[Bob Campbell]

Originally Posted by MJA Then I think it is equally fair to say that Aristolean causation is butt an assumption that starts with the letters ASS. Sorry Bob, I couldn't help it. It wasn't me, it was my fingers that wrote that. = MJA PS: I think everything vibrates, don't you?

Hi MJA,

Thanks for the pun. Sometimes it is very appropriate. The problem that I have with superstrings is that they are unimaginably smaller than a single proton. They are believed to physically exist and yet can never be observed in experience of any kind. They are believed to be the source of space and time and yet there is zero evidence that space and time exist as things independent from the phenomenal world around us. It is akin to the Big Bang when a couple hundred billion galaxies are believed to have been compressed into a space-time volume trillions of times smaller than a single proton from which it all exploded from nothing.

Does this really mean anything to anyone? One might as well believe in the bogey man. They are looking for a first cause, and this implies a space-time context to begin with. But there was supposed to be nothing outside that infinitely small primordial spacetime bubble. It is a contradiction in terms that divorces us from our own experience and understanding. In a discontinuous universe there are alternate explanations for the red shift, the background radiation, the so-called missing mass, and other phenomena. And everything is vibrating. The universe is a vibrant living reality. Superstrings can never be more than a mathematical exercise in fantasy.

I am in the same camp as Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Fred Hoyle and certain other contributors to modern physics when it comes to these mathematical extrapolations of space and time back to a singular beginning. The peer review process today might well prevent them from getting their views published on this issue at least. Hoyle indicated that he had trouble getting published on various subjects relating to a steady state universe, such as the Panspermia Theory, and turned to popular writing.

Best regards,
Bob

[neutralino]

Hi Bob,

Originally Posted by Bob Campbell Hi MJA, Thanks for the pun. Sometimes it is very appropriate. The problem that I have with superstrings is that they are unimaginably smaller than a single proton.

But anything else that you decide is a fundamental building block of matter would be unimaginally smaller than the proton as well. An electron, for example, is far smaller than a proton. (well, ok, so it probably makes no sense to formally talk of the "size" of the particles, but an electron is definitely a lot less massive than the proton, and thus I would say it is "smaller" for this argument).

I don't how it is more difficult to believe that particles are made up of strings, than particles are made up of smaller point particles.

They are believed to physically exist and yet can never be observed in experience of any kind. They are believed to be the source of space and time and yet there is zero evidence that space and time exist as things independent from the phenomenal world around us.

I've never heard a theory where strings are supposed to be the source of space and time. All the versions of string theory that I have heard involve a spacetime manifold on which string move (just like 4-space and particles). Perhaps you could enlighten me if I've missed something?

Superstrings can never be more than a mathematical exercise in fantasy.

This is somewhat of a valid point. String theory is a mathematical theory, and will remain so until it makes predictions for experiments that can perceivably be undertaken in the future.

I am in the same camp as Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Fred Hoyle and certain other contributors to modern physics when it comes to these mathematical extrapolations of space and time back to a singular beginning.

Einstein invented a theory that said that massive particles curve spacetime. How more mathematical a theory can you get?

[Bob Campbell]

Originally Posted by neutralino Hi Bob, But anything else that you decide is a fundamental building block of matter would be unimaginally smaller than the proton as well. An electron, for example, is far smaller than a proton. (well, ok, so it probably makes no sense to formally talk of the "size" of the particles, but an electron is definitely a lot less massive than the proton, and thus I would say it is "smaller" for this argument). I don't how it is more difficult to believe that particles are made up of strings, than particles are made up of smaller point particles. I've never heard a theory where strings are supposed to be the source of space and time. All the versions of string theory that I have heard involve a spacetime manifold on which string move (just like 4-space and particles). Perhaps you could enlighten me if I've missed something? This is somewhat of a valid point. String theory is a mathematical theory, and will remain so until it makes predictions for experiments that can perceivably be undertaken in the future. Einstein invented a theory that said that massive particles curve spacetime. How more mathematical a theory can you get?

Hi Neutralino,

If you check out my website you will see that I consider the hydrogen atom as the primary building block of matter. Electron, proton and photon are intimately bound as one coherent atom in an electrically neutral universe. All light comes from within atoms and defines space in a discontinuous projection of matter that defines time. Space and time are a posteriori, not a priori. This view is consistent with the evidence.

Someone once observed that smashing atoms in colliders is like trying to figure out how a watch works by smashing it to bits. There is no compelling reason to believe that highly transient sub atomic "particles" are fundamental building blocks of the universe.

The space reference was a poor choice of words, a Freudian slip if you like. You were right to pick it out. To my mind particles of long lived matter - atoms - define space by the distance between them bridged by the transmission of light. There is no direct evidence that there is such a thing as an independent spacetime contunuum. This is another mathematical conjecture. Einstein's theory of gravity does make predictions based on spacetime curvatures associated with gravitational mass, but similar curvatures are introduced in a discontinuous universe by the contraction of space associated with galactic angular velocities and the related nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in stars. This leads to a more credible cosmology that avoids philosophical contradictions associated with a beginning in time and offers alternate reasons for the red shift, missing mass and other phenomena. The methodology accomodates mathematics but offers new insights into the nature of different kinds of identities on which mathematics is based. It offers new mathematical approaches in specific contexts and limits others. It is not itself mathematical or even linguistic. It facilitates direct intuitive insight into the structural dynamics of the cosmic order which must find confirmation in phenomenal experience of some kind. The creative process becomes transparent. Otherwise we dealing in a language of conjectural fantasy that can never find unequivocal confirmation. There are no mathematicians out there is space calculating how to run the universe. It runs all by itself.

At the end of his life Einstein also questioned the continuum assumptions on which his gravitional theory was based, thus indicating that physics might better be based on discontinuous structures. He was deeply concerned about the direction physics was taking especially in quantum mechanics but also in cosmology. Others are too.

Best regards,
Bob

[Profpat]

Hi Bob;

The problem with using the proton/electron - neutron as a basic building block of matter is the problem of what makes up the proton and neutron. I have a highly speculative theory regarding this at:
( http://www.toequest.com/forum/your-t...03-idea-4.html ) You'll have to scroll down 8 posts to #40. Easy to follow and understand, but speculative.

Hi Neutralino;

I know the electron may be viewed as a point particle anywhere in space, but once manisfested with a proton isn't it " Larger " than the proton in that it is viewed as a " cloud "

Best to both of you,

Pat

[everymansmedium]

Hello James:
I can see than you will not let the negative thoughts of some people stop you from your work. That is a very good thing and will no doubt pay off in the end. I firmly believe that the work that you and the people that you work with are doing, will in a very short time be the source of many revelations to our understanding of this existence medium that we all experience. I do not have that ability to work with math at this level. I have worked with predicate calculus and AI software. Because of what I did work with I had a document registered by the Library of Congress in 1987 that predicted a multiverse of 12 dimensions that was based on the symmetry of a predicate that indicated our primary force as a bipole. The thought that I have been developing seems to answer many questions. You may find some of the thoughts here on my blog and at:
http://Unit-Unity-Community.com
Keep up the efforts, I am sure that they will be the way of the future.
John

[neutralino]

Originally Posted by Profpat Hi Neutralino; I know the electron may be viewed as a point particle anywhere in space, but once manisfested with a proton isn't it " Larger " than the proton in that it is viewed as a " cloud "

My honest answer is that I don't know! I don't know whether it's even possible to talk about the "size" of an electron that is in an orbital around a nucleus. Sorry.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter whether an electron is smaller than a proton, since electrons do not make up protons! An electron is definitely "smaller" than an atom, and a quark is smaller than a proton. The point I was making is that particles made up of other minute particles in the same way that very small strings can make up particles.

[neutralino]

Hi Bob,

If you think the proton is the fundamental building block, then do you discount anything else that may make up the proton? I can see your point about the watch, but still, the watch is made up of cogs etc, and smashing it open would tell us this. It wouldn't tell us how they work together, but it would tell us that they exist. I don't see how you can postulate that a fundamental building block can be made up of something else. To me that seems rather illogical.

[dleviwing]

Maybe we should not be looking at the many different particles but at the stuff they are made of. Is an electron really made of something different than a proton or just constructed differently? Does the matter / antimatter concept really make sense? Why would one say that opposite charge indicates different substance? By understanding the substance of the universe and its properties, you can understand how the particles work; and everything else.

[Bob Campbell]

Originally Posted by neutralino Hi Bob, If you think the proton is the fundamental building block, then do you discount anything else that may make up the proton? I can see your point about the watch, but still, the watch is made up of cogs etc, and smashing it open would tell us this. It wouldn't tell us how they work together, but it would tell us that they exist. I don't see how you can postulate that a fundamental building block can be made up of something else. To me that seems rather illogical.

Hi Neutralino,

It isn't the proton that is the fundamental building block. It is the whole neutral hydrogen atom. Study the website a bit about how the cosmic order, as represented by what I call the System, proliferates within itself as a necessary elaboration of universal wholeness. You will see that System 3 delineates the structure and related processes of the hydrogen atom. All the symmetries are accounted for in the diagram that integrates the four terms of System 3. Two of the terms are universal and two are particular. The universal and particular terms interact in coherent pairs that portray two alternate modes or frames consistent with System 2. It must be consistent with System 2 in order to be an elaboration of System 1 (universal wholeness) from which System 2 necessarily derives.

We are talking about the structural integration of all phenomenal experience so there must be such a thing as universal wholeness or we are forever left with unanswerable questions. The thing is THERE ARE NO OTHER structural possibilities. No one can invent more than four terms. The System is structural not behavioral and so it is not based on language or logic. The meaning in language and logic derives from it not vice versa.

The space frame at the bottom of the diagram has particulate form. The quantum frame at the top of the diagram is a timeless and formless quantum of energy that is the reciprocal of the form mode in the space frame. The two modes have equivalent energy. In other words there is a formless and timeless energy equivalent to each particular atom. All atoms are synchronously projected together like successive frames in a holographic cosmic movie. So atoms are not static things that are just happenstance collections of protons, electrons and photons. They result from the synchronous dynamism of the cosmic order that is regulated by the reciprocating action of the two universal terms of System 3.

In the space frame at the bottom of the diagram you should see that the Centers of this mode of the universal term are confined within the three particular Centers that represent photon, electron and proton. The energy dynamics between centers of the universal term is represented by the arrows that tunnel through the particular centers linking them up in pairs. This linking up is illustrated in a counterclockwise direction. There is a subjective to objective imbalance between Centers 2 and 3 that universally accounts for equal and opposite charge between electron and proton. In antimatter the linking up is in the opposite direction but this involutionary variant is degenerate. The universal and particular centers 2 and 3 are in opposing positions. They are not mutually aligned and can not reinforce one another.

The universal centers are confined within the particular centers like quarks. As such they are not constrained by the limitations of time and space since they do not exist externally in time and space. The ONE universal set of Centers links up the three particular centers in all hydrogen atoms in the universe everywhere at once. Space and time derive from how these intimately bound atoms relate to one another and interact externally. There is a recent science article on Toequest about an experiment that shows that each atom has non-local effects, meaning there is a universal component to all atoms. How else could they all be the same?

In the quantum frame at the top of the System 3 diagram you will see a reciprocal relationship to the space frame. It is reciprocal in several ways. Each atom becomes a formless quantum of timelessly bound energy, and all these energy equivalents are integrated as ONE by the One universal set in the alternate mode or Term. This represents a holistic field of quantized energy that is known as the Void. Since it is timeless the space frames close ranks to give the impression of continuous space and time. Nevertheless each particle or atom has wave characteristics at the same time since it is oscillating between two modes. In this way atoms are both particles and waves at the same time even though they behave as synchronous particles. The wave characteristic only becomes apparent in relative motions. The timeless quantum mode or Void is orthogonal to space-time. The Void is a master memory bank orthogonal to the integrated fabric of space-time that is directly accessible in human experience in unusual circumstances. It can be directly confirmed in the private domain, so this is more than conjectural imagination. It is also fully consistent with the empirical evidence.

In particle accelerators particles assume enormous energies that when collided can produce a menagerie of very short lived so-called particles. These collisions tend to generate specific patterns too and the patterns have similarities to the patterns described above for atoms as well as to homologues of the higher systems, that is, to homologues of System 4 and System 5 and perhaps higher. But these “resonances” are not fundamental building blocks of matter. They are transient variants of the cosmic order that are degenerate. There are structural limitations on what is implicitly possible and no matter how big the accelerator is these structural limitations can not be breached. The energies released in accelerators simply reforms itself in highly transient ways that always comes back to what we know as the long lived particles and EM radiation. That is just the way it is. The higher Systems are not more fundamental than the lower Systems, so this does not result in infinite regress looking for ever smaller fundamental building blocks. So far as physical matter is concerned the buck stops at System 3.

The higher Systems are elaborations of the lower systems that are normally associated with living processes. For instance website articles show how System 4 corresponds precisely with how the human nervous system meaningfully integrates the various sensory spinal, vestibular, cerebellar and cerebral inputs and relevant motor responses synapse by synapse. There is no other scientific methodology that can remotely suggest how this works as an integrated whole. This is subsumed by System 3 of course, so the cosmological implications of System 3 are necessarily consistent with biologically evolving living creatures wherever they may arise in the universe.

In the nucleosynthesis of the heavier elements a regenerative mode comes into play that we know as the neutron. It is stable within an atom but decays on its own. The binding energies of heavier nuclei involve homologues of System 3 that account for the strong and weak force. This is outlined in my books but not on the website, not yet anyway. There are consistent explanations for the Coulomb force, EM fields and Gravity on my website. It can be shown that Maxwell's equations are consistent with System 3. A new quantum relativity emerges naturally.

I hope you can follow all this. There should be enough on the website to help if you want to think it through for yourself. It can open many doors and put many questions to rest.

Best regards,
Bob

www.cosmic-mindreach.com

[Bob Campbell]

Originally Posted by Profpat Hi Bob; The problem with using the proton/electron - neutron as a basic building block of matter is the problem of what makes up the proton and neutron. I have a highly speculative theory regarding this at: ( http://www.toequest.com/forum/your-t...03-idea-4.html ) You'll have to scroll down 8 posts to #40. Easy to follow and understand, but speculative. Hi Neutralino; I know the electron may be viewed as a point particle anywhere in space, but once manisfested with a proton isn't it " Larger " than the proton in that it is viewed as a " cloud " Best to both of you, Pat

Hi Profpat,

Your comments are very relevant.
There is a lot of convincing evidence that electrons and protons do exist as hard little lumps of particulate matter. The photon is a bit different. To the extent that a whole neutral atom has particle characteristics then it is the photon that lends the atom as a whole its spherical boundary. Perhaps it is better to say boundaries since they are closed energy shells somewhat like the skins of an onion. Photon energy within the atom is orthogonal to its linear transmission outside the atom. Its linear transmission is quantized by the discontinuous projection of space in a sequence of synchronous frames that constitute linear time, like a sequence of frames in an ordinary movie only much faster. Light travels like a series of pulses in successive still space frames. Although each pulse is quantized this is not the same as electrons and protons that exist as hard little lumps.

Electrons orbiting within the atom are sometimes described as electron clouds, because of the difficulty in determining exact position due to the discontinuous projection of the whole atom. The electron is stationary in each frame of the movie, but makes successive quantum jumps in position around the orbit, even while the atom as a whole may be rotating or spinning in quantum jumps from frame to frame. It takes N cubed electron jumps to make one orbit where N is the principle quantum number that identifies the orbit. The momentum and position can obviously not be known at the same time, and there is no possibility of making a measurement that can determine the exact position of an electron in a single space frame. The operation of the most sophisticated experiment would take a number of successive frames in which the electron would continue to move frame by frame. The uncertainty principle is thus strong evidence of a discontinuous universe.

This does not mean that the electron is not a particle like a hard little lump. If one believes in a spacetime continuum then there is no explanation for the apparent inability to pin down the position and momentum of the electron. The uncertainty principle then becomes translated into probability theory that Einstein objected so strongly too. So in a sense Einstein was objecting to implications of his own assumptions. Space and time are quantized. They are not infinitely divisible thus placing a minimum on the increment of the differential in the calculus. Current mathematical techniques can only reach so far.

All the evidence, including that from particle accelerators, indicates that what we know as solid particles are all structured from energy in a continual state of discontinuous recurrence. The forms that the structures take are implicitly determined by how the structural dynamics of the cosmic order works. You can review how this works on my website if you wish. It will at least make you wonder in some unexpected ways.

Best wishes,
Bob