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John Hodge

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John C. Hodge
ResidenceFranklin, North Carolina, United States
NationalityAmerican
Known forScalar Theory of Everything (STOE), Scalar Potential Model, the Hodge Experiment
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Cosmology, Astronomy
InstitutionsBlue Ridge Community College (adjunct professor, 2002–2008)

John C. Hodge is an American physicist, inventor and amateur astronomer who developed the Scalar Theory of Everything (STOE), a cause-and-effect model of the universe intended to replace both Big Bang cosmology and quantum mechanics with a single set of "universal equations". Working outside the mainstream research establishment, he argues that the accumulation of ad hoc additions to standard physics — inflation, dark matter, dark energy, the strong and weak nuclear forces — is a symptom that a paradigm shift is overdue.

Biography

Hodge was reared on a farm and served four years in the United States Army, leaving with the rank of captain. He holds a BS in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MS in physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He owned and ran an electronics company until selling it in 1991, after which he turned to invention and amateur astronomy, and his interest in cosmology developed.

In 2002 he conceived what he describes as a radical new cosmology model, began publishing papers, and taught as an adjunct professor at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, North Carolina, from 2002 to 2008. His earliest papers, several written with astronomer Michael W. Castelaz, were posted to arXiv from 2003 and dealt with rotation curve asymmetry and distance-scale calibration; his paper on redshift and discrete redshift appeared in the peer-reviewed journal New Astronomy in 2006. Since about 2014 the bulk of his work has appeared on viXra and in the journal Intellectual Archive, along with two books. He is retired and lives in Franklin, North Carolina.

Scientific contributions

The Scalar Potential Model

Hodge's early work developed the Scalar Potential Model (SPM), in which the universe consists of matter plus a scalar potential field. Spiral galaxies act as Sources of the field and early-type, lenticular and irregular galaxies act as Sinks, giving the universe a cellular structure with matter flowing from Sources to Sinks. From this he derived a redshift–distance relation that reproduces the Hubble law without an expanding universe, and which also accounts for the discrete (quantised) redshifts reported by William Tifft. Using the same potential field he modelled spiral galaxy HI rotation curves — including their asymmetries — without invoking dark matter, arguing instead that the asymmetry correlates linearly with the effective potential force from a galaxy's ten nearest neighbours. He extended the model to galaxy central mass and central velocity dispersion, to a theoretical derivation of the microwave background radiation temperature, and to the Pioneer Anomaly, for which he claimed a successful prediction.

The Scalar Theory of Everything

The SPM was later generalised and renamed the Scalar Theory of Everything. The STOE posits just two fundamental components of the universe and their interaction: the plenum, a continuous field whose density determines the potential, and the hod, a discrete fundamental particle of matter. Everything else — photons, nucleons, the four forces, gravity — is an emergent property of hods immersed in the plenum. One equation defines the plenum potential at every point and a second uses that potential to exert force on the hods; Hodge presents this as a direct extension of Newton's programme rather than a departure from it.

Hodge argues that the STOE unites "the big and the small". On the large scale it retains the SPM's account of redshift, rotation curves and the CMB temperature. On the small scale he treats the four fundamental forces as emergent properties of magnetism, developing this in a series of papers titled Magnetic Field Evolves to Gravity Field in which gravity emerges from the magnetic effects of hods within matter structures. He appeals to a fractal, self-similar principle in which the assembly of permanent magnets into a sphere is analogous to a nucleon, so that laboratory-scale magnetic behaviour becomes a guide to nuclear structure. He has also argued that the STOE "hod" plays the role assigned to the graviton in quantum theories of gravity.

Replacing Special Relativity

Hodge proposes replacing Special Relativity with a small set of STOE axioms, of which the first is that time progression (dt), rather than the speed of light, is the constant of the universe. The remaining axioms hold that the diameter of hods is the same throughout the universe; that the distance between hods is set by plenum density, higher density reducing the spacing; that photons and hods travel at the greatest speed of any matter in a given environment; and that plenum waves travel much faster than hods. He maintains that this scheme reproduces the classic tests of Special Relativity — the Doppler effect, Kennedy–Thorndike and Ives–Stilwell type experiments — while extending to observations Special Relativity cannot address, and he presents an STOE account of the historic "ether wind" results.

Photon diffraction and the Hodge Experiment

A distinctive strand of Hodge's work is his rejection of the wave model of light in favour of a particle model derived from Newton's corpuscular speculations. Using a simulation program in which randomly emitted particle photons interact with the plenum over a large distance, he obtained Fraunhofer diffraction patterns without a wave, and used the model to interpret single-photon interference and the Afshar experiment.

This led him to design what has become known as the Hodge Experiment: the Fraunhofer pattern from a slit in a first mask is allowed to impinge on a second mask, and the pattern produced by a slit in the second mask is compared with the pattern produced by an edge. Hodge reports that the results distinguish between wave-caused and particle-caused diffraction patterns and reject wave models of light. He has published variants using transparent masks and opaque strips, and reported results in the Optics and Photonics Journal.

Other applications and philosophy

Hodge has applied the STOE to the Pioneer Anomaly, to the anomalous motions of trans-Neptunian objects that are usually attributed to a hypothetical "Planet 9", to the electron spin-1/2 observation, and to inertia. Alongside the physics he has written on the philosophy of science — arguing that the mathematical complexity of standard models is itself evidence for an underlying cause-effect physics — and on political philosophy, including a proposed constitutional framework for what he calls steering humanity's growth.

CNPS talks

He has presented in the CNPS online seminar series:

Works

Books

  • Theory of Everything: Scalar Potential Model of the Big and the Small (2012), ISBN 978-1469987361
  • STOE Replaces Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018), ISBN 978-6139914654

Selected papers

  • "Relationship Between Cepheid and Tully-Fisher Distance Calculations" (2003), arXiv:astro-ph/0304030
  • "Neighboring Galaxies' Influence on Rotation Curve Asymmetry", with Michael W. Castelaz (2003), arXiv:astro-ph/0305022
  • "Changing universe model with applications" (2004), arXiv:astro-ph/0409765
  • "Scalar potential model of redshift and discrete redshift", New Astronomy 11 (5), 2006, arXiv:astro-ph/0602344
  • "Scalar potential model of the CMB radiation temperature" (2006), arXiv:astro-ph/0603140
  • "Scalar potential model of spiral galaxy HI rotation curves and rotation curve asymmetry" (2006), arXiv:astro-ph/0611029
  • "Scalar potential model of galaxy central mass and central velocity dispersion" (2006), arXiv:astro-ph/0611699
  • "Scalar potential model of the Pioneer Anomaly" (2006), arXiv:astro-ph/0612567
  • "Scalar potential model progress" (2007), arXiv:0704.0487
  • "Comments on 'The Pioneer Anomaly in the Light of New Data'" (2009), arXiv:0907.0425
  • "Scalar Theory of Everything model correspondence to the Big Bang model and to Quantum Mechanics" (2014), viXra:1402.0064
  • "Single Photon Diffraction and Interference" (2015), viXra
  • "Hodge Experiment Distinguishes Between Wave and Particle Caused Diffraction Patterns" (2016)
  • "STOE Assumptions that Model Particle Diffraction and that Replace QM" (2016)
  • "STOE Model of the Electron Spin 1/2 Observation" (2016)
  • "STOE Inertia" (2017)
  • "Hodge Experiment (Continued) with Opaque Strips and About the Afshar Experiment" (2017)
  • "Interference Experiment with a Transparent Mask Rejects Wave Models of Light", Optics and Photonics Journal (2019)
  • "Magnetic Field Evolves to Gravity Field", Parts 1–5, Intellectual Archive (2019)
  • "STOE Explains 'Planet 9'", Intellectual Archive (2019)
  • "Magnetic field causes the strong and weak nuclear forces and is the GUT force", Intellectual Archive (2020)
  • "Scalar Theory of Everything (STOE) unites the big, the small, and the four forces (GUT) by extending Newton's model", Intellectual Archive 9 (4), 2020
  • "Replacing Special Relativity", Intellectual Archive (2021), viXra:2107.0148
  • "Ad hoc additions to theories suggest a new paradigm", Intellectual Archive (2022), viXra
  • "Mathematics complexity suggests cause-effect physics", Intellectual Archive (2022)
  • "STOE Plenum Is Real", Intellectual Archive (2023)
  • "STOE 'hod' is the quantum 'graviton'", Intellectual Archive (2023)

External links

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