natural theology

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Notes

Sunday 22 January - Saturday 28 January 2923

[Notebook: DB 88 Salvation]

[page 252]

Sunday 22 January 2023

Emily Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights, Emily (2022 film) - Wikipedia

Monday 23 January 2023
Tuesday 24 January 2023

A symmetry is a set of indistinguishable events like the rotations of an unmarked wheel, the spin of an unmarked coin or the roll of an unmarked die. Symmetries are broken by adding information to distinguish otherwise undistinguished states. Information is physical. Symmetry - Wikipedia, Rolf Landauer (1999): Information is a Physical Entity

The conservation of energy means that if we can only measure the energy of a conservative system, we see no change [as time goes by]. If we look at a coal fired power station from the point of view of energy, we see nothing happening despite all the movements or coal, water and electricity.

Act = god is the basic symmetry present

[page 253]

everywhere and always. Act applies to space and time, to mind and matter, to thought and work, to everything, the complete symmetry. What is the physical consequence, analogous to conservation of energy. Conservation of what? Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, Emmy Noether & Daniel Berlyne: Ideal Theory in Rings (Translation of "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" by Emmy Noether)

Conservation of action.

The basic symmetry of action is quantization which gives it the means to transmit information. This is the conservation that corresponds to action. How do we explain it in terms of closure and angular momentum and conplex numbers?

So quantization [and communication] is like walking, a series of complex operations that can stop at any moment with closure, an orbit or cycle. Closely related to quantum theory and information theory, matter and mind.

We are inclined to think of God as immense and infinite but there is no inconsistency between the traditional god and the quantum of action, closed and self conscious orbits physically identical to angular momentum

Action is conserved and transmitted in all communications in the universe. It appears in spacetime in three ways, as angular momentum, associated with space-momentum and energy-time in each case with the classical dimensions MLT1. It pre-exists spacetime, however and inhabits quantum mechanics which pre-exists and is the source of spacetime [see Cognitive cosmology: page 9; The active creation of Hilbert space and page 12: The quantum creation of Minkowski space].

Wednesday 25 January 2023

The Aristotelian concept of action reached its high point in the theological definition of God, but played no role in the subsequent development of science which grew independently of theology which was eliminated from mainstream intellectual development by institutional inquisitions and wars provoked by theological differences [Drake documents Galileo's lifelong difficulties with the Catholic Church]. The term reappeared, however, with the Lagrangian formulation of Newtonian mechanics and went on to become central to quantum mechanics through Planck's quantum of action and the work of Dirac and Feynman which led to the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics alongside the wave and matrix formulations. Stillman Drake (1995): Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, P. A. M. Dirac (1933): The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics, Feynman & Hibbs (1965): Feynman (1965)

I have often wondered about the ancient and modern meanings of act and the issue has come to a head now that I am trying to produce a concise summary of cognitive cosmology as an introduction to Lust for Life [Cognitive Cosmology: This site introduces the divine mind: the universe that empowers us to create ourselves]. .

Rovelli page 125: Spacetime is quantum. My answer: The Universe exists inside a system of pure action which is unquantized [and identical to the traditional God of Aristotle and Aquinas]. Within it fixed points are forced into existence. Rewrite Cognitive cosmology page 22: Gravitation and quantum theory—in the beginning and send it to him to be interpreted in the light of the rest of cognitive cosmology [part of critique of Rovelli (2017), to be included on cognitive cosmology page: cc00_rovelli.html ]. Carlo Rovelli (2017): Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7: Is God altogether simple?

Rovelli page 125: His scenario: 'In the morning the world is curved space-time where everything is continuous. In the afternoon the world is a flat one where discrete quanta overlap and interact.'

Point 1: The need for contact in quantum interactions defines the metric of Minkowski space [Cognitive cosmology page 12, link above].

Point 2: The initial singularity is not quantized [so gravitation is continuous and carries no data, like god] but the action of action is to act and as soon as the initial singularity acts it creates a quantum of action within itself, the passage from 0 to 1 dimensional Hilbert space.

Rovelli page 126: Gravitation is a physical field. Fields are quantized: 'It follows that space and time must also be quantum entities possessing these strange properties.' But see point 2: Minkowski spacetime is necessary for quantum theory to work by contact. It is in effect the cause of quantum mechanics which obeys Shannon's theory to become quantized, ie packetized [orthogonal symbols] for error free communication (see Cognitive cosmology page 11: Quantization: the mathematical theory of communication).

What is quantum space? What is quantum time? They are in effect Minkowski space, the tangent space of Einstein's differentiable manifold.

page 127: Progress comes from reconciling irreconcilables.

page 128: Matvei Bronstein Matvei Petrovoch Bronstein - Wikipedia

page 130: Minimal spatial distance Lp = √(hG/c3 [1.6 x 10-35 metre; corresponding momentum Δp = h/ (1.6 x 10-35) = (6.6 x 10-34) / (1.6 x 10-35) = 40 kilogram metre per second, a huge value for an elementary particle]. This calculation

[page 256]

assumes that the uncertainty principle creates [momentum] which seems to be a serious problem associated with the quantum vacuum leading to [the need for renormalization] and the cosmological constant problem. Planck units - Wikipedia, Renormalization - Wikipedia, Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia

Point 3: Quantum mechanics is prior to spacetime and formal so that the uncertainty principle is a kinetic rather than a dynamic principle, it does not create energy or black holes at the Planck length (see Cognitive cosmology page 13: Is Hilbert space independent of Minkowski space?).

Point 4: General covariance as understood by Einstein does not apply to quantum mechanics because all quantum entities are personalities and must communicate to be observed. We can interpolate from human behaviour to quantum behaviour using the principle of symmetry with resect to complexity (see Cognitive cosmology page 14: Measurement: the interface between Hilbert and Minkowski spaces).

Tennis: Two sources in competition [conversing] each with quasi-infinite spectrum.

Thursday 26 January 2023

Rovelli's book Reality is Not What it Seems has finally convinced me that the search for quantum gravitation is a wild goose chase. Rovelli makes the point that often in physics progress comes from reconciling two apparently disparate dogmas. In theology these dogmas are implicit in the idea that God is not the Universe,

[page 257]

My site cognitive cosmology is intended to show that the opposite is the case: given that the universe is divine, physics and theology must be mutually compatible. The root of the idea is that the quantum initial singularity is identical to the God of Aquinas, omnino simplex, [actus purus] and the [eternal] creator of the world. What I am now [hoping] to write is a summary of cogntive cosmology which will be a preface to Lust for Life and which I will call Dear Prof Rovelli. DPRovelli. The backbone of this page will be the Table of Contents of CC, an abstract of each page of cogntive cosmology, each page being treated as a new principle of theology. These notes are a critique of Rovelli's book, which will serve as the terminus a quo for the task outlined above.

Rovelli page 132: John Wheeler, 't Hooft and Veltman John Archibald Wheeler - Wikipedia, Gerard 't Hooft - Wikipedia, Martinus J G Veltman - Wikipedia

page 133: Chris Isham Christopher Isham - Wikipedia

page 134: 'Wheeler was at the heart of physics in the 20th century.' Bryce DeWitt. Bryce DeWitt - Wikipedia

page 135: De Witt: "a wave function of space" → 'equation of orbitals'. The Wheeler-De Witt equation, a modification of Hamilton-Jacoby. Does not contain a time variabe. Wheeler-DeWitt equation - Wikipedia, Hamilon-Jacobi Equation - Wikipedia

page 136: 'loop quantum gravity'. Rovelli prefers this to string theory. Page 137 note.

[page 258]

Rovelli page 139: Pullin & Lewandowski: Nodes and Links = graph, network

page 140: 'The gravitational field is a physical quantity and all physical quantities are subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.' Two problems: gravitation exists in spacetime, so at best we are talking about spacetime volumes that have nothing to do, per se, with quantum mechanics. Also Wheeler-DeWitt equation does not include time variable (page 125) so?

pagees 142-143: So much crap, given the length scale Lp the momentum must be huge (see page 130), multiplied by the number of quanta of space to make a universe. All this derived from an . . . equation (Wheeler-DeWitt) which is not written out and so probably non-existent - see Wiki [ref above], yet says space is dynamic [ie function of time by definition].

page 144: 'In a room more than E100 'grains of space'. Keeps saying the same falsehood: 'It follows that space, being a field, is made of quanta as well [no, space is gravitation, as god is, structureless, not yet quantized: fixed quanta fixed points are in space, which is continuous, convex and compact and so subject to fixed point theory].

page 145: 'atoms of space' a billion billion times smaller than the smallest of atomic nuclei [proton diameter 2E-15 metre, Planck length 2E-35, difference E20 ish]. Proton - Wikipedia

page 146: Demacritus says matter 'atoms'. Rovelli decries Democritus' continuous space.

page 147: Spin networks: here he is getting close to the quantum computer because every message carries a quantum of action, ie a quantum of spin, a quantum of angular momentum [eg photon].

[page 259]

page 148: 'photons exist in space, whereas quanta of gravity constitute space themselves' [I would prefer to say that photons are intrinsic to space, creating contact communications through the Minkowski metric, see page 12 above: quantum creation of Minkowski space]. note: 'The quantum number of the states of photons in Fock's space is the momentum, Fourier's transformation of position. [Planck time Pt is 5E-44 sec, so frequency of photon with Planck momentum is about 1 / Pt = 2E43 sec-1]

page 149; 'loop', orbit, group, structure, particle. Note here Einstein's mistake with general covariance with respect to quantum sources (personalities) does not apply to gravitation since it is structureless, no observers (quanta observe one another through their spectra]. 'At an extremely small scale, space is a fluctuating swarm of quanta of gravity which act upon each other' How? Massless gravitons, 4D photons?

page 150: 'Physical space is a fabric resulting from the ceaseless swarming of this web of relations. These relations must work by contact. He [never mentions gravitons].

page 151: Time does not exist.

' Things (quanta) do not inhabit space, they dwell over one another [superposition?] and space is the fabric of their neighbouring relations' [no bosons, just disembodied 'relations'?].

page 152: 'Time emerges, like space, from the quantum gravity field' [where did Minkowski go?]. We would say, in the zero energy universe that gravitation is the structureless potential created by [the] zero sum bifurcation that creates physical quanta. No time in Wheeler-DeWitt consistent with divine quantum gravitation - no space either, just Hilbert formalism, see all the whinging by Omnes - silly as Rovelli. Roland Omnes (2002): Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science

[page 260]

Ie Hilbert space is a formal description of potential, like music to which we can all give our own meaning.

Rovelli page 153: Gravitational time dilation - high gravitational potential slows time. 'every object in the universe has its own time running at a pace determined by the local gravitational field'? We do not see time on a photon, ie from an observer's point of view a photon experiences no time. Source and sink of photon are the same point in Minkowski space.

page 155: Galileo: S = ½at2

page 156: G timing chandelier with pulse, ie we can compare times.

page 157: 'In other words the existence of variable times is useful assumption not the result of an observation.' Crap, comparing times, distances and masses is a matter of comparison in three dimensions, T, L, M.

page 158: 'We must learn to think of the world not as something that changes in time, but in some other way.' So how do we get around Aristotle: 'Tempus est numerus motus secundum prius et posterius'. How stupid can this man get, rather like Trump trying to find suitable special pleadings to prove that his election defeat did not happen.

[page 261]

Rovelli page 160: space-time box : 'The box is not in spacetime, it includes spacetime. We have to consider the whole box and the process within it. Now back to Heisenberg's street lights.

page 161: Feynman's path integral. 'Quantum mechanics assumes that between the initial boundary, where the two balls enter and the final boundary, where they exit, there is no definite spacetime nor definite trajectory of the balls.' Nevertheless there is some causality or the claim to be able to compute something would be worthless and all this palava is meant to be finding come fundamental relationship between initial and final states expressed as a spectrum of eigenvalues.

Quantum network is a spin network, communication by quanta of angular momentum, ie logical operators whose simplest example is not

page 162: 'spinfoam'. 'The equations of loop quantum gravity express the probability of a process in terms of sums over spinfoams with given boundaries. All this is going on at the Planck length and corresponding enormous momentum or Planck time and corresponding enormous energy, ie it is all bullshit. Give me cognitive cosmology any day. It may be time to stop being hypothetical and begin to fight for a model.

page 163: 'spinfoam technique is actually a beautiful merging of the two main calculation techniques used n the context of the standard model: Feynman diagrams and the lattice approximation. Creutz Michael Creutz (1983): Quarks Gluons and Lattices

[page 262]

Lattice approximates continuous space with a discrete lattice. But did we not ditch continuous space quite a few pages back. See note page 165. I've heard more plausible used horse salespersons.

Rovelli page 166: 'loop quantum T Shirt'. What happened to the heuristic of simplicity?

page 167: What is the world made of? 'The world is made entirely of quantum fields.' How do these embody the T Shirt equations? 'Fields that live on themselves', maybe Hilbert spaces' - 'all of this is nothing but the manifestation of a single type of entity - covariant quantum fields.' We note here that covariance fails in quantum mechanics because one must act to be observed. Here we invoke personality and invariance with respect to complexity.

page 168; Heisenberg, Anaximander.

page 149; ' The same mathematics coherently describes the quantum gravitational fields as other quantum fields' So where are the results? We are all now living happily ever after in a new world of impossible fantasy.

page 170: 'Infinity disappears' even though it only ever existed as a mathematical ideal.

[page 263]

Elements. Rosza Peter Rosza Peter (1961): Playing with Infinity: Mathematical Explorations and Excursions

Rovelli page 175: Beyond the Big Bang

page 177: Big bang proves the creation of Genesis?

page 178: ' The universe, in a far distant past, was extremely hot and compact. This is impossible, so we go with the eternal [quantum] divine universe [which implies, if gravitation is divine, that gravitation exists outside space and time?].

page 179; Quantum cosmology - all we need is that the action of action is to act [like a budding plant] plus consistency [in selection].

page 180: The Big Bounce. Where did all the entropy come from? Where did it go?

page 183: Empirical confirmations.

Friday 27 January 2023

Rovelli page 185: The 'experimental data' for quantum gravity are general relativity and quantum mechanics.' General relativity is a mathematically continuous theory and therefore carries no information. All the entropy (information) lies in the discrete elements of quantum mechanics. We couple this with the heuristic of simplicity [, the need of 3D to have uninterrupted connection] and symmetry with respect to complexity to lay the foundations of a physical theology based on the god of Aquinas and the procession [budding] of divinities found in the Trinity.

[page 264]

Rovelli page 186: String theory - no supersymmetry

page 187: Higgs, cosmc background, gravitational waves (4D)

page 189: Rovelli does not like arbitrary hypothesed (no mention of evolution). 'our fantasy is too limited'.

page 191: Ashtekar, Agullo, Nelson re spectrum of cosmic background.

page 193: Cosmic gravitational background radiation.

page 195; quantum black holes: [all elements of Planck length / frequency are black holes, so all we are doing is creating more black holes, no space until they evaporate]

page 198: Hot surfce of back hole quanta of space, whose momentum, energy and temperature is a function of 1/Lp ! 'In the world of quantum mechanics everything vibrates, nothing stops still. The impssibility of anything being entirely and continuously in a place is a the heart of quantum mechanics.' ?

page 199; Eugenio Bianchi calculated the temperature of black hole. How does photon escape?

page 200: Black holes explode by quantum bounce?

page 202; The End of Infinity - 'There is no lower limit to the divisibility [resolution] of space'. Infinity, divergence and renormalizastion. Probably made even worse by the implications of Planck length and time.

[page 265]

Rovelli: page 209 informstion - Shannon.

page 213: ' The world . . . is . . . a network of correlations between sets of atoms.'

page 214: Boltzmann. Page 215: 'The total amount of entropy can only increase because informsationc an only diminish,' But information is proportional to entropy.

page 216: 'Quantum mechanics can be understood as the discovery that information in nature is always finite.' Tell that to von Neumanm.

page 218: Bekenstein on entropy of black holes. Page 219: 'Where does the information that has fallen into the black hole as the black hole shrinks end up?'

page 219: Thermal time: He says 'Time plays no role at the fundasmental level of physics.' So what does phase mean in quantum theory? page 220: 'The origin of time may be similar to that of heat: it comes from the averages of many microscopic variables.'

page 221: Heat (he means entropy) distinguishes past from future. Gravitation transmits energy but not information (lunar orbit [and tides]).

page 222: 'Heat produces time 'Time is information we don't have. Time is our ignoranc,' You wish. What is bandwidth?

page 223: Reality and information

[page 266]

Rovelli page 224; He has a lot to say about information and relations but nothing to say about communication, as though relations just happen without the contact necessary to transfer information.

page 228; 'Am I sure of all this. I am not.'

page 230; We do now know 'which equations truly describe the world.' Why should any equations describe the world? [maybe Omnes is right, equations are no help.] What is more likely to describe the world is artificial intelligence [evolution]

page 231: 'it is not science which is disturbed by religion; there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.

Saturday 28 January 2023

So where does Rovelli's story leave us? Mired in a load of contradictions whose source seems to be an absurd misuse of mathematics arising from the notion that spacetime is the foundation of the universe. . . . Reality it is just one of the early products of quantum computation which is the foundation of evolution which has only one constraint: survival. . . . What we get from this is the weird and wonderful world of species which includes as a subset various mathematical proofs

[page 267]

and results. So tomorrow we begin, like Aristotle, to criticize the predecessors and lay down the truth as the standard by which we demolish falsehoods, the most fundamental of which is the ludicrous idea of quantum gravitation [?].

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Further reading

Books

Creutz (1983), Michael , Quarks Gluons and Lattices, Cambridge UP 1983 Jacket: 'This book introduces the lattice approach to quantum field theory. The spectacular successes of this technique include compelling evidence that exchange of gauge gluons can confine the quarks within subnuclear matter. . . . The treatment begins with the lattice definition of the path integral method and ends on Monte Carlo simulation methods.' 
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Drake (1995), Stillman, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, Dover Publications 1995 Jacket: Based entirely on original sources, Professor Drake's scrupulously researched study includes translations of much correspondence and other material previously unpublished in English. The result is a volume of exceptional richness and immediacy that paints a vivid portrait of one of history's greatest minds, leaving the philosophical implications of his work aside and focussing on the enduring scientific achievements that represent Galileo's true legacy to mankind.' 
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Feynman (1965), Richard P, and Albert P Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, McGraw Hill 1965 Preface: 'The fundamental physical and mathematical concepts which underlie the path integral approach were first developed by R P Feynman in the course of his graduate studies at Princeton, ... . These early inquiries were involved with the problem of the infinite self-energy of the electron. In working on that problem, a "least action" principle was discovered [which] could deal successfully with the infinity arising in the application of classical electrodynamics.' As described in this book. Feynman, inspired by Dirac, went on the develop this insight into a fruitful source of solutions to many quantum mechanical problems.  
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Omnes (2002), Roland, and Arturo Sangalli (translator), Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science, Princeton University Press 2002 From Booklist 'Einstein and Aristotle meet and shake hands in this illuminating exposition of the unexpected return of common sense to modern science. A companion volume to Omnes' earlier Understanding Quantum Mechanics (1999), this book recounts—with mercifully little mathematical detail—how this century's pioneering researchers severed the ties that for millennia had anchored science within the bounds of clear and intuitive perceptions of the world. As an abstruse mathematical formalism replaced the visual imagination, scientists jettisoned normal understandings of cause and effect, of coherence and continuity, setting science adrift from philosophical conceptions going back as far as Democritus. But when theorists recently began to weigh the "consistent histories" of various quantum events, the furthest frontiers of science became strangely familiar, as rigorous logic revalidated much of classical physics and many of the perceptions of common sense. With a contagious sense of wonder, Omnes invites his readers, who need no expertise beyond an active curiosity, to share in the exhilarating denouement of humanity's 2,500-year quest to fathom the natural order. And in a tantalizing conclusion, he beckons readers toward the mystery that still shrouds the origins of formulas that physicists love for their beauty even before testing them for their truth. An essential acquisition for public library science collections.' Bryce Christensen 
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Peter (1961), Rozsa, and Z. P Dienes (translator), Playing with Infinity: Mathematical Explorations and Excursions, Dover 1961 ' This popular account of the many mathematical concepts relating to infinity is one of the best introductions to this subject and to the entire field of mathematics. Dividing her book into three parts—The Sorcereer's Apprentice, The Creative Role of Form, and the Self-Critique of pure Reason— Peter develops her material in twenty-two chapters that sound almost too appealing to be true; playing with fingers, coloring the grey number series, we catch infinity again, the line is filled up, some workshop secrets, the building rocks and so on.' 
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Rovelli (2017), Carlo, and Simon Carnell & Erica Sere (Translators), Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, Allen Lane Penguin 2017 ' Be prepared for your intellectual foundations to be vaporized . . . Carlo Rovelli will melt your synapses with this exploration of physical reality and what the universe is formed of at the very deepest level . . . Quantum gravity is so new that there aren't many popular books about it. You couldn't be in better hands than Rovelli, a world expert.' Tara Shears, The Times Higher Edcation 
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Links

Alex Lo, ‘Global Britain’ cannot lead itself out of dire straits, let alone Asia, ' But amid all the doom and gloom, the conservative daily The Telegraph runs a big commentary celebrating “Global Britain” as, the writer claims, the post-Brexit nation “has become a military leader in the East”. What? The National Health Service, the closest thing Britain has to a national religion, is on the brink of collapse. The country’s national power grid is falling apart this winter, with blackouts being reported as voluntary power turn-offs by households. Seriously, families are being paid by the state not to use energy, which is more expensive. Meanwhile, the British economy is in worse shape than most Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. A BBC headline warns “thousands of firms” face going bust this year because of the fallouts from Brexit. But amid all the doom and gloom, the conservative daily The Telegraph runs a big commentary celebrating “Global Britain” as, the writer claims, the post-Brexit nation “has become a military leader in the East”. What? The average British pundit may be too weary and sensible to write such a provocative op-ed at this time. So it makes sense that it was actually penned by none other than Tony Abbott, a former prime minister of Australia. “It is easy to be so consumed by day-to-day international events that you miss a major development,” he wrote. “Some days ago, one such development occurred. A treaty, signed at the Tower of London, allowing British forces to be stationed in Japan, and vice versa, marks a new phase in the re-emergence of Global Britain.” His basic argument, if I paraphrase correctly, is that all the Anglo-American nations of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance must band together to flood the South China Sea, and even the whole region, with their military hardware to deter China.' back

Aquinas 20, Summa I, 3, 7: Whether God is altogether simple? , 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7, Is God altogether simple?, 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back

Australian Ballet and Bangara Dance Theatre, Warumuk: In the Dark Night, back

Bryce DeWitt - Wikipedia, Bryce DeWitt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' [De Witt] pioneered work in the quantization of general relativity and, in particular, developed canonical quantum gravity, manifestly covariant methods, and heat kernel algorithms. DeWitt formulated the Wheeler–DeWitt equation for the wave function of the universe with John Archibald Wheeler and advanced the formulation of Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. With his student Larry Smarr, he originated the field of numerical relativity.' back

Carlo Rovelli, Notes on Relational Quantum Mechanics, ' Sidetracked to Rovelli Carlo Rovelli: Relational Quantum Mechanics Rovelli page 1: 'This paper is based on a critique of a notion generally assumed uncritically. . . . The notion rejected here is the notion of absolute or observer independent state of a system; equivalently the notion of observer-independent values of physical quantities. ' This conclusion derives from the observation that the experimental evidence at the basis of quantum mechanics forces us to accept that distinct observers get different descriptions of the same events.' My point of view in this regard is that quantum mechanics synthesizes most of what we have learned about the physical world: the issue is not to replace or fix it but to understand what precisely it says about the world; ' back

Carolyn Y. Johnson, Earth’s inner core seems to be slowing its spin, ' In the mid-1990s scientists found evidence that Earth’s inner core, a superheated ball of iron slightly smaller than the moon, was spinning at its own pace, just a bit faster than the rest of the planet. Now a study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that around 2009, the core slowed its rotation to whirl in sync with the surface for a time — and is now lagging behind it. The provocative findings come after years of research and deep scientific disagreements about the core and how it influences some of the most fundamental aspects of our planet, including the length of a day and fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field.' back

Christopher Isham - Wikipedia, Christopher Isham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Isham's main research interests are quantum gravity and foundational studies in quantum theory. He was the inventor of an approach to temporal quantum logic called the HPO formalism, and has worked on loop quantum gravity and quantum geometrodynamics. Together with other physicists, such as John C. Baez, Isham is known as a proponent of the utility of category theory in theoretical physics. In recent years, since at least 1997, he has been working on a new approach to quantum theory based on topos theory.' back

Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia, Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In cosmology, the cosmological constant problem or vacuum catastrophe is the disagreement between the observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and theoretical large value of zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory. Depending on the Planck energy cutoff and other factors, the discrepancy is as high as 120 orders of magnitude, a state of affairs described by physicists as "the largest discrepancy between theory and experiment in all of science" and "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics".' back

Emily (2022 film) - Wikipedia, Emily (2022 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Emily is a 2022 biographical drama film written and directed by Frances O'Connor in her directorial debut. It is a part-fictional portrait of English writer Emily Brontë (played by Emma Mackey), concentrating on a fictional romantic relationship with the young curate William Weightman. Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Alexandra Dowling, Amelia Gething, Adrian Dunbar and Gemma Jones also appear in supporting roles.' back

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, ' 1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s Heaven—and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.' back

Emmy Noether & Daniel Berlyne, Ideal Theory in Rings (Translation of "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" by Emmy Noether), ' This paper is a translation of the paper "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen", written by Emmy Noether in 1920, from the original German into English. It in particular brings the language used into the modern world so that it is easily understandable by the mathematicians of today. The paper itself deals with ideal theory, and was revolutionary in its field, that is modern algebra. Topics covered include: the representation of an ideal as the least common multiple of irreducible ideals; the representation of an ideal as the least common multiple of maximal primary ideals; the association of prime ideals with primary ideals; the representation of an ideal as the least common multiple of relatively prime irreducible ideals; isolated ideals; the representation of an ideal as the product of coprime irreducible ideals; equivalent concepts regarding modules.' back

Gerard 't Hooft - Wikipedia, Gerard 't Hooft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Gerardus (Gerard) 't Hooft (Dutch: [ˈɣeːrɑrt ət ˈɦoːft]; born July 5, 1946) is a Dutch theoretical physicist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his thesis advisor Martinus J. G. Veltman "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions". His work concentrates on gauge theory, black holes, quantum gravity and fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics. His contributions to physics include a proof that gauge theories are renormalizable, dimensional regularization and the holographic principle. back

Hamilon-Jacobi Equation - Wikipedia, Hamilon-Jacobi Equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedis, ' The Hamilton–Jacobi equation is also the only formulation of mechanics in which the motion of a particle can be represented as a wave. In this sense, it fulfilled a long-held goal of theoretical physics (dating at least to Johann Bernoulli in the eighteenth century) of finding an analogy between the propagation of light and the motion of a particle. The wave equation followed by mechanical systems is similar to, but not identical with, Schrödinger's equation, as described below; for this reason, the Hamilton–Jacobi equation is considered the "closest approach" of classical mechanics to quantum mechanics.' back

Jack Brook & Phin Rathana, Video goes viral after Cambodia tries to silence popular rapper, ' Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Cambodian rapper Kea Sokun was once jailed for his hard-hitting lyrics, but that did not stop him from forging ahead with his latest release, Workers Blood, set to scenes of striking garment workers beaten by military police. At least four workers died in the protests.. . . Within days of the song’s release on January 3 — the ninth anniversary of the government’s deadly response to a vast garment workers’ strike — the Ministry of Culture warned the music video was “inciting content that may cause insecurity and social disorder”. . . . The censorship of Workers Blood is part of an ongoing crackdown on freedom of expression in Cambodia that is gathering pace ahead of national elections in July. Nearing his fourth decade in power, Prime Minister Hun Sen outlawed the main opposition party ahead of the last elections five years ago, and is now preparing to hand control of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to his son Hun Manet.' back

Jennifer Rubin, Opinion: In blocking an AP Black studies course, DeSantis tells us who he is, ' Florida’s Republican governor and presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis has made a name for himself by harassing Black voters, setting up a system to sue teachers for teaching race in ways that might offend Whites, singling out LGBTQ youth (while gagging teachers) and engaging in extreme gerrymandering to reduce the voting power of minorities. Now he’s gone full-blown white supremacist, banning the College Board’s Advanced Placement for African American studies course from Florida’s schools. . . . White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted the move (while clarifying that the White House does not dictate curriculum). Jean-Pierre declared that it is “not new from what we’re seeing, especially from Florida, sadly.” She pointed out that state officials “didn’t block AP European History. … They didn’t block our art history. But the state chooses to block a course that is meant for high-achieving high school students to learn about their history of arts and culture.” She called the decision “incomprehensible".' back

John Archibald Wheeler - Wikipedia, John Archibald Wheeler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911 – April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission. . . . He is best known for popularizing the term "black hole," as to objects with gravitational collapse already predicted during the early 20th century, for inventing the terms "quantum foam", "neutron moderator", "wormhole" and "it from bit", and for hypothesizing the "one-electron universe". Stephen Hawking referred to him as the "hero of the black hole story".' back

Kathryn David, Into the Breach: The role of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, ' Yet, perhaps the most consequential impact of Habsburg state support for the Church was the creation of a highly educated clergy deeply ingrained in European networks of both religious and secular scholarship. And because the Greek Catholic Church, like the Orthodox Church, permits married clergy, these highly educated clergy soon became scions for families that served as the foundation of an intelligentsia in Austria-Hungary. It was these educated priests and their children who laid the foundation for the Ukrainian national movement in the late nineteenth century, a movement that emerged alongside Russian, Polish, and Jewish national movements in the region. These activists sought to forge connections with Orthodox Ukrainians across the border in imperial Russia, grappling with a key question: Could a population that straddled multiple empires and confessions become one people?' back

Martinus J G Veltman - Wikipedia, Martinus J G Veltman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Martinus Justinus Godefriedus Veltman (born June 27, 1931 in Waalwijk) is a Dutch theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics with his former student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory.' back

Matvei Petrovoch Bronstein - Wikipedia, Matvei Petrovoch Bronstein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Bronstein introduced the cGh scheme for classifying physical theories, with the aim of unifying special relativity (denoted by its constant c (the speed of light), gravitation (denoted by the gravitational constant G), and quantum mechanics (denoted by the Planck constant h).[2] He was married to Lydia Chukovskaya, a writer, human rights activist, and a friend of Andrei Sakharov. In August 1937, while was living in his apartment at 38 Rubinstein Street, St. Petersburg, Bronstein was arrested as part of the Great Purge. He was convicted by a list trial in February 1938 and executed the same day in a Leningrad prison. His wife was told that he had been sentenced to 10 years of labor camps without the right of correspondence. . . . In 1990, his wife had a monument erected in the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery where he was thought to have been buried. The Bronstein Prize in Loop Quantum Gravity is offered to post-doctoral scholars in the field, the inaugural winner of which was Eugenio Bianchi in 2013. ' back

News Agencies, ‘Legal disgrace’: Russia shuts down its oldest human rights group, ' A Moscow court ordered the closure of Russia’s oldest human rights organisation, the Moscow Helsinki Group, silencing another respected institution as a political crackdown continues. The judge with the Moscow City Court granted a justice ministry request to “dissolve” the rights group, the court announced in a statement on Wednesday. . . . The Moscow Helsinki Group was created in 1976 to monitor Soviet authorities’ commitment to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and was considered to be Russia’s oldest rights group. But its members were jailed, harassed, and expelled from the country and the Moscow Helsinki Group had to suspend operations in 1982 under pressure from Soviet authorities. Its work was re-established by former political prisoners and rights activists during the perestroika movement – a series of political and economic reforms – in 1989.' back

Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Noether's (first) theorem states that any differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. The theorem was proved by German mathematician Emmy Noether in 1915 and published in 1918. The action of a physical system is the integral over time of a Lagrangian function (which may or may not be an integral over space of a Lagrangian density function), from which the system's behavior can be determined by the principle of least action.' back

P. A. M. Dirac (1933), The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics, ' . . . there is an alternative formulation [to the Hamiltonian] in classical dynamics, provided by the Lagrangian. This requires one to work in terms of coordinates and velocities instead of coordinates and momenta. The two formulation are closely related but there are reasons for believing that the Lagrangian one is more fundamental. . . . Secondly the lagrangian method can easily be expressed relativistically, on account of the action function being a relativistic invariant; . . .. ' [This article was first published in Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion, Band 3, Heft 1 (1933), pp. 64–72.] back

Planck units - Wikipedia, Planck units - Wikipedia, the free encycloedia, ' In particle physics and physical cosmology, Planck units are a set of units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of four universal physical constants, in such a manner that these physical constants take on the numerical value of 1 when expressed in terms of these units. . Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, these units are also known as natural units because the origin of their definition comes only from properties of nature and not from any human construct. Planck units are only one system of several systems of natural units, but Planck units are not based on properties of any prototype object or particle (that would be arbitrarily chosen), but rather on only the properties of free space.' back

Proton - Wikipedia, Proton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the proton (Greek proton = first) is a subatomic particle with an electric charge of one positive fundamental unit . . . , a diameter of about 1.65 x 10-15 m, and a mass of 938.27231(28) MeV/c2 (1.6726 X 10 - 27 kg), 1.007 276 466 88(13) u or about 1836 times the mass of an electron. Protons are spin 1/2 fermions and are composed of three quarks, making them baryons. The two up quarks and one down quark of the proton are held together by the strong force, mediated by gluons' back

Renormalization - Wikipedia, Renormalization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Renormalization is a collection of techniques in quantum field theory, the statistical mechanics of fields, and the theory of self-similar geometric structures, that are used to treat infinities arising in calculated quantities by altering values of quantities to compensate for effects of their self-interactions. But even if it were the case that no infinities arose in loop diagrams in quantum field theory, it could be shown that renormalization of mass and fields appearing in the original Lagrangian is necessary.' back

Robert G. Patman, Liberal hawks versus realist doves: who is winning the ideological war over the future of Ukraine?, ' The recent decision by Olaf Scholz’s German government to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks – after weeks of clear reluctance to provoke Vladimir Putin – was more than a domestic policy shift. It also demonstrated how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could prove to be a tipping point in a long-running battle of ideas between two schools of thought in the field of international affairs. , , , The Russian invasion has also significantly eroded the realist case for ending the conflict. The argument that NATO enlargement caused the Putin regime to attack looks unconvincing. It was not Washington but the states of Eastern Europe, historically fearful of Russian dominance, that clamoured for NATO membership. . . . With the right level of military support in 2023, Ukraine could realistically defeat Putin’s invading army. Ultimately, the hawkish liberal vision of helping to ensure Putin’s defeat has seemingly prevailed because it offered the best prospect of justice for the victim of aggression. It also bolsters an international rules-based order threatened by the illegal use of force.' back

Rolf Landauer (1999), Information is a Physical Entity, 'Abstract: This paper, associated with a broader conference talk on the fundamental physical limits of information handling, emphasizes the aspects still least appreciated. Information is not an abstract entity but exists only through a physical representation, thus tying it to all the restrictions and possibilities of our real physical universe. The mathematician's vision of an unlimited sequence of totally reliable operations is unlikely to be implementable in this real universe. Speculative remarks about the possible impact of that on the ultimate nature of the laws of physics are included.' back

Symmetry - Wikipedia, Symmetry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Symmetry (from Ancient Greek: συμμετρία symmetria "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definition, and is usually used to refer to an object that is invariant under some transformations; including translation, reflection, rotation or scaling. Although these two meanings of "symmetry" can sometimes be told apart, they are intricately related, and hence are discussed together in this article. ' back

Thomas Piketty, Novaya Gazeta Interview, ' Russia’s usually one of the world leaders when it comes to inequality in assets’ distribution. Do you believe that what’s going on in Russia — the authoritarianism and the war — could be a consequence of that? Piketty: I think high inequality of wealth can come together with many different political regimes. Democracies and autocracies today have a lot more in common than they admit. There are very important differences, of course, but one crucial common point is that we live in an era of extreme inequality and very high protection of wealth owners and very little protection of people who do not have that wealth. If you try to freeze the assets of wealthy oligarchs, they have all the legal protection to go to court in order to protest [this decision] and to be protected against that. But if, let’s say you are in Russia, you lose almost half of your wage or half of your pension because of inflation, you cannot go to a Western court in London or Paris to protest and ask for compensation. We are so accustomed to this very asymmetrical legal system that we find it perfectly fine, but in fact, it’s a very biased view of the rule of law. What I mean is Western democracies like to say that they are completely different Russian and Chinese autocracies, and to some extent they are different, of course. But they have things in common, including this high tolerance for wealth, which could very well continue even in a democratic Russia. I very much believe in electoral democracy and think it’s very important, but it is not enough. We also need to build a more egalitarian and a more equitable world, both in Russia in the future and in the West. back

Wheeler-DeWitt equation - Wikipedia, Wheeler-DeWitt equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Wheeler–DeWitt equation for theoretical physics and applied mathematics, is a field equation attributed to John Archibald Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt. The equation attempts to mathematically combine the ideas of quantum mechanics and general relativity, a step towards a theory of quantum gravity. In this approach, time plays a role different from what it does in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, leading to the so-called 'problem of time'. More specifically, the equation describes the quantum version of the Hamiltonian constraint using metric variables.' back

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