Re: Quantum Mechanics: established fact?

T Wake a écrit :
"srp" <srp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:44889BB6.1030804@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
T Wake a écrit :
"srp" <srp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:44889291.80705@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
T Wake a écrit :
"srp" <srp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:44888AA0.9080108@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Quite refreshing to see plain common sense raising its head
again Ken.
Without being unduly rude, it is often the case that people see common sense when it is simply a matter of someone agreeing with them.
Not in this case. I have had the same view as Hubble and apparently Ken
for quite a long time, and for apparently the same reason : absense
of proof.
Ok, this is still agreement. Common sense is, very often, incorrect in physics. Nature's idea of how things should occure rarely sync with what we humans see and think.
My view on this is that could not possibly make sense to Aristotle
seemed to make more sense to Descartes (more info available), what
seemd to not make sense to Descartes suddenly made more sense to
Newton (more info available), then came Maxwell and all those in
between who understood more bits and pieces from more verified
data having become available, and then Planck, Einstein, de Broglie...

We are still at it and more info has been gathered since, and more
will become available in the future.

We are not at the end of the line.

No. It would be a sad day if we ever were.

That said, lack of "proof" is the important point (from a science perspective).
Critically important.

Well, yes.

Reasonable. Common sense allows gathering non-contradictory data. But
only real physical proof allows confirming the validity of the
conclusion.

In the loosest sense of the word proof, a theory which makes predictions about something untestable, but has follow on predictions about things testable is sound.

In my book, any untestable conclusion is meaningless to start with.

Without this extension to the "proof requirements" we would still be in a lot of quandries regarding the universe.

Well, I disagree. If more focus had been put on _verifying_ what is
verifiable, I have a view that we would have more verified data at
our disposal.

Also, the equivalence principle is something which has to be "assumed" as being true. We can not, ever, test all the laws of physics in every single part of an infinite universe.

The only real assumption that need be made in my view is that the laws
of physics are the same all through the real physical universe. This
is the assumption I made and it means that all fundamental physical
laws can be tested locally.

Ideally a theory which fills the cracks of "Big Bang" will do it without creating more of its own.
I don't personally see not identifying the primal cause at this time in
human history as being a "crack" in any theory. At most, a lack of
sufficient information at this moment.

The idea of a t=0 event forming the start point of our universe, which then through the mechanism of inflation became what we "see" today is sound enough though.

It has made "testable" predictions which have been borne out with experiment.

The downfall of the idea itself appears as you approach t=0.

But it does appear at some point.

If you go to a time before t=0 then as far as I know, there are no "scientific" theories which can even begin to answer this.

It is almost certain that the models and theories *we* humans use to describe the universe as incomplete and inaccurate.

For now, with the currently integrated verified data, yes.

Tomorrow is another day.

This is because they are, simply put, models. Ascribing too much significance to the detail is, potentially, a dead end. For example, there may well be a cosmological ether, however none of our theories (which have an excellent track record for matching the experimental data) require it and no experiment has detected it. Therefore, with nods to Occam, it is not required for the model.

And therefore, it is not there.

That doesn't mean it doesn't "exist" though.

In my book, it does mean exactly that.

Either something exists and it can be verified to exist or else it
simply doesn't exist. No Goedel middle ground in physical reality.

While it is possible to dismantle each of the subsets of the t=0 event as marking the start of the universe, overall they form a fairly solid "belief."
Granted, but not based on incontrovertible proof that the Hubble red
shift is due to Doppler effect.

One aspect that you find fault with.

We can use the combination of supernovae data and paralax to determine distance to large scale stellar structures (and this is done on a regular basis). Both measurements match. (In fact multiple measurements agree)

Using supernovae brightness and stella composition we can see that otherwise identical large scale structures are redshifted. (Again, multiple measurement sources in agreement)

Now, upon realising that large scale structures _are_ infact redshifted means a few questions need to be asked but first, more data is required.

We can look at closer, easy to calibrate, structures. We see (again, multiple sources) that stars in our local group exhibit both red and blueshift. We also note that blueshift is _not_ apparent in the large scale structures beyond our group.

Parallax measurements indicate that structures showing red shift are a distance away which appears proportional with the amount of redshift shown. From this, we conclude that a given redshift indicates a given distance and that this also indicates the universe is expanding.

Now, I admit that in the summary above there are weak links so what has been done about that.

First off, what if "other stars" have a different composition to our reference stars (within the local group). This is possible (at the extreme of the range of possible things though) but if it is the case then we need to review pretty much all our current laws of physics.

I don't think there is any need to. My view is that an electron here
is identical to an electron 1 gazillion light years from here. Same
for a proton, same for a hydrogen atom and all other more complex
atoms.

As these laws function perfectly in all manner of situations on Earth we have no reason to believe the same does not hold true elsewhere.

Absolutely. In fact, it would make no sense if it was otherwise. All
spectral data from afar would be meaningless.

While there is no _proof_ that stars a million light years away are identical to our Sun, it would take proof for people to think otherwise.

Then, consider only people who use common sense. That's what I do.

Next weak point is the Doppler shift. We cant fly a billion light years away and shine a torch at Earth to see what happens but we can look at the physics involved and the equipment we have here. It is possible that the redshift from large scale structures _could_ be the result of little green men abducting the photons and experimenting on them. We don't know for sure. What we can do is experiment.

We _know_ that light from the Sun to the Earth is Doppler shifted as the Earth rotates around the Sun.

Yes.

We know we can create a Doppler shift in light between two locations on Earth and that you can still see the Doppler effect _after_ wavelengths have been absorbed by intervening materials.

Yes.

What reason is there to think the red shift is anything other than down to the Doppler effect?

The Hubble red shift could also be a mix of real Doppler shift depending
on the _real_ relative velocities of each galaxy with respect to us plus
some other effect. For example real loss of energy of incoming photons
due to some other cause. This has already been considered, but always
rejected out of hand because the Doppler idea no doubt was more
appealing, particularly since it seemed in sync with GR and more simple
to mathematically address.

While each individual observation, experiment or prediction may (on its own) look weak, the fact that there is a body of them gives it more credence.
No denying that. The whole package seems self-consistant.

If you dismantle one part of the building, you need to ensure (unlike Jeff Relf for example) that you arent using other parts as your evidence.
Didn't look at Jeff Relf stuff.

Dont bother. He is invariably wrong.

Unfortunately for the time scale, there is no way for my
own views to be formally published.
Why not?
Because I am just a Joe out of the street. Not part of the
community. I have no control over the time it will take for
my ideas to filter up and even be discussed.
Well, have they been submitted to a journal?
To some. One hurdle: no consideration possible without backing by
already published and recongnized sponsor.

Ok. Publish them on a website and wait for a scientist in need of a PhD subject to read them, agree with them, and take it up.

Not likely. Waste of time.

I hate red tape.

Same here. Wasnt much when I was in academia. (I was still pants though)

Second hurdle: there is no way this will be subjected to the whim of
insufficiently knowledgeable reviewers.

Well this is a problem.

In science, if you come up with a groundbreaking new idea you have two choices.

1 - submit it for the review of people who dont understand it as well as you do.

No way.

2 - keep it a secret and take it to your grave.

No way either.

The stuff is safely out of the box and safely impossible to repress by
anybody. It simply is not yet within reach of the physics community.

Until you publish, no one will know it.

It is in print. And already fairly widely, however thinly, distributed
in institutions all over the big ball.

Publishing requires peer review otherwise every nutcase would change science every ten minutes.

Well, no peer has nor will review this particular nut case before it
eventually climbs the metaphorical leg of the physics community on
its own.

Despite peoples fears, the peer review process is not as "nasty" as some think. Most people chosen to review a document look forward to learning new things. Let them read it, if they learn and agree your document is sound. If you cant convince them, then you need to rewrite it.

I know the drill. The answer is no. Not this time around.

You can start by describing the experiments you feel would support
your ideas.
I have. Exhaustively.

Ok. Are they feasible? Can they be conducted easily?

Yes very easy to conduct. The problem is, no one will any time soon,
since it based on a model that won't be considered any time soon.

Generally speaking, there are hordes of scientists who would bite your arms off for a head start in re-writing cosmology. The fame and kudos that would attach to such a person are phenomenal.
No doubt. All they need to do as I did: isolate the verified data and
reconsider.

Ah, this is often not the case. Isolating data is sometimes the road to madness. What person A may feel is sufficiently isolated may not match person B's opinion.

Who said that B had to agree. You define your own validity criteria.

Mine is, if something can be scattered against, it is physically
there and you can study it, otherwise, it is not there (it does not
exist, so no need to waste time considering whether or not it may
exist while not being verifiable.).

Not to mention, in Cosmology most of the verified data relies on other theories to support the verification process. We have never had ANY actual contact with anything outside our solar system, so almost all verification is by third party means.

This is not what I call verification. I call verification, verification
of physical (scatterable) existence. I found that this can occur only
at the particle level.

Every day, in universities across the globe, there are young scientists who are trying to re-write the books on cosmology and the big bang theory. The reason none (so far) have succeeded is that the data supporting the idea is actually quite robust.

My view is that it is because they have been relying on _supposedly_
verified data and on unverified and often unverifiable assumptions.

Seriously, if you are confident about your ideas then you will find a scientist who will look into it.
Well, I have no doubt that this will happen some time in the future.
With 3000 copies of my book already flaoting about, this is unavoicable.

Excellent.

But as I said, I have no control over the timescale.

That is a secondary consideration.

Yes. The real important consideration in my view is that the community
has no control over its spreading either.

André Michaud
.

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