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Background Concepts
Wave/Particle Duality
Twin Slit Experiment
The Structure of Time
About Relativity
Rationale
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1.0 Classical Issues |
As Einstein once pointed out, the basic Newtonian/Galelean view of reality
that derives from experience, is an illusion. Essentially, the classical
world view of objects existing in three-dimensional space and changing within
a universal time is an approximation that is fundamentally at odds with the
structure of Special Relativity.
For example, Special Relativity shows that a set of events that are simultaneous
in one observer's space and time can be sequential within another's. This
is something that cannot be mades sense of in a Galilean/Newtonian model
because it "breaks" with the basic structure of the model.
However, acknowledging the status of classical models as approximations
and fundamentally illusory can lead to major conceptual difficulties. The
reason for that is that conventional representations of Special Relativity
begin from a classical foundation.
Basic textbook approaches to relativity are often formulated in a way
that allows one to retain a roughly classical view of reality. That is,
the relationships are expressed in the form of geometrical transformations
between essentially linear, Galilean/Euclidean frames of reference in which
time and space occur pretty much as we expect from the classical "illusion".
Although this approach is mathematically sound, difficulties arise because
the representation allows one to conceptually retain the paradigm that existence
occurs in classical space and time.
By analogy, the situation is rather like remaining intellectually
stuck in a "flat world" while having access to the mathematics of "round
world" navigation. As if for instance, you had mathematical descriptions
to account for the different times of sunrise around the world and yet still
had no actual concept of a spherical world. That is, the mathematics
would work but you would consider the whole thing paradoxical. Exactly as
we find with relativity.
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1.1 Quantum Issues
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A second motivation for developing a new approach arises out of inquiring
in to the domain of quantum theory. That work ( Quantum
Theory and Wave/Particle Duality
) explores an approach that is possibly consistent with relativity
and is based on a scattering model that incorporates distinct particles. A
feature of this model is that particles of matter adopt distinct "stable"
states with respect to each other that have a local existence distinct from
adjacent particles.
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