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Time: is it "for realz"? A jolly good discussion lies within.
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what do you mean when you say "make sense"? i simply see relativity as a phenomenon where objects experience "time" differently depending on the speed at which they move. i dont see how this affects the "past" or "future" at all.
no, it doesn't show me that i don't understand relativity. it's a famous quote and i think it's hilarious that that greene took einstein's quote out of context and tried to apply it to his metaphysics.
einstein wrote that in a letter to besso's family after his friend besso died, trying to console them. the whole quote goes something like this:
einstein's quote only shows that he thought absolute time was an illusion (which was the prevailing thought of the time).
but that doesnt mean that events in the past, present and future can be actually "condensed" or "distorted" by an observer. it just means that how we experience time may be different from how others experience time.
personally, i really think you should just admit that you overstated the point in your zeal to write something about relativity.
You misunderstand Einstein. "Absolute time is an illusion?" What is that nonsense, and how do you get it from his quote in context? I overstated nothing; this is what relativity says. I'd personally take what a respected physicist has to say about relativity over your poor understanding.
I'm done arguing. But by all means, keep trying to overthrow the establishment.
now i really think you need to read up more.
Hence, what is that nonsense, and how do you get it from his quote?
hahahah.
you're the one who quoted greene using einstein's quote way out of context.
i'm just putting it back into the context of the time.
Greene just got done explaining how you're wrong. You have yet to give me a reason to believe you over him.
uh, no he didn't. are you sure you read that passage? it says nothing about condensing time, only about how various time slices exist together.
why don't we email him with this thread and see who he agrees with. hahahaha.
greene(at)phys.columbia.edu
Feel free. The only part of this thread (I'm re-reading his book because of it) that I am misguided about was that Blargle's condensing would not span the past AND future when he moved away from earth. It would condense the past if he moved away, and the future if he moved towards.
Everything else I believe to be an accurate rendition of his views. I'm curious, though; what part of "the reality encompasses all of the events in space-time" don't you understand?
Perhaps I should continue on in the book for you. I'm not making this stuff up.
So you're gonna tell me that you can read that quote, and the one preceding it, and tell me with a straight face you think Brian Greene is not saying time's flow is an illusion according to modern physics.
Er, just to be clear, are you saying that a strategically placed observer can see into my future? Because the last thing I bolded certainly seems to say so. I dunno, maybe you're just wording things really strangely and people are getting frustrated.
Actually, I think there's more to it than that. I'm not asking about simultaneity, just order. I seem to remember it has something to do with whether certain things are within certain light cones or something.
There is no way for information to be transmitted faster than light. No one could see into our future. That is why, in my original example on page one, I talked about how the entire phenomenon could only be retroactively compared to other events, after light has taken the time to get to the observer.
"Light cones" are the 45 degree cones outside of which events cannot be causally connected. They have to do with the experience of time, but they are descriptive. In other words, they merely help explain the relativistic effects I was talking about. A discrepancy between the order of events as perceived by two observers is caused by the bending of spacetime. Spacetime bends in the presence of gravity and acceleration (gravity is actually indistinguishable from acceleration, but that's another topic). So, if two observers are at rest with respect to each other, and close enough so that their light cones intersect, they will agree on the relative order of events.