PHOTONIC MASS
by
Vernon Brown



Scientists at the University of Maryland 
reported on June 19, 1994, that single photons 
trapped in resonant high-Q cavities behaved just like 
oversized electrons. These photons possessed 
electric charge, inertia, relativistic distortion when 
accelerated, and all the other properties generally 
associated only with particles of mass.

Quark theory survives on the idea that 
particle transfer is the basis for nuclear forces. These 
new findings support a very old and very different 
idea.

James Clerk Maxwell originated it in 1864 
and H. A. Lorentz advanced it at the turn of the 
twentieth century. Albert Einstein favored it and 
predicted that it would replace quantum theory as 
the final insight into the workings of the universe. 
Einstein never missed an opportunity to explain that 
the statistical-probability concepts of quantum 
theory were unreasonable. He believed the unified-
field theory would eventually provide the final 
insight.

A memorable anecdote about this involves a 
meeting between Einstein and Niels Bohr wherein 
Einstein said, "God does not play dice."

Niels Bohr responded, "Albert, you must 
stop telling God what to do."

Dr. Alley presented his findings at the New 
York Academy of Sciences conference, 
"Fundamental Problems in Quantum Theory," at 
UMBC. His experiments were straight forward and 
easy to do in any modern laboratory. First, he etched 
cavities in a diamond lattice structure. Then, he used 
a single-photon generator to beam photons into the 
structure. The generator counted each photon it 
produced and a photon detector on the far side of 
the structure counted photons that passed through. 
When a photon went into the structure and did not 
come out, it was considered trapped. Scientists then 
measured the electric charge, inertia, and other 
properties of mass associated with the trapped 
photons by vibrating the structure in an 
electromagnetic field.

In the unified-field approach that Maxwell 
and Einstein favored, nuclear forces were caused by 
the interaction of force fields, not by particle transfer 
as in Quantum Mechanics. At the turn of the 
twentieth century most scientists favored the unified 
field concept above all others. They thought that the 
final solution was very near, but then the discovery 
of the phenomenon of relativity scattered their ideas 
like a firecracker in a popcorn bag.

Einstein himself was the culprit. His theory 
of relativity showed space and time as variables that 
changed to conform to the motion of an inertial 
frame of reference. This threw physics into a ninety-
year chasm of error that engulfed even Einstein.

Einstein searched for a solution to the 
unified-field concept during the later part of his life, 
but could never find it because he was trapped in 
this chasm. "Maxwell's equations can not define 
charges that originate at points," Einstein 
complained, "because such solutions contain a 
singularity."

It is a problem similar to Zeno's paradox of 
Achilles and the tortoise where a tortoise and an 
athlete get half way to the finish line in one unit of 
time and half way again in another unit. This 
continues for an infinite number of times and neither 
the athlete nor the tortoise can ever reach to the 
finish line.

There was no way to reach a true unified-
field solution while holding on to the variable-space-
time concept. Lorentz and Fitzgerald showed the 
correct cause of the phenomenon relativity years 
before Einstein's theory, but Einstein was such a 
great man and became so popular that the theory 
advanced by Lorentz and Fitzgerald could never 
gain a lasting foothold in the scientific community.

Lorentz and Fitzgerald showed in their 
contraction theory that all the observed relativity 
phenomena would result if the basic components of 
mass moved at the invariable speed of light. This 
was the idea that Einstein needed to complete the 
unified-field theory but it was not available to him 
because of his theory of relativity which assigned a 
different cause to relativity phenomena.

There was a deep philosophical objection 
among scientists at the turn of the twentieth century 
to ideas that involved "action at a distance." Force 
fields without some mediating particle were 
considered to be action at a distance and this 
damaged the Lorentz-Fitzgerald theory.

There are infinite ways around this problem, 
however. The recent findings at UMBC 
merely suggest that photons do not mediate the 
electromagnetic force. Something else, at present 
unknown, that gives the photon its form, does it. 
Perhaps it is "virtual photons" many of which 
together comprise a real photon. Whatever it is, it 
seems to exist, just sitting out there waiting to be 
discovered.

There are many clues to its existence. 
Photons, for example, will follow dead center in an 
optic cable if the most central strand is surrounded 
by a sheath of material in which light speed is 
greater than in the most central strand. This suggests 
that something to the side of a photon directs its 
future position. It could not possibly do this unless 
its effects were faster than the speed of light.

Other experiments wherein single photons 
are split into two in what are called photon down 
converters seem to indicate that some intricate 
network exists between photons. Some of the 
photons that emerge seem entangled such that what 
happens to one may cause change in the other and 
the effect seems to reach the other photon at faster-
than-light speed.

This lack of knowledge about photon 
structure kept Einstein and others from finding the 
true nature of their unified field. Since they didn’t 
know about the photonic structure of particles 
discovered by Dr. Alley, they assumed that charge 
originated at points at the center of the particles and 
this led to the singularities that plagued them.

These findings at UMBC show that the 
electric charges associated with particles of matter 
originate at the circumference of the particles and 
not at a point in their center. This removes the 
singularity problem and Einstein’s unified-field 
theory is complete. All that remains is for some 
enterprising young soul to plug in the numbers and 
collect the prizes.

This insight into the workings of nature 
opens new doors into tomorrow’s world of physics. 
Myriad questions need answers. Of particular 
interest is just exactly what path does a trapped 
photon take while in its containing cavity? It does 
not seem to remain in a simple loop but seems to 
form a composite-loop shell that describes a sphere 
inside the cavity.

Experiments now under way at UMBC will 
attempt to ascertain this by measuring the 
scintillation frequencies of the electric charge given 
off by the trapped photon. When the maximum-
amplitude point around the circumference of the 
sphere passes a point on the surface it should cause 
a peak to form. The frequency of this peak should be 
related to the number of times per second the 
photon passes a point on the sphere. Scientists can 
then use this value to calculate the path of the 
photon in the cavity.

Knowing this, they can formulate generalized 
structure for all subatomic particles. Valuable new 
insight into the workings of the universe will pave 
the way for many great discoveries. 

For example if this view of nature is real, we 
can show a-priori the cause of Planck’s constant and 
the cause and source of nuclear interactions. 
Planck’s constant is the amount of energy-time that 
any photon can deliver to a photon absorber. The 
equation is E = hv, where E is energy, h is Planck's 
constant and v is the frequency, or rate of change, of 
the photon’s electromagnetic fields.

We can restate the equation as h = E/v to get 
the two variables on one side and isolate Planck's 
constant on the other. Since any change in one of 
the variables causes the other to change such that h 
remains constant, we know a-priori that no other 
variable is loose in the photon that might change the 
value of Planck’s constant. Electromagnetic 
amplitude does exist in this view of photons, so it 
can be no other than a constant.

Now, Planck's constant is an abstract thing 
like a ratio such as p while photon amplitude is real. 
The abstract must derive from the real. Planck's 
constant must derive from the constant amplitude of 
photons!

While it is a little more difficult, we can show 
that nuclear interactions must derive from this 
constant photon amplitude, also. Consider that 
neutrons, protons, and electrons are composed of 
photons trapped in resonant orbits that form a 
sphere just like the artificial mass created by Dr. 
Alley. These orbiting photons generate an electric 
field whose strength at the circumference of the 
sphere is inversely proportional to the radius of the 
sphere. Since photon amplitude is a constant, the 
amplitude of this charge is also a constant when 
sensed at any constant radius. When sensed at an 
electron’s radius, for example, charges at the surface 
of spheres smaller than an electron appear to be 
exactly that of an electron. They are, however, much 
stronger at the surface of their own spheres.

Consider also that protons and neutrons have 
the structure proposed by the late Nobel laureate Dr. 
Robert Hofstadter of Stanford. He thought they were 
composed of alternately charged shells beginning 
with a most central positive shell, then a negative 
shell, then a positive shell for the proton. This makes 
sense when we consider that each shell mass is the 
square of the mass of the next shell out as in the 
square-of-the-shells rule discovered in 1991.

According to this rule, the difference 
between proton and neutron mass starts a square-of-
the-shells sequence that defines the mass of each of 
Hofstadter’s shells. The sequence is 2.54992206745, 
6.50210, 42.27734, and 1787.37327. Each larger 
number is the square of the next smaller. The total of 
all these is 1838.7, the mass of a neutron in 
electron masses. The total of the three numbers 
representing the inside shells is 1836.1, the 
mass of a proton.

When we consider that the electromagnetic 
attraction at any point on the surface of the sphere 
formed by these shells is the square root of their 
mass values, we find the exact values of the strong 
nuclear interactions.

Consider that protons may merge together 
such that their outer shells pass through each other 
[weak repulsive interaction] to come into close 
proximity with their next-to-outer shells [strong 
attractive interaction]. There are then four shells in 
close proximity and their values are 6.5021, 6.5021, 
42.2773, and 42.2773. The square root of the total 
of these is 9.87718 electron forces and this is as 
close as modern instruments can measure to the 
strong nuclear interaction between two merged 
protons. Add the starting number to the three 
results, take the square root and you get 10.005, the 
observed value of the strong nuclear interaction 
between protons and neutrons.

This view of nuclear forces explains another 
great mystery that has puzzled physicists for many 
years. An alpha particle which consists of two 
protons and two neutrons is the most stable particle 
yet found in the universe. Nuclear decay involving 
particles larger than neutrons always produces alpha 
particles. The reason for this stability is obvious 
when we consider the makeup of an alpha particle. 
Composite merging of shells produce four shell one 
contacts, twelve shell two contacts, and eight shell 
three contacts. The square root of the sum of all 
these is 20.6505, about twice the value of the 
nuclear force between protons and neutrons alone.
 

Forces show up only where the shells form 
parallel engagement. Perpendicular engagement 
allows photons to pass each other with little effect 
so that shells may merge. There is a repulsive force 
against any like particles merging because the shells 
can never get through each other without first 
experiencing parallel engagement.

All this may only be a strange coincidence. 
Maybe it is just a play with numbers, but all the 
numbers are so exact and check with actual 
measurements to such a degree that physicists must 
take some note of them. The strong and the weak 
nuclear interactions seem more and more to be 
electromagnetic as each new discovery surfaces.

A new uncertainty has crept into the minds 
of scientists engaged in fundamental particle 
research. They are no longer 100% certain that 
particle transfer is the basis for nuclear interactions. 
Those who control funding for giant particle-
accelerators sense this uncertainty and are more 
reluctant to put money into things that may appear 
foolish in the future. Senator Dale Bumpers of 
Arkansas exploited this uncertainty when he went to 
debate the Super-Conducting Super Collider (SSC) 
on the Senate floor. He was successful in his bid to 
kill funding for the project.

In England there is a parallel effort 
concerning another huge high-energy collider called 
the CERN project. Scientists engaged in its 
construction face a real dilemma. If they investigate 
these new findings they will seem even more 
uncertain about the cause of nuclear interactions. If 
they don’t, opponents will use the same tactics that 
Senator Bumpers used to kill their funding.

The only real way out seems to be a unified 
effort among fundamental physicists to remove the 
cloud of uncertainty about the cause of nuclear 
interactions. They must find the photon’s hidden 
secrets and either falsify or fortify Einstein’s now 
complete unified field theory. If they do not, their 
well will surely run dry.