Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Richard777 on 04/12/2016 21:40:30
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Can a wave function represent a gravitational distortion of the continuum?
If so then a gravitational field may be simply related to the wave.
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Two questions here Richard:
1. In this context, what is the continuum?
2. What form would you expect gravitational distortions in this continuum to take?
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Hello Bill
Attempting to answer your questions;
1. The continuum is space-time. Various frames of reference may be associated with the continuum.
2. The distortion of the local continuum surrounding a massive object would be a displacement from the normal plane. The spatial displacement varies as the radial distance from the center of the object. The displacement may include a temporal displacement. A special condition ignores the temporal displacement.
The displacement is a wave and is represented as a wave function.
The gravitational field is equal to the wave displacement multiplied by the square of frequency. A special condition gives the Newton field.
Regards
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Thanks Richard, I think you need someone with more expertise than I have to do justice to that.
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This would be easier to understand with diagrams, equations, or preferably both.
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If you're still curious about this you may want to check out: http://vixra.org/abs/1701.0629
It is proposed there is a link between the spacetime perturbation caused by a body and the wavefunction of the same body.
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Can a wave function represent a gravitational distortion of the continuum?
No. They are quite separate concepts. A wave function, a quantum mechanical concept, represents the position of a particle. Gravitational distortion of spacetime (which is what I assume that you meant by "continuum") is a curvature in spacetime. They are not related.
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While it is true what PmbPhy says, (the wavefunction and curvature are distinct concepts), this stems from quantum theory and General Relativity being distinct theories.
In quantum theory the wavefunction is irrevocably associated with the position of a particle, while in general relativity the curvature (especially scalar curvature) is irrevocably associated with the position of a particle/energy-mass distribution (simply evidenced by taking the trace of Einsteins field equation).
Any merging of these two theories would have to yield some physically meaningful connection between the two concepts, though precisely what that is no one knows.