tar

Swansont,

We have to consider it from one place and time, inorder to have a frame to transform into another.

This starting frame is required, and the basis upon which we define any other.

Once we have defined the other, we can mentally exist there, put ourselves in its shoes, and even then consider IT the "starting" frame, and our frame "an other frame".

But I prefer our frame, because it is the one we have been experiencing the world and the universe from through our long history of experiments and theoretical exploration. It is the frame we have learned about, and the frame we understand the best.

Regards, TAR2

I tried to make it work but I just can't provide an explanation of how different events could occur in different orders, and yet have a single "present" that is shared by the different observers.

md65536,

I know you weren't asking me, but I personally accept the both.

The only way you can jive experience with all the experimentation that has been done, is to consider the entire universe being exactly as old as you are. Except, what we see of it is historical in nature, when the overall mental picture is considered.

I imagine it as photons going out from my location in an ever increasing (at the speed of light) sphere.

Each object that ever was in the universe has this sphere. If an object has a lifetime, I imagine its life of photon emmisions being an ever increasing "shell" with its birth at the outside surface and its death at the inside surface.

So a particular object we see has a number of "nows" we can consider. One is the momentarily thin spherical shell that is passing through me, at the "same time" that it is passing through everything that happens to be the same light travel time or radius from the object that I am from it. (adding motion to the object creates sort of a cone shape thing over time, but at any moment, its a thin spherical slice of a sphere.)

Another "now" is to consider the image we receive as an actual extension of the "event" that is that object.

Another is to imagine the object's condition the exact amount of time later, as light took to reach us.

Unfortunately for my mental image, there are an incredible amount of objects to consider, many of them, with an "outside" shell that has "already" passed through my location long ago, before my birth.

Causal relationwise if we see it, it has already been affecting us (or our location) because we are inside its outer shell and yet to see it disappear (its inside shell).

But us humans are built to be able to put ourselves in other entities shoes. We can do the frame shifting thing back and forth, and imagine how it sees us, and we it. Two way communication may take too long to ever occur, but it can be imagined. And each frame, as long as its consistent with the others, is "real".

What isn't real, is imagining "seeing" the whole operation at once, it can only be "thought of" at once. As it turns out, the way the universe actually looks, is the way we see it. With a star we see 4.5 lightyears distant, appearing to us as it was 4.5 years ago (considering it currently existing in the same "universal" moment, that all points, exactly as old as we are ( us being Earth's matter,) are in.

In this way, events happening in a different order from a vantage point of different stars is not hard.

Event A at Alpha Centuri will happen first on a planet orbiting it, second, 4.5 years later, here, and some hundreds of thousands of years later, on a planet on the other side of the milkyway, and 10s of billions of years later on a planet made of the stuff we see that appears to have "just" released its photons as the universe became transparent.

Why stick to one frame, or one philosophy, when you get a better view, switching realistically between them?

Regards, TAR

And what of someone living in a different frame of reference?

Swansont,

They see "our" universe, from their perspective. But once we meet them, they can make the transformation to our frame and we to theirs, and there will still be one objective universe that both we and the newly met "other framer" can and do consider "our" universe.

Regards, TAR2

The point to all this is that any measurement you make is frame dependent and that measurement represents "reality" for that frame and that's all the reality that there is.

Janus,

But included in that frame's reality is the ability to make the transformations to our reality, and any particle, field, object or motion, that exists in both frames can be "seen" in the other's frame, if the transformations are made.

If the imaginary frame does not account for everything that is "real" in the starting frame, if transformation into the imaginary frame and back, yields an impossible thing, then, as Vilas is arguing, the transformation was not done in a realistic way.

And the universe need not conform to our analogies. Our analogies are of it. And I for one, will challenge the completeness of our analogies, before I challenge the truth of the universe.

Regards, TAR2

Owl,

If I do something, the effects of it, the notice of it having occurred, goes out, from my location in all directions (depending on the medium available) at the speed the medium transfers "messages". There are sound waves, compression waves, electrical signals, changes in magnetic fields, and a host of photons launched off at various wavelengths.

Of all the above, photons, (whether wave or particle,) are the "fastest". There is nothing faster (but thought.)

The photons leaving my event reach event location B in a particular time.

Here, the EDPP, is not happening at my location, it is happening between A and B. The event is the release of the photons at A and the arrival of said photon at B. The "time" the event took (that is the release at A and arrival at B) is unknown, by either A or B. Now if B reflects the signal back and A "times" the duration of the new event (A signals B, B reflects signal back), A can divide the amount of ticks on his clock by 2 and know the "time" it takes to send a signal to B. (if A and B are are at rest in regards to each other in the medium the signal is transmitted through.)

Now if B is moving in regards to this medium all bets are off. Dividing A to B to A, by 2 will still define the time A to B took.

But unlike the at rest pair, the next signal test, will show A to B to A took a different time.

In the "at rest" situation, I can synchronize my ticks with B's ticks, and even though B may be receiving my tick 3 ticks later (A to B to A takes 6 ticks) both A and B can imagine the other on the same tick, by subtracting or adding the 3 ticks as appropriate. The EDPP of the ticks will be the same.

However, "now" becomes a bit harder to determine when A and B are moving toward or away from each other (or both, in the case of a particle in an accelerator) because the ticks are not in sync, and not only do you have to add or subtract the three ticks, but each successive A to B to A event times out differently, so it isn't easy to know, not only when to add or subtract to imagine a now, but how much to add or subtract. If you go by the information derived from the first A to B to A passage of time, to determine the next, you will be wrong. And if B is moving away, its ticks will come to you at a longer wavelength (red shift). I would guess this means as well, that A sees B and B sees A in slow motion.

If A and B are moving toward each other (at a good percentage of C,) I suppose the blue shift would make each other see the other in fast motion.

But this is all the EDPP of A to B to A, changing, in terms of how A and B sycn up to the other's now.

It does not say that EDPP at B "actually" slows down, at B, depending on B's speed, or depth in a gravity well.

Except that experimentation with the cesium clocks flying East and West shows that EDPP actually does change with distance from the center of the Earth, and when flown with and against the rotation of the Earth.

What's that about?

What is "it" that is changing?

Regards, TAR2

There is no objective way to say one frame is the real one.

Swansont,

Well perhaps there is. That is to say that we piece together what we have learned to build our model of the world.

When I see a truck 1/4 mile ahead on the highway, it looks very small. I can cover it with my thumb at arms length. I do not take this to mean that I should be able to hold the truck in my hand. Nor do I consider that covering it with my thumb, made it disappear.

Because of my knowledge of the world, having moved around in it, I have learned what is, and is not the case related to the apparent size of the truck and its "actual" size. Thus I am able to predict, that if I am going a few miles an hour faster than the truck, it will grow in size till it is big enough to actually contain a driver, which I know it must have behind the wheel. And sure enough, that happens.

When we measure the distance to a star we take into account its apparent movement against the "fixed" stars behind it, as we repeat the observation of the star 1/2 a year later from the other side of the Sun, and compare the views. We can take our knowledge of the whole situation, what we have found must be the size of the Earth, and its distance from the Sun, and the diameter of its orbit...hundreds, if not thousands or millions of observations and calculations, and observations, that "force" things to "have to be" the case for everything to fit together.

Thus, although there is no "preferred" frame of reference, if we take all the things we know "must" be the case and put them together, checking our findings and beliefs, from various hypothetical and/or real other frames of reference (thought, or actual "experiments") we can "build" a prediction, of "what is real" and actually the case.

Contradictions that arise, are not the fault of objective reality (which MUST be the case), but a sign that our model needs some adjustment, or that we are not looking at it the right way.

Thus, for various reasons, I would say "our" frame of reference, is not only a good one to use, but the only one we have, to use. And transformations and differential geometry and the mass=energy equivilancy, are excellent ways to "move around" in an existant universe, that fits together flawlessly.

Still, an "objective reality" that fits together flawlessly has to be the case. We experience it every day. Objectively speaking, the universe we experience IS the real one. (its the only one we have)

Regards, TAR2

Einstein's Relativity is not philosophy — it makes testable predictions.

And I suppose no logic is involved in this process?

No love or pusuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline?

No investigation of the causes and laws underlying reality?

No inquiry into the nature of things based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods?

No critique and analysis of fundamental beliefs as they come to be conceptualized and formulated?

No synthesis of all learning?

No (archaic and historic use) investigation of natural phenomena and its systematization in theory and experiment as in alchemy, astroloogy, or astronomy (hermetic philosophy;natural philosophy)?

No learning excluding technical precepts and practical arts?

No diciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology (Doctor of Philosophy)?

No science comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology?

No system of motivating concepts or principles (the philosophy of a culture)?

No basic theory or viewpoint?

No system of values by which one lives?

No calmness, equanimity, and detachment thought to befit a philosopher?

(Taken from the definitions of Philosophy in The American Heritage Dictionalry of the English Language, 1976 Houghton Mifflin Company, with a "no" infront and a "?" behind.)

I do not think you can make a prediction, without a metaphysical concept of an objective reality that will act in a predictable way.

Could Einstein have put together a working mathematical model of reality without "thinking" about it?

Regards, TAR2

The length is different for the traveler because c is constant. It's a straightforward consequence.

Swansont,

If all the clocks onboard are ticking consistantly slower than here, and she will always measure C to be C, and she measures it along the direction of travel of the ship, and she measures it perpendicular to the direction of travel, will she find that she is an oblate disc (so to speak?)

Regards, TAR2

Olvin,

Still see some geometrical issues with your model.

One, spheres aligned in the manner you describe are not close packed. You could take a whole layer, and shift it as one, into the "holes" provided by the layer beneath. THEN you would be close packed, but you would have the arrangement I took the pictures of, with each sphere surrounded by 12 others. You have to determine if such an arrangement can spin.

Two, the arrangement you show has all the spheres spinning so their equators are on the same plane, for each "layer", and the north and south poles touching the south poles of the layer above and the north poles of the layer below. Thus NO spin is imparted or felt up or down, only left and right and back and forth.

This would mean, if your model was true, that gravity would have the same directional components to it, and masses would slow down the spin of the constons to the left and right, and back and forth from it, but have little to no effect on the constons above and below it. We would observe a directionality (perpendicular to the described equatoral planes) to gravity, that we do not observe. Two dimensional layers, stacked to form three dimensional "space" would give themselves away to us. We would already realize that that was the way things worked. Since gravity does not appear to work that way, the model needs further modification.

Regards, TAR2

Owl,

I have to get ready for work and think and write quite slowly, so I will have to complete this thought later...but, I do see a reality, that is addressed by all the philosophies being considered here. What seems to happen though is imagination is considered "unreal" which I do not believe is true.

One way to "look" at this, is that the entire universe, has not yet done what it is going to do next. Each point in the universe is at this knife edge. All points are real, and existant. And all points consist of the reality that, up to this knife edge point, have happened to it.

The past is thusly not "unreal" but the actual compilation of all of the rest of the universe that has reached that particular "spacial" knife edge point.

This is not inconsistant with any of the philosophies, or sciences studying the universe.

If we "imagine" the universe this way, it describes the reality of the situation, even if we do not "see" it all at once.

Got to go.

Regards, TAR2

Swansont,

No, you cannot artificially constrain experiments in this way. Mutual time dilation is ONE prediction of relativity. It is not the ONLY prediction of relativity.

Well I suggest then that we also consider where we are going to get the energy to accelerate the ship to .88 C. It might require substantial local mass to be turned into energy. And the ship itself, moving at that rate would become extremely massive, and would affect the spacetime around it, forming its own gravity well that the Sun and Alpha Centuri would begin to orbit, or fall into, and all the photons, coming toward and away from the craft would be bent by its gravity. Are these predictions of relativity built into the experiment?

Regards, TAR2

Which laws of physics are we taking with us on this thought experiment, and which are we leaving behind?

Seems like local spacetime would be quite permanently remodeled by this experiment. And perhaps reality would even prevent us from performing it.

Well, I would like to point out, that the "universe as it is" is a highly subjective statement, about objective reality. This, because, the word "is" implies a current state, which the universe "objectively" is never in. We would not experience it, at all, if we did not do it, from one place and time. This, in a way, allows us to know "how it is" , consisting of very many places like "this", and very many periods of time like "this". We even know that "this" place and time can be divided down to a Planck length and the period of time it would take a photon to go the distance. Or multiply "this" out to spacetime. But by definition, all of spacetime cannot be witnessed from any one place and time. So it must be only a subjective speculation.

If we can imagine it, it is subjective. If we can sense it, it is objective.

Any of our theories, attempt to fit objective reality.

Objective reality is under no pressure to fit our theories.

Scientific method allows us to compare our subjective models of the world with each other, and codify that which we, in common, find true about the world. This we can reasonably agree on, as "objective" reality. But it remains a collective, subjective model, built on those objective things that we, and our instruments sense.

That we know many of the ways and rules by which the objective world fits together, and works, there is no doubt. That most everybody here knows more of these things than I do, there is no doubt. That there is more for us all to discover about objective reality, there is no doubt.

Objective reality is that which we strive to model. Subjective reality is those pieces of it that we have managed to.

That is my subjective take, on what is objective.

Regards, TAR2

Seems different than Olvin's idea.

Where is Olvin?

Did he abandon the theory?

Seems to be a Face Centered Cubic, or A,B,C stacking of hexagon planes.

Interesting to me, is that you also get this arrangement if you close-pack square planes.

And the center sphere is a member of four different hexagonal planes, and three different square planes. And six axises, or six pairs of directly opposite spheres. Each of the six axises (three spheres in a straight line) is a member of two of the hexagonal planes and one of the square planes.

A lot of symmetry.

Have not figured yet, if it can spin.

Daedalus,

I suppose we should ask Olvin, but I would guess that you can use whatever dimensions the universe as we know it, will bear.

By the way, I took a couple jpgs of the structure (in ping pong balls) with the center of the spheres on the 12 vertices of a cube octohedron. But I don't know how to link the pictures to here.

Regards, TAR2

Found the "use full editor"

Daedalus,

According to Olvin the spheres are dense packed. He did not per se limit them to all the same size, but his drawing made me think that that was his thought.

The dense pack arrangement I am considering, has each sphere touching 12 others. You can get the arrangement by placing the center of each sphere at each of the vertices of the figure you get when you cut the corners off to the center of each edge (around a center sphere). Or more simply, put the center of each sphere at the center of each of the twelve edges of a cube. With the sphere diameter being equal to 1/2 the distance between an edge center and the opposite edge center.

I'm just glueing some ping pong balls together now, and I'll post a picture, once it dries and I can put the last three on. (and figure out if and how to post a picture.)

Or short of that, you can build the start of the pattern I want to test for spinablity, by putting six spheres around a center sphere, putting three spheres in a triangle on top of this, each in every other "place" created by the hexagonal arrangement, and then on the opposite side of the first hexagonal group place the other three spheres, but in the opposite three "places", so you wind up with four intersecting hexagonal planes.

Regards, TAR2

http://kjmaclean.com/Geometry/Cubeoctahedron.html

Shows the cube octahedron, which is the figure you should place the center of each sphere on the vertices of.

Swansont,

I think I am in agreement with you, but I may not be in total agreement. Truth and validity have a certain ability to change, from one reference frame to another. At great distances from my here and now, and at great speeds in reference to my here and now's rest frame, the universe is not "currently" doing any one thing. It is doing many things. And those things will not reach my here and now all at once, they all come to me, as "past" events. Philosophically, my now, is composed of the rest of the universe's past, and the rest of the universe will experience me in its future. Closer things sooner, farther things later. What I was doing 4 and a half years ago is currently true on Alpha Centuri. On a planet 100 lightyears from here, I have not yet been born. If something is to match with observation it by definition must be a confirmation of a past truth, if a "current now" is imagined to exist similtaneously across the entire universe. And with a changing, distant event, viewed in this manner, the "truth" you are witnessing is no longer, what is really happening "currently" at that distant moving event site.

So if Alpha Centuri has a record of 53 years of my life, and the planet 100 light years from here has no record at all, and I remember being in the universe for 57 years, where and when exactly should be considered the current true universe, where something is either valid or not? (and hence Owl's concern of objective and subjective truth)

Regards, TAR2

Daedalus,

Nice drawings.

But can you get a dense packed arrangement to work?

You can't put a fourth sphere touching all three of those. It wouldn't spin in any direction. It would pop out. Or if you put it on the back side it would get sucked in to the three.

Can you extend that drawing so a total of 12 balls touch the red one, and see if they still spin?

Regards, TAR2

Swansont,

I am beginning to see what you are saying about the strawman.

These concerns, that Owl and I are bringing up, have already been the considerations of men and women, for many years. The questions have already been posed, and considered, and conventions have been established to define the terms that should be used, to investigate the nature of reality. This does not mean that there are not still discoveries to be made, and it does not mean that laymen and scientists do not have the same reality to investigate, and the same human mechanisms with which to model reality. However, there is, in my estimation, a tendency I have noticed in myself, and in others, to consider that ones own model of reality, is the best one available. Though we can and do add the discoveries of others to our own model of reality, and hence there is a collective effort in process to address the issue, there remains this tendency to consider ones own take, the best way to look at it.

So with "time" we can investigate the nature of it, and consider the relationship in spacetime of one event to another in terms of distance and time, but the concept of NOW is a slippery fish. It needs an observer, or an army of them, deployed, all of the same mind, reporting back instantaneously (which cannot actually occur in our universe.)

Without conventions, and differential geometry, and the equations of special and general relativity, and the mathematical spaces and manifolds developed for these purposes, this condition is not readily addressable. As pointed out to me by another poster, ordinary words are not enough. You have to speak in the language of physics to know where the lead edge of this discussion is.

Regards, TAR2

Swansont,

I feel safe in the deep end, without my floaties. After all, if I start to go under I can grab on to the swan swimming around out here.

Regards, TAR2

MD65536,

Only read about half of Dieks' article and none of Reichenbach's work, but I was thinking, in reading Dieks' article, that the rotation in a system is a crucial component to our recognition of time.

Our particular local state is a record of what happened before to our particular "location", what happens next, well, has not happened yet. That is our now. Once anything changes, one photon comes in or goes out, one particle changes it position or momentum, the history of happenings at our location is new, a different state, that has not occurred before.

But in a rotating system, some things happen again in the same way they happened before. The memory of all the previous events is contained in the system already, and for us humans, conscious of the comparison, we can "predict" what will happen next. The sun will rise tommorrow. Hence a period of time that exists both in our consiousness and in that which we are conscious of.

Without the rotation, we might not have the periods to consider.

Regards, TAR2

Swansont,

Thank you very much for that. I think its the "implied" part, that I never see in the equations, and that is where the meat is. Since C is the one carrying the position and time information. Its here where things get a bit foggy to me, because I don't know what assumptions are being made, and in what frame of reference the seconds and miles are being measured and defined.

Time has different aspects to it, as in a piece of music. There is the rate of the beat, the spacing and how long the notes are held, and then the vibrational frequency of each single note. Since one can slow down a song, by singing the notes at their proper pitch, with a slower beat, and or hold each note longer, without changing the frequency of the note...how do you carry all the aspects properly through an equation, or transform, if you don't keep the units of position and time in there, to make sure the operation is realistically performed?

How do you know if you are mixing metaphors, so to speak?

I remember in middle school math class, a proof of something that looked logical at each step, which proved an impossible thing.

Closer inspection found a place where a subtle change in assumptions, produced a hidden division by zero.

Leaving out the units, and using an implied C, is on the one hand dangerous, in that a false assumption will not be readily noticed, and on the other hand, uninstructive, in terms of seeing the relationship between the things being considered.

For instance, I was thinking yesterday, that if a photon sees zero distance, and zero time in changing its position from one place in the universe to another, it has no "speed" (and perhaps there is no "other place"). So how do we use this zero speed, as the implied constant in all our equations?

Regards, TAR2

Between3and26characterlon,

Yes it makes SOME sense.

I understand that I should let the universe follow the rule of E=MCsquared, since the universe is found by repeatable, peer reviewed experimentation, to always follow it.

Just don't know how to make sense of it.

By the way, Rexitivity, I'll be going along with Swansont, since I have already decided that there cannot be ANYTHING supernatural about nature. It is, what it is, and there is no magic. The trick is learning about it, and discovering its mysteries.

And in that light, I will wear the colors of all the humans before me and around me, that have noticed things about the world, documented them, compared notes, thrown out what does not work (the false notions) and agreed upon what does work (the truth).

I have noticed in my own life, that if I remember a certain thing is true, and I see it is no longer the case, I immediately discard the false thing, and accept the true thing. I believe all people do that. (Although in the area of beliefs, things are not so readily apparent.)

So in that light, I am saying that I believe in E=MCsquared, I just don't see how it works out to be true. I have heard about it, read about it, and thought about it, and always get to some contradiction, that just doesn't make sense to me.

Swansont,

Perhaps you can help me out with something. In the formulae I see, the relationships work out mathematically, but I rarely see the units expressed. That is Energy expressed in how many of what units, equals Mass expressed in how many of what units, times the Speed of Light in how many of what units squared? I just need one example expressed in this way, and I might see what the equation is saying about reality. I just need to see where the constants fall, and where the units of distance, time, and energy fall.

Regards, TAR2

Marat,

It seems to me that the reciprocal nature of objectivity and subjectivity, argues against one taking either to be more important than the other. It’s the both of them together that is real, that is true. Either by themselves has little meaning or value.

For instance, we experience time and space because we occupy only one place and moment in it. From this position, we notice the rest.

We can not refer to something, without something to refer to.

We can not model reality, if there is not reality to model.

The object gives the subject something to predicate.

Regards, TAR2

between3and26characterslon,

Thanks for the link. I have read such explanations before. The sensible parts, are part of my thinking, and part of my model of the world, already.

That still leaves the "for no apparent reason" parts. In these parts, as in the "twins" descriptions, the "logic" stops, and the random application of terms starts. For instance, logically speaking, on the way out, both twins will see the other's clock slow, because each successive tick of the other's clock is further away and will take a longer time to reach the other's position. On the way back, the distance between the twins is closing, and both twins should see the other's clock ticking faster than their own. In both cases, each twin's clock is ticking normally, and as far as I can figure, how this ticking "appears" to the other, is not the crucial consideration, in terms of how many ticks, in their own reference frame, each twin counts. The traveling twin is traveling at .88c and it's going to take her 5.11 years worth of ticks to reach Alpha Centuri. Even if her twin gets hit by a bus, as soon as she leaves. And it will take her 5.11 years worth of her own ticks to return.

Lets call it "the stay at home twin dies" condition. She is still 10.22 years worth of ticks older, when she returns.

Relativity, has nothing to do with it. If a moving clock ticks slower, then something is slowing it down.

I am still not clear on why scientists don't want to look for the reason why particles whizzing through a powerful magnetic field, take longer to decay. So it happens at a rate that fits a formulae. I fail to see the logic for assuming time dilation, and don't know the real reasons. But I believe there SHOULD be an explanation. Time dilation has no meaning to me. I don't understand when and why one should consider time has slowed. In most of the cases used to describe how the world appears to different observers, it make perfect sense to me, why it appears so. I have no reason to believe there is any situation where magic needs to be involved.

Regards, TAR2

DrRocket,

Physics is not philosophy, ordinary words are no substitute for the actual language of the subject, and that language is mathematics.

Well yes, you are right, I know only a few words of your language. And as out of place as I would be in Madrid, discussing the fine points of Spanish law, in Spanish, I am here. (I know only a few words of Spanish)

But this does point out a philosophical thing. Math is a language. And any language is only understood by others who are fluent in the same tongue, who follow the same rules, who understand "what is meant" by a particular word, used in concert with other words, in a particular context.

But here, you are insinuating that math is not just the language of Physics, but that Physics is the language of the universe, and to not understand math, is to not understand the universe.

I disagree. I, with my halting math skills, still have full access to reality, and know what time and space are.

What is true, is true, and will remain true, whether I understand math or not. A formula, describing the spin and position and velocity of every quark in a grain of salt, at a designated moment in time, from a designated reference quark's frame of reference, would not only be a very very long and complicated set of equations, but it would only be true for a moment, AND it would only be a very long and complicated statement in the language of Physics. It would not BE a grain of salt. And you and I both know the meaning of "a grain of salt" and the true reality those ordinary words represent.

Regards, TAR2