Ripping Apart Einstein

Georgina Woodward

Tom,

Mathematical completeness should not be mistaken for complete veracity of the idea the mathematics represents. Self consistency and mathematical completeness and correspondence with experiment does not necessarily mean the interpretation, I.E. meaning attached to it properly describes reality.

There is a category error within the interpretation of special relativity, I.E. within the meaning attached to it, made apparent through the paradoxes.

There are no absurdities when that category error is acknowledged and there is the necessary differentiation between foundational, substantial, source objects and emergent images.

Thomas Ray

Georgina, mathematical completeness in a physical theory obviates philosophical interpretation.

Akinbo Ojo

It is interesting and gives me a mixture of bafflement and perplexity, almost to the point of resignation when an innocent simple question gives rise to complex and not very straight forward answers. Natural philosophy, now called physics did not use to operate this way in my opinion.

Steve,

You mention why so much confusion about light. The reason is that the foundation of theoretical physics today centers around light behavior and velocity. In 1954 Albert Einstein wrote to his friend Michael Besso expressing his frustration: "All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken". Are you saying Steve has the answer to what light is? I don't really see what the length of two photons, whether of hundreds of meters or shorter than a few microns has to do with the timing of their collision over a distance of two-light years, which is the question I asked. Does the length of two cars have anything to do with the timing of their collisions?

By the way, I didn't throw MEE under the bus, but I don't see how it plays a role in the time two oppositely directed photons will collide with each other. Thanks anyway for the food for thought, it just shows resolving this dispute in physics ain't gonna be that easy (as Americans would say)!

JRC,

Sorry, if you were offended by my use of words. Perhaps, I didn't capture your meaning properly. Like my response to Steve implies, perhaps out of ignorance, I cannot just figure out what the decay rate of radioisotopes, the periodic half-life of Plutonium 238, the 5th dimension as applied in GR, Maxwell's equations, mathematical singularities, etc have to do with the simple question of the timing of collision of two photons two light-years distance apart. Is the answer one year or two years or something else? If it is one year, has one velocity then not been added to the other to make the velocity of photon A relative to that of photon B 2c in the way velocity addition laws dictate for collisions in physics?

As to your challenge, I think there are things more fundamental than the value of G. I have a hypothesis on the ontology and causality of gravity but it may be a distraction to bring it up here. But it is tempting that I give the idea, that 'action AT a distance' is actually 'action IN a distance', i.e. the action is actually taking place in the distance between bodies not in the bodies themselves.

Tom,

You ask, "In what frame of reference?"

I am surprised you ask this because the central doctrine in Einstein's relativity is that frame of reference does not matter or affect light velocity.

Personally, I would have wanted to say in the frame of reference of O, in my Figure 2, if you have had a look. But I am ready for you to give answers for other scenarios or the different frames of reference, if any.

Seeing your discussion of 'Sophie Germain primes', you probably, have greater mathematical skills than I have so why not use them to answer the questionbear here. In that paper I see that we share a motivation to resolve paradox (re: "what saves us from paradox" on page 2). I tried to look for clues in your Special relativity draft paper, but it seems contaminated (if you pardon me for using that word) with quantum mechanics and math beyond laymen whereas Special relativity is a classical proposition with simple math.

Regards,

Akinbo

Georgina Woodward

Tom, All,

-then since there is a category error, cause of the paradoxes, the theory is wrong even though the mathematics does represent a physical reality. Mathematical completeness is no guarantee of correctness.

Category mistake, Wikipedia "A category mistake, or category error, is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category,[1] or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. An example is the metaphor "time crawled", which if taken literally is not just false but a category mistake. To show that a category mistake has been committed one must typically show that once the phenomenon in question is properly understood, it becomes clear that the claim being made about it could not possibly be true."

I would also like to claim that it is a mathematical error, not mere philosophical argument or sematics, because it is assuming the members of one set are members of a different set to which they do not belong. The set of substantial objects is a different set from the set of emergent images and they do not overlap. Which invalidates the mathematically complete theory.

Thomas Ray

Akinbo,

"You ask, 'In what frame of reference?'"

I am surprised you ask this because the central doctrine in Einstein's relativity is that frame of reference does not matter or affect light velocity."

That the speed of light is constant in all reference frames does not imply that reference frames don't matter. It means that what every observer finds in her local frame of reference is equally valid with what all other observers find in theirs, even though the measurements they make are comparatively different. There is no privileged frame of reference--every observer carries his own clock.

"Personally, I would have wanted to say in the frame of reference of O, in my Figure 2, if you have had a look. But I am ready for you to give answers for other scenarios or the different frames of reference, if any."

You regard "photons" as little bullets, which if fired at identical initial velocities -- presumably from a "photon gun"-- at x distance apart in opposite directions, collide with y energy = 2y, at x' = 2x = O. Problem is, photons are massless particles whose initial velocity and final velocity are equal. So whether at x, x', O or any point on the trajectory, there is no change in energy or velocity. Your assumption of "relative velocity" is therefore wrong.

"Seeing your discussion of 'Sophie Germain primes', you probably, have greater mathematical skills than I have so why not use them to answer the questionbear here. In that paper I see that we share a motivation to resolve paradox (re: "what saves us from paradox" on page 2). I tried to look for clues in your Special relativity draft paper, but it seems contaminated (if you pardon me for using that word) with quantum mechanics and math beyond laymen whereas Special relativity is a classical proposition with simple math."

A physicist or mathematician would also say that my math is simple. It's just modular arithmetic, as when one uses a 12-hour clock to represent the passage of 13 hours in the cycle of a day as 1 o'clock. (13 = 1 mod 12)

The potential paradox I referred to in the paper is that between disconnected and linear sets of random vectors, and a nonlinear correspondence of square-integrable recurring values in a spacetime relation of vectors. Just as the absolute finite limit of velocity in special relativity compels all physics to be local, I find the absolute limit of space and time integration compels a finite set of recursive and infinite limits globally.

Tom

Thomas Ray

"Mathematical completeness is no guarantee of correctness."

Yes it is.

The special relativity equation E = mc^2 is entirely falsifiable in physical terms.

John Cox

No fair, Akinbo,

you asked your question instead of answering mine. Where you (not We) constantly want to apply arithematic to an algebraic solution to avoid the absolute velocity of light, you then go on to specify 'action IN a distance' without a second thought to the measuring requirement that any action must propagate across any distance at a universally absolute velocity for there to continuity between different 'actions' at all. In the Newtionian mechanics of high school and intro undergrad physics, that absolute universality was taken as 'instantaneous action at a distance'.

NeoNewtonians want to take the one element that can be physically measured, the velocity of light, and make it a relative value. Meanwhile the elements which cannot be physically measured as an absolute value, but only arbitrarily assigned; the length interval of a span in the duration of time or of space and the value and units of the Gravitational Constant, they assume to be universally uniform, unchanging and all pervasive absolutes. So, again... IF that notion of absolute time and absolute space is the physical reality you want it to be, why do the RPS units phenomenally outlive their (Newtonian) predicted operational parameters? Why is it so difficult to conceive of time as being manifest in different measure in different locale?

John Cox

Georgina,

Isn't it categorically erroneous for you to assume that what you call uni-temporal time, and which in physics is simply called 'absolute time', is the real physical reality which SR must conform with? Why is your personal psychology of what you think, you think your perception of time to be, anything more than a Jungian projection? The velocity of light is physically measurable, and true, that measurement is made by arbitrary assignment of length intervals for the duration of time and the direction in space. So why is it your choice to make light velocity the relative value, rather than those arbitrary indefinite assignations? Perhaps you might progress more easily into a modern idiom of physics if you question you personal category of an assumed uniform co-ordinate system which is unchanging, and which assigns an absolute value to arbitrary time and space intervals. What in your personal psychology, makes it difficult to conceive of time being manifest in different true measure in different states of motion in different locales, when in daily human experience we don't even sense that there would be something we might generically call 'the speed of time'? jrc

Steve Agnew

If you accept mass-energy equivalence, then you have answered your own question, but then you must do the math of MEE. Two photons approaching each other do so with a phase velocity of 2c whether at two light years or at one meter away. This phase velocity does not change c for either photon or for the observer and MEE is the key, but you do have to do the math.

Akinbo Ojo replied on Jun. 20, 2015 @ 10:19 GMT as "Are you saying Steve has the answer to what light is? I don't really see what the length of two photons, whether of hundreds of meters or shorter than a few microns has to do with the timing of their collision over a distance of two-light years, which is the question I asked. Does the length of two cars have anything to do with the timing of their collisions?"

Steve certainly seems to have a different notion of light than yours. The collision of two objects like cars most certainly does depend on their lengths...I think you want to define a photon collision when the centers of two photons overlap as a superposition, not when their edges overlap.

What I was trying to point out is that just like two cars collide when their edges and not their centers meet, two photons on the same world line are always in collision as a superposition state that began with emission. You want photons to be little well-defined objects like cars with a certain length. A photon does not have that kind of edge and that is what light is and what light does; light connects emitters with absorbers, even across the universe.

John Cox

Steve,

Again, you have a facility to state things well. It might be added the the equivalence principle applies to time:space as well as MEE. And that equivalence was what Christian Corda was so upset about, with Maudlin's characteristic lack of comprehension of the physics entailed in the math. Dilation is, I think probably often misconstrued as 'speeding up' or 'slowing down', when it's choice in the semantics of literature is strictly limited in definition as; 'enlargement'. That makes all the difference in properly correlating the math to the ontology. Measurement systems matter. But I am quite tired now, and bored of it. But please carry on, yourself, jrc

Robert McEachern

"two photons on the same world line are always in collision as a superposition state that began with emission."

Unfortunately, as soon as one starts talking about superpositions, one must confront the inconvenient truth, that superpositions do not "begin with emission". All superpositions exists throughout all time, even before the big bang. It is no wonder that QM has such a big problem with causality. Not only does the cat exist in the superposition of being both dead and alive, it exists in that superposition, even before the cat was born.

Rob McEachern

Steve Agnew

Certainly superpositions of light begin with emission and couple emitters with absorbers. There are other kinds of quantum state superpositions and that must be to what you are referring.

There is no problem with quantum causality; the problem is reconciling the determinate geodesic futures of GR, which are more intuitive, with the uncertainty of quantum futures. Phase and coherence have no roles in GR but are very important aspects of quantum futures. Without phase coherence, superpositions of states simply makes no sense in GR.

Georgina Woodward

Hi Steve, John , Robert , All,

Quote "......... two photons on the same world line are always in collision as a superposition state that began with emission. You want photons to be little well-defined objects like cars with a certain length. A photon does not have that kind of edge and that is what light is and what light does; light connects emitters with absorbers, even across the universe." Steve Agnew.

That may be so for the space-time continuum model in which substantial objects and EM radiation are "frozen" in space-time. That model is not necessary to account for non simultaneity of events and other characteristics of Relativity. All that is required is that images can be formed from EM radiation, that appear to show former events. The entire space-time continuum is unnecessary. If instead only the youngest configuration of the Object universe exists emission and absorption belong to different unique configurations and are not connected in space-time.

Quote"Unfortunately, as soon as one starts talking about superpositions, one must confront the inconvenient truth, that superpositions do not "begin with emission". All superpositions exists throughout all time, even before the big bang. It is no wonder that QM has such a big problem with causality. Not only does the cat exist in the superposition of being both dead and alive, it exists in that superposition, even before the cat was born." Robert H. McEachern

All of that inconvenient "truth" belongs to the space-time continuum model, though I think before the big bang might be going a bit far. It does not apply to the alternative mentioned above.

The deterministic outcomes of Relativity are due to outcomes being encoded in the electromagnetic radiation from which manifestations are produced. At each location only a limited sub set of data is obtainable giving a limited fixed state outcome. The outcome can only be what is producible from the potential sensory data at that location. Whereas for absolute substantial objects or particles the outcome is until measurement all that it can be found to be, leading to probabilistic outcomes. Both kinds of potential outcomes are compatible with a uni-temporal Object universe within which potential sensory data is distributed.

Robert McEachern

"Certainly superpositions of light begin with emission..." Superpositions, as described mathematically by Fourier Transforms, involve integrating from minus-infinity to plus-infinity. In other words, infinitely long, complex-sinusoids of constant amplitude and phase, "magically combine" to exactly equal zero, in every dimension, prior to the creation of "something", like a newly created cat or photon (the probability amplitude of the thing's existence must be zero, prior to its creation). But the amplitude and phase of each of those infinite sinusoids is fixed forever, in every dimension, and they are non-zero, even though they "magically" integrate to zero.

"There is no problem with quantum causality" Everything is being "caused" by unobserved "supernatural spirits", AKA wave functions, that exist for all eternity INCLUDING THE FUTURE. The Fourier transforms, typically used to mathematically describe wave function superpositions, when integrating over time, must integrate over ALL time, including the future that has not yet occurred. How did it know the future, in order to integrate over it? Determinism? It has to integrate over the ACTUAL future, not just the PROBABLE future. But QM does not claim to be able to determine the ACTUAL future.

Rob McEachern

Steve Agnew

Suffice it to say, the principle of MEE is truly foundational and is the basis of much of relativity...however, interpretations of space and motion in space are much trickier notions given the empty and continuously divisible nothing that space seems to be.

Much of the confusion about space and motion have to do with their limitations at very large and very small scales. Space and motion are also very different notions between GR and quantum and that is another source of confusion. As a result, quantum time is also not consistent with gravity time.

These confusions will unfortunately persist until science has a quantum gravity to complete its quantum universe.

John Cox

Steve,

Briefly, I can find general agreement in that, and think that where all classical must give some way is in the assumption that a field effect extends to infinity. I'm not near defending the conjecture, but it is at present consistent with the 'many spaces' conclusion of Minkowski, to hypothesize that in any (Boolean) intersection of a span of time with one of space; a dynamic results in a coincident extension up to the limit of light velocity. And as a direct consequence, there would also exist a finite limit to the relative length of the span in dimension of space. Perhaps similar to the virtual particles, or 'quantum fluctuations', of the Higg's Field. jrc

Georgina Woodward

John,

Thank you for your reply. The category error within relativity is not differentiating between externally existing objects and images being perceived ( outputs of sensory data processing).

You ask "Isn't it categorically erroneous for you to assume that what you call uni-temporal time, and which in physics is simply called 'absolute time', is the real physical reality which SR must conform with?" I am not asking SR to conform to my description of sequential uni-temporal passage of time. There are two different kinds of time that are of prime importance the passage of time independent of observation, and the time that is experienced by an observer. The observers present is formed from the sensory data received and processed, and that output seen is not synchronized with the external reality. There is inbuilt delay.

There is a difference between Newtonian absolute time and Uni-temporal "time". In agreement with J.C.N. Smith the time I call uni-temporal is a unique pattern of the entire (Object) universe, each time corresponds to a different unique pattern. It might be said in this regard there is no time that is separate from the substantial configuration and the passage of time is only temporal expression of the sequence of wholly spatial configurations.

You ask"Why is your personal psychology of what you think, you think your perception of time to be, anything more than a Jungian projection?" It is not mere personal psychology but the result of many years thinking about and testing various ideas about time. The two different kinds of time uni-temporal and emergent from the processing of sensory data allows non simultaneity of events and gives an absolute temporal background for atomic and subatomic events.

You wrote "So why is it your choice to make light velocity the relative value, rather than those arbitrary indefinite assignations?" I think you are mistaken in thinking I am making light velocity relative. The light velocity is always the same as measured by the observer of it and pertains to the observer's Image reality, the output generated from the received EM radiation.

You ask "What in your personal psychology, makes it difficult to conceive of time being manifest in different true measure in different states of motion in different locales, when in daily human experience we don't even sense that there would be something we might generically call 'the speed of time'?" I have no problem imagining time measured differently in different localities and in different states of motion.It is however important to realize that the measurement is an output of sensory data processing.It is as I see it a difference in the appearance of the passage of time and not a difference of "time itself", as time itself is a superfluous concept. The slowing of clocks under acceleration or gravitational field, I have considered likely to be due to inertia rather than parts of the (Object) universe existing at different times, and so a further category of 'clock time' may be required. Likewise processing of information by the brain can alter the timing of events within the output compared to the timing of data receipt, in contrast to a simple device acting as the reality interface. So(variable) psychological time can also be considered (See David Eagleman's FQXi talk.)

You wrote "Perhaps you might progress more easily into a modern idiom of physics if you question....." What I am doing is modern and new not as you seem to think trying to impose old superseded notions onto the tested theory of Relativity.

Georgina Woodward

Thomas,

I disagree. One can write a correctly spelled sentence that is grammatically correct and yet it can still be untrue, likewise one can write a mathematical theory that is self consistent, complete and corresponds to experimental result and is still incorrect. I have not wanted to criticize Relativity. The different interpretation though not needed by the theory itself does overcome a number of problems and so is helpful. A crutch offered with good intent not a sword.

Thomas Ray

Georgina,

"I disagree. One can write a correctly spelled sentence that is grammatically correct and yet it can still be untrue,"

One can write a correctly spelled sentence that is untrue, so long as it doesn't conflict with physical events that are true.

The measured events that the sentence describes are true, therefore your claim is are superfluous -- the statement is mathematically complete.

Akinbo Ojo

Georgina,

Your quotation from Wikipedia is central to today's trouble with physics. Wikipedia - "A category mistake, or category error, is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category, or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property...". I agree to this. I also accept your choice to offer a crutch to Special relativity and not a sword, but I don't know if you would still do this if you discover that what is a vector quantity (e.g. velocity) has now been categorized as a scalar, and what are scalar quantities (e.g. mass, length, time) have been categorized as vectors.

John (jrc),

I didn't want to take the discussion into strange territory where monsters in 5 -dimensions may be lurking. Same with hypothesizing a mechanism for gravity. If you wish, we could look at this later but let me give you this to think about... if a place called Georgina was placed between you and Tom, and that place called Georgina were to disappear leaving no space between you and Tom such that observationally, you both have moved nearer to each other (attraction) or even collided, has anything propagated between you and Tom? That is my proposed model for the seeming illusion of action-at-a-distance.

There is an equation I posted above for time dilation:

t' = t (в€љ1 - v2/c2).

Do you have any quarrel with this equation? If not, what does it imply for something travelling at a velocity, c?

Tom,

Thanks for your well considered and detailed reply. My question does not make reference to whether photons have mass or are massless, and I think for the sake of clarity, let me repeat my main question, which in my opinion is simple but JRC seems to say it is not and has taken me into 5-dimensional physics :)

Question: In figure 2, if light is emitted at O and travels in opposite directions to mirrors 1 light-year away and reflected back to O, how long does it take Photon A to interact with Photon B at O (or if preferred, how long does it take both Photon A and B to interact with O) AFTER leaving the mirror?

Is it one year or two years AFTER leaving the mirror?

I was expecting one-liners as answers, e.g. one year after leaving the mirror Photon A and B, OR two years after leaving mirror or zero or infinity, etc. But I got more than what I bargained for from an overgenerous FQXi community, not complaining though.

Steve,

I acknowledge your beautiful answer, thanks: Two photons approaching each other do so with a phase velocity of 2c whether at two light years or at one meter away. This phase velocity does not change c for either photon or for the observer and MEE is the key, but you do have to do the math..

Perhaps, to remove ambiguity whether photons have edges or not, let us just say time of detection at O. Would you volunteer how long it will take for this to occur for Photons A and B after leaving the mirror? This will remove confusion that may arise from the use of terms like phase velocity, group velocity, propagation velocity and the like.

Regards,

Akinbo

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