Past, Present and Future

[Jim]

Hi, :)

My brother Tommy is my kid brother [age 60] this is when you know you are really old...right Pete?

Why @ 1pm on the phone today did we start to discuss time travel, is this what old men do?

a) My brother believes that there is a time period in the Past that remains, a Present where time moves on based on the future , and that the Future already happend. He added that IF the future did not happen then how come there are those who can predict the future like Nostradamus.

B)I believe there is No future beyond this point in time and at this very moment till the next moment I am making the future for me.

c) What do you think about this ???

The future is a time period commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur.[1] It is the opposite of the past, and is the time after the present.[2] In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur.[3] In special relativity the future is considered to be absolute future or the future light cone.[4] In physics, time is considered to be the fourth dimension.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future

[ZatarRufus]

The multiverse consists in totality of IS/NOT IS and constantly toggles instantly between these two extremes. As humans, our perception level is significantly less than this which gives the illusion of time. I think it was Richard Bach who gave the example of a movie reel. You can hold the entire thing in your hand and it is all there all at once: the beginning through the end. But to experience it and get caught up in it you have to run it through the projector frame by frame.

[kandrathe]

c) What do you think about this ???

Good topic!

I think "time" is difficult to understand. I'm inclined to believe that space and time are intrinsically linked and that while we perceive 3 dimensions of space + 1 of time, there may be N dimensions of space and M dimensions of time (N+M dimensions). Our local perception of space, and time are influenced by the amount of matter(energy) in our locality. In general then, I think our perception is limited in understanding multidimensional spacetime. We will likely need some smart mathematicians to help us understand it, like Heim perhaps.

As for time travel, I'm thinking it is more of time slipping through parallel space-times. So, if it were possible, you might go back into a potential past, but not necessarily the one that is directly behind you, and the same moving forward. Thus, avoiding the paradox issues of going back to kill your father before you were conceived, etc.

As for prophecy, well I have seen pretty convincing first hand evidence of it. And, not just the vague stuff that can be interpreted how ever one pleases. I'm not sure how it is possible, but I'm keeping my mind open. Possibly something deeper in the Orch-OR theory of consciousness and that protein microtubles through quantum entanglement may be capable of complex quantum mechanical processes, including communication across space-time.

Roger Penrose has hypothesized a basic consciousness link to the quantum spin network.

I like the theory, because it helps to explain somewhat complex behaviors (like hunting) in single celled, and single neuron creatures.

[Jester]

It seems unlikely that we occupy a particularly privileged place in spacetime. If tiny particles can travel through time at the quantum level, and at the cosmic level, time is relative to the velocity of the observer, then it seems impossible to maintain the idea that there is a "present" that has any special status. I suspect the future exists in the same way up and down, left and right "exist," as fully formed dimensions.

Our evolution, however, has required only that we perceive time in a certain way, and thus, out concepts of existence carry a naive assumption about "the present" being the only real thing. There seems to be no reason this must be the case. We also all travel at approximately the same velocity, all the time, and are vastly larger than a subatomic particle, so we don't notice these time distorting effects. We just evolved assuming the present was fixed for everyone and everything.

However, the idea that one can use any of these effects to "prophecy" seems like complete nonsense to me. Nostradamus and the like are, for my money, nothing but poetic frauds. Their "hits" are a combination of rainbow statements, vague notions, lucky guesses and tautologies - and nobody is counting their misses.

Whether there is any useful way to predict the future, I really doubt. There are ways to make accurate localized predictions, or predictions about non-chaotic systems, within certain bounds of error. This is what physics is for. But the arrow of time follows the second law of thermodynamics (or is that the other way around?) and the future is less orderly than the present, confounding any rigorous attempt at prediction. To quote another of those poetic frauds, things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

My brother Tommy is my kid brother [age 60] this is when you know you are really old...right Pete?

Why are you asking me? I'm well seasoned, but hardly old. I figure I'll spend the second half of my life enjoying what I learned in the first half -- and when I turn 120, I'll worry about 'old'. :whistling:

a) My brother believes that there is a time period in the Past that remains, a Present where time moves on based on the future , and that the Future already happend. He added that IF the future did not happed then how come there are those who can predict the future like Nostradamus.

Actually, there is no solid evidence that anyone has predicted the future in the psychic sense. Actual studies of these predictions show that they are no better than random guesses possibly guided by existing trends. As for Nostradamus, his 'predictions' are so vague and generic that each can be made to apply to many events. It is the people that 'interpret' his prophecies that are actually postdicting the future -- i.e., Monday morning quarterbacking. In the non-psychic sense, it is common to predict the future from forecasting weather, to picking stock transactions, to predicting political races, etc. Sometimes, the predictions are actually right.:)

B)I believe there is No future beyond this point in time and at this very moment till the next moment I am making the future for me.

c) What do you think about this ???

Well, I've thought a lot about this. Occupational hazard, you might say. Your brother's view is not unlike the classical view in physics. In that view, space is a fixed, rigid structure, time was a separate entity that flowed in an absolute and uniform manner (Newton). The 'present' was a valid concept, and when the present was here, it was everywhere. There was a unique, fixed past. If one knew the exact state of the universe at one moment in time, then all the future could be predicted and all the past, recorded or not, could be determined. A clockwork universe created by a master watchmaker. Except as pure fantasy, time travel, except at the forward rate of one second per second, was impossible. Until about the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, that was the universe believed in by educated people. By the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century, that view of the universe was shattered to smithereens. Since then things have become, to quote Alice, "Curiouser and curiouser!”

Some of the destruction of the classical view was due to the work of Poincaré, who, among his many contributions to mathematics and physics, introduced chaos theory, although it didn't get that name, or much recognition, till long after his death. He showed that for systems consisting of three or more bodies, there were situations in which the evolution of the system was so sensitive to initial conditions that an infinite amount of precision was needed for each parameter. Since an infinite amount of precision would take an infinite time to acquire, it would never be possible to fully predict the future -- in effect, the future is both unknown and unknowable, although it might still be fixed. But that changed later. And it makes no difference as far as time travel is concerned.

A big breakup of the classical theory came with Einstein's special theory of relativity. When James Clerk Maxwell published his unification of electricity and magnetism in the early 1860's, one of the results was a wave equation that seemed to describe the motion of light. One of the questions that arose from this was whether the velocity of light was relative to the source, the observer, or the medium. All the experimental and theoretical evidence of the late 1800's led to contradictions or unsupported partial solutions. Then, in 1905, based on his ability to visualize the physical situation of traveling along with a light wave, Einstein was able to generate a self consistent theory that answered all the questions. His theory was based on two simple concepts. The first was pretty bland: that all inertial (i.e., non-accelerated) reference frames are equivalent. The second was very radical: that the speed of light was the same in all inertial reference frames.

The special theory fixed the problems with light and explained all that the classical theory did as well. Which was good. Unfortunately for our intuitive understanding, it 'broke' space and time. Or, more correctly, it combined them into a four dimensional space-time. For two observers in motion relative to each other, the quantities they measure for the 'same' time and distance are different. There is no longer an absolute 'now'. What matters are 'events' -- basically points in space and time. If we pick one event to be the 'now' event, all events that can be reached by a light beam originating at the now event are in its future. All events that can reach the now event with a light beam originating from those events are in its past. The interval between events in the past or the future is a time like interval because there exists a reference frame moving at or less than the speed of light that joins the two events. In that reference frame, the events happen at the same place but at different times.

Of course, there are events that can occur in such a way that a light beam cannot get from one to the other. Two such events are neither in each other's past nor future. They are in what is often called the 'else-when'. The separation of these events is called space like because there is no reference frame traveling at or below the speed of light that can join them. Thus, for every observer, the two events occur in different places. In at least some cases (and if memory serves me correctly, all cases) depending on the velocity of the observer the order of the events can appear different. One event will occur before, at the same time, or after the other depending on the observer. 'Now' has no meaning except locally.

Crazy stuff, sure, but the craziest thing of all is that space and time move away from being a rigid framework that things happen 'in' and start becoming properties of what is happening. Whether or not the future is fixed isn't effected much, it still could be either, but the possibility for time travel starts to become non-zero. At the very least, accelerated travel into the future is possible (although, strictly speaking, it takes general relativity to show that). Travel into the past would be possible if faster than light motion in space-time could be achieved. Contrary to the common perception, there is nothing inherent in special relativity that prohibits faster than light travel -- only travel at the speed of light for anything which has mass.

Special relativity redefined the properties of space and time, not just in terms of how they behaved, but in the fundamental sense of what they are. The universe of special relativity is still one in which the framework (space-time) is not influenced by its contents (mass) and so it is still very simple. However, special relativity is very limited. It can only handle velocities, but not accelerations and thus not forces. In overcoming these limitations, Einstein formulated the general theory of relativity. Although the mathematics are horrific, the principles are pretty simple. Starting from the concept that the acceleration due to a force is indistinguishable from that due to motion, Einstein derived an equation that says that the shape of space-time is determined by the mass in it and the motion of that mass is determined by the shape of space-time.

General relativity is a well supported theory. Observations and experiments have validated its results and, to my knowledge, there has been no failure of the theory to date. Its 'failure' is that it doesn't work well with the other main modern theory, quantum mechanics. In attempts to resolve the differences, a lot of 'theories' (really, more like 'speculations' since none of them have contributed to anything other than the literature of theoretical physics) have been proposed. Strings, branes, multiple dimensions (some of them rolled -- possibly inspired by reefers). But, the only working time machine concept I know of comes from vanilla general relativity. It is Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation by Frank J. Tipler. I do not know if that paper has been discredited.

So, at least one theoretical time machine is permitted by one branch of physics. Whether that analysis survives the quantization of gravity, or any other future revision to general relativity, remains to be seen.

The other fundamental branch of physics is quantum mechanics, and it is vastly stranger than relativity. Relativity has its roots in the earliest speculations about the nature of the universe. Quantum mechanics had its origins in 1900 when Max Planck used a 'calculational trick' to fit an equation to the blackbody radiation. Many of us still consider quantum mechanics a bag of calculational tricks. While it has powerful predictive values, it fails to answer, or even address, many fundamental questions. Its proponents claim that one should not ask those questions, and that, to me, is a religious rather than a scientific attitude. Talking about quantum matters except mathematically is almost futile because we lack the concepts in language to express them. Sure, we can define terms like 'wavicle' to express the wave-particle duality, but it does nothing to explain that duality. Only by its (mathematical) properties can you know it.

So, without getting into as much detail, there are a few things about quantum theory and time travel. One of the interpretations of the positron (the electron's anti-particle) is that it is an electron moving backward in time. If this is more than a mathematical artifact, then it might indicate that time travel is possible. I've never seen this addressed at length, but it is one of the few places where 'the arrow of time' seems to fail. Then again, quantum theory and thermodynamics have never been completely reconciled.

A more interesting concept is that of 'parallel' universes. As the 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment points out, quantum theory does not predict the future, only the odds. But when a 'measurement' is made, then only one of the possibilities is seen. There is a speculation that each time this happens, all the possibilities are realized, each in a different universe. So, in the cat's case, when we open the box, the universe splits into two, one with a live cat and one with a dead. Of course, since a 'measurement' can be something as simple as a photon being absorbed by a leaf, there would be a vast number of parallel universes.

In this 'theory', you cannot travel to your future because there is no such thing. What exists is all the universes generated by all the 'measurements' made from when you start your trip to your arrival. You do have a singular past -- namely the series of universes that took you to this point in time. Some proponents of this 'theory' think that the universe 'protects' itself by only allowing travel back to universes other than those in your past.

A fairly well established, but not well understood or explained, fact of quantum theory is the uncertainty principle. There are many ways of stating it, most of them wrong. The closest I can come is that there are certain combinations of properties (position and momentum probably being the best known) that cannot both be predicted with arbitrary accuracy. The arguments are long and tedious, even by my standards, but the upshot is that the future cannot be predicted. Only the odds can be predicted. Strictly speaking, this does not say that the future isn't fixed.

As to time travel, I invoke Fermi's paradox. If time travel is possible, where are they? I've seen many answers, but only one that is convincing to me. Consider that time travel might only be possible within a machine that controls time. The machine itself does not travel through time (except in the normal fashion). One can enter the machine and go to any time from when it was last turned on to when it is next turned off. Think of it like an elevator in a high rise building that only serves the middle twenty floors. There are floors above and below, but you can't reach them in that elevator because it doesn't 'exist' on those floors.

Personally, I think there are multiple universes, but not of the parallel type. Hawking got the ball rolling, and even looked at how one could travel between universes. One of his conclusions was that you can't go back. BTW, don't buy that book unless you have mad skills in math, it's not for the casual reader. I believe that there is, in each universe, a singular, fixed, past. I believe that the future is not determined, that it is a chaotic system. I believe that time travel is not possible (though I still hope that faster than light travel is possible -- a contradiction under the present theories). Dhalgren aside, I believe causes should precede effects. Do buy that book -- it's better than acid for expanding your mind. I also believe that the universe is an infinite onion -- removing each layer uncovers a layer below and hints at many more. The map will never be the terrain. But those are my beliefs. Any, or all of them may be wrong (well, OK, not the one about Dhalgren). And all of them are subject to change if evidence to the contrary slaps me across the face.

Like I said, I've thought a lot about this. If anyone wants the long version, let me know. :w00t:

--Pete

[NuurAbSaal]

If anyone wants the long version, let me know. :w00t:

--Pete

Yes please!
That was quite the read, tempting me to once more try to get some foothold in physics. I never got past the optimistic-layman-stage, lacking the mathematical groundwork (and some brainpower, I fear) but the subject has fascinated me since my early teens. A brief History of Time managed to soundly confuse me and whet the appetite for more, alas I failed at various books attempting to discuss General Relativity for noobies like me.

I found your post to be reasonably understandable given the subject (and the brain deficit;)), so if there's more, let me have it please!

Let me close by saying:"Higgs Boson!", to appear informed.

take care
Tarabulus

[--Pete]

Hi,

Yes please!
That was quite the read, tempting me to once more try to get some foothold in physics. I never got past the optimistic-layman-stage, lacking the mathematical groundwork (and some brainpower, I fear) but the subject has fascinated me since my early teens. A brief History of Time managed to soundly confuse me and whet the appetite for more, alas I failed at various books attempting to discuss General Relativity for noobies like me.

I found your post to be reasonably understandable given the subject (and the brain deficit;)), so if there's more, let me have it please!

That was supposed to be a joke:)

OK, given that that post took me a few hours last night and a few more this morning, I don't think I should continue writing unless I find a publisher (unlikely). Besides, much more of that and Bolty will ban me for obfuscation beyond human tolerance. :whistling:

The problem with most popular physics books is that the authors usually make assumptions about the reader, often without realizing they are doing so. It is difficult to put oneself into the position of a novice. One of the best at doing that was Isaac Asimov. His Understanding Physics is an excellent introduction to many of the concepts without the use of mathematics. I've used it as a supplemental text in my introductory classes and have plagiarized it many times in my lectures. I highly recommend it, but not as a purchase. It is not the kind of book that you will be referring to again after you read it (unless you end up teaching physics:)). See if you can get a copy through your library.

And we can discuss this further in the unpredictable future.;)

Let me close by saying:"Higgs Boson!", to appear informed.

I think I prefer bison to boson -- makes a better cheeseburger:)

--Pete

[Lissa]

Dhalgren aside, I believe causes should precede effects. Do buy that book -- it's better than acid for expanding your mind. I also believe that the universe is an infinite onion -- removing each layer uncovers a layer below and hints at many more. The map will never be the terrain. But those are my beliefs. Any, or all of them may be wrong (well, OK, not the one about Dhalgren). And all of them are subject to change if evidence to the contrary slaps me across the face.

Like I said, I've thought a lot about this. If anyone wants the long version, let me know. :w00t:

--Pete

IMO, if FTL is possible it's going to be based on Quantum Tunnelling on a macroscopic scale, ie, folding space. Simply to start at point A and your destination is point B, you make point A and point B exist in relative close proximity and then travel the short distance from point A to point B, then make the two points exist at their original locations.

[--Pete]

Hi,

IMO, if FTL is possible it's going to be based on Quantum Tunnelling on a macroscopic scale, ie, folding space. Simply to start at point A and your destination is point B, you make point A and point B exist in relative close proximity and then travel the short distance from point A to point B, then make the two points exist at their original locations.

Yeah, that's one way. Wormholes, if they can be made to exist, are another. My recent favorite is to sit still and move the universe;)

It's a general relativistic method. It is based on the observation that during the inflationary period after the big bang space-time expanded faster than light speed. There is no theoretical limit to how fast it can expand. So, the mechanism is to set up a steep gravity potential. Put a black hole a fixed distance in front, a white hole a fixed distance behind. Space-time flows down the slope, dragging your ship with it (you are stationary relative to your local frame). As the ship moves, it moves the position of the black and white holes relative to the rest of the universe. Net effect is a FTL drive.

In reality, I suspect that if FTL ever becomes a reality it will be based on principles that we haven't even imagined yet. We're in the position of a Leonardo -- he conceived of manned flight, but never envisioned anything like the internal combustion engine. Without the power source, his ideas were just fantasy. As are ours. Fun to speculate, but ultimately pointless -- just a parlor game.;)

--Pete

[Bolty]

Besides, much more of that and Bolty will ban me for obfuscation beyond human tolerance. :whistling:

How can a bot be banned for obfuscation? PeteBot™ continues to excel at finding obscure information on the Internet at any topic, posting it here, and passing itself off as a human who seems to know a decent amount about everything.

I'm onto you.

My only worry is that someone will figure out that <strike>PeteBot™ is a creation of the Lurker Lounge to promote conversation</strike> you may be making this all up!

Go find a dog and bring your favorite book. Open up the book to the dog. Flip the pages. Read it to them if you wish. The dog will never understand that the book is the written word, it is imparting information, and that we can "read" what it says. Its brain is incapable of understanding this.

Now, take humans. We arrogantly believe that we are not like that; that we are capable, as a species, of eventually figuring out and understanding the Universe (opening a can of worms here, but that is why I find most religions to be humorous). What if we aren't? What if we're just like the dog, looking at the book but being utterly incapable of ever understanding what we are perceiving?

We know so little about the universe that we live in, it's laughable. Yet what you are taught in today's Physics classes is preached like it's the Absolute Truth. It's merely the best model we have so far.

I'll sum up Pete's long post: if the Sun explodes right NOW, you won't find out for approximately 8 minutes. So when did it really explode? As you are instantly incinerated along with the Earth, will you think "gee, theoretically I died 8 minutes ago, but the event is only observable for me now?" What ARE those 8 minutes, anyway? If you were in a ship that traveled at the speed of light from the Sun to the Earth at the moment it went kerblooie, would you keep dying over and over in some weird state between life and death?

I'm making s'mores.

[--Pete]

Hi,

We know so little about the universe that we live in, it's laughable. Yet what you are taught in today's Physics classes is preached like it's the Absolute Truth. It's merely the best model we have so far.

Not in mine. One of the first things I tell my students is that everything I'm going to tell them is false. It's just the best 'false' we've come up with till now to explain the universe.

I'm making s'mores.

Pass me a couple, and I'll make the hot cocoa.:)

--Pete

EDIT: Left out an 'o'. Might have been funnier that way, but I tend to be . . . Whatever.

[NuurAbSaal]

Hi,
That was supposed to be a joke:)

Oh Novos! Pete giveth, and Pete taketh away. Oh how you built up my expectations of finally understanding the universe after a 5 minute read and now it all comes crashing down. In the words of Rainier Wolfcastle:

"My mighty heart is breaking. I'll be in the hummvee."

OK, given that that post took me a few hours last night and a few more this morning, I don't think I should continue writing unless I find a publisher (unlikely). Besides, much more of that and Bolty will ban me for obfuscation beyond human tolerance. :whistling:

Well, if by publish you mean copy and paste on another site without giving coin or credit, we are in business. But I'm not really 100% sure that's what you mean. Life is complicated, even if we're talking about internet publishing. The Bolty situation seems to be resolved though. Bot.

The problem with most popular physics books is that the authors usually make assumptions about the reader, often without realizing they are doing so. It is difficult to put oneself into the position of a novice. One of the best at doing that was Isaac Asimov. His Understanding Physics is an excellent introduction to many of the concepts without the use of mathematics. I've used it as a supplemental text in my introductory classes and have plagiarized it many times in my lectures. I highly recommend it, but not as a purchase. It is not the kind of book that you will be referring to again after you read it (unless you end up teaching physics:)). See if you can get a copy through your library.

Thanks for the tip, I'll go a'hunting for it.

And we can discuss this further in the unpredictable future.;)
I think I prefer bison to boson -- makes a better cheeseburger:)

--Pete

Now I have a picture of two Cheeseburgers colliding at ridiculous speed stuck in my (already overworked, as stated) brain. Brilliant.

take care
Tarabulus

[Lissa]

While I understand you're going for laughs in this, there are a couple things that are interesting to postulate.

How can a bot be banned for obfuscation? PeteBot™ continues to excel at finding obscure information on the Internet at any topic, posting it here, and passing itself off as a human who seems to know a decent amount about everything.

Landru v2? ;)

I'm onto you.

My only worry is that someone will figure out that <strike>PeteBot™ is a creation of the Lurker Lounge to promote conversation</strike> you may be making this all up!

Go find a dog and bring your favorite book. Open up the book to the dog. Flip the pages. Read it to them if you wish. The dog will never understand that the book is the written word, it is imparting information, and that we can "read" what it says. Its brain is incapable of understanding this.

Are you sure about that? Research into various animals shows that a good number have been able to show higher learning capabilities (such as Dolphins and various primate species). Maybe understanding comes with time allowed to understand. Look at Humans, 10k BC (12k years ago), we understood very little about the world around us outside of the need to hunt for food to survive, to procreate, and the need for shelter from the elements. Now, 12k years later, we understand much more about the world we live in. We already know that various animals have been able to follow humans in some of our footsteps (communication being one, use of tools being another, reasoning yet a third), is it really that much of a stretch, given time and the chance to grow in understanding of the world around them, that animals couldn't follow Humans?

Now, take humans. We arrogantly believe that we are not like that; that we are capable, as a species, of eventually figuring out and understanding the Universe (opening a can of worms here, but that is why I find most religions to be humorous). What if we aren't? What if we're just like the dog, looking at the book but being utterly incapable of ever understanding what we are perceiving?

We know so little about the universe that we live in, it's laughable. Yet what you are taught in today's Physics classes is preached like it's the Absolute Truth. It's merely the best model we have so far.

We are, slowly but surely, understanding more and more about the universe that we live in. Ask a Physicist a hundred and fifty or so years ago what the atom was and how it worked and he'd tell you it was an amalgamation of protons, neutrons, and elctrons all in a nicely package ball (Plum Pudding Model). Yet not 25 years later, through experimentation, it was found that the atom was truly mostly empty space where the protons and neutrons were in a tightly confined space at the center (the nucelus) with the electrons orbiting the nucleus at a relatively large distance (in terms of the size of nucleus).

I'll sum up Pete's long post: if the Sun explodes right NOW, you won't find out for approximately 8 minutes. So when did it really explode? As you are instantly incinerated along with the Earth, will you think "gee, theoretically I died 8 minutes ago, but the event is only observable for me now?" What ARE those 8 minutes, anyway? If you were in a ship that traveled at the speed of light from the Sun to the Earth at the moment it went kerblooie, would you keep dying over and over in some weird state between life and death?

That's the beauty of Relativity. You observe what happens in your frame of reference, so you die when the event, this case the shockwave from the Sun, interacts with your frame of reference. The shockwave sees a different frame of reference, so it would observe the destruction of the Earth under a different scale of time compared to your frame of reference from Earth. As to being in a spaceship, again, your death would occur when the shockwave from the Sun interacted with the frame of reference from the spaceship. Isn't Relativity fun! ;)

More fun to be had, what happens at the event horizon of a black hole? :w00t:

I'm making s'mores.

In which frame of reference? :P

[--Pete]

Hi,

Are you sure about that? Research into various animals shows that a good number have been able to show higher learning capabilities (such as Dolphins and various primate species).

Ah, but Bolty specified a dog. It may be that over many generations of evolution or breeding, under conditions that make reading a survival factor (and I have absolutely no idea what that may be), dogs will be able to read. However, I don't think the resulting creature would still be a dog.

Maybe understanding comes with time allowed to understand. Look at Humans, 10k BC (12k years ago), we understood very little about the world around . . .

You have to distinguish between potentials and achievements. There is no indication that humans of twelve thousand years ago were incapable of understanding modern concepts. They simply hadn't been exposed to them. It's like two Labrador pups from the same litter. One goes to a family who keep it as a pet, and it never learns much beyond 'sit' and 'come'. The other goes to a hunter, who keeps it both as a pet and a hunting companion. This dog learns many more commands so that he can co-ordinate with his partner in the field, as well as tasks such as retrieving. Each dog had, pretty near, the same potential, but only the second was able to achieve it.

Ask a Physicist a hundred and fifty or so years ago what the atom was and how it worked . . .

But that is just the point. His model fit the data he had, it explained the phenomena he knew about. And as new data came in, new models were built. And they, too, were as good as they could be, given what was known. Someone once said something like, "Progress in science is not replacing a wrong theory with a right one. It is replacing a wrong theory with one that is more subtly wrong." History bears this out. It is a bit arrogant to think that we, finally!, have seen The Big Truth. It is a little less arrogant to think that we, as a species, will ever see and understand The Big Truth. Even the existence of The Big Truth is an unfounded, optimistic, assumption. Perhaps, all there are are little truths.

You observe what happens in your frame of reference, so you die when the event, this case the shockwave from the Sun, interacts with your frame of reference. The shockwave sees a different frame of reference, so it would observe the destruction of the Earth under a different scale of time compared to your frame of reference from Earth.

Since the actual cause of death would probably be the gamma radiation, in your frame of reference it would take eight minutes for it to get to you. In its frame of reference, it would be instantaneous.

More fun to be had, what happens at the event horizon of a black hole? :w00t:

"Where you sit determines what you see." -- Occhi, AWOL Rogue:)

In which frame of reference? :P

Not mine, I didn't get any:(

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Oh Novos! Pete giveth, and Pete taketh away. Oh how you built up my expectations of finally understanding the universe after a 5 minute read and now it all comes crashing down. In the words of Rainier Wolfcastle:

"My mighty heart is breaking. I'll be in the hummvee."

Sorry to disappoint.:)

Well, if by publish you mean copy and paste on another site without giving coin or credit, we are in business. But I'm not really 100% sure that's what you mean.

I was thinking a little more mercenary than that. I've long considered the difference between work and play is that you have to do the work, but you can walk away from the play. Putting together that post, I wanted to do it, and put in about as much effort and time as I felt like. It was play. I have no desire to do more, thus it would be work. I like to get paid for my work. :P

Now I have a picture of two Cheeseburgers colliding at ridiculous speed stuck in my (already overworked, as stated) brain. Brilliant.

My second favorite site.:)

--Pete

[Jim]

Hi, :)

Sorry, I thought you were the second oldest living member here at LL. Based on my family longevity chart I should make it to about 92-94. btw I'm in my second childhood, I guess I missed the seasoning :)

I added to my signiture: I am a man of few words, because, I only know a few words :P

Your reply is both informative & interesting, however...>Number of words: "2210" WoW !!!
http://www.wordcounttool.com/

Hi,
Why are you asking me? I'm well seasoned, but hardly old. I figure I'll spend the second half of my life enjoying what I learned in the first half -- and when I turn 120, I'll worry about 'old'. :whistling:

[--Pete]

Hi,

Sorry, I thought you were the second oldest living member here at LL. Based on my family longevity chart I should make it to about 92-94. btw I'm in my second childhood, I guess I missed the seasoning :)

You're never old till you quit gaming :D

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Now I have a picture of two Cheeseburgers colliding at ridiculous speed stuck in my (already overworked, as stated) brain. Brilliant.

I imagined a space in Montana, owned by the Higgs family. Out in the Higgs field are the Bison's who eat and leave dark matter in the field, and once in a while they scaler up the mesons to eat their haydron.

Higgs also has a LHC (Loud Holstein Collider), where milk cows are spun with strange attraction and charm to make fermion chedder.

When they die, either to give you your cheeseburgers, or by natural decay, I've heard they make gluion from their hooves.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I imagined a space in Montana, owned by the Higgs family. Out in the Higgs field are the Bison's who eat and leave dark matter in the field, and once in a while they scaler up the mesons to eat their haydron.

Higgs also has a LHC (Loud Holstein Collider), where milk cows are spun with strange attraction and charm to make fermion chedder.

When they die, either to give you your cheeseburgers, or by natural decay, I've heard they make gluion from their hooves.

:lol::lol::lol:That's great. Thank you.

--Pete

[Lissa]

Hi,
Ah, but Bolty specified a dog. It may be that over many generations of evolution or breeding, under conditions that make reading a survival factor (and I have absolutely no idea what that may be), dogs will be able to read. However, I don't think the resulting creature would still be a dog.

Maybe, but we do already have dogs that do fulfill some of these actions already in seeing eye dogs. The dogs are trained to recognize things to assist their legally blind companion (I use legally cause I've known some people that were legally blind, but could still see shadows and the like). So, can some seeing eye dogs read, sorta, as they can understand pictograms (which is the earliest form of "writing" Humans used).

You have to distinguish between potentials and achievements. There is no indication that humans of twelve thousand years ago were incapable of understanding modern concepts. They simply hadn't been exposed to them. It's like two Labrador pups from the same litter. One goes to a family who keep it as a pet, and it never learns much beyond 'sit' and 'come'. The other goes to a hunter, who keeps it both as a pet and a hunting companion. This dog learns many more commands so that he can co-ordinate with his partner in the field, as well as tasks such as retrieving. Each dog had, pretty near, the same potential, but only the second was able to achieve it.

Right, but if you look at Humans over the last 12k years, you see continued growth and understanding of what happens around them. Most animals haven't been pushed as much to grow. What if animlas were pushed like Humans have been? As such, if animals had been pushed by themselves and their environment as much as Humans have been, could they begin to understand some of the concepts that Humans have been able to grasp? It really puts a new spin on what intelligence really constitutes.

But that is just the point. His model fit the data he had, it explained the phenomena he knew about. And as new data came in, new models were built. And they, too, were as good as they could be, given what was known. Someone once said something like, "Progress in science is not replacing a wrong theory with a right one. It is replacing a wrong theory with one that is more subtly wrong." History bears this out. It is a bit arrogant to think that we, finally!, have seen The Big Truth. It is a little less arrogant to think that we, as a species, will ever see and understand The Big Truth. Even the existence of The Big Truth is an unfounded, optimistic, assumption. Perhaps, all there are are little truths.

Right, but the point is, the continued understanding of what is going on around us. Through experimentation and observation, we get a better idea of what is going on. Prior to Rutherford's scattering experiments, the Plum Pudding Model worked because no one had done anything more than realized that the atom, for the most part, was a neutral system. When Rutherford put up his gold foils and then let alpha and beta emitters hit the foils and then noted the scattering on a phosphour plate behind the foil, he realized that atom wasn't what everyone thought. Knowledge is an ever evolving situation, and anyone that says they know everything is lying to themselves. Most of my professors I ever dealt with in the sciences never said this is the absolute truth, most have said, this is the best model we have for what we've observed.

If you want to call it a truth, I think my Thermodynamics professor had one of the best methods for explaining the four laws of Thermodynamics:

You have to play, you can only break even, you can never win, and you can't stop playing.

So, I don't think Humans will every figure it all out cause if they didn, it would be pretty boring. We can only really figure out somethings that lead to figuring out more things, but we'll never run out of things to figure out.

Since the actual cause of death would probably be the gamma radiation, in your frame of reference it would take eight minutes for it to get to you. In its frame of reference, it would be instantaneous.

Right, but Bolty was talking about from the frame of reference of someone sitting on Earth and someone sitting in a space ship. Someone sitting on Earth, in Earth's frame of reference, didn't die 8 minutes ago when the Sun exploded, it took time for the outward explosion to reach Earth. It's when that outward explosion interacts with Earth that someone dies in the Earth frame of reference. So the point had to be made as to which frame of reference we were looking at and when the interaction would occur.

Not mine, I didn't get any:(

--Pete

That's the problem with not being in Bolty's frame of reference... :P