md65536

If the rocket is at rest 4 light years from Earth and instantly accelerates so that gamma = 2, then without the rocket having to move anywhere yet, it is now 2 years away by light signal. So the Earth must have gone through 2 years of aging during that rocket-time.

The earth will not instantly age. 2 earth years will not have passed until the moving twin gets two light pulses. The wikipedia part is right.

Then I should change the wording... something like:

 

So there must be 2 years of Earth aging corresponding to the contraction in distance between Earth and rocket, but the full 2 years of aging will only be observed over time as the rocket moves, and any yet-unobserved portion of that expected aging can disappear (or be wiped out by another simultaneity correction or something) if the rocket doesn't maintain its velocity.

Solution 4. The amount of aging that manifests itself depends on the amount of travel prior to the frame switch, not the frame switch itself (the effects of which are often ignored, because they tend to be small). If we have one scenario where the moving twin ages X years and the earth twin ages Y, with only the acceleration at turnaround, we aren't going to change that if the moving twin undergoes other course-changing (but not speed changing) accelerations along the path. What will change is the rate of observed aging, (i.e how much happened, and when) but not the total amount. Changing speed will affect the amount of dilation that is observed, but that can be directly calculated.

 

 

If the earthbound twin sends out a light pulse at regular intervals, there is nothing the other twin can do to make one pulse pass another, which is what would be required to have time going backwards.

Suppose rocket twin is at rest 4 light years away and Earth twin is sending a pulse every year. You might have a situation where there are 4 pulses "en route" that till take respectively 4, 3, 2, and 1 years to reach rocket twin. Then suppose rocket twin accelerates toward Earth such that gamma = 2 for a negligible duration. The space "occupied" by the pulses contracts, so the pulses are now .5 light years apart, and will take 2, 1.5, 1, and 0.5 years to reach the rocket. If the rocket returns to rest the pulses will return to taking 4, 3, 2, 1 years to reach the rocket.

 

Is this correct?

 

I'd somehow assumed that invariance of c would mean that the light pulses would remain the same distance apart (oops) and that they'd be 2, 1, 0, and 0 years away (the last 2 compressed into a "burst" of aging the Earth appears to experience).

 

 

If the rocket is at rest 4 light years from Earth and instantly accelerates so that gamma = 2, then without the rocket having to move anywhere yet, it is now 2 years away by light signal. So the Earth must have gone through 2 years of aging during that rocket-time. I'd (incorrectly I guess) assumed that the rocket would observe that aging during the instant acceleration. If I now understand correctly, we might say that the 2 years of aging applies to Earth's present ("now" on Earth according to the rocket is 2 years away whereas it was 4 years away only moments ago), which the rocket won't observe for some time. I see now why wikipedia says the frame switch is more of an update to simultaneity than a literal aging. If the rocket remains at that velocity (about 0.866c so that gamma = 2), then it will observe those 2 years of Earth's "extra" aging spread over some time as it makes its way back.

 

Is this also correct?

 

 

Further, if the rocket is 2 light years away and goes from gamma = 2 to gamma = 1, it is now 4 light years away, and the "update to simultaneity" means Earth's present (according to the rocket) is earlier than it was a moment ago, but no "negative time" will be observed because the rocket is no longer traveling. The expected observation that was less than 2 years away a moment ago is now 4 light years away.

 

I will have to update my calculations and see what I can salvage from them. When I feel I understand some part of it, the twin paradox seems like the greatest math and logic puzzle I've ever attempted. The other 95% of the time it's the worst.

Short version: Can a space traveler ever observe Earth time appearing to go backward? I claim "no" but under that claim I keep coming around to an inconsistency where more distant things will age more than nearer things. Where am I going wrong?

 

 

Long version:

 

I'm trying to figure out what is observed by the traveling twin during an extremely fast deceleration + return acceleration phase in the twin paradox. This is also described as the rocket undergoing a frame switch. According to my understanding of what I've read, the traveling twin will see the Earth twin age a large amount in that very short period of rocket time.

 

What happens if the rocket "frame-switches" several times while far from Earth, by coming to a stop and accelerating toward Earth, then stopping and accelerating away from Earth again (involves multiple switches between 2 frames: outbound, and return)? What happens if it repeats this, "shaking" back and forth, reaching high velocity each time, over a very little duration of rocket time?

 

 

Solution 1 (no good): My calculations show that the Earth twin will continue to age rapidly during these frame switches (specifically, she will age much as length contraction takes effect when accelerating in each direction, and age not at all as length contraction is released when decelerating). However, it also is apparent that the distance that the rocket is from Earth will determine how much the Earth twin ages when the rocket does this little trick. This leads to inconsistency...

 

Suppose the rocket has traveled to Planet X which is stationary relative to Earth, and then "shakes" for awhile. The Earth twin will age a lot relative to the rocket twin, but a Planet X twin will age only slightly faster than the rocket twin. This makes no sense because the Earth twin and Planet X twin should not age differently relative to each other.

 

 

Solution 2: When the rocket switches from outbound to return frame, the Earth twin will age relatively fast, but when switching from return to outbound frame, the aging difference will be undone. One way for this to happen is for one twin to age fast and then the other twin to age fast. But if the rocket can shake many times in a short period of time, it should age only that short period of time. So if the Earth twin ages a great amount during one frame switch, it must un-age on the other frame switch. This means the rocket can observe earth time going backwards.

 

I hope that this is NOT the case, because it punches a huge hole in my theory of how time works, and my understanding of observable reality.

 

 

Solution 3: The time periods in which the Earth twin seems to age greatly actually overlap, so that if the rocket shakes for awhile, the rocket twin observes only one aging period on Earth (possibly fluctuating between fast and slow aging as the rocket shakes?).

 

 

Solution 4: Not all frame switches have the same observed relative aging?

 

 

Solution 5: Something I've missed? Some way in which time dilation compensates? Or a maximum possible acceleration rate?

I beg to submit an alternative physical theory, 'Hypothesis on MATTER' for critical comments from learned members. Given below is a list of few conclusions by the concept. At first glance, many of them may appear to be bizarre speculation. But I can assure the reader that these conclusions are derived by postulating only one type of real entity and developing the concept strictly on 'cause and effect' relationship from the postulated particle. Since the topics covered in the hypothesis are many, for the present, the concept uses no mathematical proofs or derivations. If the concept seems to be plausible, detailed study will be continued. If at least few members show interest, we shall discus the concept step by step.

As a fellow quack I have some advice:

 

1. People will tend not to be as interested in your ideas as you are. I've assumed that people will "get" the idea I'm trying to convey, and that they'll share my gut feeling that it's something interesting and important. For some weird reason, that just doesn't seem to happen. Perhaps if there was a compelling reason or evidence that encourages people to think about it, then... I dunno. Personally I haven't got anyone to work on my theories... I'll let you know if I do!

 

2. The math is kind of important. You can figure out an entire theory without it, and it may make sense, but if the math doesn't work then the theory is probably wrong. What I've found is that a good theory will suggest what the math should be, and then the math will either work or it won't, or it will work unexpectedly, which in turn will tell you new things about the idea. It turns into a cycle, of ideas leading to math and math leading to ideas. If the math works, it can explain the idea much more clearly than without it. If the math doesn't work but the idea is good, the math might suggest how to fix it. The same goes for experimentation.

2. Perhaps there was no big bang at all, but we are on the other side of black hole, which formed 13,7 billion years ago from the stars it devoured?

By "other side" do you mean "inside"?

 

Check this video:

Skip to a question at the end, around 57:33.

 

Special relativity allows observed time and distance to be different for different observers. General relativity says [citation needed] that weird stuff... that interesting stuff... happens inside black holes. One observer can see certain distances expanded to infinite lengths, while another on the other side of an event horizon can see it contracted to infinitesimal lengths (I'm not sure about the math on this).

 

As Krauss suggests, it is possible that from the inside, our universe looks like it does (expanding) AND from the outside it looks like a shrinking black hole. We could be on the inside of a black hole AND have had the big bang happen.

 

We often think of what might be "outside our universe" as some alien observers on some unimaginably large scale looking at our tiny universe within theirs. Personally, I think that if that were possible, then from our point of view, that outer universe wouldn't be a huge thing, it would look tiny to us. I think it's possible (topologically) to have 2 universes inside each other. Suppose that some given black hole is another universe, and you could cross the event horizon intact. I think that what you would see is the black hole universe expanding on one side of you and our universe shrinking on the other side. The event horizon, imagined as a spherical surface on one side of you, would expand until, when you are at the event horizon, it is infinitely large and looks like a plane cutting through you, dividing the black hole universe on one side and our universe on the other, and then once you are past it, it would shrink on the other side of you, encompassing our universe, making it appear to shrink into a black hole. I've described this idea using a sweater as an analogy... the sweater can be turned inside out and have one side "inside" the other, without breaking the sweater. Crossing from one universe to another like this involves turning the universe inside out... not physically, but observationally.

 

I don't know enough about general relativity and topology to tell you how realistic this idea is.

Again I'm not saying your theory is wrong, just that it doesn't follow from everything that has gone before it. If speed = distance/time and you're saying that information is transmitted and recieved instantly (as your theory describes) then we will have to redifine all previous physics to fit your theory?

 

 

Anywhere that I've contradicted special relativity, I've turned out to be wrong. I do have a new formulation of time, which fits with the existing definitions of distance and velocity and junk, so that the end result is that the speed of light (as defined by the existing definitions) remains finite. This new formulation can also be used to describe a "non-observational" model of the universe, in which light transmissions are instantaneous -- though I still don't know how one would describe time in that model.

 

I think I'll again try to stop talking about the theory until it's ready to submit to a preprint archive. I'm having some trouble with the math

Where is the future? Inside me.

An interesting idea. Pretty much all I have to say about the future is that it can be predicted, but can't be observed. Would you connect in any way this "future inside me" with the mind's ability to predict the future?

 

I don't see this with your theory of TDR. That's not to say it's wrong, in fact it could well be right but it seems to be out there on its own and not built upon existing understanding of physics. It may not exclude or contradict existing laws but doesn't necessarily require them either thus making them redundant (in terms of your theory) and then you have to ask why have a theory that doesn't require certain laws of physics which you do require to interpret the theory in an everday sense.

The more I work on my theory, the more it appears to be exactly like special relativity (sometimes I even wonder if there's a difference). My current view of it is that Time Relativity provides a new definition of time that works perfectly with special relativity (SR). It doesn't replace relativity, just its definition of time. In fact, I might be able to sort of "slip it in before special relativity", and use it to explain some of the "existing understanding of physics" that SR is based on.

 

I definitely don't know enough about the physics of everything connected with relativity. I haven't even considered "mass" (so I can't show E = mc², kind of an important part of SR). All I can say is "I'm not aware of any contradiction between this theory and SR". I will also try to claim that time relativity corresponds to special relativity. Certainly, any prediction made by this theory that deviates from SR could potentially disprove it.

 

 

Why have this theory?

1. It explains a lot of relativity junk in an intuitive way (which I've yet to do...).

2. It provides a better definition of time that might be immensely useful in quantum mechanics (this is yet to be seen).

 

 

I'm working hard but sporadically on a new version of the paper, which fixes a lot of problems in the original. I'm trying to get it finished before Oct 5th, which as you all know is when they select the recipient for the nobel prize in physics.

 

I'd like to thank those who've tried to "get" my theory, even though I haven't explained it well (I too am struggling to understand it). The new version, whenif it comes out, should be a great improvement in that.

 

 

So far though, I'm not aware yet of anyone who seems to get it (or thinks it's important). Admittedly, what I've made available so far is full of errors.

 

But anyway, here are a couple misconceptions I want to clear up:

 

 

"If one location is in the past relative to another location, then from another point of view, some location can be considered to be in the future..."

No no no, and as I said there's really no place for a concept of a "relative future" in this theory. No matter the observer, everything else is observed in the past.

Another way to put this is that time is equivalent to distance. If the distance from A to B is 1 light-year, we don't say that the distance from B to A is -1 lightyear. If some location is relatively in your future, then you are a negative distance from it, which is nonsensical. The sign of neither time nor distance depends on direction.

 

"It is the present in all locations, so if it's the year 2010 on earth and the year 2010 on a planet a light-year away then..."

Different locations will have different clocks, and thus different calendars (which are basically large-unit clocks). Different locations can have clocks and calendars that pass at different rates depending on relative velocity. It is possible to synchronize calendars across distance, but it will be difficult to keep them in sync. If some remote planet keeps track of its time in Earth seconds and years, but "sees" Earth under time dilation, then one Earth-year may seem to take longer than a year; it will seem to take different amounts of time when it has different relative velocity.

If A is set up so its clock matches the clock it observes at remote location B, then B will not see B's clock match what it sees at A. Speaking about it being 2010 on a distant planet means that you are using the clock at one location (Earth) to describe the clock at another location. To speak of "the present" at multiple locations, it is best not to confuse things by using one location's clock to describe the time at the other location.

I also found it hard to believe that time slows down with motion when I first read about it. I suspect most everyone does. But we know from experiments with atomic clocks on airplanes, on rockets and in satellites that time does really slow down with relative motion. We also know this from the measured lifetimes of subatomic particles in our atmosphere and in particle accelerators. Yes, this so-called time dilation is crazy. Yes, it violates our common sense; but it's true! I like what the famous physicist Richard Feynman said (he said it about quantum theory, but I think it also applies to relativity): "Mother Nature doesn't care whether we believe it or not, this is how She works."

 

And yes, this relative slowing of time due to motion implies time travel. In fact, we do it all the time! It's just such a tiny effect at every day speeds that we don't notice it.

Ah jeez...

 

I'm working on a theory (the original theory posted at the beginning of this thread, except that it's gone through about 8 major revisions, several times changing its meaning completely), that explains relativity. Or uh... it will... when I'm done...

 

What I've found so far:

- Relativity *does* make common sense, once we have a better understanding of time. There are simple thought experiments that show that any relative motion doesn't make sense without time dilation (even if it's unnoticeably small).

- Relativity does *not* imply time travel (in the sense that you could travel to the past or future). ON ONE HAND, one could say that the simple passing of time (either at a normal rate or a modified rate) is time travel, but it's not *really*: whether you sit still and pass time, or move around differently relative to different locations, and thus pass time relative to those locations at different rates, no matter what you do, you will be in your present. Anywhere you go, you will be in that location's present. It can all be explained without using the word "future".

 

Relativity is consistent. All observers will agree on the relative age of any two objects (twins or clocks or anything) that are in the same place. That means no one can observe you in one time relative to your location, while another observer sees you in another time relative to your location. No time travel.

 

You *can* see weird time effects across a distance (loss of simultaneity, no common chronology, etc... IE you can be observed in different times relative to some location, by different observers), but you can't interact with distant locations without requiring the passing of time (there's not remote time travel or time-travel of information).

 

Anyway you slice it, any event (interaction, transfer of information, etc) will have a single location and occur at a single time at that location.

 

Time slows down with velocity not acceleration. If for instance A is travelling faster than B then A will experience time slower relative to B.

 

But it seems like people are saying that A and B have relative velocity and therefore they both see the same time dilation in each other.

Then A accelerates and whilst A accelerates it experiences time at a slower rate compared to B.

Then, when A stops accelerating and returns to uniform, albeit greater, speed, there is relative velocity between A and B again

A and B see the same time dilation in each other again but both see A is now a little behind B.

 

Is that what people are saying? If so they are mistaken.

 

 

Well, it sounds mostly true except that last line. They may only "both see the same thing" when they are brought together, and maybe need to be relatively at rest.

 

 

I think I got it now.

 

You're saying that light will travel one lightyear instantly but in doing so it will travel one year into the future so it still appears to have traveled at the speed of light.

 

Is that right?

I saw this comment on /. today: http://idle.slashdot...72&cid=33669610

 

"When you travel at the speed of light, and you go to a place 45,000 light years away, you arrive the moment you left. No time passes. Just for the rest of us it seems like it takes a long time to get there, but for you in the craft, speed is infinite. If you want to get there in 5 minutes, you have to go a bit slower. If you want to arrive yesterday, then you'll have to go even faster than the speed of light...."

I read this and thought, "Oh! So it's already known!" -- Well... the "faster than c" part is impossible.

That comment though pretty much sums up my thoughts.

Anywhere you travel, you will end up in the present. If you're in the same place as someone, you're both in the present of that location. "Traveling a year into the future" is misleading.

But essentially yes, that idea is right. If you travel to a remote planet one light-year away, then one light-year (and more) of relative time (measured by a clock on the planet) will have passed, no matter what your speed is. Time dilation equations will tell you how "fast" that clock's time changes relative to your own clocks. (I think...)

Here's another way to think of it: If you're looking right now at that planet that's a light-year away (and relatively at rest), you're seeing it as it was one year in the past. If you move toward it, when you get there, you will see it as it is in its present*. If you watch it as you move toward it, you will need to see it age from its "one year in the past" to its "present". This is a non-relativistic effect... time dilation makes it more complicated, and can add additional "time modifiers" let's say.

I believe that special relativity says that you'll see most of its aging happen as you accelerate and decelerate (or when you "switch frames", as the Twin Paradox is usually explained). Its time will run faster than yours. In between, any time you are traveling at a constant relative velocity, you'll see its time slowed relative to yours.

 

 

* Also note that time continues to pass, on the planet, so unless you make the trip instantly (calculated as relative v = c), then you'll actually see the planet age a year plus dilated travel time.

 

Please help me here; I just don't understand the theory of relativity at all. It doesn't make sense to me. How can time slow the faster an object moves? Isn't time just a measurement? Doesn't that mean it follows the same rules as any other measurement? If we are talking about time as something more, like an entity of some sort, or an enrgy all of it's own, then maybe something like this would make sense, but if not, then going fast would just mean getting there sooner and going slower would mean getting there later. You can't just change the measurements because something is moving faster. That would be like saying grams weigh more the faster you increase the weight. No, you just have more weight because you added more weight. I don't know. I'm probably way off on this.

Give me a month or a year or 105 years to figure out the details, and I'll be able to explain this!!!

 

I promise a better explanation though...

I am not sure. SOL has a specific value, roughly 300.000 km/sec. The inverse of this value (sec/km) is not zero.

I'm not sure where inverses come in but we're talking about length contraction as described by the Lorentz transformation. As v approaches c, gamma (length contraction factor) approaches infinity.

 

 

Note that if v = c, it's undefined (divide by zero), which confirms what I'm talking about: Imagining an observer at c leads to contradictions (loss of definition, paradoxes, whatever).

 

I am not sure if we can apply such a word (instantaneously) to something that knows nothing about time. It could be 'infinitely" as well since we don't know whether t=o or t=infinite for a photon. I guess it's all wrong.

I pretty much agree with the first sentence. I would sum it up as such:

 

- There are no "observational frames of reference" for photons. Any reference frame that you imagine traveling at the speed of light is non-observational (if it's even valid at all).

- Proper time is undefined for a photon. For all intents and purposes, time doesn't exist in non-observational frames.

 

 

When we say something is "undefined" we don't mean it's infinite (the limit can approach infinity but it can also approach -infinity). We don't mean that it can be any value in between. It is undefined. Using it as a value in arithmetic or logic pretty much invalidates your conclusions.

I was going to edit my last reply and say that my theory is wrong in its current form. I don't think I can say that light transmission is instantaneous without mixing up reference frames.

 

 

 

From the initial photon's reference frame, it is standing still and the Earth and other planet are moving at the speed of light. So the photon sees the ultimate time dilation and length contraction. From the photon's point of view, the distance between the Earth and the other planet has contracted to zero. From the photon's point of view, it travels from the Earth to the other planet instantaneously! Any photon going from place to place (in a vacuum) goes at the speed of light. Thus for it, time is frozen (it never ages) and all distances are contracted to zero.

Is this valid? Does a photon have a "point of view"? I think there is something wrong there, because in any valid frame of reference, the speed of light is constant c relative to the frame. What speed would a photon "see" other photons traveling at? I think we're talking about literally invalid things, and won't come to any completely paradox-free conclusions.

 

I agree in principle... according to a photon, length is contracted to zero; it has no experience of "it's own time" passing (it has no frame within which you can describe a clock).

 

However, if you say that it travels from the Earth to the other planet, you're speaking of a relative distance, and I think you have to use the relative time of that frame. So you can say that the photon travels no distance in no time (in it's own invalid frame). Or you can say that in moving from Earth to the the other planet, one year of time passes on the other planet, so the photon moves one light-year in one year, even if the photon "experiences" that passing of relative time in an instant.

 

 

I'm not sure at all about what I'm saying here. I wonder if Einstein went through so many frame mixups and wrong interpretations of things as he figured it all out.

This is getting quite complicated so lets go back to the beggining.

 

I get the impression that what the OP saying is something along the lines of;

 

Let's say there is a planet 1 lightyear from Earth and this planet has intelligent life on it and we want to communicate with them. When we see this planet we see it as it was 1 year ago, if we send a message to them it will take exactly 1 year to get there. Therefore they recieve this message in the present. When they look at us they see us one year in their past, when they reply to our message it takes exactly 1 year to reach us so gets here in the present.

 

What your suggesting is the speed of light is therefore infinite and this would mean we could communicate with our alien friends in real time which we know can't happen.

No... Any use of my theory to predict something different from special relativity means my theory is wrong (doubtful , though certainly many of the details are still wrong), or special relativity is wrong (extremely doubtful), or that there is a problem in the way I've explained it and/or the way it's interpreted (most likely).

 

Your example is easily confusing.

Yes, whenever someone sends or receives a message, it is *their* present. No one will say "Hold on I haven't got your message yet... wait... Okay! Now I got it yesterday (or tomorrow)."

But... No, the present is not the same for everyone, according to everyone else.

 

My theory would basically describe what you did in this way:

According to observers on the remote planet, they will receive in their present, a message that we sent at the time that they observe us at right now (they observe us as being one year in the past relative to them, so they observe that we sent the message one year in the past). They reply immediately. That's all that they "see" in this example.

 

On Earth, we send that first message to the remote planet, which we see as being 1 year in the past. So we don't expect them to receive the message until they catch up to our present, which will take one year. But since we're also one year in *their* past, if they send a reply immediately, we won't get it until we catch up to the time (according to them) that they sent the message.

 

In other words, after 2 years have passed, we see that the aliens that are 1 year in our past have sent a reply 1 year in our past.

 

Observationally, this is no different from special relativity.

I think the confusion is that from light's perspective it is travelling at infinite speed because t=0 but from our perspective the speed of light is finite.

 

Does this make sense or am I not understanding your point?

Perhaps... perhaps! Though I don't fully understand my point either, hahaha. I don't think I can claim to understand my own point better than you do.

 

However I'm not sure that you're making sense, because I'd argue that light has no observational perspective. If anything I'd say that according to light, taken as a quantity of energy, it would experience a jump or teleportation from one location to another, with no sense of it's own time or movement or traveling.

 

If we consider subluminal speeds it's easier and we can speak of traveling and moving and time...

Imagine an observer's velocity approaching arbitrarily close to the speed of light. Length contraction can cause the universe to shrink to an arbitrarily small length, so it is not hard to imagine moving some great rest-distance in an infinitesimal time. However this great rest-distance is relative to some remote location, and we must measure our velocity using time that is relative to the same remote location. Either you say you traveled a tiny contracted length in a very short time, or you've traveled a great rest-distance, but you observe a great amount of rest-time passing. Basically the end result is you don't ever see a velocity greater than c. This is special relativity; I'm not sure I got the explanation right.

 

I've been working on different aspects of this theory for a month and a half, and it still confuses me. The biggest source of confusion for me (with special relativity or my own junk) is mixing up what frame of reference I'm speaking about. But I'm hoping to be able to explain it all more concretely, sooooooooon!...

I don't want to sound mean-spirited here, because it is not my intention at all, but I strongly suspect that these two quotes are related. Your having not read any other scientific papers, it is easy to understand why your paper would be of little interest to the other people who write these papers. It is also pretty bold claiming that you think you've "figured out the nature of time better than anyone ever before me" when you admit an ignorance of all the literature before you.

I mostly agree with you. My ignorance is definitely holding me back and making things difficult. I only "feel" like I've figured out how time works, I don't know it. I definitely feel like a crackpot. Every few days I think of something that completely changes the meaning of my theory, and there's no reason to believe that the current iteration is going to get it right.

 

Okay so I'm a crackpot. I admit it!

 

On the plus side: The more I read about existing work on relativity, the easier it is to make sense of things, and the less "new" my ideas seem. But this is a good thing for crackpots; it means there's hope! The feeling of wanting to do it all yourself and take on the world because "everybody else is wrong" is a trap!

 

 

The feeling that I've figured out time comes from this: IF I'm right, then it makes much more sense to explain relativity at an introductory level in terms of time, and not in terms of "the speed of light". But, I'll take another page from Book of Advice for Crackpots, and stop talking about "my theory", until the evidence is ready.

 

Science is an iterative process. "On the shoulders of giants" is a typical motto. In short, it means that you learn the work that has come before you, and build upon it. Even if you are correcting or changing previous work, you are still building on it. No one person can develop all the ideas on their own, certainly not anymore, and not for quite some time. Even Einstein's papers are heavily referenced to work done before he published.

Science is also revolutionary. Many of the greatest discoveries build upon previous work but turn it completely on its head. One new idea can open a floodgate for a lot of new ideas, from a lot of different people. Galileo, Newton, Einstein... they must have all experienced resistance to their ideas, which improved previous understanding but could be seen as a denial of established knowledge. I know this isn't true of everyone or all fields, but it seems like scientists don't expect any revolutionary ideas in some fields, and they close their minds to them. The generation that accepts the previous revolutionary idea becomes the next to say "it's only iterative from here on."

 

But I think that the days of revolutionary ideas will only be over when scientists are quitting their jobs because there's nothing new left to do, and I don't foresee that happening any time soon.

 

 

Uh... sorry I kinda went off topic there. My work iterates on Einstein's work

Thanks for reading my paper and commenting on it. I'm in the process of rewriting it, because it's full of errors (misinterpretation of time dilation, a '+' instead of '-' in the Lorentz factor, oops! ) and unclear language, including much of the description of time.

 

On the paper

 

There are several fundamental things that are not very clear to me. But this is what I got out of the paper.

 

We start from assuming space is Euclidean (this is not stated at all, in fact I am not sure if this is what is being assumed ),

[math](\mathbb{R}^{3}, \delta)[/math]. The time is "added" to this via

 

[math]||t_{1}-t_{2}||^{2} = \frac{1}{c} |x_{1}-x_{2}|^{2}[/math],

I suppose I start assuming space is Euclidean, but it becomes clear that space can be distorted by length contraction, differently for different observers. Is space still Euclidean after that? In the end I would assume that the curved space described by general relativity is correct, however that (and any treatment of gravity) is beyond the scope of the paper.

 

You've lost me on the math. Where do the squares on each side of the equation come from?

 

for two distinct points with coordinates [math]x_{1}[/math] and [math]x_{2}[/math] (suppress the space indices). This to me looks just like a rescaling of the Euclidean inner product. Here [math]c[/math] is some universal constant with units of velocity, it can be chosen to the the speed of light in vacua.

 

This does start to look a little bit like special relativity, but I see no way of mixing space and time as is required for all the phenomenological aspects of SR. The above rescaling of the inner product does look like the definition of a null path. In fact this was used as the definition of "time".

The paper says that time and distance are proportional. It might be possible to claim that time and distance are equivalent. What is an example of a phenomenological aspect of SR that requires space and time to be "mixed" in another way?

 

Specifically, the theory looks to be invariant under the Euclidean group. A claim is made that the Lorentz transformations can be recovered from this formulation, but it is not presented. Only the gamma factor is show to play a role here.

 

There are several notions of time introduced in the paper. Also it is not always clear to what frame the time measurements are referring to.

 

There is a lack of references.

 

I cannot see that the paper will be of much interest.

I'm doing a derivation of the full Lorentz transformation in the rewrite, but it still needs work. Earlier I thought that just the Lorentz factor itself was enough to show time dilation that matches special relativity.

 

Yes, ambiguity in the language used to describe time and which frame is referred to, is a major flaw in the paper and needs much revision.

 

It lacks references because I've never read a science paper! The theory follows from "general" information or high-school level stuff found on wikipedia. Would it be useful to put individual references to wikipedia pages in the reference section, and refer to them individually through the paper?

 

I have to admit that I'm disappointed that you think the paper is not of much interest. I feel like I've figured out the nature of time better than anyone ever before me (the reality of it, but not the math). I'll try to drum up some more interest, in the Relativity forum, after I have a satisfactory rewrite. If I'm relegated to the pseudoscience forum after that, then I'll just have to continue the work on my own, as a crackpot. That's unfortunate, because this branches off into so many different topics that I have completely inadequate understanding of, and it'd be easier for others to figure out.

 

Thanks for the comments,

md

I doubt many people will read it in viXra. I occasionally look there for fun, there is the odd reasonable paper but most are junk. I would not advice posting there.

 

However, it is your choice and I hope that it works out well for you.

No, you're right, posting there alone will not guarantee anything. And ranting that people should read it won't help, either.

 

I chose arXiv but couldn't even create a login without an institutional affiliation (let alone needing an endorsement). My e-mail to a prof at the local university, who specializes in relativity, has gone unanswered. I want to tell people, "Read this thing! It's important!" but I also want to say, "Please ignore my poor writing... it's only because I have no experience with this."

 

I must face it... Until I can get even a single influential person to agree with me, and to have their work influenced by mine, I am almost by definition a quack. It doesn't matter how big I think the idea is, or how right I think I am... if I'm the only one who thinks so.

 

I'd also advice spending more time on the writing. Professionals (i.e. people with more experience than you) spend weeks writing a publication - after having finished the work. Someone is going to read what you wrote (in the best case, at least) and you should not waste other people's time because you felt that working over your publication for the fourth time is boring.

Good advice. There's a LOT I could do to improve the current paper. I might as well keep working on it.

 

 

 

Perhaps I'll continue working on it (not as obsessively as this past week) and look into other suitable places to publish.

 

PS. http://vixra.org/abs/1008.0012 if you're curious

Thanks for the advice everyone! I forced myself to rush through a paper. The theory is called "Time Relativity", and it should be up on vixra shortly.

According the principle of relativity of velocities, one could consider light as standing still. Matter is moving ... in time.

Light doesn't move relative to any velocity, if that's what you mean. Relativity is entirely based on that. You can't switch to a different frame in which you can see light moving slower or coming to a stop. There is also no similar valid concept my theory.

 

This made me consider the idea of "stopping time". With my theory, there is a time difference across any distance, so any interaction that involves a distance necessarily involves time. To stop time for some interaction you would have to make distance 0.

 

Some speculation:

- There is no such thing as the flow of time at a single point. Time at any point is only a consequence of movement relative to other locations and interaction with other locations.

- Time stops or doesn't exist in a singularity.

 

On the other hand, one might also be able to say that for any 2 points that have no relative movement and no interaction (no signals of any kind are passed between them), their time relative to each other, is stopped. For me to have time stopped relative to everything, I would have to not be moving relative to anything, and I'd have to receive no light.

 

(emphasis mine)

 

Do you realize that your description of "infinite speed" is actually the same as "standing still"?

No, I don't. I do realize that even using the word "speed" has a certain "icky wrongness" to it which is why I prefer to say "it doesn't have a valid speed".

 

No, I don't agree that it is "standing still". Conceptually, the light that I am describing interacting across a distance at a single time value, means that that light only exists in a single instant. (Again, this is apparent to NO observer, because that instant appears to exist at a different time to each observer of the light, because everyone exists in different times.)

 

To be considered standing still, one would have to exist in a given position for a duration, and my theory suggests that a uh... an individual light event (a signal, or a photon) has no duration.

 

Having no duration might thus make it invalid to talk about it having a speed. Or the words "infinite speed" across a finite distance implies infinitesimal duration, or no duration (which expressed as d/t is undefined... that is it has no definable speed).

I feel that there might be some quite trivial evidence opposing an infinite speed of light and varying time.

 

You can calculate the speed of light using a chocolate bar and a microwave (see smaterthanthat.com).

 

This is done by using a standing wave, the wave is not propagating. Yet the finite speed is still found.

My theory shouldn't refute any observation of an apparent speed of light, because that is what any observer will see. It is as if time flows over the paths of light, more so than the converse. In the case of the microwave experiment, it doesn't display the nature of finite speed of light, but rather uses equations that assume a finite speed of light. The equations are correct, though, in that they accurately describe all observed results.

 

I haven't dealt with the wave nature of light at all. I believe there will be an analogous concept... "standing wave" sounds promising as it doesn't require light to move forward. However, "frequency" is defined in terms of time, and that could be a major problem for my theory. That, and relativistic motion, are 2 major things I still have to deal with, and I should do that before asserting that the theory is right. It is definitely not as mature as it needs to be, yet.

 

 

In md's ideas, I don't see anywhere "an infinite speed of light", although it may have been formulated that way. I see everywhere troubled formulations due not to any trouble in md's mind, but to a lack of applicable vocabulary. The concept of speed itself has to be reconsidered first before proceeding in anything else. Nothing is ready for someone who wants to talk about "time=distance". I know that in the first place.

Yes, my theory does imply an infinite speed of light, or that light doesn't have a valid speed (as it no longer appears to move but rather just is in all the places it will be (ie. all the places it is measured from), at once... though not according to any observer). That's part of the "science" side of it. "time=distance" is just an attempt to describe the meaning of what the theory is saying, and is more metaphysics than science.

 

I think the formulation is pretty solid... I describe the time offset between any 2 locations precisely, and the immediate transmission of light... that's all there is to it. I know that one aspect that's confusing and easy to mix up (and I probably have) is that specifying a time value depends on the location of a "time frame" that defines time for that location, but then you can calculate the time at other locations using that time frame. Does that need to be specified more precisely?

 

In my blog and here I sometimes mix precise calculations with wildly speculative ideas, and I haven't separated (nor figured out, yet) what is part of the theory and what is just an idea. Does it help to say that the 2 points I made in the original post is all that matters, and all other statements (whether right or wrong) are just theoretical consequences of the theory?

 

Yes, this is different than what relativity predicts.

 

But it seems to me that if B and C are both 1 second in A's past, then the round trip for this would have to be 2 seconds rather than 3.

 

Hm, how does your theory handle things moving at given fractions of the speed of light, as seen for example from red/blue shifts?

I think I'm wrong about the prediction that deviates from relativity. I think that if light follows a curved path, that "distance" is also curved along that path. I think I'm skipping too far ahead trying to work through advanced ideas.

 

I haven't dealt with relativistic motion or wave aspects of light yet :$

 

As for B and C both being 1 second in A's past...

 

Yes they have the same time offset relative to A, but any 2 separate points also have time offsets relative to each other.

 

Okay, for sure my "lack of applicable vocabulary" is a problem here. I've been saying that time is not consistent between different locations. Does it make sense if I say that time is linear (or additive) in 1 dimension, but not 3 dimensions? Meaning that it doesn't allow you to add 3d vectors to calculate time. Though you can say that for location vectors, (C-A) = (B-A) + (C-B ), the same does not apply for time.

 

 

 

Conclusion: The theory needs more work.

First i want to mention that i had some serious errors within my post, i wrote it in a bit of a rush.

No problem. It's only in going over various examples and situations that I can figure things out and realize my own mistakes.

 

... i was inferring that light had no time because it would be instantaneous between any given point. However when measuring the light, you must give it a reference frame because it is a "something" just like anything else and it interacts with the world around it. Therefore i must quote Einstein, "If i were traveling on a beam of light, what would i see?"

Agreed on the first part but not the second. Light may be "stuff" but I'm not convinced. (E=mc² says it's equivalent at least.) According to my theory there's no such thing as "riding on a beam of light." It is like asking "What would I see if I were riding on an instant in time?" I'm sure Einstein came up with some impossibilities; wasn't that how he figured out that it was intuitively impossible to travel at or faster than c? Based on my theory, an answer to "What would I see from the perspective of light?" some answers are:

- I would see everything that's not obscured, all at once (incorrect though, for sideways directions). Meanwhile I'm infinitely long.

- I would see all of space squished from the front and back into an infinitely thin sheet

 

I just googled this and found the 2nd answer. I'm pleased of course but not really surprised (since everything in my theory has been modified as much as needed so far to fully agree with special relativity).

 

I was trying to accomplish what you so eloquently wrote, though i do not understand why the Observers 2 initial time is 0, wouldn't it be -1 because when he receives the beam time has passed for him?

From O1's perspective, O2's time is T-1 (or -1 if we set the initial T to 0).

From O2's perspective, the initial time is U because it is independent of T. The initial U can be set to any value. U can be set to be sync'd with T (someone else linked this... http://en.wikipedia....ynchronization), so that U is 0 when T is 0. However, aside from synchronization and through previously sent messages, O2 has no way of knowing what time O1 has sent the first message, until it is received.

 

 

I had to make some corrections to my blog based on this conversation but I think I'm starting to get a handle on this (aside from not attempting to tackle relativistic motion yet).

 

---

I think this could be accomplished by carfully aiming a laser beam so gravitational effects of several stars or black holes bend it until it comes back (technically, if your aim was really good you should only need one black hole). Not what I was thinking of though.

>> If light can be "bent" in a circle (or return via curvature of space)

 

You know what? Come to think of it, I believe that you would see your own message received immediately! Is this a new prediction that Relativity doesn't predict?

I think this, because it wouldn't violate causality. Though the "path" appears very large, information has not traveled that large distance (large time difference). It has only traveled the arbitrarily small distance between sender and receiver.

 

Edit: this might violate causality, if the bending of the path can be considered information, in which case the answer's back to "I don't know".

Edit again: If I sent a message aimed to curve around a black hole and back, I might be able to receive it instantly even if it gained information from the black hole, and not violate causality, if the information about the black hole was only information that is already available from where I am (that is, the light behaves like the black hole exists exactly as I observe it from here), and if no distant effect is measured (eg. interaction with the black hole).

Wikipedia speaks of refraction as photons interacting with a series of particles. In this case the interactions would be considered events, like a series of relay stations sending messages when received, similar to your example below.

 

What happens if your lightbeam gets sent along a large equilateral triangle (via reflection)? Of note is that all points on an equilateral triangle are equidistant from each other.

What you see from any observer's POV is exactly what special relativity predicts.

 

Say for A, B, C each 1 light-second apart, A sends to B, which is passed on to C and back to A...

 

Remember that A can only "see" what information arrives to it, and only when it arrives, however it can predict the timing of distant unseen events.

 

Okay, everything it from A's time frame. A sees that B is at t-1 and C is at t-1 according to A's time t.

 

A sends to B at time t=0. It knows that B receives it when B is at (A's frame) time t-1=0, which is one second later.

 

A's time is now t=1. B sends to C. A understands that C is one second in B's past and that C will receive the message one second later. The beautiful twist in all of this is that C is one second behind A, and B is one second behind A, but C is still one second behind B (and for completeness, A is one second behind C and A is one second behind B and B is one second behind C). So A predicts that C will receive the message after one second when it catches up to B. (I think that we would use B's time frame if we needed to do the actual calculations.)

 

A's time is now t=2. A predicts that C sends to A at this time, and similarly knows that it will receive the message after 1 second when it catches up to C.

 

A's time is now t=3. From A's time frame, C's time is t-1=2, and sees that C has sent a message at (A's frame) time t-1=2 (one second in A's past). A sees right now that C has sent a message because it receives that message right now.

 

So A receives the message after 3 seconds.

 

This agrees with other theories, which say that light has traveled a distance of 3 light-seconds, at speed c.

Since my last message here I tried to sort out the details of signal timing and stuff, and wrote a blog post: http://metaphysicsdi...07/on-time.html

 

 

 

You transmit and recieve a beam light simultaniously in the beam of lights relative time frame, but the sender and the reciever's observed send and recieve's time is offset by the distance between them.

...

According to the moment experienced by the pulse of light (L) T = 0 at every instance.

 

I hadn't considered a frame actually "moving", nor the idea of a beam of light's frame. Effectively, the light doesn't travel at a "speed". If there was such a thing as "the light's point of view", all it would "see" is a single instant. It would not experience time; it has no "time frame".

 

Also, because every location has a different time frame, when you talk about a certain time like T, it must be tied to a time frame (in other words a specific location), such as "at time T according to O1's time frame."

 

 

Sorry for the following space, I dunno what I did to the formatting.

 

If O1 and O2 are 1 light-second apart:

Event:...according to O1's frame...according to O2's frame

---

O1 sends signal

O1's time:TU-1

O2's time:T-1U

---

O2 receives signal and reflects the signal back to reply

O1's time:T+1 (one second has passed)U-1

O2's time:T (the same time I sent it)U (I see O1 send the signal at the same time that I receive it)

[/td]^^^ Note that O1 doesn't

observe this event happening.

It only observes it when it receives the reply.

---

O1 receives the reply

O1's time:T+2 (2 seconds have passed)U (O1 has now caught up to the time I (O2) sent the signal)

O2's time:(T-1)+2 = T+1 U+1 (one second has passed during the 1-way reply)

^^^ O2 doesn't observe this event happening (yet)

 

O1 can define U can be defined in terms of T, and O2 can define T in terms of U, but no 2 observers' definitions of anyone's time will match (IE T = U-1 xor U = T-1)

 

I think the foundation of your theory is that Time is a localized effect that is percieved by each observer differently due to the distance between the observer and the observed. Our current theories have a almost "aether" type of time, that is time encompasses all things the same and is percieved differently by the observed/observer because of the distance between them.

Sort of... time is not exactly localized because any observer can measure the effects of time between any other locations.

 

Perhaps instead: Time is well-defined only locally.

 

Our current theories treat time as universal in an inertial frame, I think, and then treat it differently almost as a special case, when dealing with relativistic speeds?

md, the 2 of us are on the same wavelength.

I agree with time=distance, with all the consequences. See two faces of time

But still after reading twice your blog, I don't understand your statement "Light is transmitted and received immediately".

In the linked post, you say "There is no distance, there is no causality. Only Time." I would argue the opposite of each point. "There is no time" may or may not be true.

 

 

But certainly I believe that causality is an unbreakable law, and anything I've written about must obey it or what I wrote was wrong.

 

 

I'm not really sure how best to phrase the idea that "Light is transmitted and received immediately". I can try to say it in several ways, each of which ... I guess kind of depends on an interpretation of the words. HOWEVER the main thing to remember is that whatever I say that suggests exceeding c as a speed, involves an opposite thing about time, which combine to show no deviation from the apparent speed of light. To figure out how anything works within the TDR theory, you can start by describing the events as if time is universal (at least in an inertial frame) and light has a finite speed, because the observed results must be indistinguishable (otherwise, TDR doesn't match reality or observed experiments).

 

 

Here are some other ways of saying it:

 

- The speed of light is infinite. Yes, because it crosses a distance in zero time. No, because no observer can observe such a thing as zero time across a distance (sorry, convoluted). No, because it doesn't "move through space" with a speed.

 

- Light is sent and received at the same time. Yes, because the "time value" at the sender when sent is the same value as at the receiver when it is received (haha, I just cringed), according to the sender's time frame. NO, because "the same time" takes on a new meaning, different from what we intuitively understand. It doesn't mean simultaneous (a concept which must be abandoned). Different places exist in different times, so there is no "same time" as we know it.

 

- If you shone a single momentary flash of light across a galaxy, say (or an inertial frame), that light would exist for only that moment and be seen across the galaxy only in that moment. NO, because everything exists in different time frames so that "moment" exists in different times relative to any observer, including the sender. Yes though, if you sent the flash at time t=0 and could consider each point in the galaxy at time t=0 from the sender's perspective, which of course would be impossible. That is, the sender sees every point in the galaxy existing in its past (relative to the distance to that point), but if the sender could see every point existing in its present, the flash would appear to reach every point in that moment.

 

 

Whatever way you think about it, if you imagine moving across the distance between sender and receiver, you are moving through time, and so there is never an appearance of anything happening immediately or instantly.

 

This definitely requires some more thought, though.

Write a paper and send it to a reputable journal that covers the subject you have worked on.

...

You want other people to pick up your idea and work on it. However, you also want proper credit.

 

Yes, I want to share the idea but also hoard it. To write a proper paper would take too much effort at this point... I would have to go back to school and learn the proper way to write, the proper terminology, the proper references, research, etc. I tried for one day to write "professionally", and it was far too draining.

 

Perhaps the theory will evolve or die. Perhaps I'll learn the right way to do science, over time, and write a paper in the future.

So event 1 and is in event 2's past, and event 2 is in event 1's past and they can transmit information instantly between them?

Not quite. Nothing can be instant across a distance because everything exists in a different time (the past, specifically) relative to everything else. The same "moment" is not experienced at the same time in different places, so there is a delay...

 

I use the words "catching up", as in... if 1 transmits a message to 2 at time t, 2 does not experience receiving the message until time t, to which it must first catch up.

 

The observable effect is the same as with special relativity.

 

 

Well.... I kind of expected this. I guess I was one of the people philosophizing about it here and there. I agree with you, although I'm not understanding it fully. Are you saying that time is more than a spacial dimension?

It is not new. If you had proposed that time=distance, yes that would be new.

Yes... I think that time=distance and I mention that in the blog, but it seems more like an intuitive idea than a fact, because I haven't solidly grasped what it means. Sometimes when I'm writing down ideas it seems clear that time=distance, and other times if I use the wrong words I end up talking about light moving through time and it feels like I'm simply talking about "the speed of light" from a different perspective.

 

I think that time is defined as a consequence of distance. Time=distance still feels false, because time seems to move forward at a fixed rate regardless of distance and motion (even though we know that's not true at relativistic speeds). An idea I had was that our perception of time "flowing" at a consistent rate, is a consequence of everything being temporally offset by consistent amounts. Time passing may be the constant "catching up" to everything around us, and vice versa. Like, if everything is lock-step out of sync with everything, ticking like clock gears... uh, it's vague... I haven't figured that out completely.

 

I'm hoping that a more detailed analysis of what happens with the motion of physical objects will get some things figured out.

 

> - Light is transmitted and received immediately.

This is described in the blog posts... perhaps best in the second half of this one:

http://metaphysicsdi...ng-in-past.html

 

Very good, very good, definitely better than the average crackpot. I think however that you are about a century late... http://en.wikipedia....synchronization

Yes! What Einstein was talking about there jives well with the new theory. The theory is modified to match special relativity, so sometimes it seems that it is nothing new at all but a different way of saying the same thing. However, I think that the main intellectual leap is that the apparent speed of light is a consequence of time-distance. It must be something new if we can talk about the same things without referring to the speed of light.

 

 

All experiments show an apparent fixed speed of light, from all observers. This seems simple and intuitive. So this has been taken as fact, and all these bizarre consequences result from it. My theory describes the same phenomenon, but it starts with something that is bizarre and unintuitive. BUT!, once you accept that weird first step (co-relative time offsets let's say; localized definition of time and order of events; etc) then the same consequences follow, but they're no longer that bizarre.

 

 

In addition, what happens if your light does not go straight but instead returns to the original place, like with a laser rangefinder?

This is described in the blog posts (again the second half of http://metaphysicsdi...ng-in-past.html may be the best place... but the ideas evolve a bit as I write and I forget how detailed or nonsensical I'd previously described things).

 

If light can be "bent" in a circle (or return via curvature of space) then I don't know what would happen. Perhaps it depends on "the time at the place where it's bent" or perhaps the theory falls apart or suggests something new.

 

The case of a rangefinder involves reflecting light off something and receiving it back. In the blog I use the Earth and Moon as an example. I described it this way:

- You shine a laser at a wall, which is in the past relative to you, so there is a delay (according to any observer anywhere) before it "sees" the laser.

- When it does, it immediately reflects the light back, but again you're in the past relative to it, so there is a delay before you see the reflection.

 

If any distance r is always proportional in time to r/c, then light will always have the appearance of moving at a fixed rate across any distance.

I went ahead and posted about the theory and the blog.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/50979-theory-of-time-distance-relativity/

 

I worked on this all day and I feel driven insane, and I don't want to make myself sick obsessing over a pet theory.

 

 

Thanks for all the advice!

 

m