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A concept of time
Erratum:
After the flight, the readings on the two atomic clocks were simultaneously checked, and a very slight difference was found, which was in accordance with the relevant Einsteinian equation.
As to me, I do not like Einstein's theory. This theory was finally accepted after the experiment of Michelson and Morley. They didn't expect aether to be entrained by the Earth's atmosphere and considered the found velocity of aether wind too low because it was much lower than the Earth's orbital velocity. Furthermore, Lorentz talked them into using his formula to calculate the shortening of the interferometer arms...
When Miller repeated their experiment with a better equipment and with much more measurements he got better results: «The effect [of ether-drift] has persisted throughout. After considering all the possible sources of error, there always remained a positive effect.» — Dayton Miller (1928, p.399) «My opinion about Miller's experiments is the following. ... Should the positive result be confirmed, then the special theory of relativity and with it the general theory of relativity, in its current form, would be invalid. Experimentum summus judex. Only the equivalence of inertia and gravitation would remain, however, they would have to lead to a significantly different theory.» — Albert Einstein, in a letter to Edwin E. Slosson, July 1925 «I believe that I have really found the relationship between gravitation and electricity, assuming that the Miller experiments are based on a fundamental error. Otherwise, the whole relativity theory collapses like a house of cards. (!) » — Albert Einstein, in a letter to Robert Millikan, June 1921 (in Clark 1971, p.328) http://www.orgonelab.org/miller.htm Miller really found aether drift. And his measurements were in good accordanse with what the aether theory predicted. And this is much more beutiful. Elementary particles may be considered as aether whirls... (see Shipov, "The basics of atherodynamics") C, the velocoty of light, is the velocity at which oscillations propagate through the motionless aether. If to assume that at a certain point aether is moving at a speed V relative to the surronding aether, it's pressure will be lower than that of the surrounding aether and, therefore, waves will travel at a lower velocity within it. That is the seeming time slow-down: Time is ok, but interreaction is transmitted at a lower speed. And the velocity slowdown meet the Loretz formula! Along with the hypothesis of aether entrained by bodies (including gases), this gives an explanation to the atomic clock experiment. So, the time flow can be considered constant throghout the universe.
Apparently, time travel capabilities were discovered at CERN in Switzerland (where a British guy also invented the World Wide Web in 1989) at the beginning of the 21st Century, and in the 2030's time travel was in its infancy.
John Titor, a soldier from Florida in the US Army, was one of the first time travellers, and his mission was to travel back in time to the year 2000 to acquire a computer that was built in the 1970's.
The English language has no verbs for future tense, unlike languages such as French and Italian.
In the following page:
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/simplefuture.html They say: "The Simple Future has two different forms in English, "will" and "be going to." Although the two forms can sometimes be used interchangeably, they often express two very different meanings. These different meanings might seem too abstract at first, but with time and practice the differences will become clear. Both "will" and "be going to" refer to a specific time in the future." I can give you more and more examples.
engtense, actually, I myself favor the interpretation that there is no "future tense" in a strict syntactic sense in English, but rather the *semantic* concept of such is expressed via modal verbs such as "will" and "shall", quasi-modal verbs such as "be going to", and time adverbs and phrases attached to clauses whose tense is "present" (I say "present" as such is better expressed as "non-past", but the term "present" is generally used by convention). Part of this is because, from a historical standpoing, "will" and "shall" do not act any differently from any other present-preterite, considering they both have the preterite/past subjunctive counterparts "would" and "should", which act no differently from any other preterite/past subjunctive modals.
Another part of this is that "present", that is, non-past statements can be set in the future simply by attaching a time adverb or phrase to them, which in practice means that determining where in time a "present" statement is not a matter of solely grammaticalized constructs but rather can be just as well specified more directly outside of verb constructs in clauses as well. Furthermore, "be going to" shows that constructs that express futureness at the verb level need not be fully grammaticalized, but rather can be more ad hoc and phrasal in nature. Likewise, the fact that there are effectively four different ways of expressing futureness in English indicates that there really is no single grammaticalized means of expressing such syntactically, but rather there are just a number of syntactically distinct mechanisms that happen to fit the same sorts of semantic roles in practice which coexist with each other, some being more favored than others in different dialects and registers.
Travis,
I hope you clearly see your post above has two paragraphs. I don't want to copy and paste all of them. In the first one, as I have said in the old thread Ant_222 had dug up, people just claim the verbs you mentioned (Will/Shall/Etc.) are not future tense, but they never define what kind of tense they are. They just give negative statements, same as you did above, and never positive ones. Do these structures have no name for reference? You didn't clearly say. Are they not tense at all? I don't know from your negative statements. (You just said they are not future tense.) Would you give some positive statements to answer this? Shall we replace the name of future tense, from conventional grammars, with no name at all? I don't think it is a better choice, or a choice at all. However, in the second paragraph, you refer them as something future: >>Another part of this is that "present", that is, non-past statements can be set in the FUTURE simply by attaching a time adverb or phrase to them<< But if you can refer our statements as future, why can't we refer the tense in them as future tense? I maintain every sentence has a tense, because nothing escapes from time. Then the tense in futurity is the future tense. Lastly, as you have noted, "be going to" is not same as modal auxiliaries. Therefore, only modal verbs are the future tenses. They help other verbs to indicate a future, so they are also called Helping Verbs. I think what I say and will say here, has been said in the old thread.
how to plan own time is very important ,I think,you must assign your time of life、study、and so on. As the old saying goes, time is money.what we need is that make avail of yourself .
Be Going To vs Modal Auxiliaries
Actually, people argue there is no future tense, because there are many ways (shall, will, be going to, be to, etc.) to express the futurity. I want to talk about the difference between them. One may argue that Simple Present and Present Progressive can say a future: Ex: They are going to visit their uncle tomorrow. Ex: They visit their uncle tomorrow. and that some verbs can express a present doubt: Ex: He doubts if they visit their uncle tomorrow. But they all have their past tenses. If next week, for example, we look back to these actions, they are certainty and expressed in past tenses: Ex: They were going to visit their uncle. Ex: They visited their uncle. Ex: He doubted if they visited their uncle the next day. But modal auxiliary verbs are the future tense: Ex: They may/ought to visit their uncle tomorrow. And if next week we are looking back, they are certainty and cannot keep the modal verb: Ex: *They might/ought to visit their uncle. Instead, we can use past tense only: Ex: They visited their uncle. Ex: They didn't visit their uncle. This proves modal verbs are the future tense. Really, just because modal auxiliaries express possibility, people need to use "be going to, etc." to indicate that, even with a future time adverbial, what they say is already a certainty in progress, rather than a possibility: Ex: Jack is getting married next Sunday. Though the day of marriage will be next Sunday, Jack is actually doing the marriage now: booking the chapel, sending the invitation cards, etc. The further proof is, in the future if he talks about the marriage, he will include booking chapel and sending cards, rather than just the day of marring. Therefore, "be going to, etc." are meant to make a difference from modal auxiliaries. It is a shame for some modern grammars to confuse them altogether as the future tense. www.englishtense.com
«John Titor, a soldier from Florida in the US Army, was one of the first time travellers, and his mission was to travel back in time to the year 2000 to acquire a computer that was built in the 1970's.»
Is it a joke? Why did they need that computer? If time travel is posiible, is the universe deterministic? Since he changed something in 2000 something should have changed in 2036... > Ex: He doubts if they visit their uncle tomorrow. > Ex: He doubted if they visited their uncle the next day. Hmmm. Is the second sentense grammatically correct? I think it can be only written in this way: «He doubted if they would visit their uncle the next day.» «Ex: Jack is getting married next Sunday. Though the day of marriage will be next Sunday, Jack is actually doing the marriage now: booking the chapel, sending the invitation cards, etc.» What if he say it on Sunday (a week before the marriage) when no preparations had been made? «The further proof is, in the future if he talks about the marriage, he will include booking chapel and sending cards, rather than just the day of marring.» Doubtful. I think he will include only the day (and the night) of marring. Why is possibility (for an action to happen in the future) a future tense and "certainity in progress" (actually, certitude in an action's occuring in the future) is not? Really, there is no literal "certainity in progress". Ex.: I am leaving now. But something still may hinder me from leaving. I may lose the ticket or something... The use Present Progressive to denote a future action emphasizes one or more of the following things: -- the importance of a future action now (example about the marriage) -- the speaker's opinion that this action will happen with high probability (the last example). -- or just that it'll happen soon. «But modal auxiliary verbs are the future tense: Ex: They may/ought to visit their uncle tomorrow. And if next week we are looking back, they are certainty and cannot keep the modal verb: Ex: *They might/ought to visit their uncle.» A correct version would be: "A week ago there was a certain probability that they would visit their uncle the next day." The initial sentence stated a possibility of a future action. And a week later the sentence should state a possibility of a past (happened or not happened) action, so we just say: It was possible that they would visit their uncle... «But modal auxiliary verbs are the future tense...» Not only the future tense, as it seems to me: Ex.: They may have captured the post office.
Ant_222,
My example: "He doubted if they visited their uncle the next day." You wrote: I think it can be only written in this way: «He doubted if they would visit their uncle the next day.» My reply: On google check exact match for "doubted if" and you know. Both structures are possible. In my example, I (the speaker) am looking back and know they did visit, so I used Simple Past. Your example is said before the speaker knows the fact, which is more usual. ----------------- I wrote this: «The further proof is, in the future if he talks about the marriage, he will include booking chapel and sending cards, rather than just the day of marring.» You say this: Doubtful. I think he will include only the day (and the night) of marring. My reply: I based on my experience and you on yours. I guess you will stop your friend and say, "Hei, I ask you to talk about your marriage only. Why do you talk about booking chapel. Put it precisely, I ask about the moment the preacher pronounced you two husband and wife. How can you talk about anything before that?" ------------------ You wrote: >>A correct version would be: "A week ago there was a certain probability that they would visit their uncle the next day." << My reply: To me, to talk about certain possibility is like to talk about a past present, or a present past. I have never discussed such thing. Your say is final.
I wrote: «But modal auxiliary verbs are the future tense...»
You commented: <<Not only the future tense, as it seems to me: Ex.: They may have captured the post office.>> My reply: Your comment is of most importance in deciding whether the tense is possible to be called the future tense or not. In the past thread you dug up: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t144.htm actually in this page: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t144-15.htm I had posted this: ============= A past or present doubt If we now take a guess at a yesterday's action, is it a past or present doubt? Ex: He would have seen the papers yesterday. == It is actually a present doubt, rather than a past doubt. (This is rarely noticed by grammar writers, but it is very important.) If it is a present doubt, which I think so, it is not much different from a present doubt about the future: Ex: He will see the papers tomorrow. The realizations of both of them are also in the future. What I mean is, in both of them, you only know the fact in the future, next week for example. (By that time you may call it an action. As for now, it is only a possibility -- even with Yesterday.) They are present doubt, and therefore are in the future tense. The further proof is, sometimes we may even use present-form auxiliaries to say a present doubt to the past: Ex: He will have seen the papers yesterday. == <will + yesterday> is not a rarity. The more frequent is <may + yesterday>. ============= I hope you can see the old thread has solved the problem in your comment. It should be noted that, when you say a past action: Ex: John worked in the garden yesterday. it is a certainty and cannot be changed. If it turns out that John didn't do so, you (the speaker) may be in big trouble. But when you now throw a doubt at a past action: Ex: John must have worked in the garden yesterday. the certainty we will find out later is perhaps John didn't do so. Even so, you don't have much trouble. Everyone can make a guess at anything. However, when in public, important figures have to make guess very cautiously.
> Ex: He doubts if they visit their uncle tomorrow.
> Ex: He doubted if they visited their uncle the next day. My Ex.: He doubted if they would visit their uncle the next day. About these you said: «On google check exact match for "doubted if" and you know. Both structures are possible. In my example, I (the speaker) am looking back and know they did visit, so I used Simple Past. Your example is said before the speaker knows the fact, which is more usual.» Yes, I did a search in google and found the two kinds of constructions: ... doubted if + past simple ... doubted if + future in the past But they didn't mean the same: they were used in different situations. I. ... doubted if + past simple These are examples from google: Ex.: She doubted if I loved her. (1) Ex.: ... the realty firm doubted if this was a wise long-term relationship. (2) In these senteces past simple is used. That is because the action in question was simultaneous with the moment the doubt was experessed: 1.: I doubt she loves me. - Both the doubt and her loving me are in present. 2.: ... firm doubts it is a wise ... relationship. - Both the doubt and the relationship's being wise and long-term are in present. That is, by the moment of doubt, the action in question was a present one. II. ...doubted if + future in the past Google examples: Ex.: He doubted if the fish would attack. (3) Ex.: He doubted if Janet would ever speak to her again. (4) Here the meaning of the dependent clauses is different. The doubt and the action in question are not simultaneous: the latter, on the time axis, lies after the former and, therefore, future in the past is used. 3.: He doubts if the fish will attack. 4.: He doubts if Janet will ever speak to her again. By the moment of doubt the action in question was a future action. This is the case in your example but you use simple past instead of future in the past. On the first several pages in google I found no phrases using the construction doubted if + past simple to express a doubt of an action, having been in the future by the moment of expressing the doubt. But in your example the action of visiting uncle was a future action by the moment of the doubt... It is interesting what native English speakers thinks about your example. I'll reply to the rest of your posts later, or I miss my train to the university. Bye. |