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FQXi Essay Contest - Is Reality Digital or Analog?
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Is Reality Digital or Analog? by Dante Hugo Barbis
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Author Dante Hugo Barbis wrote on Feb. 15, 2011 @ 16:20 GMT
Essay AbstractI was thinking about foundational questions in physics and cosmology. Then –I told myself- I am going to do a very special trip in order “to see” the smaller particles in the Universe, and also, in order “to detect” if they build up a reality digital or analog. Finally, I am going to find up how these basic particles can explain some question about cosmology. I begin this journey in a metal capsule. Here I can breathe and stay for several hours, also I can see outside through a window, I can even put an arm and a hand inside a plastic sleeve that has a glove on the end. This sleeve is connected to the wall of the capsule. Through the glove I can feel the reality that surrounds the capsule without the capsule’ air escapes from it. The capsule is a special one; it can shrink with me to dimensions smaller than sub-atomic particles. The capsule has reflectors that emit light a tremendous high frequency. That frequency can be increasing as we get smaller in order to see smaller particles, thousands of times smaller than an electron. I enter in the capsule, close it and settle down comfortably. I start to shrink until the capsule disappears from the floor where the capsule was resting. I fall into the intermolecular space and still shrugging to reach the size of atomic particles.
Author BioDante H. Barbis MBA, B.Sc. in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. National Engineering University at Lima, Peru, and Columbia University at N.Y. Working as system engineer on IBM, Unisys, and Oracle companies in Peru. Today working as sales manager for QlikView BI software in Peru.
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Edgar Caceres wrote on Feb. 24, 2011 @ 21:13 GMT
Very imginative this thought experiment, it helps to understand the things tahat we can not see, however, they exists
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Dante replied on Feb. 24, 2011 @ 22:06 GMT
Edgard
Thanks a lot for your comments.
Dante
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Federico wrote on Mar. 2, 2011 @ 19:26 GMT
Excelent!
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Dante replied on Mar. 2, 2011 @ 21:50 GMT
Octavio replied on Mar. 4, 2011 @ 12:38 GMT
This is a wonderful, understandable and very well described essay, Thank you Dante for sharing this and help us understand the world that we cannot see but we know it is there.
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Dante replied on Mar. 4, 2011 @ 20:06 GMT
Thanks to you Octavio for your words,
Dante
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Letty replied on Mar. 5, 2011 @ 23:28 GMT
Hi Dante,
I found your essay very imaginative and who knows that one day we could see all of this.
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Edward wrote on Mar. 6, 2011 @ 11:34 GMT
Hi Dante, this is fantastic, congratulations
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Oscar wrote on Mar. 6, 2011 @ 11:37 GMT
Peter Jackson wrote on Mar. 7, 2011 @ 18:31 GMT
Dante
Great fun, good visualisation. You should be higher than you are. I hope you'll read and score mine too,http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/803 indeed you may also enjoy this including some logical extensions; http://vixra.org/abs/1102.0016 do give me any views.
Thanks
Very best of luck
Peter
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Dante replied on Mar. 8, 2011 @ 15:57 GMT
Peter,
I just rated your essay, I enjoy it.
Dante
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Rolando Gomez wrote on Mar. 7, 2011 @ 23:43 GMT
Dante
Although I am not familiar with cosmology, I found your essay very interesting.
Congratulation.
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Carmen Longa wrote on Mar. 9, 2011 @ 00:01 GMT
Dante, this is incredible! My husband and I have read and reread it and it's amazing at what we have learned. Good luck and keep up the very good work.
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Anonymous wrote on Mar. 10, 2011 @ 07:55 GMT
Dear Dante,
I was pleasantly surprised to come across your essay. The imagery and description of the shrinking capsule grabbed my attention. But it is the motion created by your three basic particles that really seems interesting. I have been researching whether a standard particle has internal motion and how it could be described. I hope you have a chance to read my essay. It may seem much different than yours but it has a common goal of analyzing internal particle motion.
Thank you for your imaginative way of looking at such tiny aspects of nature and pondering what could be there.
Kind regards, Russell Jurgensen
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Dante replied on Mar. 11, 2011 @ 21:28 GMT
Dear Russell,
I read yuor interesting essay. I am working on describe an mechanical model for the most basic particles must exist. I just describe the motion of the 3 more basics particles I can imagine. The paper extension do not permit to me going on the probably cause for the electron and the bigest particles motion. Any way, I am going to complete this essay, by my own, including electron, proton and neutron spins and also how the EM waves must be build up from the electric and magnetic fields changes.
Best regards,
Dante
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Constantinos Ragazas wrote on Mar. 11, 2011 @ 04:15 GMT
Dear Dante,
Energy quanta are a think of the past! We need
“A World Without Quanta”! And you can make that critical difference to help bring it about. Cast your approval for a world that makes sense and bring this essay out of the cusp of 'being or not being'! The results are deeply significant and totally iconoclastic. But we need to bring this essay to the 'church' on time! You among others will be better for it!
All the best,
Constantinos
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Dante replied on Mar. 11, 2011 @ 22:19 GMT
Thanks for yours words Constantinos. I am working on answer some questions like a photon "without mass" just to explain how a EM signal can go to infinity carry info (signal) that means carry energy too.
Nobody knows how an electron is, and how the electric charge is. I am trying to do a mechanical model about the most basics particles in the Universe and how they interacts.
Best regards,
Dante
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Janko Kokosar wrote on Mar. 14, 2011 @ 22:15 GMT
Dear Mr Barbis
When reading your article, I obtain some ideas. You use thought experiment with metal capsule. Zeilinger differently proposes that children should have computer games with use of quantum mechanics so that they can get feeling of quantum mechanics. But I will maybe use one thought experiment with small measurement device, which can measure all quantum information and then processes it...
You wrote that electron or any particles are balls. Balls means space, but I think that space at very microscopic space does not exist. Nets of elementary particles only create this space. This can be also visible from my article
http://vixra.org/pdf/1103.0025v1.pdf
I claim that physics is quantized. But, I claim that elementary particles are statistical combinations of 0 and 1 Planck’s mass (approximately said). Elementary particles are also nodes of space-time net.
But, I have not found only one in this contest who cited Zeilinger-Brukner (Barbour, Gibbs), whose claim that information in a very small volume is finite. Probably we have different tastes for physical theories.
So there fails still your opinion whether information on a small piece of space is finite or infinite, although your space-time is infinite. Your balls make it infinite.
p.s.
My articles are also
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/571
http://vixr
a.org/pdf/1012.0006v3.pdf
Regards
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Vladimir F. Tamari wrote on Mar. 29, 2011 @ 13:42 GMT
Dear Dante
I enjoyed reading your wonderful story/essay. It is as imaginative and interesting as the fqxi essay by J Mäkelä about a visit to Newton. Your plot reminded me of the Fantastic Voyage movies of humans who become miniature and explore the cells of the human body. Your suggestion of two different particles one attractive and one repulsive is insightful. I have followed a different approach in my essay and in my earlier 2005
Beautiful Universe paper on which it is based, whereby one type of ether particle has +- magnet-like properties...there are other differences between our particles, for example in my case they only have angular not linear momentum, and they do not bounce against one another. But we both agree that at the most basic level of the Universe attraction/repulsion play an essential role.
Best wishes from Vladimir
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