If there is no energy, does time exist?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by wegs, Jul 6, 2019.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Physics experts, I need your help.

    If time is basically the measure of change, and if there is no energy then there is no change, would it be safe to assume that within a system absent of energy, Time wouldn't exist? (In this hypothetical scenario, there are no quantum fluctuations)

    What are your thoughts?
     
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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    If there is no energy and no quantum fluctuations, then this system is not part of the universe so there could be no time in that system.
     
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  5. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks!

    Okay, so then it would be safe to assume that the Big Bang would have been the first cause of time?
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Space and time [as we know them] evolved at t+10-43 seconds post BB.
     
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  8. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    So, before the BB, there was zero energy, therefore time didn't exist? Why is there a question then among scientists as to if the BB was actually the beginning of time, or what ''caused'' the BB? If we knew what caused the BB, how would that affect our current understanding of time? (and energy)

    Sometimes, I wonder if it's a safer bet to not explore things further, because wouldn't that change...well, everything?
     
  9. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    What existed before that first Planck instant at 10-43 seconds is speculation at best. The BB is not a theory of how the universe started....It is a theory of how space, time or the universe if you like, evolved from that 10-43 seconds.
    Notice I also said, the evolution of space and time [as we know them]
    Before that time, we can only speculate....part of that is that space and time may have existed in an unknown state...much as at the Planck level in a BH.
    It is often said that the universe is the ultimate free lunch.....
    https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0143-0807/11/4/008/meta

    The Universe: the ultimate free lunch

    Abstract
    It is commonly believed that the origin of the Universe must have involved the violation of natural laws, particularly energy conservation and the second law of thermodynamics. This need not have been the case, the present author shows that the Universe could have begun from a state of zero energy and maximum entropy, and then naturally evolved into what we see today without violating any known principles of physics. The fundamental particles and the force laws they obey then come about through a series of random symmetry-breaking phase transitions during the period of exponential expansion in the first fraction of a second after the Universe appears as a quantum fluctuation.
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  10. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Not unless you are afraid of what science may reveal.

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  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Effectively, yes. However, you could also not observe this system without influencing it, thus causing time to become observable.
     
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  12. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Time only exists because we die. To have time means you haven't died yet, but you will. Each moment has the potential to remain FOREVER (an infinite supply of energy.) However we change these moments of potential by willing things to become, which changes the potential infinity. Reversing time is impossible, but we can move into the future. Move into the future at the same rate time exists (FOREVER) and you negate time itself (cancel it out) and traverse into the past. Nothing will have changed, but you will have the knowledge that you have created something yourself that will remain forever. And this creation of eternality gives you eternal life, for as your former self progresses through society, you also immediately progress, the former never catching the latter.

    -------------->--------------->

    Creating FOREVER (ETERNALITY) MEANS JUST THAT.

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  13. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Or...may not reveal.

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  14. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I have questions, but I think I'll wait to post them tomorrow. Your response is much appreciated!
     
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  15. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Okay, I think I understand? What is meant by ''influencing'' it, in this context?
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    One of the things we have learned relatively recently is that you cannot observe a system without influencing it. So a system where no time is passing is effectively invisible.

    Think about how you might observe it. Would you pass photons through it and see if they were blocked by parts of the system? Then those parts will absorb the blocked photons, and will become warmer, whereas they were colder in the past. (i.e. time now has a direction.) Would you reflect photons off it? Then some of the system will absorb and re-radiate the light, thus once again showing an interaction that had a temporal component.
     
  17. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    We're learning and gaining knowledge all the time, but of course to ever contemplate that we will know all there is to know, is stretching the friendship some.
     
  18. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    My understanding is that the entropy of the universe increased because it expanded so quickly it was randomised "maximally".

    When the expansion era ended, the universe had as much entropy as it could have. Or as it could get from expansion. Apparently now that gravity (and curvature of spacetime) is around the universe increases entropy via gravitational collapse--it hides information as efficiently as it can.

    Of course, how else would it?
     
  19. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    You are obviously speaking about the Inflation era?.
     
  20. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, the initial expansion = inflation.

    Sorry I should have called it the inflation era not the expansion era; the universe is still expanding.
     
  21. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    --https://www.forbes.com/sites/starts...of-the-universe-at-the-big-bang/#3abf314b7280
     
  22. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    I may be wrong, but are you saying this ''system'' exists but has no time?
    John Wheeler.
    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler
    I'm trying to find a better source them wiki.
     
  23. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    This might be a dumb question, but if we influence a system in order to observe it, would the influence be known as ''power?'' I'm trying to make the distinction in my mind regarding power vs energy.

    Is energy the ''variation'' of the influence (action) for a given amount of time?
     

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