E8 Theory That Unifies Quantum with Relativity... Maybe

Started by SGOS, September 10, 2019, 02:13:45 PM

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Baruch

Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

It is surpassing strange it is not, that continents float on the mantle like a rubber ducky in a baby's bath water?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on September 10, 2019, 10:07:53 PM
I appreciate that.  Science is based on brisk debate, challenge, and change.  I was in elementary school when my geography teacher mentioned plate tectonics.  She introduced it as a given, which I could accept quite easily because rocks and continents on such a big scale act like smaller softer mixtures of water and solids. 

Consider that all the water and all the continents are bent to fit the curvature of the Earth.  This may be wrong, nor did my teacher present it that way.  It's something I visualized on my own.  Her weakest justification for the theory I thought might have been here explanation that North and South America sort of fit together with the coast lines of Europe and Africa.  I thought that was highly interesting, even if it was a highly interesting coincidence.  Turns out that's exactly how it happened and the actual drift and it's speed has been measured.

But the strange part of all this that was unknown to me at the time, was that tectonic theory was under going contentious debate and had been for a long time, often regarded by other scientists a foolish conjecture.  And stranger still was that I recently read that tectonics was not universally accepted until the 1970s, at least according the source I read.  That was a few years after I finished college, and here I had been believing tectonics was real, when science wasn't even agreeing about it.  There was a hot scientific debate that I lived through, and wasn't I wasn't even aware of the chaos that was actually taking place.  Many of these sorts of lengthy debates happen in science, and much of it doesn't even involve religions until they begin to realize there toes are being stepped on.  And then we have to go through all the shit over again until the Pope makes a statement that the new knowledge actually shows the mysterious wonder of God's love.

There's a lot of figuring out that science has to do.  It was much easier when the answers were provided by stargazing goat herders spending long nights in the dark, with only the help of dim light from newly discovered fire.

I older than modern science.  In 1968, I asked the astronomy 101 professor why the arms of the Milky Way didn't get pulled to the center as it rotated and he told me it was "gravity waves".  I said there had to be keeping the structure intact.  Today we call that "dark matter".

When I was in Middle School, and observed that Africa and South America matched, they told me it was a coincidence.  We now know that as Plate Tectonics.  In high school we had a brief section on geology and I asked why some mountain ranges matched up across continents.  They said it was coincidence.  We now know that was further proof of plate tectonics. 

Sometimes, I'm tired of being right all the time.  I don't ask as many questions as I used to.  I'm always told I'm wrong.

Lately, I've been thinking about gravity.  In a way, it doesn't make sense...  I don't like the spacetime analogy where a heavy ball on a trampoline moves around until it hits the heavy object in the center.  It is something "not-that".

I suspect the next great advancement is going to be some concept that more resembles "reality" as we can sense it.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on September 10, 2019, 10:07:53 PM
I appreciate that.  Science is based on brisk debate, challenge, and change.  I was in elementary school when my geography teacher mentioned plate tectonics.  She introduced it as a given, which I could accept quite easily because rocks and continents on such a big scale act like smaller softer mixtures of water and solids. 

Consider that all the water and all the continents are bent to fit the curvature of the Earth.  This may be wrong, nor did my teacher present it that way.  It's something I visualized on my own.  Her weakest justification for the theory I thought might have been here explanation that North and South America sort of fit together with the coast lines of Europe and Africa.  I thought that was highly interesting, even if it was a highly interesting coincidence.  Turns out that's exactly how it happened and the actual drift and it's speed has been measured.

But the strange part of all this that was unknown to me at the time, was that tectonic theory was under going contentious debate and had been for a long time, often regarded by other scientists a foolish conjecture.  And stranger still was that I recently read that tectonics was not universally accepted until the 1970s, at least according the source I read.  That was a few years after I finished college, and here I had been believing tectonics was real, when science wasn't even agreeing about it.  There was a hot scientific debate that I lived through, and wasn't I wasn't even aware of the chaos that was actually taking place.  Many of these sorts of lengthy debates happen in science, and much of it doesn't even involve religions until they begin to realize there toes are being stepped on.  And then we have to go through all the shit over again until the Pope makes a statement that the new knowledge actually shows the mysterious wonder of God's love.

There's a lot of figuring out that science has to do.  It was much easier when the answers were provided by stargazing goat herders spending long nights in the dark, with only the help of dim light from newly discovered fire.

I older than modern science.  In 1968, I asked the astronomy 101 professor why the arms of the Milky Way didn't get pulled to the center as it rotated and he told me it was "gravity waves".  I said there had to be keeping the structure intact.  Today we call that "dark matter".

When I was in Middle School, and observed that Africa and South America matched, they told me it was a coincidence.  We now know that as Plate Tectonics.  In high school we had a brief section on geology and I asked why some mountain ranges matched up across continents.  They said it was coincidence.  We now know that was further proof of plate tectonics. 

Sometimes, I'm tired of being right all the time.  I don't ask as many questions as I used to.  I'm always told I'm wrong.

Lately, I've been thinking about gravity.  In a way, it doesn't make sense...  I don't like the spacetime analogy where a heavy ball on a trampoline moves around until it hits the heavy object in the center.  It is something "not-that".

I suspect the next great advancement is going to be some concept that more resembles "reality" as we can sense it.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

Quote from: Cavebear on September 11, 2019, 02:23:36 AM
Lately, I've been thinking about gravity.  In a way, it doesn't make sense...  I don't like the spacetime analogy where a heavy ball on a trampoline moves around until it hits the heavy object in the center.  It is something "not-that".

I suspect the next great advancement is going to be some concept that more resembles "reality" as we can sense it.
Gravity is strange.  I get that matter seems to be attracted to matter.  That's seems simple enough... but Why??  Every time I look at the ball on the trampoline, all I really understand is that the ball weighs down the center of the trampoline.  I understand that this is an analogy, but it is of little help to my understanding of gravity, which doesn't seem to act like the trampoline or the ball.  I do award creativity points to the guy that came up with that, because I sense that it must be a clever analogy, even if I don't understand why it's clever.

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on September 11, 2019, 11:45:17 AM
Gravity is strange.  I get that matter seems to be attracted to matter.  That's seems simple enough... but Why??  Every time I look at the ball on the trampoline, all I really understand is that the ball weighs down the center of the trampoline.  I understand that this is an analogy, but it is of little help to my understanding of gravity, which doesn't seem to act like the trampoline or the ball.  I do award creativity points to the guy that came up with that, because I sense that it must be a clever analogy, even if I don't understand why it's clever.

Short explanation.  Imagine that everything moves in a straight line, at constant speed, but not in the same directions (inertia).  In a flat 3d space, all the trajectories are straight lines.  Imagine a sphere.  A straight line on the surface of a sphere, is a great circle, not a straight line.  It is curved.  So in a non-flat 3d space, all trajectories on average are non-straight lines.  Then take that idea and apply it to 4d space-time.  It isn't Euclidean, even when flat, because time isn't the same as space.  But in flat space-time, trajectories are still straight lines, even if they behave funny in Special Relativity.  Finally, extend from flat space-time to non-flat space time.  At any given point in space-time (potential event location) you can draw an imaginary 4d spherical surface of a 4d sphere that describes the non-straight lines that form the previous straight lines that go thru there.  in all spaces called geodesics.  This imagery 4d spherical surface, varies as you go along the path of a test particle.  The reciprocal of the radius of this imaginary sphere, is the local curvature.  In a flat space, this radius is infinity, so the curvature is zero.

Differential geometry (study of fancy surfaces and paths on them) only works for GR, not for QT.  In QT there are no test particles and no trajectories.  And since gravity is so weak, even a mass the size of the Sun, doesn't do much gravitational lensing.  And I have known this with full mathematics since I was 16.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on September 11, 2019, 11:57:48 AM
Short explanation.  Imagine that everything moves in a straight line, at constant speed, but not in the same directions (inertia).  In a flat 3d space, all the trajectories are straight lines.  Imagine a sphere.  A straight line on the surface of a sphere, is a great circle, not a straight line.  It is curved.  So in a non-flat 3d space, all trajectories on average are non-straight lines.  Then take that idea and apply it to 4d space-time.  It isn't Euclidean, even when flat, because time isn't the same as space.  But in flat space-time, trajectories are still straight lines, even if they behave funny in Special Relativity.  Finally, extend from flat space-time to non-flat space time.  At any given point in space-time (potential event location) you can draw an imaginary 4d spherical surface of a 4d sphere that describes the non-straight lines that form the previous straight lines that go thru there.  in all spaces called geodesics.  This imagery 4d spherical surface, varies as you go along the path of a test particle.  The reciprocal of the radius of this imaginary sphere, is the local curvature.  In a flat space, this radius is infinity, so the curvature is zero.

Differential geometry (study of fancy surfaces and paths on them) only works for GR, not for QT.  In QT there are no test particles and no trajectories.  And since gravity is so weak, even a mass the size of the Sun, doesn't do much gravitational lensing.  And I have known this with full mathematics since I was 16.

Tell the rest of the World about it.  They are waiting.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on September 11, 2019, 12:04:37 PM
Tell the rest of the World about it.  They are waiting.

Others have told this story since 1916.  If they were deaf 100 years ago, they are still deaf now.

There are several possible reasons why GR and QFT have't been surpassed:

1. There are different "magisteria" there isn't a single law to cover all models of physics

2. The difference between GR and QFT are basic, not superficial.  A new mathematical conception may be required, like Fourier analyzing heat.  Though epicycles and trigonometric functions are much older than him.  What trick was required, is trigonometry had to go past the real numbers to the complex numbers.  Real number trigonometry functions don't have enough moving parts to do the job.

And no amount of physics nor math makes any difference to the larger world of humanity.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Smacks too much of Kepler and his attempt to build a solar system model based on the Platonic solids. Also, 'mathematically disproven' doesn't leave much room for counter-argument. And I'm unimpressed that there's a company set up around the idea. Science is done by doing science, not by a marketing department.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Cavebear

Quote from: trdsf on September 11, 2019, 12:44:54 PM
Smacks too much of Kepler and his attempt to build a solar system model based on the Platonic solids. Also, 'mathematically disproven' doesn't leave much room for counter-argument. And I'm unimpressed that there's a company set up around the idea. Science is done by doing science, not by a marketing department.

I have to smile.  Reading what Baruch posted, I was thinking about Kepler trying to make his perfect shapes explain the universe he saw.  Not that I mean Baruch is worrying about perfect shapes, but that he has a flawed view of science.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on September 11, 2019, 01:10:30 PM
I have to smile.  Reading what Baruch posted, I was thinking about Kepler trying to make his perfect shapes explain the universe he saw.  Not that I mean Baruch is worrying about perfect shapes, but that he has a flawed view of science.

Flawed view of philosophy of science ... not the same.  And in philosophy, there is no "correct".
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on September 11, 2019, 01:13:29 PM
Flawed view of philosophy of science ... not the same.  And in philosophy, there is no "correct".

Tell that to a philosophist.  I've actually read modern philosophy and they are generally a bunch of whackos. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

Quote from: SGOS on September 11, 2019, 11:45:17 AM
Gravity is strange.  I get that matter seems to be attracted to matter.  That's seems simple enough... but Why??  Every time I look at the ball on the trampoline, all I really understand is that the ball weighs down the center of the trampoline.  I understand that this is an analogy, but it is of little help to my understanding of gravity, which doesn't seem to act like the trampoline or the ball.  I do award creativity points to the guy that came up with that, because I sense that it must be a clever analogy, even if I don't understand why it's clever.

I've been wondering lately how time and gravity are related. Time slows down in a reference frame that's in a strong gravity field, and I wonder whether it's the slowing of time that's important in the "tug" of gravity. Maybe things "want" to move as slowly through time as possible, so they "gravitate" in the direction of slower time.

It's been said that acceleration and gravity are equivalent, but there is a difference. In a gravity field, such as the surface of the Earth, time flows more slowly at sea level than it does at, say, 40 miles higher. But if you were accelerating in a space ship that was 40 miles long, you wouldn't measure any difference in the flow of time between the front end and the back end. Any time dilation would be the same no matter where in the ship you were.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on September 11, 2019, 01:33:51 PM
I've been wondering lately how time and gravity are related. Time slows down in a reference frame that's in a strong gravity field, and I wonder whether it's the slowing of time that's important in the "tug" of gravity. Maybe things "want" to move as slowly through time as possible, so they "gravitate" in the direction of slower time.

It's been said that acceleration and gravity are equivalent, but there is a difference. In a gravity field, such as the surface of the Earth, time flows more slowly at sea level than it does at, say, 40 miles higher. But if you were accelerating in a space ship that was 40 miles long, you wouldn't measure any difference in the flow of time between the front end and the back end. Any time dilation would be the same no matter where in the ship you were.

Those kinds of questions bother me as well.  I expect that we will have some logical breakthrough that makes our sense of reality work again.  Or maybe I'm just getting too old and the newest generation would even have a problem seeing the universe the new way. 

I bet 10 quatloos I'm wrong...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on September 11, 2019, 01:33:51 PM
I've been wondering lately how time and gravity are related. Time slows down in a reference frame that's in a strong gravity field, and I wonder whether it's the slowing of time that's important in the "tug" of gravity. Maybe things "want" to move as slowly through time as possible, so they "gravitate" in the direction of slower time.

It's been said that acceleration and gravity are equivalent, but there is a difference. In a gravity field, such as the surface of the Earth, time flows more slowly at sea level than it does at, say, 40 miles higher. But if you were accelerating in a space ship that was 40 miles long, you wouldn't measure any difference in the flow of time between the front end and the back end. Any time dilation would be the same no matter where in the ship you were.

And some claim time is secondary, not primary.  But if that is so, so is space (SR ties them together).  My POV.  Everything is moving at the speed of light (not velocity of light).  Speed is the length of the 4-vector in space-time.  And of course each particle vector isn't at the same point in space-time.  So basically N test particles at N points.  The 4-vectors don't point in the same direction.  They are never co-located.  But the length is always the same.  This is where people's grasp of Relativity goes bad ... "regular matter can't accelerate to the speed of light" ... "light is always at the speed of light".  Not quite true.  Matter particles can point in different directions from each other, but never point in the same direction in 4-d as any light particle.  Light particles can point in different directions from each other, but never in the same direction in 4-d as a matter particle.  Different propagation magisteria.  It doesn't describe how they locally interact.  QFT does.

So no question of tachyons, warp drives etc.  Right now you and I are both moving at Warp One, but not in the same direction, not from the same event (4-d location).

Time flow.  Light and matter both flow at the same speed, in a vacuum.  When light and matter interact (index of refraction) is is a classical approximation that the speed of light in the material is slower than it was in the vacuum.  But this is an approximation.  That isn't what is happening in QFT.  In QFT there are no test particles, no trajectories.  Just statistical experiment outcomes.  It doesn't even describe reality in the absence of humans.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.