Author
|
Topic: Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity (Read 2581 times) |
|
Ophis
Magister
Posts: 176
Reputation: 6.33
Rate Ophis
 
|
 |
Re:Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
« Reply #15 on: 2003-08-11 22:35:36 » |
 |
I see what you mean BillRoh but I'm not sure that we can draw these conclusions. I can't find anything wrong with your line of thought either...
Yet, I don't know that it is meaningful to talk about things "happening at the same time". They only happen at a time relative to a given perspective. So the only measures that would matter from your perspective are between all things in your lightcone and yourself.
Things in *my* lightcone might actually happen at different times than yours since they woud happen in a sequence relative to me.
I'm actually not too sure what this might imply or if it makes any sense. I haven't eaten all day and I'm still at work so my brain is fried right now. Maybe I should go drink a beer before I speculate some more about the nature of time... I'll be back later.
|
|
|
|
|
BillRoh
Guest
|
|
Re:Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
« Reply #16 on: 2003-08-12 00:40:03 » |
|
I see where you are going with the relative positions perspective. But even if we were viewing events at extremes, considering gravitational changes in space, billions of light years, whatever - all time events must resolve within that Planck time limit, right? Cause there is no finer resolution, right? Accelerating towards, or away from, doesn't matter cause it's all the same theoretical time resolution ability, right? (I'm totally making this up, I know)
And, "what about spooky action at a distance", entanglement? If you split the photon, and one full cycle is completed in half the time, does that count as .5 planck time?
I'm gonna earn the title Heretic for sure, may the Great Squid strike me down if it ain't so.
Bill
|
|
|
|
|
Ophis
Magister
Posts: 176
Reputation: 6.33
Rate Ophis
|
|
Re:Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
« Reply #17 on: 2003-08-12 09:15:52 » |
|
Quote:| And, "what about spooky action at a distance", entanglement? If you split the photon, and one full cycle is completed in half the time, does that count as .5 planck time? |
As far as .5 planck time is concerned, this is a "non issue" since no "full cycle" can be completed, indeed no change can occur and consequently no information can be conveyed using less than 1 planck space and 1 planck time.
With regards to quantum entanglement, which requires supersymetry and the superposition of states, my feeling is similar (and much less educated) to that of Lee Smolin with regards to the uncertainty principle:
"It may also be hard to think about, because the mind rebels: it is hard to work one's way through to the logical consequences of a principle like the uncertainty principle when one's first response is simply to disbelieve it. I myself do not really believe it, and I do not think I am the only physicist who feels this way. But I persist in using it because it is a necessary part of the only theory I know that explains the main observed facts about atoms, molecules and the elementary particles." -- Lee Smolin, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity p.36.
Smolin has aptly named one of the chapters of the above quoted book; I'm using this out of context but the chapter is called: "In the future, we shall know more". I think this applies to our current situation :-)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BillRoh
Guest
|
|
Re:Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
« Reply #19 on: 2003-08-12 20:04:30 » |
|
Thanks for passing on the link. I'm printing it for this evenings reading material.
I'ts appreciated.
Bill Roh
|
|
|
|
|
BillRoh
Guest
|
|
Re:Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
« Reply #20 on: 2003-08-16 00:20:16 » |
|
Well, I read it. But it seems fairly simplistic to me. Is that the whole paper?
I tend to think of time in the way he is describing it on the front - of course not nearly as well thought out. But it's hard to believe that idea of his has not been presented before, or even many times through history.
Thanks for the paper
Bill Roh
|
|
|
|
|
romanov
Adept
Gender: 
Posts: 112
Reputation: 7.87
Rate romanov
Doctor of Philosophy? What disease is that?
|
|
Re:Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity
« Reply #21 on: 2003-09-10 21:20:25 » |
|
The simplest answer to a puzzle can often be the hardest to come by.
The mind is a flawed tool, filled with unspoken assumptions.
As any philosopher will tell you.
The notion of the planck time neatly illustrates the simple elegance of the theory.
Even the planck time, the shortest possible measurable time, is not an instance but a segment of time, beyond (or perhaps beneath?) which no quantum information can be transferred.
Consequently, if time cannot exist as a definite instance- if, as the theory states, even the shortest meaningful stretch of time is merely a series of events constantly in motion, then you introduce the realm of uncertainty into classical physics.
No matter how you measure classical events, time is never fixed in marble. The macroscopic and microscopic suddenly are run by the same rules.
Contradictions between relativity, both special and general, and quantum mechanics, begin to unravel.
Let us hope that the circular reasoning of the paper is not its undoing.
I look forward to where this meme leads.
romanov
|
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
