Does time exist?

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Of course it exists in our perception, it is needed.

I think the reason it actually doesn't.. Is because every moment of time, is simply motion in space.

So just as equally you could say space IS time..

Meaning its a quantitative version of what motion actually is..

It exists because we created it, but time itself has no importance outside of earth, or in terms of existence itself, its just a measurement..

Motion however can't be measured without time.. But motion can EXIST without time..

Hmmmn!

Time doesn't exist; it's already happened. Since space and time is one, and space exists in all it's glory all the time, every moment of time we 'pass' is actually still being lived. Just not by you.

In relativity, if you're going fast enough, and far enough away, you can see the effects of an action before the action actually happens. That's why faster than light travel violates casality; you could rush back, at FTL speeds, and stop the action from happening.

Time is happening all at once, so is space. (At least that's my understanding (and Einstein's))

Time is happening at different speeds in different places. Not so much of a difference on earth, but if you were traveling at close to the speed of light, time would travel considerably slower for you.

Hasn't anyone ever heard of the experiment where two clocks were syncronised, then one of them was put on a plane traveling at a very high speed. When they were compared after, it was found that the clock in the plane was 1 second behind. Hence time wasn't traveling at quite the same speed in the plane.


So if you think about it, you could get 2 twins and send one off on a spaceship. Ten years could pass for the twin in the spaceship, but 20 years could pass for the twin on earth. Time is relative!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

The reason its relative is because its a construct of our own.

I love this thread I must say.

Hmmmm someone here obviously needs to read Relativity by Albert Einstein.

Most of this post is BS

You've read relativity?

I've read it twice.

Just cause you don't understand it, or I phrased something badly, doesn't make it BS.

"Don't criticise something without offering up a logical argument in its stead"

By the way, Einstein is a reference, not the definition of how we see reality.

Why do you think it is called space-time?

"the laws of physics apply to all observers in uniform motion"

The above is one of the key understandings of relativity.

Its quite simple really, apply this to my post, and you'll see I wasn't wrong at all, in fact, according to relativity each statement I made in that post was correct.

Additional:

I've re-read my post some of it was written quite badly I apologise for that.

However, I do know I was correct.

Let me pose something from einstein himself:

"the laws of physics must satisfy the requirement of being relationships of the same form, in every frame of reference"

The notion of "the same time" now has meaning only in reference to the observer.

And anyway, physics moves forward through the falsification of a theory, not simply agreeing with it without thought.

You really think something is an absolute truth? Einstein was smart yes, I'm not even saying he's wrong, I'm saying he hasn't encompassed the scope of everything.

The unification of quantum mechanics and relativity may be as simple as the way we're employing time as a factor.

Absolutely true and absolutely false, if there is one thing I've learnt is that these two ideals get us nowhere.

Time exists. If time didn't exist the effects we perceive as time would be perfectly symmetrical. If time were perfectly symmetrical, nothing could ever happen. The moment an event happens it would break the symmetry, because now there would be points before, during, and after the event. Since we have had many events in our Universe, time must exist and must be asymmetrical.

I do believe, however, that our experience of time is not absolute (not meaning Relativistic effects here.) Time is controlled by God and He may alter it or our perception of it at will. For example, I had a bad traffic accident not long ago and time seemed to be running in slow motion. I watched as the air bag took about 3 seconds to deploy at the rate I was perceiving time, and the whole accident took about 5 seconds. In reality, I had hit a car at 55 miles per hour, so the entire accident took place in the blink of an eye, but I did not perceive it that way. I think this is how God kept me from feeling the pain of my rib cage as several ribs were broken and I didn't feel a thing.

Yes, I've heard about those experiments. The faster and longer someone travels, the bigger the time gap. However, suppose that two people were constantly talking on a flight for the entire time, or someone was listening to a radio broadcast that didn't have any silent breaks. Now, how would we explain the time gap? Time wasn't travelling at quite the same speed in the plane, but both people experienced the exact same length of "time". Or did they? Was the time gap so short that the person on the plane wasn't able to experience the "compressed" version of the transmission due to physiological limitations (as we are talking about a one second compression of an eight hour experience)?

But, a commercial airline travels at about 250 m/s, while the space shuttle travels at over 7000 miles a second, however, conversations on the space shuttle "seem" to taking place at normal speed. Or is the compression (if there is compression at all) here also too short, to where our physiological limitations cannot detect them? Perhaps they should time the transmission recieved on the space shuttle and time them on earth and compare them (although this too would raise questions about the "timing" on the space shuttle).

Also, if someone was travelling at light speed, wouldn't their transmission of the signal be long a dragging tape if time was slowing down for them? Would they even be able to hold a conversation with someone who was stationary? What does this say about time? Too bad star trek wasn't real, because then we could ask how they communicate at warp 9, haha. I haven't sat down and really thought about this yet, but I think it's something significant.

I have not read anything about physics, so are there any actual physics majors here? Not just someone who has read some physics books?

The effect you are talking about is Relativistic "time dilation." The fatser you move relative to another frame of reference, the slower time goes. But, you have to move *very* fast or travel for a *very* long time for the effects tpo be significant.

The clocks of which you speak were atomic clocks, and the time differential wasn't a second, it was a puny fraction (millionths or billionths) of a second.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

A whole second would only work if the speed of light was very slow.

Or the plane was really, really, really fast.

You said that space WAS time which is incorrect. Motion is time. movement creates time. If an object was brought to a a standstill in the universe and chilled to absolute zero, time would cease to progress for that object, but it would still occupy space. This is of course theoretical because all matter in the universe is in motion.

The link between space and time is that since all abjects are moving, you can't describe an objects dimentions (X,Y,Z) without also describing WHEN they existed within those dimentions.

The argument you seem to be making is a variation of the Greek philosopher Zeno's (I belive it was) argument that said motion was impossible. He said that the distance between 2 objects could be split in half an infinate number of times. This would create and infinate number of points that had to be crossed for the 2 objects to meet. Since tha space between the two was infinate, the distance could'nt be crossed.

Obviously, if a space dimention is cut in half, time is cut in half as well. They exist on OPPOSITE sides of the equation not the same side.

Hmmm....this is interesting, but how does this reconcile with Relativity?

I used bad wording.

I meant they're opposite sides an equation....


ie:

a certain amount of space, or space travelled, or the space between two points EQUALS a certain amount of time, or a certain time limit etc..

Knowing these two we can pinpoint the speed, displacement etc.

I said this:

"Is because every moment of time, is simply motion in space."

You said this:

"The link between space and time is that since all abjects are moving, you can't describe an objects dimentions (X,Y,Z) without also describing WHEN they existed within those dimentions. "

I was using a "moment in time" to actually describe the ability to pinpoint an objects..
You'll find I was just using the opposite angle.

I'm definately not saying motion is impossible, I'm saying everything that exists is in motion, that is a given, I'm also saying time is simply the quantification or ordering of our measurements, a way to relate it to space and how objects move.


"Obviously, if a space dimention is cut in half, time is cut in half as well. They exist on OPPOSITE sides of the equation not the same side."

I'm simply pointing out that time is a measurement, not a physical reality, yes the limits we've imposed exist..

However, it is real, and without the time, space between two points, the speed, and the motion would all be unmeasurable.

I'm not saying space IS time (though I used that sentence)

I was actually trying to say that time itself, is really just a motion in space, between 2 points, graphed against all that we've recorded and all that we can see...

Meaning time is a different measurement of the same thing...


Say you have two cars, one gets too its destination quicker than the other.

To determine which is faster, you would need the distance, and the time, however if you had the distance of BOTH, you could determine which is faster without any relation to time.

Sorry its late, I've explained myself badly again..

I'll conclude it here...

If we have something we can class as uniform motion (ie: light) we use this as our objective viewpoint, and set two "events" as the two to relate to each other....

What happens when time = 0 or close to 0? Is this possible? Is this why on a quantum level things seem to work in probabilistic ways? Because time and space are so close to 0 that the resulting motion is instantaneous?

Aging is a good example.

It doesn't happen because time dictates the body to age, but the body is getting "used up" and thats why someone who lives a harsh life ages faster than others.

Time is a very advanced and difficult subject to discuss since it is so abstract. What should be considered "man made" can be discussed for ages...

Mathematics was created by humanity, but as a representation of reality. We made the representation, but the reality is there, and always has been there.

Time is real. If you were to say that it is just an idea, and that all that matters is what exists now - how do you explain the effects on time that the Theory of Relativity has? (FYI, the effects on time have been proven in experiments)
IE, if you have two atomic clocks, and you send one on a rocket on orbit around the earth for a while, and then land it and bring it back to the other one, the one that went into space will have slightly more/less time recorded on it (can't remember which).