Re: "Secular"

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:27:46 +0000, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
<mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:03:58 +0000, Prai Jei <pvstownsend@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

John O'Flaherty set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
continuum:

On Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:37:34 +0000, Chuck Riggs <chriggs@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:43:25 -0600, John O'Flaherty
<quiasmox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:10:46 +0000, Chuck Riggs <chriggs@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On 7 Nov 2008 11:48:26 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Paul Wolff <bounceme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
On Wed, 5 Nov 2008 12:19:07 +0000, Paul Wolff
<bounceme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Wood Avens <woodavens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
"A fundamental secular shift in attitudes on race." Thus historian
Niall Ferguson, of Harvard University, speaking on the UK BBC Today
programme this morning. I take him to mean "a shift from one age
to
another", or "from a past age to a new one". I thought it an apt
and refreshing change from the common sense of "non-religious".

It's a word I like, though I'm always a little uncertain of its
meaning when I bump into it, perhaps because I dabble in astronomy
from time to
time. I think that in the context of change it boils down to very
slow-moving and, as a result, practically irreversible from the
point of view of any living human being with a Keynesian view of the
long run.

Encarta:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx
?refid=1861710849

secular

4. occurring once in century: occurring only once in the course
of an age
or century
a secular change

5. astronomy geology occurring over long period: taking place
over an
extremely or indefinitely long period of time

[14th century. Via French< Latin saecularis< saeculum "world,
[generation"]

That's the point, really. When I see or hear the word I have
difficulty in deciding whether the event took a century, an age or an
indefinitely long period.

That sense of the word comes from an age which viewed time as cyclical
rather than linearly progressive in an analogy derived from the
heavenly cycles, which ranged from the short cyclings of the moody
moon and the messenger Mercury to the vast millennial cycles of the
Great Ages. What seems to us, with our modern linear view of time, to
be vagueness, is in fact precision in a different perspective of time
and history.

I agree that in that sense it's a very good word.

My view of time must not be modern, for it is not linear. If time
began at the Big Bang and will end in the Big Crunch, it is far from
being linear, what what?

What could you compare it to?

y = mx + b

So if y is time, what is x?

Nothing meaningful. That is the equation of a straight line, but time is
totally bent just as much as space. After the Big Crunch when time ends,
time will begin again at the Big Bang just as it did last time round.

Are there any suggestions as to how much time and distance will elapse between
the Big Crunch and the Big Bang?

I know, I know. Silly question.

I thought that Hawking and other cosmologists/physicists had shown
that the crunch does not lead to a "white hole" and the re-formation
of this or any other universe. Was it mentioned in "The Universe in a
Nutshell" I wonder?
--
Robin
(BrE)
Herts, England
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Secular"
    ... or "from a past age to a new one". ... My view of time must not be modern, for it is not linear. ... After the Big Crunch when time ends, ... time will begin again at the Big Bang just as it did last time round. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: "Secular"
    ... or "from a past age to a new one". ... My view of time must not be modern, for it is not linear. ... After the Big Crunch when time ends, ... time will begin again at the Big Bang just as it did last time round. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Euclids postulates and non-Euclidean geometry
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    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Euclids postulates and non-Euclidean geometry
    ... "You are the center of your universe" type thought processing.. ... So where does the age of the universe come from? ... everything moving from everything else can be resolved to show where they ... You are creating an expansion that has no expansion point. ...
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  • Re: Need some assistance
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