Why is time considered to be dilated, rather than molecular activity slowed down?

[swansont]

OK, so there is no defying the nature of spacetime since everything is already a part of nature.

 

However, the sole determinant in quantifying this "anomaly" remains the relative velocity between one object and another. What exactly makes the clock tick slower/trip shorter? In a different sense, it still seems that space is fuzzy when other objects are moving with relation to each other, ie. the very act of moving somehow shortens or lengthens the trip, making space relative. What exactly changes the trip length for the moving object?

 

The finite and constant speed of light has the implication that the velocity four-vector is invariant: your speed through spacetime is constant ©. If you are moving spatially, then your time slows down.

[Norman Albers]

I associate all relativity as illuminating the essence of both light and matter forms as resonance of the vacuum polarizability. The latter is a fundamentally Lorentz-transformable E&M responsiveness, and it's increased availability, or density, is what manifests gravitation.

[bascule]

I think what this thread boils down to is does relativity actually rule out things like universal time or discrete time, or can its effects be explained in ways which fit into a universal/discrete time framework?

 

My reaction is that scientifically this question is unanswerable but at present there is no evidence of universal time or discrete time

 

Thus they remain things that can be unscientifically "believed in"

 

(And things I unscientifically believe in)

 

That's not to say that there aren't theories about spacetime which require discrete time or universal time (I'm using "universal time" here to imply a continuous albeit synchronously shared universal time), but these theories aren't predictive, or if they are, they haven't been tested.

[Norman Albers]

Hey, Swansont, what does an observer "near a BH" measure for speed-of-light radially, and distinctly, transversely? Bascule, at what point, namely what energy regime do we need to answer your question? I see in GR a a differential calculus which shows its own limitation. It is a set of mathematical possibilities to be answered by physics.

[swansont]

Hey, Swansont, what does an observer "near a BH" measure for speed-of-light radially, and distinctly, transversely?

 

My experience with GR is qyuite limited, but AFAIK it depends on how he measures it. If you confine yourself to a locally flat region, you will get c. If you don't, you will get something else. And radially you will have gravitational length contraction, so if you don't have flat spacetime, you will get different answers for radial and transverse values.

[Norman Albers]

I start by looking at the expression: [math]ds^2=(1-2m/r)(cdt)^2-\frac {1}{(1-2m/r) }dr^2-r^2d\Omega^2,[/math] where the last term refers to angular changes. I'm trying to learn the correct interpretations for different observers. A light path is characterized by [math] ds^2=0[/math], but we are free to separately consider change in radius, or transverse (sideways) change. Rearrange terms in a radial displacement: [math]0=(1-2m/r)(cdt)^2 - dr^2 [/math] and in such a measure, [math] (dr/cdt)^2 = (1-2m/r)^2[/math], or [math]dr/dt=c(1-2m/r).[/math] On the other hand, an angular change yields: [math] 0=(1-2m/r)(cdt)^2 - (rd\Omega)^2[/math], or [math] (rd\Omega)/dt=c(1-2m/r)^{1/2}.[/math] The metric term approaches zero near the event horizon, so the transverse term with the square root is larger. Here on Earth the metric term from the Sun's gravity can be calculated ([math]m=\kappa M/c^2[/math]) as roughly [math] 2m/r=2.5E-8[/math], and that from the Earth's gravity is about a magnitude smaller. This is the deviation from unity, and the square root for the transverse term can be approximated with a factor of 1/2. Thus, hereabouts transverse light is slightly faster than radial.

[Farsight]

Perhaps this might be of some use:

 

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s7-02/7-02.htm

 

The preceding discussion makes clear the fact that general relativity is not a relational theory. Schwarzschild spacetime represents a cosmology with a definite preferred frame of reference, the one associated with the time-independent metric components. (Einstein was most disappointed when he first learned that the field equations have such an explicitly non-Machian solution, i.e., a single mass in an otherwise empty infinite universe)...

 

If we trace along the dotted spacelike surface "t = now" we find that the black hole doesn't exist at time t = now, which is to say, it is nowhere on the t = now timeslice. The event horizon is in the future of every external timeslice, all the way to future infinity...

[Norman Albers]

Farsight, that reference is a whopper. I suspect I am exposing my confusion but that's how I learn! All of my expressions are correct, but correctly what? One has to include a metric multiplier to get local measures; I'll be reading to get to the facts of the relative frames of measure. . . . . . . time passes. . . . . The expressions above are in "coordinate variables", or those of a far observer in a flat space. My text makes it clear that a local observer experiences an interval: [math]d\tau=g_{oo}^{1/2}dt[/math]. This shows clearly the relative time dilation. However, I guess we need to rescale the distance measured by the near observer, and if this is the case then locally it balances out and speed-of-light is no different. The analysis I offered might be good for, say, trajectories of light near massive bodies insofar as this is observed "in the far".

[Norman Albers]

Strictly speaking it takes an asymptotically long time to fall to an event horizon. I've been hung up on this, as it is true, BUT, the dependence of the separation of a falling body to the horizon becomes logarithmic: [math] r-2m=8me^{-c(t-t_o)/2m} [/math]. If we work out the scales at a mass of our sun, it has a Scwarzschild radius of only 1.5 kilometers. The characteristic decay time in the exponential is this divided by c, or about 0.5E-4 seconds. Thus in just one second, the exponential developes thousands of orders of magnitude, or thousands of decimal points. This is way beyond kilometers reducing to microns; that is a magnitude shift of E-9. Thus it does not take long for a radially falling object to get quantum mechanically close, or to atomic and particle scales. Thus there is much theoretic ferment here at the meeting of quantum mechanics and relativity. My own guess is that inside the horizon, the vacuum is in a fundamentally different phase state and we should not assume physics is as it was outside.

[lakmilis]

Norman, The whole point of Schwarzchilds weak metric solution is precisely indicating that physics inside and outside as such are not comparable. If it were , we (as in us humans) wouldn't be struggling with QM-relativity disparity, now would we

 

In fact, I would say 'vacuum' is not even a good phrase too use as space-time outside EH, and within

 

had a look at your papers, interesting. An alternative model on electrons or an augmentation of its wave and particle interpretation might happen, hope you not thinking an electron might be a small [black] hole? (Question was more on some other thread I was reading, but anyway)

 

 

lak

[Norman Albers]

The electron in the small limit is as a degenerate event horizon, although we reach the Planck length long before the Schwarzschild radius. Thus we should seek to understand particles as fundamentally electromagnetic resonances...

[lakmilis]

good stuff. Was worried the next thing which came up was that a black hole is a macroscopic electron

[Norman Albers]

A Ph.D. candidate named here solidspin has taken my "silly ideas" into the realm of constructing a photon position operator, riffing on the idea of superconducting response such as I identify in the photon field. Furthermore his construction employs nonlocal coordinates, though at the moment I am neither capable or free to say more. I am probably about to travel to Brookhaven to meet with him; we need to work together.

[lakmilis]

Sorry Alber, dont misunderstand, don't think you approach things in a silly way at all

 

But the electron might be a hole thing is not new and is not really viable. Mathematically perhaps, not physically. Like you mentioned earlier a set of mathematical solutions, which physics answers.

 

I do think from many of your comments though you are heading into some important deductions in that which you are working with.

 

However , not so sure if it still would yield ya a break-through photon position operator (device? or a mathematical entity ?) if I understand it correctly to be áccurate' beyond Heisenbergs certain uncertainty

 

If so and it does, I guess you won't need to tell me, I will find out x

[Norman Albers]

Yes, Lakmilis.

[lakmilis]

Yes, Lakmilis.

 

)

 

of course that would entail you prove Heisenberg wrong and man, a real paradigm in QM.

 

good luck. If this would be the case, it would improve our limited magnification of reality, allowing us to explore a new realm of smaller orders

,x

[Norman Albers]

Lakmilis, why do you say this about uncertainty? If you take only my inhomogeneous constructions, like the photon, you have part of the story. I am about to travel to New York to meet and work with solidspin, who finds my thoughts useful in his nonlocal construction of the photon position op. It is in this vein that I asked earlier about superconducting fields. I do not yet know how these things fit together, but it is a perspective with which to talk about the QM virtual field, no? This is where I feel we should be poking. . . . . . . . . . If we have a field description of a packet, does this contravene uncertainty? To have a description is not the same as to know the interaction or measurement possibilities.

[lakmilis]

Hey Alber sorry , never saw this last post. hmm, having a description would not be descript unless it predicted, thus implying it does indeed affect uncertainty, thats all.

 

I do like to see your thoughts, again don't take my thoughts as negative or to contradict, but it is always healthy to have sceptical thoughts accompanying work where one has real progress

 

good luck.

 

Hmm, a group I know of computer scientists mainly are working on discrete continuums, your last post makes me wonder if there could be a link

[Jean Maxwell]

Perhaps this might be of some use:

 

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s7-02/7-02.htm

 

The preceding discussion makes clear the fact that general relativity is not a relational theory. Schwarzschild spacetime represents a cosmology with a definite preferred frame of reference, the one associated with the time-independent metric components. (Einstein was most disappointed when he first learned that the field equations have such an explicitly non-Machian solution, i.e., a single mass in an otherwise empty infinite universe)...

 

If we trace along the dotted spacelike surface "t = now" we find that the black hole doesn't exist at time t = now, which is to say, it is nowhere on the t = now timeslice. The event horizon is in the future of every external timeslice, all the way to future infinity...

 

Thats a doosie.

 

No universal reference frame? Im kinda outa my league here, but what if we used inflation as our clock? Time is a measure of change. Inflation is supposed to be equal in all parts of the observable universe. All galaxies are moving away at proportionate rates.