The Most Elusive Puzzle in Physics, Solved? vol 5, rel 5

From left to right: W. Nernst, A. Einstein, M. Planck,
R.A. Millikan and von Laue at a dinner given by
von Laue in Berlin on 11 November 1931

As you know, the folks here at Wasabi Roll try to keep its readers in the know in all things Science, Technology, Medical, and Information Systems.  

Hence, in keeping in the fine tradition, we would like to present a theory that may provide some insight on the Vacuum Catastrophe that seems to have escaped physicists for decades.  Solved? Well we will defer to the reader if so...

The Most Elusive Puzzle in Physics

Robert Williams Wood, Max Planck and Albert Einstein in the
front row of a session of the Physical Society in Berlin on July 28, 1931.

The vacuum catastrophe is sometimes cited as the biggest disagreement between theory and experiment ever.  In fact, the problem is still called the worst prediction in history. Particle physicists predicted a value for the cosmological constant that is about 120 orders of magnitude larger (10^120) than the current measurement, and no one knows how to solve this problem.

But where does current theory get the 120 orders of magnitude failure? 

From here:

To estimate the gravitational effect of the electromagnetic zero-point energy predicted by theory, we can adopt the Planck energy as a cutoff. This is the energy at which the gravitational interaction becomes as strong as the other three fundamental forces of nature (i.e. the scale at which we expect the current theory to break down). This energy is about 1019GeV. This yields a zero-point energy density of about 10^121 GeV/m3.

A person not familiar with quantum mechanics tends to think of a vacuum as being just empty space. But according to quantum mechanics, empty space is not really empty. It is instead a seething froth of very short-lived particles called virtual particles. A virtual particle with mass is a particle that pops into existence and then pops out of existence a tiny fraction of a second later like fireflies.

Quantum field theory allows us to calculate how much energy there should be in the vacuum of space because of these virtual particles. The problem is that when scientists do the calculations, they get a number that is ridiculously wrong. According to this page of a UCLA astronomer, quantum field theory gives a prediction that every cubic centimeter of the vacuum should have an energy density of 10^91 grams.  This number is 10 followed by 90 zeroes. That is an amount trillions of times greater than the mass of the entire observable universe, which is estimated to be only about 10^56 grams.

This means that according to quantum field theory every cubic centimeter of empty space should have more mass-energy than all the mass-energy in the entire observable universe.

One of the (many) things the Voyager probes did was allow us to estimate how strong those gravitational effects are.  Unfortunately, they determined that the theoretical predictions are way, way, way off (too high).

Where the catastrophe comes in is Quantum Field Theory otherwise a stunningly accurate theory (the most accurate ever, by far).  But, at the end of the day, you have to fall back on observation, so something about our favorite theory is wrong.

How far off is this calculation? It varies on how you do the calculations. According to one type of calculation, the predictions of quantum field theory is wrong by a factor of 10^56, which is a factor of a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times. According to a different way of estimating it, the predictions of quantum field theory is wrong by a factor of 10^120, which is a factor of a million billion quadrillion quintillion sextillion septillion octillion times.

Casimir

Now it might be easy for us to just dismiss quantum mechanics, because of this ridiculously wrong prediction –So why don’t we say this is a bunch of hooey? Quantum mechanics makes many other specific predictions that turn out to be exactly right. So scientists have to try struggle towards some guess as to how quantum mechanics could be right despite its very wrong prediction about the energy density of the vacuum.

Besides, Casimir measured it. The "Casimir effect" and a recent experimental set up to measure it. Normally the pressures of the (nearly) virtual particles around us balance out. But between two surfaces the lower frequency (longest wavelength) wave functions can't exist, so they can't add to the pressure. As a result the outside pressure is higher, and the surfaces are pushed together.

What Now?

Newton’s Universal Gravity Equation

Newton postulated that all matter in the universe is attracted to all other matter.  He named this force of attraction “gravity” and he formulated the following expression to describe how the force of gravity depends on the mass of each object and the distance between their centers. 

Planck trying to convince a disbelieving Bohr that his proof of
Planck's Law is correct. On the blackboard: Maxwell's equations.

In this equation, “G” is a constant that would need to be discovered by experiment, “m1” and “m2” are the masses of the two objects and “r” is the distance between their centers.  It doesn’t matter which mass you call “m1” and which one you call “m2”: That’s a result of Newton’s third law which states that the force on one object will be equal in size to the force on the other. 

So if we take this equation and look at it like a unified field equation, i.e., the equation includes a charge field or the foundational E/M field and G is the scaling constant between the two fields – the fields then are in vector opposition and F is the result of the two fields.

Coulomb’s Law

Coulomb’s Law:  The force exerted by one charge q on another charge Q a distance r away is given by:

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

Look familiar?  Again, force is a vector. When more than one charge exerts a force on another charge, the net force on that charge is the vector sum of the individual forces.

Coulomb's equation is also a unified field equation, with k as the scaling constant (k = 8.99 x 109 N m^2 / C^2). Coulomb's equation includes gravity, and F is the result of the two fields.

Hence, the force between charges is very similar to the gravitational force between interacting masses. The equations are very similar, and in both cases the force goes as 1 / r^2.  With us so far?

The Gotcha

Since quantum mechanics, like Coulomb's equation, is based on charge, and since what is called charge in quantum mechanics includes gravity, quantum mechanics is also a unified field. It already includes gravity. That is why it has been impossible to unify it with gravity. You can't re-unify something that is already unified.

So if we run the fundamental equation with this knowledge that gravity was already factored in, we find that the charge force on the electron is NOT 8.2 x 10^-8, but actually 8.9 x 10^-30, a difference of about 10^22.

Where is the error?

First, as a reminder, let’s take the original postulate of Vacuum Catastrophe:

Quantum field theory gives a prediction that every cubic centimeter of the vacuum should have an energy density of 10^91 grams.  This number is 10 followed by 90 zeroes. That is an amount trillions of times greater than the mass of the entire observable universe, which is estimated to be only about 10^56 grams. According to a different way of estimating it, the predictions of quantum field theory is wrong by a factor of 10^120, which is a factor of a million billion quadrillion quintillion sextillion septillion octillion times.

So, knowing the error is about 10^120.  In Coulomb's equation, the constant k is a scaling constant between the quantum level and the macro level (the size of Coulomb's pith balls). It gives us the scaled field charge from the local charge. But when calculating the force on the electron, we are already at the quantum level, so we don't need the scaler. To find the correct answer from Coulomb's equation, you must jettison k and add the charges (instead of multiplying them).

In short, gravity is 10^22 stronger at the quantum level.

Ok So How Does that Solve Vacuum Catastrophe?

Since gravity is 10^22 stronger and E/M is 10^22 weaker, we already have a 10^44 correction to that calculation. But we still have the strong and weak forces, right? Not really, since the weak force is not a fundamental or field force. It is simply a variation in E/M during a decay, so it doesn't enter this problem.

To solve, we remember that gravity is supposed to be 10^38 weaker than E/M at the quantum level. But if we change that by 10^44, then gravity is now stronger by 10^6.

If we again seek “the energy at which the gravitational interaction becomes as strong as E/M”, then we find we are way below the aforementioned (see "From Here" pp above) 10^19 GeV.

In fact, we see that we must go below the quantum level itself, since gravity is still stronger than E/M at the quantum level. This means the energy is less than 1eV (the basic energy of the quantum level), which is a correction already of 10^28. Hence, we have to go down to the size of the photon to equalize E/M and gravity, because at that level both are zero. There is no charge at the level of the photon, because the photon is what creates charge. Well, what energy are we at there? About 10^-21J, or 10^-2 eV. Which takes our correction to about 10^30. Since the zero-point energy density is developed from the Planck mass MP^4, our correction is that original correction to the fourth power, which is 10^120 

Tahdahhhhhh!

And Casimir?

So what about Casimir’s results?  You can't take this problem below the level of the charge photon, so talking about “zeros” or “points” is pointless. The baseline energy of the unified field isn't found by taking the field equations to a limit or toward zero. The baseline energy of the unified field is found at the level of the charge photon, for strictly logical reasons. You can't take the unified field equations below the charge photon, because there is no unified field below the charge photon. The charge photon causes the field, so beneath the charge photon, there can be no charge and no field.

This also explains why the Planck mass and energy have never seemed to fit the Planck length and time. At the Planck scale, the time is 10^-44s and the length is 10^-35m, but the mass and energy are relatively huge, being 10^19GeV and 10^-8 kg.

We have always wondered how 10^19 GeV fit 10^-44s, and now we see that it doesn't. The Planck energy is way too large, and it was caused by this mistaken scaling of gravity and E/M.

Walk the Planck...

In addition, it turns out the Planck scale is really just the photon scale, since I have shown that the charge photon has a radius of about 10^-24m and a mass of about 10^-37 kg. If we use these numbers instead of the old Planck scale ones, we get the right value for the so-called zero-point energy, since zero-point energy is just charge field energy in space. 

That said, we haven't seemed to recognize that this charge field energy can't be measured at its minimum without flying out of the galaxy. The charge field within the galaxy must be measurably higher than outside it, so data from Voyager is going to pretty useless. Voyager will be picking up charge from the Sun and planets as well as the rest of the galaxy, so any “baseline” measured in the solar system is still going to be quite high.



In Conclusion...

So, with this in mind, we may reconsider all the hogwash we have heard over the past seven or eight decades, about phonons and borrowing from the vacuum and symmetry breaking and virtual particles and so on and on. Just as Weinberg was trying to fill holes in desperately bad equations, most other modern physicists have been doing the same thing, regarding other equally bad equations.


So in a nutshell: scientists for years assumed the gravity is supposed to be 10^38 weaker than E/M at the quantum level. However, because of the oversite that gravity was already unified in the formula producing a higher value 10^44, then gravity is now stronger by 10^6... Big Mistakey?

The lesson here? When doing research - question everything!

Source(s):

• http://milesmathis.com/catas.pdf
• http://futureandcosmos.blogspot.com/2014/06/vacuum-catastrophe-should-be-called.html
• http://www.orange.k12.nj.us/cms/lib7/nj01000601/centricity/domain/15/universal_gravitation_v_1-1.3.pdf
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
• http://www.askamathematician.com/2011/06/q-what-exactly-is-the-vacuum-catastrophe-and-what-effects-does-this-have-upon-our-understanding-of-the-universe/
• http://webphysics.davidson.edu/physlet_resources/bu_semester2/c01_coulomb.html

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

____________________________________________________________

About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 23 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085 x502

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