Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[ben m]

What value is that edd? The fine structure constant? I tell you, that varies with gravitational potential, and there's gravitational fields everywhere.

Noooooooo it doesn't.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Maxwell? (3)

Splutter!
I can't help you any further Tim. I suggest you do your own research.

I did my own research, and posted it. Rather then deal with it, you choose to splutter. Fair enough.

We now know that, as a matter of documented fact, Maxwell never agreed or claimed, either explicitly or implicitly, in his writings, that the electric field is not a field. Therefore, as a matter of documented fact, you are wrong to claim that "I have Maxwell on my side" in this argument over whether or not the electric field specifically is actually a field.

Reference my earlier post "Maxwell?" for documentation & verification of Maxwell defining the electric field as a field.

I have, in my own personal library, nearly everything Maxwell ever wrote. If you have an example of Maxwell asserting that the electric field is not a field, explicitly or implicitly, post it. Otherwise, you are no longer permitted by honesty to assert that Maxwell is on your side.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student
The alternatives to the megaverse I mentioned were clearly intended to be ironic -- but clearly that kind of subtly is beyond you. I am not "promoting" Susskind's concept of a megaverse. However, I do find it a provocative conjecture. Fine tuning presents a genuine cosmological problem. If you had a viable conjecture as an alternative to the megaverse to explain fine tuning, you might have contributed it on that thread, As it is, as usual, you have NOTHING -- just more bluster, ignorance and arrogance!

I've spoken about non-constant constants enough times. But there you are peddling the Goldilocks multiverse. Because you like woo. So much so that when I try to explain something and present the evidence, you dismiss it. The fine-structure constant α=e²/2εchc isn't constant, Planck's constant might not be, and optical clocks run slower when they're lower. You know that the same will be true for parallel-mirror light clocks, and you know that the coordinate speed of light varies in a non-inertial reference frame. So you know c is merely defined to be constant. You also know about conservation of charge and you know that c=√(1/εₒμₒ). So you ought to be able to look at α=e²/2εₒhc and ask yourself what's actually changing here? And since the Planck mission has found large-scale inhomogeneities, that might mean Lambda isn't constant either. But that's OK, you can happily dismiss all this as bluster, arrogance, and ignorance. Don't let mere physics get in the way of your precious multiverse, eh?

Does that response really make any sense to you? Do you understand what is meant by the fine-tuning question?
Let's say we lived in an alternate universe in which all your notions were correct: the fine-structure constant is not constant, Plank's constant is not constant, c is not constant, Λ not constant, bla bla bla. Now, how does that shed light on the fine tuning question? Are not these (non-constant) constants fine-tuned at this point in time to allow for galaxies, planets, chemistry and life? Are you so devoid of logic that you do not comprehend the nature of the fine-tuning question?

 

[ben m]

No that isn't known. That's what you've been taught, that's all. Go and do some research of your own instead of relying upon what you've been told.

Like this?

[QUOTE = http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ex/0612034.pdf]
The scale Λ obtained in the e+e− → e+e− channel is converted to an upper limit on the electron size:
re < 1.4 × 10−19m
[/QUOTE]

That's actual analysis of actual, relevant experimental data on electron positron collisions, collected 1996-2000 using a world-class collider and four independent experiments (one of which was built in part by my Ph.D. advisor). This paper comes flat out and says what it means, with numbers: the data is consistent with an electron size below 1.4x10^-19m. The paper has been cited 300-ish times.

That's what I "know".

Let's compare to what you know:

Dennis was one of the organisers of ABB50/25 where Qiu-Hong Hu was talking to Sir Michael Atiyah about what sort of knot the electron was.

You're reporting that random engineer, with no mainstream publications and (as far as I can tell) no mainstream citations, had a conversation at a conference once. Stop the presses! You report that a topology group has a topology image on their web page. Oh no! I'm throwing out my textbooks!

Yes, there is such a thing as TQFT. It hypothesizes that fundamental particles might carry topological conserved quantities. You're throwing this at me and telling me to accept it rather than LEP data?

Let's ask Prof. Atiyah what he thinks: "Geometric Models of Matter
M. F. Atiyah et. al"

There are various geometrically natural candidates for measuring energy or mass in our models, but we have not committed ourselves to any particular energy functional in this pa- per. In the absence of an energy measure, we are not able to make contact with experimental data about particle masses or forces between particles. ... The list of open issues may seem daunting, but in each case the geometric framework introduced here suggests natural lines of attack. We hope to pursue them in future work.

Where's the rousing denunciation of LEP? Where's the Farsight-style confidence that TQFT is right? Where's the citation of Maxwell? Nowhere, dude. Atiyah knows his own theory better than you do, he seems to know it's just a theory.

Why don't you log off for a few years and come back if Atiyah's "future work" happens to vindicate you?

A particle like an electron is just a standing wave, ben. What else do you think it is? Some magic point of no dimension? Created by gamma gamma pair production? With a magnetic moment? That goes through both slits at once because we live in a multiverse? Which when annihilated with a positron gives you gamma E=hf photons again?

So many questions! The answers are (a) It's a wavefunction. If at rest, I suppose it's sort of a standing wave with no nodes, but I don't know why you specify it that way. (b) We don't know, definitely below 10^-19m and probably above 10^-35. (c) There are many processes that couple to the electron creation operator. Yes, the EM vertex is one of them. (d) Yes, a magnetic moment. Of course. (e) It goes through both slits because it's a wave, see the first question. (f) See question c. There are several low-energy electron-positron annihilation processes, including e+e- --> gamma gamma, e+e- --> gamma gamma gamma, and the rare e+e- --> nu nubar.

Yes, yes, you don't like these answers and you think they're so obviously wrong that I'm a crackpot for believing them. Unfortunately your evidence that they are wrong is (a) your own incredulity and (b) vague allusions to papers you don't understand.

 

[Farsight]

I did my own research, and posted it. Rather then deal with it, you choose to splutter. Fair enough.

I said "splutter" because you said "The fact of the unified "electromagnetic field" is supremely irrelevant". Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism. And you think it's supremely irrelevant? No way can I help you.

We now know that, as a matter of documented fact, Maxwell never agreed or claimed, either explicitly or implicitly, in his writings, that the electric field is not a field. Therefore, as a matter of documented fact, you are wrong to claim that "I have Maxwell on my side" in this argument over whether or not the electric field specifically is actually a field.

Reference my earlier post "Maxwell?" for documentation & verification of Maxwell defining the electric field as a field.

I have, in my own personal library, nearly everything Maxwell ever wrote. If you have an example of Maxwell asserting that the electric field is not a field, explicitly or implicitly, post it. Otherwise, you are no longer permitted by honesty to assert that Maxwell is on your side.

I gave my response referring to Maxwell's treatise, pointing out that your reference was in volume 1 not volume 2, and that in volume 2 Maxwell was now referring to the electromagnetic field. You ignored my response. Since you have, in your own personal library, nearly everything Maxwell ever wrote, might I suggest that you read it. And that you don't ignore Maxwell either.

 

[Farsight]

Does that response really make any sense to you? Do you understand what is meant by the fine-tuning question?
Let's say we lived in an alternate universe in which all your notions were correct: the fine-structure constant is not constant, Plank's constant is not constant, c is not constant, Λ not constant, bla bla bla. Now, how does that shed light on the fine tuning question? Are not these (non-constant) constants fine-tuned at this point in time to allow for galaxies, planets, chemistry and life? Are you so devoid of logic that you do not comprehend the nature of the fine-tuning question?

Oh boy.

I tell him that the constants aren't constant, and now he's talking about an alternate universe. This is hopeless. See this bit from wiki

"The premise of the fine-tuned Universe assertion is that a small change in several of the dimensionless fundamental physical constants would make the Universe radically different. As Stephen Hawking has noted, "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."

I refer to things like VSL on arXiv and Webb et al, and I talk about the fine structure constant α=e²/4πε0ħc and 1/4πε0 and Planck length l=√(ћG/c³) and 4πn/√(c³) and c^½/3πn. But for people who believe in the multiverse, it's all irrelevant woo and I'm devoid of logic. Talk about irony.

 

[edd]

I refer to things like VSL on arXiv and Webb et al, and I talk about the fine structure constant α=e²/4πε0ħc and 1/4πε0 and Planck length l=√(ћG/c³) and 4πn/√(c³) and c^½/3πn. But for people who believe in the multiverse, it's all irrelevant woo and I'm devoid of logic. Talk about irony.

Would you care to remind us what 4πn/√(c³) and c^½/3πn are supposed to be equal to?

You should also note that I'm not aware that anyone involved in this discussion considers the multiverse in this context as anything much more than an interesting possibility.

I'd also like to point out that if you actually read Webb et al and understood it properly you'd realise just how tiny the variations in alpha they claim are, and that these sorts of changes can't reasonably be responsible for solving the fine tuning problem (except perhaps by hinting at a deeper underlying explanation that may help) and are certainly unrelated to the running of constants that you keep going on about.

 

[Farsight]

Like this?

http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ex/0612034.pdf
The scale Λ obtained in the e+e− → e+e− channel is converted to an upper limit on the electron size:
re < 1.4 × 10−19m

That's actual analysis of actual, relevant experimental data on electron positron collisions, collected 1996-2000 using a world-class collider and four independent experiments (one of which was built in part by my Ph.D. advisor). This paper comes flat out and says what it means, with numbers: the data is consistent with an electron size below 1.4x10^-19m. The paper has been cited 300-ish times.

And it's world-class wrong. The electron has a wavelength, its field is not just part of what it is, it is what it is, because a standing wave is a standing field. Remember Faraday: "He even speaks of the lines of force belonging to a body as in some sense part of itself". See this picture of a Falaco soliton. It isn't an ideal analogy for an electron, but it will do. See that "singularity"? That's what they're measuring.

That's what I "know".

Let's compare to what you know:

You're reporting that random engineer, with no mainstream publications and (as far as I can tell) no mainstream citations, had a conversation at a conference once. Stop the presses! You report that a topology group has a topology image on their web page. Oh no! I'm throwing out my textbooks!

Just stop treating those textbooks like they're bibles, and stop dismissing the scientific evidence of pair production, electron diffraction, magnetic moment, Einstein-de Haas, annihilation, and so on.

Yes, there is such a thing as TQFT. It hypothesizes that fundamental particles might carry topological conserved quantities. You're throwing this at me and telling me to accept it rather than LEP data?

Let's ask Prof. Atiyah what he thinks: "Geometric Models of Matter
M. F. Atiyah et. al"

Where's the rousing denunciation of LEP? Where's the Farsight-style confidence that TQFT is right? Where's the citation of Maxwell? Nowhere, dude. Atiyah knows his own theory better than you do, he seems to know it's just a theory.

Why don't you log off for a few years and come back if Atiyah's "future work" happens to vindicate you?

Because somebody has got to stand up and fight the woo.

So many questions! The answers are (a) It's a wavefunction. If at rest, I suppose it's sort of a standing wave with no nodes, but I don't know why you specify it that way. (b) We don't know, definitely below 10^-19m and probably above 10^-35. (c) There are many processes that couple to the electron creation operator. Yes, the EM vertex is one of them. (d) Yes, a magnetic moment. Of course. (e) It goes through both slits because it's a wave, see the first question. (f) See question c. There are several low-energy electron-positron annihilation processes, including e+e- --> gamma gamma, e+e- --> gamma gamma gamma, and the rare e+e- --> nu nubar.

Yes, yes, you don't like these answers and you think they're so obviously wrong that I'm a crackpot for believing them. Unfortunately your evidence that they are wrong is (a) your own incredulity and (b) vague allusions to papers you don't understand.

I don't think you're a crackpot, I just think you don't understand your own subject, and that you don't do your own research, and that you don't think for yourself. You have a convictional mindset wherein you dismiss anything that challenges what you think you know. I also think that for "a real experimental physicists", you have a strange disregard of experimental evidence. When I try to show it to you along with robust references, to for example explain why the multiverse is bad science, do I get an intelligent physics discussion? No, what I get is Aoooooga! Aooooooga!

 

[ctamblyn]

And it's world-class wrong. The electron has a wavelength, its field is not just part of what it is, it is what it is, because a standing wave is a standing field. Remember Faraday: "He even speaks of the lines of force belonging to a body as in some sense part of itself". See this picture of a Falaco soliton. It isn't an ideal analogy for an electron, but it will do. See that "singularity"? That's what they're measuring.

There's nothing to your argument here but denial of evidence, reverence for ancient texts and bare assertion.

Just stop treating those textbooks like they're bibles, ...

...and start treating your assertions as gospel?

ETA: your demonstrably incoherent assertions, at that.

I don't think you're a crackpot, I just think you don't understand your own subject, ...

That's an interesting opinion, given that your arguments here and elsewhere have failed to demonstrate even a modest understanding of either quantum or classical mechanics.

 

[Farsight]

Would you care to remind us what 4πn/√(c³) and c^½/3πn are supposed to be equal to...

You know full well they're Andrew Worsley's quantum-harmonics expressions for 1) electron Compton wavelength which then gives you the frequency then energy then mass based on c and h and not much else, and 2) the electron-proton mass ratio. Both without their g-factor binding-energy adjustments.

You should also note that I'm not aware that anyone involved in this discussion considers the multiverse in this context as anything much more than an interesting possibility.

But they don't consider it to be woo. Instead they consider mass based on c and h and standing waves to be woo, despite the Watt balance, and despite E=hf and E=mc² and the wave nature of matter. Because the electron is a point-particle dear boy, one that gets its mass from cosmic treacle, and can be in two places at once. Whoa! Multiverse!

I'd also like to point out that if you actually read Webb et al and understood it properly you'd realise just how tiny the variations in alpha they claim are, and that these sorts of changes can't reasonably be responsible for solving the fine tuning problem (except perhaps by hinting at a deeper underlying explanation that may help) and are certainly unrelated to the running of constants that you keep going on about.

Yeah, whatever, edd. Look, I've got to go. You have a nice discussion regarding the interesting possibility of the multiverse.

 

[Farsight]

There's nothing to your argument here but denial of evidence, reverence for ancient texts and bare assertion...

I'm the one who refers to pair production, electron diffraction, electron refraction, magnetic moment, Einstein-de Haas, the wave nature of matter, annihilation etc, and to Einstein and Minkowski and Maxwell etc. You dismiss it all, you don't offer any counter-evidence or counter-argument. Instead you try to claim that I'm mistaken but your links never back up that up, and you resort to ad-hominems. Try not to do it, there's a good chap. It doesn't make you look good.

Right, gotta go.

 

[edd]

You know full well they're Andrew Worsley's quantum-harmonics expressions for 1) electron Compton wavelength which then gives you the frequency then energy then mass based on c and h and not much else, and 2) the electron-proton mass ratio. Both without their g-factor binding-energy adjustments.

Why do you not see how grossly incompetent someone must be at physics to make that claim? Why do you repeat those incredibly wrong claims after we've explained to you why they cannot possibly be right?
How can you claim to have even the faintest understanding of any physics while repeating claims that are patently ludicrous, in the same way that it would be patently ludicrous to claim that, say, someone's blood cholesterol level was 32 dollars and 57 cents?

 

[ctamblyn]

I'm the one who refers to pair production, electron diffraction, electron refraction, magnetic moment, Einstein-de Haas, the wave nature of matter, annihilation etc, and to Einstein and Minkowski and Maxwell etc.
...

Referring to, yes, there's no denying you refer to those sources over and over again. They don't support your argument, though, which is largely based on (a) reverence of ancient texts, (b) disapproval of modern physics simply because you think it's ugly, (c) misreading technical papers, (d) ignoring empirical evidence and (e) constructing strawmen.

You dismiss it all, you don't offer any counter-evidence or counter-argument. Instead you try to claim that I'm mistaken but your links never back up that up, and you resort to ad-hominems.
...

Regarding the bit I highlighted: Either (a) that is a lie, (b) you don't understand what argumentum ad hominem means, or (c) you have redefined it without telling us.

As to the previous bit, well, that is false too. Since the discussions are recorded here in public for anyone to read through, and the relevant technical information is also publicly available, I'm quite happy to let people make there own minds up as to which arguments were valid and which were holed beneath the waterline.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I'm the one who refers to pair production, electron diffraction, electron refraction, magnetic moment, Einstein-de Haas, the wave nature of matter, annihilation etc, and to Einstein and Minkowski and Maxwell etc.

But you only refer to them, you don't use them. Just once, I'd like to see you actual provide details. I have asked you about how gravity produces the perihelion shift in Mercury: you have not answered this question in about three years. I have asked you for details about how gravity produces a rotation curve in a galaxy: you dodged the question for three years. Many people have asked how a photon can possibly hold a contorted shape and can possibly act as if it has a charge: you've dodged that question since 2007, if not earlier.
I've asked you about how an infinite universe cannot have expansion: you've dodged that question here.

You dismiss it all, you don't offer any counter-evidence or counter-argument.

On the contrary, the internet is littered with counter-evidence. You haven't even addressed the basic problem that a photon does have charge.

Instead you try to claim that I'm mistaken but your links never back up that up, and you resort to ad-hominems. Try not to do it, there's a good chap. It doesn't make you look good.

You call any serious challenge an ad hominem. Meanwhile, you attack people for typos and use that to dodge questions. This is why people cannot possibly trust your claims

Right, gotta go.

And then you run away.

 

[ben m]

And it's world-class wrong. The electron has a wavelength, its field is not just part of what it is, it is what it is, because a standing wave is a standing field. Remember Faraday: "He even speaks of the lines of force belonging to a body as in some sense part of itself". See this picture of a Falaco soliton. It isn't an ideal analogy for an electron, but it will do. See that "singularity"? That's what they're measuring.

Well, if you're unwilling to learn facts about the electron from actual experiments on electrons, then we're done. Goodbye.

 

[ben m]

I just want to end on this note.

And it's world-class wrong.

said Farsight, dismissing the latest high-precision data on e+e- annihilation and mu+mu- pair production.

stop dismissing the scientific evidence of pair production, ..., annihilation,

Right.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Oh boy.

I tell him that the constants aren't constant, and now he's talking about an alternate universe. This is hopeless. See this bit from wiki

"The premise of the fine-tuned Universe assertion is that a small change in several of the dimensionless fundamental physical constants would make the Universe radically different. As Stephen Hawking has noted, "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."

I refer to things like VSL on arXiv and Webb et al, and I talk about the fine structure constant α=e²/4πε0ħc and 1/4πε0 and Planck length l=√(ћG/c³) and 4πn/√(c³) and c^½/3πn. But for people who believe in the multiverse, it's all irrelevant woo and I'm devoid of logic. Talk about irony.

Can you connect all your claims about the constants to the quote from Hawking above? Specifically, how do your comments about the constants shed light on the fine-tuning question?
Come on now, show us that you are capable of constructing a deductive case. Show us some logic! No more hand waving, quotes or references to dead people -- just provide a coherent connection to your comments about the (non-constant) constants to the fine-tuning question.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Maxwell? (4)

I said "splutter" because you said "The fact of the unified "electromagnetic field" is supremely irrelevant". Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism. And you think it's supremely irrelevant? No way can I help you.

I never said, nor did I ever imply, any such thing. That is entirely your own faulty interpretation.

You are then one who repeatedly claims that you have Maxwell "on your side", which can only mean that you are claiming that Maxwell himself did not believe that the electric field is a "field", in agreement with you. I have pointed out that Maxwell in fact believed that the electric field was a "field" and said so explicitly. That was the sole and only point of the discussion on my part: Whether or not Maxwell thought that the electric field was a "field". Nothing you posted is relevant to that particular point.

Edited to add this:

So many posts, and such spread out & confused issues. So let me pose the obvious question to Farsight, maybe already answered somewhere buried in some thread, but clear explicit statements seem hard to come by: Do you claim that the electric field is not in fact a "field" at all, and that it is wrong to call it a "field", given some appropriately rigorous definition for a "field"?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Like this?

http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ex/0612034.pdf
The scale Λ obtained in the e+e− → e+e− channel is converted to an upper limit on the electron size:
re < 1.4 × 10−19m

That's actual analysis of actual, relevant experimental data on electron positron collisions, collected 1996-2000 using a world-class collider and four independent experiments (one of which was built in part by my Ph.D. advisor). This paper comes flat out and says what it means, with numbers: the data is consistent with an electron size below 1.4x10^-19m. The paper has been cited 300-ish times.

And it's world-class wrong.

You expect us to believe that 173-page summary of experimental results is "world-class wrong" just because Farsight, aka John Duffield of Poole, says so?

No, Farsight. Here's what "world-class wrong" looks like:

You know full well they're Andrew Worsley's quantum-harmonics expressions for 1) electron Compton wavelength which then gives you the frequency then energy then mass based on c and h and not much else, and 2) the electron-proton mass ratio. Both without their g-factor binding-energy adjustments.

That's Shakespearean farce-physics. Even high-school students know formulas with the wrong dimensions can't be right.

Why do you not see how grossly incompetent someone must be at physics to make that claim? Why do you repeat those incredibly wrong claims after we've explained to you why they cannot possibly be right?
How can you claim to have even the faintest understanding of any physics while repeating claims that are patently ludicrous, in the same way that it would be patently ludicrous to claim that, say, someone's blood cholesterol level was 32 dollars and 57 cents?

 

[ctamblyn]

I'll sum up some of the problems with John Duffield's Relativity+ that we've encountered so far. I may miss quite a few things:

Regarding the electron:

• There is no known mechanism allowing photons to enter self-trapped loop states.
• There is no empirical evidence for the electron having substructure of that type.
• Even if photons could enter such a loopy state, there is no theoretical justification for the following assertions:
  • The resulting state would be appear to have a charge of approximately 1.6 × 10^-19 coulomb.
  • The resulting state would obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.
  • The radius of the loop would be constrained in such a way that the resulting state would have an energy of 511 keV rather than, say, 1 eV or 1 TeV.
  • Higher harmonics at 1022 keV and so on would be forbidden.

Regarding neutrinos:

• The claim that the neutrino "doesn't stop" is inconsistent with special relativity, given that at least two of the three varieties are known to have mass.
• The claim that neutrinos are more like photons than electrons is woolly at best, and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny (photons and neutrinos are both neutral, that's about it).

Regarding the Higgs mechanism:

• The prediction that the LHC would not discover the "fabled Higgs boson" (quoting from his book) has been all but disproven by recent experimental data.
• The objection that short-lived particles don't really exist, since they are merely "ephemera", is untenable.
• His objection that the Higgs mechanism is somehow incompatible with special relativity has never been backed up, and is manifestly inconsistent with the facts.
• His assertion that "we don't need the Higgs boson, because the photon is boson enough" (again, quoting from his book) is patently absurd.

Regarding relativity and cosmology:

• The claim that infinite universes cannot expand fails because some of the FLRW solutions to the GR field equations do indeed describe such a scenario.
• The claim that alpha varies across space for gravitational reasons is woolly and imprecise, but seems to contradict the equivalence principle.

Regarding classical and quantum electrodynamics (I'll focus on recent examples only here, to save much space):

• The claim that Ehrenberg and Siday's prediction of the AB effect was made using only classical electrodynamics is contradicted by E+S's essential use of quantum mechanics throughout their paper.
• The claim that helical trajectories for charged particles are not possible in an purely electrostatic field is contradicted by (for one) the example of a particle spiralling around an oppositely-charged, straight wire. The related, additional claim that such a set-up would lead to "doubly-helical trajectories" is also mistaken.
• The claim that the running of the electromagnetic coupling obviates the need for multiverse-based solutions to the fine-tuning problem is rooted in a misunderstanding of what running couplings are and how they work (ETA: or, possibly, in a misunderstanding of the fine-tuning problem).

Finally, some numerological crackpottery:

• The claim that a geometric-numerological derivation (based on "kissing numbers") of the value of alpha as 1/144 is close enough, is also mistaken.
• The claim that Andrew Worsley's formula for electron/proton mass ratio is of any validity fails on dimensional grounds.

None of the above has been satisfactorily addressed.