Absolute or Relative Motion... or Something Else? by Daniel Wagner Fonteles Alves

Dear Daniel,

Your essay is very well written, clearly set out and argued, going from the historical notions to possible future direction for further development. I am interested in understanding more about Julian Barbour's work. Your clear explanations are helpful with that. So good timing on your part. I think it is a fascinating enough question how we perceive what an object is let alone how it moves.Which is why, until recently, I have not given a great deal of thought to how best to describe a moving object. Other than a brief affair with Leonard Susskind's lectures on classical mechanics via FQXi resources. I like the way in which you have very clearly and simply set out your ideas on the matter.

My own work has been more to do with the separation of reality into an implicate and explicate types, (I have realised), the need for which is well described in ALGEBRAS, QUANTUM THEORY AND PRE-SPACE by F. A. M. FRESCURA and B. J. HILEY Department of Physics, Birkbeck College, London WC1E 7HX UK (Received In February, 22, 1984)

The question then of what an object -is- becomes more complicated as it depends upon whether the "object" in implicate or explicate reality is under consideration or the sensory data by which one might be converted into the semblance of the other. Which I currently think is even more fascinating than the simple concept of an object or shape (as we are accustomed to thinking of those concepts) in an abstract space; or the concept of an object in Newtonian space or Space-time.Which (Ie. implicate or explicate or data) is under consideration by scientists is very important, I think. At least it is very important to me whenever I think about what is going on.

At the end of my essay I have also suggested that category theory could be a useful way forward in developing a formal expression of the relationships identified. Its feels nice, reassuring perhaps, when there is an overlap in thinking about a subject by different people.I hope you get lots of interest in your work.

Good luck in the competition

Dear Daniel

Congratulations for your learned and original essay on a very important topic.

I will have to read your essay more carefully to understand your conception, especially that I think visually (geometrically) rather than algebraically. Nevertheless I agree with you that a new way to think about motion is essential.

In my Beautiful Universe Theory (please see Figs. 19 attached, 20, 26) I have found that motion is the most complex and unintuitive process in my model! As you describe it, motion is a change of pattern. Exactly! In my my model it is the pattern of rotation and phase states in the individual nodes of a universal lattice, but the nodes themselves do not translate position. It is a bit like the pattern of lights in a marquee sign . Nevertheless within the (BU) model forward momentum arriving at an object create contraction even before motion starts, and both special and general relativity are interpreted in simpler more physically realistic ways.

I would be grateful if you (and if you can invite Dr. Barbour to do so) will evaluate my essay, also at my fqxi paper my fqxi essay Fix Physics! .

I wish you all the best.

VladimirAttachment #1: BUFIG19.jpg

Daniel

I agree the most pertinent question today is to accurately analyse "objects that constitute a physical system and their evolution in time", and their effects. I have myself applied this and used pattern recognition to find a unification to "meaningfully describe the universe."

Your essay is well written, shows excellent understanding and rejection of the assumptions most students stridently defend. Well done. Certainly a good score is due.

Like Vladimir I am not a mathematician, and have identified a weakness in using algebraic vector space to accurately describe motion with Cartesian systems. Yet I suspect you may love my essay, or at least the relationships you may glean by considering the meaning kinetically. I hope you may also help better rationalise my findings.

Best of luck.

Peter

Dear Daniel Wagner Fonteles Alves,

I found your essay on Absolute or Relative motion absolutely fascinating. You do an excellent job of explaining Barbour's work in the context of Mach and show how the question of absolute or relative motion is still worthy of investigation. I recommend Daryl Janzen and Israel Omar Perez's essays for fresh insight on absolute frames of reference and also hope that you find my own essay The Nature of the Wave Function to be relevant.

For example, my general relativistic approach to quantum mechanics centers on the weak field approximation: curl C ~ -p where p is momentum density and C is defined in my essay. Hence a change change in curl C with time corresponds to a force dp/dt. One might conclude that, if the field is real [it is -- see Gravity Probe B] this implies an absolute frame, otherwise the field [the basis of the QM wave function] could be transformed away. There is also a spin aspect of the circulating field.

I was also interested in your observation that time cannot be defined without motion of objects. In this sense you might find page 2 my previous essay of interest. It deals with the breaking of perfect symmetry of the original universe, before which the solution is scale-invariant and hence motion-invariant. When the symmetry breaks local vortices appear, the first local cyclical events that give meaning to 'time' in the sense of physical 'clocks'. Before this time is meaningless.

In short, I find your essay absolutely compelling, partly because it overlaps my interests and relates to aspects of my last two essays. You have certainly shown that the concept of motion is still worth exploring. I would hope that you avoid Tegmark's extreme conclusion that the universe "is mathematics". I see this as a misguided dead end for physicists. Instead, I agree with you that the concept of obervation is crucial, and would draw your attention to new observations from 'weak' (Aharonov-type) quantum mechanical observations [referenced in my current essay].

Thanks for a stimulating essay and good luck in the contest.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for the thought you've put into my essay. In answer to your first question, it is not the fact that the C-field has been measured that implies an absolute frame of reference. Rather, the fact that the field is real seems to imply that its energy cannot be transformed away by transforming to a frame in which velocity is zero. The analogous case for electromagnetic fields varies the 'ratio' of electric to magnetic field according to Lorentz transformation, but it is not clear to me that the same 'tradeoff' applies to the gravito-electric G-field and the gravito-magnetic C-field. I'm still thinking this through, which is why I said "one might conclude...".

I'm unsure about how to answer your question about 'moving the whole universe 5 meters to the left." I assume that you mean the 'frame' but not the contents of the frame, in which case the inducing particle momentum and circulating field would seem to be displaced to the right by 5 meters, but I am not sure how one performs this experiment or what detection means are available. I do agree that the measurement of any field defined in every space-time point does not entail that there is an absolute frame. It is rather the link between these circulating field points and the inducing local mass flow (that is, between the rotational momentum and the linear momentum) that seems to me to suggest absoluteness. As in the case of shifting the universe 5 meters to the left, I am unsure how one would go about experimentally obtaining the 3D snapshots that identify field points in this situation in such a manner that all local correlations are preserved.

As I understand it, local mass density is an ill-defined concept in general relativity, while the C-field circulation is induced by the motion of local mass density. So the coupling of this local phenomenon to global GR may be conceptually 'fuzzy'. Your questions focus on measuring 'point's in a field, while the phenomenon in question is a complicated angular flow of field induced by and interacting with a local mass density linear flow. I am still of the opinion that the time derivative of (curl C ~ -p) supports an 'absolute frame' interpretation, but I'm uncertain how to translate this into appropriate 'points' to answer your questions. As I noted in my first comment, you might find support for your essay in a more familiar framework in the essays by Janzen and Perez.

In recent conversations with others I seem to detect two conceptual frameworks in operation. One is focused on the mathematics, while the other focuses on the physical phenomena. Of course the two should be related, but where the emphasis is placed seems sometime to affect the initial conclusions. This is why I counsel against belief in Tegmark's "Mathematical Universe".

Thanks again for making the effort to understand how our essays might relate.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Daniel,

I have read your essay with great interest, especially because it dicusses an unsolved fundamental problem of modern physics: What is the cause of inertia?

I would like to draw your attention to a point that is often overlooked, but is of great importance with respect to our understanding of motion: The Law of Inertia implies a causal paradox of classical mechanics, which we still do not find resolved in modern physics. This paradox is even scarcely recognized as such.

In particular, setting the force, which is assumed to be the cause of the change of state of motion, equal to zero, there are still solutions with constant velocity.

According to the physicist Carl Friedrich von Weiszäcker one avoids the linguistic appearance of a paradox by appropriately calling force not the cause of motion but the cause of acceleration, and letting the state of motion be described by position and velocity (or momentum).

In brief, this state of motion varies in time although the condition F = 0 is given. In other words, there is no external influence that might be regarded as the cause of this persistent change of state.

V. Weizsäcker summarizes this as follows: "In contrast to the sensitive causal conscience of Aristotle and the scholastics, who searched for an explanation of the continued motion of a freely thrown body, in modern times we have simply renounced such an explanation of inertial motion. This renunciation is not a resignation in principle regarding causal explanation; it is none other than surrender in the face of an unsolved problem."

(in: The Structure of Physics, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, p. 24)

May be you will find this "paradox" somehow interesting. It is closely related to the notion of relational versus absolute motion.

Good luck for your well-written paper.

Kind Regards

Helmut

Dear Daniel,

I think if the equation of physics are written with the help of vectors and tensors they can be truly for absolute reference frame. Then if we have truly transformations of coordinate and time to any relative reference frame we will have truly picture in this frame. Then we have absolute and Relative Motion in different reference frames and both are equivalent to each other. The example of absolute reference frame is in Extended special theory of relativity, one concept of the Theory of Infinite Hierarchical Nesting of Matter in my Essay.

Sergey Fedosin Essay

Hi Daniel,

The weak field approximation I use is derived in Hobson, Efstathiou and Lasenby's book, "General Relativity, An Introduction for Physicists" page 491. Another treatment begins on page 313 in Moller's "The Theory of Relativity".

I do not, as a matter of first choice, think in terms of diffeomorphisms, and, with all of the questioning in current essays of the interpretation of General Relativity and its relation to Quantum Mechanics, I don't plan to focus on diffeomorphism invariance. Upon reading your essay it appeared to me that it bore some relation to mine, but it looks as if this relation will die from the lack of a common vocabulary and common expertise. Thanks again for your efforts, and good luck in the contest.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Daniel,

Due to the high degree of non-linearity in the field equations a general solution for arbitrary matter distributions is "analytically intractable". One approach to this is to linearize general relativity, and an excellent treatment of this is provided beginning on page 467 of the Doran reference given above and continuing to page 497. [An equivalent treatment begins on page 313 in Moller, as noted.] The key equation is probably the metric equation (17-4) on page 469, based on infinitesimal transformations (of the form given in equation 17-2) that apply to changes in scalar, vector, and tensor fields, but the claim is that these can be ignored in all quantities except the metric, "where tiny deviations from eta-sub-mu-nu contain all the information about gravity. Equation (17-4) is considered as analogous to a gauge transformation in electromagnetism, and hence has the form of the tensor F-sub-mu-nu given on page 4 in my previous essay, that I already referenced above.

I'm sure that you are quite competent, but if the linearized form of General Relativity is unfamiliar to you, I doubt that a comments blog is the place to remedy this. And, as I noted above, I don't wish to invest more effort into GR field equations, since I have doubts about the ultimate interpretation of GR and I currently find the Maxwell form of the equations much more useful for analogies with electro-magnetism, which I believe most applicable to the quantum approach I am currently interested in. Thanks yet again for your efforts.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Daniel,

The background of it as follows: The conceptual meaning of force ist that it is the cause of change. That means the function f(ik), whose form enters into the solution as a system parameter, is proportional to the time deritative of a state variable. It is thus already assumed how the force will depend on the state, and this force then determines the change of the state in time.

In brief, one understands f(ik) not as one cause among others but as the cause of the change of state. Mathematically it is due to the differential equation being of second order. The state variable x(ik) alone does not determine its own subsequent development, but does so only in conjunction with its time deritative v(ik) as an arbitrary initial condition. In particular, setting the force, which is assumed to be the cause of the change of state, equal to zero, there are still solutions with constant velocity:

x(ik) = a(ik)t + b(ik)

v(ik) = a(ik)

A body with no motive force acting upon it moves with constant velocity.

The physical background of v. Weizsäcker's argument is: Two bodies with the same velocity but at different locations are in different states, if correctly put by the modern description in phase space; and during inertial motion the point in phase space varies. V. Weizsäcker proposes: If one wants to think causally in a consistent way, one must radicalize Machs ideas and interpret the inertial motion as being caused by the universe (i.e. the distant masses).

Hope it helps to understand the point..

Best wishes

Helmut