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Aethelwulf

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Everything posted by Aethelwulf

  1. Ironically, I created a thread which may actually challenge the idea that time had a beginning. Time is measured by Bradyon Clocks. At the so-called beginning of time, there was no such clocks, so the relativistic sense of time breaks down. Hawking also managed to remove a beginning to time by attributing quantum mechanics to the so-called singularity. Time is an obscured thing, or concept. It holds no relevance today in modern physics other than being a computational device.
  2. What's the point of pouncing on anyone... There is a reputation system for that. I hate this reputation system, it'snot justified in the slightest. If you have something to say about someones post, the reputation system is for the shy guys who can't challenge what someone says.
  3. I'm curious mods, would I have been able to post this elsewhere than speculations? I do make some speculations but I draw them out and I explain why they are made?
  4. Indeed.... I mean, Agreed Get a sci-pop book at least and try and learn this stuff through the medium of words.
  5. Yes, sorry. Quantum Mechanics, I agree, I think the posts which deserve to be moved to speculations should be moved.
  6. It's because in physics, we model the evolution of particles on worldlines. Worldlines are actually static and they can't distinguish between a past or future - these are ''static curves'' in a 4D spacetime. Because General Relativity take a similar view on the worldline, it's outcome is similar for our 4D static worldline case. So when an evolution is looked at like this from relativity, concerning the worldlines of particles, it seems to be static. I think there is change in systems, the worldlines for 4D curves is probably not the best example - I think there is no smoothness to time, that time is not a continuous flow. There are only ever ''moments'' and each moment may seem unchanging without looking at all the ''moments'' together. And evolution anyway isn't even a true evolution in GR because motion arises as a symmetry of the theory. And change and time are not synonymous... just a quick thought, noticing how that certain systems don't need to change for time to simply truck on. There is an obvious distinction between things that change and what time is. The two are not equal. Besides, physical events where change is concerned involved physical things we can measure, time is not even an observable.
  7. So what is a Hamiltonian constraint? One example might have the form of [math]\pi_t + H = 0[/math] Here, [math]\pi_t[/math] is the momentum conjugate to time and [math]H[/math] is the Hamiltonian. If one wanted to quantize this equation, you would replace the momentum constraint with the momentum operator [math]-i\hbar \frac{\partial}{\partial t}[/math], doing so would make it a time-dependant Schrodinger Equation and we will also notice that the equation would be complexified. Standard quantum theory in this sense is inherently complex, which raises the question how a complexification fo the WDW-equation has any significance in quantum theory. Take into consideration my equation equation again [math](\dot{m} - \frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial \dot{q}_i} d_i \nabla^2)\psi = 0[/math] The equation is manifestly time-dependant since it is a mass-flow rate equation. If we wanted to quantize the momentum part we would end up with an equation fitting the description [math](\dot{m} + i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial x}d_i \nabla^2)\psi = 0[/math] A negative sign would have appeared because of [math]\hat{P} = -i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial x}[/math] which explains why we have ended up with a plus sign. But perhaps just a mathematical note, instead of quantizing the equation, you may notice on the right what we have is momentum times displacement. If this is for small increments then it would have the same length as a distance. Momentum times distance is the same as energy times time, and this is the quantum action [math]\hbar[/math], so what we have is [math](\dot{m} - \hbar \nabla^2)\psi = 0[/math]
  8. I think what pmb was saying was that it was the most accepted theory to date in the context of quantum field theory.
  9. Albert Einstein (1879–1955): Zeit ist das, was man an der Uhr abliest. ''Time is what a clock measures.'' How Time Comes About I have found that there are two reasons why a sense of time may come about, a quantum field theory answer and a less fundamental answer lying within biological systems. The first quantum field theory principle which allows time to exist can be thought of the precurser for all systems, even those which have no biology to act as clocks. There are for this discussion over several topics for time - each unique and different to the next, some may exist within the context of science and others which do not. We will quickly investigate all these subjects of time. There are things about time which I won't discuss in great length, but we will be talking about subjects, such as there being no flow to time [1], things like Global Time and timelessness. Global Time Global Time can be thought of the time encompassed by not one system, but the entire collection of systems we associate existing within the universe. It is the time which can be ascribed to the universe as a whole, but there are some problems with the idea of a Global Time, which will be talked about in the Timelessness part. Without going to deeply into these problems, maybe the idea that the universe has one clock is erroneous. Perhaps time in the Global sense does not really exist but there is motion and change calculating just a sum of all clocks inside that system by locally gauging them? As I said, without going to deeply into timelessness, Julian Barbour has tried to promote the idea that there is no such thing as time itself, but rather all there is, is change. He arrives at an equation from his paper [2] [math]v_i=\frac{\delta d_i}{\delta t} = \sqrt{\frac{2(E-V)}{\sum_i M_i(\delta d_i)^2}} \delta d_i[/math] and rids any kind of time description by using the fact that the speed of a body is not the ratio of it's displacement to an abstract time increment but to which involves displacements of all the bodies in the system. By doing this, he rids his use of time describing motion. Most interesting of all, is that his theory predicts that time is no longer measured by particular individual motions, but by a sum of all the motions. If we use Julians revelation that equations can describe change without time, then perhaps the universe can be described similarly without a Global time, but perhaps we can retrieve the important dynamics by taking into account all the displacements of the bodies inside the universe? Local Time Local Time is like the time you might experience in your zip code, to your neighborhood or to a single particle. According to Lee Smolin, he does not believe there is timelessness, but he does believe that time is strictly local. Local time is not absolute mind you and as distances become large enough, the question of ''what time is it'' becomes obscured in the background of relativity since time has the quality of becoming stretched or distorted. Local Time is good then, as an approximate just like flat space is a good approximation for black holes when you zoom in on their surfaces. Geometric Time Geometric time can be best understood from the context of relativity when Minkowski successfully united space and time as a single entity. It started off as a Galilean relativity which was provided from the ever famous Maxwell's Equations. The Electrodynamic Equations admitted the Poincare Group and the Lorentz subgroup which are directly linked to Special Relativity [3]. Indeed, the Lorentz Tranformations made time not a numerical parameter but something with deeper meaning, one which was helping describe the geometry of space. The Lorentz Tranformations and diffeomorphism invariance allows you to shuffle space and time coordinates freely in such a way that the meaning of the spacetime continuum is that it is timeless, which is a topic so threaded into relavity we will be discussing it soon. The Minkowski metric is a three dimensional space and one imaginary space dimension, where imaginary space is simply time and it is here of course we can speculate the effects of geometry in any universe. Fundamental Time However, Geometric Time and it's formalism into Minkowski spacetime, it does not seem to be fundamental in a quantum field argument. If Geometrodynamics is correct, then geometry didn't appear until the radiation era was over. This means there were no moving clocks since in special relativity, clocks where observers with frames of reference. So, if there were no peices of matter in the universe, and geometry is synonymous with the appearence of matter, then time could not exist in the relativistic sense. This means that there couldn't be a fundamental time because of this reason. If it's not fundamental, what does it mean to be simply geometric in relativity? Real Time and Imaginary Time Real Time is the kind of time where events of real things (actions) take place. Also known as ''Real Time Events'', is the time when measurements are performed in the world. We are included as candidate observers for Real Time Events. Imaginary time is somewhat different. You get imaginary time when you use a Wick Rotation on the real timeline. Imaginary Time move horizontally on the real timeline and it gives the ability for something to move freely in the imaginary time axis. In a somewhat contraversial subject, imaginary time has been applied to the beginning of the universe by Hawking and can use quantum mechanics to rid it of singlarities. Past, Present and Future Time The past, present and future times, are the kind of thing we would associate to an arrow of time. But what if you were told that the past and future where actually illusions? Einstein once said, ''that for those who believe in quantum physics, knows that the distinction of past and future are just stubborn illusions.'' Einstein was aware that when you model particles on wordlines, their evolution is actually static. In fact, General Relativity doesn't actually contain a true time evolution, motion itself arises from a symmetry of the theory. In biology, we experience time because of two gene regulators, which help us have a sense of short-time durations and long-time durations. To many scientists, this could be a reason why we have any ''sense of time'' at all. The Psychological Arrow of time has to do with our perception of events moving from some past and into the future. What is an interesting fact to consider, is that if time is not really linear like this, that space and time have to do with geometry (like we have recently explained), then true arrows of time don't really exist. It's not as if we can draw a line as an arrow and point from one place to another, time is not like this. Time isn't set out linearly like this in the equations, time is a non-linear part of the geometry of SR. It seems, that it is not to incredible to think that the past and future are simply things our genetic evolution has reached to, to keep our minds from a type of insanity. That being, the ability to remember ''events;'' If we could not remember what happened a few moments ago, we would have no sense of mind. So for to make us have the ability to bring order out of the chaos, we required some sense of a past and some kind of future to be expected. Another feature to keep in mind, that really all there is, is a present time. If we could think of time as a sphere that encompasses us (but does not move or flow) then we are always stuck inside this ''present sphere''. The notions of past and future become meaningless because things don't happen in any past or future, everything was always in the present time frame. This is another reason why we may think that our sense of time is not as it seems and perhaps distinction of past and future lead to illusions as well. Timelessness Timelessness has also been called the ''Time Problem of Quantum Mechanics'' and is a well-recognized topic involving the contraints on the equations of relativity. When the Einstein Field Equations are properly quantized, they lead to an equation called the Wheeler deWitt Equation. This equation is like a Schrodinger Equation except it contains no time derivative. [math]\hat{H}|\Psi> = 0[/math] and the wave function is the wave function of the universe which was first suggested by Hugh Everett the III in his dissitation on the statistical nature of the universe which leads to a many worlds interepretation. There are some interesting qualities of the Wheeler-deWitt equation. In it's strongest application, is its importance with quantum gravity in a quantum theory. When this happens, we loose the ''complexity'' in the form of the equation. The Wheeler deWitt therefore could be solved for real solutions. Some physicists think this could be just an unsual factor about gravity, that's it's quantized version is one which cannot be complexified. So perhaps there is some underlying ''unknown'' mystery within the fact that the Hamiltonian and momentum constraints on Einstein's field equations are yielding these mathematical curiosities. The constraints of the Hamiltonian and the momentum could even be modelled on a mini-superspace, a type of special configuration space when you work with a small contrained model. Perhaps the Wheeler deWitt can be interepreted as real [4] could be interepretated to mean that it exists within Real Time Events. Doing so, we can think of time in a Global sense that the interactions inside the universe give rise to a series of Real Time Events. Then by doing so, can we employ Barbour's view then that time is simply the sum of all displacements in the system? If so, would be wrong to think it's then not only all displacements but there is an overall conservation in the energy transferred through interactions? There is one problem with this idea however, current theoretical cosmology seems to suggest that energy is not conserved in universes (another such model, [5]). As the universe expands, more energy is released into the vacuum. Now, it's not that in theory General Relativity cannot have equations which conserve the overall energy for the universe, because GR predicts well-conserved notions of energy for static spacetime solutions. However as most know, our universe does not appear static, it is expanding and a curious feature is that it is now expanding faster than light, which might suggest that the universe is using more and more energy. However, another interesting problem must be noted with the Wheeler-deWitt equation. It does not actually have any physical importance for the universe - General Relativity theory is about the curvature and effects of gravity. When you quantize Einstein's theory, you will quantize for solutions satisfying systems with curvature. This is a problem because the universe is not really all that curved, in fact is mostly flat in every direction we look according to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. In Cosmology, the name given to this fact of the universe, is the Flatness Problem. So perhaps we are quantizing the wrong kind of solutions, perhaps we need some kind of equations which satisfy the Newtonian Limit. Maybe a semi-classical approach could seem appealing but would still have to deal with the complexification problem of fields with time derivatives. Induced Time And we come to my own concept, the idea that time is in fact Induced - which means brought about as an artifical effect by slow moving matter. Fast moving particles are often called massless particles or some texts might call them Luxons. Slow moving particles are things with rest mass and can either take on the name Tardyons, or Bardyon, the root word ''Brady'' meaning slow. In relativity, you can only deal with moving clocks if they contain a rest mass. Things like photons and gluons ect do not possess rest mass and do not act as relativistic clocks. Interestingly, Geometric Time is closely related to the Induced Time concept and the reason why is because if time is related to moving clocks with rest masses, then according to Geometrogenesis, time as we know it could not have appeared until the universe had sufficiently cooled down after the radiation era. Geometry in the universe did not appear alone, matter appeared alongside it and could be thought of the space and time dimension as sufficiently ordered enough to allow the kind of geometry we veiw every single day. Therefore, the Induced Time is symonymous with the appearance of mass and geometry dealing with low temperatures in the universe. This brings us back to the question whether time is actually fundamental - time as we know it in relativity did not exist in the radiation period and the further you wind the clock back, you get to a point where geometry (the stuff of space and time) would completely cease to exist, the so-called origin of the universe which has thought to have arisen from a single point without dimensions. Conclusions So my conlusions are, that there is a Geometric Time, but it is not fundamental and fundamental time doesn't even really exist. Biological systems have the distinction of past and future but this does not have a physical relevance in the world at large. There is only the present time and the brain fools itself into thinking that the past and future exists by remembering events and by measuring what we call ''entropy''. We may sense time flow, but that sense of time would come about from us creating this view of entropy by remembering past states. I think the Wheeler deWitt equation perhaps has a better solution yet to be found and in this work I showed there being a possible solution in light of quantizing at the Newtonian Limit instead of the Relativistic Limit. Our universe is mostly flat afterall. Perhaps however, time can be retrieved again by taking Barbour's approach suggesting that time is really the displacement of all the bodies in the universe? Then locally gauge special relativity with these positions to unify them? If you can rid other equations of time and define it as the motions of systems instead, surely there should be a way to describe this for a universe? I haven't tackled solutions. I have wondered if we should be thinking of equations like [math]\dot{m} \psi = (\frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial \dot{q}_i}) d_i \nabla^2 \psi[/math] Where [math]d_i[/math] is our displacement of our particles and [math]\frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial \dot{q}_i}[/math] is our classical canonical momentum part where [math]q_i[/math] sums over all [math]i-[/math]th particle velocities. This equation then has dimensions of a mass flow rate [6]. The time dependancy arises on the left hand side of the equation, but the right handside has a generalized position coordinate. So in my case, I want to calculate the energy and positions of particles in the universe at any given slice of time [math]\sum[/math] or even can be seen as a slice of time out of a worldline of a particle. In terms of it calculating the positions of particles, it is very similar to Barbour's approach [2] where he calculates the [math]i-[/math]th particles of all the displacements: [math]T = \sum_i \frac{M_i}{2} (\frac{\delta d_i}{\delta t})^2[/math] This makes up a kinetic energy term. The kinetic energy has relationships with my own equation since the canonical momentum can be given as [math]\frac{\partial}{\partial v} \frac{Mv^2}{2} = P[/math] Which comes from Langrangian Mechanics. You can derive Lagrange's equations as [math]\frac{d}{dt}(\frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial \dot{q}_j}) = (\frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial q})[/math] It is important to note that [math]\dot{q}[/math] should not be viewed as a derivative really, but rather as a variable. In terms of a statistical analysis, you can view the flow of mass as a net flow rate as [math]\sum^{k}_{k=1} \dot{M} \hat{S}_k = \nu_i[/math] Where [math]\hat{S}[/math] is the entropy of the system [7]. You could even take a quantum field Langrangian, and fit it into a type of Eular Lagrange equation for a field for a more comfortable quantum field description, but no doubt that could be difficult to calculate. Time in this sense is really all about increments, short beginnings and end's. So for any slice of time, you calculate a small displacement like [math]\delta d_i[/math] like in Barbour's example and the generalized velocity terms [math]\dot{q}_i[/math] is wrapped up in the Canonical Momentum term. Apply this as though the wave function is a global wave function, then you can calculate all the relevant dynamics Barbour wants you to do in his view of timelessness - the idea is that there is no time, there is only change. [1] Whilst George Ellis states here that there is no flow to time in our current theoretical models in physics, he argues for a case for the flow of time http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.0240 [2] http://www.fqxi.org/...71bae814fb4f9e9 [3] http://en.wikipedia....car%C3%A9_group [4] http://www.platonia....lex_numbers.pdf [5] http://blogs.discove...-not-conserved/ [6] http://en.wikipedia..../Mass_flow_rate [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
  10. I had to take two looks at that for a moment. I thought it read cheesy ribs... A new type of food I haven't come across yet! :0
  11. I concur, I see it nothing as a good measurement tool. And this personal time has also been called Asymptotic Time.
  12. Captain, the kitchen is your friend you know.
  13. I have no idea what to make of the recent rumors that strange sounds are being heard all over the world. I did see one professional recently saying that such sounds are quite normal and is probably caused by electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere from things like the aurora belt... If the following video has any truth behind it, I must say the sounds are very creepy. It almost reminds me of the sounds the tripods made in the film ''The War of the Worlds''. Ok so what would everyone's conclusion be... worldwide hoax? I didn't know whether to post this in speculations. I certainly can't prove anything here today, I am just reporting on it.
  14. What I think I am saying is that there is no past now, as there is no future later, we are all stuck in the present time and that never changes, so we might think we live in a type of eternal present frame - and it will be this present time which changes, there is nothing flowing in or out of the present sphere of time.
  15. Well sure, the ice cube example obeys thermodynamical laws. Is the arrow of time a concept which is being abused to explain something which has completely valid reasons for its existence and the way it behaves? It's certainly not redundant to think an ice cube came from a higher state of entropy because of the thermodynamic laws? Why would one need to talk about something like an ''arrow to time''? Of course, entropy is often the reason we may think there is some kind of directionality to time. Direction is meaningless inside the context of the equations, it only makes meaning when recording devices (like our brains) measure events unfold. Then the idea of time becomes somewhat meaningful. Put it another way, in relativity, time arises because of moving pieces of matter acting like clocks. There was a period in the universe called the radiation era where no matter existed - this existed before matter appeared in the universe - entropy existed then, but not in the kind of form where we can associate moving clocks. In this sense, is time really fundamental or is it really a by-product of slow moving systems?
  16. George Ellis says at the very beginning that current theoretical physics states there is no flow to time. His paper simply makes an argument for the flow. My point to you was that mainstream really does believe there is no flow. And I know many physicists take the arrow of time seriously, but I don't. Time isn't linear in the sense you can draw an arrow extending from somewhere. Time is really all about geometry. Here's an excerpt out of an online book I am reading "Time is a concept introduced specially to describe the flow of events around us; it does not itself flow, it describes flow. Time does not advance. Time is neither linear nor cyclic. The idea that time flows is as hindering to understanding nature as is the idea that mirrors Page 71 exchange right and left. The misleading use of the expression ‘flow of time’, propagated first by some flawed Ref. 36 Greek thinkers and then again by Newton, continues. Aristotle (384/3–322 bce), careful to think logically, pointed out its misconception, and many did so after him. Nevertheless, expressions such as ‘time reversal’, the ‘irreversibility of time’, and the much-abused ‘time’s arrow’ are still common. Just read a popular science magazine chosen at random.'' From: http://www.motionmountain.net/download.html
  17. Julian Barbour takes it seriously. He has studied it for years and now believes that time does not exist. The timelessness is considered a real problem for certain physicists and have dubbed it with a special name, called the ''Time Problem.''
  18. The time vanishing from GR is a result of quantizing the EFE equations and out of which you get the Wheeler de Witt equation, which is the timelessness one speaks about at the heart of GR.
  19. Yes, I saw your posts. I thought they had been well written. I think with the manifold, one has to remember that if we consider time as a very good instrument to help us measure things, then it works quite well. How do you get someone to be convinced that time doesn't really exist, only the experience of time exists? Relativity might have at it's core the manifold which interconnects space and time together, but at the heart of relativity, time doesn't even exist! It vanishes from the equations and in general relativity, the motion of systems aren't even represented by true time evolution's - motion arises as a symmetry of the theory. Worldline's are static as well, so there is no past or future; so for a theory which successfully united time and space into the same manifold, it kind of makes a mockery of times existence simultaneously. I certainly couldn't add anything more to your posts. Though I'd like to ask you, do you consider there being more to a space than thinking of it as a degree of freedom?
  20. It's like ''now'' isn't ''now'', it's now ''before'' An interesting fact in relativity is that there is no such distinction between the past and future --- indeed, it seems such concepts don't really exist, which can seem at odds with the way we tend to look at the world. If time exists, then there can only be the present time which holds any significance for systems. The only time which ever exists, is the present time, so perhaps thinking of it this way, a moment in time is always the present time, nothing truly exists ''before'' - which is quite an odd notion since we humans are capable of recording events and sense time ''pass us by'' along with the event, but it is for this reason why might think the ''sense of time'' is purely something our brains creates. There is certainly plenty evidence that our sense of time is in fact created by two specific long-term and short-term gene regulators. So maybe, just to keep us from insanity, our evolution took a path to believe that there was a real order to events by having a sense of time. To me, a space is just a degree of freedom, of course my mind seems somewhat at odds with that when you think of a Hilbert Space, which could just be a point... in fact, people tend to think that [math]\psi[/math] is some point on a Hilbert Space [math]H[/math]. So I don't know... I guess a space means somewhere with some kind of length and width. Wikipedia's explanation is very mathematical in its use of defining space, but it is perhaps truer. I guess you could say, ''I have a simple understanding of what a space is''.
  21. In fact, I think I will write up a thread on time, because it is an interesting subject.
  22. When staying over at my partners last night, I found myself thinking about ways I could explain myself better. I don't believe time actually points out spatial locations, but the notion that space is inseparable to time is fundamentally unique. Time was just another space dimension, an imaginary space dimension in the Minkowski understanding. It's certainly not a ''real space dimension'' (using real as in the mathematical sense), because when people often talk about the spacetime continuum, is that it has three space dimensions and one temporal dimension. This is true, but time if a very special type of imaginary space dimension. What could be throwing you off my statements, is that I am saying it is a dimension of space - well, what I really am saying it is an ''imaginary space dimension''. As I tried to explain, all time is for the spacetime metric is that time is simply an imaginary leg off the real legs of the spacetime triangle. It's an added dimension which many have dubbed ''the imaginary space dimension.'' Time isn't linear ( in the sense that there is some extension from a past to future as in an arrow of time) nor does time flow.
  23. I view all math as abstractions. Oh well, I'm hardly going to nit-pick over this. My real quarrel is that time is a dimension, a spatial dimension and one which is imaginary in the theory.
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