That's not even half new. I have papers from 8 years ago with the same
basic theory. The earliest papers date from 1988. Fusion Facts had
articles on this work back in the 1990's. The original idea comes from
the soviet dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov back in the 1960's. When
I argued in favor of Stochastic Electrodynamics at the Australian
National University 6 years ago; it got me a high distinction from one
teacher and a "don't bother to go on with theoretical physics" from
another.
Terry Blanton wrote:
In 1996 Haisch and Rueda published a ZPF explanation for intertial mass:
http://www.calphysics.org/haisch/mercury.html
They now say they have a similar explanation for gravitational mass:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/ns-ijv081005.php
"Rueda and Haisch argued that charged matter particles such as electrons and quarks are unceasingly jiggled around by the zero-point field. If they are at rest, or travelling at a constant speed with respect to the field, then the net effect of all this jiggling is zero: there is no force acting on the particle. But if a particle is accelerating, their calculations in 1994 showed that it would encounter more photons from the quantum vacuum in front than behind it (see Diagram). This would result in a net force pushing against the particle, giving rise to its inertial mass (Physical Review A, vol 49, p 678).
But this work only explained one type of mass. Now the researchers say that the same
process can explain gravitational mass. Imagine a massive body that warps the fabric
of space-time around it. The object would also warp the zero-point field such that a
particle in its vicinity would encounter more photons on the side away from the
object than on the nearer side. This would result in a net force towards the massive
object, so the particle would feel the tug of gravity. This would be its
gravitational mass, or weight (Annalen der Physik, vol 14, p 479). "
Anyone have a Newscientist subscription to fetch the whole article?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7844&feedId=online-news_rss20
