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To: Charles H. (The_r0nin)
"Your declaration might have been true if time was a constant, but, like all physical quantities, it is variable. Electricity is not simply a "measurement," even though the units we use to measure electricity are arbitrary and our measurements usually are only of a difference in electrical potential (just like time is measured in differences). Read up on space-time theory and relativity theory and you will see that you are quite mistaken. Time is a quality all its own..."

Minkowski says time is a coordinate, which is quite a different thing from a 'variable'. Coordinate axes do not 'flow'. If one was born on a smoothly-moving train which never accelerated or decelerated, and grew up on that train, one would 'conclude' that the 'x-axis' of space flows. No evidence to the contrary; just look out the window!

--Boris

120 posted on 03/28/2003 9:25:27 PM PST by boris (Education is always painful; pain is always educational)
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To: boris
Minkowski says time is a coordinate, which is quite a different thing from a 'variable'.

Note that I said that time was "variable" and not "a variable." By this I meant that time is not independant of space (i.e. cannot be measured in absolute terms, regardless of motion and/or position). I can see where the term might have expressed a connotation I did not intend; sorry about that!

As for time "flow," imagine growing up on a spaceship which constantly accelerated from zero to lightspeed and back. Time would certainly "flow" (or ripple) if measured under those conditions, as it would move faster or slower depending on the velocity of your ship at any moment. Besides, time does "flow" normally, as a dropped ball shows the direct flow of time (the ball doesn't hover or reverse directions)...

149 posted on 03/29/2003 9:24:05 AM PST by Charles H. (The_r0nin) (See, all those years of Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic paid off...)
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