The Nature of Time

[Shadow]

]]"The math ingeneral use in physics defines a point as being zero dimentions, count up from that"

If you can explain a point with zero parameters fine. Common sense tells me that at least one information bit is required. An information bit is a measurement quanity of one dimention.... a dimention of "exists\does not exist". If it exists it has LOCATION. Location is synominous with the 1st dimention. A point then, has one dimention not zero dimentions. And yes it makes a difference if space is described with 3 parameters or if it is described with 4 paramaters.

If this one simple idea is beyond your intellect then it is obvious that I may stop right here.

Think about it, if YOUR math is so damn good why have you not worked out all the answers already? Math is not the presence or absence of numbers but the presence or absence of logic.

 

[Guest]

Shadow: Please explain your hypothesis, "Time is a spatial vector because EVERYTHING is a spatial vector."
If you can not then is an invalid hypothesis.

 

[Shadow]

Time-guy;

Why explain, you ain't going to agree with it any way. What you are really saying is that if I won't or can't explain it to YOUR satisfaction then that means that I don't know what I'm talking about.

I've spent 20 years learning this stuff, but you want it all in a ten minute post. Good luck, and happy hunting.

 

[Guest]

If you count a point in space as having one dimension- ( i believe this to be incorrect) and 3- dimensional space as having actually 4 dimensions, you've just bumped time into the 5th dimension slot, et cetera.
I don't know where that gets you. A "dimension" is a product of measurement, as an inch of string or a pound of coffee or 650 p.s.i. of gas pressure.
A single point in space has only location, and has no other measureable properties, therefore it can't be said to have any dimension. A line, having one dimension, length, also has location. So does a plane, having two dimensions, length and width.
A space, designated by the three dimensions of length, width, and height, also benefits from having location.
Now the elusive "Fourth" dimension, which we call time, can also be measured, not by a ruler or a bit of string, but by clocks. Now clocks do in fact measure something quite tangible, whether it be drops of water falling or swings of a pendulum or heavy metal isotopes undergoing nuclear decay. Time is therefore a TANGIBLE BIT OF OUR UNIVERSE and not simply an ethereal bit of mystical philosophy.
It is real, can be measured, and perhaps eventually can be manipulated.

 

[Janus]

Shadow, if you've spent twenty years learning 'this stuff', I'm amazed you don't get what I'm saying. The accepted way of numbering dimensions doesn't use your idea of the 'on/off' bit being a dimension in and of itself. But it doesn't matter. You're trying to prove that our assumptions are wrong, by 'proving' that space has 4 dimensions. But you're using a different counting system. So really, you haven't proved that space is not 3D (by the normal definition); you've proved that it is.

And like I said before, math is just the language. Math doesn't really give you any answers, it just describes the answers you have. So no matter how good anyone's math is, they still may not be able to work out 'all the answers' to physical problems; that's why there are experiments.

 

[The Doctor]

?!

<This message has been edited by The Doctor (edited 01 July 2000).>

 

[Guest]

Shadow:
What I am saying is that your statement as written based on my knowledge is invalid. I am in no way trying prove that you do not know what you are talking about. I am only trying to understand the underlying concept of your statement. I am sure you would disagree with my definition of time as would my other people. It is up to me to provide the fram-work in which my definition holds true. If I do not, are can not, then my definition would also be invalid. I don't know what you have learned in the past twenty years, but it might be that there are sill many thing for you to learn.

 

[Shadow]

In the last couple of days on this board I have learned that SUBJECTIVE interpretations of reality are way-far-and-gone MORE real to their perveyors than any objective reality could ever be.

I conceed to Janus that there is a valid difference in opinion as to the validity of experimemtal data vs the numbers used to express that data. But here is the way I look at it; the data/measurments are the facts and the numbers are the explaination. At least you draw the distinction between the two. Numbers and math are a language used to describe our data. You say look at the measurments not the measurment system. I say the measurement system is far from arbitrary and has a validity of its own. You could be totally correct....but if ones system of counting has no meaning then ANY explaination using that system will also be devoid of meaning.

Janus my point (pun noted) is that the accepted way of measuring dimensions is WRONG. The counting system we use IS important if not to the data then to our understanding of it. It needs to be re-examined. But no, you insist that Science-Math is a diety incapable of being in error and must not be questioned especially on a basic level.

Timeguy; Ok, you got me. My theories also rest on unproven postulates. The first of wich assumes that definitions of reality are found only in geometric shapes, positions, and related angles. Form that is....aka information. Form = existance; non-form = nonexistance. Form/information is everything. When the shape of reality is known, reality is (better) understood.

Untill YOU prove otherwise I'm going to believe that reality consists of two things: FORM AND MYSTERY. All else is pure confusion.

 

[Janus]

"you insist that Science-Math is a diety incapable of being in error and must not be questioned especially on a basic level."

What? When did I say that? All I said is that the experimental data are what we should look at, rather than the math we use to describe it. I see it this way: if I told you "the sky is blue" in English, you'd picture in your mind a blue sky, independant of the words. Same goes if you knew German, and I said the same thing. The physical reality is independant of the language. So if you use one definition to say that space is 4D, and I use another to say it's 3D, we're both imagining the same thing. Most low-level physics is like that. The problems set in when the math is our only window on a process - when we can't envision it in our minds. Then, it's like telling a person born blind "the sky is blue". That person has no idea what 'blue' means, so while he may accept the fact, it has no actual meaning to him. The word 'blue', or 'blau' in German, or 'bleu' in French, or whatever, is arbitrary and has no meaning by itself - only when connected to the actual thing it marks. The way I see it, math works the same way. We can use information given by the math, just as the blind person can deduce that his eyes are blue, if told that they're the same colour as the sky. But that doesn't mean that we can ever actually understand what's behind what we're doing. So it doesn't matter whether we describe space with one math or another - the space is still the same; the math's just an arbitrary label we slap onto it so we can discuss it.

 

[Shadow]

So at least we have come to the core of our differences. Language is arbitrary or not. Somehow I think this argument has been run up on thousands of times over the centuries. I admit that I don't know if it is or isn't.....but I'll now be on the lookout one way or the other. And yes, my use of numbers as description does assume the non-arbitrayness of counting and numerical ratio.

McLuhan; "The medium is the message".

Language is the ultimate medium. Somewhere here we are looking at the dividing line between fact and meaning, the objective and subjective.

If you want to think about something how about the possability that there is no such dividing line.....that the two just blend smoothly one into the other.

 

[Shadow]

Time~Master'

If the fundamental particle of existance is a quantum of action (not my idea) then that particle must have speed and direction..... in other words it can be described as a spatial vector..

By definition everything including time must consist of the fundamental partical. eh?

 

[Guest]

Shadow:

A good question!
Based on "The Standard Model" of particle physics all the known matter particles are composites of quarks and leptons, and they interact by exchanging force carrier particles. I haven't read anything that suggest that these particles exist as a fuction of there motion. It is important to remember that motion is relative and a motion vector is only valid when referenced to a specific frame of reference. Speed and direction are properties of fundamental particles.

The ideal of "quantum of action" existing as a fundamental particle would appear to be invalid. Any definition of time based on "quantum of action" would also be invalid.

A spatial vector can be used to describe the distance and direction of a location relative to a specific frame of reference. It can not also describe the speed of that location, that would require a different vector.

 

[Shadow]

All particals are made of energy (E=mc^2). Eneryg is a measure of speed over distance only (once the the mass has been converted as in a photon). I refer to speed over distance as a vector. If direction has to be added in for the sake of accuracy so be it. Your quarks and "lepracons" can be reduced to vectors......as a means of explaination that is and not in actuality as Janus has pointed out.

 

[Janus]

Well, I know for a fact (and am backed up by many a linguist) that language, as in the spoken/written kind, is almost completely arbitrary. There's no objective link between the concept of eating and the various words different languages use for it: to eat, essen, manger. The only exception (and a dubious one, at that) is onomatopoeic words like "buzz" and "thunk".

Math-wise, it's a slightly different story. Obviously there is a basic concept of 'one', and therefore all the other numbers, but the application of these to physical properties is not so well-defined. One can use different starting numbers for sliding scales, for example, and still yield equivalent results. You can describe physics and the like in myriad different ways, starting with different assumptions, but so long as the math is self-consistent, it's describing the same reality and gives equivalent results. So again, I assert that the math you use has no bearing on the quality of your results, nor does it matter which math you use (so long as it's self-consistent).

the Kaushitaki Upanishad: "It is not speech which we should want to know: we should know the speaker."

"Language is the ultimate medium."
I disagree; it's just one medium out of many.

The accepted definition of "vector" is a magnitude and a direction. And subatomic particles cannot be described solely in terms of spatial vectors. How would you take into account mass, charge, spin, quark colour, etc.? You need all the quantum numbers for that. "speed over distance" would yield units of inverse seconds - frequency?

 

[Shadow]

Seems there ain't much room for original thought around here. But thanks for your patients, and don't let the bed bugs bite.

 

[The Doctor]

.....

<This message has been edited by The Doctor (edited 01 July 2000).>

 

[Guest]

LEPTONS:
There are six leptons, three of which have electrical charge and three of which do not. The best known lepton is the election. The other two charged leptons are MUON and the TAU, which are charged like elections but have a lot more mass. The other leptons are the three types of NEUTRINOS. They have no electrical charge, very little mass, and they are very hard to find.

 

[Guest]

The Doctor:
What is formatted or spherically vortexed energy?

 

[The Doctor]

........!]]]].......

<This message has been edited by The Doctor (edited 01 July 2000).>

 

[Shadow]

Ain't a matrix another name for a set of spatial vectors? Thanx Doc I couldn't have said it better myself.

Language can obscure reality as well as explain it, depending on the athors intent, preconcieved notions (aka education), accuracy and ability. This not to say that nature does not have its own language, one that can be discovered vs invented.

Time travel will be 99% discovery and 1% invention..