Re: Is "Spacetime" a misnomer?
- From: "Ahmed Ouahi, Architect" <ahmed.ouahi@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:25:41 +0300
However, whether, once upon a time, when the poet Paul Valéry asked
Einstein, it he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him
with mild but genuine surprise and said :
- Oh, that is not a necessary, it is so seldom, I have one.
However, when Einstein, did get one it tended to be a good, for the simple
reason, that the next idea of Einstein, was one of the greatest, that anyone
has ever had, indeed...
--
Ahmed Ouahi, Architect
Best Regards!
<surrealistic-dream@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1156860045.267378.39290@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Barry wrote:misnomer.
Sue... wrote:
Indeed... The OP might better has asked if 'proper time' is a
It is, because the relation between mass, energy and acceleration
don't hold true in a non Euclidean CS.
Indeed I might have, but I didn't want to take on too big a task. A
thousand mile march is made one step at a time.
I took as a starting point Einstein's operational definition that time
is what clocks measure. And what clock's measure is proper time.
If coordinate time is acknowledged to be a misnomer, then we can move on
to tackle proper time.
I don't see how you came to the conclusion that coordinate time is a
misnomer. In any case, the logic of your sentence eludes me. It's like
saying: "Well, now that pluto is no longer a planet, let's show that
the sun is no longer a star.
Einstein used his operational definition for immediate expediency.
For a reference on operationalism and SR and other related things, see
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ancillaries/Proper-Time.htm
I doubt that he intended it to be taken quite so literally for quite so
long as it has been. He seems to me not to be a full-fledged positivist.
Barry
Einstein was not a full-fledged positivist at any time of his life,
though he was influence by the positivist movement to the degree that
he concluded that theories ought to be minimalistic in their ontologies
and in their founding postulates.
But this misses the point, as usual. Every theory of physics that deals
with dynamics must at some point make predictions that deals with space
and time measurements, if for no other reason than to test the theory.
SR is just one of those theories.
At some point in Einstein's examinations of the meaning of synchronized
clocks in an inertial frame, he observed the obvious: that
synchronization of clocks has no meaning apart from some made-up
procedure applied to synchronize clocks in a given reference frame.
During that gestation period in which Einstein was formulating his
theory of special relativity as a principle theory, he claimed this
epiphany to occur:
It became clear that to speak of the simultenaity of two
events had no meaning except in relation to a given
coordinate system, and that the shape of measuring
devices and the speed at which clocks move depend
on their state of motion with respect to the coordinate
system.
--- Einstein, What is the theory of relativity,
Ideas and Opinions, p. 230.
Einstein wrote in 1949 concerning his ecletic philosophy of science:
The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and
science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent on
each other. Epistemology without contact with science
becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology
is --- in sofar as it is thinkable at all --- primitive
and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist,
who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through
to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the
thought-content of science in the sense of his system
and to reject whatever does not fit into his system.
The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his
striving for epistemological systematic that far. He
accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual
analysis; but the external conditions, which are set
for him by the facts of experience, do not permit him
to let himself be too much restricted in the construction
of his conceptual world by the adherence to an
epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the
systemic epistemologist as a type of unscupulous
opportunist; he appears as a realist insofar as he seeks
to describe a world independent of the acts of perception;
as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and
theories as free inventions of the human spirit (not
logically derivable from what is empirically given); as
positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and
theories justified only to the extent to which they
furnish a logical representation of relations among
sensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or
Pythagorean insofar as he considers the viewpoint of
logical simplicity as an indispensible and effect tool
of his research.
---- Einstein's essay 'Reply to Critics': in P.A. Schilpp, ed.
Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, La Salle, IL, Open
Court, pages 683-4, published in 1949.
.
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- Is "Spacetime" a misnomer?
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