TIME EXPLAINED (v2.1)

[Farsight]

Steve: I think there's a fair few common concepts that people just don't understand and never really think about. I'm having fun thinking about them!

[Turtle]

I have noticed for the past few days that an unusual number of guests are here viewing this thread. I was hoping that you could tell us how you were directed to this thread. Please either send me an email, or register and join the conversation.

 

Thanks!

 

Bill email = [email protected]

 

Two possibilities Bill:

1) Some self-promotion of work with no peer review.

2) Yet another attempt at crashing the site.

 

I suggest deleting the thread, but that's just me. :hihi:

[InfiniteNow]

Hmmmm.... 17 guests viewing this thread right now... :hihi:

[arkain101]

Direction of time flow.

 

Consider this,

 

If we consider the flow of time, forward, when light data that comes at us (an observer).

 

Then the flow of time in reverse is light that leaves from you.

 

Consider every particle a meaningless entity in relation to time. Yes, like your animation of particles flutting about.

 

And consider time+ as energy changing the state of the particle and time- as the particle losing energy from giving up that change of state.

 

In this, time and space obviously are not consistent, but completely relavent to a given set (a pair) of mass-energy interactions.

 

In this way, time flows both forward and reverse, and the mass is the medium on which time springs into existence. yet, only for a sliver of a change of state.

[Farsight]

Two possibilities Bill:

1) Some self-promotion of work with no peer review.

2) Yet another attempt at crashing the site.

 

I suggest deleting the thread, but that's just me. :hihi:

 

I haven't been doing much self promotion. I've sent the essay to Scientific American and New Scientist weeks back. I didn't seriously expect them to publish, but I wanted to say "if you're going to run any features on Time Travel be a little sceptical and have a look at this first". They both said no, but were nice about it. The only other people I've sent it to are Palle Yourgrau and Lee Smolin back in November I think. And ummm, don't laugh: but I also sent it to the Nobel Organization asking for an email receipt so I had a datestamp, which I got along with short shrift. Maybe somebody somewhere in some organisation or school has seen it and is passing the word.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Two possibilities Bill:

1) Some self-promotion of work with no peer review.

2) Yet another attempt at crashing the site.

 

I suggest deleting the thread, but that's just me. :hihi:

 

Interesting. Assuming you're serious, why?

 

Popular isn't the first person to suggest that time doesn't exist.

Some people think that 'Peer review' is used to stop the advance of science, not enable it (the author, Michael Crichton is one of them).

 

Being a mathematician Turtle, I would have thought that this subject would interest you.

[cwes99_03]

The issue of time is the crossover between being a rock and being a living thing.

Without being able to retain 'past moments' or previous 'nows', we'd not be conscious.

 

A rock can retain past moments. Say a rock is struck with a sledge hammer. Before it was struck it looked one way and after it looked another. The brain is very similar. Before it records a memory it looks (chemically, physically, etc.) one way and after it looks another.

 

I don't understand the need to explain time. Time exists, matter exists, energy exists, what needs explaining about their existence? Time exists as a set of all 3-d (or is it 10-d) space strung together to form a flow. Time is simply defined by change.

[Farsight]

..I don't understand the need to explain time. Time exists, matter exists, energy exists, what needs explaining about their existence? Time exists as a set of all 3-d (or is it 10-d) space strung together to form a flow. Time is simply defined by change.

 

It's why we do physics cewes. We want to understand everything. Time energy, mass, charge, gravity, everything.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

qwes:

A rock can retain past moments. Say a rock is struck with a sledge hammer. Before it was struck it looked one way and after it looked another. The brain is very similar. Before it records a memory it looks (chemically, physically, etc.) one way and after it looks another.

After being struck by a hammer, the rock is different. There is an implication of what it 'might' have looked like before (to a conscious mind observing it) but it has no 'recollection'. This is precisely the point with time. We attribute change to time as though 'it' were the cause of change. In exactly the same way, religion establishes the universe by saying God created it.

[Dov Henis]

Popular,

 

Just to point out interesting similarity of conceps:

 

You write in yr post

 

http://hypography.com/forums/physics-mathematics/9504-time-explained-v2-1-a.html#post148385

 

" So frequency is a number of events per second. And a second is a number of some other events. The interval between events is measured in terms of other events. And the interval between those events is measured in terms of other events. Until there are no events left, only intervals. And intervals are frozen timeless moments. For time is a measure of events, of change, measured by and against some other change. And for things to change, something, somewhere, somehow, has to have motion. You don’t need time to have motion. You need motion to have time."

 

I write in my post]

 

http://hypography.com/forums/astronomy-cosmology/8250-universe-beginning-end-between.html

 

"Time is a vital factor for living entities. In cosmic matters time just happens to be the other side of the cosmic coin distance, a factor proportional to distance, or to other continuously changing parameter(s); in cosmic matters time does not warrant a dimensional term separate from them."

 

Reflecting,

 

Dov

[cwes99_03]

It's why we do physics cewes. We want to understand everything. Time energy, mass, charge, gravity, everything.

 

Ok, then why don't you focus on learning about the things you don't understand about time. What in particular don't you understand?

[InfiniteNow]

A very cursory search of Hypography alone for discussion on the concept of time should quickly show you just how resistant to easy description time is.

[Turtle]

Interesting. Assuming you're serious, why?

 

Popular isn't the first person to suggest that time doesn't exist.

Some people think that 'Peer review' is used to stop the advance of science, not enable it (the author, Michael Crichton is one of them).

 

Being a mathematician Turtle, I would have thought that this subject would interest you.

 

Sorry Steve; I missed this earlier. It seems worth my time to clarify. Bill posted concerning how many views this thread has garnered and continues to garner as I type, and I proposed that it is either the author playing hijinks to promote his ideas, or someone trying to crash this site by (I think this is the right term) a denial of service ploy.

 

As to Popular's ideas on time - or anyone posting here claiming some new insight - I find it highly improbable that any true new insight into the nature of time is going to show up on this or any other forum. While peer review may slow things down, it is indeed the very essence of the scientific method. Like it or not, even true insights may take decades, or hundreds, or thousands of years to receive recognition. I don't know this Crichton guy, but from your brief reference he sounds like a whiner to me. As you presumed however, I do find it all interesting. :eek:

[cwes99_03]

A very cursory search of Hypography alone for discussion on the concept of time should quickly show you just how resistant to easy description time is.

 

I don't deny that there are questions. I'm just wondering what questions this particular person has, and why he feels a need to abandon all previous description of time, for some new theory he wants to propose.

 

Einstein didn't abandon Newton's description of the universe when he started, nor when he finished. He sought out ways to adjust or add to it. Thus if the originator of this thread would go about it in the same way (that is to seek knowledge and answers, rather than create them) he might have a better chance at truly making a breakthrough. Perhaps his questions have already been answered elsewhere.

 

EDIT: Hmmm 20 guests viewing this thread. Only 1 viewing the previous thread I was on. Doesn't seem like a glitch.

[cwes99_03]

Ok, here are my results from the "optical illusion" used in the opening post and discussed throughout the thread by me.

 

I took 6 random samplings from the magnified center pieces of each of the crosses and then averaged them together.

 

The averages for the cross on the left were R=101, G=97.8, and B=96.3. The right centerpiece was R=117, G=112, and B=110. Now it is fairly obvious to me that these two colors are different. However, this method took and changed the original picture (i took the original picture and enlarged it before taking my measurements.) Since there is such an obvious difference, I will make one more go of it using just the original picture taken from the first post of this thread. The sampling using the original picture will be more random because there won't be as much room for me to move the cursor around and sample different parts of the centerpiece (shading and whatnot won't be as noticeable).

 

Edit: Wow 37 guests.

[CraigD]

The averages for the cross on the left were R=101, G=97.8, and B=96.3. The right centerpiece was R=117, G=112, and B=110. Now it is fairly obvious to me that these two colors are different. However, this method took and changed the original picture (i took the original picture and enlarged it before taking my measurements.) Since there is such an obvious difference, I will make one more go of it using just the original picture taken from the first post of this thread.

Keeping in mind that what you actually see when viewing an image is the bitmap to which it renders, I’d suggest working from a Ctrl+PrintScreen capture of that bitmap, not a magnification of the original file. However, I suspect you’ll get results similar to your initial average of 6 sample pixels.

 

These results indicate that the colors given by both averages are both gray, one the left slightly darker, the right slightly lighter (for easy comparison, I’ve attached squares of the 2 colors beside each other, along with a square of 128-128-128 standard dark gray). Because the source image uses light and dark shading to suggest a cylindrical shape, I suspect the light-dark difference is due to sampling slightly different points on the suggested shape’s perimeter, and will vanish or even reverse if you select different random samples.

 

Since my perception of the image in post #1 is that the left image’s cross piece looks gray, while the right’s yellow, cwes has demonstrated to my further satisfaction that my perception has been fooled, and that both are actually gray.

shadesofgray070122.bmp

[ldsoftwaresteve]

cwes:

As to Popular's ideas on time - or anyone posting here claiming some new insight - I find it highly improbable that any true new insight into the nature of time is going to show up on this or any other forum. While peer review may slow things down, it is indeed the very essence of the scientific method. Like it or not, even true insights may take decades, or hundreds, or thousands of years to receive recognition. I don't know this Crichton guy, but from your brief reference he sounds like a whiner to me. As you presumed however, I do find it all interesting.

I guess I disagree with you. If time is only an internal referent, then any nature it has would be relative to a conscious mind capable of inventing it. If there is any truth in that, then it has been said before as you say. But sometimes ideas need to be expressed from many different angles since we don't all come at learning from the same direction. And which of the 10 million descriptions should I read?

But it's the expression of the different ways to approach the subject that is interesting in itself. Maybe someday we'll be able to access information in a way that is more in keeping with our individual learning capabilities. Because there are different ways of learning, there should be different ways of expressing information. All students do not learn the same way.

And Peer review is not the essence of the scientific method, you're pulling my chain. :hyper: That pre-supposes that there are peers to do the review and the scientific method requires only person to apply it. Who would have done Peer review for Leonardo da Vinci?

And you make funny joke about Michael Crichton.