Ed,
''Quantum measurement predictions are consistent with relativity for macroscopic observations, but there is no consensus on how to explain this consistency in fundamental terms.''
My essay is a sketch of a much more extended investigation about how a universe might create itself out of nothing (see my website www.quantumgravity.nl). In this study I have proposed a mass definition based on the Uncertainty Principle (UP): the less indefinite the position of a particle or the mass center of an object is, the greater its mass is. If forces upon a particle can be stronger as they are more exactly equal from all directions, and they are more precisely equal within a smaller area as these forces are stronger, which they are as the mass of the particle is greater, then its position is less indefinite as its mass is greater and vice versa. As the force on it and definiteness in its position also depends on the mass its environment and its distribution, its mass in this definition automatically is a relative quantity.
If a larger distance between particles is a less definite distance, and particles can only exchange energy (see below) at a frequency the definiteness of which corresponds to that in their distance, then this frequency becomes less definite, shifts to red at larger distances, agreeing with the proposition in my essay that in a SCU clocks are observed to run at a slower pace as they are more distant, even when at rest.
In another chapter ('The color of light') this definition is shown to be consistent with relativity theory. Though this is just a first, qualitative analysis, I suspect that it must be possible to derive the equations of relativity theory from the UP, using the proposed mass definition. As in a SCU particles are as much the product as the source of the force between them, here forces never become infinite, so we don't get the infinite self-energies of QED not the singularities of a BBU-based GR.
If, as I argue, c doesn't refer to a velocity but to a property of spacetime so the contact between particles at different spacetime points is instantaneous, then they are at all times informed about each other's state and motion, the info consisting of the frequency they exchange energy at and its polarisation, info which is refreshed, updated in every cycle. So the hidden variables Einstein wanted to exist to avoid indeterminism, can be identified as the energy exchange by means of which particles express and preserve each other's properties, its instantaneousness making self-evident things like the EPR paradox, entanglement and double-slit experiments.
However, the unpredictability Einstein wished to eradicate remains since (in a SCU) particles are as much the effect as the cause of their interactions. It is because the exchange of energy, of info between particles is unobservable as long as they are in equilibrium that we have been able to remain ignorant of it: because we've always assumed that particles have passively been created, so only are source of forces: their exchange only becomes observable when their equilibrium is disturbed and energy is emitted or absorbed.
In a SCU real particles can be thought of as virtual particles which by alternately borrowing and lending each other the energy to exist, manage to force each other to reappear again and again after every disappearance, so here they create and un-create each other time and time again. The smaller their distance, the greater the force between them, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, the higher their energy is. In this view the origin of mass is obvious, as is the equality of inertial and gravitational mass, so unlike a Big Bang Universe, a SCU doesn't need Higgs particles, nor string theory, bigbang, inflation or dark energy to explain observations.
Well, I just wanted to give you some reason to take a look at my study as the essay was too short to elaborate my arguments in full.
Anton
