First non-moderator's post to sci.physics.discrete

[ueb]

Ed Fredkin wrote:
..
> IMHO "continuous symmetries" are more self evident in worlds with continuous
> space, time and state while "exact conservation laws" are more self evident
> in worlds with discrete space, time and state. Given the symmetries,
> Noether's theorem tells us that we get the conservation laws. Given the
> conservation laws, Noether's theorem tells us we get the symmetries. It's
> not perfectly simple as various complications have to be dealt with but the
> general principle holds. Our feelings of what is "self evident" are
> influenced both by what we see and what we learn from school and books.
> Newton changed much of what was "self evident." Our observations,
> reinforced by the success of the calculus, have encouraged us to feel that
> continuity of motion and time are self evident. But it is clear that
> discrete physics need not be at odds with any scientific observations or
> measurements. We should keep in mind that the calculus works spectacularly
> well in modeling discrete systems. We blithely take the derivative of
> charge or of current, we model fluids as continuous, nuclear reactors as
> continuous processes, etc. The assumption that the quantities are
> continuous, despite our knowledge that they are discrete, does not normally
> get us into trouble as the right answer is usually gotten anyway.

> Ed F

In this nice discussions, people always forget the most important question:
- What quantities have discrete values ? -
Quantities like mass, spin, charge, magnetic momentum, which as can be
proved have discrete values, are - integration constants of the known
Einstein-Maxwell equations ! These tensor equations involve pure
Riemannian geometry, and go from continuous time & space.
There are indeed conditions for integration constants, which make
them discrete (for example a margin). In order to investigate that,
I numerically simulated particles according to the Einstein-Maxwell
equations
http://home.t-online.de/home/Ulrich.Bruchholz/
In result, I got indeed coincidences of the integration constants for
most stable solutions with known particle numbers. It has a lot to do
with chaos.
Though time & space are assumed as continuous, engineers do always
discretize them for practical reasons.

Ulrich Bruchholz
info at bruchholz minus acoustics dot de