The Flat Earth society

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Terry Pratchett had it right after all:
discworld-by-terry-pratchett.jpg
 
When I was a lad didn't have mobile phones. Piece of string and two tins I had. And we were happy.
Smart phones? If you told me we had smart phones in the 1980s then would be considered impossible. I got GPS. I got my music and a camera with video camera and a calculator and even a torch and can even phone Australia. In one device? Pure star trek. As been said. More magic than science. My phone is now a year old and originally was sold in 2015 and now no longer available and is considered obsolete. What a world we live in.
The problem with internet is that an idiot believes dumb idea and then goes on to internet and finds justification for dumb idea. In old days and info in news has to be fact checked while internet rant don't.
 
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pbehn said:
Newton said that he took time to be a constant, to me that means he must have considered the possibility that it isnt.
Click to expand...

Not really.

"Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration...."

Cheers

Steve
 
Wow there is SO much here to comment on.
TIME Steve hit it squarely on the head, time is one of the spacial dimensions and DURATION is an excellent way to describe it.
To exist in the Universe something must have Length, Width, and Depth AND it must have a fourth dimension of Duration, i.e. it must endure for a period of time...from one instant to another. That of course does not actually say what time is or why is is unidirectional.
The Laws of Thermodynamics do not answer the question of WHY they merely state what is. SPACE is necessary (Length, width, height) else everything would happen in the same place and TIME (whatever that is) is necessary else everything would happen at once. Clocks, no matter what type do NOT measure time (whatever that is). Clocks count EVENTS. TICK and TOCK are events separated by an interval of time (whatever that is). Since we can only measure these events and not time itself, time will appear to be a constant to any observer within his frame of reference. Since there does not exist an absolute Frame of Reference every ones unique frame is as valid as anyone elses...IT'S ALL RELATIVE you see.
Gravitational fields (which also don't actually exist any more than centrifugal force exists) also affect time. The more intense gravitational field of the sun, for example, causes time to run slower RELATIVE to the flow of time on Earth. Thus within the ultimate field of a Black Hole time would cease to flow, and volume would go to zero that's why it's called a SINGULARITY.
Speed also alters the flow of time. Time slows as speed increases RELATIVE to the slower moving Frame of Reference. The so called Twin Paradox: My twin brother boards a spacecraft and heads to the nearest star at 98% of the speed of light. If I could observe him in flight I would see him moving slower and slower whereas he, observing me, would see me moving faster and faster. On his return he would be much younger than I and I much older than he due to the time differential within our Frames of Reference.
Oh, by the way, Newtonian Physics NEVER actually worked as it was supposed to, there always existed small discrepancies between prediction and experiment. Those discrepancies were chalked up to EXPERIMENTAL ERROR, i.e. the inability to make a fine enough measurement. Experimenters stated that WHEN the ability to measure improved those discrepancies would vanish. Unfortunately as mensuration improved the discrepancies got worse. The Quantum Universe is not Newtonian and can't be made to be so.
 
I quoted Newton above. For him time, that is 'duration' was constant and flowed 'equably'. For Newton time, true time, progressed at a consistent rate throughout the universe, it did not vary nor was it dependent on the perceiver.
He acknowledged that "relative, apparent and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time", that is the time we measure by anything from the dripping of a water clock to the swinging of a pendulum, to the oscillation of a quartz crystal, to the most accurate atomic clocks.
In this context relative time is not the same as that in Einstein's theory (ies). If you had suggested time dilation to Newton he would have given you a blank stare :)
Cheers
Steve
 
stona said:
In this context relative time is not the same as that in Einstein's theory (ies). If you had suggested time dilation to Newton he would have given you a blank stare :)
Click to expand...

If I suggested it maybe he would, if an Einstein suggested it I am sure he would have been impressed. The common story to illustrate Einsteins theory is of a person leaving a clock and travelling at the speed of light at which point the clock appears to stop. But for Newton such clocks did not keep uniform time anyway if you could find one. Prior to suggesting time dilation I would show him my wrist watch which in Newtons time would be the worlds most accurate, a few hundred of them would hand superiority in world navigation to any navy.
 
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pbehn said:
The common story to illustrate Einsteins theory is of a person leaving a clock and travelling at the speed of light at which point the clock appears to stop. But for Newton such clocks did not keep uniform time anyway if you could find one.
Click to expand...

No need to go so fast. If you and I were wearing identical watches and I flew over your house at any speed at all my watch would appear, to you, to be running slower. The faster I went the slower my watch would appear to be running, to you, not me.

For Newton time ran at a constant pace throughout the universe, for Einstein it did not.

Cheers

Steve
 
Again all the above is true ONLY to an observer OUTSIDE the Frame of Reference in question. To a person on a spacecraft traveling at 98% the speed of light and his twin brother on Earth THEIR clocks, atomic, digital, mechanical or otherwise would appear perfectly normal and unchanged. You can't measure time, per se, unless and until you actually know what it is and furthermore time is not a distinct entity. There is only a single entity, i.e. SPACETIME unified and inseparable much as MASS and ENERGY as distinct entities do not exist. They are different aspects of MASSENERGY. Depending on what you are observing you can observe mostly the massness of it or the energyness aspect.
Newton did not have the tools (nor did anyone else in his time) to measure the discrepancies between his theory and actual. Today with atomic clocks and laser measurement the distance to the moon can be measured to within 3cm. With such data it is easy to show that the moon does not follow the orbit predicted by Newtonian physics.
Modern GPS satellites in orbit above the Earth have to have their clocks synchronized by ground controlers with earth clocks. Clocks on the surface run slower than the satellite's clocks as the earthbound clocks are located deeper within the Earths gravitational well
 
Seems to me that back in the 80's, the flat earth society was a satirical movement, started by a comedian.
 
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