Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Hitch-hikers' Guide to Infinity

I feel sure you must have reached this conclusion via a logical process, but it eludes me.

I feel sure you must have reached this conclusion via a logical process, but it eludes me.

Sorry, I'm not intentionally repeating myself. For reasons best known to itself, my computer is getting into duplications. Like me, it's getting on a bit.

Let’s look at wave/particle duality and in particular the extensive nature of the wave. I believe that in QM the full wave description of all the waves goes on to infinity in space and time. Those who are familiar with my views on infinity will know that I have problems with finite things going to infinity. However, one has to consider the possibility that the wave function of any particle might not be finite at any stage of its existence.

Physicists can create Bose Einstein condensates that are of a finite and observable size, but in which the atoms exist together and jointly within this space and it is not even theoretically possible to distinguish between them or where they are individually. Effectively, every atom in the condensate occupies every part of the finite space occupied by the whole condensate.

Extend this idea to the “infinity of space and time” occupied by every wave function of every particle. We now have an infinity in which every part is equal to the whole. The entire concept of parts, or divisions, becomes just a function of our restricted view of eternity/reality.

It might be argued that temporal divisions must exist in order to accommodate the changes between waves and particles, but this is only a perceptual change. A particle may be no more than a contracted description of the full wave; a sort of “Fourier transform”. The distinction between waves and particles may be no more than perceptual distinctions that are necessary for us to make sense of our 4D Universe.

Thus, QM becomes a window on infinity which only the “shut up and calculate” mentality prevents us form looking through.

Lack of response to the last post suggests that fellow posters might consider this thread as deceased, perhaps with some justification. However, I still have the idea going round in my head, so a further attempt at “exorcism” might be worth a try.

Let's return to the wave/particle duality. My understanding is that QM is consistent with the idea that particles may not actually exist as physical entities. The more precisely one can locate a wave, the more it resembles a particle. This might lead to the conclusion that a particle is nothing more than a precisely located wave.

The next step is to consider that the wave, in its own frame of reference, is still an expanded wave, going to infinity and occupying the entire Universe. Only in the frame of reference of an observer might the wave be considered as a particle, having location and mass.

The idea that every wave occupies the entire Universe, and might continue to do so, even if an observer perceives it as being localised, may be counter-intuitive, but that certainly does not necessarily mean it cannot be the case. QM tells us that our reality is non-local, although this is not what we perceive. Instantaneous actions between entangled particles can (probably) occur over boundless distances. Something links these particles. Would it be totally illogical to suggest that they are linked by their wave nature, and that this wave nature is their normal and permanent state? If this were the case, it might be only our restricted 4D view of reality that obliges us to interpret their state as particulate under certain conditions. If this were the case, it would follow that their mass must be "supplied" by observation.

I guess other would-be posters are less motivated than yourself. My (perhaps wrong) impression is that you'd prefer to regard infinity and eternity as real. Regarding science: if, in discovering how the universe works, it turns out that some things are theoretically infinite then so be it. My own intuition says that infinity and eternity are real, but that's not science - neither is it anti-science.

It's not so much a matter of preferring to regard infinity (& eternity) as being real. It's just that if it is not real, there must have been a time when there was nothing, in which case, there should surely still be nothing now; but manifestly there is something.

Agreed. This is Occam’s Razor at it’s very best. This is why I am firmly encamped in the reality of infinity. Theories that imply spontaneous existence are not palatable to me.

Happy New Years to All!

Good to see you again KG, and not just because you agree.
It seems that it is not too difficult to get people to agree that there can never have been a time when there was absolutely nothing; the problem appears to come if you try to look at what the something that has always existed might be.

"the problem appears to come if you try to look at what the something that has always existed might be."

It is MOTS (more of the same).

That's one of the problems with infinity; it's all MOTS! As child, that was something I found slightly worrying about the idea of eternal life.

That should bring Rev into this thread.