Re: Second time dimension

Den 2007-11-03 09:35:44 skrev Bill Hobba <rubbish@xxxxxxxx>:


"M Winther" <mlwi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:opt06if1kp3bzrao@xxxxxxxxxxx
Hello relativists! How about Dunne's serialism? Is there an extra time
dimension? As has recently(?) been suggested (Itzhak Bars, et al.),
while momentum needs a time dimension, let's, for the sake of symmetry,
add a time dimension to position, too.

Comparatively, the theory of "serialism" as developed by J.W. Dunne
(1875-1949) implies that the observer stands apart from fundamental
time (t1) at another time level (t2). So, below t2 runs vertically
from o1 to o3. The parentheses denote "now" for respective observer.

o3: x -> y -> (z)

o2: x -> (y) -> z

o1: (x) -> y -> z

Our self-experience, says Dunne, depends on the way in which we stand
apart from ourselves. We are observing ourselves doing "this" in t1,
and therefore we are really situated in another time t2, which is
another time dimension running perpendicularly to t1, as it were.

A second time arrow could possibly solve the problem of unification of
physics, but it could also solve the problem of self-consciousness,
i.e., why we are not automations that function "in the dark". Dunne
also speculates that this implies a form of immortality while, in t2,
we can, in principle, exist unrestrained by t1, the primary time
arrow.

What's the fallacy about Dunne's reasoning, or does it really work?

From a scientific viewpoint the fallacy with Dunne's reasoning is he does
not make any testable predicitons. That is what makes it philosophy - not
science.


-----------
Dunne, John William 1875-1949. British airplane designer and
philosopher. Designed and built first British military airplane
(1906-07); published philosophical works including An Experiment with
Time (1927), The Serial Universe (1934), The New Immortality (1938),
Nothing Dies (1940). (Meriam Webster Biographical Dictionary)

Wittgenstein - also an aeronautical scientist before becoming a philosopher:
'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.'
http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/ten.html

In other words, unless you can make testable predictions with it,
scientifically be silent about it.

Thanks
Bill


Before you experiment you must think and discuss. How can I know if I
can make testable predictions if I am not allowed to discuss the theory?
It's not mumbo jumbo, it's physics. Itzhak Bars's theory is presented in
New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626251.400&print=true

According to his theory we live in a world with six dimensions. (Or,
if you extend M-theory, 13 dimensions.) The time-travel problem is
solved because "Phenomena in the six-dimensional world have very
little room to manoeuvre," says Bars. This restriction on motion in
six dimensions makes it impossible to climb into time's second
dimension and travel through it back to the past. "To all intents and
purposes, the six-dimensional world behaves like a far more restricted
world, one with only four dimensions".

"The severely restricted motions in higher-dimensional space-time
reproduce the usual laws of motion in familiar space-time," says Bars,
"but they also reveal new and unexpected relationships."

According to Bars, the world we see around us is merely a "shadow" of
a six-dimensional world. Think of a 3D object like your hand and the
2D shadow it makes on a wall. Just as there are many different
possible shadows of your hand depending on where the light source is
located, there are many possible four-dimensional shadows of the
six-dimensional world. "Each gives rise to a different set of
phenomena in our world," he says.

Bars began exploring the simplest possible system in six dimensions, a
particle moving in a straight line with no forces acting on it.
Remarkably, he found that the system has at least two more complex
shadows in four dimensions. One corresponds to an electron orbiting in
an atom; the other is a particle in an expanding universe. "Although
these phenomena seem unconnected, my picture unifies them," says Bars.
"They are both shadows of the same six-dimensional reality."

Last year, he published a paper in [17]Physical Review D (vol 74, p
085019) showing that the standard model is in fact just one shadow of
his six-dimensional theory. According to Bars, there are other shadows
that include gravity, finally uniting it with the standard model.

Mats Winther
.

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