Private correspondence responding to a graduate student's queries:

I don't have time for extended comments, but either plan you outlined would be fine.  I think I detect that you wish to push the forefronts and get deeper into the subject than just applied physics, so the more theoretical program would fit that goal.  However, only you can assess your trade-offs (support, expenses, family stress, etc.) and so you would have to make your own decision there.

         m + (dE)(dt) => (m + dm)dt

And the resulting excited entity after photon absorption is masstime instead of mass.  Masstime is as different from mass as impulse Ft is from force F.  Note that the spatial energy of the photon, divided by c-squared, gave you the delta mass dm.  But the dt portion remains coupled, forming the masstime, which is a time-excitation of mass also.  So the mass is both spatially (energetically) excited in 3-space, and also excited in the time domain as well.  That time-domain excitation is nearly totally ignored in physics today.

Anyway, this doesn't bother you on the potentialized (excited) charge carriers in a circuit as long as all that time-excitation steadily goes out of the circuit faster than it goes in, which is what happens in the entropic COP<1.0 circuit, or does not change in the circuit, which is what happens for the superconductive circuit at COP=1.0.

But that is not true for the negentropic COP>1.0 circuit, where a time-charge excitation has accumulated at the output end, with a gradient or "time force" existing back toward the front end.

It gets complicated because we are involving general relativity also, and one can get gravitational effects if a good little bit of power is used. You have a non-negligible difference in curvature of spacetime between the input end and the output end of the circuit when that circuit is substantially overunity .  Nothing in our EM textbook teaches us to deal with that one!  Here, one needs a combination of (1) higher symmetry electrodynamics such as the Evans O(3) version (which can deal readily with longitudinal EM energy currents in both 3-space and in the time dimension (complex plane, t variable)).  (2) superconductivity theory (advanced, not the simple stuff).  (3) general relativity and Mendel Sachs' extension of Einstein's work, (4) quantum mechanics, (5) quantum field theory, and (6) extensive background in the particle physics theory of symmetry and broken symmetry.

In short, nearly impossible for one fellow to know all that and be proficient in it!  I know a little smattering of each, but just enough to be "dangerous".  It would be much better if I were proficient in at least about three of those subjects.  There are at least a dozen future Nobel prizes for the young fellows in the areas I'm struggling with, and I'm sure one day the young tigers will be into this like gangbusters.

As an aside, to readily see that time is energy:  In physics, the choice of fundamental units is absolutely arbitrary, and the units are chosen for convenience of calculation, ease in learning and retention and insight, etc. But you can build all physics from a single fundamental unit (it has been done).  The resulting model may be a mental nightmare for regular physics, but it will yield all the correct answers.

So, consider such a model with the joule as the only fundamental unit.  A priori, mass is totally a function of energy, and after the nuclear age we are now quite comfortable with E = mc(exp2), so that we understand that mass is really highly compressed spatial energy (compressed by c-squared).  That was a horrible thought when Einstein and others first came up with it!  It was stated at the time that less than a dozen physicists worldwide could even understand the general relativity.  Today it is "old hat" (but still developing).

But then time is also totally a function of energy in our new model we are considering.  Turns out that E = t(c-squared), where E is spatial energy, t is time, and c-squared is the square of the speed of light.  Or, t = E/(c-squared), so that time has the same "energy density" and "energy compression ratio" in terms of spatial energy when it is released into expanded spatial energy form, that mass does.  That is really no more terrible a thought than was the original E = m(c-squared).

So when one says "time is energy, very highly compressed energy" or says "time-energy", one has said nothing really that different.

But immediately one sees that the photon has two energy components: (1) fully decompressed or spatial energy, and (2) time-energy, highly compressed to the same compression ratio as mass-energy but in the time-domain rather than in 3-space.

Here's the magic:  Compress spatial energy by c-squared in 3-space and you get "mass".  Compress spatial energy by c-squared in the other dimension (time dimension) and you get "time".

So as you can see, time-excitation charging is a very powerful energy charging reaction, fully equal to nuclear power (and in fact greater, because all of it can be converted to spatial energy) and it's use -- either deliberately or inadvertently -- can yield very powerful effects.

Indeed, when one considers the highly compressed time-energy component, the photons with the highest energy content are the low frequency photons. Halving the frequency halves the spatial energy component of the photon but doubles the time-energy component, which latter is multiplied by 9x10(exp16).  So a little decompressed spatial energy was lost, but ENORMOUS compressed spatial energy was gained.  Our "high energy physics" today has to use massive accelerators and colliders only because (1) they insist on using only spatial energy excitation rather than tempic energy excitation, and (2) they use only COP<1.0 circuits so tempic energy excitation never enters the picture to any appreciable or lasting extent.

I was able a couple years ago or so to look into the cold fusion experiments, and realize the formation of little "time-reversal zones" in the electrolyte where the antiphoton reaction temporarily predominated over the time-forward photon reaction with the ions in solution.   So a marvelous thing emerged temporarily in these little TRZ zones.  First, the law of attraction and repulsion of charges reverses; i.e., like charges attract and unlike charges repel.  So two H+ ions may attract so closely that each enters the nuclear force region of the other, forming a quasi-nucleus.  As the surrounding ions move to negate the TRZ, it "decays" back toward a normal Time forward zone (TFZ).  As it decays, the quasi-nucleus -- which may be in normal state for a TFZ -- is now in an excited state.  So it decays -- and the easiest decay mode is the flip of a quark, converting one of the H+ to an n, so that the quasi-nucleus decays into D2 deuterium as the zone decays to a TFZ again.

We wrote the reactions for production of the deuterium, the tritium, and the alpha particles (He nuclei) which were the predominant low energy nuclear transformations occurring.  "Low energy" is a  misnomer, because when the compression of the time energy is considered, those are VERY high energy reactions.

But all of this of course does not yet exist in physics.  These are the kinds of things I want to gradually get up on the website, enabled by the kindness of ******, so that these things can be known by the sharp young grad students and postdocs, etc.

Anyway, I wish you well in your future career.  I wanted to just set aside enough time to write a little something and encourage you to continue.

Physics is only at the beginning!  We actually know so very little of this vast and marvelous universe, that it is worth finding ways to extend it and understand at least a little more of it.

That is worth a lifetime of anyone's endeavor.

Very best wishes,

Tom Bearden