[General] Muon decay and energy in a bottle

[Roychoudhuri, Chandra]

Hello Colleagues: Inspired by Kracklauer’s comments, I am making some generic response about physics-thinking; which is a repetition of my old statements, deliberately re-phrased to generate stronger reactions!

To indirectly access the ontological realities of nature; the purpose of physics is to visualize the invisible interaction processes that give rise to the measurable data; which we use to construct hypotheses and then theories of physics. “Evidence based” science, as it is currently practiced, is Measurable Data Modeling Epistemology (MDM-E). This is the best approach; but we must learn to enhance it further with newer enquiring modes. MDM-E approach is necessarily based upon incomplete (insufficient) information about the phenomena we study; because no set of experiments can give us COMPLETE information about any natural entities. We COOK-UP information (interpret data) generated by a detector based upon its own unique response characteristics to the particular entity interacting with it; they vary from interacting entity to entity. This is why each single physical process is unique and must be visualized or mapped separately by our imaginations – apply Interaction Process Mapping Epistemology (IPM-E).

Creating a generalized theory based upon SIMILAR PHENOMENON is a non-trivial task. All organized bodies of knowledge, so far put together by humans (social sciences or hard sciences), are necessarily incomplete as they have been constructed based upon insufficient knowledge of the universe. See Gödel’s “Incompleteness Theorem”, if you believe only in mathematical logics! Unfortunately, the cosmic logics (ontological realities) are not directly accessible by mathematical logics alone; albeit being an essential tool for this purpose. Otherwise, physics would not have remained stagnant for almost a century. We cannot construct (discover) THE ULTIMATE FOUNDATION OF THE EDIFICE OF PHYSICS without repeated iterations of the “working theories” and, HENCE, the older epistemologies; because we do not yet know the complete structure of the COSMIC EDIFICE.

CONSIDER SUPERPOSITION EFFECT (SE) and contrast it with the SUPERPIOSITION PRINCIPLE (SP)
SP or the mathematical summation of multiple amplitudes propagating through the same space-volume during the same time interval, do not represent a physically observable phenomenon in nature. Complex amplitudes by themselves cannot re-organize their mutual energy distributions. But, both the Classical Physics and the Quantum Physics assumes SP as an observable phenomenon in nature; even though Glauber rightly says, “I see a photon only after I detect one”!
This is a non-trivial grand conceptual mistake in physics. Nature is not going to change herself because homo sapiens have been believing in SP, by itself, as an observable physical phenomenon for several centuries!

In contrast, SE, is a measurable and re-producible phenomenon, registered as some physical transformation experienced by a detector. Two simple examples: breaking of a quantum mechanically bound Ag-Bromide molecule in a photographic plate, or release of a quantum mechanically bound electron in a solid state photo detector. The correct QM mathematical recipe that matches with the SE data is the ensemble average of the square modulus of the sum of all the filed induced complex dipolar amplitudes of oscillation due to all the superposed waves; not A photon from only ONE of the waves! Photons do not interact (or interfere) with each other; neither do they feel entangled (no force of interaction between themselves) in the linear domain. This is just one simple example of how we have been confusing ourselves for centuries by imposing non-detectable (un-observable) SP as nature’s operational principle while ignoring the correct recipe for SE as the correct operational principle of nature.

Try to visualize the physical processes behind the data generation due to the superposition of two different-frequency radio waves detected by a resonant LCR circuit. Then contrast the processes when you are using a photo electric detector excited by two different stabilized single mode lasers. The response processes of the detectors are profoundly different; the mathematics are different and the final data are different. They should not be taught under the old umbrella of SP that does not produce validate-able data! [See “Causal Physics: …”, CRC, 2014, by me; http://www.amazon.com/Causal-Physics-Photons-Non-Interactions-Waves/dp/1466515317/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445270893&sr=1-1&keywords=causal+physics ]

If we learn to appreciate this obvious OPERATIONAL difference between SP and SE, we would not continue to waste thousands of brilliant-mind-hours and hundreds of millions of dollars world-wide to create quantum computers using entangled single photon interference.

It is quite funny how many of us laugh satirically at the religiously blind people who do not believe in evolution, especially, in USA. Are we ourselves protecting our minds from the burden of further enquiry and evolution?

Sincerely,
Chandra.
From: General [mailto:general-bounces+chandra.roychoudhuri=uconn.edu at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of af.kracklauer at web.de
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 11:17 AM
To: general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org
Cc: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion; Nick Bailey; Anthony Booth; quicycle at gmail.com; ARNOLD BENN
Subject: Re: [General] Muon decay and energy in a bottle

Hi John:

Seems most of the disagreement comes about from the difference between "see" and "be."  I don't want to bother sorting it out; if it hasn't been an issue for you in your work, maybe it can be ignored.  My present understanding is that the "perspecrive" viewpoint never leads to contradiction, not even implicit lexocographically, while the "ontological" view point, i.e., one that leads to net differences over cicular routes, etc. always does if persued at all. This understanding is long from being anything unique to me!  Noticed first by Poincare (I think, but there were others writing on it then whose names are now seldom cited. I have seen such analysis but have long forgotten just where.).  It matters to me because it is an imperdiment to formulateion of a selff-consistent, multibody, manifestly covariant formulation of mechanics.  Nowadys still, with some very restricted expcetions, all consitent, closed form analyitic mechancis pertains to a small satillite bathed in the fields of a large body (unaffected by the fields of the satillite).  Everything else is, even in principle, approxiamtion---good enought for NASA, etc. but fundamentally incomplete.

My problem is, I can't shoe-horn the muon experiemnts into the perspective interpretation.  There is no communication between the muon and the experimenter or other entity to suffer any sort of perspective modification---at least in the descriptions given in text books and review articles.  I can imagine a few ways out of this dilema, and intend to attempt to develop one or more to point of making them convincing. (Of course, life---and death---being what it is, I may never acheive this.  Understood.)  The possible ways I see at the moment include that the assumtions about the origin of the muons in the experiemnts are wrong, some are generated down stream from  their presumed source.  Another, less likely maybe, is there there is some physical effect on muons stabelizing them when in the ato. or a storage beam, analogous to the nucleus stabilizing neutrons.  Also, one always has to be alert for GIGO type effects, including some sore ot claibaration done in the course of the experiment that, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not, assures the kosher outcome!  There may be more ideas out and about.

If you already know how to interpret muon data to fit the "perspective" view point, please tell me.  But,  please be specific about what is interacting with whom by means of light (E&M), when.
Without this communication, I don't see where optical effects can be present.  Yet.

I am ignorant about these "g-2" experiments; I have never studied or worked somewhere where the guys in the next room were involved.

Best regards, Al

Gesendet: Sonntag, 18. Oktober 2015 um 11:26 Uhr
Von: "John Williamson" <John.Williamson at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:John.Williamson at glasgow.ac.uk>>
An: "Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion" <general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org<mailto:general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org>>
Cc: "Nick Bailey" <nick at bailey-family.org.uk<mailto:nick at bailey-family.org.uk>>, "Anthony Booth" <abooth at ieee.org<mailto:abooth at ieee.org>>, "quicycle at gmail.com<mailto:quicycle at gmail.com>" <quicycle at gmail.com<mailto:quicycle at gmail.com>>, "ARNOLD BENN" <arniebenn at mac.com<mailto:arniebenn at mac.com>>
Betreff: [General] Muon decay and energy in a bottle
This is a reply to another thread  - but have started a new one because its is also relevant to another. It is a reply to Al - on relativity and particle decays.

From John W: … Hi Al, I am quite sure we actually agree in almost every respect. It is only, really, the reality of relative time as measured in clock experiments and in particle lifetimes – or am I wrong? I have put my contributions this time round in dark blue – my older comments in light blue. I am very interested on ideas of “absolute time” as well – do not get me wrong. I would also be very interested if any lifetime experiments for certain particles varied by a factor of 2 (if anyone knows anything about these). Sorry the reply has taken a long time – am just ridiculously busy with the day job (which has turned into a bit of a night and weekend job too). The paper I’ve attached is on perspective in relativity and also has a bit on Wolf’s light-in-the-bottle from the lit at the end. Enjoy.

Al, Albrecht is right. There is no contradiction - just something you need to understand about the symmetry. You seem to see a contradiction where there is none present. You make some statements as though they are fact which are not fact.
For example you say >>>
AK: Albrecht is at least ambigious if he doesn't make the distinction between appearances via projection and ontological modifications via mysterious consequences for "molecular force" and the like.  His e-mail, as are mine and everybody else often, was written on the fly. Incomplete.  True.

"Two entities cannot at once be both be dialted in the other's view and not their own."
AK: Take note here that I said "be", not "appear."  (Even Einstein always said "appear"!)


Yes they can. Yes they must, it has to be symmetric! Saying something does not make it true, however sensible it may seem to the sayer. There is no actual dilation. The existence of another entity somewhere has no bearing on the local properties elsewhere. All is as viewed, all is perspective (good word). If this is what you are on about then we agree.
AK: Evidently, we agree (to some extent).  I hold the view (not mine by orignation) that the perspective view-point is self consistent, but that the ontological-modification view-point leads to contradictions (Agreed).  An entity in its own frame cannot BE both long and short.  As I recall this is what the logicians call the "Principle of Excluded Middle."

Of course not. Just who is saying it is?

It seems to me though that is not all those textbook writers that are missing something but you. Both observers DO see each other clocks running slow.

AK: No. they see each other's VIRTUAL image of the other's clock running slow.  That makes sense.

Nope, to say this better imagine two blind observers: they observe (by listening to the robot voice readout from both clocks) that the clock that has accelerated rapidly moved away for some time, then accelerated and come back, then accelerated to stop and rejoin the first clock has run slow in the meantime. This is just exactly where Dingle (and Selleri) did not get it. Blinded by logic! Indeed.

The Muon in the muon decay sees the earth as approaching it at near lightspeed  -in its primary stillness and pure stationary state. The Earth it observes is still round - but as round as a pancake. The muon decays in 2.2 microseconds, in its frame, as usual. This layers multiple kilometres into the earth in the earth frame though. This is because the muon thinks the earth is as flat as a pancake. No  contradiction - no problem. If it were two earths colliding, with muons in them, each muon in each earth would see the other earth as flat. Perfectly symmetrically. Both sets of observers (as their last act in this case) would observe muons to live longer when moving fast in their frame.

AK: Your assertions, made, as you claim mine are, "ex cathdra," are in crass conflict with Terrell analysis of what a relativistic traveler sees.  His analysis is nowadays generally accepted by the so-called main-stream even.

Glad we are on the same page with Terrel.

Here is his abstract for "Invisibility of the Lorentz contraction" with red emphasis from me: ...

It is shown that, if the apparent directions of objects are plotted as points on a sphere surrounding the observer, the Lorentz transformation corresponds to a conformal transformation on the surface of this sphere. Thus, for sufficiently small subtended solid angle, an object will appear—optically—the same shape to all observers. A sphere will photograph with precisely the same circular outline whether stationary or in motion with respect to the camera. An object of less symmetry than a sphere, such as a meter stick, will appear, when in rapid motion with respect to an observer, to have undergone rotation, not contraction. The extent of this rotation is given by the aberration angle (θ−θ′), in which θ is the angle at which the object is seen by the observer and θ′ is the angle at which the object would be seen by another observer at the same point stationary with respect to the object. Observers photographing the meter stick simultaneously from the same position will obtain precisely the same picture, except for a change in scale given by the Doppler shift ratio, irrespective of their velocity relative to the meter stick. Even if methods of measuring distance, such as stereoscopic photography, are used, the Lorentz contraction will not be visible, although correction for the finite velocity of light will reveal it to be present.

I have attached the paper. Terrel is, indeed, talking about what one literally “sees”. As in with vision. Not about what actually happens in the variation of time and space in SR. The last paragraph in the paper (attached) says this explicitly. What he says is that SIZES will not appear Lorentz contracted. They will (appear) (visually) contracted (or expanded) – but only by a DOPPLER SHIFT. Exactly as I said in the previous emails and in the papers.  Also this Doppler shift – as I explain in my papers – is at the root of the reason WHY muons live so long in storage rings. Because everything is made of light-like stuff it is all different sizes in different frames (but always the same size in its own frame). This is NOT a contradiction – it is just the simple maths of the Doppler shift. Likewise clocks coming towards you will not appear to vibrate slow – but fast. Going away they will look (visually) slow. I know there is a lot said online in Wikipedia and in textbooks that betrays a lack of understanding of the author as to what is going on. This is perfectly normal. No one understands everything! What is shocking is that it took more than fifty years (and smart people like Terrel and Penrose) to get this stuff into print explicitly.

The reason one “sees” – (by which I do not mean “look at” I mean measure or observe) time going slow IS  perfectly well understood in standard relativity. I still do not get why anyone has a problem with this (who understands relativity). It is BOTH simply understood in relativity AND is what you actually measure. The reason is that light in free space travels in straight lines at lightspeed (neglecting gravity) in ALL possible frames. This means anything rod shaped in one frame appears (visually) rod shaped in every frame – by simple projection. All one sees with eye or photo is a ROTATION. Just as Terrel argues. Martin mentioned this earlier in the “seeing the gunman round the corner” reference. Actually one sees nothing – because humans take a tenth of a second or so to process anything visual so all one actually “sees” is a rapidly expanding and receding rather small and insignificant planet.


So, I'd say it pays not to dictate what a muon sees.  He doesn't see a damn thing (or least makes no use of it in the analysis of the decay.

True: poor muon is not one of the most gifted visual entities! This shows why and how we have been talking at cross-purposes. To see or not to see, anyone? Anyway – everyone knows that muons are she’s –its gotta be anti-muons that are the boys.

 And, if he did "see" the Earth approaching, it would have to be (as we just agreed) a virtual image.)

No: this is merely vision, not the underlying reality.

 I argue that the analysis of the muon story is a "dog's breakfast" of both some valid and mostly rejected (as being not from perspective-viewpoint) SR folklore notions.  A direct out from this situation would be to show that the ensemble of muon generation events is actually distributed down stream from the presumed (never observed) source location.

This out is (kind of) available for atmospheric muon experiments, but not for lab-created or other particles where both creation and decay ARE observed. The simple fact is that the slightly straighter paths (fractionally closer to lightspeed) do go tens or hundred of times further. There is no out. However much you may want it. It is not a conspiracy of silence on these experiments. I know. I have done them myself. Thousands and thousands of them. I analysed the biggest dataset in the world at the time on the worlds most powerful (then) computer. Short-lived hadronic particles do go for metres when they usually decay in nanoseconds. They just do.  Even light only goes a foot in a nanosecond – so how do they do that then? Relativity of time and space does explain this. If there is another theory which does I am happy to talk about it – but whatever it is it has to deal with what is observed in experiment.

This is all symmetric. The base reason (for space and time contraction) is explained in the first of my two papers to SPIE (where gamma is derived from photon energy transformations E=H nu) , and arises, simply, from the linearity and conservation of energy. It is just derivative of the Doppler shift of photons. Dead simple. Do the maths! You can discard SR if you like, but you must also lose energy conservation and the relation E=h nu if you do. SR is that relation which maintains energy linearity and conservation of energy for light.  Chandra is right: there are some things that are simply more fundamental than other things. Energy (and hence frequency) is, apparently, more fundamental than space and time scales. You need to get this! Read my paper!

Sorry Al – I was not referring to you in those comments – but to others in the same thread who appeared to be  wishing SR away.

AK: These comments show that you are not taking on board what I have actually said.

This is certainly true – when you talked about things actually stretching and contracting I should have realised it was joke.

  I have never rejected SR.  That complex afflicts others, not me.

Good!

 SR as 4-D space-time projection o 3/2 D is fine, as an agent of the modification of time (which I tend to see as absolute, contrary to clocks) is wild sci-fi!

No. The slowing of clocks and the long life of short-lived particles is real. It is measured. If you want to say it is sci-fi YOU, have to say why and explain the clock-slowing experiments in an equally convincing way. Sorry, this is the scientific method and it is brutal!

 Symmetry is also to be called upon carefully.  John Bell's string will not break becasue some cosmic ray passes the rocket ship complex with v ~ c. Or, at least, the premise to his story would have to be rejected becasue the string could never be tied, given the profusion of cosmic rays, in the first place!

BTW, maths per se cannot confirm some assertion, just negate it.  Can be that the maths coincide for wildly different entities or processes.

Could indeed be so (and probably is!).

ciao,  Al

Cheers, John W.

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