TUTORIAL NOTE 19
Welcome to the Second 'Semester' of Ten Tutorial Notes, which
teach the mathematical basis of Aether Science theory.
THE FOURTH DIMENSION
© Harold Aspden, 1999
The subject of Physics is about
relationships, the properties possessed by something having physical form as
explained or described in relation to the properties of something else having
physical form. The ultimate objective of theoretical physics is, in a sense, the
explanation of everything embraced by physics in terms of three basic units of
measurement. The question I address here is: "Why three? What about the Fourth
dimension?"
Now if you are thinking that space has four dimensions,
because that is what Einstein has told us, then you are on the wrong track. As
these web pages have shown, I believe that we exist in an aetherial world with
space filled by that unseen medium which history records refer to as the
'aether'. I am thinking here in terms of the physical dimensions of the aether
and the forms born from that aether, namely what we do see around us as
matter.
Looking then at how we describe the physical properties of the
matter form, tables of physical constants include entries such as:
speed of light in a vacuum
2.99792458x108m.s-1
permeability of a vacuum:
4π-7H.m-1
permittivity of a vacuum:
8.854187817x10-12F.m-l
elementary charge of proton:
1.60217733(49)x10-19C
rest mass of electron:
9.1093897(54)x10-31kg
Planck constant:
6.62607555(40)x10-34J.s
Here you will see that
physicists of our modern times describe the fundamental physical constants in
terms of units, the unit of distance m, the unit of time s, the unit of magnetic
inductance H, the unit of capacitance F, the unit of electric charge C, the unit
of weight kg and the unit of energy J.
Now the task I have addressed in
my search for that Holy Grail, the unified field theory or, as some physicists
now see it, the 'theory of everything', aims at reducing the number of these
basic units of reference from the seven just mentioned to a lower value, the
ultimate being three.
In fact, physicists have known for a very long time
that they only need four dimensions, but they persist in using more, usually
five, these being mass M, length L, time T electrical permittivity of the vacuum
k (often referred to as the dielectric constant) and magnetic permeability of
the vacuum μ. These afford a little versatility because it is useful to work in
electrical units or magnetic units according to the nature of the task in hand,
but μ and k are connected in terms of the speed of light c, which combines
dimensions L and T so that:
(μk)2 has the dimension L/T.
The numerical
quantities listed above introduce other complications by scaling things so as to
be larger units having more practical application and by introducing 4π to make
things easier in formulating electric and magnetic field energy densities and
other electromagnetic expressions. However, basically there are four physical
dimensions when there should only be three, if we discover how to solve the
riddle that links the world of electricity and that of mass and
inertia.
Now here I want you to consider what physicists have done in
making their world of units easier for their efforts in applied physics. When I
was taught physics the governing system of units was that in which k and μ were
both unity, according to whether one was working in electrostatic units or
electromagnetic units in what is known as the cgs system, based on centimetres,
grammes and seconds. So, I am able to quote from a physics book in my possession
which gives a little background to this choice of units, based on a discussion
of the dimensions of the unit of electric charge q and the fact that:
[q2/k] = ML3T-2]
The
quotation is:
"Neither q nor k is known without the other. Either q or k may
have a chosen value to begin with and that of the other then follows. There is
little doubt that if the choice could be made now (1950), it is q that would
be chosen, and its value that of the electron. But at the time that choice was
made, it seemed that there was nothing particularly constant about an electric
charge, while the properties of empty space were quite fixed. It was therefore
k which was assumed to have unit value for empty space, which then caused the
unit charge to be one which, situated one centimetre from an equal charge, in
empty space, repels or attracts it with a force of one dyne. It is always
dangerous to put a quantity equal to unity in an equation as it is apt to be
lost sight of. In fact this happened in the case of electric quantities, which
were assumed, for a long time, to have quite erroneous
dimensions."
Now I have drawn attention to this because most
physicists now believe that there is no aether and that space is truly empty, an
assumption which I see as justifying regarding it as having unity as a dimension
governing its capacity to store electric energy. However, driven by practical
considerations, physics have assigned empty space some very curious dimensions
as we see from the involvement of 4π, H and F in the above listing. If there is
nothing there then this assignment of dimensional properties seems to me to be
ridiculous, so I rely on my intuition which says that there is something in what
we think is empty space. The word 'empty' can only mean 'devoid of the matter
form' and there simply has to be something there that exhibits electrical
properties just as does matter, even though it is electrical neutral overall and
elusive in its behaviour.
The aether therefore holds the secret of how we
can come to terms with whether or not there really is a fourth physical
dimension, meaning one that is independent of the other three that are
essential.
How would you express electric charge in terms of mass, length
and time? My answer to this is first to question why mass has to be one of the
three fundamental dimensions. I can see that length is a dimension that stands
alone, as does time, but suppose I can explain the phenomenon we call 'mass' in
terms of something more fundamental. One needs to explain inertia and the
gravitational property to see what we mean by the word 'mass' and I have done
exactly that in these web pages in Tutorial
No. 12 and Tutorial
No. 6. Mass is best explained in relation to the conservation of energy and
I would therefore regard energy E as a fundamental physical dimension rather
than mass and then proceed from there in trying to explain electric charge and
electromagnetic action.
The question then reduces to one of understanding
the fabric of the aether so as to understand how it can store energy, and then
explaining something about elerctric charge that is not discussed in physics
books when dealing with physical dimensions, namely charge polarity. Yes, I can,
to my way of thinking, assume that k is unity for the vacuum state, by
definition, and if I can then explain how an electric charge involves E, L and
T, the dimensions of energy, length and time, in determining the unit of charge,
going on one step further from there to explain charge polarity using the same
dimensions, I am in sight of the truth.
Put k equal to unity in the above
equation and you have the dimensions of charge q expressed in terms of M, L, T
and then replace M by EL-2T2 and you have the link. Go
further and just say that the aether has a rhythmic motion at a universal
frequency (units T-1) and that those charges cooperate in seeking to
conserve their energy and you will conclude that they oscillate in size
(L3) in antiphase at that rhythmic frequency so as to keep their
overall volume the same. What then is a positive and a negative charge? Well,
there is no difference except that half of the charge population is expanding at
instants when the other half is contracting and vice versa. The 'positive' and
'negative' attributes merely classify the charge according as to its phase of
oscillation amongst a system of identical energy quanta each encapsulated in the
same volume of space for the particular particle family, with half oscillating
in antiphase with the other half.
One concludes that there is no Fourth
Dimension in a system of physivcs that has deciphered the secrets of the aether
and discovered the ultimate truth.
I hope the above commentary will serve
as a guide as one tries to make sense of things by deciphering what physics has
to tell us at the fundamental level. Take away the aether and reject that unity
k=1 factor and you are left with vacuum permeability as
4πx10-7H.m-1 and vacuum permittivity as
8.854187817x10-12F.m-l and now try explaining why
'nothing' needs such numbers for its physical description.
You must
accept that there is a real aether!
Harold Aspden
To progress to the next Tutorial press:
Tutorial
No. 20
*