A Brief History of This Series of Discoveries
(If this reads sort'a like a fairy tale, it's likely because in many - if metaphorical - ways, that's what it is.)
In the
experience of this author there are two histories of the evolution of
physics. The objective history that was established by the men and
women who contributed to it’s progressive evolution, and the subjective
history of this author’s learning of that evolution and then
recognizing and authenticating an unprecedented statement - previously
proven but continuingly unrecognized on the foundations of physical
science.
Discovering
that Newton’s gravity is Einstein’s 4-dimensional space time continuum
did not happen in premeditation, or all at once, or in any given flash
of insight, but rather through a process of learning, motivated by what
at first was no more than mild curiosity.
‘What is
gravity?’ I was fourteen years old and had no idea that, in pursuing
the answer to this question, I was about to embark on what would become
the main course in my life’s work.
Confident that I could learn the answer in a fairly short period of time, through research of standard information sources.
In
referencing several encyclopedias and other resource materials I slowly
became aware that there was no comprehensive answer to that question
(‘What is gravity?’). There is voluminous and impressive information on
the effects of gravity (‘the unidentified Force’ - ‘F’) - what it
does... But the question of what gravity is - what causes it - remains
a popularly pursued - until now, unresolved - mystery.
Newton
literally invented The Calculus, to enable him to measure acceleration,
parabolic arcs and many other effects of gravity, but, there is only a
gathering data base of speculations (some of which in the past 30 or so
years have evolved into a trend of unscientific inquiry and
unscientific representation) of it’s causal identity.
The causal identity of gravity is no less mysterious now than it has been through the ages of scientific inquiry.
My first discovery about gravity was that no one has ever known what it is; only what it does...
That was
of itself interesting, and in the words of Barbara Lovett Cline (THE
MEN WHO MADE A NEW PHYSICS), ‘I wanted to know more.’ The recently
learned fact that no one knows or has ever known what gravity is,
allowed me to think that even an amateur such as my self might have as
much business researching it as anyone else.
Curiosity
about gravity was further refurbished when I learned of Galileo’s
experiments with descending objects, released from the same height at
the same time - when he found the unexpected result that, regardless of
the mass values (size, density, weight) of objects, they all descend at
the same rate of acceleration and strike the ground, when dropped from
the same height at the same time. Before Galileo’s findings, it had
been presumed since Aristotle and before, that the heavier a given
object, the faster it descends in free fall. Not true.
The record
already had some knowledge of Newton’s Laws of gravity, one of which
states that the greater mass value - the heavier - a given object, the
more gravitational impelling force (presumed to be a force of
‘attraction’ ; unidentified, but said ‘not’ to be ‘magnetism’ or
‘electricity’) it possesses.
It follows
by this law that when a small stone is dropped alongside of a boulder
sized stone, the latter should fall faster and strike the ground sooner
than the smaller stone (released from the same height at the same time
- esp. in the absence of air resistance ...).
According
to Newton’s law as applied to this consideration, there ‘should’ be a
greater mutual attraction between the larger stone and the earth, than
between the smaller stone and the earth, and therefore the larger -
heavier - stone ‘should’ fall faster. It doesn’t.
(The
popular but incorrect ‘explanation’ that ‘negative inertial resistance’
inversely corresponds to the ‘pull’ of gravity and exactly cancels out
what would otherwise be an increased descent rate for the heavier
object, is well marked, by Einstein and many others, as an inadequate,
false explanation.)
That fact
intrigued me and led me to pursue further studies. I was aware that
much of Einstein’s work was about Newton’s gravity; did not pursue
Newton’s or Einstein’s mathematical work on gravity because my
knowledge of that subject (mathematics) was (and remains) extremely
limited.
At age
seventeen I conjured up what seemed to be a radical and unlikely
explanation for why all objects descend at the same rate of
acceleration. It did explain why this happened, but the explanation
required that the entire earth’s surface be constantly rising up,
creating the illusion of falling objects; causing them to appear to
fall: at the same rate of acceleration.
In this
apparently ‘unlikely’ scenario, the unexplained identical rates of
descent for the test objects was ‘explained’, ‘because’ the earth’s
surface was rising up and overtaking the apparently falling objects...
I had no
good reason at that time for attributing the required expansion to the
earth. Had very limited knowledge (of what is scientifically known) of
the ‘building blocks of the universe’ - electrons, neutrons and
protons; that they are called ‘particles’, which are in fact
unexpectedly found and consistently proved to be 'charges of
electricity, without distinct surfaces.'
Since the
sub-atomic ‘electric charge’ has a mass value (opposes resistance to
acceleration proportionate to its mass value <‘weight’>), and,
demands three dimensions of space to its finitely located self): it is
called a ‘particle’; rigidly conceptualized as ‘billiard ball’ like,
having a distinct surface, separating its perceived finite boundaries,
making it ‘discontinuous’ - from the space surrounding it - like any
and all other material entities; as they are colloquially experienced
and consequently conceptualized. Refer: ‘particle theory’ (is not
really a theory, but rather an ‘hypothesis’, since the so called
particle has yet to be confirmed on the foundations of modern physical
science...)
Had only
heard of the 4th Dimension as Einstein introduced and then others
described it - had no knowledge of it. Did not know of or associate any
of those realities with the absurd explanation I had for the descent of
free falling objects.
It was
more a lark than a serious consideration: OBVIOUSLY THE EARTH IS NOT -
AND ALL OTHER PHYSICAL ENTITIES IN THE UNIVERSE ARE NOT - EXPANDING. I
had arrived at what I did not recognize then as being a historically
crowded metaphorical precipice, and I had made the same rejection
everyone else had, who had arrived there - unbeknownst to me at that
time.
There was
a perfectly functional if metaphorical DaVinci donated hang-glider
waiting for anyone who cared to fly with it (the elaborately proven,
consistently rejected and denied fact that universal matter at large is
a constantly expanding four dimensional field), and for quite some time
I stood there at that crowded precipice, looking at the new fangled,
completely untested solution, and then glanced down the cliff that
everyone there had pulled up short on...
I went
about the objective of disproving this incredible (even ‘ridiculous’)
idea that all of the material earth - and consequently, the thereby
obliged physical universe of space and matter - was constantly
expanding.
I was sure
it was wrong. Had to be wrong. I would not fly off that cliff, even
though I knew, that new fangled thing just might after all fly. I
didn’t ‘believe’ it (Yet).
How, after
all, for example, could something like this be ‘going on’, (the entire
physical universe as well as the spaces between the ‘particles’, is
constantly expanding, ever faster..). without it having been previously
observed and proven - by people much more talented and skilled than
myself?
There is
the apparently patent fact that anyone can see for themselves at any
time and in any place, that the physical environment - everything - at
issue here: (‘Obviously’)‘isn’t expanding’...
("Avoid
the hazard of thinking you understand something, that you don’t really
understand" - Robert Pursig, Paraphrased, ZEN & THE ART OF
MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE.)
Such
misunderstandings result in ‘gridlock’, disallowing any possibility of
resolution, since whatever the problem or misunderstanding may be, it
is not recognized as such, and is therefore not dealt with. ‘Gridlock’.
The
‘incredible’ premise (that all of physical reality is constantly
expanding ever faster) did ‘solve’ the problem of the universal descent
rate of all free falling objects. But it certainly appeared to present
a lot more problems than it did solutions.
The more
Yours Truly circumspected the problem and the more widened the
contingent issues became, the more I began to realize that for all of
its ‘incredible’ contingencies, the idea that the entire physical - as
well as spatial - universe was expanding, was supported - generously -
on the foundations of contemporary and historical physics. But the
glitch was: when the prevailing reality emerged in the experimental
laboratory; often with mathematical confirmations, it seemed, I was
learning, to be consistently rejected out of hand; always on the
misguided (though certainly understandable) premise that ‘obviously,
universal matter - every physical entity in your environment including
yourself - is not in a perpetual state of constant expansion... ‘Anyone
can see, after all, that no such expansion prevails.'
However stubbornly it may appear, in however many differently proven ways, in the internationally recorded laboratory...
I
continued to refuse to test the new fangled (certified ‘untested’ and
‘disqualified’) thing-a-ma-jigee (with wings), and jump off the
metaphorical precipice, and fly. Sure would look foolish going splash
in the imagined, forgiving ocean down there and flightlessly swimming
ashore. Of course it wouldn’t fly.
If it was
meant to fly, someone much more knowledgeable than myself, surely would
have gotten off the ground with it by now... 'Obviously matter is not a
constantly expanding field, because, if it was, by now everything would
have spread out indefinitely... '
If
everything in the physical universe is expanding , caused by the ever
expanding neutrons, protons, electrons, mesons, charms, strangeness and
quarks, etceteras (atomic and subatomic particles large and small):
then I can fly.
So of course I couldn’t fly.
Dragging my obviously non aerodynamic caboose on the ground.
A swanless ugly duckling bon mot: for sure...
Just wanted to make sure that I really couldn’t fly, so I delved further into the stubbornly ascending matter, as it were...
(An
airborne gliding swan - formerly an ugly duckling - dipped it’s wings
over my head, approximately. That is to say, there were benevolent
counter signs, discouraging abandonment of the ugly duckling and White
Elephant apparent... I had already read that a host of internationally
distinguished mathematicians had 'proven', repeatedly and diversely,
that 'it is impossible for a bumblebee to fly.' It was before the great
Ken Kesey wrote, SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION.)
I began to
discover more about this ‘incredible notion’ (Including the ocean
motion?) It also resolved other dissolute and importantly unresolved
issues in physical science. The relativistic contraction of physical
masses in the direction of their motion at increasing rates of
contraction proportional to their velocity, could be attributed to
‘Doppler effect’: if matter was an expanding field... Since Einstein
proved that matter does in fact behave that way, doesn't that also
prove that matter is an expanding field? But that was, once again,
against the well established rules of rejection on this very
('obscure') issue... 'Anyone can see, after all, that universal matter
is not expanding...'
Advancing
plateaus of recognition and realization, celebrating the learning of
the hard work of dedicated scientists when they compulsively dismissed
the results of what they called ‘null experiments’ - the first such
celebration on my part being when I learned that Roland Von Eotvos went
meticulously looking for a difference in descent rates between heavier
and lighter objects in descent and couldn’t find any difference at all,
down to a billionth part of a second. That is somber (though
incomplete) evidence that the earth is rising up to meet the apparently
falling objects.
Einstein's
‘time dilation’ could likewise be explained for the same reason.
Relativistic ‘non-absolute space and time’ - ‘space-time’, could
likewise be accounted for (An enlarging hierarchy of multi-moment
space-times interminably arriving from the past into the present and
projecting toward the future).
All these
unprecedented functionally founded concepts - and previously
unexplained phenomena - were being imaginatively accommodated, and
explained, on the basis of the same singular premise - that physical
matter itself is a constantly (ever faster) expanding; accelerating
field: ’the mass field’, I began to call it. Though I was still sure
that there must be something about it I didn’t understand - that others
did - that disqualified it.
Looking at
the implied, metaphorically winged flying machine a little more
seriously now, still afraid of being embarrassed in front of all those
people who had for so long made camp on that cliff and Knew Better than
to try to fly (with the provided resources as they understood them).
Oh yes. I
knew the story of Icarus flying too close to the sun - the wax binding
keeping his home made feathered wings together, being melted by the
sun, because Icarus tried to fly too high.
Bitter-sweetly
marooned with the idea that I may have happened into a major discovery
of literally astronomical proportions. Certainly an inspiring thought,
but I dared not take it - or myself - too seriously.
Yet, the
more I researched to disqualify it (this graduated at times into
frantic searches, desperate hunts for disqualification, because I
wanted this White Elephant off my back), the more information gathered
tended to support rather than disqualify - I did not fear any
disqualification I was hoping to find; it would put away the otherwise
increasingly accumulating evidence that I was on to something very
important.
With
regard to 'belief systems', it was very difficult for me to believe
that no one else had come up with this before, and that there must be a
very good reason or series of good reasons for why it was just as
untenable as it appeared to be at first consideration... Future
research would reveal that others had indeed preceded myself (as
documented herein), but not by the same avenues and invariably
abandoning their incomplete research on the understandable but
incorrect premise that, 'obviously, the physical universe is not
constantly expanding (also as documented herein).'
At age seventeen, in mid 1958, I joined the military while continuing my research.
The EuroAmerican, transcultural CRACKERJACK
(And precipitous Morton salt)
GrecoRoman Odyssey
It was not
scientific or inspiring (at first) to be sitting in a Neapolitan
restaurant thousands of miles from the North American continent seeing
a ‘foreigner’ who didn’t speak much English enjoying a box of Yankee
Crackerjack. Anyone could easily wonder at the incongruity of it, after
all.
As I was
saying it was not the usual stuff of conventional or even metaphysical
science, to see the answer I was looking for, in or upon a box of
Crackerjack, in the lovely hands of a Neapolitan native in a restaurant
full of Italian people and Italian made everything, especially food.
But this
did happen, under those circumstances. Of course my most logical and
reasonable facilities told me I might have been pushing this projected
hobby horse, as it were, a little too far into the parameters of -
perhaps even laughable - improbability. Spending too many late hours at
the emerged, ad hoc, amateur’s (he or she who loves his or her work)
office.
More about
alternately losing and finding myself in the (ho hum) artwork on a box
of gringo Crackerjack in Italy, in a moment...
Disqualification
would resolve the increasingly unresolved issue and would have been
(and still would be) an unburdening... As it was going, I dwelled in
the shifting nether-realm of alternately thinking myself a vain
imbecile and maybe a major contributor to the evolution of physical
science.
Just
before age eighteen I was gifted a copy of Einstein’s IDEAS &
OPINIONS. I nearly - politely - balked the offering, because although I
was aware that Einstein’s work dealt with gravity and light - the
subjects I was interested and pursuing studies in, I was intimidated by
and impotent in mathematics, especially the high order mathematics that
I knew Einstein, and Newton, and many others worked in.
As things
developed it is likely that, had I been skilled in mathematics I may
never have carried through with this unprecedented non-mathematical
interpretation of what is for the most part well accounted for in
mathematical formulations which have distanced the mathematical
innovators from a conceptually comprehensive understanding of what
their (metric) mathematics are describing and/or confirming. There is
not so much a need for more mathematics here, as there is a need to
understand what the mathematics, mean (Exactly what are the qualified
mathematical formulae correctly and accurately describing? Segue to my
unforeseen appearance upon the well lighted proscenium?)...
But as I
read Einstein’s work as it was presented in the second half of that
book (IDEAS & OPINIONS: Contributions To Science), I recognized
that the issues he was dealing with in that particular book, were not
so much presented mathematically, and what was being explained
non-mathematically (by Einstein), seemed to remarkably parallel the
ideas I had been independently developing, or, I should say that my
ideas remarkably paralleled his.
This
instilled more confidence that the apparently absurd notion that the
entire physical universe is expanding, was not absurd or ridiculous at
all. On the contrary, it seemed - with some exceptions - to be exactly
what Einstein was describing, though he didn’t quite specifically and
non-mathematically proclaim the physical universe to be expanding, he
certainly - characteristically and elaborately - allowed for that
possibility, and from what I’ve since been told and learned of his
mathematics, they seem to patently prove a physically as well as
spatially expanding universe.
This was an extremely humbling, and equally encouraging, uplifting experience... (On more escalating elevators than one?)
By age
twenty I had gone through a series of cycles where it appeared to be an
untenable idea and then was redeemed by further thought and research,
until I was obliged to realize that until if and when someone or
authority could show me what was wrong with this system of thinking, it
was not only as good as the existing status quo in physics - it was
better. It explained more otherwise unexplained major mysteries - not
piecemeal, but rather consistently, with the same over all
generalization: physical matter is a constantly - ever faster -
expanding field.
This
author eventually realized that it was not any contradiction of the Law
of Conservation of Mass Energy. It was the same amount of energy,
increasingly distributed over a greater area, in accordance with the
law of the inverse square. Could not explain ‘why’ universal matter was
expanding, but I was gathering more and more sobering reasons to
consider that it was in fact doing so, and that the collective mass of
the earth was expanding at 32 feet per second, per second... The
descent rate of free-falling objects on earth (descent rates vary
correspondingly, in accordance for the most part with Newton's
revelations. In this consideration there seems to be an abundance of
crudely unfinished thoughts alleging to 'contradict' the 'universal -
accelerating - rate of descent of object's in free fall. That truism
includes the appendage: 'In the absence of air resistance', while, a
remarkable number of would be arguments continue to emerge in
subjections of 'terminal velocity', which, in earth's atmosphere, is
about 120 m.p.h. - as fast as free falling objects descend, not
accelerating furthermore simply because air resistance disallows an
accurate observation or experience of the acceleration at point here.
This 'contradiction', and the commonplace 'argumentive' employment of
it , provide a notable insight into how many weekend physics wizards
are not at all qualified to do anything but read and listen a lot and
remain silent for long periods of time with a corresponding 'attention
span' - another boldly diminishing discipline, often worn as some sort
of meritorious trait, rather than the mark of rank - 'uppity' -
freshmen).
Einstein
makes a very big deal out of it (the coincidental' equivalence of heavy
and inertial mass values - observed in the 'universal rate of
descent'). Calls it ‘an astonishing coincidence’. The whole world has
been talking and wondering about it - the ensuing General Principle Of
Relativity, equating the unidentified force of gravity with
acceleration - ever since...
Much
important help was gifted to this author - by a certain Neapolitan
Guppy and her friends - in the early and critical stages of researching
and developing this superlative and unprecedented non mathematical
translation of Einstein’s greatest achievements - The Special &
General Theories of Relativity; leading to the Unified Field Theory.
This work
probably would never have been completed, were it not for a reclused
woman and her friends. This woman’s name is Mara Benevida D’Angelico;
she and many of her friends are as responsible for the initial rough
draft writing of Gravity Is The 4th Dimension (Einstein’s abandoned
U.F. reinstated w’out mathematics) as this author.
Speaking
of retrieval, there is a print-painting of a terrier looking dog with a
sailor boy on a box of Crackerjack, holding an inevitably smaller box
of Crackerjack, upon which is printed another image of what appears to
be the same dog beside another - looks like the same - sailor, only
smaller; holding yet another box of Crackerjack; with what would seem
has a printed painting of another dog beside another sailor holding a
yet smaller box of Crackerjack and so on...
It seemed
to go on forever, if the pictures could somehow be made ever smaller
and still exist, as the visibly descending and/or ascending sequence of
images certainly suggests... Geometrically squared rectangular boxes of
hierarchically parallel and orthogonal Crackerjack containers and
icons, out of infinite smallness proceeding to infinite largeness. Si.
Nirvana in the guise of Nut city. (It took a while to learn the
difference?)
Called me
‘Seahorse’ on the day we met. Gave me an English translated copy of
Einstein's 'Ideas & Opinions'. She started it.
Seahorse
spots the ‘displaced’ box of Crackerjack and begins to see in it’s
familiar artwork graphics what he will eventually recognize as an
important representation of Einstein’s Unified Field without
mathematics. Multi-moment space-time. An ensemble of constantly
enlarging systems...
Ready or
not teleported to a place no different than and identical to all the
places and times he’s ever known, a day like any other day, only
Crackerjack boxes are now showing up in Italy with New World Icons of
an ever enlarging - and ever diminishing - blue & white terrier dog
with a blue and white sailor boy holding a red striped box of
Crackerjack with the image of a Sailor with a Terrier dog, would never
again be the same with or without punctuation... Pensive studies
widened, more light was let in. Wisdom and knowledge proving once
again, like gold, to be where you find it.
Who said the ever-smaller sequenced pictures - smaller or larger, past, present & future - had to ‘end’, ever?
If the
atoms of the universe of the past got ever smaller and the atoms of the
universe of the present got ever larger and the painter or printer
passed his job on from one generation to the next, where was the ‘end’
of the illustrated hierarchy of images - the multi-moment space-time
ensemble of differently sized pictures of the same dog and sailor boy
holding a box of Crackerjack with a picture of himself and his dog on
it?
Same thing
happens on a cylindrical container of MORTON salt, the byword of which
is ‘When it rains, it pours." Meaning that humidity or dampness in the
air does not prevent the salt from being smoothly dispensed from the
container, or whatever shaker it may be contained by. The pictorial
logo on this dark blue colored, cylindrically shaped package is a
little girl in a yellow skirt, walking in the rain, holding an open
umbrella over her head with her right hand; with a container of MORTON
salt, pouring out of the metal spout cradled in and under her left hand
and arm; upon which is the same pictorial; and so on; squared - same as
the CRACKERJACK.
(Since
then we’ve noticed else where, "Land O Lakes" butter and dairy products
'Where goodness begins'. It's an icon of a beautiful young Native
American woman perched on a lake back grounded - presumably Minnesota -
mound of grass, offering a sample of the product - in this case, a
pound of butter upon which she is the labeled icon; squared. It doesn't
look like the Land O Lakes anecdote of 'Where goodness begins' has any
explanation of where it ends... Yes. The same thematically endless
hierarchy as the multi-moment 4-D MORTON salt icon - 'When it rains
(water) it (Morton salt, still) pours', and, the CrackerJack Sailor -
squared.)
There were
too many truly fantastic coincidences, Einstein was caught up in a
similar imbroglio, only it was in Switzerland, just northwest of where
this entire cartoon compounded dilemma was unfolding and back in the
early 20th century. Too many (large and small?) coincidences, as said
by some critics of Leo Tolstoy’s WAR & PEACE. Even Mara Mare was
too much like Natasha in that same eloquent but redoubtable story
(though there were differences?)
You know,
optionally salted peanuts, popcorn, and that sort of thing... Way too
catering to all things theatrical if not thespian. Even that rhymes too
much. It was all too aerodynamically flocking much.
How could anyone tell someone else about a thing like this...?
The
scientific status quo has an understandable resistance to any
alternative interpretations of what is - as well as what is not - known.
First
began learning when I told the young prodigy who started it all by
retrieving the pointed out aquarium quarry - the sobriquet 'Sea horse'
with which Mara launched and made the formerly grounded idea airborne.
He, in turn, told her what it did for him. She understood and told
other people about it, in several different languages. It was more
confusing at that time, than this presently unfolding description of
the tangled woofs and warps...
The
Crackerjack box as gift to a friend was a conscious and well humored
philosophical wink and salute to and/or about her new sailor boy
friend.
Mare
didn’t anticipate the 4-dimensional dynamic that went with the sweet
offering to her (nameless Mirage) friend, any more than had the foil
for her lark, but the joined pair of bon vivants crisply caught and
went on to field the expansive idea splendidly, with a lot of help from
their friends. Certainly and emphatically including Caryn Frances
Hersberg Robertson (who consistently underestimates and understates the
importance of her inspirational and pragmatic contributions to the
better and best portions of this work), without whom this author would
never have found the inspiration or encouragement to pursue and write
this narrative documentary.
Other
names were added to the originally dubbed ‘seahorse’, including
‘Americano Marino Maverick’. Mare eventually got around to calling her
seahorse, ‘bumblebee’ also, as though the prevailing ambiance
(Disneyland?) wasn't ethereally complicated enough...
In the
words of Galileo's proclamation against the inquisitional orders to
disregard what was proven about the movement of the earth... "...
still, it moves'. Say what you will mathematically of the flightless
bumblebee - like Albert 'The Axe' Einstein's double bit Lambda: 'Still,
it flies'.