Darby
Epochal Historian
Paradox,
And to address "time stopping" in particular, you have to think in terms of whether or not time itself is quantifiable. So far we have no reason to believe that time itself is qunatifiable, meaning that it doesn't come in discrete packets as does mass/energy in the quantum sense. If it doesn't come in quantifiable packets then saying that something happens at the spacetime locus of some particle (of mass - not photons) at time X and space Y is meaningless.
We do know that the speed of light is the bound that seperates time from space in the spacetime continuum. At velocities above the speed of light, according to GR, space and time switch axes. We can't say precisely what occurs at the speed of light other than what the regression from above and below "c" states. Again, you have to do the math. In straight "arithmetic" division by zero is undefined. In calculus it is not undefined. It is a left-right convergence that has a precise value. In this case time stops and space become infinite. A photon occupies the entirety of spacetime from the perspective of "riding" on its back. That's the meaning of "time stops" at "c". It's entirely expressed in a light cone along the 45 degree axes.
Of course I have to again reiterate that math is not physics. Physics is the paradigm. Math is the language used to express the paradigm. Physicists have to have the common sense to evaluate whether the math is expressing a reality or if it is simply expressing a possible value that considers "what if" the world was as the math suggests. If the real world is different then the math is just expressing a reality that doesn'rt exist locally (or anywhere else, for that matter). But the math is the language that we use. So far the math of General Relativity does express the reality of the world that we live in.
And to address "time stopping" in particular, you have to think in terms of whether or not time itself is quantifiable. So far we have no reason to believe that time itself is qunatifiable, meaning that it doesn't come in discrete packets as does mass/energy in the quantum sense. If it doesn't come in quantifiable packets then saying that something happens at the spacetime locus of some particle (of mass - not photons) at time X and space Y is meaningless.
We do know that the speed of light is the bound that seperates time from space in the spacetime continuum. At velocities above the speed of light, according to GR, space and time switch axes. We can't say precisely what occurs at the speed of light other than what the regression from above and below "c" states. Again, you have to do the math. In straight "arithmetic" division by zero is undefined. In calculus it is not undefined. It is a left-right convergence that has a precise value. In this case time stops and space become infinite. A photon occupies the entirety of spacetime from the perspective of "riding" on its back. That's the meaning of "time stops" at "c". It's entirely expressed in a light cone along the 45 degree axes.
Of course I have to again reiterate that math is not physics. Physics is the paradigm. Math is the language used to express the paradigm. Physicists have to have the common sense to evaluate whether the math is expressing a reality or if it is simply expressing a possible value that considers "what if" the world was as the math suggests. If the real world is different then the math is just expressing a reality that doesn'rt exist locally (or anywhere else, for that matter). But the math is the language that we use. So far the math of General Relativity does express the reality of the world that we live in.