Notes on “The World” by Rene Descartes

[BecomingTesla]

@querious: I'm not familiar with it, I have yet to work through The Principia. My geometry is literally no where close to being ready to tackle that beast. Which is exactly how Newton wanted it lol. For anyone who wants to learn a little bit about Newton, the Royal Society, and what an ass-hat he was as a person, checkout "The Clockwork Universe" by Edward Dolnick. Really great book.

What exactly is the controversy, and how does it involve the current discussion?

[querious]

What exactly is the controversy, and how does it involve the current discussion?

The first line of this topic was...

I've mentioned before that I feel there is a strong need to revisit almost the entire corpus of scientific literature ... to discern (a) the fundamental errors in astronomical theory, in particular the lack of a physical explanation for Newton's heuristic for gravitation

The attempt to grapple with Newton's bucket fell into 3 camps: Newtonian (absolute space), Machian (totality of mass in the universe), and Einstein (Absolute Spacetime).

It can be boiled down to the simple question: Why is acceleration (including rotation) absolute? Why does the Sagnac effect work?

My point is that gravity, the absolute nature of acceleration, and the equivalence principal, are all deeply intertwined to provide a heuristic for gravitation.

[BecomingTesla]

My point is that gravity, the absolute nature of acceleration, and the equivalence principal, are all deeply intertwined to provide a heuristic for gravitation.

I'm sorry, but unless you tell me exactly what Newton's bucket experiment was, what exactly the controversy surrounding the experiment is, and how it relates to the idea of a purely mechanical solar system, then I'm not sure what we're discussing...

[querious]

My point is that gravity, the absolute nature of acceleration, and the equivalence principal, are all deeply intertwined to provide a heuristic for gravitation.

I'm sorry, but unless you tell me exactly what Newton's bucket experiment was, what exactly the controversy surrounding the experiment is, and how it relates to the idea of a purely mechanical solar system, then I'm not sure what we're discussing...

You'll get to it eventually as you begin to "revisit almost the entire corpus of scientific literature". If you don't want to wait that long, here's a start...

http://einsteinsintuition.com/book-exce ... apter-2/2/

[BecomingTesla]

Very interesting read. So then you're suggesting that space-time is a physical object, that exists concretely? There is literally space-time sitting in between our own planet and the Sun? In what physical state does it exist? Why can't we detect it directly? Is it a particle, or a field? Exactly how is space-time different from the aether if both are supposed to be physical, mechanical mediums?

If it's all the same, I'm afraid I have to agree with Mach. Space and time are not physical objects, and any geometric combination of the two is not a physical object either. They are nothing more than metrical dimensions, and the suggestion that they can have physical properties at all, to me, stands as completely ridiculous. Einstein's mathematics work because they're just that - math. GR is a heuristic, it is not mechanics, and it cannot be *responsible* for what happens in a physical universe. It can *describe* what happens in our Universe, and in the case of our solar system GR happens to do that very, very well. But it is not what makes the Earth travel around the Sun.

[Osmosis]

Anyone recall an old DR. Who episode, "Logopolis" when/where the maths kept the universe running?

Osmosis

[JHL]

Newton's bucket experiment

(Pardon the interjection - especially if not being degreed in the field I'm completely out to lunch.)

From the wiki:

"[Newton's] contention [is] that, in general, true motion and rest cannot be defined as special instances of motion or rest relative to other bodies, but instead can be defined only by reference to absolute space."

From here the wiki discussion devolves into an essay on forces...with force presumed to be universal and naturally present. Seems odd for a premise ending with talk of absolute space and relationships within it. The immediate question asks well, what <i>about</i> force?!

Consider the Universe consisting of an astronaut with his feet fixed to a turntable massing approximately what he does and in his hand a switch. When he turns the turntable on, do his arms fly out as his body rotates opposite the rotation of the turntable? Would gauges on the turntable measure comparable forces within it?

The intuitive answer is yes: Rotational motion relative to either astronaut or turntable would appear to establish the usual laws of momentum, etc., which implies that Universe "knows" force. But reduce the Universe further. Diminish it to any two particles with a similar relationship: Would atomic forces governing a hydrogen atom in a Universe consisting of one hydrogen atom be unaltered?

If so, what is it that governs the atomic force? Or anything smaller in magnitude?

I'm sure I'm completely out of my element here (no pun) but the nature of the size or scale or scope or relativity of things in a Universe is perplexing, because any time we consider how things work wouldn't we be compelled to consider instead why they work? As if the question why is the final metaphysical frontier once all the what's and how's were sorted and accounted for?

In a Universe of one atom why does its electron orbit its nucleus? What is answered with: Orbit, a label. How is answered with: Atomic Force (which actually means Because, which is still an identifying label and not a mechanism). But why has no answer - there are only two particles in all of that reality; what else could act upon them but themselves?

Would it be any different for a lump of them self-identified as an astronaut?

When considering a Universe don't we eventually have to confront the reality that at some level things happen (with perfect regularity and order) just be cause they do, with no physical motivation at all?

The bucket experiment seems to propel one to a point where logic ends. It seems the most rational view is that all things are bound by a motivating order not within the Universe. Bound by Newton's "absolute space".

So then you're suggesting that space-time is a physical object, that exists concretely? There is literally space-time sitting in between our own planet and the Sun? In what physical state does it exist? Why can't we detect it directly? Is it a particle, or a field? Exactly how is space-time different from the aether if both are supposed to be physical, mechanical mediums?

Ultimately maybe there is no physical space-time. Maybe it's the construct. It's all Matrix.

[webolife]

JHL,
I'm with you on this. (This may not be your thinking, but) I begin with the premise of a finite universe, an atom as you please. At any scale, objects are miniscule [approaching infinitesimal] with respect to their field of polity [governance or influence], so the universe in this view is analogous [perhaps even homologous] to the atom. The resulting "fact" is that the universe/atom is held together by Something, the pressure effects of which we term as "gravity", "voltage", "potential energy", "atomic/nuclear force", the Casimir effect, "bosons", "WIMPS", and the like... without the finite premise, there is no real explanation for the holding power of the universe. Why should any object have greater polity than any other? Why isn't the universe a random assemblage? With no known inherent "attractive" mechanism, the holding power appears as a centropic pressure from without [from the universal "field"], centrally directed toward any centroid of polity.

[BecomingTesla]

If I can, I'd like to reign this thread in a bit. After querious' post, it seems to have devolved into a conversation about the nature of space (metrical vs physical) and the entire structure of the Universe. While those conversations are certainly important, and they need to be discussed, this thread does not pertain to that idea - despite the scope of Descartes' treatise. This post is about reflecting on the purely mechanical nature of Descartes' theory, his ability to correctly predict simplistic versions of physical plasma structures in our solar system, and asking the question: is celestial mechanics the product of Newton's gravitation, which incorrectly predicts that space is vacuous, or, can we explain the motions of the planets around the Sun exclusively from the mechanisms that we know to exist in space.

It's about looking at the solar system exclusively as an electrical plasma machine, asking how closely and accurately we can approximate this machine in a laboratory, and finding out if how Newton's heuristic of gravitation and Descartes' general theory about the physical structure of the solar system could both be correct, when both asserted that the other was wrong. I think that answering this question lies exclusively in physically approximating the features of the solar system: the heliopause, the heliosphere, the heliospheric current sheet, the planets as terrellas with varied electrostatic conditions, their magnetic fields, their magnetospheres, the cosmic rays as positive current, the Sun as either a cathode or anode (most likely an anode), field-aligned currents - all of these things are mechanisms at work that until ~1940, no one understood existed and the entire field of astronomy had to develop theory without.

I'm not suggesting that Newton's mathematics for gravitation don't produce positive predications - they clearly do. I'm saying that - undeniably - his ideas about the physical nature of the solar system and how the planets orbit the Sun must be wrong. So, it strikes me as important to ask that question again, and approach it from Descartes perspective. Tesla, Birkeland, and Aflven did that through purely empirical science (the production of complex vacuum chambers and terrella systems) and they were extremely successful. I have a feeling that anyone willing to continue in that direction will also be very successful. Looking at you, Project SAFIRE.

[webolife]

I understand and appreciate your redirection back to Descartes mechanical universe.
I like Descartes a lot, but in a dynamical universe I see the possibility that space, distance, relative location, etc. are real physical agents in the activity of the universe. That what's I see and believe anyway... all the alleged aetheric space fillers are as imaginative for me as action across distance is for you and others.