11 more days....
 

And Harry's feral clock postings leave the bottom of the list. :)

-W

11 more days....
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:33:51 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

On 11/1/2006 10:24 AM, Clams Canino wrote:
And Harry's feral clock postings leave the bottom of the list. :)

You mean, it isn't February 31, 2007?

You know, in a sense, it could be.

There is a school of thought that considers all time to be a function
of perception and not reality.

In fact, if one....

Um...

Never mind. I'd only be accused of being weird. :)
--


You might enjoy this item:

Begin paste
*********

Was Time Created During the Big Bang?
Scott Teresi
www.teresi.us/writing


Right now the Einstein description of gravity (general relativity)
doesn't make sense when it starts to intersect with the minute
particles of quantum mechanics. Gravity is normally extremely weak on
the quantum mechanical scale, but it becomes a major factor when matter
gets compressed by a black hole... or in the Big Bang at the beginning
of the universe. String theory is the best candidate at the moment for
a "theory of everything" that includes both gravity and quantum
mechanics.

Here's an interesting perspective (from a N.Y. Times article) on what
time might become in our eventual "theory of everything."


Quantum mechanics has, at its core, the uncertainty principle, which
establishes a limit on how precisely particular features of the
microworld can be simultaneously measured. The more precise the
measurement of one feature (a particle's position for example), the
more wildly uncertain a complementary feature (its velocity) becomes.
Quantum uncertainty thus ensures that the finer the examination of the
microworld, the more frantically its physical features fluctuate, and
the more turbulent it appears to be.

For subatomic particles, these fluctuations are well understood
mathematically and have been precisely documented experimentally. But
when it comes to time and space, the fluctuations speak to the very
limits of these familiar concepts. On extremely short time intervals
(about a tenth of a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a
trillionth of a second) and distance scales (about a billionth of a
trillionth of a trillionth of a centimeter), quantum fluctuations so
mangle space and time that the conventional ideas of left/right,
backward/forward, up/down, and before/after become meaningless.

Scientists are still struggling to understand these implications, but
many agree that just as the percentages in political polls are average,
approximate measures that become meaningful only when a large
respondent pool is canvassed, so conventional notions of time and space
are also average, approximate concepts that become meaningful only when
considered over sufficiently large scales. Whereas relativity
established the subjectivity of time's passage, quantum mechanics
challenges the conceptual primacy of time itself.


Here's the important part:


Today's scientists seeking to combine quantum mechanics with Einstein's
theory of gravity (the general theory of relativity) are convinced that
we are on the verge of another major upheaval, one that will pinpoint
the more elemental concepts from which time and space emerge. Many
believe this will involve a radically new formulation of natural law in
which scientists will be compelled to trade the space-time matrix
within which they have worked for centuries for a more basic "realm"
that is itself devoid of time and space.

This is such a perplexing idea that grasping it poses a substantial
challenge, even for leading researchers. Broadly speaking, scientists
envision that there will be no mention of time and space in the basic
equations of the sought-for framework. And yet - just as clear,
liquid water emerges from particular combinations of an enormous number
of H20 molecules - time and space as we know them would emerge from
particular combinations of some more basic, though still unidentified,
entities. Time and space themselves, though, would be rendered
secondary, derivative features, that emerge only in suitable conditions
(in the aftermath of the Big Bang, for example). As outrageous as it
sounds, to many researchers, including me, such a departure of time and
space from the ultimate laws of the universe seems inevitable.

(From The Time We Thought We Knew, by Brian Greene, N.Y. Times.)



I think what this means is, our theory of everything may end up
describing variables which are actually more fundamental than time,
space, gravity, and electromagnetism (the basic forces and dimensions
in today's theories). What we experience as "time" may actually have
been created during the Big Bang. Time could be a macroscopic
manifestation of the more intrinsic components of the
universe/multiverse.



****************
End paste


Somehow, even when time is finally discovered to be subjective, it will
still take a lot of it to get anywhere in my trawler at 8 knots. :-)

11 more days....
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:33:51 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

On 11/1/2006 10:24 AM, Clams Canino wrote:
And Harry's feral clock postings leave the bottom of the list. :)

You mean, it isn't February 31, 2007?

You know, in a sense, it could be.

Then why and how does the human body, wine, cheese, and even the dog
that got run over on the highway *age*?
--

11 more days....
 

On 11/1/2006 10:24 AM, Clams Canino wrote:
And Harry's feral clock postings leave the bottom of the list. :)

You mean, it isn't February 31, 2007?

You know, in a sense, it could be.

Then why and how does the human body, wine, cheese, and even the dog
that got run over on the highway *age*?



The theory at hand states that we are "in" the realm of space and time,
(created by the 'big bang') but that the underlying principles of
'everything that is' are not bound by space/time, since space/time is a
byproduct. In other words, at the sub sub-atomic level of quantum mechanics,
there is no space or time as we know it. Space/time are not governing
features, but rather are governed.

....the mind boggles...

11 more days....
 

Stanley Barthfarkle wrote:
On 11/1/2006 10:24 AM, Clams Canino wrote:
And Harry's feral clock postings leave the bottom of the list. :)

You mean, it isn't February 31, 2007?

You know, in a sense, it could be.

Then why and how does the human body, wine, cheese, and even the dog
that got run over on the highway *age*?



The theory at hand states that we are "in" the realm of space and time,
(created by the 'big bang') but that the underlying principles of
'everything that is' are not bound by space/time, since space/time is a
byproduct. In other words, at the sub sub-atomic level of quantum mechanics,
there is no space or time as we know it. Space/time are not governing
features, but rather are governed.

...the mind boggles...

There are more than a few theories in quantum mechanics that contradict
one another. The space/time continium being one.

11 more days....
 

On 1 Nov 2006 09:06:21 -0800, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:

Somehow, even when time is finally discovered to be subjective, it will
still take a lot of it to get anywhere in my trawler at 8 knots. :-)

===============================

It's all relative.

At 8 kts you can go all the way around the world in 113 days, not
counting fuel stops.

11 more days....
 

basskisser wrote:
Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:33:51 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

On 11/1/2006 10:24 AM, Clams Canino wrote:
And Harry's feral clock postings leave the bottom of the list. :)

You mean, it isn't February 31, 2007?

You know, in a sense, it could be.

Then why and how does the human body, wine, cheese, and even the dog
that got run over on the highway *age*?
--

The final discovery will be that we are spiritual beings, living in a
spiritual realm. But that won't be the next discovery, there are some
steps that need to be taken to get there from here. The next discovery
will be that matter is inconsequential and that everything we perceive
as a "thing" is actually an expression of an overriding energy.
Energy can be transformed, but it cannot be destroyed. As the amount
of energy present
in, (for example), a human body increases it is said that the human
being is "growing up", as the energy begins to dissipate it is said
that the human body is "maturing". When there is very little energy
left, the human body is said to be "old", and when all the energy has
"gone somewhere else" the human body is considered dead. (Eventually
the dead human body decays, becoming primarily energy that we would
recognize as "thermal").

Another amazing consideration is the relationship between gravity and
light. A true mind bender, that one. :-)

But we do so enjoy our constructed realities. I enjoy the illusion of
living in a mechanical universe, even though we don't. It makes the
explanation of things like the physics of why our boats float and how
our engines run easier to accept, especially since the false answers
that we currently have still continue to work well within the entirely
false paradigms we apply to "reality".

So for now, if my internal combustion car takes me down to the dock to
go aboard my internal combustion boat or I have to arrange priorities
to get somewhere "on time", that's how I expect things to be until my
own human body runs entirely out of energy.

Regardless of whether one is religious or not, it is interesting to
note that thousands of years ago the Hebrew account of the creation of
the Universe began with a diety who said,
"Let there be light! (energy)" Lucky guess, divine instruction, or some
exceptionally brilliant minds for that day and age? There's an endless
debate. :-)

11 more days....
 

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 22:11:07 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

It's all relative.

At 8 kts you can go all the way around the world in 113 days, not
counting fuel stops.

Phineas Fogg did it in eighty days in a freakin' balloon. :)
--

Just goes to show that baloons full of hot air are faster than
trawlers.

11 more days....
 

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:26:52 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

It's not that complicated - light is particles, has mass and as a
result can be affected by gravity.

Speaking of which, perhaps you could explain to us how to derive the
absolute speed of light from Maxwell's wave equations. I find it
fascinating that the math to do that was in place so far in front of
Einstein's work and all of quantum physics.

11 more days....
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:


The how do you explain entropy - the tendency for the universe to
attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a
uniform temperature.

Hmmmmm?

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. A uniform temperature might be
consistent with the
concept that there is a finite amount of universal energy. Maybe.


Assuming you must be a "What the Bleep" fan, have you checked out "Down
the Rabbit Hole, Quantum Edition?"

http://www.whatthebleep.com/rabbithole/