The Discreet Charm of the Discrete by Paul Halpern

Dear Professor Halpern,

Your essay provides much food for thought. I would like to know how in the scenario of a holon falling into a black hole this idea can be reconciled with the GR prediction that the holon becomes gravitationally blueshifted.

Thank you,

Armin

Paul,

Incisive argument for holons that led me with the weight of your argument in each direction you took including your holon thrust.

I haven't heard many looks into a dark energy explanation that work.

Quite persuasive and scholarly.

Jim Hoover

Only this Essay and my comment reminding about Holometer

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/946

Hi dear Prof.Halpern,

Congratulations, the evolution is so important.....quantum spheres.....H....CNO..Hydrospheroids about 3.4billions......CH4 H20 HCN H2C2 NH3....time evolution rotating spinning proprotions.........UNICELLS....differenciation......pluricells.....sponges ..mmedusas.......humans................UNIVERSAL SPHERE.

The encoding is rational simply.

Best Regards and good luck

Steve

Hi both,

As part-historian of physics, I feel I have to clear up a myth contained in here. Planck did not introduce the quantum of action (initially written as an epsilon, to be taken to zero) to resolve a problem in the UV part of the spectrum (the bad behaviour predicted by the Rayleigh-Jeans law), but rather with the Wien law, in the infrared part of the spectrum. It was Wien's law that he sought to recover with his own formula for the blackbody energy. It really ought to be called the "infrared catastrophe". The historical evidence points to the fact that Planck was not aware of Rayleigh's analysis when he proposed his idea - Rayleigh's proposal came in June, and Planck's in the October of 1900 - there was no correspondence and no publication at this stage). Also, quite interestingly, the name "ultraviolet catastrophe" wasn't coined until 1911, by Paul Ehrenfest.

Best,

Dean

Dear Paul Halpern

I thoroughly enjoyed your essay, that started with a reference to the much-maligned Lord Kelvin. He also conjectured that the ether is made up of 'knots' which may well describe holons or twistors or the lattice nodes of my own theory. I have tried to show in my in my earlier 2005 Beautiful Universe paper on which my present fqxi paper is based that if these universal building blocks have dielectric properties and angular momentum, their precise mutual interactions may well account for matter, space, radiation and dark matter. Dark energy will be the natural result of the mutual electrostatic repulsion of these nodes, probably self-assembled in an FCC crystal-like configeration. I also proposed experiments to test the graininess of the vacuum. In a fqxi discussion here with Tommaso Bolognesi I proposed a variation of my experiment in which two parrallel standing waves in vacuum may exhibit moire patterns with a phase much larger than the wavelength of the original universal node (or holon - I like the word and will check Koestler's book) length. I would greatly appreciate your reading my papers and hearing your expert reaction.

With best wishes.

Vladimir Tamari

Dear Paul Halpern,

''Hogan and Chou discover, through their holometer experiment, evidence that light's motion follows discrete steps''.

Because of Heisenberg uncertainty the position of photon is uncertain, so you'll never see evidence that light's motion follows discrete steps.

Since you are interested in discrete spacetime, please look here. The hole model of discontinuous spacetime can explain gravitation, inertia and most of the quantum phenomena. How about vacuum holes in your model?(Don't forget to vote(:

Regards

Constantin

Dear Professor Halpern,

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed the mix of the historical with modern conjectural views toward physics displayed by your essay. One question. Have you considered the possible role of The Extended Theories of Gravity in which the cosmos possesses an intrinsic curvature as an alternative to the Standard Model with respect to the many open cosmological questions we now face? I would point you toward Christian Corda's excellent essay as well as own. In my own simple approach, I show that the cosmos must have an intrinsic curvature for a very elementary reason. As for the observations that lead to the DE hypothesis, they have to rate as the most exciting discovery since Hubble.

Have a great day,

Dan

Sorry, that last anon. post was mine.

Dan

Dear Paul,

I enjoyed reading your essay and I like how you use the idea of lowest wavelength fields to discuss discrete aspects of the physical law. Congratulations for the very well-written essay and the profound exploration of the implications of the idea of holons.

Best regards,

Cristi