An Amazing Summary

Rinus Kiel, December 2014

Rinus Kiel, of the Netherlands, is over 80 years old now. Although he does not have a degree in physics, it has been an interest of his for years and he has followed a number of different theories. Below is his letter, in its entirety, to an email Christian creation group in Europe. This is printed here with his permission.

Dear friends,

Introduction
Sorry for the fact that my contribution to the current discussion is given in English. Although I can read and understand texts in German very well, to express myself in your language is not easy, mostly because of the complex grammar and the specific rules for prepositions. So, bear with me! I suppose that all of you can read and understand English texts very well! Besides, if we would like to include Barry Setterfield in our discussion, it is much easier to write in English than in German, because that saves me the trouble to translate into English.

You mentioned the RATE investigations. You know that they have concluded to a much faster radio decay speed in the beginning than usually accepted. Because they had no answer to the problem of the accompanying much larger heat generation, they turned to a very unusual method: they invoked God in their reasoning. But if we have only a rudimentary idea of the philosophy of science, we understand that you cannot do that

Invoking God in science
Science is a limited discipline with its strict rules. God can never be a ‘factor’ in our reasoning. He has created the world, the reality around us and He has expressed Himself in this world in ways understandable to us. This was the great surprise for Galileo but also for Kepler, and even Einstein could not accept that this reality would disappear behind the horizon, although in my opinion he himself opened the way to it. So, we have to limit ourselves to the facts at our disposal.

Now it is very sad that the American creationists as a group have forbidden their co-workers to have any contact with Barry Setterfield, for reasons still not quite clear. They are obviously afraid of his ideas. But if they had looked into them, they had not felt the urge to factor in God. Because Setterfield in his model has a very good answer to the problem of the RATE group.

But in order to have the advantages of this answer, physicists have to set a very, very difficult step. And this is, they have to step out of their acquired knowledge and accept that there are other ways to approach physics than the ones we learned in school and university.

Change of paradigm
I know that this is not easy, this is even a very difficult and painful process. Planck said, that new ideas are very difficult and sometimes even impossible to grasp for us, who have been immersed in the ‘old’ thinking, because this old thinking has crept into the farthest corners of our mind.

I had this experience myself as an information systems analyst, very well acquainted with the then current methods of structured analysis and development and relational data analysis. The new method of Object Oriented system building seemed some totally outlandish idea, maybe good for small and simple systems. But we went into retreat for one week and let ourselves immerse in those new and (according to us) unworkable ideas. Slowly the importance of them started to dawn upon us. At the end of the week we were able to apply this new technique to simple problems. Follow-up courses convinced us at the end of not only the feasibility of this new method, but also of its superiority, because it could also solve upcoming problems, where the old methods would stuck.

Not everybody saw the advantages of the new thinking and went on to use the proven old methods, which they considered almost perfect. But fact was that they were accustomed to their shortcomings and they used ‘tricks’ to overcome them. But those ´tricks´ did not work for upcoming new problems, and they were at a dead end. Stagnation came in! So, I do not think lightly about those transitions.

Louis de Broglie´s warning for theoretical physicists
And here I would invoke a piece of text of Louis de Broglie from his book ‘New Perspectives in Physics’ Ch.3 p. 30/31 :

“[In concluding my brief survey of the nuclear field,] I should like to stress the danger that always threatens theo­rists: the temptation to consider our current knowledge as final. Almost instinctively our intellect tends to make ap­parently complete syntheses based on knowledge, which is and no doubt will always remain, fragmentary. Such syn­theses are often extremely valuable in guiding scientific research, but we must always be careful not to attribute to them a permanency which they lack. Instances of such ‘final’ interpretations abound in the history of science, and I shall cite a few examples (not here).”

“Thus with every advance in our scientific knowledge new elements come up, often forcing us to recast our entire picture of physical reality. No doubt, theorists would much prefer to perfect and amend their theories rather than be obliged to scrap them continually. But this obligation is the condition and the price of all scientific progress.”

Another appropriate quote (Ch. 15 p. 205):

“Although rigorous axiomatic theories cannot be called useless, they do not generally make any great contributions to important scientific advances simply because they ignore intuition, which alone can reveal previously unknown facts.”

What does this mean in our discussion? Most of you have been immersed in the academic thinking about physics and consider these theories as the one and only way leading to understanding. These theories have come into being through often painful processes of trial and error and starting over again. Many have become disappointed during these deliberations. But at last something workable seemed to have appeared. And of course you can point to many, many successes and instances where the current theories seem to be confirmed by the results of measurements and tests. But you do obviously not realize that these results and measurements equally confirm other theories (especially SED), and not seldom much more easily.

I have the great advantage of not being educated within an academic community. I acquired my knowledge outside these institutions, by reading and studying a lot and discussing with specialists. I have always been strongly interested in mathematics and cosmological theories, including relativity and quantum theory. I studied Einstein and later on ran into the work of A.H. Lorentz and I always wondered why Einstein had taken one step further to a complete relativity, where Lorentz kept a certain fixed point. I equally wondered why it was necessary to introduce renormalization, until I read some work of Paul Dirac. All this started my doubts about the current theories.

A new quantum theory
What I did not know was, that in the shadows of the current theories many physicists worked further on a theory, based upon Planck’s second ‘theory’, which he published in 1911. Their work came seldom in the open. This changed after Louis de Broglie published his book ‘New Perspectives in Physics’ in 1962. His ideas, better ‘hints’ were picked up by some physicists, who joined the small group of ‘alternative’ physicists already working on this new physical theory. Its basis is the physical Zero Point Field (ZPF), quite different from that in the QED, where it has no real physical meaning as a worldwide quantum energy field. The theory acquired the name of Stochastic Electro Dynamics (SED), because of the way virtual particle pairs in the ZPF flip into and out of existence stochastically (randomly and unpredictably). A number of researchers are working on this theory and are successful. They have an immense task before them: QED has explained lots of phenomena and events, with which SED has to keep up. Good progress is already made, because SED has a mathematics with is magnitudes simpler than QED. The famous ‘four-dimensional curved space-time continuum’ has been replaced by a much simpler three-dimensional space. For people immersed in QED and relativity this must seem to be an intolerable heresy. But nevertheless it works at least as well as the current theories, be it much and much simpler. Within it, the four basic forces of nature, gravity, electrodynamic force, weak and strong nuclear forces, are already unified. Gravity in SED has nothing to do with an enigmatic curvature of space but it originates as a consequence of the increasing of the ZPF-strength around large bodies. This also explains why gravity is such a weak force in the universe.

Problems with Big Bang
But also Big Bang is a theory with big problems. Every new discovery seems to lead to adaptations of the theory. Recent example: the theory defines comets as ‘dirty snowballs’. In the meantime we have seen several pictures of comets which were approached by space probes. None of these could be described as dirty snowballs, but as pure rocks without any trace of water, snow or ice. The landing device of the last probe Rosetta was provided with a harpoon(!) in order to fix the device into the ice(?!) But the device was harpooned back two kilometers from the comet and bounced several times on the surface of the comet before it came to rest on a place without sunlight! Amazing to me was the explanation of the (Austrian?) professor, leader of this project. After the successful landing did he declare the comet to be a dirty snowball. And that in the sight of this piece of battered hard rock!!

As odd as it seems, Big Bang is not even able to explain the forming of stars and less of galaxies. Several auxiliary theories have been proposed, but all fail miserably. The last thing is the so-called dark matter, needed because there is not enough matter to keep galaxies in the right structure together. Many dollars are being spent to find this enigmatic stuff, but to no avail. How come? Because gravity is being seen as the main force that keeps the cosmos moving. But it is not. Gravity is a weak force that cannot fulfill this function. Think of the sun as having the size of a pencil point. Then the nearest star is another pencil point at a distance of about 7 kilometers. Can you imagine the utter weakness of gravity within these enormous spaces? On ‘short’ distances gravity works well; in our solar system it is currently the strongest force that keeps things going. But gravity utterly fails in doing what it is supposed to do: maintaining the structure in the cosmos. And in the Big Bang theory gravity is considered to be the only important force working in the cosmos

Birth of plasma theory
More than a century ago the Norwegian Kristian Birkeland discovered the power of plasma in the universe. He studied the polar light (aurora borealis) and saw that it consisted of electrical plasma. Later on the Swedish Hannes Alfvén worked on this theory, for which he got the Nobel prize in 1970. Yet their work was not recognized, they even had big problems to publish in renowned scientific journals. Most of their troubles were caused by one man, the British theoretical physicist Sydney Chapman. He had proposed a theoretical plasma model, which was obviously attractive for most physicists, probably because they were already accustomed to theories without contact with reality. But Birkeland and Alfvén tested their ideas in the laboratory and had to adapt them regularly. Only after Chapman’s death the great value of the plasma theory was recognized. Many physicists started to do research on plasma, of whom Anthony Peratt of Los Alamos High-Energy Laboratories may be mentioned. He showed how from just a few plasma strings all known celestial bodies could be generated. It was also shown that exotic things like ‘dark matter’ in all its forms are not necessary. The electromagnetic forces of plasma are more than strong enough to keep the cosmos organized. But plasma is still a taboo in regular physics, at least plasma as developed successfully thus far by plasma physicists and representatives of the ‘Electric Universe’.

Problems in current physical theories
The debacle of the current theories is not an invention of mine. In 2007 the American physicist Lee Smolin published a book ‘The Trouble with Physics’, in which he declared:

Major problems but in 30 years (since 1977!) no progress in the direction of a solution:

A very bleak picture indeed. Are there ways to a real solution? Yes, but only if we listen to De Broglie’s warning, leave our theoretical strongholds, listen to what others have to tell and use our intuition again. Otherwise there is no hope for any real progress. Not in physics and certainly not in the direction of a young cosmos. Progress does not come from consensus but from individuals.

About Stochastic Electro Dynamics
Dear fellows! Outside your scientific landscape new theories have come into being, introducing other ways of looking at reality and solving many problems in current theories. In them the many good things of the old theories are kept. I am not going to describe those theories in any detail. The stochastic electro dynamics (SED) and plasma theories are in the process of being developed. New aspects are regularly popping up. If you want an overview over these new theories, read Barry Setterfield’s monograph. But also the work of Bernard Haisch (German from Stuttgart, now in USA, own institution, ‘Calphysics Institute’, website http://www.calphysics.org/ ) gives a lot of useful information, also about ongoing research. Via his website much more is within reach. But so far only Setterfield has combined these two theories in his model. Everyone who takes the trouble to study this can easily see that it leads to a young cosmos and thus to a young earth.

However, a young cosmos will not pop up miraculously if you apply SED and plasma. Most SED researchers acknowledge that the ZPF supports all the matter in the universe. They make calculations about the energy taken by particles from the ZPF and the energy given back to the ZPF. The resulting electron orbits agree exactly with those in QED. They apply all the knowledge acquired within the QED framework and apply it in their work. SED describes how the electron orbits and their energies are being effected. Most of them believe in an old cosmos where these energies were fixed shortly after the Big Bang, and so they are not motivated to research changes in the ZPE strength. But what most of them not do is trying to figure out what happens when the vacuum energy in the ZPF changes. Only some occupy themselves with this aspect. Walther Nernst in 1916 concluded that the ZPF must have been started at the beginning of the cosmos. Barry Setterfield in the 1990’s took the big trouble to figure out the possible processes and the consequences. How did he come to that place? Why did he suppose that the ZPF had changed during the lifetime of the cosmos?

Setterfield´s trigger to a young cosmos
This trigger to that was not the decreasing light speed, as many keep believing. Although he was aware of other anomalies, already in his first publication in 1987, he did not yet see the great picture. The real kick in the right direction was the discovery of the quantized redshift. In 1976 William Tifft started to rock the boat with his discovery of the fact that redshift values were not distributed smoothly over the distance from here to the end of the cosmos, but came in clear clusters. Expressed in km/sec escape velocity he found clusters every 72 km/sec. Much later on this value was brought back to peaks every 2.67 km/sec by the use of better instruments and methods. This phenomenon came known as ‘quantized redshift’. It must again be stressed that this discovery was made possible through ever improving instruments. Quantized redshift cannot be the evidence of moving, which goes smoothly. Guthrie and Napier tried to prove Tifft wrong once and for all but they turned to become supporters with clusters every 37.6 km/sec. Research with radio telescopes then narrowed the gap down to 2.67 km/sec. Many researchers who started as opponents of Tifft’s ideas ended as supporters of this concept. But here it does not end. Several observations have shown that individual galaxies within clusters have different redshift values, and even that bands of different redshift values march through individual galaxies. Several physicists – among them also the creationists Russell Humphries and John Hartnett – have supposed that the quantization points to the concentric shells of galaxies which exist at certain distances from our own galaxy. They try to prove with their ideas that we on earth are in the exact center of the universe and they play a little magic with ideas borrowed from Einstein’s relativity theories, because they take Biblical texts as if they were scientific statements!! Various other creationists do the same. However, the distances between these shells of galaxies are orders of magnitude larger than the quantization distances. Quantized redshift is a phenomenon not much liked in the physics community but it is difficult to deny if you stick to the facts.

Earlier in this document I stated that atomic structure is supported by the strength of the ZPF. Quantized redshift shows that the (low energy) high redshifts at the edge of the cosmos (= in the beginning of the cosmos), are caused by a low energy ZPF. Therefore the redshift curve gives us also the curve through which the ZPF energy has increased from the beginning of the cosmos. This curve exactly mirrors the redshift curve. But the ZPF is the ‘parent’ of many other ‘constants’, which vary from the beginning to this moment, like Planck’s constant going up, light speed diminishing, radio decay speed diminishing while decay energy goes up, etcetera.

In short: the increasing redshift in the direction of the cosmos edge mirrors the decreasing curve for the ZPF strength. But a low ZPF in the past also causes all physical processes speeding up accordingly. This all caused a very fast generation of all elements including the heaviest radioactive ones, and through extremely fast plasma processes the fast generation of all cosmological entities, some a bit earlier, some a bit later, but all within creation week time.

Young cosmos/earth only obtainable with new theories
If your aim is to use physics to arrive at a young earth, a young cosmos, you will never reach this aim by keeping yourselves to the established theories, how mathematically beautiful they may seem. The mentioned new developing theories of SED and Electric Universe (plasma) open the possibility to reach your goals. Certainly not without problems and struggles; remember that we speak about an enormous paradigm shift. But problems are there to overcome and struggles only strengthen the motivation. Creativity, imagination and intuition will be needed very strongly for physics to leave the area of stagnation and make new and real progress. There is so enormously much to be discovered and to be worked out. All I have done is just prickle your mind; I cannot do more. Much is to be found on and via Setterfield’s website www.setterfield.org .

Many physicists have bought his monograph and send in encouraging comments. An honorary doctorate has been offered to him by a university but Setterfield has turned it down; he thinks his work can stand on its own and needs no titles to support it.

For me I cannot imagine that there would be even one physicist worldwide who would not be fascinated by these new perspectives in physics.

I wish all of you all the best,
Rinus Kiel                                            Rhoon, December 23th 2014
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Follow some sayings attributed to Albert Einstein, who struggled with the loss of reality in physics until the end of his life, and which I thought were worth considering:

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts (ironically meant, but really practiced).
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
(About QED, in an obvious mood of despair) This theory reminds me of a system of delusions knocked together from incoherent thought elements by a hyper-intelligent paranoiac.