JPD

I am not sure that this is the right forum for this. I searched iidb and could find no reference to it.
Apparently a bible verse search in Psalm 90 (verse 4 / 89) shows that time is relative.
Does anyone have a view on this?
Personally I think it is dubious and has the benefit of hindsight in any case.
How about biblical scholars making some predictions which science can test?

This link attempts to explain it: http://www.bible-quotes-science-info...relativity.htm

rationalOne

another crackpot bible theory!

Didn't the bible predict the assassination of JFK too?

JPD

Also, the website address containing both 'bible' and 'science' means that the B.S. detectors are going to deafen us all.

JPD

A number of other people whose names can be reduced to acronyms are watching the skies as we speak.

Alf

The link presented is so full of errors I don't know where to begin.

It is obvious that the person who wrote it know next to nothing about relativity theory.

Ok, special theory of relativity first. It is the theory that Einstein presented in 1905. This was at a time when scientist had come to understand that time and space are somewhat related. The Lorentz transformations had been discovered a couple of years earlier. However, they did not understand why the Lorentz transformations worked, why they gave the correct answers and since they didn't know why, they also couldn't trust that they really did give the correct answers. Perhaps the problems solved by those transformations had a completely different answer?

Einstein's special theory of relativity answers those questions and generally say yes, the Lorentz transformations are correct and here is the reason why...

I.e. the theory explained why the transformations are correct and also predicted a couple of consequences which has later been confirmed.

In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity. The special theory examines what happens when different bodies move at high speed relative to each other but without any acceleration involved. The general theory also takes into account acceleration and gravity and is thus a more general theory which includes the special theory when the acceleration is 0 (constant speed).

It is also worth noting that both theories approaches Newtonian mechanics as the speed become much less than the speed of light - actually not that much less either. For example a speed of 0.001c has tiny discrepancy with the Newtonian mechanics and 0.000001c even less etc. Thus, the more the speed approaches "normal" speeds for us humans the more the theories looks identical to the old Newtonian mechanics.

First off, the web page claim that the speeds involved is very high - even higher than light in order to make the time stretch so that 4 hours equal 1000 years. This is pure non-sense. The speed of light is a theoretical maximum, at exactly speed of light a clock would stand still - time would stand still and so it must necessarily be at a speed lower than c. Of course, it would be very close to c but must necessarily be less than c. It cannot be greater than c and also it must necessarily be close to c - this is no accident.

I won't go into the other bullshit presented by that page - suffice to say that the person who wrote it is clueless.

Let me see if I can calculate this properly.....

The lorents transformation indicate that time stretches when you move at high speed so that

T = t / sqrt( 1 - v^2/c^2)

Simiarly, distances shrinks with the same factor only multiplied instead of divided.

To make 1000 years equal to 4 hours we can calculate on this. Be aware that in ancient times the 4 hour interval isn't fixed per se. the night was divided from sunset to sunrise into 3 equal length periods, if the night is longer than exactly 12 hours each period is longer than 4 hours and if the night (time between sunset to sunrise) is shorter than 12 hours as in the summer on the norhern hemisphere, the time period is slightly less than 4 hours - if you go further north the periods will be much less even.

How the ancients would handle areas like the arctic circle where you have 24 hours day during summer beats me

Also, I am not so sure that they really did ignore hours during night time. As far as I know, they had several measures of time in ancient times. Babylonians had a hangup with 12 and 60 and the 360 degree circle is of babylonian origin as far as I know and they also introduced the 12 hour day and 12 hour night. Again, this isn't an hour as we are used to but it was 12 equal length periods from sunrise to sunset for day and 12 equal length periods from sunset to sunrise for night. During summer the nights are shorter and so each hour during night would be shorter than our hour and the day hours would be longer and during winter it would be the other way around with short hours at day and longer hours at night.

The system with fixed hours and 24 hours day didn't start until the mechanic clock appeared rather late in history - long after the roman empire had vanished.

Either way, a 1000 years divided into a 4 hour night - assuming it is exactly 4 hours as it would be on equinoxes and we get:

1000 years = 365240 days (approximately, note that the ancient jews did not use gregorian or julian calendar with 365 days a year, however, as an approximization it is close enough.) a day is then divided into 6 periods of 4 hours eac, so we get:

1000 years = 2 191 440 periods of 4 hours each.
thus, we are looking at a factor that can strech by this much.

1/sqrt( 1 - (v/c)^2) = 2191440
sqrt( 1 - (v/c)^2 ) = 1 / 2191440

1 - 1 / 2191440^2 = (v/c)^2 or v/c = sqrt( 1 - 1 / 2191440^2 )

The calculator I have cannot compute this properly, it simply respond with v/c = 1. I guess v must be very close to c but it is obvious that it cannot be greater than c.

Morale: Don't believe everything you read on a web page - but you already knew that I hope

And yes, the link between a bible psalm and relativity theory is as crackpot as it can get.

Alf

JPD

Alf, 100% - that's why I said that I thought it was dubious and had the benefit of hindsight.

Even if something can be claimed to have been found it adds nothing to the complete non-argument that it proves God.

This is where I came across it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...028062-5454857

I was searching for a reliable text on evolution.

Alf

I noticed that the reviews on that book were all written by theists who knew little about physics and was happy to see that the bible and modern physics match....

I guess that is exactly the target audience for this book so as such that book is a big success, it puts their uneasiness to rest with some general BS that the bible is in accordance with modern physics.

Given that the "matches" are just pure BS, there is a problem here but as you have to know some physics to see that, the book is a gift for the average theist who believe in the bible and know little or nothing about physics.

Wait a second, one is bronze age myth and the other is modern science, why should we expect them to match in the first place?

Alf

JPD

What I find alarming is the fact that, once it has been demonstrated that it is B.S., that theists don't learn anything from this. They just keep going blindly on.

worm

it's ridiculous to think that whoever wrote the psalm wouldn't just clearly explain the theory without all the bullshit to cover up the message.

why didn't it just say "oh behold, time is relative for each human traveling at different speeds" or something like that.

i mean, it's the bible. it's supposed to explain something about the world and reality to the people at that time. how could anybody back then realize that that psalm was about time relativity?

i haven't even read the theory on that page, but to me it seems this is a case of trying to hard to find something that isn't there.

mirage

That this is even being discussed makes me so depressed. The "reviews" on Amazon are a parade of cretinism.