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PHYSICS FROM THE EDGE: A NEW COSMOLOGICAL MODEL FOR INERTIA
The fundamental and very important property of inertia has never been well understood. This book shows how inertia has puzzled many scientists such as Galileo and Mach, and then presents a new theory that explains inertia for the first time, and also predicts galaxy rotation without dark matter, cosmic acceleration and some other anomalies. Further evidence for, and tests of, the theory are presented and exciting applications such as new inertial launch methods and the theoretical possibility of faster than light travel will be discussed. To allow readers to use the theory themselves, some simple maths is included, and to help explain the points made, there are numerous cartoons by the author.
- GenresPhysics
168 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 23, 2018
McCulloch posits that a kind of Casmir effect from Unruh radiation from Rindler horizons is the fundamental origin of matter’s inertial mass. The Rindler horizon an accelerating object sees blocks Unruh radiation from that direction, leading to a resistance to acceleration. Extending this consideration to the cosmological horizon leads to the conclusion that nature is characterized by a minimum possible acceleration, far below what is found in terrestrial settings, but comparable to what stars near the edge of spiral galaxies experience. This is similar to the acceleration cutoff seen in MOND, and is used to explain various cosmological data in a way that supposedly obviates the need for dark matter and dark energy.
Independent of any considerations of empirical accuracy, McCulloch's theory, MiHsC (Modified inertia by a Hubble-scale Casimir effect), has some important features of a good scientific theory:
1) MiHsC is motivated by genuinely surprising empirical data - the flyby anomalies experienced by spacecraft and the anomalous rotation curves of spiral galaxies. The former have no widely accepted explanation; the latter are usually explained by dark matter, and sometimes by MOND. But dark matter explanations of these results are tremendously underdetermined, because we are free to posit a huge variety of dark matter distributions. MOND is straightforwardly determined by a single free parameter (an acceleration cutoff) which is simply fit to the available galactic data. This leads to the next point.
2) MiHsC has no free parameters. The numerical content of the theory is determined entirely by known physical constants such as the speed of light in a vacuum and the Hubble constant. There does not appear to be any wiggle-room to refit the theory to new data if it turns out to be in conflict with observation.
3) MiHsC posits an unexpected (but not implausible) effect of known physical phenomena (Unruh radiation and the Casimir effect) on matter, not a completely novel phenomenon designed specifically to explain the anomalous data.
4) Despite being a theory created to explain astronomical and cosmological data, MiHsC is in principle testable in a terrestrial laboratory, and in fact (in chapter 6) McCulloch makes a number of suggestions that could plausibly be implemented in the near future.
5) MiHsC is not motivated _solely_ by empirical considerations, but is also the result of philosophical / conceptual thinking about a core physical notion - inertia - which is typically taken for granted and rarely subjected to philosophical analysis or treated as being in need of explanation.
On top of all that, it seems that MiHsC does a good job of explaining the phenomena it purports to explain. For example, it reproduces the (rather successful) predictions of MOND in the single-galaxy regime, and (unlike MOND) also manages to get things right in the galactic cluster regime. That said, I'm not currently equipped to evaluate the empirical success of the theory in any detail. I'm interested enough in McCulloch's ideas to look into it further, though. I will learn a little more about observational cosmology and see if I can get some opinions from more "mainstream" dark matter skeptics, like Stacy McGaugh.
Independent of any considerations of empirical accuracy, McCulloch's theory, MiHsC (Modified inertia by a Hubble-scale Casimir effect), has some important features of a good scientific theory:
1) MiHsC is motivated by genuinely surprising empirical data - the flyby anomalies experienced by spacecraft and the anomalous rotation curves of spiral galaxies. The former have no widely accepted explanation; the latter are usually explained by dark matter, and sometimes by MOND. But dark matter explanations of these results are tremendously underdetermined, because we are free to posit a huge variety of dark matter distributions. MOND is straightforwardly determined by a single free parameter (an acceleration cutoff) which is simply fit to the available galactic data. This leads to the next point.
2) MiHsC has no free parameters. The numerical content of the theory is determined entirely by known physical constants such as the speed of light in a vacuum and the Hubble constant. There does not appear to be any wiggle-room to refit the theory to new data if it turns out to be in conflict with observation.
3) MiHsC posits an unexpected (but not implausible) effect of known physical phenomena (Unruh radiation and the Casimir effect) on matter, not a completely novel phenomenon designed specifically to explain the anomalous data.
4) Despite being a theory created to explain astronomical and cosmological data, MiHsC is in principle testable in a terrestrial laboratory, and in fact (in chapter 6) McCulloch makes a number of suggestions that could plausibly be implemented in the near future.
5) MiHsC is not motivated _solely_ by empirical considerations, but is also the result of philosophical / conceptual thinking about a core physical notion - inertia - which is typically taken for granted and rarely subjected to philosophical analysis or treated as being in need of explanation.
On top of all that, it seems that MiHsC does a good job of explaining the phenomena it purports to explain. For example, it reproduces the (rather successful) predictions of MOND in the single-galaxy regime, and (unlike MOND) also manages to get things right in the galactic cluster regime. That said, I'm not currently equipped to evaluate the empirical success of the theory in any detail. I'm interested enough in McCulloch's ideas to look into it further, though. I will learn a little more about observational cosmology and see if I can get some opinions from more "mainstream" dark matter skeptics, like Stacy McGaugh.
August 22, 2016
It's not often I pick up a non-fiction book and devour it cover to cover, but the writing here is accessible, the theory and equations well explained and helped by illustrations. It is in no way a physics textbook, but neither is it popular science for the layperson. It is, rather, a trail of breadcrumbs laid as an invitation to any physicist with an open mind.
The study of physics is the grand quest for the ultimate truth, the human need to understand the mechanisms of the physical world around us, and perhaps also to challenge the myth of creation - not to deny the existence of God, so much as to be truly at one with the divine. Physics is based fundamentally on the repeatability of measurements, but the human pressure for respect and money, specifically research funding, creates an almost religious orthodoxy in the scientific world.
Woe betide any physicist who pursues antigravity or faster-than-light travel, or who dares to question the existence of dark matter or dark energy. How strange is it that physicists have come to believe in something that cannot be seen? "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, allegedly, in Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book that is oft quoted in Physics from the Edge.
McCulloch takes physics back to its fundamental roots of evidence and measurement, and begins by walking the reader through the basics of mass and inertia, and the foundations of modern physics in special relativity and quantum reality. The real purpose of the book, however, is the discussion of many anomalies that have left physicists scratching their heads over the years, and a demonstration of how McCulloch's own theory of inertia makes predictions that match the data.
I have for years now watched unhappily as cosmologists talked about distributions of dark matter and high energy physicists talked about the search for these elusive particles. It's all so desperate and illogical. Alternative theories have never been able to explain galaxy rotation curves and the Pioneer anomaly convincingly - until now. McCulloch's MiHsC model not only solves both with ease, it solves the fly-by anomaly.
The MiHsC makes some extraordinary predictions, but it also has an elegant simplicity to it. The book predates the recent discussion of NASA's EmDrive, but perhaps the impossible drive will prove the extraordinary MiHsC correct.
The study of physics is the grand quest for the ultimate truth, the human need to understand the mechanisms of the physical world around us, and perhaps also to challenge the myth of creation - not to deny the existence of God, so much as to be truly at one with the divine. Physics is based fundamentally on the repeatability of measurements, but the human pressure for respect and money, specifically research funding, creates an almost religious orthodoxy in the scientific world.
Woe betide any physicist who pursues antigravity or faster-than-light travel, or who dares to question the existence of dark matter or dark energy. How strange is it that physicists have come to believe in something that cannot be seen? "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, allegedly, in Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book that is oft quoted in Physics from the Edge.
McCulloch takes physics back to its fundamental roots of evidence and measurement, and begins by walking the reader through the basics of mass and inertia, and the foundations of modern physics in special relativity and quantum reality. The real purpose of the book, however, is the discussion of many anomalies that have left physicists scratching their heads over the years, and a demonstration of how McCulloch's own theory of inertia makes predictions that match the data.
I have for years now watched unhappily as cosmologists talked about distributions of dark matter and high energy physicists talked about the search for these elusive particles. It's all so desperate and illogical. Alternative theories have never been able to explain galaxy rotation curves and the Pioneer anomaly convincingly - until now. McCulloch's MiHsC model not only solves both with ease, it solves the fly-by anomaly.
The MiHsC makes some extraordinary predictions, but it also has an elegant simplicity to it. The book predates the recent discussion of NASA's EmDrive, but perhaps the impossible drive will prove the extraordinary MiHsC correct.
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