Relativity Is Not About Spacetime by Edward J. Gillis

Hello. This is group message to you and the writers of some 80 contest essays that I have already read, rated and probably commented on.

This year I feel proud that the following old and new online friends have accepted my suggestion that they submit their ideas to this contest. Please feel free to read, comment on and rate these essays (including mine) if you have not already done so, thanks:

Why We Still Don't Have Quantum Nucleodynamics by Norman D. Cook a summary of his Springer book on the subject.

A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory by Eric Stanley Reiter Very important experiments based on Planck's loading theory, proving that Einstein's idea that the photon is a particle is wrong.

An Artist's Modest Proposal by Kenneth Snelson The world-famous inventor of Tensegrity applies his ideas of structure to de Broglie's atom.

Notes on Relativity by Edward Hoerdt Questioning how the Michelson-Morely experiment is analyzed in the context of Special Relativity

Vladimir Tamari's essay Fix Physics! Is Physics like a badly-designed building? A humorous illustrate take. Plus: Seven foundational questions suggest a new beginning.

Thank you and good luck.

Vladimir

After studying about 250 essays in this contest, I realize now, how can I assess the level of each submitted work. Accordingly, I rated some essays, including yours.

Cood luck.

Sergey Fedosin

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Edward,

You've written an excellent essay, in my opinion. I agree with your agnosticism about spacetime structure (well, actually, I like to go much further and try to replace the manifold structure with something else at the microscale, but I admit it's speculative). Some of your reflections potentially raise substantial challenges to my own favorite ideas about the role of causality. Of course, I don't mean exactly the same thing by this as you do by "local causality." In any case, I agree that it's less profitable to regard relativity in purely geometric terms than as a way of describing the interaction of actual events. A few more thoughts:

1. I've often thought that perhaps locality ought to be defined in terms of interaction rather than metric structure; i.e., that maybe phenomena like entanglement are indications of nonmanifold structure of spacetime rather than "nonlocality" of interaction in a metric manifold. This view might even be useful to explain things like the homogeneity of the CMB without invoking inflation. However, this is perhaps too simplistic to understand both entanglement and the no-signaling theorem. I think "intrinsic quantum effects" are involved, in a sum-over-histories sort of way.

2. You make an intriguing point with the statement that "it is impossible to say which of the two (or more) measurements is affecting the other. In other words, there is no observable sequence of these spacelike-separated events." Of course, you expand much more on this point later in the essay.

3. Regarding Weinberg's elevation of the property of Lorentz invariance in the S-matrix, I think that covariance in general ought to be reinterpreted in terms of refinements of partial orders, and that the clue to this is the relativity of simultaneity. This doesn't necessarily clash with the lack of an observable sequence, but that's a long story...

4. I agree that Goedel's theorem isn't necessarily links to quantum indeterminism. But I do think it's relevant to physics.

Thanks for the great read! I wish you the best of luck in the voting; I boosted you as much as I could. Take care,

Ben

Dear Edward!

Sorry could not read your essay before, during rating.

1. For setting a new conceptual structure of the world, which means the space-time, we need a new deep ontology. It is necessary to get to the farthest depths of meaning, seize ABSOLUTE FORM of existence of matter. Assistant may be only dialectical logic, the logic of Heraclitus and Cusa: "coincidence of opposites" and the ancient principle of "what is at the top, there is a at the bottom».

2. Quantum mechanics and general relativity is operational theory, but without the ontological foundation. They work in some parts of the whole world. Mathematics - science also not ontologically grounded. So now the main problem of fundamental physics - the problem of FOUNDATION KNOWLEDGE. And for that we need a new ontological revolution.

3. You correctly captured category "information». FORM first essence (Aristotle). This is all the more necessary in the Information Age.

4. Many physicists want to "kill time". But to «kill time» is to kill the "memory." There is only one way: a new model of the universe is a model of an ETERNAL UNIVERSE. Here mathematics (especially geometry) comes to the fore as the language of nature. Sincerely, Vladimir