Eckard,

Doesn't "The speed of light" refer to a measurement?

So if your measuring device is traveling at the speed of light, all internal action is stopped, thus its clock is stopped, so it measures everything, even light going the other direction, as zero time.

Only an external viewer would see them as approaching each other at 2c.

?

I'm asking, but this had been my understanding.

It is my own sense that this implies an absolute space, since it is only against this completely inertial frame that any of this makes sense. Otherwise you could have two frames approaching each other at the speed of light and each of those frames would contain motion within them, as though they were stable, but then they would both contain activity that exceeded C in an outside frame.

I think we will eventually need to rethink space, but I can't even get anyone to consider time as an effect of action and it is the future becoming past, so I don't want to start an even bigger argument.

Regards,

John M

"You haven't convinced me that blocktime isn't a product of the imagination ..."

It is a product of the imagination. Since it seems unlikely that you are going to learn the math that it takes to understand the correspondence between this imagined world and the real one, you'll "... just have to keep banging your head on this wall."

Best,

Tom

Zeeya,

Hi. Thank you for the invitation to discuss unconventional ideas about reality. I've discussed my view of reality in past FQXi essays but would like to briefly summarize them here.

1. Reality, including space and time, seems to me to be the same as all the stuff that exists. Therefore, to answer the question of why there is reality (incl. space and time), we need to know why things exist.

2. Why do things exist? I suggest that a thing exists if it is a grouping, or collection. A grouping is some relationship saying, or defining, what is contained within. Such a definition or grouping is equivalent to an edge, boundary, or enclosing surface defining what is contained within and giving "substance" and existence to the thing. For instance, the surface of a book, the outlines of a cloud, and the curly braces around a set all define what is contained within and give substance and existence to these things. Even for an abstract concept in our mind, we have a list of the things that we think are included within that concept. Without such a list, that abstract concept wouldn't exist in our mind. Another example of a grouping, and thus an existent state, is a set. Without a relationship defining what elements are contained within a set, the set would not exist. This relationship, or grouping is shown by the curly braces, or edge, around the elements of the set, and is what gives existence to the set

3. Why is there something rather than nothing? First, "absolute nothing", or "non-existence", is first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think about this absolute lack-of-all. This absolute lack-of-all itself, not our mind's conception of the absolute lack-of-all, is the entirety or whole amount of all that is present. That's it. It's all there is. In other words, this lack-of-all, in and of itself, defines the entirety of all that is present. It says exactly what's there. An entirety, or whole amount, or everything, is a relationship defining what is contained within (ie., everything) and is therefore a grouping, or edge, and, therefore, an existent state. This edge is not some separate thing; it is just the relationship, inherent in the absolute lack-of-all, defining what is contained within. Therefore, what has traditionally been thought of as "absolute lack-of-all", is, when seen from this different perspective, a grouping, and thus an existent state or "something". Basically, what this means is that we've been misdefining the word "nothing", and this has caused us to make an incorrect distinction between "something" and "nothing".

4. Now, given the properties of an existent entity previously, and incorrectly, thought of as the "complete lack-of-all" or "non-existence", one can develop a model of an expanding set of these existent entities where this expanding set of entities is the same as space. This model provides natural, "mechanical" mechanisms for symmetry breaking and energy. I've done this at previous FQXi essays and at my website at:

sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite

http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Granet_fqxifinal.pdf

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1783

So, this is my alternate view of reality. So far I know this is purely hypothetical, but the logic seems completely reasonable to me. Additionally, I at least provide answers to why things, including space, exist, why there is something rather than nothing and physical mechanisms for symmetry breaking and energy in the universe, things that our overly mathematical physicists and overly wordy (while saying nothing) philosophers seem unable or unwilling to do. Also, I'm working on developing the model in order to someday be able to make testable predictions.

Thank you for listening! Check out my website at sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite for more on this and its relatinoships to Russell's Paradox/Godel's incompleteness Theorem.

Roger

Tom,

There are quite a few things that I and every other human being, you included, will never learn in detail, but can appreciate in general. The fact remains that no matter how complex the math, blocktime is a modeling of narrative. The record of a sequence of events.

The irony here is that Einstein used causal sequence(light cones) to disprove the primacy of temporal sequence, yet in all the complicated math, measures of duration somehow come out as primary, yet duration is temporal sequence!

To refresh, temporal sequence is the rate waves pass a marker. Causal sequence is the wind hitting the water and creating the wave. Now causal sequence cannot be blocktime, because it requires the transfer of energy. Cause creates effect. The wind has to give up energy to create the wave, so both stages of this relation cannot co-exist. Meanwhile temporal sequence, the frequency of the waves, is simply an effect of the various factors causing the water to build up, recede, then repeat the process. Duration is simply a measure of the rate at which all these factors are occurring between wave peaks. It is no more, or less, fundamental than the amplitude of the waves, a scalar measure of how high, thus how much energy is carried by them.

Regards,

John M

Ps,

I've heard the myth of dragons grew out of pre-historic peoples discovering skeletons of megafauna and creating stories to explain them. How is that so much different than what physics does from a few measurements? Yes, some are accurate, but the ones that are not, get dismissed as "anomalies" and we have inflation and dark energy and dark matter and supersymmetry and strings and multiworlds and multiverses to match theory with observation. The ancients were pikers when it came to imagination.

  • [deleted]

Zeeya,

Things are already moving, with findings published challenging old assumptions; Superluminal quasar pulse speeds, refraction curving light in galactic space, etc. The only thing not really fully presented yet is the coherent ontology properly resolving them all relativistically. Perhaps best to get editors used to the new realities before considering publishing how they all fit together. What do you think as a journalist? Is the world really ready yet?

My main question to you was hidden in my multi-post of Aug 31st. I re-post it here as I wouldn't wish to breach your conditions;

"Zeeya

Nice idea, and nice little Nature review. I can't really describe the discrete field model here as key elements have been both published and web archived on arXiv. Of course now the science data flow has surpassed the (Shannon) channel capacity available it's reached 'optical breakdown mode' (an information overload state) so two effects emerge, It is no longer 'joined up', and, as Peter M points out above, new theories, however superior, have virtually zero impact, lost in the 'noise'.

My essay this year does describe a way of 'decoding' the noise with a more intelligent 'IQbit', but even a high place in peer voting here may not overcome the 'theoretical inertia' indicating a possible end to our evolutionary cycle. However, I commend your sentiments in starting this blog so much that I would like to describe at least one key aspect not so far specifically presented, opening one of the doors to the rest and unification; Dark Matter. Please let me know if I may do so without breaching your conditions."

Please do also advise if you've actually read any of my last 3 essays (all top 10 in community scoring) and if not, if you can?

Many thanks, and best wishes.

Peter

    "There are quite a few things that I and every other human being, you included, will never learn in detail ..."

    You can say that, John, but you don't really know that it's true, do you? You simply believe it, and it forms the major part of your reality. If our power of objective knowledge is limited by imagination, however, where is the limit? Further, how would one even begin to define such a limit?

    I can guarantee -- and I do mean, guarantee -- that if you undertake to understand the mathematics that supports our physical knowledge and theories, you will stop using your personal beliefs to limit your capabilities. Or anyone else's.

    Best,

    Tom

    • [deleted]

    John,

    I think you need to dig down another two levels beyond Poppers mud to root out the hidden assumptions and find solid foundations to rebuild on.

    I disagree with your assumption that;

    "Since nothing can exceed the speed of light, when you accelerate a clock and its observer to close to the speed of light, their internal atomic activity is in fact slowed, since the electrons are vibrating/cycling at nearly the speed of light to begin with, so when you combine both external velocity and internal activity, it still can't exceed C, so everything in that frame is slowed proportionally."

    The key to my solid foundation is in; "when you accelerate...", which is correct. but you then it falls apart as you fail to renormalise to inertial motion in the new frame!!

    Is the Earth the centre and only reference point of the universe you use for your above description? It must be! Think hard, you are only allowing the ONE background frame for the speed of light! This is human homecentric thinking, which is at the root of all confusion.

    Try this; Wherever we live, whatever galaxy our planet's in and whatever star it's orbiting in whatever direction at whatever local speed wrt whatever else, when not accelerating it is in an equivalent INERTIAL frame to ALL other planets in ALL other relative states of motion.

    So if 1,000 identical particles are at rest in 1,000 different inertial frames they will ALL oscillate at the SAME IDENTICAL rate. How can anything else possibly logically be the case? That is the proper holistic viewpoint, and conforms to Special Relativity as c is c in all inertial frames.

    TIME is universal. it is the same in all inertial systems (frames) anf also all the BACKGROUND frames those systems may be moving through. Simple.

    Acceleration is then just a special case for un-bound systems, because it produces the APPARENT temporal change due simply to evolution of interaction which Christian Doppler found, so we call 'Doppler shift'. NOTHING NEEDS TO CHANGE 'TIME' ITSELF AS TIME CANNOT BE CHANGED!!! Oscillation rates of free oscillators will change under accelerative motion but the change will then stop. In a 'particle' the energy is in the homogenous oscillator, so it has well more than adequate energy (mc^2) to recover it's inherent state. I suggest it's horrendously arrogant and homocentric of humans to consider that if we change the oscillation rate of a physical oscillator which we decide to name a 'clock' that we have the power to somehow change 'TIME' itself!!

    We can change the emitter, and we can change the emitted signals, but those mean nothing and just fool us, the important thing is that identical bodies will still behave identically in each inertial frame, once there and back 'at rest' (not accelerating) I think that is entirely irrefutable. Can you logically refute it? (leaving your beliefs behind!)

    The results in application remove all paradox and anomaly from our understanding of nature as observed. Try it and report back.

    Drive your car onto a moving ferry with the throttle fixed at a constant 30mph. There will be a disturbing moment of acceleration, then it will revert to 30mph in the NEW frame. I can also tell you that the precision crystals at the heart of modern missile control systems do NOT get thrown our of sync if someone accelerates the missile rapidly between rest frames - in whatever direction (two may go opposite ways) I promise you they accelerate them in all directions all the time and they all behave identically and find their targets!!

    Best wishes

    Peter

    Dammit, logged out again, Twice!! That was me above and to you Zeeya. Is it beyond the wit of the un-intelligent Qbit to have a system that flags up when it's pushed us off the bus?

    Peter

    Peter WM.

    As I showed why mathematics can't yet model nature I'm afraid I'm the wrong man to try to analyse yours. I point to recursive sets, equivalent to 'sample spaces', as a way to chase down and at least reduce the gap between manipulation of symbolic cardinalisations and the evolution of nature itself.

    It's the non-linearity that's important, as recognised by the non linear Schrodinger (NLS) equation. The spread function is what gives the continuously dualistic effects of EM energy propagation.

    I get the impression your derivation is well on the right tracks but you would have a much better Idea than me of how compatible the maths is with the geometrical and empirical approach founding and guiding my own route to truth. Thee are some concepts I describe which I don't think you've yet recognised. But what I do think is that if our work IS compatible then it's power should emerge as the CUBE of the parts.

    Hi Peter, Thank you for your reply. I will try to respond to your points.

    What consequences does it have for a detailed mathematical model? I prefer to use the term 'medium of spacetime' rather than 'material ether' to describe the medium for wave propagation. This highlights the point that the detailed mathematical equations describing wave propagation in the medium must be derived from General Relativity. The main consequence in getting the description correct at the top level is that when we come to apply the mathematics we understand the link between the description and the maths. The most important consequence is the 'follow on' hypothesis that (since light is emitted when an electron changes state) an electron must comprise spacetime wave energy in a closed loop.

    The waves in spacetime page is explaining how a spacetime wave (wave of changing space curvature) also has wave variation in the time dimension and this accounts for the property of electric charge. How do the waves propagate? The idea is that the energy in the wave comprises local changes in spacetime curvature which propagate at the speed of light. I have a reference from the book "General Theory of Relativity" by P.A.M Dirac (p64) in which a solution to the GR equations is found which satisfies the d'Alembert equation and its solution will be waves travelling with the velocity of light.

    Regarding the stochasticity (the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan) of our experimental results: The key point here is that the wave motion is fully predictable. It is only when we try to detect something or make a measurement that the probability effects come into play. The outcome of an experiment is the interaction between the wave and the detector. The quantum nature of light is not conceptually incompatible with the wave nature since we can have wave quanta comprising specific energy and wavelength.

    Richard

    Tom,

    Afraid I do believe it. There is an old saying I took to heart many years ago; "The more you know, the more you know you don't know." To wit, as our horizons expand, so to does our appreciation of what lays over them. More volume=more surface area.

    I don't doubt the power and necessity of imagination, but then we test such speculation against what is possible. Having had my share of dreams dashed, I am somewhat conservative in what I get my hopes up over. Possibilities collapse into actualities.

    I'm sure if I studied the world of financial derivatives, I'd have more respect for how well they have been constructed, in order to support over a quatrillion dollars worth of financial side bets, on a 60 trillion dollar world economy, but I think I will just sit back and consider it in general terms.

    Regards,

    John M

    • [deleted]

    Since Zeeya opened the floor to use her recent Nature article (which was excellent, BTW) as a springboard -- I would like to comment on what I think are the most promising research directions in the figure titled "Fabric of Reality", and why:

    The figure's "clue" -- describing the mechanics of Hawking radiation -- constrains our physics of information to a one-dimension channel, a phenomenon already made viable by Bekenstein and Mayo*. If we accept the premise, there really is no foundational assumption that is not mediated by thermodynamics and general relativity. This would rule out relational theories that are dependent on sets of neighboring spacetime points (e.g., E8 symmetry; causal dynamic triangulation; causal sets; loop quantum gravity) in favor of self-interacting relations among evolving states of spacetime (e.g., shape dynamics of Barbour, et al; evolving block universe of Ellis) where distant causality is not obviated by neighboring events.

    It is this feature most of all (the prospect of eliminating the distance measure while preserving locality) that convinces me Joy Christian's framework of quantum correlations is true, because the only way we get to a general theory of quantum correlations is through a topological model. Why? -- the only way to orient a surface non-arbitrarily is by compactification; we get the simplest Riemann sphere S^3 by compactifying the complex plane with a simple pole at infinity. Therefore, the parallelization of spheres which admit a division algebra, S^0 (the line), S^1 (the plane), S^3 (hyperplane or quaternionic space) and S^7 (octonionic space) have a connected and simply connected structure that begs not just the strong correlations of quantum mechanics, but also (as Joy has emphasized) all quantum correlations; in other words, where there are two relative states, there are three definite states (I'm working on a proof of this from number theory). Joy has properly identified one of the three definite states as independent of two observers, giving the random result ( 1 or - 1) a role in determining the observer states.

    It is fortuitous that Joy (with Chantal Roth's programming) has produced a 2-dimension graph of extra-dimensional correlations at a time when the field of quantum computing is in the birth pangs of deciding whether quantum entanglement is a necessary feature of quantum computability. If Christian is right and quantum entanglement is an illusion, any effort to build scalable quantum computers will have to take a different theoretical direction ...

    Which gives me the welcome opportunity to reference another Zeeya Merali Nature article, from 2011, "The Power of Discord." This phenomenon strengthens Christian's case, because as Andrew White says in the article, "Even when you have a system with just a tiny fraction of purity, that is vanishingly close to classical, it still has (computational) power ..." disappearing only when the system's measure of discord reaches zero. Christian's measure schema also incorporates the randomization of quantum values to produce correlated values by averaging over many experimental runs.

    Bottom line for now is, it remains to be seen, that there is no boundary between classical continuous functions and discrete quantum functions from the black hole extreme to the stately cosmos as a whole, and every scale in between. I've not been shy of offering my own finding that locality, the core of general relativity, is not harmed by converting Einstein's theory from one that is finite in time and unbounded in space -- to a structure finite in space and unbounded in time. I have no doubt that Joy Christian's introduction of topology to quantum correlations, which supports this view, will be recognized for the brilliant stroke that it is.

    Tom

    *Bekenstein, J. & Mayo, A. "Black Holes are One-Dimensional." General Relativity and Gravitation 33;12, December (2001)

      Still paying dues to the login gremlins. 'Twas I.

      Tom

      "More volume=more surface area."

      Prove it.

      You'll never win your argument with a physicist, John. She starts with a possibility space. You always begin with an impossibility space.

      Tom

      Zeeya, it would seem that it might be a small fix for the login gremlins would be to show the username with which a post will appear next to the comment entry box, or else to show "Anonymous". It seems reasonable to log someone out after a period of time, but to do it silently seems to cause problems, three times on this topic alone. Best, PeterWM.

      • [deleted]

      John M,

      I appreciate you using the letters M behind John. Avoiding confusion is more important than politeness. I am signing my posts because the login is not reliable. A distinction between Peter J and Peter M is certainly also recommendable.

      I will not discuss with Richard Lewis because his terminology "Spacetime Waves" is considerably at variance with the notions I am using. I wonder if he seriously dealt with Michelson.

      You asked: "Doesn't "The speed of light" refer to a measurement?"

      I see c as a measurable spatial distance divided by the measurable within the same system time of flight and also as a basic constant that relates epsilon_0 and my_0.

      You argued: "if your measuring device is traveling at the speed of light, all internal action is stopped, thus its clock is stopped, so it measures everything, even light going the other direction, as zero time."

      Measuring the speed of light requires a known distance between the emitter at the moment of emission and the receiver at the moment of arrival. Yes, if the receiver does never receive the signal then there is neither a measurable distance nor a measurable time of flight. Infinity divided by infinity is undefined, not zero.

      You added the question: Wouldn't "Only an external viewer"..."see them as approaching each other at 2c"?

      You did almost get my point. I wrote: "The speed with which two wavefronts, that are propagating in opposite directions, increase their distance is 2c." In my understanding, the speed of light has nothing to do with any observer unless the notion observer means the receiver, and each of the both wavefronts in line belongs to a different receiver. Einstein's rather anthropic notion "observer" is unnecessary and should be avoided. The speed I referred to is a fiction. The propagation of the two light signals can be imagined but not be seen at all.

      The limitation to c does only apply for the propagation of something real from one emitter to one belonging receiver.

      One has to arbitrarily choose only a single frame of reference in space to which all other points must be related. That's why only relative positions in space are relevant. Michelson disproved the absolute space. See my endnotes.

      Regards,

      Eckard

      PeterJ, do you have a link to your "I showed why mathematics can't yet model nature"? Perhaps you could indicate here whether we can have classes of approximate models, several examples of which I suppose we do have already (Newton, Maxwell, GR, QM, LEGO, Meccano, etc.), in which case I'll be happy enough not to care what you say about "perfect" models. Despite the mathematics of the paper I attached above, I'm no "mathematicist", useful engineering is good enough for me.

      Nonlinearity has become awkward in QM since it became clear that the nonlinear schrodinger equation is problematic, very briefly put because of "unitarity". I wonder if it's clear to you how the kind of nonlinearity I introduce in the paper I attached above is careful to avoid that issue? I have a feeling that it may be obscure to someone not steeped in QFT, so I'd like to know. Thx. PeterWM.

      • [deleted]

      I believe the solution to the "reality" problem is completely solvable via a combination of Thermodynamics and the properties of special relativity. I have formulated a physical theory which as an extension to GR, would make it completely compatible with Quantum Mechanics and then simultaneously provide a solution to every paradox with which I am familiar (superposition {see my topic/scope limited bit-from-it essay}, double slit, entanglement, mass, getting something from nothing, dark matter, dark energy, etc..). What's more, being a physical model of structure for our reality, it will make real testable predictions, such as the impending and inevitable big crunch.

      Publishing my work is unfortunately quagmired by the fact that I still need to develop the complete mathematics before my institution would seem to support me in publishing anything. I'm not a mathematician and I seem to be surrounded by engineers with the 'shut up and calculate' mentality unfortunately, and without the theoretical math to back up my work it's clearly going nowhere any time soon. At the very least I feel I need to get these ideas out on the table for everyone to think about, with or without the mathematical basis nailed down. I just don't know how to get anything published on my own, at least in a place that anybody might actually read. Suggestions on how best to move forward are always welcome.

      If anyone out there considers themselves an excellent mathematician and is open to some fresh ideas then please do contact me off line (Steve dot Coleman at jhuapl dot edu). I have an idea of how things work but really need someone with expertise in Thermodynamics, Maxwell's, and Einstein field equations, to help me build a software simulation model (I'm a software engineer by trade) to analyse and actually demonstrate that it all works correctly. The quantum world should exactly predict our observations such as the galactic rotation curves (aka dark matter) and excess redshift (aka dark energy) under this model. I don't see how it could do anything else but.

        My apologies, FQXi somehow logged me out before I posted the above.