Dear Professor Asghar

Thank you for your reasoned and detailed response to my paper. Most professional physicists of your accomplishment and standing might have dismissed my sweeping calls for 'fixing physics' without my providing the necessary foolproof plan how to do so. Instead you kindly took it seriously and gave a much-appreciated detailed rebuttal. I will try to answer your objections:

1. Your General Points:

Agreed that hypothesis are essential to build physics on- but in my view the assumptions that have led to how physics is practiced could be recast. The FQXI essay rules discouraged us putting forth our own theories, but I have a vision of a possible 'new physics' . Perhaps my Beautiful Universe (BU) theory is an outline of a dream - or a mirage? at this stage. But that theory gave me some confidence to cast a critical eye on present day assumptions. As you say starting out with new assumptions requires a lot of patient nuts-and-bolts work by expert mechanics before judging if the new structure works at all and if so if it is better than the current methods.

- I disagree however that algebra precedes and is superior to algebra. Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haythm's establishment of the scientific method and his discoveries about vision and light where described in pure geometrical language. Newton's calculus in the Principia was derived by purely geometrical methods. And Einstein revered geometry and was totally ignorant of tensor algebra when he invented General Relativity. His geometrical intuitions had to be famously cast in algebraic language with the help of others. In his lecture on "Geometry and Experience" Einstein shows his preoccupation with geometry. Late in his life Dirac too declared he had a geometrical vision behind his physics but alas did not give details. Algebra makes geometrical insights easier to express but they are not more basic.

2: Your Specific Points

1. I was careful to insist on the success of the various branches of physics today - but stressed that they are based on incongruous assumptions making further progress difficult or impossible - for example between QM and GR. Algebra has shown a pattern, but I feel some effort can be diverted to search for possible new approaches, and gave my reasons for doing so with the limits of my knowledge and the 9-page essay limit. In this essay I was merely trying to encourage searching in new ways - nothing wrong in that- right?

2. The hypothesis that time is not a dimension but a record of experience of different universal states links with my suggestion that flexible space-time (considered as dimensions) is an unnecessary and distracting basic assumption to SR and beyond. This is my intuition based on thoughts of interactions in a universal ether in which matter (using Fresnel's great expression) is permeable to the ether. This view of matter and ether was just being developed for example by a late essay by Hertz when Einstein blasted the whole thing away by his too -clever assumption about constant c in an etherless world.

3. The measured constancy of c is because measuring rods contract at the same rate as clocks slow down in inertial frames.

4. I cannot myself rebut your learned objections to describing gravity in terms of Eddington's (n) , but the concept of (n) is too beautiful to be wrong, so to speak, and all I am saying is that is is worthy of further analysis.

5. The photon as a wave is different from massive particles. As I have suggested in my (BU) matter nodes affect the surrounding nodes (ie the combined gravitational / em field) creating de Broglie waves in that field - as I sketched in the illustration accompanying Q5 in my essay.

6. As with my other ideas here and elsewhere my suggestion that Quantum Probability is an artifact of the neoclassical geometry of a dipole field has to be seen in context with my (BU) theory. It makes a lot of sense there.

7. Sadly you are absolutely right that my (BU) model of ether dielectric nodes needs a lot of work to build a meaningful explanation of SM relations. I feel it can be done by studying polyhedral node configurations, but that is work enough for another lifetime! All I am saying is for some smart young prison to try it out - is the electron a tetrahedral arrangement of magnetic like ether elements in an attractive-repulsive linkage?

8. In (BU) theory the acceleration of the universe is due to the repulsion between the vacuum ether nodes, and the same acts to 'compress' matter it surrounds. Its just a theory and of course I hope one day it may prove right.

9. How do you pin down the horse you are riding on? If everything is made of a universal ether its granularity may well be impossible to prove experimentally - although in my (BU) paper I have suggested some ways such as the diffraction of one light beam by a 'grating' made up of standing light wave. I know this has been done experimentally, but if it is done in an absolute vacuum it is a strong indication that 'something' in the standing wave acts to diffract the incoming light.

The Gordian simile was made by my friend David when he proofread the essay - he is a great poet (like you are) and summed it up in this way. Physics is the result of patient detailed work, but maybe mentally cutting wrong assumptions as in brainstorming sessions is the first step to any progress.

Again I really thank you for your reasoned and honest assessment of my little piece. Can I hope that in your next post you can give your opinion in the form of an expressive haiku?

With kind regards, Vladimir

Professor Asghar

Re "nature of time". The concept of time is false, because there is no corresponding physically existent phenomenon. In a sequence there can only be one at a time. Timing rates change, per se (ie irrespective of type). It compares numbers of changes in sequences and identifies difference. So this concept relates to difference between physically existent states, not of them. Physically, there is alteration. Humans have a measuring system (timing) to calibrate the rate at which alteration occurs.

Paul

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  • Post #40

Dear Vladimir,

It is always a bit tearing apart to get away from oneself and its musings simply because:

In the scheme of things,

There is a tussle of forces

For dice balancing

    Thank you Asghar for your nicely balanced 5-7-5 syllable haiku as per request!

    It is indeed important to get away from oneself and its obsessive musings ... let me leave the monitor and enjoy tha magnificent pattern of clouds outside.

    Vladimir

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    • Post #42

    Vladimir,

    Welcome, this entaglement with the outside:

    In the afternoon,

    Patterns of high, musing clouds;

    Circadian swallows

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    • Post #43

    Hi Vladimir,

    I'm sorry to be late joining the crowd in adding my thanks to you for a job well done in presenting an interesting, well written, and nicely illustrated essay tackling some key topics which are badly in need of tackling.

    I was particularly struck by the clear, concise presentation of your Q2: Does Time Really exist? This is a topic near and dear to my heart, as you will discover if you find time to read my essay here, Rethinking a Key Assumption About the Nature of Time.

    I'll be going back and looking at your essay and your references in greater detail. For now, suffice it to say thanks again!

    jcns

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      • Post #44

      Paul

      We are only after the "physically existent phenomenon". If the dimensions of a rod reflect the "sensation of space", then, should not the relativity-inflicted physical dilation on clocks/atomic clocks, reflect some "sensation of time"?

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      • Post #45

      Anon

      "We are only after the "physically existent phenomenon".

      Absolutely, and that is the whole point. Having eradicated all metaphysical possibilities, we have two knowns: 1 Physical existence is independent of sensory detection. 2 Physical existence involves alteration. This means physical existence is a sequence, and that can only occur one at a time, because the successor cannot occur unless the predecessor ceases. In other words, there is a definite physically existent state as at any given point in time (timing, a point in time, ie the unit of timing, being the fastest rate of change in reality).

      Now, this involves a vanishingly small degree of change and duration, but it must be so. Otherwise physical existence cannot occur. The key point here being that it reveals the falsity of attributing the concept of time to being a characteristic of a reality (ie a physically existent state). It is concerned with the difference between realities, not of a reality. Physically, there is alteration, and the timing system calibrates the rate at which that occurs.

      The concept of space is different in that it does correspond with a physically existent phenomena. Space per se, does not exist, physically existent phenomena do. Space is a correct way of conceptualising the relative size/shape of any given physically existent phenomenon. That is, it conceives of the 'occupation' of 'spatial points' bt any given physical phenomenon (a spatial point being determined by the smallest existent phenomenon in reality), ie relative 'spatial footprint'.

      Paul

      Thanks JCN SmithI

      I have read your well-written and interesting essay on Time and commented there on it.

      Vladimir

      Thank you Asghar for another beautiful haiku.

      Steve I am glad to say that this year you sound happy and optimistic and encourage you to create your own poetry and physics blog - helas! my French is very limited although I love the language of Fermat, Descarte Fresnel and Poincare. Good luck.

      Vladimir

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      • Post #48

      Dr.Smith,

      Some cosmologists have heve been considedring for a while the universe as a configuration space in a sort of Darwinian evolution with some quantitative predictions . This evolution reflects/represents time - the operational time, that is controled by the laws of physics such as its dilation in the SR and GR. Of course, here as you say, the present, the past and the future do have their individual significance.

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      • Post #49

      There is no time dilation in SR. Einstein defined SR as involving:

      -no gravitational forces

      -only motion that is uniform rectilinear and non-rotary (which is in effect, stillness)

      -fixed shape bodies at rest (no dimension alteration)

      -light which travels in straight lines at a constant speed (no curvature)

      There are many quotes to substantiate this. In other words, SR is not 1905. It evolved as a resolution of the "apparently irreconcilable" (page 1 1905) issue between the two postulates (section 7 SR & GR). In simple terms, light is in vacuo, objects are not, in 1905. So they cannot co-exist. In SR everything is 'in vacuo'. In GR, nothing is.

      Paul

      Thanks Asghar and Paul for your discussion about time. Whatever SR says or was interopreted as later, it 'works' vide the extensive experimental evidence. In my view however it is not time itself that dilates (or not) but clocks move slower (or do not). In other words I like to interpret SR as affecting physical properties (length of a rod, rate of rotation of clock gears etc.), not the dynamics of space and time dimensions as Einstein and Minkowski proposed in "spacetime".

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      • Post #51

      Vladimir

      What works is not SR. I can only ask you again to please read my post 13/7 11.24 (and then 11/7 19.33) in my blog. After all, it was you who said a cold case review was an "excellent" idea.

      Now, clocks are just objects. So if objects are subject to dimension alteration then so too are clocks. That does not mean that timing has altered, as you say. The issue is, was the Lorentz concept of dimension alteration correct, because that is what really underpins Relativity. The subsequent explanations of it (courtesy of Poincare & Minkowski) are incorrect, because they did not understand time. And then Einstein substituted light speed for distance in an incorrect way in an expression of time. Which is why, apart from the fact that the variance (ie in dimension), if indeed there is one anyway, is attributed to the wrong factor (ie time and observation), light speed keeps occurring in so many equations. Because another fundamentally obvious question is: what has light got to do with it? And the answer to that is invariably, nothing. It has no physical association whatsoever. But it does so happen to be the physical phenomena which enables sight. However, even that is a coincidence, the first mistake was not based on that. Though it has provided a 'get out clause' to the subsequent jumble, ie it's all to do with observation and timing.

      Paul

      Paul we are having a heat wave here and with all these posts and fqxi articles (and my age) I really cannot contribute more meaningfully. I hope you found some of my responses encouraging and ask you to leave it at that for the time being. I will just respond in a general way to your last post: in my theory and some others light is 'all there is'. You obviously have different views but that is fine - I by no means am any sort of authority! Thanks for your understanding and good luck with your research and the contest.

      Vladimir

      Well, despite that I don't approve of Alexander's solution to the Gordian knot problem, and that there are technical errors in your version of relativity theory -- Vladimir, I have to give you kudos for an entertaining, readable and enjoyable essay! (As always, I love your art.)

      Tom

        Thanks Ray for reading my essay. The Alexandrian solution was a poetic take on my essay by a friend - it may be more accurate to say it is a virtual cut of the mental Gordian knot to clear a century of conceptual cobwebs before starting again from zero patiently tying a new and simpler knot! If you have time I would appreciate if you can briefly outline the technical problems with my relativity version. I still have to work out the details so it is by no means a complete theory just intuitive notions. I think it might work in the context of a dynamic universal lattice where energy is transmitted locally from node to node at a maximum of c but at slower speeds when the nodes have greater potential as in a gravitational field.

        Cheers!

        Vladimir

        Vladimir

        I enjoyed your essay, and have come back to it several times. The analogy about the 'badly designed building' was apt, and the seven questionable foundational premises were insightful. You are clearly very handy with the pen and brush, and the diagrams added interest.

        So I thought that the paper was a good summary of the problems confronting physics, and the several areas where its premises may be wrong. I guess the next question would be, How does one go about fixing these problems?

        Thank you

        Dirk

        Thanks Dirk,

        I am glad you read the paper and enjoyed the illustrations ( Fig. 1 was made using Adobe Illustrator - I would never have gotten the lines so clean with pen or brush - the rest were pencil drawings). As I argued with Asghar in these discussion I believe geometry is paramount to imagine physics so the visual imagination helped the physics. In your essay too you made nice diagrams illustrating your concepts. I would go even further and say if one cannot picture it it is not a good foundation for a physics theory!

        My recipe for reconstructing physics is in my Beautiful Universe Theory but it is just a an outline road map that needs a lot of development. One can check some of its claims in a preliminary way by computer simulation. Wish I had the skills.

        Best wishes

        Vladimir

        Vladimir

        In your last post on George's blog, you draw our attention to your paper, a Beautiful Universe Theory.

        Your underlying principle is: "understanding nature at its own level is a necessary step to pave the way for further theoretical, experimental and technological discoveries". Absolutely.

        Your start point is: "It is hypothesized that the entire universe is made up of an ordered lattice of identical spherically-symmetric charged nodes that are smaller than the smallest known nuclear particle, but are on a similar scale to it". OK.

        But, the real question is how does physical existence occur in this circumstance? Spin, even if it involves just orientation on a spatial point, rather than alteration of spatial position, involves change. A change of what, to what? So, what constitutes any given physically existent state? When, and in what state, can any given node be said to have physically existed? Is it on completion of one spin, half a spin, what? Because the problem is that, by definition, any given node cannot physically exist in more than one physical state at a time. It cannot be half way through a spin and at the same time have completed one, or whatever.

        This might sound dreadfully philosophical, and indeed annoying, but actually it points to the most fundamental physical point of all. We can never know, neither is science concerned with, what might be 'really' happening. We are part of the reality we are trying to establish knowledge of, and we cannot transcend our own physical existence, other than by invoking beliefs. So, we know there is something existing 'out there' ('out' being external/independent to our sensory detection systems, ie sight, hearing, etc). To be 'out there', it is physically existing, and it cannot do this in different physical states at the same time. In other words, there must ultimately be discreteness. Continuousness in physical reality means that one, and one only, physically existent state occurs, and it never ever changes.

        Now, there is then an argument about 'cause'. Because the question arises as to why this node is spinning, how does it get charged, etc. But, cause must have correspondence with some physically existent phenomenon. It is not some 'mysterious' process that has no physical basis. Which then brings one back to the same logical point, ie how does 'cause' exist? Personally I would suggest that the physically existent state of any given 'cause' delineates what constitutes physical existence as at any point in time. In other words, there is a tendency to think of thing (and even the smallest thereof, like your nodes) being the equivalent of physical existence. And then something else causes alteration, but the physicality of this can somehow be ignored in terms of defining what was in existence as at any given point in time.

        In sum then, reality is an unbelievably fast movie. But there are ultimately 'frames', because you do not get a movie without them, and we have one. We certainly do not have a still photo.

        Paul