Essay Abstract

A paradigm shift in physics is now overdue, Physics is founded on mismatched assumptions including three by Einstein such as the photon-as-particle, which has led to the assumption of the physical reality of quantum probability. Others such as a fixed speed of light and flexible spacetime need to be recast in a more physically realistic way. Physics is likened to a badly designed building that is hard to use, impossible to build on, and in danger of collapse in some sections. Seven foundational questions are discussed related to the 'stuff' making up the universe, the unreality of time, a variable speed of light in an ether, gravity warping spacetime, the photon as a particle, and the nature of a particle's wave field, the physical reality behind probability uncertainty and entanglement, and the Standard Model

Author Bio

Vladimir F. Tamari studied physics and art at the American University of Beirut where he met and was inspired by Buckminster Fuller (around 1960). He invented and built 3D drawing instruments. In the 1980's he joined the Optical Society of America to keep up with the field and holds U.S. patents for inventions based on his Streamline Diffraction Theory to cancel diffraction in telescopes. Beautiful Universe: Towards Reconstructing Physics From New First Principles (2005) is referred to here. He paints in watercolors and has designed Arabic fonts for Adobe. He has lived in Tokyo for the past 40 years.

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Dear Vladimir:

You have summarized a nice set of important questions for physics and cosmology. My posted paper - "From Absurd to Elegant Universe" addresses many of these questions with a new look into the basic phenomenon of spontaneous decay of particles. I would welcome your comments on the paper.

Thanks

Avtar Singh

    Dear Vladimir Tamari,

    It is wonderful to find one with both scientific and artistic talent. Your last essay, "Beautiful Universe", was truly beautiful and I expected pretty much more of the same. What a pleasant surprise to find a whole new artistic style, and yet the style brings out rather than hides the physics points you make. Thank you for your effort. As for your analysis, I agree with almost every point you make, and where I disagree you have caused me to decide to rethink the issue. I hope that you will find time to read my essay, The Nature of the Wave Function, as I address the physical reality of the wave function in a way that you might like.

    Your analysis is right on, and directly addresses FQXi goals for this contest. You might consider expanding your essay into a book (or eBook) as I believe a significant audience exists for such intelligent art. I wonder if the fact that you and Norman live in Japan is partly responsible for the clarity of your thinking and your style?

    Congratulation, a joy to read and to see.

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Thank you Avtar for your encouraging comments. I have read your interesting essay and will comment on it there. I think our two approaches may be different but both do not hesitate to challenge a whole gamut of foundational issues. I wish I had your solid academic training to back up my intuitions as you have yours!

      Best wishes

      Vladimir

      Dear Edwin

      Thank you so much for your warm and positive comments about the illustrations. Being an artist allows me to cover up mistakes in physics by saying :"but I'm only an artist!" - but your encouraging comments on the physics will make me postpone such an excuse. I remember you from the last essay contest but I may not have followed up properly on your comments - we had the distractions of the earthquake and so on. I have not yet met Norman Cook but many years ago we corresponded and he was the first to like my Beautiful Universe Theory. I encouraged him to write an essay for FQXI and he did. I was gratified to read that he knows your work and respects it.

      Being in Japan for decades does something to one's point of view - I think it helped me a lot in approaching things from a new perspective. Isolation may be part of it, but also the Japanese have a way to approach a problem very loosely at first, and only gradually let fluid ideas coalesce into definite form.

      Again thank you I look forward to reading your essay.

      With best wishes

      Vladimir

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      • Post #6

      Vladimir

      Agreed, fundamentally, ie with the essential conclusion (as you would have seen had I watched the character count and not just page count, but my essay will surface soon).

      One particular point I would raise is SR, though this does not impact on the real thrust of the argument. Einstein specified what it was when presenting GR. And it is not what was written in 1905. It is a 'special' theoretical case where there is no gravitation, so everything is, relatively, still. In 1905 light speed has a condition, ie in vacuo. Everything else does not, ie there is dimension contraction. In other words, they are all not co-existing. SR is the 'resolution' of an "apparently irreconcilable" (page 1 1905) problem. But light speed as a constant (ie as occurs when a condition applies which only does so theoretically) is used in 1905 to replace distance in the quantification of time (as in timing). And it stays there in the equations, even when in GR Einstein states that light, like matter (ie with dimension change) is affected by gravitational forces. So, in simple language, in the explanation (ie accounting for a variance somewhere) of all this (which is actually irrelevant to whether the original idea was correct or not), the variable becomes time, which does not exist.

      Paul

      Thanks Alan I will look forward to your essay.

      I should have mentioned that I think there is a maximum speed (c) in vacuum without gravity.

      Yes Einstein modified some of his original 1905 statements but not the basic framework of SR. I could not quite get what you yourself think about time.

      Best,

      Vladimir

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        • Post #9

        Wonderful essay, Vladimir... very much in the spirit of the FQXi contest. I admire your ability to span the entire realm from designing instruments and obtaining patents to rethinking fundamental issues in physical theory and illustrating your ideas in a comprehensible manner! Most of the rest of us tend to polish just one little gem, and have trouble relating it to the other parts of life.

        Given your appreciation of and yet skepticism concerning so many of the underlying premises of current physical theory, where do you anticipate seeing the first cracks in the wall?

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          • Post #10

          Dear Vladimir,

          I did enjoy reading your essay, that is presented in a very accessible, clear and stylish way. There was lots in it that I could agree with and other parts that sounded very reasonable.Your building cartoon is amusing and well done. I think the FQXi guys could have had a demolition truck and hard hats rather than a protest sign. As I am optimistic that FQXi really can bring about big changes.I think your essay will do well as it fits the essay criteria, is enjoyable and will resonate with a lot of people who feel that the current scientific amalgamation of theories is unrealistic. Good luck in the contest.

          Many thanks Norman you are the master of your gem of a nucleodynamics theory here; but with all these trades I have dabbled in maybe I should change my name to 'Jack' ! I believe that you were the first to understand my Beautiful Universe (BU) theory on which I based my present essay. Perhaps I should have included a video as an appendix showing me wave my arms to support claims that seem to me warranted, but that still need to be worked out systematically and proven. Simulating the (BU) lattice and getting some good results equivalent to (SR) or Schrodinger's equation would really get things going! As to the crack in the Physics Building I have no idea, where - but I could tell you of the crack in my head for having attempted and carried through such a difficult task :)

          Dear Vladimir,

          You should have the prize for best title so far for sure! I loved your analogy with a modern building, too true! The doodles were very pleasing and reminded me of my own techniques when discussing on open forums. Fantastic work. Well done and a very worthy essay for the competition.

            Thanks Georgina for your kind words. Demolition trucks are a bit premature! Perhaps the best policy is to encourage building a separate model building nearby and if it works as advertised people will go there first to check it out. In time the Physics Building will be revamped or the model expanded! Or not..who knows?

            Yes FQXI seems to be doing an excellent job and an important one at that.

            Best of luck with your own remarkable essay - we have arrived at several similar conclusions.

            Thanks Alan. At first I had the title start with "Occupy Physics!" but I am not really that sort of activist. The title is much too long though - the emails from fqxi announcing posts are double the length of the email page! Are you sending in an essay this time? I look forward to that. I just did a google of your doodles - very nice they are less self-conscious than the ones I made.

            Vladimir,

            Some interesting "out-of-the-box" ideas. I would be interested in knowing how your BU theory would deal with the concept of anti-gravity.

            Jim

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              • Post #16

              Vladimir,

              I very much like both your style and skepticism. I would point out that it you do away with spacetime as causation, then the whole foundation premise of a big bang universe is out the window, so there is no need to explain dark matter and energy as anything other than fudges to a flawed concept. Once you do away with photons as point particles, there are potential explanations for redshift as some form of lensing effect, rather tham just recession, so you are on your way to splvong that.

              I also think gravity might be due to the creation of mass from energy, not just its existence. M=e/c2.

              Trying to write this on a phone, so will continie later.

              Thanks James

              Having read your paper it is you who excel at out-of-the box ideas!

              I have answered your interesting question on your FQXI essay page.

              Vladimir

              Thanks John for your appreciation and encouragement. I have downloaded your essay and will read it anon and respond to it and to your observations here. These FQXI discussions do take up time don't they! I do not envy your reading pdfs on your phone, although I do a lot of my reading an artwork on an ipod touch myself!

              Vladimir

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                • Post #19

                Thanks Vladimir,

                The point about time that I focus on in my entry originally grew out of questions about cosmology. Simply, if gravity and expansion are inversely proportional, as both theory and observation show them to be, ie, flat space, where is the additional expansion? In Relativity terms, space, or rather the measure of it, contracts in gravitational fields and expands between them. Since the only old light we can detect is that which necessarily traveled between the galaxies, it would be most affected by this "expansion." The more layers of assumption I peeled away, the more the whole "fabric of spacetime" seemed to be a modern epicycles. Correlations mistaken for causation.

                As for where the crack in the physics building will first occur, it's currently my prediction that finding the Higgs will prove to be the apex of this current paradigm, for the very practical reason that it provided a focus that cannot be replicated for the foreseeable future and so the most likely path of exploration for young theorists will be examine the many issues that have been fudged over in the last century.

                Unfortunately my current work is limiting my time to really read many of these papers.

                John I've read your interesting paper. You base your speculations on time as an 'active' factor in the universe, but to follow the ads I "think different". I believe time is just a way to keep track of 'now' states - it has no independent existence or effect on anything on the level of physics. In my theory action takes place locally and causally and the evolution of the now state into the 'next' now state is enacted. There is no tomorrow involved! Best,

                Vladimir