Paradox Proofing

[Traveler 25042]

I said it in my very first post, but I'll say it again.
It does. Not. Matter.
1) How many travelers converge upon this universe
2) What countries they're coming from
3) What time period(s) they're coming from

Let me clue them in just a little further when they get around to seeing this.
There's no risk in me disclosing that this particular universe is held together by at least 7 paradoxes.

So even if someone stumbles upon "time travel" and gets bigheaded about changing things, just no lol. Even if someone were to resolve even ONE of the paradoxes, they would just find themselves diverged in a completely different sector of the multiverse…FAR FAR AWAY from here.

I have honeypots everywhere. Little things that entice sketchy travelers thinking "Yeah, if I can take out Kennedy or Trump maybe WW3 won't happen. Maybe the Time War won't happen."

And maybe Ragnarök won't really happen either, but it's unlikely.

Why do I tell you all this? Because, again, it does not matter.
Even when I am to die, the paradoxes will endure.

…but there's at least 7 of me walking around right now, so good luck to all the "future hunters". Exactly how many paradoxes are in play can be a fun little puzzle for someone else.

Why would I create a paradox in the first place? I hope this feels like a big duh, in that...I like this place & time travelers mess everything up every time. Wish I could say I was different, but since nobody has (objectively and measurably) messed things up more than me. This is also the one and only time and space that I get to be with my girlfriend. After this, hell...I may not ever see her again, but at least not for another 1,000-3,000 years.

Y'all have no idea how long it takes me to complete a single paradox.
It quite literally takes the entire age of the universe up until about 12 years from now, give or take a few.

So back to the why. Why? Why? Why?
Because, why not? Someone has to be the one to do it.

I'll also be launching a new video series over the next year or two, so be on the lookout for some of the most ridiculous hijinks on EnderX. Before that, I think I'll dump all my writings on TTI. Perhaps one day I will livestream what it's like to be me for a single day. My reality is quite different from most.

 

[PREFRONTAL TRAVEL]

How come seven in one universe?

 

[EnderX]

How come seven in one universe?

There's a few reasons. Biggest one is that it creates a sort of "causality wall" or clearly identified sector of the multiverse. It does things like help reinforce any changes you make, but it's also easy to convey things like "Diverge or converge on universes with two or more of X traveler(s)"

As an example...if baddies get their hands on temporal technology in this universe and use it. Unless they know about all of the paradoxes and how to undo them, their efforts to control things gets directed to different universes much farther away. It's a solution intended to create a pocket of relative quiet and peace in the multiverse with minimal traveler intervention.

 

[Darby]

the paradoxes will endure

In physics, real physics, that's just not true. There are, by definition, no actual paradoxes. In physics a paradox is a set of circumstances or events that appear to violate one or more physical laws in some way. In the end the paradox is resolved by determining that a new law of physics was discovered or the situation was misinterpreted by the observer and it is determined that no physical law was actually violated.

Take for example the Twins Paradox where the twins age at different rates. They each have a clock that keeps time precisely the same as the other. They are set to the exact same time. One leaves, carrying along their clock and later returns. One ends up younger than the other (one clock ticked off less time than the other).

The naive interpretation is this is a paradox based on Special Relativity. They say there's no way to determine which one of us was moving and which was at rest. All motion is relative. We can say either one was moving because there is no preferred frame of reference according to Special Relativity. But that's a misinterpretation of Special Relativity. Special Relativity says multiple observers traveling at a uniform velocity (uniform state of translation) but in different directions in a vacuum cannot tell which one is moving and which one is at rest. Not even in theory. The misunderstood term is "uniform velocity". Velocity is a vector term. It has a magnitude (speed) and a direction. Magnitude and direction is the definition of a vector. Maintaining a uniform velocity means no change of speed or direction. In the Twin Paradox one twin leaves and later returns. The twins observe that one of the clocks has ticked off less time than the other.

They are surprised to learn that the one that experienced a change in velocity, i.e. felt the forces of acceleration when they were speeding up, making the turn around and then stopping to compare clocks, has aged more slowly. That twin felt all of those forces of acceleration or at least could measure them is the one that aged more slowly. There was no paradox. They misunderstood and misinterpreted Special Relativity.

 

[Darby]

They say there's no way to determine which one of us was moving and which was at rest. All motion is relative.

I forgot to add after that sentence:

If there's no way to determine which one was moving and which one was at rest because all movement is relative yet the clocks are different the twins conclude that there is a paradox.

 

[TrapperND]

I forgot to add after that sentence:

If there's no way to determine which one was moving and which one was at rest because all movement is relative yet the clocks are different the twins conclude that there is a paradox.

Hi Darby, I am just a guy, and do not disagree about what you said. You are right about the magnitude and direction thing. There is also a different rotation on the vectors as the twins circumvent the curvature of the earth, with rotation being faster on the twin flying in the airplane and the static twin being taken by the spin of the earth.

But, I don't think that's how the word paradox is being used here. I agree your definition is the one physicists currently use.

it sounds more like what was described as a paradox is concepts such as "you can go meet yourself in the past, but not meet yourself in the future". Let's assume doing this is sliding along the arrow of time while staying within your relativistic reference frame {for example, you watch the progression of the lightning strike in the Einstein train analogy from your vantage point), and jumping is changing your relativistic frame to a different one, such as suddenly being on the train instead of beside the tracks)

Now, translating this to the TT0 example of visiting yourself by sliding around on a timeline. Let's use you. Say you are 60 years old at the start of the timeline (call you darby60) and you are 90 years old at the end of the timeline (darby90). Darby90 can slide back to reminisce old times with Darby60. But, darby60 cannot slide forward to see what happened to darby90, because both Darby60 and darby90 are the same person or self contained system. Darby60 won't find darby90, because darby60 wasn't around to have aged into darby90 to be able to talk to him. In the temporal slide forward, Darby90 doesn't exist to anybody at the end of the timeline. Darby disappeared at the beginning of the timeline and reappeared at the end of the timeline still as darby60.

Now, suppose I had a time travelling device (which I don't), that I had made friends with Darby90, from within my own relativistic frame. Both the darby90/60 frame and my own share a common point of origin when the frames are grouped together into a larger imaginary single frame. When darby60 makes his slide, my friend darby90 suddenly disappears, even though I still have a memory of him preserved in my frame, Did I just lose my friend darby90 because he ceased to exist?

Now, lets translate this into practical experience under today's state of science by examining the delayed choice double slit experiment. This version splits the photons going through the two slits into two sets of paths. One path allows what comes out on the other side of the slits to continue on its way to the screen. The other path goes to the detectors that are placed much further behind the screen, forcing whatever is going along it to travel a much greater distance. That means photons hitting the detectors are doing so long after the corresponding ones have already rendered the interference patterns. But, you can still affect the interference patterns by playing around with the detectors, even though this implies you are breaking causality. Observed reality poses a paradox with what was proven in theory, but the word could also be used to describe a temporal paradox that forces things to exist or not exist.

This real experiment has been replicated thousands of times and has blown scientists minds. What could be going on here? Is it entanglement of a special kind that transcends time? Do our actions some how move our own, or the experiment's reference frames? Or, does the arrow of time always moving forward because the universe is constantly expanding create a series of constantly changing reference frames like a movie? Each event we see on the double slit screen comes from a different timeline we select by altering the detectors?

 

[PREFRONTAL TRAVEL]

There's a few reasons. Biggest one is that it creates a sort of "causality wall" or clearly identified sector of the multiverse. It does things like help reinforce any changes you make, but it's also easy to convey things like "Diverge or converge on universes with two or more of X traveler(s)"

As an example...if baddies get their hands on temporal technology in this universe and use it. Unless they know about all of the paradoxes and how to undo them, their efforts to control things gets directed to different universes much farther away. It's a solution intended to create a pocket of relative quiet and peace in the multiverse with minimal traveler intervention.

i think the theory that there is a specific set number is accurate based off of my theory that no one can have infinite universes or rather access to them. otherwise me in all those universes could collide every single day...i would be visited every single day without sleep by all my me-s that are infinite. I believe there is an option that there is only one of me...however it is possible to have two or more of me ...cloning, natural birth, doppler ....but to say that time travel is possible is a mistake at best....time is generally defined as the wrong thing ....we display age aka we age because our living cells die.... i believe we approach traveling to different universes assuming that all universes are the same size....but dimensional travel is more about our form ....kind of like ant man or honey i shrunk the kids..... the time it takes a fly to get across the room the same as me kind of thing.... also dimensions move and we may find how to identify the absolute numbers of the universe in ourselves .....therefor finding the layers of life's dimensional units by doing so ...paving the way to travel....however i do see one real way.....as i said that time travel like going back in time is physically impossible..... it however is not impossible.....in other ways of energy..... you cannot affect the time because otherwise it would not be the past...however you can calculate the absolute future and change it before it happens based on an exceedingly high rate of mathematics.... which is where we are headed with AI.... but we may travel through energy because we are energy and we can do this without any technology .... some have accidentally done this.... we can prefrontal travel because we are as one, good example is synapses.... they hold alot of clues to how to do this..... we can be anywhere we want to be and completely take over minds of someone else but if we do we will not interfere because we were meant to have done it and had already played a part in that....this is where people may debate that then if so, then the future can be changed..... but you were meant to take them over in your future, so no matter what you do it all happened in the passed leading you to this moment to do it and to be there.... so paradoxes are completely possible... if we prove time cannot be changed in the past....omg why ....this stuff gets me thinking.....dont even get me started on how the universe moves that all like oil in a pan for me.

 

[EnderX]

In physics, real physics, that's just not true. There are, by definition, no actual paradoxes. In physics a paradox is a set of circumstances or events that appear to violate one or more physical laws in some way. In the end the paradox is resolved by determining that a new law of physics was discovered or the situation was misinterpreted by the observer and it is determined that no physical law was actually violated.

Darby, we're actually closer in thought than I think you may realize. I think you probably know already (most) of what I say is true and intuitive if one accepts we live in a multiverse in constant interaction. You may even already accept the multiverse, but I've gathered you don't like it for uncomfortable reasons you've described in other posts (such as there being an infinite set of universes for all possible choices). Maybe you're in the camp that in the multiverse nothing really matters, whereas I'm in the camp that everything matters.

Your point about paradoxes is already in alignment with what I've been pitching. If you accept the multiverse, paradoxes go away.
It's a relativity problem for the most part, which stems from having incomplete information.

TrapperND is also surprisingly close as well. For the delayed choice experiment, it's not even spooky if you accept that retrocausality (advanced waves) from future measurements are what causes the wave function to collapse retro causally. Most of the time, the wave function collapses at the moment of measurement....but not 100% of the time. The universe does indeed pretty much compute whatever the next frame is, based upon the configuration state of the universe at any given moment. To your other point about the difference between how I use paradox vs how physicists commonly use it today is also pretty spot on. And yes, from a certain POV some of my paradox setup would have the appearance of someone existing / not existing, but only because that information goes missing into another universe that we may not be able to detect (yet).

^ This also goes into the deeper nature of entropy and time, because really the experience of "time" is a byproduct of entropy. Entropy is really just "how many configuration states are available from X position?". When you start out with a perfectly ordered system, there are very few configuration states that it can go to next. Once it gets to the next stage, there becomes vastly more configuration states it can go to next--which means the possibility of the entropy returning to its initial configuration state grows exponentially smaller with every cause / effect. This is why it feels like we always move forward and never backwards.

if you find a future configuration state that matches a past entropy state, you essentially "go backwards in time" to the point where that entropy state existed. Except, for the same reason described above...it becomes almost impossible that the next computation will be the same as your original worldline (because you've added a new influence into a past configuration state + the number of "next states" is huge huge) which means you will diverge from your current universe, or rather "go out of phase" with it into a universe where the configuration aligns with your observations.

Hope this helps some.

 

[TrapperND]

Darby, we're actually closer in thought than I think you may realize. I think you probably know already (most) of what I say is true and intuitive if one accepts we live in a multiverse in constant interaction. You may even already accept the multiverse, but I've gathered you don't like it for uncomfortable reasons you've described in other posts (such as there being an infinite set of universes for all possible choices). Maybe you're in the camp that in the multiverse nothing really matters, whereas I'm in the camp that everything matters.

Your point about paradoxes is already in alignment with what I've been pitching. If you accept the multiverse, paradoxes go away.
It's a relativity problem for the most part, which stems from having incomplete information.

TrapperND is also surprisingly close as well. For the delayed choice experiment, it's not even spooky if you accept that retrocausality (advanced waves) from future measurements are what causes the wave function to collapse retro causally. Most of the time, the wave function collapses at the moment of measurement....but not 100% of the time. The universe does indeed pretty much compute whatever the next frame is, based upon the configuration state of the universe at any given moment. To your other point about the difference between how I use paradox vs how physicists commonly use it today is also pretty spot on. And yes, from a certain POV some of my paradox setup would have the appearance of someone existing / not existing, but only because that information goes missing into another universe that we may not be able to detect (yet).

^ This also goes into the deeper nature of entropy and time, because really the experience of "time" is a byproduct of entropy. Entropy is really just "how many configuration states are available from X position?". When you start out with a perfectly ordered system, there are very few configuration states that it can go to next. Once it gets to the next stage, there becomes vastly more configuration states it can go to next--which means the possibility of the entropy returning to its initial configuration state grows exponentially smaller with every cause / effect. This is why it feels like we always move forward and never backwards.

if you find a future configuration state that matches a past entropy state, you essentially "go backwards in time" to the point where that entropy state existed. Except, for the same reason described above...it becomes almost impossible that the next computation will be the same as your original worldline (because you've added a new influence into a past configuration state + the number of "next states" is huge huge) which means you will diverge from your current universe, or rather "go out of phase" with it into a universe where the configuration aligns with your observations.

Hope this helps some.

I hope you are one of the good guys. it seems that Time traveler_0 acknowledges you as a friend, and that you like it here is because there has been some degree of success in repairing the future. Thank you for the sacrifices you guys have made. It cannot have been easy.

 

[Darby]

If you accept the multiverse, paradoxes go away

You don't have to accept any particular interpretation of quantum mechanics to dispatch paradoxes. As I said in the original post, by definition there are no paradoxes. Paradoxes arise through misinterpretation of events or misunderstanding the underlying physics. Sort out the physics - understand the actual physics and not what you see on alt-sci internet spaces - and the paradox is gone.

I won't get too deep into the "multiverse" or Many Worlds Interpretation issues because that's not what this thread is about. Suffice it to say, at least provisionally because I'm not offering any discussion of MWI, what you might believe that the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) says and what it actually says are probably not the same.

The bottom line in MWI, whether you are looking at the original Everett-Wheeler form or how Bryce De Witt expanded it, in the end there is but one world in MWI - "our world". The other worlds decohere - they no longer exist in "our world" and there is no way even in theory to contact, observe or communicate in any form whatsoever with them because they are no longer entangled with our world.

In matrix algebra they reside in the off-diagonal elements of the matrix. Their values in the matrix approach zero meaning interference between those worlds becomes negligible - the "branches" become completely independent of one another. The "magic" in quantum mechanics is interference patterns such as you see in the two slit experiment. There is none between these off-diagonal elements. Further, it is a mistake to even describe those worlds as being somehow "parallel worlds". Parallel indicates some sort of communication that transmits information about the worlds. That doesn't exist. The near zero values mean we know nothing about those "worlds." It's even a mistake to describe them as "worlds". The matrix represents the quantum coherence between different states, not separate "worlds." The reason for this is in MWI there is only one ψ (psi) - the squared probability of all possible outcomes of a quantum "observation". Everything including the observer and the off-diagonal elements are in the one wave function.

Part of the problem - actually a huge part of the problem - with the quantum mechanics is the limitation of our spoken and written language. We have developed it over thousands of years living in a world that we can only perceive as being Classical rather than quantum. Our language has no proper ability to describe the quantum world as it actually is. Why? Because we humans lack the physical organs to "see" the quantum world. We can't even experience through our senses the consequences of quantum effects. For example we have no language or physical ability to see, draw or describe a 4 dimensional hypercube. So we resort to using terms like "many worlds", "parallel worlds" and "the multiverse" because that's as close to reality as our language allows - and it really isn't close to how quantum reality works.

 

[EnderX]

Heh so Darby idk if you realize cause your response seemed a little standofish—we’re still pretty much in alignment. Are we friendss? :O

Where I think you’re wrong, and it’s not even your fault, is because you’re limited by the maths of this time. I’ve said before I hate quantum mechanics because it’s so ugly and nobody is right yet…my pitch (multiversal mechanics) has many worlds but it is not many worlds theory. Two totally different maths. This verse will come to see

Parallel worlds is handled differently in Multiversal Mechanics too, and has a more rigorous definition. Communication between closest neighbors is also possible and is used for computing. ARE THEY REALLY OTHER UNIVERSES? Or are they alternate or fractions of dimensions in one universe? Or something else…? It tends to get a little pedantic so I don’t even really concern myself with it. I roll with the verses. Just like I don’t care if someone calls it “Time Travel” while I just use the world “Travel”. There’s better and more interesting things to disagree about.

I also have no problem telling old physicists they’re wrong (can’t wait until professor rainman shows up again & reads these lol). It doesn’t mean anything coming from a nobody, so they wouldn’t really care. One could say there is small causal significance by me telling older physicists that their math is always going to be broken and lame

 

[TrapperND]

You don't have to accept any particular interpretation of quantum mechanics to dispatch paradoxes. As I said in the original post, by definition there are no paradoxes. Paradoxes arise through misinterpretation of events or misunderstanding the underlying physics. Sort out the physics - understand the actual physics and not what you see on alt-sci internet spaces - and the paradox is gone.

I won't get too deep into the "multiverse" or Many Worlds Interpretation issues because that's not what this thread is about. Suffice it to say, at least provisionally because I'm not offering any discussion of MWI, what you might believe that the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) says and what it actually says are probably not the same.

The bottom line in MWI, whether you are looking at the original Everett-Wheeler form or how Bryce De Witt expanded it, in the end there is but one world in MWI - "our world". The other worlds decohere - they no longer exist in "our world" and there is no way even in theory to contact, observe or communicate in any form whatsoever with them because they are no longer entangled with our world.

In matrix algebra they reside in the off-diagonal elements of the matrix. Their values in the matrix approach zero meaning interference between those worlds becomes negligible - the "branches" become completely independent of one another. The "magic" in quantum mechanics is interference patterns such as you see in the two slit experiment. There is none between these off-diagonal elements. Further, it is a mistake to even describe those worlds as being somehow "parallel worlds". Parallel indicates some sort of communication that transmits information about the worlds. That doesn't exist. The near zero values mean we know nothing about those "worlds." It's even a mistake to describe them as "worlds". The matrix represents the quantum coherence between different states, not separate "worlds." The reason for this is in MWI there is only one ψ (psi) - the squared probability of all possible outcomes of a quantum "observation". Everything including the observer and the off-diagonal elements are in the one wave function.

Part of the problem - actually a huge part of the problem - with the quantum mechanics is the limitation of our spoken and written language. We have developed it over thousands of years living in a world that we can only perceive as being Classical rather than quantum. Our language has no proper ability to describe the quantum world as it actually is. Why? Because we humans lack the physical organs to "see" the quantum world. We can't even experience through our senses the consequences of quantum effects. For example we have no language or physical ability to see, draw or describe a 4 dimensional hypercube. So we resort to using terms like "many worlds", "parallel worlds" and "the multiverse" because that's as close to reality as our language allows - and it really isn't close to how quantum reality works.

sorry to cut in..., just some interesting concepts you talked about how language falls short to describe reality.

Instead of a hypercube, I visualize a hypersphere. It appears as a regular 3D sphere that starts small, grows big, and shrinks down again as I travel through higher dimensional slices of it.

With a hypercube, I visualize a projection of its "shadow" cast onto 3D space. The shadow looks like a regular 3D cube (or rectangle} contained inside a second bigger 3D cube. The two cubes are oriented so that all their sides are parallel to one another. The verticies of each cube are connected by a line to the closest verticie of the other cube.

Then, as I travel through the slices of the hypercube, I watch it's shadow change. The inner cube as a whole moves towards a side of the bigger cube depending upon the direction I travel in through the hypercube. An interesting thing happens. The inner cube contracts along the axis it is traveling, while it's vertices move closer to the vertices of the bigger cube's side it is traveling into. That's a lot like what happens when you move in one direction in our physical universe. When the inner cube crashes into the side it is moving towards, it has contracted so much that it looks exactly like that side. Meanwhile, the opposite side of the big cube has cloned itself and popped off to form a new inner cube, that shrinks like the sphere into the innercube we started with. Essentially, it is the reverse behavior of the side of the innercube that was crashing into the bigger cube. This looks a lot like what happens when you slow down in our physical universe, to the object that is travelling.

Well, that's how I picture hyper geometry, in slices of 3d grids. Depending on how many dimensions there are,, I use imaginary numbers (square root of negative one) along additional axises perpendicular to a 3d grid. Each additional axis goes along a different direction than any of the others. This has the net effect of selecting which 3d slice you are looking at. It's kind of like the concept of having control knobs for all the fundamental constants of the universe, that when set choose the kind of universe you are looking at.

So, from your cowboy hat in your avatar picture, you look like a Texan. Huston perhaps? Are you the mission controller who saved apollo13 at NASA?

Who are you?

But, on whether we have senses that can directly perceive the higher dimensions, we do. We see and hear it as contraction and stretching in the direction of travel, just as we perceive time as changes in an object's location

 

[Darby]

So, from your cowboy hat in your avatar picture, you look like a Texan. Huston perhaps? Are you the mission controller who saved apollo13 at NASA?

No. California a block from the beach. I worked for a year for a Texas corp but I was in Texas for a total of 5 days. The other 360 days were in Mexico. I didn't work in the aerospace industry. But I do live in cowboy country.

 

[Darby]

But, on whether we have senses that can directly perceive the higher dimensions, we do.

"Higher dimensions" is not quantum mechanics. Higher dimensions simply means additional degrees of freedom (DOFs in engineering terms) beyond x,y,z or whatever coordinate system you choose. For example, pilots have to think and navigate in six spatial dimensions plus a time dimension (6+1-DOF) in order to keep the crate in the air and under conditions of controlled flight. If you are making an appointment to see your doctor you make a 4-D (or 3+1-D) appointment: location (longitude, latitude and altitude) and time,e.g., 123 Easy Street, Anytown, USA, 4th floor, room 7 at 2:30 pm, January 15th, 2025. That's a proper full 4 dimensional coordinate for the appointment. In short dimensions are expressed as DOFs. DOFs define how a particle can move (translate [change position], rotate or vibrate) or have its state altered (spin, polarity or other quantum properties). In physics a "particle" can literally be a sub-atomic particle or an entire planet depending on the scale involved.

The alt-sci sense of "higher dimensions" fails to take the time to actually look up a proper definition of "dimension" and then "higher dimension." It's called "pseudo-scientific hand waving word salad" without proper definitions.

 

[TrapperND]

"Higher dimensions" is not quantum mechanics. Higher dimensions simply means additional degrees of freedom (DOFs in engineering terms) beyond x,y,z or whatever coordinate system you choose. For example, pilots have to think and navigate in six spatial dimensions plus a time dimension (6+1-DOF) in order to keep the crate in the air and under conditions of controlled flight. If you are making an appointment to see your doctor you make a 4-D (or 3+1-D) appointment: location (longitude, latitude and altitude) and time,e.g., 123 Easy Street, Anytown, USA, 4th floor, room 7 at 2:30 pm, January 15th, 2025. That's a proper full 4 dimensional coordinate for the appointment.

The alt-sci sense of "higher dimensions" fails to take the time to actually look up a proper definition of "dimension" and then "higher dimension." It's called "pseudo-scientific hand waving word salad" without proper definitions.

I was just saying I agree our languages fail to allow us to describe reality. As far as dimensions go, my definition is not a spatial one. A dimension for me is a degree of freedom to specify a value for an attribute. It does not have to be spatial. The examples were to give something tangible in how I visualize things when words are not enough to describe them.

 

[Darby]

Expand the "pilot" example to the general case and your daily existence means you live in a world where you have a 6-DOF choice to move about (left, right, up, down, backward and forward)

 

[TrapperND]

No. California a block from the beach. I worked for a year for a Texas corp but I was in Texas for a total of 5 days. The other 360 days were in Mexico. I didn't work in the aerospace industry. But I do live in cowboy country.

So, how do you know so much about physics and Quantum mechanics? Not easy areas for a hobby...

On my end, it's accidental. I am just a humble programmer.

 

[TrapperND]

Expand the "pilot" example to the general case and your daily existence means you live in a world where you have a 6-DOF choice to move about (left, right, up, down, backward and forward)

So..... I am assuming you are saying those are the only translations available to objects in our universe, and that "time travel" is not one of them, and therefore it cannot exist?

 

[Darby]

A dimension for me is a degree of freedom to specify a value for an attribute.

And that is a perfectly legitimate use of the term. As I indicated, a DOF includes translation [movement from here to there] but it also includes the ability for particles' quantum states to change (or to be changed). You can change its spin, charge, angular momentum, state of vibration, etc. The degrees of freedom to change a particle's quantum state to another state can be very large.

 

[TrapperND]

And that is a perfectly legitimate use of the term. As I indicated, a DOF includes translation [movement from here to there] but it also includes the ability for particles' quantum states to change (or to be changed). You can change its spin, charge, angular momentum, state of vibration, etc. The degrees of freedom to change a particle's quantum state to another state can be very large.

It sounds like you are a quantum physicist by training. The strong force is an interesting phenomena. It almost works like a bubble of some kind. It's like if you poured a little bit of vegetable oil into a bowl of water and tried to spread out the oil puddle with a spoon to cover the entire surface. No matter how hard you try, the edges break off and form their own bubbles. It's like the strong force is made of folds or puckers in space that are both elastic and brittle at the same time, if not immovable