Relativity Challenged!
Edward Green
I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the logical path
extending from the simple principles of relativity to the famous
mass-energy equivalence relation, and if they can't, it must be
because relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!
[I just thought I would cast a question in a form more people seem to
be comfortable with, since polite non-confrontational requests seem to
generate merely the tersest of answers.]
jeff
(I'm generally into the polite non-confrontational style...)
it seems easy to empirically test things out:
1. propose that spacetime is approximately Minkowskian.
2. the 4-momentum is implicitly invariant across reference frames. (a fact
of Minkowski spacetime.)
3. this implies detectable variations in the measurements of both mass and
energy for objects of different speeds relative to some labratory's
reference frame.
4. test for this relationship. (mass and energy aren't equivalent in a
given reference frame, of course.)
Note: SR can be shown wrong, and failing that, is at least approximately
right. Theories aren't just right or wrong - it's _critical_ to know to
what extent a theory is accurate or not.
You first postulate a theoretical framework and then see how well it does.
It's not "right" or "wrong", but it does either work or not, and always to
some extent. It's the _extent_ that matters. Saying a theory is wrong says
nothing. _What_ is wrong, and how is it that it _has_ worked so well
through so many tests? _Both_ things must be explained.
In a sense Newtonian mechanics is wrong. But does it give wrong
predictions? Certainly not. It gives great predictions for a humongous
range of phenomena, into ranges where quantum mechanics cannot even begin
to touch. It is a great theoretical framework, but it is important to know
the limitations of the framework. We have no complete framework of natural
phenomena, and there may not be one for all we know. In the sense that
Newtonian mechanics is wrong, we can rest assured that probably all
current physical theories are wrong. But that doesn't further our
understanding at all.
If relativity is "wrong wrong wrong", then in what ways does it fail, and
how is it that it can explain so many other things? Is it flat-out wrong
in all respects? Or is it the metaphysics that is disturbing? (to worry
that a theory is conceptually displeasing should be ignored at all costs,
which is easier said than done, of course.)
(So far as I know, no *verified* experimental result has ever contradicted
relativity. And it is not for lack of looking. Professors would become
world famous overnight if they could show that it is clearly violated.
They try to find holes in standard theories much more than amateur
physicists, despite what popularizations might have one believe.)
-jeff
--
Door to door sales should have been made illegal, but wasn't.
Unsolicited mail should have been made illegal, but wasn't.
Telemarketing should have been made illegal, but wasn't.
We must make sure that unsolicited email is stopped, either
by making it illegal (unlikely) or by making those who do
wish they hadn't.
Kurt Foster
In <661dvn$o...@panix2.panix.com>, Edward Green said:
. I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the logical path
. extending from the simple principles of relativity to the famous
. mass-energy equivalence relation,
.
That depends on how much you know to begin with, and what you mean by
"the simple principles of relativity", and what you mean by "a few lines."
It also depends on whether you can follow a logical argument. It has been
said that you can prove any theorem in one line -- provided you know
enough to start with!
. and if they can't, it must be because relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!
.
Eh??? I hope to heck you're joking. Surely you're not so arrogant as
to think a theory's validity depends on your ability, personally to
understand one of its consequences...
Jim Carr
Edward Green said:
. I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the logical path
. extending from the simple principles of relativity to the famous
. mass-energy equivalence relation,
Kurt Foster <kfo...@shell.rmi.net> writes:
>
> Eh??? I hope to heck you're joking.
I think you've been trolled. Looked like satire without a smiley to me.
>Surely you're not so arrogant as
>to think a theory's validity depends on your ability, personally to
>understand one of its consequences...
Think about what you just wrote. That could have been Ed's message.
Am I close, Ed?
--
James A. Carr <j...@scri.fsu.edu> | Commercial e-mail is _NOT_
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | desired to this or any address
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | that resolves to my account
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | for any reason at any time.
Preston Barlow
Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote...
> I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the
> to the famous mass-energy equivalence relation...
The equivalence of mass and energy is not a logically necessary
consequence of the simple principles of special relativity. It
is, however, strongly suggested by those principles - one of the
first (of many) examples of the remarkable heuristic power of
Einstein's theory.
We postulate that the natural measures of spatial and temporal
intervals in any and every inertial frame are such that the
velocity of light with respect to those measures is invariant.
This immediately implies that relative velocities are not
transitively additive from one reference frame to another,
and, as a result, the acceleration of an object with respect
to one inertial frame must differ from its acceleration with
respect to another inertial frame. However, by symmetry, the
FORCE exerted by two objects upon each another is equal and
opposite, regardless of their relative velocity.
So, given an object O of mass m, initially at rest, we apply
a force F to the object, giving it an acceleration of F/m.
After awhile the object has achieved some velocity v, and we
continue to apply the constant force F. But now imagine
another inertial observer, this one momentarily co-moving
with the object at this instant with a velocity v. That other
observer sees a stationary object O of mass m subject to a
force F, so, on the assumption that the laws of physics are
the same in all inertial frames, we know that he will see the
object respond with an acceleration of F/m (just as we did).
However, due to non-additivity of velocities, the acceleration
with respect to OUR measures of time and space must now be
different. Thus, even though we're still applying a force F
to the object, its acceleration (relative to our frame) is
no longer equal to F/m. In fact, it must be less, and this
acceleration must go to zero as v approaches the speed of
light. Thus the effective inertia of the object increases
along with its velocity.
During this experiment we can also integrate the force we
exerted over the distance travelled by the object, and determine
the amount of work (energy) that we imparted to the object in
bringing it to the velocity v. With a little algebra we can
show that the ratio of the amount of energy we put into the
object to the amount by which the object's inertia (units of
mass) increased is exactly c^2.
From these considerations Einstein formed the hypothesis
that ALL inertia is potentially convertable to energy, but
clearly this doesn't follow rigorously from special relativity.
It was just a hypothesis *suggested by* special relativity
(and also Maxwell's equations). At the time (1905) the only
experimental test Einstein could suggest was to see if a lump
of "radium salt" loses weight as it gives off radiation, but
of course that would never be a complete test, because the
radium doesn't decay down to nothing. The same is true with
an atomic bomb, i.e., it's really only the binding energy of
the atoms (or nucleus for a hydrogen bomb) that is being
converted, so it doesn't demonstrate an entire electron or
proton (for example) being converted into energy. However,
today we can observe electrons and positrons annihilating
each other completely, and yielding energy in precisely the
amounts predicted by Einstein in 1905.
Ilja Schmelzer
FILTER...@colorado.edu (jeff) writes:
> (So far as I know, no *verified* experimental result has ever contradicted
> relativity. And it is not for lack of looking. Professors would become
> world famous overnight if they could show that it is clearly violated.
Aspect is famous now, that's not the point.
Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
unfalsifiable.
Ilja
--
I. Schmelzer, D-10178 Berlin, Keibelstr. 38, <schm...@wias-berlin.de>
http://www.cyberpass.net/~ilja
Robert Low
In article <i3gd8je...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>,
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
>people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
Or, perhaps, to accept non-local constraints, or to reject
free will, or.....
After all, FTL transmission does not in itself contradict
relativity. It is only that if one accepts the possibility of
such transmission and assumes Lorentz invariance that
there are potential problems, assuming that one can still
specify initial data arbitrarily. (And just possibly, not
even then. But I'm not too convinced yet by the work of Novikov
et al that a genuine minimum of the action, rather than
just a stationary value, always gives a unique well-defined
evolution.)
>If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
>unfalsifiable.
But all theories are used this way. If you find something that
seems to contradict your pet theory, you can
(a) reject the theory
(b) ignore the data
(c) keep the theory, and say that some external influence
you hadn't considered is at work
and probably some others.
If it weren't for (c), we'd have had to reject Newtonian
gravitation a long time ago.
By and large, what we tend to do is muddle through with
a combination of (b) and (c) until it just gets too difficult,
then (reluctantly) move over to some competing theory that
hasn't the same problems.
Popper is not the last word in the philosophy of science.
It's worth taking a look at Lakatos's extension of the
notion of falsifiability to methodological falsificationism,
to get a framework for it all. Or you could read Feyerabend
(the rascal) and just give up on the whole process :-)
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> FILTER...@colorado.edu (jeff) writes:
> > (So far as I know, no *verified* experimental result has ever contradicted
> > relativity. And it is not for lack of looking. Professors would become
> > world famous overnight if they could show that it is clearly violated.
>
> Aspect is famous now, that's not the point.
>
> Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
There is none. The only thing that might be obvious is a
violation of Einstein realism. But that's a different thing.
> people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
>
> If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
> unfalsifiable.
Repeating incorrect statements does not make them more correct.
There are many ways to falsify SR, in principle.
(Superluminal phone lines would be one, providing
causality is not violated.)
Aspect's experiments just don't.
They might if you accept some ad-hoc unproven assumptions.
keith stein
Edward Green <e...@panix.com> writes
> relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!
Nice one Ed!
:-)
--
keith stein
TCICurt
>> (So far as I know, no *verified* experimental result has ever contradicted
>> relativity. And it is not for lack of looking. Professors would become
>> world famous overnight if they could show that it is clearly violated.
>
>Aspect is famous now, that's not the point.
>
>Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
>
>If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
>unfalsifiable.
>
You are absolutely correct Ilja. Of these three things, one must be false:
Quantum mechanics, Einstein's second postulate, or objective reality. I hold
with the view that Einstein, though talented, is notGod, and therefore
objective reality holds out over SRT. Quantum mechanics and objective reality
are prefered over quantum mechanics and SRT. Otherwise, why bother?
Daryl McCullough
In article <ZLPBDPAD...@globalnet.co.uk>, keith says...
Keith, quoting someone out of context like that
is thoroughly dishonest. But not unexpected.
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Robert Low
In article <i3gzpmh...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>,
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>mtx...@coventry.ac.uk (Robert Low) writes:
>Feyerabend is funny to read, but not more. Can you shortly explain the
>difference between Lakatos and Popper?
Probably not, but I can explain the difference between what I
think they're saying.
Popper: falsifiability is the basis for saying whether a theory
is scientific.
Lakatos: since theories cannot generally be definitely falsified
by observations (ad hoc hypotheses can always be introduced),
it is not so much the theory as the process by which investigations
that are carried out that counts as scientific. If the process
takes some kind of account of the tensions between observations
and experiments so that rejection of a theory is based on wider
considerations than the most straightforward 'prediction A,
outcome B, therefore theory wrong', then it may qualify. I'm
not explaining this terribly well, and may who regard themselves
as Popperian would probably regard this is being 'obviously' what
is meant by falsificationism. Oh well. The standard source
for this stuff is
Lakatos, I (1978) The methodology of scientific research
programmes, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-28031-1
David Byrden
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote in article
<i3gd8je...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>...
> Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
> people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
>
> If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
> unfalsifiable.
But to assume that causality is real, or that
speeds can be infinite, or that twins remain the same
age, is to assume that our "common sense" and the
immediate evidence of our sensory organs is a universal
truth.
Now, THAT'S ad hoc!
David
Ilja Schmelzer
tci...@aol.com (TCICurt) writes:
> You are absolutely correct Ilja. Of these three things, one must be false:
> Quantum mechanics, Einstein's second postulate, or objective reality. I hold
> with the view that Einstein, though talented, is notGod, and therefore
> objective reality holds out over SRT. Quantum mechanics and objective reality
> are prefered over quantum mechanics and SRT.
It is necessary to add that this choice is not only a personal choice,
there is an objective criterion for comparison: Popper's criterion of
predictive power.
Edward Green
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>Aspect is famous now, that's not the point.
>
>Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
>people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
>
>If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
>unfalsifiable.
A good and subtle point, I think, Ilja, with many ramifications.
Immunization can be either through hypothesis which only hindsight
can tell us whether it is 'ad-hoc' or not, or a kind of semantic
immunization, where seemingly nonsensical sentences like 'black is
white' are accepted as being true according to some brave new meaning
of the words.
An example of the former I just read in the New Yorker magazine,
of all places, concerning prions (some objection was answered by the
ad-hoc hypothesis that different forms of the same disease were caused
by the same protein folding in different conformations, I believe), an
example of the latter by typical language about photons 'going back
and erasing their paths' or 'trying all possible paths'; which in
criticizing we must skirt an endless dance with just-not-getting-it-ism,
and the reflexive response that we object because of 'counter-intuition'.
My post was rather clearly labeled as a kind of joke, by the way,
surrounding a naive question.
keith stein
Daryl McCullough writes
> keith says...
>>Edward Green writes
>>> relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!
>>Nice one Ed!
>> :-)
Let me be clear for Daryl, and anyone else who may have misunderstood:
MR GREEN WAS JOKING !!!!
(but 'ironically' he was 'right,right,right':-)
--
keith stein
Daryl McCullough
In article <i3gwwhl...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>, Ilja says...
>
>tci...@aol.com (TCICurt) writes:
>> You are absolutely correct Ilja. Of these three things, one must be false:
>> Quantum mechanics, Einstein's second postulate, or objective reality. I hold
>> with the view that Einstein, though talented, is notGod, and therefore
>>objective reality holds out over SRT. Quantum mechanics and objective reality
>> are prefered over quantum mechanics and SRT.
>
>It is necessary to add that this choice is not only a personal choice,
>there is an objective criterion for comparison: Popper's criterion of
>predictive power.
Right, and I believe that the greater predictive power is on the side of
relativity. Your ether theory allows for non-Lorentz-invariant effects
and faster-than-light travel, but relativity does not. Therefore,
evidence of FTL effects would falsify relativity but not your theory.
You claim that your theory predicts things about the topology of the
universe, but I never saw you derive it from your ether theory. It
seems that you could just as well have an ether theory on top of
a universe with an arbitrary topology.
The fact is that there has never been a single shred of the lack
of Lorentz-invariance of the physical laws. You claim that the
Aspect experiment provides such evidence, but it doesn't. *If*
it happened to be the case that the Aspect experiment could only
be carried out in certain reference frames, and not others, that
would certainly be evidence that something was wrong with relativity,
but there is absolutely no reason to think that.
(Actually, that points to another prediction of relativity that
your theory does not predict: the results of the Aspect experiment
are independent of the frame of reference of the experimenters.)
Ilja Schmelzer
mtx...@coventry.ac.uk (Robert Low) writes:
> >Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
> >people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
> free will, or.....
> After all, FTL transmission does not in itself contradict
> relativity.
Of course, if there are no other laws of nature, all laws of nature
are Lorentz-invariant. No non-Lorentz-invariant law of nature in
itself contradicts relativity - we can reject this as a law of nature
to save relativity. Always. And, once we accept to reject causality,
we will accept to reject everything else.
> >If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
> >unfalsifiable.
> But all theories are used this way.
I know, but we can do it better. Simply follow Popper's methodology.
> Popper is not the last word in the philosophy of science.
> It's worth taking a look at Lakatos's extension of the
> notion of falsifiability to methodological falsificationism,
> to get a framework for it all. Or you could read Feyerabend
> (the rascal) and just give up on the whole process :-)
Feyerabend is funny to read, but not more. Can you shortly explain the
difference between Lakatos and Popper?
Ilja
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > (So far as I know, no *verified* experimental result has ever contradicted
> > > relativity. And it is not for lack of looking. Professors would become
> > > world famous overnight if they could show that it is clearly violated.
> violation of Einstein realism. But that's a different thing.
You can explain it by rejecting Einstein realism too, I have said this below:
> > people prefer to reject causality or realism to save relativity.
But there is also no obvious violation of Einstein realism. It is
your choice if you prefer to reject realism or relativity (or
causality or elementary logic or something else).
The point is that rejecting EPR-realism decreases the predictive power
of a theory, replacing relativity by ether theory not. But I know that
you don's like Popper's criterion.
> > If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
> > unfalsifiable.
>
> Repeating incorrect statements does not make them more correct.
> There are many ways to falsify SR, in principle.
> (Superluminal phone lines would be one, providing
> causality is not violated.)
You are sure that you can - without any implicit reference to
something like EPR-realism - conclude from observation of a
superluminal phone line that relativity is false? I doubt.
> Aspect's experiments just don't.
> They might if you accept some ad-hoc unproven assumptions.
Of course I accept some unproven assumptions. There is no scientific
theory without unproven assumptions. You cannot prove that a general
assumption is true.
I know you don't like Popper, but I have no better methodology
available. Thus, I base my argumentation on Popper, not Kassner.
Daryl McCullough
e...@panix.com (Ed Green) says...
>
>I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the logical path
>extending from the simple principles of relativity to the famous
>mass-energy equivalence relation
I can't derive it, exactly, but I can give a plausibility argument.
But it takes a lot more than a few sentences.
First, a plausibility argument for the relativistic momentum formula,
p_j = gamma m v_j. Let's just assume that momentum is of the form
p_j = f(v) m v_j, and then we will see that f(v) must be gamma.
(Why do I assume that it is of that form? Well, intuitively, it
should be proportional to mass, since the momentum of two objects
of the same mass travelling at speed v should be the same as the
momentum of a single object of twice the mass travelling at speed
v. It should point in the same direction as the velocity, since
where else is it going to point? Finally, the scalar factor f(v)
is a function of the magnitude of v alone, since I don't know
anything else to do.)
So, look at two objects of masses m and M, (with m much, much
smaller than M), which collide with each other and then bounce
off. First, we look at conservation of momentum in a frame
in which M is travelling nonrelativistically, while m is
travelling relativistically, then we look at it in a
frame in which m is travelling nonrelativistically.
In Frame 1, initially m is travelling at speed v in the
x-direction, and at speed -u in the y-direction. M is
initially at rest. We will assume that u is very, very,
small compared with v, so the magnitude of the velocity
of m is approximately just v. Assuming that m is much,
much less than M, m should just bounce off M: afterwards,
the speed of m in the y-direction will be approximately
+u in the y-direction. Afterwards, M will be given a
tiny speed in the -y direction, which we will call U.
Since U is assumed to be very tiny, we can use the
nonrelativistic formula for the momentum of M afterwards:
momentum of M afterwards in the y-direction is -MU. The
momentum of m in the y-direction is -m u f(v) beforehand,
and +m u f(v) afterwards. Conservation of momentum in
the y-direction tells us:
-m u f(v) = +m u f(v) - MU
So, U = 2(m/M) u f(v)
Frame 2: Now, let's look at things from a frame that is moving
at speed v with respect to Frame 1. In this frame, it is m that
is travelling nonrelativistically, and M is travelling
relativistically. The speed of m in the x-direction in
frame 2 is 0. The speed of m in the y-direction in frame
2 is - gamma u. (Why? It is a yucky application of the
Lorentz transformations, which I'll post if you don't
take my word for it.) The speed of M in the x-direction
is -v. The speed of M in the y-direction is initially 0.
After the collision, m is travelling at speed + gamma u
in the y-direction. M is travelling at speed -U/gamma in
the y-direction (why? again, the Lorentz transformations)
and at speed -v in the x-direction. Since v is much greater
than U/gamma, the magnitude of M's speed is approximately
just v. Conservation of momentum in the y-direction gives:
- m gamma u = + m gamma u - M (U/gamma) f(v)
Since we already derived that U = 2(m/M) u f(v), we
get:
- m gamma u = + m gamma u - 2 M (m/M) u f(v)^2/gamma
which simplifies to:
f(v) = gamma
Therefore, the relativistic form for the momentum is
P_j = gamma m v_j
I'll give an argument as to why E = gamma m c^2 in another post.
Daryl McCullough
da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) says...
>Therefore, the relativistic form for the momentum is
>
> P_j = gamma m v_j
>
>I'll give an argument as to why E = gamma m c^2 in another post.
Once you know the relativistic formula for momentum, it is
easy to derive the relativistic formula for energy. First,
let's assume that an object is proportional to
its mass, and is a function of its speed. So, we assume that
E = m f(v).
Now, consider a collision of two wads of chewing gum of mass m
travelling in opposite directions at the same speed v.
After the collision, the two wads stick together to
get a bigger wad of gum of mass M that is at rest. Applying
conservation of energy gives:
2m f(v) = M f(0)
or
M = 2m f(v)/f(0)
Now, look at the same collision in a frame of reference in
which one of the two wads of gum is at rest. In this frame,
by the velocity transformation laws of relativity, the
speed of the other wad of gum is u = 2v/(1+v^2/c^2). The
momentum of the moving wad of gum is
p = gamma(u) m u
where gamma(u) = 1/square-root(1-u^2/c^2)
= (1+v^2/c^2)/(1-v^2/c^2)
(this is obtained by substituting 2v/(1+v^2/c^2) for u).
So, the momentum before the collision is
p = (1+v^2/c^2)/(1-v^2/c^2) m (2v/(1+v^2/c^2))
= 2 m v/(1-v^2/c^2)
After the collision, the big wad of mass M is travelling
at speed v. So the momentum after the collision is
p = gamma(v) M v
= M v/square-root(1-v^2/c^2)
Equating the momentum before with the momentum after gives:
2 m v/(1-v^2/c^2) = M v/(square-root(1-v^2/c^2))
which simplifies to
M = 2 m/square-root(1-v^2/c^2)
From above, we also know that M = 2m f(v)/f(0). So we have:
f(v)/f(0) = 1/square-root(1-v^2/c^2)
This gives us the following formula for the energy (using
E(v) = m f(v))
E(v) = E(0)/square-root(1-v^2/c^2)
Now, to see the value of E(0), we expand this in a Taylor series
about v=0:
E(v) = E(0)(1 + 1/2 v^2/c^2 + ...)
The second term, 1/2 E(0) v^2/c^2, is the kinetic energy in
the limit as v gets much smaller than c. We know from Newtonian
mechanics that that is 1/2 m v^2. Therefore,
1/2 E(0) v^2/c^2 = 1/2 m v^2
E(0) = m c^2
So,
E(v) = m c^2/square-root(1-v^2/c^2)
W$
> But to assume that causality is real, or that
> speeds can be infinite, or that twins remain the same
> age, is to assume that our "common sense" and the
> immediate evidence of our sensory organs is a universal
> truth.
>
> Now, THAT'S ad hoc!
No .... that's ostensive. There is a difference.
W$
Ilja Schmelzer
da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
> >It is necessary to add that this choice is not only a personal choice,
> >there is an objective criterion for comparison: Popper's criterion of
> >predictive power.
>
> Right, and I believe that the greater predictive power is on the side of
> relativity. Your ether theory allows for non-Lorentz-invariant effects
> and faster-than-light travel, but relativity does not.
My ether theory allows these effects only in hidden form, because it
has the same relativistic symmetry for observable effects. It may be
observable that some FTL signal exists, but the direction of this
signal should be unobservable.
> Therefore,
> evidence of FTL effects would falsify relativity but not your theory.
Yes, but the evidence for such hidden FTL effects exists. It is
Aspect's experiment. I agree that before Aspect's experiment where
was an advantage in predictive power for relativity. Now, the evidence
has happened, but relativity is not accepted to be false.
> You claim that your theory predicts things about the topology of the
> universe, but I never saw you derive it from your ether theory. It
> seems that you could just as well have an ether theory on top of
> a universe with an arbitrary topology.
It would be another theory. Of course, it would be possible to derive
a theory for a torus. But the equations define an affine structure.
> The fact is that there has never been a single shred of the lack
> of Lorentz-invariance of the physical laws. You claim that the
> Aspect experiment provides such evidence, but it doesn't. *If*
> it happened to be the case that the Aspect experiment could only
> be carried out in certain reference frames, and not others, that
> would certainly be evidence that something was wrong with relativity,
> but there is absolutely no reason to think that.
But this Lorentz-invariance of observable effects is part of my ether
theory too.
> (Actually, that points to another prediction of relativity that
> your theory does not predict: the results of the Aspect experiment
> are independent of the frame of reference of the experimenters.)
No, this is predicted by my ether theory too. It is an axiom of my
ether theory that all physical processes are time-dilated in the same
way. Thus, there are no absolute clocks. But a non-Lorentz-invariant
effect may be easily used to build an absolute clock. qed.
Of course, there may be other ether theories with other
properties. But my ether theory has these properties.
Ilja Schmelzer
"David Byrden" <Go...@iol.ie> writes:
> > Nonetheless, after this obvious violation of Einstein causality,
> > unfalsifiable.
> But to assume that causality is real, or that
> speeds can be infinite, or that twins remain the same
> age, is to assume that our "common sense" and the
> immediate evidence of our sensory organs is a universal
> truth.
I do not suggest that my ether theory is universal truth. Every theory
is only a guess. But Occam's razor suggests to choose the simplest
guess which is compatible with available empirical evidence.
And the principles of realism and causality are compatible with
empirical evidence.
> Now, THAT'S ad hoc!
I recommend to read Popper about what is an ad-hoc immunization.
Edward Schaefer
Edward Green wrote:
>
> I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the logical path
> extending from the simple principles of relativity to the famous
> because relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!
>
> [I just thought I would cast a question in a form more people seem to
> be comfortable with, since polite non-confrontational requests seem to
> generate merely the tersest of answers.]
1) Momentum can be given as p = m0 dx'/dt = m0 dx/dt gamma = m0 v gamma.
2) Momentum can also be given as p = mv. Therefore m = m0 gamma.
3) Expand m0 gamma into a Taylor series:
m = m0 (1 + v^2 / 2c^2 + 3v^4 / 8c^4 + ...)
4) For v << c we can ignore the terms 3v^4/8c^4 ... . So, when an
object goes into motion by v << c, its mass is increased by
m0 v^2 / 2c^2.
5) m0 v^2 / 2 is kinetic energy in classical physics. So
dm = dE/c^2. Drop the d's and solve for E to get E = mc^2.
EMS
P.S.
"it must be because relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!" is non-
confrontational???!
Daryl McCullough
In article <i3glny0...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>, Ilja says...
>
>da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>
>> ...I believe that the greater predictive power is on the side of
>> relativity. Your ether theory allows for non-Lorentz-invariant effects
>> and faster-than-light travel, but relativity does not.
>
>My ether theory allows these effects only in hidden form, because it
>has the same relativistic symmetry for observable effects.
How do you derive that from your ether theory? How do you prove,
from your ether theory, that all FTL effects are hidden? I think
you are claiming much more from your theory than you are actually
able to derive.
>It may be observable that some FTL signal exists, but the
>direction of this signal should be unobservable.
Derive that from your ether theory.
>> Therefore, evidence of FTL effects would falsify
>> relativity but not your theory.
>
>Yes, but the evidence for such hidden FTL effects exists.
No, it does not. The Aspect experiment does not show any
preferred reference frame. It is only your interpretation
of the Aspect experiment that requires a preferred reference
frame.
>> You claim that your theory predicts things about the topology of the
>> universe, but I never saw you derive it from your ether theory. It
>> seems that you could just as well have an ether theory on top of
>> a universe with an arbitrary topology.
>
>It would be another theory. Of course, it would be possible to derive
>a theory for a torus. But the equations define an affine structure.
As I said, I don't think that it is legitimate to claim that your
ether theory predicts a simple topology for the universe. Your theory
seems to have several assumptions, one of which is that there is a
background ether through which electromagnetic waves propagate
(and presumably wave function collapse), and a second assumption,
that the universe has a simple topology. These assumptions seem
completely independent to me. Thus if the universe turned out
to have a toroidal topology, that would falsify your "theory"
about the topology of the universe, but it wouldn't say anything
about whether there is an ether.
I can always make Einstein's theory of relativity more predictive
by adding additional assumptions: General Relativity plus the
assumption that the universe is a torus. However, this assumption
is ad hoc, and has nothing to do with General Relativity (unless
I could somehow show that GR only makes sense for a toroidal
universe).
>> The fact is that there has never been a single shred of the lack
>> of Lorentz-invariance of the physical laws. You claim that the
>> Aspect experiment provides such evidence, but it doesn't. *If*
>> it happened to be the case that the Aspect experiment could only
>> be carried out in certain reference frames, and not others, that
>> would certainly be evidence that something was wrong with relativity,
>> but there is absolutely no reason to think that.
>
>But this Lorentz-invariance of observable effects is part of my ether
>theory too.
Only because you tacked it on. Your theory seems to be
"electromagnetic waves travel through the ether, but for
any experimental consequences, please use special or general
relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
consequences of Einstein's theory. You haven't shown that
there are any empirical consequences to the existence of
an ether.
Your theory seems to be more predictive than Einstein's
in a way that is exactly the opposite of what Popper
favored. Basically, if relativity makes any predictions
that are borne out by experiment, then you claim that
your theory made them, too. If relativity makes any
predictions that are contradicted by experiment, then
you claim that your theory predicted that failure. There
doesn't seem to be any way for your theory to lose, and
so it *isn't* falsifiable in Popper's sense.
>It is an axiom of my ether theory that all physical
>processes are time-dilated in the same way.
If you are using ether to explain FTL wave-function
collapse, then your theory *doesn't* predict that
all physical processes are Lorentz-invariant. I would
say that unless you have some principled way to derive
which processes are Lorentz-invariant and which ones
are not, then you don't really have a predictive theory.
You need to derive Lorentz-invariance from the properties
of the ether, instead of saying that the ether has
whatever properties it takes to agree with special
relativity and quantum mechanics.
If you want to say that your theory predicts exactly
the same things as special relativity, except for
those quantum-mechanical phenomena that are not
easily explained in terms of Einsteinian realism,
then you really don't have a different theory---that
*is* the ad hoc theory that all physicists use. Your
ether doesn't *explain* anything, unless you can
derive wave function collapse and Lorentz invariance
from properties of your ether.
I really don't think that Popper would have cared
much for your ether theory, as it stands.
Klaus Kassner
Daryl McCullough wrote:
> In article <i3glny0...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>, Ilja says...
>
> >My ether theory allows these effects only in hidden form, because it
> >has the same relativistic symmetry for observable effects.
>
> How do you derive that from your ether theory? How do you prove,
> from your ether theory, that all FTL effects are hidden? I think
> you are claiming much more from your theory than you are actually
> able to derive.
Yes, I guess that is a fair statement. Ilja does not derive a lot.
> >> You claim that your theory predicts things about the topology of the
> >> universe, but I never saw you derive it from your ether theory. It
> >> seems that you could just as well have an ether theory on top of
> >> a universe with an arbitrary topology.
That's right, too.
> >It would be another theory. Of course, it would be possible to derive
> >a theory for a torus. But the equations define an affine structure.
But it would not be a problem to adapt them to a differentstructure.
> As I said, I don't think that it is legitimate to claim that your
> ether theory predicts a simple topology for the universe.
His ether is actually the metric. g_{00} ist the density ofthe ether. The
components g_{0a} define its velocity,
the spatial components a stress tensor. Now, this interpretation
pretty much excludes anything leading to a negative
g_{00}. For example, a metric such as the one inside
the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole becomes impossible.
So some metrics are excluded by this interpretation and
the induced topologies are as well. But I also don't
see how, for example,
a spherical closed universe would be excluded.
> Your theory
> seems to have several assumptions, one of which is that there is a
> background ether through which electromagnetic waves propagate
> (and presumably wave function collapse)
I think the wave function collapse could not be transmitted byhis ether. It
would have to happen in the background space
independent of the ether.
> , and a second assumption,
> that the universe has a simple topology. These assumptions seem
> completely independent to me. Thus if the universe turned out
> to have a toroidal topology, that would falsify your "theory"
> about the topology of the universe, but it wouldn't say anything
> about whether there is an ether.
Right. He could save his theory by assuming the new topology.
> >But this Lorentz-invariance of observable effects is part of my ether
> >theory too.
>
> Only because you tacked it on.
Rather, because his equations for the motion of etherare Einstein's field
equations.
> Your theory seems to be
> "electromagnetic waves travel through the ether, but for
> any experimental consequences, please use special or general
> relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
> consequences of Einstein's theory.
I agree.
> You haven't shown that
> there are any empirical consequences to the existence of
> an ether.
Yes. But he guesses there should be such consequences(due, e.g. to the
atomicity of the purported ether).
On the other hand, as long as you stick to the
equivalence of ether and metric (the former only
being an interpretation of the latter) then the
empirical consequences of the ether are the same
as those of the metric.
> Your theory seems to be more predictive than Einstein's
> in a way that is exactly the opposite of what Popper
> favored.
In any case, the ways to falsify it are very exotic, tosay the least. You
could falsify it by falling in a
black hole. But you would not be able to communicate
your falsification. Which contradicts the essence of
objectivity in a falsification procedure.
> Basically, if relativity makes any predictions
> that are borne out by experiment, then you claim that
> your theory made them, too. If relativity makes any
> predictions that are contradicted by experiment, then
> you claim that your theory predicted that failure. There
> doesn't seem to be any way for your theory to lose, and
> so it *isn't* falsifiable in Popper's sense.
As to Aspect, Ilja does accept that relativity is the strongertheory in
Popper's sense, but maintains it has been
falsified. So it is his theory that must survive.
You see, it is not so easy to crack a closed
conception of the world.
> >It is an axiom of my ether theory that all physical
> >processes are time-dilated in the same way.
>
> If you are using ether to explain FTL wave-function
> collapse, then your theory *doesn't* predict that
> all physical processes are Lorentz-invariant. I would
> say that unless you have some principled way to derive
> which processes are Lorentz-invariant and which ones
> are not, then you don't really have a predictive theory.
Well, the principle seems to be: quantum mechanics canbeat
Lorentz-invariance in just the way that is compatible
with posivistic interpretations of relativity, but nothing
else can.
> You need to derive Lorentz-invariance from the properties
> of the ether, instead of saying that the ether has
> whatever properties it takes to agree with special
> relativity and quantum mechanics.
The first part is not really a problem, because hisether equations are
Einstein's. So the ether is
bound to conform with Lorentz-invariance.
With the second part, I agree. I think most of his
arguments in the quantum mechanic domain
are flawed. It is my impression that his knowledge
about QM is by far inferior to his knowledge of
GR.
> If you want to say that your theory predicts exactly
> the same things as special relativity, except for
> those quantum-mechanical phenomena that are not
> easily explained in terms of Einsteinian realism,
> then you really don't have a different theory---that
> *is* the ad hoc theory that all physicists use. Your
> ether doesn't *explain* anything, unless you can
> derive wave function collapse and Lorentz invariance
> from properties of your ether.
I agree whole-heartedly.
> I really don't think that Popper would have cared
> much for your ether theory, as it stands.
Well, since my esteem for Popper is not thathigh after all, I am not so sure
about this...
Preston Barlow
Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote...
> I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the
> logical path extending from the simple principles of relativity
Edward Green
Daryl McCullough <da...@cogentex.com> wrote:
>You claim that your theory predicts things about the topology of the
>universe, but I never saw you derive it from your ether theory. It
>seems that you could just as well have an ether theory on top of
>a universe with an arbitrary topology.
It's not so much something you could derive, as the simplest possible
assumption. I suppose you could create kind of hybrid monster
theories, as you suggest. But as you might say, 'there has never been
a single shred' of evidence to suggest the universe has a non-trivial
topology, and 'there is absolutely no reason to think' there is
something wrong with the assumption of the trivial topology.
>The fact is that there has never been a single shred of the lack
>of Lorentz-invariance of the physical laws.
There had never been a single shred of evidence that there
was a lack of chiral invariance of physical laws, until Madame Wu
performed her well known experiment. Chiral symmetry remains an
excellent approximation, as would Lorentz invariance if we found your
shred of evidence, left by the symmetry killer as his coat caught on a
nail while leaping the fence to retrieve the bloody glove.
Ilja is not a crank, Daryl. He is a very subtle thinker. Oh, I know,
you didn't _say_ he was a crank, but your 'single shred of evidence'
invective is hardly value neutral. He is mainly, as far as I can see,
showing an alternative way of thinking about things which is consonant
with existing observation, and may some day be subject to testable
discrimination, and meanwhile is enriching, as an antidote to reified
fourspace: Reified three-space.
Larmor already had the philosophical stance exactly right five years
before Einstein's epochal paper; what we know is the mathematics.
What we are arguing about is partially the tightness to which the
mathematics has been constrained by existing observation, and
partially how we are to talk about the mathematics. The mathematics
of GR does not require us to speak of reified four-space as the thing
in itself, though it might tempt us to. Many seem to have fallen
headfirst into the salacious embrace of this temptress. Smiley.
>You claim that the
>Aspect experiment provides such evidence, but it doesn't. *If*
>it happened to be the case that the Aspect experiment could only
>be carried out in certain reference frames, and not others, that
>would certainly be evidence that something was wrong with relativity,
>but there is absolutely no reason to think that.
I know by "carry out in a reference frame" you mean "carry out with
expected results", and as far as that goes, just what range of
reference frames have we carried this out in? The usual range available
to terrestrial laboratories; that spanned by the earth's rotational and
orbital velocity. And just how carefully have we been looking for
variations within this range? I'd keep an open mind, as they say.
Greater precision of language seems called for. (Annoying phrase,
isn't it? I got it from the back of the book where you cribbed "shred
of evidence" and "absolutely no reason to think that"). Smiley.
And by the way, I knew Keith Stein knew I was joking!
Ed 'unlikely to get another detailed answer from Daryl' Green
sh...@wt.net
Klaus Kassner wrote:
> Daryl McCullough wrote:
>> How do you derive that from your ether theory? How do you prove,
>> from your ether theory, that all FTL effects are hidden? I think
>> you are claiming much more from your theory than you are actually
>> able to derive.
>
>Yes, I guess that is a fair statement. Ilja does not derive a lot.
>
<snip>
>>Your theory seems to have several assumptions, one of which is that
>>there is a background ether through which electromagnetic waves
>>propagate (and presumably wave function collapse)
>
>I think the wave function collapse could not be transmitted by his
>ether. It would have to happen in the background space
>independent of the ether.
>
>> , and a second assumption,
>> that the universe has a simple topology. These assumptions seem
>> completely independent to me. Thus if the universe turned out
>> to have a toroidal topology, that would falsify your "theory"
>> about the topology of the universe, but it wouldn't say anything
>> about whether there is an ether.
>
> Right. He could save his theory by assuming the new topology.
>
> > >But this Lorentz-invariance of observable effects is part of my ether
> > >theory too.
> >
> > Only because you tacked it on.
>
> Rather, because his equations for the motion of etherare Einstein's field
> equations.
>
> > Your theory seems to be
> > "electromagnetic waves travel through the ether, but for
> > any experimental consequences, please use special or general
> > relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
> > consequences of Einstein's theory.
>
> I agree.
>
>In any case, the ways to falsify it are very exotic, tosay the least. You
>could falsify it by falling in a black hole. But you would not be able
>to communicate your falsification. Which contradicts the essence of
>objectivity in a falsification procedure.
>
>>Basically, if relativity makes any predictions that are borne out by
>>experiment, then you claim that your theory made them, too. If
>>relativity makes any predictions that are contradicted by experiment,
>>then you claim that your theory predicted that failure. There
>>doesn't seem to be any way for your theory to lose, and so it
>>*isn't* falsifiable in Popper's sense.
>As to Aspect, Ilja does accept that relativity is the stronger theory
>in Popper's sense, but maintains it has been falsified. So it is his
>theory that must survive. You see, it is not so easy to crack a closed
>conception of the world.
Its interesting that he insists that there must be two way unseen signals
with Aspect (at least that's my understanding) and considers the
the explaination of correlations at a distance without a signal as
not worth considering.
>>>It is an axiom of my ether theory that all physical
>>>processes are time-dilated in the same way.
>
>>If you are using ether to explain FTL wave-function collapse, then
>>your theory *doesn't* predict that all physical processes are
>>Lorentz-invariant. I would say that unless you have some principled
>>way to derive which processes are Lorentz-invariant and which ones
>>are not, then you don't really have a predictive theory.
>Well, the principle seems to be: quantum mechanics can be
>Lorentz-invariance in just the way that is compatible with
>posivistic interpretations of relativity, but nothing else can.
I have one small quibble with that statement. The Copenhaugen
interpretation isn't inherently possitivistic. In my opinion, it
is more neo-Kantiant. Otherwise I fully agree.
>> You need to derive Lorentz-invariance from the properties of the
>>ether, instead of saying that the ether has whatever properties it
>>takes to agree with special relativity and quantum mechanics.
>The first part is not really a problem, because hisether equations are
>Einstein's. So the ether is bound to conform with Lorentz-invariance.
>With the second part, I agree. I think most of his arguments in the
>quantum mechanic domain are flawed. It is my impression that his knowledge
>about QM is by far inferior to his knowledge of GR.
This happens the be the opposite of what is true for most of the
physicists I know. I know very few people who have studied GR. Very
few experimentalists use it in their work. There is no industrial
application of GR. When I was in grad. school, it was offered every other
year, and only about 5-6 people took the course. So, I feel somewhat
limited in discussing GR with Ilja.
However, when I considered the QM at his web site, it seemed to be a
number of assertions that were not backed up. I agree with both of you
that Ilja borrows equations, makes statements about them, and then claims
that he has a theory. I can appreicate that if he claims a subset of GR,
attaches the word aether to it, the theory has to be correct if GR is.
However in QM, he claims more than is there without deriving it.
>>If you want to say that your theory predicts exactly the same things
>>as special relativity, except for those quantum-mechanical phenomena
>>that are not easily explained in terms of Einsteinian realism,
>>then you really don't have a different theory---that *is* the ad hoc
>>theory that all physicists use. Your ether doesn't *explain* anything,
>>unless you can derive wave function collapse and Lorentz invariance
>> from properties of your ether.
>I agree whole-heartedly.
And I.
>> I really don't think that Popper would have cared much for your ether
>>theory, as it stands.
>Well, since my esteem for Popper is not thathigh after all, I am not so sure
>about this...
This question is why i delayed answering Ilja. I have picked up one of
Popper's books on the subject and have been reading it on my lunch hour.
(I think its "the Logic of Scientific Discovery" or something close to
that.) My guess is that Ilja's analysis is consistant with Popper if one
takes Popper as the Pharisees took the OT. However, I have just started
reading Popper and wish to spend a bit of time studying his work before
commenting. From what I've seen, Popper and Kuhn are the most quoted
figures in Phil. of Science and I think that one should understand them
before trying to work very seriously in this area.
So, it may be a month or so before I can make a reasonably serious
analysis of the criterion for a scientific theory. However, I think that
Daryl did touch on a difficulty. If one were to literally take Popper's
statement on the theory that is easier to falsify as being the truer one,
then I could have a theory which is GR + an ad hoc distribution of
fraction of stars that have planets. This distribution would show
varience over intergalactic distances only. I cannot see how this theory
would be superior to GR, even though it is supeior according to a strict
interpretion of Popper.
That is somethink I saw when I broke off the discussion with Ilja. Its
easy to point that out, but its hard to come up with what the real
criteron should be. So, I'm reading Popper and thinking about how we
really decided between theories.
Anyways, thanks for your contributions.
Dan M.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Edward Green
Preston Barlow <pba...@eastern.com> wrote:
Thank you. That was just about exactly what I was looking for.
Let me try to summarize the argument:
(1) We postulate (or define) the continued validity of Newton's third law.
(2) We therefore have a frame invariant meaning for force (?).
(3) We therefore have an unambiguous measure for the work done on
object in accelerating it.
(4) If we want to preserve Newton's second law also, we are led to the
concept of relativistic mass.
(5) The ratio of work done on an object to the increase in
relativistic mass is found to be c^2.
(6) We postulate that mass/energy equivalence in this ratio is a
general feature of the world, not just germane to kinetic energy.
Since you don't know me at all I hasten to add that what I am about to
write is not some anti-relativity nutcase garbage (to use the technical
term of analysis), but; I am surprised at the mixture of definition and
bold guess here.
I also hasten to add I am not a 'Newton's laws are empty definition'
garbage nutcase, again to cut to the bone with an incisive term of
technical analysis -- though I have been heard to say things that
_sound_ something like this on cursory acquaintance -- but that here the
case could be pushed a lot further for the desirability of
disentangling definitional and conventional issue from the physics,
without venturing into garbage nutcase territory.
[I am eyeing strongly those who mistook the meaning of my previous
post each time I repeat this, in hopes of silence].
For example, it is not obvious to me that 'by symmetry' we must still
require the force between two bodies in relative motion to be equal. It
might be convenient if we could do this consistently, and even more
convenient if we can take the magnitude of this force to be
independent of choice of inertial reference frame altogether(?), but
the situation in a particular body's rest frame is clearly _not
symmetric) with respect to the two bodies. If we took the force on
the moving body to be different from the body at rest then 'symmetry',
and in particular the symmetry implicit in the assumption of formal
identity of the laws of physics in all inertial frames plus isotropy,
would require that the magnitudes of the two forces be exactly
reversed if we shifted to the other body's frame; but this does not by
itself require equality. We would simply have a frame dependent
concept of 'force'.
With regard to Newton's second law I think the physical content (this
is what I say that is sometimes mistaken for the 'all definition'
garbage nutcase position) can be expressed as follows: Given a
preexisting natural definition of length and time, hence velocity and
acceleration, then it is _possible_ to assign a consistent system of
numbers to _bodies_ ('m') and _interactions_ ('f'), s.t. for any
possible pairing of bodies and interactions, f=ma. Furthermore we are
able to assign these numbers that that the relation is frame invariant
(i.e., 'a' being the same for all inertial frames of reference, we are
free to use the same 'f' and 'm').
In special relativity 'a' is _not_ frame invariant, so that 'f' and 'm'
cannot both be frame invariant anymore either, but one at least must
vary. Evidently we choose 'm' (pace some comments that 'relativistic
mass' is no longer a fashionable concept?). [I will guess that the
ability to rescue Newton's second law for all frames by a relatively
straightforward transformation of 'm' still has strong logical content
beyond convention, but the situation is unclear to me now.]
I did not know that the famous mass-energy equivalence is not a logical
requirement from the kinematic postulates of relativity, but in fact
represents an additional dynamic postulate; well-motivated as a guess,
it is true, as postulates usually are, but nonetheless not a logical
requirement. Thank you for this explanation.
>We postulate that the natural measures of spatial and temporal
>intervals in any and every inertial frame are such that the
>velocity of light with respect to those measures is invariant.
That's the most careful statement of that postulate I have ever
seen, for whatever that is worth to you!
Preston Barlow
Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote
> Let me try to summarize the argument:
> (1) We postulate (or define) the continued validity of
> Newton's third law.
> (2) We therefore have a frame invariant meaning for force (?).
> (3) We therefore have an unambiguous measure for the work done
> (4) If we want to preserve Newton's second law also, we are
> led to the concept of relativistic mass.
> (5) The ratio of work done on an object to the increase in
> relativistic mass is found to be c^2.
> (6) We postulate that mass/energy equivalence in this ratio
> is a general feature of the world, not just germane to
> kinetic energy.
I'd concur with this as an accurate summary of the historical
development, although for a modern treatment we could tinker a bit
with the sense and order in which Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws are
invoked. Naturally there are many different (though physically
equivalent) ways of formulating mechanics in special relativity, but
the most common these days is to begin by defining momentum as the
product of (rest)mass and velocity (in accord with Newton's
Principia). The motivation for this definition is that conservation
of this 3-vector is well-behaved under Lorentz transformations (i.e.,
if it is conserved with respect to one inertial frame then it is
conserved with respect to all inertial frames), and it agrees with
non-relativistic momentum in the limit of low velocities. Then we
essentially postulate that this "momentum" is, in fact, conserved
(extrapolating from our experience with momentum at low velocities).
(It's interesting that we use this "correspondence principle" in
defining our observable parameters in relativity, just as we do in
quantum mechanics, but apparently in the historical development of
relativity no one dignified this heuristic with a name, let alone
elevated it to a "principle"; the latter move was characteristic of
Bohr.)
Then, once again following Newton's Principia, we define
(relativistic)force as the rate of change of momentum. This is
Newton's 2nd law, and it's motivated largely by the fact that this
"force", together with conservation of momentum, implies Newton's 3rd
law, at least in the case of impacts (and we can build up many other
kinds of interactions by imagining the exchange of various impacting
intermediate bodies).
You might notice that although we've adhered closely to the
Principia's original definitions, we've actually reversed the order
of development, because Newton postulated the 3rd law and then
derived conservation of momentum, whereas we did it the other way
around. In my earlier post (as you rightly summarized) I reverted
more to Newton's arrangement, taking the 3rd law as more immediate.
Speaking of which
Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote
> ... it is not obvious to me that 'by symmetry' we must still
> require the force between two bodies in relative motion to be
equal.
> ...If we took the force on the moving body to be different from the
> body at rest then 'symmetry'... would require that the magnitudes
of
> the two forces be exactly reversed if we shifted to the other
body's
> frame; but this does not by itself require equality.
You've invoked a distinction here between "the moving body" and "the
body at rest", but according to the principle of relativity there is
an equivalence between any two inertial frames, so they're to be
regarded as symmetrical. From this and the principle of sufficient
cause, the 3rd law is pretty much unavoidable. Also, it supports our
conservation of momentum, as mentioned above. Admittedly there are
some complications when applying the 3rd law to extended interactions
in a relativistic context, but for coincident points of mutual
contact it would result in a very convoluted theory to define force
in an asymmetric way, without conflicting with the physical
equivalence of inertial frames.
Of course there's another assumption lurking here as well, namely,
the assumption of physical equivalence between instantaneously
co-moving frames, regardless of acceleration. For example, we assume
that two co-moving clocks will keep time at the same instantaneous
rate, even if one is accelerating and the other is not. This is just
a hypothesis - we have no a_priori reason to rule out physical
effects of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th,... time derivatives. It just so
happens that when we construct a theory on this basis, it works
pretty well. (Similarly we have no a_priori reason to think the
field equations necessarily depend only on the metric and its 1st and
2nd derivatives; but it works.)
Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote
> In special relativity 'a' is _not_ frame invariant, so that 'f'
> and 'm'cannot both be frame invariant anymore either, but one at
> least must vary. Evidently we choose 'm' (pace some comments that
> 'relativistic mass' is no longer a fashionable concept?).
The subject of "relativistic mass" is kind of tricky. On one hand,
you're right that most modern formulations of relativity shun this
concept, but on the other hand it's undeniable that the concept was
heuristically significant in suggesting the equivalence of mass and
energy. On the third hand, it's worth noting that Einstein's 1905
paper was entitled "Does the INERTIA of a Body Depend on its Energy
Content?", so clearly Einstein was mindful of some distinction
between inertia and mass. On the fourth hand, not only is
mass-energy equivalence not required by special relativity, it is
actually inconsistent with it when combined with the equivalence
principle, and this is one of the main reasons that Einstein
eventually abandoned SR. Thus, SR led Einstein to mass-energy
equivalence, which in turn led him to reject SR! A similar thing
could be said of "relativistic mass".
On the fifth hand, it's certainly more elegant to introduce the
mass-energy relation by means of the energy-momentum 4-vector, but
some people find that the mathematical elegance obscures the physical
content. To illustrate, take m as the constant rest mass, and define
relativistic force as the four-vector
d^2 x_j
f_j = m -------
d tau^2
where j = 0,1,2,3, and x_0 is the time coordinate. Then define the
energy-momentum 4-vector as
d x_j
p_j = m -----
d tau
from which it follows that
d p_j
f_j = -----
d tau
As mentioned above, we use our correspondence principle to decide
that we should define momentum as the 3 space components of p_j.
This just leaves the time-component p_0, which we choose to define as
the energy E. Thus,
d x_0
E = p_0 = m -------
d tau
Recall that x_0 is just our coordinate time parameter t, which is
related to the object's proper time tau according to
_____________
d tau = / dt^2 - dx^2
______________
= dt / 1 - (dx/dt)^2
Note that we're using geometric units here, so dx/dt = v/c can just
be called v. Substituting back into our energy definition (and
recalling that x_0 is simply t) we have
m
E = ------------- = m + (1/2)mv^2 + (3/8)mv^4 + ...
sqrt(1 - v^2)
The first term, "m" is now interpreted as the rest energy of the
mass, but did we actually "deduce" this? Notice that we violated our
sacred "correspondence principle" in the definition of E, because by
correspondence with the low-velocity limit the energy of a particle
SHOULD be something like (1/2)mv^2, but clearly the time component of
p_j does not reduce to that in the low-speed limit. Nevertheless, we
defined p_0 as the "energy" E, and since that component equals m when
v=0, we essentially just DEFINED our result E=m (or E=mc^2 in
ordinary units) for a mass at rest. It isn't clear that this is
anything more than a bookkeeping convention, one that could just as
well be applied in classical mechanics using some arbitrary squared
velocity to convert from units of mass to units of energy. The
assertion of equivalence between mass and energy has physical
significance only if it is actually possible to effect a conversion
from one to the other, and the only suggestion given to us by special
relativity for such actual conversion is the increase of a
"mass-like" quality (i.e., inertia) as we do work on (i.e., add
energy to) an object.
Of course, the fact remains that this mass-like quality (aka
relativistic mass) is distinct from rest mass, but we'll probably
need a more fundamental theory of matter to understand the actual
convertability between the two. No one really knows the detailed
process by which rest mass is converted to energy. Take for example
an atom of some
highly fissionable material. We may split that atom into two smaller
atoms whose combined rest mass is less than the original rest mass,
but at the instant of the split the overall "mass-like" quality is
conserved, because those two smaller atoms have enormous velocities,
precisely such that the total relativistic mass (archaic or not) is
conserved. Then we slow down those two smaller atoms and end up with
two atoms at rest, at which point a little bit of rest mass has
disappeared from the universe. But the actual physics of how the
excess binding energy was originally a "rest property" representing
"real mass" with isotropic inertia, and then becomes a kinetic
property representing archaic old relativistic mass with anisotropic
inertia, is not well understood (at least not by me).
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net
In article <3488398B...@physik.uni-magdeburg.de>
Klaus Kassner wrote:
[Ilja Schmelzer:]
>> >But this Lorentz-invariance of observable effects is part of my ether
>> >theory too.
>>
[Daryl McCullough:]
>> Only because you tacked it on.
>
>Rather, because his equations for the motion of ether are Einstein's field
>equations.
>
>> Your theory seems to be
>> "electromagnetic waves travel through the ether, but for
>> any experimental consequences, please use special or general
>> relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
>> consequences of Einstein's theory.
>
>I agree.
"Stealing" is too strong a word. Ilja is not claiming that he invented
Einstein's field equations. He is showing that they are compatible with
aether and with Euclidean space (if I understand correctly, which I may
not).
>> You haven't shown that
>> there are any empirical consequences to the existence of
>> an ether.
>
>Yes. But he guesses there should be such consequences(due, e.g. to the
>atomicity of the purported ether).
>
>On the other hand, as long as you stick to the
>equivalence of ether and metric (the former only
>being an interpretation of the latter) then the
>empirical consequences of the ether are the same
>as those of the metric.
The difference is that Einstein allows only one metric. PG has this
metric, and it also has a background Euclidean metric in which wave
function collapse occurs.
>> Your theory seems to be more predictive than Einstein's
>> in a way that is exactly the opposite of what Popper
>> favored.
>
>In any case, the ways to falsify it are very exotic, to say the least. You
>could falsify it by falling in a
>black hole. But you would not be able to communicate
>your falsification. Which contradicts the essence of
>objectivity in a falsification procedure.
Absent more detail on the small scale characteristics of the aether,
falsifying PG without falsifying GR would be impossible (I think). In
this sense the point you are making here is correct.
What I find most interesting about PG is that it would be possible to
falsify GR while leaving the essence of PG intact. Suppose that it turns
out that velocity relative to aether is detectable, via some observable
proportional to some order of beta. Suppose further that the aether
velocity so measured matches that specified by PG. (This is a very small
velocity, so the current generation of experiments has little to say on
the matter.)
Such a detection of aether velocity would strike at the very core of GR
--the posited indistinguishability of freely falling frames. GR, in the
form Einstein envisioned, would be falsified--though the field equations
(alas!) would survive.
>> Basically, if relativity makes any predictions
>> that are borne out by experiment, then you claim that
>> your theory made them, too. If relativity makes any
>> predictions that are contradicted by experiment, then
>> you claim that your theory predicted that failure. There
>> doesn't seem to be any way for your theory to lose, and
>> so it *isn't* falsifiable in Popper's sense.
Of course it's falsifiable. Future studies of high gravity phenomena
such as binary pulsars might show some disagreement with prediction.
>As to Aspect, Ilja does accept that relativity is the stronger theory in
>Popper's sense, but maintains it has been
>falsified. So it is his theory that must survive.
Ilja makes a good case here. But it is not airtight.
>You see, it is not so easy to crack a closed
>conception of the world.
True, true. But the barb is pointed in the wrong direction.
[snip]
>> If you want to say that your theory predicts exactly
>> the same things as special relativity, except for
>> those quantum-mechanical phenomena that are not
>> easily explained in terms of Einsteinian realism,
>> then you really don't have a different theory---that
>> *is* the ad hoc theory that all physicists use. Your
>> ether doesn't *explain* anything, unless you can
>> derive wave function collapse and Lorentz invariance
>> from properties of your ether.
>
>I agree whole-heartedly.
I agree half-heartedly. PG is just a starting point. Its value is that
it gives the lie to the claim, often heard, that GR, with its great
predictive success, is somehow incompatible with aether, and that
therefore it is a waste of time to think about what the properties of
the aether might be.
If there is an aether, the people who figure out its properties will be
the ones who don't reject the possibility of its existence out of hand,
without evidence. Those (like yourselves?) with great mathematical
skill, who could have developed a workable aether theory, have not done
so for various reasons.
The most important reason appears to be the "king of the hill" theory of
scientific knowledge. GR is king, so will not be dislodged until a
greater theory comes along. Theories of equal predictive power, like PG,
are rejected, not for substantive reasons, but because the old theory
was there first.
The research programme mapped out by quantum gravity theorists in the
50's has been mined for over 40 years without result. A similar amount
of brainpower applied to aether theory will, in my opinion, bear fruit.
The aether "doesn't explain anything"? But metric spacetime does? Get
real!
Alan Pendleton
Edward Green
<alanpe...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
As always, thought provoking and well-informed comments, among which:
>I agree half-heartedly. PG is just a starting point. Its value is that
>it gives the lie to the claim, often heard, that GR, with its great
>predictive success, is somehow incompatible with aether, and that
>therefore it is a waste of time to think about what the properties of
>the aether might be.
As you may know, I think the aether/no-aether question is pretty much
empty (which does not mean I've become a knee-jerk establishmentarian),
_except_ for the question of whether local Lorentz symmetry is an
exact symmetry. If it is, there doesn't seem to be any meaning
assignable to 'moving with respect to' some background stuff, whereas
if it is not, there does. This has a very big implication for how
'stuff-like' the background is, as Einstein in my opinion correctly
understood in his famous comment that "General Relativity without
aether is unthinkable", going on to add words to the effect that "what
is missing is any idea of location", i.e., in the aether.
This comment is as you know taken by many to refer to _spacetime_, but
this mainly shows some people's ability to read English text in any
way that suits them, taking 'logic' to be the exclusive provenance of
mathematical symbols. In other words, this reading is simply nonsense
in light of the tag about 'location'. Spacetime has plenty of
'location' in the sense of topology and unique events (points), but
the background to evolving physics (as opposed to the frozen snapshot
of GR) apparently does not, in so far as we see no measurable effects
of our movement past it. Nonetheless space (any spacelike slice, if
you like) clearly does have varying point to point properties in GR,
and Einstein was clearly and cogently aware of this fact, and
expressed it quite simply. Only a kind of subsequent epidemic of
mis-wired but sublimely confident brains makes simple observations
like this a matter of dispute.
Alan, I am simply personally uncertain whether the background should
be expected to have any notion of location. I am fairly certain that
the question has been rather prematurely closed for confused reasons
in many people's minds, but that of course does not mean there might
be a more powerful set of reasons to regard it as unlikely, which I
have merely not seen a convincing demonstration of: I am anyway
unaware of any compelling argument for fundamentally philosophical
naivete in asking the question, though I may be in the future. What is
defended by the confused may annoyingly turn out to be correct!
Todd...@msn.com
Space-rime" you may see how the Electromagnetic field creates it's
own aether "Space-time". Space-time is simply the ability to store
energy. The principles in this theory are the ones that allow electronic
circuits to work in your computer. If you can't disprove what I wrote, you
can't disprove SR or GR since they are a natural consequence of
the nature of Space-time. Please send your comments to;
Todd...@msn.com
http://tjd-online.simplenet.com/spacetim.htm
Todd Desiato
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Preston Barlow
Yes, the subject of "relativistic mass" is kind of tricky. On one
hand, you're right that most modern formulations of relativity shun
this concept, but on the other hand it's undeniable that the concept
was heuristically significant in suggesting the equivalence of mass
and energy. On the third hand, it's worth noting that Einstein's
smaller atoms and end up with two atoms at rest, at which point a
Ilja Schmelzer
da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
> >> ...I believe that the greater predictive power is on the side of
> >> relativity. Your ether theory allows for non-Lorentz-invariant effects
> >> and faster-than-light travel, but relativity does not.
> >My ether theory allows these effects only in hidden form, because it
> >has the same relativistic symmetry for observable effects.
> How do you derive that from your ether theory? How do you prove,
> from your ether theory, that all FTL effects are hidden? I think
> you are claiming much more from your theory than you are actually
> able to derive.
I have a map. Every solution of my ether theory defines locally a
solution of GR.
> >It may be observable that some FTL signal exists, but the
> >direction of this signal should be unobservable.
> Derive that from your ether theory.
It is easy to build an absolute (non-time-dilated) clock if you have
causality (an axiom) and FTL signals. But all physical processes are
time-dilated in the same way (axiom). Contradiction.
> >> Therefore, evidence of FTL effects would falsify
> >> relativity but not your theory.
> >Yes, but the evidence for such hidden FTL effects exists.
> No, it does not. The Aspect experiment does not show any
> preferred reference frame.
It cannot if my theory is true. So what?
> It is only your interpretation
> of the Aspect experiment that requires a preferred reference
> frame.
It is a consequence of the axioms - EPR-realism, causality.
> >It would be another theory. Of course, it would be possible to derive
> >a theory for a torus. But the equations define an affine structure.
> As I said, I don't think that it is legitimate to claim that your
> ether theory predicts a simple topology for the universe. Your theory
> seems to have several assumptions, one of which is that there is a
> background ether through which electromagnetic waves propagate
> (and presumably wave function collapse), and a second assumption,
> that the universe has a simple topology. These assumptions seem
> completely independent to me. Thus if the universe turned out
> to have a toroidal topology, that would falsify your "theory"
> about the topology of the universe, but it wouldn't say anything
> about whether there is an ether.
Of course, if my theory fails, this does not prove that there is no
ether.
> I can always make Einstein's theory of relativity more predictive
> by adding additional assumptions: General Relativity plus the
> assumption that the universe is a torus. However, this assumption
> is ad hoc, and has nothing to do with General Relativity (unless
> I could somehow show that GR only makes sense for a toroidal
> universe).
But, again, to include a non-trivial topology different from a torus
(means, simply a periodic universe) is not possible without
modification of the equations. The symmetry group of the equations is
the affine group instead of the full diffeomorphism group in GR.
> >But this Lorentz-invariance of observable effects is part of my ether
> >theory too.
> Only because you tacked it on. Your theory seems to be
> "electromagnetic waves travel through the ether, but for
> any experimental consequences, please use special or general
> relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
> consequences of Einstein's theory.
Historically I have stolen the equations from Logunov's "relativistic
theory of gravity". The Einstein equations are not a property of GR.
> You haven't shown that
> there are any empirical consequences to the existence of
> an ether.
I have. But, if you don't count the observer falling behind the BH
horizon, these are quantum gravity effects. A domain where GR
predicts nothing.
> Your theory seems to be more predictive than Einstein's
> in a way that is exactly the opposite of what Popper
> favored. Basically, if relativity makes any predictions
> that are borne out by experiment, then you claim that
> your theory made them, too.
A simple claim, if you have a map which defines a GR solution for
every solution of your theory.
> If relativity makes any
> predictions that are contradicted by experiment, then
> you claim that your theory predicted that failure. There
> doesn't seem to be any way for your theory to lose, and
> so it *isn't* falsifiable in Popper's sense.
ROTFL. Simply because hosorically this theory was presented later, is
is not falsifible, but GR is?
> >It is an axiom of my ether theory that all physical
> >processes are time-dilated in the same way.
> If you are using ether to explain FTL wave-function
> collapse, then your theory *doesn't* predict that
> all physical processes are Lorentz-invariant.
Sorry for having omitted "observable". As long as we consider
classical theory, it can be omitted.
> I would
> say that unless you have some principled way to derive
> which processes are Lorentz-invariant and which ones
> are not, then you don't really have a predictive theory.
> You need to derive Lorentz-invariance from the properties
> of the ether, instead of saying that the ether has
> whatever properties it takes to agree with special
> relativity and quantum mechanics.
The axiom that time dilation is the same for all physical processes is
an axiom. A really complicate axiom ;-)
> If you want to say that your theory predicts exactly
> the same things as special relativity, except for
> those quantum-mechanical phenomena that are not
> easily explained in terms of Einsteinian realism,
> then you really don't have a different theory---that
> *is* the ad hoc theory that all physicists use. Your
> ether doesn't *explain* anything, unless you can
> derive wave function collapse and Lorentz invariance
> from properties of your ether.
>
> I really don't think that Popper would have cared
> much for your ether theory, as it stands.
Of course, quantization of GR is without any serious problem. We do
not have to care that GR predicts nothing in this domain, because we
cannot make observations in this domain. Nobody cares.
Ilja Schmelzer
sh...@wt.net writes:
> >> How do you derive that from your ether theory? How do you prove,
> >> from your ether theory, that all FTL effects are hidden? I think
> >> you are claiming much more from your theory than you are actually
> >> able to derive.
> >Yes, I guess that is a fair statement. Ilja does not derive a lot.
> In my discussions with Ilja, I got that impression too.
If you doubt if something is true, ask. We will find out if it is true
or not. I do not like very much formal derivations if the main idea
is clear.
> >>Your theory seems to have several assumptions, one of which is that
> >>there is a background ether through which electromagnetic waves
> >>propagate (and presumably wave function collapse)
> >I think the wave function collapse could not be transmitted by his
> >ether. It would have to happen in the background space
> >independent of the ether.
> That was my guess, but I wasn't sure how to prove it/
Of course, the ether is matter, and QM laws are another game. But the
collapse is (if we reject mystical explanations like rejections of
causality, probability theory and so on) happening FTL, thus, to save
causality we need a preferred frame there it can happen.
And, of course, once we have a preferred frame in reality, we have all
we need for ether theory. Of course, if you don't like the e word,
continue to name it gravitational field.
> > > Your theory seems to be
> > > "electromagnetic waves travel through the ether, but for
> > > any experimental consequences, please use special or general
> > > relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
> > > consequences of Einstein's theory.
> > I agree.
> That was my impression, but I didn't feel that I could prove it.
This is a meaningless accusation. It is as meaningless as to say that
Einstein was stealing the Lorentz transformation from Lorentz.
Einstein has removed the preferred frame from Lorentz ether theory, I
have included the preferred frame into Einstein's theory. 1905 it was
a nice, reasonable idea to remove this preferred frame. Today
positivism is dead, and the preferred frame solves several problems,
starting with the violation of Bell's inequality.
> Its interesting that he insists that there must be two way unseen signals
> with Aspect (at least that's my understanding)
Not two way, but one way, but with unobservable direction.
> and considers the
> the explaination of correlations at a distance without a signal as
> not worth considering.
I agree to consider them, but reject them with Occam's razor.
> However, when I considered the QM at his web site, it seemed to be a
> number of assertions that were not backed up.
I'm more interested to find out what really happens than to make
formal derivations. I think, formulas often hide what is really the
problem.
> I agree with both of you
> that Ilja borrows equations, makes statements about them, and then claims
> that he has a theory.
I have never claimed that I have invented the Einstein equations or
the harmonic condition. The theory is different from GR, we have had
agreement with Klaus about this some time ago.
> I can appreicate that if he claims a subset of GR,
> attaches the word aether to it, the theory has to be correct if GR is.
> However in QM, he claims more than is there without deriving it.
Sorry, there is a completely different configuration space compared
with Wheeler-DeWitt. That's obvious.
> >>Your ether doesn't *explain* anything,
> >>unless you can derive wave function collapse and Lorentz invariance
> >> from properties of your ether.
> >I agree whole-heartedly.
> And I.
I have not developed the theory to explain something, I have developed
it to solve the GR quantization problems. Quantum gravity without a
preferred frame is IMO simply the wrong way.
> My guess is that Ilja's analysis is consistant with Popper if one
> takes Popper as the Pharisees took the OT.
;-)
> Daryl did touch on a difficulty. If one were to literally take Popper's
> statement on the theory that is easier to falsify as being the truer one,
Not as the truer one. As preferred by his criterion.
> then I could have a theory which is GR + an ad hoc distribution of
> fraction of stars that have planets. This distribution would show
> varience over intergalactic distances only. I cannot see how this theory
> would be superior to GR, even though it is supeior according to a strict
> interpretion of Popper.
Of course it would be preferable to have not only GR, but also
reasonable knowledge of the distribution of fraction of stars that
have planets. If the guess de-facto cannot be tested, it does not add
much empirical content.
> That is somethink I saw when I broke off the discussion with Ilja. Its
> easy to point that out, but its hard to come up with what the real
> criteron should be. So, I'm reading Popper and thinking about how we
> really decided between theories.
It is my problem too. I take "Popper as the Pharisees took the OT"
because it allows to prove something. That ether theory is simpler
seems obvious for me, but to prove that it is simpler seems
impossible.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > >It would be another theory. Of course, it would be possible to derive
> > >a theory for a torus. But the equations define an affine structure.
> But it would not be a problem to adapt them to a differentstructure.
If you like, adapt. It would be a different theory.
> > As I said, I don't think that it is legitimate to claim that your
> > ether theory predicts a simple topology for the universe.
> His ether is actually the metric. g_{00} ist the density ofthe ether. The
> components g_{0a} define its velocity,
> the spatial components a stress tensor. Now, this interpretation
> pretty much excludes anything leading to a negative
> g_{00}. For example, a metric such as the one inside
> the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole becomes impossible.
> So some metrics are excluded by this interpretation and
> the induced topologies are as well. But I also don't
> see how, for example,
> a spherical closed universe would be excluded.
The affine background (which is part of the equations via the harmonic
equation) becomes infinite at least in one point. The whole solution
is not excluded, but not homogeneous in space (has a center).
> I think the wave function collapse could not be transmitted byhis ether. It
> would have to happen in the background space
> independent of the ether.
Yep.
> Right. He could save his theory by assuming the new topology.
It would be another theory.
> In any case, the ways to falsify it are very exotic, to say the
> least. You could falsify it by falling in a black hole. But you
> would not be able to communicate your falsification. Which
> contradicts the essence of objectivity in a falsification procedure.
In the classical domain I agree. But the quantum theory would be
different. Simply because already the configuration space and the path
integral are different.
> As to Aspect, Ilja does accept that relativity is the stronger
> theory in Popper's sense, but maintains it has been falsified. So it
> is his theory that must survive. You see, it is not so easy to
> crack a closed conception of the world.
That's not fair, already close to libel. I have made the distinction
between Einstein's realistic version of SR/GR, with more predictive
power but falsified, and the current immunized version, with less
predictive power, very often.
> Well, the principle seems to be: quantum mechanics canbeat
> Lorentz-invariance in just the way that is compatible
> with posivistic interpretations of relativity, but nothing
> else can.
Yes, on a fixed background this seems to be a good description.
> I think most of his arguments in the quantum mechanic domain are
> flawed.
Examples, please.
> It is my impression that his knowledge about QM is by far inferior
> to his knowledge of GR.
Feel free to prove it.
Ilja Schmelzer
"Preston Barlow" <pba...@eastern.com> writes:
> The equivalence of mass and energy is not a logically necessary
> consequence of the simple principles of special relativity. It
> is, however, strongly suggested by those principles - one of the
> first (of many) examples of the remarkable heuristic power of
> Einstein's theory.
Lorentz ether theory suggests them too. At least as far as I remember,
the interesting kinematical formulas have been in Poicare's paper too.
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> You are sure that you can - without any implicit reference to
> something like EPR-realism - conclude from observation of a
> superluminal phone line that relativity is false? I doubt.
>
Sure, this is possible. EPR-realism has been shown to lead to
ambiguities (by Bohr). This does not mean that we lack *any*
concept of realism.
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> > As to Aspect, Ilja does accept that relativity is the stronger
> > theory in Popper's sense, but maintains it has been falsified. So it
> > is his theory that must survive. You see, it is not so easy to
> > crack a closed conception of the world.
>
> That's not fair, already close to libel. I have made the distinction
> between Einstein's realistic version of SR/GR, with more predictive
> power but falsified, and the current immunized version, with less
> predictive power, very often.
On the contrary, it is exactly what you deserve ;-). The point isthat you
mention the two versions only when cornered.
I have seen a variety of posts of yours where you said
relativity to be falsified without making additional concessions.
Also, it is simply wrong to talk about an immunized version.
There are so many examples of superluminal motion that
any version different from the current one (and in the spirit
of the straw theory that you have established) would have
died long since. Just look into the FAQ.
> > I think most of his arguments in the quantum mechanic domain are
> > flawed.
>
> Examples, please.
Don't want to repeat myself.
> > It is my impression that his knowledge about QM is by far inferior
> > to his knowledge of GR.
>
> Feel free to prove it.
Why? It is completely sufficient for me to *recognize* it.It is quite evident
from our previous discussions. You have
a very good knowledge of GR and a relatively poor one
of QM. I don't have to convince anyone of this, I am
not interested in making you look bad.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > You are sure that you can - without any implicit reference to
> > something like EPR-realism - conclude from observation of a
> > superluminal phone line that relativity is false? I doubt.
> Sure, this is possible. EPR-realism has been shown to lead to
> ambiguities (by Bohr).
?????
> This does not mean that we lack *any*
> concept of realism.
In this case, specify your concept of realism.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > As to Aspect, Ilja does accept that relativity is the stronger
> > > theory in Popper's sense, but maintains it has been falsified. So it
> > > is his theory that must survive. You see, it is not so easy to
> > > crack a closed conception of the world.
> > between Einstein's realistic version of SR/GR, with more predictive
> > power but falsified, and the current immunized version, with less
> > predictive power, very often.
> On the contrary, it is exactly what you deserve ;-). The point is
> that you mention the two versions only when cornered.
Cornered - ROTFL.
> I have seen a variety of posts of yours where you said
> relativity to be falsified without making additional concessions.
A newsgroup post is short and often contains simplifications. I
consider the current version of relativity as an obvious ad-hoc
immunization. We know that immunization is always possible, thus, no
necessity to mention this possibility in every posting about the
issue.
On the other hand, if we compare classical theories of gravity, I see
no reason to mention Bell.
> Also, it is simply wrong to talk about an immunized version.
> There are so many examples of superluminal motion that
> any version different from the current one (and in the spirit
> of the straw theory that you have established) would have
> died long since. Just look into the FAQ.
We are talking about causal superluminal effects. The "straw theory" I
have established is Einstein's - the combination of SR with EPR. You
follow Bohr, I follow Einstein.
> > > I think most of his arguments in the quantum mechanic domain are
> > > flawed.
> > Examples, please.
> Don't want to repeat myself.
Put them into the web in this case. I will include a link into my
pages to your criticism.
I remember your straw-theory with some lambda.
I remember that you have not accepted that to include a preferred
frame hypothesis into QFT not only possible, but trivial, but talked
about a unique wave function. Such a function may be interesting for
relativistic quantum theory, for PG it is of no use.
I remember your claims that the violation of Bell's inequality cannot
be applied to improve coordination, and later you have remembered that
it is well-known that it can be used to improve the chances in some
games.
I remember some claims about renormalizability, and that your position
was in clear contradiction with a statement of Ashtekar.
I remember you have given me a good recommendation a long time ago -
that canonical quantization is problematic for EM. I'm writing now a
paper about this, the hypothesis I have made about gauge field
quantization in the post-relativistic context in gr-gc/9610047 (no
gost fields) is correct.
Something forgotten?
Daryl McCullough
In article <66bin3$h...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com says...
>
>Daryl McCullough <da...@cogentex.com> wrote:
>
>>You claim that your theory predicts things about the topology of the
>>universe, but I never saw you derive it from your ether theory. It
>>seems that you could just as well have an ether theory on top of
>>a universe with an arbitrary topology.
>
>It's not so much something you could derive, as the simplest possible
>assumption.
I'm not disputing that. The claim that Ilja was making was not
simply that an ether theory can be another way of looking at
the equations of relativity, but that it was a preferred way,
because it makes more empirical predictions. That doesn't make
sense to me. You can either assume that the universe has a trivial
topology or not, regardless of what you think about the ether, so
"having a trivial topology" doesn't seem to me to be a legitimate
prediction of ether theory.
>>The fact is that there has never been a single shred of the lack
>>of Lorentz-invariance of the physical laws.
>
>There had never been a single shred of evidence that there
>was a lack of chiral invariance of physical laws, until Madame Wu
>performed her well known experiment.
I'm not arguing that it is impossible that the universe violates
Lorentz invariance. I'm just saying that there is currently no
such evidence, so there is no evidence favoring ether theory over
vanilla special relativity.
>Ilja is not a crank, Daryl.
I didn't say he was. I don't have any problem with his exploring
alternative conceptual frameworks to understand the equations of
special and general relativity. However, I do dispute his claims
that his ether theory is superior to vanilla relativity on empirical
grounds.
>>You claim that the Aspect experiment provides such evidence,
>>but it doesn't. *If* it happened to be the case that the
>>Aspect experiment could only be carried out in certain
>>reference frames, and not others, that would certainly be
>>evidence that something was wrong with relativity, but there
>>is absolutely no reason to think that.
>
>I know by "carry out in a reference frame" you mean "carry out with
>expected results", and as far as that goes, just what range of
>reference frames have we carried this out in?
Just on Earth, I'm sure. What I was disputing was the claim
that Aspect's experiment provides evidence for the lack of
Lorentz invariance of physical laws.
>And by the way, I knew Keith Stein knew I was joking!
It's not a matter of whether *you* knew. It's a matter of
whether someone *else* reading Keith's post, not having
followed the thread, would have gotten the mistaken impression
that you were one of the anti-relativity crowd. From past
experience, I would have guessed that you would be upset
about being inaccurately labelled.
>Ed 'unlikely to get another detailed answer from Daryl' Green
You wish! Did you read my posts "deriving" E=Mc^2?
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> > Also, it is simply wrong to talk about an immunized version.
> > There are so many examples of superluminal motion that
> > any version different from the current one (and in the spirit
> > of the straw theory that you have established) would have
> > died long since. Just look into the FAQ.
>
> We are talking about causal superluminal effects.
No, we are talking about superluminal correlations, which canbe effected by a
variety of other methods (see the FAQ).
If the theory of relativity were as you supposed it to be,
it would have been falsified by these examples. But it isn't.
You cannot construct a violation of SR from cases where
neither signal nor energy transfer is involved. In Aspect's
experiment, neither signal (according to accepted definitions
from information theory) nor energy transfer are involved.
> The "straw theory" I
> have established is Einstein's - the combination of SR with EPR. You
> follow Bohr, I follow Einstein.
You are not even following Einstein. And I don't completely followBohr.
>
Snip ... (some strange reminiscences).
> Something forgotten?
Don't ridicule yourself. First, you did not understand my
criticism, then you clinged to the "straw theory" approach,
and now you think you have refuted it. I am not convinced
at all. You have to become more explicit in mathematics
to prove me wrong. But I won't elaborate on this. I don't
want to be unfair. I still have to read your papers to the
end. In fact, I think that a more skillful representation
might make some of your stuff publishable. (The interpretation
in terms of a density and a stress tensor is nice, for example.
If you have invented it yourself and not just copied it from
someone else, I would consider it publishable. You just
should not present it as a *refutation* of GR, rather as an
*interpretation*. You also would have to leave out all the
stuff about Popper, which is misplaced in a physical paper.)
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > You are sure that you can - without any implicit reference to
> > > something like EPR-realism - conclude from observation of a
> > > superluminal phone line that relativity is false? I doubt.
> > Sure, this is possible. EPR-realism has been shown to lead to
> > ambiguities (by Bohr).
>
> ?????
>
> > This does not mean that we lack *any*
> > concept of realism.
>
> In this case, specify your concept of realism.
Why? I am still waiting for yours.
My point has been for quite a while that the question of realism is
still lacking a sound analysis. I, for one thing, don't know what
reality means. In any case, I am pretty sure, that the concept
itself *excludes* what you once suggested to me: to *consider*
one field (the vector potential in the Lorentz gauge) as real.
Reality must *impose* itself, not be a consequence of definitions.
You can't just *define* a background flat space to be real.
Either it is, then it must be detectable some way (because *real*
comes from *res*, meaning *thing*) or it isn't, in which case it
is not real. If it depends on a definition, it can be *subjectively*
real at best. Which, in common opinion means *not* real.
Albro Swift
"Preston Barlow" <pba...@eastern.com> writes:
> The equivalence of mass and energy is not a logically necessary
> consequence of the simple principles of special relativity. It
> is, however, strongly suggested by those principles - one of the
> first (of many) examples of the remarkable heuristic power of
> Einstein's theory.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
> Lorentz ether theory suggests them too. At least as far as I remember,
> the interesting kinematical formulas have been in Poicare's paper too.
It is true that hints of mass-energy equivalence can be found in
various places in classical physics, such as Maxwell's equations, and
even moreso in the equations of Lorentz's theory. In fact, Lorentz
even stated (pre 1905) that the "electrical mass of a particle
appears to increase with its velocity", and other people made similar
observations. Nevertheless, the discovery of mass-energy equivalence
remains an excellent (perhaps the best) illustration of the superior
heuristic power of relativity.
It is sometimes said that the scientific content of Lorentz's theory
(as corrected by Poincare) is more or less equivalent to the content
of special relativity, and that the differences are only matters of
interpretation...and therefore unimportant. For example, some
people consider it irrelevant whether we regard Lorentz's t'
parameter for a moving electron as a pseudo-time or "true" time.
However, Lorentz himself came to understand the crucial significance
of this interpretive distinction, most particularly with regard to
the consideration of issues such as the equivalence of mass and
energy. The thought that t' has exactly the same ontological status
as any other t, and that therefore the planes of simultaneity for
different reference frames all represent equally valid loci of "the
world now" is a huge conceptual step, with new and profound HEURISTIC
content.
For example, this view makes possible the conception that INERTIA
ITSELF is a manifestation of energy. Notice that we're not speaking
here of an object being progressively harder to accelerate as it
pushes against the drag of the ether, nor are we talking about
the electric "handles" on a particle becoming weaker at higher
velocities, thereby making it harder to accelerate. These were
the kinds of notions Lorentz and others had in mind with regard
to his "electrical mass", and these notions surely would never (and
historically did not) lead to the thought that INERTIA ITSELF is
actually a frame-dependent quality. Without the "kinematic"
interpretation of relativity we could not seriously contemplate
the actual equivalence of mass and energy.
Thus it is precisely the non-empirical interpretative content of
relativity, according to which all inertial frames are truly
equivalent, that powerfully compells the mind to reconcile the
equivalence and transmutability of entities and properties that
were formerly seen as fundamentally unlike (e.g., time and
space, E and B fields, mass and energy, etc.). The old notion
of absolute time, distinct from space, simply could not (and
certainly did not) lead to such reconciliations, so it can hardly
be disputed that relativity was the key to these advances in
our understanding.
[By the way, is the title of this thread supposed to be the
politically correct term for the participants in this newsgroup?]
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net
In article <66fqm1$2...@panix2.panix.com> Edward Green wrote:
>As you may know, I think the aether/no-aether question is pretty much
>empty (which does not mean I've become a knee-jerk establishmentarian),
>_except_ for the question of whether local Lorentz symmetry is an
>exact symmetry.
I agree with this. But that’s a _very_ big exception.
>If it is, there doesn't seem to be any meaning
>assignable to 'moving with respect to' some background stuff, whereas
>if it is not, there does. This has a very big implication for how
>'stuff-like' the background is,
I have an open mind on the question of how "stuff-like" aether is. It
could be made up of particles which may or may not act like the
particles we know. Or it could be nothing more than cells in a cellular
automaton. Or it could be something else no one has thought of yet.
But if Lorentz invariance holds down to the smallest level, say the
inside of a proton, then the idea of aether might be useful as a mental
crutch, but won’t lead to any new physics.
>as Einstein in my opinion correctly
>understood in his famous comment that "General Relativity without
>aether is unthinkable", going on to add words to the effect that "what
>is missing is any idea of location", i.e., in the aether.
Someday I’d like to research the question of what Einstein was really
thinking when he said this. Could it be a mistranslation? Wasn’t this
from the speech he gave in Japan?
[snip]
>Nonetheless space (any spacelike slice, if
>you like) clearly does have varying point to point properties in GR,
>and Einstein was clearly and cogently aware of this fact, and
>expressed it quite simply.
A reasonable interpretation.
>Alan, I am simply personally uncertain whether the background should
>be expected to have any notion of location.
Uncertainty will always be with us. There is very little I am certain
of. But I see very strong circumstantial evidence for violation of
Lorentz invariance.
One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only recently
became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It is
known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought that
the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far as
I know.
>I am fairly certain that
>the question has been rather prematurely closed for confused reasons
>in many people's minds, but that of course does not mean there might
>be a more powerful set of reasons to regard it as unlikely, which I
>have merely not seen a convincing demonstration of:
There is always the possibility that those smarter than we, the
Weinbergs and Feynmans of the world, see these more powerful reasons
clearly but for some reason are unable to communicate them, sort of like
me trying to explain to an ant why he should stay off the sidewalk. But
I don’t really believe this.
>I am anyway
>unaware of any compelling argument for fundamentally philosophical
>naivete in asking the question, though I may be in the future. What is
>defended by the confused may annoyingly turn out to be correct!
It would indeed be annoying if our adversaries turn out to be correct
for the wrong reasons. Then they would never have to acknowledge that
their reasoning is wrong, and the errors would live on to do damage
another day.
But this is unlikely, IMO. Lorentz invariance will not survive. We have
been looking for violations in the wrong places.
Alan Pendleton
List of anomalous experiments at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/explist.html
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > > You are sure that you can - without any implicit reference to
> > > > something like EPR-realism - conclude from observation of a
> > > > superluminal phone line that relativity is false? I doubt.
> > > Sure, this is possible. EPR-realism has been shown to lead to
> > > ambiguities (by Bohr).
> > ?????
> > > This does not mean that we lack *any*
> > > concept of realism.
> > In this case, specify your concept of realism.
> Why? I am still waiting for yours.
I have given it already. I don't want to repeat myself too, but
nonetheless I give it again:
-----------------
<B>Axiom Of Realism:</B> <I>If there is a 100%
correlation between measurements A and B, then one of the following
explanations is true:
<UL>
<LI> The choice of measurement A has a real causal influence on the
result of B.
<LI> The choice of measurement B has a real causal influence on the
result of A.
<LI> There exists a real object independent of the choice of the
measurements which predefines the result of the measurements (CFD).
</UL>
<P>The axioms of classical logic and probability theory are valid for
really existing objects and causal influences.
----------------
Of course, it is combined here with other notions (logic, probability
theory). And there may be other axioms (like a variant for non-100%
correlations).
> My point has been for quite a while that the question of realism is
> still lacking a sound analysis. I, for one thing, don't know what
> reality means.
It is the hypothesis that the previous axiom is true. The axiom is
close enough to the original criterion of EPR, that's why I take the
freedom to name this concept "realism".
> In any case, I am pretty sure, that the concept
> itself *excludes* what you once suggested to me: to *consider*
> one field (the vector potential in the Lorentz gauge) as real.
> Reality must *impose* itself, not be a consequence of definitions.
> You can't just *define* a background flat space to be real.
Here I disagree. Our theories are only hypotheses. A realistic theory
makes a hypothesis about what is real. But that means that in the
context of the realistic theory it should be defined what is
real. (What is observable, may be derived from the theory.) If, in
this theory, some object x is real, the previously defined axioms may
be applied to x. This does not require that x is immediately
observable.
> Either it is, then it must be detectable some way (because *real*
> comes from *res*, meaning *thing*) or it isn't, in which case it
> is not real.
I do not agree, but I can accept this as a reasonable criterion. But
"detectable" it may be in a very indirect way. For example, it is
sufficient if its existence allows to observe a violation of Bell's
inequality which would be impossible else.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > Just look into the FAQ.
> > We are talking about causal superluminal effects.
> variety of other methods (see the FAQ).
> If the theory of relativity were as you supposed it to be,
> it would have been falsified by these examples. But it isn't.
False. There is an essential difference between correlations which may
be explained by a common cause and normal information transfer, and
violations of Bell's inequality.
> You cannot construct a violation of SR from cases where
> neither signal nor energy transfer is involved. In Aspect's
> experiment, neither signal (according to accepted definitions
> from information theory) nor energy transfer are involved.
The realistic version of relativity (definition of realism see my
other posting) is falsified by Aspect's experiment, but not by
anything else before.
> > The "straw theory" I
> > have established is Einstein's - the combination of SR with EPR. You
> > follow Bohr, I follow Einstein.
> You are not even following Einstein. And I don't completely followBohr.
Not completely, but this is the best three-line possibility I know to
explain our main differences.
> Snip ... (some strange reminiscences).
> > Something forgotten?
> Don't ridicule yourself. First, you did not understand my
> criticism, then you clinged to the "straw theory" approach,
> and now you think you have refuted it. I am not convinced
> at all. You have to become more explicit in mathematics
> to prove me wrong. But I won't elaborate on this. I don't
> want to be unfair. I still have to read your papers to the
> end.
Ok, I understand your position. But, please understand my situation:
Some part of your criticism (quantum part not developed) was justified
at that time. Now, I have written some e-prints to meet this part of
criticism. Of course, they may be not sufficient too. But if you
simply repeat the old conclusion, even without repeating the
arguments - that's IMO not fair.
> In fact, I think that a more skillful representation
> might make some of your stuff publishable.
I know, the "skillful representation" is my weak place.
> (The interpretation
> in terms of a density and a stress tensor is nice, for example.
> If you have invented it yourself and not just copied it from
> someone else, I would consider it publishable.
I have. (To use the harmonic equation as a physical equation instead
of a coordinate condition was suggested by Logunov, but with a
different interpretation.)
> You just
> should not present it as a *refutation* of GR, rather as an
> *interpretation*.
It does not refute GR, but it is a different theory, not simply a
different interpretation. And this difference, even if it is only
minimal in the classical domain, makes quantum theory different. I
think, this is the main idea of my concept.
And, of course, I was shocked by the observation how obvious (from my
point of view) it is that the violation of Bell's inequality violates
relativity. In my 1996 paper I have mentioned it in 1/3 of a
sentence, together with the FTL tunneling speed. The last IMO does not
prove anything, I consider it now to be the most serious flaw of this
paper to have mentioned it at all. But the first is really a hard
thing.
> You also would have to leave out all the
> stuff about Popper, which is misplaced in a physical paper.)
But if I present some new theory, I should give some arguments in
favour of the new theory. These arguments should have some base in
scientific methodology. How to do this without a reference to a
widely accepted methodology? At least the discussion about EPR/Bell
requires that we need a common methodological base to be able to prove
something.
Ilja Schmelzer
Albro Swift <kn...@liberty.com> writes:
> > Lorentz ether theory suggests them too. At least as far as I remember,
> > the interesting kinematical formulas have been in Poicare's paper too.
> It is true that hints of mass-energy equivalence can be found in
> various places in classical physics, such as Maxwell's equations, and
> even moreso in the equations of Lorentz's theory. In fact, Lorentz
> even stated (pre 1905) that the "electrical mass of a particle
> appears to increase with its velocity", and other people made similar
> observations. Nevertheless, the discovery of mass-energy equivalence
> remains an excellent (perhaps the best) illustration of the superior
> heuristic power of relativity.
Fine. If this is really the best illustration, this is a good argument
for the thesis that this "superior heuristic power of relativity" is
only a myth. It shows that de-facto it has not given very much. And,
indeed, without Einstein, based on Poincare, scientists would have
searched for Lorentz-invariant formulas almost everywhere.
But they would have considered also the parts of physics which cannot
be made Lorentz-invariant - for example Bohmian mechanics would have
been probably far more developed. Unfortunately we cannot know in
comparison what is unknown now because we have used relativity instead
of LET.
> However, Lorentz himself came to understand the crucial significance
> of this interpretive distinction, most particularly with regard to
> the consideration of issues such as the equivalence of mass and
> energy. The thought that t' has exactly the same ontological status
> as any other t, and that therefore the planes of simultaneity for
> different reference frames all represent equally valid loci of "the
> world now" is a huge conceptual step, with new and profound HEURISTIC
> content.
I agree, and I consider this as a huge step in the wrong direction.
> For example, this view makes possible the conception that INERTIA
> ITSELF is a manifestation of energy.
This view is always possible.
> Notice that we're not speaking
> here of an object being progressively harder to accelerate as it
> pushes against the drag of the ether, nor are we talking about
> the electric "handles" on a particle becoming weaker at higher
> velocities, thereby making it harder to accelerate. These were
> the kinds of notions Lorentz and others had in mind with regard
> to his "electrical mass", and these notions surely would never (and
> historically did not) lead to the thought that INERTIA ITSELF is
> actually a frame-dependent quality.
These are empty guesses. First, you use words like INERTIA ITSELF,
which are not very meaningful. It would be better to talk about
certain types of theories, for example metrical theories of gravity.
Second, there have been two open conceptual problems in LET after
Poincare 1905: no theory of gravity, and no influence of matter on the
ether. There was a simple solution for above problems: the ether
theory of gravity I have found now.
> Thus it is precisely the non-empirical interpretative content of
> relativity, according to which all inertial frames are truly
> equivalent, that powerfully compells the mind to reconcile the
> equivalence and transmutability of entities and properties that
> were formerly seen as fundamentally unlike (e.g., time and
> space, E and B fields, mass and energy, etc.).
This mind-compelling effect was present in Poincare's direction too.
> The old notion
> of absolute time, distinct from space, simply could not (and
> certainly did not) lead to such reconciliations, so it can hardly
> be disputed that relativity was the key to these advances in
> our understanding.
I disagree. The main part of relativity was done without this key by
Poincare. After Poincare, every part of physics would have been
reconsidered from point of view of this symmetry group, with or
without Einstein's theory.
> [By the way, is the title of this thread supposed to be the
> politically correct term for the participants in this newsgroup?]
The net is fortunately not politically correct, but free.
Ilja Schmelzer
da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
> I'm not disputing that. The claim that Ilja was making was not
> simply that an ether theory can be another way of looking at
> the equations of relativity, but that it was a preferred way,
> because it makes more empirical predictions.
Let's clarify: the additional predictions are of purely theoretical
interest in non-quantum gravity. I think it is important to recognize
that the theories are different in principle, even if they have the
same equations. And, of course, I defend my theory against claims
that these differences are in favour of GR. They exist, and if we use
Popper to decide, they are in favour of my theory.
But the main advantages are different: quantization and EPR/Bell.
> That doesn't make
> sense to me. You can either assume that the universe has a trivial
> topology or not, regardless of what you think about the ether, so
> "having a trivial topology" doesn't seem to me to be a legitimate
> prediction of ether theory.
There exist an affine structure in my theory, and this affine
structure is part of the equations. It is not part of the Einstein
equations, but hidden in the partial derivatives used in the harmonic
condition.
In a covariant version of my theory you have to introduce another
covariant derivative with trivial curvature to replace the partial
derivatives.
> I didn't say he was. I don't have any problem with his exploring
> alternative conceptual frameworks to understand the equations of
> special and general relativity. However, I do dispute his claims
> that his ether theory is superior to vanilla relativity on empirical
> grounds.
Let's argue about quantization problems or EPR/Bell.
> What I was disputing was the claim
> that Aspect's experiment provides evidence for the lack of
> Lorentz invariance of physical laws.
Of course, this depends on what you accept as physical laws. If you
accept the EPR criterion of reality, as well as the rules of logic and
probability theory necessary to prove Bell's inequality, as a physical
law, and you have all the evidence you want.
In this sense, we have the following alternatives:
a) reject (at least, weaken) some fundamental physical principles
(realism, causality, logic, probability theory).
b) Choose one of two competiting theories which are at least
approximately equal in their empirical content (ether theory
vs. relativity).
This situation is typical for every empirical rejection of a
theory. There are always possibilities to avoid this rejection by
weakening other physical laws. It is a methodological decision to
reject (a) as an ad-hoc immunization.
Ilja Schmelzer
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net writes:
> One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only recently
> became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It is
> known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought that
> the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
> visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far as
> I know.
Signal propagation < c is not violated in these experiments.
You can use standard theory - that means, a theory, in which we can
prove that we cannot have signal propagation > c - and we obtain these
results about phase velocity. This is simply confusion related with
the impossibility to measure time exactly in quantum theory.
> But this is unlikely, IMO. Lorentz invariance will not survive. We have
> been looking for violations in the wrong places.
My ether theory is a good instrument to find out where we have to look
for violations.
First, for very small distances. Second, near the horizon of black
holes. Third, the violation of Bell's inequality.
Dark mass and a wrong age of the universe may be also related
with the ether.
Edward Green
Robert Low <mtx...@coventry.ac.uk> wrote:
I regret not having been able to find time to follow this discussion...
>After all, FTL transmission does not in itself contradict
>relativity. It is only that if one accepts the possibility of
>such transmission and assumes Lorentz invariance that
>there are potential problems, assuming that one can still
>specify initial data arbitrarily.
I think we are on the same wavelength, but I noticed a peculiar
semantico (cousin of typo) crept into your prose: What is 'relativity'
but 'the assumption of Lorentz invariance'? :) Ok, I know what you
mean, I hope. We can add a non-Lorentz invariant layer of FTL to an
otherwise Lorentz invariant world without problem, and only contradict
relativity to the extent that we take it to say '_everything_ is
locally Lorentz invariant'.
>>If we accept this ad-hoc immunization, relativity becomes
>>unfalsifiable.
>
>But all theories are used this way. If you find something that
>seems to contradict your pet theory, you can
>
>(a) reject the theory
>(b) ignore the data
>(c) keep the theory, and say that some external influence
>you hadn't considered is at work
There is an interesting paper by William Jefferys taking a Bayesian
approach to calculating the probability of failure of Newtonian
gravity vs. rescue by unknown external influence, given the anomalous
perihelion shift of Mercury. (Hey... the boy sounds like he read
something, once :). The anomalous observations lie in a 'fuzz factor'
tail for Newtonian gravity, but is pretty much dead on for GR (little
fuzz factor), so given the existence of GR, a postiori our confidence
shifts significantly towards the new theory.
I think the case is more subtle regarding Ilja's ideas though. GR and
NG are clearly grossly different models, while Ilja's ideas seem more
in the spirit of interpretation or extension of GR. To understand just
what we believe, and why we believe it, and to disentangle what tightly
fits existing observation and so is virtually assured from a kind of
icing of conventionalized extraneous accreted concepts is damn hard
work! I don't think highly trained physicists are more inclined to
engage in this sort of work than the man on the street, though they are
more inclined to act as if they had, and speak with equivalent moral
authority; but the authority they actually speak with derives from
mastery of a complex conceptual system which seems to fit available
data, which tells us we are doing _something_ right, but not how much
detritus we are carrying along with the core. The detritus/core ratio
is invariably higher than believed.
>Popper is not the last word in the philosophy of science.
>It's worth taking a look at Lakatos's extension of the
>notion of falsifiability to methodological falsificationism,
>to get a framework for it all. Or you could read Feyerabend
>(the rascal) and just give up on the whole process :-)
Oh, p'shaw. The whole is pretty self-evident; at least given the
correct kind of eclectic training. I'll send my curriculum vita to
anybody interested. ;)
'Philosophy of Science' is itself an profession, placing a premium and
learnedism and thicktomeism, and we don't necessarily have to read
through the cannon with glazing eyeballs to figure things out, though
it would be nice if somebody who has would occasionally toss us
important pearls gleaned from the word-muck. :)
Teun Eijgenrook
Hi
I'd like to respond to your message Edward
Wath do you mean "the logical path extending....)
The simple rule is this E= m.c2
Edward Green wrote:
> I'll wager nobody here can show me in a few sentences the logical path
>
> extending from the simple principles of relativity to the famous
> mass-energy equivalence relation, and if they can't, it must be
> because relativity is wrong, wrong, wrong!
>
> [I just thought I would cast a question in a form more people seem to
> be comfortable with, since polite non-confrontational requests seem to
>
> generate merely the tersest of answers.]
Jay Gundersen
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote
> Albro Swift <kn...@liberty.com> writes:
> > ...this view [relativity] makes possible the conception
> > that inertia itself is a manifestation of energy.
>
> This view is always possible.
Mass-energy equivalence is conceptually coherent only if space
and time are actually frame-dependent and transmutable. On this
basis it's clear that the actual inertia of a body increases
with its velocity, i.e., as our time axis diverges from the
proper time axis of the body. However, if we believe in a unique
"true" time axis, then the body always has a "true" mass and
energy-momentum (projected along the "true" time and space
axes, respectively), so any changes we see in the tendancy to
accelerate cannot (by definition) be manifestations of inertia.
In other words, acceptance of those effects as inertia would
be tantamount to accepting the relativistic interpretation of
frame-dependence of space and time.
Remember that we're speaking here of interpretations and
heuristic, and in this context the perceptions/presumptions of
actuality versus appearance are crucial. For example, as you
push an object faster through the air, it becomes harder to
accelerate, but we do not infer from this that the actual
inertia of the object is increasing. We adhere to our belief
that the inertia of the object is fixed, and we understand
the increasing resistance to acceleration is due to the drag
of the ether (air). The point is that we would be very
unlikely to proceed from this experience to some notion that
mass and energy are equivalent. We can see that it's harder
to accelerate things as they go faster, but we don't consider
that to be a change in inertia itself. It takes a very
profound and fundamental shift in our view of space and time
to regard an apparent change in inertia as "real" inertia,
thereby enabling us to identify it with the inertia of the
same object at rest, and infer that perhaps inertia and
energy are actually two manifestations of the same thing.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote
> indeed, without Einstein, based on Poincare, scientists would
> have searched for Lorentz-invariant formulas almost everywhere.
There's no need to phrase this in the conjectural tense.
Einstein WAS a scientist who, based on Poincare, searched for
Lorentz-invariance...and found it everywhere. You would prefer
that he had only found it ALMOST everywhere, but even if he had
missed the obvious, it wouldn't have been long before someone
else noticed it. As Einstein said, the theory of special
relativity was ripe for discovery in 1905.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote
> The main part of relativity was done without this key by
> Poincare. After Poincare, every part of physics would have
> been reconsidered from point of view of this symmetry group,
> with or without Einstein's theory.
After Poincare, every part of physics WAS reconsidered from
the point of view of this symmetry group, and the result IS
Einstein's theory.
Ilja Schmelzer
"Jay Gundersen" <jay...@sandlot.com> writes:
> > > ...this view [relativity] makes possible the conception
> > > that inertia itself is a manifestation of energy.
> > This view is always possible.
> Mass-energy equivalence is conceptually coherent only if space
> and time are actually frame-dependent and transmutable. On this
> basis it's clear that the actual inertia of a body increases
> with its velocity, i.e., as our time axis diverges from the
> proper time axis of the body. However, if we believe in a unique
> "true" time axis, then the body always has a "true" mass and
> energy-momentum (projected along the "true" time and space
> axes, respectively), so any changes we see in the tendancy to
> accelerate cannot (by definition) be manifestations of inertia.
> In other words, acceptance of those effects as inertia would
> be tantamount to accepting the relativistic interpretation of
> frame-dependence of space and time.
Sorry, I don't bother if you like to "accept those effects as
inertia". If you feel better accepting this, fine for you.
> Remember that we're speaking here of interpretations and
> heuristic, and in this context the perceptions/presumptions of
> actuality versus appearance are crucial. For example, as you
> push an object faster through the air, it becomes harder to
> accelerate, but we do not infer from this that the actual
> inertia of the object is increasing. We adhere to our belief
> that the inertia of the object is fixed, and we understand
> the increasing resistance to acceleration is due to the drag
> of the ether (air). The point is that we would be very
> unlikely to proceed from this experience to some notion that
> mass and energy are equivalent.
Because we have not observed the Lorentz symmetry in air resistance.
But Lorentz symmetry has been found without relativity. And there was
the "Erlangener Programm" which suggests to consider symmetry groups
very careful. Thus, without Einstein people would have checked out
everything how it relates to Lorentz symmetry.
> > indeed, without Einstein, based on Poincare, scientists would
> > have searched for Lorentz-invariant formulas almost everywhere.
>
> There's no need to phrase this in the conjectural tense.
> Einstein WAS a scientist who, based on Poincare, searched for
> Lorentz-invariance...and found it everywhere.
No, he has rejected parts of physics which are not Lorentz-invariant
as not being part of physics. This was a metaphysical decision, based
on positivism. This was a popular methodology 1905, but since 1934 we
have a better one, Popper's.
> > The main part of relativity was done without this key by
> > Poincare. After Poincare, every part of physics would have
> > been reconsidered from point of view of this symmetry group,
> > with or without Einstein's theory.
> After Poincare, every part of physics WAS reconsidered from
> the point of view of this symmetry group, and the result IS
> Einstein's theory.
It could have been my ether theory as well.
Klaus Kassner
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It is
> known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought that
> the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
> visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far as
> I know.
Not really. It depends on what you mean by propagation. If it is
the propagation of energy, that
quantity ordinarily is propagated at the group velocity, except
in cases of anomalous dispersion. (The proof that wave packets
move at the group velocity contains certain assumptions that
break down in the case of anomalous dispersion.) An upper limit to
the propagation speed of energy is given by the so-called front
velocity c_f = lim_{k\to\infty} omega/k, which is c for light.
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > > Just look into the FAQ.
> > > We are talking about causal superluminal effects.
> > No, we are talking about superluminal correlations, which can be effected by a
> > variety of other methods (see the FAQ).
> > If the theory of relativity were as you supposed it to be,
> > it would have been falsified by these examples. But it isn't.
>
> False. There is an essential difference between correlations which may
> be explained by a common cause and normal information transfer, and
> violations of Bell's inequality.
This I have not denied. But there is no essential difference regarding thestatus of
special relativity. The point is that there are faster-than-light
effects that do not violate Lorentz invariance. They have been there
before the violation of Bell's inequalities. Bell's inequalities also
do not violate Lorentz invariance. So what?
And of course, the quantum mechanical explanation of the
correlations is exactly this: there is a common cause. It just is
more subtle than in classical situations, because the
object before the measurement is something that does not
contain the objects after the measurement. They are created
from a "sea of possibilities", which however contains only
correlated sets. That all there's to it.
> > You cannot construct a violation of SR from cases where
> > neither signal nor energy transfer is involved. In Aspect's
> > experiment, neither signal (according to accepted definitions
> > from information theory) nor energy transfer are involved.
>
> The realistic version of relativity (definition of realism see my
> other posting) is falsified by Aspect's experiment, but not by
> anything else before.
No, it is not. If you assume wrong premises, you get a wrongresult. Einstein
realism in the sense explained in the EPR paper
is dead by Aspect (presuming all loopholes are vain). But
Einstein realism is not part of the theory of relativity. That
theory does not contain any reference to the question of
realism. The question does not even appear in classical theories.
So if you say "relativity AND Einstein realism" are dead,
you may be right, but only because of the logical AND,
and because the second part is wrong.
> > > The "straw theory" I
> > > have established is Einstein's - the combination of SR with EPR.
But it is only the *combination*. If you use a failed theoreticalconcept and
combine it with SR, you will get nothing but a failure.
Einstein did not combine his criterion of realism with SR.
> But if you
> simply repeat the old conclusion, even without repeating the
> arguments - that's IMO not fair.
As long as I have not seen anything new, I am entitled tosuppose that there hasn't
been any essential change.
Anyway, you had the chance to refute my objections
in the discussion and have failed.
> > (The interpretation
> > in terms of a density and a stress tensor is nice, for example.
> > If you have invented it yourself and not just copied it from
> > someone else, I would consider it publishable.
>
> I have. (To use the harmonic equation as a physical equation instead
> of a coordinate condition was suggested by Logunov, but with a
> different interpretation.)
>
> > You just
> > should not present it as a *refutation* of GR, rather as an
> > *interpretation*.
>
> It does not refute GR, but it is a different theory, not simply a
> different interpretation.
At this point, it is nothing more than an interpretation,It becomes a new theory
when this interpretation imposes
new constraints. Such as the positivity of the density, e.g..
But this is by no means necessary. The ether could, like
a charge density, acquire negative density values.
> And, of course, I was shocked by the observation how obvious (from my
> point of view) it is that the violation of Bell's inequality violates
> relativity. In my 1996 paper I have mentioned it in 1/3 of a
> sentence, together with the FTL tunneling speed. The last IMO does not
> prove anything, I consider it now to be the most serious flaw of this
> paper to have mentioned it at all. But the first is really a hard
> thing.
No. It is a signature of the difficulties to reconcile QM and macroscopiclocality,
nothing more.
> > You also would have to leave out all the
> > stuff about Popper, which is misplaced in a physical paper.)
>
> But if I present some new theory, I should give some arguments in
> favour of the new theory. These arguments should have some base in
> scientific methodology.
Not exactly. There should be stronger arguments than justmethodological ones.
> How to do this without a reference to a
> widely accepted methodology?
By explaining it yourself. Popper's is not a widely acceptedmethodology. People may
give him lip service. But they
don't follow him. I would not mind your mentioning him
eventually. But if you start with s,th. like "the best available
theory has to be accepted", everybody will agree, but nobody
will agree that yours is the best.
On the other hand, there are some really serious flaws in
your "cosmology" paper. For example, it seems that,
cosmologically speaking, the universe ends before
absolute time even becomes positive, whereas when you
have someone fall into a black hole, absolute time
goes to infinity...
> At least the discussion about EPR/Bell
> requires that we need a common methodological base to be able to prove
> something.
I have a different view. If anything can be proved, it canusually be proved within
different methodologies.
Moreover, we have already accepted definitions of
energy, information, causal influence, etc.. So you should
stick to these and not fiddle around with definitions when
you want to prove something. Of course, you can *produce*
a violation of causality within SR by EPR when you choose
an appropriately *changed* definition of causality. But
unfortunately, there is no such violation in the realm
of the accepted definitions...
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> > > In this case, specify your concept of realism.
> > Why? I am still waiting for yours.
>
> I have given it already. I don't want to repeat myself too, but
> nonetheless I give it again:
> -----------------
> <B>Axiom Of Realism:</B> <I>If there is a 100%
> correlation between measurements A and B, then one of the following
> explanations is true:
>
> <UL>
> <LI> The choice of measurement A has a real causal influence on the
> result of B.
> <LI> The choice of measurement B has a real causal influence on the
> result of A.
> <LI> There exists a real object independent of the choice of the
> measurements which predefines the result of the measurements (CFD).
> </UL>
>
> <P>The axioms of classical logic and probability theory are valid for
> really existing objects and causal influences.
This is not a concept. Moreover, it does not say what "real" means.You use
the word as an empty qualifier.
A concept would not refer to an extremely specific situation.
Einstein never tried to give a concept of reality. He just tried
(unsuccessfully, in part) to indicate properties of "elements of reality".
What you are giving above is, as I would say in German
very "wischi waschi".
If you were to give a concept of reality, you would have to indicate
or describe what is the property that you want to call "real".
How is it related to observations? If it is not related to observations,
what does make it "real"?
> > My point has been for quite a while that the question of realism is
> > still lacking a sound analysis. I, for one thing, don't know what
> > reality means.
>
> It is the hypothesis that the previous axiom is true.
No. That's only what you believe. I don't want to take youraxiom apart,
that would start another useless discussion.
But it does not say anything about reality, and you don't
seem to have the philosophical weight to be able to say
important things about it.
> > In any case, I am pretty sure, that the concept
> > itself *excludes* what you once suggested to me: to *consider*
> > one field (the vector potential in the Lorentz gauge) as real.
> > Reality must *impose* itself, not be a consequence of definitions.
> > You can't just *define* a background flat space to be real.
>
> Here I disagree. Our theories are only hypotheses. A realistic theory
> makes a hypothesis about what is real. But that means that in the
> context of the realistic theory it should be defined what is
> real.
It should be defined before and outside of the theory, what theproperty
"real" means. It is a sufficiently important property.
If you can redefine it anytime you want, I agree that your
ether can be called real. It is as real as the vector potential
in the Coulomb gauge and as superluminal communication.
> (What is observable, may be derived from the theory.) If, in
> this theory, some object x is real, the previously defined axioms may
> be applied to x. This does not require that x is immediately
> observable.
No, nobody demands that. But up to now, nobody has beenable to come up with
a concept of reality that would allow
objects that are unable to have observable effects to be
considered real. It is opposite to the basic meaning of the
word. Of course, religions come close to that, but not quite...
> I do not agree, but I can accept this as a reasonable criterion. But
> "detectable" it may be in a very indirect way. For example, it is
> sufficient if its existence allows to observe a violation of Bell's
> inequality which would be impossible else.
But the problem you have here is that this violation is byno means
unexplicable otherwise.
An ironic side remark: My reason for discarding PG
as a theory is essentially the same as yours for discarding
the Copenhagen version of QM. I think that PG does not
*explain* the equivalence of inertial and gravitational
mass, whereas GR does. You think that QM does not
*explain* the EPR experiment, whereas Bohmian
mechanics does.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > > In this case, specify your concept of realism.
> > > Why? I am still waiting for yours.
> > I have given it already. I don't want to repeat myself too, but
> > nonetheless I give it again:
> > -----------------
> > <B>Axiom Of Realism:</B> <I>If there is a 100%
> > correlation between measurements A and B, then one of the following
> > explanations is true:
> >
> > <UL>
> > <LI> The choice of measurement A has a real causal influence on the
> > result of B.
> > <LI> The choice of measurement B has a real causal influence on the
> > result of A.
> > <LI> There exists a real object independent of the choice of the
> > measurements which predefines the result of the measurements (CFD).
> > </UL>
> >
> > <P>The axioms of classical logic and probability theory are valid for
> > really existing objects and causal influences.
> This is not a concept. Moreover, it does not say what "real" means. You use
> the word as an empty qualifier.
I describe some properties of real objects (the last two lines) and I
have an existence axiom. That's what I need from realism to prove some
theorems: to have a criterion for the existence based on observation
and some properties.
If a "concept" means something else, explain what is the purpose of
such a concept.
> A concept would not refer to an extremely specific situation.
> Einstein never tried to give a concept of reality. He just tried
> (unsuccessfully, in part) to indicate properties of "elements of reality".
> What you are giving above is, as I would say in German
> very "wischi waschi".
I would say your notion of "concept" is wischi waschi.
> If you were to give a concept of reality, you would have to indicate
> or describe what is the property that you want to call "real".
No. It is a fundamental property. Your "what is" question is as
meaningless as the question what is the color of a quark.
> How is it related to observations? If it is not related to observations,
> what does make it "real"?
The "wischi waschi" axiom defines a relation between an observation
(100% correlation) and the existence of related real objects
resp. causal relations.
> > It is the hypothesis that the previous axiom is true.
> No. That's only what you believe.
Its my notion of realism. If you have another, your problem.
> I don't want to take your axiom apart, that would start another
> useless discussion. But it does not say anything about reality, and
> you don't seem to have the philosophical weight to be able to say
> important things about it.
Ignorance as an argument? It says that certain elements of reality
exist if we have a given observation. That's what I need to prove
theorems like Bell's inequality. My philosophical weight seems not to
be important for the correctness of a proof based on this axiom.
> > Here I disagree. Our theories are only hypotheses. A realistic theory
> > makes a hypothesis about what is real. But that means that in the
> > context of the realistic theory it should be defined what is
> > real.
> It should be defined before and outside of the theory, what the
> property "real" means.
Try to do it in a theory-independent way. It will be funny.
> It is a sufficiently important property. If you can redefine it
> anytime you want, I agree that your ether can be called real. It is
> as real as the vector potential in the Coulomb gauge and as
> superluminal communication.
Fine. Of course, we can consider also theories which define the vector
potential in the Coulomb gauge to be real.
But, you forget, the main question is not if ether theory is
realistic, but if relativity is realistic. You have the right to
choose what should be "real" in relativity. I will try to apply the
wischi waschi criterion of realism to prove something about
relativity. Nice game?
> > (What is observable, may be derived from the theory.) If, in
> > this theory, some object x is real, the previously defined axioms may
> > be applied to x. This does not require that x is immediately
> > observable.
> No, nobody demands that. But up to now, nobody has been able to come
> up with a concept of reality that would allow objects that are
> unable to have observable effects to be considered real. It is
> opposite to the basic meaning of the word. Of course, religions come
> close to that, but not quite...
I do not propose such a concept. The violation of Bell's inequality
is of course an observable effect. There is a guy named Aspect who
has observed it. My position is that this is the observable effect of
some directly unobservable, real, causal information tranfer.
> > I do not agree, but I can accept this as a reasonable criterion. But
> > "detectable" it may be in a very indirect way. For example, it is
> > sufficient if its existence allows to observe a violation of Bell's
> > inequality which would be impossible else.
> But the problem you have here is that this violation is by no means
> unexplicable otherwise.
These "other explanations" are forbidden by the axiom of realism I
use. Of course, other explanations are always possible, but they are
more complicate than a simple return to ether theory.
> An ironic side remark: My reason for discarding PG
> as a theory is essentially the same as yours for discarding
> the Copenhagen version of QM.
I do not bother about the Copenhagen version and QM in this
discussion. I bother about a certain property of a physical theory
which I have defined before and named "realism" (choose another word
if you like).
I bother if relativity resp. ether theory have this property or not.
And I prefer a theory which has this property, because this property
adds predictive power. For people who don't like Popper, because it
is a simple property and should not be rejected without necessity
following Occam's razor.
> I think that PG does not
> *explain* the equivalence of inertial and gravitational
> mass, whereas GR does.
I do not think GR "explains" something in this direction. GR chooses
this as a basic axiom, PG too.
> You think that QM does not *explain* the EPR experiment, whereas
> Bohmian mechanics does.
I don't claim anything about the explanatory power of QM vs. Bohm. I
use Bohmian mechanics only to prove that realism is compatible with QM
observations. This is useful to reject claims that realism is
incompatible with observations in the quantum domain.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > There is an essential difference between correlations which may
> > be explained by a common cause and normal information transfer, and
> > violations of Bell's inequality.
> special relativity. The point is that there are faster-than-light
> effects that do not violate Lorentz invariance. They have been there
> before the violation of Bell's inequalities. Bell's inequalities also
> do not violate Lorentz invariance. So what?
If you deny Einstein causality, you obtain a weaker version of
relativity compared with Einsteins original theory.
Of course, you can use this weak theory, which is incompatible with my
definition of realism, if you like. But this theory has less
predictive power, and this already in everyday life. Because in many
common sense proofs the properties of realism (Einsteins or my) are
used, and all these proofs are invalid in your theory.
> And of course, the quantum mechanical explanation of the
> correlations is exactly this: there is a common cause. It just is
> more subtle than in classical situations, because the
> object before the measurement is something that does not
> contain the objects after the measurement. They are created
> from a "sea of possibilities", which however contains only
> correlated sets. That all there's to it.
If you accept this as a valid explanation, you can explain everything
by fishing in this sea of possibilities. Thus, your theory is
unfalsifiable in principle.
I recommend to consider also the theological explanation: God as the
common cause of the EPR correlation. This explanation I have also
forgotten in my axiom of realism.
> > The realistic version of relativity (definition of realism see my
> > other posting) is falsified by Aspect's experiment, but not by
> > anything else before.
> No, it is not. If you assume wrong premises, you get a wrong
> result. Einstein realism in the sense explained in the EPR paper is
> dead by Aspect (presuming all loopholes are vain).
No, is not dead. There is the loophole of a return to Lorentz ether
theory.
> But Einstein realism is not part of the theory of relativity. That
> theory does not contain any reference to the question of
> realism. The question does not even appear in classical theories.
> So if you say "relativity AND Einstein realism" are dead, you may be
> right, but only because of the logical AND, and because the second
> part is wrong.
Fine. Means, we have found an agreement: "relativity AND Einstein
realism" are dead. Let's remember this. Now, we have some base for
continuation:
> but only because of the logical AND, and because the second
> part is wrong.
Fine. That's your hypothesis. I see no empirical evidence for this
choice. Do you have any?
> > > > The "straw theory" I
> > > > have established is Einstein's - the combination of SR with EPR.
> But it is only the *combination*.
Fine.
> If you use a failed theoretical concept and combine it with SR, you
> will get nothing but a failure. Einstein did not combine his
> criterion of realism with SR.
I do not want to consider the historical question if Einstein was
schisophrenic or not. But, of course, I want to see the evidence for
the failure of realism which does not depend on the assumption that
relativity (instead of Lorentz ether theory) is true.
Of course, once we have found that the combination of SR with EPR is
false, EPR should be false if we assume SR is true. Because the
mainstream considers SR as true, you cannot refer to mainstream
opinion as an argument.
If we assume LET is true, EPR is compatible with experiment.
> As long as I have not seen anything new, I am entitled to suppose
> that there hasn't been any essential change. Anyway, you had the
> chance to refute my objections in the discussion and have failed.
Don't remember to have left any reasonable argument without an answer.
Of course, it is hard to discuss with you. I do not remember how many
postings we have exchanged until you have accepted now that SR is not
compatible with EPR-realism and causality. Of course, we have lost
time to discuss serious quantization questions because you have
questioned simple well-known stuff.
> > It does not refute GR, but it is a different theory, not simply a
> > different interpretation.
> At this point, it is nothing more than an interpretation, it becomes
> a new theory when this interpretation imposes new constraints. Such
> as the positivity of the density, e.g.. But this is by no means
> necessary. The ether could, like a charge density, acquire negative
> density values.
But even in this case the density interpretation is meaningless if we
use the full diffeomorphism group as the symmetry group. The
conservation laws for the ether are the harmonic coordinate
conditions, which are not part of GR, but part of PG.
> > And, of course, I was shocked by the observation how obvious (from my
> > point of view) it is that the violation of Bell's inequality violates
> > relativity. In my 1996 paper I have mentioned it in 1/3 of a
> > sentence, together with the FTL tunneling speed. The last IMO does not
> > prove anything, I consider it now to be the most serious flaw of this
> > paper to have mentioned it at all. But the first is really a hard
> > thing.
> No. It is a signature of the difficulties to reconcile QM and
> macroscopic locality, nothing more.
Also a universal immunization argument. Of course, every experimental
falsification can be described as a "signature of the difficulties to
reconcile ...".
> > > You also would have to leave out all the
> > > stuff about Popper, which is misplaced in a physical paper.)
> > But if I present some new theory, I should give some arguments in
> > favour of the new theory. These arguments should have some base in
> > scientific methodology.
> Not exactly. There should be stronger arguments than just
> methodological ones.
Don't understand. Even the strongest argument - experimental
falsification - is based on scientific methodology and does not come
out of air.
> > How to do this without a reference to a
> > widely accepted methodology?
> By explaining it yourself. Popper's is not a widely accepted
> methodology. People may give him lip service. But they don't follow
> him.
Unfortunately.
> I would not mind your mentioning him eventually. But if you
> start with s,th. like "the best available theory has to be
> accepted", everybody will agree, but nobody will agree that yours is
> the best.
The best existing. Where is quantum GR (or some other relativistic
quantum theory of gravity) for comparison?
> On the other hand, there are some really serious flaws in
> your "cosmology" paper. For example, it seems that,
> cosmologically speaking, the universe ends before
> absolute time even becomes positive, whereas when you
> have someone fall into a black hole, absolute time
> goes to infinity...
What's the problem? Different initial conditions, means, different
solutions. Going back in time in the GR collapse solution I do not
see a big bang too.
> > At least the discussion about EPR/Bell
> > requires that we need a common methodological base to be able to prove
> > something.
> I have a different view. If anything can be proved, it can usually
> be proved within different methodologies.
If you can present me another self-consistent methodology (means, not
old positivism) which allows to prove something not wischi-waschi
(like simplicity/beauty etc.) - nice, I will be happy to try to prove.
> Moreover, we have already
> accepted definitions of energy, information, causal influence,
> etc.. So you should stick to these and not fiddle around with
> definitions when you want to prove something.
References to these "accepted definitions"?
I don't remember to fiddle around with definitions of energy,
information etc. For causality I use the property that there should
not be closed causal loops, something I consider to be an accepted
property. For realism, I try to improve the EPR criterion to meet one
objection of Bohr together with some other possible objections against
Bell's inequality proof (I have tried to include all other implicit
assumptions explicitly into the criterion). That's all.
> Of course, you can *produce*
> a violation of causality within SR by EPR when you choose
> an appropriately *changed* definition of causality. But
> unfortunately, there is no such violation in the realm
> of the accepted definitions...
Is it accepted that causal loops are possible?
sh...@wt.net
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
quoting me:
>>>Yes, I guess that is a fair statement. Ilja does not derive a lot.
>> In my discussions with Ilja, I got that impression too.
>If you doubt if something is true, ask. We will find out if it is true
>or not. I do not like very much formal derivations if the main idea
>is clear.
I think all three of us were talking about something that most
physicists have as part of their definition of a theory. A
theory starts out that a, b, c, is true and then derives
observable from that. These observable can be tested to
determine the validity of the theory.
If someone is proposing a new theory, then we expect that
person to derive new testable results from that theory.
The discussion in Deja News on "Modern version of LET"
from July of this year between you and Klaus covered some of
that. If you were to come up with something better than
the crystal model of H. Guenther, then you would have a
very good chance of being published. If you actually
unified gravity and QM by choosing a reduced subset of
GR and then dropping aspects such as wormholes and the
inside of the event horizon, then you would have something
worthy of a Nobel Prize.
Do you claim to actually have derived a theory of quantum
gravity? I didn't see anything but discussions of equations
already in use on you web site.
>>>I think the wave function collapse could not be transmitted by his
>>>ether. It would have to happen in the background space
>>>independent of the ether.
>> That was my guess, but I wasn't sure how to prove it
>Of course, the ether is matter, and QM laws are another game. But the
>collapse is (if we reject mystical explanations like rejections of
>causality, probability theory and so on) happening FTL, thus, to save
>causality we need a preferred frame there it can happen.
I do not understand how non-FTL explanations can be considered mystical.
Paraphrasing Anthony de Mello, one of the better known American mystics
of this century.
"Theology is the art of telling, and listening to, stories about the
divine.
Mysticism is the art of taking the taste and feel of these stories into
your heart so that your life is transformed."
What about the explanation of the collapse of the wave function involves
taking stories about the divine into one's heart?
Strong realism (the term is in the literature, I did not make it up) is
not the only possible metaphysical viewpoint for a scientist. Other
viewpoints have nothing to do with mysticism and need not be logical
positivism.
>And, of course, once we have a preferred frame in reality, we have all
>we need for ether theory. Of course, if you don't like the e word,
>continue to name it gravitational field.
>> Your theory seems to be "electromagnetic waves travel through the
>>ether, but for any experimental consequences, please use special or
>>general relativity". You are simply *stealing* the empirical
>> consequences of Einstein's theory. +(two layers of agreements)
>That was my impression, but I didn't feel that I could prove it.
>This is a meaningless accusation. It is as meaningless as to say that
>Einstein was stealing the Lorentz transformation from Lorentz.
>Einstein has removed the preferred frame from Lorentz ether theory, I
>have included the preferred frame into Einstein's theory. 1905 it was
>a nice, reasonable idea to remove this preferred frame. Today
>positivism is dead, and the preferred frame solves several problems,
>starting with the violation of Bell's inequality.
Applying Einstein's work, we have a number of predictions that have
been validated. In addition, in the papers he explained the source
of energy for the gamma rays produced in nuclear decay. His theory lead
to testable predictions. Your theory is not much more testable than the
theory about distribution of planets that I gave below.
>> Its interesting that he insists that there must be two way unseen
signals
>> with Aspect (at least that's my understanding)
>Not two way, but one way, but with unobservable direction.
O.K. But look at what you're saying. We observe a symmetric
correlation,
with no observable signal passing from A to B. You claim that the
symmetry does not exist, that there must be a signal from A causing
the reading at B or a signal at B causing the signal at A.
>>and considers the explanation of correlations at a distance without
>>a signal as not worth considering.
>I agree to consider them, but reject them with Occam's razor.
You have not demonstrated simplicity. FWIW, I actually think I can
show your theory is not preferred by Popper's criterion.
Lets look at that
Theory A: there are spacelike correlations between measurements
made in an "Aspect type" experiment, but there is no signal from A to
B or from B to A.
Theory B: there are spacelike correlations between measurements
made in an "Aspect type" experiment. These correlations are
either caused by a signal traveling from A to B or by a signal
traveling from B to A. We might find that signal, and we might
not.
If a signal is not found, theory A and theory B remain valid. If
a signal is found, theory B only is valid.
Thus theory A is more testable.
Now you argue that you need to have signals underlying the
spacelike correlation in order to preserve causality. And,
since causality is required for the most robust, testable
theories, causality must be preserved. Thus, there must be
spacelike signals. (If this is not a fair paraphrase tell me.)
Let me ask you, what if there are spacelike correlations, but
spacelike signals do not exist? Can you prove by logic that this
is inherently impossible in the world? Every time we look for
spacelike signals, we do not find them. We do find spacelike
correlations, but they are not signals.
I know you have redefined signals to include EPR. Well, as Klaus
has pointed out, SR is consistent with the extended definition.
What it is not consistent with is the standard definition of a
space like signal. That is, conveying information from point A
to point B. For example, consider astronauts who are
4 light years from earth. They wanted to know if party 1 or party
2 won the 2222 world election. If, using an X signal, they
find out faster than they could by using a signal traveling at
light speed, the X signal is FTL. Knowing the probability of
obtaining a given result when a measurement is not consistent with
the standard definition of a signal.
>>However, when I considered the QM at his web site, it seemed
>>to be a number of assertions that were not backed up.
>I'm more interested to find out what really happens than to make
>formal derivations. I think, formulas often hide what is really the
>problem.
Its easy for us all to wave our arms and talk about ideas. It is hard
to actually do the work necessary to develop a real theory. That's
why I shut up for a few weeks; I decided that if I wanted to write
on the philosophy of science, then I better read some of the most
quoted theories. I now am developing an understanding of Popper and
may be ready to say some semi-intellegient things about his work.
I'm not suggesting that you shut up, as I did, Ilja. I'm merely
suggesting that you either do the work to polish some of your
interpretations sufficiently to be published or drop the idea
that you are developing a theory. You are free to do what you
want, of course, but real science involves one or the other. If
you read the speculations of the great scientists, they label them
as speculations.
>> I agree with both of you that Ilja borrows equations, makes statements
>>about them, and then claims that he has a theory.
>I have never claimed that I have invented the Einstein equations or
>the harmonic condition. The theory is different from GR, we have had
>agreement with Klaus about this some time ago.
Well, I read several sets of exchanges between the two of you on
Deja News over the last few weeks. I think that his contribution
to this thread that I quoted is consistent with his position. From
other threads he's been on, you cannot argue that he is religiously
anti-aether. I think perhaps that the understanding of an agreement
is one sided.
>> Daryl did touch on a difficulty. If one were to literally take
>>Popper's statement on the theory that is easier to falsify as being
>>the truer one,
>Not as the truer one. As preferred by his criterion.
OK fair enough
>> then I could have a theory which is GR + an ad hoc distribution of
>> fraction of stars that have planets. This distribution would show
>> variance over intergalactic distances only. I cannot see how this
>>theory would be superior to GR, even though it is super according
>>to a strict interpretation of Popper.
>Of course it would be preferable to have not only GR, but also
>reasonable knowledge of the distribution of fraction of stars that
>have planets. If the guess de-facto cannot be tested, it does not add
>much empirical content.
That's the point I, and I think we, want to make about your "theory."
As far as I've read, your interpretation/theory of GR has the following
empirical content separate from relativity.
1) No black hole inside the event horizon
2) No wormholes
3) Maybe at some point something predictable about gravity waves.
With this as the criterion, I would argue that your theory of gravity
"does not add much empirical content."
Further, I would argue that neither theory offers any real advantage
over GR, while adding stuff that we cannot measure.
That is where I think Popper is wrong, if read strictly. I've read
a bit more of him, and I'm closer to a critique of his work than
I was a week ago. However, anything serious takes real work. As with
many of us with real jobs and families, real work has to be spread out
over months. This is especially true for those of us in industry, who
can't justify pure research on salary. :-)
>>That is something I saw when I broke off the discussion with Ilja. Its
>>easy to point that out, but its hard to come up with what the real
>>criterion should be. So, I'm reading Popper and thinking about how we
>>really decided between theories.
>It is my problem too. I take "Popper as the Pharisees took the OT"
>because it allows to prove something. That ether theory is simpler
>seems obvious for me, but to prove that it is simpler seems
>impossible.
Popper makes questionable philosophical presuppositions in
establishing his basis. I was particularly disappointed when
he argued from the well established nature of the laws of logic to
the validity of assuming that science describes real things that
are independent of us objectively. Since he quoted Kant early on,
he should have at least addressed the issues that Kant raised on
this problem. Perhaps Kant was too much for him to take on, so
he argued against logical positivists. My first impression is
that Popper is middling decent. Comparing him to the
philosophers of this century, I'd say he's way better than Rand,
but not as good as Wittgenstein.
Thus, using Popper as the means for establishing the validity of
scientific theory as if you were a Pharisee quoting scripture is
mistaken. I realize that you want to prove your point, but if
your premise is suspect, then your conclusions must be.
I've got a different suggestion. You are making metaphysical
arguments for your interpretation of QM and relativity. There
is nothing wrong with that, so am I. That's what an interoperation
is, metaphysics. It has no real empirical content. You do have
marginal empirical content, as do I, but if refuted, it is tenuous
enough to not falsify your interoperation.
Why don't you acknowledge that you are discussing interpretations,
and thus metaphysics? We could then look at what is kept and what
is rejected in each interpretation. I know that Klaus was not
that interested in such a discussion, but I certainly am.
Indeed, my conceit on this topic is that I might actually make
some contribution to the philosophy of science that is worth
publishing. On paper, since I am one of the relatively few
physicists with a degree in philosophy, that may be true. Also,
after nearly 20 years working as an experimentalist, I have
observed the scientific method at much closer range than most
philosophers. I have hopes that these discussions will spur me
to do the thinking and reading necessary to develop real ideas
on the subject.
So, I hope my suggestion isn't taking as insulting. I am only
suggesting that your potential contribution on this subject is
comparable to my own.
Dan M.
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net
In article <i3gen3m...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
>alanpe...@worldnet.att.net writes:
>> One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only recently
>> known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought that
>> the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
>> visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far as
>> I know.
>
>
>You can use standard theory - that means, a theory, in which we can
>prove that we cannot have signal propagation > c - and we obtain these
>results about phase velocity. This is simply confusion related with
>the impossibility to measure time exactly in quantum theory.
Yes, I have assumed that there exists a theory to explain it. QED,
perhaps? What follows is a guess, since I don’t know QED: The
propagation velocity of light through media is calculated with some
formula which was chosen from the set of Lorentz covariant
possibilities; and one or more parameters within the formula were fitted
to the experimental data. And guess what, no kidding! The propagation
velocity is <= c!
So we have on the one hand this QED formula, uncontradicted by
experimental data as far as I know. On the other hand we have this other
formula, quite simple in fact, which says propagation velocity equals
phase velocity, also uncontradicted by experimental data.
‘Bout time someone did an experiment, don’t you think?
The issue of measuring time in quantum theory complicates the
experimental design, and may mean it is not currently doable, but if
your signal path is long enough you will be able to measure the speed.
If path length is 10m and phase velocity is (1+10^-5)*c, then if the
signal travels at the phase velocity it will arrive too early by
3*10^-13 seconds. Hmmmm. I see why no one has done this experiment!
But perhaps some clever design could overcome this difficulty, maybe by
overloading two beams, one through the medium and one through air or
vacuum, with differing time varying signals and watching what happens to
the interference pattern at the other end.
>My ether theory is a good instrument to find out where we have to look
>for violations.
>
>First, for very small distances. Second, near the horizon of black
>holes. Third, the violation of Bell's inequality.
>
>Dark mass and a wrong age of the universe may be also related
>with the ether.
I agree with all of this, but also believe that we will come up with
some easier experiments.
And in article <348E9C03...@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> Klaus Kassner
In my mind, the proof that photon wave packets move at some velocity
other than the phase velocity would consist of an experiment measuring
the velocity. A proof of theory X that begins with the assumptions of
theory X is no proof at all, except in the narrow mathematical sense.
The derivation of group velocity from dispersion depends on the initial
assumption that a wave at a given frequency travels at phase velocity.
When you combine a bunch of these waves of slightly different frequency,
the group velocity turns out to be smaller (assuming normal dispersion).
The question then becomes: why do measurements of the refraction of
x-rays reveal the phase velocity rather than the group velocity?
Alan Pendleton
Todd Desiato
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net wrote in article
<881823172....@dejanews.com>...
> In article <i3gen3m...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> >alanpe...@worldnet.att.net writes:
> >> One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only
recently
> >> became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It
is
> >> known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought
that
> >> the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
> >> visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far
as
> >> I know.
> >
snip...
First of all the phase velocity and the group velocity are not the same
unless they are both c, as is the case for light in free space. If the
velocity of x rays are propagated slower through the material, the
calculated phase velocity will be faster. If the group velocity of a
particle is zero, the phase velocity is infinite. That is the proper
physical relationship for the superposition of waves.
(c^2)/(v-group) = (v-phase).
Todd Desiato
Ilja Schmelzer
sh...@wt.net writes:
> If you were to come up with something better than
> the crystal model of H. Guenther, then you would have a
> very good chance of being published. If you actually
> unified gravity and QM by choosing a reduced subset of
> GR and then dropping aspects such as wormholes and the
> inside of the event horizon, then you would have something
> worthy of a Nobel Prize.
>
> Do you claim to actually have derived a theory of quantum
> gravity? I didn't see anything but discussions of equations
> already in use on you web site.
Yes, I claim. In gr-qc/9706055.
I do not claim to have invented new equations, the claim is that we do
not need them to quantize gravity. May be, my understanding what means
"quantum gravity" is faulty, feel free to criticize. But it is a
quantum theory, and it describes gravity in agreement with known
observations even for strong gravitational fields.
It is, of course, not a relativistic theory, but a generalization of
Lorentz ether theory. Nothing in this theory is relativistic
invariant, only in the large scale classical limit we have
relativistic invariance. People have claimed to search for a quantum
theory of gravity, but really they have searched only for relativistic
quantum theories of gravity.
> >Of course, the ether is matter, and QM laws are another game. But the
> >collapse is (if we reject mystical explanations like rejections of
> >causality, probability theory and so on) happening FTL, thus, to save
> >causality we need a preferred frame there it can happen.
> I do not understand how non-FTL explanations can be considered mystical.
> Paraphrasing Anthony de Mello, one of the better known American mystics
> of this century.
> "Mysticism is the art of taking the taste and feel of these stories into
> your heart so that your life is transformed."
> What about the explanation of the collapse of the wave function involves
> taking stories about the divine into one's heart?
Bell: ``it is assumed that free will in genuine, and as a result of
that one finds that the intervention of the experimenter at one point
has to have consequences at a remote point, in a way that influences
restricted by the finite velocity of light would not permit. If the
experimenter is not free to make this intervention, if that also is
determined in advance, the difficulty disappears.'' The suggestion
that I have no free will I take into my heart.
Bohr: ``influence on the very conditions which ... constitute an
inherent element of the description of any phenomenon to which the
term `physical reality' can be properly attached ...'' This is also
very impressive.
``it is an orthodoxy that QM shows that
measurement disturbs the observed system in some non-classical
fashion.'' sounds also very nice.
> Strong realism (the term is in the literature, I did not make it up) is
> not the only possible metaphysical viewpoint for a scientist. Other
> viewpoints have nothing to do with mysticism and need not be logical
> positivism.
I do not claim that strong realism is the only possible metaphysical
viewpoint. Mysticism is also a possible metaphysical viewpoint for a
scientist. Kepler may be mentioned here.
The subdivision between science and mysticism I use is Popper's
criterion of empirical content. Once we accept these alternative
explanations, we loose empirical content, and probably very much.
Indeed, the proof of Bell's inequality in strong realism becomes
invalid. But this is a very simple proof. We use similar reasoning in
many other cases. All these other cases should be reconsidered.
Nobody does it, but nonetheless it should be done if we want to have a
consistent theory.
For example, we continue to claim that a superluminal phone line
falsifies relativity. Please, prove this. If you accept one of the
explanations I have named "mystical" as valid (for example the no free
will explanation), I can use it to "explain" observations of
superluminal phone talks as well. Thus, a really working superluminal
phone line cannot be used anymore to falsify relativity.
> Applying Einstein's work, we have a number of predictions that have
> been validated.
Applying the work of Lorentz and Poincare, we have the same number.
> In addition, in the papers he explained the source
> of energy for the gamma rays produced in nuclear decay. His theory lead
> to testable predictions. Your theory is not much more testable than the
> theory about distribution of planets that I gave below.
No, my theory gives the same testable predictions as general
relativity. Moreover, it gives predictions in the domain of quantum
gravity - unfortunately not testable yet, but it gives them.
> O.K. But look at what you're saying. We observe a symmetric
> correlation, with no observable signal passing from A to B. You
> claim that the symmetry does not exist, that there must be a signal
> from A causing the reading at B or a signal at B causing the signal
> at A.
Yes. What's the problem?
A says B lies. B says A lies. Full symmetry. It may be easy to see
that there is only one liar. Again, full symmetry. But in reality,
there is no symmetry. Or A lies, or B.
> >>and considers the explanation of correlations at a distance without
> >>a signal as not worth considering.
> >I agree to consider them, but reject them with Occam's razor.
> You have not demonstrated simplicity. FWIW, I actually think I can
> show your theory is not preferred by Popper's criterion.
Let's see:
> Theory A: there are spacelike correlations between measurements
> made in an "Aspect type" experiment, but there is no signal from A to
> B or from B to A.
> Theory B: there are spacelike correlations between measurements
> made in an "Aspect type" experiment. These correlations are
> either caused by a signal traveling from A to B or by a signal
> traveling from B to A. We might find that signal, and we might
> not.
> If a signal is not found, theory A and theory B remain valid. If
> a signal is found, theory B only is valid.
> Thus theory A is more testable.
First, theory PG claims that we cannot find.
Second, theory SR has accepted one of the alternative explanations of
Aspect correlations as a valid explanation. Theory PG rejects this
type of explanations.
Thus, if we observe a signal, theory PG is falsified, but theory SR
has a good chance to survive using an already accepted explanation.
> Now you argue that you need to have signals underlying the
> spacelike correlation in order to preserve causality. And,
> since causality is required for the most robust, testable
> theories, causality must be preserved. Thus, there must be
> spacelike signals. (If this is not a fair paraphrase tell me.)
Fair. I indeed prefer theories with causality because of the
exceptional empirical content related with this principle.
> Let me ask you, what if there are spacelike correlations, but
> spacelike signals do not exist? Can you prove by logic that this
> is inherently impossible in the world?
I can, once I have a strong enough version of EPR realism. Of course,
to prove something I need an axiom which allows to conclude from
observation (of a correlation) to existence statements (of objects or
causal relations). This gives the EPR criterion.
> Every time we look for
> spacelike signals, we do not find them. We do find spacelike
> correlations, but they are not signals.
This is required in LET/PG too.
> I know you have redefined signals to include EPR. Well, as Klaus
> has pointed out, SR is consistent with the extended definition.
> What it is not consistent with is the standard definition of a
> space like signal. That is, conveying information from point A
> to point B. For example, consider astronauts who are
> 4 light years from earth. They wanted to know if party 1 or party
> 2 won the 2222 world election. If, using an X signal, they
> find out faster than they could by using a signal traveling at
> light speed, the X signal is FTL. Knowing the probability of
> obtaining a given result when a measurement is not consistent with
> the standard definition of a signal.
Assume they have such a signal (that means, SR is really false). How
you prove now that they have it? You observe a correlation between the
input from Earth and the signal they receive. For people with common
sense, this is sufficient.
But now comes the SR defender and claims: (see previous quotes).
> I'm not suggesting that you shut up, as I did, Ilja. I'm merely
> suggesting that you either do the work to polish some of your
> interpretations sufficiently to be published
The problem is that I have no idea what to polish. I look at them,
they look beautiful as presented now. They are based in a strong way
on Popper's methodology. The problem seems to be - I guess, seeing
the discussion here - that some things which I consider to be obvious
do not seem to be obvious for others.
But I don't know which.
> If you read the speculations of the great scientists, they label them
> as speculations.
What I consider to be a speculation, I label speculation too (atomic
ether hypothesis).
> >I have never claimed that I have invented the Einstein equations or
> >the harmonic condition. The theory is different from GR, we have had
> >agreement with Klaus about this some time ago.
> Well, I read several sets of exchanges between the two of you on
> Deja News over the last few weeks. I think that his contribution
> to this thread that I quoted is consistent with his position. From
> other threads he's been on, you cannot argue that he is religiously
> anti-aether.
I don't think so.
> I think perhaps that the understanding of an agreement
> is one sided.
---------------------------
From: Klaus Kassner <Klaus....@Physik.Uni-Magdeburg.de>
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Problem for PG?
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 18:50:32 +0200
> May be you can, considering these differences, accept that PG is
> nonetheless a different theory? That this difference will lead to
> differences in the quantum theory too?
This I have accepted since the moment you clearly stated that your
absolute coordinates would have to be nonsingular. Then PG becomes
distinguishable from GR (and it becomes easier to point out its
inconsistencies).
---------------------------
> That's the point I, and I think we, want to make about your "theory."
> As far as I've read, your interpretation/theory of GR has the following
> empirical content separate from relativity.
>
> 1) No black hole inside the event horizon
> 2) No wormholes
> 3) Maybe at some point something predictable about gravity waves.
>
> With this as the criterion, I would argue that your theory of gravity
> "does not add much empirical content."
I agree about classical gravity. In this domain the only interesting
fact is that the theories are different in principle.
If we consider the predictive power of LET + strong realism and
causality, compared with SR + weakened realism, I do not agree. We
don't know with certainty which predictions of LET + strong realism
and causality survive if we really forbid to apply strong realism and
causality in all physical considerations.
Moreover, the possibility to make predictions in the quantum domain I
consider to be a serious advantage even if we cannot test them.
> Further, I would argue that neither theory offers any real advantage
> over GR, while adding stuff that we cannot measure.
> That is where I think Popper is wrong, if read strictly.
Adding something we cannot measure does not add empirical content, if
we read Popper strictly.
And, again, please don't overemphasize the role of the minor
differences in my argumentation. I accept that they really don't
count, but if somebody tries to count them against my theory, I defend
my theory and show that - if we choose to count them - they count in
favour of my theory.
The fact that they are different in principle, as classical theories,
is useful to understand quantization. It proves that the related
quantum theories are different too.
> Popper makes questionable philosophical presuppositions in
> establishing his basis.
Once his main thesis is that every knowledge is questionable, it would
be a self-contradiction if his theory is not based on questionable
philosophical presuppositions.
> Comparing him to the
> philosophers of this century, I'd say he's way better than Rand,
> but not as good as Wittgenstein.
Rand is nonsense. But Wittgenstein's concept simply does not work,
Popper's theory works.
> Thus, using Popper as the means for establishing the validity of
> scientific theory as if you were a Pharisee quoting scripture is
> mistaken. I realize that you want to prove your point, but if
> your premise is suspect, then your conclusions must be.
Of course. In full agreement with Popper every knowledge is suspect.
> I've got a different suggestion. You are making metaphysical
> arguments for your interpretation of QM and relativity. There
> is nothing wrong with that, so am I. That's what an interoperation
> is, metaphysics. It has no real empirical content. You do have
> marginal empirical content, as do I, but if refuted, it is tenuous
> enough to not falsify your interoperation.
> Why don't you acknowledge that you are discussing interpretations,
> and thus metaphysics?
Because I use Popper's criterion to distinguish metaphysics from
empirical science (which seems much better than Wittgenstein's), and,
following this criterion, I find that my theory is not only a
metaphysical reinterpretation of GR.
> We could then look at what is kept and what
> is rejected in each interpretation. I know that Klaus was not
> that interested in such a discussion, but I certainly am.
I'm certainly too.
Ilja Schmelzer
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net writes:
> Yes, I have assumed that there exists a theory to explain it. QED,
> perhaps? What follows is a guess, since I don’t know QED: The
> propagation velocity of light through media is calculated with some
> formula which was chosen from the set of Lorentz covariant
> possibilities; and one or more parameters within the formula were fitted
> to the experimental data. And guess what, no kidding! The propagation
> velocity is <= c!
> So we have on the one hand this QED formula, uncontradicted by
> experimental data as far as I know. On the other hand we have this other
> formula, quite simple in fact, which says propagation velocity equals
> phase velocity, also uncontradicted by experimental data.
> ‘Bout time someone did an experiment, don’t you think?
There is no "other formula". There is only one theory, QED, with one
formula. This formula predicts that some phase or group velocities
and so on may be really > c, but no FTL communication is possible.
> The issue of measuring time in quantum theory complicates the
> experimental design,
No, it complicates only the metaphysical interpretation of the
formulas.
> >My ether theory is a good instrument to find out where we have to look
> >for violations.
> >First, for very small distances. Second, near the horizon of black
> >holes. Third, the violation of Bell's inequality.
> >Dark mass and a wrong age of the universe may be also related
> >with the ether.
> I agree with all of this, but also believe that we will come up with
> some easier experiments.
Not if my ether theory is correct. I guess it should be replaced by
an atomic ether theory for very small distances. But very small may
be 10^-16 m, it may be 10^-35. In any case, you need something
greater than CERN to observe differences.
> In my mind, the proof that photon wave packets move at some velocity
> other than the phase velocity would consist of an experiment measuring
> the velocity. A proof of theory X that begins with the assumptions of
> theory X is no proof at all, except in the narrow mathematical sense.
There are no proofs of theories. There are predictions of theories,
and these predictions may be tested in experiments. It the prediction
is fulfilled, nice, but it is not a proof. Else, the theory is false.
We can prove only inside a theory. Inside QED we can prove that no FTL
information transfer based on light is possible. If you really
transfer information FTL, QED is dead.
Edward Green
<alanpe...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>In article <66fqm1$2...@panix2.panix.com> Edward Green wrote:
>>As you may know, I think the aether/no-aether question is pretty much
>>empty _except_ for the question of whether local Lorentz symmetry is an
>>exact symmetry.
>
Well, ok. It's the only way I can give operational meaning to the
question. I've noticed that people who really know a lot of physics,
like Matt McIrvin, don't seem to be frothing at the mouth about this.
John Baez I think also eventually came around (oh, he might say he was
there all along, although when I first made his e-acquaintance, I think
he was an unreconstructed four-space reifier ;).
Hoi polloi, or should I say ho heis, may occasionally move the
professional, although the results are unlikely to be "Oh my God,
that's brilliant! I never thought of that before!" However, when you
put it in terms they would be comfortable pronouncing at a department
social, you can kind of slip in a aetherial concept when they aren't
looking. I mean, it's not as if anybody on the net has ever written
to me that "What you really mean by the aether question is to ask
whether local Lorentz symmetry is exact". Nope. Had to figure that
out for myself.
I also do think it is possible there is some kind of conceptual
illumination possible which would make absolute local Lorentz
invariance 'obvious'; i.e., a tautological result of some simpler
concepts. Perhaps fame awaits us. Probably not, though.
>I have an open mind on the question of how "stuff-like" aether is. It
>could be made up of particles which may or may not act like the
>particles we know. Or it could be nothing more than cells in a cellular
>automaton. Or it could be something else no one has thought of yet.
Well, if you noticed my Larmor quote, I'd say how 'stuff-like' the
background is is a direct function of how stuff-like its mathematical
description is. Perhaps a mathematical description of the background
which assigns it the property of location, past which the fields
ripple, invites a kind of infinite regress, which nature wisely cuts
off by saying "Ok. At this level disturbance propagates around like
ripples in a medium, except that since this medium is only known
by the behavior of its ripples, no meaning is assigned to location,
past which the ripples travel."
I suspect a similar infinite regress in structure, "Is she discrete or
is she continuous", is cut off by the mathematics at about this level
of resolution, and by a similar device: We keep a little of both.
Nature is a clever minx, isn't she?
You know it took me over a year of thinking about this off and on
under the stimulation of the net to realize the intimate connection of
the question of location in the background with absolute local Lorentz
invariance, and how this was an essentially 'medium' like property the
background might lack, and _then_, Alan, only then did I find the
Leiden quote (no, this was not a speech in Japan) by Einstein, and I
think also some similar remarks by Lorentz himself, and understand
immediately what was meant. The path must be trod first, or all such
remarks are all but meaningless symbol strings.
<snip>
>Uncertainty will always be with us. There is very little I am certain
>of. But I see very strong circumstantial evidence for violation of
>Lorentz invariance.
>
>One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only recently
>became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It is
>known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought that
>the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
>visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far as
>I know.
Not sure about this. 'Phase velocity' and 'group velocity' are two
concepts into which 'propagation velocity' has been split, and I don't
know that I would give one the exclusive title. As for the question
of whether 'phase velocity' represents the real velocity of
propagation of influence, which nature however conspires to hide
behind a veil of c, or whether it is no more significant than the
velocity of the intersection of two scissor blades, I am uncertain.
<snip>
Edward Green
Daryl McCullough <da...@cogentex.com> wrote:
>In article <66bin3$h...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com says...
>>It's not so much something you could derive, as the simplest possible
>>assumption.
>
>I'm not disputing that. The claim that Ilja was making was not
>simply that an ether theory can be another way of looking at
>the equations of relativity, but that it was a preferred way,
>because it makes more empirical predictions. That doesn't make
>sense to me. You can either assume that the universe has a trivial
>topology or not, regardless of what you think about the ether, so
>"having a trivial topology" doesn't seem to me to be a legitimate
>prediction of ether theory.
Well, you inject a element of doubt here. I had been nodding my head
and saying 'Yep. If GR is a description of the undulation of some
space Jello, then if follows immediately that some of the more bizarre
objects of the GR theorists, like wormholes, are simply mathematical
fictions.', or something like that. Now you point out that we could
create a more complicated topological container, like a Klein bottle
(just kidding, I think), and fill _that_ with space jello, and, viola,
non-trivial topology.
I see your point, yet I am not totally convinced. I _still_ think
there is something more fundamental about the inclusion of non-trivial
topologies in a GR which starts with a description of four manifolds,
than in a theory which starts with the undulations of space-amoeba,
which now must be placed in a non-trivial vessel. In the first case
it seems more artificial to _exclude_ manifolds with non-trivial
topology, but otherwise satisfying the field equations, in the second
case the inclusion of non-trivial containers seems to be a extension
of the basic idea, rather than a consequence of it.
>>There had never been a single shred of evidence that there
>>was a lack of chiral invariance of physical laws, until Madame Wu
>>performed her well known experiment.
>
>I'm not arguing that it is impossible that the universe violates
>Lorentz invariance. I'm just saying that there is currently no
>such evidence, so there is no evidence favoring ether theory over
>vanilla special relativity.
Nonetheless those who proclaimed loudly immediately before the
publication of Ms. Wu's results that 'there was not a single shred of
evidence' for the violation of chiral symmetry might feel a bit
sheepish after the event, albeit their comment may have been
technically accurate. I am sensitive to implication, and this
statement I think goes beyond a neutral statement of fact to imply a
certain willfulness.
I think there is a certain tendentiousness to your remarks, but I'm
not going to back that up with tedious argument, so you can just
dismiss this as my baseless opinion.
>>Ilja is not a crank, Daryl.
>
>I didn't say he was.
I knew you'd say that. ;)
>I don't have any problem with his exploring
>alternative conceptual frameworks to understand the equations of
>special and general relativity. However, I do dispute his claims
>that his ether theory is superior to vanilla relativity on empirical
>grounds.
Oh well. In my opinion almost _any_ effort to understand the
equations of special and general relativity via alternative conceptual
frameworks is superior to the kind of complacent know-nothing
attitude, represented by some passages in MTW for example, to the
effect that reified four manifolds are the thing in and of itself, and
just get used to it, buddy.
<...>
Jay Gundersen
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Mass-energy equivalence is conceptually coherent only if space
>> we believe in a unique "true" time axis, then ...any changes we
>> interpretation of frame-dependence of space and time.
>
> Sorry, I don't bother if you like to "accept those effects as
> inertia". If you feel better accepting this, fine for you.
Thanks. I was actually a bit more ambitious, hoping not only to
gain from you a dispensation for my views, but also to suggest
a lack of coherence in your views. Let me try to condense the
message still further:
Complete mass-energy equivalence is logically incompatible
with the concept of absolute time.
This is the reason any "ether" theory can only incorporate
mass-energy equivalence in an entirely ad hoc and logically
incongruous way. You can only achieve *complete* mass-energy
equivalence if the world is *completely* Lorentz-covariant,
and this completeness rules out any possibility of physical
significance for the notion of absolute time.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> ...as you push an object faster through the air, it becomes
>> harder to accelerate, but we do not infer from this that the
>> actual inertia of the object is increasing. ...we understand
>> the increasing resistance to acceleration is due to the drag
>> of the ether (air). The point is that we would be very
>> unlikely to proceed from this experience to some notion that
>> mass and energy are equivalent.
>
> Because we have not observed the Lorentz symmetry in air
> resistance.
The question at hand is how the resistance to acceleration of
an object at rest is ontologically, not descriptively, related
to the resistance to acceleration of an object in motion. Your
thesis is that they are ontologically utterly different, but
that they just happen to be descriptively identical - or at
least indistinguishable by any known method - and that this damn
silly Einstein thoughtlessly jumped to the nitwit conclusion
that they were ontologically the same, which immediately
suggests complete mass-energy equivalence. Then, to make matters
worse, this unjustified prediction of complete equivalence was
subsequently born out by observations, thus (seemingly) confirming
Einstein's idiotic approach as one of the most spectacularly
successfull theories in the history of human thought!
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> There's no need to phrase this in the conjectural tense.
>> Einstein WAS a scientist who, based on Poincare, searched for
>> Lorentz-invariance...and found it everywhere.
>
> No, he has rejected parts of physics which are not Lorentz-
> invariant as not being part of physics. This was a metaphysical
> decision, based on positivism. This was a popular methodology
> 1905, but since 1934 we have a better one, Popper's.
You're misinformed. There are no (known) physical phenomena
that demonstrate a violation of Lorentz covariance. (I know you
believe that EPR experiments demonstrate such a violation, but
your belief is founded on a highly questionable interpretation
that is neither necessary nor even a very compelling.) Also,
as you can read about in almost any book on the philosophy of
science written SINCE 1934, realtivity is NOT a positivist theory.
(Einstein tried positivism once in his youth, but he didn't
inhale.)
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> After Poincare, every part of physics WAS reconsidered from
>> the point of view of this symmetry group, and the result IS
>> Einstein's theory.
>
> It could have been my ether theory as well.
Indeed it could have, or any of a number of other equally
unsatisfactory theories, which makes us appreciate relativity
all the more.
sh...@wt.net
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
>
nip to main area of disagreement, I think Klaus is better than I
am in evauating quantum gravity.>
>Bell: ``it is assumed that free will in genuine, and as a result of
>that one finds that the intervention of the experimenter at one point
>has to have consequences at a remote point, in a way that influences
>restricted by the finite velocity of light would not permit. If the
>experimenter is not free to make this intervention, if that also is
>determined in advance, the difficulty disappears.'' The suggestion
>that I have no free will I take into my heart.
Are you absolutely sure that Bell was not talking about the super-
deterministic loophole for realism?
>Bohr: ``influence on the very conditions which ... constitute an
>inherent element of the description of any phenomenon to which the
>term `physical reality' can be properly attached ...'' This is also
>very impressive.
>``it is an orthodoxy that QM shows that measurement disturbs the
>observed system in some non-classical fashion.'' sounds also very nice.
Those quotes have nothing at all to do with mysticism. There are
many philosophical schools. Among those that you do not mention
are idealism and Kantiant. I would suggest that lumping quite different
ways of looking at the world into one bag is not helpful in clear
thinking.
<snip>
>The subdivision between science and mysticism I use is Popper's
>criterion of empirical content. Once we accept these alternative
>explanations, we loose empirical content, and probably very much.
O.K. Tell me, as an experimentalist, what I loose in terms of what
I can measure. I define empirical content as content that affects
what I measure, what I see. If there are two interpretations that
describe what we can see, what we measure identically, but have
different descriptions of the unseen, then to me the empirical content
is identical. Do you have a different understanding of empirical
content?
>Indeed, the proof of Bell's inequality in strong realism becomes
>invalid. But this is a very simple proof. We use similar reasoning in
>many other cases. All these other cases should be reconsidered.
>Nobody does it, but nonetheless it should be done if we want to have a
>consistent theory.
Actually, if you go back to the Critique of Pure Reason, there already
is a very strong underpinning for a Copenhagen like understanding. I
have yet to see anything that brings this into question.
>For example, we continue to claim that a superluminal phone line
>falsifies relativity. Please, prove this.
The easiest way to do this is to deal with the relativistic quantum
mechanical treatment of locality: spacelike operators must commute.
I have an operator A, which is "take a picture of a house." I have an
operator B which is "send a superluminary phone message from 1 light
year away to a computer tied to a bomb." If the picture is taken before
the message is sent and received, then the house will be seen standing.
If it is sent after, then the house will be a pile of debrie. Thus
AB -BA <>0.
Now, for non-quantum relativity, Perhaps special relativity all by
itself
is not refuted by FTL signals, but special relativity + no backwards
signals in time would be inconsistent with FTL signals. Backwards in
time
signals are rejected for the obvious reason that it would be possible to
transmit a signal from the future to a computer that would blow up the
transmitter.
If need be, I can go through this, but it is covered in the relativity
FAQ.
>If you accept one of the explanations I have named "mystical" as valid
>(for example the no free will explanation), I can use it to "explain"
>observations of superluminal phone talks as well. Thus, a really
working >superluminal phone line cannot be used anymore to falsify
relativity.
All right, lets try my explation. Spacelike correlations do exist. The
correlations can only exist if the operators representing the
measurements commute. Of course, they do not exist for every set of
operators that
commute, so any physical theory needs to classify correlations into
three categories.
1) Commute and uncorrelated
2) Commute, but correlated
3) Do not commute, and are correlated.
Events within the light cone can fall in categories 1-3. Spacelike
events must fall in either category 1 or 2.
> Applying Einstein's work, we have a number of predictions that have
> been validated.
Applying the work of Lorentz and Poincare, we have the same number.
>>In addition, in the papers he explained the source
>>of energy for the gamma rays produced in nuclear decay. His theory
>>lead to testable predictions. Your theory is not much more testable
than >>the theory about distribution of planets that I gave below.
>No, my theory gives the same testable predictions as general
>relativity. Moreover, it gives predictions in the domain of quantum
>gravity - unfortunately not testable yet, but it gives them.
My theory of GR plus a probability distribution of the number of planets
is pretty similar to that. It gives the same testable predictions as
general relativity plus predictions of the number of starts that have
planets. Heck,
lets make the distribution in this galaxy just to make it more testable.
Let's see:
I'm a bit confused by this. Since there is either a signal from X to
Y or from Y to X (since we are discussing theories A and B, I'm
reserving those letters for a moment), there is no reason that we
should not be able to detect it as we advance.
In SR, you cannot detect the signal, because there isn't a signal. In
PG you can't because you can't? I have a very hard time with a
scientific theory that has real things that cannot be detected. You
can bring up quarks, but their reality was a matter of debate until
jets were found.
>Second, theory SR has accepted one of the alternative explanations of
>Aspect correlations as a valid explanation. Theory PG rejects this
>type of explanations.
SR specifically states that these are not signals.
>Thus, if we observe a signal, theory PG is falsified, but theory SR
>has a good chance to survive using an already accepted explanation.
> Now you argue that you need to have signals underlying the
> spacelike correlation in order to preserve causality. And,
> since causality is required for the most robust, testable
> theories, causality must be preserved. Thus, there must be
> spacelike signals. (If this is not a fair paraphrase tell me.)
Fair. I indeed prefer theories with causality because of the
exceptional empirical content related with this principle.
>> Let me ask you, what if there are spacelike correlations, but
>> spacelike signals do not exist? Can you prove by logic that this
>> is inherently impossible in the world?
>I can, once I have a strong enough version of EPR realism. Of course,
>to prove something I need an axiom which allows to conclude from
>observation (of a correlation) to existence statements (of objects or
>causal relations). This gives the EPR criterion.
Since that is what is being debated, that doesn't count. I would
strongly suggest that you read Summa Theologic as an example of
extended reasoning of from causality. In that work too, the unseen
was logically "proved" through the use of causality.
>>Every time we look for spacelike signals, we do not find them.
>>We do find spacelike correlations, but they are not signals.
>This is required in LET/PG too.
That sounds ad hoc to me. Real spacelike signals exist, but we will
never detect them? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you just
inserted that as a postulate. Why shouldn't we see the signals that
are really there. What type of realism do you have when there are
fundamental elements of reality that are inherently impossible to
detect. That sounds more like the nomenon in a neo-Kantiant view than
realism.
FWIW, I'll be happy to give a thumbnail definition of realism as a
catagory of philosophy. I'm sure its not rigorous
(rigor in one day? :-) ) but its a start.
There are objects that exist apart from us. Knowledge of these
objects is available to us through our senses. Thus, the object
of our senses such as books, chairs, photons, spin, exist apart
from observation which are manifest to us in our observations.
>>I know you have redefined signals to include EPR. Well, as Klaus
>>has pointed out, SR is consistent with the extended definition.
>>that it is not consistent with is the standard definition of a
>>space like signal. That is, conveying information from point A
>>to point B. For example, consider astronauts who are
>>4 light years from earth. They wanted to know if party 1 or party
>>2 won the 2222 world election. If, using an X signal, they
>>find out faster than they could by using a signal traveling at
>>light speed, the X signal is FTL. Knowing the probability of
>>obtaining a given result when a measurement is not consistent with
>>the standard definition of a signal.
>Assume they have such a signal (that means, SR is really false). How
>you prove now that they have it? You observe a correlation between the
>input from Earth and the signal they receive. For people with common
>sense, this is sufficient.
>But now comes the SR defender and claims: (see previous quotes).
Correlation is not sufficient for a signal. A classical example of
this is a machine that sends 0 1 0 0 1...x in direction A and
1 0 1 1 0 ...(1-x) in direction B. There is a perfect anti correlation
between A and B, but there is no signal from B to A or from A to B.
Now, I know that with Aspects experiments, we cannot have a hidden
variable theory like this. Something else is going on, that agreed.
However, the results in Aspect's information allow us to determine
nothing about what was done at A from the measurement at B. Can we
even tell if a measurement was made? All we can get is correlation
information.
Let me try to give a simple definition of a signal. The process X
performed at A sends a signal from A to B iff a difference is seen
in the results of any set of measuements made at B when X is
performed and when X is not performed.
Given this definition, my FTL signal is a signal, while Aspects
experiment does not involve a FTL signal.
<snip>
>I agree about classical gravity. In this domain the only interesting
>fact is that the theories are different in principle.
>If we consider the predictive power of LET + strong realism and
>causality, compared with SR + weakened realism, I do not agree. We
>don't know with certainty which predictions of LET + strong realism
>and causality survive if we really forbid to apply strong realism and
>causality in all physical considerations.
O.K. I'm an experimentalist. Give me a prediction that is not given
by QED QCD, etc. If a test is reasonably possible, then you do have
a theory that is distict from standard theory. If not, for all
practical purposes, it is comperable to your interpretation/theory
of classical gravity.
>Moreover, the possibility to make predictions in the quantum domain I
>consider to be a serious advantage even if we cannot test them.
I disagree. What is the difference between your theory and mine in
that regard? (BTW, for the lurkers, I don't think my theory of
planetary distributions is a very good one.) What divergences from
the standard model should be seen in ongoing experiments? What
experiments should NSF fund in the next 5 years to test this theory?
I will minimize my discussions on phil. of science in general for now
to allow me to write a response in finite time. Thus, I cut a fair
amount that I wish to table instead of simply ignore.
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net
In article <01bd060c$12725960$2e09...@toddlius.san.rr.com> Todd Desiato
wrote:
> >alanpe...@worldnet.att.net writes:
> >> One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only recently
> >> became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It is
> >> known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought that
> >> the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity of
> >> visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as far as
> >> I know.
>
>unless they are both c, as is the case for light in free space. If the
>velocity of x rays are propagated slower through the material, the
>calculated phase velocity will be faster. If the group velocity of a
>particle is zero, the phase velocity is infinite. That is the proper
>physical relationship for the superposition of waves.
>
>(c^2)/(v-group) = (v-phase).
There are obviously a few missing "ifs" that go around this formula. I
would have dismissed it as nonsense if I didn’t know from your other
posts that you are knowledgeable.
When visible light travels through glass, is it the group velocity or
the phase velocity that is greater than c? And when we use a protractor
to measure refractivity of visible light, is it the group velocity or
the phase velocity that determines the result?
That said, I (sort of) see your point. If I choose a perverse reference
frame, I do get an approximate match to your formula.
I have no doubt that QED is self-consistent and is a useful
approximation to reality (the math of it, that is, not necessarily the
interpretations) in many, maybe the majority, of situations. I’m
certainly not claiming otherwise.
Rather, what we have here is a specific situation where a prediction is
made, based on experimental data collected in one range (wavelength ~~
5000 angstroms) for a problem in another range far removed (wavelength <
10 angstroms). The prediction being the signal propagation velocity: at
what velocity can we transfer information using this x-ray?
You have great confidence in your equations. I don’t.
Alan Pendleton
List of anomalous experiments at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/explist.html
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
Todd Desiato
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net wrote in article
<881906180....@dejanews.com>...
> In article <01bd060c$12725960$2e09...@toddlius.san.rr.com> Todd Desiato
> wrote:
> > >alanpe...@worldnet.att.net writes:
> > >> One of the most interesting pieces of evidence, of which I only
recently
> > >> became aware, is the velocity of x-rays through dispersive media. It
is
> > >> known that the phase velocity is greater than c, but it is thought
that
> > >> the signal propagation velocity is--what? The propagation velocity
of
> > >> visible light through water corresponds to its phase velocity, as
far as
> > >> I know.
> >
> >First of all the phase velocity and the group velocity are not the same
> >unless they are both c, as is the case for light in free space. If the
> >velocity of x rays are propagated slower through the material, the
> >calculated phase velocity will be faster. If the group velocity of a
> >particle is zero, the phase velocity is infinite. That is the proper
> >physical relationship for the superposition of waves.
> >
> >(c^2)/(v-group) = (v-phase).
>
> There are obviously a few missing "ifs" that go around this formula. I
> would have dismissed it as nonsense if I didn’t know from your other
> posts that you are knowledgeable.
Thank you
>
> When visible light travels through glass, is it the group velocity or
> the phase velocity that is greater than c?
Phase velocity
>And when we use a protractor
> to measure refractivity of visible light, is it the group velocity or
> the phase velocity that determines the result?
>
Refraction is caused by the change in group velocity from one medium to
the next.
It is frequency dependent.
> That said, I (sort of) see your point. If I choose a perverse reference
> frame, I do get an approximate match to your formula.
>
> I have no doubt that QED is self-consistent and is a useful
> approximation to reality (the math of it, that is, not necessarily the
> interpretations) in many, maybe the majority, of situations. I’m
> certainly not claiming otherwise.
>
> Rather, what we have here is a specific situation where a prediction is
> made, based on experimental data collected in one range (wavelength ~~
> 5000 angstroms) for a problem in another range far removed (wavelength <
> 10 angstroms). The prediction being the signal propagation velocity: at
> what velocity can we transfer information using this x-ray?
>
> You have great confidence in your equations. I don’t.
>
>
> Alan Pendleton
> List of anomalous experiments at
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/explist.html
>
> -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
>
Get a text on Diffraction Infromatics, that was one of my major classes at
UCSD.
This is called the Dispersion Relation.
The equation cited above is not directly from QED or Quantum mechanics. It
is the mathematical representation of a wave packet, or Fourier Transform
of an object. Mathematically you can create any wave shape, amplitude,
frequency etc. by an infinite summation of waves of different wavelengths.
Each has a specific coefficient that is the amplitude of that wave. A
square wave for example is the result of a summation of all the odd
harmonics of the fundamental frequency. A sine wave is a pure harmonic.
These waves travel at the phase velocity and the wave packet travels at the
group velocity. I have confidence in my equations because I understand
where they come from and why.
Todd Desiato
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > > There is an essential difference between correlations which may
> > > be explained by a common cause and normal information transfer, and
> > > violations of Bell's inequality.
> > This I have not denied. But there is no essential difference regarding the status of
> > special relativity. The point is that there are faster-than-light
> > effects that do not violate Lorentz invariance. They have been there
> > before the violation of Bell's inequalities. Bell's inequalities also
> > do not violate Lorentz invariance. So what?
>
> If you deny Einstein causality, you obtain a weaker version of
> relativity compared with Einsteins original theory.
Wrong. Realism is not the same as "Einstein realism". And "Einsteinrealism" is not part
of SR. You are continually making the mistake of
generalizing a hypothesis of Einstein's from 1935 as being part of
his theory from 1905. Einstein realism is a device invented in discussing
quantum mechanics. It may have been implicitly assumed in
previous classical theories, but it is not a necessary part of these
theories when considered as the classical limit of QM.
> Of course, you can use this weak theory, which is incompatible with my
> definition of realism, if you like. But this theory has less
> predictive power, and this already in everyday life. Because in many
> common sense proofs the properties of realism (Einsteins or my) are
> used, and all these proofs are invalid in your theory.
No, they aren't, in general. You keep missing the mark.
You can use the properties of realism whenever you have a
situation where this is appropriate (macroscopic systems, etc.).
QM tells you *where* the everyday-life realism fails. Beyond,
you have to use one of the versions of quantum realism.
You can't prove anything by extreme statements. You should
try to think more precisely.
> > And of course, the quantum mechanical explanation of the
> > correlations is exactly this: there is a common cause. It just is
> > more subtle than in classical situations, because the
> > object before the measurement is something that does not
> > contain the objects after the measurement. They are created
> > from a "sea of possibilities", which however contains only
> > correlated sets. That all there's to it.
>
> If you accept this as a valid explanation, you can explain everything
> by fishing in this sea of possibilities. Thus, your theory is
> unfalsifiable in principle.
Nonsense. I have the cause in QM in the form of the wave function,which tells me which
possibilities there are and which aren't.
And it gives me the correct probabilities.
If one of the events impossible according to QM happens, I
have falsified QM.
> I recommend to consider also the theological explanation: God as the
> common cause of the EPR correlation. This explanation I have also
> forgotten in my axiom of realism.
Well, ridiculing statements they haven't understood is apretty frequent characteristic of
inaccurate thinkers.
> > No, it is not. If you assume wrong premises, you get a wrong
> > result. Einstein realism in the sense explained in the EPR paper is
> > dead by Aspect (presuming all loopholes are vain).
>
> No, is not dead. There is the loophole of a return to Lorentz ether
> theory.
Or to Newton's ....There are of course many loopholes outside of accepted
theories.
> Fine. Means, we have found an agreement: "relativity AND Einstein
> realism" are dead. Let's remember this. Now, we have some base for
> continuation:
>
> > but only because of the logical AND, and because the second
> > part is wrong.
>
> Fine. That's your hypothesis. I see no empirical evidence for this
> choice. Do you have any?
Yes. Quantum mechanics. And all failures to show SR to be
wrong.
Irrelevant rest snipped....
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> I don't remember to fiddle around with definitions of energy,
> information etc.
You did already fiddle around with the definition of information.It has been proven that
there is no information transfer in the
EPR experiment. Mathematically. But you tried to claim the
opposite by adopting a nonstandard definition of information.
> For causality I use the property that there should
> not be closed causal loops, something I consider to be an accepted
> property.
I did show that your definition of causality leads to causal loops.Also you wish to allow
for nonlocal interactions allowing
causal loops.
> For realism, I try to improve the EPR criterion to meet one
> objection of Bohr
It seems to me you haven't understood the objection of Bohr.(Which is precisely that the
quantum phenomenon does not
have some of the realistic properties of classical phenomena.)
> together with some other possible objections against
> Bell's inequality proof
Why should anybody object the proof of Bell's inequalities?I suppose it is mathematically
correct.
> Is it accepted that causal loops are possible?
As far as I know, by yourself. But not by most physicists.
Klaus Kassner
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> I do not propose such a concept. The violation of Bell's inequality
> is of course an observable effect. There is a guy named Aspect who
> has observed it. My position is that this is the observable effect of
> some directly unobservable, real, causal information tranfer.
Sure, by postulate. Just as God exists by postulate.
> I do not bother about the Copenhagen version and QM in this
> discussion. I bother about a certain property of a physical theory
> which I have defined before and named "realism" (choose another word
> if you like).
>
> I bother if relativity resp. ether theory have this property or not.
Of course, both do. But none of them says anything about quantumobjects. Both
fail at the microscopic scale. And both of them
are compatible with QM (as it seems) on the macroscopic scale.
> And I prefer a theory which has this property, because this property
> adds predictive power.
No. It just adds "postulative" power. You can predict the"existence" of "real"
objects, because you have *defined* them
to exist in such and such a situation. Reminds me a bit of
the medieval proof of God's existence: since God has the
property of perfection and since no perfect object can be
nonexistent, God must exist...
The problem is whether there is any mapping between
what you call "real" and the world outside. If there isn't,
it is nothing but word games.
> For people who don't like Popper, because it
> is a simple property
According to what I know, it is not a simple property.
> and should not be rejected without necessity
> following Occam's razor.
And nobody wants to reject it, as soon as it entersa theory. But up to now,
there is no physical theory
working with this property. Physical theories deal
with relations between observable properties.
And they sometimes postulate temporarily
nonobservable ones to explain the former.
But up to now, all talking
about reality is metaphysics. Including yours.
And you seem to want to keep it that way by
calling "real" a fundamental property, not to be
analysed any further. And as soon as reality violates this
property, you say something must be wrong in a
theory. Instead of considering that you may have just
described something which is *not* a property of
reality. (You can simply be in error by postulating
what you call real to be a property of reality.)
My view is that we should analyse what we mean
by real and then try to verify to what extent this
meaning is compatible with observations. If it is not,
we may have to try again. But we should not put up
axioms like: it must be so. I am even willing to
consider reality an a priori concept such as space and
time. But: we know meanwhile that this does *not*
mean a fixed structure. Kant did believe space must
be flat and 3D, because it is a priori. It is still a
priori, but we know that this does not exclude that
we discover properties of this concept that we did
not think of before. A priori concepts are not
a priori *unalterable*.
> > I think that PG does not
> > *explain* the equivalence of inertial and gravitational
> > mass, whereas GR does.
>
> I do not think GR "explains" something in this direction. GR chooses
> this as a basic axiom, PG too.
No. GR explains it. Newton and PG don't.Of course, you can derive the equations
of GR assuming the
equivalence (and other things).
But you can drop that assumption. Once you
have the equations and the interpretation of curved space time,
it becomes an *inevitable* consequence. It is not an
axiom or postulate of GR. Physics is not mathematics,
and propositions that used to be axioms at one point
may become derived at a later stage of development.
As soon as you interpret the equations in a *different* way,
the equivalence becomes an *assumption* about the coupling
of the field and energy. But nothing explains the universality
of this coupling. Just as Newton can't explain the
equivalence of the two masses.
That's one of the reasons why the interpretation of
the metric as a property of space time is so satisfactory
in comparison with different interpretations.
> > You think that QM does not *explain* the EPR experiment, whereas
> > Bohmian mechanics does.
>
> I don't claim anything about the explanatory power of QM vs. Bohm. I
> use Bohmian mechanics only to prove that realism is compatible with QM
> observations. This is useful to reject claims that realism is
> incompatible with observations in the quantum domain.
But the rejection is wrong, since the "realism"-program of Bohmianmechanics has
failed. And it has not been shown so far,
whether deterministic realism (this is actually what you mean)
can be made compatible with observations in the quantum domain.
The opposite has also not been shown. The only thing for which
there is evidence is that local deterministic
realism seems to be out of the game.
Ilja Schmelzer
sh...@wt.net writes:
> >Bell: ``it is assumed that free will in genuine, and as a result of
> >that one finds that the intervention of the experimenter at one point
> >has to have consequences at a remote point, in a way that influences
> >restricted by the finite velocity of light would not permit. If the
> >experimenter is not free to make this intervention, if that also is
> >determined in advance, the difficulty disappears.'' The suggestion
> >that I have no free will I take into my heart.
>
> Are you absolutely sure that Bell was not talking about the super-
> deterministic loophole for realism?
For Einstein-local realism. In any case, I reject this loophole for
the same reason as the others: a major decrease in falsifiability
(de-facto unfalsifiable).
> >Bohr: ``influence on the very conditions which ... constitute an
> >inherent element of the description of any phenomenon to which the
> >term `physical reality' can be properly attached ...'' This is also
> >very impressive.
>
> >``it is an orthodoxy that QM shows that measurement disturbs the
> >observed system in some non-classical fashion.'' sounds also very nice.
>
> Those quotes have nothing at all to do with mysticism. There are
> many philosophical schools. Among those that you do not mention
> are idealism and Kantiant. I would suggest that lumping quite different
> ways of looking at the world into one bag is not helpful in clear
> thinking.
I want to underscore a common point of these alternative explanations
- and this point is common with mysticism. It is that they
essentially decrease falsifiability.
As a mathematician, I like to find out common properties.
> >The subdivision between science and mysticism I use is Popper's
> >criterion of empirical content. Once we accept these alternative
> >explanations, we loose empirical content, and probably very much.
> O.K. Tell me, as an experimentalist, what I loose in terms of what
> I can measure.
A mystic claims that he is able to realize thought transfer between
two rooms without communcations.
Based on the empirical content of realism and current theory about the
brain, we claim that this is not possible, and suggest an experiment:
I tell you something in room A, you transfer it, your friend tells the
result. And we make a prediction: You will never reach a statistically
significant correlation between my choice at A and the result at B.
If we find such a correlation, we accept that there is some
communication and (after a lot of checks for other cheating
possibilities) we accept that our current theory of brain is
falsified.
Now, another mystic declares that he has some thought transfer
possibilities, but not as powerful. He cannot send a signal, but
nonetheless he is able to have a highly correlated feeling which
cannot be explained without some thought transfer. To prove this, he
shows that he is able to violate Bell's inequalities.
Now, I, based on realism, claim that this is not possible. Thus, I
predict that these inequalities hold if he does not use communication.
You cannot predict this. Once he has shown that he has violated Bell's
inequalities, you can explain this without thought communication, for
example by ``influence on the very conditions which ... constitute an
inherent element of the description of any phenomenon to which the
term `physical reality' can be properly attached ...'', thus, your
theory has not been falsified.
> I define empirical content as content that affects what I measure,
> what I see.
No. Empirical content is which observations falsify a theory. It is a
property of the theory, not of the real world.
> If there are two interpretations that
> describe what we can see, what we measure identically, but have
> different descriptions of the unseen, then to me the empirical content
> is identical. Do you have a different understanding of empirical
> content?
Yes. Empirical content is not the possibility to interpret what we
observe, but not to be able to interpret what we do not observe.
> >For example, we continue to claim that a superluminal phone line
> >falsifies relativity. Please, prove this.
> The easiest way to do this is to deal with the relativistic quantum
> mechanical treatment of locality: spacelike operators must commute.
> AB -BA <>0.
But I don't have an operator, I have only a strange observation: if I
press a button near A, the house near B does not look very beautiful.
I accept that this observation falsifies QED, it is a quantum gravity
effect. But relativity is not falsified. Obviously, the reason is
that in quantum gravity it is not possible to define operators in an
absolute way. Indeed, we don't have an operator, we have only a
correlation between observations: if I press a button near A, the
house near B does not look very beautiful. Because space-like
separated operators cannot commute, these observations cannot be
described by absolute, self-adjoint, operators. Thus, quantum theory
is falsified. Instead, relativity has reached yet another great
success - it has shown, that the notion of observation itself is
relative and cannot be described by an absolute operator A. ;-)
You got the point? To falsify relativity we need something outside
relativity, be it causality/realism or some of the basic principles of
quantum theory. You use the basic principles of quantum theory. Not
very impressive.
> >First, theory PG claims that we cannot find.
> I'm a bit confused by this. Since there is either a signal from X to
> Y or from Y to X (since we are discussing theories A and B, I'm
> reserving those letters for a moment), there is no reason that we
> should not be able to detect it as we advance.
Of course, we may be able to reach a domain where the theory becomes
invalid and the hidden variables lead to observable effects. Indeed, I
assume that the continuous ether theory is only the continuous
approximation of some atomic ether theory.
But this detection falsifies the theory. A basic axiom of the theory
is that all physical clocks are time-dilated by interaction with the
ether in the same way. If we can detect the direction of this
direction, it is easy to build a non-time-dilated clock, in
contradiction with the axiom.
> I have a very hard time with a
> scientific theory that has real things that cannot be detected. You
> can bring up quarks, but their reality was a matter of debate until
> jets were found.
BTW let's mention that the theory was published, was well-known and
AFAIK widely accepted before jets have been found.
> >Second, theory SR has accepted one of the alternative explanations of
> >Aspect correlations as a valid explanation. Theory PG rejects this
> >type of explanations.
> SR specifically states that these are not signals.
But, unfortunately, it doesn't describe what these "not signals" are,
how these "not signals" behave, how we can test that there are no "not
signals" in a given region and so on.
> >> Let me ask you, what if there are spacelike correlations, but
> >> spacelike signals do not exist? Can you prove by logic that this
> >> is inherently impossible in the world?
> >I can, once I have a strong enough version of EPR realism. Of course,
> >to prove something I need an axiom which allows to conclude from
> >observation (of a correlation) to existence statements (of objects or
> >causal relations). This gives the EPR criterion.
> Since that is what is being debated, that doesn't count. I would
> strongly suggest that you read Summa Theologic as an example of
> extended reasoning of from causality. In that work too, the unseen
> was logically "proved" through the use of causality.
What means "doesn't count"? I think it is obvious that we cannot
prove anything based on "pure" observation. Every observation is
theory-laden. To prove something is only possible in the context of a
theory.
> >>Every time we look for spacelike signals, we do not find them.
> >>We do find spacelike correlations, but they are not signals.
> >This is required in LET/PG too.
> That sounds ad hoc to me.
No. Time dilation is the most important physical effect caused by the
ether of LET/PG. The axiom that this time dilation does not depend on
the clock is an essential, simple and basic axiom which distinguishes
these theories from a lot of other ether theories.
> Why shouldn't we see the signals that
> are really there.
Because the usage of these signals allows to build a non-time-dilated
clock consisting of time-dilated matter.
> What type of realism do you have when there are
> fundamental elements of reality that are inherently impossible to
> detect.
EPR-realism.
> That sounds more like the nomenon in a neo-Kantiant view than
> realism.
It is similar to Popper's (Tarski's) theory of truth: it exists, but
we have no criterion of truth.
> FWIW, I'll be happy to give a thumbnail definition of realism as a
> catagory of philosophy. I'm sure its not rigorous
> (rigor in one day? :-) ) but its a start.
> There are objects that exist apart from us. Knowledge of these
> objects is available to us through our senses. Thus, the object
> of our senses such as books, chairs, photons, spin, exist apart
> from observation which are manifest to us in our observations.
First, knowledge is not "available", it can be only a guess.
Second, there is no reason why real objects should be "manifest".
> >Assume they have such a signal (that means, SR is really false). How
> >you prove now that they have it? You observe a correlation between the
> >input from Earth and the signal they receive. For people with common
> >sense, this is sufficient.
>
> >But now comes the SR defender and claims: (see previous quotes).
> Correlation is not sufficient for a signal.
;-)
> Let me try to give a simple definition of a signal. The process X
> performed at A sends a signal from A to B iff a difference is seen
> in the results of any set of measuements made at B when X is
> performed and when X is not performed.
Now, I send an FTL signal by sending a usual message to A which
predefines if X is performed or not, and to B which predefines the
result of the measurement.
Of course, this is not an FTL signal. You have to exclude this
explanation. How?
> O.K. I'm an experimentalist. Give me a prediction that is not given
> by QED QCD, etc. If a test is reasonably possible, then you do have
> a theory that is distict from standard theory.
Ok, it is possible to develop a similar theory for gauge fields. In
this theory, there are no Fadeev-Popov ghost fields. Evolution in the
space of observables of relativistic gauge theory in non-unitary.
Thus, there are some decoherence effects in QCD and electroweak theory
which cannot be explained by standard quantum gauge theory. (The
classically unobservable steps of freedom in gauge direction "measure"
the state of the observable steps of freedom and destroy in this way
superposition.)
For the theory of gravity, there should be a similar effect in quantum
gravity. But, this is probably outside the domain of human
possibilities.
> >Moreover, the possibility to make predictions in the quantum domain I
> >consider to be a serious advantage even if we cannot test them.
> I disagree.
Does that mean that the guys who try quantum gravity are all fools?
Is it reasonable to test Hawking radiation?
> What is the difference between your theory and mine in
> that regard? (BTW, for the lurkers, I don't think my theory of
> planetary distributions is a very good one.) What divergences from
> the standard model should be seen in ongoing experiments? What
> experiments should NSF fund in the next 5 years to test this theory?
Tests to decide between gauge theory with and without ghost fields.
(But this gives only an analogy argument.)
Tests to close the detector efficiency loophole for the violation of
Bell's inequality.
Observations about the age of universe problem and about the
distribution of the dark mass. (That's because there is an interesting
variant of PG with two cosmological constants, one modifies the age,
the other looks like dark matter.)
Ilja Schmelzer
jay...@sandlot.com (Jay Gundersen) writes:
> > Sorry, I don't bother if you like to "accept those effects as
> > inertia". If you feel better accepting this, fine for you.
> Thanks. I was actually a bit more ambitious, hoping not only to
> gain from you a dispensation for my views, but also to suggest
> a lack of coherence in your views.
This you have not reached yet ;-)
> Complete mass-energy equivalence is logically incompatible
> with the concept of absolute time.
> This is the reason any "ether" theory can only incorporate
> mass-energy equivalence in an entirely ad hoc and logically
> incongruous way. You can only achieve *complete* mass-energy
> equivalence if the world is *completely* Lorentz-covariant,
> and this completeness rules out any possibility of physical
> significance for the notion of absolute time.
Why this notion of *complete* mass-energy equivalence (compared with
some incomplete mass-energy equivalence, whatever this means) suggests
a lack of coherence in my views?
The physical effect related with *complete* mass-energy equivalence in
a way that I understand is particle-antiparticle creation. I see no
incompatibility of this physical effect with absolute time. Dirac's
original picture is very well compatible with absolute time, much less
compatible with general relativity (see QFT on curved background).
> Your thesis is that they are ontologically utterly different, but
> that they just happen to be descriptively identical - or at least
> indistinguishable by any known method - and that this damn silly
> Einstein thoughtlessly jumped to the nitwit conclusion that they
> were ontologically the same, which immediately suggests complete
> mass-energy equivalence.
I do not suggest that Einstein was damn silly. Instead, I suggest he
was much more clever than current defenders of relativity. Learning
about Bell's result, we would have made a clear statement, based on
his EPR criterion: or relativity is wrong, or quantum gravity. (And,
after Aspect, he would have thrown away relativity.)
"In other words, had EPR been aware of the work of Bell, they might
well have predicted that quantum theory is wrong and proposed an
experimental test of Bell's inequality to settle the issue once and
for all." (quant-ph/9512028, p.4)
> Then, to make matters
> worse, this unjustified prediction of complete equivalence was
> subsequently born out by observations, thus (seemingly) confirming
> Einstein's idiotic approach as one of the most spectacularly
> successfull theories in the history of human thought!
The descriptive identity is what we observe, and this descriptive
identity is what was necessary to reach the progress of this century.
> > No, he has rejected parts of physics which are not Lorentz-
> > invariant as not being part of physics. This was a metaphysical
> > decision, based on positivism. This was a popular methodology
> > 1905, but since 1934 we have a better one, Popper's.
> You're misinformed. There are no (known) physical phenomena
> that demonstrate a violation of Lorentz covariance.
There are different physical theories which allow to describe our
world. The definition what is "physical" is meaningless outside the
context of the theory. You can use solipcism, claim that there are no
physical phenomena at all, and no (known) physical effect is in
contradiction with this theory.
In my theory there are a lot of physical phenomena which violate
Lorentz covariance. For example, local energy and momentum densities
of the gravitational field. Or particles in QFT on a fixed
gravitational background. Or events, which have no invariant meaning
in quantum GR.
> (I know you
> believe that EPR experiments demonstrate such a violation, but
> your belief is founded on a highly questionable interpretation
> that is neither necessary nor even a very compelling.)
It is the simplest. Here I am in agreement with Bell:
``the cheapest resolution is something like going back to relativity
as it was before Einstein, when people like Lorentz and Poincare
thought that there was an aether --- a preferred frame of reference
--- but that our measuring instruments were distorted by motion in
such a way that we could no detect motion through the aether. Now, in
that way you can imagine that there is a preferred frame of reference,
and in this preferred frame of reference things go faster than
light.''
Note that Bell was not aware how simple it is to unify ether theory
with GR.
> Also,
> as you can read about in almost any book on the philosophy of
> science written SINCE 1934, realtivity is NOT a positivist theory.
I have not said that relativity is a positivist theory, but that the
preference for SR in comparison with LET is based on positivistic
argumentation.
> >> After Poincare, every part of physics WAS reconsidered from
> >> the point of view of this symmetry group, and the result IS
> >> Einstein's theory.
> > It could have been my ether theory as well.
> Indeed it could have, or any of a number of other equally
> unsatisfactory theories, which makes us appreciate relativity
> all the more.
From empirical point of view, my theory is as satisfactory as GR (if
not more). You have no serious physical argument for naming my theory
"unsatisfactory", only metaphysical mysticism.
Edward Green
Preston Barlow <pba...@eastern.com> wrote:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I only have time right now to
briefly unblot my escutcheon on one matter. When you say:
>You've invoked a distinction here between "the moving body" and "the
>body at rest", but according to the principle of relativity there is
>an equivalence between any two inertial frames, so they're to be
>regarded as symmetrical.
I think you missed my point, and therefore assumed I was saying
something else. I am cognizant of the principle of relativity and the
assumed equivalence of inertial frames, and I would certainly never
blithely refer to 'the moving body' in isolation, as if it meant
something. In context, I referred to the distinction between a body
regarded from its own rest frame, and one passing through.
>From this and the principle of sufficient
>cause, the 3rd law is pretty much unavoidable.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'principle of sufficient cause', unless
this is something like 'let's use the simplest working guess', but I
don't think the 3rd law follows strongly from the principle of
relativity, unless we add some other assumptions. For example, let
identical bodies in relative motion A and B interact (of course the
3rd law does not require identical bodies, but let's keep things as
symmetrical as possible), and suppose that labeled appropriately to
A's rest frame we had some item called 'force' whose magnitude on A
(stationary) were 5, but on B (moving) were 7. Now, what the
principle of relativity (possibly throwing in spatial isotropy)
requires is that from _B's_ rest frame, we would then be able to
correctly label the force on _B_ as 5, but the magnitude of force on A
as 7. This satisfies the principle of relativity, to berate the
obvious, because the situation is described identically in both
frames, once we have exchanged the role of stationary and moving bodies.
I apologize for not having time to write more now, but of course on
Usenet the absolute worst fate that may befall you is being taken as
wrong for the wrong reasons, and such matters must be addressed
promptly. :-)
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> > I do not propose such a concept. The violation of Bell's inequality
> > is of course an observable effect. There is a guy named Aspect who
> > has observed it. My position is that this is the observable effect of
> > some directly unobservable, real, causal information tranfer.
Just as any physical theory is based on postulates. (You seem, like
positivism, to believe that theories are derived from observations?)
> > I do not bother about the Copenhagen version and QM in this
> > discussion. I bother about a certain property of a physical theory
> > which I have defined before and named "realism" (choose another word
> > if you like).
> > I bother if relativity resp. ether theory have this property or not.
> Of course, both do. But none of them says anything about quantum
> objects. Both fail at the microscopic scale. And both of them are
> compatible with QM (as it seems) on the macroscopic scale.
But there is a difference. SR + EPR-realism is incompatible with
empirical evidence, LET + EPR-realism not.
> > And I prefer a theory which has this property, because this property
> > adds predictive power.
> No. It just adds "postulative" power. You can predict the "existence" of "real"
> objects, because you have *defined* them
> to exist in such and such a situation. Reminds me a bit of
> the medieval proof of God's existence: since God has the
> property of perfection and since no perfect object can be
> nonexistent, God must exist...
No. SR without EPR-realism is not falsified, SR + EPR-realism is
falsified. Thus, the EPR postulate adds empirical content.
> > For people who don't like Popper, because it
> > is a simple property
> According to what I know, it is not a simple property.
> > and should not be rejected without necessity
> > following Occam's razor.
> And nobody wants to reject it, as soon as it enters a theory. But up
> to now, there is no physical theory working with this
> property.
LET works with EPR-realism.
> Physical theories deal with relations between observable properties.
> And they sometimes postulate temporarily nonobservable ones to
> explain the former. But up to now, all talking about reality is
> metaphysics. Including yours.
The EPR criterion may be used in SR to proof a certain physical
prediction: Bell's inequality for space-like separated observations.
> And you seem to want to keep it that way by
> calling "real" a fundamental property, not to be
> analysed any further.
There are fundamental properties, axioms, in any physical theory. The
EPR criterion is such a fundamental property.
> And as soon as reality violates this
> property, you say something must be wrong in a
> theory. Instead of considering that you may have just
> described something which is *not* a property of
> reality. (You can simply be in error by postulating
> what you call real to be a property of reality.)
According to Popper, anything may be questioned. Of course, the
EPR-criterion of reality may be questioned too, as well as Popper's
theory itself.
But I see no reason to question this principle. The only reason to
question this principle is to save relativity against ether theory.
That's why the idea to question this principle is named ad-hoc
immunization of relativity.
It would be something different if you present a replacement for the
EPR criterion which allows to derive new testable predictions. But you
don't, you simply reject it.
> My view is that we should analyse what we mean
> by real and then try to verify to what extent this
> meaning is compatible with observations.
The EPR criterion is compatible with observations (if we use ether
theory).
> But we should not put up axioms like: it must be so.
I don't. It would be contrary to Popper's methodology.
> I am even willing to consider reality an a priori concept such as
> space and time. But: we know meanwhile that this does *not* mean a
> fixed structure. Kant did believe space must be flat and 3D, because
> it is a priori. It is still a priori, but we know that this does not
> exclude that we discover properties of this concept that we did not
> think of before. A priori concepts are not a priori *unalterable*.
I do not believe into unalterable a priori concepts. I agree that
anything can be questioned. But once we agree to question all, we need
some criterion to make a reasonable choice. Popper defines such a
criterion, and I use it. Once you reject Popper, I don't know how you
want to make a reasonable choice between the infinite set of
alternative explanations. Positivism defines a criterion - derivation
of theories from observation. I cannot use it, I consider this
concept as faulty - observations are already theory-laden.
> > > I think that PG does not
> > > *explain* the equivalence of inertial and gravitational
> > > mass, whereas GR does.
> > I do not think GR "explains" something in this direction. GR chooses
> > this as a basic axiom, PG too.
> No. GR explains it. Newton and PG don't. Of course, you can derive
> the equations of GR assuming the equivalence (and other things).
> But you can drop that assumption. Once you have the equations and
> the interpretation of curved space time, it becomes an *inevitable*
> consequence. It is not an axiom or postulate of GR. Physics is not
> mathematics, and propositions that used to be axioms at one point
> may become derived at a later stage of development.
Sorry, I do not understand this. You can derive any theory with any
axiom system you like. You can prefer different derivations in
different periods of your life, that's your choice. But the choice of
an axiom system is not part of the theory, different axiom systems but
equivalent axiom systems define the same theory. This is only the
arbitrary choice of a base for the explanation of the theory.
Now, the choice of axioms for PG is as arbitrary as for GR. I can
choose the equivalence principle as well as other
postulates/predictions of GR (adding "observable" where necessary)
as axioms of PG.
> As soon as you interpret the equations in a *different* way,
> the equivalence becomes an *assumption* about the coupling
> of the field and energy. But nothing explains the universality
> of this coupling. Just as Newton can't explain the
> equivalence of the two masses.
Time dilation is explained by interaction with the ether. The common
mechanism is IMO a sufficient explanation for the postulate that all
clocks are time-dilated in the same way. If you don't like this, your
right. But this is not a very serious argument.
> > I don't claim anything about the explanatory power of QM vs. Bohm. I
> > use Bohmian mechanics only to prove that realism is compatible with QM
> > observations. This is useful to reject claims that realism is
> > incompatible with observations in the quantum domain.
> But the rejection is wrong, since the "realism"-program of Bohmian
> mechanics has failed.
Something new. What's the failure? (Incompatible with relativity, I
guess ;-). That's obvious, but relativity is not an argument against
Bohm in the context of our discussion.)
> And it has not been shown so far, whether
> deterministic realism (this is actually what you mean)
No. What I mean is the EPR criterion.
> can be made compatible with observations in the quantum domain. The
> opposite has also not been shown. The only thing for which there is
> evidence is that local deterministic realism seems to be out of the game.
^^^^^
Einstein-local, I guess. That's what we are talking about all the
time.
Ilja Schmelzer
Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:
> Wrong. Realism is not the same as "Einstein realism". And "Einstein
> realism" is not part of SR. You are continually making the mistake
> of generalizing a hypothesis of Einstein's from 1935 as being part
> of his theory from 1905. Einstein realism is a device invented in
> discussing quantum mechanics. It may have been implicitly assumed
> these theories when considered as the classical limit of QM.
If you like to decide what is true SR, against Einstein's view about
the world near 1935, feel free to do this. But I feel free to name SR
the theory which Einstein 1935 has considered to be SR. And because I
don't know any essentially better definition of realism compared with
EPR, I choose to name EPR-realism simply "realism".
> QM tells you *where* the everyday-life realism fails. Beyond,
> you have to use one of the versions of quantum realism.
No. EPR realism is compatible with QM. Thus, QM does not "tell" where
EPR-realism fails.
> You can't prove anything by extreme statements. You should
> try to think more precisely.
I use sometimes extreme, provocative statements, but they have a
precise meaning. Of course, they are based on Popper's methodology
which you don't accept. (And, of course, I may fail sometimes.)
> > > object before the measurement is something that does not
> > > contain the objects after the measurement. They are created
> > > from a "sea of possibilities", which however contains only
> > > correlated sets. That all there's to it.
> > If you accept this as a valid explanation, you can explain everything
> > by fishing in this sea of possibilities. Thus, your theory is
> > unfalsifiable in principle.
> Nonsense. I have the cause in QM in the form of the wave
> function,which tells me which possibilities there are and which
> aren't. And it gives me the correct probabilities. If one of the
> events impossible according to QM happens, I have falsified QM.
QM is of course a falsifiable theory. But if RQM is falsified, I
suppose, QM will be rejected, not relativity.
> > I recommend to consider also the theological explanation: God as the
> > common cause of the EPR correlation. This explanation I have also
> > forgotten in my axiom of realism.
> Well, ridiculing statements they haven't understood is a pretty
> frequent characteristic of inaccurate thinkers.
Once we disagree about Popper, and you do not accept Popper's
methodology, the problem of distinction between metaphysics and
physics is open and an essential part of our discussion. Thus, IMO it
is in no way ridiculing to mention theology.
But I couldn't resist to quote in this context the following:
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Klaus Kassner <klaus....@physik.uni-magdeburg.de>
Message-ID: <349110D0...@physik.uni-magdeburg.de>
Subject: Re: Relativity Challenged!
Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 11:24:16 +0100
:Sure, by postulate. Just as God exists by postulate.
:Reminds me a bit of the medieval proof of God's existence: since God
:has the property of perfection and since no perfect object can be
:nonexistent, God must exist...
------------------------------------------------------------
> > > No, it is not. If you assume wrong premises, you get a wrong
> > > result. Einstein realism in the sense explained in the EPR paper is
> > > dead by Aspect (presuming all loopholes are vain).
> > No, is not dead. There is the loophole of a return to Lorentz ether
> > theory.
> Or to Newton's ....There are of course many loopholes outside of accepted
> theories.
With an essential difference: Newton's theory has been rejected
because of experiment. Ether theory is now in agreement with
experiment as well as GR.
> > Fine. Means, we have found an agreement: "relativity AND Einstein
> > realism" are dead. Let's remember this. Now, we have some base for
> > continuation:
> > > but only because of the logical AND, and because the second
> > > part is wrong.
> > Fine. That's your hypothesis. I see no empirical evidence for this
> > choice. Do you have any?
> Yes. Quantum mechanics.
Which QM experiment contradicts Bohmian mechanics? Which part of
Bohmian mechanics contradicts EPR-realism?
> And all failures to show SR to be wrong.
as predicted by LET.
Ilja Schmelzer
> > For causality I use the property that there should
> > not be closed causal loops, something I consider to be an accepted
> > property.
> I did show that your definition of causality leads to causal
> loops. Also you wish to allow for nonlocal interactions allowing
> causal loops.
I remember, you have fiddled around with a degenerated, unobservable
limit of immediate causal influence, claiming this is a causal loop.
Of course, such an immediate causal influence should be physically
interpreted as the limit of a causal influence with very high speed,
without any causal loops.
> > For realism, I try to improve the EPR criterion to meet one
> > objection of Bohr
> It seems to me you haven't understood the objection of Bohr. (Which
> is precisely that the quantum phenomenon does not have some of the
> realistic properties of classical phenomena.)
I have said "one", not "the". The EPR-criterion "contains an
ambiguity as regards the meaning of the expression `without in any way
disturbing a system'" (Bohr), and I agree with this part of Bohr's
criticism. I think, to replace "in any way disturbing" by a "real
causal influence" removes this ambiguity.
> > together with some other possible objections against
> > Bell's inequality proof
> Why should anybody object the proof of Bell's inequalities? I suppose
> it is mathematically correct.
Anything may be questioned. You question EPR realism, other people
replace classical logic with "quantum logic", other question locality
or causality.
Only relativity (the only one which may be easily replaced - by ether
theory) seems to be out of doubt.
> > Is it accepted that causal loops are possible?
> As far as I know, by yourself. But not by most physicists.
What have you told me about ridiculing statements?
Jay Gundersen
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>
>jay...@sandlot.com (Jay Gundersen) writes:
>> Complete mass-energy equivalence is logically incompatible
>
>Why does this notion of *complete* mass-energy equivalence (compared
>with some incomplete mass-energy equivalence, whatever this means)
>suggests a lack of coherence in my views?
Once more, the reasoning is roughly as follows: We observe that
massive objects exhibit an intrinsic resistance to acceleration
in any surroundings, and we call this resistance by the name of
inertia. Then we notice that as an object moves faster, its
resistance to acceleration increases. But then we say "This is
not increased inertia, it is simply aerodynamic drag". Thus, we
understand that we haven't actually changed the inertia of the
object, we have just encountered the effects of an *interaction*
between that object and other entities, and this interaction simply
mimics some (but not all) of the attributes of inertia. Fine.
Now we consider an object in a vacuum, but again we notice (at much
higher speeds) that the resistance to acceleration increases as
the object moves faster. Now we ask ourselves again, "Is this
an increase in the inertia of the object, or is it an extrinsic
phenomenon, i.e., an interaction with surrounding entities (such
as the components of an ether) that simply mimics some of the
attributes of inertia?"
Here we arrive at the crucial point. If the increased resistance
is an extrinsic effect (such as "drag" imposed by an ether), and
the particle's intrinsic inertia is invariant (consistent with the
notion of an absolute time axis), then can we - with the full
application of every scrap of intellectual honesty that we possess -
claim to infer from this increased resistance that the intrinsic
inertia of the particle is transmutable with kinetic energy? What
would be the basis of such a claim? I contend that anyone who
doesn't already have his entire ego invested in a contrary position
will agree that the "ether" interpretation certainly does NOT
suggest, and is actually distinctly incompatible with, the idea
that inertial mass is transmutable with energy.
If the increased resistance to acceleration is due to extrinsic
drag (for example) then we have no way of accounting for the
complete conversion of mass to energy represented by the
annihilation of electrons and positrons. "Ether drag" (or any
other extrinsic proposition) simply does not accord with this
demonstrated transmutability of inertial mass and energy. In
such a context we can only introduce mass-energy equivalence
on a completely ad hoc basis, and as a completely separate
phenomenon from the increasing resistance to acceleration at
high speeds, which ostensibly is what suggested the equivalence
in the first place!
The equivalence of mass and energy emerges very naturally
from the principle of relativity, and forms a coherent whole,
especially with the general theory, but in an ether theory the
equivalence of mass and energy is a distinct anomaly. Likewise,
the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass, which
has also been demonstrated to a very high degree of precision,
and which is in perfect accord with the principles of general
relativity, must appear simply as an accident in an ether theory,
or any other theory with an absolute time axis.
Bare falsifiability is not the ultimate criterion for a theoretical
framework. Above all, from an observationally viable theory we
seek unity, coherence, logical simplicity, beauty, and heuristic
power. General relativity has all of those in the extreme. Ether
theories have none of them.
Preston Barlow
On 12 Dec 1997 08:15:28 -0500, e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
> I don't think the 3rd law follows strongly from the principle
> of relativity, unless we add some other assumptions...
> For example, let identical bodies in relative motion A and B
> frame we had some item called 'force' whose magnitude on A
> (stationary) were 5, but on B (moving) were 7. Now, what the
> principle of relativity (possibly throwing in spatial isotropy)
> requires is that from _B's_ rest frame, we would then be able
> to correctly label the force on _B_ as 5, but the magnitude of
The symmetry used in the derivation of mass-energy equivalence
isn't between the force exerted by A as seen from B's reference
frame and vice versa, it's between the force exerted by A as seen
from A's own reference frame and the same for B. Your example
agrees with this, because both A and B (from their respective
frames of reference) sense that they are exerting a force of 5
newtons on the "other guy". This is the sense of the 3rd law
that is exploited in the mass-energy derivation, where we argued
that if A senses he is subject to 7 newtons of force at the point
of contact with B, then by symmetry B must sense that he is
subject to 7 newtons of force from contact with A at the same
point of contact, just as in your example.
Edward Green
Preston Barlow <pba...@eastern.com> wrote:
>The symmetry used in the derivation of mass-energy equivalence
>isn't between the force exerted by A as seen from B's reference
>frame and vice versa, it's between the force exerted by A as seen
>from A's own reference frame and the same for B. Your example
>agrees with this, because both A and B (from their respective
>frames of reference) sense that they are exerting a force of 5
>newtons on the "other guy". This is the sense of the 3rd law
>that is exploited in the mass-energy derivation, where we argued
>that if A senses he is subject to 7 newtons of force at the point
>of contact with B, then by symmetry B must sense that he is
>subject to 7 newtons of force from contact with A at the same
>point of contact, just as in your example.
Modulo the first sentence still not seeming to express exactly
what I had in mind, we seem to agree what symmetry plausibly requires,
so I seem also to have misunderstood you. The large degree of
symmetry implied in the third law is already interesting from
Newtonian physics: that for any two bodies at all, of whatever
composition, mass, and whatever properties you like, it is possible to
assign a single magnitude 'f' to their interaction, entering
identically in their several equations of motion -- for whatever that
sage observation is worth!
Earlier, Preston Barlow <pba...@eastern.com> wrote:
<...>
>(It's interesting that we use this "correspondence principle" in
>defining our observable parameters in relativity, just as we do in
>quantum mechanics, but apparently in the historical development of
>relativity no one dignified this heuristic with a name, let alone
>elevated it to a "principle"; the latter move was characteristic of
>Bohr.)
Nice observation.
<more extremely nice development cut>
>Of course there's another assumption lurking here as well, namely,
>the assumption of physical equivalence between instantaneously
>co-moving frames, regardless of acceleration. For example, we assume
>that two co-moving clocks will keep time at the same instantaneous
>rate, even if one is accelerating and the other is not. This is just
>a hypothesis - we have no a_priori reason to rule out physical
>effects of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th,... time derivatives.
You know, I asked/thought about this question earlier (actually I
limited my interest to the effects of the 2nd derivative), and I
arrived at what still seems to be a pretty good answer/understanding.
You could say that it's not so much that we assume instantaneously
co-moving clocks keep time at the same rate, as that we assume that to
the extent they don't we can calculate this effect via 'the ordinary
physical effects of acceleration', whatever precisely that means,
though I think the general sense is clear. In fact we don't have to
limit this assumption to effects of the instantaneous second
derivative, but could include something based on the entire history of
the clock in principle (ok, maybe this is getting academic). But I
think John Baez put it nicely: If you accelerate a clock hard enough,
it definitely has an effect on its time-keeping; it breaks! This
effect, whatever it is, is reasonably assumed to depend on the
detailed construction of the real clock, so the more sweeping and
possibly unexpected assumption is that the effect in the 1st time
derivative _vanish_ for _all_ physical clocks regardless of
construction.
Phew. I was afraid I would have no profound comments. :)
>It just so
>happens that when we construct a theory on this basis, it works
>pretty well. (Similarly we have no a_priori reason to think the
>field equations necessarily depend only on the metric and its 1st and
>2nd derivatives; but it works.)
Yeah. But in light of the above illumination vouchsafed me by the
muse of physics, we might say the first case differs in assuming what
may be neglected, rather than what must be included, the included part
left to the details of individual systems.
>The subject of "relativistic mass" is kind of tricky. On one hand,
>you're right that most modern formulations of relativity shun this
>concept, but on the other hand it's undeniable that the concept was
>heuristically significant in suggesting the equivalence of mass and
>energy. On the third hand, it's worth noting that Einstein's 1905
>paper was entitled "Does the INERTIA of a Body Depend on its Energy
>Content?", so clearly Einstein was mindful of some distinction
>between inertia and mass. On the fourth hand, not only is
Holy Shiva.
>mass-energy equivalence not required by special relativity, it is
>actually inconsistent with it when combined with the equivalence
>principle, and this is one of the main reasons that Einstein
>eventually abandoned SR. Thus, SR led Einstein to mass-energy
>equivalence, which in turn led him to reject SR! A similar thing
>could be said of "relativistic mass".
This I don't follow. Can one indicate briefly how mass-energy
equivalence and the (other) equivalence principle conflict?
(I pray your forgiveness if you did just that in the snipped section,
which I did not have the wit to follow).
<reluctant snip>
>Of course, the fact remains that this mass-like quality (aka
>relativistic mass) is distinct from rest mass, but we'll probably
>need a more fundamental theory of matter to understand the actual
>convertability between the two. No one really knows the detailed
>process by which rest mass is converted to energy. Take for example
>an atom of some
>highly fissionable material. We may split that atom into two smaller
>atoms whose combined rest mass is less than the original rest mass,
>but at the instant of the split the overall "mass-like" quality is
>conserved, because those two smaller atoms have enormous velocities,
>precisely such that the total relativistic mass (archaic or not) is
>conserved. Then we slow down those two smaller atoms and end up with
>two atoms at rest, at which point a little bit of rest mass has
>disappeared from the universe. But the actual physics of how the
>excess binding energy was originally a "rest property" representing
>"real mass" with isotropic inertia, and then becomes a kinetic
>property representing archaic old relativistic mass with anisotropic
>inertia, is not well understood (at least not by me).
Thank you for that extremely interesting development. The 'actual
physics', as you put it -- and here please permit me to shift into
speculative mode -- seems to me almost certain to lie in some almost
tautological conservation principle of an underlying, er... 'unified
field' (I like to use the 'ae' word, but I don't want you to think I'm
too cranky, so we we will call the expected mathematical model something
respectable). By this I mean, we will have some detailed microscopic
description of how configuration A locally evolves into configuration B
(a notion of evolution however logically complicated by being
antecedent to the set of natural measure we describe as time), and
as a result of the form of this evolution law, we will see that some
integral of the field (in a generalized hand-waving sense) is
conserved; this integral corresponding to what we measure as 'mass'
or 'energy' (using one of a set of measures, anyway).
As to how we are to picture this hypothetical mathematical model, this
conserved integral seems likely to correspond to some local
'curvature' or 'bunchiness' of the field, rest mass representing a
stable and localized configuration of this bunchiness (perhaps held in
bound by some topological defect), and energy representing this effect
set free to run wild at c. Ok, I guess kinetic energy forms some sort
of intermediate case (a localized bunchiness surrounded by additional
field disturbance -- an understanding of course complicated by the
principle of relativity itself, should it remain rigorously true).
It seems to me there is a tendency to reify energy, accompanied by
characteristic comments like "Put your hand in this pot of boiling
water, if you think energy is just a conserved field integral,
buddy", kind of a subconscious phlogiston theory, which makes
exploring this line of thought difficult. It also seems to me there
are abundant hints in quantum theory, and particular the old De Broglie
quantum theory, about the utility of such a conceptualization, though
here we also run up against fashion, and into a habit of not taking
the equations 'realisticly' whatever that means, but I think chiefly
meaning not taking them as adumbrations of a possible unifying
conceptual/mathematical picture underlying relativity, energy and
momentum and all that; apparently God forbid, lest somebody take us as
naive. Similarly we are handicapped by the relatively early appearance
of such questions, before we get into the gory thickets of conspicuous
mathematics, further giving these lines of thought a certain naive or
student-like quality, which the professional is supposed to have
moved beyond, read decided to ignore.
Any sufficiently complex logical system, like a cellular automaton,
can be explored into arbitrary and limitless realms of specific
taxonomy of structure, without having therefore somehow gained any new
understanding of how the rules may arise from simpler rules; as
Feynman said, a decoupling of structural layers. (At this point, in
the unlikely event a significant sample has read this far, someone may
comment that workers are surely free not to question the foundations
continually, to which I reply, surely, if those with the predilection
are free to question whatever level meets their fancy, without the
implication of naivete because others have simply decided to play
chess by those rules, and extremely proficiently.)
sh...@wt.net
This is getting so long, that I had to cut a great deal. For the
most part, I've focused on the falsification of relativity.
The only part concerning the tests for theories that I've included
is the discussion of quarks. If we reach agreement on what could
falsify SR, we can always go back to discuss the snipped topics.
Ilja Schmelzer wrote, quoting me:
>>Are you absolutely sure that Bell was not talking about the super-
>>deterministic loophole for realism?
>For Einstein-local realism. In any case, I reject this loophole for
>the same reason as the others: a major decrease in falsifiability
>(de-facto unfalsifiable).
Well, we need not discuss this loophole then, since we both reject
this possibility for a local deterministic theory for close to
the same reasons.
<snip>
>I want to underscore a common point of these alternative explanations
>and this point is common with mysticism. It is that they essentially
>decrease falsifiability. As a mathematician, I like to find out
>common properties.
Well, I don't know about math, but in physics to some extent and
metaphysics to a great extent, lumping things together because of
a perceived common property can be very dangerous. I think that
your insistence that special relativity is immune to falsification
comes from a misunderstanding of the position of those who see the
ability to drop realism and retain falsification.
The nature of your differences with me on the nature of realism
underscores this viewpoint. I would suggest that seeing the
distinctions as well as the similarities is very useful.
>>> Once we accept these alternative explanations, we loose empirical
>>>content, and probably very much.
>> O.K. Tell me, as an experimentalism, what I loose in terms of what
>>I can measure.
>A mystic claims that he is able to realize thought transfer between
>two rooms without communications. Based on the empirical content of
>realism and current theory about the brain, we claim that this is not
>possible, and suggest an experiment: I tell you something in room A,
you >transfer it, your friend tells the result. And we make a
prediction: You will >never reach a statistically significant
correlation between my choice at A >and the result at B.
FWIW, I find the misuse of the word mystic irritating. Mystics do
not make claims about telepathic signals. Psychics do.
>If we find such a correlation, we accept that there is some
>communication and (after a lot of checks for other cheating
>possibilities) we accept that our current theory of brain is
>falsified.
O.K. that's not unreasonable. However, I will restate one phrase
in order to put it in terms of measureables:
"after a lot of checks for other cheating possibilities"
can be restated as:
"after ensuring that no signal could have been sent by known physical
means."
I hope we agree that is cheating in this case...sending a signal by
mundane means.
>Now, another mystic declares that he has some thought transfer
>possibilities, but not as powerful. He cannot send a signal, but
>nonetheless he is able to have a highly correlated feeling which
>cannot be explained without some thought transfer. To prove this, he
>shows that he is able to violate Bell's inequalities.
Let us look at this claim. As with the previous example, we have
a situation where we want to make sure that this true telepathy and not
explainable in terms of know physical means. So, the telepathy must
demonstrate Bell inequality for readings that have no physical basis for
the violation of Bell's inequality.
Well, I can think of an easy way to test this. Take groups consisting
of three sets of pairs of macroscopic objects:
A1 B1
A2 B2
A3 C3
Let two psychics set up whatever notation they want on these pairs. Then
take a significant number of these groups (say 1000) and break them into
two subgroups: (A1,A2,A3): and (B1,B2,B3). After the psychics are done
with their notation, use a pseudo-random number generator to obtain an
ordering of the pairs. Let psychic A get the first subgroup and psychic
B get the second subgroup. Then, using one pseudo-random number
generator at A to generate the 1,2,3 at in an even random, fashion, and
a second generator to do the same at B. This number will be used to
determine which card each psychic will consider. If the correlations
violate Bell's inequality, then we accept that our understanding of the
brain is falsified.
<snip>
>>For example, we continue to claim that a superluminal phone line
>>falsifies relativity. Please, prove this.
> The easiest way to do this is to deal with the relativistic quantum
> mechanical treatment of locality: spacelike operators must commute.
> AB -BA <>0.
>But I don't have an operator, I have only a strange observation: if I
>press a button near A, the house near B does not look very beautiful.
<snip>
>You got the point? To falsify relativity we need something outside
>relativity, be it causality/realism or some of the basic principles of
>quantum theory. You use the basic principles of quantum theory. Not
>very impressive.
I think that you may have gotten a mistaken understanding of
from the name and initial formulation. Look at Goldstein's treatment
of relativity. In this formulation, one sees Lorenz transformation
as a rotation in 4-space.
Using such a rotation, if one has spacelike signals, one can send
a signal, using one relay, from spacetime point (x, t1) to
spacetime point, (x,t2), where t2 < t1, (i.e. t2 is before t1). Thus,
relativity would prove that backwards in time signals are possible.
Such a mechanism should allow one, in principal, to reduce entropy in
an isolated system.
So, if spacelike signals are found, then one should try to use them
to send backwards in time signals. If these are possible, then
relativity is valid. If the mechanism is spacelike, but cannot be
used to generate back in time signals, then all reference frames are
not equivalent. As an experimentalist, given such a mechanism, I can
easily think of tests to start to hone in on the absolute frame of
reference.
In short, the set of statements:
1) Relativity is valid
2) There are spacelike signals
3) Two spacelike signals do not produce a backwards in time signal
produce a contradiction.
I can easily give experimental tests for 2 and 3. They would falsify
relativity.
<snip>
>> I have a very hard time with a scientific theory that has real
>>things that cannot be detected. You can bring up quarks, but
>>their reality was a matter of debate until jets were found.
>BTW let's mention that the theory was published, was well-known and
>AFAIK widely accepted before jets have been found.
When Gell Mann came up with the eightfold way, it was considered
a very useful tool for analyzing the multiplicity of particles that
were found. When charm was found, in the October revolution of 74
it gave strong indications that his ideas were right. However,
confirmation of the existence of quarks was through the observation
of jets, I think it was in 76. Quoting Fermilab's web site:
"Observations of jets of particles produced perpendicular to the
direction of the particle beam at Fermilab's accelerator confirmed
that the proton was made up of very small constituents."
If we still had no evidence of small scatterers within the proton and
neutron, I would think that the ontological status of the quarks would
be considered questionable, as is the infinite charge of the electron.
Would you be willing to accept FTL as a mathematical fiction, and
subject to superpositions?
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net
In article <01bd06d4$4f9c03e0$2e09...@toddlius.san.rr.com> Todd Desiato
wrote:
[I had written:]
>> When visible light travels through glass, is it the group velocity or
>> the phase velocity that is greater than c?
>
>Phase velocity
>
>> And when we use a protractor
>> to measure refractivity of visible light, is it the group velocity or
>> the phase velocity that determines the result?
>>
>Refraction is caused by the change in group velocity from one medium to
>the next.
>It is frequency dependent.
So I thought. You see where this is going, right?
Here is what Kantor, a well known skeptic, says on this issue. Perhaps
someone can explain to me where Kantor goes wrong here?
QUOTE
Phenomenologically, light and x rays have been observed to propagate in
various dispersive media with an index of refraction that is less than
unity, and this indicates propagation speeds in excess of the absolute
speed of light c. This has been misleadingly _accounted_ for in terms of
a wave phase velocity in excess of c rather than an actual physical
propagation in excess of c. [5, 6] Born and Wolf [7] note:
"Now according to the theory of relativity, signals can never travel
faster than c. This implies that the phase velocity cannot correspond to
a velocity with which a signal is propagated. It is, in fact, easy to
see that the phase velocity cannot be determined experimentally and
must, therefore, be considered to be void of any direct physical
significance."
The introduction of a physically inconsequent entity that is
experimentally unobservable, for the purpose of supporting the
_opposite_ view that the speed of light is _not_ absolute, would be
recognized at once as an unproductively deceptive circumlocution.
END QUOTE
From W. Kantor, Relativistic Propagation of Light (1976) p. 123. The
references are:
[5] A. Sommerfeld, Ann. d. Physik, 44, 177 (1914).
[6] L. Brillouin, Wave Propagation and Group Velocity (Academic Press,
1960).
[7] M. Born and E. Wolf, Principles of Optics, 2nd ed. (Macmillan, 1964)
p. 18.
In other words, why do measurements of the refractivity of visible light
through glass reveal the group velocity, but measurements of x rays
through various dispersive media reveal the phase velocity?
>I have confidence in my equations because I understand
>where they come from and why.
Yes. I also have great confidence that your equations follow from your
assumptions. It’s your assumptions that I’m not so confident in.
Alan Pendleton
David Byrden
alanpe...@worldnet.att.net wrote in article
<882116489....@dejanews.com>...
> It is, in fact, easy to see that the phase velocity
> cannot be determined experimentally
Why not?
David
Alan Pendleton
This article was deleted from my server within 2 hours of posting.
I therefore repost it, and apologize to anyone who gets a duplicate.
In article <01bd06d4$4f9c03e0$2e09...@toddlius.san.rr.com> Todd Desiato
wrote:
[I had written:]
>> When visible light travels through glass, is it the group velocity or
>> the phase velocity that is greater than c?
>
>Phase velocity
>
>> And when we use a protractor
>> to measure refractivity of visible light, is it the group velocity or
>> the phase velocity that determines the result?
>>
>Refraction is caused by the change in group velocity from one medium to
>the next.
>It is frequency dependent.
So I thought. You see where this is going, right?
Here is what Kantor, a well known skeptic, says on this issue. Perhaps
someone can explain to me where Kantor goes wrong here?
QUOTE
Phenomenologically, light and x rays have been observed to propagate in
various dispersive media with an index of refraction that is less than
unity, and this indicates propagation speeds in excess of the absolute
speed of light c. This has been misleadingly _accounted_ for in terms of
a wave phase velocity in excess of c rather than an actual physical
propagation in excess of c. [5, 6] Born and Wolf [7] note:
"Now according to the theory of relativity, signals can never travel
faster than c. This implies that the phase velocity cannot correspond to
a velocity with which a signal is propagated. It is, in fact, easy to
Preston Barlow
On 13 Dec 1997 e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
> The large degree of symmetry implied in the third law is already
> interesting from Newtonian physics: that for any two bodies at
> all, of whatever composition, mass, and whatever properties you
> like, it is possible to assign a single magnitude 'f' to their
> interaction, entering identically in their several equations of
Yes, the concept of 'force' is one of the most peculiar in all
of physics, and has a fascinating history. It is, in one sense,
the most viscerally immediate concept in classical mechanics,
and seems to serve as the essential 'agent of causality' in all
interactions, and yet the ontological status of 'force' has
always been highly suspect. For example, we typically regard
force as the "cause" of changes in motion, and assert that those
changes would not occur in the absense of the forces, but this
"causitive" aspect of force is not really part of its technical
definition, and we can equally well regard the force as a product
of changes in motion, or even as merely a descriptive parameter
with no independent ontological standing at all.
In fact, the concept of 'force' could *almost* be eliminated
entirely from classical mechanics, but for the problems of
absolute rotation and the infamous "static solution" in linear
motion (the confronting of which - in different ways - seems
to have accompanied each new fundamental theory of physics).
Newton certainly wrestled with such questions as whether force
should be regarded as an observable or simply a relation between
observables. It's interesting that Mach regarded the 3rd Law
as Newton's most important contribution to mechanics, even
though other's have criticized it as being more a definition
than a law.
On the other hand, in the modern formulation of relativistic
mechanics the concept of Force is an anachronism, and its various
generalized definitions are introduced only for the purpose of
relating relativistic descriptions to their classical counterparts.
Needless to say, the word 'Force' has many non-technical meanings
and connotations (often related to notions of "causation") in
addition to its strict scientific definition(s), and those non-
technical meanings sometimes color people's thinking on the
subject. This reminds of Maxwell's commentary on Herbert
Spenser's talk before the Belfast Section of the British
Society in 1874:
"Mr Spenser in the course of his remarks regretted that so
many members of the Section were in the habit of employing
the word Force in a sense too limited and definite to be of
any use in a complete theory. He had himself always been
careful to preserve that largeness of meaning which was too
often lost sight of in elementary works. This was best done
by using the word sometimes in one sense and sometimes in
another, and in this way he trusted that he had made the
word occupy a sufficiently large field of thought."
On 13 Dec 1997 e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>> there's another assumption lurking here as well, namely, the
>> assumption of physical equivalence between instantaneously
>> co-moving frames, regardless of acceleration.
>
> You could say that it's not so much that we assume instantaneously
> co-moving clocks keep time at the same rate, as that we assume that
> to the extent they don't we can calculate this effect via 'the
> ordinary physical effects of acceleration'...
Yes, that's pretty much the standard view, i.e., the "clock
hypothosis" states that an *ideal* clock is unaffected by
acceleration, and this can, in a sense, be regarded as simply
the definition of an "ideal clock", which is one that compensates
for any effects of 2nd (or higher) derivatives. But of course
the physical significance of this definition arises from the
hypothesized fact that acceleration is absolute, and therefore
perfectly detectable (in principle). In contrast, we
hypothesize that velocity is perfectly UNdetectable, which
explains why we cannot define our "ideal clock" to compensate
for velocity (or, for that matter, position). The point is
that these are both assumptions invoked by relativity: (1) the
zeroth and first derivatives of position are perfectly relative
and UNdetectable, and (2) the second and higher derivatives of
position are perfectly absolute and detectable. We're all
mindful of the first assumption, but we sometimes overlook
the second.
The notion of an ideal clock takes on even more physical
significance from the fact that there exist physical entities
(such a vibrating atoms, etc) in which the intrinsic forces
far exceed any accelerating forces we can apply, so that we
have in fact (not just in principle) the ability to observe
virtually ideal clocks. For example, in the Rebka and Pound
experiments it was found that nuclear clocks were slowed by
precisely the factor gamma(v), even though subject to
accelerations up to 10^16 g (which is huge in normal terms,
but of course still small relative to nuclear forces).
On 13 Dec 1997 e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>> ...mass-energy equivalence not required by special relativity,
>> it is actually inconsistent with it when combined with the
>> equivalence principle...
>
> This I don't follow. Can one indicate briefly how mass-energy
> equivalence and the (other) equivalence principle conflict?
It's closely related to the problem that underlies the questions
appearing in these newgroups from time to time about why a particle
moving at sufficiently high speeds doesn't become a black hole -
and since every particle is moving at near the speed of light
relative to SOME frame, they should ALL be black holes - at
least with respect to some frames of reference (whatever that
might mean).
In 1912 (after special but before general relativity) Einstein
gave a brief explanation of the problem in a letter to Max
Abraham
"One of the most important results of relativity theory
is the knowledge that every form of energy E possesses
inertia E/c^2 proportional to E. Since, as far as our
experience goes, inertial mass is at the same time
gravitational mass, we cannot but attribute to every
form of energy E a *gravitational mass* equal to E/c^2.
From this it immediately follows that the gravitational
force acting on a body is greater when the body is in
motion than when it is at rest.
If the gravitational field were to be accounted for in
present day relativity theory, it would have to be
regarded as either a 4-vector or an antisymmetric tensor
of the 2nd order... but one thereby obtains results
which contradict the above-mentioned consequences
concerning the gravitational mass of energy... It
therefore looks as if the gravitational vector cannot
be consistently fitted into the relativistic scheme
as it stands at the present moment."
As Zahar said, "Einstein had two reasons for giving up special
relativity as a suitable framework for physics. First,
philosophical dissatisfaction with having given a privliged
status to the set of inertial frames; second, the technical
difficulty, arising from E=mc^2, of accommodating gravitational
theory within special relativity. The second reason appears to
have been the more decisive one".
On 13 Dec 1997 e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>> how the excess binding energy was originally a "rest property"
>> representing "real mass" with isotropic inertia, and then becomes
>> a kinetic property representing archaic old relativistic mass
>> with anisotropic inertia, is not well understood (at least not
>> by me).
>
>As to how we are to picture this hypothetical mathematical model,
>this conserved integral seems likely to correspond to some local
>'curvature' or 'bunchiness' of the field, rest mass representing a
>stable and localized configuration of this bunchiness (perhaps held
>in bound by some topological defect), and energy representing this
>effect set free to run wild at c.
Yes, the 'bunchiness' you refer to, if applied to things that
could in some circumstances "run wild at c" would seem to require
some kind of non-linear interaction between photons or EM fields.
There has certainly been no shortage of suggestions that perhaps
matter is ultimately electromagnetic in origin, or that it is a
manifestation of some "curvature" or other anomaly in an underlying
field.
Along these lines it's interesting to review Einstein's 2nd
derivation of mass-energy equivalence, in which he considered a
bound "swarm" of particles buzzing around with some average velocity,
and if the swarm is heated (energy E is added) the particles move
faster and thereby gain both longitudal and transverse relativistic
mass, which is anisotropic, but since they are all buzzing around
in random directions, the net effect on the stationary swarm (bound
together by some unspecified means) is that its resistance to
acceleration is isotropic, and its "rest mass" has effectively
been increased by E/c^2. Of course, such a composite object still
consists of elementary particles with some irreducible rest mass,
which could never run wild at c. To get complete equivalence
you almost need to imagine *photons* bound together is a swarm,
but no one (except possibly God) has ever been able to figure out
how to bind pure photons together in a "stationary" configuration
(because EM waves are linear).
On 13 Dec 1997 e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>Any sufficiently complex logical system, like a cellular automaton,
>can be explored into arbitrary and limitless realms of specific
>taxonomy of structure, without having therefore somehow gained any
>new understanding of how the rules may arise from simpler rules...
True. This is what makes so impressive the accomplishments of men
like Newton and Einstein who, in the full glare of these limitless
possibilities, manage somehow to muster the spiritual and intellectual
resources necessary to *make decisions* on the basis of insufficient
information, and synthesize some non-trivial understanding that has
(or at least seems to have) meaning. The combination of sensitivity,
judgement, and discipline necessary to complete such a program is
truly awesome.
Ilja Schmelzer
sh...@wt.net writes:
> This is getting so long, that I had to cut a great deal. For the
> most part, I've focused on the falsification of relativity.
> The only part concerning the tests for theories that I've included
> is the discussion of quarks. If we reach agreement on what could
> falsify SR, we can always go back to discuss the snipped topics.
A short comment about the purpose of the provocation "SR is
unfalsifiable". What I want is not to win this discussion, but to
close at least some immunization loopholes for relativity.
The "rejections" below (marked with ;-)) should not be understood as
my real opinion. I consider them as invalid. But some of my opononents
cnsider similar arguments as valid arguments against my position. I
have tried hard to show them that they are invalid, but without much
success :-(. Let's see if you have some better arguments.
> >For Einstein-local realism. In any case, I reject this loophole for
> >the same reason as the others: a major decrease in falsifiability
> >(de-facto unfalsifiable).
> Well, we need not discuss this loophole then, since we both reject
> this possibility for a local deterministic theory for close to
> the same reasons.
No. We have to. ;-) (Of course, its fine that you close the first
loophole. But I want to hear a proof, at least an argument, why.)
> I think that your insistence that special relativity is immune to
> falsification comes from a misunderstanding of the position of those
> who see the ability to drop realism and retain falsification.
No, it is provocation. I want to see how you try to reject (IMO
nonsense) arguments I'm confronted every day. I want to get something
what you accept to be a falsification of relativity, and I want that
you - in defense against my pseudo-relativistic criticism - close
yourself all the loopholes for relativity I need to prove it false
already now.
Thus, I have warned you - be careful, the area full with hidden mines.
But, I hope you nonetheless agree to play this game. (If not, I think
I have defended successfully my claim that "SR is unfalsifiable".)
> FWIW, I find the misuse of the word mystic irritating. Mystics do
> not make claims about telepathic signals. Psychics do.
I don't bother about the correct classification of different IMO
non-scientific directions.
> >If we find such a correlation, we accept that there is some
> >communication and (after a lot of checks for other cheating
> >possibilities) we accept that our current theory of brain is
> >falsified.
> O.K. that's not unreasonable. However, I will restate one phrase
> in order to put it in terms of measureables:
> "after a lot of checks for other cheating possibilities"
> can be restated as:
> "after ensuring that no signal could have been sent by known physical
> means."
> I hope we agree that is cheating in this case...sending a signal by
> mundane means.
No, there are a lot of other ways. Manipulate the questions which will be
asked, manipulate protocols ..... ;-)
> Well, I can think of an easy way to test this. Take groups consisting
> of three sets of pairs of macroscopic objects:
>
> A1 B1
> A2 B2
> A3 C3
>
> Let two psychics set up whatever notation they want on these pairs. Then
> take a significant number of these groups (say 1000) and break them into
> two subgroups: (A1,A2,A3): and (B1,B2,B3). After the psychics are done
> with their notation, use a pseudo-random number generator to obtain an
> ordering of the pairs. Let psychic A get the first subgroup and psychic
> B get the second subgroup. Then, using one pseudo-random number
> generator at A to generate the 1,2,3 at in an even random, fashion, and
> a second generator to do the same at B. This number will be used to
> determine which card each psychic will consider. If the correlations
> violate Bell's inequality, then we accept that our understanding of the
> brain is falsified.
Yes, that's what I propose as a valid test too. But, of course, it
does not falsify the theory that there is no thought transfer. Our
classical brain theory should be modified into a new age "quantum
brain" theory, that's all ;-)
> So, if spacelike signals are found, then one should try to use them
> to send backwards in time signals. If these are possible, then
> relativity is valid. If the mechanism is spacelike, but cannot be
> used to generate back in time signals, then all reference frames are
> not equivalent. As an experimentalist, given such a mechanism, I can
> easily think of tests to start to hone in on the absolute frame of
> reference.
> In short, the set of statements:
> 1) Relativity is valid
> 2) There are spacelike signals
> 3) Two spacelike signals do not produce a backwards in time signal
> produce a contradiction.
> I can easily give experimental tests for 2 and 3. They would falsify
> relativity.
Ok, at first a relativistic explanation: we introduce some new matter
field T(x,t) with increasing values. We observe that the strange
correlations which you try to explain as "signal transfer" works only
in the direction of increasing T. For T, we have a relativistic
equation Box T = 0. There are of course a lot of interesting
solutions of ART with very strange solutions for T, to name T
"absolute time" we have no empirical reason. We do not observe them,
but this is of course not problematic. ;-)
Moreover, again: you observe only some correlations (successfully
explained by the T-field theory), not "spacelike signals". ;-)
> If we still had no evidence of small scatterers within the proton and
> neutron, I would think that the ontological status of the quarks would
> be considered questionable, as is the infinite charge of the electron.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sorry, infinities are of course much more questionable.
> Would you be willing to accept FTL as a mathematical fiction, and
> subject to superpositions?
?????????? Please explain. The question about superpositions is a
central point.
Ilja Schmelzer
jay...@sandlot.com (Jay Gundersen) writes:
> Here we arrive at the crucial point. If the increased resistance
> is an extrinsic effect (such as "drag" imposed by an ether), and
> the particle's intrinsic inertia is invariant (consistent with the
> notion of an absolute time axis), then can we - with the full
> application of every scrap of intellectual honesty that we possess -
> claim to infer from this increased resistance that the intrinsic
> inertia of the particle is transmutable with kinetic energy? What
> would be the basis of such a claim? I contend that anyone who
> doesn't already have his entire ego invested in a contrary position
> will agree that the "ether" interpretation certainly does NOT
> suggest, and is actually distinctly incompatible with, the idea
> that inertial mass is transmutable with energy.
> If the increased resistance to acceleration is due to extrinsic
> drag (for example) then we have no way of accounting for the
> complete conversion of mass to energy represented by the
> annihilation of electrons and positrons.
We have a simple way for accounting it - the original electron/hole
picture used by Dirac.
> Likewise,
> the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass, which
> has also been demonstrated to a very high degree of precision,
> and which is in perfect accord with the principles of general
> relativity, must appear simply as an accident in an ether theory,
> or any other theory with an absolute time axis.
You don't know this theory but claim "must". It is in no way an
accident, but a consequence of the simple fact that we can observe the
ether only via its interaction with matter fields.
> Bare falsifiability is not the ultimate criterion for a theoretical
> framework. Above all, from an observationally viable theory we
> seek unity, coherence, logical simplicity, beauty, and heuristic
> power. General relativity has all of those in the extreme. Ether
> theories have none of them.
Of course, it is meaningless to discuss simplicity, beauty, and
heuristic power if there are no certain criteria for this.
Ether theory is coherent, simple and beautiful, and it explains a
lot. Of course, it is meaningless to discuss with you simplicity,
beauty, and heuristic power because there are no certain criteria for
comparison. But at least for unity we can compare above theories:
ether theory allows to unify gravity with quantum theory, relativity
not.
Jay Gunderson
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>Jay Gundersen) writes:
>> If the increased resistance is an extrinsic effect (such as "drag"
>> imposed by an ether), and the particle's intrinsic inertia is
>> invariant (consistent with the notion of an absolute time axis),
>> intrinsic inertia of the particle is transmutable with kinetic
>> energy? What would be the basis of such a claim?
>
> electron/hole picture used by Dirac.
You deleted the crucial next sentence of my post, which read
In such a context we can only introduce mass-energy
equivalence on a completely ad hoc basis, and as a
completely separate phenomenon from the increasing
resistance to acceleration at high speeds, which
ostensibly is what suggested the equivalence in the
first place!
Then, after deleting this sentence, you proceeded to illustrate
the point by giving a completely ad hoc basis for mass-energy
equivalence (the long-discredited electron/hole picture) that is
a completely separate phenomenon from the increasing resistance
to acceleration at high speeds, which ostensibly is what suggested
the equivalence in the first place! Your reply confirms the fact
that ether theories lack unity and coherence (and your tactic of
deleting the most incriminating sentence suggests that, on some
level, you are aware of these deficiencies).
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>
>Jay Gundersen) writes:
>> ... equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass, which
>> has also been demonstrated to a very high degree of precision,
>> and which is in perfect accord with the principles of general
>> relativity, must appear simply as an accident in an ether theory,
>> or any other theory with an absolute time axis.
>
>You don't know this theory but claim "must". It is in no way an
>accident, but a consequence of the simple fact that we can observe
>the ether only via its interaction with matter fields.
We can say "must" for the same reason that we can tell someone who
claims to have 'squared the circle' with straight-edge and compass
that there *must* be an error in his solution, and we can say this
even without studying his solution, because we have a clear under-
standing of the logic of the problem. General relativity accounts
for the indistinguishablility of inertia and gravity in the best
possible way: by saying that inertia and gravity are the same
thing. This is simply Leibniz's Identity of Indiscernibles. No
"ether theory" (nor any theory with absolute time) can claim to
embody this same unity and coherence, because the identity of
gravity and inertia logically implies the rejection of absolute
time. Therefore, we can say that the equivalence between inertial
and gravitational mass, which has been demonstrated to a very
high degree of precision, and which is in *perfect* accord with
the principles of general relativity, must appear simply as an
accident in an ether theory, or any other theory with an absolute
time axis.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>
>Jay Gundersen) writes:
>> Bare falsifiability is not the ultimate criterion for a theoretical
>> framework. Above all, from an observationally viable theory we
>> seek unity, coherence, logical simplicity, beauty, and heuristic
>> power. General relativity has all of those in the extreme. Ether
>> theories have none of them.
>
>Ether theory is coherent, simple and beautiful, and it explains a
>lot.
I have given explicit reasons for the contrary view, viz., ether theory
is incoherent, convoluted, ugly, and explains nothing.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>
>Of course, it is meaningless to discuss with you simplicity,
>beauty, and heuristic power because there are no certain criteria for
>comparison.
There are no certain criteria for anything, but that doesn't imply
the concepts are meaningless.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de>
>But at least for unity we can compare above theories: ether theory
>allows to unify gravity with quantum theory, relativity not.
Neither of those assertions is in evidence. On the other hand,
the greater unity and coherence of relativity vis a vis ether theories
is manifest.
Ilja Schmelzer
Jay Gunderson <jay...@sandlot.com> writes:
> > We have a simple way for accounting it - the original
> > electron/hole picture used by Dirac.
> You deleted the crucial next sentence of my post, which read
> In such a context we can only introduce mass-energy
> equivalence on a completely ad hoc basis, and as a
> completely separate phenomenon from the increasing
> resistance to acceleration at high speeds, which
> ostensibly is what suggested the equivalence in the
> first place!
> Then, after deleting this sentence, you proceeded to illustrate
> the point by giving a completely ad hoc basis for mass-energy
> equivalence (the long-discredited electron/hole picture) that is
> a completely separate phenomenon from the increasing resistance
> to acceleration at high speeds, which ostensibly is what suggested
> the equivalence in the first place!
I don't bother if IYO the electron/hole picture is discredited or not.
The question is if there was any progress in physics during this
century which probably would not have been happened without
relativistic ideology. I see no reason for this. The basic SR
formulas have been found by Poincare without relativistic help,
positrons have been found using the electron/hole picture, not your
relativistic suggestions.
> Your reply confirms the fact that ether theories lack unity and
> coherence (and your tactic of deleting the most incriminating
> sentence suggests that, on some level, you are aware of these
> deficiencies).
There is no such tactic, I include only parts which seem to be
necessary to understand the context. I have not seen anything
incriminating in your sentence - not more than the standard
"ad hoc" name-calling.
I'm aware that there is some metaphysical difference between
relativistic "should be the same" and ether-theoretical "should look
like the same". I agree that it is a reasonable guess that the
relativistic requirement allows to find some analogies where the
ether-theoretical variant would not have seen them.
But the only example of a success of "relativistic ideology" is
general relativity. It was done by the guy who has proposed later a
criterion of reality which (if accepted) allows to falsify relativity
now.
The progress of quantum theory was not based on relativistic
invariance. Even relativistc quantization was proposed first in a not
very covariant way, as for the electron (electron/hole picture), as
for the field (Fermi/Dirac vs. the covariant Gupta/Bleuler approach).
> >> ... equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass, which
> >> has also been demonstrated to a very high degree of precision,
> >> and which is in perfect accord with the principles of general
> >> relativity, must appear simply as an accident in an ether theory,
> >> or any other theory with an absolute time axis.
> >You don't know this theory but claim "must". It is in no way an
> >accident, but a consequence of the simple fact that we can observe
> >the ether only via its interaction with matter fields.
> We can say "must" for the same reason that we can tell someone who
> claims to have 'squared the circle' with straight-edge and compass
> that there *must* be an error in his solution, and we can say this
> even without studying his solution, because we have a clear under-
> standing of the logic of the problem.
Ignorance as an argument.
There are always a lot of different ways to reach the same conclusion.
I reach the same conclusion as relativity, not a different one like
someone who claims to have 'squared the circle'. Your analogy
completely fails.
> General relativity accounts for the indistinguishablility of inertia
> and gravity in the best possible way: by saying that inertia and
> gravity are the same thing. This is simply Leibniz's Identity of
> Indiscernibles.
Fine for you. Be happy with this "best possible way".
> No "ether theory" (nor any theory with absolute time) can claim to
> embody this same unity and coherence, because the identity of
> gravity and inertia logically implies the rejection of absolute
> time.
I don't bother about your feelings of beauty. I don't believe that
these indistinguishable states are really the same thing. This is at
least in principle a physical hypothesis - the Pauli principle can be
used to decide.
Unfortunately observations in quantum gravity are not possible, but
the failure of quantum GR is indirect evidence that the relativistic
decision is the wrong one.
> Therefore, we can say that the equivalence between inertial
> and gravitational mass, which has been demonstrated to a very
> high degree of precision, and which is in *perfect* accord with
> the principles of general relativity, must appear simply as an
> accident in an ether theory, or any other theory with an absolute
> time axis.
Quantize your perfect theory, and after this we can compare the
results.
> >Ether theory is coherent, simple and beautiful, and it explains a
> >lot.
> I have given explicit reasons for the contrary view, viz., ether theory
> is incoherent, convoluted, ugly, and explains nothing.
This type of low-level argumentation is not very impressive.
> >Of course, it is meaningless to discuss with you simplicity,
> >beauty, and heuristic power because there are no certain criteria for
> >comparison.
> There are no certain criteria for anything, but that doesn't imply
> the concepts are meaningless.
I agree. But it implies that it is meaningless to discuss such
questions with people who do not want to find out truth, but only want
to win a thread.
> >But at least for unity we can compare above theories: ether theory
> >allows to unify gravity with quantum theory, relativity not.
> Neither of those assertions is in evidence.
Critisize the results of gr-qc/9706055, or present a quantum theory of
gravity in agreement with relativistic symmetry requirements for
competition.
Ignorance is no evidence.
Jay Gundersen
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
> The question is if there was any progress in physics during this
> century which probably would not have been happened without
> relativistic ideology. I see no reason for this. The basic SR
> formulas have been found by Poincare without relativistic help,
> positrons have been found using the electron/hole picture, not
> your relativistic suggestions.
As I recall, anti-matter was first predicted by Dirac on the basis
of his efforts to relativize QM, and the "hole theory" was an attempt
to conceive of some detailed mechanism. Of course, you might say
he was trying to Poincarize QM.
In any case, I think the question is ill-posed. You're asking
whether, if the theory of relativity did not exist, the progress
in physics during this century would have been sigificantly
hindered. It would be more illuminating to consider whether, given
the developments of experimental and theoretical physics in this
century, it would have been possible to NOT develop the theory
of relativity. Could such an elegant and powerful point of view
have gone unnoticed in the light of modern physics? It seems
unlikely. To paraphrase an old philosopher, if relativity theory
had not existed, we would have had to invent it.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
> I have not seen anything incriminating in your sentence - not more
> than the standard "ad hoc" name-calling.
I haven't applied the "ad hoc" label in a "name-calling" fashion, I
carefully explained WHY the introduction of mass-energy equivalence
to an ether theory is ad hoc, and does not fit naturally with the
essential rationale of such a theory. If you find that people often
criticize your ideas as being too "ad hoc", it's possible that those
people have some valid basis for that opinion. I simply made an
honest effort to explain why ether theories strike me as ad hoc.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
> ...the only example of a success of "relativistic ideology" is
> general relativity.
ONLY general relativity? That covers a lot of territory (like the
universe), and the theory itself is regarded by many knowledgeable
scholars as the most beautiful physical theory we have.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>It was done by the guy who has proposed later a criterion of
>reality which (if accepted) allows to falsify relativity now.
Once again, it is my considered opinion that you are simply mistaken
on this point. EPR does not falsify relativity.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
> The progress of quantum theory was not based on relativistic
> invariance. Even relativistc quantization was proposed first
> in a not very covariant way, as for the electron (electron/hole
> picture), as for the field (Fermi/Dirac vs. the covariant Gupta/
> Bleuler approach).
I agree that quantum theory progressed mainly on a separate track
from special relativity (to say nothing of general relativity),
and I would certainly never try to claim that relativity was
essential for much of the "progress" in quantum physics. On the
other hand, I would place the word "progress" in quotes, because
it has been largely a cataloging and classifying of experimental
results (cf, "who ordered that?"), and this is a widely perceived
shortcoming of quantum theory. Also, the efforts to relativize
quantum theory have provided much of whatever theoretical coherence
the theory presently possesses, so even here we again see the
persistent heuristic power of the relativistic point of view. In
addition, I think we need to regard quantum theory as a "work in
progress", and it's at least possible that relativity may shed
still more light on the subject.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>>>> ... equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass...must
>>>> appear simply as an accident in an ether theory...
>>>
>>>You don't know this theory but claim "must".
>>
>>We can say "must" for the same reason that we can tell someone who
>>claims to have 'squared the circle' with straight-edge and compass
>>that there *must* be an error in his solution...
>
>Ignorance as an argument. There are always a lot of different ways
>to reach the same conclusion. I reach the same conclusion as relativity,
>not a different one like someone who claims to have 'squared the circle'.
>Your analogy completely fails.
No, it's a very good analogy, because typically a circle-squarer
actually CAN draw a square with the same area as a given circle,
and a trisector actually CAN divide an angle into three equal parts,
and a "prover" of Fermat's Last Theorem actually CAN give you the
right answer ("sure enough, not possible for exponents greater than
2"). But the *conclusion* is not really at issue. The task is
not to give a practical construction or a chain of incoherent
assertion leading up to the "conclusion", but rather to give a
satisfactory *conceptual* construction within a rigorous theoretical
framework. (Here "satisfactory" means that other smart people agree
with it.)
Now, the analogy is inexact to the extent that circle-squaring was
linked to a *specific* theoretical framework (the "axiomatic system"
of Euclid), whereas the problems of physics can legitimately be
approached on the basis of ANY "satisfactory" (see above) theoretical
framework, certainly not limited to relativity theory. However, it is
still the quality of the framework that matters, and there remain the
essential requirements for unity, coherence, heuristic power, etc.
Suppose someone assembles every experimental result he can find, puts
them in a catalog, and says "Here is my theory of everything, from
gravity to quantum mechanics! It is in perfect agreement with all
experiments! Please acknowledge that I have unified gravity with
quantum mechanics and produced the greatest scientific theory in
history!" In a sense he is doing just what the circle-squarer does,
namely, producing the "result" of "unifying quantum theory with
gravity", but he's doing it simply by juxtaposing them in a catalog,
which is not regarded as a satisfactory theoretical framework by
anyone - except perhaps himself. He may claim that his catalog is
a unified, coherent, and beautiful theory, but ultimately these
things are decided in the marketplace of ideas. In that marketplace,
the theory of relativity is valued quite highly, and ether theories
are not. This may be an indication of widespread ignorance and
stupidity among virtually all the great scientists of the century,
or it may be an example of good taste and sound judgement.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> General relativity accounts for the indistinguishablility of inertia
>> and gravity in the best possible way: by saying that inertia and
>> gravity are the same thing. This is simply Leibniz's Identity of
>> Indiscernibles.
>
>Fine for you. Be happy with this "best possible way"... I don't
>bother about your feelings of beauty. I don't believe that these
>indistinguishable states are really the same thing. This is at least
>in principle a physical hypothesis - the Pauli principle can be used
>to decide.
Yes, you certainly don't bother about my idea of beauty; for example
the belief that indistinguishable things are actually entirely
different is an example of what makes a theory very, well, lacking in
beauty.
Incidentally, you suggest that the "Pauli (exclusion?) Principle"
could be used to evaluate the truth of the Equivalence Principle,
but it seems to me that a truly dedicated etherist could probably
reconcile himself to an adverse result by simply saying "I know the
EP is wrong, so if the PP says it is right, then all we have done
is proven that the PP is imperfect". This points out one of the
fundamental flaws in notion of falsifiability as final arbiter (as
does the catalog argument).
Ilja Schmelzer
jay...@sandlot.com (Jay Gundersen) writes:
> > The question is if there was any progress in physics during this
> > century which probably would not have been happened without
> > relativistic ideology. I see no reason for this. The basic SR
> > formulas have been found by Poincare without relativistic help,
> > positrons have been found using the electron/hole picture, not
> > your relativistic suggestions.
>
> As I recall, anti-matter was first predicted by Dirac on the basis
> of his efforts to relativize QM, and the "hole theory" was an attempt
> to conceive of some detailed mechanism. Of course, you might say
> he was trying to Poincarize QM.
I do not claim this. But the problem to make observable parts of QM
Lorentz-invariant exists in Poincare QM too. I don't think Dirac
would have tried less hard to find the solution he has found.
> In any case, I think the question is ill-posed.
I agree.
> You're asking
> whether, if the theory of relativity did not exist, the progress
> in physics during this century would have been sigificantly
> hindered. It would be more illuminating to consider whether, given
> the developments of experimental and theoretical physics in this
> century, it would have been possible to NOT develop the theory
> of relativity. Could such an elegant and powerful point of view
> have gone unnoticed in the light of modern physics? It seems
> unlikely.
That's indeed an interesting question. It certainly would have
been possible.
We simply have to assume that Popper's rejection of positivism would
have happened not 1934 but before 1905 and accepted by the leading
scientists.
A central part of Popper's philosophy is a hidden variable theory -
the theory of truth. We can only guess, we have no criterion of truth,
thus, we cannot observe truth. Nonetheless, we believe that truth
exists, in the simple sense of "correspondence to the facts".
Once we accept this philosophy of science, we can as well accept the
unobservable "preferred frame" of the ether. An attempt to reject
this preferred frame simply because it is unobservable would have been
rejected based on this philosophy, as positivistic nonsense. It would
have, may be, survived as a competiting point of view up to Aspect's
experiment, and rejected as experimentally falsified after this.
> If you find that people often
> criticize your ideas as being too "ad hoc", it's possible that those
> people have some valid basis for that opinion. I simply made an
> honest effort to explain why ether theories strike me as ad hoc.
It is the unspecified "ether theories" which shows the fault of this
argumentation. Of course, there is a wide class of different ether
theories, much greater than relativistic theories. And the "ether is
ad-hoc" refers usually to "ether theories" in general. But I consider
and defend only a very special class of ether theories - metrical
ether theories which correspond to metrical theories of gravity.
To distinguish this class, we can use a simple axiom - uniqueness of
clock time dilation.
> > ...the only example of a success of "relativistic ideology" is
> > general relativity.
> ONLY general relativity? That covers a lot of territory (like the
> universe), and the theory itself is regarded by many knowledgeable
> scholars as the most beautiful physical theory we have.
But it has now a beautiful ether-theoretical competitor, which covers
at least the same territory.
> >It was done by the guy who has proposed later a criterion of
> >reality which (if accepted) allows to falsify relativity now.
>
> Once again, it is my considered opinion that you are simply mistaken
> on this point. EPR does not falsify relativity.
There is a loophole for (strong) Einstein causality + (strong, local)
EPR-realism? Explain.
> I agree that quantum theory progressed mainly on a separate track
> from special relativity (to say nothing of general relativity),
> and I would certainly never try to claim that relativity was
> essential for much of the "progress" in quantum physics.
Fine.
> On the other hand, I would place the word "progress" in quotes,
> because it has been largely a cataloging and classifying of
> experimental results (cf, "who ordered that?"), and this is a widely
> perceived shortcoming of quantum theory.
I disagree, but not a point where it seems reasonable to start a long
discussion.
> Also, the efforts to relativize quantum theory have provided much of
> whatever theoretical coherence the theory presently possesses, so
> even here we again see the persistent heuristic power of the
> relativistic point of view.
I completely disagree. Classical (non-relativistic) quantum theory is
a nice, beautiful, clear, coherent theory today. Relativistic QM is
dirty stuff which allows to compute an infinite scattering matrix.
> In addition, I think we need to regard quantum theory as a "work in
> progress", and it's at least possible that relativity may shed still
> more light on the subject.
I doubt.
> >Ignorance as an argument. There are always a lot of different ways
> >to reach the same conclusion. I reach the same conclusion as relativity,
> >not a different one like someone who claims to have 'squared the circle'.
> >Your analogy completely fails.
> No, it's a very good analogy, because typically a circle-squarer
> actually CAN draw a square with the same area as a given circle,
> and a trisector actually CAN divide an angle into three equal parts,
> and a "prover" of Fermat's Last Theorem actually CAN give you the
> right answer ("sure enough, not possible for exponents greater than
> 2").
And the ether crackpot CAN measure absolute time with some home-made
synchronization method. For this group of crackpots, the analogy
is really good.
But Lorentz, Poincare and the author of this reply cannot measure
absolute time with home-made clocks.
> ... but rather to give a
> satisfactory *conceptual* construction within a rigorous theoretical
> framework. (Here "satisfactory" means that other smart people agree
> with it.)
IMO I have it, and several smart people have accepted at least some
parts of this concept.
> Suppose someone assembles every experimental result he can find, puts
> them in a catalog, and says "Here is my theory of everything, from
> gravity to quantum mechanics! It is in perfect agreement with all
> experiments! Please acknowledge that I have unified gravity with
> quantum mechanics and produced the greatest scientific theory in
> history!"
No problem. We ask him to make predictions about some experiments we
have not yet made. He remains silent with his catalog. To reject this
"theory" is simply a standard application of Popper's criterion of
predictive power. That's why I like this criterion.
But the catalog may have a simple to use and coherent index, look very
beautiful, and contain a beautiful, impressive, poetical "explanatory"
part. What's why I don't like argumentations about simplicity, beauty
and explanatory power.
> In that marketplace, the theory of relativity is valued quite
> highly, and ether theories are not. This may be an indication of
> widespread ignorance and stupidity among virtually all the great
> scientists of the century, or it may be an example of good taste and
> sound judgement.
It was completely correct according to Popper's criterion to prefer
relativity before Aspect's experiment. It was reasonable even after
this as long as there was no comparable ether theory of gravity. The
fact that such a theory exists is widely unknown because it has not
yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. This has not yet
happened because of some negative reviews which you can see in my
homepage. They are excusable with a justified presupposition against
"ether theory" which has been discredited by a lot of crackpots.
Thus, it is not yet the time to tell how "the marketplace" has decided.
> Yes, you certainly don't bother about my idea of beauty; for example
> the belief that indistinguishable things are actually entirely
> different is an example of what makes a theory very, well, lacking in
> beauty.
This idea has its own beauty. We cannot observe all steps of freedom
of the ether because we are part of the ether ourself. The four
conservation laws define four of ten steps of freedom which are not
connected with matter, thus, unobservable. If you cannot feel this
beauty, I cannot help you, but I feel it. (I feel the beauty of
general relativity too, and I think it is not lost in my ether
theory.)
> Incidentally, you suggest that the "Pauli (exclusion?) Principle"
> could be used to evaluate the truth of the Equivalence Principle,
> but it seems to me that a truly dedicated etherist could probably
> reconcile himself to an adverse result by simply saying "I know the
> EP is wrong, so if the PP says it is right, then all we have done
> is proven that the PP is imperfect".
Of course, that's possible. But I'm certainly not such a "dedicated
etherist". On the other hand, I see a lot of "dedicated relativists",
claiming that Aspect proves that EPR-realism is wrong, or causality is
wrong, or locality is wrong, or classical logic is wrong (all you like
but not relativity).
> This points out one of the
> fundamental flaws in notion of falsifiability as final arbiter (as
> does the catalog argument).
In no way. Without any theory which replaces the PP the immunized
ether theory becomes very weak from point of view of Popper's
criterion of predictive power.
BTW, I observe that the strongest opposition against my ether theory
comes from people who reject Popper.
sh...@wt.net
Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
>A short comment about the purpose of the provocation "SR is
>unfalsifiable". What I want is not to win this discussion, but to
>close at least some immunization loopholes for relativity.
>The "rejections" below (marked with ;-)) should not be understood as
>my real opinion. I consider them as invalid. But some of my opponents
>consider similar arguments as valid arguments against my position. I
>have tried hard to show them that they are invalid, but without much
>success :-(. Let's see if you have some better arguments.
I better appreciate your position, now. Speaking of falsification,
I think one problem with they way you have it structured is that it
is binary. That is a theory is valid or it isn't. To me, and I think
most physicists, there are degrees of validity of theories. Ideally,
one should be able to deduce all from one theory. I know one can set
boundaries on coverage, but that could be viewed as immunization
against falsification. For example, since GR did not anticipate
quantum mechanics, can the motion of particles such as electrons
be considered falsification of GR? Generally, it is not thought so,
although one could argue in that fashion.
So, let me give you a sliding scale of falsification, and see what
you think of it.
1) Incomplete, there are observations that are not consistent
with the predictions, but there is no theory that gives better
prediction in the area of interest. Electroweak and GR are in
this category.
2) Valid within a range, but having been suppressed by a direct
descendent. SR superseded by GR is one example. QM of the
late 20's and 30's superseded by QED is another.
3) Having its validity beyond a well defined range of accuracy
falsified by experiment, like Classical Mechanics or Classical
Electrodynamics. Subsequent to this, the theory is supplanted
by a new theory. Even after this, the old theory is kept as
a limit case of the new, using the correspondence principal.
The difference between 2 & 3 can be expressed by considering
the new theory a reasonable outgrowth of the old for 2, and
a revolutionary change for 3.
4) While having some predictions that are consistent with
experiment, the theory is basically wrong. There is no need
whatsoever to use the correspondence principal with this theory.
An example of a theory of this type is the caloric theory of heat.
Most people now would include the aether itself here, although
aether based E&M is probably considered somewhere around a 3.2,
since the equations were pretty good, but the fixed frame was wrong.
5) Right, right, its not even wrong! (Quoting Paulie I think.)
These theories are absolutely worthless. I would put Aristotle's
views that wind could not be moving air and creationist science
here.
Well, we've been discussing SR in terms of the EPR. I'll grant
you 2 right away, but I think we were discussing more than that.
I would guess that the single word falsified would be consistent
with SR being no higher than 3 on this scale. No-one would argue
that it is now no higher than 2. Spacelike signals without
backwards in time signals would definitely lower SR to around 3
in my book. The determination of a preferred frame of reference
for the laws of nature (as is the CM of air for the speed of
sound) would also lower SR to this level. Further, if FTL
signals were found, I would argue that spacelike signals would
bring SR to this level,
> >For Einstein-local realism. In any case, I reject this loophole for
> >the same reason as the others: a major decrease in falsifiability
> >(de-facto unfalsifiable).
> Well, we need not discuss this loophole then, since we both reject
> this possibility for a local deterministic theory for close to
> the same reasons.
No. We have to. ;-) (Of course, its fine that you close the first
loophole. But I want to hear a proof, at least an argument, why.)
I've given this argument elsewhere, so I'll plagiarize myself a
bit here. But first a bit of setup to better define the problem
although I think we both know the idea. Assume that the initial
conditions of the universe are such that the quantum correlations
that are observed are not spacelike at all, but go back to
correlations that were set up in time. The programming of random
number generator, the design of the apparatus, the design of the
clock used for the generator seed, the actions of the scientists
are all predetermined. As a result, the correlations are not
local and deterministic because they were all preordained by
a casual chain that goes back a ways in time and includes all the
actions of all the people who conducted the experiment and
contributed to the design of the software and hardware.
That is certainly a logical possibility. However, if one accepts
this, then all laws of physics are suspect. The orbit of the
planets may be no more caused by gravitational attraction than
the movement of dancers in a ballet. It may be that each planet
was preprogrammed with motion that just happened to be in a
pattern that was consistent with a fictional law of gravity.
Who knows, after tonight, the planets will all go home, just
like the dancers.
>I want to see how you try to reject (IMO nonsense) arguments
>I'm confronted every day. I want to get something what you
>accept to be a falsification of relativity, and I want that
>you -- in defense against my pseudo-relativistic criticism --
>close yourself all the loopholes for relativity I need to
>prove it false already now.
>Thus, I have warned you -- be careful, the area full with hidden
>mines. But, I hope you nonetheless agree to play this game.
I understand the game you're playing, and that's fine. However,
as you see above, I don't look at true/false in quite the same
way you do. For example, if asked if classical mechanics is
false, I would probably say Well... If asked if the caloric
theory of heat is false, I'd say yes.
This may have a lot to do with answers that you have gotten. I
know that you like to set up the questions. The problem is that
the nature of the answer is assumed in the question. As I think
Plato said "If you let me ask the question, I'll let you give
the answer."
>I don't bother about the correct classification of different IMO
>non-scientific directions.
We're discussing metaphysics, so I think that clear thinking in
that area is worthwhile. I certainly agree that there is nothing
scientific about mysticism, but agree with Kant's view that
there is nothing scientific about ethics either.
>>I hope we agree that is cheating in this case...sending a signal by
>> mundane means.
>No, there are a lot of other ways. Manipulate the questions
>which will be asked, manipulate protocols ..... ;-)
Well, lets try to do an experimental parallel to this. Its
always possible for experiments to be wrong. The announcement
of non-conservation of charge in the '60s was one of these.
Bad technique, bad experimental setup, etc. could all contribute
to a false signal.
That's why technique is very important and the publication of
technique is necessary. If it really works, then people can
duplicate the results. Now, with the psychics, I would argue
that most chances for cheating still involve transference of
signals by mundane means. These can include passing information
through setting up the questions.
If it is a matter of cheating by giving the illusion of
telepathic signals through manipulation of the setup, a
non-psychic, using the same protocols and questions, should
be able to duplicate the results.
>>Let psychic A get the first subgroup and psychic B get the
>>second subgroup. Then, using one pseudo-random number
>>generator at A to generate the 1,2,3 at in an even random,
>>fashion, and a second generator to do the same at B. This
>>number will be used to determine which card each psychic
>>will consider. If the correlations violate Bell's inequality,
>>then we accept that our understanding of the brain is falsified.
>Yes, that's what I propose as a valid test too. But, of course,
>it does not falsify the theory that there is no thought transfer.
>Our classical brain theory should be modified into a new age
>"quantum brain" theory, that's all ;-)
In one sense that is a true statement. We have not proven
actual signals between the minds, we have proven correlations
between the minds. However, our theories of the mind are also
inconsistent with these type of correlations.
So is our present understanding of QM. Correlations exist
because of the superposition of states. We know that we
do not see macroscopic objects in superpositons. When we observe,
the wave function has collapsed. In order for your brain and
mine to be in a superposition, the causal chain would have to
go back a ways in time. That reduces to the first problem of
super-determinism that we have discussed.
Actually, I would think that the aether would be more susceptible
to this type of argument than QM. Our brains tap directly into
this aether. Its not being used as an explanation of telepathy
only because its not fashionable :-).
>>So, if spacelike signals are found, then one should try to use them
>>to send backwards in time signals. If these are possible, then
>>relativity is valid. If the mechanism is spacelike, but cannot be
>>used to generate back in time signals, then all reference frames are
>>not equivalent. As an experimentalist, given such a mechanism, I can
>>easily think of tests to start to hone in on the absolute frame of
>>reference.
>>In short, the set of statements:
>>1) Relativity is valid
>>2) There are spacelike signals
>>3) Two spacelike signals do not produce a backwards in time signal
>>produce a contradiction.
>>I can easily give experimental tests for 2 and 3. They would falsify
>>relativity.
>Ok, at first a relativistic explanation: we introduce some new matter
>field T(x,t) with increasing values. We observe that the strange
>correlations which you try to explain as "signal transfer" works only
>in the direction of increasing T.
Signal transfer have features that should be well defined. They
are:
1) Order makes a difference. I read the letter that you will write
states different things about time than I will read the letter you
wrote. The forward arrow of time is often represented in physics in
terms of entropy. Reversing the process of a glass of milk falling of
the table, breaking,
and spilling milk on the carpet does not involve violating any laws of
physics. While not impossible, this process is extremely improbable
because it would involve finding one region of phase space out of
billions of billions of possible ones. Penrose did a nice job of
illustrating
this in "The Emperor's New Mind."
If signals such as my now reading the letter that you will write exist,
then the law of entropy can probably be invalidated. That's because the
arrow of causality is going backwards. To dispute this, one would need
to argue for a letter that exists for a long time, that is read by me,
and then is erased by you through picking the ink off the paper with
your pen.
2) Signals can be used to establish correlations between events that
have no known mechanism for correlation, outside of the introduction
of a signaling mechanism that is not inherently part of the two events.
For example, there is no known correlation between the words "do it"
being spoken in Washington and a mushroom cloud appearing in Japan. A
signal between the speaker and the plane carrying the bomb is the only
reasonable explanation.
So let us look at our signal in T.
1) Does order make a difference? Is the meaning of A then B the same
as B then A? If it is like my example of the astronauts hearing the
election results it does.
1) Party 1 won and then Astronaut Jane celebrated by drinking Champaign.
2) Astronaut Jane celebrated by drinking Champaign and then Party 1 won.
There is no reason for her drinking Champaign being correlated with the
victory without a signal being sent from earth to the spaceship.
However, it makes perfect sense that the party won without her first
drinking Champaign. Thus, we pass both tests of "what is a signal."
So, if the correlation passes this test, then we call it a signal.
Let us assume that the correlations pass this test. Look at these
signals then.
You generalized to a function T=f(x,t). I am guessing that
you are referring to a velocity where x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = v^2T^2.
For light, we have x^2 + y^2 + z^2 =ct^2 in all reference frames,
as I'm sure you know.
Let me specify one such function. There is a reference frame for
which T=t. Also, there is a faster than light signal where x =
vt. Say, for example, v=2c, so x = 2ct.
In this reference frame, the FTL signal travels at 2c in every
direction. In all other frames, however, the speed is different.
Indeed, the speed is expressed as a function of the angle
of the direction to a line in space. That line is given by the
velocity of that frame with respect to the frame where the speed
is isotropic.
Well, that is not "the laws of physics being equivalent in all
reference frames." Part of them, those governing the physics
involved with this signal, have a preferred reference frame.
Now, as has been brought up elsewhere, the speed of sound could
be considered a parallel. However, there is a significant
difference. The speed of sound can be explained from every
reference frame in terms of the interaction of atoms. Every
reference frame could be the preferred frame for the speed of
sound if there is a medium at rest in that reference frame.
>For T, we have a relativistic
>equation Box T = 0. There are of course a lot of interesting
>solutions of ART with very strange solutions for T, to name T
>"absolute time" we have no empirical reason. We do not observe them,
>but this is of course not problematic. ;-)
>Moreover, again: you observe only some correlations (successfully
>explained by the T-field theory), not "spacelike signals". ;-)
Now, on the other hand, let us assume that the correlations are like
those in Aspects experiments. Up was measured at detector A then
down was measured at detector B produces the exact same results
as down was measured at detector B then up was measured at detector A.
The probability of these occurrences are identical. The resultant
physics is identical. The explanations are identical in QM.
Further, there is no way to use these correlations to link otherwise
uncorrelated occurrences. If someone had an experimental setup
of this sort and the President said "fire," there would be no way to
use it to get the missile to fire.
>>If we still had no evidence of small scatterers within the proton and
>>neutron, I would think that the ontological status of the quarks would
>>be considered questionable, as is the infinite charge of the electron.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Sorry, infinities are of course much more questionable.
It is not clear that infinities are not involved in both cases.
Asymptotic freedom and quark confinement involve something very similar
to the infinity of QED. Its been years since I attended the seminars, but
I seem to remember that in the standard model of quark confinement, the
energy cost for macroscopically isolating a quark blows up to infinity.
If the quarks were so tightly bound that quark quark scattering is not
seen (jets), the confinement would have to be that much stronger. With
this, we are pretty close to the infinities in QED.
>> Would you be willing to accept FTL as a mathematical fiction, and
>> subject to superpositions?
>
>?????????? Please explain. The question about superpositions is a
>central point.
I think that as a mathematical fiction, we would drop the insistence
that either the correlation is caused by a signal from A to B or
the correlation is caused by a signal from B to A. We would accept
that the observation that first B was measured, resulting in the
measurement at A and the observation that first A was measured,
resulting in the measurement at B as equally valid.
Jay Gundersen
On 17 Dec 1997 Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>jay...@sandlot.com (Jay Gundersen) writes:
>> ...It would be more illuminating to consider whether, given
>> the developments of experimental and theoretical physics in this
>> century, it would have been possible to NOT develop the theory
>> of relativity. Could such an elegant and powerful point of view
>> have gone unnoticed in the light of modern physics?
>
>have happened not 1934 but before 1905 and accepted by the leading
>scientists.
You previously acknowledged that relativity is not a positivist
theory and does not accord with positivist principles, yet you
continue to harp on positivism. Your position seems to be that
although relativity isn't a positivist theory, there are some
nitwits who mistakenly believe it is, and therefore positivism
is responsible for the acceptance of relativity in the scientific
community. That is not an accurate appraisal of the situation,
and it certainly isn't a valid criticism of relativity.
Also, it's wrong to think of "world positivism" exercising some
kind of hegemony over scientific thought until 1934 when our Saviour
Karl Popper led us to the promised land (just as it's wrong to
think that many scientists today take Karl Popper as their guide
to philosophy). Positivism has always been a minority viewpoint,
among both philosophers and physicists, before and after Popper.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>A central part of Popper's philosophy is a hidden variable theory -
>the theory of truth. We can only guess, we have no criterion of
>truth, thus, we cannot observe truth. Nonetheless, we believe that
>truth exists, in the simple sense of "correspondence to the facts".
This philosophy has been around for as long as philosophy has
been around. You would be able to put your Popperism into
better perspective if you familiarized yourself with some other
philosophers. One of the things you would find is that Popper
was a decent but 2nd rate philosopher, not particularly original.
This familiarity would help you avoid making mistakes such as
thinking that relativity was accepted only because of a lack
of a philosophical framework in which any alternative could
be considered.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>Once we accept this philosophy of science, we can as well accept
>the unobservable "preferred frame" of the ether.
This WAS the philosophy of science, and people DID accept the
unobservable preferred frame. Then, after further consideration
of this and some alternatives, they decided to reject the
unobservable. You seem to imagine that people would like the
idea of an unobservable preferred frame if only they would give
it some thought. That's preposterous. It's as if you claimed
that scientists in the 1500's and 1600's would have chosen
Ptolemy's interpretation over Copernicus' if only they had
given Ptolemy's system some consideration. The point is, they
DID consider Ptolmey's system, for centuries, and they eventually
discarded it in favor of Copernicus. Similarly, the phycists in
the early 1900's, such as Lorentz, were fully aware of Lorentz's
ether theory, as well as many other ether theories. You seem to
think Lorentz acknowledged the superiority of relativity over his
own theory - the theory that he had spent most of his LIFE
developing - simply because he mistakenly believed relativity
was a positivist theory, and Karl Popper hadn't told him that
positivism is stupid.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> ONLY general relativity? That covers a lot of territory (like the
>> universe), and the theory itself is regarded by many knowledgeable
>> scholars as the most beautiful physical theory we have.
>
>But it has now a beautiful ether-theoretical competitor, which covers
>at least the same territory.
It has ALWAYS been possible to cast relativity in the form of an ether
theory. That is well-known, but the result simply does not appeal to
most scientists. Your use of the word "now" suggests that you think
there was a time when this was not known, just as you seem to think
the ideas you attribute to Karl Popper were not known prior to 1934.
You're mistaken on both counts.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>>EPR does not falsify relativity.
>
>There is a loophole for (strong) Einstein causality + (strong, local)
>EPR-realism? Explain.
There are MANY loopholes; in fact, there are TOO many. Anyone
who says (as you have said) that the Aspect experiments have only
one possible "explanation" is simply being naive. If you have any
ambition to ever be taken seriously, you should begin any discussion
of EPR by acknowledging that there are many experimental loopholes
and alternate conceptual frameworks that enable many different
interpretations of "what's really happenning", and we aren't, at
present, able to clearly resolve between these alternatives. For
example, in spite of the fact that you regard EPR as conclusively
anti-relativistic, there is Cramer's Transactional Interpretation
of QM that explicitly RELIES on the non-positive definite metric of
spacetime and the time-symmetric relativistic Schrodinger equation
to "explain" EPR and the other quantum puzzles. Thus, while you
are claiming that relativity cannot be valid in view of EPR, others
are INVOKING relativity to explain EPR. Now, you may not find
their point of view to be compelling, but you don't enhance your
credibility by talking as if other alternatives don't even exist.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> ..typically a circle-squarer actually CAN draw a square with the
>> same area as a given circle... and a "prover" of Fermat's Last
>> Theorem actually CAN give you the right answer ("sure enough, not
>> possible for exponents greater than 2").
>
>And the ether crackpot CAN measure absolute time with some home-made
>synchronization method. For this group of crackpots, the analogy
>is really good.
That's not the analogy. It's that the etherist can tell you how
light rays are deflected around the sun, and how Mercury's orbit
precesses, and so on, just as the Fermat solver can tell you that
there are no solutions for exponents greater than 2. The point is,
we don't believe that he has arrived at his result in a way that is
as conceptually sound as the way that Andrew Wiles arrived at it.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Suppose someone assembles every experimental result he can find, puts
>> them in a catalog, and says "Here is my theory of everything, from
>> gravity to quantum mechanics! It is in perfect agreement with all
>> experiments! Please acknowledge that I have unified gravity with
>> quantum mechanics and produced the greatest scientific theory in
>> history!"
>
>No problem. We ask him to make predictions about some experiments
>we have not yet made. He remains silent with his catalog.
Nope, he interpolates/extrapolates from his catalog, which will
usually work for most kinds of experiments. Of course, we might
suspect that there are some completely unusual experiments unlike
anything ever tried before, and we may doubt that his catalog will
be much help to us in such a case, because it has no underlying
conceptual strength. Nevertheless, he will doubtless continue to
claim that his catalog is a beautiful theory, up until the new
and unusual experiment is performed, at which point he will add
it to his catalog and go right on deluding himself. (To be fair,
even the best of theories have been caught out when experiments
were pushed into new regions, cf Newtonian mechanics.)
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>> In that marketplace, the theory of relativity is valued quite
>> highly, and ether theories are not. This may be an indication of
>> widespread ignorance and stupidity among virtually all the great
>> scientists of the century, or it may be an example of good taste
>> and sound judgement.
>
>It was completely correct according to Popper's criterion to prefer
>relativity before Aspect's experiment. It was reasonable even after
>this as long as there was no comparable ether theory of gravity. The
>fact that such a theory exists is widely unknown because it has not
>yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The fact that one can re-cast general relativity in the form of
an ether theory is NOT widely unknown, and you would know that it is
not widely unknown if you would put down that tattered old copy of
"The Logic of Scientific Discovery", set aside your pet theory for
3 months, and read what some other people have to say on these
subjects (and I don't mean Usenet). The reason ether theories are
not widely embraced by the scientific community is NOT that people
are sitting around thinking "Gosh, it's too bad we can't figure out
how to reformulate GR as an ether theory, because that sure would be
a nice theory!"
Everyone KNOWS you can reformulate GR as an ether theory - it's the
kind of exercise you assign as homework for undergrads. The thing
everyone does NOT know is: Why would we want to? As explained
above, pointing to EPR is not an answer, nor is asserting that it
will enable us to quantize gravity (especially since there is no
evidence that it will), nor is asserting that Karl Popper would
have wanted it that way.
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
> We cannot observe all [degrees] of freedom of the ether because
> we are part of the ether ourselves. The four conservation laws
> define four of ten [degrees] of freedom which are not connected
> with matter, thus, unobservable.
This is nothing but a (vague) re-statement of the implications of
the four contracted Bianchi identities carried over directly from
general relativity - inevitable in any etherization of GR. By
the way, when you say we can't observe certain degrees of freedom
because we ourselves (the observers) also have those same degrees
of freedom, are you not approaching rather near to the idea that
those degrees of freedom are (dare I say it) relative?
Ilja Schmelzer <schm...@fermi.wias-berlin.de> wrote:
>BTW, I observe that the strongest opposition against my ether
>theory comes from people who reject Popper.
You REALLY need to get off Popper and find someone else to
cite once in a while. Why not look into, say, Poincare's
conventionalism?
Ilja Schmelzer
sh...@wt.net writes:
0) a not yet falsified theory.
> 1) Incomplete, there are observations that are not consistent
> with the predictions, but there is no theory that gives better
> prediction in the area of interest. Electroweak and GR are in
> this category.
> 2) Valid within a range, but having been suppressed by a direct
> descendent. SR superseded by GR is one example. QM of the
> late 20's and 30's superseded by QED is another.
> 3) Having its validity beyond a well defined range of accuracy
> falsified by experiment, like Classical Mechanics or Classical
> Electrodynamics. Subsequent to this, the theory is supplanted
> by a new theory. Even after this, the old theory is kept as
> a limit case of the new, using the correspondence principal.
>
> The difference between 2 & 3 can be expressed by considering
> the new theory a reasonable outgrowth of the old for 2, and
> a revolutionary change for 3.
> 4) While having some predictions that are consistent with
> experiment, the theory is basically wrong. There is no need
> whatsoever to use the correspondence principal with this theory.
> An example of a theory of this type is the caloric theory of heat.
> Most people now would include the aether itself here, although
> aether based E&M is probably considered somewhere around a 3.2,
> since the equations were pretty good, but the fixed frame was wrong.
The fixed frame was unobservable, not wrong. That's a difference. With
my generalization to gravity, it has been moved to 1, may be even 0
(after adding terms for QCD and electroweak of course.)
> 5) Right, right, its not even wrong! (Quoting Paulie I think.)
The classification leaves out the existence of competiting theories.
The difference between 2/3 and 4 is obviously the existence of a type
0/1 theory which agrees in some limit with the given theory. The
consideration of theories of type 2/3/4 is simply not necessary. We
can reject them simply as false (5 as inconsistent), but nonetheless
apply them as approximations.
> Well, we've been discussing SR in terms of the EPR. I'll grant
> you 2 right away, but I think we were discussing more than that.
> I would guess that the single word falsified would be consistent
> with SR being no higher than 3 on this scale. No-one would argue
> that it is now no higher than 2. Spacelike signals without
> backwards in time signals would definitely lower SR to around 3
> in my book. The determination of a preferred frame of reference
> for the laws of nature (as is the CM of air for the speed of
> sound) would also lower SR to this level. Further, if FTL
> signals were found, I would argue that spacelike signals would
> bring SR to this level,
The classical case of falsification includes different theories with
different predictions, and the experiment decides which is
better. After this, the other theory is falsified.
The question is not if we can apply SR formulas or not. The question
is the competition between SR and LET, if there exists a preferred
frame or not. Above theories predict that FTL effects cannot be used
for communication, but SR (in EPR-realistic interpretation)
additionally predicts that they did not exist. LET (in EPR-realistic
interpretation) does not.
> although I think we both know the idea. Assume that the initial
> conditions of the universe are such that the quantum correlations
> that are observed are not spacelike at all, but go back to
> correlations that were set up in time. The programming of random
> number generator, the design of the apparatus, the design of the
> clock used for the generator seed, the actions of the scientists
> are all predetermined. As a result, the correlations are not
> local and deterministic because they were all preordained by
> a casual chain that goes back a ways in time and includes all the
> actions of all the people who conducted the experiment and
> contributed to the design of the software and hardware.
>
> That is certainly a logical possibility. However, if one accepts
> this, then all laws of physics are suspect. The orbit of the
> planets may be no more caused by gravitational attraction than
> the movement of dancers in a ballet. It may be that each planet
> was preprogrammed with motion that just happened to be in a
> pattern that was consistent with a fictional law of gravity.
> Who knows, after tonight, the planets will all go home, just
> like the dancers.
With Popper I say that all laws of physics are, of course, always
suspect, only guesses, not proven truth. That's not yet an argument.
I have a better one, of course closely related: if we accept this
logical possibility, we cannot falsify anything. Thus, we reject this
possibility using Popper's criterion of empirical content.
> I understand the game you're playing, and that's fine. However,
> as you see above, I don't look at true/false in quite the same
> way you do. For example, if asked if classical mechanics is
> false, I would probably say Well... If asked if the caloric
> theory of heat is false, I'd say yes.
But I think this difference is not important. If we name a good
approximation false or not is terminology only. Popper has suggested
how to define a "verisimilitude" which allows to prove that
Newton's theory is better than Kepler's, thus, that's not a problem.
> >>I hope we agree that is cheating in this case...sending a signal by
> >> mundane means.
> >No, there are a lot of other ways. Manipulate the questions
> >which will be asked, manipulate protocols ..... ;-)
> Well, lets try to do an experimental parallel to this. Its
> always possible for experiments to be wrong. The announcement
> of non-conservation of charge in the '60s was one of these.
> Bad technique, bad experimental setup, etc. could all contribute
> to a false signal.
>
> That's why technique is very important and the publication of
> technique is necessary. If it really works, then people can
> duplicate the results. Now, with the psychics, I would argue
> that most chances for cheating still involve transference of
> signals by mundane means. These can include passing information
> through setting up the questions.
>
> If it is a matter of cheating by giving the illusion of
> telepathic signals through manipulation of the setup, a
> non-psychic, using the same protocols and questions, should
> be able to duplicate the results.
Dangerous. Compare now with the direct thought transfer experiment.
You tell A what to transfer from room A to room B, and the medium at B
tells the result. An excellent working phone line. Thus, accepting
your argument I can reject the observation of this special phone line.
In above cases we have the same picture: the psychics cannot tell you
how it works - they think in a very intense way, that's all. Nobody
else is able to duplicate the results.
> >Yes, that's what I propose as a valid test too. But, of course,
> >it does not falsify the theory that there is no thought transfer.
> >Our classical brain theory should be modified into a new age
> >"quantum brain" theory, that's all ;-)
>
> In one sense that is a true statement. We have not proven
> actual signals between the minds, we have proven correlations
> between the minds.
Again, dangerous. We have not proven actual signals for our phone
line, we have proven correlations between the input and output.
> However, our theories of the mind are also
> inconsistent with these type of correlations.
That's what I have said. We need a new age "quantum brain" theory with
superpositions between mind states, (as well as we need quantum
gravity, by analogy).
> Actually, I would think that the aether would be more susceptible
> to this type of argument than QM. Our brains tap directly into
> this aether. Its not being used as an explanation of telepathy
> only because its not fashionable :-).
Don't understand this argument. I do not see the ether in competition
with quantum theory. It is a classical field which should be quantized
like any other classical field.
> >Ok, at first a relativistic explanation: we introduce some new matter
> >field T(x,t) with increasing values. We observe that the strange
> >correlations which you try to explain as "signal transfer" works only
> >in the direction of increasing T.
>
> Signal transfer have features that should be well defined. They
> are:
> 1) Order makes a difference.
In my "relativistic explanation" we have an order - increasing values
of the T-field.
> 2) Signals can be used to establish correlations between events that
> have no known mechanism for correlation, outside of the introduction
> of a signaling mechanism that is not inherently part of the two events.
> For example, there is no known correlation between the words "do it"
> being spoken in Washington and a mushroom cloud appearing in Japan. A
> signal between the speaker and the plane carrying the bomb is the only
> reasonable explanation.
Dangerous. A signal is also the only reasonable explanation for
Aspect's experiment, in the same sense (no known mechanism for
correlation, outside of the introduction of a signaling mechanism).
> You generalized to a function T=f(x,t). I am guessing that
> you are referring to a velocity where x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = v^2T^2.
> For light, we have x^2 + y^2 + z^2 =ct^2 in all reference frames,
> as I'm sure you know.
No, T(x,t) is a matter field. Part of physics. Fulfils a relativistic
field equation Box T = 0.
> Let me specify one such function. There is a reference frame for
> which T=t. Also, there is a faster than light signal where x =
> vt. Say, for example, v=2c, so x = 2ct.
>
> In this reference frame, the FTL signal travels at 2c in every
> direction. In all other frames, however, the speed is different.
> Indeed, the speed is expressed as a function of the angle
> of the direction to a line in space. That line is given by the
> velocity of that frame with respect to the frame where the speed
> is isotropic.
> Well, that is not "the laws of physics being equivalent in all
> reference frames."
It is, of course. The "law of physics" is that signals may be
transferred with some speed relative to T! And T has to be transformed
according to relativistic transformation laws.
T is like some special matter with (superluminal) sound speed.
> Part of them, those governing the physics
> involved with this signal, have a preferred reference frame.
T itself is a matter field, not a "law of physics".
> Now, as has been brought up elsewhere, the speed of sound could
> be considered a parallel. However, there is a significant
> difference. The speed of sound can be explained from every
> reference frame in terms of the interaction of atoms. Every
> reference frame could be the preferred frame for the speed of
> sound if there is a medium at rest in that reference frame.
The same for T. T is matter.
> >For T, we have a relativistic
> >equation Box T = 0. There are of course a lot of interesting
> >solutions of ART with very strange solutions for T, to name T
> >"absolute time" we have no empirical reason. We do not observe them,
> >but this is of course not problematic. ;-)
>
> >Moreover, again: you observe only some correlations (successfully
> >explained by the T-field theory), not "spacelike signals". ;-)
>
> Now, on the other hand, let us assume that the correlations are like
> those in Aspects experiments. Up was measured at detector A then
> down was measured at detector B produces the exact same results
> as down was measured at detector B then up was measured at detector A.
> The probability of these occurrences are identical. The resultant
> physics is identical. The explanations are identical in QM.
>
> Further, there is no way to use these correlations to link otherwise
> uncorrelated occurrences.
"To link" is much too uncertain. In above cases we have a link which
cannot be explained in another way. Only in the Bell case, we have two
possible explanations A->B xor B->A, in the direct case only one, A->B.
But the steps we need starting from correlations to conclusion are
similar.
> >> Would you be willing to accept FTL as a mathematical fiction, and
> >> subject to superpositions?
> >?????????? Please explain. The question about superpositions is a
> >central point.
> I think that as a mathematical fiction, we would drop the insistence
> that either the correlation is caused by a signal from A to B or
> the correlation is caused by a signal from B to A. We would accept
> that the observation that first B was measured, resulting in the
> measurement at A and the observation that first A was measured,
> resulting in the measurement at B as equally valid.
I doubt that I have understood what you want to say. I consider
"signal A->B" as a realistic explanation of the observable
correlations. And I assume that classical logic and probability theory
may be applied to these real objects.