What Is Time?

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Bud D, Jul 23, 2016.

  1. Bud D

    Bud D Member

    Messages:
    896
    Likes Received:
    134
    Is time just the rate in which things move? Is there a way to validate that time exists without anything moving or movement being measured?

    Gravity slows down time as does moving faster. But if there was no movement of any particle would there still be time? Perhaps time is just a theory. A perspective to measure the rates of movement into a communicable idea.
     
  2. tumbling.dice

    tumbling.dice Visitor

    Time is the dimension in which entropy always increases. I think I read that in A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking.
     
  3. Bud D

    Bud D Member

    Messages:
    896
    Likes Received:
    134
    That's the human perspective that things get more chaotic, with our attention span. How is time a dimension in not a figurative manner?
     
  4. tumbling.dice

    tumbling.dice Visitor

    Well, my limited understanding is that it takes four dimensions to "locate" an event: 3 dimensions to place it in space and one dimension to tell when it occurs. Every event has a unique set of coordinates in "space-time". I'm not a rocket scientist however, I just understand this stuff the best I can.
     
    1 person likes this.
  5. Bud D

    Bud D Member

    Messages:
    896
    Likes Received:
    134
    So time is a locating principle?

    I read wiki entry for time and it's hard to think of it as a substance anymore.
     
  6. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,454
    Likes Received:
    722
    Not only would there be no time without movement, there would be no particles. There wouldn't even be space for a particle. Nothing would exist without time, not just "nothingness" but absolute NOTHING. Space-time isn't just a fun thing to call space and time. They are bound, it actually should be called space-time-energy, they are all aspects of the same thing. To be even more descriptive maybe, space-time-energy-magnetism-gravity. They are all aspects and properties the same thing, the fabric of space. A particle is really an electromagnetic field. It is literally a moving field of spatial flux. None of these properties can exist without the other.
     
  7. morrow

    morrow Visitor

    Time is something developed to control humans when the sun passes by, to make all women be quiet for a few hours, to let everything have a rest, and to stop people bumping into things in the dark!

    That's what my grandfather told me as a child, and it still makes sense! :)
     
    2 people like this.
  8. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

    Messages:
    1,391
    Likes Received:
    268
    John Wheeler famously said, "Time is what prevents everything from happening at once!" Among other things this is a reference to the fact Relativity describes time as possibly being an illusion. Time is the complimentary-opposite of space because a context without any content is a contradiction and the two will transform into one another in extreme contexts. You can't have a perfect vacuum or achieve absolute zero temperature because nature forbids metaphysical extremes such as a context without any content and vice versa. For us to perceive an object as filling space we must also see it as changing in some respect reflecting how the greater context inevitably determines its own content and the line between what is context and content can become blurry. The real question is what is not space and what is not time because the identities of the two becoming conflated makes their flow dynamics or bandwidth more important than their individual identities. A black hole is a good example because, without a surface, its identity is so humble it can only be defined according to its behaviour in different contexts. Whether you choose to call it a cold rock slowly evaporating under its own weight or a hole in space sucking everything up simply depends upon the context.
     
  9. bourne1978

    bourne1978 Members

    Messages:
    251
    Likes Received:
    25
    If there was always some sort of activity, then the activity is that time among other immeasureable things, and that time is eternal. This is if time is defined as some sort of motion (which should include all the synanyms (sp?)).

    I dont buy that co-existence popped into being. I rather buy that co-existence (which is infinite to include being co-time) is always, and co-existence is supernatural (another thing apart of infinite) to have made this universe, which keeps the reality of what and whom in all that co-existence not accessible from certain of who in all has to be also them, but with just limits so that they don't know yet till the revealing of some kind.

    Ask yourselves this: are infinite beings infinite activities, if they didnt just pop into existing?
     
  10. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    16,175
    Likes Received:
    4,916
    lol...I don't know...but this dramatic song pops into my head......so the lol right now....


    ok, one more try. to get the song I want here....my mouse must have lots of things in its memory...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZX8u1eCXzo
     
    1 person likes this.
  11. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

    Messages:
    1,391
    Likes Received:
    268
    Existence and non-existence define one another and the shadow has no meaning outside of the light. Hence, quanta never stop moving completely because motion and the lack of motion define another. The greater context none can see determines its own content no matter how much we might all rant and rave about how unfair life can be. :)
     
  12. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,454
    Likes Received:
    722
    Space expands over time, therefor time literally makes space. And vice versa of course but maybe it would be better to call it time-space.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqTPa8NFTeY
     
  13. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

    Messages:
    1,391
    Likes Received:
    268
    Relativity implies time is an illusion and everything is geometric equivalences, while quantum mechanics can smash even calculus and Zeno's paradoxes into indeterminate mush. The quantum Zeno effect is a great example. When watched a particle will not move obscuring the distinctions between what is context and content.
     
    1 person likes this.
  14. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

    Messages:
    29,419
    Likes Received:
    6,296
    For an individual, Time is the rate of change in phenomena under 2 or more conditions.

    It would sure seem like it, but I don't know if time has a reality outside perception. Seems like a paradox or perhaps straight up unintelligible that something could measure time without being encompassed in time as well.
     
    1 person likes this.
  15. Bud D

    Bud D Member

    Messages:
    896
    Likes Received:
    134
    Ya but what I am saying is nothing can measure time that doesn't measure movement.

    Even something that measures the decay of an element or some other thing measures the movement of particles or energy. I'm no genius but it seems time doesn't exist. Things just move and we have timing.

    It doesn't seem that time is an independent force. I have heard of 'time & space' but space just seems to interact in such a way that timing occurs. Not time itself existing as a force.
     
  16. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

    Messages:
    1,391
    Likes Received:
    268
    The implication of space and time being indivisible complimentary-opposites is that they form a self-organizing system and we have merely to reformulate relativity and the HUP to express a recursion in the law of identity, but easier said than done.
     
  17. Bud D

    Bud D Member

    Messages:
    896
    Likes Received:
    134
    Opposites?

    How so?

    They seem to be that one doesn't exist and the other creates systems of interaction that express what doesn't exist.
     
  18. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

    Messages:
    1,391
    Likes Received:
    268
    Space is synonymous with geometry and even Relativity insists that its impossible to have some "thing" that doesn't exist at some "place" at some "time" and vice versa. The two represent the opposites of fate and the random, the alpha and omega. The future's so bright I have to wear shades because the past, including geometry, has no demonstrable meaning without a future.
     
  19. Bud D

    Bud D Member

    Messages:
    896
    Likes Received:
    134
    Nobody's predicting the future for each and every particle. It all just goes with the flow, bouncing off each other.

    I'm saying time is not a thing, not a fabric, but a perspective. Something we relate to that doesn't actually exist but in our minds.
     
  20. Lobber

    Lobber Members

    Messages:
    14
    Likes Received:
    4
    Time is three dimensional. There are three dimensions of time. I don't have time to go into it right now. But I will take time to explain time later.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice