Consciousness, Physics, and the Holographic Paradigm

Original Essays and Shadowless Poetry by Alan T. Williams

All matter is immersed in it and it penetrates everywhere. No doors are closed to ether.
- Albert Einstein, The Evolution of Physics

Chapter 3

Section 2:  Beyond Mechanical Paradigms:
From Old to New Physics, Part 1

Based on their new kinematics developed to describe the dynamic motion of the accelerated particulate matter carriers of electric charge that generate electromagnetic fields, and unaware in 1905 of the massless electromagnetic spectrum that was yet to be discovered, the collaborative team of Albert Einstein and his learned first wife, Mileva Marić (pronounced Marich) – who was his classmate and independent study partner at the ETH in Zürich – excluded from their special theory of relativity the luminiferous ether postulated by Christiaan Huygens, Thomas Young, James Clerk Maxwell, and Hendrick A. Lorentz.

The excluded luminiferous aether, however, had served as the carrier of Maxwell's electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, massless nonmaterial electromagnetic radiation is comprised of the uninterrupted movement – regardless of distance – from point A to point B of the uncountable number of discrete massless photons (nonmaterial primordial energy quanta) that constitute the comprehensive electromagnetic spectrum at any given instant of time. The innumerable photons, in turn, were thought to be emitted and absorbed by the particulate matter carriers of electric charge.

One consequence of an absent material or nonmaterial carrier of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) in the 1905 special theory of relativity (SRT) is the inescapable irony that the ubiquitous electric and magnetic fields generated by the accelerated particulate matter carriers of electric charge were soon treated in classical mechanical or geometric physics and, later, in early classical quantum mechanics as the de facto carrier of massless nonmaterial electromagnetic radiation.

The demise of mechanical process in electromagnetic theory began with the first 1905 Einstein-Marić paper, On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, which describes the photoelectric effect and contains the original theoretical description of the quantum nature of monochromatic light. Their revolutionary hypothesis is the historical source of the pre-1920s old quantum physics.

The extension of Max Planck's mechanical energy quanta concept through its application by means of the Einstein-Marić photoelectric effect to visible light also revived the 17th century wave-particle controversy between the proponents of Christiaan Huygens' wave theory and Isaac Newton's corpuscles (material particles) of light.

The photoelectric effect:

James Clerk Maxwell, following the British custom of the time while intent upon adhering to mechanical Newtonian physics despite theoretical concepts and experimental findings by Michael Faraday to the contrary, chose to emphasize the similarities of Newtonian mechanics and the new physics of electric and magnetic energy by formulating a dynamical electromagnetic field theory that included fanciful mechanical analogies.

A half-century later the Einstein-Marić team pointed directly to a crucial distinction between classical Newtonian physics and Maxwell's dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field (nonmaterial radiative electromagnetic energy) in the first paragraph of their 9 June 1905 photoelectric effect paper:

    According to Maxwell's theory, energy is to be considered as a continuous spatial function for all purely electromagnetic phenomena, hence also for light, while according to the current conceptions of physicists the energy of a ponderable body is to be described as a sum extending over the atoms and electrons. The energy of a ponderable body cannot be broken up into arbitrarily many, arbitrarily small parts, while according to Maxwell's theory (or, more generally, according to any wave theory) the energy of a light ray emitted from a point source of light spreads continuously over a steadily increasing volume.12

The crucial difference between kinetic and potential mechanical energy and massless, weightless nonmechanical electromagnetic radiation was accurately stated but poorly understood at the beginning of the 20th century, not only by the Einstein-Marić team but also by the physics community at large which was deeply immersed in the investigation of thermodynamics.

Incorporating Max Planck's intuitive discovery of the thermodynamic blackbody quantum of nonmaterial electromagnetic radiation energy in the description of their own revolutionary work, the Einsteins' "ponderable body" quoted above is the electron ejected by the photoelectric effect following the application of quantized electromagnetic radiation in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Thus the energy of the ponderable body under consideration is relativistic kinetic energy.

In other words, nonmaterial electromagnetic radiation and relativistic (kinetic) mechanical energy are separate and distinct phenomena.

Just four years after the 1905 photoelectric effect and special relativity theory (SRT) papers were published Einstein described the nonmechanical evolution of electromagnetic theory in his 21 September 1909 lecture at the Salzburg Conference:

The more electromagnetic theory advanced, the more the question of whether electromagnetic processes can be reduced to mechanical ones retreated into the background; one became used to considering the concepts of electric and magnetic field strength, electric space density, etc., as elementary concepts that are not in need of mechanistic interpretation. 13

The Universal Principle of Energy (TUPE):

Interestingly, a century after the publication of the photoelectric effect, SRT, and the Salzburg lecture the unexpected discovery of the universal principle of energy (TUPE) in the zeroth year of the 21st century not only reveals the existence of the omnipresent, pervasive, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED). TUPE also reveals that material mass is a discrete, organized aggregation (change of state, phase transition) of fundamental, irreducible nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) that is created within the NED.

Moreover, TUPE implies that the relativistic invariant monopole (quantum) of electric charge is much more than simply a property of matter/mass. Whether negative (q^-) or positive (q⁺), the fundamental monopole (quantum) of nonmaterial electric charge can now be seen as a natural, physically real phenomenon created concurrently with material matter/mass in the NED. Indeed, the fundamental monopole of nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) called electric charge seems to serve as the sine qua non, the indispensable link between the material domain of matter/mass and the nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED, apeiron).

Succinctly put, the novel first law of the universal principle of energy (TUPE) states:

Thus the universal principle of energy (TUPE) implies that:

1. Particulate matter/mass is created, contained, and maintained as a discrete conditionally relative phase change (change of state) of fundamental, irreducible nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) within the omnipresent, pervasive, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED).
2. Electric charge is created, contained, and maintained as a discrete conditionally relative phase change (change of state) of fundamental, irreducible nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) within the omnipresent, pervasive, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED).
3. The NED is the carrier of particulate matter/mass.
4. Particulate matter/mass is the carrier of NPE electric charge.
5. Each electron, positron, and quark is the conjoint coupling of discrete conditionally relative NPE matter/mass and a discrete conditionally relative NPE electric charge within the NED.
6. Monopolar NPE electric charge is the sine qua non, the indispensable link between the reciprocally emergent, conditionally relative material domain of matter/mass and the omnipresent fundamental, irreducible, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED, apeiron).
7. In principle our energetic holonomic universe is a complex open (mechanically nonconservative) ^nonmaterial/_material system wholly embedded within the fundamental, irreducible NED.
8. Complex open ^nonmaterial/_material systems are mechanically nonconservative systems in which matter/mass and electric charge are not only created, but also destroyed as an elementary, separate and distinct coupled pair.
9. The contemporary equivalence of relativistic mass and the rest energy of classical physics is valid only in a theoretically closed or isolated (mechanically conservative) material system.
10. The combined traditional concepts of symmetry, global matter/mass-mechanical energy equivalence, and the conservation laws of matter/mass applied to closed or isolated (mechanically conservative) material systems are not sufficient to describe complex open (mechanically nonconservative) ^nonmaterial/_material systems.
11. The paradoxical contradictions inherent in the wave-particle duality concept of classical physics and traditional quantum mechanics are completely resolved in the omnipresent, pervasive NED by the identical nature (irreducible sameness) of matter/mass and fundamental, irreducible, nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE).
12. So-called empty space is simply the conspicuous panoptic obverse of the massless omnipresent, pervasive NED.

More precisely, the universal principle of energy (TUPE) points beyond classical physics, beyond conventional quantum mechanics and the material domain to the omnipresent, pervasive nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) that constitutes the fundamental, irreducible, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED).

The discrete, conditionally relative NPE states (phase changes) that comprise the ^nonmaterial/_material holonomic universe, including the unique conjoined, yet physically separate and distinct localized states that humankind sees as electric charge and matter/mass, are produced within the NED.

Three presently known families of particles can be seen to exhibit the conjoint creation of electric charge and matter/mass; namely, the lepton and quark fermion families, and the W boson family.

The relativistic propagation of massless electromagnetic radiation (photons) is also somewhat more complex than the mechanical generation of nonmaterial electromagnetic fields by changes in the positive (+) or negative (-) accelerations (changes in velocity) of various electrically charged particles, or the relativistic propagation of massless nonmaterial EMR from point A to point B through so-called empty space (i.e., the NED).

Furthermore, in the combined new physics of TUPE and the The Energetic Holographic Paradigm (TEHP, pronounced "teep") model of physical reality just-as-it-is, so-called empty space is a nonmaterial optical illusion (visual misrepresentation) created by the discontinuous pattern, the irregular presence or absence of visible macroscopic particulate matter/mass within the omnipresent, pervasive, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED).

In other words, "empty space" has no separate physical reality. Nonetheless, the absence of visible macroscopic matter/mass and the presence of unseen microscopic NPE matter/mass is sometimes exemplified by ad hoc concepts like the luminiferous ether Maxwell included and SRT excluded, or vacuum energy, quantum foam, or the Dirac sea, for example.

Contrary to philosophers and physicists from Aristotle to Einstein, so-called unseen, intangible "empty" space that contains no visible macroscopic matter/mass can be seen as simply the conspicuous panoptic obverse of the fundamental, irreducible, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED).

Electromagnetic radiation and the water wave analogy:

For nearly one hundred years the fundamental tone of electromagnetic theory and practice was set by the third paragraph of the Einstein-Marić 1905 photoelectric effect paper which states:

    According to the assumption to be contemplated here, when a light ray is spreading from a point, the energy is not distributed continuously over ever-increasing spaces, but consists of a finite number of energy quanta that are localized in points in space, move without dividing, and can be absorbed or generated only as a whole.14

First, a bit of history.

According to the traditional water wave analogy of Huygens, Young, and Maxwell, et al., there are certain similarities between the propagation of visible light produced by a point source and classical water waves created on the calm surface of a pond or pool of water when a pebble or stone is lobbed into it. Hence the transverse (lateral, orthogonal) electric and magnetic fields of each massless monochromatic photon can be seen as somewhat analogous to the mechanical rising and falling waves on the surface of the water that move transversely (radially) away from the point at which the object entered the water.

Thomas Young (1773-1829), a polymath and medical doctor, was appointed in 1801 as the first professor of natural philosophy (physics) at the recently organized Royal Institution of Great Britain in London, England. Young dramatically improved the water wave analogy of Christiaan Huygens by simultaneously dropping two pebbles of equal size into a calm pond of water to demonstrate the phenomenon of wave interference. Augustin-Jean Fresnel (pronounced fray-Nell) further improved Huygens' principle in 1818.

Young demonstrated wave interference in his public lectures by using a novel two-slit teaching device. He described the demonstration in the published version of lecture Thirty-nine, On the Nature of Light and Colours:

    Supposing the light of any given colour to consist of undulations, of a given breadth, or of a given frequency, it follows that these undulations must be liable to those effects which we have already examined in the case of the waves of water, and the pulses of sound. It has been shown that two equal series of waves, proceeding from centres near each other, may be seen to destroy each other's effects at certain points, and at other points to redouble them; and the beating of two sounds has been explained from a similar interference. We are now to apply the same principles to the alternate union and extinction of colours.  (Plate XX. Fig. 267 [see woodcut diagram below])

    In order that the effects of two portions of light may be thus combined, it is necessary that they be derived from the same origin, and that they arrive at the same point by different paths, in directions not much deviating from each other. This deviation may be produced in one or both of the portions by diffraction, by reflection, by refraction, or by any of these effects combined; but the simplest case appears to be, when a beam of homogeneous light falls on a screen in which there are two very small holes or slits, which may be considered as centres of divergence, from whence the light is diffracted in every direction. In this case, when the two newly formed beams are received on a surface placed so as to intercept them, their light is divided by dark stripes into portions nearly equal, but becoming wider as the surface is more remote from the apertures, so as to subtend very nearly equal angles from the aperatures at all distances, and wider also in the same proportion as the aperatures are closer to each other. The middle of the two portions is always light, and the bright stripes on each side are at such distances, that the light, coming to them from one of the aperatures, must have passed through a longer space than that which comes from the other, by an interval which is equal to the breadth of one, two, three, or more of the supposed undulations, while the intervening dark spaces correspond to the difference of half a supposed undulation, of one and a half, of two and a half, or more. 15

(Note: A minor typo in the original text was corrected in Paragraph 1 above.)

Plate XX. Fig. 267, a woodcut diagram:

 16

The analogy between water wave mechanics, massless electromagnetic radiation, and photon propagation breaks down at this point by focusing attention on the transverse waves rather than the discrete object or photon that creates the transverse waves. Clearly, compared to the motion of the primary object, the rising and falling transverse waves created in a water or nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) medium are a secondary effect.

In other words, by entering the water it is the pebble or stone that creates the transverse waves on the plane surface of the water medium. And, by sinking vertically straight to the bottom, the material object is analogous to the discrete energetic electromagnetic photon that generates the orthogonal electric and magnetic transverse waves of monochromatic electromagnetic radiation within the NPE medium as it travels at the constant speed of light from emission point A to absorption point B regardless of time or distance.

Contemporary double-slit experiments use a variety of methods and objects of interest such as photons and electrons. In contemporary quantum mechanics, for example, the results of double-slit experiments like those of Akira Tonomura, et al., Hitachi Ltd, Japan, are currently understood as demonstrations of wave-particle duality.

Especially notice that the combined new physics of TUPE and TEHP imply that the medium between the source and the recording device of a quantum double-slit experiment is comprised not only of the ambient atmospheric molecules, atoms, and electrons, the medium is also fundamentally, irreducibly comprised of the omnipresent, pervasive nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) that constitutes the indispensable NED which is commonly misidentified as empty space.

Beyond the classical and quantum mechanical paradigms:

The first law of the universal principle of primordial energy (TUPE) states that fundamental, irreducible nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE) exists in the absence of matter, but matter is entirely dependent upon NPE and cannot exist in the absence of NPE. The first law of nonmaterial primordial energy (NPE), therefore, implies the identical nature of NPE and material matter/mass within the fundamental, irreducible, nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED) of physical reality just-as-it-is.

It follows that material matter/mass is fundamentally a discrete, organized aggregation (change of state, phase transition) of NPE generated within the fundamental, irreducible nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED). Physical reality just-as-it-is necessarily is, therefore, a complex open (mechanically nonconservative) ^nonmaterial/_material system as opposed to a closed or isolated (mechanically conservative) material system.

Classical physics is fundamentally the history of classical mechanics. Classical mechanics, in turn, was extended into the microscopic realm by quantum mechanics. Nonetheless, while classical physics and contemporary quantum mechanics are valid in closed or isolated (mechanically conservative) material systems, classical and quantum mechanics are separately and collectively insufficient for describing the new physics of the complex open (mechanically nonconservative) nonmaterial primordial energy domain (NED) implied by TUPE.

Briefly summarizing the history of contemporary physics, Isaac Newton's physics and Christiaan Huygens' light waves in the late 17th century are mechanical. James Clerk Maxwell's mid-19th century physics and electromagnetic waves are mechanical. The unexpected, unrecognized harbinger of nonmechanical, nonmaterial quantum physics was Max Planck's intuitive discovery of the thermodynamic blackbody radiation energy quantum of action which he presented to his colleagues on 14 December 1900, the zeroth year of the 20th century.

The Einstein-Marić team submitted four technical papers and Albert's Ph.D dissertation to Annalen der Physik for publication in 1905:

1. On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, (received 18 March 1918).
2. A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Zürich, (received 11 May 1905).
3. On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, (received 30 June 1905).
4. On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat, (received 19 August 1905).
5. Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy Content?, (received 27 September 1905).

The first four were published in Annalen der Physik, Volume 17. The fifth paper was published in Volume 18.

Louis de Broglie (pronounced "de Broy"), after serving in the French army during World War I, postulated the wave nature of electrons in his 1924 doctoral thesis. Erwin Schrödinger published a series of four papers in 1926 in which the third paper proved that his particle wave mechanics were precisely equivalent to Werner Heisenberg's 1925 matrix mechanics. In his fourth paper Schrödinger developed a particulate matter wave mechanics equation that changes with time based on the conservation of nonrelativistic mechanical energy. The results of the relativistic Schrödinger equation developed later are also limited to the material domain.

In 1927 Heisenberg developed the uncertainty principle that describes the inherent inability of quantum mechanics to simultaneously measure the precise position and momentum of a material particle. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was later extended to include the inability of quantum mechanics to simultaneously measure kinetic energy and time with precision.

Interestingly, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle delimits only the material domain described by classical physics and quantum mechanics.

The development of contemporary quantum physics continues to be a work in progress, thus there are many interpretations of quantum mechanics. Moreover, despite the constraints of the mechanical paradigm and the matter argument, the advancement in quantum theory and practice since the 1920s has trended in the general direction of the NED, especially in the areas of quantum chromodynamics, vacuum energy, dark energy, vacuum polarization, virtual particles, and self-energy.

Continued in Chapter 3, Section 3:  Particle Self-Energy and the Transition Zone:  From Old to New Physics, Part 2

Reference Notes (Click on the Note number to return to the text):

12  Einstein, Albert. On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light. Anna Beck, translator. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein; Vol. 2, Doc. 14, p. 86. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1989. ISBN 0-691-08549-8

13  Einstein, Albert. On the Development of Our Views Concerning the Nature and Constitution of Radiation. Ref. 12, Doc. 60, p. 380.
(Cf. "Über die Entwickelung unserer Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung", Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, Verhandlungen 7 (1909).)

The quoted text in the original German:

Je mehr sich die elektromagnetische Theorie entwickelte, desto mehr trat die Frage, ob sich die elektromagnetischen Vorgänge auf mechanische zurückführen lassen, in den Hintergrund; man gewöhnte sich daran, die Begriffe elektrische und magnetische Feldstärke, elektrische Raumdichte usw. als elementare Begriffe zu behandeln, die einer mechanischen Interpretation nicht bedürfen.

14  Ref. 12, p. 87.

15  Young, Thomas. Thomas Young's Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts, 1807. Reprinted in vol. 1, pp. 464-465: Thoemmes Press, Bristol, England, 2002.  4 Volumes:  ISBN 1 85506 945 8

16  Ref. 15, vol. 2, p. 777, Figure 267.

Back to Chapter 3, Section 1:  Einstein, Maxwell, and Energy

Index:  Consciousness, Physics, and the Holographic Paradigm

Last Edit:  July 26, 2010.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

This paper is a work in progress.
Please check for the latest update before quoting in other venues the concepts and hypotheses presented here.
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