Time is not an absolute?

[Tero]

My plan is to stay in one solar system, never leave. That way I can pretend everything is Euclidian. The stuff further out, I don't really have to believe it is there.

[mistermack]

What I was really trying to say was that even if there was an absolute reality, we could never experience it, as we and our information are all relative.
I was trying to give a picture of why, not proposing a theory.

Just imagine, for example, that all distances suddenly doubled. All the people in the world are twice as big, but so are the buildings, the mountains, and the tape measures. If everything doubled in size, nothing would look any different.

Obviously in practice it's not that simple, but it just paints a picture of what I meant.
If time slowed, so that all intervals doubled in lenth, how could we tell? Your clock would slow, your car would slow, your mind would slow, nothing would appear any different.
We can only experience time and distance relatively. Not absolutely, because we are also made of time and distance.
Everything we observe and measure is simply measured relative to something else.
That's what I meant when I said that if there were an absolute frame of reference that things actually existed in, we would have no possible way of knowing it or proving it. It's down to the nature of reality.

It's like the science fiction notion, what if we were all actually characters in a virtual reality computer program. How could we know? Relativity is the only reality we are equipped to experience, so for us, it is real.
.

[hackenslash]

What I was really trying to say was that even if there was an absolute reality, we could never experience it, as we and our information are all relative.
I was trying to give a picture of why, not proposing a theory.

Just imagine, for example, that all distances suddenly doubled. All the people in the world are twice as big, but so are the buildings, the mountains, and the tape measures. If everything doubled in size, nothing would look any different.

Nothing would be any different. It would be precisely as if nothing whatsoever had happened, because nothing would have happened, which not only shows that this idea is useless, but that it's fucking stupid.

Obviously in practice it's not that simple, but it just paints a picture of what I meant.

Actually, it's exactly that simple.

If time slowed, so that all intervals doubled in lenth, how could we tell? Your clock would slow, your car would slow, your mind would slow, nothing would appear any different.

Wow, you might just be beginning to get it. The only difference is that our experience doesn't create reality, it just is. Our experience is irrelevant. All that is relevant, in the context of this discussion, is that which is invariant and therefore not subjective. That quantity, again in light of this discussion, is s.

Indeed, all that is remotely interesting in physics is that which is invariant. The equations of physics are the relationships between the things we experience and the things that are invariant. That's why all physics equations have a constant in them, because that tells us how to relate the variable to reality.

We can only experience time and distance relatively. Not absolutely, because we are also made of time and distance.

Wibble-laden bollocks. Apart from anything else, you're still treating time and space as separate entities, which demonstrates that you've completely missed the point of relativity, and that having berated somebody else with the following:

It seems you've read a bit about relativity, but actually understood very little. Being able to repeat what you've read doesn't count for much.

Not even being able to accurately repeat what you half-heard counts for even less.

Everything we observe and measure is simply measured relative to something else.

Bzzzzzzz. Thank you for playing. That's not remotely how it works. Everything we measure in a physical theory is measured against invariants, which is what gives our physical theories rigour. It is the invariants that form the axiomatic basis of the entire system upon which any given theory is constructed. In this case, that invariant is s which is the momentum through spacetime, also known as the momentum four-vector.

That's what I meant when I said that if there were an absolute frame of reference that things actually existed in, we would have no possible way of knowing it or proving it. It's down to the nature of reality.

Wrong again. There is an absolute frame of reference, namely s, because it is the quantity that ALL observers must agree on, being, as it is, INVARIANT.

It's like the science fiction notion, what if we were all actually characters in a virtual reality computer program. How could we know?

Ah, solipsism...

Relativity is the only reality we are equipped to experience, so for us, it is real.

Actually, we aren't remotely equipped to experience relativity. We had to equip ourselves to demonstrate that it's in accord with reality, through much diligence and observation. If we were equipped to experience it, it would have been elucidated by the ancients.

Now, would you like to try again, but this time with something remotely approaching what relativity actually tells us?

[charlou]

Ah, solipsism...

Needs a bare foot.

[GreyICE]

I'm not surprised. It seems you've read a bit about relativity, but actually understood very little. Being able to repeat what you've read doesn't count for much.

If you want to whine about how badly you got smacked down in the global warming thread, go back to the global warming thread. These sour grapes just make you look silly.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

P.S. Light doesn't get to have a point of view, for the same reason that it doesn't get to have a mass.

Racism?


And I know it doesn't have a point of view - it should be obvious that I was speaking metaphorically and was crediting those reading with being able to recognise that fact.

[Ulven]

Hackenslash wrote:
No. Relativity and time dilation are a result of the fact that there is an invariant quantity in play, namely s, which is the momentum four-vector.

I believe you are confusing some terminology here. Almost without exception, invariants in relativity are scalars, like for instance the scalar c. You are correct that there is an invariant quantity s (or s2) defined as s2=-(ct)2+x2+y2+z2, which forms the basis for the transformation rules of special relativity. The quantity is a measure of the distance between two events in four-dimensional space-time. It is, however not a tensor or vector. It is a scalar.

[mistermack]

Nothing would be any different. It would be precisely as if nothing whatsoever had happened, because nothing would have happened, which not only shows that this idea is useless, but that it's fucking stupid.

You've missed the point then. It's a very simple point, but you managed to miss it.

Hackenslash, you seem to think that what we experience is all there is.
It's pointless just repeating the textbooks. You seem to question nothing, and don't seem mentally prepared to question anything.
What you claim is an invariant, is an invariant to us. You seem to think that's the end of the story. I'm questioning that. Questions are allowed in my world.
What's invariant to us may not be invariant in fact.
That's been proved before. We would never have worked out SR, if everyone had your attitude.

[mistermack]

I'm not surprised. It seems you've read a bit about relativity, but actually understood very little. Being able to repeat what you've read doesn't count for much.

If you want to whine about how badly you got smacked down in the global warming thread, go back to the global warming thread. These sour grapes just make you look silly.

No, looking silly is YOUR speciality.
I'm not the one who got kicked off Ratscep for obnoxious behaviour.

[GreyICE]

P.S. Light doesn't get to have a point of view, for the same reason that it doesn't get to have a mass.

Racism?


And I know it doesn't have a point of view - it should be obvious that I was speaking metaphorically and was crediting those reading with being able to recognise that fact.

No, I mean all of the equations break when you are traveling at lightspeed. Masses are 0 or infinity, distance is 0, time is 0, duration doesn't exist. Remember that you have the right to consider yourself motionless, so all other objects in the universe are moving at lightspeed, since you would be at lightspeed relative to them. It just simply breaks every equation.

I'm not surprised. It seems you've read a bit about relativity, but actually understood very little. Being able to repeat what you've read doesn't count for much.

If you want to whine about how badly you got smacked down in the global warming thread, go back to the global warming thread. These sour grapes just make you look silly.

No, looking silly is YOUR speciality.
I'm not the one who got kicked off Ratscep for obnoxious behaviour.

LOL. Mack, all you've done here is insult me repeatedly. You're discussing a faith, not a scientific concept, and it's the wrong forum for it. I'm not misunderstanding anything.

Your personal grudges are cute and all, and I think you make a great addition to the Ratskep nonsense. Go have fun with 914, Bronwyn, and the rest of the brown nosing cock gobblers.

[mistermack]

No, I mean all of the equations break when you are traveling at lightspeed. Masses are 0 or infinity, distance is 0, time is 0, duration doesn't exist. Remember that you have the right to consider yourself motionless, so all other objects in the universe are moving at lightspeed, since you would be at lightspeed relative to them. It just simply breaks every equation.

No, at the speed of light, time would have stopped for you. The other objects in the universe wouldn't be moving at all, relative to you, if time had stopped. You would exist only as energy, travelling in a straight line at c.

LOL. Mack, all you've done here is insult me repeatedly. You're discussing a faith, not a scientific concept, and it's the wrong forum for it. I'm not misunderstanding anything.

Your personal grudges are cute and all, and I think you make a great addition to the Ratskep nonsense. Go have fun with 914, Bronwyn, and the rest of the brown nosing cock gobblers.

I'm not in Ratscep. You posted your story on the "wilder web" here.
I don't have any grudge, I only ever reply in kind, so you must have thrown something my way first. I'm happier being civil, so I'll leave it up to you.

[GreyICE]

Mack, the equations say there are no distances at light speed, so there is no traveling, distance has compressed to a flat plane. There are no straight lines, there are no dimensions, there is no length. It is completely fucked up, and it doesn't work as a model for anything. The universe is 4 dimensional, not 2.

As for happy being civil, I'm not the one who started insulting your knowledge of relativity. Though that is a really, really fertile ground. You seem to be happy being civil when you're done distracting everyone by being very uncivil. You started us here, that you don't like being here is a matter for you. I am happy to leave, let us return to discussing science, until the next time you are very wrong and feel like distracting everyone by insulting someone, shall we?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

P.S. Light doesn't get to have a point of view, for the same reason that it doesn't get to have a mass.

Racism?


And I know it doesn't have a point of view - it should be obvious that I was speaking metaphorically and was crediting those reading with being able to recognise that fact.

No, I mean all of the equations break when you are traveling at lightspeed. Masses are 0 or infinity, distance is 0, time is 0, duration doesn't exist. Remember that you have the right to consider yourself motionless, so all other objects in the universe are moving at lightspeed, since you would be at lightspeed relative to them. It just simply breaks every equation.

From the frame of reference of a particle travelling at lightspeed, it is not even travelling! Space compresses infinitely in the direction of travel and time accelerates infinitely. I agree that the equations are meaningless but not that everything else would be travelling at lightspeed - in fact, the opposite is true, nothing else is moving at all! All academic as we can never travel at lightspeed, nor experience what a photon 'experiences', but that is what the equations say. A photon travelling between the sun and my eye is simultaneously and instantaneously at every point on that journey when considered from its own frame of reference.

[mistermack]

Mack, the equations say there are no distances at light speed, so there is no traveling, distance has compressed to a flat plane. There are no straight lines, there are no dimensions, there is no length. It is completely fucked up, and it doesn't work as a model for anything. The universe is 4 dimensional, not 2.

As for happy being civil, I'm not the one who started insulting your knowledge of relativity. Though that is a really, really fertile ground. You seem to be happy being civil when you're done distracting everyone by being very uncivil. You started us here, that you don't like being here is a matter for you. I am happy to leave, let us return to discussing science, until the next time you are very wrong and feel like distracting everyone by insulting someone, shall we?

As I said, I just respond in kind. What thread you are on doesn't make any difference. I can't imagine rowing on one thread, and being nice as pie on a new one. I'd feel a bit hypocritical.
But I'd be happier being civil on all threads, so that's how I'd prefer to progress.
You'll never get a "dig" from me that wasn't a response to same.

[GreyICE]

I see self justification and self righteousness. Science? Not so much. Wrong forum, again.