Hi Mike,

Two for Two! I thought I had heard all the lightbulb jokes, but I hadn't heard either of those. (Unless I did and then forgot. Maybe a hint of Alzheimers.)

Berkeley is in my main stack too. The light problem is in my stack but it had a setback when I tried to understand Dick's latest drawing. I realized that I don't have a good enough understanding of the definition of time to know what my diagram means. Then Bruce delayed it further by giving me those references to articles going into detail wrt time and proper time. I ran into what seemed to me to be a contradiction right away that I haven't made sense of yet. I don't want to talk to Bruce, or even Dick on the subject until I don't feel quite so stupid. But where I am stuck right now, it seems to me that Dick's definition of proper time is in agreement with Bruce's and with the definition in those papers. It also seems to me that proper time is distinct from time. It also seems to me that clocks measure proper time. Ergo, it seems to me that clocks don't measure time, just as Dick says. But Bruce seems to claim that that statement is so idiotic as to close off any further discussion. So, I think you can see why I am so confused right now, and when I look at my light diagram, and Dick's update to it, I don't know time from proper time. What I really need is a large increment of proper time to devote to the question so I can make some progress. Don't hold your breath, but I haven't given up yet.

Warm regards,

Paul

• Thank You, Paul - kantolfir2 - August 6, 2002 - 05:32 UTC
  • You're welcome, Mike - pmartin - August 6, 2002 - 15:21 UTC
    • Request to Paul - dolphin - August 7, 2002 - 05:03 UTC
      • Response to Alan - pmartin - August 9, 2002 - 00:24 UTC
        • O.K. - dolphin - August 9, 2002 - 03:54 UTC
• those light bulb jokes were from "science humor" sites - spazcon - August 6, 2002 - 09:38 UTC