Spencer Heath Archive

Item 433

Taping by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath. See related thought in Item 442, also note penciled comments by Alvin Lowi on original.

1954-1955?

 

 

 

     Science recognizes that there are two ways to measure time. One is based upon the solar year; the other is based upon the frequency of vibrations of radiant energy. So that the unit that science is now considering as being more correct or absolute is, instead of being based upon a small fraction of the solar day, is being based upon the period occupied by a single vibration in radiant energy, of which there are many. But they have been proposing to choose the frequency of energy emanating from sodium, a known frequency, which means that each wave occurs that many times in a second.

 

/This is being proposed now?/

 

     Yes. And since we know there are perturbations in the earth’s motion, it is felt that there would _______________ these perturbations are not known to exist in the frequency or period of a sodium wave. So that the period occupied by a sodium wave is being considered as the unit of time to be used by science in preference to that portion of the period occupied by the energy of the earth in its journey around the sun a certain fraction of which we call the “second.”

 

     The second is an appropriate unit of time because it is a definite fraction of that largest event which occurs in succession, identifiable in consciousness as recurring, known as the solar day. That is the largest event to which we can relate our conscious conceptions to our environment. The solar day is the event in our environment, the greatest magnitude that we can conceive and at the same time, coincident with the conception, have the experience. The conception however, is not limited to the experience. We can conceive larger events, but we cannot have any conscious experience of any larger event than the solar day. We are earthbound, and as we conceive an event, we can experience it, or we can conceive it without experiencing it. Any event that we conceive greater than the recurring solar event is an event that we cannot experience coincident with the conception. I can imagine a different cycle than the solar cycle, but I can’t relate myself to it objectively. I live day by day, year by year, and I don’t live by any event that is not repetitious of these events. I can conceive these events, or events of lower frequencies, involving greater time. But all my action and behavior is geared to the solar day or to some fraction thereof.

     Now the interesting thing about the second is that it is exactly one half of that unit of time which relates itself to our terrestrial day, exactly as the terrestrial day is related to the solar year. One second is 1/720 of a terrestrial day, and the terrestrial day is 1/360 of the solar day, or solar year. So, two seconds of time has the same relation to the terrestrial succession of events, or event in succession, as the terrestrial day has to the solar year. That is to say, the relationship in both cases is 1 to 360.

     We get this objectively by examining things outside of ourselves. We find that there is a solar year, that it is divided up outside of ourselves into approximately 360 units, and each of these units is a terrestrial day. Now when we divide a terrestrial day into the same number of units, subjectively if you like, that the solar year is objectively divided into by the terrestrial day, we come to a unit of two seconds, because an event involving two seconds happens the same number of times with respect to the terrestrial day that the terrestrial day happens with respect to the solar; so, the second, or at least the double second, is the unit of time that has the same rationale with respect to our terrestrial environment that the terrestrial day has with respect to our solar environment.

/But that’s no reason to use it if the period of radiant vibration is more accurate for scientific purposes./

It has this virtue, that it is objectively derived. It isn’t based on heartbeats or the repetition of…

/All right, but so is the sodium frequency objectively derived, Popdaddy./

     Exactly — and so is a wave objectively derived. And so there is an objective relationship between the second, and preferably a double second, and the period of a vibrating wave. Now the period of the vibrating wave is the time aspect of a wave, and the time aspect of a wave is the time aspect of a quantum of energy, or quantum of action, more accurately stated. So there is an intimate, objective relationship between the time occupied by a wave in succession and the time occupied by the terrestrial event in succession, which terrestrial event has the same relationship, numerically, to the solar event that we call a year

/Why, I could have told you

 that apriori./

     These facts which I have stated have been long well known. But that the ratio between the double second and the year is the same as the ratio between the double second and the period of the radiant wave has not been given attention. I’m giving it that attention now. The significance of these facts is that I have discovered a new relationship in them. I am pointing out now that there is an identity of numerical relationship between the double second…

/Well, how do you get that?/

     The frequency of a wave is a relationship between its period and the double second, so that the proper frequency in that relationship is double the conventional frequency. And by treating the frequency, which is the inverse of its period, of a wave as a certain fraction of the double second, we have the same relationship between the period of the wave and the double second that we have between the double second and the terrestrial event. That is, a definite numerical relationship. And the fitness of the double second seems great because the double second relates us to the terrestrial event on the same numerical basis, rational basis, that the terrestrial event is related to the solar event.