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The WMail Newsletter Essays
Volume II - Issue #13: August 2001

"A Third Theory of Relativity (Part 2)"

This essay and Part 1 – see June issue/essay – are each excerpts from
Chapter 35 of my book "Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment".

A LITTLE COSMOLOGY
        Whatever I imagine as The Way That The Universe Works, whatever elements might be objectively True, you will not likely see any corroboration in print, unless you study Quantum Physics and the like. So you are probably seeing these strange ideas here first. This area of Science is a form of science fiction to most people, that is, a fictive construct based on pieces of scientific data as well as imagination. Classic sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, however, made up some stuff in the 1940s and 1950s that was so accurate scientifically – though pure fiction – that the F.B.I. investigated him for possibly breaching National Security on then-top-secret projects. Clarke, merely a very educated civilian, made it up totally, and hush-hush scientists were working on the exact same matters behind supposed walls of tightest security.

        Now I must confess that I listened to Art Bell's radio program – "America's #1 late night talk show" – for a while, while working graveyard shift at Playa Vista. Art Bell is basically an entertainer, and only secondarily a journalist, so I soon perceived his on-air strategy of bringing on several contradictory guests over several shows and seeming to agree with each one. The listeners are left on their own in trying to separate the hype and the wishful and-or paranoid thinking from the rare nuggets of Objective Reality: the data presented disagrees all over the place, but what if some of it is true? And which pieces are Objectively True?
        None of it True? Impossible, I say. Something has been going on, outside the Culture-Structure. Some of the on-air, live calls on Art's radio show are too damn real to deny their content.

*          *          *          *

        One such interesting subject that I heard discussed on Art's show is the difficulty that astrophysicists are encountering of late in pin-pointing the location of Magellan and other probes that are deep into the outer reaches of our little solar system. The old, pure Newtonian formulae do not work, which is a mind-wracking puzzle to those tied to J.P.L. and N.A.S.A. computations.
        How the two-way transmissions from these probes works is that Earth stations send to each probe, the probe captures and time-stamps the transmission, and then the probe transmits back a time-stamped collection of data that was recently – micro-seconds previously – gathered by that probe as it is whizzing past and between the outer planets. But the time-stamp business doesn't work right: part of the transmission occurs as if Newton is exactly right, and part shows the position of the probe itself as being much closer to the Earth.
        Big problem for the scientists, but in order to prevent confusion for the Culture-Structure, this matter has been kept quiet: The scientists just recompute using corrected Newtonian formulae.
        The mathematical conclusion from this problem points to the speed of light – the holy constant of all Relativity – as gradually changing. But of course, this cannot be so, or else Einstein and Planck and all the rest have made serious errors: the formulae would no longer be God's [or Science's] Absolute Truth.
        So the space scientists adjust for their factual findings and blame instrumentation, or solar flares, or 'some unknown factor', but hold steadfastly to the original dogma – and secretly shake their heads and wonder what the hell is going on.

*          *          *          *

        My humble Third Theory of Relativity was formed back in 1982, as part of the design of a science fiction screenplay entitled "Nostalgia". So this particular recent scientific puzzle caught my attention on Art Bell's show immediately, as espoused by several different guests.
        The other piece that fits here is the recent measured increase in solar activity: major changes the like of which have never been observed by [modern] Science.

        So here is how this fits together, and where Science has long innocently been mistaken: Astrophysicists and nuclear physicists have made the mistake of thinking that Space is an Objective constant. Perhaps not so. My Third Theory of Relativity posits that the missing mass of the Universe, the XXX force, that shows up in various computations is accounted for by the various non-standard – dare I say para-normal? – dimensions, which the tri-dimension-bound scientists of the Culture-Structure cannot admit to, nor indeed even perceive of.

        What makes the speed of light variable is the fact – the scientific heresy – that the energy in all of Space is like a fluid! I repeat: like you think of a fluid. Energy exists, whatever it is, and may just move around the Universe like a warm current in the salty oceans of Earth, or like the El Niño phenomenon. In fact, exactly like El Niño, whatever is that phenomenon's cause.
        The energy of the Universe may just move around, like weather, wafting its way across the Universe like clouds in the Terran atmosphere, or like the tides & currents of the oceans. One of the possible effects might well be a rise (or drop) in the local speed of light, just as the heat absorbed by El Niño raises the temperature of the water in the eastern South Pacific Ocean, causing havoc with weather patterns all around this fragile globe. Exactly parallel to how the advent of extra energy in this corner of the Milky Way could raise the activity of Sol, our local star-sun. The increase in pure energy could also alter the effective speed of light.

        Remember that the Holy Biosphere is at most 100 miles thick [give or take] and that the Planet Earth [or Terra] is 8,000 miles in diameter. The solid mass of rock that makes up this Planet is 80 times the diameter of the gaseous and very mobile and very fragile atmosphere, so it doesn't take much to alter normalcy. Just heat the solid rock-and-magma mass of the Terran orb a few degrees and the fragile, gaseous outer surface – the atmosphere and the Holy Biosphere – is globally warmed, with no chance of correction to 'normal'.

        Deep space contains next to Nothing, almost limitless emptiness. While there is less objective matter to transmit such qualities as heat, there is also no barrier to the unobserved transmission of ethereal 'clouds' of energy that just sneak in and alter the conditions of this terribly lonely and isolated backwater corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, this obscure sector of the uncharted Universe.
        Something is going on, but the Culture-Structure is keeping Science itself as well as the general public from having a clue, mis-directing our attention to tabloid sensationalism and Third World war games and the non-event that was the start of the Third Millennium.
        Something is going on. But the Working Mind is more concerned with the Objective Reality that affects us in our daily lives: with those who reap unearned wealth, by ripping off Mankind; with those false leaders who initiate Fear among the masses, asking to lead our young into pseudo-battle against the manufactured 'enemy'; with those who stand up with another Answer From God, the price of which is only giving over to them all of your natural personal Power and financial equity – tax-deductible, of course.
        Mankind's only chance for successful Survival is thru Reason, which may require tossing out sacred notions like the invariability of the speed of light or that obedience to the Culture-Structure will result in anything but the worsening mess in which we find ourselves of late. Everything is open to question, everything can be reconciled thru Reason, Mankind has the capacity – if not always the Will – for the Fulfillment of Mankind's Potential, without which Mankind will soon be extinct.

*          *          *          *

        We are effectively mere passengers in this Universe, and we have no more say in its destination or its direction than a passenger on a wide-bodied jet aircraft has. You think that you know where the craft is headed, but changes may occur without advance notice. You'll never see or talk to the Captain of this craft and who's to say that the voice that you hear over the loudspeaker is really the Captain? We can theorize from our seats, move around a little, even look out the window and guess at our location; but whether we are in First Class or Steerage Class or even one of the Cabin Attendants, the vehicle will reach its destination without our help – or it will not reach it.

        R. Buckminster Fuller wrote a book entitled "Spaceship Earth" to remind us that there is no escape from the vehicle, this blue orb of a craft, that if we pollute this spaceship the entire species Mankind could perish – like that! Remember always that we are all in this together.
        Sit back and work on what you should be doing while on the Journey. Empower your fellow passengers, make their Journey as pleasant as possible. Be nice to the Cabin Attendants; don't complain about every little thing. Enjoy the many channels of entertainment [when your work is done]. Keep the place clean. And keep your personal Meaning and Purpose always in mind.
        There is no way out, not until the Final Landing; and once the craft is landed, you cannot choose a different destination. So develop your Working Mind and Learn to Empower, and will yourself to generate the best ride possible for us all.

        Bon voyage!

[copyright 2001 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

2007 version "A Third Theory of Relativity"


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