Time

[Sepmann]

http://www.whytze.net/time/

disagree or agree

[Sepmann]

mathamatically it makes sence :)

[Mendel]

can't install flash on this machine. what does it say?

[Tog]

I had to run it in IE instaed of Firefox

Basically it shows a line and says 1D=Length
Then a square and 2D=Length*Height
Then a Cube and 3D= Length*Height*Depth
Finally a set of cubed scrolls across the screen and it reads 4D=Length*Height*Depth*each instance it existed

As for agree or disagree, I'm not sure it's the best way to explain it, but it gets the point across.

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

Is it really against the mainstream? Dont scientists agree with that?

[papageno]

Basically it shows a line and says 1D=Length
Then a square and 2D=Length*Height
Then a Cube and 3D= Length*Height*Depth
Finally a set of cubed scrolls across the screen and it reads 4D=Length*Height*Depth*each instance it existed.
[Scottish accent] "That's it? That's your theory?" [/Scottish accent] *

3 numbers to fix the point in space + 1 number to fix the point in time = 4 numbers for an event (something happens somewhere sometime).
Just as "mainstream" Physics.

Of course, I could not see the site, so I do not know whether there is more.




* Quote from a film.

[Sepmann]

Is it really against the mainstream? Dont scientists agree with that?
not exactly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_dimension . wikipedia says 4th dimension of a cube is a hypercube. well if you look at my diagram it would make the same picture if i moved the cube in circles instead of left to right. so am i right or wrong?

the picture im refering to is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/67/Tesseract3.png/200px-Tesseract3.png

[LurchGS]

Shouldn't it be 'a hypercube is a representation of a 4-dimensional cube'? (not quite teh same thing)

I'm not sure that cosmology or physics consider time as a dimension any more... I should look into that.

[Fr. Wayne]

Shouldn't it be 'a hypercube is a representation of a 4-dimensional cube'? (not quite teh same thing)

I'm not sure that cosmology or physics consider time as a dimension any more... I should look into that.

Of course time is a factor in mathematical formulas. But to represent it geometrically all depends on one's frame of reference. If zero is your refernce point then simple + and - intergers will do mathematically. Geometrically a pad of sticky notes could do. each page represents your unit of time. Also if describing an expanding 3-d object, first you draw object, then you draw with dotted lines the expanded object, then you define the difference in time intervals with either a simple regular expansion rate or an accelerated rate.
Of course you the observer and the notepad can not be expanding too or else you find yourself in the quagmire that our present day cosmologists are in, and you don't want to go there.

[LurchGS]

heh - I don't mean to imply that time is not a consideration - the question is, is time a dimension, or is it merely the measurement of a process?

[eugenek]

heh - I don't mean to imply that time is not a consideration - the question is, is time a dimension, or is it merely the measurement of a process?

...or does time even exist? A number of years ago I tried to read a book by Julian Barbour which seemed to state he didn't think time actually existed. That it was an illusion. I believe the book was "The End of Time". I didn't get to finish it due to other events.

Has anyone else read it and what do you think? I got the impression that it was an interesting idea but testing for it would be impossible.

[mid]

(oblig.) Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

[farmerjumperdon]

...or does time even exist? A number of years ago I tried to read a book by Julian Barbour which seemed to state he didn't think time actually existed. That it was an illusion. I believe the book was "The End of Time". I didn't get to finish it due to other events.

Has anyone else read it and what do you think? I got the impression that it was an interesting idea but testing for it would be impossible.

In not taking the time to finish the book, I think you proved time does exist.

But seriously, my perspective is that time, in the everday practical sense that we usually think of, is a human construct devised to measure intervals between events.

In the sense of it being a naturally occuring phenomena, it IS the interval between events. No events = no time. (Even the slightest amount of particle activity counts as an event). As long as the Universe has not yet succombed to a heat death (the cessation of all activity) then we still have events and we still have time. When all events cease, so does time.

I've never bought into it as a 4th dimension, and maybe that is just a matter of semantics; but I see time as having very different qualities than the other 3.

don b - dispensing wisdom wherever the truth, and hyperdimensionality, are not suppressed.

[eugenek]

In not taking the time to finish the book, I think you proved time does exist.

But seriously, my perspective is that time, in the everday practical sense that we usually think of, is a human construct devised to measure intervals between events.

In the sense of it being a naturally occuring phenomena, it IS the interval between events. No events = no time. (Even the slightest amount of particle activity counts as an event). As long as the Universe has not yet succombed to a heat death (the cessation of all activity) then we still have events and we still have time. When all events cease, so does time.

It's been at least seven years since I tried reading it. If I remember correctly, the author stated that there is no movement. There is an infinite number of static "Nows". In one Now a single photon is at point A, in another Now that photon is at point B instead. Everything else is the same except that one photon's position in its Now. This continues for every possible combination of energy and matter. Moving up in scale our memories are only the configuration of that particular Now. We perceive the passage of time because of our memories. Sort of like sci-fi alternate universes, except here each alternate is a specific static configuration of matter.

I thought the book, what I read of it, was interesting. The author seemed to be a real physicist but I wasn't sure if he had gone over to the woowoo side.

[farmerjumperdon]

Sounds like they are saying there is no such thing as movement, just a whole lot (maybe infinite number) of static states separated by . . . what?

Time?

If some past increment of now is different than the current increment of now, what describes their difference seems to me to be the photon (or photons) that moved and the number of increments that lapsed between then and now.

I don't think you can say the only difference is that things are in a different place because it takes a certain interval for them to get from one place to another. They might say that all the states always exist and that the order of my memory of each state only presents the illusion of an interval. That to me though crosses into woo-woo land because it leads to the necessity that all states that ever existed, or ever will exist (which in their view are one and the same thing), are always here there and everywhere for the entire life of the Universe.

We would have an infinite number (for all practical purposes) of states of physical being coexisting. Take one creature - say an elephant - and imagine all the states it could possibly be in over the course of it's life - down to the atomic level. Then extrapolate that too all the energy & matter in the Universe. Makes my brain go ACK!

Sounds like they are playing semantics a bit - but a fascinating topic nonetheless.

[Blob]

http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=35789

[eugenek]

...

I don't think you can say the only difference is that things are in a different place because it takes a certain interval for them to get from one place to another. They might say that all the states always exist and that the order of my memory of each state only presents the illusion of an interval. That to me though crosses into woo-woo land because it leads to the necessity that all states that ever existed, or ever will exist (which in their view are one and the same thing), are always here there and everywhere for the entire life of the Universe.

We would have an infinite number (for all practical purposes) of states of physical being coexisting. Take one creature - say an elephant - and imagine all the states it could possibly be in over the course of it's life - down to the atomic level. Then extrapolate that too all the energy & matter in the Universe. Makes my brain go ACK!

...



I think this is exactly what he is saying. For that elephant every possible state, or lack of, exists side-by-side kind of like slides in a slide show. The elephant exists and doesn't exist now. There is no past, no future, just an infinite set of nows.

He gets into quantum stuff and that just goes over my head. He also states that removing the concept of time helps various physics problems. Those go way over my head too. I don't know how it helps with these various physics problems so I don't know how his solution is more probable than the simpler solution that time does exist.

However, I don't recall if the author stated there was a genesis moment. A moment when nothing existed and a moment with the infinite set of Nows. I guess I have to start the book again. If there was a moment before the Nows then there must be at least two moments, a before and a lot of nows.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have time to read the book. I finally got Civ4 working on my PC and that is a time sucker. Tonight is Sci-Fi Friday and the wife is going scrapbooking...

[Disinfo Agent]

Time (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink-floyd/108616.html)

[Fr. Wayne]

Time (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink-floyd/108616.html)

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/davidbowie/time.html :boohoo: Good one DA

[eugenek]

http://www.ziplo.com/time.html

[Fr. Wayne]

Very pretty. Don't use one of your grenades there.

[the_bullet]

...or does time even exist? A number of years ago I tried to read a book by Julian Barbour which seemed to state he didn't think time actually existed. That it was an illusion. I believe the book was "The End of Time". I didn't get to finish it due to other events.

Has anyone else read it and what do you think? I got the impression that it was an interesting idea but testing for it would be impossible.

It is a very interesting book, although I found it hard to follow and it gave me a headache :confused: . He says that time doesn't exist and that what we perceive as time is just different arrangements of all the matter in the universe.Each "instant" is just another place in our universe where every instant exists forever. There is also no movement (he attests) and that what we see as movement is a trick of the brain. He points to the fact that a few people have a medical condition where they only see things in a "slide-show" kind of way due to some form of brain damage, and hints this may be some evidence although he states he is no expert on medical matters. He uses Machian principles a lot early on to try to help the reader get a feel for what he is trying to say, but it was way over my head at times.

[Sepmann]

We would have an infinite number (for all practical purposes) of states of physical being coexisting. Take one creature - say an elephant - and imagine all the states it could possibly be in over the course of it's life - down to the atomic level. Then extrapolate that too all the energy & matter in the Universe. Makes my brain go ACK!

Sounds like they are playing semantics a bit - but a fascinating topic nonetheless.
no buddy you mis understood my diagram. i clearly said "existed" meaning there isnt 30000 copies of it at once multiplying itself or what ever you said.

[Musashi]

I wonder if Einstein knew how to capitalize and punctuate?

[beskeptical]

It has come to my attention while contemplating the Universe that if indeed objects existed in past time and future time, it would defy the laws of physics governing the conservation of energy/mass. Those molecules which make up the structure of the cube are in the present. They cannot be in the past or future at the same time (probably). Therefore only the present time Universe is likely to exist.

Take the example of light that left parts of the Universe billions of years ago and is reaching us now. If you froze time and followed that light back to it's source, you would not arrive in the past. You would arrive in the present. The light traveling on the path from the object to us would be ever younger as we traveled along it until we got to the source which would be in present time when we reached it, since we froze time to travel there.

Follow the light path away from it's source and you still remain in the present time. Why would we be going back in time if we went away from the source, yet arrive in present time when we travel to the source? And the light itself is in present time all along its path for the same reason. That light carries a record of the past since it was acted on in the past, but the light waves and photons are all in the present, all along the path of the light. Thus, there is no evidence the past and/or future exist. There is only evidence the past affected the light and a record of that effect exists within the light.


I'm still contemplating how time can be experienced at different rates, yet everything still be only in present time. One traveling close to the speed of light would experience time at a different rate than one standing still. Yet at any time, both remain in present time. Were they to stop in space and contact Earth, they might be younger than the people who stayed on Earth, but everyone would still be in present time. It's not as if they leave present time and return to it. They experience time differently, but never leave present time. When the traveler approaches Earth, they do not approach out of sync. Nor are they out of sync when they arrive. All are in present time during the entire time they experience time at different speeds. I think this point may have been missed when considering different places in time exist.

I would so appreciate if those of you much more knowledgeable on this subject could let me know how scientists considering the relativity of time deal with the concept that we are all in present time regardless of how we experience time relative to how others experience it. There is so much discussion surrounding traveling in time because we know it can be experienced at different rates, but it would seem the discussions assume experiencing time at different rates is evidence there are different times in existence. And my contemplating doesn't come to that conclusion. Even if you exceeded the speed of light, I'm not sure you wouldn't still be in present time.