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To: RightWhale
Bohm’s hypothesis might be alive if Ives’ and Bridgman’s hypotheses are. Of course they are, but nobody cares for alternatives.

Okay. Now I know you're trying to send me into a Google black hole. I wasted 5 years of part time study on this stuff only to figure out that I don't have enough background in Mathematics to really play with this stuff. So please save me the time and tell me when the layman's version comes out.

By the way since we have people interested in physics. Why is matter quantized but time is continuous? I've always wondered.

41 posted on 05/19/2008 7:48:51 PM PDT by stig
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To: stig
Why is matter quantized but time is continuous? I've always wondered.

Wave-particle duality.

To localize a particle, you combine many waves of different frequencies so that the 'superposition' of the waves (wave packet) describes the position and/or velocity of the particle.

But there is a price.

Think Fourier transforms: the more precise you get concerning one attribute, the less you get about the corresponding attribute.

Time, on the other hand, is not subject to wave-particle duality.

Cheers!

45 posted on 05/19/2008 9:50:15 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: stig
Why is matter quantized but time is continuous?

Is it? There is the theory, traditional, good enough, but if math is a problem try philosophy. In particular Husserl. I would recommend Whitehead but there is nothing in English.

63 posted on 05/20/2008 7:34:41 AM PDT by RightWhale (You are reading this now)
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To: stig
"Why is matter quantized but time is continuous?"

Maybe time is more contiguous than continuous. Not moving, just re-appearing in a neighboring slice of Planck time like the procession of images on a 35mm film strip and the phenomena of after-images creating the illusion of continuous, smooth motion. Does that make sense?

66 posted on 05/20/2008 9:15:29 AM PDT by Eastbound
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