Questioning Pre-Mathematical Intuitions by Eckard Blumschein

Dear Eckard

I take your essay as querying taking the use of mathematical models of reality too far: and I agree with you on this. I also agree on your take on time, and on your comment "It is mistake to keep differential equations for primary. They are merely abstractions from the originally integrating relationships" Correct: and those integrating relationships involve boundary conditions or initial conditions whereby global relations constrain local physics - in concordance with my own essay.

I disagree on special relativity, as you know. I believe it's very well established. Any experiments of quality that disagree with it must of course be take seriously: they must be repeated by independent experimenters to check their validity. But you'll find it hard finding experimentalists willing to invest time, money and effort into that project: given all the other experiments that support SR, it is so unlikely it will prove anything interesting.

George

George

Dear Eckard,

All paradox (like all magic) plays on the 'mental framing' we place on the situation we seek to understand. In Physics, the paramount view should be 'physical' and not 'mathematical'. Don't we agree? The question we need to constantly ask is "what is physical". Do you agree? The explanation I offered aims to define 'physical space'. And thus determine what is meant by 'physical existence'. All 'physical objects' in order to 'physically exist' must fill 'physical space' and require a duration of 'physical time'. The later I claim is assured by the Second Law while the former I propose is assured by the CSL. Which, in my way of looking at this, is the equivalent statement "all 'physical objects' are at rest with the 'physical space' they occupy". The 'physical object' defines the 'physical space' it occupies. In this view, we do not have physical objects moving relative to the space they occupy. In other words, the points in your comment cannot be moving in "tandem relative to IR". Though mathematically this can be thought, physically this would require the points to be 'apart and outside' the line. To not 'physically exist', in other words! Am I misunderstanding you? Probably I am.

Dear Eckard,

In math I am free to imagine! But in physics, we must always stay well grounded on the physical. And what is meant by 'physical'? My previous comments revolve around just that matter. And though we can imagine physical objects moving in empty space, such notion of physicality is imagined and prone to paradox. I suggest that 'physicality' is determined (along with the Second Law) by the CSL Postulate. Which, in my view, is equivalent to "all 'physical objects' are at rest with the 'physical space' they occupy". We just cannot physically separate a physical object from the physical space it occupies. In my humble opinion, many paradoxes result from just such separation.

You write, "Perhaps you are imagining an individual empty space belonging to each individual object." I answer: I am not imagining "individual empty space belonging to each individual object". Just as I am not imagining a common empty space in which physical objects are in motion. But I am convinced that no physical object can be in motion relative to the space it OCCUPIES! Aren't you? Perhaps rephrasing this may help to convey what I mean. No physical object can be in motion relative to itself!

Constantinos

Dear Eckard,

You might say all of physics has to do with confusions we have about what Nature has in mind. And what we mean by what we say. Understanding this state of human affairs, I will not take offense! But do apologize for taking space responding to you under your space. So how else I should respond? I do not object doing this under my essay, if that is better for you.

More clarifying comments to confuse the matter further. By 'empty physical space' I do not mean necessarily the space we imagine without anything in it. The physical object and the space it occupies cannot be physically separated. But can only be imagined by us as separate. As physical space occupied by a physical object devoid of that physical object. My statement, "no physical object can be in motion relative to the space it OCCUPIES!", can thus be restated as "no physical object can be in motion relative to itself!". I think this should make the matter self-evident.

As to my use of metaphysics, it does not depend on the historical arrangement of Aristotle's books. But what the words in Greek actually mean: after or beyond the physical.

Constantinos

Dear Eckard,

George may be the first one in academia "who understood uncommon thoughts of mine and who was courageous enough to support them in public", but you have a number of friends who do agree with you. For example I remarked above that:

"We hold the mathematical concepts, set theory, calculus, etc., in our heads forgetting where the logical holes are located. It is very good that you continue to remind us that holes exist and show us where some big ones are located..."

and I agreed with your following statement, "Tolerating an overlap of mutually excluding models is certainly no satisfactory solution."

So yes, it's great to have someone with 'skin in the game' agree with you, but don't forget your friends! We also agree with your "...querying taking the use of mathematical models of reality too far"

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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

Dear Eckard,

You present some good ideas here. In particular, I think that set-theoretic issues are very relevant to physics. I have run into the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice in my own efforts to understand physics. A few other thoughts:

1. I agree that past and future are objectively different from each other, and that the future is not yet determined. There are a number of ways in which an objective arrow of time can arise. I prefer to take causality as fundamental, in which case time merely agrees with the direction from cause to effect. But even theories with "emergent time" like Barbour's shape dynamics can distinguish past and future by means of "asymmetry of configuration space."

2. I don't know if differential equations will ultimately be good enough even with boundary conditions. This is because differential equations require a differentiable structure in the interior of the region being modeled, and I think this may be too much to assume. Integral equations are physically better in my view, but much harder to work with mathematically.

3. I agree that although "reality and causality are, of course, also assumptions, we need them as logical alternatives to unacceptable mere imagination and mysticism."

4. I think SR probably breaks down on small scales, but that is a long story!

5. You have some nice diagrams!

I enjoyed reading your essay! Take care,

Ben Dribus

Dear Ben Dribus,

For decades I understood SR as silicon rectifier. Only discussions here on FQXi caused me to question it. Such heresy was anyway impossible during my scientific career.

Meanwhile I tend to say beauty and Einstein's relativity are only in the eyes of the beholder/observer. I would, however, like to except the beauty of mathematics to a large extent from that judgment.

You uttered interest in the foundations of mathematics. May I recommend to you some books by Spalt? Unfortunately they are all written in German.

My position is less compromising that Spalt's. He did not point out that Leibniz's infinite numbers contradict to the only reasonable notion of infinity. Mueckenheim wrote: Leibniz distinguished three degrees of infinity:

1) what is larger than every countable quantify (including the mathematical oo)

explanations:

1a - pour tout le monde: comparison: elementary particle, globe, firnament

1b - for mathematicians: infinite and infinitesimal numbers are fictions

1c - for philosophers: fictions with a fundamentum in re.

2) what is the largest of its kind

3) God

Leibniz meant the rules of mathematics are valid in the infinite too. This is obviously not the case with oo+1=oo, etc.

Eckard

Dear Ben Dribus,

Having just read your essay, I feel a bit drunk from the zoo of modernisms you managed to review like an old expert. From your comment on my essay I got quite a different impression: You would like to be an independent thinker. You certainly were clever to abstain from consequent criticism in your essay, and everybody like you accepts "robust experimental confirmation" as compelling. If you were honest you should consider me wrong because my reasoning does not fit into what you learned.

Let me begin with mathematics. Leibniz called his "infinite numbers" infinite relative to something. Strictly speaking they are countable. Hence his method was correct, just based on a mutilated notion of infinity which was later mystified as infinitum creatum sive transfinitum. You used the notion countability correctly. I merely feel bewildered that you then added a word the I would prefer to avoid: cardinality. I see the distinction between countable and uncountable OK but nobody demonstrated any reason for aleph_2.

What about SR vs. an absolute frame of reference, my Fig. 5 does not yet explain what might be wrong around the experiment by Ives. On the other hand, I am vehemently stressing that spacetime is unreal if it is thought to include the not yet existing future. You did not object to my Fig. 1. Be consequent and honest even if it hurts. Your essay hurts me a bit because it avoids hurting others. You cannot eat the cake and have it. Barbour's shape dynamics may distinguish between past and future by means of asymmetry of a configuration space. The decisive and irreversible step is always the abstraction from reality to a model. Because the future is not yet real, I question the reality of spacetime. Moreover, I agree with van Flandern that Einstein's synchronization is an unnecessary de-synchronization, and the constancy of c re observer is logically inconsistent and was experimentally refuted by Shtyrkov.

Dear Eckard,

I'm finding that it's difficult to formulate a quick response to your probing essay. That probably means that your observations are deep enough and paradoxical enough that at least in some cases there may not be a very simple resolution with today's conception of math and physics.

As you know we share the perception that Lorentz invariance is not a complete description of how wave phenomena work, especially with regard to interactions with particles. There weren't quite enough details of Feist's experiment to fully understand the setup and results. I'm seek out his paper and comment further on that. In general though, light waves are transverse in nature while sound waves and many other mechanical waves vibrate in longitudinal directions in space. Outside of a vacuum EM waves do have a longitudinal component, but that component is not self-traveling. It dissipates quickly. So it's not clear yet how applicable the Feist experiment is to EM.

I fully agree on the point you make that negative frequencies cannot be discarded. In fact, in the engineering world, negative frequency values obtained from a Fourier transform are considered just as real and useful as positive frequencies. They merely signify that the wave component travels in the opposite spatial direction as the positive frequency component. Though an alternate conception allows the interpretation of the wave component traveling backwards in time, that interpretation collides with the interpretation of the positive frequency components. It seems forced to split the time parameter into two separate domains.

If you wish to discuss some of those points outside of this forum please feel free to contact me via the email address in a post on an offer to supply a copy of Sir J. J. Thomson's monograph in my forum. There's obviously a lot to discuss in the points made in your essay.

Thanks for your contribution,

Steve

Oh yes! Of course I'm going to rate your paper quite highly. And I can say that your use of English in the essay is excellent. If I needed to write something in German, I guarantee you that you would hear baby talk!

With best wishes,

Steve

Dear Eckard,

you said that you would take a look at my essay because the subject of reality is interesting to you.I am still hopeful that you might get the chance to take a look at it before the end of voting. As I value your opinion any feedback you feel able to provide would be much appreciated.

I wanted to begin the task of answering the set essay question (ie identify basic false assumptions in physics) by looking at the problems, both theoretical and philosophical, that need to be resolved as they are indicative of foundational false assumption/s at play. The list structure was necessary because of the character limit imposed by the competition rules. The basic false assumption has repercussions in many areas.

I did not make the essay about my "pet theory", following the advice we were given by the competition organisers, but I do see its use as necessary to give the most useful answer to the set essay question. Here's a link to a web site that explains more.RICP explanatory framework There is an older version of diagram 1. on that site. I have put a link to the high resolution file of the latest version, used in the essay, on my discussion thread.

Respectfully, Georgina.