First, even if space is smooth, it is sometimes well-approximated by a singularity. In which case understanding that approximation has value for real universe predictions. As https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/naked-singulariti... points out, models strongly suggest that it is possible for naked singularities to form in GR. If we understand better how GR with singularities behaves, we may be able to make testable predictions about what astronomers should look for to verify them.
Second, it may be that the right quantum theory of gravity, contains singularities after all. QM is filled with smooth fields that are quantized particles. For example smooth electromagnetic waves give rise to discrete photons. Shouldn't we expect that a graviton, in the right quantized particle, also looks like a discrete particle? In that case, shouldn't it be some kind of singularity? If so, then a better understanding of singularities in GR may help us find a unified theory.
And third, extending from a smooth model to one with singularities, may result in developing better mathematical tools. For a historical example, consider the development of distributions such as the Dirac delta as an extension of theories built using Calculus on smooth functions. There is a chance that history will repeat. But we won't know until we try to develop these new tools.
> [Einstein's General Relativity] tells us that the universe is expanding
Does GR really tell us that though?
The way I understood it, GR's differential equations will produce solutions for many different constraints and initial conditions you throw at them. Including the constraints & conditions informed by astronomical observation.
Fundamentally, all that exists is oscillations (think vibrating strings).
Those oscillations are not three-dimensional, but as they oscillate, their sum goes through states which correspond with fundamental interactions, one by one, in series, giving rise to fundamental ”particles”.
As this state proceeds to evolve, consonance/dissonance between interactions gives rise to higher order oscillations, which yield even higher order configurations of oscillation.
These oscillatory configurations eventually start to resist change, yielding mass. They become logically separated from other oscillation that is not coherent with their structure, yielding multidimensional causal structures in their interactions.
We are observers inside this system, ourselves made of innumerable such fundamental structures. We cannot experience or sense the non-locality directly, for all our sensing-structures are made of higher order oscillatory structures which have mass and locality.
To us and to our instruments of perception, existence appears dimensionally separated, even though everything is dancing in a conga line to the exact same tune.
So, perhaps in a singularity, these structures become so tightly packed that the innermost one breaks down, no longer has mass or locality, and leaves an inherent ”quantum vacuum” in its place, which is then immediately filled with the next structure, which also gets broken down, etc. What remains is pieces of configuration which, no longer supporting the notions of ”mass” or ”locality”, are free of the gravitational pull of a black hole and capable of radiating out.
I was using the word ”theory” in the colloquial sense, not in the academic sense. The above is barely even a hypothesis.
It does touch on string theory, pilot wave theory as well as causal set theory and would explain Hawking radiation, so the idea is clearly not entirely without merit.
I am not anti-science and what I wrote above is not something I found.
1) If all that exists is vibrations, what is vibrating?
2) You say the vibrations are not three-dimensional, but you don’t say what they are. What are they?
3) If it would explain Hawking radiation, how would it explain it, and why do you consider Hawking not to have explained Hawking radiation?
4) What causes the oscillation to resist change? What does that mean and why does that create mass?
2: See string theory, which kind of works similarly, assuming 1-dimensional strings.
3: Nobody has detected Hawking radiation as it is presumably very faint. It would explain the mechanics of its origin and its ability to radiate out of black holes (which no other form of radiation can do).
This differs from Hawking’s explanation of spontaneous matter/antimatter pair generation at the event horizon in that here the radiation would genuinely originate from inside the event horizon. It is a more simple explanation: spontaneous pair generation is not required to explain the same phenomenon.
4: All oscillation resists change. If you place multiple metronomes on a desk, they will synchronize, but not instantly. If you play two strings on an instrument that are tuned almost the same, they both affect each other, each trying to resonate on its own frequency while resisting the resonance imparted by the other string - unless the strings are tuned in unison or in a harmonic.
The two extreme examples are dissonance (resisting change) and consonance (accepting change, i.e. destructive and constructive interference.
These principles are found everywhere from nature to the cosmos and to quantum mechanics.
Why that would ”create mass” (as in, make it possible for a waveform to interact with itself/other waveforms in a way that looks like ”mass” to us) is a good question! As far as I understand, it has something to do with conservation of angular momentum and waveform curvature.
If you have more questions, I will try to answer them!
The rest of it is, respectfully, “not even wrong”, so it wouldn’t really benefit either of us for me to try to engage further. Thanks for your response though. If you actually want to develop these ideas I would strongly encourage you to do some actual work to understand first classical mechanics and then the standard model. For example, if you read Kolenkow and Kleppner and do the exercises, you will realise the flaws in what you have written about oscillation and interference. Oscillation and the phenomenon of resonance really doesn’t work anything like you have written.
I would assume my model is wrong in many ways. The reason I’m sharing my thoughts is not to claim they are the way things are, but to hopefully inspire someone to try building a theory that could explain the empirical, top-down-oriented Standard Model using a novel, minimalistic bottom-up approach.
I could also be getting some terms wrong, English is not my first language and certainly was not the language of natural sciences instruction in my university.
You claim that your proposal predicts radiation from black holes (without explaining any mechanism other than it’s different from Hawking’s model). But here’s the thing: If it doesn’t happen the way Hawking’s model says, then it isn’t Hawking radiation. It could be that cluckindan radiation becomes a thing, but that’s not Hawking radiation.
You’re not getting terms wrong, you’re making empirically unjustifiable statements that do not connect with each other or intersect with the observations we have made of the universe in any meaningful way. That’s what I mean by “not even wrong”.
In that sense, one could call most models in quantum mechanics ”empirically unjustifiable”.
Would you say models like QCD and QFT are ”not even wrong”, too, even though the Standard Model is based directly on QFT, which lacks a formal, generally agreed-upon mathematical foundation, and has multiple competing interpretations?
Textbook-thumping zealotry has no place outside a church.
Not only that; it's never been physically proven to exist, so there's absolutely no reason to explain it if his theories are wrong.
WCSTombs•6mo ago
Actually I feel optimal transport is a pretty underrated concept in both pure and applied math, and I would have loved to explore it had I continued in academia. But oh well, one must make choices in life...
xelxebar•6mo ago
I really wish academia consistently provided as much security as industry. Would have loved to continue this line of research.
pkoird•6mo ago
bmacho•6mo ago
youcandoittoo•6mo ago
Or this: (2011) A visual introduction to Riemannian curvatures and some discrete generalizations http://www.yann-ollivier.org/rech/publs/visualcurvature.pdf
Taken from the site of Yann Ollivier http://www.yann-ollivier.org/rech/index