Speed of Light and Energy...?

[hackenslash]

thanks for the books. I'll check them out when I can, but I still feel that time travel wouldn't be possible. Perhaps if you could breach lightspeed you could travel faster than time, but time wouldn't simply stop at that point. Imagine a wave moving closer to the shore. If you travel parallel to it, and overtake it by going faster than it, you haven't stopped it from continuing on its path. Or another example, if you stand beside me as I switch on a torch in a dark room and just as I press the switch you travel away from me faster than the speed of light, turn, and come back you can only ever come back at a point after that at which you left me.

this is why it doesn't work in my head to conceptualise time as a dimension, because you cannot actually move through time. you can experience it at different rates, but you can't actually travel through it. If space were the same it wouldn't be considered a dimension.

even with the idea of a wormhole. no matter how wide the distance between entry and exit points in space, if you drop a probe which sends information towards where you will exit at the speed of light, you cannot say that you have travelled to a point before you dropped the probe.

am I still totally wrong here...?

The problem here is that you're still mired in middle-world thinking. It useless to even think about examples such as these, because they are middle-world examples. That's why I said you should pay particular attention to those slides in the video. Here's what they say:

This is 'correct', but it sure doesn't 'make sense', and that's an important point! Science goes where the evidence leads. Our 'common sense' has to take a back seat.

This is the entire point. You could come up with thought experiments until you're blue in the face, but they will all be wrong until you shed the common sense. The really funny thing is that relativity is highly intuitive when compared to quantum mechanics. That's when it gets really weird.

[dj357]

well i get that i'm looking at the time as a dimension thing from the wrong angle, but surely what said about travelling faster than the speed of light made sense. that's not middle-world thinking. surely...?

[hackenslash]

well i get that i'm looking at the time as a dimension thing from the wrong angle, but surely what said about travelling faster than the speed of light made sense. that's not middle-world thinking. surely...?

Note the bold, and then read that quote from the Ozmoroid vid, and you will have your answer.

[hackenslash]

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Tachyon anti-phones. Not yet...

Excellent link. Bookmarked for future use. I especially like the diagram showing the danger of thinking about simultaneity.

[AshtonBlack]

Another book recommendation:
"Entanglement" by Amir D Aczel?

It's fairly non-mathematical and gives a good layman's into some of the stranger aspects of QM. (Mind you, it's all pretty crazy... triple particle entaglement. )

To quote a spoof Brian Cox: "I fukin luv fizziks me!"

[newolder]

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Tachyon anti-phones. Not yet...

Excellent link. Bookmarked for future use.

Is that a deliberate ?

I especially like the diagram showing the danger of thinking about simultaneity.

It's an excellent page. The animations are helpful.

[Farsight]

dj357: you're right about time. It's a cumulative measure of motion, or events if you prefer. You do not "move" through it, not even in a forward direction. There is so much junk peddled about this it's risible.

I'll post up a thread that tells you more.

[colubridae]

[Farsight]

dj357: this forum is called rationalia. Trust that common sense. Relativity works for a common sense reason, not magic.

Here's the thread I mentioned: Time Explained. I hope you like it.

[dj357]

So, can someone tell me definitively that time CANNOT be defined as the occurrence of events at the sub-atomic and atomic level...?

And yes I understand a college course in Physics/Relativity/etc... would be useful, but I am not stupid, I am rather intelligent, but this does not make sense to me right now so please indulge me, or ignore me, but please don't treat me like a fool. I've read all the links (I'm willing to get the books when I have time) I've seen all the videos but it still is not making sense and it is not intuitive to me, so SOMETHING is going awry, and I need to know what it is.

If you stop all atomic and sub-atomic interactions, stop all motion, stop all transfer of energy, time ceases to exist...no? And this is not a stupid or rhetorical question. I have been told that defining time as the occurrence of events at the sub-atomic and atomic level is not realistic, but why is this so? And please don't go off and tell me "it just ain't so, the maths for relativity works." That's not an answer to my question.

[hackenslash]

So, can someone tell me definitively that time CANNOT be defined as the occurrence of events at the sub-atomic and atomic level...?

Yes, for reasons I will explain later in this post.

If you stop all atomic and sub-atomic interactions, stop all motion, stop all transfer of energy, time ceases to exist...no? And this is not a stupid or rhetorical question. I have been told that defining time as the occurrence of events at the sub-atomic and atomic level is not realistic, but why is this so? And please don't go off and tell me "it just ain't so, the maths for relativity works." That's not an answer to my question.

Well, hypothetically, if you cool something to absolute zero (which isn't actually possible, because that would constitute a violation of the uncertainty principle), then all motion stops. Indeed, that is the definition of absolute zero. However, time is still experience by this entity. That's why the definition doesn't hold, because you can cease all transfer of energy and time persists.

[dj357]

However, time is still experience by this entity. That's why the definition doesn't hold, because you can cease all transfer of energy and time persists.

because in your example you haven't stopped ALL interactions for that entity. merely bringing it to absolute zero doesn't cease the transfer of energy everywhere else in the universe. which is why time continues.

[hackenslash]

However, time is still experience by this entity. That's why the definition doesn't hold, because you can cease all transfer of energy and time persists.

because in your example you haven't stopped ALL interactions for that entity. merely bringing it to absolute zero doesn't cease the transfer of energy everywhere else in the universe. which is why time continues.

Elsewhere in the universe is irrelevant. In fact, you have to be careful once again how you eomploy the word 'universe'. In that example, all motion stops, because that's the definition of absolute zero. All interactions of every description stop and the entity is effectively inert.

[dj357]

However, time is still experience by this entity. That's why the definition doesn't hold, because you can cease all transfer of energy and time persists.

because in your example you haven't stopped ALL interactions for that entity. merely bringing it to absolute zero doesn't cease the transfer of energy everywhere else in the universe. which is why time continues.

Elsewhere in the universe is irrelevant. In fact, you have to be careful once again how you eomploy the word 'universe'. In that example, all motion stops, because that's the definition of absolute zero. All interactions of every description stop and the entity is effectively inert.

Elsewhere in the universe cannot be irrelevant if you are talking about time existing for that entity. Only from another frame of reference can that entity be said to be experiencing time. From it's own frame of reference all activity has ceased and as such time has ceased to be for that entity and from it's point of view. If we are talking about time as a dimension in this situation, this entity has ceased to travel through time.

[colubridae]

but it still is not making sense and it is not intuitive to me, so SOMETHING is going awry, and I need to know what it is.

It doesn't make sense and is definitely not intuitive for me either.
If you are hoping for it to be so, you are going to be disappointed.

But I follow where the evidence goes.
And the evidence says that's how it works.