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Re: Nothing Can Move in Spacetime

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Posted by ReillyAtkinson on April 21, 19101 at 12:00:15:

In Reply to: Nothing Can Move in Spacetime posted by Nemesis on April 05, 19101 at 16:21:05:

Sir -- Just for the record, I'm a retired physics professor. That some professional physicists agree with your, shall we say, peculiar, ideas does not mean much. I, for one, find huge errors and mistakes in your arguments and position. Let me count the ways.

First simple: most of us in the physics trade go with Einstein, and consider time to be measured by clocks. I might add that this approach has worked pretty well for a long time.

Now, about the dimensionality stuff. That time is considered a dimension is purely a utilitarian idea. That is, we presume that time is measured by real numbers, hence is represented by the continuum, which, conventionally, is considered to be a 1D object. Doing the dimension thing is purely a matter of mathematical convenience, no big deal.

Go to any freshman physics text, and find a chapter on how we describe motion. Well, how about the fact that you will undoubtedly find a plot, with distance along the x axis, and time along the y axis. Further you will see plotted a line, with dx/dt nonzero. Voila, motion in space-time directly demonstrated. That's all she wrote.

Also, in your website you have some argument that deals with 4-vectors and dt/dt. Well, sir, you are quite inccorect on this matter. The position 4-vector used by knowledgeable physicists is (ct,x,y,z), not (t,x,y,z). So, your dt/dt argument is totally without merit -- you got the dimensions wrong. Most of us learn in freshman physics that it is important to take great care with dimensional consistancy -- we teach it also.

Finally be aware of a bit of history - that quite undermines your assertions. Einstein's initial work was not what we call covarient -- time and space were on somewhat of a different footing(did not do too much with d/dx, but did quite a lot with d/dt, sort of)Now, Minkowski ( and I think Weyl as well) realized the practical, practical, PRACTICAL, practical virtues of using 4 dimentional space time for the math of relativity. Covarience was thus born, without which QFT would be impossible. Goodness gracious, in many respects Maxwell and Lorentz and Poincare all bounced in and out of space time, as do freshman physics texts.

To most physicists it is quite obvious that objects move in space time, or, for that matter, in space. Space and time are conventions, inventions, after all, used to describe motion. We could not ply our trade if what you say is true.
And, if you were correct, then we would simply adjust our descriptive notions to rectify the awkward situation you claim to be true. And, if you wish to push your ideas, at least get the basics correct -- (t,x,y,z) certainly drove me away. Why read stuff that's wrong?

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson, Ph.D.

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