• Andrew M
    1.6k
    2 - the faster than light experiments conducted by Nicolas Gisin across lake Geneva which demonstrated that particles of light travelling away from each other in opposite directions (twice the speed of light) were still able to communicate instantly - (or technically, at least 10,000 times the speed of light).Gary Enfield

    2 New one to me, I'll have to look it up. Is it yet another case where QM and relativity clash?jkg20

    This refers to quantum entanglement of distant particles. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance". QM just says that the measured values of entangled particles (including at a distance) will be correlated. It specifies no mechanism for how that occurs, which is an interpretational issue. Some interpretations reject locality (such as Bohmian Mechanics), others reject realism (in Bell's sense).

    In theoretical physics, quantum nonlocality refers to the phenomenon by which the measurement statistics of a multipartite quantum system do not admit an interpretation in terms of a local realistic theory. Quantum nonlocality has been experimentally verified under different physical assumptions.[1][2][3][4][5] Any physical theory that aims at superseding or replacing quantum theory should account for such experiments and therefore must also be nonlocal in this sense; quantum nonlocality is a property of the universe that is independent of our description of nature.

    Quantum nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication,[6] and hence is compatible with special relativity and its universal speed limit of objects. However, it prompts many of the foundational discussions concerning quantum theory, see Quantum foundations.
    Quantum nonlocality - Wikipedia
  • jkg20
    405
    Firstly, the guy talks about space expanding, when space is probably not expanding - but the objects within it are just spreading out. That is an important difference. (If space were truly expanding, the objects within it would also be expanding/swelling - and they're not).

    The standard answer to this is, I believe, that at small scale distances, e.g. between the atoms that make up bodies, gravitational effects like expansion of space are trumped by the effects of electormagnetic, strong and weak forces acting between atoms and so on. Hence objects made up of atoms etc do not expand whilst the space between those objects does, or at least can.
  • jkg20
    405
    :up: Thanks for that clarification.
  • Enrique
    842
    This is terribly unprincipled.Aryamoy Mitra

    If this is how you initiate, I've got to wonder what your ulterior motives are. Way more dissing than is warranted by the circumstances. I'm only beginning to get into the mathematical core of cutting edge physics, so my ideas of proportion and correlation are primarily qualitative, but they are drawn from books by respected physicists who I presume didn't make an error that flagrantly misguides readers. Theories associated with the speed of light are at the fringe of my knowledge, and this post is as speculative as I've attempted at this site, so consider it an effort to learn more than a proposal of something I believe is definitive. As for the theory of relativity, I'll think about it and do some reading.

    Are you referring, in part, to the probabilistic nature of Schrodinger's Wavefunction? If so, can you elucidate the nature of the time contraction you're interpreting? For instance, are the notions of 'energy' you've readily apprehended, conceptually attached to the Hamiltonian Operators and Time-Evolution of a model particle? What formalism are you construing them in, from a mathematical perspective?Aryamoy Mitra

    The probability wave concept I'm employing is just that the predicted proportion of behavior within a reference frame at the quantum scale, whether construed in terms of position, momentum or whatever, models the average amount of energy within that reference frame relative to the rest of the wave function. Maybe time contraction because matter of lower frequency (energy) moves or spreads faster in some way? Not my expertise, but if someone wants to critique that definition, go for it!

    Why is it, that there seems to exist an unrelenting fixation on integrating QM with metaphysical ideas?Aryamoy Mitra

    In my case, because its not metaphysics, its the foundations of psychology in matter! I have a much firmer grasp of quantum biology than any concepts akin to quantum relativity. I'd love to get your's or anyone's critique of my attempt to integrate results from biology experiments in which quantum effects have been observed with a theory of qualitative experience (as elaborated in those three threads you probably bashed without reading lol) I'm much more competent to discuss details in that arena than anything tied to the equations of relativity.

    These are the links again for those interested:

    Qualia and Quantum Mechanics
    Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, The Sequel
    Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, the Reality Possibly

    Maybe you guys can read these discussions and teach me something about quantum effects in nature.

    I appreciate that you guys bothered to resurrect this neglected thread so we can all learn some stuff, new ideas on my radar!
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Tim / Aryamoy Mitra

    I gave my understanding with several examples which did include evidence and rationale.
    You may not like them, but unless you can show they are not correct, they remain a valid interpretation in their own right. I don't need to cite anyone else.

    The only reason why you feel that C remains insurmountable is through your choice to believe it - despite the evidence I gave.

    A fixed C was always a presumption, and now that the evidence exists to question that assumption, various people have tried to distort the basic facts in the hope that it might preserve their treasured belief in an insurmountable C instead of accepting another, more simple possibility - that it is possible in certain circumstances to go faster than light.

    I really don't see why faster than light possibilities are such a feared thing to consider.

    The video which Tim suggested, does present such a distortion to preserve C by arguing, without evidence, that space is expanding - what more do I need to say? There is no proof that space is expanding.

    Even if you truly believe that space does expand, something must be causing it to expand, and the combined effect of thrust and expansion would be what makes things travel faster than light in absolute terms compared to the point of origin. I don't see how you can deny that.

    The rest of us do what scientists always should do - re-consider the new evidence to see if it requires us to change our understanding. Many people, including Gisin and several cosmologists are suggesting that the speed of light could be different in certain circumstances.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Ah, well. Let's nail this down. I gather you deny that space is expanding. And that you hold that objects with mass can accelerate to and travel faster than light. Yes to both?

    but unless you can show they are not correct, they remain a valid interpretation in their own right. I don't need to cite anyone else.Gary Enfield
    Depends. If your views oppose the collected and accepted wisdom of modern science, then the burden is either on you to make your views clear, or to point us all to some reference that will do that for you. Waving or wringing of hands insufficient. Go for it; a Nobel Prize awaits!
  • Enrique
    842
    Go for it; a Nobel Prize awaits!tim wood

    More like a Nobel goosing, sheesh.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156

    If this is how you initiate, I've got to wonder what your ulterior motives are. Way more dissing than is warranted by the circumstances. I'm only beginning to get into the mathematical core of cutting edge physics, so my ideas of proportion and correlation are primarily qualitative, but they are drawn from books by respected physicists who I presume didn't make an error that flagrantly misguides readers. Theories associated with the speed of light are at the fringe of my knowledge, and this post is as speculative as I've attempted at this site, so consider it an effort to learn more than a proposal of something I believe is definitive. As for the theory of relativity, I'll think about it and do some reading.Enrique

    Admittedly, that may have been an imprudent sentence to commence with - and I apologize for its brazen nature. I was merely seeking to pinpoint (falsifiably) that there may exist an inconsistency between the two paradigms you've sought to coalesce. Qualitative arguments are meritorious too; since I'm not matriculated into any form of higher education in Physics, I've also found them of tremendous utility.

    The probability wave concept I'm employing is just that the predicted proportion of behavior within a reference frame at the quantum scale, whether construed in terms of position, momentum or whatever, models the average amount of energy within that reference frame relative to the rest of the wave function. Maybe time contraction because matter of lower frequency (energy) moves or spreads faster in some way? Not my expertise, but if someone wants to critique that definition, go for it!Enrique

    That's a novel postulate, and I concede to not being adequately attuned to the subject - in order to partake in a thorough deconstruction.

    I do have one, minor qualm nevertheless: what does the phrase 'proportion of behavior' imply, precisely? How are you contextualizing it in a reference frame? I ask, since wave-functions aren't interchangeable with waves - one can't move across them, as one might with the latter (unless one apprehends their probability amplitudes as the QM analogs to normative crests and troughs).

    What I can contribute, is a quantitative formulation - that may, or may not be associated with the qualitative hypotheses that precede it (in a fragmentary fashion):



    This is, ubiquitously (as I'm certain you're familiar), the energy-time equivalent to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. What it suggests, is that quantum states are (predominantly) transient, and are not characterized by definitive energy thresholds. Their observed energy thresholds, however, are by definition predicated on the frequencies of their states - which, in turn, are the inverse of how long they sustain itself for.

    When you're unearthing QM time contraction, is this the interrelation you're endeavoring to bring to the fore - or is it instead, purely relativistic and non-experimental? If the former doesn't assuage the proposal, do contemplate reading with regards to the Dirac Equation - as the exercise may underpin your ideas in the framework, that formalizes them.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156


    I gave my understanding with several examples which did include evidence and rationale.
    You may not like them, but unless you can show they are not correct, they remain a valid interpretation in their own right. I don't need to cite anyone else.
    Gary Enfield

    They remain an aberrant interpretation; whether they are valid, or not - is determined almost exclusively by how you rationalize standardized and reconfirmed beliefs through them.

    A fixed C was always a presumption, and now that the evidence exists to question that assumption, various people have tried to distort the basic facts in the hope that it might preserve their treasured belief in an insurmountable C instead of accepting another, more simple possibility - that it is possible in certain circumstances to go faster than light.Gary Enfield

    C's constancy was one of SR's foundational postulates - nobody's vehemently contending that.
    In any event, it was pivotal in resolving the incommensurate nature of Maxwell's Electromagnetism and Newton's Classical Mechanics; insofar as it wasn't a whimsical afterthought of Einstein's eccentricities.

    If several individuals are fixated on its truth, it's likely since the idea's entrenched in the foundation of other canonical edifices (that are empirically grounded), and is nearly incontrovertible - as opposed to them being intransigent.

    Even if you truly believe that space does expand, something must be causing it to expand, and the combined effect of thrust and expansion would be what makes things travel faster than light in absolute terms compared to the point of origin. I don't see how you can deny that.Gary Enfield

    You haven't in the slightest addressed any of the criticisms that have preceded this facade, so let me quell this particular tension with a literal example:

    Imagine that we were tracing two, celestial bodies - A and B, situated at a vast distance from one another (in excess of billions of light-years) - by observing how the absolute distance between them, expanded.

    With simplicity in mind, let's visualize a discerned expansion equivalent to , in a time interval demarcated by .

    If one were to undertake a cursory aftermath of that observation, they might partake in:



    When the expansion's symmetric:

    .

    Is this, by any chance, what your 'speed-of-light violation' construct is accorded sustenance by?

    If so, here's an exposition discrediting it - and if not, we can continue quarreling incessantly.

    doesn't suffice herein - since it doesn't attain the velocity of a body on the fabric it's ensconced in, if the fabric migrates too.

    Anyone can analogize this idea; if you're seated in a car - and the car's careening at a 100 miles per hour - are you characterized by the same velocity, from within the car? Einstein's constraint is tantamount to asserting that with the car as one's stationary reference frame, one can't exceed c.
  • Enrique
    842
    ...what does the phrase 'proportion of behavior' imply, precisely? How are you contextualizing it in a reference frame? I ask, since wave-functions aren't interchangeable with waves - one can't move across them, as one might with the latter (unless one apprehends their probability amplitudes as the QM analogs to normative crests and troughs).

    ...quantum states are (predominantly) transient, and are not characterized by definitive energy thresholds. Their observed energy thresholds, however, are by definition predicated on the frequencies of their states - which, in turn, are the inverse of how long they sustain itself for.

    ...contemplate reading with regards to the Dirac Equation - as the exercise may underpin your ideas in the framework, that formalizes them.
    Aryamoy Mitra

    I'm not going to even try deciphering Dirac or this Gislen fellow, I've read that even professional physicists find the synthesis of matrix mechanics with Schrodinger's wave function daunting. Would certainly need some coursework or a very good teacher for that.

    What's going on structurally inside an atom is really what I'm interested in at the moment, and that's a tough nut to crack, though I'm getting clues from various sources. At this point, I'm thinking of orbital arrangment as having something remotely analogous to wavelength, its topological shape, and frequency, its fluctuating energy density, and of course these energetic forms flow in a periodic way that I don't grasp, though I gather that this flow has close kinship with spinors paired in an opposite motion of some kind as per the Pauli exclusion principle, while probably involving superposed states within electron shells.

    I'm curious if what we theorize as electrons might actually be a complex perturbation in the electromagnetic field caused by nuclei, similar to magnetic field lines induced by the action at a distance of a magnet. Ionization into wave packets - balls or rings of matter that flow - when energy is appropriately inputted might give the illusion of a particularity or shape that isn't actually much like the inside of an atom.

    I also want to know what the difference is between fermions and bosons. Are they coalescences of basic Planck energy quanta in differing formations, or fundamentally discrepant forms of matter? What I've read so far on the subject seems to be derived from statistical mechanics, the behavior of large quantities, rather than the structure of supposed individual wavicles, if those even exist. Not sure I would comprehend much of the terminology, but maybe you guys know of some uncommonly good introductory resources.

    I envision the Schrodinger wave function as defining energy change and transfer at a particular location in matter while claiming nothing about the structure of that matter itself, though simple instances can be rudimentarily graphed on a coordinate system (x, y, z orbitals are what I'm thinking of). Researchers insert probabilities according to parameters established by experiment and get accurate probabilities out depending on what they are looking for without any direct image of what is going on. Who knows what palpably happens at the subatomic level?

    However, the Schrodinger equation might be able to model energy's inverse correlation with time. Any demarcated section of the wave function is like a representation of matter's energy at a certain location, and contours within that wave correspond to relative energy discrepancies. While a portion of the wave function (frame of reference) is in a particular state, and the more concentrated its energy is in specific spots, which I presume would show up as larger wave peaks, the less energy that subsists in between. The lower the energy or frequency in between, the longer this interstitial matter's wavelengths and perhaps the faster that causal effects are transmitted between peaks during any succession of states. Exactly what the causality of time contraction consists of in terms of structure I'm not sure, but the wave function can perhaps model or predict it indirectly if applied to experimental results. Is the wave function utilized to model entanglement and synchronicity?

    Are radiation events that typically happen on Earth capable of producing extremely long wavelengths, perhaps at very low intensities, and do these waves travel significantly faster than for instance the visible spectrum? If so, what implications would this have for cosmology?

    Pure speculation on my end, but you guys seem to have a decent fund of knowledge, so maybe you can further the analysis of these ideas or tie some loose ends together.
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Hi All

    Your examples are based on relative positions rather than absolute ones - and as a result are subject to various potential distortions.

    That is why I prefer to stay with the basics in absolute terms.

    If there was Big Bang from a singularity at a point in space, and the Universe is now at least 98bn light years across after a period of 13.7 billion years from the big bang, then distance divided by time gives speed - and that says matter/energy in the universe travelled faster than the standard speed of light to get there.

    That fundamental relationship between distance, time, and speed is more believable than some notion that you can preserve a fixed C by inflating space - for which there is absolutely no evidence.

    If you wish to contradict the basics of distance divided by time = speed then the emphasis is not on me to uphold the basic truth of the definition - but on you and others to prove that the inflation of space is real... in order to simply preserve a fixed C.

    Steven Hawking and all other serious commentators have said that this basic truth is problematic.... and they weren't kidding.

    The evidence is on my side guys.... and Gisin's experiment only reinforces it.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156


    If there was Big Bang from a singularity at a point in space, and the Universe is now at least 98bn light years across after a period of 13.7 billion years from the big bang, then distance divided by time gives speed - and that says matter/energy in the universe travelled faster than the standard speed of light to get there.Gary Enfield

    I'll no longer be partaking in this conversation; it's as though Einstein was never born. I concede to certain nonstandard narratives in history having usurped standard ones, but you're declaiming yours on a multiplicity of fallacious presuppositions - whose untruths I've elaborated on in previous comments, only to be thoroughly discounted.
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Hi Aryamoy Mitra

    There is a place for relativity, and it is a good place, but it is a toolset like any other and it must always be compared to absolute values if they are available, as a means of calibration and verification. That is the case here.

    Nobody is discounting the contribution of Einstein, but I'm sure that he would also acknowledge the basics in this case.

    So I say again....

    ...if you wish to contradict the fundamental definition of 'Distance divided by Time = Speed' then the emphasis is not on me to uphold the basic truth of the definition - but on you and others to prove that the 'inflation of space' is real... in order to simply preserve a fixed C.

    Steven Hawking and all other serious commentators have said that this basic truth is problematic.... and they weren't kidding.

    The evidence is on my side guys.... and Gisin's experiment only reinforces it.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156
    So I say again....

    ...if you wish to contradict the fundamental definition of 'Distance divided by Time = Speed' then the emphasis is not on me to uphold the basic truth of the definition - but on you and others to prove that the 'inflation of space' is real... in order to simply preserve a fixed C.
    Gary Enfield

    This isn't an elementary introduction to Classical Mechanics; this is Inflationary Cosmology, with an emphasis on Hubble's law. I'm not contradicting your presuppositions; I'm stating that they're incomplete.

    Here's a reminder of why I believe your arguments to be fallacious, in a fashion commensurate with Hubble's law. If this doesn't suffice, I'm afraid we are at an irreconcilable discordance. You can continually arrogate to yourself all 'evidence' on this front; I've only shared a canonical physical law, a demonstrable analogy and a standardized interpretation of cosmological inflation - hardly substantive, I'd imagine.

    Imagine that we were tracing two, celestial bodies - A and B, situated at a vast distance from one another (in excess of billions of light-years) - by observing how the absolute distance between them, expanded.

    With simplicity in mind, let's visualize a discerned expansion equivalent to , in a time interval demarcated by .

    If one were to undertake a cursory aftermath of that observation, they might partake in:



    When the expansion's symmetric:

    .

    Is this, by any chance, what your 'speed-of-light violation' construct is accorded sustenance by?

    If so, here's an exposition discrediting it - and if not, we can continue quarreling incessantly.

    doesn't suffice herein - since it doesn't attain the velocity of a body on the fabric it's ensconced in, if the fabric migrates too.

    Anyone can analogize this idea; if you're seated in a car - and the car's careening at a 100 miles per hour - are you characterized by the same velocity, from within the car? Einstein's constraint is tantamount to asserting that with the car as one's stationary reference frame, one can't exceed c.
    Aryamoy Mitra
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    The video which Tim suggested, does present such a distortion to preserve C by arguing, without evidence, that space is expanding - what more do I need to say? There is no proof that space is expanding.Gary Enfield

    The idea of spatial expansion is just an escape. When objects are observed to be moving faster than the speed of light, it is proposed that the substance which they exist in, is actually changing, so this doesn't qualify as "motion" in accepted usage. But what this does is introduce the concept of a changing or evolving substratum. And if the substratum, within which objects exist, is changing in this way, which is not accounted for in our normal modeling of motions, then this conventional modeling of motions is invalid. So what this assumption (spatial expansion) does is invalidate conventional models of motions.

    If so, here's an exposition discrediting it - and if not, we can continue quarreling incessantly.

    v=dsdtv=dsdt doesn't suffice herein - since it doesn't attain the velocity of a body on the fabric it's ensconced in, if the fabric migrates too.
    Aryamoy Mitra

    Yes, this is the problematic issue, the ideal that "the fabric migrates". Conventional modeling of motions does not account for the migration of the fabric. If it is true that the fabric is migrating then it is also true that conventional modeling of motions is incorrect, because the part of the motion which ought to be attributed to the migration of the fabric is unknown, and not accounted for.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    but unless you can show they are not correct, they remain a valid interpretation in their own right. I don't need to cite anyone else.Gary Enfield
    Valid for what?
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Valid for what?tim wood

    A logically viable explanation.
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Hi Aryamoy Mitra

    You are again resorting to relative measures, which can be subject to many unknown influences - including your supposition that your measurements of distance between these objects is accurate - which you cannot know.

    You may be correct, but your theory still lacks firm evidence to discount the more natural observation based on an undisputed absolute - the width of the universe. For the moment - that's where I place my preferences.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156


    Observing how bodies traverse 'relative' to the fabric on which they're immersed, is the only cosmological dynamic of significance; they're invoked in rationalizations of absolute measurements.

    You are again resorting to relative measures, which can be subject to many unknown influences - including your supposition that your measurements of distance between these objects is accurate - which you cannot know.Gary Enfield

    By that token, nobody can ever discern anything at all - and we're forever and inescapably entrapped in the recesses of fallibilism. Inflationary Cosmology formalizes approximations, that are phenomenologically derived - prior to being ascribed a credence, on empirical fronts.

    Answer for once, solely this question:

    Do you acknowledge a semantic difference between the expansion of a spacetime fabric, and the celestial bodies ensconced on that fabric?

    If you don't concede to the existence of that distinction to commence with, you'll be unamenable to any evidence that underpins it.
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    I have no idea what your words are supposed to mean.

    You need to clarify.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156

    I have no idea what your words are supposed to mean.

    You need to clarify.
    Gary Enfield

    Can you quote me, on what I've stated that is unclear?
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    Do you acknowledge a semantic difference between the expansion of a spacetime fabric, and the celestial bodies ensconced on that fabric?

    If you don't concede to the existence of that distinction to commence with, you'll be unamenable to any evidence that underpins it.
    Aryamoy Mitra
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156


    Do you acknowledge a semantic difference between the expansion of a spacetime fabric, and the celestial bodies ensconced on that fabric?Aryamoy Mitra

    Okay. I can elucidate, but there's a far more effective analogy.

    I'm quoting, verbatim, this article from the Scientific American. Apprise me if you concur with its conclusions (or otherwise, if you don't).

    'According to Einstein's general relativity equations, the spacetime containing matter cannot remain stationary and must either expand or contract. Galaxies and other sources, then, are not strictly expanding away from each other but rather are attached to the fixed grid on the expanding fabric of spacetime. Thus, the galaxies give us the impression of moving away from each other. Imagine the surface of a balloon, on which you put dots. Then start inflating the balloon. The distances between the dots will increase, so if you live in one of these dots, you will interpret this as the dots--which represent galaxies in this example--moving away from each other. In reality, of course, they remain in the same positions, with respect to latitudes and longitudes on the balloon, and it is the fabric of the balloon that is actually expanding.'
  • Gary Enfield
    143


    If you inflate a balloon, the objects you draw on it inflate too. In reality, objects in space stay the same size.

    Why you persist in the nonsense of inflation without evidence is beyond me. What is so sacred about a fixed C that you wish to abandon the basic evidence?

    Why not spend your time investigating the opportunities of faster than light travel under whatever abnormal circumstances the Big Bang might create?

    Why not try and acknowledge the results of the faster than light experiment by Gisin - which said that communications at least could be 10,000 times the speed of light even in the circumstances that we occupy?

    If you want to break the real fundamentals of science, in preference for speculative doctrine, then you need real evidence.... which you don't have.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156
    If you inflate a balloon, the objects you draw on it inflate too. In reality, objects in space stay the same size.Gary Enfield

    That's impertinent to the analogy; and the latter assertion may not be verified (I'm not accredited to comment on it).

    Why not try and acknowledge the results of the faster than light experiment by Gisin - which said that communications at least could be 10,000 times the speed of light even in the circumstances that we occupy?Gary Enfield

    If Gisin's experiment is at all associated with Quantum Entanglement (I'm not certain if it is), then there do exist several rationalizations of QE that remain adherent to SR.

    If you want to break the real fundamentals of science, in preference for speculative doctrine, then you need real evidence.... which you don't have.Gary Enfield

    Certainly. I'm the one flailing unprincipled ideas, as opposed to eliciting standardized laws, explanations, articles and analogies.

    I hope you don't mind if I refrain from replying to this thread anymore; we're at an irreconcilable discord.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Ah, but "in their own right." And whatever this giveth, also it taketh away,, with interest. Because if it's only in "its own right," and no one else's, then it's a pig in the parlor, and you the fool who let it in, and the graceless and ungracious fool if someone else has to chase it out.
    ""
  • Gary Enfield
    143

    Tim

    If you don't believe in the application of logic to evidence, then you have no basis for any opinion.
    The evidence and logic I presented are perfectly valid.

    Even if you might prefer an alternate explanation you have not yet provided any logic to say that mine is invalid. If it is a valid possibility - then it should be able to stand on its own merits - which it does.

    Until you act like a scientist and acknowledge the range of valid potential explanations, and explain why others are not valid, you are just mud slinging based on doctrine over substance.
  • Zophie
    176
    For the mathematically inclined, does the following manipulation of equations suggest that quantized matter lacks a speed limit traditionally gauged as the velocity of light?Enrique
    No.
    So are values of time, distance, frequency and wavelength completely without intrinsic parameterization in the context of current physics?Enrique
    No.
    Do basic equations intimate an absence of dimensional constants, whether of space, rate or acceleration?Enrique
    Pardon?
  • jkg20
    405
    If you inflate a balloon, the objects you draw on it inflate too. In reality, objects in space stay the same size. — Gary Enfield


    That's impertinent to the analogy; and the latter assertion may not be verified (I'm not accredited to comment on it).
    Aryamoy Mitra

    Aryamoy Mitra is right. The analogy is supposed to elucidate the idea of a measured spatial difference between two things being, on the one hand, the effect of an expansion of the framework used to measure distances, and, on the other, being the effect of the motion of things measured within that framework. The effect only becomes noticeable at relatively large distances, which is why it will be difficult to see the changes in the expansion of small dots on a balloon, but relatively easy to see the gaps between them increasing. Change the details of the analogy, and have the small dots replaced by confetti held in place by electrostatic forces, such as that provided by glue. There, the expansion of the items between which the distances are being measured is no longer an issue at all. Amending the analogy that way, incidently, is pertinent, since long before Einstein, it was recognised that electromagnetic forces overwhelm gravitational effects between relatively small masses at relatively small distances. This is why, even if the spacetime volumes contained within what Austin used to call "medium sized dry goods" are expanding, the effects of that expansion would be unnoticeable to us, at least with the equipment we currently have.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    but unless you can show they are not correct, they remain a valid interpretation in their own right. I don't need to cite anyone else.
    — Gary Enfield
    Valid for what?
    tim wood
    Yours a variety of the fallacy of, "Because I don't know, therefore I know." The species being, "I don't understand, so I make up something that seems right to me, and because it seems right to me, it must be right."

    If you wish to make up theories about the world, more power to you, have at it. No doubt much science starts that way. Call it morning coffee musings or what-if sessions. But it's no more than that. To be clear, I personally have no issue with your theorizing. I think we all do it on our own topics. And perhaps it has psychological value as a kind of flushing of excess mental energy, like an exercise, or just as an entertaining use of free time.

    But if you take it out of private enjoyment or purpose and represent it as more than it is, put it on display without establishing its pedigree or substance, then you're like a boy who dresses up like a girl, padding the bra, and then getting very, very confused. Because not only is there nothing really there, but there's really nothing there.
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