9· 17· 96 TUES.
NSB 180 SWT
TIME UNKNOWN
12:45 approx.
Do our observations of an event
uniquely determine the time of the event?
Yes, when we use our reference frame.
This reference frame, however, does not allow us to move! It is permanently attached to us, and
accelerates with us—with me, or you. We
carry our “space” with us.
But that is not a necessary point of view.
We could just as well say we have a
“home base” reference system. Then when
we accelerate we keep the old coordinates as our x,y,z,t reference system. [We accelerate relative to those unmoving
coordinates.] The big question here is:
how do we then account for c = const.
[constant speed of light]?
This is the difference in the two
scenarios of moving-car or moving-scenery, discussed at the end of Journal 2.
What we can’t do under the present
relativity regime is imagine light catching up with us, because we don’t ever
imagine ourselves moving. [Relative to the speed of light, all reference frames are rest frames.]
However, we still must consider light
to be catching up with something (someone!) moving “relative to us.” Ho!
Just put yourself in that guy’s shoes!
Well, then you just see your former frame moving in opposite direction.
9/18/96
Laws of classical dynamics don’t
change under time reversal, letting t → -t, I presume because of the role of
acceleration being the second time derivative of position ["x double-dot"]. But for non-constant acceleration, we have
the third time derivative not identically equal to zero. So, is the usual formulation of classical
dynamics missing something that would actually make it more like “macroscopic”
(irreversible) physics—such as higher order derivatives dependent on system’s
degrees of freedom?
9· 19· 96 “Universe is your mass novel” = a pre-sleep
thought from 12/18/94. Means nothing
really, but look what phizzists and maths get from nothing: all equations = 0. So, “mass novel” could mean you (I) write
meaning into mass as a writer writes a novel—from “nothing.” OR as Bill Shakespeare said (wrote!) “. . .
as imagination bodies forth/the forms of things unknown, the poet’s
pen/turns them into shapes, and gives to airy nothing/a local habitation and a
name.”
Likewise, the maths and phizzists!
coincidences
1. Classical electron radius, and
neutron/proton radius from scattering experiments (radius of charge
& magnetization), are of same order of magnitude, 10-13 cm. This “may be [of] some deep significance,”
says Jackson, “but much more relavent," at present level of understanding:
the Compton wavelength of the pion, the lightest quantum of the nuclear force
field, is 1.4 x 10-13 cm, and “presumably it and other hadronic
lengths govern the extensions seen in electron scattering experiments.”
2. See end of Bergmann Riddle of
Gravitation book, about local space curvature and the speed of light. OK, I saw it:
curvature of space at Earth’s surface is on the order of 108
meters, same as distance of travel of earth around sun. Same order of magnitude anyway. So that in itself seems to be a little
coincidence, but the one I was actually thinking of is this: accelerate an object at 9.8 m/s2
for one year and it will be traveling at speed o’ light—but it’s totally a
non-relativistic calculation. So it’s
probably irrelevant. Now, to (finally) mention
what is in the Bergmann book that I was thinking of, the Schwarschild radius
calculation is a relativistic calculation, but it exactly agrees with the
classical calculation. He calls it
“fortuitous”. Another coincidence to be
investigated, I’d say.
3. Bethe using the “photon energy
cutoff at electron mass” for Lamb shift calculation—non-relativistic and
ignores retardation. Retardation =
finite time due to finite speed of light—no instantaneous interaction. But same calculation and same result come from
not using cutoff, but including retardation time.
