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Does the golden ratio, 1.618, unify science?

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Some thinks so. From Phys.org:

Boeyens and Thackeray have a shared interest in how the Golden Ratio is expressed, from the spiral structure of the cochlea ear-bone in a 2-million-year-old fossil hominin from the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa; to the logarithmic spirals of inter-stellar galaxies, the structure of DNA, the growth of many plants, and even in the Periodic Table of the elements.

Thackeray investigates whether 1.61 is present in biology as an approximation of the absolute mean value of a hypothesised species constant (T) – associated not only with living species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and beetles, but also with extinct species (Australopithecus, Paranthropus and early Homo).

Boeyens researches questions that relate to the mathematical number (1.618) in the context of chemistry, physics, space-time, relativity and quantum mechanics. Meteorologists recognise the number 1.618 in the spiral structure of hurricanes, while astronomers claim that the structure of certain spiral galaxies can also be identified with Phi.

Boeyens discusses the remarkable cosmic occurrence of this number with reference to space-time, relativity and quantum mechanics. He claims that concepts associated with relativity and quantum mechanics can be integrated, through the number 1.618.

Maybe they are wrong but it is not looney. You can actually measure this stuff. Take that, multiverse, and get out of here!

See also:

The multiverse: Where everything turns out to be true, except philosophy and religion

and

In search of a road to reality

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Comments
of related note: “In order for quantum mechanics and relativity theory to be internally self-consistent [Seeking consistency between quantum mechanics and relativity theory is the major task theoretical physicists have been grappling with since quantum mechanics emerged], the physical vacuum has to contain 10^94 grams equivalent of energy per cubic centimeter. What that means is, if you take just a single hydrogen atom, which is one proton and one electron and all the rest of the atom is ‘empty space,’ if you take just that volume of empty space, … you find that you end up with a trillion times as much vacuum energy as all the electromagnetic energy in all the planets, all the stars, and all the cosmic dust in a sphere of radius 15 billion light-years.” To summarize, the subtle energy in the vacuum space of a single hydrogen atom is as great as all the electromagnetic energy found in everything within 15 billion light-years of our space-time cosmos. ,,, Dr. William Tillerbornagain77
December 2, 2014
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OP:
Maybe they are wrong but it is not looney. You can actually measure this stuff. Take that, multiverse, and get out of here!
Umm . . . what does the golden ratio have to do with the existence (or not) of a multiverse? Personally I am very, very skeptical of the multiverse hypothesis but I'm willing to wait for some real results. #1
Or, wherever there is square there is number sqrt(2)=1.41.. built in.
Uh . . . no. sqrt(7) has no sqrt(2) in it unless you factor it as sqrt(2)xsqrt(3.5) which is a bit of a reach. AND, what if you take sqrt(sqrt(7))? sqrt(9) has no sqrt(20 involved either. I'm really not sure what you were trying to get at. #4
Or, wherever there is a cube there is the number sqrt(3) = 1.732… built in.
What? What does the sqrt(3) have to do with cubes or cube roots? To break a cube root down into square roots is generally pointless and highly unlikely to aid in any computations. Especially these days.Jerad
November 30, 2014
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Q as to: "Unfortunately, the people who are hostile to the slightest hint of an external agency go crazy when you expose their mechanistic fantasy. It’s apparently of no interest to them that they’re harming science in their wild flailings." and as to why that should be so is an even bigger mystery than the 'theory of everything' is. John 15:24-25 ,,,As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’bornagain77
November 29, 2014
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bornagain77, The problem is that modern education simply ignores Gödel’s theorems, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory which have conclusively destroyed mechanistic determinism! And, as you know, not just in theory but in actual experiments. Unfortunately, the people who are hostile to the slightest hint of an external agency go crazy when you expose their mechanistic fantasy. It's apparently of no interest to them that they're harming science in their wild flailings. Oh well. -QQuerius
November 29, 2014
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Even Hawking himself at one time admitted, (and apparently subsequently forgot), that there can never be a 'complete' mathematical theory of everything.
The nature and significance of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems - Princeton - 2006 Excerpt: ,,Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson, among others, have come to the conclusion that Gödel’s theorem implies that there can’t be a (mathematical) Theory of Everything.,, http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/Godel-IAS.pdf
I think the primary reason why there can never be a complete mathematical theory of everything is best summed up by Dr. Gordon,,
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world. Neither is it the case that "nothing" is unstable, as Mr. Hawking and others maintain. Absolute nothing cannot have mathematical relationships predicated on it, not even quantum gravitational ones. Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency - a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what "breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.,,, the evidence for string theory and its extension, M-theory, is nonexistent; and the idea that conjoining them demonstrates that we live in a multiverse of bubble universes with different laws and constants is a mathematical fantasy. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
Also of note as to bring 'completeness' to math:
Taking God Out of the Equation - Biblical Worldview - by Ron Tagliapietra - January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity ... all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency ... no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness ... all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation# The God of the Mathematicians - Goldman Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” - Kurt Gödel - (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who ever existed) http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
And if we allow that God can 'play the role of a person', as even Godel himself held was logically possible, then a empirically backed reconcilliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics readily pops out for us:
The Center Of The Universe Is Jesus - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - video http://vimeo.com/34084462 Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell Excerpt: Moreover, as would be expected if General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics/Special Relativity (QED) were truly unified in the resurrection of Christ from death, the image on the shroud is found to be formed by a quantum process. The image was not formed by a ‘classical’ process:: The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 “It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique. It is suggested that the image was formed when a high-energy particle struck the fiber and released radiation within the fiber at a speed greater that the local speed of light. Since the fiber acts as a light pipe, this energy moved out through the fiber until it encountered an optical discontinuity, then it slowed to the local speed of light and dispersed. The fact that the pixels don’t fluoresce suggests that the conversion to their now brittle dehydrated state occurred instantly and completely so no partial products remain to be activated by the ultraviolet light. This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector. The radiation pressure may also help explain why the blood was “lifted cleanly” from the body as it transformed to a resurrected state.” Kevin Moran – optical engineer Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.” -per independent https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit
verse and music
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Jesus at the center of it all (4 yr old Hayley Jones) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWNX0xpCsWU
bornagain77
November 29, 2014
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As to unifying science in general, I like this comment from philosopher Steve Fuller,,,
In Cambridge, Professor Steve Fuller discusses intelligent design - Video https://uncommondescent.com/news/in-cambridge-professor-steve-fuller-discusses-why-the-hypothesis-of-intelligent-design-is-not-more-popular-among-scientists-and-others/ At 17:34 minute mark of the video, Dr. Steve Fuller states: "So you think of physics in search of a "Grand Unified Theory of Everything", Why should we even think there is such a thing? Why should we think there is some ultimate level of resolution? Right? It is part, it is a consequence of believing in some kind of design. Right? And there is some sense in which that however mulrifarious and diverse the phenomena of nature are, they are ultimately unified by the minimal set of laws and principles possible. In so far as science continues to operate with that assumption, there is a presupposition of design that is motivating the scientific process. Because it would be perfectly easy,, to stop the pursuit of science at much lower levels. You know understand a certain range of phenomena in a way that is appropiate to deal with that phenomena and just stop there and not go any deeper or any farther.",,, You see, there is sense in which there is design at the ultimate level, the ultimate teleology you might say, which provides the ultimate closure,,"
According to materialistic reasoning Professor Steve Fuller has a very valid question. "Why should we think there is some ultimate level of resolution?",,, In regards to finding an overarching 'theory of everything', materialism simply presupposes that there is no such thing as a 'theory of everything' to be found in the first place!
"If you have no God, then you have no design plan for the universe. You have no prexisting structure to the universe.,, As the ancient Greeks held, like Democritus and others, the universe is flux. It's just matter in motion. Now on that basis all you are confronted with is innumerable brute facts that are unrelated pieces of data. They have no meaningful connection to each other because there is no overall structure. There's no design plan. It's like my kids do 'join the dots' puzzles. It's just dots, but when you join the dots there is a structure, and a picture emerges. Well, the atheists is without that (final picture). There is no preestablished pattern (to connect the facts given atheism)." Pastor Joe Boot - Defending the Christian Faith – video (13:20 minute mark) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqE5_ZOAnKo
And indeed this failure for materialism to provide an overarching plan, to 'connect the dots' as it were, is reflected in the embarrassing failure (BICEP2) of materialism to account for the exceptional flatness and roundness (i.e. homogeneous) of the universe,,,
Inflation theory was proposed to solve two fine-tuning problems of the initial conditions of the early universe known as the "flatness problem"[1] and the "horizon problem"[2]. References: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/F/Flatness+Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem Cosmic inflation is dead, long live cosmic inflation - 25 September 2014 Excerpt: (Inflation) theory, the most widely held of cosmological ideas about the growth of our universe after the big bang, explains a number of mysteries, including why the universe is surprisingly flat and so smoothly distributed, or homogeneous.,,, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, who helped develop inflationary theory but is now scathing of it, says this is potentially a blow for the theory, but that it pales in significance with inflation's other problems. Meet the multiverse Steinhardt says the idea that inflationary theory produces any observable predictions at all – even those potentially tested by BICEP2 – is based on a simplification of the theory that simply does not hold true. "The deeper problem is that once inflation starts, it doesn't end the way these simplistic calculations suggest," he says. "Instead, due to quantum physics it leads to a multiverse where the universe breaks up into an infinite number of patches. The patches explore all conceivable properties as you go from patch to patch. So that means it doesn't make any sense to say what inflation predicts, except to say it predicts everything. If it's physically possible, then it happens in the multiverse someplace Steinhardt says the point of inflation was to explain a remarkably simple universe. "So the last thing in the world you should be doing is introducing a multiverse of possibilities to explain such a simple thing," he says. "I think it's telling us in the clearest possible terms that we should be able to understand this and when we understand it it's going to come in a model that is extremely simple and compelling. And we thought inflation was it – but it isn't." http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26272-cosmic-inflation-is-dead-long-live-cosmic-inflation.html?page=1#.VCajrGl0y00
In light of materialism's embarrassing failure to 'connect the dots' (BICEP2) for why the universe is as flat and as round as it is, it is interesting to learn that Theism predicted such flatness and roundness for the universe thousands of years before they were discovered.
Proverbs 8:26-27 While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primeval dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, Job 26:10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. Job 38:4-5 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
But to touch on their attempt in the OP to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics by using the golden ratio, although it is hard for me to follow the math, I believe what they are attempting is similar to what this guy tries in this following video.
The Physics of Illusion - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht3sAP-GQrk The Spiral Periodic Table that you have never seen before - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhg2uOSb-LA
And although the man in the video is certainly a very smart mathematician, and although the people who wrote the paper in the OP are also certainly very smart mathematicians, and although they both may have some kind of key mathematical insight as to 'unifying science', I would like to point out that even if some really smart mathematicians were ever able to find a mathematical theory of everything which unified general relativity and quantum mechanics, that the mathematicians would still fail, due to Godel's incompleteness, to have a 'complete' mathematical description of reality. Godel proved in his incompleteness theorem, if numbers are included, that there simply cannot be a 'complete' mathematical theory of everything,,
Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem – video https://vimeo.com/92387853 Godel and Physics - John D. Barrow Excerpt (page 5-6): "Clearly then no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics go. In absence of such consistency, all mathematical models, all theories of elementary particles, including the theory of quarks and gluons...fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else. This is true even if the theory happened to account for perfect accuracy for all phenomena of the physical world known at a particular time." Stanley Jaki - Cosmos and Creator - 1980, pg. 49 http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0612253.pdf
bornagain77
November 29, 2014
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You can find pi using phi: pi = 5 Arccos(phi/2) in RadiansDaRook
November 29, 2014
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1 nightlight November 29, 2014 at 5:24 am Or, wherever there is square there is number sqrt(2)=1.41.. built in.
. Or, wherever there is a cube there is the number sqrt(3) = 1.732... built in. .cantor
November 29, 2014
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of related interest: DNA spiral as a Golden Section Excerpt: The DNA molecule, the program for all life, is based on the golden section. It measures 34 angstroms long by 21 angstroms wide for each full cycle of its double helix spiral. 34 and 21, of course, are numbers in the Fibonacci series and their ratio, 1.6190476 closely approximates phi, 1.6180339. DNA in the cell appears as a double-stranded helix referred to as B-DNA.This form of DNA has a two groove in its spirals, with a ratio of phi in the proportion of the major groove to the minor groove, or roughly 21 angstroms to 13 angstroms. ,,, a cross-sectional view from the top of the DNA double helix forms a decagon: A decagon is in essence two pentagons, with one rotated by 36 degrees from the other, so each spiral of the double helix must trace out the shape of a pentagon. The ratio of the diagonal of a pentagon to its side is Phi to 1. So, no matter which way you look at it, even in its smallest element, DNA, and life, is constructed using phi and the golden section! http://www.goldennumber.net/dna/ various google Images for cross section of DNA https://www.google.com/search?q=cross+section+dna&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=lMV5VJz8DbffsASos4GQCA&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=611 Cross section of dna compared to the Rose window at York Minster (the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe) https://reflectionsfrommyporchswing.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/dna-2.jpg ============== Nature by Numbers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoAbornagain77
November 29, 2014
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Here is the pdf Number theory and the unity of science - 2014 Excerpt: We suggest that there is a strong case that this so-called ‘Golden Ratio’ (1.61803...) can be related not only to aspects of mathematics but also to physics, chemistry, biology and the topology of space-time.,,, http://www.sajs.co.za/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/Boeyens_SciCo.pdfbornagain77
November 29, 2014
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Similarly, wherever you have a circular or spherical object, there is a Pi=3.14... number built in. Or, wherever there is square there is number sqrt(2)=1.41.. built in. There are also many processes that yield forms with Golden Ratio built in.nightlight
November 29, 2014
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