If you are aware of an interesting new academic paper (that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or has appeared on the arXiv), a conference talk (at an official professional scientific meeting), an external blog post (by a professional scientist) or a news item (in the mainstream news media), which you think might make an interesting topic for an FQXi blog post, then please contact us at forums@fqxi.org with a link to the original source and a sentence about why you think that the work is worthy of discussion. Please note that we receive many such suggestions and while we endeavour to respond to them, we may not be able to reply to all suggestions.
Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.
Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.
Forum Home
Introduction
Terms of Use
RSS feed | RSS help
Introduction
Terms of Use
Posts by the author are highlighted in orange; posts by FQXi Members are highlighted in blue.
By using the FQXi Forum, you acknowledge reading and agree to abide by the Terms of Use RSS feed | RSS help
RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC
DURGA DATTA.: on 6/30/16 at 11:29am UTC, wrote Let us imagine a fish in a pond . The fish can see the grass roots rotating...
John Merryman: on 11/3/13 at 16:36pm UTC, wrote Barry, "Like pixels on a TV screen, the atoms interact to create the...
Barry Weprin, Richmond CA: on 11/2/13 at 23:21pm UTC, wrote Does time exist because the universe is being created moment to moment by...
John Merryman: on 10/23/13 at 11:10am UTC, wrote David, The problem is time is an effect of change, not the cause of it....
David Barnett: on 10/23/13 at 10:48am UTC, wrote The equations of Quantum Mechanics are time symmetric [if you are pedantic,...
John Merryman: on 10/15/13 at 23:31pm UTC, wrote Jim, I think the effect of being awake is that it focuses our...
Jim Snowdon: on 10/15/13 at 22:33pm UTC, wrote John, Our reality is a spinning planet. The Earth`s...
John Merryman: on 9/26/13 at 3:12am UTC, wrote Jim, Though what limits us, also defines us. Take away all biases, lens,...
DURGA DATTA.: on 6/30/16 at 11:29am UTC, wrote Let us imagine a fish in a pond . The fish can see the grass roots rotating...
John Merryman: on 11/3/13 at 16:36pm UTC, wrote Barry, "Like pixels on a TV screen, the atoms interact to create the...
Barry Weprin, Richmond CA: on 11/2/13 at 23:21pm UTC, wrote Does time exist because the universe is being created moment to moment by...
John Merryman: on 10/23/13 at 11:10am UTC, wrote David, The problem is time is an effect of change, not the cause of it....
David Barnett: on 10/23/13 at 10:48am UTC, wrote The equations of Quantum Mechanics are time symmetric [if you are pedantic,...
John Merryman: on 10/15/13 at 23:31pm UTC, wrote Jim, I think the effect of being awake is that it focuses our...
Jim Snowdon: on 10/15/13 at 22:33pm UTC, wrote John, Our reality is a spinning planet. The Earth`s...
John Merryman: on 9/26/13 at 3:12am UTC, wrote Jim, Though what limits us, also defines us. Take away all biases, lens,...
FQXi FORUM
May 21, 2022
Here is abstract from the Nature Communications paper:
"The idea that events obey a definite causal order is deeply rooted in our understanding of the world and at the basis of the very notion of time. But where does causal order come from, and is it a necessary property of nature? Here, we address these questions from the standpoint of quantum mechanics in a new framework for multipartite correlations that does not assume a pre-defined global causal structure but only the validity of quantum mechanics locally. All known situations that respect causal order, including space-like and time-like separated experiments, are captured by this framework in a unified way. Surprisingly, we find correlations that cannot be understood in terms of definite causal order. These correlations violate a 'causal inequality' that is satisfied by all space-like and time-like correlations. We further show that in a classical limit causal order always arises, which suggests that space-time may emerge from a more fundamental structure in a quantum-to-classical transition."
Here is a link to the actual paper: Quantum correlations with no causal order
The most important point is that a causal order (and time as we know it) emerge in the classical limit. Ideas which actually provide insight into how what we call time arises are of great interest.
report post as inappropriate
"The idea that events obey a definite causal order is deeply rooted in our understanding of the world and at the basis of the very notion of time. But where does causal order come from, and is it a necessary property of nature? Here, we address these questions from the standpoint of quantum mechanics in a new framework for multipartite correlations that does not assume a pre-defined global causal structure but only the validity of quantum mechanics locally. All known situations that respect causal order, including space-like and time-like separated experiments, are captured by this framework in a unified way. Surprisingly, we find correlations that cannot be understood in terms of definite causal order. These correlations violate a 'causal inequality' that is satisfied by all space-like and time-like correlations. We further show that in a classical limit causal order always arises, which suggests that space-time may emerge from a more fundamental structure in a quantum-to-classical transition."
Here is a link to the actual paper: Quantum correlations with no causal order
The most important point is that a causal order (and time as we know it) emerge in the classical limit. Ideas which actually provide insight into how what we call time arises are of great interest.
Fred,
If we think of time not as a linear progression from past to future, but change causing future to become past, it does make a lot more sense. Then time is not a factor, but an effect.
Cause and effect is not sequence, but energy transfer. Yesterday doesn't cause today, rather light shining on a spinning planet causes events called days and they go from being in the future to being in the past. In this sea of energy, there are myriad relations and how we subjectively interact within them does affect our perceptions of ordering.
report post as inappropriate
If we think of time not as a linear progression from past to future, but change causing future to become past, it does make a lot more sense. Then time is not a factor, but an effect.
Cause and effect is not sequence, but energy transfer. Yesterday doesn't cause today, rather light shining on a spinning planet causes events called days and they go from being in the future to being in the past. In this sea of energy, there are myriad relations and how we subjectively interact within them does affect our perceptions of ordering.
The interior region of a Kerr-Newman black hole permits closed timelike curves. This region might be a mathematical fiction though, for the interior horizon that bounds this region exhibits a UV divergence. The breakdown of causal order does occur in general relativity where the curvature of spacetime is so large that a region can in effect curl up on itself. The ambiguity over whether event X is prior to Y or visa versa occurs classically for events X and Y on a spacelike interval. An observer on one frame can observe a different ordering of these events. These events though do not have a causal relationship, or at least field propagators and other constructions do not permit this to be causal.
My essay proposes how three causally linked events in one null direction can have an ambiquity with respect to which can communicate to the other along another null direction if an event horizon is present. This is not quite the same physics proposed here, but does appear related.
LC
report post as inappropriate
report post as inappropriate
My essay proposes how three causally linked events in one null direction can have an ambiquity with respect to which can communicate to the other along another null direction if an event horizon is present. This is not quite the same physics proposed here, but does appear related.
LC
Hi Lawrence,
Check out my new blog: http://fmoldove.blogspot.com/ I'll slowly introduce a new QM interpretation based on my QM reconstruction result: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.3935
Florin
report post as inappropriate
Check out my new blog: http://fmoldove.blogspot.com/ I'll slowly introduce a new QM interpretation based on my QM reconstruction result: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.3935
Florin
Florin,
This all looks interesting. Your paper is a somewhat more formal version of what Vic Stenger does. He has a number of popular books out and I believe in the supplementary section of his book “Quantum Gods,” a book that kicks against quantum quackery and mystical mumbo jumbo based on QM, he has a derivation that is similar to the start of your paper.
I am not a big...
view entire post
This all looks interesting. Your paper is a somewhat more formal version of what Vic Stenger does. He has a number of popular books out and I believe in the supplementary section of his book “Quantum Gods,” a book that kicks against quantum quackery and mystical mumbo jumbo based on QM, he has a derivation that is similar to the start of your paper.
I am not a big...
view entire post
Lawrence,
I do not propose MWI but a similar idea. To make it airtight I need to solve 3 technical problems one of which requires deeper advances into the infinite dimensional case updating the Grothendieck group to a Hopf algebra and this is highly nontrivial. Another one is deriving Born's rule but I think I have a very good handle on it.
In the end I hope to show how QM is fully intuitive and follows from very natural physical postulates. I am also expanding QM beyond C* algebras into the Hilbert modules territory and I hope to arrive at the Standard Model in Connes' formulation in a very natural way.
I am looking forward to your comments, but in a few days I will be going on vacation overseas with probably spotty internet access and I will not be able to reply right away or write new posts for my blog (I'll be back middle of July).
Best,
Florin
report post as inappropriate
I do not propose MWI but a similar idea. To make it airtight I need to solve 3 technical problems one of which requires deeper advances into the infinite dimensional case updating the Grothendieck group to a Hopf algebra and this is highly nontrivial. Another one is deriving Born's rule but I think I have a very good handle on it.
In the end I hope to show how QM is fully intuitive and follows from very natural physical postulates. I am also expanding QM beyond C* algebras into the Hilbert modules territory and I hope to arrive at the Standard Model in Connes' formulation in a very natural way.
I am looking forward to your comments, but in a few days I will be going on vacation overseas with probably spotty internet access and I will not be able to reply right away or write new posts for my blog (I'll be back middle of July).
Best,
Florin
While the scientific community dismisses quantum interpretations as "quantum mumbo jumbo", one must remember that scientists are fallable and are capable of misunderstanding nature. The two slit experiement continues to baffle science; the big bang appears to have come from nothingness (according to science). Furthermore, the wave-function which appears to be connected to particles (bosons/fermions) and geometry (two slit diffraction), yet is ignored because we can't measure it. But does that truly mean it does not exist? I would say doubtful.
It is more likely that the big bang came from a very special type of nothingness. A nothingness very similar to wave-functions (in that we can't detect it) yet is quite capable of manifesting a big bang.
I think this is an inescapable conclusion.
report post as inappropriate
It is more likely that the big bang came from a very special type of nothingness. A nothingness very similar to wave-functions (in that we can't detect it) yet is quite capable of manifesting a big bang.
I think this is an inescapable conclusion.
A big bang from nothingness is a sure bet that there is a lot more that we can't see or measure. There is a lot more to the universe and the laws of physics that is beyond our reach.
report post as inappropriate
Jason,
Just as a thought experiment, what if the something from nothing is just quantum fluctuations in areas where there is very little of anything. Thus it would occur most often in intergalactic space, creating the effect of expanding space. Since this is balanced by gravity, gravity is the corresponding collapse of this fluctuation. Since we can only detect light that travels between galaxies, the light from the most distant galaxies travels across this positive fluctuation, creating the impression of expansion, but we neglect to add the contraction of gravity that keeps space overall flat.
Just a thought experiment, but one which doesn't need inflation or dark energy, or possibly even dark matter.
report post as inappropriate
Just as a thought experiment, what if the something from nothing is just quantum fluctuations in areas where there is very little of anything. Thus it would occur most often in intergalactic space, creating the effect of expanding space. Since this is balanced by gravity, gravity is the corresponding collapse of this fluctuation. Since we can only detect light that travels between galaxies, the light from the most distant galaxies travels across this positive fluctuation, creating the impression of expansion, but we neglect to add the contraction of gravity that keeps space overall flat.
Just a thought experiment, but one which doesn't need inflation or dark energy, or possibly even dark matter.
John,
I take Hubble redshift at face value. In other words, I believe that photons really do redshift as a linear function of how far away their source is. I interpret the cause differently than the text books. I assume the vacuum of space is filled with wave-functions (existent things). I think that photons travel along these wave-functions. Since the big bang was an outward explosion, I'm not surprised that galaxies are still moving away from one another. This ocean of wave-functions has to compensate for the expansion of the universe (universe getting bigger). It does so by elongating all of the wave-functions in the quantum vacuum (increasing their wavelength). That's how I look at it.
report post as inappropriate
I take Hubble redshift at face value. In other words, I believe that photons really do redshift as a linear function of how far away their source is. I interpret the cause differently than the text books. I assume the vacuum of space is filled with wave-functions (existent things). I think that photons travel along these wave-functions. Since the big bang was an outward explosion, I'm not surprised that galaxies are still moving away from one another. This ocean of wave-functions has to compensate for the expansion of the universe (universe getting bigger). It does so by elongating all of the wave-functions in the quantum vacuum (increasing their wavelength). That's how I look at it.
Florin,
I happen to be working at the moment on a cobordism between subspraces with knots that form a portion of a subchain of a manifold. This is Grothendiek's theory of categories and groups. The subchains are knots, and in the Jones polynomial defines Hopf links.
Spacetime has within it all quantum field theoretic data when curvature is present.
Cheers LC
report post as inappropriate
I happen to be working at the moment on a cobordism between subspraces with knots that form a portion of a subchain of a manifold. This is Grothendiek's theory of categories and groups. The subchains are knots, and in the Jones polynomial defines Hopf links.
Spacetime has within it all quantum field theoretic data when curvature is present.
Cheers LC
"For instance, if you input 1, 2 and 3 into the box and get out 3, 5 and 7, you could calculate that the box multiplies by 2 and adds one."
This assumed result highlights one of the problems with experimental mathematics. The black box might just as well interpret {1,2,3} as the set {6} and output {3,5,7} as the set {15}, implying 2{X} + 3.
Classical arithmetic rational functions do not necessarily apply to the behavior of linear superposition.
Tom
report post as inappropriate
This assumed result highlights one of the problems with experimental mathematics. The black box might just as well interpret {1,2,3} as the set {6} and output {3,5,7} as the set {15}, implying 2{X} + 3.
Classical arithmetic rational functions do not necessarily apply to the behavior of linear superposition.
Tom
"A key idea to achieve such a situation involves the fact that quantum mechanics allows objects to exist in superposition, so that they can be in two or more contradictory states simultaneously;"
QM does not *allow* objects to exist in a superposition, or otherwise. Objects exist however they exist, irregardless of the existence of the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. QM merely *describes* objects as existing in a superposition. However, the fact that such descriptions are both possible and accurate, does not imply that the objects actual exist as a superposition. Superposition is merely a sufficient description, but it has never been demonstrated to be a necessary one, or that objects actually exist in a superposition.
Rob McEachern
report post as inappropriate
QM does not *allow* objects to exist in a superposition, or otherwise. Objects exist however they exist, irregardless of the existence of the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. QM merely *describes* objects as existing in a superposition. However, the fact that such descriptions are both possible and accurate, does not imply that the objects actual exist as a superposition. Superposition is merely a sufficient description, but it has never been demonstrated to be a necessary one, or that objects actually exist in a superposition.
Rob McEachern
Dear Rob,
I appreciate your intention to reveal the mistake behind the maneuver. Yes, a description that does allow something impossible might be simply wrong or at least incomplete. Let's investigate in all directions. I see a plausible flaw in the lazy convention of current mathematics to superimpose the limit from the right and the limit from the left to the middle value of both values. Look at Fig. 3 of my previous essay .
Xour ally,
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
I appreciate your intention to reveal the mistake behind the maneuver. Yes, a description that does allow something impossible might be simply wrong or at least incomplete. Let's investigate in all directions. I see a plausible flaw in the lazy convention of current mathematics to superimpose the limit from the right and the limit from the left to the middle value of both values. Look at Fig. 3 of my previous essay .
Xour ally,
Eckard
Thank you for a great article -
Article excerpt and CIG commentary:
It’s well established that the physical aspects of quantum experiments, such as a particle’s position or momentum, are not well defined before they are measured. (CIG commentary : that is because they are literally in their spatial state; MTS)
A key idea to achieve such a situation involves the fact that...
view entire post
Article excerpt and CIG commentary:
It’s well established that the physical aspects of quantum experiments, such as a particle’s position or momentum, are not well defined before they are measured. (CIG commentary : that is because they are literally in their spatial state; MTS)
A key idea to achieve such a situation involves the fact that...
view entire post
CIG Commentary: Time ticking is rate dependent. Matter turns to space; space turns to matter; In between is Dark Matter and Dark Energy; Standard Model, etc. etc. All explained rather simply.
CIG is a quantum gravity theory.
Pure gravity = black hole = zero rate = M side of equation = full curvature
(spacetime has turned into the black hole)
Vacuum energy = pure space = "c" travel = S side of equation = no curvature
[Matter (black hole) has turned into open spacetime with little curvature]
The matter is the spacetime.
CIG offers the material quantification (CUPI) as well.
MTS (where M = matter (mass), T = % "c" and allowable in both forward /reverse vector time (I believe I set forward vecor time arbitrarily as zero to "c"), and S = space)
The fabric of spacetime varies, fully curved at rate zero. Here then, quantum meets classical.
RT = D not true: Duration (RT) + CIG (new space & I want my equation!) = true distance equation
Excerpt:
A successful theory of quantum gravity would merge quantum theory with Einstein’s theory of general relativity to describe every interaction in the universe that we know about, from the subatomic scale to the cosmological. One of the biggest obstacles has been that general relativity and quantum mechanics treat time very differently. In the former theory, time is another dimension alongside space and can bend and stretch, speed up and slow down, in different circumstances. Quantum theories, however, usually assume that time is set apart from space and ticks at a set rate. Theories of indefinite causality tackle this mismatch head-on, by questioning what time is at a fundamental level.
END EXCERPT
Peter - too late for this essay. I'll try and get a jump start on the next.
I think I can actually get by the forms & rules. It won't be essay though.
Hope all is well!
Fireworks = many Big Bangs = newly created space = CIG Theory at work
THX
doug
report post as inappropriate
CIG is a quantum gravity theory.
Pure gravity = black hole = zero rate = M side of equation = full curvature
(spacetime has turned into the black hole)
Vacuum energy = pure space = "c" travel = S side of equation = no curvature
[Matter (black hole) has turned into open spacetime with little curvature]
The matter is the spacetime.
CIG offers the material quantification (CUPI) as well.
MTS (where M = matter (mass), T = % "c" and allowable in both forward /reverse vector time (I believe I set forward vecor time arbitrarily as zero to "c"), and S = space)
The fabric of spacetime varies, fully curved at rate zero. Here then, quantum meets classical.
RT = D not true: Duration (RT) + CIG (new space & I want my equation!) = true distance equation
Excerpt:
A successful theory of quantum gravity would merge quantum theory with Einstein’s theory of general relativity to describe every interaction in the universe that we know about, from the subatomic scale to the cosmological. One of the biggest obstacles has been that general relativity and quantum mechanics treat time very differently. In the former theory, time is another dimension alongside space and can bend and stretch, speed up and slow down, in different circumstances. Quantum theories, however, usually assume that time is set apart from space and ticks at a set rate. Theories of indefinite causality tackle this mismatch head-on, by questioning what time is at a fundamental level.
END EXCERPT
Peter - too late for this essay. I'll try and get a jump start on the next.
I think I can actually get by the forms & rules. It won't be essay though.
Hope all is well!
Fireworks = many Big Bangs = newly created space = CIG Theory at work
THX
doug
My equation: MTS
Transfers mass to spatial volume.
In accordance with: 1u (atomic mass unit) = 541,380,958.7 pico meters cubed of space
Offers the full spectrum of matter/space: black hole to space
In between is dark matter, standard model, dark energy, etc. etc.
Works on the very small quantum scale, and the galactic as well.
T = time = % "c"
M = mass (matter)
S = Space (vacuum energy)
spacetime, time, space, mass, energy, matter, dark mtter, dark energy, standard model, electrons, protons, etc. all rolled into one equation
Explains: dark matter, dark energy, double slit, complimentarity, horizon problem, red shift, expanding universe, and much more
MTS : an active equation
I'm having a little problem fitting in the electromagnetic spectrum into the picture. Any ideas?
I realize it travels at "c" and so offers up space (wavelength ?), but how does amplitude and density (frequency ?) fit into the MTS equation ?
Any guidance would be appreciated. Question to the community: Please respond by offering a non-mathematical offer of reality as regards how CIG may interpret the electromagnetic spectrum. I have some ideas but they need clarification.
Thanks Aunt Bee
This is Mayberry isn't it?
THX
doug
report post as inappropriate
Transfers mass to spatial volume.
In accordance with: 1u (atomic mass unit) = 541,380,958.7 pico meters cubed of space
Offers the full spectrum of matter/space: black hole to space
In between is dark matter, standard model, dark energy, etc. etc.
Works on the very small quantum scale, and the galactic as well.
T = time = % "c"
M = mass (matter)
S = Space (vacuum energy)
spacetime, time, space, mass, energy, matter, dark mtter, dark energy, standard model, electrons, protons, etc. all rolled into one equation
Explains: dark matter, dark energy, double slit, complimentarity, horizon problem, red shift, expanding universe, and much more
MTS : an active equation
I'm having a little problem fitting in the electromagnetic spectrum into the picture. Any ideas?
I realize it travels at "c" and so offers up space (wavelength ?), but how does amplitude and density (frequency ?) fit into the MTS equation ?
Any guidance would be appreciated. Question to the community: Please respond by offering a non-mathematical offer of reality as regards how CIG may interpret the electromagnetic spectrum. I have some ideas but they need clarification.
Thanks Aunt Bee
This is Mayberry isn't it?
THX
doug
Speaking of blurring cause and effect - I'll address the subject "Human involvement in the retrocausality of gravity, electromagnetism and matter".
The gravitational waves of space could have a frequency even greater than gamma rays (This is because nearly all of gravitation’s energy goes into the “organized energy” forming a particle, which then re-emits some of that energy at...
view entire post
The gravitational waves of space could have a frequency even greater than gamma rays (This is because nearly all of gravitation’s energy goes into the “organized energy” forming a particle, which then re-emits some of that energy at...
view entire post
Excellant article!
The topic of which I have a personal stake in by conducting a 12 year experiment which I have recently concluded. The second application of these findings I used as the basis of my 'It form bit' essay entry.
I find it curious how we insist upon understanding nature from our perspective of second cause which I term as effectual causality, i.e., how observed or measured effects cause effects.
Food for thought:
Why is it that there has never been, or ever will be, an experiment conducted without a selection event first taking place? Yet the study of physics postulates its principles as fundamental based on a methodology which ignores first cause?
I find such a core contradiction most puzzling. What I find even more puzzling is why partitioners of the art do not? Perhaps John Archibald Wheeler put the situation at hand in proper context when he stated, " . . . we will grasp the central idea of it all as so simple, so beautiful, so compelling that we will all say each to the other, 'Oh, how could it have been otherwise! How could we all have been so blind for so long!'"
Manuel
report post as inappropriate
The topic of which I have a personal stake in by conducting a 12 year experiment which I have recently concluded. The second application of these findings I used as the basis of my 'It form bit' essay entry.
I find it curious how we insist upon understanding nature from our perspective of second cause which I term as effectual causality, i.e., how observed or measured effects cause effects.
Food for thought:
Why is it that there has never been, or ever will be, an experiment conducted without a selection event first taking place? Yet the study of physics postulates its principles as fundamental based on a methodology which ignores first cause?
I find such a core contradiction most puzzling. What I find even more puzzling is why partitioners of the art do not? Perhaps John Archibald Wheeler put the situation at hand in proper context when he stated, " . . . we will grasp the central idea of it all as so simple, so beautiful, so compelling that we will all say each to the other, 'Oh, how could it have been otherwise! How could we all have been so blind for so long!'"
Manuel
Nature presented me a random example of quantum causal probability recently when I had shoveled almost a ton of no. 9 gravel onto my little old Gimmie p-u and spread it on the off street parking area allotted my eff. apt. so I would have about half to one inch of cover over bare clay for parking and a little pleasant "patio" under the trees at the back of the lot.
9's are smaller than pea gravel and not as uniform in size and tend to be flatish. When soil is wet they tend to float to the top as the mud finally dries. Walking on such skim cover is like a fine pebbled beach. They stay generally in place but are of course unstable. A couple weeks after application and able to sit and have a cigarette with my coffee ( I'm an old guy ) work on my truck and otherwise disturb the surface, I was sitting, sipping and licking my wounds while admiring the nonhomogeneous carpet of stone. There, three feet in front of me were seven tiny pebbles all in a line as if a child had arranged them at play. Smaller first of four left to right in ascending size and all flat and elongated, barely touching, then a tiny one roundish, then the longest oblong and the string ending with a large flat roundish pebble slightly less in diameter than the oblong.
Effectual causality? as Manuel Morales has just termed it. And yes, a second order effect. But of What?!
report post as inappropriate
9's are smaller than pea gravel and not as uniform in size and tend to be flatish. When soil is wet they tend to float to the top as the mud finally dries. Walking on such skim cover is like a fine pebbled beach. They stay generally in place but are of course unstable. A couple weeks after application and able to sit and have a cigarette with my coffee ( I'm an old guy ) work on my truck and otherwise disturb the surface, I was sitting, sipping and licking my wounds while admiring the nonhomogeneous carpet of stone. There, three feet in front of me were seven tiny pebbles all in a line as if a child had arranged them at play. Smaller first of four left to right in ascending size and all flat and elongated, barely touching, then a tiny one roundish, then the longest oblong and the string ending with a large flat roundish pebble slightly less in diameter than the oblong.
Effectual causality? as Manuel Morales has just termed it. And yes, a second order effect. But of What?!
OOPS. I neglected to note that in the random arrangement of pebbles the long axis of the oblongs were all perpendicular to the line of sequence, and though tiny in size it was visible that the centers of all pebbles were in close alignment. It was not as if the edge of a shoe had dragged them all into end to end alignment.
report post as inappropriate
Cheating the Causal Game.
I personally like causality. But causality is in most cases the wrong word to use because we mean only the ordering of events, some unrelated. This ordering is done by the observer. It has nothing to do with how the universe works by itself. Causality should be understood as a propagating driving force. Kick the ball! Light a match! But these examples...
view entire post
I personally like causality. But causality is in most cases the wrong word to use because we mean only the ordering of events, some unrelated. This ordering is done by the observer. It has nothing to do with how the universe works by itself. Causality should be understood as a propagating driving force. Kick the ball! Light a match! But these examples...
view entire post
Marvel,
Gravity is a curvature of more energy vs. less volume. Ideal gas laws as applied to mass. What if it is an effect of the electromagnetic attraction of electrons and protons en mass? As they start to attract positive and negative in bulk, it builds up energy, but it reduces volume. So gravity would not so much be a force in itself, rather the vacuum effect of opposite charges coming together to first create hydrogen atoms and then more complex chemistry. Consider that when you break the atom, it creates pressure, like a bomb. This pressure isn't considered a force in itself, but an effect of releasing the energy in the atom. So the opposite, getting the energy into the atom, would have a naturally opposite effect.
That way, you don't need gravitons and gravity waves, etc. And it models geometrically as a curve.
Regards,
John
report post as inappropriate
Gravity is a curvature of more energy vs. less volume. Ideal gas laws as applied to mass. What if it is an effect of the electromagnetic attraction of electrons and protons en mass? As they start to attract positive and negative in bulk, it builds up energy, but it reduces volume. So gravity would not so much be a force in itself, rather the vacuum effect of opposite charges coming together to first create hydrogen atoms and then more complex chemistry. Consider that when you break the atom, it creates pressure, like a bomb. This pressure isn't considered a force in itself, but an effect of releasing the energy in the atom. So the opposite, getting the energy into the atom, would have a naturally opposite effect.
That way, you don't need gravitons and gravity waves, etc. And it models geometrically as a curve.
Regards,
John
Marcel,
You wrote, " ... causality is in most cases the wrong word to use because we mean only the ordering of events, some unrelated. This ordering is done by the observer."
Yes, the ordering is done by the observer; however, an observer cannot order unrelated events. All events -- i.e., the interaction of physical influences within causal range of the observer, are related to the observer. Events that are timelike separated are not related to each other, yet the observables are always related to the observer ("All physics is local," according to Einstein's relativity).
"It has nothing to do with how the universe works by itself."
If physics is observer-dependent (which is true of both relativity and quantum mechanics) it has everything to do with how the universe works by itself. The question is whether the observer creates the universe by the act of observing (becomes entangled with the quantum wavefunction) or passively observes physical interactions. This is the problem that Joy Christian has solved, by explaining quantum correlations in a classical framework; the moon really is there when no one is looking.
"In a sense, something 'exists more' in one place if it stays there longer than anywhere else."
Not according to relativity. Anything with mass exists longer the faster it moves -- the truth of which which is borne out by experimental evidence; highly energetic cosmic ray particles (muons) live longer than their Earthbound cousins. Massless particles are always in "one place" -- the universe -- and not affected by time inetervals.
Tom
report post as inappropriate
You wrote, " ... causality is in most cases the wrong word to use because we mean only the ordering of events, some unrelated. This ordering is done by the observer."
Yes, the ordering is done by the observer; however, an observer cannot order unrelated events. All events -- i.e., the interaction of physical influences within causal range of the observer, are related to the observer. Events that are timelike separated are not related to each other, yet the observables are always related to the observer ("All physics is local," according to Einstein's relativity).
"It has nothing to do with how the universe works by itself."
If physics is observer-dependent (which is true of both relativity and quantum mechanics) it has everything to do with how the universe works by itself. The question is whether the observer creates the universe by the act of observing (becomes entangled with the quantum wavefunction) or passively observes physical interactions. This is the problem that Joy Christian has solved, by explaining quantum correlations in a classical framework; the moon really is there when no one is looking.
"In a sense, something 'exists more' in one place if it stays there longer than anywhere else."
Not according to relativity. Anything with mass exists longer the faster it moves -- the truth of which which is borne out by experimental evidence; highly energetic cosmic ray particles (muons) live longer than their Earthbound cousins. Massless particles are always in "one place" -- the universe -- and not affected by time inetervals.
Tom
Marcel-Marie LaBel
A splendid incite! Thank-you for your post on 8/25. Now if you can persuade the relationists to look inside the Glass Onion, the quants to pause dicing it, and the neo-classicists to understand that it is THE ABSORPTION LINES that Doppler shift! we might get on with solving the zero point particle problem.
report post as inappropriate
A splendid incite! Thank-you for your post on 8/25. Now if you can persuade the relationists to look inside the Glass Onion, the quants to pause dicing it, and the neo-classicists to understand that it is THE ABSORPTION LINES that Doppler shift! we might get on with solving the zero point particle problem.
Tom Ray,
I think you are missing the point of departure in Marcel's comments, in fact you are paraphrasing his criteria of deduction rather than direct observation.
Please look again, his insight (gad! incite! duhh) is nicely succinct and goes to relativistic time being essentially the prime mover in gravitational fields. The expression has the form of linear algebra rather than curvilinear geometry.
report post as inappropriate
I think you are missing the point of departure in Marcel's comments, in fact you are paraphrasing his criteria of deduction rather than direct observation.
Please look again, his insight (gad! incite! duhh) is nicely succinct and goes to relativistic time being essentially the prime mover in gravitational fields. The expression has the form of linear algebra rather than curvilinear geometry.
"The expression has the form of linear algebra rather than curvilinear geometry."
No difference between the two, John C., for a relativistic model. We know that space is mostly Euclidean and that curvilinear motion is constant. Some day, I am going to give up correcting the astounding lack of knowledge of people who continue to hold forth on relativity in this forum. Being the OC dyslexic I am, though, it's hard.
Tom
report post as inappropriate
No difference between the two, John C., for a relativistic model. We know that space is mostly Euclidean and that curvilinear motion is constant. Some day, I am going to give up correcting the astounding lack of knowledge of people who continue to hold forth on relativity in this forum. Being the OC dyslexic I am, though, it's hard.
Tom
That's what I said, Tom. "Rather than" not different from.
If you take a great circle arc from GR and roll it out flat on the workbench you have a linear function which is the same relationship. Like a common bi-metal spring with the same energy content as would be necessary to apply to straighten it out. What Marcel points to is a linear projection which would resemble a spiral in energy distribution instead of a continuous curve.
Further, e=mc^2 @ c. 'Infinite mass' is the math line of reason to explain the limit of acceleration to classical mechanics which does not have interconvertability of mass and energy. Relativisticly at light velocity mass is no longer mass to be 'infinite', its energy. Don't need that much education to understand that, Sheldon.
report post as inappropriate
If you take a great circle arc from GR and roll it out flat on the workbench you have a linear function which is the same relationship. Like a common bi-metal spring with the same energy content as would be necessary to apply to straighten it out. What Marcel points to is a linear projection which would resemble a spiral in energy distribution instead of a continuous curve.
Further, e=mc^2 @ c. 'Infinite mass' is the math line of reason to explain the limit of acceleration to classical mechanics which does not have interconvertability of mass and energy. Relativisticly at light velocity mass is no longer mass to be 'infinite', its energy. Don't need that much education to understand that, Sheldon.
John C,
From Marcel's post;
"But time, or more specifically its rate, is the cause for the ordering rather than just a silent metering partner."
What if time is not this primary cause, but is simply a form of measure? As I argued previously, the earth is not traveling some fourth dimensional Newtonian flow from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. Change creates time and time measures change.
Sequence is not causal, whether it's done by the observer, or by nature. Yesterday doesn't cause today. It is the sun shining on a spinning planet which causes this sequence of events called days. Just as one wave doesn't cause the next, but wind blowing across the water.
It is that we, as single points of perspective, experience action as an equally singular narrative and human civilization is largely a function of the fact we manage to remember the more notable experiences of that sequence of events. But the narrative and causality are only minimally related.
Contrary to Wheeler, causality is due to exchange of energy, rather than the descriptive qualities of information.
The issue then becomes how to explain gravity as something other than caused by a mathematical model in which the measure between events is somehow more foundational than the processes creating those events.
Regards,
john M
report post as inappropriate
From Marcel's post;
"But time, or more specifically its rate, is the cause for the ordering rather than just a silent metering partner."
What if time is not this primary cause, but is simply a form of measure? As I argued previously, the earth is not traveling some fourth dimensional Newtonian flow from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. Change creates time and time measures change.
Sequence is not causal, whether it's done by the observer, or by nature. Yesterday doesn't cause today. It is the sun shining on a spinning planet which causes this sequence of events called days. Just as one wave doesn't cause the next, but wind blowing across the water.
It is that we, as single points of perspective, experience action as an equally singular narrative and human civilization is largely a function of the fact we manage to remember the more notable experiences of that sequence of events. But the narrative and causality are only minimally related.
Contrary to Wheeler, causality is due to exchange of energy, rather than the descriptive qualities of information.
The issue then becomes how to explain gravity as something other than caused by a mathematical model in which the measure between events is somehow more foundational than the processes creating those events.
Regards,
john M
"Don't need that much education to understand that, Sheldon."
Well, I'm already in for a penny so I might as well be in for a pound. I'm afraid that one does need "that much education" to learn what the special and general theories of relativity allow and disallow, if one wishes to invoke those principles.
One of the disappointments in my years of participating in these FQXi forums, is that the affiliated experts -- some of them Nobel laureates at that -- stay away from the blog and forum discussions. It isn't hard to understand why -- once they give a proper explanation of solidly known physics, they are assaulted, bombarded, with all manner of nonsensical explanations for why "mainstream" physics has it all wrong. Who has time for that?
Although not a member of this group, Robert M. Wald is one such esteemed expert. I think the link evidences his talent as an educator as well -- he explains among other things, the common misapplication of linear algebra to general relativity. If I had my wish, every first year teacher of college physics would write his or her syllabus from Wald's outline, preferably for a two-semester course. At the top of his list of teaching resources is Einstein's classic, *Relativity: The Special and the General Theory*, which I have myself recommended several times in this forum. I deem it essential to understanding the more sophisticated material of Wald, Ellis, Hawking, Geroch, Thorne, et al.
Tom
report post as inappropriate
Well, I'm already in for a penny so I might as well be in for a pound. I'm afraid that one does need "that much education" to learn what the special and general theories of relativity allow and disallow, if one wishes to invoke those principles.
One of the disappointments in my years of participating in these FQXi forums, is that the affiliated experts -- some of them Nobel laureates at that -- stay away from the blog and forum discussions. It isn't hard to understand why -- once they give a proper explanation of solidly known physics, they are assaulted, bombarded, with all manner of nonsensical explanations for why "mainstream" physics has it all wrong. Who has time for that?
Although not a member of this group, Robert M. Wald is one such esteemed expert. I think the link evidences his talent as an educator as well -- he explains among other things, the common misapplication of linear algebra to general relativity. If I had my wish, every first year teacher of college physics would write his or her syllabus from Wald's outline, preferably for a two-semester course. At the top of his list of teaching resources is Einstein's classic, *Relativity: The Special and the General Theory*, which I have myself recommended several times in this forum. I deem it essential to understanding the more sophisticated material of Wald, Ellis, Hawking, Geroch, Thorne, et al.
Tom
Tom,
I, for one, am eternally grateful for your patience in taking the professional side of this argument. I can well understand why others in the field don't see it as worth the considerable time and effort. It is difficult to be in for a penny and not be in for a pound.
Only had the time to glance at that paper, as today is the day the child is to be dumped off at college.
I still see it as a situation where the intense focus has resulted in a form of myopia, to where some significant problems are being brushed aside, but eventually they will have to do a real bottom up review. If not this generation, then the next. As they say, change happens one funeral at a time. This amount of change might take a number of funerals.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
I, for one, am eternally grateful for your patience in taking the professional side of this argument. I can well understand why others in the field don't see it as worth the considerable time and effort. It is difficult to be in for a penny and not be in for a pound.
Only had the time to glance at that paper, as today is the day the child is to be dumped off at college.
I still see it as a situation where the intense focus has resulted in a form of myopia, to where some significant problems are being brushed aside, but eventually they will have to do a real bottom up review. If not this generation, then the next. As they say, change happens one funeral at a time. This amount of change might take a number of funerals.
Regards,
John M
Tom
Thanks for the link to Wald.
report post as inappropriate
Thanks for the link to Wald.
You're certainly welcome, John. It may be the least technical piece from Robert Wald that one will ever read. :-)
Tom
report post as inappropriate
Tom
I will have to read it. The country going to war again, as the financial crisis seems ready to heat back up, is diverting though.
report post as inappropriate
All
Perhaps it's in the more technical extensions that I'm not equipped to digest,
but in all my reading whether QM, S&GR, and Classic (Galilean to modern) I have never found a graphic representation of the structure of electromagnetic waveform, other than of Maxwell's equations plotted on perpendicular planes.
I think its important because without some physical structure I can't see how interference can occur in interferometers but not in spectrometers, and in mass spectrometry of distant sources the shift of absorption lines doesn't get filled in. Seems there would have to be a very distinct coherence. Any links?
Aristotilian logic yes, but please no neoclassic rays shooting out of my eyes.
report post as inappropriate
Perhaps it's in the more technical extensions that I'm not equipped to digest,
but in all my reading whether QM, S&GR, and Classic (Galilean to modern) I have never found a graphic representation of the structure of electromagnetic waveform, other than of Maxwell's equations plotted on perpendicular planes.
I think its important because without some physical structure I can't see how interference can occur in interferometers but not in spectrometers, and in mass spectrometry of distant sources the shift of absorption lines doesn't get filled in. Seems there would have to be a very distinct coherence. Any links?
Aristotilian logic yes, but please no neoclassic rays shooting out of my eyes.
Tom,
While I've only given the paper by Wald one compete read through and a little reviewing, a few points;
Most of it is an entirely reasonable description of how to mathematically model complex actions; curvatures, vectors, tensors, etc. But then it breaks from this and doesn't clarify how one gets to ideas like block time, black holes, singularities, etc.
So the only...
view entire post
While I've only given the paper by Wald one compete read through and a little reviewing, a few points;
Most of it is an entirely reasonable description of how to mathematically model complex actions; curvatures, vectors, tensors, etc. But then it breaks from this and doesn't clarify how one gets to ideas like block time, black holes, singularities, etc.
So the only...
view entire post
John,
I think Paul Davies is the best plain-language source to explain how physics treats time. The deep nature of time is still an open problem.
Best,
Tom
report post as inappropriate
I think Paul Davies is the best plain-language source to explain how physics treats time. The deep nature of time is still an open problem.
Best,
Tom
Tom,
If time is an open problem, then why are you so resistant to considering my observation that by primarily treating it as a measure of duration, physics only assumes and re-enforces the individual perception of a sequence from prior to succeeding events/past to future, rather than explore how these configurations come into being and are replaced/future becoming past, other than that I'm far less of a member of the club than you?
I realize it seems like an extremely trivial point, but that doesn't mean it and its consequences can't have been overlooked. If I throw a ball up in the air, knowing only the direction and momentum, where it lands can be fairly accurately predicted, but that doesn't have to mean the arc of its trajectory is somehow permanently etched in some eternal geometric configuration.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
If time is an open problem, then why are you so resistant to considering my observation that by primarily treating it as a measure of duration, physics only assumes and re-enforces the individual perception of a sequence from prior to succeeding events/past to future, rather than explore how these configurations come into being and are replaced/future becoming past, other than that I'm far less of a member of the club than you?
I realize it seems like an extremely trivial point, but that doesn't mean it and its consequences can't have been overlooked. If I throw a ball up in the air, knowing only the direction and momentum, where it lands can be fairly accurately predicted, but that doesn't have to mean the arc of its trajectory is somehow permanently etched in some eternal geometric configuration.
Regards,
John M
Considering that if I first spin around and then close my eyes before throwing it, the trajectory, according to QM, exists in some super position of all possible trajectories. ;-)
report post as inappropriate
It seems plausible to me that time is actually an emergent property, something we observe as a result of causal relationships. The trick is to think of casual relationships outside of a chronological ordering.
Imagine a universe that is vast but finite - both in terms of the smallest distance and in terms of the largest distance. Given that, it is possible to write down a diagram that represents a snapshot of all possible states of the universe as a big graph: each state is a node and the causal relationships between the states are edges.
There is no way to tell if two events that are not directly causally related to each other happen before or after each other. Nor is there any indication of how 'long' any state exists or how long it takes for one state to 'cause' another. It's just one big logical graph that shows the gigantic-but-finite web of relationships.
Given such a graph, if we make just two assumptions, I believe an arrow of time naturally emerges:
1. Every state must have at least one cause.
2. No state can participate in its own causation.
Setting aside the question of "where did the first state come from", it seems plausible to me that our perception of time is merely the way our minds interpret this web of causation. There is no 'before' or 'after', only causation.
It is tempting to think of two states that are directly causally related as having an ordering, but what if the 'caused' state has more than one 'causing' state? For example, if state C is caused by both state A and state B, perhaps we can infer that C occurs in some sense 'after' A and B. But can we infer that A and B are synchronous?
Anyway it is fun (at least for me) to think about, and it seems that causality is very deeply related to both time, and probably entropy as well. Could it be that both of those concepts are merely emergent phenomena from some deeper logical causal theory?
report post as inappropriate
Imagine a universe that is vast but finite - both in terms of the smallest distance and in terms of the largest distance. Given that, it is possible to write down a diagram that represents a snapshot of all possible states of the universe as a big graph: each state is a node and the causal relationships between the states are edges.
There is no way to tell if two events that are not directly causally related to each other happen before or after each other. Nor is there any indication of how 'long' any state exists or how long it takes for one state to 'cause' another. It's just one big logical graph that shows the gigantic-but-finite web of relationships.
Given such a graph, if we make just two assumptions, I believe an arrow of time naturally emerges:
1. Every state must have at least one cause.
2. No state can participate in its own causation.
Setting aside the question of "where did the first state come from", it seems plausible to me that our perception of time is merely the way our minds interpret this web of causation. There is no 'before' or 'after', only causation.
It is tempting to think of two states that are directly causally related as having an ordering, but what if the 'caused' state has more than one 'causing' state? For example, if state C is caused by both state A and state B, perhaps we can infer that C occurs in some sense 'after' A and B. But can we infer that A and B are synchronous?
Anyway it is fun (at least for me) to think about, and it seems that causality is very deeply related to both time, and probably entropy as well. Could it be that both of those concepts are merely emergent phenomena from some deeper logical causal theory?
Yes Darrell, the order goes on to emerge,
I even blame anything around Hilbert's finitism including the notion state for what is called the crisis of physics. I was born because my mother A (Annemarie) met my father B (Blumschein). Were they events in the sense of a Hilbert space?
The question of "where did the first state come from" implies the assumption that there was a first state and in logical consequence there will be a last state. I consider such rather religious questions futile while the alternative idea of an open in the sense of infinitely extended and therefore never fully predictable world fits better to feasible science. Let's accept one boundary as relevant for physics, the border between past and future and nothing in between.
Instead of blindly trying to separate causality from temporal order, I recommend to clarify first that abstract time must not be confused with the measurable elapsed time of reality.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
I even blame anything around Hilbert's finitism including the notion state for what is called the crisis of physics. I was born because my mother A (Annemarie) met my father B (Blumschein). Were they events in the sense of a Hilbert space?
The question of "where did the first state come from" implies the assumption that there was a first state and in logical consequence there will be a last state. I consider such rather religious questions futile while the alternative idea of an open in the sense of infinitely extended and therefore never fully predictable world fits better to feasible science. Let's accept one boundary as relevant for physics, the border between past and future and nothing in between.
Instead of blindly trying to separate causality from temporal order, I recommend to clarify first that abstract time must not be confused with the measurable elapsed time of reality.
Eckard
Darrell,
The problem I keep pointing out is that we model time as the sequence of events we encounter/past to future, but the cause is changing of the state/future becoming past. For example, the earth is not traveling some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.
Meanwhile cause is not due to temporal sequence, but exchange of energy. Yesterday doesn't cause today, nor does one wave cause the next. The sun shining on a rotating planet and wind across the water create these cycles of action.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
The problem I keep pointing out is that we model time as the sequence of events we encounter/past to future, but the cause is changing of the state/future becoming past. For example, the earth is not traveling some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.
Meanwhile cause is not due to temporal sequence, but exchange of energy. Yesterday doesn't cause today, nor does one wave cause the next. The sun shining on a rotating planet and wind across the water create these cycles of action.
Regards,
John M
A friend sent me this web address http://wtkr.com/2013/06/07/this-video-of-sand-will-blow-your
-mind because she simply thought it far out. It's a clean production presentation of a Chladni plate experiment which is generally viewed only in relation to acoustic behavior of harmonic resonance. It is also a visual demonstration of continual symmetrical generation of causal order producing complexity in a closed system which in its profusion devolves into decoherence with boundary conditions resulting from the underlying symmetric generation of order. It sure helped me understand what this article is about, and the great thing for me is that it's intuitively visible. Okay. Now I understand what superposition means. Causal decoherence and wave function operating simultaneously.
report post as inappropriate
-mind because she simply thought it far out. It's a clean production presentation of a Chladni plate experiment which is generally viewed only in relation to acoustic behavior of harmonic resonance. It is also a visual demonstration of continual symmetrical generation of causal order producing complexity in a closed system which in its profusion devolves into decoherence with boundary conditions resulting from the underlying symmetric generation of order. It sure helped me understand what this article is about, and the great thing for me is that it's intuitively visible. Okay. Now I understand what superposition means. Causal decoherence and wave function operating simultaneously.
John Merryman,
....doesn't clarify how one gets to ideas like blocktime, black holes, singularities, etc...
Wald does make the subject of the theory accessible, and while the paper is on the topic of teaching the subject with its various emphasis on math and co-ordinate methods chosen, the primary emphasis is that the theory is just that. It is not like you apply the theory to something, the theory is constructed entirely onto itself, not in any sort of co-ordinate system, Maybe like a Rubic's cube, you apply the something you are investigating onto the theoretical model and your mechanics of doing so sort out the colors onto each face.
Blocktime was really Minkowski's idea and Einstein considered it as a convenient way of diagraming.
jrc
report post as inappropriate
....doesn't clarify how one gets to ideas like blocktime, black holes, singularities, etc...
Wald does make the subject of the theory accessible, and while the paper is on the topic of teaching the subject with its various emphasis on math and co-ordinate methods chosen, the primary emphasis is that the theory is just that. It is not like you apply the theory to something, the theory is constructed entirely onto itself, not in any sort of co-ordinate system, Maybe like a Rubic's cube, you apply the something you are investigating onto the theoretical model and your mechanics of doing so sort out the colors onto each face.
Blocktime was really Minkowski's idea and Einstein considered it as a convenient way of diagraming.
jrc
Excellent summary, John C. Coordinate free geometry (general covariance) seems old-fashioned to many these days. That's why I keep emphasizing the necessity to understand classical mechanics from the ground up -- I don't find any other way to make sense of general relativity without that background.
Best,
Tom
report post as inappropriate
Best,
Tom
John C,
If it's just a convenient way of diagraming, I certainly have no problem with that. Conventionally it is what is called narrative. History, if you prefer. The question is whether it exists in some genuinely physical sense, or not. Is there some metaphysical fourth dimension that with the proper bending of spacetime, we could time travel through some wormhole? Or is it just a modeling of the dynamic process by which the particular configuration we currently experience came to be, and where it logically might be heading? Thus what is past and what might happen in the future have no physical presence, because the medium to manifest this information is currently forming what is present?
REgards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
If it's just a convenient way of diagraming, I certainly have no problem with that. Conventionally it is what is called narrative. History, if you prefer. The question is whether it exists in some genuinely physical sense, or not. Is there some metaphysical fourth dimension that with the proper bending of spacetime, we could time travel through some wormhole? Or is it just a modeling of the dynamic process by which the particular configuration we currently experience came to be, and where it logically might be heading? Thus what is past and what might happen in the future have no physical presence, because the medium to manifest this information is currently forming what is present?
REgards,
John M
John Cox (jrc),
Perhaps you meant Minkowski came up with spacetime, not blocktime. If I recall correctly Minkowski, who was Einstein's teacher of mathematics and had blamed him for often skipping his lessons a lazy dog, gave nonetheless credit to Einstein for having provided the basis when he announced a merger of space and time to spacetime in his famous speech.
Doesn't blocktime mean an a priori given timescale extending from minus eternity to plus eternity? Descartes and later Fourier provided belonging mathematics, and Heaviside added the trick of continuing the measured data by setting the necessarily unknown future ones equal to zero and then splitting the block-function of time into even and odd components.
Incidentally, when Fourier investigated heat conduction in a loop, this was equivalent to the actually infinite repetition that now requires integration from minus infinity to plus infinity. Such general covariance is obviously an absurd model because it ignores that future data are not yet available for sure in advance.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Perhaps you meant Minkowski came up with spacetime, not blocktime. If I recall correctly Minkowski, who was Einstein's teacher of mathematics and had blamed him for often skipping his lessons a lazy dog, gave nonetheless credit to Einstein for having provided the basis when he announced a merger of space and time to spacetime in his famous speech.
Doesn't blocktime mean an a priori given timescale extending from minus eternity to plus eternity? Descartes and later Fourier provided belonging mathematics, and Heaviside added the trick of continuing the measured data by setting the necessarily unknown future ones equal to zero and then splitting the block-function of time into even and odd components.
Incidentally, when Fourier investigated heat conduction in a loop, this was equivalent to the actually infinite repetition that now requires integration from minus infinity to plus infinity. Such general covariance is obviously an absurd model because it ignores that future data are not yet available for sure in advance.
Eckard
Hi John,
If I may quote from your last post, "Thus what is past and what might happen in the future have no physical presence, because the medium to manifest this information is currently forming what is present."
I would say it like this, `The past and what might happen in the future have their physical presence in the present, the medium to manifest this information currently forms the present."
Jim George Snowdon
report post as inappropriate
If I may quote from your last post, "Thus what is past and what might happen in the future have no physical presence, because the medium to manifest this information is currently forming what is present."
I would say it like this, `The past and what might happen in the future have their physical presence in the present, the medium to manifest this information currently forms the present."
Jim George Snowdon
Jim,
However it works for you to describe it. Just so long as there are no wormholes back to the seventies, other than in memories, music and whatever else hasn't been scrapped.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
However it works for you to describe it. Just so long as there are no wormholes back to the seventies, other than in memories, music and whatever else hasn't been scrapped.
Regards,
John M
John,
As you might recall, I don`t think that time exists as a real thing or force in reality. There is no such thing as time, to worm through.
report post as inappropriate
As you might recall, I don`t think that time exists as a real thing or force in reality. There is no such thing as time, to worm through.
Jim,
I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no such thing as time. Rather it is an effect, much like temperature. Could life exist without either time or temperature? We are a far more complex effect. That doesn't mean we are not real.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no such thing as time. Rather it is an effect, much like temperature. Could life exist without either time or temperature? We are a far more complex effect. That doesn't mean we are not real.
Regards,
John M
Thanks All, I avoid stirring up a hornet' nest (or bother) unless it's in a doorway I wish to enter.
Much thanks Tom for the Wald link. And yes the classic foundation is necessary because after all it was Maxwell's discovery of the natural relationship of c and the proportional strength of mutual electromagnetic inductance-reactance that is the inconvenient fact.
Take it a little...
view entire post
Much thanks Tom for the Wald link. And yes the classic foundation is necessary because after all it was Maxwell's discovery of the natural relationship of c and the proportional strength of mutual electromagnetic inductance-reactance that is the inconvenient fact.
Take it a little...
view entire post
John C,
Minkowski's light "cones" do perhaps deserve a closer look. Let me first simplify them by summarizing x^2+y^2+z^2 in the squared radial distance r^2.
I quote from http://www.iep.utm.edu/proper-t/ : SR connects three distinct quantities to each other: space (r), time (t), and proper time (tau): (r/c)^2 = t^2 - tau^2.
Minkowski borrowed this concept from Einstein but did not have an explanation for his strange hyperbolic metric -+++ and died soon later from appendix.
I understand that one has to choose one and only one point r=0 in space and the natural point t_elapsed=0. See my second endnote.
Incidentally, already Leibniz Leibniz denied that classical physics requires any concept of absolute position in space, and argued that only the notion of ‘relative’ or ‘relational’ space’ is required. I share his view in this respect.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Minkowski's light "cones" do perhaps deserve a closer look. Let me first simplify them by summarizing x^2+y^2+z^2 in the squared radial distance r^2.
I quote from http://www.iep.utm.edu/proper-t/ : SR connects three distinct quantities to each other: space (r), time (t), and proper time (tau): (r/c)^2 = t^2 - tau^2.
Minkowski borrowed this concept from Einstein but did not have an explanation for his strange hyperbolic metric -+++ and died soon later from appendix.
I understand that one has to choose one and only one point r=0 in space and the natural point t_elapsed=0. See my second endnote.
Incidentally, already Leibniz Leibniz denied that classical physics requires any concept of absolute position in space, and argued that only the notion of ‘relative’ or ‘relational’ space’ is required. I share his view in this respect.
Eckard
I bungled a sentence in my last post. It should read: it can not be said that the EMR-IR proportion is 'caused' by light velocity being that value, anymore than it can be said that light velocity is 'caused' by that proportion. jrc
report post as inappropriate
John C,
Does the earth travel Newton's flow, or Einstein's fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?
The question is whether there is some underlaying property called time, or is it an emergent effect of action?
It might seem little different mathematically whether you measure between the crests of two waves/distance, or the rate by which they pass a marker/duration, but much can hide in small differences.
Consider that epicycles were mathematically effective for the very logical reason that we are the center of our own point of observation; We still see the sun moving across the sky. Sometimes though, the way nature puts reality together and how we observe reality are not the same thing.
Mathematics is conceptual reductionism. We use symbols to identify concepts, rather than the phonetic vocalizations of conventional language. With reductionism, you end up with the skeleton, not the seed. When you try to reconstruct reality out of just the hard parts of measurement, it doesn't necessarily explain where it comes from in the first place. Math is a tool, not a god. We can curse the gods, but as you well know, tools can be misused.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Does the earth travel Newton's flow, or Einstein's fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?
The question is whether there is some underlaying property called time, or is it an emergent effect of action?
It might seem little different mathematically whether you measure between the crests of two waves/distance, or the rate by which they pass a marker/duration, but much can hide in small differences.
Consider that epicycles were mathematically effective for the very logical reason that we are the center of our own point of observation; We still see the sun moving across the sky. Sometimes though, the way nature puts reality together and how we observe reality are not the same thing.
Mathematics is conceptual reductionism. We use symbols to identify concepts, rather than the phonetic vocalizations of conventional language. With reductionism, you end up with the skeleton, not the seed. When you try to reconstruct reality out of just the hard parts of measurement, it doesn't necessarily explain where it comes from in the first place. Math is a tool, not a god. We can curse the gods, but as you well know, tools can be misused.
Regards,
John M
John M.
Well put, I would agree on reductionism and math being a tool(s) in general and yet it can reduce concepts only to a point of comparison not 'the seed'. I wonder if that is because I can't remove my human being, from any sort of equation whether argumentative or (rudimentary) math.
I have to go with General Relativity on orbital motion. Newtonian methodology gets close but...
view entire post
Well put, I would agree on reductionism and math being a tool(s) in general and yet it can reduce concepts only to a point of comparison not 'the seed'. I wonder if that is because I can't remove my human being, from any sort of equation whether argumentative or (rudimentary) math.
I have to go with General Relativity on orbital motion. Newtonian methodology gets close but...
view entire post
John C,
Here is an interesting interview with someone who has deep knowledge of reconciling theory with reality.
While I don't have much use on an emotional level with big business, or government, etc, on a conceptual level, I like to keep them in context. They are not wild speculative theories, but are the result of human society dealing with the facts of nature on a very foundational level, as those which become divorced from that reality rather quickly find themselves in hot water and victims of economic darwinism. So don't dismiss the idea that "time is money"/energy, too quickly. If nothing moves, there is no change, so whether or not change creates time, or time creates change, if there is no change, there is no measure of time and physics operates under the assumption that what cannot be measured doesn't exist. So no change, no time, however you explain the relationship.
report post as inappropriate
Here is an interesting interview with someone who has deep knowledge of reconciling theory with reality.
While I don't have much use on an emotional level with big business, or government, etc, on a conceptual level, I like to keep them in context. They are not wild speculative theories, but are the result of human society dealing with the facts of nature on a very foundational level, as those which become divorced from that reality rather quickly find themselves in hot water and victims of economic darwinism. So don't dismiss the idea that "time is money"/energy, too quickly. If nothing moves, there is no change, so whether or not change creates time, or time creates change, if there is no change, there is no measure of time and physics operates under the assumption that what cannot be measured doesn't exist. So no change, no time, however you explain the relationship.
John M,
While I agree with much of Carver Mead's views, I don't consider the silicon cochlea by Mead and Lyon successful. I am also skeptical about Mead's attribution of the putative time symmetry in the quantum world to coherence. Well, one could infer from coherence over a certain timespan that no change is to be expected. However, didn't the notion time loose its meaning for this expectation because nothing happens? I consider a strict distinction between past and future nonetheless necessary.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
While I agree with much of Carver Mead's views, I don't consider the silicon cochlea by Mead and Lyon successful. I am also skeptical about Mead's attribution of the putative time symmetry in the quantum world to coherence. Well, one could infer from coherence over a certain timespan that no change is to be expected. However, didn't the notion time loose its meaning for this expectation because nothing happens? I consider a strict distinction between past and future nonetheless necessary.
Eckard
Eckard,
I certainly agree about the optics. Sigma built a camera based on it, on which I wasted close to a thousand dollars, about ten years ago. It was a flop.
As for time, they all try incorporating that past to future vector, with the resulting mathematical addenda.
What I do like about his ideas is that quanta expand to fill their container and contract when balanced by their polarity. I think that eventually gravity can be derived from this, on mass scales. What is gravity, other then a scalar vacuum effect induced from more energy occupying less volume. Just as releasing these quanta en mass creates serious pressure. Think atomic shock waves.
Like temperature and I argue, time, it is not so much a force requiring its own particles, waves, fields, dimensions, but is an external effect of that electromagnetic attraction and contraction.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
I certainly agree about the optics. Sigma built a camera based on it, on which I wasted close to a thousand dollars, about ten years ago. It was a flop.
As for time, they all try incorporating that past to future vector, with the resulting mathematical addenda.
What I do like about his ideas is that quanta expand to fill their container and contract when balanced by their polarity. I think that eventually gravity can be derived from this, on mass scales. What is gravity, other then a scalar vacuum effect induced from more energy occupying less volume. Just as releasing these quanta en mass creates serious pressure. Think atomic shock waves.
Like temperature and I argue, time, it is not so much a force requiring its own particles, waves, fields, dimensions, but is an external effect of that electromagnetic attraction and contraction.
Regards,
John M
John M. & Eckard
JM thanks for the Carver Mead interview link. ditto on the zero point particle issue.
Eckard - proper time (tau) - how is that used? Does it refer to the time parameter of a general spacetime, or to a wavetrain of light in the general frame? My wonderment is that we can't assume that there is any particular metric of scale to describe an arbitrary length of interval for the sake of measurement on a continuum. But that doesn't mean we can assume time and space once tangled up together don't operate as if they each had a physical property of scale. If time scale were the same as space scale would duration expand? would direction extend? Yet intuitively, that is what seems to be the product of blocktime. Perhaps Kalusa's 5th dimension is an underlying covariance of scale between time and space. Ask Tom Ray if he thinks that makes any sense. HEY!! you fellows have the math! maybe someday they'll tell stories about the discovery of timespace! I'm going to take a break. Problem with relativity is that it warps my head before space warps. jrc
report post as inappropriate
JM thanks for the Carver Mead interview link. ditto on the zero point particle issue.
Eckard - proper time (tau) - how is that used? Does it refer to the time parameter of a general spacetime, or to a wavetrain of light in the general frame? My wonderment is that we can't assume that there is any particular metric of scale to describe an arbitrary length of interval for the sake of measurement on a continuum. But that doesn't mean we can assume time and space once tangled up together don't operate as if they each had a physical property of scale. If time scale were the same as space scale would duration expand? would direction extend? Yet intuitively, that is what seems to be the product of blocktime. Perhaps Kalusa's 5th dimension is an underlying covariance of scale between time and space. Ask Tom Ray if he thinks that makes any sense. HEY!! you fellows have the math! maybe someday they'll tell stories about the discovery of timespace! I'm going to take a break. Problem with relativity is that it warps my head before space warps. jrc
John Brodix Merryman
Gravity is .... On this, I agree with Bill Unruh as he describes it below:
(Time, Gravity, and Quantum Mechanics Bill Unruh 1993)
“A more accurate way of summarizing the lessons of General Relativity is
that gravity does not cause time to run differently in different places (e.g., faster far from the earth than near it). Gravity is the unequable...
view entire post
Gravity is .... On this, I agree with Bill Unruh as he describes it below:
(Time, Gravity, and Quantum Mechanics Bill Unruh 1993)
“A more accurate way of summarizing the lessons of General Relativity is
that gravity does not cause time to run differently in different places (e.g., faster far from the earth than near it). Gravity is the unequable...
view entire post
Marcel,
It is a fact that our reality is what we experience, so the question is whether our experience creates some basic distortions that can be unraveled. An obvious example is the appearance of the sun traveling across the sky. For most of human history it was quite obvious the earth we stand on is the "firmament" and it was equally obvious the sun does move across the sky. Now we have a better understanding of our position in the cosmos.
Today it is equally obvious that time "flows" from past to future. Newton declared it an evidently universal flow, which Einstein amended to say it flows faster in some conditions than others.
Yet how could it be any other way?
Our experience is as singular entities, moving about in a larger, dynamic context. So while we function linearly, our situation is non-linear and reactive to our actions. Such that in a very physical level, our context effectively goes the opposite direction, in a very distributed fashion. So as we bounce from one event to the next, it really is in a larger equilibrium. What is the effect of this? The form changes, even if it does with a large amount of regularity, as one day follows another. So, as I keep asking, does the earth really travel this "flow of time" from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?
All we see and all we can measure is action, so is time a measure of action, or is action an effect of time?
Of course, we still see the sun move across the sky and the ground seems endless...
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
It is a fact that our reality is what we experience, so the question is whether our experience creates some basic distortions that can be unraveled. An obvious example is the appearance of the sun traveling across the sky. For most of human history it was quite obvious the earth we stand on is the "firmament" and it was equally obvious the sun does move across the sky. Now we have a better understanding of our position in the cosmos.
Today it is equally obvious that time "flows" from past to future. Newton declared it an evidently universal flow, which Einstein amended to say it flows faster in some conditions than others.
Yet how could it be any other way?
Our experience is as singular entities, moving about in a larger, dynamic context. So while we function linearly, our situation is non-linear and reactive to our actions. Such that in a very physical level, our context effectively goes the opposite direction, in a very distributed fashion. So as we bounce from one event to the next, it really is in a larger equilibrium. What is the effect of this? The form changes, even if it does with a large amount of regularity, as one day follows another. So, as I keep asking, does the earth really travel this "flow of time" from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?
All we see and all we can measure is action, so is time a measure of action, or is action an effect of time?
Of course, we still see the sun move across the sky and the ground seems endless...
Regards,
John M
Marcel,
I missed seeing this. You write, "This aggregate only becomes the 'moon' when we perceive and conceive it as being there, entire, in one place and one moment. Get it?"
I get it, and answer 'so what?' One may create a moon in one's mind that corresponds to the moon external to one's mind. And? You are confusing metaphysical philosophy which has nothing to do with physics -- and metaphysical realism, which is the physics of objective reality.
" ... there is no space, lines or geometry as they are convenient projections."
Yes? Projections of what from where? Bon chance.
Tom
report post as inappropriate
I missed seeing this. You write, "This aggregate only becomes the 'moon' when we perceive and conceive it as being there, entire, in one place and one moment. Get it?"
I get it, and answer 'so what?' One may create a moon in one's mind that corresponds to the moon external to one's mind. And? You are confusing metaphysical philosophy which has nothing to do with physics -- and metaphysical realism, which is the physics of objective reality.
" ... there is no space, lines or geometry as they are convenient projections."
Yes? Projections of what from where? Bon chance.
Tom
Marcel
"that it is the absorption lines that Doppler shift"
The absorption of frequencies showing up in spectral analysis as gaps in the otherwise continuous (sic) visible spectrum, are the reason that we can determine that an attenuation of wavelength has occurred. The emission source does not emit those frequencies that it absorbs. In a spectrograph the full range of visible spectrum is present from a 'white light' source such as a distant galaxy, but those frequencies that are not emitted are gaps in the attenuated wavelengths. Hence an absorption line of an element that would be in the region of 'green' at the emission source, or laboratory, is 'shifted' towards 'yellow' when the distant source is receding from our observation at a significant rate of speed. The attenuation is of all frequencies emitted and so in the case of red shift, ultraviolet wavelengths are attenuated into visible violet and the far end of red is attenuated into infra red. The diffraction element in the instrument does not distinguish that, only the gaps of non-emitted frequency wavelengths.
I comprehend what you have said of Bill Unruh's work, I see he's quite prolific. I think where it is misunderstood conceptually is that it approaches the BETA function of the Fitzgerald Contraction from the perspective of light velocity being the benchmark from which a survey is protracted; whereas Lorentz explicitly reformulated it to protract from relative rest towards light velocity, and had stated his premise based on his theoretical prediction that an electric charge if contained in a smaller volume would exhibit greater mass. Your own application of Unruh to causality goes to density of energy in a rest mass, where Lorentz did not consider density in relation to velocity. jrc
report post as inappropriate
"that it is the absorption lines that Doppler shift"
The absorption of frequencies showing up in spectral analysis as gaps in the otherwise continuous (sic) visible spectrum, are the reason that we can determine that an attenuation of wavelength has occurred. The emission source does not emit those frequencies that it absorbs. In a spectrograph the full range of visible spectrum is present from a 'white light' source such as a distant galaxy, but those frequencies that are not emitted are gaps in the attenuated wavelengths. Hence an absorption line of an element that would be in the region of 'green' at the emission source, or laboratory, is 'shifted' towards 'yellow' when the distant source is receding from our observation at a significant rate of speed. The attenuation is of all frequencies emitted and so in the case of red shift, ultraviolet wavelengths are attenuated into visible violet and the far end of red is attenuated into infra red. The diffraction element in the instrument does not distinguish that, only the gaps of non-emitted frequency wavelengths.
I comprehend what you have said of Bill Unruh's work, I see he's quite prolific. I think where it is misunderstood conceptually is that it approaches the BETA function of the Fitzgerald Contraction from the perspective of light velocity being the benchmark from which a survey is protracted; whereas Lorentz explicitly reformulated it to protract from relative rest towards light velocity, and had stated his premise based on his theoretical prediction that an electric charge if contained in a smaller volume would exhibit greater mass. Your own application of Unruh to causality goes to density of energy in a rest mass, where Lorentz did not consider density in relation to velocity. jrc
Jim on 9/14
"I don't think time exists as a real thing or force in reality."
Aside from causality, if time must be inconsequential because there has yet to be a successful rationale that explains irreversibility as a natural function, the results from General Relativity are simply irrelevant.
It is not simply that in GR if space curves then what do you do about the space it's curved out of ? ... that's not the space it refers to. You have to envision the theory model being it's own co=ordinate system, not in any particular reference frame. Then anywhere in space localized conditions have a conceptualized framework on which to construct a realistic model.
Gravity is nature's way of conserving space. Removing 'force" is one thing, it's the product of mass and acceleration. Removing 'time' removes the rationale of conservation of space. Pretend there's more space in the universe than there is time to accommodate it all at once. Seen from that perspective... well...oppps.... that thing do kinda curl up on itself, don't it ! It's not the same thing as a mote of dust landing on freshly laid natural varnish so hard that it pushes out a wave and makes a fish-eye. Gravity isn't 'taking away' from space, it's giving it room. jrc
report post as inappropriate
"I don't think time exists as a real thing or force in reality."
Aside from causality, if time must be inconsequential because there has yet to be a successful rationale that explains irreversibility as a natural function, the results from General Relativity are simply irrelevant.
It is not simply that in GR if space curves then what do you do about the space it's curved out of ? ... that's not the space it refers to. You have to envision the theory model being it's own co=ordinate system, not in any particular reference frame. Then anywhere in space localized conditions have a conceptualized framework on which to construct a realistic model.
Gravity is nature's way of conserving space. Removing 'force" is one thing, it's the product of mass and acceleration. Removing 'time' removes the rationale of conservation of space. Pretend there's more space in the universe than there is time to accommodate it all at once. Seen from that perspective... well...oppps.... that thing do kinda curl up on itself, don't it ! It's not the same thing as a mote of dust landing on freshly laid natural varnish so hard that it pushes out a wave and makes a fish-eye. Gravity isn't 'taking away' from space, it's giving it room. jrc
John C,
This effect has do to measuring mass points, which do draw together. Yet what expands? Radiation. When you actually consider any gravitational system, it is not a neat inward flow, but leaks radiation, often tremendous amounts. Which eventually cools and then....
The situation with math is that as conceptual reductionism, various aspects of the larger reality have to be cut/distilled/chipped away, in order to examine the parts you want to see. It is a necessary aspect of knowledge, but then when these "hard parts" get treated as somehow more real than the soft parts, things start to not make sense.
Regards,
john M
report post as inappropriate
This effect has do to measuring mass points, which do draw together. Yet what expands? Radiation. When you actually consider any gravitational system, it is not a neat inward flow, but leaks radiation, often tremendous amounts. Which eventually cools and then....
The situation with math is that as conceptual reductionism, various aspects of the larger reality have to be cut/distilled/chipped away, in order to examine the parts you want to see. It is a necessary aspect of knowledge, but then when these "hard parts" get treated as somehow more real than the soft parts, things start to not make sense.
Regards,
john M
John C,
"You have to envision the theory model being it's own co=ordinate system, not in any particular reference frame. Then anywhere in space localized conditions have a conceptualized framework on which to construct a realistic model."
My hat is off to you, John C, for being the one voice who actually understands the principles of Einstein's theory, in this morass of confused rhetoric.
Best,
Tom
report post as inappropriate
"You have to envision the theory model being it's own co=ordinate system, not in any particular reference frame. Then anywhere in space localized conditions have a conceptualized framework on which to construct a realistic model."
My hat is off to you, John C, for being the one voice who actually understands the principles of Einstein's theory, in this morass of confused rhetoric.
Best,
Tom
Tom,
To which Einstein felt compelled to add the cosmological constant, in order to counteract the effect of gravity, when radiation would seem to have all the properties of already doing so. Remember it is by the redshift of light that space is said to expand and if this is actually due to a function of distance, since it is proportional to distance, then there are a lot of loose ends which could be tied up to other loose ends and we wouldn't need to keep adding garbage out.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
To which Einstein felt compelled to add the cosmological constant, in order to counteract the effect of gravity, when radiation would seem to have all the properties of already doing so. Remember it is by the redshift of light that space is said to expand and if this is actually due to a function of distance, since it is proportional to distance, then there are a lot of loose ends which could be tied up to other loose ends and we wouldn't need to keep adding garbage out.
Regards,
John M
Tom,
Thanks for the encouragement, my Mom liked to joke saying I was slow but good with my hands. In all the rehash of foundational precepts, which were quite advanced in their day, it's easy to loose sight of just how targeted to the state of knowledge those enduring ones really are. I find myself always saying, "Now John, can you really make that fit what you want to think today?"
jrc
report post as inappropriate
Thanks for the encouragement, my Mom liked to joke saying I was slow but good with my hands. In all the rehash of foundational precepts, which were quite advanced in their day, it's easy to loose sight of just how targeted to the state of knowledge those enduring ones really are. I find myself always saying, "Now John, can you really make that fit what you want to think today?"
jrc
John C, there are advantages to being "slow," aren't there? (I am, too.) You have a delightful way to express the primary role that theory plays in the quest for objective knowledge.
Best,
Tom
report post as inappropriate
Best,
Tom
J.C./Tom
Well done jc. You've just got Tom to agree a description equally valid to both interpretations of Einstein's fundamental theory ("entirely contained within the postulates" 1952.).
"You have to envision the theory model being it's own co=ordinate system, not in any particular reference frame. Then anywhere in space localized conditions have a conceptualized framework on which to construct a realistic model."
In the common doctrine (1) we have a local framework ('at rest') to work with, and simply ignore any other such local frames, which is convenient as otherwise they might prove problematic. We assume then that as many as we wish can simply 'co-exist.
The discrete field interpretation (2) follows Einstein's ultimate 1952 concepts more closely (i.e. 'small space 's' in motion with large space 'S', 'Infinitely many 'spaces', in motion, and Bodies not 'in space but spatially extended' etc.).
This allows the interpretation to then ADMIT other inertial systems, and indeed infinitely many of them, all equivalent. They are simply arranged hierarchically with the same structure as 'Truth Functional Logic'. All parts of compound propositions must be resolved within the LOCAL proposition, which may be part of another proposition. Simply treat all 'Inertial systems' as closed 'propositions' (mutually exclusive) and a natural logic appears, proving SR.
What is more, SR then has a mechanism to implement it (scattering at particle c) and is entirely compatible with a better understood Copenhagen interpretation of QM (but only for observers made of matter). All evidence equally supports both models. Even the LT has a consistent mechanism (as published), and empirical problems for SR (FTL) are removed.
Now Tom, or anybody, please offer any scientific (rather than just belief based) reason why option 1 has any advantages over option 2.
report post as inappropriate
Well done jc. You've just got Tom to agree a description equally valid to both interpretations of Einstein's fundamental theory ("entirely contained within the postulates" 1952.).
"You have to envision the theory model being it's own co=ordinate system, not in any particular reference frame. Then anywhere in space localized conditions have a conceptualized framework on which to construct a realistic model."
In the common doctrine (1) we have a local framework ('at rest') to work with, and simply ignore any other such local frames, which is convenient as otherwise they might prove problematic. We assume then that as many as we wish can simply 'co-exist.
The discrete field interpretation (2) follows Einstein's ultimate 1952 concepts more closely (i.e. 'small space 's' in motion with large space 'S', 'Infinitely many 'spaces', in motion, and Bodies not 'in space but spatially extended' etc.).
This allows the interpretation to then ADMIT other inertial systems, and indeed infinitely many of them, all equivalent. They are simply arranged hierarchically with the same structure as 'Truth Functional Logic'. All parts of compound propositions must be resolved within the LOCAL proposition, which may be part of another proposition. Simply treat all 'Inertial systems' as closed 'propositions' (mutually exclusive) and a natural logic appears, proving SR.
What is more, SR then has a mechanism to implement it (scattering at particle c) and is entirely compatible with a better understood Copenhagen interpretation of QM (but only for observers made of matter). All evidence equally supports both models. Even the LT has a consistent mechanism (as published), and empirical problems for SR (FTL) are removed.
Now Tom, or anybody, please offer any scientific (rather than just belief based) reason why option 1 has any advantages over option 2.
" ... please offer any scientific (rather than just belief based) reason why option 1 has any advantages over option 2."
Okay.
"(1) we have a local framework ('at rest') to work with, and simply ignore any other such local frames, which is convenient as otherwise they might prove problematic. We assume then that as many as we wish can simply 'co-exist.'"
Peter, relativity is coordinate free. It is not "problematic" that every local inertial frame is independent of every other, because all physics is local. Inertial frames that are timelike or spacelike separated are precisely reconciled to a common spacetime locality by the Lorentz transform. If this is not "scientific" to you, good luck falsifying it.
"The discrete field interpretation (2) follows Einstein's ultimate 1952 concepts more closely (i.e. 'small space 's' in motion with large space 'S', 'Infinitely many 'spaces', in motion, and Bodies not 'in space but spatially extended' etc.)."
This a completely superfluous assumption to the physics of relativity and as such has no meaning. As I told you, it is simply a restatement of Mach's principle that all motion is relative. That is also scientific.
Tom
report post as inappropriate
Okay.
"(1) we have a local framework ('at rest') to work with, and simply ignore any other such local frames, which is convenient as otherwise they might prove problematic. We assume then that as many as we wish can simply 'co-exist.'"
Peter, relativity is coordinate free. It is not "problematic" that every local inertial frame is independent of every other, because all physics is local. Inertial frames that are timelike or spacelike separated are precisely reconciled to a common spacetime locality by the Lorentz transform. If this is not "scientific" to you, good luck falsifying it.
"The discrete field interpretation (2) follows Einstein's ultimate 1952 concepts more closely (i.e. 'small space 's' in motion with large space 'S', 'Infinitely many 'spaces', in motion, and Bodies not 'in space but spatially extended' etc.)."
This a completely superfluous assumption to the physics of relativity and as such has no meaning. As I told you, it is simply a restatement of Mach's principle that all motion is relative. That is also scientific.
Tom
Tom,
So again you provide no scientific falsification. You simply;
1) Re-state the other interpretation, which we both already well know.
2) Re-state that all else (i.e. consistency with observation - of FTL, plasma refraction etc.) is 'superfluous' to that interpretation.
Well of course it is. That wasn't what I asked, or the important matter. You were supposed to be 'comparing' the models scientifically, not just 'chanting' what you believe. If that's all you have then you've failed.
I see no logic or evidence for your views (all evidence applies to both). You also seem to remain head-in-the-sand about the apparent FTL motion
report post as inappropriate
So again you provide no scientific falsification. You simply;
1) Re-state the other interpretation, which we both already well know.
2) Re-state that all else (i.e. consistency with observation - of FTL, plasma refraction etc.) is 'superfluous' to that interpretation.
Well of course it is. That wasn't what I asked, or the important matter. You were supposed to be 'comparing' the models scientifically, not just 'chanting' what you believe. If that's all you have then you've failed.
I see no logic or evidence for your views (all evidence applies to both). You also seem to remain head-in-the-sand about the apparent FTL motion
...dammit, I used the 'up to' arrow again and it chopped the post. It was the irrefutable proof of FTL quasar pulses, at up to 46c I referred, which are fatal to SR if you are correct. Is that what you want?
Do you really believe that is; "not problematic" and that the solution to it (also deriving the LT) will prove entirely "superfluous."?
I can find no logic or reason for your view whatsoever, and you haven't offered any.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Do you really believe that is; "not problematic" and that the solution to it (also deriving the LT) will prove entirely "superfluous."?
I can find no logic or reason for your view whatsoever, and you haven't offered any.
Peter
" ... . It was the irrefutable proof of FTL quasar pulses, at up to 46c I referred ..."
Sigh. Peter, this is no refutation of special relativity. Even if the quasar jets are actually traveling faster than light speed (a big if) one would still need show that quasar events are exchanging physical influences with other bodies in the universe at a speed greater than light.
There is no "proof" at all in a scientific theory, let alone "irrefutable." A theory only lives or dies on its correspondence to phenomena, and special relativity shows such strong correspondence.
I suggest you take your own wise advice to slow down and think.
All best,
Tom
report post as inappropriate
Sigh. Peter, this is no refutation of special relativity. Even if the quasar jets are actually traveling faster than light speed (a big if) one would still need show that quasar events are exchanging physical influences with other bodies in the universe at a speed greater than light.
There is no "proof" at all in a scientific theory, let alone "irrefutable." A theory only lives or dies on its correspondence to phenomena, and special relativity shows such strong correspondence.
I suggest you take your own wise advice to slow down and think.
All best,
Tom
Tom,
Aha! Too fast twixt parry and lunge! you have just described and adopted the foundational proposition of the Discrete Field Model.
"one would still need show that quasar events are exchanging physical influences with other bodies in the universe at a speed greater than light."
So who was it who didn't slow down enough? ..not I Monseur Ray!. We now see you never did understand the proposition as you clung onto another!
One would not; "need to show...exchanging physical influences" at all to support the DFM or to show the assumptions "surrounding" SR as inconsistent, because even 'apparent' superluminal speed is not permitted using those assumptions. But where we DO agree is that there is no 'actual' superluminal propagation.
This is where the well understood 'two fluid' plasma mechanism does it's job, which is the physical modulation of all EM wave propagation to the speed c with respect to the rest frame of that particle. If you read the PRL/MNRAS quasar jet analysis I posted you'll have seen the derivation of the 'hypersurfaces' which do this, and the 'cancellation' of plasma charge over the Debye length, (annihilation) well known in plasma as the instantaneous 'virtual' electrons. The mechanism avoids the whole prospect of "physical influences" between "bodies."
I think our difference is Tom that I do real 'science' (study and analyse data and findings), not just 'theory'. I then don't have to rely on any 'beliefs.' A pure theorist must select his own 'theoretical' foundations, so he feels challenged when they are.
Feeling challenged does not encourage objective scientific analysis. Chanting the same beliefs as you have is 'tiresome' to use your word, as you know from Pentcho. You don't need to feel challenged.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Aha! Too fast twixt parry and lunge! you have just described and adopted the foundational proposition of the Discrete Field Model.
"one would still need show that quasar events are exchanging physical influences with other bodies in the universe at a speed greater than light."
So who was it who didn't slow down enough? ..not I Monseur Ray!. We now see you never did understand the proposition as you clung onto another!
One would not; "need to show...exchanging physical influences" at all to support the DFM or to show the assumptions "surrounding" SR as inconsistent, because even 'apparent' superluminal speed is not permitted using those assumptions. But where we DO agree is that there is no 'actual' superluminal propagation.
This is where the well understood 'two fluid' plasma mechanism does it's job, which is the physical modulation of all EM wave propagation to the speed c with respect to the rest frame of that particle. If you read the PRL/MNRAS quasar jet analysis I posted you'll have seen the derivation of the 'hypersurfaces' which do this, and the 'cancellation' of plasma charge over the Debye length, (annihilation) well known in plasma as the instantaneous 'virtual' electrons. The mechanism avoids the whole prospect of "physical influences" between "bodies."
I think our difference is Tom that I do real 'science' (study and analyse data and findings), not just 'theory'. I then don't have to rely on any 'beliefs.' A pure theorist must select his own 'theoretical' foundations, so he feels challenged when they are.
Feeling challenged does not encourage objective scientific analysis. Chanting the same beliefs as you have is 'tiresome' to use your word, as you know from Pentcho. You don't need to feel challenged.
Peter
The equations of Quantum Mechanics are time symmetric [if you are pedantic, QPT symmetric!]. As such, deciding between cause and effect may be just a matter of convention.
Consider a pair of >0.511 GeV photons colliding. There is a chance of creating an electron-positron pair. Subsequently, the positron from one of these creation events, encounters another electon and they annihilate to a pair of photons.
Did the creation of of the positron cause the subsequent annihilation event? OR was the annihilation event the cause of the prior creation of the positron?
report post as inappropriate
Consider a pair of >0.511 GeV photons colliding. There is a chance of creating an electron-positron pair. Subsequently, the positron from one of these creation events, encounters another electon and they annihilate to a pair of photons.
Did the creation of of the positron cause the subsequent annihilation event? OR was the annihilation event the cause of the prior creation of the positron?
David,
The problem is time is an effect of change, not the cause of it. Energy exchange is cause, not sequence. Sequence is pattern. One wave doesn't cause the next, nor did yesterday cause today. Wind across the water and the sun shining on a rotating planet create these sequences of temporal patterns.
It's not that the present "moves" from past to future, but this constantly changing reality turns future/potential into past/residual, as form emerges and dissolves.
So all we have are patterns emerging from 360 degrees of cause and fading as the process continues.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
The problem is time is an effect of change, not the cause of it. Energy exchange is cause, not sequence. Sequence is pattern. One wave doesn't cause the next, nor did yesterday cause today. Wind across the water and the sun shining on a rotating planet create these sequences of temporal patterns.
It's not that the present "moves" from past to future, but this constantly changing reality turns future/potential into past/residual, as form emerges and dissolves.
So all we have are patterns emerging from 360 degrees of cause and fading as the process continues.
Regards,
John M
Does time exist because the universe is being created moment to moment by the action of the the subatomic world, that brings together all that we experience?
Like pixels on a TV screen, the atoms interact to create the forms that appear and disappear but only the "screen" exists. The arrow of time is the Unierse' tendency to create stabie matter.
report post as inappropriate
Like pixels on a TV screen, the atoms interact to create the forms that appear and disappear but only the "screen" exists. The arrow of time is the Unierse' tendency to create stabie matter.
Barry,
"Like pixels on a TV screen, the atoms interact to create the forms that appear and disappear but only the "screen" exists."
Basically.
The problem is that as individual beings, we exist as particular points of reference, so we experience a sequence of subjective events(past to future) and it is only when we step back and observe the spectrum of activity creating and dissolving these occurrences(future becoming past) that the process is more real than the narrative.
Physics loses sight of this dichotomy when it focuses on what can be measured, so then time becomes units of duration, rather than the dynamic activities being measured. Measures of distance and duration are quite similar, whether you are measuring between crests of waves(distance), or the rate they pass a mark(duration), it seems only matter of whether the unit is extended, or moving in extension, but one is a basis of action and one is an effect of action. Yet if you only think of it as past to future, it has no physical explanation, no dynamic, since that is the process of future becoming past. Then the only obvious connection becomes this similarity between measures of duration and distance, so you have 'spacetime,' with its 'blocktime' interpretation of events existing in this eternal geometry.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
"Like pixels on a TV screen, the atoms interact to create the forms that appear and disappear but only the "screen" exists."
Basically.
The problem is that as individual beings, we exist as particular points of reference, so we experience a sequence of subjective events(past to future) and it is only when we step back and observe the spectrum of activity creating and dissolving these occurrences(future becoming past) that the process is more real than the narrative.
Physics loses sight of this dichotomy when it focuses on what can be measured, so then time becomes units of duration, rather than the dynamic activities being measured. Measures of distance and duration are quite similar, whether you are measuring between crests of waves(distance), or the rate they pass a mark(duration), it seems only matter of whether the unit is extended, or moving in extension, but one is a basis of action and one is an effect of action. Yet if you only think of it as past to future, it has no physical explanation, no dynamic, since that is the process of future becoming past. Then the only obvious connection becomes this similarity between measures of duration and distance, so you have 'spacetime,' with its 'blocktime' interpretation of events existing in this eternal geometry.
Regards,
John M
Let us imagine a fish in a pond . The fish can see the grass roots rotating when it reach a swirling area of the pond. If it goes deep down, then it will feel an increase in pressure of surrounding. So the condition of water causes the feelings in a fish. In our very big universe , we also live in a pocket where the space fluid around us is swirling to give a picture of planetary orbits. ...
view entire post
view entire post
attachments: 5_New_Physics_with_Emergent_Gravity_Mechanism._1.doc
Login or create account to post reply or comment.