- #1
kenewbie
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- 0
Ok. There are some concepts here that I am having trouble reconciling.
I would first like to "stipulate" that for time to have any meaning, there has to be change. I'm not sure if there is some Brownian motion at 0 Kelvin, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is not. So, if I freeze an entire frame of reference to 0 Kelvin, all movement stops, and you can say that time has stopped in that frame. Once the temperature is increased, things return to normal and that frame has traveled forward in time in respect to its surroundings.
This seems to suggest that as movement slows down, so does time.
Now consider the grandfather paradox:
You stay on earth, I travel to Alpha Centuri and back pretty damn fast (from my point of view, at least). So, I get back and you are old while I have aged just a little.
This seems to suggest that as movement increases, time slows.
Those two things seem contradictory, unless you give up the idea of time being a measure of change. But then how do you explain time in a zero movement system?
Another thing: If I "chase" a beam of light and measure it's speed, I get c, just as I get c if I stand still. If I flip this around and start to meet a beam of light that comes in my direction, it approaches me at C, just as it approaches me at C if I stand still and watch it come.
So, I am floating in orbit around the earth, while you are in a spaceship ready to take off at high speed towards the sun. Unbeknownst to us, the sun just instantly collapsed into a a black hole for some reason, and the last photon just left it. You start your travel towards the sun and I stay still. According to the constant speed of light, the photon should reach us both at the same time, even if you went to meet it! You measure the incomming photon at speed c, I measure it at C, and since we started at the same place it should reach us at the same time. But by the time it reaches "us", you are far ahead of me. This seems very weird and implies that the light is two places at once, places that are far away from each other in the direction of the lights motion.
Sun-------A------->B
How do you get to point A and B simultaneously if you can only travel along the dotted line? I realize that the word "simultaneous" is probably the perpetrator here, somehow. But I am so ******* lost on how to conceptualize what is happening here. Can this be explained without starting with tensors and how time is an axis and that I am thinking in Euclidean geometry?
Another question while I am at it: Does SR or GR have any effect on quantum physics? Do the ideas still hold?
I feel like a douche for posting what is probably the zillionth moron trying to understand these things before he has the tools to do so. But I can't help it.
k
I would first like to "stipulate" that for time to have any meaning, there has to be change. I'm not sure if there is some Brownian motion at 0 Kelvin, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is not. So, if I freeze an entire frame of reference to 0 Kelvin, all movement stops, and you can say that time has stopped in that frame. Once the temperature is increased, things return to normal and that frame has traveled forward in time in respect to its surroundings.
This seems to suggest that as movement slows down, so does time.
Now consider the grandfather paradox:
You stay on earth, I travel to Alpha Centuri and back pretty damn fast (from my point of view, at least). So, I get back and you are old while I have aged just a little.
This seems to suggest that as movement increases, time slows.
Those two things seem contradictory, unless you give up the idea of time being a measure of change. But then how do you explain time in a zero movement system?
Another thing: If I "chase" a beam of light and measure it's speed, I get c, just as I get c if I stand still. If I flip this around and start to meet a beam of light that comes in my direction, it approaches me at C, just as it approaches me at C if I stand still and watch it come.
So, I am floating in orbit around the earth, while you are in a spaceship ready to take off at high speed towards the sun. Unbeknownst to us, the sun just instantly collapsed into a a black hole for some reason, and the last photon just left it. You start your travel towards the sun and I stay still. According to the constant speed of light, the photon should reach us both at the same time, even if you went to meet it! You measure the incomming photon at speed c, I measure it at C, and since we started at the same place it should reach us at the same time. But by the time it reaches "us", you are far ahead of me. This seems very weird and implies that the light is two places at once, places that are far away from each other in the direction of the lights motion.
Sun-------A------->B
How do you get to point A and B simultaneously if you can only travel along the dotted line? I realize that the word "simultaneous" is probably the perpetrator here, somehow. But I am so ******* lost on how to conceptualize what is happening here. Can this be explained without starting with tensors and how time is an axis and that I am thinking in Euclidean geometry?
Another question while I am at it: Does SR or GR have any effect on quantum physics? Do the ideas still hold?
I feel like a douche for posting what is probably the zillionth moron trying to understand these things before he has the tools to do so. But I can't help it.
k