hyphite Posted November 26, 2003 Report Posted November 26, 2003 one thing ive been wondering for a while is why does time flow from the present towards the future. why cant it go in different directions or even change directions. would we even know if it did change directions or skipped to a different period of time because all we can know at a certain point wouldnt matter if time actually flowed tere in order. we just have the experiences in our mind from the effects of early events in time
Roberto Posted November 26, 2003 Report Posted November 26, 2003 You're question is a very deep one and great physicists all around the world tried and keep trying to understand why we only see time flowing in only one direction. Well, you ask why it cannot flow from the future to the past even if we can only see it flowing from the past to the future. But think for a while: when you say that time flows from one direction to the other what are you saying? What does it mean to say time is flowing? We can not see "time" itself, we see some phenomena that happen in sucession making a sequence that we identify with the passage of time. Now, what do you mean with time flowing from future to past? Do you mean consequences happening before its causes? There are a lot of speculations about why time has only one direction. Even what is time is a great unanswered question. I would suggest for you the book "About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" by Paul Davies. Reading it you will see how little we know about this matter. I think that Prof. Hawking talks about this matter too in his "Brief History of Time".
hyphite Posted November 26, 2003 Author Report Posted November 26, 2003 one other thing...is it not also possible that time could be changing in random orders and that things may even have happened twice? and by the way i have been reading "the universe in a nutshell" by hawkings so its been giving me some idea about what is going on
Roberto Posted November 27, 2003 Report Posted November 27, 2003 I think that to say that time change in random order you need a reference that is changing in "correct order" to compare, otherwise, what would be the difference between time flowing in order or in a random way. The question is, what experience could we make to detect time flowing in random order or in opposite direction? I confess I cannot think of any at the moment, but maybe it exists. The things that interest to physics are things that we can experiment. Propositions that cannot be tested experimentally do not have meaning in physics, they're conjectures or, if they will never be able to be tested, metaphysics.
deamonstar Posted November 29, 2003 Report Posted November 29, 2003 these links may shed some light on the subject..... time time2 time3
Tim_Lou Posted December 23, 2003 Report Posted December 23, 2003 i think time=changes. when things change, time goes. when things stop changing, time stop. when things go back to the state that they were before, time goes back. also, time, everyone has a "different" time. flies view the world way slower then we view, and for the universe, 1000 year is just like 1sec. time is nothing, it is just a state, we cannot say that it is flowing.thats what i think it is.
Primal Fears Posted January 4, 2004 Report Posted January 4, 2004 OK you people are talking about time like its a tangible substance when its not real. Time is just the rate at witch matter becays because in cosmic terms we are motionless in space.
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