CATEGORY:
It From Bit or Bit From It? Essay Contest (2013)
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Now Broadcasting in Planck Definition by Craig J. Hogan
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Author Craig J. Hogan wrote on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 15:56 GMT
Essay AbstractIf reality has finite information content, space has finite fidelity. The quantum wave function that encodes spatial relationships may be limited to information that can be transmitted in a ``Planck broadcast'', with a bandwidth given by the inverse of the Planck time, about $2\times 10^{43}$ bits per second. Such a quantum system can resemble classical space-time on large scales, but locality emerges only gradually and imperfectly. Massive bodies are never perfectly at rest, but very slightly and slowly fluctuate in transverse position, with a spectrum of variation given by the Planck time. This distinctive new kind of noise associated with quantum geometry would not have been noticed up to now, but may be detectable in a new kind of experiment.
Author BioCraig Hogan is Director of the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, where he is also a member of the scientific staff and the Theoretical Astrophysics Group. He is also a professor at the University of Chicago, where he is on the faculty of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society.
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James Lee Hoover wrote on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 21:26 GMT
Craig,
If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, “It’s good to be the king,” is serious about our subject.
Jim
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Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Jul. 6, 2013 @ 04:07 GMT
Greetings Professor Hogan,
I am happy to see you have an essay here, which I am eager to read and comment on. More people should be aware of this research, which rightly can be called foundational, as it examines those foundations. It will be interesting to see how much progress you and your team have made toward observing Planck scale variations. I wish you the best of luck in the contest.
Regards,
Jonathan
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Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on Jul. 6, 2013 @ 11:42 GMT
Dear Professor Hogan,
You correctly observe that "These two great theories [(SR,GR) & QM] of twentieth century physics have never been fully reconciled" . I would argue that they will never be reconciled as the two relativity theories are marble theories, i.e. based on infinitesimal particles that have solid properties, whereas QM is based on a wave theory of wave functions derived from the second order differential wave equation.
You also write "It uses a technique based on laser interferometers like those used to measure gravitational waves." Please enlighten me, have I missed the announcement that gravitational waves have indeed been detected, my current knowledge is that the experiments searching for gravitational waves all continue to return a null results.
Speaking of laser interferometers, i.e. the Michelson-Morley apparatus, there is a serious flaw in the theoretical analysis that relativistic effects are the reason for the Lorentz invariance. Using Einstein's marble analysis then it is explained - no argumentation. However, replace the marbles with a wave like the laser beam in your experiments, and applying Doppler shifts at the point of reflection when observing in a different reference frame then SR does not explain the null result of the MM experiment.
I really hope that you can find time to read
my essay, actually just the appendix will do, as in the appendix the above analysis is presented.
Good luck with this competition and the Holometer
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Manuel S Morales wrote on Jul. 6, 2013 @ 11:53 GMT
Craig,
As of 7-6-13, 7:53 am EST, the rating function for your essay is not available. Sorry I can't help you out right now by rating your essay. NOTE: I have logged in using a PC and a MAC and different browsers but it appears to be a site function issue.
Manuel
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Manuel S Morales replied on Jul. 7, 2013 @ 21:20 GMT
Craig,
I have sent an email requesting that FQXi extend to those of you who had their essay posted on July 5, 2013, be allowed additional days to compensate for the days of not being able to rate these essays.
My experience in conducting the online Tempt Destiny (TD) experiment from 2000 to 2012 gave me an understanding of the complexities involved in administrating an online competition which assures me that the competition will be back up and running soon. Ironically, the inability of not being able to rate the essays correlates with the TD experimental findings, as presented in my essay, which show how the acts of selection are fundamental to our physical existence.
Anyway, I hope that all entrants will be allocated the same opportunity to have their essay rated when they are posted, and if not possible due to technical difficulties, will have their opportunity adjusted accordingly. Best wishes to you with your entry.
Manuel
PS I will be reviewing and rating your entry after this function has been turned back on.
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Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jul. 7, 2013 @ 01:20 GMT
Dear Craig
It would be interesting to know about Holometer, unfortunately just have to wait for your conclusion from it.
And to change the atmosphere "abstract" of the competition along with demonstrate for the real preeminent possibility of the Absolute theory as well as to clarify the issues I mentioned in the essay and to avoid duplicate questions after receiving the opinion of...
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Dear Craig
It would be interesting to know about Holometer, unfortunately just have to wait for your conclusion from it.
And to change the atmosphere "abstract" of the competition along with demonstrate for the real preeminent possibility of the Absolute theory as well as to clarify the issues I mentioned in the essay and to avoid duplicate questions after receiving the opinion of you , I will add a reply to you :
THE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES AND A SMALL TEST FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT
1 . THE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES
A. What thing is new and the difference in the absolute theory than other theories?
The first is concept of "Absolute" in my absolute theory is defined as: there is only one - do not have any similar - no two things exactly alike.
The most important difference of this theory is to build on the entirely new basis and different platforms compared to the current theory.
B. Why can claim: all things are absolute - have not of relative ?
It can be affirmed that : can not have the two of status or phenomenon is the same exists in the same location in space and at the same moment of time - so thus: everything must be absolute and can not have any of relative . The relative only is a concept to created by our .
C. Why can confirm that the conclusions of the absolute theory is the most specific and detailed - and is unique?
Conclusion of the absolute theory must always be unique and must be able to identify the most specific and detailed for all issues related to a situation or a phenomenon that any - that is the mandatory rules of this theory.
D. How the applicability of the absolute theory in practice is ?
The applicability of the absolute theory is for everything - there is no limit on the issue and there is no restriction on any field - because: This theory is a method to determine for all matters and of course not reserved for each area.
E. How to prove the claims of Absolute Theory?
To demonstrate - in fact - for the above statement,we will together come to a specific experience, I have a small testing - absolutely realistic - to you with title:
2 . A SMALL TEST FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT :
“Absolute determination to resolve for issues reality”
That is, based on my Absolute theory, I will help you determine by one new way to reasonable settlement and most effective for meet with difficulties of you - when not yet find out to appropriate remedies - for any problems that are actually happening in reality, only need you to clearly notice and specifically about the current status and the phenomena of problems included with requirements and expectations need to be resolved.
I may collect fees - by percentage of benefits that you get - and the commission rate for you, when you promote and recommend to others.
Condition : do not explaining for problems as impractical - no practical benefit - not able to determine in practice.
To avoid affecting the contest you can contact me via email : hoangcao_hai@yahoo.com
Hope will satisfy and bring real benefits for you along with the desire that we will find a common ground to live together in happily.
Hải.Caohoàng
Add another problem, which is:
USE OF THE EQUATIONS AND FORMULA IN ESSAY
There have been some comments to me to questions is: why in my essay did not use the equations and formulas to interpret?
The reason is:
1. The currently equations and formulas are not able to solve all problems for all concerned that they represent.
2. Through research, I found: The application of the equations and formulas when we can not yet be determined the true nature of the problem will create new problems - there is even more complex and difficult to resolve than the original.
I hope so that : you will sympathetic and consideration to avoid misunderstanding my comments.
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802
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Yuri Danoyan wrote on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 00:19 GMT
Dear Craig
I wish interesting results from Holometer experiments.
Yuri
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Giacomo Alessiani wrote on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 03:05 GMT
Mr. Hogan,
I'm trying to replace the differential calculus with a particular version of polar coordinates.
This new coordinate system should be useful in quantum physics. But, the formula that represents the 'idea, it worked for my essay in this contest. I would like an opinion.
Thank you.
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1903
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Ralph Waldo Walker III wrote on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 12:37 GMT
Dr. Hogan,
I found your essay to be exceptionally well-written. As you point out, the, “two great theories of twentieth century physics have never been fully reconciled, because their core ideas are incompatible.”
You also note that:
1. “. . . experiments with quantum systems prove that states in reality are not localized in space.”
2. “. . . the entire...
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Dr. Hogan,
I found your essay to be exceptionally well-written. As you point out, the, “two great theories of twentieth century physics have never been fully reconciled, because their core ideas are incompatible.”
You also note that:
1. “. . . experiments with quantum systems prove that states in reality are not localized in space.”
2. “. . . the entire system is described by a wave function of possibilities.”
3. “Any combined system is literally more than the sum of its parts; a composite system contains information that cannot be separated into information about one subsystem or another.”
4. “. . . the quantum correlations created by interactions that we interpret as the collapse of a wave function – are entirely delocalized in space and time.”
5. “. . . in quantum field theory, the quantized system is a mode of a field wave extended in space and time – a delocalized state.”
6. “Quantum delocalization inspires a view of the world made not so much of material as of information. This idea may be extended to space and time as well as matter. Some properties of space and time that seem fundamental, including localization, may actually emerge only as a macroscopic approximation, from the flow of information in a quantum system.”
7. “. . . but these days we could just as well say that it is all about figuring out how the system of the universe works – how its instructions are encoded, and what operating system it runs on.”
I find these points thought-provoking, and have a couple of questions. As you point out, a combined system is literally more than the sum of its parts. Because the core ideas of the two great theories of the twentieth century are incompatible, yet both ‘work,’ might it be possible that each theory describes two very different aspects of the same system? What if the universe was, in fact, an information system? If so, might it be possible that quantum field theory describes the behavior of the ‘software’ aspect of the system, while the Theory of Relativity describes the behavior of the universe’s ‘hardware,’ i.e., its physical objects?
The fact that quantum field theory describes a system in terms of a wave function of possibilities and that a quantized system is a mode of a field wave extended in space and time – a delocalized state, seems to lend itself to the possibility that it offers a description that might be akin to a description of the behavior of computer software stored in the ‘cloud’ of the Internet. Software in such a form would be neither ‘here’ nor ‘there,’ but ‘everywhere,’ and would remain in an undeterminable state until something triggered a ‘collapse’ of the wave system in the form of an ‘answer’ to a specific ‘question.’ What do you think?
As for the Theory of Relativity, what if it described the ‘hardware’ aspect of our universe. Any theory used to describe the behavior of physical objects would necessarily seem to be qualitatively different from a theory describing the behavior of software. Again, I would be interested in your thoughts on the matter.
At any rate, I enjoyed reading your essay, and think your insights are very constructive.
Best,
Ralph
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Antony Ryan wrote on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 13:13 GMT
Dear Professor Hogan,
I found your essay interesting, relevant and above all foundational. Any approach mentioning Planck scale has got to be along the right lines and yours, I think, hit the nail on the head so to speak. The potential experimental results of noise associated with Quantum Geometry is a fantastic prediction. I'm working on a geometric quantum gravity theory which reconciles the three paradoxes of cosmogony & partly unifies the forces of nature, so I found your essay personally very useful too.
Where can I find a "cosmic Internet Service Provider" please? Great phrase! :)
I've approached the contest using entropy, dimensionality and Fibonacci sequence. Hopefully you find the time to read it.
Best wishes
Antony
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KoGuan Leo wrote on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 04:26 GMT
Dear Craig, I hope your experiment on the Holographic universe is successful. I offer my help in terms of ideas and resources if I may. I proposed that we are Tianming holograms living in holographic Multiverse. KQID shows that we are living inside the one singularity Qbit Multiverse that is instantaneouslly projected on the event horizon of our Multiverse that in turns instantaneously are projected into the bulk of ψτ(iLx,y,z, Lm). In other words, all things are one Qbit. I talked with Proffessor Leonard Susskind 3 weeks ago about his Holographic Principle whether he really believed in it. He said yes for sure. But he did not know the mechanism of how those bits are encoded on the event horizon of our universe or Multiverse or simply in a room. KQID offers this mechanism through what I called Einstein complex coordinates as simply generated in that dingularity Qbit according to Euler's formula e^it = cost t + i sin t. If you have time please look at my essay Child of Qbit in time and please make comment if allowed. Best wishes, Leo KoGuan
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Anton Biermans wrote on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 01:20 GMT
Hi Craig,
The irreconcilable difference between Classical and Quantum Mechanics seems to me the fact that in CM particles are thought to be only the cause of interactions, whereas QM (the double-slit experiment, Schrödinger's cat etc.) can be understood only when we assume that particles, particle properties are as much the source, the cause as the product, the effect of their...
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Hi Craig,
The irreconcilable difference between Classical and Quantum Mechanics seems to me the fact that in CM particles are thought to be only the cause of interactions, whereas QM (the double-slit experiment, Schrödinger's cat etc.) can be understood only when we assume that particles, particle properties are as much the source, the cause as the product, the effect of their interactions, fitting a universe which creates itself out of nothing. As a consequence, In CM a particle has a surface separating some cause, mass, from its effect on the environment, its gravitational field, so here there is a border between matter and space, as if space, though curvable by mass, has additional properties independent from mass, so here particles are fremdkörper in an alien environment, as if matter and space have been created separately.
Though General Relativity is thought to be a background independent theory, I wonder whether in considering the mass of particles to be only the cause of forces, it doesn't reintroduce the absoluteness Einstein wanted to get rid of: whether GR isn't relative enough. In regarding the mass of a particle to be only the cause of interactions, as an absolute, privately owned quantity, as something which but for practical difficulties can be measured even from without the universe, we implicitly assert that the gram is defined even outside the universe which of course it isn't. This same misunderstanding is at the root of the idea that the Planck constant and Planck length are the universal minimum quantum of energy and the minimum length in the universe. If in blackbody radiation there are more energy levels per unit energy interval at higher temperatures so we need more decimals to distinguish successive energy levels at higher energies, then the energy gap between subsequent levels can become arbitrarily small. Though energy is quantified, there is no minimum limit to the size of the quantum. The Planck constant h then is like the number 1 in arithmetic, encompassing all values between 0.5 and 1.5. If we can measure the Planck constant more accurately, add another decimal to its value, at a higher energy, then we can write that number as 1.0, which includes all numbers between 0.95 and 1.05. So if in our equations we set h = 1, then every time we improve the accuracy of the Planck constant, we increase the magnifying power of our microscope with a factor 10. In other words, the extent to which spacetime is defined, detailed somewhere, depends on the local energy density, so space is not built from discrete units which have the same size everywhere. The higher the energy density in some area, the less indefinite, the more detailed spacetime is, whereas the farther from masses, the emptier spacetime is, the less different positions over a larger area differ physically, the less it matters energetically to a massive test where exactly it is, the less defined spacetime is, looks to the particle (so this is why there is no absurd high zero point energy). To be continued in the next post:
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Anton Biermans wrote on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 01:21 GMT
In my study I propose a mass definition based on the uncertainty principle in the expectation that using this in GR might fix its flaws: the less indefinite the position of a particle or mass center of an object is, the greater its (rest) mass is. As the indefiniteness in the position of an object also depends on the mass of the observing particle, their distance and relative motion, here mass is...
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In
my study I propose a mass definition based on the uncertainty principle in the expectation that using this in GR might fix its flaws: the less indefinite the position of a particle or mass center of an object is, the greater its (rest) mass is. As the indefiniteness in the position of an object also depends on the mass of the observing particle, their distance and relative motion, here mass is a relative quantity. Though one may object that it is not the mass of an object which varies with the distance it is observed from, but only its expression as gravity (''Intuition suggests that the state of affairs of matter and energy should not depend on how far away it is''), that only holds if the mass of objects only is the cause of forces. If in a universe where particles are both cause and effect of their interactions, particles cause, create one another, if particles express and at the same time preserve each other's mass by exchanging energy, then the observed object owes part of its mass to its energy exchange with the observing particle so mass isn't the constant, privately owned quantity CM assumes it to be but instead is an
interaction-dependent quantity. That we always find an electron, say, to have the exact same mass isn't so much because it is a constant, privately owned quantity but rather because the measurement is a standardized interaction, executed in the exact same conditions.
The ''relativistic notion that reality is independent of an observer'', that there is an objectively observable reality at the origin of our observations (emphasis on 'objectively'), I refuted in
my 2012 FQXi essay. There I also argued that, if particles cause, create one another, if mass cannot precede gravity nor the other way around, then we can no longer conceive of the speed of light as the (finite) velocity of light: instead, it refers to a property of spacetime, which is something else entirely.
If the universe would contain only a single charged particle so it wouldn't be able to express its charge, then it cannot be charged itself. If charge, if any property lives within interactions between particles, if particle express and preserve their properties by interacting, by exchanging energy, then in a photon transmission between A and B, all particles within their interaction horizons participate in the transmission, so ''experiments with quantum systems prove that states in reality are not localized in space'' indeed. Moreover, if particles only exist to each other if and for as long as they interact, exchange energy, then they would vanish from each other's universe if we could cut off their exchange as effectively as the image on a TV screen vanishes when we pull its plug. So it isn't just that ''any combined system is literally more than the sum of its parts'': without the sum there wouldn't even exist particles, so ''information in the real world is not localized in space and time'' indeed.
Regards, Anton
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Akinbo Ojo wrote on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 14:56 GMT
Dear Craig,
Interesting essay. I wish you luck with the contemplated experiment. Would you be surprised not finding a Planck length? What odds will you bet that it exists, 50:50? I am interested in knowing because contrary to most beliefs that any reality of a Planck length will be important only on the Quantum scale I believe on the Classical scale surprises await us.
Good luck in the contest. You can have a look at an amateur model of
Planck pixels here.
Regards,
Akinbo
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Armin Nikkhah Shirazi wrote on Jul. 14, 2013 @ 19:27 GMT
Dear Craig,
You have written a nice exposition of the ideas behind the Holometer experiment. Incidentally, Gennady Gorelik wrote an entry which seems to touch on related issues.
One thing that was not clear to me was how all the underlying parts all fit together. The ingredients seem to be
1. If the holographic principle applies, the information about events in spacetime is encoded on a one dimension-lower boundary
2. spacetime might be emergent from a statistical statistical theory
3. The bandwith of information transmission is limited by the inverse of the Planck time
4. The resulting blurriness at macroscopic scales is "hidden" by decoherence
Somehow it is difficult for me to combine these ingredients into one "big picture" but since you are doing an experiment, we will see what happens. Though you mention that if no blurriness is found, this will "experimentally prove a coherence of macroscopic space greater than what is possible with a Planck broadcast" I wonder if this would also rule out anything else beside 3.
I wish you all the best with your experiment,
Armin
If the information
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Anonymous wrote on Jul. 14, 2013 @ 21:32 GMT
Dear Craig J. Hogan:
I am an old physician, and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics, but after the common people your discipline is the one that uses more the so called “time” than any other.
I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you...
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Dear Craig J. Hogan:
I am an old physician, and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics, but after the common people your discipline is the one that uses more the so called “time” than any other.
I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay “The deep nature of reality”.
I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don’t understand it, and is not just because of my bad English). Hawking, “A brief history of time” where he said , “Which is the nature of time?” yes he don’t know what time is, and also continue saying…………Some day this answer could seem to us “obvious”, as much than that the earth rotate around the sun…..” In fact the answer is “obvious”, but how he could say that, if he didn’t know what’s time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be “obvious”, I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn’t explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure “time” since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure “time” from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental “time” meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls “time” and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the “time” experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the “time” creators and users didn’t. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” pg. 354 “Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought” he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about “time” he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect “time”, he does not use the word “time” instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or “motion”, instead of saying that slows “time”. FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that “time” was a man creation, but he didn’t know what man is measuring with the clock.
I insist, that for “measuring motion” we should always and only use a unique: “constant” or “uniform” “motion” to measure “no constant motions” “which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of “motion” whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to “motion fractions”, which I call “motion units” as hours, minutes and seconds. “Motion” which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using “motion”?, time just has been used to measure the “duration” of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand “motion” is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.
With my best whishes
Héctor
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Joe Fisher wrote on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 16:52 GMT
Professor Hogan,
Do excuse me; I am a decrepit old realist. You wrote: ‘Reality is that multitude of possibilities, a set of relationships. In general, definite, observable outcomes are impossible to predict.” I did not understand what you meant. As I have explained in my essay BITTERS, one real unique Universe is occurring, once.
Unique, once is not plural. Unique, once is not possible it is inevitable. Unique, once is not relatable. Unique, once can be observed, once. Unique, once does not have an outcome or an income.
Good luck in the contests. I am sure the judges will be impressed with your fine essay.
Joe
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Richard N. Shand wrote on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 22:33 GMT
Craig,
I was aware of the possibility of a quantum granularity in space at around the Planck length from you previous work. However, your concept of Planck broadcast really put a whole new spin on the idea. Very intriguing and well explained!
You invoked the scale-dependency of entanglement as the reason why space-time doesn't appear to be noticeably fuzzy. Eddington introduced the idea of the phase dimension, which measures scale as quantum uncertainty. An increase in the phase dimension, from the size of an elementary particle to the size of the universe, corresponds to an increase in position/time entropy and a reciprocal decrease in momentum/energy entropy (which vanishes towards the Planck limit). Applying quantum information theory, the position/time entropy (de Sitter space-time) emerges from the erasure of entanglement information by the observer. (See my essay "A Complex Conjugate Bit and It".)
This supports your contention that the fidelity of space-time can change depending upon where something is relative to an observer.
Best wishes,
Richard Shand
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Than Tin wrote on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 03:25 GMT
Professor Hogan
Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/19
65/feynman-lecture.html)
said: “It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the...
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Professor Hogan
Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/19
65/feynman-lecture.html)
said: “It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don’t know why that is – it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.”
I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.
The belief that “Nature is simple” is however being expressed differently in my essay “Analogical Engine” linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .
Specifically though, I said “Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities” and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism … and so on.
Taken two at a time, it can be read as “what quantum is to classical” is similar to (~) “what wave is to particle.” You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.
I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!
Since “Nature is Analogical”, we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And you have touched some corners of it.
Regards,
Than Tin
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Yuri Danoyan wrote on Jul. 26, 2013 @ 18:10 GMT
Dr Hogan
I would like to now your opinion
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1818
Yuri
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Peter Jackson wrote on Jul. 29, 2013 @ 16:56 GMT
Dear Professor Hogan,
As outreach must be a 2-way street to have any value I do hope you'll engage a little here.
Thank you for your essay. It was a fascinating and valuable to read about the important particle physics aspect. Do you not consider there is a grey and dimly lit area between particle physics and Quantum Theorizing?
I agreed with almost all your propositions and viewpoint, but suggest a slightly new model is possible using the 'fine grained picture' in 4D to decode the 'noise' limiting Shannon's channel capacity.
QM assumes particles have no internal structure. You know this is wrong. I propose and describe a model consistent with PP but also resolving the theoretical question behind 'virtual' electrons using recursive layers of Godel 'fuzzy' n-value logic. This is a physical model testable at Fermilab. (I suggest how baryonic dark matter should emerge from the same consistent model in a previous high scoring essay, and how you can find it).
I hope you'll read my essay "the Intelligent Bit", and advise and comment. I do find and show how the EPR paradox naturally resolves at an order below Bells classical assumption and in line with von Neumann's proposition for consistent QM.
Well done and thank you for participating and inputting from your important perspective. I'm embarrassed by your low score, but most here are not experimentalists. Love the title too. Beat's mine!
Best wishes
Peter
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Than Tin wrote on Aug. 1, 2013 @ 06:08 GMT
Dear All
A standard-issue big city all-glass high-rise stands across the street from my usual bus stop. When I look up the high-rise facade, I can see the reflections of the near-by buildings and the white clouds from the sky above. Even when everything else looks pretty much the same, the reflections of the clouds are different, hour to hour and day to day.
After I boarded the bus,...
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Dear All
A standard-issue big city all-glass high-rise stands across the street from my usual bus stop. When I look up the high-rise facade, I can see the reflections of the near-by buildings and the white clouds from the sky above. Even when everything else looks pretty much the same, the reflections of the clouds are different, hour to hour and day to day.
After I boarded the bus, I rushed to get a single seat facing four others on a slightly elevated platorm. From my vantage point, I can’t help noticing the shoes of the four passengers across from my seat are not the same, by either the make , the design, or the style, and that is true even when the four passengers happen to be members of the same family.
I could change the objects of my fascination from shoes to something else, to buttons on the dresses for example, but I do not think the result would have been any different. Diversity or Uniqueness would still rule the day! (There is a delightful essay on the subject of uniqueness by Joe Fisher in this contest.)
I am pretty sure people are fascinated by the diversity and the uniqueness in the world, when the other side of it is the inevitable boredom of sameness every time.
However, we have a need to know where all this beautiful and enchanting diversity comes from. Borrowing Wheelerian phraseology of “How come the quantum?”, I ask “How come the diversity?” A standard physics answer is “Entropy always increases.” (I am not a physicist, and I don’t know if that is the final answer.)
Whenever I’m out of my depth, I go back to my theory of everything (TOE), which is a mental brew of common sense, intuition, gut, analogy, judgement, etc. etc. , buttressed when I can with a little thought-experiment.
The thought-experiment is simple. Imagine cutting a circle into two precisely, identical, and equal parts. Practically, there is no way we can get the desired result, because one part will be bigger or smaller in some way.
Physics – especially quantum physics – says it don’t matter, do the superposition!
But superposition is fictive, an invention like the Macarena dance, and it has given us a cat, alive and dead at the same time.
I have heard that angels can dance on the tip of the needle, and now I’m finding out some of us can too!
Cheers and Good Luck to All,
Than Tin
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john stephan selye wrote on Aug. 1, 2013 @ 22:33 GMT
Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.
If I may, I'd like to...
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Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.
If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.
I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.
There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements – which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.
Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.
This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.
Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.
This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.
However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.
Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.
Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.
The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.
Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.
This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.
Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.
You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.
With many thanks and best wishes,
John
jselye@gmail.com
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Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 04:12 GMT
Professor Hogan,
I want you to know that I enjoyed your essay greatly, and rated it highly, but I have been greatly interested in your experiment from the moment I first read about it in Scientific American. The design of your apparatus should pick up a wide range of quantum behaviors at the extreme microscale of spacetime, not only discrete atoms of space. Also if there is dimensional reduction as we approach the UV limit, a possibility which greatly interests me, this should show up as transverse mode jitters between the two detectors - as well.
So we are eagerly awaiting to know more about your current progress or stage of completion. Of course; we'd all like to hear that you have already got meaningful data, but I know these things take time. If you have any time to respond, I echo Peter's invitation above, and note that a few replies to our comments would be helpful.
All the Best,
Jonathan
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Paul Borrill wrote on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 23:38 GMT
Criag. Fascinating Essay. Excellent background and description of the Fermilab Holometer. You’ve given me lots to think about. Thank you.
I tuned in particularly to your discussion of “intervals between events” in QM and GR. Which of course begs a definition of an interval, and of an event. I will follow up on your references after the contest to seek answers to these questions.
My investigation considers intervals in time/space to be the photon path traversal between an emitter and an absorber atom. This defines a finite time which (if the photon were to be reversed) would also reverse time too. If you get chance to look at my essay, I would be honored.
In the meantime, good luck. I will likely come back to you with more questions after following up on your other references in the paper.
Kind regards, Paul
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Manuel S Morales wrote on Aug. 5, 2013 @ 17:39 GMT
Hi Craig,
I found your essay was well written, insightful, and a pleasure to read. I hope your much deserved essay makes it to the finals!
Best wishes,
Manuel
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eAmazigh M. HANNOU wrote on Aug. 5, 2013 @ 22:33 GMT
Dear Craig,
We are at the end of this essay contest.
In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.
Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.
eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.
And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.
Good luck to the winners,
And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.
Amazigh H.
I rated your essay.
Please visit
My essay.
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Hugh Matlock wrote on Aug. 6, 2013 @ 03:11 GMT
Hi Craig,
Thank you for an intriguing approach to discerning evidence that Nature might be discrete.
> Imagine then that the real world is the ultimate 4-dimensional video display.
In my essay
Software Cosmos I describe a discrete and computable picture for the cosmos that uses a different technique to reduce information density in large spatial volumes. I also outline (and have already conducted) an experiment to see if the world we observe has discrete characteristics.
I won't spoil the story by revealing the answer here, but I hope you get a chance to look at the essay, as it seems to fit in nicely with your views.
Hugh
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Michel Planat wrote on Aug. 6, 2013 @ 20:25 GMT
Dear Craig,
Penzias and Wilson experiment had a great impact on our view of the universe.
May be you will be lucky with your holographic noise.
I have much respect for this topic (after Einstein 1905) and Penzias and Wilson (1978). Myself I did a lot to understand the so-called (universal) 1/f noise.
Congratulations for a great and serious work.
Michel
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Cristinel Stoica wrote on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 07:41 GMT
Michael Helland wrote on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 16:34 GMT
I just rated your essay a ten, high gave it a nice push.
I hope you like mine:
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1616
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M. V. Vasilyeva wrote on Aug. 8, 2013 @ 02:40 GMT
Esteemed Prof. Hogan,
too bad you are not here to discuss your essay. I found it very interesting, in fact almost a perfect article for Scientific American. I have a long-standing interest in the matters of space. What it is, how light, gravity, information travels through it, does it really vibrate and can we detect these vibrations.. It is wonderful that Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics which you direct is working on such fascinating questions.
Here are some sentences that jolted my brain in full attention -- despite being quite late at night and having read many essays on this last day of competition:
"The precision and universality of light propagation, even across cosmic distances, suggests that causal structure arises from a fundamental symmetry, even if locality is only approximate." -- can this be understood as 'structure of space'?
"Our radically different hypothesis is that space and time are created from information propagating with Planck bandwidth." wow indeed, how fascinating!
"Information is not localized in space, but resides in non localized correlations." Information as non-localized correlations... this I have to meditate on.
I only had trouble with this sentence:
"Taken together, these theoretical ideas hint that quantum mechanics limits the amount of information in space-time." Did you mean to say that some.. implications of quantum theory limit the amount of info... ? Somehow it does not sound right. From the semantics point of view, of course. Sorry for nitpicking :)
Thank you for your very interesting essay -- hope to see it, prettied out and with beautiful illustrations, in SA, regardless of the final results of this competition,
-Marina
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M. V. Vasilyeva replied on Aug. 9, 2013 @ 02:47 GMT
Esteemed professor,
Jonathan Dickau kindly reminded me about this post -- and I am back in your blog with more questions. Maybe one day I'll get the answers. For now, I leave them here for safekeeping, like writings on a wall.
I see now that there were more reasons for my brain to be jolted than what I realized at the time of writing my previous post. We have strong innate reactions to incongruences, it seems, and what I see now is this:
First you say that "space and time are created from information propagating with Planck bandwidth' -- (through what does information propagate?) --
.. and then you say, "Information is not localized in space, but resides in non localized correlations" -- non-localized correlations... correlations betweeen what? Where? -- They cannot reside in space, because space is what information creates. Where does information reside?
On a fresher head the day after, it seems to me that something does not quite compute here. Sorry for nitpicking again. I simply find the subject of space and your research fascinating. I want to know more and understand what you mean.
Thank you,
-Marina
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Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Aug. 9, 2013 @ 00:45 GMT
Congratulations Craig!
I am glad to see you made the finals and I wish you luck in the contest. Since your essay is about your holometer experiment, I suppose I should wish you luck for that too.
All the Best,
Jonathan
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Héctor Daniel Gianni wrote on Aug. 10, 2013 @ 19:44 GMT
Dear Craig J. Hogan:
I am an old physician and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics. maybe you would be interested in my essay over a subject which after the common people, physic discipline is the one that uses more than any other, the so called “time”.
I am sending you a...
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Dear Craig J. Hogan:
I am an old physician and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics. maybe you would be interested in my essay over a subject which after the common people, physic discipline is the one that uses more than any other, the so called “time”.
I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay “The deep nature of reality”.
I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don’t understand it, and is not just because of my bad English).
Hawking in “A brief history of time” where he said , “Which is the nature of time?” yes he don’t know what time is, and also continue saying…………Some day this answer could seem to us “obvious”, as much than that the earth rotate around the sun…..” In fact the answer is “obvious”, but how he could say that, if he didn’t know what’s time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be “obvious”, I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn’t explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure “time” since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure “time” from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental “time” meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls “time” and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the “time” experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the “time” creators and users didn’t. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” pg. 354 “Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought” he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about “time” he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect “time”, he does not use the word “time” instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or “motion”, instead of saying that slows “time”. FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that “time” was a man creation, but he didn’t know what man is measuring with the clock.
I insist, that for “measuring motion” we should always and only use a unique: “constant” or “uniform” “motion” to measure “no constant motions” “which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of “motion” whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to “motion fractions”, which I call “motion units” as hours, minutes and seconds. “Motion” which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using “motion”?, time just has been used to measure the “duration” of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand “motion” is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.
With my best whishes
Héctor
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