I am reading through these essays. Some are about a disconnect between physics and math. These papers have this in common. Then these papers use examples to demonstrate the disconnect as does my own essay. The examples vary widely. This is my observation. My main goal here is to applaud your point of view of the disconnect of which you get some of my points. I suspect pressure from people like you are going to change the face of physics. Thank you.

Al Schneider

    Dear Dr. Phipps,

    I read your essay with great interest. I will have to read it more carefully before making substantive comments.

    Incidentally, I remember your advisor Prof. Ramsey. I worked in his atomic beams laboratory in 1974, before moving on to a thesis project in superconductivity.

    You might be interested in my essay "Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory"

    I argue that premature adoption of an abstract mathematical framework prevented consideration of a simple, consistent, realistic model of quantum mechanics, avoiding paradoxes of indeterminacy, entanglement, and non-locality. What's more, this realistic model should be directly testable using little more than Stern-Gerlach magnets.

    An earlier FQXi essay was entitled "Watching the Clock: Quantum Rotation and Relative Time"

    But I have not been critical of classical mechanics. Maybe I should reconsider that, as well.

    Alan Kadin

      I should like to think that my rather impassioned attempts to reform physics might succeed. But, realistically, I doubt that is possible. I have never participated in the academic life. This means I am an outsider. My impression is that the Worldwide Professors United, though not a recognized organization, nevertheless exists and knows how to close ranks in defense of a status quo. This means that progress can occur only from inside, and at a snail's pace. It is to be hoped that the snail increments are more or less in the right direction. But the creature responds only to its own internal rumblings.

      Best, Tom

      I will read your "Blinders" essay with interest. Thanks for the link.

      My first and only Phys. Rev. publication was in 1960, called "Generalization of Quantum Mechanics." It was about hidden variables. It disturbed me that a whole class of classical canonical variables, the "New Canonical Variables" or constants of the motion, were absent from QM. What kind of "formal Correspondence" omits a whole class of formal variables? So, I explored the possibility of restoring those variables to the formalism. I claimed advantages from so doing. That paper was several years in the refereeing, and I learned my lesson: Don't bother.

      Best, Tom

      At age 90 I am not of that generation that is computer savvy at birth. It is not obvious to me how to get hold of your essay. Can you send me a link? I must admit I find the consequences of submitting an essay to be bewildering.

      Best, Tom

      After reading your "Blinders" essay, I must say I am struck by how different intuitions can be about a problem. We agree that something is not right about QM, but have gone about looking for the flaw in almost diametrically opposite directions. You have discarded Hilbert space and looked at a nonlinear alternative. I stuck to Hilbert space and looked for a rigorized formal Correspondence. It has been over half a century, but what I vaguely recollect ia that when I included formal analogs of the classical constants of the motion, these attached themselves to the wave function in such a way that by assigning numerical values to them one could sever phase connections. So, instead of everything being phase-connected forever, the equations of motion contained parameters that could cut the connections. That was my approach to improving the theory's relationship to reality.

      After all, as long as phases are uninterrupted everything stays in a pure state and is therefore unobservable. Sorry, this is not helping you, since you have chosen a different path. I see it as rather bad news for physics, if nonlinearity is needed from the start. The beauty of QM via formal Correspondence is that it connects directly to the grand Newtonian tradition (through the canonical version of that, due to Hamilton and the rest).

      Dear Tom,

      when I first read your fantastic essay I knew it would attract many positive comments and votes. Congratulations! It seems still worthwhile to try to stem the tide of mainstream concordance in physics.

      Best Lutz Kayser

        Yes, the physics mainstream does seem to be settling into a particularly muddy rut at this stage of history.

        Best, Tom

        Dear Thomas,

        John Archibald Wheeler left to physicists and mathematicians a good philosophical precept:"Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers."

        When physicists and mathematicians speak about the structure and the laws of Universum for some reason they forget about lyricists. I believe that the scientific picture of the world should be the same rich senses of the "LifeWorld» (E.Husserl), as a picture of the world lyricists , poets and philosophers:

        We do not see the world in detail,

        Everything is insignificant and fractional ...

        Sadness takes me from all this.(Alexander Vvedensky,1930)

        It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise,

        as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye;

        but that is sufficient guidance for all our life.

        We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period,

        but we would preserve the true course. (Henry David Thoreau,1854)

        Do you agree with Henry David Thoreau?

        Kind regards,

        Vladimir

          I do not have any particular religion of my own. That would partly close my mind, which I prefer to keep open. I do, however, have a sort of frankly irrational suspicion -- which is akin to faith -- that when we understand the fundamental ways in which nature works we shall be far more stunned, shocked, amazed than even the lyricists, poets, etc. have it in their power to imagine.

          Best, Tom

          Welcome outsider from another mainstream outsider with a radical new model of the big and the small. I'm also retired and went back to my original love - physics.

          We join Einstein (a clerk because he was rejected by the academic community when he first publish), Newton (he isolated himself), some who were excommunicated, and others outside the status quo.

          Respected Sir,

          Once again you have proved the adage: old is gold. There is so much similarity between your views and our essay "REASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATHEMATICS" here that one author wanted us to comment on the central theme of your marvelous essay. We have covered the same points in a different style to finally suggest the need for scrapping the modern text books and rewrite physics afresh.

          Mathematics describes only the quantitative aspect of Nature - how much one quantity, whether scalar or vector; accumulate or reduce linearly or non-linearly in interactions involving similar or partly similar quantities and not what, why, when, where, or with whom about the objects. These are subject matters of physics. Thus, you have correctly described them as parallel tracks. Welcome to read our essay on this forum.

          Regards,

          basudeba

            Hello, are you maybe mixing Lorentz covariance with vector contravariance? In relativity Lorentz covariance is a local phenomenon. Also spacetime symmetry does not mean space and time symmetry. You deny the mathematical foundation but what you propose instead? GT does not work in particle accelerators. It does not even work for planet Mercury. Anything else you may suggest?

              Thanks for your kind words. I am glad we agree in principle.

              I will look up your essay.

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              • Post #32

              Dear me! So, "universal covariance" has gone out of style, and covariance is now a "local phenomenon." I would doubt that it is a phenomenon at all, as I understand the word. But let us not quibble.

              Is it true that spacetime symmetry has acquired a new, more subtle meaning than what the words suggest? I suppose this should not surprise me, as relativity can evolve only toward the more arcane. By this time Einstein might say of physics, as he did of mathematics, that he no longer could understand it.

              I thought I was specially explicit about the alternative I support -- namely, invariant formulations of Maxwell's field equations and relativity. I freely admit that although it is easy to propose a crucial experiment, and I have done this elsewhere (Physics Essays), I have not tried to analyze the huge number of experiments credited with supporting conventional relativity.

              The form of GT I support uses GPS time for the time parameter. This automatically brings in time dilation via the "Lorentz factor" correction for motion but it does not bring in a spatial Lorentz contraction. Any empirical evidence for that immediately refutes my proposals.

              Maybe, comments on Maxwell-Hertz Equations by Branko Petrovic will open the eyes of Newman and many others who don't believe you.

              In order to conveniently access my last essay, you might click here . While I understand and respect your firm trust in standard mathematics, I cannot hide that e.g. Heaviside and perhaps also Gibbs are to blame for not following Hertz. I am fully aware that average mathematicians will reject my criticism too.

              Above I gave you already an opportunity to simply click my essay 1364.

              Best, Eckard

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              • Post #34

              Thomas,

              Many, many thanks. From the bottom of my heart, many thanks.

              Your explanation of how clock timing for the GPS system works is something I have desired to know for years. It makes perfect sense to me. All the clocks are adjusted to be consistent in the receiver's frame of reference. I may use your essay as a citation for this subject.

              The v/c correction that you include in the equation for Lorentz force is very interesting to me. I am working with quaternions and attempting to express physics using them. I have proposed that the LT be expressed as follows:

              LT = cos(theta) i*sin(theta) = sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) (v/c)*i.

              I have not yet attempted to place this into the Maxwell Equations, but when I do, I suspect that the term you have added will be present. Now I have a plausible explanation for it.

              Best Regards and Good Luck,

              Gary Simpson

                Thanks for our favorable words.

                I have always been interested in quaternions, but never found a way to use them.

                It is good that someone is keeping abreast of the problem.

                Best, Tom Phipps

                Dear Tom,

                It is a saying in Africa that if you want to hear the truth, go to an elderly man. At 90, you are no longer looking for money, grants, job promotion, etc. All you wish for now is that Truth should rise again in our physics. Only those you called 'first class citizens' will oppose you.

                Your analysis of the Maxwell equations was superb. Although you mentioned GPS, I observe that you did not make mention other experiments showing that earth motion can affect light arrival times, contrary to the Michelson-Morley findings. The challenge is how to reconcile the two seemingly discordant findings. I use Galilean transformation and invariance principles to suggest a solution in this paper.

                My essay is also here, and I will be happy for a truth seeker to view and criticize.

                Best regards,

                Akinbo