"𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙮, 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛
𝙃𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙨 𝙪𝙥 𝙩𝙤 𝙇𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩".
— John Milton, Paradise Lost.

"𝙎𝙢𝙤𝙤𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙮:
𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙪𝙡
𝙨𝙠𝙞𝙚𝙨, 𝙄𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙮 𝙡𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙧
𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨."
— Virgil, Aeneid.

That is how a pilgrimage to regain the æther feels like. So many false
glimmers of light, that ultimately prove to be dead ends.

But, one thing I have learned is that there is no point endlessly
debating the kinematics of special relativity or the geometry of general
relativity, but instead as Gauss urged, to search for the keystone of
electrodynamics:

> Without a doubt, I would have made my investigations public long ago,
had it not been the case that at the point where I broke off, what I
considered to be the actual keystone was lacking, namely, the derivation
of the additional forces (which enter into the reciprocal action of
electrical particles at rest, if they are in relative motion) from the
action which is not instantaneous, but on the contrary (in a way
comparable to light) propagates itself in time. At the time, I did not
succeed; however, I recall enough of the investigation at the time, not
to remain wholly without hope, that success could perhaps be attained
later, although, if I remember correctly, with the subjective
conviction, that IT WOULD FIRST BE NECESSARY TO MAKE A CONSTRUCTIBLE
REPRESENTATION OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE PROPAGATION OCCURS.
>
> — Letter from C.F.Gauss to Wilhelm Weber, 19 March 1845

Maxwell paraphrases Gauss as:

> We have seen that the mathematical expressions for electrodynamic
action led, in the mind of Gauss, to the conviction that A THEORY OF THE
PROPAGATION OF ELECTRIC ACTION in time would be found to be the very
KEYSTONE OF ELECTRODYNAMICS.
>
> —
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Treatise_on_Electricity_and_Magnetism/Part_IV/Chapter_XXIII

Einstein said "challenge accepted" and thought he discovered the
keystone of electrodynamics, which he published in his famous paper: "On
the electrodynamics of moving bodies".

The only problem seems to be that he found the false keystone of
electrodynamics.

Da Vinci Code: Silas discovers the false keystone: Job 38:11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJGahtL3TzU

In an extremely surprising coincidence, this is what Job 38:11 says:

"𝕳𝖎𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖙𝖔 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖚 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖊, 𝖇𝖚𝖙 𝖓𝖔
𝖋𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗: 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖙𝖍𝖞 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖉 𝖜𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖘
𝖇𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖞𝖊𝖉?"

On 1/23/24 9:04 AM, Aether Regained wrote:
> [...] a pilgrimage to regain the æther [...]

For that to get any consideration whatsoever, by people who matter
(physicists), you must explain how aether induces quantum behavior in
light and atoms. Without that such a "pilgrimage" is hopeless.

Tom Roberts

On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 12:07:41 PM UTC-8, Tom Roberts wrote:
> On 1/23/24 9:04 AM, Aether Regained wrote:
> > [...] a pilgrimage to regain the æther [...]
>
> For that to get any consideration whatsoever, by people who matter
> (physicists), you must explain how aether induces quantum behavior in
> light and atoms. Without that such a "pilgrimage" is hopeless.
>
> Tom Roberts

What do you have in mind?

Somewhere between Angstroms and Planck lengths, is a regime called the atomic,
in mass, "10^-25".

About the ultraviolet catastrophe, and Rayleigh Jeans, and electron physics,
is about running constants, about why electron physics, relates to stoichiometry,
about a sort of "tetrad of quantities", mass and charge and light-like and life-time,
"energy".

About spectroscopy and continuum mechanics, and quanta and wavepackets,
wavetrains and rays, the invariant and quasi-invariant, and doubling and halving spaces,
sort of gets to where "superstring theory" is supposed to be "grainy smooth",
being basically defined 10^-50.

These days there's Dirac positronic sea, yet you figure matter's (not) in there, too, ....

Yeah, these days "aether theory" is just called "vacuum energy".

Though I wonder, how you would have the concepts together exactly,
given they're apart.

Meeting in the middle: middle of nowhere. It's a continuum mechanics.

On Tuesday 23 January 2024 at 21:07:41 UTC+1, Tom Roberts wrote:
> On 1/23/24 9:04 AM, Aether Regained wrote:
> > [...] a pilgrimage to regain the æther [...]
>
> For that to get any consideration whatsoever, by people who matter
> (physicists)

Oh, you don't really matter. You're only imagining.

Tom Roberts:> On 1/23/24 9:04 AM, Aether Regained wrote:
>> [...] a pilgrimage to regain the æther [...]
>
> For that to get any consideration whatsoever, by people who matter
> (physicists), you must explain how aether induces quantum behavior in
> light and atoms. Without that such a "pilgrimage" is hopeless.
>
> Tom Roberts
>

That is a formidable challenge. IIRC, both Schrödinger and Dirac spent
considerable efforts on this endeavor, which they characterized as
spiritual and philosophical respectively. In the end, both pilgrims made
some progress, but were disappointed on not reaching the desired
destination.

However, they made it abundantly clear that the question of "𝐼𝑠
𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛 æ𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟?" was still open. Maybe, by standing on the
shoulders of these giants, some more progress can be made.

If time permits, I'll dig up and post some of their very interesting
observations on this issue.

On Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at 10:22:26 AM UTC-8, Aether Regained wrote:
> Tom Roberts:> On 1/23/24 9:04 AM, Aether Regained wrote:
> >> [...] a pilgrimage to regain the æther [...]
> >
> > For that to get any consideration whatsoever, by people who matter
> > (physicists), you must explain how aether induces quantum behavior in
> > light and atoms. Without that such a "pilgrimage" is hopeless.
> >
> > Tom Roberts
> >
> That is a formidable challenge. IIRC, both Schrödinger and Dirac spent
> considerable efforts on this endeavor, which they characterized as
> spiritual and philosophical respectively. In the end, both pilgrims made
> some progress, but were disappointed on not reaching the desired
> destination.
>
> However, they made it abundantly clear that the question of "𝐼𝑠
> 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛 æ𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟?" was still open. Maybe, by standing on the
> shoulders of these giants, some more progress can be made.
>
> If time permits, I'll dig up and post some of their very interesting
> observations on this issue.

I wonder, let's say you put "the theory" on a timeline down the decades.

So, from 1900, there's electron physics, and, 1905, annus mirabilis, so every five years
or so, there's an, ..., improvement, to the theory.

So, not all the improvements, are compatible or sympatico, with the existing ones.
For example that "relativity is classical in the limit" or along these lines, it's "conservative",
while not compatible, is, "non-conservative", conservative in the sense of not really
changing the theory, vis-a-vis conservation in the usual sense meaning invariant theory
and symmetry laws and Noether's theorem and conserved quantities.

The Copenhagen interpretation or the stochastic model for the statistical ensemble is
an example, then about Bohm-de Broglie and real wave mechanics of wave collapse,
in events. Similarly resonance theory for the molecular and the differences between
atomic and molecular is an example of this kind of thing.

For relativity then the big deal seems about that SR is local. This wasn't in effect for
lots of interpretations, so now they would be seen as, ..., well, "wrong" is pretty strong,
but, no longer in effect, altogether.

Something like asymptotic freedom or that time symmetry is the only thing not shown
falsified, these are pretty major touchstones on the evolution of the theory, and the
fact that the popular accounts are usually quite a ways behind the novel accounts,
and also not necessarily at all reflecting, the practical accounts.

Then, re-visiting the definitions and derivations, also result, revisiting the data. The
data was gathered and tabulated according to the interpretation, about what it is.

So, re-visiting or re-thinking the theory, here has the benefit of this, and the challenge
of it, interpreting experiment as it's evolved in configuration and energy over time,
and, according to what were the pronounced and exoteric theories, and especially,
the practical or esoteric theories, is for dragging those out and helping people understand
how and why the opinions changed, so they don't feel disserved or basically so
that they don't distrust or dispute the competence, of, big and primary science.

Of course I'm kind of a personal aggrandizer myself and sort of really only trust
theory for its own sake to make the best mathematical interpretation how then
it's simplest to assign it clearest physical interpretations.

Otherwise, when there's "wall-papering", onto the theory, instead of "re-thinking",
it, from first theoretical principles establishing the surrounds of the definitions
and their derivations, I have feelings like "those people are incompetents and
don't know bubkus, and their latest wall-papering after coat-tailing, is not,
"quality construction".

Or, you know, "a theoretical physicist thinks this".

Paul Dirac gives a lecture, starting about why theoretical physicists are people.

"The wave function Psi is interpreted as referring to a physical state."

"Some physicists have always objected to that probability interpretation. ...." "... One has to accept it. One cannot improve on it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci86Aps7CMo

"We can no longer just shut our eyes to the negative energy states." (While it's still all positive probabilities, ..., as for what events.)

"... there is a further doubling ...".

(Dirac explains where positrons come from, also electron holes.)

De Broglie talks about electron waves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stRrf4DB_3Y

I especially enjoyed the interview with de Broglie at the Paris Academy with the bust of Fresnel.

They're actually both pretty right. People saying Dirac and de Broglie are at odds are underinformed. Theorists not pulling them back together are just, well, they're stepping off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgXYvaSfFdE

"Present day theoretical physics is not in a satisfactory state." -- Dirac

"Most physicists say that we can turn a blind eye toward the infinities, ...., cutting out artificially the infinities, ... I feel very unhappy about it. ... Mathematics does not allow you to discard infinities just when they don't suit you. ... I think I'm pretty well alone among physicists this way, ..., but I'm hoping, ...." -- Dirac, 1975

"... resignation physics ...". -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Touschek#/media/File:Bruno_Touschek.jpg

Greene: That's great 20'th century textbook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFV2feKDK9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpsxH7mOopM&t=4670

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08aLgCb56_w

Davies: Yeah, inflationary theory is paint-canned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSpFz2ZXHGM

t'Hooft: The, "quantum black hole", is really about the atom as real graviton and black-hole/white-hole and its own virtual partner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z3JYb_g2Qs

Woit: String theory's still a thing, it's just extended continuum mechanics.. What mathematics needs is better continuum mechanics anyways, and it's what it's missing. Twistor theory is old Riemann metric wrapped as new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsI_HYtP6iU

Turok: yeah you're right physics is in a crisis and its second ultraviolet catastrophe, and the first was resolved with discrete mechanics, and this with continuous.

Davies has some of the best writings about the real parts of special relativity. Then though he gets into mysticism that isn't attached. Then t'Hooft is of course totally famous, and it reminds me of Jefimenko and they kind of go together. Turok is pretty great he at least is honest what's wrong with physics. Penrose on the one hand at least makes clear in his latest book "our theory together disagrees 120 orders of magnitude", then though he's gone right down the rabbit hole. Greene is sort of stuck because his dogmatic, if comprehensive, adherence to his received text kind of has him painted himself into a corner. Hossenfelder, rabbit hole. Kaku is pretty strong and he could pick up where he left off string theory, but, rabbit hole.. Tyson is a great popularizer, and solid and textbook, but, the catastrophe has left him some sort of grasping so he's not really advised.

Or, it's not their opinion, kind of.

Turok though, Turok seemed pretty honest at least about problems physics has, and without going all rabbit hole, which is from Alice in Wonderland where going down the rabbit hole means leaving reality and traipsing into absurdity, or as from Through the Looking Glass and so on.

So, t'Hooft is still out in front. [But t.Hooft also rabbit holes down his ladder.]

Then there's Dirac, "see I told you so". Then there's Bohm and Einstein, "yeah, that'd be great".

Then, it's kind of beckoning, "Cantor II".

Ross Finlayson:> On Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at 10:22:26 AM UTC-8 wrote:
> Turok though, Turok seemed pretty honest at least about problems
physics has, and without going all rabbit hole, which is from Alice in
Wonderland where going down the rabbit hole means leaving reality and
traipsing into absurdity, or as from Through the Looking Glass and so on.
>
> So, t'Hooft is still out in front. [But t.Hooft also rabbit holes
down his ladder.]
>

So, you are saying except for Turok and maybe t'Hooft, the rest have
gone cuckoo.

On Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 11:07:26 AM UTC-8, Aether Regained wrote:
> Ross Finlayson:> On Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at 10:22:26 AM UTC-8 wrote:
> > Turok though, Turok seemed pretty honest at least about problems
> physics has, and without going all rabbit hole, which is from Alice in
> Wonderland where going down the rabbit hole means leaving reality and
> traipsing into absurdity, or as from Through the Looking Glass and so on.
> >
> > So, t'Hooft is still out in front. [But t.Hooft also rabbit holes
> down his ladder.]
> >
> So, you are saying except for Turok and maybe t'Hooft, the rest have
> gone cuckoo.

I was watching an interview of Kuhn and Penrose,
Penrose frames it, "I frame things sort of paradoxically
on purpose, because most people won't understand,
so I want them to have something they can have result
their imagination". So, maybe it's on purpose, but,
for technical sorts, much drain-o the rabbit-hole, yes.

So, maybe Penrose as a popularist is just giving
some nice sugar-coated absurdities for people
to make as imaginary, but, well, that's what he said.

Others pretty much hit the limits of their mathematics
and resulted making wrong statements about probability
because they don't live in a world with causality,
because they don't understand supeclassical models,
and "theory of sum potentials" much more than
"path integral of sum histories".

An interview with Robert Kuhn and Roger Penrose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvS2K06dg4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Q6SWcTA9w&lc=Ugwv2tuaKKbGwtMCYHp4AaABAg&t=529s

"What are Breakthroughs in Mathematics?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpkf6-C9E-E&t=970s

So, Penrose's popularizing style or fashion, is not the same
as what he would defend in "his theories, of physics",
some of which are merely models of abstraction of failed inference,
intentionally.

So, "revisit Hubble, Heisenberg, Higgs", is a usual refrain.