Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: neilep on 23/07/2020 14:30:06

Title: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: neilep on 23/07/2020 14:30:06
Dearest Peeps With Degrees in Nowology,


Carpe Diem ! Doesn’t apply to another sheep at the furthermost point of the cosmos does it ?


Why doesn’t NOW, this moment , apply all over the Universe ?


What’s the point my getting next day delivery from a 98 billion light years away if it’s not going to arrive on time ?


Whajafink ?




Hugs and shmishes


Mwah mwah xxxxxx



I’m not happy that my gift for Rosie the cow
Won’t be delivered on time somehow
Title: Re: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: Halc on 23/07/2020 14:42:55
Well if there's a now here, there must be a now everywhere else as well.  Either that or Earth is something special in that respect.  Personally I get around the issue by not assuming there is a now here.

The problem is similar to asking why I am always 'here' and never somewhere else.  No matter where I go, I never manage not to be somewhere that isn't 'here'.  Either I'm special in that way, or there is no objective 'here', and the latter option seems more reasonable, don't ewe think?
Title: Re: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: neilep on 23/07/2020 14:51:06
Well if there's a now here, there must be a now everywhere else as well.  Either that or Earth is something special in that respect.  Personally I get around the issue by not assuming there is a now here.

The problem is similar to asking why I am always 'here' and never somewhere else.  No matter where I go, I never manage not to be somewhere that isn't 'here'.  Either I'm special in that way, or there is no objective 'here', and the latter option seems more reasonable, don't ewe think?

I completely agree with you Halc and thank ewe for addressing this. I can’t recall which podcast I was listening to but they were discussing as to why NOW only exists locally.....I’m afraid I missed the relevant details. I can’t imagine why our NOW is not the same NOW everywhere.
Title: Re: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: Bill S on 23/07/2020 21:12:55
If Minkowski was right, it must be meaningless to talk of “now”.  We have to consider “here and now” as a spacetime event. 
If you add to that “No man liveth more than that infinitesimal point of time that is the present”.  Marcus Aurelius. 
You have the sort of thing that Halc is saying.  Wherever I go, I’m always here now.                                                                                                         
Title: Re: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: CPT ArkAngel on 24/07/2020 04:24:46
The fact that you are made of massive particles which cannot travel faster than light. And whatever you measure is in fact space and time. Whenever you measure a force, a pressure or an electric field or charge, you measure distances and/or time intervals. So, good luck to those who are trying to eliminate space and/or time to get a deeper theory.

The fact that there is or there is not a now everywhere, linking all particles together at a speed faster than light, is a matter of belief, for now... Adding gravity to special relativity in GR seems to bring problems which may require the necessity for this kind of relations. It is the simplest solution. And how the Universe could potentially be causally disconnected from itself?

See ER = EPR
Title: Re: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: Colin2B on 28/07/2020 16:38:34
I’m afraid I missed the relevant details. I can’t imagine why our NOW is not the same NOW everywhere.
Now can be a meaningful concept, but It depends what sort of now you are talking about. Ignoring the fact that now is a moving target, there are 2 ways we can look at now:

1. The round trip delay to your star is 196bn ly, so to get your present to Rosie is going the take a lot of forward planning. I think you are going to have to tell her it is delayed in the post. However, it would seem a reasonable question to ask what that star looks like now even though we see it as it was 98bn ly ago. We know a lot about how stars age and the stages they go through, so from their spectrum it might be possible to work out what that star looks like now, but there is a catch, the oldest things we can see are only 14bn yrs old!

2. let’s say a groundsheep (sorry, I don’t mean minced lamb) is in communication with a spacesheep, these 2 are in different gravitational potentials. It would be possible for them to synchronise their clocks to an event they could both call now1. At some later time they could synchronise their clocks again to now2, but they would find that they cannot agree on the elapsed time between now1 and now2. So, now does, in a way, exist everywhere, we just can’t agree when it is, err, was!

I suggest you look closer to home for your present for Rosie. Might I suggest:
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Title: Re: Why is ‘NOW’ Not The Same Everywhere ?
Post by: Bill S on 28/07/2020 18:03:19
Quote from: CPT ArkAngel
The fact that there is or there is not a now everywhere, linking all particles together at a speed faster than light, is a matter of belief, for now..

If there is such a “now”, and if it links all particles together, then “a speed faster than light”, or any speed, could not be involved.  The “now” would have to be static, eternally. The particles would be permanently “here” and “now”.