Text Box: Chandra x-ray images of the nebulae surrounding the Crab and Vela pulsars (Fig. 5 [not reproduced here]) show toroidal and jet structures, demonstrating that pulsar winds are far from isotropic [M. C. Weisskopf et al., Astrophys. J. 536, L81 (2000); D. J. Helfand et al., Astrophys. J. 556, 380 (2001)]. The symmetry of these systems indicates that both structures are related to the rotation axis of the underlying pulsar: the jets along the polar axis, and the toroidal structures in or near the equatorial plane. Images of the Crab Nebula taken at intervals of weeks and months by the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra [J. J. Hestor et al., Astrophys. J. 577, L49 (2002)] show that the wind structures are dynamic, with moving features implying outflow velocities on the order of half the velocity of light in the equatorial disk and the polar jets. It remains a challenge for pulsar theorists to account for even the broad characteristics of these outflows. For the Crab and Vela pulsars, the projected direction of the pulsar rotation axis implied by the x-ray data is very close to the projected direction of the pulsar's space velocity [P. A. Caraveo, R. P. Mignami, Astron. Astrophys. 344, 367 (1999); R. Dodson et al., Astrophys. J. 596, 1137 (2003)]... A recent analysis [C. Y. Ng, R. Romani, Astrophys. J. 601, 479 (2004)] suggests that this correlation holds for several other pulsars with associated PWNs [pulsar wind nebulae]. ... Observational Properties of Pulsars, R. N. Manchester (Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, New South Wales), Science 304, 542-546 (23 April 2004)
Text Box: Ancient thinkers were much troubled in trying to discover what forces actually maintain the motion of the thrown stone. Max Born, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Dover Publications, NY, 1965; p 29
Text Box: What causes the pulsar, or pulsating radio star, to emit those extremely regular pulses of radio waves? What keeps the thrown stone in motion? What is magnetism? Unconnected though such phenomena may seem to us now, they all find related answers in the final insight here into the fundamental nature of things... with two and only two laws assumed a priori: the conservations of mass-energy and the asymmetry of its motion (a nonvanishing seminal linear momentum coupled with a spin).
Text Box: As a child, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman asked his father why a ball in his toy wagon moved backward whenever he pulled the wagon forward. His father said that the answer lay in the tendency of moving things to keep moving, and of stationary things to stay put. "This tendency is called inertia," said Feynman senior. Then, with uncommon wisdom, he added: "But nobody knows why it is true." That’s more than even most physicists would say. To them, inertia does not need explaining, it simply "is." But since the concept was first coined by Galileo in the 17th century, some scientists have wondered if, perhaps, inertia is not intrinsic to matter at all, but is somehow acquired. Those who have tried to come to grips with inertia include Feynman junior, once he had grown up, and Albert Einstein, who tried – and failed – to show that inertia was related to the arrangement of matter in the universe. In 1872, [the German philosopher-physicist Ernst] Mach argued that acceleration – and hence inertia – is not absolute, but only has meaning within a frame of reference. For Mach, that frame of reference consisted of the other matter in the universe: After all, in utterly empty space, how do you know you are moving? Einstein later tried and failed to work that notion into general relativity.. Inertia: Does Empty Space Put Up the Resistance? Robert Matthews, RESEARCH NEWS, Science 263, 612 (4 Feb 1994)
Text Box: The Magnetic Monopole – An Absolute Nonentity The subatomic particle’s spontaneous and rhythmic breathing – a net influx of vacuum field energy followed by net efflux – causes the magnetic effect (and sustains also the characteristic spin of the particle). Thus, the particle’s polar energy transfers over its breathing cycle are the cause of the so-called magnetic radiation: A net energy efflux takes place from the north pole over the exhalation half cycle; the body lunges forward (south) in recoil, sending a bow shock – the magnetic radiation – through the ambient field; over the following inhalation half cycle, a net energy influx takes place across the advancing south; the body motion is dampened; the cycle repeats. (See also book sections 1.05, 2.06 and 5.01.) Ideally, the dipole would move along its axial line with south pole leading; but neighbors tend to get in the way; and the ensuing collisions only send the spin particle gyrating in a helix instead. Nevertheless, the collision and spiraling of such particles induce the general alignment and flow of the other particles along the way, tending to constrict or pinch the latter particles, too, into strings or filaments with screwlike twists. The dipole particle impelled into free space would thus effect a magnetic field along its travel line. In the cosmic plasma, therefore, it is such mechanically driven dipole particles of the plasma that primarily effect the magnetic fields therein, and not the other way around. That is to say, in the solar plasma, for example, the constituent electrons and ions are not primarily driven or directed by some strong, preexisting magnetic field originating from within the Sun; rather, the mechanical energy the particles receive from the solar nuclear processes is what mainly drives them to produce the strong and directional fields themselves as a result. And this is the simple reason why magnetic lines of force appear “frozen into” the plasma flow lines – a well-verified fact of observation today across the cosmos. The inhalation and exhalation of energy is intrinsic to every single particle of matter. Like our breathing in and breathing out, they are complementary; and one cannot occur without the other. The magnetic monopole speculated today in modern physics, therefore, is an absolute nonentity in our physical universe.
Text Box: Although nearly 1000 years have passed since Chinese astronomers recorded the supernova explosion that created the Crab Nebula, this cosmic dynamo still holds surprises. Over the past year, astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to make time-lapse images of the Crab, creating a movie that reveals week-by-week changes in the glowing gases. The Crab shows "an awful lot more [going on] than anyone imagined," says Arizona State University (ASU) astronomer Jeff Hester, the team leader. ... The nebula, nearly 7000 light-years away, is a thin cloud of debris from the exploded star's outer layers; the spinning, magnetized neutron star, or pulsar, at its center is what remains of the star's core. The pulsar... flings electrons and positrons outward along its whirling magnetic lines of force. Astronomers had thought that these particles would be cast outward in all directions. But by combining images made every few weeks over a period of months, the Hubble researchers found that the emission is confined to two regions. At the pulsar's equatorial plane, waves of ionized gas ripple outward at half the speed of light, while its south pole emits a wisplike jet of gas and dust. (Another jet probably streams from the north pole, which is blocked from view.) A bright, shifting shock wave forms where the polar jet runs into quieter parts of the nebula. The Crab watchers themselves don't have a good explanation for these antics. ... Movie Captures Dance of the Crab, Kim Peterson, Science 272, 1417 (7 June 1996)
          Go to Part 2 of 2
THE UNIFICATION OF PHYSICS ILLUSTRATIONS
A Synopsis The Cosmos The Spin
ADDENDA The Cosmological Redshift The Neutrino
Two-Slit Tests The Galaxy Nuclear Reactions
NASA Tests Gravity The Sun
KamLAND Test Anti-Gravity The Pulsar
UCLA Test Relativity Superconductivity
Q and A Mass-Energy Fusion Energy
 Eugene Sittampalam
 1 December 2007