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  • Post #162

Ben,

Hi. For my website, maybe try:

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/

and then click on the third link which is called " Why do Things Exist and Why is there something rather than nothing?" The section related to my point 5 was the last one before the conclusion; although, it helps to read the whole thing.

On the dimension thing, I would just say that for "events" or "structure is at the fundamental level" or geons or causal sets or anything to physically exist, which I think they have to if the universe is to be made of them, then I personally have trouble imagining how they could physically exist without having 3 dimensions. If one of the three is actually zero, then does this really exist in the non-mind, physical universe?

Anyways, no need to reply on this since it's good to have some differences in opinion (we don't want no groupthink!) and I know it kind of takes some time! Good luck at school and in the contest!

Roger

Dear Benjamin,

Thank you for reading my essay and giving good opinion. It is beneficial to me that one Ph. D. student gives good opinion about my essay. It is also a favor that someone reads it precisely and comments, this is what our amateur theories lack. So it is well to obtain any opinion, still better if it is professional or skilled one. It gives new ideas.

I hope that we will further exchange some physical opinions, also after this contests.

Because I cannot read all essays until Friday, can you recommend the best ones by your opinion.

I will read your essay tomorrow. I will give comment below of your essay.

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    • Post #164

    Ben,

    I thought I would repost this response to your observations :

    I wouldn't describe time and sequence as purely mathematical, but as features of action. If I may use an example, it would be that time is frequency and temperature is amplitude. While one wave/cycle/step doesn't cause the next in the series, it does lead to it from the perspective of the dynamic manifesting the series. Cause is wholistic and the sum total cause of any event cannot be known prior to the event, because the lightcone(to use a spacetime concept) of input isn't complete until the event occurs. A bolt of lightening or bus might hit you before you make that next step and the energy manifesting you would be disrupted from its progression. It is just that we exist as a particular point of reference/one molecule of water in that tea kettle and so encounter a series of events within the larger dynamic.

    As for entropy, it seems everyone always ignores that it only applies to a closed system. In an open or infinite system, energy lost by one system is gained by others. We are absorbing light that was radiated by other galaxies billions of lightyears away. It is only because the universe is presumed to be finite that it gains such prominence. Yet even in that model, this energy is simply being dispersed over an expanding area, not eliminated. I think the larger reality is a form of universal convection cycle of expanding energy and contracting mass. These galaxies drawing in mass and radiating energy, until that energy condenses back into mass and falls back into the closest galaxy.

    You are quite right that "energy" defies clear definition, but think about that; Definition is structure and order and energy is constantly manifesting and dissolving structure and order. It's hard to put something in a box, when even the box is an aspect of what you want to put in it. Think of energy as what is physically real, whether radiant, potential, spin, attraction, repulsion, inertial. Even the absence of energy is a form of energy, in the vacuum. Energy manifests, information defines. Information arises from the interaction of different forms and degrees of energy. Such as that mass is a balance of positive and negative energies. We try to measure reality by banging energies into each other. Whether it is light from distant stars onto our telescopes, or ions in a particle collider. Or even cavemen banging one rock into another to see how it breaks/flakes.

      Hi Ben,

      I realize you wrote the above before the exchange we had that's posted with my essay, but I'd like to respond to your last comment.

      I agree with your first points exactly -- the issue of observation is inherently very difficult, and also quite different from the types of issues physicists normally deal with. I certainly don't blame physicists for ignoring this issue as unlikely to be productive, even though QM makes it hard to ignore.

      As to your last paragraph -- it's true that we have one "arrow of time", but it may not be as simple as we usually suppose. For example, the "acyclic" aspect of interaction that lets us conceive of time as linear does not yet distinguish a "direction" in time, but I think your causal structure does. So even with your primitive "binary relation" we have at least two levels of structure on a randomly connected interaction-web. And this doesn't yet give any definition of a metric, which I would guess may involve several kinds of structure. And then there's still more structure in the physical "present time" we experience, which involves the availability of "measurement-contexts" that can create new facts, and pass them on to participate in defining new measurement-contexts.

      I would guess that the complexity of our interaction-rules is essentially mirrored in the complexity of spacetime structure, each rule contributing something different to making spacetime meaningful and measurable. It's just a holdover from the classical viewpoint that lets us imagine a simple, given spacetime background distinct from what happens in it. But I don't think of this in terms of multiple basic "binary relations" co-existing with each other.

      I'd guess the causal-set structure defines very basic topological restrictions on the web of interaction, which provide a structural context in which certain higher-level constraints can define themselves, corresponding to other laws of interaction. Each level selects out part of the graph defined by previous levels, and gives new constraints that makes new selection-rules definable.

      Incidentally, in case this conjecture makes any sense to you -- I have in mind your discussion of "covariance". I agree that symmetries in physics aren't fundamental -- I think of them as reflecting this kind of layering of information. Essentially a symmetry indicates a boundary between levels, where one kind of information is already definable but another is not. E.g. you get a circular symmetry if you can define a central point in a plane and the length of a radius, but angles and directions aren't yet definable. (I'm very vague about what the levels actually are, in physics, but given the way QM operates, I would guess that angles are more primitive than lengths.)

      Needless to repeat, "there are several ways in which this reasoning could be wrong"!

      Thanks -- Conrad

      Dear Conrad,

      Thanks for the follow-up. In the future, please just go ahead and write a new post on the bottom of my thread. I have no problem remembering our previous conversation, but great difficulty in locating new posts somewhere up in the middle of the thread!

      I am interested in your remarks about symmetry in physics. I included my rejection of the symmetry interpretation of covariance in my essay with some reluctance, because even though I believe it is true and important, it has become nearly unquestioned in physics that more and more symmetry must be invoked, and that symmetry is the most basic and important type of unifying principle. Your conjecture sounds very similar to my idea that covariance (and possibly other "symmetries") involves partitioning privileged information from unprivileged information. However, your conjecture sounds more general in two ways: first, "layering" admits the possibility of more than two layers, and second, you seem to be suggesting that perhaps all symmetries should be viewed this way. I don't know if this is true; for instance, the "gauge symmetries" of the standard model may "really" be group symmetries, although perhaps not Lie group symmetries (i.e. continuous symmetries). In any case, I predict that the de-emphasis on group symmetry will be viewed 50 or 100 years from now as one of the most important conceptual advances from this generation of physicists. If you have any further thoughts on the matter, I'd be interested. Take care,

      Ben

      John,

      Thanks for the followup. I posted a few more remarks about this over on your thread. Take care,

      Ben

      Dear Janko,

      Thanks. I will look forward to seeing your comments. I emailed you again as well. Take care,

      Ben

      Dear Ben,

      I read your essay. Your field being mathematics, as I expected, your remedy is also mathematical.In your comment about my essay, you mentioned about mathematical convenience. I agree. But convenience is more related to practical work than theory. Mathematical convenience may lead to (has already led to many) technology. The foundational question is more of theoretical nature, the question what matter actually is.

      Let us suppose a lump of matter (whatever it may be) devoid of any motion. It will remain the same even after billions of years. So it is motion that causes changes. Motion is a space- time relation that can be mathematically stated, and any change can be mathematically interpreted. That is the role of mathematics.The cause- effect explanations based on mathematics need not necceesarily help us understand what that lump we call matter is. For that we require some physical assumptions about matter.

      I have some assumptions about matter, and I think that it agrees with all observations, though it disagrres with the existing cause- effect explanations. However, there may be loop holes in that. So what I suggest is that the main stream scientists propose some physical assumptions about matter and verify whether these agrees with all the recorded observations.

      Your suggestions regarding new mathematical approach and new experiments may sometimes lead to new technologies. The experiments can provide proof to the theory. But before that, you have to decide what physical assumption regarding matter is to be proved.

        Dear Jose,

        Thanks for the remarks. I agree that reducing physics to mathematical concepts is not necessarily very satisfying; the question of what makes the real world "real," rather than another of the myriad mathematical possibilities, has plagued scientists and philosophers for as long as there have been scientists and philosophers.

        However, I don't think that causality is a mathematical concept. Nothing causes two plus two to equal four, it just does. While you can describe a network of cause-and-effect relationships mathematically, there is nothing intrinsic to the resulting mathematical structure that identifies it as cause and effect; this is a physical interpretation.

        The point I was trying to make about "mathematical convenience" is that it can lead you to get the wrong answer. Choosing to describe physics in terms of mathematical objects whose theory is well-developed and easy to work with shifts the focus from what the physical universe really is like to what we wish it were like for the purpose of calculating things.

        I agree that ideas leading to technology don't necessarily lead to illumination. However, one could hope for both! Take care,

        Ben

        Dear Benjamin,

        I am going through your essay, but I have not yet finished. (It is interesting that there is no one formula in the body of essay, but it is very demanding mathematically. :) )

        It is interesting that you "reject the symmetry interpretation of covariance", You reject "space time is a manifold", and you have similar ideas. Can you, please, attach your ideas with my interpretation of special relativity, that space-time does not exist in empty space, although space-time of Minkowski means space-time coordinates in empty or non-empty space? I need still some time to understand your ideas, so I please you for help.

        You wrote that matter-antimatter asymmetry might indicate a problem with QFT. It is an interesting idea, and it is linked with the last paragraph in this post.

        It is interesting that such basic idea, as that of Weizsacker one why three dimensions exist, was not presented to me in University. I suppose that others also mainly have not hear this in University courses. I ask why they hide such interesting idea.

        You asked, why my theory is against Higgs boson. I defined that Black holes exist whose are superpositions of Planck's mass and mass zero. They are not against uncertainty principle (UP), I suppose. Their mass can be equal or smaller than masses of elementary particles. (So they can be elementary particles) So their masses are defined, so they need creation of mass by Higgs boson. If CERN will show that 125 GeV particle creates masses of particles, my theory will be rejected, probably. Besides, if my superposition is against UP, my theory will also be rejected. But, who know. (But my rejected theory will be more successful that superstrings, which cannot be tested. :) )

        You said "proof is lacking antimatter interacts in the same way as ordinary matter gravitationally". It seems to me, that you are wrong. Feynman wrote about this in, it seems to me, in "QED: the strange theory of light and matter".

        Other my important idea in the essay is that wave functions are less fundamental than UP. Thus, in curved space, UP is changed, but definition of wave functions is also changed. And this fact has consequences as I wrote. This Idea is not forbidden by Higgs boson. (I regret that I had not enough time to study Higgs mechanism.)

        Best regards

        Janko Kokosar

        Hello John,

        I didn't think or say that you're out to lunch, and I'm sorry you felt that way. If I wasn't in England, I'd like to take you out to lunch to make up for it. I'm sure we'd talk about time, and there might be less misunderstanding that way. I just tried to focus on an idea of yours, and felt I'd shown it to be wrong, and it seemed you kept changing the subject. But if it seemed different to you, then I'm sorry.

        Best wishes, Jonathan

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        • Post #173

        Jonathan,

        If I am wrong, then I am out to lunch, given that I don't see it.

        Chris Kennedy has an interesting essay on the evolving interpretations of the various thought experiments associated with relativity. I just don't see how insistence on one of them disproves time is an effect of action.

        Dear Janko,

        Thanks for the comments. Regarding your interpretation of special relativity, I agree with your conclusion that "spacetime" does not exist in the absence of "matter-energy," and my approach says the same thing, but in my approach this is a direct consequence of a hypothesis about what "spacetime" and "matter-energy" really are at the fundamental scale (the causal-metric hypothesis), not deduced from an argument on the basis of an existing theory (such as your argument involving the trolley and the rocket in special relativity). Arguments like yours are encouraging for such a hypothesis because they reach downward from existing theory toward a more fundamental theory, while my ideas are trying to reach upward to recover existing theory in some approximation.

        The strong form of the causal metric hypothesis treats what we call "spacetime" and "matter-energy" as manifestations of causal structure. Neither has an independent meaning at the fundamental scale; they emerge together. Other "causal theories" (such as causal set theory and causal dynamical triangulations) sometimes impose "matter fields" on causal structure, essentially by adding "weights" to the edges or vertices of a causal graph (the weights might be numbers or various types of mathematical objects such as spinors or elements of SU(2)). There might be some use in trying this, but I would prefer to try to use only the graph-theoretic structure.

        This might seem to contain too little information to describe things like particles in the standard model, but I think there might be enough information present after all. Metric recovery theorems show that causal structure can give a metric up to a conformal factor, and this can be supplied by appropriate volume information, which can also be associated with the causal graph by an appropriate rule (Sorkin uses the simplest possible rule: a constant discrete metric in his "order plus number equals geometry" motto in causal set theory).

        Many of the properties of the particles of standard model come from the representation theory of the Poincare group of symmetries of Minkowski spacetime, so already there is enough information in causal graphs to recover these properties. But there is more information: not only are other metrics recoverable as well, but the microstructure contains local information which has not yet been used. Also, the causal graphs I use are more general than causal sets; for instance, a given causal set corresponds to an entire equivalence class of "degenerate" non-transitive causal graphs, each of which specify information that is lost when taking the transitive closure.

        At the most naive intuitive level, the reason why no spacetime exists in the absence of energy is because energy involves causal relations; i.e., "things are happening" in an energetic system. As the energy goes to zero, all interactions (relations) cease; there is no causal structure because "nothing is being caused." Hence, there is no emergent geometry and no spacetime.

        Bear in mind, though, that all this is based on the hypothesis that spacetime is only a way of talking about causal structure. If this hypothesis is wrong (e.g. if there is a "background manifold") then this whole idea falls through. Take care,

        Ben

        Dear Janko,

        By the way, regarding the gravitational behavior of antimatter, a lot of money is currently being spent to test this experimentally. Here is one of many popular news articles; the paper itself is behind a pay wall.

        If this has already been proven, then a lot of people should be fired for wasting money!

        By the way, I would personally be shocked if antimatter had antigravitational properties, but some people still hold out hope that "gravitational segregation" may account for local absence of antimatter. In any case, I think it should be conclusively tested. Take care,

        Ben

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        • Post #176

        Benjamin,

        Like Julian Barbour, you create theories in which the "old" concepts cannot be found at all. This is a winning strategy in contests like this one but detrimental for science.

        Earlier you wrote: "Regarding the constancy of the speed of light, my guess would be that a concept like this only makes sense at sufficiently large scales. (...) You'll have to remember that my background is mostly mathematical, and therefore I'm inclined to consider the possibility of things that most physicists "know" are wrong. This might be useful in some cases; in others it only reflects my own ignorance."

        Pentcho Valev

          Dear Pentcho,

          Thanks for the feedback. Causality is a rather "old" concept, at least according to Aristotle. In any case, to paraphrase an "old" proverb, "mathematics is a good servant but a bad master." Regarding the "bad master" part of this phrase, you might have noticed that I've repeatedly expressed the opinion that physical theories should not substitute convenient or "elegant" mathematical constructs (such as manifolds over the continuum) for clear, motivating physical principles. Hence, my own ideas are based on the simplest physical principles you can imagine: order, cause, and effect. However, regarding the "good servant" part, one cannot afford to do without the mathematical tools necessary to implement these simple principles. The physics comes first; the mathematics must be whatever is required to get the job done. Nature demands no less. Take care,

          Ben

          (Well either we found the misunderstanding or you changed the subject again - it wasn't about disproving that. JK)

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          • Post #179

          Jonathan,

          As per my entry, that is my subject.

          To clarify the point regarding the initial twin thought experiment, if time is a vector from past to future, one would assume the twin in the faster frame would travel into the future quicker, but the opposite is true, she moves into the past quicker. When her twin returns from the trip, in the slowed frame, she is dead and with every passing day, her live recedes further into the past. That is because she ages quicker and that is comparable to a faster metabolic rate, which was where we first diverged in our view of the discussion. It was you who transferred the topic to two observers passing each other.

          Dear Benjamin

          I see that we both intuitively believe that space-time is background free. You also understand my conclusion about my derivation of special relativity, a referee only wrote that Minkowski spacetime is so defined that time flows also in empty space. :) He also claimed many time repeated words that "derivation with relativistic mass does not give anything new". (I admit that this version needs some corrections about Duff's claims.) I hope that someone will generalize my derivation into general relativity, that influence of diffeomorphism will be easier explained.

          I agree with Machian rule, which is in one version advocated by Barbour. I think that causal relations are based on Machian rule. If we said that spin of universe is zero, then Newton's bucket do not contradict with Mach. Do you agree?

          You write that you hope that your theory will give SR and GR at large scales. It seems to me that such theories need be so clear, that we will see this without long calculations. But, who knows. Thus, for instance, I more like Weizsacker explanation of 3D than with triangulation of Loll. Maybe the theory still needs clarification about foundations, and then quantum graphity will be easier.

          I you can see I avoided causal metrics to give masses to Planckian black holes, but it will be necessary some day.

          Probably we disagree about consciousness. It seems to me that the money which enables Higgs boson, will enable also physical explanation of consciousness. Then we will see, how it is important for physics.

          Those are some my disagreements, but because of your right intuition (I hope) and because of your big mathematical knowledge I give you 10.

          Best regards Janko Kokosar

          p.s.

          I wrote the wrong book of Feynman. Feynman has a Lecture book on gravity available. Here I found his explanation why gravity of anti-particles is not negative. I do not remember it precisely, but it is worth to read it.

          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