[General] new member?

[Andrew Meulenberg]

Gentlemen,

I have appended an email (with his association) from someone who has a new
view of the electron. While I am sympathetic to his approach, I don't feel
that I will gain a lot from his model (too mathematical for me); however,
if anyone thinks that it is worth inviting him to join the discussion,
please do so.

Andrew

*From:* Online_Sadhu_Sanga at googlegroups.com [
mailto:Online_Sadhu_Sanga at googlegroups.com
<Online_Sadhu_Sanga at googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Kevin Knuth



*Departments of Physics and InformaticsUniversity at Albany, Albany NY USA*


*Sent:* Thursday, 18 February 2016 5:54 PM
*To:* Online_Sadhu_Sanga at googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Define natural selection



Dear Stephen,

I enjoyed your discussion about how mainstream science complicates things!

I am a physicist, and I marvel at how the concepts we employ (mass, energy,
time) have been taken as fundamental and foundational.  Our current
theories simply assume these concepts and their relations and then try to
go further.  But they can't - they are stuck.  The reason is that by
assuming such concepts, one cannot learn about them.

I have been in recent conversations with fellow physicists and astronomers
regarding the nature of space-time.  This is especially timely given the
LIGO results.  Geraint Lewis recently tweeted regarding LIGO, "This does
not mean that space-time is a thing!"  You might enjoy his paper "Expanding
Space: The Root of All Evil?"
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0380

As you may have guessed, I too have problems with the concept of space as a
thing.

As I see it modern physics faces two problems.  First, it has come to
assume that discoveries can be made using Math. From what I see, it seems
that this arose out of all of the consequences to quantum mechanics that
were rooted out by applying mathematics to the theory.  To this I owe the
computer I am typing on among many many other things.  Physics is broken,
but not horribly broken.  Its clearly doing some things right.

Math plays two roles in Physics:  First, Math describes symmetries.
Second: Math provides equations that quantify relationships.  I have an
essay (that I assume some people think is nice, since it received a 3rd
place prize in the FQXi essay contest) called "The Deeper Roles of
Mathematics in Physical Laws":
http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.06686

What people have seem to have forgotten is that in physics Math is a very
precise language used to describe a model.

The MODEL is what is important.  And that is all it is, a model.  It isn't
TRUTH because as my friend John Skilling says "You wouldn't know the Truth
if I told it to you!".  It is simply a model.

And not just any sort of model... it is a PREDICTIVE MODEL.  This is
important since it allows one to test it by comparing it to some aspect of
reality.

So what about the continuous 3+1 manifold we call space-time?  Hmmm... Its
mighty hard to test continuity.  So the whole continuous manifold aspect is
in serious question.

Strings?  Yeah the math has nice symmetries, but that doesn't mean that
string theory conforms to reality.  It is not yet a sufficiently predictive
model.  Keep working???  Perhaps.  These people people are geniuses, they
know what they are doing as they have been working on this for decades...
except that they have not been solving the problem for decades.

Dark matter?  Hmmm...gravity isn't working at the galactic scale.  So let's
add stuff.  Sounds like over-fitting to me.  Maybe the theory is not quite
right.

At this point I am just complaining.

But seriously, given your dissatisfaction with modern physics, perhaps I
could ask you to take a peak at the work of a dissatisfied physicist.

I have two papers that you might find interesting.  Please do take a peak.
If you don't like what you see in the first paragraph then don't bother.

These two papers outline a new attempt at foundational physics that we have
been undertaking where a simple model consisting of objects influencing one
another is employed.  So far, some physicists really like it, others find
it curious, and many don't seem to like it because its too simple (God
forbid that someone finds a simple way to do what they have been doing, but
that would make smart people look stupid and they don't like that!).


Here is the first:

Understanding the Electron
http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.07766



The physics arxiv classified "Understanding the Electron" as Philosophy of
Physics, which upset me because it really is a new foundational theory that
leads to relativity and quantum mechanics in a new context. Clearly the
moderators didn't get it.  Moreover, this means that physicists won't read
it.  But maybe some philosophers will.

The second is similar.


Information-Based Physics and the Influence Network
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Knuth_fqxi13knuthessayfinal.pdf

This essay also won 3rd place in an FQXi essay contest (so someone liked
it).  I do have journal papers with details and proofs and such that
effectively bury the ideas in mounds of math.

Please do take a peak.  And if you decide to delve further and read them, I
would sincerely appreciate your thoughts.
Kevin Knuth

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