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The Forum > Article Comments > Surfing gravity's waves still tough after decades of trying > Comments

Surfing gravity's waves still tough after decades of trying : Comments

By Mark S. Lawson, published 5/6/2015

Ever since Einstein theorised that gravity waves existed, scientists have been trying to detect them. That century long quest may soon be over.

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There's not a lot to comment on, spindoc. None of it made a lot of sense.

For example, "the laws of physics and those of the laws of general/special relativity" is a little confusing, since relativity, either in its special form based on Lorentz's transformations or its more general form based on Riemannian geometry is a fundamental aspect of physics.

The discussion of group symmetry is also somewhat void of meaning, since the point of symmetry is that it allows for the postulation of the existence of certain types of particles/behavioural phenomena based on what has already been observed and the assumption that symmetry is to be preserved. You are somewhat on the right track, in that if string theory is shown to have validity, then it implies the existence of a new class of symmetry, the so-called "supersymmetry", which may have some potential for unifying QM and GR.

The Planck length is not the same as Planck time, although there is a correlation in that the Planck length represents the minimum theoretical length at which it is possible, using Heisenberg's model, to define a particle in classical terms. Below that length, at the speed of light in a vacuum, indeterminacy is the rule. Of course, Heisenberg wasn't quite right, as has been shown by the use of so-called "weak" measurements, but it'll do.

Quantum electrodynamics (QED) and quantum chronodynamics(QCD) are not "complete", they are both approaches to understanding the behaviour of quantum systems and both of them manage to unify 3 of the 4 fundamental forces. Quantum gravity is still elusive.

The Higgs business has not "unified" anything, it has merely confirmed the predicted existence of a particle at approximately the energy predicted for the Higgs. That is exciting, because it opens the possibility that there is something else going on that causes the energy to disagree with theory.

Now, about that link...
Posted by Craig Minns, Friday, 5 June 2015 4:15:13 PM
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'morning Craig,

Just wondering why you decided to challenge the expression "Quantum Jelly" when all the time you actually disagree with all the scientists at CERN? Why didn't you post that in the first place? Yeh, OK, I did bait you but hey, who took the bait?

What was it I said about doing a " Minns"?

I'm so impressed that you are willing to put your rhetoric and pseudo-science up against the thousands in the global scientific community who's nations spent $10bn on CERN. Now all you have to do is your own research to find the "Quantum Jelly" reference, in the process you will of course, have to read all the research that contradicts you.

Let me guess, you believe in CAGW right?

Enjoy.
Posted by spindoc, Friday, 5 June 2015 5:04:11 PM
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Mark Lawson here
thanks for all the reaction guys.. off the grid for most of today and now in a rush so I won't join in this learned discussion but, wow, for once no-one is hostile.. anyway, tnks
Posted by Curmudgeon, Friday, 5 June 2015 5:17:16 PM
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Spindoc, if the people at CERN were to tell me the guff that you have put up here then yes, I would disagree with them. However, as they most certainly would not do any such thing, then I see no reason that we might do anything other than agree.

However, I’m still willing to learn from your groundbreaking paper on “quantum jelly”, which doesn’t appear to be carried by any academic library source that I have been able to locate. CERN appears to be similarly mystified.

I’m sure a person with your dedication to the truth and accuracy of public information wouldn’t simply make such a thing up. Surely it must, like the garbled nonsense in your earlier comments on this thread and the one on Indian grain cropping, have been inserted under your name by some unscrupulous and cunning ne’er-do-well seeking to discredit you by associating your name with the sort of commentary normally made by other brainless nincompoops.

No doubt you’ll want to set the record straight. A link would clarify the issue nicely.
Posted by Craig Minns, Friday, 5 June 2015 5:43:31 PM
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Hi Craig,

I think Spindoc is trying to be just a little too clever, try this, I think it is what he is on about!

"We sometimes think of fundamental particles as though they were tiny billiard balls moving around and bouncing off each other. But in the quantum field theories that describe the world at subatomic distances, this picture does not apply. Such theories associate each species of fundamental particle with a quantum field which permeates the whole of space. At each point in space the field fluctuates like a spring or simple harmonic oscillator. What we interpret as particles are excitations in the field.

You can think of this field as a sort of quantum jelly that extends through space. Where there is no particle the jelly just wobbles in a regular fashion. A particle corresponds to a ripple in the jelly, a disturbance of the regular wobble, at a particular point. So a particle travelling along corresponds to a ripple travelling through the jelly, and two particles interacting correspond to two ripples meeting.

Mathematically such a quantum field is represented by something called a scalar field: a number associated to every point in space. The number captures the effect the field would have on a particle interacting with it at that point."

You can read more here - https://plus.maths.org/content/secret-symmetry-and-higgs-boson-part-i
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Saturday, 6 June 2015 2:42:19 AM
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Hi Geoff,
Nicely described and to date the most elegant model put forward, but it still begs some important questions that may be answered in the next few years with further work on the LHC. I'm not sure though, since there are several competing models that all seem to work quite well at producing reasonable congruence with current observations, while being largely mutually exclusive.

I'm not really comfortable with the scalar field approach, although it does nicely overcome the problem with an action mechanism that would be required of vector fields and hence allows the use of a Lagrangian rather than a more complex Eulerian.

The idea that our observed world is the product of emergent behaviours down to the finest degree of granularity is one I think is vitally important to grasp, nonetheless. It's by no means an easy or comfortable one though.

Have you come across the work Hameroff and Penrose have been doing on quantum consciousness?
Posted by Craig Minns, Saturday, 6 June 2015 8:34:46 AM
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