Process physics is a new and radical approach to the modeling of fundamental physics drawing on information theory. It aims to be a theory of everything by abandoning the space-time construct of Galileo, Newton and Einstein, and by arguing that time can only be modeled as a process. The abandonment of time as a geometrical construct is used to solve the problems with conventional physics such as the incompatibility between the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics. The model exhibits both gravitational and non-local quantum mechanical behaviour, uniting them in one theory. Space, matter, gravity and time seem to emerge from the model without the pre-existing notion of object or laws built in the model. Theoretical physics attempts to understand the world by making a model of reality, used for rationalizing, explaining, predicting physical phenomena through a physical theory. There are three types of theories in physics; mainstream theories, proposed theories and fringe theories. ... The first few hydrogen atom electron orbitals shown as cross-sections with color-coded probability density. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... In special relativity and general relativity, time and three-dimensional space are treated together as a single four-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold called spacetime. ... Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642) was an Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher who is closely associated with the scientific revolution. ... Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) [OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727][1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher, widely regarded as one of the key figures in the history of science. ... Einstein redirects here. ... Two distinct views exist on the meaning of time. ... Process (lat. ... The Standard Model of Fundamental Particles and Interactions The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory which describes the strong, weak, and electromagnetic fundamental forces, as well as the fundamental particles that make up all matter. ... General relativity (GR) is the geometrical theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915. ... Fig. ... Gravity is a force of attraction that acts between bodies that have mass. ... Fig. ... The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. ...

History

Process physics has its origin in a paper by Reginald T. Cahill and Christopher M. Klinger about modeling space and time with a random matrix in 1996, Pre-geometric modeling. This was further developed in the paper Self-Referential Noise and the Synthesis of Three-Dimensional Space in 1998. In 2002 the papers Process Physics: From Quantum Foam to General Relativity and Process Physics: From Information Theory to Quantum Space and Matter in 2003 took the radical step of expanding on the themes of the earlier papers to encompass both quantum mechanics and general relativity. Fig. ... General relativity (GR) is the geometrical theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915. ...

Cahill asserts that several experiments measuring the speed of light and "force" of gravity in 2003 to 2005 invalidate the theory of relativity as per Einstein/Hilbert and reduce relativity to the less "general" Lorentzian model, the law of relativity, in which an absolute motion is possible. He asserts a theory that he claims employs identical assumptions to the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Two-dimensional analogy of space-time distortion described in General Relativity. ... Process philosophy identifies metaphysical reality with change and dynamism. ... Alfred North Whitehead, OM (February 15, 1861 Ramsgate, Kent, England– December 30, 1947 Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) was an English mathematician who became an American philosopher. ...

Modeling process physics

Pre-geometric Modelling of Space and Time

Process physics uses the concept of self-organising criticality to explain the emergence of structure and information from random processes. It is modeled as an iterative process that uses a matrix B that describes the strengths of connections between nodes. This matrix is then iterated by the formula

where B_ij describes the strength of the connectivity of nodes i and j, α is a dimensionless constant, and ω_ij is a wiener random variable. We set B_ij = − B_ji- and ω_ij = − ω_ji- to avoid a node having a connnection strength to itself.[[1]] By iterating the matrix B through this equation, a tree structure emerges with strongly connected nodes exhibiting a fractal structure with a dimensionality tending towards 3, as in our 3-D space. Further iteration shows that connections between some nodes decay, while new connections are created; over many iterations more new connections are formed than are lost, causing an expanding space, just as observed in the physical universe. Within this tree structure, topological defects that have more connectivity than normal and are therefore more 'sticky' emerge, giving rise to patterns that persist. It is argued that these patterns have matter-like behaviour because of their persistence and their fuzziness at smaller scales similar to quantum particles. The first few hydrogen atom electron orbitals shown as cross-sections with color-coded probability density. ... The theory of self-organized criticality (SOC) claims that whenever a self-organizing dynamical system is open or dissipative, it exhibits critical (scale-invariant) behaviour similar to that displayed by static systems undergoing a second-order phase transition. ... In mathematics, a matrix (plural matrices) is a rectangular table of numbers or, more generally, a table consisting of abstract quantities that can be added and multiplied. ... The term node can refer to: Node, a spatial locus along a standing wave where the wave has minimal amplitude. ... The word iteration is sometimes used in everyday English with a meaning virtually identical to repetition. ... In mathematics, the Wiener process, so named in honor of Norbert Wiener, is a continuous-time Gaussian stochastic process with independent increments used in modelling Brownian motion and some random phenomena observed in finance. ... The word iteration is sometimes used in everyday English with a meaning virtually identical to repetition. ... Topology (Greek topos = place and logos = word) is a branch of mathematics concerned with the study of topological spaces. ... Matter is commonly defined as the substance of which physical objects are composed. ...

Simple visual representation is as follows:

Self-organizing semantic information field (Gödel, Turing and Chaitin,..). Keywords: stochastic neural networks (SNN), randomness ,.. Semantic information generated and recognized within the system- unlike other approaches that are only syntactical and not semantic

The SNN characteristic inherent bootstrap mechanism triggers the process of iteration; semantics generated by semantic seeds appearing during the process of iteration. The iteration process is therefore the essential consequence of SNN structure and not a convenient tool one needs to "get things started".

The iteration process generates ge-bits, the geometry units later coalescing ("gluing") and thus "building" the space structure equivalent to the quantum foam. Topological defects appearing in the process of the growing three-dimensional fractal space (ge-bits are glued into the space/quantum foam, composed of the active nodes and in-built topological defects) generate quantum matter, ie. one gets both space and matter via iteration of a mathematical formalism. The time modeling is not quasi-geometric as is the case with the model of space that emerges.

Gravity equals to the loss of relational information during the in-flow from the quantum foam to the matter. Since the in-flow is turbulent, it necessitates the appearance of gravitational waves and explains the anomaly in rotation speed of spiral galaxies- as of yet this has been explained by the concept of dark matter; a concept that process physics dispenses with. Quantum homotopy field theory, describing the dynamics of topological defects, gives subsequently ordinary quantum field theory and the rest of quantum physics and relativity, albeit differently interpreted.

Kurt Gödel Kurt Gödel [ kurt gøːdl ], (April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics, whose biography lists quite a few nations, although he is usually associated with Austria. ... Alan Turing is often considered the father of modern computer science. ... Gregory J. Chaitin (born 1947) is an American contemporary mathematician and computer scientist. ... Stochastic neural networks are a type of artificial neural networks, which is a tool of artificial intelligence. ... It has been suggested that Fractal animation be merged into this article or section. ...

Time

In classical physics, time is modelled as a geometrical dimension that is added to the three dimensions of space to construct four dimensional space-time. This is a static model that does not have the concept of a past, present or future, or the arrow of time within it, which mathematically allows any point in space-time to be predicted, whether past, present, or future. Classical physics is physics based on principles developed before the rise of quantum theory, usually including the special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity. ... Two distinct views exist on the meaning of time. ... Table of Geometry, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... Space has been an interest for philosophers and scientists for much of human history. ... In special relativity and general relativity, time and three-dimensional space are treated together as a single four-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold called spacetime. ... Look up static in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Physical processes at the microscopic level are either entirely or mostly (see below) time symmetric, meaning that the theoretical statements that describe them remain true if the direction of time is reversed; yet when we describe things at the macroscopic level it often appears that this is not the case...

Time in process physics is modelled as an iterative process, where each iteration is like the next present moment. Due to the randomness present in the iterative equation, the future is not completely predictable. Also it is not possible to perform the inverse operation, meaning you cannot go backwards to the previous moments. Process physics thus predicts a static past, a continually changing present moment, and an unpredictable future - all of which is consistent with how we experience the passage of time.

Space

A key point in the Process Physics theory is that space has internal structure. This structure is described as a network of nodal points with connections between nodes of varying strength, as described above in the section "modelling process physics". Mathematically the model used by process physics to describe space is essentially the same as that used to model neural networks. The inspiration to use this neural-network type of model to describe reality came from the discovery that the behaviour of the statistical particles skyrmions can be described by a similar model. Simplified view of an artificial neural network A neural network is a system of interconnecting neurons in a network working together to produce an output function. ... In theoretical physics, a skyrmion, named for Tony Skyrme, is a homotopically nontrivial classical solution of a nonlinear sigma model with a non-trivial target manifold topology i. ...

Matter

In process physics, matter is described as topological defects in three dimensional space that have the ability to become persistent by preserving the pattern of its links over many iterations. Matter is embedded in three dimensional space but is essentially made of the same thing as space. It moves by re-linking preferentially in the direction of travel and losing links more often in the opposite direction to travel. The pattern therefore appears to move relative to the underlying fabric of space and to other matter. Once the movement has started then it will become self sustaining requiring no more energy to continue. Any change in direction to its passage through space would be resisted, which manifests itself as inertia. Topology (Greek topos = place and logos = word) is a branch of mathematics concerned with the study of topological spaces. ...

Gravity

The topological defect nature of matter means it has more links than normal space. This would produce the effect of using up more links than the space surrounding it meaning that space would effectively sink into matter. This is speculated as the reason behind gravity where the space between masses would effectively shrink making the masses become closer together. The masses would not move as such but the distance between them would get smaller. This also explains why a free falling body does not seem to experience a force while accelerating due to gravity towards a more massive body. This however goes against general relativity as the gravitational effect would be instantaneous rather than effect at a distance at the speed of light. An experiment to measure the speed of gravity would go a long way in establishing if general relativity or process physics is closer to reality. Gravity is a force of attraction that acts between bodies that have mass. ...

See also

• Superstring theory
• M-theory
• Quantum gravity
• Loop quantum gravity
• Supersymmetry
• Theory of everything

Superstring theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. ... M-theory is a solution proposed for the unknown theory of everything which would combine all five superstring theories and 11-dimensional supergravity together. ... Quantum gravity is the field of theoretical physics attempting to unify the theory of quantum mechanics, which describes three of the fundamental forces of nature, with general relativity, the theory of the fourth fundamental force: gravity. ... Loop quantum gravity (LQG), also known as loop gravity and quantum geometry, is a proposed quantum theory of spacetime which attempts to reconcile the seemingly incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

References

• Reginald T. Cahill, Process Physics: From Quantum Foam to General Relativity
• T. D. Martin, Comments on Cahill's Quantum Foam Inflow Theory of Gravity, an arXiv eprint critiquing Cahill's theory.
• Reginald T. Cahill. Process Physics: From Information Theory to Quantum Space and Matter. Nova Publishers (2005). ISBN 1-59454-300-3.

External links

• Process physics website
• Popular science review
• Critique
• Process physics archive
• Process studies supplement