What is time?

[HydrogenBond]

Let me explain motion blur, from another angle, with respect to time. We have a person with a ball on a string. They are rotating the ball-string in a circle with their hand at the center of the circle. We have a camera and leave the shutter open for ten seconds. When we look at the photo, which has stopped time, we will see a blur that looks like a donut, with the ball being the cross sectional diameter of the donut.

 

With time stopped, we will get the positional history of the ball over ten seconds. We have recorded motion, with time stopped. The brain will infer motion from a photo that is not changing in time, from the blur with distance. We have essentially photographed 10 seconds of time, but not as time. Time has stopped, so we have record time as a function of displacement in distance.

 

The like the concept of time potential. If we add time potential (in the example above as the shutter speed effect) we will get the special effects leading to displacement in distance like the uncertainty principle and wave functions.

 

Let me add special relativity. The moving reference will see the stationary reference appear to move really fast in time. We will adjust the shutter speed of the camera on the moving ship to stop the action of the ball. Next we use that same shutter speed to record another person, rotating a similar ball in the same way on the stationary reference. We will get the donut again in that photo. The photograph of the ball on moving ship reference would look like a particle. But the similar ball on the stationary reference would look like a blur (wave function) relative to ship reference. In the ship's reference there is certainty of position at that shutter speed. But for the same ball, in the stationary reference, the ship would see uncertainty of position when we stop time.

[CraigD]

Let me add special relativity. The moving reference will see the stationary reference appear to move really fast in time.

This is incorrect.

 

Although Doppler effect causes sequences of event “seen” in an approaching frame to be happening as if in fast forward on a video player, when this classical effect is compensated for, or if experiments are designed in such a way that the change in distance are minimized (such as by having the observer and observed frames far apart in a direction perpendicular to their relative motion, an observer in either frame will see the other appear to move more slowly. This is true even the two frame were one nearby and nearly relatively stationary, and one was accelerated, and both observers are aware of this.

 

Put a bit more formally, the dilation of proper time, [math]\frac{\Delta t_{\mbox{observed}}}{{\Delta t_{\mbox{observer}}}} = \sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}[/math], must be between one and zero. In ordinary language, time dilation always slows things down, never speeds them up.

 

This is explained in more detail in many old and new papers, textbooks, and websites, including the Wikipedia article section “twins paradox: what it looks like: the relativistic Doppler shift”.

 

This consequence and prediction of special relativity is, in my and the opinions of may people I know, profoundly counterintuitive, and one of the reasons, I think, that many people have difficulty understanding Einsteinian relativity. Although not difficult to understand through a variety of simple mathematical exercises and though experiments, it so disagrees with our everyday experience with things such as video recorders and players that we must to some extent constantly remind ourselves of it. It’s very important for even the casual modern physics student to understand this counterintuitive consequence of the theory!

[skuzie]

I think time is a concept entirely invented by our minds, our universe changes, it computes - all the particles and natural forces that act upon each other can be said to interact and states change - things compute. If you were to create a computer simulation from some initial point to some ending point would you say time exists in that simulation? because the simulation can be rerun backwards and forwards at any moment time has really no meaning in this simulation, there is only states and changes to these states, until you place conscious beings that can contemplate change within this domain and call it time.

Perhaps time slows down through special relativity as velocity increases because the universe's CPU cant handle so much processing at once

[Michael Mooney]

CraigD,

I would very interested in your reply to the fundamental ontological question (embodied in the thread title), which is prior to relativity theory as assuming time's existence as an entity (no matter how well "T" works as a cipher in the equations or as the "T" component of velocity._

 

I put the question as simply as I could in the question, "Without clocks what would time be?

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

Modest,

Just trying to get a couple of straight answers here... see above to Craig.

 

Please answer my question, post 725, in the following exchange:

Me:

"What is it that "runs faster or slower" besides clocks?"

You:

"Any physical process."

Me:

"So, without any clocks, are you saying that the internal dynamics of all physical precesses slow down with increased velocity?"

 

Thanks.

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

I just re-read pgs 1 & 2 and found Qfwfq's post #16, p.2

 

http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-of-science/3650-what-is-time-2.html

... to be saying the same thing I said in my "most concise ontology of time" in post 589, p.59.

 

http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-of-science/3650-what-is-time-59.html

 

So, since we know that everything is always moving we can say any selected thing or force can be "tracked" from one "now point" to another and assigned a "duration" or "elapsed time." This still doesn't make time into "something that exists" other than the concept of event duration, as I've said 'til everyone must be tired of hearing it.(Sorry, "time" is one of my passions... debunking "it's" reification, anyway.)

 

All of the above leaves us with the ongoing present... "It is always now."

 

Comments?

Michael

[modest]

Modest,

Just trying to get a couple of straight answers here... see above to Craig.

 

Please answer my question, post 725, in the following exchange:

Me:

"What is it that "runs faster or slower" besides clocks?"

You:

"Any physical process."

Me:

"So, without any clocks, are you saying that the internal dynamics of all physical precesses slow down with increased velocity?"

 

Thanks.

Michael

 

Yes.

 

...which is prior to relativity theory as assuming time's existence as an entity...

 

Relativity does *not* assume time exists as an entity. That is nothing more than a misunderstanding you have because you don't understand the theory. When a relativist says "spacetime curves" you think they are describing something that is physical which physically curves. That is your misconception.

 

The theory of relativity does *not* demand time exist as an independent entity in and of itself. In fact, philosophically, it PROVES just the opposite. I can quote Einstein:

 

According to the general theory of relativity the four coordinates of the space-time continuum are entirely arbitrary choosable parameters,

devoid of any independent physical meaning

.

Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity - Wikisource

 

People before me believed that if all the matter in the universe were removed, only space and time would exist. My theory proves that space and time would disappear along with matter.

Hole argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The theory demonstrates through general covariance that space and time are properties of matter and energy (and how matter and energy interact) and properties of the universe and THEY ARE NOT independent and physical entities.

 

Yet, you don't understand the theory, and you see the metaphor "space and time are curved by mass like a rubber sheet" so you want to argue against the metaphor and against the misconception which exits nowhere except in your own head.

 

Einstein went through great pains to develop GR in a covariant way exactly because he didn't like spacetime substantivalism. A spacetime manifold is a mathematical construct without an independent physical existence. You've been told this so many times...

 

And, by the bye, saying that time is event duration means nothing.

 

~modest

[TheBigDog]

Without clocks what would time be?

Michael

A clock is only a tool for measuring time. For the purposes of math and science we need a reliable measurement of time. Within a locality the affects of acceleration and gravity on time are mute. You don't need to adjust your recipes to cook food longer or shorter because of a relative shift in time. In your locality, or your frame of reference, nothing changes. The time shift effects all physical processes in the same manner. That is why the clock is irrelevant. It is just a way of measuring intervals of time in a reliable way. It could be how long water takes to evaporate in a controlled humidity, or the rate at which a radio active particle degrades, or the speed with which a spring unwinds as it turns a series of gears ans switches. All of those things are affected by acceleration and gravity in EXACTLY the same manner. No matter how you construct your clock, if that clock is in the same locality, the same frame of reference with you then it is the true measure of time passage for you. It allows you to keep appointments, to bake cakes, to wake up on time, to not miss your TV shows. The clock does not make the time, it simply allows us to quantify the passage of time and to make predictions of future events with more certainty.

 

When navigation by the stars or the sun with a sextant was cutting edge technology is was the clock and the calendar that provided precision. We knew by the date, the angle, and the time exactly where we were on the globe; or exactly as we needed to. With GPS we have one of the first human applications where SR actually comes into the math required to be accurate. Satellites in orbit are in a lower gravity well than we are, so time is moving slightly faster, but they are traveling faster so time is shifted slower. Both those factors are used in keeping the on board clocks in sync with earth time so that GPS can locate us within meters anyplace on earth. Without that correction to the clocks the measurement becomes more erratic with as each satellite ages and its clock becomes farther off.

 

For most applications time dilation is a non factor. You really need to be getting close to light speed, or close to a huge gravity well before you see a noticeable change in a short period of time. The accuracy of the GPS is needed because it used triangulation of signals from the satellites based on predictions that they will be in a specific place at a specific time. A very slight shift in the accuracy of their on board clock can confuse the system as to their actual location by a long way since they are traveling at orbital speeds. At 7000 m/s a one millisecond inaccuracy in the on board clock will "displace" the satellite by 7 meters. As each one degraded it would make the system more and more inaccurate. That is about the only practical application of SR that I can think of in our every day lives.

 

So to answer your question, without clocks, time would still be time. Without a ruler there is still distance. Without a microphone or an ear there is still sound. I don't quite understand how the clock impacts time; it is just a useful invention of man.

 

Bill

[PerfectLiquid]

Hi Al,

 

Time is the *concept/measure* of event duration.

This can be any "event" from a designated period of cesium's radioactive decay (as calibrated in atomic clocks) to Earth's "great precession" cycle of around 26,000 years.

Most familiar "timed events" of course are Earth's period of orbit and rotation, and fractions thereof, down to seconds and very small fractions of a second.

 

However, none of these periods of "time" are ontologically real as entities or a malleable medium of any kind. They are, as you said, merely concepts or measurements of designated events, beginning and ending with the observer's 'clicks of the stopwatch.'

 

So, in truth, *now,* the present *is* always present, not sliced into units of time in the real world/cosmos.

The future is not yet real and present and the past is not still real and present, and there is no "time" between future and past. Time is the convention of event duration from one designated now to another.

 

So, "spans of time", as above are as real as we make them. There is no cosmic counter clicking at every complete earth rotation, orbit, etc. Yet we can "be on time" to work by common consensus on the *convention, time,* and we can plug in "time" as a component of velocity and calculate and execute a round trip to the moon or speak in terms of "light minutes or years" as measures of distance.

 

It is also conventional to call "time" the fourth dimension added to the obvious spacial three which describe volume. Then we can avoid having two airplanes at the same coordinates in air-space at the same time. A very useful convention.

But "it" doesn't expand and contract as an actual entity of any kind, i.e., not "real" in that sense, or in the sense that each location has its own "time environment." "It" is always, perpetually *NOW everywhere.* (Same "it" as in "It is raining..." no agent "it" making rain happen.)

 

If you would please critique that post, we could take it from there and I would not have to repeat what I have said so many times here already.

Thanks.

Michael

PS... Since everything is in motion, including thermodynamic energy, I readily agree that a good definition of time is the measure of the duration of any such motion-event. But the metaphorical stopwatch which takes that measure (in whatever units of time) does not create or monitor some "aether" "time" by the act of measurement. Do you agree?

Hi Michael,

 

I'll do my best to address your observations / queries:

First a minor nit: a cesium clock depends on using cesium atoms to define a microwave frequency that produces maximal fluorescence in these atoms:

From NIST: "Eventually, a microwave frequency is found that alters the states of most of the cesium atoms and maximizes their fluorescence. This frequency is the natural resonance frequency of the cesium atom (9,192,631,770 Hz), or the frequency used to define the second." These atoms are used to precisely maintain this frequency and thus the unit we call a "second."

2. It seems to me that you are recognizing that what we generally call time doesn't really exist. I refer to this as big "T" Time and it equates to the so-called dimensional Time. If we slice this up into the usual suspects, it becomes quickly evident that past and future don't exist, while the present appears to be sharply defined - psychologically that is. There was an interesting analysis done on this by Diego Meschini in his Ph.D. thesis (last year, whoops ignore that reference to the past ). If "now" is all there is, then there is no convenient way to place it within a dimension. So big "T" Time serves as a useful psychological construction, but it has no physical existence. Therefore, it isn't subject to dilation.

3. Moving on to little "t" time, this is the time that Einstein was addressing and it is the unit that serves an index for rates. Note that this little "t" time is what is being defined by that frequency associated with the cesium atoms. This does change in response to a gravitational field or motion through space (this last part is my interpretation versus Einstein's). So what is changing? I would argue that the best example we have for the so-called "arrow of time" is related to the neutral kaon. Perhaps this particle has some relationship to Clerk Maxwell's incompressible fluid that fills space and thus serves as a background mediator for little "t" time. Something is changing in the gravitational or motional setting, and I don't have a better marker.

4. The metaphorical stopwatch: if we refer to some sort of clock, then by definition it is measuring "t," not mediating it. For the mediator, as you can see from above, I would point to something that fills space (i.e., is space) and that somehow influences the rates of physical processes. This would amount to space-time, and I think Einstein got it mostly right. Please understand that this view will not get you an "A" in physics.;)

 

Watching the clock and wishing you a prosperous future, I am

Al

[CraigD]

I would very interested in your reply to the fundamental ontological question (embodied in the thread title), which is prior to relativity theory as assuming time's existence as an entity (no matter how well "T" works as a cipher in the equations or as the "T" component of velocity._

 

I put the question as simply as I could in the question, "Without clocks what would time be?

Michael

My ontological position is a simple modern scientific materialist one, drawing from a formalist epistemology that holds that that which cannot possibly be measured does not exist. Thus, to answer the question simply “without clocks, time would not be.”

 

However, as many have noted, the definition of a clock as used in this question is so inclusive that a universe without clocks is conceivable only in very artificial extreme cases, such as a universe consisting only of a single particle, or in which no two or more particles can every interact. Although the most inclusively defined clocks are of weak utility in measuring small effects such as time dilation observed between inertial frames with low relaive speeds, in essence anything that changes satisfies the most inclusive definition of a “clock”.

 

Put in analogy with the famous riddle "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?", with “no one is around to hear it” replaced by “nothing can in principle in any way detect that it happened”, my analogous answer is “no, it does not make a sound”.

 

If, as I do, one subscribes to the notion that the present observable universe had a beginning described best by the Big Bang theory and the explanation that the universe is a large-scale quantum vacuum fluctuation (that is, as Edward P. Tryon so pithily put it about a generation ago, “our Universe is simply one of those things that happens from time to time", this “time cannot exist in the absence of clock” position implies bizarre and paradoxical expansion of the inclusiveness of the definition of a clock to include “events” that are undetectable – namely the many “times” that the pre-universe vacuum did not become the universe. (If the reader is not already deeply versed in “nothingness philosophy” such as that expressed by the preceding quote, I recommend at the very least following the linked wikipedia articles single reference link and reading the referenced 1994 Harper’s Magazine article)

[Michael Mooney]

Thanks Craig.

My ontological position is a simple modern scientific materialist one, drawing from a formalist epistemology that holds that that which cannot possibly be measured does not exist. Thus, to answer the question simply “without clocks, time would not be.”

 

This looks the same to me as realizing that "it" is always "the present" (now) and that "time" means the elapsed 'period' between one *designated or selected* "now," and another, as per my "metaphorical stopwatch", i.e., designated by the observer/operator of the "stopwatch.

 

However, as many have noted, the definition of a clock as used in this question is so inclusive that a universe without clocks is conceivable only in very artificial extreme cases, such as a universe consisting only of a single particle, or in which no two or more particles can every interact. Although the most inclusively defined clocks are of weak utility in measuring small effects such as time dilation observed between inertial frames with low relaive speeds, in essence anything that changes satisfies the most inclusive definition of a “clock”.

 

I agree that everything, on all scales is always in motion, so in the most universal sense we can say that everything is a clock or that "time happens" between one "now" and another. Yes?

But, seems to me that the difference between the "ongoing universal now" ( "there is only the present")... and "a span of time" is merely that the above observer with a "stopwatch" and a focus on a particular moving thing/force "designates" his particular measurement as a "span of time." Yes?

 

Put in analogy with the famous riddle "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?", with “no one is around to hear it” replaced by “nothing can in principle in any way detect that it happened”, my analogous answer is “no, it does not make a sound”.

 

So you would be a subjective idealist, correct? Of course many trees fall without being "heard" ('cept by squirrels and other forest creatures), but do you deny that they compress air into waves which are capable of making eardrums oscillate and brains hear "sound" whether "people are around or not?

 

If, as I do, one subscribes to the notion that the present observable universe had a beginning described best by the Big Bang theory...

 

So, do you subscribe to the concept of a "beginning of time" with cosmos originating (this "time") with the BB? If so, do you think that the cosmos just magically appeared out of nothing? If so how does this differ from "creationism" with cosmos coming out of god's magic hat?

 

...and the explanation that the universe is a large-scale quantum vacuum fluctuation (that is, as Edward P. Tryon so pithily put it about a generation ago, “our Universe is simply one of those things that happens from time to time", this “time cannot exist in the absence of clock” position implies bizarre and paradoxical expansion of the inclusiveness of the definition of a clock to include “events” that are undetectable – namely the many “times” that the pre-universe vacuum did not become the universe.

 

Are you sure that all oscillating cosmologies are falsified by the quantum vacuum fluctuation theory/model... assuming here that the latter is the "nothingness" out of which the something we call cosmos occasionally appears... kinda like "now you see it;... now you don't?" And this is presently the scientifically favored cosmology?

(If so I think science is in big trouble.)

 

Anyway, as per "time" per se, how do you respond to Qfwfq's post on how time does not exist (post 16, p.2?)

 

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

Modest,

For openers, we agree that

"... without any clocks, the internal dynamics of all physical precesses slow down with increased velocity?"

You:

Relativity does *not* assume time exists as an entity. That is nothing more than a misunderstanding you have because you don't understand the theory. When a relativist says "spacetime curves" you think they are describing something that is physical which physically curves. That is your misconception.

 

You are putting words in my mouth here. I have never said that I think relativity makes "spacetime" something physical ...Just "something" that curves, etc. That is your misconception. I usually challenge what "medium, entity, etc" is supposed to curve.

The theory of relativity does *not* demand time exist as an independent entity in and of itself. In fact, philosophically, it PROVES just the opposite. I can quote Einstein:

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Einstein

According to the general theory of relativity the four coordinates of the space-time continuum are entirely arbitrary choosable parameters, devoid of any independent physical meaning.

 

What we have argued about incessantly is my challenge, regarding time, :"What dilates? What speeds up and slows down?" If we agree that time is not an entity, then it is actual "physical processes" which change pace, not "time itself" which I have always maintained.

So now you claim that this is what you meant all along??

Your position (quoting Einstein, I think, as above) that "Time is what clocks measure" is simply circular tautology adding nothing to the discussion of "what it is"... like Boerseun's "Time is time... is fundamental."

 

Quote:

People before me believed that if all the matter in the universe were removed, only space and time would exist. My theory proves that space and time would disappear along with matter.

Hole argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

We were here before in the spacetime thread, and I agreed then as now that this confirms that time is not "some thing that dilates."

Rather, physical processes, like clocks "ticking" slow down and speed up , not some "thing, time."

You didn't hear me then either but constantly argued that time itself dilates and clocks simply monitor that "dilation."

 

The theory demonstrates through general covariance that space and time are properties of matter and energy (and how matter and energy interact) and properties of the universe and THEY ARE NOT independent and physical entities.

 

Here again it is all about "physical processes" happening in the volume we call space and clocks keeping time differently at different velocities and gravitational environments.

I AM THE ONE WHO HAS ALWAYS SAID THAT TIME AND SPACE ARE NOT INDEPENDENT AND PHYSICAL ENTITIES.

 

Holy smoke, man... you say I was promoting the opposite of what I have *always said.* How do you manage that and then present what I've been actually saying as what science has maintained all along? Sheesh!

 

Yet, you don't understand the theory, and you see the metaphor "space and time are curved by mass like a rubber sheet" so you want to argue against the metaphor and against the misconception which exits nowhere except in your own head.

Hard to believe I am seeing this. I have constantly challenged the reification of "spacetime as something" that curves like a rubber sheet." How many times do you think I challenged "What curves? and "What dilates?"

 

Einstein went through great pains to develop GR in a covariant way exactly because he didn't like spacetime substantivalism. A spacetime manifold is a mathematical construct without an independent physical existence. You've been told this so many times...

 

So, anyway, I endorsed Einstein's renunciation of spacetime substantivalism way back in the spacetime thread, and I still do.

It is you who have always misunderstood me. (Boo hoo!)

And, by the bye, saying that time is event duration means nothing.

... to you.

But to the reader who actually gets my meaning itis obvious. Most recently I said it in this context, quite meaningfully, I think:

The future is not yet real and present and the past is not still real and present, and there is no "time" between future and past. Time is the convention of event duration from one designated now to another.

(It is always now.

(See also Qfwfq's post 16, p.2.)

 

Michael

PS: Here are a few quotes and links which contribute to the great general misconception about and reification of spacetime as something real in and of "itself"... and this just scratches the surface...(my bold comments and highlights):

Wiki:

" Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime.

 

* Time goes more slowly in higher gravitational fields. This is called gravitational time dilation.

"time", not clocks, "goes more slowly"...)

 

* Frame-dragging, in which a rotating mass "drags along" the space time around it."

(What is that stuff that mass is dragging?)

 

Intro to Curved Spacetime"

"According to Albert Einstein! Without gravity, space would be flat. Gravity actually curves, or "warps," space. The more dense the matter is, the more the space around it is curved."

 

Does this sound like just a mathematical/metric or concept?

 

http://library.thinkquest.org/10148/long2.shtml

 

Motion in Curved Space-Time

 

"The sun creates the curved structure of space-time, and the planets move on geodesics or "straight lines" in curved space-time."

 

Right! Orbits are really straight lines. It is space that is curved! Nonsense!

 

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pberman/20gr4.html

 

Curved Space Time

January 24, 2009 — amalbose

 

"According to The Theory of Relativity gravity bends space time around it. What it means is that, light which is said to have linear propagation( straight line) follows a distorts its path in presence of a massive body. Actually light always follows a straight path,but its the space that bends."

http://thetechies.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/curved-space-time/

 

Ditto above comment.

 

Space, time, and spacetime are here quite magical to have such properties yet not really exist but in the math of it all.

Good Grief!

[modest]

What we have argued about incessantly is my challenge, regarding time, :"What dilates? What speeds up and slows down?" If we agree that time is not an entity, then it is actual "physical processes" which change pace, not "time itself" which I have always maintained.

 

time = the pace of an actual physical process

 

time dilation = the change of pace of an actual physical process with relative velocity

 

Your objection is with a word while you agree with the word's definition. If someone says "time slows down in a rocket with relative velocity", you should not automatically think that they are reifying time. Instead, substitute a definition for the word: "event duration slows down in a rocket with relative velocity" or "everything that a clock could measure slows down in a rocket with relative velocity"

 

~modest

[Michael Mooney]

time = the pace of an actual physical process

 

time dilation = the change of pace of an actual physical process with relative velocity

 

Your objection is with a word while you agree with the word's definition. If someone says "time slows down in a rocket with relative velocity", you should not automatically think that they are reifying time. Instead, substitute a definition for the word: "event duration slows down in a rocket with relative velocity" or "everything that a clock could measure slows down in a rocket with relative velocity"

 

~modest

 

Cool!

How come "science" always says that time (which does not exist as an entity) does the change of pace trick when it is just physical processes slowing down at different velocities (due to different accelerations!)... with which I have *always agreed!*

 

We bored everyone to death on this issue and the thread on spacetime was finally locked up with me still harping on this objection, and now we agree?

 

Was it the consent of Qfwfq which turned the tide on the ontology of time?

In retrospect there are so many unanswered question which we fought over.

An outstanding one was how muons get an extended lifespan via time dilation in specific environments when we compare cyclotron accelerated muons to naturally "incoming" ones. You generalized that the artificially accelerated ones were experimental evidence for different lifespans due to time dilation. But you will not admit your error.

In that debate, I suggested that astronaut trainees in a centrifuge, experiencing extra G-force might have a slower metabolism (physical process) during the ride and might "age" more slowly the more time they have on the ride. (Just like the "twins" the their famous "paradox.") You "dissed" this big time and gave more muon experiment links.

 

A personal note... (I am philosophically opposed to "privacy" and "PM's"):

 

I really think you very good at covering your posterior anatomy on issues such as this when you are dead wrong... and will not admit it.

But your main mission here relative to your replies to me is, and always has been, to show me how wrong I am and how you are scientifically infallible. If this is an overstatement, please show me a case where you admit your mistake and are not my superior and mentor in *all* areas.

 

Latest case in point, you didn't address any of the points of our difference or my PS examples in my last post. Rather you imply that it's all about word choice.

That is quite lame as a cover for how "time", which does not exist,"dilates" or how space, which is a mathematical metric *bends, curves, and has (various) shapes*... and renders all orbits "straight lines traveling through curved space"... which isn't really a "thing."

 

Michael

[modest]

How come "science" always says that time (which does not exist as an entity) does the change of pace trick when it is just physical processes slowing down at different velocities (due to different accelerations!)... with which I have *always agreed!*

 

But, you're still not getting what I am saying. Your quote above asks how time does the change of pace trick if it is not an entity. You are treating time as something different from "that which a clock measures". Substitute the definition for the word:

How come "science" always says that

time

*that which a clock measures* (which does not exist as an entity) does the change of pace trick

Do you see? Time *IS* the pace. Time doesn't change pace—that makes no sense. To say "time dilates" is to say "that which a clock measures dilates" or "the pace of the physical process dilates".

 

Your objection to the reification of time is entirely against a misconception.

 

Was it the consent of Qfwfq which turned the tide on the ontology of time?

 

Q repeated a joke told by a comedian and laughed at the end.

 

In retrospect there are so many unanswered question which we fought over.

An outstanding one was how muons get an extended lifespan via time dilation in specific environments when we compare cyclotron accelerated muons to naturally "incoming" ones. You generalized that the artificially accelerated ones were experimental evidence for different lifespans due to time dilation. But you will not admit your error.

 

I am unaware of any error I made regarding the time dilation of muons. Muons are time dilated. For a popularization of science description, you can read:

 

The elegant universe: superstrings ... - Google Books

 

For a more accurate treatment:

 

Muon Experiment in Relativity

 

It is of interest to me how you've come to the conclusion from my previous post that I would think muons are not time dilated. I think you must be equating "time is not an independent entity" with "time dilation is not a real phenomenon".

 

Let's try an analogy. If I were to say:

Kinetic energy is not an independent entity in and of itself. It is a property of matter and how matter interacts.

Would you conclude from that statement that kinetic energy is not real? Or, that it cannot be relative to velocity? In fact, kinetic energy does increase with relative velocity in the same way that time decreases with relative velocity. So, why, if kinetic energy is not an entity in and of itself can I not say that kinetic energy increases with velocity? Or, alternatively, if time is not an entity in and of itself, why can I not say that time dilates with relative velocity?

 

I don't understand. Somehow you've made the leap from "time is the rate of a physical process" to "the lifespan of a high-velocity muon does not increase". How did you get from one to the other?

 

In that debate, I suggested that astronaut trainees in a centrifuge, experiencing extra G-force might have a slower metabolism (physical process) during the ride and might "age" more slowly the more time they have on the ride. (Just like the "twins" the their famous "paradox.") You "dissed" this big time and gave more muon experiment links.

 

Yes. There is a muon experiment which shows conclusively that centrifugal force has no contribution to time dilation.

 

“Measurements of relativistic time dilation for positive and negative muons in a circular orbit,” Nature 268 (July 28, 1977) pg 301...

 

The experiment of Bailey et al. referenced above stored muons in a magnetic storage ring and measured their lifetime. While being stored in the ring they were subject to a proper acceleration of approximately 10^18 g (1 g = 9.8 m/s^2). The observed agreement between the lifetime of the stored muons with that of muons with the same energy moving inertially confirms the clock hypothesis for accelerations of that magnitude.

 

* Sherwin, “Some Recent Experimental Tests of the 'Clock Paradox'”, Phys. Rev. 129 no. 1 (1960), pg 17.

 

He discusses some Mössbauer experiments that show that the rate of a clock is independent of acceleration (~10^16 g) and depends only upon velocity.

 

Experimental Basis of Special Relativity

 

This shows that time dilation is not the result of inertial forces. Why do you think this must be wrong?

 

I really think you very good at covering your posterior anatomy on issues such as this when you are dead wrong... and will not admit it.

 

Well... I guess it's good that I'm good at it :hal_jackolantern:

 

~modest

[Michael Mooney]

The quotes and my comments in the PS ending post 743 above show conclusively that science reifies time as a dilating entity... other than being simply "the pace of an actual physical process", with which I fully agree.

 

"* Time goes more slowly in higher gravitational fields. This is called gravitational time dilation.*

 

If "time" here is not posited as an entity, then it should read, "The pace of physical processes slows down in higher gravitational fields. This is called gravitational slowing of physical processes."

Then I would agree 100%. Likewise with physical processes which are moving at different velocities... having reached same via differences in acceleration.

If muons have an extended lifespan under certain conditions, as the experiments show, then it is the "pace of the physical processes" in the muons themselves in magnetic containment vs natural inertial environment that is different between them, not the mystery entity "time" "dilating."

 

Likewise the above quotes and my comments also show conclusively that "spacetime" is reified by science.

"

" Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime."

 

"...Frame-dragging, in which a rotating mass "drags along" the space time around it."

 

"According to Albert Einstein! Without gravity, space would be flat. Gravity actually curves, or "warps," space. The more dense the matter is, the more the space around it is curved."

 

Warps what? He said that if all mass disappeared space too would disappear? (and time!)

So, it is here supposed that space is something more than the volume in which mass (and stuff) exists and moves around? What then? And what has "shape?"

 

"The sun creates the curved structure of space-time, and the planets move on geodesics or "straight lines" in curved space-time."

 

I'd like to sell some beautiful homesite property deep in the everglades swamp to any fool who believes that orbiting bodies are actually traveling in "straight lines" through "curved space-time.!"

 

"According to The Theory of Relativity gravity bends space time around it. ...

Actually light always follows a straight path,but its the space that bends."

 

Looks to me like that magical transparent fabric in which "The Emporer" is parading around. I still say he is naked.

 

Finally, a joke can be a humorous expression of the truth about time, as in the case of Qfwfq quoting DeCrescenzo's "astoundingly simple argument":

Time is dividible into past, present and future.

 

Past is what no longer exists. Therefore it doesn't exist.

 

Future is what doesn't yet exist. Therefore it doesn't exist.

 

Present is nothing but the border separating past and future, an evanescent nothing but where two contiguous entities meet. As both these entities don't exist, neither can the border between them, as it is nothing else than such. Therefore it doesn't exist.

 

Therefore past, present and future don't exist, so time doesn't exist.

I, of course, disagree with the part about the present not existing, because the present is what is present all along and always even tho the future doesn't exist yet and the past doesn't remain present.

 

Compare my :

The future is not yet real and present and the past is not still real and present, and there is no "time" between future and past. Time is the convention of event duration from one designated now to another.

 

There is no "border" between future and past. There is only the ongoing present.

Amen!:)

Michael

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

What exactly is the problem with spacetime being real?

 

The argument here seems rather circular, round and round it goes...

 

"Amen!" ?? You end the post as if you are preaching from the pulpit... Very strange