A Self-Gravitational Upper Bound on Localized Energy

Dang it. Meant to attach as PDF.Attachment #1: A_continuum_theory_that_contains_an_unmeasurable_though_physical_element.pdf

Paul

Heisenberg basically claims that the physical measurement tools that can possibly exist (Nature having quantized aspects such as -- as an example -- the Planck-Einstein characteristics of electromagnetic radiation) cannot be used to predict "what happens next" as definitely as was thought in Newtonian theory (which effectively idealizes those quantized aspects of the physical universe, including all measurement tools, to the limit hbar = 0). In other words, Heisenberg tells us that physics methods are NOT as POWERFUL a PREDICTIVE TOOL of "what happens next" as what they were thought to be under the Newtonian paradigm, which is theoretically recovered with a hbar = 0 assumption (such technical math "limits" can in certain instances be highly nonuniform and ugly, but there are always physically-motivated smoothing tricks which can get around that).

Thus Heisenberg partially throws in the towel on the predictive power of physics measurements and methods vis-a-vis what that predictive power was conceived to be under the Newtonian paradigm.

Do you want to argue with Heisenberg concerning the diminished predictive power of physical measurements and methods in a universe with finite hbar vis-a-vis one that has hbar = 0? Do you in fact think Heisenberg's nonzero hbar constraints on physical prediction can be beaten?

If you think they can be beaten, you can formulate a different theory, and test some of its predictions empirically against the theory of Heisenberg, Schroedinger, etc. I submit that the Bayesian chance that a different theory wins out is extremely small, given the enormous mass of experimental data already in existence concerning similar tests. If you agree that the theory of Heisenberg, Schroedinder, etc. is extremely unlikely to empirically lose out to another theory, all these discussions are simply a waste from the point of view of a physicist. For philosophers, it is perhaps somehow a different matter, but I'm a physicist.

Ken

Steven,

In re " ... QUANTIZATION of gravity ITSELF is essentially IRRELEVANT ..."

did you happen to catch Vesselin Petkov's essay in the last competition? One of my favorites. Dr. Petkov and fellow esteemed founders of the Minkowski Institute also symbolize one of the bold new alternatives to traditional academic venues.

Tom

Paul,

"My differentiation is between what might be termed the existential sequence, and the physically existent representations of that..."

The problem is that, the "differentiation" you refer to, exists only in your mind. It does not exist outside of your mind. Your "existential sequence" and "physically existent representations" are all just part of what exists.

Light does not behave as a "representation", Only *You* behave *as if* it is. You and only you are the physical entity that "created" your representation. Photons bouncing off a wastebasket, by themselves, do not "represent" anything anymore than rocks bouncing off wastebaskets.

Rob McEachern

Thank you Tom,

I looked over Vesselin Petkov's essay. I understand what he is trying to say, but I'm skeptical. His rejection of the famous slowing-down of the orbital period of a certain binary pulsar as being due to gravitational radiation is certainly controversial, as indeed is his idea that there can be no such thing as gravitational radiation.

In my paper,

http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.3024

I don't reject gravitational radiation nor the possibility that it can be quantized in principle (i.e., into "gravitons"). This quantization gives a terribly non-renormalizable theory, however, when treated using perturbation theory in powers of G, as is very well-known. When people run into that kind of frightful behavior, they throw up their hands and are prone to speculate quite wildly as to its cause. The usual "conclusion" is that gravity and quantum theory are "incompatible", and therefore that "a whole new approach is clearly needed". Of course such grand pronouncements are nothing but emotional venting, based on absolutely NO substance or understanding.

A much better thing to do than to wax so blustery is to try to look under the HOOD of this breakdown for possible clues as to what might have caused it. Quantization is based on classical entities which have the dimension of action (or energy). Now the gravitational-potential tensor (metric tensor) is dimensionless, so to build up from it something with the dimension of action (or energy), one is obliged to DIVIDE by G. ALREADY one glimpses why the perturbation expansion in powers of G of quantized gravity is doomed to catastrophic failure -- one should expect NO LESS if one so foolishly attempts a power-series expansion in G about a point of MANIFEST NON-ANALYTICITY in G, which is what G = 0 rather obviously IS.

Perturbation expansion of quantized gravity in powers of G is thus clearly purblind stupidity; the best hope to treat that quantum theory is a semi-classical approach, CERTAINLY NOT a perturbation one. In fact, a very slightly deeper analysis into the matter allows one to see that the extreme smallness of G will REINFORCE the smallness of hbar in quantized gravity theory, so that a semi-classical approach will be SPECTACULARLY GOOD (see my paper for the detailed argument). Indeed, the semi-classical approach to quantized gravity can be expected to be SO GOOD that ACTUALLY PURSUING IT would almost certainly be a SEVERE WASTE, because an OUTRIGHT CLASSICAL TREATMENT ought to be QUITE GOOD ENOUGH.

In other words, the BOTTOM LINE here is that the quantization of gravity theory can be expected to be of precious little value, and is not worth bothering with.

Unlike in Petkov's paper, there is NO controversial assertion here about the total absence of gravitational radiation. NOR is the idea of orthodox quantization of such radiation rejected out of hand. However, by looking at how extremely small G is, one readily comes to the conclusion that that quantization is simply not worth bothering with. Furthermore, one can quickly see WHY the witless perturbation expansion of quantized gravity in powers of G breaks down so catastrophically.

With best regards, Steven

Steven,

The very simple observation that necessitates my trying to explain cosmological phenomena in a non-standard form is that we include the time factor as a foundational dimension, in spacetime, thus giving space the property of variability.

Now rather than viewing time as the present moving from past events to future ones, along a narrative dimension, if we treat it simply as an effect of action, then it is the events being created and replaced, ie. going future to past. Think of it as two objects, cars, subatomic particles, whatever, hitting each other. This creates an event. While the physical objects go from prior events to succeeding events, thus past to future, these events form and disperse, ie. go future to past. Only what is present is physically real.

Ask yourself which is a more efficient explanation: Does the earth travel a fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates? If you are willing to consider the latter as a more viable explanation, as many here are loath to do, it necessarily points physics in another direction, because then time is not some mysterious flow, dimension, whatever, but a measure of rate of change, which is due to action. This would make it more like temperature, than space. Think of time as frequency and temperature as amplitude, of whatever activity is being measured.

This then means spacetime is correlation, not causation, so there is no theoretical foundation for an expanding universe cosmology. There is no blocktime, wormholes, inflation, dark energy and no multiverses. We would need to go back to the drawing board and develop a cosmology that doesn't need increasingly fantastical patches to make it fit increasingly divergent observations. In normal science, when you keep patching the theory to match observations, you have thrown out the most elemental rule in the book of science and have entered the realm of belief, because the theory can never be proven wrong. Much like epicycles, it just needs another cosmic gearwheel and all is well.

As I see it, space has no physical attributes, but this gives it two properties. It is inertial and infinite, since it has no moving parts and no boundaries. Consider the spacestation in 2001; A Space Odyssey; The gravitational effect of the centrifugal force of its spin is due to the relation of that spin to the inertia of space, not outside points of reference. The speed of light is constant, because the inertial drag slows the moving clock. Consider that the clock rate on a GPS satellite and one on the ground move at different rates. They are not traveling different time vectors, the one on the ground is simply slowed by the drag of gravity. Why does gravity slow light? That goes back to my prior point about gravity being an effect of energy coalescing into mass, rather than just a property of mass.

I'll leave it at this, as prior experience tells me you have likely jammed on the emergency break some time ago.

Regards,

John

Brake, not break.

Steven

Ah, now, is it just a matter of needing a better method in order to predict more correctly what happens next. Or is it a case of changing the conception as to how it occurs, and hence how one predicts what happens next.

Frankly, physical existence is so complex and alters at such a speed, that I would venture to suggest we could never isolate one physically existent state from the subsequent one. Apart from anything else, we receive a physically existent representation of that physically existent state. So we need to understand the exact relationship between light (in the context of sight) and whatever constituted the physically existent state. As per a previous post, there are all sorts of reasons why light may not convey accurately and comprehensively what actually occurred. And that is having sorted out, and eliminated, the effects of processing what was received (ie light). That is the differential between the physical input (light) and the resultant depiction of what we think was received.

One underlying point here being that the physical existence as knowable to us does not occur in different forms dependent on 'size'. Humans, understandably, have an ontologically incorrect conception of physical existence. There is a tendency to conceptualise it as things. But this is really a function of the higher level at which existence is being understood. These things are differentiated on the basis of what are actually superficial physical traits. And the thing is regarded as continuing to exist, so long as those traits are manifest. Indeed, we consider it persists even when it has changed! We only accept that it no longer exists when all, or most, of the superficial traits have ceased to manifest. In other words, physically, there is no such thing as St Paul's Cathedral. Existentially, it is a sequence of physically existent states, which at a higher level appear similar.

Physical existence occurs in one physically existent state at a time, in a sequence. There is no form of indefiniteness in what occurred, the problem is with our ability to isolate it. Neither does observation/measurement alter what occurred. The physical question is what constitutes a physically existent state and what causes the alteration. The two 'whats' may well be the same entity (or more likely range of entities). In other words, if there is some substance (or different forms thereof), in effect, it is 'inert' because it is the properties of that which are defining any given physically existent state it is in and causing the alteration.

Paul

John,

You talk as if the future is real -- it somehow exists. It only exists in your mind. Nature does not arrange itself so that it must accommodate your ideas. What exists is NOW, with the momenta and energies that define physical existence at this moment. Also existing is your memory of a past, no longer existent, and your imagination of a future, which does not now exist. Should any of your imagined events come into being, it will be NOW when they do. There is no reality to the 'future'. There are only observations of patterns of change that, projected forward in our mind, may lead to events that, when we observe them correlate with what we imagined. Thus your saying: "Does the earth travel a fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?" is phrased as if "yesterday" actually exists and "tomorrow" actually exists, and as if one 'direction of connection' actually makes sense -- it doesn't.

The fact that you can observe the hands of the clock go round, and thus imagine that they will keep doing so does not mean that a future exists where the hands are 180 degrees from where they are now. Yes, it's a convenient shorthand to talk as if it will be 'tomorrow' when the earth rotates once more, but if you pay attention, you'll see that is will be the current moment (i.e., NOW) when you observe what you expect to happen. To say,"tomorrow never comes" is trite, because tomorrow doesn't exist. The fact that *this* current NOW will be remembered by you as "yesterday" simply testifies to the usefulness of these conventions. But you carry it too far when you constantly talk of both existing and as one flowing into the other, or vice versa, as if it has significance. The 'arrow of time' obviously point from beginning of action (NOW) to end of action (NOW) but I don't think that's what you're insisting on.

I suspect you're not the only one who believes that past and future have some 'reality', as opposed to what, at any moment, you recall as stored experience, and what, based on your memories and your mental projections, you predict will happen when, at a later NOW, you observe something.

If nothing ever happened, we would not be having this discussion. But, the universe *acts* and I observe and remember this, and see patterns (with Newton's, Maxwell's, and other's help, of course) and, based on these patterns I predict such and such action will unfold. When I check, it does or does not unfold as predicted. I can use this new observation as I see best, but nowhere is it required that a "tomorrow" exists for this to be true. It's only a convention (which typically means it's useful.)

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Rob

"The problem is that, the "differentiation" you refer to, exists only in your mind"

Not so. There is obviously an occurrence and a consequent light depiction of that occurrence, which is what we receive. Indeed, so obviously that I am wondering why you said that. And the answer lies in a follow up sentence: "Your "existential sequence" and "physically existent representations" are all just part of what exists". Yes light is physically existent, but it is not the existential sequence, it is a consequence thereof. And with the evolution of sensory systems it can be utilised if received.

"Light does not behave as a "representation""

It is not a case of 'behaving'. It is. And this is why the sensory system of sight evolved, thereby giving light a functional role.

"You and only you are the physical entity that "created" your representation"

Not so. Again you have confused light as a physically existent representation of occurrence, and what the output is from the processing of that, if received. That is, what we think we received, not what we received. This is demonstrated by your next sentence: "Photons bouncing off a wastebasket, by themselves, do not "represent" anything anymore than rocks bouncing off wastebaskets." They do. This is the whole point. Light does not 'anticipate' what it is going to interact with as it travels. If a photon based representation of the waste basket, which is a physically existent entity, hits the chair or your mouth, then nothing further happens. That is all. It still existed and was received. It is just that when it comes into contact with something that can process it, then it gets processed, ie a depiction of what it was is formed. The physics is the same.

Paul

Thanks, Steven, we all seem to be on the same page here.

I don't find Petkov blustery. Maybe it's because my own capacity for blusteriness is so much larger. :-)

Anyway, I don't think the question of whether gravity waves exist is entirely equivalent to the question of whether such radiation is necessary to understand gravity. Just as Einstein found that an ether is not necessary to understand the propagation of electromagnetic waves.

Petkov's point that particles do not resist their motion has a fine pedigree from Galileo to Einstein.

Even deeper, I think, is that Lucien Hardy speaks of a kind of radiation without annihilation -- i.e., the interaction of particle and antiparticle that preserves state integrity. A nonperturbative theory of quantum gravity may be like this -- a balance between angular momentum and annihilation.

I'd like to share with you privately some of my current research on the relation of G to h-bar, in the near future.

All best,

Tom

Edwin,

Did you actually read anything I wrote?

Here is what I wrote:

"Now rather than viewing time as the present moving from past events to future ones, along a narrative dimension, if we treat it simply as an effect of action, then it is the events being created and replaced, ie. going future to past. Think of it as two objects, cars, subatomic particles, whatever, hitting each other. This creates an event. While the physical objects go from prior events to succeeding events, thus past to future, these events form and disperse, ie. go future to past. Only what is present is physically real."

Now how did you manage to conclude that I "talk as if the future is real?"

Keep in mind that I specifically argue against blocktime, which you have commented that many physicists take for granted and the last time we discussed this, we seemed to be in agreement that it is nonsense. Which it is, so how now am I accused of thinking any such thing?

Paul,

"And this is why the sensory system of sight evolved, thereby giving light a functional role."

And this is why the sensory system of sight evolved, thereby giving crocodiles something to eat.

That which exists, can serve many different functions.

"Light" has many such "functions", it's radiation pressure serves the function of keeping stars from collapsing, its energy serves the function of empowering plants via photosynthesis.

"One underlying point here being that the physical existence as knowable to us..."

The problem with your conception, (that the "final cause" for the existence of something, is its function) is that it has a very long history, over two thousand years, of failing to produce any such knowledge. It cannot be demonstrated to be false, nor can it be demonstrated to be true. But it has been demonstrated to be highly inferior to other conceptions, when it comes to producing knowledge about what physically exists. Your conception is the equivalent of iron-age technology. In Aristotle's time, it was the state-of-the-art-of-science, but the art has moved on. You should too.

"is it just a matter of needing a better method in order to predict more correctly what happens next. Or is it a case of changing the conception as to how it occurs, and hence how one predicts what happens next."

Exactly my point:

Your conception has a very long history, of being demonstrated to be the "inferior method", not a "better method". That it precisely why a "case of changing the conception" took place, four hundred years ago.

Rob McEachern

Tom,

My apologies. I definitely did not intend to imply that I found Petkov's essay blustery in any way, shape or form. It makes its point in a well-expressed and apparently logical manner. My remark about "blustery" wasn't directed toward Petkov's essay at all; it was directed at those who contend that the non-renormalizability of the perturbation expansion of quantized gravity theory implies that gravity and quantization are "mutually incompatible", and therefore that the REPLACEMENT of quantum theory, gravity theory, or both is REQUIRED -- a contention dear to the hearts of, inter alia, adherents of string theory (who after almost four decades of riding high are at very long last now entering their richly merited twilight era).

It in fact turns out that the non-renormalizability of the perturbation expansion of quantized gravity theory is due to NOTHING MORE than the gross misapplication to quantized gravity of perturbation expansion in straight powers of G: a little reflection quickly reveals that quantized-gravity transition amplitudes are non-analytic in G at the point G = 0, just as ANY quantum transition amplitude is non-analytic in hbar at the "classical limit point" hbar = 0 (which is the reason why semi-classical approximations are NOT straight power-series expansions in powers of hbar). Trying to do a straight power-series expansion about a non-analytic point is a transparent recipe for disaster, of course, which obviously has NOTHING to do with PHYSICAL CONTENT. For more detail see my paper,

http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.3024

Although Petkov calmly makes a point which SOUNDS not implausible at first reading, I HAVE TO BE SKEPTICAL because so many other competent physicists over a period of so many decades have theoretically argued for radiation from the Einstein equation. Certainly the LINEARIZED form of the Einstein equation is so VERY HIGHLY ANALOGOUS to the Maxwell equation that a universal ABSENCE of radiation would appear to be impossible.

Now Steven Weinberg lays great emphasis on the fact that the idealized local "freely-falling frame" concept is a matter of SCALE. EVEN in electromagnetism there is a "near zone" where a field is NOT RADIATIVE -- electromagnetic radiation can ONLY actually be ASCERTAINED sufficiently FAR AWAY from its source. Recall that gravitational TIDAL forces can COEXIST with the idealized local freely-falling frame concept PRECISELY BECAUSE of that hierarchy of SCALES which Weinberg so strongly emphasizes. Thus I am highly inclined to think that gravitational radiation, which, LIKE electromagnetic radiation, could only be ASCERTAINED over a SUFFICIENTLY large SCALE, can ALSO peacefully COEXIST with a local freely-falling frame conception that is "hemmed in" to a much SMALLER SCALE than the WAVELENGTH SCALE of that gravitational radiation.

So I guess my answer to Petkov is that gravitational radiation is NOT prima-facie any more antithetical to the idealized local freely-falling frame concept than are tidal gravitational forces: BOTH tidal gravitational forces AND gravitational radiation can be reduced as much as one wishes by CONFINING OBSERVATION to SUFFICIENTLY SMALL local freely-falling frames. In other words, I suggest that Petkov reread and take very seriously the Weinberg HIERARCHY OF SCALES idea in CONJUNCTION with the strong Principle of Equivalence -- see Weinberg's celebrated 1972 textbook on General Relativity and Cosmology. I must say that Weinberg seems to be an amazingly perceptive physicist.

I think you can now see that when I concluded that QUANTIZATION of gravity is largely IRRELEVANT to the functioning of the universe, I did so for reasons that are QUITE DIFFERENT from those of Petkov. In particular, although the GREAT BULK of gravity is INDEED non-dynamical, I see no theoretical (or observational) reason to DOUBT that gravity AS WELL has a (relatively much less important) dynamical RADIATIVE part that indeed IS, in principle, subject to quantization. For me the key controlling fact in this regard is that the very SMALL actual physical value of G DRIVES this quantized gravitational field theory very strongly toward its classical limit, which of course makes its quantization largely irrelevant. In other words, the NATURE of quantized gravity is such that it is driven toward its classical limit by EITHER taking the familiar hbar -> 0 limit OR by taking G -> 0. That is because the PRODUCT of G TIMES hbar SUPPLANTS the GENERIC occurrence of hbar on its own in key expressions of quantized gravity theory. Once again, for the details see my,

http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.3024

All the best, Steven

Paul,

"Physical existence occurs in one physically existent state at a time, in a sequence. There is no form of indefiniteness in what occurred, the problem is with our ability to isolate it. Neither does observation/measurement alter what occurred. The physical question is what constitutes a physically existent state and what causes the alteration. The two 'whats' may well be the same entity (or more likely range of entities). In other words, if there is some substance (or different forms thereof), in effect, it is 'inert' because it is the properties of that which are defining any given physically existent state it is in and causing the alteration."

For making physical theory, it is fine to thus state some guiding postulates. But one doesn't yet have a theory until one can (at least very roughly) hand an experimenter a prescription of what actions to carry out, along with a prediction of what will then transpire. This sort of thing doesn't have to be minutely comprehensive: quite idealized gedankenexperiments can often be at least a good beginning.

You can throw out the current "established" sets of guiding postulates and substitute some others that seem more sensible to you, as per your statement above. But until you get far enough along with your ideas that you can organize them into (at least rough) prescriptions for experimental action along with (at least rough) predictions of what will transpire, they do not yet constitute a basis for theory.

To merely repeat over and again that your collection of ideas is much more sensible than the "established" guiding postulates seems hollow when it becomes apparent that your collection doesn't yet comprise a sufficient basis for launching theoretical prescription and prediction.

So how to go forward? Maybe someday you will accumulate enough sensible ideas to actually serve as a basis for theoretical prescription and prediction. Or is it that you want others to fill in missing ideas/principles that you still need to comprise a viable basis for making theory?

I would submit that even if your so far incomplete collection of sensible ideas can be expanded so as to be able to produce theory, that new theory would be competing directly with the "established" one that is supported by an enormous body of experimental tests. This implies poor Bayesian a priori odds that the sensible theory can empirically win out over the "established" one.

I hope you are beginning to see why, merely because of one's own ideas/opinions, to insist on changing "well-established" physics postulates is NOT a very promising thing to do. One much more promising time to change "well-established" physics postulates is when one realizes that they fail to take adequate account of reliably established empirical facts: one example is Heisenberg's realization that full Newtonian trajectory information can't even in principle be obtained by using Planck-Einstein electromagnetic radiation probes. Or the realization that Galilean relativity is not consistent with the results of the Michelson-Morely null experiment.

In other words I submit that what you are currently thinking about has an unacceptably high a priori likelihood of being a waste EVEN if it should eventually become sufficiently fleshed out to serve as a basis for theory.

Of course on top of that it is not at all presently apparent WHAT would serve to adequately flesh it out so that it could become a theory basis.

There is a simple principle at work here, namely that of Occam's razor and general conservatism in theoretical physics. One doesn't deign to alter theories that have a track record of working very well unless one can point out specific empirical facts with which they are inconsistent. The reason for this comes down to Bayesian a priori probabilities.

To repeat, what you are dwelling on (1) is not yet an adequate basis for theory, and (2) is in direct competition with an "established" theoretical alternative that has a comprehensive and robust track record, even should the formulation of what you are dwelling on eventually be expanded into an adequate basis for theory. Therefore the a priori odds that what you dwelling on can result in progress are unacceptably small.

Steven

John

The answer to your the two questions you asked is: because you do not explain yourself properly.

Whatever constitutes physical existence is only ever in one physically existent state at any given time, commonly known as the present. There is then alteration, and a different physically existent state supersedes the latter, which ceases to exist. That is commonly known as the past. The state which subsequently occurred is commonly known as the future. So one could argue that it is 'present' to 'future', but equally, using these somewhat incorrect labels, it can be expressed as 'past' to 'present'. Because it is a sequence, and there is only ever a 'present', which is, at the time of its existence, the 'past' with reference to the next 'present' in the sequence, or the 'future' with reference to the preceding 'present'.

Now, our concept of time is invoked by this sequence of alteration. And timing measures the rate at which it occurred, irrespective of what changed.

Your concept of 'physical objects' is ontologically incorrect. There are none. There is a given physically existent state of whatever constitutes what to us, at a much higher level of conceptualisation, appears to be a persistent state, ie object. In existential terms, all that is happening is that the superficial attributes which cause us to deem whatever constitutes it an object, remain unchanged, or nearly so. When in fact there is substantial alteration occurring. In other words, what we perceive as being an object is just a sequence of physically existent states, as is the entirety of physical existence.

Paul

Rob

My point about light and its acquired functional role, consequent upon the evolution of sight, is that this in no way alters light as a physically existent entity. It also raises the question as to how, and to what extent, it comprehensively and accurately depicts what occurred.

My point about physical existence as knowable to us had nothing whatsoever to do with function. Whatever this existence is, we are part of it. We cannot externalise ourselves from it. We are therefore trapped in an existentially closed system, ie we have to presume that we are only able to know one particular form of existence. But at least we can know one, and there is an independent physical process that underpins 'knowing'. Your point about proof is irrelevant. We cannot know whether what we know is 'really' correct or not, all we can do is know what it is potentially possible for us to know, ie confirm it from within the closed system. And there is a basis for that.

Paul

Paul,

You remind me of a strobe light. Flashes of coherence, surrounded by darkness.

There is only light and space.