• Cosmology

  • Black Holes Do Not Exist, claims Mersini-Houghton

"If I convert the mass of the particle to energy, it would seem the particle, as a particle, no longer exists."

Massless particles exist, John. They are called bosons. A photon, e.g., is a boson. Massless particles account for energy exchange among massive particles. Now, if a particle with mass -- a rock, say -- is endowed with kinetic energy by being thrown or pushed down a hill, its mass increases by an amount proportional to the kinetic energy. When it comes to rest relative to the ground, its rest mass (also called inertial mass) is the same as before it was in motion.

"We already went through why a moving clock goes slower, but as I keep arguing, time is only a function of the form, since as you observed up thread, the energy is conserved."

The energy is conserved as a function of the laws of motion, not as a "function of the form," which doesn't mean anything at all.

"So only form can age. Now if the particle is converted entirely to energy, say throwing a log on the fire, therefore converting rest energy to light and thermal energy, the life of the log would seem to be cut shorter than one not converted to energy."

John, a massive particle cannot be totally converted to energy -- that's what special relativity explains. A log doesn't live any longer by escaping the fire; it only oxidizes and decays at a slower rate relative to the burning log because the initial conditions (burning vs not burning) are different. Fire converts the mass of a log to energy at a faster rate than one not burnt, though an unburnt log of equal mass does not possess any more or any less potential energy at rest. Conservation of energy does not mean "conservation of form" -- it means that all the energy books are balanced.

"I said nothing about being in a gravity field."

And that was your first mistake.

"I said that if one is simply manufactured to tick faster, it uses energy faster."

A spring powered clock is powered by stored potential energy in the wound spring and by gravity acting on the pendulum.

"The point being that if time were a vector from past to future, much as a spatial dimension goes from point A to B, wouldn't faster clock move from prior events to succeeding events quicker than a slower clock? Just like a faster car gets to point B quicker."

John, unless events are synchronized at the initial condition and stay synchorized for the duration, they are independent of each other. I keep telling you that mushing up things in your mind will not get you anywhere toward understanding science -- you will only see correlations where there are none, and miss understanding causality entirely, even though you use the word without knowing what it means.

"Yet they both still exist in the same reality and arrive at their subsequent meeting together."

Correlation is not causation.

"Now consider that link you sent me to the Feynman paper on least action. The faster clock is like a non optimal trajectory, in that it(s atomic activity) rushes around while getting from point A to B, while the slower clock leaves A and arrives at B at the same time as the faster clock, with less atomic activity."

Only one path is least action. Physics teachers reading this discussion must be sighing with relief that you are not in their class.

"The reality is that faster clock and slower clocks still exist in this state of the present, just that faster clocks burn more energy."

There is no reality in your belief that there are real clocks taking more than one real path.

"As I keep arguing, energy and form/information are inseparably two sides of the same coin."

You keep arguing something that is demonstrably false. Worse, it's meaningless. At least, to physics.

Tom,

All the energy books are balanced because it is present. None is left in the past and none drains away to a state that is not "present." The "present" is the energy.

Regards,

John M

Tom,

Cantor claimed: infinity is a quantity. He was wrong, and even you see it not as a number. A quantity refers to a unit, in mathematics to the number one. Something that is said to be larger than any quantity cannot be a quantity itself.

You are asking what "concrete and real" means. There are abstract and speculatively fabricated but nonetheless "countable items". Ordinary people will perhaps not ask for a formal categorization because they tend to possess a sound common sense.

As I already wrote, reality is just a conjectured property, however a more or less well founded one. Spacetime is not real even if it seems to be so to you.

Eckard

"All the energy books are balanced because it is present. None is left in the past and none drains away to a state that is not "present." The "present" is the energy."

That's right, John. Energy is conserved for all time. As Emmy Noether proved, there is a continuous symmetry for every conserved quantity.

Tom,

"A spring powered clock is powered by stored potential energy in the wound spring and by gravity acting on the pendulum."

If you manufacture the clicker release twice as far apart on one than the other, then it would release twice as much energy from the spring with each swing of the pendulum.

"unless events are synchronized at the initial condition and stay synchorized for the duration, they are independent of each other."

So what? The atomic clock on the plane and the one on the ground don't remain synchronized and they are independent from one another, yet still remain in the same physical present. One doesn't move into another time dimension. They are separate actions in the same reality, just like the two mechanical clocks. Time is a measure of action.

"Correlation is not causation.'

Again, so what? Obviously each path encounters different conditions. That's why they expend energy at different rates.

"Only one path is least action."

Yes, the path the light takes and its time is zero. On the other hand, the situation where the light does much more bouncing around is less efficient than the one where it does less bouncing around, so there is more energy burned on that path and so the rate of release is faster.

"There is no reality in your belief that there are real clocks taking more than one real path."

Each clock takes its own path, because actions are separate.

Regards,

John M

Regarding Terrence Barrett and the extensions to Maxwell..

Peter linked above to a recent paper showing the appearance in a tokamak plasma of additional terms beyond those in the equations according to Maxwell. I suggested he look at a book about modified Maxwell equations, but it is admittedly an expensive volume to own. However; there is a paper attached by Barrett, where he explains some of the interesting aspects of his theory. Notably; he shows how EM is motivated by topology. Fun Stuff!

Regards,

JonathanAttachment #1: barrett.pdf

    "If you manufacture the clicker release twice as far apart on one than the other, then it would release twice as much energy from the spring with each swing of the pendulum."

    John, it's just too painful for me to even try to read further. Or to comment.

    Jonathan,

    Delightful reading! I haven't read it all, but enough to see how timely, and relevant, it is to the forum discussion of such foundational issues as discrete and continuous, finite and infinite.

    Thanks.

    "Something that is said to be larger than any quantity cannot be a quantity itself."

    Apparently you are not familiar with Weyl's proof that a finite set containing at least one infinite element is itself an infinite set.

    Give it up, Eckard. You have a lot of studying to do before you go into this subject.

    Here's something, Eckard, from the Barrett paper Jonathan linked, that bears on the discussion:

    "If a topological group is a group and also a topological space in which group operations are continuous, then Lie groups are topological groups which are also analytic manifolds on which the group operations are analytic."

    Tom,

    Yes, a swinging pendulum is a constant rhythm, but if the concept of a faster rate burning through its energy faster and the sand dial example and billion heart rate examples are too abstract to understand, I suppose the conversation is closed.

    Regards,

    John M

    Tom,

    Well than how about biology. After some billion years of evolution, we evolved have a central nervous system to process information and the respiratory, digestive and circulatory systems to process energy.

    I guess that doesn't count, since it's just biology.

    Regards,

    John M

    Tom,

    Something that is said to be larger than any quantity cannot be a quantity itself unless it is larger than itself.

    This does not contradict to the plausible insight that something finite (1) cannot include something that is in the same respect infinite (2) without logical contradiction: any finite quantity (1) oo (2) is oo.

    What about group theory, I guess that Galois started at purely mathematical sound reasoning but its proponents adapted (around 1870 when the point set theory came up) a tendency of treating continua as if they were sets of elements. Later, groups of elements were kept for adequate to all aspects of physical reality. This resulted in symmetries, even between past and future.

    Eckard

    If black holes do not exist, how do you explain this interminable digression?

      "After some billion years of evolution, we evolved ..."

      As corporations of cooperating cells that continue to evolve on multiple scales of complex activity, even at the subcellular scale. That makes biology interesting, though not physically foundational.

      It's more like infinite regression..

      Or at least that's what Mersini-Houghton and Pfeiffer seem to think. While I agree with your point JRC, I also think this topic invites some wild speculation - due to the interdisciplinary nature of the black hole event horizon question. So yes; we sure do get off topic here, but no it isn't all digression. I'll have to upload and link to the Minkowski reference I wanted to post here, because it is too big to attach.

      That should get things back on topic.

      All the Best,

      Jonathan

      Tom,

      ""If I make breakfast, I have to break a few eggs. The prior form of those eggs ceases to exist."

      Not the energy, however, which is conserved. Form is not foundational."

      Meanwhile the form keeps receding into the past, as the energy marches into the future, but that's not foundational enough either.

      Regards,

      John M