On Apr 30, 8:41 am, Ivan Voras <ivoras@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Supposing you live in Magic Land (tm) and with the technology of early
> 20th century, and you encounter a zone where time doesn't "flow"
> regularly - call it a temporal anomaly or something like that. Could you
> detect it?
Yes, I think so.
> Here are the rules:
> - a Newtonian universe (relativistic effects don't exist; speed, energy
> can increase indefinitely)
So rate of time is not correlated with strength of gravity? IOW
Absolute Time everywhere except within the zone?
> - "space" behaves usually - distance of 1m is always 1m, no warping here
> - time is messed up: it still monotonically flows forward, only
> sometimes slower sometimes faster.
Averaging to "normal" outside time over how long a period, hours, a
day, a week, a month?
> This is very tricky - your clocks,
> observed locally, are always correct, but the time is different when the
> outside of zone is used as a referrence.
> - you cannot compare objects (clocks, etc.) from within and without the
> zone because of handwaving reasons. You have to work within the zone.
First you say that internal time will be different from external
time, then you say they can't be compared. Is it _impossible_ or can
you just not think of a way to do it? In exactly which directions are
you waving your hands here?
> - in the long run, time behaves regularly (e.g. if you measure enough of
> time within and without the zone, for some large amount of "enough",
> they will match; only within the zone it's sometimes slower sometimes
> faster.). This rule is actually optional :)
It better average to zero or you get "Shangri-La".
> Could something like this ever be detected?
Yes, I still think so.
> I have a hunch that maybe something with pendulums and relying on the
> fact that space is consistent could be the right direction, but I don't
> really know where to go with it.
Pendulums won't do you any good unless you have external timing
signals to compare the pendulum's period with, and you said there
ain't no comparing allowed.
But that's going to be difficult to justify if the Zone is open-air
because the sun and moon will be visible.
See, there has to be an intermediate discontinuity (either a
dimensionless membrane or a hollow volume) between the external
universe and your Zone, and light will do strange things crossing it,
rather comparable to the Einsteinian effects of light climbing/falling
into a gravitational potential.
When the zone is running fast the sun will "turn red" and move
across the sky slower than normal and when it's running slow the sun
will "turn blue" and move faster than normal.
Ignoring the color thing, the length of the day will not be the same
number of pendulum periods within as without.
Besides you don't need a pendulum; just construct a sundial and
compare with a pocketwatch.
Allowing for strange in-place weather that blocks direct view of the
sky, does it prevent you from telling day from night and/or sun color
at all?
If so, you allowed early 20th century tech, so we have radio, and I
can carry a longwave set into the zone and notice that I have to alter
the tuning of the set to get stations of known frequencies.
If you disallow radio I can string a telegraph line in and notice
the sounder's clicks are either sharper or softer than normal,
depending on what the discontinuity does to the line current.
If you disallow _that_ you're waving your hands way too hard.
Mark L. Fergerson
|
