India's Physics community must lend its ears to Cosmic Relativity that challenges Einstein's theory

By Team Newsable | First Published May 6, 2023, 12:26 PM IST

It is high time that Prof CS Unnikrishnan's Cosmic Relativity theory is discussed by the Physics community in India without any prejudices, says Prof V P N Nampoori

History of science provides some interesting examples of important scientific and technological discoveries which will hibernate for some duration and suddenly resurrect in future with new nomenclature separated in space and time.

Two such examples that come to our mind are the Geometrical Phase discovered by Pancharatnam in 1931 and its rediscovery by Berry which came to be known as Berry Phase in 1982. The third example is Joshy Effect in 1941 which describes interesting observations in Optical interaction with low-density discharge plasma.

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Joshy effect provided valuable data on the nature of excited states of atomic, and molecular species present in the plasma discharge. Prof Joshy was a chemistry professor at Banaras Hindu University when he discovered an interesting phenomenon in gas discharge tube under light irradiation.

His colleagues in the Physics department did not accept the discovery and sarcastically called it the Joshy effect. Later on, the Joshy effect was rediscovered as the Optogalavanic effect and provided a new spectroscopic technique to study optical absorption spectroscopy with non-optical detection in 1982 by Green et al . Then only BHU people and physicists elsewhere in Indian laboratories found that OGS is, in fact, the rediscovery of Joshy effect.

Prof S Chandrashekar, the astrophysicist Nobel laureate, was ridiculed by Eddington for his theory of the possible existence of a Black hole. Without initiating to fight with Eddington, Chandra wrote a book describing his discoveries and published it in Chicago. USA received Chandra with admiration to become Physics Professor at Chicago University. He was an excellent teacher and boasted that even if he did not get the Nobel Prize, the whole of his call got the Nobel Prize in Physics.

It is clear that the non-recognitions of a scientist's discovery by his colleagues is based on non-academic reasons rather than academic and logical arguments.

The latest of the Indian psyche to ignore path-breaking discoveries by one of their colleagues is that of the work by Prof C S Unnikrishnan. He discovered serious faults in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and developed an alternate theory called Cosmic Relativity. The entire STR has to be replaced by CR because they are antipodal. All the verified results of STR are also part of CR, but they have very different predictions for the most crucial aspects. In STR, the relative velocity of light is an invariant constant; in CR it is Galilean, like sound so the velocity of light depends on the velocity v of the observer so that.

The Galilean nature of light is confirmed in direct experiments at TIFR. This is further supported amply by facilities like the GPS. Coming to more recent experimental results, even the LIGO findings are consistent only in a new General Theory of Relativity, that is modified with CR as the basis; this is because the relative velocity of gravitational waves is also Galilean, as verified in the simultaneous detection of light (gamma) rays and gravitational waves. In CR, all the relativistic effects are because of the gravitational influence of matter and energy in the universe.

Since cosmic matter and its average density are observed and measured, its enormous gravity is the natural consequence.. After formulating CR, Prof Unnikrishnan also found serious inconsistencies in STR, due to a vital error Einstein made in the discussion of simultaneity and synchronization of clocks. That theory is to be completely replaced because its basic postulate is refuted (falsified) experimentally. Predictions like mass-energy equivalence and Lorentz- Fitz Gerald transformations in STR have logically-consistent concrete proofs in CR. Without assuming the constancy of the velocity of light, as Einstein did in his STR, Prof Unnikrishnan described an alternate theory of Relativity with the Universe as an absolute frame of reference for all dynamics, with respect to which light can have non-constant speed.

In spite of several experimental proofs to support CR from experiments like GPS and LIGO, and special optical interferometry using lasers in Prof Unnikrishnan’s laboratory itself, the scientific community in India does not acknowledge Unnikrishnan’s findings. Instead, he was not given an extension of service as a Professor of Physics in TIFR so that he can complete his experimental works and was unceremoniously removed from the investigation group of LIGO India (now Unnikrishnan is a professor at the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, of the DRDO, in Pune).

One can also remember the case of Prof E C G Sudarshan whose two seminal discoveries in weak interaction and quantum optics were ignored while considering the Nobel Prize in physics. In the first case, one can admit that he was a research scholar at that time and his guide did not allow him to speak on the subject during an international Physics colloquium.

Sudarshan commented on the 1967 NP in Physics, "What I did for my PhD thesis in 1957 was probably one of the most important things in physics and they (the Nobel Foundation) should have nominated me at that time. If not then ten years later. No, they didn’t. Instead, they gave the prize to somebody who did something on top of it. I usually say if you want to award somebody, you take the person who built the ground floor, not someone on the second and third floors. That is what they did. Glashow, Salam and Weinberg did the next step to what I did. Without the first step, they couldn’t have done it."

But, in the case of Quantum Optics, the situation is different. Sudarsan was a senior physicist with the distinction of several discoveries and awards including the Dirac Medal, at the time. Usually, when one got Dirac Medal, he/she is sure to win NP. The work he developed was re-described by Glauber in detail including the fundamental physics of optics involved in the findings, so that his paper will seem to be more extensive than that of Sudarshan who wrote a short paper highlighting the gist of his discovery. In spite of the fact that Sudarshan should have given a major share in the NP, the committee recognized only Glauber for the award. Sudarshan did not hide his disagreement with the recommendation of the NP committee regarding the nonrecognition of his work.

Nothing happened anything more in this case even though the scientific community around the globe stood up to talk against the decision of the NP committee. "I can assure you that it is not impartial. For example, the prize given to Glauber, it is my prize. They gave it to him for things which I did. The prize is coveted because it is identified with excellence, and the majority of people who have got it, have gotten it for very good reasons. The very first prize was given to Rontgen, who discovered X-rays. At that time it was because of the fact that people recognised that X-rays were very important for medicine. But afterwards, they gave it for all kinds of things. Like my friend, Glauber got the prize for... I don’t know what; it cannot be because of the excellence of his work."

One of the latest works by Sudarshan is the resurrection of an aether and how this explains light propagation as waves. It is interesting to note that the algorithm for factual GPS corrections developed by Prof Unnikrishnan for his CR is also based on an absolute frame (matter-filled Universe) as the background, according to a recent conversation given by Prof Unnikrishnan to Asianet News Online. To watch the full interview, click the link.

One should not forget the Late Prof Thanu Padmanabhan (IUCAA, Pune, yet another scientist from Kerala) who described GTR in the light of classical thermodynamics and fused Quantum Mechanics with GTR which was a task ( fusion of GTR with QM) taken up by many scientists without success. His untimely demise was a loss to the scientific community since he had more theories which could have made physics more rich. In the following sections, we will describe the details of Unnikrishnan’s theory.

Assuming that the velocity of light is an absolute fundamental constant only in the cosmic rest frame, determined physically by the gravitational interaction of light with the Universe Prof Unnikrishnan was able to show that CR implies all relativistic effects and that the velocity of light is Galilean in all other frames. It is very important to realize that the effects are gravitational in origin and that in an empty Universe, there will not be any relativistic effects, unlike in SR. It is possible to get convinced of this by considering the effect of distant galaxies on local physics.

For example, a moving clock experiences a cosmic gravitational potential that is different from what is experienced by a clock stationary in the Universe. Then it is gravitational time dilation that is responsible for the experimentally verified motional time dilation. Obviously, this solves the much-debated twin-paradox consistently and easily. The more fundamental theory -- Cosmic Relativity -- is based on the gravitational effects of the Universe and it is not limited to reference frames moving with uniform velocity.

Results for clock comparison experiments

Time dilation effects are very important for the experimental validation of cosmic relativity Consider a frame moving at velocity V with respect to the cosmic frame. We consider experiments in which there are clocks moving within this frame, which will be compared among themselves and with other clocks that are at rest within the frame. Consider a clock within this frame that is moving at velocity u relative to the coordinates inside the frame. SR asserts that no special relativistic time dilation expression should contain the velocity of the frame (with respect to some hypothetical frame in which the moving frame is embedded) in which the experiment is performed.

The cosmic gravitational time dilation has the characteristic imprint of the fact that there is a preferred cosmic frame with reference to which the time dilation is calculated. The clock that is stationary within the frame itself has a time dilation with respect to the clocks in the cosmic rest frame. (Such a clock is notionally provided by the temperature of the CMBR). We have to calculate the time dilation of the stationary clock and the moving clock with respect to the cosmic frame and then compare them.

The surprising new result is the dependence of the time dilation factor on the velocity of the frame. This is equivalent to considering all velocities relative to the cosmic rest frame or CMBR for calculating the time dilation effect. It is possible to have a moving clock inside a local frame age faster than a stationary clock in the same frame, in complete contrast to the special relativistic prediction. In SR, no local experiment should have a dependence on the velocity of the frame.

If a clock is taken around the earth along the equator at constant ground speed u, and brought back after a round trip, its time dilation with respect to a clock stationary on the surface is not given by the special relativistic factor predicted by Einstein in 1905. The correct result is given by Cosmic Relativity.

The result that the clock in motion can age faster than a clock at remaining at rest within the laboratory frame is devastating for Einstein’s SR. This can never happen in SR. For a clock moving at ground speed u along the instantaneous surface velocity (440 m/s) of the rotating earth with respect to the cosmic frame, and another one moving opposite (eastwards and westwards). If the clocks are taken around in aircraft with a velocity 220 m/s (average ground speed of about 800 km/hour), then the predicted asymmetry would be ∆T ≃ 310 ns This is several times larger than the special relativistic time dilation, ∆t ≃ 50 ns

The total time dilation asymmetry depends only on just the total path length covered in the experiment. It does not matter how fast the clocks are moved, provided we move them by the same distance. Slow transport will need more time, and the asymmetry depends only on the product of the velocity and duration. Thus if the clocks are taken around by walking around the earth eastwards and westwards along the equator, the clocks will show an asymmetry that is exactly equal to the one predicted for clocks taken around in fast flights! All these results have been already verified in the results of clock transport experiments, done as early as 1970 (Hafele-Keating experiment).

Experimental Evidence for Cosmic Relativity

The Sagnac effect was first discovered in optical interferometry. The phase shift in a rotating planar interferometer with area A, in which light travels in two opposite paths and returns to their starting point is given by ∆ϕ.This expression is the same as the expression for the time asymmetry in round-trip clock comparisons. It is implied that the physical interaction responsible for the Sagnac effect is the gravity of the Universe.

Here we merely note that the total equivalence of the expression for the Sagnac effect for light and matter waves arises from the fact that gravitational interaction is universal, and therefore the Sagnac effect does not depend on the group velocity of waves used in Sagnac interferometry (this result is not intuitively obvious, for example in a Sagnac interferometer that uses optical fibres, since the light pulse takes more time to circle around and yet the time difference between the clockwise and counterclockwise pulses is still given by the same equation.) Thus Cosmic Relativity is the generalized theory of relativity in flat spacetime since it does not distinguish between inertial and non-inertial motion.

Cosmic Relativity and physical effects in quantum systems

In cosmic relativity, the enigmatic connection between spin and statistics in quantum theory is seen to be a consequence of the gravitational interaction of the spin with the Universe. The interaction is gravitomagnetic in nature and gives us the result that identical integer spin particles obey Bose-Einstein statistics and identical half-integer spin particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. This is a deep result, and for the first time might answer the long-standing query-what are the physical reasons behind the spin-statistics connection? It also answers why the connection is valid in non-relativistic, two-particle situations despite the general impression that it is a consequence of relativistic field theory.

The fine structure in atoms, Spin in CR, and the Spin-Statistic connection

When the idea of electron spin was first proposed by Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit, they had not resolved the problem that the simple spin-orbit coupling ( L-S coupling) gives twice the experimentally observed value for the fine structure splitting. CR shows that the correct fine structure is obtained from a cosmic gravitational interaction. Spin in gravity is the equivalent of a magnetic moment in electrodynamics.

Any physical effect that exclusively depends on spin must be of gravitational origin. The spin-statistics connection is the following: a) Particles with integer spin are bosons and they obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. b) Particles with half-integer spin are fermions and they obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics. This simple division is behind most of the material variety in the physical world. A geometric understanding of these statements was published by Berry and Robbins and several authors have invoked the relation between rotation operators and exchange of particles in quantum mechanics to prove the spin-statistic theorem.

Sudarshan has been arguing for the existence of a simple proof that is free of arguments specific to relativistic quantum field theory. While these attempts have clarified several issues regarding the connection, none provides a physical understanding of the connection. It may be noted that physically the connection is applicable for any two identical particles, in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Thus we should expect that the physical proof need not depend on relativistic quantum field theory.

Cosmic relativity shows that it is the gravitational interaction of the quantum particles with the entire Universe that is responsible for the spin-statistics connection. In other words, the Pauli exclusion is a consequence of the relativistic gravitational interaction with the critical Universe, which is always present.

The fundamental principle regarding the velocity of light

The fundamental principle of Cosmic Relativity is that the velocity of light is a fundamental constant only in the cosmic rest frame, determined by the local average gravitational potential due to the entire Universe in the cosmic rest frame. Relative to a moving observer, the relative velocity of light varies, just as for sound and other familiar waves. In SR, the constancy of the velocity of light in all frames is the defining assumption. So, the measurement of the one-way relative velocity can decisively settle which theory is correct. (Note that the Michelson-Morley experiment uses a two-way propagation of light and it's not suitable for deciding this fundamental issue of the nature of propagation of light, contrary to the general belief). An experiment was done in Unnikrishnan’s lab, progressively refining, to determine the genuine
one-way relative velocity of light, and compare it to the behaviour of sound. The result decisively refutes and falsifies the defining postulate of Einstein’s theory, and therefore, the theory itself.

Why is E=mc2?

We now discuss the physical relation between the velocity of light and the average gravitational potential of the Universe at any point. If the Universe started from pure nothingness, then it is expected that every constituent of this Universe has zero energy. One part of the energy is the gravitational interaction energy. Clearly, every mass at rest with respect to the cosmic frame should possess energy and can be seen as and thus E = mc2 as predicted by SR.

Conceptual and philosophical implications

There has been a significant change, in fact, the most profound and far-reaching, in the philosophical view on space and time after Einstein’s relativity theory became understood. The development of Cosmic Relativity and experimental evidence favouring it will imply a large shift in our worldview. The new world-view will of course be different from the one that existed in pre-SR days, though Cosmic Relativity brings into focus a preferred frame we call the cosmic rest frame or the absolute frame. Since there is no aether, and since new circumstances arise in acknowledging the gravitational presence of the Universe, a world-view based on Cosmic Relativity will be different from the one induced by Special Relativity. It is important to note that the only aspect of the cosmos we have used in deducing a new theory of relativity is its approximate homogeneity and isotropy, and the fact that the Universe is nearly at critical density. These results imply a critical modification of General Relativity as well, in which the theory is endowed with the absolute matter frame of the Universe. This makes GTR totally Machian, which was indeed one of Einstein’s passionate desires for his theory of General Relativity. There is also the question of whether there should be a change in our attitude towards quantizing gravity.

Space and time are un-observables, and really have no meaning in the absence of matter. It is a matter that defines, facilitates, and modifies measurements of spatial and temporal intervals. At present it suffices to mention that everything we know in General Relativity is consistent with Cosmic Relativity, and the harmony between the two is even better than in the case of General Relativity and Special Relativity.

We can now answer some of the doubts raised by Julian Barbour in his book, “Absolute or Relative Motion?: Discovery of Dynamics” .Cosmic Relativity strengthens these connections further, that relativistic modifications of spatial and temporal intervals, as well as several important effects specific to quantum systems, are the results of the gravitational interaction of the Universe with the local physical system. Thus the construction of Cosmic Relativity answers the important questions left unanswered by the pioneers like Newton, Mach and Einstein. A major monograph written by Unnikrishnan was published recently by Springer Nature (Nov. 2022) in which it is stated the theory of cosmic relativity addresses and answers all long-standing questions and puzzles in relativity and dynamics.

Conclusion

We discussed some of the revolutionary discoveries made by Prof C S Unnikrishnan through the proposal of Cosmic Relativity. There is no place for an axiom that the velocity of light is constant in all frames of reference as Einstein imposed to describe SR. It is high time that Prof Unnikrishnan’s CR should be discussed by the Physics community in India without any prejudices. One should note that when a new theory is emerged by shattering the foundations of existing theory, there is always an inertia among the specialists to accept it just as the inertial forces described by Newton in his laws of motion. Hope that we will hear positive discussions among the specialists so that a new paradigm shift will be created in unravelling the secrets of nature.

Prof V P N Nampoori is visiting scientist at the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala University and M G University. Views expressed are personal

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