Spencer Heath Archive

Item 224

Three typed pages by Heath with amendments in pencil, Elkridge, Maryland

Winter 1957-1958

 

 

 

ARE THE QUANTUM CONSTITUENTS

 — MASS, MOTION AND TIME —

ALSO DISCONTINUOUS?

     Let us suppose, as physical science asserts, that all energy (or action), all events are ultimately of “atomic” or granular composition. But in the several aspects of mass, motion and time, there may or may not be any ultimate minima in each of these three categories — least units into which they can divide and thereby maximum numbers in which these diverse units can relate themselves one to another to constitute those least actions or events which, singly or in multiple, alone can become objects of experience.

     As such an object, every event presents to sensory experience, directly or through instruments, always an integration of three distinguishably diverse and measurable elements or aspects. These three aspects can be separately distinguished and independently conceived but they cannot be experienced in anything less than their integration as a quantum event.

     Assuming that there are ultimate units respectively of mass, motion and time, these are integrated in events in a rational order and relationship as follows. The number of ultimate mass units in any event is that number of them which is associated with each single ultimate unit of motion — the mass-motion ratio. The number of ultimate motion units in the event is that number of them which is associated with each single unit of time — the motion-time ratio (velocity). The number of ultimate time units is that number of them during which the event takes place. The total amount of action in an event — its numerical dimension as a whole — is its total number of mass-motion units. This is ascertained first by multiplying the number of mass units per unit of motion by the number of motion units per each unit of time. This will be the energy or action rate per unit of time. This energy or action rate per unit of time when multiplied by the number of units of time involved in or occupied by the event is the total quantity of energy, the action that constitutes the event,

     There are two ways in which two or more events may be alike or different. They may be alike or different in size, and they may be alike or different in composition. They may be alike in size without being alike in composition; and they may be alike in composition — in the way in which they are composed — without being at all alike in size. In this respect they are like physical objects, such as blocks of wood, which can be exactly alike in size yet entirely dif­ferent in shape, or they can be exactly alike in shape yet entirely different in size. The difference is that purely geometric sizes and shapes (supposed to occupy portions of a hypothetical entity called space) are measured by only one kind of unit, namely, the linear unit.

     When taking the dimensions of an action or event, three kinds of units are employed, namely, for mass the gram, for motion the centimeter and for time the second. The linear unit is only one of these. The gram is the unit of mass, force or inertia; the centimeter the unit of motion; and the second the unit of frequency or of time.

     Since in any event mass is in ratio to motion and motion is in ratio to time, the product of these two ratios is the ratio of energy or action to time, and this quantity of energy or action, stated as ergs, per unit of time, is the energy or action rate. This energy or action rate in ergs per unit of time multiplied by the number of time units involved in the event gives the total quantity of energy or action, in ergs, that constitutes the event.

     Events are of like magnitude when the product of their energy rates times their periods of time is the same, however alike or different their energy rates and their periods (or frequencies) may be.

     Events of like or similar kind are those in which the mass (force) ratio and the motion ratio (velocity) are similarly proportioned, however equal or unequal their over-all magnitudes may be. As between two events, a dif­ferent proportion between their mass and motion ratios constitutes a qualitative difference, whether or not there be any over-all quantitative difference. Likewise, a dif­ference in over-all magnitude constitutes a quantitative difference, whether or not there be any difference in their respective proportions as to mass in relation to motion and motion in relation to time. In sum, the quality of an event is determined by the proportions in which its constituent elements are composed, and the quantity of an event is determined by the product of the three kinds of magnitudes of which it is composed, irrespective of the proportions in which these magnitudes are related and the event thus composed. All rational technologies are trans­formations. They consist in willful alterations in the magnitudes of events and in the proportions in which their constituent elements are composed.

     Events of like kind tend to follow in succession. When viewed with regard to their recurrence they are called cycles, such as radiant waves, the proliferation of cells, the life cycles of plants and animals and the cycles of the suns.

If energy (or action) is granular, as modern science holds, then it remains to inquire whether or not the three elements or factors of which it is composed also are granular. Just as the quantum of action is the least quan­tity or unit of action that is perceptible in the organiza­tion of an erg-second, so it is reasonable to suppose that there are limits to the divisibility of the mass, motion and time factors of which the quantum of action itself is in various proportions composed. For without units there can be no numbers and without ultimate units there could be in nature no ultimate rationality — only an ultimate irrationality, which the mind is reluctant to accept and all rational science contradicts.

     It would seem therefore that in any quantum compo­sition there must be related numbers of ultimate units respectively of mass, of motion and of time, just as numbers of similar ultimate energy units — quanta — are related in an erg-second.