Photon Theories of the Universe

Albert Einstein was an early advocate of field theories. The gold bars are links to Some of Einstein's writings for the general public. Other gold bars link to discussions and speculations about field theoies that are proposed today.

Many of us have come to suspect that Quantum Mechanics can never provide a complete understanding of how the universe is built. It is philosophically unsound at its foundation. It requires concepts that make weird philosophical sense. The founders of Quantum Theory recognized this as a nagging problem. Some of them turned against the standard interpretation. But today, their followers tend to accept quantum theory without second thought. Here we hope to provide the second thoughts that may lead to a more rounded understanding of how the universe is built.

At the turn of the twentieth century most scientists believed that, "the final irreducible constituent of all physical reality was the electromagnetic field." Many of them attempted to construct a unifying theory that would interconnect all of the known forces of the universe. One of the least known but most promising was H. Ziegler's concept.

H. Ziegler was among the first to realize that any field theory that has the electromagnetic field as its final irreducible constituent must produce relativity phenomena in classic space-time. With that construct of matter there is no need for the idea of variable space-time. Relativity phenomena is the natural consequence of that construct. It is the matter, not space and time, that must change to accomodate its motion. The time experience of matter in motion must also change as a result of its motion.

We present these facts as a reminder that there is an alternative to the unreasonable ideas expounded in the standard model. Some young physicist so reminded may discover that principle that John Wheeler referred to when he said, "Some principle uniquely right and uniquely simple must, when one knows it, be also so obvious that it is clear that the universe is built, and must be built, in such and such a way and that it could not possibly be otherwise."