• [deleted]

Dear Moshe,

You write: ''you correctly identify a connection between causality and continuity''.

It is a wrong statement, I can show that causality holds even if the Universe is discontinuous.

Durham has the same error: ''This idea simply formalizes the somewhat intuitive notion that causality is somehow related to continuity. If spacetime is discontinuous, how do we know that this information couldn't jump around' from point to point? Continuity guarantees that the information follows a nice, orderly 'path' between A and B. This should make it easy to see the conceptual attraction of a continuous reality''.

In quantum mechanics particles don't follow a nice, orderly 'path' between A and B, and the position of a free particle is uncertain - so we can consider space as discontinuous. In spite of fact that particles don't follow a nice, orderly ''path'' between A and B and all macroscopic bodies are made of quantum particles, we do not observe any violation of causality in our everyday life or macroscopic experiments. Thus, your statement is wrong: even if the space and behavior of the particles is discontinuous, the causality holds in our everyday life.

Durham wrote: ''Though the universe itself has cleverly prevented us from determining whether or not it is continuous, I'd like to believe that it is''

It is an erroneous statement; we can determine whether or not the Universe is continuous by observing the expansion of the Universe: If the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, everything must have been closer together in the past. It means that in the first microseconds of expansion the Universe was very small and therefore finite in volume. Since the Universe has a finite age, the Universe will have the finite volume always, in spite of expansion. Since the Universe has a finite volume, it must have the edges (holes), because all objects with finite volumes have borders. And the space with holes is discontinuous because a hole is the absence of spacetime. Thus, since the Universe is expanding, therefore it must be finite and discontinuous. Do you see any flaws in this reasoning? Hence, the Universe is discontinuous but not continuous.

Thus, Durham's essay is fundamentally wrong: the Universe is not continuous but discontinuous. If you vote for Durham's continuous Universe then you vote for extinction of science and humanity - we need the true Science to survive. How Durham's essay can advance physics? I don't see any new ideas in his essay; it is a simple discussion about physics with erroneous statements as if the Universe is continuous (see above). The discontinuous Universe is better because it can explain gravity and quantum mechanics in the same model. Durham's essay cannot change the Science, it is an erroneous statement that the Universe is continuous, it is a step back to the recession of physics. The discontinuous spacetime allow teleportation and can really advance physics.

Sincerely

Constantin

Hi Ian,

Okay, that's a good point about the similarity with electrostatics, which I've just thought about a bit more. The difference is that Coulombs law assumes "charged" particles, so that they come in two opposite types. Electric charge is a physical property of matter which causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. The way these two types interact hasn't been modelled by mechnical means, just like gravity itself. Why do like charges attract and opposites repell? The mechanism is an enigma.

If a 'fabric' of spacetime is visualised as the 'mechanism' of gravity, then this fabric is uniform and symmetrical. It therefore can't be the cause of the elctrostatic forces. His equation therefore negates gravity as being behind the eletrostatic force. It therefore renders the unification of all the forces an impossiblity. Therefore his equation must be wrong imo.

Best wishes,

Alan

Hi Ian,

I've replied to your response earlier about Newton's law and Coulomb's law being incompatible for a unification of the forces. Hope you can respond in time.

Best wishes,

Alan

    I've re-iterated the reply here because I believe it to be so philosophically profound (rightly or wrongly):

    "Okay, that's a good point about the similarity with electrostatics, which I've just thought about a bit more. The difference is that Coulombs law assumes "charged" particles, so that they come in two opposite types. Electric charge is a physical property of matter which causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. The way these two types interact hasn't been modelled by mechnical means, just like gravity itself. Why do like charges attract and opposites repell? The mechanism is an enigma.

    If a 'fabric' of spacetime is visualised as the 'mechanism' of gravity, then this fabric is uniform and symmetrical. It therefore can't be the cause of the elctrostatic forces. His equation therefore negates gravity as being behind the eletrostatic force. It therefore renders the unification of all the forces an impossiblity. Therefore his equation must be wrong imo."

    lol, edit: I should have said opposites attract and like charges repell. (school was a long time ago)

    • [deleted]

    Alan wrote:

    "Why do like charges attract and opposites repell? The mechanism is an enigma."

    Electrical charges of equal sign repel each other as also do equal magnetic poles. Hence the magnetic north pole of earth is located at the geographic south pole. Isn't there a quite simple explanation for this "enigma"? Separation of opposite charges stores potential energy.

    Eckard

    • [deleted]

    I've written quite a precise and technical argument, based on general consideration of effective quantum field theories, but I think it is based on the same intuition. Certainly there could be loopholes in the argument (I've pointed out some myself), but if you choose a discrete model out of a hat without carefully considering the question of Lorentz invariance (and hence causality), chances are that it is either inconsistent or in violations of known facts about the real world, or both.

    • [deleted]

    Dear Sir,

    We were following your views on gravity and Coulomb's law. Here is our comment on that.

    Before we discuss whether the force we were referring to was gravity, we will like to discuss something about force itself. A force is experienced only in a field (we call it rayi). Thus, it is a conjugate of the field. If something is placed in a field, it experiences something else. This something else is a kind of force. Depending upon the density variations of the field, we experience the force differently. Hence we call it by different names. While the field is one, the forces are many. Since they are conjugates, we can also say that different forces create different variations in the field.

    The basic nature of the field is equilibrium. The basic nature of forces is displacement. This gives rise to two different types of inertia: inertia of motion due to forces and inertia of restoration (elasticity) due to the field. This leads to both these inertia acting against a point of equilibrium. In such a scenario, the combined effect leads to confinement around the point of equilibrium. The confined structure is called particle. Thus, all particles have a central point of mass or nucleus, an extra nuclear field surrounding it and fixed orbitals confining it. This is the common feature of all particles be they quarks or the Cosmos. The confinement may also cover the field without the central point. This is caused due to non-linear interaction of the forces. We will describe the mechanism separately. In such a case the field behaves like a fluid. The latest finding of LHC is that the Universe was created from such a super-fluid and not gases. The confined field also interacts with the Universal field due to difference in density. This in turn modifies the nature of interactions at different points in the medium (Universal field).

    A force can act only between two particles as only a particle can influence the field, which in turn can be experienced by another particle. If the external force of the field is more than the confining force of the two particles, then the two particles break up and join to form a new particle. We call this "sambhuti". In the opposite case, the two particles experience the force without being internally affected. The force acts between the centers' of mass of each treating each as a point particle. We call it "bibhuti". This second category of relationship, which we call "udyaama", is known as gravity. Since it stabilizes the two bodies at the maximum permissible distance between them depending upon their respective masses, we call it "urugaaya pratisthaa". For reasons to be discussed separately, this is possible only if gravity is treated as a composite force.

    The first category of forces, which are interactions between two bodies, acts differently based on proximity-proximity, proximity-distance, distance - proximity and distance - distance variables. We call these relationships "antaryaama", "vahiryaama", "upayaama" and "yaatayaama" respectively. This interaction affects the field also inducing various local disturbances. These disturbances are known as "nitya gati", "yagnya gati", "samprasaada gati" and "saamparaaya gati" respectively. Any particle entering the field at those points feels these disturbances, which are known as the strong nuclear interaction, weak nuclear interaction, electromagnetic interaction and radioactive disintegration respectively. Thus, you can see that gravity belongs to a completely different group of forces and cannot be integrated with other fundamental forces of Nature in the normal process. Yet, it has a different function by which other forces can be derived from it. We will discuss that separately.

    According to our theory, gravity is a composite force of seven forces that are generated based on their charge. Thus, they are related to charge interactions. But we do not accept Coulomb's law. We have a different theory for it. We derive it from fundamental principles.

    According to our theory, all particles are locally confined fields. This confinement takes a three fold structure for the particle - center of mass or nucleus, extra-nuclear field and the confining orbitals. If we take into account the external field with which the particle interacts, it becomes a four-fold (3+1) structure. The particle interacts with the field in two ways. If the internal energy distribution cancels each other with a little inward pull, then it behaves as a stable particle. Thus, we have derived theoretically the charge of proton in electron units not +1, but +10/11. Similarly, the charge of neutron is not 0, but -1/11. This makes the atom slightly negatively charged. This excess negative charge is not experienced out side as it is directed towards nucleus. But it is released during fusion and fission.

    The confinement described above takes place where the external field dominates to confine the particle. Here the particle becomes negatively charged. In the opposite case, the particle becomes positively charged. The particles are classified as positively charged or negatively charged according to whether the external field dominates over confinement or the confined force dominates over the local field. Since equilibrium is inherent in Nature, in either case, the particles search for their complements to become full. The less negative part of the proton (since it is +10/11, it has -1/11 negative charge) seeks to couple with the electron to become -1/11. This makes hydrogen atom highly reactionary.

    The combined charge of proton and electron (-1/11) seeks the neutron since it has an equal charge. Thus, the opposites do not attract and same charge does not repel. It is not the opposite either. The charge interaction can be of four types:

    positive + positive = explosive.

    Positive + negative (total interaction) = internally creative (increased atomic number)

    Positive + negative (partial interaction) = externally creative (becomes an ion)

    Negative + negative = no reaction.

    Regards,

    basudeba.

    Thanks Moshe. I'll print your essay out and add it to the stack I'm taking with me to a conference this week. Cheers!

    Ian

    Hmm. Doesn't QED offer a fairly reasonable explanation of how charges attract and repel?

    Right, I see what you're saying here. I do think there are many unanswered issues here. I'll have to think a bit more about this.

    And I meant 'unanswered issues' with gravity and electrostatics, not necessarily your idea (which I need to give more thought).

    I think you have misinterpreted what I meant by an epistemic state. In fact, the examples I gave were taken from one of Rob's' papers. The probabilistic state is a state of knowledge in that it gives us a certain *degree* or *level* of knowledge rather than providing complete knowledge and, as such, may or may not describe reality (i.e. may or may not correspond to an ontic state).

    Interesting. I'll have to give your ideas some deeper thought before I can comment further, but I have a soft spot for astronomy. :)

    Regarding the Hebrew, it was immaterial to the essay, was supplied with a translation, and was there to honor my father-in-law who was Jewish. I find the mere fact that you brought this up to be disturbing. It would be one thing if I wrote an important portion of the essay in Hebrew, but all I did was put a portion of the dedication in Hebrew. Why the &$%^ should you care?

    I don't understand your comment about WMAP. Unfortunately, I do not remember your question from earlier. I have been very busy and I find the software that runs this forum to be annoying and confusing.

    John,

    That's actually a very intriguing observation (although your last sentence is really just an argument of semantics).

    Constantin,

    The black hole information paradox is called a paradox for a reason. If you'd like to argue that it isn't actually a paradox, then feel free. But its existence does not a priori prove that my statement was erroneous.

    Thank you Petra. I am not sure to what you are referring regarding the essay of 2020 vision.

    Thanks for the kind words Russell! I will try to pop over to Dean's essay and read your comments.

    • [deleted]

    Dear Sir,

    Further to our comments above, we will like to add the following.

    In Coulomb's law, F = k Q1 x Q2 /d^2. In a charge neutral object, either Q1 or Q2 will be zero reducing the whole equation to zero. This implies that no interaction is possible between a charged object and a charge neutral object. But this is contrary to experience. Hence the format of Coulomb's law is wrong.

    When we said "positive positive = explosive", what we meant was the fusion reaction tat leads to unleashing of huge amounts of energy. Its opposite is also true, but since it is reduction, there is less energy release.

    Positive negative (total interaction) = internally creative (increased atomic number.) This means that if one proton and one electron is added to the atom, the atomic number goes up.

    Positive negative (partial interaction) = externally creative (becomes an ion.) This means that if one proton or one electron is added to the atom, the atom becomes ionic.

    Negative negative = no reaction. What actually it means that though there will be no reaction between the two negatively charged particles; they will appear to repel each other as their nature is confinement. Like two pots that confine water cannot occupy the same place and if one is placed near another with some areas overlapping, then both repel each other. This is shown in the "Wheeler's Aharonov-Bohm experiment".

    Regards,

    basudeba