Should you believe me?

Note how prefacing the question with ‘why’ would change its focus if not its intent. I’ll return to this point at the end. I was originally going to write a post on time travel and UFOs, but I got sidetracked in my 'research'. In particular, I watched a talk given by famous sceptic, Michael Shermer (executive director of The Skeptics Society) and I remember reading his column in Scientific American in the 70s or 80s when I was a regular reader. He’s only slightly younger than me.

 

He gives a number of challenges in his talk, which are insightful in themselves, and I would gladly take them up. Basically, he’s making the point that when you challenge someone to explain why they believe something, they mostly can’t. He gives the examples of climate change and evolution, which he says are positions based on political beliefs rather than whether or not they understand the science behind them. I fall into this category, even though I’ve read books and accounts on these topics that most people wouldn’t bother, despite holding very passionate views on them.

 

Regarding evolutionary theory, I’d recommend Nick Lane’s excellent book, Life Ascending; The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, which I’ve written about before. But I have another argument, which I’ve also presented before. Since Darwin and Wallace independently proposed their theories of evolution by natural selection over 160 years ago (1859 to be precise), we’ve made extraordinary discoveries that they could never have dreamed about, specifically in palaeontology and genetics. But here’s the thing: all the evidence discovered in the interim is not neutral; what has proven them right could just as readily have proven them wrong.

 

Regarding anthropomorphic climate change, I know of the role of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, without knowing the details, and I know that ultimately it’s caused by the difference in heat that can escape our atmosphere and the heat that’s trapped, which can’t be measured directly. However, NASA has data that is publicly available on their website, which combines historical ice-core data with atmospheric data collected at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and they show how the 2 sources of data are complementary and seamlessly connected.

 

But I have a subsidiary argument, which is that we need to trust the expertise of people who work in climatology, because the rest of us don’t have it. I learned this from spending over 4 decades in engineering, where I constantly relied on expertise by people in various fields from structural and civil engineering to architecture to mechanical and electrical engineering to process engineering to software design and automation. The problem is, with the internet, you can always find an ‘expert’ to provide the evidence that supports your view, which was very prominently exhibited during the not-so-recent COVID pandemic.

 

But, in the case of climate change, nearly all the arguments I’ve come across (that question it) are that it’s a hoax and/or a global conspiracy to keep climatologists in a job. I admit I don’t take those arguments seriously. However, there is someone I know who was a geologist and had spent a very successful career in mining, who put up a technical argument based on the tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere and how, as a percentage, it contradicted the official reporting, including that provided by NASA. NASA’s data is in ppm (parts per million), and I pointed out that to convert the weight into ppm you had to allow for the molecular weight of CO2, which brings it back in line with the reported results. He knew I was right and he didn't respond. But as Shermer would have pointed out, he was on the Right of politics and I’m on the Left, which axiomatically creates the divide. I’ve long argued that climate change should never have been politicised. But having said that, you’ll find people on the other side of the argument who will say exactly the same thing.

 

Shermer added a couple of other challenges to demonstrate how much we don’t know or take for granted. He asked, ‘Can you explain how a zipper works?’ No, but I can draw a diagram. Engineers often draw a picture when explaining something. He also asked, ‘Can you draw a bicycle?’ and explained how many people get it wrong. Well, actually, I can. I stopped the video to prove it to myself, though I had to raise the handlebars when I finished it. Mind you, I started drawing before I could write.

 

However, Shermer made me question myself, which is why I’m writing this post. You see I write about topics where I’m not an expert, specifically physics and cosmology. I’m not even a proper philosopher – I don’t even have a degree let alone a PhD. My only defence is that I’m well read and pay attention to people who know a lot more than me, even if I disagree with them. And what I’ve found from watching panel discussions on YouTube is that even experts can’t agree.

 

To give an example, I watched a panel discussion between 2 prominent philosophers of science and a theoretical physicist: Tim Maudlin, Hilary Lawson and Sabine Hossenfelder respectively; on whether there are particles or fields. Tim Maudlin appeared to be the odd one out, yet I found I was more in agreement with him, which might just be a reflection of my own ignorance. Basically, he argued that the ‘field’ in quantum mechanics is the wavefunction of the particle which doesn’t even exist in spacetime (it exists in Hilbert space with potentially infinite dimensions) and can’t be measured. It’s possible that Lawson and Hossenfelder were talking about something different – I don’t know enough to comment – but Hossenfelder said you can have different mathematical models that describe the same phenomenon. Maudlin quoted John Bell as saying we effectively don’t have a particle until it creates a spot on a screen or a photographic emulsion. Which is why I think it exists in the past and the wavefunction exists in the future, compatible with Freeman Dyson’s viewpoint.

 

Speaking of Bell, I watched another video with Neil deGrasse Tyson talking to Jana Levin about entanglement which is one of the best discussions I’ve seen on the topic. The point that I think needs to be emphasised is that entanglement introduces instantaneity, which to me, only makes sense if there is a universal 'now'. Tyson focused the discussion on the ramifications for cryptology, where they both agreed that it can’t be used to send a message faster-than-light, though I do it in my science fiction (I readily acknowledge I break the known laws of physics in my sci-fi).

 

I think there is an inherent contradiction or conundrum in physics and cosmology that the Universe has an edge in time but not space, whereas relativity theory tells us there is only spacetime (they are not separate) and ‘now’ is a purely subjective experience – there is no universal, objective now. This has led to physicists arguing that our experience of time ‘flowing’ is an illusion. Paul Davies believes that this experience will ultimately be 'explained by neuroscience, not physics'. Sabine Hossenfelder argues that there is no ‘now’ – it’s an illusion. Everyone knows that I greatly admire both of these scientists, both of whom know a lot more than me, yet I also think that postulating something that’s so outside our everyday experience, requires better explanations than we currently have. To me, it’s a sign that there is something wrong with our current theories rather than a sign that we all suffer from the same illusion that there is a past, present and future.

 

Getting back to Shermer and the role of expertise (though he doesn’t mention it, but I do): what I’ve found is that if you watch a discussion on a topic like evolution or climate change, especially when it’s combative, and you have someone present who is more knowledgeable and more experienced, they will invariably win the argument. And to extend that to my position, I imagine that if I was to have a discussion with Sabine, she would win hands down, and I would have to defer to her greater expertise, while not necessarily agreeing with her.

 

I once wrote a post where I critiqued her position on determinism and free will. It so happened I referenced this post to someone I met online, and to my surprise they said it was ‘very balanced’. I didn’t think it was balanced at all, given my prejudices, but I took it as a compliment.

 

So, addressing the question at the head of this post, the answer is, No. You shouldn’t simply believe what I say or argue; instead, you should do your own research and draw your own conclusions.

Mathematics, language and reality

I recently read an online article with Quanta Magazine, titled How Writing Changes Mathematical Thought, featuring David E Dunning, ‘a historian of mathematics at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’, who was interviewed by John Pavlus.

 

In particular, Dunning pointed out how the notation we use affects the way we explore mathematics and even comprehend it. The most significant innovation was the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals, along with its corresponding arithmetic, which we owe to Fibonacci (of Fibonacci numbers fame) in the 12^th Century. Tibees gives a good summary in this short video. The thing is that we would really struggle to do modern mathematics using Roman numerals, and it would be impossible for computers.

 

Dunning gives the example of the difference between Newton’s and Leibniz’s notation for calculus and how “Leibniz’s calculus got used a lot more in continental Europe, and it just grew and was fertile in a way that Newton’s wasn’t.” Which is why we all use Leibniz’s notation today.

 

But there is a more fundamental point, I believe, that Dunning doesn’t discuss. And that is the Wittgensteinian (new word) principle that the language we use limits what we can think about, because we all think in a language. And also, it’s the language of mathematics that I believe resolves the argument going back to Plato and Aristotle, whether mathematics is invented or discovered. On that last point, we invent the language but the relationships that the language describes are discovered. I contend there is a tendency to conflate the language of mathematics with mathematical formulations, because we learn them in tandem.

 

I pointed out in a much earlier post that there is also a tendency to treat mathematics as just another language, like the ones we think in, which takes the conflation I mention above to another level. The fact is that we still use the language we think in to describe mathematical notation and relationships. In other words, we absorb the language we use to do mathematics into our thinking language as a subset thereof. And this brings me back to Wittgenstein’s point, because we keep expanding our language to capture new concepts and ideas, otherwise we cognitively stagnate. And I see mathematical language as such an expansion, otherwise we can’t understand the concepts it’s describing. And perhaps this is why so many people struggle with mathematics in school, but that’s another topic.

 

One of Pavlus’s questions was: Why don’t we teach people to do math with, say, a more pictorial or visual kind of notation?

 

This is what led Dunning to talk about Newton’s and Leibniz’s respective calculus notation, but it got me thinking in a different direction.

 

Specifically, how we are visual creatures, and how I try to visualise mathematical concepts as much as possible. A graph can tell you so much more than the written equation can, and makes some concepts very easy to grasp. The best example that most people would be familiar with is a sine wave. You can see where the wave is zero and where it’s 1 and -1, and everything in between, and how it cycles in periods of 2π radians. It also shows just by looking at the graph how the cosine of an angle is 90 degrees (π/2 radians) out of phase with the corresponding sine wave, just by depicting them on the same graph.

 

Another example most of us are familiar with is a parabola being the graphical representation of a quadratic equation. The zeros (or square roots) are where the graph crosses the x axis, which can’t be greater than 2, so can have 2 square roots. However, you can have one square root if the parabola kisses the x axis and no roots if it doesn’t touch it. Though we all know we can have imaginary roots (√-1), but you need another graph which includes an imaginary axis along with the real axis.

 

In fact, complex algebra is a lot easier to understand if it’s depicted graphically. I’m a little annoyed that it wasn’t taught to me that way when I first encountered it. By depicting it on an Argand diagram, where the imaginary (i) axis replaces the y axis in a Cartesian diagram, and using polar co-ordinates, you can see how multiplication requires adding the angles, and multiplying a complex number by i means rotating everything anticlockwise by 90 degrees.

 

Even esoteric topics like Riemann’s hypothesis becomes amenable to comprehension by mortals when it’s demonstrated graphically, as this video demonstrates quite effectively.

 

Calculus is taught using graphs: the tangent of a curve being found by differentiation and the area under a curve being found by integration. Why one is the inverse function of the other, I’m not sure anyone can tell you. Differential calculus allows one to grasp the concept of instantaneity, which doesn’t physically exist, but it’s an idealism that is more than useful. Likewise, it’s almost incomprehensible that an infinite number of infinitesimal strips can give you a finite area under a curve, but it works. Calculus is like magic.

 

But I extend this visualisation into physics, where everything is depicted in the language of mathematics.

 

I never understood Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (GR), which is a theory of gravity, until I grasped the concept of a geodesic, which can be visualised. And I can thank Richard Feynman for explaining it relatively succinctly, including mathematical formulations, in his excellent book, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. A geodesic is the shortest distance between 2 points, and on a sphere, it’s always a great circle. Intercontinental aircraft fly along geodesics for that very reason, though they appear curved when the map is projected onto a flat surface.

 

But here’s the thing, as pointed out by Feynman: “In a uniform gravitational field the trajectory with maximum proper time for a fixed elapsed time is a parabola.” I’ll describe what he means by ‘maximum proper time’ in a moment, because that’s the key to understanding it. But we all learned that a projectile travels through the air following a parabolic curve in high school physics, without knowing anything about GR. We did it using Newton’s equations. But Einstein gives us the same result, assuming the object is not travelling at relativistic speeds.

 

And here’s why, again quoting Feynman: An object always moves from one place to another so that a clock carried on it gives a longer time than any other trajectory (italics in the original). In his words, The time measured by a moving clock is called its “proper time” (τ). In free fall, the trajectory makes the proper time of an object a maximum. And that’s what’s called a geodesic in GR.

 

And that paragraph allowed me to finally comprehend General Relativity. Any deviation of an object from free fall in a gravitational field (from its geodesic), and remember there is a gravitational field everywhere in the Universe, means its clock will slow down which is what SR (special theory of relativity) tells us. I’ve always believed that SR is dependent on GR and not the other way round, and Feynman indirectly confirmed this for me.

 

But visualisations can be misleading, and I think the wavefunction (Ψ) in Schrodinger’s equation is a case-in-point, because it’s not a physical wave. It exists in Hilbert space which, in principle, can have infinite dimensions. There is another way of expressing the same quantum mechanical (QM) phenomena and that is with Heisenberg’s matrix formulation. In fact, Heisenberg’s formulation preceded Schrodinger’s but they are mathematically equivalent. And this brings me back to Dunning’s point that the language we mathematically express something in, will give an intuitively different picture.

 

I recently read an article on Heisenberg’s revolutionary discoveries in Philosophy Now (Issue 172, Feb/Mar 2026, by Dr Kanan Purkayastha), which made the point that ‘Heisenberg attempted to calculate the behaviour of electrons around atoms using quantities we can observe’, so basically an epistemological approach. On the other hand, Schrodinger started with a principle postulated by De Broglie that an electron’s momentum could be formulated as a wave, similar to a photon, which I would call an ontological approach. Philip Ball in his book, Beyond Weird, made a similar point: that Heisenberg’s matrix approach is ‘epistemic’ and Schrodinger’s wave function approach is ‘ontic’ (his terms).

 

Many people originally thought that the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle was an epistemological one, including Einstein, who said it was “just an expression of the limits of what can be determined by measurements. Or in philosophers’ terms, the nature of uncertainty would be an epistemic one.”

 

However, it falls out of Schrodinger’s equation by using a Fourier transform, so it is a mathematical restraint, not just a physical one. Schrodinger’s wavefunction also entails superposition and entanglement, which led Schrodinger to state that entanglement is the defining feature of quantum mechanics, meaning it’s what separates it from classical physics. The other thing about Schrodinger’s equation is that it can only give us probabilities, and following an observation, it no longer applies. This leads me to argue that the wavefunction exists in the future; as far as I know, an idea not shared by anyone else except Freeman Dyson (who is no longer with us).

 

Probabilities were the subject of a recent post, but the thing is we only apply probabilities to things that are yet to happen. After something has happened its probability is no longer relevant; it effectively becomes 1. And this is what happens in QM, as described above. To quote from another online article by Phys Org:

The results showed that the photon's physical presence was distributed across both paths simultaneously, demonstrating that the particle is truly delocalized until a detector forces it into a single location.

 

This is identical to a description provided by Alain Aspect that I reported in a not-so-recent post. But, as Freeman Dyson explains, it corresponds to a change in perspective by the observer from the future to the past, which occurs at the time of ‘detection’.

 

I’d like to make a point about the fact that probabilities exist, not only in QM but classical physics – after all, the entire gambling industry is based on probabilities. I contend that it means the Universe is not deterministic. Simplistic, yes, but I can’t think of a better argument. It’s also my argument against claims of so-called prophecy. You either believe in free will or you believe in prophecy, but you can’t believe in both.

 

I could imagine having a discussion (argument) with a physicist on this issue, where they claim that probabilities are a statistical outcome, as a consequence of what we cannot know. Therefore, the outcome of a coin toss, for example, could be deterministic and the probability is a consequence of our ignorance, not the event. In fact, I had this discussion (over coin tosses) with physicist, Mark John Fernee (Qld Uni). Chaos theory mathematically ensures it can never be known definitively, which is an epistemological argument. However, I argue that chaos occurs ontologically as well, and that the entire universe’s evolvement is dependent on this principle.

 

Just as in the case with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and people thinking it was a consequence of what we can't physically measure, many physicists argue that chaos theory is a consequence of our limitations of observation. However, I argue that in both cases, the limitation is built into the mathematics, which makes it a feature of the Universe.

 

So, I’ve gone way off track, but while we need a language to understand and express the mathematics we discover, nature is already determined by the rules that mathematics dictates.

 

A conversation with Alain Aspect, Nobel Laureate and seminal experimenter in quantum physics

 You may or may not have heard of Alain Aspect (pronounced Ass-pay), but he’s a significant figure in the history of the development of quantum mechanics. Looking him up, I was surprised to learn he’s not much older than me. He was in his mid-thirties when he did his groundbreaking experiments: among the first to demonstrate Bell’s theorem in practice, not just in theory, and effectively proving that entanglement is non-local, meaning it breaks with special relativity.
 
This was almost 30 years after Einstein died, and effectively proved he was wrong regarding his views on entanglement. Having said that, it was Einstein who set the ball rolling with the famous 1935 paper titled, "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?" that he co-wrote with Podolsky and Rosen, so better known as the EPR paper. Aspect jointly won the Nobel prize with John Clauser and Anton Zellinger for his definitive experimental contribution to that topic.
 
So I was surprised and very pleased to come across a 55 min interview with him by Brian Greene on YouTube, as part of a series. I read an interview with Aspect decades ago in a book co-edited by P C W Davies and Julian R Brown titled The Ghost in the Atom. It included interviews with other luminaries in the field like John Bell, Eugene Wigner, John Wheeler, David Deutsch and David Bohm, plus more.
 
Aspect is French, but his English is excellent. It’s unusual to find interviews with experimental physicists as opposed to theoretical physicists, and I would call it refreshing, because he tends not to elaborate or speculate beyond what the evidence tells him. Having said that, Greene presses him on what his intuition tells him, and even that is informative, because he keeps it simple.
 
While I was watching, I made some notes. I did not know that he was the first to produce isolated photons. If you go to roughly the 16-17m mark, he explains how he ‘split’ the wavefunction of the photon into ‘2 half wave packets’ (along 2 separate paths using beam splitters), which seems impossible for an individual photon. He says that the only way he can explain it is with non-locality. In his own words, ‘if I measure the wave packet on the right, the other wave packet on the left instantaneously collapses to zero.’
 
I can still remember when I was studying physics at university in the 70s, writing that a single photon could travel down 2 separate paths and being marked down for it. I’ve no idea where I read it, but Alain Aspect proved it in the 1980s.
 
When asked specifically by Greene, ‘Does the photon travel down both paths?’ Aspect answers unequivocally, ‘Yes’. But then he says ‘if he takes a measurement, it only appears on one side’. Curiously, when Greene asks him about the well known ‘measurement problem’ and what his ‘intuition’ is on that, Aspect said he doesn’t have one: ‘it’s a great mystery’, but then says it’s ‘irreversible’. Aspect then says that if you ask a cosmologist, they will say there is a wavefunction for the whole universe, where there is no measuring apparatus. I think that’s the nub of the issue. Non-local means instantaneous, which is Aspect’s description, and by my simplistic reasoning, this means the entangled particles must occupy the same ‘now’ in time, though no one ever mentions that because it’s a heresy. And if you have a wavefunction for the entire universe, then arguably you have the same ‘now’ throughout the universe, which is even more heretical.
 
The best part of this video is that Aspect takes us through the entire history of entanglement, starting with Schrodinger who coined the term and famously said that 'entanglement was the defining characteristic of quantum mechanics separate from classical physics'. I think, along with superposition, it’s what led me to believe the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules: quantum and classical. QM rules before decoherence of the wavefunction and classical physics rules after.
 
Naturally, Greene asks him about the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation), which some argue overcomes the measurement problem. Aspect responds that ‘it’s a logical solution, but it’s absolutely not palatable’ (to him), while acknowledging it’s popular with many cosmologists. Just as an aside, Mithuna Yoganathan (from the Looking Glass Universe YouTube channel) specifically eschews the idea that the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules and that alone makes MWI attractive to her.
 
Interestingly, Aspect makes an analogy with the second law of thermodynamics (~21m) by pointing out that it can’t be derived from Newtonian mechanics, where everything is time-reversible. I’d say the same applies to chaos theory. A lot of laypeople are unaware that Schrodinger’s equation is deterministic, meaning it’s time-reversible, but the ‘measurement’ makes it irreversible. Paul Davies has made this same point. Aspect doesn’t articulate this, but what he’s saying is that the second law of thermodynamics is just as ‘radical’ (my word, not his) as QM when it comes to confounding our expectations based on previously known physics.
 
Greene says, ‘[QM] has been unreasonably successful and unreasonably effective’ to which Aspect replies, ‘Yes.’ This introduces their discussion of the 1935 EPR paper (~22m), and is arguably the most erudite and stimulating part of the discussion, because it logically leads to a discussion on John Bell’s theorem in some detail, which is what led to Aspect’s now equally famous experiment.
 
Another aside: on Quora I met a physicist, Ian Miller, with whom I had some interesting and convivial conversations. He’s one of the few people I know who disputes Bell’s Theorem, or at least its consequences, and has argued he can refute it. I’ve always respected him, simply because he knows more than me, and I too have some heretical ideas, plus I agree with him that in SR, it’s the ruler that changes and not the space it’s purporting to measure. Much later, I learned that Kip Thorne, of all people, made the point that it's impossible to tell the difference (between the ruler and the space its measuring) from the mathematics alone. Regarding Bell’s Theorem, Miller contends it’s just mathematical not physical, yet Alain Aspect would beg to differ.
 
One of the aspects of Bell’s theorem that many people don’t know is that Bell wanted to prove Einstein right, but effectively proved him wrong. Others have contended that Bell’s conclusion to his own discovery was that the universe must be super-deterministic, but I know he didn’t say that in his interview in the book I cited earlier, and Aspect doesn’t mention it either. I can understand, however, if you believe that the entangled particles don’t experience the same 'now', then superdeterminism is a logical conclusion. Hossenfelder is a keen advocate for superdeterminism.
 
In fact, Aspect claims that Bell was a ‘realist’, which I understand means that he believed what Aspect believes: there is an independent reality (to the observer) and non-locality is a feature of the Universe. I remember reading an article in New Scientist, where it was argued you can have realism or ‘locality’, but not both.
 
One of Aspect’s salient points is that the famous arguments between Bohr and Einstein became epistemological, meaning they were philosophical differences rather than differences in reasoning, but only when Einstein introduced entanglement of more than one particle. According to Aspect, when they were arguing about one particle, Bohr’s arguments were based on pure logic. As Greene points out, the EPR paper introduces the concept of ‘hidden variables’ which, according to Einstein is what would make quantum mechanics ‘complete’. Aspect claims that Bohr’s response to the EPR paper was purely philosophical. In hindsight, we know we had to wait for Bell to give it a mathematical framework, which would ultimately make it testable, which is what Aspect achieved.
 
Just on that point, it illustrates the necessary relationship between mathematics and physics. There is an intrinsic relationship between a mathematical model and the need to measure physical attributes to determine, not only if the mathematical model is valid, but what its limitations are. This, in effect, is how the physical sciences have advanced since Newton. We have reached a point where some of our mathematical models can’t be measured using the technology currently available (string theory, anyone?).
 
Aspect says that Bell found ‘you cannot have locality in a hidden variable theory rendering all the predictions of quantum mechanics in the EPR situation.’ (~28m) I find this interesting because I’ve come across people on YouTube (Hossenfelder) who claim that Bell’s Theorem doesn’t disprove hidden variables. They could be right, because Aspect is not saying that non-locality rules out hidden variables and Greene doesn’t ask him. But Aspect’s conclusion certainly rules out Einstein’s hope that hidden variables would save locality. Aspect gives credit to David Bohm for reformulating the EPR thought-experiment in terms of a dichotomy – spin-up or spin-down – and not a variable of position and velocity as per Einstein.
 
Aspect goes into some detail concerning his development of his experiment, including the work of others, which took him 7 years. According to Aspect, John Bell followed his work and respected his result; even saying publicly, ‘I am sorry for the result, but I respect it.’ Which says a lot.
 
At 41m Greene brings up MWI again, saying that many argue it solves non-locality. To which Aspect responds that, for him, accepting MWI is ‘worse’ than accepting non-locality. And Greene agrees.
 
Greene also raises the issue of free will, and Aspect’s response is amusing and, in his own words, ‘Simple. If I don’t have free will to adjust the knob on my apparatus, I stop being a physicist.’ Green smiles, yet doesn’t give his views which I’ve written about elsewhere. Greene is a free will sceptic, if not denier (like Hossenfelder). Aspect elaborates, arguing that the contrary position is: ‘If it’s written in the Great Book, ever since the Big Bang, it’s an explanation for everything.’ So, not a believer in superdeterminism.
 
He spends some time explaining how non-locality doesn’t contradict SR (special relativity) in as much as you can’t use it to signal FTL (faster-than-light), though I do in my science fiction, which is why it’s called science fiction. He points out rather cleverly that it’s solely because of the random nature of QM that you can’t use it to send a signal, because the measurement outcome is completely unknown and can’t be forced. Because it’s random, neither party can know the outcome.
 
Towards the end, he explains how he has become an ambassador for science, which I imagine he’d do brilliantly. He says he is an ‘optimist’ despite attacks on science, especially under America’s current administration.

Addendum 1: I've discussed this topic before, back in 2009, when I reviewed the book I cited, The Ghost in the Atom. Back then, I wondered if QM was the consequences of a hidden dimension, which is still a possibility, though I now think it's a description of the future, which is why it can only give us probabilities.

 Addendum 2: Since writing this, I watched a video with Curt Jaimungal, where he discusses Bell's Theorem much more esoterically than I can. But he referenced a paper by Joanna Luc (30 Jan. 2025) What are the bearers of hidden states? On an important ambiguity in the formulation of Bell’s theorem.  A very lengthy and detailed paper, 23+ pages long, but she makes the following statement right at the end.

Strengthened Bells Conclusion: All HVTs consistent with the predictions of QM for Bell’s Experiment are non-local. (HVTs means hidden variable theories).

Note that this is consistent with Alain Aspect's conclusion, quoting Bell (refer main post).
 

The edge of time

This is a contentious idea, despite the fact that we all believe we experience it all the time. Many physicists, including ones I admire, and whom I readily admit know a lot more than me (like Sabine Hossenfelder), believe that ‘now’ is an illusion; or (in the case of Paul Davies) that it requires a neurological explanation rather than a physical one. I will go further and claim there is an edge of time for the entire universe.
 
I made the point in a previous post that if you go on YouTube, you’ll find discussions with physicists who all have their own pet theories that are at odds with virtually everyone else, and to be honest, I can’t fault them, and I’m pleased that they’re willing to share their views.
 
Well, I’m not a physicist, but this is my particular heretical viewpoint that virtually no one else agrees with, with the additional caveat that they all have more expertise than me. They will tell you that I’m stuck in 19th Century physics, but I believe I can defend myself against that simple rebut.
 
During COVID lockdown in 2021, I did a series of online courses through New Scientist, including one on The Cosmos, where one of the lecturers was Chris Impey (Distinguished Professor, Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona) who made the point that the Universe has an ‘edge in time’, but not an edge in space. He might have used the word ‘boundary’ instead of ‘edge’, which would be more appropriate for space. In fact, it’s possible that space is infinite while time is finite, which means that the concept of spacetime might have limited application, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
 
The one other person I’ve read who might (partly) agree with me is Richard Muller, who cowrote a paper with Shaun Maguire, titled Now, and the Flow of Time, as well as a book, NOW; The Physics of Time, which I’ve read more than once. Basically, the edge of time on a cosmic scale is the edge of the Big Bang (which is still happening). What I’m saying is that there is a universal ‘Now’ for the entire universe, which is one of the most heretical ideas you can hold. According to modern physics, ‘Now’ is completely subjective and dependent on the observer – there is no objective Now, which is what I challenge.
 
There is a way in which this is correct, in that different observers in different parts of the Universe see completely different things (if they’re far enough apart) and would even see different horizons for the Universe. In fact, it’s possible that an observer who is over the horizon to us will see objects we can’t see, and of course, wouldn’t see us at all. This is because objects over the horizon are travelling away from us faster than the speed of light.
 
Because the speed of light is finite, the objects that we ‘observe’ millions or billions of light years away, are commensurately that much older than we are. And it follows from this logic, that if anyone could observe Earth from these same objects, they would see it equally old compared to what we see. This means that everyone sees a different now. This leads to the logical question: how could an objective ‘now’ exist? I like to invoke Kant that we cannot know the ‘thing-in-itself’, only our perception of it.
 
And I invoke Kant when I look at relativity theory, because it’s inherently an observer-dependent theory. I would contend that all physics theories are epistemic, meaning they deal with knowledge, rather than ontic, which is what is really there. Some argue that even space and time are epistemic, not ontic, but I disagree. The dimensions of space and time determine to a large extent what sort of universe we can live in. A point made by John Barrow in his book, The Constants of Nature.
 
In a not-so-recent post, I explained the famous pole-in-the-barn paradox, where 2 different observers see different things (in fact, measure different things) yet, in both cases, there is no clash between the pole and the barn (or in the example I describe, a spaceship and a tunnel). One of my conclusions is that it’s only the time that changes for the 2 observers, and not the space. Instead, they measure a different ‘length’ or ‘distance travelled’ by using their clocks as rulers. But it also implies that one of the observers is more ‘privileged’ than the other, which seems to contradict the equivalence principle. But I can make this claim because there is a reference frame for the entire universe, which is provided by the CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation). This is not contentious, because we can even measure our velocity relative to it by using the Doppler effect, hence our velocity relative to the entire universe.
 
But there is another famous and simple experiment that provides evidence that there is an overall frame of reference for the Universe, which philosopher of science, Tim Maudlin, called ‘the most important experiment in physics’. If you were to go to the International Space Station and spin an object, it would be subject to the same inertial forces as it would on Earth. So what’s it spinning in reference to? The spaceship, its orbit around Earth, or the entire cosmos? I’d say, the entire universe, which is obviously not spinning itself, otherwise it would have a centre. Of course, Einstein knew this, and his answer was there is no absolute time or space but absolute spacetime.
 
I raised this earlier, because, if time is finite and space infinite, the concept of absolute spacetime breaks down, at least conceptually. But space doesn’t have to be infinite to have no boundary. In fact, it’s either open and infinite or closed and finite, albeit in 3 dimensions. To provide a relatable analogy, the Earth’s surface is finite and closed, but in 2 dimensions. Marcus du Sautoy made the point that, if the Universe is spatially infinite, we might never know.
 
The other point is that you could have clocks running at different rates dependent on where they are in the Universe, yet there could still be a universal Now. This is implicit in the famous twin paradox thought experiment. I like to point out that when the twins reunite they have lived different durations of time, yet agree where they are in time together. This means you can have a universal Now for the universe while disagreeing on its age; if you lived near a massive black hole, for instance.
 
In the same way observers can travel different distances to arrive at the same destination, they can travel different time intervals as well. In fact, they would agree they’ve travelled the exact same spacetime, which is why relativity theory argues you can only talk about spacetime combined rather than space and time separately. But I argue that it’s the clock that changes and not space, where the clock is the ruler for space.

The fly-in-the-ointment is simultaneity. According to relativity theory, simultaneity is completely dependent on the observer, but again, I invoke Kant. There could be an objective simultaneity that can’t be observed. I’ve written on this before, so I’ll keep it brief, but basically, you can have a ‘true’ simultaneity, if both the observer and the events are in the same frame of reference. And you can tell if you’re not, by using the Doppler effect. Basically, the Doppler effect tells you if the source of the signals (that are apparently simultaneous) are in the same frame of reference as you. If they’re not, then they’re not simultaneous, which infers there is an objective simultaneity. Whether this applies to the entire universe is another matter.

You may be familiar with this diagram.

 

 
I want to make a couple of points that no one else does. Firstly, everything outside the past light cone is unobservable (by definition), which means relativity theory can’t be applied (in practice), yet people do (in theory). As I said earlier, relativity is epistemic and all epistemic theories (or models) have limitations. In other words, I contend that there is an ontology outside the light cones that relativity theory can’t tell us anything about (I discuss this in more detail in a post appositely titled, The impossible thought experiment).
 
Secondly, the so-called ‘hypersurface’ is a fiction, or at best, a metaphor. Yet Brian Greene, to give one example, discusses it and graphically represents it as if it’s physically real. If ‘Now’ is the edge of the Big Bang, it suffuses the entire universe (even if it’s physically infinite), which means it’s impossible to visualise.
 
Let’s talk about another epistemic theory, quantum mechanics. In fact, the ontology of QM has been an open debate for more than a century. I recently watched a discussion between Matt (from PBS Space Time) and Mithuna Yoganathan (of Looking Glass Universe), which is excellent. It turns out they’re both from Melbourne, which is where I’m writing this. I figured Mithuna was Aussie, even though she’s based in London, but I didn’t pick Matt’s accent. I have to admit he sounds more Australian in his conversation with her. Towards the end of the video, they readily admit they get very speculative (meaning philosophical) but Mithuna provides compelling arguments for the multiple worlds interpretation (MWI) of QM. Personally, I argue that MWI doesn’t address the probabilities which is intrinsic to QM. Why are some worlds more probabilistic than others? If all outcomes happen in some universe somewhere, then they all have a probability of ONE in that universe. If there are an infinite number of universes then probabilities are nonsensical.
 
If you go to 37.10m of the video where Mithuna talks about the Schrodinger equation and the ‘2 rules’, I think she gets to the nub of the problem, and at 38.10 puts it into plain English. Basically, she says that there are either 2 rules for the Universe or you need to reject the ‘measurement’ or ‘collapse’ of the wave function, which means accepting MWI (the wave function continues in another universe), which she implies without saying. She says the 2 rules makes ‘the Copenhagen interpretation untenable’. I find this interesting, because I concluded many years ago that the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules.
 
My argument is that one set of rules, determined epistemically by the Schrodinger equation, describes the future and the other set of rules, which is classical physics and is determined by what we observe, describes the past.
 
A feature of QM, which separates it from classical physics, is entanglement and non-locality. Non-locality means it doesn’t strictly obey relativity theory, yet they remain compatible (because you can’t use entanglement to transmit information faster-than-light). In fact, Schrodinger himself said that “entanglement is the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought.” In other words, it obeys different rules to classical physics, with or without ‘measurement’.
 
MWI effectively argues that superposition exists in reality, albeit in parallel universes, whereas I contend that it only exists in the future. The wave function describes all of these possibilities, and via the Born rule, gives them probabilities. But when we observe it, which axiomatically puts it in the past, there is only ONE and there is no longer any superposition.
 
All physicists agree that entanglement, in principle, can apply to objects on opposite sides of the Universe. In fact, Schrodinger’s equation, in principle, can describe a wave function for the entire universe, which is why I’ve half-jokingly called it God’s equation, and have it tattooed on my arm.
 
I contend (though, as far as I know, no one agrees with me) that entanglement across the entire universe only makes sense if there is a universal Now for the entire universe. A Now that separates QM future superpositions (described by the wave function in Schrodinger’s equation) from past ‘observables’ in classical physics.

 

Addendum 1: this is one of the best and most erudite descriptions I've come across on entanglement and non-locality. Note how I avoided the word, 'explanation'. 

 Addendum 2: I've actually done a spacetime diagram depicting the twin paradox thought experiment using the scenario and numerical figures from this expositional post, which I provide in a thumbnail sketch (below). Basically, I wanted to demonstrate (to myself) that it's consistent with the proposition of a universal now. 

Note: it doesn't prove there is a universal now, and I'm pretty certain that all physicists would find fault with it, since it's such a heretical idea (refer last paragraph below). It's based on the assumption that there is an asymmetry between the 2 twins' perspectives, which is not in dispute, but explanations for the asymmetry are. My explanation is that there is an overall universe-size reference frame (refer main post) which is given physical manifestation by the CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation). To put it in plain words, I don't believe it's the planet and solar system of the stay-at-home twin that flies off at fractional lightspeed, but the spaceship twin. 

As someone pointed out (a physicist I've lost touch with), it's the twin who has to use energy who is the one who experiences relativistic time-dilation, not the one who doesn't. Therefore, the spacetime diagram I drew reflects this, with the stay-at-home twin's time line going straight up and the space-faring twin's timeline going at a diagonal, though less than 45 degrees, which is the timeline for a light signal. Then I drew horizontal lines to indicate when the twins were experiencing the same 'now'. It was very consistent, while the 45 degree signals between them, give the correct answers as per my original exposition.

What physicists would find fault with is that the spacefaring twin traverses a different time interval and distance. But I contend that it travels the same distance while experiencing a different time. And the clock used to measure the interval would also measure a different distance, concordant with the different time. And if I’m correct, the twins would experience the same now, while experiencing different intervals of time. The proof of this, if I’m allowed to use that word, is the fact that they both experience the same ‘Now’, in both time and space, when they reunite. 

 

I invite anyone to tell me what's wrong with this, because it works when it shouldn't, based on my calculations using the Lorenz transformation for the space-faring twin.

 

 Addendum 3: There's a way in which the time experience is symmetrical but it's more to do with the Doppler effect than relativistic effects. For both twins they see time passing 3 times slower for their counterpart using their own clocks, but only on the outward journey of the space-faring twin. In essence (using the example in the diagram), the stay-at-home twin ages 45 years while he 'sees' his counterpart age 15 years. On the other hand, the space-faring twin ages 15 years while he 'sees' his counterpart age only 5 years (refer my original post). However this is reversed on the return trip, when each twin sees their counterpart age 3 times quicker. For the stay-at-home twin, he ages another 5 years while his counterpart ages another 15 years. And, for the space-faring twin, he ages 15 years while he sees his counterpart age another 45 years. This is totally consistent with the spacetime diag depicted above.

 

Each twin has their own true time, τ (called tau), which I will designate τ₁ and τ₂ for the earth-bound twin and space-faring twin, respectively. And then I use γ (gamma, representing the Lorenz transform) to convert from τ₁ to τ₂ (see the original post for the maths). I think that's the simplest way to formulate it, and that gives you the diag above, and is what one would expect to observe if the experiment could be done for real, which of course, it can't. However, we know time dilation works when we use particle accelerators (exactly as predicted by Einstein), so we would expect it to work in space if we could travel that fast.