Black Holes Do Not Exist, claims Mersini-Houghton

I should also mention, Peter..

I recognize that in the example above (an AGN, ECO, or 'black hole'), there are electrodynamic as well as thermodynamic forces at work. And I acknowledge that there are non-linear dynamics in both - as well as an interplay between the two - at work in the systems under study here.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Almost everyone commenting here is worried by zero and infinity, except Tom and Peter who walk where angels fear to tread (see Tom's reply on Oct. 15, 2014 @ 01:50 GMT and Peter's infinite brackets within brackets on 'Alternative models thread'). Eckard is worried and has asked Tom thrice to name examples but I can't see any physically real example. John M has also commented. Jonathan has raised probably the most relevant issues [Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Oct. 14, 2014 @ 16:04 GMT and Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Oct. 14, 2014 @ 15:21 GMT], "If Relativity is correct, the notion of point masses can't be...". I generalize the Relativity here to all (Galilean, Special and General).

The following descriptions and discussions can be found on what Jonathan raised:

"A point particle (ideal particle[1] or point-like particle, often spelled pointlike particle) is an idealization of particles heavily used in physics. Its defining feature is that it lacks spatial extension: being zero-dimensional, it does not take up space".

From Fermilab: "Point particles are much more bizarre and are sometimes said to have zero size. This statement has raised more than one eyebrow. How can something have no size at all? And if it has mass, does the zero size mean it has infinite density? (And by the way, as you read on, you'll see the answer to that last one is no.) You begin to see why some people are skeptical when a scientist says a particle is point-like.....

In summary, extended particles have a fixed size, although they may have a fuzzy edge; point-like particles are mathematical abstractions with zero size. But even zero-size particles have an extended effect, due to the effect of the field surrounding them"

Then, in response here to: Why isn't the electron considered a black hole? It does have mass and its radius is infinitely small, isn't it?

"In actuality, we don't know how big the electron is. All of our measurements point to the electron having no size, but we haven't measured down far enough. The electron, if it were a black hole, would have to be smaller than 1x10-57 meters, quite a bit smaller than we've ever measured! ...

The electron (and all truly 'fundamental' particles) are considered to be true mathematical points in the sense that they have no classical spatial extent. This is known, for example in the case of the electron, by performing scattering experiments: the way particles scatter off one another is quite different if the target is represented as a point as opposed to having some finite size. All of the electron scattering experiments done so far are consistent with the hypothesis that the electron is truly a 'point particle.'

For an electron we would obtain 1.35x10-51m. If the electron were a point particle, it seems it would be within even this fantastically small radius and would indeed be a black hole"!

What inferences can we draw?

-If an electron despite having mass, does not form a black hole, then there must be an end to gravitational contraction. That is a limit to how small a radius can be.

-If all electrons are the same, any lower limit must then be non-random but a prescription of Nature, that is "No matter what mathematicians say, thus far, but no more!!". This is what appears to prevent the electron from reaching 1.35x10-51m. Trying to tease Peter, you can 'bracket' thus far, but no more.

- In view of the foregoing should the concept of point particle not be abolished from our physics? Recall this is also partly what necessitates the use of renormalisation in quantum theory as Tom himself noted.

- Have Aristotle and Proclus not been proved right about what a geometric point can and cannot be as I referenced in my 2013 essay.

- Can there be genuine unification in physics if point particle is still persistently accepted as existing in reality and of zero dimension?

- As I referenced in that essay, the original architects of zero dimension, Plato and latter followers like Leibniz abandoned this route before they passed on. Why their modern day followers continue on this route is an area worthy of study.

Best regards,

Akinbo

Jonathan,

"persistence in time."

Consider what is assumed in this concept; That there is a vector on which forms exist, such as a material object, ie. persistance. Yet this is an inherently dynamical existence. That form requires some energy to be manifest and when its environment overwhelms its ability to persist, it dissolves back into that larger field from which it arose. So it is a process of coming into being and dissolving. Now look at the range of forms which follow this trajectory, from a day to a rock. Just as the sun shining on a spinning planet is a combination of energetic processes combing to create the event of a day, so to is a rock a combination of energetic processes occurring over that much longer span of duration to form a rock. You might say a day is a short frequency, high amplitude event, while the rock is a long frequency and low amplitude wave of existence.

Now the point I keep making is that while this sense of persistance is only physically occurring in what we refer to as the present, our mental functions are focused on the details being manifest, so it is those, not the larger dynamic of creation and dissolution, which seem more real. Meanwhile that state of being present seems like a small, almost measureless instant, but that is because we perceive it in terms of those events. Now if we think of it as what is physically real, which is largely energy flashing around faster than our senses can register, the issue of the details is what seems the more fleeting and transitory. So which is the more foundational?

For much of human existence, we thought of the sun as moving relative to the earth, for the entirely rational reason that it seemed evidently smaller, but now we know that is a function of our point of perspective. So now ask yourself, which is more fundamental; The energy flashing about in space, or these particular forms arising and dissolving? Is it the point of the present actually moving along this vector from past events to future ones, or is it these events coming into being and dissolving, thus going from potential, to actual, to residual?

Regards,

John M

Jonathen,

Interesting. I like that view of the 2nd Law as English Law not rigid (Roman based) 'statute' Law. Indeed It was only economy in parenthesis that I omitted "apparently" before 'against'. Ultimately of course it does mean that a whole load of clay particles from a broken pot can self-organise back into a pot!

In the extreme, it the significant evidence I identify of the same peculiar dynamics at the cosmic scale is correct then the whole universe may recycle and create the current complex organised state from entirely an re-ionized particle plasma. Would that not look like a symmetric state where the strict 2nd Law interpretation would only hold for half the process?

Frankly I consider such arguments rather semantic as they distract us from far more important implications. The nested hierarchy and Casimir force imply that dark energy is just a phase or fractal below the Planck scale of 'hyperfine' quantum spin. As the ban on 'preferred frames' is lifted by making them discrete nested fields we can make light change speed to local c within each local rest frame (as SR's postulates!) and allowing consistency with QM.

Now there's the nub I suggest.

Peter

Tom,

The real world is not a mathematical term but understandable to everybody except for those who are intending to squeeze anything into their inapt formalisms.

You asked for my definitions.

I understand definitions of point and of continuum by Euclid and C. S. Peirce, respectively, as logic necessities.

To me, reality of the world and causality are conjectures that are indispensable for reasoning and reasonable actions and so far always reliable without exception, in contrast to speculations on mystic or formal-mathematical basis.

A measure is something that refers to an object or a property of it. Measures cannot be collapsed to zero and also not extended to infinity without loosing their concrete meaning within the real world.

For instance, nothing can have the measure zero of length. The universe may have the measure infinitum absolutum because it is not an element of the real world but it was introduced as a container of anything, strictly speaking even of all hypothetical extra-worlds.

Logic does not allow something to be more than infinite, just incomparable.

Eckard

Jonathan,

Thanks for the comments on the 3 sphere. I guess, therefore I is.

A single one dimensional radius prescribes a sphere. That gives a single pole and a surface manifold of infinite zero points. KISS. jrc

Hi John,

This subject is especially curious. Penrose had something to say about this in The Emperor's New Mind. As a preliminary; consider that one of the defining properties of a wave is extendedness. One could say it propagates through space time over time, but it is just as easy and valid to consider it as an extended form in spacetime.

Penrose points out that when a wave is a pure sine with a continuous wavelength, when viewed as a variation over time, a Fourier transform shows it to be concentrated into a point in the frequency domain (a Dirac delta). However; he then flips that around to show that what is localized in time is extended in the frequency domain.

I'll try to look up the reference later today.

Regards,

Jonathan

"... I got ahead of my typing and meant to say of Shnaid's modification that it results in wavefunction propagating at 'c' locally."

In relativity, all physical influences are limited by the speed of light. That is what "all physics is local" means. The solutions to Schrodinger's equation are dual, i.e., they apply equally backward and forward in time -- this involves some complex conjugate terms when we address the quantum scale of particle physics, where time reversibility disappears and we throw out the backward (advanced) solutions as unphysical. I have to go through the mathematics line by line to see if Schnaid has restored this classical symmetry at the quantum scale; i.e., has not sacrificed advanced solutions to the Schrodinger equation to achieve the time unitarity that quantum mechanics simply assumes. I'll get to it.

"He does address time dependent and independent forms, and what struck me was that it would challenge non-locality. I don't know why that would be a problem for global time symmetry anymore than SR."

Again, non-locality is simply an assumption of quantum mechanics -- and quantum experiments "prove" the assumption. A classical measurement schema has to obviate nonlocality in an organic way, from first principles. No superfluous assumptions allowed.

Thanks, Jonathan.

Peter,

My corrective comment above should be enough. If you keep addressing someone named Jonathen, I will cease to be the one who responds - even if I can clearly tell that you are responding to a comment I made.

Since I regard your persistence with using the erroneous form as rude; I will add that I see this as evidence that - despite your grand claims of having considered important subtleties of Physics others have failed to notice (which are largely true) - there are some important subtleties you refuse to acknowledge.

Respectfully,

Jonathan

"'if you subjected your bias to objective criteria.'"

"In other words, yours?"

And that of every other rationalist, which includes every other scientist.

" ... it would conflict with the fabric of spacetime being physically real, which is beyond falsifiablity."

Continuous spacetime is falsifiable, and has been subjected to tests that would falsify it. More very old news for you to catch up on.

Thank you greatly Akinbo.

This point is certainly deserving of more attention. I enjoyed your comments and appreciate the time taken to share. I'll return to comment more myself later.

Regards,

Jonathan

Tom,

Thank-you. jrc

"I understand definitions of point and of continuum by Euclid and C. S. Peirce, respectively, as logic necessities."

Eckard, they are logical necessities only to Euclidean geometry and operational philosophy, not to physics.

Jonathan,

There are similarities to measuring distance and duration; Consider how similar it would be measuring the distance between two waves, versus the duration of how long it would take them to pass a mark. Yet consider some of the conceptual consequences of treating duration as a form of distance, rather than an effect of activity; For one, how do we reconcile the premise of blocktime, that all temporal events exist on that time dimension and the point of the present is as subjective as one's point in space, with the fact that generally events involve physical change, by which those prior events are broken apart. It is the fact that prior events disperse their energy out to subsequent events which creates the effect of causation in the first place. While spacetime might make a useful model in some respects, do we really have to give up on the asymmetry of time, in order to please certain assumptions? From thermodynamics, we understand energy is conserved, but how are the forms it is constantly manifesting being conserved, if the very energy which created them is moving on to other forms?

How much of this similarity of measurements is a consequence of our individual point perception in the first place? That we travel about in space and events occur to us in sequence. In the larger reality, it is much more a network of interactions and causation is not so much a linear sequence as it is exchange of energy. Consider that yesterday doesn't cause today, or one wave cause the next. It is light shining on a spinning planet and energy transfered through a medium which are cause. Yet that very process is considered incidental to a model which cannot explain why events occur in one order, but not the reverse.

So while there are those who do feel the concept of physical real spacetime is foundational to reality and what we observe are just effects on its surface, it could be we have read too much into an otherwise useful, but very limited model.

Tom,

The math worked for epicycles too.

Regards,

John M

Tom,

Euclid's definition of a point has no reasonable alternative because extended mathematical atoms would require an assumption of their size. Euclid did not yet know and use the notion dimension. A point is clearly dimensionless.

The definition of continuum as something being likewise abstract that can endlessly be divided does complement the definition of point. Finite divisibility would also require to define the size of basic mathematical elements. There is no logic basis for that in mathematics.

Eckard

"The math worked for epicycles too."

I suppose you will never understand, no matter how many times it is explained to you, that epicyles also work for the physics of planetary motion. Your harping on this is simply vacuous.

"Euclid's definition of a point has no reasonable alternative ..."

If there were a reasonable alternative, it wouldn't be foundational to Euclidean geometry. So what?

In fact, John, if you are going to go on ad nauseam about epicycles, we might as well use it to illustrate Petkov's point that science never goes backward:

The heliocentric model of Copernicus that replaced Ptolemy's geocentric model obviated the necessity to recalculate relative motion by a nearby coordinate frame; motion can as well be calculated from a distant point of reference. This made possible Kepler's observations of elliptical orbits, now enshrined as physical laws.

The next big step eliminated privileged coordinate frames altogether. The capstone will be when we learn how to predict relative motion without boundary conditions.

There is a very clear, very direct line of physical reasoning that your whimsical "just so" idea of physics cannot capture.