Dear Professor Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,

I have read through your essay; and I found your view of extreme empiricism interesting.

Most curious is your stance that every piece of mathematics must correspond to tangible entities; yet in using mathematics that is not tangible modern science has made numerous accurate and precise predictions.

Imaginary numbers are ubiquitous in physics. In classical physics, they natural crop up in many scenarios. Indeed, electrical engineers use their own notation , "j", to denote the imaginary number so as not to confuse it with "i", which they use to represent current.

And, in quantum mechanics imaginary numbers are essential, and quantum mechanics has passed many rigorous empirical tests! So I was wondering, how would your world view address the usefulness of abstract mathematics yielding accurate and precise predictions, since ( if I understood correctly) you champion that mathematics in physics must always be tangible?

Best Wishes,

Raiyan Reza

(PS: Thanks for your kind feedback on my essay, and I left an evaluation of yours too!)

    Dear SNP Gupta,

    "Apure [A pure] Mathematical theory may not have any physical basis and out-comes also may not have any physical significances."

    Yes, I agree that physics has been subordinated to mathematics in several areas.

    Your list of undesirable qualities of theories are well-stated. But I'm not sure how your "Dynamic Universe Model" would actually work, and of course a full presentation is beyond the scope of this contest. Do you accept Special Relativity? It explains the behavior of light in a way that previous theories could not. And General Relativity solves several problems that the Newtonian theory cannot.

      Dear Syed Raiyan Nuri Reza,

      Thank you for your reply and reading my essay. You are correct about electrical engineering.

      your words..."And, in quantum mechanics imaginary numbers are essential, and quantum mechanics has passed many rigorous empirical tests! So I was wondering, how would your world view address the usefulness of abstract mathematics yielding accurate and precise predictions, since ( if I understood correctly) you champion that mathematics in physics must always be tangible?"

      I mainly worked in Cosmology, Quantum mechanics i did not enter yet. In cosmology perspective I dont know how will you represent an "i"axis perpendicular to time axis? Such representations are confusing...

      In Cosmology such concepts create nonphysical representations.........

      I hope you dont use such representations in Quantum Mechanics....

      But can you please tell me what are the benifits of using 'i' and what were the predictions that came true?

      Best Regards

      =snp

      Dear Prof James Robert Arnold,

      Yes Physics represents Physical properties of Nature. Where as we use mathematics to describe Physics for our understanding of Physical world. We use a theory or Model to represent Nature. But what ever the problems of Model inherrent to its mathematics as a rule will not be there in Physics.

      What type of proof you want for the Dynamic Universe Model to satisfy you? You can discus any doubt you got. By the way I will suggest to have a look at my Blog, I think almost all your problems were discussed there....

      " https://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/ "

      I dont deny special theory of relativity, But Regarding General Theory of Relativity I also want to know your perspective....

      Best

      =snp

      Dear Professor Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,

      Thank you for your response!

      The famed Schrodinger's equation, features imaginary numbers, and the equation has made correct predictions about the behavior of electrons in atoms and is the basis for other more refined quantum models of nature. The more accurate Dirac equation too features imaginary number in its formulation.

      Even in the field of cosmology, imaginary numbers to the best of my knowledge plays a role. If we are using Newtonian model of gravity ( which is a good approximation) imaginary numbers will crop up in differential equations.

      Again, I am just lay person here and merely citing what I know from my general knowledge of physics.

      Wish you all the best for the contest and thank you actively engaging with me and other contestants here!

      Kind Regards,

      Raiyan Reza

      Dear Syed Raiyan Nuri Reza

      I am not a professor, Dr or any thing like that,Because I talk aginst the Bigbang and blackholes etc , as they are logical, Mainstream Physics people dont bother about me. So No PhD seat even......

      Blackholes etc are having infinities built into them. In a finite Universe, how infinities are possible??

      You are a student, at this age you should think analytically find what is truth what has experimental evidence what is manipulated, what is correct and fight for truth.....

      Using imaginary number 'i' gave lot of non-imaginable results in Cosmology which can not be real visualized. Nobody knows how to imagin those results...

      Best wishes to your essay

      =snp

      Dear Professor Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,

      I will continue to address you as Professor as acknowledgment of your status as a researcher.

      That said, I will keep your advise in mind. Lastly, I had rated you well(would shift your score higher) at the time of my original comment. Though, I do not recall which one of the ratings was mine according to numeric order.

      All the best!

      Kind Regards,

      Raiyan Reza

      This is Terry's post on regarding my essay, So I am posting from there......

      ............................

      Author Terry Bollinger replied on May. 13, 2020 @ 15:24 GMT

      Dear snp,

      Since you are OK with me assessing your essay purely in terms of its scientific and theoretical content, I'll go ahead and make some comments on that part of it. Since I have been an editor for a technical magazine, I have ethical considerations about how folks should do FQXi mutual reviews. Here are some guidelines I posted three years ago for FQXi reviews.

      (1) Overall, I liked the various assertion you made about the scientific method in the first and larger part of your essay, though I was a bit baffled about why you do not like imaginary and complex numbers. Complex numbers are both very self-consistent and extraordinarily useful for applications such as expressing 2-dimensional angles and vectors.

      (2) Your second shorter section was on your Dynamic Universe Model that uses "21000 linear [tensor] equations ... in an Excel sheet". Computer modeling is of course a great way to explore phenomena that change too slowly for direct observation, and spreadsheets provide a more powerful programming language than I think a lot of folks realize. So there's nothing wrong with using such a model per se.

      However, you also mentions features of your model such as "Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis [exhibit] no interdependencies between axes". That is a problem, because it contradicts the extraordinary amount of not just evidence but application of special relativity, including for example in GPS systems. A computer model can only be predictive of the real universe if the initial assumptions built into it have been verified experimentally. Otherwise, you just has a model that may give interesting results, but those results will have no correlation to or predictive power about the real universe. Not having special relativity for example immediately isolates the model from making predictions that have much to do with the real universe.

      So, if I rated your essay, following my own ethical guidelines of not caring one whit whether or how you might rate mine -- the incentive to care is a very unfortunate feature of the FQXi community review model -- I would give you a 3. The credits would be for the good assertions about science, the debits for giving a model that I'm sure has lots of good work in it, but which does not adequately attempt to model actual, well-validated outcomes of real experiments. Making strong assertions about the real universe based on the computational results of such a model is a big debit.

      At the same time I would rate your efforts much higher than almost half a century of extremely costly work on superstring theory, which was quite recently (March 2020) experimentally shown to be flatly incorrect by a HAWC Consortium paper on high energy gamma implications. You, at least, have a working model of the universe! They have nothing executable after that half century and likely hundreds of millions of dollars total of direct and indirect costs, not to mention innumerable research careers wasted on papers that discuss experimentally disproven formalisms that cannot be run on a computer and cannot predict anything about the actual universe.

      I will not actually enter the 3, in part because I don't think it's fair to downgrade your significant efforts at creating a very real, predictive computer model, even if flawed, when so much money and time has been wasted for decades on the supposedly more "mainline physics" discipline of superstrings. At least you took the time and effort to create a real model capable of making real predictions! That never happened with superstrings, which from the start chose to explore only topic they (incorrectly, as it turns out) would be safe because they could never be disproven.

      -----

      You are free to grade me as you see fit, although I would again encourage you first to read my guidelines on FQXi review ethics. Don't hesitate to give a low grade if you truly feel that is what I deserve! I would much, much prefer to get an honest low grade than any kind of grade the felt like a "favor".

      The other factor you might want to consider regarding FQXi mutual ratings is that, at least three years ago, they seemed to matter very little in terms of actual selection of winners.

      I recall that I was quite disappointed when the essays that I and many others thought were the most innovative, insightful, well-written, and science-focused -- essays that scored well in reviews like this (I was not in this group) -- nonetheless ended up getting at best a few lower-level awards.

      Meanwhile, authors who other essayists had not noticed much during the internal reviews somehow ended up not just winning the big prizes, but getting heaps of praise for their dedicated repetition of themes that were far more traditional and predictable, and whom in at least some cases had been previously supported by the same groups that fund FQXi. An unfortunate appearance of conflict, that, although it was surely unintentional.

      Cheers,

      Terry

        This was my reply for him for the above post, I will give a technical reply separately below.....

        ............................................

        Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 13, 2020 @ 22:18 GMT

        Dear Terry,

        I never expected that you will reply because our differences. My work is a pure scientific work, not a devotional work as you correctly stated. I read your wonderful guidelines you posted in FQXi three years back, I am just following them.

        Thank you very much for your very long observation and well study on my essay. Since this is related my essay, I will post it there. Further reply to many technical points I will reply there. So that others will also read.

        That study is enough for me, I will give you 10, the best.After all you yours is a wonderful essay from your experience!!!

        After 40 years of long work without ANY recognition, now I lost interest what some one gives 3 or 1. For me no problems........

        I hope some one will recognize my good work after my death. If nobody does recognize also no problems, I will never be knowing it, is it not??? :)

        Best Regards

        =snp

        Dear Terry,

        Thank you very much for your long reply as mentioned above.

        ................ Your words................Since you are OK with me assessing your essay purely in terms of its scientific and theoretical content, I'll go ahead and make some comments on that part of it................. Your words................ My essay is only scientific essay

        ................ Your words................ Since I have been an editor for a technical magazine, I have ethical considerations about how folks should do FQXi mutual reviews. Here are some guidelines I posted three years ago for FQXi reviews........................ Excellent Guidelines I am following them.............

        ................ Your words................

        (1) Overall, I liked the various assertion you made about the scientific method in the first and larger part of your essay, though I was a bit baffled about why you do not like imaginary and complex numbers. Complex numbers are both very self-consistent and extraordinarily useful for applications such as expressing 2-dimensional angles and vectors.................. Complex numbers gave intangible and unimaginable results, you dont know how to interpret the Results...........

        ................ Your words................

        (2) Your second shorter section was on your Dynamic Universe Model that uses "21000 linear [tensor] equations ... in an Excel sheet". Computer modeling is of course a great way to explore phenomena that change too slowly for direct observation, and spreadsheets provide a more powerful programming language than I think a lot of folks realize. So there's nothing wrong with using such a model per se..................... Thank you, you are correct spread sheets now a days give the power of LARGE DATA MINING capabilities to small PC , I started with LOTUS123 spreadsheets in a two floppy PC , 40 years back, same program continued this many years , gave so many wonderful results............

        I will continue in next post

        Best Regards

        =snp

        Dear Terry,

        2.

        ................ Your words................

        However, you also mentions features of your model such as "Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis [exhibit] no interdependencies between axes". That is a problem, because it contradicts the extraordinary amount of not just evidence but application of special relativity, including for example in GPS systems.................... GPS can be done using Dynamic Universe Model with a different set of equations, GPS is not Cosmology or Astrophysics, It is only an application of STR equations..........

        ................ Your words................ A computer model can only be predictive of the real universe if the initial assumptions built into it have been verified experimentally. Otherwise, you just has a model that may give interesting results, but those results will have no correlation to or predictive power about the real universe. Not having special relativity for example immediately isolates the model from making predictions that have much to do with the real universe....................Thank you , Coputer helps DATA MINING operations well, STR is ok I dont much AGAINST it. No problems............

        ................ Your words................

        So, if I rated your essay, following my own ethical guidelines of not caring one whit whether or how you might rate mine -- the incentive to care is a very unfortunate feature of the FQXi community review model -- I would give you a 3. The credits would be for the good assertions about science, the debits for giving a model that I'm sure has lots of good work in it, but which does not adequately attempt to model actual, well-validated outcomes of real experiments. Making strong assertions about the real universe based on the computational results of such a model is a big debit.................

        No problems you can give 3 or 1.After 40 years of long work without ANY recognition, now I lost interest what some one gives 3 or 1. For me no problems........

        I hope some one will recognize my good work after my death. If nobody does recognize also no problems, I will never be knowing it, is it not??? :)

        ................ Your words................

        At the same time I would rate your efforts much higher than almost half a century of extremely costly work on superstring theory, which was quite recently (March 2020) experimentally shown to be flatly incorrect by a HAWC Consortium paper on high energy gamma implications. You, at least, have a working model of the universe! They have nothing executable after that half century and likely hundreds of millions of dollars total of direct and indirect costs, not to mention innumerable research careers wasted on papers that discuss experimentally disproven formalisms that cannot be run on a computer and cannot predict anything about the actual universe............

        Yes sir, wonderful words of appreciation, thank you, See my blog

        " https://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/ "

        for the details of Universe model by Dynamic Universe Model and a paper on Origins of Cosmic Rays form this model. This paper was accepted by London press 10 day back, and it will appear after internet fewdays. I Started my work on GRBs ( Gamma Ray Bursts) it may take few months to finish that paper.......

        I will continue to next post..........

        Best

        =snp

          Dear Terry,

          3.

          ................ Your words................

          I will not actually enter the 3, in part because I don't think it's fair to downgrade your significant efforts at creating a very real, predictive computer model, even if flawed, when so much money and time has been wasted for decades on the supposedly more "mainline physics" discipline of superstrings. At least you took the time and effort to create a real model capable of making real predictions! That never happened with superstrings, which from the start chose to explore only topic they (incorrectly, as it turns out) would be safe because they could never be disproven....................

          I know I read about Superstrings, It is total wastage highly educated Manpower and wastage of Money. Any way it is not my problem, nobody listens me. They just kick my back, laughing. I was not even allowed for a seat in PhD, many Indian, UK and USA universities refused, Now I stopped trying

          ................. Your words................

          You are free to grade me as you see fit, although I would again encourage you first to read my guidelines on FQXi review ethics. Don't hesitate to give a low grade if you truly feel that is what I deserve! I would much, much prefer to get an honest low grade than any kind of grade the felt like a "favor".............

          It is No favour sir, You wrote a Good essay and I gave 10

          I will continue to next post

          Best

          =snp

          Dear Terry

          4.

          ................. Your words................

          The other factor you might want to consider regarding FQXi mutual ratings is that, at least three years ago, they seemed to matter very little in terms of actual selection of winners....................

          Let FQXi take their own decisions, I am not worried

          ................. Your words................

          I recall that I was quite disappointed when the essays that I and many others thought were the most innovative, insightful, well-written, and science-focused -- essays that scored well in reviews like this (I was not in this group) -- nonetheless ended up getting at best a few lower-level awards..........

          Yes correctly said.........

          ................. Your words................

          Meanwhile, authors who other essayists had not noticed much during the internal reviews somehow ended up not just winning the big prizes, but getting heaps of praise for their dedicated repetition of themes that were far more traditional and predictable, and whom in at least some cases had been previously supported by the same groups that fund FQXi. An unfortunate appearance of conflict, that, although it was surely unintentional.

          I dont worry, I could meet some people like you thro' this contest.

          I hope you will publish some papers of me like on GRBs using Dynamic Universe model....

          Best

          =snp

          Terry Replied to my posts above as a reply on his essay, I am posting that Back here......

          ...................................

          Author Terry Bollinger wrote on May. 14, 2020 @ 19:00 GMT

          Dear snp,

          Thank you for such kind words after me providing a fairly tough review! You are a good person, and I too am delighted by meeting folks like you and other here.

          I like your point that the greatest value of FQXi is the interaction, not the prizes. If someone gets an FQXi prize... well celebrate! Great gravy train in the morning, why should you not? But if you don't get an FQXi prize after putting in so much work... well, meh, is it really that big of a deal?

          While FQXi admirably attempts to probe a bit deeper than many groups, it is by its very nature also very deeply intertwined with the "standard" perspectives of physics, which as I noted shows up in some of its prize assessments. And that affects how seriously individuals should take its assessments.

          We are speaking here of a broader research community that for the past half century has been betting the majority of its theoretical money and researcher careers (whether the researchers wanted it or not) on the idea of Planck-scale superstrings. All of that work has now been soundly shown to be irrelevant by the superb experimental data from the HAWC Consortium, which showed that tiny Planck-scale superstrings -- which from the very first paper were an enormous and very weakly justified leap of faith from quite real hadronic Regge strings -- are far too huge and gloppy to meet the experimentally verified constraints of poor old special relativity no less... the delightfully simple Poincare/Lorentz/Einstein/Minkowski symmetries that were first postulated over a century ago, back when even calculators were mechanical only.

          From that costly little half-century faux pas alone (there have been other analytical strategy missteps), I think it's safe to say that the track record in modern physics for assessing and predicting which ideas will truly become the future of physics has been... well, somewhat less than stellar? Instead, it was instead those amazing mathematicians (Poincare especially) and physicists from over a century ago, the ones who had minimal tools, simple ideas, and an absolute acceptance of the need for experimental validation of everything they did, who even now, over a century later, are proving to have been the true prophets for predicting where physics must go in the future.

          Cheers,

          Terry

          ----------

          And an addendum: I was serious in my comment above about century-old simplicity still being predictive of where physics must head in the future. For example, the recent HAWC Collaboration data seems to imply that special relativity is never violated. So why not make this into a fundamental hypothesis? That is, what would be the full implications to physics and mathematics of hypothesizing that at their deepest roots both are based not on Euclidean spaces, but on Minkowski spaces?

          That may sound easy, or even "of course" like what we are already doing, but I assure you it is not. For survival purposes our brains are hardwired to think in terms of Euclidean spaces, and those are at best narrow, local-only, and unavoidably approximate subsets of the Minkowski spaces of special relativity.

          Taking Poincare symmetries as a starting point would require us to abandon the primacy of Euclidean spaces. But to take the idea to its logical limit, this would need to apply not just to physics, but to the mathematics we use to describe physics. That is because the Euclidean concepts that we toss about so freely and without thought in mathematical fields and such are necessary approximations created by the hard-wiring of our brains to take advantage of the narrow, low-energy environment in which we must think quickly to survive. So just how radical might such a transformation be?

          One impact is much of the mathematics of physics would suddenly and necessarily become part of a much broader context, since any Euclidean space -- even those implied by simple arrays of numbers in a computer -- would be newly understood as local-only approximates of some much larger Minkowski space, one that only looks Euclidean to our small-scale, limited-range, biologically enforced perceptions. If you play with such ideas seriously for a while, you will discover they are a bit mind-bending. Minkowski himself glimpsed this a century ago in his famous talk on the merger of space and time into a single entity. Yet even Minkowski struggled with the idea a bit, as seen in the infinities that creep into his discussion of how to define Euclidean space as a limit Minkowski space.

          view post as summary

            The above post is related to my essay, so I am replying here.....

            Dear Terry,

            Thank you for your very detailed reply again.

            ...........................Your words...................

            Thank you for such kind words after me providing a fairly tough review! You are a good person, and I too am delighted by meeting folks like you and other here.

            I like your point that the greatest value of FQXi is the interaction, not the prizes. If someone gets an FQXi prize... well celebrate! Great gravy train in the morning, why should you not? But if you don't get an FQXi prize after putting in so much work... well, meh, is it really that big of a deal?

            ........................ Yes sir , Is that prize is really Great Gravy Train is it? May be for people like me in India, we are poor in general, but for American and other Europeans or Australians or even to Chinese, it is not much, They are already rich. I think most of the people want to know the opinion on their new thinking or new paper Published before or will publish after the contest. Most probably to get a positive or Negative feedback on their theories.

            ...........................Your words...................

            While FQXi admirably attempts to probe a bit deeper than many groups, it is by its very nature also very deeply intertwined with the "standard" perspectives of physics, which as I noted shows up in some of its prize assessments. And that affects how seriously individuals should take its assessments...................

            There can be some HIDDEN agenda's , No body can say, Someone external to FQXi can influence them. For accepting essays and allowing open discussions on the essays shows that they are open to all theories; not only just for the "the standard theories". Ok that much is allowed for me, thanks to them !!!

            I dont expect much. I faced much more harsher situations in my life. Nothing matters now.

            I will continue..........

            thank you for your interest in my essay

            Best Regards

            =snp

            Dear Terry

            2.

            I am continuing my reply........

            ...........................Your words...................

            We are speaking here of a broader research community that for the past half century has been betting the majority of its theoretical money and researcher careers (whether the researchers wanted it or not) on the idea of Planck-scale superstrings .........................

            correct please. All such situations I pointed out in my essay , there were many situations when the Professor or the Finance provider will say some of their pet topic, and the young researchers are forced for that line. Will all that leads to real good research? There is a more appropriate term in engineering called "Project development". Project is conceived by someone else, this may be true for an engineering plant.

            Best regards

            =snp

            Dear Terry,

            3.

            ...........................Your words................... All of that work has now been soundly shown to be irrelevant by the superb experimental data from the HAWC Consortium, which showed that tiny Planck-scale superstrings -- which from the very first paper were an enormous and very weakly justified leap of faith from quite real hadronic Regge strings -- are far too huge and gloppy to meet the experimentally verified constraints of poor old special relativity no less... the delightfully simple Poincare/Lorentz/Einstein/Minkowski symmetries that were first postulated over a century ago, back when even calculators were mechanical only ..................................

            Yes Situations happened in like that Bigbang based cosmologies, they did not with stand testing. Bigbang generated CMB is one example, it was never found. If you calculate the radiation from stars,nebulae,Galaxies and other astronomical objects, that is exactly what measured by COBE satellite, COBEs aperture is so big it can not isolate these other radiation. Noble prizes are awarded for such work.

            So what we can say? The thing is people still publish my work. All my CMB papers were published long back. See my blog for details.....

            " http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/p/10-feb-201-6-all-my-published-papers.html "

            Best regards

            =snp

            Dear Terry,

            4.

            ...........................Your words...................

            From that costly little half-century faux pas alone (there have been other analytical strategy missteps), I think it's safe to say that the track record in modern physics for assessing and predicting which ideas will truly become the future of physics has been... well, somewhat less than stellar? Instead, it was instead those amazing mathematicians (Poincare especially) and physicists from over a century ago, the ones who had minimal tools, simple ideas, and an absolute acceptance of the need for experimental validation of everything they did, who even now, over a century later, are proving to have been the true prophets for predicting where physics must go in the future. of Sweden, was the great inspiration for my work 40 years back

            ....................................

            Poincare the court mathematician of king OSCAR2 of Sweden who attempted the the tough problem of solving general N-Body problem. I liked him! He was my inspiration.

            This Dynamic Universe Model is the solution to the General N-body problem. This is model tested for 2 body, 3 body, 5 body, 132 bodies, even 25000 bodies. The 132 body problem solution is used from the last 40 years,using Lotus 123 on floppies to Later present day Microsoft Excel.

            Basic Idea here is, any body having a small PC with simple Excel, should reproduce the results as given in published papers or books. All the software source code is available for a free download form my webpage....

            " http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/p/10-feb-201-6-all-my-published-papers.html "

            The main Software was NEVER changed BUT ported from generation to generation of Lotus123 and Excel. Only simple house hold PCs will be sufficient. This 132 body problem solution gave solution all these problems solved for the last 40 years. Many papers were published, Books were published and predictions came true.....

            But what I got is kicks on my back......

            Best regards

            =snp