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FQXi FORUM
CATEGORY: Essay Contest
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TOPIC: Time Is Local by Sandra E. Baron
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The voting deadline has been extended to January 1, 2009.
Please vote for your favorite essays soon!
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Essay Abstract
Time is a local background created for and by processes. In the quantum realm, the concept of local does not always hold. That is why the concept of time doesn’t always hold.
Author Bio
Sandra Baron is a biologist with a research emphasis on rare plants. She has a BA in Biology from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Biology from San Jose State University. She has had a lifelong interest in theoretical physics and all things science, and created a blog for her musings at physicsmuse.wordpress.com
Download Essay PDF File
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To quote you:
"Time is easy to track in the macro world, but it is not so easy at quantum scales. Where
the quantum and macro worlds interact, the quantum parts seem to get dragged along (in
time) with the macro object or process. If time is local, than there will always be a
complex web of local times associated with parts of systems, similar to the complex web
of gravitation between things. These webs may be too complex to crack."
What do you mean by: "the quantum parts seem to get dragged along (in time) with the macro object or process" ?
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Good question. It was just a reflection on the fact that events seem to happen smoothly without apparent conflicts at different scales. If we scale down from macro to quantum, do we ever see parts left behind, or jumping ahead of the whole? Maybe we do, and that is the quantum time problem. I thought that the quantum elements studied by physicist are generally independent particles or particle collisions. Has anyone tracked an event through time at two or more scales to look for temporal inconsistencies?
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Logically, either the local times of the parts of the system have to “add up” to the local time of the system, OR the parts would be in different times relative to the system. But, is this really a problem? If there is no flow of time “out there” no background time, then even if the times of the parts do not “add up” to the time of the whole, if each part is in it own “now” that wouldn’t necessarily cause any conflicts, logical or otherwise.
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In the comment "Sandra wrote on Dec. 5, 2008 @ 18:45 GMT" you have wrote:
"If we scale down from macro to quantum, do we ever see parts left behind, or jumping ahead of the whole? Maybe we do, and that is the quantum time problem. I thought that the quantum elements studied by physicist are generally independent particles or particle collisions. Has anyone tracked an event through time at two or more scales to look for temporal inconsistencies?"
My opinion regarding this is that we can't see any parts left behind or parts that are jumping ahead, because when we measure a particle we see a "frozen frame" of that time from which we can't even predict how the particle will behave in the next fraction of time.
I think that the differences between the macro world and the micro world (subatomic) is that in the first one we can predict how a body will behave, but in the subatomic one if we can't even predict the next position of a moving particle in the next fraction of time, because every time we measure the particle we change its state.
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Your essay was very well written. I agree with your philosophy that time is change and I also think time must be considered locally in QM. Although I'm not sure I follow the logic that leads to your conclusions. The arrow of time in the macroworld is due to entropy. In the microworld "measuring" is a touchy word. To describe the state of a system there must be a complete set of commuting observables (CSCO) otherwise physicists run into uncertainty principles. Temporal inconsistencies do occur and often push the science forward like the time reversal violation of the kaon.
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Dear Sandra,
I liked your essay, with your arguments for time being local. The “complex web of local times associated with parts of systems”, as well as the subtle suggestion of fractal time, are very interesting.
Best wishes,
Cristi Stoica
Flowing with a Frozen River
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Thank you Brian and Cristi for your kind words. I am honored that you read my essay. Brian, regarding the arrow of time due to entropy, I have a big problem with that. I have no issues with the second law of thermodynamics, I just feel that physicists apply it too broadly, to the whole universe for example. It is a huge leap from "the entropy of a closed system never increases" to the idea that the universe started out in a high entropy state and is evolving to a lower one and that creates an arrow of time. I must also mention that the examples that perfectly good physicists use to illustrate entropy - the falling cup, the scrambled egg, are not really examples are they? The cup was pushed!
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DEar Sandra, you say:
and relationships between and within events create time
i would say: relationships between and within events create motion and material change that we experience into time that is a mind model.
yours amrit
| | attachments:
2_6._Consciousness_As_A_Research_Tool_Into_Space_And_Time.pdf,
2_Physics_Without_Time_as_a_Fundamental_Physical_Reality__sorli_2008.pdf |
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