Time

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Tristan, Aug 30, 2001.

  1. Tristan Leave your World Behind Valued Senior Member

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    A funny little thing. WE, as in human race, created TIME. There is no if, and's, or but's. We created time. Comments? Please.

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  3. kmguru Staff Member

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    NO, the fish did that long before we arrived on this planet....
     
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  5. Tristan Leave your World Behind Valued Senior Member

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    Gezz attitude kmguru!!!!

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  7. Jay Renalsds Registered Member

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    Do you really need a living thing around to perceive time in order for time to exist?
     
  8. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Tristan: well said.
    You are close to the Tao.
     
  9. Pkunk Registered Member

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    its the same deal with "if a tree falls in the woods and noone is around it hear it, does it make a sound?"
     
  10. Panzer Dragoon Registered Member

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    Well, what about eternity. We have worked hard to set up this so called "Time" but is it really impossible for a human to understand infinity and eternity?
     
  11. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Our perception of time is what we distinguish as a calculation, Namely somebody saw how days turned to nights and realised that a period of time would equal each day, and as for the time they used a stick in the ground to make a sundial.

    (Of course other timers were also made like the dripping of water or sand draining through a hole.)

    I understand Tristan's meaning that what we call time might have been pecieved but not named before then. It might have been marked down as rudimentary calander's for hunters that lived in northern countries with the chipping of bark from a tree etc.

    Of course other methods were to watch the constilations change positions as the earth's axis tilted.

    I have contemplated though that what we percieve as time is false, As even our most accurate chronological devices that can keep time more perfect than the spinning of the earth has a small snag....

    An atomic clock might keep the time, but the problem is that you aren't timing the start of that atom, or the universe when you start your monitoring of it, so what ever point it started is infact just a mark we draw, not one that the universe is governed by.

    I wish I could clean that up for people to understand.
     
  12. piffi Nixed Price Rack Registered Senior Member

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    69
    I think mainly that the only way to define the concept of time is to be clear on what the definition of the word time is. Sure it's true that the measurements of time we use, like seconds, minutes, and hours, are all manmade...but they are merely measurements. If you define time as those human measurements, then yes, time is a human creation. But one must ask at one point or another, what are they measuring??

    Now one might also say that they are measuring the progression of events, in, I suppose, a vacuum of events that might occur. But we all know that all phenemon in this universe has a cause, one way or another, and that things don't just happen.

    What I propse is quite simple; that time is a 4th dimension of matter that gives all events in the cosmos the ability to happen, since nothing can occur in an infinitely non-existent amount of time. Time depends on cosmic events to sustain it's outward progression, and therefore is indefinately sustained by those events.

    Imagine this: At the point at which our universe was created, there was a definate and irreversible need for something to happen. When things started happening, the events, which may be stationary in their physical nature, pushed time along on its own track within, outside, around our familiar scale of physical reference. That is not to argue that our physical actions are actually propelling time along as a snowplow would snow, it merely suggests that by existing, we push along time, and every action, whether it be negaitive or positive in its physical relation to some sort of 'cosmic fabric', provides rime the ability to expand. It may sound self-serving, but I feel that every event, whether it be inaction or action, provides the neccessity for time to move on. The only way for time to stop would be for reality to stop, since then there would no longer be the neccesity for time.
     
  13. Moose Registered Member

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    hmm, I KNOW THIS ONE!!!

    YES!!!!!!! [With a storytelling voice, gruff, aged, like ... rhubarb]

    I often thought of this. From a non physical stance, yes, it appears that man created time.

    and for piffi, that of which you speak is the arrow of time. Why? Classic analogy: a cup falls off a table and breaks. Do we ever see a broken cup jump off the floor into one piece again? This gives the impression of time, because of CHANGE.
    The problem is, time is seen as a measure of change. Is this right?
    Should a cat have to jump to measure a second (yes, man made i know)
    The point is, maybe the most logical idea is to view it:
    CHANGE AS A MEASURE OF TIME

    this gives time a virtually tangible gift

    however, it also implies that time is inherant in an object, in an INSTANT.
    and that leads onto the theorys of time capsules etc, which i expect have been discussed
    moosey movin and shakin the bitch

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  14. jandt remlik Registered Senior Member

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    Actually, we did not create time, you are confusing your perceptions with reality.
    There is no time really. Time cannot exist on its own, it must be combined with the movement of bodies through space. Scientists refer to this reality as Space-time. Time alone is not possible, it could not elapse without movement. The reverse is also true of course, space could not exist without time. It could not have come into being, nor could it change.

    Read some basic quantum physics and space-time theory. There are some written for the lay people like us.

    Peace, jt
     
  15. Moose Registered Member

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    don't treat me like a twat jandt.
    I am quite familiar with space -time, and the problems it poses.
    Which is why i now have read a couple of books that upon the subject.
    muhhuhahahaha
    The point is, is is space-time that fundamental? I mean, i will have to alter to incorporate supersttrings, so why stand by and say that it is perfectly correct?
    Yes, i know, read the academic texts and then I will understand the configuration space to space-time, and how it is the...
    bugger. Thought train left the damn station..
    back later.....
     
  16. Hevene Registered Senior Member

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    369
    arrow of time

    Since someone mensioned arrow of time, I might just add this stuff I've read in a book called "Atom".
    For matter to be created, there are two requirements.
    One is for the departure from thermal equilibrium and the other is for time to have an arrow.
    Just consider showing a single positive charge moving to the right on film, if you reverse the film, you can see it moving from right to left. You cannot detect which way it is moving. As it moves to the right, the left hand side gets slightly negative, or it move to the left, the right hand side get slightly positive. Therefore, a positive charge moving forward in time, is equivalent to a negative charge moving backwards in time. If the laws at the fundamental level are insensitive to time's arrow, then all process that involves particals can be replaced by their antiparticals and occurs at the exactly the same rate. What I am trying to say is for the partical-antipartical asymmetry to exist, some reaction must've occured for the particals and antipartical at different rates, which implies which ever the force involved, it must be able to distinguish an arrow of time. i.e. it has to be able to predict the rates for identical ractions if time is running backwards.
     
  17. Benji Registered Senior Member

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    306
    With regards to the arrow of time i think its the same problem as if you were traveling in a box at a constant speed, without seeing outside the box its impossible to know your moving.
    This applys to time in the same way, unless you could in essence "stand out of time" you can never know if we'r actually going forward or backward through time.
    Perhaps some method of partical mesurement will be developed in the future to track these currents of time.
    This is one of the "biggies" in regard to the universe and the rules by which we percive it, this would seem to suggest that time travel is possible on an atomic level.
    This is an intresting proposal, this would indeed lead me to belive time travel at least at atomic level possible and that currents of time circulate the universe.
    In these time currents time will past either faster(forward) or slower(reverse) when you enter these currents time will not change from your perception, and you wouldent notice a difference once you were out of that current.
    The only way to mesure the time difference would be to have the ability to "stand out of time" which we currently dont have.
    This leads to the possiblity that we travel through these currents quite a lot, as the current passed over us we wouldent be able to tell, to our perception nothing would have changed yet to someone standing "out of time" we would be either moving very fast or doing everything backwards.
    I dont have the knoledge to take these principles to an atomic level and test them, indeed the yard stick its to be able to alter an atom so that it can travel through the time currents unaffect and mesure what current we are on be it forward or reversed mabey then we could get to the real question of how old is the universe?
     

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