Spencer Heath Archive

Item 92

Penciled by Heath on deteriorating notepad paper, numbering the pages at the top 1-29. 

October 30, 1944

 

 

 

     Ten dynes moves 10 centimeters in 10 seconds. Then ten dynes moves AT THE RATE OF 1 centimeter in 1 second, WHICH IS AN ENERGY RATE Of 10 dyne-centimeters per second. The whole energy is 10 dynes x 10 centimeters (quantity) = 100 dyne-centimeters (ergs). The RATE (ratio to 1 second) is 10 dyne-centimeters (of energy) per each second. Since this continues for 10 seconds, then the quantity of ACTION. is 100 dyne-centimeter seconds, which is 100 erg-seconds of ACTION.

 

10 dynes moves           ENERGY 

10 centimeters in   =   100 ERGS     Quantity

10 seconds

                      

     Then the RATION, RATE, RELATIONSHIP of ERGS to SECONDS is 10 ERGS assignable to 1 second (RATIO). Since the event (experience) continues in this relation of ergs to seconds for 10 seconds, then —  The QUANTITY of EVENT — ACTUALITY — ACTION, is (10 ergs to 1 second) x 10 seconds = 10 ERG-SECONDS.

 

Let a population be (N) 1,000,000

Let each unit represent a quantity of force or mass

of (average) 1.

Let each unit represent a quantity of motion

of (average) 1.

Then each year each mass (1) having such motion (l)

represents a quantity of ACTION of

 

   Mass  x  motion  x  time

   1   x    1     x    1  =  1 LIFE-YEAR

 

An average life-year, then is a definite unit of ACTION, just as a dyne-centimeter second or erg-second is

 

Mass    Motion     Time

dyne  centimeter  second

 

 1   x   1    x     1   =   1 erg-second

 

     Time is not continuity but the repetition of discontinuities.

 

     The only actuality — capable of being acted or experi­enced — is action. Action is composed of Mass (or force), Motion (in space), and Time — repetition of mass-motion. And since mass-motion must be discontinuous to be repeated, then Time depends on discontinuity — on the discontinuity of Mass-Motion — Energy.

 

     A unit of time must be either an actual or an assumed discontinuity of mass-motion.

 

     The day, as a unit of time, is an assumption of repetition of

the earth^’s rotation and therefore an assumed discontinuity.

 

     The hour is based on an assumption of a definite number of

equal periods or events of mass-motion between that number

of discontinuities of mass-motion.

 

     The same is true of the minute and the second as units of time.

All depend on actual or assumed discontinuities of energy — mass-motion.

 

     In the mass-motion (energy) of the earth, no actual discontinuity has been discovered or observed. There is no sign that it halts and resumes. The discontinuity is assumed in order to assume repetitions, units of time.

 

     In addition to being assumed as discontinuous, the mass-motion of the earth is also assumed to be uniform. This assumption is implicit in our practice of relating the velocity of all motion relative to the earth to the earth’s velocity. A second of time means a certain part of the earth’s motion. Hence the motion of any body for a second is a reference of its motion to the earth’s motion — to an assumed discontinuity of the earth’s motion.

 

     But there has been found in nature — in the objective side of events — of experience — a mass-motion manifestation (energy flow) whose discontinuity does not need to be assumed, for its repetitions are actual. Its periodicity does not need to be assumed for there is an actual cessation of motion at each point of discontinuity. Like the pendulum, it marks its own time. It actually stops and resumes at each point of discontinuity.

 

     This discontinuity is found in the energy that radiates from an incandescent body. A certain amount of energy (mass and motion) issues from it and stops. It issues in a number of waves. Each of these waves (for each chemical kind of body) has a known period of oscillation. The oscillation actually ceases at each point where the accumulated energy multiplied by the period of oscillation comes to a certain number or quantity (of energy having its rate) multiplied by time. This constant quantity or quantum of ACTION, as it is called, has been found to be the same whatever be the incandescent element or substance from which the radiant energy is sent out.

 

     Action — actuality – eventuation — the objective side of experience, has thus been found to be discontinuous always in equal quantity and never in any less quantity. This quantity, called the fundamental unit of action (h), is an exceedingly small but nonetheless definite fractional part of an erg-second.

 

/Page 10 of the original requires photocopying here to show the short and long quantum waves. A second numbered page 10 unaccountably appears at this point in the original and may be superfluous./

 

 

1. High frequency, short period.                  Short

Large energy — small time.                   vibration

Few quanta of high energy.                    periods

 

 

2. Low frequency — long vibration period.       Long

    Small energy — large time.                   vibration

         Many quanta of low energy.                    Periods

 

 

     Since any quantum of action is made up of energy (mass times motion) multiplied by time (its period of vibration) it follows that any quantum of action can contain any quantity (or quantum) of energy provided only that its vibration period be short enough (or long enough) so that the product of energy and time shall be the constant quantity (or quantum) of action h.

 

     This means that the _________ energy might have the form of few (or even one) quanta of energy if only its vibration period be correspondingly short — frequency high.

 

     Or the total energy might be divided into any large number of small energy quantities if only their vibration period be sufficiently long — frequency low.

 

     Perhaps the whole primal universe was but a single quantum of energy whose frequency of vibration was infinitely high and of period infinitely small. From such a primordial quantum of action (Energy x 1/frequency) may not the whole cosmic process be derived?

 

     If this be so, then energy differentiates by passing from greater to lesser quantities at lesser and lesser frequencies of vibration and the Cosmos constantly expands into larger and larger energy waves. But this entropy need never come to any end unless space have boundaries — and this we have no cause or need to suppose.

 

     The Cosmos is a perpetually opening and unfolding flower.

The feminine mass principle, stirred by the motile masculine, generates the rhythms whose discontinuities mark the procession of time — “into the mortal field the immortal flower.”

 

     But where is any integrative principle in this devolution of energy into diminishing quanta of lower frequency with ever expanding periods, between its discontinuities, this dissolving of energy as action into time — towards nothingness for its asymptote? Is all this dissolution without some countervailing integration, some composition into structure — into life? Does not some re-synthesis emerge?

 

     In discussions of quantum theory, energy is usually regarded as though it were an entity apart from if not actually independent of the frequency period or time associated with it. Quanta themselves are usually referred to as quantities of energy differing greatly in size, according to the frequency of radiation involved. This is here accepted, but attention is called to the somewhat obvious circumstance that the conception of energy as having some kind of actuality apart from time is artificial and abstract and unreal in the sense that energy is never manifest to experience or observation otherwise than as an absolute unification of the three fundamental elements of action or actuality as experience, namely, mass, motion and time.

 

     These are the three fundamental elements of all physical science in the standard units (or their derivatives) of which, such as g.c.s, all measurements are made, and all experience described. The real entity, the actuality, therefore, is not energy but event or action, as it is so appropriately called.

 

     Now, the unique property of this entity, action, is that it is always made up in “bundles” or “packets” of precisely one and only one magnitude or size. This is that universal quantity or thing known as the quantum of action — that incredibly small but perfectly definite fractional part of an erg-second or kilowatt-hour. This indivisible unit is an integration into experience of energy and time, just as energy is a conceptual and abstract but never an experiential integration of mass and motion.

 

     The quantum of action is absolute. It is complete and concrete reality and not an incomplete conception or abstraction from reality as experience. Action, therefore, and not energy is the appropriate object of all scientific research and examination. We cannot deal with matter alone for without motion it does not exist, and with motion it exists only as energy. Nor can we deal with energy alone, for without time energy does not exist. Mass (as force), motion (as distance – space) and time (as repetition – rhythm) are but the three aspects under which the absolute reality manifests itself as action, as actuality. They may be envisioned separately — any one in terms of the other two — but only in their triune unity, in this alone, can they be experienced. Nor are they united as units without discontinuity in any quantity or quantum but one. Within the quantum, each of those aspects is variable in terms of or in relation to the other two. The magnitude of each determines and is determined by the joint magnitude of the other two. Thus the mass in any quantum of action is determined by the combined magnitude of the motion and time (velocity) associated with it — and the motion and time — velocity — determines the mass. The motion in the quantum is determined by the united magnitudes of its mass and time — and the mass and time together determine the motion. The time, the periodicity — rhythm, of the quantum is determined by the united magnitude of its motion and mass — and the mass and motion together determine the rhythm, the vibration.

 

     Notwithstanding that the quantum of action is itself invariable, the relative magnitudes within it are indefinitely, perhaps infinitely, variable. And all this that is true of any one quantum of action having in itself no discontinuity is also true of any aggregation of quanta taken as an action, actuality or event, notwithstanding the discontinuities between the ultimate quanta of which the actuality or event is composed.

 

     The foregoing considerations with respect to the absolute quantum itself all lend support to the hypothesis earlier suggested of a primordial Cosmos as a single quantum in which the mass and motion aspects were indefinitely, if not infinitely, large and the time aspect — vibration or frequency period — indefinitely if not infinitely small. Abstractly (outside of experience, induction) there is one logical reason for conceiving the primordial quantum as one in which mass and motion were maximum, with time in the least minimal _____. In the cosmology of the Greeks, time, as personified by the god Chronos, is the original and supreme. But they had not learned from experience the principle of entropy under which the energy of mass and motion seems to transform itself constantly and irreversibly into lower and lower forms, that is, with longer and longer periods of time. Under this principle all energy tends towards lower frequency, longer periods between discontinuities. Action is compounded less and less of mass and motion (energy) and more and more of time. The universe constantly expands, temperature constantly falls and unless some countervailing re-integration takes place somewhere within it the ultimate would be a burned-out cosmos, a completely transformed quantum of action having only vestiges of mass and motion and indefinitely expanded duration or time. The principle of entropy in its full scope contemplates transformation from a (one-quantum) universe in which the totality of mass and motion (energy) is of such high frequency of vibration (temperature) and its period so infinitesimal that the product of its energy by time is but a single quantum of action to a universe in which the energy is infinitesimal and its time element or period of vibration indefinitely long. It is a universe indefinitely expanding from maximum mass and motion (highest temperature) to the least possible mass and motion at least temperature and frequency of vibration — the virtual transformation of all mass and motion into duration or infinite time.