Chasing the black holes of the ocean

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

For the reasons that you yourself gave. You may be comfortable living with your contradictions, but that means abandoning logic altogether, which you appear to have successfully done.

Best,

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."

There is a difference between being rational and rationalizing. If you think Einstein's reasoning was rationalization, you insult his rationalism (which, like Spinoza's, was supreme).

If you think there is historical precedent for special relativity on which Einstein built his theory -- what is it?

Best,

Tom

" ... the horizon is not a physical object, but an effect of subjective perception."

So the horizon you perceive isn't necessarily the horizon I perceive?

Justify your answer.

I can't find a source for it, but Hilbert is reputed to have something like, "Some people have a mental horizon of measure zero, which they call their point of view."

I meant "of radius zero."

I guess I was hung up on my dialog with Eckard.

Right now im at prince georges equestrian center and the physical horizon line consists of tents and trees, against hazy sky.

In response to a prior comment, the fact im not obessively focused on a particular topic has been an economic and social negative, but one ive considered and willingly accepted. On a personal level, the patoffon a betterphycic appreciation for the broad aspects and very fact of life on this planet is worth it. This is not to put myself above others, because the opportunities were fairly unique to my situation. What im referring to is a deep sense of what might in smaller situations be referred to as the madness of crowds. That people enmass will start behaving in ways that would be considered irresponsible if being commited by an individual.

Regards,

John m

Tom,

So is it measure or effect?(yes, part of spacetime, which is derived from the measure, but does measurement give you grey hair?)

So Einstein wasnt trying to solve a problem and prior concepts were not a factor? If you say so.

Regards,

John m

" ... part of spacetime, which is derived from the measure, but does measurement give you grey hair?)"

Is that a koan?

"So Einstein wasnt trying to solve a problem and prior concepts were not a factor? If you say so."

I *didn't* say so. You said so. And still no information on what those "prior concepts" were?

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Im afraid my knowledge of detail is not up to your standard. As i recall his primary insight was the speed of light being the only viable constant, so he built it up from and around that. Spacetime was an idea that had been floating around. Apperently some give edgar allen poe credit for first proposing it, though i tried reading that essay once and thought herion might have been involved. All the mathematical history, ill have to refer to eckard, peter or james on. Oh wait, i could ask you!

regards,

John m

John,

"A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. That means it is not reached by conscious logical conclusions. But, thinking it through afterwards, you can always discover the reasons which have led you unconsciously to your guess and you will find a logical way to justify it. Intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience."

Best,

Tom

"That people enmass will start behaving in ways that would be considered irresponsible if being commited by an individual."

Have you read Eric Hoffer? His essays had a great influence on my youth.

Tom,

The True Believer.

Not only does it stick a pin in a lot of old bubbles, but is still there, testing any new ones.

Regards,

John M

Tom,

And who said information is often lost?

Will be reading this. Not much math.

Regards, John M

Tom,

"I *didn't* say so. You said so. And still no information on what those "prior concepts" were?"

The Lorentz transforms are the Lorentz transform because there were "prior concepts" by others. There were patterns in changes of velocity that showed relativistic type effects. The predecessors were on the right track. Einstein moved us off that track by replacing effects on objects with ideas about effects on space and time. Empirical evidence about that which is observable was abandoned in the name of "...demanding the elimination of the unobservable". Very ironic.

James Putnam

Tom,

Are there truly physical objects of measure zero? In other words, are there accessible singular points within a continuum as defined by Peirce: every part of which has parts?

EEs like me know that the strength H of the magnetic field around a conductor decreases with distance. Only a naive theoretician could infer that it equals to infinity at the middle point of the conductor where the distance equals to zero. EEs understand why H at that point equals to zero. If one ascribes the valid outside mathematical model to the inside too then one arrives at the nonsense of a singular point. H(r=0)=0 is no singular point.

I would like to explain as simply as possible my caveat against what I consider a very basic deliberate denial of logics: Can a genuine continuum be cut by removal of a single point from it? I say no. Removal of a piece of length zero from a line has not any effect. Of course, this cannot be understood within a theory that considers the line as a set of separable points. A number with actually infinitely much of digits is not even imaginable as accessible via these digits.

Eckard

"Einstein moved us off that track by replacing effects on objects with ideas about effects on space and time."

James, the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, on which the Lorentz transform is based, *is* an effect on space and time. Einstein's insight, using the tools of Minkowski space, was to demonstrate that spacetime -- unlike space or time alone -- is physically real.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

On my phone again, so cant cut n paste.

The fallacy here seems to be that what is clearly stated as a "democracy of inertial frames," is actually being treated as an anarchy of inertial frames .

In a democracy all the parts add up to a larger whole, so since all these frames do interact, they are not distinct "multiframes," but result in a bottom "set of sets" of frames, thus resulting in space as an effectively ultimate frame.

The essay conludes by only really talking about the variability of time and that as consequence of adding velocities not exceeding C.

If those frames were truly independent, then one could be passing through another, each with their own C. It is because these frames add up to that larger set that it works. Which goes to my point that space alone is the frame and time is an effect/measure of activity in that space.

Regards,

John m

"If those frames were truly independent, then one could be passing through another, each with their own C. It is because these frames add up to that larger set that it works."

No, this a common mistake, John -- and it leads to a lot more of the bizarre contradictory claims in this forum, than yours.

Because all physics is local and there is no privileged frame, the theory is observer dependent -- meaning that there is no boundary between the observer and observed at any scale. In quantum mechanics, it is believed that a phenomenon called quantum entanglement explains what would be a contradiction if not for the mathematical artifact of superposition and the physical assumption of nonlocality.

In principle, this is exactly what you claim above: the assumed independent frames are ghostly superpositions, and the sum of that "larger set" is the set of nonlocal events.

For those who believe in quantum mysticism, this explanation is good enough. The model is entirely incompatible with special relativity, however -- because it assumes, as you do, that boundaries, expressed as particle path histories, are independent and bounded and tractable to linear summation.

Probably the hardest thing to understand about special relativity is that the lack of privileged observer frame renders all observed results local, because time and space are continuous. Time drops out of quantum mechanical equations, however, which is the very same thing that allows you to claim "independent frames." There are no independent frames -- only independent observers.

When locality is everywhere preserved, the only entanglement is classical, i.e., orientation entanglement of observer to observer, and measurement results in every inertial frame are valid, leaving no physical boundary between quantum and classical spacetime domains.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

The horizon that a person observes depends on his size. It is a subjective quantity while an event horizon is thought to be unobservable and therefore necessarily not subjective.

You wrote:"... the theory is observer dependent -- meaning that there is no boundary between the observer and observed at any scale."

Can you please make this statement understandable to me? I would rather see the time of flight separating the observer from any event at the observed object.

Please lecture me: Is in SR the receiver of light considered the observer or is the observer someone elsewhere? Who introduced the notion observer into physics? To me, the notion observer is still ambiguous. Was there any reason not to use the unambiguous notion receiver?

Curious,

Eckard