Sharing the same "now"

[Martin]

I am still trying to undrestand how the twins could age at different rates in diffrent time frames, and yet share the same "now" to view events and come together. There must be some relationship between the progression of "now" and reletivity.

 

Asprung, I think the only place for your thread is in speculation forum for the following reason: You seem to insist on thinking in a vacuum. You refuse to follow up on links that relate to your concerns. It is not normal mainstream practice to think in isolation.

 

Or if you do secretly:D read other sources related to your ideas, you aren't citing sources and giving us links, so it looks like you are operating in a vacuum.

 

I told you Einstein was very bothered by the fact that there is no place for "now" in relativity, or in fact in physics as a whole. He talked about that with a prominent philosopher Richard Carnap. I gave you a link where you can find a couple of paragraphs paraphrasing their exchange.

 

You apparently did not follow up on that link. You apparently don't know what Einstein or Carnap said about "now". Also there was a lot of other related stuff in those lecture notes. None of this is especially hard to understand either.

 

To me, following leads and looking up what other people say is a sign of willingness to learn.

 

"Now" is an idea that has no place in conventional physics. Edward Witten, for instance, would presumably have no use for that idea in his intellectual endeavors. It is a FRINGE idea. But a few good physicists have been dissatisfied with this situation and have thought about it.

 

Because it is such a marginal idea, the only way you can have a respectable discussion about it is to connect up with the thoughts and reflections of others, preferably Nobel-grade or other top people. You have to be able to quote others intelligently.

 

You keep saying "But now must have something to do with relativity."

It doesn't. Newton's physics had no "now". Neither does Einstein's. You cannot define now in either of those frameworks*. From a physics-as-usual standpoint, you might as well forget it.

 

However physics has the creative ability to grow. Good people like Nobelist Gerard 't Hooft have written about this problem. He thinks there might be something deeper than relativity, a more fundamental structure underlying the spacetime of special relativity. George Ellis, who co-wrote a famous book on spacetime with Stephen Hawking, and is regarded as an authority, has written about this as well.

I already gave links that would get you to still other physicists' comments.

 

*Cosmology is a special case, it has a gimmick, but that doesn't change the overall picture.

[swansont]

Amen to that. Whatever the merits, it seems like an isolated individual vision. I didn't see Asprung tying in with any mainstream physics.

 

Done

[asprung]

My theory that the universe and the twins age uniformly with the progression of “now” does not have main stream support which indicates a separate ageing of each time frame in accordance with the running of its own clock (citing an abundance of evidence of slower running clocks). While I realize that my theory may be shot down as nonsense I sort of like it.

Thank you all for putting up with me.

[swansont]

My theory that the universe and the twins age uniformly with the progression of “now” does not have main stream support which indicates a separate ageing of each time frame in accordance with the running of its own clock (citing an abundance of evidence of slower running clocks). While I realize that my theory may be shot down as nonsense I sort of like it.

Thank you all for putting up with me.

 

“Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.”

Thomas Henry Huxley

[asprung]

If the universe only exsits "now" this must be uniform for all in it.

[iNow]

If the universe only exsits "now" this must be uniform for all in it.

 

Let me ask you this, asprung. Do you think that it's possible that "the universe" as you understand it in your mind might be different than "the universe" as I understand it in my mind?

[cameron marical]

yet we still live in the same universe.

[iNow]

Thanks, cameron, but I am asking asprung to think about my question for a very specific reason.

[NowThatWeKnow]

If the universe only exsits "now" this must be uniform for all in it.

 

I was wondering how long it would take for "now" to show up.

 

I think Swansont explained it well earlier in this thread.

"The confounding thing about relativity is that it's not just a static offset of times, but that clocks run at different rates. We could agree on a universal time if we chose to, by picking a single reference frame and do the relativistic conversions, but there is no physics reason to prefer one over the other."

 

Mod note: this and other recent posts moved from another thread

Edited March 13, 2009 by swansont
add mod note

[asprung]

It may be,but I believe this is but one universe that only exsits "now".(there may other universes,as for example out side our "now".

[iNow]

That may be, but having such an understanding doesn't help us in any way. We can't measure it. We can't use it. By the time we've described it, it has passed. It's like the knife edge on a falling wave function, slicing through whatever it is in which we exist... shorter than planck time, and yet eternal simultaneously.

 

It's philosophy, and the only frame of reference that is constant for "now" is your mind.

 

 

I got tired of thinking about it. It did me no good, nor did it have anything more than a metaphysical or philosophical impact. I learned that spending my time learning real science was a lot more useful, and a lot more fulfilling than repeatedly asserting with no evidence, no proof, and little understanding that now is infinite.

 

But hey, that's just me. Knock yourself out, man.

Edited March 13, 2009 by iNow
fixed sentence

[Mr Skeptic]

I think "now" is just a construct of our minds. Now is the most important instant to be thinking about, because now is when we can do stuff. But at larger distances, "now" breaks down since you can't affect things at that distance now.

[cameron marical]

what about the entagled electron thing. i was watching a video about how these things still have a connection, even after they were seperated. but maybe the video was just crap. i liked it though. how do you put a little tab thing here? maybe this is it.

 

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dq454iFp2c&feature=related

[asprung]

Ther is no everdence that mass or energy can linger in the past nor that events can occur there. If we would focus on the concept of the universe being a progression of "nows" we might get a better understanding of it. "Now" is not a mental concept it is the exsistance of our universe. All our measurments and observations are influenced by the progression.

[iNow]

Then prove it.

[swansont]

Who are the "we" to whom you refer? This is your agenda. You have not established that it's a general problem.

[Mr Skeptic]

Ther is no everdence that mass or energy can linger in the past nor that events can occur there. If we would focus on the concept of the universe being a progression of "nows" we might get a better understanding of it. "Now" is not a mental concept it is the exsistance of our universe. All our measurments and observations are influenced by the progression.

 

I don't know about that. Tell me, did I type this in the past, or "now"? By the time you read the second sentence, you read the first sentence in the past. Now is where you are now, and now is when you can choose what to do now. In the past, you could choose what to do in the past, and in the future you will be able to choose what to do in the future. When you're in China, you can choose what to do in China, and when you are in the US you can choose what to do in the US. You can only choose what to do at the time and place you find yourself. You call this here and now, but is any place or time more important than any other? You have always been at the time and place you called here and now, and you will always be at the time and place you call here and now. You can no more choose what to do at a time you are not, then you can choose what to do at a place you are not.

[asprung]

Exactly, you can only do things "now", you cant actually do them in the past or future. In the same manner mass and energy of our universe only exsits "now" and events can only occur "now". It follows in my mind that the universe must age through a progression of "nows". No I cant prove that this is correct,any more than you can prove it is incorrect. It is just my thoughts, thrown out to get some input, and some showing where I'm wrong. I think that I have defined "now" as I use it.

[swansont]

No I cant prove that this is correct,any more than you can prove it is incorrect.

 

Then it's not science.

[brain-in-a-vat]

Asprung, I see this thread is now in the Speculaiton Forum. Here are some speculations that apply to this topic that you might find interesting.

 

Ideas of time travel being related to the different rate of aging via time dilation are misunderstood by many. The error is in thinking that time passes at a different rate in different gravitational fields (or in reference frames that are accelerating at different rates).

 

What happens is when you accelerate an object or person, you slow the function of the matter that the object or person is composed of. How does acceleration slow the functioning of particles? Energy density. Particles are composed of energy. An accelerated object has greater energy density. It can be said that relatively speaking, an object at rest is better lubricated by the lower energy density relative to the same object in a stronger gravitation field, i.e. being accelerated.

 

To put it differently, the particles of an object in a strong gravitational field are being accelerated at higher speed and so their particles will physically move slower within their mass.

 

The net result is that if you start with two people in the same reference frame, accelerate one person on a long circular journey at near the speed of light, and bring them back together, the accelerated person will have aged more slowly. This gives the illusion that a different amount of time has passed for each individual. Actually, the same amount of time has past, but the rate of aging was slower for the accelerated individual because of the higher energy density experienced by the accelerated individual.

Edited March 15, 2009 by brain-in-a-vat

[Mr Skeptic]

So you [asprung] never existed 5 seconds ago, is that what you are saying? But then how did you post the above post? No, you existed 5 seconds ago all right, but you moved forward in time and cannot move back. You are as we speak, moving forward in time, and can't go back. The past exists, as does elsewhere in space, but unlike elsewhere in space, you can't go backward in time. Just like you can't do something at a place where you aren't, you can't do something at a time you aren't. Yet you seem to think that "now" is more pertinent then "here".

[asprung]

That sounds good to me. I can separate what I call the progression of "now" from a slowing of molecular function refered to as a slowing of time. The word time is troublesome.

What I can see is a universe rolling along toward the future at a steady pace with matter ageing at diffrent rates. This would account for the space twin experencing a slower clock and ageing and yet keeping current with earths "now".

[brain-in-a-vat]

That sounds good to me. I can separate what I call the progression of "now" from a slowing of molecular function refered to as a slowing of time. The word time is troublesome.

What I can see is a universe rolling along toward the future at a steady pace with matter ageing at diffrent rates. This would account for the space twin experencing a slower clock and ageing and yet keeping current with earths "now".

Yes, now you have it.

 

But I am a little concerned with your statement, "The word time is troublesome". Now is now everywhere and if you perform perfect reconcilliation of the distance separating objects and their relative motion you get the same moment in both places. That moment passes as the "nows" "roll forward", as you say, and time is merely a measurement of "nows" passing. The measurement being different at two locations separated in time and space makes no difference, now is still the same now in both places at all times, I speculate.

 

The energy density explanation of time dilation is a new idea I think (except that I posted it in another forum a while back), but if it is not new I hope someone will point out that I am wrong to think that.

[Mr Skeptic]

Now (heh) you're on the right track. While for all intents and purposes, any method of measuring the passage of time could say your time is running slower than earth time, you could look outside your spaceship and deduce what earth time would be. Then you could sync that with your watch, and have a watch that measures your time and synced updates of earth time side by side, and you could choose to measure your activities in earth time (though you may also need to record your position). However, that would be awkward when someone asks you how old you are -- if you answer in earth time, it could be misleading as to your biological age, whereas if you answer in your time, the age = (today's date - date of birth) formula won't work in the earth calendar.

[asprung]

The word time is troublesome to me as it varies in different reference planes while the progression of "now" does not.