• Enrique
    842
    A brief essay I wrote that summarizes an interpretation of the double-slit experiment in quantum physics I've been ruminating on, along with its wider implications. I'm interested to get your opinions on the subject matter.


    The Quantum Handshake: A Transactional Model for Results of the Double-slit Experiment Along with Wider Implications

    Introduction: Basics of the Double-slit Experiment

    The double-slit experiment ejects nanoscale particles from an emission device and towards a screen that records their final position as a florescent spot while it absorbs them. On the way, the particles pass through two slits. If the absorber screen is placed far enough behind the double slits, emission generates what seems to be an interference pattern, as if the particles are waves, but this effect only emerges from large quantities of particles, for each one contacts the screen at a specific point, as if not a wave. This interference pattern has shown up with photons, electrons, even molecules of as many as two thousand atoms. It works when streams of particles are emitted and also when one particle is emitted at a time, so scientists have postulated that matter involves an intrinsic wave/particle duality. All sorts of subatomic particles, atoms and molecules seem in actuality to be wave packets or “wavicles”. 

    It is easy to imagine a stream of wavicles interfering as they diffract through the slits to produce an array of light and dark bands on the florescent screen corresponding to in phase and out of phase waves. This would resemble the classic experiment performed in the 19th century, where a beam of light was diffracted by a single aperture to then pass through double slits as a spreading field which apparently interfered with itself to similar result.  

    Interference patterns from one at a time particle emission are a more difficult outcome to account for. The typical explanation is that the wavicle passes through both slits to interfere with itself, spreading out in the double-slit chamber and then spontaneously collapsing in some way upon contact with the absorber surface to give a particulate signature. This “wave function collapse” mechanism is quite the brain teaser: does the wavicle spread out invisibly in the chamber as it diffracts and then somewhat mystically end up at a very localized endpoint? Why would many localized endpoints with no likeness to waves at all look like in phase and out of phase waves as they accumulate on the absorber screen? What exactly is going on?          

    This gets even trickier when a sensor is placed at one of the slits during the two slit experiment to detect the transmission of particles. Whether a photon, electron or larger molecule, the particle is detected 50% of the time, so there is an equal (and unpredictable) chance of it passing through either slit in any single trial. But when a sensor is present at one of the slits, this dissolves the interference pattern and the particles engender two narrow bands on the florescent screen, as if they were never a wave. This led researchers to propose a “decoherence” mechanism: diffuseness of the wavicle, according to this account, is easily disrupted by interaction with large collections of tightly knit atoms such as exist within the sensor or absorber screen. Particles supposedly assume a localized form that obeys principles of Newtonian mechanics as they jostle amongst themselves in vast quantities. Decoherence is attributed to sizable mass, and the double-slit experiment seems to set the size limit at an extremely microscopic level, around the scale of a couple thousand atoms. Anything bigger supposedly decoheres, failing to interfere with itself and bring forth the complementing interference pattern. But different experiments entangling trillions of atoms contradict this interpretation, where quantum coherence is unmistakably taking effect much more broadly. 

    The plot thickens, for an absorber theory of particle interactions invented by Richard Feynman and John Wheeler was adapted by John Cramer into a transactional interpretation of the double-slit experiment. It asserts that certain solutions to the equations of wave dynamics which have traditionally been ignored because they necessitate much more rapid motion than the speed of light are as physically real and causal as those of the conventional wave itself, giving rise to a linear interference mechanism along the wavicle’s path that participates in steering it to the absorber. This extremely swift, “advanced” wave would travel fast enough to exact its causality as if flowing backwards through time relative to the so-called “retarded” wave, which it interferes with in cocausation. 

    Actual experiments have not ironed out exactly what the real process consists in, but it seems suspect that a single particle interference at the slits brings about an interference pattern spanning the whole chamber, which only materializes from hundreds of trials that individually create point particle signatures. The verified fact that trillions of atoms can simultaneously engage in coherence also casts doubt, for wavicle entanglement clearly exceeds the mass constraints which seem to take effect in the double-slit experiment. And what precisely does interference between an advanced and retarded wave structurally entail? The relevant investigations remain to be carried out, but perhaps we can gain inspiration from the weather. By analogizing wavicle emission events to lightning bolts, which we solidly grasp from slow motion photography and video, can we describe the double-slit experiment? What role if any does electric charge play, and what can we infer if a lightning bolt mechanism proves to be the accurate explanation? 

    A Lightning Bolt Model of the Double-slit Experiment

    To start with, we can consider what a lightning bolt mechanism in the double-slit
    chamber would look like. Almost immediately after the first retarded wave is formed by an emission event’s electric charge, comparable to the stepped leader produced by a thunder cloud, the complementary advanced wave arrives, then the two interfere to adjust the direction of this initial retarded wave while it travels towards the absorber, while the retarded wave in the backward direction (towards the emitter) cancels out the original retarded wave.

    A further advanced wave instigated by this event dissipates into the emitter somehow and similarly interferes with a retarded wave eventually springing from the absorber, which resembles a return streamer, in a brief instant. The succession of retarded waves from emitter and absorber rapidly close the distance between them in a stairstepping sequence of zigzag motion caused by ricocheting interference with advanced waves, until contact is made and the quantum handshake occurs, a surge of charge briefly connecting the emitter and absorber directly, like a lightning bolt, in this case invisible.
    Whether transmission of the particle itself flows in coordination with subsequent current of smoother, faster motion in likeness to a dart leader is uncertain, but this can perhaps be analyzed by experiment.

    The double-slit instigates a symmetry in the chamber’s charge that makes the absorber’s charge-active sites comparably symmetrical, resulting in what looks like a precise interference pattern on the florescent screen despite the haphazard, seemingly randomized nature of each individual transmission “handshake” and its chance of passing through only one or more than one slit.

    The key point is that individual electrons do not bring about the characteristic fringe on the screen primarily by a lateral interference. The electrons follow a relatively linear path parameterized by charge distribution. The spookiest aspect of this process is that wavicle emission events would be perturbing their medium of electrically charged volume at variable rates and energy levels simultaneously, resulting in cocausation backwards and forwards through what is typically interpreted as spacetime.

    If this lightning bolt model is accurate, an inability to get the interference fringe from molecules larger than a couple thousand atoms does not imply an upper limit on capacity of the atoms composing molecules to be in a state of relatively macroscopic entanglement, as decoherence is not induced by architecture of the slits. Decoherence may occur minimally in this context, with the molecules squeezed or stretched in a longitudinal direction more than discomposed laterally.

    The upper size limit to molecules when generating what might have erroneously been called an "interference pattern" would instead be a result of the strength of electric charge in the double-slit chamber being insufficient to influence the path of each molecule such that a wavelike statistical distribution materializes on the absorber screen.

    The Significance if Electric Charge Effects Prove to Obtain

    What are the implications if possible entanglement between molecules is not constrained as much by their size or an extremely unusual composition (the two thousand atom double-slit experiment used oligo-tetraphenylporphyrins enriched with fluoroalkylsulfanyl chains) as the charge distributions they subsist in?

    With a large electric charge such as we find in the brain, a wide range of fairly massive molecules and molecular complexes might be able to entangle while avoiding decoherence. It may not only be possible to experimentally entangle trillions of separate atoms in a nonbiological context, but also for biochemical arrays of a million molecules of thousands of atoms each to entangle in a thousand different ways simultaneously given appropriately strong electrical charge conditions.

    Trillions of entanglement systems within entanglement systems and their additiveness (similar to combinatorial properties of the visible light spectrum), integrated by an electrical field substrate, probably reaches enough complexity to constitute the substance of qualia and qualitative experience as it exists within the brain.

    This charge distribution phenomenon can be likened to the thunderstorms during which clouds and the ground are positively charged with negatively charged atmosphere between them. Storms create charge peaks on numerous patches of ground that synchronize with electricity coming down from the sky, these prongs of current stairstepping towards each other until they connect and a surge of electricity is transmitted. All of this of course happens in a fraction of a second, undetectable to the naked eye.

    The hypothesis is that the double-slit experiment is similar, during which an emission event and the absorbing material give rise to clouds of charge, presumably separated by a cloud of opposite charge induced between them. The apparent "interference pattern" would then not be due to interference at all, but rather consequent on patches of charge that form a symmetrical pattern along the absorber surface because of the symmetry of the experimental setup. As the emission event proceeds, absorber charges rise towards the emitter, setting the statistical distribution of particle transmission. Electric charges loosely parameterize the motion of a "chosen one" absorption event and the emission event as they approach each other in stairstep, zigzag fashion and link, with an individual particle stretched linearly as it travels through one or multiple slits, flowing within the path of what resembles a microscopic lightning bolt and making contact with the screen in a seemingly random manner, at a particular point.

    In the brain, current flows through neurons as the relative positivity to negativity of charge alternates between internal and intermembrane space. This process is regulated by cyclical flow of ions into and out of the axon. Action potentials throughout the brain are happening trillions of times per second, so that the organ is like a highly organized electrical storm. These orderly periodicities of charge disequilibrium are presumably what generates brainwaves, and in line with the foregoing hypothesis would also provide the medium of nonlocality within which entanglement effects occur, similar to a thunderstorm and the double-slit experiment. This electrical charge nonlocality within the brain is strong and persistent enough that biomolecules within cells can entangle as described, far beyond the double-slit experiment's limits.

    Nonlocality of an electrically charged field may establish entanglement relationships between particles in a way that is infused into the matter itself but also supervenient on local positions. This supervenient integration that is intrinsic to matter while it consists in electric charge might engender “qualia” as additive entanglement amongst particles, and with sufficient complexity in emergent organization would beget qualitative perception.

    Essentially, charge distribution participates in piloting, synchronizing or blending particle interactions via entanglement within many circumstances, and this can show up in standard quantum mechanics as statistical probability.

    In this account, the wavicle doesn't fill the double-slit chamber as if transmitted like aether and then engage in a radically disjuncted collapse mechanism, or else why would the phenomenon not be easily observed with particles under all naturally occurring conditions, a reality of total superposition? In this model, holism of charge distribution within matter is the entanglement mechanism instead of a phenomenon of particle position or state and the accompanying paradoxes of action at a distance.
    Maybe compromise between the wave and particle models is possible that sustains realism in relation to the double-slit context, a wavicle which can stretch, elongate, flow in a particular direction with some likeness to a liquid or gas depending on globally active factors, in this case electric charge distribution.

    A Tentative Hypothesis About the Nature of Wave/Particle Interactions

    Then what is an advanced wave? Let’s start with the more intuitive facet of transmission, the retarded wave: it seems to be a flash of electrically charged current between the emitter and absorber that morphs the wavicle’s shape somehow via charge dynamics and within which the wavicle flows as a high energy cluster of matter, tightly knit enough to avoid being substantially absorbed by the environment as it travels to the florescent screen, and pliant enough to squeeze through the slit or slits.

    If we were to launch a baseball at the screen by contrast, it would slow slightly due to macroatomic friction in the chamber and bounce off the slits rather than transmit through them because relatively massive size induces large enough decoherence effects and charge cancellation amongst its tangle of constituent particles that it cannot squeeze through nor respond to electromagnetic effects which pervade the subatomic scale, instead obeying classical laws of Newtonian motion.

    Electromagnetic radiation near the visible portion of the spectrum is a sweet spot in relationship to Earthlike molecules, constantly being emitted at relatively high intensities that saturate the environment. However, it is absorbed in large amounts as well, which amongst the double-slit context and most Earthbound situations reduces average intensity over any given range of space such that negligible impact is had on outcomes. Moderately sized radio waves with their longer wavelengths could travel ever so slightly faster, but exist at such low intensities within the double-slit context that they are quickly absorbed by molecules and also have negligible effect.

    Extremely long wavelengths may also be generated at very low intensities by the highly energetic emission/absorption event, but could move so rapidly that they skirt much interaction with molecules, reaching the opposite apparatus with their intensity almost undiminished. This might be enough to create advanced waves that ping pong between retarded waves and participate in steering their mostly linear motion.

    The hypothesis is that the double-slit experiment involves something like two energy peaks, one at the low speed, high but relatively localized intensity, low absorption, particlelike portion of the spectrum, and one at the extremely high speed, very low intensity, extremely low absorption, long-range wave end of the spectrum, separated by a sizable gap of moderate speed, intensity and absorption that proves negligible. Earth’s molecular structure may cancel out everything but the very lowest and highest speeds in matter, so that far ends of the spectrum, particles and very long wavelengths, can interfere if conditions are conducive, and the highly sensitive double-slit experiment with its minuscule lightning bolt of current containing a tiny, relatively isolated wavicle might be such a context.

    To conclude, electric charge properties within the double-slit chamber during the emission event have perhaps not been thoroughly examined, but if this factor does play a role in determining the behavior of particles involved, it could have significant ramifications for our comprehension of how naturally occurring phenomena such as brain function operate.


    Do you find this framework for understanding quantum processes convincing?
  • Gary Enfield
    143
    In short - no I don't find it convincing. It may be that I missed some point in your very complex post, but the gist seems to again be playing to some of the standard misconceptions.

    A lot of the ridiculous theorising (eg. wave - particle duality) is formulated to preserve certain principles over others, when there is no basis for choosing one over another. The whole principle of wave particle duality breaks every other thing that we know about matter/energy. So why are physicists so keen to embrace this nonsense?

    To my mind it is there to simply preserve the philosophy that there is only one type of stuff that underpins existence, even when various experiments now show that this is ever-more unlikely.

    Yes - it has been well known for some time that some of the permutations of the double slit experiment (eg. quantum eraser experiments), have led to bizarre findings - but they are only bizarre in the context of the assumptions that rule out other considerations.

    Why do we have go into such bizarre territory as wave-particle duality when there is an obvious possibility that would explain everything we know in standard ways, instead of contradicting everything we know?

    As Finipolscie said, all normal descriptions of 'a wave' occur when an object (eg particle) travels through a pool of other stuff.... like a train through air, or a ship through water. It is the air and the water which produced the wave... not the train or the boat, which never transform into a wave. Yet wave-particle duality is effectively saying that it is the train or boat which miraculously transforms into a wave and back again for no apparent reason - yet with perfect timing and co-ordination. It's nonsense.

    But if you follow the logic of undisputed reality - if another hidden pool of stuff/energy is present, and a particle passing through this stuff creates & rides the waves in this hidden pool, then all results from all experiments are easily explained.

    Yet scientists won't go there, because they are not prepared to accept the possibility of a 2nd type of stuff underpinning reality. They even prefer the absurdity of wave particle duality rather than admit that simple option!

    By refusing to budge from established theory, scientists are falling into the same trap as as religious zealots - denying new evidence to preserve the false gods of the past while trying to smear and destroy those who dare to suggest anything else.

    For this reason, it was refreshing to hear from CERN this week, that they may grudgingly have to admit that another previously unknown force may exist in nature. This may fit in with the long term concerns about our inability to detect something that should be everywhere - and in profusion - Dark Energy.

    Perhaps now some basic common sense may re-assert itself and some of these observations may start pointing us towards a more simple and believable possibility. There are other basic factors underpinning existence than the official models currently acknowledge.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    For this reason, it was refreshing to hear from CERN this week, that they may grudgingly have to admit that another previously unknown force may exist in nature. This may fit in with the long term concerns about our inability to detect something that should be everywhere - and in profusion - Dark Energy.Gary Enfield

    So, what's this new information?
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    As I said - CERN believes that it has uncovered proof of a new (5th ) force in nature.
    I first heard about it on the BBC - but here's another article from a quick search of the web.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/evidence-emerges-of-brand-new-force-of-nature-at-cern-1.5360051

    Many of the scientific results that appear to break known scientific principles could easily be explained by missing factors such as a different type of stuff that underpins existence and any associated force which it might exert. Here we have evidence for the existence of the force.
  • Enrique
    842
    Here we have evidence for the existence of the force.Gary Enfield

    May the force be with you lol
  • Gary Enfield
    143

    Hi Enrique

    May the force be with you too!

    I have tried to re-read your initial post, and to some degree, I think you're suggesting that the electrical charge may indeed represent a different type of stuff that generates the interference - the sea or air in the examples I gave.

    Am I right about what you're saying? I did find the post quite difficult to follow in terms of emphasis.

    However, you have various things to explain. Why wouldn't this lightning mechanism produce the interference pattern when there is only one slit open. How do you get a build up of the interference patterns when single photons or electrons are fired? How would this work in the context of the Quantum Eraser experiments?

    The big things that led me to agree with Finipolscie's logic are
    1 - the width of the interference pattern - which goes well beyond the width of the two slits (when open).
    2 - that wave particle duality requires the particle collapse to perfectly occur in one place, not many, to match the results of the single particle firings.
  • Enrique
    842


    The idea is that electric charge permeates the entire double-slit chamber when all slits are open, but only for fractions of a second, due to activation of the emission apparatus. The shape of charge distribution depends on the position of the slits, which mediate the interaction between the like-charged emitter and absorber surface that have oppositely charged space between them.

    The hypothesis is that if the slits are symmetrical, charge-activated absorber sites will be likewise symmetrical and establish a symmetrical statistical distribution looking as if it is an interference pattern, even though each individual emission event is somewhat haphazard, like a lightning bolt. So in the one at a time wavicle experiment, each individual trial seems random and particularized, but hundreds of trials produce an emergent pattern on the absorber screen from the slightly greater chance of a wavicle ending up within a certain range of locations as a result of electromagnetic attraction.

    If one of the double slits is closed, the charge distribution and nature of the lightning bolt current must be drastically affected such that a florescent band appears behind the open slit rather than a partial interference fringe. Why exactly I'm not sure, but it could be investigated by experiment if my hypothesis of electric charge influence proves accurate.

    The quantum eraser experiment seems to me an examination of measurement effects and proof of entanglement, but doesn't have significance for why the double-slit chamber produces what looks like an interference fringe in the first place, so doesn't apply to the problem we are discussing.

    In this model, wave/particle duality is replaced by wavicle-charge-current interactiveness.
  • ernest meyer
    100

    Hi ) Physicists certainly enjoy trying to construct unified theories to explain observed phenomena, and there's nothing wrong with doing so in the philosophy of science. But from a metaphysical perspective there really is no requirement that reality should behave in a way that is rationally explicable by any single model, so being Popperian, to me it's quite reasonable to say light behaves like a particle in some cases and like a wave in others. That is to say, trying to construct a particle-theory explanation is unnecessary, and when the required theory reaches a certain level of complexity, counterproductive, but it' still great fun ) It should be mentioned though, the need to define models which for example 'explain light as a particle or a wave because it can't be both' has led to awfully misguided debates on some topics, as for example natural selection as a disproof of the necessity of a Creator. take care.
  • Enrique
    842
    I did find the post quite difficult to follow in terms of emphasis.Gary Enfield

    A medley of multiple posts I had already made at this site, so not organized in a seamless linear argument, and much of the material is very spatial, requiring the reader to spend some effort envisioning the image I have in mind, so I'm not that surprised. To really get it I think the reader has to pause at points and give the thought experimentation some deep contemplating. I've also been known to make minor errors on occasion, hopefully that's not what threw you.
  • Enrique
    842
    It should be mentioned though, the need to define models which for example 'explain light as a particle or a wave because it can't be both' has led to awfully misguided debatesernest meyer

    I would say that light isn't either a particle or a wave, but a wavicle which adopts the form of a true wave when traveling through many mediums and is more locally a tangle of distinct energy packets. So wave/particle duality depends on the context and is not the essence. But I think we can get close to the essence with theory in this case.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    I would say that light isn't either a particle or a waveEnrique

    'Particles', as temporary excitations of the permanent underlying quantum fields, go through both slits because, well, as hinted, they are field quanta at heart.
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    So, what's this new information?Metaphysician Undercover

    2 + 2 = 4.

    In other science news, the muons are misbehaving. It could be a very big deal, indicating a new force of nature. Additional confirmation is required.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/science/particle-physics-muon-fermilab-brookhaven.html
  • Enrique
    842
    'Particles', as temporary excitations of the permanent underlying quantum fields, go through both slits because, well, as hinted, they are field quanta at heart.PoeticUniverse

    Your mission if you choose to accept it: explain skipping a stone to me as temporary excitations of the permanent underlying quantum fields.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    A medley of multiple posts I had already made at this site, so not organized in a seamless linear argument, and much of the material is very spatial, requiring the reader to spend some effort envisioning the image I have in mind, so I'm not that surprised. To really get it I think the reader has to pause at points and give the thought experimentation some deep contemplating.Enrique

    I've been following this thread, but I confess I do appreciate the dumbing-down and the visuals associated with what one wag on this forum called "pop physics." I assume he was referring to "Science" or "Nature" or Neil, or Carl, or Steven, et al. But I do appreciate the challenge of trying to figure our what you are saying based solely on the King's English. Carry on.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    Your mission if you choose to accept it: explain skipping a stone to me as temporary excitations of the permanent underlying quantum fields.Enrique

    Particles can be long-lasting as excitations due to their unit strength/charge as energy quanta…and from there we know the rest of the story.
  • Enrique
    842
    Particles can be long-lasting as excitations due to their unit strength/charge as energy quanta…and from there we know the rest of the story.PoeticUniverse

    Big crunch or big freeze...oh well, it was a world while it lasted.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    Oh no! The muon is a fiction and now the whole Standard Model is fucked. Oh well, I'm sure the physicists can apply the appropriate mathematical smoke and mirrors to make it all work out just fine.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    oh well, it was a world while it lasted.Enrique

    When You and I behind the cloak are past
    But the long while the next universe shall last,
    Which of one’s approach and departure it grasps
    As might the sea’s self heed a pebble cast.

    Or a stone skipped across a pond…
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    Oh no! The muon is a fiction and now the whole Standard Model is fucked. Oh well, I'm sure the physicists can apply the appropriate mathematical smoke and mirrors to make it all work out just fine.Metaphysician Undercover

    I understand this remark even less than I do your claim that 2 + 2 and 4 don't represent the same mathematical object. Do you object to the entire process of science? Would you put the earth at the center of the universe in denial of subsequent discoveries? Congratulations, you've outdone yourself.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    Doesn't the evidence of the cosmological background radiation put the earth at the center of the universe?
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Hi Enrique

    I think a basic problem with your idea is that the first experiments were conducted with light, and therefore an electric field wouldn't apply. I can't help believing that whatever mechanism applies - it would apply to both mediums equally.

    I'm not sure what sort of field 'light beams/photons' could generate, but the idea that I ran with (above) - poached from Finiposcie, was of a wave being generated in a hidden pool of other stuff. The photon or electron particles would therefore ride the troughs of the wave without having to change from particle to wave themselves (which seems a nonsense to me anyway).

    If you substitute waves in a field, for waves in a pool of 'other stuff' - there may be some merit in it.

    The Quantum Eraser Experiments weren't just about entanglement, although they used paired particles.
    They were trying to demonstrate whether the same split particle of light would produce different effects under similar conditions. The patterns achieved were significant in ruling out certain possible explanations.
  • Enrique
    842
    I think a basic problem with your idea is that the first experiments were conducted with light, and therefore an electric field wouldn't apply. I can't help believing that whatever mechanism applies - it would apply to both mediums equally.Gary Enfield

    How are you so sure that an electromagnetic field generated in the double-slit chamber by the electronic emission device wouldn't affect electromagnetic radiation in addition to particles with their electric charges?
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    Doesn't the evidence of the cosmological background radiation put the earth at the center of the universe?Metaphysician Undercover

    You're off on some strange tangent. Someone alluded to a recent discovery in physics. You asked what it was. I gave you a link to a New York Times article on the subject. Your next post was bizarre and off the wall. I know you think you're making a point, but you're not.

    However you did ask a very good technical question, namely whether the CMB is a preferred frame of reference, contradicting special relativity. I googled around and found this interesting page. I'm not a physics expert so I can't really comment, but you'll find some good pointers and clues here.

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/25928/is-the-cmb-rest-frame-special-where-does-it-come-from

    Here is the relevant passage from https://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/faq_basic.html

    How come we can tell what motion we have with respect to the CMB?

    Doesn't this mean there's an absolute frame of reference?

    The theory of special relativity is based on the principle that there are no preferred reference frames. In other words, the whole of Einstein's theory rests on the assumption that physics works the same irrespective of what speed and direction you have. So the fact that there is a frame of reference in which there is no motion through the CMB would appear to violate special relativity!

    However, the crucial assumption of Einstein's theory is not that there are no special frames, but that there are no special frames where the laws of physics are different. There clearly is a frame where the CMB is at rest, and so this is, in some sense, the rest frame of the Universe. But for doing any physics experiment, any other frame is as good as this one. So the only difference is that in the CMB rest frame you measure no velocity with respect to the CMB photons, but that does not imply any fundamental difference in the laws of physics.

    I am not personally sure of why we appear to be at the center of it, or if an observer in a distant galaxy would also see themselves at the center.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    You're off on some strange tangent. Someone alluded to a recent discovery in physics. You asked what it was. I gave you a link to a New York Times article on the subject. Your next post was bizarre and off the wall. I know you think you're making a point, but you're not.fishfry

    You asked me "Would you put the earth at the center of the universe in denial of subsequent discoveries?". I only wanted to show you that, "subsequent discoveries" indicate that the evidence points toward the earth being at the center of the universe. So as much as you are having difficulty understanding what I am saying, this is due to the confused nature of your questioning.

    We can go back to what I said before that if you want. You referred me to an article which said that the muon doesn't behave as it is supposed to, and this calls into question the validity of the Standard Model. I said, this is no problem because they'll just dream up some mathematical principles to account for these exceptions. That's what they do, it's evident with dark energy, dark matter, etc.. When anomalies appear, instead of questioning the underlying theories which produce the anomalies in application, they dream up some principles which account for them.

    I am not personally sure of why we appear to be at the center of it, or if an observer in a distant galaxy would also see themselves at the center.fishfry

    We appear to be at the center, because this is a map of the expanding universe. If the substratum of the universe, space-time itself, is expanding, then it must expand from every point. The result is that any point becomes the center point, when mapped in this way.

    The overall point of my somewhat random replies, is that until we get an understanding of what spatial expansion actually is, there's no point to thinking that any of the models which physicists or cosmologists come up with are correct models.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    We appear to be at the center, because this is a map of the expanding universe. If the substratum of the universe, space-time itself, is expanding, then it must expand from every point. The result is that any point becomes the center point, when mapped in this way.Metaphysician Undercover

    I alluded to that at some point on this forum. I tried to account for the possibility that I am at the center of this expanding universe while it is itself expanding away from fewer than infinite others, which would then allow for me to not be at the center. I also tried to account for the possibility that I'm not at the center of this expanding universe because different parts are expanding at different rates. That would allow me to not be at the center of this one. But I don't recall anyone schooling me on that. It seems to be the most probable, but then there would have to be a forward and a backward if the different rates had anything to do with deceleration. If some other force is at play to cause the different rates, then I guess I might not be at the center so long as there was an equally spaced, equal number of parts speeding away at their various rates. But it does seem that whenever something doesn't fall in line with the way someone says it should, they just pull something out of their ass to explain it, without proving what that thing is. So, when some troglodyte like me wanders by and says "Hey, maybe dark matter is the past, or dark energy is the future, and time, like energy and matter, can convert too" then has slapped on the back of the head, ignored or laughed at. The wizards like to use numbers and symbols (other than the alphabet put together in words and sentences that dummies like me can read) like a clique to keep others out. I too understand the need for shorthand, and a desire to work on the problem instead of explaining it to the masses, but I also stay in my lab and talk to my peers when I do so, and don't venture into the public, spreading my shit without expecting some questions.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    If some other force is at play to cause the different rates, then I guess I might not be at the center so long as there was an equally spaced, equal number of parts speeding away at their various rates.James Riley

    I would say the evidence suggests that gravity is the other force which is at play here, causing different rates of expansion. But gravity and expansion might actually just be two aspects of, or two ways that we approach, the very same thing.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    I would say the evidence suggests that gravity is the other force which is at play here, causing different rates of expansion. But gravity and expansion might actually just be two aspects of, or two ways that we approach, the very same thing.Metaphysician Undercover

    That makes sense to me. It was my understanding though, that space only grow between those aspects of non-space that are so far apart that gravity no longer influences them? I don't know if that is a cluster, or super cluster or what, but space is not increasing the distance between us and the earth, earth from sun, sun from galaxy etc.
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    there's no point to thinking that any of the models which physicists or cosmologists come up with are correct models.Metaphysician Undercover

    Are you under the impression that this is a unique or deep insight? That's the sense I get. That you think everyone else doesn't already know this. Your sneering response to the possible discovery of a new force of nature struck me as childish. Especially in response to my simply giving you an NYT link that answered the question you asked.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    That makes sense to me. It was my understanding though, that space only grow between those aspects of non-space that are so far apart that gravity no longer influences them? I don't know if that is a cluster, or super cluster or what, but space is not increasing the distance between us and the earth, earth from sun, sun from galaxy etc.James Riley

    Imagine that wherever there are massive objects, spatial expansion is slowed, and the result is what we observe as gravity.


    Thanks for the link fishfry, I do appreciate it. If I had a bad attitude at the time, it was probably because you started the post with "2+2=4".
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    Thanks for the link fishfry, I do appreciate it. If I had a bad attitude at the time, it was probably because you started the post with "2+2=4".Metaphysician Undercover

    I confess you're absolutely right. That was a bit of cheap bait.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    That was a bit of cheap bait.fishfry

    Indeed, but it calls to mind a digression:

    The first time I argued with a philosophy professor some 40 years ago, after he taught us to trace all premises back to a point of agreement before moving forward, he posited that very equation of 2+2=4. I asked "Two what plus two what; and what do you mean by 'plus' and what do you mean by 'equal.' After all, two people plus two people could equal five people if one couple had a single child. Likewise two drops of water plus two drops of water could equal one drop of water." He agreed and took a step back to set definitions. That was my first exposure to the "gentlemen's agreement" which subsequently fell apart on the burden of proof. LOL! We had fun but I think there was another kid in the room, looking for a grade, who hated digressions. Carry on.
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