Dear Eckard,

on the contrary Mc Taggart's very clear and unambiguous definition of the elements neccessary for time as we know it are very useful. The everyday notion of past, present and future is not adequate.

As I have tried to explain in my essay for the distant observer events that have already occurred and are to the near man already the past, are yet to be experienced and are in that distant observer's future. Though beyond what has already occurred everywhere (even though it has not been experienced) the future is un-written. So you see from this that some parts of the future, not yet experienced, are preordained, as they have already happened, and others are not.So there is partial determinism allowing causality and free will.

The everyday notion of a present experienced by all simultaneously is not sufficient to explain observations, where there is observed to be non simultaneity of events. (See the dog on the hill example in the essay.) However simultaneity is necessary at the foundational level to permit causality.The differentiation of (Foundational)object and (Reconstruction from received data)image reality allow both to co-exist without contradiction or paradox.

The experienced present is formed from the data that is -received-, not the objects or events that exist or the data immediately it is formed. So objective or uni-temporal Now (Where foundational objects exist and interaction occurs) is different from the experienced space-time present. There is transmission delay according to distance from object or event which causes temporal distortion of the image reality experienced.

Best regards, Georgina.

Dear Georgina,

You wrote: "The everyday notion of a present experienced by all simultaneously".

Sorry, I am not aware of anybody who is stupid enough as to not understand that it is impossible to see or hear without a delay what happend elsewhere. I am also sure that the huge majority of people who easily understand that for instance thunder takes some time of flight never heard the name McTeggart.

Regards,

Eckard

Yes Eckard,

you are correct that most people do understand there is an information delay. However it does seem that there has been a general difficulty reconciling this knowledge with the notion of the present. Most are not conscious that the present experience is not a singular simultaneously occurring collection of events, or objective slice of reality happening right Now - but a composite image formed from received data with incorporated time delay, that is unique for each observer.The amount of delay being variable according to the distance from the origin and the nature of the stimulus.Smells taking longer than sound taking longer than light.

I suspect experiments are designed without the subjective, relative nature of the present being taken fully into account. The two ends of the laboratory are not seen at precisely the same time by the experimenter standing at different ends of the room.It takes time for the light reflected to reach the experimenters eyes and be processed.

Such considerations are important for example when quantum physicists start to talk about time travel. On a minute scale due to the high speed of light and tiny scale of particles under consideration, the far end of the room is seen in the past compared to what is actually happening at the far end of the room. The yet unobserved event might be said to be occurring in the future as it has not yet been observed, but so it is with all distant observations.It becomes the experienced present when the observation is made ie the data is received and processed so that there is an awareness of it.

This gets really messed up for astronomical observations because it takes a vast amount of time for the data to arrive so it is obviously not something happening right now but yet it only now a part of present experience.Until it is observed it is something that has happened but is not yet observed, like the event at the end of the room. Still in the future until it is seen even though the event has happened. After the event is seen it becomes the past consigned to memory or other records.

Those events that have happened but are not yet observed are only a part of the future, the determined part. Beyond what exists at the uni-temporal objective Now (That is right now in objective reality) there is nothing so the future is open and unwritten. Allowing non determinism and free will.I think confusion over this is what lead to the writing of the Andromeda paradox. It can be understood either as I have explained here or by using the Lorentz transformation to calculate what would be observed. The event becomes a part of the present when the data is received by the observer not when the data is formed.

I do not know if you have actually talked to many people about their concept of the present. I seem to have had great difficulty getting others to accept the composite nature of an experienced present moment which is an image of reality formed from received data, rather than an objective reality made from objects and events as they are in space. If you are now saying this is the common everyday perception of the present then I am surprised at that.

I too have only recently become aware of Mc Taggart. I have found his A, B, C series helpful because I have myself been trying to describe how a spatial change can become a sequence in time, which is necessary for passage of time and how this is different from experienced and geometric space-time. As his A, B C series are very clear and unambiguous so I am using his series to explanation what I mean.

Dear Georgina,

If special relativity is true, then each observer will have their own plane of simultaneity. Otherwise the Andromeda paradox is one more indication that Einstein's synchronization is rather a desynchronization. Did you decide whether or not SR is correct?

Because I do not read French, I am not yet sure to what extent Einstein's theory goes back to Poincaré. Maybe Einstein was indeed not aware Poincaré's 1904 paper. This does not matter. Maybe already Poincaré 1898 is to blame. Anyway I see the Galilean principle of relativity violated by the ABA synchronization.

All this is pretty independent from my own work. I merely got aware that there is no plausible explanation for ict.

Again, do you believe in SR or not? And if so, how do you defend the logical asymmetry of ABA synchronization?

Regards,

Eckard

Dear Edwin,

Having repeatedly faced punishment by getting rated one, I am nonetheless not ready to hide the unwelcome results of my perhaps compelling reasoning even if this is seen an attack on holy grails in mathematics and also in physics. If no experiment will provide accordingly expected results, then I see no way but to deal with really foundational question not in the sense of more and more excuses and speculations but readiness to look for and admit very basic mistakes.

I would highly appreciate the same courage. What is your opinion concerning aleph_2 and concerning fair synchronization?

Eckard

Hello Eckard,

congratulation for your essay!

I don't know if we are on the same line (at least mathematically) but I think you'll enjoy reading my essay because of my proposition for "simplexity" as a good answer to "ict" (for the best one) in your sentence:

"When Minkowski's introduced ict as fourth dimension, he confessed not to understand why it is imaginary..."

(see my essay here http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/952)

Best regards, good luck for the contest

Ayind Mahamba

Eckard

I'd hoped you may respond to the note I referred above. I give another analogy below. I was glad to help get your essay back closer to where it belongs. You should also look at the excellent Ionescue essay, very logical mathematical concepts, directly demanding and supporting my DFM model, which consigns Lorentz to oblivion!

ANALAGY; I flew the Atlantic in a 150mph jet stream 2 weeks ago. It was very bumpy getting 'in' and 'out' of the stream, (we could see the 'speed over ground' changing) but we arrived an hour early. Consider; The plane did normal cruising speed within the jet. When we spoke within the plane the sound moved wrt the plane. The same with light. The noise outside would move wrt the LOCAL air. An observer on a boat would measure it at C plus V. Yet no light or sound would reach that observer at more than C or the speed of sound!! Plasma does precisely the same with it's refractive index as glass and air.

We've been guilty of invalid logic and inadequate mental capacity.

I hope you'll score my essay before the deadline if you haven't as I think it important the result gets attention in a reputable journal. Do confirm if you understand the logic now, and do check my string.

Very best wishes

Peter

Eckard,

you have asked me repeatedly if I believe it or not. I do not think it is a question of belief. Either the mathematics works to give accurate predictions or it does not. I do not use the mathematics myself so I am not qualified to say how well it works from my personal experience. I understand from what I have read that it does work well to make predictions. I would have to qualify that by saying I do not accept that those predictions show the measurements of concrete objects distributed in time and space but only images that will be observed from an observer's perspective.

Yes each observer does have their own "plane of simultaneity". My present is not the same as the next persons present. Data arriving together is formed into the present of each. Which data arrives together to form that present depends upon spatial position. The important point is that past, present and future, experience has to be differentiated from earlier and later sequential change or passage of time.

The sequence of change in foundational reality is the same regardless of the temporal distortion of the sequence due to transmission delay of the data and the different positions of the observers. The non simultaneity of events is an artifact due to that transmission delay and thus temporal distortion of the data. In foundational reality of objects, rather than images formed from received data, there is no non simultaneity, no temporal distribution, but sequential change.

Please can you explain what you are referring to by ABA synchronisation?

Eckard,

You say: "I would highly appreciate the same courage. What is your opinion concerning aleph_2 and concerning fair synchronization?"

It is not lack of courage that prevents me from stating opinions, as you will see all over these threads, if you read my various comments and responses. Only uncertainty and/or incompetence prevents my expressing an opinion, and I feel incompetent to say anything about aleph_2 that would add to the conversation.

I hope you do not hold this against me.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Georgina,

What about all putative evidence that confirms Einstein's SR, you might read Van Flandern, easily available at metaresearch.org. He argues that they altogether can be explained otherwise while nobody directly measured time dilation and nobody directly measured length contraction.

With ABA synchronization I refer to two objects A and B considered in the paper Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Koerper 1905. I have only a copy in German at hands. For the sake of simplicity, lets restrict to motion along a straight line.

Einstein introduced two clocks. A first one at a point A located at the origin of a coordinate System K at rest is thought belonging to an observer who is in relative motion to the second clock carried by a point B whose coordinates also refer to K. This is already asymmetric because a person at B sees A within his own coordinate system k. As understood by Galilei, there is no justification for an absolute rest. Equal standards would demand to agree on a neutral point C in the middle between A and B.

Of course, if the distance between A and B is growing then A sees or hears the clock of B ticking slower if the temporal distance between two subsequent ticks is unchanged because light or sound, respectively, need an additional time of flight. This effect is named after Christian Doppler, and it is likewise valid for B seeing or hearing A.

Conversely, if the distance gets smaller, then the perceived frequencies increase. Both clocks observed from outside seem to run faster in this case. Such simple and compelling logic is broken if one adheres to the idea that A-related clocks can be attributed to all points in the coordinate system K while B-related clocks can be related to all points in the coordinate system k. All points means locations x between minus infinity and plus infinity. I consider just this idea the key mistake because it requires an overlap of past and future.

Einstein argued that the time in which light travels from A to B must be the same as the time required for returning from B to A: t_B - t_A = t'_A - t_B. Then he calculated the return distance 2 AB = (t'_A - t_A)c and concluded

r_AB = (t_B - t_A)(c-v) = (t'_A - t_B)(c+v). Accordingly he arrived at the well known paradox result: (c-v)(c+v) = c^2-v^2 does not depend on the sign of v. While the experimentally confirmed Doppler effect depends on the sign of relative motion, SR predicts a never measured length contraction regardless whether A and B move towards each other or away from each other. Because c-v is about twice as small as SQRT(c^2-v^2), the correct Doppler effect in case A and B move toward each other is about twice as large as the increase according to putative length contraction.

I agree with many experts: Einstein's synchronization by a thought measurement of light reflected from B return to A is unnecessary and led to many paradoxes.

A recent argument against curved spacetime gave evidence for a flat universe.

I should express gratitude towards those who did help me to clarify the matter, in particular Paul Davies. Peter Jackson and Thomas Ray guided me to heretical literature.

Regards,

Eckard

calls A also K and assumes it at rest. He calls B also k and ascribes to it a constant velocity v the direction of which coincides with positive x.

Dear Edwin,

Please read what I just wrote to Georgina as to explain why Poincarè/Einstein's special theory of relativity overlaps past and future. I have to apologize for not proofreading and for not deleting the wrong text after the end of my message. Nonetheless, I consider it essential and I hope for your comment.

What about your refusal to take issue, I know that I will neither find any mathematician who can factually defend aleph_2 nor a mathematician who is brave enough to admit in public that it is pure nonsense.

The situation concerning SR might be a bit different because physics is closer to reality, and the above mentioned arguments are more easily understandable even for laymen. Aren't they?

What about your theory, I for my part have to admit being unable to judge its correctness in detail. Maybe, you could explain some key ideas a little bit better. Nonetheless, I appreciate you taking issue for realism. If I compare your essay with Peter's, yours is much more proficient, and also your comments were well balanced. So I feel in position to rate it high.

Best regards,

Eckard

Eckard,

I have read arguments both for and against SR.

I agree that it is somewhat problematic to assign the same clock time to all points of single reference frame, because everything seen within the reference frame is in space-time and therefore there is temporal distribution within that observed space-time. The data from furthest objects taking the longest to arrive, the nearest the shortest. So the furthest objects are seen further back in time. However it is modeling the observer perspective. To the observer everything he sees, the reconstructed images of external reality, are apparently existing -at the same time-. This relativity relates to the appearances of the image of reality, reconstructed from received data. Not what actually exists without any transmission delay.IMHO.

I also agree with your point about not having stationary points. In my essay I draw attention to the universal trajectory of the earth and how that trajectory would seem to alter as the scale of observation increases. So the observer who is stationary is only stationary from his perspective. If it is -his perspective- under consideration then he can be rightly regarded as stationary.

The overlap of past and future when each assigns his clock to all he sees in his present is not a such a big problem.This is because past and future are not actual realms but are related to the interception of data from which an image of reality is formed. Data not yet received can be considered to be in the future, data that has already been received and is no longer present experience can be considered the past. Of course how each would regard the data depends on his relative perspective. It is not objectively past, present or future, as its name depends on the observers viewpoint.

I know that this is considered to be happening in a space-time manifold and it is generally thought that concrete objects are distributed in both time and space within it. However it is an explanatory mathematical model which does not say for itself exactly what it represents. I am not convinced Einstein knew exactly what it represents. He seemed to think it was a model concrete reality itself. He and Godel were very troubled by time and spent a lot of time trying to comprehend it.I think it works but only as a representation of image reality formed from received data and not as a model of foundational reality in which change and causality occurs.Curved or flat it is still just space-time.

If you have already got the matter clarified in your own mind then there is little point in me saying any more. I have merely said what I think on the matters raised. As community voting will be closing soon you look likely to be a finalist. I am very glad to see that. Georgina.

Dear Georgina,

There is no escape: The coordinate system K extends into the negative direction to the left of A and into the positive one to the right. For any point B located to the left the distance to A becomes closer if it moves to the right, and hence the Doppler effect yields an increased apparent frequency until B moved to the right side of A and the distance between A and B got growing yielding an decreased apparent frequency. Consequently there is no common coordinate system k fixed at B for which all points or in Einstein's terminology clocks read the same apparent time. Calculating 1/(c-v) - 1/(c+v) = 2v /(c^2-v^2) provides a misleading average.

I also disagree with your utterance that there is nothing to add. At least one question is remaining: How sound are Poincaré's Lorentz transformation and its pre-runner by Woldemar Voigt? The latter did deal with an elastic medium instead of light. The mathematical correctness of the belonging derivation of LT has been put in question by Aleksandar Vukelja. Whether Peter Jackson's objection also matters is not yet clear to me. Van Flandern accepted the Lorentz factor as it was used by Lorentz himself in contrast to Poincaré/Einstein.

Having read several related papers including those by Lorentz himself, Fitzgerald, Janssen and Stachel, Harvey Brown, Yakovenko, Ashby, and of course various Wikipedia articles, I see the main case already clarified for good.

Admittedly, I did not yet read the huge heretical literature. Maybe the opponents of Einstein could convince me that he was right.

Regards,

Eckard

Dear Yuri,

I apologize for my inability to rapidly grasp your ideas. You quoted three times Wheeler and once a paper, maybe yours on geometry of the microworld in a journal chemistry and life.

In order to support you in time, I should get a hint what special subject you refer to. I am trying to understand your somewhat Russian English. Yes, symmetry and antisymmetry are important. However, in what particular matter are you my ally?

Regards,

Eckard

Eckard,

I agree with you the clocks are not the same for all of the points that B can see. If a clock was actually placed at them. However from -his perspective- everything at those points exist at the same time. One singular present. I thought I had said as much in my previous post.

I can not answer your second question.I am not a mathematician.I do not know enough about the subject.I want mathematicians to tell me, clearly one way or the other, if they think they are sound or not and why. The Lorentz transformation mathematics seems to work to predict observations that will be made,(so I hear). As you point our there is a lot of literature on the matter both for and against, so the case is not closed. I have my own current opinion on the whole matter which I have yet to discover is wrong.

Eckard,

I truly regret that I am not competent to discuss Aleph_2. We all have our limits. I am inclined to agree with you, but that is without any basis except my high regard for you. I am pleased to see that your position guarantees that someone knowledgeable will look at it.

Thank you for your above remarks on my essay. I just opened this morning's mail and find very good news on the C-field front!

The 12 Mar 2011 issue of 'Science News' has two articles on the C-field:

The first (p.14) states that the C-field generated by a spinning Black Hole imparts (detectable) angular momentum to photons passing through the field, circularly polarizing the light. Martin Bojowald suggests upgrading most telescopes to search for more of this, and also looking for the C-field effects on radio telescope observations of the Milky Way black hole. [Note: 'frame-dragging' is a reference to the C-field.]

The second article (p.20) on quantum vortices has Kerson Huang of MIT speculating that the vortices in the (C-field) 'superfluid' after the big bang may be responsible for the gaps of empty space between galaxies. This is the same 'superfluid' that I discuss in my essay and that has been found at LHC.

From 'Fly-by' mysteries to spinning Black Holes to the Big Bang, the C-field is being recognized as having physical reality responsible for observable effects.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Edwin,

Questions like aleph_2 demand a clarification independent of the contest. Mathematicians have a limit that hinders them to discuss the aleph_2 matter: It belongs to a belief they were forced to swallow. You and me are less biased. We may ask any mathematician: Did anyone find any application for any aleph except for aleph_0 which means infinite and aleph_1 which means uncountable? If he is honest he will confess: Such application is not even imaginable.

Why do I bother about something that is about as ridiculous as are babies under a gooseberry bush? Mathematicians tend to defend some gospel-like basic tenets. Even an essay of this contest does not really promise leaving Cantor's paradise. Of course, I did not hold your confession of being not in position to contribute to this matter against you. On the contrary, I do not just acknowledge your realism and I congratulate you for the agreements with experiments you found. I also highly appreciate your honest readiness to admit limits of your competence.

Having voted, I ponder how to further support you. You will certainly continue your work. Can you anyhow improve your representation? Maybe the first pictures did not yet focus on the essence, maybe the notion C-field could be better illustrated.

Best,

Eckard

Regards,

Eckard