Evolving Time's Arrow

Tom,

Even Paul Steinhardt is starting to walk back Inflation, per the feature article in last month's SciAm, because it creates more problem than it solves. How many Hail Marys does it take to make that a "1 to 1 correspondence?"

Dark Energy isn't even a patch. Essentially it's a contract put out for whomever can resolve the rather enormous lack of correspondence between theory and observation. How can a theory ever be considered wrong, if every failed prediction is simply considered evidence of some undiscovered property? That's not science, that's religion. True Believers remain undaunted in the face of adversity.

Do you even know what intuition is, since you seem view it in such a negative light?

When you are sitting around in the evening, with various ideas, theories, equations, etc. running through your thoughts and suddenly a connection occurs to you; That is insight. Then the mind starts considering it and the scales of accumulated knowledge either tilt to the opinion that it is worth further consideration, or that it's just a fluke of the imagination and you dismiss it. That is intuition.

When Einstein was sitting on that train and had a flash of insight as to how the speed of light maintains consistency for all observers, due to the mediation of distance and duration, it was his intuition, his accumulated knowledge, which suggested it was an idea worth pursuing.

When I suggested to that neurologist that the distinction between the mind and the brain could be due to the function of time, it was enough of an insight to him that he recognized it as such. Then his years of formal eduction kicked in and his intuition told him that time is part of a four dimensional geometry and a neurological illusion.

Why is it that the insights of an early 20th century physicist outweigh what is an insight to an early 21st century neurologist? Is it simply because Physics Rules? Even though this mashup of space and time facilitates all number of conceptual nonsense?

So you are right; Sometimes our intuition can fail massively, but we should understand why, before we start peaching the gospel, because our sense of what is right and what is wrong is a function of that very intuition.

"When Einstein was sitting on that train and had a flash of insight as to how the speed of light maintains consistency for all observers, due to the mediation of distance and duration, it was his intuition, his accumulated knowledge, which suggested it was an idea worth pursuing."

Except for the fact that that isn't what he intuited.

If you knew the classical physics that preceded Einstein's insight into relativity, as he knew it, you wouldn't have to imagine stuff by which you predict the demise of physics.

Tom

Aargh, there is no such discrepancy between theory and measurement. The de Sitter conformal expansion factor describes inflation. What is not known is the nature of the quantum vacuum or equivalently the quantum states of the universe which make up this factor. This is why it is called dark energy. To understand this requires a complete theory of quantum gravity, which as yet does not exist. However, the existence of this dark energy is well documented in the data. During the so called inflationary period, where the universe exponentially expanded much more rapidly, the vacuum was set at a much higher value. Now the vacuum is in some broken configuration at a much lower energy. This residual energy is what drives the current exponential expansion of the universe.

Cheers LC

John,

You wrote "the brain is a physical object that goes from past events to future ones." Is this correct?

I see prediction, preparation, planning, and other anticipations of future merely a combining extrapolation on a sound physiological basis that does not reverse causality. An anticipated picture of future events is never already future reality, no matter how likely it will come true.

Tom,

You wrote "classical physics that preceded Einstein's insight into relativity". Wasn't relativity of motion clearly understood by Galileo Galilei and Isaak Newton while Poincaré's unjustified round-trip synchronization implied a possibility to interpret the so far ad hoc postulated as to justify the idea of an ether Lorentz transformation in a rather speculative manner? In Germany, Einstein was made accepted by Max Planck, and he did not get a Nobel price awarded for his theory of "relativity". Instead of celebrating Minkowski's spacetime as an insight, we should rather look for non-paradox alternatives that are in agreement with reality. So far it looks to me as if Galilean physics is still correct, not just as an approximation for low speed.

By the way, doesn't Galilean relativity mean that I cannot at all attribute a speed to anything unless a reference has been chosen? The speed of sound in air refers to the air. What does the speed of light refer to?

Ritz considered light like a bullet referring to the emitting source. I can definitely not expect a single observer like myself central to reality. Let's consider light from the sun approaching me. I do not see any reason to assume that I am able to change its speed by moving myself towards or away from the sun. In these cases I merely expect the observed wavelength changed by the Doppler effect. I do not exclude that media in the path of propagation including the earth as a receiver of light might have a more or less dragging and possibly also delaying influence. As I read, such questions were and still are subject of research.

However, I cannot find in Einstein's 1905 SR paper to what point he referred the speed of light. Has a lot of physics been based on a missing reference?

Eckard

Dear Robert Oldershaw,

Did you overlook my question? I am curious.

Regards,

Eckard

Tom,

I'm not the one setting the field up for a fall.

Lawrence,

What are your thoughts on this paper:

[link:www.fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/2008CChristov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf]http://www.fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/2008CChristov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf/link]

Eckard,

Subjectively the individual brain is a single point of reference in a physically dynamic context. The right side amounts to a complex thermostat, evaluating the various elements of this context. The left side is a complex clock, sequencing the changing configurations of this context. As we are propelled about in space, we transition through series of events, but the larger physical reality is that these events are a consequence of the changing configuration of form, not points on a foundational temporal dimension. The constant is the present, not the events, or their four dimensional geometric configuration. Light only exists in the present. Memory and mass are composed of light, but light has no memory or mass.

If the hertz is cycles per time, time per cycle some wavelength. Mr. Callender will explore what that experimental wavelength is to various interpreters. If this length is off by 120 orders of magnitude or whatever in the total expansion of space as we may know it, then certainly some valuations of what that length will fall off the traditional relativistic order of time in Lorentian-Minkowsy iso-spin space and stuff. As pertaining to kinship, I value the beginnings which have mystified me: the now that was. The baggage along time's wayside is undervalued, so I hope that the experiment fails in this extension to kinship. Long term evolution and inheritance are drivers that shape and maximize the footprint of the future.

Here's another related idea. What does it mean for an investment or security to "mature"? It must mean to follow some life cycle without being recharged or reinvested, but there are so many ways of resecuritizing and recapitalizing that one loses the small incoate pieces from which the thing sprang. So everything ends in the future with maturity of some asset, but the engendering of that future vector looks back to its first expressions, and not narrowly to kin. We, by ourselves, be befriended, as someone once told me and I have not forgotten.

In computing, there are signed and unsigned variables. We need both for our clocks to sync and pulse, so it should be with the pointers to past and future. In each case there is a reset marker.

Congratulations on the grant, Mr. Callender.

Michael Jeub

http://www.fqxi.org/grants/large/awardees/view/__details/2010/callender

Craig Callender: "Physics sees time as like space."

Physics does not "see" time as like space. Rather, it DEDUCES a space-like time, from two postulates: the principle of relativity and the principle of constancy of the speed of light. If Callender believes that "time in physics is surprisingly different than space", then he should expose the false postulate. That is the only honest approach.

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Eckard,

Warren Siegel on special relativity

"I'm not the one setting the field up for a fall."

And neither is anyone else.

Tom,

That's the problem. Everyone has to work within the context of what already exists, if they want to be involved. With everyone focused on ironing out the details, problems become an area of opportunity to solve with more detail work, rather than a reason to review the picture that has emerged.

Consider the link I posted to Lawrence above. It gives a quite reasonable, practical explanation for redshift. No singularity, big bang, inflation, dark energy, multiverses, etc. necessary.

Here is this article by one of the designers of the Hubble telescope and his opinions on cosmology:

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2007/9/modern-cosmology-science-or-folktale

"In the 1930s, Richard Tolman proposed such a test, really good data for which are only now becoming available. Tolman calculated that the surface brightness (the apparent brightness per unit area) of receding galaxies should fall off in a particularly dramatic way with redshift--indeed, so dramatically that those of us building the first cameras for the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1980s were told by cosmologists not to worry about distant galaxies, because we simply wouldn't see them. Imagine our surprise therefore when every deep Hubble image turned out to have hundreds of apparently distant galaxies scattered all over it (as seen in the first image in this piece). Contemporary cosmologists mutter about "galaxy evolution," but the omens do not necessarily look good for the Tolman test of Expansion at high redshift."

Yet none of this gets any serious attention from mainstream physics. It's much easier to construct another mathematical formula to explain virtually any problem, that it is peel away the layers and see if there are significant conceptual problems buried in there.

Just because no one is able to bring all the problems together and get them considered, doesn't mean they will go away. It just means another generation of physicists will spend their careers building up a structure that is crumbling at the foundations.

I am not sure whether the wave physics in the paper by

ov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf">Christov](https://www.fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/2008CChrist

ov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf) involves quantum mechanics. The dissipative equation has a solution with a complex frequency. An instanton or tunneling state has a frequency or wave number that is imaginary, eg multiplied by i = sqrt{-1}. However, a complex frequency ω = α + iβ means the system has dispersion and dissipative physics. This demolishes some foundations of quantum mechanics in a way which I find terribly problematic. So as a fundamental wave equation for a free particle this is not likely to be fundamental.

The wave equation is argued to be a source for the redshift of galaxies. A variant of this wave equation could be derived with general relativity for the de Sitter spacetime. The metric is

ds^2 = dt^2 - e^{sqrt{Λ/3}t}(dr^2 + r^2dΩ^2)

where we only consider the metric coefficient g_{rr} = -e^{sqrt{Λ/3}t} and g_{tt} = 1 to ignore rotational motion. The Christoffel symbols are

Γ^a_{bc} = (1/2)g^{ad}(g_{db,c} + g_{dc,b} - g_{bc,d})

which, as I calculate in my mind, leaves us with

Γ^t_{rr} = -(1/2)g^{tt}g_{rr,t} = (Λ/3)e^{sqrt{Λ/3}t}

This connection coefficient is used in covariant derivatives

Du^a/ds = du^a/ds + Γ^a_{bc}u^bu^c,

where for u^a = dx^a/ds this is the geodesic equation if the acceleration Du^a/ds is zero.

So for the vector valued wave function u^a the time derivative ∂u^a/∂r = ∂_ru^a requires a covariant derivative

D_ru^a = ∂_ru^a + Γ^a_{rc}u^c

which requires the index c -- > r and

D_ru^a = ∂_ru^a + Γ^t_{rr}u^t

= ∂_ru^a + (Λ/3)e^{sqrt{Λ/3}t}u^t.

The second derivative would then be

D^2_ru^a = = ∂^2_ru^a + 2(Λ/3)e^{sqrt{Λ/3}t}u^t + (Λ/3) e^{sqrt{2Λ/3}t}u^t.

That is rather messy, so I will Taylor expand the exponential and keep only factors O(Λ) and we get

D^2_ru^a = = ∂^2_ru^a + 2(Λ/3)u^t.

So the wave equation is adjusted to

0 = ∂^2_tu^a - D^2_ru^a = ∂^2_tu^a - ∂^2_ru^a - 2(Λ/3)u^t.

In now use the light cone condition that u^t = g_{rr}u^r for a massless particle and I have the wave equation

∂^2_tu^a - ∂^2_ru^a - 2(Λ/3)u^r = 0.

I now let u^r = a exp(ikr - iωt) and substitute this in to get the condition

-ω^2 + k^2 - 2i(Λ/3)k = 0

k = i(Λ/3) +/- sqrt{- i(Λ/3)^2 + ω^2}

The binomial theorem is used for ω^2 >> |(Λ/3)| and we get an approximate answer

k =~ {iΛ/6 - ω, iΛ/2 + ω}

The result is a dissipative dispersion relationship. The photon loses energy, it loses energy to this cosmological gravity field. This loss of energy manifests itself as the redshift. The second solution may be written as

ω = k - iΛ/2

and a wave function Gaussian wave packet

u^r = exp(β(k - k')^2/2)exp(ikr)

has δk/k = βΛ/2 which for β = 8πGt/3k and H^2 = 8πGΛ/3 this gives the time dependent spread of the wave packet with time.

In this approach, which I worked on screen and took far more time than I was wanting to spend, there is no need to posit a quantum field which has some dissipation term, which leads to non-unitarity in quantum mechanics. Non-unitary quantum mechanics would mean the universe is far less sensible. So based on what I have done here, modulo any math error which might have occurred due to working this in my mind, the expansion of space can quite adequately account for this red shift.

Cheers LC

Lawrence,

Thank you for taking the time to work that out. Obviously I'm not able to follow your analysis, but it is obvious it did contain food for thought for you. Necessarily reality will always be more complicated than we can perceive, as our powers of perception are a component of reality.

One question; Is there a mathematical distinction between the expansion of space containing light and the expansion of light in space? It seems to me that the treatment of light in relativity is only a function of distance, not volume. Yet the further light travels, the greater the volume it must encompass and this would quite logically reduce its energy. Yes, I know we measure light in terms of photons and assume they are particles of light that have traveled individually from the source, no matter how far away it is. Yet we also know quantum particles are fundamentally entangled, so it would seem that light being emitted from a source amounts to one large quantum entity and the particular quanta we measure are largely a function of the mass structure of our measuring devices. As Christov points out, those "wave packets" are not single spectrum entities and as you observe, it does make it far more complicated.

Otherwise our current model does require quite a number of interesting additions in order to function. As I keep pointing out to Tom, even Paul Steinhardt is starting to raise questions about inflation.

The stability and strength of the models are not a function of our belief in them, but their irrefutable logic and this requires constant probing for the weaknesses, not trumpeting of the strengths.

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Simultaneity-Routledge-Contemporary-Philosophy/dp/0415701740

Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy): "Unfortunately for Einstein's Special Theory, however, its epistemological and ontological assumptions are now seen to be questionable, unjustified, false, perhaps even illogical."

Craig Callender, you are one of the authors of this book. Which postulate of special relativity is false: the principle of relativity or the principle of constancy of the speed of light?

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Your dichotomy is false.

To treat time like space and vice versa, is to convert units of one into the other. The invariant speed of light in vacuo allows semi-rigid geometrical transformations of mass points; it doesn't possess the power of a postulate, since c is a measured value.

The authors in your source are dealing with a far more subtle issue -- in the philosophy of science, not in the operational meaning of relativity theory.

It has to do with whether a theory need be justified in its assumptions or not. Einstein, like most scientists of his day, was influenced by the school of Logical Positivism in Vienna, where Ernst Mach was a central figure. LP denies any physical reality to phenomena that cannot be directly measured (Mach never accepted atomic theory, e.g.).

Even though Einstein is known for "relativity," Mach was the true relativist. That is, the inertial state of any body is relative to the state of all other bodies in the universe. Because Einstein recognized that all measurements of motion (changes in position among bodies) are taken between mass points and not between points of space, he agreed with Mach in principle -- in fact, he coined the term "Mach's principle" to help explain general relativity -- while disagreeing on the action at a distance that Mach's philosophy implied. Whether Einstein knew of the Michelson-Morley result at the time he wrote his paper is in question, but it really doesn't matter. The invariant speed of light in relativity supports the positivist philosophy while eliminating the "spooky" part of classical physics that Einstein didn't like.

Mach rejected relativity because it gave a role to space (Minkowski space-time) whereas his own philosophy (and all classical physics preceding) assigned no properties to space at all. Einstein acknowledged (in an appendix to _The Meaning of Relativity_) that "From the standpoint of epistemology it is more satisfying to have the mechanical properties of space completely determined by matter ..." yet it was apparently even more satisfying to have a way to determine rest states of matter, because it led to mass-energy equivalence, the startling conclusion of special relativity.

Today, most theorists favor some form of metaphysical realism as conceived by Karl Popper, rather than to try and justify assumptions as required by positivism. Any good guess supported by real results is good science. So whether Einstein is justified or not from an epistemological-ontological standpoint, or just made the right guess, is a question for philosophers to ponder, while science moves on.

I expect that if Einstein were alive today, he would feel freer to make conjectures, justified or not.

Tom

Tom,

"Any good guess supported by real results is good science."

Well said.

jcns

Tom and LC,

I consider the Siegel pamphlet here as inappropriate as LC's attempt to convince John Merryman by means of mathematics that an alternative explanation of redshift is wrong. Do not hide missing arguments behind alleged competence. Cheeky tongues are weak arguments.

Tom, You wrote: "Any good guess supported by real results is good science." Well, whether a guess is really good will be indicated by real results that are unambiguously attributable to it. Is this the case for SR? So far I am not aware of any example for an illogical guess that has proven useful for good.

Let me reiterate my simple question: What does the speed of light in vacuum refer to? The space, the emitter, the receiver, an observer, or what else?

While I usually do not like the thought experiments Einstein is notorious for, I would nonetheless suggest rather simple ones as to test how light behaves. An electromagnetic impulse could be sent through a cable with parts that can be switched on or off during propagation. Intuitively I would not expect a "motion" of the receiver to change the measured speed of propagation.

I would like to second Pentcho who argues: The principle of relativity or the principle of constancy of the speed of light seems to be wrong. My hopefully good guess is: Relativity of time is based on desynchronization. Perhaps already Lorentz transformation is ill-founded. Doesn't theory of relativity even contradict to Galileo Galilei's relativity? Aren't there enough results that confirm my guess? Nobody ever measured Lorentz contraction etc., and there is ongoing trouble with the metric of spacetime.

Eckard

Eckard,

Here is an even-handed treatment of special relativity experimental results .

Knock yourself out.

Tom

John,

I realize that in the nonscience world, the sins of inefficiency, waste and redundancy are punished and ridiculed. To nature and to science, however, these are assets to creativity.

Science(and liberal, rational thought in general) is founded on intellectual freedom, and free inquiry recognizes above all the right to be wrong.

Worry about science being in jeopardy when freedom itself is threatened. Look for science to flourish when academic freedom spreads beyond the academy. In fact, it is happening in our lifetimes.

Tom