Time Travel Delusions and Other Junk Science

[Dinwar]

Out of curiosity (and so that some good, at least, can come from this thread), how much leeway does the GPS system have? I know the basics of the system--my wife studied remote sensing when we met--but no one's been able to tell me the precision better than "More precise than you'll ever have to worry about".

 

[AngieMax]

By the way: the atomic clock is created to accurately be in sync with the movement of the earth as it rotates on its axis. That's what ALL of your mathematical equations of seconds, nanoseconds, etc. are - different increments of an earth day. Those are not dimensions. They are expressions of movement of matter moving THROUGH the three dimensions. These so-called "experiments" need to be done with that in mind, or they will only confirm a delusion in the minds of those who do not understand and/or remember that the clock merely attempts to mimic the movements of the earth and "keep time" with it. That's what "keeping time" with something means...

 

[drkitten]

Out of curiosity (and so that some good, at least, can come from this thread), how much leeway does the GPS system have? I know the basics of the system--my wife studied remote sensing when we met--but no one's been able to tell me the precision better than "More precise than you'll ever have to worry about".

I believe the exact precision of the GPS system is classified, for reasons that should be readily apparent.

 

[AngieMax]

The idea that something doesn't age as quickly in a particle accelerator having to do with "time dilation" is like saying something lasting longer in my freezer is somehow related to time dilation. Hilarious!

 

[sol invictus]

Out of curiosity (and so that some good, at least, can come from this thread), how much leeway does the GPS system have? I know the basics of the system--my wife studied remote sensing when we met--but no one's been able to tell me the precision better than "More precise than you'll ever have to worry about".

According to this:

The precision is phenomenal: even a simple hand-held GPS receiver can determine your absolute position on the surface of the Earth to within 5 to 10 meters in only a few seconds (with differential techiques that compare two nearby receivers, precisions of order centimeters or millimeters in relative position are often obtained in under an hour or so). A GPS receiver in a car can give accurate readings of position, speed, and heading in real-time!

To achieve this level of precision, the clock ticks from the GPS satellites must be known to an accuracy of 20-30 nanoseconds.
...
The combination of these two relativitic effects means that the clocks on-board each satellite should tick faster than identical clocks on the ground by about 38 microseconds per day (45-7=38)! This sounds small, but the high-precision required of the GPS system requires nanosecond accuracy, and 38 microseconds is 38,000 nanoseconds. If these effects were not properly taken into account, a navigational fix based on the GPS constellation would be false after only 2 minutes, and errors in global positions would continue to accumulate at a rate of about 10 kilometers each day! The whole system would be utterly worthless for navigation in a very short time.

 

[Steve001]

In an effort to eliminate some of the insanity among otherwise intelligent skeptics, I am attempting to inspire more skepticism among my fellow-skeptics regarding outlandish claims made by "theoretical physicists" (a.k.a. fantasy-makers) regarding time travel. I am disturbed to see so many wooed by the nonsensical babble they are spouting, and I hope you will take the time to read my blog post, copied below, in its entirety. I welcome your well-informed comments, as I will be discussing this topic on my radio show within the next couple of weeks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How the Publishing Industry is Blurring the Line Between Science and Fiction

At the risk of turning my blog into a collection of scientific articles, which I do not wish to do, I am providing some clarification on the issue of Einstein's "Theory of Relativity".



Well said, Mr. Priddy. Well said.

As any TRUE scientist knows, junk science is often mistaken for real science, even by those who fancy themselves as experts on recognizing it.

A.

Let see if I got this right. You are a true scientist who's an expert at recognizing junk science. Have I got that right ?



P.S. I hope you have excellent medical coverage because you're gonna need it I think.

 

[sol invictus]

By the way: the atomic clock is created to accurately be in sync with the movement of the earth as it rotates on its axis.

Utter nonsense. Atomic clocks have nothing whatsoever to do with the rate of rotation of the earth. They keep time based on electronic transitions in low-temperature atoms. They are not "in sync" with the rotation of the earth in any way at all.

 

[AngieMax]

So, you're telling me that an atomic clock is not based on a 24-hour earth day? I'm LOL'ing. How, exactly, do you suppose the clock tells you what "time" it is! What do you imagine that it is based on? Some magical dimension that just happens to have 24 hours in a cycle?

 

[Perpetual Student]

Please explain your position. Making a statement without backing it up is not part of an intelligent discussion. Explain your claim that time is a dimension. The metric system is NOT a dimension, nor are the increments thereof: Length, width, and height MEASURE dimensions, they are NOT the dimensions themselves. Similarly, time (and increments thereof - seconds, minutes, hours, etc.) are NOT dimensions, they MEASURE the MOVEMENT of MATTER through the DIMENSIONS of space. We call that "space-time", which further confuses people into believing that time itself, is a dimension, rather than a SYSTEM of measurement of which seconds, minutes, hours, etc. are a PART, just like LENGTH expressed in terms of centimeters, etc. are a PART of the metric system.

Did you not realize that seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks were PART of the measuring system called "time"? If not, you aren't alone, but it doesn't change the fact that it is so.

That time is a dimension is not a concept that can be explained in a few simple words. If you do really want an explanation and if you would like to discover something wonderful about the universe, do read the link provided by sol invictus above. Here it is again for your convenience:LINK
If you do not make the effort to read it, but instead continue your unfounded commentary, you will be dismissed as just another crank.

 

[little grey rabbit]

Probably Poincare's 1905 paper (pre-print) on the dynamics of the electron in which he formalized the principle of relativity, and Lorentz's 1904 paper on electromagnetic phenomena. Bucherer had a very interesting 1904 paper suggesting that the ether didn't exist, which of course presaged one of Einstein's more dramatic claims, but his theory didn't work out mathematically. So I think we're back to Poincare and Lorentz.

Yes, they all sound very interesting lively discussions. But can you give me a paper which states ""why does light always appear to move at a constant speed irrespective of direction and this is a major problem"

Because the papers you reference don't seem to be addressing this question at all.

 

[AngieMax]

Perhaps you misunderstand... I do not mean "literally" in sync. I am saying that all clocks are designed to keep track of a 24-hour period, which is based on one earth day. Regardless of how a clock accomplishes this, whether atomic, crystal quartz, or other mechanism, it is STILL measuring a 24-hour earth day. Time can not measure anything without a consistent basis for comparison. What "time" is it? Why, it's 12 o'clock, which means that the earth has completed 1/2 of its current rotation on its axis. That's what 12 o'clock means. It has nothing to do with some magical "dimension" that warps or speeds up or slows down.

 

[drkitten]

So, you're telling me that an atomic clock is not based on a 24-hour earth day? I'm LOL'ing. How, exactly, do you suppose the clock tells you what "time" it is!

You've obviously never seen an atomic clock. Most of them don't tell you what time it is. They're used to measure duration with high precision.

In fact, they measure duration with much greater precision than the Earth rotates, which is why astronomers -- not physicists -- have started introducing "leap seconds" into the definitions of the sidereal year (astronomical time) to keep the Earth in sync with the atomic clocks.

And not the other way around. The length of the year is adjusted to match the clocks; the clocks aren't adjusted to match the year.

 

[Sledge]

Time doesn't measure anything. Time exists and is measured with seconds, minutes, hours, etc. Ok? I don't see what you're not understanding about this. I've grasped it, and I have trouble following some XKCD strips.

 

[AngieMax]

Alas, I have read it in the past, and it does nothing to prove that time is a "dimension". Not one person has ever successfully explained how "time" is a dimension, nor responded to the fact that "time" is a word we gave to describe the measurement of an earth day when we INVENTED time. We didn't "discover" it, we created it in an effort to more accurately predict the seasons, the sunrise/sunset, etc. It was a very practical invention, and yet now, years later, people have imagined it to be something more. It's disappointing to those who have a religious-like fervor for the concept of time travel and "unseen dimensions" (like many who describe similar things in religious texts that they can not see and/or prove the existence of) but it is no more accurate than any other claim of something that can not be seen or even proven.

Rattling off numbers and experiments that change the functional level of clocks (which are merely instruments of measuring "time") doesn't prove anything. Causing the measuring tool to malfunction does not have anything to do with the thing being measured.

 

[drkitten]

Perhaps you misunderstand... I do not mean "literally" in sync. I am saying that all clocks are designed to keep track of a 24-hour period, which is based on one earth day.

Nope. Not since 1967; since then, seconds have been defined in terms of crystal fluctuations, precisely because the length of the day isn't stable enough for high-precision work.

 

[ThunderChunky]

The idea that something doesn't age as quickly in a particle accelerator having to do with "time dilation" is like saying something lasting longer in my freezer is somehow related to time dilation. Hilarious!

Even though it ages at the exact same rate as predicted by relativity? That is hilarious!

 

[sol invictus]

So, you're telling me that an atomic clock is not based on a 24-hour earth day? I'm LOL'ing. How, exactly, do you suppose the clock tells you what "time" it is! What do you imagine that it is based on? Some magical dimension that just happens to have 24 hours in a cycle?

I'm becoming increasingly certain you're a troll. I'll play along a little longer...

Unit of time (second)

The unit of time, the second, was at one time considered to be the fraction 1/86 400 of the mean solar day. The exact definition of “mean solar day” was left to the astronomers. However measurements showed that irregularities in the rotation of the Earth made this an unsatisfactory definition. In order to define the unit of time more precisely, the 11th CGPM (1960, Resolution 9; CR, 86) adopted a definition given by the International Astronomical Union based on the tropical year 1900. Experimental work, however, had already shown that an atomic standard of time, based on a transition between two energy levels of an atom or a molecule, could be realized and reproduced much more accurately. Considering that a very precise definition of the unit of time is indispensable for science and technology, the 13th CGPM (1967/68, Resolution 1; CR, 103 and Metrologia, 1968, 4, 43) replaced the definition of the second by the following:

The second is the duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

It follows that the hyperfine splitting in the ground state of the cesium 133 atom is exactly 9 192 631 770 hertz, ν(133Cs)hfs = 9 192 631 770 Hz.
At its 1997 meeting the CIPM affirmed that:
This definition refers to a cesium atom at rest at a temperature of 0 K.
This note was intended to make it clear that the definition of the SI second is based on a cesium atom unperturbed by black body radiation, that is, in an environment whose thermodynamic temperature is 0 K. The frequencies of all primary frequency standards should therefore be corrected for the shift due to ambient radiation, as stated at the meeting of the Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency in 1999.

http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/sp330.pdf

 

[AngieMax]

TIME measures MOVEMENT, which is EXPRESSED in terms of SECONDS, MINUTES, HOURS, ETC. What do YOU not understand about this? A SECOND is an expression of an INCREMENTAL PART OF AN EARTH DAY, and it is BASED on the MOVEMENT of the earth rotating on its axis. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades, and millenia are ALL expressions of increments and/or multiples of earth days. It's really not that difficult to follow...

 

[Perpetual Student]

Perhaps you misunderstand... I do not mean "literally" in sync. I am saying that all clocks are designed to keep track of a 24-hour period, which is based on one earth day. Regardless of how a clock accomplishes this, whether atomic, crystal quartz, or other mechanism, it is STILL measuring a 24-hour earth day. Time can not measure anything without a consistent basis for comparison. What "time" is it? Why, it's 12 o'clock, which means that the earth has completed 1/2 of its current rotation on its axis. That's what 12 o'clock means. It has nothing to do with some magical "dimension" that warps or speeds up or slows down.

You clearly do not understand the meaning of the word time. The rotation of the earth has slowed roughly by 2 milliseconds since 1820. Since the earth's rotation is slowing, do you think time is slowing?

 

[AngieMax]

That is true. And yet, whether crystal fluctuations or anything else, it is STILL a MEASUREMENT of MOVEMENT. The benchmark is the CONSISTENTLY MOVING FLUCTUATION. Without a relatively consistent movement, there can be no understanding of any expression of time.

You're proving my point and arguing with yourself if you think otherwise. Regardless of what you measure "time" against, it will always require a measurement of movement to express "time" (movement of objects) accurately. That's what "time" is and does: measure movement and express it relative to something else.