The Nature of Space by M. V. Vasilyeva

Dear M. V. Vasilyeva,

It is basically alright. The de Broglie wavefunction is described in the four dimensional spacetime. The slit takes one dimension and the light-beam takes another dimension, therefore, the equations of the double slit interference can be described in 4-2=2 dimensional space-time. Of cause you can still argue about the width of slit and the 3D surface electron cloud, and so on. My essay "Rethink the double slit experiment" have the detailed calculations compared with many experiments. There are real math-physical calculations, not a graphic illustration. The most important part is the connection between the two slit by the cross-linked angle, which is derived from the particle scattering to the wave function. In that way, the particle-wave duality paradox is linked to the space-time. I have my email in the essay, please send an email if you like to talk more.

Yours

KX

Dear M. V. Vasilyeva,

In Coherently-cyclic cluster-matter paradigm of universe, the dimension of time emerges from 1D eigen-rotational string that demonstrates 3D tetrahedral-brane transformation from 2D membrane surfaces by the eigen-rotational phases of that string.

With best wishes,

Jayakar

Dear M. V. Vasilyeva,

" To remove water from a cup, it is necessary to fill it instead of water by the air. Further, in my

interpretation to remove air from a cup, we should fill the cup instead of air by the ether. Thus,

the cup can not be empty, only one medium can be replaced by another. Ether, according to

Aristotle, "is more subtle substance" than the air."

I also think the gap or space is not empty but full of energy; Nothingness does not exist.

I read your essay with carefully. It is interesting approach and I would like to have your view point about a gravity question : what do you think about gravity and space or dark energy, which relationship do they maintain between them.

Do you think that the expansion of the space is a force opposite to the Gravity ?

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1552

Thank you and lall the best.

Dear Ms Vasilyeva,

I write in French and I translate into English.

To be honest, I must admit that it is advisable for me what you have just made as remark.

The reason is that I discovered this contest only later.

Then, I had only two choices, to quickly write the article in my language and then translate it in a record time, or not participate at all, and wait until next year.

I chose the second option. I said to myself that if someone is interested in my ideas, we are human and I can always catch me up later.

What is important, is the idea and not the way that it is formulated.

And I sincerely believe that the idea which I have formulated will mark the history by its relevance and will make smile also by its shape, these are the vagaries of life.

If you are interested by any side of this model please let me know it, I would answer, with pleasure, your expectations.

I hope my translation is enough good for more understanding.

I wish you all the best.

P.S. your 1/4 and 3/4 interest me.

Ms. Vasilyeva,

You say:

"But in this model there is no gravity per se. What we call gravity emerges entirely from the interaction of mass (which is displacement of volume) with the surface tension of the structure wanting to minimize its surface area."

What are your thoughts on dark energy as opposed to gravity?

Jim

Dear Vasilyeva

Just to remind you that I have replied to you in my previous post above (Sep. 11, 2012 @ 17:14 GMT). I thought you may have overlooked it.

Israel

Dear Vasiliyeva,

I read your essay with a great interest. I agree that role of geometry in physics has not been fully appreciated. However, my view differs from yours in that in place of empty space, what is there is the field (in the sense of Newton's vacuum and Leibniz' plenum). The field plays a role in every interaction without exception.

I too have taken a Geometric approach. However, unlike yours, it concerns very simple Geometric relationships leading to trignometric expressions between related phenomena. It makes relativistic phenomena quite understandable visually. I am sure you would like my essay

The gist of my essay: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1549

1. It identifies the PRIMORDIAL Foundational Problems in Newtonian Mechanics (NM) that runs through ALL BRANCHES OF PHYSICS. (Please see the short attachment "Primordial Foundational Problems").

2. It eliminates the problematic concept of POINT-MASS (common to NM, QM, SRT) to allow internal structure for a particle. This in turn enables to resolve the other interconnected primordial problems.

3. The result: By taking these two steps, ALL THE EQUATIONS OF SRT are DYNAMICALLY derived by identifying the trignometric relations within the energy-momentum equation, and by restoring Galileo's principle of relativity. (I request you to have a glance at the attachment - "Geometrodynamics of Energy" to verify this claim). - See also comment by L.B Crowell below.

4. This achievement will establish that I have not just treated these problems at the level a speculative discussion as in other essays, but that the problems discussed are real problems, by virtue of their solution leading to the unification of NM and SRT (by finding an equation of motion which is equally valid for slow and very fast motions).

Here is the impartial comment made by Ben Dribus (essayist in no 2 position): "One thing I will say is that it appears as if you made an honest effort to answer the question posed by the essay contest rather than just writing down your favorite ideas about physics. You will notice that I made a similar effort..... I am not sure why it was rated so low, but my impression is that many authors automatically rate other essays low to boost their own standing".

Here's the comment made by LB Crowell (essayist at no. 20 position): "The calculations I just looked at and they seem alright. ...... Your procedure appears to be some euclideanization of relativity. At the end you arrive at equations which are the same as special relativity".

In order to enable follow up of your comments easier for me, I request you to reply to this in my thread (under my essay) : http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1549

Best regards,

VirajAttachment #1: 3_Primordial_Foundational_Problems.docAttachment #2: 3_GEOMETRODYNAMICS_OF_ENERGY.doc

Dear M.V.

Well written essay

Aside from the seemingly obvious properties of space existing in three (XYZ) dimensions plus time as a possible fourth dimension, (I seek intrinsic mechanical properties) do you perceive space as being a compressible medium? J.R.

Dear Vasilyeva (this is part 1)

Thanks for your reply. I will try to express myself so we understand each other as well as possible.

Before 1905 people believe that space was synonymous of utter emptiness, nothingness. This was known as the Newtonian space which was mathematically represented by a 3D Euclidean space. As we all know, Euclidean space is structureless, it is nothing but the mental abstraction of physical objects (shapes, lengths, points, planes, etc.). It is thought of as a background composed of no physical entities and no internal structure; simply because nothingness cannot have structure, no energy or no substance. In the XIX (also in the XVII century) this emptiness was assumed to be filled with the aether. Some sort of material fluid having well defined mechanical properties. Then EM fields were thought of to be states of the aether (but physicists never conceived that the aether could play the role of space itself). At that time, there were several models for the aether, some people proposed that the aether was a gas like air, but they soon realized that in order to support light waves (shear or traversal waves) the aether should be a liquid or solid. In 1887-1890 Heinrich Hertz modified Maxwell equations to account for this feature. In this way he succeeded in creating a consistent model of the aether. Unfortunately, his formulation was ignored by the mainstream of the time.

After 1905, most physicists started to abandon the idea of the aether. By doing this they not also rejected the material character of the medium but also erased from their minds the idea that the material aether could be space itself. Instead, physicists accepted Newtonian space and filled it with EM and gravitational fields. In 1908 Minkoswki proposed his space-time. This space-time was also made up of nothingness, it was only a geometrical representation (a manifold) similar to Euclidean space so that astronomical objects interacted at a distance (instantaneously) without the need of any mediator. And again this space was unaffected by matter and filled with EM fields. Einstein soon realized this deficiency (following Mach philosophy) and then developed the GR. In his theory, space is no longer a static infinite vessel but a dynamical one that changes form depending on the matter-energy content [Here the matter-energy content means any other field different than gravitational]. These fields are introduced in the gravitational equations (Einstein' equations) through the energy-momentum tensor. Solving the equations give us the form of the metric tensor (in general non-Euclidean geometry) that defines the shape and properties of space-time. This tensor plays the role of space and paves the way for the displacement of matter and fields. Under this theoretical framework, space-time is conceived as a different physical entity if compared to fields or matter. So Einstein was categorical: If we have no matter and EM fields, we are left only with the gravitational potentials (metric tensor); and if we have no potentials we are left again with nothingness, total emptiness which for him was inconceivable as well. Then, according to the GR, the metric tensor has only a relational character but not substantial. In 1917 he introduced the cosmological constant in his equations to counter balance the force of gravity. He wanted to have a static universe for, without the constant, his universe will collapse. Thus, this constant represents a perfect fluid or the energy filling the relativistic space (that is, a space without EM fields or matter) and it is found that the energy density caused by the cosmological constant is about 10^-29 J/cm^3. In his lecture delivered at Leyden in 1920 he reintroduced the notion of aether, meaning not a material fluid in the old sense but a gravitational aether in the sense of the metric tensor. The metric tensor is then playing the role of a dynamical empty vessel for the motion of matter and fields.

Things look different from the point of view of QM. From here, one realizes that there is a state of lowest energy called the ground state and one can show that the vacuum state has a minimum energy different from zero, actually, its density is approximately 10^91 J/cm^3, a difference of 120 orders of magnitude with respect to the density predicted under the cosmological constant. In other words, from the perspective of QM the vacuum is full of a huge amount of positive energy. The time-energy uncertainty principle allows particles (virtual particles) to be created out of the vacuum for a very short period of time. In a certain sense, physicists say that these particles are created out of nothing. As I said in my previous post there is a game of words (a linguistic problem). When physicists talk about creating matter out of nothing they really mean that virtual particles are created out of the quantum vacuum which is some sort of energy reservoir called the zero-point field (take a look at the essay of Luis de la Pena and Cetto to understand this concept). So, we have a big problem here. Relativity says that the energy of its empty space should be 10^-29 whereas QM says that the energy of the vacuum should be 10^93. To hide the problem, physicists arbitrarily argue that the energy of the universe, by an unknown mechanism, cancels out to zero. They say that at the BB the same amount of positive energy (matter and fields) and negative energy (relativity space) were created, both adding to zero. To me this is non-sense since I support the idea that the energy of the universe is not zero and that there is no negative energy (take a look at this video for illustrative ideas according to the mainstream: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQhd05ZVYWg&list=PLB58F0D021A12F173&index=29&feature=plpp_video).

Israel

Part 2.

Now, let's talk about cosmology and the Big Bang (BB). At the beginning of the XX century most astronomers thought that space was euclidean (or Minkowskian) and that the universe was infinite in extension. This conception however lead us the so-called Olbers' paradox. How to get out of this puzzle? Well, as time went by astronomers started to estimate the velocity (through the red shift of the corresponding spectrum of light emission) of distant galaxies. They found that the more distant the galaxies were the more red shifted they appeared. Astronomers also reported that most of the observed galaxies were showing a red shift. This trend was interpreted (based on the available theoretical framework) as if the galaxies were moving away from each other. In short, they had two big problems in need of an explanation: the red shift observed in galaxies and Olber' paradox.

In 1915-16 Einstein developed his theory and later some solutions to Einstein's equations were discovered. Some of these solutions suggested that in an expanding universe light should lose energy that should be observed as a red shift. One of these solutions matched with the observations and they arrived at the consensus that space was expanding. Then Lemaitre proposed that if we play a cosmological clock backwards the universe should compress in a single point of infinite density, that is, the BB singularity. A singularity is a point where we have an infinity (and when we have an infinity we do not know what happens there). Some other people added that if the universe started with the BB then there should be a relic cosmic background radiation (CBR).

Let's stop here since there are two versions about the universe. There are many people who claim that there is no BB at all and that the universe is very old. They contend that the red shift, Olber's paradox and the CBR can be explained without invoking space expansion and therefore there is no need of BB. In this version the universe is static and possibly infinite. Who shall we believe? Unfortunately, these people have been ignored by the mainstream (later we will discuss their proposal). For the time being we shall consider that the BB took place. If so, what is the real situation about the BB? It is common to hear in popular media that the universe started out of nothing. And when a physicist is asked: how something can be created out of nothing? They usually replied with the virtual particle scenario, in which something is creating out of "empty" space (i.e., quantum vacuum). Above I have explained what they mean by that. However, in the case of the BB, it is supposed that space-time was also created along with the universe, so this situation is different from the previous one, because in this case we have no reservoir from where the energy can be extracted and therefore their argument becomes ambiguous. But since they assume that the total energy of the universe is zero, the BB is not violating the energy conservation (this point is debatable) and the creation of the universe can come from zero energy or nothing.

Beyond this intuitive picture the real situation is that, at the singularity, nobody knows what happened or what the laws of physics are. At this point simply, GR breaks down completely (also at the black hole singularity). This means that nobody knows if the universe really bang. The theory has nothing to say and therefore there are no answers to the questions: What was before the BB? What does BB have to say about how exactly the whole of the universe fit into a point and then a very small volume which then expanded? Or, where did that given 3D space come from in the first place, i.e. how does it appear out of nothing? (see this video of the mainstream: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y3rNm3QSVU&list=PLB58F0D021A12F173&index=28&feature=plpp_video)

You also ask: And what constitutes the expansion of space, i.e. what is expanding and exactly how? And, not to forget, why 3D? Why not 4 or 5? Does BB have anything to say about all this?

What expands is the space itself (the space of relativity). This is one of the solutions of Einstein's equations, the so-called Friedmann-Robertson-Lemaitre-Walker metric in 3+1 dimensions. But again this "space" is represented by the metric tensor which differs from the quantum vacuum. We are talking about two different notions of "empty" space. In the former case, when we have no fields and matter we only have the energy of gravitational potentials (metric tensor), but in the case of QM we have the energy of the zero-point field. QM presupposes that there is some background whereas relativity denies it.

As an alternative you are proposing that space has an internal structure made up of a fluid or strings. You also say that "there is a concept in topology (I would like to know what this concept is) where a structure not only fully occupies a space but also defines it. That's how I mean it. And yes, like everything else, the structure of space is a particular expression of energy, just like charge is an expression of energy and so is mass, etc." Your notion is still quite ambiguous. One can have the energy-momentum tensor equal to zero (vacuum equations, see Milne and de Sitter universes). This means that even if there were no matter-energy and fields in the universe we could still have the metric tensor (gravitational field). In this sense I say that the space of relativity is mere geometry, it is not a substantial entity as in the case of the quantum vacuum.

Israel