Hi, this is first (of many) proper topic on these forums so i thought I'd start off with something philosophical and perhaps a bit geeky

Time!

Although everyone knows to an extent how time acts, i dont think anyone truly knows what it is.

i think its like a giant bubble full of bubbles. where each bubble is an entire reality holding every single thing, (multi-verse) freeze framed like a still in a film. We then pass through these moments very quickly to make it seem like time is moving, when if fact we are moving through time. If you look at planck time, (1 attosecond (10 to the -18 seconds)is about 10 to the 26 Planck times.) It could be said that time is made of VERY small bits (quantum) rather than one continuous wave. People are trying to find the solution to quantum gravity. I think this would be quantum time .... ish

This can work with determinate tangents of reality where one can make a decision which causes them to go off into one stream of bubbles. If you move quicker you go forward in time quicker (which actually happens)
but if you stop you can only freeze the frame. since no one has worked out how to do backwards you cant go back in time yet. but this model does allow you to go back and chose another path if it were possible. (see Einstein-Rosen bridges) without changing the tangent you chose to go down in the first place.

It takes a couple of extra dimensions of thinking but it makes sense to me.




Anyway, please discuss, I'd be interested in others ideas and also getting to know you guys :D


Also just realized i posted this in the wrong section, Sorry :(

I would highly recommend Julian Barbour's book "The End of Time."

Many of the ideas in the book are explained in a video called "Killing Time" which can be found on Mr. Barbour's website:

http://www.platonia.com/

This video is amazing! It is pretty much describing what i was thinking in a more articulate and justified way!

thanks!

Don't know much about the physics of time, but I once heard Kaku describing time as "bendable" and that it might be possible to bend time into pretzels.

It was an interesting video though I really don't agree that Barbour is very articulate.

I liked the demonstration at the end of the triangles and using the string, but in his attempts to simplify a complex abstract thought, I think misleads.

For example, (using Barbour's model) if the place from which the points (atoms)began their journey can be thought as the Big Bang then the model makes sense in one respect. Of the eight eras defined within BB theory - the atom era is number seven. Barbour attempts to show that three atoms began at one point and diverged on a path in his example the path formed a triangle. If the atoms originated from the same point in a young universe, then their paths should align as they expand outward, this would maintain the triangular formation. So imagine the flat shaped triangular shape rising from the point equivalently. Not only are the point not sharing space they are not sharing time and likewise every linear point located from angle to angle is in different time and space yet none of them every changes, nor does their path.

It's a very simple analogy but it's too simple and can be misleading. First of all Barbour omits the first six eras which had to set the stage for atoms to exist. This stage of existence 'I relate' to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. The previous six eras were required to set the framework of the spacetime fabric our universe.

According to Einstein’s theory, motion affects measurements of time and space and the Newtonian theory of gravity, more accurately defined by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, indicates that mass as well as velocity affect time as well.

So to me, the model Barbour uses only enforces equilateral and linear thinking, instead of creating the necessary setting for more complex abstract thought processes.

In omitting spacetime as a framework/fabric that sustains physicality he loses the idea that all atoms, which make up any physical body, exist from moment to moment without change in any particular moment because motion and velocity dictate the point at which a new spacetime is occupied by any atom.

This is necessary to understand his explanation of how a clock keeps time - as a balance mechanism which indicates a new spacetime position.

Barbour also does not explain how change can be witnessed in any physical body or in an atom, he just insists there is no change but he means there is no change in the moment, the change actually occurs between each moment as any atom moves to a new location.

Absorbing all of that is necessary to understand how velocity and mass alter the fabric of spacetime and thus the illusion that time can speed up or slow down. It is the density of any mass as it moves through the spacetime fabric that creates the illusion of time. The greater the mass of an object the more deeply it penetrates the spacetime fabric.

So NOW begin again with the point at which the BB took place. Instead of linear thinking as in the Barbour model, consider a spiral motion, similar to a tightly wound spring. Now imagine that atoms smash together along the path in which the spacetime/fabric is preceding them. They build upon each other creating greater bodies of mass and the illusion of time.

In this way we can now understand why it is (with minor exception) that the universe seems to be so unified in its swirling and circular motions.

Now consider that any atom or combination of atoms traveling along in a swirling spring-like fashion has forged a path - a place it once was and that place is a distance between the now and an alternate now. But here's the cool part, no two atoms existed in the now at any one time so there are infinite alternate nows in which one atom or another exists (in that alternate now).

What can we consider as an extension to all that information? Time travel: All we need to do is figure out how to alter and guide the path of a physical body to any spacetime that exists on the continuum (the swirling and expanding spring). We don't have to backtrack or move outward along the continuum we can bend the spacetime firebrick; say by creating a wormhole, to move from one layer to another. Of course science has been unable to create stable wormholes, but the idea should work, according the already proven Theories.

That's my opinion about Barbour's explanation based on what I understand of current science. There are many here with much greater knowledge than myself - so all you brilliant people please correct me as one of greatest interests has always been "What is Time?"

Redykeulous, that was a very insightful (albiet hard to follow with my very limited knowledge)

From my understanding barbours model was very simple, but what i see from it, is an abstraction of the idea. he uses direction as one example of an axis, where by the resultant planes create an infinite number of points. If one could consider that the 3 axis are not definite, other variables may come into play. (spin etc) it may be him simply trying to covey that there are infinite combinations of every variable, all lying on the same plane, but that there was only one state at the big bang where these axis' come together.


Sorry if i misunderstand, my education of physics and maths stopped at high school and i haven't read a great deal past A brief history of time

I really think that, in order to get a complete understanding of what Barbour's proposal encompasses, one would have to read "The End of Time." I've read it three times myself, and still haven't fully assimilated all of the material.

But it goes into much greater detail than the video, and he uses a number of explanatory devices (probability variations based on the density of the "mist" over various parts of Platonia, etc.) which are designed to help the non-scientist grasp the ideas involved.

I still have some issues with some aspects of this (for instance, how does one explain music, which would seem to require an absolutely sequential frame of reference, in a timeless universe?), but I find his theory extremely appealing and his writing style very readable.

Slower.

The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.


All such explanations are linear, its loosing the added dimensionality that makes it possible for a 3D brain to understand.

There are lots of tricks which make space-time physics almost comprehensible. The maths are the true guide, but if you are not very strong in maths (and then even then) you will not have a chance.

i was always under the understanding that people on the space station aged less quickly due to their speed. this meant that they kind of traveled forward in time as they would meet their older twin if they had one.


i am probably getting that entirely the wrong way round and should completely change my views.

Fundamentally, all matter exists in a state of continuous motion, moving through various energy states as the "particles" interact with one another. The passage of these energy cycles is what might be called time. It is a motion from one "now" to another "now" since energy transitions are discrete. Time consists of little jumps in energy states.
Day to day time as thought of by people occurs on a much different scale. We observe the sun move across the sky in a regular pattern. We define a day. We have now become sophisticated enough to base time on specific cycles of the Cesium atom.
But, the idea of continuous time is only a mathematical abstraction.
All in all time is based on the neverending, discrete motion of matter.

It only appears that they are moving forward in time from their perspective because when they return to earth more time has passed than they themselves seem to have experienced.

No one can move forward in time any faster than anyone else because all that actually exists is the present moment. But lets say you had yourself frozen for ten years and then thawed out ten years later. It would seem to you that you moved ten years into the future but you had just slowed down to a stop while you were frozen, you did not move into the future any faster than the people who were tending your frozen chamber.

It is the same effect when you are traveling through space. You slow down (inside the ship)the faster your ship travels towards the speed of light. If people in regular time could view the people in the ship it would appear to them that these people were either frozen or just moving in slow motion.

It is my belief that time does not exist and nothing can exist in the past or in the future. Everything exists right now. You cannot do anything in the future, you have to do it now.

Now if time has to do with the movement of bodies through space, and the speed of light this is what I think: The only reason we experience the illusion of time is because we are living in warped space and we have been slowed down within this space from our original speed which is the speed of light. The speed of light is the present.

If we could reach the speed of light then is when there would be no time at all. Everything is just now.

In truth, light has no speed. Light is just light existing in the present moment. The only reason it appears to have speed is because it is trying to traverse our warped space.

Just a thought.

I just ordered that book thanks. He thinks of time the same way I do. That it does not exist and that the universe is static.

I have looked at his (Julian Barbour's)website and watched his video on youtube.

I agree that time does not exist, however his description of there being many "nows" is just not correct in my humble opinion.

There is only one now. Now is infinite. (Surely he must realize this, so why would he describe time as having many nows and compare them to snapshots?)

And I did not hear him mention the role that the observer plays in this scenario.

He said there is no space or duration between one NOW and the next NOW and that NOW has no duration. I say that there is only one NOW and its duration is infinity.

So what we perceive as time (or many the moments he calls many nows) is very simple. These many moments are events. Events are perceptions of consciousness. If you break them down into the quantum theory or observation of the world, it becomes clear that the observer is the key to absolutely everything! Yet I did not hear him mention the observer once.

Time, space and movement are illusions of perceived events and these perceived events exist because of the observer. Duration of anything in any reality is relative to the duration of the observer and measured by how the observer perceives events unfolding.

Entropy is energy being consumed. When a body dies it is eaten by bacteria, insects, etc. It is even eaten by parasites while it is still living. Our bodies are made up of bacteria and other things that consume each other constantly. Aging is not caused by time - it is caused by entropy which is caused by one microscopic thing eating or taking energy from another microscopic thing.

I suspect that light has no speed at all, and that the universe is static in that respect. The only reason light seems to have 'speed' is because it is traversing through warped space created by the observers who manifest it with geometrical thought forms.

The true nature of the observer is the true mystery.

"The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time."

If changing either of these values causes change in the other,(i.e you speed up time slows down) there must be a greater 'force' relative to both space and time but containing them that we simply are not yet aware of.

Time and space are but the oposing ends of the teeter totter, true understand will not come until we can see the fulcrum that balances each.

That "greater force" is probably the observer who is the key to everything and dwells in a timeless place. That timeless place is NOW.

Both time and space are illusions because neither exist.

I really like this post. I always hesitate to call time an illusion however, I do not think its an illusion so much as its tricky. Space exists, I really never hear that space is an illusion, movement through space occurs, I almost never hear of movement as being an illusion. So if space and movement exist and have substance then time also necessarily exists.

Its mind boggling, but not really an illusion.

The higgs field, or whatever gives matter its mass.

I agree it IS mind boggling. But if you are in for a penny, you are in for a pound.

You can't say that time is an illusion and that space is not. They are either both real or both illusion because they are part of the same thing. (spacetime)

If the sensation of moving through space is an illusion and can be proven along with the idea of time being an illusion this will redefine the very nature of this entire reality and what we think we, the observers really are.

Perhaps we exist outside of this reality and our bodies are simply like avatars in a computer game and we have somehow placed our point of view inside of these bodies. This could mean that this reality is a creation of a machine we call the collective mind. It (this reality) is like a 3-D virtual reality created in a computer.

Julian Barbour has a formula that unites quantum mechanics with regular physics! But that formula depends on the idea that time does not exist. (I can't remember the name of it... I will look for it again.)
http://www.platonia.com/

Mass also is an illusion. Without a point of reference mass is a meaningless concept.

Energy fields have a lot to do with the realty we manifest. The higgs bosen was once referred to as a "particle." They thought (hoped) that it was a solid and "real" measurable thing. Now it is referred to as a "field." THEY NOW KNOW IT IS NOT A SOLID THING THAT THEY CAN MEASURE. It is an energy field.

Therefore reality, and this universe is made up of energy fields. Light is a also a form of energy (field). Light can only be said to have 'speed' in relation to another energy field as seen by an observer.

If anyone insists that time and space exist and that light has 'speed' then never the twain shall meet between regular physics and quantum mechanics. It stands to reason that if time and space do not exist, then light cannot travel through it.

But if everything is a field, including light, it makes sense that these fields effect each other.

And I've heard scientific types on this club scoff at me when I tell them that every person has an energy field surrounding their physical body. I don't think they are seeing the whole picture.

If our bodies are made up of "particles" (Higgs fields) then of course we are surrounded by a field. Even our solar system and our planet earth is surrounded and protected by its own field.

What JB said!