Dear Armin,
I am most grateful for your long and detailed answer! Like I said, I'm here to learn. The possibility to read interesting essays and be a part of this community was the major reason for me to enter my own (amateurish) essay into the contest. I very much look forward to follow your future publications. Will I find them where I found your lecture in Vaxjo?
My very best wishes!
Inger
Armin
Thanks. I agree deeper understanding is the thing, which is where I came in stage left with my own essay. There I did not find unity added to deeper understanding, but found the deeper understanding led to unity of the quanta and classical. I suppose that is symmetrical?
I can't recall if you've read it but please do if you haven't. Do you know how the harmonic synchronisation of the iambic pentameter works?
Very best of luck.
Peter
Dear Armin,
Thank you for emphasizing the analogies on our arguments. It is a good notice for science when two or more lines of reasoning converge at the same point. This increases the confidence of each one of them.
Let me emphasize that my reasons against unitarity are general and apply as well in cases when proper time is not even defined.
There is not problem in defining the state of a particle in a multiparticle entangled state. Of course, in this case the state cannot be given by a state vector as Dirac first noticed. Observables for each particle are computed in the ordinary way using the state operator for the particle.
Path integrals are not fundamental, they are derived as special case for a restricted class of systems. Moreover, in quantum field theory the spacetime associated to the path integrals is dummy and has no physical meaning:
"Every physicist would easily convince himself that all quantum calculations are made in the energy-momentum space and that the Minkowski x^\mu are just dummy variables without physical meaning (although almost all textbooks insist on the fact that these variables are not related with position, they use them to express locality of interactions!)"
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H. Bacry
"It is important to note that the x and t that appear in the quantized field A(x, t) are not quantum-mechanical variables but just parameters on which the field operator depends. In particular, x and t should not be regarded as the space-time coordinates of the photon."
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J. Sakurai
Regarding GR, my point is not that "GR cannot, according to this view, be an ordinary (quantum) field theory". What I am emphasizing is that GR fails to satisfy dynamical and energetic consistency even at the classical field theory level. This is the reason which GR is plagued with a number of serious difficulties as described in textbooks. Such difficulties are absent in the Field Theory of Gravity (FTG).
The idea that Milgrom law can be reproduced by a scale modification of some existent law is not new. It has been explored by many but it does not work, because Milgrom law is an acceleration scale modification of Newtonian mechanics. It does not predict deviations from Newtonian gravity for certain distances (.e.g. galactic scale), but deviations for certain accelerations below the Milgrom one. In my own work I derive all observed phenomena plus the value of this acceleration scale.
With my best regards.
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.
If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.
Dear Armin Nikkhah Shirazi,
sorry it has taken so long for me to get to your essay. I have not spent as long with it as I would like but have found it well explained and interesting to me.
There is some overlap in our thinking.A 2 dimensional pre space-time 'thing that might be actualised' particularly struck my attention.
QM and relativity are IMHO related to different facets of reality. Potential sensory data within the unobserved pre-space-time that I call Object reality, and the fabricated space-time output of sensory data processing. Decoherence (or wave function collapse) being the transition from considering one facet to considering the other.
Good luck, Kind regards Georgina
Hi Sergey,
I think the whole notion of authors being able to vote on each others' essays is problematic because of the inherent conflict of interest and because of the possibility of "gaming the system". If it absolutely has to be that way, then in my view it should be so that one knows nothing about where someone's essay ranks until the voting period is over, that way people can vote largely based on the merits of the essay, and not extraneous considerations like trying to advance or demote the ranking of a particular essay.
I had not so long ago suggested to Max Tegmark that the voting procedure in these essay contests should be abandoned, but I guess the folks at FQXi see greater value in keeping it, most likely because of the engagement factor.
Armin
Dear Georgina,
No problem, thank you for taking the time to read it.
I agree that, broadly speaking, "QM and relativity are ...related to different facets of reality." and indeed that was the central point of my essay, for if this is truly the case, we cannot have the kind of unified theory of nature that is almost universally assumed to exist.
While I agree that wave function collapse brings about the transition from one domain of nature to the other, I see this less so with Decoherence, because under decoherence you still have superposition even though it is less apparent. This is not to say that decoherence is not important, I believe it is, I just do not see it as the solution for understanding how a classical world arises from an underlying quantum reality.
Thank you for your comments,
Armin
Hi Armin,
I really enjoyed realding your essay. Very clearly written and very catchy!
I was a bit surprised that you discuss the conceptual tension between quantum superpositions and gravitation without mentioning the theoretical ideas of Penrose and Diosi (gravitationally-induced decoherence) and also without mentioning the experimental efforts in this diection (for example at Leiden).
But maybe it's better that you are not aware of all these ... it has allow you to make some interesting arguments (e.g. about the non-identity of the concept of mass in QM and GR) in some undexpected directions - for me at least.
Best of luck in the competition!
Armin,
Congratulations on your good showing in the contest. I am sorry that I did not have time to more thoroughly evaluate and discuss your essay. Perhaps, we can communicate by e-mail when things are less hectic. Good Luck.
Ed
Dear Gheorghe,
Thank you so much for your positive comments. It turns out when I first discussed my ideas in depth with some of my professors early last year, two of them did note some similarity with Penrose's idea. I subsequently attempted to contact him to see what he, as the originator his framework, thought, but unfortunately never got a reply back.
I think that there are some similarities, but there is a major difference which makes the two frameworks really different, and actually incompatible with each other. The best I can tell, Penrose's framework still (at least implicitly) assumes that the concepts of mass in the two theories is the same, but that is, as you know the key distinction of my framework.
It did not occur to me that it would be relevant to mention Penrose' idea, but now that you have mentioned it, perhaps I should have.
As for the Leiden Experiments, I am in fact unaware of what you are referring to. A quick google search revealed the name of Dirk Brouwmeester, and a plan for an experiment using a mirror in a superposition, but I could not find an actual experiment. I would be very grateful if you could clarify what you were referring to.
Thank you again,
Armin
Thank you Ed,
It looks like it was not enough to make it to the top 35, but at least I had an opportunity to introduce some of my ideas to a broader audience than I could have otherwise.
I would be really interested in an exchange as you propose as I think that you are a thoughtful person who is technically very knowledgeable in this area. Given that I go to school and work full-time I suffer some similar constraints as you do with respect to time, but it would be great if we could pursue such an exchange of minds.
Best Wishes,
Armin
