obnoxio@BRAHMS.BERKELEY.EDU (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (06/05/87)
Anyone interested in arguing about causality vs relativity and who would like to know what he is talking about should read the recent paper (earl- ier this year) of Recami in _Foundations of Physics_. I looked at it briefly, and would like to hear from someone who understands it. All I know for sure is that thinking about FTL for too long gives me a headache. I futhermore do not believe that philosophical principles, or even our everyday experiences, count for squat when it comes to physics. Thus, before Einstein, time was rather simple. You looked at a clock, and that was the end of it. But Einstein realized that there were really two notions running in parallel, that of simultaneity, and that of local- ity, and he declared that physics would best make sense by having it stick to local time henceforth. So now, modern physicists look at clocks, and now *know* (for now, anyway) that that is the end of it, whereas a cen- tury ago one unconsciously attached all sorts of baggage. Similary, it is quite plausible--to me, anyway--that our current notions of causality are just as mixed up as the nineteenth century's were about simultaneity. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 "WOW! That theory goes STRAIGHT UP into the CLOUDS! AMAZING!!" [PS-aside to all sci.philosophy.tech thought police: let's *please* stick to e-mail. Cc to me if you want, but really, most of us can figure out the abstract arguments ourselves, if we even bother.]