Does Time have a mathematical equation or Law?

[nukeman]

Does Time have a mathematical equation or Law?

Thanks!

 

[CompuChip]

I'd go with
$$t \mapsto t$$

 

[HallsofIvy]

"Laws", in general, and "mathematical equations" relate different things. It makes no sense to talk about a "law" or "mathematical equation" for a single thing such as time.

(Unless you have something trivial like CompuChip's $t\mapsto t$ which relates time to itself. That reminds me of Kierkegaards' dictum "Existence is that relation which relates itself to itself". I have never been able to make heads or tails of that!)

 

[Chronos]

Time keeps the universe from freezing.

 

[Agent Lumino]

Hallo nukeman,
I think I have an answer:

3*10^5 km = sqrt(-1) Sec.

Space and Time (1908) by Hermann Minkowski,
A Lecture of delivered before the Naturforscher Versammlung (Congress of Natural Philosophers) at Cologne — (21st September, 1908).

 

[nukeman]

Hallo nukeman,
I think I have an answer:

3*10^5 km = sqrt(-1) Sec.

Space and Time (1908) by Hermann Minkowski,
A Lecture of delivered before the Naturforscher Versammlung (Congress of Natural Philosophers) at Cologne — (21st September, 1908).

Thanks everyone!

Hey Agent Lumino, that's interesting, I am going to look more into that.

HallsOfIvy: You say: "relate different things"

Time interacts with a black hole correct? Would'nt its relationship with a black hole mean it has some type of equation? Or no?

 

[rowbot555]

Time on Earth's surface is 1 second per second anywhere else it is more or less depending on time dilation. Time dilation is a factor of velocity, distance from the earth, and nearby Mass to the clock.

 

[unixunited]

Time is not absolute, it is affected by gravity, as Einstein discovered.

Here's the formula for a clock in circular orbit:

$$t_0 = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{3}{2} \! \cdot \! \frac{r_0}{r}}\, .$$

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation"

 

[Pengwuino]

Hallo nukeman,
I think I have an answer:

3*10^5 km = sqrt(-1) Sec.

What the hell is that?

 

[Agent Lumino]

Hallo Pengwuino, this equation is called "The World Postulate" and it is part of Hermann Minkowski’s famous lecture “Space and Time” held in 1908 before the Naturforscher Versammlung (Congress of Natural Philosophers) at Cologne — (21st September, 1908). To be read on Wiki: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Space_and_Time
I don’t know why this postulate is not really discussed since more than one century. But for me it’s simply a very ecstatic explanation for the nature of time. Minkowski was a genius as he brought Einstein’s SRT into graphics.
With a nice short story, I will join the ideas of Hermann Minkowski, who surely died too early.
“The Flashlight of the Photographer”
A Metaphorical Apologue

At midnight a photographer with his flashlight is making an outdoor photo of his wife.
In this moment billions of photons are spread out. Most of them will pass his wife and start an infinite journey to space. But some of them will hit the face of his wife and will be reflected to the sensor of his camera, where they will be changed to electrical impulses and in summary to an image of the photographer’s wife.

Albert Einstein has shown that fast moving objects get two experiences while observing there surrounding:
1. In other initial systems time seems to proceed more slowly.
2. In the direction of the movement distances seem to be shorter.
These effects are equal for the initial system of the observer as well as for the observed one.
That’s why it is called the “Relativity Theory”.
In case of photons the speed of the movement is the speed of light, a maximum on principle in our universe. So time is standing still for photons and space has no elongation in the direction of their movement.
But if photons would be intelligent enough to describe their experience of their movement through space, they probably will say: “It seems that we are in a kind of motion, but we do not know how fast and we have no idea where we are going to. Also we cannot go more slowly or faster. But after all we know where we have been yet.”
And then we will realize that our experience of time is very similar to the experience of their movement.
Could it be true, that our time is nothing else, than a movement through an, at least 5-dimensional space with the maximum speed on principle, similar to a photon’s journey. No wonder, why we cannot see any higher dimensions - similar to photons – and why we have freedom of motion only in three remaining dimensions.

In case of the photographer billions of photons are spread out to produce an image in his camera. If some of these “intelligent photons” start to reflect their own life, where they come from, the meaning of being and existence, even about their sense of life, they surely never ever will suggest that a photographer has created them in order to abuse and destruct them just to get a photo of his wife.
Could it be true, that the big bang was something like a higher dimensional flashlight photo?
And while we surge for answers, we know that we are as stupid as a photon, when we try to understand the meaning of a big bang.

Andreas Habelt, November 2006.