Posted on 07/31/2003 1:01:59 AM PDT by JerseyHighlander
Amateur mathematician's time theories published at last University drop-out Peter Lynds, 27, of Wellington says he has further plans for mathematical and philosophical explorations after publication of his theories on the nature of time. Mr Lynds, who studied at university for just six months, said his paper, Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs Discontinuity, was being published in the August issue of a Dutch-based journal, Foundations of Physics Letters. The journal specialises in rapid dissemination of research in theoretical or mathematical physics, or the philosophy of science. Now a broadcasting school tutor, Mr Lynds said his paper established that there was a necessary trade-off of all precisely determined physical values at a time, for their continuity through time. In effect, he argues that any moving object is never "at rest", and that the concept of time being broken into specific moments is only a human perception. "No matter how small the time interval, or how slowly an object moves during that interval, it is still in motion and its position is constantly changing, so it can't have a determined relative position at any time, whether during an interval, however small, or at an instant," he said in a statement. "If it did, it couldn't be in motion". He said today the argument challenged age-old assumptions about time and space. Mr Lynds said developing his theories had been a struggle and that as an outsider he had found working with some academics "extremely frustrating". "The work is somewhat unlikely, and that hasn't done me any favours. If someone has been aware of it, my seeming lack of qualification has sometimes been a hurdle too," he said. "I think quite a few physicists and philosophers have difficulty getting their heads around the topic of time properly. "I'm not a big fan of quite a few aspects of academia, but I'd like to think that what's happened with the work is a good example of perseverance and a few other things eventually winning through," Mr Lynds said. "It's reassuring to know that happens." Mr Lynds initially discussed his work with Victoria University physicist Professor Chris Grigson, who recalls him as determined. "I thought the idea was hard to understand," said Prof Grigson, who is now retired. "He is theorising in an area that most people think is settled. Most people believe there are a succession of moments and that objects in motion have determined positions." But Mr Lynds said some other physicists "sniggered" when he originally approached them with the work, and one even tried to persuade a scientific journal not to publish it because of the lack of formal academic qualifications. The paper also addressed other physics issues to do with time, including cosmology, and mounted an argument against the theory of "imaginary time" proposed by British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The seven-page paper argues that it has the correct solution to motion and infinity paradoxes -- excluding one known as "the Stadium" -- originally conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea over 2500 years ago. "With his deceivingly profound and perplexing paradoxes, I think Zeno of Elea was a true visionary, and in a sense, over 2500 years ahead of his time," Mr Lynds said. His plans for the near future include the publication of a paper specificially on Zeno's paradoxes themselves in the journal Philosophy of Science, and a paper relating time to consciousness. He also plans to explore his work further in connection to quantum mechanics and is hopeful others will do the same. - NZPA
31.07.2003 11.04 am
...and time is a measurement of the duration of that movement. It seems that matter and energy are more important than time and space.
I can understand why. Sounds like another Archimedes Plutonium to me.
LOL! There is a name I haven't heard in quite a while.
O.K. What I want to know is how many significant digits we have to go out to to notice?
LOL. Is the dishwasher still making noise on the newsgroups?
I remember my dad complaining about him when I was a kid....
Neither can exist without the other. Matter-energy cannot exist without space-time to contain it, and space-time would not exist if it was not containing matter-energy.
Visualize a universe consisting of no particles. It would have no dimension, and no duration could be measured.
In a universe of only one particle, there could be no measurement of acceleration or rotation without a wider context of other particles to have that acceleration or rotation be relative to.
In a universe of only two particles, there could be measured motion, but which one was accelerating would be a matter of opinion.
The physical laws of our universe only become meaningful (or come into existance) in a universe of many particles
Actually, it was as a patent clerk, in the patent office
I was just getting used to the notion that QM set a lower limit to units of time -- something to do with Planck length.
You only say that because that's the only sort of universe you've ever lived in... You really should get out more, you know. =]
Where is that BS meter gif? Any physics paper that includes consciousness is bullsh*t.
That's an empirical consideration of a fundamental theory... for this guy's purposes, he doesn't give a flip!
(Which, of course, is not to say it's a bad question...)
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