Question for Ark about directional geometries

[rs]

I was thinking the other day about the arrow of time and Einstein. Einstein saw that the current physics did not match the accepted geometry, so either the physics had to change or the geometry had to change. He chose the geometry because the physics was dictated by measurements.

We keep observing that time goes in one direction (and temporarily ignoring the C's idea that "time is an illusion") but this does not match our geometric descriptions of 4-space where sub-atomic phenomenon can be easily time reversed (i.e. Feynman diagrams make sense left to right as well as right to left).

Are there geometries that have a direction so that a path can only be taken in one "direction"?

Thanks

 

[ark]

Are there geometries that have a direction so that a path can only be taken in one "direction"?

Thanks

This is a very good question. There are two kind of answers. An`easy' answer and a `not so easy answer'.
The easy answer is that while a general framework of Einstein's theory of space. time and gravity is `symmetric', particular solutions of Maxwell-Einstein's field equations may happen to be not `time-reversal invariant'. This has to do with a general concept of a `spontaneously broken symmetry'.

See for instance: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Timeless/04-arrows.pdf

A not-so-easy answer is that time-asymmetry (whatever `time' is) may have something to do with `the observer' (consciousness).

See for instance the paper by Vitiello:

http://www.qedcorp.com/pcr/pcr/qbrain.html

BTW: Vitiello was invited and gave a lecture at my Quantum Future Conference:

http://quantumfuture.net/quantum_future/lecture.htm

but his paper on "Quantum Dissipation and Brain Dynamics." could not have been published in the proceedings:

http://quantumfuture.net/quantum_future/springer.htm

because the referee selected by the Publisher considered it as being "too weird". And I was not the only organizer of the Conference, there was also a co-organizer ( (from the University of Bielefeld, Germany) ) who was less open--minded than I was.

I tend to assume, as a working hypothesis, that Vitielo was right. Therefore the`right geometry' should incorporate also quantum concepts,
incorporate consciousness (brain?), and go far beyond the one of Einstein. See

http://quantumfuture.net/quantum_future/bioel_en.htm

Such a geometry is yet to be developed - perhaps next year :)

 

[rs]

BTW: Vitiello was invited and gave a lecture at my Quantum Future Conference:

http://quantumfuture.net/quantum_future/lecture.htm

but his paper on "Quantum Dissipation and Brain Dynamics." could not have been published in the proceedings:

http://quantumfuture.net/quantum_future/springer.htm

because the referee selected by the Publisher considered it as being "too weird". And I was not the only organizer of the Conference, there was also a co-organizer ( (from the University of Bielefeld, Germany) ) who was less open--minded than I was.

Is this paper available anywhere as a pdf or ps file?

 

[ark]

Similar papers by Vitiello can be downloaded here:

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9502006
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0002014
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0006066

It may be instructive here if I reveal a relevant part of the email that I received from prof. Vitiello after I wrote
to inform him that the paper could not have been published, and I ended with:

Subject: I'm sorry
Thu, 29 Apr 1999

Dear Giuseppe,

I'am very very sorry about this incindent. I know and I understand how you feel about it. I would feel the same way.

[...]

Now, concerning your contribution. I think it is a very nice piece of work. Would you agree to publish it on Internet, on my web site, and advertise it via internet search engines? And also to make it available via LosAlamos eprint server? I can do all the work.

Best,
Ciao,
ark

Subject: Re: I'm sorry
Thu, 29 Apr 1999

Dear Arkadiusz,

thank you for being sorry, but you and B******** were the Symposium
organizers and the Proceedings editors and therefore it was your duty to
inform the authors of the papers about the referee responses. In the
Physics community this is well known.

[...]


Thank you for offering to put that paper on the web, but there is no need
to do that: the material partially presented in that report is already
published in several high rank Journals. Who is interested can use the web
to find those references.

Receive my wishes for your work and your family.

G. V.

And a side remark: Indeed, it was my duty to send him the referee response, but in this case I hadn't seen the referee response, the only thing I had was a veto of the publisher based on a referee report (or on someone's opinion) that was unknown to me. And also I was not free to make decisions, as there was a co-organizer. Today I would probably know better ways of managing such a situation. At that time "I'm sorry" and a proposal to popularize his ideas on the web was the only solution I could perceive. The best way to avoid such situations is not to co-organize anything with those who are not completely co-linear. On the other hand sometimes we have to compromise. Then the question is: for what price?

Finally, as for geometries that may naturally accommodate time arrow (irreversibility), one of the evident candidates is so called "Finsler geometry".
There is an interesting introduction to various options that such geometries can provide here:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math-ph/pdf/0501/0501010.pdf