Dear Wilhelmus,

Since you revealed being just a hobby physicist without a profound mathematical training similar to what my EE students learned, I should tell you what a non-causal blackbox is, e.g. a non-causal filter or a usual spectrogram. A blackbox has an input and an output. Imagine for instance a mouse running in and coming out of it. Common sense tells you that the mouse must first run into it before it may come out of it. EEs don't bother much that complex theory yields the strange result that the mouse or an electric impulse can come out before running in. This has definitely nothing to do with quantum weirdness.

Your opinion arose perhaps from reading most exciting papers. Accordingly you did not understand what I meant with resurrection (of Christ). Already Ben Akiba meant: anything repeates itself as do day and night, etc.

What I called an EUCLIDEAN point is defined as something that has no parts. Being an ideal abstract notion, it cannot emerge in reality.

I cannot rememer having read your essay The Purpose of Life. Already the title might have deterred me because there is no evident purpose of life. When I agree with Kadin that menkind as a whole has to limit its number of people and consumptive deterioration of earth, I see this responsibility from the perspective of all of us.

Regards,

Eckard

Eckard,

It is interesting reading through the various entries and seeing some congruence, especially among the stalwarts, as to a consensus about particular problems in physics, with the issue of time becoming paramount. It would be nice to see some of the more knowledgable members build a well stated argument that might, with the help of FQXI, get some broader attention. I, for one would certainly be cheering it on from the outside.

Reading through your essay, I was curious if you know of Carver Meade? Here is an interview he gave a couple decades ago, that was formative in my thinking;

http://worrydream.com/refs/Mead%20-%20American%20Spectator%20Interview.html

I thought you would find the following quote similar to your own view;

"That has hung people up ever since the time of Clerk Maxwell, and it's the missing piece of intuition that we need to develop in young people. The electron isn't the disturbance of something else. It is its own thing. The electron is the thing that's wiggling, and the wave is the electron. It is its own medium. You don't need something for it to be in, because if you did it would be buffeted about and all messed up. So the only pure way to have a wave is for it to be its own medium. The electron isn't something that has a fixed physical shape. Waves propagate outwards, and they can be large or small. That's what waves do.

So how big is an electron?

It expands to fit the container it's in. That may be a positive charge that's attracting it--a hydrogen atom--or the walls of a conductor. A piece of wire is a container for electrons. They simply fill out the piece of wire. That's what all waves do. If you try to gather them into a smaller space, the energy level goes up. That's what these Copenhagen guys call the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But there's nothing uncertain about it. It's just a property of waves. Confine them, and you have more wavelengths in a given space, and that means a higher frequency and higher energy. But a quantum wave also tends to go to the state of lowest energy, so it will expand as long as you let it. You can make an electron that's ten feet across, there's no problem with that. It's its own medium, right? And it gets to be less and less dense as you let it expand. People regularly do experiments with neutrons that are a foot across.

A ten-foot electron! Amazing.

It could be a mile. The electrons in my superconducting magnet are that long.

A mile-long electron! That alters our picture of the world--most people's minds think about atoms as tiny solar systems.

Right, that's what I was brought up on--this little grain of something. Now it's true that if you take a proton and you put it together with an electron, you get something that we call a hydrogen atom. But what that is, in fact, is a self-consistent solution of the two waves interacting with each other. They want to be close together because one's positive and the other is negative, and when they get closer that makes the energy lower. But if they get too close they wiggle too much and that makes the energy higher. So there's a place where they are just right, and that's what determines the size of the hydrogen atom. And that optimum is a self-consistent solution of the Schrodinger equation."

Good luck,

John

    Thank you John, for reminding me of Carver Mead. He is renowned for utterly creative ideas and their successful applications in technology. I admire him who was "merely" trained as an EE, as was I too.

    I feel, as didn't Mead, engineers must not fear restricted by putatively fundamental laws. This is my only criticism of Klingman's otherwise flawless attitude. Klingman frankly uttered that it is "verboten" (he didn't write forbidden or taboo) to criticize Einstein and Feynman although he himself dared deriving gamma without following Einstein and using two different frames of reference.

    Being not in position to read all essays, I wonder if two issues are already sufficiently put in the due focus:

    - the role of reference points (in particular with respect to Michelson's 1923 experiment)

    - the role of action (I am only aware of one belonging essay by Andrew).

    Yes, being equipped with flexible thinking due to my training as an engineer and teacher, I don't shy back from declaring Maxwell's use of the old aether analogy just an although reasonable guess. However, I abstain from claiming that my tentative suggestion of the possibility of an alternative interpretation is more than a guess of mine. While calling propagating em waves their own medium sounds nice, this metaphor might be unnecessary.

    We don't need imagining someone like donar with a hammer if we don't yet have another lazy explanation.

    Kind regards,

    Eckard

    Eckard,

    Edwin has a point that the Institution has Einstein and various others on pedestals, but the field is currently taking various assumptions beyond the point of reductio ad absurdum. It is a bubble. Future generations of physical theorists are not going to spend their careers chasing down untestable and chaotic ideas, just because this generation has committed their careers to doing so.

    There should be some communal effort among dissidents to point this out, sort through the more compelling concepts and present the most evident in a way that at least puts down a marker. Probably a presentist argument for time would be close to the top of the list. Certainly FQXi has been laying some groundwork for this for years, but nothing has congealed beyond the forum stage.

    So the question would be as to how to push it to the next level? Safe to say, the various people who come to mind, you, Edwin, Peter Jackson, Georgina Woodward, are independent minded, but what can pull a team together is not just cooperation, but the existence of an overarching goal and that is becoming very evident.

    While this is just percolating in my thoughts and I don't have the professional authority to be officially included, I am going to try pushing toward that goal. Possibly someone from FQXi might be interested to help, possibly Zeeya Merali

    Also,

    "- the role of reference points (in particular with respect to Michelson's 1923 experiment)

    - the role of action (I am only aware of one belonging essay by Andrew)."

    I would refer the above observations to a comment I made to Georgina last night;

    "Our minds only work with what defines and thus limits our observations. You are quite right that it seemingly makes no sense, but then sense is to sense. We only sense boundaries and motion. Thus disequilibrium and finiteness."

    My point goes to the premise of my own entry, that space, without any physical properties, would be infinite and in absolute equilibrium, so that under those two categories, reference points and motion, is the essential premise of no references and no motion, leaving just space. Infinite and absolute.

    John,

    Looking for a possibly enlightening essay I found a seemingly harmless text:

    "Quantum mechanics began with discrete "action" [Bohr atom, 1913] along with E=hν and with p=h/λ" and adding "a wave has phase φ=kx-ωt=(1/h_bar)(px-Et). Complex numbers then entered for convenience."

    My boss certainly understood the fundamentality of my suggestion to take the very moment as reference for elapsed time instead of so called absolute time and phase.

    Eckard

    Eckard,

    I found your essay excellently conceived, written and argued this year. I consider it your best one by far. It also helped ease of reading that you 'word ordering' phasing has improved.

    I found little to question in the content. I never did consider Fourier Transforms fundamental or complete solutions so we're in agreement. I also found a number of other areas where our essays agree.

    But will the academic community reconsider current views? The answer came long ago when respected Imperial College electrical engineer Eric Laithwaite in a Royal Institute Christmas lecture correctly pointed out & demonstrated that physics had 'missed' something important.

    Of course physicists all thanked him and rushed to correct it -- in some imaginary universe!! What actually happened was they complained, didn't even consider the new science and lobbied the Dean to remove him from the university. That attitude is what has to change in physics. Luckily the Dean was intelligent and offered to remove THEM if they had a problem!

    Within 10yrs theory evolved a little to confound the inconsistencies. Even now we hear academia mostly agreeing fundamental change is due but when any coherent theory varying from current ones is posited all rush to entirely ignore it. Probably out of fear.

    Very well written this year Eckard. Top marks coming. By the way my essay this year along with Declan Traill's not only agrees there's NO time reversal but other parts of yours if not quite all, and completes the removal of stupidities in QM. Of course most will run & hide for 10 years. I'll be interested in your thoughts & comments.

    I hope you're keeping well. Very best.

    Peter

    PS; Have you done antenna design? How much can you tell about me where Maxwell's TZ is placed for any wavelength? and what happens at that near/far field transformation zone. I do have a theory that resolves all which I've discussed & cleared with EE's in the field but am interested in your analysis.

      Peter,

      I am not sure, did you really understand why my boss admitted that my basic argument is "sowas von" fundamental? The nine FQXi contests pushed me to investigate it's consequences from various perspectives. You might decide yourself how it agrees with your own effort.

      Starting from physiology of hearing I follow Claude Shannon's formulation of causality: Only what already happened can absolutely not be influenced.

      Therefore, the border between past and future is the only non-arbitrary reference point for an, admittedly quite uncommon in theory, notion of time: elapsed time.

      I guess, TZ stands for transition zone between near field and far field. Being a bit familiar with antenna design since my last boss is an expert in ground penetrating radar, I can tell you that the two components of an em field are quite different: The fictitious evanescent component doesn't propagate. In contrast to the ideal distinction between past and future with nothing in between, this component of the near field it is gradually decreasing.

      Incidentally, an essay by David ? guided me to the insight how QM got unnecessarily complex.

      Being aware of my poor English, I would even more appreciate you criticising the content of my nine essays.

      Maybe you can also help me to read the formulas in Klingman's essay and his related paper. My old office program cannot properly print the used symbols. Do you have similar problems? What can I do?

      My health is fine again, thank you.

      Best,

      Eckard

      Eckard,

      I thought I understood but you've raised doubts. I'm very familiar with Elapsed Time as it's a fundamental concept in yacht handicap computations, mainly 'out & back' but also A to B. I also recall you past interpretations, and indeed, checking back, Davids essay, which I agree with.

      Davids concept agrees with my vacuum with local 'presence' as fundamental, and that QM's nonsensical interpretation is a barrier to understanding. What I (and Declan) have done is shown that 'blockage' can be removed. Also 'backward causation!' Of course it won't be countenanced by those in the field, most outside won't understand it, and the few between will mainly run and hide! C'est la vie.

      Aside from but consistent with that classical resolution is re-emissions at 'c' in all fermion rest frames. There is then no problem with a rational SR for any other theory, falsifiable or not, to 'solve'. Your concept may well be ok, but it matters not as as measurement (requiring an interaction) must find c in the local frame naturally. (46c quasar jet pulses in collimations observed by displacement rate from the side do NOT need interaction with the pulse so don't violate 'c'!) Of course 'agreement' is not a scoring criteria anyway.

      I'm happy to help with phrases & symbols if I can. Don't pdf's solve the symbol issue? I can Email a pdf or word file of Edwins if that helps, contact on pj.ukc.edu@physics.org. or ask Edwin about meaning because I'm not confident. I agree Vladimir's (and your) views on maths.

      On phrases, you're prone to putting long qualifiers/descriptors before the subject, which is unfamiliar and disruptive; as in.; "The observation of, viewed from the side by angular displacement by NASA at

      Peter,

      I don't understand what you meant with "your past interpretations", my interpretations of the past, or previous interpretations of mine?

      Anyway, what I am calling the past is a domain of reality that is concrete and quite different from the realms of future possibilities as well as from the usual abstract "timeless" notion of time.

      Everybody with common sense understands that her/his age counts backward in usual time, and that the point of reference for this age is permanently sliding relative to the commonly agreed point t=0 of reference.

      There is no escape for another reason: The choice of t=0 e.g. in Christian science is not by chance but necessarily an arbitrary one in contrast to the actual border between what already happened and what will possibly happen.

      The usual notion of time with its arbitrarily chosen point of reference fulfills most but not ALL requirements of theories in an elegant manner: Our ears cannot hear future sound, and they have also no knowledge which event of reference Greenwhich refers to. Therefore I am attributing a key role to the very moment, of course only in reality. The time scales of abstract theories can be shifted, flipped or otherwise manipulated at will.

      When I asked for help I hoped at first for your confirmation that your computer and printer correctly shows all symbols. On a second step you could tell me what program you are using in order to correctly see for instance Greek letters too. I don't doubt that Edwin used pdfs as did I.

      What might be wrong with my computer/printer/software? In many but not all cases, I am familiar with the formulas and able to guess what the strange square-shaped place holders stand for. This is demanding to me.

      Eckard

      Eckard,

      I meant 'previous interpretations of yours', which is the convention. Otherwise I'd refer to 'THE past', (as you write above). Anyway I have no issues with your conception or description. It has relevance to light etc. The great Anton Zeilinger's work at Vienna has proved his conclusion that when light interacts with a polarizer and changes state etc. "it has no memory of it's previous states". that is an important finding fully consistent with current quantum optics finding but yet poorly considered by most in terms of wider theory. (It did however confirm the foundational predictions of my model back to pre 2010).

      Your problem with rectangles is common to most word processing programmes and very many symbols & formula. None of mine can translate, but the pdf reads fine. Best to Edwin which programme he uses.

      Sorry I can't help more, but if you'd like me to proof any writing for you I'd be pleased to.

      Very best.

      Peter

      Peter,

      After you clarified that "past" is meant as "previous", and perhaps "you" should read "your", I can still not yet understand for sure what you meant with

      "I also recall you past interpretations, and indeed, checking back, Davids essay, which I agree with."

      Maybe a verb is missing that should refer to David's essay?

      Anyway, you pretend agreeing with both him and and me, although I merely appreciate guiding me to the insight that quantum physics got implicitely complex much earlier than in 1924/25.

      Eckard

      John,

      Phipps and now Klingman provided a strong defense of ubiquitous simultaneity.

      According to http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/zimmerman/A-Theory.pdf , presentism is an extreme form of McTaggart's A-theory. That's why Klingman and I don't completely share it.

      Is there at all a present state? Certainly it is - however only if we blur the clear distinction between what already happened and what will happen.

      For instance, the state of today includes a part of the past and a part of the future. So it is a fuzzy notion.

      I criticize Einstein's denial of the distinction between past, PRESENT, and future not just as Parmenidean block view but also because in my strict understanding there is no PRESENT timespan between past and future. A point is something that has no parts.

      I agree with Shannon on that the past cannot be influenced while the future of anything is entirely open to more or less erratic and therefore not entirely predictable influences.

      You repeatedly used the metaphor of something moving from future into the past. In this picture one must not ignore the fundamental change at the point of border crossing.

      I hope you can agree and support me,

      Eckard

      Eckard,

      Quite simple; Put that way the statement "I recall" applied to both your past interpretations and Davids essay.

      Why 'pretend agreeing'? I DID agree with all I referred to, as identified. But for clarity I then also noted the differences in our ideas which I'd analysed and discussed in detail as I'm sure you'll recall. I also found much agreement with Davids ideas. If I disagreed I'd certainly say so and why.

      I meant to complete the point on antenna and Maxwell's near far field TZ. It's easier in air etc as antenna engineers know it's ~1 micron for short waves and most of Earths atmosphere in the red. That's also Lorentz's transform as it deals with different states of background motion!!

      But lets see if we can do it for ground radar. If you approached a body rapidly and emitted radar at the same time as a friend emitted it at rest on the surface,

      1) would the signals propagate in the ground at the same v? Yes?

      2) Would yours be 'blue shifted'? Yes?

      3) Would yours then have an 'additional' speed change over his due to your v.

      Think carefully. Presently SR takes NO account of the 'kinetic' speed change of EM signals which is additional to that due to medium index 'n'. In water, air and space it takes ever longer as the medium particles are ever more diffuse.

      Is that not a physical change of speed to local c (or c/n) due to absorption and re-emission at the TZ?

      Best

      Peter

        My essay doesn't deal with c/n, your re-emission theory, and your "kinetic" speed changes of EM signals. Also, it doesn't treat the speed c of light in vacuum just a local quantity.

        Did you read my essay at all?

        Eckard,

        The important questions are for your thought and considered responses, if you wish, not because I mistakenly thought you'd already considered & answered them in the essay, which, as you confirm, you hadn't.

        If you don't wish to you only need to say so rather than suggest I hadn't read your essay!

        Peter

        Hi Eckard Blumschein

        You are really a wonderful mathematician! Your words...CT and FT are equivalent to each other except for an arbitrarily added to the latter point of reference, and subjectively chosen references are definitely less fundamental than non-arbitrary ones. Semi-fundamental constructs dear Eckard Blumschein. I got small question for you.... Can FT or CT work for multivariable business forcasting?

        ...... very nice idea.... I highly appreciate your essay and hope for reciprocity.

        I request you please spend some of the valuable time on Dynamic Universe Model also and give your some of the valuable & esteemed guidance

        Some of the Main foundational points of Dynamic Universe Model :

        -No Isotropy

        -No Homogeneity

        -No Space-time continuum

        -Non-uniform density of matter, universe is lumpy

        -No singularities

        -No collisions between bodies

        -No blackholes

        -No warm holes

        -No Bigbang

        -No repulsion between distant Galaxies

        -Non-empty Universe

        -No imaginary or negative time axis

        -No imaginary X, Y, Z axes

        -No differential and Integral Equations mathematically

        -No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to GR on any condition

        -No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models

        -No many mini Bigbangs

        -No Missing Mass / Dark matter

        -No Dark energy

        -No Bigbang generated CMB detected

        -No Multi-verses

        Here:

        -Accelerating Expanding universe with 33% Blue shifted Galaxies

        -Newton's Gravitation law works everywhere in the same way

        -All bodies dynamically moving

        -All bodies move in dynamic Equilibrium

        -Closed universe model no light or bodies will go away from universe

        -Single Universe no baby universes

        -Time is linear as observed on earth, moving forward only

        -Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis no interdependencies between axes..

        -UGF (Universal Gravitational Force) calculated on every point-mass

        -Tensors (Linear) used for giving UNIQUE solutions for each time step

        -Uses everyday physics as achievable by engineering

        -21000 linear equations are used in an Excel sheet

        -Computerized calculations uses 16 decimal digit accuracy

        -Data mining and data warehousing techniques are used for data extraction from large amounts of data.

        - Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true....Have a look at

        http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_15.html

        I request you to please have a look at my essay also, and give some of your esteemed criticism for your information........

        Dynamic Universe Model says that the energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation passing grazingly near any gravitating mass changes its in frequency and finally will convert into neutrinos (mass). We all know that there is no experiment or quest in this direction. Energy conversion happens from mass to energy with the famous E=mC2, the other side of this conversion was not thought off. This is a new fundamental prediction by Dynamic Universe Model, a foundational quest in the area of Astrophysics and Cosmology.

        In accordance with Dynamic Universe Model frequency shift happens on both the sides of spectrum when any electromagnetic radiation passes grazingly near gravitating mass. With this new verification, we will open a new frontier that will unlock a way for formation of the basis for continual Nucleosynthesis (continuous formation of elements) in our Universe. Amount of frequency shift will depend on relative velocity difference. All the papers of author can be downloaded from "http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/ "

        I request you to please post your reply in my essay also, so that I can get an intimation that you replied

        Best

        =snp

          I don't know why my reply disappeared. This is a copy:

          - "Can FT or CT work for multivariable business forcasting?"

          FT with analytic continuation as well as CT are methods to perform a spectral analysis of already measured data, not immediately a forecast. What do you mean by multivariable business?

          While I didn't deal with models of the universe and I don't intend doing so, I will have a brief look at your model of our universe as soon as possible.

          So far, I am happy that you found out and pointed to a rather amazing fundamental argument from my 9th essay. My most fundamental assumption is causality. -

          Let me add:

          As a rule, reality is more fundamental than theory. The territory is more fundamental than its map. As a rule means, there are a few fabricated apparent exceptions.

          Already the abstract of my essay must not be ignored:

          "APPLICATION of complex Fourier transform (FT) on functions of time f(t) was in the 20th century and is perhaps still considered as a if not the most fundamental mathematical method of physics and technology. Actually, FT is a tool that doesn't immediately fit to measured data of real processes."

          Eckard Blumschein