There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

There are in general two competing theories: Loop Quantum Gravity and
String Theory. Also, one can try to use Black Hole Thermodynamics,
which is the basis for a third theory. I can offer you pages on these
if you want, as I know of two pages for the first two.

Anyways, I'm wondering if I could get you all in the debate. Not a
simple one like which one is better, but in a more general one, maybe
involving questions of whether an answer can even be found, or what
your thoughts on this are.

I think that LQG and ST, including their variants, are too
oversimplified to work. They are still in their developing phases.
Eventually, though, they'll converge together, as each learns more
about their strengths and weaknesses and finds a way to fit them
together.

The whole thing about Black Hole Thermodynamics probably won't pan
out, because we don't know enough about Black Holes to make any
affirmative statement. The idea that the entropy is proportional to
the area is a gross overgeneralization of the entropy of black holes.
Furthermore, I'm beginning to question the Black Hole No Hair Theorum.

While I agree that there is a generally good basis for it, because
nothing on the inside could possibly effect its event horizon, but
what about infalling particles, or the quantom effects of things on
its event horizon? I'd imagine it would send ripples through it. In
fact, as you go deeper and deeper, the area around the black hole
would be modified by the gravitational ripples caused by things that
fell in at the very beginning... or right when it formed. So really
the black hole can't have NO properties.

Also I think that all the kinds of fundamental charges are conserved,
electric, weak, and color, or they are hypothetically, since the color
charge would be neutralized and the weak charge really wouldn't do
anything. What I mean is that the weak isospin is conserved, and along
with electric charge this means that B - L number is conserved, though
not B + L number.

Anyways... what about you? I want a serious discussion... but then
again it might not happen. Anyways, still, what are your thoughts on
this?

(...Starblade Riven Darksquall...)

John Sefton wrote:


Black holes are predicted from extrapolating our
knowledge of gravity to extremely large masses.

You could be a black hole John... by squeezing your mass
within its Schwarzchild radius!

Galaxies have a lot of mass and they don't
do what our gravity theory says they should-
so we infer the existence of 'dark matter'.

Very good!

The universe isn't behaving as our gravity theory
predicts so we infer the presence of 'dark
energy'.

Very good!

Really, what are the chances of predictions based
on our 'gravity theory' being anywhere near correct?

Hawking said nothing could escape black holes
except 'hawking radiation'. We have zoomed in
on galactic centers as the best black hole
candidates and promtly observed huge amounts
of primordial matter being blown off the
'accretion' disc (should be excretion disc)
at 40% of the speed of light.

Very good, John.... So far Hawking is correct.

Sam Wormley wrote:
John Sefton wrote:


Black holes are predicted from extrapolating our
knowledge of gravity to extremely large masses.


You could be a black hole John... by squeezing your mass
within its Schwarzchild radius!


Galaxies have a lot of mass and they don't
do what our gravity theory says they should-
so we infer the existence of 'dark matter'.


Very good!


The universe isn't behaving as our gravity theory
predicts so we infer the presence of 'dark
energy'.


Very good!


Really, what are the chances of predictions based
on our 'gravity theory' being anywhere near correct?

Hawking said nothing could escape black holes
except 'hawking radiation'. We have zoomed in
on galactic centers as the best black hole
candidates and promtly observed huge amounts
of primordial matter being blown off the
'accretion' disc (should be excretion disc)
at 40% of the speed of light.


Very good, John.... So far Hawking is correct.
Where did Hawking say black holes give off matter?

On 5 Sep 2003 03:26:23 -0700, (Starblade
Darksquall) wrote:

There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

There are in general two competing theories: Loop Quantum Gravity and
String Theory. Also, one can try to use Black Hole Thermodynamics,
which is the basis for a third theory. I can offer you pages on these
if you want, as I know of two pages for the first two.

Anyways, I'm wondering if I could get you all in the debate. Not a
simple one like which one is better, but in a more general one, maybe
involving questions of whether an answer can even be found, or what
your thoughts on this are.


You asked for it..

It seems to me that the test of "Do we or do we not understand a
particular point in physics" is, ""Can we make a mechanical model of
it: - lord Kelvin

It seems to me that QFT and GR are at least semi-empirical theories,
as they do enormously well at predicting reality but don't quite
conform to lord Kelvin's criteria above. Thus, their application at
such different scales will be hard to combine unless empirical tests
of such phenomena become plausible, either through black hole remote
sensing or some other craziness.

I think that LQG and ST, including their variants, are too
oversimplified to work. They are still in their developing phases.
Eventually, though, they'll converge together, as each learns more
about their strengths and weaknesses and finds a way to fit them
together.


Sounds good to me, I agree they show promise..

I guess those theories are a bit closer to Kelvin's criteria, however
I am not qualified to comment. People seem to say different things
about what ST is, kind of like people say different things about what
aether is.. and I wouldn't discount an aether approach either, which
probably could be designed to "converge" as well, given enough
dimensions or something..

The whole thing about Black Hole Thermodynamics probably won't pan
out, because we don't know enough about Black Holes to make any
affirmative statement.

Good point, but we can always hope and try..

The idea that the entropy is proportional to
the area is a gross overgeneralization of the entropy of black holes.
Furthermore, I'm beginning to question the Black Hole No Hair Theorum.

While I agree that there is a generally good basis for it, because
nothing on the inside could possibly effect its event horizon, but
what about infalling particles, or the quantom effects of things on
its event horizon? I'd imagine it would send ripples through it. In
fact, as you go deeper and deeper, the area around the black hole
would be modified by the gravitational ripples caused by things that
fell in at the very beginning... or right when it formed. So really
the black hole can't have NO properties.


Other than position, charge, and spin..
Sounds good, I agree. But again.. how to test this kind of thing?
(as you said)
Without observation we are just pushing symbols around (good fun).

Can a star really collapse to an equilibrium state?

Entropy (and temperature) came out of gas / fluid / statistical
mechanics of many particles stuff. The temperature or entropy of a
single particle are not really defined as I see it.. if a black hole
is really a single quantum state (no hair) than it doesn't have a
temp. in a conventional sense. However, the formalism of
thermodynmaics does look useful...


Also I think that all the kinds of fundamental charges are conserved,
electric, weak, and color, or they are hypothetically, since the color
charge would be neutralized and the weak charge really wouldn't do
anything. What I mean is that the weak isospin is conserved, and along
with electric charge this means that B - L number is conserved, though
not B + L number.


Indeed, isn't that sort of the definition of charge?
Is that baryon - lepton? What about neutrino oscillations?

Perhaps neutrino observations of supernova collapse will give us
important information about black hole formation?

Anyways... what about you? I want a serious discussion... but then
again it might not happen. Anyways, still, what are your thoughts on
this?

(...Starblade Riven Darksquall...)

Thanks - luke

funk420 wrote in message . ..
On 5 Sep 2003 03:26:23 -0700, (Starblade
Darksquall) wrote:

There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

There are in general two competing theories: Loop Quantum Gravity and
String Theory. Also, one can try to use Black Hole Thermodynamics,
which is the basis for a third theory. I can offer you pages on these
if you want, as I know of two pages for the first two.

Anyways, I'm wondering if I could get you all in the debate. Not a
simple one like which one is better, but in a more general one, maybe
involving questions of whether an answer can even be found, or what
your thoughts on this are.


You asked for it..

It seems to me that the test of "Do we or do we not understand a
particular point in physics" is, ""Can we make a mechanical model of
it: - lord Kelvin

It seems to me that QFT and GR are at least semi-empirical theories,
as they do enormously well at predicting reality but don't quite
conform to lord Kelvin's criteria above. Thus, their application at
such different scales will be hard to combine unless empirical tests
of such phenomena become plausible, either through black hole remote
sensing or some other craziness.


I think that we will only get empirical overvations once GFT and GR
are fused, or LQG and ST are fused. Then maybe their predictions will
be that certain INCONSISTENCIES are found that are explained well by
the new theory, such as variations in the speed of light and in
particle masses that don't exist in any of the previous theories.

I think that LQG and ST, including their variants, are too
oversimplified to work. They are still in their developing phases.
Eventually, though, they'll converge together, as each learns more
about their strengths and weaknesses and finds a way to fit them
together.


Sounds good to me, I agree they show promise..

I guess those theories are a bit closer to Kelvin's criteria, however
I am not qualified to comment. People seem to say different things
about what ST is, kind of like people say different things about what
aether is.. and I wouldn't discount an aether approach either, which
probably could be designed to "converge" as well, given enough
dimensions or something..


Aether? The only difference between the way the universe really works
and an aether is that the aether is a background dependent background,
which is a contradiction. However, I believe that a background
independent substance, the atomization of timespace, along with
quantom fluxuations, connected with itself correctly, forms a kind of
a wave, and that's what particles, and gravity waves, are.

There is no graviton though. Gravity is internal energy in a way. Look
at my other post about the Gravitational Curvature Tensor (Or the
Einstein Curvature Tensor) and the Energy Momentum Tensor (Or the
Stress Energy Tensor) and you'll see that they are just both dual
aspects of the same thing.

The whole thing about Black Hole Thermodynamics probably won't pan
out, because we don't know enough about Black Holes to make any
affirmative statement.

Good point, but we can always hope and try..

The idea that the entropy is proportional to
the area is a gross overgeneralization of the entropy of black holes.
Furthermore, I'm beginning to question the Black Hole No Hair Theorum.

While I agree that there is a generally good basis for it, because
nothing on the inside could possibly effect its event horizon, but
what about infalling particles, or the quantom effects of things on
its event horizon? I'd imagine it would send ripples through it. In
fact, as you go deeper and deeper, the area around the black hole
would be modified by the gravitational ripples caused by things that
fell in at the very beginning... or right when it formed. So really
the black hole can't have NO properties.


Other than position, charge, and spin..
Sounds good, I agree. But again.. how to test this kind of thing?
(as you said)
Without observation we are just pushing symbols around (good fun).


Well we can observe it astronomically... or we can try to create our
own miniature black hole orbiting the sun beyond pluto, where we can
control it and make sure it stays the same mass.

Can a star really collapse to an equilibrium state?

Entropy (and temperature) came out of gas / fluid / statistical
mechanics of many particles stuff. The temperature or entropy of a
single particle are not really defined as I see it.. if a black hole
is really a single quantum state (no hair) than it doesn't have a
temp. in a conventional sense. However, the formalism of
thermodynmaics does look useful...


Or there are maybe microstates within the black hole, which give off
information about it, or would, if we knew how to collect it without
destroying the information.


Also I think that all the kinds of fundamental charges are conserved,
electric, weak, and color, or they are hypothetically, since the color
charge would be neutralized and the weak charge really wouldn't do
anything. What I mean is that the weak isospin is conserved, and along
with electric charge this means that B - L number is conserved, though
not B + L number.


Indeed, isn't that sort of the definition of charge?
Is that baryon - lepton? What about neutrino oscillations?


Well maybe neutrino oscilations are just quantom effects. I think that
both quark and lepton generation numbers are fallacious, since it
implies that the masses of quarks and leptons HAVE to be a given mass
by some law of physics. But the truth is they don't really HAVE to
have a given mass... they just do.

You know those things which are called excited states of the
individual electron (meaning not attached to a nucleus) which exist
hypothetically? Maybe the muon and the tau are just excited electrons.

The electron only works in QM if you renormalize it. Its mass doesn't
appear naturally... nor does its charge for that matter. But there is
good reason to believe that charge is quantized... though really
charge is just extrapolated from charge strength, and that isn't
quantized. Charge is just a number we picked as a way to compare
charge strengths.

Perhaps neutrino observations of supernova collapse will give us
important information about black hole formation?


That is a good idea. We should also check the gravity waves. The
pattern of gravity waves will tell us what happens. I beleive it has
something to do with the fluid center of a neutron star and that
gravity wave thingy where it constantly creates gravity waves which
interact with itself and give it more energy as a consequence.

Even though gravity doesn't generally carry energy, gravity waves do.
That should say something.

Anyways... what about you? I want a serious discussion... but then
again it might not happen. Anyways, still, what are your thoughts on
this?

(...Starblade Riven Darksquall...)

Thanks - luke

Welcome.

(...Starblade Riven Darksquall...)

(Bilge) wrote in message ...
Starblade Darksquall:
There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

The only real serious discussions on the subject are in the
literature. Download papers from arxiv.org.

Really? And they involve discussions of the type I'm looking for? Or
only ones involving how they exist individually to themselves?

(...Starblade Riven Darksquall...)

Starblade Darksquall wrote:

There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

There are in general two competing theories: Loop Quantum Gravity and
String Theory. Also, one can try to use Black Hole Thermodynamics,
which is the basis for a third theory. I can offer you pages on these
if you want, as I know of two pages for the first two.


Imo, both are doomed to failure. The reason, imo, is that QM (and its
offspring, like string theory) is based on an "anti" particle philosophy. I
don't mean "anti" like in anti-proton, I mean "anti" in that QM doesn't allow
actual partciles to "physically exist," except (I guess) when an observation
is made. Whatever your interpretation of QM, you must admit it is the
"antithesis" of the belief that a particle exist at a point in time, as a
localized amount of matter, outside of whose surface its matter does not
reside, and all of it is in a definable localized volume (usually assumed
spherical) of space. This is the interpretation needed for the center of mass
of the particle to be a "point mass," the usually assumed condition for GR and
Newtonian mechanics.

GR is the ultimate particulate theory. And because of that, it will never be
merged with a theory that does not allow, at a point in time, for a particle
to have a definite position *and* a definite velocity, like particles do in
GR. The particle's velocity actaully defines the GR accelerations, and a
particle in any "geodesic" formulation of GR, must have a definite position
and a definte velocity.

Imo, a new kind of "quantum" motion will be needed to unite GR and QM. More
than likely, time itself is discrete, and our view of "continuous motion" is a
macrospcopic illusion. On a micsroscopic scale, particle motion is truthfully
"random" in nature, but with a lot less variability than QM in any of its
forms, predicts. E.g., I think atoms are much more "precise machines" than
what QM predicts.

----------
Steve Bell

Astroimaging/Physics homepage: http://www.mindspring.com/~sb635

John Sefton wrote:

Black holes are predicted from extrapolating our
knowledge of gravity to extremely large masses.
Galaxies have a lot of mass and they don't
do what our gravity theory says they should-
so we infer the existence of 'dark matter'.
The universe isn't behaving as our gravity theory
predicts so we infer the presence of 'dark
energy'.
Really, what are the chances of predictions based
on our 'gravity theory' being anywhere near correct?

It is plausable that GR is incorect at certain extremities. If so, I
expect observations to reveal it as such. Until then, the GR + dark
matter + dark energy model is accepted.

Hawking said nothing could escape black holes
except 'hawking radiation'. We have zoomed in
on galactic centers as the best black hole
candidates and promtly observed huge amounts
of primordial matter being blown off the
'accretion' disc (should be excretion disc)
at 40% of the speed of light.
Hawking is obviously totally wrong- if galactic
centers are black holes.
But they're not. There are no black holes,
dark matter, or dark energy. These are all
predictions arising from our misunderstanding
of gravity.
John

Those jets are of matter never crossing the event horizon, a surface at
which, according to our best understanding, time comes to a halt and
beyond which time is turned inward towards the blackholes center. Once
an object reaches that surface it can no longer excape. Matter near but
outside that surface can excape given enough energy.

(Starblade Darksquall) wrote:
There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

The lesson of history (i.e. the nearly same situation that existed
c. 1900) says it's the 3rd.

The gauge principle hasn't been sufficiently exploited and there is
(apart from the 'Quantum Noether Principle' of Scharf et. al.) no
2nd quantized version of it that's been formulated or is in use.

The significance of the gauge principle is that you can locally
gauge away interactions and essentially render the quantum field
as a free field in the vicinity of the point. People know how to
deal with free fields, but not with interacting fields. But
nobody's ever used gauge invariance to that end.

(Alfred Einstead) wrote in message . com...
(Starblade Darksquall) wrote:
There seems to be a bit of debate about quantum gravity, that is,
about the resolution of Quantom Field Theory with General Relativity.
In the book "Three Roads To Quantum Gravity", Lee Smolin explains that
there are three approaches: the road from quantum theory, the road
from relativity, and the road which involves rejecting both of them as
too flawed to begin with.

The lesson of history (i.e. the nearly same situation that existed
c. 1900) says it's the 3rd.

The gauge principle hasn't been sufficiently exploited and there is
(apart from the 'Quantum Noether Principle' of Scharf et. al.) no
2nd quantized version of it that's been formulated or is in use.

The significance of the gauge principle is that you can locally
gauge away interactions and essentially render the quantum field
as a free field in the vicinity of the point. People know how to
deal with free fields, but not with interacting fields. But
nobody's ever used gauge invariance to that end.

What is the difference between a quantum field and a free field?
Aren't all fields quantum?

(...Starblade Riven Darksquall...)