Posted on 01/06/2006 10:07:57 AM PST by epluribus_2
Sweet... (right click, saved!)
Thanks.
Looks like they may be on to something.
I was talking about the first one, in post #82. I'll take a look at the others to see what they've got (though metrics are pretty much beyond me as my professors concentrated far more on E&M and QM).
"My guess is that the environmental hazards would be in the close vicinity of such craft due to the unshielded high energy fields."
The stuff of Star Trek no doubt.
If it is this easy, then you have absolute proof there is no other intelligent life in the universe since they would have filled the universe including our solar system in a small fraction of the universe's age. If we are not alone, we would certainly be first.
Time is essentially 1-dimensional, so treating it as a vector is fairly meaningless in space coordinates. The vector could point in any spatial direction. Furthermore, the time "vector" has no magnitude. There is not a larger time, nor a smaller time. So it doesn't help us to consider time as a vector.
In fact, I am not convinced time is a dimension. I believe energy flux, or flow, is the real physical phenomena. Time is just a human perception. Something we do to help quanitze information in chuncks small enough for our limited brains to grasp.
Without human thought, time does not exist. Only space exists and energy flow (motion). Time is like a ruler. It can tell us how much of energy flow/motion/dissipation occurs over a fixed interval. The interval is arbitrary, seconds, just like space measurements are arbitrary, feet/meters etc.
Energy flows because of unbalanced force. If there only balanced energies in the universe there would be no motion, no chemical ineractions, no light, no thermal differentials, no change of any sort.
Time would not exist in such an environment. Yet we did not "eliminate" the time dimension, per se. Thus, time does not exist to begin with. It is just a human concept, not physical at all really, only the energy flow is physical.
I'll have to read the PDF. I'd never heard of Hauser before yesterday.
To this day, I still find it funny the Rienmann's metric tensor equations (19th century Math) are being used to solve 21st century physics equations. However, there has been real change on this because physicists are creating some "new" math.
Thirty years ago...it use to be that the mathematicians had
all these mathematic equations as "answers" but no questions for those answers...that was where the Theortical physics and Astrophysics guys came around to provide the questions...And now cosomology is no longer a funny word, and considered a cutting edge field...and finding its way into the Applied Sciences. (Such as building an engine to manipulate quantum space.)
I think there's a lot people wondering..."Geeee why wasn't this thought of before?" The answer to that was...when you're a starving (whether math or various discipline of physics) PHD looking for grant/fellowship/job (at least in the past) such "Hyperspace" endeavors were flights of fancy. As I understand it...that has changed.
If anything...this article has made me want to do a little research into Hiem.
Honestly, I had heard of such efforts before Hauser's work through discussions on VSL.
(HHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA...and everybody loves Lorenz Invariance.)
You have to give NASA credit here. Over a year ago that put out a call to the science community to provide any kind of SWAG for stellar propulsion. And offered dollars to support anything proven credible, which is why you get an ESA guy...going to NASA and the USAF.
I had a chance to talk to Edward Teller before he died, and while he was still lucid...in 1992, his speculation on M-Theory, or unified field theory, was that there would be an answer to it...early in the 21st century. He really liked Witten...though the community as a whole shunned him. The Father of the H-bomb just doesnt bode well with some of the guys, but he was a big "Taking the Theoretical to the Applied Science kind of guy." And that should be admired.
There have been actual physical experiments done in space to prove that "time" can be considered a dimension...Earth's mass even warps what is considered "space time".
"Time" as a dimension is not purely theoretical nor a notional concept.
I agree time is not purely theoretical or notional. It is real, but what do we really understand about it? We have equations that use the human conception of time to help model physical behaviours. It is extremely useful, but we may have been suffering from a conceptual error about the nature of time all along due to our own human traits.
I will not elaborate further at this moment because I am writing a paper on the topic. Just keep in mind that if everything were perfectly still and there was no change in energy anywhere(no energy fluctuations, no travelling waves, only standing waves (at sub-atomic particle level), no light waves, no particles other than an inert particle with stable, standing-wave sub-atomic particles...)...would time exist? Would time be = 0, or would it be = infinity? Does the dimension go away?
private e-mail me if you like. Sorry not to elaborate further.
Thanks for the correction. I can't type complete sentences on Fridays. ;)
Minkowskis spacetime manifold is the most generally convenient for discussing Einsteins relativity.
In my previous post, (which I then deleted) I stated that of the 4 "dimensions" time is a bit out of place. The 3 Euclidean dimensions form an orthonormal basis for 3-d space. They are each independent of the other, and they are orthogonal to each other.
Time on the other hand is not naturally orthogonal to the euclideans. It actually appears to run parallel to each of the euclidean dimensions. (does this mean it is 3-dimensional itself+?...no, but...)
Minkopwski made a 4-d orthnormal basis but to do this he had to interpret time as an imaginary component of the basis, 
and orient it negatively to the other 3 vectors (so the magnitude could be calculated correctly I suppose)
Interestingly, by multiplying the "time" t by c, the speed of light, he actually converts it to a spatial dimension, not a time dimension, though the t is the variable, not the c. hhhmmmm....
This certainly constructs a consistent spacetime geodesic, but it is certainly a bit fudged. ;^)
I am interested in why? What is the physical implication of ict? What is the implication of c defining an independent dimension. What if c is actually the variable and t is a fixed scalar ratio?
I'll say no more...for now.
cheers.
You wrote: "What if c is actually the variable and t is a fixed scalar ratio?" An interesting question.
It "can" be in quantum theory, which is one of the myriad of reasons the relavitistic universe and the quantum universe have been so hard for theoritical physcists to mathematically relate. Ultimately, it has come down to the simple question of "what makes up spacetime (i.e. the fabric of space itself?"
It is at the ultramicroscopic level, peering into extra-dimensional space...moving from 4D to 11D, that allows c to vary. (See Paul Dirac's annoted series of lecture notes plus a whole host of books out there.)
Also, as a side note, you bring up the basis for which led Einstein to believe Time Travel to be plausible.
Euclidean geometry is done on z axis format in describing where an object is...but not "when" it is...that is where the fourth dimension, time, came in right? I can say meet me at the 3rd street (x), at the corner of 44th (y), on the 11th floor of the chrysler building coffee bar (z), but if I dont give you a time...we will never meet, right? So, I have to also tell you 11:00 A.M. (t), and that is the fourth dimension, honestly I am not so sure c defines an independent dimension, as I understand it time is considered a spatial dimension (i.e. in regard to work done in particle physics) but in general as well. A thought.
Note: In this simplistic example (t) can very, but X,Y,Z are thought of as fixed points. Still, you needed the added dimension to get where you are going.
You ask some good questions.
I'll email you the VSL(Variable speed of light) equation, if you are interested...it isn't mine but it's still cool. Ha!
Ok. thanks.
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