Absolute Zero and No Motion

[swansont]

http://etc.unitbv.ro...Measurement.pdf

 

(Section) 18.3

 

"As observed, the uncertainty of all clocks depends upon the irregularity of some type of periodic motion. By quantifying this motion, one can define the second"

 

I'm thinking this is why the NIST is the "official" time keepers of US time, and not the DOD.

 

 

NIST is not the official keeper of time for the DoD because they're in the Commerce department.

USNO is

The Official Source of Time for the Department of Defense (DoD)

and for the Global Positioning System (GPS),

and a Standard of Time for the United States

 

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil

 

NIST points out that we are both responsible for the nation's timekeeping

http://www.nist.gov/pml/general/time/world.cfm

 

in the United States today, NIST and USNO cooperate to provide official U.S. time for the nation.

 

[Maxila]

 

NIST is not the official keeper of time for the DoD because they're in the Commerce department.

USNO is

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil

 

NIST points out that we are both responsible for the nation's timekeeping

http://www.nist.gov/pml/general/time/world.cfm

 

 

Alright, I take back my unnecessary and inflammatory comment, I should not have even said that (for the record I have edited it out of the post). I stand by the fact cesium clocks use motion to measure time as per the reference links I quoted and provided in other posts.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Maxila

[swansont]

 

Alright, I take back my unnecessary and inflammatory comment, I should not have even said that (for the record I have edited it out of the post). I stand by the fact cesium clocks use motion to measure time as per the reference links I quoted and provided in other posts.

 

And you're still wrong.

 

One of us does this for a living. The other looked through a Cliff-notes version of timekeeping and read an analogy. The two scenarios are not interchangeable.

[Maxila]

 

 

One of us does this for a living. The other looked through a Cliff-notes version of timekeeping and read an analogy. The two scenarios are not interchangeable.

 

"while authorities can be correct in judgments related to their area of expertise more often than laypersons,^{[citation needed]} they can still come to the wrong judgments through error, bias, dishonesty, or falling prey to groupthink. Thus, the appeal to authority is not a generally reliable argument for establishing facts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

 

Provide a credible reference, I will no longer respond to unsubstantiated speculations.

[Strange]

This takes Dunning-Kruger to a whole new level!

[studiot]

 

I will no longer respond to unsubstantiated speculations.

 

 

It is interesting to note that you have not responded to my post#17 in this thread and that your post#16 is in direct contradiction to your post#28 in the other current time thread here.

Further you have not responded to my comment in post#29 there either.

 

No wonder I am confused by your responses.

[xyzt]

 

I stand by the fact cesium clocks use motion to measure time as per the reference links I quoted and provided in other posts.

This kind of persistence in posting the SAME errors AFTER you have ALREADY been corrected is exactly what made me post what I posted.

Edited August 12, 2014 by xyzt

[swansont]

 

"while authorities can be correct in judgments related to their area of expertise more often than laypersons,^{[citation needed]} they can still come to the wrong judgments through error, bias, dishonesty, or falling prey to groupthink. Thus, the appeal to authority is not a generally reliable argument for establishing facts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

 

Provide a credible reference, I will no longer respond to unsubstantiated speculations.

 

I don't really care. You can benefit from my expertise or not. Among the many problems here is that you are insisting you are correct, and you have no basis for that. A statement is not true until shown to be false. Your citation is not a technical reference, it's a survey document. i.e. a primer to introduce people to timekeeping, and is written at that level. It was not written to address the question you are asking. I'm referring to more advanced material, where the subtleties come in. Further, you have no demonstrated background to assess the veracity of the material. You appear to be accepting of a description because it fits with some pre-conceived notion. Confirmation bias.

 

There isn't going to be a reference that states that the hyperfine state change isn't based on motion. That's not how material is presented. Books generally don't bother to list all the things that are not true about some topic. If you took a course in quantum mechanics, though, you would find that descriptions in terms of classical motion has been abandoned.

[Strange]

 

Books generally don't bother to list all the things that are not true about some topic.

 

Although obvious, that is also insightful. It is, ultimately, why so many "prove me wrong" arguments fail.

[Maxila]

 

Among the many problems here is that you are insisting you are correct, and you have no basis for that.

 

This discussion has taken place in two threads with the same people, I expect the participants to have followed what has come before. What appears to have been forgotten is I specifically stated time could not be easily defined in QM or GR as it could empirically.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83550-what-is-time/?p=820658 " Empirically the answer to that question is as definitive and self-evident as any axiom can be, in the maths of GR and QM the answer is enigmatic. I'll only speak empirically since it is definitive and that may be of some help."

 

 

As for the cesium clock and the empirical motion that can be directly attributed to its time measurements:

 

From a USNO document: The frequency of the microwaves is adjusted until the electron multiplier output current is maximized, constituting the measurement of the atoms' resonance frequency. This frequency is electronically divided down and used in a feedback control circuit ("servo-loop") to keep a quartz crystal oscillator locked to a frequency of 5 megahertz (MHz), which is the actual output of the clock, along with a one-pulse-per-second signal. The entire apparatus is shielded from external magnetic fields. http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cesium.html

 

Document found on Notre Dame U website: "A detector at the end of the tube gives an output according to the number of cesium atoms striking it and peaks when the frequency is absolutely correct. This peak is then used to make slight corrections to the crystal oscillator that controls the clocking mechanism, locking in the frequency. This locked frequency is then divided by 9,192,631,770 which results in the familiar one pulse per second." http://www3.nd.edu/~techrev/Archive/Winter2002/a4.html

 

Studiot: I didn't realize you we soliciting a response when you said "Yeah, maybe, but if I was a rock face I would still endure.". Which begs the question, the rock would endure relative to what? Even when contemplating a duration where nothing has changed (the rock face) it must be relative to something that has changed and empirically change is observed as a consequence of a change in position (motion). It's analogous to single distance having no meaning if there is no other distance to contemplate it in regards too, i.e. you need a quantity that is > or < than the distance referenced to differentiate one from the other.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Maxila

[studiot]

 

Which begs the question, the rock would endure relative to what? Even when contemplating a duration where nothing has changed (the rock face) it must be relative to something that has changed and empirically change is observed as a consequence of a change in position (motion). It's analogous to single distance having no meaning if there is no other distance to contemplate it in regards too, i.e. you need a quantity that is > or < than the distance referenced to differentiate one from the other.

 

 

1) You have again responded by changing the subject, thereby avoiding the main comment in my post (your own contradictory statements).

 

2) The logic of the above is completely flawed, since it rests upon a unsubstantiated statements (yes you also make them).

 

3) There is no absolute comparison requirement for either time or distance, or for that matter any other quantity. If there is only one of that quantity in the universe, that is perfectly within the bounds of logical acceptability. If sub division is possible then I can always create comparison by subdivision.

 

4) You have missed the entire point about duration. It is, in fact, linked to my earlier comment that non motional measures of time may easily be constructed by repeated observation of something that does not change. Such measurement will be outlandishly crude by swansont's standards, but hey it is still possible.

 

5) There are yet other ways of constructing non motional clocks, base on the statistical activity of unstable isotopes.

Edited August 12, 2014 by studiot

[swansont]

 

This discussion has taken place in two threads with the same people, I expect the participants to have followed what has come before. What appears to have been forgotten is I specifically stated time could not be easily defined in QM or GR as it could empirically.

 

As for the cesium clock and the empirical motion that can be directly attributed to its time measurements:

 

From a USNO document: The frequency of the microwaves is adjusted until the electron multiplier output current is maximized, constituting the measurement of the atoms' resonance frequency. This frequency is electronically divided down and used in a feedback control circuit ("servo-loop") to keep a quartz crystal oscillator locked to a frequency of 5 megahertz (MHz), which is the actual output of the clock, along with a one-pulse-per-second signal. The entire apparatus is shielded from external magnetic fields. http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cesium.html

 

Document found on Notre Dame U website: "A detector at the end of the tube gives an output according to the number of cesium atoms striking it and peaks when the frequency is absolutely correct. This peak is then used to make slight corrections to the crystal oscillator that controls the clocking mechanism, locking in the frequency. This locked frequency is then divided by 9,192,631,770 which results in the familiar one pulse per second." http://www3.nd.edu/~techrev/Archive/Winter2002/a4.html

 

 

Neither of which refers to the cesium atom and the hyperfine transition, which is the time standard. As I said, motion is not something you can attribute to the hyperfine transition.

[Maxila]

 

1) You have again responded by changing the subject, thereby avoiding the main comment in my post (your own contradictory statements).

 

2) The logic of the above is completely flawed, since it rests upon a unsubstantiated statements (yes you also make them).

 

3) There is no absolute comparison requirement for either time or distance, or for that matter any other quantity. If there is only one of that quantity in the universe, that is perfectly within the bounds of logical acceptability. If sub division is possible then I can always create comparison by subdivision.

 

4) You have missed the entire point about duration. It is, in fact, linked to my earlier comment that non motional measures of time may easily be constructed by repeated observation of something that does not change. Such measurement will be outlandishly crude by swansont's standards, but hey it is still possible.

 

5) There are yet other ways of constructing non motional clocks, base on the statistical activity of unstable isotopes.

 

Your points are incoherent and cite proof without scientific or logical reasoning to explain them? Provide an empirical (observable) example of a duration where motion (of any kind) is non existent The rock example is not such an example if there is no way to account the duration (the duration must be observable)? Your arguments sound more like faith based resoning than logical or scientific reasoning.

 

A simple thought experiment, everything in the universe down to photons cease to move for a duration only you experience positioned undetectable by any other being, after that duration that only you've experienced, when every particle in the universe had stopped moving, particles (that compose everything we can observe) continue to move as if they never stopped.

 

1. Would any intelligent being besides you infer any time had passed? If you believe yes, what evidence would they point to infer time had passed?

As I said, motion is not something you can attribute to the hyperfine transition.

 

That was never the point I was making which was, even cesium clocks use motion to measure and account for time. That is why I quoted the earlier post to reiterate I was not talking about QM, rather what can be observed empirically.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Maxila

[studiot]

 

Your points are incoherent and cite proof without scientific or logical reasoning to explain them?

 

Perhaps that is because they are not arguments in the reasoning sense.

You are the one making the claim, not I.

As such I am merely testing your chain of reasoning that leads to and supports this claim.

 

Why do you place question marks at the end of claimed statements of fact?

 

 

Provide an empirical (observable) example of a duration where motion (of any kind) is non existent The rock example is not such an example if there is no way to account the duration (the duration must be observable)?

 

This is the first time you have asked for further details.

 

Unfortunately it is founded an a fallacy.

You have not shown that there is any requirement or physical law that states a condition must be observable.

 

One of the most basic tenets of physics is that conditions are, in general and Schrodingers cat notwithstanding, the same whether they are observed or not and indeed whether or not an observer exists.

 

That is the basis of all 'Thought experiments' and allows us to construct such experiments where conditions are contolled and specified.

 

That is the basi of the thought experiment you have suggested.

 

 

A simple thought experiment, everything in the universe down to photons cease to move for a duration only you experience positioned undetectable by any other being, after that duration that only you've experienced, when every particle in the universe had stopped moving, particles (that compose everything we can observe) continue to move as if they never stopped.

 

 

This is in direct contradiction of your post# 28 in this thread here

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83550-what-is-time/page-2

 

Where I asked if you where considering just the motion of the observable or including the antics of the observer.

 

No matter, this is a thought experiment so we can continue, by simplifying it further.

 

Let the thought universe contain only one single particle.

 

Now there are no observers.

But the laws of Physics must still apply.

 

And that particle experiences time according to Maxwells equations.

 

 

Provide an empirical (observable) example of a duration where motion (of any kind) is non existent The rock example is not such an example if there is no way to account the duration (the duration must be observable)?

 

You have not addressed my points 4 and 5 in my post#36, which contain another answer to your question.

[Maxila]

 

As such I am merely testing your chain of reasoning that leads to and supports this claim.

 

 

First I’d like to state I regret some of the language I’ve used and I apologize if it appeared inflammatory. My interest is in having a civil discussion to debate the reasoning and logic of our statements, and avoid hyperbole.

 

Why do you place question marks at the end of claimed statements of fact?

 

 

Because I don’t see much by way of reasoning, and therefore can’t follow the logic behind many of the assertions you made in that post.

 

One of the most basic tenets of physics is that conditions are, in general and Schrodingers cat notwithstanding, the same whether they are observed or not and indeed whether or not an observer exists.

 

 

Yes that is correct, but you have forgotten in order to completely validate those physical laws and principles requires direct experiment and observations first, it is after they have been validated can we assert those same conditions must exist outside our observations too.

 

This is in direct contradiction of your post# 28 in this thread here

http://www.sciencefo...-is-time/page-2

 

Where I asked if you where considering just the motion of the observable or including the antics of the observer.

 

 

 

I don’t see any contradiction, please specifically explain the contradiction you are implying?

 

Let the thought universe contain only one single particle. Now there are no observers.

But the laws of Physics must still apply.

 

And that particle experiences time according to Maxwell’s equations.

 

 

That conclusion is incorrect since Maxwell’s equations are partial differential equations they require more variables than a single particle, in such a case they could not apply. The basic tenant of relativity is that time and space are relative, without any other variables than a single particle; time could not exist as per relativity also. As an example, for the big bang theory at the point when it was deemed to be infinitely dense and infinitely small, time and space do not exist and only come into existence when that point expands and has the four dimensional qualities of 3 vectors and time.

 

 

You have not addressed my points 4 and 5 in my post#36, which contain another answer to your question.

 

4) You have missed the entire point about duration. It is, in fact, linked to my earlier comment that non motional measures of time may easily be constructed by repeated observation of something that does not change. Such measurement will be outlandishly crude by Swansont's standards, but hey it is still possible.

 

 

 

They only way to verify this is by direct observation or experiment; however once you account for duration by such means, motion must be present. With no way to test or verify such a claim it is only an unverifiable speculation. If you can devise an empirical means to verify that claim please explain it.

 

There are yet other ways of constructing non motional clocks, base on the statistical activity of unstable isotopes.

 

 

Again I see no way you can verify this empirically without motion? Please explain if you do.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Maxila

[John Cuthber]

This is getting a bit silly.

it's true that you can't measure time without something moving.

It's also true that you can't describe rice pudding without something moving, but that doesn't make rice pudding crucial to the nature of time (or vice versa).

Pointing out that things always move is interesting in its way, but it doesn't tell you anything deep about the nature of time

[studiot]

 

That conclusion is incorrect since Maxwell’s equations are partial differential equations they require more variables than a single particle, in such a case they could not apply.

 

Of course they apply.

 

Some quantities will become zero, but that is also true of the net force on a body in equlilibrium in our normal universe under the action of many forces.

 

In particular there can be no magnetic field, but there can be an electric one if the particle carries a charge.

There will be a gravitiational field if the particle has mass

 

and so on.

 

Yes I agree that relativity reduces to trivia, but so what?

 

Don't we often solve mathematical problems by transforming them into a form where some of the coefficients and/or variables become zero?

 

Talking of mathematics, if we offer a general proposition it means that it holds for every value of our variable(s), so we are entitled to test it by using specific values to calculate the values of coefficients. This often means f(x) when x=0, f(x) when y=0 and so on.

 

So I am doing nothig more than following a very well trod path.

 

I chose Maxwell's equations, just because relativity reduces to trivia, but they do not completely, and because they contain the variable time, which does not vanish in a universe containing only a single particle.

 

Or do you wish to propose that our laws of physics only hold in universes that contain a minimum number of particles and, if so, how many and by what proof?

Edited August 13, 2014 by studiot

[Maxila]

This is getting a bit silly.

it's true that you can't measure time without something moving.

It's also true that you can't describe rice pudding without something moving, but that doesn't make rice pudding crucial to the nature of time (or vice versa).

Pointing out that things always move is interesting in its way, but it doesn't tell you anything deep about the nature of time

 

Motion is incidental to the description of “rice pudding”; the ingredients are fundamental. The act of making rice pudding is different where motion (time) becomes fundamental and as necessary as ingredients.

 

Most references and scientist will agree that time describes change; empirically change requires a change of position, a photon, a molecule, an orbit, etc. That makes motion fundamental to the empirical observation and not incidental (as describing rice pudding is). The thing being described is not a state of change; the act of describing is the state of change and requires time (motion) as a measure of the change; it is not the measure of the description itself.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Maxila

[xyzt]

 

Motion is incidental to the description of “rice pudding”; the ingredients are fundamental. The act of making rice pudding is different where motion (time) becomes fundamental and as necessary as ingredients.

 

Most references and scientist will agree that time describes change; empirically change requires a change of position, a photon, a molecule, an orbit, etc. That makes motion fundamental to the empirical observation and not incidental (as describing rice pudding is). The thing being described is not a state of change; the act of describing is the state of change and requires time (motion) as a measure of the change; it is not the measure of the description itself.

The part that you seem to be missing is that the foundation of time measurement in atomic (Cs,Ru) clocks has nothing to do with motion, the hyperfine transition is a quantum effect related to spin flipping. This effect is a quantum effect, therefore cannot be viewed in reductionist fashion as "motion".

[Maxila]

The part that you seem to be missing is that the foundation of time measurement in atomic (Cs,Ru) clocks has nothing to do with motion, the hyperfine transition is a quantum effect related to spin flipping. This effect is a quantum effect, therefore cannot be viewed in reductionist fashion as "motion".

 

Trout, Re-read what was posted and linked; the transition is used as an event to precisely tune the frequency of the microwave emitter. In other words when they observe that fluorescence from a maximum number of atoms they know they have precisely tuned the emitter to a frequency of 9 192 631 770 Hz, that frequency is then divided down to keep a crystal oscillator locked to a specific frequency. Physicialy, time is derived from the frequency of the microwave emitter and kept by the crystal oscillator. Which is the point I made, that "all clocks use motion to measure time".

 

See: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cesium.html

 

“The frequency of the microwaves is adjusted until the electron multiplier output current is maximized, constituting the measurement of the atoms' resonance frequency. This frequency is electronically divided down and used in a feedback control circuit ("servo-loop") to keep a quartz crystal oscillator locked to a frequency of 5 megahertz (MHz), which is the actual output of the clock, along with a one-pulse-per-second signal.”

 

Did I ever thank you for recommending the “The Feynman Lectures on Physics”?

[Strange]

But that is irrelevant. You might as well argue that "people had to move to build the clock, therefore time is motion."

 

You can't get away from the fact that the reference for defining the second does not involve movement.

 

And, of course, even though it only takes one counter-example to prove you wrong, there are other examples of time passing with no movement involved.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Strange

[hoola]

if time is judged as movement, a default minimum "movement" is the changing informational states of the quantum foam, and a definition of time having passed does seem to indicate "movement" or change of information... the reference for defining the second does require movement, that of the particles making up the human brain...what other examples do you have of time passing with no movement involved?

[Strange]

the reference for defining the second does require movement, that of the particles making up the human brain...

 

That may be true for the human definition and perception of time. Which, again, is pretty irrelevant.

 

 

what other examples do you have of time passing with no movement involved?

 

Decay of fundamental particles? For example, a muon will do nothing for about 20 microseconds and then decay. Nothing in the muon moved, because there is nothing in the muon to move.

[studiot]

 

Decay of fundamental particles? For example, a muon will do nothing for about 20 microseconds and then decay. Nothing in the muon moved, because there is nothing in the muon to move.

 

 

Agreed, I have already mention radioactive decay of larger particles.

 

Take a few million uranium atoms and count them

count them again

count them again

 

You have the basis of a non motional clock.

 

But many changes of state, including chemical ones, that John Cuthber should be better able to point out than I, should pass muster as an example of non motional change

[xyzt]

 

Trout, Re-read what was posted and linked; the transition is used as an event to precisely tune the frequency of the microwave emitter. In other words when they observe that fluorescence from a maximum number of atoms they know they have precisely tuned the emitter to a frequency of 9 192 631 770 Hz, that frequency is then divided down to keep a crystal oscillator locked to a specific frequency. Physicialy, time is derived from the frequency of the microwave emitter and kept by the crystal oscillator. Which is the point I made, that "all clocks use motion to measure time".

 

See: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cesium.html

 

“The frequency of the microwaves is adjusted until the electron multiplier output current is maximized, constituting the measurement of the atoms' resonance frequency. This frequency is electronically divided down and used in a feedback control circuit ("servo-loop") to keep a quartz crystal oscillator locked to a frequency of 5 megahertz (MHz), which is the actual output of the clock, along with a one-pulse-per-second signal.”

 

Did I ever thank you for recommending the “The Feynman Lectures on Physics”?

Who is Trout? Anyways, you clearly don't understand the subject matter, yet you persist in posting.