Have Primordial Black Holes been discovered?

[John Clark]

Until very recently the most distant object our telescopes can see had a redshift of about 14, but very recently there are reports that the James Webb telescope has seen point-like objects that seem to have a redshift of 25! Whatever these objects are they contain little or no dust as you'd expect because dust requires elements other than hydrogen and helium which need to be made in stars, but if we really are looking at an object that has a red shift of 25 then we're looking at something that existed before stars did. If confirmed that would be a pretty profound discovery, and about the only thing that could explain them are Primordial Black Holes created during the first nanosecond after the Big Bang.

  

JWST Found Objects at Insane New Distances (Redshift of 25?!)

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

rv?

[Alan Grayson]

How is the red shift related to the velocity of light? How large must it be to equal c? TY, AG 

rv?

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 6:01 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 5:45:01 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Until very recently the most distant object our telescopes can see had a redshift of about 14, but very recently there are reports that the James Webb telescope has seen point-like objects that seem to have a redshift of 25! Whatever these objects are they contain little or no dust as you'd expect because dust requires elements other than hydrogen and helium which need to be made in stars, but if we really are looking at an object that has a red shift of 25 then we're looking at something that existed before stars did. If confirmed that would be a pretty profound discovery, and about the only thing that could explain them are Primordial Black Holes created during the first nanosecond after the Big Bang.

  

JWST Found Objects at Insane New Distances (Redshift of 25?!)

> How is the red shift related to the velocity of light? How large must it be to equal c? TY, AG 

Because space is expanding and accelerating, galaxies that have a redshift greater than about 1.7 are today moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can never reach them or even send a message to them, they are beyond our causal horizon; however today we can still see them because at the time the light from them was emitted the galaxy was closer to us than it is now, and back then it was receding away from us slower than it is now, slower than the speed of light. For the same reason today we can even detect the Cosmic Microwave Background even though it has a redshift of about 1100, but we could never send a message or influence anything that happens that far away.

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

dq_

?

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[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, August 10, 2025 at 5:51:31 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 6:01 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 5:45:01 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Until very recently the most distant object our telescopes can see had a redshift of about 14, but very recently there are reports that the James Webb telescope has seen point-like objects that seem to have a redshift of 25! Whatever these objects are they contain little or no dust as you'd expect because dust requires elements other than hydrogen and helium which need to be made in stars, but if we really are looking at an object that has a red shift of 25 then we're looking at something that existed before stars did. If confirmed that would be a pretty profound discovery, and about the only thing that could explain them are Primordial Black Holes created during the first nanosecond after the Big Bang.

  

JWST Found Objects at Insane New Distances (Redshift of 25?!)

> How is the red shift related to the velocity of light? How large must it be to equal c? TY, AG 

Because space is expanding and accelerating, galaxies that have a redshift greater than about 1.7 are today moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can never reach them or even send a message to them, they are beyond our causal horizon; however today we can still see them because at the time the light from them was emitted the galaxy was closer to us than it is now, and back then it was receding away from us slower than it is now, slower than the speed of light. For the same reason today we can even detect the Cosmic Microwave Background even though it has a redshift of about 1100, but we could never send a message or influence anything that happens that far away.

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

TY. If it's not too much trouble, can you show me how you do that calculation? AG 

[Alan Grayson]

What is the physical interpretation of the huge red shift of the CMB? It can't mean extreme recessional velocity since it's here, everywhere, in every direction. AG 

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 10:23 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 5:45:01 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Until very recently the most distant object our telescopes can see had a redshift of about 14, but very recently there are reports that the James Webb telescope has seen point-like objects that seem to have a redshift of 25! Whatever these objects are they contain little or no dust as you'd expect because dust requires elements other than hydrogen and helium which need to be made in stars, but if we really are looking at an object that has a red shift of 25 then we're looking at something that existed before stars did. If confirmed that would be a pretty profound discovery, and about the only thing that could explain them are Primordial Black Holes created during the first nanosecond after the Big Bang.

JWST Found Objects at Insane New Distances (Redshift of 25?!)

 

> How is the red shift related to the velocity of light? How large must it be to equal c? TY, AG 

Because space is expanding and accelerating, galaxies that have a redshift greater than about 1.7 are today moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can never reach them or even send a message to them, they are beyond our causal horizon; however today we can still see them because at the time the light from them was emitted the galaxy was closer to us than it is now, and back then it was receding away from us slower than it is now, slower than the speed of light. For the same reason today we can even detect the Cosmic Microwave Background even though it has a redshift of about 1100, but we could never send a message or influence anything that happens that far away.

> TY. If it's not too much trouble, can you show me how you do that calculation? AG 

For nearby galaxies you can get a good approximation of the recessional velocity with the simple formula  v = cz  where: v = recession velocity, c = speed of light, and z = redshift. However for more distant galaxies you need to take Special Relativity into account and the formula is more complicated: 

v = c × [(1 + z)² - 1] / [(1 + z)² + 1]

But for even more distant galaxies the above formula is not good enough because it does NOT take into account the fact that the universe is not only expanding it's accelerating, so the formula only gives a lower bound for how fast the galaxy is moving away from us due to the expansion of space. Calculating an even more precise figure is much more complicated because then you need calculus and you need to take General Relativity into account, and it depends on which cosmological model is being used, usually it's ΛCDM which assumes the existence of Dark Energy and Cold Dark Matter.

 

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

axc

[Alan Grayson]

Since the CMB isn't receding, what is the physical interpretation of its huge red shift? AG 

[John Clark]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2025 at 3:27 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Because space is expanding and accelerating, galaxies that have a redshift greater than about 1.7 are today moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can never reach them or even send a message to them, they are beyond our causal horizon; however today we can still see them because at the time the light from them was emitted the galaxy was closer to us than it is now, and back then it was receding away from us slower than it is now, slower than the speed of light. For the same reason today we can even detect the Cosmic Microwave Background even though it has a redshift of about 1100, but we could never send a message or influence anything that happens that far away.

> Since the CMB isn't receding, what is the physical interpretation of its huge red shift? AG 

When we look at the Cosmic Microwave Background we're looking at a time about 380,000 years after the Big Bang when the universe cooled enough for electrons to become attached to atomic nuclei and to form neutral atoms which allowed the universe to become transparent. We're seeing light  that has been traveling toward us for 13.8 billion years, coming from regions that are now much farther away than 13.8 billion light years, not because they have moved through space but because space itself has expanded. 

The physical interpretation of the CMB's redshift of 1100 is that since that time the linear distance of space has stretched by a factor of 1100, and so the volume of space has expanded by a factor of that number cubed, or about 1.3 billion.

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

6u4

[Alan Grayson]

Do you think the red shift of the CMB implies a universe of finite volume? If not, why not? AG

6u4

[John Clark]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2025 at 8:31 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Because space is expanding and accelerating, galaxies that have a redshift greater than about 1.7 are today moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can never reach them or even send a message to them, they are beyond our causal horizon; however today we can still see them because at the time the light from them was emitted the galaxy was closer to us than it is now, and back then it was receding away from us slower than it is now, slower than the speed of light. For the same reason today we can even detect the Cosmic Microwave Background even though it has a redshift of about 1100, but we could never send a message or influence anything that happens that far away.

> Since the CMB isn't receding, what is the physical interpretation of its huge red shift? AG 

When we look at the Cosmic Microwave Background we're looking at a time about 380,000 years after the Big Bang when the universe cooled enough for electrons to become attached to atomic nuclei and to form neutral atoms which allowed the universe to become transparent. We're seeing light  that has been traveling toward us for 13.8 billion years, coming from regions that are now much farther away than 13.8 billion light years, not because they have moved through space but because space itself has expanded. 

The physical interpretation of the CMB's redshift of 1100 is that since that time the linear distance of space has stretched by a factor of 1100, and so the volume of space has expanded by a factor of that number cubed, or about 1.3 billion.

> Do you think the red shift of the CMB implies a universe of finite volume? If not, why not? AG

Unfortunately the CMB gives us no help in answering that question, it might be finite, it might be infinite. The CMB can tell us stuff about the observable universe but not the size of the wider universe in general. 

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

wug

 

[Brent Meeker]

It's all relative.  We're receding, if you insist on "somebody is receding".  The bit of the CMB we see is a further away bit every day.  Its photons have traveled to us thru space that has been expanding as they traveled.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

Since I am free to choose any observer is receding, I did. But more important is your model of the photon. Since the wave property of light is an ensemble property, what allows you to claim they lose energy as the universe expands? AG 

[Brent Meeker]

Suppose you and a pro-baseball pitcher are standing alongside a road playing catch.  When you catch his fastball it has an energy of 70J and stings thru you glove.  Now his throw is little off and instead going to you, it is caught by a kid in a passing car going the same direction as the throw.  But when the kid catches it bare handed it doesn't even hurt because it's only got an energy of 2J.  How did the ball loose energy?

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

Good question. The ball caught by the observer in the moving car didn't lose all of its kinetic energy, and kept moving with the car after being caught, whereas all the kinetic energy of the ball was disappated into recoil, sound waves, and heating of the material in the glove, when the ball was fully stopped by the guy on the ground catching the ball.  Now that I've answered your question, tell me how a point particle, the photon, can get it wave stretched by an expanding universe. AG

[Brent Meeker]

You didn't answer it correctly.  You overlooked the impetus the ball adds to the car increasing the energy of the car/ball system.

That the photon gets its wavelength stretched during it's long travel from the CMB is obvious in the inflating balloon model.  As space expands it stretches the photon traveling thru it.

Brent

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[Alan Grayson]

I gave you a good approximate answer. You're just nitpicking. The ball never comes to a complete rest wrt the ground when caught by the observer in the moving car. Hence, this is the main source of the "loss" in kinetic energy. What part of my explanation do you not understand? AG 

That the photon gets its wavelength stretched during it's long travel from the CMB is obvious in the inflating balloon model.  As space expands it stretches the photon traveling thru it.

This is not an explanation. An individual photon has no identifiable wave. Wave extend to spatial infinity. You're just repeating something you've heard before, and believe. AG

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

Since photons travel at light speed, from the pov of external observers, using the LT, they have zero length. So, when you speak of their wave lengths, do you really know what you're referring to? AG

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, August 19, 2025 at 2:10:49 AM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

I sympathize. It's a monumental task to show, how something without length, a photon, can be stretched. AG 

 

[Brent Meeker]

What do you make of the wavelength?

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

What is the physical interpretation of the huge red shift of the CMB? It can't mean extreme recessional velocity since it's here, everywhere, in every direction. AG 

Since the CMB isn't receding, what is the physical interpretation of its huge red shift? AG 

It's all relative.  We're receding, if you insist on "somebody is receding".  The bit of the CMB we see is a further away bit every day.  Its photons have traveled to us thru space that has been expanding as they traveled.

Brent

Since I am free to choose any observer is receding, I did. But more important is your model of the photon. Since the wave property of light is an ensemble property, what allows you to claim they lose energy as the universe expands? AG 

Suppose you and a pro-baseball pitcher are standing alongside a road playing catch.  When you catch his fastball it has an energy of 70J and stings thru you glove.  Now his throw is little off and instead going to you, it is caught by a kid in a passing car going the same direction as the throw.  But when the kid catches it bare handed it doesn't even hurt because it's only got an energy of 2J.  How did the ball loose energy?

Brent

Good question. The ball caught by the observer in the moving car didn't lose all of its kinetic energy, and kept moving with the car after being caught, whereas all the kinetic energy of the ball was disappated into recoil, sound waves, and heating of the material in the glove, when the ball was fully stopped by the guy on the ground catching the ball.  Now that I've answered your question, tell me how a point particle, the photon, can get it wave stretched by an expanding universe. AG

You didn't answer it correctly.  You overlooked the impetus the ball adds to the car increasing the energy of the car/ball system.

I gave you a good approximate answer. You're just nitpicking. The ball never comes to a complete rest wrt the ground when caught by the observer in the moving car. Hence, this is the main source of the "loss" in kinetic energy. What part of my explanation do you not understand? AG 

That the photon gets its wavelength stretched during it's long travel from the CMB is obvious in the inflating balloon model.  As space expands it stretches the photon traveling thru it.

This is not an explanation. An individual photon has no identifiable wave. Wave extend to spatial infinity. You're just repeating something you've heard before, and believe. AG

Since photons travel at light speed, from the pov of external observers, using the LT, they have zero length. So, when you speak of their wave lengths, do you really know what you're referring to? AG

Brent

 

I sympathize. It's a monumental task to show, how something without length, a photon, can be stretched. AG 

What do you make of the wavelength?

Brent

I tend to thInk of a photon's wavelength as a quantum number which defines its energy, and it has that name because when interacting with other photons an interference pattern is manifiested, similar to deBroglie wavelength of material particles. But there's no infinite extention in space like a classical wave; nor is it a pulse with some dominant frequencies. So what it actually IS I can't say, particularly since it has no measureable length. But since a cosmological red shift for galaxies is observed, I can't deny that reddening occurs as photons exist and travel within an expanding universe. But we need a model for that occurrance, and simply asserting that a photon's wave is "stretched" as spce expands, is just silly story which avoids serious analysis. AG

[John Clark]

Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> simply asserting that a photon's wave is "stretched" as spce expands, is just silly story which avoids serious analysis. AG

I don't think it's silly at all. I admit we don't yet know if Einstein gave us the ultimate answer to the question "why does space expand" but we do know that either the ultimate answer is a brute fact, or there is no ultimate answer because an iterated sequence of such "why" questions goes on forever. 

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

isw

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 4:36:17 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> simply asserting that a photon's wave is "stretched" as spce expands, is just silly story which avoids serious analysis. AG

I don't think it's silly at all. I admit we don't yet know if Einstein gave us the ultimate answer to the question "why does space expand" but we do know that either the ultimate answer is a brute fact, or there is no ultimate answer because an iterated sequence of such "why" questions goes on forever. 

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

That's a peculiar attitude coming from a guy who hates the "shut up and calculate" approach to deep questions. I'm not seeking "the ultimate answer", just one that makes some sense. AG

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 6:51 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I don't think it's silly at all. I admit we don't yet know if Einstein gave us the ultimate answer to the question "why does space expand" but we do know that either the ultimate answer is a brute fact, or there is no ultimate answer because an iterated sequence of such "why" questions goes on forever. 

 

> That's a peculiar attitude coming from a guy who hates the "shut up and calculate"

If I thought we had reach the brute fact level in Quantum Mechanics then I agree that we should be satisfied with "shut up and calculate", but there is reason to believe that at least one further "why" question is possible because two different theories could provide an answer, one is Many Worlds and the other is Objective Collapse. Perhaps one of them is right, perhaps both of them are wrong and then, when it comes to Quantum Mechanics, I would become a shut up and calculate man. But when it comes to General Relativity there is nothing equivalent to Many Worlds or Objective Collapse, which makes me suspect we have reached the brute fact level, although we can never be certain. 

> I'm not seeking "the ultimate answer", just one that makes some sense. AG

The mathematics of General Relativity says that a sufficiently negative pressure will cause space to expand, or to be more precise, if d is the energy density of the universe and  the pressure is p then if (d+3p) < 0 then space will expand, but if (d+3p) >0 then space will contract. Apparently you believe another "why" question is in order, maybe so I don't know, but I don't see how you could say that it doesn't make sense, what Einstein said was very clear, there are no logical contradictions and so far at least it has passed all observational tests with flying colors.  

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

3vj

 

[Alan Grayson]

Maybe GR answers the question you raise. I don't know. But that's not what I called "silly". It's the idea that expanding space stretches the waves supposedly inherent in photons. AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 9:32 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If I thought we had reach the brute fact level in Quantum Mechanics then I agree that we should be satisfied with "shut up and calculate", but there is reason to believe that at least one further "why" question is possible because two different theories could provide an answer, one is Many Worlds and the other is Objective Collapse. Perhaps one of them is right, perhaps both of them are wrong and then, when it comes to Quantum Mechanics, I would become a shut up and calculate man. But when it comes to General Relativity there is nothing equivalent to Many Worlds or Objective Collapse, which makes me suspect we have reached the brute fact level, although we can never be certain. 

> I'm not seeking "the ultimate answer", just one that makes some sense. AG

The mathematics of General Relativity says that a sufficiently negative pressure will cause space to expand, or to be more precise, if d is the energy density of the universe and  the pressure is p then if (d+3p) < 0 then space will expand, but if (d+3p) >0 then space will contract. Apparently you believe another "why" question is in order, maybe so I don't know, but I don't see how you could say that it doesn't make sense, what Einstein said was very clear, there are no logical contradictions and so far at least it has passed all observational tests with flying colors.  

> Maybe GR answers the question you raise. I don't know. But that's not what I called "silly". It's the idea that expanding space stretches the waves supposedly inherent in photons. AG 

If expanding space can't lengthen the wave length of light then what does "expanding space" even mean? What is causing the cosmological red shift that we observe? Why do objects that are at a larger distance from the Earth have greater red shifts? 

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

f00

[Alan Grayson]

The wave length of light? When you admit you have at best a very imprecise definition of this concept, some progress might be possible. But not until then. AG  

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/20/2025 6:31 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

Maybe GR answers the question you raise. I don't know. But that's not what I called "silly". It's the idea that expanding space stretches the waves supposedly inherent in photons. AG 

It only seems silly to you because you think of photons as little pellets subject to Lorentz contraction, instead of quanta whose location is a probabilistic wave-function.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

Time to stop the cover-up. You have no clue what the waves of those little pellets are, so just admit it. AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 5:22 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If expanding space can't lengthen the wave length of light then what does "expanding space" even mean? What is causing the cosmological red shift that we observe? Why do objects that are at a larger distance from the Earth have greater red shifts? 

> The wave length of light? When you admit you have at best a very imprecise definition of this concept, some progress might be possible. But not until then. AG  

The wavelength of light (electromagnetic waves) produced by a microwave oven is defined as twice the distance between two melted points of a chocolate bar that had been heated in a microwave oven that was on a non-rotating plate. It works because the microwaves are in a box so they form a standing wave pattern inside the oven, and the waves interfere constructively every half wavelength and produce more heating at that point. If you actually perform that experiment you'll find that the wavelength is 12.2 cm. 

If you find that definition is still "at best very imprecise" perhaps you could give me a better definition of "at best very imprecise" so I could give you a definition that was a bit better than at best less very imprecise.

Incidentally you can use that same experiment to measure the speed of light, if you happen to know that all household microwave ovens operate at a frequency of 2.45 GHz, by using the simple formula c = fλ (where c is the speed of light, f is frequency, and λ is wavelength).

 

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

rff

[Alan Grayson]

On Thursday, August 21, 2025 at 5:05:59 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 5:22 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If expanding space can't lengthen the wave length of light then what does "expanding space" even mean? What is causing the cosmological red shift that we observe? Why do objects that are at a larger distance from the Earth have greater red shifts? 

> The wave length of light? When you admit you have at best a very imprecise definition of this concept, some progress might be possible. But not until then. AG  

The wavelength of light (electromagnetic waves) produced by a microwave oven is defined as twice the distance between two melted points of a chocolate bar that had been heated in a microwave oven that was on a non-rotating plate. It works because the microwaves are in a box so they form a standing wave pattern inside the oven, and the waves interfere constructively every half wavelength and produce more heating at that point. If you actually perform that experiment you'll find that the wavelength is 12.2 cm. 

How do you get a definite wave length using the ends of a chocolate bar if you don't know its length? AG 

If you find that definition is still "at best very imprecise" perhaps you could give me a better definition of "at best very imprecise" so I could give you a definition that was a bit better than at best less very imprecise.

Incidentally you can use that same experiment to measure the speed of light, if you happen to know that all household microwave ovens operate at a frequency of 2.45 GHz, by using the simple formula c = fλ (where c is the speed of light, f is frequency, and λ is wavelength).

 

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

The issue I have been discussing applies to quantum light particles called photons. I don't have a problem with classical waves. AG 

[John Clark]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 11:50 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> The wavelength of light (electromagnetic waves) produced by a microwave oven is defined as twice the distance between two melted points of a chocolate bar that had been heated in a microwave oven that was on a non-rotating plate. It works because the microwaves are in a box so they form a standing wave pattern inside the oven, and the waves interfere constructively every half wavelength and produce more heating at that point. If you actually perform that experiment you'll find that the wavelength is 12.2 cm. 

> How do you get a definite wave length using the ends of a chocolate bar if you don't know its length? AG 

Huh? You don't use the ends of a chocolate bar, you use a tape measure to determine the length between two melted spots in the chocolate bar and then multiply that number by two.

>> If you find that definition is still "at best very imprecise" perhaps you could give me a better definition of "at best very imprecise" so I could give you a definition that was a bit better than at best less very imprecise.

Incidentally you can use that same experiment to measure the speed of light, if you happen to know that all household microwave ovens operate at a frequency of 2.45 GHz, by using the simple formula c = fλ (where c is the speed of light, f is frequency, and λ is wavelength).

 

> The issue I have been discussing applies to quantum light particles called photons. I don't have a problem with classical waves. AG 

We have been discussing the cosmological redshift and your claim that we have "at best a very imprecise definition" of the wavelength of light. But that is simply not true, we have an extremely precise definition of the wavelength of light. and the cosmological red shift was discovered using optical telescopes that's operation can be completely understood by treating light as if it was composed of classical waves. So if space is expanding then why is it silly to say the LENGTH of the wave is expanding with it? If it is not then what does "expanding space" even mean? 

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

zvb

[Alan Grayson]

It could mean that the average distance between galaxies, with the exception of those in the local group, is increasing. In any event you don't seem to understand my issue here. I am not doubting the existence of the red shift; rather the standard interpretation of it for photons. You have a story you've fallen in love with, which makes zero sense when you think about it. Other than as a quantum number, see if you can define the wave length of a photon. AG

[Alan Grayson]

Two related questions; if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go? And second; why don't the wave lengths of material particles, such as electrons, also decrease in energy as well, under the same circumtance? AG,  

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/21/2025 3:22 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

Other than as a quantum number, see if you can define the wave length of a photon. AG

ch/E

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/21/2025 6:19 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

Two related questions; if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go? 

You didn't answer my question as to where the energy of a ball goes if you throw it into a moving car.

And second; why don't the wave lengths of material particles, such as electrons, also decrease in energy as well, under the same circumtance? AG,  

They do.  The de Broglie wave length is h/p.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Thursday, August 21, 2025 at 10:30:35 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 8/21/2025 6:19 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

Two related questions; if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go? 

You didn't answer my question as to where the energy of a ball goes if you throw it into a moving car.

I did. The two situations aren't comparable since the ball's kinetic energy is completely consumed when it comes to rest when being caught by the observer at rest, but not completely consumed when still moving when caught by the moving observer. So the energy isn't really "lost" in the latter case, just not consumed. That's one way to look at it, and you offered another, so I didn't think the issue was unresolved. AG

And second; why don't the wave lengths of material particles, such as electrons, also decrease in energy as well, under the same circumtance? AG  

They do.  The de Broglie wave length is h/p.

Really? Has anyone theorized that the electron's wavelength becomes longer as the universe expands, which would require p to decrease? AG

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

Yes, really.  Just like a photon emitted here and absorbed there when here and there are receding from one-another, p is less there than it was here.  You're such a troll.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

I was referring to the case of the deBroglie wavelength of an electron or any material particle being increased due to the expansion of the universe.  I think you changed the context in your compulsion to be right, and retain your status as "expert". AG

[Alan Grayson]

BTW, do material particles at rest, where p=0, have infinite wavelength? AG 

[Alan Grayson]

Concerning material particles; I was wondering why an electron with some non-zero p, wouldn't manifest a redshift in an expanding universe, as photons do. It was a speculative question, and your insult was wholly inappropriate. however, it is a "tell" about who you are. AG

[John Clark]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 9:20 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> We have been discussing the cosmological redshift and your claim that we have "at best a very imprecise definition" of the wavelength of light. But that is simply not true, we have an extremely precise definition of the wavelength of light. and the cosmological red shift was discovered using optical telescopes that's operation can be completely understood by treating light as if it was composed of classical waves. So if space is expanding then why is it silly to say the LENGTH of the wave is expanding with it? If it is not then what does "expanding space" even mean? 

> It could mean that the average distance between galaxies, with the exception of those in the local group,

The reason the local group of galaxies are not moving away from us with the expansion of space is because gravity is strong enough to hold them in place. Because of the galaxies movement through space (not through the expansion of space) they could even be moving towards us and us and display a blueshift as the Andromeda galaxy does. 

 > is increasing.

If the red shift is caused by the movement of galaxies through space rather than the expansion of space itself then why does the speed of that movement depend on the distance the galaxy is from earth rather than some other place? Was Galileo wrong and his medieval persecutors right, is the Earth the center of the universe? Do you really wanna go down that road?  

> Other than as a quantum number, see if you can define the wave length of a photon. AG

The energy of a photon is directly proportional to its frequency and inversely proportional to its wavelength. E = hν. ( E is the photon's energy and h is Planck's constant

 > You have a story you've fallen in love with, which makes zero sense when you think about it.

Do you really believe you've thought more deeply about this matter than every physicist has since 1925?  Have you considered the possibility that maybe you're the one who is confused, not them? 

> if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go?

You've asked this question before and I've answered it before, the energy doesn't go anywhere it is simply lost because in General Relativity the conservation of energy is just an approximation that gets worse as the region of space you're dealing with gets larger. Energy is conserved in Newtonian physics and even in Special Relativity because they are both working within flat Minkowsky spacetime, it doesn't curb due to the presence of mass/energy,  and so we have time-translation symmetry (the laws of physics don't change over time) and according to Noether's theorem that means energy is conserved. But our universe is not flat it's expanding. So when I said  "in General Relativity conservation of energy is just an approximation" was itself just an approximation of the truth because in General Relativity there is not even a unique way to define what energy is at the global level because there is not a unique way to define a time coordinate at the global level.  

 

 > why don't the wave lengths of material particles, such as electrons, also decrease in energy as well, under the same circumtance? AG,  

As far as we know electrons are point particles, they occupy no space and thus are not affected by space's expansion. I don't know if electrons really are point particles, but so far at least they seem to be. Protons and neutrons are certainly NOT point particles, they have an internal structure and are made up of quarks, but the distance between quarks doesn't increase as space expands for the same reason that distances between the Milky Way and other galaxies in the local group are not increasing, a force is holding them in place, except in the case of subatomic particles the force is not gravity but is the Strong Nuclear Force mediated by gluons.

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

rs=

 

[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 6:25:53 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 9:20 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> We have been discussing the cosmological redshift and your claim that we have "at best a very imprecise definition" of the wavelength of light. But that is simply not true, we have an extremely precise definition of the wavelength of light. and the cosmological red shift was discovered using optical telescopes that's operation can be completely understood by treating light as if it was composed of classical waves. So if space is expanding then why is it silly to say the LENGTH of the wave is expanding with it? If it is not then what does "expanding space" even mean? 

> It could mean that the average distance between galaxies, with the exception of those in the local group,

The reason the local group of galaxies are not moving away from us with the expansion of space is because gravity is strong enough to hold them in place. Because of the galaxies movement through space (not through the expansion of space) they could even be moving towards us and us and display a blueshift as the Andromeda galaxy does. 

I know. AG 

 > is increasing.

If the red shift is caused by the movement of galaxies through space rather than the expansion of space itself then why does the speed of that movement depend on the distance the galaxy is from earth rather than some other place? Was Galileo wrong and his medieval persecutors right, is the Earth the center of the universe? Do you really wanna go down that road?  

No. I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space, but I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon. You don't have such a model, but what's worse, you're unaware that you don't have a model. What you do have is a silly story that makes no sense. AG 

> Other than as a quantum number, see if you can define the wave length of a photon. AG

The energy of a photon is directly proportional to its frequency and inversely proportional to its wavelength. E = hν. ( E is the photon's energy and h is Planck's constant

So the 'wavelength" is a quantum number related to a photon's energy. I have no problem with that. But obviously you are unable to understand my issue. Since the photon seems to be a point particle with no spatial dimension (and no time), the notion that expanding space "stretches" its value, makes no sense. Recently, you tried to explain this by applying classical theory, which again shows me you're out of your depth on this issue. AG

 > You have a story you've fallen in love with, which makes zero sense when you think about it.

Do you really believe you've thought more deeply about this matter than every physicist has since 1925?  Have you considered the possibility that maybe you're the one who is confused, not them? 

I can only say I have thought more deeply on this issue than you or Brent. I'm asking a legitimate question, and neither you nor Brent understand it. AG 

> if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go?

You've asked this question before and I've answered it before, the energy doesn't go anywhere it is simply lost

It has to go somewhere, in some form. Or maybe it dissapates. If you claim it just disappears, then you're affirming magic. Relying on GR is a mistake IMO. AG

 

because in General Relativity the conservation of energy is just an approximation that gets worse as the region of space you're dealing with gets larger. Energy is conserved in Newtonian physics and even in Special Relativity because they are both working within flat Minkowsky spacetime, it doesn't curb due to the presence of mass/energy,  and so we have time-translation symmetry (the laws of physics don't change over time) and according to Noether's theorem that means energy is conserved. But our universe is not flat it's expanding. So when I said  "in General Relativity conservation of energy is just an approximation" was itself just an approximation of the truth because in General Relativity there is not even a unique way to define what energy is at the global level because there is not a unique way to define a time coordinate at the global level.  

 

 > why don't the wave lengths of material particles, such as electrons, also decrease in energy as well, under the same circumtance? AG,  

As far as we know electrons are point particles, they occupy no space and thus are not affected by space's expansion. I don't know if electrons really are point particles, but so far at least they seem to be. Protons and neutrons are certainly NOT point particles, they have an internal structure and are made up of quarks,

I know. But photons also seem like point particles, yet the waves you claim exist, extend spatially so they can be stretched. When you reach the point in your thinking that you realize you have no clue what you're asserting, some progress on this issue becomes possible.AG

 

but the distance between quarks doesn't increase as space expands for the same reason that distances between the Milky Way and other galaxies in the local group are not increasing, a force is holding them in place, except in the case of subatomic particles the force is not gravity but is the Strong Nuclear Force mediated by gluons.

I know. AG 

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 9:31 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> It could mean that the average distance between galaxies, with the exception of those in the local group,

>> The reason the local group of galaxies are not moving away from us with the expansion of space is because gravity is strong enough to hold them in place. Because of the galaxies movement through space (not through the expansion of space) they could even be moving towards us and us and display a blueshift as the Andromeda galaxy does. 

> I know. AG 

Well you sure don't behave as if you do.  

>> If the red shift is caused by the movement of galaxies through space rather than the expansion of space itself then why does the speed of that movement depend on the distance the galaxy is from earth rather than some other place? Was Galileo wrong and his medieval persecutors right, is the Earth the center of the universe? Do you really wanna go down that road?  

> No. I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space,

I'm sure the universe is relieved that now you accept it.  

>  I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon. You don't have such a model, but what's worse, you're unaware that you don't have a model. What you do have is a silly story that makes no sense. AG 

Since the day it was discovered that a single photon or electron behaves as if it's a wave when it goes through 2 slits but behaves like a particle when it hits a photographic plate physicists have been saying that makes no sense, well maybe so, but that doesn't prevent it from being true because it most certainly is. The least silly story known that explains how that bizarre fact could possibly be true is Many Worlds, Objective Collapse is slightly sillier, and Copenhagen is much sillier, and Superdeterminism is an astronomical number to an astronomical power sillier.  

 

> But obviously you are unable to understand my issue.

I understand your issue but it's not your issue alone, for over a century physicists have had that exact same issue with experimental results performed in the quantum realm, they are all radically unintuitive; so any story used in an attempt to explain them is going to seem "silly". That's why I say if Many Worlds isn't true then something even sillier must be.    

 

> Since the photon seems to be a point particle with no spatial dimension

As I said, a single photon only behaves like a point particle when it goes through two slits, NOT when it hits a photographic plate, and if you think that fact is silly then don't complain to me, complain to nature and hope you haven't hurt her feelings too much.  

> if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go?

You've asked this question before and I've answered it before, the energy doesn't go anywhere it is simply lost

> It has to go somewhere,

Why? The conservation of mass/energy is not a logical necessity the way that 2+2=4 is, instead that law was derived from experiments performed in a lab. In 1915 Einstein discovered General Relativity and it predicted the conservation law would not remain true over cosmological distances, and in 1929 Hubble discovered cosmological redshift and proved that Einstein was right.

 > If you claim it just disappears, then you're affirming magic.

Even in classical physics entropy is not conserved, do you think that fact is also magic?  

 

> Relying on GR is a mistake IMO. AG

And you have a right to my opinion.  

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

42f

rs=

[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 2:10:46 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 9:31 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> It could mean that the average distance between galaxies, with the exception of those in the local group,

>> The reason the local group of galaxies are not moving away from us with the expansion of space is because gravity is strong enough to hold them in place. Because of the galaxies movement through space (not through the expansion of space) they could even be moving towards us and us and display a blueshift as the Andromeda galaxy does. 

> I know. AG 

Well you sure don't behave as if you do.  

I challenge you to cite any comment where I denied that. You just read poorly sloppery and won't admit it. AG 

>> If the red shift is caused by the movement of galaxies through space rather than the expansion of space itself then why does the speed of that movement depend on the distance the galaxy is from earth rather than some other place? Was Galileo wrong and his medieval persecutors right, is the Earth the center of the universe? Do you really wanna go down that road?  

> No. I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space,

I'm sure the universe is relieved that now you accept it.  

>  I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon. You don't have such a model, but what's worse, you're unaware that you don't have a model. What you do have is a silly story that makes no sense. AG 

Since the day it was discovered that a single photon or electron behaves as if it's a wave when it goes through 2 slits but behaves like a particle when it hits a photographic plate physicists have been saying that makes no sense, well maybe so, but that doesn't prevent it from being true because it most certainly is. The least silly story known that explains how that bizarre fact could possibly be true is Many Worlds, Objective Collapse is slightly sillier, and Copenhagen is much sillier, and Superdeterminism is an astronomical number to an astronomical power sillier.  

Is there any evidence, or even a plausible hypothesis, that photons detected by some telescope which shows redshifting, have first passed through a double slit before detection? Since the answer is emphatically negative, your model of photon waves being "stretched" by the expansion of the universe is fatally flawed. Unless you simply admit it, your analysis fails to be considered rigorous. Once you admit this fact, we can move on. AG

 

> But obviously you are unable to understand my issue.

I understand your issue 

You do NOT. Photons do not go through double slits when they're detected by telescopes, so the idea that they have waves which can be stretched by the expansion of the universe just doesn't work, unless you want to revert to classical E&M, which you did in a previous post. AG

but it's not your issue alone, for over a century physicists have had that exact same issue with experimental results performed in the quantum realm, they are all radically unintuitive; so any story used in an attempt to explain them is going to seem "silly". That's why I say if Many Worlds isn't true then something even sillier must be.    

 

> Since the photon seems to be a point particle with no spatial dimension

As I said, a single photon only behaves like a point particle when it goes through two slits, NOT when it hits a photographic plate, and if you think that fact is silly then don't complain to me, complain to nature and hope you haven't hurt her feelings too much. 

You have a typo above which contradicts your earlier statement. The electron behaves like a particle when it goes through one slit, but behaves like a wave when it goes through both slits and interference is manifested, but is always detected as a particle on the photographic plate. AG

> if photons lose energy as the universe expands, where does the lost energy go?

You've asked this question before and I've answered it before, the energy doesn't go anywhere it is simply lost

> It has to go somewhere,

Why? The conservation of mass/energy is not a logical necessity the way that 2+2=4 is, instead that law was derived from experiments performed in a lab. In 1915 Einstein discovered General Relativity and it predicted the conservation law would not remain true over cosmological distances,

Where, and how, was this predicted in GR? AG

 

and in 1929 Hubble discovered cosmological redshift and proved that Einstein was right.

Hubble just showed the universe was expanding, and those faint patches, called at that time "nebulas", were external to the Milky Way. Much more important, however, here's where we have a major philosophical dispute. I contend that Something cannot become Nothing, and Nothing cannot become Something. I think this is true even though it was asserted by Scholastic and ancient philosophers. So, based on this principle, Einstein was either mistaken, or you have misinterpreted GR. I contend that the principle of Conservation of Energy is universally true. AG

 > If you claim it just disappears, then you're affirming magic.

Even in classical physics entropy is not conserved, do you think that fact is also magic?

No, because Entropy just relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta, not to the existence of such matter. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 7:29:29 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 2:10:46 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 9:31 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> It could mean that the average distance between galaxies, with the exception of those in the local group,

>> The reason the local group of galaxies are not moving away from us with the expansion of space is because gravity is strong enough to hold them in place. Because of the galaxies movement through space (not through the expansion of space) they could even be moving towards us and us and display a blueshift as the Andromeda galaxy does. 

> I know. AG 

Well you sure don't behave as if you do.  

I challenge you to cite any comment where I denied that. You just read poorly sloppery and won't admit it. AG 

>> If the red shift is caused by the movement of galaxies through space rather than the expansion of space itself then why does the speed of that movement depend on the distance the galaxy is from earth rather than some other place? Was Galileo wrong and his medieval persecutors right, is the Earth the center of the universe? Do you really wanna go down that road?  

> No. I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space,

I'm sure the universe is relieved that now you accept it.  

>  I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon. You don't have such a model, but what's worse, you're unaware that you don't have a model. What you do have is a silly story that makes no sense. AG 

Since the day it was discovered that a single photon or electron behaves as if it's a wave when it goes through 2 slits but behaves like a particle when it hits a photographic plate physicists have been saying that makes no sense, well maybe so, but that doesn't prevent it from being true because it most certainly is. The least silly story known that explains how that bizarre fact could possibly be true is Many Worlds, Objective Collapse is slightly sillier, and Copenhagen is much sillier, and Superdeterminism is an astronomical number to an astronomical power sillier.  

Is there any evidence, or even a plausible hypothesis, that photons detected by some telescope which shows redshifting, have first passed through a double slit before detection? Since the answer is emphatically negative, your model of photon waves being "stretched" by the expansion of the universe is fatally flawed. Unless you simply admit it, your analysis fails to be considered rigorous. Once you admit this fact, we can move on. AG

 

> But obviously you are unable to understand my issue.

I understand your issue 

You do NOT. Photons do not go through double slits when they're detected by telescopes, so the idea that they have waves which can be stretched by the expansion of the universe just doesn't work, unless you want to revert to classical E&M, which you did in a previous post. AG

but it's not your issue alone, for over a century physicists have had that exact same issue with experimental results performed in the quantum realm, they are all radically unintuitive; so any story used in an attempt to explain them is going to seem "silly". That's why I say if Many Worlds isn't true then something even sillier must be.    

 

> Since the photon seems to be a point particle with no spatial dimension

As I said, a single photon only behaves like a point particle when it goes through two slits, NOT when it hits a photographic plate, and if you think that fact is silly then don't complain to me, complain to nature and hope you haven't hurt her feelings too much. 

You have a typo above which contradicts your earlier statement. The electron behaves like a particle when it goes through one slit, but behaves like a wave when it goes through both slits and interference is manifested, but is always detected as a particle on the photographic plate. AG

CORRECTION: when we don't know which slit the electron passes through, we don't see interference UNLESS this same experiment is repeated numerous times. IOW, interference, aka wave behavior, is an ensemble property. Of course, photons act similarly, so there's no basis for assuming that when they're detected in telescopes with redshifts, such ensembles exist to produce waves which can be "stretched". You really need to cease your love affair with a model which doesn't come close to working. AG

[John Clark]

On Sat, Aug 23, 2025 at 12:11 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> CORRECTION: when we don't know which slit the electron passes through, we don't see interference 

CORRECTION to your correction: when we DON'T know which split the electron passed through we DO see interference. When we DO know which slit the electron passed through we do NOT see interference. 

> UNLESS this same experiment is repeated numerous times. IOW, interference, aka wave behavior, is an ensemble property. 

But even with just one electron you can make a much much better guess where the electron will hit the screen if you know which split it went through then if you did not.  

>  I contend that Something cannot become Nothing, and Nothing cannot become Something.

Good for you. And on the day you are able to prove that, rent a tuxedo, buy an airline ticket to Stockholm, write your acceptance speech, and receive your prize.

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

3]*

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, August 23, 2025 at 5:27:37 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Aug 23, 2025 at 12:11 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> CORRECTION: when we don't know which slit the electron passes through, we don't see interference 

CORRECTION to your correction: when we DON'T know which split the electron passed through we DO see interference.

You're definitely mistaken. Interference is an ensemble property, so there's no visible interference on any single trial, regardless of whether you have which-way information or not. AG

 

When we DO know which slit the electron passed through we do NOT see interference. 

> UNLESS this same experiment is repeated numerous times. IOW, interference, aka wave behavior, is an ensemble property. 

But even with just one electron you can make a much much better guess where the electron will hit the screen if you know which split it went through then if you did not.  

>  I contend that Something cannot become Nothing, and Nothing cannot become Something.

Good for you. And on the day you are able to prove that, rent a tuxedo, buy an airline ticket to Stockholm, write your acceptance speech, and receive your prize.

It cannot be proven; just like the principles of logic you depend on cannot be proven. And neither can your claim be proven that an expanding universe "stretches" a photon's wavelength. You don't seem to understand that your claim is just a story you love and believe has substance. It's nothing more than that! And one proof is your inability to define that wavelength for photons in QM. The wavelength value in its energy equation is a quantum number, with no relation to spatial extent. A photon is a point particle. It has zero length and does not experience time. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

IF A, B, and C are statements of FACT which we agree are TRUE, then if A implies B, and B implies C, it follows that A implies C. Can you prove it? AG 

[John Clark]

Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Even in classical physics entropy is not conserved, do you think that fact is also magic?

> No, because Entropy just relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta, not to the existence of such matter. AG

But energy also relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta. 

> I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space,

Good! It's about time. 

> but I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon.

What causes the cosmological redshift?

The expansion of space. 

What causes the expansion of space? 

Space expands because, according to Einstein's General Relativity, static equilibrium is unstable, the slightest perturbation will cause space to either expand or contract. 

  

> And neither can your claim be proven that an expanding universe "stretches" a photon's wavelength.

But you said "I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space"

 

> You don't seem to understand that your claim is just a story you love and believe has substance. It's nothing more than that!

So, what's your story that explains the cosmological redshift but does NOT say expanding space causes the wavelength of light to expand, and does Not say that the Earth is the center of the universe? I am all ears. 

And we know for a fact that photons of light we see from very distant stars contained more energy when they were first emitted than they do now when we see them, and I have given you my story about where that energy went, it went nowhere because energy is not conserved at the cosmological level. But you reject that story, so what is your story, where did that energy go? Inquiring minds want to know.  

 > your inability to define that wavelength for photons in QM. The wavelength value in its energy equation is a quantum number, with no relation to spatial extent.

The equation is E = hc/λ, hc is just a constant, the E stands for energy and the λ stands for wave LENGTH. That sure seems to me like a relationship between energy and spatial extent!  

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

qss

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, August 23, 2025 at 1:30:01 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Even in classical physics entropy is not conserved, do you think that fact is also magic?

> No, because Entropy just relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta, not to the existence of such matter. AG

But energy also relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta. 

So energy is not magical, but its disappearance is! AG 

> I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space,

Good! It's about time. 

> but I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon.

What causes the cosmological redshift?

The expansion of space. 

What causes the expansion of space? 

Space expands because, according to Einstein's General Relativity, static equilibrium is unstable, the slightest perturbation will cause space to either expand or contract. 

  

> And neither can your claim be proven that an expanding universe "stretches" a photon's wavelength.

But you said "I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space"

 

> You don't seem to understand that your claim is just a story you love and believe has substance. It's nothing more than that!

So, what's your story that explains the cosmological redshift but does NOT say expanding space causes the wavelength of light to expand, and does Not say that the Earth is the center of the universe? I am all ears. 

I never claimed the Earth is the center of the universe. It's hard to have a polite exchange of views with you if you keep putting words in my mouth. Is there any brains between those ears, or the ability to think about subtleties? AG 

And we know for a fact that photons of light we see from very distant stars contained more energy when they were first emitted than they do now when we see them, and I have given you my story about where that energy went, it went nowhere because energy is not conserved at the cosmological level. But you reject that story, so what is your story, where did that energy go? Inquiring minds want to know.  

I am not sure where the lost energy goes. I can just conjecture that it is somehow absorbed by space. AG 

 > your inability to define that wavelength for photons in QM. The wavelength value in its energy equation is a quantum number, with no relation to spatial extent.

The equation is E = hc/λ, hc is just a constant, the E stands for energy and the λ stands for wave LENGTH. That sure seems to me like a relationship between energy and spatial extent!  

The LT shows that photons are point particles, and as such, negates your claim that they have physical waves which can be "stretched" by the expansion of space. I don't know where the lost energy goes, implied by the redshift. At present I am just trying to show that your model of physical reality makes no sense. AG

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, August 23, 2025 at 1:30:01 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Even in classical physics entropy is not conserved, do you think that fact is also magic?

> No, because Entropy just relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta, not to the existence of such matter. AG

But energy also relates to the organization of matter, positions and momenta. 

> I accept that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space,

Good! It's about time. 

> but I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon.

What causes the cosmological redshift?

The expansion of space. 

What causes the expansion of space? 

Space expands because, according to Einstein's General Relativity, static equilibrium is unstable, the slightest perturbation will cause space to either expand or contract. 

Why did the universe expand, rather than contract? Which equations of GR illustrate that static equilibrium is unstable? TY, AG 

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 1:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> but I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon.

>> What causes the cosmological redshift?

The expansion of space. 

What causes the expansion of space? 

Space expands because, according to Einstein's General Relativity, static equilibrium is unstable, the slightest perturbation will cause space to either expand or contract. 

>Why did the universe expand, rather than contract?

That is unknown. However it could've been predicted that the universe had to be expanding rather than contracting for thermodynamic reasons and the arrow of time. The second law of thermodynamics can explain why tomorrow will have a higher entropy than today, there are simply more ways to be ordered than disordered so if tomorrow is different from today then it's astronomically more likely to be less ordered not more ordered. But by using the exact same reasoning yesterday should also have had a higher entropy then today, which is clearly untrue.  However it would make sense if the universe started out in a small low entropy state. How the universe could've started out in such a state is perhaps the greatest mystery in physics, if not in all of science. 

 

> Which equations of GR illustrate that static equilibrium is unstable? TY, AG 

Einstein knew from the day he finished General Relativity in 1915 that his theory's equations predicted a universe that was either expanding or contracting, and he considered that a major flaw in his theory because all his astronomer friends told him (incorrectly) that the universe was static.  So in 1917 he added a "cosmological constant" that he thought would keep things static; Einstein later said that was the greatest scientific blunder of his life. In the 1930s Arthur Eddington proved mathematically that even with a cosmological constant any small perturbation  would cause the delicate balance to break down and the universe would either collapse or expand. About the same time Hubble discovered the universe was expanding and Einstein abandoned the cosmological constant idea. 

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 4:42:26 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 1:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> but I want what you're not interested in; to have model which explains the phenomenon.

>> What causes the cosmological redshift?

The expansion of space. 

What causes the expansion of space? 

Space expands because, according to Einstein's General Relativity, static equilibrium is unstable, the slightest perturbation will cause space to either expand or contract. 

>Why did the universe expand, rather than contract?

That is unknown. However it could've been predicted that the universe had to be expanding rather than contracting for thermodynamic reasons and the arrow of time. The second law of thermodynamics can explain why tomorrow will have a higher entropy than today, there are simply more ways to be ordered than disordered

You have it reversed; should be more ways to be disordered than ordered. The entropy argument depends on the assumption that the universe is a closed system. AG

 

so if tomorrow is different from today then it's astronomically more likely to be less ordered not more ordered. But by using the exact same reasoning yesterday should also have had a higher entropy then today, which is clearly untrue. 

Even if the universe is expanding? I don't follow your claim. AG

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 7:25 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 4:42:26 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 1:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Why did the universe expand, rather than contract?

That is unknown. However it could've been predicted that the universe had to be expanding rather than contracting for thermodynamic reasons and the arrow of time. The second law of thermodynamics can explain why tomorrow will have a higher entropy than today, there are simply more ways to be ordered than disordered

> You have it reversed; should be more ways to be disordered than ordered.

Yes. Sorry.  

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

4ra

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 7:25 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't follow your claim. AG

If you want to understand the nature of time and why it only moves in one direction, the science of thermodynamics can explain half of that puzzle, but only half. If tomorrow is different from today, which by definition it must be, and there are astronomically more ways to be disordered than ordered, then the overwhelming probability will be that tomorrow will be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. BUT yesterday was also different from today by definition, and it's still true that there are far more ways to be disordered than ordered, so yesterday should also be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. And that is very clearly untrue! The only way out of this predicament is to insert a new axiom, the universe started out in a very low entropy state. And because it's an axiom it of course has no proof.

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

11n

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 7:14:39 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 7:25 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't follow your claim. AG

If you want to understand the nature of time and why it only moves in one direction, the science of thermodynamics can explain half of that puzzle, but only half. If tomorrow is different from today, which by definition it must be, and there are astronomically more ways to be disordered than ordered, then the overwhelming probability will be that tomorrow will be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. BUT yesterday was also different from today by definition, and it's still true that there are far more ways to be disordered than ordered, so yesterday should also be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. And that is very clearly untrue!

You don't seem to like entropy increasing forward and backward in time. Why not? AG

 

The only way out of this predicament is to insert a new axiom, the universe started out in a very low entropy state. And because it's an axiom it of course has no proof.

One of my axioms is that Something cannot transform into Nothing, and Nothing cannot transform into Something. Do you find this axiom completely ridiculous or just somehow inconvenient in that it contradicts GR wrt energy conservation? But I take it you accept one of the Principles of Logic which I recently posted, and you should take note that it is also unprovable. AG 

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 10:29 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If you want to understand the nature of time and why it only moves in one direction, the science of thermodynamics can explain half of that puzzle, but only half. If tomorrow is different from today, which by definition it must be, and there are astronomically more ways to be disordered than ordered, then the overwhelming probability will be that tomorrow will be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. BUT yesterday was also different from today by definition, and it's still true that there are far more ways to be disordered than ordered, so yesterday should also be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. And that is very clearly untrue!

> You don't seem to like entropy increasing forward and backward in time. Why not? AG

Because if you're trying to understand why time moves in only one direction but entropy can move in 2 directions then entropy alone is of no help and explaining why time moves in only one direction. That's why you need an axiom that says the Big Bang produced a very low entropy state.

> One of my axioms is that Something cannot transform into Nothing, and Nothing cannot transform into Something. Do you find this axiom completely ridiculous

It's not ridiculous, it's just unnecessary because experimental results can be explained without it, and General Relativity would need a complete overhaul because as it is now "conservation of energy" doesn't have a unique meaning because energy doesn't have a unique meaning in GR. And you don't fix something if it's not broken, and as of today there is no evidence that General Relativity is broken. 

By contrast, if there's a way to explain the arrow of time without postulating that the universe started out in a very low entropy state nobody has found that explanation yet; if anybody ever does we can drop that axiom because you should never have more axioms then you absolutely require. 

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

d'a

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/24/2025 3:41 AM, John Clark wrote:

Space expands because, according to Einstein's General Relativity, static equilibrium is unstable, the slightest perturbation will cause space to either expand or contract. 

Even a big perturbation in the direction of expansion can result in a re-collapse.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 12:40:44 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 10:29 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If you want to understand the nature of time and why it only moves in one direction, the science of thermodynamics can explain half of that puzzle, but only half. If tomorrow is different from today, which by definition it must be, and there are astronomically more ways to be disordered than ordered, then the overwhelming probability will be that tomorrow will be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. BUT yesterday was also different from today by definition, and it's still true that there are far more ways to be disordered than ordered, so yesterday should also be more disordered and have a correspondingly higher entropy than today. And that is very clearly untrue!

> You don't seem to like entropy increasing forward and backward in time. Why not? AG

Because if you're trying to understand why time moves in only one direction but entropy can move in 2 directions then entropy alone is of no help and explaining why time moves in only one direction. That's why you need an axiom that says the Big Bang produced a very low entropy state.

> One of my axioms is that Something cannot transform into Nothing, and Nothing cannot transform into Something. Do you find this axiom completely ridiculous

It's not ridiculous, it's just unnecessary because experimental results can be explained without it, and General Relativity would need a complete overhaul because as it is now "conservation of energy" doesn't have a unique meaning because energy doesn't have a unique meaning in GR. And you don't fix something if it's not broken, and as of today there is no evidence that General Relativity is broken. 

It is broken, or let's say incomplete. When energy is lost in the context of red shifting, it can't explain where the energy went (or came from in the case of blue shifting), other than to rely on de facto magic. It seems to me (ISTM) you've calculated and got the answers you want (predicted by GR), so the issue of invoking de facto magic becomes irrelevant. AG

By contrast, if there's a way to explain the arrow of time without postulating that the universe started out in a very low entropy state nobody has found that explanation yet; if anybody ever does we can drop that axiom because you should never have more axioms then you absolutely require. 

What I don't get is why increasing entropy is necessary, or even related to the arrow of time. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

So, can we say GR doesn't predict expansion or contraction; just that a static universe is unstable? AG 

[Brent Meeker]

Since a static universe is unstable that just leaves expanding or contracting as plausible states.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 9:43 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

>>> One of my axioms is that Something cannot transform into Nothing, and Nothing cannot transform into Something. Do you find this axiom completely ridiculous

>> It's not ridiculous, it's just unnecessary because experimental results can be explained without it, and General Relativity would need a complete overhaul because as it is now "conservation of energy" doesn't have a unique meaning because energy doesn't have a unique meaning in GR. And you don't fix something if it's not broken, and as of today there is no evidence that General Relativity is broken. 

> It is broken, or let's say incomplete. When energy is lost in the context of red shifting, it can't explain where the energy went (or came from in the case of blue shifting), other than to rely on de facto magic.

General Relativity does NOT need to explain where the energy went because General Relativity says there's no such thing as a LAW of conservation of energy, it's not a LAW it's only an approximation that is pretty good for small volumes of space, like the size of a galaxy, but when you get to volumes much larger than that the approximation becomes lousy. You however DO need to explain where the energy went because you claim there is a law of conservation of energy and that law is sacred, and yet you are unable to do so. Your proposed new axiom not only can't help in answering any previously unanswered questions, it creates new questions that you don't have answers to. 

> It seems to me (ISTM) you've calculated and got the answers you want (predicted by GR),

Not quite. We've made calculations using General Relativity to make predictions, and observations have confirmed those predictions; hell it even correctly predicted what the complicated waveform gravitational waves would have when two black holes collide,  and it even enabled us to determine what the mass and the spin of those two black holes were. And General Relativity also predicted that space was expanding so photons would lose significant amounts of energy if they travel over cosmological distances. 

> What I don't get is why increasing entropy is necessary, or even related to the arrow of time. AG 

If you saw a film of somebody scrambling an egg, could you tell if that film was being run forward or backwards?  Of course you could because a scrambled egg has a much higher entropy than an unscrambled egg. And the arrow of time is why watching a scrambled egg become unscrambled looks ridiculous even though both the forwards and backwards versions obey all the laws of classical, quantum, and relativistic physics. 

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

4vv

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, August 25, 2025 at 4:55:59 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 9:43 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

>>> One of my axioms is that Something cannot transform into Nothing, and Nothing cannot transform into Something. Do you find this axiom completely ridiculous

>> It's not ridiculous, it's just unnecessary because experimental results can be explained without it, and General Relativity would need a complete overhaul because as it is now "conservation of energy" doesn't have a unique meaning because energy doesn't have a unique meaning in GR. And you don't fix something if it's not broken, and as of today there is no evidence that General Relativity is broken. 

> It is broken, or let's say incomplete. When energy is lost in the context of red shifting, it can't explain where the energy went (or came from in the case of blue shifting), other than to rely on de facto magic.

General Relativity does NOT need to explain where the energy went because General Relativity says there's no such thing as a LAW of conservation of energy, it's not a LAW it's only an approximation that is pretty good for small volumes of space, like the size of a galaxy, but when you get to volumes much larger than that the approximation becomes lousy. You however DO need to explain where the energy went because you claim there is a law of conservation of energy and that law is sacred, and yet you are unable to do so. Your proposed new axiom not only can't help in answering any previously unanswered questions, it creates new questions that you don't have answers to. 

I don't think you get it. I don't have to give a full proof for my position to be valid. I just have to point out an insufficiency which someone can fix, maybe me. This pov is well within the scientific method. And the insufficiency involves the fact that a photon is a point particle, with no length (or internal time). So, unlike in classical theory, it's impossible to form a model about its wave being stretched or contracted, depending on whether there's red or blue shifting, respectively, as it moves through space. I mean, you can talk about this alleged stretching or contracting, but if you think deeply about it, you'll realize you have no idea what you're referring to. As far as axioms are concerned, you have an unstated axiom which is the negation of mine, namely that Something can become Nothing, and Nothing can become Something. Neither axiom, yours or mine, can be proven. Such is the nature of axioms. But I can point out that mine has an empirical basis, say in the principle of conservation of energy, whereas yours, I submit, just affirms magic. Einstein affirmed conservation of energy, at least locally, so if it fails globally, an explanation is begging.  AG

> It seems to me (ISTM) you've calculated and got the answers you want (predicted by GR),

Not quite. We've made calculations using General Relativity to make predictions, and observations have confirmed those predictions; hell it even correctly predicted what the complicated waveform gravitational waves would have when two black holes collide,  and it even enabled us to determine what the mass and the spin of those two black holes were. And General Relativity also predicted that space was expanding so photons would lose significant amounts of energy if they travel over cosmological distances. 

How could Einstein have predicted that, when Eddington showed in 1930 that GR just established that the static universe was unstable. When did Einstein add the CC to his equations? How could he know the sign of the CC if he didn't know whether the universe was expanding or contracting? Did he add the CC after Hubble showed the universe was expanding, but before he knew that the static universe was unstable? Dates here are important. AG 

> What I don't get is why increasing entropy is necessary, or even related to the arrow of time. AG 

If you saw a film of somebody scrambling an egg, could you tell if that film was being run forward or backwards?  Of course you could because a scrambled egg has a much higher entropy than an unscrambled egg. And the arrow of time is why watching a scrambled egg become unscrambled looks ridiculous even though both the forwards and backwards versions obey all the laws of classical, quantum, and relativistic physics. 

Please ignore my comment, as it was based on your previous claim that entropy tomorrow and yesterday are, or could be, higher than today. But entropy for a closed system can never decrease -- that's the correct statement of the 2nd law. So when are you assuming the egg is scrambled? It's unclear what contradiction you were referring to; that entropy could be higher yesterday and tomorrow, than today? I do understand that entropy is associated with the arrow ot time, since some events, for all practical purposes, FAPP, are irreversible. But I don't understand the problem you pose, which is allegedly solved by the BB causing our universe to start with low entropy. AG

[John Clark]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2025 at 2:01 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

> the insufficiency involves the fact that a photon is a point particle, with no length

A photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH. In the early days of Quantum Mechanics they called something that has both particle and wave properties a "wavicle" but for some reason the term never caught on, I think that's a pity because "wave" and "particle" are just words and thanks to Quantum Mechanics we now know that some things don't fit in with either of those words. If that seems strange and confusing it's only because it is strange and confusing. 

Nevertheless it remains true that a photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH, and if you know the wave LENGTH of that wavicle then you can calculate its energy, and the longer the LENGTH the less energy it has. And if space is expanding then everything that has LENGTH will expand with it unless there is a force available to counteract it; and in the case of the photon, unlike our local group of galaxies, there is not.  

> As far as axioms are concerned, you have an unstated axiom which is the negation of mine, namely that Something can become Nothing, and Nothing can become Something.

That is not an axiom that is a theorem, that is a statement that can be derived from the existing axioms of General Relativity. 

> But I can point out that mine has an empirical basis, say in the principle of conservation of energy, whereas yours, I submit, just affirms magic.

It affirms the principles of General Relativity. As for magic, some branches of magic are logical, repeatable, consistent, and describable, there is a name for that type of magic, it's called science.  IF voodoo could predict how variations in doll manufacture affected performance of the curse, and IF a Fundamental Theorem Of Voodoo could determine the shape of the "needle penetration of doll versus distress of victim" plot, THEN voodoo would be as much a science as Quantum Mechanics. The important difference between magic and science is NOT that one deals in chants, incantations and crystal balls and the other deals in equations, lines of computer code and electron microscopes. The fundamental difference is that one works and the other doesn't.  

 

> Einstein affirmed conservation of energy, at least locally,

Einstein says if you're dealing with small distances, less than a few million light years, then the concept of energy almost makes sense and that slightly fuzzy thing is almost conserved, but as the distance gets larger the very concept of energy gets fuzzier and the approximation of that fuzzball gets lousier.  

> so if it fails globally, an explanation is begging.  AG

Begging?! We're talking about cosmological redshifts that have occurred over billions of light years!  

>> We've made calculations using General Relativity to make predictions, and observations have confirmed those predictions; hell it even correctly predicted what the complicated waveform gravitational waves would have when two black holes collide,  and it even enabled us to determine what the mass and the spin of those two black holes were. And General Relativity also predicted that space was expanding so photons would lose significant amounts of energy if they travel over cosmological distances. 

> How could Einstein have predicted that, when Eddington showed in 1930 that GR just established that the static universe was unstable. When did Einstein add the CC to his equations?

As I already mentioned in a previous post, Einstein finished General Relativity in 1915 and he knew his theory's equations said the universe must be expanding, and he could've predicted that 14 years before Hubble discovered empirically that it was indeed expanding in 1929, however Einstein did not do that because he trusted astronomers, who told him the universe was static, more than he trusted his equations. 

So instead of sticking with his guns and saying the astronomers must be wrong, in 1917 he attempted to "fix" his theory by pasting on a cosmological constant; a classic example of fixing something it didn't need fixing, which is why Einstein called it the greatest blunder of his life. And in the 1930s Arthur Eddington proved that if the universe had been static then, even with the cosmological constant, General Relativity would have done a poor job at producing it because it would only have made an unstable equilibrium, like balancing a pencil on its tip. So if Hubble had found in 1929 that the universe was static then General Relativity would've been in deep trouble, but that's not what he found.    

> But entropy for a closed system can never decrease -- that's the correct statement of the 2nd law.

I know I'm being pedantic but it's actually "entropy for a closed system can *almost* never decrease".

> So when are you assuming the egg is scrambled?

For the film not to look ridiculous, unscrambled must be in the first half of the film and scrambled must be in the second half of the film.   

> It's unclear what contradiction you were referring to; that entropy could be higher yesterday and tomorrow, than today?

The second law of thermodynamics alone is sufficient to explain why the state of the universe called "tomorrow" will have a higher entropy than the state of the universe called "today", but to explain why the state of the universe called "yesterday" had a lower entropy than the state of the universe called "today" you need more than the second law, you also need an axiom that says the universe started out in a state of very low entropy.  

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

6xx

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, August 25, 2025 at 2:53:45 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Aug 25, 2025 at 2:01 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

> the insufficiency involves the fact that a photon is a point particle, with no length

A photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH. In the early days of Quantum Mechanics they called something that has both particle and wave properties a "wavicle" but for some reason the term never caught on, I think that's a pity because "wave" and "particle" are just words and thanks to Quantum Mechanics we now know that some things don't fit in with either of those words. If that seems strange and confusing it's only because it is strange and confusing. 

Nevertheless it remains true that a photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH, and if you know the wave LENGTH of that wavicle then you can calculate its energy, and the longer the LENGTH the less energy it has. And if space is expanding then everything that has LENGTH will expand with it unless there is a force available to counteract it; and in the case of the photon, unlike our local group of galaxies, there is not. 

Clearly, you're seduced by a word, and that word is "length". In the context of a passing train, or classical E&M, there is a measureable wave with peaks and valleys, but not for a point particle. And, as I've repeatedly stated, the "wave" of a photon is an ENSEMBLE property, and simply not detectable for single events. I corrected your error on this issue a few posts previously, with no response from you. You can persist in referring to a photon's wave being "stretched" by the expansion of space, but upon close examination you have no model to explain what you allege. The King has no clothes. AG 

> As far as axioms are concerned, you have an unstated axiom which is the negation of mine, namely that Something can become Nothing, and Nothing can become Something.

That is not an axiom that is a theorem, that is a statement that can be derived from the existing axioms of General Relativity. 

The idea of photons increasing or decreasing their energies due to red or blue shifting likely pre-dated GR, with Zwicky's Tired Light theory, with Planck's solution of the Blackbody problem (1900), and Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect (1905). If GR implies what I call axioms, and you affirm those axioms, which IMO are operationally equivalent to magic, then honesty requires that you entertain the possiblility that GR is incomplete. AG

> But I can point out that mine has an empirical basis, say in the principle of conservation of energy, whereas yours, I submit, just affirms magic.

It affirms the principles of General Relativity. As for magic, some branches of magic are logical, repeatable, consistent, and describable, there is a name for that type of magic, it's called science.  IF voodoo could predict how variations in doll manufacture affected performance of the curse, and IF a Fundamental Theorem Of Voodoo could determine the shape of the "needle penetration of doll versus distress of victim" plot, THEN voodoo would be as much a science as Quantum Mechanics. The important difference between magic and science is NOT that one deals in chants, incantations and crystal balls and the other deals in equations, lines of computer code and electron microscopes. The fundamental difference is that one works and the other doesn't.  

 

> Einstein affirmed conservation of energy, at least locally,

Einstein says if you're dealing with small distances, less than a few million light years, then the concept of energy almost makes sense and that slightly fuzzy thing is almost conserved, but as the distance gets larger the very concept of energy gets fuzzier and the approximation of that fuzzball gets lousier.  

> so if it fails globally, an explanation is begging.  AG

Begging?! We're talking about cosmological redshifts that have occurred over billions of light years!  

>> We've made calculations using General Relativity to make predictions, and observations have confirmed those predictions; hell it even correctly predicted what the complicated waveform gravitational waves would have when two black holes collide,  and it even enabled us to determine what the mass and the spin of those two black holes were. And General Relativity also predicted that space was expanding so photons would lose significant amounts of energy if they travel over cosmological distances. 

> How could Einstein have predicted that, when Eddington showed in 1930 that GR just established that the static universe was unstable. When did Einstein add the CC to his equations?

As I already mentioned in a previous post, Einstein finished General Relativity in 1915 and he knew his theory's equations said the universe must be expanding,

Are you sure? How could he know that in 1915, if it wasn't until 1930 that Eddington proved that a static universe was unstable, and could be expanding or contracting? AG

 

and he could've predicted that 14 years before Hubble discovered empirically that it was indeed expanding in 1929, however Einstein did not do that because he trusted astronomers, who told him the universe was static, more than he trusted his equations. 

So instead of sticking with his guns and saying the astronomers must be wrong, in 1917 he attempted to "fix" his theory by pasting on a cosmological constant; a classic example of fixing something it didn't need fixing, which is why Einstein called it the greatest blunder of his life. And in the 1930s Arthur Eddington proved that if the universe had been static then, even with the cosmological constant, General Relativity would have done a poor job at producing it because it would only have made an unstable equilibrium, like balancing a pencil on its tip. So if Hubble had found in 1929 that the universe was static then General Relativity would've been in deep trouble, but that's not what he found.    

> But entropy for a closed system can never decrease -- that's the correct statement of the 2nd law.

I know I'm being pedantic but it's actually "entropy for a closed system can *almost* never decrease".

I don't claim to be an expert in thermodynamics, but I did take a course in that very subject, and I recall quite clearly that your revision of the 2nd law is false. Check any text of the subject to verify what I am writing. AG  

> So when are you assuming the egg is scrambled?

For the film not to look ridiculous, unscrambled must be in the first half of the film and scrambled must be in the second half of the film.   

> It's unclear what contradiction you were referring to; that entropy could be higher yesterday and tomorrow, than today?

The second law of thermodynamics alone is sufficient to explain why the state of the universe called "tomorrow" will have a higher entropy than the state of the universe called "today", but to explain why the state of the universe called "yesterday" had a lower entropy than the state of the universe called "today" you need more than the second law, you also need an axiom that says the universe started out in a state of very low entropy.  

It seems obvious that entropy does not decrease from yesterday to today. It can remain constant or increase, so I don't see any problem here. What exactly is the problem you allege? Also, maybe more important, there is no upper bound for entropy, so it can begin at any level after the BB, and remain the same or increase over time. AG 

[John Clark]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 3:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> A photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH. In the early days of Quantum Mechanics they called something that has both particle and wave properties a "wavicle" but for some reason the term never caught on, I think that's a pity because "wave" and "particle" are just words and thanks to Quantum Mechanics we now know that some things don't fit in with either of those words. If that seems strange and confusing it's only because it is strange and confusing. 

Nevertheless it remains true that a photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH, and if you know the wave LENGTH of that wavicle then you can calculate its energy, and the longer the LENGTH the less energy it has. And if space is expanding then everything that has LENGTH will expand with it unless there is a force available to counteract it; and in the case of the photon, unlike our local group of galaxies, there is not. 

> Clearly, you're seduced by a word, and that word is "length".

If "expanding space" doesn't mean that lengths expand then then what the hell does it mean?  

> And, as I've repeatedly stated, the "wave" of a photon is an ENSEMBLE property, and simply not detectable for single events.

That is simply not true. Individual photons can and have been polarized and that is a wave property. If you pick a direction at random and call that "up" and rotate a polarizing filter to the up direction, and if a previously unmeasured photon makes it through that filter, then there is a 100% chance the photon will make it through a second filter that is also in the up direction, but if you rotate the filter by 90° then there is a 0% probability the photon will make it through the third filter.  And in all of this we're dealing with one single photon. 

And Newton discovered about 350 years ago that different colors have different wavelengths. In 1905 Einstein explained how the recently discovered "photoelectric effect" works by showing for the first time that light is made of photons and that the energy in a single photon is inversely proportional to its wavelength (E = hc/λ), it's why Einstein got the Nobel prize, it was not for relativity. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light and it has been experimentally confirmed many many times that a single red photon has less energy than a single blue photon in exactly the way that Einstein predicted. 

I think your confusion over this is because although individual photons definitely exhibit wave characteristics, in addition to that Quantum Mechanics is also able to give us predictions that, because they are statistical,  can only be verified by repeating an experiment many times. For example if the polarizing filter in the above example is rotated by just 45° not 90° then there is a 50% chance the photon will make it through the filter, the general formula for the probability of transmission is cos²(ø) where ø is the difference between the angles of the two filters. Because that probability is not 0% or 100% the validity of the prediction can only be made statistically after several trials, but that doesn't change the fact that single photons have been experimentally verified to have both wave and particle properties.  

 

> I corrected your error on this issue a few posts previously, with no response from you.

No offense but that's because you make so many errors in a typical post that if I tried to correct every one of them I'd get carpal tunnel syndrome.  

> The idea of photons increasing or decreasing their energies due to red or blue shifting likely pre-dated GR,

It did. Einstein discovered that red photons had less energy than blue photons in 1905, and Einstein discovered General Relativity 10 years later in 1915. But that there was such a thing as a "cosmological redshift" wasn't discovered until 1929 by Hubble. 

>> As I already mentioned in a previous post, Einstein finished General Relativity in 1915 and he knew his theory's equations said the universe must be expanding,

> Are you sure?

Yes.

> How could he know that in 1915,

Because that's what his equations of General Relativity unequivocally told him. That could've been a triumphant prediction but at the time Einstein thought it was a flaw, a flaw that he thought he could fix by adding a cosmological constant that would make the universe static. Einstein was wrong in thinking that the prediction of an expanding universe was a flaw in his theory, and he was also wrong in thinking that tacking on a cosmological constant would make a static universe. After 1929 Einstein knew he was wrong and so abandoned the entire cosmological constant idea.    

 

> if it wasn't until 1930 that Eddington proved that a static universe was unstable, and could be expanding or contracting? AG

 Eddington proved that with or without a cosmological constant General Relativity predicted a universe that was not static. 

 

>>> But entropy for a closed system can never decrease -- that's the correct statement of the 2nd law.

>> I know I'm being pedantic but it's actually "entropy for a closed system can *almost* never decrease".

> I don't claim to be an expert in thermodynamics, but I did take a course in that very subject, and I recall quite clearly that your revision of the 2nd law is false.

You're certainly correct in saying that you're not an expert in thermodynamics because what you say in the above is 100% wrong. The second law of thermodynamics is a statistical law and therefore can only provide probabilities not certainties, although the probabilities of some things are so low we can say the probability is zero with very little chance of being proven wrong. Even if somebody didn't know any quantum or classical physics they could derive the second law by just using logic and the fact that there are more ways to be disordered than ordered. To exactly state the first law of thermodynamics, the one about conservation of energy, you'd need to write a lot and use the word "however" many times and put in lots and lots of footnotes about exceptions and additional explanations. But even a thousand years from now nothing like that will be needed for the second law for the same reason that no footnotes will ever be needed for the fact that 2+2=4.      

 

>> The second law of thermodynamics alone is sufficient to explain why the state of the universe called "tomorrow" will have a higher entropy than the state of the universe called "today", but to explain why the state of the universe called "yesterday" had a lower entropy than the state of the universe called "today" you need more than the second law, you also need an axiom that says the universe started out in a state of very low entropy.  

> It seems obvious that entropy does not decrease from yesterday to today.

Everybody agrees that yesterday entropy was lower than it is today, but the paradox is how can that be if entropy...  

 

> can remain constant or increase

Increase with respect to what? 

Increase with respect to time.

But time is the very thing we're trying to figure out! 

The thing called "tomorrow" is a different state than "today", and there are many more ways for a thing to be disordered than ordered, so it's easy to see that the probability is overwhelming that tomorrow will be more disordered than today. But the trouble is you can say the exact same thing about the thing called "yesterday".

 

> so I don't see any problem here. What exactly is the problem you allege?

It was pointed out by Loschmidt as early as 1876 that it is logically impossible to deduce an irreversible process from nothing but time-symmetric laws. Classical physics was the only sort of laws that Loschmidt knew about in 1876 but the introduction of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics did not change that situation, Loschmidt's logic is as rocksolid today as it was then. The thing that you have forgotten that Loschmidt had not is that the state of a system is not determined exclusively by the laws of physics, it also depends on initial conditions.

Loschmidt's paradox 

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

mak

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 8:36:42 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 3:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> A photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH. In the early days of Quantum Mechanics they called something that has both particle and wave properties a "wavicle" but for some reason the term never caught on, I think that's a pity because "wave" and "particle" are just words and thanks to Quantum Mechanics we now know that some things don't fit in with either of those words. If that seems strange and confusing it's only because it is strange and confusing. 

Nevertheless it remains true that a photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH, and if you know the wave LENGTH of that wavicle then you can calculate its energy, and the longer the LENGTH the less energy it has. And if space is expanding then everything that has LENGTH will expand with it unless there is a force available to counteract it; and in the case of the photon, unlike our local group of galaxies, there is not. 

> Clearly, you're seduced by a word, and that word is "length".

If "expanding space" doesn't mean that lengths expand then then what the hell does it mean?  

> And, as I've repeatedly stated, the "wave" of a photon is an ENSEMBLE property, and simply not detectable for single events.

That is simply not true. Individual photons can and have been polarized and that is a wave property. If you pick a direction at random and call that "up" and rotate a polarizing filter to the up direction, and if a previously unmeasured photon makes it through that filter, then there is a 100% chance the photon will make it through a second filter that is also in the up direction, but if you rotate the filter by 90° then there is a 0% probability the photon will make it through the third filter.  And in all of this we're dealing with one single photon. 

And Newton discovered about 350 years ago that different colors have different wavelengths. In 1905 Einstein explained how the recently discovered "photoelectric effect" works by showing for the first time that light is made of photons and that the energy in a single photon is inversely proportional to its wavelength (E = hc/λ), it's why Einstein got the Nobel prize, it was not for relativity. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light and it has been experimentally confirmed many many times that a single red photon has less energy than a single blue photon in exactly the way that Einstein predicted. 

I think your confusion over this is because although individual photons definitely exhibit wave characteristics, in addition to that Quantum Mechanics is also able to give us predictions that, because they are statistical,  can only be verified by repeating an experiment many times. For example if the polarizing filter in the above example is rotated by just 45° not 90° then there is a 50% chance the photon will make it through the filter, the general formula for the probability of transmission is cos²(ø) where ø is the difference between the angles of the two filters. Because that probability is not 0% or 100% the validity of the prediction can only be made statistically after several trials, but that doesn't change the fact that single photons have been experimentally verified to have both wave and particle properties.  

 

> I corrected your error on this issue a few posts previously, with no response from you.

No offense but that's because you make so many errors in a typical post that if I tried to correct every one of them I'd get carpal tunnel syndrome.  

> The idea of photons increasing or decreasing their energies due to red or blue shifting likely pre-dated GR,

It did. Einstein discovered that red photons had less energy than blue photons in 1905, and Einstein discovered General Relativity 10 years later in 1915. But that there was such a thing as a "cosmological redshift" wasn't discovered until 1929 by Hubble. 

>> As I already mentioned in a previous post, Einstein finished General Relativity in 1915 and he knew his theory's equations said the universe must be expanding,

> Are you sure?

Yes.

> How could he know that in 1915,

Because that's what his equations of General Relativity unequivocally told him.

How is that possible if Eddington proved that GR implied the universe could expand or contract? AG

 

That could've been a triumphant prediction but at the time Einstein thought it was a flaw, a flaw that he thought he could fix by adding a cosmological constant that would make the universe static. Einstein was wrong in thinking that the prediction of an expanding universe was a flaw in his theory, and he was also wrong in thinking that tacking on a cosmological constant would make a static universe. After 1929 Einstein knew he was wrong and so abandoned the entire cosmological constant idea.    

 

> if it wasn't until 1930 that Eddington proved that a static universe was unstable, and could be expanding or contracting? AG

 Eddington proved that with or without a cosmological constant General Relativity predicted a universe that was not static. 

 

>>> But entropy for a closed system can never decrease -- that's the correct statement of the 2nd law.

>> I know I'm being pedantic but it's actually "entropy for a closed system can *almost* never decrease".

> I don't claim to be an expert in thermodynamics, but I did take a course in that very subject, and I recall quite clearly that your revision of the 2nd law is false.

You're certainly correct in saying that you're not an expert in thermodynamics because what you say in the above is 100% wrong. The second law of thermodynamics is a statistical law and therefore can only provide probabilities not certainties,

Classical Thermodynamics is NOT a statistical theory, and the 2nd Law is NOT a statistical law. Maybe you're thinking of Statistical Mechanics. AG

[John Clark]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

>>>> I know I'm being pedantic but it's actually "entropy for a closed system can *almost* never decrease".

>>> I don't claim to be an expert in thermodynamics, but I did take a course in that very subject, and I recall quite clearly that your revision of the 2nd law is false.

 

>>You're certainly correct in saying that you're not an expert in thermodynamics because what you say in the above is 100% wrong. The second law of thermodynamics is a statistical law and therefore can only provide probabilities not certainties,

> Classical Thermodynamics is NOT a statistical theory, and the 2nd Law is NOT a statistical law. Maybe you're thinking of Statistical Mechanics. AG

Statistical Mechanics is able to give us an explanation of WHY the second law says entropy *almost* never decreases. There are astronomically more disorderly states than orderly states but they are not infinitely more, and that's what would be required to move from overwhelmingly unlikely to absolutely impossible.  

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

4e7

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 1:12:13 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

>>>> I know I'm being pedantic but it's actually "entropy for a closed system can *almost* never decrease".

>>> I don't claim to be an expert in thermodynamics, but I did take a course in that very subject, and I recall quite clearly that your revision of the 2nd law is false.

 

>>You're certainly correct in saying that you're not an expert in thermodynamics because what you say in the above is 100% wrong. The second law of thermodynamics is a statistical law and therefore can only provide probabilities not certainties,

O

> Classical Thermodynamics is NOT a statistical theory, and the 2nd Law is NOT a statistical law. Maybe you're thinking of Statistical Mechanics. AG

Statistical Mechanics is able to give us an explanation of WHY the second law says entropy *almost* never decreases. There are astronomically more disorderly states than orderly states but they are not infinitely more, and that's what would be required to move from overwhelmingly unlikely to absolutely impossible.  

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

Does E have a maximal value under statistical mechanics? If not, the initial state at the BB could have any E without posing a problem. On the other hand, if E has a maximal value, it could be so high that the universe would never reach that level in its lifetime. Again, no problem IMO. On another issue, since you're now interested in WHY answers, can you explain how a point particle, a photon, with zero width, can manifest a wave property with finite width? If not, then your stretching model for photon redshift makes no sense. AG 

4e7

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 8:36:42 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 3:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> A photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH. In the early days of Quantum Mechanics they called something that has both particle and wave properties a "wavicle" but for some reason the term never caught on, I think that's a pity because "wave" and "particle" are just words and thanks to Quantum Mechanics we now know that some things don't fit in with either of those words. If that seems strange and confusing it's only because it is strange and confusing. 

Nevertheless it remains true that a photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH, and if you know the wave LENGTH of that wavicle then you can calculate its energy, and the longer the LENGTH the less energy it has. And if space is expanding then everything that has LENGTH will expand with it unless there is a force available to counteract it; and in the case of the photon, unlike our local group of galaxies, there is not. 

> Clearly, you're seduced by a word, and that word is "length".

If "expanding space" doesn't mean that lengths expand then then what the hell does it mean?  

> And, as I've repeatedly stated, the "wave" of a photon is an ENSEMBLE property, and simply not detectable for single events.

That is simply not true. Individual photons can and have been polarized and that is a wave property. If you pick a direction at random and call that "up" and rotate a polarizing filter to the up direction, and if a previously unmeasured photon makes it through that filter, then there is a 100% chance the photon will make it through a second filter that is also in the up direction, but if you rotate the filter by 90° then there is a 0% probability the photon will make it through the third filter.  And in all of this we're dealing with one single photon. 

Interesting. It seems that the photon has no polarization until it's measured in some direction. Not sure what this means wrt the alleged stretching phenomenon. AG 

And Newton discovered about 350 years ago that different colors have different wavelengths. In 1905 Einstein explained how the recently discovered "photoelectric effect" works by showing for the first time that light is made of photons and that the energy in a single photon is inversely proportional to its wavelength (E = hc/λ), it's why Einstein got the Nobel prize, it was not for relativity. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light and it has been experimentally confirmed many many times that a single red photon has less energy than a single blue photon in exactly the way that Einstein predicted. 

I think your confusion over this is because although individual photons definitely exhibit wave characteristics, in addition to that Quantum Mechanics is also able to give us predictions that, because they are statistical,  can only be verified by repeating an experiment many times. For example if the polarizing filter in the above example is rotated by just 45° not 90° then there is a 50% chance the photon will make it through the filter, the general formula for the probability of transmission is cos²(ø) where ø is the difference between the angles of the two filters. Because that probability is not 0% or 100% the validity of the prediction can only be made statistically after several trials, but that doesn't change the fact that single photons have been experimentally verified to have both wave and particle properties.  Even if somebody didn't know any quantum or classical physics they could derive the second law by just using logic and the fact that there are more ways to be disordered than ordered. To exactly state the first law of thermodynamics, the one about conservation of energy, you'd need to write a lot and use the word "however" many times and put in lots and lots of footnotes about exceptions and additional explanations. But even a thousand years from now nothing like that will be needed for the second law for the same reason that no footnotes will ever be needed for the fact that 2+2=4.      

 

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 8:59:36 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 8:36:42 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 3:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> A photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH. In the early days of Quantum Mechanics they called something that has both particle and wave properties a "wavicle" but for some reason the term never caught on, I think that's a pity because "wave" and "particle" are just words and thanks to Quantum Mechanics we now know that some things don't fit in with either of those words. If that seems strange and confusing it's only because it is strange and confusing. 

Nevertheless it remains true that a photon is a point particle that has a wave LENGTH, and if you know the wave LENGTH of that wavicle then you can calculate its energy, and the longer the LENGTH the less energy it has. And if space is expanding then everything that has LENGTH will expand with it unless there is a force available to counteract it; and in the case of the photon, unlike our local group of galaxies, there is not. 

> Clearly, you're seduced by a word, and that word is "length".

If "expanding space" doesn't mean that lengths expand then then what the hell does it mean?  

> And, as I've repeatedly stated, the "wave" of a photon is an ENSEMBLE property, and simply not detectable for single events.

That is simply not true. Individual photons can and have been polarized and that is a wave property. If you pick a direction at random and call that "up" and rotate a polarizing filter to the up direction, and if a previously unmeasured photon makes it through that filter, then there is a 100% chance the photon will make it through a second filter that is also in the up direction, but if you rotate the filter by 90° then there is a 0% probability the photon will make it through the third filter.  And in all of this we're dealing with one single photon. 

Interesting. It seems that the photon has no polarization until it's measured in some direction. Not sure what this means wrt the alleged stretching phenomenon. AG 

Thinking more about this result tends to confirm my claim that the alleged stretching phenomenon responsible for photon redshifting is gravely in doubt. It seems that polarization is created by the polarizer, in any orientation one desires, so not by any means that a point particle photon has a physical wave which can be stretched. Nowhere am I denying that the universe is expanding. Rather, I am pointing out the lack of plausibility of a model routinely offered to explain redshifting. AG

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 4:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> not by any means that a point particle photon has a physical wave which can be stretched. Nowhere am I denying that the universe is expanding. Rather, I am pointing out the lack of plausibility of a model routinely offered to explain redshifting. AG

So you believe a photon is a point particle that has no wavelike properties and that's that. But then why does conventional Doppler shifting occur, if it's nothing but a point particle why does a photon undergo red shifting if it's emitted from a source that's moving through space away from a detector? If moving through space can cause a redshift then why can't the expansion of space do the same thing? And I've asked this question before but received no answer, if the expansion of space doesn't expand the wavelength of light then what the hell does it expand? If your answer is "nothing" then "the expansion of space" means nothing and Einstein was writing gibberish. Is that really the hill you're willing to die on?

These days physicists are much more interested in fields than they are in particles. Looked at through the lens of quantum field theory, an electron is just a quantized wave resonance in the electron field, and a quark is a quantized wave resonance in the quark field. An electron may be a point particle but that doesn't mean it behaves like a tiny billiard ball.

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

qwr

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 4:34:41 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 4:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> not by any means that a point particle photon has a physical wave which can be stretched. Nowhere am I denying that the universe is expanding. Rather, I am pointing out the lack of plausibility of a model routinely offered to explain redshifting. AG

So you believe a photon is a point particle that has no wavelike properties and that's that. But then why does conventional Doppler shifting occur, if it's nothing but a point particle why does a photon undergo red shifting if it's emitted from a source that's moving through space away from a detector? If moving through space can cause a redshift then why can't the expansion of space do the same thing? And I've asked this question before but received no answer, if the expansion of space doesn't expand the wavelength of light then what the hell does it expand? If your answer is "nothing" then "the expansion of space" means nothing and Einstein was writing gibberish. Is that really the hill you're willing to die on?

After numerous iterations, you still don't have a clue about the issue I am raising. I am NOT claiming that a photon has no wavelike properties, or that redshifting over cosmological distances doesn't occur. Rather, that your MODEL of redshifting makes no sense. If it's a point particle, with no extention in space, how do you get from there, to a MODEL which affirms a wave that can be stretched? AG

[John Clark]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 7:51 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Does E have a maximal value under statistical mechanics? 

We will reach a point of maximum entropy when the heat death of the universe occurs, but we have a very long way to go before that happens.  

> If not, the initial state at the BB could have any E without posing a problem. 

The Big Bang doesn't have to have produced zero entropy, just entropy that is lower than what we have now and lower than at any time we can observe with our telescopes.  

> can you explain how a point particle, a photon, with zero width, can manifest a wave property with finite width?

I've mentioned the following before. You ask a question. I take the time to answer your question and try hard to write as clearly as possible. You then ask the EXACT same question again without challenging or mentioning anything I said or even given an indication that you had read my previous answer. I find such behavior annoying and I don't believe my attitude is unreasonable.    

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

e44

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 6:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 >If it's a point particle ....

FOR DARWIN'S SAKE!! It is a point particle with strong wavelike properties, it is NOT a small billiard ball. 

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

sbb

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 4:56:58 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 7:51 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Does E have a maximal value under statistical mechanics? 

We will reach a point of maximum entropy when the heat death of the universe occurs, but we have a very long way to go before that happens.  

> If not, the initial state at the BB could have any E without posing a problem. 

The Big Bang doesn't have to have produced zero entropy, just entropy that is lower than what we have now and lower than at any time we can observe with our telescopes.  

According to Statistical Mechanics, entropy of a closed system doesn't necessarily increase. It could remain the same or possibly decrease. That being the case, what basis is there to claim it must be lower when the BB happened, than today? AG 

> can you explain how a point particle, a photon, with zero width, can manifest a wave property with finite width?

I've mentioned the following before. You ask a question. I take the time to answer your question and try hard to write as clearly as possible. You then ask the EXACT same question again without challenging or mentioning anything I said or even given an indication that you had read my previous answer. I find such behavior annoying and I don't believe my attitude is unreasonable. 

If you read me better, you wouldn't become annoyed. You seem to think I deny photons have wave properties, or that redshifting doesn't occur as they traverse cosmological distances. It's your MODEL of the stretching which seems non sensical. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 5:02:38 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 6:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 >If it's a point particle ....

FOR DARWIN'S SAKE!! It is a point particle with strong wavelike properties, it is NOT a small billiard ball. 

It's not small. It has ZERO volume and width. And to stretch the wave, you've used classical EM, as if the wave is extended in space. AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 4:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems that polarization is created by the polarizer, in any orientation one desires, so not by any means that a point particle photon has a physical wave

Polarizing filters work because they have a series of tiny straight opaque lines, usually made of long chained molecules, stretched in one direction a microscopic distance apart so that only waves that have a particular orientation are able to get through. But how could that possibly work if a photon is nothing but a point particle and there is no need to take their very pronounced wavelike properties into account? A pure point particle wouldn't care if the lines in that filter were horizontal or vertical, but a wave would. 

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

2xj

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 7:57:56 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 4:16 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems that polarization is created by the polarizer, in any orientation one desires, so not by any means that a point particle photon has a physical wave

Polarizing filters work because they have a series of tiny straight opaque lines, usually made of long chained molecules, stretched in one direction a microscopic distance apart so that only waves that have a particular orientation are able to get through.

You're assuming the waves pre-exist the "measurement", but they don't. AG

 

But how could that possibly work if a photon is nothing but a point particle and there is no need to take their very pronounced wavelike properties into account? A pure point particle wouldn't care if the lines in that filter were horizontal or vertical, but a wave would. 

But if the wave pre-exists the "measurement" it would only become manifested by some particular polarizer, in a particular orientation, not by every every polarizer in every orientation. AG

[Alan Grayson]

I'm not claiming photons are without wave properties, but your polarizer example doesn't show that their waves pre-exist the measurements. Nor IMO do you have a viable MODEL for their redshifts as they traverse cosmological distances. AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 10:34 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You're assuming the waves pre-exist the "measurement", 

No I'm not but that debate is unrelated to the current question. Regardless of if it's pre or post measurement, how can a pure point particle have a polarization, and how can a series of microscopic molecular parallel lines give it one?  

> but they don't. AG

Actually I agree, before measurement the photon did not have one and only one polarization, but I'm surprised to hear you say that because I thought you believed Many Worlds was nonsense.  

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

&!?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/27/2025 1:16 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

Rather, I am pointing out the lack of plausibility of a model routinely offered to explain redshifting. AG

How about redshift due to Doppler?  Can you grasp that?  Then consider a distant galaxy A and a galaxy B that is between us and A.  Due to expansion of the universe we are receding rapidly from A and less rapidly from B.  When a photon A emitted is received at B it's wavelength will have increased due to the Doppler shift as B recedes from A.  Suppose B immediately transmits a photon of that wavelength toward Earth.  It will suffer a Doppler shift of increased wavelength as received at Earth.  Now just skip B.  The expansion of space causes a continuous Doppler shift as a photon traverses space.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 1:44:04 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 8/27/2025 1:16 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

Rather, I am pointing out the lack of plausibility of a model routinely offered to explain redshifting. AG

How about redshift due to Doppler?  Can you grasp that? 

No, never heard of Doppler. A pitcher for the Mets?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/27/2025 4:08 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

According to Statistical Mechanics, entropy of a closed system doesn't necessarily increase. It could remain the same or possibly decrease. 

Did you look at how to calculate the probability of it decreasing?  I think you did but just decided to bullshit anyway

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/27/2025 4:15 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 5:02:38 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 6:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 >If it's a point particle ....

FOR DARWIN'S SAKE!! It is a point particle with strong wavelike properties, it is NOT a small billiard ball. 

It's not small. It has ZERO volume and width. And to stretch the wave, you've used classical EM, as if the wave is extended in space. AG 

A photon, like any quantum particle, has a wave-function that in general has an extent unrelated to the size of the particle.

Brent

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

s

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[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 2:00:03 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 8/27/2025 4:08 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

According to Statistical Mechanics, entropy of a closed system doesn't necessarily increase. It could remain the same or possibly decrease. 

Did you look at how to calculate the probability of it decreasing?  I think you did but just decided to bullshit anyway

Brent

You think? Really? Clark did the BS for me, and you'd know that if you bothered to read his post about Statistical Mechanics and the 2nd Law. The probability you're referring to is vanishingly small. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 2:01:45 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 8/27/2025 4:15 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 5:02:38 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 6:52 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 >If it's a point particle ....

FOR DARWIN'S SAKE!! It is a point particle with strong wavelike properties, it is NOT a small billiard ball. 

It's not small. It has ZERO volume and width. And to stretch the wave, you've used classical EM, as if the wave is extended in space. AG 

A photon, like any quantum particle, has a wave-function that in general has an extent unrelated to the size of the particle.

Brent

The wf effects the probability of locating the particle, which is somewhat spread out, but AFAIK, doesn't effect its wavelength. Later, I'll explain why your Doppler model is flawed as is the usual MODEL of expanding space "stretching" the wavelengths in photons traversing an expanding uiniverse. AG

 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 11:47 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 2:01:45 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:
A photon, like any quantum particle, has a wave-function that in general has an extent unrelated to the size of the particle.

The wf effects the probability of locating the particle, which is somewhat spread out, but AFAIK, doesn't effect its wavelength.

If that's as far as you can tell then you can't tell very far. The wavelength determines how much energy a photon has, and it also determines if you perceive that photon as being red or blue.  This is really getting silly!  

> Later, I'll explain why your Doppler model is flawed as is the usual MODEL of expanding space "stretching" the wavelengths

We all await your newest papal bull with bated breath.

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

5xx 

[Alan Grayson]

On Thursday, August 28, 2025 at 4:53:33 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 11:47 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 2:01:45 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:
A photon, like any quantum particle, has a wave-function that in general has an extent unrelated to the size of the particle.

The wf effects the probability of locating the particle, which is somewhat spread out, but AFAIK, doesn't effect its wavelength.

If that's as far as you can tell then you can't tell very far. The wavelength determines how much energy a photon has, and it also determines if you perceive that photon as being red or blue.  This is really getting silly!  

Why do you revert to being a nasty ASSHOLE?  What you write about the energy of a photon I am well aware of. But the wf just gives a probability of its location, AFAIK. If I am mistaken, I will happily consider your feedback. AG

> Later, I'll explain why your Doppler model is flawed as is the usual MODEL of expanding space "stretching" the wavelengths

We all await your newest papal bull with bated breath.

Later today if I have time. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

The problem with Doppler for photons can be summarized in a simple question most physicists can't answer, or even pose; where is the wave which the moving source allegedly interacts with to produce redshift? A photon, as JC admits, is a point particle. I claim it manifests no wave properties other than as a ensemble. The polarizer experiment given by JC just shows that photons have no polarization before measurement. AG

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 6:08 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>A photon, as JC admits, is a point particle.

OK

 

> I claim it manifests no wave properties other than as a ensemble. 

Your claim is pure nonsense which you can LITERALLY see for yourself, assuming you are not colorblind and can tell the difference between red and blue. And these days physicists can conduct experiments on single photons and they clearly show that a blue photon can cause chemical reactions that a red photon cannot, and an ultraviolet photon can damage DNA but a blue photon cannot. And the only difference between a red, blue and ultraviolet photon is that they have a different wave LENGTH.  

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

dwl

[Alan Grayson]

You're confused. I am not denying red or blue shifting. I am claiming we have no viable MODEL for the wave of a photon which can explain these phenomena. AG

dwl

[Alan Grayson]

What I mean by a viable photon model is this; how can a wave arise from a single point particle, and what is the interaction to shift it red or blue? AG 

dwl

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 8:48 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> how can a wave arise from a single point particle,

A photon is not just a single point particle and it is not just a wave either, it is both. If that fact bothers you then welcome to the club, it's been bothering physicists for the last 120 years, but nature is not required to make people comfortable.   

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

6rr

[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, August 29, 2025 at 7:07:27 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 8:48 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> how can a wave arise from a single point particle,

A photon is not just a single point particle and it is not just a wave either, it is both.

 As a wave, only as an ensemble! AG

[Alan Grayson]

Let me be more explicit; in the case of a moving train, as it recedes from the ground observer and keeps blowing its horn, due to its motion, the distance between the compression wave peaks increases, producing the equivalent of a redshift for sound. But in the case of light modeled as a photon, that is as a point particle, where its wavelength is only detectable as an ENSEMBLE, there doesn't seem to be a model for how the moving source produces the shift, red or blue. That the shift occurs is statement of faith which is confirmed by experiment, but how exactly it occurs, that is the physical mechanism, seems unknown. Moreover, in your claim about the wf of a photon, when I googled it, I found that there's controversy about what that wf actually is. If you believe it exists, please post it. TY, AG 

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at 3:13 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > in the case of light modeled as a photon, that is as a point particle, where its wavelength is only detectable as an ENSEMBLE, there doesn't seem to be a model for how the moving source produces the shift, red or blue. That the shift occurs is statement of faith which is confirmed by experiment,

That statement makes no sense. If something is confirmed by experiment then there is no need for faith to believe it.  

but how exactly it occurs, that is the physical mechanism, seems unknown. 

Regardless of the precise physical mechanism involved, thanks to experiments we know for a fact that the Doppler Shift, as the name implies, can shift the wavelength of a single photon of light; from blue to red for example. And it's not just light, a shift in wavelength, and therefore energy, caused by the Doppler shift has also been detected for radio photons all the way up to gamma ray photons. And it's not just the Doppler Shift, in the Pound-Rebka experiment performed in 1959, a red shift in the wave function of a Gamma Ray photon was detected when it went up a 73 foot tube just as Einstein predicted.  And a blue shift was detected in a photon when it went down the tube. These days gravitational red and blue shifts can be detected when the difference in elevation is less than an inch. 

> Moreover, in your claim about the wf of a photon, when I googled it, I found that there's controversy about what that wf actually is. 

Well of course there is controversy, that's why there is no consensus on what the correct quantum interpretation should be. The wave versus particle debate started with Einstein's 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect and is still going strong to this day. The truth is in some ways a photon acts like a particle and in other ways it acts like a wave, if you find that fact to be distasteful too bad, that's just the way it is. 

And by the way, one thing that is NOT controversial and in which there IS a consensus is that expanding space will cause a photon of light to be red shifted.  

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

0k.

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, August 31, 2025 at 4:41:44 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at 3:13 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > in the case of light modeled as a photon, that is as a point particle, where its wavelength is only detectable as an ENSEMBLE, there doesn't seem to be a model for how the moving source produces the shift, red or blue. That the shift occurs is statement of faith which is confirmed by experiment,

That statement makes no sense. If something is confirmed by experiment then there is no need for faith to believe it.  

but how exactly it occurs, that is the physical mechanism, seems unknown. 

Regardless of the precise physical mechanism involved, thanks to experiments we know for a fact that the Doppler Shift, as the name implies, can shift the wavelength of a single photon of light; from blue to red for example. And it's not just light, a shift in wavelength, and therefore energy, caused by the Doppler shift has also been detected for radio photons all the way up to gamma ray photons. And it's not just the Doppler Shift, in the Pound-Rebka experiment performed in 1959, a red shift in the wave function of a Gamma Ray photon was detected when it went up a 73 foot tube just as Einstein predicted.  And a blue shift was detected in a photon when it went down the tube. These days gravitational red and blue shifts can be detected when the difference in elevation is less than an inch. 

> Moreover, in your claim about the wf of a photon, when I googled it, I found that there's controversy about what that wf actually is. 

Well of course there is controversy, that's why there is no consensus on what the correct quantum interpretation should be. The wave versus particle debate started with Einstein's 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect and is still going strong to this day. The truth is in some ways a photon acts like a particle and in other ways it acts like a wave, if you find that fact to be distasteful too bad, that's just the way it is. 

I'm not complaining. So please cease putting me in that bag. I'd like to see what the wf for photon looks like. I couldn't find that when googling. Can you write that wf? AG

Does Einstein's formula for the energy of a photon violate the Uncertainty Principle? It sure seems that it does. AG

And by the way, one thing that is NOT controversial and in which there IS a consensus is that expanding space will cause a photon of light to be red shifted.  

You just don't get it. I don't dispute experimental results. I just want to understand, in a physical sense, how the universe works. Whether you admit it or not, you really don't care. In effect, you are what you deny; a "shut up and calculate" guy. AG

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, August 31, 2025 at 5:06:05 AM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Sunday, August 31, 2025 at 4:41:44 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at 3:13 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > in the case of light modeled as a photon, that is as a point particle, where its wavelength is only detectable as an ENSEMBLE, there doesn't seem to be a model for how the moving source produces the shift, red or blue. That the shift occurs is statement of faith which is confirmed by experiment,

That statement makes no sense. If something is confirmed by experiment then there is no need for faith to believe it.  

This shows you don't understand simple ENGLISH. I meant, of course, that since the Doppler effect was confirmed for sound, there was faith, or shall we say strong belief, that it would be confirmed for photons. And it was. You've distorted my words, turning them into a sort-of foolish reversal. AG