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Hi Paul,
This note is written for Paul and Mike, two extremely reasonable people (from my perspective). Yanniru, I will include a short comment to you; however, I think you should back track a little on your position as an authority on physics.
The single most significant issue I would like to address is Bruce's position with regard to relativity and quantum mechanics. He has expressed his position as "Your comment about quantum theory and relativity is just ignorant": see
http://www.astronomy.net/forums/god/messages/20279.shtml
The comment he refers to concerns my position that a conflict exists between quantum theory and relativity. My position is that the conflict is very real and that the attempt to resolve that conflict without re-appraising Einstein's relativity has led to some rather unreasonable hypotheses. The central issue is the fact that Einstein's relativity denies us the ability to define the meaning of the term simultaneous while quantum mechanics includes the concept of simultaneous collapse of the wave function. The conventional position of the physics community is that no conflict really exists because when you get down to examining any actual situation, no paradox can be proved (baring the issue of entanglement). My position is that if you cannot define something, you cannot talk about it. The conflict is real and unavoidable. Calling my position ignorant does not resolve the problem. It is my position that they are in fact ignorant as they are doing their very best to ignore the problem.
Secondly, Bruce give some references which are supposed to be evidence of specific challenges to my arguments. I have read those references and find nothing in conflict with my position. With regard to that position, I have said that I have discovered another geometry which yields exactly the same experimental results predicted by Einstein's theory. Essentially, I ran across that geometry by accident and was quite surprised by the consequences. It is rather strange that no one else has seen that particular solution. After considerable thought, I came to the conclusion that the reason no one else has seen it is because they are so ingrained to the idea that clocks measure time.
Essentially, Bruce's reaction has completely justified my judgment. It is absolutely impossible to get him to examine the consequences of the idea that clocks measure proper time. As far as he is concerned they don't and that is all there is to it. With regard to that issue, which I believe is selective blindness, let me point out that "proper time" or "watch time" as he calls it is a very special thing. I am aware of no measuring device except for a clock which yields readings which are specifically covariant in each and every case conceivable. This property certainly is not shared by spatial rulers which are subject to many subtle coordinate dependent factors. Since time (as used in our physics equations) is not a covariant variable, it should be clear to everyone that clocks do not measure time.
The fundamental issue here is that a rational geometry should use directly measured variables as coordinates. Einstein's failure to do so leads to a number of problems: first, simultaneity can not be defined which blows quantum mechanics to hell and back (the difference between past and future can not be defined as relativity presumes the future is 100% predictable from the past) and secondly, Einstein's geometry includes paths which no object may follow (any path along which proper time is imaginary). Clearly one must add additional constraints to Einstein's theory of relativity not contained in the theory itself. The constraint "nothing can travel faster than the speed of light" must be added to his geometry as an outside constraint. Evidence that his theory of relativity does not itself impose this constraint comes directly from the interest in tachyons (faster than light objects).
What is important about these problems is that Einstein's theory places no bars against time travel. Since the idea of time travel is itself paradoxical, it follows that Einstein's theory is paradoxical. The geometry I have discovered includes no such paths thus is not paradoxical.
In my opinion, people should at least look at it!
Yanniru, three of the four constraints expressed in the set displayed as equations 1.25 are essentially the position and time constraints well known to any theoretical physicists (the classical theoretical defense of conservation of momentum and energy). From these three constraints one obtains the standard wave function of a free particle (or a collection of free particles). The fourth constraint fundamentally amounts to a way of specifying boundary conditions on that solution. One can see the boundaries in my presentation as consisting of an infinite number of infinitely hard points. My arguments about the unknowable data amount to a proof of the statement that it is always possible to construct boundaries from an infinite set of points which will constrain the wave function to be whatever you find it to be. And this includes the requirement that these boundary points obey exactly the same physics as the knowable points under examination.
Under standard physics, if the consequences of the existence of a hypothetical entity are exactly the consequences observed, then that is taken to mean the entity exists. Under that rule, my unknowable data is automatically a collection of hypothetical entities which exist: i.e., they are the entities required to produce the consequences observed.
Have fun -- Dick |
