The Speed of Time: Unfathomable Mystery

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In summary, Einstein proposed that time was relative to an observer, and that the speed of light was the only constant in the universe.
  • #36
WHY TIME EXISTS.

RULE #1 - Only one "unit" of mass can occupy a space. For instance two cars cannot be parked in the same space. But, we as humans have certainly seen two cars parked in the same space. This is the world of NO-TIME.

How have we seen this occur? We call this time. A scalar of some magnititude measured between one mass occupation and another mass occupation. This is OUR WORLD.

That is an easy understanding.
 
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  • #37
Drag - Time is absolutely a scalar quantity.

Alexander said: Time obviousely is not a dimension, but a coordinate.

Absolutely not!

Please drive your car to EST 9:23 PM October 21st.

I think perhaps what you were saying is that, if we assume our universe is 4 dimensional, that a coordinate could be

(X, Y, Z, T)

X Y Z being a special location, and time being well, it's special little self.

There we have a coordinate. But each of those independantly is not a coordinate.

So now I could say meet me at (from some universally known X = 0 Y = 0 Z = 0 and some universal time T) (308.34, 123.3, 123.65, 3434:234:88)

And there I will have milk and cookies waiting.

That would work just fine!
 
  • #38
Originally posted by Tom Leigh
Like what? To me time is movement and the
primal movement is thought. Unless something
moves there is no time, surely?
Well, if you for example believe some things
exist independently of our consciousness then
you could say that time is not just the above.

Live long and prosper.
 
  • #39
Originally posted by LogicalAtheist
WHY TIME EXISTS.

RULE #1 - Only one "unit" of mass can occupy a space. For instance two cars cannot be parked in the same space. But, we as humans have certainly seen two cars parked in the same space. This is the world of NO-TIME.

How have we seen this occur? We call this time. A scalar of some magnititude measured between one mass occupation and another mass occupation. This is OUR WORLD.

That is an easy understanding.

well..that's an easy understanding but it give me an insight to rethink my idea. thanks.

how long is i second for us that is still and how long is 1 second for someone moving at 0.9c? and why? that's the speed of time because every second is different for any object moving at different speed, IMO,what do you think?
 
  • #40
Originally posted by totoro
well..that's an easy understanding but it give me an insight to rethink my idea. thanks.

how long is i second for us that is still and how long is 1 second for someone moving at 0.9c? and why? that's the speed of time because every second is different for any object moving at different speed, IMO,what do you think?


TOTORO - It's important to remember that time is relativistic.

So let's say, cuzz I don't want to do the formula right now, that one second to the traveler, which is called proper time, is one second. But the person watching the travel is 1.2 seconds

Those two times are relativistically equal.

One time is for one person, the other for the other. You can't compare the two and say one is fast.

It unfortunately isn't correct.

So traveling faster does not speed up time. It only changes the dilation of time between you and a stationary person starting at the same point.
 
  • #41
Originally posted by Alexander
Time obviousely is not a dimension, but a coordinate. Dimension is defined as a degree of freedom to move back and forth in, but how to move back and forth in time?

Also, time is scalar value (can be positive or negative, but does not have direction). So is each dimension of space. To be a vector, you need at least 2 numbers. A bunch of spatial coordinates, or space and time coordinate(s) can be considered a vector (if it has at least 2 quantities).

alexander, I'm wondering if time is not a dimension, then why all the physicist says that time is the forth dimension beside the three spatial dimension. and now there's even more dimension in string theory but time is still consider a dimensionin this theory. this is as far as i know. (maybe i have a wrong definition about time)
 
  • #42
Originally posted by LogicalAtheist
TOTORO -

One time is for one person, the other for the other. You can't compare the two and say one is fast.


i don't understand why i cannot compare the two. can you please explain more detail for me.
 
  • #43
Originally posted by Alexander
Time obviousely is not a dimension, but a coordinate. Dimension is defined as a degree of freedom to move back and forth in, but how to move back and forth in time?

Also, time is scalar value (can be positive or negative, but does not have direction). So is each dimension of space. To be a vector, you need at least 2 numbers. A bunch of spatial coordinates, or space and time coordinate(s) can be considered a vector (if it has at least 2 quantities).

i am not agree with u
time is exactly a dimension
you say time can be positive or negative,the does not have direction
then what the positive and negative mean??! you don't think it sound strange?
and the dimension can be a coordinate
space is have 3 dimension
the coordinate of space is (x, y, z) ...
time is a dimension and aslo a coordinate
so our world is 4 dimension and have coordiante(x, y ,z ,t)
 
  • #44
Originally posted by totoro
well..that's an easy understanding but it give me an insight to rethink my idea. thanks.

how long is i second for us that is still and how long is 1 second for someone moving at 0.9c? and why? that's the speed of time because every second is different for any object moving at different speed, IMO,what do you think?

Well, if you take that track, then the speed of time is c. Get to that speed, and you come parellel to time. You keep pace with a specific moment and become "stationary" relative to it.

"Time does not pass; we do."
 
  • #45
Originally posted by totoro
i don't understand why i cannot compare the two. can you please explain more detail for me.

because our world relavite
no matter it is a time or speed
just like maybe you saw that person is fast
but i saw that person is not too fast
some people saw that person is slow
because our universe have no a absolutely stationaly frame
so we have no absolutely time and absolutely space...
your time is not absolutely frame ...
so you can't compare with other people time
 
  • #46
Lurch - with the little I know in this area, I think you bring my thoughts to the table.

The speed of time probably would best be defined as C (in a vacuum).


Because you always hear how traveling faster than C is time travel. I do not understand why it is time travel, but thus we in fact are traveling at some time LESS THAN C.
 
  • #47
Originally posted by LogicalAtheist
Lurch - with the little I know in this area, I think you bring my thoughts to the table.

The speed of time probably would best be defined as C (in a vacuum).


Because you always hear how traveling faster than C is time travel. I do not understand why it is time travel, but thus we in fact are traveling at some time LESS THAN C.

this because when we travel with C
our time will stop
travel faster than C can be a time travel is just a imagination
no any theory can prove
 
  • #48
Well, if you take that track, then the speed of time is c. Get to that speed, and you come parellel to time. You keep pace with a specific moment and become "stationary" relative to it.

this is really what i mean...but i don't know whether it's that the speed of time is c or not. and i want to add something. this mean that we will never get over c.
 
  • #49
Totori - really there is no speed of time. But if we want to bend the wording and create such a term, then the speed of time is C, bencause as stated above time stops at C.

In an ocean, at C you sit on top of the wave forever, go further and you slide down, go back to you fall backwards.

As I stated earlier the rule is the SPEED OF LIGHT cannot be breached.

If you are <C you can't go higher and if you are >C you can't go lower than C.
 
  • #50
there's something that i forget to say, this is an interesting i read from book.
if an object is standing still,then it is always travel at the speed of c in time dimension.but when this object moving at some speed, some of light-speed motion through time will diverts to light-speed motion through space.that's why time for a moving object is slowwer than the time for a stationary object. what do you think about this?
 
  • #51
Totoro - please repost your concept in a way that makes sense. It's missing many words and thus I can't even tell what you're saying.
 
  • #52
Time and whether it exists.

To me time is the passing of information through consciousness, which you physicists never include into your equations. Have you read the book, The End of Time, The Next Revolution in Physics, by Julian Barbour. He postulate that time doesn’t exist at all. (You can find him on the web)

I agree with a lot of his arguments, but he too tries to leave consciousness out of his equations and it just doesn’t work. Think about it. Unless you are consciousness nothing exists for you. If none of us were, if consciousness didn’t exist anywhere could anything at all exist? I postulate that it couldn’t.

Barbour is saying in his book I think, in a roundabout way spaced with a lot a maths, that the universe is consciousness and time is thought. Hence nothing moves.

Yet thought moves, or rather information moves through consciousness, hence time.

There is I believe this region, which I call the Psychron Zone, Barbour called it Platonia, where all thoughts meet and link. That ‘place’ is the universe.
 
  • #53
LogicalAtheist, you can read the book, elegant universe, because i copy it from that book. it is in page 50 saying about motion through spacetime. after thinking for sometime, i found out that is me that don't understand. I'm started to understand now why we cannot compare the two. I'm really happy that begin with don't understand to understanding.

the happiest thing for us is not the answer, but the process itself. we experience it by ourself. thank you very much LogicalAtheist and now i really really need to rethink my idea. thanks!
 
  • #54
Happy to here you're comment totoro. As for the book, I think I will get it ASAP as I need a good book to read before school starts next month. It's on my amazon.com list
 
  • #55
Originally posted by totoro
LogicalAtheist, you can read the book, elegant universe, because i copy it from that book. it is in page 50 saying about motion through spacetime.

LOL! That's where I got my statement that the speed of time is c. The idea is that every material object has a total volocity of c through spacetime. Any movement in one direction is subtracted from one's progress through other dimensions. Example; if you move North at 10khp, and I check your progress one hour from now, you'll be 10k North of where you were. But, if you go North-East, at the same speed, one hour from now I'll find you only 5k further North. Your 10kph volocity has been split; 5k North and 5k East.

So, taking your total volocity through spacetime as c, I add the sum of your volocities as; 5kph Northward, 5kph Eastward, and "c - 10kph" Forward through Time (entropy-ward?)!
 
  • #56
Greetings Tom Leigh !

Well, I do not disagree with you Tom Leigh
because anything's possible and I can't
refute such a possibility, it's also an
intresting one.

However, what you have to realize is that
science is only there to deal with the
data we observe. Now if we observe evidence
for the above - it won't be a reasonable
and self-consistent possibility, will it ?

Otherwise, however, it just remains a possibility.
Further more, it is an unnecessary assumption.
Science does NOT assume that everything is
"physical", there is not even a definition
for that word. Science is just about observing
the data we receive - whatever its source and
wether it has a source at all or not.

Live long and prosper.
 
  • #57
lets go the opposite direction from C, what about absolute Zero, no motion, Can time exist if motion does not? can energy exist in motionless.
 
  • #58
What about the speed (increase) of time?
I think that same as space expands, also time expands. So, effectively the time between now and the Big Bang was an infinite amount of time.
 
  • #59
well...
i still dun think the time should have speed
just like what i said before
time is only a dimension or coordinate
only the object in the dimension have speed
absolute zore will not make the time stop
this only show the entropy is zero
nothing will make the time stop
 
  • #60
Originally posted by sheldon
lets go the opposite direction from C, what about absolute Zero, no motion, Can time exist if motion does not? can energy exist in motionless.

No matter in whatever form (including energy) can exist without motion/change, which means time has to exist.

If there is no motion, then neither there is matter. We can conceive of this as "pure time" (time without any foreign admixtures).
 
  • #61
ok i am having trouble with the platform theory in the very first post. you are on a platform that is moving through space at the speed of light, and you are walking at ten miles an hour on this platform. well it doesn't matter if you are walking at ten hundred or zero miles an hour on the platform as it does not add to the total speed, your platform is traveling at the speed of light you could be sitting, walking, or doing things with your girl/boy friend, the platform and therefore you will still be traveling at the same speed regardless.and i think the reason we can't travel faster than the speed of light is becuase when we move energy is turned into acceleration energy and mass, the faster we go a higher percentage turns to mass, and as we approach the speed of light all the energy transfers to mass which means you then have no more acceleration energy and can't speed up any more, this means we can travel AT the speed of light but not faster than light, which is why the situation in the first post wouldn't work. [zz)] [zz)] [zz)] [zz)]
 
  • #62
Originally posted by Tom Leigh
Time and whether it exists.

To me time is the passing of information through consciousness, which you physicists never include into your equations. Have you read the book, The End of Time, The Next Revolution in Physics, by Julian Barbour. He postulate that time doesn’t exist at all. (You can find him on the web)

I agree with a lot of his arguments, but he too tries to leave consciousness out of his equations and it just doesn’t work. Think about it. Unless you are consciousness nothing exists for you. If none of us were, if consciousness didn’t exist anywhere could anything at all exist? I postulate that it couldn’t.

So you in fact belief that before conscious organisms came into being in the course of evolution, nothing whatsoever existed?

This is like the religious belief that a Deity created all of the universe and man at the same time.

However, we know from physisc that Earth existed long before there was any life.

So clearly there was something existing before there was consciousness. Matter is primary, and consciousness is secondary.
 
  • #63
Originally posted by heusdens
So you in fact belief that before conscious organisms came into being in the course of evolution, nothing whatsoever existed?

This is like the religious belief that a Deity created all of the universe and man at the same time.

However, we know from physisc that Earth existed long before there was any life.

So clearly there was something existing before there was consciousness. Matter is primary, and consciousness is secondary.

Just weighing into say that the scenario might just be the other way around: that CONSCIOUSNESS -- as the Primal Energy -- PRECEDED the "condensation" of "matter" FROM it (consciousness).

The fact that, at the moment, consciousness cannot be detected or measured -- except by its EFFECT -- does not preclude its existence as a "material" (i.e., SOME sort of SUBSTANCE) thing!

I'm with Leigh...and as I have said before: any cosmological theory that does not include the nature and evolution of CONSCIOUSNESS is an INCOMPLETE THEORY!
 
<h2>1. What is the concept of the speed of time?</h2><p>The speed of time refers to the perceived rate at which time passes. It is a subjective experience and can vary depending on factors such as age, location, and emotional state.</p><h2>2. Is time a constant or does it change?</h2><p>According to the theory of relativity, time is not a constant and can be affected by factors such as gravity and velocity. However, for practical purposes, time is considered to be constant in our daily lives.</p><h2>3. Can time be measured accurately?</h2><p>Yes, time can be measured accurately using clocks and other timekeeping devices. However, the accuracy of these measurements is limited by the precision of the instruments being used.</p><h2>4. How does the speed of time affect our perception of the world?</h2><p>The speed of time can affect our perception of the world by making it seem like time is passing faster or slower than usual. This can impact our sense of urgency, our ability to remember events, and our perception of aging.</p><h2>5. What are some theories about the speed of time?</h2><p>There are many theories about the speed of time, including the idea that time is an illusion and that it is a fundamental property of the universe. Some scientists also believe that time may be relative and can be influenced by factors such as gravity and consciousness.</p>

1. What is the concept of the speed of time?

The speed of time refers to the perceived rate at which time passes. It is a subjective experience and can vary depending on factors such as age, location, and emotional state.

2. Is time a constant or does it change?

According to the theory of relativity, time is not a constant and can be affected by factors such as gravity and velocity. However, for practical purposes, time is considered to be constant in our daily lives.

3. Can time be measured accurately?

Yes, time can be measured accurately using clocks and other timekeeping devices. However, the accuracy of these measurements is limited by the precision of the instruments being used.

4. How does the speed of time affect our perception of the world?

The speed of time can affect our perception of the world by making it seem like time is passing faster or slower than usual. This can impact our sense of urgency, our ability to remember events, and our perception of aging.

5. What are some theories about the speed of time?

There are many theories about the speed of time, including the idea that time is an illusion and that it is a fundamental property of the universe. Some scientists also believe that time may be relative and can be influenced by factors such as gravity and consciousness.

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