Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Continuum and Frame of Reference

'Continuum' and 'Frame of Reference' are notions commonly associated with Einsteinian Physics, but each has its application in Newtonian Physics. In the latter, Space and Time are each continuua, with the more contemporary development being the positing of a continuum between them. While frames of references are used in Newtonian Physics to calculate relational quantities, they remain subdivisions of a single absolute structure, in contrast with Einsteinian Physics which does not recognize either absolute Time or absolute Space. Nevertheless, the latter Physics persists in referring to 'the' Space-Time Continuum, implying the acceptance of some unitary structure that embraces the infinite multiplicity of frames of references that constitutes its universe. However, how it reconciles the notion of Continuum with a notion that entails an opaque terminal point is unclear. The more chronic problem that it inherits from Newtonian is to explain even the restricted use of frames of reference--that even as a local device, a frame of reference, as introducing a discontinuity into Space and Time, can only be derived from a source outside the purported universe, and which cannot be God, whose purview is not localized.

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