Time

[Xander]

Okay so I'm going to open a large can of worms. I learn best through speaking to those that know and challenging their positions, presuming this is okay with people, please forgive occasional argumentative points.


I've been reading up on the whole time slows down the faster you go stuff and I still don't get it.

Time is relative to the person, right? Light speed, if reached, stops time. So time is light? Does this mean that I can close my eyes and cease to age? (joke)

The whole light clock thing seems a cheat. If I run up a train going at 70mph at a speed of 15mph then few things would affect me in the carriage as of I were travelling at 85mph surely?

Would not travelling at light speed just affect your awareness of time? If time is corresponding to light somehow then time slowing would be a bit like plaid speed in Spaceballs no?

I realise I'm missing something here and my intuition tells me that time does jot equal time bit I'm interested.

To me it's a bit like a meter of wood. The meter does not exist, the wood does. So it is with time. Hence you can't travel through it or affect it, merely create illusions the same as you can with the wood.

Anyways up J still love the chapter title "Time slows down when you're chasing squirrels"

 

[sprinkles]

To fill your cup it must first be empty.

If you think that's crazy it'll really knock your socks off when you realize that speed = distance divided by time

But anyway. This is more than theoretical as the effect is observable at speeds now achievable by humans (thanks to much more accurate time keeping and the ability to go quite fast). This is actually an issue with satellites (clocks being pulled out of sync) and can even now be observed while travelling on airliners. On an airliner time slows down even more when you fly directly east with the rotation of the earth due to the very spin of the earth imparting extra velocity to the craft through gravity. Now isn't that a mind blow?

What is time? It's hard to say. What we can say is that it isn't the numbers on your clock that appear to slow down, what seems to slow down is whatever those clock numbers measure. It doesn't matter if the clock is mechanical, digital, atomic, etc. Whatever it is that time measures appears to go more slowly at higher velocities. This means for example that you can take a thousand clocks that are as accurate as you can get them and if you put a hundred of these clocks on an airliner and have it fly east around the earth, the time difference of those one hundred clocks when they return will somehow be greater than the amount of error in the other nine hundred clocks. This will be true no matter which hundred clocks you put on the airplane - you can swap them out and clocks that didn't lose time before will lose time on the plane.

As for the train and the carriage, yeah you'd be going 85mph and there would only appear to be a difference of 15mph due to relative velocity, but try touching the same train when you're outside not moving. It'll pretty much explode or rip off whatever human flesh touches it now won't it? How come it doesn't KILL you when you ride the train? Because you're going at relatively the same speed so from your view the environment around you has near zero relative velocity - relative velocity being the difference between the two values. Yet you both have a real velocity which would be observed if the train stops but you don't - you'd get an 85mph impact with the nearest objects. This is quite observable with car accidents for example where the car stops but the passenger keeps going - through the windshield perhaps, being ejected from the vehicle at about the same velocity as the vehicle was going when it struck whatever obstacle.

 

[Mole]

Intuitive and Counter-Intuitive; Spoken Culture and Literate Culture.

my intuition tells me that time does jot equal time bit I'm interested.

Of course because we have discovered that time is not intuitive, time is counter-intuitive.

Through literacy we have discovered many things which are counter-intuitive such as modern economics, liberal democracy, modern medicine, the very big, and the very small, almost the whole of the modern world.

In the big picture, spoken culture is intuitive, while literate culture is counter-intuitive.

What is extraordinary is that while we live in and enjoy the fruits of our literate culture, such as modern medicine and computers, our minds are still in the spoken culture.

This is because we first learn our spoken culture intuitively at home but are compelled by law to go to school to counter-intuitively learn to read and write.

The modern world is counter-intuitive.

This explains why we don't intuitively understand time but we do intuitively understand astrology and mbti.

 

[indra]

The observer is always traveling time at the speed of light.

It is when we incorporate frames of reference that we account for variations of times lapsed among differing observers.

Think of it like this: Your maximum speed is 60 mph. You can travel north, south, east, west, or any combination across this plane. You can travel 60 mph north, or 60 mph east, and 60 mph northeast. But velocity dedicated to the northern and eastern heading are sacrificed when choosing a northeast heading, due to your 60 mph limitation. This is why you cannot break the speed of light nor achieve absolute zero, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity.
[MENTION=22109]Evee[/MENTION]

 

[Xander]

But velocity dedicated to the northern and eastern heading are sacrificed when choosing a northeast heading, due to your 60 mph limitation.

Sorry. I just plain don't get that statement...

 

[sprinkles]

The observer is always traveling time at the speed of light.

It is when we incorporate frames of reference that we account for variations of times lapsed among differing observers.

And the speed of light is the same in all reference frames.

 

[Xander]

To fill your cup it must first be empty.

If you think that's crazy it'll really knock your socks off when you realize that speed = distance divided by time

But anyway. This is more than theoretical as the effect is observable at speeds now achievable by humans (thanks to much more accurate time keeping and the ability to go quite fast). This is actually an issue with satellites (clocks being pulled out of sync) and can even now be observed while travelling on airliners. On an airliner time slows down even more when you fly directly east with the rotation of the earth due to the very spin of the earth imparting extra velocity to the craft through gravity. Now isn't that a mind blow?

What is time? It's hard to say. What we can say is that it isn't the numbers on your clock that appear to slow down, what seems to slow down is whatever those clock numbers measure. It doesn't matter if the clock is mechanical, digital, atomic, etc. Whatever it is that time measures appears to go more slowly at higher velocities. This means for example that you can take a thousand clocks that are as accurate as you can get them and if you put a hundred of these clocks on an airliner and have it fly east around the earth, the time difference of those one hundred clocks when they return will somehow be greater than the amount of error in the other nine hundred clocks. This will be true no matter which hundred clocks you put on the airplane - you can swap them out and clocks that didn't lose time before will lose time on the plane.

As for the train and the carriage, yeah you'd be going 85mph and there would only appear to be a difference of 15mph due to relative velocity, but try touching the same train when you're outside not moving. It'll pretty much explode or rip off whatever human flesh touches it now won't it? How come it doesn't KILL you when you ride the train? Because you're going at relatively the same speed so from your view the environment around you has near zero relative velocity - relative velocity being the difference between the two values. Yet you both have a real velocity which would be observed if the train stops but you don't - you'd get an 85mph impact with the nearest objects. This is quite observable with car accidents for example where the car stops but the passenger keeps going - through the windshield perhaps, being ejected from the vehicle at about the same velocity as the vehicle was going when it struck whatever obstacle.

But speed is measuring energy by an extrapolation. Distance is measuring matter by a similar route. What does time measure? As far as I can tell it's a measure of the degradation of atoms.

If you said that faster travelling items degrade slower then I think I could cope with that but how does travelling fast slow my brain down (my reliable source of experiencing...well...everything)?

Is it not a case that time does not slow or alter but the rate at which the signals travel within the brain would slow due to being against the force of the speed being done? If so then like the guy running in a train would it not occur within the thing you drive to travel at the speed of light and hence negate any time travelling affect for you?

Probably need to read more but it's starting to fry my noodle.

 

[indra]

Sorry. I just plain don't get that statement...

Traveling northeast at sixty miles per hour, you are traveling north and east at a reduced speed. You are no longer traveling north at sixty miles per hour nor east at sixty miles per hour.

The same goes with space and time. One heading is sacrificed for the other.

 

[sprinkles]

But speed is measuring energy by an extrapolation. Distance is measuring matter by a similar route. What does time measure? As far as I can tell it's a measure of the degradation of atoms.

If you said that faster travelling items degrade slower then I think I could cope with that but how does travelling fast slow my brain down (my reliable source of experiencing...well...everything)?

Is it not a case that time does not slow or alter but the rate at which the signals travel within the brain would slow due to being against the force of the speed being done? If so then like the guy running in a train would it not occur within the thing you drive to travel at the speed of light and hence negate any time travelling affect for you?

Probably need to read more but it's starting to fry my noodle.

Objects do not experience forces for no reason, and speed (let's call it velocity which is speed+direction) is not a force. The planet orbits the sun at something like 60,000 mph - do you notice that? No, because relatively speaking, speed exerts no force.

We have energy in the form of inertia but we do not experience this inertia when everything else around is flying along at the same steady clip. This is why you can pick up a coffee cup and not have it rip you to pieces due to the huge amounts of velocity it has.

So really, no it isn't the stress of going fast. I'm not sure we really know why it happens, but that isn't it.

 

[Xander]

Traveling northeast at sixty miles per hour, you are traveling north and east at a reduced speed. You are no longer traveling north at sixty miles per hour nor east at sixty miles per hour.

The same goes with space and time. One heading is sacrificed for the other.

Okay so going back to your earlier post, wouldn't it be more accurate to state that the observer is observing the passage of time at the speed of light? Would this not still be because they are using light to observe and nothing more?

 

[Xander]

Objects do not experience forces for no reason, and speed (let's call it velocity which is speed+direction) is not a force. The planet orbits the sun at something like 60,000 mph - do you notice that? No, because relatively speaking, speed exerts no force.

We have energy in the form of inertia but we do not experience this inertia when everything else around is flying along at the same steady clip. This is why you can pick up a coffee cup and not have it rip you to pieces due to the huge amounts of velocity it has.

So really, no it isn't the stress of going fast. I'm not sure we really know why it happens, but that isn't it.

Okay this is irritating. I accept what you're saying but (true to type) I don't think it's right but I couldn't tell you why... Not right now anyway.

 

[indra]

Okay so going back to your earlier post, wouldn't it be more accurate to state that the observer is observing the passage of time at the speed of light? Would this not still be because they are using light to observe and nothing more?

I think you would do well to study into quantum mechanics, my preference for this field of thought (and it appears you would take well to it also).

Quantum mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If Einstein's take on the universe is analog, quantum mechanics is the digital age. Nice stuff.

 

[sprinkles]

Okay this is irritating. I accept what you're saying but (true to type) I don't think it's right but I couldn't tell you why... Not right now anyway.

It might help to look at it this way.

With your inertia plus the planet's gravity, your body kind of wants to coast along in equilibrium with its surroundings, with you accelerating mainly towards the planet which is what you experience as weight. When you get in a fast car and accelerate, the car is working against your inertia - your body's tendency to want to remain at rest in relation to its surroundings - and you experience that as a force (G force). It's not the speed that causes the force, it's your body's resistance to a change in relative velocity (and you probably get some vibration and drag but that's besides the point)

If you don't get a change in velocity, you don't get the force, which is why you'd feel weightless on the ISS for example even though gravity is only like 2% less up there than it is standing on the ground. So you could be traveling at a large fraction of the speed of light through the void of space and time dilation will still apply even though you're not actually accelerating (no force is causing you to move, it is only inertia)

 

[Mole]

my intuition tells me that time does jot equal time bit I'm interested.

Once again, it is an epistemological question, the perpetual hobgoblin of Typology Central.

Epistemology is the problem because epistemology is how we see, rather than what we see.

For instance, time can't be understood with the epistemology of intuition, rather time can be precisely understood using the epistemology of counter-intuition.

And our egos and vanity stop us from learning to think counter-intuitively, leaving so much of the modern world outside our ken.

We are like the drunken Irishman who has lost his keys in the dark, but is found on his knees, searching for his keys under the street lamp. And when asked why he is searching for his keys under the street lamp when he has lost his keys elsewhere in the dark. He replies, the light is better here.

And so we are limited to searching for time by the light of intuition, when it is hiding in counter-intuition.

 

[Ene]

I found a link that might answer some of your questions, or simply make you ask more. It's long, but covers a lot if territory. I like the author's language.

Quantum Mechanics Made Easy -- Sean Carroll

I thought I should post info about the author, just so you know it's not me. Sean M. Carroll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[grey_beard]

The observer is always traveling time at the speed of light.

It is when we incorporate frames of reference that we account for variations of times lapsed among differing observers.

Think of it like this: Your maximum speed is 60 mph. You can travel north, south, east, west, or any combination across this plane. You can travel 60 mph north, or 60 mph east, and 60 mph northeast. But velocity dedicated to the northern and eastern heading are sacrificed when choosing a northeast heading, due to your 60 mph limitation. This is why you cannot break the speed of light nor achieve absolute zero, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity.
[MENTION=22109]Evee[/MENTION]

One slight correction. Absolute zero is not a function of relativity, but of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: the uncertainty in position * the uncertainty in momentum >= a number on the order of Planck's constant

At absolute zero, all motion ceases: including that of atoms. But if an atom is not moving, you'd know both its position *and* its momentum (zero) to infinite precision.
You can also express this as the non-commutation of the relevant quantum mechanical operators.

 

[INTP]

Yes, light(not just visible light, but photons in general) determines time, because nothing moves faster than light. You could think it like this: Light is the speed of time because it moves freely in space without mass, while massive objects are sort of slowed down because in them, the energy that they are made out of is tangled up circling in one spot(this is basically what mass is) instead moving freely from point a to b like light does.

Time is essentially nothing but a moment of observation. And because the moment of observation cant happen before photon travels from point a to b, time is relative to observer and again because light is the fastest thing, it determines time:

But i think time as a general term is bit outdated because it can mean multiple things.

 

[indra]

One slight correction. Absolute zero is not a function of relativity, but of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: the uncertainty in position * the uncertainty in momentum >= a number on the order of Planck's constant

At absolute zero, all motion ceases: including that of atoms. But if an atom is not moving, you'd know both its position *and* its momentum (zero) to infinite precision.
You can also express this as the non-commutation of the relevant quantum mechanical operators.

The notion is realized through the function e=mc2.

Propulsion of a body requires infinite mass, and absolute zero requires null mass, or literally, for the said body to be nonexistent.

The uncertainty principle is another means of explaining it, given it to be true. Yes.

 

[Mole]

Yes, light(not just visible light, but photons in general) determines time, because nothing moves faster than light. You could think it like this: Light is the speed of time because it moves freely in space without mass, while massive objects are sort of slowed down because in them, the energy that they are made out of is tangled up circling in one spot(this is basically what mass is) instead moving freely from point a to b like light does.

The Hadron Collider has shown that mass is due to the interaction with the Higgs Field and the Higgs particle.

 

[grey_beard]

The notion is realized through the function e=mc2.

Propulsion of a body requires infinite mass, and absolute zero requires null mass, or literally, for the said body to be nonexistent.

The uncertainty principle is another means of explaining it, given it to be true. Yes.

Sources, please?