Electron-positron pair production and the aether

Large energetic photons are not easily controlled by their pilot waves. As a consequence, they have a tendency to smash into things. Instead of meandering through atomic lattices or veering off in reflection, high energy photons move like bullets. If they hit something, they loose energy. If not, they pass through unaffected. This is how x-ray photography works, and why such photography is dangerous to our health when performed too often.

Most collisions end up in a transfer of energy from the high energy photon to whatever barrier it hit. However, in some cases this does not happen. The energy stays with the photon. Energy may even be added to it.

All of this is of no consequence as long as the photon in question continues to move at the speed prescribed by the aether. The photon remains a photon as long as it is able to do this. However, in cases where the photon is unable to fulfil this requirement something very dramatic happens. The photon is stopped dead in its trajectory, and popped into an electron-positron pair:

Electron-positron pair production

This transformation has some notable aspects to it:

1. Non-inertial matter is turned into inertial matter that can move at variable speeds
2. Dramatic slow down in speed
3. Big difference in size between photon and resulting matter
4. No known intermediary state (its an either or situation)

Leaving the the issue of inertia and what that is for later, we will now proceed to explain the above list in terms of our theory:

First of all, we must keep in mind that the aether is extremely dense. It is impossible for a photon to move at an independent speed due to this fact. Anything that is of the same kind as the aether must move at the speed dictated by the aether. Unable to move at the prescribed speed, a photon has to become something other than a photon.

The only way something can move freely within the constraints of the aether is by letting the aether travel freely trough itself. There is no intermediate state in this. Either the aether moves freely through a thing, or the thing in question moves as prescribed by the aether. It follows from this that inertial matter moves freely because it lets the aether move freely through itself.

This in turn explains the difference in size between photons and inertial matter. Particles of inertial matter are balloon-like nets relative to photons and neutrinos. This means that particle quanta have the ability to expand into relatively huge nets if required. It seems then, that our particle quanta may in fact be little bundles of strings.

Finally, we can explain the dramatic slow down in speed as a consequence of the transformation process. Photons move at a fixed speed due to the surrounding aether, which will hammer against any photon or neutrino that tries to move at an independent speed. This keeps everything going according to the prescribed speed. The margin of allowed variation is extremely small. However, once the margin of variation has been breached, what used to spur particles on becomes a wall of aether particles. The disobedient particle is bombarded from all sides. It becomes completely locked into position, and it is only when the transition from a compact particle into a pair of net-like balloons is complete that things are again allowed to move.

This explains why photons must pop when stopped by a barrier. They cannot remain in an in-between state. They must either be photons, moving at the speed of light as they pass through the aether, or become electrons and positrons through which the aether can move unhindered.