What's ultimately possible in physics

[Focus Fusion Society]

Found out on twitter that FQXi has updated their website and announced a new essay contest: “What’s Ultimately Possible in Physics?” http://fqxi.org/community/essay

Cool website. This article caught my eye:

Out of the Darkness
As dark matter, dark energy, and general relativity slug it out against rival theories, Glenn Starkman hopes to pick out the winner.
by Bob Swarup

General relativity has been extremely successful; so it’s no wonder that physicists hold it in high regard. However, standing alone, it cannot explain a host of strange observations. But rather than dare to modify the theory, physicists have invented a string of unexplained entities to explain the discrepancies. “So far, we have been forced to add three new forms only detected by their gravitational effects: dark matter, dark energy and the field that drives inflation,” says Starkman. “Many consider this contrived.”

So, this article looks at the “pretenders to the throne”, the alternatives to BB, and comes up with MOND, TeVeS, and General Relativity Aether. No mention of plasma cosmology:

The idea of modifying gravity was introduced in the mid-1980s. Mordehai Milgrom proposed a theory known as MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics), which tweaked the laws of gravity in different ranges in order to explain the weird galaxy-rotation observations.

Tinkering with gravity isn’t trivial. Any pretender must be able to explain the effects predicted by general relativity, such as how light bends around matter, and it must also explain the formation and layout of galaxies and clusters and the subtle patterns seen in the cosmic microwave background—the relic radiation left behind by the big bang.

Unfortunately, while MOND sounded great in principle, the idea hadn’t been developed well enough to be tested or to make predictions in the way that general relativity had. “Until then, you couldn’t really do cosmology or hope to understand how (complicated) systems behaved,” explains Starkman.

The dam began to break in 2004 with the arrival of Tensor-Vector-Scalar (TeVeS) theory, developed by Jacob Bekenstein at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. TeVeS not only reproduced MOND’s predictions but also satisfied the principles of relativity.

Since then, others have built on Bekenstein’s success; Starkman and his collaborators recently introduced Generalized Einstein Aether, a class of theories that both generalize and simplify TeVeS.

[Brian H]

Admin wrote: Found out on twitter that FQXi has updated their website and announced a new essay contest: “What’s Ultimately Possible in Physics?” http://fqxi.org/community/essay

Cool website. This article caught my eye:

Out of the Darkness
As dark matter, dark energy, and general relativity slug it out against rival theories, Glenn Starkman hopes to pick out the winner.
by Bob Swarup
…
So, this article looks at the “pretenders to the throne”, the alternatives to BB, and comes up with MOND, TeVeS, and General Relativity Aether. No mention of plasma cosmology:
…

So, are you going to enlighten them? Or are they only interested in what’s currently chic?

[pluto]

G’day from the land of ozzzz

I read out of darkness.

So far he talks around the topic.

I’m interested to read if he has anything to say.

[Aeronaut]

I get a kick out of all those with a better physics education than Einstein that are afraid to publicly challenge any and/or all 4 parts of the theory of relativity, which was published 104 years ago. Wasn’t Einstein working on a unified field theorum when he died?

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: I get a kick out of all those with a better physics education than Einstein that are afraid to publicly challenge any and/or all 4 parts of the theory of relativity, which was published 104 years ago. Wasn’t Einstein working on a unified field theorum when he died?

So far, tests of GR have supported it, including such things as “frame dragging”, measured from orbit. The problem is synching it with QM (which Einstein resisted as a theory until his dying day — the famous “God does not play dice” was his objection to resorting to probabilities at a fundamental event/causal level. He also disliked the “spooky action at a distance” aspect of entanglement. A very cause-and-effect kind of guy!) So it’s more like fear of making readily provably false statements that inhibits physicists, I think.

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

I get a kick out of all those with a better physics education than Einstein that are afraid to publicly challenge any and/or all 4 parts of the theory of relativity, which was published 104 years ago. Wasn’t Einstein working on a unified field theorum when he died?

So far, tests of GR have supported it, including such things as “frame dragging”, measured from orbit. The problem is synching it with QM (which Einstein resisted as a theory until his dying day — the famous “God does not play dice” was his objection to resorting to probabilities at a fundamental event/causal level. He also disliked the “spooky action at a distance” aspect of entanglement. A very cause-and-effect kind of guy!) So it’s more like fear of making readily provably false statements that inhibits physicists, I think.
Can’t follow you into the specific theories, but I’ll agree with the human nature parts. As I understand it, Relativity was an attempt to describe God’s M.O., so to speak, despite all he didn’t know. I’m surprised nobody connected the dots and did a “top floor” to tie everybody else’s slices together.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:

I get a kick out of all those with a better physics education than Einstein that are afraid to publicly challenge any and/or all 4 parts of the theory of relativity, which was published 104 years ago. Wasn’t Einstein working on a unified field theorum when he died?

So far, tests of GR have supported it, including such things as “frame dragging”, measured from orbit. The problem is synching it with QM (which Einstein resisted as a theory until his dying day — the famous “God does not play dice” was his objection to resorting to probabilities at a fundamental event/causal level. He also disliked the “spooky action at a distance” aspect of entanglement. A very cause-and-effect kind of guy!) So it’s more like fear of making readily provably false statements that inhibits physicists, I think.
Can’t follow you into the specific theories, but I’ll agree with the human nature parts. As I understand it, Relativity was an attempt to describe God’s M.O., so to speak, despite all he didn’t know. I’m surprised nobody connected the dots and did a “top floor” to tie everybody else’s slices together.

One way to help “visualize” the effects of relativity is to imagine yourself in a spaceship with nearly unlimited power available, and measure your speed and acceleration by watching the stars & galaxies whiz by. You would apparently be able to travel at any multiple of the speed of light you wanted, and would experience only perfectly normal internal time and gravity (acceleration) within the ship itself. But when you put on the brakes and came to a halt, you would discover that far more time had passed outside the ship, sufficient to relegate your speed to just under C by external measures. Inside your own “frame”, your experience was normal, but seen from the outside you got very compressed in the direction of travel, sufficient to compensate for the redshift of light (or other energies) travelling in your direction inside the ship. In the extreme, a long pointed ship would shorten till it looked like a disk moving face-forward from the outside. But inside, you’d still experience it as long and narrow.

So, did your ship really flatten out like a coin? Or stay long and spear-shaped? It all depends; it was all relative! :cheese:
P.S. For a fascinating and fun read in fiction of the phenomenon, read Tau Zero by Poul Anderson. A Bussard Ramscoop ship that suffers a glitch that won’t let it slow down, so it must continuously accelerate. Before long, they’re punching through dense star cores to keep the scoop fed! :gulp: :ahhh: :coolsmirk:

[Aeronaut]

That’s the clearest I’ve heard it explained. Might take me a little while to assimilate, though.

[Brian H]

My excuse right at the mo’ is that it’s very late, but I got thinking about causality, time, predestination, intelligence, and boredom. From God’s viewpoint. Einstein said God doesn’t play dice with the universe, but I wonder. He would have reason to.

Consider. Causality and reality are, per the Believers, created by God. His perfect precognition lets Him know everything that can and could have happened (if He’d set things in motion differently). But there are no surprises. Human volition is a very questionable commodity in that view of things; imagine a pair of retarded humans, barely able to function and learn. One grows up in a loose environment, and his powerful limbic drives are far more than a match for his weak intellect and forebrain-conscience. So he’s pointlessly brutal, and suffers an early demise at the hands of society. The other one grows up in much wealthier and more advanced circumstances; his limitations are recognized early, and he is thoroughly conditioned and restrained by social, physical, medical and technological means from acting harmfully. He lives a reasonably full life and dies without having harmed anyone. With our IQs double or triple theirs, we can see that neither was actually responsible for his behavior and criminality or virtue. They were both essentially wind-up meat dolls.

From the point of view of an omniscient God, who knows everything about every sub-atomic particle in the metaverse, and all their mutual influences and possible fates, we are even less “responsible” for our actions and levels of virtue than those dummies were for us. No human “choice and volition” can introduce interest and variability into existence for such a God. And creating beings who operate under the illusion of free will must have been some kind of joke. Christ’s plea/diagnosis from the cross, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” (Lord, Lord, forgive them; they know not what they do!”) is true at all times; we are permanently ignorant, and blameless and without virtue.

But perhaps there is an out. If God can and does/did introduce real randomity and indeterminacy into His stew, at some physical or “mental” level, then the future is not knowable in full detail even for Him. Choices and chance matter. God does, in that scenario, indeed “play dice” with the universe — in order prevent it from being an infinitely boring scripted charade. It means that even for God, Shit Happens. Otherwise, what fun would there be?

[Aeronaut]

Ok, Brian, this might be a head-scratcher for you. Might not, lol.

I worked a radar in the navy when I wasn’t cleaning and painting. We needed to calculate the bearing, range, and time of each contact’s CPA (Closest Point of Approach) so we could avoid getting run over by ships that were much, much larger. Given that radar is lightspeed, and all motion is relative to my ship, cruising in a long-term straight line at .5C,

1. What frame is each radar pulse in? My ship’s, general space-time, or a contact’s frame?
2. Would a radar even work above .25 or .5C? If so, would it only “see” contacts on the same course and speed?
3. In general, do frames become ever more isolated as the speed becomes more relativistic?

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote: My excuse right at the mo’ is that it’s very late, but I got thinking about causality, time, predestination, intelligence, and boredom. From God’s viewpoint. Einstein said God doesn’t play dice with the universe, but I wonder. He would have reason to.

Consider. Causality and reality are, per the Believers, created by God. His perfect precognition lets Him know everything that can and could have happened (if He’d set things in motion differently). But there are no surprises. Human volition is a very questionable commodity in that view of things; imagine a pair of retarded humans, barely able to function and learn. One grows up in a loose environment, and his powerful limbic drives are far more than a match for his weak intellect and forebrain-conscience. So he’s pointlessly brutal, and suffers an early demise at the hands of society. The other one grows up in much wealthier and more advanced circumstances; his limitations are recognized early, and he is thoroughly conditioned and restrained by social, physical, medical and technological means from acting harmfully. He lives a reasonably full life and dies without having harmed anyone. With our IQs double or triple theirs, we can see that neither was actually responsible for his behavior and criminality or virtue. They were both essentially wind-up meat dolls.

From the point of view of an omniscient God, who knows everything about every sub-atomic particle in the metaverse, and all their mutual influences and possible fates, we are even less “responsible” for our actions and levels of virtue than those dummies were for us. No human “choice and volition” can introduce interest and variability into existence for such a God. And creating beings who operate under the illusion of free will must have been some kind of joke. Christ’s plea/diagnosis from the cross, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” (Lord, Lord, forgive them; they know not what they do!”) is true at all times; we are permanently ignorant, and blameless and without virtue.

But perhaps there is an out. If God can and does/did introduce real randomity and indeterminacy into His stew, at some physical or “mental” level, then the future is not knowable in full detail even for Him. Choices and chance matter. God does, in that scenario, indeed “play dice” with the universe — in order prevent it from being an infinitely boring scripted charade. It means that even for God, Shit Happens. Otherwise, what fun would there be?

So Einstein’s sudden rush of Inspiration was “throwing the dice”? I like that. What we’ll probably never have an answer to is that perfect precognition seems to make it impossible to introduce variables.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: Christ’s plea/diagnosis from the cross, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” (Lord, Lord, forgive them; they know not what they do!”) is true at all times; we are permanently ignorant, and blameless and without virtue.

Eloi eloi etc. means “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

I had a friend in seminary who was also of the persuasion that God doesn’t know what’s going to happen and is thus engaged more enthusiastically in creation. The whole predetermination vs. free will debate comes down to that question. The next question is, are dynamism and ignorance compatible with absolute perfection and omniscience?

Mysterious ways. But we digress.

[Lerner]

I won’t comment on causality etc. Said enough in my book about time, consciousness. But for relativity you have to distinguish special relativity and general relativity. Special is about effects of high velocities and is very well verified although there can be question about interpreting it, just as with QM. GR is the theory of gravitation. There things are not so clear. One big prediction of GR, gravitational waves, remains unverified. The LIGO observatory should have detected waves from supernovae, but has not. So I don’t think GR is clearly verified yet.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: Ok, Brian, this might be a head-scratcher for you. Might not, lol.

I worked a radar in the navy when I wasn’t cleaning and painting. We needed to calculate the bearing, range, and time of each contact’s CPA (Closest Point of Approach) so we could avoid getting run over by ships that were much, much larger. Given that radar is lightspeed, and all motion is relative to my ship, cruising in a long-term straight line at .5C,

1. What frame is each radar pulse in? My ship’s, general space-time, or a contact’s frame?
2. Would a radar even work above .25 or .5C? If so, would it only “see” contacts on the same course and speed?
3. In general, do frames become ever more isolated as the speed becomes more relativistic?

1. Both. But at different frequencies. The pulse is stretched or compressed from the POV of the target, but consistent from your POV.
2. Yes. The pulse does not carry your cruising speed as part of its own velocity, although it seems that way from your viewpoint. It is actually always moving at C in every frame. But the frequency changes to compensate, as does your “clock”.
3. Their isolation is a matter of time stretching and mass. They are not isolated from signals, but the characteristics of the signals alter depending on direction of travel (with or opposed to flight vector).

Those are my understandings. I am not a physicist, however!

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:

My excuse right at the mo’ is that it’s very late, but I got thinking about causality, time, predestination, intelligence, and boredom. From God’s viewpoint. Einstein said God doesn’t play dice with the universe, but I wonder. He would have reason to.

Consider. Causality and reality are, per the Believers, created by God. His perfect precognition lets Him know everything that can and could have happened (if He’d set things in motion differently). But there are no surprises. Human volition is a very questionable commodity in that view of things; imagine a pair of retarded humans, barely able to function and learn. One grows up in a loose environment, and his powerful limbic drives are far more than a match for his weak intellect and forebrain-conscience. So he’s pointlessly brutal, and suffers an early demise at the hands of society. The other one grows up in much wealthier and more advanced circumstances; his limitations are recognized early, and he is thoroughly conditioned and restrained by social, physical, medical and technological means from acting harmfully. He lives a reasonably full life and dies without having harmed anyone. With our IQs double or triple theirs, we can see that neither was actually responsible for his behavior and criminality or virtue. They were both essentially wind-up meat dolls.

From the point of view of an omniscient God, who knows everything about every sub-atomic particle in the metaverse, and all their mutual influences and possible fates, we are even less “responsible” for our actions and levels of virtue than those dummies were for us. No human “choice and volition” can introduce interest and variability into existence for such a God. And creating beings who operate under the illusion of free will must have been some kind of joke. Christ’s plea/diagnosis from the cross, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” (Lord, Lord, forgive them; they know not what they do!”) is true at all times; we are permanently ignorant, and blameless and without virtue.

But perhaps there is an out. If God can and does/did introduce real randomity and indeterminacy into His stew, at some physical or “mental” level, then the future is not knowable in full detail even for Him. Choices and chance matter. God does, in that scenario, indeed “play dice” with the universe — in order prevent it from being an infinitely boring scripted charade. It means that even for God, Shit Happens. Otherwise, what fun would there be?

So Einstein’s sudden rush of Inspiration was “throwing the dice”? I like that. What we’ll probably never have an answer to is that perfect precognition seems to make it impossible to introduce variables.

Einstein was not talking about his inspiration. He was objecting to the idea of probability waves and indeterminacy. He considered that such ideas and terminology merely meant that we didn’t understand the real causal sequences yet.

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