CHAPTER 14

Cosmic Elements

As pointed out in Chapter 6, the inversion of space and time in physical phenomena that is possible by reason of the reciprocal relation between the two entities may apply to only one of the constituent motions of a complex physical entity or phenomenon, or it may apply to the entire structure. We have already examined some of the effects of inversion of single motion components, such as translational motion in time, negative displacement in the electric dimension of the atomic rotation, etc. Now we are ready to take a look at the consequences of complete inversions.

It has already been noted that the rotational combinations which constitute the atoms and sub-atomic particles of the material system are photons vibrating in time and rotating in space, and that they are paralleled by a similar system of combinations in which the photons are vibrating in space and rotating in time. The point to be emphasized at this juncture is that the inverse system, the cosmic system of atoms and sub-atomic particles, is identical with the material system in every respect, except for the space-time inversion. Corresponding to carbon, 2-1-4, there is cosmic carbon, (2)-(1)-(4). Corresponding to the neutrino, M ½-½-(1), there is a cosmic neutrino, C (½)-(½)-1, and so on.

Furthermore, this identity applies with equal force to all of the entities and phenomena of the physical universe. Since everything that exists in the material sector of the universe is a manifestation of motion, every item is exactly duplicated in the cosmic sector with space and time interchanged. The detailed description of the material sector of the universe that we are deriving item by item through development of the consequences of the basic postulates of the Reciprocal System of theory is therefore equally applicable to the cosmic sector. Thus, even though the cosmic sector is almost entirely unobservable, we have just as exact and just as detailed knowledge of that sector (aside from information about specific individuals of the various classes of objects) as we do of the material sector.

It should be noted, however, that our knowledge of the material sector is knowledge of how the phenomena of that sector appear to observation from a point within that sector; that is, a location in a gravitationally bound system. What we know about the cosmic sector through application of the reciprocal relation is knowledge of the same kind, information as to how the phenomena of the cosmic sector appear to observation from a location within that sector; a location in a system that is gravitationally bound in time. Such knowledge has no direct significance from our standpoint, as we cannot make observations from such a base, but it does provide a basis from which we can determine how the phenomena of the cosmic sector, and the phenomena originating in that sector, theoretically should appear to our observation.

One of the most perplexing questions of present-day physics is: Where is the antimatter? Considerations of symmetry applied to the current theories of the structure of matter indicate that there should be “anti” forms of the elements of which ordinary matter is constituted, and that the “antimatter” composed of those “antielements,” ought to be equally as abundant in the universe as a whole as ordinary matter. “Antistars,” and “antigalaxies” should theoretically be as plentiful as ordinary stars and ordinary galaxies. But there is no hard evidence of the existence of any such objects. It has been suggested, to be sure, that some of the observed galaxies may be composed of antimatter. Alfven, for example, says that there is a “distinct possibility that antiworlds may actually be neighbors of ours, astronomically speaking. It cannot be excluded that the Andromeda nebula, the closest galaxy to ours, or even stars within our own galaxy, are composed of antimatter.”⁶⁰ But this is pure speculation, in the absence of any demonstrated means of distinguishing the radiation produced by a galaxy of the hypothetical antimatter from that produced by a galaxy of ordinary matter. So the question remains, Where is the antimatter?

The Reciprocal System now provides the answer. This new structure of theory agrees that antimatter (actually reciprocal matter: cosmic matter, s we are calling it) exists, and that it is equally as abundant in the physical universe as ordinary matter. But it tells us that the galaxies of cosmic matter are not localized in space; they are localized in three-dimensional time. The progression of time to which we are subject carries us through this three-dimensional time in a manner analogous to a linear motion through three-dimensional space. Only a very small fraction of the total number of objects occupying positions in the spatial reference system would be encountered in the course of a one-dimensional spatial motion of this kind, and the same is true of the number of cosmic objects that are encountered in our progression through time, is compared with the total number of such objects occupying positions n a three-dimensional temporal reference system.

Furthermore, gravitation in the cosmic sector acts in time, rather than in space, and the atoms of which a cosmic aggregate is composed are contiguous in time, but widely dispersed in space. Thus, even the relatively small number of cosmic aggregates that we do encounter in our movement through time are not encountered as spatial aggregates; they are encountered as individual atoms widely dispersed in space. We cannot recognize a cosmic star or galaxy because we observe it only one atom at a time. Radiation from the cosmic aggregate is similarly dispersed. Such radiation is continually reaching us, but as we observe it, this radiation originates from individual, widely scattered, atoms, rather than from localized aggregates, and it is therefore isotropic from our viewpoint. This radiation can no doubt be equated with the “blackbody radiation” currently attributed to the remnants of the “Big Bang.”

All of the somewhat sensational suggestions as to the existence of observable stars and galaxies of antimatter, and the possible consequences of interaction between these aggregates and bodies composed of ordinary matter are thus without foundation. The antimatter-fueled generators, which supply the energy for space travel in science fiction, will have to remain on the science fiction shelves.

The difference between a cosmic star and a white dwarf star should be noted particularly. Both are on the time side of the dividing line so far as the translational speed is concerned; that is, both are composed of matter that is moving faster than the speed of light. But the white dwarf is otherwise no different from the ordinary star of the material sector. The space-time relationship is inverted only in the translational motion of its components. In the cosmic star, on the contrary, all of the space-time relations are the inverse of those of the ordinary material star; not only the translational motion, but also the vibrational and rotational motions of its constituent atoms, and, what is especially significant in the present connection, the effect of gravitation. Consequently, the white dwarf is an aggregate in space, and we see it as such, whereas the cosmic star is an aggregate in time, and we cannot recognize it as an aggregate.

Even those contacts which do take place between matter and the individual particles of cosmic matter (antimatter) that enter the local environment do not have the kind of results that are anticipated on the basis of current theory. In present-day thought the essential difference between matter and antimatter is conceived as a charge reversal. An atom is thought to consist of a positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons. It is then assumed that the antiatom has the reverse structure: a negatively charged nucleus surrounded by positively charged electrons (positrons). The further assumption then follows that an effective contact between any particle and its antiparticle would result in cancellation of all charges and reduction of both particles to radiant energy.

This is a typical example of the results of the compartmental nature of present-day physical theory, which permits an assumption to be used in one field of application, and a direct contradiction of that assumption to be applied in another field, both under the banner of “modern physics.” Where the accepted theory requires that opposite charges neutralize each other on close approach, it is assumed that they do so. Where this does not fit the theory, as in the electrical explanation of the structure of matter, it is cheerfully assumed that the charges accommodate their behavior to the requirements of the theory, and take up stable relative positions instead of destroying each other. In the present instance, both of these contradictory assumptions are employed at the same time. The stable charges that somehow have no effect on each other are “annihilated,” by other charges, presumably identical in nature. Our findings are that wherever electric charges actually do exist, opposite charges destroy each other on contact.

It does not follow, however, that charge neutralization is equivalent to annihilation. In actual practice, only one of the reactions between particles and what are presumed to be antiparticles follows the theoretical scenario of annihilation. The electron and positron do, in fact, annihilate each other on contact, with the production of oppositely directed photons. The antiparticle of the proton, in the accepted sense of the term—a particle equivalent to the proton in all observable respects except that it is negatively charged—has been detected, but contact of this antiproton with a proton does not result in annihilation of the particles into radiant energy. “Here the situation is not as straightforward as in the annihilation of an electron-positron pair,”⁶¹ report Boorse and Motz. And indeed it is not. The interaction of these particles produces an assortment of transient and stable particles not essentially different from those, which appear in other high-energy interactions. As these authors say, “different kinds of mesons are released” in the process. In the light of our new findings it is evident that these are not annihilation reactions; they are cosmic atom building reactions. We will examine the nature and characteristics of such reactions in Chapter 16.

Detection of the antineutron has also been reported, but the evidence for this is indirect, and it is rather difficult to reconcile the various ideas as to just what an antineutron would be with the concept of charge reversal as the essential difference between particle and antiparticle. On the basis of the charge reversal hypothesis, the neutral particles should have no “anti” forms. Indeed, those who contend that “every particle has its antiparticle” justify this statement by asserting that each neutral particle is its own antiparticle. This would rule out the existence of a distinct antineutron, in the currently accepted sense of the term. In any event, this problem with respect to the neutral particles is another item that, like the lack of annihilation in the “annihilation reactions”, emphasizes the inadequacy of the conventional theory of atomic structure in application to the “antimatter” phenomena.

In a universe of motion the atom is not an electrical structure. As has been brought out in detail in the earlier pages, it is a combination of rotational and vibrational motions. In the structures of the material type the speed of the rotational motions is less than unity (the speed of light) while the speed of the vibrational motion is greater than unity. In the structures of the cosmic type these relations are reversed. Here the speed of the vibrational motion is less than unity and the speed of the rotational motion is greater than unity. The true “antiparticle” of a material particle or atom is a combination of motions in which the positive rotational displacements and negative vibrational displacements of the material structure are replaced by negative rotational displacements and positive vibrational displacements of equal magnitude.

In one of the reactions currently attributed to mutual annihilation of antiparticles, the neutralization of displacements is actually accomplished, and in this case, the combination of electrons and positrons, the particles are actually annihilated; that is, they are converted to radiant energy and their existence as particles of the rotational class is terminated. But there are, in reality, two different processes involved in this reaction. First, the oppositely directed charges cancel each other, leaving both particles in the uncharged condition. Subsequently, their rotations, M 0-0-1 and M 0-0-(1) combine to 0-0-0, which is no effective rotation at all. In the vernacular, we might describe this second process as straightening out the rotational motion. There is a short interval between the two processes, and the effects attributed to “positronium,” a hypothetical short-lived combination of an electron and a positron, probably originate during this interval.

The extent to which annihilation can actually take place in contacts between antiparticles other than the electron and positron is still an open question. If the observed antiproton is actually the true antiparticle of the proton—that is, a cosmic proton—the results of the observed contacts of these particles indicate rather definitely that annihilation is confined to the one-dimensional particles. If the observed antiproton is merely a material proton with a negative charge, a possibility that cannot be ruled out at the present stage of the investigation, the observed results of the interactions are not relevant to the question, but the situation is still unfavorable for annihilation, as the obstacles in the way of securing simultaneous contact between the corresponding motions obviously increase with the complexity of the rotational combination, and it is very doubtful if the necessary coincident contacts can be obtained in different dimensions. It therefore appears that the intriguing possibility of energy production by contact between matter and antimatter is not only ruled out as a large scale process by the impossibility of concentrating antimatter in space, as previously indicated, but is also unlikely even as a single atom process.

Inasmuch as our present objective is to examine those phenomena of the cosmic sector of the universe that are accessible to our observation, the observed antiparticles, which are products of high-energy processes in the material sector, are pertinent only to the extent that they throw some light on the kind of behavior that can be expected from the cosmic objects that do enter our field of observation. As indicated earlier, some of these incoming objects make themselves known as a result of chance encounters during our progress through three-dimensional time. Additionally, there are processes, to be described later, which result in the ejection of substantial quantities of matter from each sector into the other. The portion of the material sector within our observational range is therefore subject to a continual inflow of cosmic matter. The incoming particles of this matter can be identified as the cosmic rays.

As they appear to observation, the cosmic rays are particles entering the local frame of reference from all directions and at extremely high speeds, together with a variety of secondary particles produced in events initiated by the primary particles. The secondaries include some common sub-atomic particles of the material system, such as electrons and neutrinos, and also a number of transient particles of extremely short lifetime, from 10^-6 seconds downward, that were unknown prior to the discovery of the cosmic rays, but have since been produced by high energy processes in the particle accelerators.

In current thought, the primaries are regarded as ordinary material atoms. The evidence in favor of this conclusion may be summarized as follows:

1. Sub-atomic particles are excluded, as they are all incapable, for one reason or another, of producing the observed effects. This means that, unless they belong to an otherwise unknown class of particle, the primary cosmic rays must be atoms.

2. The masses of the atoms that constitute the primaries cannot be determined at the present stage of instrumentation and techniques, but it is possible to determine the charges on the individual particles, and on the assumption that they are fully ionized, this indicates the atomic numbers. The distribution of the elements in the incoming cosmic rays, on this basis, approximates the estimated distribution in the observed universe as a whole.

In the absence of any known alternative, this amount of evidence has been sufficient to secure general acceptance of the conclusion that the primaries are atoms of ordinary material elements. When the issue as to its validity is raised, however, as it must be when an alternative appears, it is clear that there are many counter indications in the empirical data. The most serious items are the following:

1. The speeds and energies of the primaries are too high to be compatible with production by ordinary physical processes. No known process, or even a plausible speculative process, based on conventional physics, is capable of producing energies that extend up to the vicinity of 10²⁰ eV. As expressed in the Encyclopedia Britannica, “how to explain the acquisition of such energies is a disturbing physical and cosmological problem.”

2. With the exception of some of the relatively low energy rays that are thought to originate in the sun, most of the primaries have energies in the range, which indicates speeds in the neighborhood of the speed of light. Inasmuch as some decrease in speed has undoubtedly taken place before the observations, it is quite probable on the basis of the observational evidence (that is, disregarding any purely theoretical limitation) that the rays originally entering the local environment were traveling at the full speed of light. This is another indication of an extraordinary origin.

3. While the distribution of elements deduced from the cosmic ray charges approximates the estimated distribution in the observed universe as a whole, there are some very significant differences. For example, the proportion of iron atoms in the cosmic rays is 50 times that in average matter. Lithium has been reported to be as much as 1000 times as abundant (although some of the lithium may be a decay product). The cosmic rays therefore cannot be merely ordinary matter drawn from the common pool and accelerated to high speeds by some unknown process. They must have originated from some unusual kind of source. These anomalies in the “charge spectrum” of the cosmic rays are given little attention in current physical thought, probably because they have no known explanation, but the significance that such deviations from the normal abundance would have, if confirmed, was clearly recognized at the time when the first indications of these deviations were observed. For instance, Hooper and Scharff (1958) made this comment: “An excess of heavy nuclei would suggest the necessity of reconsidering our fundamental ideas on the origin of the primary radiation.”⁶²

4. All of the major products of the primary rays have extremely short lifetimes. If they do not undergo collisions before this time has elapsed, they decay in flight to particles of lower mass and equal or longer lifetime. There is much available evidence to indicate that this is also true of the primaries. For example, in some of the observed events a transient particle leaves the scene of the event in a continuation of the line of travel of the primary, and carries the bulk of the original energy. The straightforward interpretation of such events is that they represent processes in which the primary decays to the transient particle and continues on its way. The existence of a substantial number of high-energy pions in the incoming stream of particles is another item of evidence pointing in the same direction, as similar, but earlier, decays of primaries will produce pions with very high energies. It has been estimated that as much as 15 percent of the incoming high-energy particles are pions. The conclusion that can logically be drawn from the observations is that the primaries are of the same general nature as the known transient particles, and that the entire cosmic ray phenomenon is a single process taking place in a succession of decay events—a process in which an atom with some strange and unusual properties is converted first into other similar, but less massive, particles, and then finally into products that are compatible with the local environment.

The considerations summarized in the foregoing paragraphs indicate that the current explanation of the nature of the primary cosmic rays is not correct. They point to the conclusion that these primaries are not atoms of material elements, as now believed, but atoms of a special kind which have characteristics similar to those of the transient particles, and are produced under some unusual conditions that lead to entry into the local frame of reference at the full speed of light. Since we now find from the theoretical development that there is a continuing inflow of cosmic atoms, which are atoms of a special kind that, according to the theory, enter our environment at the speed of light, and are subject to rapid decay in the manner of the observed transient particles, the identity of the theoretical and observed phenomena is almost self-evident.

An outstanding characteristic of the results obtained from development of the consequences of the postulates of the Reciprocal System of theory—one that we have had occasion to mention several times in the preceding pages—is the way in which they resolve long-standing and seemingly extremely difficult questions in a surprisingly simple manner. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the cosmic rays, where the finding that these incoming particles are atoms from the high-energy sector of the universe clears up the many previously intractable issues in this area with remarkable ease.

The basic questions: What are the cosmic rays?, and Where do they come from?, are answered automatically by the theoretical discovery of a sector of the universe in which objects with the observed properties of the cosmic rays are indigenous. The particular properties that characterize the constituents of the cosmic rays, and distinguish them from the constituents of aggregates of ordinary matter, are naturally the ones that are the most difficult to explain on the basis of current theories which try to fit them into the material system of phenomena, but these explanations are practically obvious once the existence of the cosmic (high energy) sector is recognized.

The energy questions are the central problems. As stated by W. F. G. Swann, “no piece of matter can, under ordinary circumstances, contain, in any form, enough energy to provide cosmic ray energies for its particles.”⁶³ But this is only one phase of the energy problem. The total energy involved is also far too large.

If cosmic rays move in straight lines, as does starlight, and have the same energy density as starlight, then the power supplies to each will have to be the same. There seems no conceivable way to find this much energy for cosmic radiation. (Leverett Davis, Jr.)⁶⁴

Here again we meet the “There is no other way” contention that is being used to justify so many of the otherwise untenable theories and assertions of present-day science, and again the development of the Reciprocal System demonstrates that there is a “conceivable way.” But because the cosmic ray physicists have been confined within the limited horizons of conventional basic ideas, they have not been able to account for the observed energies on any straightforward basis. They have therefore been forced to invent exotic hypothetical mechanisms for acceleration of the cosmic rays from the relatively low energies that are available in the material sector to the high levels that are actually observed, and equally far-fetched “storage” processes to avoid the difficulty cited by Davis.

The existence of another half of the universe, in which the prevailing speeds are greater than the speed of light, and the energies of the mass units are correspondingly great, disposes of both aspects of the energy issue. There are observable explosion processes in the material sector (which will be examined in detail in Volume II) that result in the acceleration of large quantities of matter to speeds in excess of the speed of light. The most energetic portions of these high-speed explosion products are ejected into the cosmic sector, the sector of motion in time. From the general reciprocal relation between space and time we can deduce that these same processes are operative in the cosmic sector, and that they result in the ejection of large quantities of cosmic matter into the material sector. This is the matter that we observe in the form of the cosmic rays.

The characteristics of these interchange processes, as they will be developed in Volume II, explain why the distribution of the elements in the cosmic rays differs from the estimated average distribution in the observed physical universe. It will be shown that the proportion of heavier elements in matter increases with the age of the matter, and it will be further shown that the matter ejected from one sector of the universe into the other consists principally of the oldest (or most advanced) matter in the originating sector. Thus the cosmic rays are not representative of cosmic matter in general; they are representative of the cosmic matter that corresponds to the oldest matter in the material sector. The isotropic distribution of the incoming rays is likewise a necessary result of entry from the region of motion in time. Both the spatial location of entry, and the direction of motion of the particle after entry, are determined by chance, as the contact of the space and time motions is purely scalar.

The identification of the cosmic rays as atoms of the cosmic elements was clear from the beginning of the development of the Reciprocal System. As stated earlier, the available evidence indicates that these so-called “rays” must be atoms. On the other hand, their observed properties are quite different from those of the atoms of ordinary matter. The natural conclusion from these facts would be that the atoms of the cosmic rays are atoms of some different kind. Conventional science cannot accept this answer because it has no place for the kind of an atom that is indicated. The physicists have therefore been forced to conclude that the cosmic rays are ordinary atoms that, for some unknown reason, have unusual properties. In contrast, the basic postulates of the Reciprocal System require the existence of a type of atom, the inverse of the material atom, that has just the kind of characteristics, when observed in the material sector, that are found in the cosmic rays.

It should be noted in this connection that the concept of antimatter, the conventional alternative to the reciprocal matter required by the postulates of the Reciprocal System, cannot be applied to the cosmic rays, because the interaction of matter and antimatter is theoretically supposed to result in annihilation of both substances, rather than the particle production and other phenomena that are actually observed in the cosmic ray interactions.

Although only a limited amount of time could be allotted to the cosmic rays in the early stages of the development of the Reciprocal System, because of the large number of physical areas that had to be given some study in order to confirm the status of the theory as one of general application, the first edition did include an account of the nature and origin of the primary rays, an explanation of the kind of modifications that these particles must undergo in the material environment, and a general description of this modification, or decay, process. In the meantime there has been substantial progress, both experimentally and theoretically, and it is now possible to expand the previous presentation very materially.

The extension of theory in the cosmic ray area that has taken place in the twenty years since the publication of the first edition provides a good illustration of what is involved in the development of the theoretical system from the fundamental postulates. The basic facts—the identity of the cosmic rays, their place of origin, the reason for their enormous energies, etc.—were almost self-evident once the reciprocal relation between space and time was recognized. But it cannot be expected that such an understanding of the basic facts will immediately clear up the entire multitude of questions that arise in the course of developing the details of the theoretical structure. The answers to these questions are available. They can be derived from the fundamentals of the system of theory. But they do not emerge automatically.

Where a theory is developed entirely by deduction from a single set of premises, as is true of the Reciprocal System, there should not be many cases in which wrong answers are reached, if the theoretical foundations are solid, and due care is exercised in the logical development. Only a very few of the conclusions stated in the first edition of this work have been invalidated by the twenty years of additional study that have followed. But it is altogether unrealistic to expect that the first exploration of a physical field by means of a totally new method of approach will accurately identify all of the significant features of the phenomena in that field. It is a virtual certainty that many of the original conclusions will be incomplete. Here, again, the Reciprocal System is no exception.

The explanation of cosmic ray decay that will be given in the next chapter is, in all essential respects, the same explanation that was presented in the first edition. However, the development of the theoretical structure in the intervening years has brought to light many necessary consequences of the postulates of the Reciprocal System that have a significant bearing on the decay process and contribute to a more complete understanding of the decay events. These new items of information include such things as the existence of a transition zone, the two-dimensional nature of the motion in that zone, the existence of the massless form of the neutron, and the nature of the limitation on the lifetimes of the cosmic particles. With the benefit of all of this additional theoretical knowledge, and a substantial increase in the amount of available empirical information, it will be possible to define the decay sequence more accurately. Nevertheless, the presentation in Chapter 15 is not a new explanation of the phenomenon; it is the same explanation in more complete form.