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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I've been thinking about this for the last few years...
where does "space-time" come from?
Wheeler started the whole thing off, more or less, coining the phrase "pre-geometry" for the speculations as to how geometry comes to be out of physical theory.
I had started with series of papers expanding on David Finkelstein's ideas, which didn't quite pan out the way he took them, but basically are still appealing to me. However, it replaces one idea of what space-time is with the larger concept of Hilbert-space, and that begs the question, where does "Hilbert-space" come from.
The idea is that space-times comes out of the topology created by the operations in this Hilbert-space which we know from quantum mechanics.
For instance, defining the "energy" state of a system, to change that state requires another state at a different energy, and an operator to "move" the state from one energy to another. That operator defines the time evolution of the energy operator (the "Hamiltonian"), so you can think of the operation as creating the dimension of time.... similarly for momentum operators, which translate the system from one point to another, generating space.
The symmetries of these operators then define the space-time we are aware of... and at the low energy state of the universe this collapses to a 3+1 dimensional space with the particular space-time metric... a space-time metric for which we have causality.
The algebraic properties of quantum mechanics then sets the operator symmetry, and the topology of what we think of as space-time.
In my mind the question is what sets the symmetry of these operations. But that is another question, my guess is that they are a "minimal" set of symmetries consistent with the "vacuum."
But back to your question. If there is only one energy state then there are no operations from one energy state to another and thus no time dimension. Similarly with momentum.
If we go in the other direction, where there are an infinite number of energy states, then what would time mean? essentially all transitions are possible and my guess (I haven't worked it out yet) is that there is effectively no time, or even possibly, many time "dimensions."
This way of thinking about geometry would admit multiple dimensions existing simultaneously where other operators become important, usually at higher temperature, or fewer with lower temperature... and while we see our universe as predominately 3+1 dimensional, there may be places where there are higher dimensional behavior occurring.
But as Werner likes to say, this is all "mental speculation" at this point, I haven't gotten to the point of "writing anything down."
The key search words would be "pre-geometry" and avoid the obvious links to junior high school subject matter. Mathematicians have there own "pregeometry" which is a different subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregeometry_(physics);
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0612002
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Ed, quick question (in admiration):
Are you God?
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dr. juicer kaniglio
Trad climber
san diego, ca
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Yes there is a brick wall that officially ends the universe. And there is a finite wall of bricks on the other side. Also also there is an end to the microcosm as well, in regards to how small things get. Unfortunately science ( worthless imo), is always finding the macrocosm (space and universe) keeps going and the microcosm ( you, cells, atoms etc.) keep getting smaller. Instead of racking our brains with these transendental questions that already have an answer. Suprise, there is no end to the universe and no smallest solid particle. Why dont we concentrate our mentall efforts to deal with answering the "real" questions right in front of our face like how are we going to provide food and clean water with our ever expanding populous. And why arent health care, food, water and shelter free for all. Why do pill prescribing quack doctors have one of the highest suicide rates. Cops have an unusually high suicide rate as well for their profession. The very people that are employed to keep us healthy amd safe are taking their own lives because they are so morbidly depressed. In short who cares weather the universe is finite or not ( it is not), when the real question " why are the people in this world so greedy and screwed up" recieves no enquiry at all! Peace
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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dr. juicer kaniglio,
I graciously accept you point about our real problems. And I will vote accordingly. But we all have our particular talents and when we put the best of them to work we contribute the most. Ed's sheer brilliance in the area of knowledge of which this topic post is about is most likely what he does best. The idea that we all do what we can do best and society benefits most was at least expressed as long ago as Adam Smith in his concept of the "Invisible Hand."
Condemn this post if want, but to be consistent you will have to condemn them all for they are all just talk--not doing anything about our real problems. Truth is sort perception based in that some see problems here while other see problems there. It is partially through this apparent waste of time talking that we make and change our world view and our actions.
Beyond exercising your freedom of speech on this post are you doing anything to ameliorate the real problems?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I do a lot of this stuff in my spare time,
for my work right now I'm involved with research on the NIF (National Ignition Facility) which is an attempt (a good one) to create fusion energy with "gain" that could very possibly lead to new energy sources with much more limited impact on the Earth's natural resources.
Other work I do in the area of National Security.
I am not qualified, nor am I interested in a serious way, to talk about the psychological state of professionals in high stress occupations. I am interested in "human ecology" and have discussed it in various threads here.
In all these things, I find science to be a much better way to proceed than just having an emotional reaction to the suffering of people, brought on, in large part, by other people and themselves based on human behavior. Science allows us to consider the "problems" from a more objective point of view. It is not the total answer to complicated policy choices, but it should be a critical input to those decisions.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Ed:
I'll take that as a "yes."
Wish I was as smart, competent and useful to others as you are. Truly.
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drunkenmaster
Social climber
santa rosa
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"Can the Universe possibly be finite?"
Yes.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Umm. Me be sutpid. I started to read Ed's post and woke up in my plate of spaghetti.
Any way you can distill that down for us morons?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Any way you can distill that down for us morons?
no
it is a speculation on where the 3 space and 1 time dimensions comes from....
perhaps you could opine on the topic...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I don't believe...
but you don't know, do you?
as for arrogant, well I've always found those claims strange, the attempt is to explain these ideas, not to demonstrate superiority. In this case, my lack of ability to explain has to do with the incomplete formulation of the ideas...
...but I was thinking of an example this morning on my drive into work...
take a photon, a massless particle traveling at the speed of light. It has some well defined energy which cannot be changed... that is the nature of the quanta, one could ask if the photon exists in a universe of reduced dimension, only 3 space dimensions, there is no way to time-evolve it's state.
One can annihilate the photon in an interaction, then create another photon... but the "world of the photon" lives along a 3-dimension surface of our 3+1 dimensional space...
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WBraun
climber
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dr. juicer kaniglio
Hey ... is that guy who lives on the North shore Of Molokai still there?
He was making canoe paddles or something like that and originally from Fresno.
He was featured in an article in National Geographies magazine a long time ago.
I met him there on the North Shore when we did an IMAX film there.
His place is only accessible from the sea or helicopter.
We landed by helicopter on his front lawn ....
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dr. juicer kaniglio
Trad climber
san diego, ca
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Werner,
Sh!t man Im on Central Molokai and as you know the North can be very remote. No way for me to tell. I may hike or kayak that way at some point. What was the imax film id like to see it?
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WBraun
climber
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I've never seen the film. Never gave a sh!t.
It was about some guy who pollinates the flowers by hand that grow on the cliffs of The north Shore there.
The flowers are going extinct because the bird that pollinates the flowers is extinct,
He kayaks out there and climbs up to pollinate the flowers by hand.
pretty cool ...
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dr. juicer kaniglio
Trad climber
san diego, ca
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Sounds kinda cool. Reminds me i should get out that way just to see whats goin on up there..
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Ed,
yes photons mediate thermal energy among atoms and molecules, a part of the mechanism that makes the laws of thermodynamics statistical. They vanish into the electrons when atoms are warmed.
It is obvious that they have a free ride almost anywhere in this universe, but where does a rogue photon go? They are almost dead in a black hole.
Gravity disturbs photons. Maybe photons build space-time fabric at the edge of universe and thus are mediated or stored?
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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seems infinitely possible...
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Mar 15, 2012 - 04:33am PT
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Mental speculation....Hi Werner!
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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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Mar 15, 2012 - 10:57am PT
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The universe is just a finite bubble in an infinite cosmos with an infinite number of other universes and with an infinite number of universes coming into existence every second. I posit that the cosmos is bigger than the familiar countable infinity, 1 2 3 4 5 ......., it's one of the higher uncountable infinities.
http://www.trottermath.net/personal/infinity.html
http://quibb.blogspot.com/p/infinity-series-portal.html
This is what makes the seemingly impossible, possible. In the uncountable infinity of real numbers the probability of picking an integer (1 2 3 4 ...) is zero and that of picking a transcendental number is 1. In the higher order infinite systems impossible things become possible.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 15, 2012 - 11:43am PT
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Ed wrote:
In my mind the question is what sets the symmetry of these operations.
"WHAT" INDEED. THE QUESTION OF THE AGES.
But that is another question, my guess is that they are a "minimal" set of symmetries consistent with the "vacuum."
WHILE ED AND I APPROACH THIS FROM VASTLY DIFFERENT VECTORS, AND WE BOTH WOULD NO DOUBT SAY THAT THE OTHER DOES NOT REALLY UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION, MY SENSE OF THIS, BASED ON 40 YEARS OF LOOKING AND OBSERVING ANS SITTING IN SAID VACUUM, IS THAT WHILE THERE MIGHT BE "PRE-GEOMETRY," THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "PRE SYMMETRIES," TO USE ED'S LANGUAGE.
THE FORMS CHANGE AND EVOLVE AND DIE AND ARE REBORN ALWAYS, BUT SOME "NON-THING" PERSISTS.
JL
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