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Heraclitus’ Saying “The Wartime-Slaughterer is the Father of Everyone”: almost confirmed through Einstein’s Intuition

Otto E. Rossler

Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 14, 72076 Tubingen, Germany

Abstract

The Einstein-Bell-Feingold experiment is reviewed and put into a 2 ½ millennia old context. There are only months to go until the experiment will be accomplished by ESA following 14 years of preparation. This “relativistic Bell experiment” is arguably the most important one of history. The riddle of the “assignment conditions” which complement the “laws” and “initial conditions” of Newton is the deepest in science. This riddle is made experimentally accessible for the first time by the Zeilinger experiment. In this experiment, the assigned world will most likely turn out to be personalized. If so, Everett’s theory will be experimentally proven at the expense of the Copenhagen interpretation. In this way, religion will be re-installed as the central element of reality.

Key words: Laws, initial conditions, assignment conditions; Einstein’s bi-symmetric thinking; Einstein completion of quantum mechanics; Bell nonlocality; relativistic EPR experiment; two-frame EPR experiment; second EPR effect; Feingold experiment; Zeilinger-Pan experiment; quantum satellite; assignment experiment; falsifiability of Copenhagen; Everett experiment; VX-experiment; vexing experiment; Heraclitus experiment; subtle connection; partial solipsism; religious experimental physics; ESA; EPR; REP; MFU; AAH. (May 12, 2015)

Introduction

Heraclitus is the most daring mind on record with his commonly misunderstood phrase of war as the father of all things. What he actually said was (with explanatory words added in square brackets): The war [-time slaughterer] is both the father of all [souls] and the king of all [souls]; the ones [of them] he has appointed to be gods, the others to be humans, the ones he made [to be] slaves, the others [to be] free citizens, cf. [1].

Does there really exist this only momentarily palpable “father” with his infinite power, also called by Heraclitus The Lightning [-thrower] who controls everything in detail and, at another place, A child on the throne playing board games? Heraclitus had further names for the same instance including female ones.

The physics experiment referred to here is in progress for 14 years at ESA under the aegis of Anton Zeilinger and more recently also that of Jian-Wei Pan, cf. [2]. Susan J. Feingold first proposed the experiment in the 1970s (cf. [3, 4]) with many other authors following suit independently including Roger Penrose [5] as number three. The second case [6] (not the first as could be believed at the time) still got responded to by John Stewart Bell himself in 1988. He spontaneously said “this idea is completely new to me” when the VX diagram (see below) was drawn onto a dinner-table napkin for him and his wife. Later – after having seen the finished manuscript that owed its existence to his encouragement – he responded to the written request to kindly submit it for me in his characteristic style: “I do not share your enthusiasm for these ideas and do not want to share in the responsibility” but: he had carefully corrected-through the whole manuscript so it could be published [6]. The Feingold experiment (as it deserves to be called [3]) represents “heavy diet” indeed.

The VX diagram combines the light cone (symbolized by a letter V with time pointing up) of the two bilaterally emitted correlated photons of the Bell experiment [7] with two crossed simultaneity lines (symbolized by a flat letter X) overlaid. Therefore in each of the two local simultaneities valid in the two almost-horizontal mutually crossing relativistic frames, the rotation-symmetric singlet state of two correlated photons that are simultaneously emitted from the center in opposite directions (V) gets “reduced”(destroyed in a measurement) first. Note that the two measurements are located at the upper-right and the upper-left crossing of the V by the X. Hence for each side, the other measurement is the second measurement since it comes later [6]. This is what you get when the famous EPR gedanken experiment of 1935 [8] is combined with special relativity [6].

The new double-frame EPR experiment can be realized with a standard Aspect [9] experimental set-up when the latter is equipped with a source of correlated photons that is pairwise-simultaneously emitting. What is new is only the fact that one of the two measurements is done, not on earth with its equal simultaneity (as in the experiment of ref. [9]) but rather in a momentarily receding relativistic frame endowed with its own simultaneity – that is, inside a fast-departing satellite that has just flown overhead [6]. The experiment will prove (in case it has the outcome no one in physics doubts) that each observer lives in her or his own Everett world [6]. In other words it will imply that “the world is made for me” in accordance with an old phrase in Judaism (which continues “I am nothing and You are everything”). This is frightening stuff in a physics context. Possibly – just possibly – the deeper reason why the experiment did not get finished over more than a decade has to do with its straightforward metaphysical implications. At any rate, humankind appears not ready to face the expected (if never emphasized) experimental outcome.

Even if the VX experiment is going to fail in a currently unfathomable manner, it can still with some justification be called “the most interesting experiment of history.” The name assignment experiment or synonymously Heraclitus Experiment therefore offers itself. Another name would be Psalm 139:5 Experiment since the psalm’s words were contemporaneous to those of Heraclitus conveying the same daring spirit [10].

The both most frightening and most humble Experiment

The experimental set up is originally due to Kocher and Commins [11]. These authors were the first to, (i) prepare a singlet quantum state valid between two correlated photons emitted in opposite directions and to, (ii) measure angular correlations. It was only owing to their not yet having learned about Bell’s result [7] that they did not measure through all relative angles of the polarizers used on the two sides (or if they did, they did not include those results). The most famous later version of this non-relativistic EPR-Bell experiment is due to Alain Aspect [9] as mentioned. It is well-known in the physics community that this experiment has demonstrated to the eye, with its careful checks, that the rotation-symmetric singlet quantum state of a pair of freshly emitted correlated photons can be successfully reduced (be measured) on one side first – and that at this very moment the spin gets fixed onto a particular (the same) angle also on the other side through instantaneous action-at-a-distance [7]. Many variants and extensions of this Bell nonlocality were tried out since with a large literature accrued (see [12] for the most recent example in which two quantum properties got “teleported” simultaneously). Such a “spooky action at a distance” [8] type outcome had been considered possible if unlikely by Einstein who optimistically expected that following the measurement on one side of the momentum (say), the corresponding position measurement could still be made with impunity on the twin particle of the other side. But Einstein had single-handedly spotted this whole symmetry problem. The important new element, contributed subsequently by Bell [7], was to make Einstein’s idea testable in a physically realistic setting by having his “Bell inequality” applied to the measured outcomes of both sides. This is what Aspect tested and confirmed: the first measurement’s outcome makes itself felt superluminally fast on the other side [9]. For his surprise breakthrough, John Stewart Bell would have won the Nobel prize only days after his sudden death in 1990 (and with him presumably would have Alain Aspect and perhaps also Kocher and Commins).

The Einstein-Bell experiment yielded the very outcome – proof of a superluminal connection – that Bell favored [7] and Einstein doubted but had singlehandedly spotted as a possibility in need to be falsified experimentally [8]. The superluminal connection was then empirically found to be physical reality on using the new instrument of the Bell inequality [7] by Aspect and his coauthors [9] as mentioned. This famous finding, called “Bell nonlocality,” consists in the superluminal “fixation at a distance” of the “reduced quantum state,” generated by the first measurement out of the former rotation-symmetric superposition-type “singlet state” of the pair of freshly emitted correlated photons, on the other side. In other words the measurement done first “reduces” the previous superposition of spins onto a fixed orientation [7,9]. The second measurement accomplished on the other side could, by means of the instrument of the Bell inequality, be proved to have been influenced at a distance by the first measurement [7]. Thus the “trap” put to nature by Einstein [8] was made operational by Bell [7] – albeit with an experimental outcome that Einstein himself had considered unlikely. This latter fact has misled many to erroneously believe that Einstein had been experimentally “disproved” here for once.

All of the above is well known. So is the fact that – despite the proven superluminal breakdown of the circular symmetry of the previously valid singlet quantum state of the pair of correlated photons accomplished at a distance by the first measurement – no messages can be sent in this fashion. Or to be more precise: the superluminally sent message cannot be verified unilaterally. The verification over there becomes possible only “in retrospect”: after the first measurement’s result has been relayed to the receiving side by subluminal mail [13]. All of this is both fascinating and perplexing, cf. [14].

Susan J. Feingold was the first to see that the experiment is going to work, not only under a condition of ordinary spatial separation alone mentioned by Einstein [8] for its being the most straightforward possibility, but also under a condition of causal separation. The latter occurs when either measurement in its own frame takes place before the other. Peres’ 1984 paper [4] represents an early attempt to formally come to grips with this situation. The revolutionary idea is to arrange for things in such a way that on either side, the measurement done there is the first measurement in the relativistic frame of that side [4,6,13].

This “relativistic extension of the EPR experiment” for some reason went unmentioned in the original EPR publication [8] but was of course “trivially implicit” since at least the first author of that paper was fully aware of it and merely chose not to mention it for reasons of didactic simplicity. Conversely, Einstein would have been maximally astonished to learn that it would take four decades until the (to him trivial) relativistic extension of his experiment would for the first time be seen by someone else in the future (Susan Feingold). This natural extension then indeed possesses the world-shaking power that Einstein had had in mind from the outset. The choice of the soft-sounding word “completion” in the EPR paper [8] is living proof of this maverick intention on his part. Note that “completing” a position measurement by an unperturbed momentum measurement (etc.) in quantum mechanics is tantamount to the abolition of quantum mechanics itself. Einstein never was more subtly aggressive than in this maximally soft-footed choice of words. Note that an in this sense “completed” quantum mechanics amounted to a refuted quantum mechanics in Einstein’s days since it meant being able to measure both the virgin “momentum” and the virgin “position” of a pair of correlated particles – the one thing that quantum mechanics forbids.

So much for a somewhat more detailed description of the “Zeilinger experiment” as it deserves to be called (unless ESA is overtaken by a competitor who then will carry the palm). At the present moment in time, no one can be absolutely sure what the outcome of the Zeilinger experiment will be. However, the overwhelmingly likely prediction mentioned – that the Bell inequality will continue to be violated empirically so that Bell’s nonlocality persists – is apparently doubted by no one in the field [2]. Unfortunately – or fortunately – this prediction is fraught with heavy implications.

Main Point

The point is that, if in the Zeilinger experiment the familiar result of a violation of the Bell inequality will be found on earth in combination with the measurements relayed back from the satellite, as no one doubts will occur, then these pairs of measurement “must not be the same pairs” as hold true in the other frame (that of the satellite together with the results relayed up to it from the ground). For in the case of that identity holding true, the uncertainty principle and the Copenhagen interpretation would be disproved empirically – just as Einstein had hoped. For then, both the position and the momentum (or their analogs) of a pair of correlated particles would have been measured successfully. This aim Einstein hoped to achieve under a condition of mere spatial separation already. But now, under the relativistic extension of the EPR-Bell experiment of the Tel Aviv school [4], the situation has become radically stronger: Einstein’s prediction that two non-commuting quantum results can be measured with impunity can be confirmed in experiment. This result – which no one doubts will be found – will imply the end of quantum mechanics as it was known in 1935. Einstein’s “battle of giants” with Bohr would then have been won at last [15].

However, the virtually certain vindication of Einstein’s 1935 superhumanly bold aim, surprisingly, will not entail the demise of quantum mechanics itself. It will “only” mean that the Copenhagen interpretation (not “theory” any more) of quantum mechanics has been experimentally disproved in fulfilment of Einstein’s 1935 goal: Two first measurements will exist – with each side possessing formal evidence, based on the Bell inequality, for its having affected the other side at a distance as the corresponding second measurement. In either frame, the data then are no different than in an ordinary Bell experiment: each side will find that it has reduced the superposition-type singlet state first and thereby has influenced the measurement result obtained on the other side.

However, this is impossible since then, both measurements would be virgin-type measurements which quantum mechanics forbids. The observed validity of the Bell inequality will prove that only one measurement (one’s own) has been a superposition-reducing first measurement, so that the other by implication could no longer contribute a virgin measurement of the complementary result. Thus, both measurements would be virgin experiments and both frames would be privileged. But while quantum mechanics seemingly survives in each side’s frame (so that this frame was privileged), the other side can say the same thing about itself. This is illogical. Does there remain a way open to say that Einstein’s aim to find two virgin results that jointly violate the uncertainty relation was not fulfilled? From this logical conundrum, one way out remains open. This is the big surprise reported here.

Everett

For the first time in history, one will have empirical evidence on hand that more than one quantum world exists in the sense of Everett’s theory of quantum mechanics [16]. For in perfect accordance with his theory, two pairs of measurement will be proven valid experimentally, each in its own frame but each inaccessible in the other frame. That is, the first measurement would still have influenced the other in a superluminal fashion in accordance with the observed violation of the Bell inequality. However, the same thing would hold true in the opposite direction for the other side (that of the satellite) since that side likewise reduced the superposition-type singlet quantum state first in its own simultaneity. Thus, there must now exist two unequal superluminal influences valid in two unequal pairs of measurement, each bilateral pair being plain on one side and opaque to the other. This is the conclusion which remains possible to be drawn in case the Bell correlations are going to empirically survive in the Zeilinger experiment as no one doubts.

Both “ordinary” Bell-type measurement results cannot coexist in the same common quantum world because then both the “momentum” and the “position” (or their analogs) would be empirically known for both particles so that quantum mechanics would be disproved experimentally just as Einstein had hoped. The still remaining alternative – unknown to exist in 1935 – is Everett’s theory [16]. There is a historical gem to tell at this point: Seven years after the EPR paper had appeared, Einstein would write an encouraging letter to a 12 years old boy, so I learned from Bill Seaman who had seen the original document (personal communication 2010). That same former child would later invent the now alone-surviving theory of quantum mechanics: Everett (for this was the name of that boy 15 years before).

Everett would thus be confirmed experimentally for the first time by the mentioned, currently alone conceivable outcome (survival of the Bell correlations) of the Zeilinger experiment. This is maximally surprising since so far, Everett’s theory was believed to be a mere interpretation rather than a competing theory of the same standing as the Copenhagen theory. Now, the two roles are switched in defiance of previous wisdom. The exciting new falsifiability of Copenhagen in the footsteps of Einstein was apparently first glimpsed by Susan J. Feingold. It will (or rather would since the result is not yet in) imply as an automatic corollary that “the world is made for me” (see Introduction). For the measurement’s outcome (persistence of the Bell correlations) will represent the first empirical proof of more than one quantum world existing. It will thereby re-install the partial solipsism of Heraclitus and King David mentioned in the Introduction. No single more surprising and awe-inspiring experimental prediction was ever made in the history of science, it appears.

Discussion

A description has been offered of how Einstein’s bi-symmetric mind worked. From that basis, a “virtually certain outcome” was derived for a particular experiment that is about to be done for 14 years already. It can be called the Einstein-Bell Task.

This strand of physics is not at all easy to understand. The pertinent mathematics is still underdeveloped in view of the complex symmetry constraints that apply. The “relativistic EPR experiment” (REPR) got first spotted by Susan Feingold. The experiment – two opposite directions of a light cone V overlaid with two flat simultaneity lines X valid in two mutually receding frames – can be called the “vexing experiment” (for VX). The two measurements are located on the upper outer sides of the letter X, a figure found first (without the X lines continuously drawn) in a 1984 paper by Asher Peres [4] who was Feingold’s physics mentor. The Feingold experiment makes unusually heavy demands on human visualization. To date, Professor Feingold works as an active composer in her second vocation (in which identity she can be found on Youtube). Only very few physicists have so far dared focus on the power of this “second epoch-making Einstein experiment” as it deserves to be called 28 years in the wake of Einstein’s first (the outlandish 1907 prediction of a gravitational clock slow-down that is confirmed every day in our car navigation systems). These two miraculous – maddeningly absurd – predictions make Einstein the most intimidating thinker since Heraclitus [17].

The original EPR experiment (the V overlaid with but a single simultaneity line ) already implies that a measurement done on one side influences in an instantaneous superluminal fashion the outcome of a measurement done subsequently on the other side [7]. This fact cannot be found out locally but only after the first measurement’s sequence of results has been made known at the location of the second by subluminal means [13]. Note that even this first EPR effect, made tangible by Bell, was maximally alien in its own right already (it is such a pity it could not be made more visible by Stockholm).

However, the ultimate EPR effect is even wilder. In this two-frame or completed Einstein-completion experiment (CECE), with the V overlaid with a flat X rather than a mere hyphen as spotted by Feingold a decade ahead of everyone else, the same outcome (manifest violation of the Bell inequality) is expected to occur by everyone in the field to date. This outcome will prove that the observer on one side lives in her or his own quantum world different from that on the other side. The same thing holds true for the observers living on the other side if there are any inside the satellite (or in the space station which can be employed as well).

This prediction, highlighted above, is so maximally unsettling that the experiment could remain unconsummated for 14 years in a row even though the requisite large-distance technology for EPR experiments got established early on during that phase by the world-leading Zeilinger school, cf. [19]. Only finishing the “quantum satellite” was still causing problems two years ago as mentioned. Now everyone is maximally curious about the outcome while many no doubt are apprehensive. It will be important also to solicit the opinion of the venerable Dalai Lama, John Bell’s close personal friend who strongly influenced his work [20].

The experiment is uniquely embarrassing by its nature in case the Bell correlations survive as no one doubts. It will prove that either side reduces the rotation-symmetric superposition of the singlet quantum state first onto a fixed angular direction. Hence two pairs of non-commuting measurements can predictably be obtained for the first time in history. This even though only one of the two pairs will be accessible to every single observer. The currently unavoidable prediction that the Bell correlations will survive under relativistic separation thus entails that a second physical reality of equal rights exists which is inaccessible on one’s own side. Einstein in the year 1935 could not possibly know about this later Everettian version of quantum mechanics in which a subtle connection exists between the internal observer and her or his objective world. In this way the 1935 EPR experiment turns out to be even more ingenious and frightening than anyone could appreciate at the time.

The VX experiment therefore ought to be performed as soon as possible. Only thereafter will scientists know for sure whether or not “the world is made for me” if this formulation makes sense. If the outcome is positive – as everyone in the scientific community expects in the absence of a logical alternative –, your own quantum world (the one down on earth valid for you and for us with you) will be experimentally proven to be not the only one. It will be tailor-made for you by a “father” (an overwhelming instance that is maximally intimidating and awe-inspiring) just as Heraclitus anticipated in his white-blue Mediterranean surroundings more than 2 ½ millennia ago. The experiment with its virtually certain outcome will prove that the name Heraclitus experiment is applicable to Einstein’s biggest brainchild.

To conclude, “religious experimental physics” REP is about to become a reality in light of the EPR paper (no pun intended). This prediction was shown to hold true unless a currently unfathomable surprise outcome is going to arise in the relativistic EPR experiment of Feingold-Peres-Zeilinger-Pan (FPZP). The “quantum satellite” was still unfinished two years ago (Anton Zeilinger, personal communication, June 2013). The world will, in case the outcome is the expected one, become a reality that is “made for you” MFU (or, more accurately speaking, made for the inhabitants of the frame to which you belong since your own frame and all other frames on the same side cannot be told apart as of yet). We will then all ostensibly live in the same quantum world down on earth – but not in that of the satellite. The latter world will be masked from us and vice versa. This state of affairs is very hard to follow in one’s mind but is virtually certain to date even before the FPZP experiment is in. Thereafter, two different assigned worlds will be empirically proven to exist in quantum mechanics.

Heraclitus predicted the essence of this in his famously “dark” language which becomes interpretable with regard to his darkest statement only to date. Everyone is now looking forward to being informed about the outcome of the most important physics measurement of history: whether or not Heraclitus’ fearless pious view was correct all along. If the answer is yes as no one doubts at present, a more than 2 ½ millennia old Akhenaten-Abrahamitic-Heraclitean revolution of thought (AAH) will prove to be implicit in the physical thinking of Einstein and Feingold as the two most powerful composers of space-time melodies.

Acknowledgments

I thank György Darvas, Wolfgang Müller-Schauenburg, Frank Kuske, Vasileos Bountis, Oleg Nikitinski and Kensei Hiwaki for discussions and Jürgen Jonas, Siegfried Zielinski, René Stettler, Bill Seaman, Mario Feingold and the late Bryce DeWitt for historical information. Paper presented at the Hechingen Philosophical Colloquium (Friedrich Kümmel, Klaus Giel and Hans-Martin Schweizer, orgs.) on April 25, 2015. For J.O.R.

References

[1] J.S. Kirk and J.A. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1957, p. 195.

[2] A. Sanayei and O.E. Rossler, Chaotic Harmony – A Dialog about Physics, Complexity and Life. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg 2014.

[3] O.E. Rossler, Bell’s symmetry. Symmetry: Culture and Science 3, 385-400 (1992), written in 1990 before John Bell passed away. http://brown.symmetry-us.com/Journals/3-4/rossler.pdf

[4] A. Peres, What is a state vector? American Journal of Physics 52, 644–650 (1984).

[5] R. Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1989, p. 297.

[6] O.E. Rössler, Einstein completion of quantum mechanics made falsifiable. In: Entropy, Complexity and the Physics of Information (W.H. Zurek, ed.). Addison-Wesley, Redwoood City 1990, pp. 367–373. (Contains VX diagram.)

[7] J.S. Bell, On the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky paradox. 1Physics 1, 195–200 (1964). Reprinted in Bell’s book: Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1987, pp. 14–21.

[8] A. Einstein, B. Podolsky and N. Rosen, Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review 47, 777–780 (1935).

[9] A. Aspect, J. Dalibard and G. Roger, Experimental test of Bell’s inequalities by time-varying analyzers. Physical Review Letters 49, 1804–1806 (1982).

[10] Psalm 139:5,“From behind and from the front You are squeezing me, placing on me Your fist” (Martin Buber’s translation from the Hebrew into German transposed to English).

[11] C.A. Kocher and E.D. Commins, Polarization correlation of photons emitted in an atomic cascade. Physical Review Letters 18, 575–577 (1967).

[12] Xi-Lin Wang et al., Quantum teleportation of multiple degrees of freedom of a single photon. Nature 518, 516–519 (2015).

[13] O.E. Rossler, A counterfactual telegraph (in German). In: Complexität, Zeit, Methode IV: 4th Interdisciplinary Colloquium “Complexcity, Time, Method,” Halle-Witteberg, December 20, 1988 (Uwe Niedersen, ed.). Halle, Martin-Luther-Universität Wissenschaftliche Beiträge 1990/20 (A 124), pp. 189–198.[Short summary: Like a halved one-thousand-dollar bill, using which nothing can be bought unless the other half is presented as well, “half-messages” can be sent in a Bell-type experiment at superluminal speed. But they cannot be verified as having arrived unless the other “half protocol” is sent over by subluminal mail.]

[14] L.M. Krauss, Beyond Star Trek: Physics from Alien Invasions to the End of Time. Basic Books, New York 1998, Chapter 15 “The last frontier.”

[15] There is a sweet little anecdote about the deep personal insecurity valid in between the two men that I learned from my friend John Wheeler in 1983 and recently re-encountered in too crude a form on the web, https://manjitkumar.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/einstein-bohr-and-john-wheeler/

[16] H. Everett III, “Relative State” formulation of quantum mechanics. Reviews of Modern Physics 29, 454–462 (1957), edited by Bryce DeWitt.

[17] Compare in this context Heraclitus’ other saying, “Everything is joysticked by the lightning [-thrower]” (Pánta de oiakízei keraunós) with Einstein’s saying, “Subtle is the Lord but malicious He is not” (Raffiniert ist der Herrgott aber bösartig ist er nicht), see [18].

[18] A. Pais, Subtle is the Lord – The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1982.

[19] Z. Merali, Data teleportation – the quantum space race: Fierce rivals have joined forces in the race to teleport information to and from space. Nature 492, 22–25 (2012).

[20] J.S. Bell, Quantum mechanics for cosmologists. In: Quantum Gravity 2 (C. Isham, R. Penrose and D. Sciama, eds.). Oxford University Press, Oxford 1981, pp. 611–637, reprinted in Bell 1987 [7], pp. 117–138.
——————-

“What could the FAA, an agency whose chief concern is air travel, want with outer space? Well, the FAA is the agency that grants licenses for commercial space launches (the ones that aren’t performed for NASA or the Defense Department, anyway). This potentially gives the nation’s aviation regulators a tremendous amount of power over the fledgling private space industry.” Read more

Cryptocurrency aficionados have been discussing Bitcoin limitations ever since the blockchain buzz hit the street. Geeks toss around ideas for clearing transactions faster, resisting potential attacks, rewarding miners after the last coin is mined, and supporting anonymity (or the opposite—if you lean toward the altcoinsdark side). There are many areas in which Bitcoin could be improved, or made more conducive to one camp or another.

Distinguished Penn State professor, John Carroll, believes that Bitcoin may eventually be marginalized due to its early arrival. He believes that its limitations will eventually be overcome by newer “altcoins”, presumably with improved mechanisms.

So, does progress in any of these areas threaten the reigning champ? It’s unlikely…

Andreas-transparentMore than any other individual, Andreas Antonopoulos is the face of Bitcoin. We discussed this very issue in the outer lobby of the MIT Bitcoin Expo at which he was keynote speaker (March 2015). Then, we discussed it again, when I hosted his presentation at The Bitcoin Event in New York (also in March). He clearly and succinctly explained to me why it is unlikely that an altcoin will replace Bitcoin as the dominant—and eventually surviving—cryptocurrency

It is not simply that Bitcoin was first or derived from Satoshi’s original paper, although this clearly established precedent, propelled it into the media, and ignited a grassroots industry. More importantly, Bitcoin is unlikely to be surpassed by an altcoin because:

  1. Bitcoin is open source. It is difficult enough for skeptics to trust that an open source protocol can be trusted. Users, businesses, banks, exchanges and governments may eventually trust a distributed, open source movement. After all, math is more trustworthy and less transient than governments. Math cannot inflate itself, bend to political winds, or print future generations into debt if it is tied to a cap. But it is unlikely that these same skeptics will allow an inventor with a proprietary mechanism to take custody of their wealth, or one in which the content of all wallets cannot be traced back to the origin.
  2. If we accept #1 (that a viable contender must be open source and either public or freely licensed), then Bitcoin developers or wallet vendors are free to incorporate the best protocols and enhancements from the alt-developers. They can gradually be folded into Bitcoin and adopted by consensus. This is what Gavin and the current developers at Bitcoin Prime do. They protect, enhance, extend, and promote. Looked at another way, when a feature or enhancement is blessed—and when 3 or 4 of the leading 7 wallets honor it, it becomes part of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has achieved a two-sided network effect, just like Acrobat PDF. Unseating an entrenched two-sided network requires disruptive technology and implementation with clear benefits. But in the case of a widely distributed, trusted and universally adopted tool (such as a public-use monetary instrument), a contender must be open source. The Cryptocurrency Standards Association, The Bitcoin Foundation and the leading wallet vendors have always been open and eager to incorporate the best open source ideas into Bitcoin.

Even if Bitcoin were replaced by an altcoin or by “Bitcoin 2.0”, it is likely that the public would only migrate to the enhanced coin if it were tied to the original equity corpus of earned and mined coins from the Bitcoin era. That is, we all know that Satoshi may have thousands of original Bitcoins, but few among us would tolerate (a) losing all of our Bitcoin value, and (b) rewarding a blockchain wannabe who declares that his coins are worth more than the grassroots legacy of vested millions that came before.

string_can_phoneConsider Prof Carroll’s analogy: “Who will use an acoustic string telephone when he could access a mobile phone.” A more accurate analogy is the evolution of the 32 year old AMPS phone network (the first widely deployed cell phone network). In 1983, the original phones were analogue and limited to 400 channels. Like their non-cellular predecessors, user equipment was bulky. Phones were divided into bulky components in the trunk, under the seat and a corded handset. They lacked GPS, LTE and many signaling features that we now take for granted. Yet carriers, equipment manufacturers and users were never forced to throw away equipment and start over. The network grew, adopted, and yielded incentives for incremental user-equipment upgrade.

With all due respect to the distinguished Penn State professor, John Carroll, I stand with Andreas. Bitcoin need’t relinquish the throne. It is evolving!

Philip Raymond is Co-Chair of The Cryptocurrency Standards Association and CEO of Vanquish Labs.
This is his first article for Lifeboat Foundation

Related: Stellar & Ripple: Pretender to Bitcoin throne?

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Dear young Physicists and Architects: Please, picture a frictionless Wheel that is lowered reversibly in Gravity

Otto E. Rossler

Faculty of Mathematics and Science, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany

Abstract

The accepted wisdom in physics is that only mathematical (in the sense of algebraic) arguments are sufficient to arrive at reliable results on which the rest of physics can be based. However, this view is too narrow. Symmetry arguments and spatial representation are even more powerful in their native state. Eventually, everything can be brought into algebraic form. But sometimes, a century passes by during which everyone got led astray by prematurely formalized thinking. Specifically, several new features of gravitation follow from Emmy Noether’s rotational symmetry theorem if the latter is applied to a prototype situation. The main implication, c-global, is good for a revolution in physics after more than a century. A survival error is exposed that can only be appreciated by the “parallel guild” of architects. Can you help the physicists so as to avoid the error in time?
Keywords: Architecture as parallel physics; the power of symmetry; rotating wheel; Noether’s intuition; early Einstein rehabilitated; micro black holes; global c; final catastrophe avoided; CERN’s safety report; Gianotti’s unique task. (May 20, 2015)’’’’’’

Introduction

A fundamental finding implicit in Noether’s method is described. The rotating frictionless wheel is introduced as a sentinel in gravitation, and a cryptic word defined – Lomrr. The main implication is a new size change implicit in nature which in turn implies global constancy of the speed of light in the vacuum: c-global. Finally, a 76 years old false interpretation of a mathematical result will be corrected. And an almost-incurred global catastrophe is exposed which can be averted at the last minute if the one or the other reader understands the crisis well enough to help avert the danger.

A new fundamental Paradigm

When you, my dear reader, join me in the following “picturing job” you will come very close to Einstein’s heart. At the same time you will see that he still lacked one specific sentinel in 1907 and 1915: Noether’s ultra-hard intuitive result of 1917. Therefore the centenary of Einstein’s opus maximum this year will be followed by a similar celebration of Noether’s kindred result in two years’ time from now.
I first solicit your help to kindly improve on the following fundamental finding: “Noether’s Theorem plus Einstein Equivalence Principle yields c-global.” This finding transforms physics if true. I have 5 steps to offer, the sixth depends on your initiative.
(i) What is at stake is a revolution in physics based on an improved version of the Einstein equivalence principle. Here an inconsistency was reluctantly accepted by Einstein in 1907 in the absence of Noether’s theorem. This inconsistency can be removed. Einstein felt forced to arrive at the embarrassing conclusion that the speed of light c in the vacuum is reduced downstairs in a constantly accelerating long rocketship in outer space even though the ship is described by special relativity with its inherent globally constant c. This drawback encountered in the equivalence principle in 1907 made Einstein fall silent on gravitation for 3 and 1/2 years and impaired progress on general relativity. Two years after the final version of the latter theory came Emmy Noether’s 1917 result of “global conservation of angular momentum in nature.” This finding – like energy conservation – possesses an overriding power. It is based on a fundamental symmetry of nature – rotation symmetry – and can be visualized geometrico-dynamically:
Take a frictionless bicycle wheel suspended from its hub and lower it and pull it back up again in gravity.
Everything is pre-specified if this simple sentinel is pictured in the mind. Firstly, the rotation rate of this “clock” must go down reversibly like that of any other clock that is hauled down due to Einstein’s gravitational clock slowdown. Secondly, since angular momentum is conserved in the process, the two other components of angular momentum besides rotation rate (mass and radius) cannot both remain unchanged downstairs. It becomes a rewarding pastime to figure out what is bound to occur in this Galilean gedanken experiment.
(ii) The conserved angular momentum obeys a simple formula when the wheel has a constant horizontal or vertical orientation. The one-liner that applies is given as Eq. (8.32) in Tipler’s weighty textbook, for example, but Madame du Chatelet could already have written it down in the 18th century:

L = ω m r^2 ………………………………….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….………………………………….. (1)

Since this expression is amazingly hard to remember by heart, the dialect word L’hombre (Spanish for “man”) can be helpful as a mnemonic aid. L is the conserved angular momentum, omega ω is the rotation rate, m is the mass and r the radius of our horizontally rotating frictionless bicycle wheel – Lomrr.
If ω is halved (as approximately valid on the surface of a neutron star with its close-to-unity gravitational redshift and hence halved time rate): What about m and r, the two other components of the wheel’s conserved L down there?
I propose that m is halved and r is doubled. The halved mass is the key. It follows from the halved frequency (and hence energy) of any photon emitted on the surface of a neutron star. These photons look non-reduced in their frequency locally and remain locally transformable into mass-bearing particles in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics (its creation and annihilation operators). Thus if a sufficiently sturdy PET scan (working on the basis of positronium annihilation) could be lowered onto the neutron star without getting smashed, it would still work properly there. The normal-appearing half-mass atoms down there automatically possess a doubled Bohr radius (and hence size) according to the universal laws of quantum mechanics. Both facts taken together yield L’ = ½ ω ½ m (2r)^2 = L , in conformity with Eq.(1).
This result of a doubled radius r of the halved-rotation-speed wheel downstairs is at first sight at variance with a well-known fact implicit in the theory which underlies Einstein’s constantly accelerating Apollo-like rocketship in outer space: special relativity. The latter theory requires that light rays that connect points on a stationary solid object with the same points when the object is moving away at constant orientation and speed, travel along parallel lines (“railway tracks principle”). Special relativity thus demands that the doubled radius of the horizontally rotating wheel valid far downstairs be optically masked when viewed from above. (This can be understood in turn by looking at the interior of a transversally receding light clock.) Thus our wheel looks non-enlarged from above even though its radius r has doubled!
(iii) To confirm this interactively, let your Noether wheel for once rotate vertically rather than horizontally. Then the doubled radius will remain optically masked in the horizontal direction but not so in the vertical direction: You now get a 2:1 vertical ellipse on the neutron star when looking down on the rotating wheel fromfar above with a super telescope.
The optical contraction of all horizontal directions downstairs implies that when you look down from far above, a transversally moving light ray will be seen to “creep” at half speed on the surface of the Neutron star. This is what Einstein found in essence in 1907. Thus everything appears to be consistent.
But: does light really “creep” down there? We just realized that the answer is no. For the distance travelled downstairs is doubled compared to above as the optically compressed wheel teaches. Hence c remains constant in spite of its apparent creeping. This new information was unavailable in 1907 owing to the absence of the Noether-wheel.
The newly retrieved global constancy of c in the equivalence principle comes not really as a surprise because the equivalence principle is based on special relativity with its constant c in the first place. The at the time irreparable inconsistency explains why Einstein fell silent on gravitation for years after having been forced to conclude that c is non-constant in the constant–c equivalence principle. It would take this catastrophe more than a century to be healed.
(iv) The retrieved globally constant c has an important implication: The vertical distance down to the surface of the neutron star (or down to the bottom of a very long rocketship) has increased in proportion to the observed redshift. Thus the groove in the “cloth of spacetime” has deepened. Hence the famous empirical Shapiro-time-delay, discovered half a century later, gets complemented by a matching new Shapiro space dilation.
More spectacularly, the globally constant c implies that the spatial distance all the way down to the “horizon” (surface) of a black hole becomes as infinite from above – as infinite as the temporal distance for light that is going down or coming up has always been known to be since Oppenheimer and Snyder’s paper on black holes of 1939.
Hence black holes are never finished in finite outer time due to the infinite distance of the horizon from the outside world. At this point I hear you ask: But is it not a well-known fact that an astronaut can fall onto (and into) a stellar black hole in finite wristwatch time as Oppenheimer and Snyder also showed (and as we all could witness in Kip Thorne’s carefully researched science fiction blockbuster movie Interstellar)?
(v) The answer is a final point: All clocks of an in-falling astronaut get infinitely slowed eventually so that infinitely much outer time has elapsed on her or his arrival down there – provided that the universe will still exist by then (and that no larger black hole has come across to re-direct all in-falling trajectories).
Note that our lowered wheel’s rotation rate ω like that of any other clock becomes zero on the horizon while simultaneously its radius r becomes infinite in an invisible-from-above manner. Hereby the tangential velocity of the wheel’s rim surprisingly stays invariant as the wheel’s radius grows and eventually approaches infinity (Sanayei effect). Hence the speed of light c surprisingly is not the only globally invariant speed in nature.

Four Conclusions

The Noether wheel teaches us several new things: First, there exists no Hawking radiation by virtue of the infinite distance of the horizon found valid from without. Hence nothing can disappear behind the horizon in finite outer waiting time as Hawking assumed.
Second, general relativity needs to be re-scaled so that it ceases to mask the global-c constraint. The Noether wheel thus implies that a new, simpler-looking re-scaled “global-c version of general relativity” exists. General relativity thereby loses its up to this day valid incompatibility with quantum mechanics, so that the holy grail of unification materializes as a consequence of Eq.(1). A bonanza for young physicists and self-assured architects is in the making. The new physically realistic transform of the Einstein equation is a promised land.
Third, the standard claim that angular momentum is conserved in general relativity in its present form is put in doubt by the Noether wheel because the latter brings in a previously lacking, in the limit unbounded size change. If the old theory with its non-global c indeed conserved angular momentum directly, then this has been a lucky coincidence.
Fourth, there is a footnote to add to the described bonanza: The recaptured c-global forms a non-ignorable argument in favor of the renewal of a 7 years old safety report: the “LSAG” report of the famous LHC-experiment near Geneva. The latter experiment is among other goals designed to produce miniature black holes down on earth. But the Noether wheel’s implied c-global shows that black holes cannot Hawking evaporate as mentioned. The miniature black holes hoped-for will rather grow exponentially inside earth, in accordance with the results of a conference paper published in 2008 with the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics titled “A rational and moral and spiritual dilemma” which is also on the web.

Hope for Help from the young Generation

The last-mentioned “dark implication” of the Noether wheel is the reason why (in parallel to the present publication in the proceedings of the Institute) I herewith publicly address you – the young generation – also directly here on Lifeboat todate because time is so pressing. You may have heard that CERN has announced to in two weeks’ time from now double its in the history of the universe unprecedented center-of-mass collision energy on a first celestial body – earth – in the hope to create Hawking-evaporating black holes on it. But as we saw, such pre-Noetherian collision experiments are now scientifically outdated notwithstanding the prestige of Stephen Hawking.
The plan to continue is not merely a waste of taxpayers’ money. In light of the Noether-wheel based result of c-global, any attempt at producing miniature black holes down on earth must be considered an “attack against humankind” because any resident micro black hole is bound to grow exponentially inside earth.
Are you, the youngest and therefore most open-minded citizens of our planet, able and willing to provide any help according to your own judgment? That is, can you perhaps come up with an idea how to persuade CERN to kindly respond to the Noether-based critique of the announced doubling of their unprecedented symmetric collision energy?
CERN has decided to non-renew their 7 years old LSAG Safety Report before starting. Everyone automatically has a full understanding for the fact that it is humanly impossible to respond quickly to surprise new evidence – like an iceberg named Noether being headed on a collision course – when you are the captain of an only slowly maneuverable ocean liner. Therefore, my question to you: Do you have any idea how the spotted iceberg can be brought to the attention of the captain on the bridge in time?
There is a female captain-elect to take office next year. Would it make sense to try and contact her? To the present author she does not reply. But perhaps she can – within the frame of her binding duties – spot a remaining legal way to respond to your kind request: possibly by calling on her own for a “brief thinking pause to evaluate a Noetherian result” before the announced start of collisions in June gets its final okay from the bridge?
To conclude, by systematically inspecting a frictionless wheel used as our sentinel, we have arrived at an unusual result: that the speed of light c is a global constant in gravitation. And that, for this reason, black holes possess radically new properties. A “super application” turned up in this way in which the whole physics community proved to have gone astray for a century. And so with a vengeance: even the short-term survival of planet earth appears to be put in jeopardy by the spotted formal error (loss of c-global) maintained for a century. A scientific error can assume the rank of a survival error. Or to put it positively: Emmy Noether can save us all.

Explanatory Appendix: It is not the Mathematics – it is the Visualization which went astray

It is a strange experience to realize that so far, no one in physics appears able to understand the main teaching of the Noether wheel in gravitation: The well-known infinite temporal distance which the horizon of a black hole possesses from the outer universe since Oppenheimer and Snyder 1939 (excepting the wristwatch of the in-falling astronaut) implies logically that the horizon of a black hole does not even exist before an infinite time has passed by in the outside universe. This in principle well-known fact is only made more palpable by the new infinite spatial distance revealed by the Noether wheel.
But even the old infinite temporal distance of the horizon of a black hole does already reveal a disquieting historical fact: Up to this day, every educated physicist thinks and readily explains with heavyweight arguments that the “frozen appearance from the outside” of the in-falling astronaut only masks what has already happened down there before: Namely, that the horizon has formed and that objects and information have disappeared for good behind it and that the “singularity” is a physical reality inside.
Everyone in physics “knows” this for many decades – although the mathematics says the opposite as we saw. Thus it is only the visualization that went astray. What everyone falsely believes in is that the two time scales valid for an outside observer and for an in-falling observer, respectively, would possess equal rights. During the two-day in-falling time registered on the wristwatch of an in-falling astronaut, who appears frozen in time to us on the outside, indeed his target black hole including horizon and singularity will have fully formed when he arrives. However so only if the whole universe has not been wiped-out trillions of years in the future from now – before that arrival.
You probably see my point but are perhaps not convinced: Is it true that the generally held view of the finished horizon can really not be legitimately upheld? After all, this view is tested by the consensus of a century!
Let me explain it all with a look at a simple quantitative drawing to be found in a famous textbook (Figure 25.5 on page 667 of the “bible” in the field titled Gravitation written by my late friend John Wheeler together with Charles Misner and Kip Thorne in 1973). The figure is so simple it can be described in words. It shows the time axis plotted to the right and the traditional distance valid away from the center of the black hole plotted upwards. The curve of the astronaut falling-in describes a Galilean half parabola that is flat at first and becomes steeper and steeper to soon reach the horizon of the black hole and continue on downwards to hit the singularity at the bottom after approximately two days of astronaut time. The same Figure also shows the same in-falling event from the outside perspective. Here, the astronaut’s path first hugs the former parabola from above, but then gently disengages itself to remain aloof and eventually approach the horizon’s height level asymptotically on the right in an almost horizontal line that never quite reaches the horizon in finite time.
Everyone in the field is happy with this interpretation for 76 years (and with this printed Figure for 42 years). But it is totally misleading by its failing to make a connection between the two touch-down events which are identical. To see this, I encourage you to enter the mirror-symmetric return trajectory of the astronaut into the picture in the two cases. To this end you only need to assume that the horizon harbors an un-damped trampoline as is admissible in principle. The latter catapults the astronaut right back upwards again on a symmetric return trajectory. He then will be right back after another two days’ wristwatch time. This mirror-symmetric return trajectory thus ends after 4 days – still on the far left of the Figure once you have entered it. So much for the lower curve. How about the upper curve? It, too, acquires a mirror image. This mirror image requires that you first copy the whole Figure onto transparent sheet, then turn the latter over and glue it symmetrically onto the original one on the right. Then in the middle we have the dotted points twice which represent infinity in time. Hence in the outside world the astronaut returns after “twice infinity in time”! The crew waiting on the circulating satellite from which the astronaut departed will according to this picture wait in vain on the fourth day and the say after and forever.
For some reason, no one in physics has ever drawn this completed picture before. So the “freezing” is indeed not something that represents an unrealistic projection phenomenon valid in the outside world while “in reality,” the astronaut arrives on the horizon soon (as everyone in the scientific community believes). It rather is the other way round: the astronaut herself is frozen!
When she returns as young as she is, an infinity of time has passed in the outside world. The movie Interstellar, filmed under the scientific supervision of Kip Thorne (second author on the mentioned gravitation bible), did a wonderful job in showing the gravitational time slow-down affecting an astronaut at finite depths down the funnel: He returned young to meet his beloved little daughter saying good bye to him on her old-age death bed. The movie then only forgot to keep up with this for the extremal case of hitting the horizon and coming back, as the “wormhole” paradigm of the script implies.
The movie strictly follows all textbooks and curricula. Thus a whole profession has overlooked the obvious for three generations. The theory of black holes, founded by Schwarzschild a century ago, thus contains an error. But it is not a mathematical error: it is “only” an error of common sense judgment. And it is a potentially fatal error at that. Unless someone can convince Professor Gianotti to kindly persuade her colleague Professor Heuer on the bridge to permit a renewal of the 7 years old Safety Report LSAG before the doubled-energy collisions scheduled for June 2015 are given their final okay, the doubled-energy experiment will be based on an error of logical judgment rated “unforgivable to a school boy.” Now it might cause a global survival error.
Forgive me for having bothered you with a cut-and-paste job. There indeed never existed a more prolonged and more embarrassing logical mistake made collectively in the history of science. Only architects – “parallel physicists” spared the traditional brainwash – can fully understand the predicament laid open above. It is only they who can explain it to the world. The scholastic phase of the medieval period was also marked by quantitative results like “How many angels, exactly, do fit onto a needle’s tip?” We therefore can speak of the scholastic phase of theoretical physics in our own time. Emmy Noether’s modesty put an end to the male assertiveness.
I predict that Professor Gianotti will reply graciously to you if you take a female mathematician’s methods seriously enough to write a letter to her begging to win some time before the doubled-cosmic record collisions start – so as to allow for a discussion of the Noether wheel’s implications. I for one apologize here to her for every too harsh word I ever said against CERN. I hope she will graciously grant you this birthday present for me on my 75th birthday, today.

Acknowlegments

Paper to be published by the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics. I thank Frank Kuske, Anton Traum and Guido Göhler for encouragement, György Darvas, Wolfgang Müller-Schauenburg and Kostas Kokkotas for discussions, and Greg Andonian and George Lasker of the International Institute for their kind invitation. For J.O.R.