Search

The article focuses on issues and topics related to parity nonconservation relative to the study conducted by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley in 1887 at Cleveland, Ohio. The Michelson-Morley experiment led Albert Einstein to formulate his famous Theory of Relativity eighteen years later. The phrase "Parity is Not Conserved," has become the a favorite subject of discussion among the scientific community around the globe. In everyday language, this phrase roughly means that some laws of nature are not symmetrical.

We consider a free particle in a de Sitter spacetime. We use a picture in which the analogs of the Schrödinger operators of the particle are independent of both the time and the space coordinates. These operators induce operators which are related to Killing vectors of the de Sitter spacetime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental physics began the twentieth century with the twin revolutions of relativity and quantum mechanics, and much of the second half of the century was devoted to the construction of a theoretical structure unifying these radical ideas. But this foundation has also led us to a number of paradoxes in our understanding of nature. Attempts to make sense of quantum mechanics and gravity at the smallest distance scales lead inexorably to the conclusion that spacetime is an approximate notion that must emerge from more primitive building blocks. Furthermore, violent short-distance quantum fluctuations in the vacuum seem to make the existence of a macroscopic world wildly implausible, and yet we live comfortably in a huge universe. What, if anything, tames these fluctuations? Why is there a macroscopic universe? These are two of the central theoretical challenges of fundamental physics in the twenty-first century. In this essay, I describe the circle of ideas surrounding these questions, as well as some of the theoretical and experimental fronts on which they are being attacked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sharp distinction has been made between the confirmed observations that were predicted and form the essential core of the theory of relativity and the untestable explanations that have become the lore of the theory and its vision of reality. The possibility is explored that it is these explanations, not the observations, that are incompatible with quantum mechanics. For example, the curvature of light around the sun is explained as the result of the curvature of space-time. This creates a problem because quantum electrodynamics requires that light follow a least time path. The only way that the curved path of light around the sun can be the least time path is if light is slowed down in the gravitational field as Einstein first proposed. An alternate explanation of relativity is presented that is compatible with quantum mechanics and provides a common explanation for all the forces to which matter is subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is asserted that we live in a world in which space itself, a real quantum-fluid-like background medium named quantum space (QS), inherently moves in the ordinary three dimensions about each astronomical body according to a circular differential velocity field, consistent with the local main astronomical motions. Light and all the elementary particles are conceived as persistent excitations (resonances) of this real space itself and therefore this moving QS is their medium of propagation and the ultimate reference for their motions. Within this viewpoint, motions of the laboratory with respect to the resting QS or of the QS through the resting laboratory are perfectly equivalent and generate identical effects. These velocity fields of the QS about each astronomical body rightly produce the inertial dynamics observed within the gravitational fields. Interestingly enough, in this velocity field the orbiting natural planets, stars, and the galactic centers throughout the universe do all very nearly rest with respect to the local moving QS while carrying with them their own velocity fields. This, while naturally leading to the observed (null) results of the Michelson light anisotropy experiments, also increases the go-return round trip time of light and of matter waves in general within our laboratories and thereby correctly engenders all the effectively observed effects, caused by the gravitational fields. It rightly slows down all the time standards (clocks) and the physical processes in general, which is the gravitational time dilation. It also causes the gravitational redshifts of atomic and nuclear spectra and properly simulates the apparently deformed metric of space underlying Einstein's spacetime curvature. This same spacedynamics moreover crucially predicts the very small genuine anisotropy of the velocity of light of nearly 8 km/s, fixed with respect to the earth-based laboratories and caused by the earth velocity field alone. This small anisotropy was detected systematically by sensitive Michelson interferometers rotating in the earth-based laboratories but was inexplicably discarded as spurious by enthusiasts of the theory of relativity. Spacedynamics also rightly points out the genuine physical origin of the excess time delays in the roundtrips of radar signals within the solar system and the observed anomalous (non-Doppler) red-/blueshifts of radiation coming to us by passing near heavy bodies. It also forthrightly explains the absence of effects of the solar gravitational potential on the GPS clock rates and the origin of the apparent bias of earth-based clocks synchronized along very long baselines when confronted with the highly stable clock ticks of distant pulsars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I discuss various formulations of stochastic Einstein locality (SEL), which is a version of the idea of relativistic causality, that is, the idea that influences propagate at most as fast as light. SEL is similar to Reichenbach's Principle of the Common Cause (PCC), and Bell's Local Causality. My main aim is to discuss formulations of SEL for a fixed background spacetime. I previously argued that SEL is violated by the outcome dependence shown by Bell correlations, both in quantum mechanics and in quantum field theory. Here I reassess those verdicts in the light of some recent literature which argues that outcome dependence does not violate the PCC. I argue that the verdicts about SEL still stand. Finally, I briefly discuss how to formulate relativistic causality if there is no fixed background spacetime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intrinsic theoretical power and mathematical beauty of (special or flat space-time) relativity and its relevance to ultimate reality are examined in hindsight in sufficient detail. The four-dimensional space-time continuum nature (or character) of space and time (known as the world-space or the four-space or the Minkowski space) and the associated Einstein--Poincaré truly manifestly Lorentz covariance requirements on the mathematical description of any physical system (i.e., on all laws of physics) in this four-space continuum do indeed lead us to the ultimate physical reality that the mathematical formulas (or laws) of physics are discovered, not invented, and thus are meant to be a true and honest representation of the actual behavior of nature. However, at present, Maxwell's electromagnetic theory is the only existing truly manifestly Lorentz covariant field theory. All other existing many-body theories are not Lorentz covariant theories but are, indeed, "Lorentz invariant" theories only in the sense that they predict Lorentz invariant results (but the mathematical structure of these theories in the world-space is frame dependent and not form invariant), and thus they are simply mathematical models that we have constructed and/or invented to assist us in the exploration of nature, and nothing more. Specific cases (or instances) that clearly demonstrate the awesome intrinsic theoretical power and mathematical beauty of relativity are presented. Thus we show that the Lorentz transformation is a part of physical reality in the sense that it exists in nature and not necessarily in the human mind (i.e., the laws of physics are nature's laws and not ours). Also, a rather serious attempt is made here (probably for the first time and, of course, with only partial success) to understand "nature's arrow of time" from the point of view of (special) relativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the string theory known as the anti-de-Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence which demonstrates an intimate connection between Einstein's general theory of relativity and quantum physics. It is said that string theory might be used to in such far-flung fields as superconductivity and the quark-gluon plasma to explain some properties of exotic matter phases such as some peculiarities of high-temperature superconductors. A study shows that the easiest path to enlightenment on the mysterious phenomena of superconduction and the quark-gluon plasma leads through a black hole, which is a negatively curved space-time with an extra dimension.

Examines the origin and formation of the Universe. Description of the nature of space and time; Combination of general relativity and quantum theory; Determination of atomic structure.