Time Change and Imaginary Numbers: From Hamilton to Einstein in search forunderstanding of the imaginary numbers - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

This book is concerned mostly with time, change andimaginary numbers. The starting point is an argumentfor the theory of dynamic time. Its centralroadblock - McTaggart's proof of the unreality oftime - is disarmed by the claim that McTaggartintroduces far-reaching an additional temporalperspective which can even explain the relativistictime-like dimension. The narration comes closer tologic as it becomes clear that the progress cannotbe made unless a contradiction is used. Thechallenge then is to prevent slipping intodialethism. Finally, mathematics becomes the centerof attention with the highlight of the proof of i2= -1. The work draws heavily on physics andphilosophy, going back to Aristotle's and morerecent Kant. In the middle of this company there ismathematician Hamilton who rests his theory ofimaginary and complex numbers on the intuition oftime. Apart from the normal moments of time,Hamilton postulates the existence of secondarymoments, which are crucial in this theory. Thequestion is: what are the secondary moments oftime? Anyone interested in the nature of time andimaginary numbers might find this work interesting.

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