A Crackpot Physics: Time, Special Relativity, and Why Bother?

post by ACrackedPot · 2021-04-21T20:17:45.614Z · LW · GW · 5 comments

Contents

  Why Bother?
  I expect a theory of everything to be scale-symmetric, by which I mean, the laws of physics work the same for very large things as very small things.
  Negative mass must not lead to runaway acceleration
  Special Relativity Shouldn't be Special
    First question: Is Lorentz Contraction real, in the specific sense that two spaceship captains whose ships are traveling at different speeds will observe/measure different distances between themselves in proportion to their velocity?
    Second question: Is time dilation real, in the sense that two spaceship captains who start at the same place and time, whose ships travel different routes at different speeds to a second place and time, can experience different amounts of time in the traversal?
    Third question: Does near-instantaneous acceleration create Penrose-Terrell rotation?
    Fourth question: Is sufficiently high acceleration equivalent to time-travel?
    Fifth question: If sufficiently high acceleration permits the observation of light that shouldn't have arrived at an observer yet, doesn't that violate causality?
  But Why Bother?
  Edits
    Time
    Neutrinos
None
5 comments

Previous Post: A Crackpot Physics: Issues [LW · GW]

In reverse order.  As I've written the last couple of posts, I think I've perhaps found another way of expressing the fundamental ideas here.

Why Bother?

I didn't, for a long time.  The original idea involved here is something I came up with when I was thirteen or fourteen, and over time I'd occasionally have little "epiphanies", like when I realized that the idea was fundamentally a wave - prior to that I would have expressed it as an infinite sum (which in retrospect was a Euler series, but I lacked the mathematical experience to recognize it as such).  I'd say most of that time was destructive, in regards to the idea, which started off very complicated, and has over time become quite simple.  Originally the idea had two kinds of charge; an electrical charge, and another kind of charge which was related to whether particles annihilated or created space-time (don't ask).  It also had a minimum of six dimensions; now I hesitate to even say it has four.  (Depending on what you mean by a dimension).

The original idea was to try to recover particles, get rid of a particular notion of quantization, and get rid of uncertainty.  At this point, I'd say it is, respectively, a failure, a success, and a mu.  So, needless to say, a lot of the little epiphanies were disappointments.

These aren't the ideas I set out to create, and I don't actually like them very much.  This is very much the product of churning away on an entirely false theory of reality until it started to approximate reality.

That said - why am I bothering?

Part of it is that I think I have some useful insights to contribute, and I should put forward at least a minimum effort towards conveying them to the rest of the world, given the effort other people have put forward into conveying their insights.  I don't joke when I say I believe all this, nor am I joking when I describe myself as a crackpot - the problem is it is very difficult to convey what I mean by "all this".

So let's try this from another logical direction: What am I doing here?

I guess I'm advocating for something completely different.  Stop trying to find the theory of everything, and instead assume one already exists, and try reasoning about it in the abstract.  What do you expect of a theory of everything?  What criteria should we expect it to satisfy?  So I'll start with a "rule", try to explain what it means, and try to explain how it influences the crackpot-physics.  The crackpot-physics in each case is significantly the least important thing; they're an attempt at a proof of concept for the rule itself.

I expect a theory of everything to be scale-symmetric, by which I mean, the laws of physics work the same for very large things as very small things.

This corresponds to a couple of things; fractals, most immediately obviously, but also negative dimensions, which have fractal-like self-similar properties, as far as I can tell based on the very scarce information I was able to obtain about them.

Basically, this means that I expect a graph of the force exerted between any two particles to approach +- infinity as you approach 0, to approach 0 as you approach infinity, and to exhibit a wavelength-like-property that approaches 0 as you approach 0, and infinity as you approach infinity.  Or, to describe this property another way, if you graph the equation, then zoom in or zoom out, there are an infinite number of "zoom levels" which are indistinguishable (but not necessarily identical, if the distinction makes sense); our scale isn't special, which means the laws of physics we observe at our scale aren't special, which means that we should observe the same laws of physics at other scales.

For partial explanation of why I think this is a rule, I offer the observation of structure no matter the scale of observation; galactic clusters, galaxies, star clusters, solar systems, molecules, nucleii, and so forth.  One may observe that the kind of structure we see varies - a galaxy is composed of vast numbers of constituent components, compared to the nucleus of an atom.  However, we should consider, when comparing these structures, the additional component of the scale of time itself, as the amount of time required for a structure to reach a point of equilibrium scales with the spacial distances involved.  Thus, when considering the large-scale structures we observe, we should consider them as and by extending the Copernican Principle to the question of scale.

Basically, graph sin(ln(x))/x in Google, and use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.  That behavior is literally the most important part about that equation.  The logarithm is useful, however; all evidence we have seen suggests that, no matter the scale of observation, patterns and structure emerge, suggesting that whatever the field equation may be, it is scale-insensitive; we should thus expect some kind of logarithmic (or logarithm-like) behavior, such that a graph of the equation is fundamentally self-similar, which is to say, looks approximately the same regardless of how one "zooms in" or "zooms out" on it by adding or removing exponents to the scale of the axes.  Or, to frame that differently, the laws of the universe should scale with the scale of the structures under consideration; logarithms are one way of doing this.

 The equation presented here has the property of a rational number, in a sense, in that no matter where you move on the scale of observation (no matter what set of decimal points you look at), you can find the same kinds of pattern emerging.  Perhaps the true field equation has the characteristic of an irrational number in this sense, in that the pattern is never the same, but that patterns emerge nonetheless.  I don't expect this to be the case, but it cannot be ruled out.  Or, in terms of self-similarity, this equation is exactly self-similar; it may be that the true equation is only approximately self-similar.

I believe the hierarchy problem can be solved by this framework, provided the force takes the form of curvature - because this means we are incorrectly measuring forces by not correcting, both for the lensing effect the forces exert on observations, but also for the truly enormous differences in local versus observer distances.  That is, if we correct for the fact that the subatomic forces are changing the distances involved, the forces become significantly weaker.  (If I calculate correctly, the nucleus of a hydrogen atom might be somewhere on the order of a meter across).

Now, as for the crackpot part of things?  Examining the problem of scale symmetry in terms of an abstraction of spacial density, negative dimensions brought me to sin(ln(x))/x, for reasons that I doubt I could satisfactorily explain, but involve a mental model which I can only really convey as a recursive-Matryoshka model of General Relativity arising when a singularity turns space-time recursively inside-out (previously I had suspected an equation like sin(ln(x))/x^2).  This led me to notice that sin(theta)/x is 1/x^2, for a given relationship between theta and x, and that this represented a rotation, giving rise to an abstraction based around the idea of rotation.

The rotation abstraction isn't important because it's correct, it's important as a way of conveying an idea of how this idea could potentially cash out.  It's an example of a strategy which I think will end up being important.

Negative mass must not lead to runaway acceleration

This one may seem somewhat arbitrary, but the universe, as a rule, has not given us any free lunches, and this one would be a feast.  One solution is to have positive and negative mass go in opposite directions in time, as the Standard Model, as I understand, already does with antimatter and various other particles.  But having different parts of the universe go in different directions in time seems like it might cause issues.

Well, what is time?  It's really two things, which we often conflate, and treat as if they are the same thing.  Time as relative rate of change, and time as history.  Here's the thing: There is absolutely no reason why these two things should be the same thing, and indeed, given what we know about the universe, maybe it should surprise us if they are, in fact, the same thing.  From an informational perspective, entropy is already, basically, kind of, a perfect compression algorithm on the history of the universe; it increases because there's an ever-increasing amount of history to store, and we are storing that information in the configuration of the universe.  Given that entropy is storing the history of the universe, albeit in an unrecoverable kind of way, why should we expect history to also be stored in some kind of multi-dimensional pattern covering the entirety of the universe, past and present?  That is, history is already represented once, in entropy.  Should we expect it to be represented in the laws of the universe twice?

Indeed, if you think about general relativity seriously, if history (which includes past, present, and future) is stored in some kind of dimensional pattern, the future (and past) should exert influence on the present - we should experience gravitational forces from the sun, not just as it is now, but as it was three seconds ago, and five seconds ago.  The first obvious answer is that it's already doing this - we experience the historic state of the sun because that's how long it took to reach us - but then it should be obvious that distance and time are fulfilling the same purpose there.  In a sense, then, there's no room in the time-that-is-General-Relativity for historical state information because it's already completely full of it, in the shape of something that I think could accurately be described as entropy.  To be pithy, history-time, in General Relativity, is emitted rather than kept.

So maybe time-as-timing is entirely separate from time-as-history, which leads to the question, if time, in the sense of the fourth dimension required by general relativity, is purely a matter of relative rate of change (timing), and not entirely a matter of a spacial dimension along which the past and future are stored, what shape would we expect time-as-timing to take?

A loop is the simplest answer there, but a spiral has certain qualities to recommend it.  (Chirality in particular is a useful quality)  But more generally, with loop-like structures, there is a characteristic behavior where going backwards in time is at least in certain respects the same as going forwards in time, which has some convenience when it comes to interpreting things like antimatter.  So I expect time-as-a-loop-or-looplike-structure to play a role in the physics.

Now, onto the more directly crackpot stuff, I suspect one of the quantized spin pairs to be representative of opposing configurations in a synchronized set of particles (and I expect sets of particles to be synchronized for attraction/repulsion/stable configuration reasons), which may or may not be significant with respect to Kaluza-Klein (I think it is, but this is based on an understanding of Kaluza-Klein which is almost certainly lacking).  Which is to say, there's a potential answer here to the question of electrical charge, in time being the closed (loop) dimension described in Kaluza-Klein, but I can't evaluate it.

Special Relativity Shouldn't be Special

I haven't talked much about Special Relativity.  There's a reason for this, and it's because this is the subject that I tend to annoy people about the most.  But some leading questions, to illustrate the issues, in increasing level of crackpottery.

First question: Is Lorentz Contraction real, in the specific sense that two spaceship captains whose ships are traveling at different speeds will observe/measure different distances between themselves in proportion to their velocity?

The answer to this question is "No."  "Yes" violates one of the basic assumptions of relativity, in that it creates a privileged frame of reference, because if they measure different distances, they can identify which ship is "really" in motion relative to the other - it is the ship which measures a shorter distance.  (It never ceases to surprise me how many physicists will insist the answer to this question is "Yes".  Velocity relative to what?)

Second question: Is time dilation real, in the sense that two spaceship captains who start at the same place and time, whose ships travel different routes at different speeds to a second place and time, can experience different amounts of time in the traversal?

The answer to this question is "Yes."  Now wait a moment, time dilation is often justified with the time it takes light to traverse a space from a frame of reference, using Lorentz Contraction to change the amount of space - how can I say Lorentz Contraction isn't real, but time dilation is?

I can actually explain this fairly neatly in terms of rotation - both spaceships measure the light traversing the same distance, but because the ships are rotated differently in time, they are in disagreement about how much distance the -other- ship should measure it going.  That is, Lorentz Contraction is measuring what proportion of "space" in one frame of reference is "time" from another frame of reference; the total dimensions are preserved.

And in fact there's already a phenomenon, largely regarded as an illusion, which corresponds exactly to this explanation: Penrose-Terrell rotation.

Third question: Does near-instantaneous acceleration create Penrose-Terrell rotation?

This one is a bit odd, but I think the answer should be "Yes."

Fourth question: Is sufficiently high acceleration equivalent to time-travel?

This one is very odd, and again, I think the answer should be a careful "Yes."  If you think about Penrose-Terrell rotation (taken seriously, as a real phenomenon), this may make more sense.  It's a limited kind of time-travel, however, and only permits the observation of light which, depending on the direction of acceleration, either shouldn't have reached the observer yet, or which should have already passed the observer - the universe doesn't store either future or history in time, so there's no history or future to travel to.  Mind, seeing light that shouldn't have reached the observer yet is pretty significant, from a causality perspective.

(I can write up a paradox illustrating why I think this has to be the case, aside from questions of rotation-in-space-and-time, but ultimately I'm not really attached to this answer, it's just illustrating some of my thought processes)

Fifth question: If sufficiently high acceleration permits the observation of light that shouldn't have arrived at an observer yet, doesn't that violate causality?

And the answer here is "No."  I don't have any justification here, I'm just going to say "No."  Either there's a cosmic maximum relative acceleration, or information can't be propagated back to other inertial reference frames fast enough, or a singularity gets involved.  Something stops it.  My personal vote is on a cosmic maximum relative acceleration, but I found an error in the math I had showing one, so I can't demonstrate it.

Okay, so I have five questions, of increasing degree of crankitude.  (Although I've been told I'm wrong, by different physicists, about both the first and second questions, three through five I'm specifically calling crackpottery.)

The thing that all the answers have in common, however, is that my answers basically assume special relativity is not, in fact, special, because special relativity isn't special; it should just be an obvious implication of the laws of physics.  Special relativity works quite well with the idea of General Relativity (and forces and motion and acceleration and mass and energy) as Rotation; you can literally just substitute in a phenomenon that has already been noticed.

Special relativity, when you treat everything as rotation, is nothing more than the observations that rotation is a relative quality, and that once objects are permitted to rotate in time, time just becomes another subjective dimension like "left".  It isn't special.

On the other hand, I've seen claims that special relativity and general relativity are in principle divisible; you can have physics with one but not the other.  If this is the direction your physics takes, I think you've started down the wrong path from the beginning, by treating special relativity as a special property of the universe, instead of an emergent (and rather boring) property.

But Why Bother?

If I go through the sequences, I'm warned repeatedly of the dangers of getting attached to an idea, of becoming a crackpot, refusing to update my information based on invalid views of reality.

Flip side of this: Maybe "General Relativity as Rotation" is genuine innovation, which permits some neat thing I can't think of.  (As far as I can tell, it laboriously adds up to normality, and is in fact kind of boring, but at this point my normality has some distance from other people's.)  Maybe my insane march through incomprehensible nonsense found something weird, interesting, and novel.

Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my trip through incomprehensible nonsense.  I've never actually felt the need to justify it, however; what it actually feels like is that I've stumbled across something interesting while wandering aimlessly in the forest, and I can't get anybody to actually look at it.

Actually, from the inside perspective it feels like I'm the second person on Earth to truly grok the universe, and I'm forcing myself to give a half-assed explanation to other people out of a sense of gratitude towards all the dead people who came before me who bothered to give explanations for their own insights into the universe instead of just privately being the only people to understand something about the universe.  I'm not a bitter crackpot because, from my perspective, the expression of this crackpottery is  favor to everyone else; if nobody else wants to understand the ideas, that's fine, they're really only depriving themselves of understanding the universe.  But that is the crackpot-experience; my logical outside-perspective feeling is more like the finding-something-in-a-forest.

I can actually come up with other rules for the crackpot physics here, or metaphysics as the case may be; for instance, I expect everything to be the same "stuff".  In this approach, everything is space-time.

So:

I expect the unified field theory to be self-similar.  That is, you should be able to graph it, and zoom in and out, and not be able to tell where you are in the zoom.  Our scale shouldn't be special, if for no other reason that the Copernican principle.

I expect negative mass to fail entirely to create runaway acceleration.  Or, to frame that differently, positive and negative mass should behave with symmetry; either mutual attraction, or mutual repulsion.  Or, to frame that very generally: No free lunches.

And I expect special relativity to be a boring byproduct of the theory of everything.  Rotation happens to have this property; curvature does as well, but historically, when I've insisted that velocity is curvature of local space-time, I tended to get some cross responses, so that idea may be a lot less obvious and intuitive than I think it is.  Or, to frame that very generally: The laws of the universe should be boring and unexceptional.

Edits

Time

There are a few models of time that can be employed here.  One thing to keep in mind, however, is that time, in this model, is not time as you might think of it.

First: In Relativity, time can be oriented in an interesting way.  Now, first, note that time is strictly relational; it can only be defined when there are at least two entities.  Second, history is pointed away from an entity, and the future is pointed into it - at least when it is stationary.  (Think about light leaving an entity, and the time associated with it.  In Special Relativity, an entity is contemporous with the light it is observing; so any given entity is in the history of another entity, and entities constantly emit history, in a sense.)

If velocity is rotation of time and another axis, then the specific rotation is rotating the future away from pointing "in", to pointing "out", in some particular direction.

When we talk about singularities, notice that this behavior doesn't change at all; the future is pointed into the singularity.  Indeed, crossing the event horizon requires crossing the infinite future (but because space and time are rotated, this actually amounts to crossing an infinite amount of space - and because the distance to the singularity is finite, this crossing is done in a finite amount of time).

In the crackpot model, this isn't an accident; all particles are made of singularities.  In real physics, I don't know whether this is treated as just a coincidence, or if anybody even thinks it's interesting.

Now, the crackpot model goes further.  Gravity is the rotation of space-time, and the rotation doesn't conveniently stop.  In the crackpot model, that is, the future does not consistently point inward; on some gauges, it points outwards instead.  It's a spiral; sometimes the future points nowhere at all.  What does this mean?

Well, it doesn't actually mean much of anything.  The future, in this case, just happens to be the direction another entity will move.  It's force.  The unified field theory also happens to unify time; time just doesn't happen to be that interesting.

Neutrinos

Neutrinos are something of an interesting case in the model, because they're one of the few particles I can begin to offer an explanation for: They're incomplete singularities.  One way of thinking about them is that they are a collapsing singularity, whose collapse is asymmetrical such that part of the particle has collapsed into a singularity which has warped its own space-time so as to push it to the speed  of light, preventing the collapse from completing.

Another is that they are a completely collapsed singularity that is rotated with respect to everything else.  The question of whether or not neutrinos have mass is a meaningless question in the crackpot framework.  Oscillations, in this model, are basically a question of rotation; that is, they can be seen as a form of doppler shifting.  Sufficient shifting should result in neutrino decay, of which there should be two types, each decay giving rise to a different particle and radiation profile.

5 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.