Our undiscovered universe : introducing null physics : the science of uniform and unconditional reality

See this review of “Our Undiscovered Universe” by Terence Witt from a professional physicist (Benjamin Monreal):
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/~bmonreal/www/Null_Physics_Review.html">http://web.mit.edu/~bmonreal/www/Null_Physics_Review.html</a>

Also see my review at <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~fiski/ouu_review.html">http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~fiski/ouu_review.html</a>
The flaws of this crackpot book are many and include:
* Redefining the concept of infinity as a length with magnitude.
* Defining a line as a series of points written as zeros and separated by plus signs, treating them as numbers so that they add up to zero and then treating the number zero as a point again!
* A really bad atomic model "proving" that a electron orbiting a proton has a ground state that it cannot decay from by creating a new physical law.
* Using the high school description of a neutron as a proton plus an electron and not realizing that this is just his atomic model!
* Stating that galaxies have "galactic cores" which are super massive objects that are not quite black holes and not realizing that the centre of the Milky Way is well observed. These recycle stars into hydrogen. Oddly enough astronomers have not noticed dozens of stars vanishing from the galactic centre in the many images that they have taken over the last few decades.

Conclusion: Bad mathematics and even worse physics.

Book Review submitted by: Stephen J. Hage

I have been interested in physics for most of my adult life because I believe a deep understanding of physics will reveal how the universe works.  Since it is, by definition, the hardest of the hard sciences, I have been and continue to be intrigued by certain enigmas in physics which physicists still don't understand.

Wave particle duality is just one example.  If you set up an experiment to prove that photons behave as waves then that's the way they behave.  If you set it up to prove that photons are discreet particles, then they behave as discreet particles.  But it is impossible to set up an experiment that proves they are both particles and waves-simultaneously.  The way you choose to set up the experiment determines the result.

The same is true for electrons, which unlike photons, have mass.

 
Physics attempts to deal with truly fundamental questions like:

" Why does the universe exist?
" Where did it come from?
" What is it made of at the smallest level?

In Our Undiscovered Universe, Terence Witt identifies these as prime questions while pointing out that "they are questions children ask and never get good answers to."

Given my peculiar intellectual bent, on reading that, I was hooked.

Moving on to cosmology he asks equally penetrating questions.  "If the universe began in an expansion 13.7 billion years ago, then:"

" What caused it?
" What existed before the beginning?
" Where did all the universe's material come from?
" Why did the event happen when it did; does time predate the Big Bang?

More hooks.

Witt is not a physicist, nor am I.  He's an engineer and the founder and former CEO of Witt Biomedical Corporation.  During Witt's tenure his corporation became the gold standard for cardiac hemodymamic software.  I knew that because I spent most of my adult life managing departments of diagnostic imaging in hospitals ranging in size from 120 to 1200 beds.  I also taught x-ray and radium physics to students of radiologic technology.

Terence Witt's background was yet another hook.

The first axiom in the book is: EXISTENCE SUMS TO NONEXISTENCE

It means everything came from nothing. 

Witt uses mathematics to demonstrate the significance and validity of his axioms, theorems and hypotheses.  Unfortunately, I don't have the mathematical chops to follow the equations past high school level algebra.  Fortunately, I've been reading about physics for so long that I had little trouble following his narrative exposition.

The book is not for the faint of heart.  It is for people with an intense interest in physics and cosmology and who are intrigued by the bulleted questions listed above.

Some of his conclusions are:

" There never was a Big Bang
" The Universe is not expanding
" The Hubble red shift has nothing to do with universal expansion
" The universe has always been here and always will be

I found it an exhilarating read; difficult but well worth the effort.  After reading it I spent some time online to get a feel for what the established physics/cosmology community thinks of Null Physics.

I can't remember encountering such frank and derisive vitriol.  Just Google Null Physics or Terrence Witt and you'll see what I mean. My search using Null Physics yielded 2,620,000 hits.  The majority of the ones I read were negative.

In some ways the vitriol is understandable.  Witt, after all, decided to publish and promote his work privately thus bypassing the tried and true path of refereed scientific journals.

As I've said, I'm not a physicist and my mathematical skills are poor.  I am also, decidedly, not a fan of vitriol.  Whether Witt is right or wrong has nothing to do with the extent to which the collective physics and cosmology community's collective noses have been bent out of shape.  Only time, not vitriol will tell.  Read this book.

Review Article

J. Harold Ellens, PhD

Research Scholar

University of Michigan

<a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/">Our Undiscovered Universe: Introducing Null Physics, The Science of Uniform and Unconditional Reality</a>, Terence Witt, Melbourne: Aridian Publishing Corporation, 2007, Cloth, Pp. 459 + xxii, $59.00.  Reviewed by J. Harold Ellens, PhD.

The appearance of this 2007 publication of <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/pages_author.php">Terence Witt</a>'s new volume is a stunning surprise in the world of science. Indeed, the very existence of a massive tome of this kind is a remarkable phenomenon.  Witt is the founder of Witt Biomedical Corporation, which, during his tenure as CEO, became the "gold standard" for his widely acclaimed cardiac hemodynamic software.  He was educated at Oregon State University and holds a BSEE as a semiconductor engineer.  Witt holds a patent and engineering award for submicron electron beam lithography.

This massive volume designed by Witt himself in this folio-size edition, is a delightful object to hold, handle, visually admire, and contemplate. It is crafted as a relatively easy read, considering the profundity of its subject. The publisher sets up the promotion of this publication with the following rationale.

For quite some time now, anyone who wanted to understand the universe's inner workings had only two places to which to turn.  The first is an eclectic cast of scientific paradigms, which includes, but is not limited to, string theory, the Big Bang, and quantum reality.  While these make valiant attempts to describe the universe and come to grips with their own glaring incompleteness, in the final analysis they cannot even begin to answer questions that any child might pose.  Regardless of how many popularized versions of these theories find their way into bookstores, the important questions remain unsolved because the current scientific approach lacks any trace of an underlying natural philosophy.  The other option available to the inquiring mind is a disorganized quagmire of 'alternative' theories. These decry (sic) the reigning scientific models but provide absolutely nothing of substance in their stead.  Alternative theories seldom identify their own premises unambiguously, let alone provide quantitative tests for them.

At long last, a theory has emerged that addresses the foundation of reality logically, rationally, empirically, and completely - <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/ouu_ideas.php">Null Physics</a>. The universe it reveals does not rely on unknowable precursors in the ancient untestable past. The universe it reveals won't collapse or grow old or die.  Null Physics tells us why the universe exists, how the universe exists, and why it is the way it is.  The mystery of our existence has beaten scientists and philosophers for so long that they are utterly convinced that reality's underpinnings are beyond human comprehension.  They are wrong.  Anyone with a familiarity with high-school physics can, by reading this volume, understand the universe with greater depth and clarity than is currently believed possible.

Aside from occasional imprecision in use of language, here and throughout the book itself, it is obvious from the outset that this author is bright, courageous, and insightful.

Witt is apparently a thoughtful and articulate scholar, with surprising skills for computerizing complex phenomena and for self-publishing.  His broad-scope volume is organized in four major parts: <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/pages_excerpts.php">Foundation, Physics of Energy, Physics of Matter, and Cosmology</a>. These substantive sections are preceded by a very detailed nine-page table of contents, a careful, articulate preface of five pages, and four pages describing the organization and procedure of the work.

Part I has four chapters: Something From Nothing, Finite Hyperspace, Finite Dimensionality, and Ultrastasis. Part II takes us from chapter five, Quantum Neorealism; to six, Absolute Space; seven, Energy's Geometry; and eight, Unit Hypervolume. In Part III we have five chapters on Matter's Quantization, Field-Core Superposition, Particle Field Force, Core Interaction, and Gravitation.  Part IV moves us to the climax of the argument with chapters on Physical Null Cosmology, Cosmic Luminous Path, and Cosmic Proton Path.  There follows seventeen appendices which total 78 pages.  Sixty bibliographical entries, a 250 item glossary, and a 1000 entry index complete the book.

Witt remarks at the outset, in the words of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo">Galileo</a>'s purported observation, "In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." Clearly the author has set himself a cosmos-sized task.  His confidence in the comprehensive, detailed, and ultimately definitive character of his final solution to all of the central and essential problems of physics is absolute, if somewhat triumphalistic.

The size of this large work obviates a detailed summary.  However, as a helpful teaching tool, Witt summarizes every section of his argument, at the risk of considerable redundancy. He provides, as well, detailed equations which he is sure demonstrate graphically all his telling points. In addition he summarizes each of his four major sections and those summaries are essentially as follows

Part I (p. 92): <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/ouu_principles.php">Our universe constitutes the full extent of reality</a>. It is the only universe and the only possible universe.  The universe's overall matter/energy distribution is utterly static.  It does not change between one moment and the next.  All moments of every object's history exist permanently in space, separated by infinite distances.  The universe's largest level of structure is constructed of infinitely large components. The larger an object, the less its universal variability, precisely the opposite of what would be expected in a statistical universe.

Part II (p. 163): Light is quantized by unit hypervolume, expressed as the product of its momentum and wavelength.  Matter is quantized by unit polarvolume, half of unit hypervolume. <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/ouu_ideas.php">The universe's four-dimensional size</a> is equal to 3.161526(10)^-26 J-m. A proton's three-dimensional footprint is highly asymmetrical and that is responsible for its intrinsic polarization. Null Physics finally shows us what energy actually is and explains why it behaves as it does.  The lowly electron has gone from a quark-less nonentity of small mass and no volume to a four-dimensional topology problem.

Part III (p. 254): <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/ouu_ideas.php">Internal spatial deflections</a> attenuate as the cube of distance - the same profile as external deflections.  Space with no four-dimensional slope is incompressible, but can be stretched to a maximum of one unit per unit of distance.  Like elementary particles, photons and neutrons also have intrinsic gravitational fields.  The root cause of gravitational fields is the hypervolumetric density associated with the extraspatial volume in energy density. Particle cores expand in the presence of gravitational potential.  This expansion is consistent with the low material density of large black holes. A black hole is slightly larger than its Schwarzschild radius would suggest because the General Theory of Relativity does not take the maximum compressibility of degenerate nuclear matter into consideration.  Black holes are not utterly black, but approach blackness with increasing mass.  The Milky Way's black hole, at an estimated mass ~ 3(10)⁶ times that of our sun, has a surface potential of ~0.99984, redshifting the light it emits by a factor of ~ 6300.  The available material flux (capacity) of any black hole's gravitational veneer has a maximum value of 5(10)³⁴ kg/s.

Part IV (p. 353): <a href="http://ourundiscovereduniverse.com/blog/?p=95">Galaxies are vortices</a>.  They carry the material of their disk region slowly into their core where it is absorbed into a gravitationally-expanded neutron superfluid that exudes hydrogen through its degenerate surface.  This provides a renewable source of fuel for the perpetual cosmic engine.  All true galaxies have massive, electrically charged black holes in the innermost depths of their central regions. Black holes are a necessary and integral component of galactic function because they are the only objects in the universe with a gravitational potential large enough to provide an environment capable of low-temperature nuclear dissociation with virtually no radiative energy loss. 

The <a href="http://ourundiscovereduniverse.com/blog/?p=71">cosmic fusion cycle</a> is not possible without them. The reason why the universe appears 12-18 billion years old is because this is the average time required for its material to cycle through its galactic system. The universe is infinitely older than this, but the compound nuclei of which its luminous material is composed are continuously renewed every 12-18 billion years.  Assuming the Milky Way has (1) a galactic efficiency of 100%, (2) a strong veneer binder of 950 EV, (3) a weak veneer binder of 440 EV, and (4) a core inflow of 2% compound nuclei , its core temperature is approximately 280,000 ^oK.  This would give it a luminosity of 6(10)³¹W, and a radiative peak wavelength near 0.06 mm in the far infrared.  The galactic cores of stable galaxies expel newly generated hydrogen at a rate comparable to the pace it is consumed by fusion throughout their disks and central regions.

Witt's assumption, argument, and conclusion are all identical: <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/">Null Physics</a> definitively answers the questions of the origin, nature, and destiny of the universe, namely, its whence, what, why, how, and when.  Moreover, he is sure that the conclusions summarized above lead directly to those answers, on the basis of a correct interpretation of accurate knowledge of the material world.  His assumption, argument, and conclusion is that the universe is a closed steady-state system which has always existed and always will. This reminds one of the ancient Greek theory that the material world is eternal, that is, infinite in both temporal directions.  Witt says that the universe has always been self-generating and that the essential dynamic in that sui-generis process lies in the fact that all is composed of Nothingness.  Existence is derived from nonexistence.

According to Witt, <a href="http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/pages_origins.php">nonexistence is nothingness</a>.  Nothingness is a void.  The void of empty space is not a material thing but it is a physical reality.  Reality is synonymous with existence.  Nothingness is a form of existence, of reality.  The universe is made of only space-time and the curvatures of space-time. Thus energy is nothing more than curved space.  Space and energy are the same thing: space.

Nonexistence is the essential state of reality. "Existence is, by definition, incomplete nonexistence ... The difference between the existence and nonexistence of an electron is equal to twice the electron's energy minus the energy of the entire universe, namely, its rest energy.  Nonexistence generates existence as the components of nonexistence interact consequent to the curvature of empty space, generating the energy of existence. The only component nonexistence can have is nonexistence, as it is a total void.  Yet the fact that it can be a component of itself is sufficient to provide a relationship, and this relationship is existence in its purest form" (29).

Witt's work requires three levels of response.  First, it is necessary to address his semantic style.  He tends to develop the narrative structure of his argument in the form of dogmatic propositions which he asks the reader to accept as truth, not merely as assumptions. Then he asks the reader to follow his stipulations of what he sees as inevitable consequences of applying his propositions to the common elements of undergraduate physics courses. For example on page 23 Witt lists five clues that the universe provides about its true essence.  However, in item three after he asserts correctly that substance and energy are simply energy, he claims that "In Null Physics the energy equivalent of a particle's mass (mc²) will be called its rest energy."  That is old fashioned Einstein Physics, not Null Physics.  However, it may be said that Witt's discussion of <a href="http://library.thinkquest.org/3487/qp.html">Quantum Physics</a> that follows is stimulating, entertaining, and in some ways enlightening, though he frequently makes leaps of logic and adduces data and equations that are somewhat less than persuasive. He makes statements about non-locality in Quantum Physics which are incompatible with established data in standard physics.

Second, while anyone who invests serious energy, thought, and time in pursuit of a unified theory of reality, and spills as much ink on the project as has Witt, deserves high commendation; the notion of achieving final solutions in anything is an enterprise likely to lead to something short of full satisfaction.  Witt's model is, indeed, comprehensive, detailed, and informed.  It claims to tell us all we ever wanted to know about the origin, nature, and destiny of existence and did not know how to ask about it.  It does not, however, satisfy the two questions that it, by implication, raises.  These are the same questions that, for their failure to answer them, he denigrates historic physics and physicists. These two questions are, first, whether physics' current state really represents a flaw or failure; and second, is it correct to say that this science falls short because it does not know how to ask all the questions of cosmology?

From the beginning of his work Witt claims (p. xiii) that physicists have no clue what the universe is made of and how it works.  That is a false claim.  We know much about it and very little data that we have fails to fit our theories and models.  We know 4.6% is atoms, 24% is cold dark matter, and the rest, 72% is dark energy.  We tried hard so far to find more data, especially such data as does not fit our theories and models, but we cannot find any. Physicists are struggling with a number of concepts and models regarding dark matter and dark energy, and there is much work to be done here.  A good reference to this specific discussion is <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html">http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html</a>.

Witt claims (p. xiv) that the Big Bang theory is "irreconcilably false." The truth is that it is demonstrably true: a sound empirically based theory supported by all the available data.  Witt insists that science should know why the universe exists, but science is not a tool for final solutions.  Rather it accumulates data progressively to describe what is, and if possible how it works.  Physics has been singularly successful in this regard. Witt makes an observation about the composition of the neutron, which is intended to be rather centrally critical to his argument. He asserts that the neutron is composed of a proton and an electron.  It happens to be the case that we now know that this is not the true.

Witt launches his work with the claim that the science of physics has so far failed because it cannot answer the questions about the origin, nature, and destiny of things, namely, why and how the universe exists.  However, is it really a flaw or failure in contemporary physics and cosmology to be unable to say why, whence, how, and what for the world exists? Is it inherently a flaw or failure to be able to describe the what and not the why or whence, i.e., the destiny of things? Is it a flaw or failure to be mystified about how to ask these questions? On the contrary, it is an honest acknowledgement of the limits of human beings and our science; of the legitimate boundaries of cognition, available data, and reflective consciousness. While Witt's book requires an earnest read by every self-respecting physicist, it is not clear to me that he has given us the final solution to the central philosophical questions he raises. Nor is it clear to me that he has won the right to denigrate the science of physics because it has not given us a total unified theory of everything as a final solution to our quest for the nature and meaning of things.

My judgment on this score is particularly valid, I feel, because of the third level of this critique, namely, the structure of Witt's argument.  As I argued, it is not self evident that it is important, at this stage of science, to know or ask the whence and why and how of existence. That is an enterprise that we are all curious to undertake and would find entertaining, but it is not obvious that it is the current task of science at our present state of data collection.

However, of much more serious concern is the fact that Witt's model is flawed at the center. Witt has made the same structural error as did Anselm in his Ontological Argument.  Anselm was sure that he had proved the existence of God.  He declared that everyone would readily agree that God is that, than which nothing greater can exist. He then declared the apparently obvious claim that to exist is greater than to be nonexistent. He concluded that, therefore, God must exist, since if he did not exist, that would be a lesser state than to exist and God is that, than which nothing greater can exist.

Anselm's argument fails because he builds it upon an abstract and arbitrary definition, which he then reifies as existing ontological reality.  From that he syllogistically concludes that God exists.  The entire construct is erroneous because it depends throughout upon assumptions, the truth of which cannot be demonstrated, and upon logical proof by definition. That is, of course, no proof at all, since one may construct any sort of abstract or theoretical definitions of reality one pleases to devise, and then proceed with a logical argument as though those definitions are reified as real things, but that does not mean there is, in fact, any reality to correspond to the rubrics of the definition.

In exactly this fashion Witt has built his model of reality and his argument for Null Physics.  He has posited the abstract definition that Nothingness is something, or that existence is a form of nonexistence, a product of the unique behavior of nonexistence.  So he has begun with an apparently rational definition and assigned it the role of his grounding assumption.  This definition, turned into his primary assumption, Witt has translated into the main premise of his syllogism.

Then he moves to reify this assumption, claiming that it is an ontological reality, that is, an entity in being, not just an abstract cognitive construct, thought, or mere idea.  However, in fact that is all it is: a cognitive construct, thought, and mere idea. From this reified abstract concept he moves to his secondary premise, namely, that his interpretations, voiced mainly in the form of dogmatic propositions, are accurate descriptions of reality, despite the considerable contrary literature generated by our best scientific minds.  His propositions are largely restatements of his original assumption applied to a variety of alleged states of affairs in the universe.

From all these assumptions and propositions, Witt derives his conclusion that his original assumption regarding Null Physics is proven to be an accurate description of the origin, nature, and destiny of things.  At best, all he has demonstrated is that his abstract theoretical model is internally consistent.  He has not demonstrated that it has anything whatsoever to do with reality, the actual state of things in the material universe(s). At worst, he has created an entertaining fiction.

Like Plato's speculative idealism, so Witt's rational speculation is exotic, aesthetically pleasing, and full of stimulating intrigue.  But the conclusions drawn from Witt's speculation operate in his model as though this speculation is empirical reality.  At best it is a set of non-empirical propositions argued, with the help of provocative equations, as though it is heuristically imperative, despite the lack of irrefutable phenomenological warrant.

Perhaps Witt is correct in his claim that "the universe is infinite and eternal; it did not begin with a bang nor will it end with a whimper." Surely he is correct in declaring that, "answering fundamental questions is the only way to achieve greater advancements."  His work should be read, though it remains a creative contribution of a wholly theoretical character.  Witt has written a large work that falls less in the science of physics and more in the world of speculative metaphysics.