Does Time Really Exist? Debunking Common Beliefs

[Antonio Lao]

So if in equations we encounter zero time, this really means that there must be two directions of time such that the time difference between these two directions is zero iff the time's quanta are exactly the same ( 1 - 1 = 0) or ( 0 - 0 = 0).

 

[LeBrok]

modmans2ndcoming

I think I know what you meant. The same you can say about space. You need relations to figure out if something is moving in space. You need relations to say how something is moving through the time line. But it does not answer the question about the nature of time. Is the time a spatial dimension or is the time only the way we measure movement of matter and energy through space.

In my first post, you referring to, I also wrote this where I postulated that the time is nothing more than movement through space.

"Consider other possibility. Let’s take for example a motionless world were the Time the 4th dimension does not exist. Visualize handful of small particles (try to imagine more then one, because if there is only one you will not know if it’s moving, relativity principle, remember?). They are not moving, they are in same distances to each other – no time no movement.
Now, what would it take to change the quantum state of theirs? To move the quantum distance, the smallest distance available in space, to make a little “jump” to other quantum state/space. Remember, in quantum world there is nothing in between the quantum states/space. You travel the quantum distance immediately. You cannot measure the time it took the particle to travel the quantum distance because there is no small enough quantum of time to measure it. Other words, the quantum “jump” is instantaneous and we don’t need time to pass to make this quantum move. You are going to see those little particles jumping from one quantum place to the other in space just because the movement in this space is allowed and not because the clock is ticking by." end od quote

As I still claim that I noticed that influencing or interacting one particle with neighbor particle needs time. It takes time to communicate even with speed of light. Maybe this is where the speed of light is coming from – from the delay it takes for the smallest particles/strings to send information from one to the other. Why it needs time to communicate for them I don’t know, but it does. After my rethinking of the problem of time I am leaning towards description of time as the 4th dimension.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Learning from thermodynamics, temperature is just a measure of an average kinetic energy of particles in an isolated system (no transfer of mass or energy, in or out).
Still this isolated system can have local changes of its functions of state. But time is not explicitly a variable of the energy function. In fact, the energy function is independent of time hence the law of energy conservation as an invariance or time symmetry according to Noether's theorem.

I'm not clear here , are You saying that there is a backward path thru time? Not just a historical record that describes a process but that is renormalizable thru T- but an accessible pathway?

The tachyon is a discarded relic of 50's SF.

Noether's Theorem describes an math function but is also fatally flawed as it utilized Lagrangian's but not Hamiltonian as a description so any real world application seems slippery at best. I'm not a mathematician. Can you clarify?

 

[brodix]

Antonio,

So if in equations we encounter zero time, this really means that there must be two directions of time such that the time difference between these two directions is zero iff the time's quanta are exactly the same ( 1 - 1 = 0) or ( 0 - 0 = 0).

Yes. This is why all of reality exists in what is considered a point in time.

Till,

It is not that there is "a backward path through time", but that the path of time is a subjective construct in the first place that is neutralized by its relative context. To the extent the individual travels down its path, the path is moving the other direction. They are simply two frames of reference.

 

[musky_ox]

What if a giant elephant popped out of space randomly in the atmosphere above my house and it got trampled? (please do not try to say this has nothing to support it, doesn't random chance/evolution creation?)

 

[Doctordick]

Well, ordinary bits have been an epiphany to some - see "A New Kind of Science". I don't buy it, basically because I know that arithmetic is Goedel incomplete and geometry isn't. Since I think it's a requirement for a TOE to be complete in that sense, I stick with real and complex variables.

Ok, one is fine the other isn't (I don't exactly find your arguments rational but, as this thread is not locked, I presume the "mentors" find your arguments rational. What I would like to know is exactly what the difference is between "complex" numbers and pairs of real numbers might be. Is it just a convenience of representation or is there some fundamental difference which still eludes me.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Antonio,


Yes. This is why all of reality exists in what is considered a point in time.

Till,

It is not that there is "a backward path through time", but that the path of time is a subjective construct in the first place that is neutralized by its relative context. To the extent the individual travels down its path, the path is moving the other direction. They are simply two frames of reference.

Well the gist of what I seemed to hear was that the was a bi-directional pathway , function , whateverer You want that would be accessible thru other means then an mathematical function of a description of process to describe a phenomena, AFAIK that is not and cannot be the case.
As a matter of fact the Prima Facia act of correspondence proves the threads main idea moot.

Perhaps I read it wrong.

P.S, I wouldn't say neutralized , rather realized,

 

[Tigron-X]

Time is a frame of mind and only relevant within an applicagble given position in infinity to help give awareness to one by the use of perception, and perception is a calculation of assigned values. Values assigned to events, therefore time is a measurement of given events within specific dimensions on a whole or dimensions limited by one. Whether you personify that "one" or take it numerically is up to you, however they're the samething, yet one is always divided or multiplied by infinity ten different ways to change space to a relative one as zero does not exist. And since zero does not exist in space as a whole because everything is an event even though a specific event may appear to be absent at one point, it is present in another form until that specific event accumulates to the desired value which we use time to measure by evaluating patterns of mathamatics within perceived planes formed by the strongest acting dimension of a specific event relative to one.

 

[Chronos]

Hmmm. I am therefore I am. I wonder why no one thought of that before. Self identities lead to illogical conclusions.

 

[Antonio Lao]

In physics, the inverse of time is defined as the frequency of a periodic function. But as the definition implies, neither time or frequency can have values of zero or infinity.
Furthermore the transform of the action from a time domain to a frequency domain gives

E^{n} = \int_1 ...\int_{n}A^{n}d\nu_1 ...d\nu_{n}

for n=1

E = h\nu

 

[Epsilon Pi]

Well, the difference is sort of philosophical one if you want, but if we start with a reality "out there", with a radical duality, i.e., time and space, wave-particle, energy-matter, ect... don't we need a proper symbolism to represent it? We certainly cannot do it with "a pairs of real numbers"... as how can you differentiate one from another?
All you have then in your representation is "symmetry", or bilateral symmetry as Hermann Weyl put it, and for sure you will then need all kinds of "patches" to introduce the asymmetric behavior of reality "out there"...but of course you have all the right to deny that reality "out there", and then you will not recognize the need to include the third in your representations.
To include the third as a matter of fact implies complex numbers; if we take the symbol, i= square root of minus one, as a symbol for differentiating at the least two different kinds of parities, even and odd, as is expressed in Euler relation

i(Theta)
e = Cosine(Theta) +i Sine(Theta)

being odd and even another form of that duality, in the reality "out there".

On the other hand I am quite aware that for mere convenience they have borrowed, both the magnitude and the angle of a complex number, trying to drop out its complex nature and reducing it to a pair of real numbers. But is this not a "patching" procedure? Why must we deny the complex nature of reality "out there"? Is this not ontological idealism in the same mansion of science?

My best regards
EP

What I would like to know is exactly what the difference is between "complex" numbers and pairs of real numbers might be. Is it just a convenience of representation or is there some fundamental difference which still eludes me.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

In physics, the inverse of time is defined as the frequency of a periodic function. But as the definition implies, neither time or frequency can have values of zero or infinity.
Furthermore the transform of the action from a time domain to a frequency domain gives

E^{n} = \int_1 ...\int_{n}A^{n}d\nu_1 ...d\nu_{n}

for n=1

E = h\nu

Absolutely Antonio, the concept of periodicity is inherently embedded in t. We could view t as a scaler background onto which we place specific events, but even then we are subject to the real world plasticity of t itself as Einstein proposed and slow ( relatively speaking :) ) moving airplanes with atomic clocks have proven, which means that our grid can expand and contract . So it is not an artifact of maths nor is it static. It must be accounted for in all integrations ( see my sig line ) as Euclid described in ~300 B.C. sum over time, Newton was a thief.

As some others have mentioned there is a "cognitive" problem with the idea of trying to define Time itself. I rather see it as an epistemological breakdown, but if we treat it like so many other phenomenon where the process is hidden but the outcome is predictable I.E "Wave function collapse" in QM , then we can still define the reality while not knowing the workings, look at any normal Human glancing at their watch.

Dr. Einstein did us an enormous favor when he said the word "Spacetime".

 

[brodix]

Till,

P.S, I wouldn't say neutralized , rather realized,

The thread isn't mine. I'm not arguing that time doesn't exist, but that it isn't a dimension, because this is based on the assumption that the reference frame is at rest, so that the motion of the point of reference requires an additional dimension to define it. I'm just making the point that time is an aspect of motion. While energy can be neither created or destroyed, the information it is forming is constantly changing. The energy is the objective. The information is the subjective. Time is subjective. Space on the other hand isn't a three dimensional reference frame, but equilibrium. The absolute zero around which matter and anti-matter fluctuate. As recent studies have shown, the sum of all expansion and gravitational contraction balances out, so that space is ultimately flat.

 

[Antonio Lao]

I'm not arguing that time doesn't exist, but that it isn't a dimension

Quoting from Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins' What is Mathematics? page 248:
"The concept of dimension presents no great difficulty so long as one deals only with simple geometric figures such as points, lines, triangles, and polyhedra. A single point or any finite set of points has dimension zero, a line segment is one-dimensional, and the surface of a triangle or of a sphere two-dimensional. But when one attempts to extend this concept to more general point sets, the need for a precise definition arises."

Dimension as a mathematical concept still needs a final precise definition. Most often it is defined in the context of its usage to be synonymous with direction and coordinate and frame of reference and, I think, even the concept of a degree of freedom.

 

[sol2]

Absolutely Antonio, the concept of periodicity is inherently embedded in t. We could view t as a scaler background onto which we place specific events, but even then we are subject to the real world plasticity of t itself as Einstein proposed and slow ( relatively speaking :) )

Dr. Einstein did us an enormous favor when he said the word "Spacetime".

I liked your explanation

If Spacetime then becomes dynamical then how would we comprehend these features of curvature?

To understand the scalar product in terms of tension how would you expect this tension to represent energy considerations? Sean Carroll has a good explanation here.

There is still a lot we don't know. For example, are the predictions of GR for gravitational lensing and dynamical measures of mass consistent with each other? Are there deviations at very strong curvatures, or for that matter very weak curvatures? Are there deviations at very small distances that may be probed in the laboratory? (Current best limits go down to about one tenth of a millimeter.) Are there long-range but subtle effects that still may show up in the Solar System?

http://preposterousuniverse.blogspo...relativity.html

This is a realization for me, that the energy can move into these extra dimensions. Now if time becomes applicable, then the dimensions become significant?

I am giving you http://wc0.worldcrossing.com/WebX?14@143.ZrV7cTM4HCf.21@.1ddf4a5f/125 to look at for consideration. Hopefully Antonio will look as well.

If you go through the links after, you will understand the development of this distance measure(dimension), and hopefully a general concept that was developing in my mind.

For those interested here are some http://wc0.worldcrossing.com/WebX?14@128.dsWncyyCHnu.24@.1de0f3cf for consideration

Thanks

 

[PRyckman]

D=(c-v)t note that velocity is directional, and this represents space in the line ahead of the path

 

[Antonio Lao]

D=(c-v)t

Is this another formulation for the speed of light c?
c = \frac{D}{t} + v
For constant c, v tends to c as D tends to zero or t tends to infinity.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Sol2,
I'm not quite sure where we're headed here, but the main proponents of extra dimensions tend to favor compacitifacation ( ala Kaluza - Klein ) and embrace string theory where these quantities do have an pronounced effect at Newtonian and relativistic levels while all the time being by their very definition unable to be examined because they reside at at lesser then the Planck length. Magic, Science or the Emperor's new clothes? All the Maths seem to work correctly.

I agree with your assessment that T is not a dimension as we think of in the traditional sense.

going sideways.

I have kicked around both an idea of inherent charge on the universe and an extra macro dimension ( which engenders nothing but derision) The latter is the model most simple and intrinsically "Beautiful" , the former was an old idea and my interest was reignited when a correspondent mentioned that he had similar leanings. The problem with the first is that the G at square of the difference becomes the cube of the distance. That is the main critique. My objection is that we discard Newton at Q and cosmological scales, why does he reinsert himself without err in this instance. The lemma is a confrontation with hundreds of years of physics. Not an easy go. The former is elegant but requires "now" a compensation for the varying Hubble expansion.

What we are discussing here is OOT , but for 4000 Yrs. the Hindu's talk about the river of time, for ~<100 Yrs. Einstein's t, for less then~ 30 Feynman's arrow of time and Hawking's light cone. Parsing your link You seem like many ( myself included) to want find a concrete background which Einstein "disproved". Well the punch line is that Einstein's "Biggest mistake in my life" -Lambda, MMX's Aether, dark energy, may after all be correct.( which funny enough doesn't appear to be static!)

My basic belief is that there is a quasi-static background, which is neither accessible or usable to quantify the dynamical properties or our universe .One may tout brane or string theory or the many universes hypothesis but we have yet to approach accommodation of unity. The whole impact of Einstein on me has been not the maths ( which basically are unsolvable ATT ) but his words about the inherent beauty of truth.

John Baez gave a talk at GR-17 regarding QLG and spin foams, there's an adjunct theory/book by Ambjorn on simplicial gravity called "Quantum Geometry" I have not read the text, but the intersection of his view and Baez's appearers to be interesting.

Joao Magueijo at Imperial Collage has a view of VSL , which at origionally was applicable at the first inflationary stage after the BB, but has migrated to "special zones" where it remains a dynamical metric ...


My point being that even the most sacrosanct of cosmological constants such as G,t and dare I say it, c are questionable.
I'm sure Antonio may take exception at my last remark .

The more we learn , the less we know.

 

[PRyckman]

Man no wonder I was confused about a t.o.e
I always thought c=Dt,
Wait a minute, light is a constant, it will always be the same speed and return the same time for the same distance. Therefor either of those equations can be used to measure light.

The second equation is a new equation for distance, rather than d=vt
it is d=(c-v)t

The reason no one has noticed this when driving 80 miles an hour down the high way is because your only doing 33.3 meters per second which would mean your driving 99.99993 give or take percent of that 80 miles in an hour.

Please note that in telling me your calculation for light, you proved mine correct
So you agreed that distance is not represented by D=vt
instead it is D=(c-v)t

 

[PRyckman]

But the speed of light is a velocity in itself, also no matter who measures it, it is the same speed relative to themselves.

Therefor c can also equal dt
c=Dt
c=D/t+v
We know light behaves as a particle and a wave depending how we look at it, well there now you have it in mathmatics.

Please note that c D and t are all made relative by v if the object has mass
but if the object has no mass, there is no such thing as v and since c is a constant it does not require an equation, only a measurement.
It just so happens that you can measure it with an equation, if you tie it into time and distance, which is what your doing by measuring it.

But if you just let it be and don't measure it, it is only
c=c

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

PR please excuse me if I seem muddled as it is 4:15 AM my time after pub crawling.
Your confusing light with particulate matter .. a photon has no mass and exists theoretically in all places at the same time. The constant c is only in regards to a finite limit of v in our universe for both light and particles regardless of frame of reference. Thus spoke Albert.

 

[Antonio Lao]

If we ignore directional property and assuming the EM force is zero and only absolute values then the speed can be the ratio of the magnitude of the electric field over the magnetic field.

v=\frac{E}{B}

the question is when does v=c for what values of E and B? Where c is approximately 300,000 km/s.

Note that c is defined in the theory of the electromagnetic field as given by

c=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon_0\mu_0}}

the inverse square root of the product of permittivity and permeability of free space.

c is also defined as the ratio of angular frequency over the wave number

c=\frac{\omega}{\kappa}

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

If we ignore directional property and assuming the EM force is zero and only absolute values then the speed can be the ratio of the magnitude of the electric field over the magnetic field.

v=\frac{E}{B}

the question is when does v=c for what values of E and B? Where c is approximately 300,000 km/s.[/q]

As you stated before the cost of e to accelerate a mass to c is infinite.
Maxwell was not given enough credit as far as I'm concerned.

PR, when considering v in terms of mass, v may only approach c, the speed of a photon as described in STR is unique as it is a zero rest mass particle. That is why it may have v=c in relation to a photon. No mass however may reach c or exceed it.

 

[brodix]

Antonio,

Dimension as a mathematical concept still needs a final precise definition. Most often it is defined in the context of its usage to be synonymous with direction and coordinate and frame of reference and, I think, even the concept of a degree of freedom.

This is exactly why I am saying time is process, rather than dimension. In the proposed line from past to future, which exists only when we assume the frame of reference is at rest and only the point of reference is moving, we exist at a dimensionless point in the middle, called the present. Why is that? It is because the movement of all frames balance out and reality is only the energy that is constantly changing inFORMation. So in this dimension of subjective "direction and coordinate and frame of reference", there is no freedom from what is present.

 

[bayan]

personally I believe that time is only made by humans to describe a thing (Change). if you guys believe in changing the coardinants of space, you would believe that we can change the coarinants of time as well.

here is a point that i do not get. If change of time is possible it would mean that it can be done either - or +.

how can one mass exist at two places when in reallity it exists in a diffrent place?

How do we see? Do we not see due to the reflectiong of EMR? if the light has not bounced to something and reflected back how can we see that?

If there is an explenation please tell me. I might even change my mine

Cheers mates!

 

[Antonio Lao]

personally I believe that time is only made by humans to describe a thing (Change). if you guys believe in changing the coardinants of space, you would believe that we can change the coarinants of time as well.

This is done in the theories of relativity, special and general - the dynamics of spacetime structures.

here is a point that i do not get. If change of time is possible it would mean that it can be done either - or +.

This is the same as the attribute of directional properties.

how can one mass exist at two places when in reallity it exists in a diffrent place?

All electrons are identical. They have the same mass, charge, and two states of spin. So two electrons can be in the same place iff they have opposite spin - Pauli's exclusion principle. Three electrons will never be in the same place. But three quarks can be in the same place because there are three color charge R, G, and B in contrast to electric charge of (+) and (-).

How do we see? Do we not see due to the reflectiong of EMR? if the light has not bounced to something and reflected back how can we see that?

We see because energy and matter can interact. This is the science of quantum electrodynamics (QED) or quantum field theory (QFT).

 

[bayan]

Is it possible to travel back in time?


If you can bend space you will be able to strech time.


For you to slow time you need to reach fast speeds, when you reach C time stops for you only.

are these things right?

If time can be streched it surly will be able to be compressed! To slow time you need to reach C. To speed up the time you will have to move slower than still

 

[Epsilon Pi]

With mind everything is possible; in fact in the same way we can access the future, most probably we can access the past, but physically it is another thing.
Even if we start with the prevailing physics paradigm, where time is assimilated to a space dimension, there are impossible problems to overcome, as we reach the velocity of light, an infinite "mass", an infinite "energy", according to those formulas due to Einstein.
Is not a flaw supposition to think that time stops with the velocity of light? It is not that way in the reality "out there". But in sci-fi everything is possible.
Regards
EP

Is it possible to travel back in time?


If you can bend space you will be able to strech time.


For you to slow time you need to reach fast speeds, when you reach C time stops for you only.

are these things right?

If time can be streched it surly will be able to be compressed! To slow time you need to reach C. To speed up the time you will have to move slower than still

 

[Antonio Lao]

Is it possible to travel back in time? If you can bend space you will be able to strech time.

According to general relativity, the bending of space also bends time or the same as bending of a spacetime structure, the radius of curvature decreases. But the curvature is the inverse of the radius. For zero radius (zero size), the curvature is infinite. So a truly point object has infinite curvature but it also has no size, its ddimension is zero, a point. In cosmology, this point is the big bang singularity where the time is zero, the volume is zero, the energy density is infinite, the temperature is infinite. In order to travel thru a different direction of time, one must first pass thru the singularity.

 

[sol2]

According to general relativity, the bending of space also bends time or the same as bending of a spacetime structure, the radius of curvature decreases. But the curvature is the inverse of the radius. For zero radius (zero size), the curvature is infinite. So a truly point object has infinite curvature but it also has no size, its ddimension is zero, a point. In cosmology, this point is the big bang singularity where the time is zero, the volume is zero, the energy density is infinite, the temperature is infinite. In order to travel thru a different direction of time, one must first pass thru the singularity.

Well put Antonio

If we were to look at young's experment for a moment, and you knew that the photon could take many roads to the backdrop, can you imagine the many worlds that could have been traveled by this photon, if it traveled through dimensions?

So I would ask you then, if you seen this photon travel through a gravitonic field, how would you describe it's journey, mathematically? All the events have been detailled in your post, so maybe go from there?