On 4 February 2014 17:11, <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:19:42 AM UTC, Liz R wrote: > >> On 4 February 2014 12:44, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
