Replacements for Inadequate Physics Definitions for Energy and Time

PSI Blog 20211129 Replacements for Inadequate Physics Definitions for Energy and Time

 

By

 

George Coyne

 

Vancouver Regional Office

Progressive Science Institute

 

By close examination of the definitions of energy and time used in physics, this blog exposes their complete inadequacies.

 

Energy

 

Wikipedia defines energy as “the quantitative property that must be transferred to a body or physical system to perform work on the body, or to heat it.” Where Wikipedia uses the word work I insert their definition for work after the words “to perform the”. Then it becomes: “Energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to a body or physical system to perform the energy transferred to or from an object via application of force along a displacement on the body, or to heat it.”

 

The orthodox definition for energy as provided by Wikipedia makes no sense when substituting the definition of “work” where it is used in the definition of energy. It is exposed as being incomprehensible gibberish. I prefer Borchardt’s definition of energy.

 

This differs from Glenn Borchardt’s definition of energy being a calculation used in describing matter and its motion or potential motion “a matter-motion term concerning the exchange of matter’s motion[1] representing a calculated result from a number for mass times the square of a velocity number.”[2]

Time

A similar problem arises when physicists attempt to define time. Here is how Wikipedia defines it: “Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in the conscious experience. Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension, along with three spatial dimensions. …Time in physics is operationally defined as ‘what a clock reads’. …The operational definition of time does not address what the fundamental nature of it is. It does not address why events can happen forward and backward in space, whereas events only happen in the forward progress of time.”

Let us examine this definition. The concept of past, present and future is known as time. So, by replacing that phrase with the word time the first sentence is stating that time is the sequence of existence and events that occurs in an irreversible succession from time. Adding the word time at the end of the sentence makes it meaningless.

 

The second sentence has the problem of using the meaningless phrase “quantity of various measurements.” This phrase is backward because quantities are properties or characteristics being measured, such as the mass or length of something. Those measurements are expressed as units of measure. The phrase duration of events means the time during which something exists or lasts. Thus, it makes no sense to use this reference to time when trying to define time. Also, rates of change are not quantities, but rather these refer to differences when comparing measurements. I can conceive of three dimensions, but I have no concept of what time as the fourth dimension could possibly be referring to. I doubt that anyone is able to conceive of it. Just because the phrase is used by physicists does not make it a valid abstraction. The operational physics definition of time is seen to be ludicrous when we insert the definition of clocks for the word clocks in the sentence: Time in physics is operationally defined as what a device that indicates or measures time reads. The writer of the Wikipedia entry realizes some of the problems with the operational definition of time in stating that it “does not address what the fundamental nature of it is.”

 

I use Glenn Borchardt’s much simpler, rational definition of time as being the motion of objects. In Notfinity Process: Matter-In-Motion 2^nd Edition (2021) I created the word nadal to refer to the measurement of this motion of matter. It is necessary to have a different word for the measurement of time so as to not confuse it with the actual motion.

 

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 2016, Do Spent batteries have more mass?

[2] Puetz, S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal Cycle Theory: Neomechanics of the Hierarchically Infinite Universe: Denver, Outskirts Press, p. 12 [https://go.glennborchardt.com/UCT].