First off, question 10 was not answered; perhaps because I added it in late to the post prior to seeing the second poster's reply in this thread.
Secondly, thank you, all, for the replies so far.
pervect said:
Relativity should also cover the weak and strong forces (for instance as to how they transform), i.e. our theory of weak and strong forces is also based on relativity. If you cover space, time, and all four forces, I think you can say it covers "everything", at least I can't think of anything not covered. If you think of something not covered by those categories that you're curious about, ask again.
Are these weak and strong forces something from quantum mechanics or something before quantum mechanics?
For what I understand, things, such as force, gravity, energy (Newton's work), and electromagnetism (Maxwell?) came before Einstein developed relativity.
A fine, but possibly important point, but space and time are usually regarded in relativity as being combined into a single entity, space-time.
space-time is defined in general relativity as a 4 dimensional manifold. A manifold is popularly regarded as the surface of a higher dimensional object, but this is just a visual aid. The mathematical definition of a manifold is based on the concepts of points and a notion of "neighborhood", formalized in topology as "open balls". Plus some other axioms I'm not going to get into, a full description would be too involved.
Special relativity considers only "flat" manifolds, so you can use the simpler mathematical concept of ##\mathbb{R}^4##, if you're familiar with that.
This is all just a geometric interpretation of reality, however, right?
Time can generally be regarded as what a clock measures. There are a couple of notions of time that are important in relativity , actually - coordinate time and proper time. Proper time is the time measured on a clock that's present at all events. Proper time does not need the concept of synchronizing clocks, because the clocks are present at all events. Coordinate time is the time measured by coordinate clocks, which need additionally a system of synchronization to define the coordinate system.
Again, this is geometric, right? This is kind of why I was asking if Einstein's relativity was an attempt at a deductive proof. The way I keep looking at Einstein's theory is that it seems somewhat Aristotelian.
In general relativity the splitting of space-time into space+time is regarded as a matter of convention. In special relativity, the splitting of space-time into space-time is determined by your choice of reference frame. A frequently used anology in SR is that space-time is like a loaf of bread, and that the process of identifying "now", the set of all points that are simultaneous, is like cutting that loaf of bread.
I've seen this sliced loaf of bread video on YouTube. Even though it's argued there is a slice, why can't each point in space have its own relative "time" in relation to all other things?
Yes. For instance particles in a particle accelerator are governed by the laws of relativity. We can give them enormous energies, but no matter how much energy we give them, they don't exceed (or for massive particles, even reach) the speed of light, something that would not be predicted by other theories.
I'm not sure how Einstein historically defined space. My personal popular-level explanation would be that "space is what you measure with a ruler".
I'm afraid I don't really understand your question.
Ok, so, I feel that this kind of goes into the realm of quantum mechanics, such as quantum chromodynamics.
Imagine you have a program that let's you make 3D graphics, such as Blender, and these images can move over time. The way I see Einstein's relativity argument is that he is ignoring the existence of atoms, he's ignoring the existence of particles (except light), and he's focusing on what's on the Euclidian plane and the "time" dimension. It's as if everything is connected together in some cybernetic way without objects having any independence from each other, and that since they're all connected, they can all be classified as a single object.
So, perhaps I can put it with an analogy. Maybe it's stupid. I'll try. Perhaps it's the Platonist in me.
Imagine I invite you to my bedroom. If you were in my bedroom, you would see my bed, the items in my room (desk, shelves, a fan, some garbage bags, the carpet, and so on), the spatial positions of everything in my bedroom, and whatever else is observable to the human eye in my bedroom from one focal point. So, what I do, then, is that I kind of figure out where your vision was, and I take a picture of my bedroom with a film camera.
I get the film developed, and I eventually have a picture developed of the bedroom. From there, I find you and show you the photo to talk about Einstein's relativity and geometry.
From how I'm interpreting Einstein's relativity, he's treating space-time as something that is connected and unified. So, what I do to give the idea of what I mean is that I start warping the picture with my fingers, bending it, making waves with it, and I eventually flatten it out. However, isn't this a wrong view of space-time? Because the reality of space-time is that it has objects.
If you've ever watched Blues Clues (it was a children's show), there are often images around the house that are in picture frames.
It seems like Einstein's relativity is saying that space-time is a flat image or 3D object (ignoring objects in this 3D object) in time.
In contrast, with the Blues Clues example, sometimes the characters of the show will say a phrase, such as "Blue skadoo we can, too" and jump into the picture. In the picture, space-time (if it can even be called that in this example, because such seem as though it would contradict) is filled with physical objects that are tangible rather than a unified whole. Furthermore, the characters can interact with the environment once they move themselves into these environments. However, from how I've been reading about relativity, everything is more of a hologram or geometric whole rather than having parts existing to it.
I saw a video on 4D geometry and somehow have found a way to envision it, but only in an attempt to visual the geometry in multiple side-by-side frames in my mind's eye. I don't think I'm having cognitive dissonance about this. I think Einstein's relativity, because it comes from a mathematical viewpoint, totally ignores objects that exist within the volume of the universe and instead looks only at the volume as space-time. Furthermore, with the lack of looking at what is inside of the volume, entropy is ignored and time is a fabricated variable.
If I take into consideration three-dimensions, then space is all of the dimensions. However, if I add an additional dimension, then there is time.
I feel as though Albert Einstein made the hasty generalization of clumping objects into a dimension. At least, I perceive that to be true. However, that perception is dependent on my view that objects exist within the universe, that space is never space but a location where some object exists, and that time is not time but instead the movement of objects (perhaps some kind of radiation that the brain perceives?) or entropy. This view, however, may have become biased from my encounter with quantum mechanics.
I would guess that you probably have more to learn, and that your views may shift as you learn more, If you keep studying, that is.
Possibly so, but I'm attempting to look at the foundations before becoming brainwashed with dogma. No offense.
bhobba said:
...
You can find a discussion of such esoterica here if you are interested:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/decades.pdf
I also must add it's not the only approach, but that is a whole new discussion.
Thanks
Bill
Thank you, Bill. I will attempt to read through the article, perhaps within the week (it's fairly lengthy).
