John Page

Sammi:

I don't know. I read a piece recently (a physics portal but I forget which one) that refered to string theory and oscillations. I think it was suggesting that with observable alternating states s1, s2, s1, s2 etc. it could be argued that time w.r.t. the particle was reversible or circular.

It seems to me that change of some kind is the only measure of time. Mechanical clocks wear out though (an irreversible change?). Irreversible entropy changes influence to perceive time as going in one direction.

I'm not sure I've added anything but I'd sure be interested if any physics guys could add clarity.

Cheers. John

Mr. Sammi

Good reading John, I thought of that alternating sequence myself (independently) but with a different effect. I used a planned local-universe to get myself back into "a fine state of mind", which seemed independent of the clock sequence. Something like a particular script for a particular actor to be portrayed on my stage(Denett).

Of course, cycling back and forth between N states, can be argued to be reversible, if the local-universe is in a steady state (nothing impinges on the state`s readiness to occilate). The container is already stable.

* * *

WHAT ABOUT WHAT SAMMI READ?
Interestingly in my line of work(don`t ask), I was predicting the next element over in the perodic table. I looked it up,and lo and behold, they had already done some work on it(CERN i think, but EURO for sure).

The next two elements were created at different times, but they (the researchers) were unable to assist the element towards stability. The elements existed for only a fleeting moment, enough to say it was possible. In my theory, they were missing the basic ingredient - time waves.

Time waves are responsible for stability and the enduring quality of matter. Intrinsic quality of all reportable matter. I am not sure if we have this natural capability to simulate time-waves since I believe all were "eaten up", post big-bang, yielding our reportable universe.

What do you think? My physics is a little past high school, I think..

Sammi Na Boodie ()

beausoleil

If you start with 2 clocks with associated mileometers A and B adjacent to one another, move them so that they are in different fields and then reunite them, A and B will reflect different elapsed times and different distances moved. Why is the difference in elapsed times a problem if the different in distances travelled isn't? The 'present' is equivalent to a position, while the 'measured time' is equivalent to a path length (?).

An infinite series can sum to a finite number. Achilles does catch the tortoise, after all.

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: beausoleil ]</p>

tronvillain

beausoleil:
Are you proposing that each second is smaller in some sort of absolute sense than the second that follows it? That's the only way such a response to the problem of infinite regress could work. I find it makes much more sense to simply abandon the idea of the present as something that moves in time.

beausoleil

Gosh, nothing so sophisticated or well though out. The post said 'an infinite series of events', which needn't occupy an infinite amount of time. Depends whether events are all separated by the same interval.

Since I'm winging it, in an expanding universe, the interval between events scales with the size of the universe (hypothesis). So early events perhaps occurred more frequently in time. In the limit, the universe would be a point, 'events' would be infinitely close together and the time between them would be zero. Thus an infinite series of events would occupy a finite time.

Just rambling. One advantage of the anonymity of bulletin boards!

Cheers!

tronvillain

Yes, that would probably work.