The First Way Explained

[inocente]

Intelligent design, god-of-the-gaps, Fesserism, The Digital Matrix … not at all sure about this American past-time of trying to turn God into a scientific hypothesis. Didn’t Jesus say it’s faith, not proofs, that moves mountains?

Here’s some Australian Pentecostals with a thesis more up my street.

I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever, Hillsong church + Delirious (the guy singing at 3:00 is the writer)

Linus - I’m determined not to reply to you until you actually take one of your days off.

 

[Ambien89]

Newton’s equations still work just like they always did. His laws didn’t suddenly stop working the day QM was published. Philosophers might have interpreted the world differently before and after, but that’s philosophy, not physics.

That’s a clip from Through The Wormhole, one of those tv shows where there’s never any education, never anything difficult, just drive-thru speculative instant gratification to turn us all into better consumers.

(I can rant on demand )

Physics is philosophy (natural philosophy). You may wave a dismissive wand at pop-sci products, but the hard work still exists underlying this speculation. Dismissing theoretical physics is crackpot territory (ala Guillermo Baede).

The argument can also be reduced to pure philosophy as in George Berkeley’s master argument. What has turned you against reason? Reason is necessary for fides. How do you obey a command if you know not its validity?

 

[Ambien89]

Intelligent design, god-of-the-gaps, Fesserism, The Digital Matrix … not at all sure about this American past-time of trying to turn God into a scientific hypothesis. Didn’t Jesus say it’s faith, not proofs, that moves mountains?

Here’s some Australian Pentecostals with a thesis more up my street.

I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever, Hillsong church + Delirious (the guy singing at 3:00 is the writer)

Linus - I’m determined not to reply to you until you actually take one of your days off.

It’s a Christian ‘past-time’ starting with St. Augustine.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Having established in post 92 that gravity is a property of ponderable bodies ( any non-spiritual substance ) I wanted to include a small additional fray into Relativity just to show that there is really nothing there which concerns the First Way especially. One might ask, " What causes acceleration to produce certain effects? " But that wouldn’t be very helpful because no one seems to know. All we know, is that it does. We might speculate that at extremely high velocities one encounters sufficient " ambient " resistance from encountering freely floating atomic particles that it causes the effects encountered.That there is a physical cause we can be nearly certain. If there isn’t then we arrive immediately at the Unmoved Mover. And for these same reasons I see no reason to venture into General Relativity.

"…In a nutshell, the Special Theory of Relativity tells us that a moving object measures shorter in its direction of motion as its velocity increases until, at the speed of light, it disappears. It also tells us that moving clocks run more slowly as their velocity increases until, at the speed of light, they stop running altogether. In fact, it also tells us (as we will see in subsequent sections) that the mass of a moving object measures more as its velocity increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite.

Thus, one person’s interval of space is not the same as another person’s, and time runs at different rates for different observers travelling at different speeds. To some extent, the faster you go, the slower you age and the slimmer you are! The reason this is not obvious in everyday situations is that the differences at everyday speeds are infinitesimally small, and only really become apparent at speeds approaching that of light itself (“relativistic” speeds). The closer the speed of an objects approaches to the speed of light, the more warped lengths and time intervals become.

The amount of length contraction and time dilation is given by the Lorentz factor, named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, who had been exploring such transformation equations since as early as 1895, long before Einstein began his work (indeed some would claim that Lorentz and Henri Poincaré between them anticipated almost everything in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity). The Lorentz factor, γ (gamma) is given by the equation γ ≡ , so that the effect increases exponentially as the object’s velocity v approaches the speed of light c. Thus, the calculations show that at 25% of the speed of light, the effect is just 1.03 (a mere 3% slowing of time or contraction of length); at 50% of the speed of light, it is just 1.15; at 99% of the speed of light, time is slowed by a factor of about 7; and at 99.999, the factor is 224. So, if it were possible to travel in a spaceship at, say, 99.5% of the speed of light, a hypothetical observer looking in would see the clock moving about 10 times slower than normal and the astronaut inside moving in slow-motion, as though through treacle.

A couple of real-life examples may help to make the effects of special relativity clearer. Experiments have been carried out where two identical super-accurate atomic clocks were synchronized, and then one was flown around the world on an airplane while the other stayed at home. The clock which travelled recorded marginally less passage of time than the other (as predicted by the theory), although the difference was of course minimal due to the relatively slow speeds involved. Our fastest military airplanes can only travel at about 1/300,000 of the of the speed of light, so the time dilation effect γ is only about a ten-thousandth of 1%.

At very high speeds, however, the effect is much more noticeable. Experiments have demonstrated that an ultra-short-lived muon particle, which habitually travels at 99.92% of the speed of light, actually lives about 25 times longer and travels about 25 times further than it theoretically should. Particles travelling at speeds up to 99.99% the speed of light in the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland experience the same kind of relativity-induced time travel, experiencing a γ factor of around 5,000, allowing the artificial persistence of even shorter-lived particles such as phi mesons.

So, travelling at close to the speed of light would theoretically allow time travel into the future, as time slows down for the speeding object in order to “protect” the cosmic speed limit of the speed of light. A corollary of all this is that, if it were possible to exceed the speed of light, then it would also be possible to go back in time, which raises the possibility of time-travel paradoxes (where a person goes back in time and interferes in their own past or kills their own grandparents, etc), although some scientists believe that some as yet undiscovered law of physics may intervene to prevent such paradoxes. Actually, special relativity does not specifically forbid the existence of particles that travel faster than light, and there is a hypothetical sub-atomic particle called a tachyon, which would indeed spend its entire life travelling faster than the speed of light, but it is currently still hypothetical. "
From: physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_relativity_special.html

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Having established in post 92 that gravity is a property of ponderable bodies ( any non-spiritual substance ) I wanted to include a small additional fray into Relativity just to show that there is really nothing there which concerns the First Way especially. One might ask, " What causes acceleration to produce certain effects? " But that wouldn’t be very helpful because no one seems to know. All we know, is that it does. We might speculate that at extremely high velocities one encounters sufficient " ambient " resistance from encountering freely floating atomic particles that it causes the effects encountered.That there is a physical cause we can be nearly certain. If there isn’t then we arrive immediately at the Unmoved Mover. And for these same reasons I see no reason to venture into General Relativity.

"…In a nutshell, the Special Theory of Relativity tells us that a moving object measures shorter in its direction of motion as its velocity increases until, at the speed of light, it disappears. It also tells us that moving clocks run more slowly as their velocity increases until, at the speed of light, they stop running altogether. In fact, it also tells us (as we will see in subsequent sections) that the mass of a moving object measures more as its velocity increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite.

Thus, one person’s interval of space is not the same as another person’s, and time runs at different rates for different observers travelling at different speeds. To some extent, the faster you go, the slower you age and the slimmer you are! The reason this is not obvious in everyday situations is that the differences at everyday speeds are infinitesimally small, and only really become apparent at speeds approaching that of light itself (“relativistic” speeds). The closer the speed of an objects approaches to the speed of light, the more warped lengths and time intervals become.

The amount of length contraction and time dilation is given by the Lorentz factor, named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, who had been exploring such transformation equations since as early as 1895, long before Einstein began his work (indeed some would claim that Lorentz and Henri Poincaré between them anticipated almost everything in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity). The Lorentz factor, γ (gamma) is given by the equation γ ≡ , so that the effect increases exponentially as the object’s velocity v approaches the speed of light c. Thus, the calculations show that at 25% of the speed of light, the effect is just 1.03 (a mere 3% slowing of time or contraction of length); at 50% of the speed of light, it is just 1.15; at 99% of the speed of light, time is slowed by a factor of about 7; and at 99.999, the factor is 224. So, if it were possible to travel in a spaceship at, say, 99.5% of the speed of light, a hypothetical observer looking in would see the clock moving about 10 times slower than normal and the astronaut inside moving in slow-motion, as though through treacle.

A couple of real-life examples may help to make the effects of special relativity clearer. Experiments have been carried out where two identical super-accurate atomic clocks were synchronized, and then one was flown around the world on an airplane while the other stayed at home. The clock which travelled recorded marginally less passage of time than the other (as predicted by the theory), although the difference was of course minimal due to the relatively slow speeds involved. Our fastest military airplanes can only travel at about 1/300,000 of the of the speed of light, so the time dilation effect γ is only about a ten-thousandth of 1%.

At very high speeds, however, the effect is much more noticeable. Experiments have demonstrated that an ultra-short-lived muon particle, which habitually travels at 99.92% of the speed of light, actually lives about 25 times longer and travels about 25 times further than it theoretically should. Particles travelling at speeds up to 99.99% the speed of light in the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland experience the same kind of relativity-induced time travel, experiencing a γ factor of around 5,000, allowing the artificial persistence of even shorter-lived particles such as phi mesons.

So, travelling at close to the speed of light would theoretically allow time travel into the future, as time slows down for the speeding object in order to “protect” the cosmic speed limit of the speed of light. A corollary of all this is that, if it were possible to exceed the speed of light, then it would also be possible to go back in time, which raises the possibility of time-travel paradoxes (where a person goes back in time and interferes in their own past or kills their own grandparents, etc), although some scientists believe that some as yet undiscovered law of physics may intervene to prevent such paradoxes. Actually, special relativity does not specifically forbid the existence of particles that travel faster than light, and there is a hypothetical sub-atomic particle called a tachyon, which would indeed spend its entire life travelling faster than the speed of light, but it is currently still hypothetical. "
From: physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_relativity_special.html

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

I think you will find that it is Plato’s cave you are speaking of..

Silly mistake to make.

Not an instance of either Relativity or Special Relativity.

It’s a standard analogy, I take it you now see the relevance after your post #101.

NYT, didn’t realize it was an authority on philosophy or anything else for that matter

Phrases such as “NYT” and “literary review” tend to get a knee-jerk reaction from those who don’t realize the reviews are written by acknowledged experts in their field such as professors.

Nothing subjective about that remark, not much.

Please explain.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Silly mistake to make.

It’s a standard analogy, I take it you now see the relevance after your post #101.

O.K. But even if things do actually shrink at super high velosities ( or does it have to be accelerated velocities, I get the two mixed up as they relate to either Special or General Relativity ) it has no adverse effect on anything Thomas taught pertinent to the First Way. Every thing has a natural cause, and if it doesn’t then we have arrived at the Unmoved Mover.

Phrases such as “NYT” and “literary review” tend to get a knee-jerk reaction from those who don’t realize the reviews are written by acknowledged experts in their field such as professors.

Please explain.

The " rest of the story " in context.

My original comment:
You might add The Modeling of Nature by Wallace to your reading list. Good libraries will have it.

Your response
What a strange recommendation. According to its blurb, the book argues about which school of the philosophy of science is bestest. There are dozens of that kind of thesis book published every month. Subscribe to something like the Times Literary Supplement or the NYT Review of Books and you’ll find such lengthy reviews of them that you don’t have to read the books.

Second paragraph of your response
Seriously, then you have more time to read books about what we know rather than books about people’s opinions about how you should interpret what we know.

My response to that.

Nothing subjective about that remark, not much

You were implying that the reviewers at NYT were some how superior to a known authority not only on the history of philosophy but on the history of the Philosophy of Nature, one who also happens to be an Electronics Engineer, a scientist, with PHds in Philosophy and Theology and who is a scholar of the highest rank. Read his bio here: .,

May 8, 2008Fr. William A. Wallace, O.P., Ad Multos Annos

Fr.William Augustine Wallace, O.P. was born 90 years ago, in 1918, and was ordained to the Priesthood 55 years ago, in 1953. This Sunday he will be honored on the occasion of his 90th birthday with a small reception at the Dominican House of Studies. Ad multos annos!

Fr. Wallace served as a line officer in the United States Navy for five years during Word War II, with a specialty in underwater ordinance and mine warfare. He received the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit medals for exceptionally meritorious service, and entered the Dominican novitiate in 1946.

Fr. Wallace and his 90th Birthday cake, from a celebration at the Dominican House of Studies on Sunday May 11, 2008.

The video interview with Fr. Wallace posted above was filmed in 1982 at the Dominican House of Studies.

CURRICULUM VITAE OF WILLIAM A. WALLACE, O.P.

Birth: May 11, 1918, in New York City, New York, of William A. Wallace and Louise C. Teufel; U.S. citizen

Degrees, Academic: Manhattan College, New York, B.E.E., 1940; The Catholic University of America, M.S. (Physics), 1952; Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C., S.T.B., 1952; S.T.L., 1954; University of Freiburg, Switzerland, Ph.D. (Philosophy), 1959; Th.D. (Theology), 1962. Honorary: Providence College, Providence, RI, D.Sc. 1973; Molloy College, New York, NY, D.Litt. 1974; Manhattan College, New York, NY, L.H.D. 1975; Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT, L.H.D. 1986.

Military Service: U.S. Navy, Ensign to Lieutenant Commander, 1941-1946; research at Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 1941-1942; operations officer, Pacific Ocean Area, 1943-1945, staff of Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C., 1946; decorated Legion of Merit.

Dominican Order: Entered Novitiate of St. Joseph’s Province, Springfield, KY, July 1946; professed: simple vows, August 1947; solemn vows, August 1950; ordained to the priesthood, June 4, 1953; received faculties, 1954.

Lector of Sacred Theology (S.T.Lr.), 1954; Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.), 1967.

Academic Appointments: Lector in Philosophy, Dominican Houses of Studies in Springfield, Ky., and Dover, Mass., 1954-1962; Lecturer in Philosophy, The Catholic University of America, 1963-1965 and 1968-1970; Regent of Studies, Master of Theology, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C., 1967-1970; Professor of Philosophy and History of Science, The Catholic University of America, 1970-1988; Emeritus, 1988-date; Senior Fellow, Folger Institute, Washington, D.C., 1975-1976; Visiting Professor, West Virginia University, Spring 1980; Visiting Professor, University of Padua, 1983-1984; Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science (CHPS), 1988-present, Associate Member of the Graduate Faculty of Philosophy as of 10-31-91.

Research Appointments: Test Laboratories, Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, 1940-1941; Naval Ordnance Laboratory, Washington, 1941-1943; Research Associate, History of Science, Harvard University, 1965-1967; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1976-1977; Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., 1984.

Publications: As of October 2000, author of 372 publications, of which 20 are books (13 authored, 7 edited) and 4 are separately printed monographs or addresses; 56 are chapters or essays in books edited by others; 73 are articles in journals or proceedings; 96 are entries in encyclopedias; 12 are research or other reports; 111 are book reviews, and 22 are translations, reprints, etc. In addition, forthcoming are 7 essays in books edited by others, and 12 entries in encyclopedias, which will bring the total to 391. Subjects treated are mostly related to science and religion, with the main focus being on the philosophy of science; medieval, Renaissance, and early modern philosophy; and systematic studies in logical methodology.

cont. next post

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Cont. Bio. of William A. Wallace, the Great

Publications: As of October 2000, author of 372 publications, of which 20 are books (13 authored, 7 edited) and 4 are separately printed monographs or addresses; 56 are chapters or essays in books edited by others; 73 are articles in journals or proceedings; 96 are entries in encyclopedias; 12 are research or other reports; 111 are book reviews, and 22 are translations, reprints, etc. In addition, forthcoming are 7 essays in books edited by others, and 12 entries in encyclopedias, which will bring the total to 391. Subjects treated are mostly related to science and religion, with the main focus being on the philosophy of science; medieval, Renaissance, and early modern philosophy; and systematic studies in logical methodology.

Editorial Activities: Editor for Philosophy and Science, Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 6 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999; Staff Editor for Philosophy, New Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols. in preparation from 1961 to 1966, published by McGraw-Hill, 1967; consultant for three supplementary volumes, published in 1974, 1979, and 1989; Director General, Leonine Commission,1976-1987, during which time five folio volumes of critical Latin editions of Thomas Aquinas’s works were published.

Professional Societies and Activities: American Catholic Philosophical Association, Council 1962-1964, Vice President 1968-1969, President 1969-1970; History of Science Society, Council 1974-1977, 1988-1990; Philosophy of Science Association, Nominating Committee 1980-1982.

Honors and Distinctions: Sigma Xi; Phi Beta Kappa; Manhattan College Alumni Society Award for Achievement, 1967; Aquinas Medal of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1983; Catholic University Alumni Society Award for Achievement in Philosophy, 1986 [see also Honorary Degrees, above].

PUBLICATIONS OF WILLIAM A. WALLACE
Books

1959 The Scientific Methodology of Theodoric of Freiberg. A Case Study of the Relationship Between Science and Philosophy. Studia Friburgensia, N.S. 26, Fribourg: The University Press, 1959. pp. xviii + 395.

1962 The Role of Demonstration in Moral Theology. A Study of Methodology in St. Thomas Aquinas. Texts and Studies 2. Washington, D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1962. Pp. x + 244.

1967a Cosmogony [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Vol. 10 (1a.65-74)]. New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967. Pp. xxiii + 255.

1967b New Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols., New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967. Staff Editor, Philosophy and related fields, edited some 900 articles comprising about 1,375,000 words; also contributed 31 articles.

1972 Causality and Scientific Explanation. Vol. 1. Medieval and Early Classical Science. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972. xii + 288 pp. Reprinted in 1981.

1974 Causality and Scientific Explanation. Vol. 2. Classical and Contemporary Science. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1974. Pp. xi + 422. Reprinted in 1981.

1977a The Elements of Philosophy: A Compendium for Philosophers and Theologians, New York: Alba House, 1977. Pp. xx + 342.

1977b Galileo’s Early Notebooks: The Physical Questions. A Translation from the Latin, with Historical and Paleographical Commentary. Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1977. Pp. xiv + 321.

1979 From a Realist Point of View: Essays on the Philosophy of Science. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979. Pp. xii + 376.

1981 Prelude to Galileo: Essays on Medieval and Sixteenth-Century Sources of Galileo’s Thought. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 62. Dordrecht-Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1981.

1983 From a Realist Point of View: Essays on the Philosophy of Science. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, Second Edition, 1983. Pp. x + 340.

1984 Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo’s Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

1986 Reinterpreting Galileo (editor), Studies in Philosophy and History of Philosophy 15, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986.

1988 Galileo Galilei, Tractatio de praecognitionibus et praecognitis and Tractatio de demonstratione (co-editor).Transcribed from the Latin autograph by W. F. Edwards, with an introduction, notes, and commentary by W. A. Wallace. Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1988.

1991 Galileo, the Jesuits and the Medieval Aristotle, Collected Studies Series, CS346. Aldershot (UK): Variorum Publishing, 1991.

1992a Galileo’s Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 137. Dordrecht- Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992. Xxiii + 323 pp.

1992b Galileo’s Logical Treatises. A Translation, With Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Latin Questions on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 138. Dordrecht- Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992. xix + 239 pp.

1996a The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis, Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. xx + 450 pp.

1996b Albertus Magnus (guest editor). American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 2. “Foreword,” pp. 1-6. “Albert the Great’s Inventive Logic: His Exposition of the Topics of Aristotle,” pp. 11-39.

1999 Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (editor for philosophy and science), 6 vols., New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999; contributed 26 articles; planned, solicited, and edited some 150 entries in philosophy, science, technology, and medicine.

Fr. Wallace lecturing on the philosophy of nature:

And I object to such a depiction. Fr. Wallace has more knowledge in his little pinky than all the book reviewrs at NYT.

Linus2nd

---

 

[inocente]

Here is an excellent article on Relativity, it clearly shows that gravity is real, that it certainly is a property of bodies and how it accounts for the speeding up and the slowing down of clocks. Unfortunately enthusiasts have chosen to make something mysterious out of this natural phenomenon and began referring to it as " space time curvature, " or " time warp, " or other " occult " and overly imaginative descriptors.

Every time you don’t understand something you make a gratuitous personal attack, first on Magee, now on me.

You looked at one Wikipedia article and suddenly you’re an expert. Trouble is, you didn’t notice that right there in the overview, the article says: The laws of nature are such that time itself (i.e. spacetime) will bend due to differences in either gravity or velocity – each of which affects time in different ways..

It wasn’t even the Wikipedia article on spacetime or on gravity. How come you didn’t link either of them? They both contain this rather cool graphic showing curved spacetime.


Two-dimensional analogy of spacetime distortion generated by the mass of an object. Matter changes the geometry of spacetime, this (curved) geometry being interpreted as gravity. White lines do not represent the curvature of space but instead represent the coordinate system imposed on the curved spacetime, which would be rectilinear in a flat spacetime.

If one is bound and determined to be prejudiced, Not even God can change the mind of those determined and fixed in their attitudes.

How true. but I’ll not embarrass you further. Though it might be worth remembering that just because something is new to you doesn’t mean it isn’t bog standard stuff to the rest of us, nor does it make us heretics for knowing it.

 

[inocente]

Physics is philosophy (natural philosophy). You may wave a dismissive wand at pop-sci products, but the hard work still exists underlying this speculation. Dismissing theoretical physics is crackpot territory (ala Guillermo Baede).

The argument can also be reduced to pure philosophy as in George Berkeley’s master argument. What has turned you against reason? Reason is necessary for fides. How do you obey a command if you know not its validity?

Not sure what that has to do with my post.

There’s a big difference between science, where laws must match observation, and philosophizing about what those laws might mean.

I found this video the other day for another thread, it’s Kip Thorne of Caltech, coincidentally talking about spacetime. Towards the end he talks about the difference between science and philosophizing about science.

youtube.com/watch?v=mvdlN4H4T54

 

[inocente]

While looking at the Kip Thorne video, noticed this one, a high-school teacher giving the standard visualization of curved space-time:

youtube.com/watch?v=MTY1Kje0yLg

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Every time you don’t understand something you make a gratuitous personal attack, first on Magee, now on me.

I didn’t " attack " anyone. I didn’t mention either of you. I haven’t mentioned Magee for ages, you are the one who keeps bringing him up. How am I attacking you? I was merely talking about the article on Relativity. How is that construed as an attack?.

You looked at one Wikipedia article and suddenly you’re an expert. Trouble is, you didn’t notice that right there in the overview, the article says: The laws of nature are such that time itself (i.e. spacetime) will bend due to differences in either gravity or velocity – each of which affects time in different ways…

Yes, I saw that. But the term " spacetime " in the context of " bending " is an unwarranted embellishment of the mathematics of General Relativity employed by the pop scientism circuit. Space does not bend and neither does time. I am not the least interested in graphics, I am interested in what happens and exists in the real world, not what exists in the wild imaginations of pop science huxters.

I am not an expert. But anyone who says that either space or time bends is not being realistic, to be polite about it. Time does not bend and neither does space. You are talking about points on a graph ( Yes, a very pretty graph, I can draw it free hand. Then it would be art, which is what that graph is. Nothing but art.). It does not translate into reality. Don’t you see the difference between mathematics and reality? .

Experiments have shown that light bends due to the affects of gravity, mass is affected by gravity, mass, length, clocks are affected by super high speeds. This does not amount to the " bending " of anything. I am interested only in the causality of things and how these things may or may not relate to the philosophy of St. Thomas. And I can tell you right now I have seen nothing so far that has an adverse affect on any of the philosophy of St. Thomas, nor on the First Way.

It wasn’t even the Wikipedia article on spacetime or on gravity. How come you didn’t link either of them? They both contain this rather cool graphic showing curved spacetime.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...rcling_earth.jpg/800px-GPB_circling_earth.jpg

Here is the caption under the graph: " .Two-dimensional analogy of spacetime distortion generated by the mass of an object. Matter changes the geometry of spacetime, this (curved) geometry being interpreted as gravity. White lines do not represent the curvature of space but instead represent the coordinate system imposed on the curved spacetime, which would be rectilinear in a flat spacetime. "

It says right there that this is a mathematical representation of how gravity affects " spacetime. " First it is referring to the mathematics of Special and General Relativty. In the mathematics " space and time " are treated as numbers, othewise the formula wouldn’t work, the math wouldn’t balance. And it says right in in the caption, " …geometry being interpreted as gravity. Its all points on a graph. It represents the affect of gravity and super high acceleration on mass, length, time, light. In reality space and time are two separate realities, they are not conjoined, they do not " bend. " .

How true. but I’ll not embarrass you further. Though it might be worth remembering that just because something is new to you doesn’t mean it isn’t bog standard stuff to the rest of us, nor does it make us heretics for knowing it.

You haven’t emgarrassed me a bit. I have my feet solidly on Mother Earth, I prefer not to day dream, to errect " Castles in the Sky. " You are not a heretic and I never hinted you were, but I think you have been taken in by the hype of imaginative huxters.

This is getting off topic, if you want to open a thread on Special and General Relativity go ahead.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

While looking at the Kip Thorne video, noticed this one, a high-school teacher giving the standard visualization of curved space-time:

youtube.com/watch?v=MTY1Kje0yLg

Not interested in " visualizations?" I know perfectly well what is happening. I did think the graph was very pretty though.
Thanks anyway.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Not sure what that has to do with my post.

There’s a big difference between science, where laws must match observation, and philosophizing about what those laws might mean.

I found this video the other day for another thread, it’s Kip Thorne of Caltech, coincidentally talking about spacetime. Towards the end he talks about the difference between science and philosophizing about science.

youtube.com/watch?v=mvdlN4H4T54

I noticed that Kip, an expert on the subject, had a great deal of trouble explaining what the theory meant. The fact is that the formula is a mathematical convenience. There is no instance in the real world were space and time are one entity. The so called " space time warp " is a being of reason. It exists only as a dot on a graph. There is not instantiation of it in reality.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Not sure what that has to do with my post.

There’s a big difference between science, where laws must match observation, and philosophizing about what those laws might mean.

I found this video the other day for another thread, it’s Kip Thorne of Caltech, coincidentally talking about spacetime. Towards the end he talks about the difference between science and philosophizing about science.

youtube.com/watch?v=mvdlN4H4T54

I noticed that Kip, an expert on the subject, had a great deal of trouble explaining what the theory meant. The fact is that the formula is a mathematical convenience. There is no instance in the real world were space and time are one entity. The so called " space time warp " is a being of reason. It exists only as a dot on a graph. There is not an instantiation of it in reality.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

While looking at the Kip Thorne video, noticed this one, a high-school teacher giving the standard visualization of curved space-time:

youtube.com/watch?v=MTY1Kje0yLg

Matter is not bending space, even in the video. All the video illustrates is that gravity is a property of ponderable matter. This property causes ponderable matter to seek its proper place, an extension of the teaching of both Aristotle and Thomas. A possible explanation will be explained by William A. Wallace later, stay tuned.

Also, the teacher conveniently ignored talking about the cause of the motion. There is a cause for the motion in the first place. What made the " planets " begin their motion? He illustrated it perfectly but didn’t draw attention to it. What caused it in the first place? He did! He set the " planets " in motion when he threw them on the " table. " He was the motor cause, the agent of the motion, the efficient cause. More philosophy. Stay tuned for that too.

Linus2nd.

 

[inocente]

O.K. But even if things do actually shrink at super high velosities ( or does it have to be accelerated velocities, I get the two mixed up as they relate to either Special or General Relativity ) it has no adverse effect on anything Thomas taught pertinent to the First Way. Every thing has a natural cause, and if it doesn’t then we have arrived at the Unmoved Mover.

These phenomena are not conjecture, they are proven to great accuracy.​

The First Way relies on the idea that the natural starting condition is nothing changing, therefore change must be invoked. This was reasonable when, for instance, the Earth was thought to be at rest in the center of the universe, providing an absolute reference point for motion from place to place.

It was meaningful to talk of something being at absolute rest or moving.

But Newtonian relativity says there are no absolute reference points in space, then we found out that space and time themselves are also relative. That means that actuality and potentiality are perforce relative, if they exist at all, and if it is meaningless to talk of anything being at absolute rest then the First Way fails.

Methinks you have a growing list of things to explain away, for instance even the order of events is relative:


Events A, B, and C occur in different order depending on the motion of the observer. The white line represents a plane of simultaneity being moved from the past to the future - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

The " rest of the story " in context. …]

You could have linked the web sites rather than copying verbatim from them, then we could have seen “Fr. Wallace and his 90th birthday cake” and so on. Still not sure how any of that tackled my original point, that according to the book’s blurb it’s about which philosophy of science he likes the best.

 

[inocente]

I didn’t " attack " anyone. I didn’t mention either of you. I haven’t mentioned Magee for ages, you are the one who keeps bringing him up. How am I attacking you? I was merely talking about the article on Relativity. How is that construed as an attack?.

Twas phrases like “enthusiasts have chosen”.

*Yes, I saw that. But the term " spacetime " in the context of " bending " is an unwarranted embellishment of the mathematics of General Relativity employed by the pop scientism circuit. Space does not bend and neither does time. I am not the least interested in graphics, I am interested in what happens and exists in the real world, not what exists in the wild imaginations of pop science huxters.

I am not an expert. But anyone who says that either space or time bends is not being realistic, to be polite about it. Time does not bend and neither does space. You are talking about points on a graph ( Yes, a very pretty graph, I can draw it free hand. Then it would be art, which is what that graph is. Nothing but art.). It does not translate into reality. Don’t you see the difference between mathematics and reality? .

Experiments have shown that light bends due to the affects of gravity, mass is affected by gravity, mass, length, clocks are affected by super high speeds. This does not amount to the " bending " of anything. I am interested only in the causality of things and how these things may or may not relate to the philosophy of St. Thomas. And I can tell you right now I have seen nothing so far that has an adverse affect on any of the philosophy of St. Thomas, nor on the First Way.*

It’s hard to believe you said that. Did you even bother to look it up?

Try seeing how many papers are cited on google scholar when you (name removed by moderator)ut words such as space-time, gravity, curve, geometry.

Try GB-P at Stanford University.

I appreciate that physics might be a shock to your system, just as Galileo was a shock to some people in the past, but serious question: do you think you’re helping or hurting the First Way with these knee-jerk reactions to things you admit are new to you?

*Here is the caption under the graph: " .Two-dimensional analogy of spacetime distortion generated by the mass of an object. Matter changes the geometry of spacetime, this (curved) geometry being interpreted as gravity. White lines do not represent the curvature of space but instead represent the coordinate system imposed on the curved spacetime, which would be rectilinear in a flat spacetime. "

It says right there that this is a mathematical representation of how gravity affects " spacetime. " First it is referring to the mathematics of Special and General Relativty. In the mathematics " space and time " are treated as numbers, othewise the formula wouldn’t work, the math wouldn’t balance. And it says right in in the caption, " …geometry being interpreted as gravity. Its all points on a graph. It represents the affect of gravity and super high acceleration on mass, length, time, light. In reality space and time are two separate realities, they are not conjoined, they do not " bend. " .*

Couldn’t understand that, but geometry is math, always has been.

 

[inocente]

Not interested in " visualizations?" I know perfectly well what is happening. I did think the graph was very pretty though.
Thanks anyway.

Those who are interested in understanding find it helps to visualize what is going on.

Those who are not interested in understanding dismiss it out of hand.

 

[inocente]

I noticed that Kip, an expert on the subject, had a great deal of trouble explaining what the theory meant. The fact is that the formula is a mathematical convenience. There is no instance in the real world were space and time are one entity. The so called " space time warp " is a being of reason. It exists only as a dot on a graph. There is not an instantiation of it in reality.

Let’s dismiss all the teachers and university professors, let’s burn all the books.

Matter is not bending space, even in the video. All the video illustrates is that gravity is a property of ponderable matter. This property causes ponderable matter to seek its proper place, an extension of the teaching of both Aristotle and Thomas. A possible explanation will be explained by William A. Wallace later, stay tuned.

Also, the teacher conveniently ignored talking about the cause of the motion. There is a cause for the motion in the first place. What made the " planets " begin their motion? He illustrated it perfectly but didn’t draw attention to it. What caused it in the first place? He did! He set the " planets " in motion when he threw them on the " table. " He was the motor cause, the agent of the motion, the efficient cause.

I don’t understand how it could possibly have escaped your notice that he was demonstrating the teaching aid to other teachers so they could use it in their schools - it wasn’t a lesson.

More philosophy. Stay tuned for that too.

No point, this thread isn’t the world according to Thomas, it’s just a world according to you.