michel123456

I call that the Law of Universal Contradiction.

In order to avoid sliding into useless discussion about determinism, destiny, fate & kismet, you can simply ask if future exist. If the answer is yes, you get your endless discussion. If the answer is no, there is hope.

Correct. The equality distance=time is the result of the introduction of C. If you look very (very) deeply, as I am trying to do with much difficulty, you may see, and especially as a physicist you will see it clearly than I do, that the reason of introducing C, is mass.

Someone said on another thread that the order by which events happen (the sequence of events) can depend on the Frame Of Reference. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821), a figure of the past. From my Frame Of Reference, can I see Napoleon's second marriage in 1810, exactly 200 years from now? No. Or yes, with the help of my E.T. friend, living upon a planet distanced 100 Light Years from the Earth. He has placed upon the surface of his planet a mirror facing the sky. With my good telescope, I can see in the mirror the Earth as it looked 200 years ago. And there is Napoleon entering the cathedral, I can see him. And that is exactly what my E.T. friend is observing from his FOR: he is observing Napoleon. Now, can I find somewhere another E.T. able to observe me & Napoleon happening in the reverse order?

Quite right. But you cannot travel a distance by zero time. "how long it takes something to travel with a fixed speed" is another definition of distance, as you said. And I must agree on this. To get time of travel=zero, you should need infinite speed. The "fixed speed" you mentioned cannot be infinite (that is told by physical reality, not by pure geometry). It means that to describe physical distance is such a manner, you always need time. Time is inscribed into distance, you cannot get rid of it. For example: for D=zero, T=zero. For D=infinite, T=infinite. For D=anything (unit Meter), Time = anything (unit seconds) Or, in other words, you can always describe distance in unit of time. IMO it means that distance = time. The difficult point on this is not to transform distance in time. It is well known that everything we observe is in the past. The more far away = the more in the past. So that distance somehow contains the idea of time by definition. The difficult point is about the other concepts of Time: the Past, the Future, the arrow of time. All these do not arise immediately from the distance-time equality. And that is the reason why you may refuse the notion of distance=time. And that was in fact the meaning of this post. All the precedent discussion about time in reality is not about time, it is about space: how to describe 3D space in units of time. Still 3D space. There is something missing. Time is missing. Time as we understand it through the notion of sequence & causality: an event happening before another, and the impossibility of going back in time. That description is the 2nd face of Time and it is missing. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI know how difficult it is to swallow that distance=time. I had to swallow it by myself. I haven't digest completely yet. Maybe the most important point is that when we include the statement of the speed of light as a constant ©, we step directly out of pure geometry and enter the physical world. With all consequences.

If you don't even agree with that, what to say... Replace "we" with "most of us". ........ Because i had an argument more about vocabulary & generalizations I use to make in my posts, i will try to be more carefull in my statements. We know that light travel at speed = C (I hope you can agree on this). Nothing can travel faster faster than C, and no information can be transmitted at speed faster than C. Even if you disagree with this, let's consider just for a moment what are the implications of this statement, O.K.? The information you get from your surroundings comes to you at speed equal or lower than C. Let's consider the extreme, that the information you get comes to you at maximum speed=C. We call that "light" So, the considered information travelling at max. speed (light), the information you gather, comes to you, from your surrounding, at speed=C It means that the information is emitted at a certain time t=0, and received at time="something different from zero". Time has passed between the emission and the reception of the information. In other words, you get information from the past. The more far away is the source of information, the more time is needed for transmission, and the more "in the past" will be the image of the object when received by the observator. The more closer, the less time is needed, and the less "in the past". Speaking about light, you could call "the present" the instant light is received by the retina of your eye. But that is not the case. Present is when information gets to your brain. When you say "ah, I see", it is already in the past.

No, it is not the right description. All that you see, all that you observe, all that you feel belong to the past. What you call the present is not the present. Maybe you should have a look at a Minkowski diagram. Maybe you would clearly understand that the present is not observable. Or maybe you should have a look at a little presentation I called "the pencil universe" throwned into speculations on this forum, with all reservations. If you don't want to deal with graphics, here is another description: _We know that nothing can move from one place to another without spending time. If you could move from one place to another without spending time, it means you could be at 2 places at the same time. A concept called ubiquity. We know for sure that at least for particles with mass, it is impossible. Time is the thing that make 2 particles different. Think about it. No rush. You have plenty of time. ...........

Till some degree, I agree with Ponderer. My feeling in general is that there is a huge gap between mathematical results and interpretation of mathematical result. I can't recall who said once that when we send a space probe around Jupiter, it is like we were investigating the Earth from a balloon: could we understand the valleys, the shadow of leaves during a windy afternoon, the stalactits in caves, the underwater world, all that make our planet? When we are investigating the microcosm, we are in such a position: we are in a balloon above an unknown planet. We have no contact with reality, our main contact is based upon some mathematical theory and some very difficult experiments of high precision. The interpretation is a very difficult procedure that can cause IMHO tremendous errors. A single positive sign can drive into wrong direction, or an "obvious-absurd-and-thus-cancelled" negative sign maybe can hide the truth. I understand Ponderer's analogy as saying, well, maybe something totally weird in QM has a very simple explanation, and if we could go there and look at what is happening, we would say, of course it is so simple! And in this sense, I agree with him.

There are many interesting points. I will focus on only one. Someone wrote (Klaynos was) That's the question. Klaynos is right. From the regular point of vue. But not considering myself as a regular thinker, I had some thoughts about it. Take Space, represented through cartesian coordinates x,y,z. Take a point of random coordinates: 6, 56, 83. These coordinates describe exactly and uniquely the position of this point in space. Is there another way to describe exactly & uniquely the position of this point in space, using time? The answer is yes (IMHO) Let's say our units are Light Years (LY), instead of Meters. This point has a distance to origins which is blahblah (a number=distance, say D=100.1449=~100). If I transform this distance D=100LY by a certain amount of time T=100Y, I can write down with certainty that this point is 100 years away from me. But there is an infinity of such points around me, describing the surface of a sphere 100 years of radius around me. In order to describe uniquely this point , you can use a set of 2 angles, getting the description of my first post. But I can do better: I can replace the x coordinate, which is a distance, by time. And then I can replace the y coordinate too, and finally the z coordinate. And I will get the spatial coordinates of this point using only time. Which is pretty amazing. The only thing that you have to accept is a consequence of Relativity: you can transform units of time into units of space and vice-versa. Because a point positioned in space is also positioned in time, because movement need time, because distance=elapsed time, no matter the value of the transformation coefficient, namely C) So, because it is too amazing, I will get some refuses saying that no, I cannot replace distance by time. Think about it. What is terribly amazing, is that the notion of Speed (meter/sec) which is distance related to time, becomes a simple coefficient of time/time. In this case C=1, without unit. And what is finally amazing, is that what we use to consider 3D space can be considered as 3d time as well. That's the reason why space & time are so intricated. They are the one and same thing.

Toasty, we agree completely. A point considered as a zero-dimension spatial entity is in fact a section of a simplified Minkowski diagram. A spatial point is a section of the Time Line. If you want to reduce the time line to a point, you surely can. But you won't have space any more.

I agree. Take a point. Zero dimension. Zero "spatial" dimension. But you have time already. Otherwise, you can't have a point.

So, correct me , in everyday langage: the "thing" is not the observed object, the "thing" is the object+field.

Just cannot understand. I thought gravitons were considered massless particles. How can they create a field? It looks evident to me that if you give mass properties to the particle itself you will get an increasing field of increasing value instead of a field of finite value expanding through spacetime.

In the army i was in the artillery:-) (artillery calculations are based on polar coordinates). and from my work i know what polar coordinates mean. In my description, space is not replaced by time: distance is. Can't we do that? a distance of 1 sec. is equal to 300.000km. Not very useful in everyday life but I suppose is correct from a physical point of vue.

At the time you'll do that, I will do the same from the other side of the Earth. And I will also see galaxies 4,6 billions Light-Years away from us, but not the same as you do. Yours & mine galaxies will be distanced from each other 4,6 + 4,6 billions = 9,2 billions LY, at a time just after the Big Bang. Easy.

That's all in the definition of what a dimension is. Bignose seems to present a dimension equal as a property. In String Theory, all dimensions are spatial dimensions (except one for time). i don't think extra dimensions are meant to be properties in S.T.

What do you mean with "self-action problem"?

These are some thoughts about Time. The usual way of describing the space-time continuum is the following: we have 3 dimensions related to space, and one related to time. The 3 spatial dimensions are given by spatial coordinates (x,y,z) & the temporal one is added to form a four coordinates system (x,y,z,t). So far, so good. But we know from our observations that time can be used as a representation of distance. It is a consequence of the observed Speed Of Light. We can replace a distance-unit of 300.000 km with a time-unit of 1 sec. It doesn't change a thing. So that we can build another spatial coordinate system (3D spatial) made of 2 orthogonal angles and a distance (α, β, d). α is an angle in the XY plane, β is an angle in XZ plane, d is the distance to origin. It is 3D coordinate system that is enough for determining the placement of a point in space. In this coordinate system, we can replace d=distance by t=time. We have described a spatial coordinate system with the help of 2 spatial (geometric) instances (angles) plus time. 3D space has been relaced by 2D+T. Just like time was "inside" the notion of space. As a natural consequence of the replacement of distance by time. I suppose this is not something new, nor something weird. The fact that Time is intimately related with space is well-known. It is the common face of time. But is that enough for the description of Time? Isn't it another face of time, related to chronologic order, or the fact that one event happen before another? An event far away can happen before an event close to the observator. A star can explode one day, and the other day a ring can bell. The 2 events are completely unrelated, except the fact that one happened before the other. There is no distance, there is no causality. Only Time. That is the 2nd face of time. Any comments?

If it turned to be right, this Theory is a revolution. I am surprised for the lack of interest.

No Big bang, No black holes, no expansion, no acceleration. Is that in concordance with data's? from Logunov's http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0210005. Preface p6,7,8. Emphasis by me. "RTG introduces essential changes into the character of the development of the Universe and into the collapse of large masses. Analysis of the development of a homogeneous and isotropic Universe within RTG leads to the conclusion that the Universe is infinite, and that it is “flat”. Its development proceeds cycli- cally from a certain maximum density down to a minimum and so on. Thus, no pointlike Big Bang occurred in the past. There existed a state of high density and high temperature at each point in space. According to RTG, the so-called cosmological “expansion” of the Universe, observed by the red shift, is explained by changes in the gravitational field, but not by relative motion — galaxies escaping from each other, which actually does not take place. Matter in the Universe is in a state of rest relative to an inertial coordinate system. The peculiar velocities of galaxies relative to an inertial system arose owing to a certain structure of the inhomogeneity of the distribution of matter during the period, when the Universe became transparent. This means that in the past the distance between galaxies was never zero. The theory predicts the existence in the Universe of a large hidden mass of “dark matter”. According to RGT, “black holes” cannot exist: a collapsing star cannot disappear beyond its gravitational radius. Objects with large masses can exist, and they are characterized not only by mass, but also by a distribution of matter density. Since, in accordance with GRT, objects with masses exceeding three solar masses transform, at the conclusive stage of their evolution, into “black holes”, an object found to have a large mass is usually attributed to “black holes”. Since RTG predictions concerning the behaviour of large masses differ essentially from GRT predictions, observational data of greater detail are required for testing the conclusions of theory. Thus, for example, in RTG spherically symmetric accretion of matter onto a body of large mass, that is at its conclusive stage of evolution (when the nuclear resources are exhausted), will be accompanied by a significant release of energy owing to the fall of matter onto the body’s surface, while in GRT the energy release in the case of spherically symmetric accretion of matter onto a “black hole” is extremely small, since the falling matter takes the energy with it into the “black hole”. Observational data on such objects could answer the question whether “black holes” exist in Nature, or not. Field concepts of gravity necessarily require introduction of the graviton rest mass, which can be determined from observational data: the Hubble “constant” and the deceleration parameter q. According to the theory, the parameter q can only be positive, at present, i.e. deceleration of “expansion” of the Universe takes place, instead of acceleration. For this reason, the latest observational data on acceleration of the “expansion” must be checked carefully, since the conclusions of theory concerning “deceleration” follow from the general physical principles mentioned above."

Now i understand why this theory has not reached the west. At page 14, god-einstein is dead. The new gods are Lorentz (why not) and Poincare. Inadmissible. But because I am french-speaking, that's ok with me. The text is too technical for me.

I will. I can't believe that.

The cube/square law has been discovered & explained by Galileo 500 years ago. IMO the most important galileo's discovery. It is a law of nature related to the (Euclidian) space we are living in, it cannot be overcome. This law applies for animals & for human constructions in general, buildings, naval constructions, aeronautics, etc. A generalization of this law consists on saying that the scale factor is not applicable in nature: you cannot double the scale of something without having to change its structure. Galileo's conclusion was that if you wanted to double a horse you have to increase the proportion of his legs so that he would look like ...an elephant. You can make a model of the Eiffel Tower with chop sticks in your kitchen, but you cannot make the real Eiffel tower with the same material. You can make a little ship with a piece of paper in your bath tub but you cannot build a real tanker with paper. a.s.o. That is the reason why there are no ants big like houses, and there are no elephants small like ants. The world we are living in is structurated. I suppose that is the reason why quarks are different from electrons, atoms are different from molecules, and molecules are different from rocks, rocks from planets, and planets from galaxies, a.s.o. And every time someone explains you the structure of something small like it was something big (the structure of the atom like the structure of the solar system) you can be sure at 99% it is wrong.

I repeat myself: there must be something wrong in this theory. i cannot believe that the west is simply ignoring something so big. that is too sad. As AJB asked, no singularities? That mean no Big Bang either. So what?

Welcome joe. You have chosen one of the most difficult subject. So do I. And not only. Your questions make me think you have your own ideas. Shoot.