Shannon’s View on Wheeler’s credo by Eckard Blumschein

Eckard

I do not understand this post, or even if you have got the example correct. You say the "distance between them steadily grows with velocity v", which means there is relative motion, or they are travelling in different directions?

Forget the clocks, these are irrelevant. And let us assume that the rate of change in reality is the same as that for light (this just makes the explanation simpler but does not interfere with the logic). [Note: you have presumed that physically A and B are identical over time, so the distance AB can always be measured using the same points on A & B, which will not be the case. Also, if there is relative motion, then there is the possibility that the differential in force incurred which is causing this could be causing dimension alteration].

As each reality occurs, which in this example means a degree of change in spatial position, (it cannot be the same reality if something is in a different position), a light based representation of that physically existent state is created. The existential sequence progresses, and the resulting existent lights travel (we are assuming perfect conditions, ie all the lights travel at c). Now, if the distance between A and B remains the same, then the sequence of lights will be received, after the initial delay, at the same rate as they were generated, and as reality altered, ie the perceived (received) rate of change (timing) will be the same as that which is physically occurring. If the distance is ever changing, which could be a function of A and B travelling in different directions, ie their relative momentum is the same but the effect in terms of distance is the same as if they were travelling in the same direction but at different speeds, then the duration between the receipt of each light will change on each occasion as the distance alters, so the perceived rate of change will be different to that which is occurring.

This might be what you are trying to explain, ie the caveat of 'uniform translatory motion' is wrong because it depends on direction of travel. But I am not sure, as the real point of his first postulate is that reality is unaffected by the reference used to calibrate it (albeit he invoked an unnecessary condition). [Incidentally, I have asked you for a translation of the sentence defining the first postulate in the Introduction, having realised that you are quoting the definition as in section 1 part 2 (On the relativity of lengths and times)].

Poincaré starts with an incorrect view as to how timing works, ie not that the real reference is a conceptual constant rate of change, and the ability to synchronise timing devices to this is a practical matter, and not an issue about time. He then goes on to develop his A B example, with light transmissions to enable syncronisation. Einstein realises this is the equivalent of observation, so his A B example was supposed to be about synchronisation of light received. But as he developed his theory he had no observational light, just an example of light which was used as a reference, nobody saw with it, so the relativity in effect was attributed to existence.

Poincaré, 1898, para 4:

"All this is unimportant, one will say; doubtless our instruments of measurement are imperfect, but it suffices that we can conceive a perfect instrument. This ideal can not be reached, but it is enough to have conceived it and so to have put rigor into the definition of the unit of time. The trouble is that there is no rigor in the definition. When we use the pendulum to measure time, what postulate do we implicitly admit? It is that the duration of two identical phenomena is the same; or, if you prefer, that the same causes take the same time to produce the same effects."

Poincaré, 1898, para 13:

"To conclude: We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of the equality of two durations. If we think we have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost always without taking count of them.

But what is the nature of these rules? No general rule, no rigorous rule; a multitude of little rules applicable to each particular case. These rules are not imposed upon us and we might amuse ourselves in inventing others; but they could not be cast aside without greatly complicating the enunciation of the laws of physics, mechanics and astronomy. We therefore choose these rules, not because they are true, but because they are the most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as follows: "The simultaneity of two events, or the order of their succession, the equality of two durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the natural laws may be as simple as possible. In other words, all these rules, all these definitions are only the fruit of an unconscious opportunism."

Poincaré, 1900, page 20:

"It is the case that, in reality, that which we call the principle of relativity of motion has been verified only imperfectly, as shown by the theory of Lorentz. This is due to the compensation of multiple effects, but:...2. For the compensation to work, we must relate the phenomena not to the true time t, but to a certain local time t' defined in the following fashion.

Let us suppose that there are some observers placed at various points, and they

synchronize their clocks using light signals. They attempt to adjust the measured

transmission time of the signals, but they are not aware of their common motion, and

consequently believe that the signals travel equally fast in both directions. They perform observations of crossing signals, one travelling from A to B, followed by another travelling from B to A. The local time t' is the time indicated by the clocks which are so adjusted. If V = 1/√Ko is the speed of light, and v is the speed of the Earth which we suppose is parallel to the x axis, and in the positive direction, then we have: t' = t − v x/V2."

Poincaré, 1900, page 22:

"Suppose T is the duration of the emission: what will the real length be in space of the perturbation?...The real length of the perturbation is L = (V - v')T. Now, what is the apparent length?...the local time corresponding to that is T(1-vv'/V2). At local time t', it is at point x, where x is given by the equations: t ' = t − vx/V2,

x = v'T + V(t - T), from which, neglecting V2: x = [v'T + V(t - T)](1 + v/V)...The apparent length of the perturbation will be, therefore,

L' = Vt' - (x - vt') = (V - v')T(1 +v/V) = L(1 + v/V)."

Poincaré, 1902, para 90:

"1. There is no absolute space, and we only conceive of relative motion; and yet in most cases mechanical facts are enunciated as if there is an absolute space to which they can be referred.

2. There is no absolute time. When we say that two periods are equal, the statement has no meaning, and can only acquire a meaning by a convention.

3. Not only have we no direct intuition of the equality of two periods, but we have not even direct intuition of the simultaneity of two events occurring in two different places."

Poincaré, 1904, page 6:

"The most ingenious idea is that of local time. Let us imagine two observers, who

wish to regulate their watches by means of optical signals; they exchange signals,

but as they know that the transmission of light is not instantaneous, they are careful

to cross them. When station B sees the signal from station A, its timepiece should

not mark the same hour as that of station A at the moment the signal was sent,

but this hour increased by a constant representing the time of transmission. Let

us suppose, for example, that station A sends it signal at the moment when its

time-piece marks the hour zero, and that station B receives it when its time-piece

marks the hour t. The watches will be set, if the time t is the time of transmission,

and in order to verify it, station B in turn sends a signal at the instant when its

time-piece is at zero; station A must then see it when its time-piece is at t. Then

the watches are regulated."

"And, indeed, they mark the same hour at the same physical instant, but under

one condition, namely, that the two stations are stationary. Otherwise, the time

of transmission will not be the same in the two directions, since the station A, for

example, goes to meet the disturbance emanating from B, whereas station B sees

before the disturbance emanating from A. Watches regulated in this way, therefore,

will not mark the true time; they will mark what might be called the local time,

so that one will gain on the other. It matters little, since we have no means of

perceiving it. All the phenomena which take place at A, for example, will be

behind time, but all just the same amount, and the observer will not notice it since

his watch is also behind time; thus, in accordance with the principle of relativity

he will have no means of ascertaining whether he is at rest or in absolute motion."

Dear Eckard

Just to let you know that I have read your well structured and written essay. You raised several interesting issues such as those mentioned above by Edwin. My major motivation in reading your essay was to verify your claim that you have an alternative explanation to the MMX. I read also the endnotes. There I could find some of the comments that you already posted in my entry. As I mentioned in my entry, Lorentz' contraction is not an artifice but it's well justified if one recognizes that bodies are not rigid entities but deform under the action of a force.

You:The velocity of light c equals to the distance d between the position of emitter at the moment of emission and the position of receiver at the moment of detection divided by the time of flight t: c=d/t.

Here, of course, we have to determine the time at the emission and receiving points. In doing so, this will inevitably lead us to the problem of clock synchronization (that you mention in endnote 4), which from my point of view is a dead end given the circular reasoning that emerges when we try to synchronize a clock by determining the one-way speed of light which in turn requires a clock synchronization procedure. The synchronization by slow motion has been extensively studied in the literature and I would not like to discuss it here. I remember that we have already discussed at length this topic.

With respect to endnote 1, I couldn't get what you really mean. It seems that you are suggesting absolute time and denying local times. You suggest negative values for t, which I don't get the physical meaning of negative time. Could you comment on this part please.

Best Regards

Israel

Eckard

The fault is in representing both time and spatial position in the same way. And then if you use a triangle, one gets gamma. There is only x (ie space), which occurs in one form at a time. t is the rate at which it alters form and is therefore a different spatial reality. Solving any particular event is a matter of relating the time of each light received to distance travelled (bearing in mind other environmental factors), not the Lorentz transformation.

Obviously time as an all pervading now exists, reality is the entirety of all physically existent states at a given time. Reality does not exist over time. There is no duration in any given reality. That is why one cannot, from a proper physical perspective, keep on talking about A and B and the distance AB as if it all exists at the same time. There is one physically existent form of A and B, and hence a spatial difference AB at a point in time, ie in a reality. At the next point in time there may well have been alteration. A point in time being the equivalent of whatever alters the fastest in existence, because with that level of differentiation one will identify all alterations (ie realities).

Paul

Eckard

"A and B are merely assumed to increase their distance. It did not matter if they possibly traveled in the same direction. Only their relative motion matters"

No, it is the distance which matters. If the distance is altering then the rate at which successive lights are received alters, and hence the perceived rate of change varies from the actual rate of change. This can be an outcome of both travelling at the same constant speed, in straight lines, but in different directions, or they are travelling at different speeds in the same direction, or any combination thereof. Put the other way round, the actual and perceived rate of change only remains the same if both are travelling at the same speed in the same direction, ie despite movement the distance remains constant over time, so the delay (duration) whilst light travels remains constant. So the frequency of receipt remains constant and the same as reality. Indeed, both could accelerate/decelerate, so long as they do that simultaneously. Einstein's 'hangup' with inertia was because of his concern about supposed length alteration at different speeds. He was not thinking of actual/perceived rate of change effects.

Re the Poincaré quote you picked up on. The point here is that he is talking about getting timing devices synchronised with a specific event, given that they are in spatially different locations. In other words, eliminating the effect of the spatial difference. So a timing device has to be set backwards if it is to tell the time of occurrence of a 'distant' event, in order to compensate for the duration incurred whilst the signal travels from that event. This is not how timing works. All timing devices are set to the same point in time and alter at the same rate. So they provide a common reference. Then, obviously, determining when an event occurred depends on calibrating distances and times of receipt of light. There was only one event, it cannot occur at different times. The two points have to be stationary, ie no alteration in distance over time, because of the way he is going about 'synchronising' these devices. Any given event (reality) occurred at a time. Any given other event may or may not have occurred at that same time. That's it, the occurrence of reality has nothing whatsoever to do with observation (ie the receipt of light).

Einstein picked this up and was meant to be applying it to observation, ie the signal becomes observational light. But he failed, because he had no observational light.

Re you translation, I seem to be confusing you. In the Introduction, the postulates are defined (as of second sentence second paragraph). The 1923 translation reads:

"They suggest rather that, as has already been shown to the first order of small quantities, the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good. We will raise this conjecture (the purport of which will hereafter be called the "Principle of Relativity") to the status of a postulate, and also introduce another postulate, which is only apparently irreconcilable with the former, namely..." What did he actually write?

Paul

Israel

If I may jump in. There is no synchronisation problem, neither do timing devices have to be synchronised using light. The whole point of the timing system is that all the devices are 'telling' the same time, ie the reference is a conceptual constant rate of change. The devices themselves are irrelevant, just a means to an end. There is, obviously, a practical problem with getting all devices 'telling' the same time and maintaining it, but that is not what was being considered.

Timing is not time. The consideration was about occurrence (reality). Now, any given reality only occurs at a specific time, not at different times. There is no such thing as 'local time'. It is the timing of the receipt of lights which were generated as a result of that occurrence, which represent that reality which alter, mainly dependent on spatial position.

Paul

Eckard,

Sorry to hear of all your tribulations. I consider your essay largely excellent even without considering all those issues and am pleased to report I have it down for a high mark. I really loved your "Wheeler's preposterous idea" comment!

I'm sorry about the over-literal English in my own essay, too much Shakespeare and Chaucer in my youth! But my essay is too richly constructed to be able to extract the value from in a 'quick scan'. It builds a full ontological construction using orbital angular momentum to show how the stupidities of FTL assumed from Bells' theorem can be dispensed with. That's not an easy task! I do hope you get to read it carefully.

The blog comments also expand on precisely how the cosine curve is produced at EACH detector, thus reproducing the predictions of QM without spookyness. Your incisive falsification is most welcome. If you like donuts you can perform the experiment very simply yourself!

(I post this down here for convenience).

Stay well. And I hope and expect to see you finish higher up the field. Best wishes.

Peter

Eckard

Whether a body is rigid or not, in the sense meant by Einstein, is to some extent irrelevant. In that rigidity is an attribute over time. That is, a body is only that body once, whenever it exists. At any other point in time, physically it is something else. It might look the same at the higher level we are conceiving it at, but physically there will have been alterations, so it is different. In other words, there is only ever one physically existent state of something , which one could say is rigid, in effect, because there is only one discrete definitive occurrence. Whether subsequent states, which are actually a different something, happen to have the same spatial configuration is another matter.

Paul

Eckard

In ordinary usage, that is what the term means, but it is plainly not what they were referring to. Clearly the argument was not about the level of accuracy to which they worked out an effect, but an allusion to different effects (especially when one follows the point through the various writers over time, and does not just rely on one quote).

You did not give a translation of the sentence as requested.

Paul

Eckard

So 'all co-ordinate systems' instead of 'frames of reference'. And the caveat of 'in uniform translatory motion' which is explicit in section 2, is implicit here by virtue of the condition 'for which the mechanical equations are valid'. Because if there was any form of altering motion, caused by a differential in force incurred, then something else happened (supposedly).

There is no duration in a reality, so x=vt is only conceptual, ie it is expressing distance in terms of duration incurred whilst something travels it, had it been able to. And by substituting c for v, ie a specific velocity for a generic one, c was asserted to be: 2AB/(t'(a) - t(a)). Which was wrong, because that time involved duration incurred from subsequent timings, apart from being deemed an elapsed time in both cases anyway, which it is not. Assuming the quantity is doubled, it should have been either twice A to B or B to A, or the sum of A to B and B to A incurred at the same time. So it should have been: c = 2AB/2(t(a) - t(b)). Or simply, as considering either direction is irrelevant, c = AB/(t(a) - t(b)). Which, although correct, is a statement of the obvious. That is, the velocity is a ratio of total distance travelled to the time taken to do so, ie the definition of velocity.

Their quest was to find something that was an absolute reference against which to calibrate velocity. He did not then conclude that light velocity refers to the observer. He correctly concluded that light always starts at the same velocity, and like anything else, will continue at that velocity unless impinged upon. In other words, light, in ideal circumstances, is the nearest thing to an absolute reference. He failed to differentiate reality from light reality, and did not understand timing. So in effect, ie he did not mean to, he attributed the relativity of receipt of light to an inherent characteristic of reality. That is, contradicting the fact that reality occurs at a specific time. SR (as defined by him) is valid. It is the only circumstance in which the two postulates reconcile, had the second one been about observational light.

Paul

Eckard

There are a lot of things I have not heard of, but I do not need to, because I am only interested in the generic circumstance.

There cannot be a block of 'spacetime', unless the 'block' is just the spatial occurrence at one point in time. Which is the reality, but hardly a block. There can be no duration in reality, because whatever constitutes it is altering, and it cannot exist in different states at the same time. So reality is the discrete definitive physically existent state of whatever comprises it at any given time. And reality is what physically occurs, not what we conceive.

So the real reference for timing would be the fastest rate of alteration which occurs in existence. It might be that ultimately everything is comprised of the same substance and in effect everything, irrespective of its physical manifestation and therefore superficial difference is really (physically) altering (ie being a different reality in a sequence) at the same rate. It might be the opposite. In which case some components could have altered, whilst others have not, in the same timing frame. But one needs to find that out. The point is, physical existence does not occur in accordance with some arbitrary rule we impose for the purposes of discerning it.

There might be a problem with expression here, because, obviously, the past does not exist. That is why it is called the past. It did exist, but not now. And obviously since it did exist, thee are going to be existent 'traces of it' (like light for example), but this is not the reality, but, as you say, traces of it. Equally obviously, the future is non-existent. That is why it is called the future. It is what will occur as a consequence of what occurs immediately before it. One can only examine reality in terms of what happened at a point in time (though in practical terms we will probably never achieve the level of differentiation required), because that is how it exists. We are mixing up components from different realities and designating them as being of the same one.

I do not understand your last comment on time. Existence alters, at a rate. This is really what time is. But the important point to recognise there is that an alteration is a difference, ie it is another reality. Difference is difference. There is no time in a reality, it is about a feature of the difference between realities (ie physically existent states). Indeed, I should not refer to this in terms of 'altering', because that confuses the notion of difference. But the entire way in which we conceive existence, and hence the language used, is built on the incorrect concept of 'it changes'. We calibrate this with a timing system which involves the comparison of rates of change.

Paul