Summit Clock Experiment 2.0: Time is Absolute

[Clete]

And everything else in the physical universe. So what we call "time", in your estimation is just the rate at certain things change, like the motion of a pendulum, the frequency of an oscillating circuit, the breakdown of radioactive elements, etc.

So now consider this:

There's a universe in which every now and then, a random half of the universe is suddenly lighted by a purple glow, after which a cloud envelops it and then goes away in 100 years.

Only when the cloud clears, everything in that half of the universe is as if time stopped when the cloud appeared. Practically no time went by from the standpoint of someone in the affected half, but in the other half 100 years had passed.

Then, one day, the entire universe began to glow, and a cloud formed, and then went away. Did any time pass?

If you can figure out that, you know one of the problems with Bob's idea.



But

Has anyone but me noticed that seemingly every argument presented against the opening post does nothing at all but to introduce yet another clock?

The above post is more than a little wacky. The implication seems to be that if we don't witness events occurring in a particular region that therefore no events have occurred and therefore no time has passed in that region. The refutation of which would be to simply ask the question, "When did the purple haze show up and when did it disapate?" (i.e. two ticks of a clock.)

Is that what you were suggesting? If so, you don't understand the arguments made in the opening post nor what any of us are talking about.

Clete

 

[gcthomas]

Then, one day, the entire universe began to glow, and a cloud formed, and then went away. Did any time pass?

If you can figure out that, you know one of the problems with Bob's idea.

Rather predictably, he seems to have missed the entire point. I wonder where he thinks the ticking clock is?

 

[The Barbarian]

Has anyone but me noticed that seemingly every argument presented against the opening post does nothing at all but to introduce yet another clock?

If you think so, then the whole point went over your head. But then someone already pointed that out.

The above post is more than a little wacky. The implication seems to be that if we don't witness events occurring in a particular region that therefore no events have occurred and therefore no time has passed in that region.

The fact that for those in that part of the universe, no time did pass, does give that impression.

The refutation of which would be to simply ask the question, "When did the purple haze show up and when did it disapate?" (i.e. two ticks of a clock.)

As mentioned in the scenario, 100 years. To the people in that half, essentially no time passed, but in the other half, it was 100 years. BTW, it's pretty hard to make a refutation against a scenario that proposes a question instead of an assertion.

 

[JudgeRightly]

If you think so, then the whole point went over your head. But then someone already pointed that out.



The fact that for those in that part of the universe, no time did pass, does give that impression.



As mentioned in the scenario, 100 years. To the people in that half, essentially no time passed, but in the other half, it was 100 years. BTW, it's pretty hard to make a refutation against a scenario that proposes a question instead of an assertion.

And yet, both halves crossed that 100 year mark together.

So no, your scenario doesn't make any difference. The one half, where everything was frozen, only had it's clocks stopped, be that the number of orbits a planet makes around it's star, or number of times the planets spin. only the clocks stopped, not time itself.

And if you try to say "But I said 'no time passed,'" you're begging the question. The assertion made in the OP is that just because the clocks are affected does NOT mean that time is affected.

 

[The Barbarian]

And yet, both halves crossed that 100 year mark together.

No. It had always been that only one-half of the universe was affected. So for half the universe, a century had passed, and for the other half, time stood still. But then it affected the whole universe. The reason you can't say whether a century passed or no time at all, is because you can't see the flaw in the OP.

The one half, where everything was frozen, only had it's clocks stopped, be that the number of orbits a planet makes around it's star, or number of times the planets spin. only the clocks stopped, not time itself.

You ideology will let you walk up to the door, but it prevents you from opening it.

And if you try to say "But I said 'no time passed,'" you're begging the question. The assertion made in the OP is that just because the clocks are affected does NOT mean that time is affected.

So it should be easy. When the glow went through the entire universe, did a century pass, or did almost no time at all?

Which of these?

If you can get past that difficulty, you'll have no problem realizing why velocity and mass affect time.

 

[JudgeRightly]

No. It had always been that only one-half of the universe was affected. So for half the universe, a century had passed, and for the other half, time stood still. But then it affected the whole universe. The reason you can't say whether a century passed or no time at all, is because you can't see the flaw in the OP.

You ideology will let you walk up to the door, but it prevents you from opening it.

So it should be easy. When the glow went through the entire universe, did a century pass, or did almost no time at all?

Which of these?

If you can get past that difficulty, you'll have no problem realizing why velocity and mass affect time.

Again, by saying "time stood still," you're begging the question.

When your theoretical glow went through the universe, a century passed, even if the clocks in the universe (and I use the term "clocks" loosely here) stood still. You're still trying to define time as a clock, and it's not. That is your flaw.

Velocity and mass affect clocks, they do not affect time. Please go read the last 30 or so posts, and read Clete's posts another time after that, because he has explained this already.

 

[JudgeRightly]

No. It had always been that only one-half of the universe was affected. So for half the universe, a century had passed, and for the other half, time stood still. But then it affected the whole universe. The reason you can't say whether a century passed or no time at all, is because you can't see the flaw in the OP.



You ideology will let you walk up to the door, but it prevents you from opening it.



So it should be easy. When the glow went through the entire universe, did a century pass, or did almost no time at all?

Which of these?

If you can get past that difficulty, you'll have no problem realizing why velocity and mass affect time.

The thing is, even with one half of the universe continuing on normally, and the other half being "frozen", after 100 years you could still walk up and "touch" both halves simultaneously after that time period passed.

The "frozen" half still traveled along the timeline next to the normal half. It didn't disappear, it didn't pop out of existence, it didn't stop existing, because that would violate at least the first law of thermodynamics.

 

[patrick jane]

There is no "present" or "now" because as soon as it is, it's already in the past :chuckle:

 

[gcthomas]

The thing is, even with one half of the universe continuing on normally, and the other half being "frozen", after 100 years you could still walk up and "touch" both halves simultaneously after that time period passed.

The "frozen" half still traveled along the timeline next to the normal half. It didn't disappear, it didn't pop out of existence, it didn't stop existing, because that would violate at least the first law of thermodynamics.

You are assuming the existence of a universally shared timeline, but I am unclear why you are convinced there is one. In Barbarian's thought experiment, the Earth would stop rotating. There would be no time padding according to the Cleat/Enyart definition of time - so how would you define time in the absence of any motion?

 

[Stripe]

:kookoo:

 

[Stripe]

How would you define time?

Answered, numerous times.

...in the absence of any motion?

We prefer reality.

 

[JudgeRightly]

You are assuming the existence of a universally shared timeline, but I am unclear why you are convinced there is one.

Because there has never been evidence to the contrary.

In Barbarian's thought experiment, the Earth would stop rotating.

The earth's rotation is a "clock," and the stopping thereof does not equate to the stopping of time.

There would be no time padding according to the Cleat/Enyart definition of time - so how would you define time

Have you not been paying attention in the past 30 posts?

in the absence of any motion?

motion of a clock != time

 

[The Barbarian]

So the argument boils down to:

"If every possible way to measure the passage of time shows that no time passed, we still know that time passed."

Which is merely a belief, since there is no evidence whatever to support it.

 

[Clete]

If you think so, then the whole point went over your head. But then someone already pointed that out.

It didn't go over my head at all. Introducing another clock is a major premise of the opening post. For the opposition to do it only furthers the OP's argument. You can't refute an argument by using the same argument.

The fact that for those in that part of the universe, no time did pass, does give that impression.

WHAT?

Okay, if you hypothetically stop time then the impression for everyone else is that nothing happens in the region where time has been stopped.

You know what else is cool! If you run two unicorns at each other, hypothetically speaking, of course, then when they collide, they stab each other to death! Isn't science fiction fun!

As mentioned in the scenario, 100 years. To the people in that half, essentially no time passed, but in the other half, it was 100 years. BTW, it's pretty hard to make a refutation against a scenario that proposes a question instead of an assertion.

You're simply making no sense. How is it possible that you don't see how you just contradicted yourself. If time has stopped, there is no "when". Your entire hypothetical is a contradiction. There can't be a place where time has stopped for a particular period of time. Get it?

Clete

 

[Clete]

So the argument boils down to:

"If every possible way to measure the passage of time shows that no time passed, we still know that time passed."

Which is merely a belief, since there is no evidence whatever to support it.

NO! This begs the question!

You are defining time as clocks! You couldn't measure time at all if time had stopped in the first place! No event can occur if time has stopped. The ticks of a clock are events as is the act of reading the clock. You cannot even discuss it without contradicting yourself. That means the whole idea is irrational and therefore false.

Further, your whole hypothetical is wrong anyway. Think it through. What would happen if something stopped moving through time? Would it not instantly vanish into our past? So long as anything exists, it exists now and therefore must be keeping up with us as we pass through time. This assumes, of course, that we are actually traveling through time, which we aren't because time doesn't actually exist to travel through, it's just an idea, but the point is that if time exists and something stops traveling through it then occording to my timeline there is a point in time that it didn't go beyond. If the purple haze enveloped half the universe when the clock struck noon at Independance Hall on July 4th 1776, then from my persepective, that half the universe would have ceased to exist at the moment and would now be 241 years into my past.

Clete

 

[User Name]

The point here is that the Michelson and Morley experiments, even if you accept their results, did NOT prove that there is no ether, it simply failed to detect it. There is a massive difference between proving the nonexistence of something and failing to detect it, but you wouldn't know that by listening to mainstream science.

If you admit that the aether has not been detected, then what is it that causes you to postulate its existence?

The ether has simply been declared to not exist and anyone who questions that declaration is deemed a "crank or a creationist".

If advocates for the aether would try putting forth some actual evidence for its existence rather than making baseless assertions that it exists, they would be deemed something better than cranks.

 

[Clete]

If you admit that the aether has not been detected, then what is it that causes you to postulate its existence?

I didn't admit it hasn't been detected. I'd admit that the M&M experiment failed to detect it in an experimentally meaningful way but even their readings were not zero.

But evidence for the existence of an ether is all over the place, not the least of which is the fact that light can be polarized. Polarization can only happen because light is a transfers wave. Additionally, it is waves that form interference patterns, a concept that interferometer experiments of all kinds are predicated upon. Waves do not happen by magic. A wave is a transmission of energy through a medium, by definition. This and many other reasons are why they performed the M&M experiment in the first place. Before Relativity, everyone believed that an ether exists. Just because a single experiment failed to definitively detect it, is not proof that it doesn't exist.

If advocates for the aether would try putting forth some actual evidence for its existence rather than making baseless assertions that it exists, they would be deemed something better than cranks.

That's a pile of bull! Anyone who questions nearly anything that is "established science" is deemed a crank. Especially if that person is not working from within the scientific community. Even a hundred years ago such party line thinking was generally required and any dissent was not tolerated from outside the "club". The fact that Einstein's papers were read at all is something of a minor miracle. They were well on their way to being completely ignored and would have been had Einstein not had friends in the right places who still believed he wasn't a failure and a crank. But even then, science wasn't nearly as politicized as it is today. The situation now is improving somewhat because of the internet which affords people of all stripes to get their ideas out to millions of people at a time. But mainstream science is inundated with group think and political correctness and mainstream cosmology is totally dominated by mostly mathematicians who have bought the Big Bang Theory hook line and sinker and who presume the existence of things that have never been actually observed like neutroin stars, black holes and other super dense objects that their mathematical models require because they presuppose that gravity is the only major force acting on celestial objects and that red shift is an indicator of distance (which it isn't).

Also, there is falsifying evidence of mainstream theories that come up all the time. The greatest example of which in recent years is with the theories concerning the nature of comets. Comets are supposed to be loosly held together clumps of dirty water ice but when we go to a comet we find desicated rocky bodies with impact craters and dunes and many other features that would be impossible, I say again - impossible - if the theories were correct and yet the dirty snow ball theory persists. Contrary evidence is almost always ignored and it stays ignored for decades and decades until there is a watershed moment where something finally breaks and some new theory gets latched onto which is quickly cemented into position as the new acceptable group think. Generally speaking, when contrary, falsifying evidence is found, rather questioning and rethinking the established, group think theory, the data and the scientist who published it is attacked and deemed a crank.

In short, the reality of the scientific world is not what you think it is. It is not the intellectually honest, apolitical panacea that it is portrayed to be.

Clete

 

[gcthomas]

Polarization can only happen because light is a transfers wave. Additionally, it is waves that form interference patterns, a concept that interferometer experiments of all kinds are predicated upon. Waves do not happen by magic. A wave is a transmission of energy through a medium, by definition.

That is a junior-high view of the nature of light. Light exists as photons that behave in a way that some experiments show as to be like the behaviour of waves. But in others light behaves exactly like particles (try the photo-electric effect, for example). Light is certainly not defined as a wave through a medium, and in fact it behaviour is entirely incompatible with that notion.

Light is made of quantum particles. Not pure waves.

(Incidentally, did you know that electrons exhibit diffraction as well? And molecules diffract too (it's been done with enormous carbon-60 buckyballs)? Diffraction isn't limited to waves.

 

[Stripe]

If you admit that the aether has not been detected, then what is it that causes you to postulate its existence?



If advocates for the aether would try putting forth some actual evidence for its existence rather than making baseless assertions that it exists, they would be deemed something better than cranks.

Relativity has an aether. It's called space-time.

Sent from my SM-A520F using TOL mobile app

 

[Clete]

That is a junior-high view of the nature of light.

One more comment like this will end the conversation.

My bet is that you'd have to look it up to even know what a transverse wave is.

I dare you to deny that light is a transverse wave. Go ahead, I dare you.

Light exists as photons that behave in a way that some experiments show as to be like the behaviour of waves. But in others light behaves exactly like particles (try the photo-electric effect, for example).

I know all of this full well. You cannot. I never suggested that the nature of light is fully understood but I also am not willing to blindly accept that light is two different things at once. Whether you like it or not, light interferes with itself EXACTLY like waves do. That is overwhelming evidence, if not outright proof, that light propagates through a medium. The fact that the behavior of light has some sort of dual nature doesn't change the fact that it is some sort of wave that is universally referred to in terms of wavelength and frequency.

Light is certainly not defined as a wave through a medium, and in fact it behavior is entirely incompatible with that notion.

This is simply asinine ignoramus stupidity.

Light travels at different speeds through whatever medium you want to name. It travels at one speed through water, another speed through glass, another speed through air, and yet another speed through a vacuum. The difference is the medium! So please tell me again how the notion of light traveling through a medium is incompatible with its behavior!

Light is made of quantum particles. Not pure waves.

Define "pure waves". No! Don't. I don't care. If it is a wave at all, it has to be waving something, BY DEFINITION.

(Incidentally, did you know that electrons exhibit diffraction as well? And molecules diffract too (it's been done with enormous carbon-60 buckyballs)? Diffraction isn't limited to waves.

I haven't said a word about diffraction. I'm talking about interference patterns, wavelengths, and frequencies. Red light, for example, is light propagating at a wavelength of approximately 620–750 nm and a frequency of 400–484 THz. There is no meaningful way to refer to electrons or molecules in terms of wavelength and frequency. And you cannot have a frequency without a propagating wave and you cannot have a propagating wave without a medium.

Now, I was asked a question and I answered it. There is plenty of reason to think that an ether exists. There is ONE experiment used as "proof" that it doesn't. Not even the supervising scientist who performed the experiment agreed that it was proof of the non-existence of an ether. The only reason it's taken to be such is because Einstien's theories require it.

Clete