mercoledì 15 febbraio 2012

Physical Constants that aren't


Physical Constants that aren't


Author: John Sulman

As the Royal Society's motto advises: Nullum in Verbo (‘take nobody's word for it'). Not everything that's taken as scientific fact has been verified by experiment. There are exceptions chief among which must be belief in a pull of gravity. Newton chose not to challenge the classic doctrine set by Aristotle but to rationalise it with this theory, in spite of earlier support for Hooke's external force. It is often likened to suction, which is demonstrably not a pull but dependent on a difference in environmental pressure. Nor are there grounds for claiming a universal constant for it as a basis for other theory.
It was C.V. Boys, a century and a half afterNewton, who put a value on the factor G in the inverse-square law, which he based on a measurement of the Earth's mass.Newtonhimself didn't claim a constant value, only that interacting forces between the Earth and the Moon matched "nearly enough" for it to be considered a common force.
That was a reasonable enough conclusion, but by equating mass with volume the law assumes an internal force evenly spread. Moreover it was derived from a quadrilateral equation, one solution of which led to the ‘inverse square' for the acceleration of a weightless body in free fall. The alternate solution, whichNewtondiscarded, provides for weight (from which gravity takes its name) varying directly with distance and reducing to zero at ‘the centre of gravity' where the force is in equilibrium.
The law as stated is not an equation but a dimensional equivalence. That for an external force of gravity, providing also for weight, would take the form F=Gρd, ρ standing for average density of the relevant sectors of two bodies. Identical areas at the surface of each enclosed by the sight lines from the centre of one to the perimeter of the other, means that their volumes are proportional to radii, allowing this simplification of the expansion of Newton's law to G*M/V*V/d².
For further simplicity, V can represent that part of the volume of a notional sphere having one body at its centre and the other at a distance d at the perimeter, and M, the mass within it. Insertion of local values is needed to turn it into a numeric equation. Incorporated into G for this purpose is a geometrical factor of 2/3, which leaves a factor, varying from place to place, of around 10^(-10) newtons per kilogram for the net force at the Earth's surface declining to equilibrium at the centre of mass, and measuring, not the total force, but a marginal reduction in it across intervening masses. It  varies also from day to day, though within close tolerances.
This value corresponds closely to the increasing rate of cosmic expansion, being the equal and opposite reaction to the gravitational force, neither of which is due to a pull. The kinetic energy needed for acceleration can be expressed as E=mv², similar to Einstein's E=mc² for radiation. This too is a dimensional equivalence: that between E and the mass of an energetic medium through which massless waves radiate virtually in perpetuity. Its particles simply vibrate progressively as photons, so if c is measured in light-seconds per second c=1 and E=m; and c² = 4π as the increasing area of a radiated wave!
A further form of energy to maintain the energy level in m is E=HA² describing magnetic inductance, able to promote a continual efficient exchange among the various forms of energy in a consistent unified system. Richard Feynman envisaged all physics being related by a series of such simple equivalents, making mathematical analysis superfluous.


Geometry can have values which may be irrational numbers, but physics deals only in integral values. The result of being unable to match any number of equally spaced particles in a diameter with a precise number at the periphery would be a jostling for position, creating an unstable state through the resistance of one force against another trying to maintain the ideal shape.
Paul Dirac, atheist though he was, confessed to being in awe of the mathematical genius behind creation. This, though, this is the real ingenuity behind a self-regulating unstable system that has developed unaided into its present complex state culminating in animal intelligence. The only additional feature, of a totally different order, is the introduction of the human intellect with the ability to try to unravel all the intricacies of it.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/physical-constants-that-arent-5118183.html

About the Author

An early lesson I learnt from my tutor at Oxford was that scientists occasionally use false analogies for simplicity which should not be taken literally, since when I have pondered on some alternative interpretations, leading to quite different conclusions that are just as valid.
   


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