Boscovich Unified Field Theory and Atomism

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1 Boscovich Unified Field Theory and Atomism Roger J Anderton (UK) and Prof Dragoslav Stoiljkovich (University of Novi Sad, Serbia) Talk August 2017 Video of talk at: 1

2 Thesis: Modern Physics is based on the idea of point-particles. But other than brief mention of point-particles in physics education to students, going into details of the theory of point-particles is usually omitted. This is a vast subject and can only deal with some of the highlights, of what is essentially Unified field theory. 2

3 History of Atomism (nature consists of two fundamental principles: particle and void) Democritus c. 460 c. 370 BC remembered today for his atomic theory of the universe. A lot happened between Democritus and Newton, but jumping past that. 3

4 Newton: Universal gravitation: force of attraction between centres of objects. So, idealisation: point-particles. 4

1711 Born in Dubrovnik Educated at the Jesuit Collegium in Dubrovnik 1725 Educated at Collegium Romanum 1733 1772 Professor of grammar, mathematics, astronomy, optics in Rome, Pavia, Milan 1765-1772

5 1711 Born in Dubrovnik Educated at the Jesuit Collegium in Dubrovnik 1725 Educated at Collegium Romanum Professor of grammar, mathematics, astronomy, optics in Rome, Pavia, Milan Founded and managed the Astronomic observatory in Brera (Milan) Member of Academies: Paris, Royal Society in London, St. Petersburg, Bologna, Rome, Holland... Roger Boscovich (1711 Dubrovnik Milan) Published more than 100 books and articles

Boscovich s monumental work THEORY OF NATURAL PHILOSPHY REDUCED TO AN UNIQUE LAW OF FORCES EXISTING IN THE NATURE Is the very first UNIFIED FIELD

He took Newton s idea about forces and hierarchy of matter.

6 Boscovich s monumental work THEORY OF NATURAL PHILOSPHY REDUCED TO AN UNIQUE LAW OF FORCES EXISTING IN THE NATURE Is the very first UNIFIED FIELD THEORY Latin version, Wien, 1758, Venice, 1763 English version M.I.T., 1922 and 1966 Croatian and Latin version, Liber, 1974 Boscovich took idea about point particles from Leibnitz s monads. He took Newton s idea about forces and hierarchy of matter. Boscovich picked up this idea of point-particles and where Newton only considered the case of the forces being attractive; applied it to a theory where forces were repulsive as well as attractive between them. 6

7 Boscovich took Newton s idea of Hierarchy of matter General and some particular shapes of Boscovich's curves Repulsive force... Molecules Atoms Second order... Distance First order particles... Elementary points... Boscovich took Leibnitz s monads as elementary points Attractive force Newton - gravitation

8 Repulsive force Cohesion limits Distance Allowed orbitals in Boscovich s Theory Attractive force Non-cohesion limits The electron under forces of attraction and repulsion towards the nucleus, would find an orbit where those forces were balanced: i.e. there would be allowed and forbidden orbits. This led to Quantum mechanics: Boscovich > J. J. Thomson > Rutherford > Bohr model...

9 Boscovich proposed an unique curve that has to be valid for each level of structure of matter REPULSIVE FORCE DISTANCE ATTRACTIVE FORCE 9

10 Modern science verified Boscovich s curve at many level of matter 1. Electron-nucleus interaction 2. Atom.atom interaction 3. Molecular interaction 4. Macromolecular interaction 5. Colloidal particles interaction 6. Nano particles interaction

More verifications and examples are presented in You Tube talk and in the book: Professor Dragoslav Stoiljkovich deals with the issue of how modern Quantum mechanics was

11 More verifications and examples are presented in You Tube talk and in the book: Professor Dragoslav Stoiljkovich deals with the issue of how modern Quantum mechanics was developed from the idea of classical physics (circa Boscovich 18th century) of point-particles, in more detail: in his book and YouTube talk. The book is free on web site RESEARCH GATE 11

12 Now let s consider how Special Relativity gets its mathematics: Light clock Where light represented by a point-particle bouncing between mirrors. 12

13 Modern Physics has this problem of unifying Quantum physics with Einstein s general relativity. It is really an artificial problem because both are built from dealing with pointparticles. So, when you look at both theories relativity and quantum physics from the perspective of a unified theory of point-particles then you deem mistakes have been made. (But that is too big a topic to go into here for this short talk.) First the issue of why is the point-particle theory (of Boscovich) mostly omitted from standard physics education (?) My answer (on my investigations) is that there were revolutions in physics in early 20 th Century due to Relativity and Quantum mechanics, and the physics syllabus was cut to make room for these new subjects. So, after circa World War II the physics education syllabus had been changed. Prior to that change Boscovich was in certain physics education courses. 13

14 After I had completed my physics/math degree, I then contemplated about what I had been taught, and concluded that it did not quite make sense. I then looked back at history of physics etc and found Boscovich theory had been cut out of what was being taught. So, no wonder what had been taught did not quite make sense. The reason: because they had omitted a vital step in that teaching of dealing with pointparticles. Naively, as one studies a physics degree one would think one would get a good grounding in the basics of the subject, but that is not the case. The reason given: is that to give a thorough physics degree covering everything would take too long, so certain things are cut out. But that then prompts one to wonder where the cut out things are, and the discovery is : if they are not taught, then they are ignored by most people. Hence we have in physics that most people have ignored Boscovich. 14

15 So, both Quantum mechanics and Einstein s relativity are traceable back to point-particles as used from Newtonian physics, and hence unified on this issue; in omitted physics. What we have from Newton was the Newtonian research program: Peter Godfrey Smith Theory and reality : an introduction to the philosophy of science p 102 Newtonian research program of 18th century physics has Newton s 3 laws and his gravitational law as its hard core. Boscovich with his work on point-particles that was continuation of Newtonian physics. And Einstein is in a sense a continuation of Newtonian physics/newtonian research program. 15

Nicholas Maxwell argues that science and philosophy of science has gone wrong, and goes by Boscovich unified theory. Modern science began as natural philosophy.

16 Nicholas Maxwell argues that science and philosophy of science has gone wrong, and goes by Boscovich unified theory. Modern science began as natural philosophy. What today we call science and philosophy, in Newton's time formed one integrated enterprise: to improve our knowledge and understanding of the universe. Profound discoveries were made. And then natural philosophy died. It split into science and philosophy. But the two fragments are defective shadows of the glorious unified endeavour of natural philosophy. Ref: php#!prettyPhoto 16

17 There are other issues in the Newtonian research program. Because a lot of other things have been misrepresented: For instance in order to simplify Newton s theory of light it is often portrayed as solely a particle theory of light when actually its particles have wave properties. Thus the Newton particle theory of light versus Huygens wave theory of light was an artificial misrepresentation. In Boscovich context would be a particle under influence of a field; which I think taken up by Bohm description of particle with pilot wave influencing it. 17

18 Bohmian mechanics, which is also called the de Broglie-Bohm theory, the pilot-wave model, and the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, is a version of quantum theory discovered by Louis de Broglie in 1927 and rediscovered by David Bohm in It is the simplest example of what is often called a hidden variables interpretation of quantum mechanics. In Bohmian mechanics a system of particles is described in part by its wave function, evolving, as usual, according to Schrödinger s equation. However, the wave function provides only a partial description of the system. This description is completed by the specification of the actual positions of the particles. The latter evolve according to the guiding equation, which expresses the velocities of the particles in terms of the wave function. * David Bohm ( ) was part of a tradition working on Unified field theory. So, I am connecting this physics to others in that tradition. * Ref: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 18

19 Conclusion: It has not been properly appreciated the development of Newtonian physics (especially building on the concept of point-particles) to modern physics; and has often been misrepresented by mistakes in the mainstream narrative. There is a more unified physics narrative that goes roughly like this: Newton Boscovich Einstein Bohm There are of course other people of importance such as Galileo, Maxwell But what is generally missed out from the mainstream narrative is Boscovich, Bohm and others like them working on this type of unified field theory tradition. 19

20 Various people I am now encouraging to connect their work to Boscovich. What gets missed out of Physics degrees as taught to students is the interconnectedness of how the concepts of physics developed, from the pointparticles of Newton and Boscovich to Quantum physics and relativity. Physics is taught in disjointed way with no natural development of concepts. What is now needed is a New Scientific Revolution to tidy up the mess that has been made with the basics. THANK YOU FIN Talk presented at: Second International Conference on Physics Aug Brussels, Belgium, Organized by: OCM for Physics Series c.rjanderton

Boscovich and aether talk presented in 2018 Roger J. Anderton

Boscovich and aether talk presented in 2018 Roger J. Anderton R.J.Anderton@btinternet.com Einstein revolution of physics with his relativity 1919 was followed by Quantum revolution in 1920s. 1 According