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Eckard,

Edwin and I have some philosophical agreements, but we disagree on the necessity of Big Bang cosmology. Since it is foundational to his physics and I'm trying to refute it in this particular essay, he can't really afford to grade me too highly.

That I'm doing as well as I am surprises even me. He would be rating me in the community rating and those are the public ratings that are numbered. If you push the community ratings link at the top of the essay list, it will organize them in order of current preference, but not give any scores.

I guess the fact I only have two high scores on the public rating means 1) few are reading it, or 2) They down quite know what to make of it sufficiently to score it.

John and Eckard,

Eckard, I do appreciate your remarks about John, and he is correct about our agreements and disagreements (though not about how I can 'afford' to vote).

I normally do not discuss my voting, and as John points out, our votes are not showing up except indirectly. I gave one high vote to the 'Virtual Reality' essay because I thought it so wrong that it needed to be seen, argued, and rejected, but the comments go so long unanswered that I have given up there, and I regret that vote.

It's encouraging that there are a couple of us 'outsiders' who are not currently professors in academia yet are showing up with high ranking. I hope this stands after the members get through with their 3 votes for each of ours.

And as for, "I have to admit that discussions here opened my eyes", that is very hard for most people to admit, and I admire you for that. Like you I too have been given occasion to rethink special relativity. FQXI truly is a valuable forum, and I have learned new things from this contest.

I do agree that John is a very valuable member of the fqxi participants.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Thanks Edwin. That is a high compliment.

The politics of physics can be as interesting as the physics of politics, but in these discussions, what is most interesting is the physics of the politics of physics, as in many respects, it is a matter of trying to erect that formal top down structure to define the bottom up dynamics, with the various factions occupying the particular islands of their models of stability in this sea and froth of untamable energy.

The self styled masters of the universe perched in their ivory towers, like bankers in the skyscrapers of Manhattan, juggling multiverses like they were billion dollar derivatives.

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Looking down the road, Humpty Dumpty comes to mind.

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Dear Tom,

J: ... we are asked to accept that the universe sprang into existence at a particular point and from this emerged time, space, energy and mass, with no precedents.

E: To me the big bang is an unproven hypothesis, a challenge to find alternative explanations of red shift. I do not consider questions that can definitely not be answered foundational (in the sense of something that carries a building, not in the sense of providing money). So far I shared the opinion that time emerges because I mistook it in the sense that possibilities are coming reality.

(E:) Why do you think "space is an equilibrium state"? Whom do you follow in that?

J: That's pretty much my own. Once time is described as a third order effect of motion, ...

E: Here you lost me because I refuse speculating without any tangible basis. How can motion and effect "emerge" prior to time, space energy and mass?

J: One of the issues I've raised over the years with Lawrence, Tom and others, is that if space truly expands from a point, what accounts for the otherwise stable speed of light?

E: Good point.

J: I think it goes back to the basic geometric assumption that the center point of the three dimensional coordinate system ...

E: Is there "the" Cartesian coordinates?

J: ... is the zero point, but a point is still a singular entity.

E: Hm. I am at variance with mathematicians because I consider points that are located within the continuum of real numbers as intangible as the center point of a ball. To me a line current is an ideal model and absolutely unrealistic.

J: Logically zero would be the absence of any particular references, ie. blank space.

E: Yes.

J:But the reality is that that point is a conceptual abstraction, while the physical reality is still just a bunch of energy moving around, from which we perceive whatever comes in contact with our point of reference.

E: Without integration we would not perceive anything.

J: It doesn't stop, we just take snapshots of it ...

E: A snapshot is an integration over a more or less extended part of the past.

J: ... and reconstruct our sequential sense of motion from these series of impressions. It (is?) not that everything exists at the present moment, but that it simply exists. The sequential referencing is entirely a function of perspective.

E: Our auditory sense is specialized to pick up and analyze temporal sequences. It cannot, of course, deal with the infinitely small very point of time. The input (not necessarily the source of sound) exists at caudal stages of the auditory pathway within windows of memory including the near past. The perspective is always backward.

Incidentally, I wonder why my voting did not have any visible effect.

Regards,

Eckard

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Eckard,

E:

Here you lost me because I refuse speculating without any tangible basis. How can motion and effect "emerge" prior to time, space energy and mass?

J:

Space=equilibrium. Disequilibrium= energy. (Fluctuating vacuum) Disequilibrium attempting to revert to equilibrium=mass. Changing configuration=time.

E:

Is there "the" Cartesian coordinates?

J:

Yes. Why does a mapping devise create space? With time, the changing configuration is being measured, but what is being measured by space? Distance? Volume? Space? Space is the primary axiom. The alternative is the proposition that everything, space included, emerged from the singular point. First the vacuum, then the fluctuation. Time and temperature are the vector and scalar of fluctuation/energy/mass.

I think lots of contestants are starting to vote, so it smoothes any particular votes.

Regards,

John

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Dear John,

Is there "the" Cartesian coordinates?

J: Yes. ... what is being measured by space? Distance? Volume? Space? Space is the primary axiom.

E: At least I do not see any reason to speculate. I consider Cartesian coordinates a tool that enforces to arbitrarily choose an origin zero x,y,z=0 and the direction of x from zero to A which defines a planar area orthogonal to OA. The third choice is a point C in this area. If the distance OA is continuous then there are uncountably much of these choices.

J: I think lots of contestants are starting to vote, so it smoothes any particular votes.

E: Unfortunately, your rating 8 (two votes) remained unchanged after I voted 10.

Regards,

Eckard

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1/3 APPLE 1/3 ORANGE 1/3 oRANGE= 1 APPLE/ORANGE.

1/3 F=MA 1/3 E=MC^2 1/3 E=MC^2= 1

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Eckard,

It works just fine for geometry, but does it work for physics? This Big Bang model is based on the Cartesian formula and considers that all energy, as points of measurement, emerge from that point of origin and in doing so, create time and space as functions of measuring that emergence. The greater the distance, the more space and the greater the duration, the more time.

As I pointed out previously, this doesn't explain why the speed of light, as the most stable measure of space, remains constant. If space actually expanded, it would be like stretching a rubber ruler. No matter how far you stretch it, there are always just twelve inches, they just get bigger. Why, if space expands, does it take more lightyears to cover the same proportion of space, not that light speeds up and covers the same proportion in the same time. So there is a stable dimension of space.

Let's reconsider the order of development: Instead of zero being a point, say it is the blank space and instead of all energy emerging from just one point and expanding out, say that every point in space is just a little unstable and occasionally breaking into positive and negative elements. Geometrically all of space would expand, but since it would be confined by the fact that all other space is exerting equal expansion, the effect would be accumulations of this energy and the tendency for it cancel out through combinations of positive and negative polarities, but since every element is unique to its opposite, these attractions between opposites don't cancel out, but create mass, as stabilized structure. Eventually these combinations get so large and under pressure and heat that they break the bonds of attraction between the positive and negative elements, so that these energies, either radiate out, or fall ever further into ever denser accumulations. The swirl of which eventually reaches a center point and this vortex ejects the remaining energy out its poles. All of which radiates out for billions of lightyears, further disturbing the equilibrium of space and keeping the cycle going.

It's a bit simplistic, but it doesn't require the various incongruous patches required to make the current theory work. All from starting with a blank space and not a center point.

Those are the public votes. We vote as contestants and to figure that out, push the link at the top of the list of entries that orders the entries by community votes. It doesn't give numbers, but it shows the current order of preference. I gave you a ten as well. I must admit I went through a bunch of essays and voted on them, based on not perfectly rigorous standards, as there are so many and I've been pretty busy to fully read more than a small number. Even so, it doesn't take a full reading to see how much original thinking, effort, logic and following the rules was put into it. That said, I still probably judged less than 20%. If I was judging my own, I'd probably give it a 7. While I certainly agree with my own logic, I didn't really put the kind of effort required, but mostly just wanted to have an entry and went more for shock value and historical prescience, than trying to win the contest. Not that too many people will look back through these in some future date, but if they do, then it's on the record that I didn't believe in the logic of Big Bang cosmology.

John,

Thanks - I read the Disney article. I tried to open the Perez link but it is down. I will read the longer articles after I read a few more essays by the deadline. You know - I once wrote a crazy paper on Dark Energy that I sent to about a dozen physicists. In it (among other things) I asked: if the more distant galaxies are traveling faster than the nearer ones, but the light is older from the more distant galaxies, then doesn't that make a case for galaxies moving slower now than in the past and hint at deceleration???

Anyway - I hope you get a chance to read my essay before the deadline. I always look forward to your perspective.

Chris

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Dear John Merryman,

You have very good knowledge of what is going on in the cosmos and your essay is exhilerating.You say that both digital and analog concepts are needed to comprehend reality and relating their origin to both parts of the brain.But how both parts of the brain,if they are seperate,coordinate to say that both digital and analog concepts are needed to comprehend reality unless the brain assimilates information from its both parts as one bit and thereby comprehends reality?

So for this I have a different kind of answer.Please,read my essay.

I enjoyed reading your essay.

best regards and good luck.

Sreenath B N.

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    Constantinos,

    You have my support, but i can't vote twice.

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    Paul,

    Thank you for reading my essay and viewing it favorably. I've read yours and am considering how to comment. Thomas Mcfarlane also proposed a digital view, but his approach was more of a philosophy of science view and I made a counter argument, but your approach is a concise, but very detailed history of the evolution of current theory, which makes it much more complicated to construct a coherent rebuttal, as my issues with current theory have much more to do with the primary assumptions, than the details of its construction.

    John

    Hope you got to read my essay as promised. Just to confirm, you got the high rating from me your clear thinking and reality basis deserves, I hope you've done the same for me or will do as time's almost up! My thread's also very interesting, but now also very long!!

    Any more questions, just ask away.

    Best wishes, and best of luck

    Peter

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      Peter,

      I admit that given the large number of essays, I haven't read too closely those whom have been participating in the conversations, but on those who might have input I haven't heard before.

      You do have my vote and congratulations on making the finalist list.

      Good luck in the finals.

      Have to admit, with the news lately, that what little computer time I have, has had many distractions.

      John,

      Although I have constructed my essay with the purpose of offering a possible solution to the vacuum energy problem, and to examine the implications of a minimal-wavelength field, I try very much to stay open-minded, especially since the scope of reality is so vast. I applaud your analysis of light and matter that looks at a variety of aspects, including how our brains perceive luminous input. I would certainly agree that light is wavelike as well as particle-like, well-established by the double-slit experiment, Compton effect, photoelectric effect, and so forth. In fact, my essay addresses a "smallest wavelength."

      I enjoyed your detailed response on my page (and I have offered my own comments). It is great to have the opportunity to read essays such as yours and to be able to consider a variety of viewpoints.

      All the best,

      Paul

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      Sreenath,

      I'm going to try to get to your essay soon. Sorry I haven't replied earlier, but this contest is overwhelming the time I have to devote to it.