Einstein\'s Error by Anton W.M. Biermans

James

Reason says that what comes out of nothing should add to nothing, so conservation laws are the expression of this rational 'belief'. A SCU is a perpetuum mobile which yields as much as it cost: nothing, so only exists as seen from within, has reality only to its particles. Particles only exist to one another if, as far and as long as they interact, exchange energy, so if a SCU is like a zero which endlessly splits itself into numbers the sum of which remains nil, then its particles, in a sense, are the numbers which add to nil.

This is in contrast to a BBU which, as it has certain properties as a whole, presumes the existence of something outside of it with respect to which it can have such properties, that is, lives in a realm not of its own making, but is a universe which has been caused, created by some outside intervention, usually called 'God', a universe where conservation laws don't hold.

If we were to enlarge the atoms of our body to the size of a pinhead, then we'd be about 1.5 times as tall as the diameter of the Earth. From the point of view of fundamental particles of these atoms, we are gigantic bio-machines which more or less obey classical, 'causal' mechanics. These huge machines may very well follow a different 'logic' than their fundamental particles do: just like the construction of a piano, the mechanics, physics of the atoms of the wood, strings, hammers etcetera has scarcely anything to do with the melodies played on it, so doesn't the non-causality of events at quantum level exclude causality at macroscopic level. Reversely, the fact that in our macroscopic world events to some extent seem to follow causality does not mean that events at quantum level also must follow causality.

That said, I have my doubts about causality at any scale or level. Though chaos theory often is thought to say that the antics of a moth at one place can cause a hurricane elsewhere, if an intermediary event can cancel the party, then the moth's antics are a cause in retrospect, in which case it isn't a cause at all in my book. The point of my essay is that though events certainly are related, they aren't necessarily related causally: to insist they do is missing the entire point. To be able to determine what is cause of what in an absolute sense requires that we can look at the universe from the outside, which we cannot. As far as I'm concerned, causality means that if A happens, B follows with 100% certainty. Since quantum theory only speaks about probabilities, and even at macroscopic level A not always leads to B, the concept of causality is overrated: to me 'approximately' causally is a contradiction in terms.

The insight that the universe (with us inside of it) doesn't exist as a whole, has no reality as 'seen' from without, so to say, may be hard to accept as we seem to crave an absolute kind of existence, wishing for Someone in Whose eyes we exist, for our existence to transcend the universe itself, to be immortal. Alas, it is this wish which confuses the mind of even physicists which think themselves to be atheist but are not as long as they cling to causality like kids to their mother's skirts.

Anton

Dear Stefan,

Thanks for the compliment, and, yes, your essay goes somewhat in the same direction, the all-important difference being that you look at the universe from an imaginary observation post outside of it.

I wonder whether you agree with my proposition that the 'speed' of light refers to a property of spacetime, not to a (finite) velocity, as it would partly contradict some statements in your own essay?

I ask this because it makes such a huge difference to physics whether it is a velocity or not, as I argue more extensively in my study at website, www.quantumgravity.nl

Anton

Dear James,

The uncertainty principle interpreted to say that virtual particles can appear by borrowing the energy to exist from the vacuum, for a time inversely proportional to their energy. From the UP it is but a small step to a Self-Creating Universe where real particles can be thought of as virtual particles which by alternately borrowing and lending each other the energy to exist, force each other to reappear again and again after every disappearance, at about the same place. In this universe when one particle pops up with a 'positive' energy, borrowing that energy from another particle which then pops up with an equal 'negative' energy, so they pop up in counter phase, out of nothing or, if you wish, out of each other (quotation marks because the energy sign of a particle is a relative quantity).

I'm not sneaking anything in behind the reader's back: as far as I'm concerned, the only (and sufficient) ''means of control'' a universe 'has', consists of the first law of physic: the law which says that what comes out of nothing must add to nothing. Again, a SCU only exists as seen from within, and has no beginning as a whole, as 'seen' from without, so to say. Perhaps things may become clear to you if read my more extensive study (which is a work in progress) at my website, www.quantumgravity.nl

Anton

Hi Eckard,

It surely takes less effort to download the thing and read until you're satisfied that it's a crackpot tale indeed than writing a post? That said, I admit that the title sounds pretentious, even if I do not promise more than I deliver, though, as it is hard if not impossible to squeeze the results of a study (a work in progress, see www.quantumgravity.nl) into a 9 page essay, the essay may not meet expectations.

I think it's legitimate to choose a catchy name to draw attention to your essay if it is to be read among 288 others, a title which also was intended to tease as geniuses are idolized to the extent that one barely dares to disagree with their statements, a humility which hasn't brought physics a single step forwards these last eighty years. Judging his words ''Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth'' (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Einstein), Einstein himself would be abhorred by such worship.

Thanks, by the way, for alerting me to the existence of the cosmologystatement.org site: I hadn't read it but have my own reasons for rejecting the Big Bang tale, reasons which, as far as I'm aware of, I think nobody ever thought of, so might be worthy of your curiosity. However, if I've learned one thing in these FQXi discussions, then that is that my findings are very hard to communicate, to understand, that to appreciate the ideas, one has to let go of some pretty comfortable, but ill-conceived assumptions about reality. It's not that the ideas are complicated or far-fetched, but because they show our universe to be so alien, so fundamentally different from the cozy picture Big Bang Cosmology has familiarized us with. The ideas set out in the essay may upset readers in a way not unlike how people must have felt on learning that the Earth wasn't, after all, the center of the universe, or rather, that they were no longer at the center of Gods attention.

I certainly don't hold Einstein responsible for the Big Bang tale, at most for agreeing to it: what impeded his own investigations is that he didn't recognize that the speed of light doesn't refer to a (finite) velocity (even though it certainly is a limit to the velocity massive objects can move at) but to a property of spacetime, which, as I argue, is something else entirely, in which case BBC doesn't make any sense.

Though intended to replace a naïve genesis tale, Big Bang Cosmology unfortunately continues its naivety as it assumes that it is legitimate, scientifically, to look at the universe from an imaginary observation post outside of it. By looking over God's shoulders at His creation, so to say, BBC implicitly states that the universe has been created by some outside intervention, in which case you might as well study theology to understand its creation.

Anton

Dear James,

If two identical virtual particles A and B pop up with an opposite energy sign, then there is no energy needed from the outside for their creation: though they create each other out of nothing, ,the drawback is that in that case they only exist to each other but have no reality to other particles, P and Q which may already be present in the universe they appear in. That is, unless both A and B also interact, exchange energy with P and Q, we cannot even say that A and B live in the same universe as P and Q. Du moment A and B start interacting with P and Q, they pop up, 'out of nothing', in P and Q's world, as do P and Q in A and B's world. 'Out of nothing' between quotation marks since 'to exist' means 'to interact', to exchange energy, i.e., to alternately borrow and lend each other the energy to exist. (And, by the way, in a SCU energy is not some stuff you put in the 'tank' of a particle: it is something which only exists in its expression, in its change. It is not some object-like stuff, unlike gasoline is at macroscopic scale, but a quantity which is greater as its rate of change is greater, the frequency it is exchanged at.)

Since particles only exist to each other if, as far and as long as they interact, since in a SCU 'to exist' = 'to interact' I totally disagree with Hermann Weyl who said ( in ''The Physical Basis of the Direction of Time'', 2nd ed. p 165, HD Zeh):

''The objective world simply is; it does not happen''*

a quote which I think represents your view.

If memory serves, in my essay I say somewhere that there is no objectively observable reality at the origin of our observations, with the emphasis on 'objectively'.In classical mechanics the existence of objects is thought of as a passive state, as if their particles, once created, stay created no matter what, as if their existence is a self-evident fact, a static state requiring no effort of the particles, as if they would keep existing even if they wouldn't interact at all. This is different in a SCU: here particles express and at the same time preserve each other's mass by continuously exchanging energy, so would vanish if we could cut off this exchange, and with it the macroscopic objects they form, so in a SCU the world we see is the result of this continuous activity. Whereas in CM, in Big Bang Cosmology, in Weyl's view 'to exist' is a noun, it is a verb in a SCU.

''The .. laws, etc. that you find most useful appear out of nowhere to be applied for free ... ''

No, not for free; it is not I who find these laws 'most useful': as in a SCU particles, particle behavior c.q. properties evolve in a trial-and error process, so do the laws describing their behavior, laws which I suspect are related to all possible different ('orthogonal') ways they can move and spin with respect to one another since here these different combinations of directions of motions and spin affect the frequency they exchange energy at, the properties they have according to one another. How this evolution might proceed is one of the subjects of my website study.

As to 'null point': the non-existence of electric charge, for example, can only be established with an instrument sensitive to charge, that is, an object which contains at least one single charge. Without the existence of such detector, there is no 'null' value to be observed, no conservation law to violate. To me 'nothing' refers to the fact that a universe which can rationally be understood has to obeys the conservation law according to which what comes out of nothing must add to nothing, meaning that the universe is a perpetuum mobile which yields as much as it costs: nothing, so exists only as seen from within.

Anton