blike Posted July 6, 2002 Posted July 6, 2002 Is time quantized? In other words, is there a smallest unit of time that could not be divided into a smaller unit? Kind of like the atom used to be considered the most elementary fundemental particle, does time have a fundemental counterpart? Faf, any comments?
fafalone Posted July 6, 2002 Posted July 6, 2002 Time doesn't have much meaning on the quantum scale. If you fly an atomic clock around the world, it will go slower than a stationary one (this has been done, and within the next couple years they're going to put one on the ISS). Time doesn't work the same at that level. And atoms can be split, and subatomic particles can be split, and those can be split... eventually you'll get down to pure energy, where matter as we know it doesn't exist... time is similar.
blike Posted July 6, 2002 Author Posted July 6, 2002 I can't remember where I read this but someone mentioned in an article the smallest meaningful unit of time would probably be the planck constant. I'll try and find the article, kinda interesting.
fafalone Posted July 6, 2002 Posted July 6, 2002 I'll agree with that, something around 6.6x10^-34; that's the accepted point where the laws of physics break down.
Brad Posted July 15, 2002 Posted July 15, 2002 I don't see why there would be a limit to the smallest unit of time. After all time is really just a human creation. Have any of you heard of Rees, the British scientist who has some pretty wild ideas about time/space?
Doc Posted July 15, 2002 Posted July 15, 2002 I believe the Planck constant is actually for distance. It is the distance scale at which the known laws of physics break down, and we can no longer describe the structure of space and time. The Planck Length is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000016 centimeters.
Radical Edward Posted July 19, 2002 Posted July 19, 2002 I would suspect that the recent experiments that show entropy decreasing (on a very small scale) show that time is pretty much meaningless on the quantum scale, since you can look at time as the direction in which entropy increases.
aman Posted July 19, 2002 Posted July 19, 2002 In the real existance I would imagine the smallest slice of time would be when an excited electron drops from its high shell and a photon of light is created. That slice of time when the photon suddenly exists but has not moved. If we find electrons rotate than 1/4 rotation of an electron might be pretty short. If quarks oscillate then a single oscillation is getting pretty small. Like fafalone said, quantum level time doesn't have much meaning. But I can still try to touch it with my imagination. Just for though Just aman
MajinVegeta Posted March 12, 2003 Posted March 12, 2003 Originally posted by Brad I don't see why there would be a limit to the smallest unit of time. After all time is really just a human creation. Have any of you heard of Rees, the British scientist who has some pretty wild ideas about time/space? I'm sorry for being picky, but time is not a CREATION. It is an illusion generated by our stratium. Relativity (and other theories) prescribe a mathematical way of describing our prespective of the universe.
fafalone Posted March 12, 2003 Posted March 12, 2003 I don't see why people think time is an illusion. All events don't happen simultaneously; natural processes that our measurement of time is based on occur at specific and constant intervals. Time is real as far as the macroscopic world is concerned. Our universe exists on four axes; x, y, z, and t.
T_FLeX Posted March 12, 2003 Posted March 12, 2003 Originally posted by blike I can't remember where I read this but someone mentioned in an article the smallest meaningful unit of time would probably be the planck constant. I'll try and find the article, kinda interesting. Yea I read that at the plank length, time doesn't go in any one direction, that time itself is fluctuating, the book "Time Line" was centered around this. They would shrink themselves to the plank length, and go back in time, through quantum foam.
Deslaar Posted March 12, 2003 Posted March 12, 2003 Originally posted by blike I can't remember where I read this but someone mentioned in an article the smallest meaningful unit of time would probably be the planck constant. I'll try and find the article, kinda interesting. Well there's planck length, planck area, planck temperature, and planck mass. I guess there should be planck time.
MajinVegeta Posted March 13, 2003 Posted March 13, 2003 Originally posted by fafalone I don't see why people think time is an illusion. All events don't happen simultaneously; natural processes that our measurement of time is based on occur at specific and constant intervals. Time is real as far as the macroscopic world is concerned. Our universe exists on four axes; x, y, z, and t. Yes, but it is a fact that our consciousness of time is entirely based on our straitium(forgive me on my spelling of straitium) or rather our straitial neurons' ability to keep track of time. The time interval between each electrical charge in the straitium is recorded as a second. Thus we are conscious of time. We are unable to be unconscious of time while being in a conscious state. So therefore, our "view" of time (in terms of science) is essentially based on Albert Einstein's theory of Relativity, which is based on his(Al's ) perspective of time.
Skye Posted March 13, 2003 Posted March 13, 2003 Well all our sensations are wrong to a certain extent, if you assume being erroneous to an extent means it is a creation then everything just falls apart. If time has already gone crazy at the Planck length than does that mean the smallest possble unit of it is at a higher value?
Radical Edward Posted March 13, 2003 Posted March 13, 2003 Originally posted by MajinVegeta time stuff If you take a simple definition of time, as the direction in which entropy increases, then it exists regardless of whether there is something there to observe it or not, in much the same way as space exists regardless of whether someone is there to look at it or not. our view on time is based purely on processes that occur as a result of time and physics´, in much the same way that our view on space is based on physics too.
Radical Edward Posted March 13, 2003 Posted March 13, 2003 Originally posted by Deslaar Well there's planck length, planck area, planck temperature, and planck mass. I guess there should be planck time. yeap, it is the time taken to travel one planck length at the speed of light. aka not-very-long-at-all
MajinVegeta Posted March 14, 2003 Posted March 14, 2003 If you take a simple definition of time, as the direction in which entropy increases, then it exists regardless of whether there is something there to observe it or not, in much the same way as space exists regardless of whether someone is there to look at it or not. our view on time is based purely on processes that occur as a result of time and physics´, in much the same way that our view on space is based on physics too. Even then, (in relation to the entropy) time stand to be an illusion. Maybe we shouldn't even use the word "illusion", so like, what should we call it?
MajinVegeta Posted March 14, 2003 Posted March 14, 2003 yeap, it is the time taken to travel one planck length at the speed of light. aka not-very-long-at-all Actually, if the hypothetical measurement is infintely small (as the Planck Length) then the estimated length would be infinitely large. Courtesy of: http://life.csu.edu.au/complex/tutorials/tutorial3.html thus, time would be infinite(not small).
Radical Edward Posted March 14, 2003 Posted March 14, 2003 what? that makes no sense. The planck length is finite, as is the planck time.
fafalone Posted March 14, 2003 Posted March 14, 2003 t = d/v very small number / very large number = very very small number
MajinVegeta Posted March 15, 2003 Posted March 15, 2003 What about that site(see the above address)???!!!
JaKiri Posted March 16, 2003 Posted March 16, 2003 Originally posted by MajinVegeta What about that site(see the above address)???!!! The planck length is a finite measurement, and therefore it's impossible to have a 'real' fractal. From the siteIt is important to realize that true fractals are an idealization. No curve or surface in the real world is a true fractal; real objects are produced by processes that act over a finite range of scales only. Thus estimates of D may vary with scale, as they do in the above example. The variation can serve to characterize the relative importance of different processes at particular scales. Mandelbrot called the breaks between scales dominated by different processes "transition zones".
trmulti Posted April 22, 2003 Posted April 22, 2003 Originally posted by Radical Edward yeap, it is the time taken to travel one planck length at the speed of light. aka not-very-long-at-all Half of 'not-very-long-at-all' is even shorter, isn't it?
Radical Edward Posted April 22, 2003 Posted April 22, 2003 but not meaningful. the planck time is (quantum mechanically) the shortest meaningful length of time, as the planck distance is the shortest meaningful distance scale.
trmulti Posted April 22, 2003 Posted April 22, 2003 Originally posted by Radical Edward but not meaningful. the planck time is (quantum mechanically) the shortest meaningful length of time, as the planck distance is the shortest meaningful distance scale. This is actually the essence: The meaningfullness. Who is this meaningfull for, the scientistist? Because every non-zero values are dividable, even Planck's distance and thereby the length or travel, the tranformation itself should be impossible. The only proven fact is that there is no time at all. We're stuck in some static, imagining past and future. And because imagininig also takes time, we don't even imagin. This is either a philosophical question of fatalism or the mathematics must be changed to fit. Plancks theory only fits into practically proveable physical experiments.
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