I'm sure that I've made it quite clear in earlier posts that I am increasingly persuaded that mass is the result of an EM (electromagnetic) wave's frequency surpassing its forward momentum, the universal constant C (the speed of light).
Research on the EM waves known to us show that the higher the frequency of a wave, the higher amount of energy it contains. The highest known Em wave we know, the gamma ray, has an energy content of ~1.24 MeV (Electromagnetic Volts). Now consider the smallest mass-bearing particle known to us, the quark, that has an energy content of ~2.4 MeV in its smallest ('up') form. Notice anything going on here?
There may be some confusion on the use of MeV (Mega electron Volts) to measure both energy (in EM waves) and mass (in Quarks), but this is due to the fact that an object's mass is actually its energy content - a phenomenon explained in physics' mass-energy equivalence definition.
If there is one constant in the universe, it's C - the forward speed of 'light', or in other words, the forward speed of Em waves. My idea lies around a 'transition point', and a different light behaviour, between the highest frequency EM wave known to us, and the smallest mass-bearing particle.
My question is this: what would happen if an EM wave's frequency surpasses its forward motion (or simply nears it)? I am playing with the idea that an EM wave, should this happen, would cease its forward motion and circle on itself, becoming a mass-bearing particle that has a charge (the direction of its circular direction) and energy content (or 'mass').
Considering this, does an EM wave have gravity? I can imagine that a wave's oscillation across its directional pole is due to some sort of 'central' force, but this force, spread out over the path (and speed) of its wave, must be practically immeasurable. Now imagine that force concentrated into a central point, that 'ring' created when an EM wave's frequency surpasses C - wouldn't that force be concentrated, perhaps even in an exponential way, around it? Could this be the origin of gravity?
Also explained would be the 'charge' a particle has: this would simply be the direction (clockwise or counterclockwise) of a 'light ring's oscillational direction.
And the binding force? We know that two particles of the same mass (energy mass) but opposite charges annihilate each other, and we know that two particles of differing mass and opposite charges can't. Yet note that particles that bind without annihilating each other are strict in their proportions - 'up' quarks (2.4 MeV and a +2/3 charge) bind only with 'down' quarks (having a 4.8 MeV mass and a -1/3 charge) - there is something going on in the mass/charge differential that creates a stable bond, or a constant 'over-under compensating' annihilation struggle. I'm sure that a meeting between particles are outside their respective 'ideal partner' criteria would result in an absorption, explosion and/or annihilation.
With this model I could propose that the beginning of the universe was an explosion in a spectrum of energy much wider than that we thought existed until now - only that the energies, or Em waves, with a frequency higher than C became the mass (quarks) that formed the base of all we know today, and that those lower-frequency energies just spread outward from their point of creation as our present knowledge determined they did.
Wednesday 2 November 2011
Thursday 30 June 2011
The Atkins Diet: Why it makes sense (from even an evolutionary point of view).
While working three years at a relatively low-movement job, I managed to avoid gaining weight, but all the same accumulated a bit of fat in places none too flattering (a visual discomfort made worse because I had little fat elsewhere on by body). I started a no-carb diet (commonly known as the 'Atkins Diet') in mid-June, and two weeks later, that normally hard-to-eliminate fat is gone now.
The introductory line to the Atkins Diet Wikipedia article sums the science of the program up quite nicely: "The Atkins diet involves limited consumption of carbohydrates to switch the body's metabolism from metabolizing glucose as energy over to converting stored body fat to energy." I hadn't realised until now that the body's metabolism phases were so simple, yet when looking back at the evolution of human diet, this makes perfect sense.
One must remember that before the Neolithic age (around 10,000 BC), processed carbohydrates were almost non-existent in human eating habits. Until then our diet consisted mostly of meat, berries, roots, fruit and other greens that could be consumed 'as found' from their plant source. The agriculture developing around then produced wheat (bread and beer), rice, maize and later potatoes (south America only until the 16th-century colonisation there) - all of these are the main source of our modern carbohydrate-rich diets. So, in considering the 200,000-year evolution of the modern human, one can easily assume that the diet most adapted to the human body is a low-carbohydrate one.
The consumption of carbohydrate-rich food (and sugars, but carbohydrates in reality are sugars), transformed by our digestive process into glucose, triggers a production of insulin in the human body; insulin 'deals with' carbohydrates (and sugars) in the bloodstream by forcing fat tissue to take up excess glucose, and by transforming glucose into glycogen that is stored in muscle and liver. So, in this light, could insulin be considered almost as a defence mechanism against 'modern' eating habits?
If there is little or no glucose present in the bloodstream, the body enters a state of 'ketosis', or when ketone bodies produced by the liver (because of a lack of glycogen therein) begin breaking down fats into a form ('good' cholesterol and glycogen) usable by the human body. The state of ketosis is seen as almost abnormal today, but could it once have been the standard for the human metabolism? Or, in other words, is the Atkins Diet simply a return to our eating habits of 10,000 years ago?
The introductory line to the Atkins Diet Wikipedia article sums the science of the program up quite nicely: "The Atkins diet involves limited consumption of carbohydrates to switch the body's metabolism from metabolizing glucose as energy over to converting stored body fat to energy." I hadn't realised until now that the body's metabolism phases were so simple, yet when looking back at the evolution of human diet, this makes perfect sense.
One must remember that before the Neolithic age (around 10,000 BC), processed carbohydrates were almost non-existent in human eating habits. Until then our diet consisted mostly of meat, berries, roots, fruit and other greens that could be consumed 'as found' from their plant source. The agriculture developing around then produced wheat (bread and beer), rice, maize and later potatoes (south America only until the 16th-century colonisation there) - all of these are the main source of our modern carbohydrate-rich diets. So, in considering the 200,000-year evolution of the modern human, one can easily assume that the diet most adapted to the human body is a low-carbohydrate one.
The consumption of carbohydrate-rich food (and sugars, but carbohydrates in reality are sugars), transformed by our digestive process into glucose, triggers a production of insulin in the human body; insulin 'deals with' carbohydrates (and sugars) in the bloodstream by forcing fat tissue to take up excess glucose, and by transforming glucose into glycogen that is stored in muscle and liver. So, in this light, could insulin be considered almost as a defence mechanism against 'modern' eating habits?
If there is little or no glucose present in the bloodstream, the body enters a state of 'ketosis', or when ketone bodies produced by the liver (because of a lack of glycogen therein) begin breaking down fats into a form ('good' cholesterol and glycogen) usable by the human body. The state of ketosis is seen as almost abnormal today, but could it once have been the standard for the human metabolism? Or, in other words, is the Atkins Diet simply a return to our eating habits of 10,000 years ago?
Saturday 18 June 2011
Everything is Light - A few simple Rules.
It's been a while since my last post, but since then I have found no other solutions more satisfying to me than my earlier conclusions. In short, I am of the opinion that:
- there is no 'ether' (a mysterious substance limiting speeds at which energy/matter can travel)
- I still retain my doubts about 'time dilation'.
- I am still persuaded that it is indeed possible to attain velocities higher than the speed of light.
- I am still persuaded that matter is basically light energy whose frequency surpasses its forward momentum.
- I am still persuaded that reducing time in quantum mechanics equations to the constant 'C' (the speed of light) would simplify things greatly.
If, at the beginning of the universe, there was a great explosion from a single source, all energy/matter would be projected at a maximum velocity of C. All energy whose frequency surpasses C would form matter (quarks), group into our most basic atomic form (hydrogen) and slow (hindered by the gravitational attraction of other mass-bearing elements), and energies below 'C speed' would travel, as light, at light speed, away from the epicentre of the explosion. In other words, no energy or matter was projected from the singular point of emission (the explosion) at a speed superior to C, an event that agrees with Einstein's conclusion that an energy source will always emit its rays at a speed of C, no matter what velocity it is travelling at.
So from the 'point of observation' of the big bang explosion, C was the fastest velocity that this universe knew. We seem to be stuck on the concept that that limitation - from that singular point of observation - is the fastest speed possible. I can't disagree more: if there is no 'ether', there should be no speed limit. Just because the big bang didn't create light-emitting bodies travelling at speeds at, above, or near C, doesn't mean that such a phenomenon isn't possible.
I am still persuaded that the velocity of waves emitted from a moving source should be C plus the velocity of the source itself. If the source was moving towards a (stationary) observer, the wave frequency would seem higher (in accordance with the Doppler effect), but only because, relative to the viewer, the waves are arriving at speeds superior to C. This phenomenon can be observed in the spectrum 'light shift' of stars; it is used to calculate whether the light-emitting object in question is moving towards or away from us (yet, don't forget, relative to the light-emitting object, the rays produced are still travelling at the constant C).
The problem is that, in order to test this theory, we would a) have to accelerate a light-emitting object at speeds close to C and b) devise a way of measuring the speed of the rays emitted from that object (that are at speeds superior to C). At present, even with our latest and greatest particle accelerators, we are only able to accelerate elements to a speed of C - which is the maximum speed we can attain relative to ourselves.
Calculating the energy created by colliding near-C-speed objects.
If we were to apply the above to two colliding objects, let's say photons, it wouldn't be the relative speed that would be centre of any calculation, it would be the relative frequency of the colliding elements that would predict the outcome of such an encounter. Let's take, for an extremely simple example, two equal-frequency photons colliding from exactly opposing directions (although a such collision, to this date, has not yet been created): from the point of view of one photon, the other would be travelling at twice the speed of C. This would mean that the resulting energy would be the frequency of each photon multiplied by their relative speed. If the frequency of either or both the photons was high enough, the created frequency would surpass C, meaning that matter would be created. This theory is already being actively researched through two-photon physics.
So imagine the energy created by the collision of two mass-bearing elements travelling at speeds close to C. Already our present-day space programs have problems dealing with micro-fissures caused by particles travelling a super-high speeds (some near-atom-sized particles can penetrate even the thickest metals), so imagine if we actually managed to accelerate an object, say a bullet, to near-light speeds towards another: were the combined energy (frequency) high enough, the result could be close to — or even be, were the energy created high enough to overcome the atomic structure of one or both of the colliding objects - a nuclear explosion! With all the micro-junk our universe contains, this would make near-C-speed space travel very problematic.
Wednesday 2 February 2011
The 'mass' of Moving Objects.
Yet another concept that puzzles me is the thought that it would take 'infinite energy' to accelerate a mass-bearing object to the speed of light, and that the mass of that object increases with its speed. We have to be careful in our examinations here, because examining the behaviour of objects between themselves is not at all the same as observing the physics of an object itself. According to relativity, every state of reference has equal value. That is to say any object travelling at any 'speed' can be at a state of rest; whether one object is 'moving' or not (is irrelevant) only comes into question if it is compared to another.
A star all alone in space will shed its light at speeds only relative to itself; without anyone to observe it, it would have no idea (combustion, fusion, etc) that it is moving. The same goes for its gravitational force and mass. If somehow we could push and pull the star to different speeds, no matter what point we stopped our alterations and left the star to its own devices, it would continue as before, standing seemingly still and alone in space. No matter at what 'speed' the star was travelling, its mass would remain the same - the force we needed to move it was expended in moving the star, no energy given to the star itself.
Now, another star enters the picture, hurtling towards the first. How would we calculate what will happen when the stars collide? It his here that the idea of 'mass' becomes confusing, and the word 'inertia' comes to mind. Yet if the mass of each object is the calculated same, from where comes the energy created when the two giants collide?
It was perhaps a bad idea to use stars as an example; one has both to calculate the energy contained within the star's atoms themselves, as well as relative velocity. Let's go instead to the opposite end of the spectrum and compare the energies contained in two converging light waves.
The speed of light, c, is indeed a constant, and I am persuaded that it should be a yardstick by which to measure the interactivity of all energy - I especially like the idea of giving it the constant of 1. Anyhow, an electromagnetic wave (always travelling at light speed relative to itself) will have an x amount of energy (its frequency) - should we assume that they are following 'normal' patterns (within the realm of the laws we have created until today), they both should be travelling at c, and their interaction should be relatively easy to predict. Not much would happen between two photons, but let's compare their energies relative to each other.
Say two photons were zipping in opposite directions of, say, 10¹⁸mhz (x-rays). Since their direction is opposing, it would seem to one photon that the other was travelling by at, not only twice its speed, but twice its frequency. Photons have no polarity, as far as I know, so there is little chance of them annihilating each other - I used photons just for the speed/frequency comparison example.
Imagine then the force between two mass-bearing objects, say, electrons - but the math gets fuzzier here when we consider that we have to calculate the 'kinetic force' for each object (in my opinion, things would be simpler if we calculated one 'k' value between the two), and the laws seem to change when speeds near light speed c. Anyhow, you get the picture. Add into the equation the force needed to break each particle (when we get up the scale to nuclei and individual hadrons) and things get really complicated.
I'd like to stay at the electromagnetic wave level for an instant, and go back to my earlier idea about what happens when a lightwave's amplitude nears its forward momentum. Exactly how much energy is contained within an electron? Imagine that it is in fact a wave pattern itself - orbital, or stagnant? - any electromagnetic wave interaction with it would amplify its (already enormous) frequency, but a photon (as far as I know) wouldn't have the power to 'break' it (unless the photon was travelling at a speed superior to light speed? But I digress) - already modern physics has concrete proof that a photon will indeed 'excite' an electron into a higher orbit.
So what, again, of quarks, and why is their 'charge' (-1/3 and 2/3 for 'down' quarks and 'up' quarks respectively) at odds with electrons (which have a -1 charge), and why do quarks bind into hadrons (two 'up' quarks and one 'down' quark for a proton, the opposite for a Neutron), and why do 'down' quarks have more 'mass' (despite their 'puny' -1/3 charge) ...and what is that particle 'charge'? Are positive elementary particles circular waveforms orbiting 'forward' (at super-high frequencies) in one (clockwise?) direction, and negative particles the same in the opposite direction? How would such waveforms, if they existed, interact? What if gravity was the force maintaining an electromagnetic wave to its path, wouldn't it be much greater (if not amplified) when maintained in a circular path, and could magnetism simply be an 'amplified gravity' caused by the synchronisation of these waves? If everything were interacting waveforms, that would explain so much about the binding and energy levels of the elementary particles known to us. I have so many ideas and questions remaining.
A star all alone in space will shed its light at speeds only relative to itself; without anyone to observe it, it would have no idea (combustion, fusion, etc) that it is moving. The same goes for its gravitational force and mass. If somehow we could push and pull the star to different speeds, no matter what point we stopped our alterations and left the star to its own devices, it would continue as before, standing seemingly still and alone in space. No matter at what 'speed' the star was travelling, its mass would remain the same - the force we needed to move it was expended in moving the star, no energy given to the star itself.
Now, another star enters the picture, hurtling towards the first. How would we calculate what will happen when the stars collide? It his here that the idea of 'mass' becomes confusing, and the word 'inertia' comes to mind. Yet if the mass of each object is the calculated same, from where comes the energy created when the two giants collide?
It was perhaps a bad idea to use stars as an example; one has both to calculate the energy contained within the star's atoms themselves, as well as relative velocity. Let's go instead to the opposite end of the spectrum and compare the energies contained in two converging light waves.
The speed of light, c, is indeed a constant, and I am persuaded that it should be a yardstick by which to measure the interactivity of all energy - I especially like the idea of giving it the constant of 1. Anyhow, an electromagnetic wave (always travelling at light speed relative to itself) will have an x amount of energy (its frequency) - should we assume that they are following 'normal' patterns (within the realm of the laws we have created until today), they both should be travelling at c, and their interaction should be relatively easy to predict. Not much would happen between two photons, but let's compare their energies relative to each other.
Say two photons were zipping in opposite directions of, say, 10¹⁸mhz (x-rays). Since their direction is opposing, it would seem to one photon that the other was travelling by at, not only twice its speed, but twice its frequency. Photons have no polarity, as far as I know, so there is little chance of them annihilating each other - I used photons just for the speed/frequency comparison example.
Imagine then the force between two mass-bearing objects, say, electrons - but the math gets fuzzier here when we consider that we have to calculate the 'kinetic force' for each object (in my opinion, things would be simpler if we calculated one 'k' value between the two), and the laws seem to change when speeds near light speed c. Anyhow, you get the picture. Add into the equation the force needed to break each particle (when we get up the scale to nuclei and individual hadrons) and things get really complicated.
I'd like to stay at the electromagnetic wave level for an instant, and go back to my earlier idea about what happens when a lightwave's amplitude nears its forward momentum. Exactly how much energy is contained within an electron? Imagine that it is in fact a wave pattern itself - orbital, or stagnant? - any electromagnetic wave interaction with it would amplify its (already enormous) frequency, but a photon (as far as I know) wouldn't have the power to 'break' it (unless the photon was travelling at a speed superior to light speed? But I digress) - already modern physics has concrete proof that a photon will indeed 'excite' an electron into a higher orbit.
So what, again, of quarks, and why is their 'charge' (-1/3 and 2/3 for 'down' quarks and 'up' quarks respectively) at odds with electrons (which have a -1 charge), and why do quarks bind into hadrons (two 'up' quarks and one 'down' quark for a proton, the opposite for a Neutron), and why do 'down' quarks have more 'mass' (despite their 'puny' -1/3 charge) ...and what is that particle 'charge'? Are positive elementary particles circular waveforms orbiting 'forward' (at super-high frequencies) in one (clockwise?) direction, and negative particles the same in the opposite direction? How would such waveforms, if they existed, interact? What if gravity was the force maintaining an electromagnetic wave to its path, wouldn't it be much greater (if not amplified) when maintained in a circular path, and could magnetism simply be an 'amplified gravity' caused by the synchronisation of these waves? If everything were interacting waveforms, that would explain so much about the binding and energy levels of the elementary particles known to us. I have so many ideas and questions remaining.
Perceptions of Light, Time Dilation (again).
I'm still puzzling over our seemingly self-imposed light-speed limitation. In an earlier post I mentioned the Victorian-era 'ether' concept, since disproven, that the entire universe was filled with a mysterious substance that limited the speed at which matter (including light) could travel. This theory (along with my 'perfect matter' idea) is officially in the trash can, but if there is no 'ether', how can we maintain that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light? The limiting factor seems to be in the notion of time and 'mass increase' - but, as I mentioned earlier, it is quite possible to leave time out of the question, and even any equation, for observing physical behavioural patterns concerning light; as for mass, I will try to deal with that in a later post.
Before I get there, I'd like to ask (myself) a few more questions on light-speed, namely concerning Einstein's theory and the findings of Hubble. Einstein's relativity showed that the universe was rapidly expanding (although he himself didn't believe it), but Hubble proved it by measuring the spectrum map of light from different galaxies; Hubble recorded marked 'spectrum shifts' towards the red for the light of galaxies moving away from us, and shifts towards blue for those nearing us. Hubble's findings at first sight follow rules similar to Doppler's - a sound from a source moving towards a listener through air sounds at a higher pitch, and the sound moving away sounds lower - but here may be another (additional) explanation for the shift in the light emissions of different galaxies.
It is a known fact that the speed of light, c, is indeed a constant; it travels at the same speed no matter the frequency of its wave. My main nagging question concerns the relation between a light wave's 'speed' and the object that emits it: in a situation where a light wave's source is 'at rest' (its 'speed' is irrelevant in the absence of any other object, it is 'relative' only unto itself), if indeed there is no 'ether', shouldn't the light's speed remain constant (relative) to its source? Why do scientists insist that, when we add an observer into the equation, that the speed of a light wave (relative to its source) cannot be added/subtracted from the speed of the light source relative to the observer?
It is the "all" in "all reference frames" that bothers me. "All" reference frames... known to us thus far? Measurable by us, again, thus far? I left the second half of the quote in place for context: it just shows that, once it is emitted, light does remain at a constant speed, but I do question the effect of one's movement relative to a light source, namely in our perception of the light's frequency. I'd like to imagine for a second that light can travel faster than 'itself' (relative to 'our' frame of reference), and revisit two concepts (one mentioned above) commonly referenced in discussions on relativity.
Firstly, the above 'Doppler effect': what if, in addition to the red/blue shift caused by the (seeming) increase in frequency caused by the relative velocity between the star and the observer, an 'accelerated speed of light' did figure into the equation? Here on earth, sound is limited in velocity (by our atmosphere, a constant between the source and the observer), but if there indeed is no 'limiting ether' in space, the speed of a light source should figure in the speed of the light it emits (relative to the observer). Were this true, the spectrum shift from an approaching star would be doubly amplified, once by the source's motion relative to the wavelength of its light, and again by the speed at which it was travelling. Imagine a star travelling towards us that emits one burst of light energy in our direction. If the speed of its light is added to the speed of light itself, the frequency of the approaching beam will seem, from the observer's point of view, to be more compact (higher) than would be if both the source and observer were at a state of rest relative to each other; this also would cause a shift in the same direction as the Doppler effect, a shift that could perhaps even be multiplied by the same.
Secondly, time dilation was supposedly proven by an experiment in which the level of cosmic ray muon radiation was measured at the top of a mountain, then at a much lesser altitude; muons decay rapidly in the earth's atmosphere, yet many more made it to lower altitude than expected, and this was attributed to time dilation (time was 'slower' for the almost-light-speed travelling muons), but what if the muons, shot out from massive explosions perhaps the origin of our universe, were in fact travelling faster than light upon their arrival to earth?
Before I get there, I'd like to ask (myself) a few more questions on light-speed, namely concerning Einstein's theory and the findings of Hubble. Einstein's relativity showed that the universe was rapidly expanding (although he himself didn't believe it), but Hubble proved it by measuring the spectrum map of light from different galaxies; Hubble recorded marked 'spectrum shifts' towards the red for the light of galaxies moving away from us, and shifts towards blue for those nearing us. Hubble's findings at first sight follow rules similar to Doppler's - a sound from a source moving towards a listener through air sounds at a higher pitch, and the sound moving away sounds lower - but here may be another (additional) explanation for the shift in the light emissions of different galaxies.
It is a known fact that the speed of light, c, is indeed a constant; it travels at the same speed no matter the frequency of its wave. My main nagging question concerns the relation between a light wave's 'speed' and the object that emits it: in a situation where a light wave's source is 'at rest' (its 'speed' is irrelevant in the absence of any other object, it is 'relative' only unto itself), if indeed there is no 'ether', shouldn't the light's speed remain constant (relative) to its source? Why do scientists insist that, when we add an observer into the equation, that the speed of a light wave (relative to its source) cannot be added/subtracted from the speed of the light source relative to the observer?
Time dilation can be inferred from the observed fact of the constancy of the speed of light in all reference frames.
This constancy of the speed of light means, counter to intuition, that speeds of material objects and light are not additive. It is not possible to make the speed of light appear faster by approaching at speed towards the material source that is emitting light. It is not possible to make the speed of light appear slower by receding from the source at speed.
"Time Dilation", Wikipedia.org, 2011-02-02
It is the "all" in "all reference frames" that bothers me. "All" reference frames... known to us thus far? Measurable by us, again, thus far? I left the second half of the quote in place for context: it just shows that, once it is emitted, light does remain at a constant speed, but I do question the effect of one's movement relative to a light source, namely in our perception of the light's frequency. I'd like to imagine for a second that light can travel faster than 'itself' (relative to 'our' frame of reference), and revisit two concepts (one mentioned above) commonly referenced in discussions on relativity.
Firstly, the above 'Doppler effect': what if, in addition to the red/blue shift caused by the (seeming) increase in frequency caused by the relative velocity between the star and the observer, an 'accelerated speed of light' did figure into the equation? Here on earth, sound is limited in velocity (by our atmosphere, a constant between the source and the observer), but if there indeed is no 'limiting ether' in space, the speed of a light source should figure in the speed of the light it emits (relative to the observer). Were this true, the spectrum shift from an approaching star would be doubly amplified, once by the source's motion relative to the wavelength of its light, and again by the speed at which it was travelling. Imagine a star travelling towards us that emits one burst of light energy in our direction. If the speed of its light is added to the speed of light itself, the frequency of the approaching beam will seem, from the observer's point of view, to be more compact (higher) than would be if both the source and observer were at a state of rest relative to each other; this also would cause a shift in the same direction as the Doppler effect, a shift that could perhaps even be multiplied by the same.
Secondly, time dilation was supposedly proven by an experiment in which the level of cosmic ray muon radiation was measured at the top of a mountain, then at a much lesser altitude; muons decay rapidly in the earth's atmosphere, yet many more made it to lower altitude than expected, and this was attributed to time dilation (time was 'slower' for the almost-light-speed travelling muons), but what if the muons, shot out from massive explosions perhaps the origin of our universe, were in fact travelling faster than light upon their arrival to earth?
Wednesday 26 January 2011
c : an obstacle of our own conception?
I'm tempted to toss my 'perfect matter' concept into the trash. After further reading, it seems my idea was just an embellished version of the Victorian-era "ether" concept: light can only move so fast, no matter where it is, because it is limited by an omnipresent 'substance'. Einstein theorised that there is no 'ether', and scientific experiments are beginning to prove him right. So I'm going to put 'perfect matter' to the side for now and play with the behaviour of light in an ether-less environment.
I must admit that it was difficult to wrap my layman head around the idea of 'no barriers'. My reading (and watching, thanks to an online friend of mine who will know who he is should he read this) involved many presentations involving metre sticks, clocks, pythagorean triangulation and space travel - or in other words, 'time dilation'. I get the concept, but there's something about the theory's point of view, if not its motivation, that bothers me.
The base of Einstein's concept is: light always travels at the same speed relative to the observer. He explained his theory, in a thought experiment sometimes called "Einstein's mirror", by imagining himself in a train travelling at a speed of light while looking at a mirror: would he see a reflection? His conclusion was 'yes'.
The most common presentation explaining relativity I saw was one involving two parallel mirrors and the behaviour of light between them if one was moving. True, the beam of light between the originating mirror at its beginning state, the 'immobile' mirror and the originating mirror at its end state is 'longer' than a line between two immobile mirrors, but scientists have seemed to conclude that, since there is no speed faster than light, it must be time that is changing. Something bothers me about this - to no end.
It was the 'speed relative to the viewer' part that intrigued me the most, and I went to bed with my thoughts full of spaceships, trains and mirrors. If I were (in bed) watching Einstein speeding away from me on a light-speed travelling train with a mirror in front of his face, with himself still able to see his own reflection because light was being reflected relative to his own position and speed, what would be the speed of his reflection according to me? My repeated conclusion was: his reflection, at least in the light being sent towards his mirror, would have to be travelling twice the speed of light. But nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (according to 'our' point of origin), right? If relativity really does hold true, wrong.
If I reduce the Einstein mirror example to two stars hurtling away from each other at light speed (which one is 'still' is irrelevant), the photons emitted from opposing sides of the stars at any given point of time would be travelling three times the speed of light relative to each other. Yet modern physics insists on adding time into the equation, and tells us that it is time that is changing, not the light speed. Either I am missing something, or there is so much wrong with this.
The obstacle we are facing is our own concept of 'light speed' and use of 'light year' in our calculations. If light is indeed an independent electromagnetic wave that always travels at the same speed from its point of origin, and if that 'point of origin' can be travelling at any speed at all, what is there to say that travel of light speed 'is not possible'? The problem here is that although we have no measure above the speed of light with which to compare things, that doesn't mean that anything beyond the limit of our measure can't exist. From our present point of observation, in a universe that originated most probably at the same point in time, we just can't see it, or haven't seen it yet.
To take this thought to its full extent, imagine a space ship accelerating away from earth (to some unknown destination). From a point of rest near earth, imagine that it maintains a continued state of acceleration (let's leave time out of the equation for now) and that it achieves the speed of light. Now, let's imagine the environment in and around that spacecraft at that precise point in time.
First off, what is that 'speed of light' velocity the spaceship is at? That 'speed' is measured relative to its, or our own, point of rest. If relativity holds true, and there is no limiting 'ether', any physical phenomena created by that spaceship at that speed would have that speed and position as its point of origin; for the calculation of any physical occurrences on that spacecraft, our position or point of reference doesn't matter to any equation of events onboard. A nuclear reaction on that spaceship would occur exactly in the same way as it would on earth (if the spaceship somehow had a 'false gravity' equalling earths), and any outward-going force, such as thrust (into a vacuum), should react in the same way at its speed as it would in ours. All anyone onboard would feel is the force of the ship's acceleration - in fact, without any point of reference to see outside of the ship's porthole, they would have no idea at all about the speed at which they were travelling; should the ship shut down its engines, with no drag to slow it down, it would maintain its 'velocity' (in relation to 'us'), yet it would seem to those onboard that the ship was at a total standstill. If the core idea behind relativity holds true, it can't be any other way.
Our problem today is that we are using the speed of light as a barrier in addition to its use as a unit of measure. Just because we have not yet been able to accelerate any object near/past the speed of light doesn't mean it's not possible; once we do make it there, any electromagnetic wave phenomena we create at that velocity will occur, if we still insist on using ourselves as a point of reference, at twice the speed of light in the direction away from us.
The reason we remain stuck in this reasoning is probably a) the universe itself has a single point of origin (the Big Bang), and everything we see is 'relative' to that moment; b) all the universe's mass, and what little of it we have been able to move ourselves, moves at a speed only a fraction that of the speed of light. Still, according to relativity, the light shining forward from a projected "flashlight bullet" should travel at a velocity to its own (light speed) plus the bullet's velocity at the time it was emitted. Even a bullet's speed is minuscule compared to that of light: I wonder if today we have the tools to test this sort of theory.
So, to sum up: just because we ourselves are unable to see or measure any velocity above or relatively close to the speed of light (velocities created outside our, or the big bang's, point of reference), doesn't mean that nothing beyond hasn't, won't, or can't, occur. I don't yet understand the motivation behind the mathematical acrobatics of 'time dilation' just to preserve a threshold at/below the speed of light; were we to maintain time as a constant in both sides of its equation, or remove it entirely, the result would be a speed faster than the speed of light - or the speed of light plus the 'terminal speed' of the mirror capturing the returning light ray, and I don't see anything wrong with this.
'Bending time' is much like trying to measure a rod with a shorter string by bending it; if the string is our largest known velocity (the speed of light) and the rod the real velocity, than that rod has a velocity is greater than any we know or greater than any we can measurably create today, and I don't see any reason why we can't just accept this.
Yet this is not an easy subject, and I am still reading into it.
I must admit that it was difficult to wrap my layman head around the idea of 'no barriers'. My reading (and watching, thanks to an online friend of mine who will know who he is should he read this) involved many presentations involving metre sticks, clocks, pythagorean triangulation and space travel - or in other words, 'time dilation'. I get the concept, but there's something about the theory's point of view, if not its motivation, that bothers me.
The base of Einstein's concept is: light always travels at the same speed relative to the observer. He explained his theory, in a thought experiment sometimes called "Einstein's mirror", by imagining himself in a train travelling at a speed of light while looking at a mirror: would he see a reflection? His conclusion was 'yes'.
The most common presentation explaining relativity I saw was one involving two parallel mirrors and the behaviour of light between them if one was moving. True, the beam of light between the originating mirror at its beginning state, the 'immobile' mirror and the originating mirror at its end state is 'longer' than a line between two immobile mirrors, but scientists have seemed to conclude that, since there is no speed faster than light, it must be time that is changing. Something bothers me about this - to no end.
It was the 'speed relative to the viewer' part that intrigued me the most, and I went to bed with my thoughts full of spaceships, trains and mirrors. If I were (in bed) watching Einstein speeding away from me on a light-speed travelling train with a mirror in front of his face, with himself still able to see his own reflection because light was being reflected relative to his own position and speed, what would be the speed of his reflection according to me? My repeated conclusion was: his reflection, at least in the light being sent towards his mirror, would have to be travelling twice the speed of light. But nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (according to 'our' point of origin), right? If relativity really does hold true, wrong.
If I reduce the Einstein mirror example to two stars hurtling away from each other at light speed (which one is 'still' is irrelevant), the photons emitted from opposing sides of the stars at any given point of time would be travelling three times the speed of light relative to each other. Yet modern physics insists on adding time into the equation, and tells us that it is time that is changing, not the light speed. Either I am missing something, or there is so much wrong with this.
The obstacle we are facing is our own concept of 'light speed' and use of 'light year' in our calculations. If light is indeed an independent electromagnetic wave that always travels at the same speed from its point of origin, and if that 'point of origin' can be travelling at any speed at all, what is there to say that travel of light speed 'is not possible'? The problem here is that although we have no measure above the speed of light with which to compare things, that doesn't mean that anything beyond the limit of our measure can't exist. From our present point of observation, in a universe that originated most probably at the same point in time, we just can't see it, or haven't seen it yet.
To take this thought to its full extent, imagine a space ship accelerating away from earth (to some unknown destination). From a point of rest near earth, imagine that it maintains a continued state of acceleration (let's leave time out of the equation for now) and that it achieves the speed of light. Now, let's imagine the environment in and around that spacecraft at that precise point in time.
First off, what is that 'speed of light' velocity the spaceship is at? That 'speed' is measured relative to its, or our own, point of rest. If relativity holds true, and there is no limiting 'ether', any physical phenomena created by that spaceship at that speed would have that speed and position as its point of origin; for the calculation of any physical occurrences on that spacecraft, our position or point of reference doesn't matter to any equation of events onboard. A nuclear reaction on that spaceship would occur exactly in the same way as it would on earth (if the spaceship somehow had a 'false gravity' equalling earths), and any outward-going force, such as thrust (into a vacuum), should react in the same way at its speed as it would in ours. All anyone onboard would feel is the force of the ship's acceleration - in fact, without any point of reference to see outside of the ship's porthole, they would have no idea at all about the speed at which they were travelling; should the ship shut down its engines, with no drag to slow it down, it would maintain its 'velocity' (in relation to 'us'), yet it would seem to those onboard that the ship was at a total standstill. If the core idea behind relativity holds true, it can't be any other way.
Our problem today is that we are using the speed of light as a barrier in addition to its use as a unit of measure. Just because we have not yet been able to accelerate any object near/past the speed of light doesn't mean it's not possible; once we do make it there, any electromagnetic wave phenomena we create at that velocity will occur, if we still insist on using ourselves as a point of reference, at twice the speed of light in the direction away from us.
The reason we remain stuck in this reasoning is probably a) the universe itself has a single point of origin (the Big Bang), and everything we see is 'relative' to that moment; b) all the universe's mass, and what little of it we have been able to move ourselves, moves at a speed only a fraction that of the speed of light. Still, according to relativity, the light shining forward from a projected "flashlight bullet" should travel at a velocity to its own (light speed) plus the bullet's velocity at the time it was emitted. Even a bullet's speed is minuscule compared to that of light: I wonder if today we have the tools to test this sort of theory.
So, to sum up: just because we ourselves are unable to see or measure any velocity above or relatively close to the speed of light (velocities created outside our, or the big bang's, point of reference), doesn't mean that nothing beyond hasn't, won't, or can't, occur. I don't yet understand the motivation behind the mathematical acrobatics of 'time dilation' just to preserve a threshold at/below the speed of light; were we to maintain time as a constant in both sides of its equation, or remove it entirely, the result would be a speed faster than the speed of light - or the speed of light plus the 'terminal speed' of the mirror capturing the returning light ray, and I don't see anything wrong with this.
'Bending time' is much like trying to measure a rod with a shorter string by bending it; if the string is our largest known velocity (the speed of light) and the rod the real velocity, than that rod has a velocity is greater than any we know or greater than any we can measurably create today, and I don't see any reason why we can't just accept this.
Yet this is not an easy subject, and I am still reading into it.
Tuesday 25 January 2011
Further thought on 'electromagnetic' energy waves.
I'm not so sure about the "magnetic" in the term "electromagnetic wave". For sure an energy wave is interacting with something that maintains its oscillating path.
Bloody hell. I was just reading up on the use of the electron-volt scale (meV, keV, MeV, GeV, etc) and wondering why the same was used to describe the mass of quarks, when I came across this:
Getting back to energy waves, what intrigues me most there is their oscillation - there are obviously two opposing elements at work here, otherwise energy would travel in a straight line (or not travel at all). What also intrigues me is that, no matter the energy level of a wave, the force opposing it is always exactly that of the energy transmitted. Could the opposition/attraction in energy waves be the very source of gravity itself?
The notion of "perfect matter" has its uses here as well. Imagine it as an element that would need an enormous amount of energy to overcome/affect/transform; its first reaction against any force against it would be to push back with equal force (in order to regain its initial 'perfect' state). This would describe the 'magnetic' in the behaviour of electromagnetic waves quite nicely. But I digress - it is a bit hard for me to let go of that idea after entertaining it for so long.
In my present line of thinking, it doesn't really matter what form the 'push' force has (we need only retain the energy of the perfectly visible photon), it is only the 'push/pull' phenomenon itself. If I could apply the degree/frequency of an energy wave's oscillation to the laws of gravity, we see some similarities: lower-frequency waves are much longer and higher than higher-frequency ones, or in other words, the force of interaction (push/pull) is lower - think the gravitational effect two distant planets have on each other, the greater the distance (and smaller the mass), the lower the effect and the longer it takes for the other to react in any noticeable way.
Now, if the vertical push/pull of a wave really was gravity, we can imagine that the gravitational force (always across the axis of the path of travel) will be extremely low - but what happens when an energy wave increases in frequency/energy? An increasingly energetic push/pull occurs many more times along a shorter length of axis.
Yet all across the spectrum, the forward momentum of a wave remains the same - the speed of light, or c. This brings me to my next question: what would happen if the frequency of an energy wave get so high that its lateral momentum nears/meets/exceeds its forward momentum? Could the cross-axis push/pull begin to affect/overcome an energy wave's forward momentum, making it slow, stop, or... begin to loop?
Bloody hell. I was just reading up on the use of the electron-volt scale (meV, keV, MeV, GeV, etc) and wondering why the same was used to describe the mass of quarks, when I came across this:
By mass-energy equivalence, the electron volt is also a unit of mass. It is common in particle physics, where mass and energy are often interchanged, to use eV/c2, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum (from E = mc2). Even more common is to use a system of natural units with c set to 1 (hence, E = m), and simply use eV as a unit of mass.The speed of light (through a vacuum) is so constant that it would be convenient (and probably more practical) to just set it to 1. Was this just for convenience that this reduction was devised (see natural units), or are some already persuaded that energy is mass? E=m has been my entire line of thought in this post and its predecessor. Still, E=m does not describe the gravitational properties of a fundamental element.
"Electronvolt", Wikipedia.org, 2011-01-25
Getting back to energy waves, what intrigues me most there is their oscillation - there are obviously two opposing elements at work here, otherwise energy would travel in a straight line (or not travel at all). What also intrigues me is that, no matter the energy level of a wave, the force opposing it is always exactly that of the energy transmitted. Could the opposition/attraction in energy waves be the very source of gravity itself?
The notion of "perfect matter" has its uses here as well. Imagine it as an element that would need an enormous amount of energy to overcome/affect/transform; its first reaction against any force against it would be to push back with equal force (in order to regain its initial 'perfect' state). This would describe the 'magnetic' in the behaviour of electromagnetic waves quite nicely. But I digress - it is a bit hard for me to let go of that idea after entertaining it for so long.
In my present line of thinking, it doesn't really matter what form the 'push' force has (we need only retain the energy of the perfectly visible photon), it is only the 'push/pull' phenomenon itself. If I could apply the degree/frequency of an energy wave's oscillation to the laws of gravity, we see some similarities: lower-frequency waves are much longer and higher than higher-frequency ones, or in other words, the force of interaction (push/pull) is lower - think the gravitational effect two distant planets have on each other, the greater the distance (and smaller the mass), the lower the effect and the longer it takes for the other to react in any noticeable way.
Now, if the vertical push/pull of a wave really was gravity, we can imagine that the gravitational force (always across the axis of the path of travel) will be extremely low - but what happens when an energy wave increases in frequency/energy? An increasingly energetic push/pull occurs many more times along a shorter length of axis.
Yet all across the spectrum, the forward momentum of a wave remains the same - the speed of light, or c. This brings me to my next question: what would happen if the frequency of an energy wave get so high that its lateral momentum nears/meets/exceeds its forward momentum? Could the cross-axis push/pull begin to affect/overcome an energy wave's forward momentum, making it slow, stop, or... begin to loop?
Monday 24 January 2011
Is ~everything~ light?
Something bugged me about my idea that something could go ~faster~ than the speed of light. If there is one constant in our universe, it's that speed; all energy waves, or 'light', no matter what frequency, travel with the same forward momentum through a vacuum.
This got me to thinking: what would happen if an energy wave's frequency got to a point so high that its lateral movement exceeded its forward motion? Could this energy level be the 'point of creation' of mass? Think about watching a wave on an oscilloscope, then turning the frequency knob to the right: eventually the wave's up and down motion will become indistinguishable from its lateral flow, and the 'wave' will become a solid white (green) bar. Perhaps the 'frequency = speed of light' mass-creating transition point is a bit convenient, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if things were in fact that simple.
This would explain a lot of things, namely the enormous amount of energy contained in atoms (and the enormous amount of energy it takes to fuse or dissemble them). I can also see the beginnings of an explanation of gravity and charge there; could the extreme oscillation of a wave be a source of attraction to others similar to it, and could the 'timing' of the wave explain its 'polarity'? Even this fits in with wave behaviour: opposing waves cancel each other, as do oppositely-charged similar elements such as positrons and electrons. And if indeed a mass-containing object's core energy oscillation is enormous, a 'normal' wave (such as a photon) would indeed affect it but not alter it entirely. Also, could it be that magnetism and gravity are the same thing, and that magnetism is simply an 'amplified gravity' caused by the synchronisation of every core energy wave contained in any magnetic object?
This kind of throws my 'perfect matter' theory into the dustbin, yet it is possible that 'perfect matter' does exist as a simple carrier for energy waves.
This got me to thinking: what would happen if an energy wave's frequency got to a point so high that its lateral movement exceeded its forward motion? Could this energy level be the 'point of creation' of mass? Think about watching a wave on an oscilloscope, then turning the frequency knob to the right: eventually the wave's up and down motion will become indistinguishable from its lateral flow, and the 'wave' will become a solid white (green) bar. Perhaps the 'frequency = speed of light' mass-creating transition point is a bit convenient, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if things were in fact that simple.
This would explain a lot of things, namely the enormous amount of energy contained in atoms (and the enormous amount of energy it takes to fuse or dissemble them). I can also see the beginnings of an explanation of gravity and charge there; could the extreme oscillation of a wave be a source of attraction to others similar to it, and could the 'timing' of the wave explain its 'polarity'? Even this fits in with wave behaviour: opposing waves cancel each other, as do oppositely-charged similar elements such as positrons and electrons. And if indeed a mass-containing object's core energy oscillation is enormous, a 'normal' wave (such as a photon) would indeed affect it but not alter it entirely. Also, could it be that magnetism and gravity are the same thing, and that magnetism is simply an 'amplified gravity' caused by the synchronisation of every core energy wave contained in any magnetic object?
This kind of throws my 'perfect matter' theory into the dustbin, yet it is possible that 'perfect matter' does exist as a simple carrier for energy waves.
Sunday 23 January 2011
E=mc²: a sum of parts.
Einstein's theory of relativity, E=mc², sums up quite nicely the interoperativity of all elements known to us, but I am persuaded that, in light of the missing 'god particle', they will one day be regrouped into one side of an equation describing the creation and behaviour of mass.
I can sum up all my past blogs on the subject into this: it takes a certain amount of energy, an energy beyond the speed of light, to transform "perfect matter" into a form with mass, or a form visible to us. Any energy short of the speed of light remains just that, energy. This would explain why light has a maximum speed, the existence (and 'weight') of dark matter, and why light can travel through a vacuum: in reality, light (energy), if it is not strong enough to affect the perfect matter, will simply 'surf' through it (like light waves through water, to bring the model down to a lower scale). Light (energy) in our present theories is affected by gravity, but I am persuaded that it is actually 'perfect matter' that is affected by gravity: it is the difference in its density that deviates an energy path, again much like light bends when travelling between air and water.
Energy, or 'charge', has a 'path' - it will travel freely unless blocked by (absorbed by) an object with mass. We know already that it is possible to create elements with a negative charge (or charged with energy on an opposite path), and should opposingly-charged elements meet each other, both will disappear completely. What's left over? I am persuaded that opposingly-charged elements, when meeting, 'trade' their energies and become, once again, perfect matter. I think for this to happen the energies of both elements must be equal in opposing directions.
It would make perfect sense that the beginning of our universe was a huge explosion of energy above the speed of light in all directions (charges); once the mass was created, and the energy of the explosion dropped below mass-creating levels, any energy left over from the explosion would be absorbed by mass-containing elements. The rest is consequential: positively-charged elements would be attracted to negatively-charged elements; if their charges were equally opposed, they would annihilate each other, and if their charges weren't equal, they would bind (in a 'stable' inter-annihilation struggle). It wouldn't surprise me if electrons were simply negatively-charged quarks 'left over' from this initial binding.
The question of charge also brings, once again, dimensions into question.
I can sum up all my past blogs on the subject into this: it takes a certain amount of energy, an energy beyond the speed of light, to transform "perfect matter" into a form with mass, or a form visible to us. Any energy short of the speed of light remains just that, energy. This would explain why light has a maximum speed, the existence (and 'weight') of dark matter, and why light can travel through a vacuum: in reality, light (energy), if it is not strong enough to affect the perfect matter, will simply 'surf' through it (like light waves through water, to bring the model down to a lower scale). Light (energy) in our present theories is affected by gravity, but I am persuaded that it is actually 'perfect matter' that is affected by gravity: it is the difference in its density that deviates an energy path, again much like light bends when travelling between air and water.
Energy, or 'charge', has a 'path' - it will travel freely unless blocked by (absorbed by) an object with mass. We know already that it is possible to create elements with a negative charge (or charged with energy on an opposite path), and should opposingly-charged elements meet each other, both will disappear completely. What's left over? I am persuaded that opposingly-charged elements, when meeting, 'trade' their energies and become, once again, perfect matter. I think for this to happen the energies of both elements must be equal in opposing directions.
It would make perfect sense that the beginning of our universe was a huge explosion of energy above the speed of light in all directions (charges); once the mass was created, and the energy of the explosion dropped below mass-creating levels, any energy left over from the explosion would be absorbed by mass-containing elements. The rest is consequential: positively-charged elements would be attracted to negatively-charged elements; if their charges were equally opposed, they would annihilate each other, and if their charges weren't equal, they would bind (in a 'stable' inter-annihilation struggle). It wouldn't surprise me if electrons were simply negatively-charged quarks 'left over' from this initial binding.
The question of charge also brings, once again, dimensions into question.
Saturday 22 January 2011
Olbermann's departure from MSNBC: one more Step towards Stupid.
Of course I was surprised and dismayed this morning to hear MSNBC's Keith Olbermann announce that his Friday show would be the last one. I sometimes found him to be a bit over-the-top on some subjects and comments, but he is one of few American journalists remaining today who hold true to the principles of journalism - relating fact-based (not opinion-based) stories in an objective a way as possible. He, like MSNBC's other leading journalists, judged acts at their face value, and only then by their motivations, and would pull no punches for any politician, right or left, if his/her actions were worthy of criticism - and exactly the same in the opposite direction for any action worthy of praise. This is how journalism should be, and Mr. Olbermann is (was?) one of the rational world's last bastions against the immature screeching, whining and lying tactics used by today's political right.
I remember, after George W. Bush's 2004 re-election, an English tabloid headline querying its readers: "Is more than half the U.S. completely stupid?". I don't agree, but I can observe that the more strident and misleading opinions get about just as much airtime as fact, and that the more irrational and extreme the views of a voter, the higher the possibility that he will turn up at the polls. Yet as of today we have one less mainstream figure providing fact to the masses - as fact - and convince them to decide for themselves. Billo, Beck, Rush and Breitbart must be creaming their jeans about now at the thought of a future where even the wildest lies will go uncontested.
The right-wing pundits I mention above, unlike their viewers/listeners, cannot claim the innocence of pure stupidity. At best, they can plead guilty to one of two crimes: they can a) claim purposeful ignorance - ignorance of the true obstacles confronting the majority of the U.S.' population today (already-over-demanding job positions disappearing overseas, lack of even basic health-care for some) because of their already-prosperous position, and promoting other prosperous pundits/politicians/organisations 'like themselves', or b) be corporate-serving corporate-riches-seeking stooges spreading corporate-enriching lies to the very same knowingly-ignorant populace that is enriching the same. Beck and Breitbart are of the latter category - fully aware of their actions and the damages they cause - and in my mind are humans of the most despicable sort - those who wilfully impede and destroy the very essence of what makes us human: fact-(science-)based education and rationality.
Humans think, animals 'feel'. Thinking humans have less tendency to resort to vitriol and violence, a fact that is both true common knowledge and available everywhere, and are less likely to react with the same tactics the same. Yet the trend for today's American public seems to be pundits and politicians, backed by corporations intent on spreading a 'feeling' message to a public remaining dependant upon them because their thoughtless 'feeling' of fear or comfort, behaving in belligerent and irrational manner quite unsuited to a thinking human being. In my mind, watching American politics is like watching a grade-school play-yard: the bullies win out over 'the wimps' in the beginning, but settle down when they are obliged to compete in situations that require rational thought; but what if the U.S.' richest denizens' goal was to create and fund wave after wave of bullies, and make sure the stage was permanently set in a way where no rational thought was 'required' and could never compete? Keith Olbermann was like that big kid a couple grades up who would protect any younger kid he thought 'cool' against gratuitous persecution - and we're going to miss him dearly.
Let's hope Mr. Olbermann finds another post from where he can spread his arguably-over-the-top manner in his unarguably fact-oriented way. I also hope that Mr. Olbermann's departure won't weaken the positions of his co-journalists Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow and recently-arrived Lawrence O'Donnell, three more rational voices much-needed by the U.S. public today.
I remember, after George W. Bush's 2004 re-election, an English tabloid headline querying its readers: "Is more than half the U.S. completely stupid?". I don't agree, but I can observe that the more strident and misleading opinions get about just as much airtime as fact, and that the more irrational and extreme the views of a voter, the higher the possibility that he will turn up at the polls. Yet as of today we have one less mainstream figure providing fact to the masses - as fact - and convince them to decide for themselves. Billo, Beck, Rush and Breitbart must be creaming their jeans about now at the thought of a future where even the wildest lies will go uncontested.
The right-wing pundits I mention above, unlike their viewers/listeners, cannot claim the innocence of pure stupidity. At best, they can plead guilty to one of two crimes: they can a) claim purposeful ignorance - ignorance of the true obstacles confronting the majority of the U.S.' population today (already-over-demanding job positions disappearing overseas, lack of even basic health-care for some) because of their already-prosperous position, and promoting other prosperous pundits/politicians/organisations 'like themselves', or b) be corporate-serving corporate-riches-seeking stooges spreading corporate-enriching lies to the very same knowingly-ignorant populace that is enriching the same. Beck and Breitbart are of the latter category - fully aware of their actions and the damages they cause - and in my mind are humans of the most despicable sort - those who wilfully impede and destroy the very essence of what makes us human: fact-(science-)based education and rationality.
Humans think, animals 'feel'. Thinking humans have less tendency to resort to vitriol and violence, a fact that is both true common knowledge and available everywhere, and are less likely to react with the same tactics the same. Yet the trend for today's American public seems to be pundits and politicians, backed by corporations intent on spreading a 'feeling' message to a public remaining dependant upon them because their thoughtless 'feeling' of fear or comfort, behaving in belligerent and irrational manner quite unsuited to a thinking human being. In my mind, watching American politics is like watching a grade-school play-yard: the bullies win out over 'the wimps' in the beginning, but settle down when they are obliged to compete in situations that require rational thought; but what if the U.S.' richest denizens' goal was to create and fund wave after wave of bullies, and make sure the stage was permanently set in a way where no rational thought was 'required' and could never compete? Keith Olbermann was like that big kid a couple grades up who would protect any younger kid he thought 'cool' against gratuitous persecution - and we're going to miss him dearly.
Let's hope Mr. Olbermann finds another post from where he can spread his arguably-over-the-top manner in his unarguably fact-oriented way. I also hope that Mr. Olbermann's departure won't weaken the positions of his co-journalists Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow and recently-arrived Lawrence O'Donnell, three more rational voices much-needed by the U.S. public today.
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