What about the absence of a unified field?

[Fredrick]

Greek mythology/Renaissance

I think that human thought goes in expansion contraction waves and it is just getting a new concept of time and space

the last time like this was around 1680 when Newton postulated absolute space and time. after that the program was to explain everything by particles moving in that absolute space according to some laws, and by waves moving in it. the program developed enormous momentum.

heat and sound were explained by particles moving in abs. space
electricity and magnetism, light, even quantum field theory and the Standard Model are built on absolute space and an idealized time variable

A crack developed in 1915 with Gen Rel in which spacetime points do not have physical existence, there is no fixed geometry. In GR there is no absolute space, there is just the gravitational field. but the rest of 20th cent physics will not mix with 1915 GR---it is like oil and water.

So I guess something like 1680 will happen. People will get a new model of time and space compatible with Gen Rel. then they will build quantum physics on the new spacetime. there will be a new program.

The program is always one of unification----of gathering the threads of explanation together---of braiding the threads of understanding. But be careful what you unify in with!
It is a different program depending on what the core concept of space and time is!

How about the idea of the Renaissance (lit: rebirth)? After the Dark Ages Europe woke up to the ideals of the ancient Greeks. However, one interesting difference between 'us' and 'them' remained in place all this time, and that is that the Greeks did not believe in a single god. While we are following the Greek path of knowledge (and have contributed to it significantly ever since), we are not accepting (yet) of the idea that unification is improbable. If - as you say - human thought goes in expansion contraction waves, isn't it time we embrace the old greek ideals and abandon the idea of unification?

While Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions were developed with the ultimate highest standing in respect to believing (in that these religions do not necessarily need the connection to the factual materialized world: believing is not the same as seeing), it may have been impossible for the Greek, the Egyptians, and other ancient people to have a belief that lacked such connection (for them: seeing = believing). For them religion may have been based on/evolved from/connected to the surrounding world.

 

[marcus]

How about the idea of the Renaissance (lit: rebirth)? After the Dark Ages Europe woke up to the ideals of the ancient Greeks. However, one interesting difference between 'us' and 'them' remained in place all this time, and that is that the Greeks did not believe in a single god. While we are following the Greek path of knowledge (and have contributed to it significantly ever since), we are not accepting (yet) of the idea that unification is improbable. If - as you say - human thought goes in expansion contraction waves, isn't it time we embrace the old greek ideals and abandon the idea of unification?
...

hello Fredrick,
this is your thread, so if you want to mix physics and religion nobody can object.

so then you would equate monotheism in religion to the drive to unify physical theories-----which is reasoning by analogy: something that often and in lots of cases works very well.

I would say two things.
1. A lot of the "unification" talk is just hype because the idea of having a unified explanation for basic physics appeals to the public.

and in a general sense it appeals to the human mind. The Greeks were certainly not immune to this----there are half a dozen examples of Greek science where the guy tried to find a single substance or a single principle that would explain the properties of all substances. Everything is made of water, no, everything is made of fire! No you are wrong...etc.

So people are suckers for any kind of total explanation type single essence theory----and even today they will funnel taxpayer money into projects that are hyped as a promising quest for Unity.

2. But in sober truth, gradual piecewise unification of known parts of physics has been a great strategy. It hasnt always been a GRAND unification----hasnt always been comprehensive all in one fell swoop---but it has been practiced for centuries and it has worked.

In 1650 people knew the motion of pendulums and they knew the motion of planets. Who put pendulums and planets together? Newton
He put various kinds of motion on the same footing.

In 1850 people knew electric forces of Pos and Neg attraction and repulsion and they knew magnetism North and South stuff. But those were different. Who explained electricity and magnetism in a single set of equations?
Maxwell.
And he managed to finesse light and predict radiowaves in the bargain.

All through the history of physics since, like, 1600, there have been these sudden COUPs of unification.

Anyone who imagines there is going to be a "final" coup in his lifetime is probably self-deluded, or looking to sell books. Or he is just talking up his line of research. Final Unification is a kind of Snake Oil.

But step-by-step consolidation of physical theory is real pragmatic, and it has been a major engine driving progress in understanding nature.

and frankly i don't see any connection with religious monotheism.

Like i say, though, it is your thread----I'm just replying 'cause you quoted me, so it is like you said something to me in particular, so I'm telling you what I think

 

[Fredrick]

Mine is yours.

Thanks Marcus, for delivering a good addition to this thread. I like the fact that you make this my thread, but I want to make clear that I do not claim ownership. I claim voice, and I like it when others claim this thread to voice their ideas/opinions in regards to "unification yes or no."

I like your grounded response - especially the reference to snake oil. I think your contribution is very important in that it points to the fact that much can be seen in similar lights. There is no denying at all, and I am glad you bring this forward. Do I believe that everything derived from one and the same? Actually I do. But can the ultimate theory be one of unification? That I doubt.

It was not my intention to put religion on the front burner, so apologies, I merely wanted to deliver honor to those old Greeks who knew so much already. Much of the modern work still finds basis in their ideas. And who knows, maybe what we consider answers to real questions, were not considered questions at all for them? If they had a completed view already - but not per se all the specific facts - their Grand Theory may still be identical in as far as structure is concerned to the one we may find/have found.

What if their four forces (fire, air, earth, water) were mere abstractions for the underlying structure of the universe? We too know that they come in four (electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravity). Greek mythology is filled with structure. What if they present us the structure of the grand theory but then in a different context? People in the past had less facts available, but does that necessarily mean they couldn't figure out the beginning of the universe? We know about the Big Bang, but we - must - look as much as they looked in the dark for answers on how it all started.

 

[arivero]

the Greeks did not believe in a single god.

An interesting point to note here is Lucretius.

Well, it is true that faith is an inconvenience. Any faith on knowing answers precludes you of searching them. XXth century faith in money, or XVIIth century faith on the Creator, are two instances of it. A way it operates is by retiring valious people. Pascal or Barrow, for two examples of fighters conversed to divinity.

 

[marcus]

... A way it operates is by retiring valious people. Pascal or Barrow, for two examples of fighters conversed to divinity.

I had almost forgotten about Barrow. Was he Newton's math teacher at Cambridge?

A dominant way of thinking can operate by neutralizing independent thinkers (putting them out of action by isolating them or driving them into madness and despair, or in some other way).

I think this is what you are saying. I am not sure though.

In english one says "converted" to belief in divinity

to converse is to discuss. It is amazing how bad English spelling is.

I did not know that Pascal was a convert to belief in divinity. I thought he was always religious. What a shame!

Greatest moment in all of European history: Laplace telling the Emperor "that is an hypothesis which I don't need" Do I have the names right?
[corrected: Sire, je n'avais besoin de cette hypothese. Simon de Laplace
to Napoleon]


Belief in global free market capitalism is another of those aggressive proselytizing dogmas like Islam in the 800s and wellknown other instances----convert the heathen by the sword if they won't submit voluntarily---is this also what you are saying?

 

[selfAdjoint]

As to Pascal, I think it was specifically the Catholic heresy Jansenism that he was converted to. a sort of Calvinistic Catholicism, very stern and gloomy, human beings are nothing and deserve nothing from almighty god.

Newton. Kepler, and Pascal were all deeply religious, and all heretics to their separate birth faiths (C of E, Lutheranism, and Catholicism, respectively).

 

[marcus]

... Do I believe that everything derived from one and the same? Actually I do. But can the ultimate theory...

Fredrick here is an axiom:

Scientific theories are not meant to be believed in. They are meant to be tested.

If a theory does not make testable predictions then it is vacuous.
that is the whole point----and it is why some stuff they call theory is not really scientifically-speaking a theory. but more a philosophy imposed on the public by hype and sustained by the human tendency for wishful thinking

If a theory makes predictions and survives rigorous testing-----repeatedly agreeing with experimental measurements out to many decimal places, say---then one still does not have to believe it.

One uses it, and one keeps on testing it, but one is never required to believe.

If something is a real theory, then there is always the possibility that it will be fail to predict the next decimal place accuracy and that it will fail the test and will need to be modified or replaced.

===========
my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
there is nothing you need to believe is a perfect final description of nature
============

Suppose sometime there is a theory which unifies Gravity with what is called the Standard Model (of particle physics: all those little bitty things and their interactions)

OK. So what? Would that be FINAL? No.
it would not be a final ultimate theory---talking like that is hype.
It would just be some theory. surviving by continuing to accurately predict the next accelerator experiment and the next astronomical observation,
each day betting its life on predictions of microscopic physics and of cosmology-----and destined to eventually be shot down

============

I happen to suspect that string theory has gotten started on the wrong track to such a thing. But eventually some ingenious human brain will get a theory that puts cosmology (gravity---spacetimetheory) together with microscopic physics (the Std Mdle)---in such a way that it can make testable predictions. And that will be cool. And completely non-threatening.

 

[marcus]

...
Newton. Kepler, and Pascal were all deeply religious, and all heretics to their separate birth faiths (C of E, Lutheranism, and Catholicism, respectively).

How can an intelligent man not be a heretic?

given the general caliber of human religions so far.

I love Kepler.

His cackling over the third law, in his 1618 book, beats all.

 

[marcus]

the Unified Field Theory of 1618

In 1618 Kepler thought he had a unified scheme explaining
Geometry
Music
the Cosmos (the motions and distances of the planets)
and I think also the human mind as well, but don't remember for sure.

So he wrote this wonderful book called
Harmonies of the Universe

Harmonice Mundi

his wild-eyed ecstasy in this book is revealing of something basic
in human nature

the prurient itch for an all-encompassing theory

==================

the compelling urge to sink one's teeth into the Apple

people are wonderful

Kepler is my hero

================

but Kepler's enthusiasm notwithstanding,
in science theories are not to believe.
the theory of the day is just what happens
to temporarily be the most successful model.
those who puff theories up to appear more:
those who poeticize and rhapsodize and philosophize,
are hucksters, hyping science-porn to teenagers

 

[Fredrick]

Believing is a word in English.

Axiom:

Scientific theories are not meant to be believed in. They are meant to be tested.

I do not disagree with this axiom.

When I use the word believe, I mean believe in the old fashioned kind of way: as an instrument of freedom. Believing is not a scientific word, it is an English word.

When I do not know for certain, but think something could be true, I express that by using the word believe. If I am convinced that there are no facts to support my ideas, I will use the word believe. I can even believe two opposite things that would contradict each other if they were both true at the same time; that's how much freedom there is in believe.

Theory may cover much of what believe covers, but believe is less intellectual: no explanation is required, just stating you believe something is enough. As such there is an incredible amount of freedom and nobody can take that away. Most people would like to be taken seriously by others, so most people will stay within a certain realm of what can be considered acceptable. I try to do that as well.

The essence of believe is that what you think may be true, or that what you think is true, but by using the word you leave freedom to others to think whatever they want to think about it. Again, believing is an instrument of freedom. Unfortunately some take the freedom of believing and create a belief that leaves no freedom for others to believe something else. Some are even willing to eliminate others in the name of a belief; this is in itself a paradox. The freedom is fully taken in and not given out: for me that is not a belief, that is a dogma that been taken too far.

War can be the strongest 'imprinter' of a belief on a population. The Netherlands still shows the marks of the Spanish Inquisition. An Eighty Year War of Independence was fought between the Low Countries and Spain and in the locations where the fighting was most severe and lasted the longest you can still find a bible belt of deeply religious Protestants. In the Netherlands they are called black stocking churches because the people are so devote they do not want to dress up more colorfully. The severity of war created a deep deep imprint that has lasted to this day, four centuries later.

War leaves deep wounds and creates extreme moments in which people grasp the last straw of a belief to hang on for dear life. That is how desperate believers can become. Please, do not count me among them. Believing means only one thing for me: freedom.

Before the Renaissance theologians and scientists were often one and the same people. After the rediscovery of the ancient wisdom a split got underway between church and science. What used to be one and the same is now often regarded as two separate fields.

 

[marcus]

Fredrick your post is too abstract. About "belief". the rightest theories we have are known to be wrong and are simply not believed.

Gen Rel predicts with unprecedented and exquisite accuracy. As a theory of gravity it has no peer. It rivals QED in the precision with which it is able to predict the rate that a pair of neutron stars in tight orbit will radiate away gravitational energy in the form of gravity waves.


But everybody knows that Gen Rel is wrong! Even I am not so credulous as to think that Gen Rel is a correct theory. Indeed this is obvious, because it breaks down at the big bang and at the center of black holes----calculating with Gen Rel in such circumstances results in singularities, which indicate failure of the model.

I find it inconceivable that this situation would not be duplicated each time the fundamental theories of science are replaced by new, more accurate and more powerfully predictive ones. Everybody will know that these new theories are wrong, and will not believe them.

Maybe verbal models can be correct. I don't know about that.
but mathematical models, in science, are customarily known to be wrong and one uses them only in limited circumstances where they'r applicable and one hopes to see them eventually replaced by better

So, yeah I see no obstacle to humans getting a mathematical theory that combines Gen Rel with Std Muddle and outperforms both in making accurate predictions.

I think humans will be able to do that. But it won't be a "THEORY OF EVERYTHING" because that phrase is just poetry and baloney and hype. Merely including gravity with the other "forces" of particle physics is certainly not EVERYTHING. Starry eyed people can rhapsodize about that in order to sell books.

So I think your thread-start premise is wrong. Nothing can be concluded from the ABSENCE of a theory unifying particle physics and gravity. It is just the next thing on the agenda. No danger of that being a final theory. Not a chance. It is not a big deal that nobody has seen how to take that particular step as yet.

I think the way humans will get a unified theory is by first getting the theory of spacetime right. that is what Loop QG is trying to do.
Then once there is a decent quantum theory of spacetime, they will put matter into the picture.

It is like being in 1850 and Maxwell has not figured out how to put Electricity together with Magnetism yet. You can't go and draw grand portentous conclusions from the fact that there is no "unified" theory.
Just wait. It will come. Electricity and Magnetism will be unified and then, guess what, there will still be more stuff to do and improvements to make.

So with us now. People will put quantum spacetime together with quantum fields and particles.

Then it will be a little less mysterious how it happens that "matter tells space how to curve" and curved space tells matter how to flow.

It will be like when Maxwell's equations happened.
And like then, no big deal and plenty more to do in getting to know nature better.

Well this is an opinion piece, one person's view. You hospitably said "mi casa es su casa" about this thread, so hope it accords with your wishes.

 

[selfAdjoint]

But everybody knows that Gen Rel is wrong!

Dyson doesn't admit it.

 

[Kagmi]

General relativity seems to work just fine, I think all we need is a modification of the way either space or particles work at quantum scales. M theory is, in my opinion, the most promising candidate at the moment.

 

[marcus]

Dyson doesn't admit it.

I read Dyson's recent article in NY Review of Books (found it online!)
and it seemed to me he hedged

IIRC he was saying not that Gen Rel is OK but only that it is OK in its range of applicability, nothing better in sight.

he didnt seem aware of LQG and its removal of the classical singularities

he was addressing string theory and all the talk about gravitons---string theory predicts gravitons etc etc.

he was skeptical of gravitons---said we'd never be able to see one, why even suppose they exist?

from that POV then sure, just stick with old Gen Rel and be content. have one theory for gravity and another for particles and fields. The underlying sense there is you can't do any better

But I think Dyson would readily admit that Gen Rel is unsatisfactory because of the singularities. He may even have acknowledged that in the NYRB article----I can't remember whether he did or not----though that was a non-technical piece of writing for general audience and maybe discussing singularities would have been a bit too technical in that context.

 

[Kagmi]

I'm just being introduced to the theory of LQG, but I have long been a proponent of M theory (or superstring theory, or whatever you want to call it) because of the mathematics. I read in an earlier post a question about the unification of gravity and electromagnetism, and would like to note that part of the basis for M theory's extra dimensions is the fact that, when extended into a fifth spatial dimension, the equations of gravity yeild the equations for electromagnetic force. As for never detecting a graviton, I find it hard to believe that, if they exist we will never have instrumentation sensitive enough to detect them.

 

[marcus]

... As for never detecting a graviton, I find it hard to believe that, if they exist we will never have instrumentation sensitive enough to detect them.

I'm in strong sympathy with the attitude you express. Never say never.
But this is how I remember Dyson's NYRB article. There should be a link to it somewhere so we can check if he really said that or if he qualified it substantially.

Why would Dyson have been pooh-poohing gravitons? I think it is part of a contemporary trend to debunk string hype---a trend that one sees, for example, in the recent article From Gravitons to Gravity: Myth or Reality? by Thanu Padmanabhan.
It is on arxiv, so one finds it easily by author search.

the basic message is "let's not attribute so much importance to the string claim to include gravity" An equation for something that might be a graviton comes out of string math, but gravity is more than gravitons, or so it is said, and maybe just having gravitons in a fixed background geometry does not accurately reproduce gravity. Anyway, so the story goes.

Dyson's particular contribution to the general message is to cast doubt on the significance of gravitons: to the extent they can be said to exist (as conjectured quanta of the gravitational field which no one yet knows how to quantize) one can expect individual gravitons to have much lower frequencies than, for instance, light. Much lower energies than those of detectable quanta of radiation.

No one, so far, has ever detected a quantum with the frequency MIDDLE C.
You can think about the processes that are expected to produce gravity waves. think about the expected wavelengths, and frequencies. The energies are many orders below those of, say microwaves. Would you expect to detect a quantum of microwave?

I am paraphrasing Freeman Dyson's message to readers of the New
York Review of Books. It is not a technical audience and he is choosing to communicate what he can to them. the point is perhaps not terribly significant or decisive. What it communicates is more Dyson's perspective or attitude.

I don't offer his opinion as my own. I would not want to say "never" detectable. but look at the figures. Micron light has about 1 eevee quantum energy. Just as an order of magnitude. A manmade instrument can detect an individual 1 eevee photon. there are photon counters at roughly this level----you get to hear the click.

A gravity wave detector is say, 10 meters long, and it detects a gravity wave with characteristic wavelength 10 meters. what is the energy of individual quanta of this wavelength? Ten million times weaker than 1 eevee.

I don't think anyone has imagined a way to detect an individual photon with energy of one ten-millionth of an eevee. so is it reasonable to imagine detecting a graviton with such small energy, if one cannot even picture doing it with a photon?

Maybe Dyson's point is not so strange as it originally seems.
In any case, if you want to read his NYRB article I will try to help find it on the web. Might be a simple google search. Or self-adjoint may just happen to know.

 

[Fredrick]

Picture

In the New York Times Science section of today (3-29-05) I read about the collision of gold nuclei in the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Here is a picture of the result:
http://www.physicscentral.com/pictures/images/pictures-00-4s.jpg
and the abstract can be read at http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0501068

This is powerful imagery that seems to support what I am saying about an empty center at the emergence of the universe. Dr. Horatiu Nastase describes in the NY Times article that "(t)he collision of gold nuclei produce matter as it existed shortly after the Big Bang."

In as far as a theory of everything is concerned I could not ask for a better image. It does not mean absolute evidence, but it is nice to deliver a picture next to the words.

 

[marcus]

In the New York Times Science section of today (3-29-05) I read about the collision of gold nuclei in the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Here is a picture of the result:
http://www.physicscentral.com/pictures/images/pictures-00-4s.jpg
and the abstract can be read at http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0501068

This is powerful imagery that seems to support what I am saying about an empty center at the emergence of the universe. Dr. Horatiu Nastase describes in the NY Times article that "(t)he collision of gold nuclei produce matter as it existed shortly after the Big Bang."
...

nice picture
the superficial similarity to an eyeball was not lost on me

it seems to me I was discussing that RHIC result somewhere else, maybe a thread here at PF
the similiarity with "matter as it existed shortly after the Big Bang"
is a similarity of temperature

Oh, you mentioned that part of the picture is missing, so there is an empty part of the picture in the middle.
I suppose that part is the tube where the particles collide (so there cannot be any detector there) the image would only be generated from what happened in the ringshaped space around the tube where they could position detectors.

correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that if they could situate detectors closer into where the collision occurred, then they would see a whole lot more activity not included here, but this is a great picture already (even with the missing detail in the middle)

does anybody know more about the RHIC (relativistic heavy ion collider) "fireball"

 

[Haelfix]

Err the reason people like the concept of the graviton is it more or less reproduces linearized GR exactly. Write down the field theory for a massless spin 2 particle, poof Einsteins eqs. It would be one of the fantastic cruelties of nature if that turned out to be coincidental.

String theories graviton is a little more complicated, its more of a SUGRA GR, eg gravitons coupled to some extra fields (like the dilaton) etc

Now you can argue that there should be extra stuff, presumably stuff that makes the background make sense, and all that is fine and good. But as an effective local field theory, it seems to me that its a damn good indication that people are on to something.

 

[marcus]

Err the reason people like the concept of the graviton is it more or less reproduces linearized GR exactly. Write down the field theory for a massless spin 2 particle, poof Einsteins eqs. It would be one of the fantastic cruelties of nature if that turned out to be coincidental.

String theories graviton is a little more complicated, its more of a SUGRA GR, eg gravitons coupled to some extra fields (like the dilaton) etc

Now you can argue that there should be extra stuff, presumably stuff that makes the background make sense, and all that is fine and good. But as an effective local field theory, it seems to me that its a damn good indication that people are on to something.

hi Haelfix, we had a discussion about this back in November, around the paper by Thanu Padmanabhan
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=44414

selfAdjoint started the thread, which was called
String Gravitons Yield GR. NOT.

Here was the first post of the thread:

This paper does a lot of testing of different kinds, and concludes that the string theorists assertion that the graviton reproduces the physics of GR in flat spacetime is a myth.

Haelfix, I personally am not challenging your remarks, which seem mainly intuitive. But I would be interested to know your thoughts about the Padmanabhan paper.
Here it is:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0409089

 

[marcus]

here's a quote from the abstract of the Padmanabhan paper:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0409089

From Gravitons to Gravity: Myths and Reality
T. Padmanabhan

"There is a general belief, reinforced by statements in standard textbooks, that:

(i) one can obtain the full non-linear Einstein’s theory of gravity by coupling a massless, spin-2 field h_ab self-consistently to the total energy momentum tensor, including its own;

(ii) this procedure is unique and leads to Einstein-Hilbert action and

(iii) it only uses standard concepts in Lorentz invariant field theory and does not involve any geometrical assumptions.

After providing several reasons why such beliefs are suspect--and critically re-examining several previous attempts--we provide a detailed analysis aimed at clarifying the situation. First, we prove that it is impossible to obtain the Einstein-Hilbert (EH) action, starting from the standard action for gravitons in linear theory and iterating repeatedly.

This result follows from the fact that EH action has a part (viz. the surface term arising from second derivatives of the metric tensor) which is non-analytic in the coupling constant, when expanded in terms of the graviton field. Thus, at best, one can only hope to obtain the remaining, quadratic, part of the EH Lagrangian (viz. the Gamma² Lagrangian) if no additional assumptions are made. Second, we use the Taylor series expansion of the action for Einstein’s theory, to identify the tensor S^ab, to which the graviton field h_ab couples to the lowest order (through a term of the form S^ab h_ab in the lagrangian). We show that the second rank tensor S^ab is not the conventional energy momentum tensor T^ab of the graviton and provide an explanation for this feature.

Third, we construct the full nonlinear Einstein’s theory with the source being spin-0 field, spin-1 field or relativistic particles by explicitly coupling the spin-2 field to this second rank tensor S^ab order by order and summing up the infinite series. Finally, we construct the theory obtained by self consistently coupling h_ab to the conventional energy momentum tensor T^ab order by order and show that this does not lead to Einstein’s theory. The implications are discussed."

 

[Haelfix]

For technical reasons I don't like that paper, he keeps total derivatives here and there and there seems to be some issues with some of his math. I haven't looked at it since then but I was and still am a little skeptical.

It takes quite a bit to challenge 30 years of tried and true field theoretic results (note this has nothing to do with string theory necessarily).

 

[marcus]

For technical reasons I don't like that paper, he keeps total derivatives here and there and there seems to be some issues with some of his math...

Haelfix, thanks for the reply. You hear coffee-room stuff which I am always glad when you pass along.

What has struck me as odd is that no one seems to have written a paper replying to Padmanabhan. He is prominent in his field, so if there is something wrong with the math in that paper I would expect more than unpublished gossip to that effect. I am surprised no one has published their misgivings. Or if they have I haven't heard. I will do a citation check and see what "cited by" there are.

Nope. No one critical of the Padmanabhan paper has published anything citing it.

I guess you know: Ashtekar is editing a book to be published this year called "A Hundred Years of Relativity" and Padmanabhan is one of the authors.
The "Myth or Reality" paper will be apparently cited in Ashtekar's book because Padmanabhan cites it in his draft chapter.

 

[Fredrick]

Black hole

Oh, you mentioned that part of the picture is missing, so there is an empty part of the picture in the middle.
I suppose that part is the tube where the particles collide (so there cannot be any detector there) the image would only be generated from what happened in the ringshaped space around the tube where they could position detectors.

correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that if they could situate detectors closer into where the collision occurred, then they would see a whole lot more activity not included here, but this is a great picture already (even with the missing detail in the middle)

does anybody know more about the RHIC (relativistic heavy ion collider) "fireball"

Dr. Nastase states that a (mini) black hole may have been recreated.

 

[Fredrick]

Momentary nothing

I read it again in the New York Times science section this last week, that during the collision at BNL of two gold nuclei a momentary nothing - a fraction of a second in which nothing occurred - was detected before materialization of the new plasma became visible. I find this highly telling.

 

[mosassam]

Apologies for just butting in randomly (I wasn't sure where else to go). Just a quick question - can anyone tell me if strange attractors have their own, independent existence or are they always dependent on something? (or is this a stupid question?)

 

[Anonym]

In the eye of the ant beholder

Fredrick :” I never thought I would talk here about Adam and Eve, but when it comes down to order, then ordering is in question and it must be addressed. There are two versions of ordering and I mention it here because it brings us back to the reason of this thread, which is basically the question: Unification or not.

With establishing the story that god created Adam first and from Adam god created Eve, an ordering has been used in time. Not to dispell any person's belief that this is true, a different way of ordering exists as well. God could have easily created both Adam and Eve at the same time.

What is the difference between these two versions? The difference is the ordering in time, and the link that exists (or not exists) between Adam and Eve.

When god created Adam and from Adam Eve, god established a top and bottom, a first and last, an important and an unimportant aspect, or however you want to frame it. This way a version of ordering has been created that appears applicable to everything; and everything is linked to each other. I think that the truth is not that simple. What is most important for you, is not most important for me. What is the top for you, I regard as not that high of a standard, what is first for me, may be second for you. You may give importance to leadership, I want everyone to follow their own voice while being respectful to others' voices.

When god created Adam and Eve at the same time, god delivered two segments that may have a lot in common, but in at least one aspect both have nothing in common: on one level of separation there is no link. Ordering can still be applied but each has their own version of ordering, in which various segments have their own positions. The parts may, but whole picture is not based on ordering because it is based on two equals that are not identical. One can armwrestle and decide who will be the winner, but that does not deliver an order that is natural; it is an order of results only. In this version it is preposterous to mention one of the two as top and the other as bottom, because each is not organized according to the other's principle, but to their own. Same goes for culture. Cultures can never top other cultures as a whole, only in segments. What is great in Western society, may be dummm in other societies, and vice versa.

Sorry to bring a religious story (Adam & Eve) into a scientific/metaphysical thread, but I am using it because it is familiar to everyone (Christian/Jewish/Muslim or not). It delivers an order, which may have much appeal, but which is not the only way in which everything can be ordered. It lacks information; it lacks options that clearly exist. That's why we have different religions. Some have only one god, others have multiple gods, while there are also a lot of people who believe there's no god(s) at all. I know that nobody can answer that question for everyone, only for ourselves.”

Creating Adam and Eve was His last step. He worked hard five “days” before that.Moreover, before He started to work, it was T&V simultaneously. They may be considered as different and separated entities, but mathematically it is also possible to treat them as the same object, only conjugated to each other, and defined at the same point also in space, provided that the notion of the space-time continuum is well-defined.

Fredrick :“Can I ask you to reply to this message with regards to our thread: do you believe unification exists?”

Yes.

Fredrick :”or do you believe a separation of at least one level is the norm?”

No.The norm is defined as a single positive real number (measurable quantity).

In addition, I prefer to do math-ph exercises and let Him to decide.

Fredrick :” Again, the math is terribly simple, but it may give you a nice look at the prime number sequences that exist within the natural numbers, and how they are all connected.”

Sorry, I did not read your book, but if you call the natural numbers or any subsequence within the natural numbers the mathematics, you are deadly wrong. You apparently missed the last 3000 years of the physically relevant development in the mathematics. The physical picture behind the unification is beautifuly simple, but the mathematics involved is terribly complicated. Otherwise, how one may explain the beautiful complexity of the real world?

And now let us look again at the origin.

Fredrick :” I am going to give one example of a singular platform (our earth) with four active members (North, South, East, and West). Though the platform is (or appears to be) singular, these four active ingredients do not have a common thread; the platform is known, but does not contain unification.

East and West can go on forever in their direction, but some unification can be found in that they can cover exactly the same spots. Depending on your point of view, a single place can be East or West.

For such single spot, North and South appear to deliver the same set-up as East and West, but North and South cannot go on forever in their direction. When on the North pole, one cannot go further North. One cannot even go East or West on the North pole. There is only one direction on the North pole, and that is South. To unify North and South in absolute terms is not possible, while it appears possible for East and West.

These four directions contain a pair of opposition without the possibility of unification (North and South), and a pair of opposition in which unification appears very well possible (East meets West).”

You use the Euler’s parametrization to describe the 3-dim rotations. Why you do not consider the Cayley-Klein parametrization which is analytical? Since it looks to you too complicated to comprehend? The physical picture behind it is very simple: 3 continuous parameters define the direction of the axis of rotation and the pseudoscalar continuous parameter define the angle of rotation around that axis. I leave to you as exercise to find who is The Physicist behind that parametrization.

For everybody who with me: don’t be fantasioners. Three other fundamental interactions are still not unified since the proton is stable (it is the QM ground state of three bounded quarks). And the electroweak U(2;c)~U(1;q) is still only nearly adequate phenomenological model. And the “theory of everything” or the “final theory of everything” is obviously nonsense.

Marcus:” It would just be some theory. surviving by continuing to accurately predict the next accelerator experiment and the next astronomical observation,each day betting its life on predictions of microscopic physics and of cosmology-----and destined to eventually be shot down”

“The next accelerator experiment” is obsolete. The pulse compression will allow to perform the necessary verification/prediction experiments in microphysics as well as in cosmology on the laboratory tables of average universities.

Fredrick :”Before the Renaissance theologians and scientists were often one and the same people”

Long ago I had an interesting student. He had Ph.D. in theology and came from Vatican. He decided to know what physics is. He was 2-year undergrad. I asked him the basic questions in optics. He did not know the answers, but said that he was not able to imagine how difficult the study of physics is.

Marcus:” But everybody knows that Gen Rel is wrong!”

Who are these everybody, please? GR is the Chapter and the most beautiful chapter so far.

Fredrick :” The unity that existed no longer exists after divorce or death.”

I am divorced twice. Now my last X seems want the unification again (the same had happens also in the previous case). With respect to death I have no experience yet. And this is the reason why I am not “able to deliver evidence that unifies the forces in one field I will be the first one to cheer you on.” Simply I don’t want waste my time.

Daniel Gleekstein.

P.S. Thank you for your presentation. I should change my attitude to the philosophers. Please, send my best regards to your friend Karl.