When reality contradicts logic and reason

[wynn]

Go ahead then and summarize what Quine taught. No urls. In your own words. We're all ears..

In short, I'd say that one of Quine's ideas is that what we consider to be statements about reality, have very little to do with our actual experience of reality. We have a system of statements about reality (such as "science"), and this system of statements is first and foremost concerned with itself, not with reality (ie. the reality about which these statements propose to be) or our actual experience of reality. Which is how when something seems to be a new finding about reality, we try to fit it in with our system - which sometimes leads us to conclude that reality (!) is or could be irrational or illogical.

IOW, we're confusing the map for the territory, giving preference to the map.

 

[Grumpy]

Magical Realist

Why is it ok to posit an axiom based on no evidence whatsoever if it only makes your equations work?

It isn't. An axiom based on no evidence is pretty useless and likely wrong. You mentioned Unicorns, it would be foolish to assume they exist as an axiom since we've never seen one or any evidence of one.(careful, Unicorns are not the only assumptions in that category, the basis for many(if not most)people's world view is also on shaky ground)

But lightspeed? It has been MEASURED as always travelling at an invariant speed through a vacuum. EVERY TIME IT IS MEASURED, IN ALL FRAMES. So the axiom that light speed is invariant is not based on "no evidence whatsoever" and is a perfectly good assumption to make, unless and until evidence indicates otherwise. The fact that it fits on our map(IE in our equations or our models)indicates our map may be accurate(provisionally).

There are only two axioms in science that must be accepted without prior evidence...

1. That the Universe exists, that it obeys it's own internal rules and is as we see it.

2. That we are capable of understanding the Universe.

All other axioms are provisional and subject to correction.

If the axiom "Unicorns exist." made everything in the universe explainable in a consistently logical way it still wouldn't make that axiom one bit more true.

Wrong. The evidence would indicate that Unicorns do exist(in fact MUST exist)in your hypothetical. If you replaced Unicorns with invariant light speed that is exactly why we consider that invariance as fact. Dark Matter and Dark Energy were discovered by observations indicating that they MUST exist, they are both now assumed(as axioms)in every facet of Cosmology.

Or are we less concerned with the truth of the axioms and more interested in how they allow theories to explain things?

There are two paths of logic in common use. The Top Down paradigm is that truths(axioms)are handed down from on high and are infallible(the Truth(tm)). The Bottom Up paradigm is that axioms are provisional, a work in progress, to be changed or discarded according to the evidence. The Religions of the world are Top Down, their axioms must be accepted on faith. Science is Bottom Up, it's axioms are only as good as the evidence indicates and should never be accepted on faith. Top Down is concerned with the truth of it's axioms. Science tries it's best to prove them false(and expects them to be false if they do not explain the evidence), we call it Falsification. Theories are maps(we call them models), to be corrected as the evidence indicates. Truths(tm)are maps too, but they are expected to be accepted despite what the evidence indicates(IE on faith)and are considered unchangeable, true in all cases. There are no Truths(tm) in science, scientists are not concerned with the "truth of the axioms", but by the accuracy of our models, as indicated by reality. Axioms are only a beginning for logic in science, subject to revision. Axioms are the end of logic in religion(maybe I should just say "non-scientific thought"), questioning them is heresy, the "truth of the axioms" assumed and defended from change. It really is two separate and incompatible ways of thinking, much of your problem is you are trying to understand(or argue about)science by using a non-scientific way of thinking.

As for light being a particle and a wave at the same, no that is not logical.

It may not be intuitive, but it is what we see, so our intuition is wrong. That has happened a lot in science, especially around Relativity and the nature of light. If your "logic" doesn't conform to reality, it is your "logic" that is at fault(even if the logic is valid, if it is applied incorrectly or in ignorance the conclusion is not valid).

By all standards of aristotlean logic, something cannot be in two opposite states at the same time.

So our modern scientific world view should be constrained by what Aristotle thought was true? He was a brilliant logician, but ignorant of reality. And the wave/particle nature of light is perfectly logical, given the thousands of years of scientific inquiry since Aristotle. Waves and particles are not mutually exclusive or opposites in any way, they are simply two aspects of the photon(an ocean wave is made up of particles, you know).

It's like saying the figure is both a square and a triangle. It's just not rational. Thus not only is the duality of light illogical, but quantum superpositions are too. The math may support it. The evidence may support it. But reason and logic do not support it.

Don't mistake your misunderstanding and/or ignorance for a failure in logic. What is illogical to an ignorant man is perfectly logical on closer examination by a scientific one. The FACT is that light has a dual nature, both wave and particle behaviors. If your "logic" says that cannot be true, it is your logic that is wrong because it IS true. You are the one clinging to a map that has been shown to be inaccurate, you are the one giving too much weight to your assumptions(axioms)and refusing to correct them given the available evidence showing them to be false. You are a Top Down thinker, pretty much useless in any scientific endeavor. Only Bottom Up thinkers need apply. It's like the "Authority" argument we had in another thread. Their are no Authorities in science, including Aristotle. Authority is where the Top Down thinker thinks validity or Truth(tm) comes from, it's how they see the world. A square contains two right triangles, you know, so any subset of it is both in a triangle and in a square. It's all in how you look at it.

Grumpy

 

[Pete]

(Disclaimer - I'm not a physicist, and I don't pretend to understand how reality can be the way quantum physics textbooks say it is.)

Why is it ok to posit an axiom based on no evidence whatsoever if it only makes your equations work? If the axiom "Unicorns exist." made everything in the universe explainable in a consistently logical way it still wouldn't make that axiom one bit more true. Or are we less concerned with the truth of the axioms and more interested in how they allow theories to explain things?

If an axiom allows a theory to explain things, then the things it explains are evidence for the axiom, right?

As for light being a particle and a wave at the same, no that is not logical. By all standards of aristotlean logic, something cannot be in two opposite states at the same time.

Photons, electrons, and other things are not waves, and are not particles. They are quanta.
They are things that travels like waves and interact like particles. In some experiments they seem like waves, in others they seem like particles, and in others they seem like neither.
There is nothing in the macroscopic world that behaves like quanta.

Quanta are sometimes compared to multi-stable figures like this:

"Looked at one way, it is a drawing of a vase; looked at another way it is two faces.
We can switch back and forth between the two viewpoints. But we can not see both at once. But the figure is both at once.
Similarly, we can think of an electron as a wave or we can think of an electron as a particle, but we can not think of it as both at once. But in some sense the electron is both at once. Being able to think of these two viewpoints at once is in some sense being able to understand Quantum Mechanics."
- John Wheeler, in an article about Bohr's principle of Complementarity (Physics Today, January 1963, p. 30.)​

Your questions are worth exploring. The conflict with intuition is disturbing enough that the questions you're asking are questions that should be asked.

And, they are:

"For those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
- Niels Bohr, quoted in Heisenberg, Werner (1971). Physics and Beyond. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 206.


"We have always had a great deal of difficulty understanding the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because I'm an old enough man that I haven't got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me. Okay, I still get nervous with it.... You know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem."
- Richard Feynman, in Simulating Physics with Computers appearing in International Journal of Theoretical Physics (1982) p. 471.


"If the price of avoiding non-locality is to make an intuitive explanation impossible, one has to ask whether the cost is too great."
- David Bohm et al. Physc. Rep. 144, 321 (1987)

This doesn't make it any easier for students.

 

[wellwisher]

One way to explain this is with an analogy. Say we have a large photograph of a landscape. Next, we mask out 95% of the photo so we can only see 5%. With only 5%, we can still differentiate what we see, even though the bigger picture is masked out. However, we may not be able to explain that 5% in the context of the biggest picture since it is not visible. What this means is any connections to the other 95%, may not be fully understood, since we lack that all context due to the mask. So, if something odd happens, it may look random at 5%, but be logical at 100%.

Science is about differentiating reality. This results in specialization, with the PhD looking at a tiny slice of life. The mind is trained to target its own 5% of the biggest picture (all of science) and may not see incoming from the other 95%.

Let me give an example. The biggest picture is a formula 1 sports car. We will focus on 5%, which are the tires, but without the 100% context of the biggest picture. We notice tires which should last for years are shredded in an hour. Since we can't see 100%, but only have hard data for 5%, we may have to target out explanation based on what we can see. The theory is a bad batch of tires which is very reasonable.

Next, say we do this for each component of the car (each will use their best 5% context explanation). Now, we will try to build an integrated theory using all these parts with fuzzy borders to 100%. The final integration will be off, since all the pieces are not cut properly, to begin with, simply due to not having each theory based on the 100%. This integration is rough and may not take into account what appear to be anomalies form the true 100%, which is logical.

As a more tangible example, chemistry has more data that any other area of science, if you include biochemistry. Particle physics is a separate piece of the 100% puzzle of reality. Yet there is no direct interface between quarks and hydrogen bonding. You end up with two sub-theories that works best for only a small piece of the pie but do not overlap. If there is actual overlap within 100% reality, it looks mysterious in either sub-theory. This is based on how the brain works.

 

[Magical Realist]

Speed of light may not be constant afterall:


http://blogs.voanews.com/science-world/2013/03/26/speed-of-light-may-not-be-constant/


What if it turns out that the speed of light in a vaccum DOES in fact fluctuate due to these ephemeral particles? Would that threaten the logical consistency of the special theory of relativity?

 

[Magical Realist]

(Disclaimer - I'm not a physicist, and I don't pretend to understand how reality can be the way quantum physics textbooks say it is.)

If an axiom allows a theory to explain things, then the things it explains are evidence for the axiom, right?

Well that's what I'm sort of asking. Many axioms can be assumed that will make an explanation or theory logically consistent. For instance, if I make an axiom that says there is an omnipotent creator God, I can pretty much construct a logical explanation for the existence of everything in the universe. But does that provide evidence for the existence of God? I would say no. It has only served to bolster up our logical theory. But perhaps there are other logical theories that could derive their consistency from entirely different axioms.

Photons, electrons, and other things are not waves, and are not particles. They are quanta.
They are things that travels like waves and interact like particles. In some experiments they seem like waves, in others they seem like particles, and in others they seem like neither.
There is nothing in the macroscopic world that behaves like quanta.

Do we need to invoke a new kind of logic in quantum theory--one different from the classical view of discrete spatially extended objects in spacetime?

Quanta are sometimes compared to multi-stable figures like this:

"Looked at one way, it is a drawing of a vase; looked at another way it is two faces.
We can switch back and forth between the two viewpoints. But we can not see both at once. But the figure is both at once.
Similarly, we can think of an electron as a wave or we can think of an electron as a particle, but we can not think of it as both at once. But in some sense the electron is both at once. Being able to think of these two viewpoints at once is in some sense being able to understand Quantum Mechanics."
- John Wheeler, in an article about Bohr's principle of Complementarity (Physics Today, January 1963, p. 30.)​

That sort of suggests we DO need a new kind of logic for quantum phenomena. Perhaps the Buddhists can help us out here. (see CC's fine post #6)..

Your questions are worth exploring. The conflict with intuition is disturbing enough that the questions you're asking are questions that should be asked.

And, they are:

"For those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
- Niels Bohr, quoted in Heisenberg, Werner (1971). Physics and Beyond. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 206.


"We have always had a great deal of difficulty understanding the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because I'm an old enough man that I haven't got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me. Okay, I still get nervous with it.... You know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem."
- Richard Feynman, in Simulating Physics with Computers appearing in International Journal of Theoretical Physics (1982) p. 471.


"If the price of avoiding non-locality is to make an intuitive explanation impossible, one has to ask whether the cost is too great."
- David Bohm et al. Physc. Rep. 144, 321 (1987)

This doesn't make it any easier for students.

Good points. I was thinking as I was driving the other day how fortunate it is we have classical logic to rely on. I mean as I drive down the road at 60 mph the tree on the side really IS in only one place at one time. And the cars really DO remain stable objects in space instead of quantum tunneling suddenly onto my side of the freeway. Think how crazy and unpredictable reality would become if quantum logic suddenly applied to our everyday experience!

 

[Yazata]

What does science do when the math dictates illogical states?

If mathematics is logical by definition, how could it 'dictate illogical states'?

What does it do when the empiricle evidence defies the rational?

I'm not sure what 'defies the rational' means there. If it means 'contradicts the mathematics', then the most obvious conclusion would probably be to say that our proposed mathematical model has been falsified. It doesn't work. It's not properly a model at all.

I should probably make some comments here about a fairly advanced part of formal logic called 'model theory'. The 'Oxford Guide to Philosophy' defines it this way:

When a set of sentences contain symbols that need interpreting, an interpretation that makes the sentences true is called a 'model' of the set. In 1954 Alfred Tarski introduced the name 'model theory' for the study of this notion...

A structure M is said to be a model of a set S of formal sentences, if the sentences in S, when their formal symbols are interpreted as being about M, are all true...

A possible source of confusion to watch out for is that in logic and mathematics the interest is on the set of formal strings of symbols in S, and it's the interpretation M of the sentences that's being called the 'model'. In other words, the model in the logical sense is whatever the sentences can be about such that all the sentences in the set will be true. Outside mathematics and logic in ordinary speech (including scientific language), things are usually reversed. Our interest is primarily in whatever the symbols are supposed to be about. So the set of sentences S is usually called the model of whatever it is that they seek to capture.

I guess that in both cases, the underlying idea might be isomorphism, an identity of logical structure between the sentences S and whatever M makes S all T. Note that formal logic presents us with a very strong criterion for what is and isn't a model, since all the sentences S have to be T in M.

For example, light is, illogically enough, modelled as both a particle and a wave.

Those are physical models. Physical models seek to model physical realities in terms of some simplified material construction. That construction might be physical, as in the little balls-and-sticks models of molecules that chemists make, but more often they are conceptual, as in your 'particle' and 'wave' examples. They basically propose an isomorphic analogy between the construction and whatever physical reality it seeks to model.

Do we accept it as true even though it is illogical?

Can we say that any physical model ever rises to the level of a formal logical model in the Tarskian sense? Physical models capture something of the structure of what they are modeling, which is what makes them useful. But obviously we can't say that every true sentence about the physical model is going to simultaneously be true about the reality that the physical model hopes to model. The molecular model on the chem-lab desk is made out of painted and varnished wooden balls. Obviously that's not true of the DNA molecule that it seeks to depict. Physical models will also introduce many simplifying assumptions.

So I guess that we can perhaps make the strong statement that an exhaustive set of sentences about a physical model can't ever be a formal model in the logical/mathematical sense, since it will never be the case that every sentence about the model will simultaneously be true about the reality that the model seeks to model. What's said about the model will be true of the reality in some respects, but not in others.

Does this mean that reality may not necessarily even conform to our reason or logic?

That's one possibility.

But at this point, perhaps all that we can say about quantum mechanics is that our proposed accounts of what's actually happening, particularly the physical models, don't rise to the level of formal logical models. Our sentences S, based on assumptions about classical particles and waves, aren't likely to all remain T when M is quantum reality. Maybe they can't, given the likelihood that any set of sentences S describing a physical model S will at best be T of M in some respects and not in others.

That wouldn't necessarily mean that reality is illogical. It might just illustrate the lack of total verisimilitude in our simplified classical physical models and perhaps some more basic limitations in the modeling process itself.

 

[Russ_Watters]

Speed of light may not be constant afterall:


http://blogs.voanews.com/science-world/2013/03/26/speed-of-light-may-not-be-constant/


What if it turns out that the speed of light in a vaccum DOES in fact fluctuate due to these ephemeral particles? Would that threaten the logical consistency of the special theory of relativity?

No. Again, "logically consistent" just means the conclusion follows from the starting assumption. If the starting assumption is wrong, the conclusion may be wrong, but that doesn't make it illogical. Newton's gravity was wrong, but it is still logical, not to mention useful.

Consider the following: "if the sun were deep blue, everything we see would have a blue tint.". The starting premise is wrong, but the statement follows logically.

 

[Russ_Watters]

Duplicate deleted

 

[Magical Realist]

Come to find out they had to invent a whole new kind of logic for quantum phenomena since it defied some of the rules of classical logic, namely the distributive law of propositional logic:

[color=#ccoo33]"In quantum mechanics, quantum logic is a set of rules for reasoning about propositions which takes the principles of quantum theory into account. This research area and its name originated in the 1936 paper by Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann, who were attempting to reconcile the apparent inconsistency of classical logic with the facts concerning the measurement of complementary variables in quantum mechanics, such as position and momentum.

Quantum logic can be formulated either as a modified version of propositional logic or as a noncommutative and non-associative many-valued (MV) logic.[1][2][3][4][5]

Quantum logic has some properties which clearly distinguish it from classical logic, most notably, the failure of the distributive law of propositional logic:

p and (q or r) = (p and q) or (p and r),
where the symbols p, q and r are propositional variables.

To illustrate why the distributive law fails, consider a particle moving on a line and let
p = "the particle has momentum in the interval [0, +1/6]" q = "the particle is in the interval [-1, 1]" r = "the particle is in the interval [1, 3]"

(using some system of units where the reduced Planck's constant is 1) then we might observe that:

p and (q or r) = true

in other words, that the particle's momentum is between 0 and +1/6, and its position is between -1 and +3. On the other hand, the propositions "p and q" and "p and r" are both false, since they assert tighter restrictions on simultaneous values of position and momentum than is allowed by the uncertainty principle (they have combined uncertainty 1/3 < 1/2).

So, (p and q) or (p and r) = false

Thus the distributive law fails.

Quantum logic has been proposed as the correct logic for propositional inference generally, most notably by the philosopher Hilary Putnam, at least at one point in his career. This thesis was an important ingredient in Putnam's paper Is Logic Empirical? in which he analysed the epistemological status of the rules of propositional logic. Putnam attributes the idea that anomalies associated to quantum measurements originate with anomalies in the logic of physics itself to the physicist David Finkelstein. However, this idea had been around for some time and had been revived several years earlier by George Mackey's work on group representations and symmetry.

The more common view regarding quantum logic, however, is that it provides a formalism for relating observables, system preparation filters and states. In this view, the quantum logic approach resembles more closely the C*-algebraic approach to quantum mechanics; in fact with some minor technical assumptions it can be subsumed by it. The similarities of the quantum logic formalism to a system of deductive logic may then be regarded more as a curiosity than as a fact of fundamental philosophical importance. A more modern approach to the structure of quantum logic is to assume that it is a diagram – in the sense of category theory – of classical logics (see David Edwards)."[/color]---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic

 

[Russ_Watters]

What's your point?

 

[Grumpy]

Magical Realist

The most important sentence in your cite on lightspeed fluctuating. No one has measured any such thing, yet.

If these findings are proved to be true, they could have an impact on current scientific theories that take the speed of light into consideration.

Reading your cite the cases are deductive and not shown to be true. I really doubt it ever will be shown to be true. Scientists can be overconfident when presenting such papers, but slink off quietly when they don't stand up to scrutiny.

Grumpy

 

[Magical Realist]

No. Again, "logically consistent" just means the conclusion follows from the starting assumption. If the starting assumption is wrong, the conclusion may be wrong, but that doesn't make it illogical. Newton's gravity was wrong, but it is still logical, not to mention useful.

Consider the following: "if the sun were deep blue, everything we see would have a blue tint.". The starting premise is wrong, but the statement follows logically.

So logical consistency need NOT be an indication of a theory's truth, especially in those instances when its fundamental axioms are wrong? Why are so many theories concerned with being logically consistent then if they are totally contingent on the truth of their axioms for being true? What iow does logical consistency prove in the end?

 

[Magical Realist]

First law of classical logic: the Law of Identity. See if the statement: "An electron or photon is both a wave and particle." fits it:

"In logic, the law of identity is the first of the three classical laws of thought. It states that: “each thing is the same with itself and different from another”: “A is A and not ~A”. By this it is meant that each thing (be it a universal or a particular) comprises it own unique set of characteristic qualities or features, which the ancient Greeks called its essence. Consequently, things that have the same essence are the same thing, while things that have different essences are different things. [1] In its symbolic representation: (“A is A”) the first element of the proposition represents the subject (thing) and the second element, the predicate (its essence), with the copula “is” signifying the relation of “identity”. [2] Further, since a definition is an expression of the essence of that thing with which the linguistic term is associated, it follows that it is through its definition that the identity of a thing is established.[3] For example, in the definitive proposition[4]:"A lawyer is a person qualified and authorized to practice law", the subject (lawyer) and the predicate (person qualified and authorized to practice law) are declared to be one and the same thing (identical). Consequently, the Law of Identity prohibits us from rightfully calling anything other than "a person qualified and authorized to practice law" a "lawyer".

In logical discourse, violations of the Law of Identity (LOI) result in the informal logical fallacy known as equivocation.[5] That is to say, we cannot use the same term in the same discourse while having it signify difference senses or meanings – even though the different meanings are conventionally prescribed to that term. In everyday language, violations of the LOI introduce ambiguity into the discourse, making it is difficult to form an interpretation at the desired level of specificity."----http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity

 

[Magical Realist]

Yazata, aren't physical models in the end just geometrical metaphors applied to abstract concepts to make them more comprehensible? For instance many people speak of time as a flowing substance like a river current. Isn't this just a common sense kind of model to help us understand time by? The question remains though does the model or metaphor help us understand the concepts in the RIGHT way? A model or metaphor afterall may totally sidetrack us onto an erroneous way of understanding the phenomena. See time as a flowing river again. I mean time isn't REALLY moving by us is it? This goes to the inherent limitations (fallibility) of every model you mentioned. Who decides when two models equally account for a phenomena but in totally different ways? Take electron theory. When I was studying electronics in Navy A school they mentioned another version of explaining electricity called hole theory. Instead of seeing the electrons as flowing and building up positive charges, you could picture holes flowing and building up negative charges. It was a different model that explained the same phenomena. But which was right? I guess models should only be taken in a loose sense and not so literally. Afterall, a model only works because it in fact simplifies and so necessarily leaves alot of the aspects of the phenomenon UNexplained.

 

[Magical Realist]

Dialetheism:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/


Note Taoism and Zen make abundant use of dialetheias, or logically contradictory statements. Might there be a level of truth that can embrace even these?

"Dialetheism appears to be a much more common and recurrent view in Eastern Philosophy than in the West. In ancient Indian logic/metaphysics, there were standardly four possibilities to be considered on any statement at issue: that it is true (only), false (only), neither true nor false, or both true and false. Buddhist logicians sometimes added a fifth possibility: none of these. (Both positions were called the catushkoti.) The Jains went even further and advocated the possibility of contradictory values of the kind: true (only) and both true and false. (Smart, 1964, has a discussion of the above issues.)

Contradictory utterances are a commonplace in Taoism. For example, the Chuang Tsu says: “That which makes things has no boundaries with things, but for things to have boundaries is what we mean by saying ‘the boundaries between things'. The boundaryless boundary is the boundary without a boundary” (Mair, 1994, p. 218). When Buddhism and Taoism fused to form Chan (or Zen, to give it its Japanese name), a philosophy arose in which contradiction plays a central role. The very process for reaching enlightenment (Prajna) is a process, according to Suzuki (1969, p. 55), “which is at once above and in the process of reasoning. This is a contradiction, formally considered, but in truth, this contradiction is itself made possible because of Prajna.”

 

[Magical Realist]

Magical Realist

The most important sentence in your cite on lightspeed fluctuating. No one has measured any such thing, yet.



Reading your cite the cases are deductive and not shown to be true. I really doubt it ever will be shown to be true. Scientists can be overconfident when presenting such papers, but slink off quietly when they don't stand up to scrutiny.

Grumpy

This is a quote from a post in the blog thread below the article. Seems to point to real empirical evidence for this idea:

Tom says:

March 26, 2013 at 8:31 pm

"There has been experimental evidence observed consistent with this proposal. This has been seen in experiments observing gamma radiation arriving from supernovas from across the universe. The higher energy shorter wavelength gamma rays/photons appear to arrive sooner than lower energy longer wavelength radiation. This suggests higher energy photons travel slightly faster than lower energy photons. Since the gamma rays have traveled more than 10 billion light years and left the supernova simultaneously, its been proposed that this vacuum impedance is the likely cause for the difference in time of flight for the photons/light. The higher energy gamma photons interact less with the quantum vacuum than do the lower energy gamma rays. Because the distance is over 10 billion light years to the supernova explosion, it acts like a magnifier for the different time of flight for the photons which would be immeasurable if examined at short distances. The difference in time of arrival can be measured in seconds in differential time of flight. This is consistent with what is being proposed here in that higher energy shorter wavelength light appears to experience less impedance and therefore travel faster through the quantum vacuum."

 

[Grumpy]

Magical Realist

Tom says:

The higher energy gamma photons interact less with the quantum vacuum than do the lower energy gamma rays

A gamma ray is not made of photons, it is made of a particle of mass accelerated to NEAR lightspeed by the most energetic reactions in the Universe. Being particles(protons, electrons, positrons, anti-matter...whatever)they do not travel at lightspeed and they have a charge which reacts to magnetic fields, so it is to be expected that such fields would effect heavier/more energetic particles less than lighter/less energetic ones. Gamma ray energy is also affected by velocity, faster is higher. Photons of radiation have no mass, nor do they have a charge plus they travel at lightspeed.

The comments section of a popular science blog is hardly a good source of information, he doesn't even know what a gamma ray is. Talk about starting with false axioms.

Grumpy

 

[Magical Realist]

Grumpy, it sounds like you're confusing gamma radiation, or alpha and beta rays, with the astronomical phenomenon called gamma-rays. Gamma-rays are indeed electromagnetic energy and are composed of photons:


"In astronomy, higher energy gamma and X-rays are defined by energy, since the processes which produce them may be uncertain and photon energy, not origin, determines the required astronomical detectors needed.[14] High energy photons occur in nature which are known to be produced by processes other than nuclear decay but are still referred to as gamma radiation. An example is "gamma rays" from lightning discharges at 10 to 20 MeV, and known to be produced by the Bremsstrahlung mechanism.

Another example is gamma ray bursts, now known to be produced from processes too powerful to involve simple collections of atoms undergoing radioactive decay. This has led to the realization that many gamma rays produced in astronomical processes result not from radioactive decay or particle annihilation, but rather in much the same manner as the production of X-rays. Although gamma rays in astronomy are discussed below as non-radioactive events, in fact a few gamma rays are known in astronomy to originate explicitly from gamma decay of nucleus (by their spectra and half-life). A classic example is that of supernova SN 1987A, which emits an "afterglow" of gamma-ray photons from the decay of newly made radioactive cobalt-56. Most gamma rays in astronomy, however, arise by other mechanisms. Note that, astronomical literature tends to write "gamma-ray" with a hyphen, by analogy to X-rays, rather than in a way analogous to alpha rays and beta rays. This notation tends to subtly stress the non-nuclear source of most astronomical gamma rays."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray

Here's an actual science article concerning the gamma-ray experiments the poster was referring to:

http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2843-gamma-ray-photons-quantum-spacetime.html

 

[Pete]

Gamma rays = gamma radiation = high energy electromagnetic radiation = photons

Alpha and beta rays/radiation have mass (they are helium nucleii and electrons respectively)