Lunch With George!

October 11, 2001 - Taco Cabana

Agenda

• Special Relativity (reading assignment: Six Not-So-Easy Pieces, Chapter Two: Symmetry in the Physical Sciences.
• If there's any time left...
  • Einstein Does't Work Here Anymore
  • Perception of Time
  • Disposable Printers
  • Music: A Survival Trait?

Miscellaneous Topics During the Meal

Einstein Doesn't Work Here...

I never have to time to read books anymore... but I still have time to buy them! I was telling George that I bought two more interesting books at the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library store. One is an archaeological book describing evidence that explorers during the ice age had created detailed navigational charts and built significant civilizations. It is called Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.

I also picked up an intriguing book entitled Einstein Doesn't Work Here Anymore. Maurice B. Cooke, along with two anonymous collaborators, published this book with the intention of "felling many cherished notions of 20th century physics like ten pins." The author clearly knows that the ideas offered will "elicit howls of protest" from the scientific establishment, but is undeterred (although his colleagues obviously have something to fear with regards to their reputations, since they decline to be identified). Like Dr. Tom VanFlandern, Mr. Cooke is an advocate of the idea that space is not empty-- that space is made up of something. He refers to it by its old name: aether. And yes, he believes it is a light-carrying medium. They also dispute:

• The second law of Thermodynamics
• The particle theory of light
• Current explanation of galactic redshift
• insert gases are inert
• and... the accepted theory of disease.

This guy had my interest until I started looking through section 3, which describes test cases using friends and "friends of friends" as subjects. I really want to be open-minded, but this stuff looks whacko! I know... that's just what he said I would do if I was not open to new ideas... Oh well. I will still read the book, even if it is only for the entertainment value. Plus, it's ony 132 pages long, and isn't muddied up by a table of contents, an index, references, or even the author's credentials (oops, now I'm getting facetious!).

OK. I researched Mr. Cooke a little bit... and it seems that he has published several books. It also seems that "Maurice B. Cooke" is a pen name. It is also claimed that these books are not his own work, but instead were the result of Hilarion "channelling" through him. There are no entries at Amazon.com, and the only active web pages which refer to his work (including the book I just bought) are new age and astrology sites. OooooooKay.... well, I learned something! If I had educated myself a little more on trends in astrology, I'd know that inert gases are a big deal.

You can see the work of a disciple of Cooke's work here, and here's another reference at Astrology For The Soul. Okey dokey... on to the next topic!

Perception of Time

I read Feynman's short essay "It's as Simple as One, Two, Three" in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. It's a fun, inspiring story (I think it may also be contained in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, but I'm not sure). He wants to understand have thinking works. At one point in his youth, he remarked to his friend that thinking was simply "talking in your head." His friend was quick to ask him to talk out loud and describe the shape of an automobile's camshaft... at which point Feynman decided there WAS more to thinking than just talking in your head.

Speaking of Camshafts...   Feynman's reference to camshafts reminded George about a website that has great animated graphic demonstrations of the workings of a piston engine-- it is called Howstuffworks.com. It also has a great animation of a working Wankel engine... a topic close to George's heart (he drives a late-model RX-7!). Once I looked around the site and mentioned it to Fred, we both noticed a little side article about the new RX-8 sportscar being planned by Mazda. Check it out here.

The core of the story is Feynman's quest while still a boy to determine the basis of our sense of the passage of time. He experimented for some time, using himself as the subject.

Feynman determined through numerous trials that when he tried to count to 60 at a regular pace (in his "head", not out loud), it took him 48 seconds, plus or minus a second. These trials were all done at rest, so he then decided to try it with his heart rate elevated. He accomplished this by running up and down the stairs in his parent's home repeatedly, and then testing his counting speed. 48 seconds again! His increased heart rate had no effect! George at this point suggested that he should have tested the effect of alcohol on his perception of the passage of time!

While doing this counting, his friend asked him what he was doing. At this point he discovered something: He was totally unable to continue counting "in his head" and talk at the same time! This got him thinking: what else could he do or not do while counting in his head? And what other activities might alter his counting speed?

There's more, but I don't want to ruin the whole story for those who wish to read it.

This story reminded George that he distinctly remembers a time when his perception of the passage of time changed. As a boy, we was extremely fond of peanut butter & jelly (perhaps he still is!). Knowing this, his mother, upon seeing an enormous jar of jelly, thought it would be just the thing for George and bought it. After admiring it, he tossed it onto his bed. This is when he experienced a change in the passage of time! You see, the jar bounced, and bounced a little too well... it was clearly headed for the edge of the bed, and ultimately the hardwood floor! It seemed to George that the jar was bouncing veeeeerrry slowly, and his lunge and miraculous catch also seemed to be in slow motion. So... what caused this change in perception?

I, too, had an experience in which my perception of time changed. But first, a little background. For years, I have been able to represent one-second ticks pretty acurately by singing a song in my head which I know is properly performed at 120 beats per second. So, I can used every other beat to represent a second, and I can then count to 60 with an error of plus or minus a second or two.

I remember on one occasion, however, when my sense of time was different. I was using this same song to time something, and discovered that even though I thought I was "singing" the song in my head at the proper tempo, I discovered by comparing against a clock that I was actually singing it much faster than 120 beats per second! It just happens that I was very anxious about something, and quite nervous, at the time.

So... George experienced a slow-down, and it turns out that I did, too. I perceived 45 seconds as taking 60... I just didn't know it until I saw how many actual seconds had elapsed. It was more obvious to George that he was seeing time "slower", because he knew how fast the jar should be falling.

Again, what could be causing this change in perception? We both wondered about adrenalin, but I confirmed George's assumption: the adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys. Adrenalin could have easily been a factor for me since I was quite nervous, but what about George? It seems unlikely that his anxiety over the jar about to fall could cause the adrenal glands to secrete hormones that would reach his brain in time to change his perception. George suggested that under certain circumstances, the brain itself shifts into another mode in which our inner clock speeds up, making the outside world seem to run more slowly (this was a skill which the main character Michael developed in Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. He used it to, among other things, drive VERY fast through heavy traffic.).

I plan to do a little searching on the web regarding this topic, ad I'll post whatever I find.

Music -- A Survival Trait?

While it is fairly easy to see how the human ability to appreciate good tasting food or a pretty face can be traced back to survival traits resulting from natural selection, it is not so clear to Geoge or myself what use we have for appreciating beautiful harmonies in music. Why do major chords sound happy, yet minor chords sound sad? I'm willing to believe that it is just a serendipitous ability resulting from the combination of other survival traits. Any opinions, anyone?

Disposable Printers

I was telling George that printers are getting really cheap. Just in the last week, Fry's Electronics had a Lexmark Z22 (1200x1200 dpi) color photo printer for $19, and then an Epson Stylus Color 580 (1440x720) for $29. The Lexmark comes with only a color ink cartridge-- the black is optional. The Epson, however, comes with a complete set of full-size ink tanks. My point here is that both of these printers are being sold with ink cartridges for less than the cost of the ink cartridges themselves! Given this situation, it is actually more cost-effective to buy a new printer, use it until the ink runs out, and then go buy another. You could even sell the "almost new" printer on ebay for $15 or $20 dollars, and almost print for free!

Symmetry in the Physical Laws

George and I both finished chapter 2, and agreed that while it was interesting (particularly the part where anitmatter helped restore symmetry in the Quantum-mechanical phase... "and the two of us come rushing out to shake hands. If he [the alien] puts out his left hand, watch out!"), we didn't have much to talk about. We're assuming some of it might come in handy later.

I read ahead a little in the next chapter: The Special Theory of Relativity. I won't go into it much, but the lightbulb finally went on for me, at least a glimmer! Feynman talks about synchronizing clocks and perceiving clock progress from difference frames of reference, etc., and I was inspired by his description of a very simplistic clock used onboard a fast-moving spaceship.

Before I address relativistic effects, I want to describe a scenario in the Newtonian universe. Let us consider "Paul's Pair-o-docs:"

Initial conditions: Dr. Richard Feynman and Dr. Tom VanFlandern are riding on a train. The train is moving in a straight line at 18 kph (5 m/s). The train car in which they are riding is made of transparent materials. Drs. Tom and Dick are standing on opposite sides of the train, facing one another, 5 meters apart, playing catch with a ball. They are throwing the ball such that it takes one second for the ball to travel from one person to the other. The lateral path of the ball is perpendicular to the direction of the train.

Dr. Emmet Brown, an eminent temporal scientist, is the observer outside the train. He will be standing near the tracks, measuring the movement of the ball from outside the train.

Figure 1. "Train" Frame of Reference.

In Figure 1, we see the "train" frame of reference-- the frame of reference for those riding the train. At time t₁, Dr. Tom throws the ball. At time t₂, Dr. Dick catches it. Drs. Tom and Dick make the following observations:

• The ball travels 5 meters, in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the train.
• the velocity of the ball is 5 meters/second.

Now let's consider the view from outside the train:

Figure 2. "Stationary" Frame of Reference.

In Figure 2, we see the "stationary" frame of reference, as perceived by Dr. Emmet. At time t₁, Dr. Tom throws the ball from position P₁. At time t₂, Dr. Dick catches it at position P₂ (the two positions are 5 meters apart along the tracks). Dr. Emmet makes the following observations:

• The ball travels roughly 7.1 meters (5 times the square root of 2), along a vector resulting from the train's vector (v_||) and the vector of the thrown ball (v_^).
• the velocity of the ball is 7.1 meters/second.

Ok. So what can we say about this? The observations made by Dr. VanFlandern and Dr. Feynman are completely correct for their frame of reference. The observations made by Dr. Brown are completely correct for his frame of reference. Here's the point I want you to remember while we now look at Special Relativity: Since the ball traveled further (from Dr. Brown's point of view) in the same amount of time, it necessarily traveled faster.

Now I want to address relativistic effects, as described by Dr. Feynman in Chapter Three. Here he envisions a very simple clock and shows why time passes more slowly on a spaceship which is moving relative to the observer.