Distance Without Time: Possible?

[swerdna]

Is it possible to have distance without also having time?

 

[bluesurge863]

General relativity says no, you cannot have one without the other. They are deeply interwoven at a fundamental level.

 

[swerdna]

General relativity says no, you cannot have one without the other. They are deeply interwoven at a fundamental level.

Thanks - The other post that said you can has mysteriously disappeared. Does that mean it was wrong?

 

[bluesurge863]

I don't think the poster fully understood what you meant, and so deleted his post.

 

[swerdna]

I don't think the poster fully understood what you meant, and so deleted his post.

Thanks - General Relativity aside, would it be possible?

 

[Technocreep]

Let's start with an example of time: If you dropped a cup from a table here on earth, it would take a certain amount of time for it to hit the ground.. agreed? Now, drop that same cup from that same table while on the moon.. it would take a different amount of "time" before it finally hit the ground. The distance is the same in both cases, but the time very different. So, this begs the question.. Is time real or simply relative?

We measure time by our finite definition of life. We are only here for a certain amount of "time", as we see the sun come up and go down each day. So we measure time as a function of recurrence, by which we can say 'so many recurrences and we finally cease to exist.' Is time real or merely a perception?

If we lived eternally, without dying, without needing food, without the need to regenerate-or-die, would we even be worried about time? Is time real or just an illusion brought on by our limited lifespan?

Is time really bound exclusively to just space or are there other variables, if time really does exist that is? From the example of the falling cup (forementioned), it would seem that we must at least factor in gravity to get a correct calculation of space in both instances, if we are to keep time in the equation.

 

[DaveC426913]

Thanks - General Relativity aside, would it be possible?

Do you mean "what if the laws of physics as we understand them were not the laws of physics as we understand them?"

You would get unicorns and faeries.

 

[DaveC426913]

We measure time by our finite definition of life.
If we lived eternally, without dying, without needing food, without the need to regenerate-or-die, would we even be worried about time? Is time real or just an illusion brought on by our limited lifespan?

Is time really bound exclusively to just space or are there other variables, if time really does exist that is?

None of this is sensical. Time gets along just fine without us, and in fact without life at all. It got along for a billion years before life came traipsing through the kitchen in its muddy shoes.

 

[swerdna]

Let's start with an example of time: If you dropped a cup from a table here on earth, it would take a certain amount of time for it to hit the ground.. agreed? Now, drop that same cup from that same table while on the moon.. it would take a different amount of "time" before it finally hit the ground. The distance is the same in both cases, but the time very different. So, this begs the question.. Is time real or simply relative?

We measure time by our finite definition of life. We are only here for a certain amount of "time", as we see the sun come up and go down each day. So we measure time as a function of recurrence, by which we can say 'so many recurrences and we finally cease to exist.' Is time real or merely a perception?

If we lived eternally, without dying, without needing food, without the need to regenerate-or-die, would we even be worried about time? Is time real or just an illusion brought on by our limited lifespan?

Is time really bound exclusively to just space or are there other variables, if time really does exist that is? From the example of the falling cup (forementioned), it would seem that we must at least factor in gravity to get a correct calculation of space in both instances, if we are to keep time in the equation.

Sorry but I can’t relate any of that to my question.

 

[bluesurge863]

Sorry but I can’t relate any of that to my question.

You're not the only one.

 

[Technocreep]

@swerdna: It is totally relatable to your question in that it did NOT require the same amount of time to travel the same distance; therefore, distance is not bound to time; also therefore, it IS possible to have distance without time.

 

[swerdna]

Do you mean "what if the laws of physics as we understand them were not the laws of physics as we understand them?"

You would get unicorns and faeries.

Thanks - That's probably the best answer for my purpose.

 

[bluesurge863]

@swerdna: It is totally relatable to your question in that it did NOT require the same amount of time to travel the same distance; therefore, distance is not bound to time; also therefore, it IS possible to have distance without time.

If you can show an example of an object traveling a specific distance in no time (blithely putting relativistic effects to the side), then you will have shown that time and distance aren't related. In both of those cases, you have an object traveling a distance over a time interval.

 

[swerdna]

@swerdna: It is totally relatable to your question in that it did NOT require the same amount of time to travel the same distance; therefore, distance is not bound to time; also therefore, it IS possible to have distance without time.

Don’t see how a thing taking different times to cover the same distance in different circumstance means in any way that “it IS possible to have distance without time”.

 

[f03cuss]

I think the problem here is that everyone is talking about motion. Time is absolutely needed for motion, but distance is just a difference in position. Two stationary objects at different positions in space do not depend on time for their distance from each other to exist. :)

 

[swerdna]

I don’t see how you can have any form of existence without having time. Given there must be things that exist to have distance between them I would conclude that you automatically must have time if you have distance. Even if distance doesn't "need" time. Does that make sense?

 

[f03cuss]

What would happen to everything if time ceased to exist is a much more philosophical question, one that I can't answer. I was merely saying that mathematically distance is not time-dependent. You could freeze time, slow it down, speed it up, but the distance between two stationary objects wouldn't change because of these manipulations. We could say that distance couldn't exist without time but it becomes kinda meaningless if nothing at all could exist without time. So we might have to just agree that time exists, then we can look at what concepts it actually plays a role. If THAT makes sense lol.

 

[bluesurge863]

What would happen to everything if time ceased to exist is a much more philosophical question, one that I can't answer. I was merely saying that mathematically distance is not time-dependent. You could freeze time, slow it down, speed it up, but the distance between two stationary objects wouldn't change because of these manipulations. We could say that distance couldn't exist without time but it becomes kinda meaningless if nothing at all could exist without time. So we might have to just agree that time exists, then we can look at what concepts it actually plays a role. If THAT makes sense lol.

OK, so let's run that thought experiment. Say we want to speed up time to the point where travel is instantaneous. Is it meaningful to have instantaneous travel with nonzero distance?

 

[vcurious]

Great question. Been thinking about it myself, haven't gotten too far.

Some thoughts:
I'm not sure your question can be comprehensively answered until we humans understand the nature of time, which we don't.

I've read "Time is a property of the Universe." That tells me little about time, since in my book, it's akin to saying "Time comes with."

So at this point, I don't know what time is, so I don't know what a 3 dimensional space looks like without time, which I think is the crux of your question.

Such a space would have to be featureless, I guess, because in a space without time, all events occur simultaneously and instantaneously, ruling matter and energy as we know them out of existence. Indeed, in such a space, 'events' probably don't even exist.

On the other hand, can't we mathematically describe separate imaginary points A and B in a featureless 3D space? If so, I guess one could have distance without time.

 

[f03cuss]

OK, so let's run that thought experiment. Say we want to speed up time to the point where travel is instantaneous. Is it meaningful to have instantaneous travel with nonzero distance?

Hmm, interesting question, but again, now we are talking about motion/traveling. Distance does not require motion, motion requires distance, or rather, space. So we can talk about distance without motion.

For something to travel a distance instantaneously (because of time manip) time would have to be moving forward at an infinite speed. At which point you could be in all points in space at once. And probably would be. Infinite mass.

 

[bluesurge863]

Hmm, interesting question, but again, now we are talking about motion/traveling. Distance does not require motion, motion requires distance, or rather, space. So we can talk about distance without motion.

For something to travel a distance instantaneously (because of time manip) time would have to be moving forward at an infinite speed. At which point you could be in all points in space at once. And probably would be. Infinite mass.

But it wouldn't have to move at infinite speed. Due to relativistic effects, it would only have to travel at the speed of light.

(And by the way, I didn't say that travel would have to occur, just time would be sped up to the point where instantaneous travel would be possible. )

 

[f03cuss]

But it wouldn't have to move at infinite speed. Due to relativistic effects, it would only have to travel at the speed of light.

(And by the way, I didn't say that travel would have to occur, just time would be sped up to the point where instantaneous travel would be possible. )

Are you saying time would have to travel at the speed of light? Light's velocity is measured in distance divided by time. Not sure we can say time's velocity is measured in distance divided by the time itself (maybe another observer's time). I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think we can think of time itself moving at the speed of something physical. Like time moving at the speed of a rolling bowling ball. But even if we could, at the speed of light, light still needs time to cross a distance, and to that beam the time traveled would not be instantaneous. :) This is fun.

 

[bluesurge863]

Sorry, I misunderstood what you said.

I'm not entirely sure it's meaningful to assign a rate to time at all, so to say it can pass with a certain speed is sort of playing fast and loose with the underlying concepts. I think of time as more of a continuum that can be stretched (slowing down) and compressed (speeding up).

When I said something would have to travel at the speed of light, I meant the object (or person?) that was observing the travel to be instantaneous, and would therefore view any possible trip as having zero distance. Us on the outside, however, would still view the trip as taking a certain amount of time.

Take the light from the sun as an example - from the light's point of view, travel is so fast as to be approximately instantaneous (I say approximately because it's not a complete vacuum, as it has to pass through the atmosphere of the Earth in order for us to view it). From our point of view, however, it takes about 8 minutes. So not only is distance forever correlated with time, it is also entirely dependent on the perspective of the observer.

Also, there is no spoon.

 

[sophiecentaur]

You can 'consider' distance without discussing time, in a classical sense. We all have maps and diagrams, which do just that.
However, to describe the way things actually work and behave, time needs to be brought in.
This could be looked on as the difference between situations and processes.

 

[f03cuss]

I'm not entirely sure it's meaningful to assign a rate to time at all, so to say it can pass with a certain speed is sort of playing fast and loose with the underlying concepts. I think of time as more of a continuum that can be stretched (slowing down) and compressed (speeding up).

Exactly what I was thinking.

When I said something would have to travel at the speed of light, I meant the object (or person?) that was observing the travel to be instantaneous, and would therefore view any possible trip as having zero distance. Us on the outside, however, would still view the trip as taking a certain amount of time.

I see what you're saying now.

So not only is distance forever correlated with time, it is also entirely dependent on the perspective of the observer.

Hate to be a stickler, but I think you mean motion is forever correlated with time. Distance is only dependent on the perspective of the observer if there is motion involved, whether it's the observer or the object moving. The pure concept of distance, a difference in position, like vcurious' example above, has no intrinsic correlation with time.

Who needs spoons anyway..

 

[bluesurge863]

Well, as sophiecentaur said, of course we can consider distance separately from time, but that wasn't the question. The question is whether or not it is possible for one to exist and not the other.

 

[John Mario]

What would happen to everything if time ceased to exist is a much more philosophical question, one that I can't answer. I was merely saying that mathematically distance is not time-dependent. You could freeze time, slow it down, speed it up, but the distance between two stationary objects wouldn't change because of these manipulations. We could say that distance couldn't exist without time but it becomes kinda meaningless if nothing at all could exist without time. So we might have to just agree that time exists, then we can look at what concepts it actually plays a role. If THAT makes sense lol.

Perhaps a study of the theory of relativity and the implications of that theory may help.

 

[DLuckyE]

I think the point is that when time slows down for you (and thus relatively speaking speeds up for everyone else) distances get shorter, to the point when times stops moving everything is at the same place.

If everything is at the same place, then the distance is also zero, so no time no distance.

 

[PhanthomJay]

I think the point is that when time slows down for you (and thus relatively speaking speeds up for everyone else) distances get shorter, to the point when times stops moving everything is at the same place.

If everything is at the same place, then the distance is also zero, so no time no distance.

Which applies only to massless particles like photons ...from its perspective, it travels zero distance in the direction of its motion, in zero time...the entire universe passing by it in less than the blinking of its eye...fascinating.

 

[DaveC426913]

Which applies only to massless particles like photons ...from its perspective, it travels zero distance in the direction of its motion, in zero time...the entire universe passing by it in less than the blinking of its eye...fascinating.

No. Photons do not have a perspective; they do not experience time at all. It is not a valid frame of reference.

However, we can describe approaching the limit: the closer an observer gets to c, the shorter the universe becomes and the faster they can span it.