[David Cooper (OP)]

It's a standard way of putting things where they will hardly ever be seen by anything other than bots, so yes.

Citation please. It takes just as many clicks to get to New Theories as it does to get to any other forum here.

You can get into all sorts of things with the same small number of clicks, but different things attract different amounts of readers based on the reward. There is very rarely any reward from reading things in New Theories, so the people who would be interested in the question that this thread poses will not see it. But it's your forum you're sabotaging, so that's up to you.

[Kryptid]

There is very rarely any reward from reading things in New Theories

Depends on the reason one is reading New Theories. It tends to be one of the forums I look at more often than others.

so the people who would be interested in the question that this thread poses will not see it.

A Google search of "photon escape event horizon" links directly to this thread. So anyone looking for the answer to that question can still find it easily.

But it's your forum you're sabotaging, so that's up to you.

(1) It's not my forum.
(2) I don't see how I'm sabotaging anything.

[Bored chemist]

It's a standard way of putting things where they will hardly ever be seen by anything other than bots, so yes.

If that was true, we wouldn't be commenting on it.

[Halc]

It isn't something that needs references, so you should not be demanding any. If your model doesn't conform to the requirements of STR, it will enable you to measure absolute speeds with ease, so GTR has to include STR as part of itself in order to fit observations.

I do see what you're saying here. If it was just an absolute interpretation of GTR, any empirical claim of GTR would also be an empirical claim of this alternate interpretation. But then it must also conform to GTR’s geometry, and your assertions deviate from that. Hence the need for references since the equations of GTR only work with GTR geometry.
Calling a hypothetical unwritten theory ‘ LET’ seems a mistake. Still, the references you indicate here are not needed when talking about this alternate nameless theory. There's the Schmelzer absolute ether theory which I will call SET for lack of a better name.
The references for which we're asking are the ones that violate GTR:

GTR also has to conform to our 3D Euclidean view of events while doing its 4D stuff

But GTR includes the effects of gravity and thus is not confined to Euclidean 3D space like STR is. Space is not Euclidean under GTR, so if it is under the hypothetical LET theory, it no longer can use GTR mathematics, and we need a reference for the new mathematics that maintains consistent empirical measurements. You don’t give this because no such theory exists.
SET does not suggest Euclidean 3D space as its preferred frame. The frame is the harmonic coordinate condition, a coordinate condition in GTR which makes it possible to solve the Einstein field equations. This is a non-linearly expanding metric, which Euclidean space is not.

SET is not just a trivial hand-wave, saying everything GTR says is true, but there's a preferred foliation. It derives everything from completely different premises. It very much has differences.  Like any absolute interpretation, the preferred frame doesn't foliate all of spacetime, so black holes, wormholes and such cannot exist. There can be no black hole event horizon at all. The big bang must be replaced by a big bounce, perhaps to solve the issue of 'something from nothing' that you get with a model with the universe being contained by time, instead of time being contained by the universe as in GTR, but I didn't actually see if SET posits universe contained by time. LET doesn't posit this, but nLET (another incomplete theory) does.

LET describes what you get in that 3D Euclidean view

That's the claim that needs the reference. A 3D Euclidean view with slowed physics makes different predictions, such as the angles of physical rigid triangles adding up to 180°. You're essentially making claims of a nonexistent theory. If space is Euclidean but light (and other motion) merely slows down based on the dilation equations for gravitational potential, you'd get different times for light to get from A to B through a gravity well. By positing this Euclidean assertion, you throw away all the mathematics of GTR that uses a different geometry, and yes, this completely new way of doing it very much does need a reference.

The two ways of looking at it necessarily map to each other and you don't need a reference to understand that.

I actually agree with this, but if they map to each other, then the space under gravity is necessarily non-Euclidean. SET (the only generalization of LET of which I am aware) does not agree with your assertions.

That's why whenever I employ LET as a tool for viewing the action

If you're matching GTR descriptions, then you’re using GTR despite calling it LET. If you're making up new rules that contradict GTR, then it needs an actual theory behind it to make the new predictions since the GTR mathematics no longer apply. That needs justification, or it is just 'making up your physics'.

When LET and STR tell you what these lines of black holes

Neither LET nor STR deal with black holes.

... what these lines of black hole look like as they approach each other before the gravitational interaction becomes significant (due to the extreme contraction of the gravity wells - no amount of applying GTR can change that because the gravity acting on each line from the other is so weak up to that point and cannot affect the 3D Euclidean view of the action)

This assertion not backed by mathematics. I tried to point this out in an earlier post, but you don't seem interested in actually working it out. This is another reason for the topic to be in new theories.

"What [the boat] it zigzags downwind and there's very little drag against the water? It might be able to go downwind faster than the wind." Someone might then object by saying, "Nonsense: by definition a sailing boat cannot go downwind faster than the wind, so you cannot be talking about a sailing boat!

This is entirely valid. Based on the definition of sailing boat you gave, the thing you describe isn’t a sailing boat. Ditto for event horizon.
We did have a thread on a sailing ‘car’ that did go directly down wind (no tacking) faster than the wind, or even directly upwind. With a similar definition, we’d have to call it something else.

Guess what the LET in CLET stands for. Doug Marett's site dates back before that and deals with LET and how it covers the same ground as GTR. You ought to remember this page; http://www.conspiracyoflight.com/Conspiracy.html

Ah, an actual reference! I was actually wondering if you would bring up this crackpot site.

I invite to to cite sources for your claims, and not sources from science denial sites.

conspiracyoflight is very much a science denial site. It asserts that GTR and even STR is wrong, so if it asserts that CLET makes the same claims as Einstein’s theories (as you do), then it follows that CLET is wrong. I doubt they piggyback off GTR since it attempts to debunk Einstein at every possible turn.
It became a classroom exercise to take any random article listed on that site and find the flaw in it. It isn’t difficult. Pick one if you want a demonstration. This is actually the site you choose to back your claims?

the necessity of both theories to generate the same 3D view of the action as they're applying the same maths, there is no cause to dispute them.

But you’re asserting an alternate 3D view, so the dispute stands.

People who actually work on LET with this simple addition of having light slow down in gravity wells do call it LET.

OK. That claim come right from GTR, so they can stick on the label if they want, despite the lack of an actual theory that does it. But when the claims diverge from GTR, then it becomes something that needs backing since the backing of GTR is lost.

I did explain why your idea that a line of black holes doesn't suddenly have a single singularity in it the moment the event horizons connect.

I never asserted otherwise.

[David Cooper (OP)]

so the people who would be interested in the question that this thread poses will not see it.

A Google search of "photon escape event horizon" links directly to this thread. So anyone looking for the answer to that question can still find it easily.

Most visitors will take a look at the new theories forum and quickly determine that it's dominated by a host of broken or unintelligible junk, so they will never return to it. The also don't do google searches to look for things to read that might be interesting because that depends on them having the idea for themselves before reading the thread. What they want to do is look in from time to time to scan through the topics and see if any interesting ideas are being discussed in the forums where they are most likely to appear. That's how it's supposed to work, and I feel sorry for Chris that it's being sabotaged. Perhaps I shouldn't have turned down the invitation to be a moderator way back, but I didn't want it to look as if my ideas were endorsed in any way by Cambridge University. Anyway, we'll be able to fix that in the future with moderation by AGI which makes rational and fair decisions about all this.

[David Cooper (OP)]

It's a standard way of putting things where they will hardly ever be seen by anything other than bots, so yes.

If that was true, we wouldn't be commenting on it.

If it had been put there to begin with, it would have been in the wrong place and you wouldn't have commented on it.

[Bored chemist]

If it had been put there to begin with, it would have been in the wrong place and you wouldn't have commented on it.

Ok, two more errors.
It is in the right place.

I have my account set up so it tells me about any new posts; it doesn't look at which sub-forum they are in.
Since what you asked has a very obvious answer, I would have commented on it regardless- even if you had accidentally put it in biology or whatever.

You need to get over yourself.

[David Cooper (OP)]

But then it must also conform to GTR’s geometry, and your assertions deviate from that.

They don't deviate from it - that's the whole point.

Calling a hypothetical unwritten theory ‘ LET’ seems a mistake.

It isn't - it's precisely what the people working on LET ordinarily call it.

The references for which we're asking are the ones that violate GTR:

GTR also has to conform to our 3D Euclidean view of events while doing its 4D stuff

But GTR includes the effects of gravity and thus is not confined to Euclidean 3D space like STR is. Space is not Euclidean under GTR, so if it is under the hypothetical LET theory, it no longer can use GTR mathematics, and we need a reference for the new mathematics that maintains consistent empirical measurements. You don’t give this because no such theory exists.

Everything GTR does can be mapped to a Euclidean 3D view which is the one that all our observations are based on, so you are denying the valid transformations that have to be made between the 3D and 4D views.

SET does not suggest Euclidean 3D space as its preferred frame. The frame is the harmonic coordinate condition, a coordinate condition in GTR which makes it possible to solve the Einstein field equations. This is a non-linearly expanding metric, which Euclidean space is not.

LET does not try to make Euclidean 3D space a preferred frame, as I've pointed out before by distinguishing between different types of "absolute frame". At some point you ought to take in the difference between them and stop conflating them.

SET is not just a trivial hand-wave, saying everything GTR says is true, but there's a preferred foliation. It derives everything from completely different premises. It very much has differences.  Like any absolute interpretation, the preferred frame doesn't foliate all of spacetime, so black holes, wormholes and such cannot exist.

Same issue there - you're still misunderstanding absolute/preferred frames. In an expanding frame, one type of "absolute frame" can be a different frame for each location because a photon moving north at A and a photon moving north at B in the same direction are moving relative to each other. What do you do though every time I explain these nuances? You fail to take them in (perhaps deliberately), and then you try to make out I'm imposing one such frame on the whole universe as a universal absolute frame, but I've made it clear dozens of times that I do nothing of the kind.

There can be no black hole event horizon at all.

There are things that ordinarily go by the name "black hole" and they have a boundary layer on them ordinarily known as the "event horizon", and no theory is going to change the fact that these things exist in some form - they merely question the form (the business of what they actually are).

The big bang must be replaced by a big bounce, perhaps to solve the issue of 'something from nothing' that you get with a model with the universe being contained by time, instead of time being contained by the universe as in GTR, but I didn't actually see if SET posits universe contained by time. LET doesn't posit this, but nLET (another incomplete theory) does.

The big bounce itself is an unresolved issue, but certainly a lot of what's said about the "initial" condition of the universe is different with LET because in that type of model time did not start at the big bang.

LET describes what you get in that 3D Euclidean view

That's the claim that needs the reference.

It doesn't. Because the same maths is used to generate that 3D Euclidean view as is used by GTR, there is no question of any divergence.

A 3D Euclidean view with slowed physics makes different predictions, such as the angles of physical rigid triangles adding up to 180°. You're essentially making claims of a nonexistent theory.

There are apparent angles and actual angles. If you build your triangle in a gravity well where the speed of light variations distort its sides and make them curved while they look straight to you, the sum of the angles that you measure actual shape in such a way that and measure the angles, you can measure can be greater than 180 degrees. In the Euclidean view for an eternal observer, the triangle has curved sides though, so again your making up claims that aren't mine and then attributing them to me in order to attack them. That's something you specialise in doing.

If space is Euclidean but light (and other motion) merely slows down based on the dilation equations for gravitational potential, you'd get different times for light to get from A to B through a gravity well. By positing this Euclidean assertion, you throw away all the mathematics of GTR that uses a different geometry, and yes, this completely new way of doing it very much does need a reference.

You do get different times for light to go through a gravity well depending on how deep it goes, though the bending of the path means they won't all reach B, so I don't know what specific action you're picturing there. If you send clocks through the gravity well, the lower speed of light where the lower clock goes will slow its ticking. If you send light, that light will record no timing difference as it registers no time passing for it at all.

The two ways of looking at it necessarily map to each other and you don't need a reference to understand that.

I actually agree with this, but if they map to each other, then the space under gravity is necessarily non-Euclidean.

In one theory, but not in the other. The universe does whichever it actually does.

SET (the only generalization of LET of which I am aware) does not agree with your assertions.

Doug Marett put up his information on LET before CLET (which you call SET) was published, and it's all based on the speed of light slowing down in gravity wells. I contacted him to try to find his sources, but he was uncommunicative and I don't pester people. This is a common trait when trying to hunt down the people who did the initial work on this. Whether Schmelzer was involved in driving that I do not know, but he may just be doing a rehashed version of other people's work.

That's why whenever I employ LET as a tool for viewing the action

If you're matching GTR descriptions, then you’re using GTR despite calling it LET.

Not at all. The maths that fits spacetime bending also fits what the universe does (because it would be rejected as wrong if it failed to fit), and it also fits how light slows down in gravity wells. Using that maths that fits what the universe does does not mean you are using any specific theory that uses that maths. The maths is theory-independent.

If you're making up new rules that contradict GTR, then it needs an actual theory behind it to make the new predictions since the GTR mathematics no longer apply. That needs justification, or it is just 'making up your physics'.

The theory-independent maths continues to apply and there is no need to make anything up. All that changes between the theories is the description of what might actually be going on. The 3D Euclidean view will not be affected by any of that.

When LET and STR tell you what these lines of black holes

Neither LET nor STR deal with black holes.

Both have to be able to handle black holes, although STR doesn't need to account for the gravity aspects of them - it can restrict itself to things like length contraction issues on gravity wells, orbits and event horizons. LET goes further though by predicting what's inside event horizons (i.e. that they're packed with stuff all the way through and that there's no singularity). Claiming that that can't be called a black hole is a linguistic error on your part.

... what these lines of black hole look like as they approach each other before the gravitational interaction becomes significant (due to the extreme contraction of the gravity wells - no amount of applying GTR can change that because the gravity acting on each line from the other is so weak up to that point and cannot affect the 3D Euclidean view of the action)

This assertion not backed by mathematics. I tried to point this out in an earlier post, but you don't seem interested in actually working it out. This is another reason for the topic to be in new theories.

It absolutely is backed by mathematics, and any serious physicist who knows their stuff about this will back me up on that point. The high speeds of travel can flatten the entire gravity wells almost to discs in precisely the way that I said, and for them to fail to do so at the relevant speeds would enable the absolute speeds of travel of the black holes to be pinned down with ease. That is another illustration of why you should not be a moderator. You are making judgements about hiding scientific discussions based on errors in your understanding of physics.

This is entirely valid. Based on the definition of sailing boat you gave, the thing you describe isn’t a sailing boat. Ditto for event horizon.

It remains a sailing boat or event horizon and the original definition is revealed to be incompetent, so it gets adjusted to accommodate the improved understanding of what the thing is.

We did have a thread on a sailing ‘car’ that did go directly down wind (no tacking) faster than the wind, or even directly upwind. With a similar definition, we’d have to call it something else.

And that one is called something else, but we also have AC40s, AC50s, AC75s, etc. sailing downwind faster than the wind while remaining as sailing boats.

Ah, an actual reference! I was actually wondering if you would bring up this crackpot site.

It's a much more serious physics site than the establishment ones which push disproved theories, so you're calling the establishment crackpots by extension.

conspiracyoflight is very much a science denial site. It asserts that GTR and even STR is wrong

Any site that fails to do so is automatically wrong because those theories have both been disproved.

It became a classroom exercise to take any random article listed on that site and find the flaw in it. It isn’t difficult. Pick one if you want a demonstration. This is actually the site you choose to back your claims?

It's possible to find flaws on any establishment site in the same way, but of greater magnitude. They're pushing theories that have been disproved and should not still be on the table.

the necessity of both theories to generate the same 3D view of the action as they're applying the same maths, there is no cause to dispute them.

But you’re asserting an alternate 3D view, so the dispute stands.

I have not asserted an alternative 3D view. I have pointed out how you can see more easily what that 3D view must look like and how you can use that to spot errors in your attempts to generate it through GTR. It's much easier to simulate the action in your head by seeing what the speed of light is doing in gravity wells instead of trying to imagine things in 4D with a weird fourth dimension which doesn't behave like the other three. If you were actually able to process the action through GTR in your head correctly (while also remembering to apply STR within it), you would see that the gravity wells contract to thin discs at extreme speeds of travel and that their interactions aren't significant until the last moment of approach. Run your model correctly and it will match up to the LET description of the 3D Euclidean view of the action. You simulate it incorrectly in your head because you can't handle the 4D, and then you tell me I'm wrong and that you've flung this into new theories because I'm wrong, but you're the one representing what your theory says.

People who actually work on LET with this simple addition of having light slow down in gravity wells do call it LET.

OK. That claim come right from GTR, so they can stick on the label if they want, despite the lack of an actual theory that does it. But when the claims diverge from GTR, then it becomes something that needs backing since the backing of GTR is lost.

Again, there is no divergence in this case and that's the whole point: it's easier to run the action correctly in your head using LET, so the divergence here is caused by you failing to run the GTR action correctly in your head. And GTR does not say that light slows down in gravity wells. GTR may well says that that's how it looks in the 3D Euclidean view of events, but GTR insists that light does not slow down in gravity wells and that extra space is packed in there instead, whereas LET says that light actually is slowed down there - that is the driving difference between the theories.

I did explain why your idea that a line of black holes doesn't suddenly have a single singularity in it the moment the event horizons connect.

I never asserted otherwise.

The text I quoted says otherwise.

[David Cooper (OP)]

I have my account set up so it tells me about any new posts; it doesn't look at which sub-forum they are in.
Since what you asked has a very obvious answer, I would have commented on it regardless- even if you had accidentally put it in biology or whatever.

Well, we'll never know if that last bit's the case, but most readers of the forum look at new theories once and once only.

You need to get over yourself.

I don't come into it. This is all about doing and discussing science properly while maximising the utility of the forum for readers and putting the right ideas and questions in the right places for them to find them with minimal effort.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

This is all about doing and discussing science properly while maximising the utility of the forum for readers and putting the right ideas and questions in the right places for them to find them with minimal effort.

   I quite like this forum but I think you might be over-estimating the readership.  For example, most people lecturing or actively engaged in research in Physics don't make a routine of logging in to this site on a Monday morning to discuss what's new in it with other members of staff.   Their time is better spent checking the new research papers that come through the established journals and they still can't be expected to check everything.  So some major developments won't come to their attention for several years.   If something is important then it will be mentioned in more than just one paper and might even come up as a topic of discussion in some conference.
    What do you think the readership of this forum is?  Who are you trying to get this information to?
    In one of your earlier posts you asked if someone has suitable simulation software to test something.   If you really want to attract the attention and expertise of someone with that sort of software then the "new theories" section is probably exactly where your post needs to be.   The average reader of the main sections isn't some Physics professor looking for information about .... how an oscilloscope works, or  indeed, if a photon can escape from a black hole....  they have access to textbooks, libraries and email they can send to other experts if they want answers for that sort of thing.   Quite possibly the best chances of getting your thread noticed by that sort of person would be to have it presented in the "new theories" section.

Well, we'll never know if that last bit's the case, but most readers of the forum look at new theories once and once only.

    I'm sorry if you feel your time was wasted.  Everyone who has spent some time here adding replies is suffering the same fate.   I know I put in a few hours trying to create some good replies including diagrams and animations.   Halc's replies also look like they took him some time.
    Overall this forum is a forum.  It's a place for discussion with others and also where some questions from the general public could be posted and hopefully answered.   It never was intended as a place to host some monologues or anything that might be remotely like a repository of authoritative articles.   There are some forums that will try and do precisely this but Naked Scientists doesn't have any such repository.
   If you were trying to deposit something like that here, then you are wasting your time.   It would be better to set up your own website (there are some freely available services, I believe) then the content stays put and has the same URL for ever (or as long as the service provider lets you have it, or stays in business   etc.)
     It hardly matters which section your thread is put in.  Once it gets old and falls off the 1st page of the board because newer threads have appeared -  then it will rarely be read by anyone ever again anyway.

Best Wishes.

[Colin2B]

This is all about doing and discussing science properly while maximising the utility of the forum for readers and putting the right ideas and questions in the right places for them to find them with minimal effort.

Quite possibly the best chances of getting your thread noticed by that sort of person would be to have it presented in the "new theories" section.

David,
Welcome back, long time no see.
Chris has made changes over the years to how the forum should be run and new advice given to moderators. Although it is possible to debate the placement of some topics @Eternal Student is right in that topics in New Theories are not disadvantaged.
I regularly keep an eye on which topics are being viewed and a snapshot last night gave:

General science 30
Physics Astronomy 63
Physiology 60
New theories 50

So, you can see that New Theories was getting a fair share of viewers. Just to be clear, there was a very low incidence of bots at the time.
I would certainly be interested to see a serious, in detail discussion on how LET handles gravity.

[David Cooper (OP)]

   I quite like this forum but I think you might be over-estimating the readership.  For example, most people lecturing or actively engaged in research in Physics don't make a routine of logging in to this site on a Monday morning to discuss what's new in it with other members of staff.

One of the purposes of posting this was just to get at time and date stamp on the idea in case it's new, so it doesn't matter where it's put for that purpose. The other purpose was just to put it out there as an interesting possibility for the general reader. The odds against getting it from here to someone with the right simulation software were always extreme. What I find disappointing about this is that the general reader is not being served well by things of this kind being hidden from them, and they are being hidden. The people who read the new theories section are dominated by people who post their broken theories there and not the general readers looking for interesting science ideas - they are two different sets of people, though the worse the general readers are served, the fewer of those there will be. Their numbers need to be encouraged to grow by providing the right environment for them where if they dare to comment on things they don't end up with a pack of attack dogs tearing into them. I suspect most of them were scared off long ago.

    I'm sorry if you feel your time was wasted.  Everyone who has spent some time here adding replies is suffering the same fate.   I know I put in a few hours trying to create some good replies including diagrams and animations.   Halc's replies also look like they took him some time.

I don't feel it was wasted at all - I just think there are better ways to run things. But you're also right - I should thank you, Halc and others for their contributions. You have all been doing your best to take this somewhere. The only disappointment is that the general reader has had what I think is an interesting question hidden from them. It certainly can't go back there now though due to all the diversions that took it over due to misguided attacks on it, so that's one that they'll just have to do without.

[David Cooper (OP)]

David,
Welcome back, long time no see.

Thanks. I haven't been well but am on the mend. Hope all's well with you. What happened to Pete? I'm worried at the lack of any sign of him.

I would certainly be interested to see a serious, in detail discussion on how LET handles gravity.

Well, there might be something new on the horizon. Gravitational lensing from the changing speed of light acts on the waves that make up particles such that they're lensed downwards just as light is - that accelerates particles down, but there also has to be a medium involved in this to set the local speed of light, so it's that medium that's the interesting thing being explored today, and it's led to discoveries like the frame dragging mechanism - that was always problematic in the past because the aether is static and can't be dragged round and round massive bodies, but we now have two mediums interacting with the second one being fully capable of moving. The place where the biggest breakthroughs will doubtless come though is with black holes because you can't lens down a black hole into another one if it's full of frozen waves that don't move - no movement means no bending of their paths, and that means no acceleration down, so something has to keep moving, and perhaps it's the medium moving while itself being unaffected by the slowing of light. (There's always been a problem for both LET and GTR as to how the content of black holes can govern their gravity wells when no signal can get out of them, so clearly something has to be able to move out of them faster than the slowed speed of light within them. GTR doesn't actually have slowed light in it as it's always moving at c, so there simply are no possible paths in them for any signals to get out to control the gravity well, but in LET there is an option for control signals to get out by going faster than the slowed light while not exceeding c.) If you want to lens a black hole down, you could achieve that by moving the medium about such that the static waves you want to lens with it are moving relative to it and can then accelerate downwards. But what happens to a "frozen wave" anyway? When you halt light in the lab using some kind of medium that stops it, the photon ceases to exist while the medium takes up a different configuration to hold the photon's energy, and then the medium can adjust back to recreate the photon and let it continue on its way, so when a light stops at the event horizon, it likely ceases to exist and transfers its energy to the medium that stopped it, and the same will apply to all the waves of energy that make up every particle that falls onto the event horizon, so it becomes something else. That's what physics needs to be exploring, and the people working on string theory are likely on the right path with this. Pinning down the nature and functionality of the medium that slows light will be the key to the next big advances in physics.

[Bored chemist]

Well, we'll never know if that last bit's the case, but most readers of the forum look at new theories once and once only.

For a start, you do know it's the case, because I told you it is.

But let,s just check.
Is there anyone here who agrees with your claim that "most readers of the forum look at new theories once and once only"?

[Colin2B]

David,
Welcome back, long time no see.

Thanks. I haven't been well but am on the mend. Hope all's well with you. What happened to Pete? I'm worried at the lack of any sign of him.

Sorry to bring sad news, Pete died after a long illness.
Glad to hear you are improving, had intended to reply to your other post, but the covid hit and I’m just recovering.

[David Cooper (OP)]

Sorry to bring sad news, Pete died after a long illness.

I thought that was likely the case as he had lots of medical problems and suffered a lot, but I'd have liked to have got in touch with him if he was still hanging on just to try and give him a boost.

Glad to hear you are improving, had intended to reply to your other post, but the covid hit and I’m just recovering.

Hope your recovery is good - it can still be a rough ride even with the vaccines.

One of the other things I've been up to recently is redesigning the wheel so that it can roll up and down stairs easily by adapting to the shape of the stairs in such a way that the hub follows an approximately straight path at a constant speed, so I now have to try and build a working model. I can't describe it until it's patented, but it could make a big difference for disabled people and for robotics, while ideally the royalties would all go from the latter application to subsidise the former. I'd like to hand the idea over to a university that can develop a complete demonstration device (ideally an electric wheelchair). First to ask will be first to get.