Proof of Time

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Sounds almost like a theory put forth by (I think) a British physicist named Julian Barbour in his book "The End of Time." Little slices...

 

 

I'll take eggplant, olives, and extra cheese on my time slice please. Oh, and could you warm that up in the brick oven too?

cool. Thanks for the reference. I've been thinking about that concept for almost 30 years. It's getting pretty darn hard to come up with anything original anymore. :lol: Still another way of looking at it would be to assume we have say, 10 processing units in our brain. well, normally 10. I've had my share of alcohol so I've probably only got about 7 left. Perhaps it's possible to borrow these processors for thinking. I've read that Newton was capable of astounding concentration and literally was not conscious of things going on around him. That would seem to indicate that time is sliced or that there are multiple processors running at all times. Very fascinating and not dealt with properly I'm afraid.

One would think that a very profound value would be the ability to train the processors or learn how to take time slices, if indeed either is close to the mark. Perhaps an idea for a separate thread?

[LaurieAG]

If we limit ourselves to time related things that can be measured and avoid the pitfalls of 'speed of light' relativity we can eliminate many problems.

 

Consider two identical (absolute) timers placed 1 light year apart (points A & B with nothing in between) that will both turn on when they detect the light from a supernova in an equidistant galaxy. Another (relative to the speed of light) timer is placed on a new experimental space ship that can travel at 1/2 (or whatever) of the speed of light.

 

The light to trigger the timer on the space ship starts at exactly the same time as the 2 absolute timers. The relative timer must wait for the light to reach the end destination before it starts. After 1 year both absolute timers say 1 year while the relative timer has just started. When the space ship reaches point B both absolute timers say 2 years while the relative timer says 1 year.

 

Say a new ship can go twice the speed of light. At point B both absolute timers would say 6 months but the relative timer would be still waiting for another six months before the speed of light trigger arrived to start it giving a total of - 6 months before it started.

 

It's strange that the application of this type of 'speed of light' relative timing gives the expected answers even though it is based on (simplistic) lag.