Luminiferous aether

[Alan Grayson]

When the luminiferous aether was rejected as non-existing, how was EM wave motion explained? AG 

[John Clark]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 9:53 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

When the luminiferous aether was rejected as non-existing, how was EM wave motion explained? AG  

Vibrations in the electromagnetic field.

John K Clark

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[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, October 28, 2024 at 8:38:48 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 9:53 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

When the luminiferous aether was rejected as non-existing, how was EM wave motion explained? AG  

Vibrations in the electromagnetic field.

John K Clark

How are the vibrations created and maintained? AG 

[Brent Meeker]

The was equation was already derived from Maxwell's equations.  The pemeability and permitivity of the vacuum determined the speed.  It's perfectly natural to suppose that there is no such thing as motion relative the vacuum (to nothing).  So the speed of light in vacuo is a constant.

Brent

On 10/28/2024 6:53 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

When the luminiferous aether was rejected as non-existing, how was EM wave motion explained? AG 

[John Clark]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 10:59 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> When the luminiferous aether was rejected as non-existing, how was EM wave motion explained? AG  

>> Vibrations in the electromagnetic field.

> How are the vibrations created and maintained? AG 

Maxwell's Equations will answer those questions. It turns out that if you change the intensity or direction of an electric field, that is to say if you accelerate it, then you create a steady magnetic field, and if you accelerate the intensity or direction of a magnetic field then you create a steady electric field. And if you don't just accelerate it but "Jerk" the field, that is to say accelerate the acceleration, then the corresponding field it creates is not steady but changes with time. 

This obviously leads to the creation of a wave, and Maxwell's equations will tell you how fast that wave will propagate, and it turns out to be the speed of light.  What Einstein found to be so unusual and interesting is that the speed of light that Maxwell's equations spits out is not relative to anything, it is an absolute speed, the only absolute speed in the universe. Einstein thought deeply about that and it eventually led him to Special Relativity, and then 10 years later led him to General Relativity.      

Speaking of Jerk, this is my favorite nerd joke: Don't Be A Jerk 

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis 

jdb

[Alan Grayson]

How can anything have a velocity relative to nothing? Calling the velocity absolute, explains nothing. AG 

Speaking of Jerk, this is my favorite nerd joke: Don't Be A Jerk 

Are you being a smartass again, insulting me again? If you think you're so smart, explain this: according to ME's, accelerating charges radiate energy. Why then do charges ostensibly at rest in a lab say, do NOT radiate energy even though the Earth is rotating, that is accelerating, causing those charges to accelerate? Can smartass, aka JC, explain this? AG 

jdb

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 9:09 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Speaking of Jerk, this is my favorite nerd joke: Don't Be A Jerk 

> Are you being a smartass again, insulting me again? 

No, I just thought it was a funny T-shirt.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis 

jft

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 9:09 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > If you think you're so smart, explain this: according to ME's, accelerating charges radiate energy. Why then do charges ostensibly at rest in a lab say, do NOT radiate energy even though the Earth is rotating, that is accelerating, causing those charges to accelerate? Can smartass, aka JC, explain this? AG 

First of all Maxwell's Equations are consistent with Special and General Relativity but not with Quantum Mechanics, so all the charges that I'm talking about must be macroscopic.  A real baseball is electrically neutral but small (but not small by quantum mechanical standards) 

parts of it might be very slightly positive and other parts very slightly negative, and this creates a small electric dipole. So if you rotate the baseball those positive and negative parts will indeed radiate electromagnetic waves, and the positive and negative parts will only partially cancel out because they are in slightly different positions. So the spinning baseball will start to lose energy and slow down. However the radiated energy from rotating dipoles is proportional to the fourth power of angular frequency, so if you were rotating the baseball at just under the speed that would tear it apart, say about 2000 RPMs, that rotation is so slow that the effect would be far too tiny to be detectable with today's technology.  

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis 

o5n

[Alan Grayson]

I don't think this answers my question. The acceleration of a charged particle due to the Earth's rotation in the lab frame is not trivial, and should produce a measurable radiation, but AFAICT, it doesn't. AG 

o5

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 10:21 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> First of all Maxwell's Equations are consistent with Special and General Relativity but not with Quantum Mechanics, so all the charges that I'm talking about must be macroscopic.  A real baseball is electrically neutral but small (but not small by quantum mechanical standards) parts of it might be very slightly positive and other parts very slightly negative, and this creates a small electric dipole. So if you rotate the baseball those positive and negative parts will indeed radiate electromagnetic waves, and the positive and negative parts will only partially cancel out because they are in slightly different positions. So the spinning baseball will start to lose energy and slow down. However the radiated energy from rotating dipoles is proportional to the fourth power of angular frequency, so if you were rotating the baseball at just under the speed that would tear it apart, say about 2000 RPMs, that rotation is so slow that the effect would be far too tiny to be detectable with today's technology.

> I don't think this answers my question. The acceleration of a charged particle due to the Earth's rotation in the lab frame is not trivial, and should produce a measurable radiation, but AFAICT, it doesn't. AG 

2000 RPMs is a trivially slow angular frequency, and as I said the radiated power is proportional to the fourth power of the angular frequency; so one revolution per 24 hours would be SUPER trivially slow.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis 

4pt

[Alan Grayson]

I see. So the spinning baseball is sort-of a model for the spinning Earth. Without doing too much work, what's your best estimate for the time the Earth completely evaporates due to energy lost due to rotation? AG 

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 11:31 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> 2000 RPMs is a trivially slow angular frequency, and as I said the radiated power is proportional to the fourth power of the angular frequency; so one revolution per 24 hours would be SUPER trivially slow.

>I see. So the spinning baseball is sort-of a model for the spinning Earth. Without doing too much work, what's your best estimate for the time the Earth completely evaporates due to energy lost due to rotation? AG 

The Earth won't evaporate it's just that the rotation around its axis will slow down, it would certainly take far longer than the age of the universe to be detectable but it's difficult to calculate exactly how long because it depends on slight irregularities, if the Earth was a perfect homogeneous sphere it wouldn't radiate at all from rotating around its axis, but perfect spheres don't exist, although it would still radiate due to its rotation around the sun.

The Earth also generates gravitational waves due to its orbit around the sun, somebody did calculate that but it turns out to only amount to about 200 watts of energy, so it would take about a billion trillion years before Earth's orbit decayed noticeably from that. However this effect can be important if instead of talking about the Earth we're talking about two Black Holes or Neutron Stars that are several times the mass of the sun and are moving close to the speed of light in an orbit only about a thousand miles across, then a gravitational detector such as LIGO can detect those waves even if they're coming from the other side of the observable universe. In fact, in the last fifth of a second before two rotating Black Holes collide they can radiate about 100 times more energy in the form of gravitational waves than all the stars in the observable universe radiate in the form of light combined. 

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

 /qz

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 29, 2024 at 12:59:12 AM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

The was equation was already derived from Maxwell's equations.  The pemeability and permitivity of the vacuum determined the speed.  It's perfectly natural to suppose that there is no such thing as motion relative the vacuum (to nothing).  So the speed of light in vacuo is a constant.

Brent

If the vacuum is nothing, how can it have properties such as permeability and permitivity? Is this scholastic type thinking? Maybe, but it still deserves an answer. AG 

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 4:29 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If the vacuum is nothing, how can it have properties such as permeability and permitivity?

That depends on what you mean by "nothing", the best definition I know of is infinite unbounded homogeneity. Some people define nothing as being unable to do anything or become anything, if that's the definition of nothing and the vacuum is nothing then clearly the vacuum does not exist; therefore I conclude that is a lousy definition of "nothing".    

> Is this scholastic type thinking? 

Yes.

> but it still deserves an answer. 

Why? History has shown that scholastic type thinking leads precisely nowhere, it was all the rage between about AD 300 to 1300, and during that thousand years science made almost no progress. 

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

smp

[Jesse Mazer]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 9:09 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, October 29, 2024 at 6:52:12 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 10:59 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> When the luminiferous aether was rejected as non-existing, how was EM wave motion explained? AG  

>> Vibrations in the electromagnetic field.

> How are the vibrations created and maintained? AG 

Maxwell's Equations will answer those questions. It turns out that if you change the intensity or direction of an electric field, that is to say if you accelerate it, then you create a steady magnetic field, and if you accelerate the intensity or direction of a magnetic field then you create a steady electric field. And if you don't just accelerate it but "Jerk" the field, that is to say accelerate the acceleration, then the corresponding field it creates is not steady but changes with time. 

This obviously leads to the creation of a wave, and Maxwell's equations will tell you how fast that wave will propagate, and it turns out to be the speed of light.  What Einstein found to be so unusual and interesting is that the speed of light that Maxwell's equations spits out is not relative to anything, it is an absolute speed, the only absolute speed in the universe. Einstein thought deeply about that and it eventually led him to Special Relativity, and then 10 years later led him to General Relativity.      

How can anything have a velocity relative to nothing? Calling the velocity absolute, explains nothing. AG 

The velocity of light is always defined relative to an inertial reference frame which can be constructed out of physical rulers and clocks (synchronized by the Einstein convention). It is "absolute" only in the sense that when you go from one frame to another via the Lorentz transformation, the velocity of a light ray will be unchanged, and in general all the dynamical equations written down by Maxwell are unchanged when you switch coordinates via the Lorentz transformation. This general invariance was discovered just prior to Einstein's 1905 paper, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lorentz_transformations#Larmor_(1897,_1900) which mentions it was 'shown by Lorentz (1904) and Poincaré (1905) that they [Maxwell's equations] are indeed invariant under this transformation to all orders in v/c'. Not sure why they didn't make the leap to discarding the notion of aether, maybe they imagined that other non-electromagnetic laws of physics would not be invariant under the Lorentz transformation, so that by comparing electromagnetic and non-electromagnetic phenomena it might have been possible to discover an aether rest frame?

Jesse

[Brent Meeker]

It's just one of those historical flukes that arose because the unit of charge and the field strength had already been defined before Maxwell.  So another "constant" appeared relating them.

Brent

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[Alan Grayson]

It's a damned good question and deserves an answer.  Don't you think? What are you measuring that you call permeabiliy and permativity? AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:17 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What are you measuring that you call permeabiliy and permativity? AG 

Permeability is a measure of  how easily a material (or a vacuum) allows a magnetic field to be established within it, and permittivity is a measure of how easily a material allows an electric field to be established within it. For the numerical values of the vacuum, neither value can be found by theory alone, but both values were found by experimental means in the 19th century. And if you know the permeability (μ₀) and permittivity (ε₀) of the vacuum then you can calculate the speed of light because Maxwell gave us a simple formula for doing so:

 c = 1/√(μ₀ε₀)

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

mwk

[Alan Grayson]

What I'd like to know is how EM wave motions can exist absent a medium which was thought to be necessary for it to be manifested. IOW, when repeated MM experiments had null results, what model was developed, if any, to explain the existence of EM wave motions? AG 

mwk

[John Clark]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:09 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> when repeated MM experiments had null results, what model was developed, if any, to explain the existence of EM wave motions? AG 

The greatest experimental physicist of the 19th century, Michael Faraday, developed a model that can explain electromagnetic waves, and he did it before the Michelson and Morley experiment. Faraday visualized two fields that permeated all of space, an electric field and a magnetic field; it can be thought of as arrows associated with every point in space with the arrows indicating the direction the field was increasing or decreasing and the length of the arrow indicating the magnitude of that rate of increase. Faraday thought that if you changed the direction or the length of just one of those arrows in one field then you would cause nearby arrows in both fields to also change. However, although Faraday had keen physical intuition, he was the last great physicist that lacked any mathematical ability, and you need mathematics to determine exactly how the fields change and to get actual numbers out of the idea that you can use.  

The greatest theoretical physicist of the 19th century, James Maxwell, had enormous mathematical ability and he was able to translate Faraday's intuitive and imprecisefeeling into precise mathematical language. And when Maxwell found a formula that allowed him to calculate the speed of electromagnetic waves from just the Permeability and Permittivity of the vacuum, and that speed happened to be the speed of light, then everybody realized that light must be an electromagnetic wave and Faraday and Maxwell must be correct. 

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

lgp

[Alan Grayson]

And then Quantum Field Theory  (QFT) came along, and AFAIK, there is no assumed underlying field for the photon, the force carrier for EM forces! Baffling. AG

lgp

[John Clark]

IN QFT the electromagnetic field (AKA  Maxwell field) is quantized, the excitations of the field correspond to photons, the things we actually detect. 

John K Clark

 

[Brent Meeker]

I'm always curious about people who ask "how" questions.  Like how does mass make a gravitational field?  I wonder what you would consider a possible answer to your question?

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

And I'm curious how nothing can have properties, such as permeability and permativity. Scholastic thinking is no longer popular, but some of its questions are worthwhile. I sometimes raise these questions to see if they're still being asked. As for your question, I prefer the question, How does mass/energy curve spacetime? Since it's a postulate of GR, the answer, if there is one, would lie in a theory which supercedes GR. I'd like to offer such a theory, but at present I am unable. AG

[Alan Grayson]

I've seen that done mathematically, but I had the impression that there's no EM field in QFT. Thanks for reminding me. Is it true that all particles have fields associated with them in QFT, such as the Higgs Field for the Higgs Boson? Does this include particles with infinitesimal lifetimes, as well as all particles in the Standard Model? AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 7:34 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> IN QFT the electromagnetic field (AKA  Maxwell field) is quantized, the excitations of the field correspond to photons, the things we actually detect.  John K Clark

> Is it true that all particles have fields associated with them in QFT, such as the Higgs Field for the Higgs Boson?

The Higgs has a field and so does the electron and the photon, but the proton and the neutron do not because they are composite particles. There are 6 different types of quarks, 12 if you count antimatter, but only 2 of them, the up and down quark and their related fields, can account for 99.999% of everything you're likely to see in your everyday life.  

John K Clark

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/30/2024 4:29 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 4:39:04 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/30/2024 10:09 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 5:18:26 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:17 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What are you measuring that you call permeabiliy and permativity? AG 

Permeability is a measure of  how easily a material (or a vacuum) allows a magnetic field to be established within it, and permittivity is a measure of how easily a material allows an electric field to be established within it. For the numerical values of the vacuum, neither value can be found by theory alone, but both values were found by experimental means in the 19th century. And if you know the permeability (μ₀) and permittivity (ε₀) of the vacuum then you can calculate the speed of light because Maxwell gave us a simple formula for doing so:

 c = 1/√(μ₀ε₀)

 

What I'd like to know is how EM wave motions can exist absent a medium which was thought to be necessary for it to be manifested. IOW, when repeated MM experiments had null results, what model was developed, if any, to explain the existence of EM wave motions? AG

I'm always curious about people who ask "how" questions.  Like how does mass make a gravitational field?  I wonder what you would consider a possible answer to your question?

Brent

 

And I'm curious how nothing can have properties, such as permeability and permativity.

You didn't like my answer that it just unit matching?  Imagine they had been set to 1 in the early 1800s.  All it would have taken was a different choice of units.  Then we'd have c=1 and no  sqrt{\epsilon_0\mu_0} would appear in the wave equation...and no one would wonder why. 

Scholastic thinking is no longer popular, but some of its questions are worthwhile. I sometimes raise these questions to see if they're still being asked. As for your question, I prefer the question, How does mass/energy curve spacetime?

That's a good question, but I think it'll take the quantum theory of gravity to answer.

Brent

Since it's a postulate of GR, the answer, if there is one, would lie in a theory which supercedes GR. I'd like to offer such a theory, but at present I am unable. AG

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[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 11:47:05 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/30/2024 4:29 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 4:39:04 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/30/2024 10:09 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 5:18:26 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:17 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What are you measuring that you call permeabiliy and permativity? AG 

Permeability is a measure of  how easily a material (or a vacuum) allows a magnetic field to be established within it, and permittivity is a measure of how easily a material allows an electric field to be established within it. For the numerical values of the vacuum, neither value can be found by theory alone, but both values were found by experimental means in the 19th century. And if you know the permeability (μ₀) and permittivity (ε₀) of the vacuum then you can calculate the speed of light because Maxwell gave us a simple formula for doing so:

 c = 1/√(μ₀ε₀)

 

What I'd like to know is how EM wave motions can exist absent a medium which was thought to be necessary for it to be manifested. IOW, when repeated MM experiments had null results, what model was developed, if any, to explain the existence of EM wave motions? AG

I'm always curious about people who ask "how" questions.  Like how does mass make a gravitational field?  I wonder what you would consider a possible answer to your question?

Brent

 

And I'm curious how nothing can have properties, such as permeability and permativity.

You didn't like my answer that it just unit matching?  Imagine they had been set to 1 in the early 1800s.  All it would have taken was a different choice of units.  Then we'd have c=1 and no  sqrt{\epsilon_0\mu_0} would appear in the wave equation...and no one would wonder why. 

You assume I didn't like your answer. In fact I don't understand it sufficiently to use it in a way that satisfies you. AG

Scholastic thinking is no longer popular, but some of its questions are worthwhile. I sometimes raise these questions to see if they're still being asked. As for your question, I prefer the question, How does mass/energy curve spacetime?

That's a good question, but I think it'll take the quantum theory of gravity to answer.

I doubt it will happen. If it did, it would invalidate a geometric interpretation of gravity, which IMO is unlikely. AG 

[John Clark]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 2:14 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You didn't like my answer that it just unit matching?  Imagine they had been set to 1 in the early 1800s.  

But back then they wanted to figure out if you can calculate how many miles light could travel in one second just by observing the behavior of electric and magnetic fields, so your units had better be some form of distance over time.  

And in equations, for the units to come out right the conversion factor between time t and distance d is the speed of light c, because d= ct = (miles/time)*time =d.  So when you set c=1 what you're doing is saying that if, for example, the units of time that you're using are seconds and the units of distance that you're using are miles then the "natural unit" of distance is ct,  the number of miles light can go in one second. 

So you can't really set the speed of light to be equal to 1 because 1 is dimensionless and the speed of light is not a dimensionless quantity; BUT you can set it to 1 NATURAL UNIT, although the words "natural units" are almost always omitted to make the equations less cluttered.  And in some spacetime diagrams the axes are mislabeled as d vs t when it should be ct vs t. 

> how does mass make a gravitational field?

The best thumbnail answer to that "how" question comes from John Wheeler "Spacetime tells mass how to move, and mass tells spacetime how to curve". As to "why" that is true nobody knows, but one thing I do know is that there are only two possibilities, either an iterated sequence of "why" questions goes on forever or the sequence terminates in a brute fact, an event without a cause.  I'm 51% sure that Wheeler's statement is a brute fact. I'm 99.3% sure that consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed intelligently.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

bfe

[Alan Grayson]

Your response was to Brent, not me. AG

Wheeler's answer explains nothing, just repeating what EFE says, as if GR is the last word on gravity. There could be an unlimited sequence of "why's", or the sequence might terminate in profound knowledge, but likely NOT in an event without a cause, which is unintelligible to human consciousness. AG

[John Clark]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 1:37 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

>  just repeating what EFE says, 

Maybe, maybe not. Google says EFE is a Spanish news agency, but I don't know if that's what you meant. And by the way, IHA.

>There could be an unlimited sequence of "why's", 

Yes there could be.

> or the sequence might terminate in profound knowledge, but likely NOT in an event without a cause, 

That doesn't make any sense. If the sequence terminates in X then wouldn't you want to know WHY it terminates in X ?  If X is "NOT in an event without a cause" then you'd want to know what sort of thing DID cause X, and how and why it did so; therefore the sequence of "why" questions does NOT terminate with X.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

ede

 

[Brent Meeker]

No, it will leave the geometric interpretation as an emergent approximation.  Remember even NASA uses Newtonian gravity for all their mission planning and control, in spite of general relativity.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 1:44:15 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 1:37 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

Wheeler is just translating EFE, Einstein's Field Equation, into words. I have no objection if you like it, but IMO it adds nothing, explains nothing beyond what the equation states. AG 

>  just repeating what EFE says, 

Maybe, maybe not. Google says EFE is a Spanish news agency, but I don't know if that's what you meant. And by the way, IHA.

>There could be an unlimited sequence of "why's", 

Yes there could be.

> or the sequence might terminate in profound knowledge, but likely NOT in an event without a cause, 

That doesn't make any sense. If the sequence terminates in X then wouldn't you want to know WHY it terminates in X ?  If X is "NOT in an event without a cause" then you'd want to know what sort of thing DID cause X, and how and why it did so; therefore the sequence of "why" questions does NOT terminate with X.

Since we're nowhere near what we're speculating about, this train of thought is useless. However, I affirm that an irreducible event is unintelligible to human understanding. Without some rule for the emergence of an event, aka a cause, there is no way to understand it. Some people think probability can be conceived of as a cause. I disagree with this conclusion. AG

[Brent Meeker]

The trouble with that formulation is that a lot, maybe most, of the intelligent processing of data in the brain is not conscious.  I'd say it is only data processing in using language and diagrams that is necessarily conscious.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 4:03:17 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

No, it will leave the geometric interpretation as an emergent approximation.  Remember even NASA uses Newtonian gravity for all their mission planning and control, in spite of general relativity.

Brent

I was expecting your objection. That's your interpretation of what an unknown theory will imply. I figure, that if a graviton is implied as a force transferring particle, we'll be back to how forces are modeled for the strong and weak forces. AG 

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/31/2024 3:07 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 1:44:15 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 1:37 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

Wheeler is just translating EFE, Einstein's Field Equation, into words. I have no objection if you like it, but IMO it adds nothing, explains nothing beyond what the equation states. AG 

>  just repeating what EFE says, 

Maybe, maybe not. Google says EFE is a Spanish news agency, but I don't know if that's what you meant. And by the way, IHA.

>There could be an unlimited sequence of "why's", 

Yes there could be.

> or the sequence might terminate in profound knowledge, but likely NOT in an event without a cause, 

That doesn't make any sense. If the sequence terminates in X then wouldn't you want to know WHY it terminates in X ?  If X is "NOT in an event without a cause" then you'd want to know what sort of thing DID cause X, and how and why it did so; therefore the sequence of "why" questions does NOT terminate with X.

Since we're nowhere near what we're speculating about, this train of thought is useless. However, I affirm that an irreducible event is unintelligible to human understanding. Without some rule for the emergence of an event, aka a cause, there is no way to understand it.

A rule would just be Einstein's equations plus a few rules for applying them.  A cause would be something different and prior in time.  Given your assertions there is either always going to be an unintelligible assertion at the foundation of one's understanding OR there's going to be a circular relation of concepts that you may follow around until you reach one that you understand.  I think of this as a virtuous circle of explantion, something like this:



Brent

Some people think probability can be conceived of as a cause. I disagree with this conclusion. AG

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

 

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[Brent Meeker]

A graviton can already be introduced, but it doesn't help solve the problem of non-linearity in strong fields, it only works for weak fields where it doesn't add anything measurable to Newtonian gravity.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 4:53:27 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/31/2024 3:07 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 1:44:15 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 1:37 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

Wheeler is just translating EFE, Einstein's Field Equation, into words. I have no objection if you like it, but IMO it adds nothing, explains nothing beyond what the equation states. AG 

>  just repeating what EFE says, 

Maybe, maybe not. Google says EFE is a Spanish news agency, but I don't know if that's what you meant. And by the way, IHA.

>There could be an unlimited sequence of "why's", 

Yes there could be.

> or the sequence might terminate in profound knowledge, but likely NOT in an event without a cause, 

That doesn't make any sense. If the sequence terminates in X then wouldn't you want to know WHY it terminates in X ?  If X is "NOT in an event without a cause" then you'd want to know what sort of thing DID cause X, and how and why it did so; therefore the sequence of "why" questions does NOT terminate with X.

Since we're nowhere near what we're speculating about, this train of thought is useless. However, I affirm that an irreducible event is unintelligible to human understanding. Without some rule for the emergence of an event, aka a cause, there is no way to understand it.

A rule would just be Einstein's equations plus a few rules for applying them.  A cause would be something different and prior in time. 

A rule for one person, could be a cause for another person! Don't ya think? There could be an unintelligible assertion at the foundation of one's understanding OR what you describe below. But suppose there is a God. How could he/she abide by, tolorate. irreducible random events? What tools or whatever could he/she use to make something happen or not happen? I see what bothered AE about this concept.  AG. 

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/31/2024 8:28 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 4:53:27 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/31/2024 3:07 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 1:44:15 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 1:37 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

Wheeler is just translating EFE, Einstein's Field Equation, into words. I have no objection if you like it, but IMO it adds nothing, explains nothing beyond what the equation states. AG 

>  just repeating what EFE says, 

Maybe, maybe not. Google says EFE is a Spanish news agency, but I don't know if that's what you meant. And by the way, IHA.

>There could be an unlimited sequence of "why's", 

Yes there could be.

> or the sequence might terminate in profound knowledge, but likely NOT in an event without a cause, 

That doesn't make any sense. If the sequence terminates in X then wouldn't you want to know WHY it terminates in X ?  If X is "NOT in an event without a cause" then you'd want to know what sort of thing DID cause X, and how and why it did so; therefore the sequence of "why" questions does NOT terminate with X.

Since we're nowhere near what we're speculating about, this train of thought is useless. However, I affirm that an irreducible event is unintelligible to human understanding. Without some rule for the emergence of an event, aka a cause, there is no way to understand it.

A rule would just be Einstein's equations plus a few rules for applying them.  A cause would be something different and prior in time. 

A rule for one person, could be a cause for another person! Don't ya think?

I think of a rule as passive and persistent in time; as compare to a cause which is acts at a particular time.

There could be an unintelligible assertion at the foundation of one's understanding OR what you describe below. But suppose there is a God. How could he/she abide by, tolorate. irreducible random events?

I think he/she would create them, aka "miracles".

What tools or whatever could he/she use to make something happen or not happen?

Traditionally words.  It's easy to see that the concept of god was just an elevation of the tribal strongman who got things done by giving orders.

Brent

I see what bothered AE about this concept.  AG. 

 

Given your assertions there is either always going to be an unintelligible assertion at the foundation of one's understanding OR there's going to be a circular relation of concepts that you may follow around until you reach one that you understand.  I think of this as a virtuous circle of explantion, something like this:



Brent

Some people think probability can be conceived of as a cause. I disagree with this conclusion. AG

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 6:07 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

>> I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

> Wheeler is just translating EFE, Einstein's Field Equation, into words.

Just?!  Well OK, if you have a profound intuitive understanding of four dimensional non-Euclidean tensor calculus and can just visualize it in your head then Wheeler's words are unnecessary, in fact everybody's words are unnecessary including mine. Are you telling us you have such an understanding?

> Without some rule for the emergence of an event, aka a cause, there is no way to understand it.

Yes obviously. But if you know that something is a brute fact then there is nothing more to understand about it, so asking "why" it is a brute fact would be a silly question.  And if it's not a brute fact then to understand it you need to find its cause, and then you'll want to find the cause of the cause etc; And then the "why" questions either go on forever or they don't and if they don't then they must terminate with a brute fact.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

coc

[John Clark]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 6:53 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

> I think of this as a virtuous circle of explantion, something like this:

I like your diagram, but of course it doesn't explain why the empirical information is one set of data points rather than some other set of data points.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

11d

 

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, November 1, 2024 at 4:23:46 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 6:07 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Wheeler's answer explains nothing,

>> I think it explains a great deal, especially considering the fact that it's only 13 words long. 

> Wheeler is just translating EFE, Einstein's Field Equation, into words.

Just?!  Well OK, if you have a profound intuitive understanding of four dimensional non-Euclidean tensor calculus and can just visualize it in your head then Wheeler's words are unnecessary, in fact everybody's words are unnecessary including mine. Are you telling us you have such an understanding?

If the curvature terms are on one side of equation, and matter/energy terms on the other, it doesn't take much understanding to reach Wheeler's conclusion. AG 

[Brent Meeker]

Of course you never know whether the "brute fact" for which you have no explanation is actually "brute" or not.  You look for an explanation but failing to find one doesn't prove one doesn't exist.

Brent

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[Brent Meeker]

On 11/1/2024 3:44 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 6:53 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

> I think of this as a virtuous circle of explantion, something like this:

I like your diagram, but of course it doesn't explain why the empirical information is one set of data points rather than some other set of data points.

That's why it's empirical and not theological.  ;-)

Brent

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

11d

 

Brent

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[John Clark]

On Fri, Nov 1, 2024 at 1:14 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Of course you never know whether the "brute fact" for which you have no explanation is actually "brute" or not.  You look for an explanation but failing to find one doesn't prove one doesn't exist.

True.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

xbd

coc

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[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 5:18:26 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:17 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What are you measuring that you call permeabiliy and permativity? AG 

Permeability is a measure of  how easily a material (or a vacuum) allows a magnetic field to be established within it, and permittivity is a measure of how easily a material allows an electric field to be established within it. For the numerical values of the vacuum, neither value can be found by theory alone, but both values were found by experimental means in the 19th century.

Still baffling IMO. How can "nothing" have non-zero properties which can be measured? Did this bother 19th century physicists or Einstein? AG

 

And if you know the permeability (μ₀) and permittivity (ε₀) of the vacuum then you can calculate the speed of light because Maxwell gave us a simple formula for doing so:

 c = 1/√(μ₀ε₀)

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

mwk