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Author Topic:   Is time merely a concept?
fgarb
Member (Idle past 5391 days)
Posts: 98
From: Naperville, IL
Joined: 11-08-2007


Message 16 of 55 (432905)
11-09-2007 12:32 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Brad McFall
11-08-2007 7:52 PM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
I guess Salamander and I picked a bad thread for our first posts. Ironic given my comment about how intelligent everyone on this forum seemed to be. I suppose I could join in. It's easy enough to combine nouns, verbs, and adjectives at random to form sentences. Hell, there are plenty of computer programs that would do it for me. I guess I just don't see the point. I hope you're having fun.
Edited by fgarb, : vowels != verbs

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by GDR, posted 11-09-2007 1:04 AM fgarb has not replied
 Message 18 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-09-2007 11:16 AM fgarb has not replied
 Message 19 by Taz, posted 11-09-2007 2:14 PM fgarb has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 17 of 55 (432906)
11-09-2007 1:04 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by fgarb
11-09-2007 12:32 AM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
This is a great topic and there are people here who are really knowledgable. (Unfortunately I'm not one of them.) If you poke around in the archives there have been previous threads on the subject.
One physicist who has spent years studying time is Julian Barbour. He suggests that time is a series of nows and if I understand him correctly he thinks that each now is a planck time and also that each now is eternal.
Here is a link to his site.
Julian Barbour
Here is a quote from the site.
Julian Barbour writes:
The end of time
Closely related to this work is my study of time. Mach remarked “It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction at which we arrive through the changes of things.” Thus, time as such does not exist but only change. Much of my research has been devoted to the implications of this insight. I have shown how, alongside the relativity of motion, the notion of time as change can be built into the foundations of dynamics. In fact, this idea is contained in a hidden form within general relativity. Its potential consequences for the yet to be found quantum mechanics of the universe are profound. The quantum universe is likely to be static. Motion and the apparent passage of time may be nothing but very well founded illusions. This is the thesis of The End of Time (books), which is aimed both at the general reader and physicists.
A Dutch television film, Killing Time, made in 1999, does a remarkably good job of explaining the ideas of the book in a non-technical way. The film is 24 minutes long and requires realplayer; the website is in Dutch.

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

This message is a reply to:
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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 55 (432964)
11-09-2007 11:16 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by fgarb
11-09-2007 12:32 AM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
I guess Salamander and I picked a bad thread for our first posts. Ironic given my comment about how intelligent everyone on this forum seemed to be.
The thing is, Brad is genuinely answering you. He is notorious for making no sense, going off on crazy tangents that haven't a thing to do with anything.
I simply started a parody reminiscent of inane banter. I'm just messing around, but he is dead serious. Shocking isn't it?
I suppose I could join in. It's easy enough to combine nouns, verbs, and adjectives at random to form sentences. Hell, there are plenty of computer programs that would do it for me. I guess I just don't see the point. I hope you're having fun.
The point is to see if he will answer it honestly (totally missing the joke).
Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : No reason given.

“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3292 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 19 of 55 (433007)
11-09-2007 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by fgarb
11-09-2007 12:32 AM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
Imagine for a moment that you are so smart that a single concept would remind you of 10 other things related to it and every one of those 10 other things remind you of 10 other things related to it and so on and so forth. I suspect very much that this is the case with Brad McFall. Everything we say reminds him of 10 other things and so on. When he answers us, it's impossible for him to talk in a linear fasion because it's impossible for him to.
Personally, I just try to avoid him as best I can. He makes me feel like a dumbass sometime.

Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by fgarb, posted 11-09-2007 12:32 AM fgarb has replied

Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 20 of 55 (433063)
11-09-2007 7:22 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by fgarb
11-08-2007 1:41 AM


physics before math
quote:
Salamander writes:
I was thinking over Zeno's dichotomy paradox. He states that we can never fully reach any point because to get to the point, we must first go half way to it, but before that, half way to the half way point, ad infinitum. Seeing as how we do reach points all the time (ie, I never have any problem getting to work), it seems there is no real paradox here, yet the reasoning is sound.
quote:
fgarbYou should be aware that this “paradox” was conclusively solved hundreds of years ago with the invention of calculus. The techniques developed for adding up an infinite number of things are known as integration. If the things you are adding up become sufficiently small (in this case, the time it takes to go each halfway distance) then the integration will result in a non-infinite result. There is no need for time intervals to have a definite smallest size for this to work.

Look- here is a presentation of an infinite ordinal
What if flame spectra (which look like infinite fundamental series somewhat)
indicated some kind of motion ONLY under a class of cardinals of some such infinite ordinal. It might be that Salamander's time is not integrable physically.
I do not speculate about these potentially infinite jumps because it is very important to separate the effect of grammar on one’s view of science as a whole and the time it takes to establish any given perspective, regardless of the number of perceptions.
Breifly, (Page not found : Earlham College) Peters felt that Kant provided both grammar and logic as means to a synthetic end.
I am working on time following the quaternion axiom (http://www.hypercomplex.com/...h/emgrav/hypcx-p20001015.html). I started this here. If indeed there has been a missing component in Maxwell’s equations then the confusion of me with mental illness or simple stringing of words together can be easily explained. Heavyside refused to use quaternions but made great progress in understanding the loading of a cable with messages. I learned (my father worked in NYC for ATT and I grew up at a distance in NJ) that the phone NEVER contained the information on evolution I got from my Grandfather in or about Buffalo.
The structure of grammar obscures the truth that has not been communicated or can not be communicated over phone lines but may be “encoded” in the quaternionic approach. How far I succeed with the internet remains to be seen, but I am losing ground every time people are distracted from the topic due to grammar as distinct from contradiction. A 9th grade level ensures that contradictions can be spotted.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by fgarb, posted 11-08-2007 1:41 AM fgarb has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by fgarb, posted 11-10-2007 2:22 AM Brad McFall has replied
 Message 43 by quasimotto, posted 12-13-2007 6:59 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
fgarb
Member (Idle past 5391 days)
Posts: 98
From: Naperville, IL
Joined: 11-08-2007


Message 21 of 55 (433109)
11-10-2007 2:22 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Brad McFall
11-09-2007 7:22 PM


Re: physics before math
Huh, I had thought that you were just messing around, but now I am starting to understand some of what you are saying. Sorry if I caused offense, but it is quite a challenge to sift through the grammer to get to the content, at least for me.
Brad writes:
What if flame spectra (which look like infinite fundamental series somewhat) indicated some kind of motion ONLY under a class of cardinals of some such infinite ordinal. It might be that Salamander's time is not integrable physically.
Maybe time is quantized and maybe it isn't, but what do flame spectra have to do with it? The quantization of such chemical transitions is well understood and does not suggest that time is quantized. And even if time is quantized, the Zeno's "paradox" example is still quite integrable using delta functions.
Brad writes:
I am working on time following the quaternion axiom
There are many ways to write Maxwell's equations. You can use vectors or tensors ... and aparently this link shows that you can use quaternions as well. That makes sense, it's just another way of representing the cross product. So this is all interesting, but I don't see the point. The equations are the what they are regardless. Their physical meaning is unchanged, and I don't see what any of this has to do with quantization or with the fundamental nature of time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Brad McFall, posted 11-09-2007 7:22 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Brad McFall, posted 11-13-2007 8:48 PM fgarb has replied

  
fgarb
Member (Idle past 5391 days)
Posts: 98
From: Naperville, IL
Joined: 11-08-2007


Message 22 of 55 (433110)
11-10-2007 2:31 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Taz
11-09-2007 2:14 PM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
I see. I've been on some forums where people come on and start writing like this just because they think it's funny to be a pain in the ass. Based on Brad's most recent post though, I guess I can believe that he is legit. It's just really hard to understand what he's saying.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Salamander, posted 11-11-2007 3:55 PM fgarb has replied

  
Salamander
Junior Member (Idle past 5973 days)
Posts: 5
From: Connecticut
Joined: 11-02-2007


Message 23 of 55 (433376)
11-11-2007 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by fgarb
11-10-2007 2:31 AM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
Yeah, it is for me too. Its not an easy subject to get into without getting into high level physics, I suppose.
Motion has to be a property of matter. Consider that if electons did not orbit the nucleus of an atom, just fell into it and the entire atom was stationary, it would not really be an atom. It would not be able to form molecules, and who knows what would happen to the atom itself. And any motion requires some amount of time to progress.
If quantum mechanics does show that a photon or other particle can be in two places at once, is that really travel? One instance of the particle is still at its original location. If a particle DID happen to be in one location, then instantly make it to some other far off location, was it REALLY instantaneously, or just so fast that current measuring methods or brain computations cannot detect it? And it also depends on the mode of travel, whether it be interdimensional or otherwise. If the travel occurs to some place we cannot detect, it still takes time, just not that we can measure.
I guess the real question is whether motion is a requirement of time, or if time is independent of motion. If motion is a requirement of time, does time actually progress? Couldn't it all just be motion, and we're using a concept of time to measure it?
What would this mean for the space-time continuum? Its not the motion that takes so much time to pass, its the travel of light that is a limit to our observation. Consider a galaxy. We see it as a disk of stars deep in space, as a single entity in time, but really, the far side of the galaxy is 100,000 years or more older than the near side. Its kind of crazy when you think about it. There must be some visual distortion from that effect, yet, we always comtemplate galaxies as disks. Would they look any different if we could see the entire galaxy as it was in one moment in time?
Sorry for all the questions, its just that I've been waiting so long to ask them. Thanks for all the responses.

"Beliefs - they're the bullets of the wicked." - SOAD

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by fgarb, posted 11-10-2007 2:31 AM fgarb has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by fgarb, posted 11-12-2007 2:12 AM Salamander has replied

  
fgarb
Member (Idle past 5391 days)
Posts: 98
From: Naperville, IL
Joined: 11-08-2007


Message 24 of 55 (433452)
11-12-2007 2:12 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by Salamander
11-11-2007 3:55 PM


Re: Regarding Newton's idea
Hey, it's all interesting stuff, but also very tricky to understand.
Salamander writes:
Motion has to be a property of matter.
Just to be strictly correct, I think most physicists would not say a photon is matter, yet motion is a property of the photon as well.
Salamander writes:
If quantum mechanics does show that a photon or other particle can be in two places at once, is that really travel?
I still would argue that quantum mechanics does not allow that, at least based on my interpretation of your wording. But in any event, quantum mechanics does allow the small possibility for you to measure a particle to be in two wildly separated locations only separated by a very short time. It would probably be more correct to think of the particle as teleporting between the locations rather than traveling between them, because it was never at any location in between, and it never possessed the properties of velocity or energy that would be needed to send a particle across that space in a normal way.
Salamander writes:
Couldn't it all just be motion, and we're using a concept of time to measure it?
If so then space is also a property of motion, since space and time are fundamentally linked through relativity. I think that's valid under general relativity, but I really don't know enough about this subject to answer that. I'm not aware of any reason why that couldn't be true.
Salamander writes:
we always comtemplate galaxies as disks. Would they look any different if we could see the entire galaxy as it was in one moment in time?
The speed of objects within a galaxy is almost always tiny compared to the speed of light, so I don't think the galaxy would have a much different shape if you could somehow magically observe it all at the same time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Salamander, posted 11-11-2007 3:55 PM Salamander has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Salamander, posted 11-19-2007 4:02 PM fgarb has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 25 of 55 (433982)
11-13-2007 8:48 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by fgarb
11-10-2007 2:22 AM


Re: physics before math
I was trying to indicate in this post where in PHYSICS I felt there was a chance that Salamander may have a point. As I wrote througout however I can only follow this kind of discretness when I think it can enhance my own subjective view on/in time.
For me that depends now, on fusing the temporal field of Maxwell's equations (temperature,electricity and magnetism now then form a 3 fold wave instead of merely what Herz accomplished) and the temporal extention of supramolecular subtance stability to populations by Gladyshev to resolve the debate between Dawkins and Gould etc. You would need to ask me to better explain the link I provided (I had not extended that content to the use of Cantor's real number classes (felt by Dedekind to be unnessary, but with a use this argument falls by the wayside) for each quaternion in different representations).
The reason to think that the two views of time (quaternion and phenomenological thermo) are somehow describing the same range is that the domain of the "thermostat" seems to possibly be quantifiable if one can associate the temperature relations to e-m (under the quaternion push and pull) to a population genetics exemplar. My use of the digestive systems of small crustceans (on EvC before) may be gain said in this direction as they can respond to AC and DC differently. Now I need to do some experiments with temperature as well....
Regardless there still has to be some kind of unstickynessing... and this could be in the data of flame spectra which describe orbits but one must think not only about individual elements but larger levels of organization as well. I was suggesting that Cantor's real number classes (A, B,C,....) (C and higher are redundant but have have different ordinal organizations) via quaternionic algebra might spell something like Salamander was thinking about. It is hard to know.
I do know that there is some speculation among physicts about time units as you and other here have suggested.
Perhaps you can tell me if there has ever been a physicist who tried to reformulate the balmer, lyman series etc in terms of transfinites?? I used to have a book by a Pittsburgh physicst who tried to use the hydrogen lines to explain all other element lines.
I just have no direct use for such things and I think biology would probably alter physics before physics alters biology with such a concept worked up. After reading about how Von Weiskaer used the BIOLOGICAL word "transmutation" to describe elemental changes I began to permit my biological predilication for what Cantor hoped to supply to Biology beyond Kant to also be applied to physics. I was able to correct Von Weisacker on the use of infinity in QM while he was misattributing to Aristotle what was Cantors.
Edited by Brad McFall, : wrong word

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by fgarb, posted 11-10-2007 2:22 AM fgarb has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by fgarb, posted 11-14-2007 12:24 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
fgarb
Member (Idle past 5391 days)
Posts: 98
From: Naperville, IL
Joined: 11-08-2007


Message 26 of 55 (434015)
11-14-2007 12:24 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Brad McFall
11-13-2007 8:48 PM


Re: physics before math
Hi Brad. Let me see if I understand the general idea that you are getting at.
1) I still have not had time to dig through your all your link, but based on a skim, you are speculating that the electric field has a time component which arises from the real component in your quaternion formulation. You then do some work with Maxwell's Equations, etc., to determine the consequences of this assumption.
2) You think you can link this idea to the fundamental nature of time.
I think I've gotten that much out of what you are saying. But to go from step 1 to 2 you are talking about science philosophy, the electromagnetic properties of crustaceans, chemical emission lines, and Cantor Sets. I don't think you should be surprised that I can't see the connection between any of these things and your primary argument. If you want to try and explain this in baby steps, I'm willing to try reading it again.
Aside from my confusion about what you are trying to say in your post, your point 1 is profoundly suspect. Of all the fundamental forces of physics, electromagnetism is *the best* understood. It is theoretically beautiful and well motivated, with electricity and magnetism linked through special relativity in a satisfying way. Experimentally, its predictions have been tested down to parts in billions, and never found to differ from theory. How would you add a time component to the electric field without messing that up? And finally, have you thought through the implications of this for QED, or does that all go out the window? If this somehow ties into QED, then would not this change in the EM potential alter the properties of the photon in a fundamental way?
Edited by fgarb, : Correcting misunderstanding of link

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Brad McFall, posted 11-13-2007 8:48 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Brad McFall, posted 11-14-2007 5:33 PM fgarb has not replied
 Message 28 by Brad McFall, posted 11-17-2007 7:37 PM fgarb has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 27 of 55 (434155)
11-14-2007 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by fgarb
11-14-2007 12:24 AM


Re: physics before math
No and Yes rather than yes and no.
I started out saying how I felt that itti bitti time units were of no use to me.
Then there was the monkey business about whether I was a serious poster or just having fun.
THEN I tried to indicate the small extent that there might be something I can talk about.
If we do not go back to the post with Kant then all is lost for me.
The issue of (2) has to do with much of what I have said so far on EVC this fall. I am trying to understand time in terms of evolution. The question is can a thermostat be passed on across generations and is this not really what Fisher was getting at with his analogies to thermo- these are suspect for you for sure but they are what is sure for me and indicate the cases when I can talk on time.
What I can not talk about with time I think about sometimes. It would be nice if Salamader responded to your last post. These are things that are more proper for this thread. It seems that we must not try to get too hung up on my claims that for biology this thread is useless. That is my opinion. I could be wrong.
I will do a baby step posting later when I have time to mince up the meat.
Best, Brad.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by fgarb, posted 11-14-2007 12:24 AM fgarb has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 28 of 55 (434855)
11-17-2007 7:37 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by fgarb
11-14-2007 12:24 AM


Re: physics before math
quote:
How would you add a time component to the electric field without messing that up? And finally, have you thought through the implications of this for QED, or does that all go out the window? If this somehow ties into QED, then would not this change in the EM potential alter the properties of the photon in a fundamental way?
The system I am trying to break down to atoms for discussion in this thread is:
Time is relative (no matter the potentially alternating frequency) to motion where both
the livers meet the gut (in ontogeny and phylogeny).
The energetic considerations must include the photosynthesizing utility of algae
inside the hepatopancreas ( I will next be dissecting some quantity of these livers and attempt to get oxygen evolution under artifical light).
I will be merging two temporal concepts; that created by the quaternionic notion of Maxwell’s equations and that given by Gladyshev’s law.
I do not yet know for sure if this implies time as an entity or not yet, nor am I quite ready to take your questions head on, sorry. I need to be more certain of some of the molecules actually involved. I am not certain that time in terms of photons needs enter my explanation. I am just not sure. The photons enter the algae at least.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by fgarb, posted 11-14-2007 12:24 AM fgarb has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by fgarb, posted 11-18-2007 2:32 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
fgarb
Member (Idle past 5391 days)
Posts: 98
From: Naperville, IL
Joined: 11-08-2007


Message 29 of 55 (435010)
11-18-2007 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Brad McFall
11-17-2007 7:37 PM


Re: physics before math
It sounds like you are attempting a *very* ambitious research project. I don't know much about the biological subjects you are speaking about or "Gladyshev’s law", but if you want to use the formulation of Maxwell's equations you poted in that link, then you do need to take into account the E&M advancements that have been made in the last 50 years. It is not enough to show that your theory reproduces classical electrodynamics. To be taken seriously by the physics community, I think you will have to show that it is consistent with quantum electrodynamics (QED). Under QED, you can't change the EM potential without fundamentally altering the behavior of electrons and photons.
If you aren't familiar with this, then I recommend you pick up a quantum field theory book such as this one. It looks like it's now out of print, but I recommend you work through the equivalent of chapters 1-5 in this book (start with the Dirac formulation for EM interactions and go through the steps to forumulate the Feynman rules). If you can show that the Feynman rules are unchanged for your quaternion potential, then you theory has a chance of being consistent with current experimental observations from particle physics.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Brad McFall, posted 11-17-2007 7:37 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Brad McFall, posted 11-18-2007 8:29 PM fgarb has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 30 of 55 (435067)
11-18-2007 8:29 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by fgarb
11-18-2007 2:32 PM


Re: ostracod exemplar
Well,
Tom Owens during Fellowship Time after Worship this morning, provisonally agreed to let me use his lab to determine if the green stuff is chlorophyll and if so if it is active.
If these few hours of testing are postive we may be able to continue this discussion.
As you know, or at least others do here, I am a student of biology, and only fairly recently have I started to pay interesting attention to physics (my two brothers have physics PHDs). I know who Feynmann and Dirc where and I know some physics. It may not be necessary for me to get beyond classical e-m for the points I am trying to make biologically. Direct influence of force on form is not accepted by prominent organismal biologists but only because they are afraid of reductionism. Adding time does not necessarily lead to that conclusion.
However, as the liver has been suggested this summer to be a hematopoietic organ it would be quite exciting quantum wise if the ostracod is using the oxygen from the chlorophyll(either with the algae or by taking it from 'em) for use with haemglobin. This would definitely supply a system which would apply to this topic (I tried to use Feynman's QED book to discuss color in reptile skins but a Cornell Prof (expert on Faraday)who is a member of the Royal Society could not get it and failed me).
Is it not the case that one can change the potentials' dimension with only structurally stable (topologically) changes in behavior?? If that is the case time may only affect the form of higher order catastrophe sets in so far as parallels are involved (sorry if this is incomprehensible to you you will have to wait till I incorporate more physics into my lingo).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by fgarb, posted 11-18-2007 2:32 PM fgarb has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by fgarb, posted 11-18-2007 10:39 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
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