There cannot be an infinite amount of time between two points in time.

It is a fairly basic mathematical principle that there are infinitely many points on a line segment of any length. Heck, even Zeno knew that; and he didn't know much.

Anyway, AId's attitude was prompted by someguy's.

 

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This debate comes down to the difference between applied and pure science. Applied science does not have to be technically correct, in terms of hard reality, to be useful. Applied science only needs to produce useful results in a cost effective way. Many mathematical models lead to good applied science, in that they allow one to make useful predictions. If you own a company and an applied model can save you money, by book reality will be given creative liberty (company secrets).

Pure science is different in that all the data ducks have to be in a row. This level of purity can make the phenomena much more difficult to model. In the end it may still need assumptions and approximation methods. But the premises and logic need to stay truer to hard reality. The debate above reflects the divide between pure and applied science, with both useful.

There is a more subtle hybrid, where applied science can be mistaken for pure science. This often leads to dogmatic appeal. For example, the concepts of dark matter and dark energy are inferred by distant observations. However, these same phenomena cannot seen in the lab to verify their existence. The problem with this situation is, I could theoretically substitute unicorn dander and angel sweat for dark matter and dark energy. These also can't be seen in the lab, but I might also infer these from the same observations. Both are in the same boat, inference at a distance but no proof up close. In the case of dogma, this is only allowed, subjectively, for the pet phenomena but nobody else.

The value of dark energy and dark matter is it attaches better to what is already in other models. But the disconnect with direct lab data renders it less than pure. It is sort of a hybrid of applied-pure, made possible by floating in the air. A dogmatic appeal will be used to hide the stains in the linen. If it just accepted itself as applied science, to leave room for purists to help, this would be better for science. Mercenary science plays a role in that money is as important as purity.

 

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What you call "a line segment" is a property that the real numbers inherit from a particular sort of topology placed upon them. It for you to demonstrate that a similar topology can be imposed a set called "time" - I doubt it can be done, but I am willing to be convinced

And BTW, in mathematics it is essential to specify what exactly one means by "infinite" (we owe this to Cantor). Do you mean countably infinite or uncountably infinite?

 

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Complete nonsense from a crackpot searching in vain for a crack to exploit. "Applied science" is just another term for engineering; for practicing scientists, no such distinction - such weaker science - exists.

 

This is a nice imaginary distinction that you have drawn, but I'm really going to ignore it, mostly because you are using it to reject sicence that you don't liek and don't understand.

You seem to imagine that there is some sort of "hard reality" that we have access to that is beyond any specific application of science. As far as physics goes, there is not. All fo the "data sucks" come from sceintific application. All. Of. Them. So you can't appeal to this "hard reality" to justify a theory, you can only appeal to scientific application.

The evidence for dark energy and dark matter rest upon to scientifc applications, just like any other part of science.

No, you can't.

Dark matter and dark energy each have a specific set of properties and relationships, perhaps not as specific as what you would like, but these sets define what they do and make specific physical claims. If you don't understand this, then you don't understand what dark matter and dark energy are about.

Everything "seen in the lab" is also merely inferred. That's the sad truth of human existence. Your prejudice in favor of where research occurs is not something I wish to share, like most of your prejudices.

Ah, purity. A great vitrue according to the racists among us, but of little value in actual practice.

There is no disconnect between dark matter and dark energy "in the lab"; there is no lab in which we expect these factors to play a non-negligible role.

 

As I said before, it isn't known for sure, but Relativity utilizes continuous time. The wiki on time has a very short section on this issue you can refer to if you are unsure of/don't believe me regarding where science stands on the issue.

I believe it is uncountably infinite, but please explain why that is relevant/essential.

 

If confusion is what ails you, then apply some of that clarity that prevailed in you when you read the crank trash I was debunking. Or are you and he representing the Sock Puppet Army of Zealots (SPAZ) as fabricated personalities of the same puppeteer? That would certainly explain the maudlin indignation.

Then you are eminently misinfomed.

That's a pretty fundamental principle of math and science, which you would know if you were not home schooled in math like Farsight. Are you Farsight?

By growing your brain beyond about 10th grade level.

So go back to school, finish all the math you bombed out of, and by the time you get to, say, pre-Calculus Analysis, you will have learned to count in other ways than on your fingers, as he/ you(pl.) can only do.

Playing the fool is actually rather ordinary among SPAZ attackers.

 

Thank you. Your carefully reasoned and logical argument has convinced me of the rightness of your case (remind us what it is?) and the wrongness of mine. I trust someguy1 will also concede with similar humility

Ah. Detected again........

 

That this thread is tripping on Zeno's paradox, incited by cranks that never bothered to do the schoolwork, but are only now bothering to attack the material they left behind with their D's and F's. That they are probably undercover religious anti-science nuts. That they are probably one or two people running their sock puppet army. And that you are probably one, too. Unless of course you have some other motivation for pretending to know math & science, which might distance you from the usual suspects.

Yours didn't pass the entrance exams.

When the right hand decides what the left hand is doing, Bert & Ernie can even synchronously do the hokie pokie. But ask them what a differential is, and what it's doing in every time derivative and integral in the relevant laws of nature-- ask that and Farsight pops his head out of the curtain, and falls over like a goat playing dead.

Did I cover all the bases? Because you guys seem to enjoy the masquerades or you would just drop the pretense and state candidly your objections to the principles you never bothered to learn, and esp. the true underlying motive for attacking them.

What's in it for you ? Not marketable skills, so what is it?

Unfortunately your patina of sincerity hasn't weathered the dialogue as well as you think.

Many posts later and not a one of you shadowy cranks has even bothered to take up the substantive matter in Zeno's paradox.

So all that crowing for substance really was an act after all. Thought so.

 

Doubly wrong. Observation (and careful measurments) are the foundation of physical theory.
No. physics NEVER ask a Why question.* Just tries to learn what is.

The reason why laws of physics now include quanta is they were introduced by Planck to solve the "ultra violet catastrophe" problem. I.e. there is no upper limit on the EM frequencies and well established thermodynamics had the "equal partition of energy" law for equilibrium states. Yet there was no detectable UV coming out of a tiny hole in a box, red hot inside, but that themo law predicted it should have been as intense as the "Black Body" IR radiation that did.

Many more things fell into place, once physicists understood that not only were the energy levels of atoms discrete, but radiation itself was quantized. Planck did that in 1900 and less than 5 years later Einstein mathematically described the photoelectric effect, first observed / noticed by Hertz at end of the 1800s.

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The KE of the electron ejected is always less than that of the photon by the metal's "work function." I. e.
The departing electron repels some of the metal's electrons, leaving a net positive charge. So the escaping electron must use part of its energy to "climb away."

* and for good reason: That is an endless chain: Why A? because B. Why B. Because C ....
Even four year olds soon learn this - why have you not?

If you wanted to learn, instead of pontificate nonsense, use the information of the figure to confirm the work function of potassium is ~2eV as stated. I.e. the "green" photon has 0.25eV more than that and the ejected electron's velocity is given. To really learn, don't use the 2eV given, but discover what the work function is by using data given for both photons that do eject electrons - That is how the 2.0 ev was measured. Each metal is slightly different as the repulsion by the leaving electrons is also influenced by the metal's lattice structure. Despite this, a not bad estimate of the work function of all metals can be had by assuming the metal is a "charge mirror."
I. e. when the electron is 0.1mm away from the surface, it is "climbing away" from an equal positive charge directly under it inside the metal by 0.1mm.
You need to be able to integrate to do this - need to know some calculus. Physics is "married to" mathematics, especially now as most that can be done without good command of tensor equations, is done. What is not is more technology than physics.

Advice to entering college science student:
Unless you love mathematics, don't major in physics - go into biology - that the undeveloped frontier of science now.

 

Then you can add that every direct observable change is a consequence of some underlying change in position of energy and matter; also in any direct observation time is the comparison of a change of position relative to another change of position.

 

Why the backhanded insult to biology? I've met so many applied mathematicians working in biology.

 

That was praise of biology - that is where the most interesting and important advances will be.

You dropped the two prior sentences which were:
"Physics is "married to" mathematics, especially now as most that can be done without good command of tensor equations, is done. What is not is more technology than physics."

I don't think there is much use of tensor equations in biology. That is where physic's frontier is now.

 

Fortunately (for me) I have zero interest in what Aqueous Id thinks of me. But I am puzzled by his unpleasant attack

Any interested reader (are there any?) can check back and discover that my most "outrageous" statement was that someguy1 made a reasonable case for there not being uncountably many "instants" between any 2 arbitrarily chosen points in time.

Does this mean I agree with him? As it happens, I am agnostic on the matter.

Aqueous Id would do well to look up my posting record - likes most people's, it is not devoid of the odd blemish (usually freely admitted), but I doubt even my worst enemies would use the same language about it that he does

 

I wouldn't be concerned with what Aqueous says, I've found him to be almost savant like, very bright in a few ways and lacking in most area's of intellect necessary for good science and a basic understanding of human nature. His real contributions amount to what you can get from a text book, I put him on ignore a long time ago.

 

I think this thread has only really demonstrated that time is hard to define, mathematically or otherwise.

Of course special and general relativity would apply to continuous time; redshift isn't discrete, Lorentz symmetry is continuous.

Einstein, however, says that the only time we can observe is clock time, and clocks have a limit of precision (a wavelength), so must count discrete intervals of time. Is that some kind of paradox, or can we safely ignore it? What do we ignore, in that case (what information is lost)?

 

All measuring devices have limited precision and that has nothing to do with the theories they are describing. So yes, that is correctly ignored.

 

If two people walk past each other, obviously moving relatively such that the two are on different worldlines, is their relativistic timeshift measurable? I don't think so, and I think there are good scientific reasons why it may never be measurable. However, the two people will have different "theoretical" time rates, measurable or not.

Not being able to measure the difference because a sufficiently precise clock can't be built now (or possibly ever) means we are forced to ignore the information, it can't be used to confirm the theory because it isn't measurable.
There must be any number of situations where two frames are moving relatively at very low speeds, and hence non-measurable clock differences.

 

No, unfortunately for you, you have no interest in calculus.

No, you are puzzled by infinitesimals and limits.

For readers who bothered to take mathematical analysis what is outrageous is that your statement admits to ignorance of the relevant subject matter, even while attacking it.

No, for failing to understand what an integral is.

No, it means you disagree with all of science and academia.

Or, more precisely, "ignorant".

You would do well to look up Zeno's paradox, limits, infinitesimals, and the related work of Leibniz, Newton and Cauchy.

Actually you would do well to ask for help understanding the material, then to hold your tongue and listen when the many excellent folks here respond with facts and information you are lacking.

Lacking knowledge in a thing you are attacking is not a blemish. It's fatal.

You have yet to admit that you never got past . . . algebra? Just guessing, since you are withholding the admissions.

Send them to me. I want to tell them to stop slacking off.

 

I'm not sure that reasoning follows directly from Einstein since such clocks are primarily used for "realtime" (e.g. GMT) standards, which are mainly relevant to mundane time measurements, as opposed to measuring differences between frames.

Regardless of all that, it wouldn't matter if the clock(s) in question were coarser in measurement accuracy than they are, since we know we can pick any phase difference between them. No phase angles are excluded.

And the world as we know it would simply cease if any phases were illegal.

But then, what would that even mean? That between these allowed time intervals, time stands still? That in itself rules out any quantizing, since the endpoints of successive intervals would necessarily join into a continuum.