Here’s a video composed (with some help) by my good friend Douglas George, who lives in Eureka. He is an amateur physicist with a theory that all of matter is composed of tiny units of the absence of space. Nothing. Each unit of mass is essentially a black hole. He elaborates on the theory in more detail at his website. The theory may actually be tempting to professional physicists as it eliminates the paradoxes within the event horizon, and potentially explains the Hubble-discovered evidence of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. To put the Cavitation Theory of matter in logical terms, everything we experience as something is nothing, and what we experience as nothing is actually the fabric, or at least as such when interacting with matter – conglomerations of little pieces of nothing. Yes, there are certainly holes in his theory….
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September 23, 2012 at 5:24 am
Fred Mangels
This could be why I never received a reply from an advertiser on Craigslist yesterday? She advertised some Levis with holes in the local Free section. I e-mailed her saying I didn’t need the Levis but could use the holes and asked whether she’d be willing to just let me have the holes.
She must have realized before I did those holes might be worth something?
http://humboldt.craigslist.org/zip/3288335174.html
September 23, 2012 at 6:27 am
unanonymous
pseudo-intellectual poppycock. not one peer-reviewed article…
September 23, 2012 at 7:35 am
Mitch
I haven’t got the background to tell whether it’s pseudo-intellectual poppycock or not, but I’d be interested to hear what people with the appropriate background have to say. The fact that someone’s never been professionally published doesn’t say nearly as much about what they have to say as, well, the contents of what they have to say.
If the post mentioned that someone had developed a new theory of matter, but then contained no further information, I could understand people immediately jumping in with ridicule. But the post includes links to explanatory material. If you don’t understand the explanatory material — as I don’t — you really don’t have a very interesting opinion as to whether the theory is plausible or not, do you?
September 23, 2012 at 8:13 am
Fred Mangels
I wonder what Sheldon Cooper would think of this?
http://www.facebook.com/TheBigBangTheory?ref=ts
September 23, 2012 at 8:22 am
unanonymous
sheldon would agree with me. it needs to be peer reviewed. that is how science works.
September 23, 2012 at 8:22 am
Name Here
The comment section for this post is better at Heraldo’s. No offense.
September 23, 2012 at 8:46 am
Erasmus
None of the earth-shaking scientific theories that all of us learn about in high school (Newton, Darwin, etc.) was peer-reviewed. The “peer-review” process encourages conformity by the same method it weeds out the cranks. I, too, am not competent to judge the validity of Doug George’s theory, but it jibes with the writing of Davies and Gribbin as revealed in their book ‘The Matter Myth.’
September 23, 2012 at 8:55 am
unanonymous
that is poppycock too, newton and darwin wrote papers and had debates that were reviewed or attended by their peers.
September 23, 2012 at 9:14 am
Mitch
I’m pretty confident that this post is not going to lead to any useful discussion of whether the cavitation theory of matter is plausible. But perhaps it leads to an interesting discussion of the “personalities” of a region, and how they can lead to the flourishing or collapse of the local societies.
There’s a widely discussed phenomenon in which many ambitious and creative children of rural areas leave for urban areas they find more attractive. If a rural area has a college, the college can serve as a local attractor and prevent some of this drain. SImilarly, if an area develops a reputation as a place where creativity can flourish, the reputation can become self-reinforcing as creative people are attracted to the area. I think “hippie” reputations, in the past, have helped rural areas and urban neighborhoods to become gems. Perhaps the back-to-the-landers and the hippy growers did that for Humboldt; unfortunately, the pot industry seems to have morphed from a way hippies could make enough money to live off the grid and into a way that lazy thugs can make quick bucks.
The transition from “hippie” to gentrified (a/k/a legal thugs) is well-known — maybe we need to start studying the transition from “hippie” to “outlaw” (a/k/a illegal thugs). I doubt a gangsta industry is going to be much more of an attractor of the people who can make an area flourish than the chamber of commerce / realtor crowd that dominates local government.
It’s an important issue, but one that’s not going to win anyone any friends. The pot mafia already controls what the realtors/cc don’t, and I wonder if, in addition to being people sharing a basic mindset, they aren’t, basically, the very same people. They spell economic doom for Humboldt if they are not brought under control.
September 23, 2012 at 9:26 am
unanonymous
lol i think the acid is wearing off, new subject
September 23, 2012 at 10:34 am
Erasmus
Unanonymous” seems unaware of what “peer-review” means — it’s a process that PRECEDES publication (it does not follow it). It’s a mere truism that discussion and evaluation of a theory will ensue.
September 23, 2012 at 11:03 am
unanonymous
clearly erasmus isn’t published. the article is reviewed by the journals editors and other peers chosen by author or publisher. then there will be letters and rebuttals published if it generates discussion. There is also a scientific method to publications that the video doesn’t even touch on. i applaude his interest but if he wants to be taken seriously the amateur needs to step up and submit to a peer reviewed journal. for instance, what the video calls the central theory is actually an assumption based on nothing more than conjecture. theories must be based on observation and accepted, documentable facts. theories can be empirically tested. i would encourage the author to seek peer review if he wants to be taken seriously, this is not the forum..
September 23, 2012 at 11:30 am
tra
Hi Mitch,
I get your frustration, and I share it, but I have a little different take on the situation.
I would guess that it has been at least several decades since there was any truth to the notion that most pot growers in Humbolt were “hippies.” Plenty of ranchers, dairy farmers, vegetable farmers and all kinds of rural residents have been growing the herb here at least since the late 70′s. But there’s definitely been an influx of people who primarily or solely make their living growing pot, especially in the last 10 years or so, including quite a few aspiring get-rich-quickers. Meanwhile. a whole economy has grown up around the cultivation scene, with some businesses and many jobs entirely or almost entirely dependent on the pot industry, and most local businesses in the county benefiting, at least to some extent, on the cash flowing through the industry. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I’m just saying that it’s a thing.
I don’t think most pot growers today are “lazy thugs.” As far as those who are operating big, sloppy, environmentally damaging grows, it’s not “laziness” I’m concerned about. These people are obviously plenty ambitious and industrious, and while some may be “thuggish” I bet most of them aren’t particularly that way. The problem is that those creating the most damage either don’t understand the damage they may be doing, don’t think it’s important, or they just don’t care. So, I think “greedy ignoramuses,” and “greedy assholes” are what I’m concerned about, along with the greedy, actual thugs who, thanks to prohibition, are offered opportunities in the home invasions and other rip-offs industry.
Bottom line: We’re way too dependent on one industry, just as we used to be way too dependent on the timber industry. But the fact that cultivation, distribution and possession of cannabis is still illegal under federal law, and for-profit cultivation and distribution of cannabis — even medical cannabis — is still illegal under state law, makes this an especially shaky economic foundation to be over-reliant on.
If cannabis cultivation continues to be illegal on the federal and state levels, then, despite our best efforts (and we should make those efforts), many of the negative dynamics and collateral damages of the black market will continue to be a problem for us. And on the other hand if cannabis cultivation is legalized in such a way that it results in most production being moved into large monocrops in other areas, most of the income that the local cannabis industry brings in suddenly disappears, this county may take an economic hit similar to that delivered by the decline in timber and fishing jobs, and maybe much worse. So at the moment, we’re in a lose – lose position. Or maybe it’s a “lose – lose more” position, in one direction or the other. Either way, it’s not a great place to be.
So I’m totally on board with the idea that we need to diversify our economic base here in Humboldt — or at least to be more ready to do so than we are now. I have some ideas on that, but not as many as I’d like, and not enough in the way of how to get from here to there.
And we may be running out of time to try to figure that part out and try to get prepared. My guess is that state-level legalization could be a reality in California in as little as a couple of years, and probably no more than 10-12 years. The trends are pretty clear, in that those who are most strongly opposed to legalization are dying off, and there is much higher support for legalization among younger generations. Even accounting for the fact that some become more supportive of prohibition as they get older, most don’t, so the overall numbers continue to move towards more people supporting legalization.
There’s bound to be a tipping point — I don’t know whether we’ll reach that tipping point when 55% of the public favor legalization, or 60% of likely voters do, or somewhere in between, but the long-term trend seems clear. There is a demographic freight train hauling public opinion down the political tracks, and it’s moving with great momentum, if not great speed, toward its destination. When the train gets too close to the station, the great majority of politicians who are trying to hold it back or derail it are just going to give up and either stand out of the way, or hop on board at the last minute, and pretend to be the engineer as the train coasts into the station.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Colorado and Washington voters pass the legalization initiatives that will be on their ballots in November. Right now it looks fairly likely that voters in one or both of those states will, in fact, approve state-level legalization, including for recreational use How will the feds cope with the fallout from that? My guess is probably, at least at first, institutional denial and maybe some ramped-up (but still largely ineffectual) eradication efforts…same as usual. If several other states, including California, follow suit in the next few years and pass a broad legalization / regulation approach — something akin to the way alcohol is regulated — and if it seems like the momentum seems to be building state-by-state (as has been happening with medical cannabis) the feds may find themselves increasingly isolated and irrelevant to the facts on the ground, and Congress may find itself under increasing pressure to rescind federal prohibition, or at least limit it to interstate commerce.
September 23, 2012 at 11:49 am
unanonymous
yup, potheads pretending to be scientists
, funny shit.
September 23, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Mitch
tra,
Yeah, “greedy assholes” serves as well as “lazy thugs.” Instances of both categories are found in quantity on both sides of the law. Whether operating legally or illegally, they can be enormous drains on the energy and long-term economy of an area. The legal ones tend to call themselves Republicans, the illegal ones tend to call themselves by other names; either way, they are poison. Building the 99th strip mall in McKinleyville is little different than putting in the 999th diesel/greenhouse grow in the hills — both represent the path of least resistance for someone who wants money and couldn’t give a shit about their neighborhood or community. Areas that coddle the fucks erode their social capital and lose out in the long term.
On the other hand, areas that really try to welcome a wide variety of people, regardless of income, even encouraging people in their creativity and eccentricity… such areas become increasingly desirable, even as they panic the greedy assholes, who have a tendency to be far more narrowminded than they themselves realize.
September 23, 2012 at 1:01 pm
suzy blah blah
-suzy’s talked a little bit with Douglas about some of his theories. I can’t follow it all, but we related well about the mystery surrounding us. Or something like that, i found him to be a very gentle, soft spoken, and patient man. A great listener too. I hope that he comes on the thread to add something to the comment section. Thanks Eric.
September 23, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Eric Kirk
I haven’t got the background to tell whether it’s pseudo-intellectual poppycock or not, but I’d be interested to hear what people with the appropriate background have to say. The fact that someone’s never been professionally published doesn’t say nearly as much about what they have to say as, well, the contents of what they have to say.
If the post mentioned that someone had developed a new theory of matter, but then contained no further information, I could understand people immediately jumping in with ridicule. But the post includes links to explanatory material. If you don’t understand the explanatory material — as I don’t — you really don’t have a very interesting opinion as to whether the theory is plausible or not, do you?
FYI, Doug is in discussion with people at UC Berkeley who haven’t rejected it outright. He just finished his piece and he’s submitted it to appropriate places. Basically, he just noticed some mathematical coincidences which point to a different conception of matter. He is a person who knows a whole lot more about the subject than I, who has put a considerable amount of work into the development of an idea. It may be completely shot down, but at least he made an effort in the interest of curiosity and knowledge. Maybe it doesn’t quite contribute to the degree that so many of these anonymous blog posters have improved on the human condition, but we can’t all be perfect like them. All we can do is put ourselves out there for the unfortunately inadequate effort.
September 23, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Unk John
Inside, I’ve always suspected I was warped … if nothing else.
BTW, unanonymous, there are many examples of “potheads” that were also respected scientists. Carl Sagan, on more than one occasion, used soap to write down an idea on a shower wall while showering in an “expanded” state of mind.
September 24, 2012 at 4:39 am
unanonymous
yup, but when he presented new hypothesis he would write a journal article with references. gosh maybe we should employ stoned amateur surgeons……teachers, school bus drivers, food safety scientists.. ludicrous.
September 24, 2012 at 6:37 am
Mitch
Eric,
May I turn to my dwindling emergency supply of “polyanna power” for a moment? OK. Just remember that there are thousands of Humboldt residents who neither read blogs nor comment on them. It’s entirely possible that many of them are likable.
Ooof, I think I’ve run out. And it takes me months of dreaming to generate enough for the two sentences above. Oh well, it was put to good use.
September 24, 2012 at 7:40 am
Narration
Eric, thanks for the extra details — helps understanding of just where this is, and definitely adds credibility to the quality of Douglas George’s work.
A smile that he’s having his contact with UC Berkeley, which is our very needed professional edifice for persons with all kinds of thinking that benefits because it is very well considered and isn’t of a mainstream. I can’t think the number of times I’ve read an adequately startling paper from there and thought, thank goodness we have a place where such useful persons and efforts can thrive.
unanonymous, if you are only comfortable with ideas by the time they are finished, then of course you can wait until society and conservative authorities endorse them. That’s ‘allowed’ in a life, too.
There’s a spirit of adventure for some, though, in considering what may or may not become so established. After all, we clearly need some climbing around, above the rapids, on the current log-jams, where someone with some strength and a pike can succeed in beginning a few key logs to move.
Physics may not be the center of current difficulties, but it does have a history as a lever, and who can tell?
September 24, 2012 at 8:11 am
Bolithio
Unk John @ 9:51… nice lol
September 24, 2012 at 11:55 am
Joe Blow
Reality = getting heard and accepted by the majority. A fool’s thesis.
September 24, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Unk John
“yup, but when he presented new hypothesis he would write a journal article with references. gosh maybe we should employ stoned amateur surgeons……teachers, school bus drivers, food safety scientists.. ludicrous.”
True enough, unanonymous, and I am willing to bet that he followed the accepted rules of grammar and syntax. Furthermore, he undoubtedly quoted no references while scribbling with his soap. He simply had an idea. One that he wanted to develop.
Many people who work in quantum mechanics admit they really don’t fully understand it. String Theory is even less understood and has NO proof that it describes reality. Yet it is under discussion. Mr. George’s theory seems interesting enough to at least discuss it.
You may ultimately be correct. If you are well versed in physics and are good enough to participate in a high level discourse, then I suggest you pose questions rather than attacks.
September 24, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Ernie Branscomb
Well, (To use Eric’s intro), since there seems to be multiple venues on this subject, I will feel free to make multiple replies. Plus, I always like to follow “Unk John”, it put’s me in with great company.
The following was also posted on Humboldt Herald:
First, Doug is a super nice and congenial fellow. I had the privilege of working with him for a short time while he lived here in Garberville. His ideas caused me a great source of wonder. I took up a great deal of his time bouncing my questions off of him. It was obvious to me that some of the things that I was still wondering about he had already put together, and had a satisfactory answer in his own thoughts.
If you follow the trail, something had to come from nothing, so unless you believe in magic, Doug’s ideas at least provide a way that “Something”
came out of “Nothing”. Doug’s ideas at very least remove the magic and put the Genesis stories on a more scientifically thought-out basis. For that, me and my “hammer test of reality” applaud him.
September 24, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Unk John
Ernie,
I always appreciate your input and steadfast holding of the hammer test.
I don’t know for sure if it was he who said it, but I think it was Richard Feynman who described the big bang this way: ” In the beginning there was nothing … which exploded.”
September 25, 2012 at 10:38 am
Joe Blow
” In the beginning there was nothing … which exploded.” Hammer Test theory proves there’s still nothing.
September 25, 2012 at 11:19 am
suzy blah blah
-nothing is impossible.
September 25, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Eric Kirk
You mean impossibility is impossible?
“If God is all powerful can he make a rock so big that he himself can’t lift it?”
-George Carlin
September 25, 2012 at 12:28 pm
suzy blah blah
-if there’s a lot of black holes in the bootstraps that you try to pull yourself up with it won’t help any to try and hit them with a hammer.
September 25, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Bolithio
I was going to say “Nothing is Something…” to quote Seinfeld.
September 25, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Ernie Branscomb
Suzy
Someone as intelligent as yourself should realize that “the hammer test” is simply metaphor for a reality test. It’s a way to illustrate the difference between that which is provably real, and that which is simply conjecture. My hammer is not good for testing etheric boot straps.
September 25, 2012 at 1:58 pm
suzy blah blah
-actually, it’s theoric, not etheric. I call it bootstap theory, closely related to shoestring theory. I haven’t got peer review yet Ernie. I’m still doing experiments, hammer included, suzy’ll let you know what whooops–ouch my thumb.
September 25, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Ernie Branscomb
Actually Suzy, It IS “eterheric”:
ETHERIC In physics . a hypothetical substance supposed to occupy all space, postulated to account for the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through space.
September 25, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Ernie Branscomb
Umm… Can I start over?? “etheric” not the typo above. It’s such a long fall from a high-horse to the thump on the ground.
September 25, 2012 at 3:34 pm
suzy blah blah
-Ernie, you can’t put the chicken back into the shell. All you can do is lay another egg, unless you have some special influence with Eric. He’s got the editing hammer around here.
September 25, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Ernie Branscomb
Suzy, remember the good old days when we could simply self-edit when we made a mistake. Some blogs won’t even let you link to your own blogsite. I was just over at Lost coast outpost and they have spam all over the comment section, so things aren’t improving….
September 25, 2012 at 5:00 pm
suzy blah blah
- what did the two year old say when she perceived Mr Kirk? –”hey, etheric”.
September 25, 2012 at 11:35 pm
JK
Eric, this guy is confusing the “event horizon” with the volume of the mass of the singularity. The event horizon is the edge of the effect, but the actual volume of the mass is a “coordinate singularity.” {google it.}
This whole “theory” is just looking at basic gravitational effects and literally ignoring anything under them, like quantum mechanics. It’s actually similar to string theory, but without the strings. It does make the math easier, but that’s only because it doesn’t actually explain anything.
It “might” be useful as a perspective model, but it is not what I would qualify as a “theory.” If there is much more to it, including actual mathematical models defining the properties of the “holes”, then maybe.
September 26, 2012 at 12:22 am
JK
“Matter doesn’t warp space… Matter is warped space.”
The gravitational effect of mass is the warping of space. But, this is NOT the only demonstrable effect/property of mass. He alludes to electromagnetic, but apparently doesn’t believe in strong or weak nuclear forces. Also, we may not fully understand quanta, but ‘we’ know they exist.
So, no, matter is not just warped space. If I give him the benefit of the doubt, that is, at best, semantically misleading. Taken at face value, it is completely, and demonstrably, false.
September 26, 2012 at 11:55 am
Unk John
“Eric, this guy is confusing the “event horizon” with the volume of the mass of the singularity. The event horizon is the edge of the effect, but the actual volume of the mass is a “coordinate singularity.” {google it.}”
Dear John,
Where in that presentation is the event horizon confused with the singularity?
Also, I suspect that this presentation is not intended to fully explain his theory, thus the omission of any discussion of the strong and weak forces. I guess I’m not ready to express your level of cynicism yet. Granted, that could change.
September 28, 2012 at 6:04 pm
JK
At 6:22. The problem is he’s comparing the ‘volume’ of a ‘normal’ object with the volume of space taken up by the effects within the event horizon. He talks about how the mass scales with volume normally, but with surface area with black holes. The problem is that the surface area of what he’s talking about is NOT it’s ‘volume’. In fact, the very definition of a black hole is what happens when the volume of mass is compressed to less than the Schwarzschild radius (event horizon radius).
Granted, I’m only going by what he said in the video. It could be he is just using confusing syntax. If he actually has a more detailed written summary I would like to read it. The only reason I’m nit-picking it, is because I kind of like it.
September 30, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Eric Kirk
John, it’s been awhile since I discussed it with him, but I believe his argument is that the singularity volume is a myth – that the hole of nothing extends to the edge of what we call the event horizon, but that everything “inside” simply doesn’t exist. You reach the edge of the “hole” and you’re at the edge of the universe. Nothing inside, so no rules of physics to break.
September 30, 2012 at 6:20 pm
JK
It’s not a myth, it’s a theory based on a mathematical model. Regardless, my point wasn’t what’s inside, it’s that the Schwarzschild radius always has the same ratio to mass. The volume of mass compresses in gravity, the volume in the Schwarzschild radius doesn’t.
Also, I have a problem with ‘everything “inside” simply doesn’t exist.’ It’s too simplistic. It reminds me of how people misunderstand Schrödinger’s cat. The cat is in fact either dead or alive, there is a specific truth. We just don’t know it, so we have to create models of understanding based on it being both. But, the cat knows…
September 30, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, that’s the whole theory, that there’s nothing inside. Hence “cavitation.” – the theory that matter is pockets of nothing acting on space.
Anyway, hit the link to the site which gives more of the mathematical detail than the video.
September 30, 2012 at 7:23 pm
JK
OK. I read through it once, he definitely understands the Schwarzschild radius, which makes me confused as to why he made the comparison to normal mass volume. I was specifically looking for his explanation of the properties of normal matter. I was a little disappointed.
“However, there is an obvious difference between a black hole and an ordinary massive object such as a planet or a star. Those objects, being full of ordinary particle matter, are definitely not empty shells of deformed space. This problem is resolved by recognizing that planets and stars would be comprised of sub-nuclear, foam-like agglomerations of un-coalesced cavities while black holes would result from the forced coalescence of those small cavities to form ever larger holes in space.”
Foam? Seriously? It wouldn’t be so bad, but he never goes into any detail about the hows or whys of the foam. The metaphor doesn’t fit, since foam is made from salt or soap in the water, but he’s saying that pure water is foaming itself. This is an important detail on something some people would say is the only thing that ‘matters.’ [pun very much intended]
The problem is that the normal model works. It works with extreme precision in most cases. Any new model must integrate with the parts of the working model that we ‘know’ to be accurate. Which is why new models tend to be more complex, not less.
October 4, 2012 at 8:23 pm
anonamayonaise
I like it.
Reminds me of the human body which is a visible thing, the fascia. It is all connective tissue, a fabric of one thin filament. Our entire body is made up of one connective fabric, every organ, every muscle. It’s all this connective tissue that folds in upon itself and differentiates by function.along which electrical currents flow, and consciousness.
So this theory of the universe as fabric of connective tissue feels like another enjoyable truth. Why not give your imagination a wide field to roam in?
Science is just another religion, anyway.
Gimme magick any day.
October 7, 2012 at 6:41 pm
Douglas George
Dear Humboldt bloggers,
First of all, I want to thank Eric for putting up the link to my movie and thanks to all of you who took the time to watch it and respond.
Here is a link to an image showing a brief summary of the physics involved. I recommend opening it in a separate window:
http://dcgeorge.com/images/TheMeaningOfMatter/ThePhysicsOfACavityInSpace.jpg
The upshot is that the space around any massive object is stretched more and more as the distance to the object gets smaller. In the limiting case of a black hole, the metric stretching goes to infinity at the Schwarzschild radius (middle panel) and the density of space goes to zero (rightmost panel).
The implications are rather dramatic. Black holes are revealed to be actual holes in the fabric of space itself. General relativity, in other words, unequivocally, demands that holes exist in the fabric of space. Because such holes have mass and are indistinguishable from normal objects, it strongly implies that what we experience as normal objects could also be built out of nothing but warpages of space.
Now, if I may, let me respond more specifically to some of your comments.
unanonymous: … pseudo-intellectual poppycock. not one peer-reviewed article…
Fair enough but I suspect that you have never tried to get a paper peer-reviewed. These days, as far as I know, the only way to do that is to be professional researcher or be somehow associated with an established institution, which I haven’t been for many years (I’m an old person … OK, an ancient person).
Mitch: … I’d be interested to hear what people with the appropriate background have to say.
I have had a number of correspondences with established physicists over the years. They have *all* agreed that the physics underlying my theory is sound but have rejected the idea for various strange reasons. One professor agreed that general relativity allows what he called “cutouts” in space but maintained that such cutouts would be meaningless. The latest one, Dr. Sascha Vongehr of USC (two weeks ago) suggested that Einstein’s theory of general relativity (the gold standard of modern physics) is probably wrong:
Me: … If we consider the most simple case of a Schwarzschild black hole and strictly adhere to the mathematics of the radial component of the metric (describing the static condition of the space around the hole), we are led to the inescapable conclusion that the black hole is an actual hole in the fabric of space itself.
Vonger’s response: … Meaning basically that we should not trust the math at this point. ….
Ernie Branscomb: … something had to come from nothing, so unless you believe in magic, Doug’s ideas at least provide a way that “Something” came out of “Nothing”. Doug’s ideas at very least remove the magic and put the Genesis stories on a more scientifically thought-out basis. For that, me and my “hammer test of reality” applaud him.
Hello Ernie, well put, and thanks for the moral support. All those years ago, when I was first trying to work things out, all I could tell you was that the space at your toes is thinner than it is at you nose. I didn’t have access to the internet then.
I was just thinking of you recently and wondering if you had seen the movie. Come to think of it, you may have been the first person to hear the essence of the idea.
JK: … Also, I have a problem with ‘everything “inside” simply doesn’t exist.’ It’s too simplistic. It reminds me of how people misunderstand Schrödinger’s cat. The cat is in fact either dead or alive, there is a specific truth. We just don’t know it, so we have to create models of understanding based on it being both. But, the cat knows…
I agree with you about Schrödinger’s cat being in fact either dead or alive but according to the mainstream interpretation of quantum theory, the cat (being a metaphor for quantum entities), does indeed exist as a strange mixture of being dead and not being dead until you look at it (thereby collapsing the wave function). It’s nutty stuff and seems a lot crazier than my idea.
To sum things up, I quite realize that my theory doesn’t rise to the level of being a “scientific” theory on par with currently accepted science and it is definitely not yet a complete theory of matter. It does, however, open up the possibility that the entire physical universe could be built out of nothing more than warped space. If the idea is correct, It not only greatly simplifies the overall picture of reality and, as Ernie noted, gives a scientific basis for how matter could have come into being, but, more importantly, it appears to resolve a number of seemingly intractable difficulties in theoretical physics (like the black hole scaling-problem and the accelerating expansion of the universe).
October 7, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Eric Kirk
Doug, the jpeg didn’t go through. I’ll put it into the main post.
October 7, 2012 at 9:36 pm
johnnkirk
The reason that it’s considered ‘in a grey area’ is because the only way we know of perceiving it alters it. So, we can’t know all of it’s properties at once. But, unless you believe human perception is the basis of all reality, it does have a specific set of properties. We just need to have a model of what we ‘know’ to work with.
My main problem is with the idea of ‘foam’. Since all matter has a tiny Schwarzschild radius inside it, the ‘foam’ would just be what the ‘normal’ models call mass. If not, what is the ‘substance’ at the edge of each ‘bubble’? Why, when you ‘pop’ a ‘bubble’, do you get an explosion instead of an implosion?
How do you explain nuclear forces? The strong might not apply with your model, but you need to cover weak/electroweak. Like, for instance, where does alpha radiation come from? And why?
October 8, 2012 at 9:02 am
Douglas George
johnnkirk,
There is a wide spectrum of mythologies that have persisted in theoretical physics since the early nineteen hundreds when the ‘Copenhagen clan’ saddled us with the statistical interpretation of the Schrodinger wave equation. The Copenhagen interpretation has given us such gems as instantaneous interactions between photons light years apart, Schrodinger’s cat, the idea that a measurement alters the thing being measured (it doesn’t), and the best one of all, the ‘many worlds’ fantasy where infinities of new universes are created every picosecond of every day. A good, non-technical accounting of this history is given in Nick Herbert’s book Quantum Reality, http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Reality-Beyond-New-Physics/dp/0385235690 . More recently, Carver Mead of Cal Tech drove a silver stake through the heart of the whole ‘statistical’ nonsense in his (very technical) book called Collective Electrodynamics.
As for the ‘foam’, I’m not following you. What I mean by it is a collection of cavitation bubbles drawn together by gravity. The bubbles do not ‘pop’, they only fuse to form ever larger cavities when squeezed together by sufficient gravitational pressure.
Black holes come in a few varieties other than the simplest version I use in my paper. They can be charged (plus or minus), they can spin (up or down) and they can be non-spherical because of spin. Combinations of these types would give rise to subatomic entities like quarks. The lesson we learned from fractals is that great complexity can arise from very simple relationships.
In this scenario, things like electric charge and the nuclear strong and weak forces are shifted to the fine-structure of space itself, a realm that is beyond the reach of present technology.
October 9, 2012 at 5:02 am
johnnkirk
In order to image, or measure tiny things you generally bombard it with other tinier things, like shooting photons at an electron. This does actually affect the electron. It makes it impossible to take multiple images, like you would a large object, to determine its motion. [like a movie]
You called it ‘foam’. And even the term ‘cavitation bubble’ implies a substance of some sort encapsulating it with some form of surface tension preventing it from collapsing. What is the ‘surface’? What is the force that acts as surface tension?
Your bubbles have to be able to ‘pop.’ We smash atoms apart all the time, we know it can be done. The result of it is fracturing & an expulsion of energy [like smashing a neutron into a proton, electron, & the extra energy]. If it were a bubble around a hole one would expect it to implode when broken.
We measure and manipulate electromagnetic & weak nuclear with present technology all the time. The measurements & predictions are extremely accurate. If your theory doesn’t include models for observable, repeatable, and well documented forces, then it’s not really done. Any new paradigm needs to first fit into the existing data.
That is why string theory is taking so long to put together. They have to do all the math, and it has to be accurate. Because, if a tool can’t measure the things you can verify accurately, then you can’t use it as a tool.
October 9, 2012 at 7:43 pm
Douglas George
… to image, or measure tiny things you generally bombard it with other tinier things …
True, but this is not what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) is all about. The HUP is about the mutual measurement of conjugate attributes. The best known example being the attributes of position and momentum but there are lots of others. If you measure the position of a moving object more and more accurately, its momentum measurement becomes less and less accurate. You can measure either of them as accurately as you want but you can’t do both at the same time. So, the HUP is not about “disturbing” anything, it’s about mutually exclusive measurements.
… foam …
Applying a sufficient negative pressure to any liquid will cause bubbles to form. Underwater propellers, for example, create cavitation bubbles. Empty space throughout the universe is under negative pressure right now and has been since early on. Conditions necessary for the cavitation of space have existed for billions of years.
Cavities in space would likely form surface tension membranes at the boundary surface. I go into this a little bit in the website paper.
… Your bubbles would have to be able to ‘pop’ …
Black holes are not like ordinary bubbles. Ordinary bubbles contain internal gasses under pressure. The inside of black holes (if my theory is correct) contain nothing at all. If you were to put the whole universe in a big vise of some sort and apply enough pressure, the holes would just shrink and disappear. Space would return to a smooth fluid state. That’s my guess.