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The Many Directions of Time
http://www.stanford.edu/~afmayer/ ^ | 1 February 2006 | Alexander Franklin Mayer

Posted on 02/05/2006 1:48:11 PM PST by ckilmer

Alexander Franklin Mayer Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist

1 February 2006

Welcome!

For a number of months now at Stanford University (Physics), I have been quietly working on a book entitled The Many Directions of Time, which I anticipate will go to press in 2006. Here you will find a preview of related 'digital lectures' that have been created to appeal to a wide global audience including topic experts as well as students, amateur astronomers and scientific professionals of all varieties.

The Introduction (17 PowerPoint slides) will take you less than 10 minutes to go through and should convince you that the larger body of work (Lectures 1 and 2) are very much worth your while to investigate.

The lectures are based on a single underlying idea that drove the insights they contain: that time is not a single dimension of spacetime but rather a local geometric distinction in spacetime. While this may seem very esoteric, it is actually quite simple.

Not too long ago, people thought the Earth was flat, which meant they thought that gravity pointed in the same direction everywhere. Today, we think of that as a silly idea, but at the same time, most people today (including most scientists) still think of spacetime as if it were a big box with 3 space dimensions and 1 time dimension. So, like gravity for a flat Earth, the single time dimension for the 'big box universe' points in one direction, from the Big-Bang into the future. A lot of lip service is given to the idea of "curved spacetime", but the simplistic 3+1 'box' remains the dominant concept of what cosmic spacetime is like.

Imagine that 'the arrow of time' in the Universe, like gravity on Earth, is pretty much the same everywhere, yet also different everywhere relative to everywhere else. That means that the 'arrow of time' points in different directions in spacetime depending on where you are, so time has a geometry just like space has a geometry. The novel idea that there are an infinite number of time dimensions in the Universe revolutionizes gravitational theory and much of modern science with it. A number of outstanding scientific mysteries are definitively solved, including observations that lead to the concepts of 'dark energy' and 'dark matter'. You will know what these are after you read the lectures.

My pending personal URL is alexandermayer.com, which currently redirects to this Website. The draft release was on 27 December 2005.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: crevolist; darkmatter; mayer; space; time
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To: InterceptPoint

I might buy the book, too, but only if the author gets interviewed on the Art Bell Show.


41 posted on 02/05/2006 3:07:37 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale
Even in the Bible, to get an idea of how these things were thought of, time was not linear but cyclical

According to the Bible, time had a definite beginning, and will have a definite ending. As for more secular, down-to-earth thinking, it's true that some ancient historians had a cyclical theory of history, but that doesn't mean they thought the exact same events would be happening over and over again.

Besides, even a "cyclical" view of time is markedly different from the view that everything happens all at once.

42 posted on 02/05/2006 3:08:47 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: inquest

How small of a time loop do we need before we can treat time as an instant in a Newtonian way?


43 posted on 02/05/2006 3:11:23 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale

Distance is necessary in physics. Velocity is necessary in physics. But velocity = d/t. How do you account for that little "t" variable there?


44 posted on 02/05/2006 3:12:48 PM PST by Gordongekko909 (I know. Let's cut his WHOLE BODY off.)
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To: RightWhale
Boyle also lived during the 17th century, before any good understanding of what energy was had developed. Heat is just a form of energy. And the fact that heat or energy had no impact on Boyle's Law doesn't mean that it didn't exist in gases. Boyle wasn't even claiming (so far as I know) to be describing everything about a gas that there is. He was just describing an interrelationship between certain qualities of the gas.
45 posted on 02/05/2006 3:13:44 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: Gordongekko909

No, they are not. There are other, more powerful approaches to the problem.


46 posted on 02/05/2006 3:14:03 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale

Such as? Note: I'm not exactly disagreeing with you. I'm just trying to figure out which way is up. In a relative sense, of course.


47 posted on 02/05/2006 3:15:10 PM PST by Gordongekko909 (I know. Let's cut his WHOLE BODY off.)
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To: inquest

Same for Newton. Energy is new, and powerful, and has nothing to do with time or space.


48 posted on 02/05/2006 3:15:35 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale
How small of a time loop do we need before we can treat time as an instant in a Newtonian way?

In a purely scientific sense, it would have to be infinitesimal. As long as there's some definite, measurable size to the loop, then we can draw a tangent along that loop and treat time as linear in the immediate region surrounding the tangent.

In our own experience, if a time loop exists at all, it would have to be eons in size.

49 posted on 02/05/2006 3:16:24 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: Gordongekko909

Relativity also has to move on. Time and space are not part of it. Some dimensions, yes, but they don't have to be those.


50 posted on 02/05/2006 3:17:03 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale
Energy is new, and powerful, and has nothing to do with time or space.

Apart from the fact that it's scientifically defined using (in addition to mass measurments) measurements of time and distance. Do you know of any scientific definitions of energy that don't involve them?

51 posted on 02/05/2006 3:18:30 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: inquest

That's where relativity meets quantum theory. Neither one explains everything. They are both incomplete, not necessarily dead wrong.


52 posted on 02/05/2006 3:19:27 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: inquest

The only definition is that it is conserved, and that is a law. Whatever it is. Energy has a thousand different looks. Kinetic energy is far from the whole story.


53 posted on 02/05/2006 3:23:21 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: longshadow; VadeRetro; balrog666; Senator Bedfellow; RadioAstronomer; js1138; whattajoke; Shryke; ..
"Yet Another Lone Genius Solves Everything" Ping List
Don't ask to be added to or dropped from this list; I know what you like.

54 posted on 02/05/2006 3:53:02 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: All
Alexander Franklin Mayer is listed as an "Affiliate" of the Stanford Physics department: yeah, I got a source.
55 posted on 02/05/2006 3:55:51 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: RightWhale
Time is just one darn thing after another.

See my tagline

56 posted on 02/05/2006 4:19:18 PM PST by boojumsnark (Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.)
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.


57 posted on 02/05/2006 4:28:20 PM PST by Coleus (IMHO, The IVF procedure is immoral & kills many embryos/children and should be outlawed)
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To: Coleus

I think it might not be that simple.


58 posted on 02/05/2006 4:29:28 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: Bear_Slayer
"Time isn't a perception. It really exists."

Time is indeed a perception of our own consciousness. Everything everywhere is happening all at once. It is our limited view that manifests itself as our being conscious that "allows" time to be perceived.
59 posted on 02/05/2006 4:35:14 PM PST by taxed2death (A few billion here, a few trillion there...we're all friends right?)
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To: inquest

"So does this open a door to faster-than-light travel?"

There are numerous scientific tests that have been conducted that prove that thought is instantaneous and thus "faster than light".


60 posted on 02/05/2006 4:37:02 PM PST by taxed2death (A few billion here, a few trillion there...we're all friends right?)
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