Exploring the Planck Scale: The Fundamental Building Blocks of the Universe

[rtharbaugh1]

Hi all.

It is good to see all this beautiful work being done here. Thanks to Selfadjoint and all the mentors and moderators, as well as the contributers to this and the other physics forums.

The mathematics of quanta seem to indicate that there is a smallest possible quantity to any measure. Not merely a smallest measurable amount, which may be made smaller by means of improvements in technology, but a physical minimum which cannot be said to be reducible in any meaningful manner. This quanta is represented by the Planck length, Planck time, Planck era, Planck mass, Planck quantum of change, and Planck sphere. Planck units are named for Max Planck, the physicist upon whose work quantum theory has its base. The Planck sphere is a unit in a geometric model of multidimensional spacetime for which I have some responsibility. My thanks to all those who have helped me develop this model.

FF****************************0401251450milkhouse.

Richard

 

[John]

Thanks for being here. If points in space can only be so close together, that produces a space in which you can only travel back and forth in no more than six directions. Those would be the six extra dimensions of string theory.

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Hi John. Good to hear from you.

Motion is a very complicated idea. There must be an object which moves, an observer to register the motion, and a background against which the motion can be registered. Each of these three can be said to possesses some degree of dimensionality. The object may be thought of as a point, as, for instance, the point of a pen or pencil. Of course a pen or pencil is a three dimensional object, but we can imagine that we are only interested in the zero dimensional "point" of the instrument, the rest of it being there only to indicate just where the point of movement actually is.

We as observers generally imagine ourselves to be four dimensional, that is, we occupy and can manipulate a three dimensional space in one dimension of time. My personal goal is to see if the observer can comprehend higher dimensionalities, but let us leave that for now as a goal.

Then there must be a background against which the object is to move. We might choose to wave the pencil about in the air, or to place it against a plane sheet of paper, or even to trace it along a stretched wire. The wire would represent a one dimensional background. The paper represents a two dimensional background, and the air is generally thought to be three dimensional.

Now we may think of motion of a point as occurring in a one dimensional background, as along the wire. The wire, mathematically, is thought of as a series of points, and mathematically is infinitely divisible along any section of its length. However, we have determined that the moving point is not a mathematical point, but is more like a pencil point, and posseses some minimum measurable size. So we could make a mark on the wire, and another right next to it, and another next to that and so on, and give the points so marked names, Fred and Sam and Tom would do, but we like to put them in sequence and give them the names of our counting numbers, and this turns out to be very valuable in terms of calcualtions we may wish to make at some future time, such as distance, velocity, accelleration.

Now in a one dimensional background, moving a one dimensional point, we three dimensional beings can define two directions of movement for the pencil point. It can go from a marked point on the wire that we might call zero to a marked point on the wire that we might call one, or it can go in the other direction to the point we might call negative one.

In the case of a two dimensional background, as represented by the top side of a sheet of paper, we have more choices of which way to move the pencil. We might start by laying the wire down on the paper and drawing a line, since we already have explored how to do that in one dimension. Then with our pencil point on the paper, we see that we can still move along the line to 1 or -1, but we also can move on the background in some other directions which are not on the line. We can move our pencil point off the line, and make a mark that is no part of the one dimensional model we have now embedded in the two dimensional surface.

We could move off the line and make a mark and give it a name like Sally or Linda, but it would be nice if we could retain the advantages of sequence, which allows calcualtions of two dimensional quantities like surface area and curvature of the line. There are a number of ways to do this, and we can name the points on the plane off the line using polar coordinates or degrees of angle or something, but the main change from the one dimensional model is that we now have to use two terms to specify a point on the plane. It is no longer good enough to say that it is one (mark from the zero), because there are a circle of points that are all one from the zero. We need to say that it is one mark from the zero at some angle or longitude. Or we can do something that was given to us by Descarte, if I remember my history lessons. Anyway it is called the cartesian method, and gives us a nameing system for points on the plane.

This is done by defineing a second line, orthagonal to the first line in the plane, which just means that the angle from the new line to 1 on the old line is the same angle as from the new line to -1 on the old line. We call the first line x and the second line y, and name any point on the cartesian plane by calling it something like x1, y5. You see from this that to find the named point, you travel one mark on x in the positive direction, then make the orthagonal (90 degree) turn and move five marks on y in the positive direction, and you come to the place. To save writing, we always write the x first and the y second, and denote the place more simply as (1,5). Now we can name any point on the plane with two numbers, using the orthagonal basis lines x and y as referents.

This can easily be extended to three dimensions by adding a z line and nameing points in three dimensions something like (1,5, 7). Now we have the orthagonal cubic grid that is commonly used when comparing points in three dimensional space. Other methods are also used in special cases as in when talking about points on the surface of a sphere, but the other methods can always be converted to the cartesian coordinates without changing the physical qualities of the system under consideration.

Ok. Now when you say "If points in space can only be so close together, that produces a space in which you can only travel back and forth in no more than six directions," I think you are referring to a two dimensional background. If the points are arranged in the usual othogonal cartesian plane, one might think that there are only four options for point to point movement in the plane. One could move the point from the origin (0,0) to the point (1,0), or to the point (0,1), or to (-1,0) or to (0,-1).

There are problems with the cartesian plane method, and I think you have put your finger on the chief among them. It was designed to make calculation as easy as possible, which is a great advantage to those of us with innumeracy. However, it is an artifice, and can be misleading when trying to understand things like motion and dimensionality. For example, it is reasonable to assume that motion at its most basic level can be thought of as occurring along a line, from point to point. For motion to occur, one should not be allowed to skip points or just go at random from any point to any other point. Motion has to have some sense of continuity. We need to be able to imagine that the object that is moving is more or less the same object when we begin the move as it is when we finish moving. Motion would not be very meaningful if the object being moved were allowed to change itself along the way. We can't calculate the velocity of a jeep leaving Los Angeles and a Cadillac arriving in New York. The jeep might have a velocity and the Caddy might have a velocity but there is no meaningful way to talk about velocity when the object arriving and the object departing are two different objects.

As it happens, there are non-orthagonal methods for nameing the points on the plane, but most of them are not very useful. We could name every point on the plane Tom or Sally or something, but there would be no easy way to tell from the names just how to move to get from where Tom is to where Sally is. I believe what you have done is to look at one of these other methods. You have observed (correct me if I am wrong) that a plane can be marked with points equally spaced in triangles, making a plane that is divided up into hexagons. This effect can be seen by tiling a table top with pennies or other coins. You can lay the coins out carefully in squares, but if you push on one side of the formation, you see that the square formation quickly and naturally collapes into the triangular formation. In fact, if the table top is vibrating, you will have to exert a lot of attention to maintain the square formation, because the coins will 'naturally' tend to the more densely packed triangular formation.

Then, if you give into nature and go ahead and lay the coins out on the table in the triangular formation, and if you then move your pencil from anyone coin to any adjacent coin, you will find, as you have described, that there are six available next coins to which you can move. If I have mistated your argument, please do not be offended, but correct me, and I promise not to be offended either.

I am less certain what you mean when you state that these six directions are the six "extra" dimensions of string theory, but it is possible as far as I know that you are correct. I am not sure what it means to add the usual three dimensions to the six directions on the non-orthagonal plane, or if they can be added meaningfully. And as for string theory, the higher dimensions mentioned there remain a mystery to me.

In a three dimensional background, divided into a set of orthagonal points and lines, there are six possible directions of movement, say up down left right foreward backward. In the non-orthagonal dense packed sphere regime, variously known as the Kepler stack, the dymaxion, and the cubeoctahedron, there are twelve possible directions of movement. This seems by extension then to give a six dimensional space. I suppose one could superimpose the cartesian othagonal system on the natural Kepler stack, and come up with the additive result of nine dimensions, but this seems to be a little short of the ten or eleven dimensions I have seen mentioned in string theory.

Anyway, it is good to be able to talk with you again, and, as always,

thanks for being.

Richard

 

[John]

When I first realized an array of points only allows you to move from point to point in seven directions, I added that to the three dimensions, and came up with ten dimensions/directions, an exciting number of dimensions, which agreed with string theory. The points within an object can only move in seven directions, but the object can move in any direction in the three classic dimensions. The point particles dance on seven dimensions/directions, which are the only directions they can move. It all made perfect sense. So I continued to pursue the idea and it kept making perfect sense.

Then I discovered "a string theory point has six dimensions". And you agree: "the dymaxion, and the cubeoctahedron, there are twelve possible directions of movement. This seems by extension then to give a six dimensional space." By that time, I was so firm in my concepts it didn't bother me that six and three makes nine, one short of ten. I never considered time a dimension, but string theory does, so that gets us to ten with six extra string theory dimensions, not seven as I had long discussed.

But I think your approach to thought and my approach can affect the physics community and get people to see this idea of a structure to space itself.

 

[chroot]

*shudder*

- Warren

 

[John]

I only read two-thirds of your reply before I answered. Then after reading the other third I realized I had answered the question you asked at the end, which was pretty surprising. Discussions can exist if people are thinking along the same lines.

The motion of large objects ignores the underling six dimensions. The points within the object (points make up the large object but it is mostly empty space) those points have to travel only in the underlying six dimensions. The underlying six dimensions are the fabric of space, the way a TV screen is made of pixels. You notice some lines on a TV screen are squiggly, because of how the pixels line up, doesn't allow the line to exist except as a series of steps. But large images seem to move freely across the screen, ignoring the arrangement of pixels.

In some cases, the arrangement of pixels becomes apparent. One thing we can do in physics today is look for places where the structure of space makes things look or act squiggly. I see the structure of space in snowflakes.

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Hi John, and Warren.

I'm afraid that chroot is not pleased to find us resurrected here. As far as I know he is not required to participate in our discussions, but for my part, Warren, you are welcome as long as you can be civil. I am now and have for some time been trying to comprehend whatever I can of physics, and I think that should be evident from my communications. It is not helpful to my understanding to simply tell me I am wrong about something. If Warren wants a dialog, fine. If he has reason and authority to deny me access to this forum, I think at very least I deserve some explanation. However, I will continue until I hear or find otherwise from this forum's administrators.

Meanwhile, greetings All and thanks for being here.

I wish to reset and rebuild our thoughts from the most basic origins. It seems to me that semantic arguments can be useful to communication. We cannot simply throw up our hands and end a discussion by saying that it is an argument about semantics. If two parties are using a word differently, agreement may be easy to come by but hard to maintain. So defining our terms is certainly a valuable activity.

In my post above this I used the term background, which may be a disputed term. I know I have read in other posts about the need for a model that is said to be "background independent," and people I generally respect have used this term. I am still somewhat confused as to what they mean exactly, since in the model I use, background is a necessary part of any observation. Clearly a change cannot occur unless there is a place for the change to occur in, and a definable object which changes, and we cannnot talk about this change without including the participation in the system of an observer. Without these three things, no discussion can take place, so I consider them to be indispensable elements. So when mentors speak of a background independent model, I must assume they mean something other than the association set the words evoke in my understanding. What do they mean when they say background independent? And, for my own thought process, what term do they prefer for the condition I have called background? I am perfectly willing to exchange words in the quest for better understanding. If there are better words for the three conditions of observation which I have tried to define here, I will be glad to use them.

The central key to this misunderstanding seems to me to be the idea that space and time are in fact the same thing. I know that they do not seem to us usually to be the same, and there is a curious feature of observation that requires an arrow of time which does not allow the right of the observer to return to earlier observations. Causality, entropy, and being itself are caught up in the fabric of this argument. I believe much misunderstanding may be relieved by organizing and using a model of spacetime which acknowleges the rule of no return while seeking to explain phenomena of quantum mechanics and relitivity. I believe my model does this.

Sorry to break this off here but as it happens, I have to go shovel snow. John, I will exchange an indulgence here for one of mine offered to you and redeemable next time you get a hurricane. Fair?

Thanks,

Richard

 

[selfAdjoint]

Background independence means the spacetime is part of the dynamics. Spcaetime geometry has an effect on matter and enrgy (through "curved geometry"), and matter and energy have their effect on spacetime (through "bending spacetime"). So instead of one dancer against a backdrop you have two dancers in a pas de deux.

 

[John]

The background can't have the same importance as the dancer. But it's there. When we think we can mathematically manipulate reality with the ideas of relatvity, physics is mistaken.

Mathematics actually breaks down, because the background and the things of our world have different levels of importance. You can't add 2 and 2 accurately, when one of the 2s is not as important as the other 2. The six underlying dimensions are not as important as the classic three dimensions. The underlying six make up the background.

 

[chroot]

2 + 2 = 5, for large values of 2.

- Warren

 

[selfAdjoint]

Originally posted by chroot
2 + 2 = 5, for large values of 2.

- Warren

Or even for small values of 5.

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Background independence means the spacetime is part of the dynamics. Spcaetime geometry has an effect on matter and enrgy (through "curved geometry"), and matter and energy have their effect on spacetime (through "bending spacetime"). So instead of one dancer against a backdrop you have two dancers in a pas de deux.

Hi SelfAdjoint

Yes, I was thinking about this as I shoveled out the woodpile. I seem to remember now that background independence has something to do with there being no preferred reference frame in general relitivity?

So in physics we usually select our own frame to be the rest frame, and think of all else as under the conditions of motion?

However, I am not sure that any of this ballet has to do much with the Planck Sphere model. Here is why. When talking about events at the Planck scale, we are considering times so short as to be instantaneous for all practical purposes. What is the Planck time, 10^-43 seconds? That is, there are ten with 43 zeros after it Planck times in every second. That would be 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.0 Planck times in every second. The decimal point is a meaningful indicator of precision in this mumber since the theory demands that there be an integral number of Planck units in any system.

There is no time for anything to change in a single Planck sphere. That is why I have suggested that the Planck sphere model have a basic unit that is at least three Planck spheres in diameter. This would be the cubeoctahedron, with 12 spheres around a central one. Then it would be possible to consider what we might mean when we speak of a least quanta of change. I hope you see that the cubeocathedron becomes the background here, and that any change we speak of within the cubeoctahedron is short enough to be effectively background independent?

I have no problem thinking of the Planck spheres as undergoing change in a uniform way, as if they all expand together to make a kind of pseudogravity. But that feature is not at risk when talking about instantaneous events on the Planck scale, which occur in such a small amount of time that gravity is unappreciable.

Are we in agreement about the meaning of background independence, and how it is not a problem to the consideration of the background of Planck spheres?

Thanks,

Richard

 

[selfAdjoint]

Einstein used the term General Covariance. This means that the laws of physics have to be unchanged by any smooth (diffeomorphic) change of coordinates. So yes you can pick your frame of reference, and if something is nonzero in one coordinate frame but zero in another one, then it's not "real". An example is the force of gravity. Certainly as you stand on a solid object you feel its force, but if you are falling ("free fall") you don't. This is a change of spacetime coordinates for you that makes the force vanish, so it is not a basic part of physics but just an "inertial" one, on the same level as centrifugal force.

The freedom to pick a frame thus has a sting in it; if you pick the wrong one you can see and feel things that others will say are not really there!

If this was all there was to it - diffeomorphism invariance, in modern lingo - it wouldn't be background independence, there would still be that "real" spacetime background. But Einstein went farther. His basic field equation has a mathematical description of spacetime curvature on one side, and a description of the local energy, momentum, and stress on the other. Each side determines the other one. You can't say spacetime is where physics happens anymore; spacetime is determined by the other physics. Hence the dance I spoke of.

So if spacetime has crossed the line from backdrop to physics , what is left as background? Nothing! That is background independence.

 

[John]

Einstein very elegantly connected the math to show us that things are not what they seem, and because his math made the connections, his ideas were accepted. And he was right.

But there may be a relationship between background, and physics that is much less connected than any amount of math can describe. Here is a simple picture. It looks like every particle shower looks, but there is NO REASON why the particles would be making angular changes in direction, unless they are following an underlying set of dimensions, described as Planck Spheres. There is no math here, just observation of what is there, and imagination, trying to figfure out why they move like they do.

http://www-egs.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/egsdemo/newshower.html

 

[chroot]

Okay, John. I have to say it: you have no idea what you're looking at in that picture, or how it is supposed to be interpreted.

- Warren

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Warren, you seem to imply that you do understand what is going on in that picture. I myself think I have some rather vague ideas about it, and I would really appreciate some elucidation, should you feel up to it here. I don't think I know enough to argue with anyone about it, though.

The text seems to be saying that this is a simulation of a typical shower under the stated conditions as it would occur in a concrete media. I am not sure how experimentalists could check on the validity of the simulation, or what relationship the lines shown have to the paths that actual photons and electrons and positrons might be expected to follow. I am generally a trusting person and will assume, since I know no better, that the computer simulation folks and their physics mentors at SLAC have done their jobs and that there is no significant inaccuracy.

The dimensions of the simulation space, if I may call it that, are evidently 10x20x20 cm, altho the target is said to be cylindrical. The boundaries of the target are not indicated in the simulation space, but I suppose it is roughly centered in the space and that the injection point is centered on one end of the cylinder.

That leaves a question seemingly unanswered about the length of time of the "exposure". I assume that it is much less than a second, but much more than a Planck time. In fact, I would be interested to know how many Planck times are superimposed in this one simulation. I would be very curious to see the development of the shower Planck by Planck. For example, I assume the photons pretty much all start at the left, near the injection point, and move generally toward the right. And the electrons, they must do likewise. But what about the positrons? Would they move generally from left to right or from right to left? Feynman suggested that the positrons are just electrons moving backward in time. But I can't seem to decide if this means that they should enter the picture stage left or right.

Well I have a lot of other questions about particle showers, but I should wait and see if my autodidaction needs serious revision.

Thanks,

Richard

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Einstein used the term General Covariance. This means that the laws of physics have to be unchanged by any smooth (diffeomorphic) change of coordinates. So yes you can pick your frame of reference, and if something is nonzero in one coordinate frame but zero in another one, then it's not "real". An example is the force of gravity. Certainly as you stand on a solid object you feel its force, but if you are falling ("free fall") you don't. This is a change of spacetime coordinates for you that makes the force vanish, so it is not a basic part of physics but just an "inertial" one, on the same level as centrifugal force.

The freedom to pick a frame thus has a sting in it; if you pick the wrong one you can see and feel things that others will say are not really there!

If this was all there was to it - diffeomorphism invariance, in modern lingo - it wouldn't be background independence, there would still be that "real" spacetime background. But Einstein went farther. His basic field equation has a mathematical description of spacetime curvature on one side, and a description of the local energy, momentum, and stress on the other. Each side determines the other one. You can't say spacetime is where physics happens anymore; spacetime is determined by the other physics. Hence the dance I spoke of.

So if spacetime has crossed the line from backdrop to physics , what is left as background? Nothing! That is background independence.

Hi, SelfAdjoint. And thanks for the reply.

Are you saying that gravity is a pseudoforce? I tried to prove that to a science methods class in secondary education but only succeeded in making a fool of myself in front of a lot of blank stares. Oh well. Maybe I will find more sympathy here, at least. Would you say that this is a commonly held view in physics today? Or is it partisan? Or are we just a bannished outpost?

The Planck scale is incredibly small compared to the scale on which we do physics. Even in the Feynman diagrams time reversals and spatial discontinuities seem to exist. Is it not possible that Feynman diagrams are a horizon beyond which time reversals and spatial discontinuities are the norm? I think it must be so and have taken a peek over that horizon. At the Planck scale, times stand still and other directions in time become evident. I speculate that the missing mass in the famous cosmological problem can be accounted for in the Planck time. Gravity starts at the Planck scale, and there are ten times as many mass events in the Planck least space as there are represented in any single time history. I have come to this conclusion since there are thirteen Planck spheres in the least relational grouping, and any mass event history must occupy three of the available spheres, leaving ten that are not counted in the mass event. The ten uncounted Planck spheres may be thought of as the progenitors of divergent time lines, which fall outside the light cone of the three spheres that make up the least mass event in any timeline.

Getting late. Hope to hear more from this company. Thanks.

Richard.

 

[John]

Warren,

Well somebody must have some very comfortable explanations for why the small particles don't go in straight or curving lines, but spiral around and make angular changes in direction. That isn't supposed to happen. It does happen, though, in my six-dimensional model of underlying space.

Notice the larger particles are following the paths we would expect: a fan-like shower of gently curving lines. But the small particles seem to be obeying their own personal laws of physics. Okay, explain it.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The particles fan out because of conservation of momentum and they curve around because the scientists have deliberately put a magnetic field across the chamber to make the particles curve.

When faced with a puzzling picture like this there are two strategies:
1) Use google and the public library to find more information and train yourself to see the perfectly well explained things going on. If that doesn't help you could ask for an explanation down on the Particle forum.

2) Sit back and dream up a fancy explanation of your own and then try to sell it.

Which one do you think is more likely to reach a successfull answer?

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Hi John and selfAdjoint

Are we looking at different pictures? My impression is that this is not a photo of any actual reaction, but a computer generated simulation. The conditions of the simulation seem to be a high energy particle entering a concrete media.

I don't see where the electromagnetic field is specified. I thought the path changes were due to particle interactions with the media.

I am still wondering about the time length of the simulation. I suppose one could assume that the photons are traveling at c, then measure the paths and try to come up with a travel time.

John, the scale of the simulation is about twenty centimeters across. The spacetime matrice is trillions of trillions of times smaller. The changes in direction you see are probably events where the photon is absorbed by an electron, and then a very, very short time later, it or another like it is re-emitted. Since there is a time delay, and the electrons are changing position in the atom, the re-emitted photon leaves the electron at a different place (too small to detect the image) from where it was absorbed, and it travels away from the electron, and the atom, in a different direction from the way it was moving when it arrived. We don't see the atom or the electron that absorbs the photon because they are too small to show up in the image.

In a medium like concrete, the atoms are mostly randomly placed, although I am sure there is some crystalline structure in local regions. A purely crystalline medium would diffract the photons in a more regular pattern, as you can see in diagrams of xray crystalline interferography, which has been used for many years to get information about crystalline structure of materials at the atomic scale. As a result, the emitted photon can leave the electron and its atom in almost any direction. The divergence of the spray is a result of the photons becoming less energetic with each interaction. The less energetic the photon is, the more likely it is that it will be scattered at an acute angle. I imagine this is because higher energy photons tend to be re-emitted at more oblique angles, because the electron and its atom hold on to them for shorter times, meaning that the change in orientation of the atom and electron in the medium is generally less, so the re-emitted photon leaves on a path closer to the path of the absorbed photon.

Well this is what I have gleaned from the leavings of the more academic among us. Perhaps Chroot or SelfAdjoint will correct me.

Thanks,

Richard

 

[John]

I believe they have already passed through a thin piece of concrete, and now they are traveling through thin air, a vacuum, or a cloud chamber. That changes things. Now you have to really wonder why they are changing directions like they are.

The magnetic field might cause them to spiral, but the spirals, though I was initially intrigued by them about 11 years ago, aren't what I'm interested in. I'm interested in the minute angles in the tracks within the spirals. The spirals are never perfect spirals. They are spirals with angular changes of direction. The magnetic field could cause consistent spirals but not angles. Now you say they are traveling through concrete, so of course they are running into things and making angular changes in direction. But I am pretty sure they have already passed through the concrete and are now on the other side of a piece of concrete.

At some point they are passing through detectors, and you could say the detectors are causing the angular direction changes. But I don't think they are. Detectors wouldn't be very good detectors if they changed the directions of the tracks.

I couldn't find any real photographs to post. You can see the angles in photographs if you look closely. In most simulations, the angles are taken out and all the tracks look like pure spirals. But this simulation is odd, in that, the angles are exaggerated. They don’t even look like spirals. Not only that, but I did my own simulation of particles moving through Planck Sphere space, and in my simulation (not a computer simulation, but a mental picture simulation) the particles would curve in one direction, and then curve in the other direction. That disagreed with most of the pictures, and with the idea that magnets are curving them. I think the Planck Spheres are curving them.

When I first saw those pictures they weren’t confusing to me, because that is exactly what I already thought would happen. But my simulation using a Planck Sphere type of space always made then curve erratically and in both directions. This simulation looks exactly like my simulation. Hmm. And it’s the first picture I have ever seen that does.

selfAdjoint, I did not see these pictures and then come up with a theory. I came up with a theory, a wild idea at first -- what if space has a structure -- and after developing my theory for 20 years, I see a lot of things that agree with it, like those little angles, as if the particles are moving among the structures in space.

Notice the high energy particles ignore the structure, but the low energy particles seem to follow it. So therefore, the structure has a degree of importance but it is not always a factor that can be mathematically plugged in. For the most part we can ignore it, but I am pretty sure it is there.

Richard, I know we seem to have a huge disagreement on size. But a diamond expresses its atomic structure in the shape of the one-carat diamond that you see. So if tiny Planck Spheres make up space, the same structure can be seen in a snowflake and in particle tracks in a 20 cm space.

 

[rtharbaugh1]

0401311407cstMilkhouse

Hi all.
I picked up a copy of Michio Kaku's 1994 book HYPERSPACE at the regional book emporium in exchange for dinner with a friend, a good bargain at any ratio of the price. But the paperback retails for about fifteen bucks US. Settling down with the text by a warm fire and under a bright hanging lamp (still powered by those dam transmission lines, I must admit) I discovered that I had already read many of the chapters. I think I may have had this as a library book last winter when I was laid up after an accident. It was one that had to go back before I reluctantly let it go, but I was also deeply involved with several other texts and trains of thought at the time and went off in other directions. I am very glad to have found this friend again and add it to my collection with some satisfaction. I suppose in some dimension this is like inviting a guest over for dinner and then devouring him. Or as in Douglas Adams, who describes an experience as like being drunk, if you are the beer. But in any case, even bad poetry, I am glad to have made this aquaintance again.

I note on page 10 there is an assertion that "higher dimensional spaces are impossible to visualize, so it is futile to even try," which I found somewhat defeatest in tone, but quickly went on to the discussion of different methods that have been devised to view higher dimensionalities, from Plato's cave of shadows to Hinton and the hypercube. I am currently reviewing on about page 75, and still think I have some comments. Thanks All, Richard

********************
here follows the origin, reading down from this point. Hearafter above, added edit messages will be filed at the top of the page. I will try to remember to start with a datetimelocation group, and end with a time. RTH 1438cst

Hi John.

Yes, I see what you mean about the diamond and the spacetime geometry. and there are those odd similarities of form at various scales. Surely the presence of the sphere at all known scales implies that we may be correct in thinking spheres are involved in events at the Planck scale. I also see the spirol forms you mention. I would like to be able to name them more completely. That is why in many of my posts I have tried to enumerate the planes, apexes, angles and lines of the spacetime matrix.

I am tired and sore tonight after a work shift. Forgive me if I retire early. Thanks for being here.

Richard

(next day, 0301301230CSTmilkhouse)

Ok. So the idea seems to be that there is a definable crystal-like structure, a kind of multidimensional lattice, or in the Planck sphere model a dense packing of uniformly sized spheres, which are like a "fabric" of spacetime...except that a fabric implies two dimensions, when we really want an image that can be extended into higher dimensions. Extended to three dimensions, the "fabric" of spacetime is something else...like a solid, a liquid, a gas, but not a solid a liquid a gas as in the material world we see everyday around us, but at a much smaller and more fundamental scale. The Planck scale is on the order of 10^-33 cm. The -33 in the exponent makes this an incredibly small length. It is way beyond the reach of high energy physics. The length of time of the Planck time unit, just called the Planck time, is on the order of 10^-43 seconds. You really have to work through the meaning of these numbers to get an idea of how many Planck units we are dealing with when we talk about an event like the intersection of photons and electrons.

Anyway the size is so small that we might think of them as below the scale of matter as we know it. Mass and energy do not mean the same thing on this level that they seem to mean to us. Part of this is because because the events we think of as mass and energy occur as statistical universes of Planck spheres, but also because of the compaction of time at these extremely short scales.

For this reason, I am able to justify this model even in the face of those who suggest that such short lengths suffer from the problem of infinities. Smaller size has meant higher energies. But I would like to discuss with someone the thought that a change in the relativity of time at the scales involved changes the calculation. "Events", whatever they are, occur over huge numbers of Planck times, so many that to talk meaninfully of what is going on at the Planck scale, we must nearly neglect the passage of time entirely. What then does a high energy mean when time is in the equation as a variable? It is as if, at the Planck scale, as at the Planck era in cosmology, and perhaps as in the limits of singularities, time stops.

Think of it like this. If I hold my finger in a candle flame, I will be burned. Yet I can pass my finger through a candle flame quickly, and I will not be burned. The time my finger is in the flame is crucial. Even very high energies due to short distances are tolerable because of the relitive time.

I just heard Science Friday on the topic of a quark gluon plasma generated by colliding gold nuclei at near light speed. The time scale was billionths of a trillionth of a second, I think the researcher said. So that would be 10^-7 X 10^-8 = 10^-15. Compare this scale, which is where quarks run free, with the scale of the Planck sphere at 10^-43. Now I hope you can see why I think we are talking about huge statistical universes of Planck spheres involved in events such as electron and photon interactions, since electrons, photons, gluons and quarks are thought of as the most fundamental particles of matter. A single quark is about 10^28 Planck times. That number is on the order of the number of stars in the universe, if I remember correctly.

So at the Planck scale, as at the Planck era in cosmology, nothing much seems to happen. Vast regions of Planck space must be perfectly orderly. Mass and energy then can be thought of as the regions of disorder in the otherwise mostly perfectly orderly Planck space. I have further speculated that the events we call matter and energy can more easily be visualised as one and two dimensional structures in the subspace between Planck spheres. These in between spaces are too small to hold any three dimensional object but are able to form lower dimensional connections. I suggest that these lower dimensional effects in the Planck-Kepler stack of spheres are responsible for qualities of matter in field theory.

Got to go. I'll be back. (shudder)

THanks,

Richard

 

[John]

I thought you said you would be back.

I guess you got absorbed in Dr. Kaku's book. There is a quality of genuine curiosity he has, that qualifies someone as being a theoretical physicist. Any desire to be important, or to have a career that gives you any more than sustenance and free time disqualifies you as being an honest theoretical physicist. Even Einstein got caught up in being important, and didn't make too many new discoveries afterwards. Physicists are much too involved with being important, and appearing smart. Yet, if people don't think you are smart or important, they don't pay any attention to what you have to say. Hence, we need places where people who are genuinely curious can seek and communicate. The places we would create, like monasteries, have to be sufficiently boring to drive the insincere away, but sufficiently healthy and enjoyable to allow full use of brain power. Only with that, will we discover the next set of universal truths which live behind a wall that is different and much more mundane than anyone now thinks.

Rule number one when studying Planck spaces is, put them in the everyday world. Two points are two bb's separated in the air. Don't worry about size. They always act according to classical laws of physics and logic. What doesn't work directly according to the laws of physics are large objects. They are living in a world that mimicks the laws of physics.

The most fundametal law of physics is this. When two pieces of raw matter are seperated, creating two points in space, they want to come back together. They are separated into something that has no concept of space so they want to spring back together with a huge acceleration, which is the strong force. This is in the first law of string theory, which was originally the theory of the strong force. When a string is formed it has the tension of the strong force. And everything is made of strings. Space is made of strings (there is no concept of space in nothingness). Space has six dimensions because those are all the directions you can create when you make space out of strings. In larger systems, things appear to be moving in more than six directions, just like a school bus going down the road and all the kids are playing inside the bus. The bus appears to be moving in one direction, but there is a lot of zigzagging back and forth inside the bus. Points in a molecule zigzag back and forth in a world that only has six directions. The inner points make the molecule move in any direction.

The larger molecule is only being carried by the moving points within it. They cause the larger system to mimick the laws of physics, which are most real, not less real, at the small levels. There are no levels that exist which are too small to obey the laws of physics. All the points of matter operate according to classical physics, and according to a constant that governs the motion of large objects: No matter how far apart two points are separated, they will always come back together in the same amount of time.

So if you have an engine powered by the strong force, which happens when you create space out of nothing, and by the inertia of matter; you can figure out everything.

 

[Terry Giblin]

Gentlemen,

Of course time is a dimension, it’s our concept of time, which is wrong.

Time in a 10 or 11 Dimensional Cloud, is the "rate" at which a photon can reach the next point in space within the cloud, like the rings on a tree, if starting from a central point, like the big bang. - A Chemist and a Biologist might argue osmosis within a tree structure.

The obvious question is what exactly is this quantity "rate", is it the rate of the photon within a cloud of 10 or 11 Dimensions or the rate alternatively the rate at which electrons are formed form photon interference, for example?

Is the rate constant?

If some one forgets time, they should not blame Einstein, as a physicist with an excellent imagination, to worked with his wife, Mileva the true mathematician in the Einstein family, to help develop his own physical theories into a mathematical framework.

It was Mileva own natural mathematical abilities, which were over shadowed by Einstein's physics ideas.

Can someone therefore answer the following questions?

“What is an electron?”

“What is a Quark?”

“Which came first?”

Which can answer theses questions - A Physicist or a Mathematician?

Regards

Terry Giblin

 

[Terry Giblin]

Gentlemen,

It will teach me to read the whole paper first before asking questions.

"So if you have an engine powered by the strong force, which happens when you create space out of nothing, and by the inertia of matter; you can figure out everything."

If you can solve the Young's Double Split experiment (YDSE) and then simply reverse the process, generating electrons from photon interference, would this not create the engine you are looking for?

Is the fact that the experiment has already been verified in every laboratory in world, not sufficient proof itself?

Or is it just another proof or indication that we do live in a 10 or 11 dimension universe, as predicted by the String Theory, Loop.

Could the photon, electron and 6 quarks be the key?

At the moment physics is purely a hobby of mine, a simply mind game, which is why I choose to study the YDSE. I've never seen the experiment preformed.

However now that I believe I have solved this puzzle, in my own mind, from a purely a physics point of view.

I am now considering returning to research, full time a complete career change of direction, to pursue these ideas further and would therefore appreciate any constructive advice.

Is “Continue your studies as a hobby” or “Don’t give up your date time job” your first answer?

Regards

Terry Giblin

 

[Terry Giblin]

Can the photo-electric effect be generated without a target being present?

We should be able to reproduce the Young's Double Split Experiment (YDSE) in reverse.

More importantly is it worth studying?

 

[John]

Time in a 10 or 11 Dimensional Cloud, is the "rate" at which a photon can reach the next point in space within the cloud.

Where did you get that? That is also my concept of time. Time is the rate at which a photon reaches the next point in space.

We have to define what are points in space? Think of dominos, dominos set up in a row. When each one falls, they are powered by gravity. The fall is triggered by knocking the domino off its base, then gravity powers it into the next domino. They fall at a very consistent rate. If you watch a long row of dominos fall, you are struck by the amazingly consistent speed they progress. I think light travels from point to point like dominos falling.

I say that physical bits of matter create points in space. When triggered, they fall into each other powered by the strong force!

Space itself, made of physical bits of matter which are its mathematical points, is expanding against the strong force! Not against gravity.

That means space was moving outward a lot faster than it is now, because the strong force would slow it down much faster than gravity. We know time goes slower for an object when it is moving faster, and we know that outside the speeding object, time appears to be moving slower.

The Bible tells us God will create and destroy everything in 13 days, which the Bible defines as 13 thousand years. (Seven "days" of creation, plus six "days" of human history equals 13 days, then we are transported into another world.) Yet, we know from our observation that it has surely been about 14 billion years. Yet, if space itself used to be moving outward at a very fast rate, and at a much slower rate now since it is being slowed by the strong force, creation actually could have taken six days according to our current concept of time. Not only that, but when space stops expanding, time stops.

We have a clock in our experience that tells us how fast time goes. The time we are living in, which was moving at the same speed as our experience is now going at a different speed. Our experience reaches ahead as measured time gets slower and slower. We sense that months and years are going by faster and faster.

If space is expanding against the strong force and was moving a lot faster, the first six days could be measured by us as 14 billion years, and the whole of the current year can feel like a few months.

All of that comes out of the idea that space has points and that time is how fast a photon goes from one point to the next. If your intuition told you time is a measurement of how fast a photon goes from point to point, then you hold an extraordinary and I believe true idea.

And the quark came first, then the electron.

 

[John]

Terry, thank you for the e-mail. I like the idea of doing my communicating in public. Where did I get the idea of photons going from one point in space to the other in the same amount of time?

That was the key idea that started my entire thought process. I didn’t get it from a book. We have a singularity of matter that is like one drop of water floating in the midst of nothingness. The Bible describes the original universe as being like an abyss with waves on the surface. So raw pure matter is like very heavy water, which can’t be compressed but has very little tensile strength. The tensile strength of raw pure matter is the weak force. Like a body of water it has size, but it is all one thing. If you take one drop out of the Biblical abyss and pull it away from the surface, it is being pulled into something that does not contain the concept of space. By pulling one drop away from the large abyss, you have created two points. The two points will snap back to the singularity of being one. The question is how long does it take to snap back? My guess is that it will always snap back in the same amount of time, no matter how far away it is pulled away. I guessed the force would increase proportionately so that it will always be pulled back in the same amount of time. I learned the strong force does increase with distance.

I imagined an explosion where the abyss is broken up into an uncountable number if pieces, and each piece wants to snap back into the piece closest to it. It is being held in place by pieces all around it that are all expanding outward. So if one point, a photon, is pushed into another point with enough force, it knocks the other point out of place and it is sucked into the point nearest to it. If there was no energy between the points of space, it would collide from point to point gradually losing its momentum due to friction and due to dispersion. But if the moving point is sucked into the nearest point, it doesn’t disperse; it goes in a straight line with very little dispersion, and since it is being pulled along, the photon never loses any speed.

Interesting thing here is, there are only six directions the photon can go: six dimensions. How can a single photon be aimed at a target and hit it? We know a photon is really a bundle of particles, and the bundle could express any direction. It would be fun to do a computer animation of that, but I don’t have the tools.

 

[rtharbaugh1]

Hi all
I got lost somehow and forgot what we were doing. I'm not getting email notification of postings here for some reason. I'll try to correct that. But right now I have to run. If I am gone for weeks would someone please remind me? In fact, I don't even have a moment to advise my regards! It's off to work for me, but I was just looking for a place to post this following essay. It is a review of my ramblings. Thanks! I look forward to my next opportunity to sit down here and have a good long read.

Richard



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>I have been reading: Albert Einstein, Relativity, the special and the general theory, a clear explanation that anyone can understand, prefaced 1916 and noted 1952 by the author, my copy paperback from Crown Publishers, Inc.NY printed USA ISBN 0-517-025302
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>"I wished to show that space-time is not necessarily something to which one can ascribe a separate existence, independently of the actual objects of physical reality. Physical objects are not 'in space,' but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept "empty space" loses its meaning. June 9th, 1952 A. Einstein"
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>What then, are "the actual objects of physical reality?"
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>Einstein admonishes that these objects are not "in space" but are "spatially extended." Space does not exist outside of these objects. These objects, then, must be thought of as actually being space, or, in the same sense, as of being space-time.
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>Can we know anything of these objects?
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>Planck's calculation of the least action makes them almost unimaginably small. (The extra six dimensions of string theory are said to be compacted into these extremely small regions.) We can however have some sense of their objective reality by means of reason without direct experience. They are impenetrable and inelastic, since any penetration or elasticity would require changes on a scale smaller than the Planck action potential. For the same reason, they are irreducible, that is, they cannot be divided into smaller parts.
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>Einstein discusses the curvature of space in large regions, and suggests that in small enough regions, space can be thought of as flat. The Planck quanta gives us a notion of how small a region can be. We may then reason that objects on the Planck scale are related to each other in what may be as close to flat space as we are ever likely to imagine. We can therefore use the Euclidean notion of flat space to describe how objects on the Planck scale are related to each other.
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>As to the individual shapes of objects on the Planck scale, we are very limited in our liberty to reason. There is only one idea that gives us a notion of the actual shape of such objects, and that is that their extent in any measure is not less that the least action potential. We may construct images of polygonal form and consider them as models for large statistical universes of behavior, but we may as well consider that the shape of the space-time objects be thought of in as simple of terms as possible. For this reason I suggest that it is practicable to speak of space-time objects in terms of a flat universe occupied by spherical bodies of (locally) uniform size.
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>The geometry of space-time then can be likened to the geometry of small spheres on a flat plane, such as of marbles placed on a table top. I propose that from the rules governing this simple system, we should be able to show the basis for the laws of physics.
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>Gravity first. We must simply assume that the space-time spheres, which I have elsewhere called Planck spheres, are undergoing expansion. Because they are impenetrable and inelastic, they then come into contact and cause an increasing separation of the centers. Every part of every sensible material object is undergoing this expansion, so that the effect we call gravity is found throughout the universe.
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>I propose that the other laws of physics, regarding electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces, may be shown to be due to uncertainties in the placement of infalling space-time spheres on the time square surface of an event. These uncertainties result in what may be thought of as the creation or destruction of space between sensible objects, or equally as the rise and fall of virtual particles in the Dirac sea, or equally as the variation of Unruh radiation with change in acceleration.
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>The idea of infall of space-time spheres is a fourth dimensional model of processes in higher dimensions. No single four dimensional model is sufficient to show all aspects of the higher dimensional reality. Hence the flat model universe of table top spheres may be augmented by additional layers, representing what has been called parallel universes. A moment of reflection will show that the universes are not so much parallel as they are intersecting in sets of parallel sheets. A reference to Kepler will guide the reader to the cubeoctahedron, a most dense packed structure which shows how many sheets of flat universal planes may be said to co-occupy a space-time structure.
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>In this view the many-universe/one universe conflict may be resolved. There is indeed only one universe, but it may be divided in many ways.
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>I wish peace to all and a greater recognition of the unity of experience. Thanks, Richard
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