Light Speed, Are We Talking Relativity?

[Dubbelosix]

Even in arguments sake, you could solve the time dimension for the space components: The ability to do this is because time can act spacelike and space can act timelike. We just switch the metric:

[math]x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + (ict)^2 = s^2[/math]

subtracting the space components we get

[math](ict)^2 = s^2 - (x + y + z)^2[/math]

To solve this as a quadratic equation for the time dimension we would get

[math](ct) = -\sqrt{s^2 - x^2 - y^2 - z^2}[/math]

 

or as

 

[math](ct) = i^2\sqrt{s^2 - x^2 - y^2 - z^2}[/math]

 

So his statements at times are a little puzzling.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Dubbelosix

[Dubbelosix]

I suppose I could further argue, that the choice of imaginary dimension is also relative - because in the case I have shown above, we have treated time as real and the space components imaginary. But... hey ho... the wonderful world of relativity.

[sluggo]

Without a concept of time, I don't see how you can have any concept of cause and effect and thus no way of making sense of experience.   

Your response is typical of those who want ‘time’ to be a ‘real’ invisible entity that causes events. A ‘function of time’ is just a figure of speech. It doesn’t imply a mystical, magical, whatever that causes events. Experiments use time for comparison purposes of different processes and measurements for verification purposes.The ‘time’ of an event can only be assigned after awareness of the event

If a nova is observed in 2010, after finding the distance to its location, the event is calculated to have happened in 2000. The nova did not happen because the earth time was 2000, or 1887 on a remote clock somewhere else. It happened because the state of the star became unstable, i.e. due to physical processes within the star.

A person dies, not because it’s his ‘time’, but because his state of health cannot be maintained.

Physical processes are distributed throughout the universe which cause changes of state for any system. It’s not magic!

Minkowski developed SR into a geometric ‘lines on paper’ theory, including representing time as a line, removing any attributes of identity. A line is a line! It benefits calculation, but obscures reality with abstraction. If ‘time’ was not a ‘dimension’, no one would consider ‘time travel’.

[sluggo]

Mattzy;

 

Sluggo's second post gives some support to what I was thinking, but the other two posts suggest that time has to exist if SR is fact. I am in no position to refute SR as I am only just beginning to understand it. Knowing what spacetime is will be a hurdle.

 

 

Einstein built upon prior works of Newton, Maxwell, etc. The convention of time was a given. His revision was to modify the character of time, from universal absolute to personal relative, i.e. each individual occupies their own personal perception space. A simple example without motion: 10 people encircle a house and snap a photo. Each photo will differ from the others, just as each visual image for each observer. All images correctly represent the one house, but incompletely.

SR does not imply the existence of ‘time’ as physical entity. It shows that the perception of ‘time’ is altered by motion, just as measements are, and that the observer becomes part of the measurement process.

 

Math IS required, since measurement is the verification tool of science.

[Dubbelosix]

 

Your response is typical of those who want ‘time’ to be a ‘real’ invisible entity that causes events. A ‘function of time’ is just a figure of speech. It doesn’t imply a mystical, magical, whatever that causes events. Experiments use time for comparison purposes of different processes and measurements for verification purposes.The ‘time’ of an event can only be assigned after awareness of the event

If a nova is observed in 2010, after finding the distance to its location, the event is calculated to have happened in 2000. The nova did not happen because the earth time was 2000, or 1887 on a remote clock somewhere else. It happened because the state of the star became unstable, i.e. due to physical processes within the star.

A person dies, not because it’s his ‘time’, but because his state of health cannot be maintained.

Physical processes are distributed throughout the universe which cause changes of state for any system. It’s not magic!

Minkowski developed SR into a geometric ‘lines on paper’ theory, including representing time as a line, removing any attributes of identity. A line is a line! It benefits calculation, but obscures reality with abstraction. If ‘time’ was not a ‘dimension’, no one would consider ‘time travel’.

 

 

We have internal chronometers, inside the supracharasmatic nucleus, we do have a sense of time, without it consciousness would not work. Without it change could not happen.

[Mattzy]

 

Your response is typical of those who want ‘time’ to be a ‘real’ invisible entity that causes events. A ‘function of time’ is just a figure of speech. It doesn’t imply a mystical, magical, whatever that causes events. Experiments use time for comparison purposes of different processes and measurements for verification purposes.The ‘time’ of an event can only be assigned after awareness of the event

If a nova is observed in 2010, after finding the distance to its location, the event is calculated to have happened in 2000. The nova did not happen because the earth time was 2000, or 1887 on a remote clock somewhere else. It happened because the state of the star became unstable, i.e. due to physical processes within the star.

A person dies, not because it’s his ‘time’, but because his state of health cannot be maintained.

Physical processes are distributed throughout the universe which cause changes of state for any system. It’s not magic!

Minkowski developed SR into a geometric ‘lines on paper’ theory, including representing time as a line, removing any attributes of identity. A line is a line! It benefits calculation, but obscures reality with abstraction. If ‘time’ was not a ‘dimension’, no one would consider ‘time travel’.

 

This is precisely how I have been conceiving time up until now. But in reading about relativity I have been led to believe in the "block" of spacetime - which is something that should be considered to be more calculable.

[Mattzy]

 

Mattzy;

 

Einstein built upon prior works of Newton, Maxwell, etc. The convention of time was a given. His revision was to modify the character of time, from universal absolute to personal relative, i.e. each individual occupies their own personal perception space. A simple example without motion: 10 people encircle a house and snap a photo. Each photo will differ from the others, just as each visual image for each observer. All images correctly represent the one house, but incompletely.

SR does not imply the existence of ‘time’ as physical entity. It shows that the perception of ‘time’ is altered by motion, just as measements are, and that the observer becomes part of the measurement process.

 

Math IS required, since measurement is the verification tool of science.

 

SR does not imply the existence of ‘time’ as physical entity. It shows that the perception of ‘time’ is altered by motion, just as measements are, and that the observer becomes part of the measurement process.

 

Math IS required, since measurement is the verification tool of science.

 

So to contract what you say:- SR shows that perception of time is altered by motion and an observer of motion becomes part of any related measurement.

That presents to me very strongly. This is now making sense to me. Thankyou sluggo!

 

I have always understood that math is required by humans for their studies - as you say. But even without math, I have made a step towards comprehension and away from bewilderment.

[Dubbelosix]

General relativity however says time is an observable, SR says time is dependent on the frame of reference and quantum mechanics says time is not an operator or an observable.

 

In my opinion, quantum mechanics is wrong in this sense.

[sluggo]

We have internal chronometers, inside the supracharasmatic nucleus, we do have a sense of time, without it consciousness would not work. Without it change could not happen.

We do have multiple biological clocks, but being chemical processes, they too are affected by motion. That is why the moving observer can't detect any change in his mechanical 'clock'. A form of scaling, similar to measuring his length contracted space can with his length contracted ruler. 

[Dubbelosix]

We do have multiple biological clocks, but being chemical processes, they too are affected by motion. That is why the moving observer can't detect any change in his mechanical 'clock'. A form of scaling, similar to measuring his length contracted space can with his length contracted ruler. 

 

Wrong.

 

The biological clock is also a relative concept, the people on board the ship will always measure the clock tick normally, but to a stationary observer, their internal chronometers, or watch on the hand, will measure that light has more space to travel.

 

An observer on the ship can argue the stationary observers clock has slowed down... why do you keep trying to find a flaw in something where no flaws such exist - all we can really say is that things moves and it depends on the frame of reference. That does not mean one reference frame is right or wrong, but the one at rest has a particular reference frame it can compare the moving frame to, do you know what that reference frame that is?

 

In other words, the moving ship can be argued to slow down accordingly, so long as you know what the third body problem is all about in relativity.

[Mattzy]

Atomic clocks have been sent out into space at significant speeds and duration to prove that they truly do run slower than control clocks remaining on earth. The detection of muons at the earths surface is also said to be positive proof of time slowing in proportion with speed. These proofs require no element of perspective by any observer. Are they not proof of relativity by use of indisputable historical records of events?

I am slowly gaining understanding. I ask: what is the controversy amongst the owls?

 

Re. "time is not an operator or an observable"

In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, position is an observable whereas time is a parameter. That is, position is a function of the state, whereas time is used to label states. This seems perfectly intuitive to me (I got it from ralcis's favourite site!!!)

I read that in q.m. there is no nontrivial operator but there is an evolutionary operator - but this is beyond me.

[Dubbelosix]

But no one is answering my question, why can we not rely on just two observers? What does the observer at rest, evaluate he is at rest? What is this third body problem? I know the answer, I am just wondering if anyone else does.

[Dubbelosix]

As for time being an operator and an observable, is a very important but misunderstood concept as it hasn't been taken into quantum mechanics properly and solves many problems and interpretations of bridging relativity and quantum mechanics together.

[Dubbelosix]

Now, this is a rare thing I will be saying - Einstein may have wrong in his quote... going back to work I have been looking at, using geometric algebra, we have a new avenue, apart from those I stated in 102,103,104th posts.

 

In the 3D space [math]R^3[/math] the outer product of any four vectors [math](a,b,c,d)[/math] is zero, an automatic consequence of the outer product properties.

In three dimensions only three vectors can be independent and therefore a fourth must be expressible as a weighted sum of the other three:

[math]d = \alpha a + \beta b + \gamma c[/math]

Associativity, distributivity and antisymmetry make the outer product of the four vectors zero:

[math] a \wedge b \wedge c \wedge d = a \wedge b \wedge c \wedge (\alpha a + \beta b + \gamma c) = 0[/math]

Where [math]\gamma[/math] in this case is not a gamma matrix and [math] a \wedge b \wedge c \wedge d[/math] is known as a quadvector.

The link states so the highest order element that can exist in the subspace algebra of [math]R^3[/math] is a trivector.

Apparently this has nothing to do with a limitation of the outer product but rather it satisfies a geometric uselessness of the construction of elements of higher dimension than [math]R^3[/math] - it can however be interpreted that the element [math]0[/math] as the empty subspace of any dimensionality so this one element [math]0[/math] is the zero scalar, the zero bivector and so on. There is no algebraic or geometric reason to distinguish between those, for the empty subspace has no orientation or weight.

 

But before I say Einstein [was wrong] in this case, I have more algebra to work out to understand what he meant clearly.
 

[sluggo]

Wrong.

 

The biological clock is also a relative concept, the people on board the ship will always measure the clock tick normally, but to a stationary observer, their internal chronometers, or watch on the hand, will measure that light has more space to travel.

 

An observer on the ship can argue the stationary observers clock has slowed down... why do you keep trying to find a flaw in something where no flaws such exist - all we can really say is that things moves and it depends on the frame of reference. That does not mean one reference frame is right or wrong, but the one at rest has a particular reference frame it can compare the moving frame to, do you know what that reference frame that is?

 

In other words, the moving ship can be argued to slow down accordingly, so long as you know what the third body problem is all about in relativity.

That's what I said. The observers biological clock slows to the same degree as his mechanical clock, so he does not detect any change.

[sluggo]

Atomic clocks have been sent out into space at significant speeds and duration to prove that they truly do run slower than control clocks remaining on earth. The detection of muons at the earths surface is also said to be positive proof of time slowing in proportion with speed. These proofs require no element of perspective by any observer. Are they not proof of relativity by use of indisputable historical records of events?

I am slowly gaining understanding. I ask: what is the controversy amongst the owls?

 

Don't forget the H-K experiment, a direct observation of td from SR and GR.in everyday activities. 

[Mattzy]

 

Atomic clocks have been sent out into space at significant speeds and duration to prove that they truly do run slower than control clocks remaining on earth. The detection of muons at the earths surface is also said to be positive proof of time slowing in proportion with speed. These proofs require no element of perspective by any observer. Are they not proof of relativity by use of indisputable historical records of events?

I am slowly gaining understanding. I ask: what is the controversy amongst the owls?

 

Don't forget the H-K experiment, a direct observation of td from SR and GR.in everyday activities. 

 

So we have proof (which I accept) that clocks slow down and it stands to reason that everything will slow down in proportion to relative speed (between the object in motion and the measurer - I prefer this to observer as it eliminates the human and perspective). Would it be very difficult to simply calculate this rate of slowing to a practical standard ratio? I read that GPS positioning systems routinely factor in these adjustments - so I guess there probably is. 

There is of course in each case of these experiments (like the H-K and better versions since) the presence of significant gravity. That makes me wonder if the earths local centre of gravity could be a reference point in spacetime around which relativity is being witnessed?