Is time really a dimension and why is it associated with relativity?

[Mentat]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
but people stopped commenting on my original idea a long time ago.

That's because you're right, and people like arguing something that they think they can prove wrong .

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Mentat
You seem to be having the same problem as (Q), on another thread. I can tell you that Relativity posulates that time is a coordinate, which warps and changes, due to the presence of matter. If you want another source, pick up a book about Relativity. As a matter of fact, if you get the book, The Elegant Universe (by Brian Greene), you can get at least a very basic idea of Relativity's view of the time dimension. I also suggest reading the book, "Relativity, the Special and General Theories", by Albert Einstein (obviously a reliable source, as to what Relativity postulates ). You don't have to believe what these - or any other - books say, but you apparently don't think that that is what Relativity postulates, and so I suggest that you read about it.. . . . I can't help you visualize the warping of time, any more than I can help you visualize Quantum Uncertainty, or what we look like from the Fourth Spacial Dimension. But, as I said before, I don't approve of people dismissing an idea, just because they can't visualize it. It is unreasonable, and irrational, to do so.

Sorry Mentat, I hadn't seen this post. I think possibly Drag is correct afterall, we seem to be going nowhere. And when someone starts telling me I need to read books and papers I've already read, I figure it's time to stop before I get angry.

My parting remarks are that I don't need help visualizing time warping. I have said that several times but you don't seem to believe I mean it. I also am not dismissing your idea, it just doesn't make sense to me, so I press you to explain why it makes sense to you. Saying "others" think time is a dimension is not a good explanation; still others think of time as I do. So we are left with our own understandings in such debates.

To repeat, the issue for me has never been time warping, but rather what the term "time" actually represents in physical reality, and why the term "dimension" has been associated with it for relativity. That and only that has been the dispute (for me). You want to insist that the use of the word "dimension" must mean it is endowed with some of the same properties as spatial dimensions. I disagree.

I remember at the last PF site too there were people who disagreed with your interpretation of time as a dimension, and that's because there is no concensus. So I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying that none of your arguments (nor those of any other time dimensionalist) have convinced me of the truth of your position. I don't believe, for instance, that time travel is possible or that time can "expand" along with the universe . . . and that doubt stems from nothing other than what I believe time is.