

Physicists continue work to abolish time as fourth dimension of space - DiabloD3
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-physicists-abolish-fourth-dimension-space.html

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packetlss
Sigh.

Article discusses a paper published in Physics Essays, a well-known crackpot
journal.

~~~
maxklein
Congrats. Continue in the fine tradition of traditional science dismissing
everything that falls outside of known worldview without thinking about or
discussing it.

~~~
packetlss
Yes. Let's have a discussion with crackpots.

Dr. Amrit Sorli is a researcher with the Osho Miasto, Institute for Meditation
and Spiritual Growth, Siena, Italy. His research subjects are Unknown Vacuum
Energies in Living Organisms and Direct Scientific Experience. Dr. Sorli is
the author of several books and articles and currently gives courses on this
theme.

~~~
pygy_
More _ad Hominem_. You can have batshit beliefs and do proper math/science on
the side. Prejudice due to the former may prevent a rational evaluation of the
latter, as it happens here, and may also happen during peer review or
editorial decisions.

I can't read the full text, but the abstract claims that their views are based
on the interpretation of experimental data.

If you can read it, could you tell us if is it a mere thought experiment, or
if they performed it? In the latter case, what's the flaw in their
experimental setup or reasoning?

Edit: I've done a quick google scholar survey of the second author, and he's
also used to delve far into the "not even wrong" territory... That being said,
neither the abstract nor the phys.org summary ring any objective crackpot sign
to my untrained eye. The claim that they proved Einstein wrong, their track
record, and the journal the paper was published in are of course big red
warnings. But that doesn't mean that the core of their argument has to be
dismissed out of hand.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
The problem with engaging with everybody that has an idea is that we don't
have the resources to do so.

This was actually discussed in an episode of the Scientific American podcast.
I can't find the episode, but they mentioned that they would need a member of
staff working full time to reply to and debunk all the crack pot theories.

What's more important, staff doing research and teaching or answering crack
pots that cannot be persuaded?

~~~
pygy_
I know that. You don't need to engage with the authors, but assessing some of
the papers once in a while may not hurt either.

In the abstract of this paper, they claim that they have experimental support
for their theory. This is enough to lower my guard, and make me want to know
if 1) they indeed do and 2) they bring something novel on the table.

The explanation given by phys.org sounds like it could make some sense (even
though they are most probably beating an old misconception like a dead horse).

That's why I wouldn't mind if a physicist was kind enough to skim and debunk
or validate the paper beyond simply bashing the authors.

~~~
xyzzyz
_That's why I wouldn't mind if a physicist was kind enough to skim and debunk
or validate the paper beyond simply bashing the authors._

So hire one and pay him to do it. What do you think a physicist will rather
do, read a paper published in a reputable journal that is highly likely to
teach him something new, or paper that is enormously unlikely to be something
else than crackpot theories?

Have there _ever_ been _any_ actual progress in physics coming from someone
without academic credentials and/or published in crackpot journal, hm?

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salimmadjd
So what the paper proposes I proposed roughly in 1994. My view of the world
changed after taking quantum physics in college (I was a science major). I
have always been obsessed by time so couple of years later during the winter
break I spent a lot of time in deep thoughts and everything came together.

I don't believe time exist as we have been thought. Time is a metric for rate
of change (basically what these guys are suggesting at core) and nothing more.

Our perception of the world (cyclical orbit) and recollection (memory) creates
our notion of the time.

Also based on my original proposal, time (or rate of change) is an average
rate of change. However that depends on the sample size. If you take the
sample size as the entire universe you get a very predictable rate of change.

But as your sample size gets smaller (very small system) then that rate of
change becomes more uncertain (see where I'm going)

Also if you are in a spaceship (that becomes your sample size) and your
velocity effects the rate of change in your sample size. The same with high
gravity.

Gravity (especially at extreme level) can greatly dampen or constraint the
rate of change (again slowing down of time)

Also based on my proposal it's probabilistically plausible for time (or rate
of change) to stop. However that probability becomes very small as your sample
size increases. Basically change is inevitable by probability since the
universe is in constant state of change. As a result time progresses or move
forward since that's the most probable condition.

Sorry for the long rambling. I know most of you will probably hate my comment.
I can fully understand it. We have been thought through all of our schooling
how to deal with time. But once you see time from the perspective of a metric
for rate of change, then your view of the world will never be the same again.

I also proposed that once this new view of time becomes widely accepted and
more importantly when we began to have young generation of science students
and scientists enter science with this view of the world, we will see complete
rethinking and revision of many our of physics laws giving us a new view of
science and basically leapfrogging our rate of scientific progress.

I also believe the unifying laws of physic resides in this view of time.

