Zvi Yanai's review of the book pulls
Reuven Nir. Kinneret Publishing House, 255 pages, NIS 74
By Zvi Yanai
Zvi Yanai
"There is no truth in this book." The summary line in the book review list? No,
These are the words of the author himself (p. 227), Reuven Nir, Ben Kibbutz
Mehravia, an engineer by profession and a developer of inventions employed in a hi-tech company
Israeli. In the extraordinary book he wrote, he tries to convince us that what
which stands behind the four great forces of nature - gravity, force
The strong nuclear, the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force - is not
Interaction between attraction and repulsion but the principle of push.
Gravity is the weakest of nature's forces, amazingly weak. For example, if
We will place a tiny positive charge of protons, in an amount not exceeding 10
Billions of grams, in the center of the earth, while on its surface - in the distance
of 6,400 km - place an electron (having a negative charge), the electron will be attracted
For protons with a strength equal to the gravitational force of the entire mass of the Earth on
the same electron. And let's not forget, this impressive show of strength belongs to the force
Electromagnetic, which is 10 million times weaker than the strong nuclear force. and in all
This, despite its abject weakness, the sun's gravity manages to hold
the earth in its orbit from a distance of 150 million km. It's not an issue
No small thing, since to hold our planet in its orbit without power
Gravity required a steel cable as thick as the diameter of the Earth. Gravity
It was known to man thousands of years before he knew about the existence of the forces of nature
the others, and yet to this day we do not fully understand him.
Newton, the man who gave gravity universal law, showed
That this force acts on all material bodies - small and large, light
As heavy - directly proportional to the sum of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance
between them. But what is that internal property of the material that creates the force
The pull, he couldn't explain.
Newton especially had difficulty understanding how this force works between two bodies
are far from each other a long and huge distance. "The opinion does not give that wild material
An inanimate object will act on another substance and be affected by it without the mediation of something else,
that we are not matter, and without mutual contact," wrote Newton ("The Elegant Universe" by
Brian Greene. Translated into Hebrew by Amos Carmel, Matar Publishing House). this action
In Newton's eyes, it was so absurd that he believed "that no man who has
The ability to think properly in philosophical matters cannot fall
into it". Because of this, he tended to attribute the source of gravity and its action
The mysterious to God.
The answer to the mystery of the mechanism of gravity was provided by Einstein, in a stimulating act
Absences of revolutionary thinking. According to Einstein, gravity is not a property
internal to matter, according to Newton's version, but a product of curved space
around masses of matter, as a rubber sheet folds around an iron ball
the term in her lap. Einstein's theory of general relativity was adopted by
A community of physicists, but it has a thorn in its side: it is beautiful for bodies and structures
microscopic, but does not conform to the laws of quantum mechanics
which guide the behavior of the microscopic bodies in the subatomic world.
The theory of relativity is not a complete theory, because it derives the existence of
Unique gravity points where all the laws of physics, space, crash
and the time
Even quantum mechanics cannot claim to be complete theory, since
which does not include gravity. It therefore follows that the two physical theories
The greats of the 20th century quantum theory and general relativity -
speak two foreign languages and are estranged from each other. This media short is between
Both teachings have prevented the long-awaited unification of gravity with
The other three forces of nature.
Nir believes that both teachings are wrong. According to his theory, gravity does not work
Using particles carrying gravity (gravitons), similar to photons
that carry the electromagnetic force between electrically charged bodies, which
Not so the flux of gravitons from the sun hitting the earth had to be moved away
us from her and not closer to her. As for the curved space-time of Torat
Nir sees relativity as a "simplistic description."
Nir claims in his book that gravity does not work between material bodies, but
push principle. This principle is realized through a universal particle flux
(particles, according to the author), which are emitted from the masses of matter that inhabit the
the universe and saturate it with full uniformity. These tiny particles,
which are several orders of magnitude smaller than the elementary particles known to us,
hitting during their movement the matter of stars and planets standing in their way.
However, since their impact on these heavenly bodies is equal from all sides, the direction of their movement
Does not change unless you stand between them and the incoming particle flux
to them from a certain direction, a large mass of material blocking some of the particles.
For example, the universal flow of particles coming to us from the direction of the sun
will be partially swallowed by it, and therefore will affect the Earth on a smaller scale
than the flow of particles flowing to us from other directions of the universe. Due
Thus, the Earth will be pushed towards the Sun. Howie says, we are not attracted to the sun
from the force of attraction it exerts on us, but we are pushed towards it by a current
The universal particles that hurt our back.
But, if gravity is not a curvature of space-time nor an intrinsic property
of matter, what is mass? Aliba Denir, a mass is a dense vortex of
particles in space. As a turbulent region contains denser particles
Moreover, it constitutes a more effective barrier to the flow of particles
The universal, and therefore the mass (in our terms) of this area is large
More. A similar interplay of pushing and disrupting the flow of particles
The universal is supposed to explain the electrical and magnetic phenomena and
The action of the electromagnetic force.
Judging by the first reactions Nir received from the physicist community, there is
To assume that the push "theory" will not shake the thresholds of physics.
One of the Israeli physicists refused to address it on the grounds that he was a Nobel laureate
The physicist, Richard Feynman, already refuted a similar idea 40 years ago.
It is interesting that Nir has a good answer in this matter, which we will not go into
Here, but not under one pretext or another, the real reason should be sought
to the absence of a serious reference to Nir's "theory". A comprehensive theory
New to the forces of nature, which does not explain remaining physical phenomena and findings
unsolved by previous theories, which offer no experimental confirmation
- or to my dismay - to its assumptions, and that it is not accompanied by a mathematical foundation
Holm is not a scientific theory, but an idea and nothing else.
For example, in 1986, scientists missed a beat when hearing a physicist's announcement
American, Ephraim Fischbach, for discovering a new force in nature, opposite to force
Gravity, whose operating range is limited to only 200 meters. According to Fischbach,
which relied on various observational findings - including repeated analysis of data
Researchers since the beginning of the century - this force of repulsion acts on various objects
in different degrees of intensity depending on the composition of their materials. The press is out
In big headlines about the discovery of the "fifth force", but also the scientific community
did not remain indifferent, because Fischbach presented both observational findings and
experimental conditions that may confirm or disprove his claim. Although Nir too
Presents a thought experiment based on Kaborite (gravity neutralizer), but
This miraculous ointment exists only in the fertile imagination of the "Jules".
("The first men on the moon").
What Nir offers us is, at best, complete equivalence between principles
The attraction to the push principle. That is, a significant part of the phenomena that are explained on
by the existing theories through gravity or the curvature of space,
expressed by Nir through the pushing force of particles. Beyond difficulty
This is essential, arising from the lack of an observational and theoretical basis for the existence of the particles
And relying solely on the imagination of the author, the principle of equivalence has meaning
If it contributes to the advancement of scientific thinking, that is, when it opens a new window
to understand reality.
Thus, for example, the equivalence proposed by Einstein between gravity and acceleration resulted
The same for the thought that the presence of mass causes the distortion of space, and that time does not slow down
Only by accelerated movement, but also by gravity. balance
Therefore, every new theory is supposed to explain findings and phenomena that preceded it
They couldn't. That's what Newton's theory did to Aristotle's theory, that's what theory did
Einstein to Newton's theory, and so will, perhaps, theory
The innovative superstring to existing physical theories. because if anything
What Nir's equivalence does is to replace the concept of pull with the concept of push,
Why bother?
Beyond that, according to the existing physical model, every cubic meter of space
contains about a billion massless and electrically neutral neutrinos,
Which allows them to cross the earth without us noticing them, similarly
Nir's particles. But since the neutrinos are much larger
orders of magnitude from the particles, their pushing effect should be stronger
from the particles. The same is true for the billions of photons of radiation
The cosmic that saturates every cubic meter of space.
Since photons are composed of particles (according to Nir), and since they are
Very easily blocked by different types of material, they should be
A more effective push mechanism than the neutrinos, not by much
from the particles. And if this is the case, why replace existing ones with existing ones?
Imaginary to activate the push principle? Nir explains that the pushing force of
Photons and neutrinos are negligible compared to particles due to their density
relatively low. Niha
One thing is not in doubt: the number of questions raised by the particle model
Many of the answers he offers. In a conversation with me, Nir admitted that "the theory"
His does not "like" the big bang theory, which he does not know how to explain
The physical process that led to the creation of the particles, he did not give his opinion
to the problem of the duality of matter and the answers it offers to phenomena
Electromagnetism is far from conceivable.
All this does not prevent Dr. Hami Ben Nun from writing in the introduction to his book
Nir: "Even if we assume for a moment that all the explanations in the book are wrong, that would be difficult
To prove it, I believe that this book offers a considered intellectual breakthrough
in its strength for the explanation offered by Einstein, when he presented the theory of relativity"
(10). In contrast to this bombastic statement, Nir testifies to his book with appropriate modesty
To praise: "There is a search for simple ways to understand what surrounds us, and we will do it
In it is an attempt to understand how we search for these ways" (227).
Nir asks important and correct questions about a long list of concepts
basic physical ones that we are used to using instrumentally without
understand them. And if, according to his testimony, the purpose of his book is to point out ways
Simplicity for understanding what surrounds us and how to look for these ways, then it is worthy
For a pat on the back for his courage, for his original thinking, for the effort
The intellectual he invested and the seriousness of his approach.
After all, scientific knowledge advances thanks to people who succeed in uprooting themselves
Shackles from conventional mental conceptions and are able to observe reality
from a new angle and different from the usual one. This, in itself, does not guarantee its veracity
of a new idea, but it has to fulfill a necessary condition for any theory
New: the ability to see conventions in a non-agreed way.
Zvi Yanai's book, "The Endless Search - Conversations with Scientists", is out
In the Ofakim library, published by Am Oved
{Appeared in Haaretz newspaper, 21/2/2001{
The knowledge website was until 2002 part of the IOL portal from the Haaretz group
