Want to see the simple answer to a physics enigma that Wolfgang Pauli was willing to die for, and that has never before been solved?

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0708/0708.3501.pdf

Enjoy,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

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  • Post #42

Anyone want to see a response to my post?

Nature does not use numbers. It does not need them. It does need geometry, but that can be done without absolute numbers.

Numbers were invented by humans to describe regularities/patterns in nature.

To say that nature's hierarchy is bounded because the "natural numbers" are bounded is a very dubious argument. Platonic reasoning is usually bad reasoning. Same as it ever was.

Okay?

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

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  • Post #44

Dear Mr Oldershaw ,

Here is my point of vue about numbers ,I think that the base is finite with primes ,the numbers of pairs twins ,this oscillation is periodically finite in its physicality .

The naturals are a complexification of these primes ,of course like our lattices ,products ,additions ,multiplication....these extrapolations are infinite ,but the base is finite ,a specific number exists for the physicality ,that s why I am very intrigued by the number of cosmological spheres .It exists a specific number of spheres in my opinion .The thermodynamic link is relevant too about the fractal of volume with our center and our cosmological limit of course like gauge.

Even our numbers must be directly linked with the physicality .

Best Regards

Steve

It is an interesting claim that nature does not need numbers but does need geometry, especially coming from someone whose paper is titled "The Infinite Fractal Universe." Isn't fractal geometry the only type of geometry that canNOT "be done without absolute numbers"?

Fractals need numbers. If nature is a fractal, then nature also needs numbers.

"Numbers were invented by humans to describe regularities/patterns in nature" is an argument that I understand but reject; and I admit that my rejection of it is grounded purely in intuition and gut feel. I respect your right to disagree on this point, but can't help but ask, if you really believe in the invented status of numbers, then what are your thoughts on what Wigner called "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences"?

It might be possible to sketch an argument for the position that nature needs fractals, but doesn't need numbers, if one suggests that fractals are patterns of behavior that can be produced through multiple mechanisms; one of these mechanisms is the numerical, computational one that we're all familiar with from things like the Mandelbrot Set; and another mechanism would be a mysterious non-numerical one that nature uses. But in order for this argument to have any credibility, it needs to be accompanied by a well-composed conjecture detailing how that non-numerical, natural mechanism would work. But again, I don't see anything like that in your work.

Sly Porker,

One must distinguish between a thing and the description of the thing.

The latter requires numbers, but the former does not.

You can test this yourself. Take a camera and venture boldly into nature. Search high and low for a number that is not artificial. If you find one, then take a picture of it. Let me know when you have succeeded.

I do not discuss reality with Platonists, who believe math is floating around out there in some hidden dimension waiting for us to discover it. What's the point?

RO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

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  • Post #48

I'm guilty of a lot of things, but I don't think Platonism is one of them. I just spent a few minutes scouring Wikipedia to make sure I have my terminology right, and this convinced me I am actually a devotee of Max Tegmark's "ultimate ensemble," which is a subspecies of "modal realism," which is apparently an historical antagonist of Platonism. So, it sounds like your personal code of ethics will allow us to continue discussing reality, after all. What a relief!

I can appreciate the spirit in which you intend the whole "Let me know when you have successfully taken a picture of an integer in the wild" shtick, but on some level even you must know that that's all it is -- a shtick. I could use the same shtick to disprove the existence of gravity, for instance.

Would it be fair for me to say that there are three properties that you and I both seem to agree that nature exhibits -- (a) discreteness, (b) infinitude, and (c) simplicity? If so, then I have a counterproposal for you. While I'm off with a camera crew in the Chilean desert hoping to capture the square root of negative one on film, I think you should be hunting for _another_ answer to the question "What is the (c) simplest thing that is both (a) discrete and (b) infinite?" _besides_ "the set of natural numbers." I predict you'll be taking my call before I take yours.

Oink,

Owen Cunningham

Sly,

Tegmark certainly fits my definition of a Platonist. Proof is his championing of the "multiverse" menagerie [aka the illusory house of smoke, mirrors, and randomness]. No realism here.

How could you "disapprove the existence of gravity"?!?

The simplest thing I know of personnaly is an electron. Surely it is highly discrete. I view it as essentially a singularity within a tiny sparse envelope of subquantum particles, which are 10^17 times smaller but have the same structure, which ..., and thus are infinite.

I think we need to start a new discussion from scratch and see if we have sufficient common ground.

See following post for possible talking points.

Howl.

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

Here is the difference between science and "The Glass Bead Game".

SCIENCE:

1. Study nature.

2. Discover a new pattern or relationship.

3. Use proposed pattern/relation to generate a definitive prediction, which is unique to the hypothesis, quantitative [or very high quality qualitative], NON-ADJUSTABLE, and feasible.

4. Test your prediction empirically [not with thought experiments].

5. Accept nature's verdict.

----------------------------------------------

THE GLASS BEAD GAME [Hesse, a good read]

1. Study mathematics [after all, nature and empirical evidence are only "anecdotal"].

2. Construct an abstract theory with ad hoc model-building; the more hermetic the better.

3. Use the abstract theory to generate pseudo-predictions, which are non-unique, quantitatively "plastic", highly adjustable, usually unfeasible.

4. Avoid real testing and apply copious arm-waving or heavy fudge to any "unwanted" empirical results.

5. Assume nature is wrong [it couldn't possibly be your "intuition"].

-----------------------------------------------------

There you have the past and the present. Do you prefer the science of Democritus, Bacon, Galileo, and Einstein? Or are you happy with the post-modern physi-babble?

If it's real science, why can't they even predict the specific properties of the dark matter? That's an easy one to answer.

Yours in science [the testable kind],

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

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  • Post #51

Sly,

I forgot to mention that one of Tegmark's recent research efforts was to claim that the ultimate reality of nature is abstract mathematics and nothing else. That is not a misprint, or a misreading on anyone's part. He really argued that physical reality is pure mathematics and nothing else.

Wow! If that's not a Platonist through-and-through, I don't know what is.

And now a word on Crackpots. There are two varieties: educated crackpots and demented crackpots. That said, I think John Baez is a world-class crackpot of the educated variety. What index do you need for identifying educated crackpots? Simple! They propose hermetic pipe dream theories that are completely untestable in any definitive empirical way, and they do so with great flourish and obscurantism. That's all you need to ID them, and there are many wandering around the halls of science these days.

Out with the old SubStandard Paradigm, and in with the new Discrete Fractal Paradigm!

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

Regarding arxiv:0910.3374v1 (another just-so story)

Hogg says: "a fractal universe is untenable".

He looks at nature and can only see a homogeneous blur.

Ah, but the porcines are so notoriously near-sighted, don't you know.

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

If you think the Nielsen/Ninomiya excursion was an isolated incident of two string theorists who 'lost it', then you should definitely take a look at this new example of "Theoretical Physicists Gone Wild!":

Peter Woit's Blog: Not Even Wrong - "Physicists Calculate Alternative Universes". The comments are priceless.

Something has ripened, rotted and died. I think it is the SubStandard Paradigm that is emitting the foul odor of pseudo-science [to put it politely].

Time for a new paradigm based on empirical study of nature and definitively testable predictions. It is also the time for new leaders in theoretical physics who have scientific integrity, if not personal integrity. Actually we are at least a decade past time for this inevitable house-clearing and rededication to the principles of science.

Yours in the new paradigm,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

From "CosmoCoffee Blog"

Greetings High School "Anonymous",

I am confused by your question. General Relativity already demonstrates how to calculate and understand the advance in the perihelion of Mercury.

General Relativity is the theory of gravitational interactions involving Stellar Scale systems [technically within a Stellar Scale system but exterior to any Atomic Scale system]. I really don't think I can improve upon GR in this context, especially with high school math.

If you ask me to model something on the Atomic Scale, it might be a more interesting request.

Have you thoroughly studied: http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701132.pdf

Already published in ApSS, 2007.

This paper explains how, in a discrete self-similar cosmos, GR must be modified in order to model the dynamics of Atomic Scale or Galactic Scale systems.

Here's something really ironic. GR can be abreviated: R = kT. In groping for a unified theory that would apply in the microcosm as well as the macrocosm, theoretical physicists tinkered with the R and the T, but assumed that the k was inviolate and therefore of little interest.

Actually it is in the k = 8piG/c4 that the needed breakthrough was waiting all along. If you want to know how the discrete fractal scaling for k works, read the friggin' paper. But the key concept is that G is not scale invariant [even t'Hooft has finally figured that out. Well better 33 years late than never]; each Scale has its specific value of G and it only takes high school math, actually only elementary school math, to understand the scaling.

Please read the paper. Discrete Scale Relativity is the new paradigm for physics in the 21st century. When the physical characteristics of the dark matter are revealed, the new paradigm will be fully vindicated. So far we see mostly the high mass tail: neutron stars, BHs, gamma ray sources, RRATS, etc, and there are billions of these ultracompact objects, but the main DM components are in much lower states and are stellar mass black holes with 0.1 < M < 0.7 solar masses.

Any questions?

Yours in the new paradigm,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

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  • Post #55

ahahaha You won RLO ,you found the number of cosmological spheres congratulations,yes it's 42 ,8 planets ,1 sun ,thus 33 others in the moons ahahah you win a beautiful book about general relativity and spherisation .

Congratulations Mr Oldershaw ,you can take your prize in Belgium at the belgium bank of the spherisation .Don't forget your passport and documents .ahaha congratulations .

From COSMOCOFFEE Blog, 10/26/2009

The following paper is about to be published:

The Proton As A Kerr-Newman Black Hole

Electronic Journal of Theoretical Physics, 6(22), 167−170, 30 Oct 2009.

Available soon at: http://ejtp.com/latest.html

A first draft of the paper can be found at www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw if you click on "New Developments" and choose #2 "The Proton...".

Unfortunately the first draft does not report the retrodiction of the proton's mass and radius using the full Kerr-Newman treatment, but the paper does. Also available in "Technical Notes", #3 "Modeling Subatimic..."

I would welcome comments/questions relating to the scientific aspects of this paper.

Important note: Emotion has a bad influence on objective reasoning. This is part of the human condition, and in other respects emotion plays an important and highly beneficial role [like avoiding injury and procreating]. However, when a scientist wants to understand nature, he/she turns the emotion dial way down. Claro que si, eh?

Anger is rarely [never?] appropriate; it usually backfires and harms the source [and others] even more than the intended target. Understanding is harder but more appropriate and more likely to lead to intelligent responses.

Yours in the new paradigm,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

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  • Post #58

Mr Oldershaw ,

Thanks it's nice ,It is not still the hour you know ,I take my anxiolytic ,neuroleptic ,just before sleeping .

How do you know what I take meds ,bizare I suspect the CIA ahahaha ,

Like you say ,emotions need a balance ,if not that hasn't any sense .

The anger is the sister of the vanity .Only the love rests ,even when a people is anger against you .

Don't forget to take your prize in Belgium ,I will show you our little country ,11 000 000 people only .One of the most dense in Europe ,about 350 /km² I think .But Beautiful .

Regards

Steve

I hear that the percentage of people in that region of the Earth who believe in Darwinian Evolution is 2-3 times higher than in the USA.

It must be nice to live in a scientifically literate country.

Keep my prize on ice until I get there.

Thanks,

RLO

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  • Post #60

Hello Mr Oldershaw ,

I must say that yes indeed Belgium is a skill country where we have had good bases in sciences .Our schools system is very good like our social security ,it's one of the best in the world .Small but competent my little country .All are welcome for synergies .

Best Regards

Steve