On the Concept of Constant Photosensitive Speed of Light

© 2013 Federico Talens-Alesson.

PREFACE.

This post differs somewhat from the previous ones on the subject, but to my surprise it is not as different as I would expect. So, instead of erase the previous one about variable speed of light, which included the notion of a detectable speed of light (although I had forgotten that) I will leave it as a previous take on the idea.

INTRODUCTION.

The speed of light is regarded as constant. As a consequence, it is assumed that when the gravity of stellar bodies warps light trajectories, it does so because the space has a structure and this is warped by gravity. Similarly, some masses with large gravitational fields have been found, which have been regarded to be “black holes”: massive stars where space is bent so strongly that light cannot leave.

Light arrives at such constant speed, irrespective of the direction. This is peculiar, because if the speed of light is constant, then the combination of its speed and the speed of the Earth should give variable aggregate velocities of impact of light on sensors. Which it does not.

The fact that light coming from different stars may show spectral shifts is explained away assuming there is a continuity in the wave, moving along with the originating star and causing some form of wave compression due to the change of distance between the origin and the target.

One problem with this is that the wave would not be aligned to the original position of the star: by now it should have realigned to match the present location of the star at the time of impact of the photon against the sensor. Astrophysicist do not pretend that the positions of the stars we see are their present ones, therefore there is something wrong with this idea of the wave displacement.

Another problem is that the distance the star as moved towards or away from Earth is actually very small compared with the distance between the star and Earth. Does it make sense to believe that the shift could be observed.

I am going to propose an alternative explanation to the constancy of the speed of light and the spectral shifts in stellar bodies.

TRANSPARENCY, OPACITY AND PHOTOSENSITIVITY.

The proposition is simple: only light in a given speed, roughly 300,000 km/s ±5 km/s (error assumed on the basis that some false alarm on neutrinos faster than the speed of light was later dismissed as being within experimental error), where the measure error may overlap and mask the existence of a range of speeds instead of a unique speed, can affect electrons in materials in such a way as to cause some “sensor” effect. Other speeds would find the materials either opaque or transparent. There may be heat effects there, but in neither case the incoming photons will be able to make a photosensitive impression. The reasoning is linked to basic structure of matter, and to heating during friction and impact between objects.

We accept that the matter of an atom is essentially an emptiness defined by an electromagnetic phenomenon (the atom) which excludes other atoms from its domain, and which defines its relative position with respect to adjacent atoms by means of inter atomic interactions. This positional correlation defines the structure of the matter, and for the purpose of this discussion, of the solid matter. It follows that the atoms at the surface of a body of solid material in a vacuum also create an exclusion zone, even though this one is not “in use” because there is no adjacent matter outside the body. This means that, if another body of solid matter is placed in “contact” with the first, it is not so in the way that we perceive visually: their contact is reaching the distance at which their mutual exclusions prevent them from getting closer. This does not mean that the atoms physically touch, but that they keep each other at arms length.

Then why is heat generated by friction or impact between solid objects? It must generate (both objects experience it, therefore it cannot be transferred) from the fact that their electromagnetic “entities” interact as they approach. Their electromagnetic fields must influence each other and cause the atoms to vibrate (thus gaining energy). This happens whether the atoms collide head on, or whether they slide alongside. The lower the relative speed at which the electromagnetic fields approach, the lower the interaction and the heat. Less condensed phases (lubricants) interposed between then reduce the braking and high generation of heat between the surfaces. Although still this takes place, the fact that the lubricant experiences shear and thus its relative velocity to the surface (and that of its component atoms) is lower and has also a lower atom density causes the interaction to be weaker and the heat generation to be less.

If we accept therefore that the approach of the electromagnetic manifestations of the atoms causes the heat, and therefore that approaching electromagnetic manifestations will interact with each other, we can make the following proposition.

An approaching photon (or other relativistic particle) may, as it comes close enough to condensed matter, begin to interact as an electromagnetic manifestation with the matter's electromagnetic matrix. This interaction may result in two easily recognized optic results: transparency and opacity. We know that ordinary glass rebounds UV radiation, although visible light will go through. We know that a brick wall will stop most photon based radiations. However, let us assume that photosensitive behaviour is not a particular property of some opaque materials, but the property of a third group of materials which are neither opaque or transparent. While opaque materials will rebound a given photon, and transparent materials will let it squeeze through its electromagnetic matrix without significant influence over its electronic structure (a particular case being light polarisation), a photosensitive material will allow the photon to come close to the electronic structure of its constituent atoms for electronic changes to take place.

The proposition in this paper is that a relative speed of light in the rough range 300,000 km/s ± 5 km/s is required for photonic impacts leading to electronic alterations. Only those can cause photonic detection and, therefore, only such speeds of light can be perceived.

CONCLUSIONS.

The implications are straightforward: when photons swing as the go past the Sun due to its gravitational field, we still see then as incoming at 300,000 km/s because only those at such speed (or range of speeds) can be detected. No need for a curvature of space to preserve the constancy of the speed of light.

Spectral shift shall a consequence of the aggregate photon+Earth speed. Astrophysicists claim we move at about 70,000 km/hr. This is about 20 km/s. Logically, if the speed of light was constant, then the detected velocity would not be, because Earth would be moving and direct collision courses would imply faster than the speed of light, and “chase” courses would mean slower than the speed of light. But if the detected speed of light is constant, then the photons striking from the various directions would have different velocities. As a consequence, only those fraction arriving at an aggregate speed of 300,000 km/s will be detected. Such fractions will be different if we are talking about (300,020 – 20) km/s or (299,980 + 20) km/s. That would be the origin of the spectral shift.

Different mass stars would slow down their light more if they are larger. A red star with lower mass will have red light predominating at 300,000 km/s because other lights would come to us to fast. A white star like our Sun will brake too much part of its red light, would would brake some of its blue light so that it is in the visible range. A blue giant would hold red/yellow light too much and blue would predominate at the 300,000 km/s speed. A black star, which would not be a hole or anything, simply would brake all its potential visible light too much and, as a consequence, none will be actually visible, being below the 300,000 km/s speed.

IMPLICATIONS

There would be no curvature of space, and therefore no wormholes or subspace. No SciFi travelling to distant galaxies.

We would have no information on the motion of stars and galaxies from their spectral shifts, and would have no idea where they are now.

The stars being different colors because of gravity implies there is no reason they are on different nuclear reaction cycles: they could be in the same more or less "eternal" cycle of fission/fusion reactions involving the materials on their chores (my blog Stellar Chemistry proposes that stars have planet-like cores of heavy elements within their much huger atmospheres). Novas and supernovas would be particular cases where these cycles allow for some reactions leading to runaway sequences.

In a nutshell, a far more boring Universe than many thought. But I am actually quite a boring guy, so that would be my kind of take on it.....

IDEAS ON THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND DOPPLER EFFECT.

IDEAS ON THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND DOPPLER EFFECT.

© 2013 Federico Talens-Alesson

Experimental error

Not long ago there was a news item about neutrinos faster than light by about 5 km/s. Then it was reported that the discrepancy was due to experimental error.

However, what the error means is that it is not possible to tell apart between 300,000 and 300,005 km/s. This in turns means that it is not possible to tell apart between 300,000 and 299,995 km/s. In other words, between 299,995 and 300,005 km/s it would not be possible to decide whether two speeds of light are different or not.

The problem is that it also means that it is not possible to tell if there is a range of speeds like, for example, from 299,998 km/s to 300,003 km/s instead of a SINGLE speed of light. Also, there is another factor being ignored.

Detection limits

In order to detect light, it must impact on a sensor and cause an effect. What if there is a lower speed limit for a significant interaction to occur, and an upper speed limit for enough contact time for an interaction to occur (Figure 1)?

The concept of “impact” in a classical way does not make sense, because atoms are actually embodiments of energy well apart from each other within matter, which is mostly void. “Impact” would mean “sufficiently close” near-encounter for an interaction between a passing photon and an electron of a nearby atom to exist. Magnetism is related to electrical charges in motion, and therefore an electromagnetic phenomenon like light may well depend on the “energy” of the electromagnetic package and the relative speed it moves by the target (the sensor). Figure 2 shows an schematic.

Relative movement

If Earth is moving across space at a certain speed (about kilometres per second), it is moving towards some sources of light and away from others. Those sources have fired away photons in Earth's trajectory, like bullets from the machine gun of aircraft, or torpedoes from warships. Some of these photons keep hitting the sensors on the surface or orbiting Earth (Figure 3).

Notice that the established theory makes spectral displacement dependent on both the motions of the origin and destination of the light. The idea is to pretend that there is a wave “connecting” both, and that it must compress or expand to respect the change in distance and the constancy in the number of fluctuations in the wave. This means that the wavelength must change.

This is actually nonsense because the photons which eventually are impacting on a sensor are fired away independently, and this means from different atoms in the originating star. Therefore each would have their own “link” between source and destination. Of course, this is not true: if you hold a flash light, switch it on and off, and have somebody staring at it afterwards, he will not see or be part of any electromagnetic continuum across time and space. Photons are not linked to their source's fate, whether displacement or destruction. Therefore, their properties cannot be, either.

Also, if the photons would be “linked” to their source atom, the conclusion would be that the wave path would be linked to the movement of the atom and any relevant restrictions, like the impossibility of the wave to cross forbidden regions like the core of the star itself (on account of Tyndall effect). The trajectory of the wave would have some strange spiral form. (Figure 4).

The only likely effect of an approaching object would be brightening, whereas a receding object would dim. This would not alter the characteristics of specific photons, but the amount of them by unit of area and time, assuming that the difference between the speed of light and the speed of the stellar body did not make this approaching/receding irrelevant. (Figure 5)

The only reason this is pretended (that there is a link between light Doppler effect and the relative motion of two bodies in space) is that the alternative is that we do not know on what direction cosmic bodies go. That would not be a bread winner for astrophysicists.

Incoming photons travelling at some of the possible speeds of light impact against sensor which is moving itself. This means each photon will have an relative impact speed, and this speed will define whether the sensor detects it or not, pretty much like speed radars may be unable to detect cars travelling too fast.

Because of the various bearings of the incoming photons and Earth's own movement, photons “chasing” Earth will travel at a lower impact speed than photons colliding head on, which would hit sensors faster (Figure 6). As a consequence, “head-on” photons will impact at higher speeds and it is possible to assume that faster (higher energy) photons within these would be too fast or energetic (“shift to the red”). “Chasing” photons will impact at lower speeds and slower (lower energy) photons will be too slow or weak (“shift to the blue”).

This would be consistent with a different view of red-white-blue stars. Smaller stars would would “fire away” faster photons than larger stars. As a consequence, the fast/high energy photons of a red dwarf will be equivalent to “head on” photons: to fast to be detected. The slow/low energy photons of a blue giant will be equivalent to “chasing” photons: too slow to make an impression (Figure 7).

It goes without saying that the situation would be exactly the opposite to current understanding. But there is a strong argument for my theory: I do not need space to have an structure and fold due to gravity. Gravity can affect the trajectory of photons because they have some mass, the constancy of the speed of light is explained because it is the constancy of detectable light, and space can be just void. In fact, it allows to consider space folding as a reduction to absurd, which is what it looks from a common sense point of view.

This opens an alternative explanation to black holes: these would be black stars because due to the high gravity the light would be “out of range”. I personally believe it more likely that black stars exist because a partial explosion vented the region of their atmosphere which would support the solar corona, causing them to be unable to produce light at all, but their light being completely out of speed range is still an alternative, or part of the overall explanation.

COLOURLESS LIGHT: SKY BLUE AND OTHER COLOURS ARE ALL IN THE MIND

THE ILLUSION OF COLOUR: AN EXAMPLE OF DISSOCIATIONIST PERCEPTION IN SCIENCE.

©2013 Federico I. Talens-Alesson

FOREWORD

This document supports the idea of colour fictionalism, elaborating on the question of why the colour of the sky is blue and the proposition that colours are created in the human mind. It is adduced as evidence of this being so that people who have consumed LSD perceive colours, sounds and smells that do not exist outside them, and on the nature of altered colour perceptions, and in particular of tritanopia. While amongst philosophers colour fictionalism has a following, this is not generally the case, and perusing physics and physiology tracts it is evident that the basic position is that colour exists.

REFUTATION OF THE CLASSIC EXPLANATION ON THE COLOUR OF THE SKY

The Classic view on why the sky is blue

The argument is based on a known physical phenomenon: Tyndall Effect. Simplifying, higher energy photons crossing a fluid medium, even a gas, have a higher probability of being deflected from their original trajectory. The deflection may also be by a larger angle. According to this, when light comes to us sideways and not from the direction of the sun, then the chances are that bluish-greenish photons would be more abundant than reddish-yellowish photons. This is also given as an argument for the prevailing green-blue colour of the earth from space, which is also attributed to Tyndall Effect.

Objections to the theory (I): Subliminality

While photons descending through the atmosphere travel some scores of km, photons coming sideways may have travelled hundreds of kilometres: that our focal distance prevents us from seeing far away objects does not mean that individual photons which have come from far away cannot be detected by our eyes. So the question is why should not those more frequent bluish photons be further deflected before they reach our eyes, while the less frequent yellowish photons manage to make it over longer distances. This should somehow balance photon distribution.

Also, we have to consider that air, not being a continuous fluid (molecules of gas are separated from each other, unlike in liquids) provides an uneven and changing pattern for the positions of those molecules that are a) deflecting a photon; b) deflecting it in the direction of the beholder's eye and c) deflecting it so that it arrives simultaneously with the other photons of a given “image”.

Therefore, we are seeing a series of differently positioned sets of points of different “colours” against a background of “no light”. It should be obvious that no individual image will “last” enough to be perceived: all off them will be subliminal images. Therefore, we should not be seeing any of them.

Although each image should be a series of colour points on a black background, the perception of light works in such way that the brain decides to see “white light” if a threshold of incoming radiation has been reached. Beyond that point, another threshold is reached where we see colours Therefore, we should be aware of the incoming of enough photons to generate the idea that there is light, but not the presence of specific colours because of subliminality, even if there is a predominant colour amongst them.

Figure 1. Top: More easily deflected photons coming from further away again have a higher probability of being further deflected.  Bottom: photons coming into the eye at a given time do not need to have the same colour distribution over the vision area. Neither any of the "images" can last enough to be consciously observed.

Objections to the theory (II): Tritanopia and LSD as proofs of subjective assignment of colour to light wavelengths.

Tritanopia is a case of altered colour perception. Unlike the forms of Daltonism, it is not hereditary, and affects both women and men, with a frequency of about 1 in 10,000. The particular characteristic of tritanopia is that the persons affected perceive substantial amounts of blue colour in the region they also perceive yellow. And they have a weak perception of blue when normally sighted people would see this colour This leads to yellow being perceived as white, red and orange being purplish and rosey-purplish, and green being bluish green. Blue is also a bluish green hue, and violet is again purplish. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 Top left: tritanopia “rainbow”. Top right: result of removing blue from tritanopic spectrum. Bottom right: Normal sighted. Bottom left: result of adding blue to normal sighted. It can be seen that tritanopic and blue-loaded “normal” differ in the three bottom colours. On the other hand, removing blue from tritanopic spectrum leaves the four top colours equal from normal sighted. The difference between tritanopics and normally sighted is then that tritanopics perceive substantial blue over the four top colours and less than normal for the two bottom colours.

Colour is detected by cone cells in the eye, which change their electrical properties due to state transitions in specific molecules present in them. The brain receives the result of these conductivity alterations and then makes its on decisions on what colour to flag as “seen”. Notice that the photon does not “travel” through the optic nerve: the only evidence the brain has of a incoming light event is that conductivity in the cells involved in detecting it has changed.

Tritanopia is regarded as the consequence of an absence of S cones. But the fact is that a tritanopic spectre is composed of a region where blue is not seen sufficiently (the blue-violet range) and a region where it is seen and should not (the red-green range). There would be an explanation (Figure 3): the neurons which should be processing S cone signals are now processing M or L cone signals, which causes them to respond to a long wavelength detection input by producing blue colour. That is, the colour created by the brain is consequence of an input which has nothing to do with the wavelength.

Figure 3. Spectra for normal colour perception and several partial colour blindness  It can be seen that they all could be explained by brain cells being connected to the wrong kind of cone cells in the absence of one of the kinds. (From http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/)

Protanopia and deuteranopia, respectively the absence of L and M cone cells would also lead to the same “wrong wiring” problem, in which M cells would be wired to the brain as L or even S cones and vice versa.: L cones would be wired as M or S cones.

Therefore, colours do not depend on the actual energy of the light detected, but on what sensors are available and how they are wired to the brain. Tritanopia and Daltonism show that the connection between light and colour is not direct, but subjective. This is reinforced by evidence from people who have experimented with LSD: they perceive colours, sounds and even smells which are “not there”. Stimuli sent by means of a variety of stimuli lead to the occurrence of colour in the mind.

Tritanopia is the condition on which I have focused because it relates to the “right” colour: blue. There is no obvious reason to reject the idea that, by default, normally sighted people are affected by an altered perception of colour themselves. In particular, the perception by default of a small amount of blue colour in the absence of actual colour perception. To begin with, in conditions of twilight, it would be hard to see how to differentiate between black and white vision (as it is assumed to happen) and black and pale blue vision. I discuss this in the next section.

Objections to the Theory(III): Colours do not add up.

Let us go back to the idea that the Tyndall effect is behind the colour of the sky and also the planet. The theory is that the Sun emits white light, some of it is scattered (blue/green) and that gives the colour of Earth from space.

There is a problem: if some blue-green light is bounced back into space, then the light within Earth's atmosphere should be yellower-redder (Figure 4). This means that the light coming straight down would be even redder, because some additional blue light would be deflected at least sideways. Nevertheless, at any point of the atmosphere, the composition of the radiations crossing there from any directions will be still yellower-redder than the original sun light, and conform to the resultant of white light minus of outbound lost blue-green. Which means we ought to see the clouds (which are scatterers of light) yellowish.

Figure 4. Top: the white light of the Sun. Middle: Upwards scattering causes the light to become yellower. Clouds, by interception downfalling light and laterally scattered light  should themselves scatter an averaged yellowish light. As discussed above, the sky should not have a colour, only be light/white. Bottom: the brain adds by default some blue: the sky turns blue and the late morning clouds are white.

But we see them white during normal daytime. And we see the sky blue. A default shift to blue by our brain would explain that: yellow clouds would be white, and white sky would then be blue. There is no obvious reason why the default value for an arbitrary creation of the mind to have a zero default value. Of course, there is also the question of whether the Sun is actually emitting white light, and not yellow, and that we think it is white because of own blue correction. This would mean that, if there were colours (which I propose there aren't), then Earth would actually be mostly a shade of yellows, with water being white (we would see it blue partially because of our eye correction) and landmasses yellow (we would see them green because of our blue correction) or yellow-reddish.

SENSES AND PERCEPTION.

Our ears contain a membrane which vibrates under shock waves, and causes two tiny bones to action. This causes again vibration to a fluid-filled conduit, which in turns fires nerve response through its fluctuation. There are here two disconnects: whatever change between the original vibration propagated through air and the vibration in the liquid-filled conduit, and whatever correlation exists between the second vibration and the response triggered on the nerves. Together with our knowledge that people under the influence of LSD “hear” sounds, then the actual sound is created again in our mind, exactly as colours The same would be the case with smells.

However, even though logically we should see this to be the case, the usual perception is that colours, sounds and smells exist by themselves. This is much influenced by empiricist and pragmatist mentalities, and in particular by the tendency to dissociate phenomena, leaving out aspects of it, and to support the idea that particular conditions and exceptions abound.

For example, while in principle the fact that colour generation can be triggered chemically through the blood streams feeding the brain cells should suggest that stimuli from the nervous systems also trigger colour generation as an internal brain experience, it would be typical from an empiricist point of view to claim that chemically induced, internal generation of colour is an aberration, and that all other means of colour perception relate to an outside existence of colour, ignoring the fact that light received by the eye ceases to be an active part of the phenomenon of sight once it excites cone cells, and from then on it is about electrical change across the nervous system.

A typical example of this dissociative outlook is attributing to the properties of the chemicals in the cone cells the quality to define if a given colour of light is detected or not. There are about 5 million of cone cells (million more or less) per eye. That means that harvesting the photopsins from a human being would yield 10 million molecules. Thus, for a micromol of each photopsin so that we can conduct a spectrophotometric test, which is roughly half a million billion billions of molecules, we would need the eyes of 50 thousand billion human beings. Obviously, this has not been done.

What testing has been done has involved the response of the combination of the human eye, the optic nerve, and the brain of individuals. While certain conditions can be isolated and a particularity of perception related to them (people without a lens in their eye sometimes can see UV), the fact is there is no reason to reject the idea that the brain decides to acknowledge certain values of voltage for certain photopsins, consequence of the wiring of the cone cells to it through the nervous system.

This dissociation is something which I found at the time of publishing my last papers in chemistry journals and my first blogs (as a consequence of being unable to carry on publishing). The underlying subject (unrelated to the present topic) was that a given property called the surface excess of a chemical in solution (its concentration at the surface of the liquid, so to say) was responsible for a number of phenomena: solute-related light absorption of a solution and solubility of solutes in solvents, to name two. Reviewers with a dissociationist perspective (strong in chemistry where it is very common for practitioners to deny that there can ever be an underlying factor to a range of phenomena).

As a consequence, more than in discussing “realist” perceptions (whether colour exists or is a figment of our imagination), I thought this exercise would be useful to illustrate dissociationist perception: the overlooking of factors which should be taken into account when trying to find an explanation for a phenomenon.