10 minutes ago, chron44 said:

Let's skip all myths and rumors with Einstein.

Right, that's what I mean.

Also, to skip all the "philosophical" BS.

21 hours ago, chron44 said:

I'm sorry if I made my issue a bit unclear. Still, we all know how GR works. Geometry bends, and rods follow. No one here doubts that. What I’m trying to point at is something else: the difference between measuring a length and the geometric "entity" that gives those lengths their relations.

A meter is a meter — that’s simple.

The big thing about relativity is that it’s not that simple.

21 hours ago, chron44 said:

But geometry, in Einstein’s sense, is not the meter itself. It is the rule that tells every meter how to behave. So my question isn’t about rods or volumes at all. It’s about the deeper thing underneath: what geometry is, not what it does. Is it something given, or something that grows from more primitive ingredients?

That’s the only distinction I’m trying to explore.

So, metaphysics rather than physics and not really anything to do with relativity

4 hours ago, chron44 said:

Yes, the quote and my own writing is a mishmash of ideas. Can we continue from what we know in average stances what Einstein sensed from confirmed "quotes" and writings from him. This is although a serious quest with edge physics involved. I'm really trying to comprehend all distinctions, constants and emerged physics.

A common myth is that Einstein “didn’t understand” quantum mechanics. This is historically false. He understood it deeply - he helped create it. His objections were conceptual, not technical:

So, to be clear, when you said you were quoting Einstein as reported in Britannica, that was untrue and you had made it up. I see. This does not augur well for the discussion.

It is not "a common myth" that Einstein didn't understand quantum mechanics, so far as I am aware. It looks to me as if you have made that up, too.

I suggest you read up some of the history, look at things Einstein really said, and clearly separate what he actually said from your own musings.

Edited March 8Mar 8 by exchemist

Seems the OP is looking for what can be described as fundamental reality.

The answer may give you nightmares but let's do a step by step process of elimination.

Matter which are fermions are not little bullets (not corpuscular) meaning they are not solid but are described as field excitations. So one may naively believe fields are fundamental. However this isn't true either.

All fields regardless if its spacetime or any other field is an abstract descriptive of a distribution ( a collection of values measured or mathematical)

So one then goes onto energy or mass being fundamental ( well again this wouldn't work ) energy and mass are properties of a state or system being described.

They do not exist on their own.

So what are we left with ? We'll your really left with little more than configurations.

Every previous descriptive while measurable ( particles, fields, energy and mass) are fundamentally convenient descriptives and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of papers arguing the above cases in metaphysics arguments etc.

In so far as how does one describe configuration space ? Well the closest I can see is quantum information but this once again becomes abstract as the methodology treats information as on/off switches.

Given the above from my viewpoint " What is fundamental :" is a question that is currently unanswerable and may likely always remain unanswerable. We can only measure so deep regardless of how precise our equipment gets. ( cannot measure below Planch length) .

In QFT for example the observable measurements require a minimal 1 quanta of action. This is where the term virtual particles arose which is really a bookkeeping device for propogator action

( the internal wavy lines of Feymann diagrams).

Hope I wasn't too far off base on the assumption the OP was looking for what is fundamental reality. Its rather tricky to tell

( you may notice I used the term configurations ) this term does not label what the configuration is as any label is also abstract.

If this helps physics describes what we can measure. It speculates on what we cannot measure based on what we have measured.

In short given the above there is no fixed entity. The best we can hope for is accurate descriptions of relations between abstract objects such as a state. (set of configurations)

Edited March 8Mar 8 by Mordred

On 3/8/2026 at 5:06 PM, Mordred said:

If this helps physics describes what we can measure. It speculates on what we cannot measure based on what we have measured.

In short given the above there is no fixed entity. The best we can hope for is accurate descriptions of relations between abstract objects such as a state. (set of configurations)

I fully agree on this. Physics in essence are measurements. I especially like the line of yours: "It speculates on what we cannot measure based on what we have measured."

You mentioned "nightmares" if searching for "reality". Professional physicists' view should absolutely focus on hard measured data. -Thereafter comes any thesis for what we can imagine. This is the "Speculation" part in this forum. So, some ideas must be given, and some occasionally taken, and most are just wrong. This is the way humans speculate.

I'll skip the "nithammares" for now. So, hence I "throw" out a "serious" "idea", it's not a question: (It's obvious very "dangerous" to make any sort of assumptions of what Einstein had in mind, where only hard proved and confirmed written or spoken statements from him are accepted.)

The "idea", which I hope ppl here can "discuss" about, is simple written but not that simple argued for or against.
Are QM, SM and QFT, and such aspects the true view of physics?

So I set this "idea" here and "risk my novel points" with: Okay, for particles and fields it's the right approach, still not for astrophysics and universal evolution. One measured/ QM-QFT- theory "nightmare" is the the famous CCP divergence of 120 magnitudes, for example. Still, "almost" everything else are OK here in this aspect of physics.

Okay, now it's said, from me.

Speculating on what we can’t measure based on what we can is in the context of behavior, which is what physics (and science in general) does. It’s about how nature behaves, not what it is. Any idea has to trace back to some way of confirming it experimentally. Otherwise it’s, at best, philosophy

As far as this being speculations, we still have standards. Related to the “at best” caveat, because WAGs, utter nonsense and other bad faith efforts are other possibilities, and it’s site policy not to waste our bandwidth on that

2 hours ago, chron44 said:

So I set this "idea" here and "risk my novel points" with: Okay, for particles and fields it's the right approach, still not for astrophysics and universal evolution. One measured/ QM-QFT- theory "nightmare" is the the famous CCP divergence of 120 magnitudes, for example. Still, "almost" everything else are OK here in this aspect of physics.

So, here we have empirical measured physics data with one, "famous" and a most unexpected I have to mention, anomaly relatively the QM/ SM/ QFT theories. The strong objective here is, of course, that the CCP as - totally seen - isn't particle or field physics, it's universal "composition. Global or local? -Or a mix of these? -I'm not that experience to notice. Still I belive that the CC is a global universal parameter. We here do get into Einstein, since he had to "throw" it in his equations, and some years before he passed abandoned it. Ironically the CC did return in the CC Problem after Einstein ceased.

I kow that this issue is most "urgent" in physics and at the same time creates "flaming" debates. So, I will not "flame" this issue. I'm seriously interested. There is a work around for the CCP - if - we let QM/ SM/ QFT manage particles and fields. -And "leave" universal composition to GR aspects, where G is one mystic and maybe a central component in the CC Problem. Observe that I follow the guide lines here by using the "empirical" CCP for idea- reasoning.

13 hours ago, chron44 said:

Are QM, SM and QFT, and such aspects the true view of physics?

They are the current scientific consensus, and thus the best models we currently have.

Take careful note of the word “currently”. Physics, like all sciences, is a process - as new data becomes available to us, the consensus may need to be updated, and occasionally radically reworked (“paradigm shift”, like from Newton to Einstein eg).

10 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Take careful note of the word “currently”. Physics, like all sciences, is a process - as new data becomes available to us, the consensus may need to be updated, and occasionally radically reworked (“paradigm shift”, like from Newton to Einstein eg).

Yes, - the "currently" physics - were the words. If the Quantum leg in physic is Okay for particles and so on, we probably have to "update" the global aspect of physics. We cannot abandon the quantization aspekt when its accuracy is proven to "99%". But it just doesn't make sense in the universal aspekt. The ontology has to be, not changed, still refined.

This is a hard criterion for the CCP enigma, I have understood so.

The title is a bit awkward, I see it now. "Einstein and an issue if geometry is a fixed entity".

If I reframe it like this: Einstein and an issue if geometry is a dynamic emergent function of the vacuum.
-Which still is undefined, though being the "base" of physics.

That's the present physics situation.

Edited March 13Mar 13 by chron44
spelling corr.

Why does it matter to physics if it’s emergent or not?

19 hours ago, chron44 said:

Einstein and an issue if geometry is a dynamic emergent function of the vacuum.

Spacetime and its geometry are “there” not only in vacuum, but also in the interior of energy-momentum distributions. There is no situation where there is not spacetime, since there is nowhere one can not place rulers and clocks.

I still don’t get what the “issue” here is…?

On 3/13/2026 at 10:08 AM, chron44 said:

If I reframe it like this: Einstein and an issue if geometry is a dynamic emergent function of the vacuum.
-Which still is undefined, though being the "base" of physics.

Einstein, whatever ppl here propose or dislike in my approach here, where not "that" satisfied with some aspects of his own works in his later days. If QM, GR or the vacuum itself is the "base" in physics, may be a bit too "harsh" statement or divergent physics. I maybe did stir this issue a bit myself whit this a too unclear and fast writing, also in my reframing.

On 3/13/2026 at 2:59 PM, swansont said:

Why does it matter to physics if it’s emergent or not?

The calculus of physics, by physicists and advanced "laymen" (I'm merely a most interested such), focus on empirical data. And apply all - verified - formulas, statistics, math, recombination rules, and so on, in any special branch in physics. And hence we are settled with a QM physics, which seems fully correct whatever the QM aspects are. So, fine, QM and its physics "leg" is Okay. I am convinced in this. So I understand swansont in this manner - physicists work hard with data and formulas in a professional manner.

Still, the global aspects are not that Okay. There are several BB recent observed anomalies and present global vacuum math differences. -On what we measure. The GR "leg" is in a most uneven phase with the QM math. Still the QM math seems very firm and correct.

This is the "underlying" issue I have in mind. Hopefully this settles any wondering of what my "quest" is for this thread.

I really want to go further in this obvious physics issue.

Edited March 17Mar 17 by chron44
grammar

On 3/17/2026 at 12:50 PM, chron44 said:

I really want to go further in this obvious physics issue.

Edited Tuesday at 12:55 PM1 day by chron44

It's no secret really, that the QM "leg" (relatively the GR "leg"), especially in the SM part, and affecting parts of the QFT division - has no full ontology. Even the GR "leg" has its doubts of a full ontology.

I’m specializing my quest now. The QM ‘leg’, with all its correct math and all its confirmed empirics, is sort of in a problematic, slight or big, not completely integrated position.

I try to work with my physics. And I know so do you. It's a serious quest.

11 hours ago, chron44 said:

I try to work with my physics. And I know so do you. It's a serious quest.

If one assumes that Alpha, the unquestioned ratio determining how fermions tend to interact with photons, can have a deeper structural reason - then it may be more than a parameter. It can be some workaround. It is though a most important cornerstone in physics. I've understood that many pro physicists are in this stage of ideas.

Surely some of you have had this hint. It's so fundamental, that it aches.

Edited Thursday at 07:16 PM5 days by chron44
spelling corr.

11 hours ago, chron44 said:

If one assumes that Alpha, the unquestioned ratio determining how fermions tend to interact with photons, can have a deeper structural reason - then it may be more than a parameter. It can be some workaround. It is though a most important cornerstone in physics. I've understood that many pro physicists are in this stage of ideas.

Surely some of you have had this hint. It's so fundamental, that it aches.

This thread's title is: "Einstein and an issue if geometry is a fixed entity", I really comes back to this, a bit awkward way of expressing some for me mystic and confused physics theory.

I fairly understands what GR is and that "geometry" in physics is the concept of the global aspect of spacetime. -Geometry is the global emergent aspect of the GR formulas with "spacetime" as the "source", no correction, as a "contributor" of "impact" on itself, energy and on matter. So, with some looking back on my own issue here; this thread should hence be about:

If "spacetime", as a "contributor" of "action", on its own - without any external energy, field or matter - is "fixed" as its role as a "contributor"?

And now I maybe see it clearer, "spacetime" on its own has no meaning. Physics doesn't notice, act, upon "spacetime" if any external entity is absent. -Which hence gives it the "mystic" touch.

So, what's the "contributor's" intrinsic secret?

2 hours ago, chron44 said:

If one assumes that Alpha, the unquestioned ratio determining how fermions tend to interact with photons, can have a deeper structural reason - then it may be more than a parameter. It can be some workaround. It is though a most important cornerstone in physics. I've understood that many pro physicists are in this stage of ideas.

Surely some of you have had this hint. It's so fundamental, that it aches.

This thread's title is: "Einstein and an issue if geometry is a fixed entity", I really comes back to this, a bit awkward way of expressing some for me mystic and confused physics theory.

I fairly understands what GR is and that "geometry" in physics is the concept of the global aspect of spacetime. -Geometry is the global emergent aspect of the GR formulas with "spacetime" as the "source", no correction, as a "contributor" of "impact" on itself, energy and on matter. So, with some looking back on my own issue here; this thread should hence be about:

If "spacetime", as a "contributor" of "action", on its own - without any external energy, field or matter - is "fixed" as its role as a "contributor"?

And now I maybe see it clearer, "spacetime" on its own has no meaning. Physics doesn't notice, act, upon "spacetime" if any external entity is absent. -Which hence gives it the "mystic" touch.

So, what's the "contributor's" intrinsic secret?

One can now suggest that Alpha is a very strong indicator that the deepest level of physics is actually a universal regulation. Neither GR nor QM hold that position anymore. They are two different consequences of this central regulation of the universe, separated into gravity and electromagnetism. -Like hydrogen and oxygen separated from water by electrolysis. The symbolic question now becomes: what is the ‘water’?

-If Alpha is accepted as a very strong indicator supporting this proposed idea.

Might I hear an aah .. or a sigh ...?

; )

Edited Friday at 09:56 AM5 days by chron44