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> the concept of linear independence. .. It's enough to be able to combine other fundamental units to generate a derived unit of space or time.

You actually bring up a very interesting point ! Our current understanding and Science treats space and time as being independent. In my studies I have come across other systems that propose that space-time is linked. IIRC Dewey Larson's "Reciprocal System" is one such very interesting approach !

* http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/dbl/

> C makes a wonderful unit precisely because it's a universal constant,

Given our current understanding it certainly seems to be, but I would hesitate to call it a universal constant, when we have explored, what, less then 0.00000001% of the visible universe. More data is required before we can come safely come to that conclusion.

> I have no doubt that certain instruments could eventually be built to "observe" other dimensions if they even exist.

It will be called a Plasma Lens and it will allow Scientists to see White Holes. (What's on the other side of a black hole.)
Current ETA is sometime within the next 2 - 20 years last time I checked a few years, but I don't pay attention to the "when" of particular dates, only the "what" that things will happen, as dates are not important as the paradigm shift.

> I forget who proposed it, and as far as I knew it was not generally excepted by Physicists. However it treats light as a non-constant and posits that 2 other dimensions exist that have something to do with gravity and electromagnetism.

Now that is REAL interesting. Sure hope you can remember or someone can dig up a link!

The only alternate theory I've seen is Dewey B. Larson 's "The Reciprocal System" but it is pretty unorthodox to be seriously be considered by the mainstream. It sure would be good to have a review to see what its critical flaws are ...
http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/ce/step/index.htm

> through some kind of conversion between electromagnetism and gravity
That's currently the missing piece we don't understand. Guess that's the holy grail of physics though, eh?

What's really strange is that E=M*C^2 is basically a linear system, since Einstien assumed that 'c' was constant. I would like to see a non-linear interpretation of energy = mass, along with dispensing of the assumption that 'c' isn't constant.

Cheers

Nice to see someone open-minded to other possibilities.

Have you heard of Dewey B. Larson? He has some interesting physics.

http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/

It's 1 divided by the square root of the permittivity of free space e0 multiplied by the permeability of free space u0. Link here.

That's why the speed of light is different in different materials. Differing permittivity and permeability.

Interestingly enough, you can use e0 and u0 to calculate the impedance of free space. It's approximately 377 ohms.

> Matter and energy are quantized, why not space and time? It has a nice symmetry to it --- a fan favorite for both mathematicians and physicists.

They are -- the universe is digital. Everything single "thing" has a frequency, and thus quantized.

You'll want to ready Dewry Larson's Recipal Systems. Specifically, "The Fundamental Postulates" of The Structure of the Physical Universe.

Cheers

--
Religion & Science will remain woefully incomplete until they pursue the knowledge of what happens before Life, and after Death.

> Matter and energy are quantized, why not space and time? It has a nice symmetry to it --- a fan favorite for both mathematicians and physicists.

They are -- the universe is digital. Everything single "thing" has a frequency, and thus quantized.

You'll want to ready Dewry Larson's Recipal Systems. Specifically, "The Fundamental Postulates" of The Structure of the Physical Universe.

Cheers

--
Religion & Science will remain woefully incomplete until they pursue the knowledge of what happens before Life, and after Death.

"In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside."

If "religion" means "set of beliefs" then actually everyone is not athiest, in fact everyone is "religious" including athiests (in this case their belief is that they don't believe in God). For an interesting read on the state of our "perfect science" that can not be questioned I found this on the internet a while back: The Case Against The Nuclear Atom

The text you quoted, the text you mot modded up for, looks like total bafflegab to me. Not only does it look like bafflegab, but it includes apparently absurd claims such as element 117 reaching some sort of limit where "rotational motion terminates". That simply does not make any sense at all under known physics. Ok, so we are taking about some pretty radical hitherto unknown physics.

So lets take a look at your Reciprocal Systems link and the theory behind it. It contains pages and pages of rather dense dense and improbable text, and containing the typical crackpot hallmark of "explaining" how every scientits in the last hundred years, from Rutherford to Einstein to Hawking, has been bamboozled by some stupid mistake that (apparently) should have revealed itself in virtually every scientific experiment in the last hundred years.

The proper response to such a text is to state "The first error is on page X line Y where it says [blah blah blah]", and glibly toss the rest of the paper in the trash heap. Sadly I am not a professsional physisist and can't necessarily cite the first error and prove it. I do however know enough physics to cite a blatant error, blatant enough to tag the author as a crackpot. His paper proposes a test to "prove" his theory:

In the original [Rutherford] scattering experiment, charged helium atoms (alpha particles) were beamed at a gold foil; the resultant scattering was claimed to be due to Coulombic repulsion by charged nuclei. Now suppose that that non-charged helium atoms are beamed at a gold foil. The Reciprocal System of Theory predicts the same scattering in this case. The Rutherford theory predicts no scattering.

Simple test, repeat the Rutherford scattering experiment with neutral helium, and if there is still scattering Rutherford is disproven, and the Reciprocal System is tenatively proven.

However the claim that the Rutherford theory (and all of physics) predicts no scattering is balony. Unless I am mistaken, the Rutherford theory (and all of modern physics) predicts essentially the exact same scattering. The expected result is the result the author claims will invalidate all of known science and proove this Reciprocal System theory!

Why does the Rutherford theory (and all of modern physics) peredict the exact same scattering for neutral helium? The scattering force is the electric repulsion when nuclei get extremely close, thousands of times closer than the distance from any electron to the nucleus. Due to the inverse square law, this thousands of times smaller distance causes a scattering force millions or billions of times larger than any forces involving electrons. Even if the helium electrons did somehow get involved in a signifigant force, the *most* that could happen is that those electrons would be immediately stripped off the helium atom and would simply fly off on their merry way, imparting no further force. The force on the nucleus of stipping the two electons is absolutely insignifigant here.

Neutral helium atoms are expeced to scatter essentially identically as helium ions (alpha particles).

Someone who makes such a glaring misstatement of ordinary physics has no credibility in making wild claims like "Atoms are not composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons", as the Reciprocal System website does.

-

For the reasons previously given, the limiting value, the equivalent of zero in each scalar dimension, is eight units of one-dimensional, or four units of two-dimensional, rotational displacement. In the notation used herein, the latter is a 4-4 magnetic combination. However, as indicated in Chapter 24, the destructive limit is not reached until the displacement in the electric dimension also arrives at the equivalent of the last magnetic unit. A rotational combination (atom) is therefore stable, at zero magnetic ionization, up to 4-4-31, or the equivalent 5-4-(1), which is element 117. One more step reaches the limit at which the rotational motion terminates.

--
Evan

Per Thomas Kuhn's theory on the structure of scientific revolutions, real changes in the way we understand science always start out as a crackpot theory. see the Reciprocal Systems website for more. My Uncle is an adherent of this theory, and he has some uncanny evidence for why it is applicable to real physics, large and small.

While conventional thinking won't get you put in a nuthouse, nor will it solve the dilemmas of physics. Even physicists say this.