Tanmay,

In your abstract, you state: 'it is argued that the classical General Relativity notion that "all observers are equal" must be qualified in a quantum theory'

The assumption that "all observers are equal" has been demonstrated to be untrue, even in the classical realm.

The amount of a priori knowledge that an observer has, regarding what is being observed, has a direct,...

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Tanmay,

In your abstract, you state: 'it is argued that the classical General Relativity notion that "all observers are equal" must be qualified in a quantum theory'

The assumption that "all observers are equal" has been demonstrated to be untrue, even in the classical realm.

The amount of a priori knowledge that an observer has, regarding what is being observed, has a direct, quantitative impact on the number of bits of information that the observer can successfully extract from an observation.

Since all observers do not have identical a priori information, they cannot be "equal", in the sense of being capable of extracting equal amounts of information, from an observation. Almost all modern communications systems exploit this phenomenon.

Failing to take this fact about observers into account, is the primary reason for all the supposed "weirdness" having to do with observers of quantum phenomenon.

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Tanmay,

Interesting essay. Just to be sure I understand, I have a few questions.

1. You are saying that it is trapped horizons, not singularities, that imply preferred observers, correct?

2. I am trying to fit this into general ideas about covariance. In SR, covariance is a symmetry, and in GR, it is a local symmetry. Is the local symmetry still valid in your picture, since...

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Tanmay,

Interesting essay. Just to be sure I understand, I have a few questions.

1. You are saying that it is trapped horizons, not singularities, that imply preferred observers, correct?

2. I am trying to fit this into general ideas about covariance. In SR, covariance is a symmetry, and in GR, it is a local symmetry. Is the local symmetry still valid in your picture, since you are distinguishing only between asymptotic and infalling observers (who are necessarily separated)? Or is there a more radical "quantum covariance-breaking" going on?

The reason I ask is because I am interested in alternative interpretations of covariance, particularly those involving order theory. I discuss this in my essay

On the Foundational Assumptions of Modern Physics

In particular, covariance in the elementary setting of Minkowski space determines many of the properties of particles in QFT via representation theory, so it seems that any change in the covariance principle would be interesting in particle physics.

Take care,

Ben dribus

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Dear Tanmay,

What is your opinion about Covariant theory of gravitation, in which black holes are not allowed? If to use the idea of strong gravitation at the level of particles there must be the black holes too. But nucleons are not black holes since their mass do not changed.

Sergey Fedosin

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Dear Tanmay,

What is your opinion about Covariant theory of gravitation, in which black holes are not allowed? If to use the idea of strong gravitation at the level of particles there must be the black holes too. But nucleons are not black holes since their mass do not changed.

Sergey Fedosin

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Tanmay,

A fast moving and free thinking essay. I also found it moving, now and then, in my own direction. Have you yet considered cyclic black holes? And the re-ionization problem?possibly resolved via the 'hot bath of destructive quantum fluctuations' at the core of an em toroid AGN (SMBH) before re-ejection (astrophysical jetting).

As an astronomer I'm an observational cosmologist,...

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Tanmay,

A fast moving and free thinking essay. I also found it moving, now and then, in my own direction. Have you yet considered cyclic black holes? And the re-ionization problem?possibly resolved via the 'hot bath of destructive quantum fluctuations' at the core of an em toroid AGN (SMBH) before re-ejection (astrophysical jetting).

As an astronomer I'm an observational cosmologist, and have found much that could be interpreted in the terms you suggest, but in an eternal cycle of new iterations, at both galactic and universe scale. There is significant consistent observational evidence for such a model. Reincarnation inevitably emerges!

My own essay deals mainly with the physical mechanisms of unification, from which the cosmological model naturally emerges. I hope you can read it and comment of the logical kinetic ontology. But see also the end notes, my last years essay, and here http://vixra.org/abs/1007.0022 for work more directly relevant to yours.

Well done, and I look forward to further discussion.

Peter

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Tanmay,

Am I correct that preferred observers are not equivalent to privileged inertial frames? After all, if " ... A precise formulation of the first law should define spacetimes that are fully 'networked', i.e. they allow for a network of observers who can mutually communicate ..." a simply connected space demands only that the wave function does not collapse, and thus that it avoids the...

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Tanmay,

Am I correct that preferred observers are not equivalent to privileged inertial frames? After all, if " ... A precise formulation of the first law should define spacetimes that are fully 'networked', i.e. they allow for a network of observers who can mutually communicate ..." a simply connected space demands only that the wave function does not collapse, and thus that it avoids the singularity.

My own essay ("The Perfect First Question") agrees -- with every continuous measurement function nondegenerate near the singularity -- and also makes use of the horizon condition, as well as the asymptotic effect on measurement.

Nice essay! Best wishes in the contest.

Tom

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Tanmay,

That is an interesting conceptual connection between final stage gravitational effects and biological death. If I may riff off that somewhat, I draw similar relationships, but use a different conceptual frame.

In my entry, I make the observation that we perceive time as a sequence of events from past to future and physics re-enforces this view by treating it as a...

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Tanmay,

That is an interesting conceptual connection between final stage gravitational effects and biological death. If I may riff off that somewhat, I draw similar relationships, but use a different conceptual frame.

In my entry, I make the observation that we perceive time as a sequence of events from past to future and physics re-enforces this view by treating it as a measurement issue, but the underlaying physical process is the changing configuration of what exists, turns future potential to present actual, then past residual. Not the earth traveling a narrative dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but tomorrow becoming yesterday because the earth rotates. Duration then is not a dimension transcending the present, but is the state of the present between events.

So in this view, while the present goes from past to future, alternatively, events go future to past. Now think how this applies to life; The unit of time that is the individual life starts in the future, exists in the present and then dying, fades into the past. Meanwhile the species has moved onto the next generation, like the hands of the clock move onto the next unit of time.

Consider this in terms of a factory: The product moves from start to finish, while the production process points the other direction; Consuming raw materials and expelling finished product.

Our minds work like that as well. Consuming information and creating thought, which then are replaced by the next and fade into the past.

Our bodies as well are processes of generations of cells that form, go about their functions and then are shed, as the body lives.

In very basic terms we have energy manifesting information and information defining energy. In fact our bodies consist of two integrated systems to deal with both side of this coin. The central nervous system and the senses process information, while the circulatory, digestive and respiratory systems process energy. both integrated to manipulate our limbs and actions to gather more energy and information.

Yet energy is ultimately conserved. It is the state of the present, that which the energy is activating. So in order to create new information, old information is erased. You really can't have your cake and eat it too. Time then emerges from this creation and dissolution of energy.

So how does this tie in with your relating gravity to death? The past is that which is ordered, while the future is where the energy goes. Once structure has reached its apex of structural potential, the only path left is decline. Entropy only applies to such closed sets. Yet as structure looses energy, the remaining structure becomes ever more dense. As heat and light radiates away, what is left is crunched down to ever more solid structure.

Meanwhile that light and radiation expands out to create, expand and grow new structure. So the radiant energy is the arrow of time that points from past to future, as the gravitational density of mass is what coalesces out of future possibility and becomes residually harder. Until it too falls into that final gravitational vortex and is shot out as jets of cosmic rays, for billions of lightyears. So the cycle starts over again.

I do see math as simply modeling reality, rather than the basis for it. (It's information.) So black holes and singularities are not real, but models of this infalling process. So what is gravity? When mass turns to radiation, it creates pressure. Just think of the shock wave of an atomic bomb. So what happens when energy fuses into mass? Wouldn't it create a vacuum? Since nature is not fond of vacuums and fills them in, the result is gravity. Consider they haven't found dark matter, but there is lots of unexplained cosmic rays throughout the galaxy. Could they, in the near absolute zero of interstellar space, be coalescing into gases? Which then continue to coalesce into mass, which then is getting ever more dense, thus constantly creating more vacuum? It would explain why no gravity waves have been detected, because it is all around us, as the radiation being created by fusion.

Since the absolute is basis, not apex, a spiritual absolute would be the essence from which we rise and return, not an ideal from which we fell and seek to climb back up. That essence simply pushes the reset button fairly regularly and the cycle of gathering information and structure starts over again.

I could continue, but I was just trying to connect gravity, the past and death.

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Dear

Very interesting to see your essay.

Perhaps all of us are convinced that: the choice of yourself is right!That of course is reasonable.

So may be we should work together to let's the consider clearly defined for the basis foundations theoretical as the most challenging with intellectual of all of us.

Why we do not try to start with a real challenge is very close...

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Dear

Very interesting to see your essay.

Perhaps all of us are convinced that: the choice of yourself is right!That of course is reasonable.

So may be we should work together to let's the consider clearly defined for the basis foundations theoretical as the most challenging with intellectual of all of us.

Why we do not try to start with a real challenge is very close and are the focus of interest of the human science: it is a matter of mass and grain Higg boson of the standard model.

Knowledge and belief reasoning of you will to express an opinion on this matter:

You have think that: the Mass is the expression of the impact force to material - so no impact force, we do not feel the Higg boson - similar to the case of no weight outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Does there need to be a particle with mass for everything have volume? If so, then why the mass of everything change when moving from the Earth to the Moon? Higg boson is lighter by the Moon's gravity is weaker than of Earth?

The LHC particle accelerator used to "Smashed" until "Ejected" Higg boson, but why only when the "Smashed" can see it,and when off then not see it ?

Can be "locked" Higg particles? so when "released" if we do not force to it by any the Force, how to know that it is "out" or not?

You are should be boldly to give a definition of weight that you think is right for us to enjoy, or oppose my opinion.

Because in the process of research, the value of "failure" or "success" is the similar with science. The purpose of a correct theory be must is without any a wrong point ?

Glad to see from you comments soon,because still have too many of the same problems.

Regard !

Hải.Caohoàng of THE INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS AND A CORRECT THEORY

August 23, 2012 - 11:51 GMT on this essay contest.

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Dear Tanmay,

I hope you will find the essay on true nature of our self (singularity) resonate with your ideas. Infact we will all have to go through a black hole (death of the ego) to attain the singularity of our true self (immortality or nirvana or enlightenment).

Conscience is the cosmological constant.

Love,

Sridattadev.

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Dear Tanmay,

I hope you will find the essay on true nature of our self (singularity) resonate with your ideas. Infact we will all have to go through a black hole (death of the ego) to attain the singularity of our true self (immortality or nirvana or enlightenment).

Conscience is the cosmological constant.

Love,

Sridattadev.

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Dear Tanmay:

I enjoyed reading your well-written and intuitive essay describing the observer paradox in GR and QM as it relates to black holes.

Then, you state that – “…For the purposes of a physical theory, it is sufficient to describe gravitational collapse from the external point of view, just as we are able to describe our physical world regardless of Heaven or Hell. The...

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Dear Tanmay:

I enjoyed reading your well-written and intuitive essay describing the observer paradox in GR and QM as it relates to black holes.

Then, you state that – “…For the purposes of a physical theory, it is sufficient to describe gravitational collapse from the external point of view, just as we are able to describe our physical world regardless of Heaven or Hell. The infalling observer’s description is irrelevant for a physical theory; the asymptotic observer is a preferred observer.“

My paper -“ From Absurd to Elegant Universe” provides answers to the questions you raise and forwards a mathematical model of the universe that resolves many of the QM and GR related paradoxes – dark energy, dark matter, black hole and cosmic horizons, observer paradox, bubble or baby universes, fundamental particles/strings etc. These are shown to be mere artifacts of the missing physics (from the current theories QM and GR ) of spontaneous particle decay or evaporation that also simulates the black hole evaporation. It also demonstrates that the observed classical, quantum, and universe behavior can be explained via physical theory independent of the observer’s description.

The holistic model also successfully predicts the observed data at all scales from below Planck scale to beyond cosmological scales. The holistic model also explains the inner workings of QM and eliminates its paradoxes and inconsistencies with relativity. It also vindicates that time is not a fundamental entity since the observed universe and galactic expansion can be predicted without any explicit consideration of a cosmic time.

I would greatly appreciate your comments on my paper. You can contact me at avsingh@alum.mit.edu.

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

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Dr. Vachaspati,

Hi. I think your essay was good because it considered how different observers would view the same thing, a point that I don't see discussed much. Since I'm not a physicist, I can't say I totally understood your essay, but my two comments are:

1. If I understood it correctly, it sounded like you're saying that in developing our theories, we should view things...

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Dr. Vachaspati,

Hi. I think your essay was good because it considered how different observers would view the same thing, a point that I don't see discussed much. Since I'm not a physicist, I can't say I totally understood your essay, but my two comments are:

1. If I understood it correctly, it sounded like you're saying that in developing our theories, we should view things from a particular, preferred, observer's reference frame, like the asymptotic observer in the black hole example. While this sounds reasonable, it would also seem worthwhile to try and develop a theory of how the non-preferred observer (e.g., the infalling observer in the black hole example) would see phenomena. The reason for this being that while the non-preferred, infalling, observer's theory may not be useful to us in describing a particular phenomena like a black hole, maybe we are the non-preferred observers in other situations and may find the infalling observer's view of things relevant to the new situation?

2. In the last FQXi essay, I tried to point out how two different observers might view an infinite set of identical balls expanding out in all directions. An observer with the same size scale as the balls and that is inside the set (probably the preferred observer) would see it as a discrete space made of finite sized units. A hypothetical, infinitely-sized observer (probably the non-preferred observer) outside the set would not be able to see the edges of the balls and would see the set as containing a continuous space. By thinking how each observer might view the set, we can apply these different views to other situations where we may not be the preferred observer.

More on this is at:

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet
/infinite-sets-ii

Anyways, nice essay! Thanks.

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Dear Dr. Vachaspati,

Let me call your attention, very politely (so that you could be so kind as not to delete my comment), to an observer who measures VARIABLE speed of the light waves:

Professor Carl Mungan: "Consider the case where the observer moves toward the source. In this case, the observer is rushing head-long into the wavefronts, so that we expect v'>v. In fact, the wave...

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Dear Dr. Vachaspati,

Let me call your attention, very politely (so that you could be so kind as not to delete my comment), to an observer who measures VARIABLE speed of the light waves:

Professor Carl Mungan: "Consider the case where the observer moves toward the source. In this case, the observer is rushing head-long into the wavefronts, so that we expect v'>v. In fact, the wave speed is simply increased by the observer speed, as we can see by jumping into the observer's frame of reference. Thus, v'=v+v_o=v(1+v_o/v). Finally, the frequency must increase by exactly the same factor as the wave speed increased, in order to ensure that L'=L -> v'/f'=v/f. Putting everything together, we thus have: OBSERVER MOVING TOWARD SOURCE: L'=L; f'=f(1+v_o/v); v'=v+v_o."

Professor Sidney Redner: "The Doppler effect is the shift in frequency of a wave that occurs when the wave source, or the detector of the wave, is moving. Applications of the Doppler effect range from medical tests using ultrasound to radar detectors and astronomy (with electromagnetic waves). (...) We will focus on sound waves in describing the Doppler effect, but it works for other waves too. (...) Let's say you, the observer, now move toward the source with velocity vO. You encounter more waves per unit time than you did before. Relative to you, the waves travel at a higher speed: v'=v+vO. The frequency of the waves you detect is higher, and is given by: f'=v'/(lambda)=(v+vO)/(lambda)."

Does the observer moving towards the source deserve special mention, dear Dr. Vachaspati? Is special relativity in danger?

Sincerely yours, Pentcho Valev

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Dear Tanmay:

Thank you for your essay. I'm sorry that I missed it before, but I'm really glad now that I've read it. I agree with you about black stars, and I think that taking accurate and consistent account of descriptions according to preferred observers will provide the correct path to a quantum theory of gravity. As such, I particularly liked and agreed with your paragraph that begins...

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Dear Tanmay:

Thank you for your essay. I'm sorry that I missed it before, but I'm really glad now that I've read it. I agree with you about black stars, and I think that taking accurate and consistent account of descriptions according to preferred observers will provide the correct path to a quantum theory of gravity. As such, I particularly liked and agreed with your paragraph that begins ``Just as Newton's first law defines inertial frames...''. I think the analogy to Newton's first and second laws is appropriate. Special relativity theory does retain the special status of *all* inertial observers that was given in Newton's theory, which, together with the light postulate, leads to such effects as the relativity of simultaneity and block space-time. In contrast, I think that for reasons of causal coherence, similar to the ``networking'' you've described in your essay, the right ``first law'' for quantum gravity should distinguish a particular set of inertial observers as preferred, whose clocks all measure a Cosmic time. In my essay, I've described how special relativity would need to be re-interpreted within this context, but the interpretation of the theory that I've drawn there should extend to general solutions in a way that is, I think, entirely relevant to your argument here. I sincerely hope you'll read my essay, because there's so much that I'd like to discuss with you.

In hopes that you do, I'll add two paragraphs to briefly describe my thoughts. Given a three-dimensional universe that endures with absolute cosmic time (as relativity theory can be interpreted to describe in many solutions), a black hole cannot be said to be created through gravitational collapse through the Schwarzschild (coordinate) singularity, r_Sch, in finite cosmic time. In the Schwarzschild solution, an observer at r=infty should measure cosmic time there, and for that reason I think it's already wrong to conclude that particles can cross r_Sch in finite cosmic time. Now, while I think slices of constant Schwarzschild t should not be constant cosmic time slices, but that t should only describe cosmic time at r=infty (my reason should hopefully become clear below), thinking of them as such proves quite illustrative. Please consider an Eddington-Finkelstein diagram, interpreted so that slices of constant *Schwarzschild* t describe the universe outside a spherical star at values of constant cosmic time. This means that an event at r_1>r_Sch is said to occur ``simultaneously'' with an event at r_2>r_Sch if they both lie on the slice t=const.---and this, even though they are not ``synchronous'' in Eddington-Finkelstein coordinates; i.e., they don't occur at the same value of the timelike coordinate in this frame. Commonly, one used to interpret the infall of a body in this frame in the following way: one observer leaves another at some r_O>r_Sch and heads towards the black hole while the other remains fixed at r_O. At some finite time the infalling observer crosses r_Sch, and eventually reaches the singularity at r=0, while the outside observer remains forever at r_O. This description assumes that in this frame everything ``happens'' along the horizontal ``synchronous'' slices in the diagram. But if Schwarzschild t is interpreted as the absolute cosmic time everywhere, the description is very different: as the infalling observer approaches r_Sch, both he and his friend evolve coherently along slices of Schwarzschild t, so that eventually, when he reaches r_Sch, his friend is not ``beside'' him, at the same value of Eddington-Finkelstein time, but is himself at t=infty. Whatever happens after that, happens after the end of t.

I think there is an analogous consideration to be made in the case of de Sitter space. Please consider the two figures I've attached below, which illustrate statical coordinates of de Sitter space, from r=-r_h to r=+r_h (where r_h is the horizon radius; the radial coordinate r is actually imaginary beyond r_h), on a two-dimensional slice of de Sitter space in 3D Minkowski space. Slices of constant t are drawn in black and worldlines of constant r are drawn in red (please excuse my re-use of coordinates r and t in the statical line-element of de Sitter space). There are many different cosmological coordinations of de Sitter space that one may choose from, such as the line-element of the Steady State theory or the three-sphere that contracts to a finite radius and then expands, as I've mentioned in my essay---but the statical coordinates do not describe a cosmological model. Even so, a clock at the geodesic at r=0 in these coordinates does measure cosmic time. So let's consider the universe (the enduring three-sphere) that's described by the coherent bundle of similar geodesics around the hyperboloid: from the perspective of the observer at r=0 who uses statical de Sitter coordinates (r and t) to describe local space-time, other comoving cosmological geodesics *enter* the patch described by those coordinates at some *finite negative cosmic time* (i.e., finite negative T in the line-element given in Eq. (3) in my essay) at t=-infty. These geodesics move inwards along r until T=0, and then move outwards, eventually crossing the null line t=+infty at *finite positive cosmic time*. When this happens, they cross a causal horizon, and will never again be able to communicate with the observer at r=0. Even so, there is a very important point:---no timelike worldline that intersects r less than r_h at any t can ever cross the coordinate singularity r=r_h which lies at the intersection of two null lines connected to the central observer at T=-infty and T=+infty. It's inconsistent to interpret particles that cross the cosmological event horizon in this solution as crossing r=r_h, and moving out along r faster than the speed of light. In fact, the coordinate r loses all meaning at r=r_h, where it becomes imaginary.

For similar reasons, I think it's got to be wrong to describe the r-coordinate in Schwarzschild's solution as continuously real across the coordinate singularity, r_Sch, and thus describe that as an event horizon. Analogous to the statical de Sitter line-element, Schwarzschild's solution is given with respect to the asymptotic observer, who measures cosmic time, and who can never see anything that exists beyond r=r_Sch. And just as in the case of de Sitter space, I think it's wrong to say that any timelike observer can move in the r direction and actually reach r_Sch.

By the way, someone went through the top-rated essays while I was writing this and gave us all scores of 1. I've just given your essay a deserving rating in hopes of combatting that. I hope you'll consider rating my essay too, if you manage to read it in time. I haven't discussed its content here, but something of a consequence of the description of time I've argued for in the third section.

Best of luck,

Daryl

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