Hello CKM,
I agree with what you write, "We do not measure the universe. Nature preforms measurement in our sense modalities. All measurement can be traced back to this *real* measurement. And we do not need to test it--we need only to live it--reality is what it is."
Yes--Feynman was fairly prophetic in predicting the era dominated by String Theory and LQG and other "ironic" forms of physics: "We are very lucky to be living in an age in which we are still making discoveries... The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. It is very exciting, it is marvelous, but this excitement will have to go." - Richard Feynman, in *The Character of Physical Law*, 1965
Yes, it seems that some of the excietment has dimmed over the last thirty years, culminating in this episode of Big Bang Theory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOwS0N3sX_M
And that is why we need to return to the "heroic spirit," as suggested by Achilles in The Iliad: "As I detest the doorways of Death, I detest that man who hides one thing. in the depths of his heart and speaks forth another."
All too often these days it seems people speak forth one thing while hiding in their hearts another, in an attempt to fool the lay public and sometimes even themselves and their peers, who may actually be easier to fool than the layman. But I would argue that the advancement of physics relies upon a rigorous honesty and a holding of physical truth over politics, grants, and team sports.
And while Feynman has been right over the last thirty or so years, perhaps science is not yet over--perhaps there are yet simple aspects of this universe that have remained unsung--simple physical characteristics which unify diverse phenomena in physical postulates and equations, such as the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions, or dx4/dt = ic. Perhaps string theorists and LQGers have not been asking the right questions.
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
Einstein stated that curiosity is more important than knowledge, but all too often modern physicists forget to ask fundamental questions. Below is a list of foundational questions asked and answered by a simple theory that answers each and every question with: "Because the Fourth Dimension is Expanding Relative to the Three Spatial Dimensions: dx4/dt=ic"
1. Why is light's velocity a constant c?
2. Why is light's velocity c independent of its source?
3. Why is it that nothing can travel faster than c?
4. Why does a photon, which travels at c, not age?
5. Why does a photon's spherically symmetric path define simultaneity--a locality in the fourth dimension?
5. Why are energy and mass equivalent? Why E=mc^2?
6. Why do all of time's arrows point in the same direction--towards dissipation, decoherence, and entropy?
7. Why do so many physicists say time is the fourth dimension, when Einstein never said x4 is time, but instead said x4 = ict?
8. Why can matter can appear as energy or mass?
9. Why is it that when matter appears as pure energy, it propagates at c through space?
10. Why does all matter have particle--local--and wave--nonlocal--properties?
11. Why does all energy have particle--local--and wave--nonlocal--properties?
12. Why is it that when matter appears as stationary mass it propagates at c through the fourth dimension?
13. Why is it that when matter appears as energy, it propagates at c through the three spatial dimensions?
14. Why is it that to move at c through space is to stand still in the fourth dimension?
15. Why is it that to move at c through the fourth dimension is to stand still in space?
16. Why is it that all objects move at but one speed through space-time--c?
17. Why is the universe expanding?
18. Why does radiation expand outwards, but not inwards?
19. Why do we see retarded waves, but not advanced?
19. Why is it that entropy imitates the general motion of all radiation and the universe's expansion--a spherically-symmetric expanding wave?
20. Why is it that Huygens' Principle, which underlies all reality ranging from QED to Feynman's many-paths, to classical physics, state that every point of a spherically-expanding wavefront is in turn a spherically-expanding wavefront?
21. Why are all photons described by a spherically-expanding wavefront propagating at c?
22. Why is it that two initially-interacting photons remain entangled, no matter how far they travel apart?
23. Why is it that two initially-interacting photons remain the exact same age, no matter how far they travel apart?
24. Why is it that Young's double-slit experiments show that mass and energy have nonlocal wave properties?
25. Why is it that the collapse of the wave function is immediate in the photoelectric effect?
26. Why is there no way for an object to gain velocity without being reduced in length via relativistic length contraction?
27. Why does a photon trace out a null vector through space-time?
28. Why does time's arrow point in a definitive direction?
29. Why does entropy increase?
30. Why do Moving clocks run slow?
31. Why is time travel into the past impossible?
32. Why does free will exist?
33. Why is it that time is not frozen---how come the block universe does not exist? Why do we have free will?
34. Why does a photon's probabilistic wavefront travel at c?
45. Why is the velocity of quantum entanglement c? Why is it that only initially interacting particles can yet be entangled? Why is it that they must first share a common locality or origin, in order to share an entangled nonlocality when tehy are separated?
36. Why is it that in Schroedinger's equation, the first derivative with respect to the fourth dimension is proportional to the second derivative with the respect to the three spatial dimensions? Any change in position in the fourth expanding dimension is an acceleration in the three spatial dimensions.
37. Why is it that a photon emitted from the sun is redshifted as it travels away? It's wavelength appears longer as it is measured against space that is less-stretched. A photon inherits the local geometry of the spacetime where it was emitted.
38. Why do clocks in gravitational fields run slow?
39. Why are photons redshifted as they move away from massive objects, and blueshifted as they move towards them?
40. Why the conservation laws? Why does an object maintain its rotation in space time, unless acted upon by an exterior force?
41. Why is the velocity of every object through space-time c?
42. Why is it that the only way to stay stationary in the fourth dimension is to move at c through the three spatial dimensions?
43. Why is it that the only way to remain stationary in the three spatial dimensions is to move at c relative to the fourth dimension?
44. Why does a photon have zero rest mass, and how does zero rest mass imply the velocity of light? None of the object's matter exists in the three spatial dimensions, but only in the fourth expanding dimension.
45. Why time's arrows?
46. Why time's assymetries?
47. Why entropy?
Firstoff, imagine a universe where one was allowed to ask such questions; instead of having to engage in groupthink mathematics and snarky politics for tenure; while bringing the advancement of theoretical physics to a halt for the last thirty years or so. And then imagine if there was one simple principle underlying and unifying all these questions and clues with a fundamental physical model. That would be MDT: The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.
dx4/dt = ic
The fourth dimension expands at the rate of c.
The fourth dimension is nonlocal via its expansion.
Entropy results as the local becomes nonlocal--as a point, or compactified sphere, of the fourth expanding dimension expands in a spherically-symmetric manner, dragging all of entirety along with it.
Quantum Mechanics' nonlocality and entropy are inextricably linked, as the fourth dimension expands at c, and carries photons and particles apart.
Photons surf the fourth expanding dimension.
Energy is but matter trapped on the fourth expanding dimension. Hence E=mc^2.
All matter has vast potential for energy, if only it is rotated into the fourth expanding dimension.
General Relativity freezes the fourth dimension, whereas quantum mechanics is built upon its flux--hence the differential operators.
Entropy and Huygens' principle rest upon the fourth expanding dimension, as do all photons which surf its expanding wavefront.
Nonlocality arises because the fourth dimension is nonlocal as it expands.
Simultaneity is relative because our measurement of time is relative to our propagation with respect to the fourth expanding dimension.
Time, as measured in our watches and perceived in the stored order of our memories, is not the fourth dimension, but a phenomenon that emerges because a fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions, caryring the photons in our time-measuring instruments and clocks.
The block universe does not exist, as the past is but a memory of a state that is long since gone.
Wave interference arises because of probability interference, and probability is defined by the expansion of the fourth dimension, which distributes the locality of a dimension upon an spherically-symmetric wavefront, where all points yet are one point in that dimension; until the wave is measured, and the particle is localized in the three spatial dimensions.
All motion requires that an object have a component in the source of all motion--the fourth expanding dimension. Hence all moving objects are foreshortened, and the faster they move, the more they are foreshortened in the three spatial dimensions, as they are rotated into the fourth expanding dimension.
And the great thing about MDT is that in addition to providing a *physical* model for entropy, nonlocality, and time's arrows and assymetries in all relams, all of relativity may be derived from its simple postulate and equation:
Consider a 4D universe: x1, x2, x3, x4, where x4 is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c described with dx4/dt = ic. Ergo relativity.