The Optics of Masses
| Scientific Paper | |
|---|---|
| Title | The Optics of Masses |
| Read in full | Link to paper |
| Author(s) | Mikail Telegin |
| Keywords | Optics. Mass, Massodynamics, Uniform Field Theory, Neutrinos, Gravitation |
| Published | 2001 |
| No. of pages | 36 |
Read the full paper here
Abstract
The theory of gravitation and variable curvature of space is in noninertial systems of reference (without postulates). The identical laws of operation of electrodynamic and massodynamic forces allow creating a uniform field theory. The constructions implied from the obtained theory are reduced to the quantum of fields and neutrinos, their transmutations. Some practical corralaries are examined.
Overview
Michail Telegin, writing as an independent analyst, sets out a wholly optical theory of gravitation. His premise is that the universal inverse-square law leaves no genuinely inertial frames anywhere in the visible universe — "they are possible in the case of flat ground on three whales only (or turtles, at will)" — so physics must be built for non-inertial frames from the start, and without postulates. The mechanism he proposes is that gravitating mass condenses space, raising its refractive index and lowering the local speed of electromagnetic signals; everything conventionally attributed to spacetime curvature is then a matter of ordinary optics in a graded medium.
The most consequential move comes early. Telegin refuses the standard reading of the gravitational redshift, arguing that the triple relation Δc/c = Δν/ν = −Δλ/λ = −ΔP/c2 is internally incoherent given c = λν: "What three magnitudes can we consider as the constant from?... such an emotional approach is closer to mysticism, than to logic." His resolution is that the photon's frequency and mass are invariant, and it is the resonators — the emitting and absorbing atoms — whose frequencies depend on gravitational potential. On this reading the Pound–Rebka experiment "measured not the modification of photon's frequency... but the difference of resonator's frequencies at various gravitational potentials". From this base the paper computes the deflection of starlight past the Sun, the perihelion precession of Mercury, a maximum vacuum light speed c0 far from all masses, and then — by applying the finite propagation speed of any signal to two moving particles — derives Ampère's law, the Maxwell equations, and an exactly parallel set of "massodynamic" equations for gravity. The unification claimed in the abstract is the identity of these two sets. Time, in this scheme, is discarded as a physical quantity altogether: "the time, as nonexistent magnitude, with the help of which is watched the sequence of processes, cannot to vary."
The argument
The invariance of the photon
Telegin argues that a photon travelling at the maximum signal speed cannot exchange energy with a field, because any such exchange would itself have to propagate faster than the wave speed. Supposing otherwise leads him to an absurdity: the Sun's mass would be continuously converted into its own gravitational field energy, so that "the body's mass losses because on radiation, its gravitational field is increased" — a denial of both universal gravitation and mass conservation. He concludes that a photon "not having field contacts, should interact with bodies only at direct contact", and hence that redshift must be a property of the emitting and absorbing atoms, not of the photon in flight.
Pound–Rebka reinterpreted
Equating the emitter's energy difference to the mutual energy of the Sun–photon system, γMm/ρ = mc2, he obtains ΔW/W = (γM/ρc2)(γM/ρc2 − 1) and thence Δν/ν = −ΔP/c2 — numerically the formula Pound and Rebka used, but attached to the resonator rather than to the photon.
The energy integral and c0
Writing conservation for the Sun–photon system as γMm/ρ + mc2/2 = mc02/2 = hν, the photon mass cancels, leaving
- 2γM/ρ = c02 − c2,
so twice the gravitational potential equals the difference of the squares of the maximum and local light speeds, and c = √(c02 − 2γM/ρ). With c = 299,792,458 m/s at 1 AU, the solar mass and standard constants, he obtains c0 ≈ 299,792,461 m/s — a difference of about 3 m/s — and a "running away velocity" v ≈ 633 m/s for the Sun's surface. Expanding the same relation for two nearby potentials recovers Einstein's Δc/c ≈ −ΔP/c2, which he presents as a consistency check. Differentiating gives dc/dρ = γM/(cρ2) and, via a = c dc/dρ, an acceleration γM/ρ2 directed outward: "thus offered formula passes check by the second Newton's law."
Light bending and Mercury
The absolute refractive index is defined as n = c0/c. Applying the standard ray-curvature relation u = sin i ∇n/n for a continuously varying medium and integrating over the incidence angle from π to 0 yields a closed expression whose evaluation Telegin reports as 1″.75 — the observed solar deflection. He draws the further conclusion that gravitational bending cannot be the cause, since a genuine gravitational turn "would increase the energy of quantum" and disperse the beam by photon mass, and he predicts that the Sun's true angular diameter is smaller than observed by exactly that amount: 1919″.26 − 1″.75 = 1917″.51.
For Mercury he computes the difference between the geometric perimeter of the ellipse and its "physical" perimeter, the latter obtained by integrating the light travel time (his equation 12.3) around the orbit; the difference divided by the semi-major axis gives the precession per revolution. He reports Δφ = 4.978 × 10−7, i.e. 42″.6 per century, with 4″.86 for the Earth. He is candid that an alternative calculation via the difference of squared orbits gives a gravitational-to-light speed ratio k = 1.0002 and 42″.57, adding that "this value is too great and gives too small distance up to supernew stars... Therefore this problem requires further research."
Impulses, gravitons and neutrinos
A recurring device is the "optical bench": an emitter and receiver tuned to the same frequency. Since impulses are created only in equal and opposite pairs, the quantum transition energy ΔW splits equally between the emitted photon and the emitter's recoil, so the photon carries only hν/2; the receiver makes up the balance from its own recoil impulse, which is what light pressure is. Applied to a "gravitational bench", the same reasoning shows that an exchanged transverse quantum would produce repulsion, not attraction: "the transversal graviton should call the repulsion, instead of attraction. Therefore the gravitation, that is just the attraction, cannot be represented by any particles." Telegin allows longitudinal gravitational waves as potential waves, and nominates the neutrino as the massodynamic quantum. He asserts that neutrinos from supernovae arrive before the optical flash and so travel slightly faster than light, giving k = 1 + Δt·c/s; and he predicts a solar neutrino deficit as a detection artefact, since terrestrial detectors are resonators tuned to terrestrial gravitational potential and so mismatched to solar-frequency neutrinos.
Ampère, Maxwell and massodynamics
The dynamical core of the paper takes two particles moving in parallel at speed v. Because the interaction cannot be instantaneous, the line of action is not the straight line between them but a path of length ct decomposing into vt along the motion and ut perpendicular, with u2 = c2 − v2. The difference in mutual energy is then ΔW = 2(Q/r)[1/√(1 − v2/c2) − 1], doubled because "it is impossible to contract or to stretch the spring for one extremity". Expanding to second order gives ΔW ≈ ε0μcQv2/r and hence a force ∝ 1/r2, which on vectorising becomes Ampère's law. Telegin's reading of this is uncompromising: "the Ampere's law is the Coulomb's law in the dynamics. From here follows also, that the magnetic field, as such, does not exist, so does not exist also magnetic monopole... traditional magnetic field is a field by the auxiliary, certain far-fetched intermediary between interacting currents."
From this he builds the full Maxwell set — rot E = −dB/dt, div B = 0, rot H = j + dD/dt, div D = σ — and then repeats the entire construction for mass. Introducing a gravitational field strength S = F/m, a mass constant ξ = 1/4πγ, a gravitational displacement T = S/4πγ, a massodynamic field strength G and a mass induction L = 4πγG/c2, he obtains the exactly parallel system rot S = −dL/dt, div T = σ, rot G = k + dT/dt, div L = 0, together with a gravitational Lorentz force F = m(S + [v × L]) whose second term he identifies with the centrifugal force. A correspondence table sets the two sets of quantities side by side. This structural identity is the paper's unified field theory.
Aberration in place of Lorentz contraction
Telegin rejects length contraction on the grounds that a deformed electron would have a different moment of inertia and hence a different spin, whereas spin is velocity-independent. In its place he offers an aberration effect: because field lines from a plane reach a moving particle at an angle whose sine is v/c, the transverse force required to deflect it is F⊥/√(1 − v2/c2), and the energy needed likewise. Longitudinally, an accelerating force decomposes into F|| = F√(1 − v2/c2) and F⊥ = Fv/c, so the acceleration produced by a constant force tends to zero as v → c. The relativistic factor is thus recovered as a geometric consequence of signal delay: "Thus does not happen of any modifications neither mass, nor time."
Later sections model the photon as four vortices of displacement current in a plane, with total spin 1, and the neutrino as a pair of neutral vortices with spin ½; pair production is the bending of the two halves of a gamma quantum through 120°. From the moment of inertia of a hoop rotating at c he obtains an electron wavelength λe = h/2mec = 1.213107 × 10−12 m — half the Compton wavelength — a rotation frequency 1.55275 × 1021 s−1 and a radius 1.930719 × 10−13 m.
Assessment
The paper's attractive feature is the ambition of a single mechanism. Telegin does not patch relativity; he proposes that a graded refractive index caused by mass accounts for the light deflection, the redshift and the perihelion advance together, and then shows that finite signal speed applied to Coulomb's law generates Ampère's law and the Maxwell equations, so that the same construction applied to Newton's law generates a formally identical gravitational set. That last step is genuinely elegant and is not original to him — the gravitomagnetic analogy is a known weak-field limit of general relativity — but arriving at it from an explicitly non-relativistic starting point is a real result and the correspondence table is a clean presentation of it. The insistence that c = λν must be respected when discussing gravitational redshift is a legitimate demand for consistency, and the reinterpretation of Pound–Rebka as a measurement of resonator frequencies rather than photon frequencies is at least arguable: what the experiment compares is emitter and absorber, and which member of the pair one assigns the shift to is partly a matter of description. The rejection of the transverse graviton on the grounds that momentum exchange in the manner of the optical bench yields repulsion is a serious-sounding objection, even if the standard reply — that spin-2 exchange gives attraction between like charges precisely where spin-1 gives repulsion — is not addressed.
The difficulties, however, are severe and several are internal. The most damaging concerns the numbers the paper leans on. The claimed light deflection of 1″.75 cannot follow from the refractive index defined here: a medium with n = c0/c and c2 = c02 − 2γM/ρ reproduces only the Newtonian half of the deflection, about 0″.87, because it encodes the time-dilation contribution and not the spatial-curvature contribution that supplies the other half. Getting 1″.75 from that index requires a step not visible in the derivation; the evaluation is reported as a Mathcad result rather than shown. The Mercury calculation is more troubling still, because Telegin gives two computations of the same quantity that agree to two decimal places (42″.6 and 42″.57) while corresponding to physically incompatible assumptions, and he then rejects the second not on physical grounds but because it "gives too small distance up to supernew stars" — that is, because it disagrees with a separate claim he wishes to retain. A number that survives only by the elimination of its rival on grounds external to the calculation is not a confirmation.
Second, the claim of superluminal neutrinos is contradicted by the observation it invokes. SN 1987A neutrinos arrived roughly three hours before the optical brightening, but that interval is astrophysical — the shock takes hours to reach the stellar surface, while neutrinos escape the collapsing core immediately — and the standard analysis of the same event constrains any neutrino–photon speed difference to a few parts in 109. Telegin's k = 1.0002 is five orders of magnitude larger than that bound allows. The proposed explanation of the solar neutrino deficit as a resonator mismatch is likewise now closed: the deficit was resolved by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory's measurement of the total neutral-current flux, which matched the solar model exactly while the electron-flavour rate did not, establishing flavour oscillation and leaving no room for a detection artefact tied to gravitational potential.
Third, and structurally, the claim to proceed "without postulates" does not survive inspection. The invariance of photon frequency and mass is not derived but argued for by reductio, and the reductio assumes what it sets out to show — that a photon cannot exchange energy with a field, on the grounds that the exchange would exceed the wave speed, when the standard account has no such exchange occurring at a distance in the first place. The optical-bench claim that a photon carries only hν/2 while the recoil carries the rest contradicts direct measurement: the emitted photon's energy is hν minus the recoil energy, which for an atomic transition is smaller by a factor of order hν/2Mc2 ≈ 10−9, not one half — and this is precisely what the Mössbauer effect used in Pound–Rebka establishes, since the recoil is taken up by the whole crystal. A theory that halves the photon energy cannot then use Pound–Rebka's numbers as confirmation.
Fourth, the treatment of time is asserted rather than argued. Declaring that "time... cannot to vary" and that the slowing of processes in a gravitational field is due only to reduced signal transfer rates does not engage the measurements that distinguish the two readings: muon lifetimes at 0.9994c, the Hafele–Keating clock transport, and the 38,700 ns/day rate offset built into GPS satellite clocks are effects on proper time in the clock's own frame, not on the propagation of signals between clocks. Likewise, the rejection of length contraction from spin conservation misstates the physics — a contracted charge distribution in one frame carries a correspondingly transformed angular momentum, and the invariance of spin is a statement about a Casimir invariant of the Poincaré group, not about the moment of inertia of a rigid body.
Finally, the paper is a rough translation from Russian and this materially impedes assessment. Terminology is non-standard throughout ("massodynamic", "swallow" for absorb, "kernel" for nucleus, "supernew stars" for supernovae, "radiant" for source), several sentences are ambiguous at exactly the points where precision matters, and key results are reported as computer outputs rather than derived. The electron model in the closing sections — vortices of displacement current, spin arising from precession through 120° — is offered without any quantitative test beyond a wavelength that comes out as half the Compton value, which the paper presents as a result rather than as a discrepancy requiring explanation.
Judged as a whole, the optical framing of gravity is a coherent programme and its gravitomagnetic half is on solid ground, but the paper's confirmations do not bear the weight placed on them, and the observational claims about neutrinos have since been settled against it.