The Fourth Dimension: “spacey” not “time-like”?

What does that mean and where does the idea come from?

I recently (Feb 2024) came across the mathematical conjectures of Marco Pereira which he calls Lightspeed Expanding Hyperspherical Universe Topology or LEHU for short. As I am not a mathematician I am not able to critique his extensive (no pun intended) examinations and adaptations/adjustments of the formulae of General and Special Relativity. I do not immediately dismiss his ideas is because

• they seem to be expressed in very rigorously constructed mathematics, and
• he applies his principals to several diverse sets of astronomical data created by numerous projects run by official government and other research orgainisations world wide.

I am disappointed to see that nobody in the mainstream astronomical/astrophysical communities has taken the time to make a principled review of his underlying hypothesis or its mathematical underpinnings. It may well be that his overly assertive and/or aggressive language has put potential reviewers off. (I intend to ask him about this.)

Meanwhile, his basic thesis is that our universe is four dimensional but the fourth dimension is not “time” as such but a spacial dimension which is expanding at the speed of light. To be clear: this dimension is definitely orthogonal (at right angles) to our “normal” 3D directions (x, y, and z) and commenced its expansion at what is called the Big Bang (BB).

In looking at his diagrammatic representations I understand that his thesis allows changes over time to the space-time distance between two separated points in space to be represented as what happens to locations on the circumference of a circle which is expanding. The difference in radius of the two circles denoting the start and end of the time period is proportionate to how far a photon of light would have travelled in that time. But note that this is a calculational tool of the thesis, and that actual distances will change based on (more or less ) Euclidian geometry and the extent to which this is affected by the expansion of the hypershpere.

From this fundamentally different description of space-time Marco Pereira deduces that many of the currently accepted mathematical descriptions used by physics need to be modified in certain ways and that, furthermore, certain features of our universe, such as gravity, are epoch dependent, ie have really changed during the evolution of our universe so far.

I cannot say more about that, and hopefully I have not misrepresented his thesis with even that short description.

Marco Pereira has placed much of his descriptions and explanations on Quora:

https://hypergeometricaluniverse.quora.com

Why this interests me: what it might mean for MOPECCA

What I like about Marco Pereira’s thesis is how it removes “time” as an ontological thing and lets it be a method if you like, which we construct and use as a means for describing changes amongst things which permanently exist in their own right. That is how the MOPECCA construes time.

Another thing is that, even if Marco P’s mathematical schema turns out to be the Earth shattering breakthrough that modern physics and astronomy both need, it will still be true that mathematics is not ontology. However the ontological implications of this idea are that it very likely reconfigures the constraints around MOPECCA and possibly allows for an explanation of anti-electrons which were not falling easily out of constrains made of 3D + “time”. I am ‘working’ on that now in my spare moments.

MOPECCA – Can a neutron reasonably be considered as a proton plus an electron?

Answer: No.

Next question: Why not?

Answer: Because empirical evidence rules it out.

Other questions:

• Why ask that question in the first place? (See below);
• What is the MOPECCA resolution of the challenge? (See below);
• Where do we go next? (See below and future posts and pages).

Reason for the question: From the MOPECCA point of view, which is fundamentally ontological rather than mathematical, it would allow that the amount of charge on the electron is the smallest unit of electric charge, whether positive or negative.

The QM description of quarks asserts that normally they only exist in triplets which we call protons and neutrons and assigns them an electric charge of either 2/3 positive for up quarks or 1/3 negative for down quarks. This allows that these can combine, normally, as 2 up and 1 down which is a proton or 1 up and 2 down which forms a neutron. Of course there are also quarks named Strange, Charmed, Top (or Truth), and Bottom (or Beauty) which are very rare because they embody enormous amounts of extra energy which makes them very unstable therefore very shortlived…. in our universe anyway. The MOPECCA can consider them as manifestations of various kinds of harmonic standing waves.

Most of this is strongly supported by empirical evidence from the world’s most powerful particle accelerators.

A question arises about this: what specific empirical evidence underlies the ascription of partial electic charges to the quarks?

I have read that partial charges as such are required to explain how quarks, which are stable only as triplets, make up protons and neutrons. Quarks can also, apparently, exist in pairs of a quark and anti-quark with exactly matching opposite charges, but these things do not last long either so must also be very unstable.

The fractional charges however, have been confirmed by electron scattering experiments so any attempt to explain what quarks are must effectivly account for electric charges of +2/3e and -1/3e. Occam’s Razor strongly advises against conjecturing complex, ad hoc, jiggerdy-pokery to explain anything where a much simpler explanation is available so, on the face of it, the Standard Model theory of quarks is validated and the short answer to the original question must be “no”.

The question then becomes: Why is the charge on the electron 3 times the -1/3e charge of the down quark?

MOPECCA has an answer

Electrons

The MOPECCA asserts that even though electrons (and quarks for that matter) seem to act like points with no cross section they are in fact Qnotted loops (entanglements) of threads or filaments of two or more primary absolutes (PA). The Qnot structure however is very small compared to the range of influence of the electric charge. So we can conjecture that each electron is a node of PA(e) that connects in 3 directions to the rest of PA(e) in such a way that the entangled PA(weak) and PA(vac) do not prevent an excess of bigwards over smallwards occurring in each of the three PA(e) connections. This can be visualised as an expansion of PA(e) away from the electron Qnot.

The reason for this ‘allowing’ of excess bigwards is that, as explained elsewhere, in the MOPECCA different PA have different intrinsic speeds which should have some kind of mathematical relationship to their relative strengths as QM force fields. EM force is stronger than the Weak force so the speed of PA(weak) will be less than that of PA(e). This is discussed in more detail below but the upshot here is that, at the node, the internal cross section of the junction of the three PA(e) filaments is relatively greater than the cross section of each of the filaments and thus always has an internal volume not constrained by the PA(e) outer surface/boundary. This internal region always manifests as bigwards, because that is what PA do (according to MOPECCA). 

Up quarks

In the case of quarks however we can conjecture that each up quark has only a loop of PA(e), ie is not a node as such, but it is Qnotted with PA(strong), PA(weak), and PA(vac) such that it is connected to the rest of PA(e) in two opposite directions only and its net effect is an excess of PA(e) smallwards in each of those directions. This is similar to the previously conjectured explanation of gravity as the breakage/contraction of PA(vac) strings entangled with Qnots because the intrinsic speeds of the other PA are all greater than that of PA(vac).

• That is to say, around every manifestation of each of the other PA, PA(vac) goes smallwards at the  boundary. This manifests as an excess of PA(vac) smallwards over bigwards near each of the other PA. ‘Within’ PA(vac) this happens at the speed of c, which we call ‘the speed of light’, and cannot happen any faster which provides a de facto resistance to the encroachment of the other PA.
• To be consistent this effect must occur for each PA, so that wherever a PA boundary is abutting the surface of another PA both will manifest smallwards; however the abutting surface of the PA with the faster speed will be ‘replenished’ at a faster rate. This will result in a translation of the virtual surface/locus of interaction ‘into’ the slower PA limited by the intrinsic speed of that PA. The outcome and, potentially, the duration of such penetration however will be affected by everything else which is going on in the neighbourhood.
  • One factor will be the degree of perturbation of the surface of each PA, likely to be in the form of wave motions induced by harmonic resonances within each PA related to the oscillation of nodes.
  • Another may be the occurrence of ‘bounce’ ie the ceasation of motion smallwards at some minimum cross section characteristic of the particular PA and its (possible) reversal. For PA(vac) the MOPECCA assumes this is the Planck length. The conjecture is that bigwards always occurs if the location is not right at a boundary.

• This idea would seem to indicate that the EM mutual repulsion of up quarks may be more like a manifestation of attraction away from each other because they don’t connect one to the other but rather they connect to the rest of the PA(e) which surrounds their current location. They are held in place of course by their Qnot entanglement with PA(strong) mainly and to some extent because of PA(weak).

Down quarks

Down quarks on the other hand, following this topology, will be three way nodes of PA(e) like the electons but where the confining effects of the PAs strong, weak, and vacuum allow two connections to be net bigwards and the other one to be net smallwards. In this way the neutron quark triplet has a net neutral effect on the surrounding PA(e) whilst participating in the strong and weak forces which are attractive at short range.

Note: from this MOPECCA point of view, ‘conventional’ thinking, ie the attribution of the symbol “+” and the word positive to the up quark charge, with “-” and negative to the down quark charge, is sort of ‘back to front’ in the same way as the conventional description of the direction of electric current in a wire being from positive to negative. In fact electron flow in metal conductors is from the negative cathode end towards the positive anode end.

In a somewhat similar way the MOPECCA description of the electron seems to entail a form of virtual radiation of PA(e) outwards from each electron and a smaller net radiation from each down quark: -3/3e in the case of the electron and -1/3e in the case of the down quark.