Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1108

Penciling and partially transcribed on typewriter on how the Planckian generalization has changed our understanding of objective reality. Spencer MacCallum showed this to Alvin Lowi on 8/10/2016, asking if it might be publishable, and Lowi replied, “I found most of this item to be familiar, meaning I must have encountered it before back when we were originally trying to catalog. In any case, the points are covered pretty well in our recent paper without having the burden of translating and correcting inconsistent usages like action vs. work, energy, etc.” To which MacCallum replied, “I liked the closing imagery about time: ‘On the dull basis of mass alone was a structure of gross materialism. On the naked concept of line, of motion without content was a system of abstract geometry, form without either substance or motion, and time was a mystic entity that swallowed all things into oblivion.’” Pencilings by Heath on three notepad pages, not transcribed but photocopied, are included here. A penciled page from Item 1707 was found with this material, suggesting that this might have been written around 1953.

No date.

 

 

 

 

Any Amount of MASS in grams — or force in dynes

Acting thru

Any Amount of MOTION in centimeters

is a

Certain quantity of ACTION or WORK in ergs

(Whatever be the amount of time occupied or required)

 

 

The amount of MASS or force per or acting through each unit of Motion, or times the number of motion units, is the quantity of Action or Work in ergs.

Since Time is essential to any ACTION or WORK,

Action or Work, apart from Time, is only an abstraction of the mind and not any actuality or event that can be objectively experienced. Action or Work, to be experienced, involves Time.

The Amount of MASS or force per unit of Motion, is the rate of Mass or ratio of Mass to Motion. Dyne/cm or dynes per cm.

The Amount of Action or Work, therefore, is the number of Mass units times the number of Motion units. Dyne-cms.

The Amount of Action or Work per unit of Time is the Rate of Action or Work or ratio of Action or Work to Time. Erg/sec or ergs per second.

The Amount of Action or Work done in a given time, therefore, is the number of Action or Work units per unit of Time times the given number of time units. Erg-secs or ergs per second times the number of seconds duration or time.

Events are multifarious in both size and complexity.

The Action or Event the least in magnitude or dimension that can be experienced objectively is an exceedingly small fractional part of an erg-second. It is called the quantum of action and its symbol is h.

 

These three examples of quantum composition represent the three extremes of variability in the composition of quanta, all being of the same gross magnitude but having their constituent elements or factors differently composed — variations in the abstract ratios of their constituents within equal concrete quantities — quanta — of objective action. They are, therefore not different quantities but different kinds of actions or events. The first exhibits the greatest amount of action in relation to time — time at the minimum. The second exhibits the greatest amount of motion in relation to time (velocity) — mass or inertia, particle or force, being at its minimum. The third exhibits, during a second of time the greatest amount of mass or inertia — the motion or velocity constituent in the whole quantum os action being at the minimum  — (greatest objective approximation to absolute zero in temperature).

It is to be noted that the three examples are only of the extreme ratios in quanta composition. Obviously, there may be almost any number of intermediate ratios of composition within the constant over-all magnitude of the quantum.

In the erg-second constituted of one dyne x one centimeter x one second, reduced to a single quantum by dividing by H, not only may any one of the three constituents be divided by H. Any two or all three of them may be divided by lesser numbers, provided only that these two or three numbers are such that when multiplied together their product shall be H. For if all the divisors thus taken together are greater or less that H then the given erg-second is reduced to either less or more than a whole single quantum of action.

The quantum principle announced by Prof. Max Planck in the year 1900 laid the ground for a radically new approach in the analysis and understanding of physical phenomena. It postulates that the reality of the physical cosmos is a vast system of physical action as inter-operating happenings or events. Thus action has three measurable aspects: (1) that of mass, force or inertia, (2) that of motion or velocity and (3) that of duration or time. To take the magnitude or over-all dimension of any finite portion of action as an event, three kinds of measuring units of mass, motion and time, such as the gram, the centimeter and the second, are employed. These are the fundamental units of physical science. All others are said to be derived from or of the same kind and convertible into these.

However, motion is conceived often merely as length or as direction and as length or as direction without motion compounded into volume or space and without action or actuality, there being no substance or content involved. Such conceptions of multiple lengths in three or more different directions usually exclude time as the procession or rhythm of the discrete units or of discrete quantities of action. Into these non-action, static conceptions there is a tendency to introduce time as a vague mystical entity — as an actuality without action, completely disregarding the dynamic and thereby objective reality discovered as action by Prof. Planck. Of course, if there are further aspects of objective reality, beyond those inseparable manifestations inductively observed and unitedly experienced as mass, motion and time; if and when any such is discovered and found to be discontinuous, as the others are, then it also will be measurable; it will have the attribute of numerical quantity, and a new kind of convenient unit will be devised for taking the dimensions of finite portions of it, precisely as we now ascertain the dimensions of actions or events in terms of their components of mass, motion and time.

Pending the apprehension of a fourth attribute of objective (not merely speculative) reality, (and thereby a quadratarian instead of a trinitarian cosmos), we may profit by looking into the implications contained and the legitimate deductions to be drawn from the Planckian generalization.

The particulars or fundamentals with which the quantum principle deals are mass, motion and time. These are abstractions (drawn away from the concrete — from action) no one of which and no combination of which, any less than the whole, has any objective reality. They can be severally and separately conceived, but unless each be in some effective or adequate degree present united and interacting there becomes no action of event, no groundwork as object for objective experience. Only as the subjective conception corresponds fully with the objective action or event is reality in actuality conceived. The mind must follow the pattern of the action or event it would understand; not stop short, nor reach beyond.

Before Planck, physical science tended to treat mass, motion and time as if each were itself a separate yet measurable entity capable of being experienced as such. It did not fully realize that each of these is quite and completely inaccessible to experience except in combination with the other two — that only out of the unity, in some proportions, of all these three comes any action or actuality as happening or event — any objective reality. On the dull basis of mass alone was a structure of gross materialism. On the naked concept of line, of motion without content was a system of abstract geometry, form without either substance or motion, and time was a mystic entity that swallowed all things into oblivion.

 

 

 

 

or times the number of motion units,

is the quantity of Action or Work in ergs. .is the rate of Mass or ratio of Mass to Motion. Dyne/cm or dynes per centimeter.

The amount of Action or Work, therefore, is the number of Mass units times the number of Motion units. Dyne-centimeters.

The amount of Action or Work per unit of Time is the Rate of Action or Work or ratio of Action or Work to Time. Erg/seconds or ergs per second.

The amount of Action or Work done in a given time, therefore, is the number of Action or Work units per unit of Time times the given number of time units. Erg-seconds or ergs per second times the number of seconds duration or time.

Events are multifarious in both size and complexity.

The Action or Event the least in magnitude or dimension that can be experienced objectively is an exceedingly small fractional part of an erg-second. It is called the quantum of action and its symbol is h.

An erg-second is,

1 gram or dyne of mass per centimeter

times

1 centimeter of motion per second

times

1 second of time or duration

Or,

1 gram x 1 centimeter x 1 second

Or,

Any other corresponding three factors whose product   similarly is 1

And

1 gram x 1 centimeter x 1 second  =  h,

   H

when H is the proper and sufficiently large number.

 

(H = ______1_______ )

 6.46 x 10^-27

 

Now also

I   1 gram x 1 centimeter x 1 second = h.

H

 

This is a quantum of action or event involving the least possible time (H being the largest possible divisor — unless a part is more divisible than the whole). There can be therefore no higher rate of action — or explosion. Maximum action in gram-centimeters times least time in seconds.

Similarly,

II   1 gram  x 1 cm x 1 sec  =  h   and,

   H

 

In this quantum of action the mass or particle factor

is at its minimum and the motion per unit of time — velocity rate — is at its maximum — centimeters per second. — Velocity.

 

And further,

III    1 gram  x  1 cm  x  1 sec  =  h

   H

 

In this quantum of action the amount of motion during one second — velocity rate — is at its minimum, and the amount of mass per unit of motion therefore maximum. — Lowest temperature at which mass or force can be objectively experienced during one second.

These three examples of quantum composition represent the three extremes of variability in the composition of quanta, all being of the same gross magnitude but having their constituent elements or factors differently composed — variations in the abstract ratios of their constituents within equal concrete quantities — quanta — of objective action. They are, therefore not different quantities but different kinds of actions or events. The first exhibits the greatest amount of action in relation to time — time at the minimum. The second exhibits the greatest amount of motion in relation to time (velocity) — mass or inertia, particle or force, being at its minimum. The third exhibits, during a second of time the greatest amount of mass or inertia — the motion or velocity constituent in the whole quantum of action being at the minimum. —(greatest objective approximation to absolute zero in tempera­ture).

It is to be noted that the three examples are only of the extreme ratios in quanta composition. Obviously, there may be almost any number of intermediate ratios of composition within the constant over-all magnitude of the quantum.

In the erg-second constituted of one dyne x one centi­meter x one second, reduced to a single quantum by dividing by H, not only may any one of the three constituents be divided by H. Any two or all three of them may be divided by lesser numbers, provided only that these two or three num­bers are such that when multiplied together their product shall be H. For if all the divisors thus taken together are greater or less than H, then the given erg-second is reduced to either less or more than a whole single quantum of action.

The quantum principle announced by Professor Max Planck in the year 1900 laid the ground for a radically new approach in the analysis and understanding of physical phenomena. It postulates that the reality of the physical cosmos is a vast system of physical action as inter-operating happenings or events. This action has three measurable aspects: (1) that of mass, force or inertia, (2) that of motion or velocity, and (3) that of duration or time. To take the magnitude or over-all dimension of any finite portion of action as an event, three kinds of measuring units of mass, motion and time such as the gram, the centi­meter and the second, are employed. These are the fundamental units of physical science. All others are said to be derived from or of the same kind and convertible into these.

However, motion is conceived often merely as length or as direction and as length or as direction without motion compounded into volume or space and without action or actuality, there being no substance or content involved. Such conceptions of multiple lengths in three or more dif­ferent directions usually exclude time as the procession or rhythm of the discrete units or of discrete quantities of action. Into these non-action, these static conceptions there is a tendency to introduce time as a vague mystical entity — as an actuality without action, in completely disregarding the dynamic and thereby objective reality discovered as action by Professor Planck. Of course, if there are further aspects of objective reality, beyond those inseparable manifestations inductively observed and unitedly experi­enced as mass, motion and time; if and when any such is discovered and found to be discontinuous, as the others are, then it also will be measurable. It will have the attribute of numerical quantity, /and/ a new kind of con­venient unit will be devised for taking the dimensions of finite portions of it precisely as we now ascertain the dimensions of actions or events in terms of their components of mass, motion and time.

Pending the apprehension of a fourth attribute of objective (not merely speculative) reality — and thereby a quadratarian instead of a trinitarian cosmos — we may profit by looking into the implications contained and the legitimate deductions to be drawn from the Planckian generalization.

The particulars or fundamentals with which the quantum principle deals are mass, motion and time. These are abstractions (drawn away from the concrete — from action), no one of which and no combination of which, any less than the whole, has any objective reality. They can be severally and separately conceived, but unless each be in some effective or adequate degree present united and interacting, there becomes no action or event, no groundwork as object for objective experience. Only as the subjective conception corresponds fully with the objective action or event is reality in actuality conceived. The mind must follow the pattern of the action or event it would understand; not step /stop? check original/ short, nor reach beyond.

Before Planck, physical science tended to treat mass, motion and time as though each were in itself a separate yet measurable entity capable of being experienced as such. It did not fully realize that each of these is quite and completely inaccessible to experience except in combination with the other two — that only out of the unity, in some pro­portions, of all these three comes any action or actuality as happening or event — any objective reality. On the dull basis of mass alone was a structure of gross materialism. On the naked concept of line, of motion without content was a system of abstract geometry, form without either substance or motion, and time was a mystic entity that swallowed all things into oblivion.