🚀 go-pugleaf

hees@cubic.com (Phil Hees) writes:
: 
: Of course we agree that some clocks are better than others, and we do have
: an abstract concept of time which allows us to talk about measurement
: errors of even the most precise atomic clock.  Furthermore, without an
: abstract concept of time, how would one know how to design a good clock?
: One might wind up with a baloney instead.  ;)
: 
: But it is very important to acknowledge that time _is_ what clocks
: measure, and that length _is_ what meter sticks measure, lest one be
: mislead by a faulty abstraction.  Einstein's thought experiments involved
: putting real clocks, meter sticks and observers in various situations and
: determining what would happen to them.  If he hadn't believed that time is
: what a clock measures, he would never have formulated relativity; he would
: still be trying to explain why his clocks were misbehaving.

Time is the length of timelike worldlines. That's all. Just take
spacetime seriously, and the universe is yours.             : 
: Remember Mach's Principle.

Remember the Alamo.: 

Most people on sci physics have an idee fixe or two. Try posting
something of the form "Hey, I hear that the gurus at Princeton think
that the loop approach to quantum gravity is nonsense" if you doubt
this. :)

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