Supermath, string theory and superstring theory

Yes it shows.

Good luck on your path to illumination, I feel your path will be long and full of excitement.

I saw the program on tv-"The Elegant Universe". I have some understianding of what strings are, and what string theory is.
Did the scientists at Fermilabs have any success in proving whether or not gravitons exist?

' Gravitons'? Ho-ho. Its all bollocks. 21st century spooks and goblins. Fancy names from hysterical imaginations. So why don't you stop sucking up to them?

Only just - but the results are disputeable, because to see a Higgs boson (a.k.a. approximately a quantised graviton - don't get me started there) they had to run CERN (in particular the Tevatron) to its top of the line and even beyond spec. At 119 GeV they thought caught six recording of a Higs Boson with mass 119GeV.


But there are more models for a Higgs Boson (gravity force carrier then one that says electroweak spin = 2, mass at 119 GeV) some theorise it up at 189 GeV - which I believe LHC in 2007 should easily reach.

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0010338

on detection confidence intervals (measured in standard deviatons of a Poisson distribution, so 5 Sigma you could just about take to any bank anywhere).

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ex/pdf/0209/0209011.pdf

Nice semi-technical article on SuSy, GUT and the Higgs.

But if you delve far into SuSy you'll quickly encounter complexity such as:

http://sciboard.louisville.edu/phy.html

Q. What are Gravity waves?

Ans. Gravitational Radiation is to gravity what light is to electromagnetism. It is produced when massive bodies accelerate. You can accelerate any body so as to produce such radiation, but due to the feeble strength of gravity, it is entirely undetectable except when produced by intense astrophysical sources such as supernovae, collisions of black holes, etc. These are quite far from us, typically, but they are so intense that they dwarf all possible laboratory sources of such radiation.

Gravitational waves have a polarization pattern that causes objects to expand in one direction, while contracting in the perpendicular direction. That is, they have spin two. This is because gravity waves are fluctuations in the tensorial metric of space-time.

All oscillating radiation fields can be quantized, and in the case of gravity, the intermediate boson is called the "graviton" in analogy with the photon. But quantum gravity is hard, for several reasons:

(1) The quantum field theory of gravity is hard, because gauge interactions of spin-two fields are not renormalizable. See Cheng and Li, Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics (search for "power counting").
(2) There are conceptual problems - what does it mean to quantize geometry, or space-time?

It is possible to quantize weak fluctuations in the gravitational field. This gives rise to the spin-2 graviton. But full quantum gravity has so far escaped formulation. It is not likely to look much like the other quantum field theories. In addition, there are models of gravity which include additional bosons with different spins. Some are the consequence of non-Einsteinian models, such as Brans-Dicke which has a spin-0 component. Others are included by hand, to give "fifth force" components to gravity. For example, if you want to add a weak repulsive short range component, you will need a massive spin-1 boson. (Even-spin bosons always attract. Odd-spin bosons can attract or repel.) If antigravity is real, then this has implications for the boson spectrum as well.

The spin-two polarization provides the method of detection. All experiments to date use a "Weber bar." This is a cylindrical, very massive, bar suspended by fine wire, free to oscillate in response to a passing graviton. A high-sensitivity, low noise, capacitive transducer can turn the oscillations of the bar into an electric signal for analysis. So far such searches have failed. But they are expected to be insufficiently sensitive for typical radiation intensity from known types of sources.

A more sensitive technique uses very long baseline laser interferometry. This is the principle of LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravity wave Observatory). This is a two-armed detector, with perpendicular laser beams each travelling several km before meeting to produce an interference pattern which fluctuates if a gravity wave distorts the geometry of the detector. To eliminate noise from seismic effects as well as human noise sources, two detectors separated by hundreds to thousands of miles are necessary. A coincidence measurement then provides evidence of gravitational radiation. In order to determine the source of the signal, a third detector, far from either of the first two, would be necessary. Timing differences in the arrival of the signal to the three detectors would allow triangulation of the angular position in the sky of the signal.

The first stage of LIGO, a two detector setup in the U.S., has been approved by Congress in 1992. LIGO researchers have started designing a prototype detector, and are hoping to enroll another nation, probably in Europe, to fund and be host to the third detector.

The speed of gravitational radiation (C_gw) depends upon the specific model of Gravitation that you use. There are quite a few competing models (all consistent with all experiments to date) including of course Einstein's but also Brans-Dicke and several families of others. All metric models can support gravity waves. But not all predict radiation travelling at C_gw = C_em. (C_em is the speed of electromagnetic waves.)

There is a class of theories with "prior geometry", in which, as I understand it, there is an additional metric which does not depend only on the local matter density. In such theories, C_gw ! = C_em in general.

However, there is good evidence that C_gw is in fact at least almost C_em. We observe high energy cosmic rays in the
10 ** 20 - 10 ** 21 evregion.
Such particles are travelling at up to ( 1 - 10 ** -18 ) * C_em.
If C_gw < C_em, then particles with C_gw < v < C_em will radiate Cerenkov gravitational radiation into the vacuum, and decelerate from the back reaction.
So evidence of these very fast cosmic rays good evidence that
C_gw > = ( 1 - 10 ** -18 ) * C_em, very close indeed to C_em.
Bottom line: in a purely Einsteinian universe, C_gw = C_em. However, a class of models not yet ruled out experimentally does make other predictions.

A definitive test would be produced by LIGO in coincidence with optical measurements of some catastrophic event which generates enough gravitational radiation to be detected. Then the "time of flight" of both gravitons and photons from the source to the Earth could be measured, and strict direct limits could be set on C_gw.

For more information, see Gravitational Radiation (NATO ASI - Les Houches 1982), specifically the introductory essay by Kip Thorne

Are space and time really that much different?

Yes, although the correct reasoning in relativity is to always link space and time as spacetime. Space without time isn't to interesting, neither is time without space. But together they can host fancy things!

It's interesting to ponder what happens when things get really small - like Planck level small, spacetime or energy

I guess I'm not even seeing a distinction between space and time really.

Can anyone tell me what gravity really is, not just how to predict its behavior? Is it really a fundamental force or is it just an effect?

Well Einstein says its curvature of spacetime, so it acts on dimensions which carry energy and matter, not directly on matter or energy itself!

Otherwise maybe its a Higgs or guage boson acting in a Higgs field as a slowing device.

I like the first one idea personally!

Your first idea only tells me how it behaves not what it is. And the second one basically does the same. I am wondering what you think it is, and not just how it behaves. This seems to me to be what establishes if it is a fundamental force or just an effect caused by something else. If it is just an effect, think what that would do to the reconciliation efforts.

I have similar questions about the concepts of "Mass", and "Acceleration" as just fundamental.

Maybe Michael and Morley's search for the Aether really had some merit.

What if all Particles were just stable oscillations of the Aether, which may have many different stable oscillations or combinations of oscillations. These oscillations could have many different components. Kind of the way wave forms are combinations of different fundamental frequencies with related harmonics of different phase and frequency described by FF transforms.

If the Aether is really the ZPF and will flow to support the oscillations and is consumed, then different types of stable complex oscillations make different particles. Maybe what we call gravity is just the interactions of the flow of ZPF through these oscillations. Maybe we are pushed against the earth rather than pulled by a fundamental force falsely predicted my Newton.

I am a novice so please be gentle with me by your response.

But, maybe we have been trying to reconcile two different but false scaffoldings. And this is why no reconciliation of these scaffoldings are possible.

If "Mass", "Gravity", and "Acceleration" are just effects, than maybe the quantifying of the ZPF would be the "reconciliation". Maybe all things are just ZPF in its different stable oscillations and since we have nothing else to use to measure it's presence we don't detect it's presence.

But it's flow and effects during oscillations of different types cause the interactions we currently view as "dimensions".

String theory and all the rest may just be scaffoldings that seem to get use close so we can predict things but are not really what things are.

Boy do I expect to get raped by these comments. But what the hell, it does seem to me to explain what thins are, and not just how to predict their behavior.

Your first idea only tells me how it behaves not what it is

Actually money is what money does. Gravity is the curvature of spacetime, so its a geometry or a topology. It is what it does. I don't say why it curves spacetime, only that it is a measure of the curvature.

I think SuSy, string theory, M-theory and QM are all trying top reach towards GUT. We aren't there yet but we progress is being made every day. Until we have GUT wrapped up any definition of what is X may well be spectulative and not fit well with some theoretical frameworks.

Actually money is what money does

Ok money is pretty well understood. And because we all accept the concept of money it works like money.

Gravity is the curvature of spacetime, so its a geometry or a topology. It is what it does. I don't say why it curves spacetime, only that it is a measure of the curvature.

Again, you offer the idea that what it does is what it is, but we are not dealing with human's social acceptances. What proof do you offer that not knowing what causes the curvature is irrelevant to a true knowledge of what gravity really is?

If we don't know what causes gravity how can we consolidate all of the different formulas. When I look at the equations, gravity, mass, and acceleration all seem to be in the way to resolution.

I simply wonder if we have made too many assumptions.

Gravity, mass, and acceleration could all just be effects.

Do you believe that ZPF is real

By ZPE I presume you mean Zero Point Energy, as in

http://www.calphysics.org/research.html

Well we agree we don't say why, but I state it is because we are incapable of so stating. I am not withholding knowledge from you, rather I tell you were solid knowledge stops and theoretical research conflicts.

One can argue about Higgs fields, SuSy, s-particles, M-Theory and Supergravity, Quantum Mechanics, Loop Quantum Gravity, gravitons, inertia, dark matter and dark energy until the cows come home. The theories underlying each don't reconcile well yet. Neither do they show predictive results that can be tested yet.

So it's premature to "believe" in any theoretical science yet. Why not wait till the experts do more work and super-colliders examine the nature of atomic particels further before deciding?

My advice is not to wait for the experts. They build houses from the same bricks. All you have to do is look at the bricks they use - which is more than they do themselves, and a little beyond their abilities.

Hey JJ,

When you get sick do you go to a GP, a specialist, a shaman or a faith healer?

If you wanted to build a fusion device would you ask a philosopher or a nuclear physicist / engineer?

I have no issue with philosophers exploring the nature of reality with thought experiments - in fact far from it look at Einstein - my avatar - one of the greatest achievers in science using only thought experiments for relativity.

Your questions and points of view are worth considering. The way an audience is engaged is determined by the style and credibility with which one conducts oneself. If you keep it simple more folks will understand than if it's made complex. If it's compelling even better. If it has some solidity or data that supports your thought experiment that is digestible by any rigorous logic standard or process - well great, you're on your way.

I have been watching the experts four forty years and all they seem to do is generate new scaffoldings to get the results to support their perceived observations. Each new scaffolding, then has to be reconciled with the others. By not stepping outside of the box and start by logically establishing what things are, that is, which ones are real or not, we will continue to fail in the reconciliation efforts.

It is obvious even to a novice that energy is being consumed when "matter" is at 0 degree K. even though we have not achieved that temperature yet. This tells me there is an energy field that is flowing to the position of the "matter". And oscillations peculiar and unique to different particles can be measured. It only stands to reason that the particle itself is nothing more than oscillations of the energy that flows toward the position (present or future) of the particular particle type.

Since the oscillation is somewhat stable there is a coupling from the oscillation to the source of the energy flow. Since the oscillation requires a minimum amount of energy or the oscillations would collapse, the particle tends to stay where its energy will arrive or be forced to move. This could be where it currently position is or where the future arrival position will be. Since F=ma I would infer that the flow of the ZPF has lines of flow that can be bent permanently like flux lines with memory, when an external force is applied. From this I see mass as nothing more than the coupling conductance of the oscillation to its source of ZPE in the ZPF. This would explain why gravity is a weak force, because it is comprised of the smallest collections of ZPE. When ZPE is collected to larger concentrations in oscillations it will manifest other forces or should I say other dimensions that have stronger effects. Inertia is simply the oscillations moving to the point source of the required ZPE.

With the idea of the Higgs field or membrane, what you are actually looking at is the surface and internal dynamics of the oscillations and their interface dynamics to 4D space. But the flow of the ZPF and its ZPE interferes with these dynamics, weakly. And explain why mass, gravity, and inertia really are, just effects.

I know I will not meet your needs with my Physics Training to make such bold statements. Nor will I have the necessary lab or math skills. But since I have been outside the box of what is accepted for so long, maybe that allows me to see things in a much simpler fashion.

It is by knowing what things are that will allow us to determine how things behave, correctly and completely, and not the other way around.

I don't believe I should leave this to the experts. They have made a secret guild of their studies and have not endeavored to include the rest of us, lower or simpler ones by making it too difficult to convey. It is not just their domain. They only own it if we non conformed students of science leave it to them.

Because they have taken too long we "others" should start being more involved.

Its often the other way round actually. Hard data can emerge which doesn't fit theories and hence theories must emerge to reconcile observation. That is the basis of all science. Tune it until it all holds, there is nothing mystical about it. If the models are incomplete of course new models emerge and get tested. The models don't have to fit every model in existence - they must however account for the underlying data supporting each model. Now when you accuse folk of not stepping outside the box that is being naive; it's exactly what they are doing. Be careful of accusing scientific theory of disregarding basic scientific methods or scientific premise in constructing its models and verifying its predictive powers, this is exactly the acid test each new model faces.



Energy and matter are simply different forms of a deeper underlying reality. We can reach temperatures within a millionth of a degree of absolute zero - see bose-einstein condensates research. What energy do you find is consumed? What energy flow do you see travelling? Can you give a link to this situation. What particle are you refering to? Remember particles and energy carriers can only be discussed within dimensional frame of reference (e.g. SuSy) as a field effect - what is yours?



Actually its the Uncertainity principle which keeps us from reaching absolute zero - its the one law you can't bend. So quantum mechanics steps in as Hawking states to jostle our lowest level of currently observable reality. At this scale of reality you can't apply Netwonian laws like F=ma, sorry but it just doesn't remotely apply as you start approaching Planck levels of reality. Here things can pop into and out of existence, particles can tunnel and become entangled, basically QM rules, not relatively and certainly not Newtonian physics. So your model must account for this. Even worse at this scale you are faced with how do the four forces interact at such small distances - we don't know - no model of physics handles really small (say under 10 ^ -22, not even under 10 ^ -35 metres) or really large (greater than galactic) distances well. So let a electon approach a proton really closely and examine the four forces and we simply can't say today what is happening.



Trouble is forget 4D spacetime - theoretical physics adds 6 or 7 dimensions to balance things out to best get theories to fit observational data - which it barely manages so far. Our analysis is still too early. When you talk about oscillations you are really considering what is our underlying dimensional reality - no more or less. That is what is trying to be discovered.



Reductionism is fine as far as it goes, but my point not being a high energy physicist or theoretical scientist myself is simply to keep an open mind. This stuff is really tricky and thousands of the smartest people on the planet are working to try and nut this out. If it were easy it would already be done. If it were easily verifable we'd already know. As far as I am aware we simply don't have the models worked out far enough to make predictive analysis possible. Even if it were you might hit challenges like the heirarchy problem of generating more energy (10^19 Giga Joules in a confined space) to explore such small scales of reality and magnify something that exists at 10 ^ -35 metres to an observable scale (scale say 10 ^ - 6 metres).



Yes - but not completely - 60 year old physics shows we can only know within the bounds of the wave function and uncertainity principle. And this at a macro level of existence, at the micro level of QM - well sorry but chatoic wierdness rules.



Secret guild, oh really... - try google, I could give you 20+ excellent links, but you'd have to undertake the learning to comprehend the jargon used. Same as learning medicine or computing or any other technical domain. If you want to deal with extremely complex subjects without mountains of paperwork you are going to need a language with powerful constructs to distil critical understandings. It's readily available for everyone to understand. Try here if you're serious, we're quite friendly and not too jargon filled: http://www.advancedphysics.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=26



Fine, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and this is far more challenging and interesting than just one city. Keep an open and inquirying mind is all I am advocating.

Math is not particularly complex. As a language the grammar, dictionary and syntax is relatively simple and straightforward. It's many of the concepts that tend toward the abstract. As a result I feel for you, it must be very frustrating that nature tends to track many abstract mathematical concepts.

Actually this is a concept of Engineering--the use of abstractions as a substitute for reality--A Scientist does the reverse, rejecting abstractions that do not fit reality--See Penrose reference.

BTW, JJ if you can come up with a language that can convey the same rigor, then "go for it" you'll die being remembered for millennia. Asimov (the talented writer), Einstein, Russell and Hawking have all tried and in some cases have skated close to explaining science. But they are constantly being caught by those who prefer the mysticism of a Chaka or John Calvin.

However, there is an interesting unifying polytome I'd recommend. "The Laws of Reality" by Sir Roger Penrose. ---A caveat though! The people that actually understand everything Penrose is trying to unify could share a New York cab.

Rap

JJ - your not getting it at all are you? It's the complexity of the frameworks being studied that drives the complexity of the analysis and the symbolism required to manipulate it, not the other way around.

Some problems - e.g. Fermat's last theorem, can't be solved simply. Hell it took the brightest mathematicans 150 years to answer that one, and even then it was successful through an indirect bounce. The study of prime numbers and number theory often reveals complexities that are staggering. Many things are counter intuitive to the layperson (e.g. approximately 32% of all positive numbers start with first digit 1).

But why dwell continually in the darkness. Do you honestly think stellar minds are building all the complexity just for show not for need? Your ability to miss the obivous is scary. Why piss on the walls of a science you simply can't seem to grasp? All your points of view have been real light weight mumbo jumbo and mis-understanding so far. When are you going to seriously raise your game?