Gravitation and Time Part 1
Time and the gravitation phenomena are
evidently related. Newton’s concept of immutable time allowed
him to invent the mathematics of clock-like orbits. Einstein
proposed that gravity and acceleration are equivalent. His
relativity allowed him to postulate that matter bends the vacuum
of space-time. His Earth supposedly follows the bends in the
vacuum (like a train running along rails). What are time and
gravity? This four-part series investigates that question.
Solomon considered the nature of time in Ecclesiastes 3. Events
cycle from good to bad - in event-time (Hebrew eth). The
relentless cycles cause deaths to follow births, hate and love
to alternate, wars to follow peace, construction to precede
destruction. The relentless event-cycles eventually destroy our
labors. What profit, he asks, is there to the worker in all his
toil? (Think of the effects of wars and tsunamis on societies).
Yet God made everything good in its event-time.
Solomon then examined long time (Hebrew olam). He wrote that God
put olam in our heart so that man cannot discover all that God
made from beginning to end. Anyone can observe events happening
in event-time because it is simultaneous with the events.
However, longtime ideas are in our minds (Hebrew hearts). The
ability to organize our activities with time ideas is crucial to
societies and God gave us that competency. No other creature
invents calendars, records histories or makes appointments.
Solomon wrote that long time is a mental construct and these
ideas prevent us from understanding all that God has done from
beginning to end.
Western people have an aberrant concept of time (compared to
people during Bible times). We are slaves to our clocks that
control every aspect of our lives. We measure and mathematicate
with our clock ideas. The definitions, measuring units and
mathematical constants of modern physics depend on the modern
concept of linear time. The time of the physicist, in turn,
depends on the notion that matter is not changing itself
relationally as it ages.
It is impossible to measure anything absolutely without
depending on this assumption. An absolute measurement depends on
nothing else and would therefore be unconditional. Only
magnitudes of a particular kind can be compared as ratios, not
absolutes. We can determine the ratio between this meter stick
and that wall; the ratio of days to a year or the ratio of the
weight of this object to that one on a scale. Scientists,
because their version of reality is based on their concept of
immutable atoms and linear time, assume an absolute form of
measuring. The primary scientific measuring unit is the time
second, which they define as 9,192,631,770 microwave cycles of a
particular state of cesium 133. All atomic clocks are actually
two clocks in a feedback loop. One clock radiates the cesium
with microwaves while the second tracks the emissions from the
cesium as it relaxes to its unexcited state. The second clock
tunes the first one for a peak output from the cesium atoms. If
atoms are changing relationally, atomic clocks would keep on
tuning themselves to the changing emissions from the cesium
atoms.
Scientists use their absolute form of measuring time to scale
thousands of other units of completely different kinds. They
scale the length of a meter, temperatures, pressures,
velocities, accelerations and even their laws of gravity from
their assumption of immutable time. The entire structure of
empirical measuring is based on the notion that time exists and
that atomic vibrations are linear. Yet we can directly compare
the rate of atomic clocks from the past with modern ones in
billions of ancient galaxies. The farther the galaxy that
emitted the clock signal, the slower the clock compared to
modern atoms. The most distant atomic clocks we have analyzed to
date clocked one tenth the frequency of modern hydrogen. Even
when we sent two Pioneer spaceships out of the solar system,
their clock signals transmitted yesterday were slower than
NASA’s hydrogen maser clocks of today. In seven and a half years
of monitoring the Pioneer clock signals, all clocks seem to have
accelerated by 1.5 Hz.
When considering the notion of time, remember that no one has
ever detected or isolated any time. It is merely a mental
construct, like Solomon stated. In the next essay I will compare
ancient ideas about time with modern linear concepts. I will not
actually examine time, but whether the visible history of orbits
and clocks demonstrates linearity.
The photo is of NISTF1, the main US cesium fountain clock at
Boulder Colorado. Photo credit: The National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) - an agency of the U.S. Department
of Commerce.
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Last modified Septeber 7, 2011