What Is Time: Answers to Your Questions

[seasnake]

Time is what clocks measure, nothing but.

so under your definition, time doesn't start until somebody first builds a clock

 

[epenguin]

so under your definition, time doesn't start until somebody first builds a clock

No - physical events constitute a clock. E.g. the rotation of the Earth is used as a clock. It was not constructed by humans if that is what you mean.

 

[cragar]

a clock is used to observe time . time is something that is there.

 

[Stratosphere]

Can time exist without matter and space? And can space exist without time?

 

[cragar]

space and time are one thing. the spacetime continium.
i would say that time could exist without matter.

 

[rosie]

Wasn't that Einstein's discovery - that time had to be factored into a description of matter? Without it - descriptions are incomplete? That's why I liked Seasnake's description. It relates to fundamental changes to matter.

"space and time are one thing. the spacetime continium.
i would say that time could exist without matter. - Cragar"

Then time would first need space and that's another question. Did the space for the universe exist before the big bang? Something out there for the universe to fit into?

As I'm a proponent of the Steady State theory - a ridiculous minority - I buy into the concept that time has always existed - since the beginning - whenever that was?

But it's just the measure of change from the most fundamental perspective. And that change is always associated with temperature.

 

[tiny-tim]

Einstein

Wasn't that Einstein's discovery - that time had to be factored into a description of matter? Without it - descriptions are incomplete? That's why I liked Seasnake's description. It relates to fundamental changes to matter.

No, Einstein said no such thing.

(That's why I don't like Seasnake's description.)

Einstein said that time and three-dimensional space are (to some extent) interchangeable …

that has nothing to do with matter!

(Einstein also said that matter and energy are interchangeable …

that has nothing to do with time!)​

 

[rosie]

Tiny-tim - yet again. I stand corrected. These concepts are way beyond me. I need an elementary guide for the particularly stupid. I can't event get past the clock difference if I orbited Earth in synch with the Earth's orbit - no matter the distance. Maybe you can recommend some reading. Meanwhile I'll try and find something on the net.

 

[Andrew Mason]

Tiny-tim - yet again. I stand corrected. These concepts are way beyond me. I need an elementary guide for the particularly stupid. I can't event get past the clock difference if I orbited Earth in synch with the Earth's orbit - no matter the distance. Maybe you can recommend some reading. Meanwhile I'll try and find something on the net.

Search for articles on Special Relativity.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/relcon.html#relcon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity


Also look at General Relativity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
http://www.spacetimetravel.org/


In orbit you would be able to observe the same events as a person on the surface of the earth. It is just that you would disagree slightly on the time between events. You would see the sun rise every day and count the same number of days. It is just that your atomic clocks would differ on how long that day was.

AM

 

[rosie]

Thanks Andrew. I'll go for it.

 

[seasnake]

I'm still sticking with my answer as Absolute Zero is impossible to reach within our reality, that is to say that if Absolute Zero were reached time as we know it would cease to exist, though a new construct of time would originate as super conductivity and super fluidity result at absolute zero, but at Absolute Zero time would stand still (cease to exist) within our reality (this gives rise to relativity of time under kinetic energy).

"Einstein said that time and three-dimensional space are (to some extent) interchangeable …

that has nothing to do with matter!"

Are you insinuating that three-dimensional space exists without time, temperature, and matter? Cause if you aren't your argument makes no sense.

 

[rosie]

Seasnake - here's my penny's worth. Einstein - the giant - could not reconcile gravity in a general theory of relativity. I am not sure how 'good' he was but I know that our astrophysicists are pretty amazing and they use Einstein's insights to get some really amazing facts about our universe - from such tiny, tiny clues. It blows me away.

But for all that Einstein was not necessarily correct in every respect - not that I presume to understand in whichever way he was not correct - the point is that he developed his ideas by thinking out the box. And the fact that he left us with unanswered questions is a good thing. Because that way we can develop new ideas and new insights. Otherwise we'll all be parroting each other forever. That would really be boring.

 

[seasnake]

rosie, I've spent years trying to detangle the formulas and problems associated with how Einstein formulated energy, I'm very close to writing it up and submitting to the associated press... I'll be presenting it all graphically in a way that should be very simple to understand and readily acceptable

 

[rosie]

I thought you'd done some work here. Anything easy to understand gets my vote. But that's because I'm hopeless at getting my mind around these rarified concepts. The sad part is that it's not from want of effort. I love puzzles - but cannot crack this one. Way above me. At the moment I'm ploughing through the links sent by Andrew.

 

[seasnake]

Just spent the greater part of the day tossing away three day's work trying to transcribe the C in Einstein's formulas to become variable, as I could not get my sums to add up properly, then went over my notes and found a formula that I had no clue how I obtained it, but with some additional modifications finally got it to work with my sums, I'm very close to solving this puzzle (you have no idea the amount of time it takes to make such progress, I've had to create entirely new variables of which I hadn't a clue what they represented or if they were simply dummy variables that represented nothing, and then to try and figure them out later, is mind puzzling)... I still don't know what my results will be, but everything should be very simple upon completion (give me some more days).

Einstein wasn't so much wrong but instead incomplete, he touched upon something that needed worked out more and then the mathematicians and other physicists got ahold of his work and transformed it into something that was very confusing even to him. I read his article on relativity entitled, "How to Measure a Fish," Einstein was very much into trying to simply things so that everyone regardless of education and mathematical background could understand. He needed to be able to do that cause it was the only way anyone would ever publish or accept his work until he had a name for himself.

 

[rosie]

Einstein wasn't the only one who tried to simplify. Niels Bhor is on record as saying that unless a theory, or hypothesis? not sure which - can be explained to a high school student - ie - in simple terms - then it probably wasn't a valid theory.

I sympathise with your struggles seasnake. I also struggle. Am still trying to plough through those links sent by Andrew.

 

[seasnake]

lol... good luck on those links, I draw the line at simple arithmatic... if it can't be explained out in algebraic form it isn't simplified enough for my tastes

 

[tiny-tim]

fishics

Einstein … I read his article on relativity entitled, "How to Measure a Fish,"

oooh … oooh …

where can i find that? ​

 

[seasnake]

I can't find it online anymore, it used to be on a free website containing various works of philosophy by all types of people (like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, ...). The web is too big business, marketing orientated, anymore, its hard to find any decent sites anymore (most were lost due to monthly charging fees of domain names and hosting sites, if you aren't commercially orientated your site isn't bound to last long due to such costs).

 

[rosie]

Andrew and Tiny tim. I've just read through this entire thread. You guys are very patient. I'm pleased to report that - though still hopelessly confused I think I'm getting some marginal clarity on this subject. Wow - is all I can say at the moment. The question is just so hugely complex.

 

[swerdna]

I’ve never been able to see time as being an actual thing and that’s part of the difficulty I have in accepting that time can be dilated. I see time as being merely a generic term attributed to the fact that things move relative to other things in a contiguous sequence of instances of existence. Time is the amount of instances of existence between any two particular instances of existence. An instant of existence is what is captured by a photo.

 

[russ_watters]

Oy vey. Open challenging of established theories and intent to crack pots. We moderators dropped the ball here, sorry...

Seasnake, this isn't a place for that. This is a place for learning and understanding real science. You're new so I'll let it go with a polite warning - the next one won't be so nice. Perhaps more helpful: please note that the theory you are challenging has mountains of evidence supporting it. Anything you devise would necessarily have to be mathematically identical to Relativity (and therefore superfluous) otherwise it would make predictions about how the universe works that have already been proven wrong.

Other, more established members (tim...) - when you see a thread like this and the moderators aren't paying attention, please report it. We don't want to encourage crackpottery just because we overlooked something.

Thread locked.