Re: DECW$CLOCK design flaw !

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Date: 24 Nov 2004 15:22:53 -0800

hammond@not@peek.ssr.hp.com (Charlie Hammond) wrote in message news:<5ZMod.3409$CF2.1718@news.cpqcorp.net>...
> Somebody wrote:
>
> > Time is like a river. It flows into one direction.
>
> "Time, like an ever rolling stream,
> bears all its sons away.
> They fly, forgotten, as a dream
> dies at the openging day"
>
> Oh, come now!
>
> Time is a DIMENSION -- just like space.

Well, yes and no. You measure space with rulers and you measure time
with clocks. It's easy to tell the difference.

If you divide a length by a length, you get a ratio -- a pure number.
If you divide a length by a duration, you get an average speed. Quite
different.

In one sense it is more accurate to say that ict is a dimension
(with i = (-1)**0.5, c = speed of light, t = time). This is because
when you measure a light ray, you get by using the distance formula
and the basic relation that distance equals speed times time

    x**2 + y**2 + z**2 = (c**2)*(t**2)

where x, y, z, and t are really delta_x, etc. (This is the starting
point of deriving the equations of Special Relativity. From this you
can get negative delta_x, etc., as "solutions", but you can do the
same with the Pythagorean Theorem, so I wouldn't take such negative
"solutions" too seriously.)

By setting x_0 = ict, x_1 = x, x_2 = y, x_3 = z, you get

    x_0**2 + x_1**2 + x_2**2 + x_3** = 0

and they all look alike. NTL, time as a dimension has different
qualities from the spatial dimensions as I explained above.
Releativity theory does, howevver, show that space and time are
inexorably intertwined. This is what gives us length contraction and
time dilation for things moving at relativistic speeds.

Other equations in special relativity turn out nice if you set the
fourth dimension, x_0, to ict .

> Time and space do not move or flow; we move within them.
> Exactly why we percieve ourselves to be moving constantly
> in one direction in time is not understood.

Well, maybe Nature uses the KISS philosophy; it's certainly simpler
this way!

>
>
> And somebody else brought up the:
>
> > Second law of thermodynamics.
>
> Statements of the Second Law which appear to rule out
> movement in time in either direction are flawed.
>
> It is left as an exercise to re-state the second law
> so that it admits negative time without changing its
> application when time moves posatively.

???

>
>
> (Can you believe my original [poor?] attempt at
> humor has led to this discussion!?)

Yes.

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