Autodynamics versus Relativity
I wanted to pole AI to see who has heard of "Autodynamics" and whether any of you agreed with its assertions?
For starters, it asserts that the Lorentz equations were incorrect and that these were the ones (along with Maxwell's assertion of light speed as a constant) that Einstein used to lead him a little off track.
As far as I can see, they've simply flipped Einstein's equations upside down to "correct" them, asserted the "Pico-gravitron" to explain gravity and stated that the aether exists (as opposed to the non-existance of a required medium through which any wave must travel).
Anyone?
On another note, can anyone tell me what a rotating 5D (where the first 4 dimensions are spatial aswell) object would look like in 3D?
Remember that a rotating 4D object will appear to shrink and expand or bend in 3D.
For starters, it asserts that the Lorentz equations were incorrect and that these were the ones (along with Maxwell's assertion of light speed as a constant) that Einstein used to lead him a little off track.
As far as I can see, they've simply flipped Einstein's equations upside down to "correct" them, asserted the "Pico-gravitron" to explain gravity and stated that the aether exists (as opposed to the non-existance of a required medium through which any wave must travel).
Anyone?
On another note, can anyone tell me what a rotating 5D (where the first 4 dimensions are spatial aswell) object would look like in 3D?
Remember that a rotating 4D object will appear to shrink and expand or bend in 3D.
Comments
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[ 03-21-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ? ]</p>
As far a 4 dimensional space (not counting time) just trying to visualize it hurts your brain. Think of a universe in the 2nd dimension (I'll ignore time; we'll assume time is seperate in talking about spacial dimensions). Imagine now beings inhabiting this dimension. From their view point, they would only see their world as a straight line. Matter in the world would appear to be line segments in their world-view. It's a very limited viewpoint by our standards but because this is a lower dimension, it is easy for us to imagine such a world and how things would interact with others in the 2D universe. Now picture a human hand coming into contact with this universe. If it's possible to pass you hand through it it would appear in the limited view of the 2D creatures as if something magically appears before them and is getting bigger until your whole palm crossed the 2D plane. Now retracting your hand would make it appear that the object is shrinking... until it is all gone. Until you put it behind the 2D being and surprise it from behind!
Now picture you want to mess with their heads. You already have superior brain power; a 3D brain works better and faster and is more complax than a 2D brain. You introduce your finger to a group of 2D beings and tell them you are a magic wizard from a far away place. You know all, and are omnipresent. You can even disappear and reappear in weird places. You can kill instantly others (just by poking them from their insides from your 3D world). You can do many many things. You show them demonstrations. To them you would be a god. But you'd have limits. You couldn't make one of them disappear and reappear somewhere else. You couldn't figure out what they are thinking unless you analyzed their brain functions and translated them with computers. But you would still have much power in their world.
Obviously we haven't found such a universe but who knows what is out there in space or on the edge of our universe. Of if we could create such a 2D universe. Picture a 4D being doing something similar to our world. We would be astounded. We would proclaim him(her) our messiah. (s)he would hold enormous power over us. Could wipe us out in an instant. But like the 2D creatures we could never see more than 3 of their spacial dimensions. Just like the 2D creatures, they could only see up and down but not side to side like us. We could not see in the direction where the 4th dimension projects itself. Our mind doesn't work that way.
Now if life can exist in a 2 dimensional universe is another topic of discussion.
Even things like worm-holes only manifest themselves in the same four dimensions we experience, right? It's just a distortion of one or more of those dimensions, bringing two far away places close together as it were....
Any good web links that explain some of this stuff in bone-head terms so a guy like myself can comprehend?
Don't know of any good web sites, right off, but I highly recommend the book "Flatland". It was written in the late 19th century. It's in part a send-up of English society, but it is also an excellent introduction to understanding higher-dimensional mathematics. There is a "sequel" written back in the 1960s called "Sphereland" that takes out the social satire (so it's not anywhere near as funny), but it's still very good.
BTW, superstring theory proposes that there may be as many as 11 physical dimension. Most of them end up being closed surfaces (rolled up like a ball) at subatomic dimensions, so they claim. I don't pretend to understand it, but it seems be gaining credibility within the astrophysics crowd.
<a href="http://www.autodynamics.org/"; target="_blank">Autodynamics WebSite</a>
A few things that disturbed me:
1) Their ideas for projects for students.
None of their ideas had anything to do with the actual validity of their theory. It was all about "research other crackpot theories and show how their proponents are being ignored." Their main hope of gaining credibility appears to be not through publication in scientific journals but through conning laymen. This is not the way a real scientific theory get propagated.
2) They misrepresent Special Relativity in their discussions. They claim that according to SR, physical dimensions actually shrink and grow. Every text on SR that I've read states pretty clearly that these are apparent affects, not real ones. Things don't really get longer or shorter, they just appear to. Hence, they seem to be trying to correct a "defect" in SR that doesn't even exist, AFIK.
3) They have no experimental evidence at all to back it up. Several arguments where AD is "just as good" as SR in explaining experiments already done by others. They claim they make neutrinos unnecessary - quite a bombshell for theoretical physists. It would overthrow QD and most other particle physics theories if true, so it's going to take a lot more than handwaving to get it accepted. However, it seems they have no plans to do anything but wave their hands...
4) Then they have a page of "testimonials" from people who think AD really cool and how they intend to teach it in their classes. BFD. Pure Argument from Authority. A scientific theory does not stand or fall on people thinking it is cool or not. They must come up with an experiment that will distinguish it from SR. If the results go one way, it's SR - the other way, it's AD. From what I've seen, I don't think they can. Their equations seem to be the same as the Lorentz equations, just repackaged from a different FoR.
So, as you can see from the above, I'm not terribly impressed. I'm a chemist, not a physicist, but I've studied a fair amount of physics. I'm not an expert in the field by any means so don't just take my word for it. Do some more *skeptical* research and decide for yourself.
Any good web links that explain some of this stuff in bone-head terms so a guy like myself can comprehend?
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<a href="http://www.superstringtheory.com"; target="_blank">www.superstringtheory.com</a> is the best place to start.As far as books are concerned,Michio Kaku's Hyperspace and Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe are excellent choices.Michio Kaku has a website as well: <a href="http://www.mkaku.org"; target="_blank">http://www.mkaku.org</a>; .
There is a 4D visualization program,to view hypercubes (4d cubes) and other objects,available here: <a href="http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/hypersolids/hypersolids.html"; target="_blank">http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/hypersolids/hypersolids.html</a>;
Any good web links that explain some of this stuff in bone-head terms so a guy like myself can comprehend?
<hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.superstringtheory.com"; target="_blank">www.superstringtheory.com</a> is the best place to start.As far as books are concerned,Michio Kaku's Hyperspace and Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe are excellent choices.Michio Kaku has a website as well: <a href="http://www.mkaku.org"; target="_blank">http://www.mkaku.org</a>; .
There is a 4D visualization program,to view hypercubes (4d cubes) and other objects,available here: <a href="http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/hypersolids/hypersolids.html"; target="_blank">http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/hypersolids/hypersolids.html</a>;
The word "dimension" is a bad language choice to describe physical things in the universe. It is a bad language choice because most people think dimensions are all related with "lengths", mesasured in metres, inches, whatever.
OK in mathematics you could draw a graph and make one, two, three, four, five, n axis, each representing one dimension. It is mathematical abstraction and in this case they can all be related with lengths.
But in the real Universe where we live, "dimensions" are from other essence. Our brain can visualize only four dimensions : three are indeed lengths (3D), and the fourth is felt : time. All are felt like a space-time continuum by our brain.
But there are many more dimensions that cannot be visualized by our brain. And they are NOT lengths.
Modern physics theories state there could be no less than ten "dimensions" (with a fewer number equations are false, and a bigger number is simply not required to describe geometrically space-time and its particles).
We'd better have named "dimensions" as "vectors" for example, but it would still have been too much related with lengths. Ideally we would create another new word instead of "dimensions".
[QB]Seriously people, this stuff is messed up. First four dimensions = x, y, z & t right? There was another thread a month or so back that delved into means of interstellar travel and so touched on dimensions in space. Someone was saying there are actually something like 9 dimensions. What the hell are they? I mean, being as we are, how can we conceive of any dimensions beyond the 4 we know?
QB]<hr></blockquote>
The first four are the obvious ones, which correspond to the physical world. But there are infinite dimensions -- or n dimensions -- corresponding to the number of parameters it takes to describe existence at any point in time. That's the trouble.
I think people who think like this to have fallen off the ledge of reality...
People get paid alot of money to make stuff up,
"NOW WAIT" - before you flame me... ...!
think for a minute...
If you have a theory and then take more and more data and make more theories and more theories and more theories and tie your theories into other theories, what have you got?
Answer: A whole bunch of theories...
Even though those theories may be completely logical, they are only theories based on internal logic from the "get go"... If you start with a theory and end with a whole bunch of theories, what have you got...?
(Besides the perfect career... i.e. - getting paid to make stuff up based on other made up stuff )
Answer: Same as the first answer...
I looked into this horribly complicated stuff a few years ago and came to the conclusion that the further I drew from the truth/fact into theory, the further I was from reality...
I mean quantum states and multi-demensions make for good thought experiments but come'on...
You can only extrapolate so far... then you will get lost in a universe of your own creation...
IMO...
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© FERRO 2001-2002
<strong>WTF was that all about? We should stop studying quantum physics because it doesn't make sense? That's exactly why we should be studying it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I didnt say that...
Studying something becuase it doesnt make sense is one thing...
Making a science out of non-sense is another...
theories based on theories built on internal logic are made into a enigmatic perpetual source of "made to order" science...
You can use the quantum "excuse" for just about anything... and most people will either believe you out of respect for "superior" knowledgeability or pure exhaustion from trying to grapple the miriad web of internal logic used to justify some of the strangest ideas fathomable...
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© FERRO 2001-2002
[ 03-28-2002: Message edited by: FERRO ]</p>
Modern physics theories state there could be no less than ten "dimensions" (with a fewer number equations are false, and a bigger number is simply not required to describe geometrically space-time and its particles).
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Actually in the ten dimensional string theories the extra six dimensions are spatial,they are curled up into something called Calabi-Yau manifolds,which are very tiny.Basically,what is classically called a point in space is a C-Y manifold.The only problem is,there are over ten thousand C-Y manifolds that could potentially describe our universe.If you want to win the nobel prize figure out which manifold is the one that produces a string theory that is compatible with our universe and why.
The ten dimensional string theory is not simply the description of a configuration space,the extra six dimensions do have length.
[quote]
I think people who think like this to have fallen off the ledge of reality...
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Definitely.The only problem is that almost all of quantum theory has been confirmed by experiment,these are not just empty thought experiments.Quantum theory is not based just on internal logic.String theory,as of yet,has not been confirmed confirmed by experiment.The motivation for string theory is to try to unify large scale and small scale physics into one cohesive whole.For example,Kaluza-Klein theory,a precusor to full scale string theory,showed that special relativity and electromagnetism unify in a five-dimensional space-time.At the time it was discovered,it was thought to be merely a mathematical oddity.What has been in use is the so called standard model,which is more of a hack job than an OS by Microsoft,using special relativity to explain the macrocosm,and quantum theory to explain the microcosm,two approaches that are physically and mathematically dissimilar.What string theory has shown is that many disparate theories unify in higher dimensions,what it is searching for is a theory that will subsume all other experimentally verified theories.
To say that string theory is just made up nonsense is to show a great deal of ignorance.I think most physicists would prefer if everything could be described by Newtonian physics rather that have to deal with Reimann manifolds and 10,11,or 26 dimensional spacetimes,they would definitely have a lot less work to do.
<strong>
I didnt say that...
Studying something becuase it doesnt make sense is one thing...
Making a science out of non-sense is another...
theories based on theories built on internal logic are made into a enigmatic perpetual source of "made to order" science...
You can use the quantum "excuse" for just about anything... and most people will either believe you out of respect for "superior" knowledgeability or pure exhaustion from trying to grapple the miriad web of internal logic used to justify some of the strangest ideas fathomable...
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© FERRO 2001-2002
[ 03-28-2002: Message edited by: FERRO ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Spend a little time reading about Paul Dirac. He got into quantum mechanics simply because he liked the mathematics of it. He "invented" a theory out of thin air that he declared had to be right simply because the mathematics behind it was so elegantly beautiful. And damned if he wasn't right - his "beautiful mathematics" predicted the existence of antimatter, and his equations went on to become part of the foundation of all theoretical physics today. There is something beautifully elegant about the way the universe is put together - to the point where "elegance" is a selling point of a theory all by itself: the theory that can explain the most data the most simply is the one most likely to be right. It may seem goofy, but it's been shown to be true over and over again.
Your point, however, is well taken. The ancient Greeks spun all sorts of logical castles in the air which made perfect sense as long as you didn't actually look at the world around you. The difference with modern science is that everything must eventually be grounded in experimental data. The ultimate proof of the validity of Dirac's elegantly beautiful mathematics was not that it looked pretty, but that it predicted the existence of the antielectron (aka positron) years before it was actually observed (along with all other antiparticles). Theory is certainly a large part of science - but all theories live or die based on actual observations of the world.