🚀 go-pugleaf

      One of the most profound (and absurd) assumptions of the new
physics is the existence of time _as real_. Einstein was aware of the
tenuous nature of this assumption, as he made clear in his statement
that 'time is what clocks measure'. In fact, clocks don't 'measure'
anything, they are just physical systems which we judge to be more or
less periodic by comparing them with other periodic systems. But if we
take five atomic clocks and synchronize them (itself only approximate)
we will find that they do not remain synchronized. Now, if one clock
is very much off from the others, we will say this clock is wrong, and
yet that may be the only one (if we had an even _more_ accurate clock)
which is right. The point is, we have no way to tell, no matter how
accurate our clocks are -- and, in fact, evidence shows us that no motion
is likely to be _perfectly periodic_: so where do we get this concept of
absolute time?

      Where we get it is from mathematical description. The measurement
of motion is obviously important, and so the variable of time (as measured
by a clock) enters into many useful equations. With Einstein, however,
we get time elevated beyond a representative of a clock reading to a
universal, along with space, to become spacetime. This happened subtley,
as the origins of the 't' variable were forgotten, and the abstract notion
disconnected from reality, then turned around and used to _project a reality
onto the world_! This, in fact, is the story of the new physics, in a
nutshell. Mathematical constructs reified. Geometry projected onto the world
as a non-physical cause of physical events. And time, in this absolute
'fourth dimension' sense, comes into being.

      With our entire cosmology wrapped around it, it is amazing to realize
that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the existence of time.
(Space in the geometrical sense is the same way.) This makes such notions
as 'time dilation' even more absurd, since they are predicated on something
else which itself has not been demonstrated. Of course, this doesn't stop
anyone from believing in it. Human beings are far more used to believing
in what they are told, and repeating it mindlessly, than in the skeptical,
questioning approach to forming a view of the world. That's why the world
of physics is dominated by relativists: the urge to believe, even in the
most absurd, groundless notions, far outweighs the urge to place even the
simplest analysis, as I demonstrated above, onto the objects of one's belief.

      John E. Snodgrass
      -----------------
      snodgras@crash.cts.com