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There Is No Single Instant In Time
tekkieRich writes "Some interesting news from the world of physics. Supposedly, in this paper, the author answers some of the major paradoxes (achilles vs. the turtle and Zeno) concerning our understanding of time. 'Impressed with the work is Princeton physics great, and collaborator of both Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman, John Wheeler, who said he admired Lynds' "boldness," while noting that it had often been individuals Lynds' age that "had pushed the frontiers of physics forward in the past."'"
Public release date: 31-Jul-2003
Contact: Brooke Jones
Brooke.Jones@australia.edu
Independent Communications Consultant
Ground-breaking work in understanding of time
Mechanics, Zeno and Hawking undergo revision
Full size image available through contact
A bold paper which has highly impressed some of the world's top physicists and been published in the August issue of Foundations of Physics Letters, seems set to change the way we think about the nature of time and its relationship to motion and classical and quantum mechanics. Much to the science world's astonishment, the work also appears to provide solutions to Zeno of Elea's famous motion paradoxes, almost 2500 years after they were originally conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher. In doing so, its unlikely author, who originally attended university for just 6 months, is drawing comparisons to Albert Einstein and beginning to field enquiries from some of the world's leading science media. This is contrast to being sniggered at by local physicists when he originally approached them with the work, and once aware it had been accepted for publication, one informing the journal of the author's lack of formal qualification in an attempt to have them reject it.
In the paper, "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity", Peter Lynds, a 27 year old broadcasting school tutor from Wellington, New Zealand, establishes that there is a necessary trade off of all precisely determined physical values at a time, for their continuity through time, and in doing so, appears to throw age old assumptions about determined instantaneous physical magnitude and time on their heads. A number of other outstanding issues to do with time in physics are also addressed, including cosmology and an argument against the theory of Imaginary time by British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
"Author's work resembles Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity", said a referee of the paper, while Andrei Khrennikov, Prof. of Applied Mathematics at Vaxjo University in Sweden and Director of ICMM, said, "I find this paper very interesting and important to clarify some fundamental aspects of classical and quantum physical formalisms. I think that the author of the paper did a very important investigation of the role of continuity of time in the standard physical models of dynamical processes." He then invited Lynds to take part in an international conference on the foundations of quantum theory in Sweden.
Another impressed with the work is Princeton physics great, and collaborator of both Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman, John Wheeler, who said he admired Lynds' "boldness", while noting that it had often been individuals Lynds' age that "had pushed the frontiers of physics forward in the past."
In contrast, an earlier referee had a different opinion of the controversial paper. "I have only read the first two sections as it is clear that the author's arguments are based on profound ignorance or misunderstanding of basic analysis and calculus. I'm afraid I am unwilling to waste any time reading further, and recommend terminal rejection."
Lynds' solution to the Achilles and the tortoise paradox, submitted to Philosophy of Science, helped explain the work. A tortoise challenges Achilles, the swift Greek warrior, to a race, gets a 10m head start, and says Achilles can never pass him. When Achilles has run 10m, the tortoise has moved a further metre. When Achilles has covered that metre, the tortoise has moved 10cm...and so on. It is impossible for Achilles to pass him. The paradox is that in reality, Achilles would easily do so. A similar paradox, called the Dichotomy, stipulates that you can never reach your goal, as in order to get there, you must firstly travel half of the distance. But once you've done that, you must still traverse half the remaining distance, and half again, and so on. What's more, you can't even get started, as to travel a certain distance, you must firstly travel half
There Is No Single Instant In Time
Posted by timothy on Sunday August 03, @03:46AM
from the all-is-flux dept.
I've been counting down the seconds until i die and this guy tells me were are no seconds?! geez i dont want to freaking live forever
So, the next paradigm to disappear is the singularity of Black Holes; I never believed in them anyhow...
But, Lynds' is brilliant, if true/not disproofed/widely accepted.
Allow me to quote the title: "Ground-breaking work in understanding of time; Mechanics, Zeno and Hawking undergo revision" I don't understand what the hell he's talking about. Either I'm not as smart as I think I am, or he's BSing his way through this. Zeno's theories are pretty well-established, you know "Man is walking across a road, if you keep on dividing the time intervals, he'll never get there." This Lynds seems to just be restating the theory with some fancy terms. I wouldn't be surprised if this were another Alan Sokal or, even worse for the realm of physics, Bogdanov brothers type of work.
It is about metaphysics, folks. Not goofy kind, but more closer to philosophy than physics itself.
And of course you don't need a Ph.D. to use your brain. Everyone should learn from that.
"There Is No Single Instant In Time"
Of course. There's only past and future. A little thought experiment will prove that to you. As everyone knows time can be divided ever finer. Fematoseconds, attoseconds, etc. however fine you go, there's always a past and a future, but no present. Try that on your friends and see their heads spin.
n case the site (or routes to the site) get slashdotted. Here is a mirror.
the present.
Not even the people on FARK.com bought into this crap (where it was posted a week ago). The paper is a bunch of crap and doesn't tell us anything either we don't already know, or is in any way usefull.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A similar paradox, called the Dichotomy, stipulates that you can never reach your goal, as in order to get there, you must firstly travel half of the distance. But once you've done that, you must still traverse half the remaining distance, and half again, and so on. What's more, you can't even get started, as to travel a certain distance, you must firstly travel half of that distance, and so on.
I always thought the reason you could never get started on the way to your goal was the 'trying to get a woman to go some place when you have been ready and waiting for ages' paradox
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
...Is this somehow parallel with how to know the exact location of a particle you must actually move the particle from that location?
If I'm understanding what I'm reading correctly, which I'm probably not, it seems that to locate a specific moment in time you have to be aware of that moment happening which takes time and thus you can't?
Actually, I'll shut up now. I'm probably just sounding stupid.
I probably shouldn't of posted this.
Me and my low self esteem.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I thought the solution to Zeno's paradox is that although you occupy an infinite series of points when you move, they can still sum to a finite distance. The Greeks may not have understood this, but this was all worked out centuries ago. By Cantor or someone.
So the author of this paper is claiming to solve a non-problem - doesn't sound very promising to me. Also, in these days of online preprint archives, why didn't the submitter link to the actual paper?
when slashcode decided to examine it.
The posting act begins when the submit button is pressed, and ends when the database updates it's article index.
All "events" have a beginning and an end. Some of them have a known duration so the delta is not noted, but it still exists.
I don't know what's so revolutionary about that stance, especially from a practical standpoint, other than maybe the "directionless" nature of time. I think that, however, is an oversimplification that fits into the author's little mental framework he wants to construct. I prefer to think of complex intervals as very small closed sets around the approximate instant. There's nothing wrong or counterintuitive about that.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
That means "Time Stand Still" really *is* a completely irrelevant tune... ;-)
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
This seems to me kind of like how you can't just find pi by measuring the circumference or a circle and dividing it by the diameter. I had always thought of this being because there is no such thing as an exact point in space, but maybe I was just misunderstanding or something. It reasons to assume that if there is no exact point in space then there is also no exact point in time.
As to the referee who stated "he author's arguments are based on profound ignorance or misunderstanding of basic analysis and calculus." He needs to understand that math doesn't work if you don't understand the physics behind. Math without physics tells me if I mix a cup of water and a cup of milk I get two cups of fluid. It just aint so.
Ever noticed how time seems to fly past when you're having fun? Or how something boring can drag out for ever? Or even better, how a workday can seemingly be endless, but a week full of them is gone boefore you knew what happened?
While it is a good while since I studied physics, it tells me that while we can make clocks that appers to measure how fast times goes, we move 'along' in time in a more haphazard fashion, slowing and accelerating as we blunder on. Time might be the diminsion thats 90 on the other three (width, depth and lenght), but we have a lot more problems determining both an objects movement in that dimension and the position in it.
In short, while some of the article went over my head (I've just gotten out of bed y'know), I think he might be on to something.
ps: It's sorta scary to see that people whos very job it is to broaden our understanding can be horrible quick to judge ("I have only read the first two sections as it is clear that the author's arguments are based on profound ignorance or misunderstanding of basic analysis and calculus. I'm afraid I am unwilling to waste any time reading further, and recommend terminal rejection."), as that will only slow down the speed we as a society learns about the world around us. Someone might be off the mark, but it's hard to decide from the first two paragrahps they write.
pps: In Terry Pratches well know discworld-series, the classical paradox is about a tortoise outrunning an arrow instead. And off course, the real question is what to do with all the tortoises on a stick the testing of that axiom gives you... ;P
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
The article is either incredibly bad journalism and way over-simplifying the paper, or else it stinks of a hoax.
"Lynds also points out that in all cases a time value represents an interval on time, rather than an instant. "For example, if two separate events are measured to take place at either 1 hour or 10.00 seconds, these two values indicate the events occurred during the time intervals of 1 and 1.99999...hours and 10.00 and 10.0099999...seconds respectively." "
This is stunningly obvious. I learnt the resolution of this, and the tortoise paradox, at age 17 in high school maths classes.
Also, why is the contact for further information an "Independent Communications Consultant"?
They guy's a collage dropout, and basically spewed a bunch of philosophical rubbish. He's either dense, or just exposing density everywhere else (i.e. trolling)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
OK, I RTFA but i didn't RTFP (paper).
The tortoise vs. Achilles paradox has not really plagued modern physics in that it is not a paradox (anymore - it might have been to the Greeks). The supposed paradox lies in the misconception that an sum with infinite terms will always yield an infinite number. This is obviously not true - As Achilles needs to traverse ever smaller distances he also does that in ever smaller amounts of time.
And the times add nicely up to a finite time - the time when he overtakes the tortoise.
The article claims that this is still a paradox. I think based on the idea in this quote:
> With some thought it should become clear that no matter how small the time
> interval, or how slowly an object moves during that interval, it is still
> in motion and it's position is constantly changing, so it can't have
> a determined relative position at any time, whether during a interval,
> however small, or at an instant. Indeed, if it did, it couldn't be in motion."
Say WHAT?!?
Please tell me why you can't have a well determined position as a function of time and be in motion as well?
He goes on to claim that uncertainties in the values of times is somehow a profound proof that no instant in time exists. Hey, you could say the same thing about the distance the poor fella has to transverse - thus spoiling the whole 'ever smaller distances' thing.
Please enlighten me.
The lack of a fundamental unit of meaning of any sort was established in the humanities long before it came into vogue in the hard sciences.
And a look at the title of the web site certaily brought to my mind Thomas Kunh's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that I happen to have sitting right next to me here.
EurekaAlert? That's a joke, right?
Huh? Broken link?! What?! How the **** could THAT site get slashdotted?!
I read about this in the newspaper and thought "wow this sounds exciting". Then I saw the actual paper. It turns out that his ideas are not fleshed out with any mathematics, so its just a philosphical position that he is taking.
I do think that time is a bit of a mystery, and its possible that that his ideas may be roughly right. It might imply that moments or "moment intervals" were some sort of fractal sets, such that a moment can never be finitely splittable (only infinitely splittable). A mathematical model that accomplished this (within the framework of currently accepted/known physics) would be remarkable.
John McTaggart proposed a similar theory in the "Nature of Existence" - written in 1921. Perhaps if physicists payed more attention to philosophy ...
..."the Achilles and the tortoise paradox, submitted to Philosophy of Science, helped explain the work. A tortoise challenges Achilles, the swift Greek warrior, to a race, gets a 10m head start, and says Achilles can never pass him. When Achilles has run 10m, the tortoise has moved a further metre. When Achilles has covered that metre, the tortoise has moved 10cm...and so on. It is impossible for Achilles to pass him. The paradox is that in reality, Achilles would easily do so." The first snapshot was when Achilles was at 10m, then after another meter (at 11m), etc... If you keep taking increasingly smaller and smaller step, your never going to reach the point in time the Achilles actually crosses the tortoise! DUH!
If someone has been aware of it, my seeming lack of qualification has sometimes been a hurdle too. I think quite a few physicists and philosophers have difficulty getting their heads around the topic of time properly as well. I'm not a big fan of quite a few aspects of academia, but I'd like to think that whats happened with the work is a good example of perseverance and a few other things eventually winning through.
Sorry for the long quote but it highlights something I've been gnashing my teeth over for a while - academia is rarely about real research these days, only chasing research funding - my entire CS Masters was about a program design paradigm with highly esoteric underpinnings and very little mathematical substance - on the other hand it was well funded!
Hence it doesn't surprise me that the research for this important and highly academic topic was done by a non-academic, and he got little or no help from the academic community.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Oh well - if there's no such thing as time I can spend as long on /. as I like. :)
Video Game cheats, hints a
Oookay... an amateur publishing in a low impact journal.
I must say I agree with the quoted referee but on the other hand I am not suprised that the article got published. Peer review system is breaking down because of the sheer volume of new articles and the low priority scientsts give to reviewing other people's papers.
BOO! TERRO
Correct me if I'm wrong here (IANAM), but didn't calculus solve this problem like, a few hundred years ago?
After reading the story, I found this theorically really interesting... And in fact I'm starting to believe he's right ;-)
/.)
... if time is continuous and that there isn't a thing like single points in time (which effectively explain some things), why do you, human, believe that we could measure single points ? Could it be that computers functions even more identically to our brain that we suspected ?
...
... :-)
Ok, let do a computer analogy (hey we're on
I mean, one of the big difference between the brain and computer, is that the computer digitalize the information, it quantify it. I thought previously that the brain functionned more in an analog mode...
But if his hypothesis is right, and if single points in time aren't a "true" reality... and are just a human point of view...
Then the fact that we function like that, is perhaps because our brain effectively "digitalize"/quantify the information, like a computer. Only that the brain "digitalize" better (ie, we don't seem to even see that it is "digitalized", we only see continuous electric signals), but in a deep real way, the brain really function like a computer : to understand the world, it quantify it. So we could have artefacts and loss of the "true" reality
And this would explain why we are then able to quantify things like the movement -- because we accept the error of our "digitalization" of the world.
It's also find an echo on the uncertainty principle of heisenberg
Wouldn't it be a funny thing if we realize that we function like a computer and we approximize the real world, and not only the real world (after all we know that our senses are prone to error), but that this quantification of the world affect deeply the way we consider/understand the universe itself ?
I just let out the "nastiest,longest, most putrid smelling" of farts in a long time.
So if there were a moment in time that would be it.
Trust me... friends were there they can testify
Not sanitized for your protection, you insestuious clod
Well time need not exist if you imagine an infinite number of parallel universes all of which sucedd each other to give the "illusion" of time.
Wanted : A Signature.
d0h. mistake. try this.
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/0 2/Zeno's_Paradoxes_-_A_Timely_Solution.pdf
/. ed
It may not be the same paper that will be published in Foundation of Physics Letter in August. But it is a complete paper on Peter Lynds' discussion on Zeno's Paradox.
Get it before it's
It seems to me that the absence of an instant in time illustrates that there's no such thing as a physical progression or flow of time. Without a continuous progression through definite instants over an extended interval, there can't really be any progression.
That sounds kinda counter-intuitive, but it's exactly what's required by nature to enable time (relative interval as indicated by a clock), motion and the continuity of a physical process to be possible.
Anyway, cool stuff. I hope we'll hear more about this in the future.
I would have thought that Quantum uncertainty would have made it obvious that time doesn't have definite intervals. It's pretty much the same argument to say that you don't know exactly where something is at a specific 'moment' in time as it is to say that you can't specifically determint the 'moment' at which it was exactly there.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/02/ Zeno's_Paradoxes_-_A_Timely_Solution.pdf
:)
Just in case anyone actually wants to read it before commenting.
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Jeesh! Go easy on the poor guy...
Lesson in etiquette & persuasion: First thank him for whatever his site provides, express concern about it being down, then say how much you truly looking forward to it coming back online.
A little kindness, tact, and appreciation can often get you further than whining and bitching. As an aside, if you want to insult someone, the tactful clever way to do it is to be sly: insinuate the insult rather than just shouting something like "you're an obnoxious jackass."
Wouldn't now be considered a single instant in time?
Time is a subjective illusion caused by motion of particles and differences of state in two non-simultaneous observations. So, why should there be a "dimension" consisting of time, as it is merely a subjective concept (although handy in physics)?
pdf
What's described in the article all seems pretty straightforward and already well understood. Either the article is outright lying about this "bold paper" being published in the "Foundations of Physics Letters", or august is a really slow month and they needed some amusing filler...
That's just what I was about to say!
Doesn't the term unit define a unit in time?
"Derp de derp."
In typical slashdot fashion, there are a LOT of replies saying the guy is a crackpot, has repeating the obvious, doesn't understand anything, etc etc.
Well, I read the article very carefully (the grammar sucked), and did my damnest to understand, and I think he's on to something.
So here's a challenge for all the people commenting: if he's a crackpot, explain how, in full and precise detail. (For bonus points, use better grammar than the article.) If you think he's stating the obvious, then explain why; while you're doing that, explain why so very many "important" people apparently didn't know that.
All the retards gather together and appoint themselves a new King Retard.
Next up: There is no stupidest person; there is always somebody stupider, ergo, there is no such thing as stupidity.
when I saw the photo on the web page, I thought he was hitting a bong!
"There's a sucker born every minute." ;>
In science the burden of proof is on you. If you can't make your case so that you peers can readily understand the evidence your work will most likely be disqualified with comments like those he got from the referee.
You may be 100% right but if your paper is confusing, uses unorthodox terminology and contains crap figures you can bet that the referee is going to disqualify it. This guy should have co-authored the paper with a professional scientist who knows the proper language and the way to present new ideas. And this attitude is not elitism. Science must be ultraconservative to keep the crackpots out. And unlike the crackpots would like to believe, given enough time and attempts to push a new revolutionary theory through (not by one person but by many) it will eventually be accepted as the proof for it accumulates.
BOO! TERRO
The journal's site is here, though the August (autumn) issue isn't yet available online.
Some significant red flags here. First and most obvious is the wunderkind's lack of training and (presumed) familiarity with established concepts of physics and contemporary research. This isn't a deal-breaker, of course, but it's worth remembering. I'd love to see untrained theorists challenging - successfully - old-guard physicists with some astounding new insights, but I don't think that's happening here.
Wheeler's one-word endorsement - "boldness" - isn't ringing, and the bit about his age (he's 27) is irrelevant.
From a referee: "I have only read the first two sections as it is clear that the author's arguments are based on profound ignorance or misunderstanding of basic analysis and calculus. I'm afraid I am unwilling to waste any time reading further, and recommend terminal rejection." Ouch with a capital 'O'. There's no maths even referred to in this article, either, which I'd like to see.
"Lynds says that the paradoxes arose because people assumed wrongly that objects in motion had determined positions at any instant in time, thus freezing the bodies motion static at that instant and enabling the impossible situation of the paradoxes to be derived." This hasn't really been a problem since quantum indeterminacy.
From a "prominent Oxford mathematician": "A prominent Oxford mathematician commented, "It's as astonishing, as it is unexpected, but he's right." Unnamed source. HUGE red flag.
Within a quote: "Naturally the parameter and boundary of their respective position and magnitude are naturally determinable up to the limits of possible measurement as stated by the general quantum hypothesis and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but this indeterminacy in precise value is not a consequence of quantum uncertainty." He gives no alternative explanation for the origins of this 'indeterminacy.' Up to this point the article's summary has proceeded along basic Planck/Heisenberg lines. There's really nothing new here, except the (in this article) unsupported assertion of a new form of indeterminacy that's not related to quantum effects on measurement.
"Lynds continues that the cosmological proposal of imaginary time also isn't compatible with a consistent physical description, both as a consequence of this, and secondly, "because it's the relative order of events that's relevant, not the direction of time itself, as time doesn't go in any direction." Consequently it's meaningless for the order of a sequence of events to be imaginary, or at right angles, relative to another sequence of events. When approached about Lynds' arguments against his theory, Hawking failed to respond." Ignores Feynman's 'arrow of time' characterization of antimatter as equivalent to matter moving in time-opposite fashion. Also ignores simple observation that time does, in fact, appear to move in one direction. In a layman's article it would be good to mention Lynds' explanation for this, if he has one. If he doesn't, well... And Hawking 'refused to respond' to whom? To Lynds? To the author? On what questions? In what timeframe? A phone call during dinner from Australia? Red flag.
"Although Lynds remembers being frustrated with Grigson, and once standing at a blackboard explaining how simple it was and telling him to "hurry up and get it", Lynds says that, unlike some others, Prof. Grigson was still encouraging and would always make time to talk to him, even taking him into the staff cafeteria so they could continue talking physics." Seriously big red flag. 'Hurry up and get it'? Sounds like high school bong-water theorizing.
"Although still controversial, judging by the response it has already received from some of science's leading lights, Lynds' work seems likely to establish him as a groundbreaking figure in respect to increasing our understanding of time in physics. It a
Ah... so the human brain's "frequency" can be changed on the run like that of a P-IV? Excellent. Now, my second question is: how can I overclock my brain?
BOO! TERRO
This article was posted on fark sometime between 0.99999... and 1.0 weeks ago.
(via google cache) http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:philsci-archi ve.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/02/Zeno%27s_Paradoxes _-_A_Timely_Solution.pdf
If motion is the definition for the delta in position that is occured in a delta time, you can argue that on a given time T you are on position P and on another given time T' you are on position P'. If you take the snapshot at position P at time T, there seems to be no motion. This is correct, since there is no delta T, so there can't be any motion.
When you define time as something that can't be measured in a single unit, i.e. there can't be a definition for a time T, there always will be motion when you try to reach the time T you otherwise would have defined when time would have been measurable in a single unit
The paradoxes that are tried to be solved are word-games. If you simply use every day highschool physics math, you can calculate exactly when Achilles will overtake the turtle and even the spot. Because the reality is not in sync with the paradox, the paradox contains a flaw. It's thus not about solving some physics problem, but a problem with words that's embedded inside the paradox.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
In my reading of his autobiographical, "Surely you are joking Mr Feynman?" I read some implied criticisms of Wheeler. I remember a chapter from this book where Wheeler and Feynman were going to address a small seminar of big brains at the Institute for Advanced Studies, at Princeton, where Einstein was a fellow. This was while Feynman was still a grad student, and Wheeler was his thesis supervisor. IIRC Feynman was nervous about addressing one theoretical aspect of the problem. Wheeler told him to address all the other aspects of the problem, and he would handle the part that made the tricky bit.
When it came time to give the presentation Feynman gives his portion of the presentation, but Wheeler begs off, saying he isn't quite ready, but he expects to complete a paper about it Real Soon Now.
I guess this is the Institute for Advanced Studies equivalent of "the dog ate my homework".
After the seminar Wolfgang Pauli took Feynman aside, and asked him if he could tell him anything about Wheeler's paper. Feynman said he couldn't, that Wheeler hadn't told him anything. IIRC, Pauli said something like, "He hasn't even told his own grad student about his ideas? That paper will never be written."
And it never was.
At least that is how I remember that chapter.
[offtopic]
I'm shocked with the replies to this article. Yes, I haven't read them all, but all the ones I've seen are offtopic.
How can a moderator work in this environment?
[/offtopic]
Einstein was a patent clerk when he came up with E=MC^2. Fuck the formal qualification crap. That's not important. What's important here is the insight. The mediocre achievers with their PhDs and years of theoretical background will make incremental steps forward, but it the intuitively gifted person who will turn the world upside-down (and quickly I hope because it's a damn cold winter here in NZ). Damn... you pedantic assholes who think someone can't possibly be right because of a lack of your type of formal education really piss me off. Maybe he's wrong. The article was about as clear as mud and I read it twice. Slowly. But to simply state that he's wrong because he is not 'qualified' to be smarter than you is just plain stupid.
let me state for the record that my educational background in no way qualifies me to register opinions on the foundations of physics, but niether did Lynd's and look at all the hoopla he's raising.
this line caught my attention:
Lynds' solution to all of the paradoxes lay in the realisation of the absence of an instant in time underlying a bodies motion and that its position was constantly changing over time and never determined. He comments, "With some thought it should become clear that no matter how small the time interval, or how slowly an object moves during that interval, it is still in motion and it's position is constantly changing, so it can't have a determined relative position at any time, whether during a interval, however small, or at an instant. Indeed, if it did, it couldn't be in motion."
well, duh! that's because to determine if something is in motion you need at least two "samples" of information, namely, the positions at times t and t1. an instant in time would be represented by a number with an infinite amount of digits after the decimal place, such as pi seconds. one instant in time is not enough to take two "samples" and thus, not enough to determine whether something is moving relative to the observer. at an instant in time, there is no motion relative to the observer. it's like putting the pause button on the universe.
furthermore, just because it is impossible to determine the position of a moving body at a given instant in time between t and t1, does not mean that at that instant it didn't have a determined position. this is a problem of epistemology disguised as a revolution in physics.
I doubt Lynds will be remembered a la Zeno et al. 2500 years from now for reasking the question of what's divisible and what's not. I'm really quite surprised at the underratedness of this newsitem, for having been out on the press for at least a month now.
. of note: the original paper is not linked to, and the entry was created by Lynds himself.
And isn't "Independent Communications Consultant" just another way to say "we ran out of real material so we just took the next freelance writer's submission?" (ok, i'm sorry, that was flamebait)
here's a link to the sequel to Lynd's paper discussed in the article: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/
while i tend to think that open information initiatives like MIT's DSpace (dspace.org) are great and wonderful things, papers that have not undergone rigorous peer review, like this one, tend to bring me back to reality.
but hey, i'm happy he's being published somewhere and that people aren't rudely rejecting him. i can very much believe the claim that the work deals with the philosophical nature of science, but don't go trying to push the mathematics of something like this through a university department.
and time, like the previous 3 dimensions, can be described as being an axis along which one travels in the 4th dimension. if time is not a physical quantity, or at least discretely described, then neither are any of the quantities in the previous 3, and then oh no, what's the use of living? [/rant]
The reason I'm making this post is that I want to point out one thing. Alot of times, when mods, myself included (I metamod about three times a day), come across an article that ranges beyond or above our understanding of a topic, its hard to make a decision as to whether or not something is "informative", like in this article, where I see one post supporting the theory modded informative, and one post criticsing the theory also modded informative. This is physics, people, not YRO. You're either right or wrong in this case. Please do some basic research, please, before modding a post up, just because it sounds intelligent and is well written.
Btw, for all the detractors, this paper was originally published in a European Physics Journal, and most papers submitted to said journals undergo stringent review before being published as fact. This kid is getting supporters in all the right places, and you'll notice that many of his detractors tend to be the type of people who were still arguing the Earth was flat back in the 1800's. Some people just don't want to change, and many of these people are also detractors of Superstring Theory, and are apparently comfortable in dealing with the conflict between quantum mechanics and the theories of general and special relativity.
Another thing I'd like to point out are some of the problems this guy has had getting this paper to light, and receiving the help he deserved from memebers of academia, because of his lack of academic credentials. This is, to a degree, still going on right now. People need to realize that this guy is taking a lot of flak from various experts simply because he doesn't meet their academic pedigree.
Some "experts" need to be reminded that once upon a time someone wrote a very special paper, also widely denounced, also widely refuted for a while. And that person wasn't a department head at a prestigous university, nor was he being funded by wealthy patrons to run his own lab. He worked at a patent office.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
The thing is, you might "solve" Zeno's paradox as much as you want by referring to examples, but most attempts at attacking Zeno's paradox via "logical" examples doesn't do anything to explain it, but merely points at motions and declares the matter solved.
Look at your answer again - you just restated the paradox
If you keep taking increasingly smaller steps, you will never reach your goal.
That is the core of the paradox: During the race, you will always have an infinite number of "half-distances" left.
Yet, the paradox as stated is correct in stating that to move from point A to B (provided they are not the same :), you have to cover every "half-distance" in between - an infinite number of them.
So how do you prove that covering an infinite number of half distance is possible to do in finite time?
That's where the aforementioned limits of infinite series comes in.
Today, this is pretty basic maths, but it had people stumped for a proof for more than two thousand years.
There are actually 3 states.
#1. Runner gaining on turtle.
#2. Runner and turtle at the same point.
#3. Runner ahead of turtle.
Now, because we don't have a smallest unit of distance or a smallest unit of time, our graphs of #1 show an curve with the asymptote being #2.
This is a "paradox" only because we can conceive of time divisions of hundreds of thousanths of millionths of billionths of a second and fractions of an inch that are just as small.
It wasn't possible to tell when, exactly, he passes the turtle because it assumed that time could be divided small enough and that objects were discrete enough.
The paper has been published in Foundation of Physics Letters. This journal doe not have a good reputation. The Editor in Chief of the Letters is listed as a member of the infamous AIAS. Read here and here. and links therein. In particular read this paper. Chances are that indeed the "Zeno paper" is a disinfo paper. ark
This should have been the: Why-Didn't-I-Think-Of-That-Dept. Doh!
What a crappy paper. Even this single line doesn't tell us ANYTHING about Hawkings position on this matter, but somehow makes him look bad. Good thing he didn't even care to respond.
Heck, I even have this feeling that the author of this page is somehow reffering to Hawkings diability in responding vocally. What a shame.
sho nuff
Zeno's paradox is no paradox, if you understand elementary mathematics like the convergence of series. Any undergrad maths student is able to comprehend this.
It's pretty strange that somebody who fails in basic maths should have developed a new theory of Einstein level. Well, and for any knee-jerk physicist reactions: Einstein did understand math very well. Although we wasn't able to create the needed mathematical theories (Riemannian geometry and affine connections) himself, he had to rely on Riemann and Cartan for this.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
With this theory, I can now safely ignore my alarm clock tomorrow. In fact I won't set it at all. I will simply mathematically contract my working week to zero, and expand my weekend to 168 hours.
I only hope my boss 'gets' the article.
Sounds like "Thief of Time" by Terry Pratchett to me... in that book a guy tries to build a clock that will run on the 'tick' of the universe -- absolute time if you will. However, in building it he manages to stop time short, effectively, as Pratchett puts it, 'sticking an iron bar between the cogs of time'
Because it seems to unify micro and macro world?
--
www.soundclick.com/bands/6/northwestmusic.htm
A man is walking a distance of 100 miles at 5 mph. We take a snapshot a 1 second, then at 1.1 seconds, then 1.11 seconds, etc... Does the man reach his goal: yes. But do we ever get a snapshot of him reaching his goal: no. Does that imply he never gets there: NO IT DOES NOT.
Just because you read each page of a book slower than you read the page before, such that you practically never reach the last page doesn't mean the last page doesn't exist, nor does it imply a paradox.
You have the tortoise, you have Achilles, and you also have a rock which is between Achilles and the tortoise. In order to move 'infinitely close' to the tortus, Achilles needs to pass the rock, which is (say) 3 meters behind the tortoise. But doesn't the paradox also apply to Achilles and the rock? Doesn't it apply to all pairs of objects?
Of the paradox had any validity at all, then no motion whatsoever could ever happen. Obviously that's not the case.
At some point, Achilles is on the other side of the tortoise, whether or not he ever has the same position is irrelevant.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Since my first post which was a joke got moderated troll, i will help the moderators out by posting the quite obvious links one gets when they type the name peter lynds into google.
The source that everyone keeps getting this article from is a self published online journal, meaning noone has read it or reviewed it, the author just submitted it himself.
There is a certain anti intellectualism that runs through slashdot sometimes that i find disturbing.
I will concede that it might, just might be legit, but the markers are all there for a hoax.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that a mathematical physics model can accurately explain Zeno's paradox as well as a philosophical explanation can.
This is going to be a bit long, so bear with me.
First of all, as others have said here, the solution to Zeno's paradox has been discussed at length and largely agreed to be this.
The idea here is that you can have a functon that describes distance covered over some arbitrary time interval. The point is that you must be able to describe a time interval.
Our amateur physicist is claiming that in fact you can't describe an arbitrary time interval because there is no such thing-- there is only an infinite set of time and that once you pick an arbitrary interval out of that set, you're not talking about a moving object but rather an arbitrary point in space as well. That is, you can't pick out an arbitrary point or interval in time and still be talking about motion or distance outside of that interval, and, in the case of Zeno's paradox, you have to 'unfreeze' time to watch the race continue, in which case your runner is back to having to cover an infinite distance.
What I'm saying is that physics has described a mathematical, theoretical solution to the paradox. What it has not done is provide a solution which is intuitive to the spirit of the paradox.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself that the mathematical solution is a very intuitive solution-- after all, if I go to watch a race between a tortoise and Achilles, I'm sure to see Achilles leave that turtle in the dust, and now it's nice that I have a physics solution that explains what I see. You'd be correct! But here's where I make my claim, and I know it's very strange.
A sentence in the article that caught my eye the most is this one:
"There's no such thing as an instant in time or present moment in nature. It's something entirely subjective that we project onto the world around us. That is, it's the outcome of brain function and consciousness."
We're taught from all directions in Western society that math and physics and the sciences are objective, and things in the humanities are subjective. I suggest that the opposite is true, for certain technical definitions of subjective and objective.
My claim is that it is the sciences which are subjective descriptions of the world, and that subject-less, non-located descriptions are objective. Science relies on measurement and mathematics to get anywhere, but measurement and math are subject dependent. You cannot measure what you cannot experience. Yes, that includes your instruments.
In the case of this amateur phyisicst's work, he is making a claim about the world that attempts to describe things from a non-subjective perspective. His claim is essentially, I think, rather intuitive and obvious. His claim is just that it is us, as subjects, we project time intervals on a universe in which they may not really exist-- that is, time is not objectively quantifiable because objective quantification implies no people around to do the quantification, which means that there aren't any physicists to use mathematics to describe their reality.
While to most philosophers this sort of claim is routine, most physicists and mathematicians are aghast at the suggestion that their science is essentially dependent on the experience they have as subjects. I think that even though some physicists are starting to take note of this, it won't do much to hurt physics (nor should it), nor will it invalidate arguments and proofs which already deal with Zeno's paradox (nor should it). What I hope that it will do, however, is make some of the more arrogant physicists who have a large chip on their shoulder (Hi, Alan Sokal!) understand that they are not the keepers of objective world views, and that the work they do is just as subjective as any other human endeavour.
Regards,
Edward
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/information.html
Here is the paper (in PDF format)
so i do
you are a monster!
So how do we define "now"?
Omnis amans amens
Hmm.
When I take a photo of some moving objects, ain't I getting a snapshot of their positions at one instant of time?
Thought this would a good thread to post some
x xx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-ph/0307345
other recent physics news...
1. The've just found a pentaquark state.
The rule in quark theory and QCD (the theory of
the 'color' force that binds quarks), is that
quarks always come in triplets or quark anti-quark pairs. Haven't never seen a free quark, theres always been a little nagging doubt that
quark are real. So that fact that they have found
a suprisingly (for QCD resonances) long lived state that can only be make of 5 quarks, the Z+ at 1540Mev, which made of two up quarks, two down quarks and an anti-strange
quark. It was previously predicted by QCD, and is a classic example of the exception proving the rule.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-ex/0307088
http://
Dark Matter, after 10 years of searching theres
finally for faint experiment signals that dark
matter exists. This was been found because two experiments looking for collisions between WIMPs
and cold crystals have found significantly more
signal when at time of the year then the earth
is moving against the motion of the galaxies
spiral arm, than when its moving towards it.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0307403
I don't get it. Is this saying that one cannot determine an exact moment in time. What if I travel into the future. Would I not be traveling to an exact moment in time? Is this theory saying that I cannot do that, or only that I could not determine the exact moment that I will travel to, but only an approximation of that?
Also what happens if I exist outside of space time, and I need to find something inside space time. It would not be enough to only know the exact physical location of the obect, buecause it will probably only exist there for a very small period of time. The object may only exist in a location for a tenth of a second, so I would need a way to define that exact point in all of time. Is this saying that I can't do that?
Read the article, please. The article refers to this paper: "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity"
You linked to a follow-up paper that focuses on Lynds's so-called solution to Zeno's paradoxes. By the way, what is the point of linking to the Google cache when the original PDF is still available?
To the best of my understanding time is a two different things, a coordinate on a 4 dimentional plane used to map a specific spacial anomily at any given momemt(moment being subjective and relitive)the second being a mesurement of liniar existence in a human mindset. What they seem to be doing in this article is nitpicking on simple constants such as they fact that units of mesurement can be broken down infinately, all he is doing is creating a need for a more complicated mapping/update which can be already extrapolated through deviding the mean locations of the object by two larger time units (second #1 divided by second #2 will give location of object in seconds #1.5 through mean change in latitude\longitude) whup didly do! anyway time to pretend to work enough rambling for me, and yes my spelling is poor, I know this.
Whats A sig anyway
It seems pretty clear to me that the zeno paradox is not a paradox at all but just our inability to intuitively solve maths with infinite terms. It reminds me of those visual illusion drawings that cause our brains to make sense of things in a missleading way. Check it out.
At the same time, this does not disprove his paper since the article, is not well writen enough to be useful in determining the validity of this work.
Liberty.
The attached picture has a young man eating noodles, or something similar. The article is not actually printed, but references to how wonderful it is are printed, without proof. These paradoxes have been explored (though perhaps not refuted per se) using this guy's thoughts many times over by now.
At one point in time Einstein was an unqualified patent clerk. Many years later, he is finally awarded a Nobel prize, because one of his three main discoveries was finally within the certain appraisal of his peers.
Interestingly, at no point in time were Einstein's qualifications equal to his peers'. He managed to pass the Achilles' Academy at a non-instant of time.
I don't understand this concept of indeterminate relationship. It strikes me that his claim boils down to saying that time and motion are not possible unless you regard the set of physical relationships as constituting an uncountable infinity.
But what is the big deal with that? R is uncountable on an open interval, but it still retains a fully ordered relationship.
Zeno's paradox functions because it forces you to analyze time as if it could be mapped onto a countable set (halving interval N).
That said, I don't regard time as a well defined physical quantity. Einstein proved long ago that time does not function as a simple ordering relationship. Yet the only reason I can see that we use the abstraction of time is to suggest that physical ordering relationships exist.
I tend to view physics as having a trinary logic: true, false, and ungrantable. A foundation for physics which was formally non-predictive (lacking a human interpretation of time) would certainly belong to the last bucket, for as long as time remains a proxy of human purpose.
But I have Karma to burn ;)
/. crowd a useful source of information on the entire subject of time (so that this article isn't entirely pointless), I would like to point out the Scientific American issue entirely devoted to the subject. Specifically, the September 2002 Special Issue _A Matter Of Time_ was excellent, and I would highly recommend reading the same to anyone interested in the scientific, or physilogical basis of time. For those of you that have a subscription to the Scientific American Archive (either personal or through your college) heres the direct link to that issue.
So getting back to the topic. From the comments that are here so far it seems that the article and conclusions are of questionable origin and merits, so in an effort to give all the
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
Your post is nonsensical. How can you speak of non-simultaneous observations and at the same time (no pun...) refer to time as a subjective illusion? Are you talking about "the flow of time in one direction"?
There can be no useful distinction between what is "really real" and what models seem to match our sensory data. For example, in string theory you use multi-dimensional membranes where different vibrational harmonics represent different elementary particles. Is this just a practical mathematical model or do these membranes really exist? The question is meaningless. "Das Ding an sich", as postulated by Kant is meaningless.
In quantum mechanics particles and energy can interact over small distances of time (see the Heisenberg uncertainty principle), just as they interact over small distances of space. Also in the theory of relativity time and space are handled almost identically by the equations with the speed of light, c, being just a convertional factor between distances in time and distances in space (almost like converting between meters and feet).
Thus both our best physics models of the world and our subjective understanding of time wants to treat it like a separate real dimension (not a SciFi dimension that you walk through, but a mathematical dimension - a separate orthogonal axis). What further criterions for something "existing" can you have?
The flow of time seems to be purely an illusion though.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
by the lack of brilliance that this guy shows us in his paper. I thought everyone knew that a so-called "instant in time" was taking that 1/t as t approaches infinity. It's no more than a concept. That's why we call it a "continuum". All of these "big ideas" about relative states of matter that cause micro states to relate to macro systems are dealt with by relativistic theories. That's it, no more time to waste on this. And yes, I'm still not disillusioned with NTP services just yet. Bozos.
"There's no such thing as an instant in time or present moment in nature. It's something entirely subjective that we project onto the world around us. That is, it's the outcome of brain function and consciousness." ...
"With some thought it should become clear that no matter how small the time interval, or how slowly an object moves during that interval, it is still in motion and it's position is constantly changing, so it can't have a determined relative position at any time, whether during a interval, however small, or at an instant. Indeed, if it did, it couldn't be in motion."
This guy likes to refrain from using the term "instant in time", yet he has no problem speaking of "time intervals". Somehow I find that odd. Furthermore, motion is connected to time intervals and limits, to speak of velocity at an instant is meaningless unless you connect it to time intervals, space intervals and the limit as time goes to zero.
If you take the starting point of Wesley C. Salmon (referred to in the article):
Motion consists not of traversing an infinitesimal distance in an infinitesimal time(...), it consists of the occupation of a unique position at each given instant of time.
Then other interpretations are possible. The question is: Why should we take this view of the world? What arguments are there for this (I find none in the article), and what benefit does it provide?
For instance, I could go back to the onthologic theories of Empedokles (Earth, Water, Air and Fire), and apply the motion principles of Aristoteles, but what god would it do as a scientific tool? As onthology it could work, but as a scientific basis it doesnt. In my mind this "paper" deals too much with onthology than physics, and it is a shame if it has been accepted in a peer reviewed physics journal.
This dude is NOT claiming that the standard solutions to these paradoxes aren't right. He's saying that they are mathematical tools that provide the right answer by using infinitesmals, convergent series, etc. He then claims that despite the usefulness of these tools, the world does not work in this way. This guy's setting forth an alternate way to resolve these paradoxes without depending on the "infinitesmal" idea. Of course, his way happens to chuck calculus and much of analysis, etc., out the window as well, at least as a tool for use in physics. Still, he's just trying out a different conception of the problem of motion. He shouldn't be castigated for this, as long as he follows it through in a rigorous way (which he hasn't done in his paper). What he needs to do, though, is find a physical problem that standard methods *don't* work with, and show that his conceptualization does better. This is what earned Einstein (relativity) and Feynman (path integrals) their true geek-laurels. He does mention that one reflection of this quality of time would be the fact that you can't precisely determine *any* time-dependent quantity. Seems like something testable here somewhere, perhaps. I'm not up on the research, but does anyone know if there has been related work in the area of quantum time?
W = (-president)^1/2
Can't you just do a proof by contradiction?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Of course, today we know that matter is not infinitely divisable, but that was Zeno's point! You cannot have a continuous function in real life and divide it into discrete segments! In fact, 'poor Zeno' was well ahead of his time, not only arguing against infinitely divisible, but also touching on Relativity! His 'stadium' paradox of two bodies of objects passing each other essencially begs the solution of Special Relatively.
In the archilles paradox, the runner will always have further to go. If time and space can be divided into discrete slices, then the runner will have to transverse an infinite number of slices to get to his destination, which is impossible. Infinity isn't a number, it's a position which is unreachable through finite additions. Therefore, the runner cannot overtake the tortoise, because he has to go through and infinite amount of 'time-slices' to get there. The solution in the article is that time is continuous; there cannot be a discrete slice of time, only a duration of time between two points.
I wouldn't let the bozo (pictured in the article) near my grandfather clock.
...
Just *what* does the imbecile think he's doing? Bloody vandal.
The real questions in physics are
Do Quantum Mechanics charge more by the hour than Classical Mechanics?
Do they work weekends?
Can they fix my TV?
siggy played guitar
The 'solution' seems a little obvious, too. I mean, I see where he's coming from, but the solution, seems, well, odd for something of such proclaimed import. The paper seems to be saying that you cannot take an instance of time in real life, just a specific interval.
Unless I'm missing something, that's something that's really quite obvious- I mean, exact measurement is obviously impossible in the real world. Everything's going to have an error ratio. Besides, Planck specifically put a lower limit on the duration of time possible to observe. Infinitely divisible reality is a discredited ancient greek theory, and something that Zeno's paradoxes specifically discredit.
I personally can't see any difference between Zeno's implication that time and space cannot be infinitely divided, and this new paper that seems to just proclaim what Zeno was implying all along.
Yes! In order to quantify time, you must be able to stop it and look at it as an instance. But it is a constant flow, not a series of instances. Simple if you can admit static math can not handle this.
the guy is NOT saying that there is no such thing as an INTERVAL of time, rather that there is no such thing as an INSTANT in time
Zenon's (sp?) paradoxes was taught to me even in (similar to) high school by my teacher. He wrote down a lot of paradoxes, but all from the same basic principle: divide something in infinite small pieces. You'll get an infinite amount of them. Summing these infinite numbers (which is impossible), you can't get the finite number back.
Now Zenon didn't have the concept of infinitisemal calculus (please someone, correct my English here as it is not my native language), so he did it all wrong. Thanks to Newton and friends, today we know how to handle these sums and they lay out the groundwork of integrals in elementary calculus.
Here's a home work for you! Why is it that you only require a finite force to throw an object off the planet? Since gravitation stretches out in inifinity, you would expect your object to gradually turn back at some part in time, wouldn't you? The answer is no! There is something called 'escape velocity' and once you reach that speed, you won't ever be pulled back. (Well, unless you collide with something, of course.)
You can calculate this velocity yourself, it isn't even hard -- but it is an infinite sum with a finite result, just the ones Zenon couldn't cope with.
Well in order to solve Zeno's paradox etc. the classical way, you have to suppose the validity and applicability of calculus, especially the summing of inifite series. At the same time, calculus is ensured by its application to physics. There's no way (except philosphy) around this interdependency.
This guy seems to have found a way around the use of the infinitely small quantities calculus deals with. So his approach might be valuable in giving a different approach to the mathematics behind physics, and therefore yielding a new perspective on physics. The article doesn't say that he's getting different results, only the means of getting there is different.
So this might well provide physics with a new set of tools to solve problems, just as Newton's and Leibniz' introduction of infinitesimal calculus did.
Disclaimer: I'm a physicist and I was always wondering why nobody had ever suggested a mathematical approach to physics different from the usual calculus. So I'm kinda sympathetic with this.
So here's how I see it:
This guy is doing the same thing Wolfram is doing, which is trying to construct a new set of rules which govern physics. The reason there is any resistance is because physics (especially classical) is quite simple and beautiful. People are unwilling to budge from their comfortable mindsets.
The thing is, there can be many ways of interpreting physics. I like to think of the universe as a chess game. It has its rules, but in the context of our universe, there are infinite implementations. A rook in the game can NEVER tell whether it is on a physical chess board or in a computer program or just an R on a page. In the context of the chess game, the rules (physics) for the rook will be the same.
As long as Mr. Wolfram and Mr. Lynds can make predictions as accurately as the current model of physics, they should be taken seriously. If they can make better predictions, or predict things that generally accepted physics cannot, then we should start questioning what we think we know more.
Physics: Making the universe open source.
Terry Bisson has already explored this area with a funny bit of short fiction.
Quantum theory does not talk about macroscopic world. This is one of the contradictions between Quantum and Relativistic mechanics.
His theory seems to bridge that exact gap.
Ignores Feynman's 'arrow of time' characterization of antimatter as equivalent to matter moving in time-opposite fashion.
:) but if anyone can explain it, I'm listening.
I'm no physics professor, and I know I'm driving with abandon towards the border of off-topic, but I have a really hard time swallowing that anti-matter could be time-reversed matter. I'll agree it looks neat and tidy on a Feynmann diagram, but think about how the world would look to the anti-particle for a moment. Gravity would be a repulsive force, like-charged particles would attract each other (what would they do when they meet?) and which way would entropy go?
Sorry, but in my mind, it just ain't happening. Same goes for using photons as the carrier for the the electromagnetic force. Sure, you can have the full spectrum of virtual photons shooting off in all directions from charged particles, and blinking out when their energy-time quota is up (which would give an inverse-square distribution, if you go by photon-count and ignore momentum...) but how would the photon know what charge it's originater had? Oh, and with those popular charged black holes, how whould the virtual photons carrying the force escape?
So I'm only a fool, asking fools question (and this being slashdot, a fool among many
I agree that most people with a technical background will feel somehow disturbed by this concept of non finite time. Time is something that most civilisations have held dear for millenia as it provides a backbone of structure to the orderly progression of our society and lives. Even our languages have large parts of them devoted to time. What occured to me though, is that all our measurments of time are based on events and sequences thereof - Sunrise, midday, sunset, the arms of a clock moving around a dial, etc. For us, it seems, we have no concept of time itself.
An interesting collolary can be found in the Hopi language of the Hopi indians. As far as I can tell, their language has no concept of time as we know it in ours and seems to perceive everything in their worldview as in a constant state of change.
and for more mind breaking arguments about time and the rest of reality you might want to read
"Fabric of Reality" by David Deautsch
Time isnt a succession of instants? This is not a problem for physicists, it is a question only of the word time. It is undeniable that a thing is in one place at one moment, and later at another. Time is the seperation between events, and this seperation does exist, as evidenced by these letters appearing sequentially rather than all in one point. It seems that while this person has managed to get his paper noticed, he has no understanding whatsoever of what an "instant" actually is. Of course things appear motionless in an instant- take away height and depth and you have noting left but everything being made up of single lines. Does this mean that the individual lines do not exist? They exist as part of the whole, and are meaningless by themselves, but they exist.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Any one that writes 1.999... instead of 2 probably doesn't know what he's talking about. If those numbers weren't equal the following would not hold: 0.333... * 3 = 1/3 * 3 = 0.999... = 1 , and mathematics would indeed be a strange place.
If there's no such thing as a moment, doesn't that suggest that we aren't, in fact, trapped in a computer simulation?
> a known effect in physic is that the observator modify what he observes ...
It depends on how you define "system". We do not know *anything* about the rules governing an observer outside our universe.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
10.00999... = 10.00(9) = 10.01
Is that what he meant or am I missing something?
Einstein on Time
"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
This "paradox" only considers one half of the equation. They cut space in half, but mke no mention of time. To move one meter in one second (from point A to point B) you must fist move half a meter in half a second, and before that one quarter of a meter in one quarter of a second.....
Now that you put time in, it makes sense and is not a paradox at all.
They are logical constructs of our consciousness.
The notion of time and space dimensions as real number lines (or rays to be more accurate) from 0 to infinity is just a model that has served science well so far to explain most phenomena. Remember that real numbers = rational numbers + irrational numbers where the latter are expressible as limits of infinite progressions of sets constructed from rational numbers (Dedekind's theory of real numbers.)
It is entirely possible that a theory that excludes irrational numbers and considers time or space dimensions as derived in some fashion only from rational numbers may be able to resolve the singularity and divergence problems that crop up in physics theories.
0.(9) == 1.
... really simple math.
A 0 followed by an infinity of 9s is equal to 1
typical man
One of the basic tenets of modern physics is that time is a dimension like all other dimensions. If this guy is right, that you cannot determine your position in time, then that's a fundamental difference between time and other dimensions!
Or is this simply some sort of extension of the Heisenberg principle?
Clear, Dark Skies
So there's infinite points of time from one event to the next, just like there's infinite points in a line from one end to the other. Shouldn't be a big suprise.
Just quickly scanning it, two things seemed suspicious (apart, obviously, from the content):
bla
How is this resolved by Lynds?
> Much to the science world's astonishment, the work also appears to provide solutions to Zeno of Elea's famous motion paradoxes, almost 2500 years after they were originally conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher.
Zeno's paradoxes were solved three hundred years ago using calculus. Interested readers should refer to basic high school or college physics.
> In doing so, its unlikely author, who originally attended university for just 6 months, is drawing comparisons to Albert Einstein
Drawing comparisons of a college drop-out to Albert Einstein? Why does that remind me of this guy?
> This is contrast to being sniggered at by local physicists when he originally approached them with the work, and once aware it had been accepted for publication, one informing the journal of the author's lack of formal qualification in an attempt to have them reject it.
They all laughed at Albert Einstein. They all laughed at Columbus. Unfortunately, they also all laughed at Bozo the Clown.
> A number of other outstanding issues to do with time in physics are also addressed, including cosmology and an argument against the theory of Imaginary time by British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking... Another impressed with the work is Princeton physics great, and collaborator of both Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman, John Wheeler, who said he admired Lynds' "boldness", while noting that it had often been individuals Lynds' age that "had pushed the frontiers of physics forward in the past."
The theory isn't any more credible by spouting big names. This is getting more laughable than Alex Chiu now.
> In contrast, an earlier referee had a different opinion of the controversial paper. "I have only read the first two sections as it is clear that the author's arguments are based on profound ignorance or misunderstanding of basic analysis and calculus. I'm afraid I am unwilling to waste any time reading further, and recommend terminal rejection."
Well duh.
> Lynds says that the paradoxes arose because people assumed wrongly that objects in motion had determined positions at any instant in time, thus freezing the bodies motion static at that instant and enabling the impossible situation of the paradoxes to be derived.
Crap. Measuring the precise position of an object in motion does not freeze the body. In classical mechanics this can be trivially done by measuring the velocity and integrate to get the position. Even in quantum mechanics, the collapse of a wave function does not mean that the object does not move. This guy is having trouble with his high school physics.
> Lynds' solution to all of the paradoxes lay in the realisation of the absence of an instant in time underlying a bodies motion and that its position was constantly changing over time and never determined. He comments, "With some thought it should become clear that no matter how small the time interval, or how slowly an object moves during that interval, it is still in motion and it's position is constantly changing, so it can't have a determined relative position at any time, whether during a interval, however small, or at an instant.
Thanks for redefining velocity for us. He needs to understand the concept of infinitestimal time.
> Indeed, if it did, it couldn't be in motion."
It appears that his whole argument is philosophical. To mean anything in physics he needs to at least present a theoretical model that would be consistent with existing theories and previous experimental results. I highly doubt that his paper would offer any, other than crap.
> Lynds also points out that in all cases a time value represents an interval on time, rather than an instant. "For example, if two separate events are measured to take place at either 1 hour or 10.00 seconds, these two values indicate the events occurred during the time intervals of 1 and 1.99999...hours and 10.00 and 10.0099999...seconds res
The planck length (taken by combining planck's constant, the gravitational constant, and the speed of light so that the units cancel out nicely) is the smallest length possible in this universe. There is no smaller unit of distance (or, at lengths such as this, space is discontinuous). Likewise, the time it takes a photon to cross a distance equal to one planck length is the planck time, and it is the smallest unit of time possible (i.e. - time is discontinuous). This is not news. See this blurb for a little more info.
Execpt for one aspect: Einstein made a prediction of and event never before suspected or observed (the bending of light) and that prediction was born out.
I see no hypotheses or predictions from Lynd by which one could test his theories.
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/0 2/Zeno's_Paradoxes_-_A_Timely_Solution.pdf
...unless you're at least a post-graduate student. IMHO, some part of the academic criticism that Lynds is receiving is caused by snobbery and people being too lazy to read his work.
But my gut feeling is that it's nothing special; I haven't read the paper but the eurekalert.org article didn't inspire much confidence: spelling and grammatical mistakes, unnamed sources, drooling headlines, and reams of physics buzzwords.
As an adolescent geek I came up with dozens of new "theories"... none of which were well-informed, let alone scientifically testable. I admire the guy's perseverance, but I can't blame people for being skeptical.
Incidentally, this was in the local papers several weeks ago, with healthily skeptical comments by a couple of local academics. I am an under-graduate maths student at Victoria University, and I know of two lecturers there who specialise in time, but neither were named in the eurekalert.org article--IIRC, they weren't particularly welcoming of the paper.
I'm really astonished that I have yet to hear anyone dealing with this work to refer to Henri Bergson's "Essay concerning the immediate data of consciousness".
In what was his doctoral defense [well, the equivalent], Bergson, a French geometrician working at the turn of the twentieth century, provided precisely this response to Zeno's paradox, with almost the same level of detail. It's nice to see someone doing more work with it, but shouldn't there be better recognition of one's forebears? Isn't peer review supposed to accomplish that?
Larsal
Though I'm sure Mr. Lynds has fleshed it out a bit more, Aristotle gave basically the same answer to Zeno's paradoxes. From his Physics:
"Zeno's reasoning, however, is fallacious, when he says that if everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occuping such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. This is false, for time is not composed of indivisible moments any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles."
(Physics, Book 6, Chapter 9, translated by R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye)
So, c. 350 B.C., Aristotle proposed that the paradox arose from Zeno's assumption that there was such a thing as an atomic particle of time. If time is completely continuous and infinitely divisible, however, Aristotle claimed the paradoxes would not arise (he continues on in the same chapter to provide solutions to each paradox.)
The Quantum Machine states:
"BREAKING NEWS: LYNDS AFFAIR MAY BE A SOCIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT (AS ORSON WELLS AND THE WAR OF THE WORLDS) AFTER ALL (news story in development)"
For whatever that's worth. Maybe an actual news story will develop there. For now, there's no content. Much like Lynds' paper, which is here.
What about taking a picture with my digital camera? Surely, that is a single instant?
But no: a camera shutter is actually open for fractions of a second - so what I am really capturing is a very small duration of time - during which I allowed photons to hit my S40's photo-receptor. No cameral captures an "instant."
I think this could make for some very interesting courtroom defenses in cases where a photograph of a supposed event is key evidence!
An interval has a beginning and an end, relative to some reference time, eh? Doesn't that mean that the idea of an interval of time incorporates the idea of a 'point' in time? Even if the intervals are open, they'd still be a set of points?
If you read the post, I referred to the project in the past tense.
And err, no you can't have your money back.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
then the runner will have to transverse an infinite number of slices to get to his destination, which is impossible
As the other repliers have pointed out, this statement is wrong in the Zeno case. A sum of inifinite series can either converge or diverge. In the Zeno case, the geometric series 1/2^n as n->infinity converges* (thus it doesn't go to infinity to become a paradox in the first place). No fancy new physics is or EVER was necessary to resolve the Zeno paradox, only simple calculus. As with the aether, there is no paradox in the mathematics. The paradox only appears in the (incorrect) human interpretation based on (incorrect) intuition. Galileo said "Without the help of [Mathematics] it is impossible to conceive a single word of it, and without which one wander in vain through a dark labyrinth." *By the ratio test, the limit of the absolute value of Asub(n+1)/Asub(n) is 1/2. Since 1/2 is less than 1, the series converges. See Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, Boas, page 12.
My money is on Achilles.
the thing with time and matter is, they are either infinit or not. if they are then there infinit in both directions. infinitly large, and infinitly small. and if there finite the there perfectly mearsurable... and there ends should be able to be defined. as a side note. speed is distance / time or the other way round , what ever. if time is infinit then speed is infinit, which would annoy alot of physics peoples....
Time is not Quantised.
There, that's a nice, neat summary.
Which if true has all sorts of interesting implications. The argument appears to be that if time was quantised - as all other things, like space, energy etc appear to be - then the Universe could be described by a single n-dimensional vector containing all information. (ie a longgggg list of numbers describing where everything is, but not where it's going as rate-of-change derivatives aren't possible if time is quantised.). It would be "stuck" in this position, if you like. Alternately, if derivatives were allowable, everything would be predictable, with no uncertainty. Heisenberg Uncertainty means continuous unquantised time.
He may be right, he may be wrong, but this is interesting enough either way to be worth study.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
Feynman's presentation was of a classical theory he and Wheeler were proposing of charged particle interaction that included and made use of the advanced wave solution to the electromagnetic wave equation (waves that propagate backward in time). Einstein reportedly said (paraphrased - too lazy to look it up in Feynman's Surely You're Joking... ) "The theory is certainly crazy, but not crazy enough." Wheeler was supposed to provide the quantized version of the theory. Although he never did, Feynman (obviously a cabable quantum theorist) also never quantized the theory so maybe Wheeler sould be cut some slack. A discussion of the theory and it's possible current relevance (it can be used to address the instantaneous information exchange mystery of quantum theory) can be found in John Gribbin's Schrodinger's Kittens .
To avoid being completely off-topic, Wheeler's comment about the Lynds "theory" didn't address his ideas at all. After reading the Zeno follow-up article I don't see how his ideas revolutionize anything. That "points" in spacetime may only be a mathematical fiction doesn't seem to alter their usefulness in physics anywhere except possibly when physics tries to squish all of spacetime into a single point (singularity). But it seems to be mostly accepted that this consequence of General Relativity is more a demonstration of why it is not a correct theory then an acceptable physical prediction of the behavior of nature.
some kid philosophizing about stuff without any understanding of chaos theory. if you know your chaos you know the entire subject of this paper is a non-issue.
bite my glorious golden ass.
Theories about Relativity and Quantum effects that we consider "scientific" today were once only someone's philosophycal divagations. Remember Einstein got the ideas first, and completed the math much later. Proofs of his ideas came years or decades after.
In the borderline of physics there is metaphysics. The only way to advance science is to make explorations into the latter, and that, by definition, can only be done, by phylosophyzing.
-- Juanco
Position is relative. There is no "absolute" x/y/z coordinate (0.0 0.0 0.0) - you must have a point of reference.
So ... if your reference point is exactly (0,0,0) then (which it is by definition) then you've just measured something with an exact position.
-rickIt might have been Heisenberg. ;-)
Here is the link to the paper itselfh er/ext/e xt-2003-045.pdf
7 /0 2/Zeno's_Paradoxes_-_A_Timely_Solution.pdf
http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/ot
And the followup paper on zeno paradox is here:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/0000119
I viewed Zeno of Elea's problem, as the ability of a boy to become a man, and a man to guide his child. Most people, when they are young can understand what good is supposed to be in theory. Then as the boy meets people, he sees what life is, and may show weakness at some moments, and almost lose sight of his core views. To come full circle, is to understand all the situations, for all people. But I view Zeno's argument that he's trying to say that you can't know every single situation for every single man, simply because you haven't been on every step.
I argue that a man with an imperfect view can still form perceptions of his child because the first step is understanding the circle, and estimating where the child would be in relation to the man's previous experience. The key is that culture changes with time, so the problem is even more complex. The circle is not stationary, but moves with the flow of culture. Much like Ying and Yang shows that good and evil flow, the cultures of the world are in a steady flux. A man must watch not only understand the circle that he's been through, but also the complex path his child is taking.
What I find interesting is that how few men existed then, before we crowded each other. Few men existed, yet you have philosophies that lasted millenia and can be interpreted many ways. Today, there's more men than ever, and we're writing history, and directing the path of culture. We have an educated poor which was heatedly argued against in the early 1900's. Back in early civilization, we had invaders like Gengis Khan, so the defense industry was born. Today, there are no invaders, but the defense industry doesn't want to die. Then if you look at individual cultures, everyone goes through change. The danger of it all is forming your own personal self when picking and chosing cultures.
God spoke to me
...the truth of this.
Time is a concept we impose on nature in order to order it (nature) to our understanding and utility: time "happens" when a human notices movement of objects. The natural universe has no need for measuring itself using the human perceptual concept we call "time."
In other words, nature doesn't use our concept of time, only we use our concept of time: it's a perceptual issue we humans impose on nature, not a state imposed on us by the natural universe.
Try this on for kicks: instead of using the word "time" replace it with the phrase "motion perceived and measured over distance." This is our human concept of time, in it's bare essence.
As for the paradoxen (heh), humans love to stumble over their own their own logics and words. Indeed, most human philosophers have excelled at defining reality and then stumbling over their own definitions.
The zen master knows the ineffability of the universe and is greatly aware how much his perceptions _alter_ what is real. This is true of all our means of perception, hence the instruments we build to extend our means of perception.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Well, the real reason is that the literal translation of "black hole" means something obscene in Russian. Perhaps someone knowledgeable in Russian slang can tell us what...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This is what the Leinsenberg Theory discusses and that dates back to 1885. Maybe he'll finally get the regognition he deserves.
the archilles and turle and all the TIME related stuff is (age old) propaganda.
:) :) so to speak SOLID. for molecules this might be interesting.
;)
...
:)
consider a really stupid society (two tousand or more years ago). how to make them work and not go hitting woman on the head and dragging them to their cave (and getting the girl for yourself)?
invent a paradox, so to speak a program that runs on gray matter (sic). if you get them to think about this in a language (say greek) it will compile and run!!!
now you get all this user time, because the user/slave doesn't trust his own instict but a program.
we do not speak any language when we are born. we have to learn it and then we can't forget it! (if we are confronted with it all the time.)
the beautiy is that the language itself doesn't not allow for a solution!
consider it same like the law we use today. it origins are from the roman (i just believe this. david hume would have me on a plater!)
same applies to language. it's an invention and the syntax/grammer/etc. has stayed the same because our society is still the same. humans have yet to undergo a revolution to percive time differently/correctly.(?)
also: time is the same for everybody. our heart goes around 55-80 bps (beats per second). we percieve it the same.
all this said, why are we bother about these paradoxes?
do we ACTUALLY believe we can miss something? did nature construct us STUPID?
i don't (don't want to) believe so. we are acctually very beautiful creatures and this (the form; just think about a hand!) gives me strength to believe it is correct.
like one philosopher said "language is a game" (Wittgenstein).
what acctually botherrs me more is the origin of life. i believe it started in the ocean at very deep depths. like the canyon around the philipin islands. the pressure at 11 km below seasurface should be very interesting.
i was just imagining that at these depths water must feel very newtonian
it's not frozen (?) and still liquid. dark and very little/no radiation -adding- what happens when a neutrino decaise their?
it is difficult to relais (communicat) to someone how i percieve the world in a language that has certain attributs
the eskimos have 10 (more?) words (not attributs)
for snow. its seems we IMPHESIZE on what helps us survive
maybe it's the "i don't want to die" that makes these physicists/philosopher think so much about TIME.
maybe their LIBIDO (Freud) is abit over a healty limit
more beer! less talk! more games!
Really, this is a fake, to begin with Zeno's paradox was answered long ago, can't remember by whom or what not, but this is a logic problem, or rather Zeno's logic was shite, it's got nothing to do with physics. I did this in formal logic at uni (i.e. Maths), as for the rest yeah it may all sound impressive but if you are Aunt Mabel who left that little back woods school after repeating Grade 6 three times but really. It's either the rantings of someone who's just lost their marbles, or a clever (well not really all that clever) hoax.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
The number #1 problem with this paper's credibility is that it's being published in "Foundations of Physics Letters". In the past decade, FPL has degenerated into a "junk" journal that publishes all sorts of crackpot science papers.
For example, the following FPL papers were co-authored by the infamous pseudoscientific crackpot Lt. Col. Tom Bearden, and describes a supposed invention that extracts energy from the vacuum and violates conservation of energy!
M. W. Evans, P. K. Anastasovski, T. E. Bearden et al., "Explanation of the Motionless Electromagnetic Generator with O(3) Electrodynamics," Foundations of Physics Letters, 14(1), Feb. 2001, p. 87-94.
M. W. Evans, P. K. Anastasovski, T. E. Bearden et al., "Explanation of the Motionless Electromagnetic Generator by Sachs's Theory of Electrodynamics," Foundations of Physics Letters, 14(4), 2001, p. 387-393.
"Foundations of Physics Letters" has destroyed its credibility publishing this sort of junk, and is no longer taken seriously by anyone in the physics and engineering community.
I think paradox is a misnomer in these cases.
It's actually quite easy to realize why Achilles 'never' catches up to the tortoise: the paradox draws our attention away from the passing of time.
In any given instant, Achilles makes up a certain amount of distance, and the tortoise moves further off by a little bit.
But the trick in the paradox is that at each 'iteration' of the paradox, a shorter amount of time is passing.
Why a shorter amount of time? Because both Achilles and the tortoise are traveling at a constant (but different) speed, and each 'iteration' has Achilles less ground than the iteration before.
If you do the math, the increments of time between each iteration sums up to equal exactly the time when you would expect Achilles to pass the tortoise.
In other words, the paradox is just a trick - break up the time leading up to the fast Achilles passing a slow tortoise into infinite slivers of time, each sliver slightly shorter than the previous one.
The paradox occurs when we assume each sliver of time is the same amount, and that an infinite amount of them results in an infinite amount of time.
Just a trick, nothing more.
Art, Science, & Technology, ....
.... I do not believe time is correctly understood or measured when identified/measured using planetary motion (or flow stuff) as the yards stick. Gravity, space, and time would distort according to the properties of the field. Go to "black-hole", quasar, pulsar, ... -exstreams- and you would (I expect) end up with some extremely wonderfully interesting qualities in any field that would be hard to predict/expect. Oh, weird yep, considering particles (-/+/...) as a discontiguous field (why not) when there is something that appears to bind them together across space. A measured point as reference is not the substance/item/field/...time, and a measure does not in anyway define/identify the material/item quality, and if the measure is linear (or missing a dimension) then it has little real value, sort of like a Rembrandt canvas without the paint.
.... Anyway, everything to me is weirdly wonderful, and totally accidental (if random, not) then predictable (like the boiling C&V soup analogy for the universe (both within and beyond our guessing).
I am not a physicist. I have for many years now considered time as another field, sort of like gravity which is noticeable and measurable when there are particle(s) distorting the field. Time (for me) has some unique qualities like gravity, space,
Cataclysmic events from super-nova to cosmic-burst would create some odd time-field instabilities, that at our present level of S&T we just create some good and some SWAG about reality. I believe, time permeates every dimension, but I am not so sure about particle or gravitational fields. However, the interaction of the fields, across dimensions, at these events
It dang sure is as exquisite as anything in that-thar fancy Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Only if we could but see the beauty of a breathtaking equation.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination. (and that is why I can say the BS above as a layman on reality).
HAVE FUN!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Both of those paradoxes result not from anything fundamental about the universe, but from simple mistreatment of math.
... ad infinitum. Therefore Achilles will never catch the turtle.
;)
Let's look at achilles and the turtle, for the moment. This paradox goes along the lines of:
"Achilles and a turtle are having a 100m race. Achilles runs 10 times as fast as the turtle, but the turtle gets a 10m head start.
By the time Achilles gets 10m, to where the turtle started, the turtle will have gone 1m. By the time Achilles gets the extra 1m, the turtle will gave gone another 0.1m. By the time he gets 0.1m, the turtle will till be 0.01m ahead
There are a few ways to get around this:
1) Just let Achilles go 11m
The turtle will have gone 1.1m, and Achilles will be ahead. This simply avoids thinking too hard about the moment when they pass.
Apply a little Calculus, which _loves_ quotients of increasingly-small numbers. This will, of course, tell you that Achilles is passing the turtle at a rate of 9m/s (assuming that the first 10m took achilles 1sec). Perhaps what this means is that a snapshot in time is really useless unless you can also encapsulate the way things are _changing_ at that moment. And that doesn't really sound like news either.
(* Or both, of course.)
But then as regards scientific understanding, I only have a couple of science A-Levels, a maths degree, a brother who works with particle physics to advise me, and a reasonable background knowledge of science. Has anyone read the paper itself, or feels otherwise better qualified to judge?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
If all events occur in a continua of time, what about certain quantum events which are supposed to be instantaneous:
eg electron drops an energy level and emits a photon. If time is continuous, must there exist a point where the electron is at a non-quantum energy state and the photon is half emitted?
My brain hurts.
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
The traditional explanation of Zeno's Paradox is that time cannot be divided into infinite component intervals and that as time, or the interval of time, is decreased, the sense of attempting to interpret what happens in the world from the perspective of time becomes meaningless, or useless. This fits pretty well with what Lynd is saying, actually.
OK, so now we have to stop thinking in terms of the Space-Time Continuum and start thinking in terms of the Space Continuum. And, since mathematics is capable of predicting motion, well, the use of time, or our understanding of space through the concept of time, has done pretty well. The idea of time as a way to comprehend motion works well, even if it is bogus to the extent that there's no such thing as a discreet instant in time and there's no such thing as something that is not moving. We'll figure a lot of this out, sooner or later. Meanwhile, we stay happy and try to learn how to live together on this planet better than we're doing now. At least some of us understand that God is the problem, not the answer. Well, Duh.
Why do physicists smoke so much pot?
It might be best to remember that a paradox is an apparent contradiction and therefore, not a real contradiction, whether in theory or in science.
As a physicist, I find Lynd's paper provides nothing new, nothing insightful and in summary to be of no significance.
Forgot to take off the Karma bonus.
But also it's after dinner and I'm feeling like less of a pompous ass and wondering what semiotics you were thinking of. I assume it's something to do with programming, right.
I'm interested to know. As you can see from my analogy to Newton, it's not that I'm anti-semiotics. I love Jakobson and all those crazy structuralists. I was just pushing my agenda, but I'm interested to know where you're coming from?
...see a possible relationship between what this guy is saying and Seth's notion of time? Something like - all possible states exist simultaneously and are alive. There is both independent existence AND wholeness without paradox. The entire system not only portrays constant growth, but IS growth itself. This bit of weirdness relates manifest reality to consciousness (uh...I think...). Seth says consiousness creates reality but - of course - they create each other...like the Escher print - two hands drawing each other.
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Anyone who's built a simple Kalman filter knows that we've had the tools to deal with uncertainty of an object's position for years. Only, engineers don't usually call it that, rather we refer to uncertainty as "noise". Great stuff, just one more thing to feel smug about.
The only person in the Achille paradox who has any trouble with the hare passing the tortoise is the idiot who keeps trying to measure half the distance between the two.
How can you have an interval without defining a start instant and a finish instant for it?
No, I didn't read every part and every comment.
Just betting nobody asked yet.
I just read this version of Lynds' theories:
7 /
. html
. html
s onal/anw/Research/ Hack/
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/0000119
and think he's wrong because he fails to realize that Zeno's paradox is not about the features of the underlying physical world, but about the ones of the mathematical models used to represent it.
Zeno's paradox has a purely mathematical solution for the same reason that it can be shown that 1=0.999... (BTW, That 1=0.999... could be used to argue that there _are_ instants of time in the physical world, using reasoning like the one in Lynds' paper).
The links bellow were discussed before in Slashdot. They talk about how different models (axiomatic theories) may produce very different mathematical systems:
Model theory:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory
Set theories:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SetTheory
Hackenstrings:
http://www.maths.nott.ac.uk/per
Finally, here's a quote from what a friend told me once while we where inifinitally arguing about 1=0.999...
> If you make even a slight change in the assumptions underlying a
> mathematical theory at the outset, you end up with a different theory:
> in a different mathematical world. Anything is possible in matehmatics
> - if you have a sufficiently rich set of axioms defined over an
> infinite field. That's why I told Chris, that we weren't talking about
> the same thing. He was, perhaps intuitively, unwilling to accept the
> assumptions (even
> definitions) we were, equally intuitively, trying to impose. All in all,
> whether 0.99... really equals 1.0 depends on a lot of very subtle and
> elusive decisions that one must make to even render the comparison
> meaningful.
-- Juanco
I like this idea, because it's one more step to deconstructing the idea of time. Personally, I don't think that there is such thing as time - it's some sort of model that we humans have come up with to explain change in our environment. I don't think we have the mental capacity to really comprehend what is really happening, and the notion of time has been easy enough for us to understand that we've accepted it as the correct model. But in reality, time doesn't exist. What happened in the past is no longer reality - it only exists in our memories (and film, and tapes, and hard drives, etc.). It was reality, but only for an instant. Time is not a dimension, because as a dimension it is full of "exceptions" to the rules we have for other dimensions. You can't go back in time. You can't go forward in time. You can't stay at the same time. You can't have a negative amount of time. And how fast are we moving through time?
When you consider all of that, it makes sense that there are no discreet instances in time. Why, for there to be discreet instances, there would have to be some real way to measure time - and to do that, you'd need to measure it once, go back, and measure it again. How would you even measure it the first time? Stand there with a stop watch, click, it, then click it again? "How long was that one, Bob?" "Three seconds, Phill!"
I firmly belive that time is a construct designed by humans as a "close enough" explanation, but there is something out there that is way beyond our comprehension. I'd tell you what that was, but I have no idea, and you wouldn't understand, anyway.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/
There is that instant when the change in time approaches zero..
That's close enough for some people. Course it sucks to be dividing by zero all the time.
We'll see if this kid has another good answer to Zeno. Great if he did.
... to this young man. Despite what's been fabricated over the years about Albert Einstein, in reality he was an incorrigible plagiarist that didn't cite the known work of others in, for instance, the Relativity papers which his name is mostly associated.
... except by non-specialists who believe that almost anything in physics that's attributed to Albert and sacred.
However, comparisons to Einstein are in reality derogatory
Albert and possibly significantly his first wife, often used circular arguments to cover-up their plagiarism. Starting with assumptions that eventually became conclusion and pasting in the deductive works of others to connect the "conclusions as premises" to the conclusions. Later you would see people claim that Einstein(s) used less assumptions than the rest but these are all nonsense since the argumentation was bogus. Not that there wasn't logical inconsistency in these other works as well.
Even, today the connection between the relativity of simultaneity and light speed invariance are considered by many as non-sequiters
E=mc^2 was written about before Albert began his studies or was even was born and so was relativity.
The physics community back then knew all about Albert and his constant plagiarizing but initially ignored it. Later he became a usefull political toy as his popularity in the *media* grew. As this was leveraged internally and externally, the myth continued to blossomed into that of a great genius.
A good book on the plagiarist aspects of Alberts life is "Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist" by Christopher Jon Bjerknes. Mostly a compliation of many direct quotes from the scientific literature from many great scientists, philosophers and mathematicians of that time.
Moreover, Albert was much less than a genius and had an incestious second marriage with his cousin. A blood relative through both his mother AND father! There is even talk about possible pedophilia. It doesn't help Albert that he has refered to his wife-cousin and her two daughters, as his "small harem".
I would hate to be positively associated with this creep.
I see it now.
Lynds, Hammond, Abian, and Plutonium.
I thought of this two years ago while I was stoned.
Why didn't I write it down?
Oh yeah. I was too stoned.
Sorry if I'm ignorant of physics or math, but I could never understand why the turtle problem was a paradox.
;) .
I've always had an issue with comparing the distance the runner ran with the distance the turtle ran, as behind the lines a smaller and smaller amount of time was being used. Basically, the premise of the whole problem was being changed repeatedly and thus a nonsensical answer was produced (as the timeframe decreases toward zero causing the runner never to reach the turtle).
In my own personal reality (YRMV), time flow (at least in my admittedly subjective opinion) does not appear to decrease to a halt as I approach objects. This, in my experience, has not been dependent on whether I or anyone else nearby sees the situation, not that I often try to run past turtles
Perhaps things would be different near a black hole, or if I were to try to catch up with a turtle flying a near light speed (wow, what an image, a special Super Mario creature?). IANAS (I am not a scientist)
Could someone please enlighten me in not too difficult jargon what was special about the paper in regards to the runner/turtle problem? Why is this Einstein caliber?
If time is not quantized, then does Wolfram's "the universe is a giant comp00ter" (oversimplification) still have merit?
[o]_O
This guys 'solution' to Zeno's paradox is silly - and unnecessary.
You can produce a version of the paradox that doesn't rely on time at all - and hence any special properties of time can't be used to resolve it.
Draw two straight lines on a piece of paper. One of them (drawn with a red pencil) starts in the bottom-left corner of the page and slopes from left to right such that it is 1cm further to the right for every 1cm it heads up the page. The other line (drawn in blue) starts off 10cm to the right of the red line and slopes from left to right much more gently such that it is only 1mm further to the right for every 1cm it heads up the page.
Now, you know that if the paper is long enough and more than about 12cm wide, the red line will reach the right hand edge of the page a shorter distance up the paper than the blue line does.
However, Zeno should argue that 10cm up from the bottom of the page, the red line is 10cm further to the right - but the blue line has moved 1cm to the right so it's at 11cm from the lefthand edge. When (at 11cm up the page), the red line is 11cm from the lefthand edge, the blue line is 11.1cm from the edge...and so on.
By Zeno's argument, the red line can never cross the blue line.
All I've done is replace the temporal dimension with a spatial one...every other argument still applies.
Personally, I've never seen Zeno's paradox as a paradox. With modern mathematics, it's simple to sum the infinite series of tiny time steps that the story subjects us to in order to arrive at the time at which Achilles reaches the Tortoise - then you can apply the paradox in reverse to show that Achilles can comfortably make it to the finish line first.
www.sjbaker.org
There are two interesting problems that calculus presents, when talking about an instance in time.
Lets say we have two identical objects one moving "a bunch" faster in respect to each other...
And lets say we have two instances in time, i and i+1.
At time i the objects are very near to each other. The first problem, is that what distinguishs the faster one from the slower one? Is velocity somehow an attribute of the object that you could somehow measure?
Now mark where the object is somehow, and move to time i+1. Here object A moves this far
@.@
and object B lets say moves this far
@.......@
The problem is that the object has moved this huge distance through space, without EXISTING in the middle parts.
This paper solves both of these problems by stating, you can never have an "instance" in time. That reality is continuos and not discrete. That there is no such thing as i and i+1 that these are inappropriate constructs in the universe (even if satisfying enough to build a discipline called calculus around).
An instance really means that passage of time = 0. And what he states is that it is NEVER 0 and what ever you think is an "instance" the objects are actually still moving at the speed they are moving, even if that speed is infinitely small. (as opposed to a classical "instance" where everything is frozen).
He also states that if the universe was indeed discrete in couldn't function, because at the smallest level objects would not know how and where to move in space from instant to instant, and that the universe would become "frozen".
It will be interesting to see how Hawkings replies to this.
If space and time are one, and you can't precisely pinpoint a position, why would one be able to pinpoint a time?
Disclaimer: I only have a pop understanding of this stuff.
remember reading about it, how it is your perception which structures "reality".
but then if i sit on a pin and it punctures my skin it dont feel nice, msybe it is my bad karma.
http://www.phy.cuhk.edu.hk/course/phy2002/forum/me ssages/300.html
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
previous links to the paper seem not to be to the one to be published. try this one
I go to school to a well known physics department with a very strong theoretical tradition, and it is now one of the leaders in several branches of physics. And I have just one question: how is what the author says different from the old Zeno's paradox solution, or calculus? His claims truly read like a layman, reading layman books, probably smart, and interested in physics, but without any clue of what physics really is. I know a lot of /. are very fond of layman book, and I am too, but keep in
perspective that they give a very simplified version of the real science.
After all, they are motivated by sales (even Hawkins says so in his book).
It is very fun to talk about black holes after reading A Brief History of Time,
but General Relativity is very hard subject in itself no matter how many cool
books you read. Everyone should ponder on these phylosophical subjects, but I
find his claims old, derivative, and uninteresting.
And now, for some karma, here is a layman link to the Quantum Zeno effect.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
I have read his paper (the link to the pdf is given somewhere on this page) and I can not find the proof that there can not be static instance of time. His reasoning is such, that no matter how accurrate your measuring of time is, it still represents an interval. And in that small interval you would get motion. Which is all fine, but why can't time be represented by real numbers, which are inf. accurrate?
Also, there is no proof behind his logic that static is impossible. Why can't an object in motion at an specific instance in time represented by real number be without motion and be represented only by its position in space. He only says that if it is static it has no motion and this we cannot have.
He also says something about a certain static point in time that can not have a continuation. Why not? Each real number has its precise successor.
I do realize that real numbers are somehow imaginary (since they need infinite information to be represented), but this should not be much of an objection to the theoretical physics.
Can someone please explain the answers to my silly questions given above?
but that doesn't mean moments in time become meaningless. Stephen Wolfram has done research on cellular automata that model physical systems having discrete transitions between states ( so time is effectively a discrete interval though it would be wrong to assign meaning to the length of the interval; the interval IS the moment of time ).
But Zeno's "theories" are obviously wrong. The man walking across a road will get there. Even Zeno really knew this. Here we have a theory that tries to explain why he will not get there! There's actually growing evidence that your statement but the interval can get infinitely smaller is wrong and the the interval can not shrink beyond a certain quantum size. The quantum interval is quite small, and makes time seem continuos in our normal macroscopic viewpoint, but it avoids the problems of singuarities and other paradoxes of the quantum world. It makes sense too: consider the smallest units of any theory, strings, super strings, or whatever; could there be any concept of time shorter than it takes one of these to do something?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Lynd could not be drawing attention for "solving" Zeno's paradox or Achilles and the Tortoise. The problem with those "paradoxes" is in the language not the physics. The langauge has you doing subtraction successively. This is not how you describe motion. When you move, you add to the magnitude of your translation. The correct way to approach the problem is to do an infinite sum ( a geometric series where r = 1/2 ). This series converges and is greater than unity. So covering distance is not prohibited by having to move through all those tiny fractions. This is first year calculus stuff.
Please, before you get too carried away with the logic puzzle, step back and think about the physics.
I keep reading how the idea he uses (sorry, I've only wrapped my mind arount the article, not the paper so far) has been discounted because the Achillies paradox and such have been proven by modern mathematics via the summing of an infite series.
.sig seems appropriate in this discussion as a nice disclamer.
Am I the only one who remembers the saying that lim S n = 2 as n approaches infinity means that it *approaches* 2, not ever *reaching* 2? Shouldn't that mean that the paradox still exists? If it never actually reaches 2, then Achillies is still splitting the difference until the end of time (pun intended). A mathematical proof like this that ignores its own definitions, is no proof in my mind. Zeno seems to be ahead of his time because he stated the problem with using limits as if they were hard values in proofs before mathematics were ever able to solve infinite series summations.
I'm not saying he's right, but discounting him because the paradox has been mathematically proven doesn't make sense to me, especially since I don't agree with the "proof". As I see it, the "proof" actually proves that the paradox still exists. I'm no mathematician, but I've studied enough to be aware of this basic assumption. My
Someone please shoot down my logic, since I'd like to know that the hours I spend at work are actually measurable or else my boss will wind up paying me nothing for the zero length of time I can be measured to work.
on a side note, with all the geek discussions, shouldn't Slashcode include support for subscript/superscript?
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Since somethings don't change (Einstein Rosen condensate or a black hole) they are technically "outside of time". Hence: time is a perceptual strategy, not a physical property.
Zeno's paradox is wrong simply because it is a false dilemma - it assumes that time exists in the first place.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
"There Is No Single Instant In Time"
No, really? And I suppose next you'll tell me that the speed of light in a vacuum for all observers is the same number.
This hasn't been news for a century or so now. Move along.
This is true, there are lots of single instances in time, otherwise it'd be like being stuck on pause.
If the whole distance/time issue becomes moot, does this allow us to talk our way out of speeding tickets that much easier?
agreed - charitably, this is just a similarly amusing social engineering 'sploit against the lameness of (an apparently rather dim subset of) philosophers ?
OK, let me take a moment to vent here. What is it with the crappy link names that slashdot uses so often? I'm referring to the text enclosed within [A HREF="..."] tags that doesn't actually describe the link at all.
Specifically, this article (yes, I am on topic, in a way) has marked up the text "in this paper" so that it is linked not to the paper, but to an article about the paper. People, seriously, learn to f---ing communicate, OK?
I know slashdot is a free service (well, unless you decide to pay for it), but my time has some value, actually, and I do really have time to waste deciphering cryptic link descriptions or to go visit some link when it's not really as described. Not to mention that it doesn't give me a very good feeling about the quality/veracity of information I'm getting in the rest of the article and at the rest of the site.
Merry F-ing August Fools Day. This is the special day where people who know Calculus make sport of people who don't. May the tradition live on!
have we become so very statistical, that it's good physics due to his age?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
and he told me he had to do a race first and then he would meet me. So he's late and I ask someone if they have seen him, and they say the race is not over yet because he can't pass the turte yet. So where do I go to look for him cause I'm starving now? Achilles can run real fast so he must be far away right? but he cant pass the turtle...
Zeno's paradox has a simple solution: an infinite sum of k*(1/2^n) CANNOT yield any information about a moment past 2k. Thus Zeno's paradox can predicty the difference in distance for a time f(n)=Sum(k=0-->n of k*(1/2)^n), but f(n) has a range of [k,2k). But it IS possible to exceed that range and consider the situation at time 2k (when the Tortoise moves along) Why did it need to be reviewed?
"This breathless article in EurekAlert has all the hallmarks of a duped science reporter: deep-sounding (but, it seems, semantically null) phrases tossed about with abandon; derision and scorn at the stuffy old guys who just don't get it; and of course the simultaneous disdain for and desparate quoting of authorities. (That is, "most physicists don't agree because they just quote the same old authorities, but look, this Big Name likes my work, which validates it".)
I suppose we'll see how this plays out when the paper is actually published and people get a chance to take a hatchet to it. I'm guessing this will sink like a stone... if it isn't already a hoax."
Yes, ditto. This is a joke, hoax, or ignorance and not anything of worth to physics or philosophy.
This paper is to philosophy what a paper on "a perpetual motion machine" is to physics.
This is proof (theoretically) that the world is analog, that is, it's infinitely divisible, in which case there can be no Matrix.
An infinite series goes on an on and on but never reaches its limit (only in engineering) (ala Zeno). We cannot render a perfect curve. We can only represent discrete elements approximating the curve. We approach perfection, but never arrive. You need an infinitely powerful computer to render reality perfectly. Since reality is perfect and not discrete, then we cannot be inside a computer, because a computer cannot be infinitely powerful. Is God a computer? Geez, right back where we started. Drat!
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
I mean, come on, "boldness"? What a lame way to rate a scientific discovery. Is it valid? Does it makes sense? These are the questions that matter. But I guess in a field so advanced beyond the understanding of the layman, the only comparisons that can be made are ultimately nonsensical.
To be clear, it does not follow from the observation, even if true, that we can not "measure" an object's exact position, that it has no well-defined position. "An item is in motion if it is changing position -- but if you can measure it's exact position, then it isn't changing position." The Arrow pardox suggests we conclude from the observation that at an instant of time an arrow "in motion" appears to be no different than a stationary arrow, that there is no difference between an arrow "in motion" and a stationary arrow. This conclusion does not follow. The conclusion may be true, but it does not follow from this observation alone. Further, there seems to be no reason that at some instant, without context, we should expect there to appear to be a difference between an arrow in motion and a stationary arrow.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
...in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does anyone have the time to even care to hear the end of this "oh so redundant" question?
If we assume that there is an instance of time - Achilles/turtle run is not a paradox. You can apply either calculus or Conway's subreal nubmber algebra and calculate the the exact INSTANCE when Achilles and the turtle are lined up. If there is not a single point on the time dimension then Achilles will be always be either behind of or in front of the turtle. They cannot line up, because the math tell us that they are lined just in one single point on the time dimension. So, how can Achilles pass the turtle if he cannot ever line up with it? Achilles vs turtle is a paradox only within Peter Lynds' framework.
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
Just raise the taxes on crack.
The intervals just become more and more frequent if you're taking them after smaller and smaller distances. The runner passes the tortoise rather quickly.
> So what direction will the lightbeam be heading in? Up, or down? It depends on the last mirror- but there is no last mirror! Thus we have a paradox.
1) Let's take this in reverse. Start with a simple mathematical question: How many times can you divide a number by two? The anwser is simple: there is no limit.
2) Now let's dress this question up as if it were a physical experiment with lightbeams and mirrors. If you fall for that misdirection then it would seem to be a paradox.
3) If you keep it mathematical, the anwser is the same as (1), the "lightbeam" never emerges.
Since there is no "instant", but only an incredibly small delta , accuracy is directly proportional to the size of the object being measured. Therefore, we can be as precise and practical for Jupiter while not as precise at the sub-atomic level. If there were an "instant" we could be as precise in either case.
From what the article says, I've been thinking the same thing for a long time. You can never have a precice moment in time. The units we measure are human-made. Certain measurment devices are more accurate than others. Nothing is completely accurate, but what we have is good enough for all practical purposes.
Take a picture with a camera. When you look at the photograph, you are imagining a precice moment in time, but in reality, the camera shutter was open for an infinitely measurable ammount of moments.
In our terms, the film has captured a few milliseconds of data. But it's actually an infinitely measurable ammount of time, because we can break it down even further into picoseconds, nanoseconds, and numbers we don't eve have words for..
That's what I got from the article. And it's nothing new to me..
When it's discovered that the FOOBAR-300295 chip accidentally measures all speeds as 3E11, major advances will finally be made.
Space ships will be able to go faster than light by *gasp* continuing to accelerate. We'll be able to speak with family members on Mars through a loop of particles moving faster than light, by dropping a packet on one end to be picked up on the other.
You pitiful Earthlinks will also discover, by process of elimination, that the electron tastes like Grape-Aid.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Einstein was working as a patent clerk after earning his PhD in physics.
There's something of a difference.
HERE
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
What happens in the time between t and t + 10^(-2.547*10^1000000)? Does the universe change at all?
If time is indeed a continuum, and that is a big if, in that short time we couldn't even "see" what is happening because light would appear stationary - the speed of growing grass.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Can you understand change as a concept without using the concept of time?
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
Time is not quantized
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
I read the actual paper, and it seems that the main point that the author makes is that if an object has a precisely determined position at any instant in time, it cannot then have an instantaneous velocity, therefore there cannot be such a thing as an instant in time.
But Heizenberg's principle already says that if the uncertainty in the position of an object (with mass) is zero (i.e. the position is precisely defined), the speed is undefined. So there is no speed at which the object could be going that would give it a precise position. Likewise, if the speed is precisely defined, the position would not be.
The author claims that what he is proposing is separate from "quantum effects," but the H. principle is not an effect; it is a fundamental physical law. To say that a train is fixed and then ask what its velocity is already makes no sense as of 1920 or so, so further explanation is unnecessary.
So it's not one single instant. It's a first time and then a repost and then another repost and then a slashback.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Yes, profound ignorance is certainly my impression of this author. He implies that 1.999999.... is something other than 2 (which I could prove to be false in middle school). And lines like "...no matter how small the time interval, or how slowly an object moves during that interval, it is still in motion and it's position is constantly changing, so it can't have a determined relative position at any time... Indeed, if it did, it couldn't be in motion." demonstrate that he doesn't understand what a limit is.
Poor John Wheeler. It's obvious that Mr. Wheeler didn't read the paper. Rather, he was probably given a vague description of it and responded with equally vague encouragement.
Zeno's Paradox of the Arrow
A reconstruction of the argument
1. When the arrow is in a place just its own size, it's at rest.
2. At every moment of its flight, the arrow is in a place just its own size.
3. Therefore, at every moment of its flight, the arrow is at rest.
Aristotle's solution
* The argument falsely assumes that time is composed of "nows" (i.e., indivisible instants).
* There is no such thing as motion (or rest) "in the now" (i.e., at an instant).
Some have remarked that those who criticize the paper due to the age or lack of training of the author ignore the fact that Einstein was young and out of the mainstream when he published his special relativity paper. However, the differences between the two works are striking. Not only did Einstein propose a completely new concept of time, he made very bold predictions which were at odds with accepted theories of the time. For instance, if two clocks are synchronized, and one is sent in a space ship and travels near the speed of light and returns, Einstein predicted they would be out of sync, whereas classical physics predicted they would still be in sync. Also, the famous E=mc^2 equation predicts not only that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa, but also tells quantitativly the conversion factor (c^2). Classical physics predicted that matter and energy were separetly conserved. Both have been experimentally verified in favor of Einstein.
Lynds' paper, on the other hand, makes no predictions at all and doesn't even make any statements about the nature of time at odds with currently accepted views.
As far as Zeno's "paradox" is concerned, it had been solved long ago. The "paradox" simply arises from the fact that a bad cooridate system for the time axis is chosen. Any physical problem can be made impossible by a poor choice of coordinates. The time coordinate in the Achilles and Tortoise problem simply runs out at the point where they meet. In such a system the problem can be solved up to the point where they meet (but not beyond) by summing an infinite series, but with a more reasonable choice of time coordinate, the problem is trivial to solve and extend beyond the time where Achilles passes the tortoise.
Motion can also be understood, even pre-relativity, by imagining object not in a 3 dimensional space, but a 6 dimensional phase space, which has both position and momentum coordinates. Nothing to see here folks, just move along.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Before we define what time can and cannot be, we still need to determine exactly what time IS. But, instead of posting a rather lenghty argument on why this is, let me just give you a couple examples to think about:
1) If time is outside of the human mind (that we experience it and do not "create" it in our own perceptions), then would there be time if nothing changed? And if not, wouldn't that be single instance in time?
2) If time was inside the human mind, then do coporeal objects really have to abide by our "rules" of time? (I wrote a small essay about this for a final exam... specifically about Kant... explaining this in more detail, but I hope others who have taken philosophy or read Kant can relise what I am talking about, and furthermore some of the flaws of Kant).
No need for Planck time. Zeno is like a magician who leaves out important details.
Achiles does in fact pass the turtle. there's nothing that says Achiles has to travel short distance. Crry out Zeno's little joke to infinity and you'll find the place where Achiles and the turtle meet. Though these are infinite steps, the time that Achiles and the turtle take to finish them becomes infinitely small so the total time it takes for Achiles to meet the turtle if finite.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Right. So could I just as well theorize that distinctions we use to deliniate objects are every bit as arbitrary as time? In my mind, they are just convenient abstractions about the 'nature' of things based on how we perceive them; I think perhaps what this guy is arguing is that we need to be more mindful of extrapolating overmuch from such fundamentally imperfect abstractions. The litmus test will be if he can create a division of science that requires no measurement, and in fact is completely free from human preconception. Douglas Adams, where are you in our time of need?
- Bachelorhood is the father of necessity.
Actually, there's no reason why light couldn't pass the "event horizon." It's just that light emitted from within the event horizon doesn't have enough energy to completely escape the black hole.
This is not true. Any photons emitted at the event horizon in a directly outward direction will stay on the event horizon, and those emitted in other directions will travel toward the center. Any photons emitted in any direction inside the event horizon will travel toward the center. Any light that does happen to be outside the event horizon has no obstructions to "completely escaping", although it may be severely redshifted depending on its proximity to the event horizon.
A black hole is more than just a place with a high escape velocity. The associated curvature of spacetime ensures that events inside the event horizon cannot affect events outside. You may want to read something like MTW (especially chapter 33) to get a non-pop-science view of relativity.
"Your notation sucks!" -- Serge Lang (1927-2005)
He's hardly the first to postulate that "time is relative" (sorry :-) )
There are much more thoroughly thought out and soundly grounded works that preceed this paper (such as the distance-time premise of Keith Maxwell Hardy).
Lynds' work is a nice critical piece, but it does not propose a working testable hypothesis.
http://www.comcity.com/distance-time/
"The distance-time premise is that distance and time are joined together in nature, possessing dual characteristics of distance and time. This premise contrasts with traditional views which separate time and space. The premise of distance-time may be proven wrong if distance or time can be measured independently. However, if any measurement is accomplished by particle motion, then an independent distance or time measurement has not been achieved since particles travel across distance and time jointly.
The rod (ruler) measurement has been traditionally seen as a measurement of distance separate from time. However, the location of every part of the rod is communicated by photons that traverse distance and time. Therefore, rod measurements are dependent on particle motion. They are not a measurement of distance separate from time. Furthermore, the difference between locations of physical bodies is always communicated by particle motion across distance and time. For instance, if I try to determine the difference of position between the earth's and the moon's surfaces, I may use a light beam or rocket. Yet, both are groups of particles which cross distance and time and move between the earth and the moon. Therefore, I would not achieve measurements of distance independent of time. Consequently, all measurements of distance by an observer in nature are made across a period of time.
Traditionally, the clock measurement also has been seen as a measurement of time separate from distance. However, clocks use particle motion in order to measure. The traditional clock has spindles which sweep across the face of the clock, crossing time and distance together. Also, a digital electronic clock requires electrons to move across time and distance jointly. These clocks do not achieve measurements of time independent of distance.
In the previous examples, measurements of distance or time, which are independent of each other, were not achieved. Therefore, the distance-time premise remains valid. However, traditional theories, such as relativity, do not use particles to define distance and time, and they do not satisfy the distance-time premise; instead, they always separate time from distance."
Man, I was twelve when I realised that Zeno's paradox wasn't a paradox at all; sure, you have to travel all those half-distances, but you do that at increasing speeds, with the limits reaching 'unlimited' speed for an infintessimle distance (space-time being so closely linked means that you don't break the speed of light over supersmall distances [no v>c at the planck lenght]...granularity at work).
All this guy did was say 'hey, this zero thingy, which was a mathematical construct to begin with, doesn't exist for ranges of time!'.
Wow...I could have impressed Wheeler at the age of 12...whoop-dee-do.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Furthermore, it's obvious that physical objects do indeed move through exact points in space by merely observing the following:
Let's assume that our ability to measure an object's position is limited to "delta", and that we measure an object's position at position A= 0 meters +/- delta, and also again at position C= 2 meters +/- delta. Although our ability to actually measure the object's position at point B= 1 meter is limited by +/- delta, it is quite clear that the object did in actual fact have to pass through a position corresponding to precisely 1 meter whether we were able to measure it or not, simply because the body must pass through all intermediate positions in going from point A to point C.
-- Ron
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
The same river twice type parables are mainstays of Lao Tzu and Taoist thought in general (not buddhism). Therefore, Zeno's paradox has been "solved" for thousands of years. The problem is that scientists never bothered to realize that.
How do we go about moving from point A to point B if we have to cover an infinite number of infinitessimals to get there? Well, we do it all the time, so there you go. What's the friggin big deal? Based on that short article, most of what Lynd is saying sounds like common sense to me, and the answer lies in the difference between the mind's capacity for abstract thought, its capacity to both think abstractly about real objects, and its capacity to interact with them without really thinking at all. Understanding how the higher functions of the human brain works is a work in progress, but humans can at least program robots to do an even better job than we can when interacting with material objects. I think there's a big difference in terms of the complexity of the problem. If theoretical physicists can try approaching the problem by inches, they'll be wondering why biochemists/psychologists/programmers are winning the race.
The trouble with the old physicists out there is that I think they have either squared too many circles over the course of their career or have lost most of their capacity to think critically with age to the point that they can experience the same sort of befuddlement and serendipity of high school students solving simple kinematics problems. Anyone is capable of fooling themselves into seeing things that aren't really there, even when they're wide awake. Certain infamous Nobel prize-winning mathematicians have been known to suffer from this problem.
One computational physicist that works on the same floor as me has flat out told me in the past that modern physics theories just stopped making sense after about 1950 or so. Maybe this is just another example of how much the mindset has changed since then. Kind of like going from Isaac Newton and Galileo to Saint Augustine.
In our Universe you can?t take something without giving something.
:p
If you cut the distance between two points, then the speed should be doubled, neh?
Anyway, it?s late, I?ve been drinking, and I know that ?speed? is not the right terminology.
It's a good thing the world sucks or we'd all fall off.
Time and Classical Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
What do you call a couple of PhD's who are both trying to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: A pair 'a docs.
Yeah, Aristotle figured out there is no "now" in time, and the solution to Zeno's paradoxes just a split second before this guy (http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/zeno.htm). Of course, since there is no split second...maybe they tied for the answer.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/search.py?recid=624701i ck add to basket and follow instructions)
(cl
although can one really waste something that is so indeterminate?
when recording the beginning of the event has the lower limit of when your eyes take notice of the readout plus or minus a variation due to reaction-time delay. The act of reading the time also requires both tolerances and has a beginning and end. We can keep regressing, if you like. ^_^
(it's tired, I'm not quite lucid, forgive the language if rough - the ideas are there and that's what matters)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
there aren't an infinite number of points between A&B, there's at least as many as there are planck-lengths distant and there's an upper limit involving the number of possible configurations of the object's quantum state within that time. You could enumerate all of them, then figure out how long it takes to pass through a subset, and there you are with a finite rate, in a rough, slipshod, roundabout way.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
and effect.
Quanta has no friends.
There weren't any instances to begin with. You can record a time to within a degree of certainty.
This has always been a limitation. Whether anyone really believed you could say "It is exactly 1 o clock right now" is foolish. Simultaneity isn't real either, as time is always effected by your reference frame.
So there is no "right now", so I don't see how even contemplating an exact instant itself is useful!
I always consider time of occurance an approximation, and his instance fuzziness work doesn't really specify a scale, and I submit it's pretty damn small (sub-room-temperature-instrument detectable).
I mean, is he claiming time when used as a physical dimension is subject to same limitation as quantum spatial dimensions when compared to the abstract, rate-based-notion of time? Well congratulations!!!! You're the FIRST person to think of THAT!
Maybe scientists who don't work in those fields need to be reminded of the inherit uncertainty in all physical parameters (time included), but this guy is not Einstein (because then I'm Bose)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Time Flies like an Arrow.
Fruit Flies like Bananas.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
The problem with claiming Einstein as a misunderstood genius from outside the scientific establishment is that his ideas were widely and rapidly accepted by the scientific mainstream. Examine the famous 1905 volumes 17-18 of Annalen der Physik: many people feel that any of the four unrelated papers Einstein published in these volumes would have been sufficient to net him a Nobel Prize.
Clearly, special relativity was the most controversial of the four ideas, but it was taken seriously enough that immediate plans were made to test its predictions. It is true that there was much argument about the validity of special relativity, but this argument actually tended to be mostly among the less distinguished scientists and "science popularizers".
This whole line of development is in sharp contrast to Lynds, who as far as I know has not proposed a testable scientific theory that makes realistic predictions. If he were to do so on such an important subject as the flow of time, and if his theory made sense, I feel pretty confident that the theory would be widely publicized, and the tests quickly performed.
0=1
Just as with any other post on /. on groundbreaking physics there should be a reference to John Baez' index for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics. I wonder how much points this guy is going to score.
A lot of you have responded in a similar fasion as I have about what time actually is. I've studied quantum physics, cosmology, and spacetime theories for years now, and I given a lot of thought to what the right answer is to time. I really believe that there is no such thing as time. It is a perception of energy. I believe that in the universe, the different levels of energy that are among us (the energy of a car, the energy in our brains processing information) is what gives us the perception of a "time flow". I believe that we see things the way we do because our brains, which is you (no soul, nothing metaphyiscal), have a certain level of running energy that stays relatively consistent. Ever since we are born, we view different levels of energy (different things happening in our world) which we get used to the rate of (we adapt to our surrounding levels of energy) giving us a normal perception of the world. We adapt to this primally, and see it as a flow. We imagine this river of time that doesn't exist, and is only bounded by our certain amount of matter and energy, which happens to be our whole being (our brains). Now I have stayed up all night, so excuse any redundancy, or poor explaination. I believe that in reality, if you were to say time exists, this second right now is just as real as the second 100,000,000,000 years from now. This concept may be more helpful: Say you have a computer program that bounces a ball around the screen. When you run that program, it takes "time" for it to bounce in all possible ways, until the "time" comes when the program is ended. I don't see reality as a ball bouncing, taking time to bounce from one place to another. I see reality as actually just the code, and the equations which give the ball those directions, and those values of how much energy to have in going in a direction. But, as we obey the laws of energy in this universe, our rate of energy judges things we see (in comparasin with what energy levels we see normally) as relative to other levels of energy, as they are either "quicker", or "slower". I'm too tired to explain other factors that go into it but I hope I got the idea across.
A tortoise challenges Achilles, the swift Greek warrior, to a race, gets a 10m head start, and says Achilles can never pass him. When Achilles has run 10m, the tortoise has moved a further metre. When Achilles has covered that metre, the tortoise has moved 10cm...and so on. It is impossible for Achilles to pass him. The paradox is that in reality, Achilles would easily do so. A similar paradox, called the Dichotomy, stipulates that you can never reach your goal, as in order to get there, you must firstly travel half of the distance. But once you've done that, you must still traverse half the remaining distance, and half again, and so on. What's more, you can't even get started, as to travel a certain distance, you must firstly travel half of that distance, and so on.
The 'flaw' of this 'paradox' is that this is a method of approximation by stepwise refinement. It can never be expected to produce a definitive solution.
The proof is in the technological pudding. MMMM solder flavored swirl with silicon jimmies! J.E.L.L.O.
Eat at Joe's.
Article: "It also seems likely to make his surname instantly associable with Zeno's paradoxes and their remarkably improbable solution almost 2500 years later." With a 2,500 year head start? He'll never catch him, obviously!
Mr. Lynds might be benefitted by reading this article referred to yesterday on /. The part of particular interest being "Misconception #3: Comparing Infinite Quantities".
MAC | A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Is it just me or is this "discovery" just simple quantum mechanics? From Heisenberg we know that:
delat E x delta t >= hbar/2
So, given that any event involves an energy transfer we either know nothing about the energy (i.e nothing about the event ever taking place) or else the time can never be exactly specified.
I always understood this to be one of the basic tenets of quantum theory: there is no longer any exact coordinates or exact times: everything is fuzzy when you look in enough detail.
As for the paradox with quantum mechanics there isn't one: the man's position is "uncertain" once you get beyond a particular accuracy. i.e. you just cannot keep dividing the distance up for ever because it is meaningless beyond a certain point.
Oh god here we go again. This is the whole "varied sizes of infinite" logic relative to Time-Space arguement (Think Get Smart). Don't historians have anything new to argue about (Wait...)? Lets kill arguments like this till we can find the atom of time where the infinte can longer be divided into equal whole parts..err... wait... that will never....
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I don't know if this guy is right or wrong, but calling him names in the absense of reasoned and responsive arguments isn't science, it is kindergarten.
Such methods might keep crackpots with wild new unsubstantiated theories out of science, but it will also help to keep those with wild old unsubstantiated theories in.
I haven't read everything but I can identify with the person who said "...I'm afraid I am unwilling to waste any time reading further, and recommend terminal rejection."
... } adds up to only 1. The basic idea here is that you can add an infinite number of positive numbers and the result can be a finite number.
Either I can't grasp what Lynds is talking about, or I've already come across too many ideas I don't accept, and it's impossible to continue and try to understand concepts that use those ideas as a base.
What bothers me about this is that he is inventing interesting ideas that solve various time paradoxes, when the paradoxes can already be solved with understanding instead of invention. Whether or not his ideas are true doesn't matter -- It's like trying to explain the Achilles and the tortoise paradox using General Relativity: It's not needed and it only detracts from an understanding of the paradox.
As for whether or not his ideas have merit, they will need to be shown to explain more than a paradox that is already explained with classical physics.
As for Lynds' theories...
Suppose an object is travelling a distance 1m from position 0 to 1 in some time interval. There is no time t for which the object is at position 0.5. However there must be an interval t0-t1 where the object is clearly behind 0.5 and some time t2-t3 where the object is past 0.5. For any such intervals, t2 > t1 according to Lynds. This seems to imply that there is some time interval during which the object is superpositioned behind and in front of 0.5m. I tried to derive a contradiction but couldn't. His theories might help marry macroscopic and quantum uh, stuff...
Recently I got stuck on the Achilles paradox and thought it through instead of researching it. So, here I'll post what I came up with, and hope that someone reads it and finds something new in it. I am not a mathematician, and the stuff below could use some serious cleaning up and development.
-----------
The paradox goes something like this:
A tortoise and a hare are racing. The tortoise is ahead but the hare is running twice as fast and is catching up.
Hypotheses:
H1: The hare will take some time t to cover the distance between itself and the tortoise, but during that time the tortoise will have moved.
H2: By induction on H1, the hare will never catch up to the tortoise.
This is a paradox because we know that the hare will catch up. So, clearly there must be something wrong with either our observations (H1) or the conclusion (H2).
The simple solution to this paradox is that H2 requires us to redefine the meaning of "time", and we unwittingly ambiguously refer to both this redefined time, and to "our" normal perception of time, and thus H2 is an incorrect conclusion. The not-so-simple solution, if you allow for such a redefinition of time, is that the hare does indeed never catch up to the tortoise.
This is all a matter of perspective though. Let us call the perspective described in the hypotheses as the "observer's" perspective, and the real-world view where the hare does catch up to the tortoise we will call "our" perspective.
If this doesn't make satisfactory sense, I hope to explain it away until it is as simple enough to understand as the "infinite sum of halves" trick, which is simply that the sum of 1/2^n for all n in { 1, 2, 3
This trick is the key to figuring out the paradox, but it is also what makes it so complex.
Anyway, back to the paradox. H2 states that the hare will "never" catch up. By our understanding of "never" and the passing of time, this means that there is no instant in time T for which the hare has caught up. We can choose any time (eg. one year from now) and the hare will not have caught up. In other words, the sum of all times t from H1 is unbounded. But it should be intuitively clear from the sum of halves trick that this is wrong.
During time interval t(i) the hare moves a distan
Well, it is simle: The time is only exist in human mind! So, there is no time at all! Peter is right!
There is only one good solution: The simpliest!