Chris and Brent,
On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 1:42:43 AM UTC-5, cdemorsella wrote:
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> Roger: It seems to me, too, that there are problems with zero dimensions,
> or point particles. I've never understood why physicists don't question
> the idea of a zero-dimensional point particle. Oh well.
>
> Of course they've questioned. That's how they came up with string theory.
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> Which is an elegant aspect of String Theory, I think. The infinitely
> small zero-dimensional point is an assumption IMO (nothing in reality
> indicates any actual necessary for its existence), and it is an abstraction
> that causes all kinds of problems for physicists.
>
> Even at the abstract level of meta-information: the finer the definition
> of a point (or any measured property in general) the bigger the definition
> must become, in order to hold the extra information required with each
> scale down into finer and finer grain sizes.
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> Roger: I stand corrected. That is a good point for string theory and, I'm
> guessing, other similar theories, like loop quantum gravity, etc. Thanks
> Brent and Chris. In a related point and building on what Chris is
> saying, it seems like a lot of physicists are still grappling with
> infinities. This seems to me to be sort of related to the idea of zero
> size points. If I understood what Chris was saying, as you get closer and
> closer to infinitely small or infinitely large amounts, you need more
> information to describe that thing. It seems like it might be easier if we
> could have step functions where in our universe, there's only finite sized
> things (can't get to infinitely small or infinitely big. There's a
> smallest size; such as the Planck scale), and you have to take a step up
> or down in POV to see infinitely small or big things. What I'm thinking is
> that if you could consider our universe as an infinite set of Planck size
> chunks, and then view this set from the POV (good acronym from Chris!) of
> an infinite observer outside the set, this observer would not be able to
> see the boundaries/surfaces of these chunks (they'd be infinitesimally
> small from his POV), so it would look like a smooth, continuous space.
> That is, the way you perceive a thing as either being infinitesimally small
> or a finite size or infinitely big depends on your point of view, your
> perspective, of that thing. I wonder if they could use this type of thing
> in working on combining quantum mechanics and relativity? I've put some of
> this infinite set stuff at my website and over at fqxi.org in their essay
> contests, and it actually seemed to get a modest amount of positive
> feedback. But, a lot of ignoring it as well! :-)
>
By the way, I live in Columbus, OH, and OSU just won the national
football championship. Plus, the Big Ten did well in their bowl games this
year! I couldn't help it. I just had to say congrats to OSU and the rest
of the Big Ten! I know this is unrelated.
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