JD,
Of course you-know-what attracts flies? You too?
The conventional Planck scale is a joke, especially the mass value. I have shown how to calculate the correct Planck scale for each cosmological scale [see website: Technical Notes].
When I have more time I will read the rest of your discussion [or is it a random walk in fashionable ideas?].
I may comment tomorrow, or I may just give up.
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
JD,
I'm back and feeling a bit more forgiving than before.
Here's a basic fact about science. If you want to understand nature, or models of nature, you have to put in the required effort and learn in DEPTH.
Of what use is knowing 100 things if one's knowlwdge of these things is completely superficial?
If you want to understand current fractal paradigms and models you are going to heve to do a lot of hard focused work. At my website I have done most of the work for you. All you have to do is start at the beginning and read things roughly in the tepmoral order that they were discovered and written up. The website is approximately set up to follow that order.
When you learn enough to have specific substantative questions, I am ready, willing and eager to help. But I cannot take much more ignore-ance, or superficiality, and the combination of both at the same time is devestating.
Feel free to ignore Discrete Scale Relativity in favor of cat's cradles and tooth fairies on 2-d carpets, or do an in-depth study of the discrete fractal paradigm that I am trying to promote. But please whatever you choose to study, use your intuition to guide you, take a deep breath , and explore physics/nature below the surface. Way below.
Yours in science,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
FM,
Saying that I ignore "all that we already know about gravity and electromagnetism" is absurd.
This only proves that you have no idea what Discrete Scale Relativity is.
For example I uniquely use the Kerr-Newman solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations to successfully retrodict the mass and radius of the proton. The reason everyone failed in their old attempts to do this was that they used the wrong value of G. DSR tells you specifically what value of G to use and the happy retrodiction is available for your study [website: Technical Notes: " Subatomic Particles...].
So let's be clear buddy, I do not ignore well-tested physics like General Relativity and Classical Electromagnetism. You ignore the discrete self-similar paradigm.
My dark matter predictions were published in The Astrophysical Journal [322, 34-36, 1987]. You might look it up.
My complaint is that people who act like they have no functioning right hemispheres have controlled physics for decades and filled countless theoretical physics journals with millions of incomprehensible equations which offer little or nothing in the way of useful and/or accurate understanding of nature. String theory is just the archetype of this truly mad and pervasive excursion that theoretical physics has been on.
FIRST COME THE CONCEPTS! And to generate conceptual advances you need TWO well-functioning hemispheres, with an emphasis on a powerful right hemisphere. Know what I mean? Probably not.
Yours in science,
Robert L. Oldershaw
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Hello Dear Robert L. Oldershaw,
Nice to know you .
I read your essay and the interpretations of the infite fractals .It's short but we see your ideas .
These kinds of ideas is derived from Wheeler, when Borh and him discussed about some spritual point of vue .
The uniqueness of Bohr and the multiverses of Wheeler thus began ....and now too .
This interpretation of the universe causes problems about the entropy and the uniqueness .Thus too for the thermodynamics in a closed and evolutive system.
The only infinity is with a add of fractals and multiplication, the physical reality and its number is essential to encircle the real dynamic in my opinion.
The two hemisphère can synchronize with fundamenatsl and its number ,finite I think .
The uniqueness is an important key of our fundamentals It seems to me .
What do you think about ?
Best Regards
Steve
Sigh, I think something is lost in translation.
RLO
www.amherst.edu/rloldershaw
re-sighs hihihi indeed after re-reading, I admit hihihi
Thanks for this link ,
Your website is super ,congratulations .It's very interesting and well made .
Of course all is linked,as an universal link between all .
You know ,I am persuaded what the number of cosmological spheres is the same than our quantum entanglement ,our quantum spheres and their rotations .Our quantum system is like a code ,a little if That was the foto of our future universal sphere and its spheres ,harmonized and in interactions with its lifes and intelligences .
It's logic in fact ,rational it seems to me .A specific number of spheres exists.Probably what the serie is correlated with prime numbers .And the complexification with naturals .Thus the serie with primes probably is finite ,furthemore specific of copurse with one for the main center ....like our center of our Universe ,and the center of our quantum architecture.After a specific fractal thus exists with its specific serie .
Best Regards and Good luck for the contest too
Steve
Want to see what the fine structure constant appears to mean, physically?
http://independent.academia.edu/RobertLOldershaw/Papers/84954/The-Meaning-of-the-Fine-Structure-Constant
Want to see how to resolve the horrendous [120 orders of magnitude disparity!] vacuum energy density crisis in a simple, natural manner?
http://independent.academia.edu/RobertLOldershaw/Papers/81261/Towards-A-Resolution-Of-The-Vacuum-Energy-Density-Crisis
No charge,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Hi Robert,
Do you and Jonathan have some kind of professional rivalry or other historical antipathy? I'm trying to figure out why you'd needlessly be such a douchebag to someone who, to me at least, appears to be making an honest effort to understand your ideas.
I am totally on board with the idea that the universe is a giant infinite fractal (indeed that is what I argued in my paper), which is why it pains me to see someone in my camp leaving such an Amazonian swath of rhetorical slash-and-burn in his wake.
You keep saying "yours in science," but science is based on civility. In my experience anyone who says "You don't understand" really means "I'm not sufficiently articulate and/or patient to help you understand."
Hugs,
Owen
Owen,
Is your post an example of the "civility" that you are advocating? Wow, what a world class hypocrite!
Mr. Dickau and I go way back, and he still is virtually clueless regarding discrete cosmological self-similarity. From this fact I infer that he has little or no real interest in my ideas, but rather has other and more self-oriented agenda. Does that help you to understand the situation better?
Most importantly, I am NOT "in your camp", by any means, nor are you in mine.
As civilly as possible,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Yes, that helps me understand the situation better. And you are entirely justified in pointing out my hypocrisy. But I must ask, why do you emphatically deny any parity between our ideas, given that I agree with your basic thesis?
Hi Owen,
If someone treats my ideas with respect, I will return that respect, for them and their ideas [within reason].
Many people say they are interested in new ideas, but their actions belie the fact that they have no real interest in anything other than their own personal "hobby horse[s]". Such people make very poor natural philosophers. When someone sends me their "TOE", and I have gotten many(!) over the years, I always take a careful look, even when they do not seem promising. I have no patience for someone who is not willing to spend a few hours working towards a basic understanding of the discrete self-similar cosmological paradigm.
All that said, I would enjoy talking about nature, fractals, self-similarity, infinite hierarchies, nonlinear dynamical systems, etc.
So let's dispense with the psychodrama and talk science.
Here's a conversation starter, if there ever was one: I think stars are the Stellar Scale equivalent of Atomic Scale atoms. I think the physics of these two classes of analogues from neighboring Scales of nature's discrete hierarchy are related by exact discrete self-similarity [same physics] and are equally fundamental. Therefore reductionism is appropriate only within each Scale. Reductionism is definitely not appropriate for anything beyond any given single Scale of the infinite hierarchy of Scales. To put it even more bluntly: a subatomic nucleus, a neutron star and a typical spiral galaxy are equally fundamental, and if you choose your representative analogues very carefully, are the same object seen at three different discrete Scales.
Thank goodness they do not burn people at the stake these days! Let's keep it that way!!
So, my friend, by all means, let's talk fractal cosmology.
Yours in science,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Hi Robert,
Regarding your "conversation starter," I agree with literally every word except one: "neighboring." Does DSR make any assertions as to how many intermediate "ranks" there are between the stellar and atomic scales? Does DSR conceive of their being a 0th rank? If so, how many ranks are below the atomic scale?
Thanks,
Owen
Owen,
Good questions, with easy answers, at least from the perspective of the discrete self-similar cosmological paradigm [aka Direte Scale Relativity when the cosmological self-similarity is exact].
1. If you study nature's hierarchy empircally, and very carefuly, you will find one and only one pattern of Scales and "internal" levels that maintains a high degree of self-similarity. This is a key universal symmetry that has not been fully apreciated.
Within each cosmological Scale there is a subhierarchy of levels [e.g., H, He, Li,... DNA, ...comets, ...]. This may correspond to what you are thinking about and calling "internal ranks". The cosmological Scales are related by exact discrete self-similarity. The self-similarity within any given Scale is much more continuous and can range from near-exact to merely statistial.
2. Discrete Scale Relativity firmly rejects a 0th Scale, since only for an infinite hierarchy can there be exact self-similarity.
Even sticking to the slghtly more conservative DSSCP with less exact self-similarity, the idea of a "bottom" to nature's hierarchy makes a good natural philosopher want to vomit.
DSR takes some work because the ideas are very new and radically conflict with some old ideas. But once one gets the basics [i.e., the basic scaling equations, division of nature into Scales, appropriate analogues of fundamental systems on the different Scales] one's progress comes much faster.
The website is full of empirical examples from nature that argue for the uniqueness and correctness of the paradigm. There are also theoretical results like deriving the mass and radius of the proton using the Kerr-Newman solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations, as trivially augmented by DSR.
I am ready and willing to help anyone with a genuinely open mind to understand this new paradigm. I confidently predict that it will be the paradigm for physical and biological science for the 21st century. [I am not lacking in chutzpah, obviously ;)]
Yours in science,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Hi Robert,
I'm a bit slow to grasp your exact meaning of Scale. In one place you say there is "one and only one pattern of Scales" but this is followed by "within each cosmological Scale there is a subhierarchy of levels." To me, this says that there are really two "degrees of scaleness" -- a "coarse-grained scale," which corresponds to your Scale with a capital S, and a "fine-grained scale" each of which is entirely contained within the first kind of Scale. Is that correct? If so, then does fractal self-similarity hold only when comparing (a) two fine-grained scales within the same coarse-grained Scale, but not (b) two coarse-grained Scales or (c) two fine-grained scales within different coarse-grained Scales? If I'm mistaken in thinking that DSR calls for two "degrees of scaleness," please correct me.
My paper argues that there is only one "degree of scaleness," which I call "rank." This means that, while there is perfect self-similarity observed at every rank, there need to be "intermediate ranks" between those ranks that correspond to what we intuitively think of as scales. (Rank roughly corresponds to size, in the sense that an atom's rank is less than a planet's rank, which is less than a galaxy's rank; but this correspondence is not perfect, in the sense that two asteroids might have the same rank even though one is physically bigger than the other.) To illustrate, think of Douglas Hofstadter's invitation, in "Godel Escher Bach," to imagine that, between the "cloud scale" and the "raindrop scale" there are many intermediate scales from which one can better observe intermediate phenomena like isolated eddies of wind within otherwise still air.
As for a 0th scale, I didn't feel so much as the slightest twinge of indigestion when asserting its existence in my paper; I guess this means my aptitude for natural philosophy is inversely proportional to my aptitude for hypocrisy. While I share your nausea at the idea of a finite hierarchy (or, in my vernacular, a finite number of ranks), I feel obligated to point out that the set of natural numbers has achieved infinitude even though it indeed "has a bottom." Why demand a "number line" when you can get the same results with a "number ray"?
Regurgitationally yours,
Owen
Owen,
1. Nature is a hierarchy of subhierarchies. The Scales form the basic discrete cosmological hierarchy. However, each Scale is hierarchically arranged. So you get a hierarchy of hierarchies. Moreover, if you take just one level from one Scale [say, hydrogen atoms] the systems of that level can exist in a hierarchy of energy states. Hierarchies and self-similarity everywhere!
My best advice is to read [slowly and careully] Papers #1#2 from the "Selected Papers" section of the website.
The Scales are exactly self-similar. The levels within a Scale display varying degrees of self-similarity.
Natural numbers "have a bottom"? Do you mean 0? But what about -1, -2, -3, ... - infinity? Or the whole infinite imaginary plane? I see no "bottom' anywhere except the ones we arbitrarily impose.
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
(1) I will try to get to the papers you recommend in the next couple days. In the meantime, I would like to pursue these statements:
"The Scales are exactly self-similar." Meaning that an object on the Stellar Scale has identical structure to an object on the Atomic Scale? Or merely meaning that any two objects selected at random from within the Atomic Scale has identical structure to each other?
"The levels within a Scale display varying degrees of self-similarity." Meaning that an object from sub-level A within the Stellar Scale has a strongly similar but not necessarily identical structure to an object from Stellar sub-level B?
(2) The natural numbers indeed have a bottom -- the number 1. Zero and the negatives are part of the integers, which includes the naturals as a proper subset, but are not the same.
It seems to me you are proposing a structure that has hierarchical characteristics, but is not truly a hierarchy. Strict hierarchies have roots from which they extend. Depending on how one orients one's metaphors, one can say that a hierarchy has a bottom but no top, or a top but no bottom, but if it has neither a top nor a bottom, it's not a hierarchy; it's just a graph.
Owen,
Paragraph 1: The papers are available for free on my website 24/7.
Paragraph 2: For any fundamental object on any Scale there is a specific exact self-similar analogue on any other Scale. When doing tests of DSR, analogues from different Scales must be chosen carefully because they are completely specific, not "random".
See published paper comparing RR Lyrae variable stars with excited He atoms undergoing Rydberg transitions between s-states with 10 > n > 7. The masses, morphologies, radii and frequency spectra obey the discrete self-similar Scale transformation equations to the extent testable. This research is also presented in the "New Developments" section of the website.
Paragraph 3: Not quite right. Self-similarity between specific analogues from different Scales is exact. The examples of lesser degrees of self-similarity are found within one Scale. Consider the examples given in Mandelbrot's The Fractal Geometry of Nature, such as turbulence, stellar distributions, galactic distributions [aren't the frothy filaments in the large-scale structure breath-taking], tree branching, brain architecture, lung architecture, circulatory systems,... . A "Selected Paper" at my website gives 80 examples of the less exact forms of self-similarity in nature!
Paragraph 4: Here you discuss arbitrary human distinctions, not natural ones. The math nature uses is quite different. Symmetry is maximized.
Paragraph 5: This is not correct; it is just your subjective definition of a hierarchical structure. Democritus, Spinoza, Kant, and many others have argued that nature must be an infinite hierarchy with no top or bottom. Humans always want to put a "top" and/or a "bottom" on the hierarchy because of fear and/or anthropocentrism. I'm afraid you are going to have to change your mind on this issue.
Yours in science,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
You dismiss the distinction between the natural numbers and integers as "arbitrary human distinctions" as opposed to "natural" ones. To quote a certain respected scientist I know, I'm afraid you are going to have to change your mind on this issue. The natural numbers can be constructed using only a single logical operation -- succession. The integers require additional logical operations to construct. If one views simplicity as a hallmark of "naturalness" (as one who advocates a fractal cosmology presumably would), then the distinction is indeed "natural."
Your last paragraph about hierarchies is puzzling. Even if the sentence "Democritus, Spinoza, Kant, and many others have argued that nature must be an infinite hierarchy with no top or bottom" weren't an example of the logical fallacy known as "appeal to authority," you then proceed to undermine it with "Humans always want to put a 'top' and/or a 'bottom' on the hierarchy because of fear and/or anthropocentrism." If it were really true that humans "always" want to do that, does that mean that Democritus, Spinoza, Kant, and many others are not human? I can assure you that my preference for a unidirectionally infinite hierarchy is motivatd not by fear or "anthropocentricism" (whose normal meaning does not seem compatible with this context in the first place) but rather by a simple conviction that it makes more sense.
Setting these questions aside for the moment, if we grant that these philosophers' preference for bidirectionally infinite hierarchies represent generally agreed-upon, received wisdom -- what Supreme Court justices refer to as "settled law," so to speak -- then why do you regard your theses as so revolutionary and groundbreaking? Aren't you just parroting the greats?
Perhaps I am being too confrontational here and allowing myself to be distracted from the bigger picture. I genuinely do believe that there is much more similarity between our cosmological views than differences. My questions and critiques spring not from a general skepticism of your overall thesis (as I infer you are used to) but from feelings of disquiet and unease over the fact that you seem to have completely omitted any discussion of the computational implications (a stronger phrasing might be computational REQUIREMENTS) of DSR. You are correct to focus on self-similarity as a defining characteristic of fractals, but that is not THE ONLY such defining characteristic. Fractals are fundamentally computational entities -- if that were not true then they would have been discovered and formally studied centuries before they were. This implies that a fractal universe (which you and I agree we inhabit) must therefore be a computational universe. Yet I see no mention of computational ideas in your work. This does not make your work incorrect -- indeed your detailed, data- and measurement-oriented analysis is extremely valuable to advancing this case -- but it does make it incomplete, especially in light of the recent increase in receptiveness that the physics community seems to have exhibited toward computational approaches.
In short, I am tempted to suggest that we could discuss collaborating; you can cover the physical side, finding and detailing instances of self-similarity across scales in nature, and I can cover the computational side, detailing the computational mechanisms by which the universe could produce such instances.
(And yes, I do confess to being mesmerized by the frothy filaments in grand-scale cosmological structure.)
Hello Robert, plus Owen, et al.
I wish there was a reset button sometimes. Or that I could feel I am free to agree strongly with some aspects of a theory, and have reservations about other claims because an author has failed to satisfy all my criteria. And I too was hoping that facilitated by this forum, I could finally understand some things well (with a little help from the authors - RLO included).
I pressed Easther on the issue of "isn't a multiverse really just an ultra-large scale fractal?" and he gave a satisfying answer. I summarized every aspect of J.C.N. Smith's proof, and explained why he feels it is a compelling reason to believe his premise. Then I calmly explained why I still don't feel like he offered scientific proof, and he was OK with that.
I am re-reading some of your web-site's Selected Readings, Robert, and I intend to examine all of the evidence presented. But at this point, I still feel like you are asking your readers to accept some extraordinary things on faith, rather than providing a rationale or mechanism by which they might come to be.
The contest essay nicely avoided raising the same red flags for me, and I was hoping it meant you had gotten more savvy. I'm still trying to gain a better understanding of your work, but my own knowledge and experience will temper my judgment.
Scientifically yours,
Jonathan
1. Anyone want to see what what the Big Bang, global expansion and "peculiar velocities" of galaxies are all about?
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw/ , choose "Galactic Scale Self-Similarity"
2. Anyone want to see a Revised Planck Scale that is sensible, and learn the physical meaning of Planck's constant?
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw/ , choose "New Developments", then choose "1. The Hidden Meaning of Planck's Constant"
RLO
www.amherstedu/~rloldershaw