Special Relativity and The Rolling Wave.

Recently Forrest Bishop told me that Special Relativity needed “The Rolling Wave”, as did Quantum Electrodynamics. See 1 and 2 .

Einstein created Special Relativity. Feynman was involved in the creation of Quantum Electrodynamics. Together with all professors and text book writers today, they promoted the wrong “Rolling Wave” model 1 2 for the Transverse Electromagnetic Wave (TEM Wave). Under the rolling wave model of a TEM Wave, changing E causes H and changing H causes E. This is all very well for a sine wave, but the rise of high speed digital electronics in the 1960s, after the end of Einstein’s and Feynman’s careers, brought us the digital logic signal – a 0v to 5v pulse, or step 2 . All parts of a pulse, including its flat middle, travel at the speed of light. However, in the middle of the pulse E and H do not change. They are constant, and so the change of one cannot be causing the other to propagate. In 1890 Oliver Heaviside dealt with the Morse pulse travelling undersea from Newcastle to Denmark, and developed "The Heaviside Signal" 2 . However, he disappeared. He was not mentioned in any text book for more than half a century. Einstein and Feynman were not familiar with his work, and his proposal of the correct, "Heaviside Signal" , which he did not make very clear anyway, being interlaced by Heaviside with The Rolling Wave.

I told Forrest that I had trouble grasping the discussion about Special Relativity and so on. He said that the removal of ether required adherence to The Rolling Wave. Under “The Heaviside Signal”, ExH energy current travelled unchanged at the speed of light, and was continually presented with an impedance of 377 ohms per square of space. This defined its aspect ratio – the ratio of E field to H field, or the E dimension to the H dimension. Forrest said that with the exclusion of an ether in Modern Physics, since there was no ether to accept the arriving energy current and let is travel through space, it was necessary for E and H to cause each other and therefore cause themselves to continue forwards. Forrest explained that the contrast between "The Heaviside Signal" and “The Rolling Wave” was linked with the impedance of space, 377 ohms, and with Special Relativity. The reason why I could not follow the argument was, he said, because it was not rational. Thus, I had thought these ideas were rational rather than dogmatic, and so I could not follow the rational reasoning, because the reasoning was not in fact rational.

Perhaps the best summary of the situation today is to say that since Maxwell had a faulty, mechanical model of the ether, Modern Physics got rid of the ether. However, my model for ether, or space, is very different, and seems to have been ignored. It derives from my ruminating on how a logic signal travels at the speed of light. My epigram is; “Space is the ability to accommodate energy” 1 , 2 , 3 . If a region of space accommodates energy for 1 nsec, we say that the width of this region is one foot, giving the energy accommodated in that region of space a velocity of c, or 300,000 Km per sec. I see no evidence that in the discussion as to the existence of an ether, for instance in Wikipedia, or in the dispute about Relativity between mainstream physics and the many dissidents, that my comments, which I think are very relevant, are known to any parties. Do any of the disputants know of my proof that energy can only travel at a single speed, and can only have one voltage/current ratio? This leads me to repeat my assertion that in general Physics Dissidents are “Establishment Dissidents”, who merely want to rearrange the deck chairs. From my point of view, their activity reinforces the status quo.

Recently I listened on the www to Harry Ricker trying for most of an hour, and failing, to explain Displacement Current to another dissident. The dissident did not know what he could surely easily read by looking it up on Wikipedia . I have only recently realised that mainstream electromagnetic theory survives largely because of the way professors and text book writers do not grasp their mainstream theory. Now we have to add that dissidents exacerbate the problem, by failing to fully scrutinise mainstream theory and so reinforcing nearly all of it.

My important point, that energy can only travel through space at a certain velocity c, has a complex history. In 1967, while remaining convinced of the validity of mainstream theory, I proved from first principles that energy travelling in vacuo guided by two conductors could only travel as a fixed velocity c. Using a sampling oscilloscope, I saw experimental proof that it always travelled at c.

I now disagree with the mainstream theory that I used to come to the mathematical conclusion. However, we can still rely on what I saw with my oscilloscope. It surely follows that light and radio waves also can only travel at a fixed velocity c. The fact that the light is not guided by conductors is subsidiary. It should be easy to accept that whether guided or not will not affect the velocity of a TEM Wave, or light.

My work is based on energy. I find that the popular discussion about special relativity, preferred frame of reference etc. ignores consideration of energy, which for me is fundamental. Energy knows where it is, and is conserved. What an observer travelling at high velocity thinks of this is for me irrelevant. Along with the mainstream, Establishment Dissidents have got themselves trapped into thinking that what observers think is central to science. Do both Mainstream and also Establishment Dissidents realise that they think that the amount of energy around them will change if they start walking down the street; that they are eschewing the principle of Conservation of Energy? It is likely that not only the Establishment, but also all Establishment Dissidents will make no comment on this point I make here. It will help to show that Establishment Dissidents respect the taboos imposed within Establishment Science, however unscientific.

True science is about physical reality and its energy, not about observers. It is particularly irritating when dissidents along with mainstream ignore my observations about the failure of the (disputed) Michelson Morley results and the rest to be useful until the problem of their use of both wave and of particle models for light is discussed and resolved.

“ .... the point that I raised at the Michelson-Morley centenary seminar, asking about the apparent paradox in their experiment that although Michelson-Morley pre-date wave/particle dualism, both wave and particle have to be assumed at different stages in the experiment to suppress anomalies.

It appears to me that for the experiment to have any value, the light must act as particles during its travel, because parallel waves would interfere with each other and ruin the experiment; but it has to act as waves on arrival in order to determine transit time difference by interference fringes. In the Michelson-Morley centenary seminar, speaker Professor Kilmister said, "That has never been mentioned before". It has never been mentioned since - being suppressed for good reason.” - "The Catt Anomaly" , 1996

Ivor Catt 28 September 2012