HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Quantum Mechanics Incomplete
From: <MRG3@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 13:00:58 EST
Organization: Penn State University

In article <477@mtnmath.UUCP>, paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) says:
>  [...]
>If you think this is a valid argument against my claim that you have
>to use wave packet reduction in analyzing tests of Bell's inequality
>you are mistaken. It is not possible to get the standard predictions
>of quantum mechanics about the expected correlations without using
>wave packet reduction as an *intermediate* step. If you think there
>is a way around this I urge you to attempt it. I can assure you
>that if you succeed you will have an important original result. You
>will not succeed because you need some nonlocal physical law and the
>reduction of the wave packet is the only one around.

The EPR experiment has been analyzed in the context of the relative state/
many worlds interpretation by Don Page and in the context of the
consistent histories interpretation by Bob Griffiths.  (Sorry, I do not have
the exact references available).  Neither of these interpretations
contain a catostrophic "collapse of the wave function", but are consistent
with the "usual" results.
I am by no means certain, but the impression I get is that
Paul's arguments are interpretation dependent.  On the other hand,
I will NOT argue that QM is necessarily complete. ;)

-mike gallis
(PS Paul, did you get the email I sent with the references you asked for?
my mailler seems to have freaked (partially) on the address.)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: How about sci.physics.speculation as well?
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:40:21 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.151326.19466@netcom.com> noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) writes:

>Agreed.  I should have never proposed that.  So, as Jack Sarfatti proposed,
>how about sci.physics.conventional or sci.physics.main-stream?

I think that would be too restrictive. And as far as I've understood the
proposed charter and the moderators' stated opinions correctly, the
intention is _not_ to keep out "unconventional" or "non-mainstream" 
topics. Who defines what's "mainstream" anyway?

Of course, this depends a bit on how you define "physics": if somebody
chooses to include, say, the study of telepathy in his/her "private" 
definition of physics may choose to label the "usual" definition of 
physics as "mainstream".

But my personal opinion (and please note that I'm in what is very much
a mainstream field, viz. QCD) is that articles shouldn't be rejected
from sci.physics.research because they take an unconventional view of 
physics, as long as they at least keep some connection with what is
usually called physics. I think it could be perfectly OK to discuss the
possible connection between parapsychology and quantum mechanics on
sci.physics.research, as long as the discussion was relevant to physics
(and stayed calm and rational, of course).

However, unfortunately many people who make pronouncements on such subjects
unfortunately seem to be totally ignorant of the subject. Postings like
"I've heard that QM says that observers determine the outcome of experiments
just by observing them, so it's obvious that this must be the basis of
telepathy" is dangerously close to being "not even wrong".

All IMHO, of course.

(I see now that I chose a bad example, since the QM/ESP issue is an old
one and has been fairly beaten to death already, so maybe it's possible
that posts on this subject to a moderated group will be rejected on the
ground that they don't say anything new. But then that has nothing to do
with anything being "mainstream" or not).

BTW: the proposal to call the moderated group just "sci.physics.moderated"
has the clear merit of not making any implications about the contents.

              Magnus Olsson                | \e+      /_
    Department of Theoretical Physics      |  \  Z   / q
        University of Lund, Sweden         |   >----<           
 magnus@thep.lu.se, thepmo@seldc52.bitnet  |  /      \===== g
PGP key available via finger or on request | /e-      \q
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: sci.physics
Keywords: knots,stat. mech....
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:20:39 GMT
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA

In article <1i7qotINN3vn@agate.berkeley.edu> srihari@sam.cchem.berkeley.edu (Srihari Keshavamurthy) writes:
>I was reading Kaufmann's book on knots the other day and I have a
>question for the experts out there. I understand that the q-state potts
>model partition function is actually a invariant polynomial. My
>question is that given any lattice system...is the partition function
>a invariant polynomial(like the jones or HOMFLY etc.)? If not, when
>is it possible.

It's only possible sometimes, and I don't know any easy criterion for
when it is.  BTW, the version of the Kaufmann bracket that appears in
the partition function for the q-state Potts model is *not* the Kaufmann
bracket that is a topological invariant of links (which is a polynomial
in one variable).

 Also I have another naive question...When one writes
>down the invariant polynomial for a certain knot e.g. the jones 
>polynomial, V(t), what is the variable t? I understand that V(t) is
>invariant under "nice" topological deformations of the knot. I am 
>asking this because in an actual physical system where you have knots
>does the variable t correspond to some physical parameter. I may be
>completely off on both questions and would appreciate it if someone
>explained it to me. thanks 

The q-state Potts model partition function is related, not to the Jones 
polynomial per se, but to the 3-variable Kauffman bracket.  The 3
variables are functions of the temperature (or more precisely beta =
1/kT) and q, the number of states.

I taught a course which dealt with this a little bit (among other topics
in knots and physics), but all I know about this comes from Kauffman's
paper "Statistical Mechanics and the Jones Polynomial," Contemp. Math.
vol. 78 (1988) p. 263, and I strongly urge you to read that.  He uses
ideas from topology and graph theory to calculate the critical point of
the q-state Potts model, exactly but nonrigorously.  
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (brett mcinnes)
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA - GOEDEL's THEOREMS - att: Dr.PRATT, Mc CULLOUGH
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 03:55:16 GMT

gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
: > : I don't know any way of proving Godel's Theorem that doesn't require quite
: > : a bit of technical muchking around. (Or else a lot of non-rigorous handwaving,
: > : of course; but one can prove anything given sufficient willingness to wave
: > : one's hands.)
: >                     Please prove this.
: 
: Well, like, it's sort of obvious, isn't it? After all, all you have to do is
: wave your hands abou a bit and say things are obvious, and it's pretty clear
: that most proofs are made up of lots of obvious steps and all the cleverness
: is in the details, so all you have to do is sort of wave your hands on all
: the tricky bits and everyone will believe you. See?
: 
No. You didn't say that one could give a handwaving proof that one can
prove anything given sufficient willingness to wave one's hands. You said
"proof".	
Lucky nobody reads abian any more.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: Are there important unresolved issues?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:32:51 GMT

In article <MERRITT.93Jan12102855@macro.bu.edu> merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt) writes:

> the reader) than she may place that moderator in a kill file.
> Instead of undiscriminated signal like we have in sci.physics,
> we will have 4 distinct signals with different thresholds.
> If one channel becomes too noisy the reader has the option of
> turning it off.
>
> I would even say we let the moderators "filter" themselves,
> rather than have another moderator "approve" thier articles.
> That way the moderator's own posts will either increase or
> decrease the S/N ratio of that channel.

     First, if a 'channel' becomes noisy, then someone is not 
     doing their job properly, and I hope someone would point that out.
     Second, I think it a matter of courtesy to the other posters
     that moderators submit to the same moderation procedure as
     everyone else.  Third, I thought your basic objection was to 
     too stringent moderation, not too lax.

                          dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu        
Department of Mechanical, 
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              (804) 924-7926
From: andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Question on Mechanics Books
Date: 10 Jan 93 01:53:55 GMT
Organization: Renaissance Technologies Corp., Setauket, NY.

In article <1993Jan7.201331.16640@nntpd2.cxo.dec.com> cochran@kali.enet.dec.com (Michael Cochran) writes:
>
>I'm thinking of buying some books. The two that I'm looking at are:

>               1) Goldstein - Classical Mechanics
>               2) Marion - Classical Dynamics


I would put V. I. Arnold's _Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics_
on the list. There is a new second edition.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt

Xref: sparky sci.physics:22616 news.groups:25434
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Date: 12 Jan 93 13:02:50
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
	<C0KH6x.4xr@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1ingnuINNctr@chnews.intel.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: bhoughto@sedona.intel.com's message of 9 Jan 93 21:40:14 GMT

In article <1ingnuINNctr@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:


   In article <C0KH6x.4xr@news.cso.uiuc.edu> rvc40592@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bob Cadman) writes:
   >sidles@stein.u.washington.edu (John Sidles) writes:
   >>Sounds like a prescription for a self-perpetuating
   >>aristocracy to me.  Good thing the Constitution isn't set up this way.

   >It seems to me that in its own special way, Usenet is a
   >self-perpetuating aristocracy.  Deal with it.

   He is, Wilde, he is.

Far too ignoble an endeavour. 
I believe the word we are looking for is oligarchy...

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: cochran@kali.enet.dec.com (Michael Cochran)
Subject: Re: Question on Mechanics Books
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:38:21 GMT



Toon Moene writes:
> :-) But if you really want to get woken up ... Use V.I. Arnol'ds
> Mathematical methods of Classical Mechanics. I've bought the book almost 9
> years ago, and still, every time I open it, I read something new,
> something I didn't understand before. Of course - as the title suggests -,
> it's highly biased towards the *mathematical* side of classical mechanics.

Andrew Mullhaupt writes:
> I would put V. I. Arnold's _Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics_
> on the list. There is a new second edition.

Is this the book published by Springer-Verlag?

Mike Cochran
Xref: sparky sci.physics:22288 news.groups:25164 sci.misc:1963
From: ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Date: 8 Jan 1993 09:26:44 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Reply-To: ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
NNTP-Posting-Host: fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de

In article <1iin29INN7a9@shelley.u.washington.edu> sidles@stein.u.washington.edu (John Sidles) writes:
>If there hasn't been much discussion, what does that say about the need
>for sci.physics.research?  Except for the prospective moderators
>themselves, who else is calling for new group?  Is there any evidence
>that it is a substantial fraction of sci.physics readers?

I'm not a sci.physics reader, but I will read sci.physics.research.
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 21:46:03 GMT

In article <1ingd7INNctm@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <1iksmsINN25e@rave.larc.nasa.gov> mark@uab21.larc.nasa.gov (Mark Flanagan) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan8.212715.21449@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>>>I'm planning on writing some advanced expository articles on
>>>sci.physics.research -- if and only if it is created.
>
>Oh, goody.
>
>Intellectual extortion.
>
>John, you're above this.

No, I'm not.

Besides, it's not extortion, it's bribery.
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
From: mwj@beta.lanl.gov (William Johnson)
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 22:50:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.030744.17741@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
>No, they are not all Scientologists. I have reason to believe that none
>of them is a Scientologist. 

Hmmm.  You have access to my FBI files or something? :-)

>The new group is being set up to provide a forum with a good S/N
>ratio, so that those who want a newsgroup to discuss real physics
>can have one. I expect there will be lots of crossposting between
>sci.physics and sci.physics.research, so you needn't worry about
>sci.physics dying as a result.

I agree with most of what you've said, but it would be interesting to
find out whether people agree with the crossposting part.  I, for one,
would worry somewhat about too much crossposting; rather, it is likely
that followups for some marginal subjects might be redirected to
sci.physics.  We'll have to see how that one works out.

-- 
Bill Johnson				| My suggestion for an Official
Los Alamos National Laboratory		| Usenet Motto: "If you have nothing
Los Alamos, New Mexico USA		| to say, then come on in, this is the
!cmcl2!lanl!mwj (mwj@lanl.gov)		| place for you, tell us all about it!"
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Subject: TIME HAS INERTIA     Att:  Vladimir IGNATOVICH
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 05:19:24 GMT



STRICTLY FOR THE ARDENT AND DEVOTED READERS OF:  TIME HAS INERTIA

Dear Dr. Ignatovich,

Thank you for your recent posting.

As soon as I  finish the writing of a paper in Functional Analysis, I will
post a short, extremely readable and extremely understandable exposition
of Goedel's so-called"celebrated Theorem" in a totally undressed, disrobed 
and  reduced to an absolutely  pitiful naked form.  You will see how I am 
able to destroy the many layers of the superficial cosmetic lava and hit at 
the heart of the matter with my profound insight. 

  
With best regards,
                                             Alexander Abian





 

-- 
   The tendency of maintaining the status-quo, Reaction to provocation and
                The tendency of maintaining again a status-quo.  
    TIME HAS INERTIA  and some energy is lost to move Time forward  
  E = mcc  (Einstein)    must be replaced by    E = m(0) exp(-At) (Abian)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 21:27:15 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.171134.29230@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> andre@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Andre Roberge) writes:
>Presuming that people criticising the proposed panel of moderators are
>in favour of creating sci.physics.research, why not try to proceed as
>fast as possible to create such a group, give a chance to the proposed 
>moderators to prove their worth as such and see what happen?...

I think we are proceeding as fast as possible.  Presumably Austern will
call for a vote any minute now.

>I'm one of the research physicist who's been following sci.physics on
>a *very* irregular basis, mostly because I was turned off by lots
>of #### that appeared there. 

Good - I *know* there are a lot of such people, but for some mysterious
reason very few of them are visible on sci.physics, so it is hard to
prove their existence.  :-)

>I can't wait for a Call For Vote to support
>such a group and enjoy "good physics" posts.  Who knows, I might get
>the nerves to ask publicly one of the moderator to explain what he meant
>where he said something to the effect that the Dirac sea explanation
>was not needed with the proper use of C* algebra  (or something like that).
>Perhaps he already did, but I wasn't reading sci.physics at the time....

Please do ask (when sci.physics.research is in place)!  Or maybe I will 
simply go ahead and answer.  One doesn't really need C*-algebras, by the
way, one just needs a good understanding of the role of complex
structures -- that is, the number i -- in quantum mechanics.

I'm planning on writing some advanced expository articles on
sci.physics.research -- if and only if it is created.  Hopefully this
will help jumpstart it.  Complex structures is one nice topic.  I also
want to talk about Crane and Yetter's amazing new paper on 4-dimensional
topological quantum field theories.  
Xref: sparky sci.physics:22408 news.groups:25269 sci.misc:1994
From: bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Date: 9 Jan 1993 21:34:31 GMT
Organization: Intel Corp., Chandler, Arizona
NNTP-Posting-Host: stealth.intel.com

In article <1iksmsINN25e@rave.larc.nasa.gov> mark@uab21.larc.nasa.gov (Mark Flanagan) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.212715.21449@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>>I'm planning on writing some advanced expository articles on
>>sci.physics.research -- if and only if it is created.

Oh, goody.

Intellectual extortion.

John, you're above this.

>>Hopefully this
>>will help jumpstart it.  Complex structures is one nice topic.  I also
>>want to talk about Crane and Yetter's amazing new paper on 4-dimensional
>>topological quantum field theories.  
>
>The best argument for the creation of s.p.r yet!

Oh, goody.

Sycophantic hysteria.

I try never to make direct allusions to the life and times
of Adolf Hitler unless Ted Kaldis or Jack Schmidling are
listening, no matter the provocation, and I won't break
that rule here, but I'm sorely tempted (and they just
might be...).

Let's just say that this is the sort of intellectual
dishonesty that results in pronouncements that certain
regions of philosophy are off-limits to exploration of
a certain kind.

				--Blair
				  "If you really loved me
				   you'd crush Europe for me..."
From: myawn@hpcupt3.cup.hp.com (Mike Yawn)
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:32:37 GMT
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA - GOEDEL's THEOREMS - att: Dr.PRATT, Mc CULLOUGH
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Newsgroups: sci.physics

There is just something deliciously ironic about Abian referring to anyone
as a crackpot.

Mike Yawn
obviously not in the same universe observed by Abian
From: gross@maxwell.ucsc.edu (Mike Gross)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Request info on Cold Dark Matter
Date: 4 Jan 1993 23:50:38 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: maxwell.ucsc.edu
Keywords: cold dark matter, cosmology

In <1993Jan4.222138.7079@klaava.Helsinki.FI> tesalmin@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Tomi Erik Salminen) writes:

>I am doing an undergraduate project on cold dark matter (i.e. WIMPS,
>axions, quark nuggets, black holes, monopoles, cosmic strings... any
>more?). If anyone on the net knows any good references on any of these
>and would be kind enough to email me about them, I'd sure appreciate it.

>Is hot dark matter (neutrinos) the best bet today?

You might try Kolb & Turner, "The Early Universe," chapters 9 and 10, and the
references in that book. This gives a nice intro to minimal CDM. WARNING: COBE
results have shown that minimal CDM is not correct, since it creates too much
structure at small scales if one normalizes the distribution to the large 
(COBE) scales. This came out *after* the book was published. However, you need
to understand it in order to see the significance of non-minimal CDM.

Minimal hot dark matter has been dead for some time. Since HDM particles are
very light and have a tiny interaction cross section, they don't coalesce into
something as small as a galaxy by themselves.

As for the "best bet," I'd place my money on a mixture of cold and hot dark
matter. A few studies of this scenario are soon to be published in the
Astrophysical Journal. Alternatives are "tilted" CDM, where one plays with
inflation to lessen the small-scale structure (IMO this is unnatural) and
HDM + Textures, where one seeds structure formation using a cosmic phase
transition.

Good luck. You've chosen an *active* area of research for your project, so
you have to be *very* careful that your information is current. But it should
be an interesting project.

Mike Gross
Physics Board
Univ of California             GO SLUGS!!!!
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
gross@lick.ucsc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (.)
Subject: infinite universe
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 03:46:34 GMT

: tabitha@vms.huji.ac.il writes:
: : Another question from a non-physicist.
: : 
: : I frequently read that cosmologists debate whether the
: : universe has infinite size.  If the Big Bang started
: : at a definite time in the past, and has since expanded
: : at a finite speed, how can it be infinite?  What am
: : I missing?
: : 
: : -dennis turner
: : tabitha@vms.huji.ac.il
: Think of it this way. Consider pythagoras' theorem for 3D space: it
: involves an expression of the form x^2+y^2+z^2. This is for an infinite
: space. Now replace this expression in pythagoras' theorem by the
: following:  t^2 [x^2+y^2+z^2] where t is time, and t>0. Then you have a
: universe which is expanding, but which is still  *infinitely large* for
: all times t. The distance between any two given points tends to zero as t
: tends to zero, but for any value of t one can always find two points
: separated by an arbitrarily large distance. The "big bang" corresponds to 
:  t=0, but notice that t=0 is not part of this model because we have t>0
: with strict inequality. 						  
:  To summarise: this  example shows that the mere fact that the Universe is
: of finite age does not allow us to conclude either that it is of finite
: spatial extent or that it had a beginning.				  
:  									  
Newsgroups: sci.physics