- #1
rtharbaugh1
- 312
- 0
I apollogise for not being around lately, and for not having time to catch up on all the interesting interactions on these threads...my regards in haste to all.
However this narrow window of opportunity has opened, and I wanted to share my recent insights, for whatever value they may have to the group mind. Thanks be.
We commonly observe time in terms of a rate of change. We measure time by days, hours, minutes, defined in accord with the rotation of our world on its axis, relitive to our sun, the nearest star. Or, more recently, we have learned to measure time by the beat of the pulse of the race of an electron around an atom, as in the atomic clock which is the standard for time measurement in the sciences. So being, I observe that time can be defined, provisionally, as the observed rate of change of some system.
Now I have noticed that the rate of change of events on a very small scale is very fast...electrons whiz so fast around their nuclei that we can barely say they have any position as such at all, instead having to define them by their induced cloud of reactive virtual particles. Then we might say that the rate of change of systems on a very small scale is very fast.
Then if we look at the opposite end of the scale spectrum, in the realm of the very large, change hardly seems to happen at all. If events in terms of quantum froth are very fast, events in terms of the universal froth beyond the local group of galaxies are very slow. When we look at the very largest scale, the stars and galaxies hardly seem to us to change at all.
Then I wonder at what scale time might be said to cease entirely? We look at the cosmic microwave background energy and see the universe unchanged since a few hundred thousand years after the Big Event. Time has almost ceased at that scale. A little bit further on...
Anyway that's what I have been thinking and I wanted to take this chance to share. I may or may not be able to pass this way again any time soon, but I will try to come back and see if this thread collects any thoughts or interest.
Be well, fellow voyagers.
Richard
However this narrow window of opportunity has opened, and I wanted to share my recent insights, for whatever value they may have to the group mind. Thanks be.
We commonly observe time in terms of a rate of change. We measure time by days, hours, minutes, defined in accord with the rotation of our world on its axis, relitive to our sun, the nearest star. Or, more recently, we have learned to measure time by the beat of the pulse of the race of an electron around an atom, as in the atomic clock which is the standard for time measurement in the sciences. So being, I observe that time can be defined, provisionally, as the observed rate of change of some system.
Now I have noticed that the rate of change of events on a very small scale is very fast...electrons whiz so fast around their nuclei that we can barely say they have any position as such at all, instead having to define them by their induced cloud of reactive virtual particles. Then we might say that the rate of change of systems on a very small scale is very fast.
Then if we look at the opposite end of the scale spectrum, in the realm of the very large, change hardly seems to happen at all. If events in terms of quantum froth are very fast, events in terms of the universal froth beyond the local group of galaxies are very slow. When we look at the very largest scale, the stars and galaxies hardly seem to us to change at all.
Then I wonder at what scale time might be said to cease entirely? We look at the cosmic microwave background energy and see the universe unchanged since a few hundred thousand years after the Big Event. Time has almost ceased at that scale. A little bit further on...
Anyway that's what I have been thinking and I wanted to take this chance to share. I may or may not be able to pass this way again any time soon, but I will try to come back and see if this thread collects any thoughts or interest.
Be well, fellow voyagers.
Richard