There Is No Single Instant In Time 672
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."'"
Singularity next? (Score:5, Interesting)
But, Lynds' is brilliant, if true/not disproofed/widely accepted.
Re:Groundbreaking? (Score:1, Interesting)
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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."
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I'm not into the scientific journal "scene", as it were, but I expect that's about as insulting as a review can possibly be. So maybe this guy is onto something profound, but more likely it's smoke and mirrors.
Is this a hoax? (Score:5, Interesting)
"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"?
Re:Singularity next? (Score:2, Interesting)
String theory for instance solves the "singularity problem" nicely by just saying that a black hole is just a very energetic string. Then again string theory isn't currently the most usefull theory as it's far from complete.
Interesting idea (Score:2, Interesting)
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 ?
Re:Singularity next? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only that, but it still has the intrinsic assumption of a continuous time (IIRC I should eve n say _times_ as or in fact in string theory there are several time dimensions).
Also, empirically proving string theory will be, well, very hard; and due to the complexity of the equations involved, even numerical solutions of them for something as simple as the behavior of a hydrogen atom is impossible.
Finally, the number of people in the world who truely understand string theory and its implications is less than a handful. Maybe Paul Witten is the only one...
Wheeler, collaborator of Feynman, likes the paper? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:It doesn't take a genius to solve this "paradox (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [mathforum.org] of infinite series [shu.edu] comes in.
Today, this is pretty basic maths, but it had people stumped for a proof for more than two thousand years.
Foundations of Phsyics Letters (Score:1, Interesting)
Sounds like Terry Pratchett... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot I screwed the links up, sorry :\ (Score:2, Interesting)
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/information.html
Re:God help the Mods (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the value of the paper itself, most of your arguments in its favour are inconsequential to its veracity. Many papers are published in scientific journals that prove not to be true. The whole reason these journals publish papers is that they can be peer-reviewed, a very similar process to what is occurring here on Slashdot.
Also, his support is by no means overwhelming. He may have some prominent supporters, but he also has prominent detractors. It even mentions that this goes directly against one of Hawking's theories, and without any other evidence I'd be more inclined to trust Hawking to someone I haven't previously heard of.
The comments on the difficulties he had getting this printed, his lack of credentials, and the reaction of the academia say nothing about the value of his work. He does seem to be an underdog, but an appeal to our emotional response to such a situation is not a point for his side. There are many, many people who can't get published, have no credentials, and are disregarded by educated physicists. This is often because they don't know what they're talking about.
And comparing him to Einstein is not helpful either. Einstein was a particularly special case, and his work rose to the top due to its own merit. If Lynds' work is truly of the same calibre, it will do so as well. The suggestion that physicists pay attention to every amateur with a theory because he may be the next Einstein doesn't make sense. The reason they generally don't pay attention to amateurs is precisely because they are amateurs. Your average physicist is busy enough working on his own theories and examining other professional physicists' theories. Why should he devote even more time working on the theories of someone outside the field? Physics hobbyists are generally far less knowledgeable in the area, and are far more prone to erroneous conclusions compared to one that is educated in the field.
Basically, this paper may have merit and it may not. It might be a great breakthrough or completely worthless. Apparently both opinions exist in varying quantities. It's a theory coming to unusual (or in some cases obvious) conclusions coming from someone that is not actually a physicist with no mathematical proofs. That really lowers the chances of its being accepted because it lowers its chances of being true. There isn't some big physics conspiracy going on here. That's just how science works.
Zeno's political paradox (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Questionable (Score:2, Interesting)
If Heisenbergs uncertainty principle does not come from a simple Cauchy inequality then what does inequality show us? Remember that Heisenbergs uncertainty principle has nothing to do with uncertaincties in the measurements, but can be simply understood in terms of the wave nature of particles.
Also remember that quantum mechanics has been confirmed down to 15 decimals or so in atomic spectra (when including corrections from quantum field theory, but anyway). If something this fundamental was wrong, then it would surely have influenced on the results.
You're missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Groundbreaking? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that you are locked in to thinking about time and motion in a particular way (the result of a mix of tradition and neurobiology). But the real block to understanding what he is talking about is that it is mind-bogglingly simple. People don't get it because they assume that if it were a simple idea then they would have thought of it themselves. Special Relativity is a perfect example of this phenomenon. If you ask the right questions about light and its relation to time and motion, you can derive the basic theory in 15 minutes using simple geometry and algebra. Nobody before Einstein bothered to ask those questions.
This paper is really not very remarkable when viewed from the perspective of Buddhist philosophy, although I am not aware of anyone else using Buddhist concepts to address Zeno's paradox. One of the fundamental concepts in Buddhism is the principle of impermanence -- everything is in a state of constant flux. There is no such thing as a static quantity or permanent, unchanging object. There is a story from Zen Buddhism about a master who told his student that you can never step in the same river twice because the river is always in motion and always changing. Every time you step in the river, it will be physically different from the last time you stepped in it. The student responded that, folloing the master's logic, it is impossible to step in the same river once. The river will change its physical configuration while you are stepping, not just in between steps. If this concept is applied to the moving arrow in Zeno's paradox, it is impossible to determine the arrow's position at any given time because it will always move while you are in the process of making the measurement. It is only possible to make an absolute measurement of the position of a moving object if time is frozen. Without an absolute measurment of position, you can never say exactly how far the arrow has to travel before it is half way to the target.
The problem with Zeno's paradox is that it is not dealing with motion at all. It is dealing with series of stationary arrows. We have all been duped into believing that it is a paradox of motion because we represent moving objects on paper as a series of stationary objects. We have been confusing the representation with physical reality for thousands of years.
'Solution' strangely obvious, too (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Paradox? What paradox? (Score:3, Interesting)
This, at least, is my impression after reading the article. YMMV, HTH, HAND.
Re:Time is mostly subjective anyway... (Score:2, Interesting)
Time is a measure of the "distance" between two instants.
Instants occur only when you make the point of noticing them.
Memory/history is an ordered seies of instants.
If you are too busy, caught up in the flow of things, to notice time and form an instant that you can remember, then time really passes quickly. In physics, we usually deal with a series of states of a system sampled at set instants and use the "laws of Physics" to explain what happened in between. What we do not normally do, or may not have achieved yet, is to grasp the continuum of the evolution of the state of the system - like being caught up in the asymptotes and infinite series presented in the Achillies vs tortise paradox only to miss the fact that Achillies blew by the tortise. As others have eluded to, there isn't enough time to notice all the instants posed by the paradox and its infinite series arguments.
It will be interesting to see where this new perspective takes us.
Re:Questionable (Score:5, Interesting)
The Foundations of Physics (and the Letters companion) is a journal that seems to be a catch-all for articles on the fringe of physics. (By "fringe" I don't necessarily mean "new-age" garbage - that would be rejected outright - but I mean stuff that sometimes really pushes the envelope.) While the articles are peer-reviewed, the articles are sometimes speculative and many of them would have been (and were) rejected elsewhere. For example, there was a paper in the 1980s IIRC reporting on evidence for psi phenomena (and a theory connecting it to quantum mechanics) whose results have never been duplicated. The articles tend to be on the hairy borderline of real and pseudo-scientific, and whatever you read there (although often quite interesting, and for the most part scientifically correct, but not always) you have to take with a grain of salt and use informed judgment to evaluate the papers.
I found it puzzling that MIT's Science Library, which has about every physics journal imaginable, ended its subscription to FoP and Letters in the early 90s, although I never pursued why - perhaps some faculty member complained that its quality wasn't up to snuff. So while I use to enjoy reading it, it's way too expensive for me to subscribe to - perhaps another local U. carries it, don't know.
I myself have published a paper in FoP on an obscure topic (in my case not wrong or controversial, just too obscure for the mainstream physics journals to find a referee who thought it interesting or significant), that had been rejected elsewhere.
Re:Questionable (Score:1, Interesting)
An excellent translation and commentary is The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, Translation and Commentary by Jay L. Garfield, 1995, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509336-4 (pbk).
The relevant verses and commentary are found beginning on page 125 for motion, and 254 for time.
I won't say the author is wrong, I think Nagarjuna was every bit the genius Newton or Einstein were, but I think some more investigation of the paper's content may be worthwhile.
Re:You're missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Infinity isn't a number, and something infintesimately small is not zero. However far you go with the mirrors, the light is still bouncing. Assuming a light beam has no width to speak of, there is no point at which the light beam is not bouncing. And yet the distance the light beam travels is finite, even if the mirrors are infinite! Therefore the light will emerge in a finite space of time, and at every point will be bouncing and zigzagging along. You're right that it's impossible, of course, but that's why it's a paradox!
What do you mean "there cannot"? If time is discrete, Zenon's paradox does not apply, because it talks about timeslices smaller than what the actual ones would be.
Sorry; I meant you cannot have a discrete slice of time if time is continuous. However, I've said elsewhere that the paper in the article seemed, well, dubious. I'm not saying I agree with the paper, or that the paper is of any import as the article seems to suggest. Just that the original poster misunderstood what the paper was proposing.
Zeno's paradox does not claim Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise; making such a claim would require talking about infinite time -- Zeno's paradox does only talk about the time before Achilles catches up with the tortoise, hence the correct conclusion is "Achilles cannot possibly catch up with the turtle in the timeframe before he catches up with the turtle".
Well, the quote for Zeno's Achilles paradox [mathpages.com] I have is: "The slower will never be overtaken by the quicker, for that which is pursuing must first reach the point from which that which is fleeing started, so that the slower must always be some distance ahead."
Black Holes in Russia (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Groundbreaking? (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way they can be in the same position is if the atoms of archillies are in the same position as the atoms of the tortoise, in which case they would actually have to be the same atoms (otherwise they will not be at the same position in space, there would be a distance of space between the two).
So when, exactly, would the two be at the same position in space? Not only can they not be physically in the same position, but your measurements of them being in the same place cannot be taken at the same time, because it is impossible to observe two bits of matter at the same time with the same equipment (the electrons that move in the circuits from the observational device to the recording device create a lag, for example).
Its fine to mathematically solve the problem, but when observing the scenario in real life, you'll probably find its not quite that simple.
Re:That's just the state of a counter... (Score:3, Interesting)
No they couldn't, not unless they had their own, higher-order time dimension. (and that idea just leads to infinite regression, why stop at two levels?) If you have no time dimension, you can't do anything.
Now I suppose you might argue that they would exist with some parallel time dimension, but this still requires *something* to exist outside of our time. This means either that freewill (and the uncertainty principle) is an illusion, or there is a higher-order time dimension. (and why stop at two?)
If we are just being "timesliced," then an outside observer could exist in the same time dimension, but that's a very strange and specific case, and it doesn't really address how time works anyway. (because you haven't examined the underlying time dimension at all.)
Re:Singularity next? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Groundbreaking? (Score:5, Interesting)
My M.S. advisor submitted a paper some years back about using crystal morphology, size, and depth of formation relationships to try and answer some questions about the formation of that particular mineral (dolomite if anyone cares to know...it's very hard to explain how it forms at lower temperatures). One of the referees was also a fellow who also works on dolomite formation, but all work he does involves some fairly high level geochemical analysis. Simply put, the guy just could not understand the paper. This is probably because he didn't *want* to understand a paper using techniques other than the ones he was familiar with. The other two referees loved the paper, but this other guy basically drew a big red X through each page and said it was bullshit.
Well, my advisor didn't take too well to that, so he just pulled it from review for that journal instead of completely re-writing it, and submitted it to another journal that gladly accepted it.
There's no such thing as "time" anyway... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Paper was mostly philosophy (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all he never appears to consider the possibility that time is quantum in nature. Secondly he dissmisses that a moving object can be physically different at an instant in time compared to a motionless object at the same location. Thirdly he mentions the "clock universe model", but all he does is play verbal games with it. As far as I can tell he has no argument against it at all.
I'll file this guy under "crackpot".
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Re:Other physics news (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.cerncourier.com/main/article/43/5/2
Thus far, experiment has verified three quark particles (and multiples of three quarks, as in nuclei) and quark/antiquark pairs.
A 'four quark' particle would actually be a dimeson with two quarks and two antiquarks, the 'five quark' particle ("conglomeron?") is four quarks plus an antiquark.
In every case, the color law of QCD (the real "rule") has been preserved, it's just that new arrangements of quarks have now been postulated.
Re:Paper was mostly philosophy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Singularity next? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Think about it -- the event horizon is the surface of the sphere inside which the escape speed is greater than the speed of light. So nothing from inside can completely escape the black hole's gravity unless it's going faster than that.
As an analogy from here on Earth, there's a sphere (say 10 feet above sea level) inside of which the escape velocity is greater than (about) 7 miles/second. That doesn't mean you have to throw something faster than that just to get it past the surface of the sphere! It just means that you have to throw it faster than that for it to escape the earth's gravity well ENTIRELY. There's no reason that light couldn't be emitted from deep within a large black hole but still make it very far past the "horizon." It would just be extremely red-shifted.
Of course, if you accept the model that space itself ENDS at the event horizon, then nothing could be emitted from inside it anyway, because there's nothing there. (Not even nothing. :) )
That model, however, is flawed. Or at least, is incomplete. It cannot explain what happens when an object FIRST achieves high enough density to become a black hole.
Re:That's just the state of a counter... (Score:3, Interesting)
The point is, time is always about perception; we measure time with instruments, sure, but they're still going to be interpreted by the human mind and therefore filtered to fit into what we believe.
What I find amusing about this is it just goes to show what can happen when somebody isn't "educated properly." Sometimes, that's exactly what the world needs.
For some interesting reading on the subject, read Terry Pratchett's "Thief of Time." Heck, it might even be considered prior art.
Re:More Giveaways (Score:3, Interesting)
But that is precisely his point (no pun intended).
Specifically, that there *are no points*, either in space, or time. That all supposedly instantaneous points in time, are actually deltas. That all supposedly instantaneous positions are in fact, deltas.
He must "keep describing space time with intervals that contain no points," because his whole argument is that there *are* no points.
Re:More Giveaways (Score:2, Interesting)
It is not original and it is not sufficiently, mathematically descriptive enough. His epic conclusion is but a passing thought for first year QM students.
An example of a good paper would be "Intervals of space/time contain no points, but instead they are composed of blah blah. Instead of using points set topology we must instead rely on blah blah. We measure distances using blah blah blah. Our model is approximately continuous in the limit blah blah blah."
It's a big steaming pile of shit.
Re:Zeno's political paradox (Score:1, Interesting)