Moving though space but not time?

In summary, the conversation touched on the concept of particles and their movement through time and space. Some questions were raised about whether particles that only exist for a short time could be due to their lack of movement through time. The idea was suggested to test this by using two identical particle accelerators, one in space and one on Earth. However, it was pointed out that this idea has already been tested and that the speed of light is constant for all observers according to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. The conversation also touched on the topic of cosmic rays and their effects on muons. One individual apologized for their spelling due to being dyslexic and self-deprecatingly suggested leaving the thinking to the "smart guys," but
  • #1
s1c0
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0
...?
 
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  • #2
1) Either you have some serious English-spelling issues or I've been outside the news for a while (What are particles??).
2) If those particles do last a few seconds, wouldn't they "travel in time" (whatever this means to you)?
3) I'm particularly curious: why have you limited your "insights" to massless particles? This assumption seems to come from nowhere and have no use in your previous reasoning.
4) "so that the space is twise as fast as Earth time" - moving space. Interesting concept.
5) "What particle is it?" - And you ask me?
6) What would be the "standard rate"?
7)"If the particles traveled only through space and not time or through time at a different rate to us then the Earth particle would tarvel a greater distance than the space particle." Brilliant. Too bad that people have already thought of this and have done experiments with mesons, showing that Einstein's ideas (not yours) are correct. And they didn't even need a space-based particle accelerator!

I acknowledge I'm not very smart so either you are a genius or you should stop watching TV.
 
  • #3
Movement through space at < c always involves movement through time, and there is plenty to be argued about whether or not a photon "experiences" the passage of time. I don't really see what you're getting at here... at all.
 
  • #4
@nismaratwork: That's exactly my point.
Although I'm still puzzled by the expression "movement throught time" - I haven't studied much relativity, so I don't know if that is a valid wording.

s1c0's post makes no sense to me.
 
  • #5
Acut said:
@nismaratwork: That's exactly my point.
Although I'm still puzzled by the expression "movement throught time" - I haven't studied much relativity, so I don't know if that is a valid wording.

s1c0's post makes no sense to me.

Consider a particle's 4-velocity in Minkowski space... it's moving not just in 3 spatial dimensions, but a temporal dimension. This is the reason that the world-line for a regularly orbiting body is helical, and not circular. We're always moving through time.
 
  • #6
Acut said:
@nismaratwork: That's exactly my point.
Although I'm still puzzled by the expression "movement throught time" - I haven't studied much relativity, so I don't know if that is a valid wording.

s1c0's post makes no sense to me.

(1) Use the quote function, not the primitive @ key.

(2) Don't be so offensive in your responses. Different levels of understanding are present (and welcome, from what I've see) on this forum.
 
  • #7
nismaratwork said:
Consider a particle's 4-velocity in Minkowski space... it's moving not just in 3 spatial dimensions, but a temporal dimension. This is the reason that the world-line for a regularly orbiting body is helical, and not circular. We're always moving through time.

I understood what was meant by "movement through time". But I didn't know if it were a valid expression.
 
  • #8
s1c0 said:
Just a thought about particels that only appeare to exist for a few seconds. could this be because they only move through space and not through time. Almost like we were traveling past them.

My idea to test this would be to have two identical particle accelerators, one in space and one on earth. My variable would be time, which would be very slightly slower at Earth because of its mass.

If the particles traveled through time and space at the standard rate then in time T they would both travel the same distance D because V would be the same. (to an observer in space the particle would be slower on earth)


I think your "idea" has already been tested... 10,000 times/minute on every square meter of the Earth's surface. :smile:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon"

When a cosmic ray proton impacts atomic nuclei of air atoms in the upper atmosphere, pions are created. These decay within a relatively short distance (meters) into muons (the pion's preferred decay product), and neutrinos. The muons from these high energy cosmic rays, generally continuing essentially in the same direction as the original proton, do so at very high velocities. Although their lifetime without relativistic effects would allow a half-survival distance of only about 0.66 km (660 meters) at most, the time dilation effect of special relativity allows cosmic ray secondary muons to survive the flight to the Earth's surface. Indeed, since muons are unusually penetrative of ordinary matter, like neutrinos, they are also detectable deep underground (700 meters in the illustration above) and underwater, where they form a major part of the natural background ionizing radiation. Like cosmic rays, as noted, this secondary muon radiation is also directional.

300px-Moons_shodow_in_muons.gif

The Moon's cosmic ray shadow


Space and time is flexible, the speed of light is the same for all observers, according to Albert Einstein’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity" .
 
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  • #9
sorry for the bad spelling I am dyslexic, google search "did you mean" can only help me so much. :( sorry about the post since its already been done. just thought since I am not going to uni it could be something for someone to think about. I gues I should leave the thinking for you smart guys :P
 
  • #10
s1c0 said:
I gues I should leave the thinking for you smart guys :P

No worries, mate, never leave the thinking to others... we are all "wise guys" in some way or another... :wink:
 
  • #11
s1c0 said:
sorry for the bad spelling I am dyslexic, google search "did you mean" can only help me so much. :( sorry about the post since its already been done. just thought since I am not going to uni it could be something for someone to think about. I gues I should leave the thinking for you smart guys :P

Nah, don't be self-deprecating; you've asked a good question that puzzles many people who are not deeply into physics. That you haven't fully grasped instantly doesn't say anything about your intelligence, it just means there is more explaining to be done on our part. If you can specify where the problem is for you, it will make it easier for the rest of us to explain the problem, but that also requires you to think.
 
  • #12
I wasnt really asking a question :P. However looking over my own thoughts I think this might better explain my ideas. Let's say that time in space1 (the space with stars and planets :P) is the "nomal" time (time is never faster than this in the example) and we will be observing everything in the example from space1. So now time dilation is making everything around the Earth slower than us. All i was saying is that for a particle traveling through space2(3 dimensional space) and not time (or through time at a different rate to us)then in 1 second in space1"normal time" the particle could travel x meters. Now if it travels through the time dialated space for 1 second "earth time"(would be more observed from space) the particle would travel a greater disrance than x meters.


sorry about any non- physicsy phrases " time dialated space " I am not sure how to word some of the stuff.

This is just a thought about stuff. I am not trying to disprove or prove anything.
 
  • #14
s1c0 said:
... then in 1 second in space1"normal time" the particle could travel x meters.

I think I know what you are saying... If we on earth, with our gravitational slowed down clock, are looking at a particle in space for 1 "earth-second" it would travel 1 meter.

And in space, with a faster clock, we are looking at the same particle for 1 "space-second", it must naturally have traveled < 1 meter, because there is less time for the particle to move.

This is what you mean?

This is a tricky question... can anybody do the math, please... :smile:

But we can make it "simple", and say that your particle is a photon, always traveling at the speed of light. Then we can see that when observer A on Earth is looking at the photon moving in space for one second, it will travel 299 792 458 meters.

And observer B in space, looking at the same photon for one second, it will also travel 299 792 458 meters...!:bugeye:?

Solution: Observer A & B have different opinions not only on what constitutes one second, they also have different opinions on what constitutes one meter. And since we know that observer A on Earth has a slower clock, he must also have a shorter meter... gravity not only affects clocks, it bends space!

500px-Spacetime_curvature.png


I think... :rolleyes:

(This must be checked by a real pro so that I’m not telling you the wrong thing! :redface:)
 
  • #15
s1c0 said:
sorry about any non- physicsy phrases " time dialated space " I am not sure how to word some of the stuff.

I think the "time dilated space" would be referred to as a time dilated inertial frame, or better yet, just a moving inertial frame (moving relative to the observer).

***

But anyway, I had a funny thought reading through this. I don't know if this is what you were imagining but this is what I pictured when I thought of moving through space not time:

If you think of time as a straight arrow, this "timeless" particle would be moving perpendicular to this arrow. In a relativistic space-time diagram this would appear as a horizontal line. Now, this would clearly indicate it is moving faster than the speed of light and in fact to be completely horizontal it would need to be moving infinitely fast. So let's just sweep those complications under the rug for a bit.

Now, something was mentioned about this being a possible mechanism for particles that appear and disappear rapidly and perhaps randomly? I think that if it never moved through any interval of time, it would be undetectable because even if we directly crossed its path in space as we move though time the intersection would occur for such an infinitesimal period of time that it would be essentially nonexistent (unless perhaps the particle also had a sort of "temporal width" in the sense that one part of it existed say one second in the future compared to the other end of it).

If it were moving slightly through time (but still faster than c) then there is chance it may share a short period of space and time with us slow-pokes, seeming to appear then vanish. I want to go think about this more carefully but at first glance I think trying to following this particle may even result in it appearing to have a "dotted line" movement; hopping through space and time.

I may just be thinking this because of a short paper I read in the "independent research" forum which demonstrated how the results of the single/double slit experiments for single quanta can be theoretically modeled by assuming that the particle is moving in discrete hops which are the length of its deBroglie wavelength (and never using a wave description). So I find it exciting to think of something which may justify the assumption that instead of particles moving in waves, we are actually seeing single discrete objects hoping around somehow.

But either way, I believe the whole topic of "faster than light" particles has been thoroughly explored. If I'm not mistaken these were called tachions and they proved to be very inconsistent and messy to work with in theoretical calculations. So chances are it will be hard to shed light on anything new here, but then again you never know what small detail might have been missed!
 
  • #16
No question that something lying outside of the light-cone (purely space-like for all observers) would be impossible to detect.
 

FAQ: Moving though space but not time?

What does it mean to "move through space but not time"?

"Moving through space but not time" refers to the concept of traveling through physical space without experiencing any changes in time. This concept is often explored in science fiction and theoretical physics, and challenges our understanding of the relationship between space and time.

Is it possible to move through space without moving through time?

The idea of moving through space without moving through time is a theoretical concept and has not been proven to be possible. According to the theory of relativity, time and space are interconnected and cannot be separated from each other. Therefore, it is currently not possible to move through space without also moving through time.

How does the theory of relativity explain the concept of moving through space but not time?

The theory of relativity, proposed by Albert Einstein, states that the laws of physics are the same for all observers in uniform motion. This means that the passage of time is relative and can differ for different observers depending on their relative motion. Therefore, the concept of moving through space but not time challenges our understanding of time as a constant and absolute measure.

Are there any real-life examples of moving through space but not time?

Currently, there are no known examples of moving through space but not time in real life. However, some scientists have proposed the idea of "time travel" by utilizing concepts such as wormholes and time dilation, which could potentially allow for a person to experience less time while traveling through space at a high speed. However, these are still theoretical and have not been proven to be possible.

How does the concept of moving through space but not time relate to the concept of time travel?

The concept of moving through space but not time is often intertwined with the concept of time travel in science fiction and theoretical physics. While the former refers to the theoretical possibility of traveling through space without experiencing any changes in time, the latter explores the possibility of traveling through time itself. Both concepts challenge our understanding of the relationship between time and space and have sparked many debates and scientific discussions.

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