Alternative Models of Reality

Here you go, Akinbo. Caslav Brukner is working on a tabletop experiment to show whether there exists a general relativistic notion of time, foundationally:

"So here is the experiment proposed by Brukner and his team: Imagine you have a particle that carries its own wristwatch--some sort of evolving internal degree of freedom, such as its spin, that has some repetitive behavior that can serve as a clock. Usually when you send particles through a double-slit experiment, the slits are arranged side-by-side, right and left, at the same height. But what if you send that clock through a wall in which the two slits are arranged so that one slit is higher up--and thus in a different gravitational potential--than the other? General relativity says that the clock travelling along the lower path will tick slower than the clock passing through the upper slit. So far, so good for Einstein.

But here's the kicker: quantum complementarity says that the clocks can only continue to behave as waves if there is no significant time dilation effect between the two paths. That's because, if there is a discernible time dilation, you would be able to look at the clock and deduce which path it had taken, based on whether it seemed to have ticked faster or slower en route. 'This vanishing of the interference will really be a proof that there was a general relativistic notion of time involved,' says Brukner.

"The experiment pits two conceptions of time--the quantum mechanical and the general relativistic--head to head. On one side, the double-slit experiment puts the clock into a quantum superposition--a blurry confusion of multiple identities. We should not know which path it took during the experiment, and the time shown on the clock is undefined. This is in contrast with general relativity in which time has an objective status: it is well-defined at single points. 'In this experiment the time shown by the clock becomes quantum mechanically indefinite, that is, before it is measured it has no predetermined value,' says Brukner."

I predict the experiment *will* fail to show a general relativstic notion of time. The result won't militate against general relativity, however -- for the reason I gave you earlier of the difference between a classically continuous beam of light and a quantized beam of light. Think of the "bent stick" optical effect when viewing a stick half submerged in the water; the light travels faster through the air than through the water, which is what causes the optical effect -- now we know, of course, that light through the air is also quantized by air molecules, only to a lesser extent than through the water. The relative difference in speed gives us an idea of the constant speed of light; in a vacuum, with no interference of medium that absorbs and emits radiation, light speed is always measured at a constant value.

Now -- if gravity interferes with the speed of light, as you claim -- remember this: gravity orients in but one direction, toward the center of mass. That means the acceleration of the gravity field is always vertical to the plane. There is no horizontal accceleration.

In the Brukner team tabletop experiment, the constant-speed beam of light necessarily aimed at slits in a direction horizontal to the plane, assumes that the higher-up slit of the vertical plane is subject to less vertical acceleration of gravity than the lower slit. With this assumption, the time differential between two positions vertical to the plane -- (as with the bent stick effect) -- of light falling in the gravity field should tell us that absent of quantum absorption-emission effects in a massive medium, the pure state of elapsed time should not allow a "clock" analog of differential times between the slits, such that we can observe and read the clock.

We will always be able to read the differential as a classical effect horizontal to the plane, though (my claim) -- no matter how high up the vertical -- because there is no horizontal acceleration, as we've known since Galileo. A failure to see the predicted interference fringe merely puts the data point outside the range of classical observation, quantizing the light clocks by fiat, not by any principle of relative motion. One can always raise the slit to get the desired result.

Therefore: general relativity, which describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime, need not be quantized (see, e.g., Petkov ) for special relativity to hold in the limit of uniform motion, the universal standard by which we measure time.

To me, this experiment is just another case of quantum theory "proving" its prior assumptions (quantum superposition, nonlocality, observer-created reality) by loading the dice.

All best,

Tom

Akinbo,

Hopefully our delegates don't start talking about inflationary cosmology, age of the universe, dark energy, etc, or there will be some whispers.

Tom,

That does sound interesting, but problematic. Your description starts off talking about particles, then light and in the link, they mention using molecules! How do you get a clock on a light particle and wouldn't anything with internal degrees of action to use as a clock be classical anyway? I would imagine the result(using light) would be the interference pattern would show the effects of some degree of gravitational lensing, just not sure what. Would the slower wave be redshifted, or magnified? Something(intuition) tells me the terms "slow" and "fast" don't apply. That such concepts are an artifact of thinking in terms of time. Rather the stronger gravity field would make the lower light "denser" ie. magnified, while the higher light would be less dense and this would actually be redshifted....

Just speculation, as usual. I haven't run the experiment.

Regards,

John M

JC.

Agreed, The elephant's 3D+t and curvy, but only one real t, the rest are fake!

John,

"How do you get a clock on a light particle and wouldn't anything with internal degrees of action to use as a clock be classical anyway?"

Yes, that's the point of the set-up. Clocks are always classical. " ... you have a particle that carries its own wristwatch--some sort of evolving internal degree of freedom, such as its spin, that has some repetitive behavior that can serve as a clock."

What the experimenters are trying to show is that if the upper clock fails to have wavelike (classical) properties, its time (what would be a reading on the "clockface") is in a state of quantum superposition, and has no particular value unless measured. Because we know the wavelike state of the lower slit, if we get no wavelike information from the upper slit corresponding to the gravity time-differential predicted by general relativity, the upper state is not locally real.

Best,

Tom

Peter,

I've been thinking (however questionably) for some time, that the ambiguity that breeds all these 'red herrings' simply evolves from an instinctive desire to arrive at an understanding of whatever natural relationship must exist for light velocity being *that* specific velocity, from the direction of nil extension of time up to an equivalent 'c' extension. Given that any velocity less than 'c' is relative, a ground up approach would itself be relative.

I'm not sorted out enough to be confident in conveying the idea, but it seems we would have better definition, if not also results, by taking an approach to the 'rate' of time extension from instantaneous down to equivalent 'c'. jrc

Tom, Peter, John and don't check out just yet James,

It is certain we need an expert.

Tom,

Without exception, ALL the experiments and postulates of Special relativity were not carried out in a straight line! According to GR, no line on earth is straight! Maybe only slightly curved but definitely not straight. And there was no quantum proposition as at the time SR and GR were formulated.

Then you say Clocks are always classical... What does this mean? My Wrist watch is digital and is based on quantum principles.

Then you say, "Now -- if gravity interferes with the speed of light, as you claim". I am not claiming anything. If you check my post down below on Sep. 10, 2013 @ 10:56 GMT, I mentioned that I am blogging from the unenlightened part of the world. Who am I to claim anything! See below, what Einstein and Penrose from the enlightened world claim, not me.

Peter,

I am not pointing out anything, nor whether time is absolute or not. I am trying to discover using reductio ad absurdum type arguments where the truth lies. All but one of the views must be capable of being reduced to absurdity.

Now, here is what an expert view says, Roger Penrose in The Emperor's new Mind (not verbatim):

Light is a time-varying electric field giving rise to a time-varying magnetic field, and this would in turn give rise to a time-varying electric field, etc. (The term 'give rise' may interest John Merryman as it connotes causality). This effect would propagate through space and this speed can be measured. This is the outcome of the work of Faraday and Maxwell by which we now refer to light as an electromagnetic wave.

Then on pg.272, "Clocks run very slightly slow in a gravitational field, as Einstein maintained, ... light signals are indeed bent by the sun and slightly delayed y the encounter - again well-tested general relativity effects".

We know light adopts the clock of water to do its time-varying, and does same with glass, hence light speed is different in both media. The morale is that light has no clock of its own. To buttress this, Einstein's theory shows that light similarly adopts the clock of the gravitational field in which an experiment is carried out. Experiments that determined the value as 299792458m/s, the Michelson-Morley experiment and all others to confirm SR were done on the earth, and the earth has a gravitational field!

Regards,

Akinbo

Peter,

I love your proposal on the new era. To show my support I have downloaded your essay paper and will be spending time with it, to think. I would be interested to learn more about your discrete fields concept, but I'm sure they are independent concepts from my own.

You are correct in that the spacetime itself contracts, so what the buoys attached string is doing is quite inconsequential. I find no paradox here, and it does predict many things and in fact answers a lot of open questions from unexplained experimental evidence. I'll be writing a paper to address these issues in the near future, but for now I'm focusing on my paper for a proposed thermodynamic extension to GR. Solving the 'galactic rotation curve flatness' and 'excessive redshift of the expanding universe' gets my top priority for now. Entanglement, double-slit, and superposition will have to wait.

As for your disagreement 1), I anticipated that, and my addendum argument #1 addressed that exactly. True, no mass can go the speed of light, but the ship was just an analogy for a wave/photon, depending on what one is arguing. The ship was used just to better visualize yourself in a photons reference frame, nothing more.

For disagreement 2), I would contend that without external interaction you could still measure your own clock. A photons trip from point A to point B, no matter the distance, will take exactly zero time (assuming empty space) in its own reference frame. We as experimenters can never use the photons clock to carry out any experiment, so we never see or measure things from that perspective. That is exactly the point of my essay paper. Just because you can't do it, personally or experimentally, doesn't mean there is no effect in the photons own reference frame. There are some experiments that can only be performed in the human mind.

thanks for your comments.

Steve.

Tom,

(First taking into account Eric Reiter's experiment on light quantization.)

To the extent gravity affects progress through the two slits differently, it is because the light is traveling a curved path, so the quantity of light going through the top slit is on the outside of the curve, so the same quantity is spread out, ie. in more of a super position, while the light through the bottom slit is more concentrated. Then how it is absorbed by the atomic structure of the detecting screen would seem to be a more concentrated pattern from the bottom hole and a more diffuse pattern from the top hole. Since they would essentially take the same time, around the curve, any "clock" would be irrelevant, so no "collapse of superpositions."

Just speculation...

Regards,

John M

Interesting paper on the effectiveness and limits of math

"And that is Abbott's main point (and most controversial one): that mathematics is not exceptionally good at describing reality, and definitely not the "miracle" that some scientists have marveled at. Einstein, a mathematical non-Platonist, was one scientist who marveled at the power of mathematics. He asked, "How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?""

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-mathematics-effective-world.html#jCp

I'm no longer allowed to post at Peter Woit's blog, so I thought I'd post the most recent comment to the above link here:

"Bob Jones says:

September 12, 2013 at 6:50 pm

String theory is not mathematics, I agree with you about that. But it's still *mathematical* in the sense that most of the time string theorists do not even attempt to postulate new physics. Instead, string theorists are generally interested in conceptual questions in quantum gravity and applications to formal problems in quantum field theory. They're not coming up with new laws of physics but deducing consequences from the theories that are already known to be relevant for describing nature."

So basically it's thirty years of reducto ad absurdum and nobody gets it?

Regards,

John M

Dear Peter,

I agree with you above that Nature is unified.

Comment on Q.1. The answers will have to be two fold. The propagation velocity AND the generally relative nature of velocity. It is in regard of the first that I have been discussing our measured value 299792458m/s in the earth's "free" space vacuum. I have been asking what effect a change in the earth's gravitational field strength will have on this value. Then, as you have a keen interest in optics, plasmas, dielectrics, etc you should be able to tell us whether if the earth's magnetic field strength changes, whether given the common equation B = ВµH, whether the permeability value of the earth's free space will remain the same? From this, given that c = в€љ(1/ВµОµ) what effect will this have on the value of light velocity of 299792458m/s? If the magnetic field strength on planet X is different and they measure their own value of c in their free space, will it not be arrogant to say our own value is good and their is bad?

Comment on Q.2. The question of what is absolute and what is relative between length, clocks and velocity, as I indicated in binary format, will naturally be deduced when we know Q.1. So when you say, "In a good vacuum or plasma", what is good and what is nearly so? How "good" is the earth's free space for you to claim n =1? n = 1 suggests all light velocity must be relative to the one in your good earth free space, irrespective that it is 'polluted' by the terrestrial gravitational and electromagnetic fields, which must also be assumed to be eternally unchanging since the earth was formed long ago? That is the earth's gravitational field strength, has not changed, nor its radius, r , or its mass, M nor its magnetic field strength,H! The earth must be the perfect place to live.

Regards,

Akinbo

John M,

Maybe Abbott's promised tutorial will exemplify the "Ineffectiveness of Mathematics"? I wonder if his EE students will need it.

Eckard

Akinbo,

That your digital wristwatch outputs a discrete value doesn't mean that it operates by the quantum principle of superposition. The values on the dial of your analog clock completely correspond to the digital output, as a continuous record of elapsed time.

"ALL the experiments and postulates of Special relativity were not carried out in a straight line! According to GR, no line on earth is straight! Maybe only slightly curved but definitely not straight."

Mathematically, a straight line is a special case for a curve. Light always travels (by Fermat's principle of least action) in the straightest line that it can. A light ray parallel to the Earth's plane travels straight out into space; Earth's gravity is far too weak to affect its path. In the case of Einstein lensing, however, a light ray traveling around a very strong gravity field, such as the sun, will curve ever so slightly so that the information the ray reveals about its source appears slightly displaced in space from the real source of radiation. The corrections you're worried about don't matter, except at relativistic distances and speeds. Otherwise, Newtonian physics works just fine; time and space can be treated as if they were absolutely flat and straight.

"And there was no quantum proposition as at the time SR and GR were formulated."

There certainly was. And it was due to Einstein himself, through his work in such things as Brownian motion, and the photelectric effect. See Einstein, 1905, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies."

Best,

Tom

John,

The notion that clocks are irrelevant is equivalent to collapse of superposition. Time drops out of the quantum mechanical equations.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

I realize this cross references GR and QM, but does that mean "blocktime" is collapsed to a point?

In other words you referred to the scale of time we see looking out across the cosmos as the vector of time and collapsing the superposition is measuring the location of the particle at a point...

Wouldn't that mean you are also collapsing the measurement of space as well? Considering space is "collapsed" by gravity and lots of particles are "measuring" each other.

This going back to my previous observation that quanta(of energy) are not necessarily point particles, but logically expand to fill their container. So measuring them is a way to confine the container. (As would balancing them with an opposite energy.)

So essentially the detector screen on the two slit experiment does collapse their superposition, but depending on the setup, will affect how it is collapsed.

Regards,

John M

Eckard,

They would seem to be in his camp, but he would be providing ammunition for their future.

Regards,

John M

" ... does that mean 'blocktime' is collapsed to a point?"

A plane, not a point.

And since there are as many points in any plane as there are in the entire universe, one should be able to see that all instantaneous events in the block time universe are included.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Is that the plane of the present, separating past from future?

Regards,

John M

Why do youink the present separates past and future, John?