Yes and no. The problem is that there are two separate definitions and uses of both space and time. One is absolute, the other is relative. We experience relative, but have made some measurements of the absolute. For example, every test ever conducted shows that space itself is absolutely flat (Euclidean). Every experiment ever conducted shows the speed of causation is fixed. But every test ever conducted of a moving object in a gravitational field (which is all of them) shows that spacetime is curved (hyperbolic). Special relativity only works in flat space and time, but describes curved space and time (length contraction and time dilation). General relativity is a description of the stresses and waves in curved spacetime. (Fun fact - special relativity is nothing more than the very careful application of the Pythagorean principle and everything that flows from that, no matter how bizarre the conclusions may seem. It took both genius and imagination to do so.)
The problem is that we have never precisely defined what we mean by space, time, and motion. And that's the source of a lot of confusion when you get down to the tiny, crucial details. Anything in motion must include time. But which time? Which space? All of them. You move through fixed space and time, but are guided by the flexible fields of space and time that affect everything, including your perceptions.
The ultimate question is: What is motion? When you finally understand that, you can start to make sense of everything else. And it is so simple and beautiful. Space and time are fixed. The fields of kinetic (subjective space) and potential (subjective time) energy are relative and intertwined. ||Kinetic|| - Potential = 1 is one of the fundamental laws of the universe, complementary to ||Magnetic|| - Electric = 0.
No. I don't have a strong opinion on whether space and time are absolute, but I suspect the rest frame of the universe may in a sense provide an absolute frame. "...the ICRF is an inertial barycentric reference frame whose axes are defined by the measured positions of extragalactic sources (mainly quasars) observed using very-long-baseline interferometry while the Gaia-CRF is an inertial barycentric reference frame defined by optically measured positions of extragalactic sources by the Gaia satellite and whose axes are rotated to conform to the ICRF. Although general relativity implies that there are no true inertial frames around gravitating bodies, these reference frames are important because they do not exhibit any measurable angular rotation since the extragalactic sources used to define the ICRF and the Gaia-CRF are so far away. The ICRF and the Gaia-CRF are now the standard reference frames used to define the positions of astronomical objects."
Right, for purposes of measurement and practical application a reference can be defined -- must be defined -- and is experienced. But I cannot see time as other than relative motions of matter -- even if only of thoughts.
"“Atoms cannot be perceived by the senses;” he argued, “like all substances, they are things of thought”"
But that's dumb and immensely solipsistic. So if I put a hot cherry pie in front of Mach and said, "Man I want to know who baked this so I can get more later" he would have to reply, "How do you KNOW it was baked? As far as my logical positivism says the pie spawned into existence the instant I saw it for the sole purpose of my consumption and pleasure. I will thank no man and absolutely no God for the existence of this delicious pie".
Oh, reading into it, turns out he is atheist guess that matches. From wiki: "Mach later became a socialist and an atheist, but his theory and life was sometimes compared to Buddhism. Heinrich Gomperz called Mach the "Buddha of Science" because of his phenomenalist approach to the "Ego" in his Analysis of Sensations."
This is how you end up with Soviet famines. You assume the output of food without regard for what resources and expertise it takes to plant, grow, feed and manage it. I'm taking away from these historical articles that a similar famine hit the scientific community.
Amusing. According to the guardians of orthodox Austrian School Economics, I am a logical positivist. I refuse to make decisions based on axioms which are completely unobservable.
But I also like my axioms to be self-consistent and reasonable, unlike modern physics. So maybe I'm the Diet Coke of logical positivism.
"Mach argued that inertia is due to an interaction between matter and the rest of the universe: 'Try to fix Newton’s bucket and rotate the heaven of fixed stars and then prove the absence of centrifugal forces'”
The birth of the "Thought Experiment sans Actual Experiment".
No, Herr Mach. *YOU* prove it. That's how this Science stuff works.
EDIT: This reminded me of a trenchant thought by J.S. Haldane: "It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."
If Mach is correct, then his observations have no more reason be thought to be true than any other. Any set of observations by one investigator should be taken as no more true or valid than a passing dream of a 7 year old child. This would mean that Science is just a random aggregation of unconnected observations with no predictive power whatsoever, except by merest chance.
Yet, Mach and others didn't treat their observations of Reality in any such manner. Observations were catalogued, weighed, and either accepted or discarded, much as before Mach had made his claim. The observations were taken as depictions of how Reality behaved, regardless of their subjective qualities.
How in the world could you make any predictions or formulate physical laws on such a structure? Mach proceeded on his physical work after his philosophical observation just as he had done before, but without the thought of any "non-measurable" element being allowed into the mix.
But, how many new methods of measurement have we discovered since the time of Mach that make this outlook both fanciful and intellectually limiting. Extreme arrogance, to say the very least. The new "religion" here is almost comic in it's hubris.
It should also be noted that Logic and Reason itself are excluded from the world of the Materialists for exactly the construct that Haldane outlines here.
Totally agree, philosophy in lieu of mechanics. Mach was wrong about the Copernican simplicity. It has more 'epicycles' or quants than the Ptolemaic or Tychonic. All of it still unproven.
Are you maintaining that space and time are absolutes? Not measurements of relative motion?
Yes and no. The problem is that there are two separate definitions and uses of both space and time. One is absolute, the other is relative. We experience relative, but have made some measurements of the absolute. For example, every test ever conducted shows that space itself is absolutely flat (Euclidean). Every experiment ever conducted shows the speed of causation is fixed. But every test ever conducted of a moving object in a gravitational field (which is all of them) shows that spacetime is curved (hyperbolic). Special relativity only works in flat space and time, but describes curved space and time (length contraction and time dilation). General relativity is a description of the stresses and waves in curved spacetime. (Fun fact - special relativity is nothing more than the very careful application of the Pythagorean principle and everything that flows from that, no matter how bizarre the conclusions may seem. It took both genius and imagination to do so.)
The problem is that we have never precisely defined what we mean by space, time, and motion. And that's the source of a lot of confusion when you get down to the tiny, crucial details. Anything in motion must include time. But which time? Which space? All of them. You move through fixed space and time, but are guided by the flexible fields of space and time that affect everything, including your perceptions.
The ultimate question is: What is motion? When you finally understand that, you can start to make sense of everything else. And it is so simple and beautiful. Space and time are fixed. The fields of kinetic (subjective space) and potential (subjective time) energy are relative and intertwined. ||Kinetic|| - Potential = 1 is one of the fundamental laws of the universe, complementary to ||Magnetic|| - Electric = 0.
No. I don't have a strong opinion on whether space and time are absolute, but I suspect the rest frame of the universe may in a sense provide an absolute frame. "...the ICRF is an inertial barycentric reference frame whose axes are defined by the measured positions of extragalactic sources (mainly quasars) observed using very-long-baseline interferometry while the Gaia-CRF is an inertial barycentric reference frame defined by optically measured positions of extragalactic sources by the Gaia satellite and whose axes are rotated to conform to the ICRF. Although general relativity implies that there are no true inertial frames around gravitating bodies, these reference frames are important because they do not exhibit any measurable angular rotation since the extragalactic sources used to define the ICRF and the Gaia-CRF are so far away. The ICRF and the Gaia-CRF are now the standard reference frames used to define the positions of astronomical objects."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Celestial_Reference_System_and_its_realizations
Right, for purposes of measurement and practical application a reference can be defined -- must be defined -- and is experienced. But I cannot see time as other than relative motions of matter -- even if only of thoughts.
"“Atoms cannot be perceived by the senses;” he argued, “like all substances, they are things of thought”"
But that's dumb and immensely solipsistic. So if I put a hot cherry pie in front of Mach and said, "Man I want to know who baked this so I can get more later" he would have to reply, "How do you KNOW it was baked? As far as my logical positivism says the pie spawned into existence the instant I saw it for the sole purpose of my consumption and pleasure. I will thank no man and absolutely no God for the existence of this delicious pie".
Oh, reading into it, turns out he is atheist guess that matches. From wiki: "Mach later became a socialist and an atheist, but his theory and life was sometimes compared to Buddhism. Heinrich Gomperz called Mach the "Buddha of Science" because of his phenomenalist approach to the "Ego" in his Analysis of Sensations."
This is how you end up with Soviet famines. You assume the output of food without regard for what resources and expertise it takes to plant, grow, feed and manage it. I'm taking away from these historical articles that a similar famine hit the scientific community.
Relying on Germans and Austrians for your philosophy can be deadly business. Now we see that applies to natural philosophy as well.
Amusing. According to the guardians of orthodox Austrian School Economics, I am a logical positivist. I refuse to make decisions based on axioms which are completely unobservable.
But I also like my axioms to be self-consistent and reasonable, unlike modern physics. So maybe I'm the Diet Coke of logical positivism.
"Mach argued that inertia is due to an interaction between matter and the rest of the universe: 'Try to fix Newton’s bucket and rotate the heaven of fixed stars and then prove the absence of centrifugal forces'”
The birth of the "Thought Experiment sans Actual Experiment".
No, Herr Mach. *YOU* prove it. That's how this Science stuff works.
EDIT: This reminded me of a trenchant thought by J.S. Haldane: "It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."
If Mach is correct, then his observations have no more reason be thought to be true than any other. Any set of observations by one investigator should be taken as no more true or valid than a passing dream of a 7 year old child. This would mean that Science is just a random aggregation of unconnected observations with no predictive power whatsoever, except by merest chance.
Yet, Mach and others didn't treat their observations of Reality in any such manner. Observations were catalogued, weighed, and either accepted or discarded, much as before Mach had made his claim. The observations were taken as depictions of how Reality behaved, regardless of their subjective qualities.
How in the world could you make any predictions or formulate physical laws on such a structure? Mach proceeded on his physical work after his philosophical observation just as he had done before, but without the thought of any "non-measurable" element being allowed into the mix.
But, how many new methods of measurement have we discovered since the time of Mach that make this outlook both fanciful and intellectually limiting. Extreme arrogance, to say the very least. The new "religion" here is almost comic in it's hubris.
Excellent observation.
Here's the Haldane quote which I’m definitely going to borrow.
https://archive.org/details/possibleworldsot1927hald/page/208/mode/2up?q=chemically
It should also be noted that Logic and Reason itself are excluded from the world of the Materialists for exactly the construct that Haldane outlines here.
Shorter Ernst Mach: “Physics is just Fan Fiction.”
Tumblr wept.
Totally agree, philosophy in lieu of mechanics. Mach was wrong about the Copernican simplicity. It has more 'epicycles' or quants than the Ptolemaic or Tychonic. All of it still unproven.
That is a common misconception.