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Is there a moment in time?


Alan McDougall

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Does a moment in time exist in reality

I mean the present or "Now" if you like my dilemma, is that in reality there does not seem to be a fixed moment or now, because just when you think you have reached a momenty, it is already in the past.

There is a concept called "presentalism" which postulates that only the present is real and both past and future do not exist

"A moment in time" can be defined for any set of observers sharing a single reference frame... a static system with no movement or acceleration. Einstein proved that there is no such meaningful concept for the physical universe, this is called "non-simultaneity".

Before our universe emerged out of the primordial singularity, time did not exist, so I think that in reality only in this state, the only true, "actual single discrete moment" that ever existed, was then.

After all if time did not flow, then, the primordial singularity, was stuck in a "moment" (Sloppy wording sorry for that.). Until something caused it to emerge and create our universe, (Big Bang/Emerge/ you choose?). No third party was there as far as I know?

Just a note of mine! There was never such an events a "big bang", this is as best, loose terminology, in my opinion.

There have long been two schools of thought about time and motion. In one time flows and everything else is static, while in the other time is static and everything moves through time. These two ideas are sometimes referred to as tensed and tensless time.

Tensed time is “now relative”; it assumes an ever moving now, which progresses towards the future, always leaving more past behind it. Time is moving.

Tensless time relates to clock time, dates etc. and is regarded as being static. For example, 11.30 (GMT) on the 25th October 2007 is a tensless time; in relativistic terms it is an unchanging space-time event. In this view there is no objective passage of time.

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Just for interest.... a "moment" was actually a mediaeval unit of time equivalent to approximately 1.5 minutes (it was variable).

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Very interesting Alan. I've often thought about "time" and the concept of "now". It seems that now is either infinitely brief, the past becoming the future instantaneously OR infinitely long, as in, it's Always now. But, the way it appears is that physical things happen and move and we assign periods of "time" to those events. It's easy to "time" cyclical events such as the orbit or rotation of the earth , which is what our measurements of "time" are based on. We then use that measurement to "time" all non cyclical events . Remove physicality and "time" does not exist?

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I think, if space and time are quantized, then the moment of "now" would be the Planck unit of time, about 10^-43 seconds. For times less than one Planck time apart we can not measure any change. Planck time's short duration would be why time seems to flow smoothly for us humans.

For my own logical reasons, I prefer tenseless time, every "moment" a static space-time event, or configuration of space-time. In this sense, all these "moments" of space-time must exist, like frames in movie film, but the mind cannot access these physically real past moments.

This proposal could presume the future to be as real as the past and the present. Everything has already happened. The mind, of course, born in one of these moments of space-time, experiences time as we do, one present moment after another.

An argument would be, the events of tomorrow seem unknown to us, yet they already exist in the sense that the events of tomorrow will happen as they will. Today's reality is tomorrow's reality come to pass, in a way of speaking.

Tomorrow's events are 'out there' in time, we just can't access them. The mind has evolved to experience time as it does for its own conveinience and survival.

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Just for interest.... a "moment" was actually a mediaeval unit of time equivalent to approximately 1.5 minutes (it was variable).

This topic could fit into both a philosophical debate or a science question?

The modern moment is almost infinitely less than 1.5 minutes, which is an eternity compared to the Plank unit of time as I indicate below?

Simply put a discrete unit of Plank time (Moment ) is the briefest measure of time in which reality can exist or

.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of one second, unimaginable vanishing infinitesimally tiny moment

Simply put a discrete unit of Plank time (Moment ) is said to be the briefest unit measure of time in which reality can exist or

or 10 to the power of - 44 of one second

My comments end here Alan

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In February 2010, NIST physicists built a second, enhanced, version of the quantum logic clock using a single aluminum atom. Considered the world's most precise clock, it offers more than twice the precision of the original, neither gaining nor losing one second in 3.7 billion years

Gravitational time dilation.

An actual scientific test that proved this effect, by use of two quantum clocks is indicated below.

In 2010 an experiment placed two aluminium-ion quantum clocks close to each other, but with the second elevated 12 inches compared to the first, making the gravitational time dilation effect visible. It has been calculated that a human being living "12 inches" below ground level would have a life expectancy, for a 79-year life span, of 90 billionths of a second longer

Wikipedia

The Planck time is defined as:

In physics, the Planck time (tP) is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. It is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length.

The unit is named after Max Planck, who was the first to propose it.

The Planck time is defined as: 09665dca7498e8de864f01151e8377c8.png

where: dd8d1fc5051e1eb9bdf72deeec3185e2.png is the reduced Planck constant (sometimes 2510c39011c5be704182423e3a695e91.png is used instead of 9dfd055ef1683b053f1b5bf9ed6dbbb4.png in the definition G = gravitational constant c = speed of light in a vacuum s is the SI unit of time, the second.

The two digits between parentheses denote the standard error of the estimated value.

Edited by Alan McDougall
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The problem with time is that people view it as some sort of continuum. It's not. It's merely a relative state of the universe. If you take a pool table with a configuration of balls on it that represents one moment.

The past is merely a former configuration of the pool table with the laws of physics acting upon the balls to give it another configuration.

People are constantly repeating that "there was no time before the Big Bang" but this idea comes from physicists who are not viewing time in the same way as laymen usually do.

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The problem with time is that people view it as some sort of continuum. It's not. It's merely a relative state of the universe. If you take a pool table with a configuration of balls on it that represents one moment.

The past is merely a former configuration of the pool table with the laws of physics acting upon the balls to give it another configuration.

People are constantly repeating that "there was no time before the Big Bang" but this idea comes from physicists who are not viewing time in the same way as laymen usually do.

Albert Einstein once quoted jokingly, that "Time is something we have invented to prevent everything from happening at once"

Time is not one of the fundamental constants (Laws) of our universe, time is a variable.

1) Does time advance is ever smaller discrete moments in our universe?

2) Does time it flow like a continuous river in our universe?

3) Did time have a beginning and an end in our universe?

4) Assuming our universe in not everything that exist, then did time have a beginning, before the big bang?

5) I have a real dilemma with the idea of eternity, in a linear way, if time has no start or beginning then how could we have ever reached this now moment?

5) As an analogy, think of an athletic race, it must have a start line and a finish line or it would be meaningless. If the start line were pushed back into the infinite distance, the hypothetical athlete could never in all eternity, reach the finish line, which equated to our present moment in time?

6) Is there a place outside our physical universe where time has no meaning or does not exist and is static, maybe waiting for the great watch keeper to start time running in separate realities?

7) However if we could hypothetically stop all movement in the universe and freeze it at absolute zero, would time still be a factor or reality because in a state of absolute zero movement, nothing can happen or will ever happen again?

8) Isaac Newton mistakenly thought that time was universal, in that if you were to set one accurate clock and synchronize it with another accurate clock on the other side of the universe, they would keep the exact same rate of time and if you checked one, the other would show an identical time.

9) We do know due to Einstein's Special Relativity that is no absolute or universal time in the universe. Example time moves/flows differently on the surface one object, relative to another identical, object on the surface of another at a different locations

10) Gravity fields effect the rate or flow time from place to place and the rate of time difference can differ significantly on the surfaces between different planets or objects. Take the case of a neutron star the rate of time on its surface would differ hugely from that on earth.

11) Neutron star/ earth time rate flow: Example hypothetically put a quantum clock on the surface of said neutron star and synchronize it with another quantum clock on earth. Let ten thousand years go by as recorded on the quantum clock on planet earth and one +- year might have been recorded on the quantum clock of the neuron star.

The greater the force of gravity the slower time flows relative to an object located within a lighter force of gravity.

Time cannot exist without space cannot exist without time, entropy cant happen without time, nothing can or will ever happen without the flow of linear time in our particular universe.

Even the slightest movement between two objects has a real effect on the rate that time advances/flows between them. If you stood motionless relative to person walking towards you, the rate of time flow for him, would be slower than it would be for you. Indeed he would become relatively younger to you and you would become relative older than him. Movement increased mass, increased mass slows down time relative to a stationary object.

Time is a fascinating subject

By Alan

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The problem with time is that people view it as some sort of continuum. It's not. It's merely a relative state of the universe. If you take a pool table with a configuration of balls on it that represents one moment.

The past is merely a former configuration of the pool table with the laws of physics acting upon the balls to give it another configuration.

People are constantly repeating that "there was no time before the Big Bang" but this idea comes from physicists who are not viewing time in the same way as laymen usually do.

Very interesting Alan. I've often thought about "time" and the concept of "now". It seems that now is either infinitely brief, the past becoming the future instantaneously OR infinitely long, as in, it's Always now. But, the way it appears is that physical things happen and move and we assign periods of "time" to those events. It's easy to "time" cyclical events such as the orbit or rotation of the earth , which is what our measurements of "time" are based on. We then use that measurement to "time" all non cyclical events . Remove physicality and "time" does not exist?

Hi do you mean the following that I might have just worded it a bit differently?

5) I have a real dilemma with the idea of eternity, in a linear way, if time has no start or beginning then how could we have ever reached this now moment?

5) As an analogy, think of an athletic race, it must have a start line and a finish line or it would be meaningless. If the start line were pushed back into the infinite distance, the hypothetical athlete could never in all eternity, reach the finish line, which equated to our present moment in time?

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There are precise space/time coordinates for every moment of your life relative to the postion and movement of all other objects in the universe. The Earth orbits the Sun which orbits the Galactic center. The Galaxy moves within it's group which moves with in it's cluster and so on. Nothing stands still in space/time, everything's position changes relative to one another so each second or point in space/time is unique and never duplicated. We are all far from the coordinates of our birth.

Edited by Hammerclaw
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There are precise space/time coordinates for every moment of your life relative to the postion and movement of all other objects in the universe. The Earth orbits the Sun which orbits the Galactic center. The Galaxy moves within it's group which moves with in it's cluster and so on. Nothing stands still in space/time, everything's position changes relative to one another so each second or point in space/time is unique and never duplicated. We are all far from the coordinates of our birth.

What you are describing is the movement of things/objects in the universe, however movement is linked to time, time is not a fundamental constant, but a variable. For practical purposes we use space time coordinates, and they are sufficiently accurate for our needs. However, no concordant is absolutely precise, because everything is moving relative to time, and time is a variable from place to place.

We see this in a Global Satellites who we use to know exactly what position we are on earth at any moment, but that moment changes immediately and the Einstein General Relativity time dilation effect has to be constantly updated or corrected by the atomic clocks on the satellite to synchronize with earth time.

The GPS satellite clocks run at a rate a tiny bit slower than the same clock on earth , if they were not set to compensate for general relativity due to the speed of light c and the movement of the satellite relative to the earth , the GPS would become inaccurate to a significant degree after a very short time.

I will come back with citation?

Here it is

My comments end

Alan

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http://http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

To achieve this level of precision, the clock ticks from the GPS satellites must be known to an accuracy of 20-30 nanoseconds. However, because the satellites are constantly moving relative to observers on the Earth, effects predicted by the Special and General theories of Relativity must be taken into account to achieve the desired 20-30 nanosecond accuracy.

Because an observer on the ground sees the satellites in motion relative to them, Special Relativity predicts that we should see their clocks ticking more slowly (see the Special Relativity lecture). Special Relativity predicts that the on-board atomic clocks on the satellites should fall behind clocks on the ground by about 7 microseconds per day because of the slower ticking rate due to the time dilation effect of their relative motion.

Further, the satellites are in orbits high above the Earth, where the curvature of spacetime due to the Earth's mass is less than it is at the Earth's surface. A prediction of General Relativity is that clocks closer to a massive object will seem to tick more slowly than those located further away (see the Black Holes lecture).

As such, when viewed from the surface of the Earth, the clocks on the satellites appear to be ticking faster than identical clocks on the ground. A calculation using General Relativity predicts that the clocks in each GPS satellite should get ahead of ground-based clocks by 45 microseconds per day.

The combination of these two relativitic effects means that the clocks on-board each satellite should tick faster than identical clocks on the ground by about 38 microseconds per day (45-7=38)! This sounds small, but the high-precision required of the GPS system requires nanosecond accuracy, and 38 microseconds is 38,000 nanoseconds. If these effects were not properly taken into account, a navigational fix based on the GPS constellation would be false after only 2 minutes, and errors in global positions would continue to accumulate at a rate of about 10 kilometers each day! The whole system would be utterly worthless for navigation in a very short time.

This kind of accumulated error is akin to measuring my location while standing on my front porch in Columbus, Ohio one day, and then making the same measurement a week later and having my GPS receiver tell me that my porch and I are currently about 5000 meters in the air somewhere over Detroit.

The engineers who designed the GPS system included these relativistic effects when they designed and deployed the system.

For example, to counteract the General Relativistic effect once on orbit, they slowed down the ticking frequency of the atomic clocks before they were launched so that once they were in their proper orbit stations their clocks would appear to tick at the correct rate as compared to the reference atomic clocks at the GPS ground stations.

Further, each GPS receiver has built into it a microcomputer that (among other things) performs the necessary relativistic calculations when determining the user's location.

Relativity is not just some abstract mathematical theory: understanding it is absolutely essential for our global navigation system to work properly!

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What you are describing is the movement of things/objects in the universe, however movement is linked to time, time is not a fundamental constant, but a variable. For practical purposes we use space time coordinates, and they are sufficiently accurate for our needs. However, no concordant is absolutely precise, because everything is moving relative to time, and time is a variable from place to place.

We see this in a Global Satellites who we use to know exactly what position we are on earth at any moment, but that moment changes immediately and the Einstein General Relativity time dilation effect has to be constantly updated or corrected by the atomic clocks on the satellite to synchronize with earth time.

The GPS satellite clocks run at a rate a tiny bit slower than the same clock on earth , if they were not set to compensate for general relativity due to the speed of light c and the movement of the satellite relative to the earth , the GPS would become inaccurate to a significant degree after a very short time.

I will come back with citation?

Here it is

My comments end

Alan

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything in the Universe is in constant motion and at any given moment in time the spacial relation between every object in the universe is unique and is never duplicated. The duration from moment to moment is irrelevant.
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It is my inclination to think that time is an expression of matter. A moment would exist then as some configuration of matter that resonates without change of the closed system to which it belongs. To my understanding a moment would be the interval from one state of some material system to when said state repeats itself.

Moments would therefore have relative lengths dependent upon some material configuration that resonates through space.

One can not determine when a moment has begun or ended until the material system to which it belongs has altered in some significant way.

The whole concept of a beginning or end point of time loses all meaning when considering time as an extension of matter. It's akin to the ripples that form in water, it doesn't exist without something to disturb the tension.

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I should note that the reason the existence of matter isn't dependent on the concept/existence of time is due to probability spectrums. If there exists some configuration of some matter that has some probability of existing in a different form then it must necessarily transition into said form and rotate through all forms that obeys some likelihood of transitioning from one state to the next. The rate of transition is dependent on the probability of any next state belonging to its entirety. The entirety of its existence is "momentous"

Time has no meaning or necessity in such a system unless one observes another system comparing rates of probabilistic transition as defined by the energy of the respective systems.

To my thinking time is simply ripples in water.

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Everything in the Universe is in constant motion and at any given moment in time the spacial relation between every object in the universe is unique and is never duplicated. The duration from moment to moment is irrelevant.

The duration from moment to moment, is just another way of saying the gap in events and the time between the two moments or simply put it just the time taken to get from point A to point B!

I know everything is in motion, but you have to factor time to know where you came from and where you arrived and when you arrived at your destination. To suggest that duration(Time) is irrelevant is to disregard one of the fundamental conditions of the universe.

There is no such thing as space the reality is in the space-time continuum. In fact I think there is a case of putting motion, time and space into one grad equation , and call it "Space-time motion".

As an Industrial Engineer I often used "Time and Motion" in the planning of projects .In fact I was one of the engineers in South Africa that introduced the "Critical Path System" to ensure that all the events in a planned project for maintenance of huge turbines and generators, took the right amount of time to do , as per scheduled outage plan indicated.

In fact NASA used Critical Path method to co-ordinate the activities of over 400, 000 contractors and to stay within the budget constraints and to ensure that this massive project achieve President John Kennedy's goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth, before the decade of the 1960 ended.

Why did I go into all this detail? It was just my attempt to emphasize that you cannot separate time from motion and both are always relevant (Not irrelevant as you said).

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We live in the present, dwell on the past, and hope in the future.

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We live in the present, dwell on the past, and hope in the future.

Sometimes we regret things we have done in our past?

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I think, if space and time are quantized, then the moment of "now" would be the Planck unit of time, about 10^-43 seconds. For times less than one Planck time apart we can not measure any change. Planck time's short duration would be why time seems to flow smoothly for us humans.

For my own logical reasons, I prefer tenseless time, every "moment" a static space-time event, or configuration of space-time. In this sense, all these "moments" of space-time must exist, like frames in movie film, but the mind cannot access these physically real past moments.

This proposal could presume the future to be as real as the past and the present. Everything has already happened. The mind, of course, born in one of these moments of space-time, experiences time as we do, one present moment after another.

An argument would be, the events of tomorrow seem unknown to us, yet they already exist in the sense that the events of tomorrow will happen as they will. Today's reality is tomorrow's reality come to pass, in a way of speaking.

Tomorrow's events are 'out there' in time, we just can't access them. The mind has evolved to experience time as it does for its own conveinience and survival.

Hi sorry I posted about Planck unit of time "After you did it" I regret if it made me look at if I disregarded or disagreed or the content of your post, which I did not.

It was my mistake not to read your post before posting mine which was just a repeat of what you had said a moment earlier.

Please note I agree with what you said in your post, it is really good thinking!

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Albert Einstein once quoted jokingly, that "Time is something we have invented to prevent everything from happening at once"

Time is not one of the fundamental constants (Laws) of our universe, time is a variable.

1) Does time advance is ever smaller discrete moments in our universe?

2) Does time it flow like a continuous river in our universe?

3) Did time have a beginning and an end in our universe?

4) Assuming our universe in not everything that exist, then did time have a beginning, before the big bang?

5) I have a real dilemma with the idea of eternity, in a linear way, if time has no start or beginning then how could we have ever reached this now moment?

5) As an analogy, think of an athletic race, it must have a start line and a finish line or it would be meaningless. If the start line were pushed back into the infinite distance, the hypothetical athlete could never in all eternity, reach the finish line, which equated to our present moment in time?

6) Is there a place outside our physical universe where time has no meaning or does not exist and is static, maybe waiting for the great watch keeper to start time running in separate realities?

7) However if we could hypothetically stop all movement in the universe and freeze it at absolute zero, would time still be a factor or reality because in a state of absolute zero movement, nothing can happen or will ever happen again?

8) Isaac Newton mistakenly thought that time was universal, in that if you were to set one accurate clock and synchronize it with another accurate clock on the other side of the universe, they would keep the exact same rate of time and if you checked one, the other would show an identical time.

9) We do know due to Einstein's Special Relativity that is no absolute or universal time in the universe. Example time moves/flows differently on the surface one object, relative to another identical, object on the surface of another at a different locations

10) Gravity fields effect the rate or flow time from place to place and the rate of time difference can differ significantly on the surfaces between different planets or objects. Take the case of a neutron star the rate of time on its surface would differ hugely from that on earth.

11) Neutron star/ earth time rate flow: Example hypothetically put a quantum clock on the surface of said neutron star and synchronize it with another quantum clock on earth. Let ten thousand years go by as recorded on the quantum clock on planet earth and one +- year might have been recorded on the quantum clock of the neuron star.

The greater the force of gravity the slower time flows relative to an object located within a lighter force of gravity.

Time cannot exist without space cannot exist without time, entropy cant happen without time, nothing can or will ever happen without the flow of linear time in our particular universe.

Even the slightest movement between two objects has a real effect on the rate that time advances/flows between them. If you stood motionless relative to person walking towards you, the rate of time flow for him, would be slower than it would be for you. Indeed he would become relatively younger to you and you would become relative older than him. Movement increased mass, increased mass slows down time relative to a stationary object.

Time is a fascinating subject

By Alan

It is fascinating, but when you realize what's happening its not that difficult. You see we are dealing with two different definitions and understandings that get co mingled a lot when they should not.

One definition is the physics definition.

Time = physical change.

The other that is more used by normal folks and not physicists is

Time = sequence.

So to answer your questions.

1) yes, for with the first definition. Time is quantized at the Planck because it can only be measured with the discreet units of matter. It's a no issue for the second.

2) no. Time does not "flow" in either definition. It's not a thing it's a concept.

3 & 4) that depends on what you call "our universe", but in most views it would be yes for the first definition and no for the second. The first definition is measured by physical ticks of an imaginary clock with physical characteristics , so any hint of these ticks slowing and stopping will spell the end of physical time. Fortunately we know that this is only localized. We hear for example that time stops in a black hole, but that Dosn't mean the rest of the universe stops or that the black hole cannot change. On the contrary, it can be made more massive and possibly even evaporate away via Hawking radiation. The fact that it can change should demonstrate that sequence or proper time certainly is not frozen.

When it comes to the BB. We encounter the same scenario. Yes physical time as measures by the physical stuff that we know of was not moving around to potentate any ticks of any click made out if the stuff that we know of. But in no way does this eliminate the potential for change... A condition we need for the BB to even happen. There really is no reason to assume our Big Bang was to only one, and modern speculation on its origins necessitates the existence if a foaming infinite sea of a vacuum filled with potential energy and probably many other universes.

5) infinite regression is a nice logical idea, but that's all it is an idea. The universe is not confined to oblige our logic and rarely does. We are finite beings, and the universe Dosnt really care if we can't look passed this. What's more logical than the infinite regression paradox is the simple recognition that something is infinite. It Dosn't matter what. Every one recognizes that there is always something before. Whatever that something may be.

6) no for the first definition. And yes for the second. I think it's important here to recognize time is not a thing. It's a concept. There is no meaning for physical time outside of this universe but you must make sure you know what physical time is. Sequence without prescribing to physical time must exist outside and inside and everywhere, but its not a thing either just relative sequence of events.

7) yes you are talking about physical time, however this does not preclude the possibility that you might unfreeze it. Or a that you even can freeze quantum fluctuations. If you froze "time" then unfroze it, then you never really froze it now did you? But I have to be careful here because now I'm mixing definitions as well.

8) he was only wrong because he did not know how traveling through space-time affects a clock. But rest assured the problem is how the clock interacts with space-time it has nothing really to do with sequence. He was mostly right and his physics are very accurate minus that on little problem with relativity.

9) it's a mistake to view it as a flow. In reality it's the clocks themselves that are ticking at different rates based on how much space-time they are traversing relative to the other.

You see C is fixed in all reference frames. If you wiggle your toe your brain sends a signal to your toe to make it move. If you are riding a buss, your toe has moved between the time the signal was sent and when it got there, because the signal is a fixed speed and the new real path of the signal is longer this manifests as it reaching its destination slightly longer than if you were at rest. Your buds riding self cannot possibly discern this longer time because every single photonic movement is affected.

10) yes gravity is equivalent to acceleration.

The rest of what you said is for physical time only. As measured by differences in physical objects. All relativity aside nothing can or will affect sequence. How things record ticks of their moving photons is completely irrelevant to the sequence of events unfolding on the universe. It's a confusing mistake that many people make intermingling the two.

Edited by White Crane Feather
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It is fascinating, but when you realize what's happening its not that difficult. You see we are dealing with two different definitions and understandings that get co mingled a lot when they should not.

One definition is the physics definition.

Time = physical change.

The other that is more used by normal folks and not physicists is

Time = sequence.

So to answer your questions.

1) yes, for with the first definition. Time is quantized at the Planck because it can only be measured with the discreet units of matter. It's a no issue for the second.

2) no. Time does not "flow" in either definition. It's not a thing it's a concept.

3 & 4) that depends on what you call "our universe", but in most views it would be yes for the first definition and no for the second. The first definition is measured by physical ticks of an imaginary clock with physical characteristics , so any hint of these ticks slowing and stopping will spell the end of physical time. Fortunately we know that this is only localized. We hear for example that time stops in a black hole, but that Dosn't mean the rest of the universe stops or that the black hole cannot change. On the contrary, it can be made more massive and possibly even evaporate away via Hawking radiation. The fact that it can change should demonstrate that sequence or proper time certainly is not frozen.

When it comes to the BB. We encounter the same scenario. Yes physical time as measures by the physical stuff that we know of was not moving around to potentate any ticks of any click made out if the stuff that we know of. But in no way does this eliminate the potential for change... A condition we need for the BB to even happen. There really is no reason to assume our Big Bang was to only one, and modern speculation on its origins necessitates the existence if a foaming infinite sea of a vacuum filled with potential energy and probably many other universes.

5) infinite regression is a nice logical idea, but that's all it is an idea. The universe is not confined to oblige our logic and rarely does. We are finite beings, and the universe Dosnt really care if we can't look passed this. What's more logical than the infinite regression paradox is the simple recognition that something is infinite. It Dosn't matter what. Every one recognizes that there is always something before. Whatever that something may be.

6) no for the first definition. And yes for the second. I think it's important here to recognize time is not a thing. It's a concept. There is no meaning for physical time outside of this universe but you must make sure you know what physical time is. Sequence without prescribing to physical time must exist outside and inside and everywhere, but its not a thing either just relative sequence of events.

7) yes you are talking about physical time, however this does not preclude the possibility that you might unfreeze it. Or a that you even can freeze quantum fluctuations. If you froze "time" then unfroze it, then you never really froze it now did you? But I have to be careful here because now I'm mixing definitions as well.

8) he was only wrong because he did not know how traveling through space-time affects a clock. But rest assured the problem is how the clock interacts with space-time it has nothing really to do with sequence. He was mostly right and his physics are very accurate minus that on little problem with relativity.

9) it's a mistake to view it as a flow. In reality it's the clocks themselves that are ticking at different rates based on how much space-time they are traversing relative to the other.

You see C is fixed in all reference frames. If you wiggle your toe your brain sends a signal to your toe to make it move. If you are riding a buss, your toe has moved between the time the signal was sent and when it got there, because the signal is a fixed speed and the new real path of the signal is longer this manifests as it reaching its destination slightly longer than if you were at rest. Your buds riding self cannot possibly discern this longer time because every single photonic movement is affected.

10) yes gravity is equivalent to acceleration.

The rest of what you said is for physical time only. As measured by differences in physical objects. All relativity aside nothing can or will affect sequence. How things record ticks of their moving photons is completely irrelevant to the sequence of events unfolding on the universe. It's a confusing mistake that many people make intermingling the two.

Physical change, needs time and physical change in terms of a physic definition is the flow of "Entropy"

No event cannot happen without the state of entropy going from a lower state to a higher state. At the BB entropy was zero and at the heat death of our universe the entropic state of the universe would have become infinite.

Sadly nothing lasts forever, entropy is the reason why we die, entropy always wins in the end!

Entropy will eventually lead to the heat death of the universe?

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Physical change, needs time and physical change in terms of a physic definition is the flow of "Entropy"

No event cannot happen without the state of entropy going from a lower state to a higher state. At the BB entropy was zero and at the heat death of our universe the entropic state of the universe would have become infinite.

Sadly nothing lasts forever, entropy is the reason why we die, entropy always wins in the end!

Entropy will eventually lead to the heat death of the universe?

You are correct of course, but again I think it's really important to recognize that although disorder always increases, this isn't really "time" either but merely an affect of change. There has to be potential energy in order for it to move the universe to a lower energy state. Possibly order potentiates physical time. This of course then begs the question of how the universe got stacked with potential energy in the first place. The answer to that question is most certainly uncertainty. :P viewing this march to lower energy states might seem to give the impression of an arrow of time and it certainly points one direction, but I think we should be careful and not label this arrow time itself. Entropy is merely a consequence of using potential and scattering photons to the wind.

So I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Physical change does not need "time" to change. It only needs the laws of physics and space. This is why we call it space-time. Now certainly we can call the record and me measurement of that change time. But this is simply a recognition of change it was not something needed for change to occur in the first place. Time isn't really a thing that we need to activate as an actual thing. We already have labels for everything that makes it all work together, we invoke "time" when we need it all to relate to each other and us.

Yes the heat death of the universe. Either a massive vacuum of cold dead stars and black holes, or a sea of scattered photons and cold dead stars ( if hawking is right). But is it the "end of time". No it's not. The vacuum is still foaming with potential energy. Eventually there will be a fluctuation strong enough to initiate another BB and it will start all over again as it probably has for eternity.

Edited by White Crane Feather
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If you really think about it it would seem that the only misconception Newton had is in relation to the upper speed limit of the universe. When I was a teenager, and even now, I find it difficult to view the speed of light as the "instantaneous" speed of the universe. (note I say instantaneous here in a relative sense. Travelling exactly at the speed of light for one tick of time will result in all time to pass instantly, it is, in a phrase, "beyond time")

As soon as one understands that the speed of light is the instantaneous speed of the universe then the relativity of time doesn't seem that hard to wrap one's mind around. I'm sure Newton would have reached the same conclusion with a similar insight as Einstein.

I should also note here another interesting consequence of light as the absolute speed limit. That is that the perceived transition of time never changes. Regardless of what relative frame you are in the perceived rate that it passes by remains exactly the same.

I should also add that an interesting consequence of this understanding is that there is no "infinite periods of time" after the heat death of the universe. The next perceived tick of time will occur with the next particle interacting with the higgs field.

Edited by PsiSeeker
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If you really think about it it would seem that the only misconception Newton had is in relation to the upper speed limit of the universe. When I was a teenager, and even now, I find it difficult to view the speed of light as the "instantaneous" speed of the universe. (note I say instantaneous here in a relative sense. Travelling exactly at the speed of light for one tick of time will result in all time to pass instantly, it is, in a phrase, "beyond time")

As soon as one understands that the speed of light is the instantaneous speed of the universe then the relativity of time doesn't seem that hard to wrap one's mind around. I'm sure Newton would have reached the same conclusion with a similar insight as Einstein.

I should also note here another interesting consequence of light as the absolute speed limit. That is that the perceived transition of time never changes. Regardless of what relative frame you are in the perceived rate that it passes by remains exactly the same.

I should also add that an interesting consequence of this understanding is that there is no "infinite periods of time" after the heat death of the universe. The next perceived tick of time will occur with the next particle interacting with the higgs field.

Only massless particles travel at light speed, I'm pretty sure this means they do not interact with the Higgs field. I think you have to be careful here. Many times I hear about people positioning themselves from the perspective of a photon. The problem lies in that photons themselves are carriers of information. If you could be massless and really travel on a photon, then the information processes wouldn't be really interacting with space and is not subject to time dilation. I don't think.... no im near cetain you would not exsperience relative affects by the sheer virtue that you are not interacting with space or have any real intrnal signals going on within you of course because its an impossible scenario.

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Only massless particles travel at light speed, I'm pretty sure this means they do not interact with the Higgs field. I think you have to be careful here. Many times I hear about people positioning themselves from the perspective of a photon. The problem lies in that photons themselves are carriers of information. If you could be massless and really travel on a photon, then the information processes wouldn't be really interacting with space and is not subject to time dilation. I don't think.... no im near cetain you would not exsperience relative affects by the sheer virtue that you are not interacting with space or have any real intrnal signals going on within you of course because its an impossible scenario.

I agree, just trying to illustrate that the reason we know that time is relative is because we know that the speed of light is constant.

I'm going to stop trying to thought experiment what would actually be experienced or perceived at the speed of light. Too much for now.

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One particularly thorny issue with the concept of "quantised time", is how do we represent a universe which progresses in a frame-by-frame manner?

Such a progression would appear to violate fundamental laws - such as Conservation of Energy and, assuming the universe has a 'momentum', Conservation of Momentum. This is because, without a contiguous, non-quantised, dimension of time, the universe has to be destroyed at the end of every frame and recreated at the start of the next. (i.e. it cannot exist 'in-between' frames.)

The issue can be avoided by bringing extra dimensions into the equation and especially if we consider a Holographic Universe model, where the information about the universe still remains intact in the higher dimension to be reprojected into the 3-d (actually, 4-d) universe we observe on a frame-by-frame basis. However, such a model presents its own issues - such as how, if time has an absolute lower limit introduced by quantising it, can the information about the universe be rewritten into the higher dimension and back so quickly it apparently breaks this limit*.

Short of knowing answers to the questions posed by a quantised time concept, I choose to accept for the time being (pun intended) that time is not quantised, but contiguous - despite this introduces other issues regarding infinities.

* this assumes the duration between frames is also the shortest possible - i.e. 1 Planck unit. If we allow this duration to be greater, we can avoid this issue.

Edited by Leonardo
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One particularly thorny issue with the concept of "quantised time", is how do we represent a universe which progresses in a frame-by-frame manner?

Such a progression would appear to violate fundamental laws - such as Conservation of Energy and, assuming the universe has a 'momentum', Conservation of Momentum. This is because, without a contiguous, non-quantised, dimension of time, the universe has to be destroyed at the end of every frame and recreated at the start of the next. (i.e. it cannot exist 'in-between' frames.)

The issue can be avoided by bringing extra dimensions into the equation and especially if we consider a Holographic Universe model, where the information about the universe still remains intact in the higher dimension to be reprojected into the 3-d (actually, 4-d) universe we observe on a frame-by-frame basis. However, such a model presents its own issues - such as how, if time has an absolute lower limit introduced by quantising it, can the information about the universe be rewritten into the higher dimension and back so quickly it apparently breaks this limit*.

Short of knowing answers to the questions posed by a quantised time concept, I choose to accept for the time being (pun intended) that time is not quantised, but contiguous - despite this introduces other issues regarding infinities.

* this assumes the duration between frames is also the shortest possible - i.e. 1 Planck unit. If we allow this duration to be greater, we can avoid this issue.

My thoughts on the subject are, if time is quantized, the universe would not have to be destroyed and re-created at the end of each 'frame' or quantum time unit. When an elementary particle decays producing other particles, the decay is instantaneous. There is no 'moment' between the original particle's disappearance and the resultant particle's appearance.

If time is quantized, each quantum of time's duration may be one Planck time, and the next quantum of Planck time may manifest immediately or instantly.

We also would have to consider quantized space-time and not just quantized time by itself. Quantized space and quantized time would be inseparable, and manifest together.

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