Absolute rest - What does it mean?

going to have to take this debate down to the appropriate thread inpseudoscience Alphanumeric...'tis off topic at this thread...sorry but dem is the rules as already this t=0 then d=0 issue has been moved to pseudo ages ago.

edit: actually i'll do it for you...and you will find my response there...

 

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Translation : You want to move the discussion where you get proven wrong to a less trafficed forum.

 

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:shrug:

Would not each point on the continuum be points of absolutre rest? I admit the concept isn't an exciting one, but James R's statement what and why absolute rest just ain't so seemed as a harsh and habitual remonstration that echoes a totally implicit understanding and joined at the hip committment, by many, to bowing to the laws of nature as presented in form and structure etched in some physics text books.

My favorite spiritual mantra, the muse of which is Moher Nature, is uttered softly in he recognition that time was included [as an after thought by some accounts!!] in the creation so that everything wouldn't happen all at once.

 

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I have to yell at someone in a different thread, but I need to know whether this can be easily explained or not. Can absolute rest be disproved because it violates the uncertainty principle? Thanks.

 

As someone mentioned earlier "absolute rest" is a throwback idea from late 19th century science; nevertheless, it's still an idea that's occassionally brought up as a pedological device in some Aether interpretations of Special Relativity.

 

not if the system is one particle

 

rhis doesn't mean that the subject matter was thoriughly examined nor does your post give any details to the "throwback" nature of your post. Can you expand on what the fundamental basis of your post is?

Thanx

 

What, pray tell does your integral (a distance) have to do with "absolute rest", the subject of this thread? or even photon motion (sic)?

This is a physics forum and if you are uinable to see nothinjg outside yourself (see your comment " . . . cranks who proclaim basic arithmetic is all you need to describe the universe not one of them has actually got anywhere. Strange, isn't it?"), then perhaps your head is stuck i.e. firmly imbedded, logged, restrained, limited or unfocuse, (in a state of absolute rest of course) at a point on your int[ds] where the sun doesn't, or is otherwise unable to, shine?

I assume your comment is a claim that, contrarily, and, in fact, that, "you are there", so why don't you go "there" and report back in a couple of years?:shrug:

 

I like how you ask Latin_of_Light "Can you expand on what the fundamental basis of your post is?" and then you do nothing but make cheap vacuous insults at me. Hypocrisy much?

As for the point of me mentioning integrals, it was in response to one of QQ's comments that distance is zero at any instant in time, that you couldn't give non-zero distances if you were measuring them at an instant, rather than over a period of time. Somehow this was all wrapped up in his clueless ramblings about relativity and photons, neither of which you or he know anything about.

Given a pair of points in space-time A and B and a curve which joins them, C, you can compute the space-time interval length of that path by computing \(\int_{C} ds\). In any metric based theory you have that \(ds^{2} = g_{ab}dx^{a}dx^{b}\) and in the case of special relativity \(g_{ab} = \eta_{ab} = diag(-1,1,1,1)\), thus \(ds^{2} = -dt^{2} + \mathbf{dx}\cdot \mathbf{dx}\). If A and B are seperated in space but not in time you can set dt=0 and so you have that the length of the path from A to B is \(\int_{C} |\mathbf{dx}|\). A geodesic is defined as a C which extremises this quantity, such as the equator on the Earth. If two cities are on the Earth's equator then the shortest path between them will be on along the equator and its easy to prove when you put your integral into spherical coordinates.

In a Cartesian example let A be at spacial point (0,0,0) and B at (1,0,0) and I parameterise my curve at \((\xi,0,0)\) for \(\xi \in [0,1]\) so \(\xi(0) = A\) and \(\xi(1) = B\). Doing the integral you get that the distance from A to B is 1. This is a non-zero quantity, despite it being defined at an instant in time, contrary to what QQ has said many times. And I've shown him this before, it's just he doesn't understand it, just like you don't understand calculus so you think the Shell Theorem is wrong or you don't understand vector calculus so you think relativity is wrong.

 

You have yet to retort it in any way. You claimed that distances were all zero in relativity if you measure them at an instant, my previous post proves you wrong.

Except that the theory I'm referring to, ie special relativity, has more than a century of experimental validation, it's been tried and tested and fits the definition of 'science' perfectly. It made predictions, they were checked and verified. It's been tested in many different phenomena, in many different ways, by many different people, and it's never been found wanting.

If that isn't science, what do you think is?

There's a difference between 'an instant of time' and an absense of a space-time continuum. Think of an instant of time as the universe frozen still. Nothing can change but it's entirely valid to have things existing.

I love how you try to bring logic into it when you're the guy who makes claims about relativity, yet admits to not reading anything about it. Where's the logic in that one?

So you admit you don't know it? Given it's a fundamental and basic principle in vector calculus, the language of physics, you have basically admitted to being illiterate when it comes to beyond high school level physics. Thus you are making claims and criticisms about theories utterly beyond your ability to grasp in any actual depth. There's the logic in denouncing a theory you have made no attempt to understand?

As for a total waste of investment, you do realise special relativity (and its extensions to general relativity and quantum field theory) underpin such technologies as superconductors and GPS systems. Superconductors are used in mobile phone towers and GPS systems are used by the airline industry, the military and plenty of people's cars. Yeah, an utter waste of investment to understand a multi-billion dollar technology. :shrug:

 

and that is it in a nut shell.....total crap.

Nothing can exist in a non- time continuum [ pre-big bang scenario ]
To consider a universe at complete rest and still existing is utter rubbish.
So you think suspending animation like some tv executive means we end up with a universal jpeg or something....sheesh!

There can exist no absolute rest....is the statement that is being tested.
no change = no universe....

 

are you aware that it is not just SR that is being questioned? Do you realise that SR is only your obsession and not mine?

 

So you're telling me that basic geometry is wrong? Again, I love how you, someone who doesn't understand the issue at hand (ie anything to do with mathematics beyond counting your fingers) is telling me I've done something wrong in something I've been taught, have passed exams on and have now taught to others (and been paid to do it by a university). I suppose I could link to a set of lecture notes lectured by a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, who had Hawking as his PhD supervisor, which talk about space-like hypersurfaces in GR and how distances can be measured on them despite being defined at an instant of time but you'd be unable to understand it so you'd simply deny it. Or I could point out I have published work related to differential geometry but you'd not understand that either.

You lack basic knowledge of how geometry works. In Euclidean geometry the distance from (0,0) to (a,b) is \(\sqrt{a^{2}+b^{2}}\). No mention of time at all, simply the concept of distance. Now if you ask "How far has something travelled in zero time" then the answer is indeed zero, but distances between objects are able to be non-zero, there's nothing inconsistent about that.

But hey, it's not like I sat courses on geometry, vector calculus, non-Euclidean geometry, differential geometry, special relativity and general relativity at a top university and passed those exams and now spend my days thinking about generalisations to Calabi Yau manifolds. Infact, the title of my next paper is going to be along the lines of "Generalised geometry of Twisted Calabi Yaus", but what would I know about stuff I've taught to undergraduates compared to someone like yourself, who claims to have looked at this stuff for 20 years but can't actually do calculus.

Oh yeah, a ****load.

 

Excellent retort.

Considering something at an instant in time is not the same as 'complete rest'. A dynamical system can be considered at any particular instant in time and because its dynamical each 'snapshot' will be different. You seem to not grasp the difference between 'instant in time' and a static unchanging universe. The former has time paused, the latter has time running but doesn't change.

No, that's nothing like what I'm talking about.

Drop a ball and it falls to the ground. At a particular instant it'll be 20cm from the ground. A later instant it'll be 10cm. At each instant the configuration is some set one but it changes as time passes.

Learn the difference between an instant in time and a static universe.

Pardon? I only discuss SR when you bring it up or its relevant to your whining. You've previously made a great many false claims about, includin how it views distances at instants in time, which was the first time I brought up doing integrals of space-time elements. It would seem to me to just jump from thing to thing, hoping to find some flaw you can then use to say "Ahha! Relativity is wrong!". Each time you're proven you you just move onto something else and ignore it. Look at your posts, you'll quote me asking you questions or proving you wrong and you'll ignore it, only responding to part of my post. Do you think noone notices that?

I have absolute confidence you'll get nowhere with your whining. These "OMG relativity is wrong!" threads are your creation and its your willingness to utterly ignore anything which is put infront of you you don't understand which gives them such long life. My only 'obsession' is to point out your lies, I don't go starting threads which are very transparent attempts to talk about relativity, as you and Geist do.

 

well tell the board how you can suspend animation in a 4 dimensional universe without creating a singularity then?

How a particle can exists in a suspended state?
How gravity can somehow cease to be attractive and can maintain a suspended state?

How anything can exists when energy is suspended from changing?
That a massless particle called photon can stop changing and still remain existent?

The bottom line is simlpy you cannot asnwer the question:
How can anything exist if there is no time for it to exist in?

the only thing that can be at absolute rest is zero dimensional. aka nothing at all.

 

and you have failed to see the distinction between abstraction [virtual reality] and the real deal.
Just because you can suspend a moment in time, virtually,on you PC in the form of a image snapshot doesn't mean you can do it universally in the real. try it one day and find out....

 

There's a difference between 'an instant of time' and an absense of a space-time continuum. - A reality based assessment and correct IMO there is indeed a difference. One is real and the other is a mathematical abstraction [virtual].



Think of an instant of time as the universe frozen still. Nothing can change but it's entirely valid to have things existing. - Mixing virtual reality and the real...and incorrect unless referring to virtual reality [ imagination - flying pigs]

 

Sorry, just signed up and saw this 'discussion'. I didn't see it so I'm asking:

What about the Cosmic Microwave Background? Seems to work well for a velocity reference.

There is no place to point to to call 'zero' as far as distance is concerned. But the 'surface of last scattering' only happened once (the last time).

 

welcome to the board....
care to expand a little?

 

Still failing to grasp the difference between considering a dynamical universe at an instant in time and a static universe in general.

Describing something at a moment in time doesn't require you to do anything physical. You can tell me the position of the hands of a clock at a particular time without having to stop time you know?

No, the bottom line is your lack of understanding of how models in physics work means that you can't understand what it means to work out the configuration of a system at a particular time, because your experience of how physics works is simply too small.

If I asked you what the configuration of the hands of a clock was at 6.25pm could you tell me? Sure you could. You'd work it out by knowing how the hands of a clock behave and what configuration it'd be at at 6.25pm. Other physical systems are the same, we know how fluid behaves so if we know what, say the configuration of a river is at a given moment we can work out what it will be at a later moment in time. You simply use the physics models you've developed to 'wind time forwards' (or backwards) till you reach the time which is of interest. That's how weather forecasts work, you take satellite data now, use the known behaviour of air, water and heat (ie fluid mechanics) and you work out what the configuration will be tomorrow. What about that do you fail to grasp?

I never said I could. That doesn't mean that if time stopped everything would be at the same point in space.

Not very original, are you? When you come up against a concept you can't grasp you call if a flying pig. You must see a lot of them.

So you just whine about it here for kicks? And how can you make claims about 'the incredibly loopy logic used in SR' when you admit you've never done it and as I just commented, if you are unfamiliar with how to do vector calculus you have no way of actually understanding the details, you're reliant on 2nd hand explainations and by the looks of it you don't bother reading them either.

So how can you debunk a theory you neither read nor understand? Come on, answer this question. It's one you keep ignoring. No doubt you'll mass quote this post and utterly ignore this question, it's your standard defence when I point out you've got nothing to base your claims on.

It's not a universal frame. If you set yourself to be motionless relative to the CMB and someone else somewhere else did the same you'd find you're moving relative to one another.