Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Is the physical world real?

Physics should deal with realities. Matter, space and time should be taken as independent factors - that is what our observations reveal. But, of late, physicists tend to be mathematicians. 'Mathematics with a dash of physics' is the stuff that they put forth as physics. Consequently, non-real solutions are offered as physical truths. I think, it is time that we changed back to the classical Newtonian style.

Unfortunately both Special Relativity (SR) and General Relativity (GR), which have been very well tested, show that space and time are interrelated. So going back to a Newtonian framework would be extremely difficult. In fact SR and GR were developed because of problems with the Newtonian framework. For that matter Newtonian principles applied to a black body led to the Ultraviolet Catastrophe. There was no Ultraviolet Catastrophe, so something was wrong with classical Newtonian theories. Attempts to fix that prolbem led to Quantum Mechanics (QM).

So I'm afraid the classical Newtonian style just doesn't work.

Bill Gill

I'm inclined to agree with this bit, but I fail to see the advantage of trying to ditch relativity and QM. In fact, without QM I wouldn't be posting this.

If we believe, and work with, only "what our observations reveal" we would have to ignore a lot of technological achievements. Finiter, do you have any suggestions for turning back the clock?

The only problem with Newtonian physics is it wrong in hundreds of cases so long as you like a error filled world shouldn't be a problem :-)

Like Newton's Principia?...but:


That's already been addressed in posts above.

Mathematical physicists can produce self-consistent models that may or may not apply to the world in which we live. That's why experiment and observation are required. But mathematical theory so often necessarily precedes observation. Examples: General Relativity and Quantum Theory. Such discoveries would otherwise be impossible.

At the heart of physical science is physics, and at the heart of physics is mathematics. Mathematics, applied to one of its progeny, the computer, is the basis of a logarithmic progression of science and technology.

"As far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." (Albert Einstein)

"The idea of the measuring rod and the idea of the clock coordinated with it in the theory of relativity do not find their exact correspondence in the real world." (Albert Einstein)

"There are many self-consistent mathematical systems which have scant relevance to physical phenomena or observations.” (Simon Prokhovnik; Head of the School of Mathematics, UNSW)

"Knowledge is one-dimensional; the proper application of knowledge is multi-dimensional. Only the extremely wise, and the exceptionally foolish, are not prepared to change.” (Confucius)

Shame that Confucius is not around today, perhaps he could clarify all that rolled up dimension stuff.

Actually, I'm reading Galileo's Finger (Peter Atkins) at the moment, and he has come closer than most to helping me get my head around it. Still a long way to go, though.

Not a bad read but it really doesn't help with QM, Alice and Bob still never experience the same reality ever :-)

Found a great article on QM information and reality physics which is simple enough to understand

Deals with a possible problem with a large quantum computer but thats a side issue you can ignore.

http://www.ctnsstars.org/conferences/papers/Holographic%20universe%20and%20information.pdf

In effect what it is saying is the world is autosterogram a 2D world which we see as 3 dimensional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram).

It's a shame that his principle - that knowledge should be properly applied - is still ignored by many 'experts'.

Is there any physical evidence of "...that rolled up dimension stuff." that engenders knowledge of same or is the concept merely another mathematical proposition?

There is many many experiments that can only be explained by extra dimension stuff or some different version of physical reality.

QM is like landmine zone full of them and why QM causes massive problems to even GR which overturned good old Newtonian physics.

First of all, we have to define reality. There are only three parameters connected with this physical world: mass, space and time. These three should be taken as real; that is, should have only real positive values greater than zero. So I think reality can be defined as follows: "Every object in this physical world is three dimensional; the mass of the object, the space occupied by it, and the period of time it remains at a particular position or in a particular form are greater than zero".
Any mathematical model or theory that advocates a result contrary to the above should be regarded as something out side physics.

Newtonian theories required correction. A classical approach would have been better, I just think, for making the required corrections. The non-classical methods, GR and QM, have created more problems, and these defy common logic.

Then you can't deal with 99% of the world.

A simple light beam defies your description ... so light doesn't come under you physics.

Electricty, magnetism, nuclear energy all clearly not physics then.

In fact you end up with so little left its probably easier for you to invent a new category .... hmmm good name .... Flatland Mechanics (FM).

So lets see what Flatland Mechanics(FM) has left in

-Newtonian phyics
-Some parts of GR but not SR


What else do you want to put in FM?

That, I think is the main difference between Newton's principia and GR/QM. In the case of Newton, mathematics followed observation; but in the case of GR/QM, observation follows mathematics. I think the acceleration in the filed of theoretical physics has been increasing till GR/QM, and with GR/QM it was expected that within a short period, everything would have been resolved. But after that the acceleration appears to be zero. So I suspect GR and QM are responsible for the stagnation.

Not exactly. Have anybody tried to incorporate wave nature into the corpuscular theory of light? The reverse has been tried: ie, incorporating particle nature to the waveform and that was a success. Light is light, whether it is waves showing some particle nature, or real particles moving along a three dimensional helical path. The observed results will be the same; but the former will not be part of physics if my proposal is accepted, and at the same time the latter will be a part of physics.

Incorrect it fails badly in ight of recent experiments I doubt you will find anyone buy copenhagen interpretation of light.

QM reached that position that it's interpretation was wrong and they set out to proove it
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/06/02/science-heisenberg-uncertainty-steinberg.html)

In itself it was a very simple experiment but it should be impossible under wave collapse theories. So it's not that the experiment changed just even doing a weak measurement should have collapsed the waveform which it didn't. So the interpretation was wrong.



How does a particle go through two slits at the same time?

Edit: Here is another experiment to consider
(http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm)

The bigger problem is how do you know the world has 3 dimensions ... this is a problem your generation usually understands very well because you have played 3D computer games and seen many 3D movies.

If your eyes and senses decieve you and we have a 3D illussion with like a CCD helmet on and sensory feed back would you actually realize that your world was not really 3D.

Thats a serious question to think about .. how would you know?

Finiter, if you have a better theory than QM and GR please provide an explanation of the precession of Mercury's perihelion, and the Ultraviolet Catastrophe, using your theory. Since you have a way to explain the problems with Newtonian mechanics you must be able to explain those 2 problems.

Bill Gill

Meanie at least I gave him the double slit which is easy compared to those two.

Easy!!!!
The Cosmos is infinite; our perception of it is finite, so there will always be things that don't make sense to us. We find explanations, but they are only more sophisticated versions of the crystal spheres, which Higgs may be about to join.

Just don't ask me to prove it. that's all.