At first I wondered if this were a hoax – I mean, “Engineer Borg”? It seems like a deliberately goofy name for someone with a crackpot theory of physics… But on reading through his web-pages, the quantity and depth of his writing has me leaning towards believing that this stuff is legit. (And as several commenters pointed out the first time I posted this, in Germany, you need a special license to be an engineer, and as a result, “Engineer” is actually really used as a title. Still seems pompous to me – I mean, technically, I’m entitled to go around calling myself Dr. Mark Chu-Carroll, PhD., but I don’t generally do that.)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s hard to decide how to take this apart, because there’s just so much<\/em> of it, and it’s all<\/em> so silly!<\/p>\n What Engineer Borg is on about is a revolution in the basic theories of physics. You see, Engineer Borg has realized that all of the physicists in the world have gotten everything wrong, and Engineer Borg has discovered the Real Legitimate Truth That Is Being Ignored By Everyone.<\/p>\n The central idea of his theory is that relativity is wrong – sort of. That is, on the one hand, he frequently cites relativistic effects as being valid and correct; but on the other hand, the fundamental idea of his theory is that all motion in the universe consists of orbits within orbits within orbits, all eventually centered on a fixed, unmoving<\/em> body at the exact center<\/em> of the universe.<\/p>\n This is, of course, gibberish… One of the fundamental concepts of relativity is that nature exhibits a particular kind of mathematical symmetry. (Remember than in math, symmetry means immunity to transformation: that is, a system is symmetric with respect to a particular transformation if you can’t tell the difference between the system before and after the transformation. Imagine a square. Rotate it 90 degrees. The result is a square which is indistinguishable from the original – even though you did something to it. The square has a rotational symmetry<\/em>.) The basic symmetry of relativity is one of immunity to shifts in frame of reference. Given any non-accelerated frame of reference, every possible observation works perfectly if you assume that that frame of reference is stationary. Imagine you’ve got two spaceships, A and B, in space, and the distance between them is increasing by 10 miles per second. There’s one frame of reference where A is stationary, and B is moving at 10 miles per second. There’s one frame of reference where B is stationary, and A is moving at 10 miles per second. There’s one frame of reference where both A and B are each moving at 5 miles per second. There’s one frame of reference where A is moving at 7 miles per second, and B is moving at 3 miles per second. Which frame is correct? Which spaceship is really<\/em> moving, and which one is stationary? According to relativity, neither and<\/em> both. It’s all a question of which way you look at it: all of those ways are equally correct. There is no single correct<\/em> frame of reference. Nature is symmetric.<\/p>\n So, relativity is based, mathematically, on a particular kind of symmetry – and what that symmetry means is there is no preferred frame of reference. Take that away, and relativity falls apart. There is no relativity without that fundamental symmetry. But Engineer Borg doesn’t let that concern him. After all, he’s got a whole new version of physics, and so he probably has his own version of relativity too.<\/p>\n And why not? After all, he’s reinvented just about everything else. He rejects the idea of particles of matter – the particle\/wave duality is, to Engineer Borg, utter nonsense. Everything is electromagnetic waves. What we see as “particles” are really just electromagnetic “standing waves”. According to Engineer Borg, particles don’t really exist. They’re just a coincidence – a wave pattern that happens to be persistent because of resonance, or interference – or, well, anything that produces a standing wave. Or hell, why worry about what produces it? It’s just there, damnit! It’s obvious, don’t waste brilliant Engineer Borg’s time with these stupid questions!<\/p>\n Nothing can actually move<\/em>; what appear to be particles are just waves, and if the “standing wave” pattern is slightly unstable, you’ll get a moving wave – aka a moving particle. So a particle is actually an almost stable<\/em> standing wave. Which just happens to be able to be pushed by other standing waves, even though waves don’t actually behave that way. But wait – I’m doing that questioning thing again, and Engineer Borg is far too brilliant to waste time on my foolish questions.<\/p>\n Does this make sense? No… The kinds of wave interference that he’s talking about just don’t work. He’s trying to create a basic source of all of these waves, and then claiming that they form perfectly stable<\/em> interference and resonance patterns, even as things move around and interact. According to Engineer Borg, every possible interaction between these wonderful wave things always remains stable. After all, they have to<\/em>, because otherwise, the theory wouldn’t work. Is there any math to support it? No. He waves lots of equations around at pointless times, but can’t be bothered to show how the math works for the actual hard<\/em> stuff. (This is very typical of many crackpots. They really want to look credible. They really believe their crazy theories. So they do some math to show that it works. Only it doesn’t<\/em> work. But since they’re so sure it works, they don’t worry about the details: there are some<\/em> parts where the math can be made to work – and so, they assume, that’s the foundation. So they’ve got some math – which means they’re doing real science! And they’ve got lots of handwaving, which they claim follows from their math. But they never, ever show how<\/em>.)<\/p>\n So, what creates gravity? After all, that’s the part of his theory that we started out with, right? Well, he’s actually got two different explanations of that. We shouldn’t let that worry us; consistency is a just a crutch for small minds!<\/p>\n Let’s look at Engineer Borg’s theory of gravity. First, his introduction:<\/p>\n \nThis paper aims at providing a satisfying theory for the yet unkown mechanism for gravity. High frequency electromagnetic waves sourced by the fixed energetic core of the universe, referred to as Kolob, sometimes also referred to as zero point energy, is predicted from a steady state universe in oscillatory motion and pervades all space. Radiation pressure (Poynting vector) imbalance of such highly penetrating extragalactic incoming radiation, acting through all matter is held responsible for pushing matter together.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It comes back to his “universal” frame of reference gibberish. He believes that there’s a fixed point which is the exact center of the universe, and that there’s this thing<\/em> called Kolob at that point, which is radiating waves that create everything.<\/p>\n One of his gravity theories is similar to Einsteinean gravity, but rewritten to be a part of his standing wave nonsense:<\/p>\n To visualise the effect of non-linear electromagnetic element volume (space-time) at a centre of gravity, imagine the surface of a rubber sheet with a uniform grid drawn on it, and visualise the grid when the rubber is pulled down at a point below its surface. Such bending of space-time is a result of this non-linearity of the parameters present in the dielectric volume. One method of generating a non-linear dielectric volume is to expose the whole dielectric volume under concern to a non -linear electric field, with the ‘centre of gravity’ being the centre of highest electric field flux density.<\/p>\n An example of this is our planet, which has a non-linear electric field gradient with its highest gradient near the surface. Linear gravity does not exist, gravitational force is always non-linear (an-isotropic) pointing towards its centre. That is earth’s g=9.8 at ground level, but decreases at higher altitudes. Linear gravity results in a linear space-time and is the same as zero gravity. Similarly, an electromagnetic element exposed to a linear force field will reconstruct the objects in it at zero energy transfer. However, when exposed to a non-linear force field, an object moving within it will experience a force imbalance in the direction of the highest force flux density. So the attraction of matter to centres of gravity is not a result of matter itself, but of the spacetime ‘stretching’ and ‘compression’ infront and behind the moving object. A massless dielectric, that is space itself, would still be ‘accelerated’ towards the point of easier reconstruction. The mass movement is just an indication of movement of its electromagnetic constituents.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n You see, the particles don’t really exist, because they’re just waves. But still, the non-existent particles continue to warp spacetime – just like relativity says they do – because of a “non-linear electric field gradient”. And that’s gravity!<\/p>\n Does it work? Not really. This explanation of gravity would create a field that varies dramatically over time. Gravitational waves, which some theories of physics predict should exist, have never been observed. But if this theory were true, then gravitational waves and general gravitational variations would be common everyday occurences. That’s not what we observe at all. But if you ignore the non-variability of gravity – if you claim that gravity actually isn’t a fixed force, but varies, and ignore the stability of things like orbits, then you can wave your hands, throw around a lot of jargon, and pretend that it works. But it doesn’t: there’s absolutely no math that can make this explain the actual gravitational behavior of something like the solar system.<\/p>\n And next, there’s his other<\/em> theory of gravity – this is ignores that whole dielectric field thing, and turns it into a direct pushing force from those waves radiated by Kolob:<\/p>\n \nThis paper aims at providing a satisfying theory for the yet unkown mechanism for gravity. High frequency electromagnetic waves sourced by the fixed energetic core of the universe, referred to as Kolob, sometimes also referred to as zero point energy, is predicted from a steady state universe in oscillatory motion and pervades all space. Radiation pressure (Poynting vector) imbalance of such highly penetrating extragalactic incoming radiation, acting through all matter is held responsible for pushing matter together.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, the “zero point energy”, which he elsewhere says is the same thing as the cosmological constant – the force that is causing the universe to expand – is really creating a kind of pressure, which pushes<\/em> matter together. <\/p>\n \tDoes he have any math for how this works? Well, sort of. It’s actually really funny math. You see, the main reason that we know that electromagnetic waves must be the actual<\/em> force behind gravity is… They both follow inverse-square relationships:<\/p>\n Despite the precise predictions of the equations of gravity when compared to experimental measurements, no one yet understands its connections with any other of the known forces. We also know that the equations for gravitational forces between two masses are VERY similar to those for electrical forces between charges, but we wonder why.<\/p>\n The equations governing the three different force fields are:<\/p>\n We learn that electrostatic forces are generated by charges, gravitational forces are generated by masses, and magnetic fields are generated by magnetic poles. But can this be really true? How could three mechanisms be so similar yet so different.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yeah… That’s pretty much it. They’re all basic inverse square relationships, therefore they must<\/em> ultimately be the same thing. It all makes sense because he’s also<\/em> reinvented the entire system of units – replacing SI with his own system called ST<\/em>, which has only two units, Why does that make sense? Well, because according to Engineer Borg, units analysis is fundamental to figuring out how things work. Any two things with the same unit are the same thing. So, since in Borg physics, all forces are Analysing the three force field equations, one immediately observes that each one has got its own constant of proportionality, but otherwise, seem to be analogous to one another. Looking at the SI units of force that is kg*m\/s2 doesn’t help much, but here is where the new ST system of units comes to rescue. The similarity between them can be best explained by analyzing the space time dimensions of force itself. The dimensions of ANY force field in ST units are Yup, that’s it, it must be electromagnetic, because everything is electromagnetic, because the units match. And since it’s electromagnetic, and everything electromagnetic is ultimately created by “zero point energy” radiated by Kolob, that means that it’s all part of the grand revolving universe centered around Kolob. And don’t forget, because Engineer Borg can’t stress this enough: the math all works, because the units match<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Between work, trying to finish my AppEngine book, and doing all of the technical work getting Scientopia running smoothly on the new hosting service, I haven\u2019t had a lot of time for writing new blog posts. So, once again, I’m recycling some old stuff. 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