Customer Reviews

Before the Big Bang

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I don't recall what inspired me to purchase this book. Probably just idle curiosity about what might have happened before the "Big Bang."

Little did I know that this book would change my entire view of the fabric of life and existence.

Written as a personal history of the author's own quest for a SIMPLE and INTUITIVE explanation of the existence and initial creation of all the matter in the universe, this modest book guides the intelligent lay reader through more than a century of experimentation and research.

You will find yourself understanding sub-atomic particle physics in a visual way that you would have never believed before. I'm only half way through the book, and already I know that the moment I complete it I'll read it again, just to better absorb this incredible book's entirety.

I can't possibly overstate the simplicity and clarity with which this author writes of his own involvement in the search for the basis of material existence and crea! tion, nor of his modesty as he so painstakingly gives credit to every other researcher in the field.

If you purchase this book, and read it, you'll come away with a grasp of sub-atomic physics like you'd never have believed you could attain.

What was remarkable about the book was that it came to several conclusions at current odds with scientific thinking, including a classical explanation for quantum mechanics, something that Einstein struggled with his entire career. The author was able to meet the great Einstein on several occassions, but was never able to present this classical explanation to him. Other profound revelations include: a rotating universe (you might ask in relation to what?); the existence of the primeval atom from which everything evolved in the Big Bang after remaining quiescent (and rotating once)over 17 trillion years; and the uniqueness of the electron/positron as the two fundamental particles out of which everything is made. Sternglass is able to take the electron and the anti-matter electron (the positron) and derive all fundamental particles from their various combinations in a logical way.

All in all a very clever, and by Occam's Razor, believable exposition of how modern physical theory may be wrong about a lot of things, including non-determinism in qauntum mechanics.

My praise is unqualified for _Before the Big Bang_. It answers so many previously unanswered questions about the universe, unifies all the physical forces, and unifies all forms of matter and energy, with jaw-dropping elegance and beauty. A few of its many highlights:

Matter is revealed to be made up of pairs of rotating electrons and positrons. Electrons, positrons, and photons are revealed to be forms of vortexs in the ether, so that matter and energy are visually comprehensible as two forms of the same thing, as required by Einstein's E=mc2. The properties of the vortexs also account for the properties of theoretical superstrings. In this way, the gulf between classical and quantum physics evaporates.

Protons are revealed to be made up of four electron-positron pairs and a positron, interacting in such a way (illustrated on p. 250) as to account for the properties of theoretical quarks (which have never been observed individually), the strong force, and the unequaled stability of protons. Neutrons and the weak force are similarly explained.

Electron-positron pairs allow for more massive and yet longer-lived particles than any other known form of matter. This, astonishingly, allows a single electron-positron pair to encompass the mass/energy of the entire universe. This in turn makes it unnecessary to stipulate a problematic infinitely dense singularity and a beginning of time at the big bang.

All cosmologicals structures, from the universe down to planets, are revealed to be rotating systems equally spaced on logarithmic scales of both mass and size. This structure, unaccountable by any previous model, is revealed to have been preexistent in the extraordinarily but finitely dense seed of matter at the big bang. This seed divided by two in a series of stages, until reaching the level of ordinary matter, at which point it ejected outward in the big bang as we know it while retaining many seeds of cosmological structures to come.

This model explains in a beautiful, elegant way many previously unaccountable cosmological structures. Quasars, previously unaccountably brighter and denser than any known cosmological object, and found in the most distant and hence oldest parts of the universe, are revealed to be galaxies in the process of ejecting their matter from their central seed. Galaxies from the earliest stages of the universe, before they could possibly have had time to condense under the force of gravity, are revealed to have had a preexistent structure in their central seed. Dwarf galaxies, previously unaccountable, are revealed to be ejected from their parent galaxy along its axis of rotation. Rotating spiral structures of multiple galaxies, previously unaccountable, are revealed to have been ejected from a central seed.

This book is truly revolutionary. It can only be a matter of time before Sternglass is hailed as a Galileo, who was similarly attacked. Notice how all the negative reviews have been quick to judge and slow to actually read the book, e.g. "It's trash, can't you tell by its cover?"

Finally, the book is filled with dense physics language. Sternglass rightly says that the subject is difficult, but that the lay-reader should be able to follow the main ideas.

...because I think BEFORE THE BIG BANG is seriously intriguing, definitely worth a read. If it turns out to be wrong, it will not be because of any obvious errors, only because much of what we "know" about cosmology is merely elegant speculation, and Sternglass MAY be proven wrong in the fullness of time. (Interesting he gets attacked so vehemently. I read he also was surrounded by controversy at the San Francisco Book Fair, where he spoke -- apparently one physicist at U.Cal. didn't even want to let him on the stage at all, never mind disagreeing with him! Reminds me of other famous pioneering astronomers/astrophysicists of recent and ancient history...) I can't resist answering reviewer Frank Paris's technical comments, because I don't like to see a hardworking scientist slammed:

1. Paris questions how the primordial particle can revolve --"relative to what?" This question is answered on pages 204 and 208-9, where Sternglass describes the ideas of Gödel, Ozsvath and Schücking, according to which rotation relative to the space-time continuum of Einstein, or his version of Newton's and Descartes' ether, is described. These scientists showed that a rotating universe is theoretically possible, so that there can in fact be a rotating primeval atom.

2. Paris says that Sternglass imagines "the primitive particles making up a proton to be a rotating electron/positron pair. So it should be chargeless." But if you actually read the discussion of the proton model on pages 249-251 and see the diagram showing its structure on page 250, you understand that the proton not only contains four electron-positron pairs but also a positron, so that it is positively charged.

Sternglass has guts and is not crazy. He's met with controversy before (I first heard of him because of his anti-nuke writing -- and he was once in the thick of nuclear research.). He's daringly, and carefully, posited a mind-blowing, revolutionary reconfiguration of how we see the universe. He just may be the Galileo of our times. And like it or not, the many consequences of what Sternglass calls "the electron-positron model" seem to be in quantitative agreement with observations in particle physics and the sizes, masses and motions of all astronomical objects, strongly supporting his theories.

This A-bomb scientist takes you step by step through historical means, the advance (and dead ends) of the interwoven theories of energy, matter and the origin of the Universe. In so doing, he has found a theory which can explain all the forces of nature, even gravity! In other words he has found THE UNIFIED FIELD THEORY - the "Holy Grail" of physics. This makes quantum and superstring theories obsolete as relativity did to Newton's. It is much more straightforward and believable than quantum physics and eliminates its problems: particles which are everywhere at once, infinities, and singularities. In much simpler terms, you can learn how light can be turned into matter and back again. What the proton is made of. Where the energy of the atomic nucleus comes from. And what makes gravity work. While simpler than quantum physics, I am not saying that this is all an easily read book. Many times I had to go back, or just put the book down to grasp the full implications of what I had read. But it was the most satisfying book on physics I have ever read, one that I think would have done the same for Einstein himself.

It's certainly weird that recent discoveries seem to bear out the theories put forth in this book -- for example, Sternglass outlandishly posits that EVERY star has to have its own orbiting planet...thus far, every star scientists have been able to see DOES seem to have its own "companion"...and scientists still haven't been able to firmly account for the mysterious "dark matter" that supposedly fills space -- Sternglass argues that it's nothing more than the centrifugal force of a rotating universe. Yes, "mindblowing" as another reviewer wrote -- but possibly correct. Cleanly written, too!

This book is exactly what I had been searching for. I'd wanted to try to understand the possibility of all matter emanating from one atom and finally this book explores this primal dense atom in terms I can with some difficulty understand. It is so clearly and beautifully written that the elegance of the writing makes the difficult detail a joy to read. I even chose to read it on a long transatlantic plane trip rather than watch a movie. It is that good!!!!

This author, who is a fully qualified theoretical physicist, revives a theory from before that of the Big Bang (and, therefore the title). He breaths life into Georges Lemaitre's theory of the primal atom, and solves many of the most nagging and persistent problems with the current version of "Big Bang." Well thought through in presentation and logic, you won't fail to understand this new take on the oldest topic. (signed) Robert Marcom - author - illustrator - researcher

My brother, poet and long-distance walker Mark "Perfesser" Creekwater, asked me to post this review for him. The "Perfesser" knows that uppercase writing is considered "shouting" on the Internet. But he has been writing in his own unique mix of upper- and lower-case words combined with punctuation marks and alternate spellings of words since before the Internet existed. He begs your indulgence, and asks that you open yourself to reading upper-case writing that is not at all a matter of shouting, but of careful word-craft.

_BEFORE THE BIG BANG_ {1997} BY ERNEST J. STERNGLASS

BOOK-REVIEW BY MARK "TRUTH-SEEKER" CREEK-WATER

DURING 2006, ASTRONOMERs OBSERVED A "SUPERNOVA" {SN2006gy}
WHICH WAS SO BIG + FAR-AWAY THAT IT WAS
REPORTED IN MANY NEWsPAPERs ... AFTER READ-ING SOME OF
THE REPORTS, I DUB'D IT A "SUPER-DUPER-NOVA" ---AS IT WAS,
EVIDENT-LY, ONE OF THE BIG-EST EVER OBSERVED ...

AS A CHILD, I WAS INTERESTED IN ASTRONOMY: BEFORE THE
AGE OF 12 I HAD READ MOST OF TH ASTRONOMY-BOOKs IN MY ELEM-
ENTARY-SCHOOL LIBRARY ... OCCASIONAL-LY, DURING TH MANY YEARs
SINCE THEN, I READ ASTRONOMY-REPORTs IN NEWsPAPERs+MAGAZINEs,
ALWAYs TRY'N TO FOLLOW NEW DISCOVERYs + DEVELOPMENTs;
REALIZE-ING THAT SOME OF TH REPORT-WRITERs HAD A WEAK UNDER-
STANDING OF SCIENCE IN GENERAL, AND/OR ASTRO-PHYSICs IN PARTICULAR,
SO IT MIGHT-BE DIFFICULT TO GET RELIABLE INFO FROM NEWsPAPERs
+MAGAZINEs; ALWAYs WONDER-ING IF TH CURRENT GENERATION OF
ASTRONOMERs + ASTRO-PHYSICISTs + COSMOLOGISTs WOULD EVER COME UP
WITH A COHERENT + BELIEVE-ABLE THEORY TO EXPLAIN HOW-THE-
UNIVERSE-CAME-TO-BE-HOW-IT-IS ...

EINSTEIN's DREAM: A "THEOTY-OF-EVERY-THING" ---ALSO-CALL'D A
"GRAND-UNIFICATION-THEORY" ... EINSTEIN CALL'D IT A "UNIFY'D-FIELD
THEORY" AND WORK'D MANY YEARs, DURING THE 2ND-HALF OF HIS LIFE,
TRY'N TO ACHIEVE IT ...

***SN2006gy***
REGARD-ING THIS NEW "SUPER-DUPER-NOVA": ALL TH REPORTs AGREED
THAT A VERY-BIG STAR -----MORE-THAN 100x BIG-ER-THAN OUR SUN-----
HAD COLLAPSED+EXPLODED, MORE-THAN 100-MILLION LIGHT-YEARs
AWAY: SO FAR-AWAY THAT IT ACTUAL-LY COLLAPSED+EXPLODED
MORE-THAN 100-MILLION YEARs AGO; BECAUSE THE LIGHT FROM ITs
COLLAPSE+EXPLOSION NEEDED MORE-THAN 100-MILLION YEARs TO
TRAVEL FROM THERE TO HERE: AT APPROX. 186,000 MILEs-PER-SECOND
[APPROX. 300,000 KILOMETERs-PER-SECOND], THAT's A VERY-LONG DISTANCE !!

IN OTHER WORDs, THIS VERY-DISTANT EVENT HAPPEN'D WHEN DINO-
SAURs ROAM'D AROUND ON OUR HOME-PLANET, AND WE ARE
JUST-RECENT-LY RECEIVE-ING THE NEWs !!

IF THIS DOES-NOT IMPRESS YOU, THEN YOU NEED TO RE-READ
THE PREVIOUS 3 PARAGRAPHs ...

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
WHAT REAL-LY GRAB'D MY ATTENTION WERE REPORTs THAT, WHEN
THIS VERY-BIG STAR COLLAPSED+EXPLODED, SPECTACULAR-LY, MUCH
OF ITs MATERIAL WAS CRUSH'D SO INTENSE-LY THAT IT MORPH'D
IN-TO ELECTRONs + POSITRONs + GAMMA-RAYs: IN PHYSICs, THESE
ARE THE EQUIVALENT OF "SMITHEREENs": EVIDENT-LY, MUCH OF THIS
STAR HAD BEEN CONVERTED TO "SMITHEREENs": UN-USUAL-LY BIG-AMOUNTs
OF POWER-FULL GAMMA-RAYs + EQUAL-LY ENERGETIC ELECTRONs +
POSITRONs ...

AT THAT TIME, I HAD ONLY A VAGUE IDEA RE WHAT "POSITRONs"
ARE, BASED ON MY CHILDHOOD READ-ING OF ASTRONOMY-BOOKs ...
THIS NEW INFO INSPIRED ME TO REALIZE [ " AHA !! " ] THAT, AT
INTENSE HEAT+PRESSURE, "POSITRONs" ARE JUST AS NATURAL AS
"ELECTRONs" ---THEIR MORE-FAMILIAR COUSINs [OR, PERHAPs,
"TWINs"] ... AHA: THO SOME-FOLKs TRY'D TO CHARACTERIZE
THEM AS "ANTI-MATTER" --- THERE's REAL-LY NOTHING-AT-ALL
"ANTI" ABOUT "POSITRONs" ...

ALL THIS NEW INFO INSPIRED ME TO WANT TO LEARN MORE,
SO I STARTED READ'N ASTRONOMY-BOOKs IN THE LIBRARYs WHERE
I WOULD GO TO CHECK MY E-MAIL ... DOZENs OF ASTRONOMY-BOOKs,
+ BOOKs RE ASTRO-PHYSICs + "REGULAR" PHYSICs + "NUCLEAR" PHYSICs,
LOOK'N FOR A CONFIRMATION OF THIS FEELING WHICH I HAD IN MY
GUT: A FEELING THAT THERE WAS SOME-THING VERY-INTEREST-ING, AND
PERHAPs VERY-SIGNIFICANT, IN THESE LITTLE ELECTRON-POSITRON PAIRS
WHICH HAD EMERGED DURING THIS SUPER-DUPER-NOVA EXPLOSION ...

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
***LOTs OF NEW INFO***
I LEARN'D RE SOME OF TH MANY NEW THINGs WHICH ASTRONOMERs
+ ASTRO-PHYSICISTS + NUCLEAR-PHYSICISTs HAVE DISCOVER'D DURING
TH PAST 50 YEARs, USE-ING POWER-FULL + SENSITIVE ELECTRONIC
EQUIPMENT DESIGN'D + BUILT DURING TH PAST 50 YEARs ...

PLUS: I MET SOME VERY-INTEREST-ING CHARACTERS AS I WAS READ'N
MANY BOOKs: GUYs LIKE LEE SMOLIN {_THE TROUBLE WITH PHYSICs_} +
RICHARD FEYNMAN {_SIX EASY PIECEs_} + GEORGE GAMOW {_ONE, TWO, THREE ... INFINITY_} + FRED HOYLE {_THE BLACK CLOUD_} + JOAO MAGUEIJO
{_FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT_} AND WILSON+PENZIAS, WHO {1964}
DISCOVER'D THE FAMOUS "COSMIC BACKGROUND RADIATION" ... AND MANY-
MORE "WILD+CRAZY" SCIENCE+MATH GUYs: I HAD NO IDEA THAT ASTRO-
NOMERs WERE (LIKE) SO KOOOL !!

PLUS EINSTEIN, MY FAVORITE, WHO WAS ONE OF TH SMART-EST
GUYs IN TH WHOLE-WIDE-WORLD, AND ALSO ONE OF TH NICE-EST
+ KIND-EST + MOST-COMPASSIONATE HUMANs OF TH 20TH-CENTURY ...

EVENTUAL-LY I ARRIVED IN BERKELEY (CALIFORNIA), STILL SEARCH-
ING FOR A COHERENT + BELIEVE-ABLE "THEORY OF EVERY-THING"
TO BELIEVE IN ... THERE, IN TH MAIN LIBRARY, DOWN-TOWN,
I DISCOVER'D PROFESSOR ERNEST J. STERNGLASS's BOOK:
_BEFORE THE BIG BANG_, {1997} ... SUDDEN-LY, MY SEARCH WAS OVER ...

***_BEFORE THE BIG BANG_***
PROFESSOR STERNGLASS's BOOK AMAZED ME, AND CONTINUEs TO
AMAZE ME ... TO BEGIN WITH, HE's WORK'D-OUT THE STRUCTURE
OF PROTONs ["NUCLEAR" PHYSICs], WHICH NO-BODY ELSE HAS DONE ...
AFTER READ'N HIS BOOK, I FEEL LIKE I NOW UNDERSTAND HOW
PROTONs WORK ... [HINT: THEIR PARTs ARE SMALL-ER-THAN "QUARKs"] ...
AS A LIVE-ING CREATURE WHOSE PHYSICAL-BODY IS COMPOSED, MAIN-LY,
OF PROTONs + THEIR CLOSE-COUSINs, NEUTRONs, ALONG WITH ALL OTHER
HUMANs + ANIMALs, AS WELL AS TREEs + GRASS + FLOWERs + ROCKs +
STONEs + PEBBLEs, + ALL THE KINDs OF METALs, + POTs + PANs +
KETTLEs ---(ALL, LIKE MY-SELF, COMPOSED MAIN-LY OF PROTONs+NEUTRONs)---
THIS IS (LIKE) A VERY-GOOD FEELING ...

PLUS: IN ADDITION TO THIS "NUCLEAR" PHYSICs, PROFESSOR STERN-
GLASS's BOOK ALSO EXPLAINs "REGULAR" PHYSICs + "ASTRO" PHYSICs:
ALL IN A WAY WHICH I CAN UNDERSTAND, AND WHICH MAKES SENSE
TO ME: AS A LIFE-LONG TRUTH-SEEKER, THIS GIVEs TO ME
A VERY-KOOOL FEELING ...

AND IT CONFIRM'D THE GUT-FEELING WHICH I MENTION'D EARLY-ER:
ACCORDING TO STERNGLASS's THEORY, PROTONs + NEUTRONs +
ALL OTHER KINDs OF "MATTER" ARE ULTIMATE-LY COMPOSED OF
NOTHING BUT DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONs OF ELECTRONs +
POSITRONs ... A BREATH-TAKE-ING THEORETICAL BREAK-THROUGH !!

IF YOU GO TO www.AMAZON.com, YOU CAN PURCHASE
THIS WONDER-FULL BOOK, _BEFORE THE BIG BANG_ BY ERNEST
J. STERNGLASS ... PLUS, YOU CAN READ ANY OR ALL OF MORE-
THAN A DOZEN REVIEWs OF IT, BY AMAZON-CUSTOMERs ...
I LIKE ONE IN PARTICULAR, WHICH I WILL PARA-PHRASE:
IT's BY MATTHEW J. ARNDT, POSTED 1-OCTOBER-2001:

***DETAILs RE STERNGLASS's THEORY***
# MATTER IS MADE UP OF ELECTRON-POSITRON PAIRs:
THESE 2 OPPOSITE-LY-CHARGED "PARTICLEs" ORBIT AROUND
EACH OTHER AT ALMOST-THE-SPEED-OF-LIGHT ...
# ELECTRONs + POSITRONs + PHOTONs [I.E., LIGHT] ARE VERY-TINY
+ VERY-POWER-FULL VORTEXs, LIKE MINIATURE TORNADOs;
SO "MATTER" AND "ENERGY" ARE VISUAL-LY COMPREHENSIBLE AS
2 FORMs OF THE SAME THING, AS PER EINSTEIN's E = MC**2 ...
IN THIS WAY, THE GULF BETWEEN CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM
PHYSICs EVAPORATEs ...

# PROTONs ARE MADE UP OF 4 ELECTRON-POSITRON PAIRs,
PLUS 1 POSITRON, INTER-ACT-ING IN SUCH A WAY (ILLUSTRATED
ON PAGE 250) AS TO ACCOUNT FOR:
(1) THE SO-CALL'D "STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE" ...
(2) THE UN-EQUAL'D STABILITY OF PROTONs ...
(3) THE PROPERTYs + CHARACTERISTICs OF
THEORETICAL "QUARKs" (WHICH HAVE NEVER BEEN OBSERVED) ...
NEUTRONs AND THE SO-CALL'D "WEAK NUCLEAR FORCE" ARE
SIMILAR-LY EXPLAIN'D ...
# ELECTRON-POSITRON PAIRs ALLOW FOR MORE-MASSIVE
AND LONGER-LIVED PARTICLEs THAN ANY OTHER KNOWN
FORM OF MATTER ... STERNGLASS SAYs THAT THERE IS NO LIMIT TO
THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY WHICH A PAIR OF THESE LITTLE RASCALs
CAN ABSORB ... ASTONISH-ING-LY, THIS ALLOWs FOR A SINGLE
ELECTRON-POSITRON PAIR TO HAVE ENCOMPASS'D THE ENTIRE
MASS/ENERGY OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, BEFORE THE BIG BANG
STARTED ... THIS ELIMINATEs THE NEED TO STIPULATE A MATHEMATIC-
LY-IMPOSSIBLE INFINITE-LY-DENSE "SINGULARITY" AT THE START OF
THE BIG BANG ...
# ALL COSMOLOGICAL STRUCTUREs ["ASTRO" PHYSICs],
FROM THE UNIVERSE IT-SELF, DOWN TO STARs + PLANETs,
ARE ROTATE-ING SYSTEMs, EQUAL-LY-SPACED ON
LOGARITHMIC SCALEs OF BOTH MASS AND SIZE ...
THIS STRUCTURE, UN-ACCOUNT-ABLE BY ANY PREVIOUS
THEORY, WAS PRE-EXIST-ING IN THE
EXTRA-ORDINARILY DENSE SEED-OF-THE-UNIVERSE, [THE
ORIGINAL ELECTRON-POSITRON PAIR, WHICH STERNGLASS CALLs
"THE PRIMEVAL ATOM"], BEFORE THE BIG BANG ...
# BEFORE THE BIG BANG, THIS SEED-OF-THE-UNIVERSE
DIVIDED BY TWO [I.E., DIVIDED IN HALF] IN A SERIES OF STAGEs,
MANY TIMEs, SMALL-ER + SMALL-ER + SMALL-ER, UNTIL IT
REACH'D THE SIZE OF ORDINARY SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLEs,
AT WHICH POINT IT EXPLODED VIOLENT-LY OUT-WARD-LY,
PRODUCE-ING THE BIG BANG ...

PLUS: STERNGLASS's BOOK REVEALS MUCH MORE ...
I AGREE WITH SEVERAL OTHER FOLKs WHO REVIEW'D HIS
BOOK: I RECKON THAT IT's ONLY "A MATTER OF TIME
BEFORE STERNGLASS IS HAIL'D AS A [21ST-CENTURY] GALILEO" ...

AS A PROTON-BASED LIFE-FORM, I RECOMMEND IT TO ALL OTHER
PROTON-BASED LIFE-FORMs; AND TO ANY-BODY WHO SINCERE-LY
WONDERs (LIKE) HOW DID WE GET HERE ?? OR, HOW DID THE
UNIVERSE GET HERE ?? OR, (LIKE), HOW DID
ALL THIS HAPPEN ???

SINCERE-LY,
MARK "TRUTH-SEEKER" CREEK-WATER DORAZIO
[...]
BERKELEY-CA-USA 9-SEPTEMBER-2009

Dr Sternglass' challanging text promises, subject to emperical confirmation, to break new ground in particle physics. For his model of the original or primeval atom, if sound, (and no theory should be ruled out of court without the consideration of the best cognoscendi of the discipline of physics subjecting it to rigorous scientific analysis. Why? Because the theory promises to allow us to uncover, at last, the relationship between celestial phenomena and the quantum theory; it will allow physcists of the future to potentially provide the deep Logico-emperical connection of matter both at the galactic and quantum scales. Thus the theory may show the way toward the unity of nature. As I implied many parameters within the Standard Model are emperically derived; therefore, there is a need to probe for the logical nexus which generates just these numbers, say, that of the fine-structure constant or the size of an electron, or the proportion or ratio of electron mass to the mass of the nuclei: All of these measures are emperical today, if I understand what the best physicists have said about the matter. If Dr. Weinberg is right in saying that we need to better understand quantum theory, then what better way to begin than by seeking to disprove the theory of Sternglass, or more accurately, attempt to show that it is inconsistent with known emperical data derived from the Standard Model;even if it passes all consistency tests, that is not the end of the matter-more analysis is required. The model has also the virtue of making an exact prediction-the Higgs particle will not be discovered. So, if it is discovered, the quark-structure will prove to be more complicated than the simple two-particle theory implies. For a method of showing that these particles are a good candidate for the ultimate particles or atoms, to recur to the ancient theories of Democritus and Leucippus, see the work of Brian Stedjee (http://stedjee1.infinology.net/index.html), which tends to support Sternglass' chosen candidates; Stedjee has developed a sive method for sorting out or hunting the primitive particle from looking at sub-atomic decay processes and their byproducts: I have relied on his work in furthering my own work in particle theory, which posits the neutrino as the most fundamental particle; I predict a tripartite structure, consisting of an electron, a positron, both tightly bound by the jacketing neutrino, and that the proton is composed of these particles: To what degree there are further correspondences in the theories is unknown to me, and I do not wish to get Dr. Sternglass' theory confused with my own. First of all, Dr. Sternglass' theory is a mathematical theory, and he has made the emperical measurements to the degree that he can to show why the theory has evidential support; my theory, by contrast, may be an extension of Sternglass' but it is not the same, for Dr. Sternglass does not make the neutrino the centerpiece of his model. And he does not offer reflections on the relationship between the electrodynamics of hydrogen and the Riemann hypothesis as I do, or he does not explicitly do so; based on phone conversations with Dr. Sternglass I discerned that he thought there was an equivalence between his model and a cosmological black hole;so he and I agree that the black hole or rotating sphere of the universe is generated from these two particles and their highly relativistic motion; I have suggested that the Chandraskar limit value is the state of matter-mass/energy-that precedes or causes the four fundamental forces to come into being as its rotation slows; in Sternglass' model a sixteen trillion year period powers the primeval atom and produces the big bang;in my model this would be the period of time when the atom would wind-up and the electron energy would reach maximum potential, then differentiate into the four forces; the state would have to conform to some descriptions of super-conductivity, wherein the four forces became merely one, possibly gravity. Sternglass' proposal has another merit: It allows us to closely investigate a proposal made by the Father of relativised quantum mechanics, Paul Dirac; Dirac noticed that there was a not quite random (as a scientist with good intuitions, Dirac supposed there to be a profound truth behind this phenomenon) proportionality between small scale cosmic measurements and the solar system and so on up the galactic scale of matter. By postulating a primeval atom which ejects galaxies in serial divisions, Sternglass may be unto this deep truth, and science and physics may be altered by this element. Although Sternglass does not explicitly mention Dirac's conjecture, one cannot help but making the connection, once one sees that the primeval (Lamattreian) atom as a continuous process of galactic ejection. For these reasons, therefore, Dr. Sternglass' text should be taken seriously, if we want to better understand quantum mechanics;he gives us a paradigmatic, if not yet paradigm-shift-inducing, model, reasons for accepting it, and the scientific measurements and analysis which he hopes will be taken up at some future time by a scientist or scientists.The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (International Series of Monographs on Physics)Lectures on Quantum MechanicsModern Physics and Vedanta