Something to do with space being time 0.o

[Mr.Matt]

Can someone explain to me how you can spatialize time, and why can't you temporalize space? Also, why is the spatailization of time only temporary and why can it involve only one dimension of space at a time?

I've just been doing a bit of reading at this came up.

I may have, however, completely misread the paragraph, and what I just asked may have made no sense whatsoever. Here it is:

The spatialization of time is not something abrupt; it is a continuous process. Viewed in reverse as the temporalization of (one dimension of) space, it implies that time can emerge out of space in a continuous process. (By continuous, I mean that the timelike quality of a dimension, as opposed to its spacelike quality, is not an all-or-nothing affair; there are shades in between. This vague statement can be made quite precise mathematically.)

Thanks for any help (:.

 

[tiny-tim]

Welcome to PF!

Hi Mr.Matt! Welcome to PF!

Your quote is from an article by Paul Davies at http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/big-bang.html …

it's explained by the previous paragraph (my italics) …

In spite of the space-time linkage, however, space is space and time is time under almost all circumstances. Whatever space-time distortions gravitation may produce, they never turn space into time or time into space.

An exception arises, though, when quantum effects are taken into account. That all-important intrinsic uncertainty that afflicts quantum systems can be applied to space-time, too. In this case, the uncertainty can, under special circumstances, affect the identities of space and time. For a very, very brief duration, it is possible for time and space to merge in identity, for time to become, so to speak, spacelike-just another dimension of space.

… though I've no idea what he's talking about

 

[Mr.Matt]

Thanks for answering (:

I had read the article and I understood most of it until this part (:

I can understand what he's saying in that paragraph, but to me that tells me that it does rather than why it does (:.

 

[Dmitry67]

Distance in 4D euclidean space is defined as S^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + t^2
Distance in 3D+T Minkowsky space is defined as S^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - t^2
Now define distance as S^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + Kt^2
Changing K from -1 to 1 you can gradually get rid of time, converting it into space, you switch it back :)

 

[Mr.Matt]

Oh wow 0.o. That's actually a lot more simple than I thought it would be. I was expecting, like, a page long equation or something (:.