The Stand-Up Physicist

RETRACTION: I have decided to retract three blogs (Deriving … 4/5, 5/5, 6/5+1). I was unable to figure out a reasonable statement concerning gauge symmetry. When the blogs were initially written, I focused on the field equations, mainly the Gauss-like law, and ignored the force equations entirely. Finding a solution that works with the the field and force equations were not looked for. A consistent proposal should do all three things (fields, forces, and solutions) with grace. I have concluded it is not possible to achieve these goals with the Lagrangian as written, hence the retraction.The hypercomplex gravity and unified GEM Lagrange densities was wrong.

The sixth Snarky Puzzle Answers leads off with the story of a minor controversy.[Click or skip this video reading on YouTube.] Two related Snarky PuzzlesSeptember 20, "Deriving the Maxwell Source Equations Using Quaternions (2/5)"

RETRACTION: I have decided to retract three blogs (Deriving … 4/5, 5/5, 6/5+1). I was unable to figure out a reasonable statement concerning gauge symmetry. When the blogs were initially written, I focused on the field equations, mainly the Gauss-like law, and ignored the force equations entirely. Finding a solution that works with the the field and force equations were not looked for. A consistent proposal should do all three things (fields, forces, and solutions) with grace. I have concluded it is not possible to achieve these goals with the Lagrangian as written, hence the retraction.

RETRACTION: I have decided to retract three blogs (Deriving … 4/5, 5/5, 6/5+1). I was unable to figure out a reasonable statement concerning gauge symmetry. When the blogs were initially written, I focused on the field equations, mainly the Gauss-like law, and ignored the force equations entirely. Finding a solution that works with the the field and force equations were not looked for. A consistent proposal should do all three things (fields, forces, and solutions) with grace. I have concluded it is not possible to achieve these goals with the Lagrangian as written, hence the retraction.

The Maxwell equations govern light, electricity and magnetism as a trinity. The Big Goal for the next five weeks is to understand my variations on those equations. I want readers to see both the forest and the trees, the planet and the subatomic particles, the math behind the curtain.Many may fear they don't have the math chops to follow this five week march. The names of the players and their jobs will be explained. There is repetition in this process which may make the steps start to sound familiar. After three weeks, the diligent reader will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of the mathematical intricacies of light, unknowable to poets or priests. My variations are nothing more than that, variations.

To celebrate a half year of effort, this is a blog on weekly blogging. Three tangibles are created by the process: the Science20 blog, a YouTube videoblog, and a chapter in a book of blogs (still under development). I will go through my technical suite used in production. The 20-25 hours per week will be broken down. Some data on the level of interest will be shown. Finally, the rewards of this work will be reviewed.

The strong equivalence principle is a stately beauty queen of an idea. In the simplest of dresses, she refuses to dance with any theory except general relativity. The mundane reason for mass is beyond her concern. My call own effort at unifying the symmetries found in the standard model with gravity "GEM" for Gravity and EM, not to be confused with gravitomagnetism which sometimes goes by the same acronym. A duality between metric and 4-potential theory extends a hand between a metric explanation of gravity and Newton's scalar theory moving up to a 4-mansion. An obligatory cancellation in the GEM Lagrangian provides a field theory justification for the strong equivalence principle.

The title is not a tease but is an exercise in abstraction. I spend most of my free mind time thinking about one or the other of these two subjects. Can I find any overlap in the research going on in these two? That was the challenge. I hope you don’t mind if I spend most of my time on sex. I will reach out to physics near the end.

Julian Barbour is an independent theoretical physicist who has gained some attention of late. Minkowski is dead. From my soapbox here, I will channel Minkowski in this gentlemen’s disagreement. Links to Julian’s work will be provided, they are worthy of your time. Nothing I say against Barbour’s ideas are personal, they are all technical in nature, as is my way. I have a bullet with “The Nature of Time” written on it. At this moment, I am not sure if it will kill the paper. I will have to find out and report the result at the end of this blog.

I think of myself as non-violent, a purple guy in the blue state of Massachusetts.When it comes to proposals in science though, I go for head shots. Nature doesn’t care if we keep repackaging bullshit. A well-fed bull does not run out of bullshit.To stop a science zombie, a bullet to the brain is all that might stop it. I know from experience that the easiest person to fool is myself. I am on the lookout for bullets for subjects I speculate on.

A great title is key to getting lots of views. For my blogs, ones with the fewest views include “Snarky Puzzle Answers”, and “Snarky Puzzle Answers 2”. Do I have high expectations for SPA 3, Revenge of the Nerds? Nope, I expect the community to be consistent. This is an observation, not a complaint, honest.What is exciting to me is that I am asking questions and developing answers. I want to emphasize the plural. This is not a one trick pony (quaternions can do 3D rotations and nothing else of interest). Many different topics are being raised and looked at from odd angles. I didn’t have a plan to write these puzzles, but am glad they emerged from the blog writing process. Now back to the questions and their answers.

The video “Why Quantum Mechanics is Weird” (25k views) won the 2005 Berkeley Video&Film Festival Best of Festival Award in Education. That is second place, behind a Grand Festival Award which went to a film on polar bears (much cuter than me talking for 27 minutes). In this blog, I will go through the math behind the video which provides a novel, entirely mathematical explanation for why causality is different between classical and quantum mechanics. Calculus done correctly in spacetime may turn out to provide the correct answer, completely philosophy-free, as it must be.