I was thinking about the idea that time equals distance, and why you would be able to "move back" in distance but not in time. Then I realized that in a sense, you can. You just can't do it on a very large scale...
A simple example of how “relative time” implies that time-travel is effectively impossible.
As an example let us consider an event involving 2 particles A and B, moving away from a point or planet P, perhaps after an explosion. Let us consider it from the perspective of A moving relative to P, from which we observe that B is also moving away from P.
The notion of “universal time” suggests the idea that if time were to be “reversed”, then every process involving time would be reversed. A would move back toward P, as would B, and they would do so consistently along a single “time line”.
However, we know that universal time is not real, and that time is in fact relative. The aspect of that which is important in this example is that time according to A is not the same as time according to B.
Suppose that A did in fact reverse direction and began moving back toward P. Suppose that it's possible to consider this in a way where we can't distinguish between the reversal of time between A and P, vs a simple reversal of direction of travel of A relative to P. For all intents and purposes, a simple enough particle A moving back toward a simple enough particle P might be considered time-travel backwards.
However, the time defined by A and P is independent of the time between B and P. What is done to affect the former does not necessarily affect the latter. So while time can be considered going in reverse for A and P, particle B is continuing to move away from P, which we would call “forward in time”.
The same applies to any particles C, D, etc. So suppose we define a clock at P between particles P and C (or any set of particles that we wish). Manipulation of the relative time between A and P would not affect the relative time measured by P and C etc. So while A can be considered moving back in time toward P, that doesn't affect the time measured by the clock at P. A can move back in time and return to a state of P relative to A that is identical to a former state of P relative to A, yet it cannot simply return to a former state of P relative to B, C, etc. As observed by A, P has continued moving forward in time relative to everything else, including its own clocks.
Thus the effect of any sort of time-travel involving A and P will have no noticeable effect in a complex enough system involving multiple particles, or particles with their own internal time-related processes.
In conclusion, I submit that effective time-travel would not involve manipulation of a single variable called “time”; it would require manipulation of countless variables of time defined between all of the particles involved. In other words, time-travel is possible, but only relatively, not universally.
Addendum: Due to relativity of simultaneity, it would be impossible to choose an instant at which to begin a reversal of time, that would be agreed upon by all observers. So even if you could somehow time-reverse all of a complex system, you would lack the notion of a universal time-reversal along a single time-line. While from one perspective it may seem that everything suddenly reversed, from another perspective it may seem that some things reversed while others continued "forward", with various parts beginning to reverse at different time.
Time-travel as it is commonly understood is a notion that is tied to the classical idea of universal time, which people still use to define and understand their world, even though universal time is known to be incorrect.
To get more complicated, we might say that time is related to entropy in this way: When you have any 2 particles split from a single location, you introduce distance between them, which effectively defines a measure of time between them. The greater number of independent locations of particles relative to each other that you have, and the greater the distances between them, the harder it is to get everything back to the way it was previously.
We could say that time is simply the measure of distance between everything.
I've talked about the idea that time and distance are simply perceptual side-effects of the consistency of the underlying physical nature of the universe.
If this is so, then the mysterious imaginary spherical surface that you can describe around any point, which is defined by geometry or perhaps even defines geometry, may be a reflection of entropy. As time (radius) increases, the possible configurations that can fit on the sphere, ie entropy (sphere's surface), increases. This could be why at distances r from you, more "stuff" in the universe can fit around you the bigger r is.
If you have a strictly expanding universe (where no energy reverses outward direction, ie "goes back in time") then its entropy would be proportional to the area of the surface of a sphere of radius t (the age of the universe).
I'm sure that this is related to the holographic principle, which suggests something similar... but I'm not sure if it's a meaningful idea or not.
I'd like to think so, though. :) Time relativity has suggested that time and distance are illusory, and because I don't know of any need for additional dimensions, I've had this hunch-like feeling that the universe can be described completely in 2 dimensions. I've also figured that the universe is exactly like a black hole (and looks like a singularity from the outside), and so I've taken the holographic principle to heart as "something else that also suggests the universe might be 2 dimensional". It seems believable or somehow right -- I have "faith" in it -- yet I don't understand it enough to say why. It would certainly be nice if everything came together.
It certainly feels like a simplification of everything. Working with time relativity is "weird" and confusing, but in the end if it yields other interesting results everything might disappear in a puff of equivalence.
What is the universe? A singularity, which appears to be more due to geometry.
What is geometry? An effect of entropy.
What is entropy? An effect of distance, which is equivalent to time.
What is time? Nothing.
Could it be that the universe came from nothing, and all along, it has remained nothing?
...
Possibly, but until I can make sense of the meaning of that, I'm not going to claim it is so.
The ideas don't stop.
Perhaps then, a two dimensional universe with perceptual side-effects of time and length appears to us consistently as a 3-dimensional thing.
But, since entropy is proportional to the surface area (square of r) around any volume, yet the possible amount of matter in the volume is proportional to the cube of r, the same "magic" that allows us to consistently see a 2D universe in 3D would require that the more matter you pack into a volume, the smaller r must appear.
The result: space-time curvature.
Showing posts with label relativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relativity. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
Friday, August 20, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
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:
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The theory of Instantaneous Information Transfer
Note: This theory as-is is disproven, but leads to the basis of other compelling theories
Long ago, everything was about matter. Everything was about stuff interacting with stuff. Even light was thought of as a bunch of tiny particles moving at extreme velocities.
Then everything was about energy. Einstein showed that matter and energy are equivalent, that E=mc2. In effect, matter is made up of energy.
Now, the new big thing is information. The transfer of energy is a transfer of information. Stuff interacting with stuff is a transfer of information.
c, the speed of light in a vacuum, is the nominal speed of information travel in the universe. There is nothing inherently special that I know of about light that would make light the defining thing of the universe. c is more than just the speed of light; it is the speed of the universe itself. Electricity flows as a wave carried by adjacent electrons at c. Gravity waves travel at c. No matter or energy or information can travel faster than c. Calling it "the speed of light" severely undervalues its importance, and makes it seem confusing that it should have such a pivotal role in the workings of the universe. After all, what's so special about light?
For matter to travel at c, it would need to have an infinite amount of energy. What if we were to consider c to be an infinite speed, and redefine space and time as we need to, around that assumption? Then, light would be transmitted at infinite speed. Instead of light being some piece of energy that moves like matter does, it is energy or information that is conveyed instantly. It is emitted and absorbed in the same instant. Since we know from experience that light in fact takes a certain amount of time to cross a certain distance (at speed c), we must redefine "time" to allow these 2 events in different locations to be "simultaneous" even though they appear not to be.
This would mean that if you observed a star exploding 100 light years away, that is happening "now" where you are. But "now" would not be the same in all locations, as an observer 50 light years away would seem to see it 50 years earlier, according to our notion of light taking one year rather than an instant to cross a light-year. But it would mean that despite this apparent difference in time, according to me and my observations, the 3 events of the star exploding, the closer observer seeing it, and myself seeing it, all occur at the same time. (Note: Since my observations are based on the propagation of light, it is clear that all 3 events would be observed simultaneous from where I am -- but does simultaneous observation imply simultaneous occurrence?)
This is shown to be confusing, if not just plain wrong, when you consider something like reflecting a laser off the moon. According to this theory, an observer on the moon would see the laser on Earth turned on at the same time that the light hits the moon, which is then instantly reflected back. An observer on the Earth would see the light reflecting off the moon and instantly being seen on Earth. However, the observer on Earth would not see the laser being turned on and then being instantly reflected by the moon. There would be a delay, equal to the time it would take if the light was traveling the return distance at c. This means that time and simultaneity are not the same between different locations. 2 events that occur between the Earth and the moon may seem to occur with different timing, when seen by each.
So why bother considering this confusing idea, when everything makes sense if we just return to the idea of light being something that travels at a given speed? What do we gain with this concept? I started by arguing that light is nothing special, so why then treat it so specially? Compare it to sound... if for example we hear the crack of a bat hitting a baseball after we see it, we wouldn't consider that the events we see and hear occurred at different times. Wouldn't light propagation being instant make it special?
Well, the answer is no. It would simply mean that light is an instantaneous transfer of information, while sound (like all information transmitted through the movement of matter) is not. What we gain is this notion of instantaneous information transfer, which we can apply to a myriad of interactions that appear to occur at a speed of c.
General Relativity already allows for such a redefinition of time and the loss of universal simultaneity, between 2 observers who are traveling at different speeds relative to one another. That is a necessary weirdness, however, to allow for things that would otherwise be impossible with a notion of universal time. The theory discussed here, on the other hand, adds unintuitive weirdness to common everyday events that otherwise appear not weird at all, and can be intuitively explained with existing simple classical physics.
The theory of instantaneous information transfer (IIT) implies that all events observed through information that arrived at an apparent speed of c, occurred at the time they were observed, according to the observer. That means that light from the moon arrives instantly. It means that to an observer on the moon, light from Earth arrives instantly, but it does NOT mean that according to an observer on Earth, light sent to the moon arrives instantly. Although light propagates instantly, there is no valid concept of universal time that says that what happens in one place happens at the same time in another place. Remember that this theory implies that the appearance of propagation of light at a fixed speed is a side-effect of a re-definition of time as something that is not fixed, as it seems to be. To an observer on Earth, light is sent to the moon, and though I am seeing the moon as it is "now", it receives the light in a different time. When that happens, it immediately reflects the light back, which I instantly see.
That would imply that information transmitted across a distance is sent into the future.
So we have events happening in various locations, and light instantly conveying information about those events. Then we have time defined as a factor of distance such that it appears that events 1 light-second away occurred 1 second ago. (Or, we could have distance defined as a factor of time, such that it appears that events that happened 1 second ago appear to be 1 light-second away -- however I think this is actually TOO complicated to bother contemplating at the moment).
It could then be that all of our perception of the passage of time is nothing but an effect of the distances between everything.
Now then, what were those interesting consequences of this theory?...
Then everything was about energy. Einstein showed that matter and energy are equivalent, that E=mc2. In effect, matter is made up of energy.
Now, the new big thing is information. The transfer of energy is a transfer of information. Stuff interacting with stuff is a transfer of information.
c, the speed of light in a vacuum, is the nominal speed of information travel in the universe. There is nothing inherently special that I know of about light that would make light the defining thing of the universe. c is more than just the speed of light; it is the speed of the universe itself. Electricity flows as a wave carried by adjacent electrons at c. Gravity waves travel at c. No matter or energy or information can travel faster than c. Calling it "the speed of light" severely undervalues its importance, and makes it seem confusing that it should have such a pivotal role in the workings of the universe. After all, what's so special about light?
For matter to travel at c, it would need to have an infinite amount of energy. What if we were to consider c to be an infinite speed, and redefine space and time as we need to, around that assumption? Then, light would be transmitted at infinite speed. Instead of light being some piece of energy that moves like matter does, it is energy or information that is conveyed instantly. It is emitted and absorbed in the same instant. Since we know from experience that light in fact takes a certain amount of time to cross a certain distance (at speed c), we must redefine "time" to allow these 2 events in different locations to be "simultaneous" even though they appear not to be.
This would mean that if you observed a star exploding 100 light years away, that is happening "now" where you are. But "now" would not be the same in all locations, as an observer 50 light years away would seem to see it 50 years earlier, according to our notion of light taking one year rather than an instant to cross a light-year. But it would mean that despite this apparent difference in time, according to me and my observations, the 3 events of the star exploding, the closer observer seeing it, and myself seeing it, all occur at the same time. (Note: Since my observations are based on the propagation of light, it is clear that all 3 events would be observed simultaneous from where I am -- but does simultaneous observation imply simultaneous occurrence?)
This is shown to be confusing, if not just plain wrong, when you consider something like reflecting a laser off the moon. According to this theory, an observer on the moon would see the laser on Earth turned on at the same time that the light hits the moon, which is then instantly reflected back. An observer on the Earth would see the light reflecting off the moon and instantly being seen on Earth. However, the observer on Earth would not see the laser being turned on and then being instantly reflected by the moon. There would be a delay, equal to the time it would take if the light was traveling the return distance at c. This means that time and simultaneity are not the same between different locations. 2 events that occur between the Earth and the moon may seem to occur with different timing, when seen by each.
So why bother considering this confusing idea, when everything makes sense if we just return to the idea of light being something that travels at a given speed? What do we gain with this concept? I started by arguing that light is nothing special, so why then treat it so specially? Compare it to sound... if for example we hear the crack of a bat hitting a baseball after we see it, we wouldn't consider that the events we see and hear occurred at different times. Wouldn't light propagation being instant make it special?
Well, the answer is no. It would simply mean that light is an instantaneous transfer of information, while sound (like all information transmitted through the movement of matter) is not. What we gain is this notion of instantaneous information transfer, which we can apply to a myriad of interactions that appear to occur at a speed of c.
General Relativity already allows for such a redefinition of time and the loss of universal simultaneity, between 2 observers who are traveling at different speeds relative to one another. That is a necessary weirdness, however, to allow for things that would otherwise be impossible with a notion of universal time. The theory discussed here, on the other hand, adds unintuitive weirdness to common everyday events that otherwise appear not weird at all, and can be intuitively explained with existing simple classical physics.
The theory of instantaneous information transfer (IIT) implies that all events observed through information that arrived at an apparent speed of c, occurred at the time they were observed, according to the observer. That means that light from the moon arrives instantly. It means that to an observer on the moon, light from Earth arrives instantly, but it does NOT mean that according to an observer on Earth, light sent to the moon arrives instantly. Although light propagates instantly, there is no valid concept of universal time that says that what happens in one place happens at the same time in another place. Remember that this theory implies that the appearance of propagation of light at a fixed speed is a side-effect of a re-definition of time as something that is not fixed, as it seems to be. To an observer on Earth, light is sent to the moon, and though I am seeing the moon as it is "now", it receives the light in a different time. When that happens, it immediately reflects the light back, which I instantly see.
That would imply that information transmitted across a distance is sent into the future.
Okay so much for Occam's razor. The theory of IIT will likely be tossed out well before the next trash day. Well it was a valiant attempt at any rate.Note that IIT doesn't break the law of causality or even imply faster-than-light travel, because time and distance are redefined based on c in a way that maintains causality.
So we have events happening in various locations, and light instantly conveying information about those events. Then we have time defined as a factor of distance such that it appears that events 1 light-second away occurred 1 second ago. (Or, we could have distance defined as a factor of time, such that it appears that events that happened 1 second ago appear to be 1 light-second away -- however I think this is actually TOO complicated to bother contemplating at the moment).
It could then be that all of our perception of the passage of time is nothing but an effect of the distances between everything.
Now then, what were those interesting consequences of this theory?...
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Theories
I've had a lot of vague thoughts lately but neither the time nor focus to develop them well. Here are some ideas of things I'll have to reconsider later in depth.
These are some theories that I can't prove, but I think may be true due to clues and gut feelings.
Theory: It is impossible to observe alternate universes except in terms of probability wavefunctions.
The idea of an "alternate universe" from our perspective, is that it is part of a superposition of all potential realities. It exists only as wavefunctions describing the probability of any specific aspect of a potential reality being an actual reality.
However, QM experiments and interpretations suggest that making observations of something "makes it real". In QM terminology, an observation collapses a probability wavefunction. To oversimplify and demystify, we might say that "anything that is possible is always possible, but as soon as we know anything about it, only what we know is possible."
However, if we gain any knowledge of alternate reality, that constitutes making an observation. The more certain we know anything, the more real it is. But this suggests that it becomes "real" in "our" reality (the reality from which it is observed). Thus, possibly by definition of reality, the only reality that we can observe is our own.
A rephrasing of the theory is: It is impossible to transfer information between physically separate realities, without physically joining them.
Theory: It is not possible to transfer information faster than the speed of light through the use of quantum entanglement.
This is really just based on gut feelings and evidence from the history of science that basically suggests to us, over and over, that there's no free lunch and you can't cheat the universe. Conservation laws, causality... these suggest that the universe ultimately runs in a logical manner with a strict set of rules.
I have no proof.
The basic idea for using quantum entanglement for FTL (faster than light) message passing, is that making a measurement of one entangled particle immediately tells you some corresponding information about the other particle, due to conservation laws, regardless of distance. To break causality laws, this would mean that the observation of one particle somehow changes it (which must also instantly change the other). So, if FTL information transfer is impossible, which I think it is, this must mean that making an observation of the particle doesn't "change" it in an immediately measurable way.
I believe that the results of any experiments done, will have a caveat that any information that can be obtained from one particle, requires additional context information from the other particle before it can be in any way useful. In other words, any message passed would effectively be "encrypted" with additional information that is not available at both particles simultaneously. Experiments may show things like, "When results from both particles were compared, it showed that a message was instantly transferred, however it wasn't until the results from both particles were brought together that the message could be understood." -- An example of this idea is the "quantum eraser" experiment, which hints that information has traveled faster than the speed of light, however that information is only available retrospectively, meaning that causality is not violated.
In vague terms, this would mean that observing a particle "locks" it to a particular reality, but it doesn't "determine" what that reality is. You can't control reality through cleverly manipulative observations.
If 2 separate observers are making observations of their realities, they should each see a reality that is independently consistent and isn't affected by anything they can't observe (IE anything outside of the scope of causality). Then when the 2 observers meet, they should find that their separately observed realities are consistent with each other. I'm not sure yet exactly how this will be exemplified in the case of entanglement.
Addendum (trying to wrap my head around this):
Specifically, it seems that the idea of coupled complementary aspects of knowledge apply to elements of thought and consciousness. This is purely philosophical. The idea might stem from the acceptance of the uncertainty principle leading me to think about other aspects of life in similar ways.
Some unscientific ideas based on this are things like, the more precisely you focus on one thought or subject or object, the less you are able to focus on a large range of the same. You can either observe much with little precision, or little with much precision. Another example is that the more precisely you try to imagine what someone is thinking, the more errors your imagination is likely to produce, and the less you 'get' them. You can either 'get' someone accurately and not care about the details, or try to get them precisely, and not be accurate.
These could be simply analogies, or perhaps there is some fundamental aspect of the uncertainty principle that applies equally to real-world junk.
These are some theories that I can't prove, but I think may be true due to clues and gut feelings.
Theory: It is impossible to observe alternate universes except in terms of probability wavefunctions.
The idea of an "alternate universe" from our perspective, is that it is part of a superposition of all potential realities. It exists only as wavefunctions describing the probability of any specific aspect of a potential reality being an actual reality.
However, QM experiments and interpretations suggest that making observations of something "makes it real". In QM terminology, an observation collapses a probability wavefunction. To oversimplify and demystify, we might say that "anything that is possible is always possible, but as soon as we know anything about it, only what we know is possible."
However, if we gain any knowledge of alternate reality, that constitutes making an observation. The more certain we know anything, the more real it is. But this suggests that it becomes "real" in "our" reality (the reality from which it is observed). Thus, possibly by definition of reality, the only reality that we can observe is our own.
A rephrasing of the theory is: It is impossible to transfer information between physically separate realities, without physically joining them.
Theory: It is not possible to transfer information faster than the speed of light through the use of quantum entanglement.
This is really just based on gut feelings and evidence from the history of science that basically suggests to us, over and over, that there's no free lunch and you can't cheat the universe. Conservation laws, causality... these suggest that the universe ultimately runs in a logical manner with a strict set of rules.
I have no proof.
The basic idea for using quantum entanglement for FTL (faster than light) message passing, is that making a measurement of one entangled particle immediately tells you some corresponding information about the other particle, due to conservation laws, regardless of distance. To break causality laws, this would mean that the observation of one particle somehow changes it (which must also instantly change the other). So, if FTL information transfer is impossible, which I think it is, this must mean that making an observation of the particle doesn't "change" it in an immediately measurable way.
I believe that the results of any experiments done, will have a caveat that any information that can be obtained from one particle, requires additional context information from the other particle before it can be in any way useful. In other words, any message passed would effectively be "encrypted" with additional information that is not available at both particles simultaneously. Experiments may show things like, "When results from both particles were compared, it showed that a message was instantly transferred, however it wasn't until the results from both particles were brought together that the message could be understood." -- An example of this idea is the "quantum eraser" experiment, which hints that information has traveled faster than the speed of light, however that information is only available retrospectively, meaning that causality is not violated.
In vague terms, this would mean that observing a particle "locks" it to a particular reality, but it doesn't "determine" what that reality is. You can't control reality through cleverly manipulative observations.
If 2 separate observers are making observations of their realities, they should each see a reality that is independently consistent and isn't affected by anything they can't observe (IE anything outside of the scope of causality). Then when the 2 observers meet, they should find that their separately observed realities are consistent with each other. I'm not sure yet exactly how this will be exemplified in the case of entanglement.
Addendum (trying to wrap my head around this):
In my last post, I showed how a misunderstanding of the Quantum Eraser experiment can lead to conclusions like that one can control what is observed in the present by what one does in the future. But this is not the case. Both the present and the future each exist consistently, in the Quantum Eraser experiment. In "the future", the context of the observations may let you observe things from the past differently, but that future context doesn't exist in the present and is not usable as information now.Theory: The Uncertainty Principle (or complementarities) applies to a wide range of things either on a variety of size scales, or in a "real world" scale.
The same should be seen with entanglement. Information will seem to be passed instantaneously when observing the results in a context that contains information from both particles, but individually, each particle will allow observations that let it be observed only as if it is an independent particle.
So it's not so much that an observation "makes" a probabilistic event "real". It is that an event will seem "real" and precise and deterministic when viewed in a context that makes use of deterministic observations, and it will seem only probabilistic when viewed in a context without that information. The two exist simultaneously, consistently, but can't both be seen simultaneously. And so making an observation doesn't physically change a system. You should be able to make precise measurements of a particle's position, and make separate precise measurements of a particle's momentum. However there should be no possible way to combine these measurements such that the two retain independent meaning or precision. They should combine with destructive interference, or (as in the case of the quantum eraser) constructive interference that destroys information.
Within the multiverse theory of individual realities for individual observers, it means that there must be some flexibility between separate observers, so that when they come together, there is a certain amount of "blurring" of the combined reality. It may turn out that this is required for consistency.
I also have a gut feeling that quantum "weirdness", when understood properly, will prove to be not that weird at all. Perhaps the next generation of high school students will grasp this as intuitively as we grasped the concepts of velocity and acceleration.
Specifically, it seems that the idea of coupled complementary aspects of knowledge apply to elements of thought and consciousness. This is purely philosophical. The idea might stem from the acceptance of the uncertainty principle leading me to think about other aspects of life in similar ways.
Some unscientific ideas based on this are things like, the more precisely you focus on one thought or subject or object, the less you are able to focus on a large range of the same. You can either observe much with little precision, or little with much precision. Another example is that the more precisely you try to imagine what someone is thinking, the more errors your imagination is likely to produce, and the less you 'get' them. You can either 'get' someone accurately and not care about the details, or try to get them precisely, and not be accurate.
These could be simply analogies, or perhaps there is some fundamental aspect of the uncertainty principle that applies equally to real-world junk.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Bubbles
Idea: Bubbles
Conjecture: 85%
The double-slit experiment with single photons seems to suggest that a photon interacts with its surroundings over an area, not just as a single point (or particle). Rather than traveling in a straight line from source to destination, a photon behaves like a wave that "travels" through all the possible points that photon could travel through.
I imagine photons "moving" as bubbles that expand at the speed of light. Where these bubbles intersect, events or interactions can occur. The photon can hit a screen or otherwise be detected. I imagine reality consisting of a huge number of bubbles, expanding, colliding, and popping.
If these bubbles represent the possibility of any event occurring, and there is a set speed at which bubbles expand (c), then this immediately makes c the speed limit for everything... particles, information, energy, whatever. No matter could exceed c because it would have to "leave its bubble behind", like a sonic boom, and then it couldn't interact with anything ahead of its bubble. It couldn't be seen or felt... basically it wouldn't be there. If what things "are" are these bubbles, then by definition nothing could travel faster than the bubbles expand.
If "bubble expansion rate" determines everything, then light doesn't move in a classical sense, with a velocity that determines its change in distance over time. Everything would be determined by these bubbles. So, time itself would be defined by the behavior of the bubbles. c isn't so much a speed of something, but the maximum rate at which anything in the universe happens. Likely, distance too would be defined by the behavior of the bubbles.
At the very least, it seems right that c is more than just a cosmic speed limit. It seems right that time and distances are some consequence of c, and not the other way around, because in the classical sense of things, there is no good reason why there would be a speed limit at all.
This may be more important than the bubble idea, so I'll repeat it: It seems reasonable that time is defined by the speed of light. It is the rate at which information travels, and so it defines the rate at which particles can interact.
Unfortunately, the bubble idea fails in several ways. First, the bubble should "pop" when it interacts with the slits. To get around this, I imagined a single "point" on the bubble, which represents a single possible point of interaction. This point can move freely across the bubble, moving like the probability of the point being at that particular place and time. So the point can slide through the slits. The bubble becomes as small as the slit, and continues expanding from there (just like blowing a soap bubble through a multiple layers of plastic mesh).
Secondly, the destructive interference patterns seen in the double-slit experiment don't represent probability waves interfering with themselves at exactly the same time (which would be constructive interference), but at slightly offset times (with opposite phases in wave-like propagation of light). This means that the spherical surface of a bubble would interact either with an interior part of the bubble's area (as in a solid sphere rather than a 2D surface), or it would interact with itself in multiple different times.
At this point the idea becomes too abstract and unreal to try to figure out.
Conjecture: 85%
The double-slit experiment with single photons seems to suggest that a photon interacts with its surroundings over an area, not just as a single point (or particle). Rather than traveling in a straight line from source to destination, a photon behaves like a wave that "travels" through all the possible points that photon could travel through.
I imagine photons "moving" as bubbles that expand at the speed of light. Where these bubbles intersect, events or interactions can occur. The photon can hit a screen or otherwise be detected. I imagine reality consisting of a huge number of bubbles, expanding, colliding, and popping.
If these bubbles represent the possibility of any event occurring, and there is a set speed at which bubbles expand (c), then this immediately makes c the speed limit for everything... particles, information, energy, whatever. No matter could exceed c because it would have to "leave its bubble behind", like a sonic boom, and then it couldn't interact with anything ahead of its bubble. It couldn't be seen or felt... basically it wouldn't be there. If what things "are" are these bubbles, then by definition nothing could travel faster than the bubbles expand.
If "bubble expansion rate" determines everything, then light doesn't move in a classical sense, with a velocity that determines its change in distance over time. Everything would be determined by these bubbles. So, time itself would be defined by the behavior of the bubbles. c isn't so much a speed of something, but the maximum rate at which anything in the universe happens. Likely, distance too would be defined by the behavior of the bubbles.
At the very least, it seems right that c is more than just a cosmic speed limit. It seems right that time and distances are some consequence of c, and not the other way around, because in the classical sense of things, there is no good reason why there would be a speed limit at all.
This may be more important than the bubble idea, so I'll repeat it: It seems reasonable that time is defined by the speed of light. It is the rate at which information travels, and so it defines the rate at which particles can interact.
...
Unfortunately, the bubble idea fails in several ways. First, the bubble should "pop" when it interacts with the slits. To get around this, I imagined a single "point" on the bubble, which represents a single possible point of interaction. This point can move freely across the bubble, moving like the probability of the point being at that particular place and time. So the point can slide through the slits. The bubble becomes as small as the slit, and continues expanding from there (just like blowing a soap bubble through a multiple layers of plastic mesh).
Secondly, the destructive interference patterns seen in the double-slit experiment don't represent probability waves interfering with themselves at exactly the same time (which would be constructive interference), but at slightly offset times (with opposite phases in wave-like propagation of light). This means that the spherical surface of a bubble would interact either with an interior part of the bubble's area (as in a solid sphere rather than a 2D surface), or it would interact with itself in multiple different times.
At this point the idea becomes too abstract and unreal to try to figure out.
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