'Hidden in Plain Sight' by Andrew Thomas

Hi everyone. Hopefully this hasn't been discussed too much before, but a search for the name of this book and the author didn't turn up much.

I picked up the following book somewhat on a whim from the Kindle store at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Plain-S...in+plain+sight

The book seems like a fairly standard description of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, however it seems to make a fairly bold statement, summed up well in this Amazon review:

If you are familiar with relativity then you have probably seen an explanation of how velocity is relative. The explanation goes something like this -- suppose you have a space ship moving through space and you want to know its velocity. It turns out that the answer depends on the observer. If you have a 2nd space ship then an observer on that space ship could measure the speed of the first space ship relative to his own speed. For example, he might determine that the first space ship is moving at 600 mph relative to his own speed, which for sake of argument we could say is stationary (0 mph). However, an observer on a third space ship could determine a completely different speed for the first space ship. Let's say the third space ship is traveling at 400 mph in the opposite direction of the first space ship. An observer on the third space ship could perceive his own space ship as stationary, the first space ship traveling at 1000 mph (600 mph + 400 mph) and the second space ship travelling at 400 mph. It is all relative. Speed means nothing without an observer measuring it against something.

Andrew Thomas takes this a step further. He suggests that we consider a space ship travelling through space without any frame of reference. We know that it is moving, and that we will be able to measure its velocity once we have another frame of reference, so what is its current velocity prior to having that second frame of reference? His answer is that its velocity is "ALL" the velocities between 0 and the speed of light. It is only once we have a second frame of reference that the space ship's velocity collapses to measurable rate.

Quantum mechanics works exactly the same. If you are familiar with QM then you will have seen the light through two slits experiment. When the light passing through the slits is not observed it creates a wave pattern on the surface beyond the slits. However, if we use a detector to determine which slit the photons are actually passing through then the wave pattern goes away and is replaced with a particle pattern. The act of observing changes the behavior of the photons.

Why this happens has always been rather mysterious. Thomas' explanation is really simple. He argues that just like with Einstein's theory of relativity, QM is also, relative. A photon doesn't have a position without a second frame of reference. The photon's position is simply described with a wave function, and only when there is a second frame of reference does the wave function collapse down into a particle position. Without a second frame of reference it would be like a space ship traveling at ALL velocities. Without the second frame of reference the photon passes through both slits. If a second frame of reference is added it can only pass through one.

This all ties into the universe being entirely relative. Nothing exists outside of the universe. This includes time, space, velocity, position, etc. They all depend on one another for any meaning.

It is authored by Andrew Thomas, who according to the author blurb on Amazon is a physicist who runs this blog:

http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/

I'm just wondering if anyone is familiar with this fellow, or has any comments about the book? It seems very interesting to me, but I lack the knowledge to make much of a judgement about it and was hoping someone here would know more.

Thanks!

Source: http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php/139496-Hidden-in-Plain-Sight-by-Andrew-Thomas

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