Are string theorists already trying to hijack the OPERA neutrino experiment?

[swansont]

Couldn't time be a constant and gravity just affects the mechanism or substance that is being measured, because gravity affects anything with mass?

 

No. It happens without regard to the mass — it's been tested with multiple kinds of clocks and with radiation as well. It is independent of the mass or the mechanism, unless the mechanism has an explicit dependence on g, such as a pendulum clock.

[JustinW]

"No. It happens without regard to the mass — it's been tested with multiple kinds of clocks and with radiation as well. It is independent of the mass or the mechanism, unless the mechanism has an explicit dependence on g, such as a pendulum clock."

 

 

 

 

So what was found was that the affect of time on the mechanism was greater than the affect that gravity would have on the mechanism?

[pantheory]

I have no problems if you put it this way, but:

1) most relativists will argue that not just clock is speeding up, but time is slowing down for real, and time travel is even possible.

2) You are violating relativity at its core, you are just going back to Newton: clock is speeding up just because of gravity.

So your argument would seemly based upon the phraseology concerning how time dilation is expressed or time travel backward in time.

To argue against backward time travel, I think, is a good argument even if one does not explain his theoretical objections properly.

 

Relativists, like many others, like to argue. All that are studied in Relativity realize that changes in time are a relative perspective. So far we have come up with no universal time other than for the surface of the Earth. Those arguing could rightfully argue that time for a moving time frame could be speeding up or slowing down for real. Again, as an example our trip out a couple hundred thousand miles away from the Earth we would undergo some real changes of time from the travelers perspective. First time would become faster as one gained altitude, then it would become even more slow that on the surface, as we orbit. When we leave orbit time would speed up again until the fastest progression of time would be reached at maybe 200,000 miles out. Of course we are only talking about billions of a second differences.

 

Einstein's main point was that time is a reference frame for those using it but has no absolute quantity to it -- that time like most everything else, is relative according to one's perspective

//

Edited November 2, 2011 by pantheory

[owl]

See moderator's note, post 73 above. Accordingly, and inviting further discussion, I have moved my post 70 above to my Ontology of Time thread (also in Speculations, though it belongs in Philosophy.)

[JustinW]

To revisit 'another time, another thread, another thought experiment'...

It takes Earth 'a year' to orbit the Sun. But if a rocket blasted off from Earth and went near lightspeed out for an Earth year and back for another Earth year, the rocket's clock/calendar might show that only one 'speeding rocket year' had elapsed, because its clock had slowed down with high velocity relative to Earth. The voyagers would have, I presume, only aged a year as well, while folks on Earth would have aged two Earth years.

This is, I think, consistent with relativity without making "time itself" into "something" besides different relative rates of physical motion for Earth and its inhabitants vs a speeding rocket and its passengers.

 

 

 

Owl,

 

Although I agree with the statement about making "time itself" into "something", if the rocket went out 1 Earth year and back 1 Earth year it would still equal 2 Earth years. So are you saying that age depends on how fast you travel?

 

 

sorry for messing up the quotations

Edited November 2, 2011 by JustinW

[Daedalus]

sorry for messing up the quotations

 

JustinW, you can edit your post and fix the quotation by pasting the text between the quote tags.

 

So are you saying that age depends on how fast you travel?

 

I don't think that speed is truly behind the phenomena involved with relativity that affects time and space. Even though this is purely speculative, I would go as far as saying that it is energy density that drives time dilation and length contraction. The deeper the gravity well or the faster you go, the more energy is involved. Things tend to move faster through environments that have less energy. Superconductors are good examples of this in that electrons encounter very little to no resistance through the conductive material. Another way to look at this statement, is that it is easier to move through air than it is to move through water. Perhaps as you travel faster, energy density is what is slowing down clocks, atomic processes, aging, etc..., which affects our perception of reality. But, that is just a speculation.

Edited November 2, 2011 by Daedalus

[JustinW]

I don't think that speed is truly behind the phenomena involved with relativity that affects time and space. Even though this is purely speculative, I would go as far as saying that it is energy density that drives time dilation and length contraction. The deeper the gravity well or the faster you go, the more energy is involved. Things tend to move faster through environments that have less energy. Superconductors are good examples of this in that electrons encounter very little to no resistance through the conductive material. Another way to look at this statement, is that it is easier to move through air than it is to move through water. Perhaps as you travel faster, energy density is what is slowing down clocks, atomic processes, aging, etc..., which affects our perception of reality. But, that is just a speculation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of food for thought though. But if it is energy density that slows down time, then it would theoretically be impossible to travel backwards in time, right?

 

And my appologies about the quote. I was in a hurry.

[Daedalus]

A lot of food for thought though. But if it is energy density that slows down time, then it would theoretically be impossible to travel backwards in time, right?

 

And my appologies about the quote. I was in a hurry.

 

A few posts back I provided a link to my theory of Temporal Uniformity. If the theory is correct, then time travel to the past or future is impossible. The effects of special relativity do not allow us to disappear from our present point in time and reappear in the past or future. Wormholes from general relativity, in theory, are suppose to be able to do this. Temporal Uniformity does not allow time travel to a memory of the past or to a memory that will exist in the future and resolves temporal paradoxes that these wormholes can create by treating time as a spatial dimension (i.e. we are currently located at a point along the temporal axis and continue to move forward from that point leaving the past behind. Therefore, a time traveller will encounter whatever mass-energy is currently located at whatever point they travel to along the temporal axis). This is how I explain dark matter and consequently dark energy, but that is getting off topic. You are more than welcome to read about it using the above link and we can discuss it on that thread. Also, there are many many threads here at SFN that discuss time and time travel. Feel free to search for those as well.

Edited November 2, 2011 by Daedalus