By George William Kelly aka "Einstein Kelly"

Ancient Greeks philosophised that all matter is made out of indivisible (literally "uncuttable") particles called "atoms."  Modern scientists discovered particles that make up the elements, gave them the Greek name of "atoms," and arranged them in the Periodic Table of the Elements, beginning with hydrogen and extending to uranium and beyond.  The scientists soon found, however, that even these newfound atoms were "cuttable."  The scientists were able to split the atoms into nuclei, protons, electrons, neutrinos, and a variety of other subatomic particles.  As yet they have not pinpointed any subatomic particle as the one "uncuttable" particle from which all larger particles are built. 

We suggest that the primordial building block of matter has been right before the world's eyes for the last one-hundred years without recognition of its primary role.  We propose that this primordial building block is the photon, or particle of light postulated by Albert Einstein.  In the 1905 paper that won him the Nobel Prize Einstein wrote:  "According to the assumption to be considered here, when a light ray is propagated from a point, the energy is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are localized at points in space and which can be produced and absorbed only as complete units."  Walter Isaacson in his 2007 Einstein biography said this sentence by Einstein "may be the most revolutinary sentence that Einstein ever wrote."      

Einstein used the German term, "licht quanta," for the individual energy units making up a ray of light.  It was the first time that light had been shown to consist of individual quanta, or particles.  Scientists of the 19th Century, relying on the electro-magnetic experiments of Michael Faraday and the subsequent electro-magnetic field equations of James Clerk Maxwell, had considered light rays to be continuous electro-magnetic waves of varying frequency traveling through ether.  In contrast, the 20th Century concept introduced by Einstein depicted light rays as a succession of discrete, individual particles (called photons) moving through space along a wave-like path. 

Why should we suspect that Einstein's photon might be the uncuttable building block of all matter?  Our answer does not come from experimental results or mathematical equations.  It comes from "thought experiments," a favorite method of Einstein himself.

Consider Einstein's well-known proposal that nothing travels faster than light.  If this is true, it follows that the light particle should be the smallest particle in the universe.  The photon, or light particle, could pass through spaces between other photons so small that no larger particles could squeeze through without meeting resistance.  Larger particles would be slowed down by the obstruction of such narrow passages.  They would have to reduce themselves to the size of the photon in order to get through the narrow openings and keep up with the speed of the photon.

If the photon is the smallest particle in the universe as well as the building block of all larger particles, it is not difficult to imagine that, at the beginning, the entire universe consisted of nothing but photons.  How could these primordial photons produce the universe we know today?

Before the beginning, imagine that the universe was a completely still ocean of motionless photons.  Also imagine that these motionless photons were point-particles, essentially spherical in form, uncuttable, and not themselves composed of smaller, moving particles.  These stagnant, motionless photons could be thought of as the "dark matter" which scientists today say occupies the space between galaxies.  These original "dark" photons would have actually existed, but only as a potential source of the observable matter and energy that we know.  If no "dark" photon had ever moved, there would have been nothing to observe.  There would have been no light, no energy, no time, no momentum, no gravity.  The photons would have been unseeable "dark matter."

At the beginning, imagine that a single photon in the motionless ocean begins to move.  (For the moment we shall ignore what makes this photon move.  We leave that question to theologians.)  Once this first photon begins to move, all other photons begin to move relative to it.  This relative motion of photons marks the first appearance of light, energy, time, mass, momentum, and gravity.  This motion makes possible the measurement of these parameters for the first time.  Before motion, all was measureless.  All was zero.  We may consider this first photon-motion as the beginning of the observable universe.

Now let us ask how individual moving photons can interact to form larger and larger matter, eventually evolving into atoms and stars and galaxies?  We propose that the interaction between moving photons will cause the photons to spin and that their spinning will bring about certain relationships and combinations leading to the evolution of matter. 

Imagine that two primordial moving photons approach each other.  In the beginning they would not be spinning.  However, as the two non-spinning photons pass, they graze one another.  The frictional drag on their contact surfaces will cause each  photon to spin in an opposite direction, each around its own central axis.  We may say that one photon spins clockwise; the other counter-clockwise.  The result is like that of two cogwheels engaging each other:  the cogwheels turn in opposite directions.  Another result of the encounter between the two photons is that the pathway of each may be deflected in an altered direction.  Subsequent alternating deflections may account for the wave-like pathways followed by photons. 

Soon, such photon encounters will result in an energetic photon ocean, with photons traveling in various directions and spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise.  The polar axes of the spinning photons might be parallel, perpendicular, or at various angles to one another.  When two photons with parallel axes meet, the photons will spin either the same or the opposite:  clockwise/clockwise, or clockwise/counter-clockwise.  This can also be described as up-spin/up-spin, or up-spin/down-spin. 

For our thought experiment, take only those spinning photons which have axes that are parallel to each other.  Designate one axial pole as the north pole, and the other as the south pole.  When two of these photons both spin clockwise, the north and south poles of one will correspond to those of the other.  When one photon spins clockwise but the other spins counter-clockwise, the north and south poles of one will be the reverse of the other.  (If you like, follow my own thought-experiment method of using two apples to represent two photons.  Let the apple stem serve as the north pole.  Rotate the two apples to visualize how two spinning photons would interact with each other.  With a felt-tip marker draw an arrow along the equator of each apple to indicate the direction of spin and help you avoid confusion.  Twirling two apples in this manner can be said to have inspired our theory of bivortex composite bodies, just as a falling apple is said to have inspired Newton's theory of gravity.)

Imagine the situation when two same-size photons with parallel axes and opposite spins (one north pole up, one south pole up) come into contact, traveling at similar speeds.  The two equatorial surfaces at the point of contact will be moving in the same direction.  The resulting frictional confluence in the same direction tends to push (or pull) the two photons closer together.  They will tend to continue along together in almost parallel paths, albeit slowly converging as closely as possible toward each other.  After making substantial contact, the two will tilt against each other poleward until the north pole of one merges with the south pole of the other, or vice versa.  In other words, one photon will tilt and ride up against the other photon, from the equator toward the pole, until it turns upside down on top of the other, uniting the two axes into a single axis of twice the length.  It might be that the new double-length axis would exhibt a 90-degree change in orientation if each photon happened to tilt 45 degrees in the process. 

The two separate photons thus have joined together to become one two-photon stack with double-length axis, one north pole, and one south pole.  Subsequent encounters between the two-photon stack and other single photons may result in the addition of a third photon and the extension of the axis.  Such photon stacks might continue adding photons to create chains or strings of photons.

Although the stacking of photons which we have theorized is on a vastly smaller scale than that of atoms, we think of it as parallel to a stacking of protons in the three hydrogen isotopes, protium, deuterium, and tritium.  Current scientific usage refers to one proton in the protium nucleus; one proton and one "neutron" in the deuterium nucleus, and one proton and two "neutrons" in the tritium nucleus.  We prefer to say there is one proton in protium, two protons in deuterium, and three protons in tritium.  The deuterium and tritium protons are stacked.  Deuterium's two-proton stack and tritium's three-proton stack each have a single north pole-south pole axis and each a single positive charge as a result of the stacking.  In our view, no neutral "neutron" is required to account for the doubling of atomic weight from protium to deuterium while maintaining hydrogen's Atomic Number 1.  In our view Atomic Weights can be determined by the sum of single protons plus the protons that make up separate proton stacks.  Atomic Numbers, on the other hand, can be determined by the sum of single protons plus proton stacks (not the number of individual protons making up the stacks).  Thus, we interpret the two "neutrons" of tritium as the second and third protons in tritium's triple stack (the lone stack signifying Atomic Number 1, and the three protons within that stack signifying Atomic Weight 3).  The next larger atom in the Periodic Table, helium, has two proton stacks, signifying Atomic Number 2 and four protons (usually two in each stack), signifying Atomic Weight 4.  [See post, Nov 2004.] 

[The "neutron" has long served as a convenient tool to account for differences in atomic number and atomic weight, but it has never reflected the manner of physical or structural attachment between the protons within an atom.  Scientific illustrations often show the protons and "neutrons" of an atom grouped together randomly like a bunch of red and green grapes.  Our approach sees no "neutrons."  We see only single protons and stacks of protons.  We consider the "neutron" to be a high-energy, high-speed proton, not a separate distinct particle in its own right.  The discoverer of the "neutron," James Chadwick, assumed it to be a different, neutral particle because it was not deflected by a magnetic field.  We propose that Chadwick's "neutron" was not a different particle but a highly energetic proton that perhaps was either without spin or was too fast over a short distance (and a "short life") to be deflected by a magnetic field.] 

A strong similarity exists between the theoretical 1-2-3 family of stacked photons, the 1-2-3 family of stacked neutrinos, the 1-2-3 family of stacked electrons, and the 1-2-3 family of stacked protons.  We can arrange all four families into the following table:

Protium........................Deuterium...............Tritium

938.27231 MeV/c2......1876.544 MeV/c2......2814.816 MeV/c2

0.511 MeV/c2................105.7 MeV/c2.........1777 MeV/c2

 [           ]MeV/c2..........[          ]MeV/c2.............[           ]MeV/c2  


Photon.......................Muon Photon...........Tau Photon

It appears, generally, that particle stacks tend to be no longer than three particles (although many atomic isotopes do have much longer stacks).  We believe the three-particle stack tendency is due to a weak linkage in the joining of opposite-spin particles into stacks.  This weakness makes the particles at the ends of stacks more likely to be separated.  Our "weak linkage" has a more mechanical interpretation than the "weak force" of the Standard Model.  In our view the linkage is "weak" because the contact surfaces of two particles with opposite spin are moving together in the same direction and thus do not strongly grapple themselves together.  Their surfaces or field lines do not intermesh or interlock.  Hence they may be easily dislodged by collisions with other particles and by sudden twisting of the stack. [See posts, Aug 2004; Dec 2005.]

The initial photon is the smallest particle in the above table of 1-2-3 stack families.  It is so small that its mass has not been determined.  We have assumed that its mass increases as it theoretically doubles and triples in the process of stacking.  Certainly, each family higher than the photon family in the above table grows dramatically in mass from single particle, to double particle (muon), to triple particle (tau).  The mass of the initial member of each successive family also increases enormously above its predecessor, as the families advance upward from photon to neutrino to electron to proton. 

In addition to its smaller  size, the photon family differs from the other families in another important way.  The photon, at least to our present state of knowledge, is uncuttable.  It is not made up of smaller particles.  It is not composite.  The members of the other families, in contrast, are composite bodies.  We propose that these composite bodies are made of photons--that countless photons compose the neutrinos, electrons, and protons.  We then must ask by what mechanism do photons organize and evolve into neutrinos, electrons, protons, and the universe we know.  How do photons compose larger particles? 

We have proposed above that two or more opposite-spin photons combine to form a multiple-photon stack having one spin, one north pole/south pole axis, and a weight proportional to the number of photons in the stack.  The resulting 1-2-3 photon stack family resembles the families of (1) neutrino--muon neutrino--tau neutrino; (2) electron--muon electron--tau electron; and (3) protium--deuterium--tritium. 

We now suggest that the four families are directly related.  We suggest that the proton descends from the electron, the electron from the neutrino, and the neutrino from the photon.  In other words, the tau photon transforms into the neutrino, the tau neutrino transforms into the electron, and the tau electron transforms into the proton.  It can be seen in the above table that each family grows in size from left to right, and that the tau members attain the size-range of the first member of the next higher family.

How does the triple-stack tau photon, which resulted from the interaction between photons having opposite spins, move up to become a neutrino?  We think this becomes possible due to a second type of photon interaction, the interaction between same-spin photons.

When two photons with the same spin meet each other at similar speed, their equatorial surfaces meet head-on instead of confluently.  The opposing frictional drag causes the two photons to orbit each other.  They become a binary pair.  This same-spin interaction, when coupled with the previously described opposite-spin interaction, produces a binary pair of two photon stacks.  A stacked binary pair may begin with two photon stacks of two or three photons each and increase to longer stacks.  The binary pair creates a "tube" along the north-south axis shared by its two spinning, orbiting stacks.  Other single, nearby photons will be vortically attracted into both ends of the north-south tube; meet at the tube's center; ricochet outward as part of an equatorial bulge and disk; rejoin the flow of external photons toward the north and south poles, and become the field lines of a quadrupolar current [See post, Aug 2004] of photons.  The two spinning, orbiting stacks of the binary pair, together with the recirculating flow of surrounding photons, now constitute a composite, bivortex body.  This composite body displays bivortex field lines which consist of recirculating photons and which might be described as having a unified bivortex-gravito-electromagnetic field. This photon-composed bivortex  body has a mass many times larger than a single photon.  It is now prepared to graduate and to become a neutrino, the first member of the next higher 1-2-3 family.