ABSTRACT
Production and appreciation of sounds via speech and music have
long been intimate human abilities. Since ancient times acoustics
has been a rich source of scientific research. Effects due to the
speed of sound are more detectable using classical experimental
methods than the much quicker speed of light. The invention of
the phonograph and the prediction of acoustic surface waves are
testament to the role played by acoustics within physics since the
mid-1800s when Maxwell’s equations thrust light and eventually
the photon into the research spotlight. In comparison acoustics until
recently remained a classical wave theory. The wave-particle duality
of light resulted in quantum mechanics and the quantum field
theory, but the wave theory of sound dominated in the absence of
any corresponding particle theory of sonar phenomena, the phonon
being a recent development within physics. During the 20th century
various interactions have been discovered to exist between electric,
magnetic, and acoustic sources. At this time self-field theory predicts
both a theoretical and a physical unification of the phonon and
the photon. In self-field theory the phonon and the photon both
have internal structure and can react to form the gluonic fields that
mediate between the up and down quarks inside atomic nuclei. Both
the photon and phonon participate in amodified system ofMaxwell-
Lorentz equations involving the three fields, E-, H-, and acoustic
(A-) fields. Piezoelectricity, sonoluminescence, the production of
lightning, wind, and thunder by storm clouds, and the dynamics of
suns within galaxies all support this three-field theory. Biodiversity
is observed to be cyclic within the motion of the Milky Way and may
be a resonance phenomenon associated with the galactic energy
density.
