On The Philosophy of Determinism
2011 by Dale Bryant
Among the many philosophies and ways of looking at the world that there are, I came across one in particular several years ago that I, in fact, subscribe to. Let me share it with you:
For a moment, think of the Big Bang event as an exploding grenade (I do believe that the Creator’s method of bringing the universe into existence was the Big Bang, that it was His idea and His intent, and that the contents of space did not simply materialize in its present state out of nothingness.)
The explosion of a grenade and the expansion of the universe, granted, differ fundamentally in their mechanics, but the outcome is the same. Now the grenade contains bits and pieces of shrapnel that will move from their positions inside the grenade to their eventual resting positions on the ground when the explosion is over. Trigonometry and ballistics can predict the path that the shrapnel will follow and its distance from the center of the explosion to its position on the ground, dictated by the force of the explosion, the position of the bit of shrapnel inside the grenade’s casing, its moment of inertia, etc. In other words, the future history of the shrapnel's location in space at all times during its journey from the center of the grenade is pre-determined from the moment of the explosion.
In the philosophy of “Determinism”, every event is pre-determined; not directly by the Almighty, necessarily, but if nothing more than by the choreography of effects on space-time which was brought on at the moment of creation by the explosive action of the Great Expansion (the Big Bang) event itself. Everything else follows naturally and exactly as it should and can never vary. This also includes what we call “free will”. The decisions you make in your day to day life, based on what appears to you as freedom of choice, are the only decisions you can possibly make – they have already been determined. Now, I’ve heard from many people who believe that free will exists and is a gift from God and that our limited, simple human minds simply can’t understand that. I’d like here to use that same reasoning exactly against that idea. Those very same minds couldn’t possibly grasp, at least at this point in our evolution, all of the physics and chemistry behind the running of the universe. Now, I’m not, in my opinion, an atheist but an agnostic. Obviously, the universe came into being and it was created by something. I simply refuse to anthropomorphize that something. Whatever it was certainly has no need of resembling us in any way whatsoever, either physically or mentally, any more than it has need to resemble a dolphin or an elephant, as we are all (including the dolphin and the elephant) the products of a very specific evolutionary chain of events. Go ahead, shoot me.
Our universe is, to this day, still expanding – moving in response to the inertia of the moment of Creation. It's entire contents of stars, comets, planets, galaxies, dust and gas particles, metals - and people - are moving apart, following a very exacting script. Every event that follows and it's eventual outcome, including the experiences of ourselves - ourselves being an intrinsic part of the system - was determined at the moment of Creation. Nothing we can ever do or think – or hope to think - can change that.
Friday, September 19, 2014
On the Human Tail (and other rudimentary organs)
On The Human Tail
(and other rudimentary organs)
2012 By Dale Bryant
The human embryo is indistinguishable from any other vertebrate animal (animals possessing a spinal column, or, notochord with extended extremities, e.g., arms, legs, etc.) This is due to the law of phylogenesis, which covers a period of many millions of years of vertebrate evolutionary development. Another law, the law of ontogenesis, explains the brief period of development from conception to birth.
The embryos of all vertebrates, including us, exhibit our entire evolutionary development, starting out with the fishes, extending to the amphibious vertebrates, then on to reptiles and eventually birds and mammals. Our entire developmental sequence over millions of years is apparent. The human, dog, fish, chimpanzee, tortoise, whale and all other vertebrate embryos have gills, legs (yes, even whales), and tails as well as other rudimentary organs which, in the case of the mammals have been abbreviated or aborted. Humans still possess a short tail, consisting of four to five fused vertebrae at the end of the spinal column, called the coccyx (kok-six).
This, of course, suggests that all extant life forms (99% of all life that has ever existed is now extinct), developed or evolved from a common ancestor in the remote past and that Man was not instantly placed here on this planet, in his present, "unchanging" form by a Creator with a definite plan outside of mechanical causes. This is a very sensitive issue for those who subscribe to a dualistic approach to creation, and those averse to changing previously accepted thinking. I do feel for you as I was once one of you, but then I transferred my interests from professional astronomy to paleoprimatology and saw for the first time the very obvious.
I can recommend a good book by Ersnt August Haekel titled “The History of Creation” available free online at Google Books. Do it!
See ya!
On Natural Selection
On Natural Selection
2012 by Dale Bryant
Still need proof of Darwin’s theory? Read on. The fact that new species develop according to adaptation and inheritance is known as the Theory of Selection, whether it be naturally or artificially induced. It was proposed by naturalist Charles Darwin in the mid-1800’s and is known as “Darwinism”. It’s a common misconception that Darwin was the originator of the Theory of Evolution. Actually, the idea of the formation of new species by descent was proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck 50 years earlier and is called “Lamarckism”. It was even suspected by Aristotle. Darwin only explained the descent of organisms by means of Natural Selection, in his book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, and only used the term 'evolution' once in this work. In fact, this theory was independently developed by Alfred Wallace at about the same time. Darwin actually put off publishing the results from his observations in his book for twenty-one years, until he was convinced that there was no other explanation possible.
The fact that breeders of dogs, cats, horses, tomatoes or strawberries breed their stock to achieve some desired result – whether it be a tastier strawberry, a smaller dog, a faster race horse, etc., is the proof. You might think that it is "only a theory", but that implies that theories don't provide proof. All scientific ideas and natural laws are backed by theories. The Theory of Selection is a mathematical constant: that is, the relationship of available space for an organism to exist and the number of organisms competing for that space. Obviously, some organisms thrive while most others die off, an invariable consequence of the mechanism of the 'Struggle for Existence', a.k.a. 'Survival of the Fittest'. The fittest, according to genetic adaptation and inheritance, tend towards survival while the least fit tend towards extinction. Very sensible, is it not? In fact, the seemingly endless variety of organisms, still very much in transitional states today, as can be seen in the rudimentary, atrophied hind legs of whales and dolphins, or the now defunct internal organs of many species, including the appendix of man--can only be explained by the Theory of Selection; otherwise it is left to the unfathomable realm of miracles.
The Theory of Selection is a self-evident law of nature and requires no further proof any more than you require further proof that more than one breed of dog exists. The fact that people from around the world look differently, or that there are German Shepherds, Chihuahua’s, Beagles and Irish Setters, is all the proof of the Theory of Selection you should require. These breeds, or, sub-species, were intentionally created – bred from a common ancestor of the genus' Canis (dog) and Lupus (wolf). In fact, some breeds of dog are so distantly related that they cannot reproduce together – although they belong to the same genus, they have, through Artificial Selection (selective breeding induced by man) become distinctly separate species. Selection induced by nature is called 'natural selection' and works in exactly the same way, only much more slowly.
Darwin also provided proof of another weighty philosophical question when he explained natural selection; that is, the question of how arrangements serving a purpose can arise mechanically without causes acting for a purpose. If you’re at all familiar with some simple math and statistics, you’ll see the logic in it immediately. If you still require proof at this point, you either don’t thoroughly understand the theory or are not sufficiently acquainted with the fundamentals of biology; and if that is the case, you really should familiarize yourself with those two components before coming to any conclusions on the subject.
Oh, just one more thing... I realize this little essay of mine smacks of sacrilege but that is not my motive at all. Like most of my writings, it was only meant to spark a little controversy and bring your blood to near boiling (contrary to popular belief, I like to have a little fun too!) But, unfortunately, like the rest of us, I was not present at The Creation (though I feel I could have given the Creator a few pointers) but, alas, the truth is, I have an agreement with God--I don’t tell Him how to design universes--and He doesn’t tell me how to interpret the obvious.
I need to stop here – hell, I’m in deep enough as it is!... would it help if I said I didn’t mean it (yes, I did), and I won’t ever do it again (yes, I will)--I promise (no, I don’t!)....
I’ll end with my favorite quotation on the obvious, as it applies to nature: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it’s a duck.”
2012 by Dale Bryant
Still need proof of Darwin’s theory? Read on. The fact that new species develop according to adaptation and inheritance is known as the Theory of Selection, whether it be naturally or artificially induced. It was proposed by naturalist Charles Darwin in the mid-1800’s and is known as “Darwinism”. It’s a common misconception that Darwin was the originator of the Theory of Evolution. Actually, the idea of the formation of new species by descent was proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck 50 years earlier and is called “Lamarckism”. It was even suspected by Aristotle. Darwin only explained the descent of organisms by means of Natural Selection, in his book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, and only used the term 'evolution' once in this work. In fact, this theory was independently developed by Alfred Wallace at about the same time. Darwin actually put off publishing the results from his observations in his book for twenty-one years, until he was convinced that there was no other explanation possible.
The fact that breeders of dogs, cats, horses, tomatoes or strawberries breed their stock to achieve some desired result – whether it be a tastier strawberry, a smaller dog, a faster race horse, etc., is the proof. You might think that it is "only a theory", but that implies that theories don't provide proof. All scientific ideas and natural laws are backed by theories. The Theory of Selection is a mathematical constant: that is, the relationship of available space for an organism to exist and the number of organisms competing for that space. Obviously, some organisms thrive while most others die off, an invariable consequence of the mechanism of the 'Struggle for Existence', a.k.a. 'Survival of the Fittest'. The fittest, according to genetic adaptation and inheritance, tend towards survival while the least fit tend towards extinction. Very sensible, is it not? In fact, the seemingly endless variety of organisms, still very much in transitional states today, as can be seen in the rudimentary, atrophied hind legs of whales and dolphins, or the now defunct internal organs of many species, including the appendix of man--can only be explained by the Theory of Selection; otherwise it is left to the unfathomable realm of miracles.
The Theory of Selection is a self-evident law of nature and requires no further proof any more than you require further proof that more than one breed of dog exists. The fact that people from around the world look differently, or that there are German Shepherds, Chihuahua’s, Beagles and Irish Setters, is all the proof of the Theory of Selection you should require. These breeds, or, sub-species, were intentionally created – bred from a common ancestor of the genus' Canis (dog) and Lupus (wolf). In fact, some breeds of dog are so distantly related that they cannot reproduce together – although they belong to the same genus, they have, through Artificial Selection (selective breeding induced by man) become distinctly separate species. Selection induced by nature is called 'natural selection' and works in exactly the same way, only much more slowly.
Darwin also provided proof of another weighty philosophical question when he explained natural selection; that is, the question of how arrangements serving a purpose can arise mechanically without causes acting for a purpose. If you’re at all familiar with some simple math and statistics, you’ll see the logic in it immediately. If you still require proof at this point, you either don’t thoroughly understand the theory or are not sufficiently acquainted with the fundamentals of biology; and if that is the case, you really should familiarize yourself with those two components before coming to any conclusions on the subject.
Oh, just one more thing... I realize this little essay of mine smacks of sacrilege but that is not my motive at all. Like most of my writings, it was only meant to spark a little controversy and bring your blood to near boiling (contrary to popular belief, I like to have a little fun too!) But, unfortunately, like the rest of us, I was not present at The Creation (though I feel I could have given the Creator a few pointers) but, alas, the truth is, I have an agreement with God--I don’t tell Him how to design universes--and He doesn’t tell me how to interpret the obvious.
I need to stop here – hell, I’m in deep enough as it is!... would it help if I said I didn’t mean it (yes, I did), and I won’t ever do it again (yes, I will)--I promise (no, I don’t!)....
I’ll end with my favorite quotation on the obvious, as it applies to nature: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it’s a duck.”
On Extraterrestrial Evolution
On Extraterrestrial Evolution
2011 by Dale Bryant
Virtually all reports of contact with, or sightings of, alleged creatures of extraterrestrial origin, describe these beings as humanoid, i.e., possessing large heads with two eyes, a thorax or torso, with two pair of extremities or limbs, the lower pair functioning as legs, as these beings primary mode of locomotion happens to be bipedal. This is all very interesting; the form that a body takes is dictated by its geological surroundings - including and especially available food sources, atmospheric composition, air temperature and pressure, amount of received sunlight, natural enemies - even variations in the gravitational pull of the host planet itself according to geographic location. All of these factors are highly variable at any given locale and conspire to shape our bodies - even as finely as the cusps on our molar and pre-molar teeth, to accommodate the foods we will eat as we begin a solid food diet. This is why humans look the way they do and why gazelles, rabbits, fish and spiders look the way they do, not to mention all the different general body types involved (vertebrates, invertebrates, arthropods (those with articulated limbs or segmented bodies), etc.)
The possibility that intelligent extraterrestrial beings would be humanoid in form is barely even remotely possible. The evolutionary chain of events, through the process of natural selection, which includes physical and mental adaptation and inheritance of favorable characteristics, that led to H. sapiens, was a very specific one and occurred only once on this planet; its recurrence on some other world is unthinkable; any life forms on another planet would likely be something other than humanoid and not even remotely resemble any form of life on Earth.
The humanoid form is based on an anthropoid body plan, one of the many body plans of earthly fauna. The anthropoid cranium positions two eyes, anteriorly, or at the front of the skull. This arrangement provides binocular, or stereoscopic vision to the possessor, which is very sensitive to the movement of its prey, indicating a predatory carnivorous ancestry. Our earliest mammalian ancestors were herbivorous, with eyes positioned at the sides of the head, providing a more panoramic view much less sensitive to movement. The anthropoid body plan also includes four limbs in two pairs--the upper pair was used by our last common ancestor for swinging from branch to branch among the trees and even included hands for that form of locomotion known as brachiation. The bottom pair of limbs became important in our upright, erect posture for moving across large swaths of ground after we transitioned from an arboreal existence to the necessary mode of locomotion adapted for the savanna, bipedalism. To expect that beings from another world would have taken essentially the same evolutionary pathway as human beings is akin to expecting that they speak English too! Given any similarities, it would be even more likely that these alleged humanoid forms are actually us--from a very distant future and evolutionary development--come back to visit ourselves, via some unlikely, but plausible, manipulation of the fourth dimension--time.
The scientists who study the possibilities of life on other planets are called Astrobiologists and Exobiologists. What do you think an extraterrestrial intelligence, should they actually exist, might look like?
2011 by Dale Bryant
Virtually all reports of contact with, or sightings of, alleged creatures of extraterrestrial origin, describe these beings as humanoid, i.e., possessing large heads with two eyes, a thorax or torso, with two pair of extremities or limbs, the lower pair functioning as legs, as these beings primary mode of locomotion happens to be bipedal. This is all very interesting; the form that a body takes is dictated by its geological surroundings - including and especially available food sources, atmospheric composition, air temperature and pressure, amount of received sunlight, natural enemies - even variations in the gravitational pull of the host planet itself according to geographic location. All of these factors are highly variable at any given locale and conspire to shape our bodies - even as finely as the cusps on our molar and pre-molar teeth, to accommodate the foods we will eat as we begin a solid food diet. This is why humans look the way they do and why gazelles, rabbits, fish and spiders look the way they do, not to mention all the different general body types involved (vertebrates, invertebrates, arthropods (those with articulated limbs or segmented bodies), etc.)
The possibility that intelligent extraterrestrial beings would be humanoid in form is barely even remotely possible. The evolutionary chain of events, through the process of natural selection, which includes physical and mental adaptation and inheritance of favorable characteristics, that led to H. sapiens, was a very specific one and occurred only once on this planet; its recurrence on some other world is unthinkable; any life forms on another planet would likely be something other than humanoid and not even remotely resemble any form of life on Earth.
The humanoid form is based on an anthropoid body plan, one of the many body plans of earthly fauna. The anthropoid cranium positions two eyes, anteriorly, or at the front of the skull. This arrangement provides binocular, or stereoscopic vision to the possessor, which is very sensitive to the movement of its prey, indicating a predatory carnivorous ancestry. Our earliest mammalian ancestors were herbivorous, with eyes positioned at the sides of the head, providing a more panoramic view much less sensitive to movement. The anthropoid body plan also includes four limbs in two pairs--the upper pair was used by our last common ancestor for swinging from branch to branch among the trees and even included hands for that form of locomotion known as brachiation. The bottom pair of limbs became important in our upright, erect posture for moving across large swaths of ground after we transitioned from an arboreal existence to the necessary mode of locomotion adapted for the savanna, bipedalism. To expect that beings from another world would have taken essentially the same evolutionary pathway as human beings is akin to expecting that they speak English too! Given any similarities, it would be even more likely that these alleged humanoid forms are actually us--from a very distant future and evolutionary development--come back to visit ourselves, via some unlikely, but plausible, manipulation of the fourth dimension--time.
The scientists who study the possibilities of life on other planets are called Astrobiologists and Exobiologists. What do you think an extraterrestrial intelligence, should they actually exist, might look like?
Of an Overpopulated Earth
Of an Overpopulated Earth Nov
2013 Dale Alan Bryant
A friend posted recently on FB that she was wondering how we might be able to solve many of the social issues that continually plague this planet; at the risk of sounding like I didn't understand the question, I offered the following: To approach this monstrosity, we must find a way to reduce the population of our planet by something like two-thirds. Overpopulation is the cause of nearly ALL of society’s ills. There are currently 7,200,000,000 (7.2 billion) people alive today, each one of us competing to survive in all of society’s diversity. In high-density areas of society, tests of our endurance and tolerance can stress us to near insanity - like in cases of the assorted ‘-rages' - for example, ‘road-rage’, and the mishmash of umpteen other possible flavors of ‘-rage’: how about "supermarket check-out isle” rage or "on-line ‘pop-up’-ad rage"? Our social media is full of alarmingly inappropriate and disproportionately bold commentaries - an all-too-obvious form of ‘virtual’ rage. People will say, (or rather, ‘text’) things to each other on-line that they wouldn’t dare say to each other in their right minds face-to-face. This overzealous, false sense of ‘empowerment’ is in itself disturbing. It seems people would rather ‘socialize’ with others by curiously ‘holing-up’ in the peculiar, dark safety of their bathrooms, detectable only by the unearthly glow of their iPad screens, and passively type lifeless, yet “urgent” alerts to trusted, phantom ‘Friends’ (rather than calling and telling them) of any spontaneous cravings for chocolate mousse, urges to booby-trap their bathtubs - or other important current events. When I was born, in 1957, the world’s population was 2,800,000,000 (2.8 billion). That means that, today, I'm running into almost three times as many people in any given situation than I was in 1957; on average, three times as many people on the road, three times as many at the beach, in the theater, and in the Men's room.
It was my uncle who first introduced the idea of population reduction by means of warfare to me when I was 19. I thought he was nuts! (He was, but that's not really important) He had served in three wars, and in his mind, war was an efficient solution to overpopulation; it not only reduces human numbers, but also stimulates the economy as nothing else could.
If only we could be smarter than that!
However, I don't believe that human beings are capable of imposing on themselves such a drastic idea as active, aggressive, voluntary population control, let alone reduction. At our current rate of population increase, we will be at 11,000,000,000 (11 billion) in only 60 years. Your children, and theirs, are going to have to live in that world. There may be an alternative solution. If our society's collective space programs remain healthy, we, as a species, can begin to populate -- and export large numbers of ourselves -- to at least one other planet -- Mars. In fact, the Dutch-based space industry's 'Mars One' Human Habitation Project is well underway in its quest to send six volunteers to the red planet as the pilgrimage of a permanent Martian settlement. This project is slated for a launch date of April 23, 2023. For these volunteers (I have applied for this mission, BTW), it is a one-way, no-return trip. The prospective ‘Martians’ must be dedicated to the idea of living out the remainder of their lives on another planet--there are no plans for returning disillusioned participants. It won't be easy, but exploration involving new and trying situations never was. Other future colonist missions are planned for extending the colony by up to six at a time at roughly two-year intervals, as are periodic supply shipments, until the colonists have become fully self-supporting. As Mars has only a tenuous atmosphere containing almost no oxygen and no open bodies of water, the new Martians will occupy a system of living-pods connected by tunnels, containing the necessary life-support systems. Voice communication with Earth will even be established by radio, and e-mail service via a Mars-Earth Internet web-server will be maintained, but a 3 to 25 minute delay each way will need to be tolerated, due to the nature of the speed limit of light, radio and other electromagnetic transmissions, and the two planet's relative orbital positions. Whatever the answer to an overpopulated Earth may be, I hope it comes in time to prevent a decision by an utterly hopeless humanity to bring itself to extinction for lack of any other way out.
My Friends
My Friends…
“Cosmos” - Carl Sagan
“The Collapsing Universe”- Isaac Asimov
“A Brief History of Time” - Stephen Hawking
“The Nine Billion Names of God” - Arthur C. Clarke
“ABC of Relativity” - Bertrand Russell
“Starlight Nights” - Leslie Peltier
“The Demon-Haunted World (Science as a Candle in the Dark)” - Carl Sagan
“The Oxford English Dictionary” - Oxford Press
“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” - Robert Fulghum
“Childhood’s End” - Arthur C. Clarke
“Science, Numbers and I” - Isaac Asimov
“Burnham’s Celestial Handbook” - Robert Burnham
“A Complete Manual of Amateur Astronomy” - P. Clay Sherrod
“The Encyclopaedia Britannica” - Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” - Charles Darwin
"The Wind from the Sun" - Arthur C. Clarke
“The Decent of Man” - Charles Darwin
“The Naked Ape” - Desmond Morris
“The Holy Bible” - (because I enjoy controversy)
“Write Better, Speak Better” - Reader’s Digest Assoc.
"Future Shock" - Alvin Toffler
"Primate Evolution" - Glenn C. Conroy
“A Father’s Book of Wisdom” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
These books are a few of my best friends. I’ve known most of them since I was small and I visit them from time to time. For the most part, we’ve always gotten along well, albeit with an occasional disagreement here or an argument there. But they’ve been faithful, open, sincere and good company… and they’ll never ask me for a divorce!
2010 -Dale Bryant, misanthrope
“Cosmos” - Carl Sagan
“The Collapsing Universe”- Isaac Asimov
“A Brief History of Time” - Stephen Hawking
“The Nine Billion Names of God” - Arthur C. Clarke
“ABC of Relativity” - Bertrand Russell
“Starlight Nights” - Leslie Peltier
“The Demon-Haunted World (Science as a Candle in the Dark)” - Carl Sagan
“The Oxford English Dictionary” - Oxford Press
“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” - Robert Fulghum
“Childhood’s End” - Arthur C. Clarke
“Science, Numbers and I” - Isaac Asimov
“Burnham’s Celestial Handbook” - Robert Burnham
“A Complete Manual of Amateur Astronomy” - P. Clay Sherrod
“The Encyclopaedia Britannica” - Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” - Charles Darwin
"The Wind from the Sun" - Arthur C. Clarke
“The Decent of Man” - Charles Darwin
“The Naked Ape” - Desmond Morris
“The Holy Bible” - (because I enjoy controversy)
“Write Better, Speak Better” - Reader’s Digest Assoc.
"Future Shock" - Alvin Toffler
"Primate Evolution" - Glenn C. Conroy
“A Father’s Book of Wisdom” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
These books are a few of my best friends. I’ve known most of them since I was small and I visit them from time to time. For the most part, we’ve always gotten along well, albeit with an occasional disagreement here or an argument there. But they’ve been faithful, open, sincere and good company… and they’ll never ask me for a divorce!
2010 -Dale Bryant, misanthrope
It's About Time
It's About Time!
Is it possible to travel in time? Would you believe that it would be easier to travel into a future that hasn't happened lyet than it would be to travel into a past that has? Odd as that may sound, of the two options, travel into the future would be the more feasible. If we can't travel backwards through time, we can at least see back in time.
When you see the moon in the sky, you see it as it was one and one-quarter seconds ago, or the sun, eight and one-half minutes ago. This is because it takes light 1 /1/4 seconds to travel from the moon to the Earth; 8 1/2 minutes to travel from the sun; 4.2 years from the nearest star, Proxima Centauri; 2 million years from the nearest galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, and 65 million years from spiral galaxy M-66, the galaxy in which I co-discovered a supernova on February 11, 1989 (SN1989b).
Lets say we were to magically travel to M-66 and brought along a very powerful telescope. If we turned the scope back in the direction of the Earth, we would be able to watch (assuming the scope were sufficiently powerful) Tyrannosaurus Rex and his friends romping about the landscape--for the light that would just be entering our eyes originally left the Earth 65 million years ago. We are able to judge the age of the universe in this way by the distances of the furthest objects we can see (the so-called 'quasars', or 'quasi-stellar' objects at 14.5 billion light-years distant.)
In an essay I wrote about a year ago, called "The Twin Paradox", I described a space traveler who was traveling in his ship at nearly the speed of light and who had left a twin brother back on Earth. One of the consequences of general relativity is that time passes more slowly for someone traveling at nearly the speed of light than it does for someone (in this case the traveler's Earthbound twin brother, Marvin) who remains at rest.
When the traveler (Harvey) returns to Earth after a few years, he finds that Marvin has long since passed away of old age, and in fact, that centuries have passed on Earth while only a few years have passed for him. In this way, Harvey has 'traveled' centuries into the future while on his three year journey in his spaceship (since it was Harvey who did the moving it was also he who did the traveling 'forward' in time and not Marvin 'backward' in time.) This interesting and hopelessly un-intuitive phenomenon is called time-dilation and is described in Albert Einstein's second or, 'general' theory of relativity.
I should mention here that all this traveling and not traveling assumes that events in 'time' are not static events - in other words, they have no 'fixed' place in relation to other events. I am assuming that all events are of the "here and now"; in other words, all events are laid out before us and are available to access on demand. There are no "past" or 'future" events--only events--regardless of how it might appear otherwise, and they can be accessed from more than one vantage point. Depending on one's approach, one event may or may not come before or after another event and, in fact, may be approached in such a way that all events appear to be simultaneous, and in reality, they are simultaneous. Because of this 'fluid' nature of events, time can be manipulated (bear in mind that this is just the opinion of this writer, but it seems to me that Harvey has irrefutably proved this to be the case.) Harvey's travels not only demonstrate time dilation but seem to demonstrate "event dilation" by compressing or expanding one's physical position in space and time, as measured by an outside observer, of course. Harvey experiences the same events as Marvin, but in one order or at one interval, while Marvin experiences them occurring in quite another order or at another interval.
As far as any traveling 'backward' in time, it doesn't seem to be a possibility, if only in that it would introduce one or more paradoxes, e.g., killing one's mother before one is born, etc.
Is it possible to travel in time? Would you believe that it would be easier to travel into a future that hasn't happened lyet than it would be to travel into a past that has? Odd as that may sound, of the two options, travel into the future would be the more feasible. If we can't travel backwards through time, we can at least see back in time.
When you see the moon in the sky, you see it as it was one and one-quarter seconds ago, or the sun, eight and one-half minutes ago. This is because it takes light 1 /1/4 seconds to travel from the moon to the Earth; 8 1/2 minutes to travel from the sun; 4.2 years from the nearest star, Proxima Centauri; 2 million years from the nearest galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, and 65 million years from spiral galaxy M-66, the galaxy in which I co-discovered a supernova on February 11, 1989 (SN1989b).
Lets say we were to magically travel to M-66 and brought along a very powerful telescope. If we turned the scope back in the direction of the Earth, we would be able to watch (assuming the scope were sufficiently powerful) Tyrannosaurus Rex and his friends romping about the landscape--for the light that would just be entering our eyes originally left the Earth 65 million years ago. We are able to judge the age of the universe in this way by the distances of the furthest objects we can see (the so-called 'quasars', or 'quasi-stellar' objects at 14.5 billion light-years distant.)
In an essay I wrote about a year ago, called "The Twin Paradox", I described a space traveler who was traveling in his ship at nearly the speed of light and who had left a twin brother back on Earth. One of the consequences of general relativity is that time passes more slowly for someone traveling at nearly the speed of light than it does for someone (in this case the traveler's Earthbound twin brother, Marvin) who remains at rest.
When the traveler (Harvey) returns to Earth after a few years, he finds that Marvin has long since passed away of old age, and in fact, that centuries have passed on Earth while only a few years have passed for him. In this way, Harvey has 'traveled' centuries into the future while on his three year journey in his spaceship (since it was Harvey who did the moving it was also he who did the traveling 'forward' in time and not Marvin 'backward' in time.) This interesting and hopelessly un-intuitive phenomenon is called time-dilation and is described in Albert Einstein's second or, 'general' theory of relativity.
I should mention here that all this traveling and not traveling assumes that events in 'time' are not static events - in other words, they have no 'fixed' place in relation to other events. I am assuming that all events are of the "here and now"; in other words, all events are laid out before us and are available to access on demand. There are no "past" or 'future" events--only events--regardless of how it might appear otherwise, and they can be accessed from more than one vantage point. Depending on one's approach, one event may or may not come before or after another event and, in fact, may be approached in such a way that all events appear to be simultaneous, and in reality, they are simultaneous. Because of this 'fluid' nature of events, time can be manipulated (bear in mind that this is just the opinion of this writer, but it seems to me that Harvey has irrefutably proved this to be the case.) Harvey's travels not only demonstrate time dilation but seem to demonstrate "event dilation" by compressing or expanding one's physical position in space and time, as measured by an outside observer, of course. Harvey experiences the same events as Marvin, but in one order or at one interval, while Marvin experiences them occurring in quite another order or at another interval.
As far as any traveling 'backward' in time, it doesn't seem to be a possibility, if only in that it would introduce one or more paradoxes, e.g., killing one's mother before one is born, etc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)