http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/11/discrete-physics.html

Nigel said...

Dear Lumos,

Be careful ... This makes various predictions and contains no speculation whatsever, it is a fact based mechanism, employing Feynman's mechanism as exhibited in the Feynman diagrams - virtual photon exchange causing forces in QFT.

He noted that path integrals has a deeper underlying simplicity:

"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities." - Character of Physical Law, pp 57-8.

Bests,
Nigel

Here is a check of Quantoken's 'GUITAR' theory:

http://quantoken.blogspot.com/2005/02/proton-and-neutron-mass-from-guitar.html

Quantoken begins saying that nucleons like the proton have 3 quarks: 'I find that given if the structure is constructed using a building element of 3 different flavors, there is exactly one way of forming one solid piece, and exact one way when all three pieces are separated from each other. And there are 3 ways one separate from the group of the other two. That's (1, 3, 1). When I futher study how many different ways within each scenary they can interact with each other, there are (1, 5!,7!) ways respectively. So the total number of intrisic states are: Wi = (1,3,1) * (1,5!7!) = (1x1 + 3*5! + 1*7!) = 1 + (3*5!) + 7! Isn't that elegant? Now don't forget that externally, for proton, it has a spin up and spin down state. That's two different states. The total number of states would then be two multiplied by the intrisic number of states above:W = Wspin * Wi = 2x(1+3*5!+7!). The entropy then would be S = ln(Wi). The simplest structure has two states, 0, 1, and the entropy is ln(2). So that's it. We have obtained the proton mass! Since proton is considered a point particle so far and NO geometric factor is involved, it's entropy from interla states corresponds to its mass linearly: Mp = S/ln(2) = ln(W)/ln(2) = ln(2*(1+3*5!+7!))/ln(2)Mp = ln(10802)/ln(2) = 13.39901083. That is the proton mass! ... It agrees with experimental value excellently! How come? Remember we are using the natural units so far. In the matural unit set, the electron mass is: Me = alpha * M0 = alpha = 1/137.03599911 = 7.297352568x10^-3. Let's see the mass ratio between proton and electron: Mp/Me = 13.39901083/7.297352568x10^-3 Mp/Me = 1836.146836. My calculation matches excellently with the accepted value of 1836.15, See http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?mpsmesearch_for=proton+mass'

Quantoken's theory is pretty abstract and the speculative interpretations are justified by the results so obtained. This is easier to ignore than to reasonably dismiss as nonsense, particularly when you look at the landscape of alternative universe speculations in string theory, and compare the level of guesswork. At least quantoken produces a result and compared it to nature! However, the leaps of faith involved in Quantoken's methodology are relatively large. For example, Quantoken goes on to use the Sommerfeld fine structure number 137.0..., and if you scroll down to the comments of his post (cited above), you see it varies with energy because it is the shielding factor of the electron core charge, which is 137e-, and is reduced at low energies to e- by the polarised vacuum shield around the core. At high energies, collisions break partly through the polarised vacuum shield, so more of the strong core electric field is revealed. Quantoken lacks this. He does however recognise that the muon mass is 1.5 times the electron mass times 137.0..., but his explanation of the 1.5 factor is non-mechanistic and numerological.