Science's Big Query: What Can We Know, and What Can't We?

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, May 30, 2003 | SHARON BEGLEY

[TroutStalker]

What if stalactites could talk? If these icicle-shaped mineral deposits somehow preserved the sound waves that impinged on them as they grew, drop by drop, from the ceilings of caves, and if scientists figured out how to recover the precise characteristics of those waves, then maybe they would also be able to use stalactites like natural voice recorders and recover the conversations of ancient cave dwellers. Is it more far-fetched than recovering conversations from magnetized particles on an audio tape?

[boris]

"People can't agree on simple things like what is the best temperature for sleeping or whether scrambled eggs ought to be hard or soft."

Careful. I'm a bigendian myself and we could rekindle the big-endian, small-endian wars.

--Boris

[Consort]

Maybe space-time is nothing, and matter-energy is everything. Space could be a void and time could be no more than a measure of duration of movement. Matter and energy are real. Or so it seems.

[Consort]

I think we know much more than we understand. I think that "knowing" is being aware that things exists; and "understanding" is comprehending what those things are, why they are so, and how are so related.

[man of Yosemite]

Great poem. Perhaps when man is liberated from this carnal flesh, and joined to him that is Spirit, we will travel in the Spirit through space and time effortlessly. Tell me physicist, can God view past, present and future all at once? Is our universe a snow filled crystal paperweight on the desk of God? Does he reveal our future because to him our future has already occured? Has he moved back in time to tell us of our end, or our blessed future?

[man of Yosemite]

Like a heart that beats, and one day the beat stops. Are we at some tiny point dead until the beat starts again? Is everything that we see a vibration, and if we could vibrate faster and faster, could we move through matter and time like water through a sponge?

[man of Yosemite]

All things are known of God, for God declares "...Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any." (Isaiah 44:8) God has even looked to see if there was someone like himself, and his findings say no. "Thus sayeth the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6)

[Alamo-Girl]

Er, I was eavesdropping on your ”what is time?” discussion with Consort and would like to offer something to think about.

On the one hand, we have time dilation which shows that

”A clock in a moving frame will be seen to be running slow, or "dilated" according to the Lorentz transformation. The time will always be shortest as measured in its rest frame. The time measured in the frame in which the clock is at rest is called the "proper time".

On the other hand, we have gravitational time dilation which shows that ”A clock in a gravitational field runs more slowly according to the gravitational time dilation relationship from general relativity “

Indeed, recent studies in string theory suggest that gravity is a multidimensional interaction, and whether you are inclined to a brane theory or a 5 dimension theory – the conclusion is that matter is the result of geometry (induced by STM or total by symmetric brane.) Whether the extra dimension is space-like or time-like is a matter of sign and thus, transforms.

Also, a null path in 5D can appear as a time-like path in 4D.

In sum, Consort responds to boris:

Maybe space-time is nothing, and matter-energy is everything. Space could be a void and time could be no more than a measure of duration of movement. Matter and energy are real.

I believe Consort is on the right track, but I propose a near inverse; that matter/energy and thus, our 4D concept of "time passing" --- are but the manifestation of geometry (higher dimensional dynamic.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Concerning your remarks, I have a prediction...

Robert Jastrow, Ph.D., founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute, director of the Mt. Wilson Institute made a statement in his book God and the Astronomers that I believe (someday) will be seen as prophetic. It was a particular curious statement since Jastrow is not Christian.

An interview with Jastrow

Oh yes, the metaphor there was that we know now that the universe had a beginning, and that all things that exist in this universe—life, planets, stars—can be traced back to that beginning, and it's a curiously theological result to come out of science. The image that I had in my mind as I wrote about this was a group of scientists and astronomers who are climbing up a range of mountain peaks and they come to the highest peak and the very top, and there they meet a band of theologians who have been sitting for centuries waiting for them.

[Consort]

Time dilation seems to be just another way of saying that the intervals change in some matter-energy events under varying conditions.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

Time dilation seems to be just another way of saying that the intervals change in some matter-energy events under varying conditions.

Indeed, where the condition is gravity, the interval time changes.

However, we lack an explanation for matter (ergo energy.) As far as I know, the Higgs boson/field is yet to be confirmed and even so would not explain all the mass in the universe. Some 70% or so of the mass in the universe is coined "dark energy" - which is handy except that if it is there it ought to show up in the laboratory (local space/time) - and it doesn't.

These quandaries, and others, have given much weight to string theories (et al) and quantum field theory --- whereby mass (gravity, etc.) in 4D (our perception) manifests from geometry, i.e. a higher dimensional dynamic.

I don't know if this is the mountain peak of which Jastrow speaks, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start running into Christian theologians very soon. (LOL!)

[Alamo-Girl]

"I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start running into Christian theologians very soon" should be "I wouldn't be surprised if they started running into Christian theologians very soon"

[P.O.E.]

Ping

[bribriagain]

Interesting poem. Years ago I read a Sci Fi book about how a new branch of science was created when it was discovered you could recover voice conversations from pottery. Premis was that when the potters "spun" the pot it embedded their voices.

[edsheppa]

...when we discover that we cannot in practice measure both simultaneously...

Actually the theorem is not about "in practice" but "in principle" and this is a common misconception. But I think the real problem is that the pop definition is very simplified from the real meaning of the theorem. There's no problem in principle with measuring to any degree of precision the position and momentum at the same time. The theorem is a statistical statement: for a population of particles prepared in the same quantum state whose positions and momentums are measured, the product of the deviations of the position and momentum measurements cannot be made arbitrarily small.

[edsheppa]

For a particle to have a position it must be fixed in space, not moving. If it is fixed it has no momentum.

Have you considered changing your screen name to Zeno?

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Have you considered changing your screen name to Zeno?

No, but I have considered Zero. :-)

[Consort]

It appears that the natural sciences alone will not provide the full answer because nature is only part of the equation. There are also intellectual, spiritual, and metaphysical components, among others, that are integral to a complete picture of reality. It's analogous to trying to know God by subscribing to only one religion. Can't be done yet few would face up to that, and would even try to dispute it as if it should never be questioned.

[man of Yosemite]

Interesting you should mention Mt Wilson, since I have trod upon those very mountains hundreds of times. From that place you can look upon a sea of stars (albeit poorly with all the city lights nearby) or the ocean of mankind. What tragedy to view them both without a glimpse of their creator.

[Z10N157]

Self flag