The Nature of the Universe, Time Travel and More...

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Stephen Wolfram reckons that dark matter is akin to theories invoking caloric when we didn't understand the true nature of heat. He thinks it's an intrinsic property of spacetime. That galactic rotation curves have been shown to extend well beyond what dark matter halos would predict, he might be on to something. Might it also explain dark energy?

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[Will The Serious]

What would a negative wavelength of light look like? Would the light be pulled from the back of our eyes? Would it enter the eye on reverse? The article makes the distinction between an emitted light and absorbed light.

How does the frequency stay the same if the speed of light is constant, but the wavelength varies? Is the speed of light simply the frequency? I had thought the speed of light was the flight of photons, not just the wave itself.

If we were to think of the crest of the wave as the same as a photon, a photon would have to change its speed to maintain a constant frequency when changing the wavelength. But, maybe light is more like electrons on a wire. Maybe the photon, like the electron, doesn't really move that fast in order for the energy to travel at the speed of light. After all, electrons only travel around half an inch a minute along a copper wire while their electrical energy is transferred at nearly half the speed of light.

So, when we talk about the speed of light being constant in all frames of reference, we are talking about the apparent energy of light, not the movement of photons.

It's no wonder light behaves like both a particle and a wave. A particle interacts with other particles in order to propagate light waves. No particle, no light wave.

It's amazing that we have effectively disproved the Aether.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The sub-light speed of electromagnetic (EM radiation) in matter is determined by the continuous absorption and re-emission of photons in the presence of charged particles - bound atomic electrons or free electrons in plasma are the usual cases considered. Quantum electrodynamics (QED) describes the phenomena, yet there remain aspects of EM emission by charges that aren't fully described theoretically. We are also gradually discovering the quite remarkable properties of nanoscale metamaterials to manipulate EM, which seems like a research topic with exciting prospects.

ETA: Although QED is based around the concept of virtual particles, nowadays the interesting alternative (possibly dualistic rather than superseding) concept regarding the scattering of particles is the amplituhedron. That's much too difficult a subject to explain in detail using simple language as it requires understanding of mathematical concepts such as spinors and twistors. (See the video below for an attempt.) We shouldn't apply macrolevel analogies - such as Newton's cradle - to the quantum realm from which they emerge. Properties such as spin do not mean the same thing when we examine this domain. They become more akin to instantiations of mathematical abstractions, somewhat like Platonic forms. Personally, I swing between the realistic versions of anti-Platonism: psychologism and physicalism. I doubt that either nominalism or Platonism are the correct view of what we term "reality". However, in everyday life, such things are inconsequential, of course.

Philosophy of mathematics - Mathematical Anti-Platonism, Formalism, Intuitionism | Britannica

Philosophy of mathematics - Mathematical Anti-Platonism, Formalism, Intuitionism: Many philosophers cannot bring themselves to believe in abstract objects. However, there are not many tenable alternatives to mathematical Platonism. One option is to maintain that there do exist such things as...

www.britannica.com

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[publiusr]

The Amplituhedron is probably best used for sewing too

The Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron Was Possibly Just For Knitting

Over the years archaeological digs of Roman sites have uncovered many of these strange dodecahedrons, usually made out of metal and with various holes in their faces. With no surviving records that…

hackaday.com

Maybe tachyons are allowed?

Physicists suggest tachyons can be reconciled with the special theory of relativity

Tachyons are hypothetical particles that travel at speeds greater than the speed of light. These superluminal particles, are the "enfant terrible" of modern physics. Until recently, they were generally regarded as entities that did not fit into the special theory of relativity.

phys.org

Antimatter

Heaviest antimatter observation yet will fine-tune numbers for dark matter search

In experiments at the Brookhaven National Lab in the US, an international team of physicists has detected the heaviest "anti-nuclei" ever seen. The tiny, short-lived objects are composed of exotic antimatter particles.

phys.org

On sci-fi

Science Fiction and the Interstellar Imagination | Centauri Dreams

www.centauri-dreams.org

 

[Will The Serious]

In my fanfic story, The Vulcan, I'm currently working on an episode where Vulcan and crew come upon a giant armada of alien invaders in Klingon space. The issue for them is that the aliens do not have warp technology and are limited to sublight travel, and that includes sublight sensor observations. Vulcan's crew, trying to warn the primitive invaders away from the advanced and aggressive Klingon Empire, have to consider that the aliens are completely incapable of seeing them approach until they drop significantly below light speed. Otherwise it would appear to the alien species that Vulcan and crew appear out of nowhere.

The only way to hail the low tech aliens is to use their own antenna arrays on the subspace level to hack their computers through the sublight connections and talk to them as though Vulcan's crew was already inside their armada. It is an interesting puzzle to consider how one would warn of their arrival ahead of time when traveling above the speed of radio waves.

-Will

 

[publiusr]

Maybe retrocausality is key—maybe a tachyon blaster-hole area is radioactive before the bolt hits—allowing you to jump away—edge of tomorrow style…or something…

If your enemy just stumbled upon energy weapon tech without understanding it—in their eyes you would seem psychic in predicting the bolt path and you could use that as a bluff.

“Not even your FTL weapons can harm me—now surrender!”

A rare case where a ray gun is less lethal than a spear (due to its signature.)

Cosmology thread

Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

Space in the news https://phys.org/news/2024-08-links-science-fiction-astronomy.html https://phys.org/news/2024-08-meteor-showers-dangerous-spacecraft.html https://phys.org/news/2024-08-andromeda-milky-doomed-collide.html https://phys.org/news/2024-08-good-earth-sized-planet-destroyed.html...

www.secretprojects.co.uk

 

[Will The Serious]

I love that thought.

I did have an ultra-high frequency signal appear to emanate from the target (the ship Vulcan) just as it appeared to originated from the source ship, because the frequency was so high. The beam was trapping the sleeping crew in the dream of the occupant of the other ship.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiec...ower-begins-today-when-to-see-it-at-its-best/

The Perseid meteor shower runs from July 14 through September 1, 2024, and its peak will be on the night of Monday, August 11 through Tuesday, August 12. You can see Perseids on any clear night from now through September, but you’ll have the best chance on the peak night.

It’s often said that the Perseids can number 150 per hour close to the peak. Others quote it as 100. Both are on the generous side. These “zenithal hourly rates” refer to what would be seen if a viewer could see the entire sky simultaneously. In practice, expect to get about 50 “shooting stars” per hour. That would be a terrific result.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.160201

Our results provide a way to characterize input-output indefiniteness as a resource for quantum information and photonic quantum technologies and enable tabletop simulations of hypothetical scenarios exhibiting quantum indefiniteness in the direction of time.

Experimental setup of the superposition of the quantum evolution and its inverse evolution. Credit: Prof. Li Chuanfeng’s team

A research team has constructed a coherent superposition of quantum evolution with two opposite directions in a photonic system and confirmed its advantage in characterizing input-output indefiniteness. The study was published in Physical Review Letters.

https://phys.org/news/2024-07-reversal-output-indefiniteness.html

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The video describes some current thinking about the nature of quantum reality based on the interpretation of David Deutsch, whose books I recommend:

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Both experiment and the mathematics indicate to us that our perception of space and time might emerge from something deeper and perhaps unknowable. How could we tell whether the substrate is base reality or something running a simulation of all possible universes? Would it make any difference to know? It has been proposed that we overload the simulation to reveal it as such, but that wouldn't work if the multiverse is really composed of all possible static timeless state configurations and what we perceive as time is illusory.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I found the following video about the amplituhedron as being a potential framework for spacetime being emergent:

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[Will The Serious]

Looking up consciousness as presented by the Bhaktivedanta, I came across this Web page.
Life and consciousness – The Vedāntic view
"science leaves no room for the subjective aspect of consciousness in its attempt to know the world as the relationships among forces, atoms, and molecules. On the other hand, the Vedāntic view states that the origin of everything material and nonmaterial is sentient and absolute (unconditioned). Thus, sentient life is primitive and reproductive of itself – omne vivum ex vivo – life comes from life. This is the scientifically verified law of experience."

This is starting to sound a little like the chicken and the egg paradox. Some of these questions can be settled by simple definitions, while other questions are decided by one's commitment to one camp or the other.

The blending of science and mysticism seems to be more and more entwined as science drills deeper and the math get more complex. Ultimately, it's about what we can do with our understanding. No radio, no sonar, no flush toilets, and no Internet without scientific understanding. But, is it possible that understanding the spiritual nature of consciousness and its relationship with the phenomenal Universe will give us even more control?

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I don't know whether consciousness is fundamental. I find it hard even to define what it is other than being aware of the distinction between your internal cognition and that which exists externally to you. That there is no generally agreed definition would suggest that we are asking the wrong questions as to its nature. Would we wish to have Q-like control of mind over reality?

 

[Will The Serious]

the amplituhedron as being a potential framework for spacetime being emergent:

Goel describes the amplituhedron as a purely abstract geometric construct. Relativity is described as basically flat, using the classic distorted plane diagrams to illustrate.

What is Interesting is that this new approach to quantum theory is motivated by problems with behaviors in the mathematics when trying to describe events near black holes and at the beginning of the Big Bang. Both these concepts are the direct result of Relativity and it's math. As far as I know, there are no "real" issues with behaviors near black holes or the early stages of the Big Bang. Their anomalies are only seen in the very math that predicts them. If the math breaks down at the quantum level, and it was the math that brought about those ideas, that should be a strong argument that either the theoretical Singularity, and the like, is a mis-interpretation of the math or the math doesn't represent an accurate model.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

Would we wish to have Q-like control of mind over reality?

Matthew 21:2121 "Jesus replied, 'Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.'"
Perhapse that is all we need. Maybe faith in the Math is what makes it work.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There is more than one form of maths - in the end, it's all just symbol manipulation. That some of it correlates well with observation is heartening, but we shouldn't fool ourselves that we uncover a deep fundamental truth. I tend to subscribe to Wolfram's notion of computational irreducibility as being onto something, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Faith can be a blind alley.

 

[Will The Serious]

I like the way this guy thinks.

Confessions of a Theoretical Physicist
By Vijay Balasubramanian

I am no longer sure that working out what is “real” is possible, or that the reality that my 7-year-old self conceived of even exists, rather than being simply unknown. Perhaps reality is genuinely unknowable: Things exist and there is a truth about them, but we have no way of finding it out. Or perhaps the things we call “real” are called into being by their descriptions but do not independently exist.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

"Real" is only a label anyway. I'm not sure how to define it. Things exist in the external world, in one's imagination, in simulation or in depiction ("Ceci n'est pas une pipe"). However, in some sense, all of these things are "real" in that we can interact with them. When one examines reality closely, it becomes even more confounding. However, dropping a hammer on one's foot definitely feels real.

“I refute him thus!”: Misunderstanding Berkeley – Irish Philosophy

www.irishphilosophy.com

Heady stuff - I think I'll leave it to the philosophers. The notion that consciousness is fundamental seems incorrect to me - it smacks too much of Cartesian Dualism - but I'm loathe to suggest how one might falsify such a notion. I guess I'm too embedded in The Matrix™ or whatever.

 

[Will The Serious]

https://thedebrief.org/new-math-bri...ing-einsteins-relativity-and-quantum-physics/

The international team, consisting of researchers Chavis Srichan, Pobporn Danvirutai, Adrian David Cheok, Jun Cai, and Ying Yan, took an approach that reformulated Riemannian geometry using what is known as Planck scale formalism.

a brief introduction to the Planck scale

"...(Einstein) realized that a force must exist to prevent the universe from collapsing in on itself, which ultimately led him to formulate the cosmological constant, or what he called lambda.

Taking their research one step further, the team applied Einstein’s lambda formalism toward further modeling of the universe, leading them to conclude that the universe’s dynamics likely resemble harmonic oscillators that are entangled with lambda curvature."

Could Lambda be an expression of acceleration, like 9.8 /s/s? Even though an object thrown up from the surface off the Earth, is under a constant acceleration of 9.8 /s/s, it travels at different rates of speed dependent on the initial force and elapsed time. Given enough initial force, that object does not change direction, and keeps rising. However, any force less then such a condition results in a reversal of direction. Acceleration, however, is constant.

A "dark force" is simply a theoretical quantification of all the possible forces required to produce the observed cosmic behaviors without knowing anything about the origins or type of forces. What if there were more unlit proto-stars and planetary bodies orbiting them than we think? If black holes can exist, what about star sized planets that don't combust? How about gasses, such as hydrogen and helium that fill the spaces between these solid objects? They may not be visible in their expanded gaseous form. Rather than showing up as massive regions of space dust, such as a nebula, they may represent a gravitational mass with no specific origin of acceleration and appear to us as completely absent from space. Could there be galaxy sized clouds of helium out there beyond the Milkyway?

How do you see the water if you are completely surrounded by it?

-Will

 

[publiusr]

How? Math I assume:

I still secretly hope steady-state makes a comeback:

Do we live in a shell universe?

The universe might not be as you think. Until recently, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model seemed to have a lock on cosmology. Like earlier Big Bang models, it supposes that the universe expanded from a hyperdense state and that the expansion of spacetime causes the Hubble redshift of light. Dark...

phys.org

Observational study supports century-old theory that challenges the Big Bang

A Kansas State University engineer recently published results from an observational study in support of a century-old theory that directly challenges the validity of the Big Bang theory.

phys.org