Tricks or Truth: Mathematics\' inappropriate domination of cosmology by lutz kayser

This is a great paper. I share, I think, similar thoughts in my essay, "Modeling Reality with Mathematics". However, you bring more reality to the situation. I have put two videos on Youtube in an attempt to explain some problems in physics. They purport that Einstein and others did their work before QED by Feynman was produced. I also purport that if present day science would consider QED while examining the big bang and general relativity, opinions would change.

"Space is not Warped" http://youtu.be/p0E5AWnYjys

"Is the Big Bang a Hoax" http://youtu.be/w6NsfzNEOmo

If I had read papers like yours and others, I would probably not have written mine.

Thanks

Your essay is very refreshing so much so that I gained a lot from you.

Smiles!

Great work!!!!

Sincerely,

Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman,

The reason that people stop responding to your incorrect claims about Bell is that you do not pay any attention to what they say. I explained that Bell's discussion is of experiments described in terms of a binary outcome space, which (in the case of spin and a Stern-Gerlach apparatus) can be characterized as the outcome space {particle detected above the midline, particle detected below the midline}. That is a perfectly good outcome space, and Bell's theorem applies. The prediction of quantum theory is that experiments of this kind will violate his inequalities for that outcome space, and hence cannot be reproduced (as his theorem shows) by any local physics. Your "model" in no way shows anything wrong with either Bell's framing of the question, or his proof, or the actual experiments. Your attention to spreads of the results is simply irrelevant, since the theorem is about correlations between outcomes described using the binary outcome space. The very picture in your own essay of the original Stern-Gerlach results shows the particles cleanly and clearly divided into detection above the midline and detection below the midline. It is the results, described in this way, that the theorem is about.

The fact that Bell codes the one sort of result mathematically as "+1" and the other as "-1" is completely insignificant to the theorem. In photon experiments, the results would be sorted into "detected in output channel 1" and "detected in output channel 2", also a binary outcome space. In fact, since the actual experiments done originally were on photons, your focus on Stern-Gerlach magnets does not even make contact with the empirical results.

No discussion is banned. But a productive discussion requires paying attention to what is being said.

Tim Maudlin

Dear Tim Maudlin,

There is quite a difference between "not paying attention" to what you say, and "agreeing with what you say." For example, on my thread, you said approximately 15 times that the Stern-Gerlach-type experiments describe:

"Binary outcome space" , or

are "coded as +1 or -1", or

are "outcome1 and outcome2", or

are "spin up and spin down", or

"red light went on" versus "green light went on", or

are "above the midline" or "below the midline".

It's pretty hard to miss that you believe the experiment is based on binary outcomes.

What you have missed, and missed a number of times, is that this suppresses the physics of the situation.

As an example, when particles are collided at LHC, some of the collision products come out 'above the midline' and some of them come out 'below the midline'. Nobody cares -- there is no physics in analyzing LHC scattering experiments in such a simple matter.

I've tried to tell you, in a number of different ways, that Bell ignores the physics going on in the Stern-Gerlach apparatus. And by constraining the outcomes to be simple binary outcomes he throws away the information that can be derived from the physics of the experiment. Physicists care (or should care) about this information. The fact that when this information is thrown away the physical model cannot match reality, is significant. Applying correct math to incorrect physics makes no sense, but that is exactly what Bell has done.

As John Cox remarked, as an academic philosopher, you find it easy to take the physics out of math while leaving the math in physics. As a physicist I don't find it that simple. You have twice stated that I pay no attention to what you say. I have reviewed our comments and find it is difficult to discover any response from you to my valid points. And when I supplied data that contradicted your statement about neutron results, and asked you for any data that would support your position, you said you couldn't imagine why anymore time should be spent on the argument.

In fact, having reviewed your comments, I do have more responses. But this thread is meant to be for Lutz Kayser's essay, I don't think we should continue this conversation here. My next comment will be on my thread. I hope you find reason to respond.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Lutz,

Thank you, for your essay and for your response. The problem is every bit as severe as you say it is in the strongholds of physics, but I would remind you of MacArthur's campaign on New Guinea, which was to "bypass the strongholds", to "hit them where they ain't", and to let them "die on the vine". The rules of the game are changing and it may no longer be possible to bottle up embarrassing or unpleasant truths. FQXi and the Net change the rules of the game. There is still an incredible noise factor in order to be heard outside the "Halls of Learning", but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

"Einstein was the cleverest in riding that wave. He took Minkovski's four-dimensional time-space symmetry, mixed it with Poincare's "Lorentz transformations" and relativity, added some self-invented new vector addition law and published this in 1905 as his special Relativity Theory. Being a physicist it did not bother him that no positive experiments were available as a foundation."

Correct, but the everything-derived-from-two-simple-postulates trick should be emphasized. Initially Einstein derived the constancy of the speed of light from the Lorentz transforms, then called it "postulate" and finally derived the Lorentz transforms from the postulate (the gullible world was stunned):

Albert Einstein, What Is The Theory Of Relativity? (November 28, 1919): "The second principle, on which the special theory of relativity rests, is the "principle of the constant velocity of light in vacuo." This principle asserts that light in vacuo always has a definite velocity of propagation (independent of the state of motion of the observer or of the source of the light). The confidence which physicists place in this principle springs from the successes achieved by the electrodynamics of Maxwell and Lorentz."

Introduction to Special Relativity, James H. Smith, p. 42: "We must emphasize that at the time Einstein proposed it [his second postulate], there was no direct experimental evidence whatever for the speed of light being independent of the speed of its source. He postulated it out of logical necessity."

The truth is that, in 1887 (prior to FitzGerald and Lorentz advancing the ad hoc length contraction hypothesis), the Michelson-Morley experiment unequivocally confirmed the variable speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light and refuted the constant (independent of the speed of the source) speed of light predicted by the immobile ether theory and later adopted by Einstein as his special relativity's second postulate:

Alberto Martinez: "In sum, Einstein rejected the emission hypothesis prior to 1905 not because of any direct empirical evidence against it, but because it seemed to involve too many theoretical and mathematical complications. By contrast, Ritz was impressed by the lack of empirical evidence against the emission hypothesis, and he was not deterred by the mathematical difficulties it involved. It seemed to Ritz far more reasonable to assume, in the interest of the "economy" of scientific concepts, that the speed of light depends on the speed of its source, like any other projectile, rather than to assume or believe, with Einstein, that its speed is independent of the motion of its source even though it is not a wave in a medium; that nothing can go faster than light; that the length and mass of any body varies with its velocity; that there exist no rigid bodies; that duration and simultaneity are relative concepts; that the basic parallelogram law for the addition of velocities is not exactly valid; and so forth. Ritz commented that "it is a curious thing, worthy of remark, that only a few years ago one would have thought it sufficient to refute a theory to show that it entails even one or another of these consequences...."

John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation, has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late 19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised the greatest theoretician of the day."

John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."

Relativity and Its Roots, Banesh Hoffmann, p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also a natural one? Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether. If it was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle? Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will prove to be superfluous."

Pentcho Valev

Dear Lutz,

"The moment the photon is travelling, it does so with absolute constant c."

This is not true and has been refuted recently:

"A team of Scottish scientists has made light rays travel slower than the speed of light."

"Spatially structured photons that travel in free space slower than the speed of light"

Pentcho Valev

Dear Lutz,

We are not living in space. We are surrounded by real atmosphere. There are not three abstract dimensions of height width and depth. There is one real infinite dimension. Infinity does not have an interior, an exterior or duration.

Joe Fisher

Dear Pentcho,

you are right. Lightspeed can be manipulated by lasers and also lateral confinement which is detrimental for relativity, SR and GR.

Only plane waves travel isotropically in space.

Best

Lutz

Dear Lutz,

"So, what is the truth in this cosmological enigma? (...) The question is answerable by solving the riddle of cosmological redshift."

Recently it has been shown that light in vacuum can be slowed, which gives strong support to both Halton Arp's "intrinsic redshift" hypothesis and "tired light" ideas:

"The work demonstrates that, after passing the light beam through a mask, photons move more slowly through space."

If something (the mask) can decrease the speed of photons, it is reasonable to assume that something else (quantum vacuum) can also do so:

NewScientist: "Vacuum has friction after all"

Paul Davies: "As pointed out by DeWitt, the quantum vacuum is in some respects reminiscent of the aether, and in what follows it may be helpful to think of space-time as filled with a type of invisible fluid medium, representing a seething background of vacuum fluctuations. Although the mechanical properties of this medium can be strange, and the image should not be pushed too far, it is sometimes helpful to envisage this "quantum aether" as possessing a type of viscosity."

Nature | Scientific American: "As waves travel through a medium, they lose energy over time. This dampening effect would also happen to photons traveling through spacetime, the researchers found."

In my view, loss of energy/speed is the only reasonable cause for the Hubble redshift (in a static universe). Slowly but surely the Big Bang money-spinner is approaching its collapse.

Pentcho Valev