Dear Steven,

You wrote: "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."

Before I got retired I was with at an institute for electronics, signal processing and communication technology. Therefore I got a bit familiar with TEM waves in cavities as well as with acoustics waves and a comparison between them. You are quite right, TEM and acoustic waves are different to some extent. Nonetheless I realized that Feist's result cannot be explained if one adopts the reasoning by Lorentz to acoustics. I wrote that neither Feist nor Bruhn explained Feist's measurement. I should correct me and say convincingly explained. Meanwhile Feist sent me an arXiv paper (24 pages in German) in which he theoretically justified his measurement. I cannot recommend reading it because Feist dealt with many marginalia including Ritz, Pashky, and Marinov transformation. His own explanation is similar to mine but about as geometrical and worrying as Marmet's attack on MMX.

Norbert Feist wrote (my translation): As I was informed by Dr. Karl Mocnik/Graz in December 2000, he had already 10 years ago realized that Michelson experiments with sound have the same outcome as the optical ones.

Just some details: Width of the transducer 2 cm, width of the reflector much larger.

Best,

Eckard

Dear Ben,

In response to Stephen Sycamore I tried to explain how the uncommon views of mine behind each of my figures are logically connected, and I hope this chain of heretical but well-founded views can help to eventually resolve at least some of the questions that gave rise to the topic of the contest.

I see your approach much more straight forward. Of course, it would be desirable to immediately find a unification of theories that contradict to each other while each of them has been successful, approved, and confirmed by "robust evidence". I am ready to question this robustness.

I doubt that this unification can be achieved with mere modification of what you called "the fundamental building blocks of every aspect of modern physics". The topic of the contest asks for good reason: What BASIC assumption is wrong? Perhaps you are on a good way when focusing on mathematical foundations. That's why I suggested to you some food of thought. Please don't take amiss my honest opinion. I respect your work and wish you success.

Eckard

Dear Eckard,

I appreciate your magnanimous reply. In any case, as you point out, honesty is preferable to false praise! I respect your point of view, and assure you that there are no hard feelings. Take care,

Ben

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  • Post #211

Eckard

If I remember correctly, because you have said this before, it is not presentism. Anyway, I do not care what it is, the point is that knowledge supposed to be objective must correlate with physical reality as it is independently manifest. And it is really quite easy to establish, generically, how that must be. Which brings me to this notion of 'points of view', there is only one, because physical existence only occurs in one form. And indeed, it is from the "human perspective". Precisely what other perspective is there?

I referred to Einstein only in the sense that it was a quote you used. My point, which is correct, was about past, present, future. The point about 'illusion' was that that would have no experienceable substantiation. But there is a physical reality reflected in these concepts of past, present, future, it is usually just not that which actually occurs.

"I am more interested in arguments against what I am claiming in my essay"

Indeed, but if your base concepts about the reality being modelled by mathematical constructions is incorrect, then that becomes a reundant exercise.

Paul

Dear Ben,

You wrote: "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."

I did not yet take issue in that direction because my own reasoning is most likely far away from what you learned and thought. Don't hurry, I am prepared but not keen for a controversy where virtually all silent participants would consider me stupid at least in the beginning. I nonetheless hope that my radicalism might help you out if you will run into trouble in future. You are still young enough for reaching decisive progress.

Best,

Eckard

Paul,

Human perspective means what you are calling manifest in opposition to ideal constructs including the divine perspective imagining a sight from out side. For instance, a point is not tangible. I also maintain, the very moment is strictly speaking not manifest.

You are correct: If my "base concepts about the reality being modelled by mathematical constructions" were wrong then one could not expect correct results.

You merely failed to show me where they are wrong.

Eckard

Hello Eckard,

Would it be possible for you to write up something additional to clarify the issues you bring up? I believe you are entitled to submit 2 files inside this forum.

I'm thinking it would help very much and be more convincing if you laid out a detailed list of assumptions, dependencies and inferences in a step-by-step manner similar to the procedure followed for a math proof.

Steve

    Dear Eckard,

    Congratulations, I'm very happy to see you as a finalist!

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Yes Eckard,

    It appears that the community has appreciated your work after all. Assuming no further chaotic oscillation in the ratings; I congratulate you as a finalist.

    You deserve to have your work seen and reviewed by the experts. Knowing you; I am sure their feedback - even stern criticism - would be worth as much as appreciation from the average reader. But alas; that will be left unknown. May the judges treat you well, in the way that they can.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

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      • Post #217

      Congratulations Eckard!

      You are finalist!

      Yuri

      Dear Jonathan,

      Steve Sycamore suggested to me something like an attempt to summarize the essence of my essay. Asking myself for the key assumption to start with I tend to focus on the notion of reality in contrast to e.g. Einstein's notion of it. I did not yet reply to your hint on the finding that a child has to learn distinguishing between himself and his surroundings. And yes, oneness is an issue.

      All the Best,

      Eckard

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      • Post #219

      Eckard

      "Human perspective..." There is nothing else we can know, and even then we have to invoke hypothesis to overcome a variety of mecchanical problems in the sensory processes. We can just make assertions, based on no form of experienceability, but this is science not belief. We know of a physical reality only via the sensory systems. But within that existentially closed system, it exists independently of them.

      "the very moment is strictly speaking not manifest". So how does physical existence occur then? Take anything as an example. Say St Paul's Cathedral. This is differentiated from everything else by certain features, and we also know they change. But this conceptualisation of 'it' is at a much higher level than what occurs. In terms of existence, what appears to constitute 'it' is constantly altering, indeed it would be impossible to delineate a clear boundary for 'it', etc. But it must have a physically existent state as at any given point in time, ie whatever configuration is actually occurring, in order to exist. This (aka present)is all there is, it is not the previous configuration (aka past)which must have ceased and been superceded, neither is it the subsequent configuration (aka future)which has yet to occur as a function of the present.

      Paul

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      • Post #220

      Paul,

      With human perspective I mean for instance that counting does never reach a number infinity. Archimedes argued: every number can be incremented by adding one. Scholastics taught what Aristotle formulated: Infinitum actu non datur. Nonetheless, EEs like me used to operate with infinity like a quantity. We know that this infinity belongs to an abstraction. Somewhat simple people cannot even imagine how it happens that sometimes temporarily insane people are saying they feel standing besides themselves. The sound human perspective is certainly the most natural but not at all the only possible one.

      You are persistently speaking of a closed system in which we live. When I agree with Popper on that the real world is presumably an open system, I assume that there is an infinite plurality of possible influences on everything and therefore no chance to predict the future for sure.

      May I understand your "closed system" as human's ultimate mental restriction to input via the sensory systems? Well, in this respect I agree at least with respect to one decisive aspect: Future data are definitely not available in advance via any sensory or measuring system.

      I maintain: There is no present time between past and future. Expressions like today, presently, at this month, within this millennium, etc. denote time spans that are usually deliberately undecided with respect to the alternative past or future. Today was, today will be, or today was and will be something. What does existence mean? My dictionary tells me: "If something exists then it is present in the world as real, living or actual thing." Such a practical judgment cannot be based on expected future data. Hence, existence necessarily belongs to the near past. How near is, of course, as unclear as is the duration of considered as unchanged existence. What you calls "physical existent state at a given moment" is a fiction which is only reasonable together with the assumption anything flows steadily without sudden steps.

      Why do you imagine that the past must cease immediately? Isn't the past a continuous summary of all what already happened up to the border to the future, something like a permanently incremented integral? Why do you speak of the future as the subsequent state? Don't you know that real numbers do not have a successor? Do you blindly follow Hilbert's unfounded finitism?

      Eckard

      Eckard

      "May I understand your "closed system" as human's ultimate mental restriction to input via the sensory systems?"

      No. We, and indeed all sentient organisms, are part of reality. We are not separate from it, as if we were, somehow, 'looking in'. So our very existence is the closed system. We cannot transcend that, and thereby know of anything extrinsic to it (assuming it exists anyway). But, although we are trapped in a sensory loop, within that, the sensory systems which enable that particular form of awareness in the first place, do not control/create what we are enabled to be aware of. That is, 'our' reality occurs independently of these processes. They receive physically existent phenomena.

      It is the subsequent processing that is one of the problems. All the 'mental' stuff is just another 'nuisance', ie another factor which prevents the sensory systems from functioning perfectly by causing variation from the original. But all these factors are concerned with the mechanics of the processes, not metaphysical issues which cannot be resolved, by definition, and are irrelevant to an objective explanation of physical existence as it is detectable to us.

      "There is no present time between past and future". Now, given that there is a physical existence, and it alters (ie occurs in different states), how can that statement be true? There must be a point of existence (the notion of time is irrelevant). Otherwise there is no physical existence, let alone something which can then occur differently! It cannot be what has occurred, neither can it be what has yet to occur. It can only be what is occurring. You are quite right about the vagueness of the quantities of time you quote. What is being referred to here is the deconstruction of physical existence until a physically existent state is 'revealed', ie that which had physical existence and involved no form of change. This probably revolves around the condition of the properties of the elementary parts. But that is what, to answer your question, is what existence means. This is not to be confused with the substance of existence.

      "Such a practical judgment cannot be based on..." You are confusing knowledge of reality, with reality. It must have existed so that we can gain knowledge of it.

      "Why do you imagine that the past must cease immediately". Because within any sequence of physical existence, two physically existent states cannot co-exist. The predecessor must cease for the successor to occur.

      Without going into detail, and questioning the concepts, but just to convey the point. Two examples:

      1 Take any type of elementary particle which is doing something. Now, in terms of substance, that is it, that is the 'bottom-line'. In terms of reality, ie what is existent at any time, that is not it. Because the question arises as to what constitutes a physically existent state? Say the 'doing something' was 'spinning'. Do we designate a physically existent state as half a spin, a whole spin, a million spins? No, all those options include change (ie must be more than one state). A physically existent state (ie a reality) in this circumstance will be one 'degree' of spin, ie where there is no further divisible state between two subsequent states. And a 'degree' would equate to the smallest particle in reality, ie the point at which no further spatial difference is possible. We have no chance of identifying this, I would suggest, but then the sensory systems evolved to give advantage in survival, not to perceive the very nature of our existence. But the whole point is, for physical existence to occur, and change, there must be a physically existent state of it, that must be definitive, there can only be one of them at a time in any given sequence, and it cannot involve change. This is the present, ie what at any given time is existent.

      2 Say reality consisted of n differently shaped and coloured bricks, which have an innate property which caused them to move. Now, again the elementary substance of physical existence is the n bricks. The reality, ie what is existent, is a particular configuration of these as at any point in time, ie a particular physically existent state.

      Finally, I must just stress that, generically, this is all very easy to say. What this is in terms of our reality is incredibly difficult. But these (and other) logical rules apply.

      Paul

      PS: I dumped the latest version of the first 22 paragraphs on my blog yesterday

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      • Post #224

      Eckard,

      Let us juxtapose an emission theory and a normal (that is, non-relativistic) wave theory:

      Emission theory:

      1. The speed of light relative to the observer varies with the speed of the light source.

      2. The speed of light relative to the observer varies with the speed of the observer.

      Wave theory:

      1. The speed of light relative to the observer DOES NOT VARY with the speed of the light source.

      2. The speed of light relative to the observer varies with the speed of the observer.

      As you can see, the emission theory and the wave theory share Proposition 2 which contradicts special relativity. I must admit however that the wave theory defends Proposition 2 much better than the emission theory so in my essay I was forced to use the wave theory, not the emission theory:

      Shift in Frequency Implies Shift in Speed of Light

      Pentcho Valev

      Anonymous Yuri,

      I see LC a tragic figure with rather imperfect education and rude manners. Otherwise he did not write "Einstein's anus mirabilis" and did not write: "some other papers ... such as Tamari, Blumschein, Klingman, Leshan, Merryman which either have factually wrong physics, advance silly propositions and in some cases clearly show a lack of basic understanding of physics." He tends to strongly dislike my criticism, and the contest provides a good opportunity for him to take issue and show at least a weakness in my essay. Obviously he did not find anything in it he could seriously object to. Instead he decided to insult me and others in public without uttering a single factual argument and even without signaling his insult to us. Should I urge him to get factual? You know, I appreciate most if someone reveals a mistake of mine. Frankly speaking, I do not expect a single valuable criticism from LC. So let's ignore him. Nonetheless thank you for the information.

      Eckard

      Pentcho

      If you consider both cases, then I believe your essay would become uniquely good.

      May I suggest;

      2. Is modified to "The speed of light approaching and passing by the observer varies with respect to the observer subject to the speed of the observer."

      2a. The speed of light interacting with and passing through the observers lens is changed to c wrt the observer.

      The underlying theme of my essay is that in many areas there are TWO cases not the one we assume. I suggest this is a key example.

      Peter

        Paul,

        My Fig. 3 might hopefully understandably explain my objection concerning Hilbert space.

        Feeling a bit like someone who tries to teach atheism in Islamabad, I will nonetheless begin to try and patiently unravel what I consider your mistakes:

        While I do still not yet entirely understand what you mean with the "closed system" and in particular with "we are trapped in a sensory loop", this might be not of central importance. We may perhaps agree on that we are using the notion reality roughly synonymous to objective existence in contrast to subjective imagination and expectation.

        I think I understand your picture of subsequent states. I will show you some logical inconsistencies. You imagine that the past must cease immediately. What do you include within the past? Given the past must cease immediately and be replaced by the immediately following present. What would remain and could cease the next time?

        In reality, there are traces to be found that memorize what happened while there are no traces belonging to the future. Isn't this an important aspect of reality/existence? Traces exist, often for very long time.

        In principle, your imagined sequence of pebble-like states corresponds to discrete mathematics. We may attribute e.g. the upper half matrix to the past but the power to the future. This requires to arbitrarily choose a step width between subsequent states.

        You wrote: "There must be a point of existence". A point has no extension. You mean a piece of the past immediately adjacent to the future that is so small that there is no noticeable change in it. If you maintain that there is a timespan present between past and future then tell me please its width and why it cannot be attributed to the past.

        I apologize for having no interest in your blog.

        Eckard