
By ether sink, I mean the phenomenon described above, but in ether, not in air. The problem, of course, is that there seems to be nowhere for the ether to go. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this essay, the concept must be accepted; at least provisionally, just to see where it leads us.
STASIS
As above, imagine an ether sink. The surrounding
ether accelerates as it approaches the sink, where it
disappears. The velocity of the flow as it approaches the
sink is the same along all axes. The size (mass) of the sink
is stated in terms of volumetric inflow rate. For any
specific mass this total inflow rate is fixed. The sink
exists far from anything else; that is, the distant
surrounding ether sea is motionless. Left alone, the sink
tends to do nothing. It just floats there, endlessly
draining off the stuff of the universe.
CONSTANT LINEAR MOTION
Imagine the same vast motionless ether sea with a single ether sink. But this time let the sink be moving steadily with some fixed velocity V relative to the surrounding medium. Here is how this works: the flow lines into the sink shift around so that they are more crowded at the leading edge and more sparse at the trailing edge. The amount of shift is proportional to the translation velocity V, and the amount of change at the leading edge is exactly the same as the amount of change at the trailing edge. The inflowing is no longer symmetrical from all directions, but net inflow along the axis of translation (and along all other axes) is constant. The sink propagates smoothly. No bow wave, no wake.
To get a good grip in this image, approach it as follows. See Figure 3. Imagine a unit cube immersed in water. Inside the cube is some sort of pump. In Figure 3a the pump is not running; the situation is quiescent and there is no movement. In Figure 3b we have turned on the pump, which draws water into the right face and pushes it out of the left face. Clearly, the cube propagates through the medium. The velocity (length/time) is equal to the flow rate (length/time) divided by the area of a face (length^2).
Now refer to Figure 4. In Figure 4a we postulate that the water is flowing equally into the left and right faces. As in Figure 3a, the cube tends to move in neither direction. Now suppose that the flow rates into the two faces are unbalanced. See Figure 4b. As in Figure 3b, the cube propagates to the right. In this case the velocity V is equal to the difference in the flow rates (Fr-Fl) divided by the area of a face.
This cubical element is used only for the sake of illustration of the principle. In reality the symmetry is spherical, with inflow from all directions. See Figure 5. In Figure 5a the inflow is symmetrical along all axes, and the sink does not propagate. In Figure 5b the inflow in greater on the left side and less on the right side. The sink propagates to the left. In this case we define an "effective cross section area" (Aeff) along the axis of propagation such that the same relationship holds as in Figure 4b: velocity V is equal to the difference in the inflow rates (Fr-Fl) divided by Aeff.
And this goes on forever. "Setting in motion" is equivalent to "rearranging flow lines," which is also equivalent to acceleration. This requires force from some outside agency. The amount of force is directly proportional to the number of lines that must be rearranged. Although we will not try to examine in detail how objects interact in this context, note in passing that when one body exerts force on another body, what is really involved is a mutual rearrangement of flow patterns. Following the rearrangement, and taking both bodies into account, the net inflow along the axis of the encounter remains unchanged. This is the principle of conservation of momentum. Once the encounter is over (returning our attention to Figure 5b), the new arrangement of flow lines persists. It does not spontaneously decay back to full symmetry. That is, the motion relative to the medium persists. This characteristic is stipulated to satisfy Newton's first law.
In passing, note that nothing changes if we assume the sink to be stationary and the surrounding medium to be moving with a fixed velocity. There is no way to discern one situation from the other.
ACCELERATION
Again, imagine the motionless ether sea with its one motionless ether sink. The flow lines into the sink are symmetrical from all directions. Now, ignoring how this might happen, imagine that the ether sea is no longer motionless, but is accelerating. That is, the velocity of the surrounding medium is different from point to point. For the sake of illustration, let us say that at some distance above the sink the ether is moving downward with some velocity V0, and at some distance below the sink the ether is moving downward with some greater velocity V1. The velocity increases smoothly from V0 to Vl. See Figure 6.
Now what happens to the ether sink? The inflow from all directions is still symmetrical, so the sink has no tendency to translate relative to the surrounding medium. It is carried along at the velocity of the medium at its location.This situation is depicted in Figure 6a. And since the medium is accelerating, the ether sink takes on that acceleration. Examining the situation at the leading and trailing edges, we find the following:
Since no outside agency has acted on the sink, the symmetry of inflow has not been rearranged. Also, since the surrounding medium is accelerating from point to point, it is clear that the velocity of the medium near the leading (bottom) edge of the sink is greater than at the top edge. There is a "delta v" to deal with that is proportional to the velocity gradient. This sets up stress in the sink; the leading edge wants to go a little faster than the trailing edge. This corresponds to a recognized physical effect, which comes about whenever an object is in free fall in a gravity gradient. The object goes into tension along the axis of the gradient.
Now let's see what happens when we reach into this picture and try to stop the sink from moving downward with the flow. Again we encounter the fundamental characteristic of ether sinks: an outside agency must exert force to bring about a rearrangement of flow lines. And rearranging flow lines is the same as changing velocity relative to the surrounding medium. Here we have the connection between force and acceleration. As we slow the sink to a halt, the flow into the top edge will increase and the flow into the bottom edge will decrease by a like arnount. This is depicted in Figure 6b. As with the constant-motion case, above, the sink can now be viewed as propagating upward relative to the medium. But remember, the velocity of the medium at the bottom edge of the sink is greater than at the top edge. If we force the flow rate into the sink at the top edge to increase by an amount proportional to the velocity of the sink relative to the medium, then the flow rate into the bottom edge must decrease by a like amount -- and that is not quite the right amount to bring the bottom edge into balance. This irreducible imbalance results in an irremediable force downward. The sink is constantly being sucked (or pushed) down by this inflow imbalance. The magnitude of the downward force is proportional to the acceleration of the ether field and to the size of the sink (net volumetric inflow rate). And net volumetric inflow rate, of course, is identically equivalent to mass.
Thus, depending on one's point of view, the force just described is either the "f" in f = ma, or the "w" in w = mg.
When the sink is released it again takes on the acceleration (not the velocity) of the surrounding medium. The velocity of the medium at that point has been canceled by the rearranged flow lines.
Notice how this model helps clarify certain observable phenomena:
First, whether we say that we are applying a force to make the sink accelerate relative to a fixed medium, or that we are applying a force to stop the movement of the sink in an accelerating medium, the situation is identical. The whole business about gravity being the same as acceleration is transparently obvious.
Second, when the sink is released in an accelerating field, it takes on the acceleration of the field -- irrespective of the size (mass) of the sink or its initial velocity. More correctly, the size of the sink automatically causes the force to adjust so that, when released, its acceleration will be dependent only on the acceleration of the surrounding medium, not the size of the sink.
SUMMARY OF PRINCIPLES
I. The phenomena associated with mass are elucidated by viewing all
mass as ether sinks.
II. An ether sink is an inrushing flow of ether to a small but finite
region.
III. The size (mass) of the sink is proportional to the total volumetric
inflow rate.
IV The inrushing ether can be viewed as either passing through into an
unknowable inverted realm, or as being simply annihilated -- used up.
V. Along any axis through the sink, the net ether inflow rate is a fixed
quantity.
VI. If the inflow rates along both senses of the axis are equal, the
sink is at rest along that axis relative to the surrounding medium.
VII. Changing the balance of the inflow rates along an axis requires force
from an outside agency.
Corollary. Any arrangement of inflow rates persists indefinitely
unless acted upon by an outside agency.
VIII. If the inflow rate increases along one sense of the axis, the inflow
rate along the opposite sense decreases by the same amount.
IX. If the inflow rates along the senses of the axis are unequal, the
sink is translating relative to the surrounding medium.
X. Two sinks, close enough to effect each other, will tend to drift
together. Total inflow rate for the combined sinks is simply the
sum of the inflow rates for the two individual sinks.
EXPERIMENTAL CONFIRMATIOń
What happens if ether is leaking out of the system via matter? This implies that overall etheric pressure is gradually decreasing. Light from a star can be viewed as embedded in the ether. As the ether is slowly thinning out, then the wavelength of the light will gradually be stretched out. And the longer the light has been in transit, the more pronounced will be the effect. The red shift can be seen as confirmation of neoetherics. This is illustrated with a sound analog.
Imagine a large closed vessel -- back to our hot water tank. The vessel has a valve to the outside world that can be either open or closed. See Figure 7.
At one end of the container we place a fixed-frequency sound source -- say a tuning fork. For the purposes of our experiment we will stipulate that the tuning fork always vibrates at the same frequency, no matter what. At the other end we place a microphone to pick up the sound from the tuning fork. We ignore reflections from the walls of the container. We stipulate that the vessel is very long compared to the wavelength of the sound.
Before we start the experiment we pump some air into the tank to raise the pressure above ambient. Now we strike the tuning fork to start it humming. The microphone picks up the sound. Obviously, the frequency picked up by the microphone is the same as the frequency of the tuning fork.
At this point we crack the valve to the outside world. The pressurized air in the tank starts to leak out. Question: While the air is steadily leaking out, what happens to the frequency of the sound picked up by the microphone?
My answer: The sound drops to a lower frequency. The amount of frequency change is related to the rate of pressure change in the vessel. The mechanism is as follows:
When a sound wave originates near the tuning fork it has the expected period of 1/f. Think of this sound wave as "embedded in" the local structure of the air. As that wave propagates down the vessel the pressure is dropping. The average spacing of molecules is increasing. This tends to stretch out the wave; the period increases, the frequency goes down.
Here is another experiment. Same as above, but we make the vessel longer and have two tuning fork locations instead of one. See Figure 8.
Here we selectively cause source 1 to operate, then source 2. Now, with the pressure gradually decreasing, what does the microphone hear?
My answer. The frequency received from S2 is slightly lower than from S1. It seems clear that the amount of frequency shift is related to both the rate of pressure change and the path length. The further the source is from the microphone, the longer the wave is in transit, and the more pronounced will be the effect of the decreasing pressure.
Another experiment. Forget the vessel, this is done in open air. As before, one microphone and two sound sources. This time we put each source on a movable platform. With everything stationary, check that the microphone receives the same frequency from each source. See Figure 9.
Now we set each source in constant motion away from the microphone. We make S2 move faster than S1. What does the microphone hear now?
Of course, the microphone hears S2 as a lower frequency than S1. Doppler.
Notice how similar this is to what the microphone hears in the earlier experiment. In fact, if we set the two experiments up carefully, we should be able to select distances, leak rates and source velocities such that the results of both experiments are identical.
So this means that if we are limited to using the microphone -- that is, if we have no other way to get information about the sound sources -- then we could conclude that (1) the sources are moving away at different rates, or (2) they are standing still and the overall system pressure is dropping, or (3) some mix of these two effects is taking place.
Curious, no? This implies that we may have
misinterpreted the significance of the red shift. And
that raises big bang questions. But that is quite
enough mischief for the moment!
CONCLUDING SPECULATIONS
To summarize, this model hypothesizes a universe made up of ether. There are sink points where the ether is draining off in some unimaginable way. These points give rise to the phenomenon we call matter, or mass. The size of the mass is proportional to the volumetric flow rate. The effects we associate with gravitation are brought about by the effect of the accelerating, inrushing ether flow. In the absence of an accelerating ether flow (that is, at a point distant from a massive body), the same effects are brought about by accelerating a body (sink) relative to the stationary ether field. Thus the identity between acceleration and gravitation.
The ether density in the universe is gradually decreasing. This seems consonant with increasing entropy. Also with a gradually decreasing force of gravitation. This universally decreasing ether density implies that light waves, long in transit, will gradually stretch out, thus lowering in frequency. And this, of course, is an alternative explanation for the red shift.
This all raises some interesting and perplexing questions.
Michaelson-Morley
The famous experiments that were regarded as disproving the existence of ether do not seem so persuasive in the context of the view described in this essay. The problem is that they postulated a stationary ether, which the earth moved through. In our view, the ether at the surface of the earth is always in motion, and the main ether flow direction is down, toward the center of the earth.
On the other hand, experiments that do demonstrate the presence of ether have already been done. It is accepted that gravitation affects light. Light accelerates when it shines "down" and decelerates when it shines "up." Experiments verifying this were done in 1960 by R.V Pound at Harvard.
In the context of the present thesis, one must try to visualize the etheric inflow into the earth, as it moves in its orbit. The overall etheric flow in the solar system is dominated by the inward acceleration toward the sun. The earth, in order to stay in orbit and not fall into the sun, must have increased inflow into the face that is away from the sun, and at a certain angle relative to the orbital tangent. See Figure 10.
The inflow angle can be resolved into two components: one tangent to the orbit, corresponding to orbital velocity; and the other inward, corresponding to the solar inflow velocity. The implication of this model is that, for any one location on the surface of the earth, there should be a slight twenty-four hour variation in the measured effect of gravitation.
Any object, that is, any aggregation of ether sinks, is intrinsically embedded in the local ether. In free fall directly down, the surrounding ether is accelerating and funneling down into a narrower space. The implication is that a unit cube of ether, starting from deep space and approaching a massive body, will undergo a curious deformation.And the embedded object must inevitably take on the same distortion. See Figure 11.
If a cubical object is fabricated in deep space and then allowed to fall to earth, when it reaches ground level its top and bottom surfaces will have developed a slight curvature with a radius equal to the radius of the earth.
Further, the sides will have a sight taper, remaining parallel to the earth radius. Worse yet, this object will alter its shape if it is rotated 90 degrees around a horizontal axis! Irrespective of which face is down, the shape will still be as shown above. Of course, this figure is exagerrated to show the effect. For any object of practical size, the distortion is of miniscule proportions. But it is there; and now we must confront the most uncomfortable implication springing from the speculations outlined in this essay.
A Plastic World
Now things really get strange. If any of this makes sense, then it appears that all physical objects partake of the same peculiar plastic behavior as our hypothetical space-built cube in Figure 11. That is, all objects, being intrinsically immersed in and constructed of the flowing ether, change shape when reoriented relative to the etheric medium. And immediately the question arises: if this is so, why don't we notice it? There are two answers to this: one simple, and one bizarre. First, as a very practical matter, the effect is tiny for objects of ordinary size. No one would just casually notice changes of such microscopic proportions. But there is a more profound and disturbing logic which leads to the conclusion that this effect, though "real," may not be observable at all by any method of measurement. To understand why this might be so, consider the problem of measuring the distortion of the object shown in Figure 11. Let's say we have a pair of calipers large enough to measure the base of this large cube. See Figure 12.
First we adjust the jaws of the calipers to measure the base of the cube. This is shown in Figure 12a. Then, without readjusting the calipers, we measure the top of the cube. Guess what, the top exactly matches the fixed setting of the calipers! The reason is that the calipers, being ether-bound like everything else, change shape when moved to the new location. And the change is exactly what is required to make the top appear to be the same size as the base. Now you begin to see the problem.
......................Original notes: December 1970 Holy Wholly Holey essay: March 1971 Neotherics essay: 1985 HTML version: January 1997 HTML Rewrite March 2016 Jerry Shifman The Sea Ranch, California
Portland, OR.