(with apologies)
When I left things off last week, we were stuck with the somewhat schizophrenic viewpoint that we have two kinds of entities in the world, particles- pointlike masses – that interact with each other through an intermediate agent, the field. Each particle is capable of distorting the field configuration, creating then a potential for other particles to feel its presence through that distortion.
The particle concept starts falling apart when considering the issue of self-interaction: does the particle itself feel the distortion in the field configuration it creates? If so, how does that influence the particle motion? It seems impossible to keep track which particle created which distortion of the field, if particles respond to the fields it seems clear they ought to respond also to the distortions they create. However, that leads to all kinds of nonsense…
There are two sets of problems that arise once trying to deal with the issue of self interaction. First, that force the particle exerts on itself tends to be very large, infinite in fact if we believe the particle is exactly a mathematical point. Even if we consider the particle to be a very small distribution of matter, but not exactly pointlike, that force is enormous, and tends to tear that matter distribution apart. Just think about an electron as a spherical shell of negatively charged matter – what holds that shell together? recall that charges of the same type repel each other.
Second set of problems arises if we include the self-force in the equations that determine the motion of the particle. The equation then become higher order in derivatives. Newton’s laws give rise to second order differential equations, which means that two pieces of initial data, say the initial position and velocity, specify a solution. Not so for higher order equations, those have more solutions, and need more data to select a specific solution. Moreover, some of those extra solutions are really bizarre, they have non-local and non-causal effects, clearly there is something wrong…
So, small particle do not make sense in classical mechanics. This should not very surprising, we now know that the world of the small is governed by quantum mechanics, so we probably need to quantize something to get small distribution of matter such as particles, but what do we quantize exactly?
I agree. There is trouble with particles and the very conception of particles has hampered our ability to explore other possibilities.
It seems to me that particles and waves and the quantum field are the behavior but there is only one underlying mechanism that can account for all three at the same time and that is very stretchable one-dimensional strings, or really thin springs.
Unfortunately, the idea of strings is polluted. “String theory” is caught up in itself because it has started by attacking the quantum level piece of the problem. It should have focused on the other side. What is causing the weakest force? What causes gravity?
What if everything is connected by a mesh of substrate of one-dimensional strings that is so small and so stretchy that we can move about without noticing it? We can even travel to the moon without noticing it except as this force we call “gravity.”
What if particles are bound up springs and mass is a measure of how much winding you have much like the size of a ball of yarn?
What if energy is simply waves in the substrate mesh?
What if this mesh of springs is the source of constant C, the speed of light? It defines the limits to the speed of light because if you try to go faster you end up pulling on more and more of the rest of the universe through the substrate mesh, eventually you end up pulling on all the rest of the springs.
What if the source of the uncertainty in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is the interactions with the substrate mesh?
What if there was a simple configuration of one-dimensional strings which would exhibit the springlike behavior that happened to be a 3 dimensional spherically symmetric recursive fractal? One that clearly found evidence of its mark in many other areas of science outside of physics including chemistry, biology, even psychology?
Well, intuitively, it seems like you should quantize space. We know it’s something, right? It’s not nothing. And particles futz about in it. Einstein says space gets warped by gravity. QM says gravity is particles, and somehow “communicates” itself to other stuff with mass, saying, be attracted to whatever the graviton is associated with. ??
But maybe if you quantize space, then you can have particles interacting with space, which contains all the other particles — so space-stuff is the communication mechanism, and maybe this can cause space to seem warped, too.
It sounds far more sensible to me, at least.
At least much more sensible than particles running about, recognizing other particles with mass, tossing them a graviton, and that graviton whispering, saying, “come here!” somehow — and none of it warping space.
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