Time Explained

Time is very simple, once you get it. But “getting it” is very difficult. That’s because your common concept of time is so deeply ingrained. You think of time as a length:

Q: How long will it take to get to London?
A: What do you mean long?

We form a mental map of the world using our senses and our brains. We use time to think, and we’ve all grown accustomed to thinking about it in a particular way. So much so, that we don't think about it any more, and we don't see time for what it really is.

But let’s start with something easier. Let’s start with colour. Follow the link below to conduct an experiment:

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/Optical...Perception.html

This demonstrates something important about colour perception. What you thought was yellow is in fact grey. It really is. It isn’t a trick. Make your own mask to remove "context" - tear a small hole in a piece of paper, hold it up to one image after the other, and you’ll realise that the effect is genuine. What does this tell you? It tells you that your colour is perception rather than reality. Imagine a super-evolved alien bat with a large number of ears, rather like a fly’s eye. This bat would “see” using sound, and if it was sufficiently advanced it would see in colour. This should be a reminder that in the subatomic world there is no such thing as colour. A photon has a wavelength, an electromagnetic oscillation, a motion.

Next let’s take a look at heat. Sssz, put your hand on the griddle and you know heat is real. But we talk about heat exchangers and heat flow as if there’s some magical mysterious fluid in there. And yet we know there isn’t, because junior-level physics tells us that heat is the atomic or molecular motion. It’s a “derived effect”, or a macro effect if you prefer. Sure, heat is a real thing. But you know it's really motion.

Pressure is similar. You can’t measure the pressure of an atom, because pressure isn’t a fundamental property of the sub-atomic world. It’s another ”derived effect”, and the Kinetic Theory of Gases tells us it is derived from... motion.

Did I mention Sound? That’s rather like light because we have waves, and rather like pressure because they’re pressure waves. Again it all comes down to air molecules, and whaddya know, our old friend... motion.

You want some kinetic energy? A cannonball in space travelling at 1000m/s has kinetic energy yeah? All soaked into it, right? Oh sorry. It isn't the cannonball doing 1000m/s. It's me. So where's the kinetic energy now? Aw, it's just a mathematical expression of stopping distance. There isn't any, not really. All there is is motion.

You should be getting the drift by now. We are accustomed to thinking about the world in terms of how we experience it, rather than the empirical, fundamental, underlying things that are there. And nowhere is this more so than with Time.

We say things like Clocks slow down as if a clock is something that moves like a car. But it isn't travelling, so there's no slow or fast or up or down to it. The only thing happening is the internal cyclic motion. Being counted, incremented, added up. We count this regular motion to use as a ratio against some other motion, be it of light, atoms, buses, or brains. All of these things have motion. Some have more of it than others. And all those motions are real, with real directions in space. But the time direction isn't real. It's as imaginary as the direction you take when you count along the set of integers. That's why the past is only in your head and your records. It isn't a place you can go. It's the places that things were, and those places are still here, now. The past is the sum of all nows, and now lasts for 0 seconds because there is no time. Only motion. A second is nine billion motions of a caesium atom. Accelerate to half the speed of light and a second is still nine billion motions of a caesium atom. But there's only half the local motion there used to be, because the other half is already kicking against the permeability of space.

What does this mean? For one thing it means what you've always secretly suspected: time travel is bunk. But more seriously, if time is not what we think, what do we do with speed? Do we kick t out of all of our equations? Do we rephrase special relativity? Where does it all end?

One thing I'm sure about is this. The world of quantum physics is strange because when you get down to the nitty-gritty, there is no colour. There is no heat. There is no sound. There is no pressure. And there is no time. Only motion. And whatever those particles are that are moving, they ain't pretty little billiard balls with a surface. Now you have an inkling of how strange the world really is.

Oh yeah. If you don't believe me, if you think I'm wrong, prove it.

Show me the maths.

How do you propose to define motion without time? Silly billy...

And what we've basically got here is a few paragraphs of arm waving, and you giving your interpretation of "time". There are no exact definitions, no formal arguments - just arm waving. So your request of "disproof by mathematics" is testiment to the fact you don't have the first idea about the subject.

I just don't understand how so many idiotic cranks have all congregated on this one forum. I'm losing more and more faith in the human race everytime I see this type of drivel.

Why don't you people actually use some time to learn some theoretical physics, instread of trying to sidestep that effort by saying "I think it's wrong... this is better... *begin armwave*... there, I have a new theory of the Universe". There are a multitude of reasources on the internet, ranging from basic calculus, to the SU(3) quark model in particle physics, from basic geometry to pseudo-Riemannian manifolds in GR. I doubt any of you will ever do this: it's far easier for you to just dismiss all this stuff and wave your arms.

.....because learning is hard, posting crap is easy.

Particles of the Cosmic Rays become relativistic when they move with a speed close to light.
The objects of the early Universe moving very fast relatively to us are not relativistic.
Why ?

czeslaw,

Just one question what do you base your statement on please. I am not being rude or setting a trap I just want to better understand your statement czeslaw.

Just give me some viable scientific papers I can read that has preformed a study on this. I will take it with me on my way to a conference. [About the only time I have some time to myself.}

Best
caio_
yquantum

Some people say the motion is relative. There is no background.
We observe Cosmic rays and they become relativistic (with a relativistic mass and energy) and we observe some Quasars or stars of the early Universe moving also very fast but they are not relativistic (without a relativistic mass and energy).
Both of them move very fast but not both gain relativistic mass and energy.
Is it a background causing a relativistic motion ?

All: Here's an interesting interview with Julian Barbour:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/barbour/barbour_p1.html


Euler/Pupamancur: You think this is crazy, but time travel and multiple universes isnt? LOL. Stop parroting and learn how to think. And show me the maths.

Hmmm, fancy going back over this:

I've highlighted the bits which might warrant a response, or are important for you to look at before responding. If you'd read the above carefully, then you might have saved yourself a little embarrasment:

Saying it twice makes you look twice as stupid. Congratulations.

As ever, Euler contributes zip. He can't formulate a reasoned argument, and when he sees something that isn't in his bible he just squawks insults.

By Aether Wave theory (AWT) the time is part of physical reality. The Universe has materialized it's history in myriads of quantum fluctuations of vacuum. We are living on wrecks of ancient black holes, squished by gravitational pressure. The whole observable world is inertial, but the time is the only quantity, which doesn't requires the inertia at all, just the space and diffusion, i.e. concentration leveling. This is the fundamental process, which produces the time and energy.

The more concentration gradients in some place, the more time is required for their dissolution, the more energy requires this process, the more matter is in such volume area. The matter/energy is simply materialized time. Whenever you're buying the shoes, food or piece of gold, you're just buying the physical time, immanently enclosed in such products, which is required for it's manufacturing and/or collecting. By such way, the time is general means of payment. The chaos is void, useless and priceless. It doesn't contains any concentration gradients and the time arrow in it is undefined.

This post has been edited by Zephir on Oct 13 2006, 05:52 PM

Hmmm, I'm not sure if what I've said's gone over your head. Perhaps read it a little slower:

I've highlighted the bits which might warrant a response, or are important for you to look at before responding. If you'd read the above carefully, then you might have saved yourself a little embarrasment:

Saying it twice makes you look twice as stupid. Congratulations.

I'll just paraphrase if your struggling:

1) How do you define motion without time?
2) How do you expect to disprove someone's armwaving interpretation of time? You have given no formal definitions, no precise statements, no derivations.
3) Why don't you actually learn some mathematics and then some theoretical physics, so you will actually be in a position to comment on current theory?

...

Time travel into the future is easy, you don't even need to do any fancy general relativity stuff (though you can if you want), just use special relativity time dilation effects and a powerful rocket. A week to you is a year to Earth and bam! you're 51 weeks into the future

It's the getting back to the past which is a bit of a problem. Usually end up needing materials denser than neutronium (ie solid neutrons!) and the energy of a supernova.

His point is that so far, neither have you, you've just waved your arms and made a lot of claims. You, like Zephir, have to provide some reason for your theory or view point to be at least equivalent, or better, to current ones.

It would be not so difficult, because the current theory of time doesn't exist at all.

It would seem you're avoiding the questions:

Alphanumeric:

You don't even need that. Just sit there in your chair. In fact, try not doing it. Then ask yourself why you can't not do it.

Sure it's a problem. The same problem as actually moving along the set of integers.

I gave a reasoned explanation starting with perception and moving on to derived effects and empirical properties. Try picking it apart step by step.