[timey]

Well - Alan, the funny thing is is that what you are describing is exactly the attitude physicists 'seem' to take concerning the differences between Newtonian and Relativity.  Newtonian works just fine for most applications. Relativity works where Newtonian doesn't.

If, and that is a big IF, there comes to pass that there is an element of physics so far undiscovered that gives a more complete understanding of the universe and describes a relationship between quantum and gravity, therefore linking both of physic's best working hypothesis -this would not 'change' anything about the observed 'workings' of either theory, just like relativity didn't detract from any of the 'working' observations of Newtonian.

Calculating particle mass in relation to longer or shorter seconds for a continuum in quantum may well be a more complicated method than the already established method of probability.  (although I fail to see that this method of probability calculation would be 'less' complicated)... In which case, I daresay that in everyday use that physicists in the workplace would carry on in their work as usual in much the same way they did with Newtonian versus Relativity.

Relativity, however, opened the door to technology that couldn't be realised under the remit of Newtonian.  Quantum opened the door to technology that couldn't be realised under the remit of Relativity.  Therefore any understanding of the universe that supersedes these theories is likely to open the door to more 'new' technology.

If seconds do get longer out in space,  I can see the possibility of being able to 'very simply, and 'relatively cheaply', travel across space a lot, lot faster than we are currently able.  Space is an abundant resource of mining opportunity, if we could get there and 'it' back cost effectively.  The prospect of a more quickly and cheaply travelled space would open space up for extensive exploration, and knowing us humans, exploitation,  which may distract us from all this pointless warring each other here on earth, in our bids to be 'first' in the 'space race'...

In this day and age a 'space race', as I have described, might well have the same effect on our planet that the 'silk road' did for the peoples of our history books, where peoples of all creed and religion were tolerant of each other in the face of market commerce, and as a result of such tolerance and trade - the advancement of knowledge, science, and technology blossomed.

In any case Alan, I suppose that my more immediate concern is:

Do you recognise the possibility of the logic I propose?

(Edit: As well as the space travel aspects, I also see the possibility that a better understanding of frequency in relation to mass may have beneficial medical applications relating to treatment that would be directly applicable in particular to your line of work Alan, and may also be usefully in the capacity of receiving signal frequencies from a 'type' of illness as a means for more precise diagnosis.)

[alancalverd]

Just to point out in passing that there is no "versus". Relativistic mechanics works at all speeds and gravitational fields, but for anything less than about 0.1c or 50 km above the earth, newtonian mechanics is an adequate approximation.  Likewise we recognise that if your quantum mechanical calculations don't look like continuum mechanics for a whole bucketful of photons, electrons or whatever, you may have made a mistake.

Calculating particle mass in relation to longer or shorter seconds for a continuum in quantum may well be a more complicated method than the already established method of probability.

You have the advantage of me here. How do you use probability to calculate particle mass? And what is a continuum in quantum (apart from a pretentious title for a work of art, perhaps)?

If seconds do get longer out in space,

No "if" about it. We have the data on time dilation, and, boringly, it's exactly as Einstein predicted.

where peoples of all creed and religion were tolerant of each other in the face of market commerce, and as a result of such tolerance and trade - the advancement of knowledge, science, and technology blossomed.

Until people abandon religion, there is no hope for humanity. Trade good, logical, caring and sharing. Religion bad, illogical, promotes loathing and justifies egregious behaviour.

Do you recognise the possibility of the logic I propose?

I haven't seen it yet. I am still groping through the murk of pseudoscience and numerology to get a peek at whatever it is you think is happening in the real world.

[timey]

I get your point about versus... I used the word as a shortcut which fuzzed the actual meaning...so consider my post rephrased in the words you have used.

I wasn't suggesting that one use probability to calculate particle mass...  I am suggesting that if longer and shorter seconds are associated with particle mass energy, or the relationship that particles mass energy have with each other within atomic structures, the use of probability to calculate quantum is 'already' calculating this relationship, and being as this 'proposed' relationship is 'the' unknown function, this unknown function constitutes the reason for the necessity of calculating via probability in the first place...  As probability calculation is perturbation theory, which is a 'time' related function, this is not as improbable as you may imagine...

Agreed wholeheartedly on the religion aspect, but it ain't ever going to happen.  As resources become more limited due to the 'greed' of the elite, and the probability of over population, logically the religious fervour is only apt to escalate.

I'm sorry you haven't seen that it appears directly from observation and experiment that an energy increase increases the rate of time.  I have tried from all angles now to explain to you why the observation of the behaviour of the atomic clock, the related concept that an observer with the clock will experience physical time dilation effects in keeping with the clock, (equivalence principle), suggesting that all atomic structures individual rates of time will escalate proportionally as to their elevated location in a gravity field, as with the actual particle constituents of the atomic structures themselves that will escalate in energy proportionally as to their relationship within the atom as the energy of the atom is increases, and that light also increases in energy, but, unlike atoms, does so in the increased gravity field, where the gravity potential is lower
That there is something funky going on about the logic when one looks at adding KE, because more energy will increase the frequency, and an increase in frequency for the atomic clock constitutes an increase in its rate of time.  This being contrary to the observed behaviour of an atomic clock in motion relative to the stationary clock.  A clock in motion, it's frequency will decrease for a slower rate of time, rendering the logic of mass (or is that relativistic mass?) being the sum total of all energies as suspect.

A clock in a higher gravity potential is increased in energy relative to a clock at a lower gravity potential...
Light in a higher gravity potential has less energy than light in a lower gravity potential...  So... being as this 'is' our 'observed reality', what I am talking about here is not numerology, nor pseudoscience.

[jeffreyH (OP)]

I can't even remember why I started the thread.

[alancalverd]

rate of time

this is an awkward phrase, since "rate" means "number of occurences per unit time" so the rate of time, if it has any meaning,  is always 1, by definition.

What we know is that a stationary clock at a higher gravitational potential runs faster than one at a lower potential, so potential energy distorts time, and increasing the kinetic energy of a photon, since it can't travel any faster, increases its frequency. Same phenomenon, same effect. Nothing funky or illogical.

[alancalverd]

I can't even remember why I started the thread.

But it's certainly been an interesting one!

[timey]

I can't even remember why I started the thread.

You were calculating a potential relationship between 1 hertz wave and Planck's h constant.

[timey]

rate of time

this is an awkward phrase, since "rate" means "number of occurences per unit time" so the rate of time, if it has any meaning,  is always 1, by definition.

What we know is that a stationary clock at a higher gravitational potential runs faster than one at a lower potential, so potential energy distorts time, and increasing the kinetic energy of a photon, since it can't travel any faster, increases its frequency. Same phenomenon, same effect. Nothing funky or illogical.

Rate:  frequency is the amount of waves per standard second.  A standard second is 1.  Any increase in a 'rate' of a standard second would have to be say 1.1 standard seconds, or more realistically, 1. whole bunch zero's 1
A decrease would be 0.9999999999 so on of a standard second.

You said:
"" so potential energy distorts time, and increasing the kinetic energy of a photon, since it can't travel any faster, increases its frequency""

The light can't travel any faster, so it's KE remains constant... Gravity potential is higher at elevation.  By this logic the lights energy and frequency should be reducing as it moves closer to earth, which would indeed be in keeping with what happens for an atomic clock and the atomic structures of the observer in the reference frame if that clock...  BUT this is NOT what light does!  It's energy is observed to increase in the lower gravity potential!

[jeffreyH (OP)]

With spacetime length contracts and time dilates. For the photon this makes no sense. Unless we consider contraction of the wavelength and hence an increase in frequency to be the equivalent effects for the photon.

[alancalverd]

he light can't travel any faster, so it's KE remains constant.

wrong.

It's energy is observed to increase in the lower gravity potential!

because as it moves toweards the lower gravity potential, its kinetic energy is increased. When massive objects fall, they get faster. They lose potential energy and gain kinetic eneergy. A photon loses potential energy falling through a gravitational potential gradient so it must gain kinetic energy (energy is conserved - remember?) but as it can't go any faster, its frequency increases. E = hf, as you keep telling me.  How many times do you have to state the obvious before it becomes obvious to you?

The stationary clock doesn't have any kinetic energy. So we see its frequency shift compared with a local clock, according to the potential energy difference between source and observer.

A standard second is 1.

No, a second is the elapsed time of 9 billion and a few cycles of a cesium clock. It is the same everywhere, but appears to take longer if the clock is in a gravitational potential well compared with the observer.

[timey]

I'm sorry... perhaps this is where I am indeed going wrong... but... relativistic mass surely is decreasing in the lower gravity potential?  And isn't KE calculated 0.5mv2=KE...?

If we take the stationary clock and add motion in a uniform gravity field, KE must then be added and the frequency will increase... Yet a clock in motion is observed to experience a decrease in frequency relative to the stationary clock...

Edit: You have quoted me on a standard second being equal to 1, but that exert of my post was stated in context to a longer second being measured as 1.0000000000etc1 of a standard second for a longer second, or 0.99999999etc. of a standard second for a shorter second.  I understand what defines a standard second.

[alancalverd]

I'm sorry... perhaps this is where I am indeed going wrong... but... relativistic mass surely is decreasing in the lower gravity potential?  And isn't KE calculated 0.5mv2=KE...?

not if m₀ = 0, obviously: E = hf, and it's all kinetic.

If we take the stationary clock and add motion in a uniform gravity field, KE must then be added and the frequency will increase... Yet a clock in motion is observed to experience a decrease in frequency relative to the stationary clock...

KE of what? theclock. Ok, so the notional deBroglie frequency of the clock's mass increases, but that isn't what we observe. And no, it isn't observed to experience anything - there is no difference between uniform motion and rest (Newton!) but an observer with a relative speed to the clock will observe its SR time dilation. Nothing to do with kinetic energy.

Edit: You have quoted me on a standard second being equal to 1, but that exert of my post was stated in context to a longer second being measured as 1.0000000000etc1 of a standard second for a longer second, or 0.99999999etc. of a standard second for a shorter second.  I understand what defines a standard second.

There is no other second. It is defined universally. It just happens that the second on a high or moving clock looks shorter or longer to an observer on the ground. There is nothing special about the surface of the earth: it just happens to be where most of the observers are, for the time being. The orbiting astronaut sees the terrestrial clock as running slow (SR is reciprocal) and the GPS satellite also sees the terrestrial clock as running slow (the gravitational field is not symmetrical).

[jeffreyH (OP)]

 OK so what about a theoretical wave? If we specify a range where zero energy is simply a flat line and infinite energy is a vertical line. Since the wave would have to oscillate infinitely fast. We then have two absolute values, one at either end of the scale. Remember that this is all hypothetical and is not meant to represent real phenomena.

Now we could introduce other variables into this model that can in some way modify the way the wave behaves.

[jeffreyH (OP)]

Before I forget. The area under the curve at the extremes is either zero or infinity. While we can move a known distance away from zero this is not the case with infinity.

[timey]

I'm sorry... perhaps this is where I am indeed going wrong... but... relativistic mass surely is decreasing in the lower gravity potential?  And isn't KE calculated 0.5mv2=KE...?

not if m₀ = 0, obviously: E = hf, and it's all kinetic.

If we take the stationary clock and add motion in a uniform gravity field, KE must then be added and the frequency will increase... Yet a clock in motion is observed to experience a decrease in frequency relative to the stationary clock...

KE of what? theclock. Ok, so the notional deBroglie frequency of the clock's mass increases, but that isn't what we observe. And no, it isn't observed to experience anything - there is no difference between uniform motion and rest (Newton!) but an observer with a relative speed to the clock will observe its SR time dilation. Nothing to do with kinetic energy.

Edit: You have quoted me on a standard second being equal to 1, but that exert of my post was stated in context to a longer second being measured as 1.0000000000etc1 of a standard second for a longer second, or 0.99999999etc. of a standard second for a shorter second.  I understand what defines a standard second.

There is no other second. It is defined universally. It just happens that the second on a high or moving clock looks shorter or longer to an observer on the ground. There is nothing special about the surface of the earth: it just happens to be where most of the observers are, for the time being. The orbiting astronaut sees the terrestrial clock as running slow (SR is reciprocal) and the GPS satellite also sees the terrestrial clock as running slow (the gravitational field is not symmetrical).

Well - If the clock only 'looks' as if it is running slower or faster, and it only 'looks' like it is getting slower or faster to an observer of the clock who is in a different reference frame, then do the astronauts that are reputed to have aged slower when they come back from a reference frame where us observers observe the clock to run slower, only seem to us to have aged slower?  And the astronauts who observed us with our clock running faster than theirs, it only appears to them that us observers have aged faster?

When the astronauts comes back to earth, has anybody 'actually' aged any faster or slower?

It is reported that this is a 'real' effect!  If it is a 'real' effect, then a second as defined by caesium standard does 'really' get longer or shorter via time dilation/contraction and it is not just an 'appearance'...

Ok - if gravity potential does not affect the relativistic mass of the photon then the only means that kinetic energy can be calculated to increase for an 'incoming' photon, is if KE is calculated accumulatively.  We are saying that light has no mass but because it is moving at c we can attribute it KE, which we can then state as relativistic mass, and then because we have added mass, this then accumulates more KE?  I don't get it!

And if KE is calculated as 0.5mv2=KE, I don't get why a clock that is in motion relative to the stationary clock does not have an increase KE relative to the stationary clock and I don't get this notion why the clock does not experience its own time dilation when astronauts who are with the clock in motion are reputed to 'actually' experience time dilation effects...

[timey]

Now we could introduce other variables into this model that can in some way modify the way the wave behaves.

You have my attention...

[jeffreyH (OP)]

Timey. Once you understand the simpler aspects of relativity mathematically all the confusion disappears.

[alancalverd]

Ok - if gravity potential does not affect the relativistic mass of the photon then the only means that kinetic energy can be calculated to increase for an 'incoming' photon, is if KE is calculated accumulatively.  We are saying that light has no mass but because it is moving at c we can attribute it KE, which we can then state as relativistic mass, and then because we have added mass, this then accumulates more KE?  I don't get it!

Why make it complicated? A photon can transfer momentum to another body, so it has momentum and energy, but no rest (or "proper") mass. What's the problem?

And if KE is calculated as 0.5mv2=KE, I don't get why a clock that is in motion relative to the stationary clock does not have an increase KE relative to the stationary clock and I don't get this notion why the clock does not experience its own time dilation when astronauts who are with the clock in motion are reputed to 'actually' experience time dilation effects...

Nobody and nothing "experiences" time dilatation, because all steady motion is relative. The frequency of a standard clock has nothing to do with its kinetic energy relative to another body, because it has no way of knowing it is in motion. But the frequency as seen from another body depends on their relative speed.

[jeffreyH (OP)]

We could put in place a rule that states that the wave can never be at either absolute value. We then have to define two limits. A lower and an upper limit.

[timey]

Timey. Once you understand the simpler aspects of relativity mathematically all the confusion disappears.

Wonderful news Jeff...

I and a whole world full of physicists stand with bated breath to await your mathematical rendition of a relativity that does not conclude in any confusing infinities.  Because I've yet to hear that such a rendition of relativity exists, and in any case, relativity does not give a full explanation of our universe, both of which constitute the very reasons why it's premiss is being called to question by qualified and respected physicists. (You make it sound as though I am suffering 'confusion' because I question relativity's premiss, and it's not just me you know...)