The Strand Model of fundamental interactions

[physics8553]

Now I'm confused. How can a strand swap across to pass the other side by a rotation? Unless you are talking a trip through a higher dimension?

No, there are no higher dimensions; everything happens in three dimensions. A crossing switch can only occur through shape fluctuations. Take two pieces of real rope, and deform them in such a way that the crossing you are looking at changes sign.

A simple example is to imagine that the upper right of a crossing and the lower right are connected. Then the crossing is due to a twist. Rotate the twist twice by 180 degrees, and the crossing will be switched.

Does that make it clearer?

Christoph Schiller

 

[Max™]

Wow, I've been working on a VERY similar model from the other way (top down), starting with a structure where the identifiable dimensions/directions are labeled with/made of threads, x-threads, y-threads, and z-threads, and working out their various interactions, which as you see, neatly produces particles and force interactions.

Keep at it, I'll get back to you after considering your take on things more fully.

 

[apeiron]

A simple example is to imagine that the upper right of a crossing and the lower right are connected. Then the crossing is due to a twist. Rotate the twist twice by 180 degrees, and the crossing will be switched.

Does that make it clearer?

No it doesn't really. You write: "An event is the switch of a crossing between two strands.
This definition of an event as a basic front-to-back exchange is illustrated in Figure 1."

So I can't see how even flopping the pair of strands over with a twist would reverse the topology. All you would have is the twist, not a reversal of the crossing. Unless the ends of the strands are free-floating rather than tethered at infinity, which is apparently not the case.

Perhaps you mean that at the crossing point the strands become fleetingly, quantumly, fused and emerge out the other side with the effective front to back exchange? Probably not that either from your comments.

So the words and diagrams are not making the situation clear to me yet.

 

[physics8553]

Wow, I've been working on a VERY similar model from the other way (top down), starting with a structure where the identifiable dimensions/directions are labeled with/made of threads, x-threads, y-threads, and z-threads, and working out their various interactions, which as you see, neatly produces particles and force interactions.

Keep at it, I'll get back to you after considering your take on things more fully.

I'd be pleased to hear from you. My email is on the website www.motionmountain.net

Christoph Schiller

 

[physics8553]

So I can't see how even flopping the pair of strands over with a twist would reverse the topology. All you would have is the twist, not a reversal of the crossing. Unless the ends of the strands are free-floating rather than tethered at infinity, which is apparently not the case.

Perhaps you mean that at the crossing point the strands become fleetingly, quantumly, fused and emerge out the other side with the effective front to back exchange? Probably not that either from your comments.

No, there is no quantum tunnelling of one strand through the other.

Just take two pieces of rope and bend them around until the crossing you are looking at is reversed. One way is to turn the first strand around the (local) rotation axis provided by the second. Like real ropes or shoelaces.

Christoph Schiller

 

[apeiron]

Just take two pieces of rope and bend them around until the crossing you are looking at is reversed. One way is to turn the first strand around the (local) rotation axis provided by the second. Like real ropes or shoelaces.

Done that and it just introduces a twist further down the strand. The strand that was "behind" is still stuck behind. The crossing has just been moved sideways.

If the strands are two unanchored lengths, no problem of flopping them over. But if the four ends are anchored at infinity, I just don't get what you mean. No way to rotate them so one is moved from behind to in front.

 

[Max™]

That's why I decided I had to work up from intersection nodes, in part.

 

[physics8553]

Done that and it just introduces a twist further down the strand. The strand that was "behind" is still stuck behind. The crossing has just been moved sideways.

If the strands are two unanchored lengths, no problem of flopping them over. But if the four ends are anchored at infinity, I just don't get what you mean. No way to rotate them so one is moved from behind to in front.

All transformations that switch crossings are with ropes.

For example: take an axis vertical to the paper. Grab "one centimetre" of both strands and rotate these centimetres by 90 degrees around that axis. This changes a left crossing into a right crossing.

Another example: twist one rope around the other. This will indeed introduce additional crossings outside the field of view, but who cares? At the point in space we are interested
in, you have a crossing switch, and this is described by hbar. There will be other crossing switches elsewhere, which also produce hbars there.

So any motion of strands that at a particular point in space leads to the change from one crossing to another counts - as long as no rope passes through the other.

Christoph Schiller

 

[heinz]

So any motion of strands that at a particular point in space leads to the change from one crossing to another counts - as long as no rope passes through the other.

This makes it much clearer. I think the paper should be improved on this point.

But the rest of it remains fascinating. I hope that others enjoy the Reidemeister explanation for the forces as much as I did.

 

[apeiron]

This will indeed introduce additional crossings outside the field of view, but who cares? At the point in space we are interested
in, you have a crossing switch, and this is described by hbar. There will be other crossing switches elsewhere, which also produce hbars there.

To me this is just moving a crossing with a twist, not actually switching a crossing.

And now you are introducing some kind of observer effect. There has to be a "me" for whom the crossing looks locally switched, and also a me that does not have the peripheral vision to see it has only been twisted.

This sounds crazy so I would be looking for more convincing explanations for why this would be a good model.

As I say, I like knot-style approaches generally. And spin networks. They model worlds in which global constraints breed local constructive freedoms, which then leads to self-organising or bootstrapping theories.

So constrain local action to strands, to 1D paths, and suddenly there are unavoidable local constructive freedoms. There are new local symmetries created and thus the chance for new local symmetry-breakings.

 

[physics8553]

To me this is just moving a crossing with a twist, not actually switching a crossing.

And now you are introducing some kind of observer effect. There has to be a "me" for whom the crossing looks locally switched, and also a me that does not have the peripheral vision to see it has only been twisted.

Yes, moving crossings with twists do produce a local crossing switch. The point of the model is that only such motions are allowed, and only crossing switches are observable, independently of how they appear.

With this definition one can deduce the Dirac equation and the three gauge groups.
Thus the definition seems to be very powerful.

I attached a file of two examples of how strand motions lead to crossing switches.


Christoph Schiller

 

[heinz]

With this definition one can deduce the Dirac equation and the three gauge groups.

Christoph, if i get it correctly, to deduce the Dirac equation you rely on the work of Battey and Racey. Then you say that the three Reidemeister moves define the three interactions.
For the photons, there are two polarization states and you map them to the two options of the Reidemeister I move. For the weak bosons, there are 3 massive particles and in total 9 polarization states. But there are only 6 Reidemeister moves and their opposites - how does this fit?

 

[physics8553]

Christoph, if i get it correctly, to deduce the Dirac equation you rely on the work of Battey and Racey. Then you say that the three Reidemeister moves define the three interactions.
For the photons, there are two polarization states and you map them to the two options of the Reidemeister I move. For the weak bosons, there are 3 massive particles and in total 9 polarization states. But there are only 6 Reidemeister moves and their opposites - how does this fit?

I guess you meant to say that there are only 6 Reidemeister II moves. Indeed, before symmetry breaking of the weak interaction, there are only 6 polarization states (as the particles are massless). The additional three states come from symmetry breaking. So it does fit :-)

Christoph Schiller

 

[heinz]

Christoph, in your paper you explain the origin of electrodynamics, of the weak and of the strong force with strands. You explain the origin of the coupling constants and tell how to calculate them. In the previous papers you explained general relativity and quantum theory with strands. And you promise to explain the number of particles and their masses. If these arguments are correct, already now your theory has achieved more results than any other "theory of everything" before. Why are so few people interested?

 

[physics8553]

Christoph, in your paper you explain the origin of electrodynamics, of the weak and of the strong force with strands. You explain the origin of the coupling constants and tell how to calculate them. In the previous papers you explained general relativity and quantum theory with strands. And you promise to explain the number of particles and their masses. If these arguments are correct, already now your theory has achieved more results than any other "theory of everything" before. Why are so few people interested?

It is not correct that few people are interested!
I am getting a lot of constructive feedback, and
many parts of the manuscript have been checked
already. So far, there is no major issue, only several
aspects that need to be explained more clearly.

About your other comments: indeed, as far as I know,
there is no other explanation for the origin of the
interactions. The strand model seems both simpler
and further than the competitors on arxiv.
But we will see whether this advantage will remain
after in-depth scrutiny. I'll let you know when the
last manuscript is ready.

Christoph Schiller

 

[Max™]

Yeah, if it seems that there is little interest, it's just because it isn't a clear iteration of a mainstream topic.

lol

Perhaps you should slap a sexy String Theory buzzword in the title, that'll get some hits!

:D

 

[Fra]

About your other comments: indeed, as far as I know,
there is no other explanation for the origin of the
interactions. The strand model seems both simpler
and further than the competitors on arxiv.
But we will see whether this advantage will remain
after in-depth scrutiny. I'll let you know when the
last manuscript is ready.

I think your ambition to "explain origin of interactions" is definitely worth all attention.

To speak for myself, it's simple. I've got very little time even for my own thinking so I select strongly. I need to motivate myself in all time I invest in looking into something, wether it's more promising and might help my own thinking, or wether I should ignore it and keep thinking in the more promising direction.

Lets say that what you did is this; Assume X, and you show that X => interactions. I didn't find your premise X (which is based in knot theory) sufficiently plausible to make me want to invest more time at the moment at this "risk-level".

However since it's your theory and your job to work out all implications and convince everyone else, I am definitely interested to see the future of your ideas! Perhaps eventually it will be even more convinving. In business terms; you're trying to sell me a prototype, and some customer might want to wait for the finished, tested product before they buy :) That doesn't mean they wouldn't like it.

I honestly don't think anyone should be discouraged because there is low initial interest in a new idea. I think it's entirely normal and I guess it's up to the originator to be strong enough to keep working.

/Fredrik

 

[heinz]

Indeed, as far as I know,
there is no other explanation for the origin of the
interactions. The strand model seems both simpler
and further than the competitors on arxiv.
But we will see whether this advantage will remain
after in-depth scrutiny. I'll let you know when the
last manuscript is ready.

Christoph, all the best for your endeavour! I have a much fun playing with your ideas.

 

[heinz]

Christoph, maybe you will still read this. If the three Reidemeister moves correspond to the three gauge interactions, then there is a question. A move that is a Reidemeister I to one observer can be a Reidemeister II move to another (if he looks from a different direction). How is this taken into account in your proposal?

 

[physics8553]

If the three Reidemeister moves correspond to the three gauge interactions, then there is a question. A move that is a Reidemeister I to one observer can be a Reidemeister II move to another (if he looks from a different direction). How is this taken into account in your proposal?

At first sight, this mixes the interactions. One one hand, this is the argument for unification of the interactions. On the other hand, in a few words, statistics make the mix-up extremely unlikely.

Christoph Schiller

 

[heinz]

I saw that Christoph Schiller has expanded his ideas: on his site he now has a model for leptons, quarks and even hadrons: he models vector bosons as knots made of one strand, quarks as knots made of two strands, and leptons as knots made of three strands. He claims that he can reproduce all quantum numbers. His model is getting interesting: not only does he claim that he can explain the three forces; he also claims that he can explain the three fermion generations. The bizarre side is that he claims that GUTs, supersymmetry etc. do not exist, that the Higgs does not exist, and that dark matter is conventional matter. He writes that all this follows from his model. He is thus much more ambitious than Bilson-Thompson and his ribbon model. Schiller claims to reproduce the standard model and general relativity, but he also predicts that no new particle will ever be discovered. Audacious or crazy? We will soon find out.

 

[tom.stoer]

I did not follow this discussion in detail: is there an arxiv reference or a website which provides the latest info? I know some rather old papers and I am not sure if a still have the overview on this subject.

How does the connection between these kind of models and LQG look like? Does LQG require a positive cosmological constant in order to get framed graphs? If yes, were does this constant coem frome if not from LQG itself?

 

[MTd2]

This is his website:

http://www.motionmountain.net

But I cannot find the information Heinz told us.

EDIT.:

Just found it!:

"No additional elementary particle will be discovered: the Higgs boson does not exist. The unitarity of scattering for longitudinal W and Z bosons is maintained at all energies. (New on website and 6th volume, August 2009.)"

http://www.motionmountain.net/research/index.html

 

[tom.stoer]

http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3905

Deducing the three gauge interactions from featureless strands
(Christoph Schiller)
It is proposed to deduce the electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions from Planck units through the behaviour of tangles of featureless strands.
In the strand model, particles are modeled as rotating tangles of unobservable strands. Only crossing changes are observable. Each crossing change has an associated action, time, length and entropy given by the corresponding Planck unit. Crossing changes are used to deduce all physical observables. Wave functions are temporal and spatial averages of strand densities leading to crossing changes. This connection is known to imply the Dirac equation.
Using this basis, gauge interactions are modeled as deformations of particle tangle cores. By applying the general approach of Berry, Wilczek, Zee and Shapere to such deformations, the three gauge interactions -- electromagnetic, weak and strong -- appear to follow from the three Reidemeister moves. In particular, U(1), SU(2), parity violation, SU(2) breaking, SU(3) and asymptotic freedom seem to follow naturally.
The model is consistent with all known data and makes several testable predictions, including the absence of other interactions, of grand unification and of higher dimensions. A method for calculating coupling constants seems to appear naturally.

 

[heinz]

How does the connection between these kind of models and LQG look like? Does LQG require a positive cosmological constant in order to get framed graphs? If yes, were does this constant coem frome if not from LQG itself?

My impression is that there is little relation with LQG. More with the Bilson-Thompson stuff. The question seems to be: ribbons or strands? The two models have many similarities.

Maybe we can get Christoph to join this discussion again.

heinz

 

[heinz]

Christoph Schiller has updated his paper http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3905 . He changed the title and the abstract:

Deducing the three gauge interactions from the three Reidemeister moves.

We give one of the first known arguments for the origin of the three observed gauge groups. The argument is based on modelling nature at Planck scales as a collection of featureless strands that fluctuate in three dimensions. This approach models vacuum as untangled strands, particles as tangles of strands, and Planck units as crossing switches.
Modelling vacuum as untangled strands implies the field equations of general relativity, when applying an argument from 1995 to the thermodynamics of strands. Modelling fermions as tangles of two or more strands allows to define wave functions as time-averages of strand crossings; using an argument from 1980, this allows to deduce the Dirac equation.
When modelling fermions as tangled strands, gauge interactions appear naturally as deformation of tangle cores. The three possible types of observable core deformations are given by the three Reidemeister moves. They naturally lead to a U(1), a broken and parity-violating SU(2), and a SU(3) gauge group. The corresponding Lagrangians also appear naturally.
The model is unique, is unmodifiable, is consistent with all known data, and makes numerous testable predictions, including the absence of other interactions, of grand unification and of higher dimensions. A method for calculating coupling constants seems to appear naturally.

------

This appears to be one of the few approaches around that predicts a lack of GUTs, of SUSY, of usual strings, of branes, and of loops. Christoph really does it in a way that goes against the ideas of almost everybody else :-) He appears to prefer Louis Kauffman's ideas.

He now cites David Deutsch and his talk on http://www.ted.com . Deutsch said in his last talk that truth is defined by "hard to vary" explanations. Christoph claims that his model has this property - that it is hard to vary - and thus that it could be true. Boy, if so, either this is totally wrong or it is totally true ...

 

[John86]

Sounds very interesting to me. Are there crossing points with Loops ?..
My gut feeling is that Schiller's strand model plank unit switch model is somehow a phase transitional phenomonan with respect to possibly what we call the Big bang

Can anybody gi some more insight !..

 

[Spinnor]

To quote Lubos Motl, who was discussing that surfer dude nonsense from last year, we have:



It is so sad that people buy into papers like this, if you are going to trade your life for a fantasy then why not play videogames, watch movies, or read literature?

I guess you were referring to the paper by Schiller,

http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3905 ?

Where is the fatal flaw, where is the fantasy? Schiller seems to explain a lot from a simple idea, from a quick read I'm not sure what is not explained. If not correct Schiller seems headed in the right direction.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[MTd2]

The guy was banned. No use quoting him.

 

[Spinnor]

Can three theories be united; Loop, String, Strand?

Can Loop Quantum Gravity be united with String Theory be united with Strand Theory? Each has something nice.

Strand Theory, http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3905

Thanks for any thoughts.