A crazy idea about inertial motion

[Le Repteux]

Hi everybody!

Yes, another crazy idea from an outsider, but sharpen your teeth those who use to eat crank meat for dinner, I'm going to give you a tough ride.

Here is the general idea: since, at the atomic scale, energy is always quantized, I suggest that motion could be.

I begin with a mind experiment:

- Imagine two cars at rest on the same straight road but one km away from one another and heading in the same direction.

- There is an emitter and a receiver in each car and the signal exchanged between them is about the speed from their speedometer.

- One of the cars accelerates and decelerates for 10 seconds, so a signal is emitted every fraction of second indicating the speed at which the car is going.

- Lets us admit that the signal will take more time to travel one km than the time it takes for the car to accelerate and decelerate to rest.

- When the signal will arrive at the second car, at each fraction of second, its receiver will indicate exactly the speed at which it has to accelerate and decelerate.

- While it does as precisely as it can, its own emitter will transmit the signal to the other car, which will repeat exactly the same move forward, and so on for the next car, indefinitely. If the energy to move the cars could be infinite, the signal absolutely precise, and the steps absolutely precise, this slinky kind of motion would never end.

Now, replace the cars by two identical atoms linked together to form a molecule, and imagine that the energy they exchange to maintain their link is quantized, which means that it would have the form of a signal, which would have to be constant for their link to be constant. These two atoms, represented by their nuclei, are very far apart, like the two cars, far enough for the signal to take more time to travel that distance than for an atom to make a step towards the other atom. Lets assume now that one of them is forced to make such a step because it undergoes a push, and that the signal does not have time to reach the other atom before the step is finished.

If the energy of their link has to stay the same, won't the two atoms be forced to proceed exactly like the two cars? Observed from far away, wouldn't the motion of that molecule look like an inertial motion?

 

[Le Repteux]

Ah, I forgot something!

Could those who do not like this idea at first sight wait for those who like it to give their opinion first? Thus wait a couple of days before posting? Why? If you don't see why, wait a couple of days before posting please.

 

[rpenner]

In the OP, you didn't propose anything like a physics hypothesis. What do slow moving signals have to do with the hypothetical quantization of motion. What are the units of quantization of motion?

Could those who do not like this idea at first sight wait for those who like it to give their opinion first?

That is the antithesis of scientific methodology. People who have objections go to the front of the line, not the back.

 

[Le Repteux]

Hi rpenner,

Wait two days, and if nobody likes the idea, you will be in the front. But if you want me to answer you now, you can also tell me you like it.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Could those who do not like this idea at first sight wait for those who like it to give their opinion first? Thus wait a couple of days before posting? Why? If you don't see why, wait a couple of days before posting please.

Nobody liked it when you posted this drivel on a different science forum.
What makes you think it'll get a better reception here?

 

[Le Repteux]

I think that my former posts about my fingers have been erased, which means that a moderator thought that I could find a better answer to the last two posts. I can, but when I read about me words like "drivel and troll", I feel an urge to defend myself, and what a better way to do so than to attack with the same kind of words. DY, I am here because I think that it takes chance for an idea like mine to be understood, not to be accepted, but only understood, and what a better way to increase chance than to increase possibilities. Dr, I think that your post should have been deleted just like mine, because you're doing the same thing that you reproach others to do, and because that behavior is listed in the rules of the forum.

 

[rpenner]

I'm still waiting for someone who likes your post to explain how it has a connection with physics or quantization of momentum or is even any type of thought experiment.

A thought experiment also has a definition that distinguishes it from speculation. It means to rigorously anticipate the consequences of a hypothetical situation with the best physical models of the day. Thus a thought experiment is really a debate about state of the art physical theory.

Physics is not speculation, but generalizing behavior from observation in the least speculative manner. A strong generalization of certain behavior might give rise to a physical theory with a continuous symmetry, and a symmetry in turn gives rise to the prediction of a conversation law.

Reference

You are the one who labeled this idea as "crazy" and suggested it should be pounced upon by those who oppose the postings of "cranks." In these two points, we collectively agree with you, but think you are being dishonest by claiming you came here to "discuss" anything.

 

[Le Repteux]

Thinking that I am dishonest means that you don't like the idea as it is. The words that we use carry their emotional meaning event if we don't want them to, but if we do want them to, they can produce an enormous bad emotion to others, and a very good emotion to us. As part of a scientific community, people should be able to pay attention to that kind of talk, but as we can see, lots of them don't. Kids do the same at school, but they are only kids. If there is any psychologist here, he should be able to recognize that social problem: is there?

You say that physics is not about speculation, so I suspect that you do not like to speculate. Some scientists do, some don't, but almost everybody buys lottery tickets. Do you?

 

[paddoboy]

You say that physics is not about speculation, so I suspect that you do not like to speculate. Some scientists do, some don't, but almost everybody buys lottery tickets. Do you?

Sure physics is about speculation....and Imagination as well. The trick for any individual though, is to be open enough, and man enough, to accept when that same speculation, and Imagination is not applicable to science and is crap.
But with science forums such as this, anyone, any Tom, Dick, and Harry, are able to come along, treat Einstein and other greats with contempt, and then when informed that their ideas, speculations are crap, boringly claim that the scientific method and peer review, does not work and is tainted.
Maladies that drive such conditions are "Delusions of grandeur" "Tall poppy syndrome" and an anti establishment bias.
These same people, with the same maladies, then tend to wear them like a "badge of honour"

 

[Le Repteux]

Hi Pad,

From your post, I understand that a lot of scientists here are fed up with crazy ideas that have nothing to do with science, and I also understand why since I can recognize those myself, so I don't mind if they ask questions and if they seem skeptic about my ideas. What I cannot stand is the name calling. When people are respectful, we must respect them even if we know we are right. After all, there is no need to degrade someone to show that his ideas are not scientific, and I think that people that observe the discussions are intelligent enough to understand that.

 

[paddoboy]

. What I cannot stand is the name calling. When people are respectful, we must respect them even if we know we are right..

Sometimes the name calling starts from the other side, and of course sometimes the down right arrogance of some alternative pushers is staggering beyond belief, and the real scientists, being human, may crack under such quackery put as fact.

 

[zgmc]

I don't see how your idea is relevant to anything in our current reality. Do you have a real world example that could further define the point that you are trying to make in the OP?

 

[river]

In the OP, you didn't propose anything like a physics hypothesis. What do slow moving signals have to do with the hypothetical quantization of motion. What are the units of quantization of motion?
That is the antithesis of scientific methodology. People who have objections go to the front of the line, not the back.

Actually no it isn't , the " antithesis " of science methodology

I'm sure that when a paper is presented it takes time to truly understand the idea

 

[rpenner]

I'm not saying I don't understand it. I'm saying I don't see that a physics hypothesis was presented.

Comparing the OP to a scientific paper would be futile because the poster has no interest in the methodology of science.

 

[river]

I'm not saying I don't understand it. I'm saying I don't see that a physics hypothesis was presented.

Comparing the OP to a scientific paper would be futile because the poster has no interest in the methodology of science.

in what way ?

 

[Le Repteux]

Hi River, thanks for understanding the problem.

In the OP, you didn't propose anything like a physics hypothesis. What do slow moving signals have to do with the hypothetical quantization of motion. What are the units of quantization of motion?

RP, I said that you were going to be the first, so here you are. Before talking about units, do you agree that, as a group, the two cars will follow each other in the same direction and at the same speed indefinitely?

I don't see how your idea is relevant to anything in our current reality. Do you have a real world example that could further define the point that you are trying to make in the OP?

The thought experiment is about inertial motion, so it might not have come to your mind that it is also about mass, because mass is related to resistance to acceleration, and because inertial motion is only considered as an artifact from mass. I will come to that point later, but for now, I want to know if you agree with the phenomenon I described.

 

[danshawen]

I don't see what there is not to like about this idea. Could not a constant velocity be achieved by means of infinitesimal accelerations / decelerations? Momentum (both direction and magnitude) is on average conserved, so what's the beef? Of course it works.

So long as the component of the acceleration in the general direction of the original push is maintained, it works by any calculus I know. The idea is a perfect demonstration of why a perfectly rigid solid substance, even bound in something like a crystal or metal lattice, cannot exist for something constructed of atoms. For reasons I never understood, some people seem to have trouble understanding this model of a solid. They will negate the speed of light as a universal speed limit and start talking about a pair of scissors several light years long, or else a rotating beacon as examples of things that can break that limit. They can't, and this is part of the reason why.

A former colleague of mine has an expression for maximal acceleration, classically derived, if anyone is interested. It might help build this model.

Inertia can also be imparted to bound energy, like photons bouncing between a pair of mirrors. This gets a bit tricky in the details however. In every example Wheeler ever gave of this thought experiment, for example, he entirely missed the point that each time the photon bounces, it is absorbed by a free electron in the mirror sharing the inertia of the box, train, spaceship, or whatever, and then is re-emitted in a manner that gives the photon a slight push in the direction of the moving inertial frame. If the photon were released from the box and reflected from some nearby mirror planet outside of the moving spacecraft, the photon would no longer share the inertia of the original box because it was reflected by a bound electron with some other inertial state. Otherwise, the size of the mirror box shouldn't make any difference, should it?

I like it when people think more carefully about what it means to have inertia. I have an idea it's going to be very important quite soon, thanks in part to the discovery of the boson responsible for the Higgs mechanism and atomic inertia.

 

[Le Repteux]

The idea is a perfect demonstration of why a perfectly rigid solid substance, even bound in something like a crystal or metal lattice, cannot exist for something constructed of atoms.

Hi Dan, thanks for the like!

Could you construct that phrase differently so that I can understand exactly what you mean please?

I think that you did not realize that the kind of steps I am talking about for the atoms mean that their mass does not come from the Higgs. With their steps, two linked atoms would resist a change in their link energy, so that if a first one is pushed towards the other one, that first one will tend to get back to where it was during the time it takes for this information to get to the other atom. It would thus be the time gap from any interaction that would produce mass, and it would also produce inertial motion for the same reason, whereas the Higgs does not explain the latter. Two explanations for the price of one, who wants to buy? Say "I like" and its yours!

 

[rpenner]

RP, I said that you were going to be the first, so here you are. Before talking about units, do you agree that, as a group, the two cars will follow each other in the same direction and at the same speed indefinitely?

No. That does not follow, since the signal between cars is delayed. Further, because of geometrical effects, it does not immediately follow that the cars have simple impulse responses.

Your model is:
$$y'(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{t} z'(u) \left( ( c - z'(u)) \delta(y(t)-z(u) + c(u-t)) + ( c + z'(u)) \delta(y(t)-z(u) - c(u-t)) \right) du \\ z'(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{t} y'(u) \left( ( c - y'(u)) \delta(z(t)-y(u) + c(u-t)) + ( c + y'(u)) \delta(z(t)-y(u) - c(u-t)) \right) du $$
where y is the position of the first car, z is the position of the second and c is the propagation speed of the signal and $$\delta()$$ is the Dirac delta function.

Assuming y(t) > x(t) we get:
$$y'(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{t} z'(u) ( c - z'(u)) \delta(y(t) + c t -z(u) + c u) du \\ z'(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{t} y'(u) ( c + y'(u)) \delta(z(t) - c t -y(u) - cu) du $$

Certainly $$y(t) = 1 + v t, z(t) = v t, y'(t) = v, z'(t) = v$$ is a solution for $$-c \lt v \lt c$$, but one that does not match your initial conditions.

 

[Le Repteux]

No. That does not follow, since the signal between cars is delayed. Further, because of geometrical effects, it does not immediately follow that the cars have simple impulse responses.

Thanks for the nice maths RP, but before commenting them, what kind of geometrical effects are you talking about, and how would it affect the impulses?