On Thu, 30 Jan 1997 Omega <omega@pacific.net> Wrote:
>Relativity remember, distances in both space and time are relative
>to the reference frame your in. From the perspective of a lightlike
>reference frame, they are all exactly zero.
Obviously Einstein knew that from the reference frame of an observer moving
at the speed of light the distance to any point in the universe is zero,
and he knew that time grinds to a complete halt, and he knew that space-time
shrinks to a mathematical point; he is after all the very man who figured
this out for the first time. Einstein also knew that we can not move at the
speed of light, and he is also the first man to figure that out.
By "local" Einstein wanted a definition that could be of some use, he mente
there is no superluminal action at a distance, we now know from experimental
evidence that there IS superluminal action at a distance, even if we can't
use it to communicate in a superluminal way. It is an experimental fact that
Bell's inequality IS violated, and it would NOT be violated if the world
was locally causal. Even if we someday find a better theory than Quantum
Mechanics, any successful theory must explain that experimental result.
If Cramer claims that his theory is local then he is also claiming that it
is untrue, however I have never heard him say anything like that, instead he
talks about everyday events "shaking hands with the universe", and as I said
before, that's about as non-local as you can get.
>Again, this is a much deeper paradox in relativity than the twins
>business, a paradox that QM patches up in a consistent manner.
One reason we know that we still have a lot to learn is that the 2 giant
pillars of modern Physics, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have
little in common, until Hawking's work 30 years ago they had nothing in
common. We still have a long way to go before we have a Quantum Theory of
gravity, and gravity is General Relativity's strong point.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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