New understanding of atomic theory

Ok.. this is totally weird.

http://www.blacklightpower.com/

If this guy is right, then quantum mechanics are essentially nonsense. He's managed to unify classical mechanics with quantum mechanics.

I've got a feeling that it's gotta be a hoax, just because it's so revolutionary... But that's what folks say about most revolutionary things, even when they turn out to be right. It's actually been peer reviewed by other people, so it's not just some random guy with a webpage.

The implication of this is that the guy has made a reactor that generates power at a cost of only 1.5 cents per kW/h.. compare that to coal, which has a cost of 5 cents per kW/h, and is currently one of the cheapest sources of energy we know of.

Anyway.. I thought some folks here might be interested.

Haven't read it yet, but just this claim alone leads one to doubt the claims. I'll go read it now, rather than further comment on something I haven't even looked at.

I know.. It's crazy.

But the guy's had his stuff peer reviewed in a ton of venues... It's just just some lone nutball.

Check this out:
http://arxiv.org/find/quant-ph/1/au:+Rathke_A/0/1/0/all/0/1

I think it's clear the dude has stumbled onto some oddball behaviors, but he certainly is taking it farther than any real evidence suggests. An anomoly that can't be explained by current/conventional theory, successfully explained by as yet unproven theory, does not make unproven theory correct.

Ya, from what I've seen, Rathke is the prime opponent of the blacklight and CQM theories.

However, his criticism has itself been pretty harshly criticised by other people in the field... The paper you quoted, for instance, seems to use the notion that "CQM doesn't agree with quantum mechanics" as a major focal point... Because, well.. the guy who wrote it has based his life on quantum mechanics. It would kind of suck to find out that your understanding of things, that you've based your life on, is wrong.

The problem I have with this, is that although I have a tiny background in quantum theory, I really don't know enough to look at what these guys are saying, and understand which one is correct.

Some of the actual experiments that the blacklight group has done though, are pretty freaking hard core. I think if we can get some other people to independantly verify the process, it'd be more impressive.

Exactly.

But the thing is... BIG names are paying attention to the hydrino theories... Nasa's IAC is investigating it.... and it has been reviewed by a LOT of people, and basically Rathke seems to be the only guy who's saying it's wrong.

It's exciting stuff though, to be sure.

There are others saying it's wrong, but R is the only one basically claiming that since standard QM can't deal with hydrino states, then HS are wrong and, therefor, the results of these experiments MUST be reinterpretted from the standpoint of standard QM. I think there is a portion of the community willing to accept that until verified externally, there might be something to what Mills has been doing. It certainly was necessary to delve into it rather than, as R does, dismissing it out of hand by assuming all current QM is fully correct and verifiable and forcing Mills' results into the existing framework.

Ya, I agree...

I think there are certainly people who are saying, like us, "That's weird. Something must be wrong with that." because it's natural to be skeptical of such things.

But you're right about R... His analysis is weak, because he's basically desparately clinging to QM. Sometimes you gotta let go.. or at least loosen your grip.

The ironic thing is that the exact same behavior was exhibited by the classical mechanics community when QM was introduced.

But don't forget that in the limit of a large ensemble, QM reproduces classical mechanics.

Since there is a net release of energy, then the electrons are trapped in this lower energy state. Why not just collect up these atoms and run experiments on them? Could you imagine the applications for these atoms? Completely non-reactive gas with a mass of 1 amu would make lighter-than-air craft much more useful. It would also be exteremly easy for it to move through membranes (not only is it small, but it also has no electronic structure to interact with the structure of the membratne) and I'm sure there are some good uses for that.

Of course it could turn out to be like polywater or cold fusion

They've actually done this... The tiny atoms are called Hydrinos. Apparently they've used them to make all kinds of totally new chemical compounds.

This was big story back in 1999. Mills, who is trained as a medical physician and grows corn on a farm for a living, was not moving this through the process in the normative way. Like Pons and Fleischmann of "cold fusion", he was collecting investment capital from businesses and holding press conferences before submitting to the peer review and experimental verification process.

Mills promised a practical demonstration by 2000. I haven't seen it - what happened?

I agree with Seth, I remember watching this closely back in the late '90's.

He can't back up all his claims, though he may have stumbled on some new questions. The website has evolved considerably since the initial statements, which curiously coincided with a lot of irrationally exuberant funding.

One need not convince a scientist to fund research, all one needs to do is convince a banker and you are in.


Yet, I would say - his conceptual model for the electron *is* more in line with the rest of physics than the usual 'infinite charge density at the center' model that most people in mainstream science use. He focuses on a well-known failure of science to explain certain characteristics of the electron, to great effect.

Until he backs up his claims or they are independently verified, he may simply have a theory on par with 'epicycles and deferents'.

In other words, very good at calculating answers, but conceptually quite wrong.

Nobody will know until these ideas are tested, verified, extended to predictions and results measured. Until then, Occam's Razor might apply.

Check the site... there has been a lot of published material in highly respected journals this year.

They've got a working prototype, that other people have seen... Other people have confirmed that he has somehow produced Hydrinos.

Certainly his larger theories need to be examined, but the guy has apparently managed to do SOMETHING weird.. Because current understanding of quantum mechanics cannot predict the existence of hydrinos.

it's freaking weird.

Well, that's the thing...
Some of the most respected physicists in the world, like Penrose, think that what you just described here is what quantum mechanics is... Great at answering some questions, but fundamentally wrong.

And quantum mechanics most certainly is not the answer that you'd come up with when using Occam's razor.

Interesting. I am reading the brand-new "What the Bleep Do We Know?!" book and today I read this paragraph:



Of course, the sheer fact I announced that this is from the "What the Bleep?!" book means that every 'scientist' here on the forums will shit all over the info, but whatever.

-Ghoti

Well, Ghoti, this is incidental, but I did finally get a chance to watch the movie, and do a little reading. I've yet to read the actual book; I've had trouble locating a copy (not unsurprising; the local library branch is quite small and I don't get a chance to check the university library often) so perhaps that holds something to redeem it, but...

Y'know, the ideas are interesting... but they ain't scientific; it smelled of having a conclusion and bending the facts to fit. A lapse that can be overlooked if independent verification takes place, so I'm keeping an eye on it, but... there's always that "but".

See, that's just the thing. After another glass of wine, invariably the following comes up:

Does it *matter* how we conceptualise anything?


The usual answer: likely not.

Our ideas about how things work are merely a shorthand for *us*, so it's easy for us to predict how the universe will behave.


'Truth' deconstructs to mere description, in a universe where elementary particles don't read Physical Review Letters Online.

Epicyclical and deferential,
- Desmond Shang

Amen to that.

"So ... rather than admit we can't explain the 2-slit experiment ... let's say there's an infinite amount of parallel universes. In 100 years, this will sound like utter crap, but it will make sure Jerry O'Connel has a TV show to break out merely being known as a child actor." - Some Physics Guy That Doesn't Exist But It'd Be Funny If Someone Really Said This

Is these new theory really equally predictive? Not just of the hydrogen atom but all effects explained by QM?

I don't know that book and I really wouldn't care to. However, the aforementioned assertion that vacuum is full of energy is correct, but certainly not a brand new result.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

The concept of "zero-point energy" was first formulated in 1911 by Max Planck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

Paul Dirac proposed a model for a "sea of particles with negative energy" in 1930.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_sea

According to this model the so-called "empty vacuum" of space is actually filled with "virtual particles" popping in and out of existence in pairs of particle and anti-particle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle

More recently, Stephen Hawking proposed that these were tied to the observed phenomenon of black hole evaporation. While normally the particle and anti-particle pair annihilate each other, in some instances one of them can be drawn into a black hole instead :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

Hope that helps.

That's still to be seen, I believe. It could all be a big hoax or something...

But, it does show tha current quantum theory isn't predictive all the time either, since it didn't predict the existence of a Hydrino.

In all honesty, I don't think the guy somehow came up with the big super theory of the entire universe... But it may be interesting to see what kinds of changes happen in the field as a result of this guy's work.

I sent the link to my son, a fourth year student doing physics at Cambridge, including quantum theory.
I can't say how much consideration he gave it, or whether he discussed it with those around him, but this is his emailed reply, verbatim :

To me this looks like utter bollocks. Quantum physics is the most successful theory known. He should have picked on something a little less thorough.

He's got way too much faith in it.

The biggest names in physics tend to agree that Quantum Mechanics is kind of screwy, and isn't quite right.