Archive for the ‘Physics’ Category

Faster Than Light Is (Part Of) The Architecture Of The Universe

August 6, 2023

Parrots all over squawk, and utter the same screeching: faster than light violates causality. This is an hilarious ode to the herd instinct, as we have overwhelming evidence that faster than light is the architecture of the UNIverse. Here is a dialogue with CHAT GPT exhibiting the closed mindedness rampant in much of today’s theoretical physics (although I think it’s going to change fast).

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Tyranosopher replying to a bogus (TRADITIONAL) argument of Chat GPT that FTL violated causality: If an instantaneous signal reaches a star telling it to emit light how does that violate causality?

ChatGPT: Apologies for the confusion. You are correct; the example I provided does not precisely represent a causality violation. Let’s clarify the situation:

In the scenario where an instantaneous signal reaches a star, instructing it to emit light, it might not necessarily violate causality. This is because we are assuming the existence of an instantaneous signal, which is already beyond the scope of our current understanding of physics.

However, the situation still raises some issues related to causality and the order of events:

  • Causality and Relativity: According to the theory of special relativity, there is no such thing as an absolute simultaneity of events. Different observers in relative motion will disagree on the timing of events. So, what might be considered instantaneous in one frame of reference could appear delayed in another. This can lead to paradoxical situations where the cause and effect relationship between events becomes ambiguous.
  • Cause and Effect Reversal: In the scenario you described, the signal reaching the star could be considered the cause, and the star emitting light could be considered the effect. However, if there is no unique, absolute notion of simultaneity, different observers could disagree on whether the signal arrived before or after the star emitted light, leading to a confusion of cause and effect.
  • Potential Paradoxes: If information or signals could travel faster than light, it opens the possibility of constructing devices or systems that send information backward in time. This could lead to potential paradoxes, like the grandfather paradox mentioned earlier, where causality is seemingly violated.

It is important to note that the idea of instantaneous signals or communication at speeds faster than light is purely hypothetical and speculative. Our current understanding of physics, as described by the theory of relativity, does not allow for such phenomena.

In the context of established physics, information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light, and causality is preserved as cause and effect relationships are always ordered in time. Any hypothetical scenarios involving faster-than-light communication or travel would require significant revisions to our current understanding of the laws of physics. Until such phenomena are supported by robust scientific evidence and theoretical frameworks, they remain speculative and inconsistent with our present understanding of the universe.

***

Tyranosopher recapitulates: that simultaneity is relative was thoroughly established by Poincaré when he established what he named “Relativity”. Events that seem to happen at the same time in the fixed frame will not appear to be simultaneous as seen in the moving frame (when the axis of the events is not perpendicular to that of the motion of the moving frame). So actually if A and B happen simultaneously in fixed frame F, there are moving frames where A precedes B and others where B precedes A 

And actually the space of these moving frames is everywhere dense (technical math term), and their complement has measure ZERO (tech math term): this means that what looks simultaneous in F looks simultaneous in roughly NO other frame!

Thus, establishing causality in Relativity is a tall order: if all frames are equivalent and if causality means something happens before something else, we have a problem, because we can always find plenty of moving frames where that’s not true!

***

In his paper suggesting Faster Than Light (FTL) communication does not happen, Einstein just says effect could apparently precede causeAnd that is exactly what Poincaré had published many years prior. Nothing new there, and nothing to do with true causality. That’s all Einstein says in his famous NO-FTL paper, it seems to me, once one has removed the mathematical fog he installed on that logical landscape. That is of course a very weak argument, as Poincaré  had explained years earlier that this apparent causality switching was a consequence of the locally finite speed of light, as I explained in the preceding paragraph. 

***. 

Tyranosopher: CHAT GPT says we don’t have a device enabling FTL com. Well, actually, we do have an effect which could lead to a device, certainly on a small scale: Quantum Tunneling. 

ChatGPT: You are correct, and I apologize for the oversight in my previous response. Quantum tunneling is indeed a phenomenon in quantum mechanics that allows particles to pass through energy barriers that classical physics would typically consider impenetrable. It is an important effect in the microscopic world and has been observed in various experiments.

In quantum tunneling, particles such as electrons can “tunnel” through barriers without having enough energy to overcome them classically. This effect has been harnessed in some electronic devices like tunnel diodes and scanning tunneling microscopes, which rely on quantum tunneling to operate.

While quantum tunneling is fascinating and has practical applications, it is essential to clarify its relationship to faster-than-light communication or travel:

  • Quantum Tunneling and FTL Communication: While quantum tunneling can be observed for particles traversing barriers, it does not enable faster-than-light communication or information transfer. Etc…

Tyranosopher: Well I can demonstrate from the most basic formalism of Quantum Mechanics, that Quantum Tunneling is faster than light.

ChatGPT: I apologize for any confusion in my previous responses. Let’s clarify the concept of quantum tunneling and its relationship to the speed of light.

Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon in quantum mechanics where a particle can pass through a potential energy barrier even when its energy is less than the barrier’s height. It occurs because particles in the quantum realm do not behave like classical objects, and they can exhibit wave-like properties, leading to non-intuitive behaviors.

While quantum tunneling allows particles to traverse barriers that would be classically forbidden, it does not violate the principle that nothing can travel faster than light in a vacuum. The confusion might arise from considering tunneling in isolation without considering the broader context of causality and the principles of special relativity.

In quantum tunneling, particles are not traveling through space faster than light. Instead, they are penetrating barriers through a probabilistic process that involves wave-like properties. The actual traversal time of the particle through the barrier cannot be measured independently since it involves uncertainties and complex quantum mechanical calculations.

However, it is essential to understand that the concept of faster-than-light communication or travel in the sense of classical objects or information propagation still remains unattainable based on our current understanding of physics and the principles of causality and special relativity. While quantum mechanics brings fascinating and counterintuitive phenomena, it does not enable practical faster-than-light communication or travel as commonly envisioned in science fiction.

***

So basically CHAT GPT keeps on repeating FTL doesn’t happen because Einstein said so. Physics has turned into a religion where the sacred words of the great priest Einstein at some early point in his career repeat a misinterpretation of Poincaré’s work. 

A much older and wiser Einstein himself would find to his dismay that Quantum Mechanics implied FLT… He called it “Spooky Action At a Distance”, and now Einstein’s EPR paper of 1935 (30 years after his initial Relativity reformulation in 1905 of Poincaré’s Relativity) is Einstein’s most quoted work…and the Twentieth Century’s most quoted physics paper… and justly so… 

***

The truth? FTL is the architecture of the universe.

To be explained further.

Patrice Ayme 

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What’s An Equation? And Why Are Equations Crucial in Physics?

July 29, 2023

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum mechanics (CIQ) is incomplete, because it uses the Quantum Collapse (QC) unavoidably, but has no description of it. Whatever. 

On the face of it, that shouldn’t be a problem, that’s how science always advances: newly proposed explanations are often incomplete.

A description of the collapse will be full when there is an equation for it. So what is an equation? It is a mathematical description using algebra and the logic (and semiotics) of algebraic geometry and its extension, mathematical analysis and infinitesimal calculus.

Now a typical equation is formalized by: V = W, where W and V are some expressions… each of them a logic of its own.

The equal sign (“=”) was invented by Robert Recorde, a Welsh mathematician, in 1557. He introduced the symbol in his book titled “The Whetstone of Witte,” where he explained its usage for the concept of equality in mathematical equations.

Before the equal sign, mathematicians used phrases like “is equal to” or “equals” to indicate equality. Recorde sought a more efficient and concise way to represent this concept, so he devised the two parallel lines (=) to signify equality between two expressions… As he put it:

“… to avoide the tediouse repetition of these woordes: ‘is equalle to’, I will sette as I doe often in worke use, a paire of paralleles, or Gemowe [twin] lines of one lengthe, thus: =, bicause noe .2. thynges, can be moare equalle.”

Going back to Euclid, or even earlier, Pythagoras, where are the equations? Well, I grabbed Pythagoras theorem, while testing my 13 year old daughter’s understanding of (some of the most famous of ) its proofs. It turns out that the proof equalizes logics.

It turns out that the proofs involve computing the same thing, an area, in two different ways, and equating the results.

Two logics lead to the same result, in two different ways, and equating the results forces out a hidden axiom (a so-called theorem [1]) 

The proof where one completes the hypothenuse is logically similar: one computes the area of the big square in two different ways, and then one equates the result, getting the relationship between the sides and the hypothenuse.

***

In physics the situation is different. The two different logic are forcefully equated; that’s the equation. That forces some results (actually they are theorems, same as in pure math). Then those results are checked against experiments, say the advance of the perihelion of Mercury [1], or the deviation of light by the sun (twice more in Einstein theory than Newton’s).

***

The force-acceleration law of motion (F = ma) and Poincaré-Einstein’s mass-energy equation (E=mc^2) are iconic equations which are the basis vectors of some dimensions of science (yes, equations as basis vectors in knowledge space…).

F is obtained, and can be measured, in a certain way, whereas the acceleration a is purely dynamic, it’s measured in a completely different way. So it’s not just two logics which are equated, but two completely different physical experimental processes [2]. Physical processes are themselves a particular type of logic,and each process is its own logic.

***

E = mc^2 was first demonstrated by Poincaré in a reduced setting (a bit as Buridan had a reduced setting for F = ma). Poincaré demonstrated that light of energy E had inertial mass m = E/c^2. That was rigorous. Later generalizations evolved: EE – ppcc = (mc^2)^2… that too is rigorous, but confusion arose about E = mc^2 standing alone (true if in the strict Poincaré context, speculative otherwise, covering up unknown physics…).

So equations in physics start always speculative, lead to new theories in physics, and then join two different experimental approaches (logics)… The same happens in mathematics (where also explicit examples are often generalized to more general contexts… which are then checked, quite a bit as in physics)

People like to talk about the “Multiverse”… In the context of Quantum Theory, it’s completely idiotic idea… BUT, in the case of information space, the Multiverse is the rule, and equations is what binds it together. Equations ultimately are the foundational ideas expressed to their barest form.

It took around seven centuries to get the equation of gravity in its present form (SQPR says it needs to be modified further, to include the “splitting aka fatigue” of gravitons…)

In the case of Quantum Collapse, we don’t have an equation yet; according to SQPR, we should get one, as the Quantum Interaction (that QI exists is another axiom) is a field (it propagates topologically and at finite speed). But we have an experimental, and theoretical fact: QC is much faster than the speed of light.

I equate, therefore I think…

Patrice Ayme

***

[1] The metalogic of the whole thing is crucial: Newton’s gravitation predicted not as much advance of the perihelion of Mercury as observed: a planet was searched to explain the dragging of Mercury’s ellipse… and not found… Einstein knew this. It turns out that Local Time slows down closer to the Sun, and that explains the effect…

***

 [2]. The first to point the equivalence of these two logics, at least in a reduced setting, was Buridan circa 1350 CE. Anglo-Saxons idolaters call it Newton’s first law

Is Wave-Particle Duality Two Aspects Of Time?

June 27, 2023

There is physical time, which is a local classical notion, given by light clocks (the classical aspect of the Quantum!) This is the “Ortzeit”, local time of Lorentz and Poincare’, central to Relativity.

Then there is neurological time, which is given by brain construction, and it is not very clear what the latter consists of, except surely Quantum Physics will be involved at the quantum entanglement level. (Because quantum entanglement and nonlocality is all over basic chemistry and biology.)

So the confrontation between mind and physical time, Sein und Zeit, to sound savant like Heidegger, may actually be the old connandrum of the Quantum… the contrast between classical particle (a photon going back and forth between mirrors) and the nonlocality of entanglement… the soul, the famous wave particle duality!

Biology has lots of quantum physics in plain sight (Albany H flowers, 2023.)

Attributing Discoveries Correctly Is Crucial To MetaThinking. Example: Einstein Myth.

June 5, 2023

Adulation for great thinkers is perfect, as long as proper attributions are given correctly enough to describe the logic of invention… Adulation can be used as a Trojan Horse for expanding knowledge and discovering the arcane laws of metathinking.  

However, in the case of Einstein, and also other heroes of the Anglosphere, such as Newton, Darwin or Godel, or Watts, fake attributions have distorted the cognitive picture. Those five scientists made major discoveries, but they were very far from making all the discoveries attributed to them. 

Lamarck (and Cuvier, and others) established scientifically the long-guessed evolution theory,(while competing fiercely about evolutionary mechanisms… both were right, probably)… two generations before Charles Darwin (who recognized, as newton did, hiis predecessors). No wonder: France was the land of Revolution and England was where the Anglican Church explicitly forbade the teaching of evolution.

Newton was an important brick in the wall of Classical Mechanics as he (more or less) demonstrated that the laws of mechanics plus Bouillaut/Bullialdus Formula for gravitational attraction were equivalent. But the mechanics and calculus revolution had started in Paris, under Buridan and his students (including the Oxford computational school…) three centuries earlier.

Godel is singled out in the debate on the Foundations of Mathematics… But there are at least a dozen of important names: Buridan, Oresme, Cardano, Descartes, Fermat, Leibnitz, Newton, Euler, Laplace, Cauchy, Cantor, Russell, Brouwer… and dozens of others, sometimes even more important as they were the true originators (in particular around Cardano). By insisting on Godel, one insists on a single aspect of mathematics, namely that math is made of never ending rabbit holes (I fix that with my ultrafinitude).

Watts was attributed the discovery of the steam engine, an invention truly made by professor Denis Papin… A French engineer on the run, as many Protestants at the time, due to the terror launched by the tyrant Louis XIV.

Some crucial thinkers, such as Young and light interfering from slits, or the greatest physicist ever? Emilie Du Chatelet discovered… ENERGY, no less! 

OK, let’s concentrate on poor Einstein a bit.

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(t−vx/cc) is what Poincaré defined as local time in 1900. Not only Poincare discovered this, but he realized it meant that length contracted in the direction of motion (the contraction itself was a discovery made by the Irish physicist Fitzgerald (and Lorentz) to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment).

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Local time theory was a reinterpretation and extendion by Poincare of Lorentz’s work on the spacetime transformations necessary to keep the equations of electromagnetism independent of uniformly moving frames. This work was published in 1895 by Lorentz when Einstein was still a child [1]. By 1905, when Einstein published his work on Relativity, all the equations had been published.

Local time theory was a rephrasing by Poincare of  Hendrik Lorentz’s work on the spacetime transformations necessary to keep the equations of electromagnetism independent of uniformly moving frames. Published when Einstein was still a child. By 1905, when Einstein published his work on Relativity, all the equations had been published.

“Relativity” was Poincaré’s and so was E = mcc, which showed that light carried inertial mass (Cours a la Sorbonne, 1899).

Poincaré is the one who said first that the fact that the speed of light was everywhere measured to be the same (from Michelson and Morley experiment of 1887), and thus it was a physical law. Einstein read it in Science and Hypothesis (La science et l’hypothèse, published 1902, modified 1903, when Poincaré realized electromagnetism a la Maxwell was 100% true after French experimenters confirmed it following rumors to the contrary…). 

The term “Relativity” was indeed used by Henri Poincaré even earlier than in his 1904 book titled “Science and Hypothesis” (French: “La Science et l’Hypothèse”) [2].  Poincaré himself said that Einstein’s work was a nice rephrasing of relativity (to be honest, it was a tidy exposition relative to what was before, but not as tidy as one can now do!)

Poincaré is the one who said first that the fact that the speed of light was everywhere measured to be the same (from Michelson and Morley experiment), and thus it was a physical law. Einstein read it in Science and Hypothesis. 

Gravity waves in relativity were published by  Poincaré in 1905.

Joseph Larmor and Hendrik Lorentz discovered that Maxwell’s equations, used in the theory of electromagnetism, were invariant only by a certain change of time and length units. This left some confusion among physicists, many of whom thought that a luminiferous aether was incompatible with the relativity principle, in the way it was defined by Henri Poincaré:

The principle of relativity, according to which the laws of physical phenomena should be the same, whether for an observer fixed, or for an observer carried along in a uniform movement of translation; so that we have not and could not have any means of discerning whether or not we are carried along in such a motion.

— Henri Poincaré, 1904

Einstein and his friends (and collaborators, Besso, etc.) spent years studying Poincaré’s Relativity

***

Einstein was a genius at seeing the work of others and improving its presentation. This is not to be despised. He did this with Brownian motion, the quantum, Bose-Einstein statistics, and he recognized the importance of De Broglie’s work, and, according to Popper, of Popper’s contribution to the fact the quantum is nonlocal. Popper was a philosopher and Bose an Indian physicist who realized that photons like to gather.

The idea that force could be viewed as curvature in the appropriate space was revealed by Riemann in 1854 in his famous Habilitationsschrift. It has been hanging around ever since. It works well with gravity, but not so much with the other forces, because the quantum messes up with energy-momentum, the more localized it gets, thus the right side of the Einstein gravity equation: Curvature = Energy… 

So what did Einstein really contribute personally? The idea that the Quantum of electromagnetic energy of Planck could be absorbed as a packet, explaining the photoelectric effect (Nobel work). Further work on viewing gravitation as a curvature of spacetime (with Hilbert and other friends). And paradoxically the nonlocality of quantum mechanics (which he demonstrated by trying to prove that the quantum was spooky at a distance). 

Einstein presented clearly the postulates of relativity and light-speed invariance as foundations of Relativity (Einstein, 1905, §3). Einstein showed that the equation of a spherical lightwave in one frame, xx + yy + zz = cctt has the same form when x and t are Lorentz transformed (it is hard to believe that Poincaré, the world’s top mathematician didn’t know this…) A spherical wave propagating with the speed of light in one frame, Einstein remarked, is thereby another spherical wave propagating with the speed of light in a second inertial frame.
As the British mathematical physicist Ebenezer Cunningham pointed out a two years later, form-invariance of the lightwave equation is all that is required for the derivation of the Lorentz transformation, along with a linearity constraint (Cunningham, 1907).

Einstein was a great physicist, but was not as much a revolutionary as legend had it. Einstein’s work was not as original as the local time theory (misattributed to Einstein). And, although Einstein was one of the founders of quantum theory, the original idea of the quantum came from Planck. 

Ironically, nonlocality, which “spooked” Einstein, he said, may have been Einstein greatest original contribution…

Quantum Field Theory, which surfaced in the 1920s was deeply revolutionary in a way Einstein never was. Now of course, QFT had many genial contributors, starting with De Broglie (“everything is a wave”)… But then Einstein is the one who gave De Broglie his thesis, basically (the top PhD com of De Broglie threw its nads and asked Einstein to decide on what they called the De Broglie’s “circus”).

Einstein himself once was asked by a French literary genius why he never had a notebook to write his ideas down, and Albert replied (paraphrasing): because new ideas are so rare, I can’t forget them. Ideas are a bit like the theory of types of Russell: they come in many different types…

Civilization class ideas are very rare… And Einstein, after all, stumbled on nonlocality… so well, he fell flat on his face…

Patrice Ayme

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[1]: Lorentz referred to as “Ortszeit” (Lorentz, 1895), and which Poincaré (1900a, 273), following Alfred Liénard, called “temps local”, or local time. In Poincaré’s mind, Lorentz’s local time took on an operational meaning, as the time read by a clock in uniform motion of velocity v with respect to the ether,
synchronized by crossed light signals with other identical comoving clocks…

***

[2] Henri Poincaré, in his book, 1904:

The Principle of Relativity.—Let us pass to the principle of relativity: this not only is confirmed by daily experience, not only is it a necessary consequence of the hypothesis of central forces, but it is irresistibly imposed upon our good sense, and yet it also is assailed… Indeed, experiment has taken upon itself to ruin this interpretation of the principle of relativity; all attempts to measure the velocity of the earth in relation to the ether have led to negative results.

…experimental physics has been more faithful to the principle [of “RELATIVITY”] than mathematical physics; the theorists, in accord with their other general views, would not have spared it; but experiment has been stubborn in confirming it [the principle of relativity]. The means have been varied; finally Michelson pushed precision to its last limits; nothing came of it. It is precisely to explain this obstinacy [of nature]…

The most ingenious idea was that of local time. Imagine two observers who wish to adjust their timepieces by optical signals; they exchange signals… The watches adjusted in that way will not mark, therefore, the true time; they will mark what may be called the local time, so that one of them will be slower than the other. It matters little, since we have no means of perceiving it. All the phenomena which happen at A, for example, will be late, but all will be equally so, and the observer will not perceive it, since his watch is slow; so, as the principle of relativity requires, he will have no means of knowing whether he is at rest or in absolute motion.

Unhappily, that does not suffice, and complementary hypotheses are necessary; it is necessary to admit that bodies in motion undergo a uniform contraction in the sense of the motion. One of the diameters of the earth, for example, is shrunk by one two-hundred-millionth in consequence of our planet’s motion, while the other diameter retains its normal length.

Photons, And All Particles, Delocalize In Flight

February 14, 2023

Abstract: That photons delocalize in flight was so obvious, Huyghens described them as waves four centuries ago. That’s reinforced both from the math of Quantum Mechanics, and traditional diffraction math. Let alone 2023 Quantum Entanglements of Pions. Time to erect bolder hypotheses to try to understand what’s really going on.

***

That a photon is received as a photon, a single localized energy-momentum jolt, or quantum, explains the photoelectric effect’s characteristics, so we should accept that localized impact. This was Einstein’s hypothesis, and because it explains the photoelectric effect, one should assume it to be true. Einstein deserved his Nobel… And indeed, since then many experiments, including those of Nobel Haroche, have dealt with the single photon impacting or influencing something… In a very localized way.

HOWEVER, localization on impact doesn’t mean that, in “flight” the photon, or any particle is localized as much [1]. It just means that the photon behaved as if it had… “collapsed”. Einstein assumed localization in flight, I call it Einstein’s error. Modern QFT has discreetly strayed away from Einstein, as the “particle” has become an excitable Quantum Field (hence nonlocal) subjected to renormalizing perturbation theory. Moreover, Basic Quantum Mechanics assumes delocalization, but then claims only the math delocalize, not the whatever-is-going-on physically, about which CIQ (Copenhagen Interpretation Quantum) can say nothing.

Yes, maybe CIQos can say nothing, but smarter minds can make hypotheses, and then try to find out if observed effects derive from these hypotheses… Details that normal Quantum mechanics does not predict, like Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

The evidence, from diffraction, is to the contrary of the gratuitous and unnecessary Einstein’s in-flight-localization hypothesis. Both from the grossest observations (namely deflection by a pinhole/slit) and from the way the mathematical treatment of said pinhole/slit works… Because those classical mathematics of diffraction work, indeed, but they assume DELOCALIZATION… to make the computation. So the computation’s result being correct, one feels inclined to believe that its mathematical axiom, delocalization, is also correct… as a physical axiom.

Recently published research (February 2023) shows complicated quantum entanglement transmission in cascade between pairs of unrelated and distinguishable pions of opposite charges, which thereafter interfere at a large distance, enabling the exploration of gluon geometry inside nucleons… More evidence of extreme delocalization, and a new sort of what I call Quantum Interaction.
https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2023/02/05/nonlocal-quantum-entanglement-of-different-particles-used-to-detect-gluon-geometry/

As seen below the usual classical computation for diffraction assumes re-emission, thus delocalization, all along the throat of the slit:

Patrice Ayme

[1] SQPR assumes that “particles” in flight don’t really exist (de facto, so does QFT). The “particles” instead are of type NL + L, where NL is the NonLinear part, and L the Linear part (corresponding to the amplitudes of traditional Quantum Mechanics). L guides NL during dispersion (outward momentum from the singularization/particle state… the opposite of collapse, when the momentum goes towards the singularity). A mathematical description may involve a wave acceleration proportional to its amplitude… So that L can become unstable and grow into a NL, after interacting with another L from another “particle”.

How localized is NL? The Quantum Eraser experiment of Kim and Al., in 1999, indicates that NL is somewhat localized, at least in its apparatus… But it’s very far from a particle. Moreover, as NL feeds L, so to speak, one expects NL to get ever more nonlocalized…

Gravity Theory So Far

February 10, 2023

Buridan held that planets turned around the sun from inertia, pulled in by what would become gravity (circa 1350 CE). No doubt studying canon balls’ trajectory helped in the following centuries. By 1600 CE Kepler knew that masses attracted each other, and exactly reciprocally so… and inversely to the distance between them (it’s actually the square of the inverse). Gravity was theorized to be described by: Mm/dd… M and m being the masses of the object, and d the distance. Boulliaut aka Bullialdus, a French priest cum physicist suggested this. 

Bulliadus had a neat little reasoning still valid nowadays, in strict analogy with light. Bullialdius hypothesized that gravity was carried by particles emitted by the mass and was proportional to the density of said particles. That’s called the “inverse square law” as the force it depicts is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. Bullialdus reasoning may look naive… But we have not progressed much since!

Bulliadus was made one of the initial members of the Royal Society, and has a crater on the Moon. Newton testified to the priority of Bullialdus during his quarrel with Hooke about who invented what). Newton more or less proved the equivalence of that law, plus the basic laws of mechanics…. with Kepler’s three laws.

Newton thought that instantaneous gravitation as he had it, made no sense whatsoever (he wrote in a letter).

The Turin born Simon de Laplace corrected this a century later, making gravity progressive, inventing in the process field theory and gravitational waves.

In June 1905 Henri Poincaré published relativistic gravitational waves. They have to propagate at c, the speed of light.

In the following decade, Einstein, with the help of his friends, including Besso and Hilbert, wrote down a relativistic version of Newton’s theory. One main ingredient is that time slows down next to masses, so star light deflection next to the sun is doubled, as light spends more time  next to the sun, giving it more time to be deflected, etc. Another is that light follows geodesics of 4 dimensional space whose (Ricci) curvature K = T. Where T is the energy-momentum tensor.

The first order approximation of Einstein’s gravity is the classical Laplacian-Poincaré version.

But what “causes” Mm/dd? We don’t know yet. QED doesn’t really help. 

Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED) reproduces the classical Coulomb potential (1/d) (giving the 1/dd force) with exchanges of virtual photons. The same is to be expected for gravity with virtual gravitons. Does that mean that virtual photons exchange “create” the 1/dd force? Not really: a critical examination of what happens says otherwise: QED starts with installing the “Proca Lagrangian” in the path integral. That Proca Lagrangian contains the Maxwell equations which contain in turn the Coulomb potential. So QED demonstrates its own hypothesis as far as (1/dd is concerned)…(That doesn’t mean QED is useless: it’s a perturbative theory which predicts some perturbations with great precision, and those are extremely technologically relevant!) 

Nevertheless it seems that we are progressing spectacularly from what is, for common high energy physicists, an unexpected direction . 

I hold that the true architecture of the world is given by Quantum Entanglement… And the progress there is spectacular: particles of different nature have been entangled.

SQPR hypothesizes that Quantum Entanglement has a finite range: if true it gives immediately Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Moreover, SQPR changes the nature of the vacuum. However the relationship with the 1/dd factor stays mysterious… So far, then, one can’t produce an explanation really deeper than Bullialdus offered…

Patrice Ayme.

The QUANTUM Is NOT “WEIRD”. Instead The Quantum Is The Most Abstracted Classical Mechanics

February 2, 2023

QUANTUM PHYSICS IS THE SIMPLEST ROOT OF CLASSICAL REALITY IMAGINABLE

Abstract: Quantum Mechanics is the simplest imaginable description of the world obtained by reducing all what is known from Classical Mechanics to its simplest parody. Simplest space, simplest math, simplest equations, etc. The organizing metaprinciple of QUANTUM PHYSICS IS Classical MECHANICS MADE AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE. We will focus on the simplest, two state systems.

***. 

Simplicia: Physicists usually describe Quantum Mechanics as “weird”. You are the first one to claim Quantum Physics is NOT weird.

Tyranosopher : In his famous Lectures on Physics, Feynman describes Classical Mechanics as a “shadow” of Quantum Mechanics, or a mnemotechnical trick. Well, he was wrong, there is more to it than that. It took me many decades of deep study of the Quantum to find that in truth, arriving from the first approximation of Classical Mechanics, Quantum Physics is not philosophically weird, but the LOGICAL ROOT of Classical Mechanics. Let’s suppose you were God, and you wanted to devise the simplest barebone theory as a basis for Classical Mechanics… What would you find? Quantum Physics! 

Simplicia: God is useful after all! What do you mean by barebone?

Tyranosopher: Logically barebone: the fewest and simplest axioms animated by the simplest logic. Take for example angular momentum. Classically, Angular Momentum can take any value in any direction: a classical massive object can rotate this way or the opposite, and more or less, along any axis, and can be measured again and again, ad vitam eternam: that’s a lot of freedom. 

Simplicia: To make Angular Momentum barebone, if you were God, what would you do? 

Tyranosopher: Instead of Angular Momentum having any value, you would decide, as God, that Angular Momentum could have JUST TWO VALUES: clockwise, or anti-clockwise. Then, instead of being able to point its axis in any direction, as God, you would decide ONE SINGLE direction is enough. And moreover, you measure it JUST ONCE. So barebone Angular Momentum takes only two values, and in only one direction, one time: and it turns out that this is the simplest version of Quantum Spin. When Quantum Spin is reduced to a two state system (automatically entangled).

And it is what the Stern Gerlach theorem reveals for silver atoms. Similarly for photons.   

Simplicia: What do photons and silver atoms have in common?

Tyranosopher. Photon polarization and silver atoms are both two states’ systems. Apply the simplest mathematics to them, and you get the same mathematical, hence physical result. So they both exhibit nonlocality, entanglement, etc.

Simplicia: What are these “states”?

Tyranosopher: Quantum States are the outcomes of experiments with set-ups sensitive to Quantum effects. The presence of states is all very relative, or as Quantum Foundations theoreticians say, CONTEXTUAL. There is a theorem saying one cannot have non-contextuality.

Simplicia: Please elaborate.

Tyranosopher: Once again, suppose you are god, and you look at angular momentum or polarization. As I said, the simplest situation where something non-trivial happens is if you have built, or found, a device with two outcomes only: spin up, or spin down. Or polarization horizontal, or vertical. Each of these two distinct outcomes is called a state. Label these two distinct outcomes: I+> and I->. Then what’s the simplest non-trivial computational setup you can invent?

Simplicia: A vector space where I+> and I-> are the basis vectors?

Tyranosopher: Exactly. Let’s consider H, the complex vector space with basis I+> and I->.

Simplicia: Why complex?

Tyranosopher: Because you are God and you want to use the largest commutative field and that’s the complex numbers, called C. There all algebraic equations can be solved, with the help of the square root of (-1), called i.  Turns out that this has all immediate deep physical meaning

Simplicia: Complex numbers, also called imaginary numbers, are natural?

Tyranosopher: Yes the number i corresponds to the rotation by pi/4, an angle of ninety degrees, around the origin in the plane.

Simplicia: What’s the connection of complex numbers and (i) with physics?

Tyranosopher: A photon is characterized by its momentum, which is a vector p which points in a direction, and has a frequency E. (hE, p) is the energy-momentum of the photon. It tells you where the photon is going and with how much energy. However, that does not characterize the photon fully. Experiments already conducted by the Vikings show that the photons have polarization.

Simplicia: The Vikings were physicists?

Tyranosopher: They navigated the North Atlantic, going from islands to islands, all the way to America. They needed to know where the sun was, say at noon, to know where the north was. The weather is often so cloud covered there, that one can’t say where the sun is, for weeks on end. Fortunately, the Vikings had stones which gave the direction of the sun. That’s because the atmosphere partially polarizes sunlight.

Simplicia: So the complex numbers characterize polarization?

Tyranosopher: A photon is made of an electric field paired to a perpendicular magnetic field, both perpendicular to momentum p. It’s enough to know where the electric field points to know the polarization. A complex number gives you polarization.

Simplicia: Why can’t a single real number give you that, like, you know, the angle?

Tyranosopher: Complex numbers give you more information. Let’s backtrack. God is trying to build the most powerful yet most complex mechanics possible. By considering complex numbers, you augment the power, but also the simplicity, because all algebraic equations, the ones with powers, are solvable. So, in an important way, C, the complex plane, is simpler than the real line R. Physically speaking it also turns out that quantum waves multiply, to make quantum amplitudes, which are probability waves, and probabilities multiply, but only as complex waves. 

Simplicia: So let’s recapitulate. You reduce angular momentum to simply + or -, plus or minus… instead of a continuum of numbers. You also reduce the direction of angular momentum to a single one, the one along which you measure it. You then build a vector space with I+> and I-> as base vectors, and you simplify maximally by choosing complex numbers instead of real numbers.

Tyranosopher: Absolutely. Isn’t it funny that complex numbers are actually both simpler and more powerful than real numbers? Complex numbers live in a plane and contain in their description light itself!

Simplicia: Are you identifying the complex plane with light?

Tyranosopher: Take a complex plane P, brandish it in space, and pick up a (complex) number N in it. That represents all the information we have on a photon.

The perpendicular to P through its origin gives you the direction of the photon, the norm c of N gives you the frequency and the angle a of c gives you the polarization. So the information (P, c(exp ia)) gives you the photon fully. You can’t do that with real numbers 

Simplicia: Photons are points in flying complex planes?

Tyranosopher: Yes, but we are not finished. 

We have this complex vector space H = C (I+>, I->)… that means it has two basis vectors. Consider a vector v in that space. It has coordinates in function of I+> and I->; the square of the norms of those coordinates are real numbers. They express the probability of v being in state I+> versus in state I->. 

Once again the guiding meta-principle here is the same: make it the simplest for getting a non-trivial result, depicting reality which is what we know, namely that any experiment will give either I+> or I->.

Then we introduce another ingredient: that light and matter behave in a wave-like fashion. So make the coordinates of v into waves depending upon space and time. Also, at the simplest, when v is operated upon, it will give another vector w. To go simplest again from v to w, one should use a linear operator.

Simplicia: Is that the famous “matrix mechanics”?

Tyranosopher: Exactly.

***

Simplicia: What of weird effects like tunneling, and Quantum Entanglement?

Tyranosopher: Tunneling comes from the wavy nature. It would require a bit more elaboration to explain as one needs to introduce energy and how it affects waves. Basically, not all of a sudden, hence (probability of presence) waves penetrate a bit, that’s tunneling. 

Simplicia: And what about nonlocality? 

Tyranosopher: The nonlocal nature of Quantum Entanglement is in plain sight. The simplest is two particles sharing the same two state spin system with total spin zero. :Choose an axis of measurement, call it Z. Then measuring gives the spin of the other particle along Z automatically even 4 lightyears away. But choosing Z was an act of will. So will acted 4 lightyears away.

Simplicia: Minds change the universe light years away?

Tyranosopher: Yes, indeed. Sub Quantum Physical Reality assumes that the propagation of that change is progressive.

Simplicia: What if the distances are too great?

Tyranosopher: Then entanglement fails, and, or Dark Matter and, or Dark Energy are created. That’s what I say.

Simplicia: Does spacetime make some sort of foam at the smallest scale?

Tyranosopher: It’s worse than that. It’s a topological foam, and it’s nonlocal. There again, as God, you would have been confronted with the following problem: how to describe the infinitesimally small? 

Simplicia: By making the infinitesimally small ever smaller.

Tyranosopher: That was tried in biology. It was called the homunculus theory: a human being would start as a tiny reproduction of itself. In truth what happens is that bacteria divide, so they never get that small, and animals… more generally eukaryotes, start with molecular (DNA, RNA) and cellular formations which enter in a constructive dialogue with the environment (some of which is self-created). So basically sophisticated life doesn’t start as itself at all, but in a  nonlocal way. Same thing for spacetime and particles.

Simplicia: Does Quantum Entanglement hold objects together?

Tyranosopher: It has been difficult to find when, where and how an object switches from Quantum behavior to Classical behavior. It is imaginable that Quantum Entanglement holds objects together. After all the more massive an object, the higher the probability that an entangled state will collapse. Collapse is the glue.

Simplicia: How so?

Tyranosopher:  De Broglie associated a matter wave to every single massive object.

Simplicia: Are photons massive?

Tyranosopher: Yes they are, in the sense of inertial mass. Poincaré published and taught in 1899 that a photon has inertial mass m = E/cc. That’s coming straight out of electromagnetism. Photons of course have no rest mass, because they are never at rest. But they contribute to gravity as E/cc, from the axiom: inertial mass = gravitational mass (Einstein called that the “Principle of Equivalence”).

Simplicia: Let’s go back to matter waves. 

Tyranosopher: An object of mass M has wavelength L = h/M, where h is Planck’s constant. A deep question is how that L is generated. Clearly L should be equal to a sum, what is called an integral in mathematics: Sum(m(i)), where m(i) are the zillions of zillions of particles constituting M: all the gluons, quarks, photons, electrons inside. However, the sum should be extended to entanglement itself. I mean what’s called the “particles” are actually the states. Most of the time Quantum systems are actually delocalized Quantum fields.

Simplicia: Are Quantum Entanglement and Delocalization the same? 

Tyranosopher: No. QE is an example of delocalization. Sometimes 

Simplicia: What happens to mass during these delocalizations?

Tyranosopher: Good question! The experience has not been made. Einstein postulated, in 1905, as an axiom that a photon was localized always… and this may have led him to the EPR thirty years later, and introducing the doubt of “spooky action at a distance”… He was a bit arguing with himself.

From the introduction section of Einstein’s March 1905 quantum paper “On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the emission and transformation of light”, Einstein states:

According to the assumption to be contemplated here, when a light ray is spreading from a point, the energy is not distributed continuously over ever-increasing spaces, but consists of a finite number of “energy quanta” that are localized in points in space, move without dividing, and can be absorbed or generated only as a whole.

This statement has been called the most revolutionary sentence written by a physicist of the twentieth century. However, it’s probably not completely true, and I have called it “Einstein’s Error“. First, Quantum Field Theory, and even QED, its predecessor, which Einstein tried, but failed to learn, has replaced “particles” by (delocalized) Quantum Fields: no more localized particles at a point. Moreover, and worse, if one believes the Quantum amplitudes that one computes with have some physical reality, as SQPR, Sub Quantum Physical Reality, believes, Einstein is not completely correct, and the difference is Dark Matter, and Dark Energy. Indeed, in SQPR, Sub Quantum Physical Reality, some mass-energy is spread out. Experimentation will have to decide, although the existence of DM and DE is massive proof enough for me. But this is all speculative, whereas deducing Quantum from Classical, as the maximal non-trivial abstraction from Classical, the original subject of this essay, is not.

Simplicia: Feynman often put philosophy is a bad light.

Tyranosopher: Feynman, like, Mach, Boltzman, Planck, Einstein, De Broglie, and all great physicists, was a philosopher. Dirac deduced his equation for the electron field according to the principle of abstraction from Classical Mechanics and simplicity. Dirac looked for the simplest Partial Differential Equation the square of which would be the relativistic mass-energy-momentum formula for an electron. That’s the Dirac equation! It produced correct quantum electrodynamics, spin and anti-matter! It was deducted according to the general machinery I advocate! So in a way the method I exhibited here to deduce Quantum Physics had already been used, at least in particular cases.

Simplicia: Is your own SQPR deducted similarly?

Tyranosopher: Yes, from classical obvious to fully abstracted and still obvious. Newton said, in a private letter, that it was madness to suppose that the gravitational interaction was instantaneous. A century later, Laplace filled in the idea, making gravitation into a field, and thus predicting gravitational waves. SQPR assumes that Quantum Entanglement, like Delocalization in general, is a field with finite speed: present Quantum Mechanics assumes that QE and nonlocality propagate at infinite speed. This finite speed assumption produces Dark Matter and Dark Energy quasi-instantaneously.

***

Conclusion: This is as it should be: after all, Classical Mechanics is the appearance, the first order approximation, and Quantum Physics what generates that appearance. One can deduce Quantum Physics from Classical Mechanics.  One just has to expand the notion of “deduction” beyond what Feynman was familiar with. A love of wisdom helps with science, as it allows us to expand what logic means.

Patrice Ayme

ENTANGLEMENT, FASTER THAN LIGHT COMMUNICATIONS, CAUSALITY, etc.

January 25, 2023

Abstract: Faster Than Light Particle Transfer? Not Possible According To Special Relativity. But Faster Than Light Communications? Some Day, Probably. Using Quantum Entanglement… Not Particle Transport.

TYRANOSOPHER: Folklore based on a vague reasoning of Einstein says Faster Than Light Communications are impossible (a variant supposedly breaks the universe… see below). Having read Einstein carefully, yours truly determined that Einstein’s reasoning was flimsy (Albert himself hints at that in his original paper).

Most of Special Relativity stays intact if Faster Than Light Communication, FTLC are possible. ALL the equations, and thus the verifying experiments of Special Relativity stay intact. (See towards the end answers to objections).

Simplicia: Many people will write you off because you wrote off Einstein. They won’t read any further.

Tyranosopher: OK, I will detail in another essay my objections to the packaging of Special Relativity which forbids FTLC with great details. Below is just a sketch.

Now about Einstein: he is not God. Actually, there is no God. When I was young and naive, I approved (all) of Einstein’s critiques of Quantum theory, a theory to which he crucially contributed as number two, Planck being number one. Planck said emission of radiation was in grains, quanta, and explained two facts this way. Einstein explained that supposing absorption of radiation also came in quanta explained the photoelectric effect. Planck condemned the latter, but Einstein was right. Then other physicists contributed. The next huge conceptual breakthrough was De Broglie’s matter waves. Then CIQ (Copenhagen Interpretation Quantum) arose with correct physics, admirable math, but a sick un-realistic metaphysics. De Broglie objected and rolled out a realistic model of fundamental physics. Einstein seconded De Broglie, but they were overwhelmed by the launch of QED by Dirac. Then all sorts of strange and marvellous high energy zoo, then QFT, etc.

Nevertheless, after exchanges with Karl Popper, Einstein wrote the EPR paper on nonlocality, in 1935… EPR criticized Quantum Physics and its nonlocality from the “realistic” point of view. I am also all for Sub Quantum Physical Reality (SQPR), but I have an axiom neither De Broglie nor Einstein had. Science progresses one axiom at a time…

However, as the decades passed, and I deepened my understanding, I realized that Einstein’s admirable work was not as revolutionary and crazy as needed. 

Simplicia: The funny thing is that Einstein discovered nonlocality in the 1935 EPR paper. Which is one of the top ten papers in theoretical physics, and very hot today, as Quantum Computers use nonlocality.

Tyranosopher: Einstein was honest enough to not throw nonlocality out of the window. Maybe his conversation with the philosopher Karl Popper helped: Popper did contribute to the discovery of nonlocality. Einstein called nonlocality “spooky action at a distance”.

Simplicia: Now nonlocality is a proven experimental fact.

Tyranosopher: Yes the “SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE” which initially was a purely theoretical fact coming out of the axiomatics of Quantum Theory has been PROVEN over distances of many kilometers. One has to know the crucial difference of QUANTUM SPIN versus classical spin to see nonlocality clearly.

Chinese scientists have measured a minimum speed for this “spooky action at a distance”. I call it the QUANTUM INTERACTION, and assign to it a finite speed, TAU. This supplementary axiom contradicts Quantum Theory

Instead, classical Twentieth Century Quantum Physics says that Quantum Entanglement proceeds at infinite speed.

So this supplementary axiom of propagating finite speed nonlocality should be experimentally testable. I claim the proof of a finite speed for the Quantum Interaction is all around us: Dark Matter and Dark Energy are the results of this experiment, conducted for free by the universe itself. Amen.

Simplicia: What do you mean that nonlocality has been proven? Your friend Ian Miller, who is a physical chemist, denies a proof was achieved.

***

Tyranosopher: I admire Ian, he is a renaissance man, but don’t understand his arguments in this particular case. There are countless variants and proofs under the label “Bell’s theorem” in a jungle of tweaked axiomatics. Ian uses the classical Noether’s theorem… which doesn’t apply to Quantum situations. For once I will use an authority argument. The Nobel was given to nonlocality in 2022, and should have been given at least two decades ago to Alain Aspect. That could have helped physics.

To understand the simplest quantifiable proof of nonlocality one has to know about Quantum Spin and what has been experimentally discovered. Quantum Spin does NOT behave like Classical Spin. Classical Spin can be measured in all directions simultaneously, but Quantum Spin can be measured in only one direction at a time, and that erases preceding measurement.

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2022/11/10/proof-of-no-local-hidden-variables-from-magnets/

Building up on Einstein’s 1935 EPR, the simplest Quantum Entanglement which can be studied over a distance was elaborated by David Bohm in the 1950s and then studied in detail by a very small group of physicists, including CERN theoretical high energy physics head, John Bell, in the 1960s, to produce an experimentally testable inequality… which was given the Physics Nobel for 2022.

Simplicia: OK, many people have thought this instantaneous nonlocality could be used for Faster Than Light, FTL.

Tyranosopher:  Maybe. But one has to distinguish FTL and FTL Communication. FTL for massive objects is impossible, except by transporting a space bubble, which is pure science fiction of the extravagant type.

However if SQPR is correct and TAU is finite, one should be able, theoretically speaking, to create energy imbalances at a distance, after an elaborate technological setup, and thus create FTLC channels. 

***

QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT SEEMS TO PRODUCE FTLC: 

Suppose we produce a state of total spin zero shared by two particles. (Particle streams, in practice.)

We keep one going in circles around Earth, and send the other to Proxima Centauri, 4 lightyears away.

Now say that, after 4 years, we measure the spin in the z direction in the Earth neighborhood, and we find |+>. Then we know that the other particle has spin |-> at Proxima.

So our measurement at Earth created a spin down at Proxima… Instantaneously

Now, with particle streams and synchronized clocks one could easily transform this into an FTL Morse code….

Except for one Quantum difficulty: we do not know how to get a |+> state to start with. We have the same probability to create a |-> state…We can’t make a stream of I+> states to start with, so we can’t type our FTL Morse code to start with! It’s as if we told a cosmic monkey in another room to type, but he can’t select letters. 

***

Hence the impossibility of Faster Than Light Communications rests only upon claiming to know something we know nothing about: can one NEVER EVER prepare, and, or NEVER EVER select Quantum states before measuring them? In other words, do Quantum States have tails? 

There is a so-called “Non Cloning” [of states] theorem…But the “proof” has a loophole (it depends upon assuming a unitary operator, thus denying there are quantum tails, exactly what it wants to prove) In truth, it’s an experimental problem: if what the prestigious French physicist Devoret at Yale and his collaborators is true, it has been possible to prepare some (contrived) Quantum states… but, SO FAR, it has not been possible to prepare Quantum states which happen to be ENTANGLED.

***

When some physicists pretend Faster Than Light Communications are impossible, they pontificate, because, in truth, we don’t know. And science doesn’t progress one pontifex at a time, but one correct intuition at a time. The intuitive case for FTLC is growing as the Quantum amazes us ever more.

***

What we know is that something we thought to be completely impossible, SWAPPING QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT, is not only possible, but now so amply demonstrated that it is central to various developing Quantum technologies

***

SQPR assumes particles have complex structures, a linear part (the guiding wave) and a nonlinear part (the “particle”), the entire structure being unstable and prone to contracting at TAU, the collapse and entanglement speed. 

***

However, Quantum Swapping shows that, somehow, one can have Quantum Interactions without collapse, namely the propagation of QE.

***

Thus it is starting to smell as if one could interact with a particle’s extended presence without inducing collapse, and then select the type we like…

***

Simplicia: Hence FTLC should be possible?

Tyranosopher: FTLC through Quantum Entanglement would not contradict Relativity, because it would not change anything to light clocks, or for the equation Force = d(mv/(1-vv/cc))/dt. There would be no mass transport.

***

It all smells as if FTLC will become possible. That does not mean that Faster Than Light matter transport should be possible. The latter is impossible without warp drives.

Simplicia: Wait, don’t go. It is well known that FTL Communication leads to the breakdown of causality, and thus, sheer madness. Consider the excellent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an0M-wcHw5A

Tyranosopher: Yes, beautiful video. Minkowski spacetime diagrams. Einstein didn’t like them, he didn’t like either Minkowsky or “spacetime”. It was reciprocal: Minkowsky, who was Einstein’s physics professor at Zurich Polytechnic, ETA, called Albert a “lazy dog” and made sure he couldn’t get an academic appointment. Instead a friend got Einstein a job at the Patent Office in Bern.

Simplicia: Can we get to the point? You don’t like spacetime as a concept, so what?

Tyranosopher: Notice that they draw these spacetime diagrams all over the galaxy’s real space, in various places, and then they draw a contradiction. 

Simplicia: Yes, so what?

Tyranosopher: Relativity was invented by Henri Poincaré to describe local effects. Basically local speed makes local time of the speeding object run slow. A fast traveling light clock goes slow when going along the direction of the speed, at the speed. From there after quite a bit of half hidden logic, plus Michelson Morley type experiments which showed the undetectability of speed within a ship cabin not looking outside (the original Galileo imagery), one deduced length also contracted, and so did the local time of the moving device.  

Simplicia: Thanks for the two sentences recap of Relativity.

Tyranosopher: The slowing down of the local time was amply confirmed with fast particle like muons, and in a slightly different context, GPS computations crucially depend upon time contraction of the orbiting satellites.

Simplicia: And then? Why are spacetime diagrams bad?

Tyranosopher: Spacetime diagrams are tangent space objects. They are, at best, local approximations. Extending a spacetime diagram to Vega has degraded meaning. Einstein knew this, he mentioned somewhere that General Relativity violates the constancy of the speed of light. And that’s fairly obvious as light could be put in orbit around a black hole. Now the silly ones cry that time would be in orbit around said black hole, and bite its own tail, etc.  Grandchildren would kill all their grandparents, etc. Silly stuff: they confuse local and global, although that’s the bedrock of differential geometry. Differential geometry is locally flat (aka “Euclidean”) and globally curved (or even twisted). But this is not even the worst…

Simplicia: How come this is all not well-known.

T: Long ago I gave a seminar along these lines at Stanford. Many of the best and brightest were in attendance, Hawking, Penrose, Yau, Susskind, etc. and not too happy from what I said. But my point about General Relativity making no sense without Quantum is viewed as trivially obvious nowadays.

Simplicia: So you are saying one can’t just rotate the spacetime axes of a moving spaceship and make deductions?

T: One can make deductions, but one can’t make deductions where local time of a moving ship becomes global time, as in the video I linked above. Earth can synchronize time with Vega, Henri Poincaré described how that can be done. But one can’t synchronize time with a moving spaceship (as those who claim to have demonstrated that FTLC breaks causality to). 

If one sends an FTL message to a moving spaceship, it does not get it in our past. It gets it in our future. Our past and our future are local… to us, and… Vega, if we synchronized time with Vega. A really silly mistake. 

Simplicia: Please stop insulting fellow intellectuals, or they are not going to be fellows anymore. And why did you link to a false video?

Tyranosopher: Right, let me rephrase this: it has been known since the onset of Relativity that at speed simultaneity is violated. So cause and effect can look inverted in a moving ship relative to what they are in a co-moving frame. That’s basic.The video misses the point, although it looks so reasonable, with great graphics.

Therefore, in the Special Theory of Relativity, causality can only be established and defined in the co-moving frame. (Same for mass, let be said in passing. Even the otherwise excellent Richard Feynman makes that mistake in his lectures. The video I linked above makes that mistake).

So claiming Faster Than Light Communications violates causality is erroneous! 

***

Simplicia: If and when do you think we can realize FTLC?

Tyranosopher: We are tantalizingly close. Some physicists (Devoret) adorned with prizes, glory and long careers claim that they can detect the preparation of a Quantum jump, and even that they can revert it. If that’s true, and we can apply that kind of selection to Quantum Spin, FTLC could be installed with Mars before humanity lands on the planet.

Simplicia: Are you serious?

Tyranosopher: Absolutely. 

Patrice Ayme  

A TRUTH IS The SUM Of ALL LOGICS LEADING TO IT

November 14, 2022

What is a truth? A sum over all logics leading to it. So even lies, errors, delusions, and emotions, labelled as such, can, and must be part of a truth. Yes, Truth even includes all the falsehoods excluding it, just as light is defined by dark. Truth diffracts from error. Any truth incorporates not just the errors defining it by contrast, but also the maximum contexts of the logics leading to it.

This is eerily similar to the sum over histories of Quantum Mechanics!

Love is good, worth dying for, and how one came to be, but it’s also endorphins and how we survive. Truth and logic everywhere, and universal attractors of logic, in the differentil topological sense, are elements of truth… And yes, this includes errors, not just logical errors, data errors, but also emotional errors. Paths not to follow become themselves data points.

Thomas Edison’s response to a question about his many ‘experimental failures.’ “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.

The truth about the concept of energy is itself, as modern physics has it, but all the histories which led to it. It’s not just a question of how we got there as a civilization, but also often how we got there as growing neurologies, personally. Some errors are so natural to do, they should be taught, just as shoals have to be pointed out on maritime maps.

This is why truth, any truth, is hard to get to: truth is always a hydra made of many minds (each logic having a mind, a mentality, and  emotionality of its own). Even a concept as mistakenly seemingly simple as an electron [1].

This is why censors should never be used: they cancel a piece of logic, and thus mutilate the truth.

Censors should never be used, except in the case of war, of course [2].

This general, abstract approach to truth may sound remarkably similar to the “sum over histories”, the path integral method of Quantum Physics. This is no accident, the same object, reality itself, having the same causes. Any physical event, says Quantum Physics is, in some sense rich in computational consequences, a sum over histories, and, as we talk about wave emplitude here, by “sum” is meant a sum not in the sense of adding numbers, but in the richer sense of interfering waves.

In  the parable of the elephant, blind men describe various pieces of the elephant, in many different ways. The point is that the elephant is all that, and more. I propose to replace a set of three dimensional objects (here pieces of a pachyderm) by a set of logical systems. A logic can be incredibly general, and includes all categories (in the mathematical sense of the term).

The truth about an elephant is made of all the known logics leading to descriptions of the elephant, including the history of how its DNA evolved… (As new science will evolve, new logics, hence new truths about elephants will appear…)

But then getting to a truth is flowing along a logic which leads to it. It’s always going to be only part of the truth, because many other logics also get there… But the point is that, to approach a truth, one has to get along with the program of a particular logical-emotional logic flowing on its own like a river.

That means that any approach to truth is, and must be slanted, to use Emily Dickinson’s word.  Most of the time, an immense variety of logics, each represented below by a  particular colored arrow, points and constitute, as a set, what is meant by a particular truth. Truth is an inward and outbound hydra happily squirming in the boiling ocean of imagination made real:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

***

[1] Even a concept as mistakenly seemingly simple as an electron in (Quantum and, or Classical) physics is such an hydra (yes even in Classical physics; consider near fields, advanced and, or retarded potentials, etc.; in QFT, electrons have become even intractable: fields…)

***

[2] Censors should never be used, except in the case of war, of course. I listened, read and studied the arguments of tyrant Putin and his obsequious Orcs. I know them well, their lies are parts of the logics leading to the war they lead in Ukraine.

P/S: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant —” muses on how to tell the truth, pleading for delivering truth not too directly. Truth would only overwhelm the recipient. Instead, she advocates to get at the truth in a sort of roundabout way, telling it gently or bit by bit, so as not to shock people with its “brilliance.”

So I gave a very different… slant on the subject of truth, turning Emily Dickinson on her head and transforming her in a drilling apparatus —one of America’s most influential poets weaponized—the poem showcases her skill with vast abstract ideas in succinct lines (in contrast to my firestorming style). Like nearly all of Dickinson’s poems, and many a great thinker’s work, it was not published until after her death. It was written sometime between 1858-1865.

Proof Of NO LOCAL Hidden Variables From Magnets

November 10, 2022

Abstract: Looked at it the right way, the Stern Gerlach experiment with three consecutive magnets oriented various ways, show that there can’t be LOCAL hidden variables. No need, to exhibit nonlocality, for the precise, but obscure logic of the Bell Inequality. The argument here is less mathematically precise, but more intuitive.

***

Stern-Gerlach Magnets (SGM) reveal an aspect of the Quantum, namely the quantization of (some sort of) angular momentum. SGM launched in 1922 the saga of Quantum Spin (it turns out to be connected to deep pure geometry which had been developed independently by Élie Cartan, a decade earlier). Drive an electron, or (appropriate) atomic beam through a SGM, and one will get two dots, one up, one down. Whatever the axis of the SGM [1]. (The SGM is just a magnetic field with a specific linear direction.) 

That means, at the emotional level that, at the smallest scale, spin, the electronic (sort of) angular momentum, or the orbital (sort of) angular momentum, reduce to UP and DOWN. First surprise. (This is actually the case of Spin 1/2, the simplest, such as for an electron; we are trying to learn the most from the simplest case.)

Say the first SGM is vertical (magnetic field along “z axis”) and a second SGM is horizontal (mag field along “x axis”). Call them respectively SGMV and SGMH. So SGMH produces LEFT-RIGHT beams. Put SGMH across the UP beam coming out of SGMV. One could call that beam SGMV (UP). Once goes through SGMH, one will get 50-50 LEFT-RIGHT. No surprise there.

Now say one selects the RIGHT beam coming out SGMH. Call that beam SGMH (UP; RIGHT)… because first the beam went up, then the beam went right.  

Naively one would expect, from classical mechanics, that SGMH (UP; RIGHT) to have kept a memory of its initial source as SGMV(UP). 

That would be to assume that beam SGMV (UP) and its descendant SGMH (UP;  RIGHT) to have kept some memory, in other words that some that the beams through the first SGMV and then the second SGM to harbor some LOCAL HIDDEN VARIABLES.

But that’s not the case. 

Indeed, please run SGMH (UP; RIGHT) into a second SGMV (that is a Stern Gerlach Magnet parallel to the first magnet SGMV… Call that second vertical Stern Gerlach Magnet SGMV2 One gets fifty-fifty UP and DOWN coming out of SGMV2. It is as if the initial Stern Gerlach, SGMV, never happened. (This set-up is presented in Feynman Lectures on Physics III, Chapter 6, Spin 1/2)

So if there were local hidden variables carried after SGMV that is in the beam SGMV (UP), they got somehow completely eradicated by getting into the beam SGMH (RIGHT).

So these proposed local hidden variables do not stay hidden inside the “particle”: an outside agent can erase them…. Thus those putative local hidden variables aren’t really “local” anymore: the environment impacts them, outside of the particle, and drastically so, just as the potential impacts the phase of an electron in the Bohm-Aharonov experiment… non locally.

***

One can rerun the experiment, by using both beams SGMH (RIGHT) and SGMH (RIGHT), mixing them up. Then it turns out that SGMV2 deflects ONLY UP. So simply going through magnet SGMH, WITHOUT selecting a beam (either SGMH(LEFT) or SMGH (RIGHT)) doesn’t do anything: a collapsing of the Quantum space available to the Quantum wave, selecting either left or right space, is what does something.

Conventional Quantum Physics, newish, path integral version, phrases this by saying one can’t say which path has been followed [2] to keep the information SGV UP or SGV DOWN.  Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum (CIQ) simply says that selecting beam SGMH (RIGHT) is a measurement thus collapses the wave function… SQPR says roughly the same thing.

In any case, this eradication of the influence of SGMH on the “particle” by just keeping open the OTHER beam, which the putative local hidden variable “particle” is by definition NOT taking, is itself a NONLOCAL effect, thus once again demolishing the “LOCAL Hidden Variable” concept. (One could say that one beam is entangled with the other…)

The advantage of this conceptual approach is that it exhibits directly the nonlocality… without hermetic complications [3]. It also shows the interest of a more philosophical rather than purely formalistic approach to physics.

Patrice Ayme
***

[1] Wolfgang Pauli in 1924 was the first to propose a doubling of the number of available electron states due to a two-valued non-classical “hidden rotation“. In 1925, George Uhlenbeck and Samuel Goudsmit suggested the simple physical interpretation for spin of a particle spinning around its own axis… But clearly that doesn’t fit what is observed. Pauli built a mathematical machinery which reflected the observed GSM behavior. It turned out to be a particular case of deep mathematical work from the French mathematician Élie Cartan who was born and initially educated in the small Alpine coal mining village of La Mure, and rose through merit in the republican educational system. It’s a bit like taking the square root of space. I don’t understand it, neither did the extremely famous mathematician Atiyah…

It is easy to be blinded by the math. But actually the math describes an observed physical behavior. Now this behavior may arise from deeper geometrical reason 

***

[2] In SQPR, the “particles” are preceded by the linear guiding waves. Blocking some of them triggers “collapse”. By selecting SGMH (RIGHT) one clearly collapses the linear guidance.

***

[3] Stern Gerlach Magnets also directly illustrates Spin, as did in the first few lines above (magnetic field —> two dots!) The Pauli machinery is often how Spin is introduced in Quantum Physics courses, but that, philososophically is confusing the formalism derived from what is observed with the observation itself.


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