Null Physics anyone?

[Skwinty]

Whatever. .

Sol, your words were and I quote "The goal of elementary particle physics is to answer that question. Our current paradigm includes various possibilities. The simplest one (and that of our best model, which is incredibly accurate) is that there exist truly elementary point particles which cannot be divided further. So they consist only of themselves, if you want"

That is why I said a quark then consists of a quark.
If a quark has no substructure then its can be said that its substructure consists of nothing, but as you say "whatever"

I might have believed you, had it not been for the next thing you asked:..

Here I think you are missing the point. I was arguing against RC's statement that a point contains information.( I am not talking about a point particle here)
If you consider a void which implies an area of absolutely nothing. No matter,energy or anything, you could could still apply the idea of a point within that space, and that point could be defined by any co-ordinate system. (with any point of origin). Does that 0 dimensional point contain any location information? If it does, would this information update if some interstellar disturbance distorted and moved this void a distance of say 10 light years, as its location would have changed. I dont think so. The observer might deduce that, but the point wouldnt know any bettter.
The laws of science do not restrict the universe, only physicists.

Coordinate systems are like words. They are totally arbitrary labels for real physical things. Your question makes as much sense as asking: "Well, if cows are called "cow" in English, and you move to Spain where they're called "vaca", what happened to the cow in the field near my house?

Answer: nothing...

Yes, I get that, but please tell me if the point in the void contains location information.

What does your current location consist of?..

A house, furniture land laptop etc. I dont live in a void where there is nothing and if I did, it wouldn't be a void because I would be there.

You missed the point again. Build your collection using units of 100 cubic meters of golfballs and 1 cubic meters of footballs. In the end you have infinity of each, but your conclusion about which is bigger is reveresed.

Point being, you must know how an infinity is defined before you can compare it to another...

This, was my argument way back, that on the way to infinity the smaller volume set would always be smaller and the larger volume set would always be bigger, because thats how they started.
Infinity is a never full hotel no matter how many bus loads of tourists arrive.
Theres always room for one more.

Well, yes... but what I'm saying is true..

I thought scientist's were not interested in the truth. That was for philosophers. Scientists are only interested in good explanations, although sometimes they give lousy explanations.

That's what happens when you take quotes out of context. Symmetry is the central idea of modern particle physics.

Now you are taking my quotes out of context.
You ignored the statement directly after the quote.
where I said that nothing was the very epitomy of symmetry.

Anyway, enough of null physics, infinity and trading cyber punches, lets discuss Frank Tipler, possibly another crackpot.

 

[Reality Check]

hi stir, yes i agree, i was arguing against RC's statement here below.

"This ignores the fact that a point has a location in space and so contains information. Information is not nothing."

Hi Skwinty: Do you agree that a point has a location?
If so there must be information about that location. That information is associated with the point. The word "contains" is shorthand for the point has associated location information.
This includes point particles since they are mathematically decribed as points.

The only situation that I can think of where a point need not have a location is a universe consisting of a single point. In that case there is no need to be able to tell points apart (e.g. to define lengths) and so a location is not needed.

 

[Skwinty]

Hi RC
Yes, a point has location to the observer, but the point is unaware of its location.
A point in the void can by definition only be nothing.

 

[Reality Check]

Hi RC
Yes, a point has location to the observer, but the point is unaware of its location.
A point in the void can by definition only be nothing.

A geometric point by definition is not nothing: Point

In geometry, topology and related branches of mathematics a spatial point describes a specific point within a given space that consists of neither volume, area, length, nor any other higher dimensional analogue. Thus, a point is a 0-dimensional object. Because of their nature as one of the simplest geometric concepts, they are often used in one form or another as the fundamental constituents of geometry, physics, vector graphics, and many other fields.

(emphasis added)
Note the absence of the words nothing and void.
Also see: Point Definition and MathPlanet: point.

In a sense you are right about a single point in a void, e.g. if we had a universe that consisted of a single point then no location information would be needed. In that universe a point could be "nothing" (but we really need a definition of "nothing"). Personally I think that the void is nothing but a point is something, i.e. if the void is nothing then how can something in it (a point) also be nothing without being the void?

But what happens when there is another point in the universe?
If that point is also nothing then it is identical to the first point. This is a really boring universe with no length defined and no volume. In fact add an infinite number of identical points and you have Terry Witt's universe!
If that point can be distinguished from the first point then the points have information that make them different. Information is something not nothing. A point that has associated information is something not nothing.
Thus if you want to describe this universe which we observe has quantities such as length in it then you need points with locations so that length, etc. is defined. Therefore a property of a point is its location.

 

[Vorpal]

I can't believe the debate devolved into a question of grade-school geometry that could be resolved via two minutes on Google.

"... the intuitive meanings will serve: a point is a location, ..." -- McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, p. 671 (1997 ed)
"Similarly, a point is the idealization of a dot or a spot or a location." -- Dodge, Euclidean Geometry and Transformations, p. 2
"A point in space can be envisioned ... but nevertheless possessing a specific location." -- Geometry DeMystified, p.137
"There are three important features about a point: location, location, and location!" -- A Complete Idiot's Guide to Geometry

Most geometry books take 'point' as a primitive (i.e., it is a term defined solely by the axioms), so it is still a 'something'. The axioms allow you to determine what is and what isn't a point--why in the world would anyone give criteria for recognizing a 'nothing'? (What would that mean, anyway?)

 

[ben m]

This entire thing is ridiculous. You can define "nothing" in various ways such that geometrical points are or are not "nothing". Neither answer is particularly enlightening.

Wake me up when you've determined whether essence precedes existence, and whether the four Aristotelian elements must consist of an infinitely divisible substance.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Fascinating! This week’s issue (Aug 2, 2008) of Science News includes two full page ads (inside front cover and inside rear cover) for Witt’s book. I’ve lost count of the times I have seen this ad. What is his purpose? Is he a megalomaniac, lusting to see his name in print? Does he really think he will win over the learned physics community by first convincing the general science reading public? Is he some kind of physics Kevin Trudeau, hoping to make millions selling his book to unsuspecting worldwide science dodos? And the biggest question of all is: does he really believe his ill founded theories? As I said, it’s fascinating!

 

[sol invictus]

Hmm.

This is getting pretty off-topic, so maybe let's save it for another thread (if someone wants to start one on CP violation).

In brief, if standard model interactions respected CP, SM eigenstates would also be CP eigenstates. Instead, they are not and hence (in the CP eigenstate basis) oscillate back and forth. That means the same initial particle can decay into both CP odd and CP even final states.

 

[sol invictus]

<snip>

I'm really not sure how to respond usefully to most of that, so I won't.

There was a question about the meaning of location (or point) in a totally empty void. Even in a completely empty void, locations have meaning so long as you define them relative to something. But that something can simply be the origin of coordinates.

Think about it like this. Suppose our space is empty except for two objects. Now we can clearly define the motion of one object with respect to the other. In fact we might as well pick a coordinate system (and we can always do so) in which the first object remains at the origin while the other one moves around. So now we are describing the motion of the second object with respect to some coordinate system. But now we can forget about the first object, which no longer plays any role, and so we are happily describing the location of a single object in an otherwise totally empty void.

An even better way to see that locations have meaning is to recall that in general relativity, accelerated objects behave fundamentally differently from non-accelerated ones. Therefore not all motions are equivalent even in a completely empty void - you can tell if you're accelerating.

 

[Skwinty]

Obviously false. Look around you - how much antimatter do you see? It's also known to be false from particle accelerator data, where we have proof that matter and anti-matter are not symmetric and are not created in equal amounts (look up CP violation, for example).

Hi Sol
I was under the impression that the laws of physics predicted a 50/50 split in matter/antimatter. Sure, antimatter is not easily detected or produced.
I read that when antimatter was produced in the lab, albeit it vey small amounts,the same amount of matter was produced. I will read up on CP violations.

 

[sol invictus]

Hi Sol
I was under the impression that the laws of physics predicted a 50/50 split in matter/antimatter.

Nope, absolutely not. If they did they'd be in trouble since there is essentially zero antimatter around. While there might be other ways to explain that, we also know from lab experiments that the laws of physics do not apply to antimatter in the same way they apply to matter. Moreover they do not apply to a mirror image world the way they do to ours, and they don't even apply to antimatter in a mirror image world the same way (that's CP violation).

They do, however, apply in the same way to anti-matter in a mirror image world with time reversed .

Sure, antimatter is not easily detected or produced.
I read that when antimatter was produced in the lab, albeit it vey small amounts,the same amount of matter was produced.

No, that's not the case in general (although it is almost true for certain specific kinds of antimatter).

 

[Skwinty]

They do, however, apply in the same way to anti-matter in a mirror image world with time reversed .

By this, are you referring to big bang conditions where the antimatter/matter production was almost equal. Matter only had to outnumber antimatter by say 10 ppb and the the remaining matter is what we see today?

No, that's not the case in general (although it is almost true for certain specific kinds of antimatter).

The specific kinds of antimatter you refer to here would be for example?

Electron/positron?
Neutron/Antineutron?
Proton/Antiproton?

 

[Reality Check]

By this, are you referring to big bang conditions where the antimatter/matter production was almost equal. Matter only had to outnumber antimatter by say 10 ppb and the the remaining matter is what we see today?

The specific kinds of antimatter you refer to here would be for example?

Electron/positron?
Neutron/Antineutron?
Proton/Antiproton?

Hi Skwinty: You may want to read the Wikipedia on CP violation.
CP violation happens both today and in the conditions of the Big Bang. The Big Bang produced exactly the same amount of matter and antimatter but CP violation means that some reactions in the inital universe produced more matter than antimatter.

A specific particle that shows CP violation is the kaon.

 

[sol invictus]

By this, are you referring to big bang conditions where the antimatter/matter production was almost equal.

No - I was referring to the CPT theorem, which underlies all of this discussion.

The specific kinds of antimatter you refer to here would be for example?

Electron/positron?
Neutron/Antineutron?
Proton/Antiproton?

Well, there are some exactly conserved charges (and some almost conserved charges). All reactions conserve the exact ones - total electric charge, for example, never changes. You can't start with a neutral pion and have it decay to two electrons and a positron, because that would violate conservation of charge (and angular momentum and lepton number for that matter). Instead, the neutral pion could decay into an electron and a positron.

There is no conserved charge associated with matter versus anti-matter. There's not even an approximate one. However it is true that anti-particles always have the opposite charges as their matter counterparts, and so charge conservation forbids some matter/antimatter asymmetric processes.

 

[Elvis666]

The back cover of the September 2008 issue of Astronomy magazine is an ad for "Our Undiscovered Universe" depicting a young boy writing repeatedly on a blackboard, "I believe in the Big Bang", with the caption underneath, "YOU WON'T".

On page 15, there is a companion ad with a blackboard reading "Null Physics 101" and "This is not on your syllabus", with the caption below it reading "It should be." This ad has a quote from The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, "His book is significant contribution to a topic that is still far from settled."

This is not a professional organization, but an amateur group. I will not be purchasing one of their Handbooks this year, even though is is useful and it will be the first time in many years that I pass on it. I'm working my way through the back issues to see the context of the quote.

EDIT: I will not be researching this after all, since you have to be a member to download the old issues.

 

[BRENTEFS]

Very well said. I have the book and find it to be an unbelieveble accomplishment by someone unknown in the world of physics. One important point that most can't seem to grasp is that Mr. Witt is not doing this for the monetary rewards he will receive from book sales. This is most probably his lifes work and contradicts the "standard model" and the interpretation of the redshift that led physicists to conclude the expansion of the universe and conversely the "BIG BANG". His energy conservation model is easy reading for someone with less than a Mensa IQ and to me is much more of a believable model.

 

[Third Eye Open]

Very well said. I have the book and find it to be an unbelieveble accomplishment by someone unknown in the world of physics. One important point that most can't seem to grasp is that Mr. Witt is not doing this for the monetary rewards he will receive from book sales. This is most probably his lifes work and contradicts the "standard model" and the interpretation of the redshift that led physicists to conclude the expansion of the universe and conversely the "BIG BANG". His energy conservation model is easy reading for someone with less than a Mensa IQ and to me is much more of a believable model.

Ahhhh. Life would be so much simpler if 'Easy to Understand' = 'True'

 

[Paul]

Very well said.

I have the book and find it to be an unbelieveble accomplishment by someone unknown in the world of physics.

What is it that you find unbelievable? That Witt has made unsubstantiated claims to have overturned physics, or that a very wealthy man can spend large amounts of money promoting his pet ignorance?

One important point that most can't seem to grasp is that Mr. Witt is not doing this for the monetary rewards he will receive from book sales.

On the contrary, this is very easy to grasp, but not important; if Witt was just in it for the money, he would have stuck with what he appears to be rather good at.

His energy conservation model is easy reading for someone with less than a Mensa IQ and to me is much more of a believable model.

Are we to assume from this that you believe that some of the most complex physics currently being studied should be easily accessible to people who aren't smart and don't want to study physics?

 

[sol invictus]

Very well said. I have the book and find it to be an unbelieveble accomplishment by someone unknown in the world of physics. One important point that most can't seem to grasp is that Mr. Witt is not doing this for the monetary rewards he will receive from book sales. This is most probably his lifes work and contradicts the "standard model" and the interpretation of the redshift that led physicists to conclude the expansion of the universe and conversely the "BIG BANG". His energy conservation model is easy reading for someone with less than a Mensa IQ and to me is much more of a believable model.

Another anonymous first time poster comes in and says something good about Witt. How odd and unprecedented!

 

[DrRocket]

Very well said. I have the book and find it to be an unbelieveble accomplishment....

Precisely