[Huck]

I've never been able to grap these deep physics arguments. Just because we don't have an absolute God-approved clock to check against doesn't mean there is no such thing as time. Things happens in a sequence. If I put a pot of water on to boil, it doesn't instantly boil. I have to wait until it reaches boiling temperature. That waiting period is clearly time. You can argue about whose clock measures that time the best, but you can't argue that there was a period of time bewteen setting the pot on the stove, and the point when it started to boil.

Likewise with the "grid" concept. The grid is a construct to measure space. The grid might be inaccurate, but it doesn't mean space doesn't exist. And even if the Universe is expanding, or if it's a triangle, it pretty much solves nothing, because of infinity. That triangle, or that expanding Universe, exists within space. But isn't there more space outside that space? I can't fathom nothingness. Even empty space is something, isn't it?

[Huck]

PS— I do find it quite entertaining and amazing to consider how little we know about where we are, when we are, why we are. We do well getting by on earth, but the big picture remains a mystery.

[SunkenCiv]

Julian Barbour site:freerepublic.com

Google

Thanks BGHater.

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[SunkenCiv]

Julian Barbour’s web site
http://www.platonia.com/

[EGPWS]

If Barbour had told Einstein to give him a call back in seven minutes, Einstein might have asked: Your minutes or mine? If Barbour had been calling, say, from a spaceship moving at close to the speed of light, or one perched at the lip of a black hole, Einstein would find that each of Barbour’s minutes would last far longer than his. There is no universal reference clock that both Barbour and Einstein could agree on.

Exactly!

It frustrates me to no end that some people miss this important part of physics.

I get flack for not getting the lawn cut yet, when in effect, on MY time it is already cut!

I constantly have to make people realize that their time is simply different than mine.

[mikrofon]

He’ll investigate this possibility with the help of a $99,563 grant from the Foundational Questions Institute

The Institute claimed they gave him $100K -- relativity, y'know...

[Michael Barnes]

You still alive and kicking? This is up your alley, right?

[aruanan]

"My life’s work has been about finding an alternative theory of change," says Barbour, one that is purely "Machian"—that is, a theory that does away with the grid and clock. Such a theory, he believes, might open the door to quantum gravity.

Grid is Dead?

[aruanan]

Of course, against Barbour's huge pile of words, we have Mills's actually existing hydrinos. He seems to have a much better grasp of physics than Barbour does and it doesn't have to invoke quantum silliness.

[count-your-change]

One can measure the depth of the world's economic depression by the number of books written on esoteric theories that no one reads but are praised to the heavens.

[samtheman]

Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist at PI

This might be off-topic to this thread but the mention of Lee Smolin inspires me to mention that I just read one of his books (The Trouble With Physics) in which he goes to great lengths explaining how the entire grant, job, funding and tenure system conspires to basically lock all non-string-theorists out of the Physics Establishment (at least for a few decades) and I couldn't help thinking as I read that that I bet the EXACT SAME THING is happening in Climate Change (aka Global Warming).

[eldoradude]

Interesting article, thought provoking. Thanks for posting.

[onedoug]

...imagine a particle spinning out in space. If there were no stars forming a backdrop against which to measure the particle’s motion, can we really say that the particle is moving? To Mach, the answer was no, in an empty space there is no distinction between the particle spinning and the particle being stationary.

But for the particle's internal angular momentum?...