Essay Abstract

Three possible fundamental assumptions that are untested or inadequately tested are: 1. that the gravitational coupling constant is an absolute constant, 2. that strict reductionism is valid for nature's entire hierarchy, 3. that scale is absolute.

Author Bio

I am an independent researcher in the field of cosmology. Since 1988 I have been loosely affiliated with Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts and do my research there and at the University of Massachusetts. I am primarily interested in fractal cosmological models that involve discrete self-similarity. For approximately 30 years I have worked on a particular model referred to as the Self-Similar Cosmological Paradigm.

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7 days later

Dear Robert,

I totally agree about the fractal nature of cosmology and how scale is important in a t.o.e. My essay of the last FQXi competition focuses on just these issues and is concerned with the self-similar creation of structure from the starting point of a void.

    Hello Alan,

    I am pleased to hear that we share a similar vision for the new paradigm, which is so badly needed today in theoretical physics after 40 years in the doldrums of Platonic fantasies. The LHC has demonstrated this failure by the continuing no-shows for "WIMPs", "supersymmetry", "extra dimensions", and a host of other poorly motivated pseudoscience.

    However, on one point we emphatically disagree. Discrete Scale Relativity unequivocally states that the Universe is eternal and did not start with a "void". Nature is a infinite fractal hierarchy with exact, but discrete, self-similarity. There is no "beginning". The cosmos has always existed and it always will. The very remarkable properties of this unique new paradigm for the 21st century are thoroughly discussed at http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw .

    Thanks again for your interest in Discrete Scale Relativity and its implications for real preogress in theoretical physics.

    Best,

    Rob O

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    • Post #5

    Hi again,

    Just to state that when I say "void", I mean a 3-dimensional bubble inside a 4-dimensional wraparound universe. Some of the 'outside energy' gets in through to the newly created bubble within it. It was my first basic starting point of reality on a cosmological scale after listening to my older brother who was studying astrophysics at Leeds University incidentally. During the structural creation phase before the big crunch/bang, gravity particles would corkscrew around this higher sphere to emerge as Dark Energy, the trigger for collapse of the spinning helical mega-structures of self-similarity. Archimedes was onto a t.o.e. with his Antikythera mechanism imo, but unfortunately his brilliance was abruptly ended with the rise of continental monotheism. Cheers and good luck in the competition.

      You might want to try this.

      Go to http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw and click on the page "Galactic Scale Self-Similarity" and read section II. "Preview".

      It is only 6 sentences long, but it summarizes Discrete Scale Relativity's explanation of what the Big Bang was all about. Not surprisingly, it turns out to be a common astrophysical phenomenon, but just on a far greater length/ time/mass scale than we are used to, or can easily imagine.

      If the "Preview" intrigues you and you want a more detailed argument for this interpretation of the Big Bang, then read the whole page.

      Best, Rob O

      Discrete Scale Relativity

      Fractal Cosmology

      Hi Robert,

      Okay, I just looked at your reference webpage. It's quite an impressive site and the writing very detailed with a keen mathematical bent it seems. I have a question for you though, 'What is your opinion on 'dark matter' and spiral galaxy rotation curves?' I don't mean to be rude, but until you clearly give an explanation I'm slightly reluctant to be drawn into your full discourse.

      Kind regards,

      Alan

      Hello Alan,

      The central prediction of Discrete Scale Relativity is the exact identity and the exact mass spectrum of the dark matter.

      This is discussed many times throughout the website! Published papers in the "Selected Papers" section explicitly discuss the whole dark matter issue theoretically and empirically. I do not see how one could take more than a superficial look at the website and not see exactly what I predict for the galactic dark matter.

      I also believe that the spiral arms and flat rotation curves of disk galaxies are the product primarily of frame-dragging by the central singluarity whose mass is many orders of magnitude greater than conventionally assumed. This conventional error results from using the wrong value of G for Galactic Scale systems. Only the combination of G and M can be measured for Galactic Scale objects. That is a fact that deserves more acknowledgement and attention.

      Understanding nature takes real dedication and an effort that is objective, persistent and largely empirical.

      RLO

      Discrete Scale Relativity

      http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

      Hi Robert,

      I'm convinced that 'high energy density anisotropic exotic matter' exists at the centre of stars and has a high gravitational pull on other stars' exotic core matter, especially along their plane of rotation. I guess we are at loggerheads on this issue then. All the best in the competition.

      13 days later

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      • Post #10

      "2. ... that strict reductionism is valid for nature's entire hierarchy ..."

      Indeed. See the first post (following the author's) on this thread:

      http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1321

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        • Post #11

        It seems to me that a lot of scientists confound the physicality and its walls and the light behind the wall, but its is just a suggestion of course !!!

        One can well understand why the fundamental assumption of strict reductionism was embraced for so long. As science gained a full understanding of stellar scale structure and dynamics, a detailed understanding of the structure and processes of biological systems, and a decent heuristic understanding of atomic scale systems, reductionism seemed highly appropriate to each of these three cases. It was natural to go the next step and assume that strict reductionism applies throughout nature's infinite hierarchy.

        However, if one studies systems from all the observable scales that are available, and does so without the bias of previous assumptions, one sees that nature has a fundamental fractal organization and dynamics, with discrete cosmological self-similarity. As noted in my essay, we have good evidence for the appropriateness of limited reductionism within any cosmological scale, but a strong indication that strict reductionism is definitely not the right assumption for the infinite hierarchy.

        To understand nature adequately we must recognize that a pulsar is just as fundamental as an excited subatomic nucleus undergoing de-excitation, and that the stellar scale Kerr-Newman ultracompacts that comprise the galactic dark matter are as rigorously fundamental as the protons, electrons and alpha particles that dominate the atomic scale of the hierarchy.

        Thanks for your comment. I looked at what you linked, but I am not sure I understand your point there.

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        • Post #13

        Reducibility means simulability. You have a process with defined sequences, causal steps. It can be simulated. That's reductionism in action.

        In particle physics, QFT, the simulation problem as it relates to bosons was brilliantly finessed sixty years ago with the Monte Carlo method. It took a lot longer (the past 10-15 years) to apply MC to fermions, and then only to weakly-interacting ones. Strongly-interacting fermions appear to be intractable.

        How do particles, particle-waves, become solid matter? What's the biggest barrier to explaining the process? The barrier is the inability to put strongly-interacting fermions on the lattice, as they say in the trade. Zaanen calls it "the nightmare of modern physics."

        Apropos of nothing: I wonder what the hype-masters like F. Wilczek and L. Krauss are going to say if the latest resonance turns out to be a spin 2 particle?

        Robert,

        For some time I have liked this poem:

        "To see a World in a Grain of Sand

        And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

        Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

        And Eternity in an hour"

        -William Blake

        Didn't know its significance in terms of scalar reality for a long time.

        Jim

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          • Post #16

          Dear Robert Oldershaw,

          I was a little surprised by the brevity of your essay but I think that may be misleading because you have introduced some very big ideas in that short space. I would have found more background discussion of those ideas helpful to me because I am not a trained physicist, astronomer or cosmologist.I feel that you have just given me a small appetiser and now I have to go and search for the main meal. Which may have been your intention.From what Alan writes it sounds like it is waiting on your web site.

          To contrast with your own experience, the limit of my practical astronomy has been trying to interest my son's in the subject. Tying to identify the features on the moon, compared to a small moon globe, and looking at Venus with a not very powerful telescope.

          I think that patterns including fractals have perhaps been rather neglected due to a prevailing reductionist attitude within physics, that has sought to explain what exists from a hypothetical bang and inflation rather than an ongoing process of self organisation.I have touched upon pattern generation control at different scales, from a biological perspective, in my essay.I can understand your assumption 2.I still don't understand what "scale is absolute" means. False assumptions 3.

          That the gravitational constant may not be constant over different scales seems a good suggestion to me. I think that perhaps at the smallest scale particles are unable to cause the kind of disturbance of the environment that is responsible for gravitational attraction of other bodies and deflection of light from its default path.

          I hope you generate lots of interest in your work.Good luck.

            Hi Jim,

            This little poem by the strange and wonderful William Blake has appealed to me ever since I was an adolescent.

            I use it as one of the "philosophical essence" quotations on my website. It captures the feeling of relativity of scale quite nicely.

            Here is another quotation that has appealed greatly to me of late:

            "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein

            Amen. Time to show the Platonists, and their misleading over-idealizations, the door. Time to start studying nature again, instead of analytical abstractions. Time for natural philosophers to rise again to their proper leadership roles in fundamental physics.

            Robert L. Oldershaw

            http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

            Discrete Scale Relativity

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            • Post #18

            Hi Georgina,

            I am not trying to win contests or prizes, but rather to get people thinking about a completely new paradigm for understanding nature.

            My very brief essay, which could have been expanded into at least 3 books, is just an invitation to some key ideas of the new paradigm. My website is the comprehensive resource for studying this new discrete fractal paradigm that I call Discrete Scale Relativity.

            Absolute scale is a simple idea. If every hydrogen atom, neutron star or galaxy had an absolute size, mass and spin period, then this would be absolute scale.

            On the other hand, if each of the discrete self-similar cosmological Scales has its own proton, H atom, etc., then there are an infinite number of differently "sized" protons, H atoms, etc., and that would make their scale relative to the particular cosmological Scale that you arbitrarily choose as your reference Scale.

            In other words if there are an infinite number of cosmological Scales and each has its own hydrogen atom, then what is the "size" of the H atom and is it big or small? The answers only make sense within a given Scale. They are not appropriate for nature as a whole because scale is relative.

            And in still other words, absolute scale works for small discrete parts of nature's hierarchy, like the Atomic Scale or the Stellar Scale or the Galactic Scale, but not for the entire hierarchy.

            Hope this is helpful.

            Robert L. Oldershaw

            http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

            Discrete Scale Relativity

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            • Post #19

            Hi Robert,

            thank you for explaining. I'm going to have to get my head around that. I think I understand what you mean. A big galaxy might have a big hydrogen atom and a self similar small galaxy might have a small hydrogen atom. ? - You are right the absolute scale is an assumption. I had never really thought about that before. So your plan to get people thinking is working!

            Actually things are a little different in a discrete fractal hierarchy with exact self-similarity.

            Galaxies correspond to subatomic particles: nuclei and particles shortly after a supernova explosion [the "big bang"] in an object on the Scale just above the Galactic Scale. Galaxies are very compact (relative to their Scale), move at high velocities (100-700 km/sec) and are part of a global expansion.

            Galaxies contain pulsars. Pulsars contain subatomic nuclei.

            Galaxies, pulsars and nuclei are the exact same thing on different cosmological Scales, so long as you carefully use their physical characteristics to make sure you have identified specific analogues (say an alpha particle from each Scale).

            Don't worry - learning a completely different way to understand nature takes some time. But once you work at it a bit the insights and understanding come increasingly fast.

            The degree of unification offered by Discrete Scale Relativity vastly exceeds anything that has come before.

            RLO

            Discrete Scale Relativity