LECTURE NO. 6

PROTON CREATION

© Harold Aspden, 1997

INTRODUCTION

There is nothing more fundamental in science than the processes involved in the creation of the proton, simply because the proton accounts for virtually all of the matter that forms the universe. The residue comprises the electrons which provide the electrical neutralization and so allow gravity full freedom as the governing force.

However, read as many books as you may, as written by best selling authors, and you will not find any answers to the three basic questions:

You may come to believe what they say, especially after they explain why they think the universe is expanding and has been expanding steadily for upwards of 10,000,000,000 years. You see, there is a phenomenon called the 'red shift'. Light from distant stars appears redder than it does from our Sun and that is interpreted as a Doppler effect, which is the apparent reduction in the frequency of electromagnetic radiation sourced in those distant stars, should we be receding away from them in a relative sense. They will tell you about cosmic background radiation and how measurements conducted on aircraft in the upper atmosphere reveal an anisotropy in the intensity of that radiation, one which betrays the existence of our motion through space relative to a kind of residue of energy put there by the Big Bang. To them, it all makes good sense, but do you really understand what they tell you?

When I read about the Expanding Universe Hypothesis I wanted to know why it was that a light wave traveling at close to 300,000 km per second could keep going for 10,000,000,000 years without its frequency reducing somewhat. That is what they assume! The observed loss of frequency, evidenced by the red shift, is interpreted as a Doppler shift, something to do with relative motion, and not simply as a loss of frequency owing to the transit of light over vast distances of space.

Those who write about such matters will tell you they know they are right in their assumption because, if there was something in interstellar space which affected that light and caused its frequency to reduce, it would affect different frequencies to different extents and the red shifts observed reveal no such dispersion. That is the logic of their assumption, just as they assume the validity of Maxwell's equations governing light wave propagation without understanding the physical process which accounts for those equations.

I wanted to know what there was in the vacuum that could cause light to travel at the fixed speed which scientists label by the symbol c. You can be sure that the speed of light is not constant just because Einstein took that as a principle on which to build his theories. If there is something in that vacuum I wanted to know why it is that light can involve undulating waves which can travel through space without losing frequency. More to the point and consistent with observation, I wanted to know if light could lose frequency at a rate linearly proportional to the frequency at each position along the transit path. You see, there could be loss of frequency as a function of distance traveled and, provided the loss is proportionally the same for all component frequencies, there would be the property needed to account for the observed red shifts from those remote stars and their galaxies. There is then no need to imagine that the universe is expanding from a point in space at which it was suddenly born as a virtually infinite amount of energy compressed into a infinitesimal point - the infinite in the infinitesimal! Any alternative explanation, if scientifically founded, has to have a prior claim on our common sense alongside the horror of that Big Bang hypothesis.

Surely the situation demands that physicists must look again at that vacuum and Maxwell's equations and be prepared to accept that they have overlooked something. Just because light gets dispersed in traveling a few cm through matter, dispersion resulting from different component frequencies traveling at slightly different speeds, we should not assume that it will suffer the same fate in a populated vacuum. Whatever does populate the vacuum could well have the property needed to explain a slight progressive loss of frequency in traveling trillions of kilometers through space.

It is clearly both absurd and illogical to say categorically that there is nothing in the vacuum but yet know that somehow something there regulates light in transit and then go further and compound that statement by saying that, if there were something there, it must cause dispersion and not a progressive loss of frequency.

Remember that the 'vacuum' is 'space devoid of matter', not 'space devoid of physics'. Those Maxwell equations are a statement about the physics of what is there in that vacuum. They tell me, at least, that a propagating wave undulates in planes at right angles to its direction of propagation. Then I ask myself how something physical can oscillate in that lateral sense without pushing on something equally physical to keep a balance. Quite obviously something is missing from Maxwell's equations. There must be two mutually-interacting physical attributes in the vacuum medium that assist in the propagation of those light waves. Maybe these work together in a way which conserves the wave in spite of obstacles encountered, but at the price of some loss in terms of energy and frequency.

So I say that we need to learn what that 'something' is and examine the physics involved to see how it accounts for that red shift we see as we look at distant galaxies. That I have done and I find I can deduce Hubble's constant, a measure of that cosmological red shift phenomenon, in terms of a theory which admits that protons are being created everywhere in space

THE PROTON CREATION HYPOTHESIS

I will tell that story about deducing the Hubble constant in another Lecture. In the meantime the curious reader can look up my paper on the subject ['The Steady-State Free-Electron population of Free Space'] abstracted under reference [1984e] in the Bibliography section of these Web pages. My object here in this lecture is to discuss how protons are created.

My proposition, one I have come to after studying the research findings on quantized galactic red shifts, is that there are vast regions of space in which a kind of natural equilibrium prevails at a low energy potential and some regions which are abnormal and at a higher energy potential.

My hypothesis is that protons are created by a statistical process, as energy fluctuations in the vacuum intercept the hidden charge forms that sustain electrical displacement in Maxwell's equations. A further aspect of the hypothesis is that there will be an incidence of proton decay keeping that proton population constant but not affecting its spatial deployment.

We are, therefore, going to explore the physical processes by which protons are created in the vast expanse of space. Now, radio astronomers looking at their galactic radio sources pay close attention to the microwave emission at 21 cm wavelength. The source of this emission is the hyperfine feature of the spectral emission from hydrogen, the simple atom formed by the proton with its solitary satellite electron. The mass of the proton is crucial to the frequency of the signals emitted and the study of red shifts has something to tell us about the region sending us those signals.

Though I shall show that the proton can have different mass values in some galactic regions, I shall give reason for believing that the mass of the proton, as it applies to the major part of the universe, is a universal constant. However, for those seeking assurance on the latter point and who need some experimental confirmation, I will here refer to the discussion of the constancy of the ratio m_e/m_p by Petley at page 47 in his book: 'The Fundamental Physical Constants and the Frontier of Measurement', published by Adam Hilger of Bristol and Boston. He refers to an astronomical method which relies on evidence from quasars. The basis of this method is that wavelengths of the hydrogen lines depend upon the Rydberg constant and (1+m_e/m_p)^-1. In contrast, the wavelengths of lines emitted from heavier atoms have far less dependence upon the ratio of the masses of electron and nucleus. Therefore, if the red shifts of the hydrogen lines differ from those of the heavier atoms, for distant objects radiating with large red shifts, one has an indication of change of proton mass over time. However, the observational data quoted by Petley suggested that any change in m_e/m_p has to be at a rate less than 5% per billion years.

It is therefore appropriate to presume that, generally speaking, the proton/electron mass ratio does not change over time, but, being more specific, there are anomalies linked to the quantized red shifts that are now being observed in the study of 21 cm microwave radiation from remote galaxies.

At this point I should like to summarize my objectives in presenting this Lecture. I know how protons are created and can deduce theoretically the precise value of the proton/electron mass ratio, meaning part in ten million precision. My theory, as it was developed many years ago, tells me that the protons created anywhere in the universe do have the same mass energy where a least energy state of the aether exists, but it also tells me that there are conditions, those prevalent in the higher energy regions of space, where that proton/electron mass ratio and the other of the two most important constants of physics, namely the fine structure constant, can have slightly different values. I do not suggest that any such constant can vary over time. All I am saying is that the value may depend upon energy conditions that are 'frozen' into the particular galactic domain locality under observation. My objective is to convince you, the reader, that I have here the answer to the first of those questions listed above.

As to the second question, the creation of the electron, I will discuss that in a later Lecture in this series, but the third question, that of gravity has already been explained as you may see from Tutorials Nos. 6 and 9 in these Web pages.

In fact, those Tutorial Notes (see particularly Nos. 8 and 9) also showed you how to calculate the proton/electron mass ratio, but I want here to prove the formula by applying it to the quantized red shift data which has emerged and which tells us that the proton/electron mass ratio can adopt different values in different localities of space.

As you will see, the reason for this diversion has to do with the factor N, as used in those Tutorial Notes. There I was considering only circumstances local to our own space domain region, a low energy equilibrium space region, where N has a value proved to be 1843. However, N can be different, and have lower integer values under certain circumstances. This is important because the proof which verifies my theory, apart from the numbers coming out right, is the explanation of the quantized galactic red shifts that have been discovered since the theory was first developed.

The route I followed in developing the theory initially took me into a formal analysis of the electrical structure of the aether and the need for its dynamic state to ensure that the interaction of its charge components avoided falling into a state of negative potential. The condition for zero potential was a factor which determined N, the number of electrons and positrons which, given energy input, could be produced from a simple element of aether charge without displacing the surrounding charge of a balancing continuum of opposite polarity. N was determined as being slightly greater than 1844, but the condition for least positive energy with N odd gave the definitive value of N as 1843.

From this I was able to formulate the inverse value of the fine-structure constant as:

THE GOVERNING EQUATIONS

f_h is the frequency representing the hyperfine radiation spectrum of hydrogen. As a red shift, expressed as an apparent Doppler shift velocity, based on the 300,000 km/s speed of light, this formula tells us that the quantized step in the red shift is:

To confirm the first five of the above equations one has to work through the details of an aether theory, as I have shown in the Tutorial Notes. I have written these Notes specially, as I have no doubt that the task of studying in depth the original periodical references was too daunting for even the few members of the scientific community who may have stumbled across my work. That plus the evident conflict with Big Bang theory, bearing in mind that the notion of an expanding universe does not suit the aether model I had proposed, is the likely reason for lack of interest. It was all too easy to say that I was 'playing with numbers', even though that is an unfair verdict, whereas those who think Einstein had to be right and aether theory had to be wrong did not heed anything I had to say.

For those who wish to explore the background of my aether to learn more about the derivation of that integer N, I draw attention my paper entitled: 'The Theory of the Proton Constants', which is paper No. 7 of the 14 papers reproduced in my book 'Aether Science Papers'. The periodical reference of the paper is Hadronic Journal, vol. 11, pp. 179-176 (1988). The subject was also addressed in my paper 'A Theory of Proton Creation', paper No. 9 in the above book. Its periodical reference is Physics Essays, vol. 1, pp. 72-76 (1988).

Based on that derivation of the unique proton value of N as 1843 I shall now revisit the subject of Tutorial No. 10 in these Web pages to rectify an error that came about because I wrongly assumed that the quantized galactic red shifts observed by Tifft were seen in the optical spectrum rather than in the microwave radio spectrum of the hyperfine transitions in hydrogen.

QUANTIZED GALACTIC RED SHIFTS

If you refer to the pages of my Tutorial No. 10 you will see from equation (5) that the aether lattice dimension d was shown to vary as N^-1/9. Certain other aether quantities, such as m_ec², hf_o, e²/d and f_od, were all deemed to be truly universal constants, notwithstanding the possibility that f_o, d, h and e individually could be different in different galactic domain regions. Note that f_o is the Compton electron frequency, the frequency for which the energy quantum hf_o equals m_ec².

The variation of d, the lattice spacing, was based on the assumption that the energy density of the aether lattice structure remains uniform throughout the universe. I now see that this was an error. I should have regarded the main energy constituent of the aether, that of the virtual muons, as being of uniform density. Thus, you can see, from the above expression for m_mu/m_e, that it is (1/N)^4/3/d³ that is the universal constant and this makes d proportional to (1/N)^4/9.

Keep now in mind the fact that our Tutorial analysis showed us that d is equal to 108π electron charge radii and that the rest-mass energy of the electron, which we assume to be a universal constant, is proportional to e² and inversely proportional to that charge radius. This tells us that e⁴ is proportional to d² and so to (1/N)^8/9.

Now, to come to the nature of the microwave radiation detected by Tifft and from which the quantization of galactic red shift was measured, it is noted that the formula for the frequency of hyperfine line separation producing the 21 cm emission is proportional, in theory, to the product of the Bohr magneton eh/4πm_ec and the nuclear magneton eh/4πm_pc as divided by Planck's constant h. This represents a term proportional to frequency and explains that sixth equation in the above group.

Since m_e/m_p is proportional to N^4/3 and e⁴ is proportional to (1/N)^8/9, that microwave expression becomes proportional to h(c)²/e² times N^4/9. Note that m_ec² is a universal constant. Now we know from the fine structure formula above and its derivation that h(c)²/e² is proportional to c(1/N)^1/6 and c/r is proportional to f_o, whereas r/d is proportional to (1/N)^1/6, so that microwave expression becomes proportional to (N)^4/9(1/N)^1/6(1/N)^1/6f_od, which reduces to proportionality to N^1/9, because f_od is also a universal constant. Accordingly, we have justified the form of the sixth expression listed above.

Remember that in the Tutorial No. 10 account, based on an assumed optical red shift, the corresponding variation was N^4/9. That had explained the red shift steps of approximately 72.5 km/s with N stepping downwards through both odd and even integers.

However, with our corrected analysis based on the radio spectrum observation, the theory implies red shift steps of 18.1 km/s as N decreases in integer sequence.

Now it is my understanding from reading more of Tifft's work that, though 72.5 km/s is the dominant feature in the quantization of galactic red shifts, there are intermediate levels of quantization, typically involving 36 km/s and 18 km/s red shift spacing.Tifft has written many papers on the subject, ranging over a 25 year period, many appearing in the Astrophysical Journal.

It now becomes an interesting exercise to explore the factors which might govern how Nature selects one value of N with a stronger preference to another and to assess how this N quantization spectrum might have other cosmological implications.

Having only recently come to see this feature that N can have a value other than 1843, I can only proceed tentatively in my own exploration of the subject, but a picture is developing. It is based on the belief that the virtual muon population, which must have the mean mass-energy values as determined by the above expression for m_mu, adapt to a mix of virtual muon pairs of odd units disposed either side of that mean value. Thus, if the mean virtual muon has 206.3329 electron units of energy, as applies with N as 1843, then there are pairs of muons of 207 and 205 units in a mix having a ratio of very nearly two to one.

Do note that this numerical circumstance might well explain why 1843 is rather special. An N value of 1844 corresponds to the least state of energy potential but it is 1843 that offers the easy route to proton creation, because nine virtual muons have to contribute to its creation and the statistical mix of 205 and 207 muons is virtually a 1 to 2 ratio. This means that three 205 muons plus six 207 muons can come together in a smooth energy transition to create the proton, whereas the N value of 1844 would involve some energy turmoil.

Now, if you then consider how an aether domain can adapt to a higher energy state, meaning one for which r/d has increased and N reduced, there has to be creation of electrons and positrons to take up the volume of space freed by the reduction of N. Note that N is an integral number of electron charge volumes in an aether lattice particle, the quon. Now, there are only two ways in which N can change as a space domain boundary moves through the energy system that fills all space. N can increase or decrease. It will increase if it moves from a region where there are too many electrons and positrons in the quantum electrodynamic underworld. These will combine to create more compact forms of matter, those protons that we know are created by surplus aether energy. So as each electron positron-pair suffers its demise to shed energy for pooling as part of that creation process, their charge volumes will be taken up by two quons expanding their individual volumes by one unit. N will increase by 1.

The reverse process is not that simple, because a quon has no way of acting alone to shed some volume and create an electron or positron. It has to look for assistance from the migrant leptons that are present everywhere in space. The electron-positron pairs cannot serve this purpose, because they act to increment N and we are now presuming that they are in a deficit state, because we are going to create them as the domain wall progresses.

So we look to the virtual muons which we know bombard the quons to create the proton but we are only looking at an event where a virtual muon pair attacks the quon, rather than that rare event of proton creation when a multiplicity of virtual muons need to attack in the same rhythmic cycle period. The scenario therefore is one for which a pair of 207 muons, in 'fertilizing' the quon, shed energy to decay into a pair of 205 muons by creating two electrons and two positrons. This means that N can only decrease in steps of 4 units as the quon shrinks a little to free the space needed by those electrons and positrons.

Consider what this means. There are regions of space in which there is an excess of thermal energy. Thermal energy is associated with motion of matter and all such motion involves inducing electron-positron activity in space. Indeed, the kinetic energy of an electron can be shown to be attributable to the statistical creation of electron-positron pairs in the close proximity of that primary electron. Space has a way of allowing such activity, whilst conserving energy, charge parity and the volume of space occupied by electric charge, but that process concerns the equilibrium of the interplay between matter and the aether and we are here considering the interplay between aether and aether at a space domain boundary wall. Those virtual electrons involved in the quantum-electrodynamic underworld are really part of the aether. They can store energy temporarily but we want our domain wall transition to be between two stable modes, each locked in a state defined by that number N.

The thermal energy that escapes by being radiated well away from its matter source has to be absorbed by the aether and it must somehow over-populate space with those virtual electron-positron pairs which we see as affecting N at the seat of boundary transitions.

We have argued that N can only increase one integer unit at a time, but it can only decrease in steps of 4 units. Decrease of N corresponds to increase of material energy activity in the domain. Therefore, where there are cataclysmic events in space releasing enormous amounts of thermal energy, the domains will form with lower N values, probably stepped down in units of 4 from the base value of 1843. As to probability of the N transition in the 'cooling' phase, domain boundaries do not move through points in space at short intervals of time. They are well separated by distances measured in light years, as evidenced by their effect on geomagnetic field reversals, so in stepping down one integer digit at a time we shall have a series of domains at the unit intervals which are associated with a 'cooling'. The 4-step domain states are the ones set up by the 'hot' state, meaning the stronger source of microwave radiation.

Then remember that each of those unit steps has been shown theoretically to involve a red shift difference of 18.1 km/s. The stronger radiation will come from the domains with the N tiering at the 4 unit separation. This would suggest 72.5 km/s red shift intervals between radiation from these domains. So what this all amounts to is my tentative explanation as to why 72.5 km/s is the dominant red shift interval, but red shifts said to be close to 36.6 km/s and 18.3 km/s are also observed.

In questioning this idea, keep in mind that my theory holds firmly to the proposition that truly fundamental charge forms are spherical and comply with the J.J. Thomson formula relating energy E, charge e, radius R and mass M, namely:

Having regard to the energy implications involved in these changes of N, it will need a great deal of analysis of the actual observations of those anomalous red shifts before one can comment further. I do feel, however, that it is here that the evidence can be found to prove my theory of the proton and with it the theory of the fine structure constant and the constant of gravitation. The parameter N holds the key and it seems that those red shifts observed by W. G. Tifft of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank, West Virginia and the Steward Observatory in the University of Arizona, Tucson have opened the door to which that key belongs.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

To put the above in an overall perspective, the following conclusions emerge:
1. The energy density of the universe, meaning mainly that hidden in the aether, is uniform, but there are ongoing minor fluctuations.
2. Those fluctuations can result in some hybrid forms of galactic domains in which the dimensions of the lattice structure, the rhythmic frequency of lattice oscillations and even the unitary electron charge can all adopt a different set of values characterized by a quantization integer N.
3. The domain boundaries can move as domains grow and shrink in size, just as can the magnetic domain walls separating the polarized regions of a ferromagnetic material. New domains can develop and spread, each having its own set of characteristics according to that value of N which is locked into the domain pattern set by the level of excess energy above the aether norm as it is formed.
4. As protons and electrons appear within the domains, gravity having been 'switched on' within the confines of a newly formed domain, stars come into being and those stars acquire motion which can eventually carry them through galactic domain boundary walls and so transfer them to other domains.
5. Generally speaking, therefore, what we see in the universe is stellar activity from domains that have, in a sense, survived by being normalized at a common N value. However, there remains an ever-present proportion of domains that, by virtue of the energy fluctuations and the new domain creation activity, survive with abnormal N values.
6. The norm of activity is for that stellar migration across domain boundaries to cause N to increase to its optimum value, one of least energy potential consistent with the physical processes involved in proton creation. The smaller N, the larger the red shift observed in the microwave radiation from the hydrogen atom. The optimum value of N is that which prevails here in our local galactic environment, namely N=1843.