On Dec 10, 2011, at 10:09 AM, Paul Zielinski wrote:

On 12/9/2011 11:59 PM, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. wrote:
Sorry, that's not right.  Energy -- possessed by photons and gluons (charged or uncharged) -- has inertia (that is, mass, its measure).  It goes into E of SRT in Einstein's second law [m = E/c^2; the first law being E = mc^2].  And in GRT, it goes into the source tensor of the gravitational field.

PZ: If massless particles move along null geodesics, and they can't be pushed off those trajectories, then I would have thought that implies that the inertia associated with the energy stored in the quanta of the field is infinite, not zero.

JS: Fair enough. Yes, I accept the inertia of photons is infinite. However, as we see in renormalizable quantum field theory, physicists are not comfortable with truly infinite-valued observables.

PZ Why would it be any different from a non-zero rest mass particle moving arbitrarily close to c, where the relativistic effective inertial mass approaches infinity?

JS: Good point.

PZ: But of course that poses a serious problem for the equivalence principle. Is the gravitational mass of a zero rest mass particle therefore infinite? If not, why not?

JS: Even better point. There is a problem.

PZ: In fact I don't think I've ever seen a fully satisfactory  discussion about how the equivalence principle applies to relativistic mass-energy of moving particles.

JW: Surprisingly enough, we now know that at cosmic scale space is flat, so critical cosmic matter density obtains.  That means that phi [the total scalar gravitational potential] equals c^2.  So, in Einstein's second law c^2 can be replaced by phi, and now m * phi = E.  It takes no genius to read this to say that E is the total gravitational potential energy -- and that the origin of E in SRT is due to the gravitational interaction.  Since m arises from E (irrespective of whether E is due to zero or non-zero restmass stuff), the origin of mass is the gravitational interaction [not the Higgs process].

PZ: That's certainly an interesting hypothesis.

JS: I don't know what Jim means in practical operation terms. How can we falsify Jim's hypothesis?

JW: And when phi = c^2, inertial reaction forces are due exclusively to the gravitational interaction.

PZ:Yes but how do you square this Machian interpretation with the anti-Machian character of the Higgs model?

JS: I simply don't understand what phi = c^2 means.

For example, in a material do we have

phi' = c^2/(index of refraction)^2

and if not, why not?

After all the index of vacuum is from virtual particles and the equivalence principle does not discriminate between real and virtual particles.

JW: Those two things, which could only be stated as above after the WMAP results were known (not the 19th century), are the modern assertion of Mach's principle.  The instantaneity of inertial reaction forces tells one that either Wheeler was right about initial data and elliptic constraint equations, or that Wheeler-Feynman action-at-a-distance is right.  I think W-F is correct -- and that makes the future hologram interpretation possible if you are so inclined.

This isn't rocket science, so with a little luck, eventually folks will figure all this out.  The hard part is getting used to W-F action-at-a-distance.  :-)


PZ: Agree the modern version of the "Machian" hypothesis is more sophisticated empirically and viable than the more traditional versions. But I'm not sure you have adequately addressed the anti-Machian features of the Higgs mechanism.

JS: I think the historical version of Mach's Principle cannot be sustained in modern physics. However, it's basic idea reappears in the 't Hooft-Susskind World Hologram Ansatz in my opinion, and, further, it demands the kind of retrocausality we see in Yakir Aharonov's theory of pre and post-selection in weak measurements.

On Dec 9, 2011, at 6:18 PM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:

In any case if CERN does find the Higgs at where the U1xSU2xSU3 standard model places it, most physicists will not even know what Jim means by the origin of inertia in the sense of classical 19th Century Mach. Being able to compute rest masses is the issue here. Higgs gives rest masses of leptons and quarks. QCD using Higgs input computes hadron rest masses. Special relativity and equivalence principle do the rest. Problem solved - at a significant level.


On Dec 9, 2011, at 9:59 AM, Paul Zielinski  wrote:

I'm not sure the situation is quite so simple. If the inertia associated with the non-zero rest masses of gauge bosons physically arises from *local* interactions of the accelerating particles with the Higgs field, then as far as I can see the Higgs model is fundamentally *anti-Machian*.

JS: Correct However in the hologram idea the local Higgs coherent vacuum ODLRO field is a image from the Mach horizons both past and future.

PZ: Of course that is not to say that the inertia of zero rest mass particles doesn't operate independently of such interactions.


JS: Zero mass particles are on null geodesics classically. They have zero inertia u can't push them off the null geodesic classically ignoring quantum fluctuations.

PZ: but neither does it follow from this that the physical origin of such inertia conforms to Mach's principle.

On 12/9/2011 9:03 AM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:

Of course everyone knows that
Higgs gives rest mass to quarks and leptons
QCD does the rest for hadrons
So who needs Mach for that?
Mach only comes into its own as the Wheeler Feynman future world 2D hologram computer at the end conformal time computing gravity and matter as 3D hologram images back from the future. That's my new theory of everything;-)
A dS/CFT duality Stokes Greens theorem analog


On iPhone.
On Dec 9, 2011, at 1:02 AM, "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it."   wrote:

The Higgs is irrelevant to the Mach considerations.  The Higgs is NOT the origin of mass-energy (as Wilczek has repeatedly pointed out).  It is a process that confers RESTMASS on otherwise zero restmass particles.  Those zero restmass particles, via m = E/c^2, have mass if they have energy.  The origin of mass is the question of the origin of mass-energy.  Mach's principle does have something to say about that.

JS: I think Einstein already did that in 190


---------- Original Message ----------
From: JACK SARFATTI
To: JACK SARFATTI

Subject: Re: 2000 to 1 Odds: The Higgs Boson Has Probably Been Found
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 18:31:11 -0800

PS Classically zero rest mass particles have no "inertia" in the sense that you cannot apply a force on them to move them off the null geodesics of curved spacetime. Of course this assumes that zero rest mass particles have no charge. Only when the Higgs + QCD give positive squared invariant mass can we push the particles off a timelike geodesic in the sense of Newton's 2nd law on to a timelike non-geodesic.

Suppose we had an electrically charged zero rest mass particle and applied an electric field to it. What happens?

Need to use the mass-shell equation

(Pu - (e/c)Au)(P^u - (e/c)A^u) = 0
Lorentz Force?

dPu/ds - (e/c)dAu/ds = eFuvP^v ?

On Dec 9, 2011, at 6:18 PM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:

In any case if CERN does find the Higgs at where the U1xSU2xSU3 standard model and its minimal extensions within the same paradigm places it, most physicists will not even know what Jim means by the origin of inertia in the sense of classical 19th Century Mach.


On Dec 10, 2011, at 9:07 AM, Jim Woodward wrote:

Those two things, which could only be stated as above after the WMAP results were known (not the 19th century), are the modern assertion of Mach's principle.  The instantaneity of inertial reaction forces tells one that either Wheeler was right about initial data and elliptic constraint equations, or that Wheeler-Feynman action-at-a-distance is right.  I think W-F is correct -- and that makes the future hologram interpretation possible if you are so inclined.


JS: We do agree here of course. Indeed, at a deeper level, the local Higgs field may be a hologram image from the future and probably the past horizon hologram computers. We need both in the sense of Aharonov's pre and post-selection.