[Bob Campbell]

Late in life Einstein believed it quite possible that physics could not be based on continuous structures. This effectively negates his own life's work along with the course that Quantum Mechanics took. He was very concerned about the formal schism established between the practice of mathematical physics and the many dichotonous interpretations that have resulted. At various times earlier he had indicated that there was a more fundamental basis to the cosmic order, missing variables associated with QM and limitations to general relativity. His latter remarks the year before he died directly suggest a discontinuous universe. Planck's constant in fact directly indicates that light comes to us as a series of discrete pulses. The entire EM spectrum is sliced across its continuous breadth to project in a series of quantized energy pulses.

There is a non-liguistic way to delineate how the cosmic order works as an open ended series of nested "Systems." I call it simply the "System" because the one System exhausts all structural possibilites to phenomenal experience. It is not an intellectual contrivance of mine. It was revealed in a very unusual series of experiential insights over a lifetime. The fundamentals of the System are introduced at www.cosmic-mindreach.com.

In conjunction with this thread I am posting a TOE Article entitled "Gravity & the Void: Tip of a TOE Iceberg." It introduces "Congugate Identities" and "Historic Integration" as a unique new method of deriving the Lorentz Transformations consistent with a new Quantum Relativity. There are many astrophysical and cosmological implications. A variety of articles on the website relate the cosmic order to the physical, biological and social sciences. You are invited to have a look at an approach that has never been explored before. It will make you wonder in unexpected new ways.

[RascalPuff]

Dear Bob Campbell:
My understanding is that Einstein was back to working on his abandoned cosmological constant - field theory based continuous universe - when he perished. Would you please provide some documentation or references to confirm your contrary reports of Einstein's viewpoints out of his later years?

Are you familiar with Einstein's abandoned cosmological constant and the steady state theory as it relates to Einstein's - also abandoned - unified field theory? My understanding is that Einstein was in search of a Grand Unified - continuous - Field Theory, up to the time of his death at Princeton. Could you direct me to the informations you know of that indicate the contrary? What you say of Einstein's abandonment of his life's work is something I have never heard of before. Please respond.

Regards
- RP

[N0B0DY]

Perhaps this is what he was referring to. Einstein seems to have been drawn closer to metaphysics in his latest years.

----------------------------------------------------

"All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. … I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, and of the rest of modern physics." (Albert Einstein, 1954)

"If, then, it is true that the axiomatic basis of theoretical physics cannot be extracted from experience but must be freely invented, can we ever hope to find the right way? I answer without hesitation that there is, in my opinion, a right way, and that we are capable of finding it. I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed." (Albert Einstein, 1954)

"From the latest results of the theory of relativity it is probable that our three dimensional space is also approximately spherical, that is, that the laws of disposition of rigid bodies in it are not given by Euclidean geometry, but approximately by spherical geometry." (Einstein, 1954)

[RascalPuff]

Dear Nobody:
As you probably know, he died in '55. I have studied this man for over 47 years. Will you please cite the source - it's all news to me.

Regards
- RP

[Bob Campbell]

The source of Einstein's quote indicating discontionuous structures is given in my TOE Article "Gravity & the Void: Tip of a Toe Iceberg."

His disenchantment with the divergent directions that physics and the philosophy of physics took is well known. Many quotes are possible. Two quotes are as follows:

Einstein:
“The only justification for our concepts and system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy. I am convinced that the philosophers have had a harmful effect upon the progress of scientific thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of empiricism, where they are under our control, to the intangible heights of the a priori. For even if it should appear that the universe of ideas cannot be deduced from experience by logical means, but is, in a sense, a creation of the human mind, without which no science is possible, nevertheless this universe of ideas is just as little independent of the nature of our experiences as clothes are of the form of the human body.”(From his "The Meaning of Relativity," 5th Ed.)

Einstein:
“I see on the one hand the totality of sense-experiences, and, on the other, the totality of the concepts and propositions which are laid down in books. The relations between concepts and propositions among themselves and each other are of a logical nature, and the business of logical thinking is strictly limited to the achievement of the connection between concepts and propositions among each other according to firmly laid down rules, which are the concern of logic. The concepts and propositions get “meaning,” viz., “content,” only through their connection with sense-experiences. The connection of the latter with the former is purely intuitive, not itself of a logical nature. The degree of certainty with which this relation, viz., intuitive connection, can be undertaken, and nothing else, differentiates empty fantasy from scientific “truth.”(From "Autobiographical Notes," written at age 67.) (Einstein intuitively knew what later became established as scientific fact by Sperry's experiments on split brain patients that the intuitive and language hemispheres of the brain function independently and that it is the intuitive right hemisphere that integrates experience holistorically.)

Einstein repeatedly pointed out limitations to General Relativity on various occasions. For example in the Appendix to the Second Edition of "The Meaning of Relativity" (Pg 129) he writes:

"... For large densities of field and of matter, the field equations and even the field variables which enter into them will have no real significance. One may not therefore assume the validity of the equations for very high density of field and of matter, and one may not conclude that the "beginning of the expansion" (his quote marks) must mean a singularity in the mathematical sense."

His later work was sidelined largely because of the direction that Quantum Mechanics took. Even though QM and GR have never been married they are both used in Big Bang Cosmology. It seems to me it is a swamp of ad hoc assumptions to plug holes that forever keep appearing. In the absence of an alternative paradigm researchers keep reaching further into the realms of fantasy to keep shoring the theory up.

One of the basic assumptions on which General Relativity is based is that matter is smeared out more or less evenly on a cosmic scale.

[Bob Campbell]

Originally Posted by RascalPuff Dear Bob Campbell: My understanding is that Einstein was back to working on his abandoned cosmological constant - field theory based continuous universe - when he perished. Would you please provide some documentation or references to confirm your contrary reports of Einstein's viewpoints out of his later years? Are you familiar with Einstein's abandoned cosmological constant and the steady state theory as it relates to Einstein's - also abandoned - unified field theory? My understanding is that Einstein was in search of a Grand Unified - continuous - Field Theory, up to the time of his death at Princeton. Could you direct me to the informations you know of that indicate the contrary? What you say of Einstein's abandonment of his life's work is something I have never heard of before. Please respond. Regards - RP

Dear RascalPuff,

Einstein made the comment about believing it possible that physics could not be based on continuous structures in a letter to his friend Michele Besso. From many other of his comments from many sources it seems clear that he was disturbed about the whole direction of physics, including Big Bang Cosmology. He was acknowledging serious doubts about the whole edifice of modern physics, including his own work. This does not mean that he outright abandoned his work. He was committed to a seach for truth and it was a credit to him that he would bring hiw own work into question. He was not one given to promoting or defending his own career at any cost. (I am familiar with Einstein's work and am one of his fans.)

Please note that a discontinuously projected physical universe does not mean that there is no phenomenal experience of continuity to it. If you reflect carefully on my TOE Article "Gravity & the Void: Tip of a TOE Iceberg" you may see that there is a lot more to it. This is not easy to fully appreciate without also studying my website articles.

Another of Einstein's quotes goes as follows:
"... Many kinds of men devote themselves to science, and not all of them for the sake of science herself. There are some who come to her temple because it offers them the opportunity to display their particular talents. To this class af men science is a kind of sport in the practice of which they exhult, just as an athelete exults in in the exercise of his muscular prowess. There is another class of men who come into the temple to make an offering of their brain pulp in the hope of securing a profitable return. These men are scientists only by the chance of circumstance which offered itself when making a chouice for a career. If the attending circumstances had been different, they might have become politicians or captains of business. Should an angel of God descend and drive from the temple of science all those who belong to the categories I have mentioned, I fear the temple would be nearly emptied. But a few worshippers would still remain - some from former times and some from ours. To these latter belongs our Plank. And that is why we love him." (From a Tribute to Max Planck.)

Best regards,
Bob.

[Lloyd Gillespie]

RP, Nobody and Bob understand Einstein the same as I do also. Their quotes are in much of his later standard works..., and much of Einstein's thinking changed quite drastically, after hanging daily with Kurt Go'del, for most of his later years. Godel's work on Einstein's ideas, may clear up much of his later year's thinking. Both, their entire life's works is really humanity's greatest contribution to sound philosophy, and physics that exists...

Lloyd

[RascalPuff]

Dear Bob Campbell, Nobody & Lloyd Gillespie:

Many - much - thanks for turning on some more lights for me.

Best regards
- RP

[MJA]

Nice work everyone,

I believe Einstein's genius was his work on measure. That he questioned measure itself, was his true brilliance. He took measure to a new understanding, a new level, to Relativity. No one had taken measure further unless you believe in the grey area of probable reality. Had he continued his work on measure, perhaps he may have succeeded in finding the unifying truth. Instead, he attempted to unify nature using the inadequate tools of measure that existed in his day and still exist today. He tried to unify theories of energy built with the same inadequacies or uncertainties. One can never find fault in someone who does work on unity such as us all, but until the truth of measure is realized, accepted, taught, and practiced, unity will never be attained. That Einstein questioned measure was and is the path to truth. Probability, bye and bye, is the wrong direction. The goal of unity is attainable only by the truth or certainty of measure.

What a perfect word "inadequate" is to describe the current state or flaw of measure. Equate is measure's truth, unity, and our future!

MJA

[Lloyd Gillespie]

Originally Posted by MJA The goal of unity is attainable only by the truth or certainty of measure. What a perfect word "inadequate" is to describe the current state or flaw of measure. Equate is measure's truth, unity, and our future! MJA

MJA, when all equates, nothing exists___equal forces or measures, against all equal forces and measures, is null force and measure___Non-Existence...

Recognition of hiearchical inequalities are our only hope of any type of positive redemptive future existence... I think the world has had enough of "Wisdom in a coma, stupidity on a mike..."

Lloyd