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To: kosta50
Thanks for your reply:

Then explain it. [relativistic time dilation]

"the objective measurement of time is different depending on your time frame" is about as concise as I can get. Time measured varies with speed of different frames of observers. Distance to gravitational mass can also be a factor. I'm really kind of lost what you're looking for, but Wiki is pretty brief and hopefully informative enough here.

No, I said "speed of light".

I thought maybe you were going for the speed of light being the speed limit. If that wasn't it, Einstein said quite a bit about light; I'm not sure where to look next. Can you say what you had in mind?

1,327 posted on 02/10/2011 9:29:32 PM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: D-fendr; James C. Bennett
"the objective measurement of time is different depending on your time frame" is about as concise as I can get

Thanks D. I can look up Wikipedia or any other source. I was hoping you would illuminate me, and I don't mean that sarcastically. In fact I did read up on the time dilatation and all I find in it is something that is regularly misinterpreted by everyone, imo.

I understand that, depending on your measuring tool and conditions, the results will vary. If my meter stick is half as long as yours, it will take me twice as many measurements (and probable longer time) to measure the same distance! That the point is that this doesn't change the absolute length of the object measured.

If time is entirely an arbitrary result of our tools and conditions, then time is not a real entity but a relative measurement which means space can be defined by simple geometry without any time in it (in fact, a perfect vacuum should have no time in it since nothing changes).

The reason I asked how did Einstein define the speed of light is because in it there must be time. And since it is a constant (in vacuum), then which time did he use (knowing that space is not just vacuum)? How can the speed of light be a constant (absolute) if the time is relative?

This is like the photon particle theory of light. Electromagnetic radiation behaves like waves and particles at the same time. The former is shown by the diffraction pattern, and the latter by reflection. Obviously it is both wave and particle like (in our reference world), but the true nature of it is incomprehensible to us at this stage of our evolutionary capacity, and it may never become.

So, with all due respect to the minds that created the quantum and relativity science (they were no gods and their work is not divine, and therefore they shouldn't be treated as such), I think they themselves didn't understand it any more than we do.

We only know about it because our working models account for it, the way Potlemy's navigational system works to this day regardless of the erroneousness of his geocentric framework. I think it's best to leave these concepts out of rational discussions.

We necessarily see the world as it is from our perspective and our limitations. It doesn't mean that's how it really is. Only how we see it. That's' the world we have to live in. We can never say it's how the world really is. More importantly, we must never believe it!

Just as snails have to live in theirs; to them gravity means very little, but surface tension means a heck of a lot more then to us! To each his own. I prefer to live in here and now, within my capacities. That's the only reality I know.

1,334 posted on 02/10/2011 10:50:34 PM PST by kosta50 ("Spirit of Spirit....give me over to immortal birth so that I may be born again" -- pagan prayer)
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