page 16: Potential + kinetic = zero energy universe
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.'' Genesis I:1-4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John I, 1-5) Gospel, John 1
Table of contents
16.1: Evolutionary epistemology
16.2: Dynamics: from Newton through electromagnetism to general relativity
16.3: General relativity, initial singularity and zero-energy Universe
16.4: We live in a potential well: the cosmic microwave background
16.5: Action: the quantum initial singularity
16.6: The creation of gravitational potential transforms kinema into dynamics
16.1: Evolutionary epistemology
Much of modern physics and theology is based on the hypothesis that the Universe was created by an omnipotent and omniscient being who knew exactly what they were doing. One version of this approach is the big bang theory. The general theory of relativity may point to the existence of an initial singularity, a point outside space and time which some assume contains all the energy of the Universe. At some point, the beginning of space and time, this point implodes and the Universe of spacetime and matter emerges within it according to a divine plan. This is the Universe we currently live in. Big Bang - Wikipedia
Here I suggest that this cannot be the case if the Universe is to be an independent divine entity responsible for its own creation. If the Universe were to be planned in advance, a large volume of information would be needed to define this plan. A structureless initial singularity cannot contain this information. An alternative approach is to test the idea that the world arose from an eternal omnipotent quantum of action with unlimited fertility controlled only by local consistency. Consistency is a criterion for survival, but the discoveries of Gödel and Turing show that the presence or absence of consistency cannot always be decided. The singularity may therefore be subject to the uncertainty which is the creative input to evolution, the variation from which survivors are selected. Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia, Computable function - Wikipedia, Gregory J. Chaitin (1982): Gödel's Theorem and Information, Evolution - Wikipedia
From a cybernetic point of view the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy almost always increases, means that on the whole the past cannot determine the future. This is the fundamental point of evolutionary epistemology which relies on variations, created by lack of control, for its creative power. This does not prevent us from trying to understand the past from records in the present, although there is much uncertainty here, since many things in the past, including recent quantum mechanical and computational events are invisible (see page 15: Quantum amplitudes and logical processes are invisible). We have a similar problem in traditional theologies, where most Gods are invisible, revealing themselves only through the natural world and revelations claimed by individual authors. These revelations are almost always based on imagination and sentiment rather than scientifically recorded experience. Second law of thermodynamics - Wikipedia, Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia
Imagination is our human participation in the creative power of the Universe. The space of imagination, like the space of evolutionary possibility, is much larger than the space of reality. Natural selection selects the individuals that successfully mature and reproduce to carry their genes into the next generation. Survival is dictated by the relationship between individuals and the environment in which they find themselves. These environments are created by prior events on timescales ranging from the formation of stars and planets to local events like floods, fires, famines, predators and quanta of action.
The generation of science is very similar to the process of evolution. The scientific community is simultaneously collecting data and trying to discover is meaning. These two processes inject a variety of hypotheses into science which is then tested by comparing them to more data. The scientific environments in particular places and times have had a significant influence on the individuals working within them. These, in turn, affect their contributions to the history of science. John Palmer: Parmenides, Alistair Crombie (1959, 1995): The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo
In the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton used the work of Galileo and many other astronomers to build the foundations of classical mechanics on three laws of motion. Newton's unifying concept is force. He defined force in terms of mass, length and time by his second law, force = mass × acceleration, where acceleration is rate of change of velocity, and velocity is the ratio of distance travelled to time elapsed.
The term "force" became, almost immediately, a subject of philosophical speculation. Through the work of Berkeley, Hume, Mach and Einstein it has given way to energy as the unifying concept of physics. Jammer sums up Berkeley's view: "True causes in the strict sense are agents and all agents are, according to Berkley, incorporeal. The real cause of motion, consequently, can only be spirit. In fact it is the supreme efficient and final cause, it is God" (page 207). David Hume - Wikipedia, Max Jammer (1957, 1999): Concepts of Force: A Study in the Foundations of Dynamics
Einstein's general relativity replaced Newton's force of gravitation with the geometrical concept of geodesic deviation. Newton saw the orbits of moons and planets as a balance between centrifugal force and gravitation. Einstein realized that bodies in free fall like the Moon or an orbiting astronaut feel no force. They are in inertial motion, guided by the curvature of spacetime. Force has disappeared, to be replaced by potential energy, the source of the spacetime structure represented by Einstein's field equation. In modern terms, force is the gradient of an energy potential. Gravitation sucks us toward Earth because our gravitational potential energy decreases as we move closer to Earth. Potential gradient - Wikipedia, Geodesics in general relativity - Wikipedia
We will imagine that there is as yet no gravitational potential in the initial singularity because energy only appears in naked gravitation through the agency of quantum mechanics.
Evolution owes its creative power to random events. The other half of the story, determinism and stability, lies in selection. Selective pressures move systems toward conformity with contemporary reality. Revolutions are the product of accumulated discrepancies. Marx drew our attention to the conflict between capital and labour. Einstein's special relativity was motivated by inconsistencies in electrodynamics. Quantum mechanics, still a work in progress, has arisen to explain the ancient and problematic contrast between creative motion and stability in the world. This is a scientific problem at least as old as Parmenides. Here we understand that the world has arisen by variation and selection from an initial singularity, identified with the traditional Christian divinity developed by Aquinas from the work of Aristotle: page 8: The theology of the Trinity Karl Marx - Wikipedia, Ansatz - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Thomas Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3: Does God exist?
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16.2: Dynamics: from Newton through electromagnetism to general relativity
We approach the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravitation through Einstein's special and general theories. These theories were developed in the classical environment, starting from Newton's System of the World. The special theory of relativity arose at the interface of Newtonian mechanics and the nineteenth century study of electromagnetism.
Newton laid the foundations of classical dynamics, the laws that govern the behaviour of slow moving massive bodies in classical space space and time. He summed up his work, a model of the motion of the Solar system, in four laws:
I. Inertial motion: a body at rest remains at rest and a body in motion continues to move at the same speed in a straight line unless acted upon by a force.
II. Acceleration: a massive body is accelerated by a given force inversely as the mass of the body: acceleration = force/mass; a = F/m
III. Symmetry: every force implies an equal and opposite reaction.
IV. Gravittion: the force F, between two bodies of mass m and M is proportional to the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance r between them:
F = G m M / r2
G is a universal constant whose dimensions make the two sides of the equation consistent with measured observations. Isaac Newton (1729, 1966): Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: volume I: The Motion of Bodies, Isaac Newton (1729, 1962): Principles: Volume II: The System of the World, Gravitational constant - Wikipedia
As the accuracy of astronomical measurements improved, Newton's work was found to describe the motions of the solar system almost exactly. The only significant problem is that it does not explain why the perihelion of Mercury's orbit advances a tiny amount, 43 arc seconds, per century. Before his general theory was complete Einstein found an explanation for this motion which gave him the confidence to continue his work. George Smoot: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury
Newton's fourth law is called universal gravitation. It is truly universal. Every particle may interact through gravitation with every other particle in the Universe regardless of their specific nature. This symmetry is based on energy. Newton understood gravitation in terms of force and acceleration. He modelled the motion of the Moon on the assumption that the centrifugal force arising from its curved orbit is exactly balanced by the gravitational attraction between Earth and Moon. Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, David E. Soper: Newton's reasoning for the orbit of the Moon
Newton was reluctant to understand causal interaction as instantaneous action at a distance, but felt he had no choice. Einstein showed that the apparent interactions between material bodies is limited to the speed of light and that it is simply inertial motion, as defined by Newton's first law, guided by the geometrical shape of space arising from the presence of energy. The action is local, not at a distance. No force is involved. Gravitational orbits are kinematic rather than dynamic.
Newton concludes his GeneralScholium by noting that there must be some mechanism accounting for motion in the world,which still beyond opur comprehension:
And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle Spirit, which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which Spirit, the particles of bodies mutually attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well repelling as attracting the neighbouring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies; and all sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will, namely, by the vibrations of this Spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the muscles. But these are things that cannot be explain’d in few words, nor are we furnish’d with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic spirit operates. Isaac Newton (1713): The General Scholium to the Principia Mathematica
Mechanics entered a new world with the discovery of electricity and magnetism. Maxwell's equations describe the periodic exchange of energy between electric and magnetic fields, a new form of harmonic oscillator. Maxwell felt that light could be understood as electromagnetic radiation, a fact proven experimentally by Hertz. Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, Heinrich Hertz - Wikipedia
Newton assumed that time was independent of space and that space comprised three fixed dimensions. Einstein developed the special theory of relativity from Maxwell's equations for the propagation of light. He realized that for the speed of light to be constant and independent of the motion of its sources and observers it must be a local phenomenon which requires space and space and time to be combined into a single entity, spacetime. Special relativity treats sources in inertial motion that obey Newton's first law. Einstein then saw a need to extend the relativity principle to include accelerated motion. Feynman Lectures on Physics, II, Chapter 18: Maxwell's Equations, Albert Einstein (1905): On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, Special relativity - Wikipedia
Following the insight that led him to the special theory, Einstein was principally concerned with the role of frames of reference in physics. In special relativity he assumed that the world exists and acts independently of the frames that we create to measure it. This requires that the frames be covariant, able to be transformed into one another in a manner which preserves the autonomy of physical events when they are observed from different points of view.
Einstein records two insights that led him from special to general relativity. The first, his "happiest thought", was that a person in free fall would not feel their own weight. They do not feel any force because they are moving inertially. On the other hand, their speed is increasing as they fall. From a Newtonian point of view they are accelerated by a force so they are not moving inertially. Einstein solved this dilemma with the concept of a geometrically curved spacetime which leads geodesics, paths of inertial motion, to converge, thus formally imitating the action of force even though there is no force acting. The orbit of the Moon or any other Earth satellite is now understood as a geodesic curved by a local potential arising from our massive planet. The Moon in orbit is massive but weightless. Much of the large scale motion in the Universe is orbital, from satellites revolving around planets to stars in galaxies revolving around massive central black holes. Albert Einstein: Wikipedia: Happiest Thought, Geodesics in general relativity - Wikipedia, Galaxy - Wikipedia
The second insight, known as the principle of equivalence, identifies gravitation and acceleration. It also shows that there is no difference between inertial mass and gravitational mass. Imagine you are in a closed opaque box. When you feel a force pulling you toward one side of the box there is no way for you to tell whether this force is the result of gravitation, as if the box were sitting on Earth, or if there is some agent accelerating the box so that you feel a force indistinguishable from gravitation. You feel this same force in a vehicle rounding a sharp corner at speed. Your space-time is curved. Equivalence principle - Wikipedia
Einstein's problem was to extend the symmetry implicit in communication between inertial frames expressed by the Lorentz transformation to find an expression for the symmetry connecting the frames accelerating with respect to one another. As with inertial frames, he found the answer in the geometry of spacetime.
Special relativity reveals the structure of inertial space in which everything obeys Newton's first law of motion: a body at rest remains at rest and a body in free motion continues at constant speed in a straight line. In addition, the speed of light is independent of its source so that all observers see the same speed of light. The speed of light is specified by the metric properties of space-time. This feeds into Maxwell's equations through the electrical and magnetic properties of spacetime. Albert Einstein (1905): On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, Vacuum permittivity - Wikipedia, Vacuum permeability - Wikipedia
Einstein used the speed of light to establish a functional relationship between space and time, s2 = (i c t)2. The algorithm necessary to establish covariance in this space was discovered by Lorentz. He wanted to explain the observed constancy of the velocity of light in a classical space distinct from time on the assumption that the properties of moving bodies were modified by their motion. Einstein went deeper and modified the properties of spacetime itself. Lorentz's equation now holds for spacetime itself rather than for bodies within it. Michelson and Morley (1887): On the relative motion of the earth and the lumeniferous ether, Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia
Minkowski found a very succinct expression of the the structure of 4 dimensional inertial space, now called Minkowski space, whose metric ημν is 1, 1, 1, -1 along the diagonal of the four dimensional matrix ημν. The infinitesimal distance ds between two points in this space is given by the expression ds2 = dx2 + dy2 + dz2 − (c dt)2. Minkowski space - Wikipedia
Einstein's principal difficulty was to make this principle into an algorithm in "Einstein space" analogous to the Lorentz transformation in Minkowski space. He achieved this in two steps. First, he adopted Gaussian coordinates to link topological spacetime to arithmetic without a metric; and second he used the dualism implicit in tensor algebra in a differentiable manifold to identify the transformation needed to preserve the independence of the physics from the motions of the observers.
The following statement corresponds to the fundamental idea of the general principle of relativity: "All Gaussian coordinate systems are essentially equivalent for the formulation of the general laws of nature." Albert Einstein (1916, 2005): Relativity: The Special and General Theory, page 123
Gaussian coordinates do not provide a metric, which is why Einstein's equation does not provide a measure of the size of the Universe. It applies therefore from the epoch immediately following the initial singularity to the Universe at any subsequent stage of is expansion. Einstein's equation provides a transformation, analogous to the Lorentz transformation, which enables any observer to transform what they see locally to what they would see elsewhere in the visible Universe. Gaussian curvature - Wikipedia
He applied the second step with the help of his friend Marcel Grossman who knew Riemann's theory of differentiable manifolds. In 1913 they wrote a two part paper showing how to use the theory of relativity as a theory of gravitation. Differentiable manifold - Wikipedia, Albert Einstein & Marcel Grossman (1913): Outline of a Generalized Theory of Relativity and of a Theory of Gravitation
After few more revisions, Einstein wrote, in his final paper:
By that, the general theory of relativity as a logical building is eventually finished. The relativity postulate in its general form that makes the space-time coordinates to physically meaningless parameters, is directed with stringent necessity to a very specific theory of gravitation that explains the perihelion motion of Mercury. However, the general relativity postulate offers nothing new about the essence of the other natural processes, which wasn't already taught by the special theory of relativity. Albert Einstein (1915, 2010): Translation: The Field Equations of Gravitation
Since that time solutions of Einstein's theory, the development of precision measurements of the cosmic background radiation, the use of redshifts to estimate distance, and the recent development of gravitational wave observatories have given us a very precise and complete picture of the overall expansion and structure of the Universe from soon after the emergence of space and time.. Gravitational-wave observatory - Wikipedia, Observable Universe - Wikipedia
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16.3 General relativity, initial singularity and zero-energy Universe
Both the zero energy Universe and the classical initial singularity are possible consequences of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Penrose, Hawking and Ellis argued for the initial singularity and proposed that the big bang may be explained in terms of a time reversed black hole. This does not make a lot of sense. The decay of black holes due to Hawking radiation is very slow, nothing like an explosion. Hawking & Ellis (1975): The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
One apparent difficulty with the classical big bang theory is that it seems to imply that all the energy of the Universe was initially contained in the structureless initial singularity, existing prior to the big bang, discussed by Hawking and Ellis. This is difficult to understand, since energy and momentum exist in spacetime which is a product rather than the source of the big bang. Black hole thermodynamics - Wikipedia, Hawking radiation - Wikipedia
An answer to this difficulty, proposed by Feynman and others, is that the total energy of the initial state is zero and remains zero into the furture. Universe is zero. Feynman writes:
Another spectacular coincidence relating the gravitational constant to the size of the Universe comes in considering the total energy. The total gravitational energy of all the particles in the Universe is something like GMM / R, where R = Tc and T is the Hubble time. . . . .. If now we compare this number to the total energy of the Universe Mc2, lo and behold, we get the amazing result that GM2 / R = Mc2 so that the total energy of the Universe is zero. Richard Feynman (2002): Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, pp. 9-10
The potential binding energy of the Universe, the depth of the potential well in which it exists, may be exactly equal and opposite to the kinetic energy contained in all its observable elements. We might call this the classical answer, consistent with general relativity. It also suggests that the global Lagrangian of the Universe, kinetic - potential energy, is zero. Zero-energy universe - Wikipedia, Lagrangian - Wikipedia
Here we begin by identifying the initial singularity with "naked gravitation" and imagine that this is the source of Hilbert space, as described on page 9: The active creation of Hilbert space which lays the foundation for the emergence of quantum mechanics on page 10. The following pages prepare for the role of gravitation as the source of energy that converts the kinematic stationary states developed by quantum mechanics into real dynamic particles and the spacetime in which they exist. This transformation is described on page 17: Gravitation and quantum theory—in the beginning.
The traditional axiomatic approach to quantum field theory derives the spin-statistics theorem from the spacetime described by special relativity which is described succinctly by the Minkowski metric. This approach appears to assume that flat Minkowski space is the domain of the Hilbert space of quantum mechanics. Here we explore the idea that quantum mechanics evolves through fixed point theory in the initial singularity driven by dynamic omnipotence of this singularity. These issues are dealt with on the first pages of this site, beginning with page 4: Theology: a new paradigm?. Here we consider Hilbert and Minkowski space in the reverse order, assuming that the quantum mechanical evolution of the Universe creates Minkowski space after first evolving fermions and bosons. We assume that the metric structure of Minkowski space is determined by the properties of these two classes of particles. The emergence of Minkowski space lays the foundation for the emergence of Einstein space, which describes the large scale structure of the Universe. Streater & Wightman (2000): PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, page 146 sqq.
Even if Feynman's brief derivation of the zero energy universe described above is faulty, Berman suggests that given certain metric solutions to Einstein general relativity, the Universe would have zero energy. Marcelo Samuel Berman (2009): On the Zero-energy Universe
By convention, the binding energy of a particle is seen as negative because to take things like atoms apart we have to put energy in to overcome the potential that binds them together. It takes about 14 electron volts to remove the electron from a hydrogen atom. We are bound to Earth by gravitation. The energy required to separate a mass m from Earth by a distance h is E = mgh, where g represents the gravitational acceleration arising from the energy of Earth, about 9.8 metres per second per second at the surface. This energy becomes the gravitational potential of the mass. It will be released as kinetic energy as the mass falls when we let it go. We see this transformation of energy clearly in the motion of a pendulum. The basic problem in space flight is to get enough kinetic energy into an astronaut to overcome the potential energy binding them to Earth. Incoming spacecraft dissipate most of their potential as heat when they enter the atmosphere.
Given that the gravitational binding energy is negative we can set the energy of a local pendulum to zero. This is an example of the principle of conservation of energy and suggests that from a classical point of view conservation of energy and the zero total energy of the Universe are intimately connected. The conservation of energy becomes a local phenomenon, potential and kinetic energy being created and annihilated together so that their sum remains zero. This process is inherent in the motion of a harmonic oscillator which cycles between potential and kinetic energy. Conservation of energy - Wikipedia
A foundation for this understanding of the energy of the Universe is laid in Principle 2 of page 26: Zero sum complexification which suggests that throughout its evolution the overall state of the Universe maintains the symmetry of the initial singularity, absolute simplicity and zero energy.
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16.4: We live in a potential well: the cosmic microwave background
If Hawking and Ellis are right, we live in some sort of black hole, that is a very deep potential well. In modern physics potential wells are the foundation of structure. An atom is a potential well. The electrons are stuck to the protons by the electromagnetic potential acting between them just as we are stuck to our planet Earth by gravitational potential. Getting out of the Universe (if it had an outside) would be a bit like climbing out of a black hole.
In the first moments of the classical big bang, the temperature of the new Universe is considered to have been almost infinite. It then cooled as it expanded, formed an immense number of particles and distributed the available energy between them. Most of these particles are probably photons. After three or four hundred thousand years (14 billion years ago) the temperature had dropped to about three thousand degrees. Things are then calm enough for electron and protons to bind together to form hydrogen atoms. This binding set the photons free to travel through the expanding Universe. Since that time these photons have been climbing out of the potential well in which they were formed, losing energy as they go. Their average energy, expressed as temperature, has fallen from thousands of degrees to about 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. They are no longer hard ultraviolet radiation but soft microwave radiation, the cosmic microwave background. Cosmic microwave background - Wikipedia
The microwave background has now been mapped in exquisite detail across the sky. This has not been easy. All the stars and dust in the sky which have formed since the radiation was released have blurred the picture. Once this interference is removed, however, the background radiation is our best record of the state of the Universe when it was a toddler, just becoming cool enough to set photons free to travel long distances. The background radiation is very homogeneous, but precise measurements reveal some detailed structure which is at present our best source of information about the structure of the newborn Universe.
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16.5: Action: the quantum initial singularity
More than 2000 years have elapsed since Aristotle coined two terms energeia and entelecheia which were both translated into the medieval Latin actus and its English equivalents act or action. Aristotle was not aware of what we call inertial motion, believing that things could only be kept moving by the continual action of an agent, his unmoved mover. Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Wiliam E. Ritter (1932): Why Aristotle Invented the Word Entelecheia
For Aristotle the primary meaning of action arises from its opposition to potential. An action is something that actually exists. A potential is something that might exist. The Christian theologian Aquinas appropriated Aristotle's unmoved mover as a model of God. Since the unmoved mover is by definition pure action with no admixture of potential, the realization of all possibility, it is identical to the Christian model of God, also considered to be the realization of all potential. Thomas Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3: Does God exist?
The first appearance of the term action in more recent physics may be Newton's third law. He wrote Lex III: Actioni contrariam semper et qualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse quales et in partes contrarias dirigi. We summarize action and reaction are equal and opposite. This seems very simple at first sight. We might see it as the rule "you cannot push against nothing". Newton's Laws of motion - Wikipedia
The special theory of relativity introduced a new feature into the Universe, bodies like photons which have no rest mass and no rest frame. Massless bodies are never at rest. When we push against a massive body we increase not just its momentum and energy, but also its mass. We can never get a massive body to reach the speed of light - before that actually happens its mass will have approached infinity, and no amount of force will make it go any faster. It will only become even more massive. John D. Norton (2022): The world's quickest derivation of E = mc^2
The term action took on a more formal role in the Lagrangian formulation of Newtonian mechanics. Lagrange postulated that the trajectory of a system obeying Newtonian mechanics would be described by a stationary point in an action functional, the time integral of the Lagrangian. The classical Lagrangian is the time integral of the instantaneous difference between between the kinetic and potential energy of a mass moving in a potential. Since the Lagrangian of a zero energy Universe is zero, the integral over its lifetime is srtationary, 0. We discussed Dirac's introduction of the Lagrangian into quantum mechanics on page 13: Is Hilbert space independent of Minkowski space? Lagrangian mechanics - Wikipedia
The roles of potential and kinetic energy were clarified during the long period that it took to establish the principle of conservation of energy. Two significant steps were the recognition of the mechanical equivalent of heat by Mayer, Joule and others, and Einstein's derivation of the equivalence of mass and energy from special relativity. In the process, Aristotle's axiomatic differentiation of potential and actuality was shown to be false. The theoretically eternal operation of a frictionless pendulum working in a gravitational potential shows that the equivalence of potential and kinetic energy is precise. We might say the same for all the simple harmonic operators in the Universe. Mass-energy equivalence - Wikipedia, Harmonic Oscillator - Wikipedia
We can imagine the initial singularity as an initial symmetry, a featureless action whose simplicity is captured by the metaphysical notion of the identity of essence and existence. The Thomistic deity creates the world according to pre-existing plan analogous to Plato's ideas. Here, because it seems impossible to reconcile the ideas of simplicity and omniscience, we assume that the structure of the Universe is determined by an evolutionary process driven by omnipotent action and constrained by consistency (see page 6: Evolution: genetic memory, variation and selection). Essence - Wikipedia, Metaphysics - Wikipedia, Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 4: Are essence and existence the same in God?
Symmetry lies deep in the structure of the Universe as a consequence of the way it is creates itself. Although the individual vectors in the primordial Hilbert space are orthogonal, they are all descended from the initial singularity and their orthogonality arises from their differentiation, maybe through the operation of chance and the no cloning theorem. In a mathematical space without physical space and time identical vectors are the same vector. In the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, this differentiation is understood to arise from the relationships of the persons. In the case of the Father and the Son these relationships are named paternitas and filiatio fatherhood and sonship, which are considered to be real in God. Established doctrine limits the Trinity to three persons. Here we allow a transfinite multiplication of divinity. Aquinas, Summa I, 28, 3: Are the relations in God really distinguished from each other?, No-cloning theorem - Wikipedia
Each new creation is an application of the symmetry that precedes it and effectively breaks that symmetry by assigning particular values to the variables within in it. This is analogous to the way we break the symmetry of a perfect sphere by marking it in some way.
Since the Universe exists, we are forced to assume that the initial symmetry is eternal and retains its eternity although it contains space-time. From a quantum mechanical point of view, energy measures the time interval it takes an action to occur. Since the initial singularity acts but once to create the world and never moves again, quantum mechanics implies that its energy is zero. If we assume that all subsequent complexification obeys the zero sum principle, we have a local explanation of the conservation of energy which permeates the whole Universe as it emerges.
Dynamics studies changes in the world caused by forces acting through time. Although macroscopic physical changes are easily perceived and measured, the nature, the passage and measurement of time are not so simple. The modern age of dynamics began when Galileo realized that a swinging pendulum is an accurate and convenient measure of time. He used it to time the motions of moving bodies and set the science of classical dynamics on its way. His discovery that a body continues in its state of motion unless it is acted upon by a force became Newton's first law. It is now the definition of inertial (force free) motion central to the both the special and general theories of relativity. Pendulum - Wikipedia, Galilean invariance - Wikipedia
The study of electromagnetic radiation in the form of "black body radiation" led Planck to a new incarnation of Aristotle's unmoved mover, the quantum of action. In 1905 Einstein developed an heuristic argument to show that radiation is in fact a flow of particles, photons. Arthur Compton found that photons carry momentum, showing that they are real particles. This raised a central problem in quantum theory, the relationship between Maxwell's waves and discrete particles, "wave particle duality". We might see that Louis de Broglie solved this problem by explaining the the superposition of the waves associated with particles enables particles to form stationary structures. Albert Einstein (1905c): On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, Photon - Wikipedia, Compton scattering - Wikipedia, Louis de Broglie (1929): Nobel Lecture: The Wave Nature of the Electron
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16.6: Gravitational potential transforms kinematics into dynamics
Hawking and Ellis imagine that the big bang can be modelled as a time reversed black hole. Although it is hard to imagine the massive black hole that began the Universe exploding in a very short time, the idea is nevertheless helpful. A black hole is a singularity in spacetime that is believed to destroy the observable structure of the Universe inside its event horizon, or at least hide is from any observer It still has mass and energy however since it curves the space around it and we can see things in orbit around a black hole. The closest possible orbit is is just outside the event horizon. Inside the horizon is, for purposes of observation, outside the Universe.
How does the creation of the Universe from the quantum initial singularity work? The description of previous process begins with the creation of kinematic Hilbert space within the quantum initial singularity, as described on page 12: The quantum creation of Minkowski space. We have now followed the first stages of the variation phase of evolution to the point where we must now dig deeper into the question of selection. On page 14: "Measurement": the interface between Hilbert and Minkowski spaces we explored the selection process as it works in the formal, ideal kinematic Hilbert space of quantum mechanics. We now turn to the role that gravitation plays in transforming kinematically chosen stationary states into real the dynamic particles and the quantum differentiation into the bosons and fermions that maintain the Minkowski space in which we live.
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Notes and references
Further readingBooks
Crombie (1959, 1995), Alistsair Cameron, The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo, Dover 1995 Jacket: 'The Origins of modern science date back at least to the thirteenth century, but it was not until the end of the sixteenth century that the Scientific Revolution began to gather breathtaking speed. Since then, man's view of himself and his world has changed so profoundly that the Scientific Revolution has been compared in the history of civilization to the rise of the Ancient Greek philosophy in the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., and to the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire to the third and fourth centuries AD. . ...
Beginning with a brief account of ideas about the natural world in Western Christendom, from the Dark Ages to the twelfth century, the author goes on to show how the system of scientific thought accepted in the thirteenth century was introduced from Greek and Arabic sources. He also offers thought provoking insights into such topics as the relationship of technical activity to science throughout the medieval period, the criticism of Aristotle in the later Middle Ages and the Scientific Revolution itself.'
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Einstein (1916, 2005), Albert, and Robert W Lawson (translator) Roger Penrose (Introduction), Robert Geroch (Commentary), David C Cassidy (Historical Essay), Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Pi Press 1916, 2005 Preface: 'The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics. ... The author has spared himself no pains in his endeavour to present the main ideas in the simplest and most intelligible form, and on the whole, in the sequence and connection in which they actually originated.' page 3
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Feynman (2002), Richard, Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, Westview Press 2002 ' The Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are based on notes prepared during a course on gravitational physics that Richard Feynman taught at Caltech during the 1962-63 academic year. For several years prior to these lectures, Feynman thought long and hard about the fundamental problems in gravitational physics, yet he published very little. These lectures represent a useful record of his viewpoints and some of his insights into gravity and its application to cosmology, superstars, wormholes, and gravitational waves at that particular time. The lectures also contain a number of fascinating digressions and asides on the foundations of physics and other issues. '
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Hawking (1975), Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.'
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Jammer (1957, 1999), Max, Concepts of Force: A Study in the Foundations of Dynamics, Dover 2011 'Both historical treatment and critical analysis, this work by a noted physicist takes a fascinating look at a fundamental of physics, tracing its development from ancient to modern times. Kepler's initiation of scientific conceptualization, Newton's definition, post-Newtonian reinterpretation — contrasting concepts of Leibniz, Boscovich, Kant with those of Mach, Kirchhoff, Hertz. In-depth analysis of contemporary trend toward eliminating force from conceptual scheme of physics. "An excellent presentation." — Science. 1962 edition.'
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Kaku (1998), Michio, Introduction to Superstrings and M-Theory (Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics), Springer 1998 ' Called by some "the theory of everything," superstrings may solve a problem which has eluded physicists for the past 50 years -- the final unification of the two great theories of the twentieth century, general relativity and quantum field theory. This is a course-tested comprehensive introductory graduate text on superstrings which stresses the most current areas of interest, not covered in other presentation, including: string field theory, multi loops, Teichmueller spaces, conformal field theory, and four-dimensional strings. The book begins with a simple discussion of point particle theory, and uses the Feynman path integral technique to unify the presentation of superstrings. Prerequisites are an acquaintance with quantum mechanics and relativity. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout.'
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Newton (1729, 1962), Isaac, Principia volume II: The System of the World, University of California Press 1962 ' In the preceding books I have laid down the principle of philosophy; principles not philosophical but mathematical such: namely, as we may build our reasonings upon in philosophical inquiries. These principles are the laws and conditions of certain motions, and powers or forces, which chiefly have respect to philosophy; . . . It remains that, from the same principles, I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World.'
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Newton (1729, 1966), Isaac, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: volume I: The Motion of Bodies, University of California Press 1966 Jacket: '. . . one of the most important contributions to human knowledge. First translated from the Latin by Andrew Motte'
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Nielsen (2016), Michael A., and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2016 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schroedinger's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002.
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Streater, Raymond F, and Arthur S Wightman, PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, Princeton University Press 2000 Amazon product description: 'PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That is the classic summary of and introduction to the achievements of Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory. This theory gives precise mathematical responses to questions like: What is a quantized field? What are the physically indispensable attributes of a quantized field? Furthermore, Axiomatic Field Theory shows that a number of physically important predictions of quantum field theory are mathematical consequences of the axioms. Here Raymond Streater and Arthur Wightman treat only results that can be rigorously proved, and these are presented in an elegant style that makes them available to a broad range of physics and theoretical mathematics.'
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Links
Albert Einstein, Happiest thought, 'I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of sudden a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.' back |
Albert Einstein (1905), On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, An english translation of the paper that founded Special relativity. 'Examples of this sort, [in the contemporary application of Maxwell's electrodynamics to moving bodies] together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the ``light medium,'' suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest. They suggest rather that, as has already been shown to the first order of small quantities, the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good.' back |
Albert Einstein (1905b), Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?, ' If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c2. The fact that the energy withdrawn from the body becomes energy of radiation evidently makes no difference, so that we are led to the more general conclusion that
The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content; if the energy changes by L, the mass changes in the same sense by L/9 × 10^20, the energy being measured in ergs, and the mass in grammes. It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy-content is variable to a high degree (e.g. with radium salts) the theory may be successfully put to the test. If the theory corresponds to the facts, radiation conveys inertia between the
emitting and absorbing bodies. ' back |
Albert Einstein (1905c), On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, ' The wave theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, has proved itself splendidly in describing purely optical phenomena and will probably never be replaced by another theory. One should keep in mind, however, that optical observations apply to time averages and not to momentary values, and it is conceivable that despite the complete confirmation of the theories of diffraction, reflection, refraction, dispersion, etc., by experiment, the theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, may lead to contradictions with experience when it is applied to the phenomena of production and transformation of light.
Indeed, it seems to me that the observations regarding "black-body" light, and other groups of phenomena associated with the production or conversion of light can be understood better if one assumes that the energy of light is discontinuously distributed in space.' back |
Albert Einstein (1915, 2010), The Field Equations of Gravitation (Translation), ' By that, the general theory of relativity as a logical building is eventually finished. The relativity postulate in its general form that makes the space-time coordinates to physically meaningless parameters, is directed with stringent necessity to a very specific theory of gravitation that explains the perihelion motion of mercury. However, the general relativity postulate offers nothing new about the essence of the other natural processes, which wasn't already taught by the special theory of relativity.' back |
Albert Einstein & Marcel Grossman (1913), Outline of a Generalized Theory of Relativity and of a Theory of Gravitation, ' The theory expounded in what follows derives from the conviction that the proportionality between the inertial and the gravitational mass of bodies is an exactly valid law of nature that must already find expression in the very foundation of theoretical physics. I already sought to give expression to this conviction in several earlier papers by seeking to reduce the gravitational mass to the inertial mass; this endeavor led me to the hypothesis that, from a physical point of view, an (infinitesimally extended, homogeneous) gravitational field can be completely replaced by a state of acceleration of the reference system. This hypothesis can be expressed pictorially in the following way: An observer enclosed in a box can in no way decide whether the box is at rest in a static gravitational field, or whether it is in accelerated motion, maintained by forces acting on the box, in a space that is free of gravitational fields (equivalence hypothesis).' back |
Ansatz - Wikipedia, Ansatz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In physics and mathematics, an ansatz (German: initial placement of a tool at a work piece) is an educated guess that is verified later by its results.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 4, Are essence and existence the same in God?, 'I answer that, God is not only His own essence, as shown in the preceding article, but also His own existence. This may be shown in several ways.
First, whatever a thing has besides its essence must be caused either by the constituent principles of that essence (like a property that necessarily accompanies the species--as the faculty of laughing is proper to a man--and is caused by the constituent principles of the species), or by some exterior agent--as heat is caused in water by fire. Therefore, if the existence of a thing differs from its essence, this existence must be caused either by some exterior agent or by its essential principles. Now it is impossible for a thing's existence to be caused by its essential constituent principles, for nothing can be the sufficient cause of its own existence, if its existence is caused. Therefore that thing, whose existence differs from its essence, must have its existence caused by another. But this cannot be true of God; because we call God the first efficient cause. Therefore it is impossible that in God His existence should differ from His essence.' back |
Aquinas, Summa I, 28, 3, Are the relations in God are really distinguished from each other?, ' I answer that, The attributing of anything to another involves the attribution likewise of whatever is contained in it. So when "man" is attributed to anyone, a rational nature is likewise attributed to him. The idea of relation, however, necessarily means regard of one to another, according as one is relatively opposed to another. So as in God there is a real relation (Article 1), there must also be a real opposition. The very nature of relative opposition includes distinction. Hence, there must be real distinction in God, not, indeed, according to that which is absolute—namely, essence, wherein there is supreme unity and simplicity—but according to that which is relative.' back |
Aquinas, Summa: I, 2, 3, Does God exist?, 'I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . ' back |
Big Bang - Wikipedia, Big Bang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution. The model describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature, and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and large-scale structure. ' back |
Black hole thermodynamics - Wikipedia, Black hole thermodynamics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. Much as the study of the statistical mechanics of black body radiation led to the advent of the theory of quantum mechanics, the effort to understand the statistical mechanics of black holes has had a deep impact upon the understanding of quantum gravity, leading to the formulation of the holographic principle.' back |
Bohr model - Wikipedia, Bohr model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In atomic physics, the Rutherford–Bohr model or Bohr model, introduced by Niels Bohr in 1913, depicts the atom as a small, positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons that travel in circular orbits around the nucleus—similar in structure to the solar system, but with attraction provided by electrostatic forces rather than gravity.' back |
Compton scattering - Wikipedia, Compton scattering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Compton scattering is the inelastic scattering of a photon by a quasi-free charged particle, usually an electron. It results in a decrease in energy (increase in wavelength) of the photon (which may be an X-ray or gamma ray photon), called the Compton effect. Part of the energy of the photon is transferred to the recoiling electron. Inverse Compton scattering also exists, in which a charged particle transfers part of its energy to a photon.' back |
Computable function - Wikipedia, Computable function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Computable functions are the basic objects of study in computability theory. Computable functions are the formalized analogue of the intuitive notion of algorithms, in the sense that a function is computable if there exists an algorithm that can do the job of the function, i.e. given an input of the function domain it can return the corresponding output. Computable functions are used to discuss computability without referring to any concrete model of computation such as Turing machines or register machines. Any definition, however, must make reference to some specific model of computation but all valid definitions yield the same class of functions. Particular models of computability that give rise to the set of computable functions are the Turing-computable functions and the general recursive functions.' back |
Conservation of energy - Wikipedia, Conservation of energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change form, for instance chemical energy can be converted to kinetic energy in the explosion of a stick of dynamite. back |
Cosmic microwave background - Wikipedia, Cosmic microwave background - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the thermal radiation left over from the time of recombination in Big Bang cosmology. . . . The CMB is a snapshot of the oldest light in our Universe, imprinted on the sky when the Universe was just 380,000 years old. It shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions of slightly different densities, representing the seeds of all future structure: the stars and galaxies of today.' back |
David E. Soper, Newton's reasoning for the orbit of the Moon , ' "I deduced that the forces which keep the Planets in their orbs must [be] reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve; and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them to answer pretty nearly".' back |
David Hume - Wikipedia, David Hume - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' David Hume (7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. Hume's empiricist approach to philosophy places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes as a British Empiricist. ' back |
Differentiable manifold - Wikipedia, Differentiable manifold - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In mathematics, a differentiable manifold (also differential manifold) is a type of manifold that is locally similar enough to a vector space to allow one to apply calculus. Any manifold can be described by a collection of charts (atlas). One may then apply ideas from calculus while working within the individual charts, since each chart lies within a vector space to which the usual rules of calculus apply. If the charts are suitably compatible (namely, the transition from one chart to another is differentiable), then computations done in one chart are valid in any other differentiable chart. ' back |
Equivalence principle - Wikipedia, Equivalence principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In the physics of general relativity, the equivalence principle is any of several related concepts dealing with the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass, and to Albert Einstein's assertion that the gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on a massive body (such as the Earth) is actually the same as the pseudo-force experienced by an observer in a non-inertial (accelerated) frame of reference.' back |
Essence - Wikipedia, Essence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Essence (Latin: essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity.' back |
Eugene Wigner (1939), On Unitary Representations of the Inhomogeneous Lorentz Group, Annals of Mathematics Second Series vol 40 no 1 (jan, 1939) pp 149-204
' It is perhaps the most fundamental principle of Quantum Mechanics that the system of states forms a linear manifold, in which a unitary scalar product is defined. The states are generally represented by wave functions in such a way that φ and constant multiples of φ represent the same physical state.' back |
Evolution - Wikipedia, Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '. . . Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace were the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Evolution by natural selection is a process that is inferred from three facts about populations: 1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, 2) traits vary among individuals, leading to different rates of survival and reproduction, and 3) trait differences are heritable. . . . ' back |
Feynman, Leighton & Sands FLP II:18, Chapter 18: Maxwell's Equations, 'In this chapter we come back to the complete set of the four Maxwell equations that we took as our starting point in Chapter 1. Until now, we have been studying Maxwell’s equations in bits and pieces; it is time to add one final piece, and to put them all together. We will then have the complete and correct story for electromagnetic fields that may be changing with time in any way. . . . Although we have been very careful to point out the restrictions whenever we wrote an equation, it is easy to forget all of the qualifications and to learn too well the wrong equations. Now we are ready to give the whole truth, with no qualifications (or almost none).' back |
Galaxy - Wikipedia, Galaxy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. Galaxies, averaging an estimated 100 billion stars, range in size from dwarfs with less than a hundred million stars, to the largest galaxies known – supergiants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass. Most of the mass in a typical galaxy is in the form of dark matter, with only a few percent of that mass visible in the form of stars and nebulae. Supermassive black holes are a common feature at the centres of galaxies.' back |
Galilean invariance - Wikipedia, Galilean invariance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Galilean invariance or Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames. Galileo Galilei first described this principle in 1632 in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems using the example of a ship travelling at constant velocity, without rocking, on a smooth sea; any observer below the deck would not be able to tell whether the ship was moving or stationary.' back |
Gaussian curvature - Wikipedia, Gaussian curvature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In differential geometry, the Gaussian curvature or Gauss curvature of a point on a surface is the product of the principal curvatures, κ1 and κ2, of the given point. It is an intrinsic measure of curvature, i.e., its value depends only on how distances are measured on the surface, not on the way it is isometrically embedded in space. This result is the content of Gauss's Theorema egregium.' back |
Genesis I:1-4, Genesis, from the Holy Bible, King James Version, ' 1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. ' back |
Geodesics in general relativity - Wikipedia, Geodesics in general relativity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In general relativity, a geodesic generalizes the notion of a "straight line" to curved spacetime. Importantly, the world line of a particle free from all external, non-gravitational force, is a particular type of geodesic. In other words, a freely moving or falling particle always moves along a geodesic.' back |
George Smoot, Precession of the perihelion of Mercury, ' As seen from Earth the precession of Mercury's orbit is measured to be 5600 seconds of arc per century (one second of arc = 1/3600 degrees). Newton's equations, taking into account all the effects from the other planets (as well as a very slight deformation of the Sun due to its rotation) and the fact that the Earth is not an inertial frame of reference, predicts a precession of 5557 seconds of arc per century. There is a discrepancy of 43 seconds of arc per century.
This discrepancy cannot be accounted for using Newton's formalism. . . . . In contrast, Einstein was able to predict, without any adjustments whatsoever, that the orbit of Mercury should precess by an extra 43 seconds of arc per century should the General Theory of Relativity be correct.' back |
Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia, Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The two results are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible, giving a negative answer to Hilbert's second problem.
The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an "effective procedure" (i.e., any sort of algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that such a system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.' back |
Gospel, John 1, And the Word was made flesh , ' 14: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. back |
Gravitational constant - Wikipedia, Gravitational constant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The gravitational constant denoted by letter G, is an empirical physical constant involved in the calculation(s) of gravitational force between two bodies.' back |
Gravitational-wave observatory - Wikipedia, Gravitational-wave observatory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A gravitational-wave detector (used in a gravitational-wave observatory) is any device designed to measure tiny distortions of spacetime called gravitational waves. Since the 1960s, various kinds of gravitational-wave detectors have been built and constantly improved. The present-day generation of laser interferometers has reached the necessary sensitivity to detect gravitational waves from astronomical sources, thus forming the primary tool of gravitational-wave astronomy.' back |
Gregory J. Chaitin (1982), Gödel's Theorem and Information, 'Abstract: Gödel's theorem may be demonstrated using arguments having an information-theoretic flavor. In such an approach it is possible to argue that if a theorem contains more information than a given set of axioms, then it is impossible for the theorem to be derived from the axioms. In contrast with the traditional proof based on the paradox of the liar, this new viewpoint suggests that the incompleteness phenomenon discovered by Gödel is natural and widespread rather than pathological and unusual.'
International Journal of Theoretical Physics 21 (1982), pp. 941-954 back |
Harmonic Oscillator - Wikipedia, Harmonic Oscillator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In classical mechanics, a harmonic oscillator is a system that, when displaced from its equilibrium position, experiences a restoring force, F, proportional to the displacement, x: F = kx, where k is a positive constant.
If F is the only force acting on the system, the system is called a simple harmonic oscillator, and it undergoes simple harmonic motion: sinusoidal oscillations about the equilibrium point, with a constant amplitude and a constant frequency (which does not depend on the amplitude).' back |
Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, Black hole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Hawking radiation is dependent on the Unruh effect and the equivalence principle applied to black-hole horizons. Close to the event horizon of a black hole, a local observer must accelerate to keep from falling in. An accelerating observer sees a thermal bath of particles that pop out of the local acceleration horizon, turn around, and free-fall back in. The condition of local thermal equilibrium implies that the consistent extension of this local thermal bath has a finite temperature at infinity, which implies that some of these particles emitted by the horizon are not reabsorbed and become outgoing Hawking radiation.' back |
Heinrich Hertz - Wikipedia, Heinrich Hertz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit of frequency, cycle per second, was named the "hertz" in his honor.' back |
Isaac Newton (1713), The General Scholium to the Principia Mathematica, 'Published for the first time as an appendix to the 2nd (1713) edition of the Principia, the General Scholium reappeared in the 3rd (1726) edition with some amendments and additions. As well as countering the natural philosophy of Leibniz and the Cartesians, the General Scholium contains an excursion into natural theology and theology proper. In this short text, Newton articulates the design argument (which he fervently believed was furthered by the contents of his Principia), but also includes an oblique argument for a unitarian conception of God and an implicit attack on the doctrine of the Trinity, which Newton saw as a post-biblical corruption. The English translation here is that of Andrew Motte (1729). Italics and orthography as in original.' back |
John D. Norton (2022), The world's quickest derivation of E = mc^2, ' Consider a body that moves at very close to the speed of light. A uniform force acts on it and, as a result, the force pumps energy and momentum into the body. That force cannot appreciably change the speed of the body because it is going just about as fast as it can. So all the increase of momentum = mass x velocity of the body is manifest as an increase of mass.
We want to show that in unit time the energy E gained by the body due to the action of the force is equal to mc^2, where m is the mass gained by the body.' back |
John Palmer (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Parmenides, ' Immediately after welcoming Parmenides to her abode, the goddess describes as follows the content of the revelation he is about to receive:
You must needs learn all things,/ both the unshaken heart of well-rounded reality/ and the notions of mortals, in which there is no genuine trustworthiness./ Nonetheless these things too will you learn, how what they resolved/ had actually to be, all through all pervading. (Fr. 1.28b-32) ' back |
Karl Marx - Wikipedia, Karl Marx - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Karl Heinrich Marx (Berlin 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the establishment of the social sciences and the development of the socialist movement. He is also considered one of the greatest economists in history. He published numerous books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867 –1894). He often worked closely with his friend and fellow revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels.' back |
Lagrangian - Wikipedia, Lagrangian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Lagrangian, L, of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton known as Lagrangian mechanics.
In classical mechanics, the Lagrangian is defined as the kinetic energy, T, of the system minus its potential energy, V. In symbols, L = T - V. ' back |
Lagrangian mechanics - Wikipedia, Lagrangian mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Introduced by the Italian-French mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange in 1788, Lagrangian mechanics is a formulation of classical mechanics and is founded on the stationary action principle.
Given a system of point masses and a pair, t1 and t2 Lagrangian mechanics postulates that the system's trajectory (describing evolution of the system over time) . . . must be a stationary point of the action functional
S = ∫ L dt.
By convention, L = T − V, where T and V are the kinetic and potential energy of the system, respectively.' back |
Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia, Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the Lorentz transformation or Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation describes how, according to the theory of special relativity, two observers' varying measurements of space and time can be converted into each other's frames of reference. It is named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz. It reflects the surprising fact that observers moving at different velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times, and even different orderings of events.' back |
Louis de Broglie (1929), Nobel Lecture: The Wave Nature of the Electron, ' Nevertheless, it was still necessary to adopt the wave
theory to account for interference and diffraction phenomena and no way whatsoever of reconciling the wave theory with the existence of light corpuscles could be visualized.
The necessity of assuming for light two contradictory theories-that of waves and that of corpuscles - and the inability to understand why, among the infinity of motions which an electron ought to be able to have in the atom according to classical concepts, only certain ones were possible: such were the enigmas confronting physicists at the time I resumed my studies of theoretical physics.Now a purely corpuscular theory does not contain any
element permitting the definition of frequency. This also renders it necessary in the case of light to introduce simultaneously the corpuscle concept and the concept of periodicity.
On the other hand the determination of the stable motions of the electrons in the atom involves whole numbers, and so far the only phenomena in which whole numbers were involved in physics were those of interference and of eigenvibrations. That suggested the idea to me that electrons themselves could not be represented as simple corpuscles either, but that a periodicity had also to be assigned to them too.
In other words the existence of corpuscles accompanied by waves has to be assumed in all cases. However, since corpuscles and waves cannot be independent because, according to Bohr's expression, it must be possible to establish a certain parallelism between the motion of a corpuscle and the propagation of the associated wave. . . ..
They showed clearly that it was possible to establish a correspondence between waves and corpuscles such that the laws of mechanics correspond to the laws of geometrical optics. . . ..
This prompted the thought that classical mechanics is also only an approximation relative to a vaster wave mechanics. I stated as
much almost at the outset of my studies, i.e. "A new mechanics must be developed which is to classical mechanics what wave optics is to geometrical optics". This new mechanics has since been developed, thanks mainly to the fine work done by Schrödinger. . . ..
I cannot attempt even briefly to sum up here the development of the new mechanics. I merely wish to say that on examination it proved to be identical with a mechanics independently developed, first by Heisenberg, then by Born, Jordan, Pauli, Dirac, etc quantum mechanics. The two mechanics, wave and quantum, are equivalent from the mathematical point of view. . . ..
Since the wavelength of the electron waves is of the order of that of X-rays, it must be expected that crystals can cause diffraction of these waves completely analogous to the Laue phenomenon. . . .
Thus to describe the properties of matter as well as those of light, waves and corpuscles have to be referred to at one and the same time. The electron can no longer be conceived as a single, small granule of electricity; it must be associated with a wave and this wave is no myth; its wavelength can be measured and its interferences predicted. It has thus been possible to predict
a whole group of phenomena without their actually having been discovered. And it is on this concept of the duality of waves and corpuscles in Nature, expressed in a more or less abstract form, that the whole recent development of theoretical physics has been founded and that all future development of this science will apparently have to be founded.' back |
Marcelo Samuel Berman (2009), On the Zero-energy Universe, ' We consider the energy of the Universe, from the pseudo-tensor point of view (Berman,1981). We find zero values, when the calculations are well-done.The doubts concerning this subject are clarified, with the novel idea that the justification for the calculation lies in the association of the equivalence principle, with the nature of co-motional observers, as demanded in Cosmology. In Section 4, we give a novel calculation for the zero-total energy result.' back |
Mass-energy equivalence - Wikipedia, Mass-energy equivalence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the concept that any mass has an associated energy and vice versa. In special relativity this relationship is expressed using the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 where E is the energy of a physical system m is the mass of the system, and c = the speed of light in a vacuum . . . ' back |
Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Maxwell's equations are a set of coupled partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric circuits. The equations provide a mathematical model for electric, optical, and radio technologies, such as power generation, electric motors, wireless communication, lenses, radar etc. They describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated by charges, currents, and changes of the fields.' back |
Metaphysics - Wikipedia, Metaphysics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility.] It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.' back |
Michelson and Morley (1887), On the relative motion of the earth and the lumeniferous ether, The classic paper, 1887. They conclude that "It appears, from all that precedes, reasonably certain that if there be any relative motion between the earth and the luminiferous ether, it must be small; . . . " back |
Minkowski space - Wikipedia, Minkowski space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' By 1908 Minkowski realized that the special theory of relativity, introduced by his former student Albert Einstein in 1905 and based on the previous work of Lorentz and Poincaré, could best be understood in a four-dimensional space, since known as the "Minkowski spacetime", in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four-dimensional space–time, and in which the Lorentz geometry of special relativity can be effectively represented using the invariant interval x2 + y2 + z2 − c2 t2.' back |
Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Newton's law of universal gravitation is usually stated as that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. The publication of the theory has become known as the "first great unification", as it marked the unification of the previously described phenomena of gravity on Earth with known astronomical behaviors.' back |
Newton's Laws of motion - Wikipedia, Newton's Laws of motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows:
Law 1. A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force.
Law 2. When a body is acted upon by a force, the time rate of change of its momentum equals the force.
Law 3. If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions.' back |
No-cloning theorem - Wikipedia, No-cloning theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In physics, the no-cloning theorem states that it is impossible to create an independent and identical copy of an arbitrary unknown quantum state, a statement which has profound implications in the field of quantum computing among others. The theorem is an evolution of the 1970 no-go theorem authored by James Park, in which he demonstrates that a non-disturbing measurement scheme which is both simple and perfect cannot exist . . .. The aforementioned theorems do not preclude the state of one system becoming entangled with the state of another as cloning specifically refers to the creation of a separable state with identical factors.' back |
Observable Universe - Wikipedia, Observable Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The observable universe is a spherical region of the universe comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth or its space-based telescopes and exploratory probes at the present time, because electromagnetic radiation from these objects has had time to reach the Solar System and Earth since the beginning of the cosmological expansion. There are at least 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.' back |
Pendulum - Wikipedia, Pendulum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force combined with the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth.' back |
Photon - Wikipedia, Photon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' A photon (from Ancient Greek φῶς, φωτός (phôs, phōtós) 'light') is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they always move at the speed of light in vacuum, 299792458 m/s . . .. The photon belongs to the class of bosons.' back |
Potential gradient - Wikipedia, Potential gradient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In physics, chemistry and biology, a potential gradient is the local rate of change of the potential with respect to displacement, i.e. spatial derivative, or gradient. This quantity frequently occurs in equations of physical processes because it leads to some form of flux. back |
Second law of thermodynamics - Wikipedia, Second law of thermodynamics - Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia, 'The second law of thermodynamics states that in a natural thermodynamic process, there is an increase in the sum of the entropies of the participating systems.
The second law is an empirical finding that has been accepted as an axiom of thermodynamic theory. back |
Special relativity - Wikipedia, Special relativity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Special relativity . . . is the physical theory of measurement in an inertial frame of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein (after the considerable and independent contributions of Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others) in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".
It generalizes Galileo's principle of relativity—that all uniform motion is relative, and that there is no absolute and well-defined state of rest (no privileged reference frames)—from mechanics to all the laws of physics, including both the laws of mechanics and of electrodynamics, whatever they may be. Special relativity incorporates the principle that the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of the state of motion of the source.' back |
Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The unmoved mover (Ancient Greek: ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ, lit. 'that which moves without being moved' or prime mover (Latin: primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the unmoved mover moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek: Λ) of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: self-contemplation. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek pre-Socratic philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the unmoved mover in the Quinque viae. ' back |
Vacuum permeability - Wikipedia, Vacuum permeability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The physical constant μ0, (pronounced "mu nought" or "mu zero"), commonly called the vacuum permeability, permeability of free space, permeability of vacuum, or [preferred name] magnetic constant, is the magnetic permeability in a classical vacuum. Vacuum permeability is derived from production of a magnetic field by an electric current or by a moving electric charge and in all other formulas for magnetic-field production in a vacuum. . . . '
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Vacuum permittivity - Wikipedia, Vacuum permittivity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The physical constant εo (pronounced as "epsilon nought" or "epsilon zero"), commonly called the vacuum permittivity, permittivity of free space or electric constant or the distributed capacitance of the vacuum, is an ideal, (baseline) physical constant, which is the value of the absolute dielectric permittivity of classical vacuum. . . .
It is the capability of the vacuum to permit electric field lines. This constant relates the units for electric charge to mechanical quantities such as length and force.' back |
Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia, Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The term Variety was introduced by W. Ross Ashby to denote the count of the total number of states of a system. The condition for dynamic stability under perturbation (or input) was described by his Law of Requisite Variety. Ashby says:
Thus, if the order of occurrence is ignored, the set {c, b, c, a, c, c, a, b, c, b, b, a} which contains twelve elements, contains only three distinct elements- a, b, c. Such a set will be said to have a variety of three elements.
He adds
The observer and his powers of discrimination may have to be specified if the variety is to be well defined.
Variety can be stated as an integer, as above, or as the logarithm to the base 2 of the number i.e. in bits.' back |
Wiliam E. Ritter (1932), Why Aristotle Invented the Word Entelecheia, ' The definition of entelecheia given by Ross and others, namely, "actuality, complete reality," appears to be true to the make-up of the word: enteles, complete, in full; echein, have, hold. ...
Again with but little violence to truth we may say that the treatises on Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetry; and on Politics and Ethics are the Aristotelian effort to analyze the entelecheia of man on the spiritual side of his nature.' back |
Zero-energy universe - Wikipedia, Zero-energy universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The zero-energy universe hypothesis proposes that the total amount of energy in the universe is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of matter is exactly cancelled out by its negative energy in the form of gravity. . . . The zero-energy universe theory originated in 1973, when Edward Tryon proposed in the journal Nature that the universe emerged from a large-scale quantum fluctuation of vacuum energy, resulting in its positive mass-energy being exactly balanced by its negative gravitational potential energy.' back |
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