Agreeing on Space-Time, not just Time!

[RainmanTime]

Here is what I am getting at, and it is even described in the following Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

I would be interested in your thoughts and observations on this Darby. I may be missing the boat on something that you could shine a light on...

In science, matter is commonly defined as the substance of which physical objects are composed, not counting the contribution of various energy or force-fields, which are not usually considered to be matter per se (though they may contribute to the mass of objects). Matter constitutes much of the observable universe, although again, light is not ordinarily considered matter. Unfortunately, for scientific purposes, "matter" is somewhat loosely defined. It is normally defined as anything that has mass and takes up space.

Emphasis mine. I fully agree that MATTER (as separate and distinct from MASS) is loosely defined. It is my position that we should quantify that difference in modern science. The second bolded sentence above suggests that MATTER = function(MASS, SPACE...(or Length)). I am simply suggesting that since MASS is clearly observed to be a dynamic metric/dimension, that it is more appropriate to say that MATTER = function(MASS, TIME). Certainly this functional model "works" when we think of our physical bodies, which constantly exchange MASS over TIME. But it even works at the quantum level when we understand that the quantum electron model amounts to a "blinking in" and "blinking out" of an electron particle at various places and times around the atomic nucleus. All matter above absolute zero vibrates, hence it has freqeuncies of resonance, hence it varys with TIME.

I am saying that if we agree that VELOCITY (MOTION) is a relativistic metric, whose differential formulation is dX/dt...

Would it not be instructive to agree that MATTER is a relativistic metric, whose differential formulation is dM/dt...

If the above two metrics are acceptable for reflecting reality, then the third metric "falls out for free" as MASS DENSITY, whose differential formulation is dM/dX.

RMT

 

[recall15]

And finally I would ask someone (anyone)

by the book:

As you can see from the Table on (3+1)D acceleration, all 14 variables (x, y, gamma, b, w, wx, tau, u, ux, uy, t, v, vx, vy) and 2 constants (alpha, wy) are simply related, except for Galilean time. We here take advantage of the fact that Galilean time t is directly expressable in terms of traveler time tau, through the dimensionless expression
. (4)
where E[phi |m] is the standard elliptic integral of the second kind. The function Xi[alpha tau/c] = alpha t/c defined above, and it's inverse, Xi^{-1}[alpha tau/c] = alpha tau/c, allows table entries involving Galilean time to be shortened considerably.

and

<font color="blue"> Abstract
Motions with respect to one inertial (or ``map'') frame are often described in terms of the coordinate time/velocity pair (or ``kinematic'') of the map frame itself. Since not all observers experience time in the same way, other time/velocity pairs describe map-frame trajectories as well. Such coexisting kinematics provide alternate variables to describe acceleration. We outline a general strategy to examine these. For example, Galileo's acceleration equations describe unidirectional relativistic motion exactly if one uses V=dx/dT, where x is map-frame position and T is clock time in a chase plane moving such that gamma' = gamma Sqrt[2/(gamma+1)]. Velocity in the traveler's kinematic, on the other hand, has dynamical and transformational properties which were lost by coordinate-velocity in the transition to Minkowski space-time. Its repeated appearance with coordinate time, when expressing relationships in simplest form, suggests complementarity between traveler and coordinate kinematic views. [/COLOR]

more at:
non coordinate time and...

 

[TimeLord]

RMT,

Then we should also be able to talk about RELATIVE MATTER, where we would be talking in terms of Mass-Time...MASS FLOW RATE...CHANGE OF MOMENTUM...[MASS]/[TIME].

Change of momentum w/ respect to time is force.

F = dp/dt

I'm sure that's not what you meant, but your terminology is off. Also, your diagram looks more than a little metaphysical.

 

[Kanigo2]

metaphysical.

Wouldnt bethe first time that that was used around here.

Bunch of thought here so go slow with me.

But anyway, I think what you are saying Ray, that matter is in itself a waveform.

I am going to have to wrap my mind around that.
I agree with you entirely, that was not what I was expecting.

---

I can see the correlation between the acceleration attribute and the waveform property of matter.
The concept takes away some of the inherent properties of mass that I was accustomed to.
I am going to have to read it a few times and let it sit for a few.....



Hey uh one other thing, because of the "dark matter" "empty space" concept, You didn't like Unruh's explanation of Vacuum?

 

[Einstein]

Trex

Except the technical details, I understand from what I have read in this thread that there is no consensus on what time is, whether it is a separate entity or it is intertwined with space. Local Einstein said that it seems that mass is devoid of time. That is an interesting claim. Is it only the vibrations that show time exists? Assuming time stopped, what would happen?

If you are really interested in what time is, try to keep an open mind. Entertain all theories. In answer to your question, if time stopped, what would happen? All forces would be in balance. At zero time flow, mass becomes infinite in magnitude. But that is just a hypothetical scenario. Since we can't control the flow of time, many of our theories about what time is, could be in serious error.

A theory of mine is that the changing mass that takes place in our sun is responcible for the arrow of time. The mass decreases in a hydrogen to helium conversion process. Lots of mass in lots of stars is decreasing this way. So naturally a device that controls mass, causing it to change in intensity just might elicit some type of control over the local time flow rate. It's just my idea of course. A simulated matter-antimatter reaction might produce a change also. Of course the lorentz force and the gyroscope exhibit highly increased inertia. Almost as if more mass was present. So maybe changing the magnitude of this simulated mass might also have an influence over the flow of time. After my gyroscope experiments, I'm moving on to simulated antimatter experiments.

 

[Darby]

Have I said it seems to him?

Trex,

You probably did somewhere. I included the caveat just to make it clear to anyone reading the post that it was an opinion stated by our Einstein and not something embodied in the scientific community's opinion.

 

[Darby]

Ray,

This is all fine and scholarly work, but I do not believe anyone has observed or measured any results that confirm Hawking Radiation yet.

Virtual particle pair creation isn't something that applies only to black holes. Hawking Radiation is a theory that explains how a black hole can evaporate based on what we already know from quantum physics and the Uncertainty Principle.

From the Uncertainty Principle we know, and have confirmed, that a vacuum can't be "empty". There are virtual particles in the vacuum. These particles randomly "pop" into existence as particle/anti-particle pairs that have some small but almost nil energy. Because of the infinitesimally small energies involved they don't have the velocity to escape to infinity thus avoiding mutually annihilating.

But if you place a black hole in the spacetime where they are forming the situation changes. The gravitational energy present is sufficient to make the virtual particles real. Most of them still annihilate. But some do manage to avoid annihilation. The pairs that form at the limb of the event horizon can do this.

So Hawking Radiation is based on the same theory as the quantum physics theory that generally allows virtual pair creation but places the situation at the limb of a black hole event horizon. It just adds the vectors of the escaping particles, considers Newton's energy conservation law and postulates the effect on the black hole.

 

[Trex]

Motion is a feature of matter, right? Can we think of matter as motionless? And when saying motion what do we mean? Is it the one (motion) at subatomic level? But what about the motion of the things around us? The spacecraft in twin paradox travelling at speed light for example. The faster it goes, the slower time becomes.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/hotsciencetwin

Has this got anything to do with the motion you are mentioning? Do people leading a faster life than those leading a more stable life look younger? /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif Is motion constant or variable? I am a layman in physics, but I am interested in it. I hope I am not boring you with my questions.

 

[Kanigo2]

Can we think of matter as motionless?

I am not sure we ever can- or mass for that matter(I love puns).

And when saying motion what do we mean? Is it the one (motion) at subatomic level? But what about the motion of the things around us?

Is all relative.More important that your perception may be made on your observation, Which is also relative. "an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla." Thats for you Ray...

Do people leading a faster life than those leading a more stable life look younger?

Can you become in "tune" with the universe by slowing down? Is it possible that speeding up itself actually causes stress? Are there higher planes of consciousness that can be reach through being in balance with the universe? Does Love have a frequency?

I kinda wanted to bend you up here a little,Trex. Mankind has had thousands of years to travel along that path of consciousness and still has reached no conclusion.

Yet our study of particle physics is still in it's infancy, It's a great time to be alive.

Nothing is boring about you being here.Another interested observer into the mysteries of the universe.

I can't wait for LHC to fire up, but I can also see one of those, "what the hell does that mean?" moments coming.

 

[RainmanTime]

Motion is a feature of matter, right?

Not when you use the dimensional definition of motion that science has adopted, no. (More on that below)

Can we think of matter as motionless?

I don't think so, no. Matter and Motion are intimately linked.

And when saying motion what do we mean?

Again, using dimensional definitions the "zero state" of motion is called velocity. It is a metric of Space-Time in that its units are Space per unit Time (i.e. [Space]/[Time]). But velocity is only the "zero state" of motion. Higher derivatives (acceleration is the first derivative of velocity) are also considered motion. It is good you ask this question, because establishing scientifically acceptable defintions is always a prerequisite for establishing more encompassing theories.

Is it the one (motion) at subatomic level? But what about the motion of the things around us?

ALL motions are those which can be measured with a Space-Time metric. I once proposed that one can identify three (there's that number again) classes of motion:

1) Translational
2) Rotational
3) Vibrational

One could almost

treat this as a means to identify a "complete" motion vector. Any body of matter can exhibit all three of these forms of motion at the same time.
RMT

 

[Darby]

Motion is a feature of matter, right? Can we think of matter as motionless? And when saying motion what do we mean? Is it the one (motion) at subatomic level? But what about the motion of the things around us? The spacecraft in twin paradox travelling at speed light for example. The faster it goes, the slower time becomes.

Can we think of matter as motionless?

No. If matter could be considered absolutely motionless you run up against the problem of the Uncertainty Principle.

Position and velocity are just one example of "non-commutating" pairs. The more that you know about one part of the pair the less you know about the other. If you could measure the velocity of a particle as absolutely zero then the position becomes infinitely smeared out. You'd know absolutely nothing about its location.

All matter has some minimum, non-zero, motion at all times.

And when saying motion what do we mean? Is it the one (motion) at subatomic level?

Motion includes translation in space - some sort of absolute displacement from Point A to Point B - as well as oscillations ("jiggling" or vibration - Brownian Motion). If you see a piece of matter that appears to be motionless but look "inside" it at the atomic level you'll see the atoms jiggling about. They might not have any net movement away from Point A over a sufficiently short period of time but they do change their positions somewhat. They are moving. You can also look inside the atoms and see the sub-atomic particles during the same thing - jiggling about.

If this principle of quantum physics wasn't true we wouldn't be here to ponder the question. Electrons and protons electrically attract each other. According to classical electrodynamics the electrons should crash into the protons, fuse and become neutrons - but they don't. For that to happen we'd know both the velocity and position of the elctrons. So, the electrons take the middle road. They are attracted to the protons but their positions become smeared out. This prevents them from crashing into the nucleus of the atom. Without the Uncertainty Principle our universe would be made up of photons and neutrons with a few other random particles.

But what about the motion of the things around us? The spacecraft in twin paradox travelling at speed light for example. The faster it goes, the slower time becomes.

First, the spacecraft isn't traveling at the speed of light. It's traveling at some unspecified highly relativistic velocity approaching the speed of light.

Second, there is no paradox here. What is perceived as a paradox is that the twins don't age at the same rate but according to Special Relativity we can't determine which one is aging more slowly because, again according to Special Relativity, each twin can take the position that (s)he is at rest and the other one is in motion..

As long as the relative motion between them is one of a uniform, non-spinning linear translation (at a constant velocity, not spinning and in a straight line) they can't determine which one is moving thus which one is aging more slowly.

But the situation as stated in the gedankenexperiment (thought experiment) is unrealistic. The twins were at rest with respect to each other at the time that they compared clocks. Some time later one of them was accelerated to a high relativistic velocity. That twin felt the accelerating forces or at least had the ability to detect the acceleration. That twin also has to return so they can again compare clocks. That twin will again feel the accelerating forces of braking, turning around, re-accelerating, braking and coming to a stop. That's the twin who will age more slowly.

The Twins Paradox story picks up after the twin has been accelerated, the engines have been shut down and (s)he is coasting in space.

The problem here is that people read about Special Relativity and come away concluding that all motions are relative. They aren't. Accelerated motions are absolute with respect to the "at rest" observer because acceleration can be detected.

 

[RainmanTime]

Accelerated motions are absolute with respect to the "at rest" observer because acceleration can be detected.

Excellent, excellent point, Darby. So few people understand this!
RMT

 

[RainmanTime]

TimeLord,

In reply to:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then we should also be able to talk about RELATIVE MATTER, where we would be talking in terms of Mass-Time...MASS FLOW RATE...CHANGE OF MOMENTUM...[MASS]/[TIME].
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Change of momentum w/ respect to time is force.

F = dp/dt

I'm sure that's not what you meant, but your terminology is off. Also, your diagram looks more than a little metaphysical.

You are correct, and I stand corrected! The diagram looks metaphysical only because I have not captured the mathematical relationships that complete it. I have expounded on those relationships in other (older) threads here. The point of them being that any single metric we wish to define on the universal manifold that I call Massive SpaceTime will always be in error. Hence, MASS, SPACE, and TIME, while useful approximations, fall apart at the Planck Length. The REASON they fall apart the the Planck Length (or more precisely, the Planck Scale) is BECAUSE they are mere approximations. Further to this, the approximations of MATTER and MOTION (with MATTER as I have defined it) are somewhat better approximations. They are "better" because they recognize the integrated nature of Massive SpaceTime, and they take the first step towards expressing that integrated reality. And indeed, you have to admit that every device mankind has ever conceived to track TIME has been a device based on MATTER in MOTION.

Now take the "better" approximation one step further, and integrate MATTER with MOTION (where TIME is a derived quantity), and you will arrive at the scientific statements of Conservation Laws that we know, love (?), and have shown to be true. For examples: Both ENERGY and MOMENTUM are metrics which include all 3 "fundamental" dimensions of MASS, SPACE, and TIME. Such an integrated view of Massive SpaceTime also "explains" why Heisenberg Uncertainty exists: Namely, because you cannot expect to "dissect" Massive SpaceTime into distinct components without introducing error. Hence, while I can accurately measure an object's momentum to some degree of accuracy, I will lose accuracy with respect to that object's position. The reason is that position is an inexact metric on Massive SpaceTime, but momentum is not.

RMT

 

[Darby]

Excellent, excellent point, Darby. So few people understand this!

Ray,

Thanks for the compliment. I'll return the favor...

You've also made an excellent point about approximations.

As far as we know, and there's no reason to doubt it, all scientific theories are approximations of reality. And if quantum theory is correct in the main, and again we have no reason to doubt it, then all future scientific theories will also be approximations of reality. If they are good theories that extend or otherwise modify our current knowledge base they will be more accurate thus more useful but there is a limit to our ability to know the whole story. The limit is found, as you pointed out, at the Planck Scale and in the Uncertainty Principle.

It's not a matter of getting better and more refined meters to make more accurate observations. Uncertainty appears to be a fundamental part of our reality unrelated to the instruments that we use to make measurements.

 

[TimeLord]

I find it annoying that so much effort is wasted talking about approximations and uncertainty. It's clear that measuring tools have practical limits - that's what the uncertainty principle is all about. But that doesn't mean that a particle or system has no well-defined behavior at levels below which we can measure. Suppose you accepted the same level of uncertainty in your car engine - sometimes it would burn gasoline, other times it would teleport to Mars; and you'd never know which one it's going to do. Rather, I think that the uncertainty principle has been taken too far. A lot can be determined about particle behavior simply by understanding its properties.

 

[Trex]

It's not a matter of getting better and more refined meters to make more accurate observations. Uncertainty appears to be a fundamental part of our reality unrelated to the instruments that we use to make measurements.

The Uncertainty Principle: One cannot know both the position and the speed of a particle at the same time.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? What does this mean? Can you give a concrete example in order for me to visualize what is meant?

Hawking goes as far as to claim that even God does/can not know both the position and the speed of something at the same time. Well, opinions on this can vary according to one's belief of God, but if one is talking about God, s/he should know that God is known to create everything around us. Do you think it is plausible to put forward such a thing about God, given what is meant by "God"? Is it possible to create something and not know everything about it, whether it be the position or the speed of it, or both at the same time? For me, no.

((((((((((Stephan Hawking wrote in his &amp;#8220;Does God play Dice?&amp;#8221;:

Einstein was very unhappy about this apparent randomness in nature. His views were summed up in his famous phrase, 'God does not play dice'. He seemed to have felt that the uncertainty was only provisional: but that there was an underlying reality, in which particles would have well defined positions and speeds, and would evolve according to deterministic laws, in the spirit of Laplace. This reality might be known to God, but the quantum nature of light would prevent us seeing it, except through a glass darkly. Einstein's view was what would now be called, a hidden variable theory. Hidden variable theories might seem to be the most obvious way to incorporate the Uncertainty Principle into physics. They form the basis of the mental picture of the universe, held by many scientists, and almost all philosophers of science. But these hidden variable theories are wrong. The British physicist, John Bell, who died recently, devised an
experimental test that would distinguish hidden variable theories. When the experiment was carried out carefully, the results were inconsistent with hidden variables. Thus it seems that even God is bound by the Uncertainty Principle, and can not know both the position, and the speed, of a particle. So God does play dice with the universe. All the evidence points to him being an inveterate gambler, who throws the dice on every possible occasion.)))))

(((((((((((Stephan Hawking wrote in his &amp;#8220;Does God play Dice?&amp;#8221;:

Many scientists are like Einstein, in that they have a deep emotional attachment to determinism. Unlike Einstein, they have accepted the reduction in our ability to predict, that quantum theory brought about. But that was far enough. They didn't like the further reduction, which black holes seemed to imply. They have therefore claimed that information is not really lost down black holes. But they have not managed to find any mechanism that would return the information. It is just a pious hope that the universe is deterministic, in the way that Laplace thought. I feel these scientists have not learnt the lesson of history. The universe does not behave according to our pre-conceived ideas. It continues to surprise us.)))))

(((((Stephan Hawking wrote in his "A Brief History of Time"

Einstein once asked the question: &amp;#8220;How much choice did God have in constructing the universe?&amp;#8221; If the no boundary proposal is correct, he had no freedom at all to choose initial conditions. He would, of course, still have had the freedom to choose the laws that the universe obeyed. This, however, may not really have been all that much of a choice; there may well be only one, or a small number, of complete unified theories, such as the heterotic string theory, that are self-consistent and allow the existence of structures as complicated as human beings who can investigate the laws of the universe and ask about the nature of God.)))))

 

[Darby]

It's clear that measuring tools have practical limits - that's what the uncertainty principle is all about.

TimeLord,

But that's the rub. It's not about measuring tools, their accuracy or getting better tools. The Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics appears to be a fundamental fact of our reality. At the quantum level, particularly the atomic level, particles don't have precise positions and velocities.

As I stated previously, if this weren't the case we wouldn't be here comtemplating the issue because in such a universe electrons would be crashing into and fusing with protons. It's only because the electrons don't have precise positions and velocities that prevents that from occuring. Instead they have a probability distribution that defines their positions and velocities - they're "smeared out" if you will.

Better tools will help in more clearly determining positions and velocities but they won't change the principle. Things simply don't have positions and velocities that can be measured to an arbitrary degree of precision.

It sounds illogical, I know. But when you think about it, even in the large scale classical world that we exist in in our everyday experience the same is true. If I ask you, "Where are you - I mean where are you exactly ?", you can't answer the question to an arbitrary degree of precision. Why? First and foremost you're not a point particle. You're extended in space - somewhat taller than 5 feet, 3 to 12 inches thick and 3 to 18 inches wide. You have arms, legs, fingers, toes, hands, feet, a head, a torso and hair all over your body. Basically you're a pillow shaped object with sticks, fuzz and a ball hung on it. You're smeared out over about a half cubic meter of space and the location that you give in answer to the question will be some sort of an average. "I'm in my office, at my desk which is located at (address)". And better tools won't be able to define your location any better than that. You'll still be smeared out in space and the answer will still be an average position.

Then there's the problem of when were you located there. Where are you exactly? There's a "when" implied in the question. By the time that you hear the question, think of the answer and deliver it you're no longer "there". You've moved even if the movement is some sort of internal movement involving your body. Your location is even more unclear. As to the "when" - again assuming that you want the time defined to an arbitrary degree of precision - you have a problem. If the questioner's general location is north or south of your location your angular velocities aren't the same as the Earth turns through its revolution. Whomever is closer to the equator will have a clock that runs slower than the other's clock. If one is located at a higher altitude his clock will run slightly faster because he's higher up in the gravity well and a little slower because his angular velocity is higher (at a higher altitude the radius from him to Earth's center of mass/gravity is a bit longer). The same vaguery applies as to which part of your body are you to use to define the time. Time is out of synch between your head and feet - different altitudes. In short, your clocks are out of synch. There is no precise answer to "when". Even in this clock scenario we're taking an average for the time and there's no fixing the problem with better tools if you insist on a precise answer to an arbitrary degree of precision.

All of this adds up to an uncertainty of position, velocity and time. And we aren't actually talking about the quantum world's Uncertainty Principle in this example.

The analogy serves the purpose even though the process at the quantum level is very much more counter-intuitive.

 

[RainmanTime]

Trex,

Is it possible to create something and not know everything about it, whether it be the position or the speed of it, or both at the same time? For me, no.

Do you have any children? Are any of them teenagers? So are you saying that because you have created a child that you ALWAYS know where it is (position) and what it is doing (velocity and/or momentum)?

I create the algorithms that stabilize and control aircraft. But do I know EVERYTHING about the aircraft? Heck no! That is why we have a team of designers. In fact, because the range of conditions that a flight control system or automatic pilot may encounter is limitless, I cannot even say I know EVERYTHING about how my own design would react under all circumstances. In fact, no engineer could make such a statement. We design to the "mean" (average) condition and we tweak our designs to handle "3 sigma" cases (i.e. those cases which have a low but measurable probability of occurrence).

RMT

 

[Kanigo2]

In response to Trex:

They didn't like the further reduction, which black holes seemed to imply. They have therefore claimed that information is not really lost down black holes. But they have not managed to find any mechanism that would return the information.

It continues to surprise us

Hawkins must be surprised also because he just reversed his position again and said that information can be preserved on the other side of a singularity. Then he embraced a another form of string theory.

Which of course opens the Large Extra Dimension Theory again...

Darby describe the vary bottom of the particle pile the best:

From the Uncertainty Principle we know, and have confirmed, that a vacuum can't be "empty". There are virtual particles in the vacuum. These particles randomly "pop" into existence as particle/anti-particle pairs that have some small but almost nil energy. Because of the infinitesimally small energies involved they don't have the velocity to escape to infinity thus avoiding mutually annihilating.

But if you place a black hole in the spacetime where they are forming the situation changes. The gravitational energy present is sufficient to make the virtual particles real. Most of them still annihilate. But some do manage to avoid annihilation. The pairs that form at the limb of the event horizon can do this.

I just wanted something to visualize here that may define a force vs. matter particle .
And that to point out that there may be Dark Force and Dark Matter particles.

Yet at some point I agree with RMT that we may be falling a little too far down the "Lets chase a particle" game.

A better image with full values can be had here:

&lt;a href="http://www.dpedtech.com/Particles.jpg " target="_blank"&gt;Look at me, posting a link that works...&lt;/a&gt; It was too large to post in the forum.

I really had nothing to add, except support.

 

[Darby]

Trex,

Is it possible to create something and not know everything about it, whether it be the position or the speed of it, or both at the same time? For me, no.

As I said above, I know that it's both frustrating and counter-intuitive to learn that the idea of absolute determinism in this universe isn't viable.

This doesn't mean that if we don't know the position and velocity of some particle to an arbitrary degree of precision then our observations and conclusions are somehow flawed. If you're engineering something and need tollerances at the millimeter scale, no problem. We have the ability to get it down the the micron scale. If you need to time the half-life of a mu meson (muon) no problem. We can easily hit the scale of billionths of a second. In 9,999 cases out of 10,000 "close enough" serves us extremely well. It's only at the extreme scales - the ultra tiny atomic scale and the ultra-large cosmic scales - that the impossible to bridge knowledge gap poses problems. And even there we aren't working entirely in the dark. In thermodynamic processes where we have more than two atoms bouncing around its impossible to keep track of or predict exactly where the atoms will move to <font color="red"> * [/COLOR] . But no one really cares. What we really care about is the statistical average of the process. One little water atom isn't going to be of much use to us. A billion gallons of water, on the other hand, is quite useful if we can predict its average behavior.

On the other hand, if we want to directly determine anything about the position, velocity, mass, momentum, angular velocity, angular momentum, magnetic moment, etc. of every atom and particle in the universe right now we can't - not even in theory. First you have the limiting factor of the speed of light. Everything that you preceive with your senses, even if augmented with instrumentation, is a picture of the event in the past. Second, you still have the Uncertainty Principle to contend with. Third you have the problem of Special Relativity: relative velocities and the failure of simultaneity. Our concept of "right now" only applies locally and is still imprecise. Taken to the cosmic scale "right now" doesn't exist.

The Russians tried and failed in an attempt to profer a world of absolute determinism. The idea was embodied in the "scientific dialectic" of Marxism-Leninism. Especially during Stalin's reign more than one Soviet scientist met a rather abrupt end of his or her stay on this mortal coil by concluding that it is impossible to absolutely determine the outcome of thermodynamic processes. The Pulitburo would interpret that conclusion to mean that the absence of absolute determinism at the atomic level meant that it also implied that it was equally impossible at the social engineering level. That was considered by the Supreme Soviet to be counter-revolutionary blasphemy - even though it was true.

And once again, the examples used above are classical thermodynamic processes that don't even consider quantum uncertainty.

<font color="red"> * [/COLOR] We can cheat by using an atom of hydrogen based water, another atom of deuterium based water and another of tritium based water. In that case we've "painted" a radio-isotope label on two of the three water atoms and can track them. But we still can't predict precisely where the atoms will be at some time in the future.