But someone went out of the way to curve the light away from the gravity first, then used gravity to bend it towards...a total lack of internal consistency...shamefulll...
Was it him, Николай Лобачевский?
Did you guys get this constancy thing worked out?
Here's a question. Newton had an absolute called time. Einstein relativized that absolute and put in its place his own. The history of science is a history of debunking, or better, seeing differentially into (relativizing), absolutes.
What gives Einstein's absolute special status?
In any event, it seems to me that 7 was right in his OP to say the speed of light is not constant. I'm unsure he hit the nail on the head, but quantum physics implies that no measurement will give the precision that the ever-precise C conveys. The speed of light is therefore only constant in theory---in other words, C is a counterfactual, ever-indeterminable absolute in Einstein's relativity. Am I missing something?
Here's a question. Newton had an absolute called time. Einstein relativized that absolute and put in its place his own. The history of science is a history of debunking, or better, seeing differentially into (relativizing), absolutes.
What gives Einstein's absolute special status?
In any event, it seems to me that 7 was right in his OP to say the speed of light is not constant. I'm unsure he hit the nail on the head, but quantum physics implies that no measurement will give the precision that the ever-precise C conveys. The speed of light is therefore only constant in theory---in other words, C is a counterfactual, ever-indeterminable absolute in Einstein's relativity. Am I missing something?
Yes, part of quantum mechanics says that there's a "plank length" and a "plank time" that are theoretical lower limits on measuring distance and time, and any measurement has at least this amount of uncertainty.
Here are a couple of fun javascript thingies that demonstrate (among other things) the Plank distance. Just drag the scroll thingie all the way to the left to see the plank distance.
These both have new-agey music (the first reminds me of Led Zeppelin's "Thank You"), that start up when you go to the site, and I don't see how to turn off the sound on the first one, so be warned.
Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
The Scale of the Universe 2
The plank length is shown as 10 to the power of -35 meters, a rather small value. If you measure the time it takes light to travel one meter, you can only measure it to 35 significant figures because of the uncertainty at the plank length. But practically speaking, this is many orders of magnitude better than we can measure any constant (I think current best measurements are around 10 significant figures), and better than I could imagine humankind being able to measure in the foreseeable future.
So yes, theoretically we can never know the super-dooper-EXACT value, but practically we're nowhere near where that could be a problem.
As far as any philosophical implications, I never studied philosophy, so anything I said about it would just be wild speculation.
Here are a couple of fun javascript thingies that demonstrate (among other things) the Plank distance. Just drag the scroll thingie all the way to the left to see the plank distance.
These both have new-agey music (the first reminds me of Led Zeppelin's "Thank You"), that start up when you go to the site, and I don't see how to turn off the sound on the first one, so be warned.
Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
The Scale of the Universe 2
The plank length is shown as 10 to the power of -35 meters, a rather small value. If you measure the time it takes light to travel one meter, you can only measure it to 35 significant figures because of the uncertainty at the plank length. But practically speaking, this is many orders of magnitude better than we can measure any constant (I think current best measurements are around 10 significant figures), and better than I could imagine humankind being able to measure in the foreseeable future.
So yes, theoretically we can never know the super-dooper-EXACT value, but practically we're nowhere near where that could be a problem.
As far as any philosophical implications, I never studied philosophy, so anything I said about it would just be wild speculation.
The implications are quite large, actually. Newtonians said things like "we're nowhere near where that could be a problem." Actually, they were nearer than they recognized, because the very thing that prevented them seeing what Einstein saw was their blindness to the implications of a non-absolute time: they were blinded by practical limitations built into supporting an absolute they wanted to protect. The same essential thing happened with Galileo, Copernicus, etc. For Newtonians, a quick ingestion of light speed constancy cleared their blindness pronto and paved the way for doing what we can with relativity (large) and what they simply couldn't. My point is: how can you know where you are in relation to a problem when you can't see the problem? We could be standing right on it.
So what's this constancy stuff when light speed measures submit to quantum uncertainty? "Constant" becomes a function in a theory that, by its very nature as a system of axioms, remains incomplete, per Gödel. The constant therefore doesn't describe something real. Things are much more subtle than that.
So what's this constancy stuff when light speed measures submit to quantum uncertainty? "Constant" becomes a function in a theory that, by its very nature as a system of axioms, remains incomplete, per Gödel. The constant therefore doesn't describe something real. Things are much more subtle than that.
Actually, Newton himself did not share point of view of that Newtonians. Newton did have some revolutionary point of view, but in his time nobody would dare to do what Einstein did: it was easier to invent own scientific model instead of an old one, than to offer scientific model while Church had such power and pretension on Ultimate Truth.
Yes, Newton was himself revolutionary. His understanding threw off the old (scientific) order. His new understanding was then implemented and, in predictable stage-specific behaviour, a new regime of believers---the new scientific Church---took control of the reins in that process. It was those Einstein had to overthrow, believers as they were in what they received from another more creative person (Newton) as true. This is the nature of non-linear paradigm change.
DIY, for its part, has a large population of believers. Good. They're serving a useful function.
DIY, for its part, has a large population of believers. Good. They're serving a useful function.
Conceptual structure requires an absolute, as can be seen in your statement "there are no absolutes in science," which is an absolute statement which, furthermore, if true, implies science has an absolute (by the absolutivity of its relativity) or, if false, posits that science has an absolute. Regardless, all scientific theories have an absolute as part of their conceptual structure, and typically more than one. Einstein has a few absolutes: the constancy of the speed of light, space-time, perhaps others.
Einstein isn't science.
Science isn't logic.
Knowledge of an absolute requires absolute knowledge. You may say, "all scientific theories have an absolute as part of their conceptual structure," but since it's a theory it can't have a true absolute, only a theoretical absolute. Which I would not contest.
Oh of course. These absolutes, or one or more of them, are what pop when a given theory goes bust. Why do they pop? For the reason you imply: that which is absolute cannot be described, and any theory that describes an absolute as X has finitized the infinite. That's called a bad case of contradiction. Expect a few pops in relativity, that's for sure.
And an interesting thing about these popping absolutes is that the world after looks irreconcilably different. I mean, to a staunch Newtonian, the universe was empty, time was universal, matter was eternal, and thingness couldn't be known (relations were external). Einstein ditched all that in penning relativity. Matter is not absolute, it's convertible. Time is not universal, but frame-particular. The universe was *filled* with gravity (spacetime) and lightwaves. And thingness doesn't really exist.
Quantum physics leapt yet again, this time in a meta-leap beyond the causality underlying both the Newtonian and Einsteinian scientific worldviews. Pop pop pop is the sound of non-linear change, black swan stuff, punctuated equilibria, Kuhnian revolution, our current financial system (and aren't they absolute up there?), etc.
Quantum physics leapt yet again, this time in a meta-leap beyond the causality underlying both the Newtonian and Einsteinian scientific worldviews. Pop pop pop is the sound of non-linear change, black swan stuff, punctuated equilibria, Kuhnian revolution, our current financial system (and aren't they absolute up there?), etc.
Einstein did not assert that C was "constant" because he or anyone else measured it to an absolute precision...rather he came to understand that C was the fundamental entity through which space and time were interrelated. His assertion did not depend on absolute measurement precision, just a proper insight into the way the universe is constructed. Someone may discover in the future that this structure becomes discontinuous at fine scales or that space is in fact digital...that will still leave us with an Einsteinian universe at macro scales just as the vast majority of technical kinematics is analyzed in a Newtonian framework a century after Einstein's revolution.
I think the NIST guys are at 16 or 17 on time. Somewhere there's a story about measuring time dilation from a four story elevator ride.
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