Hello Anders,
Loved your essay!
Love words such as this, "I argue that it is probably a misdirected effort to try to abolish time from fundamental science."
Indeed, at the heart of every measurement is change. Ergo, without change, there can be no measurement, and thus no physics--at least not physics based in experimental, physical reality--which seems to be the kind of physics well-funded regimes are pushing us towards.
You write on page 5, "There is a naive and widely spread view that space and time are unified in the special theory of relativity, and as an understood consequence, sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes not, that there is no real difference between space and time. True, in a well structured course on the subject, including Einstein's original arguments, Minkowski spacetime and the Poincare group of transformations, you could at the end conclude: "Thus in special relativity, space and time are unified in a four-dimensional spacetime"."
Yes! And actually, this glosses over a startling fact:
"In his 1912 Manuscript on Relativity, Einstein never stated that time is the fourth dimension, but rather he wrote x4 = ict. The fourth dimension is not time, but ict. Despite this, prominent physicists have oft equated time and the fourth dimension, leading to un-resolvable paradoxes and confusion regarding time's physical nature, as physicists mistakenly projected properties of the three spatial dimensions onto a time dimension, resulting in curious concepts including frozen time and block universes in which the past and future are omni-present, thusly denying free will, while implying the possibility of time travel into the past, which visitors from the future have yet to verify. Beginning with the postulate that time is an emergent phenomenon resulting from a fourth dimension expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, diverse phenomena from relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics are accounted for. Time dilation, the equivalence of mass and energy, nonlocality, wave-particle duality, and entropy are shown to arise from a common, deeper physical reality expressed with dx4/dt=ic. This postulate and equation, from which Einstein's relativity is derived, presents a fundamental model accounting for the emergence of time, the constant velocity of light, the fact that the maximum velocity is c, and the fact that c is independent of the velocity of the source, as photons are but matter surfing a fourth expanding dimension. In general relativity, Einstein showed that the dimensions themselves could bend, curve, and move. The present theory extends this principle, postulating that the fourth dimension is moving independently of the three spatial dimensions, distributing locality and fathering time. This physical model underlies and accounts for time in quantum mechanics, relativity, and statistical mechanics, as well as entropy, the universe's expansion, and time's arrows and assymetries across all realms."
You will enjoy my paper Time as an Emergent Phenomenon: Traveling Back to the Heroic Age of Physics by Elliot McGucken : http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/238
For the first time in the history of relativity, change has been woven into the fundamental fabric of spacetime with MDT's simple postulate and equation: the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at c, or dx4/dt=ic. All of relativity is derived form this simple premise--this hitherto unsung universal invariant--in my paper, and too, MDT liberates us from the block universe while granting us free will, while also accounting for entropy and quantum entanglement and nonlocality with a common *physical* model. Unifying *physical* phenomena--all the dualities: space/time, wave/particle, mass/energy-- with simple *physical* models--kindof reminds one of the goold ol' days of physics! That heroic age!
You write, "Not so if time is introduced. Introducing time the metric becomes non-positive definite = diag (−1,+1,+1,+1). This is precisely what distinguishes time
from space in special relativity. The minus sign in the metric cannot be transformed away by any Poincar´e transformation and therefore time is fully distinguishable in any inertial frame."
Yes! The - sign arises because the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. To remain stationary in the fourth dimension, as does the photon, is to travel at c through the three spatial dimensions. And vice versa. The only way to stay stationary in the ofurth dimension is to propagate at c through the three spatial dimensions. Ergo the ofurth dimension is epxnaindg relative to the three spatial dimensions.
And yes! In quantum mechanics we always see d/dt, suggesting that things change in time, and time changes things! It is amazing that some people want to get rid of time based on all this! If anything, an international holiday should be created to honor time! And then those who get rid of time won't have the time to celebrate with us, though we'll invite them anyway.
Thanks for taking the time to defend time. :)
I hope Moving Dimensions Theory might be of some use, as it probes the deeper *physical* mechanism--a fourth dimension expanidng at c relative to the three spatial dimensions--from which time arises, as well as entropy, relativity, and quantum nonlocality and entanglement, as well as the universe's maximum (and only) velocity of c through space-time.
Best,
Dr. E (The Real McCoy)
