He said what?! Rebelscience.org

[McC]

Saw this on Slashdot, and was of course compelled to read it. Someone better-versed than I needs to dissect it, though.

No Such Thing as Time (or Time Travel)

No Such Thing as Space

Explaining Time Dilation

There's lots more there, but those are the ones that caught my eye treeing off the first.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Saw this on Slashdot, and was of course compelled to read it. Someone better-versed than I needs to dissect it, though.

No Such Thing as Time (or Time Travel)

No Such Thing as Space

Explaining Time Dilation

There's lots more there, but those are the ones that caught my eye treeing off the first.

Yes, he's a fucking moron. One can dismiss the site entirely out of hand by realizing that he's making lots of appeals to authority by way of taking a whole lot of quotes out of context, sending up lots of red herrings and strawmen, and providing virtually nothing in the way of firm numbers, or links to whole theories supporting his position. He argues just like a Creationist.

But, ho ho, look at this! This turkey believes that the Bible predicts the operation of the brain. It's a good thing it's too early in the morning for anyone else to be in the lab with me. Otherwise they might wonder what the fuck I'm laughing about . . .

[McC]

Eh, not really caring about that part so much. Once you get through all his crazy quotes, he does start in with some legitimate math. If that's false, I'm kind of tempted to take him to task for it.

[Darth Wong]

I don't have time to waste on that shit myself, but I would just like to point out that legitimate mathematical calculations based upon false or made-up premises are a classical hallmark of pseudoscience.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Oh my gosh, a science illiterate fucktard using the powers of pseudoscience to substantiate the Bible? Say it ain't so!

[Dooey Jo]

I skimmed through it and it seems like he missed the entire concept of reference frames and inertia, even though he makes creative use of the words. And of course you can't detect a change in time in your own frame of reference; that's not an argument against relativity. By similar reasoning you can "prove" that spacial motion cannot exist either (although it seems like he does that too).

His idea that time dilation is

more likely due to energy conservation principles that come into play when a huge number of particles are interacting locally.

has been refuted empirically by measuring single particles that also exhibit the same effect.

Basically, it seems like he wants to get rid of the idea of time travel by rejecting relativity, and not just Einstein's but the very concept of relativity; that there are no absolute velocities etc.


Legitimate math is irrelevant if the reasoning behind it is faulty, but frankly, I don't see much math on the pages...

[Patrick Degan]

One of the more amusing lines to be found:

Even the relativity-derived notion of time dilation is hopelessly misleading. Time does not dilate (as if time could change!). On the contrary, it is the clocks that slow down (for whatever reason) resulting in longer measured intervals.

It's the clocks that slow down for whatever reason, eh?

Oh, and there's this little gem:

A Call to Arms
What Is So Wrong With Time Travel Speculations?

Time travel is a symptom of a deeper malady. It is part of a chronic malformation of our collective scientific understanding of the fundamental underpinnings of nature. It is the end result of an incestuous intellectual orgy that has been going on for over a century. It is also the culmination of a scientific coup d'état that took place in the early part of the twentieth century. A group of revolutionaries, fresh from the resounding empirical victories of Einstein's theory of relativity, established themselves as the sole interpreters and oracles of the new science. They fended off all public scrutiny by encircling themselves within an unassailable wall of scientific jargon and mathematical formalism. Any criticism of their world view is met with the usual sneering retort that relativity is one of the most corroborated theories in the history of physics. Dissenting views are given little exposure.
Stop Acting Like Drones

The whole time dimension and time travel nonsense that is being fed to us by the aforementioned individuals (and their followers all over the world) is part of a world view that has clouded and is clouding our thinking. Having an erroneous understanding of such fundamental concepts as motion and time is like having a monkey wrench in the works. Generations of bright young researchers have wasted valuable time chasing after wild geese when they should have been looking for real causal explanations of gravity and motion. And if they got time wrong, one is left to wonder how many other things they got just as wrong or worse. We need to discard our primitive and sterile notions of space and time and embrace a new clear-headed physical science, a science worthy of the twenty-first century. We need to break away from the hive and stop acting like mindless drones.
Entrenched Orthodoxy

Can we expect the spacetime physics orthodoxy to just accept that its understanding of time is flawed? Does anybody really believe that Dr. Kip Thorne, Sir Stephen Hawking, Dr. John A. Wheeler and the others are suddenly going to announce to the world that they were wrong about time? Do not hold your breath. You can catch a science fiction writer in an error and that is no big deal. But a scientist is betting his or her career. Still, should humanity suffer through hundreds of years of ignorance just because a few careers are at stake? The current scientific belief in the existence of a time dimension has been around for over a hundred years. Even though many people realized from its inception that spacetime was motionless, it has not stopped generations of physicists from believing in a time dimension on a par with the other three spatial dimensions. It is now a religious institution and its practitioners are entrenched more than ever. They will not accept defeat easily. It is a matter of prestige, authority, credibility and the fear of being displaced. They will fight teeth and nails all the way to the end.

This Is War!

In my considered opinion, no progress will be made in our understanding of motion, gravity and inertia by having civilized and polite discussions with an entrenched orthodoxy whose sole amusement is showing off how adept they are at manipulating math equations. There is no conspiracy, mind you, just a vested interest in continuing the status quo. Also a significant portion of physicists who believe in the existence of a time dimension do so religiously. They have a faith to uphold and a religion to protect. The only way to destroy their faith and abolish their religion is by forceful conquest and the imposition of a new religion. It is all about religion. That is the lesson of history, so let us not kid ourselves.

It is one thing to peddle snake oil to a sleeping public, it is another to imply that the public is too stupid to realize that it is being duped. Given the increased means of communication available, the public will suddenly wake up. People are not as stupid as the insufferably pompous physics community would have them believe. Soon they will no longer accept absurd dogma from an elitist group solely on the basis of authority. We, the people, are the authority on what will be done with our money. We will not stand by and allow a science funded with our money commandeered by a bunch of charlatans and crackpots, regardless of how secure they may feel.

The goal of the coming physics revolution is to eradicate all the nonsensical dogma of the spacetime orthodoxy. No stone must be left unturned. We need a new physics based exclusively on particles, their properties and their interactions. We need a physics that ask why instead of how. We need a physics that looks at phenomena from the point of view of the particles and not that of the observer. To succeed, the rebels must form a hostile political stronghold outside the walls and hope that they can gain enough converts from the the lay public (the despised peasantry) and enough defections from the enemy camp to eventually breach through. Once they are in, they must pillage and destroy the old order through terror. The leaders of the fortified castle must be put in chains, tarred and feathered and paraded through the streets for all to see (allegorically of course). This is war!

Trouble In Paradise

Unless we (humanity) revolutionize our physical sciences, we are doomed because our teeming masses are fast exhausting the natural resources of our world. This in turn leads to all sorts of unpleasantness such as ecological disasters, diseases, societal friction and devastating wars. We need room to expand. We are certainly not going to colonize the solar system with our primitive chemical propulsion systems (or cockamamie contraptions like solar sails) let alone the star systems beyond. Even if we could move at the speed of light, mass migration to other stars is out of the question. And we do not have much time to find a solution. The ecological and societal clocks are ticking. We cannot wait another one or two hundred years for the spacetime physics establishment to realize its errors. We need a plan of action and we need it now!

The Plan

Well, there is no plan yet. This is anticlimactic I know, but I am working on it. I have given this entire physics thing a lot of thought, time and motion being the tip of the iceberg. My ideas are unorthodox but I think we need unorthodox ideas. I have the vague notion in my mind of forming some sort of non-profit, think-tank, internet organization. I need unconventional thinkers, writers, disenchanted physicists, computer programmers and nature philosophers who are fed up with the dictatorship of the orthodoxy. In sum, I need rebels with axes to grind. Write to me and let me know what you can do. We need to pool our resources but, first of all, we need to spread the word and about the crackpottery of time travel and the famous spacetime physicists who ceaselessly preach their false religion to young people. Note: If you thought I was talking about going to war to literally tar and feather physicists, please do not bother writing.

Sort of like Darkstar and Stewpot of SDI rolled into one little package, isn't he?

[Darth Wong]

You have to love the logic whereby he concludes that the complex mathematics of theoretical physics was concocted as an elaborate smokescreen solely for the purpose of keeping the peasants out, rather than being necessitated by physics actually being a complicated field of study.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Science is complex, by definition, it is the workings of the universe. Creationist/IDeists only have to make it look like those elitist bastard scientists are having fun weaving a conspiracy around an enigma for their own devious pleasure. It's far easier to get John and Jane Smith to side with them than it is for an actual physicist/chemist/biologist to with their crackpot science and maths.

Again, it's one very elaborate style over substance fallacy, which sadly, appeals to those with no inkling to learn science.

[petesampras]

Essentially he is saying that time cannot change because the definition of change involves a reference to time. Change requires the passage of time, so how does time change? If time cannot change how does the present become the future, etc, etc.

The confusion comes from believing that there is an absolute/universal now which must 'change' into the future. There is no reason, scientificaly, to view time in this way. Having an absolute now does not alter the accuracy of any scientific models of the universe.

It is deeply entrenched into human intuition that there is an absolute now, though.

[Durandal]

The guy defines dx/dx = 0, for Christ's sake. dx/dx = 1, as any algebra student could tell you.

[petesampras]

The guy defines dx/dx = 0, for Christ's sake. dx/dx = 1, as any algebra student could tell you.

In fairness he says "dt/dt always equals 1 because the units cancel out."

Of course this was in context of the nonsense...

" Why is motion in spacetime impossible? It has to do with the definitions of space and time and the equation of velocity v = dx/dt. What the equation is saying is that, if an object moves over any distance d x, there is an elapsed time d t. Since time is defined in physics as a parameter for denoting change (evolution), the equation for velocity along the time axis must be given as v = dt/dt which is self-referential. The self-reference comes from having to divide dt by itself. dt/dt always equals 1 because the units cancel out. This is of course meaningless as far as velocity is concerned."

[Surlethe]

Why is motion in spacetime impossible? It has to do with the definitions of space and time and the equation of velocity v = dx/dt. What the equation is saying is that, if an object moves over any distance d x, there is an elapsed time d t. Since time is defined in physics as a parameter for denoting change (evolution), the equation for velocity along the time axis must be given as v = dt/dt which is self-referential. The self-reference comes from having to divide dt by itself. dt/dt always equals 1 because the units cancel out. This is of course meaningless as far as velocity is concerned.

To emphasize, it is logically impossible for the t coordinate of an object to change because such a change is self-referential. Et voilà! It is that simple. No time travel, no motion in spacetime, no spacetime and no time dimension. They are all abstract mathematical constructs without any counterpart in nature.

I love how, even without seeing he's crossing wires in his math (taking curves in 4-space and treating them like parameterized curves in 3-space, I believe), one can tell he's full of shit because he's traveling in time right now!

[Wyrm]

I actually encountered this particular crackpot idea a while ago. I quickly figured out that this fellow was confusing (perhaps deliberately) two kinds of time: "coordinate time," familiarly denoted t, and "proper time," which I like to denote with τ. The definition of four-velocity is ds/dτ = (dt/dτ, dx/dτ, dy/dτ, dz/dτ) (where s is the four-coordinates in our particular coordinate system). This is the way it is defined in my green General Relativity book (which I don't have access to at the moment).

Basically, the four velocity tells you in what way the object is displaced in space with respect to how far the object's clock advances, and how much your clock advances with respect to how its clock advances.

So, his definition of four-velocity is wrong, and his whole argument is a strawman.

/me braces for the eventual appearance of Kuroneko.

[Lord Zentei]

To emphasize, it is logically impossible for the t coordinate of an object to change because such a change is self-referential. Et voilà! It is that simple. No time travel, no motion in spacetime, no spacetime and no time dimension. They are all abstract mathematical constructs without any counterpart in nature.

I love how, even without seeing he's crossing wires in his math (taking curves in 4-space and treating them like parameterized curves in 3-space, I believe), one can tell he's full of shit because he's traveling in time right now!

Perhaps someone should explain to him the difference between a spacetime event and an object whose worldline occupies multiple events, since he seems to have the two confused. I guess.

Or perhaps he is trying to channel Zeno and is sucking at it?

[Lord Zentei]

I actually encountered this particular crackpot idea a while ago. I quickly figured out that this fellow was confusing (perhaps deliberately) two kinds of time: "coordinate time," familiarly denoted t, and "proper time," which I like to denote with τ. The definition of four-velocity is ds/dτ = (dt/dτ, dx/dτ, dy/dτ, dz/dτ) (where s is the four-coordinates in our particular coordinate system). This is the way it is defined in my green General Relativity book (which I don't have access to at the moment).

Ah, and yes; serves me right for not reading the whole thread before posting.

/me braces for the eventual appearance of Kuroneko.

Arf.

[Surlethe]

To emphasize, it is logically impossible for the t coordinate of an object to change because such a change is self-referential. Et voilà! It is that simple. No time travel, no motion in spacetime, no spacetime and no time dimension. They are all abstract mathematical constructs without any counterpart in nature.

I love how, even without seeing he's crossing wires in his math (taking curves in 4-space and treating them like parameterized curves in 3-space, I believe), one can tell he's full of shit because he's traveling in time right now!

Perhaps someone should explain to him the difference between a spacetime event and an object whose worldline occupies multiple events, since he seems to have the two confused. I guess.

Indeed. His "mathematics" is like looking at, on an x-t coordinate plane, a graph of an object's acceleration x = a t², and then saying, "Since that curve is parameterized by t, x(t) = a t(t)²; and since dt/dt = 1, time can't pass at all.

Or perhaps he is trying to channel Zeno and is sucking at it?

Zeno's paradox actually leads to some interesting mathematics (read: analysis); this is just bullshit pseudoscience.

[Lord Zentei]

Or perhaps he is trying to channel Zeno and is sucking at it?

Zeno's paradox actually leads to some interesting mathematics (read: analysis); this is just bullshit pseudoscience.

Hence my points that he is sucking at it.

[Kuroneko]

Nothing really new here. What is ironic, however, is that many of his concerns are answered by relativity, not contradict it.

I love how, even without seeing he's crossing wires in his math (taking curves in 4-space and treating them like parameterized curves in 3-space, I believe), one can tell he's full of shit because he's traveling in time right now!

Indeed. He's taking the worldline as if it was paremetrized by coordinate time t instead of proper time τ. I don't think this person has even a passive acquintance with how relativity works.

Zeno's paradox actually leads to some interesting mathematics (read: analysis); this is just bullshit pseudoscience.

Even more relevantly, Zeno's insistence on having a physical difference between moving and stationary arrows even at a single instant in time leads more or less directly to the spacetime perspective:

Asserting that one coordinate is a function of another does not express change or motion. It assumes the a priori existence of change and describes how the evolution (another word for change) of one coordinate is related to or dependent upon the evolution of another.

Right--simply stating that the moving arrow has a different velocity vector at that instance in time as compared to the stationary arrow (Newtonian mechanics) only describes the motion, but does not explain it. Or, at least, explains it only by inventing something metaphysical (with respect to that instant in time, velocity information is simply not accessible in the Newtonian framework). From a pragmatic point of view, that's fine--it's still eminently useful. However, in relativity, a stationary arrow and a moving arrow have view the universe and on entirely different terms. The fact that it is moving is in principle detectable even at a single instant, through Lorentz contraction. And that's something physical.

Zeno was on to something there, and so is this person, but spacetime answers his concerns much more directly than any other system. Now that's irony.

I agree that processes run slower under gravity. I just disagree with the interpretation. Relativists claim that clocks run slower because time dilates. This is like saying that unemployment is up because the unemployment rate is up.

No, since spacetime explains why time dilates. The observers measure time along the directions of their velocity four-vectors. The relationship between the measurements of time by differently moving observers at the same location, for example, is simply a projection of their four-velocity vectors. Thus, time dilation is no more paradoxical than the quite ordinary situation of the same objects appearing to have a different size when viewed from different angles. This was discussed previously here.

But let's put that aside for a moment and assume that a clock or some other body has a time coordinate that can change in a certain direction. Let's take the extreme view of a clock that is moving at the speed of light with respect to us. According to relativity, the clock completely stops. The question that immediately comes to mind is this: if the clock had traveled in time relative to us, why is the clock still visible? If it had really slowed in some time dimension that we all share, it would simply disappear from view.

The point is, of course, that we do not "all share" the same time dimension--each observer measures time along the direction of their four-velocity.

Time dilation is an unfortunate misnomer, in my opinion, because it gives the impression of an independent time variable (an oxymoron) that causes things or processes to slow down.

Well, perhaps. But if his only reasonable criticism is essentially that "time dilation is bad terminology", then why even bother?

Abstract Space | The concept of a space existing separately from matter has not been without its detractors. Sir Isaac's nemesis, none other than the great German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, rejected the concept of space, absolute or otherwise. Leibniz wrote that "space is nothing else but an order of the existence of things, observed as existing together; and therefore the fiction of a material universe, moving forward in an empty space cannot be admitted." Leibniz believed that the position of an object is not the property of an extrinsic space but an intrinsic property of the object. These properties, taken together, form an abstract order that he called space. I fully agree with Leibniz on this issue.

This is actually somewhat interesting. His position is that spacetime is not a concrete entity and that only the relationships between entities is physically meaningfull. Yet again, the irony of this situation is that not only is this position compatible with general relativity, but that GTR makes it outright inviting--firstly, that's essentially what general covariance means, and secondly, material objects effectively are spacetime curvature. For those interesting, I recommend looking up the so-called "Hole argument" of general relativity that goes against treating spacetime as independent of the objects within it.

[petesampras]

coordinate time t instead of proper time τ

What is proper time?

[Thinkmarble]

An Eigentime intervall is lenght of the worldline traveled between two events.
Or equivalently the time in the rest frame of the clock in question.

[drachefly]

coordinate time t instead of proper time ?

What is proper time?

proper time d? = sqrt((cdt)^2 - dx^2 - dy^2 - dz^2) / c

In other words, it's the time that has passed, with the effects of any change in position subtracted out. Also known as 'subjective time'.

This is illuminating if one rearranges it so:

dt^2 = d?^2 + (dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2)/c

in which case we see that for any coordinate system x, y, z, t, the subjective time d? is what's left over from a vector of magnitude dt after any gross motions have been taken out!

[drachefly]

Each of those question marks is to be replaced with a tau.

[Darth Wong]

It's kind of funny how he dismisses evidence for time dilation by arguing that all of the systems of particles are merely acting as if there is time dilation. It reminds me of the "God is a practical joker" mentality of creationists; when confronted by evidence that confounds your expectations, simply declare that the evidence is trying to fool you.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I tried reading it, but the people in my office got worried when I started gibbering madly and bleeding from the ears.