What Is Time: Answers to Your Questions

[Andrew Mason]

Tiny tiim - I mean that it would take 24 hours plus/minus some fraction to complete an 'axial' orbit - with the Earth regardless of my distace from the Earth and provided I can get up speed. And I would prove it by showing that my clock ticked through 24 hours in synch with the Earth's clocks. But you're right. At certain distances and at certain points in this hypothetical picture - the sun and moon and sundry plants - would probably get in my way. The trouble with reality - solid fact - is that it gets in the way of hypothesis. But I still need to be convinced that velocity isn't a critical value to time.

Why would my clock be slower? It corresponds to Earth time. Its 24 hours is identical to Earth's 24 hours. That's what I mean when I say that we're in the same time frame. But if I speed up that orbit - or slow it down - only then are our times different - exponentially so the further out the orbit.

But you are not in the same time frame. In orbit you are not in the same frame of reference as a person on the earth. You are falling in a gravitational field and the person on the Earth is not. There is a very slight difference between the orbiting clock and the identical clock on the earth. This has been proven with atomic clocks: See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/Relativ/airtim.html"

AM

 

[seasnake]

time is temperature, any temperature however minute over Absolute Zero results in motion and change and time is the measurement span that such motion and changes take place against

 

[rosie]

" time is temperature, any temperature however minute over Absolute Zero results in motion and change and time is the measurement span that such motion and changes take place against"

I agree. it's the best definition I've ever heard.

 

[cragar]

so you are saying that time is the average translational kinetic energy.

does light have a temperature?

 

[seasnake]

so you are saying that time is the average translational kinetic energy.

exactly

 

[cragar]

does light have a temperature and does light expirence time?

 

[rosie]

I assume so. That's what seasnake recommended. I like it. Better than all other explanations.

 

[seasnake]

light is absorbed and it reflects when it hits mirrored surfaces, and different colored beams travel at slightly different constants (I've looked them up before), as such I prefer to think of light as having mass no matter how small it is, in any case light is simply the wave medium through which we are capable of seeing and to which our solar system seems to function (any experiments we conduct by ridding internal atmospheres are conducted with containment materials of speed C, which to me kind of invalidates the testing), ironically we can not see black mass, black matter, black holes, and we are missing a complete color in the color wheel, to me it seems logical that if speed were capable of traveling faster than lightspeed (the medium we can see) we wouldn't be able to see whatever was traveling at such a frequency speed (which can be entire systems if you view that our system travels at our light speed)

light does not in my opinion represent kinetic energy, as light initiates no motion of choice on its own, as such its potential energy, energy in motion that can be tapped but not motion of change (it is not observed to change direction by its own choice and it does not have any known half-life which indicates change... this is interesting on its own accord as all mass we know about has a half life, so if light does have mass it is mass in prime form that is mass that is no longer capable of further reduction, unless it does have a half-life)

 

[tiny-tim]

" time is temperature, any temperature however minute over Absolute Zero results in motion and change and time is the measurement span that such motion and changes take place against"

I agree. it's the best definition I've ever heard.

Sorry, but it's rubbish …

in what sense can it be a definition of time?

Why would my clock be slower? It corresponds to Earth time. Its 24 hours is identical to Earth's 24 hours. That's what I mean when I say that we're in the same time frame.

Its 24 hours is identical to Earth's 24 hours only because you've cheated by adjusting your clock!

If you hadn't cheated, your clock would be going slower!

You can make your clock go at any rate you like, just by turning that little knob at the back …

that isn't being in the same "time frame" …

that's just you!

 

[rosie]

If my velocity is adjusted to exactly match the axial spin of the Earth - then my time would surely be coincident with Earth's? I cannot see how it could be otherwise. No adjustment. Just my speed adjustment. And then I orbit at the same time - in fact I stay at the same point in relation to Earth's spin - always dawn. Why Tim should be clock be any different to Earth's time. I just can't get it. But I realize I'm probably wrong.

 

[seasnake]

Sorry, but it's rubbish …

in what sense can it be a definition of time?


Its 24 hours is identical to Earth's 24 hours only because you've cheated by adjusting your clock!

If you hadn't cheated, your clock would be going slower!

You can make your clock go at any rate you like, just by turning that little knob at the back …

that isn't being in the same "time frame" …

that's just you!

Time only exists when change exists, without change time stops/ceases to be, Absolute Zero is the temperature when all motion is said to stop. With temperature you have change, both kinetic energy and potential energy and all mass decays and has half lives, if mass has half-lives then it has an internal clock, gravity and speed seems to affect clock speed but no matter how slow time appears in relation to time in another area, time always moves forward, not backwards (relativity)

 

[tiny-tim]

… if mass has half-lives then it has an internal clock …

The "internal clock" of a lump of uranium does not depend on its temperature …

I'll admit you can't get the lump down to absolute zero, simply because it generates its own heat … but above absolute zero, temperature does not affect an internal clock.

If my velocity is adjusted to exactly match the axial spin of the Earth - then my time would surely be coincident with Earth's? I cannot see how it could be otherwise. …

No, adjusting your speed does automatically adjust your clock, but by a factor √ (1 - v²/c²) …

it has nothing to do with a comparison with the rotation of the Earth.

 

[seasnake]

ahhhh... I never claimed that temperature affects the rate of time, but merely creates the existence of time, time is temperature, without temperature you shall find you don't have time.. after that I'll go with crager when he wrote, "time is translational kinetic energy"... kinetic energy comes into play the moment you have temperature exceeding absolute zero

note: your question was, what is time, not how does time function, and I consider these to be two distinctly different questions, expecially when you toss in relativity

 

[Andrew Mason]

If my velocity is adjusted to exactly match the axial spin of the Earth - then my time would surely be coincident with Earth's? I cannot see how it could be otherwise. No adjustment. Just my speed adjustment. And then I orbit at the same time - in fact I stay at the same point in relation to Earth's spin - always dawn. Why Tim should be clock be any different to Earth's time. I just can't get it. But I realize I'm probably wrong.

You may stay in the same position relative to the person on the Earth but your perceptions of time will be slightly different. This is a consequence of relativity. You have to study relativity to begin to understand why this occurs. It has to do with the speed of the same light signal being the measured the same by all inertial observers - even by one who is moving at close to the speed of light relative to another.

AM

 

[epenguin]

Time is what clocks measure, nothing but.

So

did time exist before the big bang?

If nothing existed, or better, if nothing happened before the big bang then there was no time before the big bang. If you had been there you would not have got bored waiting for something to happen, because no nervous impulses would be arriving - those impulses are something happening that is telling you maybe that nothing much else is.

 

[seasnake]

Time is what clocks measure, nothing but.

so under your definition, time doesn't start until somebody first builds a clock

 

[epenguin]

so under your definition, time doesn't start until somebody first builds a clock

No - physical events constitute a clock. E.g. the rotation of the Earth is used as a clock. It was not constructed by humans if that is what you mean.

 

[cragar]

a clock is used to observe time . time is something that is there.

 

[Stratosphere]

Can time exist without matter and space? And can space exist without time?

 

[cragar]

space and time are one thing. the spacetime continium.
i would say that time could exist without matter.

 

[rosie]

Wasn't that Einstein's discovery - that time had to be factored into a description of matter? Without it - descriptions are incomplete? That's why I liked Seasnake's description. It relates to fundamental changes to matter.

"space and time are one thing. the spacetime continium.
i would say that time could exist without matter. - Cragar"

Then time would first need space and that's another question. Did the space for the universe exist before the big bang? Something out there for the universe to fit into?

As I'm a proponent of the Steady State theory - a ridiculous minority - I buy into the concept that time has always existed - since the beginning - whenever that was?

But it's just the measure of change from the most fundamental perspective. And that change is always associated with temperature.

 

[tiny-tim]

Einstein

Wasn't that Einstein's discovery - that time had to be factored into a description of matter? Without it - descriptions are incomplete? That's why I liked Seasnake's description. It relates to fundamental changes to matter.

No, Einstein said no such thing.

(That's why I don't like Seasnake's description.)

Einstein said that time and three-dimensional space are (to some extent) interchangeable …

that has nothing to do with matter!

(Einstein also said that matter and energy are interchangeable …

that has nothing to do with time!)​

 

[rosie]

Tiny-tim - yet again. I stand corrected. These concepts are way beyond me. I need an elementary guide for the particularly stupid. I can't event get past the clock difference if I orbited Earth in synch with the Earth's orbit - no matter the distance. Maybe you can recommend some reading. Meanwhile I'll try and find something on the net.

 

[Andrew Mason]

Tiny-tim - yet again. I stand corrected. These concepts are way beyond me. I need an elementary guide for the particularly stupid. I can't event get past the clock difference if I orbited Earth in synch with the Earth's orbit - no matter the distance. Maybe you can recommend some reading. Meanwhile I'll try and find something on the net.

Search for articles on Special Relativity.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/relcon.html#relcon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity


Also look at General Relativity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
http://www.spacetimetravel.org/


In orbit you would be able to observe the same events as a person on the surface of the earth. It is just that you would disagree slightly on the time between events. You would see the sun rise every day and count the same number of days. It is just that your atomic clocks would differ on how long that day was.

AM

 

[rosie]

Thanks Andrew. I'll go for it.

 

[seasnake]

I'm still sticking with my answer as Absolute Zero is impossible to reach within our reality, that is to say that if Absolute Zero were reached time as we know it would cease to exist, though a new construct of time would originate as super conductivity and super fluidity result at absolute zero, but at Absolute Zero time would stand still (cease to exist) within our reality (this gives rise to relativity of time under kinetic energy).

"Einstein said that time and three-dimensional space are (to some extent) interchangeable …

that has nothing to do with matter!"

Are you insinuating that three-dimensional space exists without time, temperature, and matter? Cause if you aren't your argument makes no sense.

 

[rosie]

Seasnake - here's my penny's worth. Einstein - the giant - could not reconcile gravity in a general theory of relativity. I am not sure how 'good' he was but I know that our astrophysicists are pretty amazing and they use Einstein's insights to get some really amazing facts about our universe - from such tiny, tiny clues. It blows me away.

But for all that Einstein was not necessarily correct in every respect - not that I presume to understand in whichever way he was not correct - the point is that he developed his ideas by thinking out the box. And the fact that he left us with unanswered questions is a good thing. Because that way we can develop new ideas and new insights. Otherwise we'll all be parroting each other forever. That would really be boring.

 

[seasnake]

rosie, I've spent years trying to detangle the formulas and problems associated with how Einstein formulated energy, I'm very close to writing it up and submitting to the associated press... I'll be presenting it all graphically in a way that should be very simple to understand and readily acceptable

 

[rosie]

I thought you'd done some work here. Anything easy to understand gets my vote. But that's because I'm hopeless at getting my mind around these rarified concepts. The sad part is that it's not from want of effort. I love puzzles - but cannot crack this one. Way above me. At the moment I'm ploughing through the links sent by Andrew.

 

[seasnake]

Just spent the greater part of the day tossing away three day's work trying to transcribe the C in Einstein's formulas to become variable, as I could not get my sums to add up properly, then went over my notes and found a formula that I had no clue how I obtained it, but with some additional modifications finally got it to work with my sums, I'm very close to solving this puzzle (you have no idea the amount of time it takes to make such progress, I've had to create entirely new variables of which I hadn't a clue what they represented or if they were simply dummy variables that represented nothing, and then to try and figure them out later, is mind puzzling)... I still don't know what my results will be, but everything should be very simple upon completion (give me some more days).

Einstein wasn't so much wrong but instead incomplete, he touched upon something that needed worked out more and then the mathematicians and other physicists got ahold of his work and transformed it into something that was very confusing even to him. I read his article on relativity entitled, "How to Measure a Fish," Einstein was very much into trying to simply things so that everyone regardless of education and mathematical background could understand. He needed to be able to do that cause it was the only way anyone would ever publish or accept his work until he had a name for himself.

 

[rosie]

Einstein wasn't the only one who tried to simplify. Niels Bhor is on record as saying that unless a theory, or hypothesis? not sure which - can be explained to a high school student - ie - in simple terms - then it probably wasn't a valid theory.

I sympathise with your struggles seasnake. I also struggle. Am still trying to plough through those links sent by Andrew.

 

[seasnake]

lol... good luck on those links, I draw the line at simple arithmatic... if it can't be explained out in algebraic form it isn't simplified enough for my tastes

 

[tiny-tim]

fishics

Einstein … I read his article on relativity entitled, "How to Measure a Fish,"

oooh … oooh …

where can i find that? ​

 

[seasnake]

I can't find it online anymore, it used to be on a free website containing various works of philosophy by all types of people (like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, ...). The web is too big business, marketing orientated, anymore, its hard to find any decent sites anymore (most were lost due to monthly charging fees of domain names and hosting sites, if you aren't commercially orientated your site isn't bound to last long due to such costs).

 

[rosie]

Andrew and Tiny tim. I've just read through this entire thread. You guys are very patient. I'm pleased to report that - though still hopelessly confused I think I'm getting some marginal clarity on this subject. Wow - is all I can say at the moment. The question is just so hugely complex.