ENERGY SCIENCE ESSAY NO. 13
THE CRYSTALLINE VACUUM
Copyright, Harold Aspden, 1998
Introduction
In the January 30, 1998 issue of SCIENCE,
vol. 279, pp 675-676 and pp. 686-689, there are two articles concerning the
discovery that ions can form into a crystal-like cubic array in a cold plasma.
The experimental technique by which the crystal structure is detected is quite
interesting as is the fact that it has an intrinsic tendency to
rotate.
Now, this is particularly interesting to me because I have, over
the years, been advocating the belief that the vacuum itself is a very cold
ionized medium having a crystalline structure and that it is the rotation or
rather spin of a small 3x3x3 cubic element of such a structure that really
constitutes what we know as the 'photon'.
Furthermore, I have, in my
writings, drawn attention to the fact that it is the rotation of large
spherically bound forms of such a vacuum structure that accounts for the
rotation of stars and, indeed, planets, as well as explaining their magnetic
properties. I have regarded the event of the cooling of that ionized world of
'free space' as forming the crystal structure, which by analogy with the onset
of ferromagnetism as iron cools below its Curie temperature is the event which
initiates the related action we refer to as 'gravitation'. Indeed, the onset of
gravitation is the event which, in lieu of the so-called 'Big Bang', nucleates
the protons dispersed throughout space and forms the stars. The initial
concentration of positive charge in that way sets up the radial electric fields
which act upon the cold and structured space plasma to promote the rotation
which is imparted to stars at birth.
All that is mere theory, but theory
from which I have developed a truly wonderful unifying account of the
fundamental features of the aetherial world which we inhabit.
In recent
times I have seen developments on the 'New Energy' front which have further
encouraged my efforts and provided what I regard as confirmation of my
theoretical efforts. So it was that I developed a particular interest in claims
concerning the anomalous generation of electrical power as if by tapping the
energy of the environment by techniques using plasma discharges of a special
kind. One such technique reveals ionized plasma spheres, charge clusters, which
seemingly defy what can be expected using standard physical
principles.
In my own experiments in which I had a magnetic rotor
spinning I sensed an anomalous inertial effect which I could attribute in
quantitative and qualitative terms to the induction of a radial electric field
which in turn induced 'aether spin' or what one could call 'vacuum
spin'.
That said, it came as a pleasant surprise when I received a letter
dated April 10, 1998 from Dr. Gerald Lindley of Manchester, Connecticut, USA,
drawing my attention to those two articles in the January 30, 1998 issue of
SCIENCE. He claimed that what is disclosed in those articles is "enough
to falsify and disprove the charge cluster hypothesis of Jin and Fox plus
Shoulders, King and Aspden."
I use the word 'pleasant' because it is
pleasing to be informed that the model of the simple cubic structure that I
developed for the old but yet energy-active vacuum has been found to have an
analogous counterpart in the ionized matter form. It is pleasing to see that
rotation develops naturally in such a medium. Also, in some respects, it is
pleasing to receive criticism, rather that being ignored, because that then
excites a greater interest in one's onward efforts to unravel whatever it is
that hides us from the truth.
This, therefore, is my introduction to this
Essay No. 13. I feel that I can now present my comments concerning aether,
photons and 'vacuum spin' energy with more chance of being given a hearing than
hitherto and I appreciate Dr. Lindley's consideration for drawing those
SCIENCE articles to my attention, notwithstanding a certain lack of grace
in his assertion that "The charge cluster hypothesis of ... and Aspden is
totally absurd" and that "The entire charge cluster hypothesis is falsified,
disproved, demolished, torn to shreds, blown to pieces, smashed, annihilated and
obliterated."
The Crystal Structure of the Vacuum Medium
The 'vacuum
medium', otherwise known as the 'aether', is a cold neutral ionized plasma that
has such a perfect crystalline form that it cannot be 'seen' or 'felt' as a
medium resisting force. In fact it responds so easily in its reaction to
invasion by matter that it dissolves its structure and reforms that structure in
the wake of matter that does move through it. These are mere words, but they
will be converted into a formal physical description once we explore the
structural form of the aether and connect that to observable phenomena.
I
will build my case by reference to the second of those articles in SCIENCE,
namely that by Itano et al at p. 686 of Vol. 279, 30 January 1998.
That
article begins by saying:
"Plasmas, the ionized states of matter, are usually hot and
gaseous. However, a sufficiently cold or dense plasma can be liquid or solid.
A one-component plasma (OCP) consists of a single charged species embedded in
a uniform, neutralizing background charge. Aside from its intrinsic interest
as a simple model of matter, the OCP may be a good model for some dense
astrophysical plasmas, such as the crusts of neutron stars or the interiors of
white dwarfs, where nuclei are embedded in a degenerate electron
gas."
Well, that is a good introduction to an interesting topic in
physics in this year 1998. However, something very similar was seen by me, back
in the early years of the 1950s, when I was trying to devise a model which I
could apply to a ferromagnetic crystal in a way which could account for the
magnetic polarization of the magnetic domains inside the body-centred crystal
structure of iron. That model had a version that regarded one solitary electron
in each atom as moving in synchrony with corresponding electrons in adjacent
atoms, each contributing to the ferromagnetic saturation in the host
domain.
My model was an 'OCP', a one-component plasma, that being
initially the easiest case to treat mathematically. I did, however, abandon the
'OCP' model when I saw that two electrons per atom had to cooperate in the
co-ordinated motion. I was not worried about the fact that the 3d electrons in
the atom are the ones responsible for the ferromagnetic state, but only have an
orbital motion able to contribute two Bohr magnetons per atom. My reason was
that I knew (a) that the measured value was 2.221 Bohr magnetons and (b) that
there was something wrong with the existing theory and that in fact that
magnetic moment was really double the value normally assumed. So, I had my
sights on a contribution per atom of 8 Bohr magnetons which my intuition, based
on the need to keep magnetostrictive strain within the bounds of sensible
theory, said was flipping between the three axial directions in the body-centred
structure. That meant that, on average, there would be 2.667 Bohr magnetons
developing the primary polarization in one crystal axis direction, with the
lateral transient polarizing effects compensating to zero. It further meant
that, since I had established by my theoretical probing that the prevailing
primary polarization effect would set up a half-cancelling reaction confronting
the instantaneous 8 Bohr magneton field, then half of 2.667, divided by 3, would
be the true mean offset. That said that the 2.667 Bohr magnetons per atom of the
iron crystal would be offset by 0.444 Bohr magnetons to give, overall, a net
effect of 2.222 Bohr magnetons.
The experimental value was 2.221 Bohr
magnetons and so, as you can imagine, I was rather pleased with this discovery,
especially when I got similar results for nickel and cobalt which have a
different crystal structure. That work was eventually published, but it was
frowned upon by the referee physicists who saw themselves as experts in
magnetism. After all, I was suggesting that there is a universal reaction to any
primary magnetic field and that it acts to half-cancel that field.
To me,
given that a unit measure is unity, it is not that outrageous to suggest that
unity is 2 minus 1, especially when that unity reaction can be the action which
feeds inductance energy back to a solenoid when power is switched off. However,
those experts had somehow convinced themselves that ferromagnetism in iron comes
from something called 'electron spin' and here I was suggesting it all came from
the orbital motion of electrons! Add to that the fact that a discerning referee
could well have sensed that I was talking about a real field reaction seated in
a real aether and it is no wonder that I was left to wander in the scientific
wilderness.
I did wander and I also wondered about that 'OCP' model of
mine, eventually seeing this, not as the kind of structure to expect in a
neutron star, whatever that is, but rather the very structure that must exist in
the aether itself!
That is how my all-embracing unified 'field' theory
was born, because that 'OCP' model of the vacuum medium, with its structural
features, yielded a valid theoretical account of the fine-structure
constant.
A point vital to this onward discourse, however, is that I
discovered that the structure of the vacuum is not body-centred-cubic, as it is
in the ionized plasma of the experiments reported in that article in SCIENCE.
No, the vacuum has a simple cubic structure, not body-centred (bcc) and not
face-centred (fcc)! If you wonder why, then ask yourself what determines the
(bcc) structure in the real crystals we see around us.
The answer is that
atoms in a solid bond together owing to some overlap in the electron entourage
and so, in effect, all crystals are, in some respects, ionized plasma forms,
though one does not use that terminology. In the cold plasma experiments of that
article in SCIENCE, one can assert quite authoritatively that the crystal
structure that develops is governed by 'least energy' considerations.
Now
the problem with applying such theory to real matter is that we can build
material systems in which the internal electric potential has a negative value.
Take a cube of positive charge which is distributed uniformly throughout that
cube and put a particle having a compensating negative charge at the very centre
of that cube and you have a model of a material cell in that 'OCP' plasma form.
Work out the electric potential energy attributable to the interaction between
the positive and negative charges and the self-interaction as between the
distributed elements of that positive charge. This net energy potential governs
the position adopted by that negative charge within that cubic cell. It has a
minimum when the charge is at the centre of the cell, but that minimum value is
a negative quantity!
One needs to do work to displace the negative charge
from the centre of that cube, but you will find that the overall potential
becomes positive before the negative charge reaches a cube face. However, if the
potential can be negative then that negative charge will come to rest at the
cube centre.
If negative potential is permitted and there are numerous
negative charges all seated in a corresponding cube of positive charge, then
they will pool their energy potential and not just take up positions each at the
centre of a simple cubic structure. Instead, the (bcc) structure is adopted by
the plasma, such as we see in our material systems, typically iron. However,
underlying the real world there is that backcloth or sub-structure of the
quantum world of the aether. If the aether is intolerant of the negative energy
potential state there can be no way in which it can tolerate the presence of
matter in (bcc) or (fcc) of other structural form. Yet, as we well know, it does
tolerate those (bcc) and (fcc) crystal forms and the aether itself cannot have
regions of negative potential.
So here was my breakthrough, made in the
mid-1950s, the realization that the aether is a cold plasma, essentially of that
'OCP', one component plasma, form and it has the one structure which corresponds
to least electric energy potential, provided that potential is a little greater
than zero everywhere. It has to be sufficiently greater than zero for it to
outweigh the negative energy potential densities that accompany the (bcc) and
related crystal structures in matter present locally. This tells us that the
lattice spacing as between the charges constituting the aether itself is very
much smaller than those we see in crystalline matter. Indeed, there are of the
order of tens of millions of aether lattice cells within every lattice cell of
an iron crystal, for example.
The resulting structure of the aether is
simple-cubic and every one of the charges which are that 'one-component'
constituent must be displaced from the centre of the compensating charge cell in
which it is located. Yet its energy must remain minimal and positive. That can
only be if all those charges orbit their cell centres in unison so as to
preserve their relative structural arrangement. This in turn introduces the
features we associate with quantum theory, the Bohr magneton quantization in
particular.
Such then was my introduction to the mysterious realm we call
the 'aether' and it will take a great deal more than criticisms of the kind
raised by Dr. Gerald Lindley to knock me off course, bearing in mind that I am
now more that 40 years on from these initial discoveries and onward research
during those years has reinforced my position.
The Lindley Criticisms
This particular Web page is not the
place in which I wish to spend time explaining details concerning my theory. I
will therefore concentrate on the specific attack mounted against my work by Dr.
Lindley.
The case he puts is that the experiments reported in the SCIENCE
articles prove that an ion plasma in its lowest energy state has a maximum ion
density experimentally measured as being of the order of 2.15x108 to
4.53x108 per cc. He concludes from this that "the charge cluster
hypothesis of Jin and Fox plus Ken Shoulders, Moray B. King and Harold Aspden
requires a charge cluster density that is fifteen orders of magnitude greater
than the physically possible maximum density."
Now, that, without him
having elaborated further, is his total case. He declares that whatever I and
these other worthy individuals have said in our quite independent utterances on
this charge cluster topic has to be in error by an enormous factor, solely
because something measured in very cold plasma involves an ion concentration
that does not square with our independent assertions.
Now, firstly, so
far as I am aware Ken Shoulders has not claimed that the charge clusters
appearing in his experiments have any crystal structure. Furthermore, I have
assumed that those experiments were performed in a laboratory using vacuum tubes
that would no doubt get rather warm in their operation. I note that the SCIENCE
article experiments were performed on plasma that is cooled, not just to a very
low temperature near absolute zero Kelvin, but down to 10 mK, that is one
hundredth of a degree absolute!
There is no comparison between the energy
states in that cold plasma experimental work and the energy levels involved in
the research aimed at generating excess energy from spinning plasma. However, I
have just used the word 'spinning' and here we do have something that warrants
comment.
First, I make the simple point that if, by cooling an ionized
plasma down to 10 mK, it is possible to slow the ions down to the level at which
they can each stay within an orbit confined to a single cell volume of that
plasma, then that is the basis on which the cubic structure can form. As I have
read the SCIENCE articles the plasma is a very rarified state set up in a vacuum
environment as otherwise there would be more ions present than some
4.53x108 per cc. This measure of the uniformly dense plasma was what
was dictated by the criteria needed to permit formation of that cubic
structure.
Surely, if one ionizes a gas that is at a normal or moderate
pressure, as in a lightning discharge, there will be a higher concentration of
ions per cc than that 4.53x108 figure relied upon by Dr. Lindley in
his criticism. No one is suggesting that there will be structure, cubic or
otherwise, in the plasma formed in that way.
I can only assume,
therefore, that Dr. Lindley has misdirected his comments by including names
other than mine in his attack.
I will, however, concede that I have
suggested in my writings that it is the structural crystal-like form of the
vacuum state that gives scope for its exploitation as a source of energy in
those plasma cluster experiments that do concern Dr. Lindley. I need therefore
to clarify why Dr. Lindley's remarks are utterly absurd in that
connection.
Vacuum Spin
When I realized that the vacuum medium, the
aether, had a cubic structure owing to there being within it a crystal-like
array of electric charges uniformly distributed in a background continuum of
opposite charge, precisely that (OCP), one-component plasma, system mentioned in
the article in SCIENCE, I was interested in how spherical sectors of that medium
could spin, as with body Earth. How would the rotation affect its cubic
structure? Keep in mind that, besides there being that cubic distribution of
charge, each such element of charge describes a small orbit to ensure that it
stays displaced from the position of minimal, but negative, energy potential and
holds itself at a positive level of potential.
That orbital motion or
quantum jitter, as I have called it, ensures that those charges keep in
synchronism in their jitter motion. Now, to do that, it works out that they must
suffer a slight radial displacement with respect to the spin axis. This is
because, if the rotation is in the same sense as that orbital jitter motion, the
charges are travelling faster at their outermost positions than they are at
their innermost positions and, relative to the centre of charge about which they
orbit, they must therefore be displaced inwardly in order that they can stay in
synchronous motion throughout their orbital jitter motion.
In short, this
meant that if, for some reason, there was a radial electric field set up by a
concentration of electric charge, then the enveloping aether would develop a
spin motion about that charge concentration. That was what my theory predicted
and it caused me to understand how astronomical bodies develop their rotation. I
presented the theory in mathematical terms in a small 48 page printed booklet,
the preface of which bears the date 22 November 1959. That is nearly 40 years
ago. My aether theory not only gave the theoretical value of the fine-structure
constant, meaning the dimensionless constant combining Planck's constant, the
electron charge and the speed of light, all parameters of the vacuum itself, but
it gave, both qualitatively and quantitatively the value we observe as the
Earth's magnetic moment.
That convinced me that the vacuum medium was as
I suggested, namely a simple cubic array of charges set in a uniform background
continuum of opposite charge.
It has led me in recent times to suggest
that the setting up of a radial electric field about an axis will develop aether
rotation about that axis, something I have called vacuum spin. More than this,
however, it meant that, in constraining those orbital jitter motions to keep in
step, the external enveloping system of charge which is all part of the same
dynamic system, must supply energy as necessary to assure that the charges do
not get out of step. This is a one-way process in that energy converges on the
focal point or rather the system at the focus or centre of this activity. Here
then is a mechanism by which excess energy can be expected to creep into plasma
discharges or other physical systems which develop electric fields directed
radially with respect to a spin axis.
Naturally, although my theory
concerning this dates from the 1950s, I could not, merely on the strength of
this theory, contemplate such a breach of the kind of physics I had been taught
in my early academic years. However, when I did hear of claims concerning
experiments that implied generation of excess energy, I then started to wonder
and began to see a connection with the theory I had been developing since the
mid 1950s.
So now in early 1998 when Dr. Gerald Lindley draws my
attention to an experimental discovery reported in SCIENCE, one which he says
disproves my theory but yet which on my reading indicates otherwise, I am more
than just interested.
I have said above that my case as published in my
copyrighted work back in 1959 was that a radial electric field acting on a cubic
charge array would cause it to spin owing to a phase-lock acting throughout that
structure. So I say that my prediction is confirmed when I read in the Itano et
al SCIENCE article:
"In our experiment the ions were confined in a cylindrical Penning
trap, consisting of an electrostatic quadrupolar potential and a uniform
magnetic field. The radial electric field leads to a
rotation..."
Yes, the plasma not only developed its cubic
structure, but it then began to rotate about a spin axis owing to the setting up
of a radial electric field inside that plasma. The test data indicated that the
spin speed was determined by the strength of that radial electric
field.
Now, how can it be that an ionized plasma will spin bodily about a
central axis merely because there is an electric field radial from that axis?
Surely it will only do that if it is a least energy state for that spin to
develop. The magnetic field will no doubt help to keep the charge orbits in
mutually parallel planes, but that will not account for that plasma spin. In
fact the magnetic field acting alone would merely develop a reacting motion of
charge in tiny helical paths. The data concerning the strength of the magnetic
field then tells us that such helical motion would be at frequencies far in
excess of those observed for the plasma spin.
In summary, therefore, the
SCIENCE articles support the proposition that the combination of a cubic charge
structure in an ionized plasma plus the presence of a radial electric field will
assure that plasma spin develops.
That said, I am now left to contest Dr
Lindley's assertion that the charge densities observed in those plasma
experiments are far less than those deemed necessary to assure excess energy
gain in charge clusters formed by experiments such as that of Ken Shoulders or,
one presumes, those of the PAGD (Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge) experiments
performed by Paulo and Alexandra Correa in Canada.
Well, first of all, I
am looking at cubic charge structure in the vacuum medium, whereas Dr. Lindley
is looking at a cubic charge structure generated in an extremely-rarified
ionized plasma, which by some very freak conditions of extreme cooling to
incredibly low temperature happen to permit such structure to develop.
I
know that the charge density of that (OCP) vacuum medium itself is very nearly
4x1030 per cc. If it were as low as Dr. Lindley suggests as the
maximum value then the spacing between the charges in the cubic structure would
be about 1.35x10-3 cm. That means that the aether, which contains
charge needed to explain Maxwell displacement currents and the energy storage in
the electric field, would have to get by on having its charge components, if of
electron size, spaced so far apart that one could, for example, not set up
electric fields in logical circuitry on the microscopic scale now prevalent in
the computer industry.
So I simply cannot understand how Dr. Lindley can
question the need for the very substantial ion densities that go with normal
electrical activity in plasma generally and in the aether in particular. There
are of the order of 1023 free ions per cc in copper at room
temperature, but they do not form into any structure. However, if I set up a
strong flow of current through a copper rod, I well know that those electrons
will experience an electrodynamic pinch effect, meaning that they will set up a
radial electric field with respect to the central axis of that rod. I suspect
that the effect of that radial field upon the structured aether 'plasma' inside
that rod will promote rotation of that 'plasma', but it makes no sense at all to
hear from Dr. Lindley that, because the ion density in a rarefied plasma in a
Penning trap with no copper core present is quite low, notwithstanding the
presence of that plasma rotation, so one cannot have plasma ion densities any
greater in that copper rod or in a normal room temperature plasma glow
discharge.
I submit that the SCIENCE articles to which Dr. Lindley has
referred help my case in asserting that the setting up of a radial electric
field in a conductive medium, be it of metal or plasma, will induce what I call
'vacuum spin'. That spin arises because of a phase-lock enforced by the
constraints set up by the cubic ion structure and the need for synchrony in the
motion of those ions to conserve that structure. Such constraints exerted as
between charges constituting a real aether medium are then likely to be
effective in drawing energy from the enveloping environment in order to keep the
charge motion in a phase-locked state.
So long as physicists accept that
an ionized plasma can contain more that 4.53x108 ions per cc, the
case presented by Dr. Lindley has to be considered meaningless. Numerous
chemical solutions that are subject to ionic dissociation have far more free
ions per cc than Dr. Lindley suggests as being the possible maximum.
The
thunderball could not exist if Dr. Lindley's assertion was true. In a book
Modern Aether Science, that I wrote in 1972, I drew attention to the
experiments, in 1963, of D J Ritchie of the Bendix Corporation. (Journal of
the Institution of Electrical Engineers, p. 202 (1963). Ritchie was
experimenting on the assumption that the thunderball is an ionized sphere of gas
energized by the induction of short-wave electromagnetic oscillations produced
in a thunderstorm. As the years went by it came to be recognized that the energy
densities inside thunderballs based on measurement of their capacity to heat
water when terminating their stable existence upon falling into a water barrel
was between 2x109 J/m3 and 5x109
J/m3. This was reported by M D Altschuler et al in Nature in
1970 at p. 545 of v. 228. Later, in 1979, one could read in Reviews of Modern
Physics at p. 417 of v. 51 that Nobel Laureate P L Kapitza had recognized
that the energy densities of the thunderball are of the right order for
application in fusion reactors and that he sought to create them artificially by
radio frequency techniques.
Dr. Lindley would have us believe that such
phenomena are not possible because he has read about an experiment in a Penning
trap which shows that the maximum ionic density in a plasma that can create a
spherical charge cluster having cubic structure is 4.53x108 ions per
cc.
I will therefore adhere to the opinion which I expressed on p. 14 of
my 1972 book Modern Aether Science:
If a spherical volume of the unseen aether medium rotates, it may
result in an electric displacement effect radial from its axis of rotation. It
is well known from Maxwell's work that a vacuum exhibits electric displacement
properties so we are not making an unreasonable proposition. Rotation of a
sphere of aether would then develop a magnetic field. It is easy then to say
that if such a sphere housed an ionized plasma rotating with it, then both the
radial electric field and the magnetic field would be cancelled. However, we
know that the sun has a magnetic field and we also know that "lightning balls
have been known highly to magnetize metallic objects such as gun-barrels"
[Here there was a footnote reference to that above-mentioned paper by
Ritchie]. Therefore, the cancellation may only be partial and we can examine
with justified curiosity the properties of the rotating aether
medium.
In conclusion, do keep in mind that those experimental
results reported in SCIENCE do show that ions in a cold plasma can form into
cubic structure and that not only may have relevance to there being a kind of
crystal structure in stars, but undoubtedly must have relevance to the prospect
of there being such a charge structure in the vacuum medium itself, meaning the
aether!
27 May 1998
To proceed to the next Essay, which is on a somewhat similar theme,
press:
Energy
Science Essay No. 14