The nature of the physical worldEddington, Arthur Stanley, Sir
Philosophy
The nature of the physical world
Eddington, Arthur Stanley, Sir
Physics -- Philosophy; Science -- Philosophy
This method of location lasted until the year 1667, when it was found
impossible to make it work consistently. It was then discovered by
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the astronomer Roemer that what is seen now cannot be placed on the
instant Now. (In ordinary parlance—light takes time to travel.) That
was really a blow to the whole system of world-wide instants, which
were specially invented to accommodate these events. We had been mixing
up two distinct events; there was the original event somewhere out in
the external world and there was a second event, viz. the seeing
by us of the first event. The second event was in our bodies Here-Now;
the first event was neither Here nor Now. The experience accordingly
gives no indication of a Now which is not Here; and we might well have
[Pg 44]
abandoned the idea that we have intuitive recognition of a Now other
than Here-Now, which was the original reason for postulating world-wide
instants Now.
However, having become accustomed to world-wide instants, physicists
were not ready to abandon them. And, indeed, they have considerable
usefulness provided that we do not take them too seriously. They were
left in as a feature of the picture, and two Seen-Now lines were drawn,
sloping backwards from the Now line, on which events seen now could be
consistently placed. The cotangent of the angle between the Seen-Now
lines and the Now line was interpreted as the velocity of light.
Accordingly when I see an event in a distant part of the universe,
e.g. the outbreak of a new star, I locate it (quite properly) on the
Seen-Now line. Then I make a certain calculation from the measured
parallax of the star and draw my Now line to pass, say, 300 years
in front of the event, and my Now line of 300 years ago to pass
through the event. By this method I trace the course of my Now lines
or world-wide instants among the events, and obtain a frame of
time-location for external events. The auxiliary Seen-Now lines, having
served their purpose, are rubbed out of the picture.
That is how I locate events; how about you? We must first
put You into the picture (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3
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