The Nature of Space by M. V. Vasilyeva

Hi M.V. Your essay was a fun read, and I think the picture you have of how things work is better than many. I agree that forces and particles should both be described in terms of spacetime geometry (topological solitons of some type), and also that large extra dimensions may be involved. I think you would enjoy reading about the bouncing droplet system -- it is a lot like your flatland. If you have no journal access send me an email, otherwise some references are given in my essay.

Andrew

Hi M. V. V.,

You wrote "fear of resurrecting old ether theories". Why fear? Is your suggestion a new ether theory? Was Einstein correct when he resurrected the ether in 1920 except for admitting it as preferred system of reference? I

n the discussion you repeatedly used "lol". I doubt that this is a persuading style. Don't some arguments e.g. by Pentcho Valev and Frank Makinson rather deserve a factual reply?

You called space a paradox. Galileo's pupil Torricelli and Guericke demonstrated that a spatio vacuo (without air) actually exists. Two kinds of experiments by the latter led to the industrial revolution and the study of electricity. Guericke tried to understand forces between distant bodies. I see justified curiosity but no paradox in this case.

Cantor's transfinite cardinalities and Einstein's special theory of relativity (SR) led into many paradoxes even if their supporter tend to deny them and your ideas are nonetheless based on SR if spacetime is based on SR.

Einstein in 1905 tacitly referred to Lorentz. Lorentz adopted Potier's correction to Michelson's first experiment.

Meanwhile, some experts questioned that the null-result of MMX disproves the existence of an absolute space alias ether alias preferred frame of reference. I quoted some of them in my essay. My own humble contribution is my Fig. 5. Feel challenged to either provide a different explanation or resurrect absolute space.

Using the expression "in time" you seem to fatalistically believe that there are future worldlines in reality.

At least I appreciate that you understand light propagating within the medium space.

Eckard

Ms. Vasilyeva,

I appreciate Eckard responding about ether, he explains it better than I can. I read an article some time ago where a person stated that the arguments used for the need of a Higgs boson, and its related field, were essentially the same arguments used for the need of "aether".

Your last comment contained: "I offer a geometrical model of space in 4D at low, everyday energies, where matter and space are separate (they may be one and the same at very high energies, a point I omitted in my essay)." Topic 1539 contains the term "energeum", and the essay develop the characteristics of this "stuff" to fill up the quantum vacuum.

I find it inconceivable that contemporary physicists never bother to explain why space, essentially a vacuum, has permittivity and permeability, measurable characteristics. I am beginning to think that it is deliberately ignored. I don't believe the scientific community realizes that EM waves cannot propagate without the presence of a medium that posseses permittivity and permeability, which could be described as a "neutral field" that permeates all space and matter.

And, Einstein, Minkowski and all the other scientists of that era were totally ignorant that electromagnetic (EM) waves, over a wide spectrum, were pervasive in space. These "ancient scientists" were aware that light reached the earth from distance stars, and it was an EM phenomenon, but they were totally unaware that other EM spectrum was reaching earth. This was not "discovered" until the 1930s, by a couple of what were called "radio engineers" at that time. Georgina Parry, topic 1316, used the term "incomplete information" as a polite term for "ignorance".

There is a very simple explanation how EM fields can accomplish what is called gravity, but Einstein acolytes will not even consider anything that doesn't fit General Relativity, even if it is simple.

Thank you M. V. V. for responding. Being ignorant of the ADD model, I read: "Results from the Large Hadron Collider do not appear to support the model."

Perez argues for reloading the preferred system of reference. I just doubt that this is possible when he maintains Einstein's SR. Admittedly, I only found out that the primary reason for Einstein to fabricate SR was based on the most likely wrong assumption that the MMX will yield a non-null result; see my Fig. 5.

Can any electromagnetic wave propagate in a Faraday's cage? I am an EE; I say no. Is your space something with a frequency-dependent transfer function?

While I agree on the assumption that there is perhaps something (call it absolute space or ether or preferred background) that em waves refer to like the sea that carries a ship, I would not infer that it "makes matter impenetrable to other matter. And yet we move through it with ease."

Eckard

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Dear M.V. Vasilyeva,

It is my essay:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1516

Comment?

Marek

Dear Vasilyeva

I really enjoyed reading your inspiring essay. I agree with most of your essay and I would like to make some comments and state some doubts.

First you argue that you are not in support of the old aether notion and you also argue that it was wrong. I wonder why you think, it was wrong. Could you make some comments.

You state an old paradox with the question: how can space be both empty and solid? I think you are aware that this paradox is only valid considering that space is some sort of fluid. Today physics does not assume space as such and therefore there is no paradox for contemporary physics. As I can see your program attempts to revive the problem and by reviving the problem you are trying to solve the present ones. In my essay I try to do the same by reviving the notion of aether and the notion of the preferred system of reference, I think you will be very much interested in reading it. I will be glad if you could leave me some comments. My question in this respect is: don't you think that by reviving the old problem you are also contradicting current views, in particular, the general and the special relativity?

Something that was not clear for me is whether you think that the universe was created in the Big Bang (BB) or not. As I read, at a given point of your essay you argued that at the moment of the BB the universe had n-dimensions and after some time the universe (by unknown reasons) was left with only four. My question is: do you accept the idea that the universe had a BB, i.e., that the universe had a beginning? If so, What reasons can you provide to explain the lost of dimensions?

According to your comments it seems to me that you are confusing the type of dimensions, because you argue that the 3D universe can be seen as a shell of the 4D and then you call it a membrane or for short brane in the sense of modern theories, such as string theory. I think you are mixing the concepts because you are talking about physical dimensions and not geometrical dimensions. You are supporting the view that the 3D space we experience everyday is some sort of solid embedded in another physical space of 4D, likewise as a sheet of metal could be embedded in a solid sphere. When one talks about branes, membranes or dimensions in the sense of relativity those dimensions are not physical dimensions but geometrical dimensions whose dimensions are devoid of substance. In a certain sense, the geometrical dimensions are an abstraction of the solid ones but they are not the same. In the late 1910s and beginning of the 1920s Kaluza and Klein worked out a geometrical 4+1 D model of the universe but their predictions were irreconcilable with experience. From the 1930s to 1970s physicists worked in geometrical spaces with 5+1 and 6+1 dimensions but the results were not satisfactory either, this is why these attempts are not widely known. The most famous and successful of these multidimensional theories is string theory that requires 10+1 dimensions to be mathematically consistent (to a certain extent) but these are all geometrical theories, which are different to your proposal with solid dimensions. So I would suggest not to mix conceptions.

As far as I can see you have completely digested the idea of the world in 4D and so you speak quite naturally about them. I agree with your view and the consequences derived from this idea, in particular to quantum mechanics. I clearly understand this.

You also argue that the red shift can be caused by the lost of energy of light due to the viscosity of space, I agree. And if this is true one arrives at the conclusion that there is no expansion. But at the same time you support geometrical spaces in the sense of general relativity which explain the redshift as geometrical expansion, which seems clearly paradoxical. This paragraph has some relation with the question I raised in the third paragraph above.

Congratulations for your work and I wish you good luck in the contest

Best regards

Israel

Ms Vasilyeva,

Can you offer up any specific experiment or present unexplained phenomena that may be illuminated by your vision of 4D Space/Time?

Hi M. V.,

I read through your essay briefly - to be honest I was more intrigued by your discussions. I'm not a physicist myself but I've been vertically tunneling to collect 'core' samples, developing a personal understanding of gravitation in order to address some specific issues (i.e., see my brief essay 1419).

While waves do often propagate in a material medium, as I understand EM waves propagate not in a medium of spacetime but in their own energy - it is EM energy that is waving as it self propagates! In media waves, some external energy absorbed by the medium is dispersed as energy waves pass through the medium, diminishing as they disperse. As I understand, light is a linearly directed energy quanta that disperses through its own propagation. I hope perhaps this provides at least another perspective...

As for spacetime, I think that there is a concept of vacuum energy that should be fully considered. IMO, gravitation is not completely a property of matter (especially not quantum matter), but an interaction between localized potential mass-energy and the kinetic vacuum energy that fills space. Conceptually, if matter is viewed as localized, crystallized space energy, its presence can be seen to proportionally localize or contract external space-energy, producing an external gradient field of accelerating kinetic space-energy.

That vacuum energy exists is evidenced by the materialization and temporal annihilation of virtual particles and antiparticles. If these loose conceptions are correct, the rate virtual particle annihilations is space should increase with proximity to significant objects of mass, as a function of a kinetic space-energy gradient.

Gravitational effects produced by a 'cooperative' interaction between universal vacuum energy density and aggregated local potential mass-energy explains why gravitation seems to be 'weaker' than other material forces. It also explains why its (diminishing) spatial influence far exceeds those of material forces.

Back to vacuum energy, its thermal density was exceedingly greater in the initial universe. I suggest that quantum bubbles appeared in the initial universe, producing a quantum 'foam' of spacetime into which discrete particles could be emitted, or crystallized. Since the quantum foam was so hot and dense, emitted particles could neither linearly self-propagate nor be reabsorbed. As a result, their linear emission energy was physically reconfigured, producing an enveloping, inwardly directed, self-opposed field of potential mass-energy. As vacuum energy density diminished with expansion, particles could increasingly self-propagate. I think it is this temporally diminishing vacuum energy density that determined which persistent particles were imparted with mass (quarks), performing the particle selection function attributed to the Higgs field...

I'll cut off there - sorry to ramble on, but I hope these loose conceptions might stimulate some productive thoughts. Sorry I can't better communicate in the context of established thinking.

Sincerely, Jim

Dear Ms Vasilyeva,

I have by now read your most interesting and thought-provoking essay several times with growing intrerest and, at least I hope, also with some growing understanding.

What fascinates me most of all is that you, more or less in one blow, explain both the large-scale structure of the Cosmos, and the small-scale structure of elementary particle interactions. The fluid in the "headroom" above the 3D membrane being in both cases the medium of interaction, and the membrane the border between matter and space.

Or have I completely mis-understood? If so, since I'm netither a physicist nor a mathematician (as you already know) I don't apologize for my lack of knowledge. It is better to try to understand and miss the point, than not trying at all - and be sure to miss it

Your history of time is perhaps a bit brief in comparison, but I like your concept of time as energy - and your down-to-earth Tick-tack. "Tack", as we say in Sweden when we mean thank you! You have given me more than a lot to think about.

My very best wishes!

Inger

Dear Vasilyeva

Thank you for reply, I appreciate it. Some times the discussions between people is only a matter of semantics. Unfortunately, I did not express my ideas properly and so you replied with something like this: "It appears that you do not know... ...is a 2D plane." My apologies for this.

Clearly I understand geometrical dimensions, and according to your reply you propose that space has a structure. You also say this in your essay:

As to what this structure is made of, we could go with Poincaré idea of a FICTICIOUS FLUID or take the Faraday vision of vibrating lines of force, which happened to nicely resonate with the leading theories of the day. Or we could combine the two in an image of incompressible, PERFECT FLUID, consisting of vibrating strings. Details don't matter. The important thing is that we get a dynamic, vibrating structure that defines space.

So, a space with structure seen as a fluid is not only geometry but topology or theory of fluid mechanics. In this sense your proposal is not merely geometrical but substantial this is why I referred to solid dimensions.

You say "details don't matter". May be for the sake of illustration details are not important but in the construction of the theory they do matter. Today physics knows that the 3D space is filled with fields. According to you what is space filled with? what is 3D space made of? fields? matter? energy? or what?

It seems that you haven't realized that by conceiving space with an internal structure as a fluid or strings you are contradicting the background independence of the general theory of relativity. That space has this kind of internal structure means that space is not geometry as GR states. This is why I ask you to define how you conceive space.

You: "I presume you are aware of the high energies at first instances after the BB. These high energies correspond to higher-dimensionality of space"

From where did you get that? The BB theory is based on GR and it assumes that since the beginning of time the universe is 3+1 dimensions, no matter how hot or cold the universe was.

You say: Regarding your question of why ether was a wrong model, first, the concept itself stems from air, which cannot support transverse waves, and second, the theory never considered the 4D nature of space, assuming that it had only 3 observed dimensions.

There is a model assuming space as a material fluid and it works. Moreover, besides supporting transverse waves it supports longitudinal waves. But again, these are material dimensions that have clear mechanical interpretation. The fact that the model assumes space as a massive fluid (i.e., it has some internal structure) contradicts current views, GR.

Another example of this can be found in my reference 23 in my essay. There the authors argue that the sapce has an internal structure and assume it as a medium for EM fields with a degraded refractive index, but this view, again, goes against the geometrical character of the GR. Since you are not defining what space is made of, your idea of space appears to be quite ambiguous. If you define it as a massive fluid and as the medium for EM fields, implicitly you are contradicting the GR. Otherwise, I do not see the relevance of your idea. If you have a paper in which you mathematically state your ideas I would appreciate it.

Best regards

Israel