Again, the photon is described by a time-dependent wavefunction, which will disperse both in real and reciprocal space thermodynamically. It's still the same wavefunction and same photon. I think we're doomed to just repeat the same statements at each other. — Kenosha Kid

Indeed. But the wavefunction coming of an electron orbital has a different shape as a localized wavepacket. If we consider the case of an atom in an excited state which emits a photon by jumping to a lower energy state, most often it will be an electric dipole transition. The impinging wf is a localized wavepacket, in general. Both have the same average energy. But they are different and not each other's image reversed in time. Both states in CS have different energies but are the same under time inversion.

In reciprocal space (momentum space) the wavefunction does not disperse but converge. Momentum values converge to a well-defined value, while position gets more and more dispersed. If the wavefunction has dispersed all over space, the uncertainty in momentum is zero. The space derivative of the wavefunction is zero everywhere, if fully dispersed. So the uncertainty in momentum goes to zero.

It seems basically to reduce to charge inside matter.

Again, the photon is described by a time-dependent wavefunction — Kenosha Kid

We are doomed! But the wavefunction emitted has a different form as the one impinging. Try to construct a wavefunction of a photon that gets absorbed so it looks the same as the emitted one but time reversed, and direct it to the atom...you can't. Sorry... :razz:

don't know what you're trying to say (and I have read on). What is the difference here between a "photon" and a "photon field configuration"? — Kenosha Kid

THe state of the emitted photon, the superposition of fixed momenta fields in Fock space, is a different one that the superposition of states for the absorbed photin. The proces just isn't a proces like that in two interacting assymptotically free states as in QFT, where the incoming and outgoing photons are free. And as you said, the basic interactiins in QFT are time reversible. Absorption and emission are not.

You just can't produce the same photon to use for absorption as the one created by emission. The emitted photon and absorbed one might have the same energy and angular momentum though. The emitted photon has a unique state, while the absorbed can have a wide variety. In CS, both photons are unique and can be interchanged.

Again it's not hidden variables but I'm getting tired of repeating myself to someone who doesn't get it. — TerraHalcyon

It's you who doesn't get it. Gnight!

Compton scattering is a destruction of a photon that necessitates the creation of a different photon by a charge that is excited but must immediately de-excite. So on the contrary that's a description of two different photons, not the same one. — Kenosha Kid

You can't see though what direction time goes. For absorltion/,emission both photons have the same energy and angular momentum but their states differ. In CS, both photons have different momenta but these can be interchanged.

You can tell by looking at absorption or emission what direction light goes, by looking at CS you can't.

The obvious counterexample comes from Einstein himself. One can understand relativity, which is what Einstein meant, but there's nothing intuitive about light having the same speed regardless of whether and how fast you're moving toward or away from it, — Kenosha Kid

Dunno. Isn't light exactly the kind of thing you can't imagine to stand still?

What I meant was that the emission of a photon produces a different photon field configuration as the field used for for exciting an atom. If you excite the electron around the nucleus you use the same photon, of course, but the field emitted looks different than that of a photon coming from it. The photon emitted has a different probability wave associated with it than an incoming photon we shoot at it or that is just impinging with the right frequency and right angular momentum. You can distinguish between the two photon fields. Only in, say, Compton scattering (real photon and electron mediated by virtual electron), the proces is symmetric wrt to time). So it's is simply because the real photon in absorption is not the same as in emission. The both have inversed effect. Energy taken away and given. The excited atom is the same before emission and after absorption. But a ground state absorbing a photon and getting excited is a different process than an excited state emitting a photon and getting silent. The processes are each other reverses, off course. But if you would measure all emitted photons of spontaneous emission of a single atom fixed in space, the distribution would be different from the distribution of photons you use to excite. You can use wavepackets to excite, but wavepackets are not emitted (the photon emitted is spherical symmetric). Well, it's difficult to imagine what really happens, but the state of the emitted photon is different from an absorbed one. A transition of an electron from an excited state to a lower one gives rise to a dipole state. This state can be used again to excite other electron states, but generally the exciting photon does not find itself in such a neat state. The emitted photon has the same energy and angular momentum as the absorbed one. But energy states are degenerate, and both states are energy degenerate but different. As long as the energy and angular momentum are as wished, the atom will get excited. If only it were that easy with my wife... :smile:

It's clear from your writing you don't understand the subject, much like the guy in the Quora link. The appeal to authority works here because unless you have a degree in the subject — TerraHalcyon

It's you who doesn't understand. I'm sorry to say because I'm not a solipsist either.

An observation is not an interaction. Every interaction is a virtual process and an observer looking at what he measures too. The photons reaching your retina are virtual ones too. They might have momentum and energy almost on shell (meaning the both obey the relativistic relation between them) but they are still not observed themselves.The system (process-observer-measuring device) remains in a superposition if it stays isolated from a second observer (which means the second observer is in a superposition too), the guy in your polemic. It could even be that there is only superposition, without collapse. The talk about objective collapse, uttered by some are put on your barricade just to back up your presumption. The claim to authority is just to hide your ignorance. Authority simply uses a priori assumption too. There simply is no objective collapse when you stick to the basic principles. You can even consider the whole universe as a developing superposition, like is done in the many worlds interpretation, which was invented exactly to evade the problem of collapse (if collapse was objective, this wouldn't have been done, but collapse is problematic in the standard interpretation, giving rise to a non-unitary evolution of the wavefunction). And the guy is justified in using this interpretation. Let me explain.

If you observe a spin up thee is a second you observing a spin down. For the guy not observing you yet you are in a state of superposition of both outcomes in both parallel worlds (the one where you measured spin up and the one where you measured spin down). Simply because you always are in superposition. In the world where you measured up, he is justified to see you as a superposition still because he is in superposition too. He is present in the world where you observed up, as well in the world where you observed down. Only when he observes you, the world will evolve in a new state that consists of four superimposed ones. Two in which you observed up and he observes up or down, and two where you observed spin down and he up or down. So you as well as him are always in superposition, and observing causes the superposition to live happily after observing but in separate worlds. So either nothing is in superposition or all is. If he claims the world is in superposition if he doesn't observe it, he himself is in a superposition too.
To put it differently. If you observe a superimposed state of spin up and spin down, the superposition of you measuring up and down is still attached to the guy, in both the world where you measured up as in the world where you measured down. Only when the guy observes you, the two separate worlds will each split further in two separate states in which he observes you observing up and down. So in your world you might actually have observed up or down, but these two distinct outcomes will still be in superposition. For the guy, in both of these worlds with distinct outcomes for you, you are still in superposition and only when he observes you, he will see you have measured up or down. So from the state where you measured up, as well from the state where you measured down, two new states follow, because a superposition of you measuring up and down (apart from the actual outcomes you observe) is still contained in the both of them. Your observations might have caused two separate states (up and down), but the state of you observing the spin is still a superimposed one, and only the guy observing you causes a split into two separate worlds in which he sees you observing up and down.
So the whole state is initially a superposition of the up and down spin of an electron and you observing up or down spin. The total state is a product of these two states, with four outcomes, all superimposed firstly. If you observe firstly, there is a split between a spin up and a spin down state. From each of these two, up as well as down, the observation of the guy creates a split of you observing up and you observing down. This doesn't mean though that he observes up while you observed down. He will always observe the same spin as you observed.
To put it differently, for TG (the/that guy) you are still in a superposition of observing up and down. Your observation causes a local split, but only when TG observes the superposition of you observing up and down, the global splits in two distinct states. TG can't observe one of the two you's (one observing up and one observing down) if you did not actually observe. He can't observe something that doesn’t actually exist. The superposition of you observing up and down, is different from the superposition of the two spins, obviously. For TG you are still in a superposition, and you are, actually! Only when he observes you, from both the states with spin up and spin down, two new states will appear when TG observes you, one in which you have observed spin up and one in which you have observed spin down, no matter if the state it comes from contains up or down only. The states of spin up and down couple with the states of you observing up and observing down, and the product of these states gives rise to a state of four substates. One with spin up and you measuring up and down (which means you observe up while TG can observe you observing up as well as down) and one with spin down and you measuring up and down (which means you observe down while TG can observe you observing up as well as down). It may sound counterfactual that when you observe up TG can still observe you observing up as well as down, but that's exactly what the math tells us. There is a product state of spin up and you measuring up and down, as well as a product state of down with you measuring up and down. The sum of these two existed as a superposition first. Your observation of the spin led the separation of this sum into two distinct superpositions, the two products. Each product is a sum: spin up and you measuring up or down, and spin down and you measuring up and down.

So. At the start, the wavefunction is:

(up+down)(YOu+YOd),

Ignoring normalization factors. wher u is spin up and YOu is the state you observe (YO) up.ikewise for spin down.

Which can be written:

up(YOu+YOd)+down(YOu+YOd).

After you observed the spin, there are two states, each in a separate world:

up(YOu+YOd), and
down(YOu+YOd).

From these two worlds, TG's observation causes four worlds to come into play:

up(YOu) and up(YOd)
down(YOu) and down(YOd).

Now how the hell can a state whit spin up can go together with you observing spin down, up(YOd)? Following the rules we can nothing but conclude exactly that.

The only alternative: objective collapse theory or hidden variables.

Though I do think it's perfectly reasonable that consciousness may "just" be an expression of electrical currents darting through our brain. — Hermeticus

It could be that all this patterned charges together are consciousness. If an electron encounters a proton, their charges cause them to move towards each other. They possess a kind of longing to be with each other and be united for ever. There are evil charges, longings, who want to break up this happy unity by means of a photon field. Some photon fields don't even have a charged longing from which they originated. The more complicated the charges inside a lump of matter, the more complicated the mental longings. Without the basic ingredient of charge, the material world can't develop.

He doesn't the deny the reality of roller-coasters, but he denies there are actually other people in the roller-coaster having the same experience. The guy in this polemic says there are other solipsists rolling along, so he's not a solipsist.

But if you cut it loose from being a conveyor of meaning, then what use is there in art at all?

No meaning is fundamentally better than the other. — thaumasnot

I agree. But if the painting, word, or any other piece of art are used to convey a meaning, won't it do unjustice to the painting, word, or any other piece, if you tell a story about it that is meaning independent? If you treat a word like a word, say PHYSICS, without the meaning attached, doesn't that rob the word of an essential feature? You can project a new meaning into it, so the word (the word being a piece of art in the sense it is a painting of black lines on white linen) or any other piece of art means what the medium-specific narrative tells you, but was this meant by the writer of the word PHYSICS? The new meaning becomes what is meant by the new narrative. Could be an interesting meaning.

Then you can look at a painting as a painting too, if you look at a word as a word. But what does it mean? Is every painting devoid of meaning?

The notion of freedom is looked at from the oppressed. Freedom is only meaningful if there is something to be freed of. If there is freedom for every one, like the figure on the rope, freedom is not something to desire for anymore. That's why the painting is called "A look at freedom".

I had to look up Dixit. First time encounter for me, so I could not have tried to play it. How can the objective view on the painting reveal that what it's trying to convey? I can give you an objective description of the letters in the word "PHYSICS", first letter, a small vertical with a semi-circle attached right above, second one two parallel verticals with a small horizontal in the middle, etc. but what does the word mean? And even the objective description needs an agreement about what's an objective feature.

It are materialists who say the mind is an illusion. They overlook the mental content of matter. As simply as that. Calling the mind an illusion is perfectly sensible, for a materialist, who robs nature of an essential ingredient, which has led to our nakedly-born freedom.

Maybe we should exterminate whole existence all together. Exactly that is what we are heading for, so you will be served at back and call! Or shall we provide everyone with effective means to be shot into oblivion? Is the only way out collective suicide?

Ha! A subversive program! The rebellious little %$%#$!

am using an Android, so it's a bit difficult for me to quote :p — DA671

I use one too. Can't you select the text you want to quote by finger? Keep your finger on the text and select "copy"?

The story of Webb makes it very questionable if Nancy Roman will be shot up in time (2025?). Webb was about to be launched in 2010, and costed about 1 billion. It became 10 billion and 2021. I'm not sure I would have been happy with that if I had let my house built...
The micro shutter array was revisited (problems with the 248 000 micro windows, through which photons pass before detected), the actuators (capable to adjust the 18 mirror pieces with a precision of 1/10000 of a human hair!) needed adjustment, in 2015 it was reviewed and then again the project was delayed. It seems the path of all modern engineering projects. A date and a cost are determined and both turn out to be totally wrongly assigned. And the list goes on. Tax payers should be compensated. The engineers might feel nausea when all goes astray (how appropriate!), but what about the people who actually paid for it?

From an article on the net:


$1 billion and launching in 2010.

Planning for a telescope to come after Hubble began in 1996, but the Webb did not get its current name until 2002. NASA picked Northrop Grumman to build it, estimating costs from $1 billion to $3.5 billion. Mission managers expected it to launch as early as 2010.

Construction of Webb’s most complex structures — its main science instruments and the massive 18-plate mirror — began in 2004. In 2005, a review prompted redesigns to scale back its technical complexity.



$4.5 billion and launching in 2013.

Though less complex, the telescope became more expensive, with the price tag swelling to $4.5 billion, and NASA officials estimated a new launch date in 2013.

Well into the telescope’s construction around 2009, engineers and NASA officials began to grapple with the difficulty of inventing, building and testing cutting-edge technologies.

One challenge was developing the observatory’s “cryo-cooler” to keep Webb’s ultrasensitive infrared sensors and computers from overheating in space. Developing the telescope’s micro shutter array, a small device crucial to surveying massive swaths of the sky, was also difficult. The device, the size of a postage stamp, contains some 248,000 tiny shutters, or windows — each only a few times larger than a human hair — that open and close to allow light in.



$8.8 billion and launching in 2018.

An independent review of the program ordered by Congress in 2010 “found that the program was in a lot of trouble, and it wasn’t going to meet its cost and schedule deadlines, and it was not being funded appropriately, and there were a lot of management and oversight issues that were called out,” Ms. Chaplain said.

“I think it was a bit of a surprise,” she said. “It hit Congress pretty hard.”

The review estimated a new cost of $6.5 billion and a launch date of September 2015. In response, some lawmakers proposed a bill that would have canceled the telescope entirely.

But NASA vowed to get the program back on track, and prepared new estimates: an $8.8 billion total charge, including development and managing the telescope after its launch, with an October 2018 launch date.


To keep NASA in check, Congress capped the cost of the program’s development at $8 billion and required Ms. Chaplain’s team at the G.A.O. to conduct annual audits. It “was probably the first time we were asked to look at a major NASA program every year,” she said.


$9.6 billion and launching in 2021.

The telescope’s construction was completed in 2016. That’s when NASA and Northrop Grumman discovered a new set of bugs.

In 2017, NASA announced it would need to launch the telescope in 2019, because “integration of the various spacecraft elements is taking longer than expected,” the agency’s science chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, said in a statement at the time, stressing the change was not the result of any accident. No boosts to the program’s budget were needed, the agency indicated.

Then, an independent review in 2018 found that a handful of human errors had caused more delays and cost increases. The telescope’s propulsion valves were damaged when engineers used the wrong solvent to clean them. Dozens of screws that fastened the telescope’s massive sunshield came loose during vibration tests. And faulty wiring during tests sent excess voltage into the observatory’s transducers.

“The error should have been detected by the inspector, who did not inspect, but relied on the technician’s word that he had done the wiring correctly,” the 2018 report said.

Fears that the testing mishaps would lead NASA to breach its $8 billion development funding cap grew. The report said human errors cost the program $600 million and caused 18 months of delays. Then, in the summer, NASA announced a new date, acting on the report’s recommendations: Webb would launch on Mar. 30, 2021, Jim Bridenstine, President Trump’s NASA administrator, announced on Twitter.

The agency also concluded that the new development cost would be $8.8 billion, breaching its cap by $800 million. The program’s total cost, including post-launch operations, rose to $9.6 billion.


Last-minute jitters on Webb’s long journey.

Schedule disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic further delayed the launch of Webb in 2021.

At the same time, another stumbling block sprouted: The telescope’s name was called into question. James Webb, the NASA administrator who played a central role in the Apollo program, also served as the under secretary of state in the Truman administration. During his tenure, thousands of gay men and lesbians were ousted from government jobs in a period known as the Lavender Scare. NASA ultimately refused to rename the telescope.

In June, four months before Webb was expected to launch, NASA and ESA officials further delayed the launch to review the successful operation of the Ariane 5 rocket.

Once these concerns were resolved, the agencies set a Dec. 18 launch date. The telescope was ferried from California to French Guiana in October during a 16-day trek that passed through the Panama Canal. It was done in secret, in part out of concerns over piracy.

After two decades of tumultuous delays and cost overruns, the telescope had finally reached its launch site. The telescope, however, could not escape some late performance anxiety.

I just woke up and with my weary head and saw your answer. Imagine to come back like a baby! I actually think that it happens... The theory I tried to explain above is a theory that sprang up in my mind. Me too was not satisfied with the big bang model. I broke free, so to speak, from the constraints that were put on me during my physics study (I assume you study it too and I have the impression you study it out of a longing for understanding, like I did! A well-paid job was never my motivation...but if you can use it to buy a nice house, why not?). The story of general relativity is confined to 4d spacetime but there is nothing or no one that forbids the existence of an extra space dimension. String theory gives a whole bunch of them (tiny, but still). The whole story about inflation, cyclic big bangs, matter/antimatter asymmetry, etc. seems so obviously true if you introduce one extra space dimension. The problem is how to confine particles on the 3d space, while it finds itself in a 4d space. I think though that particles are not points. Neither strings. I view them as structures of space itself. What is space? I think space is just made of hidden variables, the ones encountered in interpretation of QM. And there are just two basic quantum fields, from which all quarks and leptons are made. Pretty non-standard. The torus model looks a lot like what sprang up in my mind. But it has its difficulties (of course I say that!).

To learn more about my post...There are no books yet about that theory. About FTL: "João Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light", a book by an anarchistic mind in physics, written vividly ("universe on speed"), iconoclastic (against holy cows, against the icons), and very informative! I enjoyed reading it, and remember disagreeing with something (I don't remember but I look it up). As long as the speed of light is not infinite, I'm happy though.

Again, the collapse happens at measurement — TerraHalcyon

How do you know?

Authority says:

"This is actually an unresolved question in QM. There are many interpretations of QM. Some attempt to define what constitutes measurement and what causes collapse. In some interpretation, wavefunctions never collapse. In some others, wavefunctions are not a good enough description for quantum systems. The canonical interpretation, Copenhagen interpretation, simply dodges this question"

concur. I personally don’t think we have good reasons to attribute experience to the whole of nature, yet others disagree. — Paul Michael

If nature doesn't bear a basic form of the mental, then how can the food we , or the mother carrying a baby, transform in a conscious being?

Again, you direct your nose to authority. You don't understand the matter, which is easy to understand. You say, "but these and these say this and that". The fact is that collapse cannot be understood mathematically. The process of collapse, say a superposition of a spin up spin down state, is induced by a measurement, but before someone actually sees the outcome, the whole is still in a superposition, like the cat and the poison in the covered cage of Schrödinger. You can simply state there is collapse regardless of looking (like Heisenberg does), but you can just as well maintain that only when you look there is collapse. By your logic the superposition would always be in one of the two states. Which isn't the case according to standard interpretation. Maybe you should educate yourself first, before pointing at "authority" without understanding the subject. I too once thought a collapse is objective but the very Copenhagen interpretation gives the possibility to always maintain that nature is in a superposition until measured by us (in the many worlds interpretation there is no collapse at all).There is no unitary operator that causes objective collapse. It's the observer that causes collapse. Prove the guy wrong. You can't. How do you know there is a collapse if you don't look? You can simply claim it to happen, he can simply claim the whole is still in a superposition of which you are not aware. So you measure a spin direction, and he claims you are still in a superposition of two worlds, one in which you measure spin up, and one in which you measure spin down. The many world interpretation even backs him up on this. His state is still a one in which you are in superposition. So, your claim to authority is an empty one because authority just doesn't know and any claim on objective collapse is just an assumption which with math has nothing to do. Objective collapse theory is equivalent to hidden variables. Only hidden variables cause objective collapse. The theory is deterministic and avoids the probabilistic interpretation, causing all the confusion and interpretation problems. So again, the guy is right, and if you like there is authority claiming collapse is not caused by us, and there is authority claiming it is. We just don't know, by the very nature of superposition and their attachment with the observer. Only hidden variables offer an objective mechanism for collapse (or objective collapse theory, which is equivalent). However you may not like it, you can't prove the guy wrong. But I can, as I'm sure hidden variables exist. There can't be something like pure chance, as QM implies, and which directs collapse. Chance needs a deterministic substrate.

I tried to express the notion of freedom in a painting. There is a wall with an aperture. Barbed wire spans the aperture. In front of the wire we look at a gigantic back of a bold head. The head is bashed in. Inside the head we see the silhouette of an armed police man, with a helmet and machine gun. Behind the barbed wire, in free space, we see the clay-like shape of a person (no face, only a form with a big head, and a dancing body). The figure dances on a rope in space, holding a stick with a curly ribbon. A view to freedom. Is the notion of freedom an objective feature of the painting?

Like I said:

A stoning will descend from the celestial sphere, thereby cleansing the Earth from the disturbing wicked elements that stubbornly resist to comply and be recipient to the Golden Ejaculation emanating from His Infinite Erectedness like a brightly colored fountain. The idle, sanctimonious, and pharisaic erections, and the false ejaculates spat out off it, can only be acted against by the incandescent Ejaculate of the immense Erected, and it will strike the ephemeral with unprecedented force to restore the eudomoniatic state of Divine Dedication and Total Obedience.

Only by strictly attending to the confines of the Honest and Pure Trail of the Word spoken by the Incendiary Erect Being, one can hope to avoid the amnesiac beating of His Stern Stick.


Of course this is just silly wordplay. But it is in fact the same as you are doing if you replace "The Pristine Immaculate Being and His Eternal Hole Ejaculate" by "Objective Science and its Majestic Technology". Scientific thinking and its globally technically enforced imprint on humanity, making it the base of state and politics, is just one way to live life. It is forced on all of us, by forced systematic education, not spending a dime on different approaches to nature which don't position them oppositely to her (or him). Of course science can help us to lower CO2 or correct polluting business. But the sci entific view is based on a notion of progress that implies further, deeper, higher, heavier, etc. to increase an artificial knowledge about a nature from which it's farther removed than ever. This knowledge is the cause in the first place of the miserable state of the world. Capitalism too, but the two are influencing mutually. The more artificial order we impose on nature, the more the natural order will reside or be destroyed. Science is nice, it's even an art. What about all the ingenious experiments to articulate theories we have? That's great stuff. For some. I like science too, got my own theory even about the universe. Which makes the existence of god even more articulate. It's their creation we should care about, but who am I to know if they care about their own creation?

The scientific road is just one amongst many, and they don't lead all to Rome. So what can "we" do about it? It depends on what the people want. I want to live in a world where nature exists happily along our side. We are not the only ones on our mega spaceship. All organisms keep it liveable and in good shape. Science removes itself from nature, and the paradox is that she claims knowledge about it. It's a very artificial knowledge, gained in isolated experiments, which must be reproducable, and often performed to fit the math, under strict boundary and initial conditions; it's an art in the sense it expresses a worldview, and the materials, the mediums used are ideas and experiments, like the painter uses colors and linen, though there is a much wider variety of course). What can we do? Not taking part is a way. Cleaning the mess scientifically is possible, fighting technology with technology, though technology is the cause in the first place. If state and science are separated a big first step will be made. Science seems to have the same role that God once had, telling the Truth and killing in his name. Maybe there is a way out: brothers and sisters, let's pray! Let's hold hands and ask Supreme Science to help us. Let it project disaster upon the non-believers.... Isn't the last done wrt to many indigenous societies, who are just superstitious, and ignorant about the True way (while their children were taken away to teach them the right way)? I'm a science lover myself, but who am I to say the Enlightened Path of Science (during the Enlightenment used to set people free from the madness of religion back then, but it seems to do similar stuff in modern times, the pagan being the non-believer in science). And I agree with a commentator in this thread that scientific knowledge is possessed by a group of people who claim to have some divine knowledge and who consider the non-believers are ignorant. The pagan are called laymen, as in the good all days of religion...Though the laymen might believe in science.

Further - if the theory of expansion/contraction of the universe is considered - during the contraction would time then go "backwards?" — Mason

It's a strange coincidence. In a comment on another thread (if it can be proven that time is an illusion) I wanted to say that this view was once propagated by Stephen Hawking. I think his wheelchair stood in reverse when he thought that. Only before the big bang time went up and down. It had no direction yet. The was a quasi periodic motion of virtual matter fluctuating inside the four dimensional throat of the torus. It's not a closed torus, but open on the outside. The mouth of the doughnut is negatively curved spatially, so the matter on the 3d sub structure can expand on it. One universe on both sides of the mouth. A universe and it's mirror universe. One space dimension is a mirrored dimension. Hence left/right asymmetry in the weak interaction (which isn't fundamental). Once the particles have been pushed into real existence on both sides of the mouth, they have an influence on the space which makes it curve positively. Thereby ending inflation. The two universes contain only irreversible processes, and time runs forward only. The 3d universes move farther from the 4d singularity (a kind of wormhole) on the 4d substrate. When the universes have moved sufficient distance away from the singularity, the substrate 4d space becomes negatively curved again (the positive curvature influence of the particles gets diluted) and the particles in both universes start to accelerate away from each other again. The central singularity gets more and more negatively curved and... bang. A new big bang.

So before us there is an infinity of universes, all with their own temporal start, and behind us (in 4d space, at the mouth of the doughnut) a new big bang will follow. What is time? You can position a periodic process near an irreversible process. Irreversible processes can't go backwards. Which means, if you reverse all motion, you can see the process is reversed. You can't turn around all motion in the universe. This would lead to Hawking's nightmare. Why should all particles reverse their motion if the universe starts contracting? The origin of irreversibility lies in the reversible motion on the singularity.
So the advantages of the doughnut and the two basic matter fields are obvious. An explanation of the matter/antimatter symmetry (in both universes are equal amounts of base matter/antimatter), an explanation of dark energy, an explanation of left/right asymmetry, an explanation of the origin of time, and a cyclic model of subsequent big bangs, without a contracting universe *big crunch becomes a big rip). That is sufficient...


In between the singularity and infinity, the interesting things happen!

:cool:

The clocks that Einstein positioned at all points in space are fictional. An ideal clock doesn't exist in reality. An ideal clock is a reversible periodic motion an these don't exist. It's against this clock all processes are compared with. The ideal clock is one whose direction in time can't be decided. In this sense they are an illusion. The periodic motion of the clock can be divided in arbitrarily small parts, though some say its motion is quantized, that time is discrete, which entails a difficulty of determining when the next unit of time comes into play, for a short while, everything is static. The numbers on the clock are placed on the time axis with the result that there are even points in time. But can a continuum really broken into parts?

On the spacetime continuum irreversible processes can unfold. These are temporarily quantified by comparing them with the periodic motion of the clock or by looking at the number on the local time axis.

The strange thing about the reversible periodic motion required for the ideal clock (even the caesium clock doesn't contain such an ideal, perfect, and reversibe, periodic motion) is that it can only be found just before the big bang. Looking at the quasi periodic motion present then, it looks like a clock which has no direction in time. Only after lift off entropic time came into being and the ideal clock is projected by us on the unfolding ptocesses.

The clock time can be considered as non-existent. But just before the big bang, it was the only time present, approximately. A quasi-periodic motion was all that was present. If we would place a clock near this proces, you could say it lasts an amount of periods. But that what lasts that amount of periods (say seconds), is symmetric in time. You can't see a development, for which irreversible processes are required. Say the quasi periodic state 10 seconds. Can we say it really did if the process can go forward in time, as well as backwards? The only thing present before the bang was the perfect clock. As soon as the universe took of is was sent to oblivion and we try to re-install it, in vain.

Advocates of the entropic time deny the true existence of the clock. Advocates of the clock deny the entropic time (an illusion). Are we just crawling along our objective worldlines, there creating the illusion of time? Or are we projecting the worldlines?

Proving the non-existence of time takes time.

Thoughts? — Mongrel

What's real is mostly what we agree to be real. Which is not the same as saying that in that case there is no difference between fantasy and reality.

Does time stop as the pendulum changes direction? :-) — Mason

Why do you think that? We cannot see if the pendulum goes forward in time or backwards, if the pendulum is ideal (so, for example, its amplitude grows smaller).

The 3d torus has a singularity at the center. A wormhole with a tiny throat. On both sides of the mouth a universe can explode into existence. A universe evolving around the donut will end up at the other side, fall in the black hole and reappear as a new universe. It falls in a black hole and reappears from a white hole. This approach has various difficulties. There is doubt aout the claim that the universe is infinite in size. The large wavelengths seem to be missing when looked at the CMBR (of gravitational waves). In an infinite universe (which is infinite in extent even at the big bang) all wavelengths should be produced. A fairy firm clue pointing at a bounded universe. An infinite universe is just prejustice. Just like the Earth was once thought to be flat.

It's more likey the universe is a closed 3d structure, to which all matter is contained. Two of these structures could have been realized on both sides of a 4d donut. Equal amounts of basic matter/antimatter have arranged themselves in matter and antimatter. I have asked about this on a physics forum:

"know general relativity is confined to three spatial dimensions. But there is nothing that prevents the existence of more of them.

So I thought, could it be that matter is confined to our three dimensional space, which started out around a tiny mouth (singularity) of a 4 dimensional open torus? If the outside of the torus is cut open, matter can accelerate away from the mouth, as the mouth of a torus is negatively curved.

Just imagine, in the 2d case, a torus that extends to infinity on the cut open outsides. There could emerge two circles from the mouth, inflating away from it. Normal matter on one, antimatter on the other. Afterwards, when matter has accelerated towards infinity, there is room for a new big bang.

So, quantum field fluctuations on the mouth (virtual particles) could get excited (real particles) by the negative curvature. Like Hawking radiation around black holes, virtual states could get pushed into reality by the negative curvature (which causes negative repelling gravity).

So, if we restrict ourselves to two dimensions, we can imagine a 2d torus. The inside part has negative curvature. The saddle shape can be seen very well around the throat. If two particles are placed there, they will accelerate outwards. Can't the same happen to quantum fluctuations? I mean, can't the negative curvature promote the fields to fields containing excitation? In popular language, can the virtual particle pairs (the vacuum bubbles) be "pulled" (or pushed) away from each other like two real particles are moving towards each other because of the positive curvature of spacetime? Is it possible that this can happen in the two directions of the mouth? Say matter is confined to a closed line on the 2d torus. One that's wrapped around the central throat. Can't we imagine two circles with matter on them, moving away from the throat? The circles, representing our universe and possibly a mirror one on the other side, grow in diameter, so from within the circle (universe( all matter seems to move away from each other. In the beginning this could have happened with inflationary speed. When the particles are "realized", they cause a positive curvature, counteracting the negative one, ending inflation. When matter the universe expands, negative overall curvature will return when the universe is big enough. So matter concentrations will start to accelerate from accelerate away from each other again, like it did in the beginning. The throat in the center will then have the right conditions to cause a new bang.

Pretty far-fetched maybe, but I just want to know what the flaw in my reasoning is. I can't see any. We only have to find a way to confine matter to a 3d space, while laying in the totality of the whole. It explains dark energy rather nicely. Even "its" development over time."

I got only one comment:

-You're basically describing the dilaton [sic] of the already empirically refuted Kaluza-Klein theory. 

 My reply was:

-How so? The dilaton emerges by putting the A-field in the realm of a curled up mathematical dimension. I merely state the existence of an extra dimension to place our 3d universe on. If the universe moves over this space all matter starts to accelerate initially and later on. In between matter halts. 

No further comments were given. The question is (understandably, but disappointingly also) closed now because being off topic. But together with two more basic fields than quarks and leptons, it offers an understanding of dark energy, the seemingly asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and post/past big bangs.

The pendulum can be placed near any physical process. Counting how many times it penduled, it gives you the quantified concept of time. Einstein mentally placed pendulums on an axis. The time axis. An object standing still still speeds with c through spacetime. The speed of an object is always c. An infinite c would imply that all is happening at the same time. There would be no cause and effect. There would be nothing.

I see it from a missile guidance angle. Some have poor guidance systems (precision hundreds of meters), others are super-precise (lands within meters of the target). — Agent Smith

The filled balloon that's let loose with open mouth, the virus falling in static air, or leaves in the wind, where do they touch the Earth?

I tend to agree. The continuum can't be broken up in points, but still points are used in defining it, by pointing at the fact that you always forget to mention a point. Differentials include the missing elements as they are different from lengths, which gives the paradox 2=sqrt2, a seemingly contra-intuitive opinion, but true.

The climate change, the increase of atmospheric energy, is a small problem in the wider scope of fucking up nature. In the past, the Earth was once covered with ice all over, while there were times the Titanic could have gone anywhere safely (but the Hindenburg would have a bigger chance exploding). Nature can deal with climate change. It is the rate of the climate changing that is the killer. Though after Krakatau the climate temporarily changed in the wink of an eye. If the climate would changed instantly, nature would survive. But fucking up nature at the base will kill it. Species die out. Vegetation is destroyed. The human mamal is present in a magnitude like no other. Look here. The WWF's "extinction status" list.

The great barrier reef can't adapt to the fast increase in temperature. Even if the climate wouldn't change, the artificial order imposed on nature means that the natural order will reduce. Considering the ordering process as part of a closed system, the increase in order must be accompanied by a decrease in natural order, a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics, although the θέρμη (therme meaning heat), and δύναμις (dynamis meaning power), or the related concepts ἐνέργεια (enérgeia, meaning activity), ἐνεργός (energós, meaning active), from ἐν (en, meaning in) + ἔργον (érgon meaning work), τροπή (tropė, meaning transformation), and ἐντροπή (entropė, meaning content) are somewhat difficult to pinpoint.

The increase in entropy to which nature is exposed seems to have consequences for the natural order within the order imposed. A natural order needs connections crossing the artificial boundaries imposed. Annihilate these connecting possibilities, of which the cage in which a single animal walks up and down restlessly is the ultimate example), isolate useful species in large monotone areas, and nature refuses to procreate, and/or species will go extinct.

"It's therefore, brothers and sisters, that I suggest to hold hands. Let's hold hands and humbly ask the Pristine Being, graciously we praise His Name, to let rain down a revenging rain of justified stoning on those mindlessly disturbing His Holy Order. Let's ask the Great Redeemer for true redemption. It is time we contemplate the True One and admit we have lost the Righteous Path, the straying from which can only be undone by directing, unconditionally and ruthlessly, our attention to the Anointed Light radiating from the imperative path of His Eternal Erect. Let's pray His Potent Ejaculate whipes away the wicked erect and ejaculate the deviant pagan has covered the Golden Ejaculate with."

Which shows itself in the reduction of bio-diversity.
There is an explosive increase of caged species for consumption and investigation on the one side, and an explosive increase of caged endangered animals on the other side. How do we restore the balance? There is a very simple way. Brothers and sisters let's hold hands! It's easy. The economic machine just has to be slowed down and cleaned up. Even a tiny increase in CO2 is enough to cause an enormous change in the weather, and a million butterflies flapping their wings in unison might even divert a hurricane. If we want nature to be still there in 200 years it is time to act. Or better maybe, stop acting too much. People tend to think more about the short term though. We have a marshmellow brains, while an acorn brain seems better suited to face the problem. Are we ants or grasshoppers? Ants plan for the future, but it's exactly the planning that fucked up nature. Should we just hop around like grasshoppers then?

In what sense are concepts universal ? — RussellA

In the sense that everybody can use them, value them, ignore them, or consider them part of an objective reality.

It's direction. It can exist in a superposition of two equally probable states. But coming to think about it, how can we be sure? Maybe a hidden force plays with the probabilities. Hidden variables. Consider it part of my paranoiatical nature. Something is after the probabilities? Is it a determined force? I guess, as that force will help me win the lottery. It's written...

In what sense is logic subjective. — Agent Smith

In the sense that it's us who invented it.

This is, I'm certain, too obvious to state but for the sake of clarity, thoughts have, for good reasons no doubt, been 99% of the time, viewed with a rational/logical lens; humanity has, for most of its history, been (pre)occupied with the logical link between thoughts (ideas/concepts/theories). — Agent Smith

Western-world humanity maybe. The western ideal wants people to be 100% (scientifically) rational machines. With 100% rational thoughts (whatever that may mean). I can be 100% rational without thinking scientific though. What rationality you refer to? Only when you know that you can decide if you think rational.

The paradox is essentially the paradox of the equality between x and dx. The dx contains an infinity of intermediate points x.