Blog 20150708
Another question by henk:
“Why is time linearized
although clocks using circular motion are used to construct a linear time? If
one says that now waves are used I remark that a wave can be visualized easily
by circular motion. Anyhow, it makes calculations easier and it can be used to
construct a fourth dimension which makes things rather complicated. So, my
question remains.”
[GB: henk, again, time
is motion. Paths taken by microcosms in motion can have an infinite number of geometric
shapes in relation to other microcosms. Linear motion (or linear time) is only
an idealization. In his First Law of Motion,
Newton imagined a body traveling through absolute space in a straight line. In actuality, the rotation and revolution of Earth actually
makes that impossible. Any point on Earth follows a nearly circular path. In
spite of this, when we measure the distance between two microcosms on Earth, we
find the straight-line distance to be more or less constant relative to each
other. However, if the distance is great, we need to take the curvature of
Earth into account.
None of this makes any
difference in understanding time. The velocity of a race car is the same
whether it is traveling around a race track or traveling in a straight line.
One hundred kilometers per hour is the same in either case. The “hour,” of
course, is yet another measurement, which we have established by convention,
even though Earth is not a very good time keeper—there are much better ones,
cesium-133, for instance. All clocks, like all motions in the infinite universe,
are relative to each other.
I
don’t know what you mean by saying that wave motion makes understanding time
any easier or that it makes calculations easier or that it leads to a fourth
dimension. Things have only three dimensions, xyz, and time is not a thing.
Time is motion, and does not exist—it occurs. Of course, in mathematics you can
imagine as many “dimensions” as you wish. Nature, however, has only three.
Again, remember that
universal time is the motion of all things in the universe with respect to all
other things. None of those motions in the infinite universe is reversible, per the Seventh Assumption of Science, irreversibility
(All processes are irreversible). That is why the “arrow of time” only goes one
way. None of those infinite microcosms can ever return to the spacetime
position it had before because its relationship to all the other microcosms
keeps changing. As mentioned last week, all microcosms must be in continual
motion in order to exist.]
From Bill Westmiller:
ReplyDelete>Another question by henk:
I enjoyed your answer and don't have any quibbles, but thought I'd comment:
>... Things have only three dimensions, xyz, and time is not a thing.
I agree, assuming your definition of "things" as objects, but the word "dimension" has always been problematic. We tend to use it as "any feature which can be measured", but even the xyz features don't actually exist in reality, they're merely abstractions from nature that conveniently describe the measurable quantity of space any physical object occupies. However, there is no such thing as a one or two dimensional object. The x,y, and z coordinates cannot exist in isolation.
The only reason I mention it is that modern mathematics commonly reifies dimensions and physics fruitlessly speculates about "singularities" or two dimensional "branes". More commonly, it combines the "feature of motion which can be measured" (motion/time) as just another dimension inherent in objects, when it is purely a relationship between objects. So, we get the "four dimensional" universe of Minkowski. That, in turn, lead to Einstein's General Relativity as a "curvature of nothingness".
It's actually quite amazing how far physics has ventured into fantasy, simply by using bad definitions.
Bill
Also, if we could agree on a language we might be able to say that there is no such thing as nothing Therefore we call something "Space". In order to speak of different locations in space we find xyz helpful.
ReplyDeleteBTW, how could "space" arise from nothing as in "Dark Energy" or how could "space" bend? Both of those are old paradigms and false ones at that.
B