yougene said:Once they find the theory of everything that we know off at the moment chances are a new level of physics will be discovered with it, if it does happen we'll probably be very confused with it. I wonder how many layers of physics there are. Is it a finite amount? Could it possibly be an infinite amount of layers?
First some of your language isn't quite right, though the basic idea is.
However, as VelocideX noted, there *are* fundamental incompatibilities between the two theories. To begin with, they're not even written in the same language.
Two reasons. The first is experience. The history of physics is one of the unification of seemingly disparate phenomena. Since Newton managed to explain both gravitation and mechanics through the same simple set of laws, physics has had astonishing success in explaining more and more from less and less. It does not seem unreasonable to assume this process can continue, so we will eventually have a single elegant "theory of everything" which gives rise to all of physics.nick44 said:Zorn-
Why do we often think that science is somehow always converging on the "great truth"? We are good at finding different truths and ways of somehow combining them, but they always seem to confound us by telling us different things when we apply different "languages" to them.
It's both, really: there is no either/or. That 'light acts as both a particle and a wave' is on one hand a statement about experimental facts. Knowing the physics of light lets me tell you what you will observe when you perform certain experiments. Whatever language I use to describe the underlying physics, it must in the end give predictions about the results of experiments to be any good at all.Perhaps the light as a particle-wave interferometer experiment is not actually about observation per se, but on the "language" we seek to impose on what we are seeing.
yougene said:I wonder how many layers of physics there are. Is it a finite amount? Could it possibly be an infinite amount of layers?
Bohm's basic assumption is that "elementary particles are actually systems of extremely complicated internal structure, acting essentially as amplifiers of *information* contained in a quantum wave." As a conseqence, he has evolved a new and controversial theory of the universe--a new model of reality that Bohm calls the "Implicate Order."
The theory of the Implicate Order contains an ultraholistic cosmic view; it connects everything with everything else. In principle, any individual element could reveal "detailed information about every other element in the universe." The central underlying theme of Bohm's theory is the "unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders."
During the early 1980s Bohm developed his theory of the Implicate Order in order to explain the bizarre behavior of subatomic particles--behavior that quantum phyicists have not been able to explain. Basically, two subatomic particles that have once interacted can instantaneously "respond to each other's motions thousands of years later when they are light-years apart." This sort of particle interconnectedness requires superluminal signaling, which is faster than the speed of light. This odd phenomenon is called the EPR effect, named after the Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen thought experiment.
Bohm believes that the bizarre behavior of the subatomic particles might be caused by unobserved subquantum forces and particles. Indeed, the apparent weirdness might be produced by hidden means that pose no conflict with ordinary ideas of causality and reality.
Bohm believes that this "hiddeness" may be reflective of a deeper dimension of reality. He maintains that space and time might actually be derived from an even deeper level of objective reality. This reality he calls the Implicate Order. Within the Implicate Order everything is connected; and, in theory, any individual element could reveal information about every other element in the universe.
Borrowing ideas from holographic photography, the *hologram* is Bohm's favorite metaphor for conveying the structure of the Implicate Order. Holography relies upon wave interference. If two wavelengths of light are of differing frequencies, they will interfere with each other and create a pattern. "Because a hologram is recording detail down to the wavelength of light itself, it is also a dense *information* storage." Bohm notes that the hologram clearly reveals how a "total content--in principle extending over the whole of space and time--is enfolded in the movement of waves (electromagnetic and other kinds) in any given region." The hologram illustrates how "information about the entire holographed scene is enfolded into every part of the film." It resembles the Implicate Order in the sense that every point on the film is "completely determined by the overall configuration of the interference patterns." Even a tiny chunk of the holographic film will reveal the unfolded form of an entire three-dimensional object.
Proceeding from his holographic analogy, Bohm proposes a new order--the Implicate Order where "everything is enfolded into everything." This is in contrast to the explicate order where things are unfolded. Bohm puts it thus:
"The actual order (the Implicate Order) itself has been recorded in the complex movement of electromagnetic fields, in the form of light waves. Such movement of light waves is present everywhere and in principle enfolds the entire universe of space and time in each region. This enfoldment and unfoldment takes place not only in the movement of the electromagnetic field but also in that of other fields (electronic, protonic, etc.). These fields obey quantum-mechanical laws, implying the properties of discontinuity and non-locality. The totality of the movement of enfoldment and unfoldment may go immensely beyond what has revealed itself to our observations. We call this totality by the name *holomovement.*"
Bohm believes that *the Implicate Order has to be extended into a multidimensional reality;* in other words, the holomovement endlessly enfolds and unfolds into infinite dimensionality. Within this milieu there are independent sub-totalities (such as physical elements and human entities) with relative autonomy. The layers of the Implicate Order can go deeper and deeper to the ultimately unknown. It is this "unknown and undescribable totality" that Bohm calls the holomovement. The holomovement is the "fundamental ground of all matter."
http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html
David said:That's a very fancy way of putting it. Sounds more like he's trying to explain a way to link string theory with quantum with-out actually using such terms. Essentially that's what he explained there.
Does this guy have any papers in public forum yet?
David Bohm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
David Joseph Bohm (December 20, 1917 - October 27, 1992) was an American quantum physicist.
Born at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he attended Pennsylvania State College, graduating in 1939, before completing his Ph.D. in 1943 under Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley. Although he was invited, he refused to join the Manhattan Project and to work with other leading scientists like Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi in developing the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
After the war Bohm became assistant professor at Princeton University where he worked closely with Albert Einstein. In May 1949, at the beginning of the McCarthyism hysteria period, Bohm was called upon to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee but pleaded the Fifth amendment right to decline to testify, refusing to give evidence against colleagues. In 1950 Bohm was charged for refusing to answer questions before the Committee and arrested. He was acquitted in May 1951 but Princeton had already suspended him and after his acquittal refused to renew his contract. Bohm's colleagues sought to have his position at Princeton reinstated, and Einstein reportedly wanted Bohm to serve as his assistant, but Bohm's contract with the university was not renewed. Then, Bohm left for Brazil to take up a Chair in Physics at the University of São Paulo.
In 1955, he moved to Israel where he spent two years at the Technion at Haifa. Here he met his wife Saral, who was an important figure in the development of his ideas. In 1957 Bohm moved to the UK. He held a research fellowship at University of Bristol until 1961, when he was made Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College of the London University until his retirement in 1987.
throughout his life, bohm suffered from bouts of depression, which seemingly worsened with age. he underwent psychoanalysis with patrick de mare. in may 1991 he was admitted to the "old age psychiatry" - de mare declared bohm "suicidal". bohm stayed in the hospital until the end of august 1991. he remained on "medication" (sertralin) ((* for details: see f david peats biography)).
Bohm made a number of significant contributions to physics, particularly in the area of quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Still a post-graduate at Berkeley he discovered the electron phenomenon now known as Bohm-diffusion. His first book, Quantum Theory published in 1951, was well-received by Einstein among others. However, he was unsatisified with the orthodox approach to quantum theory and began to develop his own approach (Bohm interpretation), a non-local hidden variable deterministic theory whose predictions are in perfect agreement with the quantum ones. His work and the EPR argument were the major factor motivating John Bell's inequality, whose consequences are still being investigated. In 1959, with his student Yakir Aharonov, he discovered the Aharonov-Bohm effect, showing how a vacuum could produce striking physical effects.
Bohm's scientific and philosophical views were inseparable. In 1959 he came across a book by the Indian philosopher Krishnamurti. He was struck with how his own ideas on quantum mechanics meshed with the philosophical ideas of Krishnamurti. Bohm's approach to philosophy and physics are expressed in his 1980 book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, and in the book Science, Order and Creativity. In his later years, he developed the technique of what is know as: Bohm Dialogue, in which equal status and "free space" were the most important prerequisites. He believed that if carried out on a sufficiently wide scale, these Dialogues could help overcome fragmentation in society.
David Bohm died in London, England oct 22, 1992.