Energy Principle: Explained and Named

[lconrad]

This is a simple question, and no one has been able to help me thus far, so i post on a forum.

There is a principle that describes the ability to send multiple data streams down a single conductor without them interacting due to phase differences. i understand this to be the basis of pipelining in cpu's. I also understand that it is not limited to data streams, but any wave-energy, such as transmission signals through a line before an antenna (relating to rf, etc.), and the like.

I simply would like to know the name of the principle(s) behind this, and maybe a brief explanation before I go off to explore it further.

Thank you for any help you are able to provide.

-Liam

 

[ZapperZ]

Superposition.

Zz.

 

[quark]

If you are speaking about sharing data from various devices via a single bus(or a transmitting medium) then check for CSMA-CD(carrier sense multiple access - collision detection), CSMA-CA(collision avoidance) technologies. Also check Token Pass Protocols. Each device is coded with a unique address and this is checked for sending and receiving data. When two devices are talking at the same time, one withdraws itself for a programmed period of time and then again starts sending data if there is no collision(CSMA-CD). CSMA-CD technology uses token pass protocols. A token is passed through the bus. If the data from a device is attached to the token, it is identified by a single bit(generally 1) and no other device communicates. If there is no data attached then the single bit value is 0 and another device starts communicating.

However, I have a gut feeling that this is not what you want.

 

[lconrad]

I will look up superposition, thank you.

In regards to data-buses, I'm most familiar with this principal being used in serial fashion, though, all parallel transmission is is a number of serial connections equal to the full byte-width of the data being transmitted.

Thank you both for your help.

-Liam

 

[lconrad]

ZapperZ, thank you very much for your help, that is right on. However, looking back into it, I realize that this should have gone into the quantum physics area of the forum, though superposition does apply to standard waveforms. Look for my postings there after I've done a little more reading into all this. (My physics knowledge is patchy, and fills in as needed. My calculus...that's just forgotten.)

 

[Antiphon]

Superposition is part of the answer. The mechanism you are looking for
is called the "orthogonality of propagating modes" along a waveguide.

Superposition is the general mathematical principle which says that wave
amplitudes add linearly as they move down the wire. The orthogonality of propagating
modes is the principle that says that the energy moving along in mode "A" will not
couple into mode "B" and vice versa.

It is possible for energy of the same frequency to be in a different mode. In free
space you would call two such modes "Vertical and Horizontal" polarization.

It is also possible for energy at two different time-harmonic frequencies but both
polarized vertically to have separate modes. The energies at frequency 1 and
frequency 2 will not mix (on average) even though by superposition it appears that
they might. This is how it is possible to overlap multiple radio stations all
transmitting in the same polarization.

 

[lconrad]

Cool, antiphon. As a ham, I understand wave propogation, and polarization. So, now to delve into quantum thought: Having done more reading into Quantum Superposition, I've learned that it assumes that the waves in question are linear vector spaces through quantum media (space, as a dimension I assume). How does this relate to Spherical Wave Structures?

 

[Claude Bile]

Reading the OP, you might be referring to what is called Quadrature multiplexing. Signals multiplexed in such a way can be recovered because the carriers are orthogonal to one another.

This sprung to mind because you mentioned that the technique you were looking for relied on phase differences between data streams.

Claude.

 

[ZapperZ]

Cool, antiphon. As a ham, I understand wave propogation, and polarization. So, now to delve into quantum thought: Having done more reading into Quantum Superposition, I've learned that it assumes that the waves in question are linear vector spaces through quantum media (space, as a dimension I assume). How does this relate to Spherical Wave Structures?

This is getting a bit mysterious because, being the suspicious person that I am, I'm detecting a "hidden agenda" here.

If you have looked in this thread

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=82522&highlight=spherical+wave+structure

you would have noticed a direct question to you asking for what is meant by "Spherical Wave Structures". So now it is TWICE already that you have attempted to being this phrase into existence.

Unless you are willing to define what it is, the question "How does this relate to Spherical Wave Structures" will remain something that was just put together without a rhyme or reason.

Zz.

 

[Antiphon]

I'll cut the kid some slack Zz and assume he's not good at asking questions.

As I said with radio waves in vertical or horizontal polarization, these could
be thought of as different modes or "mathematical energy channels." Spherical
wave modes are mathematical functions which describe these same ideas
when you are near a point source. That is, if you are near a tiny antenna
then spherical-shaped waves come out. These are most easily described in
spehrical coordinates which is where those functions you ask about come from.

The same types of functions can be used effectively to describe how an electron behaves
near a proton because the system is very spherical in shape.

 

[lconrad]

Yup. There is an agenda here. I can't really get into it too much here, but as for your deffinition of Spherical Wave Structures...I'm referring to the Spherical Wave Structure of Matter proposed by William Clifford, and expanded upon by Schrodinger and Einstein and others. It's fascinating stuff, though I am notorious for jumping into the deep end without knowing first how to swim (when it comes to physics). I started reading Hawking when I was 10. I take the really hard stuff, and learn the easy stuff required by the hard stuff as I go along. I'm good at it. Anyway, I'd divulge more information to someone who is willing to work with me on my subject here.

 

[pervect]

"Huygen's principle" - good
"Spherical Wave Structures" - bad

I have the feeling the original question is more about Shannon's channel capacity theorem, or the Hartley-Shannon law. Assuming that it is NOT just someone's attempt to call anything that in any way shape or form relates to spheres by some made-up name.

(Shannon's channel capacity law eventually winds up being about how many hyperspheres can be packed into a unit hypervolume, with the theoretical limit being that a perfect packing has no wasted space.)

I'm not sure of any good websites to recommend to describe the Shannon channel capacity law offhand, though.

 

[lconrad]

Check out the work of Ernst Mach, Milo Wolff and Geoff Haselhurst. This area of physics converges with Metaphysics and Philosophy, but it works on paper. Einstein's General Relativity is based on work by William Clifford and Erwin Schrodinger in this matter.

 

[lconrad]

If I remember right, Shannon's work with Bel Labs dealt with data transmission. Shannon's algorithms are still used to determine the maximum data rates that can be transmitted on any given frequency, that the higher the frequency the more data you can put through, which is why you can get faster baud rates on the 70cm (440MHz) band than you can on say 2 meters (145MHz).

 

[pervect]

metaphysics and philosophy waste a lot of time - I'd rather stick to physics. There are a lot of applications of spheres in physics - as per the old physics joke "Consider a uniform spherical cow".

If you can't provide a _physics_ reference for "Spherical wave structures", I will continue to assume that it's just some crank theory (or some philosophical theory :-)). I don't recall running across the name in any legitimate physics textbook, frankly it looks like goobledygook.

 

[pervect]

If I remember right, Shannon's work with Bel Labs dealt with data transmission. Shannon's algorithms are still used to determine the maximum data rates that can be transmitted on any given frequency, that the higher the frequency the more data you can put through, which is why you can get faster baud rates on the 70cm (440MHz) band than you can on say 2 meters (145MHz).

You wanted to find the bit-rate capacity of a wire on an IC as I recall. This is a bandwidth limited channel, and Shannon's theory applies to it.

 

[lconrad]

that wasn't my original goal. Superposition is exactly what i was looking for, though Shannon's laws will be able to aid me in another aspect of what I'm doing. Sorry to be so vague.

 

[lconrad]

I'll cut the kid some slack Zz and assume he's not good at asking questions.

As I said with radio waves in vertical or horizontal polarization, these could
be thought of as different modes or "mathematical energy channels." Spherical
wave modes are mathematical functions which describe these same ideas
when you are near a point source. That is, if you are near a tiny antenna
then spherical-shaped waves come out. These are most easily described in
spehrical coordinates which is where those functions you ask about come from.

The same types of functions can be used effectively to describe how an electron behaves
near a proton because the system is very spherical in shape.

it is the basic form of matter that I'm looking at, Wave Structure of Matter vs. discrete particles.

 

[Antiphon]

it is the basic form of matter that I'm looking at, Wave Structure of Matter vs. discrete particles.

Ah, well that is another type of spherical cow altogether.

Superposition in signals on a wire is well understood. Superposition
in quantum mechanics is a mystery to our science. We can describe
it via the Schrodinger equation, but mankind has no idea what the
physical mechanism of QM superposition is.

There's nothing magical about spherical wave function in this context.
They are merely the mathematical tools with which you get solutions
to the differential equations. They do not explain or illuminate the reason
why QM superposition exists in nature.

 

[ZapperZ]

it is the basic form of matter that I'm looking at, Wave Structure of Matter vs. discrete particles.

Please give exact citation to the origin of "Wave Structure of Matter". Don't just drop names. If this isn't part of established physics, this thread will be locked.

Zz.

 

[lconrad]

Well, you can read Milo Wolff's work at http://www.quantummatter.com. Otherwise, here are some references online (just to make this quick):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_Structure_Matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Wave_Structure_of_Matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Wave_Structure_of_Matter

* 1.William Clifford, 1885, The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences, Ed. Karl Pearson, preface by Bertrand Russell, Dover, NY (1955).
* 2. E. Schrödinger. In Schrödinger - Life and Thought, Cambridge U. Press, p327 (1989).
* 4. E. Mach, (1883 German). English: The Science of Mechanics, Open Court (1960).
* 5. M. Wolff, Exploring the Physics of the Unknown Universe, Technotran Press, (1990).
* 6. M. Wolff, ‘Gravitation and Cosmology’ in From the Hubble Radius to the Planck Scale, R. L.

Amoroso et al (Eds.), pp 517-524, Kluwer Acad. Publ. (2002).

* 7. Wm. Clifford,(1876) “On the Space Theory of Matter” in The World of Mathematics, p568, Simon and Schuster, NY (1956).
* 8. J. A. Wheeler, and R. Feynman, Rev. Mod. Phys. 17, 157 (1945).
* 9. H. Tetrode, Zeits. F. Physik 10, 312 ((1922).
* 10. A. Einstein, Relativity, Crown Books (1950).
* 11. M. Wolff, Physics Essays 6, No 2, 181-203 (1993).
* 12. G. Haselhurst, (to be published in) What is the Electron, Apeiron Press (2005). Also: http:www.SpaceandMotion.com
* 13. C. Mead, Collective Electrodynamics, MIT Press (2000).
* 14. E. Batty-Pratt and T. Racey, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 19, 437 (1980).

 

[lconrad]

Do you want more? I didnt' realize that physics only deals with the known...i though it was about figuring out that which is unknown, and proposing new ideas and theories unto the world. And if we don't know much about something, why not talk to others to gain their insight? i know that this thread has moved along a different path, but i did try to move it to the quantum physics forum...where it has done nothing...this is where people are replying. Sorry, ZapperZ, that they aren't going to the other thread. Sorry we are discussing something that isn't really known too well.

If you want to talk to an actual person...Milo Wolff, who studies the Wave Structure of Matter, I can give you his email address if you want.

 

[Antiphon]

It looks like the Wave Theory of Matter is basically the old Wave Mechanics that was
replaced by Quantum Field theory.

I will look into it a bit more, but this is not at odds with the basic postulates of
contemporary QM, just older and less effective.

Edit: One problem with this wave theory is that if you try to interpret
the wavefunction of Wave Mechanics as a real spatial field you get
into trouble when you have two interacting particles. The wave functions
are then interpreted as "the probability density of this being here AND that
being there." There is no obvious way for this to be an actual physical
wave.

 

[pervect]

Do you want more? I didnt' realize that physics only deals with the known...i though it was about figuring out that which is unknown, and proposing new ideas and theories unto the world.

That depends, actually. A lot of people want to know what mainstream physics says, and the introduction of fringe physics like the "Wave Structre of Matter" - (even your Wikipedia refrence labels it as fringe) confuses them. Not being experts, they don't know what is fringe, and what is mainstream.

That's why we have rules on the board to prevent enthusiastic amateurs from confusing the issue by propounding their favorite "fringe" theory.

Experts, of course, can look out for themselves and frequently do. Mostly they yawn when they run across fringe theories, especially when it's an old, moldy fringe theory.

Note that a public BBS like "physics forum" is not where one would expect a revolutionary new paper to emerge which is going to change the face of physics forever, in spite of what people with "pet theories" would like to believe. When the theory is of a low quality or of a dated nature which will not allow it to be published, there is an unfortunate tendency for enthusiasts to find a forum (any forum), even one as unsuited as our Physics Forum, for them to publsih their theories. This unfortunate tendency is kept under control by our moderators, who do their best to encourage usefull discussions while not allowing the board to be a "dumping ground" for rejected theories.

 

[ZapperZ]

Do you want more? I didnt' realize that physics only deals with the known.

What does the RULES on PF here have anything to do with PHYSICS in practice? And what do YOU actually know how physics is done? So don't give me this lecture about how physics is done in real life till you have actually WORKED in it for some time.

..i though it was about figuring out that which is unknown, and proposing new ideas and theories unto the world.

There is a distinct difference between figuring things out after careful understanding versus doing it out of ignorance. You were ASKED more than once to DEFINE what it is. It isn't part of mainstream physics that most physicists deal with, and therefore, it requires and EXACT citation on the SOURCE.

And from what I have read so far, you have utterly misunderstood a lot of the papers you cited. The Carver Mead paper from PNAS, for example, is something that is VERY well-known to me since I have cited it WAY before you even came to PF (do a search if you don't believe me). I will challenge you to prove to me that you actually understood what you got from that paper ALONE.

If not, then I will seriously question if you actually understood what it is you are citing.

Zz.

 

[pmb_phy]

This is a simple question, and no one has been able to help me thus far, so i post on a forum.

There is a principle that describes the ability to send multiple data streams down a single conductor without them interacting due to phase differences. i understand this to be the basis of pipelining in cpu's. I also understand that it is not limited to data streams, but any wave-energy, such as transmission signals through a line before an antenna (relating to rf, etc.), and the like.

I simply would like to know the name of the principle(s) behind this, and maybe a brief explanation before I go off to explore it further.

Thank you for any help you are able to provide.

-Liam

Any signal can be represented as a sum of pure sine or cosine functions. This is known as a Fourier representation of tghe signal. If the signal is periodic then the sum will be discrete. If the signal is periodic then the sum is represented as an integral.

Pete

 

[Antiphon]

PMB's example is a wonderful illustration of modes.

For a general linear circuit with time-varying voltages and currents, the voltages and
currents add by superposition but power does not. This is because power is not
a linear function (P=V*I). However, the power in different Fourier "modes" CAN be
added. In engineering this is referred to as the "orthogonality of Fourier modes".
One must show by forming the time-averaged power than power
from one mode does not on average couple into another. (Though energy
CAN slosh back and forth in an instantaneous sense between the modes.)

It is very much analagous to superposition and probability density in quantum
mechanics. Wave functions may be added by superposition but probability density
cannot as it is a nonlinear (also quadratic) function of wave amplitudes.

 

[DaTario]

Expecting to be of some help I would add a beautiful reference called:

SIGNALS The Science of Telecommunications
Jonh R. Pierce
A. Michael Noll

Scientific American Library, 1990.

I believe you would profit from the study of the concept of Multiplexing.