md65536

A pedantic correction: It's just "billions of kelvin". The kelvin is not referred to or typeset as a degree. To assume something is true you'd want reason to accept it as true, such as consistent observation or logical deduction. The idea that it all came from nothing isn't based on assumptions, but on reasoning and evidence. It's definitely reasonable to suggest that the universe could return to nothing, but you'd have to provide the reasoning before I'd call it a rational assumption. I don't think "it was like that before so it will return to that state" is a reasonable self-evident argument. That assumes it's not a "one way" process. The laws of entropy describe a one-way process, I think, and seems a more reasonable description of the universe than "it will return to the way it was". Say you dropped a box of macaroni. It wouldn't be rational to say "These all came from the box, so I assume they will all end up back in the box at some point." I may be wrong, but... The idea of the universe coming from nothing is that the sum of all energy in the universe is zero... it all cancels each other out. If you assumed it was all brought back together, you might assume it would cancel each other out. But what will annihilate all the spread-out matter and energy if the universe expands to the point of heat death?

A typical interpretation of the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment is that in one reality, the cat will die, and in another it will continue to live a long and prosperous life. If every probabilistic event has each outcome realized in a different reality, the butterfly effect implies that any 2 similar realities would quickly become very different. These could be called divergent alternate realities. Special relativity can describe a much milder interpretation. If we assume that any cat must at some time die, then relativity of simultaneity tells us that that moment isn't the same for all possible observers. It's possible that for one observer the cat is dead, and for another it is still alive. This is the reality for each observer, however these might be called superficial alternate realities. The details such as timing of events are different in the different reality, but the cat's eventual death and the cause of its death are common. Further, if you bring any 2 observers to the same location and velocity, the description of their separate realities should merge. This might be called convergent alternate realities. With these definitions and an acceptance of special relativity, convergent superficial alternate realities are a fact of nature. But are divergent alternate realities also real? We are then interested in determining the furthest extent to which alternate realities can diverge. We might do this by separating the properties of the universe into two categories: those that change depending on how they are observed (subjective), and those that don't (objective, absolute, or invariant). Subjective aspects of reality: time distance Invariant aspects of reality: c causality Causality is a significant property in the Schrodinger's cat experiment. If indeed it is invariant, then it is possible for the experiment to be viewed with multiple superficial outcomes by multiple observers, but the state of the cat (dead or alive) as determined by the causal connection between events, would be convergent among different realities. It would either remain alive, or eventually die by the same causes in all realities. Schrodinger's experiment relies on quantum phenomena translating to real-world events. Using the above interpretation, however, we can find a disconnect between the two: At the particle scale, we might describe reality according to subjective properties, but then as we back out to a human scale we may inadvertently switch to including an invariant property. Much of the nature of particles is subjective. If distance is completely observer-dependent, then particle location, velocity, and even size can be subjective. Particles will be observed differently by different observers. It is possible that 2 observers do not even have the same particles in their respective realities. Yet, if causality is invariant, then particle interactions that cause other observable events must be invariant across multiple realities. Ie. causal relations must be realized in all realities regardless of how they may be differently observed. Both quantum mechanics and special relativity can be interpreted as requiring alternate observational realities. They do not require the more extreme interpretations of parallel universes in which we each live out an infinite number of wildly different lives. Since causality is shown to be invariant in special relativity, it is likely that such wild interpretations where causality is subjective, are false. Occam's razor would suggest that parallel universes are unlikely. However, there may be other evidence for parallel universes that I'm not covering. In summary, it is possible that the physical details and makeup of different alternate realities are very different, and yet that all realities converge on a single consistent description of the universe.

Why not just post a link? There's nothing against that... no need to axe permission. The closest applicable rule I can see is 7. Advertising and spam is prohibited. We don't mind if you put a link to your site in your signature, but don't go around making dozens of threads about it.

Well it's over my head, but... As you mentioned, time is relative. If part of the universe is expanding away from you at a certain speed, that will affect the rate at which clocks tick in that area, as observed by you. The solar system for example is not expanding such that things are moving away from each other at a rate approaching c. So time anywhere in the solar system, viewed from anywhere else in the solar system, would not change much over a billion years due to expansion of the universe. It has expanded at most a light hour or whatever it is, in its history. Time as we know it... all clocks on Earth (including natural pre-man ones) should not be different over a billion years due to relativistic velocity of expansion. Also... relativistic velocity only slows down clocks. At relative rest is their fastest; motion toward or away from a clock will slow it. So if expansion is increasing, time (at the furthest reaches of the universe relative to us) is slowing, not increasing its rate. A smaller universe in the past should allow for greater density of matter and probably greater gravitational differences, which according to GR would mean slower time in the past (when viewing an area that's in a strong g field from an area with a weaker field). If the entire universe is expanding, the solar system would have been smaller in the past (as would Earth, the galaxy, everything), and I'm not sure what kind of effect, if any, that would have on time within the solar system, viewed from within the solar system. Also not a physicist!

I don't follow your reasoning that matter and consciousness must behave differently regarding alternate universes. Why would one consciousness experience what a copy experiences? Aren't they separate? And if not, why would matter be separate from its copies? Wouldn't you assume that matter on Earth would "experience the gravitational pull of an infinite number of Earths" or something? There is probably some interpretation of QM that will let you develop these ideas further, but personally I think the entire idea of parallel universes is unnecessarily complicated and likely false.

And moving in the opposite direction is impossible... "In 1958, David Finkelstein identified the Schwarzschild surface as an event horizon, 'a perfect unidirectional membrane: causal influences can cross it in only one direction'."[1] So in my analogy it's impossible to escape the universe completely, as I described it. In fact in my analogy I assume some kind of equivalence between the outside and inside of an event horizon (as a boundary between 2 universes, one might say), which then must be incorrect if it's one-directional. So then it's impossible to compare what would be seen outside, vs inside the EH? Still, can we say anything about an observer who was always inside the EH? Outside, we calculate there is a singularity at r=0. Inside, might this not be a singularity? I googled it up, and found that what I'm describing is a "coordinate singularity"... a singularity that can disappear with a change of coordinates. It appears that the answer is "no": "What happens at r = 0? In the Schwarzschild metric, the expressions 2M/r approach infinity as r approaches 0. This is a real, physical singularity, not a coordinate singularity."[2] However I'm not fully convinced, because most of the stuff I came across says something like "No one knows what would be seen inside the event horizon" etc, so it could still be a coordinate singularity within the EH. Also, the singularity is a point singularity only for non-rotating BHs (otherwise it's a ring singularity), and it's likely that all BHs rotate. Also, the singularities are expected to not be real phenomena, but rather "The appearance of singularities in general relativity is commonly perceived as signaling the breakdown of the theory. ... It is generally expected that a theory of quantum gravity will feature black holes without singularities."[3] I can still think of 2 alternatives that would let my idea be true (one where the singularity is a coordinate singularity that disappears inside the EH and one where the singularity remains), but I find no evidence to suggest they have any basis in reality. Refs: 1. http://en.wikipedia....hole#Golden_age 2. http://members.cox.n.../black_hole.htm 3. http://en.wikipedia....ole#Singularity

Wouldn't it be that the more precisely the distance between A and B is known, the less precisely the change in distance between them is known, and vice versa? Is it valid to determine this using the coordinate system of A, so that the position of B is expressed relative to A while A is fixed (relative to itself at least), and the distance between the two is equivalent to the position of B?

EXACTLY! So if we were to list all fundamental aspects of the universe, and time and distance were not defined on there, but everything else was (the definition of speed, volume etc), then I'm suggesting that you could come to any correct conclusion about time and distance, as we observe and/or understand it, based on that. Then if you gave these rules to an advanced AI that had no understanding of time and space, but was able to deduce things, it could deduce things like "I get it! Things appear smaller the farther you are from them!" or, as I'm suggesting: "I get it! Spacetime must curve!" Or to put it another way, my conjecture is this: If you listed everything that is true about the universe, and then one by one removed every statement that could be logically deduced from the other statements (ie you reduced it to fundamentals), you would eventually be able to remove the definition of time and space, as their definition would be completely specified by other more fundamental truths. I'm saying they need not exist, even as concepts, independent of the rest of the universe. As real as they are to us, they may just be "semblances" or something, of an underlying nature of the universe. I think things like speed and volume would have to be definable in terms of other things (entropy maybe) for this to be correct. Okay sorry I've rambled too long now trying to make precise the ethereal philosophical aspects of the conjecture, and my thoughts and words aren't precise enough to do this. I'm separating "observed reality" ie "reality" (subjective, observationally dependent, relative, etc) from "underlying physical nature of the universe" (objective, absolute, ??? yet unknown or at least not yet well understood... speculative!). This is also separate from "imaginary" (illusive ie. inconsistently observed or strictly conceptual). I don't even know enough of what I'm saying to make defensible claims. The more I write to try to suss it all out, the more confusing it will probably be. It's just a vague idea that's based on conjectures about time and spacetime curvature. It's there that I should focus, where it should be possible to evaluate the conjectures mathematically if I can figure out how. I should leave the philosophy where it is: just a vague idea of the nature of existence, that will always involve flexible interpretation of the science. I can't make any claims about whether or not my philosophical outlook is right. This is not related to the conjecture about spacetime curvature, but: My other conjectures, which lead to this one, also leads to an idea that the universe can be described completely as a thermodynamic system with topology but without geometry. No distance or time, possibly as little as 2 dimensions (or even less, maybe fractional), a singularity. This is usually what I'm thinking of when I speak of an "underlying physical nature of the universe". Some weird inconceivable thing that doesn't make sense in our understanding of reality, because it involves removing all the things that define perception (or result from perception), ie involves removing much of what makes up our reality as we perceive it.

No you were right... I was referring to perception as a basis for the fact of distance. But not in any "imaginary, anything goes" type of way. Only in a very real way. For example, if you take a wooden table, you would say that it is solid. And that is reality... it is solid. Depending on how it is perceived, it appears solid (if the wavelength of light used to observe it is blocked by it). The "underlying reality" is that it is made up of tiny particles and is mostly empty space between them, but the perceptual reality which depends on how it is perceived, is that it is solid. That your hand can't pass through the table is real, but not fundamental: It can be traced back to an effect of the fundamental forces (which of course would be considered fundamental). That stuff can't pass through a table "depends"... neutrinos can. Obviously, the impenetrability or solidity of a table is not a fundamental aspect of the universe. If you change lenses on a camera, it changes the appearance of distances, but it doesn't change the actual distances. However, if you are moving relative to something, you can change its actual length (this is only noticeable at velocities approaching c). The length of something is real, but its actual value depends on how it is observed. You can get different people to estimate the length of a meter stick, and due to errors in perception, they will observe 1m and think it is something else. With perfect perception (which I'm assuming in these posts -- I'm talking about the nature of reality rather than the nature of human thought and sensing), you would perceive 1m. However, another perfect perceiver may measure 0.5m depending on relative velocity or differing gravitational field. The reality is that that meter stick actually IS 1m or 0.5m depending on the observer. Those are both "real distances". But distance isn't fundamental. The closest you can get to an absolute distance is rest distance in the absence of gravity. It could be that this actually is fundamental. I don't think it is but I can't rule it out. Perhaps I'm not using the word "perceived" properly... Does it imply an element of human interpretation? I've been using it as if it didn't.

I was thinking about how time and space is consistent no matter how it is observed (related to this post: http://www.sciencefo...rves-spacetime/). As an example, suppose you could shrink the universe down to a very small size. It would continue to function consistently with the relationship between time and space being determined by the value c. You may see the universe as small, but others who may perceive it differently may see it as immense. I think this is exactly what would happen if you were to somehow "step outside" the universe. You would perceive it as small (as a black hole, I believe), while others inside it would see no change in space or time. If you shrunk it this way and could peer inside, you would necessarily see that time seems sped up*... as light still travels at c, a lot more can happen with smaller distances. And yet, the universe would be consistent for all observers, including you outside and everyone inside. However, if you were to shrink the universe to a singularity, you would "lose track" of its time... I think its time would become undefined to you. Would it still be possible to have a consistent understanding of the universe? As a leap of logic, one might say that if you perceived the universe as a singularity, then it no longer exists consistently for you. If that is true, then there is no way you can perceive information about it. If the universe is viewed as a black hole singularity, then it is at the event horizon that you are no longer able to make observations of it. So would that coincide with the size of the universe? Inside the event horizon, it is observable and thus has size and thus time and is consistent, and outside the horizon it is sizeless and thus unobservable and inconsistent. This might also relate to the idea that what is unobservable does not exist. The reality that may be defined within a singularity is not defined outside of it. Apologies if this is just a mess of meaningless thoughts. Does anyone follow my reasoning, or have related thoughts? Or am I skipping so far over the details (both in my mind and in this post) that all that's left is nonsense? * Edit: I may have that backwards? This gets me every time.

I don't know, at least not clearly enough to make such statements. I don't think the retina or humanity has any effect on reality. I might try to say instead that "distance is not fundamental in the universe". My followup about the holographic principle seems to assume that c -- a fixed speed of all energy in the universe -- is fundamental. Time and distance can be an illusion or a social fact or real or unreal or whatever, but the main important fact is that however they may be perceived, they are always defined by a fixed relationship between time and distance. The original conjecture then goes something like this: Time and distance are perceptual effects consistent with these "fundamental aspects of the universe": 1) all energy travels at all times with a speed of c. 2) there is a limited number of possible locations within a given volume (ie. quantization of location) 3) the total entropy of a volume is limited by the surface area around the volume (consequence of 1 and 2?) 4) ??? Thus, you can say what you want about time and space, define them as concretely or as abstractly as you want, but in any way you do, the above fundamental aspects must hold. The conjecture referred to by the title of this thread is that if you have a definition of time and space defined by the above aspects, and it is consistent, then you have spacetime curvature due to mass energy. In a sense, "what time and distance are" doesn't matter as much as the fundamental aspects matter. Time and distance are simply an expression of the universal consensus of those aspects. So I would say more than social facts, they are universal facts, but consequential rather than fundamental ones. They are defined as a universally consistent perceptual measurement, but that definition defines a local perception that depends on the observer. Hahaha, if you are not confused then that makes one of us who isn't! Or in other words... the nature of time and space lies somewhere between an arbitrary perceptual conceptualization of a universe, and an underlying absolute physical reality of the universe. Time and space are defined by the observer and depend on how they are observed, but only to the extent that they are consistent with the fundamental reality they represent. Edit: 4) What is not consistent is not observable 5) What is not observable does not have a defined existence 6) Reality is consistent (consequence of 4 and 5?)

Thanks! I have some differing philosophical ideas but nothing clear enough to be worth presenting, yet. Edit: But then I went and wrote out those ideas anyway, in later posts below. :S To try to be a bit more precise... Suppose you have a certain number of energy quanta at a single location at time 0, and then examine them at a time t. Their max speed is c, so you should find that all the energy is contained within a sphere of radius c*t. Assuming the quanta can interact or be accelerated, or just that they may bounce off things, we would expect that the total number of possible places for any quanta of energy would be related to the volume of the sphere (each quanta may be anywhere within the sphere). However, the only way to get to a particular point on the surface of the sphere is to travel there at c in a straight line. Conversely, if a particle travels in a straight line (no bouncing) it will end up at the surface of the sphere at time t. Therefore, if you find a particle anywhere else inside the volume, that means it bounced (or otherwise diverted), and that means that there is some place on the surface of the sphere that can't be reached by any particle (unless we allow that 2 particles can travel the same path at the same time and diverge, which I guess we must assume is impossible. We might assume that 2 quanta at the same location after time 0 can be considered a single quantum). The main thing that affects where these quanta of energy end up, is an assumption that they all travel at c (whether they consist of photons, or as matter made up of oscillating energy that might be considered "energy that bounces several many times within time t"). If the energy could travel at arbitrary speed <= c, they could end up anywhere in the volume and thus the entropy would be proportional to r cubed. But since they travel at a fixed speed, there is only one place a quanta could be at time t, depending on the direction it was traveling when it left the initial location... ... That part may make some assumptions about determinism that are not quite true. Regardless... Anyway, the point of this is that each of these quanta of energy can either 1) end up on the surface of the imaginary sphere and "fill that spot" at time t, or 2) if not then the quanta is within the sphere and there is an "empty spot" on the sphere where it would be if it had traveled in a straight line. Thus, for each quanta within the sphere, no matter how many we begin with, there is a point on the surface of the sphere that maps uniquely to that quanta. If you want to end up with more quanta inside a sphere than there is room for them on the surface of the sphere, you cannot do so by having all the quanta start at the same place and the same time. Yada yada yada Big Bang

How do you get that speed is an angle? According to your diagram with c as an angle you get tan( c ) = T/D (opposite over adjacent). I think you want that c = D/T... a speed... the distance D that light travels in time T, such that c = tan( pi/2 - theta ) where theta is the angle you currently label as c. Or simply c = tan( theta ) if you use the angle off of the time axis rather than the distance axis. The tangent of an angle is not an angle. In this diagram, speed is a ratio. I don't know enough about spacetime diagrams, but if they do represent speed with a proper angle, I don't think this diagram corresponds to them (as you do to get eq 4). In Minkowski diagrams, the vertical axis is "ct", which is the same units as the distance axis, so uh... well I dunno, but I guess you can do different things with it and have it make sense, where the same thing wouldn't make the same sense with your diagram.

Evaporation can use energy to extract liquid from a capillary, freeing it to draw up more liquid. If your device is indeed cycling through the same energy states (which I don't think it is but it could be), this could allow it to do so. What I meant by this... perhaps I should clarify -- I'll restate it: It is VERY UNLIKELY that you can 1. set a goal of breaking a well-established law of science, 2. undertake that goal without understanding the law you're trying to break, and 3. succeed. Or in other words: It's very unlikely that you can design a device specifically to break laws that you don't understand, and have it work. PERHAPS if you understood the law and came up with a theoretical way to circumvent it (ie. to falsify it), MOST LIKELY you'd still be wrong, but you might not be. It happens and it will continue to happen... it is part of scientific process. However, laws that are confirmed by hundreds of years of experimental confirmation tend to very rarely be false. PERHAPS if you already HAD a device which SEEMS to break the laws of physics (say if you had a device that ran on 2 car batteries and unexpectedly kept running after you removed them), even then it is very unlikely that it breaks existing laws of science, or requires new ones. It is more likely that there is some explanation that you're missing. I don't want to discourage you from trying to do the impossible, but there's a fine line between attempting something new without knowing exactly what you're doing, and devoting your time to a hopeless project (like a PMM) while refusing to understand it. (To your credit, you are attempting to understand it, despite refusal to accept the key principles that would let you understand it.) Yes, conservation laws are falsifiable. Your device could be considered an experiment which supports the well-known conclusion: They are not false. No, the apologies are mine. Discussion can always be beneficial though my negativity may not. And you seem to be committed to truly understanding your device; it should not be my concern what route you take to get there.

Evaporation typically involves an energy input. Exactly! This is the key to understanding your device! How can any system perpetually cycle through the same states without requiring any new energy, and while losing (a tiny amount of) energy due to friction? Conservation of energy is what you need to research. If you can extract a certain amount of energy going from state A to B, it will take at least that much energy to go from state B (through any states C etc) back to state A. Some additional points: - A system can cycle for a very long time if it is very efficient. A pendulum won't swing to the bottom and then immediately stop, even though it has the lowest potential energy there, because potential energy is constantly being converted to kinetic energy and vice versa (with some lost to inefficiency), in accordance with conservation laws. - Having a device drip for a long time is meaningless if you're extracting very little energy from it. See: http://www.emoti.com...ag/00/0417.html Tar can continue dripping extremely slowly for a century but no one would consider it a perpetual motion machine. The longer your machine runs, the easier you're making it to fool yourself (and possibly others). - You have not shown how or even speculated that your machine circumvents conservation of energy laws. There is no reason to believe it does, other than that it's a puzzle to figure it out. On the plus side: You may consider this device among the best "perpetual motion machines" ever designed and built, some of which might be considered "famous". On the bad side: None have ever worked, and there is scientific proof of that, and a lot of time has been and continues to be wasted. On a related note... I finally discovered the "Stop watching this topic" button which has improved my life! I keep fooling myself into thinking that I can help resolve something with a reply.

I am not an expert, but... It is simply a measurement, exactly like distance is. It's not a "thing" with substance. "Distance" is real but it's not a physical thing. You can say distances exist, but you intuitively think of them as properties of a system, or as aspects of other things in a system, ie as measurements. They are not "stuff". Similarly, space-time is not "stuff", like an aether. Space-time doesn't exist independently of other things. In the sense that it's a measurement, it's a measurement between other things. It can also be a measurement between imaginary locations in space and time, where those locations are also not things. Time is a physical property defined between any locations in spacetime.

I disagree with that advice. I'd recommend researching a bit more so that you understand why these machines don't work, instead of trying multiple times to build them. I think that it is very unlikely that you can break a law of science without first understanding it enough to know where (and only IF) it can be broken. You requested and listed possible explanations for why your machine doesn't work, but you've skipped the suggestions given to you. Here is your flaw: You are starting your machine in one state (capillaries empty; relatively high amount of potential energy) and then letting it run to another state (capillaries saturated) at which point, for some reason you expect it to keep running. Once you get to a stable state, there are not really any "new states" for the machine to get to. You are claiming that the machine is in one state, the liquid drips, the capillaries suck up more liquid, and you are back at a state very similar to the previous state. So answer this: What form of energy is used to return the machine to a previous state? If you can answer that realistically, then you've identified an energy input to your machine. It's nothing special that the machine would go from its start state to a stable state, even if that involves the liquid dripping and moving across the magnet, even cycling for days or whatever else it might do. However I don't think you've shown that your machine goes from a stable state, through a cycle, and returns to a stable state. Without energy input this is impossible. Yet you're ignoring this, and looking for other excuses for why the machine stops working.

In that case, our memories and experience would likely be part of the "state of the universe." If we returned to a "2010 state", we wouldn't have a memory of 2011, but instead restore a memory of the past up to 2010. So if as you conjecture it's possible to return to such a state, then imagine that time is, right now, running in reverse. As you suggest, time isn't something that "flows" but rather the experience of a changing state of the universe. As we go back in time and proceed from one state to a previous state, we restore previous memories of time moving forward. If we experience the universe only in its current state, then ... we could actually be moving backward in time right now and never realize it! We're not experiencing moving through time, only a single state that encodes the experience of moving forward through time. It may be a game for the mind to try ponder that, but I don't think it's a realistic idea at all. The laws of entropy say that returning to a former state is more difficult as time passes... if not impossible. Some new understanding of time might make that law work in reverse for "backward time", but without any reason to suggest that there is something or some process by which previous states are restored, there's no reason to think that it happens. The idea of random quantum fluctuations coupled with the idea that any possible reality will be expressed as a reality, somewhere in the multiverse... may suggest that it's possible and thus certain that a universe "pops" into existence with a randomly configured state that is identical to any other given state, such as one where you exist with memories and a history. It could be that the universe exists only in random moments. It seems like you're existing "over time" but really that's just an illusion caused by the single instantaneous random universe happening to encode a memory of past experiences... However I think that I'm just complicating an already overcomplicated idea. Maybe there's some value in thinking about these things, but I think that the true nature of time and the universe is a LOT simpler than all these ideas. It is basically a discussion about what color the scales of a dragon that lives past the edge of a flat Earth might be.

I've said before on these forums that "Why does mass curve spacetime?" was the last puzzle piece for myself having even the vaguest understanding of how gravity works. Finally I have an idea. So I retire from science. Assumptions: 1. Time and distance are perceptually defined. They appear different depending on how they are observed. At the speed of light, they are unobservable... they essentially disappear. I assumed that it's possible to describe a viewpoint or model in which they don't exist at all. I conjecture that they are not fundamental aspects of the universe, but only observational side-effects of a consistent, 2-dimensional universe. 2. This pretty much implies that geometry is a perceptual effect. I assume the universe can be defined topologically without geometry. 3. Earlier I posted... http://www.sciencefo...ely-impossible/ mentioning an idea that the amount of distance between everything is related to entropy. I think this might be related to the way that the surface of an imaginary sphere of radius r around an observer is able to "intersect more stuff" the larger that r is. If the radius of a sphere is determined by time t (ie. it grows at a fixed rate), then as it grows, the total possible entropy might be relative to the surface area of the sphere... it represents a measure of the possible states of something moving away from the observer at fixed speed. For example, if you have N photons leave a point at time 0, then at time t, the total possible locations for those photons are spread across an area of pi*t2 oops lol I mean 4pi t2. Blah blah blah, yada yada yada, and you have yourself a different description of the holographic principle, which to paraphrase suggests that the total entropy of a volume is proportional to the surface area around that volume. See also: 4. If geometry is nothing more than a consistent 3-dimensional perception of a 2-dimensional universe, then length and time and the shape of spheres and the way things appear smaller the farther they are away are all side-effects of this. Then you have the following principle: If the total entropy of a volume is limited by a factor of the square of its radius, yet the total perceivable entropy of a volume is a factor of the cube of its radius, then the more "stuff" you perceive in a given volume, the smaller it's radius must be perceived. Thus, for consistency, more mass requires contracted space. Ie... space-time curvature. In other words, space-time curvature is a perceptual product of a consistent universe, just like time and distance etc. The reason that everything appears as it does, is that reality is one of many (or the only?) possible consistent interpretations of the underlying universe. It may even be that any consistent mathematical consequence of the universe will be observed as a "real" aspect of it, and can be measured. Eg. even if distance is an illusion, it is consistently describable by any number of observers, and so something like our eye (which consists of a large number of individual observers working together) can perceive it. Well, okay this doesn't prove anything, it's just a vague idea. Perhaps I'll figure out the math over the next 10 years, and then I'll post a follow-up.

What is it that you are speculating? Do you have some theory involving aliens or a government coverup? Please note that all posts that are not baseless in scientific fact or not outside of mainstream physics should not be in the Speculations forum. Readers come here looking for absurd opinions and ridiculous conjecture, and don't expect to be confused by facts. Reminder: The rules of the Speculations forum: No maths. Incomprehensible. You must contradict accepted science. No evidence. Obvious errors. It's not science. Okay this post is in jest, but the serious part of it is: Elsewhere in the forums there are rules about what should and shouldn't be posted... why is Speculations treated as a joke or a dumping ground? This thread is about news, and is not even science related. If there's anywhere on this site where the post belongs, it might be the Lounge? But anyway... now that the thread is already here, please ignore my curmudgeonly post and carry on the discusion...

As an example let us consider an event involving 2 particles A and B, moving away from a point or planet P, perhaps after an explosion. Let us consider it from the perspective of A moving relative to P, from which we observe that B is also moving away from P. The notion of “universal time” suggests the idea that if time were to be “reversed”, then every process involving time would be reversed. A would move back toward P, as would B, and they would do so consistently along a single “time line”. However, we know that universal time is not real, and that time is in fact relative. The aspect of that which is important in this example is that time according to A is not the same as time according to B. Suppose that A did in fact reverse direction and began moving back toward P. Suppose that it's possible to consider this in a way where we can't distinguish between the reversal of time between A and P, vs a simple reversal of direction of travel of A relative to P. For all intents and purposes, a simple enough particle A moving back toward a simple enough particle P might be considered time travel backwards. However, the time defined by A and P is independent of the time between B and P. What is done to affect the former does not necessarily affect the latter. So while time can be considered going in reverse for A and P, particle B is continuing to move away from P, which we would call “forward in time”. The same applies to any particles C, D, etc. So suppose we define a clock at P between particles P and C (or any set of particles that we wish). Manipulation of the relative time between A and P would not affect the relative time measured by P and C etc. So while A can be considered moving back in time toward P, that doesn't affect the time measured by the clock at P. A can move back in time and return to a former state of P relative to A, yet it cannot return to a former state of P relative to B, C, etc. According to A, P has continued moving forward in time according to everything else, including its own clocks. Thus the effect of any sort of time travel involving A and P will have no noticeable effect in a complex enough system involving multiple particles, or particles with their own internal time-related processes. In conclusion, I submit that effective time travel would not involve manipulation of a single variable called “time”; it would require manipulation of countless variables of time defined between all of the particles involved. In other words, time travel is possible, but only relatively, not universally. To get more complicated, we might say that time is related to entropy in this way: When you have any 2 particles split from a single location, you introduce distance between them, which effectively defines a measure of time between them. The greater number of independent locations of particles relative to each other that you have, the harder it is to get everything back to the way it was previously.

I'm no expert on relativity but I have spent a lot of time thinking about ideas that sounded eerily similar to your questions, starting about 7 months ago. Yes there are alternative interpretations that work. I'm trying to write a paper on it, and it's too complicated to try to explain here, and anyway it would belong in the speculations forum. I wrote about it here -- http://www.sciencefo...nce-relativity/ -- but what I wrote is old and too vague and mostly incorrect. In the traveler's frame (which isn't really a possible one), the universe is flat, and every point on his journey is the same point. So yes, he's at all those points (ie. at that one single point) at the same time (according to his frame). No... if we see light from the start of his journey take 100 years, that means the start of his journey is 100 light years away from us. This can pretty much only happen if he is in a straight line away from us, so we would not see any lateral movement at all. What we might see is something like: 1. We observe that he is 100 light years away. Perhaps we are watching someone wave a flag that tells him to go. 2. Something happens that is a physical impossibility but it doesn't really matter, because it only takes an instant, so we can't describe what we'd see, anyway. 3. He is now here at Earth. It is like saying "Imagine you are watching someone on the moon turn on a flashlight, and at that same instant, you see the light arrive from the flashlight." The moon is about a light-second away, but the flashlight's light (aka the Traveler) arrives at the same time that observations of the start of its journey arrive. But observations travel at the same speed as light (in this case they are light), so you would see the same thing if light traveled instantly, or if it traveled at c, or at any other speed. But other observers would not see the same thing nor the same timing (observation of arrival at the same time as observation of departure). To make it consistent for all observers is a bit more complicated than "light travels instantly". Specifically, an observer who sees the Traveller's journey at all "from the side", eg. so that the path of the journey looks like a line across the sky, will not see the start and end of the journey appearing simultaneous. If you interpret things so that velocity doesn't apply to light, then what does it apply to? How do you change things so that velocity still makes sense when speaking of moving matter? How is moving matter so different from light? If you figure out the math and the logic to make it work, and then figure out what it means, it might tell you some truly fascinating things...

I'm going to take what you wrote about time, and write something similar about distance. For some reason, most people reason about distance differently than they do about time. Alright at that point you lost me a bit but hopefully that's enough to get my point across, where my point is to offer an analogy so you can reconsider your questions using something that is somehow "easier" to conceive. Note that whether you consider one frame moving relative to another, or vice versa, doesn't matter; each perspective is equally valid. This is the principle of relativity, that there are no privileged frames of reference. Just like distance and relative movement are relative, so is time. Moving "backwards through time" to me is the same as moving to a negative distance relative to something. No matter which direction you are moving, your distance to everything else is positive, where distance is defined only relative to other locations. Similarly, you can only "move forward" in time, where time is defined only relative to other locations. I would say that time is real exactly to the same degree that distance is real. But to discuss this we must leave science behind and move into philosophy (metaphysics, to be specific). It's not just that "science isn't concerned with these questions", as some might argue. It's because to answer your questions, we have to discuss the meaning of the word "real". What we describe as "reality" or "exists" is defined by us, based on existing understandings of space, time, matter, etc. You would have to define and redefine a lot of things, to say a lot of meaningful statements on this topic. However, we can kind of side-step all that and get to the heart of what you're talking about, which is the idea that "reality isn't quite like our classical understanding of it suggests". This is certainly true. Since most people don't "get" special relativity as an intuitive description of their world, let alone general relativity and quantum mechanics and all that -- and likely no one can explain it all -- you can say that in some ways, reality is an illusion, where illusion is "An erroneous perception of reality," and our perception is certainly not perfect, complete, and error-free. I agree though with your principle, and personally I believe that there is a possible, yet-unknown sciencey description of the fundamental nature of the universe, in which time (and distance) are nothing but perceptual side-effects. We won't be able to figure it out until we can express it mathematically, and I'm not able to yet. In a year though... maybe 10...

Personally, one of the biggest challenges I've had with relativity involves keeping all the different frames of reference straight. You're using time from one frame (50 years have passed according to the moving traveler's clocks) and distance from another frame of reference (rest distance from basically anyone's point of view while at rest). Think of it this way: You can either determine the traveler's velocity using a rest frame, or using the traveler's moving frame. In the former, just over 100 years have passed, and 100 light years have been traveled, and v is near c. In the traveler's frame, 50 years have passed, but he has only traveled just under 50 light years (due to length contraction), and v is the same value: near c. The key mistake to avoid is this: If I'm traveling relative to other locations, the time at those locations relative to me will be passing at different rates relative to my own time (that is, clocks on my rocket ship can appear to pass "normally"). If you're measuring change in relative distance, you must use relative time (not traveler's local time) to measure speed. Yes, if I can move at near-c speeds, I can cover great rest distances in what appears to be a short amount of time to me, but relative to anywhere I travel, great amounts of time must also pass.

No, I think that your interpretation is different from the one described by "Relativity of simultaneity" according to SR. Specifically I think you are suggesting that events separated by "light-like intervals" be treated as simultaneous to an observer who sees the 2 events appearing to be simultaneous (IE someone colinear to the 2 events and closer to the 2nd event), while SR treats 2 such events as separated by a time equal to d/c, where d is the spatial distance between the 2 events. So, SR would still say that the Earth observes the sun disappearing 8 minutes after it ceased to exist, according to Earth's reference frame, but that other observers (in frames with different relative velocity, or in different gravitational fields according to GR) will determine a different time difference between the 2 events. If this person signaled you at the same instant that it observed the sun disappearing, then that is an example of a "light-like interval" (between the sun disappearing and them signaling you). I think that if you were to fully develop this idea, you would encounter a lot of inconsistencies that could be resolved by a reformulation of time, but doing so would result in some bizarre requirements, such as the speed of light not being invariable and finite, and stuff like... I've been developing a theory which claims that this, and most of the rest of your interpretation of simultaneity, is literally true. I've posted about it on these forums before, but I stopped because the theory was full of holes and I was unable to answer questions about it. Hopefully within a month I'll be able to post again, and explain it... But yes, I think your idea is good (probably even correct), but not consistent with the definition of time used by special relativity (which by the way is literally the definition of time that we use by standard, in which even the unit of time -- the second -- is defined in terms of c).