#33. Big-electron Theory [physics]

PH

Red, theory; black, fact.

Some of the paradoxes and weirdness of quantum mechanics can be dispelled if we assume that any particle that can be diffracted isn't really there: we are only looking at the center of spherical symmetry of a much larger, possibly cosmologically large, wave function. Furthermore, this center of symmetry is only an abstraction, like the north pole of the Earth. Like the fields that we impute to them, quantum particles would have a wave function amplitude that decreases asymptotically to zero with distance from the center, and thus would have no well defined outer boundary. I shall denote this lack of an outer boundary by calling particles or wave functions "expansive."

Elementary particles seem submicroscopic in size because the wavelength of the corresponding wave functions is often submicroscopic, which imposes a requirement for the centers of symmetry of two such "particles" to coincide with very great precision before an interaction can be observed. This would be the case if the default interaction were characterized by destructive interference almost everywhere, which only switches over into constructive interference when the centers nearly coincide. An assumption needed for further development of this theory is that interaction is contingent on the development of expansive constructive interference. (In this post, I confine my attention to scattering-type interactions.)

The common presence of  accelerations in our universe combined with a finite speed of light might suggest that expansive wave functions would quickly fill up with incoherence, destroying their usefulness as explanatory causes. However, if there are no non-expansive elementary particles, we just have expansive interacting with expansive to produce every acceleration. Once you get entirely away from the tiny-electron idea, it is not at all clear that any incoherence could ever develop. Such may well occur to a limited extent under some conditions, however, but it may take more detailed mathematical treatments than I am prepared to carry out to characterize these conditions. One naturally suspects that Relativity theory is based on such limited incoherencies.

Two baffling kinds of experiment seem amenable to the big-electron treatment: diffraction of "particles" of matter like electrons, and entanglement experiments.

Electrons fired in a vacuum at a pair of closely-spaced slits, with a photographic plate situated on the other side of the slits, will produce a diffraction pattern on the developed plate consisting of alternating exposed and unexposed bands. These are interpreted as locations of constructive and destructive interference between "matter waves" emanating from the two slits under the stimulation of the electron beam. If the intensity of the beam is lowered to the point where only one electron is "in the chamber" at a time, thereby eliminating the possibility of inter-electron interactions inside the chamber, the diffraction pattern develops just as before. It merely takes longer. Now here's the weird part: all this could happen only if each electron goes through both slits at once! This is truly weird if we try to use the traditional tiny-electron picture, but much easier to visualize using the big-electron picture.

Entanglement of two particles that persists over distances measured in kilometers is also easier to understand if we remember that the experimental apparatus is itself made up of expansive wave functions and is therefore mostly overlapped with the two particles being studied throughout the experiment.

If all this is true, we live in a vast web of inter-validating illusions called the particle model.

#31. The Russian-dolls--multiverse Part II [physics]

PH
Red, theory; black, fact.

6-05-2017

Forget what I wrote last post about "thin dimensions"; leptons arise as electromagnetic wave functions originating in p2 that are transported into our p3 universe/condensate by ordinary diffusion and convection. Wave functions in p2 that are already leptons become our baryons when they are transported in. The only kind of wave functions that are "native" to a given frame of reference are electromagnetic (photonic) in that frame of reference. If they subsequently propagate towards increasing p (inwards) they gain mass as matter; if they propagate towards decreasing p (outwards), they first lose mass as matter until they are photonic (i.e., massless) and then gain mass as antimatter.

6-20-2017

This scenario gives rise to previously unconsidered solutions to outstanding problems in cosmology. For example, dark matter could be just excess electrons that lack protons with which to bind. You would have to argue that we don't see them because they would collectively appear as a potential that is smooth on all but galactic scales, and it is only variations in potential, aka electric fields, that cause scattering of probe particles. Such variations would be common only in neutral matter.

6-05-2017

To produce stable leptons from in-migrating photons, the first condensates, the p2s, would have had to be rotating simultaneously about three mutually perpendicular axes, by the assumptions of two posts ago. If this is impossible for p3 physics, we have to appeal to the possibility of a different physics in p1 for any of these ideas to make sense.

A "universe" is something like an artist's canvas with a painting in progress on it. First, nature makes the blank canvas, and then, in a second stage, puts the information content on it. Consider the moon. It formed out of orbiting molten spray from the collision of two similarly-sized planetesimals. In the molten state, its self-gravity could easily round it up into a perfect sphere which could have solidified with a mostly smooth surface. Call this smooth surface the "canvas." Subsequently, the very same force of gravity would have brought down meteors to cover the surface in an elaborate pattern of craters. Call this the "painting." 

Now consider the neutronium core of a neutron star, viewed as a p4, or small universe. The tremendous energy release of the catastrophic gravitational collapse in which it forms homogenizes all the matter into pure neutrons, thought to be a superfluid. This creates the "canvas." Subsequently, matter and energy from our p3 migrate into the super fluid without enough energy release to homogenize them, producing a "painting" of leptons (our photons), baryons (our leptons), and "uberbaryons" (our baryons). Indeed, the neutron-star core is actually thought to be not pure neutronium, but neutronium containing a sprinkling of free protons and electrons (as seen in p3, of course).

#30. The Russian-dolls--multiverse Part I [physics]

Matryoshka/pupa

PH

Red, theory; black, fact.

The nucleus around which a TOE will hopefully crystallize.

6-03-2017

I usually assume in these pages that the space we live in has an absolute frame of reference, as Newton taught, and which Einstein taught against. Not only that, but that this frame of reference is a condensate of some sort, rather like the water that a fish swims in.

I also assume that the divide-and-conquer strategy that has served science so well thus far can blithely continue with the (conceptual) dis assembly of this space into its constituent particles. At that point the question arises if these particles are situated in yet another space, older and larger than ours, or if you go direct to spacelessness, where entities have to be treated like Platonic forms. In the former case, one wonders if that older, larger space in turn comes apart into particles situated in a still older and larger, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

I am told that infinities are the death of theories. Nevertheless, let us hold our noses and continue with the Russian Dolls idea, merely assuming that the nesting sequence is not infinite and will not be infinite until the entire multi verse is infinitely old, because the "dolls" form one by one, by ordinary gravitational collapse, from the outside in.

What, exactly, is it that collapses? Call them wave functions, following quantum mechanics. In the previous post, we see that wave functions are slightly particle-like in having a centre of symmetry. In the outermost space, previously called #, the wave crests always move at exactly the speed of light.

7-14-2017

This speed is not necessarily our speed of light, c, but more likely some vastly greater value.

6-03-2017

The space-forming particles of # are themselves aggregates with enough internal entropy to represent integers and enough secondary valences to form links to a set of nearest neighbors to produce a network that is a space. This space acts like a cellular automaton, with signals passing over the links to change the values of the stored integers in some orderly way. The wave functions are the stereotyped, stable figures that spontaneously develop in the automaton out of the initial noise mass left over from catastrophic gravitational collapse, or some abstract, spaceless equivalent. 

Gravity would enter as a geometric effect; impossible at 1D, poorly developed at 2D, commonplace but commonly stalled at extended systems in 3D, and irresistible at 4D and higher (The latter conclusion is based on an anthropic argument in "The Universe in a Nutshell", by Steven Hawking). 

Finally, assume that the dimensionality of a space increases steadily over time, suggesting that the number of links emanating from each node in the underlying network increases slowly but surely. Macroscopically, this dimensionality increase could look something like protein folding. This does not yet explain gravity, a task for another day&&, but static nonlinearities in the automaton's representation system may be involved.*

To facilitate discussion, let us label the Russian-dolls universes from the outside in, in the sequence 1, 2, 3,...etc, and call this number the "pupacity" of a given frame of reference. (From the Latin "pupa," meaning "doll.") Let us further shorten "pupacity" to "p" for symbol-compounding purposes. Thus, the consecutively labelled spaces can be referred to as p1 (our former "#"), p2, p3,... etc.

A final, absolutely crucial assumption is that pn can exhibit global motions ("n" is some arbitrary pupacity), such as rotation, in the frame of reference of p(n-1). Yes, we are talking here about a whole, damned universe rotating as a rigid unit. Probably, it can drift and vibrate as well.

Now, by the assumptions of the previous post, these global motions must be subtracted from the true, outer, speed-of-light speed of the wave crest to produce its apparent speed and direction when seen from within pn. Thus, the universe's love of spinning and orbiting systems of all sizes is explained: a spinning, global-motion vector is being subtracted from the non-spinning, outermost one. As the0-pupacity of our frame of reference increases, more and more of these global vectors are being subtracted, causing the residual apparent motion to get progressively smaller. We would assume under current physics that the wave functions are acquiring more and more mass, to make them go slower and slower, but mass is just a fiction in the scenario presented above. However, the reliance of current physics on the mass construct is a golden opportunity to determine the pupacity of planet Earth.

It is three.

Three, because physics knows of three broad categories of particle mass: the photon, leptons, and baryons. The photon would be native to p1, leptons, such as electrons and positrons, would be native to p2, and baryons, such as protons and neutrons, would be native to p3, our own, dear home in the heavens. 

01-09-2019: it is an interesting coincidence that our pupacity equals the dimensionality of our space. Are dimensionality and pupacity linked during cosmological evolution?&&

6-03-2017

Some interpretations follow. The positron atom would be a standing-wave pattern made up of oppositely rotating wave functions, an electron and a positron, both native to p2. A neutron would be exactly the same thing, but native to p3. Note that both are unstable in isolation.

How is it that we observers in p3 can even detect electrons, say, if those are not native to p3? Because p2 is necessarily older than p3 and has had more time to develop extra dimensions. This will give p3 thin dimensions when seen in the frame of reference of p2, and it is along these thin dimensions that the electrons of p2 approach our own, native protons closely enough to participate in our p3 physics.

Neutron stars would be p4, but I haven't figured out black holes. Just big p4s?

*6-05-2017

or an amplitude-speed coupling.

#21. Is Higher Math Really Undiscovered Physics? [physics]

PH

Red, theory; black, fact.

This post was inspired by the realization that to progress in physics, we need to accept the Newtonian position that absolute space exists. Not only that, but that it is complicated, like a network, crystal, or condensate. Too many fundamental constants of nature (20, according to Lee Smolin) are required to explain the behaviour of supposedly elementary particles with no internal structures to which such constants could refer.

Thus, the constants must refer to the vacuum between the particles, now more readily understood as a complex medium. Looking at the pattern set by the rest of physics and cosmology, such a medium is more readily understood as a condensate of myriad "space-forming entities." Matter would be flaws in this condensate, entropy left over from its rapid formation. Energy may have the same relation to time: irregularities in its rate of progression.

To theorize about how space formed and what came before it, we have to give up visualization, obviously. I suspect this will be a big deal for most physicists. However, the abstractions of higher math may be an island of understanding already existing on the far side of the spatial thought barrier.

In other words, sets, integers, categories, mappings, etc., may be concrete things, and not abstractions at all. Presumably, our spatial and temporal reality still bears the properties it had from the very earliest stages of the universe, co-existing with later-developed properties, which have enabled mathematicians throughout history to access the deepest levels of description of reality, deeper than space time itself.

Consider set theory. Can the familiar concepts of set, union, intersection, and complement be placed into correspondence with physical processes and objects in today's space time to make a case that set theory is pre-spatial physics, so primordial as to be literally unimaginable if thought of as the rules of a real universe? To get started, we have to begin with Leibniz's monads, the "empty set," now considered a real thing. (If you must visualize these, visualize something ridiculous like Cheereos™ floating in milk, when the bowl has reached the single-layer stage.)

The physical process of binding is prefigured by the set-theoretical operation of union. In the simplest case, two monads combine to form a second-order set.

The physical process of pattern recognition, which is, in essence, energy release, is prefigured by intersection. Note that with intersection, the internal subset structure of the set is important, suggesting that the "operating system" of the universe at this stage must keep track of such structures.

We can associate a size measure with a set, namely the total of all the monads inside it once all subsets have been accounted for. The usefulness of numbers in dealing with the world is explained if this size measure is the basis of laws governing what sets may combine as unions and in what frequency (i.e., fraction of all sets extant.)

The fact that most of physics seems to be governed by differential equations may be prefigured by a tendency of these combining laws to depend on the difference of two sizes. The set-theoretical operation of complementation may prefigure the existence of positive and negative charge and the Pauli exclusion principle of fermions, on which molecular complementarity interactions depend.

#20. The Two-clock Universe [physics]

PH

Red, theory; black, fact.

The arrow of time is thought to be thermodynamic in origin, namely the direction in which entropy (disorder of an isolated system) increases. Entropy is one of the two main extensive variables of thermodynamics, the other being volume. I would like to propose that since we live in an expanding universe, the direction of cosmological volume increase makes sense as a second arrow of time; it's just not our arrow of time.

One of the outstanding problems of cosmology is the nature of dark energy, thought to be responsible for the recently discovered acceleration of the Hubble expansion. Another problem is the nature of the inflationary era that occurred just after the Big Bang (BB), introduced to explain why the distribution of matter in the universe is smoother than predicted by the original version of the BB.

Suppose that the entropy of the universe slowly oscillates between a maximal value and a minimal value, like a mass oscillating up and down on the end of a spring, whereas the volume of the universe always smoothly increases. Thus, entropy would trace out a sinusoidal wave when plotted against volume.

If the speed of light is only constant against the entropic clock, then the cosmological acceleration is explainable as an illusion due to the slowing of the entropic increase that occurs when nearing the top of the entropy oscillation, just before it reverses and starts down again. The cosmological volume increase will look faster when measured by a slower clock.

The immensely rapid cosmological expansion imputed to the inflationary era would originate analogously, as an illusion caused by the slowness of the entropy oscillation when it is near the bottom of its cycle, just after having started upward again.

These ideas imply that entropy at the cosmological scale has properties analogous to those of a mass-and-spring system, namely inertia (ability to store energy in movement) and stiffness (ability to store energy in fields). The only place it could get these properties appears to be from the subatomic particles of the universe and their fields. Thus, there has to be a hidden network of relationships among all the particles in the universe to create and maintain this correspondence. Is this the meaning of quantum-mechanical entanglement and quantum-mechanical conservation of information? However, if the universe is closed, properties of the whole universe, such as a long circumnavigation time at the speed of light, could produce the bounce.

These ideas also imply the apocalyptic conclusion that all structures in the present universe will be disassembled in the next half-period of the entropy oscillation. The detailed mechanism of this may be an endothermic, resonant absorption of infrared and microwave photons that have circumnavigated a closed universe and returned to their starting point. Enormous amounts of phase information would have to be preserved in intergalactic space for billions of years to make this happen, and here is where I depend heavily on quantum mechanical results. I have not figured out how to factor in the redshift due to volume expansion.&&

#4. My First Theory of Everything (TOE) [physics]

PH

Red, theory; black, fact.

Alocia and Anaevia

In my first post, I made a case for the existence of absolute space and even suggested that space is some kind of condensate (e.g., a crystal). The divide-and-conquer strategy that has served us so well in science suggests that the next step is to conceptually take this condensate apart into particles. The first question that arises is whether these particles are themselves situated in an older, larger embedding space, or come directly out of spacelessness (i.e., a strange, hypothetical early universe that I call "Alocia," my best Latin for "domain of no space." Going even further back, there would have been "Anaevia," "domain of no time." Reasoning without time seems even trickier than reasoning without space.)

What came before space?

The expansion of our universe suggests that the original, catastrophic condensation event, the Big Bang, was followed by further, slower accretion that continues to this day. However, the resulting expansion of space is uniform throughout its volume, which would be impossible if the incoming particles had to obey the rules of some pre-existing space. If there were a pre-existing space, incoming particles could only add to the exterior surface of the huge condensate in which we all presumably live, and could never access the interior unless our universe were not only embedded in a 4-space, but hyper-pizza-shaped as well. The latter is unlikely because self-attraction of the constituent particles would crumple any hyper-pizza-shaped universe into a hypersphere in short order. (Unless it spins?) Conclusion: the particles making up space probably have no spatial properties themselves, and bind together in a purely informational sense, governed by Hebb's rule. 

Hebb's rule was originally a neuroscience idea about how learning happens in the brain. My use of it here does NOT imply that a giant brain somehow underlies space. Rather, the evolutionary process that led to the human brain re-invented Hebb's rule as the most efficient way of acquiring spatial information. 

Hebb's rule pertains to signal sources: how could hypothetical space-forming particles come up with the endless supply of energy required by pumping out white noise, waves, etc., 24/7? Answer: these "particles" are the growing tips of time lines, that themselves grow by an energy-releasing accretion process. The chunks that accrete are variable in size or interrupted by voids, so timeline extension has entropy associated with it that represents the signals needed by Hebb's rule.

I am well aware of all the space-bound terms in the previous paragraph (underlined), supposedly about goings-on in Alocia, the domain of no space; however, I am using models here as an aid to thought, a time-honored scientific technique.

Is cosmological expansion some kind of accretion?

I imagine that Alocia is home to large numbers of space-like condensates, with a size distribution favoring the microscopic, but with a long tail extending toward larger sizes. Our space grows because these mostly tiny pre-fab spaces are continually inserting themselves into it, as soon as their background signal pattern matches ours somewhere. This insertion process is probably more exothermic than any other process in existence. If the merging space happens to be one of the rarer, larger ones, the result would be a gamma ray burst bright enough to be observed at cosmological distances and generating enough pure energy to materialize all the cosmic rays we observe.

The boundary problem

I suspect that matter is annihilated when it reaches the edge of a space. This suggests that our space must be mostly closed to have accumulated significant amounts of matter. This agrees with Hawking's no-boundary hypothesis. The closure need not be perfect, however; indeed, that would be asking a lot of chance. Imperfections in the closure of our universe may take the form of pseudo-black holes: cavities in space that lack fields. If they subsequently acquire fields from the matter that happens to hit them, they could evolve to closely resemble super-massive black holes, and be responsible for nucleating galaxies.

Conclusions

• Spatial proximity follows from correlations among processes, and does not cause them.
• Any independence of processes is primordial and decays progressively.
• The universe evolves through a succession of binding events, each creating a new property of matter, which can be interpreted as leftover entropy.
• Analysis in the present theoretical framework proceeds by declaring familiar concepts to be conflations of these properties, e.g., time = change + contrast + extent + unidirectional sequence; space = time + bidirectional sequence.