Re: How many things can happen in a single instant?

From: Mike Helland (mobydikc_at_gmail.com)
Date: 12/22/04 

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 11:59:35 +0000 (UTC)

Igor Khavkine wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:48:24 +0000, Mike Helland wrote:
>
> > This seems to be a standard assumption people have:
> >
> > "If time did not exist, no event occurred."
> >
> > As you may know this the opposite of how I view things. Instead I would
> > say:
> >
> > "If no event occured, time does not exist."
>
> You are free to say whatever you wish. However, merely stringing together
> a few words does not guarantee meaning. This is a common mistake.

Perhaps. Let me be a little more straightforward, then.

There is a relationship between time and motion, or, more generally
since motion is a change of some kind, there is a relationship between
time and change.

We can define that relationship in one of three ways:

1. Time and change are the same thing
2. Time is a medium, a dimensional continuum for change
3. Time is a consequence of the analysis of change

Are there any I missed?

Now the meaning that is implied here is that in relationship 2 and 3,
there is a cause and effect. In 2, the cause is time and the effect is
change; in this view time is a prerequisite for change. In 3, on the
other hand, change is primary and time is something we deduce from it.
That phrase was almost quoted exactly from Julian Barbour. As hard as
the 3rd relationship may be to understand, there are many out there
that understand and accept it.

So what I'm saying in the beginning of my post is that #2 is the common
view, whereas #3 is my view.

> The general idea that you seem to be presenting is not new. However, you
> are falling into the common pit extracting philosophy from it before any
> physical predictions. The examples that you are presenting are too ill
> defined, too crude, and too far from anything realistic to be able to
> produce any physical predictions.

You are right. The examples that I'm presenting are purely for the sake
of discussing time's role in physics.

If I wanted to convince you of the predictions I can make, I would have
to explain to you a brand new view of physics with not only a brand new
view of time, but of space and matter as well. In that case, after all
that had been painstakingly discussed, I could relate to you the
following prediction:

That a black hole's event horizon does not have the surface area that
General Relativity predicts, but instead has a surface area of zero,
effectively meaning that black holes not only hide the matter that is
in them, but also the distance. Therefore, when we measure the radius
of the galaxy we are coming up with a measurement far lower than the
absolute distance because in addition to the black hole containing dark
matter, it contains dark distance. This would explain why spiral
galaxies are observed so often without some extra mystical type of dark
matter:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/149eeb41fb26c744

But, that's if I had time to convince you of the bigger picture. For
now we're just talking about some little things. Maybe I erred early on
in the framing of my hypothesis? Maybe there is something even freakier
that I have missed that perhaps leaps out at you? Because of these
possibilities, some basic points are what I want to talk about.

So, how many things can happen in a single instant?

Take a row of 2 moving bodies. Now special relativity says that
simultaenity is relative to the observer, so light signals would have
to be sent to the observer from each of the bodies moving away from
you. Even if the thought experiment claimed that all the bodies moved
in a single instant, the observer in question would be the final judge
of that. Since he receives light signals from the bodies at two
different times (the light from the object furthest to him would reach
him last) he would actually disagree that the bodies moved
simultaneously.

Therefore, to that observer multiple things aren't happening in a
single instant.

Now Einstein seemed to take the view of relationship 2 that we
discussed above. Obviouslly, because noone was thinking about
relationship 3 back then.

So his solution to this puzzle is that you need to create an entity
called space-time, and the mathematical systems required to calculate
relative velocity and time dilation in relative frames, and then rest
this system ontop of some mechanics.

If you had view 3, you wouldn't need to stretch or skew the time
continuum, because there is no such thing. Instead you would just say
that "well, since there are 8 changes in the system then there are 8
instants of time in the system." In view 3, you don't need to mofidy
mechanics to account for these effects, as they are implicit in the
formalization.

The conclusion ends up being the same, but a 4 year old could
understand everything that is happening in view #3, which I don't think
you could say for the solution that requires special relativity.

I would suggest in light of this that view 3 represents maximum
generality and spareness of form, and is thus more attractive to
physics.

If you think I'm wrong, then I'm dying to know, how many things do you
think can happen in a single instant? And why?