Why particles might not exist | Sabine Hossenfelder, Hilary Lawson, Tim MaudlinThey argued about whether a particle is a vibration in a field.Sabine Hossenfelder, Hilary Lawson, and Tim Maudlin discuss the existence of particles, quantum field theory, and ultimate reality.
Are particles just an invention of the human mind?
From Democritus to Einstein, we have assumed the world is made of tiny building blocks of matter. But the more we’ve looked for them, the more they’ve disappeared. Our best theory now proposes the world is better described by ‘fields’ that don’t have the familiar properties of physical bits, things, or particles. Yet physicists still refer to particles, though few seem to agree on their nature. Some say they ‘approximately exist’ and others say that they don’t exist at all. Stranger still, there are ‘quasiparticles’, phenomena that we can treat as particles and enable us to solve equations, but which we know aren't fundamentally real.
They also argued about how to think about physics, when there are mathematically equivalent descriptions of it.
Even if it 11:10 were true, we're we have that all the 11:12 time in physics and we don't think they 11:14 have to be equal. So, Lorentz had an 11:16 understanding of spacetime where there's 11:18 absolute simultaneity. 11:19 Einstein got rid of it, but you can 11:22 prove in their applications. They make 11:26 the same predictions. Nobody thinks 11:27 they're the same theory. All right? 11:29 There's different theories.Actually I do think that they are same theory. Most people did in the early 1900s, as it was called Lorentz-Einstein theory (LET). Some said that Minkowski's theory was different, because it was based on a Lorentz-invariant spacetime geometry, but Einstein's was the same as Lorentz's. The main difference was that Einstein postulated the Michelson-Morley consequences.
Einstein's famous 1905 relativity paper has a whole section on simultaneity, but never says there is no absolute simultaneity. Here is how the section ends:
It is essential to have time defined by means of stationary clocks in the stationary system, and the time now defined being appropriate to the stationary system we call it “the time of the stationary system.”The next section ends:
So we see that we cannot attach any absolute signification to the concept of simultaneity, but that two events which, viewed from a system of co-ordinates, are simultaneous, can no longer be looked upon as simultaneous events when envisaged from a system which is in motion relatively to that system.So two events can be simultaneous in one frame, but not another. The same is true in Lorentz's theory, as motion makes time run more slowly.
Even today, it is generally believed that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) defines an absolute simultaneity.
It often happens that there are mathematically equivalent descriptions, in which I do not see how one can be more real than the other.
If particles are defined as having definite positions, velocities, and trajectories, then they are certainly not real. Quantum mechanics only says that they look real when observations are made.
ReplyDeleteSaying that 'particles' aren't real even while diddling about with models of purely non-existential logical abstractions and imaginary domains has got to be the height of absurdity.
ALL models are eventually wrong, because a model is not the actuality, just an incomplete description of it. A model by nature is always incomplete and not the entirety, or it wouldn't be the model, it would be the thing itself.
As far as time goes, all time is a measurable rate of movement. Emphasis on MOVEMENT. Time is an observed rate of change/movement. It's measured as a ratio between two different consistently repeating cycles, Days (cycle of one earth rotation) per year (cycle of one rotation around the sun), vibrations of electron per second, etc. The whole argument is really about how consistent the cycles being used actually are, as each successively more accurate clock is an attempt to find a more precise ratio of movement between two cycles. Movement of cycles can be observed, measured, and compared, while time as an isolated abstraction unto itself can not be.
Time is NOT an illusion unless you believe movement itself is an illusion, and if you can even consider this idea, you know you have already moved through the thought processes, so time is present. The fact that you can read this sentence also proves time exists, as the words you have read are in sequence, they also can not be understood instantly, randomly, or outside of that specific sequence, much like everything else in existence. Only pin-headed idiots playing with mental abstraction can pretend to be timeless or outside of time (even as they consider sequential logical arguments), and that is just silly humans engaging in wishful thinking usually after drinking too much.
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DeleteDeleted my above comments. Some points were really good (i.e. valid), though, on the whole, the topics require a more systematic treatment.
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