Absence of light?

[Sune]

With a Human point of view, will time not theoreticly "stand still" in our minds, if there is an complete absence of light?

[Sune]

Or at least seem a bit slower? ^^

[lawcat]

It would feel lonely, I'd say; and therefore, maybe slower. But, I trust that, we would develop thermal imagining eyes, and it would not be lonely anymore.

 

Relativistically, absence of light would take away reference points, and everyone would feel to be traveling at the speed of light, and thus everything would seem slower; until new generation was born who had no idea of reference points.

[Sune]

That is true. But was thinking that light must have something to do with time moving, since it is the fastest thing known ever. Thus making it close to the wall of time moving "forwards"... But theoreticly speaking of course :)

[lawcat]

I'd say, time moves the light; not the other way around. For example, theoretically, if there were only protons and neutrons, there would still be time. However, things would be very different.

[Boerseun]

Well, if there was no light, it would be strangely dark...

 

However, from what you're asking, the absence of photons will not influence the passage of time at all. Light travels at c through vacuum, because that is what the fabric of space allows light to travel at. That's just how it works.

 

I'm probably not phrasing it in the best possible way, but imagine a raft in a stream: If you take the raft away, the stream still flows.

[Sune]

Phrased fine, understandable.

 

But since light is energy aswell, then maybe you could turn it around, and say that surdent amounts of photons might influence the time being of either surrounding or at target of the "beam".

[Boerseun]

Well, matter is energy, too. And matter is completely and utterly incapable of reaching the speed of light.

[Sune]

True. But i recently heard of so called information capable of being sent back in time, with help of several laser beams crossing each other. The machine was theoreticly capable of receiving information send from "the future", and sending it back as well... Somehow i was thinking of a mix of many photons, allmost creating "gravity", wich should be able to redirect the information "back in time".

 

 

Another thing is: I know that "time" (as the word and the way we see it) is human. But insects like fly's, see "time" much slower than we do, so maybe our sight determins the way our brain see's time aswell?

[Boerseun]

True. But i recently heard of so called information capable of being sent back in time, with help of several laser beams crossing each other. The machine was theoreticly capable of receiving information send from "the future", and sending it back as well... Somehow i was thinking of a mix of many photons, allmost creating "gravity", wich should be able to redirect the information "back in time".

I would love some more information on that. If only because the inability to send stuff into the past causes paradoxes that is expressly forbidden by relativity.

Another thing is: I know that "time" (as the word and the way we see it) is human. But insects like fly's, see "time" much slower than we do, so maybe our sight determins the way our brain see's time aswell?

I don't think we understand nearly enough of the way insects see the world to conjecture about how they might experience the passage of time, or if the concept would even make any sense if you're a cockroach, say.

 

But this entire thread is actually baseless, because what you're trying to tell me is that a blind person has no experience of time passing - which is clearly not the case.

[Sune]

Ah yes, maybe its getting overhand. Its also much more simple than just that. Since its a mere thought of how we see it (Like people having fun : Time seems to pass by faster , People bored : Seems slower).

 

But about the light beams. It was Ronald Mallet, Physician, who came up with the idea, of bending light:

Mallett's machine, as laid out in his May 2000 paper in Physics Letters entitled "Weak gravitational field of the electromagnetic radiation in a ring laser," is based on Einstein's formulation that light and matter are both forms of energy.

As it is described in his own papers. I think its a fascinating idea. Further he tells about the machine:

"We know that matter can bend space-time and according to Einstein's theory, matter and light are both forms of energy. So why can't light bend space-time?" (Qouted)

He wish's to use a crystal (some kind of Photonic Crystal) to bend the light in circles, and thus slowing it. (As in a straight line, light travels forward, but bended, it will have to take the de-tour in circles).

While this light travels upwards in theese circles, he sends a photon down the opposit direction, and like a vortex, it should slow down (as an arrow flying through an apple, slowing the arrow down), which should, theoreticly, send it "back" in time.

[Boerseun]

The photons in question have already slowed down considerably by merely travelling through a crystal. The speed of light differs for all mediums it travels through.

 

Light slows down every time it passes through glass, for instance. And it never, ever goes back in time in doing so. And we've had glass windows since Roman times.

[Sune]

Exactly. And slowing down the time (and reflecting it in a circle), and afterwards sending a single photon down in the center of the crystal/glass, where it is not slowed, some changes must have been made.

I stumpled upon this picture by the way:

[Boerseun]

If you take a laser beam and split it into two, and you let the one beam travel through some obstruction (like glass, for instance) whilst the other beam travels free, and you let the beams cross, they'll be out of phase. Because the one beam took longer to reach the point of intersection than the other did (by having to travel through a different medium), the waves won't match up like they did initially, when the beam was emitted.

 

This is what your diagram points to.

 

And nowhere did any of the two beams travel back in time.

 

You're telling me that if two twins walk down a block and the one walks in a straight line whilst the other jaywalks, the one will be older than the other by the time they reach the end of the road.

[lawcat]

The premise of your argument is that, we live in a matrix which correlates states of all points. in other words, time is just the matrix for a given state: me with liquid coming out of the pee hole can be framed as a certain matrix, and then the next one, and then the next one. Thus, to walk back, one just needs to reverse the matrix. In other words, we are just a 3d projection of life on someone's dvd; and if we can just get control of the RW switch, we can go back in time. Universe is a computer with matter memory storage. Interesting.

 

That may be the reason for rapid expansion. We need all that matter storage space.

 

Look, you maybe 100% right. Antimatter maybe just matter storage for past states. So to travel in time, we have to go to antimatter universes. Now is real, but there are antimatter spacetime holograms to be accessed and converted if need be.

[Sune]

Hmmm. I believe that when we say time, we mean a thing that our mind sees, and when we look at a tree, the leafs and colours has to be processed before it reaches out central nerve system. This takes time, and though its only a small amount, we must have some kind of slowed sence of time. This makes the theori of slowing light = slowing time in our minds, as positive.

 

I also think of Einsteins theories.

Taking a ship travelling at half the speed of light, and carrying a constant beam bouncing up and down in a tube for example. The light in the tube has to travel "Zig-Zag", thus (maybe) slowing down "time". Of course only for the person in the space ship. And the slowing comes from the fact that light is constant. So no matter how fast you travel, you will never be able to se the light slower in action (Like sitting in a car, and another car passes by, only travelling 10 km/h more than you), so time must slow down for your brain.

The light slowed down in this crystal, is in this case the "normal" beam of light, while the photon is the spaceship travelling. But in this case it travels "double" the speed of the other light.

[lawcat]

Time can not slow down or speed up. That is why the theory is called relativity. It's relative to a reference point. It seems to slow down or speed up. For example, if you have a y-axis, and x-axis observers of a person traveling along the ellipse. Ellipse traveller traverses space in certain time; yet, to y-axis observer he is accelerating and traversing the line at time a, and to x-axis observes he is accelerating and traversing the line in time b. Time measured the traverse between points on ellipse is relative to observer's perception. But it is just perception, because it is a projection of the real movement.