Science and Inquiry discussion

I am not sure if I have posted this in the right category, or if I'm being a dummkopf to ask, but this is what I have been thinking about. Also please let me know if this is coherent, I'm bad at telling sometimes.

We know already: 1) Time is the fourth dimension, as it is the nearest identifiable way for multiple objects to exist in the exact same point in 3D space. 2) The observable passage of time is directly related to speed in general, but especially the speed of light. 3) The speed of light seems at this time to be the fastest anything can move in 4D space-time.

Based on this, is light considered a "dimensional cap" of sorts? A boundary between dimensions of our immediate universe?

Also, since the speed of light is still insufficient for significant space travel (hence the term light year), hyperspace probably WOULD be our only hope for space travel that does not last generations. (yes I know it would be a whole nother nut to crack on how the hell you would power something like that. Sigh)

Is hyperspace (exceeding 4D space-time) also the only way to exceed the speed of light?

Mel, you are not alone. I hear you and feel your pain. The universe out there is too much vastness and too astonishing of a beauty for us not to be able to wade thru it at will and leisure.

Right?

Well, the answer to a question is always a function of its formulation.

Common wisdom in modern physics is that our physical universe is 4-dimensional with 3 dimensions of space and one of time. How about the idea that our physical universe is strictly 3-dimensional, the alleged dimension of time being strictly a fictitious abstraction. You see, the insight of G. Relativity is that the metric of time depends on motion, being that if you are moving at speed a, your time unit is different from that experienced by some buddy moving at speed b. Even more so when any of these speeds is approaching c: there is no absolute time or time scale, simply say no time at all, Mel!

Thus you have to give up on time and struggle for a description of nature that is strictly based on the metric of space (not spacetime). Once you do that, you discover that c reflects the dynamics of space itself within its very own fabric of void, and a completely new order of things in void. Welcome to QG Theory!

It's the new theory out there which has been able to derive c itself from first principles and offers a broad description of the fabric of space, let alone the derivation of a series of fundamental physical constants. Never before done!

Is your hyperspace or science fiction hyperspace part of this QG unraveling of space? Mel, you need to find out on your own!

Good luck!

That is interesting, although you do not have to "give up on time" just because "The Equation," as well as further ones indicate speed of light = no passage of time. That is not a problem, it is just an implication, and potentially a way around Time.

also, the "alleged" dimension is more than an abstraction. Literally it is a coordinate in space and thus a fourth dimension. You've got the first three dimensions in the X, Y, and Z coordinates that tell you where a thing is located in space. If it is taken away and another thing is put in the exact same location, it has the same X, Y, and Z coordinates, but a different time coordinate. So, yes, time IS an extra dimensional scale, because "when" is just another type of "where." That is anything but an abstraction; if anything it is calling a spade a spade!

"Once you do that, you discover that c reflects the dynamics of space itself within its very own fabric of void, and a completely new order of things in void. "

I am curious as to what you mean by this. It was my understanding that light most definitely does have a substance to it that is not shared by the vacuum of space as a whole. Am I misunderstanding you? It is true that the "vacuum" of space is not the void we thought it was, as it has been observed to behave like a fabric, even the kind that can be....folded! But even if we are leaving time aside for now, what to you mean by "a new order of things in void?" When light DOES follow the movement of the space it is in, what is it that you think that implies?

I insist: time is an alleged dimension created by humans, it is strictly a human abstraction, not a physical reality. You can only measure time in space or by space, and as such it is a dependency of space. Time is officially defined as what humans measure on clocks! If there were Martians on the red planet, time would be for them what they measure on their own clocks ( a fraction of the spin or rotation cycle of their planet, if they chose to measure it that way!). They would not agree with us on an independent unit of time based on a referential scale of time, because there is no universal scale of time. And that is because time is dependent on spatial distance and principally on motion. We would need to apply many relativistic corrections in measurements and synchronicity to arrive only at an approximation at best.

You see, the debunking and overcoming of the notion of time is a crucial enterprise, both to the layman and the learned, before you can address a description of the matrix of space. If "when" is another type of "where", like you say, then there is no when, there is only where.

In sum, picture this: inside of an atom or a molecule, there is no time or time variable that accounts for any of the dymanics in effect there. That was the great insight revealed by Quantum Mechanics. Ask yourself now the question why is it so? Is it possible to describe the dynamics of the macroscopic world with time-less equations or mathematics? QG says yes and shows the way to go.

Finally, before you can address the question of the texture of space, how space mediates gravitational interaction, the questions of possibility of superluminal speeds and hyperspace that you raised, let me suggest that you take the "time" to debunk time. It is a great exercise that may help start to change your perspective on nature toward a better understanding. Not easy but fruitful!

Joseph wrote: "I insist: time is an alleged dimension created by humans, it is strictly a human abstraction, not a physical reality. You can only measure time in space or by space, and as such it is a dependency ..."

That's a very odd, interesting way of looking at it & it does make a weird sort of sense, although I can't buy into the idea of no time at all. It must exist, if only as a function of energy-mass interactions in the other 3 dimensions, right? For instance, 3 atoms walk into a bar, get slammed, & come out as a water molecule. There are points where they are in one state or another in relation both to themselves & the rest of the universe. Their state makes a difference to the rest of the universe, so there must be some way to represent that. Right?

If not, don't bother with too much detail telling me I'm wrong. Not that I don't trust you, but I wouldn't get anything out of it. I started listening to The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew, but abandoned it because of ideas like this. It's a bit too far out there for me & I can't see any practical value in it.

I have enough trouble with sloppy old clock time as it is. I'm a bit of a Billy Pilgrim. I'm always saying 'the other day' because it was to me, but it drives my family crazy since that could mean 3 days or 30 years ago. I have trouble keeping things in sequence. That helps sometimes. I witnessed an accident one time. My initial deposition & one I gave almost 2 years later were almost word for word.

Jim, if you are able to relate an event word for word thru a 2-year-long time lapse, that is a pretty good indictment of time in and to your mind! (LOL)

Here is the thing. One of the formalisms by which we can account for most everything we do in our living medium is x = vt + x0. If I you tell me where you are on the highway and the speed you are running, I can tell pretty well what time you will get to my house (given that my Google map would have given me the distance). The reason why this equation works and that time works for us in everyday life is because we are very, very slow creatures, evolving in a surrounding medium equally slow in all.

If we were able to move at much higher speeds, a good fraction of c, say, the equation above would not hold at all, it would give us wrong arrival times, and most importantly we would find that our sense of time has dilated in the process! How do we know? Well, if you synchronize two totally identical clocks, leave one at home at rest, and take the other on a world around plane flight, at come back the travel clock would show a time lag with respect to the other!

Now if you take the same atomic clock to the top of Mount Everest i.e. for a while and then take it to ground, you find that it runs faster at ground level, because gravitational attraction affects time as well!

So, Jim, how do you define a unit of time, here and now? Time is a creation of our minds that has been bamboozling us ever since: the story of the kid whipping parents! The only reason we are getting away with our time progeny is because we are desperately slow entities in a slow medium. When it comes to deeper understanding of matter, that which lays beyond our living medium, below and above, the game becomes very tight and unforgivable.

In order to comprehend the physics of condensed matter (atoms and molecules), with its discretisation and energy distributions, we had to give up on time with Quantum Mechanics (atoms don’t extrapolate from their shell of matter and invade our bars to get slammed back into molecule, as you put it). We will have to do as much if we must properly comprehend the agency of space in the exercise of gravity at the cosmic scale, the highest stake in modern physics. That stands for a change in human consciousness, that’s for sure, one that will lead to a redefinition of our living medium as well. We now have a tool though to help us out!

Joseph wrote: "So, Jim, how do you define a unit of time, here and now? Time is a creation of our minds ..."

I understand the difference between time rates for the observed & the observer. I've read about the trains & even explained them to my kids, so there's no argument there, but how can there be effect without a cause?

A cause that creates an effect implies sequencing which we orient with units of time. Event A happens before event B. Trying to define exactly when those events happened will vary depending on the observer & that's messy since its an infinite number. I get that & why dropping it from some calculations might make things easier, but I don't see how that means that time doesn't exist. It just makes it an indefinite unit at the current time with the current math under varying circumstances.

I know a lot of science is counter-intuitive. Far too many still think the earth is flat & that it's the center of the universe. I'll also admit to being a rather ignorant layman. BUT, in my experience, when scientists start saying weird things that are too far out of sync with reality AND they can't fully explain it, there are holes in the theory.

For instance, I never bought into how I was taught an airplane wing worked. It's been too many years for me to remember all the details, but it didn't make sense & the math never worked properly for the air going over the wing to create that much suction. It was the simplest explanation for the observed facts at the time & it worked well enough from a practical standpoint, but it just never seemed right. Sure enough it turned out we'd been cut by Occam's razor & they revamped the theory a few decades later. It's not the first time & won't be the last.

On the similar grounds, I'm rather suspicious of physics at the moment simply because of all the dark matter & energy they seem to think is out there. Seems to me they're basically saying, "The math doesn't work without it, but we're just not sure what 'it' is." From the little I've read over the past few years, they've found a few holes & that's varied amounts by quite a bit. There's also the unexplained acceleration of the expansion of the universe & a few other things that show there are a lot of issues with some of the basics at the moment. I believe that time is just one more of the issues.

I have no doubt they'll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, if the people studying leaf cells want to ignore the rest of the forest because it makes their goal easier to attain, that's fine with me. I'm sure that once they figure it out, they'll work it back into the grand scheme of things. Just don't ask me to pretend it doesn't exist. I own a piece of woods & have to cut trees off the fence line, get rid of invasives, & pay taxes on it. I'm quite sure it exists.

***meant to write: clock runs slower at ground level***

Joseph wrote: "Jim, if you are able to relate an event word for word thru a 2-year-long time lapse, that is a pretty good indictment of time in and to your mind! (LOL)..."

Thus the Billy Pilgrim reference. Vonnegut might have hated being pigeon-holed as an SF writer, but he certainly illustrated some points rather well. Loved the chaos theory in 'Sirens'.

Joseph wrote: That was the great insight revealed by Quantum Mechanics. Ask yourself now the question why is it so? Is it possible to describe the dynamics of the macroscopic world with time-less equations or mathematics? QG says yes and shows the way to go.

Note: i was lookin way back on mess4, and suddenly it dawned to me, all this obscure science on QM, is finally 'drawning up' a cleare picture.
I will look closer on your current debate, when I get some time, for now I 've adde your book. And well skipped my ideas on certain 'history books' about the importance of Gnrl Relativity, and it's oimplications. Carry on, your galant work Josph I am really intrigued..

Jim wrote: "Joseph wrote: "So, Jim, how do you define a unit of time, here and now? Time is a creation of our minds ..."

I understand the difference between time rates for the observed & the observer. I've re..."

Jim, you are not “an ignorant layman” as you say. You are an inquisitive and studious person. I do share many of the views you expressed, in particular your skepticism about loose science in the habit of feeding things into the news media cycle just to make someone a name or a buck. I agree with you that many hypotheses are best kept in research rooms until they have fully matured and have legs to stand on.

The practice of force feeding the public with hypotheses sold as truths to be shortly disproved thereafter had done far more harm to science than good and created lots of skepticism toward institutional science. Much to the detriment of the culture. I fully agree with you there.

Now, I recognize that the idea of time as an unphysical abstraction will not be given an easy pass, in the name of common sense, intuitiveness and practicality. Dismissing time as a physical variable does not translate into absence of entropy or sequencing in the kinematics of matter. It instead implies the existence of an order of certainties about matter beyond time-based kinematic reports or treatment. Quantum Mechanics had precisely found that you cannot describe an atomic-bound electron based on the time-driven equations of classical physics but with time-less Operators. They are the only order of certainties that are possible about quantum states. The idea was rejected in mainstream science of the day before slowing gaining acceptance.

QM interpretation of matter is still being hotly debated to this day. IMO what most physicists on both sides of the debate have missed is not that this science is mainly about uncertainty, making too much out of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, but instead about a new or different Order of Certainties embedded in these Operators, as much as the nature of the eigenvalue solutions.

As to Quanto-Geometry, what does it mean that you derive from a set of timeless prime equations one of the most fundamental constants in governance in our living medium such as the gravitational constant? Do you throw them away because they are offending time, common sense or practicality? No, I am sure going to stick with them , indeed as a matter of practicality, because, Jim, thanks to the revolution started with the timeless QM Operators i.e., you are now reading my reply to your comments on your computer screen, thru the fluctuations of the quantum wave functions at the heart of travel photons and electrons thru the ubiquitous information highway pipes (of our Time, LOL!).

Dan's wrote: "Joseph wrote: That was the great insight revealed by Quantum Mechanics. Ask yourself now the question why is it so? Is it possible to describe the dynamics of the macroscopic world with time-less ..."

Dan, thank you for the word of encouragement.

Joseph wrote: "I insist: time is an alleged dimension created by humans, it is strictly a human abstraction, not a physical reality. You can only measure time in space or by space, and as such it is a dependency ..."


Just because people hailing from a different gravitational environment would no doubt have a different time scale than us, does not make time imaginary. After all, if the gravity were different enough, it would be reflected in their aging process, not just their clocks and calendars! You could say the same thing for distance if it were a planet of giants or "tinies" There isn't a scale for DISTANCE outside of what we have constructed either. Distance certainly is relative (just ask a bug) but that doesn't make it a human invention. Just a highly variable CONDITION. Time is no different. What you pointed out about gravity affecting the passage of time is PRECISELY why time is not something we invented. It is not just the clock that runs slower--it is the math. The actual Movement Of Matter In Space That Is Known As Time is slowing down--otherwise the clock wouldn't have done so :) It is not a mere malfunction; equations have to be adjusted around gravity because it warps the space around it. Slows it. To slow the movement is to slow time, which I think is the issue you are taking with time existing at all--it is the "mere" movement of matter in space. But this movement is a force in itself that can be slowed or even stopped, outside of our control, and the clocks are only one indicator of this. Same with magnetic field anomalies that cause compasses to screw up. They are screwing up because there is something there, not because compass directions are a human invention. May be apples to oranges, but I think the comparison works. They are both fruit after all. I do think you have a good point in suggesting there is no "when," only "where." I can certainly get on board with that, providing the definition of where is expanded, or at least minds opened to an expansion of it. That is a far cry from considering time to be a human creation, though. Although of course our PERSONAL CONCEPT of it is limited to revolve around our lifespan, gravitational environment, etc. Just like we tend to use base 10 counting because we have ten fingers and ten toes! Numbers are not imaginary just because "ours" do not sound like "theirs."

I am sure I have more to say on this but it's been a long, long, extra-crappy day and I will have to come back later. But I've read most of this discussion so far and I am liking it

Also you have put this song in my head, yay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIelf...

Joseph wrote: "...Dismissing time as a physical variable does not translate into absence of entropy or sequencing in the kinematics of matter...."

Amazing. I will be double-dipped. It was your use of physical variable that made the light bulb go on. You're a very good & patient teacher. That kicks the legs right out from under my vanity, though. Very similar to asking a believer to give up their concept of god. It requires acknowledging beliefs so basic that I'm almost blind to them. I'm still not sure I have it right or possibly don't keep making it wrong.

I can only vaguely understand that describing the existence of particles in various states doesn't require time. Snapshots will do, but I keep having trouble since all the basic equations I was taught rely on a time component. Still, the particles don't care about the chronological order, simply their 'current' state(s). A very odd & limited way to look at the universe, but I can see the necessity.

I don't think that invalidates my leaf cell & forest analogy, though. At some point, we will need to come up with the math that ties this back together with the larger universe that we experience.

I appreciate the flattery, but I am an ignorant layman. Any science I know is from school several decades ago & what I read online & in magazines - spotty Sunday supplement level. IOW, pretty much the definition of ignorant in this field, although I will admit to a chimp-like curiosity. I had to look up 'eigenvalue solutions' before that made sense. It's been far too long since I took calculus, although one of my boys studied it, but even that was over a decade ago. I'm a sys admin (phone, PCs, & networks), gentleman farmer, woodworker, & enthusiastic about trees & birds, so this isn't something I use or even think about regularly. You're stretching my mind a lot. I do like science fiction for this very reason, though.

RE: Announcing half-baked scientific ideas... I certainly don't like the way it is currently done & am sure it is worthy of a topic of its own. As I see it, funding is always an issue, so they have to publish to justify themselves. The big problem is with the dissemination.

It takes a very smart person who is really familiar with a complex idea to simplify it enough for the lay person. Even a genius is going to have difficulty making a headline blurb out of huge, complex subjects, though. With the streamlining of news departments, understaffed science reporting is a huge problem in & of itself. When topped with the increasing complexity of the sciences, it's practically impossible to get any sort of decent data out.

There's also the political component. Mary Roach might have made the point the best in Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. Sex is extremely important to us all, yet we understand much of it very poorly & it's very difficult to fund studies in. As she points out, some of our best scientific studies on sex are done illegally by a Turkish doctor working at a whore house. Can it get much worse than that?

Unfortunately, it does. Men resort to illegal, back alley surgeries to get cure erectile dysfunction. They get inflatable bags & even whale bone surgically implanted, sometimes with horrific infections & results. Women suffer through sex or plumbing issues their entire lives due to ignorance when the condition is easily repairable even in the US & other first world countries. Why? Because we have issues funding & disseminating information about a topic that most of us spend, if not most, at least an inordinate amount of time thinking about. It's stranger than fiction.

The only reason we'll do better figuring the internal workings of an atom is if people can see a benefit from it. That means someone has to dumb it down & sell it which leaves it open to errors & issues, especially because most people don't really understand the scientific method. At a gut level, negative results are a failure to them.

Mel wrote: "Joseph wrote: "I insist: time is an alleged dimension created by humans, it is strictly a human abstraction, not a physical reality. You can only measure time in space or by space, and as such it i..."

Mel, you made some common sense points to otherwise render what we all intuitively perceive about time. But consider the following.

1.- Distance is not relative because a bug has a different metric or meter scale than we do. Distance is a direct consequence of the 3 spatial dimensions X-Y-Z of our physical universe. Distance is a physical variable in its own right. The relativity or contraction of length (distance between two points on an object) is something that occurs as perceived by an observer in motion in relation to the object. The length of particular object in its own reference frame at rest is an invariant.

2.- Time is a different animal. It must be a dimension in its own right or it is not, I argue. Time as an abstraction is not comparable to numbers, as you say. Make no mistake, numbers are abstractions too: no one has yet seen Mr 3, Mrs 6 or Mr 235 walking off the streets of American cities and towns. But people have certainly seen 2 chairs, 6 bats or counted 235 greenbacks. Numeric abstractions are however constructive abstractions because they directly spring off physical objects as an expression of their cardinality (or count).

3.- All the common sense argument that you are making in defense of time recognize that it is a dependency of something else, whether it is space, motion or gravity. As such it bears no independent self quality to it. Einstein thought about this for us already and he determined that the most we can do with time, short of dismissing it, is to entangle it to space. It remains an interesting question for oneself as to what is the geometry of the artifact of entanglement of time to space? How does the time dimension intimately articulate with the 3 spatial dimensions. No one has yet proposed a graphical/geometrical description of this entanglement in the fabric of spacetime that are not bizarre ideas of wormholes and other holographic weirdness, all amounting to speculations. And this is because the notion of spacetime amounts to no more than a model of interpretation, not physical reality.

4.- In the meantime, atoms and molecules want nothing to do with it. They want no business with spacetime, no more than they do with time. Their dynamics can only be accounted for in the timeless order of Quantum Operators, which keenly describes the geometry of their energetic density states.

5.- When you let go of time altogether in all realms of matter and give full primacy to space, you discover paramount physical realities, notably:

a.- you can explain why, but not just pose, that c is the highest achievable speed in 3D, why it has the value that it does (because you can derive it from the mathematics of the formalism)

b.- why the mediation of gravity by the 3 spatial dimensions has the value that it does, aka the value of G as a physical constant, but not just describe with a formula the gravitational force between two objects (you go beyond the formula and the empirical value of G with direct derivation of G from first principles)

These are ground-breaking insights resulting from the Quanto-Geometric framework. With the potential for a technological revolution, I further argue.

Jim wrote: "Joseph wrote: "...Dismissing time as a physical variable does not translate into absence of entropy or sequencing in the kinematics of matter...."

Amazing. I will be double-dipped. It was your u..."

Jim, I am glad we have apparently come to a meeting of minds on the key points of debate. Cheers.

Everything you are saying in #15 boils down to time (rather, what we know as time) being a fourth spatial dimension. Even the statement "full primacy to space." which I am more than okay with, as that goes back to "there is no when, only where." I am finally starting to realize we are talking past each other--perhaps I should have said the measure of distance is relative. It is true that the perception does not change the actual distance but time is no different from that, as it is another length that must be measured.

Numbers are abstractions in the sense that "3" was made up by us but "***" was not. "5" is our symbol, but "*****" is not, in the sense that whether you call it five or cinco, the amount of asterisks hasn't changed.

A tangent: wormholes' existence or construction, while a speculation is quite logical based on the behavior of space that we have witnessed. But the hologram talk tends to get on my nerves because as far as I can see, it is based on a black hole looking like a black hole and not much else ;) I am not an expert, but I DO understand what I read.

Mel wrote: "Everything you are saying in #15 boils down to time (rather, what we know as time) being a fourth spatial dimension. Even the statement "full primacy to space." which I am more than okay with, as t..."

Mel,
If you can visualize the full extent of my comments, then everything I am saying does NOT boil down to acknowledging time as a 4th dimension. Nor are we talking past each other because I am making sure to size up your points within well established theory and I am addressing every point you raise in their own formulation, not starting from my own perspective.

While I agree that length (or the measurement thereof if you prefer), or simply a point-to-point distance on an object, is relative to the motion of the observer, I do not agree that time is relative just as another length to be measured.

A length or distance of any sort ultimately refers to space, it is something physical. It does not depend on anything else to be real. Time is unphysical not because it is an intangible but because essentially it has no self gradation that would make it stand on its own, and as such afford it the stature of a dimension. It lacks the very essence of what it should be: a scale, its sole purpose. It is the minds of humans that give life to time. We falsely use time as the metric for motion. Understand that there is no universal “second” or “minute” or “hour” duration. They are what you want to make of them. There is not much of a problem with that so long as it is about slow motion in a slow world with slow creatures and slow objects. Our time scale breaks down to uselessness when it comes to fast moving objects because you find that one 'same' event then lasts egregious 'different' amounts of time to different observers. That should not be true if time (and its scale) was universal, being the same everywhere, meaning “flowing” the same to all observers wherever they are and whatever their relative motion is.

From there, you can make of time whatever you wish. You can entangle it to space and create spacetime for which you create relativistic correction equations, but also find there is a host of other phenomena that you cannot intimately describe, notably gravity. Or you can completely dismiss it and attempt a time-less description of nature, or at least part of it, and be left with the bitter feeling that you have not explained it all, the everlasting debate about the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. This has been the dilemma in physics for about a century (of our time!) now. Quanto-Geometry takes it from there, with falsifiable physics, far and away from speculations.

Sorry I never got back to this. My basement was flooded with sewage. S*** you not. :(

Sorry, Mel. Good luck fixing your basement!

I don't really accept these arguments that time doesn't exist except as a human invention.

It is true that our definition of time in the sense that "time is what is measured by clocks" is unsatisfactory. However, we have the 2nd law of thermodynamics that says that the entropy of the universe always increases. In principle we could use that as a measure of time that was independent of humans. We don't do it that way yet because clocks are currently more accurate. So there is no doubt that the universe is getting older, and that has nothing to do with us.

Exploration of time at the quantum level could prove to be very interesting. We perceive time as continuously changing, but there is no reason it should. It could for example go through a series of discrete jumps. This would make sense if you think of time as being a measure of entropy which itself is quantised. The time quantum is likely to be very small as nobody has so far observed it.

John wrote: "I don't really accept these arguments that time doesn't exist except as a human invention.

It is true that our definition of time in the sense that "time is what is measured by clocks" is unsatisf..."

John, thank you for your candid and honest comments. I am afraid however that they are not very compelling given the many clarifying points that were made in the conversation above. You seem to come to the discussion from the classical or Newtonian idea of time as a universal variable. The only definition of time that garners consensus in the physics community is that it is “what human measure on clocks”, because no one thus far has been able to propose a definition of time anchored on the intrinsic physics of matter, independent from human activity.

Second, you’ve got to understand and hopefully agree that one momentous conclusion that Relativity has put before us is that one same event cannot last different amount of time to two different observers: you know, the famous thought experiment in every physics text about a beam of light shooting vertically to the ceiling from the floor and being reflected back, round trip of which would last a certain amount of time to an observer in the spaceship and a different amount of time to one other away from the ship watching it move. Effectively reason why time works for us in everyday life is that everything we do or project in space only reaches an infinitesimal fraction of the speed of light. Else we would have to apply solid relativistic corrections to every motion we cause or deal with in order to avoid badly missing the mark. So short of dismissing time altogether Einstein entangled it to space. To me this is still an unsatisfactory treatment, but that already takes you far away from the intuitive notion of universal time that has been ingrained in our minds of all one generation after another.

Now the idea of quantum time is completely off the mark. Ever since Erwin Schroedinger came up with an equation independent of time to explain the kinematics of the atom, the physics community, after the shock aftermath it caused, has come to coalesce around the idea of a timeless quantum realm, because his idea has been able to predict all the energy density states and atomic shells that correctly explain the distribution of atomic elements in the Mendeleev’s periodic table. It is true though that some lonely physicists are still trying today to reintroduce time in that realm with a surrogate of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: Delta E x Delta t >= h(bar)for the purpose of explaining particle behavior. They are not getting anywhere. There is no “time quantum” as you have put it, John, and much less one to be “observed”. Interestingly the way that you are explaining how "quantum time" would work is exactly how our older clocks work (in our large macroscopic world), if you take the time to watch one.

I see though from your blog that you are a fan of numbers, John. You would be surprised to know that the quantum abstractions that numbers represent could help us conceptually supersede the need for time as a variable not only in the interpretation of the quantum realm but in the description of the macroscopic realm as well. That is a fresh perspective brought about within the Quanto-Geometric concept. I have an article on Academia-edu as a prelude that you may want to freely take a look at. Thanks again for joining the conversation.

Joseph,
If you had read my post you would have recognised that I was not regarding time as classical or Newtonian. I think the rest of your comments lack the rigour that is needed in providing any real understanding.

John wrote: "Joseph,
If you had read my post you would have recognised that I was not regarding time as classical or Newtonian. I think the rest of your comments lack the rigour that is needed in providing any..."

Perhaps you should ask him to point to some papers on it where they've published the mathematics, if you're that interested. That's probably the only language that would provide the rigor you want, if you can understand it.

Forgive my intrusion. I was thinking that declaring a quantum victory may be best delayed.

As you have mentioned several times, time (or at least our experience of time) is affected by gravity. There is ample evidence of this correlation. However so far we have yet to isolate the graviton, and confirm it's hypothetical qualities. A small difference between the actual sender particle and our hypothetical model of it could have massive effects on our understanding of this area.

John wrote: "Joseph,
If you had read my post you would have recognised that I was not regarding time as classical or Newtonian. I think the rest of your comments lack the rigour that is needed in providing any..."

John wrote: "Joseph,
If you had read my post you would have recognised that I was not regarding time as classical or Newtonian. I think the rest of your comments lack the rigour that is needed in providing any..."

Actually John, I read your comments several times before I posted a reply. When discussing these issues publicly, it is always good to put them in the larger context of what’s known and established, less the conversation may quickly become loose and irrelevant. I am sure we all don’t want that to happen.

Universal time is our intuitive concept of time which Sir I. Newton summarized as “true, universal, flowing always the same, etc…”. Further, the current official definition of clocks is not exactly “what is measured by clocks” but “what HUMANS measure on clocks.” Important distinction, because there is no natural clock in existence. We have had to abandon every single adopted “natural clock”, one of which is the orbit of earth around the sun. Perhaps our last best “accurate” clock is the atomic clock. But every physicist in the standard bodies know that none of them will measure time the same at the top of Mount Everest as they will at the bottom of it, or staying at rest in a controlled chamber on top of the Eiffel tower as opposed to going around the world on a plane.

Many may ignore that in this battle to define time where they kept running out of breath “all the time”, the standard bodies have ultimately established the speed of light as the scale of time. You wonder how a figure for rate of change in time can become the very scale of time itself! On that, if the word desperate comes to mind, it’s because it is.

The new item you bring to the conversation is that of entropy. I beg to disagree that entropy can be the basis for a definition of time. Entropy is the increasing order of action in the world, or the measure of disorder. Time, as we conceive it, is a background parameter to that action. Even though we speak of the arrow of time as a parallel to the direction of entropy, time is admittedly thought of as a dimensional component of the fabric of the physical universe. I argue that there is no 4th dimension of time, but only 3 dimensions of space.

Finally, in the way of more formalism around the issue that you are calling for, the mathematics that Jim is talking about are no other that the Lorentz transformation equations in Special Relativity, which are pretty simple equations anyone can visit, despite the big name.

Joseph,

You may be right that time is an illusion, but I still think that it is far too early to throw it out. I also agree that entropy has not so far proved useful in giving us a time measure. I only mentioned it to point out that the universe is aging independent of other parameters, and its entropy is also increasing according to our physical laws.

Actually, light is not used as a measure of time. It is time that is used as a measure of space via the velocity of light. Recall the definition of the second: the ground state caesium 133 splitting frequency is 9 192 630 770 Hz. This uses a physical process to define time, which is invariant to the observational precision of about 1 part per trillion or something. Light is then used to define the metre via the definition of the velocity of light: 299 792 458 m/s.

Whether you think of the universe having 4 space dimensions (with ct the fourth) or 4 time dimensions seems semantics. I know that you're not suggesting that, but better the status quo. Of course many physicists investigating string theory have suggested the need for many more dimensions which we are unable to perceive.

Regarding the Lorenz transformation, I first came across this in the first term of my maths degree 37 years ago. I still remember it even after this time! Of course it relates the passage of time by different observers with relative velocities. Relativity explains that times and distances are not absolute, but dependent on the observer. That doesn't make time any more "human dependent" than space dimensions. They are equivalent. As well as time dilation, presumably your reason for bringing up special relativity, there is also length contraction. So both time and space dimensions are dependent on the velocity of the observer. I don't see how you can throw out time and not space.

Your mention of gravitons is interesting. To my mind, it's not clear that they exist. If you're looking for a delusion, then perhaps gravity is that delusion. Gravity is a weak "force" but doesn't so far fit the pattern of the other forces. My conjecture is that mass/energy curves space and gives the illusion of gravity. For gravity to be a real force, like the electroweak and strong nuclear, an exchange particle needs to be identified. Of course that's the purpose of LIGO to find such particles, but my guess and it is no more than a guess, is that it will fail. A null experiment is as valuable as an experiment with a positive result.

If you really think that there are only 3 space dimensions, and no time, what do you think produces the energy discharge near the ground state of the caesium atom, which our space measurements are based on? We choose caesium because its energy emission can be precisely measured. Similar transitions exist in hydrogen which occurs everywhere in the universe and are measured in spectra (Fraunhofer lines). The whole of the foundations of astronomy depends on understanding this.

Disproving gravitons would just about scuttle string theory. That would be disapointing, but not a serious blow to science.

The question becomes what happens to the standard model.

John wrote: "Joseph,

You may be right that time is an illusion, but I still think that it is far too early to throw it out. I also agree that entropy has not so far proved useful in giving us a time measure. I..."

I can now better understand the perspective you are coming from. You are basically making the point that because both time and spatial distance are relative to the motion of an observer in appreciation and measurement, then time is no more a fictitious variable than space would be.

I am questioning the essence of time as a physical variable. Space is truly a physical variable because despite its intangibility as void, it is what gives objects their dimensions. And we directly perceive in objects its 3 degrees of freedom. It is REAL. The question of how it behaves relative to a moving observer comes after the fact. It primarily exists independent of the observer.

Now where is time? It is nowhere to be physically observed, measured, gauged, quantified. Even indirectly. You mentioned several times that the universe is “undoubtedly aging”, suggesting that entropy supports the notion of time as a physical entity. Most people, and most physicists, will agree with that statement as common wisdom. I submit to you though that the process of entropy does not cast the universe as “aging”, I prefer the statement that the universe is in eternal transformation. That is the most irreducible definition of entropy.

Entropy is not being developed along a timeline, because there is NO physical time line. And that is so despite the definition by convention of the second based on a spectral line (hv) of Caesium 133. This same Caesium “clock” will “tick” differently in different conditions of motion and gravity. Frankly, nothing impressive to me with a certain frequency for Caesium atom resonance that has been DEFINED by international AGREEMENT as 9,192,631,770 Hz so that when divided by this number the output of this “clock” is exactly 1 Hz, or 1 cycle per second. DEFINED by AGREEMENT. The NIST.org website may have more.

A natural unit of time, that is essentially closed onto itself and independent of all exogenous conditions, in terms of a standard, universal unit of duration, is something that has not been found and will never be found. Of all the motions that we know of in the macroscopic world, when we partition any one in even smaller parts in the quest for a unit of time, we are going to hit at some point sub-atomic scale and beyond that the Planck scale (there is even below the Planck scale). In those realms we unquestionably know that time does not exist, nothing there behaves in accordance with flow, fluctuation, variance and direction of a timeline! If we needed one more proof, the experiment of entanglement repeated so many times is there to puzzle all those minds still clinging to time.

So is our physical universe so utterly broken, so chaotic and so bankrupt of order that in some parts it has a dimension of time and in some others it knows of no such thing? What a bad life for a variable that pretends to have (as it is in our minds) dimensional status!



(P.S. Comments about gravitons are from J, not me. Matter for another debate!).

Joseph,

You still haven't explained how, if time is an illusion, then space is not. According to our physical laws neither space nor time are absolute. Just because you think you perceive space does not make it real. Most people in any case perceive both space and time, even if they can't be precise in knowing what time is.

Basically, your English just doesn't come over in a precise enough way for me to understand your argument, shrouded as it is in jargon.

Let's keep the discussion respectful, people.

In what way has any of the discussion not been respectful?

John wrote: "Joseph,

You still haven't explained how, if time is an illusion, then space is not. According to our physical laws neither space nor time are absolute. Just because you think you perceive space do..."

John, I have to tell you that I have never heard British jargon spoken, much less do I speak it: I would not know how to be shroud in it. You are pressing me to describe what a perceptive experience of space would feel like. Though I have partly addressed that in earlier posts, I will add a few more tidbits to it below.

If you were to take a look at a nightly sky devoid of stars, what would you perceive, John? Bet you would say: Nothing. Correct, the nothingness of space or the SPREAD of VASTNESS is what you would observe. You could devise means, some more clever than others, to measure that spread. As you do so, you would discover, if one was to be unaware, that it has dimensions of length, width and depth. This void of space is everywhere as one of the two fundamental components of all objects, in every shell of matter. It is also what primarily constructs MULTIPLICITY in the world. Were it not for its presence, the universe would be an-dimensional, a single scalar point incalculably small. You have a sense of that when a star system collapses, engulfing the otherwise huge star into something smaller than a sand bit: a black hole.

The void of space has many other intrinsic qualities such as geometric properties, it is what provisions the forms of objects (beyond mediating gravity around massive objects). When you are looking in amazement at the beauty of a rose or a lotus flower, your sense of sight is being dazzled by the fundamental properties of SYMMETRY of space deployed thru its molecular and histological structures.

I’ll tell you what time has done to us. It has turned us blind to the endogenous properties of space, it has pressed us to regard it as “nothing” and led us to describe the behavior of matter away from it because it qualifies as too trivial. However physicists are discovering more and more that there is something to it: so-called zero-point energy for instance. Yet, its foremost, directly “perceivable” property, its 3 degrees of freedom, remains unexplained. Physicist Martin Reese has called the community to task on that. Fair to say that string theory approach yielding a grotesque number of hypothetical pluri-dimensional brane worlds remains unsatisfactory and has not convincingly addressed the specific question of why our physical universe is laid upon 3-dimensional space (J., no bashing intended!).

All these questions have been addressed and elucidated in Quanto-Geometric Theory (Vol I). Again the article that I mentioned before shows enough of the mathematical foundation that sustain these claims to be pretty a good start. You should take a look at it, short of reading the full publication.

So John, I do not think that we only “think” that we can perceive space. We perceive it indeed in all kinds of ways. That would become more obvious to us if we stopped thinking “time” and relating everything to time flow or a timeline, which is completely unsubstantiated from a physical point of view. You need to get this: in the dimensional background, there is no dimension of time. There is no 4th time axis, or line (as in timeline) to be perceived or detected, if nothing else only because all lines are dimensionally spatial in nature. No one perceives TIME, as you put it. One might think that one perceives time, but in fact what one perceives is MOTION and CHANGE. As I have demonstrated in a mathematical physics development, we can describe motion and energy exclusively in terms of space and its inner dynamics, in all shells of matter, in complete ban of time. This is not just a claim, but a view that is fully substantiated mathematically.

I agree with you that not necessarily because we as human perceive something, that makes it real. The world exists in and of its own without the existence of humans. If you remove humans from the world, it will still have space all in and around. What it sure won’t have any longer or won’t miss are humans talking about time, because it never had it. We have sensory experience so we can ascertain the world around and properly interact with it. But when we conceive of a quality of the world that is not a direct result of perception or experimental detection, we should have the good sense to call it an abstraction, in this case a fictitious abstraction.

Joseph,

I think my answer to you is: get a review of your book by a professional physicist and I may pay more attention to your ideas. Until then I can't waste any more time on it.

John wrote: "In what way has any of the discussion not been respectful?"

I think it is acceptable to complain about too much jargon, but to attack Joseph's English is personal and unnecessary.

I have not attacked his English, I have just commented that I do not understand it. One reason for its lack of clarity is the excessive use of technical terms.

It does not relate to his person, hence is not personal.

If people, like Joseph, come up with ideas that go against the grain of all Physics knowledge to date, as agreed by professional physicists as far as I am aware, then such people need to have their language scrutinised without a third party criticising the criticiser.

John wrote: "I have not attacked his English, I have just commented that I do not understand it. One reason for its lack of clarity is the excessive use of technical terms.

It does not relate to his person, h..."

John, because I would not like to see you thrown out of this forum by the moderator, I am going to give you some quick hints.

1.- You are not faring well in your intervention when the moderator has to intervene to single you out. It gets even worse when you take your quarrel to her, because you are just another breach away from being shown the door.

2.- She has not “criticized” you as you say, because she has not made any comments on the merits of your posts, has she? So what’s she’s done is WARN you, because she has a set of rules to enforce and you have most probably breached some of them.

3.- You came to this conversation visibly to pick a fight, which is not just being in disagreement with the views expressed. You quickly showed however that you had no AMMUNITION. Reason why, Jim lost patience and made the comment about “math papers, if you can understand them…”

4.- I engaged with you by courtesy despite your almost summoning me to give answers to your questions; I was not at all annoyed by the charges that you repeatedly levied against my English. You see, people’s ethnic origin does not at all give them ownership of any human language, as you seem to believe. As a French Caribbean native, I was once completely taken aback by a young (Utah) Mormon boy who knocked at my door and started speaking to me the purest of Creole language. Kept staring at him in disbelief. I think he would have laughed at me if I told him that his Creole was gibberish. Honestly, I think that my English writing style is much better than yours, yet I would not call yours jargon. Out of respect and because this discussion is not about the English we speak.

5.- To all, you are likely coming across as slick (you don’t how much LOL there is around in the background!), when you are asking for rigor, and then as it is given to you, it was the English that was not clear, and when formal English was given to you, then it was shroud and gibberish-like, and finally when you were out of argument, the English was too technical, after you had started asking for RIGOR!

6.- Finally, one would think that after your claimed 37-year involvement in math and the physical sciences, you would be deft enough to make up your own mind about exploring new proposals and not needing a “professional physicist” to tell you it’s OK to read this or that. Your statement that “my ideas are against the grain of all Physics knowledge to date, as agreed by professional physicists…” is a pointed mischaracterization. On the account of TIME alone, which was the notion being mainly discussed, time has been in trouble ever since Einstein published his Theory of Relativity, in 1915 I believe: he found that universal Newtonian time was untrue. Later on E. Schroedinger found that it did not exist at all in the atomic quantum realm. Einstein did not want to let go of it completely and argued until his passing for time-driven determinism to account for quantum states. Experimental entanglement firmly puts the issue back on the table today, and not on the side of Einstein. Title of the latest book by famed physicist Lee Smolin in 2015: TIME REBORN. I can't uppercase 1915-2015 but I would.

So John, make sure the professional physicists you are talking to really know their craft. My last piece of advice to you: chill out, my friend! TONE DOWN. Take maybe some TIME OUT. Up to you to stop the laughing at your expense!

Joseph,

I have tried to understand your viewpoint and you have not clarified it to my satisfaction. My conclusion was that neither your book, nor its conclusions, make any sense to me.

My comment about requiring a physicist to look at it, was not intended as a lack of confidence in Physics on my part. Rather I wanted to be sure that I was not being unfair to you.

I have now looked further and found a review of your book on Goodreads. The review itself is clear and concise. The reviewer shares my concerns with this material.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". Your claims are extraordinary, but you offer no proof.

Joseph: Thank you, it's fixed. The city even admitted responsibility, though they charge $500+ to even come down and inspect it, to ascertain that it is in fact their fault. This is done in the form of a permit, charged to the plumber. Now THAT'S even dirtier than sewage ;)

To the actual topic: Unfortunately, we will be talking in circles, as I can only say what I did before: Yes, all of our concepts of time are subject to space, and fall under the heading of space. I just don't see the problem with calling time a spatial dimension, since it can in fact be plotted on a graph (albeit a 4D one) along with the other 3. I do agree that it may very well fall within the boundaries of our own perspective, though, as "violations" tend to "coincidentally" fall outside of our perspective limitations (e.g. the quantum level)

The answer, of course, is to expand our perspective. Not to shift the topic again, but this makes me think of color. The wavelength differences are a fact, but the color as we see it is something our eyes "created," after a fashion. 'Course, that's not really off topic, as light is part of the topic, and color is light.

I am intrigued by the impossible speed of light, though. It does seem to be a boundary of some sort, if we are in fact unable to breach it. Referring to the actual impossibility, not just humans being primitive.

A boundary to what then? To where?

John wrote: "Joseph,

I have tried to understand your viewpoint and you have not clarified it to my satisfaction. My conclusion was that neither your book, nor its conclusions, make any sense to me.

My comment..."

John, can you please explain quantum entanglement to the audience and give us your interpretation of it? This is not a challenge. Take your time, no rush. Please do not relate or cite anything I have said or written. Just the concept and experiment themselves, and what you think of it all.