Lee Smolin, a cosmologist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, informs us via PBS,
I believe in time.
I haven’t always believed in it. Like many physicists and philosophers, I had once concluded from general relativity and quantum gravity that time is not a fundamental aspect of nature, but instead emerges from another, deeper description. Then, starting in the 1990s and accelerated by an eight year collaboration with the Brazilian philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger, I came to believe instead that time is fundamental. (How I came to this is another story.) Now, I believe that by taking time to be fundamental, we might be able to understand how general relativity and the standard model emerge from a deeper theory, why time only goes one way, and how the universe was born.
Something is wrong here. Just recording, just recording…
Re Perimeter Institute: Hi, Nonsense, meet Budget:
Now, here is a completely unscientific speculation: Perimeter was founded in large part from the Blackberry smart phone fortune (a Canadian origin product).
Perimeter currently relies on a variety of funding sources. That said, things are tough all over, and especially for Blackberry, mainly because Silicon Valley briefly put out the bong pipes and narrowed the achievement gap.
See also: How time got its arrow without intelligence (and why that leads to nonsense).
Not to a road to reality:
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Wow. Smolin seriously scares me. Time is a physical entity and has an arrow? Really? Here is a simple and rock solid refutation of both time and its arrow.
If there is a time dimension and we are moving in this dimension in a given direction (time’s arrow), then this implies a velocity in time. Now velocity in space is normally given as v = dx/dt. Velocity in time would have to be written as v = dt/dt, which is nonsensical. That’s it.
Conclusion: There is no time along which we are moving from the past into the future or any direction. It is an illusion and an academic deception meant to safeguard Einsteinian physics and its time travel nonsense. There is only the ever changing present. Joe Rosen said it best:
Smolin? Shmolin.
Karl Popper on time and Einstein’s block universe:
Modern physics is laughable.
Mapou,
Consider the following. Suppose I am a time traveler, heading into the future at an accelerated rate, say at 100 times the rate that you are. By that I mean that when I look at your watch, it is running 100 times as fast as mine*. If we use t_d and t_M to indicate the times each of us measure, then dt_M / dt_d = 100.
I guess you will object that this is not a “velocity”, but why would you expect it to be? The point is, it gives a comparison of how fast each of us is moving through time.
* If you like, we can do this more formally by comparing my watch to synchronized clocks in your reference frame.
daveS:
No, thank you.
How do ID proponents feel about GR and time travel?
Forwards or backwards time travel is nonsense to me based on simple logic. If one could theoretically travel forward in time, and the universe has a finite end, you could travel to the end of the universe which is nonsense. The same with backwards time travel, if I could travel back in time that would mean I could theoretically travel to the beginning of the universe, no?
Mapou,
Ok, fair enough.
computerist,
What do you think about the twin paradox? Or the Rossi Hall Experiment?
as to:
Time dilation and GR? I’m a fan.
Time travel? Not a fan.
The following study, through a fairly ingenious thought experiment, challenged the assumption of length contraction as being valid for ‘photon clocks’. In doing so, they cleared up some loose ends in relativity concerning time’s relation to space. Loose ends that had been ample fodder for much of the speculation of time travel being possible in relativity:
As well, to borrow Frank Tipler’s title (but not his ideas) from his book, in so far as the “Physics of Immortality” are concerned, I’ve found general relativity and special relativity to lend strong support for the Theistic contention of eternal life after death. In Theism, particularly Christian Theism, it is held that there are two ultimate destinies for our eternal souls. Heaven or Hell! And in physics we find two very different ‘eternities’ just as Theism has held for millenia. One eternity in physics is found ‘if’ a hypothetical observer were to accelerate to the speed of light. In this scenario time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop for the hypothetical observer. To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.
This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is also warranted, by logic, because light is not ‘frozen within time’, i.e. light appears to move to us in our temporal framework of time, yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. The only way this is possible is if light is indeed of a higher dimensional value of time than our temporal time is otherwise light would simply be ‘frozen in time’ to our temporal frame of reference.
Another line of evidence that supports the inference that ‘tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday’, at the ‘eternal’ speed of light, is visualizing what would happen if a hypothetical observer were to approach the speed of light.
Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).
Moreover, as with any observer accelerating to the speed of light, it is found that for any ‘hypothetical’ observer falling to the event horizon of a black hole, that time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop for them. This is because the accelerative force of gravity at black holes is so intense that not even light can escape its grip:
— But of particular interest to the ‘eternal framework’ found for General Relativity at black holes;… It is interesting to note that entropic decay (Randomness), which is the primary reason why things grow old and eventually die in this universe, is found to be greatest at black holes. Thus the ‘eternity of time’ at black holes can rightly be called ‘eternities of decay and/or eternities of destruction’.
i.e. Black Holes are found to be ‘timeless’ singularities of destruction and disorder rather than singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang and which is associated with special relativity.
Needless to say, the implications of this ‘eternity of destruction’ should be fairly disturbing for those of us who are of the ‘spiritually minded’ persuasion!
In light of this dilemma that the two very different eternities present to us spiritually minded people, and the fact that Gravity is, in so far as we can tell, completely incompatible with Quantum Mechanics, it is interesting to point out a subtle nuance on the Shroud of Turin. Namely that Gravity was overcome in the resurrection event of Christ:
Moreover, as would be expected if General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were truly unified in the resurrection of Christ from death, the image on the shroud is found to be formed by a quantum process. The image was not formed by a ‘classical’ process:
Personally, considering the extreme difficulty that many brilliant minds have had in trying to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and special relativity, i.e. QED, with Gravity, I consider the preceding nuance on the Shroud of Turin to be a subtle, but powerful, evidence substantiating Christ’s primary claim as to being our Savior from sin, death, and hell:
Verses:
Of supplemental note:
The overturning of the Copernican Principle and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as the correct solution for the ‘theory of everything’:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17u0srH9x3kUiei43aOHoKolLsRERhPpUfI9WNhxyLrE/edit
Moreover, in stark contrast to multiverse (and Darwinian) claims, for which we have no direct observational evidence, we have actual observational evidence from Near Death Experience testimonies of eternity and also of people going through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension,,,
Time dilation is nonsense of the worst order. The effect (clock slowing) is real but the interpretation (time dilation) is pure unmitigated crackpottery. Time cannot dilate for the simple reason that it cannot change by definition. Clocks and other physical processes slow down for reasons having to do with energy conservation. That is all.
My first question to anyone (Mapou excepted) who doubts time dilation exists is, do you accept the following postulate of special relativity?
daveS,
Let me explain to you what you are doing here, just in case you weren’t conscious of it.
First, you realized that you have no way to refute my simple refutation of your time travel idiocy (read first comment above).
Second, you then decide to change the subject and lay out a bunch of crap in order to distract attention from the fact that you cannot refute my simple refutation of time travel.
Third, I know I’m a nobody but compared to Karl Popper, what are you again?
Mapou,
Thanks, but I think our conversation is over.
I want to know how Cupid got his arrow.
Chronus shot him in the butt
“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'” – John 8:58 (ESV)
Either bad grammar, or a profound statement about God outside of time.
bb:
Yes. It is indeed an extremely profound statement but I don’t think Jesus was talking about God being outside of time. I think it’s the opposite. IMO, Jesus was referring to the fact that we live in a true 4-D (not spacetime) universe.