The Dimension of Time
in [Relativity]
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From: Inertial on 21 Dec 2009 02:15 "Henry Wilson DSc." <HW@..> wrote in message news:jbnti5pufv8nnj3huc71k7ci1mj8m6sh2n(a)4ax.com... > On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:53:26 +1100, "Inertial" <relatively(a)rest.com> > wrote: > >> >>"Henry Wilson DSc." <HW@..> wrote in message >>news:lv7ti5l3ku8ehn83bcse2qsi0i4onu856t(a)4ax.com... >>> On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:20:28 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_rose0(a)hotmail.com> > >>>> >>>>Obviously I haven't posted here before, so I'm not sure whether there >>>>is anyone here who can discuss this at an appropriate level. And more >>>>generally, I'm interested to know whether the assumption of forward >>>>movement is not just a product of subjective human intuitions (and >>>>bearing in mind that every paradigm shift in science has involved >>>>throwing out what was previously held as unquestionable). >>> >>> As you can see, asking intelligent questions here is usually a waste of >>> time. >> >>How would you know .. you've not asked any (at least not many) >> >>> People like David Smith respond with entirely circular logic and think >>> they are >>> making intelligent comments, when in fact they are merely preaching >>> their >>> nonsensical relativist religion. >> >>Yeah .. we know you're ant anti-relativist crackpot .. move along. >> >>> Other people claim that time and time flow do >>> not actually exist but are just psychological constructs. >> >>I don't think time could be said to not exist, as there are certainly >>things >>that change over time. > > Some say 'change' exists but not time. They are confused because changes > involve 'rates' which involve time. You cannot have change without time >>That it is seen to 'flow' is possibly a psychological construction. Just >>like hearing 'music' is a psychological construction based on vibrations >>received in the ear. The vibrations are real, but it being 'music' is >>subjective. >> >>And that there is what appears to be a 'now', and that 'now' seems to >>remain >>and things change within it (rather than the other way around), may well >>be >>psychological. > > geez, you're trying to be clever today... No .. I *am* clever, as always >>> The whole subject TIME is often classified as philosophy, when in fact >>> it >>> is >>> very much a physical question. >> >>It really depends on the question being asked > > I doubt it You need to think more. There is a philosophical area for more subjects in physics. Whether a question is in the realm of philosophy or physics/science depends on the nature of the questin. >>> One might also ask for a physical explanation of >>> why 'space' exists. One day these questions will be answered, just as >>> 'action-at-a-distance' will. After all, physics is only a few hundred >>> years old >>> and still very much in its infancy. >> >>True. Though usually questions of 'why' things exist is beyond physics . > > Explaining a metre is beyond your level of physics. Hardly. >>'why' they behave as they do can often be explained .. but then it is >>really >>is more of a question of 'how' it works .. not 'why' (ie giving a purpose >>to >>it). > > Nonsense. No > The 'why' can always be explained to a certain level....in terms of > known axioms. Lightning and thunder are prime examples...but you probably > still > think Zeus is responsible. No .. at those levels it is a how ... what other processes interact to give the results. "Why" is a question of purpose .. some sort 'meaning' .. that is not the domain of science. Though you woulnd't know as your grasp of science is so feeble >>> In my opinion TIME is a basic dimension, totally unrelated to the >>> spatial >>> ones. >>> We feel time 'flowing' because we possess fairly accurate biological >>> clocks >>> that sense that flow. >> >>So we feel time flowing because we feel time flowing. > > why not? > ....we feel water flowing because we feel water flowing. I didn't say why not .. it is just pure tautology .. exactly what you accuse David Smith of. >>> To us, time flows at 1 second per second, by definition.... >> >>Yet time does not always seem to flow at the same rate. As we get older, >>time seem to flow slower. When you're holding your breath a few seconds >>seems a long time etc. Its all subjective. > > that's why I used 'n' below. > >>> a statement that is >>> plainly circular >> >>Indeed it is >> >>> UNLESS there are at least two time subdimensions. Then, just >>> as we can assess the slope of a hill as 'metres UP per metre ALONG', we >>> might >>> say that "time flows at the rate of n t1 seconds per t2 second". >> >>Or the '1 second per second' is just circular nonsense .. like saying a >>cars >>length is one meter per meter > > Hey dopey, the gradient of a hill has units 'metres/metre'. > Is that circular. Clearly not , as it involves a description of slop over two orthogonal spatial dimensions. Time doesn't have that notion. 1 second per second describing the flow of time IS circular .. a tautology. >>> As far as past and future are concerned consider this: do all states of >>> the >>> universe 'always' exist and are we simply 'falling' down the absolute >>> time >>> axis? >> >>It depends on what you mean by 'exists'. Obviously the past and future do >>not exist now. Did the past exists in the past and will the future exist >>in >>the future ? .. of course. In that sense they exist. >> >>> Then ask yourself this question,"If I wasn't alive, what year would it >>> be?" >> >>When? > > Precisely. The answer to "What year is it" depends on when you ask it. >>> The 'present' seems to be fundamentally associated with conscious life. >> >>Yeup >> >>For once you've made a sensible post .. congratulations. > > All my posts are sensible, but usually too technical for the likes of you. BAHAHA .. hardly .. you make posts attempting to refute SR when you don't even know what SR says. That's not at all sensible. > >>There's hope for >>you yet :) > > You didn't.... Didn't what? > but I'll give you some credit for trying. I'll take that as the closest I'll get to a compliment from you :)
From: Ste on 21 Dec 2009 14:03 On 20 Dec, 17:22, dlzc <dl...(a)cox.net> wrote: > > > > We don't remember tomorrow. > > > Droll. But I ask the question in all > > seriousness, > > I gave an elegant (or at least not incorrect in any part) and reasoned > answer. And schizophrenics often hear voices, but I was hoping for a more detailed justification than simply appeal to bare human perception or intuition. > > and because it strikes me that there is > > nothing that suggests an absolute constant > > movement forward along any spacial > > dimension, so why is there an assumption > > of constant movement forward along the > > time dimension (which introduces > > absurdities like travelling into the past)? > > Not an assumption. Based on evidence, the cause never follows the > effect. But isn't that a tautology? By definition, the cause precedes the effect, and it relies on a model of time that is ever-moving-forward. We know from experiments showing "time dilation" that where event A would normally be observed to precede event B, it can be made to happen that event B will observably precede event A. But rather than assuming that the forward progression of time "slowed down" for the material phenomenon responsible for event B, why not simply think in terms of the events having moved away from each other in time (without requiring any overall movement forward)? > > On the subject of travelling into the > > past, how would travelling backwards in > > time, be distinguishable from simply > > restoring the universe to the same > > physical state as in the past (but which > > had not actually travelled "back in time" > > in any meaningful sense)? > > Violation of conservation of mass/energy. Violation of Pauli > exclusion principle. The same matter cannot be in the same Universe > twice, or at least it has never been seen to do so. It is certainly true that to change the state of part of the present universe would consume a great deal of energy elsewhere in the universe - such that, overall, the universe was not in an identical state as in the past. But let us consider time travel. Sending matter back into the past would lead to mass/energy being lost from the present, and deposited in the past, yes? And if energy is robbed from the future and deposited in the past, then really one may have described the same process as robbing energy from half of the universe, to fund the restoration of another part of the universe. Thus, how would a system restored to a particular state by consuming energy from a different place in time, be any different to a system restored to particular state by consuming energy from a different place in space? Would the two not be indistinguishable by reference to their internal state? If not, then why treat the dimension of time differently from the dimensions of space? > There have been > SciFi stories of people that "aged" backwards, and remembered the > future but not the past... the bodies appeared to the rest of us as > moving forward. Lol. I'm sure we can dismiss sci-fi from our consideration. > > Obviously I haven't posted here before, > > so I'm not sure whether there is anyone > > here who can discuss this at an > > appropriate level. > > If you want mathematics and appropriate basis in underlying and > related physical laws, you might post instead on > sci.physics.foundations. It is a moderated newsgroup, so it'll take a > while for your posts and replies to appear. To be honest at this stage I'm not as interested in discussing it at a mathematical level, as much as I am interested to know whether anyone has ever suggested the idea before, and if so what are the criticisms of the idea. > > And more generally, I'm interested to > > know whether the assumption of forward > > movement is not just a product of > > subjective human intuitions (and > > bearing in mind that every paradigm > > shift in science has involved throwing > > out what was previously held as > > unquestionable). > > It is not an assumption. It is the result of experiment. Phenomenon > in systems have been found to be irreversible. "The Arrow of Time" > applies only to systems, much as "population mean" applies only to > populations. That does not strike me as a proof. If there is an experiment that has *proven* the forward movement of time, then I'm interested to know of it so I can find out more about it. > I'd suggest you question the "assumption" of gravity in a similar > way. Might as well try something that Nature can speak directly to > you about. Our understanding of gravity has changed many times over the centuries. No one "questions gravity", any more than I am questioning time itself; what I am questioning is our understanding of it. And in particular what I'm saying is that we put "the past" and "the future" to bed as fictions of the mind, much as we have put to bed fictions about the four humours, and heaven and hell (though this one still kicks beneath the covers). What if we properly understand time as something that actually remains still on Earth? What if "time dilation" is properly understood not as time moving faster or slower, but simply of time *moving*, as opposed to the (near-)stillness of perceived time on Earth? What if we are measuring *something other than movement of time* when we measure minutes and seconds? I'm being quite serious when I ask, has *anyone* ever tried to work with this assumption? If they have, who are they, and what did they have to say on the subject?
From: eric gisse on 21 Dec 2009 14:58 HW@..(Henry Wilson DSc). wrote: [...] Now would be a great time to tell everyone why you think there are three subdimensions of time and how space is logarithmic. Or did you silently drop those ideas because they were ridiculous?
From: dlzc on 21 Dec 2009 15:41 Dear Ste: Now to the rest of your post... On Dec 21, 12:03 pm, Ste <ste_ro...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > On 20 Dec, 17:22,dlzc<dl...(a)cox.net> wrote: > > > > > We don't remember tomorrow. > > > > Droll. But I ask the question in all > > > seriousness, > > > I gave an elegant (or at least not > > incorrect in any part) and reasoned > > answer. > > And schizophrenics often hear voices, > but I was hoping for a more detailed > justification than simply appeal to > bare human perception or intuition. You keep asking why do *we* think this or that, but you don't want to know *why* we see things that way? Who is schizophrenic? Is our belief driven by our perception, or not? > > > and because it strikes me that there is > > > nothing that suggests an absolute constant > > > movement forward along any spacial > > > dimension, so why is there an assumption > > > of constant movement forward along the > > > time dimension (which introduces > > > absurdities like travelling into the past)? > > > Not an assumption. Based on evidence, > > the cause never follows the effect. > > But isn't that a tautology? Spark leads to flame is not a tautology. Memory laid into an existing knowledge base is not a tautology. > By definition, the cause precedes the > effect, and it relies on a model of > time that is ever-moving-forward. It does not rely on a preexisting "model". > We know from experiments showing "time > dilation" that where event A would normally > be observed to precede event B, it can be > made to happen that event B will observably > precede event A. No, it cannot in general. If events A and B are light-like separated (or slower), then they are always seen to occur in the same order. > But rather than assuming that the forward > progression of time "slowed down" for the > material phenomenon responsible for event > B, why not simply think in terms of the > events having moved away from each other > in time (without requiring any overall > movement forward)? Mox nix. (A distinction without a difference.) > > > On the subject of travelling into the > > > past, how would travelling backwards in > > > time, be distinguishable from simply > > > restoring the universe to the same > > > physical state as in the past (but which > > > had not actually travelled "back in time" > > > in any meaningful sense)? > > > Violation of conservation of mass/energy. > > Violation of Pauli exclusion principle. > > The same matter cannot be in the same > > Universe twice, or at least it has never > > been seen to do so. > > It is certainly true that to change the > state of part of the present universe > would consume a great deal of energy > elsewhere in the universe - such that, > overall, the universe was not in an > identical state as in the past. Yet we see "identical" physics displayed for the last 13+ billion years, with a monotonic shift in the fine structure constant of 1 part in 10^8 in that time. > But let us consider time travel. Sending > matter back into the past would lead to > mass/energy being lost from the present, > and deposited in the past, yes? Yes, and doubled-up for the duration of its stay. > And if energy is robbed from the future > and deposited in the past, then really > one may have described the same process > as robbing energy from half of the > universe, to fund the restoration of > another part of the universe. Not really, since the matter will eventually propagate forward to the point of its departure, if nothing else were to occur. You have a doubling of matter for some finite span. Or if the trip is into the future (ala. The Time Machine), then the matter is missing for that time. > Thus, how would a system restored to a > particular state by consuming energy > from a different place in time, be any > different to a system restored to > particular state by consuming energy from > a different place in space? Gravitational effects different, spacetime would have to adjust. > Would the two not be indistinguishable > by reference to their internal state? No. > If not, then why treat the dimension of > time differently from the dimensions of > space? We don't. That is what relativity is all about. Proper displacement: s^2 = - (c/\t)^2 + (/\x^2 + /\y^2 + /\x^2) .... typically the only thing we have different is the units. I'd recommend "Spacetime Physics" by Taylor and Wheeler, which has as much or as little mathematics as you'd wish. > > There have been SciFi stories of people > > that "aged" backwards, and remembered the > > future but not the past... the bodies > > appeared to the rest of us as moving > > forward. > > Lol. I'm sure we can dismiss sci-fi from > our consideration. The distance between thought experiments and SciFi is a lot shorter than you seem to think. Look at the works of Arthur C. Clarke. > > > Obviously I haven't posted here before, > > > so I'm not sure whether there is anyone > > > here who can discuss this at an > > > appropriate level. > > > If you want mathematics and appropriate > > basis in underlying and related physical > > laws, you might post instead on > > sci.physics.foundations. It is a > > moderated newsgroup, so it'll take a > > while for your posts and replies to appear. > > To be honest at this stage I'm not as > interested in discussing it at a mathematical > level, as much as I am interested to know > whether anyone has ever suggested the idea > before, and if so what are the criticisms > of the idea. Best place to ask if anyone was able to find anything to the idea worth investigating to even that extent. > > > And more generally, I'm interested to > > > know whether the assumption of forward > > > movement is not just a product of > > > subjective human intuitions (and > > > bearing in mind that every paradigm > > > shift in science has involved throwing > > > out what was previously held as > > > unquestionable). > > > It is not an assumption. It is the > > result of experiment. Phenomenon in > > systems have been found to be irreversible. > > "The Arrow of Time" applies only to systems, > > much as "population mean" applies only to > > populations. > > That does not strike me as a proof. You wanted to know something has been considered, then you discount this out-of-hand? > If there is an experiment that has > *proven* the forward movement of time, > then I'm interested to know of it so I > can find out more about it. Science is not about proof, but disproof. We make guesses as to how Nature will behave, then we find out how good our guesses were. How can we disprove your idea? What features would you expect to see, that differ from other models of time? > > I'd suggest you question the "assumption" > > of gravity in a similar way. Might as well > > try something that Nature can speak directly > > to you about. > > Our understanding of gravity has changed many > times over the centuries. No one "questions > gravity", any more than I am questioning > time itself; what I am questioning is our > understanding of it. Do you expect mass to fall up in your "understanding"? > And in particular what I'm saying is that we > put "the past" and "the future" to bed as > fictions of the mind, much as we have put to > bed fictions about the four humours, and > heaven and hell (though this one still > kicks beneath the covers). Worse than under the covers... So you want to repeal drinking age laws, patent law, gestation periods, and what else? > What if we properly understand time as > something that actually remains still on > Earth? What if "time dilation" is properly > understood not as time moving faster or > slower, No one that studies relativity thinks that. That is the soap that the cranks peddle. It is easy to believe, but applies more "common sense" interpretations to what is happening that what you appear to be comfortable with (based on your question). > but simply of time *moving*, as opposed > to the (near-)stillness of perceived time > on Earth? What if we are measuring > *something other than movement of time* > when we measure minutes and seconds? Yes, we are measuring (in some sense) the second law of theromdynamics. "Time" is like the magnitude of some vector quantity, in that it only ever has one sign. Whatever that "vector" might be, it has never expressed itself in our Universe except as a "magnitude". David A. Smith
From: PD on 21 Dec 2009 16:05
On Dec 19, 6:18 pm, Ste <ste_ro...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > I was contemplating the laws of physics, as one does, and in the > course of some basic research on the matter I came across the concept > of the "arrow of time", and the statement that whereas one can move in > both directions in space, currently we can only move forward in time. > > Now I'm not an expert in physics, so perhaps this question may come > across as ridiculously simple. But setting aside for one moment human > perception and common sense, the question is this: exactly what leads > us to conclude that we are constantly moving forward in time? Because it is an observed fact that certain processes (that can be characterized by certain thermodynamic properties) go in only one direction, and we don't see them go in the other direction. For example, a dropped plate shatters and this is a common observation, but we never see shards reassemble into a smooth plate.' There is therefore an *observational* imbalance. We can then induce that there are some kind of laws in nature (like the 2nd law of thermodynamics) that says that if a process involves a change in certain properties, then it will only run one way in observed time and not run the other way. PD |