Q&A with Paul Davies: What is Time?

James, ?: ) My intention was only to state up front that I don't intend to cause offense to you in this discussion and I feel hesitant to address your work for that reason. No ulterior motive or offense intended by my comments : )

You ask "Is it your position that what a Barney or Polly sees or thinks they see affects the mechanical outcome of the pole-barn paradox?" As I said a substantial object can not be simultaneously short and long BUT from two different observer perspectives the manifestations of the object that are seen can be different without paradox. I'm not sure what you mean by mechanical outcome of the paradox. The outcome is what it is said to be in the description of the paradox. If you mean what is happening to the pole object and barn object IE substantial objects made of atoms, then observer reference frame is not affecting those objects. Just like a substantial object house is not affected by an observer viewing it from a distance.

You haven't quoted me quoting you which makes it look like, according to you, I wrote what you wrote.For the record it was you who wrote Quote "Sometimes the wording is weak and it can seem that the relativists are speaking about appearances. However, they are speaking about physical changes to either the pole or the barn that occur independent of whatever may affect the light that is reflected away."

From what you have written it seems to me that 1. you do not consider the problem to be about observer reference frames; 2. do not accept that the non simultaneity of events that would be experienced by observers at each position is sufficient to describe what is occurring; 3.do not accept that the paradox is resolved if related to what is seen rather than substantial objects (my viewpoint) as you do not consider it to be about appearances. I don't agree with you but am happy to hear your resolution of the problem.I don't understand how the Lorentz transformation applies if not switching between different reference frames.Or will we be?

Georgina,

The problem I have interest in addressing is the problem of the pole-barn paradox and its solution as relativists understand it and solve it. There has to be agreement on the problem. Perhaps there are others who can present the problem as relativists understand it and solve it.

James Putnam

James,

If I may briefly interject, here...

While I address SR as the mechanics (mathematic mechanism) of measurement, there always exists the psychology of any individual encountering pondering what it says about reality. Much confusion arises, I think, from Eienstein's famous euphemism of riding on a beam of light and 'time stops'. uhhhh.... no. I mean if 'time' stops at light velocity, how can light continue to propagate at light velocity across space where time stops for no man? Here-in lies all the paradoxical psychologisms that plague modern relativity.

Let us dissect the Einsteinian euphemism. Starting with the old joke that the 'speed of time' is one second per second. Okay (...?). So if that is the universal rate, how do we know if it is that rate we ourselves experience? We don't. What is 'one second'? For looking closer we distinguish that for the Einsteinian euphemism to hold, it means that we track the change in rate of passage of time in relation to our velocity from the human experience of how much effort it takes to push a stone up the eternal hill, starting from rest and ever increasing our speed as we go higher up the hill. In short the euphemism rates the speed of times passage as 1 sec/sec @ rest; up to 0 sec/sec @ light velocity.

Where I find your 'A New Gamma' applicably interesting, is in looking at the Lorentzian in the reverse. That is, from light velocity dropping to ~relative rest. Mass is only a 'mass of energy' (energy en-masse) until a unit quantity specific to a unit volume is determined which exhibits inertia as a function of density in universal proportion to the total rest quantity. So gravitationally, the rate of passage of time would be 0 sec/sec at ~rest; and progress Lorentz fashion to 1 sec/sec @ light velocity. In a rest mass of particulate matter, the greatest density would exist in a core volume at constant density because time would not extend in relation to the space of that core volume, but as the distance increased from the core horizon, the density would decrease as a coeffeciency of greater space and increase of the rate of passage of time without the energy quantity extending spatially to infinity, but only to a limit minimum density where the rate of passage of time is 1 sec/sec.

Looking at it from that paradigm, SR makes better sense. At rest we measure mass, but at light velocity we measure energy. Taken literally, energy is mass existing at light velocity. And if density is a function of inherent velocity, a small enough quantity of mass does become accelerated to light velocity as EM because it ceases to be 'mass' as velocity transforms it to enegy, without the necessity theoretically to extend spatially in all directions to infinity. Hence, light is a unidirectional physical volumetric phenomenon. If I decide to produce a paper, I may well incorporate your extrapolation of (c)sqrt 1-(v^2.c^2) and cite your 'A New Gamma'. Thanks, but don't hold your breath. jrc

OOOPS, oh drat! Sorry James, I should have done a final proof-read, I had hit the period key instead of the slash. Your extrapolation of (c)sqrt 1-(v^2/c^2) jrc

Hi John, excuse me commenting on your post to James, I mean it to be helpful and not disparaging. You wrote- "Much confusion arises, I think, from Eienstein's famous euphemism of riding on a beam of light and 'time stops'. uhhhh.... no. I mean if 'time' stops at light velocity, how can light continue to propagate at light velocity across space where time stops for no man? Here-in lies all the paradoxical psychologisms that plague modern relativity."

If an event (A) is encoded in a set of EM data that is propagating at light speed and the man travels with it at light speed, he is keeping pace with the encoded event (A) It is not being superseded by younger, more recent EM data that would up date the man's present experience. It is his experience of a changing present that stops. Despite this there is still passage of time external to his experience, the sequential change in configuration of the Object universe, which includes change in position of EM sensory data.

There is a presumption in this thought experiment that I think is probably a flaw, the assumption that he cannot simultaneously keep pace with the light beam and receive EM from elsewhere, that would give him changing present experience. EM being waves can pass through each other, the light beam is not like a solid object that would exclude others from that space.

You wrote "Let us dissect the Einsteinian euphemism. Starting with the old joke that the 'speed of time' is one second per second. Okay (...?). So if that is the universal rate, how do we know if it is that rate we ourselves experience? We don't." I have recently linked an FQXi talk by David Eagleman, What is time to the brain... (See below the link seems to activate when the post is expanded) He provides evidence that human experience is an another level of emergent reality beyond mere amalgamation of sensory inputs according to time of arrival. There being additional delays and synchronization of sensory data from different senses giving causal 'story' consistency.Mentioned because you asked" how do we know if it is that rate we ourselves experience? " The experience of passage of time is variable for a human observer.

Georgina.

As you say, (at light velocity) "It is his perception of a changing present that stops." That is, his perception of the passage of time in the stationary frame through which he is passing. Though time keeps ticking right along in his experience as an energy entity, because he has become a gigantic strand of photons. If we remove ourselves from the equation and look at the existential reality in terms of Albert's Euphemism, if time stops at light velocity then mustn't time move at light velocity for a relative rest quantity? SR is mathematically complete as a measurement scheme, but here it is the time metric that I take issue with. For the hypothetical observer to continue to experience the passage of time while moving at light velocity, as consistent with the postulates, while perceiving time as static in the (K) stationary reference frame; light velocity is that experimentally measured absolute value because that must be a fast as time can extend. Therefore, Einstein's Euphemism was an ambiguity uttered in the excitement of the Eureka moment, and stuck.

Encoding data or not. The metric rate at which time extends relative to the velocity of a real physical particle would be 0 sec/sec @ ~rest, and 1 sec/sec @ c. What paradox? jrc

Hi John, some thoughts on what you wrote from my own point of view.

It's said to be impossible to accelerate a body to the speed of light because of the problem of increasing inertia. I don't know that the light beam rider becomes a stream of photons in the scenario of riding a light beam. Imagining he can be accelerated to that speed, he can also be imagined as still being a corporeal observer, accustomed to his high velocity. In that state he should still be able to intercept EM already emitted from objects far ahead, traveling at the speed of light, that crosses the path of his light beam. Though the EM sensory data he is travelling with is remaining the same only diminishing in intensity with distance.

I think you are right in a way- the updating of the sensory data from which the present of an observer at rest is fabricated will be happening at light speed. That is to say the rate of photon data arriving is the speed of light but there has to be processing time added to that to get to the rate at which the present that is experienced is intermittently updated. Which is very much slower. See David Eagleman's FQXi talk.

When you talk of time in relation to a real physical particle you are now no longer talking about the perception of time, time within the emergent reality of the observer, but passage of time in external substantial reality. These are different categories of time. Particles themselves do not experience a present, the emergent Image reality, they just always are at uni-temporal -Now what ever speed they are travelling. (uni-temporal-Now is the temporal analogue of the existing (youngest)configuration of the Object universe)

Georgina,

Have I said congratulations yet, Ms. Parry? Best wishes.

But yes... "talk of time in relation to a real physical particle you are now no longer talking about the perception of time, time within the emergent reality of the observer, but passage of time in the external substantial reality."

That is physics prior to the *information age* which I recognize has its own validity in examining the roles of information as we devise its criteria, and the vast investments in information theory due to the global addiction to ever increasing computational capacity at no increase in cost. And which despite the rosey promises of the Quants that by the time 5G hits the shelves they'll have given us 'quantum computers', I doubt. After the collapse of the functional financial wave in 2008 leaving the too big to fail boys uncertain about their principal, I don't think the Saudi's are banking on it. They want to sell as much oil as they can, while they still can. My small investment strategy concurs.

Though differing in our perspectives, I think we both agree that Einstein's famous gedanken is indeed flawed, but its curious because Einstein then immediately introduces as postulates the conclusions of Maxwell's results; the universal constancy of light velocity, and that the laws of physics are identical in any frame of reference. Which of course includes the passage of time in the light velocity frame, and which in the hard physics of his day treats the role of humanity in the observer role as a given. SR is simple geometry and a little algebra, NOT simple arithmetic.

Maxwell's silver hammer came down on Newton's head, Einstein just used it to put the last nail in his coffin. You have to do some digging to get an understanding of Maxwell beyond the tired homage that his equations 'give a complete understanding of Electromagnetism', which is only true enough. But Maxwell's electrodynamic theory upon which Einstein founded all his work, is not itself a complete theory. Like GR, Maxwell's equations produce a mathematical singularity which cannot exist as a physical reality or all the intensity would be concentrated at a zero dimensional point and there would be no volume of field to observe. That is why QM hangs onto the *zero-point particle* and evolves to non-locality, superposition, entanglement and etc. since it took the quantum leap of faith.

Many like to argue against Relativity by contesting the validity of the postulates because Einstein doesn't lay out the theoretical and mathematical proofs for them. But Maxwell had already done so (in spades) , and Einstein cites Maxwell's theory. To argue against the postulates of SR, one must disprove Maxwell and offer a consistent, full theoretical treatment that explains all of the technology higher than Volta's chemical cell. That's physics.

Which brings me back to my point to James. Einstein's ride gedanken has the time metric backward's. Not that it doesn't grab people's attention and illustrate that given Maxwell's never-disproven conclusions, it is time and space that are not absolute. But so does the metric of 0 sec/sec @ ~rest >> 1 sec/sec @ c, and that metric dispels the psychological paradox and might well be taken as the fifth dimension which Klein and Kaluza hypothesized but failed to provide a theoretical rationale for its existence. I don't have the math to explain it, but in the Klein-Kaluza 5D application to GR, Maxwell's equations emerge. KOOL!

Please forgive me for not engaging in the layered perceptual-informational arena, I'm an old guy on short time and quite frankly miss the world before ninetendo. Best wishes, jrc

Hi John,

with respect, re. time for the particle itself, You wrote "That is physics prior to the *information age* " No it is modern physics, which requires foundational passage of time due to change in configuration of the Object universe underlying the perception of passage of time via information input.

I don't see why you say the time metric is backward. If we have a sensor at rest receiving a bombardment photon data that is travelling at c that will give an output passage of time. The image of a nearby clock produced from the photon data detected by the sensor would show marking time as you put it at one second per second. Instead of considering the man travelling with a photon stream how about if we consider the photon stream alone to be encoding the time on a clock. The data is unchanging, it is not being updated and so the time encoded does not change." Clock time apparently stands still". That's two different photon streams; one with changing data content and one without changing content; one showing passage of time and one not.

Yet for a traveler at relative light speed (relative to an observer deemed to be rest )time passes normally. He gets hungry, he gets bored, etc. because physiologically there is still change occurring. Worth mentioning I think, his velocity is only relative to something deemed to be at rest.It could be something moving away from him at high speed and so his absolute velocity is much less than c. Photons travelling within the apparent rest frame of the high velocity traveler behave just like any other photons and would be measured to be travelling at the speed of light. Perhaps it needs to be accepted that the speed of light is always the speed measured by the local observer; and THAT speed can not exceed the speed of light. A far observer would not be able to measure the speed of those particular photons themselves, because he is not there but far away.

Hi James,

please forgive my intrusion. I wasn't expecting my comment to John to turn in to a another discussion, though I appreciate the replies. It would be very good if you and John discuss your work because you two seem to be 'on the same wavelength'. The by standers might learn a thing or two.

It would also be enlightening for me to actually hear you explain the outcome of the barn-pole paradox in your own words. I don't think you need someone to argue with about it in order to set it out as an alternative explanation. So far you have set out the problem as you see it for me, I'm OK with what you wrote( I set out my own thoughts on that but they are incidental). You say you have already has discussion with Tom, so do you really need another strict relativist to try to convince? Couldn't you just explain it and leave it for other people to ponder? If you do that other people, pro or anti, may wish to join the discussion and discuss it with you. (Meant only as an encouraging, helpful suggestion.)

Anonymous replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 00:22 GMT, that's me Georgina

John, All,

Just to clarify, I wrote, "That's two different photon streams; one with changing data content and one without changing content; one showing passage of time and one not." The important difference is what the observer is doing relative to the EM data as the observer's motion determines whether the data content is changing relative to him or not. Being at rest relative to his surroundings receiving data traveling at c relative to him (changing data and corresponding experienced passage of time) OR traveling with the EM data at c that is consequently unchanging in that reference frame.(No experience of passage of time from that data.) Time can be seen to be passing differently depending on reference frame because that kind of time is emergent from the data content of the EM received.

While light beam traveler and stationary observer are not becoming separated in foundational, uni-temporal time because of their motion and consequently different EM data receipt. They both always stay within the configuration of the Object universe that exists, not one in the future relative to the other because he has seen time passing faster.

John Cox, Georgina, James et al.

- Concerning Maxwell and the equations purportedly endorsed by him and besring his name you may wish to read and store for keeps 90 year old Thomas Erwin Phipps's essay this year before it is removed. I think it clarifies more than a bit.

- Concerning travelling at light speed, you may want to consider the 'photon existence paradox' discovered by Armin Nikkah Shirazi with whom I had some discussions on his forum also in this years essay contest. If time does not flow for a photon or if 'time' stops at light velocity as John puts it, then the time of emission of a photon is the time also of its absorption, how then can photon exist?

It follows therefore that since photon exists, time does not stop for photons contrary to the Lorentz formula

t' = t в€љ(1 - v2/c2)

where for a photon t is the time it reads on its own clock and t' is the time the photon reads on an observer's clock. But for both photon and observer, photon must have a duration of existence, if not we are led into contradiction. Light would not be observed to reach us from the Sun if it is from observer viewpoint, and Light would not be able to leave the Sun from photon perspective.

Akinbo

Hi John,

Thank you for referencing A New Gamma. That essay plus the lengthy discussions that followed under [link:fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1928]Alternative Models of Reality:James A Putnam wrote on Feb. 21, 2015 @ 16:44 GMT A Pythagorean Geometry Proof of the Falsity of Relativity[/link] presented most of my view about the Lorentz Transforms. Most but not all. I am glad the essay sparked your imagination although our views seem to digress sharply. :) Your thoughts were very interesting to read. The essay shows that I find time to be unaffected.

James Putnam

Akinbo,

Thanks for bringing Tom Phipp's essay to my attention, I had only browsed a few entries meaning no disrespect for anyone. I'll have to give some thought and study to it, but have also limited my focus to loose ends and unresolved issues in classical physics which evolve into the morass of modernity.

I have also always objected to the standard application of LT producing the scenario you concisely illustrate that if time 'stops' at light velocity the time of emission and absorption of a photon (wavelength, really) would be the same. Which is what I mean by the time metric being backwards. Time does not stop at light velocity, the closer you get to light velocity the closer you are to the limit of how fast time can progress. But, enough if this for me, for now. Cordially, jrc

Hi James,

I will try to make time to read your essay. I'm sorry for not already doing so. I read more than I commented upon but not yours. When you say "I find time to be unaffected" I wonder if we are so much in disagreement, as at the foundational level of reality, in the explanatory framework I have been using, passage of time happens regardless of what the constituents of the Object universe are doing. But I must read what you have written first before jumping to conclusions.

Akinbo, All

Akinbo you make a good point regarding the existence of a photon when "time stops". I will address that issue.

The problem here is lack of differentiation of different kinds of time.

There needs to be at least 4 kinds acknowledged and differentiated in physics, though there are more kinds of time if we include different representations of time such as time that only exists mathematically, internal biologically time, as kept by circadian rhythms adjusted by light exposure times: important for biological organisms, and "Father time" that only exists symbolically and mentally.

The kinds of time important for physics are:

1. time in foundational Object reality, that is passage of time synonymous with the sequential change in configuration of the Object universe. OR.configuration time. Any highly regular sequential change with unchanging accuracy of repetition can be use to represent this such as clock time but only very close to the position of a stationary observer, to avoid significant data transmission and processing delay and affects of motion upon the timekeeping of the clock. This can be likened to "Proper time".

2. time information carried by potential sensory EM data primarily (but also other forms of sensory data ) in Object reality, OR. data time.

3. The time as experienced by an organism or displayed by a processing device. Which is Image reality time. It may be helpful to split that time into outputs that retain the data receipt order and those that do not necessarily.

That's a Basic IR. time and a subjective IR. time.

Now as regards the "stopped" photon. That it is stopped is the relative perception of the observer travelling with it. Yes from that perspective the photon ceases to have a frequency or wavelength because the observer is travelling with the wave keeping pace with it. But the photons in the beam are not themselves changed. There is no Basic IR. or subjective IR.Passage of time that can be formed from the photons in that reference frame.So in that respect there is no time. However the photon beam is still carrying OR. data time that could give Basic or subjective IR. time output to observer's crossed by it's path not travelling with it. Also there is still the foundational OR. configuration time: Object universal passage of time in which these scenarios are happening, that is independent of relative perceptions and data transmission.

That time is both stopped and not stopped is only paradoxical if no differentiation between kinds of time is made.

Georgina,

I should begin at the beginning with removing the indefinable mass from f=ma. It involves the speed of light directly. However, I have found that physicists have lost an understanding of their own definition of an indefinable property. They can no longer see what their predecessors wrote clearly about in physics texts. The wording in texts has changed so students no longer learn about it. So, even though the Lorentz transforms are not the beginning of the problem with theoretical physics, they do show their own error sufficiently, at least it seems clear to me.

Take the Lorentz transform for length contraction as an example since it is a principle part of the pole barn paradox. It definitely is a paradox as it currently is explained by physicists. They say that both perspectives are equal and correct for a single event. The point I will be making is that the two perspectives are not equal and cannot both be correct for the same single event. Here is the reason: Taken from a single perspective, the transform is said to be from the viewpoint of an observer who has no assigned velocity. A second observer is said to have a velocity relative to the first observer. The effects predicted by the Lorentz transforms occur to the second observer and not to the stationary observer. It is only when the observers' roles are reversed and the transform is applied again that it is predicted that the relativity type effects switch from the second observer to the first observer. Here is where I raise objection. I argue that the roles are not reversible. This point has to do with crediting the physical environment with causing the effects and not the stationary observer's gaze. The physical circumstances are determined by electric permittivity and magnetic permeability and not because the stationary observer is watching. ...

I'll pause here. Tomorrow I will review what I wrote thus far, respond to criticisms, and resume. Jumping ahead a little, I can provide the explanations for what are electric permittivity and magnetic permeability. Those explanations follow from removing the indefinable status of mass, the same for temperature, and removing the circular definition for electric charge.

James Putnam

I just need to add to my previous post that: OR.configuration time is not affected by gravitation or motion , unlike Einstein's proper time. OR.data time and subsequent Basic IR. time is affected due to the curving of the EM data paths within a gravitational field and the Doppler effect. If substantial atomic clocks themselves are running slow when in motion as shown by a permanent change in time shown compared to a relatively stationary clock it is necessary to separately categorize clock time, for moving clocks.