Dear Organlearners,
Glen VoxDeis@aol.com writes:
>In my mind time, which ever side of the equation time is on, is a
>linear constant. It would hold no value otherwise. That studying
>how other variables in some equation shift given the conditions,
>be that function linear or non- linear, I grasp. I guess I just don't
>see how we could use the concept of time as a non-linear function
>and still keep it as a standard.
Greetings Glen,
The part of your reply which I have quoted above, could easily have been a
reply made by any physicist soon after 1905 when Albert Einstein proposed
his Special Theory of Relativity. Even today students struggle with
Einstein's theory.
Einstein argued that the laws of physics (and specifically the four laws
of Maxwell which summarise the laws of electromagnetism) should remain the
same for an observer in a system moving at constant velocity as for an
observer in a system at rest.
One of the consequences of this theory is that although the laws stays the
same, length and time do change as the observer moves faster. There is
not such a thing as fixed time intervals. Time dillation (lengthening)
happens when an observer is moving faster. The mathematical function which
describes this dillation, is as non-linear as one can wish for. This
strange behaviour of time has been confirmed by experiments time and
again.
>I can see very easily how the psychological perception of time
>can be distorted. That elements within the environment change
>in many ways.
The linearity of time is itself a psychological perception. Since we
humans move very slow with respect to the velocity of light, the increase
of time appear to be linear. But this linearity becomes very curved as the
velocity of the observer approaches the velocity of light.
>What I elude is happening is I am thinking of the use of time
>as a variable in some mathematical function of measurement.
>I understand colloguial uses of the word. The concept of time
>being used as a non-linear constant in a mathematical equation
>just seemed almost impossible.
Think about mass which, according to relativity theory, also increases in
a non-linear fashion as a body moves faster. One of its consquences is
that mass is just another form of energy. This seemed to be impossible to
most physicists. However, some began to look for a way to show that mass
is just another form of energy. The eventual fruit on their labours was
the development of the nuclear bomb. Another "impossible" became actaul
reality.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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