Why Quantum?

Stefan,

"What do you mean by undecidable?" I mean inadequate information exists in any individual case. i.e; Does the equator spin clockwise or CCW?, and; what is the circumference of spin at a pole? or "is 'sand' closer to red or green." (+see below)

I'm not sure what you mean by 4 pairs of values, but I suspect you mean the 2nd order ('hyperfine') electron case. However the answer to your 1st question; 'are we using electrons' is No. For now we're considering just the photon spin 1 (polarity) until you've grasped the 1st order dynamics. I agree I need to fully specify details. Also show in Fig's. First the answers, which are 'Yes', except as below;

"two discrete possibilities of pole orientations - in relation to the two particles. Yes BUT; the approaching 'photons' are not really 'particles' but expanding wavefronts with surface helicity, so I prefer to minimise use of "particle" to avoid confusion with the 'field' electrons.

"..new spin axis again lying on its propagation axis. Right?" Hmmm. With CFS etc. it's an expanding wavefront again. The part on the propagation axis should then have elliptical polarity. Ellipticity is (common and) important! The peak energy, 'circular polarity' axis it seems, is 'deflected' proportional to field strength (voltage dependent in an electro optic analyser such as Weihs). In weak field cases the apparent net 'deflection' is low (a bit like 'curved space-time'!).

"Why should...The other particle's new spin...be then measured as *spin down*, for same settings and orientations of the magnets."? OK. Imagine a long bench with 20 identical detectors in line all set to the same spin. Now form a large ring with them on the floor. They'll all spin the same way, OK? Now take them all away apart from two adjacent ones. Now go round to the back of each and look in the output holes. You'll find one Clockwise and one CCWise! That's 'non mirror symmetry' of spin; an apparently peculiar fundamental truth about spin very poorly understood by man. Observer 'orientation' is everything!

"Is this wave energy identical with the OAM?" In the approaching wavefront, and to the 1st order, it seems Yes. But the OAM transferred ('measured') is 'RELATIVE', so a function of electron orientation, and also of wavelength.

If the electron field is also in lateral motion we also find "kinetic reverse refraction" due to charge asymmetry ('JM rotation') which has the same effect as the anomalous "stellar aberration". (Within the 'extinction distance' for the medium we also get 'multi refringence' and 'scintillation'). But don't worry about that lot for now!

Either of the 2 photomultipliers 'clicks' with varying probability related to the cosine value, so we've established that EACH (A or B) set of findings can be plotted to give it's own independent cosine curve distribution related to 'latitude' derived from electron orientation for each event.

We now have two independent 'sets of data' each producing cosine curves linked ('entangled') by the common propagation axis. The 'relative angle' case is an entirely NEW abstracted 'geometry'. As we only need relative information we must consider this as asking; "for every angle A, is angle B more 'similar' or more 'opposite', and how certain." Then we can plot the answers (using inverse values). Clearly a very small angle difference gives high certainty of "similar". Near 180 degrees gives high certainty "opposite". But AS 90o APPROACHES; CERTAINTY REDUCES non linearly, with the reversal around 90o.

In summary; Geometrically we only need to show how the cos distribution at each detector emerges. The 'relative' distribution re-emerges from that due to the common axis, as a non linear distribution of 'similarity', which may of course also be termed 'probability'.

My Essay 'end notes' Table 1 'Classroom Experiment' results (reproduced) describes that same question as; "Which colour is closest; Red or Green".

I do understand it takes some getting your head round. I didn't anticipate assimilation of DFM dynamics before 2020 so you're ahead of the game!

I'm racing round the world's biggest sailors graveyard on Sunday (Goodwin Sands) so if I don't come back it's all up to you!

Best wishes

Peter

PS. I attach the 'kit' for reproducing the subjective classroom experiment.Attachment #1: 9_Kit._FIG_5.jpg

John R, I think you are chipping around in the weeds unnecessarily. The case is entirely Newtonian.

Georgina,

I agree the 3 axes are entirely equivalent, and also arbitrary as it is we who introduce asymmetries. A sphere is symmetrical so has no 'axes' until we introduce them, or set it in motion; a) Translating, and/or b) Rotating, whereon it has a spin axis and TWO poles (no 'bipole' has yet been found) so is 'non-mirror symmetric', or 'Chiral' when both translating and rotating. The OAM of the spin varies with 'latitude' on the surface by the cosine of the angle with the axis.

I suggest that matter (a 'particle') only condenses via 'spin' so has Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) energy, and the dynamic is fractal (all scales) so can form 'ever decreasing spheres'.

Those may be the fundamentals before we move on to dipoles, tori and helices. All decisions on 'which way' a body spinning are then entirely observer dependent and arbitrary. Grab hold of and swap over the spin axes of a rotating sphere; the spin is 'conserved' but apparently REVERSED. Most mathematically based physics has never recognised that possibility! Indeed all we need to do it go to the 'other side' of the sphere (an arbitrary choice in space) and we have also 'reversed' it's observable spin!

There are indeed some fundamental and important lessons to be applied contrary to many hidden assumptions. (Certainly including Newton's Akinbo! - water will NOT drip 'vertically' from the outside of a spinning bucket!).

Best wishes

Peter

Tom,

"The case is entirely Newtonian." Compartmentalised nature has always proved incomplete. I consider Newtons descriptions to be just one incomplete view, as mathematics per se. Nature doesn't compartmentalise, I suggest that's just a bad habit of man.

If you watch Laithwaite's video's of gyroscopics etc, all on Utube, I think you'll gain a clearer understanding of his view. I suspect it was the comment "It's been missed" that upset those with troglodyte tendencies the most. He considered himself primarily an electrical 'engineer' so was probably considered an outsider by many physicists.

Some of his ground breaking work including on Maglev etc. was contrary to 'theory'. He identified much nonsense in text books, but much is still there. Many astrophysics books make me cringe!

Best wishes

Peter

Dear Peter,

i will present a reductio ad absurdum which falsifies your model. I really don't like to disappoint people, but here the matter is science, truth and logic.

In your post above yesterday i found two tacitly inserted descriptions of physical reality, that are mutual exclusive and cannot both be true at the same time. Therefore your model, at first sight well argued, is inherently inconsistent.

Let's take a closer look at 4 of your propositions:

1. At exactly opposite settings the findings are identical (apart from a residual 2nd order uncertainty).

2. At exactly the same settings the findings are opposite (apart from ditto).

3. At 90 degrees from the polar plane the spin direction is undecidable.

4. At 90 degrees from the equatorial plane the OAM energy transferred ('measured') reduces to ~zero.

At least proposition 2 or 3 cannot be true for all cases. Imagine we experimentally realize the conditions for proposition 2. So we have the same settings and orientations for both magnets. The findings, as you wrote, will be opposite for the twin particle pair ('anti-correlation').

Now imagine that, after each of the two particles leave their respective magnets, each of them fly through another magnet (see the attached figure).

These two additional magnets are such, that their field orientations are the same and their orientations to their previous magnets are 90°, so these two new magnets do conform to your proposition 2. We can deduce, that the outcomes of these two detectors must always be opposite (-a/+b / +a/-b), fullfilling proposition 2.

But this is not what was observed in such an experiment. The experimental results show that each of the added magnets produces a 50:50 chance for the particle to be found up or down. So we have 4 possible combinations which can be found when we finally measure the particles (up/up , down/down , up/down , down /up).

So your model does 'predict' - if it can predict something at all beyond what is already known from QM - something, that is neither in agreement with experiment nor with QM. The former should clearly be the ruler and shows that our discussed model may be local, but not realistic. But without the latter, the former has no meaning at all.

This may not be good news for you, but i always try to be objective and acknowledge facts.

Best wishes,

Stefan

Forgot the picture... Well, here is the figure!Attachment #1: DoubleSpin.gif

"If you watch Laithwaite's video's of gyroscopics etc, all on Utube, I think you'll gain a clearer understanding of his view."

I did watch, Peter. In fact, I think I even linked one of those videos here. More than that, though -- it was years ago that I investigated claims of reactionless propulsion (of which this a case) and found the same thing I've spoken of here: Newtonian mechanics explains why the program is nothing new, and certainly not reactionless.

If that makes me a troglodyte, so be it.

"Some of his ground breaking work including on Maglev etc. was contrary to 'theory'."

Again I ask -- what theory? Where does he differ from known physics?

Georgina, Tom,

I agree that "The behaviour can then be put into a representation of space and time that illustrates what is happening." But any representation is just a shorthand that can seemingly never model every characteristic of the reality it purports to represent. So I would contend e.g. that the concept of "spacetime" is an inadequate representation of the nature of reality (see below).

Also, surely it is incorrect to say that "the particle is exhibiting a continuous function"? We don't know the particle itself, we only know particle INFORMATION; and particle information does not exhibit a continuous function, but it can be REPRESENTED by a continuous function.

Re Time:

Time is not derived from any set of information; the time "Now" is not derived from the information content of the present moment. The time "Now" is the natural absolute reference point for the apprehension of information, relationship and change. As such, the time "Now" is a fundamental aspect of reality.

The above-mentioned "change" is perhaps not so much the apprehension of continuous/consequential change (of numbers), which is in fact summarizable/representable as STATIC law-of-nature relationships. I would contend that change is abrupt - the type of thing that is representable as NEW relationship (i.e. new law-of-nature relationships, new categories of information, new non-consequential numbers).

Individual subjects (i.e. particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and other living things) are the carriers of all information and relationship in the universe. I would contend that every subject always apprehends a single point "Now", a single point of change: as such, all "Nows" are coordinated.

But there is no blocktime/spacetime: the determined course of reality is always being creatively adjusted and tweaked by subjects. Subjects are the creators of abrupt change.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Re the photon. The emitter is imparting pitch, the greater the energy the shorter the wavelength and the greater the frequency. Roll and pitch is creating a moving magnetic field that induces an electric field and resultant propagation direction. That would explain the constant speed of light in a vacuum because it isn't the energy from the emitter that is giving it its velocity but an electromagnetic effect. The pitching is in one direction but imagine it pitching along the ground from the ground perspective the magnetic field is oscillating clockwise then anticlockwise and clockwise and so on along the line of propagation.Peak magnetic field when a pole is at the detector(imagine it rolling along the floor and the floor is detecting magnetic field)the minima are when the equator is at the detector and the parts in between when it has one pole closer to the detector than the other. Fitting with Maxwell's description.

The polarisation of the photon has to do with the phase of magnetic and electric field components.A plane electromagnetic wave is said to be linearly polarized if the transverse electric field wave is accompanied by a magnetic field wave that is in phase. Two polarisations; Polarisation 1. N and S poles imagine it vertical undergoing pitch rotation frontflip, or Polarisation 2. particle yaw inverted 90 degrees perpendicular to line of propagation. Magnetic and electric fields rotated 90 degrees but line of propagation unchanged.

If light is composed of two plane waves of equal amplitude but differing in phase by 90°, then the light is said to be circularly polarized.Rare in nature.Can be right hand (anticlockwise) or left hand (clockwise)polarization.The wave appearing to move around the axis of propagation in one of those two ways. That relative to the roll and pitch seems to me to be yaw with the wave spiralling at an angle to the direction of propagation.Elliptically polarized light consists of two perpendicular waves of unequal amplitude which differ in phase by 90°. How do different amplitudes occur for the different wave components?

Not yet sure how phase fits with the description of the particle could just be due to the effect of the environment on the different field components but highly relevant to the double slit experiment because the electromagnetic wave passing through the apparatus will be phase shifted compared to the portion going through the slit and hence interference. Could this be demonstrated by having the slit apparatus made of different materials, causing different amounts of phase shift and so giving maybe a different interference pattern or if impervious to em no interference pattern because there are no phase shifted waves to interfere.If the material highly transparent,translucent, opaque and impervious makes no difference then the phase shift model is wrong.

" ... there is no blocktime/spacetime: the determined course of reality is always being creatively adjusted and tweaked by subjects."

That was Ernst Mach's view, as well, that the motion of a body in one frame influences the inertia of all other bodies in every frame. It might be said that he believed "all physics is nonlocal" in contrast to Einstein's discovery that all physics is local.

In any case, Mach's philosophy led him to reject atomic theory, in which atoms are overwhelmingly composed of empty space.

Lorraine, do you believe that atomic behavior is explained by atomic particles creatively adjusting and tweaking their positions in empty space?

Re. the link just scroll down to see the ship image.

Stefan,

Always pleased to test falsifications, that's the heart of science. I'm sure I've seen that Fig before, or one very similar, after Brukner & Zeilinger, which has a classical solution (which may or may not be correct) as attachment 1 below. The scenario was raised some time ago and analysed in detail, indeed helping to 'steer' the n model. I have to dash off to play boats, but I'll try to initially recall the outcome.

Certainly the 'particle' case varies from the invoked plane wave, and that the simple diagrammatic spin 'direction' shown is different to the case I described. I'll give you as good a description I can quickly without digging out the previous analysis;

Remember our ring of 'analysers' on the floor, each containg a sphere spinning the 'same way', from which we used two adjacent ones. Looking through the glass panels on the side to the side of the sphere we see both are spinning say; 'up'.

(see Garrett Lisi's blue sphere in his video contest entry with the little (symmetry breaking) arrow remarkably as my own little spheres in my final Figure! Those are the at arrows we see, facing the same way.

Now do what I described above; Go to the rear port of each and look at the Chirality. It's OPPOSITE! That's the nature of spin. There are two entirely inverse conditions. Changing the 'direction' by 90 degrees on the plane shown has the very significant effect of changing a 100% result to a 50:50 result. It is then effectively a 90 degree 'measurement' so is then 'undecidable', as predicted.

I'm sorry that's very basic. It may not fully address the scenario and is certainly tricky to get your head round (it took me some time). I have some Fig's nearly done which will help a lot, but I'm off for a week. I may get a chance to look in, or I'll catch up then.

Thanks, and do keep hitting it with everything you can.

Best wishes

PeterAttachment #1: 2_3_Filters.jpg

Dear Peter,

I think you must explain your vision in terms of forces and physical processes instead with diagramms. My picture was only for helping to visualize the experiment i described in the text and its result. You now come up with a new picture from an entirely different experimental setup, take the similarities and correlate them to other experiments with twin particles.

This strategy of explanation is very confusing. I assume it due to having correlated the similarities between different experimental setups, and after that convinced yourself that those correlations belong to the same category of experiments, means, have explanatory power in the sense of physical forces.

But anyways, what has to be analysed by your model is not the picture you attached, but the picture i attached in my previous post. You must analyse it such, that one can see which *physical mechanism* leads to the measured outcome of the experiment i describe (let the initial conditions be north/south for both particles and both spinning in the direction of sketch 1a of your essay, and the magnets field direction *up*, relative angle between the magnets 90°).

That's for now. I wish you a nice vacation and tell me when you are ready to continue our discussion by sending me a post to my essay contest page (i am not continously in the blogs at fqxi, but only when i have time and are interested).

Best wishes,

Stefan

Found this explanation of particles which I think is very good, easy to understand. Virtual particles what are they.

Naive bow wave model can be excluded by trying to reproduce effect macroscopically. Either can or can't be done. Electric and magnetic fields passing through the solid barrier and setting up interference with parts passing through slits can be eliminated because there is no interference pattern with a single slit.

Lets assume the barrier either absorbs or reflects the electromagnetic wave hitting it. Which could be found by looking for reflection on the side before the barrier. Deflect them so they interfere, look for pattern. They are either there or not. Has that been done?

Now passing through the slit is going to have an effect on the magnetic and electric field disturbing it. Not chopping it into different phases of that passing through barrier and that passing through slits but stopping progression at the barrier. Allowing through a disrupted wave pattern at each slit making two virtual photons using the description given in the link , which can then interfere. The resultant "choppiness" will affect where the particle hits the screen.

I keep wondering why the wave front is depicted as being a plane wave hitting the barrier when it seems something far more dynamic is happening around the photon particle. The plane waves doesn't seem the ideal description but an oversimplification. I would like to see what is happening to the magnetic and electric fields at the slits, surely that can be modeled. There is also what happens to the forces to be considered.

Georgina Perry,

YES! That is the right question!

"I keep wondering why the wave front is depicted as a plane wave hitting the barrier when it seems something far more dynamic is happening around the photon particle. The plane waves don't seem the ideal description but an over simplification. I would like to see what is happening to the electric and magnetic fields at the slits, surely that can be modeled. (!!!) There is also what happens to the forces to be considered."

That is exactly what is lacking in classical mechanics. But brace yourself, for more than a century physics has gone way beyond that without looking back. And now nobody wants to. Even classical Relativists don't want to revert to 'forces', things are seen as 'accelerations'. And Quantum Machinists reject entirely the notion of a continuous field associated with a particle. I've put a bit of my own model out, but don't want to soapbox, and do want to encourage any other ideas that might spring from the very question you have come to propose. Good Luck and go at it!

I will say what I've run up against. Firstly is the common confusion of the proper definition of photon as being the 'particle'. E = hv is a statement that says Planck's Constant is present in each wavelength. Photon, is one second of time of those wavelengths. The individual wave event is what needs modeled on Planck's Constant. And conventionally that Quantum is treated as indivisible. Break with convention if you see a rationale for doing so.

Secondly, Lorentz is sacrosanct. The 'massless particle' is the resultant cop-out, because Lorentz says a mass cannot be accelerated to light velocity. Infinite mass is the result of the Lorentz Transformations which are the very heart of Relativity. And experimentally, the amount of applied energy to produce an acceleration of a mass that would at rest be as tiny as the equivalent of energy in Planck's Constant, does compute as becoming infinite. Here is where your question of what happens to the forces, is profound.

And thirdly, those forces include gravitation and we only detect the electric and magnetic fields or the ballistic impact. And ballistic impact implies mass.

Fourth is entropy. As you earlier stated, the velocity isn't maintained by the emitter, but by electromagnetic effect. So entropy would be in the macroscopic realm, which doesn't play well with those who tinker with the maths of Black Holes, Big Bangs and such. Be prepared to be accused of 'setting science back a century!' (Quite frankly I thinks it needs it.)

But quite correctly you point to the simplified planar wave front as being in question. That would equate to the typical spherical wave front of illumination. Both QM and Classical (even Hawking) physics skates right over that open patch of water where the spherical field of a particulate emitter morphs into a linear propagation. Illumination is a bunch of linear wave propagations spreading in typical classical fashion. Trust where your reason takes your math. There is a commercial for vitamins, I think, which says the healthy human eye can see the light of a candle at ten miles. Imagine how huge the numbers of linearly modeled wave trains must emit from that candle. Is our calibration of how we measure mass and energy density real, or a result. I have come to think we live our lives at the very cold, thin end of reality. Personally, I like to model in the old fashioned background independent void and then introduce interaction. But go with what works for you. And BRAVO. jrc

John thank you very much indeed for your many thoughts and encouragement. They are really appreciated.

I've been watching quite a few aerobatics videos trying to identify the different combinations of motion. Including slalom around huge inflatable cones floating on water. (And incidentally learning things, such as the necessity to pitch nose up before a roll to compensate for complete loss of lift when the wings are vertical.)

This is a wacky idea, but doable. Wouldn't it be amazing to set up a huge double slit experiment over the calm sea or very large lake, with several inflatable slitted barriers? Several in case one or more are broken in use. Get together a group of professional stunt plane pilots to pitch and roll through one or other of the slits. They could have smoke outlets of different colours on each wingtip and nose and tail which will show wave motion. Don't know if any new physics would be learned from it but it would be a great PR event for science,a great opportunity to describe the experiment and its conundrums and great fun to watch.It could be an anniversary event (Young presented his paper, "On the theory of light and color" to the Royal Society in November 1801. In that lecture, he described interference of light waves and the slit experiment. I'm pretty sure there would be willing commercial sponsors.

Lorraine, has come out strongly, saying "Individual subjects (i.e. particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and other living things) are the carriers of all information and relationship in the universe", "Space merely exists as a relationship between other information; it has no existence of its own", "Space is not a fundamental entity that carries information and relationships. Space SEEMS to have geometric properties because space is DERIVED FROM properties and relationships". Georgina, is a bit more circumspect, saying, "All it requires is that there is something present even in a vacuum that acts as the medium of transmission of waves...". Tom, is difficult to place either for or against, but whosoever is not for us is against us :), "...space has no physical existence independent of spacetime.". If I interpret him correctly, space has no physical existence, but spacetime does physically exist. This modern resurrection or justification of Newton is called 'substantivalism' and the web is full of information about this. You can google and see the various views. My contention is whether it is fair to wrongly crucify Newton earlier only to appeal to such a concept today thereby resurrecting him without apologizing to his family :).

The view that space and time are actual entities generally represents the Newtonian position, while the view that they are determinations or relations of things, the Leibnizian position.

Now, while Lorraine is entitled to her opinion, before they become hardened views, perhaps she would care to take a look at Newton's Arguments from Causes, Properties and Effects and his Scholium that space exists independent of body. In this my post I would want to make Argument from cosmology, i.e. if there was a beginning from nothing, a current expansion of the universe and a possible collapse back to nothing. As the universe is expanding, it is not expanding into a pre-existing space but rather more space is being created between galactic clusters (the 'markers' of the expansion). From Lorraine's position it is the motion of the markers that gives rise to the increased space between them, likewise when there is collapse, the motion of the markers cause reduced space between them. Now, it is a principle of physics, the action-reaction principle, that anything that can be affected must also be capable of affecting others. That is anything that can be acted upon must also be capable of acting (or reacting).

So arguing from Cosmology, can the mere motion of matter bring universal space into existence, expand and collapse it? Can matter move where there is no space? If this cannot be possible and there is no previously existing empty space into which galaxies are moving and expanding into, then the universal expansion we are seeing means space is being created independent of the marker's motion, rather it is the space expansion that the markers are tracing as depicted by Hubble's expansion. It therefore appears that while Space can convey the relationship between the markers, it is more than just that a 'relational' thing but something more. In a Crunch, if the space between the markers of expansion can be acted upon and caused to reduce then again it must be something more than relational according to the action-reaction principle. Newton as I quoted in my 2013 Essay stresses the importance of this action-reaction principle in deciding whether something is substantial or merely relational, viz. "...it is clear that they (philosophers) would cheerfully allow extension (space) to be substance, just as body is, if only extension could move and act as body can", "...space is capable of having some substantial reality. Indeed, if its parts could move..., and this mobility was an ingredient in the idea of vacuum, then there would be no question about it - parts of space would be corporeal substance". So, dear Lorraine, in addition to other arguments put forward by Newton, when you say, "Space can have no influence whatsoever on the things it seems to contain", cosmologically speaking this may not be correct, space created between galactic clusters makes them move apart. Therefore, it can act and can be acted upon. Space is substance.

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

"Space is substance."

I have to agree with Tom that space has no physical existence independent of spacetime. Not that such a statement is a simple one, rather there is much nuance in its complexion. Taken in its parts, space by itself can be considered as existential but without any physical manifestation. In a sense, it exists in our contemplation which is what is implied by Lorraine's line of reason. The same might be said of time. And from a protracted personal experience, I view the perennial debate from a familiarity with the limits of human psychology. I think your own life experience probably equips you with a comprehension of the immediacy of the 'fight or flight' reaction of the survival instinct, so it may be lost on others to say that it would not be a very successful species that had a survival instinct which was not hard-wired to absolutely disregard any notion of non-existence. We humans debate existentialism only abstractly. What is nothingness? We can't really know, the closest we might come is abject terror. Like a bird in the mouth of a cat. We don't have very beautiful minds.

Spacetime is then an abstraction, but a rational one. And geometrically it can be said that one requires the other, simply due to the irrationality of 'pi'. And that is not a concept expressed in Newtonian or nonrelativistic physics. I would not call spacetime 'substance', but do see it as a physical manifestation. Energy is the third leg of a stool which is both physical and material. jrc

Now come on, Akinbo, I'm not for anything except objective science, and I am certainly not against anyone here.

Because we are discussing foundational issues, it's worth noting that Newtonian absolute space and time are in the category of those cosmological theories that admit a background space over which "time flows equably" as Newton averred, without regard for locality, i.e., without regard for observer position in space and time.

Einstein's classical extension of Newtonian mechanics into special relativity allows an absolute limit on the exchange of influences among bodies, such that all physics -- i.e., the physical phenomena we can measure -- is local. Special relativity is not controversial in either classical or quantum physics; we can very well determine theoretically and experimentally that there is no causal connection between spacelike separated distant events (v > c) recorded by observers regardless of their local states of motion. In other words, timelike separated events (v < c) can be causally connected; two observers (call them O and O') can agree that events (call them A and B) are ordered, i.e., A occurred before B or vice versa, such that there is a cause-effect relation, which is not true for spacelike separated events. The only way known to formally resolve these empirically-based results into a single theory, is to apply the mathematics of Minkowski space-time, such that neither time nor space independently are physically real -- meaning that neither quantity can be measured independent of the other.

Lorraine's relational view, as I noted, predates Einstein. When Einstein generalized the special case of uniform motion to accelerated motion, he took what he named "Mach's principle" into account, to include relative motion in accelerated frames of reference. Remember, though, that Einstein himself opened the door to quantum theory, with his quantized photoelectric effect; this -- along with atomic theory -- explains why quantum gravity does not fit into the classical gravity that general relativity describes.

So far as background dependence in foundational theories go, eminent physicists disagree:

While Lee Smolin, e.g., calls foundational theories based on the classical field (such as quantum field theory) background-dependent, my own opinion is with string theorist Joe Polchinski and others who say not. Each has strong physical and mathematical reasons for their side. It all boils down to what is primary to creation -- the continuous field, or discrete particles of energy or information.

Best,

Tom