Resolving Special Relativity & Quantum Mechanics

[nstansbury]

As this is my first post here, hi to all - thanks for having me.

 

I have for a while, no doubt like many, been absolutely fascinated by the above question, not just for the Physics involved, but the implied philosophy as well.

 

So, a while ago I started "seriously" pondering the consequences that a "Theory of this Everything" must be able to resolve, and was especially bothered by how "contrived" String/M Theory seemed to me to be.

 

An idea took root that I've sat on pretty much until last month, when I wrote a small paper on my ideas and passed it to a Physicist colleague who'd trained in Quantum Mechanics.

 

"Wow!" was his first response along with lots of suggestions, ideas and terminology clean ups. At his suggestion, I am posting this revised paper here, as frankly, I will never (understandably) get it peer reviewed.

 

This proposal is based on my (fairly advanced) knowledge of Physics, and doesn't contradict any Laws that I know of.

 

More interestingly, it appears to sit very comfortably with Special Relativity & Quantum Mechanics, and supports observations made in both fields. The really fascinating part, and the bit that keeps me awake at night is this "appears" to explain:

 

1. Why, perhaps we don't actually need a "Theory of Everything"

2. Why Gravity and Time exist

3. What actually causes Gravity

4. Why the Universe is "apparently" expanding exponentially

5. Why the distribution of matter in the early Universe was so even

6. What Dark Matter/Dark Energy might actually be

7. Why Hydrogen & Helium are not only the most abundant elements but also the lightest

8. Why every particle has the properties it does - including anti-particles.

9. What causes Quantum Wave-Particle duality

10. What causes Quantum Entanglement

 

..and a few others.

 

So, forgive me - I am an Engineer first and a Physicist second. I would love to be able to work the mathematical proofs of my idea, alas I have neither the talent nor ability to do so, and I fully appreciate the arrogance of suggesting I might have some of the answers to a question like this.

 

Your responses, thoughts and ideas are very much welcomed - though please don't just post a long unintelligible Quantum equation with "ha see - you're an idiot!", because frankly without an explanation with it, I just won't understand it!

 

So here goes...

 

Thanks for any insights

 

Neil

SPAT Waves.pdf

[Icemelt]

10. The apparent even distribution of matter in the early universe is due to it existing initially entirely as waves. Only when the early Universe had cooled by radiating enough energy could the waves begin collapsing to matter.

There's an interesting book by George Smoot called "Wrinkles in Time" covering this subject.

 

I like your ideas, I'm still digesting your PDF

[swansont]

The goal was to examine the "why" rather than the "how"

 

That's often where one deviates from science into philosophy or metaphysics.

 

This is why light appears to slow down as it passes through matter near absolute zero. The matter’s Space-Time wavelength has been increased by cooling, so the time taken to travel between these two points has increased, thus relatively Time not Light has slowed down.

 

Light doesn't slow down uniformly when passing through cold matter — it is very strongly wavelength-dependent and works near an atomic resonance — and this is a function of the state preparation. People have done slow light experiments without getting the vapor cold.

 

 

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0295-5075/82/5/54002

[KALSTER]

Your ideas have a few similarities to the ideas I posted on this and other sites in the past, i.e. particles being quantized waves themselves and some others. One thing you do not address is that these waves of yours need a medium that you attribute to the generic thought of "space-time", but hint at some form of aether instead. Do you have any ideas about the nature of this medium?

[nstansbury]

Hmm...post moved into "Pseudo-science" - damned by faint praise.

 

That's often where one deviates from science into philosophy or metaphysics.

 

Yes absolutely, and one reason I've tried to be very careful in what I suggest. However, the "why" is nonetheless a question that any "Theory of Everything" must be prepared to answer, unless you accept a Deity - which I don't.

 

People have done slow light experiments without getting the vapor cold.

 

Light can be slowed in any transparent medium (which is all EIT is) - but BEC and EIT are fundamentally different.

 

BEC is relevant to my proposal because at absolute zero atoms stop behaving as discrete elements and behave more like waves, hence my suggestion that this is consequence of a more fundamental level of matter.

 

but hint at some form of aether instead. Do you have any ideas about the nature of this medium?

 

That wasn't intentional - I'm certainly not suggesting that these waves need any "medium" through which to propagate.

 

Space-Time is mathematical construct that falls out of Special Relativity, I'm not suggesting SPAT Waves are anything more than that, though at hither to un-described "energy" levels.

[Klaynos]

Yes absolutely, and one reason I've tried to be very careful in what I suggest. However, the "why" is nonetheless a question that any "Theory of Everything" must be prepared to answer, unless you accept a Deity - which I don't.

 

Must it? A ToE is just a unification of the 3 guage group forces and gravity...

[nstansbury]

Must it?

 

Absolutely!

 

If you can't explain & predict:

 

Why the speed of light has the value it has

Why the universal gravitational constant has the value it has

Why particles have the properties they do

Or indeed why the Universe has any of the other myriad of (apparently) finely tuned values it has

 

If you can't, you don't have a "Theory of Everything". You have a "Theory of Something", that itself will need explaining by a yet another (no doubt) grander theory.

 

Unless of course you are happy to suggest - here is the "Theory of Everything" that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, but by the way God started it all.

 

The consequences of a true "Theory of Everything" are much, much more than just the unification of the fundamental forces.

Edited June 7, 2008 by nstansbury

[Klaynos]

I suggest you investigate what is meant by a theory of everything before you start banding the term about.

[Phi for All]

Hmm...post moved into "Pseudo-science" - damned by faint praise.

No, the post was moved to Speculations. Your idea remains speculative until it's been examined rigorously.

 

As long as you can back up your thesis with good science, the Pseudoscience part of the sub-forum need not apply to you. The promise has always been that a good idea can be moved from Speculations to the main science boards after review.

 

Unfortunately, most claims resort to the use of pseudoscience because they either have no maths or can't show why they solve a problem better than a current accepted solution. So it's really up to you whether you'll be damned (but if so, it will be pseudoscience that damns you, not faint praise )

 

Note: You've already done well not to be sucked into the "aether".

[nstansbury]

I suggest you investigate what is meant by a theory of everything before you start banding the term about.

 

Sorry Klaynos, but it seems to me it is you that doesn't seem to grasp and fully appreciate the fundamental consequences of a ToE.

 

I would suggest you chat with a professional Theoretical Physicist and ask them what answers a ToE must provide for it to be considered "The" ToE. This is why I keep using the word "consequences".

 

No Theoretical Physicist will ever be content until at the instant of the "Big Bang" we can explain & predict why all the fundamental forces of nature exist and behave with the values that they do. Period.

 

Anything less than that isn't a ToE.

 

This is also of course assuming Hawkings is right, and that we may never be able to adequately describe the instant before it.

 

So it's really up to you whether you'll be damned (but if so, it will be pseudoscience that damns you, not faint praise )

 

It was the "pseudoscience" classification that bothered me, I assumed it was where the nutters, fruit loops, creationists & "aether" advocates were put!

Edited June 7, 2008 by nstansbury

[Klaynos]

Theory of Everything:

 

A theory that unifies the 4 fundamental forces as one...

 

It doesn't solve WHY questions, it solves HOW questions.... Why is not science, how is...

 

Or at least that's how it was explained by a guy with the title Professor of Theoretical Physics.... Who used to be my head of school...

[nstansbury]

It doesn't solve WHY questions, it solves HOW questions.... Why is not science, how is

 

No... "Why" is the question - "How" is the equation.

 

I'll let you discuss it with Einstein:

 

Paragraphs 2 & 4: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg16121747.700

 

You'll also need to address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

 

Either way, we're moving out of Scientific discussion into sophistry.

[swansont]

Light can be slowed in any transparent medium (which is all EIT is) - but BEC and EIT are fundamentally different.

 

BEC is relevant to my proposal because at absolute zero atoms stop behaving as discrete elements and behave more like waves, hence my suggestion that this is consequence of a more fundamental level of matter.

 

And this sidesteps my point that the experiments did not show slowed light because of the temperature.

 

BECs are being used to make gravimeters. How will their behavior be affected from your contention about mass changing? Is there, in fact, some specific unexplained behavior of BECs that needs to be addressed, as you imply?

 

I note you predict gravity is instantaneous. Any other consequences on relativity that could be measured? How do you reconcile this with the measurements that show that gravity propagates at c?

 

Any actual measurable, specific predictions? How does one falsify your claims?

[Icemelt]

Anyone care to explain what's happening here ?

 

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v85/i9/p1795_1

 

Bose-Einstein condensation has been achieved in a magnetically trapped sample of 85Rb atoms. Long-lived condensates of up to 104 atoms have been produced by using a magnetic-field-induced Feshbach resonance to reverse the sign of the scattering length. This system provides new opportunities for the study of condensate physics. The variation of the scattering length near the resonance has been used to magnetically tune the condensate self-interaction energy over a wide range, extending from strong repulsive to large attractive interactions. When the interactions were switched from repulsive to attractive, the condensate shrank to below our resolution limit, and after ∼5 ms emitted a burst of high-energy atoms

[foodchain]

Theory of Everything:

 

A theory that unifies the 4 fundamental forces as one...

 

It doesn't solve WHY questions, it solves HOW questions.... Why is not science, how is...

 

Or at least that's how it was explained by a guy with the title Professor of Theoretical Physics.... Who used to be my head of school...

 

I always thought why and how pretty much went hand in hand. I mean I can say I know why it rains or how it rains, I don’t think it makes to much difference right? I mean if I ask a question like why does rain occur, I get my answer via the how correct? I mean I don’t want to appear fundamentally naive or anything but to explain say the how of the big bang pretty much covers the why right? I mean to go outside of that is to add things on that simply are not there, like saying evolution occurs because of little fairies pulling levers in our cells, that would be a bit more then a why or a how right? Yet I can get the why evolution occurs through the how of it all, such as mutation or epigenetics.

[nstansbury]

Hey swansont - thanks I do appreciate you taking time to ask the awkward questions.

 

And this sidesteps my point

 

Yes, apologies for the flippant reply - I was still smarting over the "pseudoscience" thing

 

 

Ok, as I said in the paper, this was nothing more than a thought experiment based on my Physics knowledge, and I was simply following apparent logical truths to see where they lead. These truths appear to logically fit with experimental evidence and don't contradict any existing laws.

 

A fundamental point of my paper was suggesting gravity (and thus mass) was the result of Space-Time waves superimposing and creating a constructive interference pattern that literally pulls two points in Space-Time together.

• Thus if gravitational potential is a result of the wave's amplitude, its' mass should also decrease as the amplitude decreases.
  
• What happens when waveforms lose energy, their wavelength (generally) increases - how can energy be removed from a body - by cooling it.
  
• We already know an increase in wavelength will change the time propagation of a wave, thus objects passing through waveforms whose wavelength is increasing should appear to slow down.
  

What evidence do I have to sustain this - light slows down when passing through matter near absolute zero. Is there an existing theory that satisfactorily explains why this should occur - no.

 

The logical consequence of what I suggest - particles should weigh less the more the amplitude of their Space-Time wave decreases. Do particles near absolute zero weigh less? I have no idea, I haven't been able to find any paper that experimentally proves yes or no. Hence the question.

 

Why BEC and not EIT?

Whilst comfortable suggesting that c might be affected by cooling due to an increase the Space-Time waves wavelength & thus affect time, I don't have enough in depth knowledge of EIT to suggest that the same effect could or couldn't be caused without cooling. We know of a number of mechanisms that can/do slow c, and I'm not (yet) suggesting all of them are a result of an change in their Space-Time wavelength. Though I do think the mechanisms behind EIT are definitely something I should investigate and understand more fully.

 

How will their behavior be affected from your contention about mass changing?

Unknown.

I didn't know they were being considered for that use. Though again some logical consequences do spring to mind following through from the above statements.

 

I note you predict gravity is instantaneous. Any other consequences on relativity that could be measured? How do you reconcile this with the measurements that show that gravity propagates at c?

 

1. There have been many contentious experiments in this area, some that predict gravity is anywhere between 0.8 and 1.2 c. Many of these results are disputed.
   
2. If gravity is finite, the results of plugging this delay into gravitational calculations as I understand it is usually disastrous because conservation of angular momentum is destroyed, resulting in unstable planetary orbits.
   
3. The the speed of gravity in Newton’s Universal Law is unconditionally infinite, because he couldn't (neither could those after him) resolve the conflicts.
   
4. Gravitational velocity is only assumed to equal c because of relativity, but relativity doesn't preclude constant superluminal motion.
   

So, as far as I can tell this is as yet case unproven.

 

You will though notice a key point - that as I suggest only these "massless" Space-Time waves are capable of superluminal motion, causality isn't violated, and attempting to "uncollapse" a particle by accelerating it's waveform would still encounter E=Mc2

 

Any actual measurable, specific predictions? How does one falsify your claims?

Please don't misunderstand me. I make no claims here. This as I said is a set of logical consequences, that appears to fit with current experimental data. My only goals in publishing this idea are:

1. To ensure I haven't got some spectacularly & embarrassingly obvious flaw in my logic
   
2. To intrigue someone enough who is capable of doing the complex waveform calculations that should be able predict things like the gravitational constant from a wave's amplitude etc etc.
   

Whether there really is something to this idea or it's complete bunkum and it's just co-incidence that this appears to fit very elegantly together, I am in no position to assert. I'm hoping someone here maybe able to!

 

Without the hard maths, I would just argue lets see what (if any) of these logical truths can be experimentally (or at the very least intellectually) verified.

Edited June 8, 2008 by nstansbury

[swansont]

Without the hard maths, I would just argue lets see what (if any) of these logical truths can be experimentally (or at the very least intellectually) verified.

 

Unfortunately, the "hard maths" are an absolute requirement for verification.

[nstansbury]

Unfortunately, the "hard maths" are an absolute requirement for verification.

 

I unequivocally agree - but as I said from the very beginning, alas I'm not in any position to provide them.

 

 

Ok, I am starting a new thread with a simplification of the ideas and an attempt at the maths:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33431

Edited June 9, 2008 by nstansbury
Started new thread