RESEARCH NOTE 8/98

IMPRESSIONS CONCERNING GRAVITY

Research Note: 8/98: October 8, 1998

I have two reasons for writing this Research Note at this time. One reason is that today I received a communication from Dave Saltrese who lives near Carmarthen in Wales. He sent me a copy of a paper entitled 'The Gravitational Wave', it being the text of a lecture delivered to an audience of medical practitioners nearly 50 years ago. He suggested I might be interested in it owing to this paper having certain similarities to the ideas I have on the theme of gravitation and aether. The other reason stems from a meeting I had a month ago with Dr. Costa Kyritis at the University of Portsmouth here in U.K. Dr. Kyritis of the National Technical University in Athens, Greece, was visiting that Portsmouth location after participating in a seminar at the University of Lancaster where, on September 3rd, he had spoken about 'A unifying derivation of Newtonian gravity and Maxwell's electromagnetism' in the context of 'Non-linear electromagnetism and propulsion' and done so by referring to the 'H. Aspden Effect' and 'J. Searl's Effect', both seen as involving aether in the dynamics of propulsion.

I seek in this Research Note to register two reactions, my personal reactions, one being directed at what the author of that text on 'The Gravitational Wave' had said about his own theory on that subject and one directed at what Dr. Kyritsis had to say, also about his own theory concerning the role aether plays as a mediator of the force of gravity. The first author, though evidently well versed in physics, was presumably someone having a broader outlook than many a physicist of today's mould. His name was Rev. Father A J K Glazewski and his qualification was theological.

I had never heard of Glazewski before Dave Saltrese mentioned him and has now kindly sent me his writings on 'The Gravitational Wave'. The paper was recorded in the 'Proceedings of the Scientific Technical Congress of Radionics and Radiesthesia, London 1950, May 16-18', as published in printed book form by the Congress Committee.

I will comment first on the topic addressed by Dr. Kyritsis. Like many of those who theorize about aether and gravitation, Dr. Kyritsis adopts the notion that the aether is a subtle fluid having the kind of properties that we associate with fluid dynamics. However, in introducing his subject, he alludes to a whole spectrum of topics that sound familiar to the theoretical physicist, but in such a way that it is difficult to find the focus and see clearly what it is that Dr. Kyritsis is offering or, indeed, requesting.

As I read the summary of his Lancaster Seminar paper it progresses by first arguing that all particles may be made up of minute component particles, and that there may be particles that one could call aetherons that constitute the aether and are so small in relation to the electron as the electron is to the sun. This is then followed by a recital of the normal physical attributes which suggest the existence of the aether, typically the notion that wave momentum is meaningless if there is no aether substance to convey that momentum and determine the speed of light. So we are introduced to the need for an aether that has a tangible form of some kind.

Then, however, is this same context, as an argument in favour of aether, Dr. Kyritsis lists as a supporting point:

"The flying machines of J. Searl and of Aspden have a buoyancy force that cannot come from the 'vacuum' but from a material medium in it."

Thereafter his case evolves under several headings, many presenting a mathematical proposition. The first of these begins with a Lagrangian formulation of 'Maxwell's Electromagnetised Aether'. The energy associated with electric and magnetic fields is deemed to imply a pressure of the kind we associate with a gas.

From there the argument moves on to present a comparison of the 'Poisson equation of Newtonian gravity' with the 'Fourier heat conduction equation', from which Dr. Kyritsis concludes that the 'scalar electromagnetic potential must be the temperature of the aether'. He lays stress on his argument that the key to understanding the mechanism behind Newtonian gravitation is the correspondence of the scalar Newtonian gravitational potential as being proportional to aether temperature.

Support for this is related to the Podkletnov experiment, in which a ceramic superconductor having a temperature close to absolute zero 'produces less aether heat due to motion of its molecules'. This leads him to discuss this in the context of a 'Mie-Dirac' gas and terms concerning 'viscosity pressure' which are to be interpreted by reference to the 'general heat transfer equation'.

His onward conclusion from this is that 'the well known phenomena of antigravity of superconductors tend to confirm our conception of Newtonian gravity as an aether heat effect'. This moves the argument into a series of mathematical equations involving the 'inverse acceleration due to internal viscosity of the electromagnetised aether'. Then follows more commentary on the relationship between the 'Maxwell Gas' and the 'Mie-Dirac gas' and a claim that the aether is a mixture of gases.

Eventually, under his last heading I read:

"In order to explain the buoyancy forces of the Aspden engine, we believe that we must describe a new interaction which is neither Newtonian gravitation nor Maxwell's electromagnetism. We could classify it as Einsteinian gravitation that changes the curvature of space-time around the gyroscope, but then what happens is that Einstein's gravitation goes wrong and the observed experimental results are not predicted! ... We believe that the best solution is to introduce a new interaction which is nothing else than the old controversial aether drag force."

Finally there is a comparison between the 'buoyancy' forces of 'Searl's engine' and 'Aspden's engine', in that "Aspden's is a purely mechanical propellor while Searl's is based on the Lorentz force and requires nevertheless mechanical rotation." This is then followed by a reference to diagrams which purport to show an engineering principle useful in the onward design of antigravitational machines.

So there you are. Here was someone referring to my 'engine' but describing something that I could not really understand. The message was that gravity has some connection with aether as being a kind of subtle gas with a temperature related to gravitational potential and involving both frictional forces and viscosity effects or buoyancy as agents promoting propulsion and lift.

The simple fact is that I have no such 'engine', nor have I ever made such a claim. I have seen and, indeed, handled a machine built by a Scotsman named Scott Strachan, which demonstrated an anomalous lift force by force-precessing two flywheels in a gyroscopic mounting. I am aware of the reports of machines built by another Scotsman, Sandy Kidd, of similar form and I have witnessed privately the seemingly anti-gravitational levitation of a force-precessed offset flywheel as manipulated by Professor Eric Laithwaite. This was of interest to me because I have my own ideas concerning the theory of gravity and my theory offers a route by which one can explain those anti-gravitational phenomena.

I presume that Dr. Kyritsis had seen an article I wrote for the periodical Electronics and Wireless World where I sought to relate the phenomenon of the Strachan machine with electrodynamic theory. My title was 'Anti-Gravity Electronics' and the article appeared at pp. 29-31 of the January 1989 issue. See [1989f] on this web site.

To summarize my position, I 'see' matter as having a universal quantum jitter motion which it shares with a hidden crystal-like structure that is a feature of the aether. I 'see', as part of that aether, a kind of ghost property by which some of the energy in the aether assumes a form having mass positioned to jitter in dynamic balance with the mass of the local matter present. I suspect that a flywheel in spin, if its spin axis is forcibly deflected, will have that ghost mass spinning in a partially detached (decoupled) mode, owing to that forced-precession. This means that the gravity forces, which are in truth interaction forces as between those ghost components of the aether, will become less effective in coupling the gravitational force with such a flywheel, thereby leading to the antigravitational effects observed. In a sense this is a buoyancy effect, but those gravitational forces are, by my theory, electrodynamic forces. I have no knowledge that can support or deny the claims made by John Searl and have only heard of that from hearsay.

I do, however, share the opinion expressed by Dr. Kyritsis that aether temperature and gravitational potential are connected. Indeed, I have published my thoughts on this in the scientific literature of the Institute of Physics here in U.K. [1993d] under the title: 'The First Law of Thermodynamics', as as well as in a scientific periodical issued by the Italian Institute of Physics [1983d] under the title: 'The Determination of Absolute Gravitational Potential'. The fascinating contribution I had to offer on that subject was that gravitational potential, when integrated over all mass in the universe, is infinite unless gravitation only acts over a limited range. I do not accept Mach's Principle which ascribes a finite value to the gravitational potential of a finite universe, with the potential (the energy released by gravitational attraction) equated to the rest-mass energy of the particle subject to that potential.

If I were to adopt the aether temperature argument here I would need to argue that the aether has temperature measured beyond imagination, found by equating kT/2 to the product of the gravitational potential and the mass of an aether particle. Just take the value of Boltzmann's constant k and, for each degree of freedom you choose to assign to the aether gas, multiply that by temperature T to get a finite value that you equate to an extremely high potential divided by an extremely small mass value and you will see what I mean.

No, the simple fact has to be that gravity has a limited range of action which limits that potential and so the aether temperature. Just do your calculation assuming that here at the position of Earth the gravitational potential is virtually all attributable to the sun and Earth. Multiply that value of potential by an aether particle mass of about 0.04 times that of the electron (this being the value predicted by my aether theory [1972a] and you will find that, if you equate the result to kT, T will be about 2.7 K, the temperature we measure as the 'cosmic background temperature'. The details of the calculation are given in those papers [1983d] and [1993d].

The way to interpret this aether temperature effect is to say that aether devoid of matter has its own mass property vested in its system of aether particles. When matter is present there is gravitational potential as between the particles of matter and each of those aether particles. That means a release of energy, but energy is conserved and the logical place for it to be stored is at the very spot where it is released, that is where the relevant aether particle sits. How is that energy stored? The answer, simply, is that it is stored by adding kinetic energy (heat) to the aether particle. As the matter, typically that of the sun, moves away from that particle in its onward cosmic travel through the aether, the particle experiences a diminution of the magnitude of its gravitational potential and sheds that heat energy, restoring it to match the change of that gravitational potential.

The full analysis of all this is reported in my book Physics Unified at pages 177-180. I do not present a theory of the aether as being a gas. It has certain properties that resemble those of a crystal, a kind of fluid crystal, meaning one that can restructure according to local field conditions. To be sure, I would never contemplate there being friction or viscosity in such an aether. It is a perfect electrical system and its properties are not those of normal matter. We can only comprehend those properties by deciphering the signals which the aether projects into the physics of our material world, the main signal being the value of the fine-structure constant, which links Planck's constant, the speed of light and the unit of electrical charge shared by the electron. So my way forward on such questions has not been one of following in Einstein's footsteps, which lead one into a wilderness. Nor would I dream of delving into the theoretical notions implied by a so-called 'Mie-Dirac' gas. I would rather divorce the pursuit of theory from the pursuit of new technology, accepting that physics advances as we discover and decipher the clues and signals which Nature delivers when we probe our environment, whilst technology progresses on the back of the discovery of genuine and unexpected anomalies that are revealed in our efforts to master our environment.

So we come now to the subject of 'The Gravitational Wave' and that lecture delivered by Reverend Father A J K Glazewski.

Here the subject also concerns anomalous effects produced by rotation, but not concerning gyroscopes. It concerns what is observed on an astronomical scale and a possible connection between magnetism and gravitation produced by spin. The lecture presented Glazewski's interpretation of the nature of electricity as being:

"a sudden drop or change of gravitational potential at a locus or area of space (mathematically in the change of the value of a tensor) in relation to the surroundings where the distribution of this potential is comparatively isotropic. Such change of gravity potential is noticed as electricity by an observer standing outside the closed physical system and therefore existing in a relativiely uniformly distributed potential pertaining to his own space."

Here you see Glazewski arguing in the shadow of Einstein but the ideas being projected are destined to lead nowhere. The proposition is that curved space-time produces gravitation and electricity as such has to be part of that space-time metric, suitably distorted to squeeze it into forms that we can say are 'positive' and 'negative'. I here quote a few of his statements:

"This immediately led the writer to the conclusion that gravity must definitely be due to a wave, and a wave of mechanical and inertial character. Such concepts as inertia, mass, weight, acceleration, force, work, power, friction, elasticity, resistance, and, in general, all concepts of mechanics, were formally based on principles of gravity and vice versa. All considerations of gravity were forcibly reduced to a mechanical basis.

The only and indispensable condition for a conception of gravity in its full significance was to regard it not only as a phenomenon connected with the astronomical bodies, but also to connect it automatically with inter-atomic and inter-molecular forces, where electric fields are due to the change of gravitational potential at the locus owing to a change in direction of motion of the mass. This means that to reduce all phenomena to electricity is to reduce all to gravity."

Now having myself written extensively about the theory of gravitation, I feel I need to comment on this quite revolutionary proposition that electricity as such is really a manifestation of gravitational action. To me it makes no sense to try to build a theory of electricity on the platform of gravitation, just because it so happens that we came to learn more about mechanics than electricity in an earlier phase of history.

To put the above idea into perspective just imagine that, well removed from other matter, there is somewhere in outer space a single isolated hydrogen atom. It has two electric charges, that of the proton and that of the electron. Those charges attract because of their opposite polarities. Gravitation is also at work and so those particles, the proton and the electron, have a mutual gravitational attraction as well. We can calculate the relative strengths of those two forces of attraction without knowing anything about the spacing of the proton and the electron, because both forces comply with an inverse square form of law. You can work this out from standard data in physics books and you will find that the electric force outweighs the gravitational force by a factor that is truly enormous, it being in excess of 10³⁹.

Now tell me how you might begin to explain electrical force in terms of gravitational action? If you argue curvature of space then does space have two curvatures, one very small to match the gravitational situation and one very high indeed to match the electrical situation? That would involve two hypotheses and presumably two intermeshed space-time systems - a highly unlikely state of affairs.

So let us see how Glazewski came to justify his proposal. He made reference to a then-recent conclusion reached by Nobel Laureate Professor P M S Blackett based on a discovery in 1947 concerning the star Virginis 78. I was at Manchester University in 1947, where Blackett held his professorial chair and this may explain why I, too, became interested in what Professor Blackett later claimed concerning the relationship between G and the magnetic moment of astronomical bodies (Nature, v. 159, pp. 658-666; 1947). Glazewski quotes the following from Professor Blackett's paper:

"It has been known for a long time, particularly from the works of Schuster, Sutherland and H A Wilson, though lately little regarded, that the magnetic field moment and the angular momentum of the earth and sun are very nearly proportional, and that the constant of proportionality is nearly the square root of the gravitational constant G divided by the velocity of light."

Glazewski further notes that when that star Virginis 78, a star very much larger than the sun, was found to fit the same relationship:

"Blackett concluded that probably we are dealing here with one of the fundamental laws of nature. He further showed in his formulae that generally the same mathematical expression can be applied to electrons and to Bohr's magnetons."

From this Glazeski draws the conclusion that:

"It seems to indicate that there is one law which rules matter from the size of atoms up to stars."

So now let us reconsider that isolated hydrogen atom and imagine an enormous number N of hydrogen atoms clustered together to form a star. The atoms, as a whole, are electrically neutral and so that electrical action within each such atom is merely replicated N times in the star, because there is no electrical force effective between those separate atoms. However, the mutual gravitational effect as between those atoms is increased by a factor N²/2 because there are that many such interactions, reduced however by some, albeit substantial, factor to cater for the increase in the average interatomic spacing and increased by the factor 1836 because two protons will have that much stronger gravitational interaction than applies between electron and proton. N is very large indeed and so I can see that in a star the gravitational energy potential has far greater magnitude than the sum of the electrical potentials of its constituent atoms.

Does this alter my case about there needing to be two space curvature systems? No it does not. So I still cannot accept Glazewski's proposition. Gravitation just has to be a secondary effect linked somehow to the electrical properties of the particles involved.

How does one then justify that evidence on which Blackett based his thought that here was support for a general law relating gravity and magnetism? Well, let me say that, in the event, Blackett soon thereafter did an experiment in which he mounted a large gold test specimen in a test position well removed from extraneous electrical interference and sought to sense the magnetic field it might produce solely owing to its rotation with body Earth. He thought that the high density of gold meant a higher concentration of matter and so the action producing that magnetic field. He obtained a null result and so abandoned the idea that there could be such a fundamental relationship.

I was later to discover that the seat of the magnetic field produced by matter rotating is actually the aether which shares that rotation. That aether is not concentrated as a direct proportional function of the density of matter and so the Blackett experiment was not definitive in proving that rotating objects do not generate magnetic fields. That triple, sun-star-earth, formulation still needed explanation as a link between G and magnetic moment/angular momentum ratio.

That explanation emerged when I considered how a star might form, assuming that the event was akin to there being a God who could throw a switch and turn on gravity. Another assumption amounting to much the same thing is that gravity, like magnetism in iron, switches on as the medium (the aether for gravity and the iron for magnetism) cools through what amounts to a Curie temperature at which energy can find a more stable state. So I thought that there was an event governing the creation of every star when all the dispersed plasma comprising free protons and free electrons suddenly felt the force of gravity. Now two protons will pull together under gravity with a rate of acceleration that is 1836 times that governing how an electron is pulled towards a proton. It follows that the primordial star will find itself positively charged by a preponderance of protons at least for a period before those slowly accelerated electrons can catch up. So during that period the equilibrium between electric repulsion and gravitational attraction means that the star will have an amount of positive charge which equates to the square root of G times the mass of that star. Here then is the clue to what Blackett described.

Of course, it needs something else to explain why that transient state can persist as a seemingly stable situation so as to allow the star to exhibit the magnetic moment. The answer came from my aether theory. I had discovered, in explaining the photon, that a sphere of aether in a state of spin will develop a radial electric field owing to it acquiring a distributed charge. Conversely, this meant that if one could establish an electric field radial from a spin axis in a sphere of aether then that sphere would spin as a whole about that axis. The star, in forming, had such an electric field and so its aether must spin. That would cause the star as a whole to spin and that would lock in the intrinsic electric charge action and the rotation could then account for the magnetic moment of the star, all in conformity with the Blackett picture.

This began to make sense when the aether spin was seen as a radial charge displacement, c.f. linear electric displacement in Maxwell's theory and the theory we use in explaining capacitance and dielectric porperties of parallel plate capacitors. Those surplus electrons, when they arrived, would sit at the spherical (ionospheric) boundaries of the star's aether and cancel the surface charge component of that displacement, whereas the distributed charge in the body of the star, being a balance of aether-induced charge and the charge of those excess protons, would cancel within the body so far as direct electric action is concerned. However, the magnetic action would not cancel, because aether charge does not generate a magnetic field, inasmuch as a magnetic field is the disturbance of the aether by material forms of charge in motion.

I have said enough to outline the interpretation I placed on the subject. There is more to read in these web pages on the subject, including more details about the Schuster-Wilson hypothesis which had interested Blackett. See particularly Chapter 5 of my 1960 book The Theory of Gravitation and particularly Chapter 6 of the 1966 second edition of that work.

Here I mention what I see as a mere assertion in Glazewski's account of gravity, namely his words:

"As G is a tensor, being reckoned from the Einstein computation, it can be easily shown that the stress-strain relationship is of vital importance. In the light of the tensorial concept of G, space, whatever size we take, atomic or astronomic, is not an isotropic but an anisotropic medium, in which the gravitational forces are differently distributed along different co-ordinates. Actually, astronomical space as an anisotropic medium can be compared with to a crystalline lattice (of an astronomical size), where this lattice is anistropic just because the gravity fields of the space between the molecules are differently distributed. The above statement is essential for the understanding of the nature of gravity and further development of the theory."

I draw attention to this because my own theory of the aether is based on a crystal-like structure, but one which is isotropic in form, apart that is for the microstructure down at the level of the lattice dimension, which is less than 10^-10 cm, somewhat smaller than the Compton wavelength of the electron, but very much larger than the physical size of the electron or the atomic nucleus and yet smaller than the innermost electron orbital radii within an atom. I shudder at the thought of trying to explain electrical forces down at that sub-microscopic level in terms of gravitation and space-time curvature.

Indeed, I wonder what the Reverend Father Glazewski might have said had he studied the writings of a century early by the Reverend Samuel Earnshaw. Earnshaw set out to investigate the possibility that the aether had a crystalline type of structure by assuming that it comprised subtle particles that exerted forces on one another according to a variety of assumed force laws, including the familiar inverse square law that governs gravity or electric forces.

Earnshaw's Theorem which emerged from that effort made it clear that no system of spaced particles could be held in a stable structure solely owing to their interactions being subject to such a force law. So if a crystal-like structure is the microcosmic form of the aether then one needs to introduce something to defeat this constraint. That something is a continuum which itself is the seat of action that asserts force on the particles forming the structure, such as might exist if a kind of uniform background gaseous medium of very much finer composition permeates all the interstices within that structure. To evolve such a picture of the aether one needed to say that the particles all repelled one another as did the elements forming that gaseous background, but that to hold things together in a kind of neutral state the continuum and the particles had to be mutually attractive. That was the course I followed but it was one which said that the basic source of the force action had to vest in electric charge, because that provides the separate attraction and repulsion features. Gravity just has to be a secondary phenomenon.

So, if the tensor feature was linked to gravity and the stress-strain pattern of the medium to satisfy the Einstein principles and that tensor form implied structure, especially anisotropic structure, then the Earnshaw principles could be in conflict, a factor which militates in favour of the dominant electrical action based on a continuum-particle model of the aether.

I shall now end this Research Note by explaining why I am reacting at this time to the Reverend Father Glazewski publication and that Seminar presentation delivered by Dr. Kyritsis at Lancaster University.

In both cases there is a lack of that something that one can say is the 'punch line', meaning that element of surprise that shines through as a confirming point. In my own writings I have held off publishing ideas as such and waited until I have had something special to say as my 'punch line' contribution. So many authors of scientific papers project their ideas, often in complicated mathematical form, and end leaving the reader wondering whether he or she has been left with a puzzle to sort out themselves. There seems to be some kind of impulsive desire to write papers and burden people with one's thoughts, aimed at generating rapport and interest amongst the many, but creating nothing but a state of chaos in the scientific literature. If there are gems in the collections of published work that adorn university library shelves, then those gems rely on regular polishing so as to be noticed. That act of polishing amounts to attracting publicity by organized advertising in the form of the author's participation in select conference groupings, given that the proponents have the time and funding to keep their gems well burnished. Alternatively, the author needs a champion who can keep the shine on things, often by promoting interest in his or her own work.

All I am saying is that there are a few 'jewels in the crown' that are ignored by the scientific community at large and, putting it as modestly as I can, that what I describe in these web pages amounts, in my opinion, to a chart giving access to a real treasure which the scientific community would do well to inspect. I accept that some of the jewels may need to be reset or perhaps reshaped, but my ultimate point is that if you set out in search of sunken treasure you need to probe the depths of that great ocean we inhabit, namely the 'aether', rather than set out on futile missions into outer space in search of the truths which regulate our physics here and now on body Earth.

As I post this Research Note on the web I shall also load the pages pertaining to the full text of my 1960 publication entitled The Theory of Gravitation. Some of the notions there presented may seem naive, but I hope they will be instructive. I fell into a few traps laid by the false foundations prevalent in academic teaching, such as the formulation of the form of a magnetic field attributed to a discrete charge in motion, when no experiment has ever verified that such a field exists. Bear in mind that we never 'see' that field, we only sense the action that electric charge in motion has on other such charge in motion and we always perform those tests with at least one of those charges being part of a collective act in a troop of charges moving around a closed path. When I woke up to some of those errors I began to discover the real gems of my collection. There was one 'error' I thought I had made that was not an error when seen in retrospect. I explained A in terms of B and then found that later I had a second explanation for A in terms of C. I thought one had to be wrong and it confused me for a while, until I eventually realized that I had discovered that both explanations are correct, subject to ... well, that is a puzzle you can enjoy probing yourself if you are interested in what I have said about Blackett's proposition. It concerns the radius of the aether rotating with a planet and sharing its motion about the sun.

I know there are some planets in our solar system that may not comply with that Schuster-Wilson proposition that interested Blackett. There are secondary effects to consider and the consequences of an aether adapting to the motion of the matter constituting the planet. The question of the radius of the aether form that shares the spin of the planet and the possible internal precession of the aether spin relative to the planetary spin is a fascinating consideration. Therefore, even for those more interested in space research and planets, there is scope for taking my findings forward, beginning by reading that 1960 The Theory of Gravitation in the light of my recent 1996 work Aether Science Papers.

Harold Aspden
October 8, 1998