Intriguing question about Time, Physics and SRT in general

origin said:
What do I say now?

I say, so essentially your point is that you cannot understand that the term 'now' does not mean the absence of time. What a waste of everyones time.

If from the sentece, "the term 'now'" is upsetting you, lets try this:

So essentially your point is that you cannot understand that the concept of 'now' does not mean the absence of time. What a waste of everyones time.

The main point is you are wasting everyones time and I suspect you are just doing this for your own amusement.
Click to expand...
what you fail to realize is that the concept of NOW as you call it doesn't exist in the light cone diagram [ it is after all an imaginary zero point - an abstraction... there is no "moment" between past and future...]
 
Quantum Quack said:
well what do you think the term absolute rest means?
To me it means that the HSP for any event would have time duration >0... simple.
If you have a better definition I'd like to hear of it....
Click to expand...
I don't know what "HSP" stands for, but no: events by definition have zero duration and that has nothing to do with absolute rest.
 
Russ_Watters said:
I don't know what "HSP" stands for, but no: events by definition have zero duration and that has nothing to do with absolute rest.
Click to expand...

hsp = hyper surface of the present as described in the light cones...and it has everything to do with "no absolute rest" IMO

re: what is absolute rest?
To me it means that the HSP for any event would have time duration >0... simple.
If you have a better definition I'd like to hear of it....
Click to expand...
 
CptBork said:
But there is something new about saying nothing exists beyond the event horizon, just because you might not be able to detect it until later in the future.
Click to expand...
try this:

the HSP is on the "boundary" between future and past,. saying that it is a zero duration point or plane doesn't mean that a future is not possible. It is simply suggesting that the observer and his universe is "as existent as the point is"...

It is not new... I think you will find with out doubt that it is very well catered for but there is an intriguing aspect when relating it to quantum entanglements. [and that may be new although most of the research is kept rather tight lipped as far as I can tell...]
 
Quantum Quack said:
what you fail to realize is that the concept of NOW as you call it doesn't exist in the light cone diagram [ it is after all an imaginary zero point - an abstraction... there is no "moment" between past and future...]
Click to expand...
That's all wrong too. "Now" can be any time we choose in the diagram, depending on the particulars of what is being described.

I think origin is right: this is a problem with you understanding of basic math. A line contains an infinite number of zero dimension points.
 
Russ_Watters said:
That's trolling.
Click to expand...

I'm anticipating that his next post is going to object that particles at rest have an energy equivalence, $$E=mc^2$$, and protest that my definition isn't consistent with energy of this form. My response will then be that $$E=mc^2$$ is derived directly from the definition I gave above, and that he'd know this himself if he'd bothered to actually learn the details of the theory instead of scratching the surface and then making mindless assertions about it.
 
CptBork said:
I'm anticipating that his next post is going to object that particles at rest have an energy equivalence, $$E=mc^2$$, and protest that my definition isn't consistent with energy of this form. My response will then be that $$E=mc^2$$ is derived directly from the definition I gave above, and that he'd know this himself if he'd bothered to actually learn the details of the theory instead of scratching the surface and then making mindless assertions about it.
Click to expand...
Wrong! [ that my response would involve $$E=mc^2$$ ]
Gosh you guys are hyper tense...
I asked for a consistent definition of the term energy... that applies across all fields of science...

and actually what you offered comes way better than what is often offered...

/Edit: I see that they updated the wiki... and removed R Feynmans quote.
 
CptBork said:
I'm anticipating that his next post is going to object that particles at rest have an energy equivalence, $$E=mc^2$$, and protest that my definition isn't consistent with energy of this form. My response will then be that $$E=mc^2$$ is derived directly from the definition I gave above, and that he'd know this himself if he'd bothered to actually learn the details of the theory instead of scratching the surface and then making mindless assertions about it.
Click to expand...
He's hijacking his own thread to distract from his wrongness.
 
I think origin is right: this is a problem with you understanding of basic math. A line contains an infinite number of zero dimension points.
Click to expand...
not at all... we are talking about physics and not mathematical abstractions only.
 
Quantum Quack said:
Wrong! [ that my response would involve $$E=mc^2$$ ]
Gosh you guys are hyper tense...
I asked for a consistent definition of the term energy... that applies across all fields of science...

and actually what you offered comes way better than what is often offered...

/Edit: I see that they updated the wiki... and removed R Feynmans quote.
Click to expand...

Well I'm honestly glad you like my definition, but I'll insist that anyone who learns mechanics on a rigorous level, including the mathematics, is given the following basic definition for the energy ("work") expended in applying a force to an entity: $$W=\int \vec{F}\cdot\vec{\mathrm{d}x}$$. It's one of the first things they taught me in my first freshman mechanics course, and it says the same thing as my plain English definition, and then some. In fact, to be honest, the definition I gave you in English wasn't even as good as the mathematical one they taught me in my final year of junior high, or the slightly better one I was taught in my first year of high school.

This is one reason you simply can't skip the math if you want to learn the real science and precisely what it does and doesn't imply. It's a well-understood fact that nature at its fundamental level behaves according to consistent mathematical principles and patterns, and if you try to describe it in any other language, things get lost in the translation and you end up with all kinds of laymen arguing with each other based on their understanding of what their favourite pop scientist said on TV. Without the math, you have no means of evaluating the logical consistency of a physical theory and no means of determining precisely what happens when you conduct a thought experiment.

Now it's your turn. You promised you would try to answer my questions about your knowledge of Minkowski spacetime as it applies to light cones, and I'm still waiting on my own part.
 
CptBork said:
Well I'm honestly glad you like my definition, but I'll insist that anyone who learns mechanics on a rigorous level, including the mathematics, is given the following basic definition for the energy ("work") expended in applying a force to an entity: $$W=\int \vec{F}\cdot\vec{\mathrm{d}x}$$. It's one of the first things they taught me in my first freshman mechanics course, and it says the same thing as my plain English definition, and then some. In fact, to be honest, the definition I gave you in English wasn't even as good as the mathematical one they taught me in my final year of junior high, or the slightly better one I was taught in my first year of high school.

This is one reason you simply can't skip the math if you want to learn the real science and precisely what it does and doesn't imply. It's a well-understood fact that nature at its fundamental level behaves according to consistent mathematical principles and patterns, and if you try to describe it in any other language, things get lost in the translation and you end up with all kinds of laymen arguing with each other based on their understanding of what their favourite pop scientist said on TV. Without the math, you have no means of evaluating the logical consistency of a physical theory and no means of determining precisely what happens when you conduct a thought experiment.

Now it's your turn. You promised you would try to answer my questions about your knowledge of Minkowski spacetime as it applies to light cones, and I'm still waiting on my own part.
Click to expand...
Oh I appreciate your concerns about the precision needed.
however you did define it as:

Energy: A quantity which defines the potential for a force to be applied over a given distance.
Click to expand...
and now you state that:
"energy is "work" done or being done"... this is not the same as a potential to do work...

see? the point is consistency in the definition of the term.


The R Feynman quote they removed from the original wiki article was mentioned by a poster to this thread:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?114726-Energy-What-is-it&highlight=energy+what
when I asked more or less the same question but did refer to E=mc^2.
From one of R. Feynmans lectures:
"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and we add it all together it gives “28” - always the same number. It is an abstract thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the various formulas."
Click to expand...

We then have to reconcile "blogs of energy" floating through space in the form of photon particles/waves at an invariant speed of 'c' and how energy is massless but has the ability to exist independent of mass... and so on..

So I am not to convinced about your definition of energy [ which I happen to think is closer than most ] as the theoretics in vogue at the moment appear to confuse the issue a bit and so what .. any way...
In fact if I posted a thread using the definition you gave it would suffer more flame than this one..IMO
 
QQ really seems to be jumping from subject to subject misrepresenting math and phyisics with the express goal of annoying people. Very trollish behavior it would seem. It could be that he really is utterly confused about the most basic level of these subjects, but I think it is more his desire to annoy that is driving this discussion.
 
origin said:
QQ really seems to be jumping from subject to subject misrepresenting math and phyisics with the express goal of annoying people. Very trollish behavior it would seem. It could be that he really is utterly confused about the most basic level of these subjects, but I think it is more his desire to annoy that is driving this discussion.
Click to expand...
you call this thread a discussion.. you are kidding surely!?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top