Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 17, 2014 9:55:53 GMT -5
Added note: Please keep your posts to this thread related to physics, or metaphysics in relation to physics. Please try to keep it impersonal. (also added note at the end)
On a couple of recent threads some physics has been brought of (movies and substance-less-ness). I though I'd start a thread on what physicists understand about reality. Some may be things everybody knows, but I hope there is some new stuff for some. We get to a point that physicists cease understanding. What they do not accept is that where they cease to understand blends right into the unseen realms, higher dimensions of reality, to be discussed. I'll try to give a brief outline and then fill in as time permits.
Have you ever heard the term fly in a cathedral? If you were to blow up an atom, these would be the dimensions, fly nucleus (protons and neutrons), walls of the cathedral, the orbits of the electrons. Another way to put it that might be more familiar, a dime in an NFL football stadium, dime the nucleus, top row the electron orbits. Everything in between, empty space, so you consist of mostly empty space. So why can't you move your hand through your breakfast table? Electromagnetic force, the electron orbits form essentially a force field that repels the surrounding other atoms.
Quantum theory actually preceded relativity. In 1900 Max Planck was trying to figure out why, with the then-present theories, you got too much energy out of what's called black body radiation, the theory that worked for everything else didn't work for this. He sort of reverse engineered backwards to make the math fit experimental results. He learned that when he limited the radiation of energy coming off a black body to whole packets of energy instead of fractional continuous amounts of energy, the math fit experimental results. He called these packs of energy a quantum. Now Planck didn't actually believe that nature worked in this manner, he thought he had just come up with a neat mathematical trick.
Then comes Einstein upon the scene. Einstein was a rebel, an independent thinker who wouldn't go along with the crowd, was always aggravating his teachers in university. So when he graduated nobody recommended a teaching position (I think this was about 1900 without looking it up). So, being married, he finally got a job as a patent clerk in a patent office (yes, as in new inventions). But he didn't drop his passion for physics so worked on stuff, on the job, and at home. 1905 was a big year for Einstein. He published 5 different papers in Physics. One was of course his famous paper on Special Relativity. Another was actually on quantum physics, the Photoelectric effect. Einstein actually got his Nobel Prize for quantum physics, not Relativity. Why was this paper special? For five years after Planck's discovery of the quantum of energy, nobody took the theory seriously, nobody felt it was a real picture of how reality worked, except Einstein. So, Einstein's paper is what really got quantum theory cranked up. And afterwards Einstein spent more time on quantum physics than he did on Relativity, even though immediately after his 1905 (which dealt with only non-accelerating frames of reference) paper he knew Relativity had to be expanded to include gravity, he just couldn't see the way forward yet. This came later with his 1915 paper on General Relativity. After a few years Einstein, while pondering the problem, had what he called the happiest thought of his life. He realized that if a worker fell off his roof, he would be in a state of not-experiencing gravity, IOW, he would be weightless while falling. So, Einstein immediately saw that gravity and acceleration were equivalent. You see this in a rocket launch when an astronaut experiences extra g's, the faster the rocket the more gravity experienced. After seeing this it took Einstein some years to work out the math, or rather, to find a math that worked (the math needed had already been invented years earlier).
So, with Special Relativity and General Relativity what had Einstein discovered? Up until then everybody had taken space and time to be constants in nature, IOW, they didn't change. Up until then everybody thought that the speed of light had to change depending upon the circumstances (there was believed to exist the ether, a background that vibrated similar to air which vibrated to allow sound to pass through). However, no matter what the situation set up, experimenters always found the speed of light to be the same. So Einstein made the speed of light his constant and determined that space and time had to contract or expand in relation to the speed of light and in relation to different observers. All this goes back to Einstein's thoughts as a teenager, what would it be like to ride on a beam of light? What is it like for a photon coming off a clock? Say we have a big clock with a second hand. When a photon comes off that second hand, if that photon looked back, the second hand would stop, the second hand would be motionless. We are in a different frame of reference, so the second hand keeps moving. This is where the twin paradox comes in. If you had a pair of twins, one stayed home and one traveled near the speed of light for say 10 years and then flew back to earth for 10 years, the one in the space ship will have aged only 20 years but the twin who stayed home would be an old man aging many more years (they each exist in two different frames of reference in relation to the speed of light). This is verified every day in particle accelerators, and has been verified by twin atomic clocks, one on the ground and one flying in the air, the one in the air gains time, its clock ticks faster in relation to the clock on the ground (the experiment also verifying General Relativity, gravity being less above the earth. Physicists can now actually verify Relativity measuring differences in gravity with difference away from the center of gravity of the earth of just a few feet. Remember that acceleration is equivalent to gravity, a clock higher off the earth experiences less gravity so speeds up in relation to one on the earth).
We can now get to a point on the movies thread, the film Particle Fever. Here's a weird thing about Relativity. In the Super Collider you can have particles traveling in opposite directions (to get more energy into the colliding). Say one particle is going 95% of the speed of light in one direction and another is going 95% of the speed of light in the other direction. Would not one particle in relation to the other, be exceeding the speed of light? No. IOW, if you measured the speed of light from one particle to the other, the speed of light would still be 186,000 miles per second. In the physical/material universe, nothing can exceed the speed of light, or, more precisely, information cannot be transferred faster than the speed of light. Why is this the case? Because if you exceeded the speed of light, time would move backwards, IOW, you could go back in time. Now you're getting into the metaphysical realm, because it's probably pretty well accepted, in the "new age" channeled realm etc., one can move backwards and forwards in time. And, in the higher realms you would not have the speed of light as a limitation, IOW, you can exceed the speed of light and go backwards in time.
This is getting long so I want to touch a little more on quantum effects before ending. Einstein did more to further quantum theory than probably almost anyone else, by attacking it. Einstein never believed that quantum theory was a final and complete picture of reality. Why? Because quantum mechanics, ultimately, is a theory of probability and chance, indeterminism. Einstein couldn't give up the idea of cause and effect, determinism. So Einstein had countless conversations with Neils Bohr about quantum theory. Einstein would come up with these thought experiments where it seemed impossible for quantum theory to work, but Bohr would come up with a way to get around Einstein. Einstein came up with one final thought experiment which he thought put the nail in the coffin of quantum theory. I think it was about 1935 in the EPR paper (two other co-authors who probably did most of the writing, Podolsky and Rosen). Einstein saw that if quantum mechanics was right, if two particles interacted they would be forever interrelated no matter how far apart they might become from each other in the future. IOW, with two entangled particles, if you effected one in some manner, the other would automatically respond. For example, with two entangled particles, if you measured one and it was spin up, the other particle would immediately go spin down. This showed that reality was non-local, and Einstein believed that this was impossible. Einstein called this effect "spooky action at a distance". Quantum theory showed that this effect occurred even when two particles became so far apart that they could not 'exchange information' because their distance apart superseded the speed of light. Einstein figured that reality just could not work in this manner.
This debated was in a stalemate for about 30 years, then a guy named John Bell, in 1964 came up with a thought experiment that would decide if Einstein was right or Bohr was right. And the a few years later some experimental physicists figured out how to actually do Bell's thought experiment and prove or disprove Bell's Inequality Theorem. It turns out that Bohr was right, the universe is non-local. When two particles are entangled, they are forever somehow connected, whatever happens to one immediately effects the other, even beyond their ability to communicate via the speed of light, IOW, the speed of light is not an obstacle to this effect, it is immediate. This has been proved numerous times since the 1970's, it's probably a proven daily occurrence now.
These are just relatively minor examples in the known physics of today. Effectively, it shows in the material/physical universe, virtually everything is connected, IOW, all is One. With the Big Bang, all matter and energy that exists, 100,000 billion stars in each of 100,000 billion galaxies, came out of a space as small as one single atom. (That's why, IMO, virtually everything is entangled). I'll try to fill in some things here and there, but just one more thing before I stop for now. Because of the rotation of galaxies and the accelerating speed of galaxies moving apart from each other, physicists have had to hypothesize dark matter and dark energy. It seems that 96% of the universe is missing. All the matter and energy in all the galaxies and all the dust between stars, everything we can see and measure is only 4% of what must necessarily exist (for the reasons mentioned above). It is my opinion that the higher spiritual dimensions are the source of this missing dark matter and dark energy.
If anyone has any questions, this would help direct future posts. Thanks.
sdp
On a couple of recent threads some physics has been brought of (movies and substance-less-ness). I though I'd start a thread on what physicists understand about reality. Some may be things everybody knows, but I hope there is some new stuff for some. We get to a point that physicists cease understanding. What they do not accept is that where they cease to understand blends right into the unseen realms, higher dimensions of reality, to be discussed. I'll try to give a brief outline and then fill in as time permits.
Have you ever heard the term fly in a cathedral? If you were to blow up an atom, these would be the dimensions, fly nucleus (protons and neutrons), walls of the cathedral, the orbits of the electrons. Another way to put it that might be more familiar, a dime in an NFL football stadium, dime the nucleus, top row the electron orbits. Everything in between, empty space, so you consist of mostly empty space. So why can't you move your hand through your breakfast table? Electromagnetic force, the electron orbits form essentially a force field that repels the surrounding other atoms.
Quantum theory actually preceded relativity. In 1900 Max Planck was trying to figure out why, with the then-present theories, you got too much energy out of what's called black body radiation, the theory that worked for everything else didn't work for this. He sort of reverse engineered backwards to make the math fit experimental results. He learned that when he limited the radiation of energy coming off a black body to whole packets of energy instead of fractional continuous amounts of energy, the math fit experimental results. He called these packs of energy a quantum. Now Planck didn't actually believe that nature worked in this manner, he thought he had just come up with a neat mathematical trick.
Then comes Einstein upon the scene. Einstein was a rebel, an independent thinker who wouldn't go along with the crowd, was always aggravating his teachers in university. So when he graduated nobody recommended a teaching position (I think this was about 1900 without looking it up). So, being married, he finally got a job as a patent clerk in a patent office (yes, as in new inventions). But he didn't drop his passion for physics so worked on stuff, on the job, and at home. 1905 was a big year for Einstein. He published 5 different papers in Physics. One was of course his famous paper on Special Relativity. Another was actually on quantum physics, the Photoelectric effect. Einstein actually got his Nobel Prize for quantum physics, not Relativity. Why was this paper special? For five years after Planck's discovery of the quantum of energy, nobody took the theory seriously, nobody felt it was a real picture of how reality worked, except Einstein. So, Einstein's paper is what really got quantum theory cranked up. And afterwards Einstein spent more time on quantum physics than he did on Relativity, even though immediately after his 1905 (which dealt with only non-accelerating frames of reference) paper he knew Relativity had to be expanded to include gravity, he just couldn't see the way forward yet. This came later with his 1915 paper on General Relativity. After a few years Einstein, while pondering the problem, had what he called the happiest thought of his life. He realized that if a worker fell off his roof, he would be in a state of not-experiencing gravity, IOW, he would be weightless while falling. So, Einstein immediately saw that gravity and acceleration were equivalent. You see this in a rocket launch when an astronaut experiences extra g's, the faster the rocket the more gravity experienced. After seeing this it took Einstein some years to work out the math, or rather, to find a math that worked (the math needed had already been invented years earlier).
So, with Special Relativity and General Relativity what had Einstein discovered? Up until then everybody had taken space and time to be constants in nature, IOW, they didn't change. Up until then everybody thought that the speed of light had to change depending upon the circumstances (there was believed to exist the ether, a background that vibrated similar to air which vibrated to allow sound to pass through). However, no matter what the situation set up, experimenters always found the speed of light to be the same. So Einstein made the speed of light his constant and determined that space and time had to contract or expand in relation to the speed of light and in relation to different observers. All this goes back to Einstein's thoughts as a teenager, what would it be like to ride on a beam of light? What is it like for a photon coming off a clock? Say we have a big clock with a second hand. When a photon comes off that second hand, if that photon looked back, the second hand would stop, the second hand would be motionless. We are in a different frame of reference, so the second hand keeps moving. This is where the twin paradox comes in. If you had a pair of twins, one stayed home and one traveled near the speed of light for say 10 years and then flew back to earth for 10 years, the one in the space ship will have aged only 20 years but the twin who stayed home would be an old man aging many more years (they each exist in two different frames of reference in relation to the speed of light). This is verified every day in particle accelerators, and has been verified by twin atomic clocks, one on the ground and one flying in the air, the one in the air gains time, its clock ticks faster in relation to the clock on the ground (the experiment also verifying General Relativity, gravity being less above the earth. Physicists can now actually verify Relativity measuring differences in gravity with difference away from the center of gravity of the earth of just a few feet. Remember that acceleration is equivalent to gravity, a clock higher off the earth experiences less gravity so speeds up in relation to one on the earth).
We can now get to a point on the movies thread, the film Particle Fever. Here's a weird thing about Relativity. In the Super Collider you can have particles traveling in opposite directions (to get more energy into the colliding). Say one particle is going 95% of the speed of light in one direction and another is going 95% of the speed of light in the other direction. Would not one particle in relation to the other, be exceeding the speed of light? No. IOW, if you measured the speed of light from one particle to the other, the speed of light would still be 186,000 miles per second. In the physical/material universe, nothing can exceed the speed of light, or, more precisely, information cannot be transferred faster than the speed of light. Why is this the case? Because if you exceeded the speed of light, time would move backwards, IOW, you could go back in time. Now you're getting into the metaphysical realm, because it's probably pretty well accepted, in the "new age" channeled realm etc., one can move backwards and forwards in time. And, in the higher realms you would not have the speed of light as a limitation, IOW, you can exceed the speed of light and go backwards in time.
This is getting long so I want to touch a little more on quantum effects before ending. Einstein did more to further quantum theory than probably almost anyone else, by attacking it. Einstein never believed that quantum theory was a final and complete picture of reality. Why? Because quantum mechanics, ultimately, is a theory of probability and chance, indeterminism. Einstein couldn't give up the idea of cause and effect, determinism. So Einstein had countless conversations with Neils Bohr about quantum theory. Einstein would come up with these thought experiments where it seemed impossible for quantum theory to work, but Bohr would come up with a way to get around Einstein. Einstein came up with one final thought experiment which he thought put the nail in the coffin of quantum theory. I think it was about 1935 in the EPR paper (two other co-authors who probably did most of the writing, Podolsky and Rosen). Einstein saw that if quantum mechanics was right, if two particles interacted they would be forever interrelated no matter how far apart they might become from each other in the future. IOW, with two entangled particles, if you effected one in some manner, the other would automatically respond. For example, with two entangled particles, if you measured one and it was spin up, the other particle would immediately go spin down. This showed that reality was non-local, and Einstein believed that this was impossible. Einstein called this effect "spooky action at a distance". Quantum theory showed that this effect occurred even when two particles became so far apart that they could not 'exchange information' because their distance apart superseded the speed of light. Einstein figured that reality just could not work in this manner.
This debated was in a stalemate for about 30 years, then a guy named John Bell, in 1964 came up with a thought experiment that would decide if Einstein was right or Bohr was right. And the a few years later some experimental physicists figured out how to actually do Bell's thought experiment and prove or disprove Bell's Inequality Theorem. It turns out that Bohr was right, the universe is non-local. When two particles are entangled, they are forever somehow connected, whatever happens to one immediately effects the other, even beyond their ability to communicate via the speed of light, IOW, the speed of light is not an obstacle to this effect, it is immediate. This has been proved numerous times since the 1970's, it's probably a proven daily occurrence now.
These are just relatively minor examples in the known physics of today. Effectively, it shows in the material/physical universe, virtually everything is connected, IOW, all is One. With the Big Bang, all matter and energy that exists, 100,000 billion stars in each of 100,000 billion galaxies, came out of a space as small as one single atom. (That's why, IMO, virtually everything is entangled). I'll try to fill in some things here and there, but just one more thing before I stop for now. Because of the rotation of galaxies and the accelerating speed of galaxies moving apart from each other, physicists have had to hypothesize dark matter and dark energy. It seems that 96% of the universe is missing. All the matter and energy in all the galaxies and all the dust between stars, everything we can see and measure is only 4% of what must necessarily exist (for the reasons mentioned above). It is my opinion that the higher spiritual dimensions are the source of this missing dark matter and dark energy.
If anyone has any questions, this would help direct future posts. Thanks.
sdp
)
. The irreconcilable nature of QM and GR essentially boils down to Maharshi's quote: "free will and destiny are both ever evident", because the latter tells the story of the destiny of the Universe, while the former forever forestalls any hope of ever knowing the details of the story until it's all over.