Definition Of Time?

[Treeden]

Time is natures way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once. -- Woody Allen

Amusing and profound at the same time!

I wonder if he had read "The Girl In The Golden Atom" by Ray Cummings?

From Wikipedia:

Ray Cummings, an early writer of science fiction, wrote in 1922, "Time... is what keeps everything from happening at once",[9]

Excerpt...

“To get a conception of this change you must analyze definitely what time is. We measure and mark it by years, months, and so forth, down to minutes and seconds, all based upon the movements of our earth around the sun. But that is the measurement of time, not time itself. How would you describe time?”

The Big Business Man smiled. “Time”, he said, “is what keeps everything from happening at once.”

“Very clever,” laughed the Chemist.

The doctor leaned forward earnestly. “I should say,” he began, “that time is the rate at which we live - the speed at which we successfully pass through our existence from birth to death. It’s very hard to put intelligibly, but I know what I mean,” he finished somewhat lamely.

"A classic work of science fiction, this novel was one of the first to explore the world of the atom. The Girl in the Golden Atom is the story of a young chemist who finds a hidden atomic world within his mother's wedding ring. Under a microscope, he sees within the ring a beautiful young woman sitting before a cave. Enchanted by her, he shrinks himself so that he can join her world..."

Aww... they just don't write 'em like that anymore!

[sparkly]

Time is the measurenent of motion .

if it doesnt move (vibrate) then it doesnt exist in our world (universe) and cant be measured using time .

[JamesF]

I think time must be inextricably linked with entropy. Perhaps they're two faces of the same coin. Maybe the passage of time is just how we perceive change in entropy.

On a tangential note, the idea of time as "the fourth dimension" reminds me that I was pondering on some other postings about string theory a few days ago in which it was mentioned that there may be quite a few more dimensions. It struck me that "dimension" is something of a loaded word and that a mathematician would probably have no major issue substituting the expression "degree of freedom" for "dimension". Personally I've find that quite an enlightening substitution, though as yet I'm not entirely sure why.

James

[Earl]

then your perception of time is different, try looking at a clock, then close your eyes and estimate how long 3 minutes is, then reopen them ..... see just how accurate you are.

2 seconds out ... I can count

[JamesF]

2 seconds out ... I can count

For some reason I'm reminded of that bit in "Gregory's Girl" (a film I've probably not thought about in many years) where they count elephants to time developing photographs

James

[ollypenrice]

The problem we face in all this is that our brains, when operating in verbal language, simply don't have the terms that we need to think about whatever wider matrix our present idea of time might inhabit. Our mathematical language has more freedom to do so but then cannot easily be translated other than through analogy. It would be wonderful to know, though, whether or not in two hundred years a time analogy analogous with (!!) the big bang balloon analogy will be commonplace.

Olly

[Islander]

Time is the measurenent of motion .

if it doesnt move (vibrate) then it doesnt exist in our world (universe) and cant be measured using time .

Bose-Einstein condensates.

[Islander]

My point about Australians was careless, you are right.

The second law's' relationship with time (that it would require an input of energy to 'drive time into reverse') is posited on the 'tensed view of time' - that there is a past a present and a future. In that context the second law makes sense. But if the tensed view of time is really only a local approximation then, in a more generalized theory, the second law would be overthrown.

I'm not even slightly inclined to believe that our view of past-present-future is a complete view and so the second law doesn't have to be a constraint in whatever a more complete view might entail.

Olly

Thing is, all of the evidence points to the second law being right - which is why it's a Law. Of course, if evidence is found to disprove this then we'll have to re-evaluate things but as it currently stands, I'm inclined to think that entropy always increases and the second law is correct.

[Scott]

time= a lineal progression of events......maybe

if time stops at the speed of light how come it takes 8 minutes (time) for sunlight to get here?

[JamesF]

The problem we face in all this is that our brains, when operating in verbal language, simply don't have the terms that we need to think about whatever wider matrix our present idea of time might inhabit. Our mathematical language has more freedom to do so but then cannot easily be translated other than through analogy. It would be wonderful to know, though, whether or not in two hundred years a time analogy analogous with (!!) the big bang balloon analogy will be commonplace.

Olly

I think you've applied the mallet firmly to the blunt end of the nail there, Olly. Describing something as a fourth, fifth ... tenth dimension almost screams "you already understand this at a simple level, you just need to find a better analogy" (well perhaps for me it does, anyhow) whereas describing something as a "degree of freedom" doesn't have that baggage. It almost reduces it to the level of "things that can change, but that we can't necessarily perceive changing". Whilst I was putting the chickens to bed this evening it struck me that there's a certain similarity with the field of complex numbers. They can be viewed as another "dimension", but whilst they have no physical form we can directly interact with that doesn't stop them being very useful, necessary even, to explain the world we live in.

James

[JamesF]

time= a lineal progression of events......maybe

I can't see that you can usefully define time that way. By using the term "lineal" you're effectively creating a circular definition because what determines linearity is time itself.

if time stops at the speed of light how come it takes 8 minutes (time) for sunlight to get here?

That's from our point of view. Perhaps if you could ride on a photon the trip would be instantaneous?

James

[Scott]

That's from our point of view. Perhaps if you could ride on a photon the trip would be instantaneous?

James

i think i may be in over my head here but if i jump out of a plane with a parachute there is no percievable difference between me and the parachute reaching earth but we still take x amount of time to hit the ground. i think what i mean is that although time may have stood still for the photon it hasn't for the observer. its still taken 8 mins.

[Scott]

and i guess thats why its not lineal?

[UHF]

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so

Sent from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of betelgeuse.

[Scott]

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so

Sent from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of betelgeuse.

ok ford

[philby]

Time is not finite, one day time will stop.. I don't know if that is a law of physics.. nothing can last forever can it ???

[SionR25]

I also think that time is the fourth/another (if there are more) dimension.

All things happen or exist in a certain place, which we locate using our three standard dimensions but they also happen or exist at a certain time. Changing the time that they exist/happen is just the same as changing their location.

Also, the bigger you are the smaller things appear to you, compared to something smaller than yourself. Just like the longer you exist the smaller/shorter the passage of time appears to you compared to something that existed for less time.

Just my $0.02

Sion

[ollypenrice]

Thing is, all of the evidence points to the second law being right - which is why it's a Law. Of course, if evidence is found to disprove this then we'll have to re-evaluate things but as it currently stands, I'm inclined to think that entropy always increases and the second law is correct.

It would be entirely in keeping with the history of science for the second law to be found to be locally correct but no longer adequate in a more general context. I'm suggesting that this might one day turn out to be the case but clearly I don't know that it will.

When you apply the second law to time, the 'time' to which you apply it is our present theory of time with its notion of past-present-future.

This and the second law are bedfellows. I don't think you can use the one to prove the other because they are, in essence, part of the same theory. If the tensed theory of time goes, the second law goes.

And one day I think it might. (Or at least, it might 'go' in the sense that Newton's theory of gravity has 'gone' - which is to say that most of the time it hasn't gone!)

Olly

[Treeden]

Time is not finite, one day time will stop.. I don't know if that is a law of physics.. nothing can last forever can it ???

When the last light goes out and there is nothing left for change to take place.

Click..... buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[ollypenrice]

When the last light goes out and there is nothing left for change to take place.

Click..... buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wake up, time is back!

No, the moment you say a word like 'forever' you are begging the question. Who says there is a 'forever?' The Big Bang clearly asserts that there is not. 'Forever' is an idea predicated upon one notion of time. We desperately need a different notion of time.

Olly

[Treeden]

Wake up, time is back!

No, the moment you say a word like 'forever' you are begging the question. Who says there is a 'forever?' The Big Bang clearly asserts that there is not. 'Forever' is an idea predicated upon one notion of time. We desperately need a different notion of time.

Olly

"Wake up, time is back!" Indeed. Maybe that was the banner that was unfurled to herald the event we call the big bang?

I too dislike the word forever (it wasn't me that used it), but I do take your point about the shortfall of our language and it's inability to accurately describe this notion of time.

I just re-read your initial post on this fascinating subject, and I was struck by the way you finished with a note of what appeared to be resignation?

"...I think time will be like that. Past, present and future may be like red, orange and blue in the rainbow. Our particular way of looking selects them, separates them, but really that separation arises from a wider set of circumstances which, in the case of the physics of space and time, are beyond us. Sadly they main remain so, I guess."

Do you believe then, that we will never fully understand this universe and all of it's mysteries? I agree with you that we may have to create a better language to enable us to describe it more accurately, but given time, surely we will continue to expand our knowledge, even if it only proves to us that we still have yet more to learn!

[Thirdway]

"Wake up, time is back!" Indeed. Maybe that was the banner that was unfurled to herald the event we call the big bang?

I too dislike the word forever (it wasn't me that used it), but I do take your point about the shortfall of our language and it's inability to accurately describe this notion of time.

I just re-read your initial post on this fascinating subject, and I was struck by the way you finished with a note of what appeared to be resignation?

"...I think time will be like that. Past, present and future may be like red, orange and blue in the rainbow. Our particular way of looking selects them, separates them, but really that separation arises from a wider set of circumstances which, in the case of the physics of space and time, are beyond us. Sadly they main remain so, I guess."

Do you believe then, that we will never fully understand this universe and all of it's mysteries? I agree with you that we may have to create a better language to enable us to describe it more accurately, but given time, surely we will continue to expand our knowledge, even if it only proves to us that we still have yet more to learn!

It's funny how we are fascinated by the question of time yet not of the question " what is human awareness "? Perhaps we are looking for the answers in the wrong place. Instead we should start at the beginning and question our association with the Universe and how it is possible for us to perceive anything. The great mystery should be why there is any need for awareness if the Universe is capable of existing in isolation. The questions of the Universe such as what is time, are only asked from an awareness and perception, without this awareness does the universe exist at all ? It must be remembered we are also integral with the Universe, just like all the other mysteries. Take time or matter away and does anything remain. Take awareness away and does anything remain. In this way we are inextricably linked, another established law without any understanding.

[SionR25]

Just found this on TED. Talks about time as well as a lot of other things but still really interesting.

Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse | Video on TED.com

Sion

[Space Bat]

Real Time isn't something we can understand - what WE have is a perception of time, which is a small snippet in what is our incredibly short lifespan and existence as a species...

[ollypenrice]

Interesting questions. Our role in determining reality is a real killer of a problem. Firstly, in quantum theory it seems that some things don't take a final form till observed. If that really is the case then the observer's role is to create events.

Secondly, even if future versions of quantum theory resolve the Schroedinger's Cat paradox (and I think a new theory of time will be needed for that) it remains that much of the universe may not interact with us. Some of it which interacts weakly can be inferred, it seems, but what if some of it doesn't interact at all? I don't see that this means it doesn't exist.

So, no, I don't think everything is knowable. Why should it be? At the end of the 19th century some scientists (Lord Kelvin among them, from memory) felt that physics was almost complete. At almost the next moment the quantum world and the world of relativity opened up before us and the range of our knowledge was seen to be positively myopic! I can imagine this happening again and again, though I think we've learned our lesson in terms of thinking we know it all.

It gets worse! Both relativity and quantum theory presented us, for the first time, with scientific models which were mathematically rigorous and powerfully predictive but were impossible for us to conceptualize. We are stuck with either metaphor or mathematics but we can't conceive of the Big Bang or the sub atomic world at all. Well, I can't. Curved spacetime? Rubber sheets with weights on them, yes, that I can picture. But not curved spacetime.

Maybe we need to evolve... and maybe technology will prevent us from doing so by allowing us to change the environment whose changes in the past drove the selection process.

Olly