• FQXi Essay Contest - Spring, 2017

  • Space and Time, Geometry and Fields: An Historical Essay on the Fundamental and its Physical Manifestation by Michaele Suisse and Peter Cameron

Dear Michaele Suisse and Peter Cameron,

Thanks for entering another essay focused on geometric algebra as the preferred tool for physicists. I had intended to review your viXra papers during the last year, but never found the time. Assume that I am reasonably competent in GA and please tell me which papers I should study to best understand your impedance-based approach (pre-quantum, if possible).

One thing I have had time to do is study John W Arthur's excellent book, 'Understanding Geometric Algebra for Electromagnetic Theory'. Thankfully, he presents both 3D+1 and 4D approaches. Until recently, I tended toward 4D, but after developing my current essay, I find 3D+1 extremely interesting.

Much of your work seems focused on the quantum interpretation of the impedance model. Since "impedance governs the flow of energy", I am interested not so much in E8-based schemes as in how one applies your concepts to Maxwell-Hertz-Heaviside equations(5) in my essay. I hope you will read my essay and comment from your impedance perspective. Thanks.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

    David,

    Thanks for looking. I browsed your essay, admire your knowledge of group theory, and left some comments about the physics side of your groups there.

    Pete

    Boris,

    Left a comment on your thread. Can you do quantum mechanics with your model? Is there a wave function?

    Pete

    Ed - pasting in here my comment to the thread on your paper:

    Browsing your paper for the first time surprised by the opening implicit assertion that there is something wrong with light defining a 'preferred' reference frame. Isn't that exactly what it's supposed to do? Light is the fiducial in our definition of space. The laws of physics don't change when we take light as the fiducial. That's what SR tells us as I understand it. And I'm of the opinion that one needs to understand quantum gravity to properly appreciate why this is true.

    Having said that, I'm delighted by the way you set the scene in the tavern. Thank you for that.

    Didn't dig into the remainder of the paper in detail, see there is not much to do with the quantum in it. Logically it is perhaps good to keep in mind that SR is three body problem, Lorentz transform is just Pythagoreus. If seeking foundations exact general solutions don't exist (afaik) beyond two body. And QM is ultimately two body. Getting three things together in one spot simultaneously gets ever more difficult as one goes to every smaller length scales.

    The distinction you seek to make is between partial and total derivative? I don't know if it will help you to look at this from GA perspective, but pretty cool if it does:

    vacuum wavefunction in GA can be taken to be Pauli algebra of 3D space, comprised of point, line, plane, and volume elements. One scalar, three vectors, three bivectors, and one trivector. Assigning topologically appropriate electromagnetic fields to those fundamental geometric objects generates agents in the physical world.

    interactions of those wavefunctions/agents can be modeled by the geometric product, which changes dimensionality of the iteracting geometric objects. The product of two 3D Pauli algebras yields a 4D Dirac algebra, a geometric representation of the particle physicist's holy grail, the scattering matrix. The fourth dimension, time, emerges from the interactions. It is encoded in the 4D pseudoscalars of the Dirac algebra.

    Does this means total or partial derivative to your Tavern Keeper? One or the other? Both? Neither?

      Ed- Understand where you're coming from re finding time to chase our interests.

      regarding your request

      "Assume that I am reasonably competent in GA and please tell me which papers I should study to best understand your impedance-based approach (pre-quantum, if possible)."

      The first thing to keep in mind is that the impedances are calculated from electromechanical interactions, for instance centrifugal force keeping two oppositely charge particles orbiting (in the absence of synchrotron radiation, but that's another story). They are first calculated from mechanical impedances, then converted to electrical.

      All massive particles have mechanical impedance. What led to recognition of this fundamental agency in the physical world was the years my brother and I spent designing and building vibratory piledrivers - synchronized (to convert 2D motion to 1D) spinning eccentric weights, phase evolving in opposite directions for the two eccentrics, like that of electron and positron. Gravity wave generators, so to speak. Look at them long enough and one sees Mach's principle. We built electromagnetic anaologs on my dad's test bench. He was RF tech. This was back in the 70s.

      take a look at the electron impedances paper if you actually want to dig into this, the original paper that motivated what followed is published there as an appendex. At the time (1975) I submitted a paper to AJP. Ed Taylor (still at MIT) was editor then, thought it should be published, connected me with a professor at UM Flint who tried to show me how to put it in a form that looked more professional, add references,... I had no patience with it at the time, was fighting bankruptcy,...

      Thank you for the reference to Arthur's book, was not aware of it, will task a look. Commented on the business about 4D vs 3+1 on your thread, hopefully it will be helpful.

      re group theory schemes, truth is i probably shouldn't even type the words 'group theory'. That's how ignorant i am.

      re interpretations, that's at the core of it in terms of all the confusion about the wavefunction. Point particle quarks and leptons (scalars and bivectors only) vs the full 3D Pauli algebra. Need the full geometric algebra to be able to visualize. All of QM is lost in the matrix interpretation, doesn't see it visually. No intuition in the Dirac matrics.

      Ed - link to electron impedances paper is here

      http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V18NO2PDF/V18N2CAM.pdf

      url{http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V18NO2PDF/V18N2CAM.pdf}

      Peter! New Cartesian Physics more than a model, it wants to be the theory of everything OO. In it, the wave function describes the rotation of space, which according to Descartes is matter.

      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 the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes. Evaluate and leave your comment there. I highly value your essay; however, I'll give you a rating as the bearer of Descartes' idea. Do not allow New Cartesian Physics go away into nothingness.

      Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich.

      Boris - I looked prior to posting my previous message, looked again just now, see nothing that makes me think of a wavefunction. Where are the things you multiply together to get an observable?

      Peter and Michaele,

      Now I remember you folks from the last contest. Did we learn something about one-bombing? BTW, I did not criticize your mathematics. I stated that you did not include any mathematics in your essay. That was an accurate statement. In any event, I don't hold a grudge:-)

      This is an excellent essay. It is As good as your previous one I'll say. I was able (I think) to understand roughly 75% of your content despite the fact that I have little education in Physics other than two semesters in college (basics plus Maxwell). I was generally not able to understand the material in Figure 8 since I know VERY little about particle Physics. I do like the idea of a coherence length though.

      If I understand your main point correctly, you argue that interactions are fundamental and that they are governed by the ability to exchange energy and information. You also argue that this ability is limited by the properties of the vacuum.

      It is very interesting to me that you verbalize many of my own non-verbal thoughts. You speak of a geometric wave-function and I propose Equation 4. You propose that space-time is the result of the interaction between electrons and positrons and I propose Equations 5, 5.1, and 5.2. You state that the behavior of the vacuum is determined by five parameters. I argue that the vacuum has five dimensions. (Perhaps this is simply a coincidence or perhaps it is a clue. I don't know for certain and neither do you. I suggest that you be less eager to dismiss things as numerology.) You mention the eight component Pauli wave-function and Equation 4 expands to eight components. (Again, this is possibly a coincidence or it could perhaps be more.)

      The discussion of the historical development of these concepts is useful to me in particular since I have little knowledge of those things. The essay by Eckard Blumschein was also very beneficial for me. You did not mention the battle in 1895 between the Grassmann faction and the Hamilton faction.

      BTW, how do you orient a volume element? Doesn't that require a "vector" that is perpendicular to the three vectors that produce the volume element? I think of that as a scalar instead.

      You indirectly mention the "shut-up and calculate" mentality without even realizing that you do so. All in all, it sounds to me like Physicists need to study some Electrical Engineering. Engineers have to study Physics to learn the rules. Perhaps Physicists should study a little Engineering to learn the practicalities?

      Best Regards and Good Luck,

      Gary Simpson

        • [deleted]

        • Post #15

        Gary - thanks for the good thoughts, much appreciate the opportunity to share.

        a brief aside - Does your comment appear properly formatted on your screen? On mine it seems all the carriage returns have been taken out and replaced by the letter 'n'. Have seen this elsewhere as well, in both the same and slightly differents contexts. A bug floating around somewhere, my impression so far is it enters via the fqxi gui. Broken links there work when accessed directly from chrome, and at the same time this phenomenon arose this formatting bug appeared.

        Pasted that to Brendan, perhaps he has had other reports.

        re the math, but of course the math is there, all that is needed to do the physics. One is required to take the geometric product of two Pauli algebras, of two Pauli wavefunctions. That gives the geometric structure of the physicist's S-matrix. Having the history is essential to the understanding. Perhaps to your mathematician's mind that doesn't qualify as 'doing the math', no argument here with such a view. Just took what I needed for the, nothing more. Have vague idea what quaternions and octonions are, but never played with them, so no real sense. So far don't see the need for the physics I want to do. Which is mostly condensed matter at this point. Practical stuff. Quantum impedance matching in quantum computing. So far mainstream appears to still be ignoring this, tho one never knows. No different than classical, gotta match to get the bits to move.

        Brings to mind your mention of Hamilton/Grassman dispute. New to me, thanks for this. Got a good url?

        imo your basics plus Maxwell is all you need to understand what Michaele and I are doing. It is just geometry plus fields. You have the geometric algebra, and the fields are just E and B. No connections in your head to undo.

        gotta pause, gonna post and run. Will come back to eqns 4, 5, 5.1, 5.2,...

        testing now, trying to sort out the formatting problem.

        Previous post was not logged in, posted as anon. Now logged in as a contributor.

        Dear Peter,

        Thank you for the above information and links to info on your approach to impedance. I will try to understand it.

        Special relativity means different things to different people (I know this from a year of discussions). In your opinion light is to define a 'preferred' reference frame. I cannot believe this makes sense in reality, and as I point out, the nonsense flows from space-time symmetry [i.e., light as 'preferred' frame] and vanishes with energy-time asymmetry.

        You're also of the opinion that one needs to understand quantum gravity to appreciate your point. You claim to understand quantum gravity, yet I have an understanding that I'm sure differs from yours. I have a GA-based theory of gravity that leads to the field equations and also to the Klein-Gordon equation and other equations. Like you, I think there is much to be gained from re-formulating physics in terms of geometric algebra.

        For many I talked with last year, the first statement that they disagree with tends to shut them down, rather than try to understand how their belief may be reinterpreted. Although quantum mechanics has probably a dozen interpretations, almost all of which yield exactly the same calculations, there is surprising resistance to a re-interpretation of special relativity that makes sense but differs from the received wisdom. I'm disappointed that you "didn't dig into the remainder of the paper", but with 200 essays it's hard to study them all.

        I'm fairly knowledgeable about GA and I do not see an E8-type assignment of GA product terms to the standard model as meaningful, so we do agree on the significance of GA, but not on all physics. I'm glad you are happy to hear about John W. Arthur's "Understanding geometric algebra for electromagnetic theory". I suggest after you read this book you may wish to reread my essay.

        Best regards,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Hi peter cameron

        Nice addressing of history of geometric Algebra, interpretation of Clifford algebra and generalization of impedance quantization ..... The resulting geometric wavefunction model permits one to examine the interface between fundamental and emergent..... very good... By the way...

        Here in my essay energy to mass conversion is proposed................ yours is very nice essay best wishes .... I highly appreciate hope your essay ....You may 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

        Peter,

        Nice job in explaining the important fundamental errors hiding the fundamental truths we've discussed before. Sadly it's still unlikely the gatekeepers of doctrine will slap their foreheads and say 'Doh! ..Yes ..of course!' but how even a hint of that's achieved I really wish I knew!

        I confess I'm still not familiar enough with that side of physics but now suspect our work may have a lot closer connections than I'd realized. I describe an ontological mechanism for EM wave interactions with fermions which successfully (are you sitting down?!) seems to precisely reproduce QM's predictions classically. A way to unify QM with SR then reveals itself. So of course I have the same problem as you!

        I wonder if a combined description may be more powerful. I'd need you to look closely, ask any questions, and and give me a view. Gordon Watson's essay is consistent and Declan Traill's provides the matching computer code and plot.

        Your correctness fundamentality, import and rigorous argument mean I have yours down for a high score. Very well done. I hope you agree the same of mine.

        Very best of luck in the contest and looking forward to discussing.

        Peter

          Peter,

          thanks for the good thoughts. gatekeepers are an issue, yes. And this whole comments/scoring thing is a trip, still getting the feel for how that goes.

          Took a look at your essay, going to comment on your thread. Will likely take a look at Watson and Trail's first, try to get a clearer picture.

          Peter,

          I completely lack the formal education in physics and electrical engineering to do more that intuit your essay. That said, I do sense some essential agreement with one of my more elementary observations; That energy and form(as in everything from math to mass) are opposite sides of the same coin. Energy as medium and form as message. such that while there is not platonic realm of information/math, any dynamic is going to manifest form.

          As I've observed elsewhere, the basic premise of geometry as dimensionless form is self negating, as it is a multiple of zero. A dimensionless point is no more extant than a dimensionless apple, but insisting on some infinitesimal dimensionality creates more conceptual problems, so, as pure abstraction, it is more efficient to make it dimensionless. As such, though, it becomes message without a medium. Sort of like taking a picture with the shutter speed set at zero.

          So while our minds work best with abstraction, some of what is distilled away is still essential.

          On a personal note, thank you very much for your seeing some sense in my observations about cosmology and time, as about 90% of the responses I get from people with strong math background is vehement rejection and insistence I make no sense, so having a few who do see the logic stands as proof some of these ideas are not total gibberish. As i said, I originally came at physics from an amateur sociological perspective; The physics of politics, so to speak, but found quite a lot of politics of physics.

          If any of these ideas are useful, feel free with them. As most of my input is open source, my output might as well be also. The world seems headed for a significant reset anyway and hopefully it will have some benefits to go along with the likely negative effects.

          Regards,

          John

            http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers/View/5763

            My essay is a call for researchers to remember the identity of space and matter of Descartes, and to continue his theory of everything in the light of modern achievements of physics.

            I think of wave function as on the oscillations and rotations of physical space, which for Descartes is matter.Rate The Descartes

            Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris

            Hi all, Edwin, this work does not reach this quantum gravitation unfortunatelly, it is that said a wonderful works about the works of Hestenes and the algebric structures in QFT , that is all.That said I liked its generality and the understanding of groups of forces.This QG cannot be found in this line of reasoning , it is the same with the lie algebras, it lacks several parameters.I don't undertand why peôple tries to find it with an electromagntic fractalisation without inserting new parameters like this matter not baryo,nic for example.

            Best Regards