Essay Abstract

Ancient Greece's primordial 4 elements christened in mathematical physics' infancy, Aristotle's celestial spheres, Ptolemy's epicycles, and the creationist Puritans' flat earth: the gaze of scientists -- unbridled by prayerful worship of the past -- abandonning these incorrect assumptions toward exploring testable implications of revolutionarily novel ones has generated every tectonic shift of paradigm through science's history of advancing humanity's impatient stumbles toward perceiving physical truth. Of paramount importance in effecting the consequent quantum leaps in fundamental theory is the treat of falsifiability via experimantal observation. Rather than simply waxing poetic on sublimely cross-pollinating interconnections between co-spousal mathematics and physics, the essayist conjures instead falsifiable conjectures. Triumphant observation of CMB anisotropies played the pivotal role in precision cosmology's eliminating competitors from contention in proven, textbook-caliber cosmogenic theory. Mathematical ideas here considered -- rooted in the powerful roles played by statistics in refining experimentation's sensitivity and by equivalency principles in establishing relativity as gravitation's foundational bedrock -- suggest refinement in data collection and analysis via modifications in purpose and design of instruments and experiments. Exploring mathematical subtlety in electromagnetic theory -- inspired by debate among maverick theorists on professionalism's fringes regarding physics' need for QFT's second quantization and its formalizing photonic discreteness -- motivates reconsideration of bolometric sensitivity. Expanding scale from quantum to cosmic and shifting frame from observer to celestial, the exploration of complementary mathematical subtlety in gravitational theory -- regarding relativity's mass-energy equivalency and its novel application in attributing to galactic radiant energy a portion of the role played by dark matter in explaining anomalous rotation curves -- animates a corresponding reconsideration of redshift, viz., the proposed underestimated role played by gigaparsec-scale gravitational field gradient variation across the observable depth of the universe (shown to lengthen extragalactic photon wavelength) in generating astronomical redshifts previously assumed purely recessional in origin.

Author Bio

Perfect attendance through 12 yrs Catholic school rigor; 5 yrs Molecular Biophysics/ Applied Math attempted double major, BS Mathematical Sciences, Honors 1987 Johns Hopkins; Challenger disaster blocked NASA/STSI/JPL PhD work/study; instead 4 years Peace Corps Cameroon rainforest building fish hatcheries, marriage, kids; suspected of spying, machete attempt on life inspired MS Fisheries Science at field's leading school Auburn thesis research published Fishery Bulletin, field's leading journal; PhD Marine Science/ Physical Oceanography UT Austin interrupted third year retinal detachment, insurance denial, sibling death, divorce; instead high school teaching, carpentry, science writing, motorcycle rebuilding, remarriage, refatherhood, online Caltech, MIT quantum/ cosmological courses.

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Hi Kevin,

I enjoyed reading your beautiful poetic essay. I'm not sure I grasped all of it but loved the alliteration, poetic and story-like descriptions coving the development of physics.

Really interesting and more matter of fact writing about whether light is quantised particles prior to measurement.Covered in detail. I talk long similar lines when considering that we always have to make absolute reality into an observable,with a limited set of detectable states in order to measure it. For example the two bit coin is not the foundational object but an observable only capable of one of two outcomes. Whereas the coin prior to the measurement protocol can have many different orientations not limited to the two bits.

I didn't grasp all of the final section about galaxies etc. but enjoyed the descriptive writing all the same. Thank you for sharing your writing flair and food for thought. Georgina

    Kevin, perhaps I should add that I have not yet placed votes on any essays. That low vote was not mine.

    Thanks Georgina --

    I suspected our watergarden planet contained other minds in tune with the 4-dimensional themes I'm struggling myself to grasp in the essay, which took a few more months of Sundays to paint together than I'm comfortable counting. Bursting forth in thunder here at the outset rather than concealing it like a card shark at the poker table, I do not believe in a unique big bang, nor in singularities stable in time and space, nor in the definability of time and space outside of subatomic/ supercosmic limits where spacetime's hyper-ether lurks, and believe instead that imminently tractable statistical properties of the CMB -- which either are soon to be (via NASA's WEBB space telescope = successor to Hubble) or already have been measured but are being cravenly ignored as calibration error across mission, ie, COBE, WMAP, PLANCK, etc -- will reveal compelling proof that our cosmos is immeasurably older than the precision cosmologists' current calculation of 13.14159265 billion years or whatever it is. (Parse the coded pi hiding in there?)

    As noted in the following post-last-minute conversation with an editor at fqxi, a surprise snowstorm interrupted final editing, so I'm trying to improve the tripping flow and cogency of the grandiose themes awkwardly embraced in the final paragraphs which frankly baffle all of us: navigating the fourth dimension is not something any member of the human intellect can claim familiarity with, much less mastery over. Excepting physicists of course, able to Emperorically embrace the invisible-new-clothes, internal self-inconsistency of wave-particle duality -- and an atom-sized proto-universe with a definable size but without a definable edge (the boundary problem inflated away by Guth to swept-under-the-rug unobservability) -- while ignoring competing ideas such as Hoyle's and mine typically dismissed with those of the dimwit conspiracy theorists. (See typical reactions to these revolutionary ideas on reddit thread 'photon-torpedo'ing the concept of photons toward extracting dark matter from light'...)

    *****

    Dear fqxi,

    Have attached revised essay and references in pdf, with substantially more changes than that of obtaining permission from Cosmologist X to publish our personal communication which you requested and I forwarded to you yesterday.

    Allow me to propose with no misrepresentation of truth the following compromise -- between publishing propriety, personal privacy and rhetorical intrigue -- toward protecting the identity of a source speaking on condition of anonymity regarding a professionally sensitive matter:

    reference 10: Personal communication by email in January 2014; publication permission granted March 2015 by anonymous Emeritus Cosmologist X of University Y in U.S. New England state Z

    (Reference to the eastern US university balances a complementary source at Stanford on the west coast, but I would embrace whatever further editorial changes to my wording might be desired by FQXi.org)

    I much appreciate the deadline extension; permit me to legitimately invoke the classic winter excuse of being delayed and unable to complete final editing on time due to actually having to hike a kilometer and a half to wifi access through a raging blizzard as night fell March 4. Fortunately, the blinding snow was just heavy enough to prevent the lurking horde of grizzly bears from detecting and devouring me in the darkness...

    (PS -- I've been entertaining hopes of completing my doctoral work for years, and would much appreciate any connection to a suitable dissertation adviser that the FQXi staff might be able to forge. The essay contest may build just this bridge, but I attached transcripts/photo if relevant to anyone... I suspect I'd have gotten along well with the legendary self-described spherical bastard Fritz Zwicky (a symmetrical bastard from all spherical angles of view), but alas was born a bit late... and Feynman's bongo drumming would have given me seizures. Perhaps I should approach Leonard Susskind who's career path I've ambled along as an over-educated journeyman, he a plumbing tradesman, me a carpenter...)

    Appreciate your time and professionalism,

    Kevin Bootes

    Independent Physhematician = degree work in PHYsical oceanography, fiSHEries and MATh

    *****

    As a Smullyanesque mathematical logician and minority in what I'm assuming to be a forest of fqxi physicists and engineers, I much expect and quite appreciate the low score of 3 you noted, an encouraging reassurance that we're onto something rather meaty, beaty, big and bouncy here (to quote a childish old song lyric from the early 70's before I was old enough to be aware of things beyond my proto-universe of Dr. Seuss, Mary Poppins, Lego, and mom) in pointing out the flawed photoelectric-effect logic of Feynman's QED toward empirically refuting the reality of photons, quarks and all other zero-dimensional, un-structured point particles imagined to exist with the smooth, gem-like spatial and temporal continuity of billiard balls colliding with elastic perfection across the cosmic table of events comprising our observable 3slice of spacetime.

    Schrodinger's purring dead cat would likely thrill more to the shadowy hunt of particulate mice composed not of standard-model baryonic matter, but of what might instead be termed sparqleonic, more akin to the burning tips of children's sparklers -- erupting in sprays of quantized light flashes dancing to the harmonic cadences specified in atomic physics that generate the well-known spectral distributions of both atmospheric rainbows and astronomic absorption/emission lines -- than to atoms as vibrating spheres exchanging corpuscular photons.

    Under construction for more than 2 decades, the essay continues evolving toward demonstrating that combining logical consistency with quantum physics' non-locality requires that the belief in photonicorns (= photon unicorn) amounts to the final lingering remnants of the classical Einsteinian continuists, and is analogous to the contemporary vestigial hind limbs concealed below the skin of whales and boa constrictors (= skeletal remains of legs not yet cleanly swept off evolution's serpentine blackboard). Like life in Wheeler's mythical ever-living Universe, understanding eternity is a work in perpetual progress...

    Looking forward to participating in an online 'exploring quantum physics' course at Coursera taught by two U of Maryland profs due to begin March 30. Quoting their message to new enrollees:

    "The goal of this course is to introduce you to quantum physics and help you achieve a deeper understanding of the subject through working out real-life problems and examples, with the focus on those particularly relevant to modern science and technology. We are going to learn many important and exciting things about quantum mechanics, including Feynmanian path integral formulation, topological quantum phases, quantum dissipation, etc. After successfully completing the course, you will have a deeper understanding both of the fundamental laws which govern the physical world around us, and ongoing developments at the forefront of modern science. We also hope that for some of you, this course will become the first step toward your own career as a quantum scientist or engineer.

    We look forward to seeing you in class!

    Charles Clark and Victor Galitski

    Joint Quantum Institute"

    I'm a stumbling klutz with computers and itech but am pretty well acquainted with the fuzzy ideas of quantum mechanics, so perhaps we could attempt to answer each others questions if you have time to participate in the class... plenty of in-class resources online if not... would appreciate any difficult but respected quantum mechanics textbooks you could recommend?

    Closing with a rhetorical question by famous physicist and big-bang skeptic John Archibald Wheeler:

    "What good is a Universe without Life in it?"Attachment #1: princesstommi.JPG

    ... second attempt to upload pdf file (too large?) of academic transcripts toward defining the ideological / conceptual / 'physilosophical' genesis of the 'Truth and Treat' notions of hypothesizing falsifiably (via empirical cmb confirmation/rejection of computational statistical predictions) a 'cmb-quarksoup equivalency' and its consequent quantum-cosmo-topological tunneling hyperlink through 4-spacetime of our universal past-future and submicro-supergalactic frontiers toward a perpetual cosmostasis obviating both the humanity-threatening theist/spiritual and atheist/scientific creation myths via reinterpreting:

    1. Minkowskian spaceetime as an unobservable but computationally tractable (and thus CMB-falsifiable) 4-ocean model of hyper-ethereal fluid electromagnetic energy -- varying 'psi-ontologically' in fine-scale wave = energy densities which manifest themselves as observable 3-gravitating electromagnetism and condensatingly form, in the gravitationally divergent spacetime calms underlying the intergalactic medium, 4bubbles of Wheeleresque 'geons' in which are confined the oscillations describable via the 4d spherical harmonics used to characterize observably quantized spectral properties of the hydrogen atom and all other elements constructed thereof into 3reality -- and varying complementarily in cmb-ontological predictability in far-scale microwave = energy densities which manifest themselves as observable 3-gravitationally lensed electromagnetic fingerprints of primordial reionization

    2. baryons not as spatio-temporarily smooth and stable composite particles but rather as harmonically coordinated, h-bar-confined spray-bursts of virtual sparks of Pauli-Heisenberg-Schrodinger-respectful electromagnetic energy

    3. dark matter as gravitating dark light needed to explain anomously flattened galactic rotation curves

    4. dark energy not solely as driving acceleration of cosmic expansion but as containing an artifact generated by the trans-observable-depth-of-universe-variations-in-gravitational-gradient-magnitude effects contributing in tandem with expansion to galactic redshifts and thus to the (mis)calculated distances to qso's with errors dependent on remoteness in (dynamically modelable) patterns other than those assumed to be observed and (mis)explained with dark energy

    5. large-scale structure in galactic distributions not as revealed in alleged actual galaxy positions but as containing a foreground polluting effect (again varying with remoteness) due again to some portion of redshift being of gravitational in addition to purely recesssional / cosmological origin

    6. black holes not as isolated energy sinks into sensibly disconnected static information-devouring singularies but as compactifying sparqleon-(as-baryonic-4bubble)-popping energy-recycling centers in which matter-entrapped quantum-foam energy is released and jetted as radiant energy at frequency spectra only partially measurable by matter-based sensors, and finally

    7. the theorized time-conceiving birth and destiny-destroying death of the universe, out of and back into undefinable states of lifeless nonexistence, as transendable by a supergalactic-scale continuously recreative tunneling of mass-energy in which observable reality in the form of atoms, planets and stars is sublimatively crushed from 3observability into the ethereal 4energy of fluid spacetime to -- from a 3reality perspective -- in effective instantaneously recondense as Hawking-radiation-esque neonatal matter bubbles raining out of quantum virtuality into the higher planes of infinitesimal proto-reality and divergently calm gravitational potentials of the intergalactic medium to form the geonic / sparqleonic / neobaryonic hydrogen atoms noted in 1. above which then meander geodesically down gravitating wells of star formation toward the eventual nucleating explosions into the heavy metal vapors and swirling cinder storms recondensing into planets fermenting into essays by intelligent life on the verge of societal suicide should science teachers fail to wrest the reins of power from the reigns of neoroyal politicians' powers of omn-impotent unfitness to lead us anywhere other than terminal internecine self-destruction under their mentally incapacitated delusions of either a Conservative theist biblical creation-with-eternal-afterlife fairytale or the opposing Liberal atheist bigbanglical creation-with-everafterlifelessness version...

    in this essayist's view -- focusing clearly mathematical eyes on a queerly creation-transcendent CMB disguise -- and riffing 1981's animated Heavy Metal sci-fi romp:

    An Ember will glow over the Universe

    And Truth will grow in its Path

    And Eternity will wave from the Sky

    (a bit more inspiring than the original? :

    A Shadow will fall over the Universe

    And Evil will grow in its path

    And Death will come from the Sky)

    • [deleted]

    In hopes of encouraging further critical discussion and technical development of the 'dark light' and 'cmb-quarksoup equivalency' ideas, author can be reached by email = kevinbootes09ATgmailDOTcom or on phacebooq or by cell = (five oh 2) two nine 7 - seven three 22

    Reconfiguring -- in the spirit of big-bang skeptic John Archibald Wheeler's asking "What good is a universe without life in it?" -- the Gothic doom of the big-bangers' dead-end cosmic evolution prophesied by 1981's animated Heavy Metal sci-fi classic:

    An Ember will glow over the Universe

    And Peace will grow in its Path

    And Eternity will flow waving from the Sky

    5 days later

    Hello Kevin,

    I would not know your motivation for writing in this poetic way. Perhaps, to hide the many hidden truths, which I find, from those who do not desire that truth return to our physics.

    I will not engage you on the Michelson-Morley experimental results which you pointed to.

    I will first like you to tell me where this wonderful tourist destination called FlatLand is?

    Second, concerning the photon, someone in this community, Armin Shirazi wrote a paper where he discussed a 'photon existence paradox', although he claims to still support SR. It goes somehow like this, if it is as it is claimed that time does not flow for a photon, then it follows that the time of emission of a photon is the same as the time of its absorption, how then can photon exist?

    All the best in the competition.

    Regards,

    Akinbo

    *Please leave a note on my blog when you reply so I know when to check back here.

    Your speculations used in your work is worth the effort. It relates every feather.

    - Sincerely,

    Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

      7 days later

      Dearly Beloved Kevin,

      Your essay is a reminiscence of the book of Ecclesiastes.I was expecing you to end with a prophesy on the subject matter.

      Keep on flourishing,

      Lloyd Tamarapreye Okoko.

      FYI:My Essay 2408 error corrections @

      Chicago Section AAPT

      Spring Meeting 2015 - Glenbrook South High School

      April 11, 2015

      8:15-8:45

      Registration and Continental Breakfast

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      Welcome and Introductions - John Lewis - Host

      9:00 -9:15

      Dimensionless Dualities

      Ted Erikson - R/E UnLtd. - sdog1@sbcglobal.net

      Dear Kevin

      I agree that the photoelectric effect can be explained without photons, but antibunching effect cannot be explained without photons.

      In principle, I think that mavericks are useful in science, and I am also maverick, if you read my references. But, it is better that you more clearly describe where you disagree with mainstream science, for instance antibuncing effect.

      But, my speculation is that quantized gravitation does not contain virtual gravitons, and this can be connected with your ideas.

      My essay

      Best regards

      Janko Kokosar