Why do most people find science boring?

[Write4U]

de Broglie-Bohm mechanics is about particles and whimsical trajectories. Quantum Field Theory is about fields (also antimatter, how particles get mass, why gold isn't silver-colored, etc.)

Actually gold at the nano level is red. Old stained church windows use gold for the red panes.

(see 36:33)

 

[Schmelzer]

Again, there are mystical experiences, as one aspect of mysticism, but there are also mystical theories. And of course, I'm not talking about mystical experiences. But about mystical theories.

And those theories come from where? Can you form a mystical theory without having had a mystical experience?

First of all, it is irrelevant how a theory is created. This is a basic principle of scientific methodology, and one can, of course, extend it to mystical theories too.

Then, of course, one can. Pure reason is sufficient to develop mystical theories. As well as not every physicist has to be an experimenter, not every mystic has to have own mystical experiences.

Are you arguing for mysticism in favor of QM and GR?

No. I'm arguing against the mystical aspects of some interpretations of GR and QM.

If we want to relate to the "wholeness", Bohm has it right, IMO.

I don't care about Bohm's wholeness at all.

 

[river]

I love science too much. It's really interesting so much. In fact at our home everybody is interested in watching discovery.
You are most welcome at my home. I will serve you food with discovery channel

Seriously, we are very desperate to watch discovery, & national geographic.
My fav is discovery.
Hey which one is your fav?

Any channel that is open to give you information that is mainstream thinking and non-mainstream thinking .

 

[river]

Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment!
Man VS Wild, Destroys in seconds, and many more.
These all channels does not prorvide any information, but entertain us very much.

Can't say , I didn't watch the series .

For the most part I watch series and programs I can learn from.

 

[Write4U]

First of all, it is irrelevant how a theory is created. This is a basic principle of scientific methodology, and one can, of course, extend it to mystical theories too.

Then, of course, one can. Pure reason is sufficient to develop mystical theories. As well as not every physicist has to be an experimenter, not every mystic has to have own mystical experiences.

No. I'm arguing against the mystical aspects of some interpretations of GR and QM.

I don't care about Bohm's wholeness at all.

Ahh, I see now what you are driving at. I must admit that my understanding of GR and QM is limited to the fundamentals and that some of the interpretations are too "obscure" for me to understand fully.
I would still hesitate to call them mystical, but that may just be a semantic difference....

 

[Schmelzer]

That does not follow. It is sufficient for the separate measurements to be space-like separated, not simultaneous.

For creating a problem for relativity, this is, of course, sufficient. Because after this the only choice is (a) to become mystical, by rejecting realism and causality (b) to accept hidden FTL causal influences.

Rendering your preferred frame a superfluous bit of metaphysics not needed for predicting observable physical behaviors.

Superfluous only if you reject realism and causality and are satisfied by unexplained correlations.

And, of course, adding metaphysical elements is nothing wrong. The greatest discovery of physics - the atomic structure of matter - was for a long time only a metaphysical element.

They are stupid appeals to intuition, because they are alternatives to parsimonious prediction of observable physical behaviors from the physical theory.

If you think that scientists have to restrict themself to parsimonious prediction of observable physical behaviors, I simply disagree. Such predictions are useful in technological applications, and allow to falsify wrong theories in science itself, thus, are an extremely important part of science, but certainly not all.

As you admit in the next paragraph, there are physically plausible, consistent-with-observation solutions to GR which seem to inform our view of phenomena in our galaxy. Since our galaxy does not admit a global time coordinate, it follows that a purported interpretation which contains a global time coordinate cannot apply to our galaxy and is not consistent with GR.

Not quite correct. The phenomena in our galaxy allow for a global time coordinate. The only natural candidate for an equation for a preferred time coordinate is harmonic time, the harmonic equation is an evolution equation, thus, harmonic time will be defined by the initial conditions. In case of a black hole, the initial time will be more or less Minkowski time before the collapse. The interesting point of this is that the part after horizon formation is not covered by this harmonic coordinate. But, once this part is also not observable from outside, all what we know about the galaxy up to now allows for a global time coordinate.

That's not an "interpretation" -- that's a new physical theory. Until you explain what is wrong with the 1916 Schwarzschild solution, you have said nothing except the GR that you preach is not actually GR.

There is nothing wrong with the Schwarzschild solution, harmonic coordinates are known for it and simple. How you name it is nothing I have to care much, I would suggest to name it the Lorentz ether. Its equation is the Einstein equation of GR and the harmonic equation to identify the preferred coordinates.

Only if you demonstrate your departure from parsimony is anything other than a wild-eyed-guess predicated on slovenly catering to your personal prejudices.

I don't have to demonstrate that name-calling against this interpretation or theory is impossible. I can freely acknowledge that name-calling is possible and ignore it.

A physics theory is a mathematical model of the behavior of a wide class of related phenomena. When you add your universal time to GR, you better have worked out how your gravity theory works differently than the 100-year-old one and the evidence for the addition.

Once in this interpretation of GR the equation of GR - the Einstein equations - remains unchanged, all what has to be modified is that one has to add an equation for the preferred coordinates - which I have, the harmonic equation - and to specify that one of the coordinates is a global time, thus, mathematically has to be time-like.

Locally this is always possible. But it leads to some additional global restrictions.

What is evidence for the addition? First, a large number of solutions - all those with nontrivial topology - are simply excluded as unphysical. Observing them would falsify this interpretation. Have you observed it?

Then, there is Goedel's rotating universe. It does not allow for a global time coordinate, thus, would falsify the interpretation. The global rotation of the universe is observable, and the observation gives zero.

A little bit more subtle is what happens with models of a homogeneous universe, the FLRW ansatz. Here, only the flat ansatz would describe a universe which is really homogeneous, even in the preferred coordinates. This gives not really an additional prediction - a universe with nonzero curvature allows for harmonic coordinates - but it would no longer be a homogeneous universe. But if we add the hypothesis that the universe is, in the large and approximately, homogeneous, we obtain an additional prediction with a very clear number - 0 for the global spatial curvature. Which nicely corresponds to reality.

It's not enough to claim Einstein, Schwarzschild and every GR researcher for the past 100 years was wrong -- you have to do their job better or you aren't doing physics; you aren't doing science-as-an-human-endeavor, you aren't contributing to science-as-a-store-of-knowledge.

It would be, of course, not enough - but I'm not doing this, so that this is irrelevant.

de Broglie-Bohm mechanics is about particles and whimsical trajectories. Quantum Field Theory is about fields (also antimatter, how particles get mass, why gold isn't silver-colored, etc.)

It is, unfortunately, usually presented in this way. There is no necessity for this. I prefer to present it for general configuration spaces. There is some restriction, the game works only for Hamiltonians of the form $$H = p^2 + V(q)$$. This restriction may seem serious, but for relativistic field theories it is not problematic at all. The general form is of type $$L = \dot{\phi}^2 - F(\phi, \partial_i\phi)$$, thus, gives quadratic momentum dependence. So, a relativistic field theory is in itself not a problem for dBB theory. It requires a hidden preferred frame, that's all. The case of a complely scalar field is completely unproblematic, gauge fields become problematic only if one wants to get rid of gauge degrees of freedom, a gauge field where gauge-equivalent field configurations are considered as different field states can be covered without any problem in the same way. Fermions are more problematic, but there are ways to handle them. Of course, I prefer the way suggested in http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.0591 without mentioning dBB theory, where a pair of Dirac fermions (interpreted as an electroweak pair) is constructed out of a scalar field with symmetry breaking. Given that scalar fields are unproblematic, the consequence is that pairs of Dirac fermions are unproblematic too. But there are also other proposals for fermions in dBB-like field theories.

I'm sorry, I though you were talking about adaptions of dBB that actually were relevant, not some antique dinosaur.

Name-calling based on the date then a theory has been presented is irrelevant. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0601095 rejects causality, thus, is IMHO not even worth to be read.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.7256 is a nice article, I have not found anything serious to object during a short overview.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/#li is also a nice overview article, but also seems unaware of standard dBB field theory. "Bohmian mechanics does not account for phenomena such as particle creation and annihilation characteristic of quantum field theory." is clearly false, this is handled in a straightforward way in dBB scalar field theory.

The article http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4567/1/philsci-gr-needs-no-interp.pdf is quite interesting, may be I will add some further comment about it.

 

[rpenner]

Realism and locality are assumptions based on human intuition developed in a Newtonian mind-set.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.4270.pdf (Even Bohmian interpretations of EPR don't preserve reality absolutely.)
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v8/n6/full/nphys2309.html ( also at http://people.isy.liu.se/en/jalar/kurser/QF/assignments/Pusey2012.pdf )
http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.1570 (very much more reading)

Regarding GR without black holes, I don't find anyone citing http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.1446 except the author. I think that's because of the violation of geometric principles used to single out components of the metric.

 

[Schmelzer]

Realism and locality are assumptions based on human intuition developed in a Newtonian mind-set.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.4270.pdf (Even Bohmian interpretations of EPR don't preserve reality absolutely.)

A nonsensical interpretation of the EPR criterion of reality. We can predict with certainty that the result will be or +1 or -1. LOL.

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v8/n6/full/nphys2309.html ( also at http://people.isy.liu.se/en/jalar/kurser/QF/assignments/Pusey2012.pdf ) An important theorem, but not the final word about the nature of the wave function. The problem is that in the Bohmian approach the effective wave function of a system has automatically an ontic character, because it depends on the configuration of the measurement device used to prepare the state, which is ontic without any doubt: $$\psi_{sys}(q) = \psi_{full}(q,q_{dev}(t)$$.

Regarding GR without black holes, I don't find anyone citing http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.1446 except the author. I think that's because of the violation of geometric principles used to single out components of the metric.

No, it is simply because ether theories are anathema. In a publish or perish system where one has to look for a new job every two years scientific freedom de facto does not exists for young scientists, they have to follow mainstream fashion or they are out. I have to pay myself for my research. I'm comfortable with this, but I cannot pay for anybody else. So, there will be no grants at all for ether theory. Publishing ether papers is extremely hard (publishing, say, about dBB theory is much simpler), thus, in the publish or perish world to start research in ether theory would be suicide. This is something one has to know and accept as a fact of live before starting research in this direction: It will be extremely hard to publish something, and your papers will be certainly ignored even if published.

 

[river]

Schmelzer

You are a refreashing voice.

river

 

[iceaura]

My point was that a minimal interpretation should remain silent about the relation between this "clock time" τ and the fundamental concept of time.

Whether or not some concept of time is "fundamental" would be the matter at hand - not a presumption.

 

[krash661]

.....

yeah.... you're azo.

 

[brucep]

Realism and locality are assumptions based on human intuition developed in a Newtonian mind-set.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.4270.pdf (Even Bohmian interpretations of EPR don't preserve reality absolutely.)
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v8/n6/full/nphys2309.html ( also at http://people.isy.liu.se/en/jalar/kurser/QF/assignments/Pusey2012.pdf )
http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.1570 (very much more reading)

Regarding GR without black holes, I don't find anyone citing http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.1446 except the author. I think that's because of the violation of geometric principles used to single out components of the metric.

Wow. "....... violation of geometric principles used to single out the components of the metric." Not to mention disregard for empirical evidence associated with the predictions of such a metric.

 

[brucep]

Wrong on both counts.

When a physical theory postulates axioms, it's saying that the physically observable behavior is indistinguishable from the behavior of a mathematical system that is based on those axioms. You can't prove equivalence, but you can prove non-equivalence if the evidence exists. Euclidean spaces, continua and manifolds are mathematical objects while space, time, rulers and clocks are physical phenomena that need behavior explained.

Newton's Universal Gravitation was the axiomatic statement that space was Euclidean, time was a continuum, and gravitation was a central force proportional to the product of pairs of masses and inversely proportional to the separation distance. All predictions about clocks, rulers, celestial mechanics and ballistic trajectories followed from those assumptions.

Einstein's General Relativity is the axiomatic statement that space-time is Lorentzian and that the Einstein intrinsic curvature tensor is proportional to the local energy-momentum-stress tensor (with the cosmological constant as a quantity which can appear on either side depending if it is modeled as part of gravity or an energy field). All predictions about clocks, rulers, celestial mechanics and ballistic trajectories (and cosmology and stellar evolution) are derived from those assumptions.

GR is a model of space-time as a Lorentzian manifold. The Einstein curvature tensor (the left side of the Einstein field equations) is defined in terms of derivatives and powers of the Lorentzian metric for the manifold. Knowing the metric and a time-like path, one may compute the elapsed proper time for a ponderable body traveling that trajectory. Knowing the metric, one may establish imaginary local free-fall coordinates which allow local physics to be described as approximately corresponding to SR.

You can't get from actual clocks and rulers to the analytical realm of differentiable manifolds because it is impossible to make a finite number of experiments give you a theory of a differentiable continuum. GR is the falsifiable hypothesis that modeling space-time as a Lorentzian manifold with Einstein curvature tensor proportional to the energy-momentum-stress tensor is a good model of physics involving gravitation. If the clocks and rulers turn out to disagree with the predictions of GR, then you have the beginnings of the experimental foundations for some new theory of gravitation and the nature of space and time. But just as GR in the limit of small masses and low velocities closely approximates the behavior predicted by Universal Gravitation, so any successor theory of GR will approximate the already vetted predictions of GR. This is known as the correspondence principle: because each accepted physical theory describes a wide domain of observations to good approximation, and each better theory has to do at least as well, then the successor theories must approximate the former theories in at least the former realm of observations.

Einstein reached his description of space-time from understanding that proper-time is path-dependent and that gravity is remarkably insensitive to what an object is composed of yet exactly proportional to its inertial mass. It didn't make sense for the same quantity to be present in Newton's laws of motion and the force of Universal Gravitation. It likewise didn't make sense that gravitational forces have to be conveyed across the whole universe instantaneously. So Einstein unified the laws of inertial mass and the action of gravitational mass by curving space-time which gave light different trajectories than either the assumption it moved like a Newtonian test mass or was unaffected by gravity. Likewise, gravity was now locally sourced and disturbances spread only at the speed of light. Finally, a long-standing issue with observations of Mercury's orbit was resolved -- the only observation Einstein had of gravitational phenomena that was actually better calculated by GR than UG at time of publication.

Great post rpenner. If everybody posting here would pay attention to the details associated with rpenner's comment members of the forum could move up several rungs on the scholarship ladder.

 

[river]

When a physical theory postulates axioms, it's saying that the physically observable behavior is indistinguishable from the behavior of a mathematical system that is based on those axioms.

So then the physical dictates the mathematical system.

 

[Write4U]

Whether or not some concept of time is "fundamental" would be the matter at hand - not a presumption.

There is of course the possibility that Time does not exist until it emerges along with a chronology of events in a permissive universal condition.

Can there be time without change? The fact that we have assigned the name "time" to the accounting of passing events, does not establish a fundamental concept of time as a property of the universe. Note that time is always associated with space and the events therein.

Without space would there be time? If space were a little different, would time be different?
IMO, the concept of time is wholly "dependent" on the chronology of events. This is why we can speak of time dilation and contraction. These are relative terms and do not establish a fundamental separate plenum of countable time, other than "universal spacetime". On the contrary, I see time as an emerging accounting for "duration" of change. No change, no time.

I see a fundamental permissive condition which allows for a chronological progression of events. The events themselves create time as a by-product of change. Without change (space) there is no time!

 

[paddoboy]

Without space would there be time? If space were a little different, would time be different?

I would say no, to the first and ask the question how could space be different to the second. Other than if space was not expanding, my view is that time exists along with space, even if it was not expanding.
I am though fond of the following view from Sten Odenwald to a question......
Can space exist by itself without matter or energy around?
No. Experiments continue to show that there is no 'space' that stands apart from space-time itself...no arena in which matter, energy and gravity operate which is not affected by matter, energy and gravity. General relativity tells us that what we call space is just another feature of the gravitational field of the universe, so space and space-time can and do not exist apart from the matter and energy that creates the gravitational field. This is not speculation, but sound observation.

IMO, the concept of time is wholly "dependent" on the chronology of events. This is why we can speak of time dilation and contraction. These are relative terms and do not establish a fundamental plenum of countable time. On the contrary, I see time as an emerging accounting for "duration" of change. No change, no time.
I see a fundamental permissive condition which allows for a chronological progression of events. The events themselves create time as a by-product of change. Without change (space) there is no time!

Not sure if I go along with the popular concept of no change, no time.
For example, if the Universe was static [no expansion] time would still exist even without us there to measure it.
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/10/18/is-time-real/

 

[Write4U]

I would say no, to the first and ask the question how could space be different to the second. Other than if space was not expanding, my view is that time exists along with space, even if it was not expanding.
I am though fond of the following view from Sten Odenwald to a question......
Can space exist by itself without matter or energy around?
No. Experiments continue to show that there is no 'space' that stands apart from space-time itself...no arena in which matter, energy and gravity operate which is not affected by matter, energy and gravity. General relativity tells us that what we call space is just another feature of the gravitational field of the universe, so space and space-time can and do not exist apart from the matter and energy that creates the gravitational field. This is not speculation, but sound observation.

Not sure if I go along with the popular concept of no change, no time.
For example, if the Universe was static [no expansion] time would still exist even without us there to measure it.
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/10/18/is-time-real/

I stipulated that where dynamic space exists, time also exists. Even a non-expanding but dynamic space would have measurable properties. Therefore the very existence of space creates "spacetime". This is why we count universal spacetime from the BB (the beginning of space and its associated universal timeline). Before the BB time was non existent (t=0).

But if we propose a total stasis of spacetime, then the question arises against what reference would we be able to measure anything. In a static space measurements cannot be taken at all, the observer itself would be in stasis also. Time would stand still for everything, just as it was before the BB. Something like (t=0) BB ---> (st=1)

But the question is if time exists as a causal separate dimension independent of space. My feeling is No. Time does not cause change, Change (chronology of events) causes measurable time.

IMO, time emerges as a necessary by-product of any measurable duration of events or change of measurable dimensional properties. Until then there is only a "permissive condition" which allows for a chronological sequence of events, which during the process also creates an associated universal as well as dedicated timeline(s).

This meta-physical permissive condition itself is completely static and without measurable time. We cannot measure the time of time or the space of time. It is the chronology (duration) of events which creates measurable time, it is a one way equation only, IMHO.

 

[Write4U]

This may be of interest;

What I am mostly curious about why we assume that time is a countable object (has a limit) to begin with.

Even if we use a Caesium atom to count its oscillations, that does not prove that time exists before it actually oscillates and becomes countable (measureable). Even Science seems to be looking at this from a subjective viewpoint, our experience of passing time. But it is the passing of events which allows us to make measurements in the first place.

If the universe ceased to exist, what would happen to time? Would it not not also cease to exist and be replaced again with a purely metaphysical "permissive condition" which allows for change which can then be measured with clocks as time?

When we look at a clock subjectively we see time passing, but we are really looking at a more or less accurate chronological mechanical (physical) function, which consumes time (duration) to complete its cycle. But that is a relative measurement at best and descriptive only of an observed local function and its duration, IMO.

If clocks run at different speeds depending on gravitational forces, then time becomes a part of GR and measurable only if modeled as relative local measurements of chronology.

Time is plastic because it emerges in accordance to the requirements of the action to complete itself. Some things can be measured in "nano-seconds", others in "half-life" of the object.
IOW, in ranges from accurate nano measurement to uncertain future time measurement for a specific action (change) to complete itself.

I am not sure that the quantum function can be measured with time, but if so, then IMO, we would have the shortest possible time interval (instant of time). But that still would not prove a pre-existing separate dimension of a time continuum, only for a permissive condition that allows for change, which can be arbitrarily measured as Time.

 

[Schmelzer]

yeah.... you're azo.

Who is this mystical azo? As a member of this forum I have not found it. A modern swearword?

 

[Schmelzer]

Whether or not some concept of time is "fundamental" would be the matter at hand - not a presumption.

If we start from the Newtonian concept, there are two notions of time, one fundamental (absolute time) and one observable (human attempts to measure it, approximate).

The observable time is, clearly, clock time (proper time).

The fundamental time is a coordinate time. But the equations of GR do not allow to identify it, so, it does not play any role in physics of GR.