I have been working on this theory for many years, but could not get the vision of the complete theory. Until one day, my lovely wife told me out of the blue “I think you are overlooking an extra dimension”. This unprovoked comment shocked me to the core. I was indeed thinking about the extra spatial dimension but could not accept it. Veronica’s prompt opened the flood gate and the complete vision emerged in a dream the following morning.

Abstract

I present a concise visual formulation of the superfluid aether theory. The theory offers a simple and intuitive explanation of quantum and electromagnetic phenomena and yields some interesting and unexpected predictions. The purpose of this communication is to start a discussion that will lead to development of a rigorous mathematical formulation of the presented conceptual framework.

Basic Tenets

The following are 10 basic tenets of the luminiferous aether theory:

1. Superfluid aether. The space is not empty. It is filled by a frictionless elastic fluid (superfluid) that we shall call the luminiferous aether.
2. Photons are phonons. Like all superfluids, the luminiferous aether carries quantized excitations (phonons) that propagate at the speed of sound. The phonons in luminiferous ether are ‘density blobs’, they correspond to quanta of electromagnetic radiation. The photons are photons, and the speed of light is the speed of sound.
3. Virtual photons. In the ground state the superfluid is permeated by background density oscillations where each oscillation is formed by a density concentration paired with the density rarefactions. These are virtual photons. Thus, virtual photons (which are pairs of ‘density blobs’ and ‘density holes’) are different from the ‘real’ photons (which are just ‘density blobs’).
4. Electrons. Electrons are tiny (yet finite), point-like aether sinks.
5. Protons. Protons are aether sources. The protons are much larger in volume and therefore much more diffuse than electrons. Both the protons and the electrons ‘pump’ the same amount of aether. The electrons and the protons are always linked in pairs. They form a 4-dimensional vortex projected into the 3-dimensional space. Aether flows into an electron and then is expelled out the proton the electron is linked to. The electron and the proton form a 3D pair (connected via the 4th dimension), similar to two 2D vortices on the water surface connected by a 3D vortex tube.
6. De Broglie waves. As electrons and protons move through space the electrons constantly absorb virtual photons. Thus the flux of aether into the electrons and out of protons is not perfectly uniform but ‘wavy’ in nature because the electrons absorb density waves as they gobble up virtual photons. This waviness in aether flux is the de Broglie wave. The aether influx into an electron is wavy due to virtual photons, and the outflow of aether from a proton is therefore also wavy. The faster an electron moves the more virtual photons it will absorb, hence the ‘waviness’ increases (the wavelength decreases with velocity). The more electrons are in the body the more virtual photons the body will absorb through electrons and expel through protons, thus increasing the ‘waviness’ proportionally to the number of the electrons (the wavelength decreases with mass).
7. Hydrogen. A proton is larger than an electron. When a proton and an electron form a bound state, the electron moves around the proton at great speed forming a ‘smear’ that we perceive as an electron cloud. The electron is constantly falling towards the proton but it keeps going through because the proton is so diffuse. As the electron moves around the proton it catches and collects the aether expelled by the proton (which is emitted in waves due to virtual photons absorbed by the electron). The electron manages to collect just about all aether sources by the proton thus forming electrical neutrality.
8. Absorption of a photon. Imagine an electron zooming around a proton in the ground state (the radius of the orbit in the ground state is determined by the absorption frequency of virtual photons). Suppose that a photon (which is a ‘density blob’) arrives at the precise location of the electron. If the size of the photon ‘density blob’ is just right to where it can be consumed in its entirety by the electron, the corresponding pressure wave is immediately emitted by the proton. This density wave pushes the electron away from the proton and the electron thus settles on farther orbit, forming an exciting state.
9. Emission of a photon. If the sea of background virtual photons was entirely uniform the electron would forever remain in the excited state. However, the background field of virtual photons is not absolutely uniform. Eventually the electron encounters a sufficiently large virtual photon and absorbs ½ of it corresponding to the rarefied portion of the virtual photon. Consequently the proton fails to emit enough aether to keep the electron away, and the electron falls closer to the nucleus  and back to the ground state. The remaining ½ of the virtual photon (the ‘density blob’ half) becomes the real photon that leaves the atom (i.e. the virtual photon becomes real).
10. Spin. The aether flux into electrons and out of protons has a twist to it, which we perceive as spin. Therefore a photon is not just a traveling density wave – it is a traveling density wave with a twist.

Deductions and Predictions

1. Protons do not absorb virtual photons. Hence they do not form waves by themselves. Proton waves are formed by the electrons.
2. ‘Shadow photons’ may exist. These are the aether density rarefactions that correspond to the other ½ of a virtual photon.
3. Gravity. Gravity is a residual force caused by negative charges ‘wrapped around’ positive charges. All atoms have one or more negatively charged electrons (aether sinks) orbiting a positively charged nucleus (aether source). Although the inflow and outflow of aether is balanced overall the process is not entirely symmetric. For one thing, the aether source in the nucleus is much more diffuse compared to the very compact aether sinks in the electron shell. Also, the electrons are mobile and therefore cannot collect the outflow of aether in a perfectly uniform manner (they collect more aether in their immediate vicinity as they move). The perfect balance is achieved only at infinity, hence the effect of aether outflow of each proton in every nucleus can be felt at infinity. This causes gravity the way we perceive it. Gravity is a push-force caused by the long-range action of protons caused by their aether outflow. The protons push each other and we perceive this collective pushing action as gravity that causes matter to clump together.
4. Antigravity. Reversing the polarity, i.e. putting the positive charge (source) on the outside and negative charge (sink) in the middle will cause the opposite effect – antigravity.
5. Experiments and applications:
   1. Spherical capacitor. A spherical capacitor with positive electrode on the outside and negative electrode on the inside and high-K dielectric in the middle will experience antigravity (loss of weight). 
   2. Spherical electret. A negatively charged dielectric (electret) wrapped in a sphere such that the inside is negatively charged and the outside is positively charged will experience antigravity (loss of weight, maybe even buoyancy in Earth’s gravity field).
   3. Powder. Taking Teflon powder and charging it negatively may create enough particles where negative charge is on the inside. Given enough charge the particles will levitate and rise up in the air against gravity.
   4. Applied antigravity. Manufacturing nanoparticles (metal or dielectric) with negative charge on the inside and positive charge on the outside will  create buoyancy in the gravity field.
   5. Power generation. We can use negative-on-inside / positive-on-outside particles to perform work against the gravitational field by rising due to buoyancy. As these particles rise they will create voltage if they carry net charge The resulting potential will be the voltage (due to charge separation) that can be a source of useful electric power.
6. Time. The background fluctuations are responsible for zitterbewegung, which is the cause of time. The more pronounced the background fluctuations are the faster the time flows because the virtual photons forming the fluctuations push things around.
7. Time dilation, acceleration. Electrons orbiting the nucleus ingest aether slightly faster than the protons in the nucleus expel. This happens because the electrons are very compact sinks and therefore ingest aether vigorously in their immediate vicinity. The nucleus, however, is a relatively diffuse aether source. The inflow and outflow of aether is of course balanced overall. Yet the tendency of the electrons to ingest aether faster in their immediate vicinity ‘stretches’ the elastic superfluid creating local density reduction. As a result, the background fluctuations (virtual photons) also ‘stretch’ and become ‘shallower’ and less pronounced. Because the background fluctuations become less pronounced they have less energy and thus less power to generate zitterbewegung that defines time. So the time slows. Conversely, the protons tend to compact and compress aether in their vicinity making the virtual photons ‘deeper’ and more pronounced and thus accelerating time.
8. Natural radioactive decay acceleration. From the Conjecture #5 it follows that a massively concentrated and great in absolute magnitude positive charge will significantly accelerate local time and hence promote the rate of natural radioactive decay. Conversely massively concentrated and great in absolute magnitude negative charge will significantly slow the rate of local time and thus increase the half-life of radioactive nuclei.
9. Screening. Because atomic nuclei are very diffuse compared to electrons and because the electrons go through the nuclei, massive electron density will significantly locally reduce (i.e. screen) positive potential of the nuclei thus reducing the potential barrier for fusion. Therefore imparting large negative charges (even if transient) into deuterated solids will increase the probability of fusion.
10. Pulsating flow. Aether outflow from protons undergoes periodic pulsations (because aether inflow into electrons is modulated by virtual photons). These periodic pulsations modulate the proton pushing force.
11. Free energy. By tuning into resonance with the periodic pulsations of proton aether flux it is possible to harness this pushing force to perform useful work and thus generate power.