11 days later

I would address specifically to the so called "The time problem" and of course to this article "Killing time".

I am going to be as concrete as possible; if you read the article you will realize why it can't be shorter. Mainly theoretical physicists are the most interested in "the nature of time" and they like to believe the subject is inherent to physicists and you will see it's no so.

I will follow with an advice of somebody than most physicists in the world respect, Albert Einstein. "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the physicist cannot possibly to be restricted to the examination of the concepts of his own specific field. He cannot proceed without considering critically a much more difficult problem, the problem of analyzing the nature of everyday thinking.

Our psychological experience contains, in colorful succession, sense experiences, memory pictures of them, images, and feelings. In contrast to psychology, physics treats directly only of sense experiences and of the "understanding" of their connection. But even the concept of the "real external world" of everyday thinking rests exclusively of sense impressions" "Ideas and Opinions" Einstein, pg.283 y 284, ISBN Nº 440-04150-150.

I think this should be read slow, understanding each and every word of his thought about mind functioning, some times is as important as mathematics formulas.

To make possible to comprehend this article, first you should believe possible that "The problem of time" can be solve. Second let the mind freer to the understanding of new things, for this, we should say that

"time" has no definition, no empiric meaning, also can't be sense by any of our senses or by any man designed artifact, nobody can make a description or recognize "time". To make clearer this article we should keep in mind the last three lines through all the reading.

If was any other word with those characteristics we immediately would say "time does not exist".

why we don't say that, because since pre-Socratic Heraclito ,and after Socrates Plato and Aristoteles 2600 or 2300 years ago we are measuring what we call "time" and as physicist Sean Carroll said being quote by Lee Smolin "There is no question that time exists--we use it everyday," If we give this, as a reason of "time" existence. How he can be sure that exist, if he don't know what it is? The Carroll reason is, that he think he use it every day. Certainly for use, he meant measuring the so called "time". How he knows that what he is measuring is "time" and no something else? like movement ?

Everybody knows movement, it has definition, empiric meaning. Everything with physical existence moves, from a galaxy to a subatomic particle. Movement origin is very much older and certain that "time". If the big-bang, happen, there was movement, life is possible because movement, our brain metabolism, which moves, is our mind that consider all movement we know of, that surround us. How we are not going to measure movement? We did it since the beginning of written history, but thinking that we were measuring "time".

People think that with the clock movement we measure "time" and with it, comparatively we measure every other movement, change and transformation. A clock, to be one should have a "constant", "uniform" movement, if it is not so it's not a clock.

The physical prove that we measure movement with movement consist that with a clock "constant" movement we measure fractions of "constant" earth rotation movement represented by clock dial numbers, as the hour, these are the reasons that this are "movements units" and no "time units"

New duration definition: It is the period of change and transformation that movement allows and men limit.

Then the so called "time" is movement .When we think we are measuring "time" we are not conscious, that in fact we are measuring movement, as we always did, we do and we are going to keep doing it. Knowing this does not change any physic law. We have to remember that classic physics, relativity and quantum mechanics were created, developed and physicist keep working with them with out the need to know of "The nature of time", but knowing that "time" it is not a mysterious thing, but movement, a quality or property of everything with physical existence, we know that we can related it to anything of physical existence.

Not only is needed to quantized general relativity to the goal of the "the theory of everything" but we also can understand conclusions of general relativity like "that velocity and gravity slows time" in GPS (imagine an analogical clock) the satellite one slows respect it's similar on land why? because the satellite clock inertia, because it's speed slows clock parts movement, slowing it's functioning respect the one on land, what slows it is not "time", but it's functioning

Gravity slows the clock in the valley respect it's similar on top of the mountain, because the first one is affected for more gravity than the other, gravity slows clock parts functioning it is not the "time" than slows.

Since Heraclito to Einstein passing through Newton men always ask themselves, What it is time? to reach reality, they should ask themselves What we are measuring? And quite easily they would find out that was movement. All the other things that can be made knowing this it would make this to long.

Time probably is a remnant word which represented a very important concept for men that mankind forgot it's meaning as Einstein pre-scientific concepts. Héctor Daniel Gianni

E-mail: hectorgianni38@hotmail.com

24 days later

Quantum Gravity and Doublethink

QUANTUM GRAVITY IN PERSPECTIVE, LMU Munich, 31st May - 1st June 2013: "The search for a theory which would unite the insights of general relativity with those of quantum theory, a theory of quantum gravity, has now lasted the better part of a century. Although a number of promising candidate theories have emerged (string theory and loop quantum gravity being the most prominent), a large array of conceptual, formal and methodological issues are still unresolved. The increasingly fractured nature of the field - with long standing and well publicised disagreements over the premisses, goals and criteria for evaluation relevant to a 'theory of quantum gravity' - might be seen as one significant factor impeding progress. (...) INVITED SPEAKERS: Nazim Bouatta (Cambridge), Richard Dawid (Vienna), Johanna Erdmenger (Max Planck Munich), Sabine Hossenfelder (NORDITA), Claus Kiefer (Cologne), Brian Pitts (Cambridge), Dean Rickles (Sydney), Nicholas Teh (Cambridge), Chris Wuthrich (UCSD)"

Einsteinians are going to extract career and money from this "search for a theory which would unite the insights of general relativity with those of quantum theory" for yet another century although they all know that "the root of all the evil" is the absurd special relativistic time, a direct consequence of Einstein's 1905 false light postulate:

Frank Wilczek: "Einstein's special theory of relativity calls for radical renovation of common-sense ideas about time. Different observers, moving at constant velocity relative to one another, require different notions of time, since their clocks run differently. Yet each such observer can use his "time" to describe what he sees, and every description will give valid results, using the same laws of physics. In short: According to special relativity, there are many quite different but equally valid ways of assigning times to events. Einstein himself understood the importance of breaking free from the idea that there is an objective, universal "now." Yet, paradoxically, today's standard formulation of quantum mechanics makes heavy use of that discredited "now." Playing with paradoxes is part of a theoretical physicist's vocation, as well as high-class recreation. Let's play with this one. (...) As we've seen, if a and b are space-like separated, then either can come before the other, according to different moving observers. So it is natural to ask: If a third event, c, is space-like separated with respect to both a and b, can all possible time-orderings, or "chronologies," of a, b, c be achieved? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is No. We can see why in Figures 5 and 6. Right-moving observers, who use up-sloping lines of constant time, similar to the lines of constant t2 in Figure 2, will see b come before both a and c (Figure 5). But c may come either after or before a, depending on how steep the slope is. Similarly, according to left-moving observers (Figure 6), a will always come before b and c, but the order of b and c varies. The bottom line: c never comes first, but other than that all time-orderings are possible. These exercises in special relativity are entertaining in themselves, but there are also serious issues in play. They arise when we combine special relativity with quantum mechanics."

Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects."

"Many physicists argue that time is an illusion. Lee Smolin begs to differ. (...) Smolin wishes to hold on to the reality of time. But to do so, he must overcome a major hurdle: General and special relativity seem to imply the opposite. In the classical Newtonian view, physics operated according to the ticking of an invisible universal clock. But Einstein threw out that master clock when, in his theory of special relativity, he argued that no two events are truly simultaneous unless they are causally related. If simultaneity - the notion of "now" - is relative, the universal clock must be a fiction, and time itself a proxy for the movement and change of objects in the universe. Time is literally written out of the equation. Although he has spent much of his career exploring the facets of a "timeless" universe, Smolin has become convinced that this is "deeply wrong," he says."

Pentcho Valev

    Is Einstein's 1905 light postulate false?

    "An immediate consequence of the light postulate is that observers in the inertially moving spaceship will not judge the light signal to have slowed, no matter how fast they are moving past us. That is impossible according to classical Newtonian physics."

    They will judge the frequency to have decreased, in accordance with classical Newtonian physics:

    f' = f(1-v/c) = (c-v)/L

    where v is the speed of the spaceship (relative to us), f=c/L is the original frequency and L is the wavelength. This means that the light signal is slower in the spaceship (c'=c-v).

    Since the "immediate consequence of the light postulate" is false, the light postulate is false as well. That is, the speed of light does depend on the speed of the light source.

    Pentcho Valev

    5 days later

    Daniel, Georgina,

    The problem is always the same. Not knowing the difference between physics and metaphysics, and the limits of each.

    There is EXPERIENCE, what we make up of the world through our senses and mind. EXPERIENCE requires our presence to happen to exist. So, forget about physics without observer; we are always part and cause of the observation and its interpretation.

    And there is SUBSTANCE, that which does not require our presence or observation to exist.

    The real universe is made of substance. Our reality is made of our experience of the real universe. We create our own reality which, without our senses and mind, is just a dark place filled with matter and radiations. (Even " matter and radiations" are evolved concepts of ours).

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The thing is that we can only know about time indirectly by deducing it from experience like motion, change, etc. The reason that time is so elusive is that it is not physical but rather metaphysical ; it cannot be an experience. It is here and there without requiring our presence. We may only deduce or infer the passage of time from the experience of change.

    ----- The passage of time is metaphysical and it has to be treated as a substance.(opposite of experience)

    When we confront the existence of a substance with the requirements of operational logic, we find that there can only be one substance making the whole universe. Science has effected great stride in the required reductionism; mass and energy, time and space, electricity and magnetism... But we are facing a wall because time is involved and appears necessary in all of them. If they exist, they are just various forms of the passage of time.

    The important things to remember are 1) The passage of time is metaphysical (a substance) 2) It is a process that is dynamical in nature 3) it is a spontaneous process driving all other spontaneous processes. In this, it is the simplest and most basic process making the universe.

    For more details, see my previous two FQXI essays.

    Marcel,

    Pentcho,

    When light slows down to propagate at c through the spaceship (i.e. 'in it's frame'), it is acting in accordance with both the SR postulates;

    1. Doing c everywhere.

    2. Behaving the same in all frames.

    This is not however as the mainstream interpretation of SR. You have misidentified the flaw in current interpretation. The simplistic claim that it is the postulate that is wrong will get you nowhere as it flies in the face of all evidence.

    The answer CONSISTENT with all the evidence indeed more even than SR) is that it is the assumption that any background has to be an ABSOLUTER background that is incorrect.

    As the background frame for c on Venus is clearly doing a very different speed to the background field of EARTH'S atmosphere, how can any grownup claim the two are doing the same speed?

    Please try to engage in an intelligent conversation to explain that nonsensical assumption.

    Peter

    5 days later

    Einsteinians are going to waste more money on quantum gravity:

    Quantum Gravity in Paris, 26-29 March 2012: "The general subject of the workshop is quantum gravity in all its aspects and approaches. The fundamental definition of the theory is the focal topic..."

    There can be no "fundamental definition of the theory" unless Einstein's 1905 false light postulate and its absurd consequences are officially abandoned:

    Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics, p. 226: "Einstein's special theory of relativity is based on two postulates: One is the relativity of motion, and the second is the constancy and universality of the speed of light. Could the first postulate be true and the other false? If that was not possible, Einstein would not have had to make two postulates. But I don't think many people realized until recently that you could have a consistent theory in which you changed only the second postulate."

    Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects. Quantum gravity seemed to lack a dam - its effects wanted to spill out all over the place; and the underlying reason was none other than special relativity."

    Frank Wilczek: "Einstein's special theory of relativity calls for radical renovation of common-sense ideas about time. Different observers, moving at constant velocity relative to one another, require different notions of time, since their clocks run differently. Yet each such observer can use his "time" to describe what he sees, and every description will give valid results, using the same laws of physics. In short: According to special relativity, there are many quite different but equally valid ways of assigning times to events. Einstein himself understood the importance of breaking free from the idea that there is an objective, universal "now." Yet, paradoxically, today's standard formulation of quantum mechanics makes heavy use of that discredited "now." Playing with paradoxes is part of a theoretical physicist's vocation, as well as high-class recreation. Let's play with this one. (...) As we've seen, if a and b are space-like separated, then either can come before the other, according to different moving observers. So it is natural to ask: If a third event, c, is space-like separated with respect to both a and b, can all possible time-orderings, or "chronologies," of a, b, c be achieved? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is No. We can see why in Figures 5 and 6. Right-moving observers, who use up-sloping lines of constant time, similar to the lines of constant t2 in Figure 2, will see b come before both a and c (Figure 5). But c may come either after or before a, depending on how steep the slope is. Similarly, according to left-moving observers (Figure 6), a will always come before b and c, but the order of b and c varies. The bottom line: c never comes first, but other than that all time-orderings are possible. These exercises in special relativity are entertaining in themselves, but there are also serious issues in play. They arise when we combine special relativity with quantum mechanics."

    Pentcho Valev

    2 years later

    Consequent (Spacetime) Wrong, Antecedent (Light Postulate) True ?

    In conversation with Nima Arkani-Hamed, 14:31 : "That idea, the idea that there is an underlying spacetime, we know from many points of view, from many theoretical arguments, we strongly believe that spacetime doesn't really exist. (...) The slogan is that spacetime is doomed and something has to replace it."

    The consequent (spacetime) is doomed, doesn't exist, and has to be replaced, but the antecedent (Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate) should remain (otherwise Einsteinians' children would go hungry in the streets):

    Pedro G. Ferreira: "When Einstein started thinking about gravity in 1907, he had already figured out his special theory of relativity, which brought together Newtonian mechanics - how things move, push and pull - and Maxwell's theory of electricity and magnetism. To achieve this, the rules of physics had to change. Space and time became intertwined and the speed of light become sacrosanct and invariant, a cosmic speed limit on any physical process."

    Pentcho Valev

      6 days later

      Spacetime Wrong, Light Postulate True ?

      WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Steve Giddings: "Spacetime. Physics has always been regarded as playing out on an underlying stage of space and time. Special relativity joined these into spacetime... (...) The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound..."

      Philip Ball: "And by making the clock's tick relative - what happens simultaneously for one observer might seem sequential to another - Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."

      "Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

      Yet Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate is true, isn't it, Steve Giddings?

      Pentcho Valev

      The problem is that QM and GR - the parametric theories without ontological justification. Their union has no deeper meaning. Let each working on his "field." It is not necessary to "kill" time. It is necessary to understand its nature. To understand it (gripe) first mate - is Carthusian "the qualitative quantum". With it, it is necessary to look deeper ontological basis of fundamental knowledge for the "grand unification". This ontological basis provides new insights into the structure of space, time and nature of the information, their "place" in the scientific picture of the world. "The ontological (structural) memory" knocking on the door to the physicists. Memory of the Universum can not kill.

      Sincerely,

      Vladimir Rogozhin

      Thank you Pentcho for pointing to Edge.org .

      I refer to a suggestion by Tegmark: "Infinity should be retired".

      In contrast to him, I was never seduced, mesmerized and blend by Cantor, and I used infinity as a quite useful property with one caveat: It is naive to look for physical counterparts to ideal mathematical models such as infinity. While I see Einstein rather critical, I agree with him on that there are presumably no physical singularities.

      Gauss was hardly correct in his letter when he protested against the use of infinity in mathematics. On the other hand, Wolfgang Mueckenheim in Augsburg is perhaps not wrong when he argues against the mainstream that infinity cannot be found in reality. As Tegmark explains, this includes continuity in its original meaning as the property of something every part of which has parts.

      However, given space and time were also discrete, didn't this require the length of a square being commensurable to the length of its hypotenuse?

      Are "infinity-free equations" really "the true laws of physics"? To some extent I agree: Block time and unitarity should be questioned. The distinction between past and future must no longer be seen as an illusion.

      For this reason I support your criticism, Pentcho.

      Eckard

      Hello. Pencho,

      Thanks for the links. A lot of interesting articles. I agree with Steve Giddings, especially with the last sentence:

      The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound, and confronts the reality that a clear successor is not yet in sight. Different approaches to the underlying quantum framework exist; some show promise but none yet clearly resolve our decades-old conundrums in black holes and cosmology. The emergence of such a successor is likely to be a key element in the next major revolution in physics.

      For a revolution in the views on the "space" and "time" need a deep philosophy, I would call it a dialectical ontology, which gives new ideas.

      Sincerely,

      Vladimir

      Hello Eckard,

      I think that physicists should love dialectics and ontology, then the problem of the nature of time will be much easier to solve. Among the most profound meaning of the Universum have to go through Heraclitus - Plato - Aristotle - Plotinus-Cusa - Descartes - Leibniz - Kant - Hegel. Good hint dates N.Burbaki idea of the "maternal structures" ("Architecture of Mathematics"). As well said Alexander Zenkin: «The truth should be drawn and should be presented to "an unlimited circle"of spectators.» ( Alexander Zenkin SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS). This is true both for Mathematics and Physics. «Eidos», «logos», «topos», «maternal structure» are a great opportunity to overcome the ontological crisis of representation and interpretation in fundamental knowledge.

      Sincerely,

      Vladimir

      Vladimir,

      Thesis: Time is a dragon to slay in order to unite theories.

      Antithesis: Why not slaying instead the doctrine "shut up and mathmasturbate"?

      Synthesis: Let's rediscover sound reasoning and reveal possible mistakes. Why not accepting that only the order of past events is already unchangeable and the conventional bilaterally symmetrically extended notion of time is just a modified abstraction from this unilateral order? Future time is likewise unilateral. One has only to abandon the unprovable and perhaps futile because fatalistic ontological guess of monists like Parmenides that the behavior of the world can be as completely anticipated as can that of a finite model of it.

      What about Hegel's dialectic, even Karl Marx spoke of "abstruse Hegelei".

      I contempt just being lazily satisfied with two mutually excluding views at a time.

      Having read Zenkin's paper a while ago, I just recall that he didn't ascribe the utterance "mankind will recover from the illness of Cantor's set theory" to Poincaré as did Mueckenheim but to someone else.

      Eckard

      Someone else was Brouwer. I regret that even he just tried to replace Cantor's set theory by a substitute instead of humbly admitting that infinity and continuity in their original meaning (cg. the definition by Peirce) and irrational numbers are simply qualitatively outside the realm of sets of rational numbers.

      Of course, intuitionism relates to what is called the Urintuition of counting. Counting requires to abstract a unit that can alternatively be identified.

      In contrast to counting for the purpose of taxing, ancient geometry was somewhat aristocratic for good reason. While mathematics on the basis of natural numbers provides exact results, every primary identification is a process with more or less uncertain result. Leibniz had it: After one has chosen a unit, the realm of belonging commensurable values is defined.

      Eckard

      Eckard,

      To grasp the nature of time is necessary to "grasp" the dialectic triad of nature at the deepest ontological level. Understanding - it means "to grasp" structure ( G.Gutner Ontologija matematicheskogo diskursa" / "Ontology of mathematical discourse"). And then imagine eidos of ontological (primordial) structures of nature. That is, to "draw" the primordial structure of the Universum. Hegel his "triad" crucified on the tripod, but not painted. Marx did not understand "abstruse" Hegel and went into political economy. Engels did not complete his "Dialectics of Nature". It is necessary to go back to Heraclitus and Cusa with all the knowledge accumulated by mankind to XXI century, and then to "dig" deeper than Hegel, to make "great synthesis" - "to grasp" the structure of space and only then - "to grasp" the nature of time. "Dragon" has to live. But as the mathematics work in eternity, then for "gripes" primordial (basic) structure of the Universum (the structure of eternity) "dragon" can be taken out of the brackets for a while (put in «the cage»- our mind) . Mathematicians want to "close the physics" (Ludwig Faddeev "Uravnenie zlogo duha"/"The equation of the evil spirit"), but the mathematics - the fundamental sign system without ontological justification, as well as physics. The problem of the justification (foundation) of mathematics for over a hundred years...

      Sincerely,

      Vladimir

      The very beautiful timekeepers of our galaxy are the pulsars and there are now thousands known. The millisecond pulsars are especially interesting and precise and here is a plot of about 350 from the pulsar handbook that show a trend in their decays that seems to agree with the 0.283 matter decay constant for a shrinking universe.

      Interesting that the measured spin down decay of earth seems to agree with the same decay constant as well...also the reported decay of the earth-moon orbit seems to agree with pulsar decay constant. The one thing that seems to be certain about our best clocks is that they all decay over time in very regular fashion. There are actually many different ways that pulsars decay and increase by radiation and accretion, including gravity waves. But somehow millisecond pulsars all seem to have march to a common drummer.

      The electron spin and hydrogen atom decays, which are assumed in matter time to decay at this rate as well, are simply beyond the current measurement precision.

      pulsar decays

      Vladimir,

      While the triad thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is undoubtedly valuable, according to Wiki, Hegel himself used this introduced earlier by Fichte classification only once. Instead, Hegel's dialectic is that things or ideas have internal contradictions. Popper meant: Hegel's system formed a thinly veiled justification for the absolute rule of Frederick William III. Marx spoke of abstruse Hegelei in the sense of Hegelishness like childishness as to express disapproval.

      Eckard