Questions about time

[Farsight]

No sweat Merton. People are always trying to peddle time travel. There's a lot of great movies which feature time travel, but I'm afraid it's science fiction. And when it comes to physics, I'm afraid it's "woo".

The best way to think about why is to consider the stasis box. That's science fiction too, but it's like fighting fire with fire. No motion occurs inside the box, so when I put you inside, electromagnetic and other phenomena don’t propagate, and absolutely nothing happens. So you can’t see, you can’t hear, and you can’t even think. Hence when I open the door 5 years later, to you it’s like I opened the door just as soon as I closed it. And get this: you “travelled” to the future by not moving at all. Instead everything else did. And that motion wasn’t through time, and it wasn’t through spacetime, it was through space.

This bit is important. You can't travel through spacetime because it's an "all time view". It's like taking a film of a red ball travelling across a room, then cutting the reel up into individual frames and stacking them into a vertical pile. You can see a red streak in there, which is effectively the ball's world-line. But the ball isn't moving along it. Hence there's no actual travel through spacetime, and nor is there any actual travel through time.

Anyway, whilst the stasis box is science fiction, don’t forget that we can freeze embryos now. So “in the future” maybe we’ll be able to freeze an adult. Then you could “travel” to the future by stepping into a freezer. But you aren’t travelling. You aren’t moving at all. Everything else is.

 

[leon_heller]

Someone, I forget who, once said that time was needed to prevent everything happening at once.

 

[steve s]

Farsight, yeah, that was my bad. I don't know what my friend was talking about, but it seems clear that he didn't understand or remember the experiment well.

I think it's probably what ctamblyn was talking about with particle accelerators. They speed up particles to nearly the speed of light and study the effects that it has on them.

Steve S

 

[keyfeatures]

[*]Does time even exist?

"Does time exist?" the wise man said, "Is something asked because the head oft-times ignores how words are wed". Of course time 'is'. This point's not moot. The reason's found in logic's root; Existence ain't an attribute. Which means that just as fairy, faun, Medussa's eyes, the unicorn may 'be', they aren't 'of virgin born'. Ask what is time (you've named it real). To find out check the contents, feel out for the proofs. Deal or no deal?


PoV? Try this for size.


If all change is only perceived subjectively, the universally expressed whole can be seen to objectively lead to the conclusion that all moments exist timelessly. Therefore, in order to have the subjective experience of 'flow', we must return to moments infinitely. The unus versom is as it must be, was and will be.

 

[Farsight]

PoV? Try this for size.

The article reads as if the writer got things a bit garbled, but I know Amrit Sorli, and that his thinking is on the right lines. I'd say think of it in very simple terms like this: what's out there isn't actually space and time, it's space and motion. How do I know this? Well, I can see space, and I can see things moving, but I can't see time flowing. Oh, and I've read A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein. That's not to say time does not exist. It just doesn't exist as something fundamental and mysterious. It's like heat, it's an "emergent phenomena" resulting from motion. Stop the clock and you stop motion, not time.

 

[Bell]

Stop the clock and you stop motion, not time.

Isn't it so that if we stop motion, we stop time? After all, if nothing moves or changes, how can we tell how much, if any, time has passed?

 

[Perpetual Student]

The article reads as if the writer got things a bit garbled, but I know Amrit Sorli, and that his thinking is on the right lines. I'd say think of it in very simple terms like this: what's out there isn't actually space and time, it's space and motion. How do I know this? Well, I can see space, and I can see things moving, but I can't see time flowing. Oh, and I've read A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein. That's not to say time does not exist. It just doesn't exist as something fundamental and mysterious. It's like heat, it's an "emergent phenomena" resulting from motion. Stop the clock and you stop motion, not time.

Nonsense, rubbish and sophistry! Time is no more an emergent property of motion than motion is an emergent property of time. Time, like space, is a fundamental aspect of reality. How does one stop the intrinsic motion of a cesium atom?

 

[ctamblyn]

Nonsense, rubbish and sophistry! Time is no more an emergent property of motion than motion is an emergent property of time. Time, like space, is a fundamental aspect of reality. How does one stop the intrinsic motion of a cesium atom?

Further to your point, where is the motion which governs the mean lifetime of a muon? And how does one define motion without something akin to time, anyway...?

 

[Farsight]

Isn't it so that if we stop motion, we stop time?

Yes.

After all, if nothing moves or changes, how can we tell how much, if any, time has passed?

You can't. There's been science fiction movies where somebody stops time. Suddenly people are motionless, and drops of water are artistically posed in mid air. But there's a flaw in those science fiction movies. Let me try to illustrate it.

I welcome you into an interview room. I'm sat behind the desk, and get you to sit opposite. On this desk is a big red button. I explain the situation: "If you press this button you will stop time", I say. "Press the button again to start it again".

Would you press the button?

 

[Farsight]

Nonsense, rubbish and sophistry!

No wonder you're the Perpetual Student. You're too quick to dismiss what's beyond your ken.

Time is no more an emergent property of motion than motion is an emergent property of time. Time, like space, is a fundamental aspect of reality.

Oh no it isn't. Now go and read about Einstein and Godel. Then hold your hands up a yard apart. See that gap between them? That's space. You can't see anything there, but you can see that it's there. Now waggle your hands. See them moving? Yep. I can show you space and motion, now you show me time. You can't.

Do you have a watch? Let's say it's a quartz watch. Open it up, and lie it on the table in front of you. See that time flowing in there? No, all that's in there is a vibrating crystal and some electronics. The crystal is moving. Electrons are moving. So what do clocks do? Measure the flow of time? No. All they do is accumulate some kind of regular motion and show you a tally that you call the time.

Space and motion isn't nonsense, rubbish and sophistry. But time flowing like some mystic river, and time travel, is.

How does one stop the intrinsic motion of a cesium atom?

Easy. You throw it into a black hole.

 

[ctamblyn]

Isn't it so that if we stop motion, we stop time? After all, if nothing moves or changes, how can we tell how much, if any, time has passed?

What about a situation where you have an object that sits there motionless for a couple of seconds and then changes into a different object? There is no motion for those two seconds, but there is surely a time interval.

 

[Perpetual Student]

No wonder you're the Perpetual Student. You're too quick to dismiss what's beyond your ken.

With that kind of blind response, you might consider changing your handle to "Nearsight."

Oh no it isn't. Now go and read about Einstein and Godel. Then hold your hands up a yard apart. See that gap between them? That's space. You can't see anything there, but you can see that it's there. Now waggle your hands. See them moving? Yep. I can show you space and motion, now you show me time. You can't.

You have already given us that naive proclamation. It is as nonsensical now as it was before. Are you still six pounds and sucking on your mothers breasts? No? Why not? That's time! When did the big bang happen? When did the earth form? That's time! Your reading of Einstein and Gödel without comprehension may be fun for you but it is obviously quite fruitless.

Do you have a watch? Let's say it's a quartz watch. Open it up, and lie it on the table in front of you. See that time flowing in there? No, all that's in there is a vibrating crystal and some electronics. The crystal is moving. Electrons are moving. So what do clocks do? Measure the flow of time? No. All they do is accumulate some kind of regular motion and show you a tally that you call the time.

More naive double-talk! Your love of telling us of your reading of Einstein appears to be quite hollow since you clearly missed the part about time being the fourth dimension of "spacetime." You had better go back and do some rereading.

Space and motion isn't nonsense, rubbish and sophistry. But time flowing like some mystic river, and time travel, is.

Nice straw man! Did I say anything about time travel? I said your comments are "nonsense, rubbish and sophistry," not space and motion. It is no wonder you end up in these endless ad hominem exchanges.

Easy. You throw it into a black hole.

More naivety! Yes indeed, throw it in so it becomes subject to Hawking radiation, which continues to demonstrate the passage of time.

 

[keyfeatures]

Yes.

You can't. There's been science fiction movies where somebody stops time. Suddenly people are motionless, and drops of water are artistically posed in mid air. But there's a flaw in those science fiction movies. Let me try to illustrate it.

I welcome you into an interview room. I'm sat behind the desk, and get you to sit opposite. On this desk is a big red button. I explain the situation: "If you press this button you will stop time", I say. "Press the button again to start it again".

Would you press the button?

A new WMD?

However, imagine no human agency is required to cause all motion to stop simultaneously and restart. How could we tell? We couldn't.

 

[h.g.Whiz]

The concept of time.

I'm thoroughly confused by it. I don't claim to know much about it at all, and it's a concept I cannot get my head around. I've read about time dilation, different dimensions, and other physics related topics and while I can sort of grasp them, there comes a point where I realize how just being human can limit my ability to understand some things and it leads me into a spiral of doubt and uncertainty.

Questions like:

• Has everything already happened but we are just viewing one moment at a time?

Thanks

What do you mean by everything?

 

[Farsight]

With that kind of blind response, you might consider changing your handle to "Nearsight"...

You have already given us that naive proclamation...

More naive double-talk...

Nice straw man...

More naivety...

Sheesh. Reminds me of the time I told that guy that there ain't no heaven.

Yes indeed, throw it in so it becomes subject to Hawking radiation, which continues to demonstrate the passage of time.

Sorry, Perpetual Student, but Hawking radiation remains hypothetical. Nobody has ever seen it. And you believe in things that you cannot see whilst you dismiss things that you can. Now go and find a clock, go look at it, and go and ask yourself this: What does a clock clock up?

You won't, will you? All I'll get is another diatribe of dismissal. Sigh, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

 

[Farsight]

However, imagine no human agency is required to cause all motion to stop simultaneously and restart. How could we tell? We couldn't.

Quite right. No harm done then. So would you press the button?

 

[keyfeatures]

Quite right. No harm done then. So would you press the button?

Don't be silly.

You have to get out of bed earlier to catch me out.

 

[RobDegraves]

I explain the situation: "If you press this button you will stop time", I say. "Press the button again to start it again".

It's a silly question, but no... obviously since time is stopped you could not restart it.

However...


So far, Farsight, you have demonstrated no understanding of physics even to my level.. which is not that impressive. Time is a facet of physics in the same way that space is and that concept has stood the test of time (pun intended).

Just because you think it's nonsense only demonstrates that you don't understand it, not that it's wrong. Making general statements that time doesn't exist etc. does not make you correct... it just makes you annoying. If you have actual proof that most of modern physics and most physicists are wrong, then present it.

The nature of time is actually quite a bit of a debate, one that I'm quite interested in. However, your arguments in general have no scientific validity and you have yet to demonstrate any in depth knowledge of the subject.

My suggestion... pick another hobby.

 

[fuelair]

Very possible. I'm a little ashamed that I didn't follow the military credo "trust but verify" on this one; a lesson for next time, I guess.

Actually, you did just fine - you presented your info as accurately as you could, got information and adjusted your belief/knowledge system. Not a heck of a lot you could do otherwise as far as I can tell!! No shame anywhere in that.

 

[keyfeatures]

Time is a facet of physics in the same way that space is and that concept has stood the test of time (pun intended).

False equivalence.

Time as an observational unit within which we view material change exists, this doesn't make time a thing that can be travelled along. Therefore, it's not a dimension in the same way that space is.