Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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Sy Borg
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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Felix wrote: June 16th, 2018, 10:00 pm
Dachshund: There are two generic theories; one is that the universe is finite, that is, it is definitely limited and therefore bounded in some sense, but expanding nonetheless. The other is that the universe is infinite....
Both could be true: finite temporal universes within infinite space, the boundary between finite and infinite space would be dimensional or some other species of space than our material variety. We have mysterious invisible types of space right within our known universe, which we call dark energy and dark matter.
I think the point is moot. If the universe is not infinite, it might as well be.
Felix wrote:
Greta: According to Krauss, before the BB was the quantum foam with countless virtual particles popping in and out of existence until one of them expanded instead of disappearing.
I don't think the words "quantum foam" have any real meaning, just a quasi-scientific term for unknown stuff.
It sure does have a real meaning, though a physicist would be best equipped to explain. For us, suffice to say that "quantum foam" means that there is always stuff going on - that energy and activity in reality at some level is always present. Or, another way of putting it, "nothingness" is actually something, teeming with momentary perturbations that flash in an out in an instant.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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“Quantum foam” basically expresses the playful humour and imagination of physicists. They are not robots. What it refers to is down at a certain level the physical world is not flat and measureable, it is “foamy” - of course it is an analogy of the mathematics and more of a whimsical term like the “flavour” of certain subatomic phenomenon.

Another view would be to talk about the “bubbles” between the empirical data. The lower or the deeper we probe the more our methods become redundant.

The biggest problem here is the layman taking something particular to mathematical understanding and having to interpret it without a frame of reference. To the mathematician/physicist such terms are used as verbal markers to refer to mathematical patterns. To fully understand (and I don’t claim that I do) one would have to study physics and mathematics to distinguish bewteen the mathematical language and the English approximation to feel around and express the abstract reality of the mathematical calculation in relation to the empirical data.

In thid respect “quantum foam” merely refers to the limit of application for the mathematics. It is the current boundary of our understanding where things get fuzzy even for the mathematical abstraction.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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Yes, perhaps best to let physicists explain virtual particles and the quantum foam: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/phys ... riosities/
Empty space—that is, space that contains nothing—no energy, no charge, no matter, nothing—is filled with a writhing, active population of virtual particles that physicists call “the quantum foam,” with bubbles appearing and popping in wild abandon. At the subatomic level, space is never truly empty.

You’d think that if empty space were filled with a constant roiling boil of quantum activity, you’d see it. The fact that you don’t could give you yet more reason to disbelieve, yet the effects of the quantum foam have been directly observed.

The first observation of the quantum foam came from tiny disturbances in the energy levels of the electron in a hydrogen atom. A second effect was predicted in 1947 by Hendrik Casimir and Dirk Polder. If the quantum foam was real, they reasoned, then the particles should exist everywhere in space. Further, since particles also have a wave nature, there should be waves everywhere. So what they imagined was to have two parallel metal plates, placed near one another. The quantum foam would exist both between the plates and outside of them. But because the plates were placed near one another, only short waves could exist between the plates, while short and long wavelength waves could exist outside them. Because of this imbalance, the excess of waves outside the plates should overpower the smaller number of waves between them, pushing the two plates together. Thirty years after it was first predicted, this effect was observed qualitatively. It was measured accurately in 1997.
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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I’ve asked him before to give an analogy of electron “orbits”. He had nothing fresh to offer - as with the above.

Peter Green sums it nicely enough:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jQBhpLwKKEw

Topology is basically what we’re talkig about. Just like a straight line on a graph can represent change of some given unit over time, so complex topology can represent theories of quantum phenomenon and such models are then analogized into geometric patterns to elicit a more intuitive understanding for humans.

Just like the number 1 can represent the whole, it can also be applied to singular units within a group of units. Best not to get to carried away with analogy if you don’t, and we don’t, understand the physical reality presented in abstract mathematics.

If anyone starts with “it’s best to think of it as ...” they’re just offering an intuitive way to understand the mathematical model not the phenomenon underlying it.
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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Burning ghost wrote: June 18th, 2018, 4:00 amPeter Green sums it nicely enough:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jQBhpLwKKEw
LOL I was expecting an early Fleetwood Mac clip.

Greene is a good thinker and educationalist IMO.
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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Haha! Had a brain/brian fart there ... Oh Well!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8RhZDGLEXM
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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:)

I did the same thing on a music forum where I referred to Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker as Maureen Connolly - a tennis player, who was also known as "Mo". Much as I admire Peter Green's talent (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10qFyJARcW4) I find Brian Greene's arguments for the existence of a multiverse are more persuasive than others I've heard.
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

Post by Felix »

What a disappointment, thought BG was going to clue us in on what really made Peter Green have a mental breakdown... do not drink the quantum foam!

'You’d think that if empty space were filled with a constant roiling boil of quantum activity, you’d see it."

My point was that quantum foam is an attempt to describe a nonexistent thing because there is no "empty space" in a bounded temporal universe like the one we inhabit. Beyond it, who knows.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Re: Request for Help re the Notion of Potential Infinity

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Felix wrote: June 18th, 2018, 7:10 pmMy point was that quantum foam is an attempt to describe a nonexistent thing because there is no "empty space" in a bounded temporal universe like the one we inhabit. Beyond it, who knows.
The boffins worked it out and it more or less makes sense to me. The point there too is that there is no empty space. Emptiness is apparently a purely relative concept.
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