The Fundamental Nature of Time by Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hello Ed,

This one looks interesting and fun! I am only now starting to scan for interesting reading material in this year's crop, after pushing to make a proper completion for my own entry. I tried to squeeze as much as possible of the material in my talk at FFP15 in Orihuela, while keeping on topic for the most part, and while stepping down the feed voltage to match the technical level required here. I left a lot out, most of which is covered elsewhere, but I managed to put some very technical concepts in layman's terms - so we'll see.

Or rather, you will see my essay appear in a few days. And if he follows through on what we discussed via e-mail; you will also see an entry from Brian Josephson in this year's contest. His lecture at FFP15 was far off the beaten track, but the idea to used concepts from bio-semiotics to explore Physics might put some items in our toolbox that otherwise would never get added. So we'll have to see how the FQXi community treats his work. I look forward to some engaging discussions.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Edwin,

Thank you for your kind words regarding my essay.

In this thicket of dense conversation, it is helpful that you highlight pearls of wisdom arising from the dialogue and thus differentiate the realities of Hertz and Einstein, like clocks measure energy not time and fundamental reality based on energy-time conjugation not on space-time symmetry. The differences in reality that Einstein provided in explaining Hertz's photoelectric effect was well done thru the tavern-centered dialogue. Thanks for a good read, Edwin.

Jim Hoover

Dear Edwin,

I have read with great interest your deep essay on the problem of fundamentality. You give very important ideas that encourage the need to revise the ontological foundations of natural science. The FQXi contests provide an excellent opportunity to push new ideas and that's fine. Great job. I think that there will be a "big fight". And that's fine.

Successes in the Сontest!

My best regards,

Vladimir

Good work, especially the elaborations on the fundamental relationship between (unperfect) clocks, energy and time.

I like this essay very much!

I admire the way the bartender-mediated conversational style makes it seem almost effortless going between using words and equations to communicate, without breaking stride to explain yourself. I am only now becoming able to weave the Math in without it interrupting the flow of my message, so your dexterity in that area is well appreciated. I chose instead to go with almost purely verbal content in the body, and saved the equations for the technical explanation in the endnotes.

I will be reading this one again, before rating it or commenting much further. But I wanted to mention that some of what you said connects back to a lecture by Mikhail Altaisky I attended, talking about the complications of using a GPS system to guide travel in space. Choosing the nearest satellites fails to provide meaningful information sometimes, because the Jacobian vanishes. This can be traced to the need for a non-collapsing tetrahedron of measurement platforms, in order to provide meaningful or reliable positioning data.

All the Best,

Jonathan

John Erik,

in modern condensed matter treatment local gravity maps to defects in the matrix and these provide the correct Riemann metric (in 3D). So gravity maps to the static deformation of space in the density compressions of the aether. Light analogs appear as transverse elastic vibrations. Once you identify the transverse velocity of these waves with c then e=mc2 comes trivially from Hooke's law, or the amount of energy stored in a plastic defect as it were. Reconciling these ideas with Michelson and Morley null results, meaning the nature of time and speed of light in said aether occupies most of the essay I submitted (SR emerges from a fundamental Aether)

Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman,

Thanks for your paper. I appreciate its novel presentation.

I know very little mathematics and know nothing at all about important contemporary theories in physics. I confess that I did not understand arguments presented in the article (with the help of few functional entities like; mass, field, time, energy, etc. and mathematics). My inability has nothing to with quality of subject, arguments in the article or presentation, but it is due to lack of my education in contemporary theories in physics (and advanced mathematics). Therefore, I hope you will not take offence on the following.

To have any type of nature, an entity should have some sort of recognizable form, structure, constituents and a mechanism of development and existence. In other words; the entity should be real. If your arguments about fundamental nature of 'time' are right, 'time' should be a real entity. What is time? Without a concrete definition of time, how could you ascertain its nature? Does time has all requirements that endow it with independent objective reality and positive volumetric existence? Assigning time with properties of real entity does not appeal to common sense. Time and related mathematical tools may be very good to explain different states of universe (history of events) and its constituents. But (I think) 'time' remains a functional entity, created by rational beings and its nature is fundamental only to corresponding mathematical analyses - It is neither a fundamental entity nor it may have fundamental nature. A functional entity can only fulfill functions assigned to it and its nature can be changed by its assigner as frequently as he pleases. Searching whole of universe, we cannot find time because it is not present anywhere. But searching our world, we shall find time in everything and in all modern theories.

I consider gravitation and gravitational attraction (gravity) as different phenomena. Gravitational attraction is an apparent expression of gravitation. Gravitation is the most fundamental pressure ('force'), derived from existence of substance (matter) and it is enormously strong (beyond what we can imagine) compared to all other manifestations of gravitation, which include 'natural forces' (gravitational attraction, electromagnetic 'forces', nuclear 'forces', etc.) and other mechanical 'forces'. All of them are minutely weaker than gravitation and there are differences between each other's strengths and ranges. Gravitation is caused by relative mechanical movements of constituent particles in a universal medium, structured by quanta of matter and fills entire space outside basic 3D matter-particles.

You discuss many other phenomena in the article, about which I am not confident enough to comment. Thanks again. Kindly pardon me, if I exceeded limits of criticism.

Regards, Nainan

Edwin,

Reading through a number of the essays, it seems the questions surrounding the issue of time are starting to become a, if not the, primary issue. I recently suggested to Eckard that given this increasing concordance, some thought might be given to a cooperative effort to draw in the various fields of expertise and assemble a focused argument against the block time/eternalist view.

It is not as though future generations of theorists are going to devote their careers to untestable ideas, just because the current generation has done so, so a revolution will occur, sooner, or later and having some theoretical reference points and arguments being put forth, could very well help it along.

Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman, the fundamental has to be simple and clear to cherish our thinking. You wrote a great and wonderful essay. You are reviving the idea of the ether. I must say that the idea of identity of space and matter of Descartes is stronger than the idea of ether, which he also considered the matter and filled in the gaps between large particles, to obtain the space without holes. He believed that the voids in the physical space are filled immediately. New Cartesian Physics claims that the hole in space filled with the speed of light, according to modern ideas, forming the physical vacuum filled with energy. This energy as you think and creates time.

Read my essay in which I have some examples to show the effectiveness of the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes.

Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich.

Edwin

I have to commend you on a witty essay, and I liked it enough so I gave you a grade of 8. i.e. very well done

However, this is my nit.

The initial time step, call it either delta t, is either intrinsic within a system as done by Barbour in his essay about emergent time, or it is super imposed upon the system say by cyclic cosmological intervention from prior universes upon our present universe.

In essence, I would like to have a clear distinguishment made between emergent time, as stated by Barbour, or by some other agency, say as in cyclic conformal cosmology (penrose)

Aside from these nits, I frankly felt your essay was the most enjoyable one I have encountered in this contest and I am saving it as a gem.

Just because I raise this issue does not mean I disapprove. On the contrary I give you high marks and am asking for an extension of your dialogue to include the distinguishable choice I am referring to.

Andrew

I am going to put in here what I used to reply to your comment as to my essay:

quoting upon what I said in your essay discussion

quote

Edwin

I have to commend you on a witty essay, and I liked it enough so I gave you a grade of 8. i.e. very well done

However, this is my nit.

The initial time step, call it either delta t, is either intrinsic within a system as done by Barbour in his essay about emergent time, or it is super imposed upon the system say by cyclic cosmological intervention from prior universes upon our present universe.

In essence, I would like to have a clear distinguishment made between emergent time, as stated by Barbour, or by some other agency, say as in cyclic conformal cosmology (penrose)

Aside from these nits, I frankly felt your essay was the most enjoyable one I have encountered in this contest and I am saving it as a gem.

Just because I raise this issue does not mean I disapprove. On the contrary I give you high marks and am asking for an extension of your dialogue to include the distinguishable choice I am referring to.

Andrew

end of quote

Answering you was a pleasure, Edwin, but the choice I made was to include in time as in the form of Barbour,

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.3489.pdf

And the super structure I used was to focus upon the cosmological constant as I referenced it, as a way to initiate the placing of time as I saw it in the present cosmos.

Hence, I worked with forming the cosmological constant, as a bench mark for initial conditions enabling the development of time as given by

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.3489.pdf

What may surprise you. Edwin, was that I initially was to make my essay about time,and shifted to the cosmological constant as referred to in my essay after reviewing what I know of time, as a way to conjecture out an initial structure consistent with

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.3489.pdf

Please consider what I brought up about either emergent time, or the other choice of time, as I tried to answer it in my replies to you

I after this FQXI contest, will continue this discussion at great length, Edwin

Finally, please tell me if you think Barbour is full of beans, i.e. this essay

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.3489.pdf