Spencer Heath Archive

Items 43 and 43a

April 1961?

Original contains more material, mostly columns, than what is in this document, but I don’t find an original numbered 43a.

The principle of discontinuity, once accepted, compels the conclusion that there are in nature fundamental least units. For without this there could be no rational distinc­tion of one quantity from another, no numbers (of units) to represent quantities and thereby no ratios in which numbers can be compared and no understandable rational order in the world. We may deny the fact of discontinuity but to do so we must give up the idea of integers and numbers as intrinsic in the environment whence our own rationality must of neces­sity be derived. Physical scientists, in their quest for understanding of their objective world, have made most advance in their examinations first of simple phenomena or events. Discovering the rationale of few and relatively simple occur­rences they have extrapolated into the more intricate and complex and found there the same basic unity of method and process, mode and procedure, operating through widely diver­gent and superficially dissimilar forms. For examples: The mechanical equivalence of heat, the photosynthetic process as carried on in an endless variety of vegetative structures and forms, and the processes of mitosis and metabolism in the reproduction and the maintenance of all living structures and forms.

     Human feelings, emotions, whether positive or negative, are not susceptible of any rational analysis, for there are no discrete units into which they may be numerically resolved and hence no numerical magnitudes in which they can be quantified and compared and their rationale disclosed. They do not yield to any numerical analyses and can therefore be only intuitively and not rationally felt, known or conceived. They are direct and immediate responses to any objective situation, giving rise to action, wise or unwise, without benefit of analysis or rational contemplation.

     The events which constitute all objective phenomena, however, do exhibit quantitative procedures, processes, rhythms and uniform repetitions that, taken in units, can be measured in numbers and thereby rationally understood. For this purpose physical science employs uniform conventional units such as the gram, the centimeter and the second in numerical combinations of which, and thus alone do physical events impinge on and excite the human consciousness through the sensory apparatus in which it is physically housed. These three units represent the three elements or aspects of or in which physical events are organized or composed and in which they in three-fold combina­tion and ratio separately impinge upon the human sensorium and are thus consciously perceived.

     These three units, or whatever they represent, may be variously defined, but, taken objectively and operationally, the gram may be taken to repre­sent whatever can be measured in terms of the gram, such as mass, weight, force, inertia etc.; whatever can be measured in centimeters, such as motion, distance or nearness, “space” etc; and whatever can be measured in seconds, such as periods or intervals of time, rhythms, cycles, repetitions, frequen­cies etc. And the event, phenomena or succession of events in which these three elements or aspects are in various proportions numerically composed may be objectively defined as work, action, energy etc., care being taken always to distinguish between a rate or proportion of work, action or energy — the quantity related to a single unit of time — and the particular whole quantity which is being measured, conceived or ascertained.

     The “quantum of action” is defined as that fixed quantity of work, energy or action — any happening or event whose magnitude or over-all dimension is the same as one gram of mass having one centimeter of motion with one dyne of force (or inertia).

     Force or inertia is that property of mass in virtue of which it can both impart and/or undergo change of motion.

     Motion is an ever-present variable property of mass

     Considering the three measurable aspects or elements of any work, action or event — namely, mass, motion and time —

     Force and its converse, inertia, are those properties of mass whereby motion is imparted or conserved

     Action and reaction are equal and opposite

     All action is inter-action

     The form, proportions and composition of energy or action are variable; its total quantity always both indefinite and unchanged.

     Motion is that property of mass whereby force or its converse, inertia, is imparted or conserved.

     Motion is always discontinuous. It therefore involves time both as interval or duration and as frequency or times during an interval — these being reciprocal and converse.

     Time or frequency is the discontinuous rhythmic and repetitive manner in which work or action, as mass having motion, proceeds.

     Given the rate of work, energy or action — that quantity which appertains to a single unit of time — then the number of time units involved determines the quantity of work, energy or action as a whole.

     Physical understanding gives mankind the potential of a technical (creative or destructive) dominion over their objective world.

April 22, 1961

     From Galileo to Planck it was known that the three elements or aspects of energy or action could be quantified in numerical dimensions based on conventional units, but since no units fundamental in nature were known it was supposed that all the data of experience were divisible without end. In the year 1900, however, came the great dis­covery of Prof. Max Planck that there is a certain minimum magnitude in less than which, singly or in multiple, energy or action as events either does not occur in nature or, if it does by a logical inference so occur, does not afford any data concerning the objective world. This discovery of a fundamental event refers to its magnitude only. It has no reference to the manner, composition or form in which the constituent elements or aspects of this minimal event are integrated, organized and composed. It can therefore be considered whether or not the Mass aspect, the Motion aspect and the Time also are discrete and discontinuous and thus must be based on some fundamental units each of its own kind in less than which they do not unite to constitute the full-bodied minimum process or event which is the quantum of action of Planck. On this point we must either give up the notion of discontinuity and therewith the possibility of numerical quantities and of any purely rational organization of them, or we must take it that such units do exist. This is further reinforced by the well-known fact that within the organization of the quantum unit with its fixed over-all magnitude there is a top limit to which the velocity element can attain. This known maximum of velocity (velocity of light etc.) makes it necessary that when the velocity element is at its maximum the mass element must be at its single ultimate least unit in terms of grams.

     Now, taking a single erg-second as represented, per definition, of a single unit each of mass, motion and time, we have

Mass units per unit of motion

/Continues next page/
Motion units per unit of time

Time units. Duration of wave or event, seconds
Work Energy or action units