Lorentzian Dynamics

Scientific Paper
Title	Lorentzian Dynamics
Read in full	Link to paper
Author(s)	Ronald R Hatch
Keywords	Lorentz
Published	1999
No. of pages	17

Read the full paper here

Abstract

A number of modem physicists have espoused some form of absolute ether theory. But any such theory must explain a number of experiments via dynamic forces in place of the SRT kinematic explanation. This paper attempts to resolve a number of these experimental issues and to provide a coherent explanation of the apparent relativity which results. The specific stimulus for this paper was provided by Sherwin's experiment which attempted to detect directly the Lorentz-Fitzgerald length contraction. However, the Sherwin experiment is generalized herein to thought experiments involving gravitational and electromagnetic interactions. The appropriate force equations are explored for a mass particle in a gravitational orbit and for a charged particle in an electrostatic orbit. For apparent relativity to hold while angular momentum and energy are conserved puts very specific and precise limits on the form of the force equations. Ironically, the electromagnetic Lorentz force does not meet the requirements. Neither does the Ampere force law. Only the Gauss-Riemann-Whittaker force law has the appropriate functional dependence.

Overview

Delivered to the AAAS SWARM Division at Santa Fe on 13 April 1999, this is one of Ronald R Hatch's central expositions of what he calls Modified Lorentz Ether Theory (MLET). The starting claim is that an absolute frame exists and can be identified operationally: the frame in which the Cosmic Microwave Background is isothermal. Assign an isotropic light speed to that frame and, in every other frame, a light speed equal to the vector sum of c with the frame velocity read off the CBR dipole; a common time and a common simultaneity then exist for all frames. Hatch takes this to falsify the assumption on which special relativity was built — that no measurement can supply a frame-independent criterion of simultaneity — and says so with characteristic bluntness: "In spite of this demonstrable falsification of the foundation of SRT, it lives on, being firmly embedded in the ossified minds of establishment physics."

The paper's distinctive move, and what makes it more than a restatement of Lorentzian relativity, is the argument that an ether theory owes something a kinematic theory does not. If the relativistic effects are not properties of spacetime but real physical deformations, then real forces must produce them, and those forces are constrained. Hatch's method is to require that a moving orbit both exhibit the correct apparent relativity and conserve angular momentum and energy, and then ask which force law can deliver it. His answer is the paper's most quotable result and the one flagged as ironic in the abstract: not the Lorentz force law, and not the Ampère force law favoured by most dissidents, but the Gauss–Riemann–Whittaker (GRW) law.

The argument

The MLET background

The model is stated as a bulleted list rather than derived. The light medium is an elastic solid ether; matter is a standing wave within it; the ether's reaction time sets c. The internal motion of the matter standing wave reduces ether density inside and raises it outside, and since light speed depends on ether density, the external density excess acting on other matter's standing-wave energy is gravitational potential. Electric potential is a phase variation in ether density from rotation of the underlying standing wave; magnetic potential a phase variation in ether shear from motion of an electric potential; and by analogy there is a kinetic potential from shear due to motion of a gravitational potential — what relativists call gravitomagnetic, and which Hatch prefers to call kinetic because he associates it with kinetic energy relative to the absolute CBR frame.

Several consequences are stated up front and used throughout: matter, being a standing-wave structure sensitive to the two-way light speed, physically contracts longitudinally when set in motion; ideal clocks run slower when moving relative to the absolute frame or placed in denser ether; the kinetic energy is twice the classical amount; and — an unusual feature — gravitational mass decreases with velocity while inertial mass increases, the inertial mass being the sum of a gravitational part (structural energy over c²) and a kinetic part (kinetic energy over c²).

The transformation and apparent relativity

The mapping from absolute to moving frame is the Tangherlini–Selleri transformation (the paper spells it "Tanghlerini"), to which Hatch appends transformation rules for the two masses. Summarised in terms of what motion does to the units: lengths contract, clocks acquire larger units and so run slow, inertial mass increases, gravitational mass decreases. This transformation carries no relativity of simultaneity; the two frames are not symmetric.

Apparent relativity is then constructed optically. A moving sphere is deformed by Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction into an ellipsoid with semi-minor axis d/γ. An observer travelling with it, observing at finite light speed, receives rays at the aberration angle; the ray striking the trailing edge travels an extra distance vd/c before the second reaches the leading edge, which in that interval moves a further v²d/c². Adding this to the semi-minor axis gives an apparent separation d/γ + v²d/c² — longer even than the unmoved diameter — and mapping into the simultaneity plane of the light beam scales it back by 1/γ. The moving observer therefore sees the contracted ellipse as a circle and the stationary circle as an ellipse, "exactly the inverse of what the stationary observer in the absolute frame sees. We have apparent relativity."

Hatch notes that substituting the observed separation for d makes the time bias precisely the Einstein-synchronisation bias, so that the forward Tangherlini–Selleri transformation becomes the forward Lorentz transformation; the reverse transformation remains different, because the CBR anisotropy tells us the bias must be removed first. His conclusion is that Lorentz boosts have no physical basis and switching frames mid-experiment is invalid — from which he claims causal explanations of the twin paradox and of Thomas precession follow.

Sherwin's experiment and angular momentum

Sherwin's 1987 resonant spinning-mass experiment was presented as evidence against Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction. Hatch had argued in 1996 that it ignored the increase of inertial mass with velocity, and that once that is included, conservation of angular momentum requires the contraction. Where the spin velocity is aligned with the translation velocity, the inertial mass rises and the spin slows; the centre of spin gains on the orbital position and the orbit flattens, and a symmetric process flattens the other half. The angular displacement of the "spokes" of such a wheel is offered as the mechanism of Thomas precession, arising from the length contraction in the upper half and the resulting offset of the centre of mass. Hatch argues this beats R. Muller's 1992 special-relativistic account, which predicts the effect on any curved path even without spin, whereas the observed effect requires spin and a force acting on the centre of spin rather than the centre of mass. Because gravity acts on the centre of mass, on this account gravitational forces cause no Thomas precession. The contraction effect being linear in spin velocity, it displaces the spokes in angle rather than bending them — Hatch says Muller's curved-spoke figure is simply wrong.

Energy conservation and the choice of force law

The gap in the earlier work was energy. Conservation of energy under changing velocity requires forces, which is where kinematics must be abandoned. Hatch idealises: a central mass much heavier than the orbiter, a common translation velocity for the pair. Since the flattening is the standard Lorentz–Fitzgerald amount and independent of orbital radius, the forces from the common translation velocity and those from the product of translation and spin velocities can be treated separately.

The force-law question is then posed sharply. Most dissidents reject the Lorentz force because it violates Newton's third law and adopt Ampère's. The difference between Ampère and GRW lies entirely in how the phrase "directed to contrary parts" is read: Ampère constrains the forces to lie along the line joining the bodies, GRW requires only that they be oppositely directed. Hatch had already preferred GRW because it permits a torque between two magnetic sources — which Ampère's law forbids between current elements — and because under GRW two current elements at fixed separation give a force of constant magnitude, only the direction varying with relative orientation. The new argument is the decisive one: because the gravitational potential itself suffers Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction, the gravitational force is not directed along the line joining the bodies, giving a gravitational analogue of the Trouton–Noble situation. An extra force is needed to restore the line-of-centres direction, or apparent relativity fails — and the GRW kinetic force supplies exactly that vector, orthogonal to gravity at the 45-degree points of the orbit.

Hatch then tabulates the radial force variation from nominal, in units of ½β², at 0, 45 and 90 degrees, decomposed into contributions from GM (−2 throughout, since GM carries inverse time squared and clocks slow), the gravitational mass m (−1), the potential gradient (0, +1, +2 — larger at 90 degrees because the radius is shorter), and the radial kinetic force (+2, 0, −2), netting −1, −2 and −3. One unit of net force decrease at every point, combined with the increased inertial mass, slows the orbit — the mechanical clock runs slow — while the additional decrease near 90 and 270 degrees produces exactly the reduced curvature the flattened orbit needs. For the spin-dependent piece the force has the same magnitude form with the product of translation and spin velocities in place of v², is always directed downward in the figure, and integrates across the orbit diameter to precisely the energy difference between spin aligned with and against the translation velocity.

The unfinished electromagnetic half

Carrying the same treatment to charges runs into trouble: for an electron orbiting a nucleus with a common velocity relative to the CBR frame, "the magnetic forces are exactly opposite to the kinetic forces", and Hatch says frankly that "the solution is not obvious". He reviews electron models — Bergman and Wesley's spinning charged ring (interesting, but no help with velocity effects); Milo Wolff's in-and-out standing wave (which he says "depends upon magic", both in the incoming wave and in a 90-degree phase rotation at the centre); Hill's electromagnetic waves in a reflective box (faulted for not reflecting the contraction); and Holger Kubel's wave inside a moving circular reflector, which he thinks promising. A computer model of his own electron, built by his brother Ed with translation constrained along the spin axis, gave a result close to Kubel's: the electron elongates longitudinally rather than contracting, and its expansion and contraction cycles at the two ends of the spin axis fall out of synchrony — but adding the Lorentzian time bias restores synchrony and makes the electron appear contracted.

The proposed resolution is retardation. Gravity, being the direct action of the local ether density gradient, is effectively instantaneous; the electric force is not, being imparted where the standing waves of the two charges are of equal length, so its direction and interaction surface are modified by translation velocity. With the electric force following an elongated ellipse while the orbit is contracted, the magnetic force — though opposite in direction to the kinetic force — still yields a total force toward the orbital centre. Hatch claims this explains Trouton–Noble, but notes that the capacitor turning force to be cancelled "was exactly opposite that expected in the original experiment". He closes by conceding the electromagnetic development is incomplete: "But the way forward has been outlined... The goal is in sight. There is no need for the kinematic magic of SRT."

Assessment

What is genuinely valuable here is the methodological demand, and it is one that most ether theories evade. Hatch grasps that if relativistic effects are physical rather than kinematic, then they are effects of forces, and forces are far more constrained than a coordinate convention: they must conserve angular momentum and energy while still delivering the observed apparent symmetry between frames. Turning that into a selection criterion among competing force laws is a real piece of theoretical work, and it produces a conclusion that cuts against his own camp — the Ampère law that most dissident physicists prefer is rejected along with the Lorentz force. Willingness to reach an unwelcome result is a mark in the paper's favour, as is the candour of the closing section, where the electromagnetic case is left explicitly unfinished rather than papered over. The optical construction of apparent relativity is also carefully done: the extra distance vd/c, the further motion v²d/c², and the projection into the simultaneity plane are all followed through, and the observation that this makes the forward transformation coincide with the forward Lorentz transformation while the reverse differs is exactly the right place to look for an empirical discriminator.

The difficulties are correspondingly specific. The largest is that the ether model doing all the explanatory work — matter as standing wave, gravity as ether density gradient, kinetic energy twice the classical value, gravitational mass falling as inertial mass rises — is presented as a bulleted summary of prior work, not derived or defended here. A reader cannot check the central claims because the underlying model is asserted. This matters most for the doubled kinetic energy, which is not a minor bookkeeping choice: the classical limit of K = ½mv² is not an interpretive convention but is fixed by measurement in every calorimetric and accelerator context, and a factor of two would be conspicuous. The paper offers no account of why it is not seen.

The force-law argument, likewise, is demonstrated by construction rather than by derivation. Equation (11) is stated without derivation from the GRW law, and the table of radial force variations at 0, 45 and 90 degrees is presented in units of ½β² with each entry asserted; the crucial claim that the GRW kinetic force supplies "precisely" the force needed is therefore a claim the reader is asked to accept. Since this is the paper's headline result, it is the step that most needed to be shown in full.

Two conflicts with measurement should be named. First, the CBR rest frame is not a dynamical preferred frame — identifying it as the frame of isotropic light speed predicts a directional anisotropy in one-way light propagation tied to the 370 km/s dipole, and the modern rotating optical-resonator and cryogenic-microwave experiments that would see such an anisotropy constrain it to parts in 10¹⁷, far below what MLET requires. Hatch's own analysis anticipates this partly by making the forward transformation coincide with the Lorentz one, but he explicitly holds that the reverse transformation differs, and that difference should be observable. Second, the assertion that "the bending of light is a refraction effect and not due to the action of the gravitational potential" and that there is "no change in the energy of 'falling' electromagnetic radiation" runs directly against the Pound–Rebka measurement of the gravitational frequency shift and its successors, and against the Shapiro time delay; the paper does not address either.

Finally, a small internal slip worth flagging for readers following the geometry: Hatch describes a longitudinally contracted sphere as a "prolate ellipsoid" and, later, a longitudinally elongated electron as an "elongated (oblate) ellipsoid". Both labels are the wrong way round — contraction along the motion gives an oblate figure and elongation a prolate one. The physics of the argument is unaffected, but the figures read against the words.

Read as what it is — a 1999 conference paper presenting a work in progress within a larger programme set out in Escape from Einstein — it is one of the more disciplined attempts on this wiki to make an ether theory pay its dynamical debts rather than merely reinterpret relativity's kinematics.

See also

• Ronald R Hatch
• Escape from Einstein
• Aether
• Length Contraction
• Cosmic Microwave Background
• Simultaneity
• Special Relativity
• Gravitomagnetism
• Lorentz Force
• Franco Selleri
• Hendrik Lorentz
• Chalmers W Sherwin
• Donald G Carpenter
• David L Bergman
• Galilean Electrodynamics