LECTURE NO. 20

DEBATE ON CREATION

Copyright © Harold Aspden, 1998

INTRODUCTION

There is nothing more fundamental so far as concerns physical science than the understanding of the processes involved in creating the matter which constitutes our universe. Yes, one can think that there are greater questions, concerning God and the creation of the human life form or, indeed, the sub-structure of that stage on which our universe performs, meaning what physicists refer to as 'space-time' or what I, as a physicist, prefer to refer to as 'the aether', but one must have a foundation on which to build an understanding of all things. There is no better foundation than an insight into how matter is distilled from the sea of energy that pervades space and that means that we must begin by explaining how the proton, which accounts for more than 99.9 per cent of all matter, is created and we must explain why the proton is 1836.152 times the mass of its companion particle, the electron. Together, these two particles create the hydrogen atom and from that all other forms of matter evolve.

Now to create the heavier atoms we see around us in solid matter and in the air we breathe, those hydrogen atoms have to undergo a process of fusion. Physicists like to think that the nuclear fusion which created our universe occurred in a one-off event some ten and more billion years ago. That is their hypothesis as developed from their problem in understanding how light radiation from distant stars can degenerate in its frequency spectrum as it travels ever onwards at the enormous speed of light for billions of years before reaching us here on Earth. So they have signed off, as it were, in trying to understand how it might be that those protons and electrons can be involved in an ongoing process of creation and decay here and now wherever matter already exists.

Those physicists think that protons have no finite lifetime, because they do not see proton decay. They see that when neutrons appear they decay with a half-life of several minutes and, yet, notwithstanding that, they are naive enough to imagine that there are neutrons in the atomic nuclei of atoms heavier than hydrogen. Such is the parlous state of affairs in modern physical science.

So when, in 1989, the discovery of 'cold fusion' involving a heavy isotope of hydrogen was reported and no neutron emission was in evidence, that discovery was ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Here the issue was not just the prospect of a new much-needed energy source, but also the opening of a pathway which could lead to a more sensible understanding of the actual processes of the Creation of our material universe.

This introduces this Lecture theme. I seek to debate the case for the ongoing creation of matter by making reference to 'cold fusion'.

IS THE IDEA OF 'COLD FUSION' NONSENSE?

I find it quite hard to believe that there are so many trained physicists in the world who have such confidence in their intuitive opinions that they are willing to reject outright the very thought of 'cold nuclear fusion'.

No doubt those same physicists will tell me that I must be off track in even thinking that a proton might be involved in an ongoing scenario of creation and decay. They may have read somewhere that attempts to measure the decay lifetime of the proton gave a null result and that in fact there is no evidence of decay even over a period estimated on a scale going back to before the event of their imaginary Big Bang.

Well, let me ask you how you can measure the lifetime of a particle if the energy it sheds in its decay is pooled in a sea of energy from which those very particles are being recreated to keep the energy equilibrium. I could answer that myself if Nature was obliging and was willing to deploy the energy shed so as to create two separate families of stable electrically-positive particles. We might then see the decay process in our experiments, but that will not be the case if a proton decays, sheds its energy to the underlying energy pool, thereby upsetting its equilibrium, which it promptly restores by creating a new proton at the very location where the original proton suffered decay.

Now, if you, the reader, wish to be a critic and you say that cannot be, then you must have some special knowledge which we ought to share. You may 'think' that there is no such thing as that 'sea of energy', because you do not subscribe to the belief that there is an aether. Such thought does not amount to knowledge. Remember that there were those who once thought that light travelled at a constant speed relative to the aether and, when they read about an experiment that they 'thought' would confirm that assumption but found it gave a null result, they did not question their own notion that light speed was constant relative to the aether. No, they drew the illogical conclusion that the aether does not exist. They did not take account of a discovery made only after the experiment had been performed, namely that, since the apparatus used involved mirrors, the reflected light waves were setting up standing waves locked to the mirror surfaces. The light energy was being dragged along with the apparatus as part of the system of those standing waves. The velocity of the light, as such, in relation to a frame of reference external to the apparatus was meaningless in those circumstances. You see, thought can mislead when it comes to interpreting physical phenomena! I note, by the way, that Wiener discovered and first demonstrated the standing wave phenomenon in 1890, whereas the Michelson-Morley Experiment dates from 1881-1887.

Somehow physicists have become hooked on the idea that the Michelson-Morley Experiment rang the death knell of the aether and then blew the trumpet acclaiming the birth of Einstein's notions about the speed of light being relative to an observer. How long will it be before they learn what their experiments are really saying to them?

Now, I cannot prove that protons decay, just as no one can prove that they do not decay, but I can suggest that, if one assumes that protons can be created and so, in a universe in equilibrium, they must decay, then it is a step forward in support of that hypothesis if one can deduce the precise mass value of the proton in relation to its companion at creation, namely the electron!

So, proceeding along that track, where do we begin? Well, I am going to begin by referring to the published obituary of a very eminent British physicist who died very recently, namely Sir Charles Frank.

His obituary was published in the Monday, April 27 1998 issue of the British newspaper THE TIMES. Sir Charles died in Bristol earlier that month, on April 5, aged 87. The obituary is relevant to this discourse because it began with the words:

"Sir Charles Frank was an inspirational physicist who worked in a wide range of fields, from earthquakes to cold fusion."

Now, much as physicists in general seem to find the thought of 'cold fusion' amusing, whereas there is nothing amusing about earthquakes, it is appropriate also to consider 'cold fusion' as a serious proposition and one must respect the wisdom of Sir Charles Frank for adopting that stance.

So far as this discourse is concerned, it is relevant to quote a paragraph from that obituary referring specifically to 'cold fusion':

"Charles Frank was the first scientist to think of the idea of cold nuclear fusion. In 1947 he suggested using an elementary subnuclear particle, a muon, to catalyse the fusion of deuterium and tritium. It would take the electron's place and allow nuclei to approach some 200 times closer than usual, and so help produce fusion. The investigations in this field that Frank began at Bristol are continuing around the world, and his original paper on the subject is still widely quoted."

COLD FUSION AND THE MUON

The muon is the 'heavy electron'. Its mass is a little below 207 times that of the normal electron. Its role in Nature is a mystery, at least so far as is judged by physicists in general. In fact, the muon is the prime constituent of that sea of energy which those physicists 'in general' refuse to recognize as existing as something that fills all space.

Incredible though it may seem, I have the experience of one conference concerned with nuclear physics where I ventured to suggest how the muon played a role in creating the proton and was a particle, more prevalent in space than even the electron, where a young experimental researcher sought to assure me that I was wrong, because he had studied muons experimentally. I was presenting the theoretical evidence I had discovered and he was basing his opinions on experimental facts concerning how muons interact with matter. I had to be wrong, in his opinion, because what I was saying did not conform with the kind of physics he was learning about in his academic pursuit.

If you try to talk about 'aether' at a conference on physics, I can assure you that the physicists present will have no patience and will pay no attention to the substantive basis of your talk. That is the way things are. Equally, however, those same physicists admit they are searching for that elusive Holy Grail, the unified field theory, that they do not understand how Nature determines the proton/electron mass ratio and that they cannot begin to understand where muons fit into Nature's scheme. They know so much and yet will not listen when someone ventures to say: "Here is the answer you seek, but you must accept there is an aether!"

So, physicists in general are stubborn creatures, having sheeplike behaviour, but one has to persist in presenting what has that ring of truth and just hope that someone, somewhere, might pay attention.

Muons are seen in high energy reactions and in cosmic radiation, but in our laboratory experiments they are not seen in their full glory as the dominant constituent of the sea of energy in the aether background. Yet it is the ongoing activity of those muons, involved, as they are, in a continuous quantum-electrodynamic cycle of mutual pair creation and decay that is the very reason for proton creation and decay. The muons are effectively missiles which attack the proton and destroy it, but, equally, they are both its creator and its destroyer.

The creation process involves muon bombardment of a charge form that constitutes the lattice-forming components of the aether. The lattice structure, its role in forming photon 'units' and its spin feature determine the action quantum which we term the Planck constant. However, those lattice charges present a relatively large target for the ongoing bombardment by the virtual muons in that aether energy sea and it is the coincidental bombardment by nine muons collectively hitting one such lattice charge that triggers proton creation.

The full analysis of this is to be found in my book 'Aether Science Papers', but see also Tutorial No. 9 in these Web pages.

As to the decay of the proton, this follows as a consequence of proton creation, given that there is a prevailing state of equilibrium as between matter and aether, in that the release of energy to augment the entropy of the environment contributes to the surplus which builds in the sea of energy and replenishes the energy deployed into proton creation.

What this amounts to is the fact that energy which we regard as radiated as heat or electromagnetic radiation is regenerated by creating protons. That is governed by a statistical process of chance, ever ongoing. Then there is a balancing proton decay once the energy deficit is felt and the muon background needs to claw energy back from the protons and recreate those muon pairs.

With new energy technology in mind, I can see that in an intermediate state, owing to the way in which Planck's constant is determined by the systematic motion of those lattice charges forming the aether structure, which motion acts as a buffer in the energy activity, there is scope for gaining access to that aether energy by somewhat devious means, intercepting energy that otherwise will go into proton creation. That motivates my present interest in this whole field of research that I am describing in these Web pages.

Essentially, however, concerning my ground work on fundamental theory, what we see overall is a stable system of protons surviving in a state of equilibrium with the aether background. Underlying all that there is an ongoing fluctuation as a kind of zero-point energy activity in which protons are created and decay virtually in situ, as it were. It means, however, that there is a possibility that protons could decay as part of one atomic nucleus and be recreated as part of a different atomic nucleus in very close proximity. This hints at both cold nuclear fusion and cold nuclear fission and, the more we read about transmutation of elements in what seem to be nothing other than chemical-type processes, the greater the support for the scenario of proton creation and decay as just described. The periodical Infinite Energy is an important source of information on such discoveries. The URL of its Web site is http://www.infinite-energy.com for those interested in knowing more about that publication.

In summary, my suggestion differs from the proposal of Sir Charles Frank. I do not see muons as replacing the electrons in hydrogen atoms and occupying orbits very much reduced in size. Instead I look to the role of the muon in the aether background as the creative agent which is able to form new protons very close to existing protons and capture electron-sized charges which can transmute hydrogen nuclei into deuterium nuclei or deuterium nuclei into tritium nuclei. That seems a possible feature associated with the phenomenon of cold fusion.

Either way, however, or whatever might be the action which occurs in cold fusion reactions, there can be no doubt that the muon is involved in proton creation and that proton creation is an ongoing manifestation of the presence of aether energy everywhere in space.

Once that is recognized the challenge will attract more who will try to discover the best way of tapping into that sea of aether energy and that is the main message I seek to convey.

DON'T FORGET THOMSON

This section heading was the title of a Letter to the Editor published by the American Institute of Physics in their journal Physics Today, November 1984, p. 15.

Since I want the world of physics to be left in no doubt as to whether or not I have put my views on this matter on proper record. I am accordingly, reproducing below the full content of that Letter to the Editor so that I can point to the ignorance of those physicists who persist in saying that there is still no theory that can explain the proton-electron mass ratio.

Don't forget Thomson
Writing in PHYSICS TODAY (November 1981, page 69), Victor F. Weisskopf tells the remarkable story of the development of field theory throughout the last 50 years. The triumph of Dirac's quantum electrodynamics was, however, left in sharp contrast by the awesome remarks that "we have no explanation for the mass of the electron; that is, the smallness of the ratio (1/1836) between the electron mass and the proton mass" and "there is not the slightest indication why electrons with different masses should exist." Here Weisskopf had in mind the normal electron, the tau-electron and the muon.

Forgotten, it seems, in these modern developments is the classical basis of electrodynamic theory developed by J. J. Thomson. Thomson gave a formula specifying the energy of the electron as 2e²/3a, where a is the radius within which its electric charge e is confined. He did not know about muons and antimatter, but it needs little imagination to write:
μ⁺ + μ^- = Q^o where Q^o is an energy quantum formed from the mutual annihilation of a positive and negative muon. Adding energy to such a quantum could well produce a pair of Thomson-sized charges, including Q^-. Thus, for charges e and -e in touching relationship, the total energy, including that of the Coulomb interaction, is:
W = P⁺ + Q^- - e²/(x+y) ......... (1) where P = 2e²/3x and Q = 2e²/3y.

Eliminating x and y:
W = P + Q - 3PQ/2(P+Q) ......... (2)
Given a background source of muon pairs and an amount of energy NP used to create N protons, we have N systems given by equation (2), NP constant and NW tending to a minimal value, for optimum stability. We can therefore differentiate W/P with respect to P to find its minimum. This occurs when:
P/Q = [(3/2)^1/2 - 1]^-1 and tells us that:
P = 1836 because Q = 2(mu) = 413 in electron mass-energy terms.

This is such a remarkably simple result based on the Thomson formula, that one really must exclaim, "Let us not forget the heritage he left us."

Proton creation follows naturally from the existence of the dimuon energy quantum. Also remarkable is the fact that W is exactly half of the mass energy of the tau-electron (half of 1.782 GeV or 1743 electron units). Put P = 1836 and Q = 413 in equation (2) and W is 1743.

Such results cannot be fortuitous; bear in mind that the formal derivation of the proton-electron mass ratio using equation (2) in terms of a theoretical determination of Q gave 1836.1523. This was published in 1975 in a paper I coauthored [1] with D. M. Eagles of CSIRO in Australia. It antedates by eight years the measurement by Van Dyck, Moore and Schwinberg [2], which puts the ratio at 1836.152470(80). The discrepancy is one part in ten million, but even this is explicable from the basic theory as it stood in 1975, as I have recently shown [3]. Using the same Thomson formula, the muon-electron mass ratio of 206.7683 has also yielded to theoretical explanation at its one-in-a million level of measurement [4]. Classical electromagnetic theory can, therefore, be usefully combined with quantum electrodynamics to solve some of the mysteries of particle mass.

References
1. H. Aspden, D. M. Eagles, Nuovo Cimento 30A, p. 235 (1975).
2. R. S. Van Dyck Jr, F. L. Moore, P. B. Schwinberg, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc., 28, p. 791 (1983).
3. H. Aspden, Lett. Nuovo Cimento, 38, p. 423 (1983).
4. H. Aspden, Lett. Nuovo Cimento, 38, p. 342 (1983).

THE ONWARD DEBATE

Again I remind readers that the full updated account of my proton theory plus related theory concerning many other fundamental particles is to be found in the published papers as reproduced in my book entitled: Aether Science Papers.

I come now to the points of debate which I am sure some readers will wish to raise.

Firstly, I have suggested above that J. J. Thomson long ago presented the correct formula relating the mass-energy, electric charge and the radius of the sphere bounding that electron charge. In short I am saying that I support the view that the electron has a finite volume.

I note also that, if J. J. Thomson had not presumed that the electron charge was all concentrated at the surface of that bounding sphere, his corresponding formula for electromagnetic mass would have given E=Mc² long before Einstein came on the scene. As it was, Thomson's electromagnetic mass formula corresponds to E=(3/4)Mc². The true picture of the electron is that of a charge sphere in which the charge is so distributed within the sphere as to set up a uniform electric energy density inside the sphere. That gives the E=Mc² formula and is consistent with E being 2e²/3a.

It was, incidentally, on April 23, 1997 that I saw reported in the INTERFACE section of the British newspaper THE TIMES that a major discovery had been made concerning the electron. Scientist Ken Long was proposing that the electron is no longer a truly fundamental particle, but is believed to consist of smaller particles 'which some people are already calling preons'. He stated "This might solve problems with the electron, such as the fact that it appears to have mass but no volume."

Well, if physicists give themselves a problem because they think the electron is a point charge and then they seek a solution by saying the electron is composed of smaller particles, they are lost in a wonderland of their own making. I think it more important to begin with the findings of J. J. Thomson, the man who discovered the electron and keep faith with the belief that the electron must have a finite radius. That leads me to that 1836.152 proton/electron mass ratio and I am then ready to listen to the case, if there is one, supporting the view that the electron has to be a point charge. I hope that case is not just one relying on the quantum-electrodynamic numerology of Paul Dirac in explaining the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. If it is then, that makes my alternative explanation presented in my book Aether Science Papers all the more relevant.

Then there will be those who will tell me that the neutron accounts for an important and substantial part of the material universe and that matter is not all protons and electrons. Well, I can defend my case here, though I regard antiprotons and positrons as featuring also in the substance of our material world. The neutron is a short-lived particle form that emerges from certain nuclear processes. It does not exist inside stable matter, whatever your textbooks might have to say on the subject!

I can, for example, see no reason why two protons cannot sit on opposite sides of an electron, meaning that they are in touching surface contact with the charge sphere of the electron and that they sit on opposite sides of that electron because they repel one another but are held by attraction to the electron. What proven law of physics denies that as a possibility? I once was told that Earnshaw's Law precluded such a possibility, but I dismissed that once I checked how that law was derived. It was based on the assumption that the charges were in a complete void, whereas they are set in a background continuum of other charge and that makes stable association possible.

Then again, who says stability is a key necessity? Why cannot a form of 'stability' exist where a system of particles changes states in a cyclic sequence, always recycling in the same manner so as to preserve certain characteristics such as the a steady mean mass, momentum, overall charge and so on?

Who says that, when an electron is moving at high speed, it is travelling alone? Why cannot the energy added as kinetic energy be deployed into the transient creation and decay of electron-positron pairs which keep company with the electron in motion?

It is only by exploring all such possibilities with a physically-real spherical charge form of the electron in mind that one can progress towards a better understanding of particle physics. However, one must take note of that major discovery of mine that the 1836.152 proton/electron mass ratio tells us how the proton is created from muons. One must see those muons as the primary energy source of the aether. Furthermore, one must then come to terms with that real aether and its properties.

At this point I will close this Lecture and will invite the reader to refer next to Lecture No. 24 in which I reproduce a version of an article of mine published in 1982 and entitled: The Ether - An Assessment'.

Harold Aspden May 26, 1998