How long is now

[Guest]

just a thought.

If time is a measurement of something, what ever it may be, then what is the unit of measure.

For distance we have meters, centimetres, right down to quatum particles whose width can be known.

For time We have years, hours, seconds, nano secound etc. but all of these can be diveded again and again to inifinity. So what would be the smallest amount of time.I see it as "NOW". Time is but a series of infinite "Nows" concatenated to form our reality.

So my question, how long is now? may hold with in it the key to the mystery of what time is time.

cheers
kore wa

 

[Shadow]

The shortest length of time is the amount of time it takes to travel the Planck length at speed C.

Time is fast during sleep and slow when your 300 lb bulked-up dentist finds that special nerve that he and only he can find. ( He explained that the best nerves can only be accessed after drilling through several hundred feet of kimberlite. Hours later I realized that the kimberlite comment was an attempt to add some levity to the situation, and not an actual discription.)

Now is as long as it lasts, what ever "it" happens to be, really.

I think Mystery, any mystery, has a lot more to do with mental confusion than it does with any objective complexity. Except for things computer, where objective complexity is an enshrined God.

Could this be a hint: The C computer language is based on the sole concept of "one or zero" but can be explained with the help of a handy 13,000 page users manual. Go figure.

Ah, finally, bed time now I can leave. Bye

 

[Guest]

Maybe NOW is all there is.

 

[Guest]

you must remember a very good thery:
if any thing gets divided by two over and over again, the number can never reach zero.
so its a safe bet to say there is no definite
unit to mesure time because it can be divide infinatly and never reach zero.
its the same for all other types of mesurment.(My GOD! Im onto something here!)

 

[Guest]

VERTIGO

The theory of never reaching zero is wrong. While in a theoretical sense it is absolutely true, in the real world it is just plain wrong. The distance between 2 objects that are touching is zero. If it were not so, then contact would not be possible, and nothing would ever happen because it is contact that makes everything happen.

From this I draw two conclusions, either the theory is wrong or the theory is right and nothing ever really takes place and we just perceive it as doing so. Our perception of time is based on the fact that things need time to happen. i.e. It takes so much time to travel from here to there. So do i move through time or does time move through me??

If I move through time, then we all move through the same thing. This would ensure that there is a uniformaty about time. However, if time moves through us, or if in fact we ourselves generate our own time, then this would explain why time flies when your having fun and not when your not.

Perhaps NoTime has it right in that the only time that exsists is now and thats it. The past is only a memory and the future only a belief. The idea that we generate, or at least, control the flow of our own time would substaniate this concept.

At this point I would like to end my rambling so that I can collect My thoughts and pursue this line of thinking further. I am starting to think that maybe, this idea, holds a great deal of promise. I will get back to you in a couple of days.

Regards
kore wa

ima wa nan ji kara desu ka

 

[Shadow]

If 'now' is both the spatial and timic point of contact then 'now' lasts as long as contact lasts.

In a gas where the atoms contact and rebound instantly time would be the duration-space *between* collisions, but in a solid the atomic bonds (ie contact) and time would be continuous.

However if you just look a the action and leave out all the details it is seen that we are busy measuring energy because we *can* measure energy. Every thing has an opposite or inverse. If time is the inverse of energy then or ol' buddy time would be hiding right nearby but quite out of sight.

 

[dob]

Why do we talk about something nearly small to nothing. From my point of view, present time is infinite, exept when aplied to a particular thing, like life or a certain duration. We think as time passing, but time isn't just a scale-symbole based on repetitional sequences of units.

Maybe nobody will agree with that one, if the case is, maybe it's just a matter of words and meaning.

Good Luck!

 

[Guest]

Time seems to be simply the interaction of a particle with its environment. As that interaction ceases, that particle is no longer existing in our 3-space, and returns to the "void". This interaction occurs at a fundamental level, that level being relative, known as the planck length: 10^-35 meters (I think). Particles at this fundamental size are indistiguishable from one another to us, because our frequency of existance is to low. We would have to exceed the speed of light in our information transfer in order to observe them as individual entities. So they exist outside our realm of being, in that they are un-observable as individual entities. They are virtual particles. They can enter our realm by colliding with one another, however, because this creates a state that is lower in resonant frequency by a large enough factor that they become observable as subatomic particles in our world.

These such occurences do happen, and the amount of particle appearances is statistically measureable. the type of particle created possibly has to do with the angle of collision between particles. These particles do exist in a space and time of there own, created by the interaction of a smaller and less dense yet flux of particles, that are virtual to their plane of existance. This infinite series of particles, each being virtual to the next, is on-going, but decreasing in energy content as you go higher and higher on the resonant frequency level. If we increase or decrease our interaction with the virtual particle flux that is one orthogonal rotation away from us (their frequency of interaction is just above the level of our being able to detect them without breaking our light speed barrier) then we speed up or slow down our rate of passage of time in relation to an observer of us (someone in a different frame of reference). we can alter the flow of time.

If we accept this, then the smallest instance in time (our time) would in fact be greater than zero, for zero doesn't actually exist in the first place. Only the limit in the rate of information transfer, therefore the limit in the size (spatial or temporal) of an object, in our plane of existance. Since the planck length is the limit in spatial size of an object in our time, then the smallest amount of time for us would be the time it takes light to travel this distance.

 

[dob]

RICHARD18

I respect this point of view where you consider "now" as a very precise point in 3-space and time(...)- for an individual entity. But, isn't to fast to apply this formula for a general point of view?

In a forum like "time travel" we should introduce the fact that we can found many "now" appening at the same time, (example: I go in the futur, you go in the past, the forum stay in the present. We stay 5 minutes in our respective "times" and then comeback to present(in the forum).)

- The time would seem the same for all of us, 5 min. Time is squeezable, this could means that we are living at 3 different times "at the same time". So, I introduce the idea again: "now" is a line, and infinite. In that way of idea, we could consider that everything is appening at all the time in the same time (@#&%!), but until we experiment it, we'll consider "now" as a very precise point on the line, where the action is appening.

By default we see it as a point, as we know 3d as 3d. But maybe we should go further then our graphical and mathematical dimensions.

You got the microphone! ;-)

 

[Shadow]

Trying to figure this all out is like trying to write a coherent description of a rubix cube. Anything you can say about it depends on its present state AND your angle of observation. There are some very basic conceptual blocks that trip us up every time. Such as:

The instant we notice something it falls into the past and ceases to be a material fact. It instantly becomes a mental phenomena called memory. Since we can only detect motion, what ever we see is in some other spot before we even know we saw it. We see exactly and precisely what is NOT there. Now becomes an exit for our reality.

I have thought long and hard to come up with some modle for time travel that does not require an infinite number of universes. Somewhere somehow time lines must converge as well as diverge.

The farther you take the reasoning the closer you get to the realm of the poet. "The past is our memory and the future is our soul".

 

[Guest]

IMHO time travel cannot be possible for the simple fact that any object (mass) moving through one point in time to another, irrespective of whether it be the future or the past, has the potential of transfering energy. Be it static energy i.e. a coiled spring or kenteteck energy, an animated object (human).

Energy can only be transfered it cannot be created nor destroyed.

If you take a simple batery and take it back in time you would have:- infinite energy (already in existance) + battery.

If you take said battery forward in time you would have infinite energy - battery (gap in existance) then (infinite energy - battery) + battery.

In both cases you are potentialy destroying or recreating energy, both of which are not possible.

Battery = chemical to electrical
wind = mechanical to electrical

and so on.

It is not enough to simply say we are moving n units of energy from one point in time to another therfor it is not being created nor destroyed as energy like a river flows over time, and cannot simply be plucked from one point to another.

Let me know your thoughts

Regards
John

 

[Guest]

Maybe it's time to rethink some previous assumptions. Maybe physical laws can be broken just like civil laws are.

Do you ever get the impression that people quote physical laws as an excuse for why something CAN NOT be done? Maybe we need to look for those exceptions to the rules.

 

[dob]

NoTime

I agree with you to the fact that we can't only base our experimentations on facts. Otherwise it would mean that we already know everything, and we don't. Laws have to be broken in order to let us go further. In the same point of view, you considered science as something trying to explain the inexplicable, would this be the same "accusation" claimed againts religion or the peoples creating gods?

I believe in God, I believe in science too. I believe also that (a way to explain that I believe to both) science will, one day, melt together to make one. I know all the other possibilities, but I like that one!

 

[Shadow]

Who makes the Laws of Physics? What makes the laws?

Shadows Law:

"Bullshit ceases to be bullshit when 2 or more people agree on it."

 

[Guest]

No it doesn't.

Hitler and Goering (and several more than that in fact) agreed exterminating an entire race of people (Jews), was a good idea. The real Nazi's all agreed on it.

And it didn't make the idea any less bullshit regardless of HOW MANY did.

10,000 years ago, virtually EVERYBODY thought, and agreed that the world had to be flat.

And ALL the agreement in the world could not and did not, make the misguided naive concept any less "bullshit" than it is.

Sorry. The world ain't flat. No matter how matter how many people "agree" it is. Even if only two.

Agreement does not in and of itself constitute any validity of reality at all.

 

[Guest]

Dear Everyone,

Just thought I would drop by and write a few lines. I was considering the relation ship between the conscepts Zero, and Infinity.

Now as it was stated earlier, if one uses the infinite divisibility view of mass and space then there would be an infinite number of increments between any two points in the universe. Also I might add that an infinite number of increments is equal to an infinite number of increments.

This would mean that there is the same number of increments between all points in space regardless of how close or how far they are from each other. So the question that I pose is 'what evidence is there to sugest that all mass regardless of quantity is equal in number of points or units of mass.

I find that the special theory of relativity suggests that as mass aproaches the velocity of light that the energy mass increases to infinity. Also I theorize that as all parallel lines aproach infinity they merge into a single line.


Now one might state that it is impossible to reach an infinite distance however I believe that math suggests otherwise. I pose this hypothesis that as long as an object is in a constant state of acceleration that the object will reach infinity in a finite period of time. Now if we if allow for a partical to accelerate on a straight trajectory exponentially over a period of two seconds so that for each 1/2 of the quantity two seconds the object accelerates to the square of its previous speed from the previous half time the object will reach an infinite acceleration in two seconds.


This is because there is an infinite number of instants in two seconds and there is an infinite number of ones in infinity. Now the angle between two parallel lines diminishes as the two lines span to infinity.

Now a rotating radii(radius of a circle) rotating at a constant velocity translates into infinite linear acceleration. If you allow a circle's radius to intersect two parallel lines at every ninety degree rotation the radius will cross the bottom of the two parallel lines showing that the intersecting radius has spanned to the infinitely long parallel lines,or to their ends.

So for each revolution of constant rotating mass the radius reaches an infinite linear acceleration equavilant 4 times. This is one example of an object that has constant acceleration and reaches an infinite acceleration equivalant in a finite period of time, which, in this case is determined by the amount of time it takes for the radius to reach ninety degrees of rotation.

What does everyone think?

inquisitively,

Edwin G Schasteen

[email protected]

 

[Shadow]

To Davipper

I didn't say that agreement made it so. I said that agreement made it believable.

Kids belive in the Tooth Fairy. You believe the world is round. Whats the difference? That is to say that bullshit is in the eye of the beholder.

99.9% of the time we believe in something because the other guy believes it too, and then we use the other persons belief as our proof. As you pointed out it would be prettu easy for both of us to agree and both be dead wrong.

 

[Shadow]

Too DaViper,

One of the best films ever made Catch22:

The Major says to the Captain "Well, what if every one thought the way you do?"

Captain replies "Then I'd be a fool to think any different."

The correctness of theory has no correlation the the number of its adherents, as you pointed out. Take the next step. Apply this fact to your OWN world view. Just because YOU believe it don't make it so.

 

[JKEY]

We measure time by looking at a clock. What this does is move in a periodic and predictable way(In other words thers is always twelve hours, and seconds move at a constant rate), So what we are doing is measuring a change in space. When we measure the time it takes for something to happen we are comparing the change in space about the watch(either the clock hands moving or a digital display changing)and comparing this to another change(like an athlete doing a 100m sprint)and stating the change in a formal way(One which can be undestood and can be compared to quantities of similar given units).

 

[mokrie dela]

To over simplify; NOW can be much longer then estimated. Example: When you need to go to the bathroom NOW and can't find one, it can be a very long time indeed.