Nov 29 2004

Time is the 4th Dimension

I'm sure we've all heard it before, the physical realm is the 3rd dimension while time is the 4th dimension. People accept it as truth and have no clue as what they are agreeing with. Let me just tell you right now, that statement is The most rediculous and false truth in physics today. First of all, what is a dimension? To me a "dimension" is a term used in context of describing the physical area of an object. A cube for example, it's dimensions are 2x2x2.

di·men·sion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-mnshn, d-)
n.
1. A measure of spatial extent, especially width, height, or length.


Ok great, simple, very simple. Now where the heck do people come from to use the word time in the context of the term dimension? Lets try to seriously figure this out because I, maybe like you, have no idea.

Time is what? Time is a collective phenomenon of the 3rd dimension in motion, or very simply the percieved and felt effect of matter in motion. In other words time is not in any way a measurement of shape or size but more importantly Is not a physical quantity or spacial quantity...

Heard of string theory? Ya me too. Let me just be blunt. There is not additional dimensions beyond the physical realm we occupy, "interlaced", "invisible" or otherwise. See it's just not happening people, what you SEE is what you GET. 1, 2, 3 dimensions that's it. TIME has Nothing to do with it, and Cannot be used in context of being an additional dimension to the physical realm Because it is Already a condition or effect of the physical 3D realm.

"Time is the 4th Dimension" what?

Ok to be fair, I have researched the topic some more and have come to know the term is used in multiple contexts, one of them being science fiction "multiple dimensions" and subsequently string theory which I had in mind. However the word is also used in mathmatics such as dimensional analysis.

"In the language of measurement, quantities are quantifiable aspects of the world, such as time, distance, velocity, mass, and weight, and units measure them. Quantities are sometimes also referred to as dimensions although the term is only strictly true of time and space measurements; see dimensional analysis."

Further reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension

However everything considered it still does not explain why time is mentioned as the 4th dimension, because it is simply not relatable. And before anyone mentions it I do understand the concepts of "spacial and temporal dimensions" as they are defined and relate to special relativity. You would have to argue with me - ask questions- to get the whole picture on why time is not a dimension.

It would also seem that time is not the only thing mentioned in the context of dimension..

"In physics, the dimension of a quality is the expression of that quality in basic units: the dimension of speed, for example, is length divided by time."

Go figure.


Dec 22 2004

I was watching another program about the death of supermassive stars and it got me thinking. Here is how the story goes. Stars convert Hydrogen to Helium which is the engine of stars. At the end of there lifetime when all the Hydrogen is consumed the supermassive star begins its death cycle and eventually goes supernova. A star that goes supernova releases more energy than every star in the galaxy combined. Now do you see a problem with this senerio? Why would a star that has that much energy left be at the end of its life? You would think that a star that runs out of energy would just fizzle out right? (True a white dwarf will do this), but no it goes supernova and its clear to me that the reason a star goes supernova is not because it has consumed all its energy. So what really is a supernova? Why do these stars that have all this energy within them that should last them billions of years more all of a sudden go supernova? I'm sorry I just don't buy it anymore, I think something else is going on and I want to know what.

On a related note it turns out that the crab nebula is actually the remenents of a year 1050 supernova. They saw that the nebula was expanding and traced back to around that time frame, more so they spoted the actual neutron star within it. Along with that they discovered a chinese script that records the witness of the supernova at that time and that lasted 18 months, it was so bright you could see it in the day time and at night you could write by it. Pretty snazzy.

While watching the program I gave myself a problem to solve. Taking the sun as a whole, what is an approximate area within the sun that represents 1 years worth of fuel consumption? Given the fact that the sun burns enourmous amounts of energy every second and it's been doing so for billions of years, this engine must be extremely efficient. I would just love to know the answer to that and if it in fact adds up. It should probably add up because the sun is so gigantic you think. If it doesnt add up, say it calulates out that the sun has burned way more energy than is physically visible or apparent then we have something quite interesting to think about, for example.. Suppose that gravity does work in a manner suggested by me and the sun would absorb free space which coinsidently is Hydrogen, and convert that into Helium. So you would in essense have a "fuel line" instead of the as thought "fuel tank". But now we would also have to ask the question with a new meaning, why does a star go supernova? And again it would not be because it has consumed its fuel.

Honestly I dont even know what processes or structure is within a star to "store" the Hydrogen as if it were a fuel tank and burn it when necessary, contrary to igniting the whole lot which ironically is what appears to happen when a star goes supernova... Perhaps gravity or something else keeps an important "structure" within a star in balance and in check as to not ingite the whole lot and when a star burns enough energy to lose such structure because afterall all that energy is mass which would equal less gravity, it becomes unstable and the balance is thrown off and the whole sucker ignites. Who knows, all I'm saying is there is something suspicious about the story when a star that when runs out of energy, explodes with more energy than you think it could possibly have to begin with...

To update this last section I have recently read and understood the process by which a star creates and burns fuel and eventually runs out per say as given by the utk astronomy 162 web index section "Energy production in stars".

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/energy/energy.html


Astronomy 162 from utk

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/index.html

And who knew? An internet archive. Use this if any link is broken or outdated.

http://www.archive.org/

Jan 15 2005


Time to reflect and refresh our knowledge of quantum mechanics. Read pages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_product
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakurai%27s_Bell_inequality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_singlet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenstate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefunction_collapse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoherence

With the idea that we want to eventually understand the process of quantum entanglement, the conditions required for such, and the common natural occurence of such phenomenon. Moreso to understand not only the definition of entanglement but how entanglement comes about, subject to how to enduce entanglement and according to a specific desired value or percentage of a volume of particles travling through a known hilbert space vector and measure as such. Furthermore understand the technique and effects of such measurements relating to the state of said particles prior to and thereafter and to form an opionion on whether the wave-function collapse theory as expressed in the Copenhagen interpretation is acceptable. Theoretical practical applications of controlled quantum entanglement include quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography and the like (more on that later, however here is something to boggle your mind http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert1596/QUOXIC/talks/samson.pdf - or search google for related articles but in general we want to know what entanglement is because it will be a frequent term used in the future)

Another important question is what relation does entanglement play if any in the transport of information between particle systems eg. if entanglement occurs obviously the atomic states are lined up and they become superpositioned so is this the equivilent of the transfer of information from one particle to another or the addition of energy/information when measured as a singlet state? In other words if photon A has x energy and photon B has z energy, does the singlet state measure equal the sum or multiple of energies or otherwise, and does an independent state cease to exsist? Yet another important question if it is even appropiate to ask, after entanglement how do they become unentangled? (akin to a wave-function collapse suggested by the Copenhagen interpretation)

Ok I have been reading somemore and have for the most part accepted the many-worlds theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
One important note to make with regard to article (as it appears Jan 11 2005, as these things are freely edited)
The term "universes" used is not to be taken literally but figuratively as I would suggest. "Universe' in this sense is actually to refer to the quantum space within and around the subject of observation. In that context universe is described by myself as a particular observation point within that space and should really be called a, well an "observation vector" or coordinate. Infinite universes or observation vectors are said to be realized when you visualize all possible points in 3d space around a given object. Is it really infinite? Well no, but pratically speaking yes. Example, take observation points A and B and divide the distance between them to create observation points C and D between them, divide infinum and you get the idea. Added: Or you could agree with the following which happens to be related to quatum computation.

"The explanation favoured by Deutsch and others of how a quantum system processes information is the so-called ‘many-worlds’ interpretation. The idea, roughly, is that an entangled state of the sort that arises in the quantum computation of a function, which represents a linear superposition over all possible arguments and corresponding values of the function, should be understood as a manifestation of parallel computations in different worlds. The quantum circuit is designed to enable the computation of a global property of the function by achieving some sort of ‘interference’ between these different worlds. (For an insightful critique of this idea of ‘quantum parallelism’ as explanatory, see Steane. It should be noted that the term ‘many-worlds’ can refer to a variety of interpretational ideas, some more refined than others.)"

Another point I would like to agree with is the relative state that of each subsystem that has occured as a result of interaction between the subsystems.

"If a system is composed of two or more subsystems, the system's state will typically be a superposition of products of the subsystems' states. Once the subsystems interact, their states are no longer independent. Each product of subsystem states in the overall superposition evolves over time independently of other products. The subsystems have become entangled and it is no longer possible to consider them independent of one another. Everett's term for this entanglement of subsystem states was a relative state, since each subsystem must now be considered relative to the other subsystems with which it has interacted." (obvious)

Also

"From any of the relative-state formalisms, we can obtain a relative-state interpretation by two assumptions. The first is that the wavefunction is not simply a description of the object's state, but that it actually is entirely equivalent to the object, a claim it has in common with other interpretations. The second is that observation has no special role, unlike in the Copenhagen interpretation which considers the wavefunction collapse as a special kind of event which occurs as a result of observation."

What does it mean when the wave function is equivilent to the object? Imagine if you will the path of a particle through space, does it travel in a straight line? I would like to suggest that it might not and that it travels in a wavelike motion or perhaps even take a beeline approach, both cases would assume I would imagine interaction between other atomic elements to maintain or produced this unique path. Eg. it would bump into other particles along the way or it would be exchanged. This is what I COULD define as wave-particle duality (prior to or without knowing what wave-particle duality originally refered to eg. double-slit experiment), it's a particle but Travels in a wavelike motion. Now question is what does that mean? First of all we have no use for a wavefunction collapse on observation or detection, because where the particle hits is a random coordinate along it's path. Very simple. But an even more important question, does the path the photon takes have a pattern? If it's path is the result of exchange between atoms then there may be a case to be made that a pattern could exsist in a uniform gas or otherwise, on the other hand if it's non-linear path is the result of random collisions then we may conclude that it's path must also be random in a prefered direction that of it's momentum.

One thing I would like to understand with regards to a particle's location briefly prior to detection is why none feels it important to know where it was? This disregards the idea that A) a particle has a predictable path B) that the path is important. I think it would be important to know a particles path so you can if at all predict where it may hit. Only if the path or wavelike motion is actually random is the path meaningless to a major degree.
Quote : "Physics is the science of outcomes of measurement processes. Speculation beyond that cannot be justified. The Copenhagen interpretation rejects questions like "where was the particle before I measured its position" as meaningless." Although you can almost be sure that the path is random given the experiment because if every photon took the same path from point A to B then it would hit at point C every time, right?


Let's understand why in an entangled state subsystem if one is spin up the other must be spin down. Honestly I do not know all the intricate details with regard to polarization change and why it takes place and takes place so frequently but how about this, They both oscillate at a rate of equal time. That may not be the whole story but what's important is the effect is equivelent thats why I state it like so.

One might even perhaps define a particles oscillation from spin up to spin down as it's wavefunction- that idea being different and independent of path. You could even further say the rate at which a particle oscillates is it's given frequency or energy level.

Back to entanglement. What do you think of when you read the term entanglement? Me I immediatly assume it has something to do with two or more particles such as photons being relatively close to each other - stuck together or in phase and perhaps in a harmonic relationship that of alternating oscillation including travel through space. Perhaps identical frequency is the cause of such, imagine if you will a laser beam, how many photons are entangled if any? Now what I'm hearing entanglement actually is, is a different story. Some describe entanglement as simply the interaction of particles eg. a collision. Where the collision takes on the role of a composite system yet I don't think I would relate that to the terms superimposed or singlet system, which I believe refers to something else that of what I had in mind for entanglement. So two particles collide and when they collide they form a relationship of momentum that being when they collide they directly affect the future path of the other particle and that path is predictable according to classical mechanics. Kinda not what I had in mind when I read it but if that's what entanglement is then I would rather they called it something else. And they could be wrong, nothing saying they interpreted it correctly either. As things go you pass a concept from one person to the next and it could be completly different from what the original author Schrodinger whom invented the term entanglement actually meant. Now there is something similar to a collision and it is what is stated in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument and that is as follows.

"two particles are prepared from a source in a certain quantum state and then move apart. There are ‘matching’ correlations between both the positions of the two particles and their momenta: a measurement of either position or momentum on a particular particle will allow the prediction, with certainty, of the outcome of a position measurement or momentum measurement, respectively, on the other particle."

Ill add that entanglement is not limited in perspective to the scope of motion and momentum but polarization as well. Alright what are they saying in that argument? If two particles are exactly similar in both frequency and motion and alternate polarization if you will, it is possible to separate them and at any time take a measurement of either one and know the state of the remote other. That is the basic application of entanglment.


Reference of quoted text and additional reading material
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/


/to be mentioned, localized and non-localized discrepencies between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics.

More on the double slit experiment because I think it is important to understand or figure out what is going on there, not sure if I mentioned it before so here it is. Heres are a few articles I found.

http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=290165
http://www.teachspin.com/products/two_slit/experiments.html
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec13.html


The first thing demonstrated is the interference pattern created by a beam of light -many photons, however the same pattern develops if they only fire 1 photon at a time. Let's think about it. If you fire a single photon from point A and always from point A to target B and assuming for the most part it travels relatively straight -and theres no reason for it not too- it should hit target B exactly square each and every time that being according to classical mechanics. But remember our target B is behind the double slit so the question is how does photon get to target B when that path is blocked? And by blocked I mean, the photon would have to either hit the obstruction or somehow move around it, and move around it of either two ways, left or right. If this seems a little strange your absolutely right, there is no reason whatsoever why the photon would steer itself around the obstical, no instead it should be absorbed by the obstruction at the exact point of where it's linear path predicts. So why isn't it? Ok now were getting somewhere, we know that the pattern on the wall is not from the original or subsequent photons fired from point A to B - all of those should have hit the obstruction correct? Now there is a minor loophole in this experiment is the device that shoots a photon is not to within a large degree accurate - that is to say if it shoots a little to the left sometimes and a little to the right another time then forget it because the experiment is ruined, meaning any offset in either direction could shoot it straight through a slit. So let's assume, rather I should get an definate answer on this first ;) but let's assume that it shoots straight everytime. How would any photon reach the wall at all, forget what pattern, just how does it get there?

My explaination.
It's clear to me a rapid exchange must occur between neighboring atoms, not just a few atoms here and there, every single one inbetween point A and point B is given feedback in relation to the energy information traveling through them and around them in the form of course photons. Now what this in effect looks like, is a wave. Think of a bullet traveling through water in slow motion. The bullet, I mean photon, never actually hits the wall but rather, given it's straight path, hit's square in the middle of the obstruction and is absorbed. Neighboring atoms in the process of exchange send out there own photons that of being incrementally less energetic over distance. So you have basically a chain reaction in the direction of point B that our original photon set off. Now I could argue that an exchange occurs between not every atom but every other atom or every 3rd, 4th, 5th atom and the exchange and wave effect is still realized. Now that we have established a logical possibility of how the energy from a single photon could get to in and around the double slit(take both paths) to hit the wall, ask yourself, isn't that what really happens? What other options are there? You can't really say that the photon "slides off" the obstruction into one of the slits. Why would it slide off instead of hitting is square and being absorbed? Just doesn't make any sense. So, what have we learned? That the 1 photon experiment is not actually 1 photon after all. Perhaps.

I guess a more fundemental question is how do you create and subsequently fire 1 single photon? I cannot actually answer that, I'll just take there word for it. What I have just explained though is a manifestation of a much more detailed theory I have on quantum particle physics which happens to include gravity as well and if you've been following along you should be familar with that.

To clear up one other thing you might wonder how a photon, however it gets there, makes a mark on the wall. Well since the pattern is green and stays there permanently it should be within logic to know that the material is a special kind of material that reacts with light. I mean the pattern is not just there when the light is on and not there when you turn the light off. Now going back, how would you think a wave of energy/photons that started out as a single photon - that is spread out correct? - focus back into a single point to appear as 1 photon hitting and leaving a mark? It doesnt, and that is where some confusion may lie. There is however a stronger band where more energetic photons are traveling and thus would leave a brighter/bigger mark - this concept is aside from the interference bands. Think very, very fine structure. Were talking many photons hit the wall to create any given mark, yet you may not be able to discern the difference.

So what would be the point of a quantum system like this? Doesnt it seem a little, or alot, ineffecient to say the least? You have here many photons that are basically doing the job of what a single photon should be doing alone... You would think, but I'm a problem solver and this is what I come up and it works in my mind.

It's very difficult to imagine in your mind what a wave of light is, how to define it, not only knowing what it is made of but what its particular path is - what it would look like from an atomic perspective. We know a wave is actually a bunch of photons, what we want to understand is their particular path and how they come together to create a wave; and by the term 'wave' we suggest it, as a whole, has motion similar to a classical physical wave. Likewise we call it a wave because it produces interference patterns which is different if it is was defined as say a beam- When you hear 'beam of light' you dont necesarilly think of it as having a wave to it hopefully, you think of something linear... Point being it is a wave and given the interference patterns we know right away that the photons are Not travleing in a linear path through the slits, if that were the case then there would be only 2 vertical pattern marks, not several.

So let's talk about the interference patterns themselves. How do they form exactly? Well we know how a classical wave creates interference patterns is that not good enough? The pattern can indeed be explained by classical means. Many photons interact and bump into each other to create the effect. Why do they bump into each other so? Step by step. The slits create a vacuum of free motion with regards to other photons that are hitting the obstruction- to clarify, some photons may simply be reflected by the obstruction if not absorbed, go 'upstream' for awhile then eventually drift left or right through the stream of photon momentum, they will in sense be caught or swept away in the current. Now what happens after they go through the slits? Their motion takes them half inwards, half outwards. We want to focus on the ones that go to center, so half of photons going through the left slit will go right, if they went through the right slit they will go left; and it's briefly thereafter when the left stream comes into contact with the right stream that a collision takes place and interference patterns are produced. Why do they drift inwards after going through the slits? I'm not %100, However rest assured its explainable. I'm sure though we could assume it is because a particle slowdown takes place, where you get fast moving particles through the slits interating with relatively still particles that are behind the obstruction, so it creates something to the effect of a suction to the center. And of course an exchange, mandatory if you will, is key if that were the case. A concept being the exchange creates an attraction, attraction alters motion. What? You didn't think photons, because they are supposedly massless, alters the motion of neighboring particles? Of course they do, see "solar sails". However this is all very speculative.