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Motion Mountain Physikverein - Motion Mountain Research

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A general note. This site is for sharing knowledge about physics. If you email me politely, I will try to answer questions and help.

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Book errata and topic suggestions can be added on the wiki at https://sites.google.com/view/motionmountainsuggestions/. Every erratum and every suggestion that you send in is thoroughly evaluated. Good ones are rewarded. Research feedback is best sent via mail.

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The Motion Mountain Physikverein (in English: Motion Mountain Research) is a non-profit research organisation that is charitable and tax-exempt according to German law. Part of the work is done in Italy. The organisation has two aims in its statute: distributing the free physics textbook (the green web pages) and conducting research in fundamental physics (the grey web pages). Your donation, however small, is welcome – and tax-deducible. The use of the donations is controlled by the German tax authorities. Thank you in advance for any donation – also in the name of all future readers. People who read make the world a better place.

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Christoph Schiller, the author of the Motion Mountain Textbook, was born in 1960 and is of Italian, German and European heritage. He is married and has two children. Raised bilingually in Varese (Italy), he studied physics at the Universität Stuttgart (Germany) and received his PhD in theoretical physics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), in the department of Ilya Prigogine, supported by a grant of the Volkswagenstiftung and one of the European Union. He has also lived in Switzerland, the UK, France, Japan and the Netherlands. His Erdős number is 5, and so is his Einstein number – typical numbers for a physicist of his age. His publications and preprints are found on this site, on ResearchGate and on Google Scholar. He tweets at https://x.com/MotionMountainP, toots at https://mastodon.social/@MotionMountain and writes at https://motionmountain.substack.com.

As a physicist, Christoph Schiller is known for making physics accessible and for having discovered three laws of physics.
      1. His freely downloadable Motion Mountain Physics Textbook makes physics simple and captivating. This book series grew from his fascination for nature, his drive to understand everything that moves, and his passion to write about it. It is downloaded many 10 000 times a year. He likes to summarize the book series in a simple way:

All of physics can be summarized in 9 short lines.

This shows the fascination of physics. As explained next, he played a role in formulating two of the nine lines and then he reduced them all to just one.
      2. While writing his book series, in the years leading to 2003, he formulated and published in his textbook and then in an arxiv preprint a way to summarize general relativity in a single line:

The principle of maximum force: general relativity is a consequence of nature's maximum force value c⁴/4G.

The principle, discovered independently also by Gary Gibbons, is becoming a topic in an increasing number of publications. He also won a small award for a paper explaining the topic with his colleagues Arun Kenath and C. Sivaram. See his publication list on maximum force at motionmountain.net/maximumforce.html#pp.
      3. Also while writing his book series, together with Uwe Hohm, he summarized thermodynamics in a single line:

The principle of minimum entropy: thermodynamics is a consequence of nature's smallest system entropy k ln2.

Also this principle appeared to be new and led to a joint publication.
      4. Maximum force, minimum entropy, and the nine lines led to his latest pastime, the strand tangle model, which is presented on the research page. The strand tangle model builds on his discovery that the gauge groups U(1), SU(2) and SU(3) are due to the three Reidemeister moves. The strand tangle model summarizes physics in a single line:

The fundamental principle: all observations and all laws of physics, from general relativity to quantum theory and particle physics, are a consequence of generating each quantum of action ħ with a crossing switch of fluctuating strands with Planck radius. Strands describe nature.

As published in a series of papers, the fundamental principle implies wave functions, spinors, quantum mechanics, particles, special relativity, quantum field theory, space, general relativity, horizons, and black holes, deduces the gauge interactions, determines the observed elementary particles, fixes the fundamental constants to unique values, contains the principle of least action, and uniquely derives the Lagrangians of general relativity and of the standard model of elementary particle physics with massive mixing neutrinos. So far, all tests and all predictions of the strand tangle model agree with the observations, and all observations are explained by strands. If the strand tangle model is correct – as it appears to be – the fundamental principle implies that the laws of nature are complete. The publication list on the strand tangle model is found at motionmountain.net/research.html. Christoph is cooperating with several researchers across the world to check the principle in all its aspects.

As an innovator, Christoph Schiller grows high-tech businesses by transforming physics into products and jobs. He also writes and talks about how experience with physics improves innovation management and risk management. Similarly, he likes to tell how experience in industry helps to improve teaching and to improve research.

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Pledge: Both Christoph Schiller and Motion Mountain Research fully endorse the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity of All European Academies (ALLEA), the Rules of Good Scientific Practice of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, the German Research Foundation), and the Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) of the National Science Foundation of the United States. We all share a value: truthfulness. Truth in physics and in science is decided by agreement with observations. There is no knowingly false or misleading statement in the texts or the website. All statements have been carefully checked with observations. If you find a statement in the texts or on this website that is or might be wrong or misleading, just write: it will be examined and improved until it is neither.

This is a science website, and science means: statements must agree with observations. This implies that "science" does not state or teach anything. Only careful observation does. Science is a method and an attitude: science is the cultivation of curiosity and doubt, the disbelief in authorities and experts, and the habit of letting only careful observation decide what is right or wrong. In particular, if a person does not answer doubts, her statements are neither true nor part of science.

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Declaration of competing interests: The lack of competing interests is declared. In particular, the donations generated by this website do not even cover the costs of the internet provider. No income through advertizing or sponsors is generated, for over 25 years. So far, the only substantial donation (and income) was received from Klaus Tschira himself, through his foundation, over a decade ago.
 

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