• [deleted]

The relevancxe of these words are so important.......thanks dear John

you said ....there is a tendency to detach, rather than adapt.

Indeed indeed ...unfortunally for the evolution and the short moment in a specific locality....here the Earth system and its intrinsic parameters of course....

Best Regards

Steve

  • [deleted]

Dear Lawrence,

I don't recall H12?

K12 is the Coxeter-Todd lattice (Conway & Sloane, 3rd Ed., pp. 127-129). I originally called my "lattice" E12 (12x(2*28+1)) because I based it on an extrapoloation of the mathematical formulation of G2 (2x(2*3+1)), F4 (4x(2*6+1)), and E8 (8x(2*15+1)). E6 (6x(2*6+1)) didn't exactly fit the pattern (instead of (6x(2*10+1))) . I later called it K12' because it has significant similarities to Coxeter-Todd (K12' is 8/9th's as large as K12, so they both share a "pentality" and "triality" symmetry). K12' also had the same order as some of the shallow holes in the Leech lattice (Conway & Sloane, 3rd Ed., pp. 517-520). Last year, you observed the similarities between K12' and E8xH4. I like E8xH4 because it specifically states the underlying symmetries of an 8-D Hyperspace E8 multiplied into a 4-D Spacetime H4.

Have Fun and Enjoy the 4th!

  • [deleted]

Right, I just used the wrong letter, H instead of K. I just needed a momentary reminder of what this structure is presumed to be.

Cheers LC

  • [deleted]

.

We have not been right when thought we have found the "whole thing". Nothing authorizes us to think our backyard-Universe is - that time - the whole. As long as we know, cosmic fabric has no starting point and that IS his exact nature: energized matter. Our Universe can be a very diminutive particle of an true infinite tissue.

Once the cosmos have not an start, time can not have start eighter. So, time is just a measure of movement of eternally energized matter.

    • [deleted]

    Dear Wilton,

    I once thought that our Universe was everything that there is. After having found scale invariance in my TOE models, I'm now convinced that our Universe is only a fractal fragment of Cantor dust.

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

    Have Fun!

    • [deleted]

    Dear Wilton,

    Are you Brazilian? If so, I can cross-post:

    http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunto_de_Cantor

    Have Fun!

    • [deleted]

    Ray,

    All of us were educated to think that our neighborhood-universe were all that existed. Perhaps we live badly together with the idea of an infinite cosmic fabric because we (unconsciously)desperately need the sensation of womb-like protective boundaries.

    Unfortunately, ee have never found any boundaries and I am afraid we will never...

    Yes, I am from Brazil. Thanks for your attention and Wikipedia address!

    Cheers,

    • [deleted]

    For a bacteria, glued to a sand grain, deep one meter in a large beach, dreaming about understanding the entire coast is as foul as we trying to understand the entire cosmos.

    But we are something more intelligent...

    :)

    • [deleted]

    Yes Noel

    the only time is now

    yours amrit

    http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PHESEM000023000002000330000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes&ref=no

    • [deleted]

    Wilton,

    Bacteria or prokaryotes are not that dumb. In point of fact they really run this planet in a network that is a sort of biochemical internet. Eukaryotes are assemblies of prokaryotes, such as the mitochondria with their own DNA, and they evolved in some molecular biological response to the increased role of RNA (sRNA etc) in molecular pathways. We might see eukaryotes as assemblies of prokaryotes that increase the energy flow through in the planetary eco-system, primarily for the benefit of prokaryotes. For every somatic cell in our bodies there are 10 prokaryotic cells --- we are walking micro-ecosystems of prokaryotes.

    On the other hand prokaryotes are not conscious, and I doubt there is any consciousness in this prokaryotic planet-net. So we have a transient advantage in that sense. In the end Homo sapiens is a very brief blip on the unfolding evolutionary tapestry of life.

    As for the discussion of time, or ideas that time does not exist, it might be worthwhile to consider the opposite perspective. Maybe time, or some quantum process of elementary events that define time, is truly fundamental. If so then everything else emerges as a consistency condition. For instance, if there exists a discrete hyperbolic group system which defines time, then a non-signaling requirement that prevents some violation of that group (eg backwards time looping) requires the existence or emergence of unitary or modular transformations in a space. So not only might space emerge this way, but the gauge fields and their potentials that generate unitary transformations emerge as well.

    Food for thought

    Cheers LC

    • [deleted]

    Nourishing food for thought, indeed.

    In every context I can think of, Nature informs us that her redundance of simple elements self-organize into novel forms. As you point out, the overwhelming proponderance of single celled organisms and their constituents leads to higher forms that can be described as corporations of cooperating cells.

    Likwise, out into the cosmos, we find that over 99% of matter is in its two simplest forms, the remainder of elements created in the crucible of star furnaces and scattered by exploding stars to self organize into the novel life that we know.

    So it is only natural to push back a little further, to ask what happens when we consider evolution from space and time alone.

    Tom

    • [deleted]

    Tom,

    With all this talk about time not existing, maybe the opposite view should be at least entertained. Maybe time is some elementary quantum effect, upon which all else emerges.

    Cheers LC

      • [deleted]

      Dear Lawrence,

      I was reading Constantinos' papers yesterday, and although I think he simply rederived some existing Hamiltonian and/or Lagrangian mathematics and physics, his papers do bring an emphasis back to action.

      The Planck unit is the minimum change in action. If space (and its conjugate variables momentum) are "REAL" enough to cause changes in action, and if time (and its conjugate variable energy) is "REAL" enough to cause changes in action, then time must be as "REAL" as space, momentum and energy.

      I'm getting tired of this no-time-trend. Perhaps we can describe geometrical gravity with space curvature, but I think it is a joke to try to use relativity to describe black holes and the quantum gravity that most likely exists there. In one of my models, a time-like dimension prevents the collapse of the black hole "singularity". Without that time-like dimension, we might all collapse into a super black hole singularity, instead the "singularity" is effectively truncated.

      What do you think of AdS_5~CFT_3?

      Have Fun!

      • [deleted]

      The point of AdS_n ~ CFT is that the boundary of AdS_n, a space E_{n-1}, is equivalent to the CFT on a sphere S^n. The result is a holographic principle, where the boundary or horizon of a spacetime holds all the information in that spacetime. In this case it is this hyperbolic space AdS_n with a group O(n-1, 2). There are some subtle issues of the conformal completion on a patch of the AdS, and the boundary space E_n is this conformal completion. This is found with a discrete group on the O(n-1,2) that acts properly on AdS and then on the E_n it acts as a discrete conformal group.

      The nature of time is rather odd, for it does not really have a conjugate variable relationship with energy. All that we do have is the Fourier transform result, which in quantum theory is the uncertainty principle. However, from a physical perspective the idea that "if energy exists then so must time" is not half off the mark. I suppose Constantino posted a website for these, but I don't have that.

      Cheers LC

      • [deleted]

      Ah, yes, Lawrence. I think there is going to be a great deal of research in the near future devoted to the proposition that time is causal.

      After all, when we routinely calculate quantum effects by conjugate variables, and t = 1, can we be far from where it all began? I don't think so. Once we have negative space of 2 dimensions, a modulus squared implies to me that action has bootstrapped itself from imaginary to real. Self organization on the complex plane seems quite logical to me, given the algebraic completeness of C*.

      Tom

      • [deleted]

      It is possible to look at this in some ladder or hierarchy. Goyal illustrates how a noncommutative logic leads to complex arithmetic for quantum mechanics. So there is in that mathematics a noncommutative structure which permits any observer to see only half the degrees of freedom for a system. We might consider the prospect there is a deeper level, where Goyal abandons the noncommutative logic. This would then imply some noncommutative mathematics, or quaternionic representation of observables. So this next level might then be a C* noncommutatve geometry. Here the metric variables of are such that [x, y] =! 0, or they do not close up under a parallel translation, even in spacetime that might be classically flat. There is some quantum uncertainty which prevents one from a parallel translation of this sort with complete closure. We might then be tempted to go one level deeper where things are nonassociative. At this deeper level we might be at some pre-geometric structure that connects our spacetime cosmology with other cosmologies in the grand super-geometry or superspace of all cosmologies (multiverse). The restriction to associative might then restrict any spacetime cosmology to have a unique direction in time.

      Cheers LC

      • [deleted]

      It seems that some people takes themselves to the navel of the world if I can say.

      These people, vains, are vary easy to pick.

      In fact, you can see their words which do not change their strategies and superiority.

      They brag about their super ideas(which are winds in fatc) that are not.

      The meanders of their confusions reveal their limitations.

      Like frustrateds of system by lack of recognition.

      They use small techniques for pseudoscientifics or ignorant public.Like ....you know them .

      Respect can be won only by skills, by a generality,by the sincere desire of universal quest ..... but never in these games,irrelevants to the rational scientific community.

      Me at my age and with my theory ,I can lost my time here on FQXi before the creation of My INTERNATIONAL HUMANISTIC SCIENCES CENTER but for someones , frankly.......ahahah jalous.

      Let's be serious a little and PLEASE THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNAITY....WHERE ARE THE LIMITS AND RATIONALS .....WE CAN4T TEACH THAT AT UNIVERSITIES? IT4S NOT POSSIBLE.

      Ps sometimes people take the choice to not answer, not because they think they are superiors, or they try to pass a kind of comportment of wisdom and rationality.......no no dear Friends...they fear in fact, this technic is ok for several but not with me ....

      How would they understand, touch their souls, enjoy the secrets of eternity ,...... without a love for their quests.

      The generality of this question,which is always in my mind, is a wave oscillating among the stars of evolution.

      Some researchs, works are not that....The dimensions of our Universe, tell it like you want, God, the entity, the eternity, the equation, the cause, the entropy, the all, the whole,the unknown.......are in 3D.....this God deosn't play at dices, please respect the uniqueness....and its laws, its aim....its plan.

      Regards

      Steve

      • [deleted]

      Dear Lawrence,

      You have been working with a 27-D SO(3)-like three-octonian Jordan transform. What about a 28-D SO(4)-like six-quaternion Jordan transform? I relate a Quaternion to an H4, and an Octonian to an E8, but E8~H4xH4.

      Perhaps we can't see half (or three-quarters?) of the degrees of freedom. In my models, these relate to my unseen dimensions, Supersymmetry, and scale invariance.

      Have Fun!

      • [deleted]

      Ray,

      This extension to 28 dimensions from the 27 dimensional J^3(O) would be an F-theoretic extension. The three E_8's are related by the g_2, which decomposes into su(3)+3+3-bar. The J^3(O) is the hermitian part of the exceptional algebra, and the anti-Hermitian is 38 dimensional. These together form the 45 dimensional complex exceptional algebra. Think of this as a "real plus imaginary" construction. This extends to the 78 dimensional exceptional algebra that is E_6 quaterionic valued. Then of course there is the 256 dimensional octonionic exceptional algebra --- E_8 valued octonions. All of these can be extended to the F-theory.

      The Weyl group for E_8 includes a matrix of two H_4's. The H_4 is the 120 or 600 cell which tessellates a hyperbolic space, such as the O(3,1) in AdS_5. There are other ways to see this construction. The stabilizer F_4 has a B_4 ~ so(9) realization, which is the boundary of a 10 dimensional spacetime. The infinite momentum gauge on J^3(O) reduces this to an SO(16) and E_8xE_8 in 10 dimensional superspace. So the 26 dimensional bosonic string contains this duality between 16 and 10 dimensions. The so(9) is then a "boundary" on the 10 dimensions. The F_4 and g_2 are the centralizers of E_8, g_2 the automorphism. The transformations of g_2 then leave the irreps of F_4 invariant. One of the irreps of F_4 is D_4 ~ so(8). This is contained in the so(16), 120 + 8, and the 120 is the icosian of quaternions or 120/600 cell in the Gosett polytope.

      The problem of course is there are a vast number of irreps for this. Yet there does appear to be AdS content here.

      The half degrees of freedom stem from the complete sets of commuting operators in quantum mechanics. You can access either position or momentum, but not both simultaneously. As a result you have information of only half of what corresponds to the classical phase space.

      Cheers LC

      • [deleted]

      Dear Lawrence,

      Yes - It does look F-theoretic. That's why I was studying that Heckman paper. I'm just a stuborn Particle Physicist who keeps running into more String Theory than I bargained for. I am convinced that G2 x G2 implies imaginary time (the simplest way that we can have four mutually perpendicular basis vectors in one 2-D plane?), and if that is the primary difference between M-Theory and F-Theory, then I'm forced to study F-Theory. As a result, I don't think that the event horizon is a simple 2-D spherical surface - I think it is effectively 4-D (2-D surface x real/imaginary). This probably starts sounding more like some of Tom's ideas.

      Certainly, QM limits us to position OR momentum, but not both simultaneously, so we have lost half of our dgf's. But what about SUSY? Are SUSY partners much heavier than anything we have explored to date, or does QM also limit our observation of SUSY (such that we only observe a quarter of the implied dgf's)?

      Have Fun!

      • [deleted]

      Ray,

      In the J^3(O) there are the three O's, one is a vector E_8, the vector being A, and the other two are spinor valued, and form conjugate pairs (ω, ω-bar). So the J^3(O) defines superfields

      Φ = A θ-bar φ θφ-bar.

      There are 24 dimensional, and construct the Mathieu group or Leech lattice Λ_{24}. Now the 3x3 matrix has diagonal entries which are scalars z_1, z_2, z_3 and the off diagonal terms are the octonions O_1, O_2, O_3, for the vector and the two spinor valued E_8's. With the diagonal entries we have that for a light cone condition that one element is constrained by the others. This reduces the number of degrees of freedom by one, reducing this to 26 dimensions, and there is the resulting Chern-Simons Lagrangian z_i∂_jz_k = L_{cs}. The action of a coboundary operator on this results in a full lagrangian, and the field density is ρ = v*(∂_iv)x(∂_jv) which is a topological soliton for v the vector formed from the scalars. There is a dual description on the octonion level, and the topological soliton is the string.

      Supersymmetry breaks at the end of renormalization group flow, starting somewhere in the 10^3-10 TeV range in energy. So the end or RG flow is where the large SUSY pair masses emerge at Higgs breaking.

      I have to confess I am not that familiar with F-theory, only a bit. The extension of this to an added dimension means the scalars are two component objects z_i - -> (z_i, σ), for the same component direction σ with all scalars. I am not sure what this means right away. This might somehow connect up with Tom ideas, but right now I am not quite sure how.

      Cheers LC

      • [deleted]

      hahaha and with E8 and the team, they are going to have the nobel prize ahahah

      oh my god this sad business.......

      they want the prizes.....team job monney, fear of loosing.....logic to continue in these stupidities.....

      With my theory it doesn't exist winners and loosers, only searchers of truth

      SPHERIZATION BY SPHERES IN A SPHERE.....

      Steve

      • [deleted]

      These algebras do not explain the reality.....we understand thus why it exists stupidities about the constant of time and the utilization of sets and series, bizares, infinites , irrationals where complexs dance in irrationality.

      That implies a mathematical and false extrapolation of our pure and real objectivity....all these things are falses physically speaking.

      Furthermore in an universal and spiritual and global point of vue, it's our uniquity of all things implying the harmony which is taken on a bizare road of analyzes......

      Any sense these multivers and others time reversibilies.......a real mathematician understands how act the series and their limits ...iof not it's a pure creation of the mind without a generality of our universe.

      A balance is neceszsary between the hemispheroids of analyzes.

      Sincerely

      Steve

      10 days later
      • [deleted]

      To Lawrence, Ray and Tom - the FQXi-MTP Group

      Thanks for the invitation to join your discussion from the Free Radical blog here. Keeping up with this conversation is like seeking to understand a movie 'one frame at a time'. A little like understanding the Universe using particles!

      Tom you write: "You want to have your cake and eat it too".

      I don't even like cake. Such magic can only occur in modern theoretical physics, along with time travel. My 'trivial and naive view' (thanks for the complement Tom, really!) calls for 'physical realism'. No backward causality, no miraculous appearances, no parallel multiverses, no wave-particle dual nature.

      If we start with the time-integral of energy, what I designate as eta in my papers, we are able to define energy, momentum, force, temperature and entropy in simple mathematical terms. We can mathematically derive such basic laws of physics as Conservation of Energy and Momentum, Newton's Second Law of Motion, Planck's Law for Blackbody Radiation, The Quantum Hypothesis, the average energy of a system per degree of freedom, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Furthermore, we are able to show that Planck's Formula is an exact mathematical identity using continuous processes, explain the photoelectric effect without using photons, derive an equation for the photocurrent, explain the double-slit experiment, provide an existence argument for Planck's constant, and give an interpretation of Schroedinger's Equation, with the associated wavefunction as being no other than our 'accumulation of energy' quantity eta. (link to papers)

      Ray you write,

      " ... you assumed Bose-Einstein statistics, and then showed self-consistency".

      I have done no such think! This is forcing thoughts in my reasoning. Let's see if I can describe my derivation of Planck's Formula differently. Assume you have a physical quantity E(t) at any time t. Consider that you can measure the delta_E of this and the E{av} of this for any interval delta_t, but you cannot directly and absolutely measure the quantity E(t) at an instantaneous time t.

      Question: How can you calculate E(t) at some instantaneous value of t?

      Answer: Planck's Formula!!!!

      If E(t) is exponential, the Formula will give you the exact value. If E(t) is any other integrable function, the Formula will give you the best possible approximation that can be experimentally obtained. This is a mathematical result! Nothing to do with Physics. No boson, no fermions, no quantum statistics involved.

      I admire all great human achievements. Certainly painting the world with ideas is just as beautiful (more beautiful imho) as painting it with colors. But I don't mistake an abstract Jackson Pollock painting as being a true picture of the Universe. Likewise, I don't mistake abstract theoretical physics as being that Universe either. In both cases I see these as being a view (an interpretation) of the Universe, but not the Universe itself which is and will always be unknowable to us. (see The Interaction of Measurement). Theories are human creations. They are not 'real'. If physicists acknowledge that than I wont have any disputes. Just as I have no disputes with all areas of Mathematics no matter how abstract and incomprehensible. But I continue to believe that we can 'know' the Universe in simple (even naïve) terms that 'make sense'.

      I value your comments and respect your points of view.

      Constantinos

        • [deleted]

        Constantinos,

        It is trivial that events happen in time, and it is naive to take time as infinitely divisible. As I said -- terms of art. We all think this way, because that is the way we experience events. There's nothing personal in the characterization.

        Particle physics, and the statistical and quantum mechanics that describe it, exist because Planck's constant is not zero. We know this not by mathematical models, but by observations of the behavior of particle and energy quanta. The mathematics explains why we _apparently_ experience the world as a classical continuum.

        When you go the other way, describing a world without particles that doesn't exist physically, philosophers call it naive realism.

        There are many ways to mathematically model worlds that don't and can't possibly exist (consider the Penrose triangle, e.g.) Physics takes the world as it is.

        Tom

        • [deleted]

        One obvious technical error. In your "temperature of radiation" paper, you say that "'degrees of freedom' seems to be equivalent to 'locally at a point.'" Not true. A point has zero degrees of freedom, except on C* where it has infinite degrees of freedom -- but then you've lost your advantages of real analysis, and the physical influences are nonlocal. Just as quantum mechanics has it.

        Tom

        • [deleted]

        Dear Constantinos,

        You said "Perhaps bosons are conceptual representations of energy propagation while fermions are conceptual representations of energy interactions. It seems the basic difference of 'all values' vs. '0 or 1' suggests the same idea of continuity vs discreteness. Just a thought, for whatever it is worth."

        I like the concept of continuity (bosons with occupations of zero to infinity) vs. discreteness (fermions with occupations of zero or one). Some months ago, I was asking Tom Ray if the Universe is fundamentally discrete or continuous. His answer (and he converted me to a believer) was that the Multiverse obeys scale invariance, and thus, both discrete and nearly continuous (I say "nearly" because I don't think that "infinity" exists within our Universe, but it does exist within the self-similar Multiverse) natures coexist.

        You also said "For me, what is most significant about the question of time, is simply that there must be some positive lapse of time for something to exist. Nothing can exist instantaneously, without some time has lapsed. That this lapse of time that makes an entity exist is the time when the 'observer and the observed' (the source and the sensor) are in equilibrium. It's then that 'things exist'. Simply, 'time is what makes things exist'! How is that for a definition of time!"

        In grad school, I saw a "semiclassical" treatment of action. The speaker was considering equations of the form Delta(S)=Delta(L)*Delta(t) (similar to your "accumulation of energy", but he was using the Lagrangian, and I suspect that you may be using the Hamiltonian), and then imposing an ad hoc quantization condition comparable to the single slit result to the principle of least action. If you only allow action to vary in increments of h-bar, then you do obtain parts of quantum mechanics.

        Perhaps this concept also ties into the continuous vs. discrete dual nature of reality.

        I think we must emphasize the fact that time is not reversible. Certainly, some simple problems and Feynmann diagrams "seem reversible", but thermodynamics does not allow them to be truly reversible. We cannot use all of our available energy, and thus the term "entropy" was chosen with a similar sound to the "energy" to which it originally applied. As a theoretical physicist who once studied the experimental side of things, I am tempted to say that time is as real as space because rulers measure ellapsed space and clocks measure ellapsed time. But then there are these philosophical implications that time is only as "real" as our ability to sense "change" (or entropy). If I stared at this computer screen (and ignored the ticking noise of the clock behind me), I might be tempted to say that time did not ellapse. If I wasn't measuring time, I wouldn't know for sure if that was 30 seconds or 10 minutes, and would it really matter anyway?

        But I'm not the time guru - I'm still trying to figure out spacetime and hyperspace...

        Have Fun!

        • [deleted]

        Dear Tom and Constantinos,

        How should scale invariance affect our interpretation of reality? Perhaps time, like space and mass, is hollow but not empty. What does this imply of the present? Is the PRESENT an instantaneous NOW Dirac delta function on a spacetime surface? Or is the PRESENT the local collection of Cantor set spacetime points? I think that scale invariance implies the latter. If so, then this has bizarre implications for the definition of the PRESENT.

        Have Fun!

        • [deleted]

        Ray, I think the major implication of scale invariance is infinite self similarity, which frees us from having to explain the properties of the "first tortoise" in a cosmological theory. A relativistic model then allows a multitude of quantum subsystems to cohere and decohere at different rates, breaking the barrier between quantum and classical domains.

        It also leads to my physical description of the state we call the "present" as "the least of all possible moments."

        Tom

        • [deleted]

        Tom, responding to your July 24 posts to me ...

        I really took it as a complement when you described my ideas as 'simple and naïve'. But then you went on in your last posts to me to apologize " ... nothing personal in the characterization." Now I'm thinking that perhaps there was something personal in your characterization. It's true! I am not a physicist. I don't pretend to be a physicist. I don't want to be a physicist like you. In my humble opinion, Physics does not need more physicists, but a naïve attitude that allows for uncorrupted fresh ideas.

        My greatest challenge is making simple ideas clear to complex minds! You write, "A point has zero degrees of freedom". In the context that I am using 'locally at a point' (derived from mathematics and not physics) 'degrees of freedom' do not apply. My definition of temperature does not depend on 'degrees of freedom'. I was only seeking to guide the reader in making connections to ideas in Thermodynamics. Average energy 'per degree of freedom' in Physics is given by kT, while an exact similar formula, using my formulation of temperature, is for 'locally at a point'. This I felt may help physicists like you make connections I can't make -- helping to reduce the 'complex' to the 'simple and naïve'.

        You write, "Physics takes the world as it is." Yes, and then goes on to create a theoretical monstrosity, like Ptolemaic epicycles and God particles!

        Do you have no doubts? That should worry you!

        Constantinos

        • [deleted]

        "naïve attitude that allows for uncorrupted fresh ideas...."very beautiful dear Constantinos.

        The complexity returns to simplicity,naturally and fortunally,....the evolution still and always....

        Steve

        • [deleted]

        Constantinos,

        It wasn't an apology. This is a public forum, however, and I try not to be misunderstood by others who are also reading.

        Anyway, mathematical theories have to be consistent with physical facts. One can't simply treat Planck's constant as zero when it isn't, or discard the kinetic theory of matter because it's inconvenient.

        Temperature, in fact, does describe "average energy at a point;" however, the point is dimensionless, an instantaneous measure of state. Among statisticians, it's an old joke that if one stands with one foot in the fire and another in a bucket of ice, on the average one will be comfortable.

        The dynamic measure of the energy state (Hamiltonian or Lagrangian) includes coordinates and momenta that imply degrees of freedom.

        Nevertheless, you might find that contemporary theoretical physics is not in such bad shape as you imagine. The quest is ultimately to explain the behavior of this low energy world in terms of symmetry breaking and phase transitions from a point of high energy unification. Things actually do get simpler in that direction. Like the paradigm shift from Ptolemaic epicycles to Copernican orbits, we get complex physics from simpler mathematical models, without sacrificing knowledge that we've already won.

        Tom

        • [deleted]

        It is good that I checked up in here. After all I think Laura Houghton makes a nicer picture to enter the page with than Burbidge :-) I will have to read some of this exchange. Yet as I recall the issue was whether the time associated with the increase in entropy was t ~ vol(Ω) for Ω the phase space volume occupied by a system. The equation between Et/ħ for a quantum fluctuation and E/kT the generator of a Boltzmann distribution lead to the result that S = k log(t) ~ k log(Ω).

        Cheers LC

        • [deleted]

        The maths are only consistents when the mind and the hands of the thinker are rationals ,if not it's a pure joke without foundamentals.

        It's thus 1 a business or 2 an error

        cqfd in french "ce qu'il fallait démontrer" .

        The theoretical contempory physics shall be always rationals if and only if the ultim referential is respected by these hands.

        You can invent a mathematical equation even false, but never you shall cange the equations of our system.Universal, this sphere in optiùization.

        If some people think it's possible to return at the Jurassic to cultivate Baobab and that to have in the future a CO2 equilmibrium, thus I think they must rethink about their irreversibilities due to a specific and coded evolution.

        The differerent degrees of freedom are not a dance inside a coordonate system without sense.The energy and the momenta explain a specific rotating system with a real sense.

        We can't pass the simple for the complex and vice versa, the real complexity is in 3D and its understandings.And it exists still a lot of xork, we are youngs indeed at the universal scale.

        The reality is the reality, objective and not subjective ...our datas proof that and all our datas are in 3D ...it's liker that.The 3D WAS IS AND WILL BE.

        Regards

        Steve

        • [deleted]

        Dear Ray,

        In an earlier post you asked if we could do without Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac Statistics. I agree with your comment that these are connected to a view of the Universe as being either continuous or discrete. My inner voice tells me, however, that whenever we choose between one or another of two complementary ideas we go wrong whichever idea we choose. My simple formulation of some basic laws of physics uses neither Bose-Einstein nor Fermi-Dirac Statistics. It's likely that neither is needed! This calms my inner voice!

        We are generally forced to 'make a choice' only if we take the 'naïve view' (sorry Tom!) that the Universe is 'out there' and we are discovering how it works. I am not as bold or as certain to presume we can know 'what's out there'. Just as I am not sure I can know God or what's in someone's heart and mind. And it really doesn't matter much, since what is truly important and really knowable is what's in my own heart and mind.

        So, instead of embarking on conquering the world through our knowledge of it, I rather do some soul-searching and embark on 'self-knowledge'. The ancient Greeks were so wise to this when they placed 'self-knowledge' at the center of life's aspiration. They also ascribed to the belief that 'man is the measure of all things', and 'balance' is the way of attaining true wisdom. These basic principles have guided me throughout my life. They are the backdrop of all my thinking on physics as well. So how does this work for physics? It's an evolving story.

        We can only know our measurements of Nature, not Nature itself. The essence of science is measurement. That's why all physical quantities have units associated with them (unlike math, which makes no claims about Truth but only Logical Certainty). Measurement involves an interaction between the 'source' and the 'sensor'. And measurement occurs when the 'source' and the 'sensor' are in equilibrium. In the case of energy, this interaction of measurement is given by Planck's Formula, which is a mathematical identity independent of physics.

        In this simple view, we do not need to choose whether the Universe is continuous or discrete. Yet we are able to explain why we 'see' energy quanta when we 'say' energy is continuous. This I describe more fully in my papers.

        Multiverses and 'backward causality', etc. do not make sense for a physical Universe. I agree with Eckard. But they do make perfect sense if we are talking about Mind. In our Mind we can and do let the 'future' influence the 'present' or even change the 'past'. I have no problems with any of that. But if you ascribe such characteristics to an 'objective Universe out there' independent from all of us (even ET) then I have irreconcilable differences.

        Time is not reversible because it takes time for anything to occur. So anything that happens requires time moving forward (the Second Law, as I show in my paper on [link:knol.google.com/k/knol/Search?q=ragazas Entropy and The Arrow of Time[/link]). But why does this require that time be discontinuous, Tom? I find the setting of time to 1 in QM very puzzling and contrived. What's the sensible explanation to that? To make a theory not well understood work? Physicists generally avoid time in their formulations. Not me! In my papers I show that the time it takes for an 'accumulation of energy' equal to h at temperature T is equal to h/kT. If anything qualifies as a 'quantum of time' it's this, not 1.

        More as the occasion permits ...

        Constantinos

        • [deleted]

        Constantinos,

        I already explained why time drops out of the equations of quantum mechanics. Planck's Constant is not zero. Therefore, action happens in zero time, i.e., time is unity. One cannot have a classical continuum of spacetime unless Planck's Constant is zero. It isn't.

        Tom

        • [deleted]

        Dear Constantinos and Tom,

        Constantinos said "In an earlier post you asked if we could do without Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac Statistics. I agree with your comment that these are connected to a view of the Universe as being either continuous or discrete. My inner voice tells me, however, that whenever we choose between one or another of two complementary ideas we go wrong whichever idea we choose. My simple formulation of some basic laws of physics uses neither Bose-Einstein nor Fermi-Dirac Statistics. It's likely that neither is needed! This calms my inner voice!"

        And I know that Tom is also interested in scale invariance.

        Do the above concepts require scale invariance and supersymmetry to be related? They are related in my models. Or better yet - Can we develop a type of "scale statistics" that incorporates all of the continuous (Maxwell & Bose?) and discrete (Fermi) statistics? Of course, it is easy enough to say

        f=[exp(bE)+Theta]^(-1),

        where Theta = (-1 Bose, 0 Maxwell, +1 Fermi) is our degree of continuity (Bose) vs. discreteness (Fermi).

        Am I overlooking something obvious, or is it just that simple?

        Have Fun!

        • [deleted]

        Dear Tom, ...responding to your July 25 post to me:

        Your non-apology accepted. But why you keep misrepresenting my ideas in this public forum?

        For my thoughts on what Planck's constant means and why it exists, please read my paper, 'Let there be h': An Existence Argument for Planck's Constant.. But don't assume you know what I think!

        Constantinos

        • [deleted]

        Well what are you doing dear Friends??????

        Ps That begins to be interesting viva el thermodynamics....

        Dont FORGET.........56.697 nW/m²deg^4.....You kinow Tyndal, Stefan, Boltzmann......you know the heat tranfered by radfiation between two body with 2 temperatures...

        Well now about the Fermi Dirac statistics....the closed packed .....and Pauli principle......thus Ni=gi/e^(ei-ef)/kT+1.....WE CAN KNOW THUS THE ENERGY u AND THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF nPARTICLES....but I agree the evaluation of this integral is difficult...the séries thjus are relevants if and only if the real and correct nuber is inserted with the biggest rationality.

        Deazr Ray,

        you say...where Theta = (-1 Bose, 0 Maxwell, +1 Fermi) is our degree of continuity (Bose) vs. discreteness (Fermi).

        I Think you insert a good idea indeed but the gauge is false for the different distributions and correlations between Maxwell,Fermi, Dirac, Bose......Indeed the constants are our constants and we can't invent series which imply difficult relations.

        Impossible Ray your line of reasoning because you do not respect nor Bose-Einstein nor Fermi-Dirac Statistics and their invariances .The continuity and the disctreteness are linked Ray in a pure physical logic.

        Steve

        • [deleted]

        I don't wish to misrepresent your ideas, Constantinos. I only wish to compare what you claim, with what we already know of the physics. In fact, I thought I made it clear that I agree with you that the world should be describable in classical terms, which implies determinism.

        We have to live with the way the world presents itself to us, though. I did read (and had read) your papers on Planck's Constant. Your treatment of temperature as a function of time does not seem to me the way that either time or temperature behave. You describe temperature as a quantity as if it has dimension, inversely proportional to a point of time for which you also assume dimension. The "accumulation of energy" you speak of, then, _has to_ come from the zero point of the vacuum, because that is the _only_ point of zero time and zero temperature. I don't have an issue with that, and I don't think any physicist would, because we already know -- as I have said repeatedly -- that if Planck's Constant were zero, the world would behave classically.

        So given your units of measurement, you describe a dimensionless world. That's not the world we live in. Indeed, we do think the world we live in originated in quantum fluctuations of the vacuum; however, that doesn't mean that one can say, as you do, that the "accumulation of energy" can take any non-zero value -- presumably, you mean in the measurement space of 3 1 dimensions -- because you are using dimensionless units to measure with. That will only get you measure zero anywhere you look. Okay -- so you've discovered that the average energy content of the vacuum is zero. But that's something we also knew -- or at least, we strongly hypothesized -- already. What about the rest of spacetime and matter, that stuff we actually experience and which physics seeks to account for?

        I sympathize more deeply with your philosophy than you think. I agree with you that all we can objectively know is what we measure. The very idea that the action of microstates differs from classical action led me into years of theoretical wrestling with how or why quantum time differs from classical time. Finally, I concluded -- it doesn't. Because classical time is one dimensional and the quantum domain is two dimensional, however, I eventually realized that a time continuum independent of space has to transcend the 3 1 dimension barrier in order that quantum degrees of freedom correspond to real points of spacetime in the classical domain. I fashioned a purely physical definition of "time" consistent with physical information theory: "(*) n-dimension infinitely orientable metric on random self-avoiding walk." This led to the following conclusion, excerpted from my preprint "On breaking the time barrier:"

        "2.4 Given that entropy increase is the common physical reason for the apparent direction of time ("time's arrow"), we find that applying this principle in the context of information [Shannon, 1948], every recurrence of order in Sigma_d = 2,3 is at the expense of increasing disorder in Sigma_d > = 4 , i.e., hyperspace. We know this only when we can fix length 1 in Sigma_d , because d < 4 is a subset of the n-dimensional trajectory. Our definition of time (*) is fundamental to measure theory; unit measure is a subset of every notion of size, geometrically to be sure, but also metrically as a point in a closed interval [0,1] or a singular magnitude {N}. That n-dimensional measure accommodates length 1 in every dimension cardinal set Sigma_d > 0 , we understand by the generalized central limit theorem when we apply the definition (*) as a density function over dimensions Sigma_d > = 4 because n random distributions on [0,1] translate in Sigma_d = < 3 as a distance function. In other words, the randomly oriented complex metric obeys an analytically real bound (Lebesgue measure)."

        Tom