Lessons from failures to achieve what was possible in the twentieth century physics by Vesselin Petkov

You have,I feel,really grasped why present day generation of physicists have failed to reconcile GR with Quantum-Mechanics.It is not only lack of conceptual analysis but more importantly of framing proper concepts which lie at the foundation of the problem,which is lacking in them.

Thanks,anyway,for your article and let it be the eye opener for those who want to solve the above problem.

Best regards

B N Sreenath.

I continue with my answers:

Dear Steven,

I believe the fairest way to answer your question is if you try to do it yourself. I would love to do it, but first I have to convince you that you may be preventing yourself from proper understanding by starting with "Please don't start about wordlines or Pythagoras." In any case you are implicitly using worldlines - "It should curve." That "it" (what curves is precisely the worldline or rather the worldtube of the rocket (because the rocket is an spatially extended object). In Minkowski's interpretation the proper time of an object is the length of its worldline - if the object accelerates its worldline is curved and therefore its proper time is also "curved".

What you are writing - "the time vector is pointing in a orthogonal imaginary dimension" - is correct (except "imaginary") but it does not lead to any contradictions. As your rocket accelerates its instantaneous spaces corresponding to different moments of the rocket's time do not remain parallel to one another (as is the case with a uniformly moving rocket) - they are inclined to one another and at any moment of the rocket's time the instantaneous time direction (I will not use "the tangent to the curved worldline of the rocket and that moment/event") is orthogonal to the instantaneous rocket's space at the same moment.

Let me ask you to examine carefully the foundations of relativity before declaring that worldlines, proper times, instantaneous spaces are just labels. You can see right away that those are not part of a terminology game played by physicists. Imagine three uniformly moving rockets - 1, 2, and 3 in addition to your accelerating rocket A; all move in the same direction. 1, 2, and 3 move with normalized speeds (say, 0.1c, 0.2c, and 0.3c, where c is the speed of light) relative to a "stationary" object (a fifth rocket). As A accelerates it will chase the three uniformly moving rockets. At one moment of A's time A will be instantaneously at rest with respect to 1 (both will have the same instantaneous velocity relative to the "stationary" object). This means that A and 1 will instantaneously share the same space and time at that moment; therefore A's time direction will be orthogonal to A's instantaneous space at that moment (because 1's time direction is orthogonal to 1's space). The same scenario happens when A's speed momentarily coincides with the speed of 2 and 3. But 1, 2, and 3 are in relative motion which means that they have different classes of simultaneous events and therefore different spaces (since a space constitutes a class of simultaneous events). This example demonstrates why the spaces of A that correspond to different moments of A's time are not parallel to one another.

Good luck with the contest too!

Vesselin Petkov

Vesselin

I believe all three of your postulates are correct. I applaud you on your essay and wish you good fortune. Have you read the 'Perfect Symmetry' essay by P Jackson? If not you should, if you have look a bit deeper, it proves your postulates correct and is very exciting. You think the same from different routes, yours is clearer but he has though much further onwards.

Best wishes

Phil

Dear Amrit,

When Minkowski united space and time he called the new entity 'the absolute world' and argued that the postulate of the absolute world represented relativity better than the relativity postulate. Whether or not what we now call spacetime itself is real is a separate question. I simply explained Minkowski's point of view that relativity implies a four-dimensional world. That is why I understand your question "Do we have any experimental data space-time being physical reality?" in a sense whether we have experimental evidence that the world is four-dimensional.

Minkowski himself emphasized that the new view of space and time is forced upon us by experimental physics. I tried to show on p. 3 of the essay that a hundred years after Minkowski we should have done better - we should have continued Minkowski's arguments and realized that not only would relativity (as a theory) be impossible in a three-dimensional world, but most importantly the experiments that confirmed its predictions would be impossible if the macroscopic physical bodies (devices) involved in those experiments were three-dimensional.

It is not necessary to trust Minkowski or anyone else. If you doubt that the world is four-dimensional and believe that relativity is perfectly possible in a three-dimensional world, trust only yourself, but do it professionally - assume that the world and the macroscopic objects are indeed three-dimensional and analyze relativity of simultaneity, length contraction, time dilation, and the twin paradox, for example, and see whether they will be possible. Minkowski already gave the correct relativistic explanation of length contraction in his paper (reproduced on pp. 3-4 in the essay). Let me repeat that length contraction (which along with time dilation is a specific manifestation of relativity of simultaneity) was also experimentally tested in the muon experiment in the muon frame; see G. F. R. Ellis and R. M. Williams, Flat and Curved Space Times (Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988) p. 104. If you like you can compare your analysis with that in Chap. 5 of ref. 8 in the essay.

Best wishes,

Vesselin Petkov

Dear Vesselin,

You mentioned Minkowski's argument that spacetime is forced upon us by experimental physics.

I would like to object that future evades measurement. Past events are unchangeable, future ones are uncertain except for the toy of an assumed closed system. Wrt reality, the two cones combine apples and fruits.

Do not get me wrong. I appreciate equations which are more elegantly written with the box symbol instead of nabla and delta. However, I cannot see a new quality in 4D.

You argued "experiments that confirmed its predictions would be impossible if the macroscopic physical bodies (devices) involved in those experiments were three-dimensional" and furnished an example: "experimentally tested in the muon experiment in the muon frame". Maybe, I am not the only one who would not be in position to realize and ultimately exclude some sort of self-deceptive misuse of inapt mathematics. It is just my gut feeling that white holes, the Rosen bridge, and similar outgrows of 4D theory are merely science fiction.

I vote for restriction of physics to falsifiable theories.

I am an EE. Voltage and current are measurable fundamental quantities. Reactive current, imaginary voltage, evanescent modes, and the like are fictitious components without a likewise direct physical meaning independent from their undoubtedly plausibly agreed role in an arbitrarily chosen system. A complex impedance could not at all be free of arbitrariness if we did not already arbitrarily chose the sign of the imaginary part of the kernel in the definition of Fourier transform.

Regards,

Eckard

Before continuing with my answers I cannot resist the temptation to address the above (Eckard's) post since I find it tellingly unfortunate that he wrote it immediately after my answer to Amrit's question where I specifically addressed the kind of doubts he had and the type of statements he made.

Dear Eckard,

You wrote: "I would like to object that future evades measurement. Past events are unchangeable, future ones are uncertain except for the toy of an assumed closed system. Wrt reality, the two cones combine apples and fruits. "

How do you know that? That is the whole point of the issue (of the reality of the Minkowski absolute four-dimensional world) that we have to resolve. You cannot start working on this issue by explicitly taking for granted an answer to what has to be determined - whether or not the future events are uncertain.

You can, of course, write "It is just my gut feeling that white holes, the Rosen bridge, and similar outgrows of 4D theory are merely science fiction." In fact, we all are entitled to our views. But I think what everyone of us should constantly keep in mind is that Nature does not care about our personal opinions. That is why, in my answer to Amrit I briefly outlined what I regard as the best way to test our views - try to see whether the ultimate judge (the experimental evidence) has something to say about these views.

What you wrote in your last paragraph starting with "I am an EE" will be addressed in my answer to Tobias Fritz' post. But I can say right now that the very essence of the art of doing physics is to identify which theoretical concepts in our theories have counterparts in the external world.

Best wishes,

Vesselin Petkov

Dear Vesselin,

Yes, what I wrote does at least in part refer to your attempt to belittle Amrit's doubts. And Yes, I agree with you: We may approach to the ultimate truth by means of proper interpretation of experience and experiments.

I also agree that "the whole point of the issue" is "whether or not the future is uncertain".

You are claiming:²... the very essence of the art of doing physics is to identify which theoretical concepts in our theories have counterparts in the external world."

I will write a detailed reply and put it on my thread 527.

Regards,

Eckard

My Dear Vesselin

Your axioms are excellent, and mathe must be tamed by reality, indeed I think it has now been and your proposition proven - read Peter Jacksons paper behind his essay here, (but dig deep as it's obscured to test his own axiomns) - The assumption that a formulae can take the placce of a physical process it what's been screening the truth. Yoiu are thereby proven correct.

Best wishes

Rickard

Vesselin

Thanks for your responses of 19th October. I have been busy with my own site and other discussions, as you have no doubt been, and not had time before to consider your response. Some comments:

1. In the second part of your response you wrote "I do not know what you mean by "there is one common space that we all exist in (don't we ? )". However, I hope you do not base this statement on what we perceive, because what we believe we " perceive" as one common space (through the distances between objects) does not constitute even a space "

Let me explain my viewpoint (covered more fully but not completely in my essay). NB I fully accept relativity theories and their consequences for simultaneity, observable universes etc. - but in what follows I ignore it to keep my explanation simple.

Science is two sided. There is the experimental / observational side that consists of scientifically valid experimental data. I call this the Reasonable side. On the other side are the mathematical theories we construct logically to "explain" the data. This is the Rational side. Science is about continually improving our theories to explain our ever increasing experimental data; i.e. about effective correspondences between the Empirically Reasonable True Facts of Life as we experience it on one hand - and the logically correct True Statements that we use to explain them.

Both experimenters and theorists use much of the same terminology - but with differing meanings. Your comment that I quote uses the word "space" with two different meanings. I may have done the same thing. We all often do. We should not. It tends to produce this kind of confusion.

We all exist experimentally in one "physical space" that is totally connected. All experimental data is measured in that space and requires 3 space co-ordinates to specify it; i.e. physical space is 3 dimensional. We also record a "Now" time to fully specify the data. ALL scientifically correct empirical experimental data is specified as being in a universe with 3 space dimensions and one of time. We as humans have no other choice, scientifically.

When you above, and Minkowski etc., use the word "space" you are referring to a logical construct that is logically correct. You are not referring to physical space. Your science is one sided; incomplete. Theoretically I do not care what formalism you or Minkowski or anyone else prefers to use as (for you) the most effective explanation of the data. Some people use 4D continua; some use 6D, some use 0 D. some use 10D, 26D, etc., etc. (see my essay). I do not (here) dispute any of your claims as to being true = logically correct. You just leave the job unfinished - like many scientists.

For any preferred formalism its purpose is to explain - not eliminate - the world of scientific data. See my Weiberg Quote (QTF Vol1 pages xx-xxi)

2. I think you assert that a 4D Minkowski Space-time continuum is the only logically correct formalism. I do not accept that. We disagree. Our respective essays must suffice for now.

You rely a lot on Minkowski. Perhaps you could give me some references to the experiments he carried out and the scientific data he produced. Or (see my essay), perhaps Not. He was after all a mathematician; not a physicist. Sadly, for many physicists, especially Einstein, he is a god - of physics ?

Your response, as i read it, suggests you are making the three mistakes your essay condemns.

I would like to support Anonymous who here very understandably explained his pets: Rational is not just meant in its mathematical sense but stands for theoretical constructs in general while reasonable refers to the side of experience including not too mathematically diluted experiments. Alone for this clarification Anonymous deserves high rating. Sorry, I put you Vesselin into the drawer of the many who I consider not on the right way.

Regards to Anonymous,

Eckard

Sorry i failed to note the freshness of your essay and specially the three point advice/suggestion you have given for the younger generation of phyicists. Bravo, it is needed.

I am getting so used to being "Anonymous" that i will have to have new monograms sewn on all my linen.

I must go and talk to my seamstress

After it got clear to everybody whom I support instead of Vesselin Petkov, everybody should vote for Terry, even those who consider me a moron who's bold style challenges the gods or even suspect me to be the devil. We are absolutely independent from each other.

Eckard Blumschein

Hi Vesselin:

What I characterize as the "Minkowski error" is the notion that it is possible to have a geodesic simply because one has a particle, or preferably, and I know this is central to the categorical problem of quantum mechanics "a quantum object". I am not going to try and define the quantum object here, as we seem to have about a dozen different definitions and theories in any case. My point was that you cannot derive time exogenously from changes within the light cone. The Barbour piece from the FqXi contest is only a quick reference to the clock problem. What you really want to look at to see the structure of his argument is "Relativity without Relativity" http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0012/0012089v3.pdf, especially the treatment of geodesics and Jacobi actions (and Julian's categorification of "good" and "bad" Jacobi-type actions and Karel Kuchar's recognition that BSW was both a Jacobi type action and a non-standard form local square root. I know this is a bit obscure for the average reader and I apologize for this.

In non technical terms, let me borrow Julian's phrase, "Change does not occur in time. Rather dynamics relates all changes in the universe to each other". What I call the Minkowski error is the assumption that it is possible to have a geodesic where the only change is the "flow" of time, because, like Julian and Peter Lynds, I believe that fundamentally "time does not flow", and that the perceived "flow" of time is an artefact of the human nervous system. I probably stop a step short of Julian's timeless universe, but agree that time is a second order variable in quantum cosmology. My point is that implicit in Minkowski's view is the notion of time as independent of dynamics. I think this is an incorrect construction of geodesics. It's a carry-over from Newton's old idea that the rate of the flow of time is one second per second, which I think from any of the current quantum mechanical theories is at best problematic and at worst nonsensical.

Cheers,

Phil

Hi Vesselin,

In connection with our brief exchange here regarding the reality of Minkowski space, I just wanted to draw your attention to the paper by Brown and Pooley "Minkowski space-time: a glorious non-entity", which you no doubt aware of (since you contributed to the same collection "The Ontology of Spacetime").

Vesselin,

OK. Let me suggest the following possible scenario, which I briefly address in my essay (and which might be endorsed by a number of quantum gravity researchers).

The time is not a 'dimension' but is embodied in the structural/relational (event-based) representation that we proposed as a generalization of the concept of natural numbers. The latter, as you know, was responsible for both, our concept of time and that of 'dimension'.

The proposed representation is informational and may be primary in relation to any directly observable, i.e. spatial, representation. Hence the latter might quite well be the result of the instantiation of the above informational/structural/temporal representation.

So under such scenario there is no time 'dimension', but time is simply embodied in the streams of events initially encoded informationally and only then instantiated spatially.

According to this scenario, 'time' is *qualitatively different* than the spatial entities and cannot be lumped together with them at all, even if one brings in the "─" sign in the Minkowski quadratic form.

Vesselin,

Who said that "the meter stick constitutes a class of simultaneous events"?