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Posted on 11/02/2009 9:29:43 PM PST by Kevmo
Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?
EVER since Arthur Eddington travelled to the island of Príncipe off Africa to measure starlight bending around the sun during a 1919 eclipse, evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity has only become stronger. Could it now be that starlight from distant galaxies is illuminating cracks in the theory’s foundation?
....
Yet it is still not clear how well general relativity holds up over cosmic scales, at distances much larger than the span of single galaxies. Now the first, tentative hint of a deviation from general relativity has been found. While the evidence is far from watertight, if confirmed by bigger surveys, it may indicate either that Einstein’s theory is incomplete, or else that dark energy, the stuff thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, is much weirder than we thought (see “Not dark energy, dark fluid”).
The analysis of starlight data by cosmologist Rachel Bean of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has generated quite a stir. Shortly after the paper was published on the pre-print physics archive, prominent physicist Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena praised Bean’s research. “This is serious work by a respected cosmologist,” he wrote on his blog Cosmic Variance. “Either the result is wrong, and we should be working hard to find out why, or it’s right, and we’re on the cusp of a revolution.”
.... At this stage, it’s hard to say what would happen if the deviation from general relativity was confirmed. Cosmologists have already considered some modifications to general relativity that could explain the universe’s acceleration (see “Not dark energy, dark fluid”).
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(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Who is that? She’s not listed in the current directory. The picture I posted was the young lady behind the article.
Lisa Randall, Harvard theoretical physicist. She’s got some interesting ideas concerning gravitation some of which can be viewed on YouTube.
Excellent observation, djf!
TY!!
I’m not sure that I actually buy the idea that there is something radically different in Einsteins work as opposed to Newtonian principles.
If you take Newtons stuff, and you toss in the Lorentz equations, you basically end up with relativity.
I seem to recall that Einstein himself was quoted as saying that Hilbert was the most brilliant mind he had ever encountered.
I’m not sure that I actually buy the idea that there is something radically different in Einsteins work as opposed to Newtonian principles.
Einstein was thoroughly moored in Newtonian principles, so much so that he insisted on a direct correspondence between his relativity theory (Newtonian mechanics as he modified it for large-scale phenomena) and its verbal form of communication. And then Niels Bohr came along and made the correspondence principle among "domains" explicit: It doesn't matter how "strange" the "behavior" of the small-scale world of quantum mechanics might happen to be, it could finally only be described in Newtonian language.
From which I infer that the Newtonian formalism constitutes a kind of final, universal language by which "simple systems" in nature — which would be the particulate, inorganic, material systems — can be effectively described and reliably understood. Actually, I have little doubt about that these days, and pay homage to Newton for the magnificence of his achievement.
Yet the biological world does not seem to boil down to "simple" matter and mechanics. Newton can help with the "material basis" of life. But there's nothing in Newton that seems terribly useful to the study of biology beyond its physical basis.
People who say there is nothing beyond physical basis seem to be unqualified in the field of biology. Newton, for instance, cannot help us elucidate the causal relations/behavior of complex systems in nature. My main takeaway here: biology does not "reduce" to physics/mechanics.
If you take Newtons stuff, and you toss in the Lorentz equations, you basically end up with relativity.
I'm not an expert mathematician; but based on what I've read, your statement appears highly confirmable. Newton's formalism inspired amazingly effective mathematical derivatives, such as the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms, which are such important (and empirically effective) mathematical tools in physics today. One beauty leads to others....
But it seems to me such "beauties" refer to this day only to "simple" systems in nature — "particulate" matter of whatever scale, and the basic (Newtonian) mechanical laws. It seems to me biological studies require more than this.
I seem to recall that Einstein himself was quoted as saying that Hilbert was the most brilliant mind he had ever encountered.
Einstein was first and foremost one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. David Hilbert was yet another. It is no surprise to me that Einstein would admire him. Yet as Robert Rosen has pointed out, Hilbert's "pet project" of formalizing Number Theory ended up in total shipwreck — for reasons that Kurt Gödel later made manifest.
It kind of "hit the rocks" in the same way that Einstein's "cosmological constant" did. (Who knows, the CC might yet return in some fashion. But probably we'd have to get to the bottom of "dark energy" first.)
God bless all these men for what they imagine and try. They are all trying for Truth — or so it seems to me. FWIW
BB,
Thank you for your most excellent and interesting analysis.
In the late ‘80’s, early ‘90’s, I became interested in deriving a universe density/time relationship based on Plancks constant and Newtons gravitational constant.
I eventually derived a simple equation that seemed to show the universe was gaining mass over time, but was expanding even faster, so the density was going down, and the universe would expand forever.
No biggie... I’m not a professional, just a hack of sorts...
Then, I was reading an abstract relating to universal expansion written by Sima and Sukenik of Bratislava university in Czechoslovakia. They have written a long series of abstracts and papers showing what they term the “Expansive, Non-Decelerative Universe” meaning not only is the Universe expanding, it is speeding up, not slowing down, and will go on forever.
You will note this is exactly what has been deemed to be recently observed and is the basis for the whole “dark energy” idea.
Lo and Behold!!!
On page three, in the middle of the page, there sits the equation I developed about 1992. In an abstract put together in 1999!!
I patted myself on the back a few times...
And, BTW, very gross guestimates about the current density of the universe I put together plugged into my equation yielded:
Abt 18.5 billion years
May very well be off, but it’s not orders of magnitudes off...
Like I say, not bad for an amateur!
Heavy time.
Well that's for sure!
What fool would say that an "amateur" is necessarily stupid, necessarily lacking in insight???
Speaking as one "amateur" to another: Great work, djf!!!
It seems to me that these two different orders of description are, "in the language of philosophy," two different categorical orders. And evidently, you have noticed that, too.
In his own time, Newton wouldn't have had a clue what to think/do about Planck. Or Einstein or Bohr for that matter.
> 01100010 01110101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011
> 01101000 01101001 01110100
For those of you who don’t recognize ASCII, it’s the more direct way of saying “male bovine excrement” in ASCII code.
Insight can be gotten here.
It has been staring us in the face.
Newtons gravitational constant has fundamental CGS units.
It is (centimeters cubed) per (gram second squared).
We can rearrange it a bit and make it:
(centimeters cubed per gram) per (second squared)
Note this constant is very small... but it is a positive number. And if we look at our second description, we see that it is something per second squared.
When you have something per second squared, it is an acceleration.
What is the something? It is centimeters cubed per gram...
Sound familiar? It should. It is the inverse of the density.
So Newtons constant is a measure of the acceleration of the inverse of the density. It is a positive, albeit small number. That means that the inverse of the density of the universe is getting bigger over time, and the speed is increasing.
If the inverse of something gets bigger, that means the something is getting smaller.
So the density of the universe is getting smaller over time, and the rate of it shrinking is going up. The volume of the universe is growing very fast (I believe at C).
The constant itself tells us the universe is getting less dense, thus expanding, and the rate is going up!
BUT...! There are questions. Is this apparent result a type of artifact of sorts that pops out because of the CGS system itself? The way we measure and interpret force(s)?
Still alot of questions.
I have a solution I developed, but am not inclined to go into details. Suffice to say that gravity is not a remnant of mass, but is more of a remnant of empty? space. It’s a topology sort of thing...
regards,
djf
Is that a “stash/pipe” hanging from Rachel’s necklace? ;-}
"Your comment, while no doubt made in jest, just might cut right to the heart of the matter."
Thank you. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while (even if he doesn't know what to do with it, LOL). I've always enjoyed the science and physics threads, even though I do not have the math or science skills to understand the details. Now if you want to discuss economics, monetary theory/policy, business, insurance, or contract law then I can contribute a wealth of experience, education, and knowledge - but that bores me (too many years in that field).
I'm fascinated by physics and the new things being discovered seemingly every day. For an old example of something that fascinates me, Chaos theory and the Butterfly Effect Principle raise many questions to ponder which I can not answer but enjoy wondering about. The classic question of whether a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas leads me to expand the question. If the answer is affirmative, then could the same butterfly wing flapping have an effect in some far off part of the universe? If not, why not?
If every action has an opposite but equal reaction, then why doesn't the reaction have the same opposite but equal secondary reaction? and tertiary reaction, and so on.
If the action/reaction is true, how do you reconcile that with wave theory when waves die out after some time, especially in fluids?
(I don't really expect answers to what must be basic and mundane questions to most of y'all, LOL.)
There are far more things in Heaven and on Earth than man can imagine or understand, but it is our destiny to try.
"The answers to the "why" are something else, and accessible to everyman. "
I agree. The amazing wonders of the universe didn't just happen by chance. Physics, mathematics, music, philosophy, morality, etc. have, since the creation, always existed. We did not invent or create them. It is our discovery of them that brings us pleasure and understanding. How can one see God's handiwork, yet deny his existence?
Fascinating, djf! I'd love to hear the details, if you ever become inclined thataway!
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