Lester Zick (lesterzick@earthlink.net)
Sat, 01 May 1999 08:54:47 -0400
There is a serious objection to the conventional application of
geometric concepts to the notion of time, particularly in the context of
four dimensional space-time. Time is not is not simply an extension of
ordinary spatial geometry, in other words. Everything that happens
happens in the present. We can know of the past and of the future, but
this is only because the present cannot have been what it is and cannot
stay as it is. But the knowledge of past and present are simply
conceptual implications of present circumstances and not capable of
geometric extrapolation in geometric terms.
The modern concept that gravitation bends space in some sense is also
problematic. In point of fact, gravitation bends light not space. And
this suggests to me that the two have a common origin in the nature and
properties of electromagnetic radiation generally. Whether this point of
view will prove tenable remains to be seen, but the concept of
gravitational warping of space cannot be valid.
Space, apart from any mechanical properties imputed to the plenum, is
simply a geometric construct and has very specific dimensional
properties associated with it for this reason. In particular, space is
three dimensional in nature. This is not an option. It is actually a
mechanical limitation resulting from the same considerations used to
demonstrate Fermat's Last Theorem.
It would be interesting in the extreme to see modern string theorists
demonstrate the possibility of more dimensions in mechanical terms. The
usual approach is simply to assert the possibility in terms of
conceptual extrapolation from the first (and only) three and then to
claim the plausibility by analogy with two dimensional phenomena in the
context of three dimensions. However, this does not prove the
possibility of higher dimensions in strict mechanical terms; it simply
asserts that it is not implausible, which of course it really is because
in three dimensions there can only be three dimensional phenomena since
one or two dimensional phenomena can be oriented in any of the three
dimensions.
There is a further discussion of such considerations available at
http://home.earthlink.net/~lesterzick
Regards - Lester
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