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by Total Science » Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:16 pm
What is spacetime?
If it is a material object then where is it?
How can spacetime be curved?
If spacetime has a shape then what color is it?
Yellow?
Purple?
"In a nutshell, Pastor Al [Einstein] was deluded into thinking that space is a physical object." -- Bill Gaede, physicist, 2008
"I can't even tell you at the moment what 'at the moment means.' Even momentarily." -- Brian Cox, physicist, 2008
"Leibniz also disagreed with other aspects of Newtonianism, such as the use of gravity, which he held to be a revival of occultism, and Newton's use of space as an absolute. Leibnizian physics defined motion and therefore space as relational." -- William E. Burns, historian, 2001
"Leibniz also attacked Newtonian physical ideas, including absolute space and time, [and] the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which he charged introduced an occult force...." -- William E. Burns, historian, 2001
"Classic quantum mechanics seems to exhibit some of the characteristics that Immanuel Kant described about the relation between phenomenal reality in space and time and things-in-themselves." -- Kelley L. Ross, philosopher, 1997
"The arguments of Hume and Kant have been confirmed by quantum mechanics." -- Sunny Y. Auyang, physicist, 1995
"In the discussion of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory it has been emphasised that we use the classical concepts in describing our experimental equipment and more generally in describing that part of the world which does not belong to the object of the experiment. The use of these concepts, including space, time and causality, is in fact the condition for observing atomic events and is, in this sense of the word, 'a priori'." -- Werner Heisenberg, physicist, 1958
"Lord Kelvin has rightly pointed out that no previous mathematician or physical astronomer had discovered or anticipated Kant's solution--and with this Professor Tait and M. Wolf agree; so that it appears to be absolutely original." -- Thomas Wright, historian, 1900
"Kant pointed out in the middle of last century, what had not previously been discovered by mathematicians or physical astronomers, that the frictional resistance against tidal currents on the earth's surface must cause a diminution of the earth's rotational speed. This really great discovery in Natural Philosophy seems to have attracted little attention,--indeed to have passed quite unnoticed, --among mathematicians, and astronomers, and naturalists, until about 1840, when the doctrine of energy began to be taken to heart." -- Lord Kelvin, physicist, 1897
"...it is not necessary to refer the law of inertia to a spacial absolute space. On the contrary, it is perceived that the masses that in the common phraseology exert forces on each other as well as those that exert none, stand with respect to acceleration in quite similar relations. We may, indeed, regard all masses as related to each other. That accelerations play a prominent part in the relations of the masses, must be accepted as a fact of experience; which does not, however, exclude attempts to elucidate this fact by a comparison of it with other facts, involving the discovery of new points of view." -- Ernst Mach, physicist, 1893
"Great as the currency of his [Kant's] leading ideas has been, much still remains in his works to be developed by the struggle and collision of future systems; and it may be safely pronounced that no philosopher of the eighteenth century, perhaps none since the days of Aristotle, has left behind such monuments of thought, or has so firmly imposed the task of mastering them on the speculation of all succeeding ages." -- John Cairns, philosopher, 1892
"The sort of geological speculation to which I am now referring (geological aetiology, in short) was created as a science by that famous philosopher, Immanuel Kant, when, in 1775 [1755], he wrote his General Natural History and Theory of the Celestial Bodies; or, an Attempt to Account for the Constitutional and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, upon Newtonian Principles." -- Thomas H. Huxley, biologist, 1869
"To suppose a reader thoroughly indifferent to Kant, is to suppose him thoroughly unintellectual...." -- Thomas De Quincey, author, 1827
"But what are we to say when we find Kant's most important and brilliant doctrine, that of the ideality of space and of the merely phenomenal existence of the corporeal world, expressed already thirty years previously by Maupertuis? ... Maupertuis expresses this paradoxical doctrine so decidedly, and yet without the addition of proof, that it must be supposed that he also obtained it from somewhere else [Aristotle and Leibniz!]. It is very desirable that the matter should be further investigated, and as this would demand tiresome and extensive researches, some German Academy might very well make the question the subject of a prize essay." -- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher, 1819
"Playfulness, wit, and humor were at his [Kant's] command. His lectures were the most entertaining talks. His mind, which examined Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, Crusius, and Hume, and investigated the laws of nature of Newton, Kepler, and the physicists, comprehended equally the newest works of Rousseau ... and the latest discoveries in science. He weighted them all, and always came back to the unbiased knowledge of nature and to the moral worth of man. The history of men and peoples, natural history and science, mathematics and observation, were the sources from which he enlivened his lectures and conversations. He was indifferent to nothing worth knowing. No cabal, no sect, no prejudice, no desire for fame, could ever tempt him in the slightest from broadening and illuminating the truth. He incited and gently forced others to think for themselves; despotism was foreign to his nature." -- Johann G. Herder, philosopher, 1791
"...As our intuition is always sensuous, no object can ever be presented to us in experience, which does not come under the condition of time. On the other hand, we deny to time all claim to absolute reality; that is, we deny that it, without having regard to the form of our sensuous intuition, absolutely inheres in things as a condition or property. Such properties as belong to objects as things in themselves never can be presented to us through the medium of the senses. Herein consists, therefore the transcendental ideality of time, according to which, if we abstract the subjective conditions of sensous intuition, it is nothing, and cannot be reckoned as subsisting or inhereing in objects as things in themselves, independently of our intuition." -- Immanuel Kant, physical scientist/philosopher, 1781
"If we...consequently take objects as they are in themselves, then time is nothing." -- Immanuel Kant, physical scientist/philosopher, 1781
"Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, that is, of the intuitions of self and of our internal state. For time cannot be any determination of outward phenomena. It has neither to do with shape nor position; on the contrary, it determines the relation of representations in our internal state." -- Immanuel Kant, physical scientist/philosopher, 1781
"Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination..." -- Immanuel Kant, physical scientist/philosopher, 1781
"Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistance nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession." -- Immanuel Kant, physical scientist/philosopher, 1781
"When formerly I regarded space as an immovable real place, possessing extension alone, I had been able to define absolute motion as change of this real space. But gradually I began to doubt whether there is in nature such an entity as is called space; whence it followed that a doubt might arise about absolute motion." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1695
"...space without matter is something imaginary...." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1689
"There is no vacuum." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1689
"...we must raise the whole problem about place/space -- not only as to what it is, but even whether there is such a thing." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book IV
"...if it [place] is itself an existent, where will it be? Zeno's difficulty demands an explanation: for if everything that exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book IV
"It is evident, then, that it is easy to refute the arguments by which they prove the existence of the void." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book IV
"...there is no void...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book IV
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." -- Protagoras, philosopher, date unknown
"The ancients possessed a plasma cosmology and physics themselves, and from laboratory experiments, were well familiar with the patterns exhibited by Peratt's petroglyphs." -- Joseph P. Farrell, author, 2007
It's just that they don't convince me yet to be of true nature. I see matter as the "building blocks" and space as the emptyness in the "sand box" - and then a large set of object related behaviours for how things tie together.
But there are still paradoxes, and I withhold the view that curved spacetime still is a mathematical term/view and not to be interpreted literally, as a structure nature follows. Same goes for time itself (read below).