On 4 February 2014 17:11, <ghib...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:19:42 AM UTC, Liz R wrote: > >> On 4 February 2014 12:44, Edgar L. Owen <edga...@att.net> wrote: >> >>> Liz, >>> >>> You keep repeating your UNSUBSTANTIATED claim that both Newton and >>> Einstein believed in block time. >>> >> >> It isn't a question of belief. Newtonian and Einsteinian machanics both >> imply the existence of a block universe. >> > > How does it derive from the Newtonian picture? I don't seem to get the > visualization ...can ye help :O) >
Newton treated time as a dimension in which the positions of particles changed smoothly under applied forces. Treating time as a dimension is (by definition) block time. > >> I've repeatedly asked you to substantiate this claim with some actual >>> quotes from them but you have been unable to do so. >>> >> Please provide quotes substantiating this or withdraw the claim. That's >>> only fair... >>> >> >> Obviously Newton didn't use that phrase. Equally obviously it's implied >> by his equations, as Laplace realised. >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon >> >> We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past >> and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would >> know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items >> of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to >> submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the >> movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest >> atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just >> like the past would be present before its eyes. >> --Pierre Simon Laplace, *A Philosophical Essay on >> Probabilities*[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon#cite_note-Truscott-3> >> >> > Liz - are you saying then, that cause and effect implies blocktime, or do > I get that wrong? > The "clockwork universe" view implied that the positions of all its constituents at all times can be calculated. This is equivalent to a picture of a static 4D structure. > However, Newton's mechanics only imply a block universe (actually it was apparently Galileo who originally came up with this worldview). Einstein made it explicit. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
