Gravity, Time and Leibniz

Jonathan Ainsley Bain wrote:That's fine Leo.
Just pick one and focus on it.
Perhaps this one is simplest?
http://www.flight-light-and-spin.com/relativity-revised.htm#timedilation

I would expect it to take a few readings to grasp.
There's no big hurry.
After all, this has eluded all theorists for the last 100 years,
including Einstein & Hawking. Be patient with yourself.
I had to read Feynman's 'Six Not-so-Easy-Pieces' six times
before I saw it. And I had been contemplating relativity for
about 35 years before that.
I have re-evaluated it over 100 times since first formulating it,
and I have the programming language to do all the arithmetic for me.

JAB,
This is a dreadfully incompetent reply to O.Leo's comments.  It amounts to declaring that you know all and therefore you know better.  Crap.

You know damned well that a FORTRAN compiler won't do your thinking for you.  Or do you use a simpler program, like BASIC?  What exactly is your favorite algorithmic processor, your claim to pseudo-intelligence?  

I will propose to admin that you be stripped of you bogus "Forum Physicist" title, but she probably won't do that because she thinks you're sexy, or something.  I merely think that you are a pretentious incompetent who knows just enough physics to impress chicks with a high-school education in a bar, but who never gathers up the balls to address a difficult question.

Jonathan Ainsley Bain wrote:Any slowing of time is in stark contradiction to the notion of quantum time.
How do you propose that this can be resolved?

JAB,
If you were rich enough to afford a copy of Digital Universe -- Analog Soul, and competent enough to read it very slowly, a chapter per week at most, preceded by a reread of the previous chapter, thus to understand it...

you would know that time is not real.  It is not like space.   Time is merely a mathematical artifice that we use to measure sequences of events.  It is one of the artifices we use to attempt to understand reality, but has no independent existence.  

If you understood this, which you are unlikely to do since you seem to be well-programmed, you'd realize that the notion of "slowing of time" is merely an adjustment in the way we try to measure sequences of events.  

WTF, keep on believing and bullshitting.

Jonathan Ainsley Bain wrote:Any slowing of time is in stark contradiction to the notion of quantum time.
How do you propose that this can be resolved?

Relativistic "time" is what clocks show.

Quantum time is an unobservable parameter of the Schroedinger equation. Unobservable, because there is no operator for time measurement, one can even prove mathematically, that for every clock there is even a non-zero probability that it goes backward in time. So, in QT any time measurement is only an approximation.

This nicely corresponds with Newton's concept of time. He has already distinguished absolute time - a parameter which is used in the fundamental equations of the theory - and apparent time, defined as an inaccurate human attempt to measure time.

So, quantum time is Newton's absolute time, relativistic "time" is Newton's "apparent time", different things which do not have to be equal at all.

That's fine Leo.
Just pick one and focus on it.
Perhaps this one is simplest?
http://www.flight-light-and-spin.com/relativity-revised.htm#timedilation

I would expect it to take a few readings to grasp.
There's no big hurry.
After all, this has eluded all theorists for the last 100 years,
including Einstein & Hawking. Be patient with yourself.
I had to read Feynman's 'Six Not-so-Easy-Pieces' six times
before I saw it. And I had been contemplating relativity for
about 35 years before that.
I have re-evaluated it over 100 times since first formulating it,
and I have the programming language to do all the arithmetic for me.

Leo, I sent you an answer in pm. Just use your creative spirit.

The tools of this site are simply too unwieldy for me to properly respond to your posts, Jon. You raise a number of points which need to be responded to individually and I can't selectively cull them out to do so. I've raised this problem with the Admin and until it is addressed I'm afraid your questions must go unanswered.

But the math 'proof' in relativity is most interesting because the
equation for 'contracting space' and 'dilation of time'
are both derived in the exact same calculation.

They are both derived from the 'contraction of velocity'.

So how can the dilation of time be correct
when the contraction in space is completely NOT empirical?

They both have the EXACT SAME mathematical origin:

Just note the highlighted parts of this quote from Feynman:

Well the contradiction in the 'speed of time' is thus:

If I observe 2 clocks, in 2 different gravity fields,
and the one slows down. And then when I switch
the clocks around, the other slows down.

What is wrong with the notion that it is just the velocity
of the mechanism which has slowed down?

That's the empirical contradiction:
That time slowing is synonymous with velocity slowing.

Here is the math:
If 2 objects are moving at a velocity of 10.
And then we slow time for one of them so that it experiences
double the number of time units in relation to the other:

then 10/2 = 5: its velocity halves.
So we could just as easily simply say that its velocity has halved.
Its the same calculation.

You say:

The smallest possible unit of time is the length of time taken within which we can meaningfully say that something has actually happened. This time interval has already been established as the Planck interval but the Planck interval is the most inconstant interval in the universe

To say that the Planck constant is not constant means that
there is no such thing as the Planck constant.

If we allow the Planck constant to have a finer degree to it:
That is, it can be divided, but that it must stop being divided at a finer level,  
then all we have done is to redefine what the value of the constant is.

Here is the computational reason:
The speed of time is represented as: time/time
which is clearly : 1.
It disappears as tautology.

If object 2 has a speed of time as say 2t/t,
then the 2 is simply multiplied into the velocity,
and all we end up with is a change in velocity.

If we do not have quantum time, then we end in Zeno's paradox,
which is also NOT empirical.

Jonathan Ainsley Bain wrote:Any slowing of time is in stark contradiction to the notion of quantum time.
How do you propose that this can be resolved?

The inconstancy of the speed of time is an established fact beyond contradiction so what I'm talking about has less to do with what physics has already managed to establish than what it has to with how we interpret this discovery. The speed of time is not a valid construct in spacetime physics but let's not forget that spacetime physics offers no mechanism for gravity because that's what the entire problem of a unification model for physics is all about. However a purely mechanical explanation for a quantised gravity offers itself immediately if the spacetime paradigm is simply abandoned and replaced with a continuum of time and gravity. Time and gravity can thus be quantised equivalently in the same unit and this unit of time can be very simply defined. The smallest possible unit of time is the length of time taken within which we can meaningfully say that something has actually happened. This time interval has already been established as the Planck interval but the Planck interval is the most inconstant interval in the universe because its duration is moderated by gravity all the way down to the Planck scale and all the way up to the largest of cosmological scales. The fact that no god's-eye referential frame exists within which this inconstancy can be measured is utterly irrelevant because it is satisfactorily proven by the fact that the speed of light is always OBSERVED TO BE a constant.

The fact that the speed of light is observed to be a constant irrespective of the clock being used to measure this speed is the most obvious proof imaginable that the speed of light is actually the most inconstant speed in the universe because GR tells us that it is completely impossible to synchronise two clocks, no matter how closely together one is able to locate them. On the grounds of Occam economy why is this explanation not preferable to the metaphysically ludicrous idea of a contracting space, as represented by the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction hypothesis?

Any slowing of time is in stark contradiction to the notion of quantum time.
How do you propose that this can be resolved?

This thought experiment seeks to illustrate the difference between subjective and objective reality, which in Kantian philosophy might be termed distinguishing between the observed phenomenon and the underpinning noumenon which gives rise to it.

Whether we call it the “Law of Parsimony”, “Occam’s Razor”, or the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” there is a universal explanatory principle which applies to all of science and philosophy. When two conflicting explanations are available to account for an observed phenomenon then the simpler of the two must always be preferred over the more complex. The most famous example of this principle in action in physics was the overthrow of the Ptolemaic geocentric cosmology by its Copernican heliocentric alternative. Many lay people completely misunderstand this principle and might thus say that heliocentrism is a “true” model for the solar system whereas geocentrism is a “false” one but this is not what Occam economy implies. It merely means that the Copernican model is a “better fit” for the evidence and the reason for this is that it is SIMPLER. Thus we can fall back on the age-old truism in all branches of philosophy which states that Simplicity is Truth.

The definitive proof which was offered for the so-called “curved space” of GR was the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, but this so-called proof fails this important test of parsimony. 3D space has no physical properties, thus to say that it can expand and contract and bend and twist and curve cannot be regarded as a physical statement. Instead it must be regarded as a metaphorical statement describing a more fundamental underlying process. In other words Einstein’s geometric space is every bit as much an action-at-a-distance model as was the Newtonian space it sought to overturn. Einstein himself stressed this point throughout his life and spent the 40 years of his life after the publication of GR looking for just such an underlying process.

“Spacetime should NEVER be regarded as physically real”....Albert Einstein”

There is an alternative explanation for gravitational lensing available from within the exact same GR model as that which presented us with the metaphysical absurdity of a “curved space”. Einstein’s genius always lay in his remarkable intuitions and capacity for clear thinking rather than in his physics. He was only ever an adequate physicist, and as a mathematician he was downright mediocre, but his instincts for the simplest logic was impeccable. The reasoning behind his conclusion that acceleration and gravity were simply two different expressions of the same phenomenon is exquisite in its austerity and thus utterly beyond falsification. An inescapable and direct consequence of this reasoning is that the speed of the passage of time must dilate as the strength of the gravitational “field” increases. Einstein was able to show that this relationship between gravity and time was inversely logarithmic in its nature, which means it could be mapped in a 2D co-ordinate space as a steeply ascending rectangular hyperbola. This mathematical representation has been empirically verified countless times since the publication of GR in 1915 and much of our modern technology is founded on it. Inasmuch as it is possible to say such a thing in science we must regard it as a “fact” that gravity and time are simply two different ways of expressing the same phenomenon because once you specify one you can automatically derive the other from the hyperbolic mathematical relationship. The simple truth is that gravity slows down time and in extreme gravitational environments, such as black holes, gravity slows down time dramatically because this is where the effects of the steeply ascending part of the hyperbolic curve are revealed. None of the mathematics of this is all that difficult and none of it is in the least bit controversial so as a philosopher of physics I’m more than happy to accept it as a given.

Consider now the beam of light travelling towards a distant observer and being deflected from its straight trajectory by the presence of an intervening mass. We know without doubt that this intervening mass will project a gravitational influence beyond itself approximately according to Newton’s inverse square “law”. We also know that time will slow down under this gravitational influence according to Einstein’s inversely logarithmic gravitational “law”. What effect will this have on the passing beam of light? Surely if time slows down then the passing beam of light must slow down accordingly because to suggest otherwise would be to suggest that light can travel faster than time, which is metaphysical horseshit.

The crucial question in this thought experiment is this:

Q. What does the observer observe and what is the simplest way to account for this observation?

A. The observer will observe the beam of light bending towards the intervening mass BECAUSE THE LIGHT HAS SLOWED DOWN RELATIVE TO THE OBSERVER.

This is exactly the same phenomenon as refraction, or the “bent stick in the water” which we can all recall from our high school science days.

Q. Why does a stick appear to bend when we put into a bath of water at an angle.

A. The stick appears to bend because, RELATIVE TO THE OBSERVER, the speed of light in water is slower than the speed of light in the air above it,. In other words the bent stick is an observer effect consequent on the inconstant speed of light.

In accordance with the “Law of Parsimony”, “Occam’s Razor”, or the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” why should this far simpler explanation for gravitational lensing not be preferred to the metaphysically nonsensical idea of a “curved space”. ???