- #51
nrqed
Science Advisor
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- 297
Just to add to my previous post.
Another way of explaining what I mean by our use of absolute time (and maybe a clearere way) is the following. Let's say that you have the pendulum and the atomic clock next to each other. You solve the equations and ask: after 100 seconds, say, how many oscillations will the pendulum and the atomic clock have gone through? You plug in the numbers, and verify experimentally that it checks out.
Now, an aside is that the time used is really not an absolute quantity. It is really a relative quantity, that its it would have to be read on your watch, say.
So it's better to say: how many oscillations will have the pendulum go through when the atomic clock will have gone through a predetermined number of atomic oscillations "X". This make sit clear the relative notion of time measurements.
Now my main point: the way we would do this is to put "X oscillations" in the equations for the atomic clock, solve for the time "t" in those equations, plug this value back in the equations for the pendulum and find the number of oscillations of the pendulum.
My point is that we are assuming that the time "t" used in both systems is the same! This is what we mean by the fact that we are still using an "absolute" time. Maybe that's not the best way to put it. Maybe I shoudl say that we are using a universal time for systems that are driven by completely different forces.
And that bothers me
To me, this is akin to using the same mass for inertia and the gravitational force without being bothered by it.
It feels to me that this is telling us that there is something much deeper and fundamental that we are missing about the meaning of time, the same way the equivalence between the inertial and gravitational masses was pointing to a revolution in physics.
And I haven't even talked about the problem of the arrow of time yet!
My two cents...
patrick
Another way of explaining what I mean by our use of absolute time (and maybe a clearere way) is the following. Let's say that you have the pendulum and the atomic clock next to each other. You solve the equations and ask: after 100 seconds, say, how many oscillations will the pendulum and the atomic clock have gone through? You plug in the numbers, and verify experimentally that it checks out.
Now, an aside is that the time used is really not an absolute quantity. It is really a relative quantity, that its it would have to be read on your watch, say.
So it's better to say: how many oscillations will have the pendulum go through when the atomic clock will have gone through a predetermined number of atomic oscillations "X". This make sit clear the relative notion of time measurements.
Now my main point: the way we would do this is to put "X oscillations" in the equations for the atomic clock, solve for the time "t" in those equations, plug this value back in the equations for the pendulum and find the number of oscillations of the pendulum.
My point is that we are assuming that the time "t" used in both systems is the same! This is what we mean by the fact that we are still using an "absolute" time. Maybe that's not the best way to put it. Maybe I shoudl say that we are using a universal time for systems that are driven by completely different forces.
And that bothers me
To me, this is akin to using the same mass for inertia and the gravitational force without being bothered by it.
It feels to me that this is telling us that there is something much deeper and fundamental that we are missing about the meaning of time, the same way the equivalence between the inertial and gravitational masses was pointing to a revolution in physics.
And I haven't even talked about the problem of the arrow of time yet!
My two cents...
patrick
