Inertia as reaction of the vacuum to accelerated motion
Alfonso Rueda · Bernhard Haisch
Abstract and summary · read the original at the source
In one page
Alfonso Rueda and Bernhard Haisch ask what actually pushes back when you push something. Their answer is the vacuum. In 1994 they and Hal Puthoff had derived inertia from the zero-point field using a modelled particle-field interaction — a Planck oscillator — and the argument was heavy going. Here they drop that model entirely. They show that a lopsided flow of zero-point energy and momentum appears in an accelerating frame all by itself, straight out of the standard relativistic transformations of electric and magnetic fields. At rest, or in steady motion, the field is perfectly even in every direction. Accelerate, and it is not. An object that scatters even a fraction of that transiting flow feels a backward push in exact proportion to its acceleration — and that push is inertia. The mathematics returns Newton’s f = ma and, this time, the fully relativistic four-force as well. If it holds, inertia is a local electrodynamic effect, and no separate mass-giving field is needed to account for it.
Why it matters hereThis is the cleanest statement of chapter 3’s central move — inertia as the vacuum’s reaction rather than a brute property of matter — because it derives the result from field transformations alone, with no interaction model to argue about. And it is the reason chapter 8 can ask an engineering question at all: if mass is a coupling to a field, a coupling is the kind of thing you might one day change.
What it claims
01A non-zero zero-point-field momentum flux arises naturally in an accelerating coordinate frame from the standard relativistic transformations of electromagnetic fields, with no ad hoc particle-field interaction model required; scattering that flux yields a reaction force that may be interpreted as the object’s inertia.Abstract; Section 2, final paragraph
Published and peer-reviewed02In a stationary or uniformly moving frame the zero-point field is perfectly isotropic, so the Poynting vector and momentum density vanish; only under acceleration is it perceived as asymmetric, and the moment acceleration ceases the reaction terms vanish identically.Section 4, opening paragraph and the discussion following Eq. 30
Published and peer-reviewed03The coefficient the analysis produces has the dimension of mass and a natural reading: the inertial mass of an object is that fraction of the zero-point radiation energy enclosed within its proper volume which actually interacts with it, parametrized by an interaction factor that falls away at high frequency.Section 4, Eq. 30 and the paragraph following it
Published and peer-reviewed04The derivation yields not only the Newtonian equation of motion but a properly covariant relativistic one — the momentum of the accelerated object comes out in exact agreement with special relativity and the four-force takes the standard form, at least for forces parallel to the direction of motion.Section 5, Eqs. 31 to 33
Published and peer-reviewed05If correct, this local and causal electrodynamic interaction substitutes for Mach’s principle, and implies that no further mass-giving Higgs-type field is required to explain the inertia of material objects — though extensions to the zero-point fields of the weak and strong interactions may be needed for a complete theory.Abstract, final sentence; Section 6, second paragraph
What to watch06The approach is related by the principle of equivalence to Sakharov’s conjecture linking the Einstein action to the vacuum, and it answers the large-cosmological-constant objection: it is the effect of the zero-point field on charged particles that would generate gravitation, not the field’s own energy density, which is therefore not equivalent to gravitating mass.Section 1, third paragraph
What to watch
Read it · abstract
Abstract
It was proposed by Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff that the inertia of matter could be interpreted at least in part as a reaction force originating in interactions between the electromagnetic zero-point field (ZPF) and the elementary charged constituents (quarks and electrons) of matter. Within the limited context of that analysis, it appeared that Newton’s equation of motion (f = ma) could be inferred from Maxwell’s equations as applied to the ZPF, i.e. the stochastic electrodynamics (SED) version of the quantum vacuum. We report on a new approach which avoids the ad hoc particle-field interaction model (Planck oscillator) of that analysis, as well as its concomitant formulational complexity. Instead, it is shown that a non-zero ZPF momentum flux arises naturally in accelerating coordinate frames from the standard relativistic transformations of electromagnetic fields. Scattering of this ZPF momentum flux by an object will yield a reaction force that may be interpreted as a contribution to the object’s inertia. This new formulation is properly covariant yielding the relativistic equation of motion: F = dP/dτ. Our approach is related by the principle of equivalence to Sakharov’s conjecture of a connection between Einstein action and the vacuum. If correct, this concept would substitute for Mach’s principle and imply that no further mass-giving Higgs-type fields may be required to explain the inertia of material objects, although extensions to include the zero-point fields of the other fundamental interactions may be necessary for a complete theory of inertia.
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0375-9601(98)00153-4Published in Physics Letters A under the Elsevier user licence. The preprint is on arXiv as physics/9802031, filed in February 1998 under arXiv’s assumed licence for submissions of that era, which does not grant redistribution — no Creative Commons statement appears in the text or on either page. So this sheet carries the summary, the claims and the authors’ own abstract, and sends the reader to the source.
How to cite it
Alfonso Rueda, Bernhard Haisch (1998) Inertia as reaction of the vacuum to accelerated motion. doi:10.1016/S0375-9601(98)00153-4
Where it sits in the curriculum
Inertia and gravity from the vacuumWhat the vacuum isInertial mass reduction and transmedium craft