Monday, March 08, 2021
how fast can i count?
Everyone assumes some form of conservation of number. That is if i have n particles in a box at time t1, and count them at t2 then if i have not done anything i will again count n particles. Except it's not true; maybe on average you will have something close to n, but it is a statistical rule because particles can suddenly appear and then disappear. Borrowing bits of energy out of the vacuum, and forming positive and negative pairs for a short time.
How about thinking about a single particle. Could it disappear, with nothing else around it? clearly One can have pairs that come and go, but would one have one particle long term? Could it just disappear? Could it disappear into a parallel world, or whatever. Or alternatively could an empty space suddenly have a single particle appear and then stay around.
My question is how on earth would you do an experiment to investigate it.
My idea is to send a stream of particles past two sensors, which count the number of particles.. Any differences would represent a list of gained particle. It would certainly surprise people if there was a difference.
I don't know how to build the experiment.
Martin
Sunday, March 07, 2021
how do you do a backwards experiment?
While I like the branching of reality going forward, I can see that there might seem only a small chance of a branching going backwards. But it is not ruled out.
I don't quite see how you would do an experiment to observe such an event.
Could the 'energy' of the vacuum playing some role here, with pairs of particles spontaneously appearing and the disappearing.
A branching space with one direction of time is topologically very sparce and wide, and I prefer something that is rather more compact.
I think I need particles to spontaneously disappear for a brief period, that is the reverse of the borrowing a bit of energy for a short time. I just cannot see at the moment how you do an experiment. Maybe this could allow particles to overcome some impossible barriers, and we could watch if they reappear with some changes?
Martin
Friday, March 05, 2021
infinities
I have always wondered quite why physicists are plagued with infinities.
I guess it must be because they are not counting everthing. If there is anything, however small, over the whole space missing, then you will have infinities.
One way of thinking about it is that the sum over the whole space of any meaningful thing should be zero. So for instance the total energy in the universe should be formulated to be always zero. The total momentum must be zero. Total angular momentum must be zero. Total volume. Eric
Now what this implies is that we are either missing something, or counting the wrong thing.
Martin
