Mass of photon

By AWT the problem of rest mass of photon must be separated from luminal speed of light wave, as expected by special relativity. Light wave isn't photon and special relativity doesn't care about photon existence at all - it just considers fully harmonic light wave, which is atemporal and of unlimited range by its very nature. Another correction - just negative one - brings the presence of cosmic microwave background (CMB). Due the random character of vacuum at presence of CMB photons, real empty spacetime isn't completelly flat, so that every light wave can be considered a dynamic mixture of photons and tachyons of negative rest mass. As a whole, this mixture has a zero rest mass just at the CMB scale, which is indeed not the case of photons itself. Therefore special relativity can still have its portion of truth - but real photons would undergo a subtle dispersion in CMB field, which decreases their speed a bit, because no isolated object can remain in complete rest with respect to this field.

By AWT every artifact with positive curvature should have a positive (i.e. nonezero) rest mass and the photon - being an isolated particle - is no exception. The particle like character of photons can be observed easily during spreading of gamma rays in spark chamber or by scintillator in spinthariscope, where they're behaving like distinst well defined particles ("scintilla" means "spark" in Greek). Therefore it's nothing strange, if photon increases mass of resonator, whenever it gets trapped into it - as we can observe by mass spectrometer during excitation of atom nuclei, for example.

The theoretical rest mass of photon can be extrapolated as a dynamic mass of photon, when the (wavelength of) photon becomes so large, it will fit the whole observable Universe, so that the photon cannot move and it stay at rest in it. This value is incredibly low, though and it can be estimated by using of E=hν formula to some 10E-61 kg. Albeit low, it can result into observable violation of Compton law at Planck scale (pair formation) and into light speed invariance violation at cosmic scale (for example by polarization of microwaves by vacuum and by dispersion of gamma rays, as observed by GZK limit or by MAGIC telescope during Mkn 501 flash).

The effective rest mass of photon could become even higher (~10E-17 kg), if we consider, the photons, whose wavelength is longer then human scale would dissapear in the noise of cosmic microwave backround (CMB) radiation, where only entangled light waves can spread effectivelly. In adition, photons of wavelength larger the human / CMB scale (~1.7 cm) are behaving rather like weak holes in the ocean of CMB photons, so they should be expelled by them in gravity field, instead.
The general problem in misunderstanding of special relativity consist in mixing of light and photon concepts. Light wave can be local, but the photon isn't never quite local thing, it has a finite (albeit typically quite small) size. It means, only light wave can move by speed of light, but not photon. For wavelength comparable to CMB radiation the light can consist only from waves, but not photons, because these size of photons are comparable to CMB noise size, so they cannot be distinguished from it. For longer wavelengths, then those of CMB the negative rest mass photons can be postulated, and the speed of such "negative curvature" photons becomes superluminal - the character of such waves will converge to longitudinal gravitational waves, which are inherently superluminal. The superluminal portion of microwave light enables to escape it from black hole as a Hawking radiation for example, which makes the whole concept testable.
"All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it,
but he is mistaken." (Albert Einstein, 1954)

Aether and quantum mechanics

Richard Feynman: "It is safe to say that nobody understands quantum mechanics".
John Wheeler: "If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it."
Roger Penrose: "Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense." (via phys.wp.com)

OK. The interpretation of quantum mechanics by Aether Wave Theory is easy and it's based on the foam behavior of Aether fluctuations, which are getting more dense after introduction of some energy by the same way, like soap foam during shaking inside of evacuated vessel. This behavior can be modeled easily by common computer and you can play with it by using of interactive Java applet. Note the similarity of foam behavior and dynamic mesh approach, used in numerical simulations.

As the result, every wave propagates through vacuum like so called quantum wave packet ("particle"), where the mass density of vacuum (so called the probability function, denoted by blue line on the picture bellow) is proportional the the actual energy density in each space and time interval (red color), thus fulfilling the Schrödinger equation - a fundamental equation of quantum mechanics.

The foam model illustrates the particle-wave duality, i.e. the fact, every isolated wave (soliton) propagates through vacuum like less or more pronounced density blob (wave packet), the density of which is proportional the wave frequency, which keeps the energy of wave packet quantized. This leads to interesting phenomena during wave packets collision, when the gradient forming blob becomes so large, so that the wave will bounce from internal walls of wave packet like wave inside of glass sphere or similar resonator and it will change itself into isolated standing wave of particle, undulating at place (a process known as a materialization of radiation).

Structure of observable reality

By AWT, the Aether structures are given by probability laws inside the inertial chaos, composed of many states (virtual particles). These less or more deterministic fluctuations of chaos density (i.e. the chaos density gradients) are having a structure of scale invariant Perlin noise, which we can perceive as a foam from local perspective. This structure can be derived from number theory as well, if we realize, the natural numbers are representing countable objects (colliding particles) and repeating sequences in random numbers are the less frequent, the more deterministic states (i.e. the similar numbers, the linearly increasing serii, etc.) they contain.

This is because, the density fluctuations are everything, what we can see from inertial chaos and the density fluctuations is the only way, how the energy/information can propagate at distance. So when the density of system increases, the foamy character of Perlin noise will become a clearly pronounced, so we can approximate all Aether structures (including time and space) by nested foam. This mechanism is analogous to formation of foamy density fluctuations inside of condensing supercritical liquid - so we can say, the whole observable reality has a structure of nested foam or exaggerated density fluctuations of heavily compressed particle gas or fluid: i.e. the interior of black hole.

Inside of large chaotic field the number of states, which are observable at the same moment is always quite limited because of limited speed of energy/information spreading. We can say, we are seeing something from such chaos just because we cannot see everything from it at the single moment. Therefore such system can never appear completely chaotic for us by the same
way, like the color patterns, formed by limited number of color states inside of random field of colored dots. Note that these patterns are scale invariant, they're always appear the same, despite the number of entities involved - they're forming so called unparticles.

When the density/scale of system increases, the foamy character of Perlin noise will become a clearly pronounced, so we can approximate all Aether structures (including time and space) by nested foam, which we can observe both in large scales as a streaks of dark matter, both in Planck scale as a "quantum foam" or as a "fabric of space".

It means, the Universe "as such" is completely random and it has no apparent structure or laws. But the observable portion of Universe cannot be completely random, or it wouldn't observable for us at all. Because we are highly ordered creatures, we have tendency to consider just a well organized pieces of Universe as a reality, by the same way, like we cannot see the chaotic
portion of condensing supercritical fluid - only the gradient driven portion of it. From the above follows, the observable reality is gradient driven, because we are forced to see it so. We can see exactly the same things, we could see inside of superdense particle fluid.

Aether and Maxwell's Equations

Well, the vacuum is probably a dense fluid. But which fluid? A fluid composed of its own scale invariant vortices as a boson condensate. This concept explains just a hydrodynamic properties of vacuum, its vorticity in particular, which can be described by tensor fields. Therefore it belongs into realm of relativity theory, the LQG and twistor theory in particular.

The connection between fluid vorticity and electromagnetism is known for years. Whole the Maxwell's theory was based on inertial fluid concept, which Maxwell has used for explanation of his displacement current concept. No wonder, Maxwell's equations are all isomorphous with Navier-Stokes equations. The most pronounced analogy we can met at the case of hydrodynamic analogy of Biot-Savart law:

Richard Cunningham Patterson Jr.: "If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."

The magnetic field transforms the vacuum into field of many tiny vortices, through which the charged particle with spin is moving along curved path, being dragged by vortex field. The analogy of Faraday-Lentz force and Newton-Magnus-Robbins force by AWT follows from the picture bellow:

For explanation of quantum mechanics properties of vacuum we are forced to adhere on foam model of vacuum, which follows from AWT as well. Only one real-life system covers both aspects of vacuum by analogy: its a condensing supercritical fluid, which can be described both fluid, both foam at the same moment. And this is where the AWT has started after one hundred years, when it was left abandoned by Sir Oliver J. Lodge, who had proposed it in 1904.

History of Aether Wave Theory

Modern Aether concept has begun by Rene Descartes, who proposed in 1644, that no empty space can exist and that space must consequently be filled with matter. The parts of this matter tend to move in straight paths, but because they lie close together, they can't move freely, which according to Descartes implies that every motion is circular, so the aether is filled with vortices. These ideas were extended later by more specific vortex model of Christian Huygens (1669 -1690) and by Newton's Aether flux model and gravity theory in particular (Principia ~1686, Opticks).
Modern textbooks often claims, Newton believed that space and time were absolute and inviolable - but Newton was a strong proponent of wave/particle duality and he published a variable-density Aether model, in which light and matter trajectories were either bent or deflected by an Aether density gradient. This can be compared to Einstein’s "refractive approach" to gravitational light-bending (1911), which was abandoned by Einstein himself on behalf of formal space-time curvature based description of gravity. Madame Blavatsky, in 1888, predicted that the ether would soon be rejected. She was right. It was rejected officially by wast majority of scientists in 1905, when Albert Einstein first dispensed with it. Einstein half-rejected the aether, he did not reject it in the sense of action by contact or instantaneity.
These trivial and quite natural models were never refuted in fact! Modern physicists never realized, Aether environment cannot be observed by its waves like every else environment - so they misinterpreted negative result of Michelson-Morley experiment (and many others) by the same way, like virtually every other aspects of Aether hypothesis toward less complete and intuitive space-time concept. Particle model doesn't explain, what the space-time really is, but it explains fractal foam nature of space-time curvature and the gradient driven symmetry of space and time . At Einstein time, scientists were not aware of another subtleties (Lens-Thirring effects, connection of QM and Lorentz symmetry violation, etc.), which are forming the motivation of AWT by now.
Believe it or not, neither AWT is completely new. It seems, the original author of dense Aether concept was Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, who published in Harper's Magazine in 1904 his "Electric Theory of Matter", which is basically the electromagnetic theory of Aether. The dense Aether concept was mentioned even in some textbooks after then (1908).

The fundamental mistake of another well known Aether proponent T.J.J.See was, he didn't understood the dense Aether concept like others, albeit Lodge has explained it to him explicitly. From the above discussion it's evident, the conceptual father of AWT was rather Oliver Lodge, not T.J.J.See, albeit the later had published a lotta articles about Aether (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) later. But his Aether Wave Theory has only few common points with Lodge's concept, for example the assumption, all forces are mediated by Aether waves.
From AWT follows, era of formal and nonformal approach alternates in science in less or more apparent waves, the density of which increases, because of increasing information density. Intuitive plenum concept of ancient Greeks was replaced by abstract Newtonian concept of absolute space and time. With better understanding of wave nature of light at the beginning of 19th century Aether theory was revived, but it was replaced by formal combination of relativity and quantum mechanics in 20th century. Now we are facing Aether concept again, because contemporary system of formal dualities has reached its limits in many aspects, the complexity in particular.

How the AWT affects expert's thinking in "quiet"..

Before two years a former Harvard professor Lubos Motl well known in biosphere was firmly convinced proponent of anti-aether lobby - but now he's promoting an Aether concept openly, albeit he's working in physics for years and he censored it in his blog comments obstinately.




This example just demonstrates clearly, how scrambled many people (even those most formally "qualified" ones..) can be concerning the trivial Aether concept. From AWT follows, the character of new ideas spreading corresponds a common phase transition inside of multiparticle system as a result of symmetry breaking, for example the character of boiling near water surface.



At the very beginning the new ideas are propagating like tiny isolated islands through society. Most of ideas will not survive negativistic stance of surrounding environment and they will collapse again like bubbles near boiling surface. Their proponents don't understand their common points, so they're repelled by surface tension mutually like tiny bubbles and they're even fighting mutually due energy competetion. Gradually, the number of people understanding new ideas increases and the mainstream community is starting to integrate/steal them into system of existing theories (for example, string and quantum foam, fractal or gradient reality, emergence or unparticle concept of Aether theory adopted by mainstream theories as an example).

At certain moment, an inverse population is reached and the intersubjective thinking will suddenly switch into new conceptual paradigm from distant outer perspective, so such transition appears sharp like surface of black hole event horizon. However, from internal observer perspective such transition often appears seamlessly continuous, because their proponents didn't realize change of intersubjective thinking, being isolated from reality in their ivory towers like tiny isolated black holes or elementary particles due their strong surface gradient of information density (compare the "fuzzball" concept of event horizon). These proponents of old paradigm will become isolated in their stance gradually, so they play a role of rare antiparticles persisting in diaspora inside of new conceptual continuum. And whole evolution can repeat again.

We can observe many other analogies to material world here. For example, active proponents of ideas are often attracted by super-symmetrical particles, which are playing role of opposition by the same way, like antiparticle clouds of dark matter occurs at the presence of massive objects as a result of strong gradient of gravity field. The short-seeing proponents of ideas are often behaving like black holes due total reflection, so they lose ability to exchange their ideas with the rest of society at all. We are saying, such person anticipate their time in relation to omni-directional space-time expansion.



As the result, behavior of biological systems or society and propagation of enthropy density and memes can learn us a lot about energy and matter spreading through Aether - and vice-versa.

And that's the memo. ;-)