B What is Absolute Time and Space?

Rishabh Narula
Messages
61
Reaction score
5
TL;DR Summary
i understand english fairly well but this paragraph goes right over my head.i can't associate it or understand what exactly the author is trying to say can someone explain it in layman simple language.i do realize its got something to do with relativity but im just a beginner student as of now so please explain simply.thanka
In physics, the concept of absolute time and absolute space are hypothetical concepts closely tied to the thought of Newton. Absolute, true and mathematical time of itself, and from its own nature flows equally without regard to anything external. There is another term duration measures relative, apparent and common time, is same sensible and external measure of duration by means of motion which is commonly used instead of true time. Using this defination, time runs at the same rate for all observers in the universe and different measures of absolute time can be scaled by multiplying by a constant. Thus, according to Newton, ‘Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything, external, remains always similar and imovable’. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces; which our senses determine by its position to bodies. Absolute motion is the translation of a body from one absolute place into another, and relative motion, the translation from one relative place into another. These notions imply that absolute space and time do not depend upon physical events, but are a backdrop or stage setting within which physical phenomenon occurs. Thus, every object has an absolute state of motion relative to absolute space, so that an object must be either in a state of absolute rest or moving at some absolute speed.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
I'm not convinced it means anything at all. Where are you quoting from?
 
  • Like
Likes Vanadium 50 and vanhees71
Most of the paragraph is a translation of part of a scholium from Newton’s Principia. This scholium explains the philosophic reasons Newton insisted on absolute time and space even though demonstrating that they are in principle undetectable.
 
  • Like
Likes vanhees71, Ibix, 256bits and 1 other person
Rishabh Narula said:
Summary:: .i do realize its got something to do with relativity but ...
Not anything to do with Special Relativity, nor General Relativity, if that is what you mean.
This is only about Newtonian mechanics, with its consideration of absolute time and absolute space.
 
PAllen said:
Most of the paragraph is a translation of part of a scholium from Newton’s Principia. This scholium explains the philosophic reasons Newton insisted on absolute time and space even though demonstrating that they are in principle undetectable.
Full text of Newton is here. The text in the OP seems to me to have taken a few sentences from Newton's valiant defence of absolute space against the force of his own arguments, pasted them together with some original text, and created a mess. I suspect it's attempting to set up a similar defence of undetectable absolute space and time in relativity.
 
Rishabh Narula said:
i do realize its got something to do with relativity

No, it doesn't. It is, as others have already pointed out, from Newton's Principia.

Thread closed.
 
OK, so this has bugged me for a while about the equivalence principle and the black hole information paradox. If black holes "evaporate" via Hawking radiation, then they cannot exist forever. So, from my external perspective, watching the person fall in, they slow down, freeze, and redshift to "nothing," but never cross the event horizon. Does the equivalence principle say my perspective is valid? If it does, is it possible that that person really never crossed the event horizon? The...
ASSUMPTIONS 1. Two identical clocks A and B in the same inertial frame are stationary relative to each other a fixed distance L apart. Time passes at the same rate for both. 2. Both clocks are able to send/receive light signals and to write/read the send/receive times into signals. 3. The speed of light is anisotropic. METHOD 1. At time t[A1] and time t[B1], clock A sends a light signal to clock B. The clock B time is unknown to A. 2. Clock B receives the signal from A at time t[B2] and...
In this video I can see a person walking around lines of curvature on a sphere with an arrow strapped to his waist. His task is to keep the arrow pointed in the same direction How does he do this ? Does he use a reference point like the stars? (that only move very slowly) If that is how he keeps the arrow pointing in the same direction, is that equivalent to saying that he orients the arrow wrt the 3d space that the sphere is embedded in? So ,although one refers to intrinsic curvature...
Back
Top