Heheheh... I tend to just read your posts and never reply because I know how ignorant I am going to look, namely because I am. Although I have an interest in pursuing physics (which we discussed before and thanks for the advice) I am still rather ignorant of it. I'm a guy used to studying the universe in much more collected forms.
In fact, if you think of all particles as different kinds of little knots in the fabric, you are not too far from how we view things. This concept gets you away from the eroneous idea of space-time being an arena for "things" to live in.
Okay, I am already clued into the idea of particles being "knots" of some sort, though it always seems intuitive to me to see them as involving space or energy and not time. I think its that time element which really throws me off and I start wondering if we are confusing mathematical models (a way we can describe/understand processes in an organized way) with underlying reality.
No, "energy" is a derived concept. You cannot describe space-time in physical terms. Only mathematics suffices at this level.
Isn't time related to energy? Boy am I gonna look stupid but here it goes...
We have e=mc^2 and tend to use c as a "limit". Isn't it possible that e is actually the limit, and so regulates what we can see as maximum v, which would be c? Instead of a space-time fabric, more of a space-energy fabric with perhaps a maximum level of energy allowed within a portion of space?
Thus any area consists of a space-energy "density", and sufficient density creating what we consider particles or mass? That (to my mind) would result in "time" because really what we use to measure time could be thought of as limited by energy.
Now here's a lame example. Say we use a quartz crystal for keeping time, current convention (as I understand it) is that as it approaches c it begins to slow down to an outside observer (and indeed does so in a measurable way).
But wouldn't that make sense by assuming that it is the result of energy limits within the system? The quartz crystal marks time by oscillations which is itself movement, and so involves energy. Moving in a direction also involves energy (or at least an input of such). If there is only so much energy that can be part of a system then as it nears c, less energy can be devoted to movement in other directions (oscillations). The same would seem to be true for radioactive materials which would have energy devoted to movement rather than emitting particles. With a slow down in oscillation and particle emission the practical effect is a slow down in time, it would "age" less as energy is commited elsewhere.
Now there could be a zillion things wrong with that crackpot theory, but the only one I am seeing is that energy is needed for acceleration and not necessarily to continue movement. But I'm not sure if that's true for particles near the speed of light, and I am not sure if that is true in a space-energy field where energy initially put into the system might count as stored energy and count toward the maximum.
Anything you can do to return me to sanity, or at least disabuse me of my incredible ignorance, would be appreciated.
holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)
™ Version 4.2
