New Analysis Of Time
Book
Review
Does Barbour's Theory Fit Lederman's T-Shirt?
BY WILLIAM D. CONNER
"The End of Time, The Next Revolution in Physics" by English physicist Julian Barbour, Oxford University Press USA, New York., published February 2000.
Oxford's online catalog says this book contains "A revolutionary new theory that attacks one of the foundation stones of science--the existence of time."
This is a difficult book. I read and pondered many short slices as I struggled to comprehend its complexities. But simply stated, the author's attack against time fails. Time is not eliminated but is used to create a bizarre substitute for time flow. Barbour chops time into a physical landscape of myriad realities which dot a place he calls "Platonia."
Also, Barbour claims motion itself is an illusion created by our rapid observation of points in the Platonia landscape. This calls to mind books with page-flip "movies" which create the illusion of motion as you flip along.
But time remains encased in Barbour's theory because he needs "snapshots," "instants" and "time capsules" to make it work. For instance, to divide motion into the quantum-like slices of his Platonia landscape, Barbour uses "instants." Well, one can't have instants without having time phenomena, regardless how small such instants are. Also, his theory seems to give no mechanism for slicing our experience of time and motion into such pieces. And if motion is an illusion, what "flips the pages?"
An important consequence of my new analysis of time is that to the universe (Mother Nature), all events, which occur in eternity (existence), are EQUAL. If an event occurs 9,192,631,770 times a second (the cycles of a cesium atom's frequency), or unfolds over a billion years, it is all the same to Mother Nature, because all occur in eternity. A minute or a second have no deeper meaning than a million years or a billion, other than some being anthropocentric scaled events. But all represent different lengths and instances of motion through space in eternity by matter and/or energy. My BEM Worlds explanation of the evolutionary scaling of time observers to their environment explains why this is so.
I believe physics works entirely without time flow and, as a consequence, Barbour's use of such features as "instants, snapshots and time capsules" wrongly projects our human perception of time flow onto the physical universe. But as this web site will continue to show in future installments, Barbour is not alone in making this error, but has plenty of company, including some world-renowned giants of physics and cosmology.
Barbour says he believes motion is an illusion because of the "nonlocal" consequences of quantum mechanics. But to me, the nonlocal effects of quantum mechanics (spooky action at a distance, as Einstein put it) seems to be a further proof of the nonexistence of time flow.
Strangely, the nonlocal effects of quantum mechanics involves the instantaneous transmittal of information about the observed state of one quanta of radiation from another copy of itself split off by the observer's lab equipment. This occurs instantly no matter how far apart the two are, and even if this requires getting there faster than the speed of light.
If "nonlocal" effects can occur over vast stretches of space and violate the the speed of light limit of the macroscopic universe, then it seems to me that motion through space by this information does not occur. It seems that on the "nonlocal" level of quantum mechanics, where there is no speed limit, the information must not travel through normal space. If so, there is no motion through space, the light speed limit is not broken, and time phenomena does not occur.
At the nonlocal level, the quantum universe seems to behave as if there is a change from a three-dimensional macroscopic universe to a zero dimensional micro-universe into which this information enters. It may be like a vast charged particle, which completely fills a micro-universe and responds to certain events in the macroscopic universe (the observation of the momentum or position of a photon) instantaneously.
Perhaps the observation changes a property of the everywhere "particle" which causes the linked wave or particle to yeild the same information (position or momentum).
But the fact that this occurs in response to a human observation remains to me "spooky."
Finally, my reaction to the long, mind-bending passages of text in Barbour's book about his "Platonia" can best be summarized by the following quotation: "If the basic idea is too complicated to fit onto a T-shirt, it's probably wrong."
This quotation was used by science writer Timothy Ferris in his excellent book "The Whole Shebang," in a chapter on "Quantun Weirdness," and was a remark made in 1984 by Leon Lederman, Nobel Prize winner in physics (1988). I think Lederman hit the nail squarely on the head with this. It's a great test for likely validity.
In "Shebang," Ferris says quantum mechanics works in a normally on its own scale, but gets "weird" at its interface with classical physics. Barbour however, attempts to move this weirdness across the boundary into the macrocosm. His basic idea is way too complicated to fit onto a T-shirt. And of course, I think it's wrong. I believe time flow is only a human observer's perception of motion through space.
And, my basic idea does fit onto a T-shirt! Time = matter/energy in motion
After reading my review of his book, Barbour wrote the following on Novemer 18, 2000 as part of an e-mail to the Time Philosopher, William Conner:
"...I see I did not spell things out as clearly as I should have in the book. My use of the word 'snapshot' may have been unfortunate (like 'instants' and 'time capsules'), but the concepts I use are genuinely timeless.
In sport, I do
think my theory will fit on Ledermann's T-shirt: "Time does not exist". Also, I see I did not
spell things out as clearly as I should have in the book.
My use of the word 'snapshot' may have been unfortunate (like
'instants' and 'time capsules'), but the concepts I use are
genuinely timeless. My configurations of the universe,
which I liken to snapshots, are more like triangles.
Would you agree that the notion of the 3,4,5 or 5,12,13 Pythagorean triangles have meaning quite independently of time? If so, them I am home, since I need nothing more."
I replied, that yes, I would agree the these triangles have meaning independent of time. In my November 17, 2000 e-mail to Barbour, I wrote:
"Congratulations! I think
it's really great that you were interviewed by Discover Magazine.
And, it's even better that they saw fit to make this their
December 2000 cover story and lead article. I'm a subscriber and
just received my copy in the mail today.
Though I don't agree with you on the details, we both believe
time is an illusion and that a better understanding of time could
lead to the formation of the elusive 'theory of everything.'
Maybe this Discover article will help place the question of time
on the table and will lead others to go to work on the
problem."
So, while I admire Barbour for having the courage to swim against the current with his radical time theory, I still disagree with it except for the idea that time flow is an illusion.
bookrview.htm, posted 7-24-00, revised 12-10-00