Is Time's Speed Just Wild Speculation?

  • Thread starter Thread starter monty37
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Speed Time
Click For Summary
The discussion centers on the concept of time and its perceived "speed," questioning whether it can be quantified meaningfully. While Newton viewed time as constant, Einstein's theories suggest that time is relative, affected by motion and gravity, leading to varying perceptions of time across different frames of reference. Participants argue that asking for the "speed of time" is inherently flawed, with many concluding it can only be described as "one second per second." They also explore the analogy of moving through spacetime, where an object's speed through time decreases as its speed through space increases. Ultimately, the conversation highlights the complexities and misunderstandings surrounding the nature of time in physics.
  • #31
now,time is a dimension,to us on Earth we say its speed is "1 sec per sec"??
may i know the speed in m/sec. its us passing through time,this what differentiates past
from present.so,how to express speed of time in m/sec??
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #32
i think the speed of time is the distance ticked every instant by the needle
of the atomic clock per every second. what say?atomic clock is supposed to
be the most accurate timepiece.
 
  • #33
monty37 said:
now,time is a dimension,to us on Earth we say its speed is "1 sec per sec"??
may i know the speed in m/sec.
It depends on which conversion factor between meters and seconds you choose.Usually the speed of light is used, so the speed trough time of an object at rest would be the speed of light (299 792 458 m / s). But this is just a convenient convention.
 
  • #34
DaveC426913 said:
Left is a direction in a dimension. If negatron were going to be perfectly literal in correcting you, he would have said "More accurately, what is the speed of width?"

I said it is a part of width, which of course implies that you can change it such that height or depth are labeled as such depending on your chosen set of coordinates, x/y/z, etc.

There's no need to "correct" my smart-aleck response, replace "what is the speed of time" with "what is the speed of future" and the quip "what is the speed of left" with "what is the speed of width" would fit just as well.

:P
 
  • #35
Max™ said:
There's no need to "correct" my smart-aleck response, replace "what is the speed of time" with "what is the speed of future" and the quip "what is the speed of left" with "what is the speed of width" would fit just as well.
:P
You're suggesting the original question should be changed to better suit your answer? :confused:
 
  • #36
I very much hope that in a few hundred years time some physicist finds this archived thread and experiences much mirth at all the confusion surrounding something that, to her, will seem obvious.

This is not to criticize any of the contributers; it is the nature of science.

And I also recognise that this comment adds nothing positive to the debate.
 
  • #37
I vote for 9.8 meters per second as the speed of time relative to Earth.:-p
 
  • #38
Nisse said:
I very much hope that in a few hundred years time some physicist finds this archived thread and experiences much mirth at all the confusion surrounding something that, to her, will seem obvious.

This is not to criticize any of the contributers; it is the nature of science.

And I also recognise that this comment adds nothing positive to the debate.

They'll also be wondering about your comment, and why most physicists where female for a brief span of history within western culture. :/
 
Last edited:
  • #39
DaveC426913 said:
You're suggesting the original question should be changed to better suit your answer? :confused:

I'm suggesting the answer was pretty well given already, but I have a compulsion to make dumb jokes, and "the speed of left" is one of them.
 
  • #40
DaveC426913 said:
You're suggesting the original question should be changed to better suit your answer? :confused:
Hey, that's a great idea. A professor could determine what percentage of the question would need to be changed in order to make a student's answer right, and that is the student's score on the question!
 
  • #41
I very much hope that in a few hundred years time some physicist finds this archived thread and experiences much mirth at all the confusion surrounding something that, to her, will seem obvious.

This is not to criticize any of the contributers; it is the nature of science.

To the contrary, I was about to post a similar thought.

My only critique about this wonderful forum is that conventional scientific answers are given with such authority many would be led to think they are a final, complete and accurate answer. I do believe conventional scientific understanding should form the basis of replies but it is also important to foster new ways of thinking about problems or progress will be stifled. Clearly there is more we do not understand than we do.

I am beginning to wonder if the recent lack of major theoretical scientific breakthroughs to some degree results from an overreliance on conventional approaches, ridicule of those who propose revolutionary ideas, and a general lack of a willingness to listen to opposing views.
Seems like experimentalists have found the most interesting new science lately.

If government grants go only to conventional thinkers, mankind may be shooting itself in the foot. That's not the type thinking that led people like Copernicus, Einstein, Witten, Wheeler and others to new scientific insights.
 
  • #42
Hello all.

It is interesting to note that the phrase "shooting oneself in the foot" originally had a very different meaning from its current one of accidently doing harm to one's cause. It was a deliberate act by a soldier on himself to render himself no longer fit for service to escape the horrors of trench warfare.. I believe it originated during the First World War in the trenches in France.

Matheinste.
 
  • #43
Naty1 said:
I am beginning to wonder if the recent lack of major theoretical scientific breakthroughs to some degree results from an overreliance on conventional approaches, ridicule of those who propose revolutionary ideas, and a general lack of a willingness to listen to opposing views.
I suspect that it is probably more due to the general unwillingness of people who propose "revolutionary" ideas to actually put even minimal effort into making sure that their idea is logically sound and consistent with existing experiments. The scientific community is certainly willing to listen good ideas, but simply being "revolutionary" is not the same as being good.

Also, most "revolutionary" ideas are actually "counter-revolutionary". In other words they seek to reject modern physics when they should instead be demonstrating that their theory reduces to relativity and quantum mechanics in the appropriate limits.
 
  • #44
DaleSpam said:
Hey, that's a great idea. A professor could determine what percentage of the question would need to be changed in order to make a student's answer right, and that is the student's score on the question!
You'd want the score to be 100 - the percentage. :wink:
 
  • #45
matheinste said:
It is interesting to note that the phrase "shooting oneself in the foot" originally had a very different meaning from its current one of accidently doing harm to one's cause. It was a deliberate act by a soldier on himself to render himself no longer fit for service to escape the horrors of trench warfare.. I believe it originated during the First World War in the trenches in France.

Worldwide Words (a source which has consistently proven itself to me) disagrees with you:

In the sense of a minor self-inflicted injury for the reasons you give, it is certainly older [than the 1980s]. My erratic memory suggests it was a well-known tactic in the First World War, rather too well known to officers and medics even then to be easily carried off. I found a reference in a 1933 book, Death in the Woods and Other Stories by Sherwood Anderson.

...

As a literal expression describing an accidental injury it is earlier still, from the middle of the nineteenth century...A search of US newspapers found 187 items between 1960 and 1965 reporting that a man had accidentally shot himself in the foot; it’s no doubt a common injury down to the present day (it’s difficult to search for, as most examples are now figurative).

I’m sure the expression shoot oneself in the foot derives from such accidents, usually the result of incompetence, and has led to our current meaning of making an embarrassing error of judgement or inadvertently making one’s own situation worse. That men did it deliberately as a way to avoid combat is only a side meaning.
 
  • #46
negitron said:
Worldwide Words (a source which has consistently proven itself to me) disagrees with you:


I stand corrected.

Matheinste.
 
  • #47
matheinste said:
I stand corrected.

Matheinste.

I don't buy the 'corrected' version. So there :)
 
  • #48
time is a dimention... it has no speed...
 
  • #49
I believe the time is just a human-made term.
The term is made for forecasting needs.
If you have a ball and two bullets fired in directions to its different sides then
if left bullet will come first it will move ball to the right and the other bullet will miss.
if right bullet will come first it will move ball to the left and the other bullet will miss.
So to understand the final position of the ball we need to know bullets Speeds.
And with using the term "Speed" we come to use also the term "Time".
So Time is a measure of "what will come earlier".
 
  • #50
Hi m.starkov, welcome to PF,

By "time is just a human-made term" what do you mean? Do you just mean that the word itself is human-made, or that there is no physical reality to time itself (the thing represented by the term)?
 
  • #51
Hi DaleSpam,

I believe the physical reality of the thing represented by the term Time is just a cause-effect chains of this world.
 
  • #52
OK, that sounds like you do believe that time is physically real. So then I don't really understand your original comment.
 
  • #53
I believe the following question is related to the topic.

I have one simple (i believe) question to people who are familiar with relativity theory.
We have following cases in which we need to compare elapsed time on different clocks.
At the beginning of each experiment clocks will be syncronized.
We have measured marks on the ground: A 250m B 250m C 250m D 250m E
Clocks starts from a distance of 1 kilometer at points A and E.
At the end of each experiment elapsed times will be t1 and t2 accordingly.
So the Clock which started from A, at the end will show t1.
And the Clock which started from E, at the end will show t2.

The question for all cases is the same: t1 ? t2.
I mean:
Answer "1": t1 = t2
Answer "2": t1 < t2
Answer "3": t1 > t2

1. Both clocks are in inertial frames. At the end they meet in point C. (I hope the answer is "1")
2. Both clocks are in inertial frames. At the end they meet in point B.
3. Only the Right clocks (which come from E) is in inertial frame.
The Left clocks come to point C first and stops (smoothly).
After a second the Right clock comes to point C (and this is the end).

Could please somebody give answers for these all cases?
 
  • #54
How the time can be unreal if we can observe it?
So we have to separate the term Time used for measuring and the world Time flow.
My original post was about the term Time which people use for their measuring needs.
And if the Topic question regards to world time flow then the answer will be the following.
We have cause-effect chains observed in this world.
We take anyone cause-effect chain with known size and name it as Etalon.
Then we can compare other observed cause-effect chains with the Etalon chain and
determine which ends earlier.
This is how I understand the Time.
 
Last edited:
  • #55
m.starkov said:
So the Clock which started from A, at the end will show t1.
And the Clock which started from E, at the end will show t2.

The question for all cases is the same: t1 ? t2.
The general formula for the time elapsed on a clock is called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_time" and is given by:
dτ² = dt² - dx²/c² - dy²/c² - dz²/c²

I will leave it to you to plug in the numbers for your specific problem. Note that the proper time, dτ, is an invariant quantity, meaning that it has the same value in all coordinate systems. I.e. it is absolute, not relative. This is in contrast with the coordinate time, dt, which is relative or frame dependent.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #56
Dear DaleSpam,

Actually I expect only 3 bytes of information for my Clocks question.
For example: 111 or 133 or 132, ok?

Thank you
 
  • #57
You are welcome. Please calculate the 3 bytes yourself, I gave you the formula. I have already passed the class and have no desire to do someone else's homework.
 
  • #58
There is nothing to calculate if you know the principle.
I don't need exact value of difference.
The conditions are trivial!
And I just need a clear answer < , > or =.
If you are not sure about the answer you can skip it.
And this is not a homework..
 
  • #59
m.starkov said:
And this is not a homework..
Excellent, if it is not homework then an answer which is true in general is always preferable to an answer which is only true for a special case. As I mentioned above, the general answer is:
dτ² = dt² - dx²/c² - dy²/c² - dz²/c²

Simply plug in the coordinate time for dt and the coordinate distances for dx, dy, and dz, and you can get your special-case answers and the special case answer for any other possible scenario that you can invent.
 
  • #60
DaleSpam said:
Simply plug in the coordinate time for dt and the coordinate distances for dx, dy, and dz

Do you mean there is not enough arguments in the question?
Why I need to plug something?
Is it possible to say what is greater just looking at the conditions?
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 18 ·
Replies
18
Views
2K
  • · Replies 51 ·
2
Replies
51
Views
4K
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
1K
  • · Replies 93 ·
4
Replies
93
Views
5K
  • · Replies 72 ·
3
Replies
72
Views
4K
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
2K
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
2K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
2K
  • · Replies 74 ·
3
Replies
74
Views
5K
  • · Replies 9 ·
Replies
9
Views
2K