where is the distance?

[jajrussel]

One second later as indicated on the diagram shows where B will be by the time light gets there. The diagram shows A, beaming light to where B was, not where it is. Then shows light bouncing off of what is not there and returning to A at its new position.

[michel123456]

One second later as indicated on the diagram shows where B will be by the time light gets there. The diagram shows A, beaming light to where B was, not where it is. Then shows light bouncing off of what is not there and returning to A at its new position.

 

No, that is not what the diagram represents. What you are saying is another configuration where the laser is at A, goes to B (where we putted a mirror), and bounces back to A.

My diagram is simpler than that, because the laser is at B, and pointed to A.

You are right that my configuration implies simultaneity between A & B in order to know when the laser lights on, and that is a problem. Your configuration is better, but the result must be the same.

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Something like this:

 

[jajrussel]

I do agree the new diagram is better. The logical statement it makes is that time is not distance.

[michel123456]

I do agree the new diagram is better. The logical statement it makes is that time is not distance.

 

Hm.

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The units on the time axis are seconds (or another measure of time), but there is also no reason that you cannot use spatial units such as the meter to measure it instead. Just as people use light-years or light-seconds to measure distance using a time unit, you could use light-meters (time it takes light to travel a meter) to measure time using a spatial unit.

 

hum

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You have never asked yourself why do you need time to travel.

Leave it for tonight (for me it is 10.21 p.m.).

[jajrussel]

I propose that time measures movement. If everything stops moving time is irrelevant.

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The diagram is logical.

It shows that A and B are moving in the same direction.

It shows that A and B are 3 distance units apart.

It shows that A and B have moved 6 time units.

It shows that A and B are moving faster than light (the light path is longer than the A and B paths.)

Unconventional, but logical.

A fires the laser anticipating where B will be.

Moving faster than light B intercepts the beam of light.

Anticipates where A will be and bounces the light in that direction.

Then A moving faster than light races ahead to catch the return beam at time unit 6 and that B is still 3 distance units apart.

Unconventional, but logical.

This is just an observation. I am not trying to anger.

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It Shows that geometric shapes can warp reality, if one insist that reality must take the geometric shape.

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I have to admit that for a while there I thought that you were either not serious or were being stubborn. For that I apologize. It has occurred to me that so long as you know both starting points and the distance they are apart at the starting point, you can determine B's position by firing the Laser only once. After that you can assume B's position at any time with reasonable accuracy. I concede that, that position will be a diagonal in my calculations. I am the one whom was confused. I have also been an idiot and I apologize for taking so long to see it.

[michel123456]

No no no.

Pause.

I am stubborn.

In my diagram, A do not move. A is at rest.

B do not move. B is at rest.

The only thing that happens is that time elapses.

The "positions" of A & B are positions in Time, not in Space.

 

How to explain otherwise?

[Spyman]

There is a BIG difference when astronomers are measuring distances to stars far away, because distance stars are actually moving relative us and space is expanding.

 

Lets use this picture:

If both A and B are at rest with each other then the distance between them is 3 units, in all timestamps such as 0, 1 and 2.

 

If A and B where two persons standing 3 units apart at timestamp 0, and A had a long ruler which he reached out with until it touched B at timestamp 2 and then retracted it fully at timestamp 3, then he can measure that the end of the ruler has moved 6 units between timestamp 0 and 2.

 

You can always claim that the end of the ruler also has moved 6 units in time between timestamp 0 and 2, but that goes for the whole ruler and both person A and B as well, so in that case you can no longer claim that they are at rest, because they also travel through time.

[jajrussel]

Are you confusing allusion with illusion, or am I? The straight line distance and the diagonal distance both allude to the actual measured distance. Are you saying that because the straight line distance is also the diagonal distance that one must be an illusion? Not trying to confuse or anger, just trying to understand.

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Sorry, I didn't read your last post before I asked the question.

Now I am thinking...

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To say that time measures movement is the same as saying time measures energy. Point the distance reference only in the same direction as the time reference. Straight up as in your diagram. Now A and B can be given an equal energy value and the distance they move can be seen in the diagram. Give A or B more energy. Then the positions of A or B will vary depending on the energy difference. Relativity as I understand it, allows us to assume our position is either A or B, and it allows us to step back and observe from a distance. From a distance we can see that what we are observing has = energy, or has +- energy.

If A and B start together at zero, where they end up in time will depend on their energy.

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The thought is very simple, but when we compare it to the real world it can become very confusing. Nothing moves in the same direction, yet time seems limited to only one direction. I would compare time to an electron. We are certain that it is there, but can not say with any certainty where it is. We can only allude to where it is, and its actual direction. We can bring it in to our reference point and the questions remain. Where is it? What direction is it headed in? How do we describe what we can only allude to? Is what I have said even in reference to what you have said, or am I in my own little world now? Hmmm?

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We must allow that A and B can move along the diagonal to show the change in energy. Then decide that if time is the same for A and B then regardless the length difference of the straight line compared to the diagonal. They remain on the same level. So as you have asked. Where is the distance?

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What if we disallow the diagonal. Bring it back to where energy determines where A and B is in time, and say that time is not the same for A and B. All they do is synchronize their watches. Now they no longer have to remain on the same level. We have found distance and the universe does what the universe does.

Edited January 7, 2010 by jajrussel
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[michel123456]

I didn't figured that it was so complicated to explain my thoughts when I began this thread.

I began with an idea of translation in time. Time act upon us and make us slide smoothly through time. Some sort of motion, but in Time. Let's call it chronotion.

So, A is standing at rest.

That means, A is not moving, but A is chronoting. Another way to say that "time elapses".

A can stand at rest for many years. That means he will only chronoting for many years. Like a Pharaoh's mummy in the great pyramid. Oh that guy was chronating for a long long time. He was at rest.

Is that clear? I hope so.

Now, we put that chronotion in a diagram. Only chronotion. No displacement, no motion. Just time. Elapsing. Flowing. Everything is at rest. Inside the same FOR. Let's say upon the Earth. Inside the great pyramid. At rest. Dead.

And here we are. We want to measure the length of the pharoh's body. At rest. Not moving. Dead.

It's easy, we take a folding meter from our pocket and we take the measurement. But here the question is a little bit different. The pharaoh's body is too long. It is 300.000 km long. How can we measure that? Easy, we send our Egyptian guide to put a mirror at the pharaoh's feet, while installing an up to date laser ZHR7010 model at the top of his head, pointing to his feet. Wait a few years, standing at rest, untill the Egyptian guide reaches the pharoh's feet.

Then, turn the laser on, and measure the time needed for the beam to come back.

That's the last diagram.

No motion.

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"(..) you can no longer claim that they are at rest, because they also travel through time.

 

No, no, no. Standing at rest means "travel through time" i.e. chronation.

[Sisyphus]

Can I make a suggestion? Instead of thinking of A traveling through time from time 0 to time 1, think of it as having an extension of 1 time unit. If you have a plank of wood that's 1 meter long, you don't say it travels one meter (or make up some other word), you say it has an extension of 1 meter in that dimension.

 

Basically what I'm trying to say is that "chronotion" is making my eyes bleed.

[michel123456]

Can I make a suggestion? Instead of thinking of A traveling through time from time 0 to time 1, think of it as having an extension of 1 time unit. If you have a plank of wood that's 1 meter long, you don't say it travels one meter (or make up some other word), you say it has an extension of 1 meter in that dimension.

 

Basically what I'm trying to say is that "chronotion" is making my eyes bleed.

 

agree for "chronotion". Quite bad. It is taken from chronos, the Greek word for time (chronometer a.s.o.).

Extension again reminds distance, spatial measurement. Any other suggestion?

[Sisyphus]

"Duration" would be the equivalent to "extension" as applied to time.

[michel123456]

Duration is good. Point A is durating, due to duration.

[Sisyphus]

The verb would be "enduring." But my point was, why think of it as an action and not just a property? You don't think of the length of a ruler as an action of that ruler, do you? (Although just as an artifact of speech, you might say "it extends for one meter" as well as "it has an extension of one meter.")

 

Actions/events are how things are different between points in time.

[michel123456]

The verb would be "enduring." But my point was, why think of it as an action and not just a property? You don't think of the length of a ruler as an action of that ruler, do you? (Although just as an artifact of speech, you might say "it extends for one meter" as well as "it has an extension of one meter.")

 

Actions/events are how things are different between points in time.

 

I got your point. Property. Action of a ruler? Hm. Don't want to answer before thinking of it.

[jajrussel]

Since my statement that time is energy, is denied or ignored. I can understand your puzzlement. I could not begin to tell you how to answer the Pharaoh equation, even accepting that time is energy. The new word you have invented seems as equally difficult to define, as the Pharaoh equation is to solve. Thinking that I have finally understood your question, where is the distance? I can only answer, I don't know?

[michel123456]

The verb would be "enduring." But my point was, why think of it as an action and not just a property? You don't think of the length of a ruler as an action of that ruler, do you? (Although just as an artifact of speech, you might say "it extends for one meter" as well as "it has an extension of one meter.")

 

Actions/events are how things are different between points in time.

 

I suppose you mean here that points A, A1, A2 are the one and same object. I will disagree on that, explaining below. I suppose also your ruler analogy (plank of wood) is meant to say that there is a continuation in time, or that any object continues to exist at any time. So that if I could travel into the past, I would encounter myself there, because in some sort, I am still "existing" there in the past.

If that is what you are saying, I would disagree but that was not the meaning of this thread, and I think we can skip the question for a moment. (maybe in a new thread).

 

Explaining why A,A1,A2 are not the same object. A, A1 & A2 are positions, coordinates, they are not "an object". I should have stated that, at point A, an object called M* is standing at rest. After some time (duration), M is at point A1, and after some more time (duration) M is at point A2. When presenting it that way, you may see that the object M is not "extending", the object M is not both at points A & A1, and A2. Our friend Jajrussel introduced into the conversation the concept of energy. Well, if the same object where at point A, A1, A2, wouldn't that mean that his energy has increased 3 times? Which is quite amazing IMO. I don't think things go like that. As I see how all the scenery must work, the object M is one and only entity, traveling (enduring) through points A, A1, A2.

The whole idea here is that Time & Space are somehow comparable instances (phenomenas, properties, wathever). They are not the same, but they are made of the same "stuff", if any.

But if you don't like this presentation, and believe that point M is extending, or that all points A's are the one and same object, we can discuss it separately.

Upon the diagram, the question remains: where is the distance? (the measured one). Or, if you prefer, where is Reality? upon the AB plane, or upon the A B1 diagonal?

 

* M for Myself, or Michel;)

[Spyman]

"(..) you can no longer claim that they are at rest, because they also travel through time.

No, no, no. Standing at rest means "travel through time" i.e. chronation.

In that case then object A and B has moved 6 spacetime units and the end of the ruler has moved ~8.5 spacetime units. There is no problem with that as long as you remember that you are no longer only talking about spatial distance.

 

But like I said, that is not what astronomers are measuring when they use the redshift to calculate the distance to far away stars. If space was not expanding they would measure that the star B was 3 units distant, but because space is expanding you end up with three distances, the distance when the light from the star was emitted, the distance when the light is recieved her on Earth and the distance light has traveled through the expanding space to reach us.

The redshift tells the astronomer how much space has been expanding during the trip for the light ray.

[michel123456]

In that case then object A and B has moved 6 spacetime units and the end of the ruler has moved ~8.5 spacetime units. There is no problem with that as long as you remember that you are no longer only talking about spatial distance.

 

But like I said, that is not what astronomers are measuring when they use the redshift to calculate the distance to far away stars. If space was not expanding they would measure that the star B was 3 units distant, but because space is expanding you end up with three distances, the distance when the light from the star was emitted, the distance when the light is recieved her on Earth and the distance light has traveled through the expanding space to reach us.

The redshift tells the astronomer how much space has been expanding during the trip for the light ray.

 

O.K. with your post. Just forget the stars for a while. Look at your cup of coffee: the distance you measure between you and your cup, is that the AB distance (pure space) or the A B1 diagonal (a mix of time & space)?

[Spyman]

O.K. with your post. Just forget the stars for a while. Look at your cup of coffee: the distance you measure between you and your cup, is that the AB distance (pure space) or the A B1 diagonal (a mix of time & space)?

That depends of how you want to express the distance, in a "pure" spatial measurement the distance is AB space units, since a "pure" space measurement doesn't include any measurement of displacement in the time dimension.

 

But the picture or photons from the cup reaching my eyes is from the past, so it's not wrong to say that the image has moved the diagonal spacetime units, and that the "reflection" of the cup that I see is that spacetime units distant.

 

However I don't belive that the image of the cup I see, is a different cup than the one reflecting photons towards my eyes right now, but instead I think it is the same cup which is moving through time in a parallel path with me and the distance between our paths through the time dimension is the AB distance in the space dimensions.

[michel123456]

Good good, Spy.

 

Now, a step further.

Trying to explain for the last time.

Take a plank of wood, as proposed by Sisyphus, and put it in between your eye and the cup of coffee. This piece of wood is solid matter, i.e. molecules, atoms of matter that are sticked together by forces (electromagnetical, strong nuclear, weak, gravity, wathever), and none of these interactions can travel faster than C. So the existence of this piece of wood is subjected to the same restrictions as the beam of light. Some physicists could maybe assume that inside matter, the restrictions are even stronger.

In any circumstances, we know that nothing can travel faster than C.

IMO that means that the "information" that makes your piece of wood look like solid cannot travel faster than C.(if it was not a solid, but a liquid, or a gas, you may understand it more clearly. As if solid substances were like chewing gum in regard of SOL)

So that your piece of solid wood extending from your eyes to your cup of coffee stands also in a mixture of space & time. All the Reality we observe around us is a mixture of time & space. And when we are measuring this reality, we are measuring diagonals. Always.

That is my way of understanding.

[jajrussel]

I was trying to provoke a denial, when I said that time is energy. We view the universe as a whole. Energy/Mass is only a portion of the whole, as is the distance from one star to another. We can in a sense say that time is the whole, it is the universe. We can form a picture in our minds and say that the universe is expanding, but that is okay. It doesn't change anything because a second of time is only a portion of the whole. That portion is a ratio. That ratio never changes. When we use geometric shapes to describe the the universe the ratio seems to change but it does not. The only thing that changes is the dimensional value that we have assigned to the second. The seconds value grows, or gets smaller dimensionally, depending on how we project the geometric shape, but the ratio stays the same. When we look at the face of a clock with a second hand we can see as the clock ticks that the length of a second changes as we move from the center outward, but the ratio at any point of the second hand never changes when compared to the whole that relates to that point. We can make the clock bigger, we can make the clock smaller. The ratio stays the same while the seconds dimension change. The only real restriction that time insists on is that the ratio you are using as a time unit never changes, and this restriction forces a dimension change as the geometric shape changes. The speed of light points to the fact that the dimension distance to a star can change years and years before we would notice. We could point our laser at the star and reasonably assume that it isn't going to hit it. But that assumption depends on how far away the star is and what direction it is moving. I could point a flashlight at the star and have a better chance of hitting the star because I am using a wider beam of light. So, how wide will the lasers beam of light be once it has traveled that far? Dimensionally it is changing. I just might manage to hit the star. The question then would only be a matter of time. How long do I have to wait to get my answer. I don't have that long. Now, the distance to my cup. I have plenty of time to measure that. Dimensionally there is little change in the beam. The change is so small that the difference won't confuse my judgment. The same thing happens with the stick. The cup is close enough to where it appears to be. I can state where it is with reasonable accuracy. To you, from your house the distance looks much smaller. To you it looks like the cup is only a microsecond from me. To me it appears to be a second away. One could say that one of us is wrong, but neither perception is wrong, because the point as you see it is a ratio of how I see it. I substituted a time reference for a distance reference, but it doesn't matter, because we define a second as a ratio of time, and as a ratio of distance. The choice of measure you choose is how you define answer. The answer can be in meters, or in seconds, or be expressed as a ratio. It seems to me that it is a mater of definition. Is it a straight line, or is it a diagonal? By what unit will you define it? Meters? Seconds? A ratio? Straight lines? Diagonals?