Chasing the black holes of the ocean

I didn't make it up, Peter. It's well known to those who have studied the mathematics, read the history and Einstein's own works. Both theories of relativity are mathematically complete -- Einstein meant that the general theory is an incomplete physical theory, because its solutions allow singularities. General relativity was meant to be intermediate on the path of a unified field theory, which Einstein worked on till the last days of his life.

Best,

Tom

"The evidence for the reader that it is from theory free physics is that all units are defined using only meters and seconds."

Meters and seconds, James, are space and time. I understand what you're getting at -- I share your ambition that all physics should be explainable in terms of space and time alone.

Because you discount relativity, however -- you do yourself a disservice by not trying to understand the role that a physically real spacetime plays. Space alone and time alone are not physically real.

In terms of the calculus, F = d/dt(mv)describes the rate of change exerted by a force on an object, m being the mass, v being momentum. This change in force varies, but over ordinary distances and speeds, mass does not change, and Newton's second law F = ma is sufficient.

Over relativistic speeds and distances, mass also varies. Mass isn't absolute, because it is interchangeable with energy. That is why spacetime is physically real, and space and time independently are not. "Physically real" meaning "having an effect but not itself influenced by conditions" (Einstein).

Best,

Tom

John M,

Is time a mathematical quantity? I would like to first distinguish between measurable, i.e. unilateral elapsed time and the abstracted from it and extended usual notion of time. Are vector, phasor, tensor, scalar, etc. physical quantities or are they just misinterpreted by mediocre theoreticians?

Best,

Eckard

"Having parts means being endlessly divisible."

Prove it.

And if you want to say that physics lives in a different, superior, world than mathematics -- an atom has parts. Is it endlessly divisible?

"A point has a different quality. It has measure zero."

A measure is a quantity, not a quality. There are many more mathematical objects than a point, of measure zero.

Best,

Tom

"Well that explains why they can't figure out why it only goes in one direction.'

Perhaps that's because it doesn't.

"' Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind.'

And he created them ex nihilo?

Flatline?"

John, it's interesting that you apply the medical term meaning "brain dead" to people who think and create worlds in their brain-minds.

What term do you apply to those who do not think, and for whom the world they observe is "just so?"

Best,

Tom

Eckard,

I have to admit I always assumed it was thought to be a vector. Treating time as just magnitude is getting to the proverbial 'spherical cow' level of abstract reductionism. Not too far to flatline territory, both conceptually and intellectually.

You may want to read the link I posted below. The article on early Egypt that inadvertently shows just how close math and religion really are, as search for and explanation of order.

Tom,

When the tea cup starts jumping back on the table and putting itself back together, then I may revise my opinion that the theorists have long been drinking too much of their own bathwater.

In my own, naive view of time, energy, being dynamic, creates change and time is a measure and effect of change. So in order to reverse time, you have to reverse the momentum of the energy. This would require rather more energy, to stop the momentum and them to reverse it. Of course theorists know it is all just information and you can just push a few keys on the computer....What do I know.

Regards,

John M

Having to travel again today.

Tom,

EX NIHILO

": from or out of nothing "

It was your claim of Einstein's lack of precedence to which I was referring;

"Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind."

Mostly I spend my time working with animals and while those lacking formal education lack organizational structure, sometimes the result is they are more environmentally attuned than those utterly wrapped up in the patterns being juggled in their own minds. I go out into a world of beings who seem to be rushing towards environmental suicide, with little more concern than often the most narrow interests, to re-enforce their own mental shells and I'm supposed to respect the intellectual rigor of those who can't figure out why time is a vector? Rigor mortis comes to mind.

Regards,

John M

John,

Vectors, like points and lines, don't exist. Only change and distance, i.e. wavelength Lambda, exist. I think I'm finally getting to the bottom of why I can't see the relevance of your fixation on time's 'direction'. As usual I suggest it's due to us both making wrong fundamental assumptions. You of a vector, and me not realizing you were doing so.

Have you read my description to James? Neither the emitted artefacts of mechanical contraptions, or the rate those contraptions 'divide up' a rotation of the Earth and orbit of the sun can make of change 'time'.

Tom thinks may can build some clock, make it go at a rate equal to some arbitrary division of rotation or orbit which we decide, and magically it is 'creating' time itself!! Even my grandson does better than that! (Perhaps Planck and Wheeler were right - only when we die can understanding progress).

A more intelligent being would move 'back out' of the box in his mind, like Wittgenstein, watch the earth rotating and orbiting the sun, and the galaxy rotating in the local group etc, and see the 'half intellectually developed' creatures on some tiny planet thinking they can 'change time' locally by building contraptions!!

And simply smile.

Only 'signals' and mechanisms can change. Time marches on and laughs at our stupidity. (And only ever ONE non vectoral 'way').

Peter

"In my own, naive view of time, energy, being dynamic, creates change and time is a measure and effect of change. So in order to reverse time, you have to reverse the momentum of the energy. This would require rather more energy, to stop the momentum and them to reverse it. Of course theorists know it is all just information and you can just push a few keys on the computer....What do I know."

That's the key question for us all -- what do I know?

Let's take your first statement -- " ... time is a measure and effect of change." Which is it -- a measure or an effect? It can't be both at the same time. In the former, as you say, " ... you have to reverse the momentum of the energy. This would require rather more energy ..." because that is how the measure process on a fundamental, microscopic, scale works. In principle, that act of measurement alters the trajectory of the particle being measured -- and thus changes the trajectory of time.

If time is an effect of change, its trajectory is continuous, and because of that fact, the trajectory is reversible. It's easy to see this on the macroscale, when the laws of physics for -- say, a planetary orbit -- work the same in forward or reverse. What Paul Borill realized (and which I too concluded in my 2007 ICCS paper) is that if time is identical to information, what we measure does not affect the trajectory of classical time reversibility: "The absurd idea is that reality is timeless inside entangled systems, i.e., it continually evolves and cycles through its recurrence, defined by the available number of states. This symmetry can however be broken at the macroscopic level by an observer preparing the system for measurement, triggering causality to select a direction for information and energy to flow."

In other words, preparation of the state vector is a choice of the experimenter's direction, not necessarily the choice of nature's direction. Joy Christian's framework takes the same tack.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

And he outside the box looks on and smiles.

Banesh Hoffmann:

"In an accelerated sky laboratory, and therefore also in the corresponding earth laboratory, the frequence of arrival of light pulses is lower than the ticking rate of the upper clocks even though all the clocks go at the same rate. (...) As a result the experimenter at the ceiling of the sky laboratory will see with his own eyes that the floor clock is going at a slower rate than the ceiling clock - even though, as I have stressed, both are going at the same rate. (...) The gravitational red shift does not arise from changes in the intrinsic rates of clocks. It arises from what befalls light signals as they traverse space and time in the presence of gravitation."

Fred Dithier's post identifies the falsification your apparent assertion that the unproven interpretations confounding SR's proven postulates are 'fact';

"The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth."

"The path to truth is thinner than a razor's edge."

- W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge

In science we're supposed to study, understand and objectively test and try to falsify theory independently of our beliefs. I do that as a fundamental. You've only shown so far that you do not. Are you able?

Peter

": from or out of nothing "

It was your claim of Einstein's lack of precedence to which I was referring;"

You believe that your brain-mind -- and Einstein's are "nothing?" In fact, though, there was no precedent for special relativity. My statement ...

"Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind."

... is simply true.

"Mostly I spend my time working with animals and while those lacking formal education lack organizational structure, sometimes the result is they are more environmentally attuned than those utterly wrapped up in the patterns being juggled in their own minds. I go out into a world of beings who seem to be rushing towards environmental suicide, with little more concern than often the most narrow interests, to re-enforce their own mental shells and I'm supposed to respect the intellectual rigor of those who can't figure out why time is a vector? Rigor mortis comes to mind."

John, it's of no consequence to me, whom you respect or not, or why.

I expect that your interests, as well as mine, are just as narrow as those whom you condemn. The point of a rational society is to mold contrastingly narrow interests into a cooperative enterprise whose sum is greater than its parts. The objective knowledge that science produces helps facilitate that shared wealth of social well being.

One has a personal choice of whether to dive into it with rigor, or let rigor mortis take its course.

Best,

Tom

Oh give it up, Peter. The box smiles back at you.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Euclid was correct: A point is something that doesn't have parts. In other words, it is indivisible. Something (1) every part of which (2) has parts is endlessly divisible because after a division any resulting part (2) may be identified with (1). It behaves like Cantor's dust.

Tom: "And if you want to say that physics lives in a different, superior, world than mathematics -- an atom has parts. Is it endlessly divisible?"

My sentence was incomplete. Something every part of which has parts is a continuum.

While the idea of atoms meant a tomos = not divisible, the example shows that mathematical models do not necessarily correspond to physical reality.

E.: ""A point has a different quality. It has measure zero.""

Tom: "A measure is a quantity, not a quality.

In contrast to G. Cantor, I see the measure exactly zero and the measure infinitum absolutum qualities rather than quantities. That's why they are to be treated with care.

There are many more mathematical objects than a point, of measure zero."

There are no truly physical objects of measure zero.

Best,

Eckard

"There are no truly physical objects of measure zero."

Is the horizon a physical object?

Peter,

Obviously a vector is not physical. Eastw,west,north, south are not physical, but concepts. By treating time as a scalar, it is reduced to a measure that expands or contracts. Which is more due to the nature of math, then of time. The deepwr reality of time is that sequential flow from one event to the next, not whether the intervals between events can vary. Yet all the focus is on that essentially minor aspect of time. Anyone with more than one clock, or has ever been both bored and exited can appreciate that measures of time are somwhat subjective.

Writing on the phone, so keeping it short.

Regards,

John m

Tom,

Time is a word. Why cant it be both measure and effect? Interval is measure. Passage is effect.

Any act of measurement is simply another event. It is part of the process of time, both marking an interval and consequence of passage.

Laws may work both directions, but is that afunction of the nature of the concept of law, or the actual physical dynamic being described? Laws model reality. Inertia is also a law and it would seem to seriously work against the idea of reversing the trajectory of a planet.

Regards,

John m

Tom,

As ive argued before, intuition is the minds scaler, as opposed to linear, rationalization process. There were obviously quite a lot of ideas stewing in Einteins mind, when he came up with sr. That it didnt come together linearly doesnt mean it had no precedent.

Regards,

Jm

No, the horizon is not a physical object and as an effect of subjective perception, it is also fuzzy. Just like the present.