How a Ball Breaks a Window
Here's a question I like to play with from time to time. I hope you physics guys can help me with it. I can place a baseball on a pane of glass suspended between two saw-horses and the glass does not break. I can then drop that ball from several meters above and whalla, the window shatters.
Now sure, it the falling ball has kinetic energy that it will impart to the glass pane whose atoms are so rigidly aligned they can't accept the energy transfer and hold shape so they break apart. But what does that mean, exactly?
Can anyone paint me a picture of this magical energy transference, and please not one full of one's, zeros and squiggles? Talking about pictures, here's what I don't get. I can take a photo of the baseball sitting on the glass and one of the baseball at the exact instant it contacts the glass and the photos are identical, and yet one will impart energy sufficient to break the glass and the other will not.
I'm interested in atomically what has happened? Have the atoms of the baseball acquired directionality in the forces that hold it, thus giving it a higher frontal energy than normal, causing a higher energy transference when it contacts the glass?
If I freeze time and walk over to both baseballs, the sitting one and the falling one and try to move them about, will the falling one feel like one of those spinning bicycle wheels you can hold between your hands and turn? Will it kick against me and try to maintain its directionality, while the other is passive to any movement? I think it might, but why? What has happened to the sub-atomic alignment of the falling baseball?
Now I do get relativism as much as a layperson can and might put a similar post to this one out there about accelerating objects. I get that through acceleration it has increased its mass (but don't really get it on an atomic level), but back to our baseball, even if it struck the glass with a zero acceleration but relative velocity, the question still stands what is different internally in baseball 1 vs baseball 2?
Thanks for indulging me, fire away.
Now sure, it the falling ball has kinetic energy that it will impart to the glass pane whose atoms are so rigidly aligned they can't accept the energy transfer and hold shape so they break apart. But what does that mean, exactly?
Can anyone paint me a picture of this magical energy transference, and please not one full of one's, zeros and squiggles? Talking about pictures, here's what I don't get. I can take a photo of the baseball sitting on the glass and one of the baseball at the exact instant it contacts the glass and the photos are identical, and yet one will impart energy sufficient to break the glass and the other will not.
I'm interested in atomically what has happened? Have the atoms of the baseball acquired directionality in the forces that hold it, thus giving it a higher frontal energy than normal, causing a higher energy transference when it contacts the glass?
If I freeze time and walk over to both baseballs, the sitting one and the falling one and try to move them about, will the falling one feel like one of those spinning bicycle wheels you can hold between your hands and turn? Will it kick against me and try to maintain its directionality, while the other is passive to any movement? I think it might, but why? What has happened to the sub-atomic alignment of the falling baseball?
Now I do get relativism as much as a layperson can and might put a similar post to this one out there about accelerating objects. I get that through acceleration it has increased its mass (but don't really get it on an atomic level), but back to our baseball, even if it struck the glass with a zero acceleration but relative velocity, the question still stands what is different internally in baseball 1 vs baseball 2?
Thanks for indulging me, fire away.
Comments (132)
But in one, the glass is not bending, nor the ball flattening. In the other, the snapshot looks completely different. The electrostatic bonds holding the glass atoms together are being visibly stretched towards the point where they could break. Even the ball is being tested on that score. It could have been the one to shatter instead.
Jake you are right. I guess I am wondering if there is a way to internally change the atomic energy configuration of a stationary object so that it suddenly acquires velocity or acceleration. I mean, the falling baseball is in an energy field created by gravity, but what has that energy field done to the ball to cause it to move? Has it dragged the own energy fields of the atoms in the ball assymetrically, thus giving directionality to the atoms and creating movement?
If I understand correctly, the falling ball has kinetic energy. In relation to the atoms in the glass, the energy is expressed as potential energy in the form of field mathematics. So the energy in the ball is not understood to transfer directly from the atoms of the ball to the atoms of the glass, because the fields are intermediary. So the energy of one object cannot be comprehended as transferring directly to another object.
The reason for this, I believe, has to do with the problem of conceiving of an object going from zero velocity to having some velocity in an extremely short period of time. You can see that if the object is considered to have zero velocity, then have a specific velocity, there would have to be a period of time, as the object leaves zero, when acceleration is infinite. I believe the very same problem is expressed from a different perspective in the uncertainty principle of the Fourier transform. In wave theory, the shorter the time period, the more uncertain is the frequency, so there is a time/energy uncertainty relation. In an extremely short period of time, the energy uncertainty approaches infinity.
The key equation is that the Impulse delivered over a period of time, which is the increase in momentum over that time, is equal to the time multiplied by the average force over that time.
Say the ball is travelling at 20 m/s and the window is 4mm thick. Then the ball takes only .004 / 20 = 0.0002 secs to pass through the space occupied by the glass. The bonds in the ball are much stronger than those in the glass, so the ball barely deviates and the glass is forced to move forward, at almost the same speed as the ball.
The mass of the glass directly in front of the ball would be around 30g. So the Impulse it has received in that 0.0002 secs is (20 - 0) * 0.030 = 0.6 Ns. Dividing by the very short time in which it was delivered - 0.0002 secs - gives an average force of 3000N, which is approximately the weight of a 300kg mass.
That force will be applied to the bonds connecting the circle of grass in front of the ball to the rest of the pane of glass. The force will be much greater than the strength of the electrostatic bonds holding the glass together, so the glass breaks.
In brief, placing a ball gently on the glass exerts a force only equal to the weight of the ball, say 5N. Throwing the ball against the glass at 20 m/s exerts s force of 3000N, which is 600 times as great.
However, I want to go bit further than a Newtonian explanation. Words like impulse and momentum while providing a great working schema, do not really address what is happening fundamentally. Even the idea of energy transfer really does not say much. Atomically - interatomically or subatomically what are those energy fields doing? How have them been altered to create the movement and resultant impact force?
Maybe I should repost this so the topic is a little clearer.
Now you don't have to repost! :) Stick with me. I'll give you some creative ideas to mull over.
What is a holographic energy field? Only reference seems to be to crackpottery - http://ambafrance-do.org/spirituality/24334.php
There subject was crackpottery want it?
Just to be clear, I love my neurons, or is it that they love me. Anyhow it is just a bunch of crackpottery, so why bother.
So you don't even believe in it yourself enough to try to defend it?
Now if you think of the mind using the brain a to project a reconstructive beam that is illuminating the interference pattern, then you have a a possible way of imagining how it all might be working.
Isn't this the same thing as Zeno's paradoxes of motion?
There are some excellent (but slow moving) videos on this subject on YouTube created by Stephen Robbins. If you are interested, you may be able to follow it, but a background on Bergson helps a lot. It depends upon how interested you are in this line of inquiry.
The main point is that the brain is like a TV set, it reconstructs but it's not the origin not is it the storage media. Robbins explains why.
hi, I think the arrow one might be closest to your OP (in that it discusses a specific moving object).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/#Arr What I meant by that is visualising time at instants. Being able to switch the balls. I'm not sure if being able to divide motion in such a way is possible, but the thought experiments exist.
If we took the arrow in flight analogy. I do want to freeze frame it, just like the paradox. But I want to swap it out for an arrow that is not in flight:One that I pull out of my quiver. When I release time again, the swapped out arrow will drop lifelessly to the ground while the in flight arrow will continue its flight.
As both arrows are identical in appearance, it is my contention that the difference between the two arrows must have to do with a difference in the energy fields of the atoms within the arrow. Could it be that an asymmetry in the energy field of an atom (pulling all the energy fields in a singular direction like a magnet) is creating the motion.
If we can accept this assumption then we can elaborate on it further to say, an initial change in the direction of the energy field creates acceleration. The restoration of the energy field thereafter maintains a velocity at the point of release, a further tug will cause further acceleration.
That being said, I can envisage a futuristic programmer typing a value and direction of the energy field into an object and causing it to spontaneously leap into a state of acceleration.
The problem applies to the movement of any object. If the object is at rest, then accelerates, there must be infinite acceleration in this time period. What this indicates is that this interaction cannot be properly accounted for with this conceptual scheme. Even if we theoretically break the object down into fundamental particles, the problem persists because it is inherent within the concept of energy.
Energy is conceptualized as the property of an object related to its existence in space and time. That energy transfers from one object to another is evident. How energy transfers from one object to another is an unresolvable problem. This indicates that the concept of energy is deficient, inadequate for a complete understanding of an object's existence in space and time, because it leaves us with an unresolvable problem.
Quoting MikeL
This is a good representation of the problem. If you "freeze frame" the moving object, you assume a point in time where the object is at X location. But this assumption automatically denies that time is continuous. The two are incompatible premises. If there are points in time then time is not continuous.
Energy is a property which is based in the premise of a continuous time. So if you assume a point in time when you might switch out the arrows, you also deny the applicability of the concept of energy. This allows you to claim, in your example, that you have robbed the arrow of its energy, invisibly switching it for one with no energy. By saying that you could "freeze frame" time, you've rendered the concept of energy inapplicable.
Quoting MikeL
The difference between the two arrows can be very simply understood now. The flying arrow is conceptualized as existing in a continuous time, and the evidence for this is the claim that it has energy. The arrow which you replace it with is conceptualized as existing in a time which consists of points, i.e. it is not continuous. The freeze framing of time is the premise which allows you to bring in that arrow. So the difference is that one is conceptualized as existing in a continuous time while the other is conceptualized as existing in a non-continuous time.
Quoting MikeL
The problem cannot be resolved in this way because you now utilize two distinct, and contradictorily incompatible concepts of time, one which conceives of time as continuous and the other which allows for points in time.
If we adhere to the idea that time is continuous, allowing for the concept of energy, then we must dismiss the idea that the energy passes from one object to another at a point in time because there are no points in this continuous time. So this must occur over a period of time. But this will reduce our capacity to conceive of energy as the property of objects. That is because if energy is transferred from object A to object B in such a transaction, we must now assume a time period when the energy is neither the property of object A, nor the property of object B.
It appears like the difficulty may be due to our conceptualization of "objects", so we reduce the problem by assuming parts of the object, and allow that in the period of time when energy is transferring from A to B it is the property of the parts of the object. But this does not resolve the problem because each part is itself an object which is subject to the same unresolvable problem. So the problem is really intrinsic to how we conceive of time and energy.
The mind divides motion for practical purposes which is why the mind invented symbolic representations. It is a way of freezing so multiple minds can share. But actual observation will reveal that duration (real time) and motion is continuous. This is again confirmed by Heisenberg's Principle and wave mechanics.
I do not believe it is possible possible to develop an ontologically sound metaphysics that is premised on divisibility of duration and motion. It's a brick wall and you are inviting in all kinds of problems, infinities, infinitesimals, and paradoxes, etc. But as an exercise, go for it. Learning is by doing.
The problem is, that to have an ontology which has the capacity to act as the basis of an epistemology, it is required that the ontology is premised on the divisibility of duration and motion, contrary to what you state here.
This is what you say in the prior post:
Quoting Rich
The multiple minds sharing which you refer to, is justification, which is essential to knowledge. So the problem you have here is that the cut and dried divisions, and static states of descriptions, which are required by the fundamental laws of logic, in order that we can have such a thing as knowledge, are exactly what you claim are a "brick wall" to an ontologically sound metaphysics.
Now you need to face the fact that either there is something fundamentally wrong with the laws of logic, by which we describe things, or there is something fundamentally wrong with your assertion that the divisibility of duration and motion is ontologically unsound.
Ontology describes what is and how one derives knowledge varies. Science at times may require divisibility for practical problem solutions, but such efforts have nothing to do with the ontological underpinnings. It is a super-huge error to elevate measurement solutions, such as Special Relativity, to ontological statements about nature, but for those who worship science that is what they do and all of a sudden you get backwards time travel. As far as I can tell there is no way to divide space and duration, but if one insists on trying, go for it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There are no such thing as the laws of logic and more so than the laws of nature, laws of physics, or laws of God. However, it sounds good, and gives it lots of gravitas. Who's to argue with Laws. In and case, the matter is not complicated and doesn't require laws and never has. The universe is indivisible, but humans, for various practical reasons have developed symbolic representations that can be manipulated as if it was divisible. There are no boundaries between this and that. It is a complete continuum. There is no such thing as the beginning and end of something.
I do agree that an acknowledgement of such an ontology does crash and burn lots of symbolic constructs that are suppose to provide paths to the Truth: e.g. logic, mathematics, scientific method, etc. But then again, I never put much into the notion of Truth.
You are confusing a problem of maths with a problem of reality. Calculations break down when they arrive at a singularity - a point of circular self-reference. But that's just calculations for you. Don't conflate the map with the territory.
We know how a hologram can be recorded in a material medium. How is it recorded in an immaterial one?
If we are to grant Bergson some subtlety of thought, then he was a holist taking a constraints-based view of temporal duration. He generalised the notions of time and memory so that the past is an accumulation of constraining information that conditions the present so that it has now its well defined degrees of freedom that constitute its future.
It is an organic and hierarchical model of why time unfolds with an entropic direction and a "cogent moment" spatiotemporal structure. The speed of light means that every event is constrained by a lightcone structure. The sun may have disappeared seven minutes ago. It is only now that its heat and gravity are a loss we can suddenly notice.
So sure, Bergson can be understood as another telling the systems science tale. But even he would be horrified by the mechanical crudeness of this hologram analogy. And if you aren't just taking that analogy literally, you will be able to say in what sense an interference pattern is being stored or recorded, without that being a claim that the mind or mentality is some kind of (im)material substance.
If mathematics is what we apply to reality in an attempt to understand it, and there is a problem with the mathematics which renders the reality incomprehensible, then there is a problem with the conceptual scheme. That's what I was saying, there is a problem with the way that we conceptualize these things. I wasn't saying that this is a problem of reality, whatever that might mean.
We derive knowledge from others, so our principles of communication dictate how we derive knowledge.
Quoting Rich
This is not true, because "what is", which is what you describe as the ontological underpinnings, is itself a division. It is a division between what has been (past) and what may be (future). So this point in time, which we call the present, which is also a necessary assumption to support the idea of "what is", and the basis for ontology, has "division" inherent within as the divider. Since division is inherent within the ontological underpinnings, then what is implied by this is that divisibility is an essential aspect of reality. In order that reality is actually divided, as it is between past and future, it is necessary that it is divisible.
Quoting Rich
This is an assertion which is totally unfounded. As I explained, reality is fundamentally divided between past and future. Furthermore, it is quite obvious that there are boundaries between things, and this is what allows me to pick up some food and eat it without eating the entire universe. Your claim of "no boundaries" is completely untenable.
If you want to "understand" the landscape you want to cross, you could chose an oil painting as your guide, or you might buy a map. Whatever you do, it's still a story about reality and not reality.
So no. Mathematical physics is smart in that it knows what it can leave out. It is not ignorant about what it then leaves out. It has already thought about the issue much more deeply.
That was Newton's very great genius. He knew what to leave out when everyone else - like Aristotle or Descartes - was saying you couldn't possibly.
The others were saying nothing could move unless there was something to actually there as a force to push it along the whole time. Newton said just accept inertial motion. And then when it came to gravity, throw away local pushing entirely. Just have action at a distance. Newton was as torn as anyone by this apparent lack of "philosophical" commonsense. But as a simplification it worked.
Ever since, science has understood the game. Anything we can conceptualise in a metaphysical sense is merely a mental crutch for the real business of model building. The intuitive images we have of waves or billiard balls or fluctating strings or whatever are just an aid to thought. We shouldn't start believing our own "free creations of the mind", as Einstein put it.
So sure, Newtonian mechanics might have a hole in the calculations right where at the instant where a force acts and a motion changes. But that was an inconsequential kind of hole - a necessary shortcut for the maths. The real holes in Newtonian mechanics were the ones later tackled by special and general relativity, and also quantum mechanics. There were consequential holes as well. Which were worth fixing.
Sharing it ideas is helpful in providing direction and clue, but ultimately one must rely on direct observation and intuition. This is how the Daoists accumulated their vast knowledge. Without direct experience too much is lost including that which cannot be communicated in any fashion and certainly b not via words or math.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No such division exists. It is a continuum. The division is artificial since duration continues without interruption. Call it b what you wish, it is all arbitrary with no hard boundary. It is for this reason that any symbolic approach will utterly fail and the search for truth and facts will equally fail. All is in continuous flux and cannot be frozen. You can try but then the infinities and infinitesimals will start popping up all over.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Try finding the boundary between the fruit, you, and the universe. Impossible. But keep trying.
For the time being though: Motion is relative, which is a good thing, because on both arrows I placed a tracker that is recording all the atomic information of the arrow. To the tracker the arrows are not in motion. The tracker is beaming information to a teleporter which through the trackers activates the teleportation of both arrows. When they materialise at the new destination I suspect the arrow in motion will continue to fly while the other won't. Is this a feasible work around for the pointilism vs continuous problem of time? If so, how can we account for the movement of the arrow in flight, or do you think they will both drop lifelessly to the ground?
The op is a question concerning what is left out. Sure you can say that as long as you can predict what will happen, it doesn't matter how it happened, but prediction does not provide an understanding of what is happening, and philosophers want to understand. Ancient people using mathematics could predict where on the horizon the sun would rise and set each day, as well as many things concerning the motions of the moon and planets, but they did not understand these motions. Modern physicists using mathematics can predict many things concerning the motions of electrons and photons, but they do not understand these motions.
It is this very attitude which you refer to, the attitude of leaving things out, because predictions can be made without resolving these little paradoxes, which moves us forward into a realm of misunderstanding and self-deception. It is self-deception because some believe that because predictions can be made, the phenomenon is understood, and others such as yourself seem to believe that understanding the phenomenon is unimportant so long as predictions can be made. But the philosophical spirit does not stop with the pragmatic of making predictions, it is the desire to understand. So things which appear as unimportant to the pragmatist, which one might be inclined to "leave out", are very important to the philosopher, because unraveling these little problems, these little paradoxes, is like working on a little puzzle which hides the mysteries of the universe.
Quoting Rich
But observation is dependent on words. To observe is to "notice", or take note of what is happening. This implies a description of what occurs. We can remember what has happened with mental images, but this is not very useful toward knowledge. So the capacity to accumulate vast knowledge relies on the power of description, which is a use of words.
And, I would go even further, to say "that which cannot be communicated in any fashion" cannot be understood. It is a necessary requirement of understanding, to be able to put what is understood into words. If you cannot put it into words, you do not understand it. And this points to the issue which apokrisis brings up with mathematics. Apokrisis seems to think that to model a phenomenon with mathematics such that predictions can be made, is all that is required in order to understand that phenomenon. I disagree because the things which the mathematical model leaves out are critical to understanding.
I agree that the subjective element, the direct observation and intuition which you refer to, is the most fundamental, because it is always an individual being who knows and understands. But referring back to the individual is inconsistent with your fundamental principle that there is no boundaries and therefore no individuals. The individual person's ability to understand the complexities of physical processes is capacitated by what is derived from others, communicated. We always build upon existing principles.
Quoting Rich
Are you claiming that the present, as the division between future and past, is an artificial division? How do you account for the fact that what has happened has happened, and cannot be changed, yet things which have not yet happened can be prevented from happening, or induced to happen? According to your direct observation and intuition, which seems to be of the utmost importance to you, do you not notice that there is a very real, and non-artificial division between past and future? I think your claim that "duration continues without interruption", and that time is a continuum, is what is artificial. because our direct observation and intuition tells us that time is a divide between past and future. How could such a division be a continuum?
Quoting Rich
I have no problem finding a boundary between the fruit and the rest of the universe. This boundary is what allows me to pick up the fruit and move it this way and that way, in relation to other things. It exists as a separate and distinct entity and therefore must have a boundary or else I could not move it in this way as a separate entity. What is impossible, and untenable, is your claim that this boundary does not exist. Such a boundary must exist or else I could not move the fruit in that way, as an individual entity. What do you think you see when you see an object? Are you not seeing a boundary?
Hellen Keller was able to sense way before she learned the words. Words are for sharing. I can observe a structure (a tree) and create a new rendition of that structure without naming it anything. Symbolism is not required to observe. What is required is memory of the observation. In fact, many times a memory, e.g. a dream, is indescribable. It is a feeling.
Actual direct one observation and intuition is all that an artist needs. A picture is worth a thousand words. Even music and dance can communicate feelings that words can never hope to describe. This is why I suggest that all philosophers who are truly interested in understanding the nature of nature, as opposed to understanding what Plato or Kant may or may not have meant, study the arts not the books.
Books makes one a slave of words and mathematics a slave of numbers. That is not nature. Nature is in sound, movements, and images.
I think that is a stupendously good piece of writing that highlights the differences between science and philosophy. However, I think the issue of thinking about the mysteries of inertial motion could perhaps be fruitful to science - it's a "boundary" issue between science and philosophy, I would say.
Let me see if I understand what you're asking. You have assumed a teleporter which positions the arrows at a particular place at each moment of time. One arrow would be positioned at each moment so as to appear as a continuous flight through the air, and the other arrow would be positioned so as to be dropping to the ground without any forward momentum. So you have described discrete, non-continuous motion. The arrows appear like still-frames at each moment of time, which give the illusion of continuous motion.
The still-frame of the arrow in its position constitutes a moment in time when the physical world exists in such and such a state. Between each moment in time, the teleporter is active preparing the next physical position of the arrow. So time is passing because the teleporter is active but no physical activity is occurring. The teleporter behind the scenes is active so time must be passing, yet no physical change is occurring. This activity of the teleporter constitutes continuous time, but the arrow only has physical existence at one moment and the next.
If I understand then, your question is how does the arrow get from one point to the next.
Individuals would be analogous to waves in an ocean. They are no hard boundaries but they are all there.Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. The present doesn't exist as it continuously moves into memory (the past). There is no way to freeze it. The future is an image in memory (the past) of some possible actions (Bergson's virtual actions).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The boundary is a cloud. There is no hard boundary though there is a continuum of substantiality. Physicists have acknowledged this in their research of particles. In fact, everything seems to be connected, even non-locally. Daoists arrived at the same idea but observing the macro and how everything flows from one to the other. I flow directly into the rest of the universe. There is no nothingness floating in between me and everything else.
Similarly time flows continuously. One cannot freeze it. This is what Zeno's paradox is all about. To create an ontology around freezing creates unresolvable paradoxes. Bohm once wrote where there are paradoxes there is something that needs to be looked at in an entirely new way. Spacel and time had to be looked at as indivisible, otherwise paradoxes abound.
Since the memory, is not the occurrence itself, then the memory is a symbol of the occurrence and memory is symbolism.
Quoting Jake Tarragon
I agree, and believe there are many such boundary issues. Resolution of these issues requires speculation and hypotheses (philosophy), as well as empirical trials (science). The nature of time, and the issue of continuous versus discrete motion, which MikeL appears interested in, is one such key issue.
Quoting Rich
How can the future be in the memory? That doesn't make sense.
Quoting Rich
But a boundary doesn't have to exist as a non-dimensional line, X on one side, Y on the other. Such a boundary would be unreal, artificial, because it would consist of nothing but an ideal. A real boundary between X and Y would consist of something which is neither X nor Y, but prevents the two from mixing. The piece of fruit, does not mix with the surrounding air to become a homogenous thing because the chemistry of these two keeps them separate. So "the chemistry" whatever that refers to, is neither the fruit nor the air, but is something else, the boundary which prevents the two from mixing.
I've been thinking a lot about your pointilism problem, and it seems like an easy fix. First, here's what I think the problem is. Between each interval there are an infinite amount of intervals. So 0.9 can become 0.99 can become 0.999 but never reach one. In a nut shell is that it? That an infinite amount of time would be required to transverse the infinite number of intervals?
If so, the easy fix would be to make time a quanta. Give it a fixed value, then you can summate it.
Yes? No?
Memory is fundamental. The words we use to attempt to describe it (always inadequately and too late) are our symbolic ways to sharing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Philosophically the way to resolve paradoxes is to flip ideas on their head. Zeno's paradoxes are resolved by simply observing that motion and time are indivisible. In other words the problems are created by giving divisibility ontological status. Ditto for paradoxes arising out giving Special Theory of Relativity ontological status and it is the reason (philosophically speaking) why STR can never be resolved with QM. STR it's designed to resolve measurement questions not ontological issues. Hence the Twin Paradox and all of the others (e.g. moving train in a barn).
The heart of Begson's philosophy is continuity of duration and space, which is why DeBroglie have him credit for quantum ideas that predated QM by several decades.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There is no boundary here. There is a gradual and not so gradual fall off in substantiality or compactness if energy. Food moves from substantial to unsubstantial via the digestive process which begins with the bite. What is left behind is still embedded in the energetic universe that surrounds us. It is a continues flow like a cloud forming rain (insubstantial to substantial) and the rain then melting into the ground. Never a hard boundary in this process of conversion.
I think the root issue of the OP is not about discrete vs continuous motion per se, rather it is motion itself - and I think MikeL has sort of acknowledged that. It's something that "bothers" me from time to time - the way I phrase it is "what the heck is the difference between two objects that move differently besides the motion itself?" Psychologically speaking, it seems that there should be some way of knowing the velocity of an object (moving in an inertial reference frame, for the sake of simplifying) by isolating the object and getting "intrinsic" information from it. This "information" would represent a "cause" of the motion. The object moving in space would be the "effect".
One angle of attack might be to think about Lorentz contraction. One could argue that the measured length is an "intrinsic" property of the object, and gives away the velocity. The measurement would have to be made over a short time of course, as in a photographic snap, say. But the information gleaned - the length of the object, is not a direct measurement of the velocity. Or is it?....
That's not exactly the problem, but it's an acceptable analogy. In theory, if two points are separate then there is an infinite number of points between them. In practise it is impossible to measure an infinite number of points. So as you point out there is a discrepancy between the way things are in theory and the way thing are in practise. That, I believe is your rendition.
Quoting MikeL
I don't think that this solves the problem because you would then say that a quantum of time passes, and value this quantum according to some physical change. But unless such a valuation could be supported by some real evidence, of real quanta of change, it would be purely arbitrary. So within each quantum of change, there would still be continuous change occurring which would have to be accounted for by some other means, and the states referred to at each point, constituting the quanta, would be completely arbitrary and artificial.
So for instance, suppose the motion or change which we are quantifying is my breathing. We could arbitrarily assume that each time I completely inhale, this constitute one quantum of change. So we have a series of states, at each point my lungs are full, and this repetition of similar states validates the assumption of the arbitrarily determined one quantum. However, we still have all the intermediary activity, and all the possible definable states in between these arbitrary designated points.
So any time we give time a fixed value like that, say X amount of time is equivalent to Y oscillation, it is an arbitrary quantum of time which is artificially designated. within that quantum there is still change occurring, and therefore time passing. Unless you can empirically determine that there is state, then no physical change for a certain period of time, followed by a different state, with no activity between, you have no empirical support for the assumption of a quantum of time. In other words, the assumption of a quantum of time is completely arbitrary and useless unless it is supported by physical evidence of such. But so far, it appears like physical evidence points to a continuous time like Rich argues for.
The logic indicates a need for quantized time, but until the evidence is provided for real physical quanta of time, any such designation is purely arbitrary and useful only according to the purposes for which it assigned (my breathing for example), and not representative of any real quanta.
Quoting Rich
A gradual boundary is still a boundary, and I think you are speaking nonsense calling this a "compactness" of energy. The energy cannot be compacted unless something compacts it, and this would be the boundary.
Quoting Jake Tarragon
I agree that the inertial information concerning an object is the information which is intrinsic to that object, but ironically this is the information which relates the object to its environment. So by describing in completion, the surroundings of the object, we actual provide a complete description of the object itself, and this is its spatial-temporal reality. We can conclude that this information exists within the object, as the object itself, or that the object actually is the information which describes its surroundings.
But that leaves us with the question of "in what form does this information really exist?". If we say that it exists as the object, we are just going around in circles. So we must plunge further into the object itself, until we have reduced it as near as possible to a non-dimensional point (apokrisis will deride this as reductionism) and then determine what is at this point. What is at this point is the same thing as "a description of its surroundings" but what is that?
There is a difference between continuity of substantiality and boundary. A wave is continuous with no point of demarcation. It continuously flows from one to another the difference being, shall we say, the amplitude. This is, btw, the essence of Bohm's quantum potential. The potential works via form not distance.
But "wave" refers to an activity of a substance, and that substance must consist of particles, and space between the particles in order that the wave can move. So the concept of a wave requires a duality of substance and space and a necessary boundary between these two. The wave itself may be described as continuous (assuming that it has no point of origin or completion), but the medium in which the wave exists cannot be continuous.
I have to say this, but such a description is anachronistic Newtonian. While I don't agree with Whitehead's analysis, on the basis of quantum mechanics and his own studies of Bergson, he did endeavor to eliminate the notions of particles and space and such and replace it with processes (activities). One way to think of electrons are as wave perturbations (large amplitudes). Such electrons do not occupy a definite space or time but are in constant in and out flux. This marries well with current understanding of particle theory.
The medium, if one can call it such, is interwoven with that which emerges from it. Bohm referred to it as the Implicate/explicate Order while ac simple analogy would be a wave emerging from an ocean, the ocean being the mind/consciousness.
This video posted in another thread discusses, near the end, the nature of processes and waves as opposed to particles.
https://youtu.be/6Uy5-mOGgC8
You may utilize wave analogies to describe things like electrons, as "wave-like", but that doesn't change what a wave is. A "wave" still abides by the same description, despite that description being anachronistic Newtonian. But it is wrong to refer wave-like things as an example of what a wave is, because these things aren't waves, they simply have some wave-like characteristics..
If one wishes to begin to form some sort of image in their mind of what the nature of nature might be, one must begin to think of the substrate as a continuity of wave forms as opposed to particles separated by .... what? The wave nature of the universe reveals itself everywhere in everything we observe and do. In dance and drawing and music, waves of rhythm are fundamental. Even the double helix is a wave. There are no points and there are no boundaries. However, we arbitrarily choose boundaries, e.g. the beginning and end of a bone or muscle, for the sake of sharing ideas but in reality the body is continuous. A problem at any point can create a problem anywhere else. This is the heart of holistic medicine - indivisible continuity.
The problem, as I said already, is that I think of a wave as a bunch of particles interacting in a certain way which produces the form of a wave, like a sound wave, or a wave in water. So there is no such thing as thinking of "wave forms as opposed to particles" because a wave form is a form that a group of particles has.
Quoting Rich
How could there be a wave form without points and boundaries?
The problem is that there is no longer any such thing as a particle. What we have is a wave that manifests itself in different ways depending upon how it is being observed. But quite literally particles no longer exist as a reasonable description of nature. Wave fields are closer:Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/what-is-a-particle
"What waves?
Waves are the best metaphor to understand particles and fields. Electrons, in addition to being particles, are simultaneously waves in the “electron field.” Quarks are waves in the “quark field” (and since there are six types of quark, there are six quark fields), and so forth. Photons are like water ripples: they can be big or small, violent or barely noticeable. The fields describing matter particles are more like waves on a guitar string. If you don’t pluck the string hard enough, you don’t get any sound at all: You need the threshold energy corresponding to an electron mass to make one. Enough energy, though, and you get the first harmonic, which is a clear note (for the string) or an electron (for the field).
As a result of all this quantum thinking, it’s often unhelpful to think of particles as being like tiny balls."
Do you observe boundaries between waves in the ocean? It is all continuous with differing amplitudes.
Rather than tiny balls, the processes of the universe should be imagined as such:
You seem to be missing the point, "wave" refers to an activity of particles, so it makes no sense to say there is no particles, only waves, because a wave is composed of particles, usually moving molecules.
A "field" is a mathematical structure so it still makes no sense to say that a wave exists in a field rather than in a substance composed of particles.
Quoting Rich
Notice the word "metaphor" here? Like I said, you are taking things which are wave-like, then trying to produce a definition of "wave" from these wave-like things. So you produce a definition of "wave" which doesn't require the wave to be a movement of particles. But this is nonsense because "wave" is used here as a metaphor, and you are trying to say that this metaphorical use of "wave" refers to a real wave.
Better represented would be there measurement of a what appears to be a particle is a manifestation of the experiment. A wave in the ocean may strike a rock and one may only perceive the strike on the rock (the perturbation), but that specific observation is a reflection of what the observer was looking at at. Had the observer shifted his gaze, he would see the complete wave. No particles anywhere it is all waves. Particles are remnants of some (not all) ancient philosophies.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Actually the worst possible metaphor, which is entirely anachronistic is the one you are using, that is a billiard ball-like particle. No such animal anywhere in modern physics though apparently the idea still persists in academic philosophy.
At about 22 minutes if this video you can see a simulation of quantum fields - no particles anywhere.
I have no idea why you keep insisting on particles. Such a notion is antiquated though unfortunately it is still part of some science curriculums.
You don't believe that the water consists of molecules of H2O? And do you not believe that the wave is an activity of these molecules?
Quoting Rich
No, I'm referring to molecules, and we all know that they are no billiard ball-like particles. Nevertheless they are particles. You are just creating a straw man position, claiming that when someone speaks of particles they mean billiard ball-like particles.
Quoting Rich
I wouldn't say that it is antiquated. The idea of molecules has not been replaced by anything yet.
The molecule is a formation of the wave. Here is a depiction.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7241/fig_tab/458975a_F1.html
The complete model that you are referring to is gone. It has been replaced by waves everywhere.
Here is how one artist depicts the human energy field:
I checked the reference, the depiction is of the "electron density" of a particular molecule, not a depiction of the molecule itself. I don't think you know what you're talking about. The electrons account for an insignificantly tiny portion of the overall mass of the molecule.
I don't think you know what you are talking about. The image represents density! What the heck more do you need??? It is continuous and dispersed as a wave in a pond of water. Density is continuous and dispersed. It is not a particle. Yet, you still insist on the 17th century billiard ball model. Me thinks that there is an emotional connection here somewhere. Let's drop it. There is nothing left to be discussed. When you are prepared to change, change.
The image is of electron density. Do you not understand that the vast majority of the mass of a molecule is found in the protons and neutrons, not the electrons?
Please note the similarity between the quantum wave potential and the image of molecule density. A wave is a wave is a wave.
Bohm's causal model says the probabilistic quantum potential field is very, very real, and propagates through distance and effects through form.
Looks like a molecule of water to me. How is that not a particle?
Quoting Rich
The separation is between one molecule and another, and it is this separation which allows a wave to propagate in water.
Ok, look at the molecule. That is how multiple molecules will look with differing amplitudes. BTW, non-locality and entanglement has been laboratory demonstrated at the molecular level.
For whatever reason you need to hold on the anachronistic particle view of the world, so hold on to it. When you are ready to change then change. My guess is that you have some matter-mind philosophy which is dependent upon particles.
As for me, I'm moving full steam ahead with very practical benefits. For one thing, I no longer have to deal with Zeno.
No. I'm just pointing out the beginner's mistake you are making about what a QFT picture of an atom or anything would represent. You are thinking of some actual substantial entity - like a wave. A scientist is thinking of the geometry of some collection of statistical predictions.
I agree MU makes the same mistake in complementary fashion. He thinks physicists really might believe fundamental particles to be dinky spherical objects.
You are both as wrong as each other in a perfectly complementary fashion.
Quoting Rich
Sure. Bohm gave it a crack and fair enough. But it fell at the first hurdle. It couldn't be relativised (without making unrealistic presumptions about Born probabilities). And given Bell's inequalities, there is no hope of recovering any kind of conventional determinism anyway.
So these days to be a Bohmian is a pretty surefire way of telling the world you are a crank. Much like going on about Bergson. And if you bring in Sheldrake, it's a slam-dunk. Bring on the dancing Wu-Li masters.
The point being that if there is no separation between molecules then a wave is impossible. Clearly the separation has not been obliterated or else waves would have been obliterated as well.
Quoting Rich
If we get rid of the particle view, waves become an impossibility, as a wave is an activity of the particles of a substance. If I did not support a particle view of the world, I could not believe in the existence of waves.
You seem to believe in some nonsense waves without particles.
No. It is a universal. It is the fabric. Imagine the ocean as the universe with waves and waves everywhere. First you must be able to imagine it. Right now, all you can imagine are billiard balls. There cannot be a discussion until you can imagine otherwise. I provided you b with the images, but you cannot universalize it. No matter how large, to wish to compartmentalize it, ultimately make the universe one large particle separated as such from what?
“The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
How is that for some analytical psychology?
Now, can you talk to your neurons and tell them I'm not interested in anything they are forced to say? Really, I am not at all interested. Just make your comments to someone else who is awe of you.
Sure, Bohm produced both good science and crackpot ideas. That is not unusual among mathematical/scientific geniuses. Newton was famous for his alchemy too. There are tons of such examples.
But that's OK because science is an institution designed to sort the wheat from the chaff like this. Bohm's good ideas are in the textbooks and did real things like help build nukes. His other suggestions quickly fizzled within science and now are only recycled - with little real understanding - among those who are fans of anything esoteric.
Bohm's pilot wave interpretation had scientific respectability for a while precisely because it was anachronistically materialistic. Like Einstein and many others - still in shock from what quantum mechanics had revealed - felt that science had got as far as it had by presuming reality to be local and deterministic. That metaphysics had really worked for 400 years. So why abandon it until you were really forced to. Bohmian mechanics was one attempt to not to have to change the deep metaphysics of physics. It was respectable on that score.
But it didn't pan out. Roll on 60 or 70 years it is broadly accepted that determinism and locality have to be junked as "images of reality". Or at least, the best they can hope for is that they are emergent features - how things look in the classical limit.
So to cling on to the past hope of yesterday's physicists is what counts as anachronistic materialism.
And mistaking the pictures of quantum field theory to be pictures of actual quantum fields, rather than field-like pictures of quantum statistics, doesn't make this less anachronistic. Whether it is classical particles or classical waves you have in mind, both are just as much old hat when it comes to what QFT is about.
I wish to remind you of Wilde's great insight into human nature. It is extremely insightful:
“The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography."
Forget about philosophy. You need to ruminate on your autobiography.
Unless you can explain to me how the waves in the ocean can exist other than as an activity of the water molecules, it is pointless for you to ask me to try to imagine such a thing.
Quoting Rich
I am all ready to imagine this universe of waves, but you have to explain to me how these waves exist if not as particles moving. Otherwise I will just believe that you are making unsubstantiated claims.
Quoting apokrisis
In case you haven't noticed, I'm talking about molecules not fundamental particles. How could I believe a molecule to be a spherical object when they are always depicted otherwise? As for fundamental particles, I don't think that physicists have any idea of what their physical form is. For all they know, they could be some form of wave interaction like Rich insists.
I've made a sufficient number of points against your position. If you have no answers, we can all draw our own conclusion.
The molecules are waves. I already told you that non-local, quantum entanglement had been demonstrated at the molecular level. Try to imagine a continuous wave. This is the universe of the quantum potential field. Everything is created within this and if course since it is continuous everything is entangled, and since the potential acts by form, action at a distance is part of the description. Bell's Theorem is a direct experimental evidence of the Bohm quantum potential.
Well you had a good go at me. Now its your turn. If you want to advance your own position, let's hear how you would defend it against my specific criticisms.
https://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n3/full/nphys3233.html
"Assuming that a notion of objective reality exists, our results thus strengthen the view that the wavefunction should directly correspond to this reality."
https://arxiv.org/format/1412.6213
I have not argued for materialism since grade school.
What we have is a quantum field which is embued with memory and consciousness. Everything is real. Everything is continuous. Everything is entangled. Everything is probabilistic with uncertain outcomes. In other words, the universe is exactly as we experience it.
I'd love to see the Nature reference on that.
(But then Nature is part of the establishment conspiracy against morphic field research, blah, blah, blah, pass around the tinfoil hats.)
You guys really know your philosophy, but I'd like to add to this boundary question the idea of 0.9 repeater. It goes on for infinity, but it never reaches 1. Surely 1 is a fuzzy boundary that is not crossed.
The latter was my original intent.
If we start with the premise that you can type an energy field and direction into an object and have it spring into acceleration - is that a feasible premise irrespective of time?
The former is a lot more confusing for me. To be honest with you, I spent an hour reading through the wave particle debate, got about half way through it and understood about half of what you were saying. But, it's great reading and I'll go over it a few more times before I'm done. I might ask you some questions along the way if that's ok.
Suppose you type in "100 m/s " ..... 100 m/s relative to what though?
hmmmm ... OK..... but do you really mean leaping into continuous acceleration or do you mean leaping to a steady velocity?
The boundary question is one of quantum interpretation. Quantum theory rejects the idea of a particle, and instead has replaced it with the concept of wave-particle. This is because quanta will sometimes act as a wave, and at other times will behave like a particle depending upon the nature of the measurement being performed. So there is no longer a concept of particle in quanta physics. There hasn't been such a thing in 100 years. It is more like a cloud that has no boundary. What's more, these quantum clouds appear to be entangled (continuous) and are able to act upon each other non-locally at a distance (laboratory observed at the molecular level).
The philosophical issue is that there is no longer is there a real material particle anywhere in quantum theory. If there is an objective-reality, the current evidence heavily favors that objective reality are probabilistic waves that act upon each other non-locally at a distance. In other words, no particle (probably wave perturbations manifest as particles), no determinism, no boundaries anywhere. This is the objective-reality. It is not an epistemological issue.
All this directly impacts the Zeno Paradox issues because not only philosophically but also ontologically one should jettison all notions of divisibility whether it be time or space. The arrow can never stop moving at a point in time. There is no such thing.
In regard to what appears to us as boundaries, you may consider it as areas of the universe that become more substantial (dense) and the recede to less substantial, back and forth maybe like shading in a drawing (which is actually a great analogy of what the substrate of the universe looks like).
Reality is a wave.
The basic premise is that the asymmetry of the energy of the atom creates the acceleration. This asymmetry would be resisted by the atom, which wants a relatively more steady state, causing it to restore the field around itself evenly resulting thereafter in a constant velocity.
You could even argue that the inputted energy was converted to the Einsteinian mass in order to restore equilibrium, but lets see if we can get past the first step first.
But if you wish, there is also academic philosophy which is sort of a logic game that can be fun, or there is scientific philosophy which is more or less a complete mess loaded with biases that apparently take at least 400 years or more to shake off. I'm not kidding.
Most of all, be patient, take your time, and do your own inspection of everything. The rewards for a great explorer are enormous.
The problem is that kinetic energy, being based on speed, is relative, because speeds are relative. You can't escape having to think about what the final speed is relative to!
Imagine a magnet in an electromagnetic field. We control the strength of the electromagnet causing the magnet to accelerate toward it.
Would you agree it is logically sound to suggest that perhaps there is an assymetry in the magnetic field of the magnet that is causing the magnetic block it to move toward the electromagnet?
....
Now, I’m no maths wiz, but have let reason and logic beat out a path through the years, that is probably filled with holes and contradictions or obvious and well known conclusions. But, hey, it helped kill time while waiting at the bus stop. So here goes the chain of logic, or part thereof. I’d appreciate it if you jumped in where you can and showed me why the logic doesn’t hold.
We know that when energy acts directionally on mass it causes acceleration. We know that when we release the energy input, constant velocity results (unless in some other interference field). The magnitude of this constant velocity is dependent on the point of release during the acceleration. The more acceleration it acquired the higher the release velocity. Thus as it continues on ad infinitum at this higher velocity relative to its buddy that didn’t get accelerated, it must be now be holding something inside it that makes it different to its buddy. We know its mass has increased because of the acceleration, so what happened?
There’s not much to play with for a non-quantum mechanist such as myself. We have mass and we have energy. We gave energy, the object acquired mass. Somewhere along the line the energy we gave was swapped for mass.
We know acceleration is a vector. The object doesn’t accelerate in all directions. The energy we gave it was directional. We acted on the atoms. We acted on the energy fields, directionally.
Is it not reasonable to suggest therefore that by adding energy and direction to the field of an atom we should be able to create an acceleration of the atom? Or that after releasing our own energy input, the energy field should restore and acceleration should stop? How about that restoration of the energy field stops the acceleration?
The object thereafter travels at constant velocity. Velocity isn’t affected by the removal of the energy input - it doesn’t dwindle down.
I think it is also reasonable to argue that the increased mass may have occurred in an attempt by the atom to restore the energy field by converting the excess energy to mass. The idea of Relativity is that acceleration is resisted.
The first little branch I want to snap off from this observation if you’ve made it this far with me is that: We have all these objects whizzing about in space at constant velocity relative to each other in different directions. Imagine the scenario that they are identical objects moving away from each other - by comparing the mass of two identical objects (arrows or balls), it should be possible to determine which object has the highest velocity relative to the other, which one is moving away the fastest.
If this is possible, it should be also be possible to create a hierarchy of energy states for identical objects and perhaps even come out with a baseline energy configuration (lowest mass), therefore grounding relativity at reference point (Uh oh, points again).
The second little branch would be that by observing the internal energy state of an object it should be possible to determine the magnitude and direction of acceleration of an object without actually calculating it over a distance. We don’t need observed motion.
The next part of this I want to discuss is Time and motion.
I also find it interesting that Time does not interact with objects of constant velocity (except maybe to age them). The bending of space, the creation of mass, all has to do with Time and acceleration, and it acts to shut the acceleration down.
Time treats constant velocity object and stationary objects the same. It leaves them alone. To Time, both are moving through Time at the same speed. You could argue that to Time, both could be either moving or not moving and it wouldn’t know the difference. It can’t differentiate. If this is the case, then Time can’t sense the traversal of Space (spacing). We could therefore surmise that all non-accelerating objects may exist in the same location relative to Time (a point).
It is not until you disturb the energy field of an object that Time sees it move. Perhaps to Time, a constant acceleration is akin to a constant velocity (this is a similar situation to that which occurs when we differentiate or integrate an x out of the equation).
Another way to look at it is: We know that to an accelerating object Time slows, so to Time, an accelerating object must move.
This different action of Time on identical objects (accelerating v non-accelerating), suggests that Time has more than one dimension. We (you and me) are receiving the watered down version of it that allows us to age as our systems break down, but the real action of Time is on acceleration.
Because it seems we can reach this state by supposing some differential or integration has occurred, it makes me wonder what else would appear or disappear if we did the same thing again at either one of these levels?
If acceleration is seen by Time as velocity, then what would be the equivalent of acceleration? If Time is a watered down version for us, then what is it if we water it down further? What disappears?
Just a short note on our previous discussion of time and its divisibility:
I've tried to think of infinitely sharp razors cutting the infinitely divisible time and it's got me nowhere, so like Rich suggested, I've jettisoned the idea for now.
But Time is continuous not like a flowing river, but like a piece of string. The stationary arrow or the shot arrow both move along the string at the same speed relative to Time (except when the arrow was accelerating). If I can swap out the stationary arrow, why can’t I swap out the moving arrow?
Let me put this in Newtonian terms so that I can understand. To begin with, it is not energy which acts on the object, it is force. The amount of force is equivalent to mass times acceleration. At a constant velocity the object has momentum, which is mass times velocity. If you insist on saying that the object must "now be holding something inside", when it has momentum, you could say that it has kinetic energy. But you could just say that it's holding momentum inside. How do you conclude that acceleration causes the mass of the object to increase?
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/difference-between-energy-and-force.7356/
Fair enough. You could say it is holding momentum, kinetic energy, a Jedi Forcefield. I don't care. What is it? Can you point inside the atoms and say, other there is the kinetic energy?
Note that both constant motion in a straight line is inertial, and so is a steady rotation. And both reflect the basic symmetries of space - translations and rotations. So energy is conserved - it costs nothing to keep on moving forever in these ways - as essentially the motions make no difference in the world. They look the same if you somehow shifted your moving line or spinning point a little to the left or right. That is, it is all Galilean relative. It could be that the background spatial frame moved as a whole rather than your line or dot.
So inertial motion is intimately connected to the fundamental fact of symmetry maths that differences that don't make a difference ... well, don't make a difference. They are cost less or energy conserving. The rolling ball can roll forever, the spinning top can spin forever, as really - within their inertial frame - no one can tell which is really moving, the ball/top or the space that is the background. It is all (Galileanly) relative.
Nice try to restore classical physics but space and time don't work like that in the large. Locally, and relative to one observer - yes. I am a beginner on relativity, but I think it is essential to try and grasp what the implications for space and time not being absolute are. (Bertie Russell does a good job IMO in one of his Sceptical Essays - the one called "Philosophy in the 20th century). It's a tricky journey and I am still making it!
It's a useful insight i guess but doesn't really help explain whether velocity is intrinsically encoded within an object, rather than measured as an effect over time.
I had a quick look at Noether's theorem on YouTube, and I don't think my ideas violate any conservation rules. And I realise that mass increase is relative to the observer, but everyone is the observer, which means it mass increased, period.
I as of yet can't see why my logic doesn't hold.
You may not realize it, but you have hit upon the reason Special Relativity has no ontological relevance. There is no Twin Paradox because there is no preferred frame of reference.
This may make no sense to you right now, because you are beginning your investigations. Just remember your insight because it is on the right track. In a nutshell, Relativity addresses transformation of measurements and its description of space and time are not real space and time. They are only symbolic. Just remember this. I think it may be too early for you to entirely grasp it.
That is why symmetry principles are the deeper level of explanation for physics. It is about the very way a symmetry could even be broken.
The simplest notion of space has those two irreducible symmetries - translations and rotations. Those define the motions that don't make a (relative) difference in the global scheme of things. They are inertial and energy conserving. And so they are the baseline of any action.
The misconception probably at work in this thread is the usual folk physics idea that the natural state of things is to be at rest. You start by assuming stillness to be the rule, motion to be the exception. No motion without a cause, as Aristotle famously argued.
But since Newton made it explicit, any "rest" or zero velocity is just a relative state of inertial motion. To see a body as standing still is an observation that requires fixing the global context that could make it so.
It is like watching a car go past. I can make that car stationary relative to me by running just as fast alongside it. A lack of motion is just a point of view.
This then became really obvious after mechanics was relativised and spacetime united. It was shown that lightspeed was an upper bound on motion. So rest became relative to c. That is, scaled by 1/c.
The idea of "being at absolute rest" as the baseline metaphysical condition of things has been replaced by the understanding that rest is just another relative state of motion. It is the least amount of motion possible, just like c is the most, for any object with inertial mass.
So the invariance people sought in the concept of absolute rest is now found in the more basic question of what could even disturb the state of a spatiotemporal system in a way that is detectable. And translations and rotations are intrinsically undetectable. You can't look at a point and tell if it is spinning or moving, or instead, if it is standing still and you are the one doing the moving and the rotating.
It now takes an acceleration - some relative energy change - for this symmetry between an observer and the observed to be broken in a way both can experience.
OK, here is one way of looking at this: "The object has momentum". Here is another way of looking at this: "The object has kinetic energy". Each of these is a statement which relays information about the object. It is not necessary to believe that the information is intrinsic to the object, because the information is purely conceptual. In one case the information concerns the concept of "momentum" and in the other case it is the concept of "kinetic energy". Each of these is a concept within human minds, "momentum" and "kinetic energy", so it would appear that it is impossible that this information is inherent within the object,
However, it may be the case that the "object" itself is purely conceptual. Then we would have to say that the concept "object" inheres within the concept of "momentum", and also within the concept of "kinetic energy". Whenever we refer to momentum or kinetic energy it is implied that there is an object which has this property. So we can say that "object" is within the definition of "momentum", and "kinetic energy", just like "animal" is within "man". This is Aristotelian logic. Object is within kinetic energy like animal is within man.
Is that physics or metaphysics, may I ask? I mean, it is possible from string theory to have universes of space without time I believe ... and 4 dimensional universes with 2 dimensions of time ...
The best sort then :)
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-static-electric-field-conservative
"Any field that has no means of dissipating energy is conservative. This is stemming from the law of conservation of energy. To be non-conservative, there must be a mechanism to convert energy to another form, since even non-conservative fields must conserve energy as a whole, with dissipated energy included. Thus a non-static field can radiate away energy or dissipate is as heat in eddy current in conductors, while a static filed has no dissipation mechanism. The most common way of energy dissipation is a conversion to heat, usually by friction, eddy currents and magnetic cycle hysteresis." (me: we know particles are field eddies, we know there is heat in the universe)
"Being conservative relates to path independence or lack thereof. If you move a charge from point A to point B within an electric field, the energy gained or lost must be the same regardless of the specific path taken through space between these two points. If it's path independent, then the field is conservative." (me: velocity of an object)
? The universe is a non-conservative field – meaning there is a mechanism to convert energy from one form to another form.
? Particles created in non-conservative fields display conservative field properties, except in the case of acceleration. They are path independent at a constant velocity through space (the same amount of energy is used to get from A to B regardless of the path taken) with no way to dissipate their energy.
? When a particle is accelerated, it behaves like a non-conservative field and begins to convert energy so it now interacts with space and time fields.
? Acceleration of a particle occurs when it is affected by another field (eg gravity)
? Rather than dissipating energy though, the particle gains energy as it accelerates.
? The universe is nothing but fields and so a particle must constantly be in a state of flux between being a conservative and non-conservative field.
? We would expect to see many high velocity objects (approaching C) in our universe relative to each other because of a net gain of velocity through acceleration: assuming that for at least half of all particles the net sum of acceleration is positive.
? Particles at constant velocity behave like static fields, and seem to violate the observation that all fields move at the speed of light.
? The idea that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light could really be reworded as, everything is travelling at the speed of light except particles, which will never reach it.
An electron has its own electron field but is part of the electromagnetic field. [Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVQfWC_evg]
I have tried to devise a thought experiment to try to understand why a particle can’t go faster than the speed of light, or faster than the field it is in (which is moving at the speed of light) and the experiment is suggesting it can, so I need some help.
Imagine a conveyor belt. When I turn on my machine the belt will be pulled in a circular fashion. This is our field. For convenience, now let’s make that rubber conveyor a piece of rope. At part of the rope I loop it around a pencil I am holding. I turn the machine back on and the rope runs over the pencil, creating a standing loop- a particle.
Now it is also true that I can run my pencil up and down along the string, moving the position of the loop. If I go backward along the rope the field takes on a faster value (which for a field would mean the particle is travelling faster than the speed of field, C)
However, if I move at the speed of the rotating string, the string will not flow over my loop. Both loop and string will be stationary with respect to each other. This would be the equivalent of going at the speed of light. If I do go faster than the speed of the string, the field/string does not break, but rather begins to flow backward relative to the loop.
The loop would experience a flow counter to the actual direction of the field that is creating it. But so what? I’m confused at this point. The loop should still hold its integrity but the rules suggest.
1. The loop can be a standing loop with no motion
2. The loop can move in the direction of the field but not at a speed greater than the overall speed of the field.
This is a very small range. Can we justify these rules with this analogy?
Is the argument that there is nothing to move the loop that fast or counter to the flow? If so, my counter would be, what is there to cause the loop to move at all? If we cannot travel faster than the speed of light, we should not be able to travel at all (V should = 0) :=0
Any takers?
A baseball breaks a window because the ball has enough kinetic energy to push/bend the glass far enough to separate its silicon-dioxide molecules enough to break the bond between them.
(Strictly speaking, window glass, usually soda-glass, has other mineral compounds mixed with the predominant silicon-dioxide, to achieve the glass state at a lower temperature, lower melting-point, and better workability).
Michael Ossipoff
I like this, Rich. You are a poet or a mystic of the continuous whole. Do you like Parmenides?
[quote=P]
How could what is perish? How could it have come to be? For if it came into being, it is not; nor is it if ever it is going to be. Thus coming into being is extinguished, and destruction unknown. (B 8.20–22)
Nor was [it] once, nor will [it] be, since [it] is, now, all together, / One, continuous; for what coming-to-be of it will you seek? / In what way, whence, did [it] grow? Neither from what-is-not shall I allow / You to say or think; for it is not to be said or thought / That [it] is not. And what need could have impelled it to grow / Later or sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus [it] must either be completely or not at all. (B 8.5–11)
[What exists] is now, all at once, one and continuous... Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike; nor is there any more or less of it in one place which might prevent it from holding together, but all is full of what is. (B 8.5–6, 8.22–24)
And it is all one to me / Where I am to begin; for I shall return there again. (B 5)
[/quote]
I'm not saying that I agree with you, but I appreciate the charm of the vision as I understand it.
This is a most crucial idea. The wholeness of nature and being. However, it I've comes to it by simply reading it, one can never wholely embrace or fully believe it. I've must come to it by actual experience of wholeness, by full observation and practical applications. Via this method one thoroughly understands and proceeds. I am a very practical person who discards that which doesn't present more and embraces that which leads to greater understanding.
Thanks for sharing the passages with me. I believe at one time I had read Parmenides when I was much younger, one of several philosophers who have probably affected the course of my life.
I'm starting to see where you're coming from. I don't know much about Schelling, but I think he thought that everyone was one in the "absolute." Existence or Being is thinkable as a unity is always "distorted" when it is analyzed or broken up. Every "analysis" is a "lie," one might say, even if such analyses are necessary for practical reasons or justified in terms of theoretical pleasure.
I'm also interested in continuity and its relationship with the discreteness (math, for instance). In case you haven't seen this:
[quote = Weyl]
… the conceptual world of mathematics is so foreign to what the intuitive continuum presents to us that the demand for coincidence between the two must be dismissed as absurd. (Weyl 1987, 108)
… the continuity given to us immediately by intuition (in the flow of time and of motion) has yet to be grasped mathematically as a totality of discrete “stages” in accordance with that part of its content which can be conceptualized in an exact way. (Ibid., 24)[14]
The view of a flow consisting of points and, therefore, also dissolving into points turns out to be mistaken: precisely what eludes us is the nature of the continuity, the flowing from point to point; in other words, the secret of how the continually enduring present can continually slip away into the receding past. Each one of us, at every moment, directly experiences the true character of this temporal continuity. But, because of the genuine primitiveness of phenomenal time, we cannot put our experiences into words. So we shall content ourselves with the following description. What I am conscious of is for me both a being-now and, in its essence, something which, with its temporal position, slips away. In this way there arises the persisting factual extent, something ever new which endures and changes in consciousness. (Ibid., 91–92)
By 1919 Weyl had come to embrace Brouwer’s views on the intuitive continuum. Given the idealism that always animated Weyl’s thought, this is not surprising, since Brouwer assigned the thinking subject a central position in the creation of the mathematical world[18].
In his early thinking Brouwer had held that that the continuum is presented to intuition as a whole, and that it is impossible to construct all its points as individuals. But later he radically transformed the concept of “point”, endowing points with sufficient fluidity to enable them to serve as generators of a “true” continuum. This fluidity was achieved by admitting as “points”, not only fully defined discrete numbers such as 1/9, e
e
, and the like—which have, so to speak, already achieved “being”—but also “numbers” which are in a perpetual state of “becoming” in that the entries in their decimal (or dyadic) expansions are the result of free acts of choice by a subject operating throughout an indefinitely extended time. The resulting choice sequences cannot be conceived as finished, completed objects: at any moment only an initial segment is known. Thus Brouwer obtained the mathematical continuum in a manner compatible with his belief in the primordial intuition of time—that is, as an unfinished, in fact unfinishable entity in a perpetual state of growth, a “medium of free development”. In Brouwer’s vision, the mathematical continuum is indeed “constructed”, not, however, by initially shattering, as did Cantor and Dedekind, an intuitive continuum into isolated points, but rather by assembling it from a complex of continually changing overlapping parts.
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weyl/#DasKon
On the hand, we need math as a tool, so I think it's justified to use the math that ended up winning that famous metaphysical war. Still, this might make for a nice version of calculus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth_infinitesimal_analysis
As you suggested, mathematics is practical but can also be highly detrimental if carried into a ontological context. In such a case, life and nature are totally misunderstood with unhealthy results in the spiritual, mental, and physical realms or bandwidth.
Well I suppose we have more in common than I supposed, even if we have different ways of expressing it. I also strive toward a holistic metaphysics that does justice to our lived experience of "flow."
I'm with you on the skilled observation of life. I like a descriptive approach. Yes, arguments have their place. But often it's just a matter of paying attention, noticing something, and pointing it out. In both Taoism and in early Heidegger, for instance, there is the idea of the ready-to-hand. We often meet the things in the world in a non-theoretical sense. We know how the use them. When we use the hammer (a famous example), it "disappears" in our hand as we focus on what we want to do with it. The "how" of its being has little or nothing to do with the usual theory of objects. Similarly, not-doing is the ideal kind of doing. We have mastery when we no longer have to try.