Physics Illusion 12: Modern vs Classical World

Leibniz develops a solution of the mind-body problem arising from the dualism of Descartes as an analogy to the well known physical phenomenon of resonance between two pendula or tuning forks swinging in perfect harmony together:

Leibniz World is a world in such perfect harmony, and as such a Best of Worlds, with everything in resonance with everything else as an expression of Pre-established Perfect Harmony without cause-effect.

Another example is a coldblooded animal with temperature in perfect harmony with that of the environment, again by a resonance phenomenon as analyzed in Computational Black Body Radiation:

Leibniz World is a Classical World in stationary state of resonance with forces in equilibrium, to be compared with a Modern World in rapid change from non-equilibrium of forces.

In a Classical World in a stationary state of resonance, a distinction between cause and effect cannot be made because the directional aspect of time, with a cause necessarily appearing before an effect, is missing. An example is the Newton's law of gravitation $\rho =\Delta\phi$ between mass density $\rho$ and gravitational potential $\phi$, possibly without cause-effect or in any case not with $\rho$ the cause and $\phi$ the effect, as discussed at length in the present sequence of posts.

In a Modern World changing in time the cause-effect relation is of basic importance, in particular for anyone with ambitions to exercise control and there are many. In a Modern World with the physics of control becomes of paramount importance, and then the basic idea of modern physics of force carrying particles comes in handy:

• If you want to control something far away, just send some force carrying particles, like rockets or drones and you will be able to complete your mission.
• A hot body is sending heat energy carrying particles named photons to warm up a cold body.
• Gravitational forces between bodies are established by exchange of force carrying particles named gravitons.
• Electromagnetic forces are transmitted by force carrying particles named photons.
• Strong and weak nuclear forces are transmitted by force carrying particles named gluons and W/Z-bosons. 

While there are rockets and drones, the physical existence of particles like photons and gravitons may be more fiction than reality.

Ambitions of control may be huge, while reality of control is another thing. The cause-effect relation may not be want you would like it to be.

Below is a modern physics view of a world filled with force carrying particles:

Modernity is change and cause-effect action expressed as Will to Power by Nietzsche and in the dynamics of a capitalistic system, in contrast to a classical society in equilibrium. But sociology and politics is not physics, and so the modernity of modern physics may be illusion more than reality.

The revolution into modern physics the beginning of the 20th century (relativity and quantum mecahnics) came along with a revolution of technology (car, telephone, electricity, oil) combined with revolutions in politics, art, music, where old systems were overthrown with radical novelty of top priority. But physics is eternal and does not care about novelty, and so a lot of relevant classical physics (Newtonian mechanics and Maxwellian electromagnetics) was dumped in modern physics.

Modernity as motion was expressed in the avant-garde art movement of futurism:

                                    Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, by Umberto Boccioni (1913).

Physics Illusion 11: Lorentz Transformation as Holy Doctrine of Physics

A Galilean transformation gives the connection between the coordinates in one system at rest and another system translating with constant velocity with respect that at rest. Fundamental with a clear physical meaning and relevance.    

Lorentz transformation with $x^\prime$-axis in red pointing into the $(x,t)$ first quadrant making it unphysical since different parts of an object extended in space get different time coordinates and thus does not exist as an object. For this reason, Einstein only speaks about points in space-time as events which excludes interactions of objects extended in space. 


The coordinates in two space-time coordinate system $S$ and $S^\prime$ with coordinates $(x,t)$ and $(x^\prime ,t^\prime )$ moving with constant velocity $v$ with respect to each other is in classical (non-relativistic) mechanics connected by a Galilean transformation:

• $x^\prime  =x - vt$,
• $t^\prime  =t$,  

In relativistic mechanics according to Einstein's special theory, the connection is instead postulated to be that of a Lorentz transformation: 

• $x^\prime  =\gamma (x - vt)$,
• $t^\prime  =\gamma (t - vx)$,  

where $\gamma = \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2}}$ assuming the speed of light is 1 and $0 < v < 1$.

In the Galilean case the time rate in $S$ and $S^\prime$ are the same, but in the Lorentz case it differs with a factor $\gamma$, so that with $S$ motionless the time in $S^\prime$ would seem to run slower, and the other way around.

The Lorentz transformation is by physicists regarded to reveal deep truths about physics, as a result  of the fact that it leaves a wave equation in $(x,t)$ coordinates:

• $\frac{\partial^2u}{\partial t^2}- \frac{\partial^2u}{\partial x^2} = 0$

invariant under a Lorentz transformation, that is the wave equation looks precisely the same in $(x^\prime ,t^\prime )$ coordinates. 

On the other hand, a Galilean transformation brings in a second order correction term in the velocity $v$ of the form:

• $v^2 \frac{\partial^2u}{\partial x^2}$,

and therefore a Galilean transformation is not viewed to have the same dignity as the Lorentz transformation without such a correction. For human observations $v^2 < 10^{-10}$ (with the speed of light normalized to 1) the correction is miniscule and of no practical significance.

However, as strongly emphasized by Lorentz himself, the Lorentz transformation is not a transformation between physical coordinates. In particular the transformed time $t^\prime$ should not be viewed as real physical time.

This was not understood correctly by Einstein, who gave $t^\prime$, against the strong advice by Lorentz, a physical meaning and so the special theory of relativity was born based on the Lorentz transformation, which then (surprisingly against all odds) became a fundamental pillar of modern physics. Anything which is not Lorentz invariant is not modern physics!

And there we are today with the Lorentz transformation as a Holy Doctrine of Modern Physics of the same stature, and mysticism, as the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity of the Catholic Church. But a Lorentz transformation is just a very simple linear coordinate transformation and as such cannot reveal deep truths of physics, while the Holy Trinity may well represent a deep truth of religion.

Newtonian mechanics is Galilean invariant, but not Lorentz invariant, and so in Einstein's hands Newtonian mechanics had to be sacked, according to the Doctrine of Lorentz Transformation. Instead a wonderful magical world of space contraction and time dilation was born from the Doctrine, but of course inheriting the unphysical nature of the Lorentz transformation and thus only a world of illusions without the reality of Newtonian mechanics.  

Physics Illusion 10: Fabric of Curved Space-Time

                Curved space coordinate system in which free fall follows coordinate lines. Believing that this coordinate system shows us the true "fabric of curved space-time" is deeply mystical, yet supposed to be a foundation of modern physics.
         
In general relativity the distribution of matter/energy is supposed to determine the "fabric of space and time" and make more or less "curved" according to Einstein's equation (assuming the speed of light and gravitational constant normalized to unity)

• $G_{\mu\nu}=8\pi T_{\mu\nu}$, 

where $G_{\mu\nu}$ is Einstein's tensor measuring curvature and $T_{\mu\nu}$ is a stress-energy tensor. The folklore explanation in the words of John Wheeler reads as follows:

• Matter tells space how to curve. Space tells matter how to move (by free fall).

In the basic case of flat Minkowski space-time and infinite speed of light (standard Euclidean space with coordinate $x$ and separate time coordinate $t$), Einstein's equations reduce to 

Newton's equations

• $\Delta\phi =\rho$,                                            (Newton's law of gravitation)
• $\ddot x(t) + \nabla\phi (x(t),t)=0$,                    (Newton's 2nd law)

where $\rho (x,t)$ is mass density, $\phi (x,t)$ is gravitational potential and $x(t)$ denotes the trajectory of a mass particle moving subject to gravitational forces given as $-\nabla\phi (x,t)$.  As a Wheeler paraphrase, Newton's equations could be expressed:

• Matter determines the gravitational potential. The gradient of the gravitational potential determines how matter moves. 

Einstein's supposedly great idea was to reduce all motion to free fall in a space-time coordinate system where the equations of motion take the form $\ddot x(t)=0$ as if no gravitational forces were present. 

Einstein thus replaces the gravitational potential by space-time curvature, which makes things more complicated, and then balances by using a trivial form of Newton's 2nd law. 

The question is if there is a net gain or loss by this shift? I would vote for Newton's formulation because both Newton's laws are easy to grasp. On the other hand, Einstein's concept of "curved space-time" supposedly being realized in some "fabric of space-time" makes things much more difficult to grasp at the small gain of having only to deal with Newton's 2nd law in trivial form, thus with a net loss.

Einstein's was hooked to the idea of choosing a coordinate system in which the equations of motion reduce to the trivial form for free fall, as if the essence of physics was hidden in a coordinate system.

But real physics cannot rely on the choice of coordinate system. In principle any coordinate system can be used and a coordinate system does not need any "fabric" to be erected as it is immaterial. 

Believing that there are certain coordinate systems with higher scientific value than others, may lead to seek to identify such royal coordinate systems through some form of material existence expressed as "fabric of space-time".  But that is deeply mystical and as such can only be an illusion.

Newtonian gravitation can be combined with Maxwell's equations for electromagnetics and Schrödinger's equations for quantum mechanics into a Unified Field Theory. Einstein struggled for 40 years to combine Einstein's equations with Maxwell's and Schrödinger's equations without any success, and nobody else got further.

The effective way out of this dilemma, which has paralyzed physicists for 100 years, may well be to replace Einstein's equations by Newton's equations at no loss of anything of real value to physics. 

Physics Illusion 9: Instant Action at Distance Not Physical Nor Needed

                     Gravitational potential generating mass at the tip of the potential well.    

Viewing physics as a form of analog computation based on computational exchange of local information, suggests that instant action at distance is unphysical, because a large number of local computations would be required to transfer information globally, which would require time.

Newton's law of gravitation can be expressed through the relation $\Delta\phi (x,t) =\rho (x,t)$, where $\phi (x,t)$ is gravitational potential and $\rho (x,t)$ mass density with $x$ a Euclidean space coordinate. The potential $\phi $ may be computed by explicit time stepping to stationary state, each  step exchanging local information only, of the parabolic evolution equation (heat equation)

• $\dot\phi (x,t) - \Delta\phi (x,t)=\rho (x,t)$ for all $x$ and $t > 0$ with $\phi (0,x)$ given,

which would require time and thus cannot be accomplished instantly. Here a dot signifies differentiation with respect to time $t$.

We conclude that in the relation $\Delta\phi =\rho$ connecting $\phi$ and $\rho$, we cannot view $\rho$ as input or cause and $\phi$ as output or effect, but rather the other way around with the potential $\phi$ as primordial input/cause and $\rho$ as the output/effect. With this view $\rho (x,t)=\Delta\phi (x,t)$ is produced locally by the Laplacian differential operator $\Delta$ acting locally in space on the potential $\phi (x,t)$, thus without action at distance and thus in principle allowing instant action. 

We may compare with Faraday's law of induction in electromagnetics:

• $J = -\dot E + \nabla\times B$, 

where $J(x,t)$ is electrical current density, $E$ is electrical field and $B$ magnetic field, which can also be expressed by the wave equation

• $-\dot J =\ddot E -\Delta E \equiv\square E$, 

with a common notation. Here we see the current $J$ being generated by the electrical field $E$ by differentiation acting locally in space and time and we thus face a concrete physical example of a field by generating a flow of charge or current locally by differentiation. By analogy we may envision the gravitational field $\phi$ generating mass $\rho =\Delta\phi$ locally by differentiation.

We thus have the following two relations with the fields $\phi$ and $E$ acting as input and the output $\rho$ and $\dot J$ being produced locally by differentiation:

1. $\rho = \Delta\phi $,
2. $\dot J =- \square E$ or $J = -\dot E + \nabla\times B$.          

Here 2 expresses the familiar physics of induction, while 1 expresses unfamiliar generation of mass by gravitational potential. The question if we can learn to become as familiar with 1 as we already are with 2? Von Neumann reflected:

• In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.

Maybe it is the same with physics, and then it seems better to get used to constructive real physics which can be simulated by digital computation, than with illusionary physics, which can only be simulated by illusions of thinking without connection to the realities of physics. Such an illusion is instant action at distance as in the conventional view of gravitation with matter generating gravitational potential and force.

Physics Illusion 8: Input and Output of Maxwell's equations

                            Motion of a magnet generates a current from changing electrical field.

Maxwell's equations can be formulated (assuming unit speed of light):

1. $\dot B + \nabla\times E = 0$
2. $\dot E  - \nabla\times B = - J$
3. $\dot\rho + \nabla\cdot J =0$,

where $E(x,t)$ is the electric field, $B(x,t)$ the magnetic field, $\rho (x,t)$ charge density and $J$ electric current density, given as $J=\rho v$ with $v$ charge velocity, or by a constitutive law such as Ohm's law

• $J =\sigma (E + v\times B)$,

where $\sigma$ is a conductivity and $v$ the velocity of the conducting medium. The dot indicates differentiation with respect to time $t$, while $x$ is a Euclidean space coordinate.

Differentiating 2 with respect to time and applying $\nabla\times$ to 1, gives the following wave equation for the electric field:

• $\ddot E + \nabla\times\nabla\times E = - \dot J$,  

where for a time constant charge density $\rho $ moving with velocity $v$, $\dot J =\rho\dot v$.

In the electrostatic case, Maxwell's equations reduce to:

• $\nabla\cdot E (x) = \rho (x)$ and $E(x)=\nabla\phi (x)$ with $\phi (x)$ potential,
• that is $\Delta\phi (x) =\rho (x)$.

There are two possible ways of viewing Maxwell's equations in terms of input and output:

• (I) Input: charge and current,   Output: electric and magnetic fields,
• (II) Input: electric and magnetic fields,  Output: charge and current.

Here (I) corresponds to solving wave equations with $\rho$ and $J$ given input producing as output $E$ and $B$ as action at distance with a time delay because of finite speed of light, or the static Poisson equation with potential $\phi (x)$ as output by action at distance from $\rho (x)$ without time delay aspect.

Further $(II)$ correspond to instantaneous local action by electric/magnetic fields to produce $\dot J(x.t)$ or $\rho (x)$. This is the physical process of electromagnetic induction. 

In electromagnetics, both cases appear, with an example of (II) given in the above picture.

Maxwell's equations are Galilean invariant modulo a second order factor $\frac{v^2}{c^2}$ with $c$ the speed of light, see Many Minds Relativity Chapter 17. The speed difference between human observers can differ by at most a few $km/s$, while $c\approx 300.000\, km/s$, and thus the factor is smaller than $10^{-10}$. Maxwell's equations can thus in practice be viewed by human observers to be Galilean invariant, which makes Lorentz invariance irrelevant.   

Physics Illusion 7: What You See Is What There Is

                                               To see a duck which is a rabbit (or vice versa).

In the New View of Motion under Gravitation we consider in the basic relation $\Delta\phi =\rho$, the gravitational potential $\phi (x,t)$ to be primordial and the mass density $\rho (x,t)$ to be derived from
$\phi (x,t)$ by instantaneous local action in space of the Laplace differential operator.

In the standard view instead the mass density $\rho (x,t)$ is viewed to be primordial and the potential
$\phi (x,t)$ is viewed to be derived as the solution to the equation $\Delta\phi =\rho$ by instantaneous action at distance in a solution process which can be described as global integration:

• $\phi (x,t) =\frac{1}{4\pi}\int \frac{\rho (y,t)}{\vert x - y\vert}\, dy$. 

Why then is $\rho$ chosen to be primal (input) and $\phi$ secondary (output) in the standard view? The answer appears to be twofold:

1. Matter is visible to the human eye, while gravitational potential and forces are invisible.
2. Matter distribution can easily be imagined by the human mind as input, while corresponding gravitational potential and forces are more difficult to grasp (output).  

A human mind may thus be led to the standard view by reasons which are superficial from physics point of view. In particular, if we consider physics to be some form of computational process, we expect that intantaneous action at distance as instantaneous solution of the differential equations $\Delta\phi =\rho$, cannot be realized as a physical process. The standard view would then seem to be unphysical, and rather reflect how human minds see things than how things in fact are. 

Physics Illusion 6: Gravitational Force Between Each Pair of Particles

                         The Millenium Run: Gravitational N-body problem with $N \sim 10^{10}$.

Imagine that each atom of the Earth is communicating with each atom of the Sun by exchanging force carrying particles named gravitons through which a gravitational force is established between each such pair of atoms (neglecting internal gravitation for simplicity).

The number of atoms in the Earth is estimated to be around $10^{50}$ and that in the Sun around $10^{57}$, which gives a number of pairs much larger than a  $googol = 10^{100}$, while the total number of atoms in the Universe may be of order $10^{80}$.

To store the total set of gravitational forces between the Earth and the Sun, thus would require a hard disk much heavier than the Universe, and there would be no place for the gravitational force between the Earth and the Moon, to name one example.

Do you now start to feel that there is something strange about the standard model of gravitation, which is precisely the one described above?

Do you now start to feel that the very idea of each atom of the Universe making its presence felt to all other atoms of the Universe by creating a gravitational field extending over the entire Universe, is very strange or more precisely describes a complete impossibility?

Do you now start to feel that the Millennium Run with $10^{10}$ particles interacting by gravitation requires way to much computational work to represent physics?

Do you now start to think that maybe, maybe, it is the other way around; that is that the gravitational potential $\phi$ and gravitational field $\nabla\phi$ is primordial and that matter with density $\rho$ is generated locally formally by differentiation as $\rho =\Delta\phi$?

If so, then you are starting to develop a New View.

Physics lllusion 5: Particles as Force Carriers

        Is Hermes as boson as carrier of force between fermions Greek mythology rather than physics? 

The Standard Model identifies two main types of elementary particles: fermions as carriers of charge and mass such as the electron and proton, and bosons as carriers of force such as the photon supposedly carrying the electromagnetic force and carriers of the weak and strong nuclear force.

The Standard model thus includes the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces,  but the 4th fundamental force of gravitation is excluded, which is viewed to be a main defect of the Standard Model defying all attempts of correction.

The hypothetical carrier of the gravitational force is the graviton, but there is no experimental evidence of the existence of such a particle.

From these facts, it is natural to question the fundamental idea of the Standard Model that there are certain carriers of forces in the form of boson particles carrying forces over distance between fermions: If there is no particle carrying the gravitational force from the Sun to the Earth, why must there be a particle named photon carrying electromagnetic forces from mobile telephone mast to the mobile phone in our hand, like a Hermes of electromagnetics? A particle without mass and charge which has not been identified experimentally.

In the New View we turn the perspective around and view the boson force field with everywhere presence in space as primordial from which the fermion field is locally generated and acted upon without any need of carrying force over distance. This opens to a reduction of the number of elementary particles by eliminating particles serving the purpose of carrying forces around.

In the New View the force field is everywhere present and is not carried around. In the New View the gravitational field is everywhere, from which matter is locally generated thus eliminating the need of instantaneously carrying force over  distance.

Physics Illusion 4: Elementary Particles, Quanta and Wave-Particle Duality

• Sound is a wave phenomenon as local variation of a pressure field in air. Sound is not a corpuscular flow of sound particles named phonons flying from source to ear.
• Light is a wave phenomenon as local variation of an electromagnetic field in a vacuum. Light is not a corpuscular flow of light particles named  photons flying from source to eye.

Modern physics dominated by elementary particle physics based on the Standard Model is based the idea of particles as pointlike (or stringlike) carriers of charge and mass (fermions) and forces (bosons).
The Standard Model today consists of a wild  zoo of 61 particles and physicists have since 50 years desperately been seeking alternative models with particles replaced by one-dimensional strings or two-dimensional branes, however without much success.

A pointlike elementary particle is supposed to have a dual wave character as a distributed field in what is referred to as wave-particle duality with the idea that both characters can show up in different situations, like Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde or schizofrenia syndrom.

The carrier of the electromagnetic force is an elementary particle named photon, by which the propagation of light is described as a stream of photon particles, much like the corpuscular theory of light proposed by Thomas Hobbes in 1643 and adopted by Newton. The corpuscular theory of light was replaced by Huygen's wave theory of light once Newton had faded away and reached a completion with Maxwell's equations (1862) describing virtually all of electromagnetics including light by set of wave equations for electric and magnetics fields, an unprecedented triumph of mathematical physics.

With the formidable success of Maxwell's equations describing light as wave, one would imagine that any corpuscular theory of light could safely be put into the dustbin of scientific garbage, but then Einstein entered the game in 1905, stimulated by the energy quanta suggested by Planck in 1900 to avoid the ultraviolet catastrophe of blackbody radiation, with an idea of light quanta as a corpuscular particle theory of light picked up from the dustbin in an attempt to "heuristically" explain the photoelectric effect.

Einstein's particle idea then combined with the new atom physics in the form of quantum mechanics based on Schrödinger's wave equation, connected by a trick of wave-particle duality invented by Bohr.

Since schizofrenia is a serious syndrome, one may ask what makes modern physicists cling to a  primitive particle theory of light as a stream of photons, when there is an educated wave theory in the form of Maxwell's equations?

Why not get rid of the primitivism of a corpuscular theory of light once and for all? Or is a corpuscular theory of light only a harmless heuristic way of thinking, which we can use if we want to explain things to kids?

No, it is not harmless and in fact the opposite because it creates artificial mysteries draining human and material resources with questions without answers like:

• What is a photon particle?
• How do photon particles travel? 
• What is the speed of a photon particle?
• How do photon particles interact with matter?

To understand how silly these questions occupying physicists minds, let us compare light with sound:

• We know that sound is a wave phenomenon of pressure variations supported by vibrating air molecules. 
• We know that sound is not a stream of sound particles as phonons from source to ear. 
• We know that transfer of sound from source to eardrum is a resonance phenomenon between two resonators (vibrating membrane of loud speaker and eardrum) connected by a medium (air) supporting pressure variations transferring forces from membrane to eardrum.

The analog for light is developed as Computational Blackbody Radiation explaining that blackbody radiation is a resonance phenomenon of electromagnetic waves with a high-frequency cut-off avoiding the ultra-violet catastrophe by finite precision computation. 

In short, there is as little reason to speak about photons as light particles as there is to speak about phonons as sound particles. 

It is true that a simple mathematical model of sound propagation can be formulated as a particle model with sound particles moving along straight lines combined with simple reflection laws:

But this is only a simple mathematics model and does not describe the real physics of propagation of sound as a wave phenomenon. Neither does a particle model for light have anything to do with the real physics of light as wave.

The term elementary particle is thus misleading and should better be replaced by something like elementary wave. Hopefully the zoo of elementary particles can then be reduced to a smaller number of elementary waves. This the basic idea of string theory, which however is set to the excessively small size of Planck's quanta $\sim 10^{-34}$ beyond any physics rationale.

Quantum mechanics is a wave theory for atomic dimensions in which particles serve no purpose.

Physics Illusion 3: Explanation of Michelson-Morley Null Result

In the previous post we considered a system of two distant resonators E and R connected by electromagnetic waves in a vacuum between the resonators, which can take the following form

• E = radio mast - vacuum - R = radio receiver
• E = mobile phone mast - vacuum -  R = mobile phone
• E = radio star - vacuum - R = radio telescope
• E = visible star - vaccum - R = telescope/eye.  

The velocity of the  E-vacuum-R system is here irrelevant as the system acts like one unity with E and R being connected by standing waves carried by an immaterial vacuum, which can be assumed to "move along with" E and R. 

The Michelson-Morely experiment was set up to detect possible motion of the Earth through an "ether medium" carrying electromagnetic waves, by comparing the travel time of light signals in two perpendicular directions using a system of mirrors: 

But no motion could be detected as if the "ether medium" was "dragged along" by the Earth. This was viewed as a contradiction to classical electromagnetics described by Maxwell's equations. To handle the illusion of contradiction, relativity theory was developed seeking to explain the Michelson-Morely null result by entirely new phenomena of length contraction and time dilation, which sent modern physics into a nightmare of mysteries.

However, it is possible to explain the Michelson-Morley null result without resort to mysteries of relativity: If we consider each pair of mirrors as a rigid system connected by standing electromagnetic waves in a vaccuum, then the orientation and velocity of the system will not affect the inner working of the system. The system acts like a clock ticking at the same rate independent of orientation and velocity. 

The key is that electromagnetic waves are carried by a vacuum which by its immaterial nature can be viewed to move along with the pair of mirrors. The immaterial nature makes it possible to envision many different vacuui. We cannot eat the same piece of food, but we can share the same immaterial ideas with any number of people.  

This is developed further in Many-Minds Relativity based on the principle that each observer is fixed to the origin of a Euclidean coordinate and relies on Maxwell's equations in this coordinate as a representation of the vacuum carrying electromagnetic waves. Different observers moving with respect to each other thereby use different coordinate systems or vacuui. Different observers will then have the same experiences inside their respective systems as a reflection of the Michelson-Morley null result. Different observers will be able fully agree about certain observations such as Michelson-Morley and the speed of light, but not fully about all observations. Full coordination is not possible but nor necessary. 

Einstein's special relativity seeks to establish full coordination by a dicate, but as any dictate against natural order, it is destructive.

Note that the resonators communicating by electromagnetic waves in a vaccum, connects to the New View of Motion under Gravitation without Classical Mysteries, where large scale material motion is an illusion created by real small scale circular wave motion. Energy is thus transferred from one resonator to the other by transversal electromagnetic wave motion in a vaccum, but there is no stream of "particles as packets of energy" through the vacuum connecting the resonators.

Physics Illusion 2: Photons as Light Particles

Computational Blackbody Radiation describes radiative energy transfer as a resonance phenomenon between resonators connected by standing electromagnetic waves in a vacuum between the resonators. The acoustic analog is depicted above: Energy is transferred from one tuning fork to another by standing acoustic waves as pressure variations in still air.

In this model the finite speed of electromagnetic (or acoustic) waves only influences the energy transfer in a start up phase, while in a stationary state of standing waves the energy transfer can be viewed to be instantaneous without time delay, or to be without time aspect. The transfer of energy is one-way from hot (high frequency) to cold (low frequency).

In this view there is no need to introduce particles named photons carrying energy packets at finite speed back and forth between the resonators, as if the resonators were connected by a two-way highway with trucks transporting energy in both directions. There is no experimental evidence of the existence of such a two-way stream of light quanta. Einstein introduced light quanta in his annus mirablis 1905, but changed mind before passing away:

• All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

The lights we see in the sky thus result from resonance by standing electromagnetic waves in the vacuum between our eyes and a distant star, and not by light particles having traveled for billions of years before hitting the retina of an eye. Energy is transferred from one tuning fork to the other by acoustic standing waves but there are no phonon particles carrying the energy by flying like a swarm of wasps between the forks.

The idea of a photon as an elementary particle acting as force carrier of the electromagnetic force, is a basic element of the standard model. No wonder that physicists are not happy with this model. The photon as carrier of the electromagnetic force like the graviton as carrier of the gravitational force, is probably Einstein's biggest mistake, far bigger than the cosmological fudge constant in Einstein's equations, and a return to the primitive corpuscular theory of light of Thomas Hobbes (1644), which was superseeded by Huygen's wave theory (1678), once Newton was dead, but then surprisingly popped up again in Einstein's 1905 article on the photoelectric effect.    

Physics Illusion 1: Gravitational Attraction as Instant Action at Distance

In New View of Motion under Gravitation I suggest to view gravitational potential $\phi (x,t)$ as primordial and matter density $\rho (x,t)$ generated by $\phi$ by action of the Laplacian: $\rho (x,t) =\Delta\phi (x,t)$ which is local space and time, with $x$ a Euclidean space coordinate and $t$ time.

With this view there is no action at distance, which is the main unresolved mystery of Newton's mechanics with matter density $\rho$ primordial and gravitational potential $\phi$ as the solution of the differential equation $\Delta\phi =\rho$.  Istant action at distance has never been explained.