Hi dear George,
Thanks for your kind words on our Essay.
Differently from your opinion, I am instead sure that GWs really exist and I am curious to see the LISA results.
Good luck in the Contest, I will read, comment and score your Essay asap.
Cheers, Ch.
Dears Georges (Ellis and Kirakosyan).
Thanks for your kind comments.
In our Essay aims and intention are detection of GWs, realization of a GW astronomy and potential implications on the research of the unification of physics. Concerning the theme set for this competition, this is a very particular case for an important reason. For a long time, the correct identification of aims and intention has been a very controversial issue based on the large debate, characterized by wandering through a wild territory of mathematical laws, which involved various scientists, included the same Einstein. That debate focused about the potential existence-non existence of GWs. Thus, in the current case, a big amount of mindless mathematical laws has been needed, not only in order to give rise to aims and intention, but, in a very long preliminary way (about 40 years), also in order to correctly identify such aims and intention.
Cheers, Ch.
Thank you, Dear Christian!
Unfortunately you are right, the politics is everywhere!
But, I am thankful of God that my daily bread is not dependent from this favorable for us occupation. That is why some time I allow myself to say what I really thinking that need to say!
All the best!
Hi Prof Ellis
I take this to be a unique and opposite way into the essay contest.
Every other paper starts with the external world and tries to show how it produces intention. Here they point out to start with maths and try and work it to fit the external world. So the math is the intention and we change it till it fits. In a mind first way its very David Hume, which is ironic as im sure they posit a base external realty first.
Best
Jack
Dear Ch
Ok, so from my viewpoint, you are taking for granted that physics somehow enables the emergence of a brain/mind that can carry out logical arguments and explore mathematical results (that is, a cognitive/psychological level with its own autonomy can emerge from the underlying physics), and then you explore how that mind can then have led to the discovery of gravitational waves. Fair enough. For many of us the key question is how it is possible that such a cognitive engine can emerge from the underlying non-cognitive physics. This is what I have tried to partly address in my own essay.
Regards, G.
C. Corda, et al.
Congratulations on your work in detecting gravity waves. I am not convinced of their existence yet, but perhaps more research will shift my position. Besides, your case is very compelling to the jury that counts, of which, I am not a member.
You have submitted a very interesting essay, but it does not seem to align with the theme of the contest. What is even more perplexing is that, at the issuance of this post, it is the highest rate essay out of over 150 submitted. I am curious about your motivation for submitting it.
Again, congratulations on your efforts and much success in your future endeavors with regard to them. (Maybe you will even convince me one day.)
Regards,
Bill Stubbs.
Corda, Katebi, and Schmidt,
This is a pretty good essay. The detection of gravitational radiation does potentially lead to some deeper results. The BMS symmetry, or the subsymmetry of abelian translations, can leads to understanding the physics of soft gravitons.
Cheers LC
Dear Jack Hamilton James,
You wrote: "I take this to be a unique and opposite way into the essay contest. Every other paper starts with the external world and tries to show how it produces intention. Here they point out to start with maths and try and work it to fit the external world."
This is a very profound observation, thank you very much.
I will read, comment and score your Essay in next days.
Cheers, Ch.
Dear George,
Thanks for clarifying. Now I well understand your point of view.
It will be my pleasure to read, comment and score your Essay in next days.
Cheers, Ch.
Although I too am perplexed about the relevance, I'm happy to pose a question about the theoretical basis of radiant (as opposed to geometric) gravitational waves.
It seems to me that there are two incompatible theories of gravitation, the quantum theory having been introduced without bothering to refute Einstein's earlier geometric theory.
If gravitation is due to the warping of spacetime geometry, it's easy to imagine an imbalanced binary radiating ripples of warping intensity, and if kinetic/potential energy is being lost to the system, then it is being gained by the universe at large... but the theoretical introduction of radiation by analogy with electromagnetism is an added complication that as far as I know has never been justified, except possibly to bring gravitation into the department of quantum physics.
You can see my argument at http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/1692 if you like.
Jim
Dear Bill,
Thanks for your comments.
As we previously told in reply to a similar comment by Prof. Ellis, in our analysis aims and intention are detection of GWs, realization of a GW astronomy and potential implications on the research of the unification of physics. Concerning the theme set for this competition, this is a very particular case for an important reason. For a long time, the correct identification of aims and intention has been a very controversial issue based on the large debate, characterized by wandering through a wild territory of mathematical laws, which involved various scientists, included the same Einstein. That debate focused about the potential existence-non existence of GWs. Thus, in the current case, a big amount of mindless mathematical laws has been needed, not only in order to give rise to aims and intention, but, in a very long preliminary way (about 40 years), also in order to correctly identify such aims and intention.
In addition, I would like to stress a remarkable observation of Jack Hamilton James. He argues that our Essay is a unique and opposite way into the essay contest. In fact, the other Essays start with the external world and try to show how it produces intention. In our Essay we point out to start with maths and try and work it to fit the external world. In all honesty, I do not know if our case is very compelling to the FQXi jury. We will see this in the future.
In any case, our Essay is no more the highest rate essay out of over 150 submitted. It seems that some troll gave us a "1" in order to decrease our score. Finally, I do not understand why the issue that our Essay was the highest rate essay out of over 150 submitted should make you perplexed.
In any case, I will read, comment and score your Essay in next days. Good luck in the Contest.
Cheers, Ch.
Hi LC,
It is a pleasure re-meeting you here in FQXi Contest. Thanks for your congrats, it will be my pleasure to read, comment and score your Essay soon.
Cheers, Ch.
Dang! I gave you a decent score this morning and now you have dropped terribly. I was early on near the top and fell to 5.6 and then climbed up.
We were kicking around a year and a half ago an idea with solitons and tunneling states with rotating black holes. I came up with a bit of something recently that might feed life into that. The idea was that the Kerr frame dragging around a black hole was quantum mechanically analogous to the Josephson junction. I have found this connects with S-duality.
It looks as if you affiliation has changed. It looks a little more solid than what you had. I too need to get myself better situated.
Cheers LC
COMMENT OF THE AUTHOR NATHAN O. SCHMIDT
Hello all!
Thanks for your comments and discussions. For those of you who may be confused about the relevance of this essay, I will attempt an additional clarification.
Numerous scientists (ex. Einstein, Rosen, and others, etc.) were aimed at the goal of establishing a unified field theory of physics; they spent decades trying to determine which mathematical laws correctly encode physical laws via the methods of science and mathematics. These scientists were wandering towards the goal of unification.
In this wandering, many of these mathematical laws, such as those representing gravitational waves and predicting their existence, were a subject of great dispute and great confusion. Hence, the mathematical laws predicting the existence of gravitational waves were considered to be mindless by many scientists. Moreover, the dispute and confusion surrounding gravitational waves was mindless in its own right (i.e. based on the evidence cited in the essay, it seems that Einstein would have agreed to this).
The mindless mathematical laws characterizing gravitational waves combined with the wandering and dispute over the existence vs. non-existence of gravitational waves created a new goal for scientists aiming to unify physics: to prove or disprove the existence of gravitational waves via theory and experiment. Thereafter, during further wandering towards the goal of unification, scientists also found themselves wandering towards the goal of resolving the dispute of gravitational waves; the goal of assessing the validity of gravitational waves and the goal of assessing the predictive capabilities of the theory of general relativity are in alignment with the goal of unification.
After additional years of wandering through the mindless mathematical laws surrounding gravitational waves, scientists eventually found themselves creating LIGO in order to hunt for gravitational waves and to probe systems of massive objects throughout the universe (as predicted by the theory of general relativity). Consequently, the mindless mathematical laws surrounding gravitational waves gave rise to the aim and intent of creating LIGO and detecting the event GW150914.
This is a prime example of how mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention in the real world.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your comment.
Concerning your being perplexed about the relevance of our Essay you can read the below comment of my co-author Nathan O. Schmidt. I will bring back to you soon concerning your question about the theoretical basis of radiant (as opposed to geometric) gravitational waves.
Cheers, Ch.
Hi LC,
Thanks for your decent score. As usual there are some trolls giving a "1" for decreasing the total score of the Essays. This is not a new in the FQXi Essay Contest...
Send me via private email your new insights on solitons and tunneling states with rotating black holes. We will discuss the situation and we attempt to write a new research paper.
Cheers, Ch.
Dear Christian, Reza, and Nathan,
I enjoyed reading your well-written and instructive essay about gravitational waves and the foundational role of general relativity for the entire physics and other fields. We know from Galilei and Einstein that the fundamental laws of physics are the same everywhere, at any scale, and for any observer. The role of the observer is paramount both in relativity and quantum mechanics, being immersed in a world which in its turn affects, and as Wheeler says, the universe is participatory. This can be seen in many modern approaches to inflationary cosmology, quantum mechanics, and the problem of why these particular fundamental laws and constants are at the basis of our universe. It appears miraculous how mindless laws gave rise to intelligences who were able to predict and measure the gravitational waves, or, if I don't exaggerate too much by saying this, to detect the EEG of these brainwaves of the brain of the God of Einstein and Spinoza, or, as Einstein put it, to know His thoughts. Good luck with the contest!
Best regards,
Cristi
Dear Cristi,
We are very honored by your kind words on our Essay, thanks a lot. Wheeler's statement that "the universe is participatory" is wonderful. Maybe the nascent GW astronomy could help in "knowing God's thoughts".
We well read, comment and score you Essay soon.
Thanks again and good luck in the Contest.
Cheers, Ch.
Thanks for the good word on my essay over at my site. Sorry to see that your essay seems to have dropped a lot. I have you a high score the other day. I think it was a 9, with 1 deducted for seeming a bit off from the central point of the essay prompt. I wrote the following in response to your statement about unitarity and equivalence principle.
My sense is that the equivalence principle and the unitarity principle are versions of the same thing. Because of this they do not generally hold completely for general experimental conditions. It is really similar to the duality between reality and locality in Bell's theorem. You can have one, but not the other. The same I think happens here in that if you can measure all quantum states in a nondestructive way (weak measurements, etc) you then have some small deformation of the equivalence principle. On the other hand if you measures the EP to complete accuracy this is traded off by some inability to account for quantum states in a unitary manner.
Cheers LC
Hi LC,
If you are correct on the duality between the equivalence principle and the unitarity principle this is a very intriguing issue.
Concerning the point that our Essay seems a bit off from the central point of the essay prompt, give a look to the above comment of my co-author Nathan O. Schmidt.
Our essay has dropped a lot because, as usual, in the Contest there are some trolls which give "1" in order to drop Essays having a score higher than their proper ones.
Cheers, Ch.
