Yes, I see your point Maya,

...and I think I have to basically agree with it. David, when I read your email about time being flat, I found it odd that you would make such a connection between society's view of time and science's. But, interesting, nonetheless! You do make a good point that time is related to distance, not only in everyday terms, but in science....why do you think we developed the unit of the lightyear?

But, then again, we are still pondering whether or not time actually exists, like the fundumentals of gravity, time is a very elusive scientific concept at its essence. (is time defined by how fast electrons spin? by how fast an apple rots? etc...?)

So, then, with that bit of confusion stated.....what are the implications of "flat time?" Would that mean that time doesn't slow down when I near the speed of light because.....well..."flat time just don't bend that way?" Or....what?

-Joey the confused

Maya Lessov wrote:
> David,
>
> I think the whole point of integration is that no useful "relevance"
> should be needed for the insights of science to enhance and individual's
> worldview and personal cosmology. "Time is money," is a particularly bad
> reason try to define time and space to the public, as an explanation that
> caters to such a relation with everyday phrasiology evades the purpose of
> fulfilling the needs for understanding beyond what people
> already know and are familiar with. I think it is a mistake to buckle
> something unfmiliar, and something that could potentially be
> revolutionary, to the common practices which its revelation will try to
> widen. Then the new is only stapled to the old, sort of becomes
> it, and nothing new has happened. (Analogy is another matter. Analogies
> only use certain systems as models for other systems, and are okay in
> explaining new concepts.) To try to sell the flatness of space (or its
> curvature, or whatever) to peole on the basis that it relates to their
> common percpetions of time and would be relevant to them because
> they've been dealing with time all their lives, would be like trying
> to sell oranges to comeone who's been eating apples all along by
> telling him the oranges will remind him of the apples and make his
> apple picking easier or funner, or whatever. When, even if this
> is the result of the oranges, the point of their introduction would have
> been to
> explain them and maybe their geneological relation to apples or
> something, not just blindly relate the two, because we are scared of
> how many people will run away if we begin by saying that oranges are
> semething new and exciting, and orange and sweet.
>
> I'm very sorry if I've misinterpreted you and please tell me if I have.
> I write
> on a whim and it is not always so good, but stylizing and
> pre-thinking just doesn't work for me.
> If I have misinterpreted you, then at least I've answered the comment
> of someone else who may have said what I thought you said.
>
> I did enjoy the conference very much.
>
> Maya
>
> On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, David Terrell wrote:
>
> > Dear Friends,
> > Following the quote of the week: "Some things I have said of which I am not
> > entirely confident. But that we should be better and braver and less
> > helpless if we think we ought to inquire, than we should have been if we had
> > indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use seeking to
> > know what we do not know - thet is a theme on which I am ready to fight, in
> > word and in deed, to the utmost of my power." - Plato
> > I'll like to post the question "is time flat?" It was mentioned after Kim's
> > talk last Saturday at the conference that findings of the Boomerang project
> > leads to a relativistic flat MW brackground radiation. Also, Kim mentioned
> > that one of the main accomplishments of the 20th century was that of
> > humanity being able to measure distance, but is it not that every time we
> > talk about distances we think in terms of time? Daniel also reminded us how
> > the arrow of time is defined by DS and how we have been unable to know what
> > time is. As distance is the separation between two points, is time the
> > separation between to (entropy)states?
> > Why is that I ask myself this question? Is it because in order to integrate
> > science to society we have to be relevant? And time is one of the key
> > questions of modern time to the point that it is said "Time is Money"
> > Greetings,
> > David
> > David Terrell Ph.D.
> > dterrell@warnerpacific.edu
> > Dept. Sciences and Mathematics
> > Warner Pacific College
> > (http://www.warnerpacific.edu)
> > Phone: 503 517-1071