Re: Creation (long)

[twayburn@juno.com (Thomas L Wayburn)]

On Sun, 07 Dec 1997 17:18:05 -0700 (MST) DSCHROEDER@cc.weber.edu writes:
> > For Dan and others:
> >
> >   I can't parse the locution "the big bang occurred at a certain 
> point
> > in time".   
>
> Did I say that?  If so I apologize.  I can't parse it either.  But I
> don't think I said it.  I don't like the "point in time" part, and 
> also
> I tend to avoid the term "big bang" for a variety of reasons.
> Sometimes I use the phrase "the beginning of time as we know it",
> or something similar.  You know, pretend that the equations are good
> right up to infinite density, call that t=0.
>
> >  Also, I am confused by all these distances that light travels.  
> From
> > the viewpoint of the corpuscle,  it hasn't gone anywhere as all of 
> its
> > traveling is where it is.   Are not two events zero interval apart 
> the
> > same event?   Notice, that question is *not* rhetorical.  In 
> space-time
> > do we not have events rather than points?   Is a point defined even?
>
> I'm not really sure what you're getting at here.
>
> -dan
That makes two of us.   Well, I guess I can forage for a few scraps of
preverbal cogitation.   In space-time we have replaced distance and
period of time with the *interval* between two events.   Now, the reason
we think traveling faster than the speed of light is that the interval
between two events that lie on the light cone is zero.  I have been led
to believe that if we traveled a just the speed of light, we would arrive
at the same instant that we departed.  We can't expect to do better than
that.   I thought that the interval between two events being zero made
the departure and arrival at two coordinates separated in a space-like
way coincident.   Now, I'm not so sure.   But, if interval were a metric,
from the viewpoint of a photon every set of coordinates would seem like
every other.  In a sense the Universe would have shrunk to a point.  
That is why the speed of light is the same regardless of the behavior of
the coordinate system - as I understood it only a few hours ago, but
Feynman had just confused me only a day or two ago, whereas Russell made
me think I understood well enough for a bebop drummer decades ago.

   I am not comfortable until I do a little math and solve some problems
that I shall make up for the purpose after reviewing Feynman's and
Bowman's explanation's when I finish my music lesson for the day, which
is dedicated to the music of Chris Anderson, a brilliant, but seriously
handicapped, musician who would be inconvenienced by being black even if
he weren't inconvenienced by everything else.  He is sort of the Stephen
Hawking of music.

Regards / Tom