Ripping Apart Einstein

Thomas Ray

Fine, John. Have a good life.

John Merryman

Tom,

I realize you think I'm hopelessly naive and you are right. I like asking simple questions. I've been doing it a long time and am quite used to being looked down on by those with sophisticated and complex lives. Now that many aspects of this complex society and economy are starting to crumble, I find others starting to ask simple questions.

Complexity is inherently interesting and mentally engrossing and many people spend their lives building and unraveling complexities, to the point of addiction. It naturally grows, until it becomes unstable and then has to reset back to a more stable level.

I know you think you are standing on stable ground and nothing will ever convince you otherwise. I have the sense there is much more to the story, but sometimes it takes a few steps back, to be able to keep moving forward.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

"Now that many aspects of this complex society and economy are starting to crumble, I find others starting to ask simple questions."

That's what they said about the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Let's be clear about one thing, though -- I don't look down on you. I am just trying to bring us to an understanding of the difference between the simple questions, and the right questions.

Best,

Tom

John Merryman

Tom,

It looks like we are headed that way again. Credit is a bitch, even when you own the bank.

You state classical processes do run in reverse and link to a page that states only in models, not in reality. It raises questions in my mind as to the distinction between the model and what is being modeled.

Models are never the whole picture, because their very function is to isolate the salient points. When you have a model that distills time down to measures of duration, yet doesn't cover other features , such as directionality, why is it a problem to accept these are simply features not covered by the model, rather than insist they are not real, because the model doesn't explain them?

In my mind, that raises the model to the status of religious dogma, not scientific tool.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

No John, you are heading that way again. I'm taking the other fork.

John Merryman

Tom,

I'm certainly not denying you the right to think whatever you believe to be right. I'm just trying to explain why I see it differently.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

John, do you honestly think that any point of view that one may adopt for a scientific issue is valid?

John Merryman

Tom,

Only if it is logically coherent, contains a minimum number of assumptions and fits the broadest number of observations, without having to include physically invisible patches.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

"Only if it is logically coherent ..."

Do you find your premises logically coherent?

John Merryman

Tom,

That the consequence of physical change is that potential coalesces in actual and then recedes into residual, results in the effect we call time and the physical inertia of this process means the effects are not naturally reversible?

Vs. Measures of distance and duration being interconnected means there is some physical fabric of spacetime, in which all events simply exist in their position in the geometry, with the passage of time being an illusion, no real reason why it doesn't go in reverse, etc.

Yes, I do.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

"That the consequence of physical change is that potential coalesces in actual and then recedes into residual, results in the effect we call time and the physical inertia of this process means the effects are not naturally reversible?"

But John -- what the heck does that even *mean*? Collapse of the wavefunction? Contradiction: time isn't involved in the hypothetical collpase. Inertia? -- it is certainly reversible.

"Vs. Measures of distance and duration being interconnected means there is some physical fabric of spacetime, in which all events simply exist in their position in the geometry, with the passage of time being an illusion, no real reason why it doesn't go in reverse, etc."

There *are* real reasons why time is an illusion in spacetime geometry. You just haven't learned them.

Best,

Tom

John Merryman

Tom,

I didn't say anything about "collapse of the wavefunction."

As an example of what I am saying; Prior to the running of a race with ten entrants, there are ten potential winners. After the race has run, there is one actual winner. When events are in the future, there are a range of potential outcomes. The physical process of all the constituent parts interacting determines what the actual result is. The future becomes past, as a consequence of this activity. There is no overall clock, or time, or universal rate by which these events transpire. They are all their own actions, within their own particular context and as they interact, exchanging energy and evolving forms, sequences emerge. Like days emerge from the sun shining on a rotating planet, or waves from wind across water.

We just happen to be particular points of reference and we experience this process as the series of events in which we participate. Duration is the action occurring between reference events. We measure it by comparing it to similar sequences. Rather than revealing some deeper nature of this process, it actually does the opposite. By reducing the sequential effect of change to a measure of the sequence, you only have a part of a part, rather than a view to the larger process that created the sequence. So when you base your model on this very narrow concept, it is no wonder much of the dynamics related to the passage of time cannot be explained.

The reason time is an illusion in spacetime geometry is because the actual passage of time is not explained by spacetime geometry.

"Inertia? -- it is certainly reversible."

Only with the requisite energy and organization and that has to be drawn from some larger context.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

"As an example of what I am saying; Prior to the running of a race with ten entrants, there are ten potential winners. After the race has run, there is one actual winner. When events are in the future, there are a range of potential outcomes."

That's so easy to believe, John, and most take it for granted. However, it doesn't explain anything. Evolution, for instance, is highly deterministic not in spite of -- rather, because of -- the random mutations that power natural selection. It doesn't "just" happen. We look for underlying causes (not all of them in the "past," because there are positive as well as negative feedback loops) that converge on an objective explanation. To simply speak of emergent effects as if they sprang from the head of Zeus isn't the kind of explanation that science entertains.

"The reason time is an illusion in spacetime geometry is because the actual passage of time is not explained by spacetime geometry."

It is, if there's no ' ... actual passage of time,' even though you believe it to be so. The least action principle has that covered.

"'Inertia? -- it is certainly reversible.'

Only with the requisite energy and organization and that has to be drawn from some larger context."

Nah. It's just good old classical physics, no pontificating required.

Best,

Tom

John Merryman

Tom,

We have been around this argument many times and as I said, you have your reasons for seeing reality as you do and I have my reasons for seeing it as I do. I realize there is much that is quite deterministic(otherwise known as inertia), but that still doesn't negate the effect of time, which is something I have to deal with on a continuous basis. Maybe it is just naive realism, but in dealing with my naively realistic world, I find it more effective and efficient to see it as action in space, creating change and time is an effect and often subjective measure of that change. There is no need for blocktime and good old classical physics doesn't really go in reverse.

"Thus no truly reversible processes exist. However, many systems are approximately reversible. And assuming reversible processes will greatly aid our calculations of various thermodynamic state functions."

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

Naive realism is seductive, John, if one only wishes to have a personal non-scientific point of view of what "reality" is. I fail to see, however, that unless one understands classical mechanics and its well tested principle of time conservation, how one can even come close to understandng the exotic physics you talk about all the time.

Best,

Tom

John Merryman

Tom,

"Now consider an initial condition in which all the gas particles are initially in a corner of a large box. By Poincaré's theorem, the gas particles must eventually return to their initial state in the corner of the box. How long is this recurrence time? In order to answer this, consider dividing the box up into M small cells of volume v. The total number of microstates available to the gas varies with N like . The number of microstates corresponding to all the particles occupying a single cell of volume v is . Thus, the probability of observing the system in this microstate is approximately . Even if v=V/2, for , the probability is vanishingly small. The Poincaré recurrence time, on the other hand, is proportional to the inverse of this probability or . Again, since , if v=V/2, the required time is

which is many orders of magnitude longer than the current age of the universe. Thus, although the system will return arbitrarily close to its initial state, the time required for this is unphysically long and will never be observed. Over times relevant for observation, given similar such initial conditions, the system will essentially always evolve in the same way, which is to expand and fill the box and essentially never to the opposite."

Do you ever actually read and think through what you link? Not only would it take longer than the (presumed) age of the universe for even the possibility these particles will return to the one corner of the box, that doesn't account for all the particular particles returning to their exact locations in that corner, which would be a necessary requirement for actual reversibility. And that's just for a mathematical model of one box of gas.

I'm not going to hold my breath for the glass to bounce back up on the table and put itself together again, even for several ages of the universe.

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

"Do you ever actually read and think through what you link?"

Why no, John. I just randomly pick sources in hopes that you'll understand one of them.

John Merryman

Tom,

It is apparent. What was described wasn't reversibility, but a return to very approximate initial conditions. At no point is it argued the gas reverses course and retraces all the original trajectories. Simply that at some point in the very distant future, the gas might accumulate in the corner. Does it even matter if it's the same corner, since it is only an approximation?

Regards,

John M

Thomas Ray

Excellent, John. I find it a shame that your capacity to finally ask questions that would lead to the physical insights that we have already mastered, is usually betrayed by your scandalized "common sense." Why is that?

Will you attempt to see where the questions lead?

Best,

Tom

John Merryman

Tom,

You seem to keep losing the thread of the conversation. How does one reconcile thermodynamics with the spacetime convention of time as symmetric? You have posted two links which argue against your own position. The question is when will you be willing consider where the questions lead?

Regards,

John M

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