Drake Equation, What are your numbers?

As a science-trained person, one faithfully accepts (like Newton did, with his beautiful beach-pebbles analogy) that there’s an enormously exciting amount yet to be discovered/realised across all of Science. A scientist has faith in this great promise, and earnestly hopes that s/he will be able to be the first to discover/realise something novel, and be able to enjoy the pleasure of describing the new thing for the scientific literature. But a ploddingly faithful scientist doesn’t invoke or have need of or time for any ‘ghost in the machine’ explanations.

Light slowing down over time would also not violate the principle that there is no such thing as perpetual motion. Constant light speed requires acceptance of perpetual motion.

BB theory does not assume a beginning, only a continuation. Note that we have no evidence at all of any kind that anything we observe has an origin; everything (including life) that we observe can be seen to be a continuation. There is no scientific basis for entertaining the idea of a “zero point” for anything.


If I read this correctly, you are citing evidence for both “no perpetual motion”, but also “continuation”. Can there be both? Seems to me, there can only be one or the other.

Moreover, once there was zero life, then there was life. This concept is called Abiogenesis. While this was indeed an evolutionary continuation from a chemical state into a dynamical biochemical state, it was not a continuation, but the emergence of life where once there was zero life.

Come to think of it there is only both perpetual motion (energy) and continuation (evolution). When we deconstruct the history of the universe, the continuation of everything we see, were really emergent expressions of energy . E = Mc²

... your first error up above regarding “the observed blue shift in light from distant stars”
Wow, no idea why I put in "blue".
The speed of light in a high school lab does slow down on it entering something like a pupil’s glass prism or water tank ..., but then it speeds right back up again on exiting (& right back up to c if it enters a vacuum again).
I suggest this tells us that the progression of the wave is medium dependent. I suggest that the wave doesn't actually enter the prism but causes another wave in the prism and the process is reversed when that wave in the prism reaches the prism/air boundary. If the wave were a continuous physical presence it would require an "energy" input to accelerate. This also indicates the existence of a medium in a vacuum.
... as for it [life] being a ‘continuation’ of anything, such would presumably be of the laws of Physics & Chemistry, no?
Of course, except that we have not been able to demonstrate "first life" yet. All new life seen so far is a continuation. Perhaps that first life is under the next pebble or living on another planet.
Come to think of it there is only both perpetual motion (energy) and continuation (evolution).
Sort of like trying to calculate the enthalpy of the universe? My best guess is that we're not there yet. Seems we find ourselves at one point on what we assume is a curve and aren't quite capable of determining the first derivative of our position. What we see of what was doesn't correspond to our now.
If the wave were a continuous physical presence it would require an “energy” input to accelerate.
Bob I'm curious, do you ever research your own questions and assumptions to see what you can learn?

Try googling something like: “how can photons speed up after leaving a medium”

Some interesting articles and of course Quara take a few stabs at it which I like since the physics is predigested by the nice people there.

But there’s deep reading and viewing available. Here’s what seems to me a reason summary by someone who really does understand the physics.

 

Seems to me a grossly over simplified metaphor would be that of a runner, who’s suddenly burdened with a 50 lb weight, he will slow down, when the weight is removed he will speed up naturally, no additional energy needed.

 

As for first life, you do know scientists have tracked it down to single cells, and then there’s that time period with nothing at all. 2+2=4

As for requirements for first life, have you ever heard of the Kreb Cycle? If not, you aren’t in any position to even have an opinion about first life. So get back to that studying if you want to get anywhere.

Oh heck, there’s recent news on that front I wasn’t aware of. Thank you for the tossing those bone buddy, sometimes I love playing fetch, since it has such cool dividends.

 

Origin-of-life chemists discover plausible ancestor of essential metabolic process used by most plants and animals

A new study clarifies how a ‘chemical engine of life’ might have arisen from simple organic compounds on early Earth.

October 12, 2020

Origin-of-life chemists discover plausible ancestor of essential metabolic process used by most plants and animals | Scripps Research


 

New Clues to Chemical Origins of Metabolism at Dawn of Life

John Rennie, October 12, 2020

www _ quantamagazine _ org/new-clues-to-chemical-origins-of-metabolism-at-dawn-of-life-20201012/

Popular speculations about how life evolved out of a soup of chemicals on the early Earth often focus on the origins of DNA and RNA, the molecules of genetic information. But the genesis of genes is only one of the mysteries that origin-of-life theories must reckon with. Another is the rise of metabolism — the biochemical processes inside cells that make life possible by continuously drawing energy from the environment and directing it into the assembly of vital molecules. It’s a complex problem on which there has been little headway.

But scientists may have just turned an important corner in that search. Today in Nature Chemistry, researchers at Furman University and the Scripps Research Institute announced a discovery about how one of the most important parts of cellular metabolism might have come to be. The researchers showed that, elaborate as that chemical mechanism is in cells today, nearly all the ingredients for a potential forerunner to it could have formed easily from just two simple organic compounds reacting in water.

Other scientists hailed the significance of the new findings, as well as the originality and rigorous chemical expertise of the researchers. …

"how can photons speed up after leaving a medium”
Just for the sake of curiosity, I have a nagging question about an old , but resurgent theory proposed by deBroglie-Bohm Theory.

In Bohmian Mechanics a photon does not travel as a wave, but always travels as a particle riding on a wave.

This wave is the famous Pilot Wave, which may alter frequency and “guiding equation” dependent on local conditions. Therefore any time the wave alters frequency the photon must travel a longer or shorter path, which would account for an apparent slow down but is not in reality. When the Pilot Wave return to its fundamental frequency the photon appears to resume its original speed , but in reality it never changed speed just distance traveled. This phenomenon is shown in the Bohmian “double slit” experiment, which yields the same results as the standard interpretation.

The Bohmian trajectories for an electron going through the two-slit experiment. A similar pattern was also extrapolated from weak measurements of single photons

Note the slight difference between the Copenhagen DS and the Bohmian DS.

Example: a photon travelling outward from the center of a sun may spend a thousand years trying to escape the solar soup (chaotic internal wave patterns), but once it breaks free, it takes just 8 minutes to reach earth.

Any takers?

The best mental ‘working picture’ of a single photon that one ever came across is that of a ‘wavicle’ (portmanteau of wave & particle) as being a little bit of matter that is ‘smudged-out in space-time.’ The associated ‘wiggle-room’ comfortably accounting for the mental difficulty of imagining & comprehending what it truly is, which is where & why Mathematics certainly has to take over the discussion.

being a little bit of matter that is ‘smudged-out in space-time.
But that is precisely the problem with the concept of a particle being "smudged out". It is completely counter intuitive and still a matter of scientific contention, due to the probability factor.

David Bohm did away with this duality in his book “Wholeness and the Implicate order” where he explains Bohmian Mechanics and the concept of the deBroglie-Bohm Universal Pilot Wave model, where a particle is a particle with a specific location in space at all times. In fact the theory yields the exact results as in the Copenhagen Interpretation, but eliminates the duality problem.

Here’s what seems to me a reason summary by someone who really does understand the physics. [The video]
Well, I am trying to grasp what was shown in that video. It seems to show that the original wave travels through the glass along with a second induced wave and the two combine into a third wave. The question one has to ask is "how many waves are actually moving through the glass?" By moving through the glass, I mean moving the entire distance from one side of the glass to the other.

It seems it can’t be both the original and the induced waves moving at their own speeds because their actual speeds would have them reach the edge of the glass at different times. On the other hand, if it is only the third wave that actually exists and moves inside the glass then the mechanism of combining the first two isn’t present and so the third wave wouldn’t be produced.

It seems obvious that the first wave must precede the induced wave in order to induce it. It is not clear to me how the induced wave following the first wave would cause the first wave to slow. It is much easier to accept that two independent waves moving at their own speeds can combine to produce the effect of a third wave at least as far as apparent frequency. I don’t accept that the third wave would actually exist or slow the speed of the first two.

Your thoughts?

Many thanks for pointing-out Bohm’s work, that I’d not heard of previous to your post (not being a physicist, & having last studied Physics in Grade 12 back in 1982). His idea seems like an elegant explanation (which are the kinds of solutions that scientists really enjoy). I was taught the Prince Louis de Broglie wave-particle duality explanation as a boy.

The question one has to ask is “how many waves are actually moving through the glass?” By moving through the glass, I mean moving the entire distance from one side of the glass to the other.
One wave, the pilot wave and one particle riding the wave. The pilot wave is broken up as it passes the slits and interferes with itself independent of the particle which is riding the wave somewhere depending on its position on the wave as it passed through the slits

Visualize a small boat moving over wavy water which passes through one of two inlets.

The theory is very elegant but it requires the addition of the pilot wave which is not required in the Copenhagen interpretation. Otherwise the physics are very similar so Bohm’s model answers to all the scientific requirements and also explains a few other, more general properties of spacetime.

This may be of interest.

Well, I am trying to grasp what was shown in that video. It seems to show that the original wave travels through the glass along with a second induced wave and the two combine into a third wave
This example is a little different than the double slit experiment, except for the drastic diffraction shown in both the video and the double slit experiment. In the video the photons are passing through standing water and are not riding a wave, thus bumping into water molecules constantly, slowing it down. Similar to my example of a photon trying to escape the sun, until it reaches the edge of empty space and resumes ± "c".

An very interesting look at this is at extreme speed photograhy.

I’m enjoying browse-reading about David Bohm’s life & ideas on the www at the moment, so thanks again for mentioning his work.

UVW

I was particularly struck by his observation that science has become so fractured and specialized that all notions of universal “wholeness” has gotten lost.

Being a fan of a mathematical universe, I particularly like his idea of a hierarchy of orders and the process of enfolding ( the Implicate order) and unfolding (the Explicate order) of reality.

I also post on a more science oriented forum and am constantly amazed at the lack of looking for “common denominators” that tie things together than individual properties that set things apart from each other.

From David Peat (the unfolded scientist, not the enfolded theist);

In Bohm's view, all the separate objects, entities, structures, and events in the visible or explicate world around us are relatively autonomous, stable, and temporary "subtotalities" derived from a deeper, implicate order of unbroken wholeness. Bohm gives the analogy of a flowing stream:

On this stream, one may see an ever-changing pattern of vortices, ripples, waves, splashes, etc., which evidently have no independent existence as such. Rather, they are abstracted from the flowing movement, arising and vanishing in the total process of the flow. Such transitory subsistence as may be possessed by these abstracted forms implies only a relative independence or autonomy of behaviour, rather than absolutely independent existence as ultimate substances.
(David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, Boston, 1980, p. 48.)
We must learn to view everything as part of “Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement.” (Ibid., p. 11.)


https://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/science/prat-boh.htm

 

One wave, the pilot wave and one particle riding the wave.
I was referring to the 3-wave video. It showed a wave (first wave), a second wave induced by first wave and a third wave, a composite of the first and second waves. The video seemed to indicate that all three waves were actually real and did move through the thickness of the glass. I think what is shown is a nice mathematical exercise, but it does not present or explain reality. This is a common problem when people try to explain reality with mathematical representations of effects.

I don’t see how the pilot wave video relates to the 3-wave video.

 

I enjoyed reading that bio/obit for Bohm. I may now be in danger of becoming a Bohmian/Bohmite myself, haha.

I really like his notion of an underlying & as-yet-unrealised wholeness, particularly in respect of the probability of there being truly fantastic Physics that’s yet to be uncovered/discovered (& mathematically described), that may eventually bring Science & the Humanities together into one conception.

As a Science-backgrounded person, please may I ask you where the other forum that you mentioned is located on the www?

I hope it’s not against the rules, but it is more scientifically oriented than CFI, which is more oriented to the Humanities so is not in real competition.

Be discreet, some of the posters there are very critical…and not too fond of Bohm. Bohm is outside “mainstream” science.

I don’t see how the pilot wave video relates to the 3-wave video.
Right, it doesn't. Read the first paragraph of my post # 339635. (In the video the photons are passing through standing water and are not riding a wave, thus bumping into water molecules constantly, slowing it down. Similar to my example of a photon trying to escape the sun, until it reaches the edge of empty space and resumes ± “c”)

If you watch the video of the slow motion you can see the trajectory and behavior of a photon in standing water.

Ok, & my many thanks to you for this. It already sounds a bit closer to what I’d been looking for.