Real-Time Physics

"The Farce of Physics" by Bryan Wallace

Bryan Wallace: "There is a popular argument that the world's oldest profession is sexual prostitution. I think that it is far more likely that the oldest profession is scientific prostitution, and that it is still alive and well, and thriving in the 20th century. I suspect that long before sex had any commercial value, the prehistoric shamans used their primitive knowledge to acquire status, wealth, and political power, in much the same way as the dominant scientific and religious politicians of our time do. (...) Because many of the dominant theories of our time do not follow the rules of science, they should more properly be labeled pseudoscience. The people who tend to believe more in theories than in the scientific method of testing theories, and who ignore the evidence against the theories they believe in, should be considered pseudoscientists and not true scientists. To the extent that the professed beliefs are based on the desire for status, wealth, or political reasons, these people are scientific prostitutes. (...) Einstein's special relativity theory with his second postulate that the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin that holds the whole range of modern physics theories together. Shatter this postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce! (...) The speed of light is c+v. (...) I expect that the scientists of the future will consider the dominant abstract physics theories of our time in much the same light as we now consider the Medieval theories of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or that the Earth stands still and the Universe moves around it."

Note: Bryan Wallace wrote "The Farce of Physics" on his deathbed so one can find stylistic imperfections, undeveloped ideas etc.

See also:

Radar Testing of the Relative Velocity of Light in Space, Bryan G. Wallace, Spectroscopy Letters, 1969, pp. 361-367. ABSTRACT: "Published interplanetary radar data presents evidence that the relative velocity of light in space is c+v and not c." INTRODUCTION: "There are three main theories about the relativity velocity of light in space. The Newtonian corpuscular theory is relativistic in the Galilean sense and postulates that the velocity is c+v relative to the observer. The ether theory postulates that the velocity is c relative to the ether. The Einstein theory postulates that the velocity is c relative to the observer. The Michelson-Morley experiment presents evidence against the ether theory and for the c+v theory. The c theory explains the results of this experiment by postulating ad hoc properties of space and time..."

Pentcho Valev

Pentcho,

Your Wallace seems to be wrong. The Newtonian corpuscular theory does not postulate that the velocity is c+v relative to the observer. It refers to the velocity of the emitter, not of the observer.

While there are indeed emitter theories, aether theories, and SR, I prefer another idea: The speed of light refers to the distance from the location of emitter at the moment of emission to the location of receiver at the moment of arrival. In other words, it does not at all refer to a velocity.

There is no objectively preferred resting point of reference in space. Superposition of waves does not add their velocities.

Best,

Eckard

"The Farce of Physics" by Bryan Wallace II

Time to remember Halton Arp:

Halton Arp Victim Of Rational Scientific Society

Just like Bryan Wallace, Halton Arp is an unperson in Divine Albert's world:

George Orwell: "Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not exist : he had never existed."

Pentcho Valev

Einsteiniana : The Perihelion of Mercury Hoax

The mythology: Einstein was able to predict, WITHOUT ANY ADJUSTMENTS WHATSOEVER, that the orbit of Mercury should precess by an extra 43 seconds of arc per century:

"This discrepancy cannot be accounted for using Newton's formalism. Many ad-hoc fixes were devised (such as assuming there was a certain amount of dust between the Sun and Mercury) but none were consistent with other observations (for example, no evidence of dust was found when the region between Mercury and the Sun was carefully scrutinized). In contrast, Einstein was able to predict, WITHOUT ANY ADJUSTMENTS WHATSOEVER, that the orbit of Mercury should precess by an extra 43 seconds of arc per century should the General Theory of Relativity be correct."

In fact, Einstein desperately adjusted his theory several times until eventually it "predicted" the known-in-advance precession. Things are even more serious - in 1907 Einstein sets himself the goal "to use his new theory of gravity, WHATEVER IT MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE, to explain the discrepancy between the observed motion of the perihelion of the planet Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newtonian gravitational theory":

Michel Janssen: "But - as we know from a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht of December 24, 1907 - one of the goals that Einstein set himself early on, was to use his new theory of gravity, whatever it might turn out to be, to explain the discrepancy between the observed motion of the perihelion of the planet Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newtonian gravitational theory. (...) The Einstein-Grossmann theory - also known as the "Entwurf" ("outline") theory after the title of Einstein and Grossmann's paper - is, in fact, already very close to the version of general relativity published in November 1915 and constitutes an enormous advance over Einstein's first attempt at a generalized theory of relativity and theory of gravitation published in 1912. The crucial breakthrough had been that Einstein had recognized that the gravitational field - or, as we would now say, the inertio-gravitational field - should not be described by a variable speed of light as he had attempted in 1912, but by the so-called metric tensor field. The metric tensor is a mathematical object of 16 components, 10 of which independent, that characterizes the geometry of space and time. In this way, gravity is no longer a force in space and time, but part of the fabric of space and time itself: gravity is part of the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein had turned to Grossmann for help with the difficult and unfamiliar mathematics needed to formulate a theory along these lines. (...) Einstein did not give up the Einstein-Grossmann theory once he had established that it could not fully explain the Mercury anomaly. He continued to work on the theory and never even mentioned the disappointing result of his work with Besso in print. So Einstein did not do what the influential philosopher Sir Karl Popper claimed all good scientists do: once they have found an empirical refutation of their theory, they abandon that theory and go back to the drawing board. (...) On November 4, 1915, he presented a paper to the Berlin Academy officially retracting the Einstein-Grossmann équations and replacing them with new ones. On November 11, a short addendum to this paper followed, once again changing his field equations. A week later, on November 18, Einstein presented the paper containing his celebrated explanation of the perihelion motion of Mercury on the basis of this new theory. Another week later he changed the field equations once more. These are the equations still used today. This last change did not affect the result for the perihelion of Mercury. Besso is not acknowledged in Einstein's paper on the perihelion problem. Apparently, Besso's help with this technical problem had not been as valuable to Einstein as his role as sounding board that had earned Besso the famous acknowledgment in the special relativity paper of 1905. Still, an acknowledgment would have been appropriate. After all, what Einstein had done that week in November, was simply to redo the calculation he had done with Besso in June 1913, using his new field equations instead of the Einstein-Grossmann equations. It is not hard to imagine Einstein's excitement when he inserted the numbers for Mercury into the new expression he found and the result was 43", in excellent agreement with observation."

Pentcho Valev

On the perihelion advance of Mercury, and "This discrepancy cannot be accounted for using Newton's formalism. Many ad-hoc fixes were devised (such as assuming there was a certain amount of dust between the Sun and Mercury) but none were consistent with other observations (for example, no evidence of dust was found when the region between Mercury and the Sun was carefully scrutinized)...

In Newton's, Le Verrier's and Einstein's era, the evidence we now have for invisible "dust" called dark matter was non-existent. Today, to a large extent, we can almost be certain that in moving at 225km/s about our galactic centre, our sun is just a tiny speck being carried around and following the moving invisible "dust" called dark matter. It is also Newtonian that since this dust interacts gravitationally, its density will be many times enhanced in the sun's vicinity.

Question for 'Einsteiniana' apologies to Pentcho: Could that unseen mass, we now call dark matter be Planet Vulcan?

Akinbo

If calculations based on Newton's gravitational law give a wrong prediction, then either:

(A) the law is wrong and should be fixed

or:

(B) some mass is either unaccounted for or assumed to be in the wrong place

No third alternative exists except in Divine Albert's world where the problem is "solved" by changing and fudging equations.

Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud suggests that, in the perihelion of Mercury case, the apparent deviation from the Newtonian prediction is due to the non-spherical sun:

"En effet, des scientifiques soupçonnent que le Soleil pourrait ne pas être rigoureusement sphérique et un "aplatissement" réel introduirait une correction supplémentaire. La précision actuelle deviendrait alors le talon d'Achille compromettant le bel accord de la théorie."

Pentcho Valev

References explaining how Einstein "predicted" the precession of Mercury's perihelion by changing and fudging equations:

Michel Janssen, "The Einstein-Besso Manuscript: A Glimpse Behind the Curtain of the Wizard"

Stéphane Foucart, "Einstein-Besso, duo pour un eurêka !"

"L'erreur d'Einstein (la deuxième)"

Pentcho Valev

Logic in Divine Albert's World

"Emission theory (also called emitter theory or ballistic theory of light) was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Emission theories obey the principle of relativity by having no preferred frame for light transmission, but say that light is emitted at speed "c" relative to its source instead of applying the invariance postulate. Thus, emitter theory combines electrodynamics and mechanics with a simple Newtonian theory. Although there are still proponents of this theory outside the scientific mainstream, this theory is considered to be conclusively discredited by most scientists. The name most often associated with emission theory is Isaac Newton. In his Corpuscular theory Newton visualized light "corpuscles" being thrown off from hot bodies at a nominal speed of c with respect to the emitting object, and obeying the usual laws of Newtonian mechanics, and we then expect light to be moving towards us with a speed that is offset by the speed of the distant emitter (c ± v)."

That is, the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment can be deduced from the following fundamental postulates of the emission theory:

1. The principle of relativity is correct.

2. The speed of light (relative to the observer) varies with the speed of the emitter (c'=c+v).

Yet in Divine Albert's world the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment can also be deduced from the fundamental postulates of special relativity:

1. The principle of relativity is correct.

2. The speed of light (relative to the observer) does not vary with the speed of the emitter (c'=c).

It turns out that the second postulate is superfluous and the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment can be deduced from the principle of relativity alone. If so, the following assumption seems reasonable: Not only in this deduction but in any deduction performed in Divine Albert's world the second postulate of special relativity is superfluous! That is, the speed of light may be constant or variable - all the same, Divine Albert's Divine Theory remains unaffected and eternal, yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity.

Is the above assumption popular in Divine Albert's world? Yes, and it is not an assumption - it is an established fact:

Comment le jeune et ambitieux Einstein s'est approprié la Relativité restreinte de Poincaré, Jean Hladik, p. 115: "Le postulat d'Einstein a été considéré par ses contemporains, et l'est encore à l'heure actuelle par ceux qui n'ont pas renouvelé leurs connaissances, comme étant un postulat nécessaire aux fondements de la Relativité restreinte. C'est ce qui a en grande partie conduit à attribuer la paternité de la Relativité à Einstein. Or ce postulat est non seulement superflu mais encore il engendre un sérieux doute sur la crédibilité de la théorie relativiste."

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "Mais l'inutile et depuis longtemps caduc « second postulat » (celui de l'invariance de la vitesse de la lumière) garde encore une place de choix dans les exposés."

Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains of applicability would be reduced)."

Tom Roberts: "As I said before, Special Relativity would not be affected by a non-zero photon mass, as Einstein's second postulate is not required in a modern derivation (using group theory one obtains three related theories, two of which are solidly refuted experimentally and the third is SR). So today's foundations of modern physics would not be threatened."

Mitchell J. Feigenbaum: "In this paper, not only do I show that the constant speed of light is unnecessary for the construction of the theories of relativity, but overwhelmingly more, there is no room for it in the theory."

Why Einstein was wrong about relativity, 29 October 2008, Mark Buchanan, NEW SCIENTIST: "...a photon with mass would not necessarily always travel at the same speed. Feigenbaum's work shows how, contrary to many physicists' beliefs, this need not be a problem for relativity."

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "Il se pourrait même que de futures mesures mettent en évidence une masse infime, mais non-nulle, du photon ; la lumière alors n'irait plus à la "vitesse de la lumière", ou, plus précisément, la vitesse de la lumière, désormais variable, ne s'identifierait plus à la vitesse limite invariante. Les procédures opérationnelles mises en jeu par le "second postulat" deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La théorie elle-même en serait-elle invalidée ? Heureusement, il n'en est rien..."

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "The evidence of the nonzero mass of the photon would not, as such, shake in any way the validity of the special relalivity. It would, however, nullify all its derivations which are based on the invariance of the photon velocity."

Pentcho Valev

Valev, if you actually read and understood any of the references you spam across these boards, you could have earned a PhD, maybe even three or four.

One of my favorites, Mitchell Feigenbaum, writes aside from your tendentious quoting: "In conclusion, it is important to know that the foundations of our present kinematics don't rely on the properties of light. Should light, photons, turn out to be composite, they must then acquire some mass. This could be true with 1/c^2 of relativity still being a limiting constant of Nature, but now without a palpable physical entity directly expressing it. There is no particle that innately is Plank's constant. It is perhaps worth recalling that the neutrino, crafted as two-component by virtue of its masslessness, seemed necessarily thereafter to be massless. But, it turns out to have a negligible, but very nonvanishing mass, so that it can no longer be conceived of as moving at c. Surprises are always possible, but they need not overturn, yet, Galileo's brilliant vision. They did so a century ago for Newton. Such is the pure world of human thought."

He is saying that if photons had mass, the speed of light constant would only apply in the limit of action on the Planck scale. Then relativity would be a far *stronger* principle in classical physics than it is now -- which should give you reason to be even more hysterical, if that's possible.

Tom

Doppler Refutes Einstein, Confirms Newton

A light source emits a series of pulses the distance between which is L (e.g. L=300000 km). A stationary observer measures the frequency of the pulses to be f, their speed to be c and the distance between them to be L:

f = c/L

Let the observer start moving with speed v relative to the source (v is small so that the relativistic corrections can be ignored). The moving observer measures the frequency of the pulses to be f'=f(1±v/c)=(c±v)/L, their speed to be c' and the distance between them to be L':

f' = c'/L'

The crucial questions are:

c' = ? ; L' = ?

Newton's emission theory of light gives a straightforward answer:

Newton's answer: c' = c±v ; L' = L

Einstein's special relativity says that c'=c but Einsteinians are usually silent about L'. Still f' and c' determine L' unequivocally:

Einstein's answer: c' = c ; L' = Lc/(c+v) when the observer moves towards the source ; L' = Lc/(c-v) when the observer moves away from the source.

Clearly Einstein's answer is absurd. Special relativity predicts a miraculous length contraction (which has nothing to do with the length contraction of the Lorentz transforms) when the observer starts moving towards the source and an equally miraculous length elongation when the observer starts moving away from the source.

Conclusion: The speed of light is c'=c±v, not c'=c.

Pentcho Valev

"In the classical Newtonian view, physics operated according to the ticking of an invisible universal clock. But Einstein threw out that master clock when, in his theory of special relativity, he argued that no two events are truly simultaneous unless they are causally related. If simultaneity--the notion of "now"--is relative, the universal clock must be a fiction, and time itself a proxy for the movement and change of objects in the universe. Time is literally written out of the equation."

Newton was correct about time. There is a universal ticking clock. Its magnitude of 'tick' is not invisible. The 'tick' is already in use in physics equations. I introduced the 'tick' in my essay The Absoluteness of Time.

James Putnam

Singularities in Divine Albert's and Big Brother's Worlds

For all waves (light waves included), when the observer starts moving towards the wave source with speed v, the speed of the wavecrests relative to him shifts from c to c'=c+v, and the frequency he measures shifts, accordingly, from f=c/L to f'=c'/L=(c+v)/L, where L is the wavelength.

In Divine Albert's world, when the observer starts moving towards the wave source with speed v, the speed of the wavecrests relative to him shifts from c to c'=c+v for all waves but light waves. For light waves the speed of the wavecrests relative to the observer does not shift at all and Einsteinians clearly see that c'=c, Divine Einstein, yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. This singularity, c'=c, does not affect the frequency - even in Divine Albert's world, for all waves (light waves included), when the observer starts moving towards the wave source with speed v, the frequency he measures shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c+v)/L.

In Big Brother's world the singularity equivalent to c'=c is 2+2=5:

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"

Pentcho Valev

The current rallying cry in Einsteiniana:

"Brothers Einsteinians, let's somehow get rid of the consequent, Einstein's idiotic concept of time, and preserve the antecedent, Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate!"

"Many physicists argue that time is an illusion. Lee Smolin begs to differ. (...) Smolin wishes to hold on to the reality of time. But to do so, he must overcome a major hurdle: General and special relativity seem to imply the opposite. In the classical Newtonian view, physics operated according to the ticking of an invisible universal clock. But Einstein threw out that master clock when, in his theory of special relativity, he argued that no two events are truly simultaneous unless they are causally related. If simultaneity - the notion of "now" - is relative, the universal clock must be a fiction, and time itself a proxy for the movement and change of objects in the universe. Time is literally written out of the equation. Although he has spent much of his career exploring the facets of a "timeless" universe, Smolin has become convinced that this is "deeply wrong," he says. He now believes that time is more than just a useful approximation, that it is as real as our guts tell us it is - more real, in fact, than space itself. The notion of a "real and global time" is the starting hypothesis for Smolin's new work, which he will undertake this year with two graduate students supported by a $47,500 grant from FQXi."

"Newton and Leibniz debated this very point. Newton portrayed space and time as existing independently while Rovelli and Brown share Leibniz's view that time and space exist only as properties of things and the relationships between them. It is still not clear who is right, says John Norton, a philosopher based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

"But our everyday intuitive sense - the Newtonian realist position - still has backers, scientific and philosophical. Enter the philosopher-physicist team of Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin. (...) Along with Lee Smolin, Unger is concentrating on a book with the draft title, The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. They hope to lob it into the debate sometime next year..."

New Scientist: "ADVANCES in physics often result from observations that don't fit theory: the Michelson-Morley experiment, for example, saw no universal ether, paving the way for Einstein's relativity. That successful theory is itself hard to square with one of the most universal observations of all. Relativity, and many subsequent physical theories, kill off the notion that time flows - but every human alive will argue otherwise. Well, almost every human: some physicists are resigned to the "block universe", with its static time. Others, however, feel that any theory that doesn't accommodate our experience must be flawed..."

New Scientist: "Saving time: Physics killed it. Do we need it back?"

The new great time war. Download audio: 04:40 : Roberto Unger: "Relativity of time in the local sense is an indisputed fact resulting from discoveries associated with Einstein's name. But the so-called Minkowski spacetime and in particular the dominant project in post-Einsteinian science of spacializing time, of treating time as if it were properly described by the metaphor "the fourth dimension" - all of that is metaphysics and not empirical discovery."

QUESTION: Setting aside any other debates about relativity theory for the moment, why would the speed of light be absolute? No other speeds are absolute, that is, all other speeds do indeed change in relation to the speed of the observer, so it's always seemed a rather strange notion to me. LEE SMOLIN: Special relativity works extremely well and the postulate of the invariance or universality of the speed of light is extremely well-tested. It might be wrong in the end but it is an extremely good approximation to reality. QUESTION: So let me pick a bit more on Einstein and ask you this: You write (p. 56) that Einstein showed that simultaneity is relative. But the conclusion of the relativity of simultaneity flows necessarily from Einstein's postulates (that the speed of light is absolute and that the laws of nature are relative). So he didn't really show that simultaneity was relative - he assumed it. What do I have wrong here? LEE SMOLIN: The relativity of simultaneity is a consequence of the two postulates that Einstein proposed and so it is deduced from the postulates. The postulates and their consequences are then checked experimentally and, so far, they hold remarkably well.

Pentcho Valev

Fierce doublethink in Einsteiniana:

Lee Smolin, November 1, 2013: "I argue that temporal naturalism is empirically more adequate than the alternatives, because it offers testable explanations for puzzles its rivals cannot address, and is likely a better basis for solving major puzzles that presently face cosmology and physics. (...) Temporal naturalism assumes there is an object observer independent distinction between present, past and future. This violates the relativity of simultaneity, which is supported by ultra-precise tests of special relativity. (...) But, as discussed above, there is a formulation of general relativity, which is empirically equivalent to the older one, shape dynamics, that has a preferred global simultaneity because it trades the relativity of time for a relativity of scale. Hence temporal naturalism can be consistent with all the experimental tests of special and general relativity."

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge ; and so on indefinitely, WITH THE LIE ALWAYS ONE LEAP AHEAD OF THE TRUTH."

Pentcho Valev

Pentcho,

I much resonate with Smolin's temporal naturalism. Thank you.

I just wonder; he wrote: "I am a Leibnizian, which I take to mean that I find the following of his principles to be very helpful to frame the search for a correct cosmological theory. ...

• Principle of reciprocity: if an element of nature, A, can influence change in an element B, the reverse must also be the case" and

"The principle of reciprocity was introduced by Einstein as part of the motivation for general relativity. I will widen its application to criticize the idea that laws of nature are immutable if they act to cause events to happen but in turn cannot be changed or modified by anything that happens inside the universe. However, note that I will allow an important exception to this principle as I will posit that the past influences the present and future, but the reverse is not true; no event in the past can be affected by anything that happens in its future."

Is reciprocity at all really a general principle introduced by Leibniz?

Eckard

If Lee wants to change from Saul to Paul, I think he should be encouraged and helped on his way to Damascus...

If it is not late to ensure the $47500 grant comes out with something concrete answers to the questions below and not a nebulous conclusion. We should ask and know:

Whether there is any notion of a 'moment'?

Is there a shortest possible moment?

Is moment and time an attribute of what exists?

Or can what does not exist also have a duration/moment?

What does exist mean?

Can what does not have extension exist and thus also have a moment?

Suppose 'points' exist as Pythagoreans, Leibniz and Aristotle insist?

Will the temporal existence of such points constitute or not an aggregation of moments?

Will the 'points' having 'moments' not give rise to a discrete space? Or can a space, whose points have moments still be said capable of exhibiting only a continuous nature?

Will a space having such constituents be said to be only a 'relational concept'?

In one of Lee's writings, the one Pentcho linked on the 100 year anniversary of Special relativity, Lee restricted himself to only two choices: one a fixed background and two, no background at all. Suppose there is a third? A background that is not fixed? A background in which zillions of points are popping in and out of existence? A background with local moments occurring within the collective big canvass of moments? Or must all backgrounds be fixed?

For advocates of a discrete space, what can separate the constituents of space, since space cannot be relied on to do its own separation to discreteness?

In the absence of a geometric entity to separate points, is space then not continuous in nature?

I suggest that all FQXi awardees should have a blog site where we can tell them the concrete answers we would be expecting from their chosen work. FQXi should not only be for asking questions, the Qs must come up with As from time to time to justify and sustain our interest.

Akinbo

Eckard,

RE: • Principle of reciprocity: if an element of nature, A, can influence change in an element B, the reverse must also be the case", ... The principle of reciprocity was introduced by Einstein, ...Is reciprocity at all really a general principle introduced by Leibniz?

Did Newton's third law not predate this?

Then on what you attribute to Lee Smolin,"...I will posit that the past influences the present and future, but the reverse is not true; no event in the past can be affected by anything that happens in its future."

I ask: Is the past, a substance? Or is the future one? I submit that only that which has extension can influence another and also be influenced in return.

This is part of the matrimonial confusion that may arise when you marry two things, Space and Time, against their will.

Akinbo

" ... when you marry two things, Space and Time, against their will."

Nonsense. Space and time are one continuum, not two things.

" ... when you marry two things, Space and Time, against their will."

Thomas Howard Ray: "Nonsense. Space and time are one continuum, not two things."

Says who? Divine Albert? Minkowski?

"Einstein introduced a new notion of time, more radical than even he at first realized. In fact, the view of time that Einstein adopted was first articulated by his onetime math teacher in a famous lecture delivered one century ago. That lecture, by the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski, established a new arena for the presentation of physics, a new vision of the nature of reality redefining the mathematics of existence. The lecture was titled Space and Time, and it introduced to the world the marriage of the two, now known as spacetime. It was a good marriage, but lately physicists passion for spacetime has begun to diminish. And some are starting to whisper about possible grounds for divorce. (...) Physicists of the 21st century therefore face the task of finding the true reality obscured by the spacetime mirage."

Pentcho Valev