My PhD research (1987) was on higher-dimensional general relativistic (GR) cosmology (my thesis advisor was Louis Witten), so while attending a gathering of local astronomers in 1989, I was asked to explain the meaning of “distance” as obtained in astronomy textbooks at the time. The standard computation of distance in astronomy textbooks at the time was to use Hubble’s law, Hd = v, where H is Hubble’s constant, d is distance, and v is recession velocity (proper time rate of change of proper distance in parlance of GR cosmology). So, this astronomer wanted to know whether the distance obtained was the distance at time of emission (billions of years ago) or the distance at time of reception (today). While finding an answer to his question, I realized the computation used in the astronomy textbooks assumed a globally flat spacetime structure per special relativity (SR), which is of course not consistent with the curved spacetimes of GR’s Big Bang cosmology. Specifically, they used the SR Doppler shift equation to obtain v from z for large redshift z. You can use the SR equation, but the meaning of the velocity therein is quite complex and inconsistent with the simple cosmic time rate of change of proper distance (see Ostvang or Possel). I found and sent him the GR formulae for v(z) in the flat, open and closed matter-dominated cases. To his and many others’ surprise, this intuitively defined v could exceed the speed of light c for observable objects. I published this (and other clarifications of common misconceptions of GR cosmology) in American Journal of Physics and began a campaign with other cosmologists to correct astronomy textbooks. The highlight of this campaign was probably the article by Lineweaver and Davis, “Misconceptions About the Big Bang” in the March 2005 edition of Scientific American. Most textbooks have since been corrected.
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In 1994, after the last of my series of Am. J. Phys. papers on GR cosmology, I read, “Bringing home the atomic world: Quantum mysteries for anybody,” N.D. Mermin, Am. J. Phys. 49, Oct 1981, 940-943, that Feynman called, “One of the most beautiful papers in physics that I know.” Therein, he presented the “Mermin device” that illustrates the conundrum of entanglement per the Bell spin states for the “general reader.” He then challenged the “physicist reader” to explain the way the device works “in terms meaningful to a general reader struggling with the dilemma raised by the device.” I was immediately convinced that the conundrum introduced therein was the biggest outstanding issue of physics — at least for someone like me who wanted to teach physics. This area of study is known as “foundations of physics” and has grown quite popular since the turn of the 21st century.
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Coincidently, Michael Silberstein joined the E-town faculty in 1994 having just completed his PhD thesis on foundational physics. He and I began a collaboration that produced the Relational Blockworld (RBW) interpretation of quantum physics in 2005. We co-authored a book with our colleague in math, Timothy McDevitt, on RBW’s adynamical approach to physics called “Beyond the Dynamical Universe: Unifying Block Universe Physics and Time as Experienced” that was published in 2018 with Oxford University Press (ISBN 978-0-19-880708-7). Essentially, dynamical explanation uses the past alone to explain the present (so-called Newtonian Schema) while per adynamical explanation the past, present and future co-explain each other (so-called Lagrangian Schema). The book then shows how the puzzles, paradoxes, problems, and conundrums of modern physics all result from the Newtonian Schema Universe with its dynamical explanation and these are easily resolved using the Lagrangian Schema Universe with its adynamical explanation. This is in accord with Wilczek’s challenge, “To me, ascending from the ant’s-eye view to the God’s-eye [4D] view of physical reality is the most profound challenge for fundamental physics in the next 100 years.”
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I used this idea to modify Regge calculus (MORC) and correct proper distance in the Einstein-deSitter cosmology model yielding a fit of the Union2 Compilation supernova data that matches ɅCDM without having to invoke accelerating expansion or dark energy. This is in direct contradiction to the citation for the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics which reads, “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.” An essay explaining this outcome won Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2012 Awards for Essays on Gravitation and was published in International Journal of Modern Physics D (2012).
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I also used GR contextuality per RBW to fit THINGS data for galactic rotation curves equal to MOND, Burkett halo dark matter (DM) and Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) halo DM. I also fit ROSAT/ASCA data for the mass profiles of X-ray clusters equal to metric skew-tensor gravity and core-modified NFW DM, and Planck 2015 CMB angular power spectrum data equal to scalar-tensor-vector gravity and ΛCDM. [A shorter version of this paper won Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2018 Awards for Essays on Gravitation and was published in International Journal of Modern Physics D (2018).] These fits did not need non-baryonic dark matter, so in contrast to the concordance model of cosmology (ΛCDM), we may not need dark matter or dark energy to explain astrophysical observations. An essay explaining this outcome won Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2016 Awards for Essays on Gravitation and was published in International Journal of Modern Physics D (2016).
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In 2016, I published a paper debunking a famous 2014 claim in Nature Communications that the so-called Quantum Cheshire Cat experiment had been instantiated (the authors claimed to have separated neutrons and their spin property).
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In 2019, I published a paper explaining why quantum mechanics violates the CHSH-Bell inequality to the extent it does (called the “Tsirelson bound”). There are so-called “superquantum” correlations that violate the CHSH-Bell inequality beyond the Tsirelson bound, so Jeff Bub wanted to know how RBW would answer his question, “Why the Tsirelson bound?” He felt the answer to his question would also answer Wheeler’s “Really Big Question” “Why the Quantum?” The answer per RBW is a compelling 4D constraint, i.e., conservation per no preferred reference frame. Famously, of course, there is no compelling dynamical explanation per a ‘causal mechanism’ or hidden variables. This 20-min talk, “Why the Tsirelson Bound? Bub’s Question and Fuchs’ Desideratum” given at Linnaeus University, Sweden, for the conference “Quantum Information Revolution: Impact to Foundations?” provides a summary..
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In 2020, I used conservation per no preferred reference frame (NPRF) to bring my 26-year quest to fruition and answer Mermin’s challenge. In short, the conservation following from the SU(2) invariances of the Bell spin states holds only on average, not on a trial-by-trial basis. Therefore, this “average-only” conservation constitutes an adynamical constraint with no evidence for an underlying dynamical mechanism, so I justify it via NPRF. Since NPRF also justifies the light postulate of special relativity, we see a common theme in both relativistic and non-relativistic modern physics relating the fundamental constants c and h, respectively. Essentially, Einstein missed an opportunity to answer the mystery of quantum entanglement using his relativity principle. In “No Preferred Reference Frame at the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics” (2022) and “Einstein’s Entanglement: Bell Inequalities, Relativity, and the Qubit” (Oxford UP, 2024), I pointed out to quantum information theorists that their principle of “Information Invariance & Continuity” at the basis of their axiomatic reconstruction of quantum mechanics entails the observer-independence of Planck’s constant h under spatial rotations and translations. [Here is a non-technical video abstract for that paper and here is a non-technical summary of the paper.] Since spatial rotations and translations relate inertial reference frames, the information-theoretic reconstruction of QM has revealed NPRF + h at the foundation of quantum mechanics in total analogy to NPRF + c at the foundation of special relativity. This renders quantum mechanics a “principle theory” just like special relativity based on the same relativity principle. Here is a 3-min video “Beyond Causal Explanation” explaining the idea conceptually. An essay extending NPRF to general relativity via another fundamental constant of Nature, Newton’s gravitational constant G, won Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2021 Awards for Essays on Gravitation and was published in International Journal of Modern Physics D (2021).
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Of course, a block universe model of objective reality in accord with adynamical global constraints seems to violate our dynamical experience, e.g., our experience of Now, Direction, and Passage with respect to time. Contrary to what some physicists profess, these experiences are not an illusion. Indeed, it is precisely dynamical conscious experience that is responsible for the block universe model of objective reality in accord with adynamical global constraints! This is reconciled in Chapters 7 and 8 of “Beyond the Dynamical Universe: Unifying Block Universe Physics and Time as Experienced.” For a shorter take, see a 2020 paper co-authored by Michael Silberstein and myself suggesting how one might derive fundamental physics from neutral monism. The bottom line is that physics properly understood, already is psychology. Here is a 3-min video “Physics with Neutral Monism” explaining the idea conceptually.