Hi Steve,

It is interesting and fun to read your essay. I liked the provoking idea of zero distance and time by light-speed object. I have something similar, but with a different approach in which there is only one overall state or 'frame' for all observable reality, but the frame changes, giving the effect or perception of time, especially by time-conscious being and apparatus. In this 'frame by frame' model, there are rooms for both slower than light and light-speed entity to treat time as secondary or superficial.

Hi John,

Thanks to your essay and dialectic exchanges with Steve, I think I have greater clarity of the concept of time and the correlation to matter and light speed energy. I liked your short essay written and published in FQXi in 25 Aug 2008 and find resonance in them and the dialectic exchanges.

In my essay, I didn't get to elaborate more on space and time and skimmed over it to discuss into the implications. In the dialectic exchanges I discussed abit more on it.

Cheers,

Hon Jia

Thank you Hon Jia,

That was a rather short and to the point effort from back in the day when I thought physics was actually about logic more than belief. My entry in the Questioning the Foundations contest from last year was essentially the same topic, but I tried to flesh it out some more, as well as tie in the psychological issues. It did come in about 50, out of about 350, so I've made some headway.

I read your entry and will make a comment on your thread.

  • [deleted]

  • Post #15

Please see my rebuttal in the comment section of your listing. In short, your experiment appears to be a from of a "delayed choice" experiment which by its very nature, and confirmed in experiment, should logically preclude that result. I'll keep reviewing it, because I am now curious why the math and first law of thermodynamics disagree.

9 days later

Mr. Coleman,

It is the real Universe that is travelling at the real speed of light. Real light is actually the only stationary substance in the real Universe that is why real light does not have mass, temperature, or motion.

Joe

    4 days later

    Your statement makes no sense with respect to the first law of thermodynamics. If the photon is what is stationary then you must be saying that the Universe is what is travelling at the speed of light, which would obviously take infinite energy to do so. Even a very light particle of near zero mass can never obtain that kind of speed much less the Universe as a whole. That is simply illogical.

    Dear Steve,

    I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments. I like your field of interest and more on it in due course.

    Regards and good luck in the contest,

    Sreenath BN.

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

    Hello Steve,

    That was a very interesting essay. Very readable. A question I have for you is whether something that you measure to exist can stop existing if you travel at speed of light, especially given differing viewpoints of the same event? Also can 1 change to 0 due to length contraction? Kindly see my essay and rate. Give me comments if you like it.

    Best regards,

    Akinbo

    Hello Steve,

    Lovely to see some relativity and having it handled so well in a relevant and intelligent way in this contest. Plenty of logic and good reasoning. The diagram was fantastic of the rocket and from start to finish the whole essay was interesting. Well done! Top marks from me - hopefully help in your ranking!

    My essay is a little different, but there is a journey, albeit into (and "back out") of a Black Hole, to examine how information can be observed and released. Then a little entropy comes into play and we seem to find the Fibonacci sequence. Please take a look if you get chance.

    Best wishes for the contest,

    Antony

      Steve,

      Just re-read your bio. I too am working on a unification theory, thus far only partly unifying the four forces, but also resolving the three paradoxes of cosmogony. I've related the masses of the proton, neutron and electron to 99.999988% of the theoretical value, and this keeps improving with more mass data from the likes of Cern.

      The theory also explains a cosine nature to spin.

      If any of this interests you - please let me know on my thread.

      Again - best wishes,

      Antony

      Antony,

      Thank you for your small contribution to my essay score. Any improvement in its ranking will certainly help others to discover it and perhaps take the time to comprehend the far reaching implications of this thought experiment. Its implications are staggering and can answer so many open questions if you just think deeply about it long enough.

      Knowing that someone like yourself has taken the time to read, and comprehend, the core premise of this thought experiment is all the gratification I need to feel good about entering the contest. I don't need to win. I only wish that more people like would take the time to ponder the deeper meaning of this thought experiment, as it is much more powerful than what little I have been allowed to present in this essay. My hope is that we can all learn from it and hopefully move forward, by putting everything in a real physical context, such that we can make real experimental predictions, and then assert the truth from that result. After all, finding the truth is what is important, not holding on to our invalid assumptions or unproven ideals.

      The background in my own theory framework is that it was born out of a relentless regression of logic, iterating over the core facts and first principals, along with all the enigmatic paradox that we face today. The methodology was fundamentally a Genetic Algorithm, using the falsification of thought experiment as a fitness tool,working from the outside in looking at relationships, and as such it has homed in on one possible and very physical solution. It seemingly has an answer to every contemporary paradox with which I am currently aware of. In fact, had all the pieces not snapped so neatly into place into a self consistent framework I would not even consider calling it a theory. The sum of the pieces is much more powerful than all the disparate ideas that went into it. As a whole the framework answers all the common questions on Gravity (rotation curves, energy flow and kinetic conversion process, GR time-dilation, eclipse gravitational anomalies, etc), describes the physical nature of time, dark energy, entanglement, superposition (aka part of this essay), the cause of relativistic time dilation, Cosmology (redshif luminous differences in 1A supernovae, predicts the big crunch), and all this naturally arising via a descriptive physical structure of matter and space-time. In this theory there is no need for backwards in time causation magic, alternate universes, or any metaphysical philosophies, and all forces are just observable manifestations of a singular fundamental force. Everything is related and therefore self referential as required for a complete theory, with no obvious loose ends left untied (to my knowledge), just some not fully explored due to personal time and mathematical/computational limitations.

      My sole purpose of entering this contest is simply to find an avenue through which I can open a conversation with other bright and open minded scientists to discuss the possibilities in a true physical context. I need people with mathematical talents that can do today what it would take me years to self-educate and apply on my own. I need people to look at these ideas critically in a mathematical context to see if it even can possibly be a real answer as is, or to otherwise falsify or further refine it. I am sure there is ample room for improvement, and much of it is clearly needing mathematical refinement.

      I will be happy to review your essay. If you would like to compare notes after the essay competition concludes I would be more than happy to compare notes, learn and contrast ideas, and to explore your own theoretical work. Even though I have found one possible answer I remain open minded enough to explore other possibilities. I would be honoured to have the opportunity to exchange ideas in the future. Its through cooperation and exchange of ideas that the greatest advances will be made.

      Steve.

      Steven

      Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech

      (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

      said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

      I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

      The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

      Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

      Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

      I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

      Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

      Good luck and good cheers!

      Than Tin

      Steve,

      You have offered well written, attractive/readable work. And you are dared to have your own opinion and critical approach to topic, as well as to foundational questions. This only enough for me to rate your work on ,,high,, core - that I am going to do. I am saying in my work one very simple thing that, unfortunately, not so much people are able to perceive - the research science will be dead without viable criticism and alternative approaches! I think my work ES text may deserve to your interest, despite it has some different direction and task.

      I hope receive your comments in my forum.

      Good luck,

      George

      REAL LIGHT IS STATIONARY. IT IS THE ONLY STATIONARY SUBSTANCE IN THE REAL UNIVERSE.

      Joe

      6 days later

      Steve,

      I'd be delighted to - I did reply, but there is a system bug so may comment may or may not return!

      Best wishes and please keep in touch!

      Antony

      Steve,

      I'm glad I could help! I think you've got a very similar way of thinking thoroughly. I'd be delighted to keep in touch after the contest. I too want to collaborate with like minded thinkers. I need better mathematicians than me also. Ideally and powerful computer simulation would be on my wish list to test my theory. But similar to your fuller theory, mine too seems to address many unsolved problems in physics, without any fudge factors.

      I really look forward to perhaps working with you in the future!

      Best wishes,

      Antony

      Hi Steve,

      As I stated in my email the other day, I found your inquiry to "...gain new knowledge about the internal state that exists before that interaction." reflective of the findings obtained in the 12 year experiment I have recently concluded. It appears we share a similar yet different approach to the topic at hand, I found your essay insightful, original, and a joy to read.

      I wish you the best of luck in the competition.

      Regards,

      Manuel

      Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.

      If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.

      I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.

      There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements - which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.

      Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.

      This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.

      Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.

      This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.

      However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.

      Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.

      Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.

      The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.

      Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.

      This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.

      Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.

      You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.

      With many thanks and best wishes,

      John

      jselye@gmail.com

      Dear Steven,

      We are at the end of this essay contest.

      In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

      Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

      eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

      And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

      Good luck to the winners,

      And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

      Amazigh H.

      I rated your essay.

      Please visit My essay.