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Welcome to Visual Physics 2.0 and the Visual Physics Project
Visual Physics 2.0 is a theory development portal based on a number of integrated components (see About the Site for details). It is the home of the Visual Physics Project, whose purpose is the exploration of what could be termed "Metaclassical Physics". Specifically we will work on the following broad areas of physics, roughly in the order given:
- Special Relativity
- General Relativity and Gravitation
- Electrostatic Field and Electromagnetic Waves
- Quanta, Wave-Particle Duality and the Uncertainty Principle
To state the obvious, these fields have been exhaustively explored for more than a century by great minds, great physicists and mathematicians. This site will not presume to find fault in their formulations. Our premise is simply that perhaps not all avenues and byways of theory development have been explored, and so our aim is to follow different pathways hoping to discover some neglected pieces of the puzzle. |
Project Outline
This project started off with a simple idea about the physical meaning of what we term "spacetime curvature". (You can read more about the original idea in the History of the Visual Physics Project.) The development of this concept led to the Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity theory. This physical approach can also be applied usefully in other areas of metaclassical physics, and this is the general aim of the Visual Physics Project. Now, let's see the specific aims of the project for each of its main areas of interest. An important first step has been made in Special Relativity, while its aims for the other areas still remain in the Roadmap and will hopefully be accomplished.
Special Relativity
- Main article Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity
This is the starting point of the whole project. By giving the Proper Time of the Moving Observer its "proper place" in the graph of motion, we find that the Moving Body is always situated on the circumference of a circle of increasing radius t, and we are led to the conclusion that the phenomena of Special Relativity are produced by the curvature of spacetime, specifically by the phenomena of the curved expanding universe. In the main article, you will find the full treatment of the Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity theory in the form of an interactive presentation powered by a Javascript simulation, and also its implications and the next steps in the Roadmap of the theory, mainly the introduction of gravitation in the Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity theory.
Gravitation: Extrinsic Relativity
- Main article Gravitation: Extrinsic Relativity
Our main aim here is an extrinsic formulation of General Relativity. The intrinsic formulation of the theory on the basis of Tensor Calculus has been exhaustively developed, so here we will look at its extrinsic formulation. We want to see if it will agree with what we will have come up with in the Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity with Gravitation. This will allow us to describe much more clearly the way that spacetime curvature produces the acceleration of gravity.
Electrostatic Field and Electromagnetic Waves
- Main article Electrostatic Field and EM Waves
Here we will take the mechanism of acceleration production that we will have come up with for gravitation, and we will try to apply it to the electrostatic field. This is reasonable since gravitational and electrostatic forces (accelarations) have exactly the same form, and this suggests that the latter are also produced by some kind of spacetime curvature. Again, the main article gives a fuller description of the needed formulation.
When we have such a formulation, hopefully we will have a much clearer picture of what electromagnetic waves are. Most probably they will prove to be fluctuations of the curvature produced in spacetime by the existence of electric charge. So if this proves correct, what "waves" in electromagnetic waves is spacetime itself –-spacetime is the "ether."
Quanta, Wave-Particle Duality and the Uncertainty Principle
When we have this clearer picture of EM waves, hopefully it will be easier to see how these fluctuations can be quantized as to the energy they carry. Maybe this happens through the existence of a minimal length interval, or a minimal time interval, or most probably both. At such scales, we are looking at the "pixels" of spacetime (and a pixel has both minimal length and minimal width). Or there could also be "gaps" between successive discrete intervals.
Based on that, perhaps it will be easier to see what the uncertainty principle really means, what exactly wave-particle duality is, and if the wavefunction describes any real entity or it is a statistical description of phenomena that are deterministic to a greater or lesser extend (and if such a thing as its notorious collapse really exists).
Related Topics
See also