SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 1508.01732

Space and time dependent scaling of numbers in mathematical structures: Effects on physical and geometric quantities

Abstract

The relationship between the foundations of mathematics and physics is a topic of of much interest. This paper continues this exploration by examination of the effect of space and time dependent number scaling on theoretical descriptions of some physical and geometric quantities. Fiber bundles provide a good framework to introduce a space and time or space time dependent number scaling field. The effect of the scaling field on a few nonlocal physical and geometric quantities is described. The effect on gauge theories is to introduce a new complex scalar field into the derivatives appearing in Lagrangians. U(1) invariance of Lagrangian terms does not affect the real part of the scaling field. For this field, any mass is possible. The scaling field is also shown to affect quantum wave packets and path lengths, and geodesic equations even on flat space. Scalar fields described so far in physics, are possible candidates for the scaling field. The lack of direct evidence for the field in physics restricts the scaling field in that the gradient of the field must be close to zero in a local region of cosmological space and time. There are no restrictions outside the region. It is also seen that the scaling field does not affect comparisons of computation or measurements outputs with one another. However it does affect the assignment of numerical values to the outputs of computations or measurements. These are needed because theory predictions are in terms of numerical values.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Paul Benioff. 2015-08-07. Space and time dependent scaling of numbers in mathematical structures: Effects on physical and geometric quantities. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-015-1084-z

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Why we should condition denoising diffusion generative models on windows of past observations

Data assimilation (DA) is, traditionally, a cycling process that relies on time-dependent priors to propagate information from past observations to future cycles. Using denoising diffusion generative modeling for DA is challenging because standard approaches use a fixed training data set, which in turn leads to a static prior that ignores information from past observations. Because past observations are ignored, DA systems with static priors lead to larger posterior errors than cycling DA systems. Incorporating time-dependent priors into generative models, however, requires expensive and frequent retraining. Motivated by linear systems theory - where the dependence of a prediction of a Kalman filter on past observations decays exponentially - we condition diffusion models on short windows of past observations. Specifically, we describe training procedures for two frameworks: a diffusion DA system predicting the current state given a set of past observations, and a diffusion ``direct observation prediction'' (DOP) system, predicting future observations given a set of past observations. Using a canonical linear system, we show that both systems can achieve the minimal posterior error characteristic of a fully-cycled DA/DOP system, without re-training, provided the time windows are long enough. The linear setup ensures analytical tractability, avoids confounding neural network training errors, and confirms that conditioning on windows of past observations is required for efficient and accurate diffusion-based DA or DOP.

math-ph

The kinematic structures and the inertial geometry of a moving charge

We ask how much of the geometry a charged particle moves in is fixed by its motion, and how much a particle must bring. We ask of a symplectic structure only that it relate velocity to momentum as Hamilton's equations do, and we ask it of every energy at once. In particular, we show that the structures meeting that demand are the canonical one and its twists by a closed two-form of the base. A field provides the two-form, a particle the multiplier before it, which we identify constitutively with its charge. Thus, a single energy governs a family of structures, and each particle takes the one its charge fixes. We then ask what a particle must bring to be given a momentum, and we show that the degree of that map settles the degree at which a field enters Newton's Second Law. An antisymmetric bilinear form returns no Lorentz force, whilst a Randers metric returns one --- a length whose difference from a Riemannian one is linear in the velocity. Moreover, we find that metric already within the twisted structure, as its primitive over a level of the free energy, and its law of transport to be nonlinear, no affine connection being known to serve. Under an indefinite signature the length parts from the dynamics, and the extremals turn from shortest to longest. On the round sphere a monopole flux leaves no such metric, whilst the transport remains and prequantisation, given a unit of action, restricts the charge to a lattice. In this manner, we conclude that each charge-to-mass ratio receives a geometry of its own, so that by a functionalist criterion none of them is the spacetime of a charged particle.

math-ph