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| Posted By: Bill Cooper Posted On: Aug 22, 2006 Views: 1021 | Other possibilities? Keith "infinity is ALL THERE IS" The definition of infinty I currently have in my brain was that taken from a dictionary many years ago, Infinity: 'without end, forever, boundless' I have seen other definitions (some quite wrong) It's down to the Lexicographer's ability. I do not personally think infinity can be applied to anything physical. To me saying an infinite number playing cards is like saying an apple hosepipe, in other words It just does not go. I guess we are both mostly in agreement on this and any minor differences resolved by semantics. Quite simply if anything physical was infinite there would be no room for us. So except in mathematics and a line in the dictionary for me it has no place. HOWEVER, There is theoretical case for the existence of infinity BUT it requires a leap of imagination and a basic grasp of modern space-time theory. Bear with me this is a thought experiment I believe I saw somewhere in your text you are capable of grasping such a scenario. If you decide to publish or reproduce this please be aware the text is (C)Copyright both myself and MENSA of which I am a member. It is a case suggesting the Universe is 15 billion years old but of infinite age (Much like Hawkings finite but unbounded) Given Einsteins theorems to be true, Suppose it were possible for you to travel in a bubble and whilst in it perceive time and gravity at the rate we do today on earth, irrespective of all conditions outside. Suppose you have a clock with you and could flick a switch to reverse time and history outside of your bubble. How long would it be before you arrived back at the big bang? Answer 15 billion years. That I accept (not as fact but as the most probable answer in the light of knowledge today). Now Let's say I am in the real universe, (some might argue otherwise..) outside your bubble but able to read your clock. As the universe shrinks and the density of mass rises my clock ticks away. I will see your clock slow down. As much time for me passes, your clock evermore slowly approaches 15 billion years. I will not see 15 billion years on your clock until I see infinity on mine. Now since we are in the universe and not in a bubble outside, I conclude that the universe is of infinite age as time, even if reversed, can only be experienced at a rate determined by the universe and its laws. This if accepted would not prove infinity = 15billion. If anything it may only prove that 15 billion years experienced in 1 universe is infinity in another. Hmm another thought here reverse time travel may be possible but only if you could 'hitch' a ride in another universe going the other way . (wry grins all around). This is addressed to Keith Mayes. Other posts may not be answered. |
| Posted By: Bill Cooper Posted On: Aug 23, 2006 Views: 1015 | RE: Other possibilities? Senier moment there, I should of course have said the the guy in the bubble would see the clock in the real universe slow down as the universe shrank and therefore the Observer's clock would tick on for infinity. Very red-faced, must be all the bubbles in this beer.... |
| Posted By: Keith Mayes Posted On: Aug 23, 2006 Views: 1011 | RE: Other possibilities? To be honest I am a little confuddled. I have read your post through a few times but am struggling to grasp whose time frame we are supposed to be in and therefore whose watching what clock. Sorry, I am not trying to be difficult, just unclear of the concept. It might be because I found myself watching Coronation Street earlier this evening.... |
| Posted By: BIll Cooper Posted On: Aug 23, 2006 Views: 1009 | RE: Other possibilities? Keith, I'll write it in bits - you read till you dis-agree and I'll explain further. 1) You know the one about the two clocks - one at or near a black hole v the one on earth? 2) When thay are bought back together The one from the Black hole has moved on a second or two - the other many perhaps thousands of years? 3) the idea is simply that, but in reverse instead of a black hole I am using the universe as it shrinks back. 4) keeping one clock running at 'today's rate (if you like, in a mini environment of today's conditions. also containing a clock) While allowing the other clock to 'run within the receding universe under the laws governing that universe as it recedes I simply conclude the clock within the universe will be seen (by the external observer) to slow down as you get towards the time of the big bang. whilst his own clock continues to tick at the same rate (as it does today) I believe that as the clock within the receding universe will approach 15BY as the observers clock approachs infinity. If you get round to agreeing with this you may decide, like me that the universe was formed 15Bn years ago but is infinitly old YOu may decide it's a load of crap, if you do then tell me what the two clocks would read at the point of the big bang. Since their gravitational experience is different so must their times be. THat's it. |
| Posted By: Keith Mayes Posted On: Aug 24, 2006 Views: 1003 | RE: Other possibilities? Okay thanks I now understand. I was okay with what you were saying until I got to this part. "...I believe that as the clock within the receding universe will approach 15BY as the observers clock approachs infinity..." I follow your argument that the universe clock will read 15BY, if we take that as the age of the universe. I follow that the universe clock will also continually run slower as gravity increases. I don't understand what you mean when you say the observer's clock will approach infinity. What does that mean? You have already stated that the observer's clock, in its unafected bubble, will continue to be undisturbed, so this sounds like a contradiction? Please explain. |
| Posted By: Bill Cooper Posted On: Aug 25, 2006 Views: 1001 | RE: RE: Other possibilities? Keith, You appear to agree with me then that the observer will see the clock in the universe slow down as it gets to 15bn. (anybody in the universe will not notice this) - the obeserver's own clock will just tick as normal. Well the more dense the universe becomes the more it's clock will lag behind, the observers clock will (to the observer tick on normally) as the universe shrinks the difference between the two clocks become. |
| Posted By: Bill Cooper Posted On: Aug 25, 2006 Views: 1000 | RE: Other possibilities? evermore apparent. |
| Posted By: Keith Mayes Posted On: Aug 25, 2006 Views: 998 | RE: Other possibilities? Yes, I see what you mean. I am no Einstein but what you say appears to little ole me to agree with relativity. It is the same, as I think you may have said, as watching a clock being sucked into a black hole. We, well away from dreaded event horizon, would observe that clock run ever slower until it reached a point where it would appear to stop, forever. Relativity is so weird, but then so is quantum mechanics. The whole universe is weird, apart from me that is. |
| Posted By: Bill Cooper Posted On: Aug 26, 2006 Views: 995 | RE: Other possibilities? Great! Now I simply say the answer to the question "How old is the universe" is... 'depends on your point of view' |
| Posted By: Keith Mayes Posted On: Aug 27, 2006 Views: 990 | RE: Other possibilities? I have to say that I don't agree with that. As we know relativity shows that time is dependant on speed (relative to two different observers)and on mass (the stronger the gravitational field the slower time runs). It is then easy to envisage situations where two clocks run at different times, as you have done. However, I do not see how that affects the age of the universe because it did have a definite beginning, some 15 billion - or there abouts -years ago. Any alien civilisation, anywhere in the universe, should be able to study the universe as we have done and calculate the same age for the universe. Are you trying to make a point that I haven't seen? My wife does it to me quite a lot. |
| Posted By: BIll Cooper Posted On: Aug 27, 2006 Views: 987 | RE: Other possibilities? Keith I'm gonna leave it here. if the two clocks run at different rates (as seen by the observer living OUTSIDE the shrinking universe) - then at the point of the big bang they must show different times. Having thought about what this difference would be, I have arrived at infinity ie the outside observer see's the clock within the universe slow down and 'stop' just before the bang, no matter how long he waits, the bang never happens his clock ticks on to infinity. |
| Posted By: Keith Mayes Posted On: Aug 27, 2006 Views: 984 | RE: Other possibilities? What you say may be correct, but it is only because you are introducing an impossible scenario into the argument. You are using an artifact of relativity to try and justify a different time for the start of the universe depending on the observer. The universe had an absolute beginning, and everyone within the universe will calculate the same age of the universe, which means the same beginning. Trying to observe another clock that exists in a different time frame cannot alter the age of the universe. The different observers may experience time running at different speeds relative to the other, but they would have no means of knowing that and it would not make any difference to the age of the universe anyway. If for example my watch was faulty and ran faster then yours would that alter the length of time it took us both to travel on the same train to the same destination? Clearly not. What our watches recorded has no bearing on how long the journey actually took. |
| Posted By: Bill Cooper Posted On: Aug 28, 2006 Views: 982 | RE: Other possibilities? This as I said from the outset is a thought experiment - such experiments have no practical value other than provoke thought. Einstein used it - I used it. I conclude that the universe is infinitly old if it could be be viewed from the outside or from another universe where their laws were similar or identical to ours. From what you have replied you seem reluctant to perform the same experiment. That is your choice, I respect that. What I wanted was for someone else to consider this scenario and inform me of whether their conclusion was similar or otherwise to mine. |