We Need to Talk About "Maxwell"
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:50 pm
...and, no, I'm not suggesting "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" for the soundtrack...
I am talking about the assertion that we have seen here in the forums -- that I cited when I opened my talk in Las Vegas, that I referred to in the "Response to RHull" also posted elsewhere in the forums -- that James Clerk Maxwell's fundamental formulas of electromagnetic theory are ... incomplete.
The subject is suddenly pertinent because I'm re-reading Chapter 50, "Structure of Space," and it mentions Maxwell, and the Michelson Morley experiment, and examines of the foundations of modern electrical science.
On re-reading, it looks to me like Chapter 50 is where, if some sort of "flag" has to be planted with regard to Townsend Brown's own departure from acceptable, mainstream electro/physical logic.
We are, in other words, looking for the hole in Maxwellian theory that might be large enough to drive a time machine through.
So I seriously need the focused and concentrated help of everybody within the sound of my keystrokes to help me get at the root of this idea that Maxwell is... incomplete. Because the problem I'm having with that notion is that, whenever I try to nail it down, I wind up coming back to the same source: Tom Bearden. What I need now -- in the manner of Woodward and Bernstein -- is "confirmation from another source."
Somebody here attributed the modification of Maxwell's original equations to Oliver Heaviside. See what happens if you Google "maxwell heaviside." If you get the same results that I got, then about five entries down the page you'll get this fairly succinct summary of the controversy:
In fact, most (if not all) of the links from the Google search produce a variety of references to Bearden, including at least one that dismisses him summarily as a "crackpot."
And what were we just saying about the three steps to the truth? Step 1: Ridicule...?
So, everybody, can we have a discussion about this? Can we find any other source that can credibly make the case that Maxwell is...(at best) incomplete?
And when I say everybody, I really mean everybody that's tuned in here. Langely and Nate, you guys are great researchers... what can you find. Trickfox, you've got as good a handle on the math that circulates through this stuff as anybody here. Andy... Mark Bean... you guys are hands on, what say you? Magic Bill and FM Fred... wasn't it one of you that first threw down this Maxwellian gauntlet? What have you got to go on besides Bearden?
And Mikado: especially. I know you are uncomfortable with the "moderated" format of these Second Draft forums, but I implore you to work around that and help us out here. I really did think about putting this into an "open" space, but opted for the "moderated" format so that we can at least try to avoid spinning off into other subjects. So, do you have any thoughts on the subject? Hard as it is sometimes to get past your irascible Internet persona, I value whatever you might have to offer here.
And, Linda, of course: what does your intuition tell you?
I guess what I'm leaning toward is the discovery that Chapter 50 (which was first written a few months after Las Vegas) is where I'm going to have to plant a very important flag. Throw down a pivotal marker. It's right after Townsend Brown went completely "black," and so it makes sense that this is where he would develop theories that would have put him at odds with the electromagnetic mainstream. And I need that to provide some kind of background for what else is going on in "Part II."
So... what can we find that might give us firm ground into which we can plant this flag?
--PS
I am talking about the assertion that we have seen here in the forums -- that I cited when I opened my talk in Las Vegas, that I referred to in the "Response to RHull" also posted elsewhere in the forums -- that James Clerk Maxwell's fundamental formulas of electromagnetic theory are ... incomplete.
The subject is suddenly pertinent because I'm re-reading Chapter 50, "Structure of Space," and it mentions Maxwell, and the Michelson Morley experiment, and examines of the foundations of modern electrical science.
On re-reading, it looks to me like Chapter 50 is where, if some sort of "flag" has to be planted with regard to Townsend Brown's own departure from acceptable, mainstream electro/physical logic.
We are, in other words, looking for the hole in Maxwellian theory that might be large enough to drive a time machine through.
So I seriously need the focused and concentrated help of everybody within the sound of my keystrokes to help me get at the root of this idea that Maxwell is... incomplete. Because the problem I'm having with that notion is that, whenever I try to nail it down, I wind up coming back to the same source: Tom Bearden. What I need now -- in the manner of Woodward and Bernstein -- is "confirmation from another source."
Somebody here attributed the modification of Maxwell's original equations to Oliver Heaviside. See what happens if you Google "maxwell heaviside." If you get the same results that I got, then about five entries down the page you'll get this fairly succinct summary of the controversy:
Guess who wrote that? Bearden, of course.http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?nam ... e&sid=1656
In the 1880s, several scientists - Heaviside, Gibbs, Hertz etc. - strongly assaulted the Maxwellian theory and dramatically reduced it, creating vector algebra in the process. Then circa 1892 Lorentz arbitrarily symmetrized the already seriously constrained Heaviside-Maxwell equations, just to get simpler equations easier to solve algebraically, and thus to dramatically reduce the need for numerical methods (which were a "real bear" before the computer). But that symmetrization also arbitrarily discarded all asymmetrical Maxwellian systems - the very ones of interest to us today if we are seriously interested in usable EM energy from the vacuum.
So anyone seriously interested in potential systems that accept and use additional EM energy from the vacuum, must first violate the Lorentz symmetry condition, else all his efforts are doomed to failure a priori.
We point out that quaternion algebra has a higher group symmetry than either vector algebra or tensor algebra, and hence it reveals much more EM phenomenology and dynamics than does EM in vector or tensor form.
Today, the tremendously crippled Maxwell-Heaviside equations - symmetrized by Lorentz - are taught in all our universities in the electrical engineering (EE) department. Note that the EE professors still dutifully symmetrize the equations, following Lorentz, and thus they continue to arbitrarily discard all asymmetrical Maxwellian systems. Hence none of them has the foggiest notion of how to go about developing an "energy from the vacuum" system, which is asymmetrical a priori.
In fact, most (if not all) of the links from the Google search produce a variety of references to Bearden, including at least one that dismisses him summarily as a "crackpot."
And what were we just saying about the three steps to the truth? Step 1: Ridicule...?
So, everybody, can we have a discussion about this? Can we find any other source that can credibly make the case that Maxwell is...(at best) incomplete?
And when I say everybody, I really mean everybody that's tuned in here. Langely and Nate, you guys are great researchers... what can you find. Trickfox, you've got as good a handle on the math that circulates through this stuff as anybody here. Andy... Mark Bean... you guys are hands on, what say you? Magic Bill and FM Fred... wasn't it one of you that first threw down this Maxwellian gauntlet? What have you got to go on besides Bearden?
And Mikado: especially. I know you are uncomfortable with the "moderated" format of these Second Draft forums, but I implore you to work around that and help us out here. I really did think about putting this into an "open" space, but opted for the "moderated" format so that we can at least try to avoid spinning off into other subjects. So, do you have any thoughts on the subject? Hard as it is sometimes to get past your irascible Internet persona, I value whatever you might have to offer here.
And, Linda, of course: what does your intuition tell you?
I guess what I'm leaning toward is the discovery that Chapter 50 (which was first written a few months after Las Vegas) is where I'm going to have to plant a very important flag. Throw down a pivotal marker. It's right after Townsend Brown went completely "black," and so it makes sense that this is where he would develop theories that would have put him at odds with the electromagnetic mainstream. And I need that to provide some kind of background for what else is going on in "Part II."
So... what can we find that might give us firm ground into which we can plant this flag?
--PS