Mike's Principle

I've decided that conjecture, especially exemplified by Mach's principle, is the greatest bat-tool in a good crackpot scientist's utility belt.

Mach's principle concerns junk like: Say you are spinning and looking at the stars, and "the stars are whirling around you and your arms are pulled away from your body." The conjecture in a nutshell is that there is some physical law relating the two.

What is so great about a conjecture stated as such (Mach actually expressed it differently), is that it doesn't have to explain anything or even make specific testable claims. It doesn't even have to be right to be useful. Mach's principle can be as simple as "There is some relation between my arms pulling away, and the stars spinning around me." This sounds like pure crackpot science, but if you allow the relation between arms and stars to be very indirect and very loose, then you can find some truth in it. And it is in investigating the relationship where the value of the conjecture becomes real. In the case of Mach's principle, Einstein used it as a guiding factor in developing general relativity. A conjecture might be expressed as a puzzle, a question of "why?" or "how are these things related?"; the conjecture may even be silly, while the answer to the puzzle may be immensely important.

I believe a lot of crackpots fail by trying to provide explanations for what they don't understand. They could simply side-step the lack of understanding and provide conjectures that suggest that things are related without delving into the details of their mechanisms.

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I should know not to dismiss a silly idea as worthless. The following is an idea I've mentioned before. If properly stated as a conjecture, it should allow for further development.

Preamble:
A point observer does not directly perceive distance. Distance is only extrapolated from multiple observations from different locations or times. A point observer essentially observes the universe as a 2-dimensional spherical surface around it.

The apparent size of an object (as observed visually via light) is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between object and observer. The gravitational attraction is also inversely proportional to the square of the distance. The conjecture is that the two are related according to some aspect of perception.

Or basically, it is not a coincidence that the perceived size of a mass is equal to the perceived gravitational pull. One must accept the measurement of "depth" (a third dimension that can make an object appear in size inversely proportional to the cube of the distance to the object) as unperceived or excluded from the definition of "observation".

Here's where I go back to typical crackpot science.

Time relativity suggests that time and distance might be pure fabrications of observation. They are an effect of perception, rather than an aspect of the physical nature of the universe. So it may be that the way we perceive the universe is entirely illusory. Further it may be that geometry (Euclidean geometry and possibly Cartesian coordinates) is a product of the same illusory effect.

We perceive the universe as such: Everything that is a distance of r away from me (the observer) lies on a sphere of radius r, where the area of the sphere is proportional to r². Everything that is farther away from us exists on an imaginary sphere that is larger the farther it is from us. In a way, there is "more stuff" farther away from us. Also, the same object takes up proportionally less of a farther imaginary sphere, and since all of these spheres appear the same size to the observer (they each basically take up all of the observational area all around us), farther objects appear smaller and have less gravitational attraction.

The next step involves some complicated imagination, similar to trying to visualize extra spacial dimensions. I think that the true nature of the universe (its physical geometry, if it has one) is not at all like the observational reality, where everything can be described in terms of spheres that grow with distance. ... In conclusion, uh...

TO BE CONTINUED...   ?

Gravity, how does it work? (And I don't wanna talk to a scientist)

Gravity is a mystery because it seems to be a "spooky" force acting from a distance. However, it can be explained as an effect of local spacetime (while the curvature of spacetime is affected by distant mass).

It is also weird because it seems to cause action in objects that might be completely at rest. However, nothing is ever completely at rest; it may only appear so on a macroscopic scale.


I submit for your consideration:

1. All matter is made up of energy.
2. Energy travels at the speed of light. Atoms consist of a nucleus with electrons continuously moving around it (oscillating) at the speed of light. The nucleus is made of energy that is also oscillating. No energy is at rest. Note: Since all motion is relative, does that mean that no energy is ever at rest relative to any other energy? That must mean something interesting...
3. Mass curves spacetime. Light that crosses this spacetime appears to follow a curve, but essentially it is spacetime itself that is curved, and the light is following a "geodesic": a path that is "straight" along this curved space.

Now imagine a quantum of matter as some energy oscillating up and down (limit it to 1 dimension for simplification). In the lack of a gravitational field, spacetime is "flat" and the oscillating energy remains relatively stationary horizontally. If you now consider the presence of mass, say off to the right, then spacetime is curved. The oscillating energy no longer moves straight up and down, but bends slightly to the right on each oscillation.

If you imagine watching this energy acting like a perpetually bouncing ball in a ventilation duct that widens toward the right, its oscillations will acquire a right-ward lean, and it begins bouncing to the right. It has rightward momentum, and meanwhile it is also curving more on each oscillation, and it accelerates. Stop its horizontal motion, and it will again begin to take on rightward momentum.

Rather than a force adding energy to a mass, gravity maintains the inertia of mass energy.

The more you know.


Note: The duct analogy is flawed because in it, the ball bends to the right on the bounces, while the "moving energy" it represents bends to the right while it is crossing space.

Topological relativity?

Relativity says that 2 observers can each see relative length contraction when observing the other.

In other words, I could see that I could fit your house inside my house, and you could see that you could fit my house inside yours. Practically it would be hard to do... with special relativity, it would require the houses to be moving very fast relative to each other. Parking houses is a difficult manoever at near-c speeds. With general relativity it might be possible with some weird gravity thing that I don't understand. Maybe it involves being on opposite sides of an event horizon. However, is it even possible? Or does topology give a reason why it isn't?

Seems to me, if you have one thing topologically "inside" another thing, but you have control over space so that you can compress one part of space to an infinitesimal length, and inflate another to infinite length, you should be able to turn the whole thing inside out (and even treat it as simply a change in point of view, if you had that power), without changing the topology of the set of 2 things.

So could we not then have universes inside our universe? Possibly black holes are entire universes that we see only as something infinitesimal. Perhaps even, just like 2 houses each inside the other, perhaps we are topologically inside these black hole universes. Could we be inside each of the black hole universes that are each inside of us? It's not that we're some tiny dot within the tiny speck that is a black hole singularity, each recursively within a larger version of the other, but rather we're both inside and outside of each black hole depending on which side you turn out... like a reversible jacket with billions of insides and maybe just one "outside" that one can see at a time. Your universe, whichever it may be, is always seen as the outside in the normal perspective of life.

Perhaps falling through an event horizon feels like that, like a reversibile universe turning itself inside out, so you fall into the "outside" of a different universe, and the universe from whence you came turns into an "inside", and becomes a black hole that resides within your new universe. Of course, you'd probably feel a lot like Hawking radiation, and uh... be it... which would probably put a damper on your ability to look around and contemplate how much like a jacket the multiverse seems.

They should teach topology in grade school. Then by first year of university, kids would probably know the answers to these questions.

This thing all things devours

I'm in the middle of a horribly tedious rewrite and have had a crushing thought: I don't think my definition of time jives with my meaning of light being "instantaneous". Again I get that feeling that everything I'm talking about is exactly the same as what's been known for the last 100 years, and anything different is nothing more than poor wording.

I've been completely wrong in the science, the math, the language. The only thing that endures is the idea. Will it be boiled down until it's nothing more than a repetition of what I've read? Or will it be polished till it gleams, like a beautiful delicate golden turd?

Yet more contemplation and rewriting.

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If time is distance, then a moment in time with 0 duration is a single point. That is not light.

If light is not a moving thing, then what is it? It is not a single instant, because it spans time (distance). Yet it is at all points along that distance simul... simul-what? It spans time but it does not move through time. Does it bridge time? No, it does only exist at a single time value, but that time value is different for different observers. And does it not actually exist as a line of energy, observable along its entire length as single points of light by different observers, but rather exists only at its source and its destination? One cannot "see" a light signal unless it is intercepted, and though you can intercept signals all along light's path if there are enough signals (like a laser through a smokey room), it is still only observable at source (as a loss of energy) and destination (as a gain).

Perhaps then light is simply a teleportation of energy. It slips out of existence in one observation-defined location (and time), and shows up elsewhere. Yet, the path is important because it determines where the destination will be. Energy teleportation makes sense within the idea of a singularity, but how is geometry and the difference between matter and space represented within a singularity? And is the singularity idea really needed, when there is no way to observe a light transmission occurring in a single instant?

Or something.

Special Theory of Everything

Nuts to general relativity. I'mma return to wild speculation about whatever. I still have most of 10 years to figure it all out.

Theory: All forces are an effect caused by the warping of space.

Evidence for: When you move relative to something, it gets warped. When you move relative to everything, everything gets warped. We can say, "space gets warped." This is special relativity.

Conventionally, we say "When you apply a force to an object, it moves, and its velocity causes a warping of observed space."

Instead we could say "When you warp space, you move through it." Occam's Razor favors the latter.

Not that we know how to warp space by will alone. Nevertheless, we do it all the time, simply by moving. We don't know how forces work but we use them all the time. We don't know how space warping works but we use it all the time.

Evidence against: Ain't none but tired old convention.


Theory: The universe is a singularity

Evidence for: Distance and time are observer-dependent. The shape and size of the universe is different for different observers. It seems as if shape and size, and time too, is defined by an observer. If you try to envision how a spherical light wavefront "sees" the universe under Time Relativity, you see the universe shrunk to a single point: a singularity. Without observers, there appears to be no time, and no distance, and no chronology of events or causality. Observations define the observed universe; without those observations it seems to best make sense as a singularity.

Evidence against: The above description of a universe as a singularity is an attempt to describe an observation of the universe without an observer, but still using that mathematical language of an observer. It seems more likely that it exists in some different way, with different dimensions that only appears as a singularity to our common understanding of observations. But an observation of such a universe wouldn't appear as a singularity; it would appear as the universe appears to us.

Perhaps though it is possible to describe how the universe is shaped (IE. a singularity) without being able to describe how that shape might look.

Force of ignorance

Einstein and Newton are my heroes, but if any scientific convention leads us astray, even one established by the most intelligent players in the game, it must be ignored or corrected (or my misunderstanding must be rectified).

List of junk that I don't like in science

• A frame experiencing gravity is indistinguishable from an accelerating frame
  
  Observers in each of these frames will observe a warping of space around them. A linearly accelerating frame will observe a cartesian warping, where "lines of length contraction" are parallel. Under gravity, a frame will observe a polar warping, where lines converge at the center of gravity. Across the "height" of the frame of a person standing on Earth, there will be a gravitational differential (gravity should be measurably stronger at your feet than at your head, even if the difference is minuscule).
  
  A single point of observation would still not be able to tell the difference between a linear acceleration (that can change in magnitude as the point changes position), and the force of gravity. Again, as with Time Relativity, there is the suggestion that an "inertial frame" that contains "stuff" where there is distance between the stuff, can not be consistently described as a single entity. Different points within an inertial frame will experience phenomena differently.
  
  

  Update: Einstein thought of this. I think they're expressing the same idea when they say "in mathematical terms, it is the geodesic motion associated with a specific connection which depends on the gradient of the gravitational potential. Space, in this construction, still has the ordinary Euclidean geometry. However, spacetime as a whole is more complicated." (IE. it's all curved up, yo.)

  
  
• Inertia: A body at rest tends to stay at rest
  
  To claim that the natural state of an object at rest is to remain at rest, requires one to consider the object in the absence of gravity. This requires one to consider it independent of any other matter, because otherwise there will be gravitational forces. But then you lose all definition of "at rest" verses "moving", because movement is relative. To say that the object is at rest implies that it is not moving relative to some other object. You cannot compare it to "the frame of space", which doesn't exist in relativistic physics. This object that you are considering independent of all other matter, has no way to distinguish whether it is moving or at rest compared to other things it can't observe, and its inertia or momentum is undefined.
  
  If you add another mass into the picture, then we must have that a body at rest will tend to accelerate toward other masses. To cling to the old definition of inertia, we're compelled to treat gravity as a constant force which is something that is "additional" to the underlying natural state of things. But gravity is the underlying natural state of things. Bodies that obey a more natural definition of inertia will tend to attract each other.
  
  This almost suggests that an object in free fall is not observing a "force" so much, but rather just being inert within the relative space around it. That is roughly how it feels, to the observer. Another observer that is overcoming gravity is the one who employs or experiences forces.
  
  

  Update: Einstein thought of this. "This suggests the definition of a new class of inertial motion, namely that of objects in free fall under the influence of gravity."

  
  Perhaps trying to unify the "force" of gravity with the other fundamental forces is like asking "what kind of apple is this navel orange?"
  

Foundation for a Unified Theory

The double-slit experiment immediately makes slightly more sense under the TDR model, because it allows all possible paths for the light to be evaluated in a single instant.

Single-slit and double-slit experiments are cases of light being curved. Let us consider that light appears to travel at c along this curved path. Suppose that a photon appears to travel a curved distance of d and hits a screen. The time value at the screen along the curved path is the same time value at the sender. However, due to 1/c invariance, from any perspective I will see the time difference between sender and screen according to straight-line distances. That means that the length-time that I observe or measure between sender and receiver is smaller than it is measured along the "instantaneous" curved light path. In other words, the photon has shifted into a slightly different time than the one I can observe.

However, this also suggests that I wouldn't see any photons hitting the screen, because any curved path would mean a slight shift in time. This suggests that the light event is not instantaneous after all, but has a small duration. So, though many photons appear time-shifted, those that are shifted only slightly are still visible. An interference pattern becomes apparent, as photons are shifted out of visible time to form dark spots, and others are shifted into visible time to form brighter spots.

A natural correlation between the energy and duration of a light event is that the duration of the event would be proportional to its energy. The apparent frequency of light might be illusory. An explanation of redshift or the appearance of it would need to be provided in accordance with TDR. Note that the appearance of a sinusoidal aspect of an apparent "light wave" may mean that a light event occurs similarly sinusoidal. That is, it is a "flash" of light energy that begins "dark", increases in intensity until a maximum amplitude is reached (would the amplitude be the same for all different energies of light?), and decreases back to "dark". If a light event is said to occur at a specific time, it would likely make sense that the moment of maximum intensity would be that time. Note: Several questions come up that cast doubt on this interpretation of frequency effects of light. Does that mean that part of a light event can happen before the official time of the event? Wouldn't it make more sense if higher-energy light stretched it across space (width, for example) rather than time? Either would allow wider bands for higher frequencies to be visible in the slit experiments, but the opposite effect is apparent. Therefore these ideas need to be revisited.

The effect of "which path" observations on the slit experiments destroys the appearance of interference. A couple possible explanations come to mind:

• The detection of light anywhere along the path changes the light event from a single curved-path event, "splitting" it into multiple straight-path light events.
• The detection of light involves an interaction with matter. That matter has size, which means the interaction takes time. This time might be random enough that it removes the otherwise precise correlation between time and locations on the screen.

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Revisiting the Time-shift explanation for interference patterns...

Consider conservation of energy as it relates to number of photons. We would think that any photons that "disappear into another time" would be replaced by an equal number that appear from another time. However, a single-photon light-event will always be detected. So something is wrong.

The model of a single light event is a line (possibly curved). But the double-slit experiment suggests that light propagates as a spherical wavefront.

It could be that light does indeed propagate along that entire round wavefront, and in fact interacts with the entire area it "sees". However, every location that it interacts with exists in a different time, while any observer only exists in a single time. An observer will see light interact with only a single point at which its observed time matches the light event's time. An observation from the exact location of a light sender, could "see" that that light in fact hits everywhere, and not just a single point. This reinstates the instantaneousness of light.

It also suggests an experiment which may predict that observers in frames that have relative movement will see a different diffraction pattern, because each observer will have different measurements between the light source and locations on the screen. However, it could instead be that the pattern is defined by the ratio of curved-path distance to straight-path distance, which might be the same for any observer.

There must be something that was missed or incorrect in all this speculation.

The above describes single-slit interference, but doesn't cover double-slit.

One last wild speculation: What if time is meaningless to a light event? The "time" at which it occurs depends on a definition of time, which is time-frame location dependent. Perhaps the light event exists as a wave through all of time, and we only see the single location and time of that event that matches our observed time-frame's time definition of that event. In this case, when a single photon follows a curved path, we see it shifted in time depending on location and straight-line distance between sender and receiver. So with less curvature, we observe events similar to if they were straight-line light events, and at locations involving more curvature, a photon appears to disappear into another time, and elsewhere we see more or less (depending on location) that the photon is visible as it appears due to it having been sent at a different time value than the one that our time frame says it was sent at.

Confusing.