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Previous Contests
What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
Wandering Towards a Goal
How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
read/discuss • winners
Trick or Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
January 9, 2014 - August 31, 2014
Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
It From Bit or Bit From It
March 25 - June 28, 2013
Contest Partners: The Gruber Foundation, J. Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners
The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
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RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC
Peter Jackson: on 10/6/12 at 19:04pm UTC, wrote Edward You confirm my own issues with sidereal and astronomical time...
DANIEL ALVES: on 9/28/12 at 16:01pm UTC, wrote Dear Edward I have read a lot of your papers, including your phd thesis...
Yuri Danoyan: on 9/8/12 at 0:23am UTC, wrote yuri@danoyan.net
John Merryman: on 9/4/12 at 2:28am UTC, wrote Edward, Since time is the subject of my own entry, I naturally had to see...
Edward Anderson: on 9/3/12 at 13:26pm UTC, wrote Essay Abstract ``It is utterly beyond our power to measure the...
RECENT FORUM POSTS
Joe Fisher: "Dear Dr. Kuhn, Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this..." in Can Time Be Saved From...
Jorma Seppaenen: "Dear Georgina, I think you are perfectly right about the estimate of age..." in Why Time Might Not Be an...
Joe Fisher: "Dear Dr. Kuhn, Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this..." in Can Time Be Saved From...
Georgina Woodward: "Yes. The estimate of age of the visible universe, and age of stars, other..." in Why Time Might Not Be an...
akash hasan: "Some students have an interest in researching and space exploration. I..." in Announcing Physics of the...
Michael Jordan: "Excellent site. Plenty of helpful information here. I am sending it to some..." in Review of "Foundations of...
Anonymous: "Excellent site. Plenty of helpful information here. I am sending it to some..." in Constructing a Theory of...
Robert McEachern: ""all experiments have pointed towards this and there is no way to avoid..." in Review of "Foundations of...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
Thermo-Demonics
A devilish new framework of thermodynamics that focuses on how we observe information could help illuminate our understanding of probability and rewrite quantum theory.
Gravity's Residue
An unusual approach to unifying the laws of physics could solve Hawking's black-hole information paradox—and its predicted gravitational "memory effect" could be picked up by LIGO.
Could Mind Forge the Universe?
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.
Dissolving Quantum Paradoxes
The impossibility of building a perfect clock could help explain away microscale weirdness.
Peter Jackson: on 10/6/12 at 19:04pm UTC, wrote Edward You confirm my own issues with sidereal and astronomical time...
DANIEL ALVES: on 9/28/12 at 16:01pm UTC, wrote Dear Edward I have read a lot of your papers, including your phd thesis...
Yuri Danoyan: on 9/8/12 at 0:23am UTC, wrote yuri@danoyan.net
John Merryman: on 9/4/12 at 2:28am UTC, wrote Edward, Since time is the subject of my own entry, I naturally had to see...
Edward Anderson: on 9/3/12 at 13:26pm UTC, wrote Essay Abstract ``It is utterly beyond our power to measure the...
RECENT FORUM POSTS
Joe Fisher: "Dear Dr. Kuhn, Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this..." in Can Time Be Saved From...
Jorma Seppaenen: "Dear Georgina, I think you are perfectly right about the estimate of age..." in Why Time Might Not Be an...
Joe Fisher: "Dear Dr. Kuhn, Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this..." in Can Time Be Saved From...
Georgina Woodward: "Yes. The estimate of age of the visible universe, and age of stars, other..." in Why Time Might Not Be an...
akash hasan: "Some students have an interest in researching and space exploration. I..." in Announcing Physics of the...
Michael Jordan: "Excellent site. Plenty of helpful information here. I am sending it to some..." in Review of "Foundations of...
Anonymous: "Excellent site. Plenty of helpful information here. I am sending it to some..." in Constructing a Theory of...
Robert McEachern: ""all experiments have pointed towards this and there is no way to avoid..." in Review of "Foundations of...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
Thermo-Demonics
A devilish new framework of thermodynamics that focuses on how we observe information could help illuminate our understanding of probability and rewrite quantum theory.
Gravity's Residue
An unusual approach to unifying the laws of physics could solve Hawking's black-hole information paradox—and its predicted gravitational "memory effect" could be picked up by LIGO.
Could Mind Forge the Universe?
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.
Dissolving Quantum Paradoxes
The impossibility of building a perfect clock could help explain away microscale weirdness.
FQXi FORUM
May 25, 2019
CATEGORY:
Questioning the Foundations Essay Contest (2012)
[back]
TOPIC: Machian Time Is To Be Abstracted From What Change? by Edward Anderson [refresh]
TOPIC: Machian Time Is To Be Abstracted From What Change? by Edward Anderson [refresh]
Essay Abstract
``It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction at which we arrive through the changes of things." Ernst Mach [1]. *What* change? Three answers to this are `any change' (Rovelli), `all change' (Barbour) and my argument here for the middle ground of a `sufficient totality of locally relevant change' (STLRC) giving a generalization of the astronomers' ephemeris time. I then use STLRC as a selection principle on existing and new approaches to the Problem of Time in Quantum Gravity. Emergent Jacobi-Barbour-Bertotti time can be interpreted as arising from a STLRC, resolves the classical Problem of Time and has an emergent semiclassical counterpart as regards facing the QM Problem of Time.
Author Bio
Edward Anderson studied theoretical physics at Cambridge and London, before holding research positions at Cambridge, Alberta, Madrid and Paris. Edward's other main interest is in forms of university welfare that actually work for the shy and the different.
Download Essay PDF File
``It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction at which we arrive through the changes of things." Ernst Mach [1]. *What* change? Three answers to this are `any change' (Rovelli), `all change' (Barbour) and my argument here for the middle ground of a `sufficient totality of locally relevant change' (STLRC) giving a generalization of the astronomers' ephemeris time. I then use STLRC as a selection principle on existing and new approaches to the Problem of Time in Quantum Gravity. Emergent Jacobi-Barbour-Bertotti time can be interpreted as arising from a STLRC, resolves the classical Problem of Time and has an emergent semiclassical counterpart as regards facing the QM Problem of Time.
Author Bio
Edward Anderson studied theoretical physics at Cambridge and London, before holding research positions at Cambridge, Alberta, Madrid and Paris. Edward's other main interest is in forms of university welfare that actually work for the shy and the different.
Download Essay PDF File
Edward,
Since time is the subject of my own entry, I naturally had to see what your entry says.
You make what seems to be the classic physics mistake of first recognizing that time is an effect of change, then obsessing over how it's measured. If you want to understand time, ask what change is, not how to measure it. Hint: The earth doesn't travel the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.
report post as inappropriate
Since time is the subject of my own entry, I naturally had to see what your entry says.
You make what seems to be the classic physics mistake of first recognizing that time is an effect of change, then obsessing over how it's measured. If you want to understand time, ask what change is, not how to measure it. Hint: The earth doesn't travel the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.
Dear Edward
I have read a lot of your papers, including your phd thesis which I find fascinating. I will have to read your essay again to go through all the technical details. One question: why are Mach´s thoughts so compelling? If distinct philosophies of motion lead to distinct physics, would it be possible that advances in Mach´s thougths could lead to advances in physics? Particularly, are we restricted to absolute or relational philosophies of motion? Please see my essay , I think your opinion would be very valuable. Thanks
Daniel
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I have read a lot of your papers, including your phd thesis which I find fascinating. I will have to read your essay again to go through all the technical details. One question: why are Mach´s thoughts so compelling? If distinct philosophies of motion lead to distinct physics, would it be possible that advances in Mach´s thougths could lead to advances in physics? Particularly, are we restricted to absolute or relational philosophies of motion? Please see my essay , I think your opinion would be very valuable. Thanks
Daniel
Edward
You confirm my own issues with sidereal and astronomical time conventions, but I was quite surprised, although closing in a little on the question of locality of time, that you didn't explore of analyse 'Proper Time', and the consequential existence of what I may then christen 'improper time' and it's rationalisation. Do you have a view?
I'd also be interested in your views on the rather new temporal analysis and findings within my own essay.
Best wishes.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
You confirm my own issues with sidereal and astronomical time conventions, but I was quite surprised, although closing in a little on the question of locality of time, that you didn't explore of analyse 'Proper Time', and the consequential existence of what I may then christen 'improper time' and it's rationalisation. Do you have a view?
I'd also be interested in your views on the rather new temporal analysis and findings within my own essay.
Best wishes.
Peter
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