New theory seeks to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics
ucl.ac.uk
ucl.ac.uk
New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38526877 - Dec 2023 (196 comments)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Prototype_of_the...
I have so many questions about this paragraph; how did they change quantum theory? Are they saying that breakdown in predictability at the quantum level is actually caused by space-time? Why does this result in violent fluctuations in space-time? And why are the space-time fluctuations larger than in the case of quantum gravity?
Particles with mass distort space-time (according to general relativity). Particles can be in superpositions where different parts of the superposition are in different physical positions (according to quantum mechanics). We don't know how to make gravity quantum and it seems to be difficult. So we don't have any damn clue what happens to space-time when an object with mass is in a superposition of different positions.
The suggestion by Oppenheim and friends is that space-time is fundamentally classical and what happens when you put an object with mass in superposition is that random fluctuations in the space-time force the object out of superposition and into a classical random state.
I.e. where quantum mechanics says you'd have a particle in a superposition of being in place A and place B, this new theory says you'd end up with a random choice being made between A and B, and it ends up in one based on something like a coin-flip.
Disclaimer: I don't work on this stuff directly. My expertise is entirely that I attended a talk Jonathan Oppenheim gave at a conference last year.
So the overall “quantum properties are only visible at that tiny scale” issue could be explained by “particles are ‘forced into a classical state” by a chaotic background space time force”, if I’m understanding correctly? Like super sensitive special electrical chips that are buffeted about/‘forced into a new state’ by cosmic background radiation?
Though I have a physics background, this is niche stuff.
TL;DR: They're assuming that spacetime is not quantized, but is as GR describes it. This produces a consistent theory that predicts that measured mass will fluctuate very slightly.
A wave in the ocean doesnt exist any more than any other part of the water that isnt in the wave. We just focus on the wave because our brains are good at seeing moving shapes for hunting.
The substrate graph is updated by travelling rule applicators which dont require energy. Theyre like the updating edge of stacking faults between planes in crystalography.
Gravity slowing down light is just due to the travel speed of rule applicators being fixed. Higher graph density but fixed node updates per time means it takes longer to update a given volume.
Until then we are stuck at a funky high level abstraction. The table of quarks and particles we have is like what would happen if we were trying to figure out what our computers were made of by interacting with a url bar, and coming to the conclusion that the fundamental components of a computer are like... a table of HTTP response status codes.
Not to say that its useless, just that its not zoomed in enough.
The rule applicator just traverses the graph and updates a node based on adjacent nodes.
Time for us is just the difference in relative sequence lengths between updates applied to volumes at our scale.
I've always thought entanglement makes more intuitive sense on a graph substrate of some kind, where the "spooky action at a distance" is actually just an anomalous edge in the graph connecting two vertices which would otherwise be more distantly separated. This begs the question of how the edges in the graph came to be or whether they're modifiable at all though.
As for weird behaviour like far reaching spookiness. Could be multiple overlapping substrates at different scales.
Or, the rule directly includes a mechanism for remote information transmission.
The novelty of this theory gives hope.
The way satellites orbit is incredibly well described by Newtonian mechanics and there the impact of their mass on the shape/timing of the orbit is by changing the center of mass of the combined satellite-earth system. That is you only get measurable effects if the fluctuation in the mass are big enough compared to the mass of the earth.
It may be easier to understand this point by looking at the current theory of Quantum Mechanics, in which gravity doesn't exist at all. We are not entitled to make conclusions about gravity from that fact, since the conclusion would be "gravity doesn't exist", which is clearly false.
To illustrate the problem: If an electron is not in a fixed position, but is rather spread over a range of possible locations (described by a wavefunction), then what is the gravitational effect of the electron? General Relativity, being a classical theory, contains the assumption that the electron's location and velocity can be precisely determined, so that its effect on the curvature of spacetime can be calculated. There's no way in General Relativity (as presently formulated) to take into account the electron wavefunction.
If you start thinking about ways to interface General Relativity (GR) with quantum mechanics, you quickly realize that GR itself has to become quantum mechanical. Quantum mechanics is like a virus: once it gets into one part of the theory, it spreads everywhere. There's no way to build a logically coherent theory of the Universe that is only partly quantum mechanical. It's 100% or 0%.
It is subjectively rather ugly, but it does appear to be a counterexample to this 100% or 0% dichotomy.
There are a bunch of proposals, including this one but none of them are really complete or fully satisfying right now.
The modern theory, developed from the 1920s-40s, is called "Quantum Electrodynamics." The older theory of electromagnetism (Maxwell's Equations) is the classical limit of the modern quantum theory.
General Relativity is in the same situation now as Maxwell's Equations were before Quantum Electrodynamics was developed. Everyone knows that a quantum version of the theory is necessary, and that that theory will have a classical limit that is equivalent to the old theory. It's just that finding a quantum version of General Relativity is way more difficult than finding a quantum version of Maxwell's Equations. The tricks that worked for electromagnetism don't work for gravity.
"Everyone knows" is not any kind of evidence. It's not even really an argument. It's, essentially, a statement that an assumption is widely shared.
And, if I understand the article correctly, it may not in fact be necessary.
There is a whole set of no-go theorems that constrain how gravity can interface with quantum mechanics. The theory presented in this paper does modify GR to interface with quantum mechanics, albeit in a very strange way.
Dr Šoda?
Professor Bose?
I wonder if this research piggybacks or was inspired by Eric's work, whether acknowledged or not?
Time will tell if their math and experiments fit in with Eric's and which is most foundational.
So what you're saying is you don't even have the ability to start to understand if what he's saying is true, as you've not been willing to put the effort into learning the math he's referencing - that you've never heard of - and instead essentially doing high-level ad hominem saying "he'd rather get the juice from claimed persecution than actually advance the field"?
Sounds to me like Eric is right about what he says about the field in general, and why there's been little to no uptake in the indoctrinated-seemingly ideological field of physics studies.
I agree his tactics may be lacking, and that clearly he'll have to do a better job eventually - to handhold for people who have the capability to understand but your comment here supports the difficulties Eric states he's encountered with academia.
Did you try sending him an email to ask him for more guidance? That would not only help you - whether that leads to believe he's just a charlatan or helps you learn new math - but it would be an opportunity for him to learn to be a better teacher too.
Arguably the most efficient path for Eric as well, since everyone has limited time and resources, is to work with people who actually show and put in an minimally adequate effort to understanding - where connecting with him directly is perhaps the first necessary barrier to breach, so that you can have a productive conversation and at least a chance to be on the same page; and if you don't even know the math he's referencing, and can't talk his lingo, then you'd have to begin to learn the language he's speaking as a prerequisite - especially before judging him - the irony here is your ad hominem is in fact an example of persecution - and from the physics' community's mouth itself.
But this is neither evidence of prosecution or an ad hominem. It's true that his other statements about politics and the world in general, particularly his propencity to accept and promulgate conspiracy theories without evidence, make me doubt his honesty and his moral fabric, but that's a relatively minor part of why I won't spend time on this.
This is absolutely ad hominem. You're insinuating he's a fraud - without even knowing the math he's referencing - and then saying he's trying to milk a victimhood stance; eloquent ad hominem, ad hominem nonetheless.
And the rest of what you said is fine - but throwing unsubstantiated shade/ad hominem as you walk away from the challenge is something else.
I'm curious though also, what "conspiracy theories" are you claiming he propagates - and without referencing evidence? That term is often thrown away as as ad hominem to be dismissive and demonizing as well.
If you beleive there are an infinite number of functions, youd probably also believe there to be an infinite number of notations for those functions.
All math in the formalized language has come from randoms making up their own symbols and arrangement rules, often times for fun. (see Newton) Sometimes theres equivalent notations for the same concept. (see leibnitz). Just like you can say the same sentence in chinese, english, and spanish, you can express the same concept in different math. Even within the same language you can say the same thing ten different ways.
Believing dogmatically in only one notation system would be silly. Put a modern calculus textbook, a 1920s boolean logic textbook, and principia next to eachother on the table. If you had only ever seen one before you'd think the others came from space.
If Eric is making up math you would need to translate it to the dialect you understand. (Which would probably result in you understanding it, and then he might stick with the more colloquial translation.)
Well, my interviewers didnt know what p-lists were because they only knew javascript.
They thought I was retarded and I didnt get the job.
You can model the ocean as a blob of probabilities to handle large scale, but having a causal model is important.
Pilot wave theory has been ridiculed and ignored even when just mentioned by physicists for so long, I suspect its under researched.
My point was simple that you must seperate the art from the artist. I've heard very bad things about Hubble as well. Dawkins is sort of an asshat, but i liked The Selfish Gene, even if many parts of it didn't have supporting evidence.
Learn to enjoy the experience of processing and criticizing an idea itself. It can be fun and enlightening.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern%E2%80%93Gerlach_experime...