You're talking a lot about distances without saying what you mean by
that. What is your metric? If you are using light quanta to define
your metric, then you do have to worry about the Plank limit. Good
luck getting separate "observers" to exist at those separations..


"Honey, I Shrunk the Kids !!"

Had to say it ......

LEFTY wrote:

However, suppose that time really is graduated, but that these
graduations can shift along the time axis. Sort of like a ruler where
the graduations can slide back and forth on the surface, an isomorphic
linear translation of the graduations, sort of. The beginning and end
of any interval is completely arbitrary, with the condition that the
length of the intervals is always equal to Planck time, bla bla bla.

[snip]

Look for this thought in amongst the potato peels on your next shift
-

Physical space can't be discrete, because what's that bit in between
the chunks? Lines without width - sure sure - COME ON!!

Assuming the above statement isn't 100% assinine, (and I'd like to
know), I wonder if this sliding scale thingy, (your idea?), is an
answer to it?

p

platopes wrote:
LEFTY wrote:

However, suppose that time really is graduated, but that these
graduations can shift along the time axis. Sort of like a ruler where
the graduations can slide back and forth on the surface, an isomorphic
linear translation of the graduations, sort of. The beginning and end
of any interval is completely arbitrary, with the condition that the
length of the intervals is always equal to Planck time, bla bla bla.

[snip]

Look for this thought in amongst the potato peels on your next shift
-

Physical space can't be discrete, because what's that bit in between
the chunks? Lines without width - sure sure - COME ON!!

Math does not deal with illusions, and so math is a little bit
misleading because there is really no way to reconcile how something
could be discrete and also continuous in math.

But in physics, you have many illusions, and I think that this is one
of them. If time becomes unobservable on Planck scale then you have
this illusion, and while space is continuous, it also "appears"
discrete. It behaves that way.

I think that you are %100 correct in asking - exactly what is that
stuff between the chunks ? Of course, lines and points dont have width,
so the model sounds plausible, but I cannot buy the argument that time
is graduated with fixed graduations.


Assuming the above statement isn't 100% assinine, (and I'd like to
know), I wonder if this sliding scale thingy, (your idea?), is an
answer to it?

p


I dont think that the dimensions of space can have fixed graduations.
Now either time is absolutely graduated (fixed), or the graduations can
slide on that axis. If the graduations are fixed then you have
problems. But if the graduations can slide, then certainly Planck time
is some type of observational phenomena.

How can you get this weird observational effect ? Let Planck time be
relative, caused by extreme difference in scale. Euclidean geometry
therefore remains intact, thank God for that, law and order are
preserved. Noether's theorem is correct, if there was ever any question
about that those questions are now gone. QM weirdness is a very real
looking illusion.


There is of course a great danger in aknowledging "relative
nonexistence", similar to dividion by zero, you cannot allow
3=5=7=9=etc. And you cant allow a situation where physics results in
magic. Many things need to be clarified, but I think this is it.

LEFTY wrote:
wrote:
LEFTY wrote:
wrote:
LEFTY wrote:
Absolute nonexistence does not seem very useful.

But if you have the "appearance" of nonexistence, sort of like an
illusion caused by time becoming unobservable on extreme scales, then
that might actually be interesting.

I know that many people have thought of this before, and math shows
that it is impossible to occur in an absolute sense. However, math does
not preclude the "illusion" from occuring, and in fact seems to
facilitate it.

It takes a theory to decide if something is an 'illusion' or not.



Physics doesn't count as theory ?

Physical theories do not decide what is absolutely real or illusion.


Physics explain mirages as being caused by atmospheric heat gradient.
It "looks like" a mirror, or maybe water, but physics proves that to be
an illusion.


Physical theories invent so-called 'reality' and 'illusion'.


Physics is the science of using mathematical models and theory to
explain observed phenomena. Reality is something for philosophers to
figure out, but illusion is certainly important to physics because
physics tries to explain observed phenomena. If something is altering
the observability of a process, physicists would want to know about
that.

Then prove that for every phenomena there is a unique theory to explain
it.

OK
You convinced me time isn't graduated. )

Are charges ?
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~matsci/waltz2/1.html


I'm learning new stuff every time you post links like this. Very
amazing to me, I hope you're not a teacher because your giving me a
free education. : )

The Fractional Quantum Hall Effect is pretty neat stuff. Now I know
what they have been doing with all that liquid helium.


This thing about time being a graduated/ungraduated dimension, there's
gotta be a way to build on that. Seems like it is almost impossible to
make any statement about the universe, but we know it exists and so it
must be describable.

Sure would be neat if real analysis were actually usable in physics.

LEFTY wrote:
OK
You convinced me time isn't graduated. )

Are charges ?
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~matsci/waltz2/1.html


I'm learning new stuff every time you post links like this. Very
amazing to me, I hope you're not a teacher because your giving me a
free education. : )

Nope... I am not.
I just try to know where the good teachers hang out.


The Fractional Quantum Hall Effect is pretty neat stuff. Now I know
what they have been doing with all that liquid helium.


This thing about time being a graduated/ungraduated dimension, there's
gotta be a way to build on that. Seems like it is almost impossible to
make any statement about the universe, but we know it exists and so it
must be describable.

Pondering time for last 100 years has proven only slighty less
productive than forced naval gazing.

It is most closely related to energy so study that which
you can get your measuring tools on. Too few physics students
realise that clocks don't measure time but the fuel tank of a
drag racer does.

invariance with respect to time translation
gives the well known law of conservation of energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether's_theorem

Sue...


Sure would be neat if real analysis were actually usable in physics.

Is that a vote for anecdotal acceptance ? Ugggh! )

Sue...

Sure would be neat if real analysis were actually usable in physics.

Is that a vote for anecdotal acceptance ? Ugggh! )

Sue...


I think it's more like math fantasy at this point.

Real analysis aint so bad, I can imagine a modified Bolzano-Weierstrass
theorem for spacetime, or some other things like that, lots of things
are concievable, but the fundamentals of space are in question. Is it
continuous, is it discrete, why is there quantum weirdness....all of
these questions.

And very few scientists would believe that real analysis could ever
be applied in physics, but I dont have a career in academia so I have
much more liberty to have crazy ideas.

LEFTY wrote:
Time is certainly continuous. But you cannot observe time on extreme
scales. Time appears continuous everywhere in between, as it should.

I dont think that this is a Zeno paradox.

would'nt - wouldn't
not, - not;
it's - its
cant - can't
widgit - widget
Leggo - Lego block
time, - time;
dont - don't
, i,e. - ; i.e.,
definately - definitely
it's - its
were'nt - weren't

Time is continual and stroboscopic, not continuous. So are numbers:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.p...e5cfe30376ab3f.

But you cannot build a clock out of the whole universe because it will
not tick. And you cannot build a clock out of sub-quantum scale
structures because all the dynamics will appear instantaneous, i,e,
individual clock ticks will appear as one.

What the clock's mechanisms include has no bearing on whether they will
tick at their scale; they already tick everywhere.

Lets say that Planck is right. There is a fundamental chunk of time.
How do we get from one chunk to the next ? If the transition is smooth,
then it might as well be considered continuous. But Planck creates a
universe which is a little like the old time movies, existence occurs
frame by frame somehow.

Well, you have this fundamental chunk of time which is very, very
short. What's it made of ? Must be continuous, but that's a paradox,
because you already have the smallest possible piece of it.

If the chunks are all there are, it doesn't matter how smooth they are
with respect to abstract chunks--because the abstract chunks don't
exist.

-Aut

LEFTY wrote:
Suppose that you have three observers, A, B and C. They are situated at
the vertices of a right tirangle in space. The triangle is a
1,1,SQRT(2) right triable.

it's - its
would'nt - wouldn't
phenomena - fenomenon
your - you're
concievable - conceivable
dont - don't

Stop misspelling its, retard.

A thinks that B and C are each located at a distance of 1 Planck
length.

B and C both agree that A is located at a distance of 1 Planck length.

These are true.

The distance from B to C is SQRT(2) Planck lengths. But, this distance
does not exist according to Planck. According to Planck, the distance
from B to C is either 1 or 2 Planck lengths depending on how you round
it off.

Now, let me ask you who's doing the magic tricks. Planck, who causes
distances to vanish completely, to simply cease to exist absolutely ?
Or myself, where nonexistence is merely an "illusion" which is caused
by our inability to observe time below a certain scale ?

Stop spacing punctuation like a Frenchie. The corner triangle is
impossible in a unidiscretum. Pick one axis and stick with it,
preferably in a lattice more summetric than cubic:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.s...6b24c692ef98bd
(link to eGroups). With more Planck lengths to work with, the step
functions fitting conventional vectors work better, and the universe is
less splitten. I suspect that the discretum has to do with the needed
geometric frustration to keep atoms and the universe stable:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.p...8a47880cdaab95
and http://egroups.com/message/free_energy/19747. Why do you think
that particles and atoms have fine and huperfine structure, and why the
electron has a finite electric dipole moment? Nöther's Theorem and
God are bunk.

-Aut

"Autymn D. C." wrote in message
ups.com...
LEFTY wrote:
Time is certainly continuous. But you cannot observe time on extreme
scales. Time appears continuous everywhere in between, as it should.

I dont think that this is a Zeno paradox.

would'nt - wouldn't
not, - not;
it's - its
cant - can't
widgit - widget
Leggo - Lego block
time, - time;
dont - don't
, i,e. - ; i.e.,
definately - definitely
it's - its
were'nt - weren't

Time is continual and stroboscopic, not continuous. So are numbers:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.p...e5cfe30376ab3f.

But you cannot build a clock out of the whole universe because it will
not tick. And you cannot build a clock out of sub-quantum scale
structures because all the dynamics will appear instantaneous, i,e,
individual clock ticks will appear as one.

What the clock's mechanisms include has no bearing on whether they will
tick at their scale; they already tick everywhere.

Lets say that Planck is right. There is a fundamental chunk of time.
How do we get from one chunk to the next ? If the transition is smooth,
then it might as well be considered continuous. But Planck creates a
universe which is a little like the old time movies, existence occurs
frame by frame somehow.

Well, you have this fundamental chunk of time which is very, very
short. What's it made of ? Must be continuous, but that's a paradox,
because you already have the smallest possible piece of it.

If the chunks are all there are, it doesn't matter how smooth they are
with respect to abstract chunks--because the abstract chunks don't
exist.

-Aut


There is more than one dimension to time--at the same time. What time do
you see the moon in say 1.5 light seconds distant from Earth? Mars, 200+
light seconds from Earth? What time is the moon in? Plus what time over your
clock time you see it as being the time for it? What time Mars over your
clock time you see it as being the time for it when you look at your clock
and look at it (Mars) in the distance?

There will be two moons in time. Two of Mars. One relative to you here on
Earth, one real and not relative to you here on Earth. Since the moon orbits
the Earth continuously it will not even be precisely where you see it to be
in space from here on Earth. It will be ever so slightly in advance in both
space and time of your placement of it. The separation between where you see
Mars to be in space and time and where Mars really is in space and time will
be much greater. Mars has a relative placement in both space and time, and
it has a real placement in both space and time different from the relative.
The first is visible and detected from here on Earth. The second might as
well be a blackhole or dark matter leading in advance of the first for all
the detecting you will ever do of it from here on Earth. Also you will never
travel to the first (the relative to Earth). You will always travel to the
second (the real). Then there will be two of you also in both space and
time, the relative to Earth and the real in distant place out there.
Discontinuity in space and in time. Relative space and time is not real
space and time. The relative to Earth 'you' will always be detected from
Earth to be slightly younger than the real 'you' going about whatever
business on either the moon or Mars. If you are walking a path on either the
moon or Mars the relative to Earth 'you' will be detected from Earth to be
somewhere--some distance--behind 'you' on the path never to catch up to
you--relative to the Earth.

If you stepped through a stargate and took one milli-second (real) to step
out of it on Mars, the relative to Earth 'you' would be detected from Earth
to take not one milli-second to do the job but to take 200+ seconds to do
that stepping out on Mars from stepping in on Earth. Regarding Alpha
Centauri, a one milli-second jump through some stargate (say real) would be
detected from Earth to have taken more than four years to accomplish for the
relative to Earth 'you'. Despite that four years, no passage of time, to
mean no aging, between the person who stepped into the stargate here and the
person who steps out at the other end would be detected here. There would be
a minimum of a four year separation in both space and time between the
relative to Earth 'you' and the real 'you' in the area of Alpha Centauri.
Discontinuity in space and in time. Relative space and time is not real
space and time. In this slightly possible exampling, the milli-second
transit was the real time of transit, the four years plus transit time
detected from the Earth was transit time relative solely to the Earth.

Had the traveler at any time before the four years plus lapsed stepped
back through the stargate and returned to the Earth a milli-second after
entering, that traveler could be the one to detect himself stepping out of
the stargate at the other end and sometime later stepping back into to
return to the Earth. That particular representation of himself would never
exit the stargate at this end of it...or exit it anywhere else in the
Universe either.

There is more than one dimension to time.

Brad