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geordief

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They are a central part of relativity and banish the notion of absolute time (in a way that has been verified and has had countless applications)

 

I have a simple question ,borne out of curiosity.

 

What was the impact of this amazing finding on the philosophical disciplines at the time? Is it still reverberating?

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On 9/16/2018 at 12:00 AM, geordief said:

They are a central part of relativity and banish the notion of absolute time (in a way that has been verified and has had countless applications)

 

I have a simple question ,borne out of curiosity.

 

What was the impact of this amazing finding on the philosophical disciplines at the time? Is it still reverberating?

I would imagine that the consequences of SR in 1905 was to have the most momentous impact that we can imagine. I mean the physics at that time was settled that time and space were absolute, and the speed of light essentially variable. Then all that was thrown into chaos. I would see though, his GR in 1916, having far less of an impact.

Any reverberation today is non existent, at least in the physics world, and generally taken for granted not withstanding science forum cranks.

Edited by beecee
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I was wondering what those of us with a philosophical (and historical)background might have to say on the specific shift of direction this scientific finding might have had on purely philosophical enquiries at the time.

Were any particular directions of thought now redundant  or was this a finding that could ,as it were be easily assimilated after the presumable period of disbelief ?

Interesting what beecee  says about the relativity cranks being vastly outnumbered in the scientific community.As most of my science is gleaned from forums like these perhaps I overestimated the resistance to basic relativity amongst scientific professionals and amateurs.

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9 hours ago, geordief said:

Interesting what beecee  says about the relativity cranks being vastly outnumbered in the scientific community.As most of my science is gleaned from forums like these perhaps I overestimated the resistance to basic relativity amongst scientific professionals and amateurs.

Most of the relativity cranks we get here are not in the scientific community.

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4 hours ago, swansont said:

Most of the relativity cranks we get here are not in the scientific community.

Add climate change deniers, creationists, and perpetual skeptics to that list. Most cranks haven't fully explored the theories they seek to overturn. 

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14 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Add climate change deniers, creationists, and perpetual skeptics to that list. Most cranks haven't fully explored the theories they seek to overturn. 

One might argue that whatever their objections are, it's likely that they are philosophical, since the objections are not based on empirical evidence.

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On 9/17/2018 at 2:16 AM, beecee said:

I would imagine that the consequences of SR in 1905 was to have the most momentous impact that we can imagine. I mean the physics at that time was settled that time and space were absolute, and the speed of light essentially variable.

That is not true. 'Relativity' was in the air, so to speak. Many physicists were aware of the inconsistency between Maxwell theory and Newtonian mechanics. Others tried to give solutions for the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Just look how the different equations are named: 'Lorentz transformation', 'Scott-Fitzgerald contraction'... And it was Poincaré who named the 'Lorentz transformations'. I am afraid I do not know why Minkowski called the 'Poincaré group' like that. Maybe because the basic mathematics was done by Poincaré for the first time?

Einstein's innovation was to derive the Lorentz transformations from very simple first principles. And not all physicists honoured Einstein for special relativity in those days, I also assume because some of his results were already derived before. Lorentz and Poincaré were often mentioned as discoverers of relativity, Einstein only mentioned as putting relativity on another basis. Very clear is that special relativity did not fall from thin air.

On 9/17/2018 at 2:16 AM, beecee said:

I would see though, his GR in 1916, having far less of an impact.

In 1916, maybe. But when Eddington published his findings of the Solar Eclipse expedition in 1919, in which he (presumably) confirmed the bending of starlight close to the sun, Einstein became famous outside the physics community immediately.

General relativity was more or less Einstein's personal project. Nobody else was working on something similar. However, he needed help with the difficult topic of differential geometry. In the beginning he was helped by his friend Grossmann (if I remember correctly it was Grossman who pointed Einstein to Riemannian geometry); in the later years he was helped by Hilbert, who himself obviously understood Einstein's project as a whole, and came with the correct solutions at the same time as Einstein himself. Hilbert on its own however would never have come at the idea of general relativity on his own.

On 9/17/2018 at 2:40 AM, geordief said:

I was wondering what those of us with a philosophical (and historical)background might have to say on the specific shift of direction this scientific finding might have had on purely philosophical enquiries at the time.

Pity enough, I am not aware of any impact on pure philosophy. But I don't know if this is a lack of knowledge from my side, or that there was not much. Of course, it changed a lot in the philosophy of physics, especially philosophy of time (e.g. that the Big Bang might be the beginning of time), but still only in its (meta)physical aspects. You won't find anything concerning relativity in e.g. Heidegger's 'Sein und Zeit' ('Being and Time'), because it is about the human experience of being and time. And I would say that relativity really has no impact on this.

On 9/17/2018 at 2:40 AM, geordief said:

Were any particular directions of thought now redundant  or was this a finding that could ,as it were be easily assimilated after the presumable period of disbelief ?

Not that I am aware of. You must not forget, all physical laws that are relevant for daily life are still described as differential equations over time, and local time is still more or less the same as before special relativity.

18 hours ago, swansont said:

One might argue that whatever their objections are, it's likely that they are philosophical, since the objections are not based on empirical evidence.

I would not argue for that. I would say that picking the empirical data that seem to fit climate denialism, and forget about the overwhelming evidence for human climate warming is one ('there was no climate change the last few years'); Taking 'gut feeling' as a better criterion than empirical confirmed theories (relativity and QM).

I am only aware of one very philosophical argument in creationism: that God created the earth, including fossils, CBR, etc etc, so that our observations will necessarily hint at an old earth and even older universe. This argument from its very nature cannot be proven false empirically. But maybe there are more examples?

Edited by Eise
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34 minutes ago, Eise said:

 I would not argue for that. I would say that picking the empirical data that seem to fit climate denialism, and forget about the overwhelming evidence for human climate warming is one ('there was no climate change the last few years'); Taking 'gut feeling' as a better criterion than empirical confirmed theories (relativity and QM).

I am only aware of one very philosophical argument in creationism: that God created the earth, including fossils, CBR, etc etc, so that our observations will necessarily hint at an old earth and even older universe. This argument from its very nature cannot be proven false empirically. But maybe there are more examples?

I don't know what the ideology is behind climate change denial. But people that come out against relativity or QM often insist that the world must behave in a certain way — that there is a preferred frame/an aether exists for the former, and that the world behaves classically but we just haven't figured it out yet for the latter. In both cases there's a premise upon which they base their conclusions,  and not examined by the scientific standard of experimental confirmation.

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8 hours ago, Eise said:

That is not true. 'Relativity' was in the air, so to speak. Many physicists were aware of the inconsistency between Maxwell theory and Newtonian mechanics. Others tried to give solutions for the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Just look how the different equations are named: 'Lorentz transformation', 'Scott-Fitzgerald contraction'... And it was Poincaré who named the 'Lorentz transformations'

I was actually referring to its effects on non professional people and the average Joe Blow in the street. I imagine that the immediate non intuitiveness of being informed that both space and time were not absolute would have been rather incredulous. Was though SR in 1905 as well known among the general populace [even if not fully understood] as was GR after the validation of the Eddington experiment.

Quote

In 1916, maybe. But when Eddington published his findings of the Solar Eclipse expedition in 1919, in which he (presumably) confirmed the bending of starlight close to the sun, Einstein became famous outside the physics community immediately.

It seems that the validation of GR in the Eddington experiment was news worthy enough that the media grabbed it and published extensively and it became known to the general populace. I believe that was not the case with SR though in 1905. 

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12 hours ago, Eise said:

 

Pity enough, I am not aware of any impact on pure philosophy. But I don't know if this is a lack of knowledge from my side, or that there was not much. Of course, it changed a lot in the philosophy of physics, especially philosophy of time (e.g. that the Big Bang might be the beginning of time), but still only in its (meta)physical aspects. You won't find anything concerning relativity in e.g. Heidegger's 'Sein und Zeit' ('Being and Time'), because it is about the human experience of being and time. And I would say that relativity really has no impact on this.

 

Interesting . This was a startling breakthough in scientific understanding that permeated society ,so it seems and yet it did not unduly affect philosophical ideas at the time or since.

 

Perhaps this  illustrates that philosophy in unbeholden to  scientific and technological advances and will chart its own path regardless.

 

I wonder if philosophical ideas can be shown to be equally impervious to scientific ideas in general (and not just to this case of the unification of space and time)

 

It might feel reassuring if this were the case .

Edited by geordief
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12 hours ago, geordief said:

Interesting . This was a startling breakthough in scientific understanding that permeated society ,so it seems and yet it did not unduly affect philosophical ideas at the time or since.

Permeated society? I doubt that. It was a kind of breakthrough in science, but I am not aware of great impacts on society as a whole.

12 hours ago, geordief said:

Perhaps this  illustrates that philosophy in unbeholden to  scientific and technological advances and will chart its own path regardless.

That would be bad, at least on topics where philosophy touches (or in some exceptional cases maybe overlaps?) with physics.

12 hours ago, geordief said:

I wonder if philosophical ideas can be shown to be equally impervious to scientific ideas in general (and not just to this case of the unification of space and time)

It really should not be: philosophers should keep track of the sciences that border on the philosophical topic in question. As modern examples from strongly science oriented philosophers I could mention Daniel Dennett, or Thomas Menzinger. They both keep very good track on what happens in cognitive science, KI, neurology, psychology etc. Their topics are things like the mind-body problem, free will, the essence of thought, evolution (at least for Dennett) and some more.

I found one example of the Neokantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), who wrote a lot about science: he has a chapter about relativity in his Substance and Function (1910; last chapter). But I think it is not an easy read if you are not at home in the field.

From the Preface of that chapter:

Quote

 

The following essay does not claim to give a complete account of the philosophical problems raised by the theory of relativity. I am aware that the new problems presented to the general criticism of knowledge by this theory can only be solved by the gradual work of both physicists and philosophers; here I am merely concerned with beginning this work, with stimulating discussion, and, where possible, guiding it into definite methodic paths, in contrast to the uncertainty of judgment which still reigns. The purpose of this writing will be attained if it succeeds in preparing for a mutual understanding between the philosopher and the physicist on questions, concerning which they are still widely separated. That I was concerned, even in purely epistemological matters, to keep myself in close contact with scientific physics and that the writings of the leading physicists of the past and present have everywhere essentially helped to determine the intellectual orientation of the following investigation, will be gathered from the exposition. The bibliography, which follows, however makes no claim to actual completeness; in it only such works are adduced as have been repeatedly referred to and intensively consideredin the course of the exposition.

Albert Einstein read the above essay in manuscript and gave it the benefit of his critical comments; I cannot let it go out without expressing my hearty thanks to him.


ERNST CASSIRER

 

 

Edited by Eise
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41 minutes ago, studiot said:

Have they moved the First Point of Aries since I last looked?

Time doesn't start when the sun gets to a certain point. We don't usually refer to time as some value since the equinox.

Plus, there's the physics description that time is what is measured by a clock.

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1 hour ago, swansont said:

 

Plus, there's the physics description that time is what is measured by a clock.

 

So why are relativity experimenters always zeroing their clocks?

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Time doesn't start when the sun gets to a certain point. We don't usually refer to time as some value since the equinox.

 

No we usually call it the date but isn't the date a form of time?

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23 minutes ago, studiot said:

So why are relativity experimenters always zeroing their clocks?

Clock comparison experiments are not telling the time, the way that phrase is usually used.

Quote

No we usually call it the date but isn't the date a form of time?

Did time exist before 1 AD?

You're looking at an agreed upon standard, which is a choice we make for convenience. It doesn't have any physical basis.

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Just now, swansont said:

 

Did time exist before 1 AD?

I don't know I was asleep at that time (date).

:)

1 minute ago, swansont said:

Clock comparison experiments are not telling the time.

 

Which is why I asked why experimenters have to zero their clocks if their clocks tell 'the time'.

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1 hour ago, studiot said:

 Which is why I asked why experimenters have to zero their clocks if their clocks tell 'the time'.

And I'm saying that you aren't using them to "tell time" in those experiments. You are comparing two clocks, not reading the results of one clock.

And there are relativity experiments where you don't "zero" the time since you do a frequency comparison rather than a phase comparison.

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11 minutes ago, swansont said:

And I'm saying that you aren't using them to "tell time" in those experiments. You are comparing two clocks, not reading the results of one clock.

And there are relativity experiments where you don't "zero" the time since you do a frequency comparison rather than a phase comparison.

I still don't see how this leads us to a clock the measures time not time difference.

There are many quantities in Science that we (only) measure by difference, including distance.

Surely this must be so as there is no absolute axis of time or distance.

 

This is fundamentally different from say temperature where for instance the freezing point of water is a particular point on the scale and no other in whatever units you choose to measure.

Another such 'absolute' would be the number of neutrons (or protons or electons) in a given isotope.

Or perhaps Avogardo's Number.

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