Fundamental as Fewer Bits by Terry Bollinger

Hi Terry,

I liked that you provided a simple model of what is fundamental. And your essay followed its own premise: "Fundamental as Fewer Bits". I really enjoyed reading it.

In particular I liked:

"Because gravity is so weak, principles of quantum mechanics drove the scale of such models into both extremely small length scales and extraordinarily high energies. This in turn helped unleash so many new options for "exploration" that the original Standard Model simply got lost in an almost unimaginably large sea of possibilities.[9]"

I my essay "The Thing that is Space-Time" I attempt to pull gravity out of the Standard Model.

I postulate a graviton is not a Boson and that, and in general has very low energy and very large distances (aka wavelength) that span all the matter in the universe. Thus it is a very low energy particle. I use three basic equations to produce this theory: 1. The Planck-Einstein equation. 2. E=mc^2 and 3. The equation for the Planck mass. The general overview is that the graviton is much like a guitar string that is anchored on opposing Planck masses. This quantum mechanical guitar string (the graviton) has a mass and instead of supporting musical notes it supports the different frequencies of light (photons).

Question: Would you take a look at my entry and let me know if this version of gravity has any merit in terms of meeting your criteria of having fewer bits? Any response appreciated!

Thanks,

Don Limuti

Thanks, Terry Bollinger,, for his criticism of my essay. I understand that it was written poorly. Its main aim is to attract researchers to continue the theory of everything of Descartes' taking into account modern achievements in physics. The principle of identity of physical space and matter of Descartes' allows us to remodel the principle of uncertainty of Heisenberg in the principle of definiteness of points of physical space, according to which in order to get the point of it required an infinitely large momentum. Look at my essay, FQXi Fundamental in New Cartesian Physics by Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich Where I showed how radically the physics can change if it follows this principle. Evaluate and leave your comment there. Do not allow New Cartesian Physics go away into nothingness.

Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich.

Terry,

This is a fine essay with many interesting points, eminently clear and sensible. On your main theme of simplicity, you should check out Inés Samengo's excellent essay. She has a similar take, but also considers the scope of a theory as a second key factor in determining what's fundamental. And she makes the point that these two criteria are not necessarily in synch. FYI, though essay ratings have to be done by 2/26, I believe we can continue reading and posting comments afterwards. So no rush!

As you know from looking at my essay, I agree that "a better way to think of physics is not as some form of axiomatic mathematics, but as a type of information theory." And I like the way you characterize the difficulties we face when we have a theory that seems close to being fundamental -- your description of "the trampoline effect" was especially vivid and on point, with the Standard Model. Most of all, though, I like your general attitude - you can get seriously involved in specific issues (your "challenges"), but also really broad ones - like the "lumpiness" you mention in your comments to Karen Crowther's essay: "Our universe is, at many levels, "lumpy enough" that many objects (and processes) within it can be approximated when viewed from a distance."

You were writing about renormalization, and making an interesting shift in perspective. Physicists have tried to understand this by delving into the mathematics, which by now is apparently well-understood. You suggest that a different viewpoint might also help, comparing this with many other cases in which the "approximate" (or "effective") properties of a complex system define it more usefully at a higher level. I agree that this is a deep and important characteristic of our universe, where lower-level complexity supports new and simpler kinds of relationships, where new kinds of complexity can become important. I hope this perspective can eventually elucidate the amazing complications of our current physics.

Your summary credo is excellent: "the belief that simplicity is just as important now as it was in the early 1900s heydays of relativity and quantum theory." The wonder of our situation is that we're still trying to grasp exactly what kind of simplicity those two foundational theories are showing us.

By the way, I'm much in sympathy with your remarks to Flavio, above. The earliest-submitted essays in these contests can be discouraging, and it's a marvelous relief when a really good one shows up - in my case it was Emily Adlam's that rescued me from despair. So thanks for joining in!

Conrad

Dear Terry,

I was most impressed, even inspired. Your ability to find the right questions is leagues above most who can't even recognize correct answers! Lucid, direct, one of the best here.

I entirely agree on simplicity as the title of my own essay suggests, but isn't a reason we haven't advanced that our brains can't quite yet decode the complex puzzle (information)?

But now more importantly. I'd like you to read my essay as two of your sought answers are implicit in an apparent classical mechanism reproducing all QM's predictions and CSHS>2. Most academics (& editors) fear to read, comment or falsify due to cognitive dissonance but I'm sure you're more curious and honest. It simply follows Bell, tries a new starting assumption about pair QAM using Maxwell's orthogonal states and analyses momentum transfers.

Spin 1/2 & 2 etc emerged early on and is in my last essay (scored 8th but no chocs). Past essays (inc. scored 1st & 2nd) described a better logic for SR which led to 'test by QM'. Another implication was cosmic redshift without accelerating expansion closely replicating Euler at a 3D Schrodinger sphere surface and Susskinds seed for strings.

By design I'm quite incompetent to express most thing mathematically. My research uses geometry, trig, observation & logic (though my red/green socks topped the 2015 Wigner essay.) But I do need far more qualified help (consortium forming).

On underlying truths & SM, gravity etc, have you seen how closed, multiple & opposite helical charge paths give toroid... ..but let's take things 2 at a time!

As motion is key I have a 100 sec video giving spin half (, QM etc.) which you may need to watch 3 times, then a long one touching on Euler but mainly Redshift, SR, etc. But maybe read the essay first.

Sorry that was a preamble to mine but you did ask! I loved it, and thank you for those excellent questions and encouragement on our intellectual evolution.

Of course I may be a crackpot. Do be honest, but I may also crack a bottle of champers tonight!

Very best

Peter

Dear Terry Bollinger,

My challenge #0:

Accept that the border between past and future is a non-arbitrary point of reference; hence cosine transformation is more concise than complex-valued Fourier transformation. Just the redundant information of a chosen point t=0 is missing.

Thank you for encouragement,

Eckard

Dear Terry,

It has always been the case that the very high-end computing requirements of theoretical physics produce machines and codes specialized to the theoretic structure. So of course the IT community is always a key player. Lattice Gauge Theory, among others, are very compute-intensive stuff! But lets get to the fundamental physics of the subject...

Have you, in your 'broad' research on the subject, run across the Rishon model? It requires only two type of quanta (T & V) to create the algebraic group of quarks and leptons (QC/ED actually).

H. Harari and N. Seiberg, "The Rishon Model", Nucl. Phys. B, Vol 204 #1, p 141-167, September 1982.

So the reductionist approach to the 'minimal quantum basis' problem does reveal a somewhat 'binary' solution.

More to the IT-ish point, though, your software skills and devotion to the algebra of the quantum subjects could well be of GREAT use. Do you by chance write javascript? There is a nice java code for displaying the QC/ED group theory for some academic research applications as well as public explanations.

Another interesting point you raise earlier

In it, you offer Challenge #1 - "What is the full physics meaning of Euler's identity, ?^??+1=0 ?". That is actually an elegantly simple fundamental question /criterion, but just a little off the mark. Of course mathematically we known that for physics to have a unique solution it must have a cyclic variable. At least, all the best formal Proofs of Uniqueness reduce a conformal mathematics problem to a cyclic variable, removing all true singularities (including the point-like particle approximation).

So how does ?^?0 fit in?? Well, it seems that the universe is cyclic in mass and time... NOT radius and time as the astronomic observables would hope /make easy. So the general Theta is actually Thetamass-time! For a more complete answer why this works read my essay, if you please.

Further you discuss: "If someone can succeed in uncovering a smaller, simpler, more factored version of the Standard Model, who is to say that the resulting model might not enable new insights into the nature of gravity?" so please see

C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne and J.H. Wheeler, Gravitation, W.H. Freeman and Co., p 536, 1973. in which the Nobel-winning author (Thorne) notes that mass is area-like at small (planck) scale.

Here the discussion can go into the finite representation geometries, which are area-like, and their respective quantum state algebras. Or it could look at the influence of ralpha'/R on BH theory,as I've long advocated with Prof Mathur (see his essay), in which the strong (conical) lensing effects observed are due to "PRESERVED" matter in Black Holes. Interesting inquest, again read further into the literature.

Best regards,

Dr Wayne Lundberg

https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3092

p.s.

I too have a 30yr civil service career but started publishing on physics topics in 1992. More dod stories...

Terry,

Seems to be some subterfuge on scoring. My score for you on 2/16 was an 8, reflecting a high opinion of your piece. Hope you can check out my essay.

Jim

..this time with the first 'h'(ttp); https://youtu.be/WKTXNvbkhhI 100 sec..Classic QM

Dear Terry,

Congratulations for the essay contestant pledge that you introduced (goo.gl/KCCujt) --- I think we should all follow it, and I will certainly attempt to from now on. Congratulations also on the truly constructive comments that you have left so far on the threads of many of the participants in this contest. I thought I would use a similar format and comment on your essay!

What I liked:

- Your essay is well written and interesting to read: at the end, I wanted more of it!

- You introduce vivid/memorable expressions to describe your main points: the principle of binary conciseness, the trampoline effect, foundation messages. I specially like the trampoline effect, defined as the bouncing-off of the near-minimum region of Kolmogorov simplicity by adding new ideas that seem relevant, yet in the end just add more complexity without doing much to solve the original simplification goal. I think you will agree that, when you read some of the essays submitted to your typical FQXi contest, you can observe spectacular examples of the trampoline effect. It seems easy to diagnose a trampoline effect in accepted theories that we find lacking, or in alternative theories that we find even more flawed. True wisdom, of course, would be to be able to become aware of the trampoline effect in our own thinking... which is so hard to do!

- You directly address the specific essay contest question, "What is fundamental?" (at least, in the first half of your essay)

- Nicely worded and accessible introduction to the famous equation E = mc²

- Pedagogical presentation of Kolmogorov complexity for the reader not already familiar with the concept

- Interesting parallel between the increased difficulty in reducing Kolmogorov complexity in an already well-compressed description and the increased difficulty in improving an already well-developed theory

- It was interesting to end with challenges to the physics community, although it fits only tangentially with the essay topic (it would make a great essay topic for a future contest!)

- Your challenges #2 and #3 are profound questions: WHY the spin-statistics theorem? WHY the three generations in the Standard Model? There is certainly much to be learned if we can make progress with these fundamental "Why?" questions --- although the particular physics of our particular universe might just be arbitrary at the most fundamental level, forever frustrating our hopes of ultimate unification and simplicity.

What I liked less / constructive criticism:

- You say that the content of foundation messages (data sets expressing structures and behaviors of the universe that exist independently of human knowledge and actions) must reflect only content from the as-is-universe, despite the extensive work that humans must perform to obtain them. But this presupposes that we can have a reasonably access to the "as-is" universe, which many historians and philosophers of science would deny, saying that observations are always more-or-less theory-dependent (no such thing as a pure observation, independent of the previous knowledge of the observer): see for instance the articles "Theory-ladenness" and "Duhem-Quine Thesis" in Wikipedia.

- You say that in physics, the sole criterion for whether a theory is correct is whether it accurately reproduces the data in foundation messages. It is true that reproducing data is an important criterion, but is it the sole one? For example, a modern, evolved, computer assisted epicycles-based Ptolemaic model (with lots and lots of epicycles) could probably reproduce incredibly well the planetary positions data, but we could use other criteria (simplicity, meshing with theories explaining other phenomena) to strongly criticize it and ultimately reject it.

- I am not sure that the map analogy and the associated figure helps clarify the concept of a Kolmogorov minimum. Maybe it's because I was distracted by the labels: Why pi-r-squared in one of the ovals? Why Euler's identity? Why the zeros and ones along the path? Why is the equation E = mc2 written along a path that goes from Newton to Einstein, since it is purely an Einsteinian equation?

- Your short section on the "Spekkens Principle" is very compact and will probably remain obscure to many readers (it was for me). It might have been beneficial to expand it (I understand there was a length limit to the essay...) or to drop it altogether.

- Concerning your challenge no. 1... Like many mathematicians and physicists, I am in awe with Euler's identity, but I am not sure that there is explicit undiscovered physics insight hiding within it. Once you understand that the exponential function is its own derivative, that the exponent i in e to the i*t comes in front when you derive with respect to time, that multiplication by i rotates a vector by 90° in the complex plane and that the velocity vector in uniform circular motion is perpendicular to the position vector, it becomes "evident" that you can model circular uniform motion (hence, the trigonometric circle) with an exponential function with an imaginary argument: Euler's identity then follows from the fact that pi radians corresponds to half a turn, which is the same as multiplying by -1! If there is anything truly remarkable in all this basic math, it is perhaps that the ratio pi (or, more often, 2 times pi) appears so often in the fundamental equations of physics, even in phenomena that do not seem related in any way to circles or rotations.

And finally, a question:

In your expression "principle of binary conciseness", what does the "binary" stand for exactly? The fact that it deals with TWO (or more...) theories that address the same data, or the fact that Kolomogorov complexity is often applied to strings of BINARY digits?

Congratulations once again, and welcome to the FQXi community! I hope you have the time to take a look at my essay and leave comments --- especially constructive criticism, which is unfortunately so hard to get in these contests, because of the fear of rating reprisal.

Marc

Dear Terry,

This is a well-written essay for a general science reader (by far the hardest type of essay to write). Looks like you have a good shot at winning. The word "tree" is simple, but a tree is complex. Does a simple equation mean a simple thing? Perhaps a simple equation just fits with how we communicate or think.

A side note: I thought spin 1/2 is the way it is because of interaction with photons a spin 1.

All the best,

Jeff Schmitz

A nice essay. I think you would be interested in my 2012 FQXi essay titled "A Classical Reconstruction of Relativity" located here:

https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1363

And my work on modelling the electron/positron wavefunctions as 3D standing waves, located here: http://vixra.org/pdf/1507.0054v6.pdf

I also have an essay in this year's contest titled "A Fundamental Misunderstanding" about a Classical explanation for QM entanglement (EPR experiment).

Regards,

Declan Traill

Dear Terry

"The universe indisputably possesses a wide range of well - defined structures and behaviors that exist independently of human knowledge and actions." is what you say. I'm not asking for a proof of that naturalistic dogma (it does not exist), only a minimum level of critical attitude. Hilbert eventually understood that what a point or a line is doesn't fall into the realm of logic/mathematics. And the literature dealing with what a bit information-theoretically is worth multi-gigabytes...

Heinrich

Dear Terry,

You presented your essay from a viewpoint with which I have little familiarity, and as a result I truly enjoyed having familiar ideas examined from a perspective that was novel to me.

A few comments:

1. Your example involving the sequence which can be found in the decimal expression of pi reminded me of the fact that most irrational numbers are still unknown to us. But with the irrational numbers we do know, your example gave me the idea that one might try the following cookie cutter approach which requires little creativity to help more efficiently compress a sequence: take a set of irrationals, take their representation in base 2,3 etc. up to 10 (if one wants to incorporate the compression of sequences which contain letters, then go higher) and create a table which contains the numbers and their expansions up to some number of digits, say, 50 million (the larger , the better). It seems that one then has a ready-made 3D "coordinate system" in which the three coordinates are: A symbolic representation of the irrational number, its n-ary expansion, and the position of the first digit of the sequence in that expansion. The sequence could then be compressed by just giving its coordinates. Due to my ignorance in these matters, I am not sure if this is too naive, elementary or unworkable of an idea, but I believe one cannot learn if one does not take the risk of occassionally embarrassing oneself.

2. Your reconceptualization of theory development in physics as data compression strikes me as an abstraction that could be useful for comparing the historical development of different theories. Perhaps it has some unexpected use and application in the history and philosophy of science. Unfortunately, I know too little about data compression to be able to assess the merits of this possibility, but it seems that you might? Another idea you discussed for which I see connections with the philosophy of physics is the trampoline effect applied to the standard model, which reminds me a bit of Kuhn's crisis phase.

3. Your discussion of the Kolmogorov minimum at times reminded me of the variational principles. Do you know whether such connections exist?

4. With regard to your first challenge, I am glad that you, as what appears (to me, at least) a hard-nosed physicist, ask the meaning of the mathematics we use to model the phase of the quantum state. All too often I find that people are not even aware of how little we know about its phyiscal origin. Saying that it is the time-dependent solution to Schrödinger's equation is too me little more than a fig leaf for our ignorance. I admit that my perspective is influenced by the fact that I have thought about this question quite a bit.

5. With regard to your second challenge, I think that there will be a convergence with respect to what from the Kolmogorov approach would be considered a simple answer and one that might in more qualitative terms be considered philosophically satisfying. I am glad that you called out the all too-convenient method of "solution by denial that a problem exists".

6. With regard to your third challenge, I believe that a refactoring of the Standard model will not happen before a paradigm change occurs. In my view, what is missing to discover a simpler understanding of the standard model is a conceptual framework which redefines its conceptual building blocks, analogous to how what was missing for the ancient mayas for a simpler understanding of astronomy was the concept of planets orbiting the sun. I am receptive to your call to lay off gravity when trying to simplify our understanding of the standard model, but that is only because I already hold the view (or bias) that if nature wanted gravity to be quantum, it would have given us more (actually, any) experimental evidence that it is quantum.

7. Your principle of Kolmogorov simplicity reminds me a little of Zeilinger's principle that the most elementary system carry only one bit of information. Any thoughts on the relationship between these principles?

Overall, I do agree that the way to advance our understanding of fundamental physics is to find simpler reconceptualitions. My background knowledge of Kolmogorov simplicity is too incomplete to be able to tell whether it is the definitive criterion for simplicity, but it certainly seems promising.

Dear Heinrich Luediger,

I took the liberty to read your "Context" essay before attempting to respond to your comments, to make sure that I understood fully what you are attempting to say. If you have read enough of my posting comments for this year's (2017) contest, you will surely be aware that I hold philosophy as an approach to life in high regard, and that some of my favorite essays this year were written by philosophers.

My first warning that your essay might be rather unique was when you quoted a line from Kant that eloquently restates what every mother or father of an enquiring child already knows, which is that we humans like to ask "why" in situations where no one has an answer. Here is the Kant line you quoted:

"... it is the peculiar fate of human reason to bring forth questions that are equally inescapable and unanswerable."

From that simple observation you somehow (I do not yet see how) inferred this:

"... we may read Kant's disturbing assertion as: human knowledge is without false floor, irreducible and hence not tolerating questions."

I would estimate that well over 95% of readers would instead interpret that line from Kant as a gentle and basically humble reminder of how deeply ingrained curiosity is in most of us, and that the hard questions that such curiosity engenders are a good thing, rather than something to be discouraged. That you instead interpreted his comment as an assertion that people should stop asking questions is very unexpected.

Thus I was genuinely curious to find out why you interpreted this line in this way, and so read your essay in detail to find out why.

As best I can understand your worldview from that careful reading, you believe sincerely that special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics are all unreal mathematical fantasies whose complex, incomprehensible mathematical structures are used by a small group of people, positivist scientists mostly, in positions of power and privilege. In contrast you believe that only the older Newtonian physics that is more accessible to your direct senses is valid. Finally, you believe that the same group that uses these false mathematical frameworks to maintain positions of privilege are also very worried that people such as yourself might join together to ask hard questions that would uncover the falseness of their mathematical fantasies, and so undermine their positions. You believe therefore that this same group works actively keep suppress people like you even from speaking about the falseness of their QM, SR, and GR frameworks.

Let me specific about which lines in your essay led me to the above inferences:

Pages 2-3: "Since both SR/GR and QM 5 are not associated with phenomena whatsoever, modern physics, by having taken us into the never-Here and never-

Now, has become speechless, i.e. cannot translate logic and mathematics back to meaning other than by fantastic speculation and daring artistic impression."

Page 3: "Hence it doesn't come as a surprise that mathematically driven physics moves tons of data just to remain void of experience. In other words, much of modern physics stands in false, namely affirmative-logical, relations to the rest of human knowledge."

Pages 3-4: "So, I'm absolutely convinced that classical physics has not been falsified in the sense of contradicting human experience."

Page 4: "Of course I'm not denying that there are instrumental observations that don't agree with classical physics, but that is not what theories primarily are about. Rather they are meant to 'make observable' novel domains of experience and in order not to 'sabotage' established domains of experience they are to be incommensurable, i.e. orthogonal, and thus additive."

Page 4: "Positive, that is, logical knowledge does not permit rhetorical questions for the reason of creating strings or networks of affirmations and precipitating as unscientific whatever is not tractable by its analytical methodology. And by successively entraining us into its network we are becoming ants in an ant colony, fish in a fish school and politically-correct repliants of ever-newer, the less intuitive the better, opinions."

The next-to-last quote above is to me the most fascinating. I was genuinely scratching my head as to how you were handling instrumental observations that do not agree with classical physics, of which there are shall we say, quite a few? I see that you do not deny the existence of such observations -- I was actually a bit surprised by that -- but that you instead seem to interpret them as ultimately irrelevant data that have very little impact on everyday Newtonian-framework reality and observation, and so do not really mean much... except to the positivists, who jumped on them collectively (additively) to create huge nonsensical mathematical fantasies that make bizarre and incomprehensible predictions that are unrelated to reality.

However, I think it is the last quote above that is the most evocative of how you feel about what you perceive as the situation, and your level of anger about it. You seem convinced in that quote that this group has dedicated itself to ensuring that even that tiny remaining group of true, reality-believing inquirers such as yourself, the ones who still believe in the readily observable reality of the Newtonian world of physics, will be scooped up relentlessly, utterly isolated, driven to silence, and made into nothing more than mindless, unquestioning ants.

Such a perspective helps make more comprehensible your unexpected view of the simple observation from Kant, the one about the incessant and unanswerable curiosity of most humans. I suspect (but am not sure) that you are reading Kant's line not as some gently intended general observation on the nature of curiosity in both children and adults, but as some sort of subtle warning from Kant to his followers that there exist people such as yourself who understand what he and his followers are really up to -- creating indecipherable scientific fantasies that they can then use to build up a power base -- and that this group needs to be shut down to keep them from asking unanswerable questions that would expose the unreal nature of their mathematical fantasies.

I'll end by pointing out that I think you have a serious inconsistency in your beliefs, one that leaves you with two choices.

You say you do not accept the reality of quantum theory, yet your daily actions powerfully contradict that assertion. Even as you read this text you are reaping enormous personal benefits of from these supposedly imaginary mathematical frameworks.

Why? Well, are you or are you not using a personal computer, laptop, or cell phone to read this posting, and to post your own ideas?

The problem is that semiconductor chips on which all of these devices depend cannot even exist within classical physics. They can only be understood and applied usefully by applying material and quantum theory. So, if you insist that only objects you can see with your own sense are real, look at what you are doing right now on your electronic devices. Ask anyone you can find with a solid-state electrical engineering background how such device work. Take the time and effort to let them teach you the basic design of devices that you can see are real and right in front of you, both at the laptop level and by using a Newtonian microscope to look at the complexity of the resulting silicon chips. Let your own senses convince you, with the help of someone you can trust--and surely you can find at least one electrical engineer whom you know well enough on a personal basis that you trust them to be honest about how those clearly real chips were designed and built?

There are other examples. Do you have lights that turn on at night? Einstein was the one who created quantum mechanics when he explained why such sensors cannot be explained by classical waves.

Do you recall the old cathode-ray tubes? Were you aware that the electrons that write images on the screens of such devices travel fast enough that you cannot design such devices without taking special relativity into account?

But if you insist that none of this is real, I must ask: Shouldn't you then stop buying and using all such devices? Their very existence compromises your fundamental premise that they are based upon mathematics that are not real, and are designed only to perpetuate power. How then can you continue using them?

The only other alternative I can suggest is that you examine more closely both why your feel there is a conspiracy.

For whatever it's worth. I assure you as someone whose friends will testify to my honest and who has worked in high tech and science areas for decades that until I read your essay today, I had never before encountered the idea that QM, SR, and GR might be fantasies that some group of people uses to maintain power and suppress questions. The people I have known just found these mathematical constructs to be incredibly useful for building things (QM hugely, but also SR) and for understanding observational data (GR for astronomy). They would have been horrified (and literally unable to do their jobs) if someone had taken those tools away from them.

Since you seem to be a thought leader for this idea that QM, SR, and GR are part of a large, centuries-old mathematical power conspiracy, I don't seriously expect you to be persuaded to abandon your belief in a conspiracy to promulgate false mathematics as physics. But I can attest to you that from my decades-long personal experiences at many levels of science and applied technology that I simply have not encountered anything that corresponds in to the kind of false math or false intent that you describe. So, I at least want to point out to you the option of changing your mind.

Sincerely,

Terry Bollinger

Fundamental as Fewer Bits (Essay 3099)

Essayist's Rating Pledge by Terry Bollinger