From phlogiston to gravitons, which were never found, to Higg's particles, which are not compatible with big bang/inflation theory. Plug in a wrong answer, grind through the calculations, and discover that things don't fit. It's the scientific method.

You know what's funny? I didn't even know there was anything wrong with Higgs inflation, until I wondered when Higgs particles were created during the big bang/inflation period. It's that interpenetrating aether that flows through everything that alerted me to the problem, like a sixth sense.

http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-data-could-spell-trouble-for-leading-big-bang-theory-1.12804

Thanks Thomas -

"Maybe if we all got together and compared our simple sets we might conclude that they are identical" That is very probable - one of my main gripes in physics is that mathematics and theorizing allows us to make very different theories about the same phenomena (Schrodinger wave & Heisenberg matrices for example) - but one is always 'closer to nature' and can lead to new developments.

Thanks

Vladimir

You make a really good point, Vladimir -- and it's why I have high esteem for Christian Corda's support for 't Hooft's universal application of the Schrodinger equation. No room for ambiguous interpretations and misinterpretations there.

I haven't forgotten you -- there are always a few essays I save for the end, because I expect to be delighted, being familiar with the authors' previous works; yours and Professor Corda's are among those.

All best,

Tom

Oh, I remember the "itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini" very well! How about "tan shoes with pink showlaces, a polka dot vest and man oh man, he wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces and a big Panama with a purple hat band!" LOL.

Best,

Tom

Dear Tom,

You brought a good quote that cause researchers to "dig" to the most remote meaning of being: " All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses" and " Whatever is born or done in a moment of time has the properties of this moment in time".

And again, you are putting a great question: «Is information identical to time?». In conclusion, the idea of the ancient " As above, so below". Your conclusions all the more convinced of the rightness of David Gross of the "common framework structure" of physics. I think not only of physics.

http://expert.ru/expert/2013/06/iz-chego-sostoit-prostranstvo-vremya/

I wish you every success and respect,

Vladimir

    6 days later

    Dear Tom,

    Great essay and very, very readable. I love the roulette explanation at the start. Very good way to teach the concepts involved. I'm also relieved to hear that the dead cat can be resurrected - even if it takes an infinite amount of time ;)

    The positron, electron diagrams worked well too. Well done, I rate it highly - very interesting.

    If you find the time, please take a look at my essay. Different approach to yours, but hopefully of some interest.

    Best wishes,

    Antony

      Hi Tom,

      As promised in my Essay page, I have read your particular Essay.

      I find it intriguing for various reasons.

      I like the simile between quantum physics and divination system of I Ching.

      I think that your sentence "Gravity does not fit into quantum mechanics because one cannot derive a continuum of information from a bit of information, in any non-arbitrary way." is also the core of the black hole information loss paradox that I discussed in my Essay.

      Do you think that your suggestion that "the ordered continuum is "It" and that partially ordered measures of information events (the "books" we create from the symbols) are the "bits"" is compatible with my statement "Information tells physics how to work. Physics tells information how to flow"?

      In any case, your Essay is pretty and I strongly appreciated it. Therefore, I will give you an high rate.

      Cheers,

      Ch.

        Hi Antony,

        Indeed I found your essay of interest. Commented in your forum. Looking forward to dialogue!

        Best,

        Tom

        • [deleted]

        • Post #64

        Hi Christian,

        I sure do agree that your statement ("Information tells physics how to work. Physics tells information how to flow") is compatible with the flow of partially ordered information over a continuous manifold of totally ordered information. I think it's even stronger than that -- it consummates Wheeler's simple explanation of general relativity ("Matter tells space how to curve; space tells matter how to move") by replacing the assumption of matter with the assumption of information, implying what we've long hoped for in a unified theory of physics, that space and time alone explain the origin and behavior of matter.

        Personally, I long doubted that Hawking's remarkable work in black hole thermodynamics could bridge that gap -- because of Hawking's insistence on information loss. This conclusion sabotaged hope that general relativity and quantum mechanics can be smoothly united -- because it implies that there is no time continuum: information loss is equivalent to quantum entanglement and wavefunction collapse, so there's no profit in pursuing the relativity connection further.

        When Hawking reversed his opinion (2001, I think, though I wasn't aware of it until a couple of years later) my enthusiasm for unification via a field theory was reignited -- coincident with some intense study of Perelman's proof of the Poincare Conjecture. It wasn't the proof so much that impressed me (hardly anyone thought the conjecture was false); it was the strategy (Thurston's geometrization conjecture). If the manifold of a 3-sphere (an event horizon in physical terms) can be continuously deformed and reformed, this differs from black hole thermodynamics -- how? If there is no singularity that cannot be extinguished in finite time, there is no naked singularity that is physical, and self organized fields account for all the physical effects we ascribe to matter. Furthermore, time symmetry is restored and black hole radiation (Hawking radiation) is a natural physical consequence of the geometry.

        With your (Corda's) information-preserving construction at the black hole event horizon, we can now speak of a time-conserving information flow, that smoothly corresponds to the geometric flow central to Perelman's proof. Thus, the evolution from pure state to pure state at the event horizon preserves the symmetry of general relativity, without the assumption of an asymmetric field that led Einstein astray for many years. In my own conception, general relativity's model of a "finite and unbounded" universe -- conventionally considered as finite in time, i.e., bounded at the singularity of creation, and unbounded in space -- remains unchanged when transposed to a model finite in space and unbounded in time.

        In the future I expect we will replace black hole thermodynamics with black hole informatics. I predict we will find that the self-similarity of information exchange at *any* event horizon from quantum to classical scales produces a continuous field of interacting waves to which particles owe their existence. Hey -- maybe it really is turtles all the way down. :-)

        All best,

        Tom

        Ah, the log-in thing again. 'Twas I, obviously.

        Thank you, Vladimir! I hope to get in another read of your essay when I can make the time. I enjoyed it and rated it highly, though it deserves more attention than I can give at the moment.

        All best,

        Tom

        Tom,

        Catching up with rating and just found you in uncharted territory. Hope this helps. Also hope you've done mine (or better still haven't and it's high!) I think we should organise audio essays in future. My eyes are aching!

        It's been a great contest for me as I've found much resonance and some great support and new links to similar work and consistent theory. But how can we ever update ('change') established doctrine?

        Very best of luck in the run in.

        Peter

          Thanks for the boost, Peter! Yes, I gave you my high rating last week.

          Best to you, too.

          Tom

          Hi Tom,

          I'm making my way through various essays. First I like very much the broad and deep non-physics (at least directly) references in the essay -- Saint-Exupéry, Darwin, I Ching. Also the line "Ever hear of starting the Schrödinger experiment with a dead cat?" is really great.

          There is some resonance between your use of self-similarity and that which we use in our essay so I certainly find this interesting. However even more interesting is the "fermionic phase of superfluidity" due to D.S. Jin (I'm going to download this paper to have a look). From the title to the PRL it seems that there is some superfluid phase to strongly interacting fermions which is something new to me. Also this seems to be connected with your figure 4.

          Also your paper you mention "So even though scale plays an apparent role (via the Planck constant) in locally definite measures - we ask, is scale a barrier to the indefinite global coherence of the wave function?" This is very interesting as there has been some recent work by Blencowe (arXiv:1211.4751 [quant-ph]) where he gives some calculations to indicate the interactions of bulk matter with the graviton CMB (the graviton version of the usual photon CMB) is responsible for the classical character of the world i.e. bulk matter does not show quantum coherence due to Planck scale physics. This appears to be similar to what you hint at.

          Anyway an entertaining and strong essay.

          Best,

          Doug

            Hi Thomas,

            Thanks for reply. I think your roulette wheel analogy should be used in textbooks - brilliant! Thanks also for your comments over on my page. I'll be able to reply properly early in the week.

            Best wishes,

            Antony

            Hi Doug,

            I am most honored by your approval. You know that I also think highly of your and your collaborators' research, and the strategy that motivates it.

            The "no dead cats" hypothesis is meant to underscore the fact that without an infinite regression to the cosmological initial condition, quantum mechanics is simply not coherent. It becomes a purely operational proposition, not a true scientific theory at all. The interesting consequence of this fact, to me, is that "no dead cats" implies "no dead matter." Consciousness itself regresses to the smallest particle of entangled wavefunctions. I see the entanglement as classical orientation entanglement, rather than the quantum entanglement that entails superposition and nonlocality. I am willing to accept the "no dead cats" hypothesis, which I find dovetails with Murray Gell-Mann's conjecture of a continuum of consciousness.

            If you haven't seen it, I think you might find interesting the 2004 Scientific American article on Deborah Jin which includes links to another interesting article by Christopher Monroe and David Wineland.

            I'll check out the Blencowe preprint. It does sound very worthwhile! I think there is still a whole lot of wisdom to mine from classical physics.

            All best,

            Tom

            Hi Tom,

            I'm glad to see you discovered Michael Goodband's essay, and I see you were able to boost his ranking. When I got there last week, his high quality essay was in an unfairly low slot, and I also gave it a boost. I think perhaps MG had a bit of a heavy or slow start, this year, but overall a very fine effort.

            Since I already gave you a good rating, I can only hope that others will see the quality in you work - and grade you accordingly. I note that you are doing well, but I hope you are closer to the top at the bell. Good luck!

            All the Best,

            Jonathan