Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
Greta wrote:We used to debate that way back when we lived in an information black hole, where checking one's information meant either looking up an encyclopaedia or taking a trip to the library. In a real-time situation, though, a debate's "winner" is the one whom asserts their case most convincingly. Looking at the travels of newly-installed His Holiness Pope Donald, sent by God to save the US, it's clear that the winners of such old-school exchanges did not need to be logical, honest or correct. It's a game or power, style and strategy - a way of determining whose display behaviour is the most effective.
Yes, and for that reason, in this topic at least, I want to try not to think in terms of "winning" and "losing" a debate. In any case, even in the absence of the modern Trump style of politics, both sides in that kind of adversarial debate usually seem to think of themselves as having won. In this topic I wanted to just explore, at least briefly, the history that led to the modern theories of physics which can seem so counter-intuitive. I wanted to show that those theories weren't just made up on a whim. And I wanted to see if I can at least start to demonstrate that the people who invent these theories aren't members of some exclusive club which forever bars outsiders. Anybody with the patience can follow the arguments and the experiments to the point where they can critique the theories from a position of knowing what they say and why they say it, looking the theorists squarely in the eye. I also want to show that this kind of critique is
welcome; it is what drives progress.
These words I find very refreshing, and the conclusion, to me, could not be more correct.
I am very keen to have some actual words put to me so that I am then in a position of knowing what theorists say and why they say it, so I can finally look the theorists squarely in the eye, and explain where I think the confusion, which has caused the inconsistencies and contradictions, has come from.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
creation wrote:Just so this is absolutely very clear, you now say that, if two observers are moving towards each other and the velocity becomes larger, then they see each other's clock tick faster, than their own clock, correct?
Yes. And if moving away from each other: slower. That is what I was intending to say all along. It is what I said explicitly, with a worked numerical example showing tick ratios of 3.73, in the post from another topic to which I linked way back when we first started talking last year. As I said, if a post somewhere gave the wrong impression on that, I apologize. I just don't want to spend pages discussing this one issue.
Neither did I want to spend one second more than was necessary in clarifying. That is why I quoted what you wrote, and just asked you are very direct, very simple clarifying question from the beginning.
You do not have to apologize.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
I never meant just that.
Ok. Understood.
Considering we both talked about looking at the foundation, and seeing if that was solid enough to support the "walls", and then the "roof", then as I said this is as far as I can go back. This, to me, is the foundation of 'time'. If you can go further back, then great, where do see is the foundation? If you cannot go further back, then as I just asked you; Are we in agreement and understand that what we view today in relation to 'time', itself, was built upon, and from the foundation of a stick and the sun?
It's not that I necessarily want to go further back.
I never thought you
wanted to go back any further. But, considering we both want to find and look at the 'foundation', itself, and move forward from there, then we have to go back to as far as we
can.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
I want to point out that the foundation of what is now said about time are not
just in experiments that explicitly and obviously measure time. The reason I thought that Galileo's experiments are a good starting point is because that is where the thought process began which ended up with Einstein's (and his contemporaries') theories, which say some things about time (and about space) which some people find hard to believe.
But the 'thought' process began well before galileo's experiments.
But if we did start with galileo's experiments, then we miss out on the very thing in question here, What is 'time'?
See, if we do not look at and into the actual observations and/or experiments about where the concept of 'time' might of originated from, from our ability to go back as far as we can, then we might miss where the actual fault lays, in what some people are disagreeing about here in what einstein said/predicted.
I find it best to check to very foundations, themselves, to see if they are truly solid "as a rock" (as some might say).
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
Galileo started the ball rolling (so to speak) by doing various experiments which led to Newton's laws of motion. Those laws are down near the bottom of our metaphorical building, on the roof of which sits Einstein. I'd like to examine what those laws say, and what they imply for the concepts of both time and space.
Again if we want to talk about 'time', then what is the 'foundation' from which 'time' is derived from, and from that foundation what does it say 'time' is exactly?
To discover this, is to understand just why some people say 'time' cannot 'dilate', while others say 'time' can 'dilate'.
To me, this is exactly where all the actual confusion and misunderstanding is coming from. But, I do tend to see all things from a very basic, very simple, and very easy perspective.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
And what is that earliest experiment?
It's hard to pick a single one, because history probably doesn't record a single, first, bona fide experiment. That's why I picked a whole set of experiments by Galileo as a reasonable start. But as a brief aside from that, a very, very early example of the power of simple experiment was the one carried out by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago. With simple observations of such things as the shadows of sticks and the reflection of the sun in the water at the bottom of a well, he is the first person we know of to accurately calculate the circumference of the Earth.
This, to me, sounds like a reasonable place to start.
So, what is actually being observed by the shadows of sticks, relative to the light from the sun?
In other words, if we were to mark off that shadow in equally separated increments, then what is 'it' exactly that is actually being measured?
After this is clarified, then just to forewarn, I will ask another clarifying question about what 'it' is that all clocks are actually set in relation to, exactly.
The agreed upon answers to these becomes known, then we can decide if 'time' is some actual thing that 'dilates' or not.
See, it might just be the use of the word 'time' in the term 'time dilation' where a lot of conflict and criticism is coming from in discussions around this matter.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
I think you might be misunderstanding me, but truthfully I think I am also not not fully understanding what you mean.
So, when you say, "time is what clocks mark", are you meaning something like time is some actual thing that exists, apart from clocks themselves, and which clocks are "marking", by their "ticking", for example? If you are, then that is not what I mean at at all.
No, that's not what I meant either. That's why I think we agree with each other on this. As a general rule, I think concepts like both time and space are abstractions that we create. As such, they don't exist independently of the ways that they can be potentially measured. As I said in a previous post:
viewtopic.php?p=344769#p344769
Steve3007 wrote:What is a clock? It's a device for measuring the passage of time.
What is time? It is the thing that is measured by clocks.
I propose that this circular definition of both clocks and time is the only one that is physically meaningful. I propose that all others are meaningless, hand-waving metaphysics for passing a few hours on a rainy afternoon.
But we have to be clear that we're not talking about one particular class of clock. We're talking about that property which is common to all possible physical systems that we feel we can point to and say "clock". That's generally how we tend to define nouns. We (metaphorically or literally) point to examples of physical instances of that noun and say "it's whatever it is that all these things have in common".
As I said there, I think that 'time' is simply the thing that all "clocks" have in common, using that word "clock" in its most general possible sense.
But from what you wrote in the quote here I think we still disagree quite a lot. I do not see 'time' as the thing that is measured by clocks at all. I see things very differently in fact.
I am now curious as to why you think we are in agreement, especially in light of what I have written in regards to what 'time' is, which is; 'time' is just a word used for describing the action of the measurement, itself, taken; in relation to the duration between one agreed upon event and another agreed upon event. To me, clocks certainly do not measure anything known as 'time', and, to me, 'time' is certainly not some thing that is measured by clocks, nor could even be measured.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
...This is because of the way clocks are designed and created to work, and what clocks tick in relation to exactly means that, to me anyway, there is no such thing as time in any other way, nor in any other sense, other than in thought or concept only.
Yes, although I'd leave out the word "designed" to emphasize that we're talking about all natural clocks too.
But I do not know of any actual "natural" clock other than the ones human beings have designed and created.
To me, 'clocks' are designed and made to take measurements.
If there are supposed "natural" clocks besides the one that human beings have designed and created, then what is their purpose? And, if it is to take measurements, then what do they measure exactly?
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
What clocks are referenced to, or designed to be synchronised with, to me, is obviously not a time itself but something else.
What are clocks actually set to, and adjusted to?
They can only possibly be adjusted to other "clocks".
If this is what you believe and/or insist is true, then, until you can show how this could even logically be correct, I do not see this at all, yet.
Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 28th, 2020, 4:08 am
The answer to this will provide a clue as to if there is an actual existing thing as time, itself. or not.
I think/hope we've established what we both think 'time' is and the sense in which it does or does not exist.
From what I see happening here is we are both trying to put our views forward on how we see what 'time' is but are not, yet, understanding each other fully.