Readers' Choice: Much Ado About Nothing

Dear Peter,

I think a Discrete Field Theory model would just about send Occam, and his razor, running out of the physics department, screaming. Ive considered variations of DFM; I agree that its a lot closer to the truth then anything we have so far. But if we were relying upon a simple explanation to explain the universe, I suspect that no simple AND complete description of the universe exists.

As for hyper-drive physics, we might have to hire a contractor that actually lives/exists in hyper-space. With our space-time space-ship, and a

hyper-space component of the spaceship, it might be possible to creatively get the two parts to couple in a way that removes our spaceship from space-time.

I wouldn't buy any hyper-drive stock this year; it's going to take a while to figure this stuff out.

Dear Peter,

Please forgive my obsession with hyper-drives. I believe that it provides a useful tool to help figure out what the physical universe is all about. Causality and conservation of energy are held as absolute in my models; everything else can be changed, but only if I can explain it.

For example, DFM is a usable in my hyper-drive approach. Let's say that I want to build a hyper-drive similar to the ones in the movie Independence Day. I want spaceships that can hover and glide over cities. Allow me to list my assumptions.

First: I assume the existence of a hyperspace that is very similar to our space-time, with c'>>c, and I can change the Planck constant.

Second: Such a hyper-space has its own photons, charges, etc. But that hyper-space is un-coupled with our space-time.

Third: I can control the coupling however I want, so long as I can explain the consequences in some plausible way.

Here is what I get. I need two spaceships, one in our space-time (STSS), and one in hyper-space (HSS). They coupling occurs via a trans-dimensional DFM generator. When the appropriate amount of energy is supplied, the DFM generator can transition the STSS and the space around it, and move it into hyper-space as sort of a space-time bubble. The energy requirement of this transition will have to account for gravity effects, and the mass of the STSS, will have to be converted into an effective hyper-space mass using E=mc2=m'c'2.

The transdimensional energy field will remove the STSS from our universe. That will permit a hyper-drive propulsion system to operate with a very reasonable amount of energy. There is just the energy gap to move the STSS into hyper-space, and the energy cost to shift the gravitational burden from the STSS to the HSS.

For transitions of energy between two universes, I'm not allowed to violate energy conservation. If I do, it will generate a gravity field between the two universes.

Hi Jason

The problem is that you have to drop to the same level of logical consistency and falsifiability as string theory, M theory and much cosmology - rock bottom! And they don't predict anything different to relativity, which all reduces any value to that of science fiction. You can make any starting asssumptions you like! I could make a couple of slightly different ones to make hyperdrive easier still! Visualisation is essential, but science also has to pass tests of empiricism and logic.

That's where the DFM is different. It predicts different things, like the ability to observe superluminal motion from a 3rd frame, 'Shapiro' Einstein lensing delays of well over 3years, a quadropolar assymmetry in the CMB, perpendicular assymmetry in the planetary bow shock, Apparent Lorentz violations in ranging results, significant additional accellerations at the edges of magnetospheres, etc. etc. It turns out all these things are actually exactly as observed, and are currently considered anomalous.

On Occam. Feynman said the true answer when found would look strange at first, then almost too simple. The DFM is actually too simple for those - as Einsteins said, unable to see past their own view of things, to believe. It's Relativity that's impossibly complex. The DFM says that; if a kiddy is riding his trike on a train on a planet that is moving through space, an observer out in space watching would be able to simply add the velocities of the planet, train and trike.

At present, the train in would have to contract more than the rails it's running on, and the trike shrink more than the train. It's logical inconsistency from circular 'Alice in Wonderland' maths. If the observer were a visitor searching for intelligent life, and knew we believed in contraction, he'd be off to search elsewhere!

The Discrete Field Model actually proves the postulates of SR, but without the silly assumptions we've added, and with a simple known quantum mechanism to acheive equivalence and unify physics. Unfortunately it seems Einstein and the visitor were correct!

I'm impressed and encouraged if you understand it - but can you see it's implications?

Peter

PS. I'm off sailing so wont reply for a few days.

Hi Peter,

Welcome back from sailing; lucky you!

This is becoming a loose nail that needs to be hammered down. Locally, two objects cannot pass each other any faster than the speed of light; that much is intuitive.

There are reports of galaxies, millions of light years apart, that are moving apart at multiples of the speed of light. Even you have provided examples of huge spinning black holes that spit out a layer of material moving at .999...c - the ship; within that, there is another layer, the swimmer, that moves .999...c relative to the first layer; etc, etc...

Do we need to estimate the velocity of a layer of space in addition to its speed of light? I'm also getting hung up on DFM. Fields themselves are things that are supposed to obey the speed of light restriction; not overturn it.

Setting my hyper-drive ideas aside, at the end of the day, do we have a way to travel long distances faster than the speed of light? Or is there something that we've overlooked?

A planet is passing us at 0.9c; on the planet is a bullet train that travels .8c; on top of the bullet train is an ADHD kid on a tricycle who is peddling 0.7c. That kid drops its candy and, as bad luck would have it, it goes right through our window; but how fast? That piece of candy is going to hit our ship very hard when it hits us at .995c; not 2,5c.

In addition, if we wanted a trade route with a colony 10 light years away, are we going to use 10 stage rockets, where each stage is guaranteed to advance the remaining stages to .9c? According to what you are saying, this will give us a velocity of 9c to our colony. So what happens when we pass through the asteroids that we didn't account for? OK, not you and I, but some very unfortunate travelers? Moving faster than c should remove the spaceship from space-time itself, right? If not, then those poor travelers are going to hit the asteroid at some .999999c, for a very bright explosion that will be visible from earth and the colony 10 light years away.

My point is this: DFM probably can account for frame-dragging and these other FTL phenomena. But at best, it is fools gold FTL. It is not anything that can be used like an alcubierre drive or a star trek warp drive. I've solved most of that riddle, but it's way beyond anything we can do now.

Sailing brill, beat 2 TP52's and an Americas Cupper in 2 races.

You asked; "Do we need to estimate the velocity of a layer of space in addition to its speed of light? I'm also getting hung up on DFM. Fields themselves are things that are supposed to obey the speed of light restriction; not overturn it."

Yes. But all fields are Lorentz invariant wrt their immediate surrounds.

The piece of candy will be quickly slowed to below the local 'c' by, and with respect to, all fields it passes through on it's way to our window.

Big asteroids will get many travellers unless we also send a decent particle 'barrier tube' down the tubes. Smaller ones, and those on a similar trajectory will be deflected. But it's even trickier; The starting point must be the same wrt the next larger field. i.e. We'd have to build a station outside our galaxy and go there to start each journey. As the galaxy heads off into the distance we'd need to keep building staging posts! The reality really isn't very practical for hyperdrive I'm afraid.

But the DFM is a lot more than useful than for fantasies like warp drive. Half of the physics we use is well past it's sell by date and can't be used with the other half. The coherent reality physics of DFM will release us to make leaps and bounds in all directions.

That's if we're bright enough of course, which it seems most may not be. There are still only about 7, and you?, who've looked properly and understand it. Another 30m and we're there! Any ideas on how to get there?

Peter

"Another 30m and we're there! Any ideas on how to get there?" Ooh, ah er??? I'll keep looking up at the stars and asking the aliens to visit some university physics departments.

The warp drive, aka Alcubierre drive, is a bit impractical. I heard they think they could do it if they could just convert Jupiter into pure energy.

I understand that real physicists have to work with plausible tools like barrier tubes. As a physics hobbyist, I have the luxury of being able to work backwards from the assumption that hyper-drives are possible. It's a bit complicated, but in principle, it would work this way.

DFM is a good model for space. I am using two variations of that to describe the existence of a necessary multiverse with coexisting universes whose imaginary time lines are orthogonal and non-interacting with ours. A separate imaginary time line is one way to describe a space-time. This allows me to make "space" available to place a universe. It also succinctly refers to both QM and relativity by the use of the imaginary number, i. Imaginary time-lines refer to the oscillations of wave-functions, photons, electromagnetic fields. The ict term, squared, refers to the Lorentz transformation. Each universe has its own imaginary time line. I also have to assume that the physics constants can be different; in fact we will require a coexisting universe with a speed of light c' >> c in order to trek around the galaxy in any reasonable time frame.

The other way I model space-time is with a tessellated lattice of pentachorons that adhere to Causal Dynamics Triangulation; in effect, time travel is now restricted and impossible. This a really a solid state/semiconductor physics model of space. It lets me describe fermions as the vertices and bosons as the struts. Obviously, we agree that space cannot be rigid like a quartz crystal. This type of model should reproduce DFM. By the way, such a lattice has to account for inertia, carry its own fermions and bosons, and account for gravity as being the fermion/boson load on the lattice.

Here is the hard part. Such a tessellated lattice, imaginary time line or DFM is going to be similar to a very elaborate wave function. I need to be able to generate a space-time lattice within a chamber. The chamber will generate the artificial space-time which holds the crew and cargo.

Here is the other hard part. I need to be able to transition that artificial space-time chamber from our physical universe into a coexisting faster space-time (hyper-space), in which I have a hyper-drive propulsion system already constructed. In effect, I will have the propulsion system built out of hyper-space fermions/bosons. The space-time generating chamber will be transitionable between our imaginary time line and the coexisting hyper-space imaginary time line.

That is as succinctly as I can describe a hyper-drive propulsion system. Logically, I believe it makes sense. However, such technology is laughably beyond our grasp.

Dear Peter,

I wrote an abstract that is more succinct.

In order to achieve the result of interstellar travel on a reasonable time scale using an apparent faster-than-light propulsion system, the following description of necessary technologies must first be understood. We begin with two models of the physical universe: (1) imaginary-time and (2) a tessellated lattice of Causal Dynamical Triangulation adherent pentachorons called the CDT Lattice. An artificial CDT lattice of space-time is to be generated by the Vacuum Lattice Chamber. The Vacuum Lattice Chamber allows the 19 physics constants to be configured in such a way as to generate, as a standing wave, the CDT lattice. The Vacuum Lattice Chamber itself is designed to transition between the two imaginary time lines of this space-time, and the coexisting faster space-time (hyper-space). The Vacuum Lattice Chamber is a time-line shifting projection from the hyper-space constructed propulsion engines. These propulsion engines obey relativity relative to the faster speed of light, c' >> c.

Hi Peter,

"The piece of candy will be quickly slowed to below the local 'c' by, and with respect to, all fields it passes through on it's way to our window."

Even in the vacuum of space, you have virtual particles bouncing around at the ZPE ground state. Don't those also have sufficient reach to slow the piece of candy down? I was employing the idea of a CDT lattice. In a way, the earth's crust is like a crystal that rides on the molten lava beneath it. Do we have to look at some similar kind of metaphor?

I was looking up the discrete field model when I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_motion

It said that the magnetic field that is generated by M87, or the earth, are sufficient to establish its own preferred frame of reference. Obviously that preferred frame of reference can be different from some other frame of reference which makes the speed of light, c, dependent upon whichever frame of reference.

Transitions between frames of reference follow what rules?

Maybe another way to think of the Discrete Field Theory is that space itself always follows mass & energy. Even if it's dark matter that we can't see, which has a gravity field. I find it hard to explain dark energy which makes the universe expand faster than it should. Maybe dark energy is coming from a spigot somewhere, and somebody forgot to turn it off.

Hi Jason

An interesting and perceptive view in your wiki reference. I'm surprised the relativist regime hasn't noticed it and censored it out! The preferred reference frame is the only answer to the gas jet 'anomaly' meeting observation and coming anywhere near Occams razer, but it's not consistent with the Equivalence mechnism assumed for SR.

You're right, using the DFM mechanism lets it all work, very simply, and unifies it with QFT.

But it doesn't seem to matter how good a solution is, as Ghandi and others have said; First they ignore you, then they try to fight you, then you win.(if you're still alive by then!).

You asked; "Transitions between frames of reference follow what rules?"

Good question. Lets think what they are;

1. 'c' is certainly constant to both frames as that's the whole basis.

2. The Doppler shift is obviously proportional to the relative motion of the frames.

3. The boundary 'cloud/shock/halo' density/size is obviously similarly proportional.

4. The rate of particle oscillation/spin is also directly proportional.

There should also be some kind of constant relating to the position of the boundary layer wrt to mass density/spread characteristics, but that'll need some working out from the empirical data. That's about all I can think of off the cuff, it's so simple. Can you think of any more?

Peter

It's 'Model' Jason; 'Discrete Field Model' (DFM) rather than 'theory'. That's because it simply arranges what we already know to build something that works better, rather than postulating any unfalsifiable 'ideas'.

The other key is that, uniquely, it predicts things that the old SR without the DFM mechanism does not, and all those predictions are borne out, solving a few anomalies.

That space always follows mass/energy is pretty well the basis of GR, which the DFM modified SR, allowing quantum fields, does indeed work far better with.

Don't be concerned at not understanding dark energy! It's a bit like the Greeks not understanding electricity. The more we learn about it the better we'll know it, but we may never anyway fully understand it!

Frankly, considering the rut we're stuck in, the chasm between Relativity and QFT, unless the present powers that be in physics can eshew old 'belief' based science we'll probably run out of time before we have a chance to get to know dark energy!

Peter

Hi Peter,

I would think that space has to be continuous. Rips, tears and gaps are fun to think about in terms of science fiction, but it hasn't been observed. We should require space to be continuous until proven otherwise.

Also, I don't know how to express this mathematically, but I would think that the speed of light c at location 1: c(1) would have some energy difference versus some different location c(2). Positions (1) and (2), separated by some distance L, should suffer a difference in energy. We would expect c(2) - c(1) to equal zero. If they do not, then there should be some relationship c(2) - c(1)/L = an energy term. Transitioning across that energy term would solve the problem, I would think.

Dear Peter,

I don't think we're going to run out of time. I think we're going to be stuck here for as long as it takes to figure this out. If physics was logical, we would have figured it out by now. But it's not. It's mathematical, we think.

M87 is far away, luckily. So if the image of the universe was going to become skewed in someway, then the whole galaxy would be deformed and scaled to 6c. Instead, the galaxy obeys c, but the jet appears to cross space at 6c. On the same link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_motion, what is being described just isn't rational. It's not logical that c should be the speed limit, but the jet travels at 6c.

If you have a frame moving within a frame, multiple times, then something has to give. Transitioning between a 6c frame and a 1c frame has to involve a cost of some kind.

Ultimately, frames have to pass photons back and forth to tell each other that their there. If they didn't, we wouldn't see the jet at all. It would be invisible.

Since people and planets could not survive long enough to observe the oncoming jet, let's just imagine a proton in the eye of some unlucky alien astronomer who is looking at the black hole through his telescope on some space station. He is watching the black hole. And then, without any visual warning, he and his space station are vaporized by the 6c jet of energy.

The proton from his now disintegrated eye happens to observe extreme blue shifting. The proton would begin to experience extreme forces of acceleration as it is accelerated from a 1c frame to a 6c frame. As luck would have it, the jet struck at a slight angle, and kicked the proton to the side, back down to a 1c frame. In falling back to a 1c frame, the proton experienced massive red shifting for a short time.

Technically, the inside of the event horizon should be faster than light. However, anything that falls in should remain within a 1c frame, locally. Even if that 1c frame is very brief.

Does this help?

Hi Jason.

"I think we're going to be stuck here for as long as it takes" - But, as Hawking says, we have to be bright enough to deal with what the universe may throw at us, and if we're stuck in a rut we're not that bright!

"Transitioning between a 6c frame and a 1c frame has to involve a cost of some kind."

True. Each transition is an FM process of wave particle interaction, Doppler shifting the signal. But remember; The information being transmitted to us is about position, it doesn't contain the information in the signal whose relative positions over time we're observing. It's the same as observing a shadow line retreating on a curve. It can do so at well over 'c' without being Lorentz invariant. But the human race is not quite bright enough to perceive that yet.

"..without any visual warning, he and his space station are vaporized"

But as you say, the 'c' stream will have to reach him before the stream doing 'c' wrt the first, so he'd be 'gradually' accelerated. He'd eventually get back into a rest frame, then slowly decelerate (though the jet is over 100 light years long!).

The interesting thing about Discrete Fields is that they actually prove the SR postulates correct - the error was in the assumed mechanism for Equivalence, - which then demanded length contraction and Sagnac invariance! It's really just unifying a dark energy medium with local EM and gravity fields, to unify SR with QM. Perhaps it's all just tooo simple for us! - but I'm impressed you've grasped the concept.

Peter

Dear Peter,

"Perhaps it's all just tooo simple for us!" I would be laughing my butt off if my head didn't hurt from thinking about it. Simple? Simple to who? Or what? The more I think about it, I think discrete fields makes sense. I'm trying to wrap my brain around some kind of virtual photon like mechanism that transmits information (probability) between particles. The concept is bigger than my head is; but I think entropic gravity, space, and wave functions have more to do with each other than we suspect. It's as if Information (yes or no/definitiveness) travels at the speed of light; however, maybies and perhapses travel much faster. Perhaps you call it discrete fields, but the way I visualize it, it's like another kind of photon emission/absorption; such that it transmits and receives information.

Dear Peter,

The Discrete Field Model basically says that physical matter generates its own space, right? If so, then the hyper-drive becomes simple. Let's call physical matter: matter A. Let's called hyper-space matter, matter B. So B matter generates B hyper-space, and A matter generates space-time.

I build my spaceship with material from both A and B matter. I have some kind of A to B interconnecting matter/force. The inside of my spaceship, computers, Captain's chair, etc., are made out of A matter. The outside hull and the engines are made out of B matter. If the A matter is completely cutoff from the rest of the physical universe of A matter, then B matter (hyper-space matter) can reach multiples of the speed of light (our speed of light).

For such an arrangement, we can now go trekking across the galaxy!

Warp 9 Mr. Sulu.

Hi Jason

Interestingly 8year olds seem to understand it quickest!

They know if they ride their bike on a bus they can't ride it faster, but will get there faster than their freind riding on the road.

Just think of each EM field as a bus that EM waves can only do 'c' through.

The FM process of getting on and off the bus through the turnstile (Doppler shifting) is simple too. We all have FM radio's. If an EM wave has to get past the oscillator it can only do so at the oscillators frequency. We know that already!

Feynman was spot on; "nature will always find a simpler way than man can imagine." and "the answer will at first look complicated but then very simple."

Actaully we could 'anagram' the first to say something like; "Nature can't imagine how simple man will always be found."

It's probably our belief system that's at fault, and that we call it 'science'.

No, sorry, it doesn't support your hyperdrive mechnism. If you really want to chase that you must Focus on M87, Ted J's columnar motion, and fields within fields, and don't be distracted by fools gold or red herrings.

Best wishes

Peter

Hi Peter,

"It's probably our belief system that's at fault, and that we call it 'science'."

Perhaps nature is just very very strange. And perhaps we are all slow and hesitant to admit the truth.

I find myself a little bit obsessed by the Discrete Field Model. I keep thinking there is a constant flow of information between particles/waves. Information would transmit, at the speed of light, from the source to the receiving particle. The only constant speed of light would be the signaling that occurs. The speed of light is only relative to the particle or wave that emitted it. This "information flow" is space itself. It's not black body radiation that is causing space. If there were wave function interactions at work, would they go unnoticed? I'm still trying to pin down the difference between information and probability. Physics information really should be definitive (1's and 0's); yes or no...right? Probabilities are really just "maybies", dice...

For the Messier 87 jet, it probably really is accelerated to 6 or 7c. The front end of the jet, traveling at 7c, is also emitting a wavefront at one more c.

I wish there were pictures of something getting engulfed by the jet. That would tell us something about how FTL events interact with everything else.

I hope you don't mind me thinking out loud. So particles of matter basically broadcast to each other using virtual photons perhaps. They broadcast their position and motion to everything else around them. Together, they reach a consensus about what their group motion should be, thus establishing a frame of reference. When something flies by at larger than the speed of light, such as M87, gravitational forces prevent anything from violating the local speed of light requirement. I'll try to articulate that a little better.

I have a spaceship, but I build its hull out of a fast-space-time material, such that this material has virtual hyper-fast photons. This fast-hull material prevents the atoms/particles of the spaceship from broadcasting/receiving position/momentum information from stuff that is outside. The spaceship is isolated. The fast-hull material, interfaces with a coexisting hyper-space, and obeys that hyperspace's laws of physics. If the spaceship is traveling at .5c' where c' = 100c, and someone exposes the spaceship to standard space-time, there will be massive gravitational forces that slow the spaceship down to sub light speed.

Playing around with this example might make it possible to understand the physics of M87.