3D time

[Jacques]

Hi

I tried a couple of time to discuss of the possibility that time have more than 1 dimension and it look like physicist doesn't like that idea. Why ?

 

My thought is that time is 3 dimensional. According to relativity there is no absolute time. Time flow differently depending of relative velocity.

'Now' for me is not the same as the 'now' for an Andromedian; there is a time distance of 2 millions years. If I take an other galaxy I will find an other time distance and if I want to compute the time distance from Andromeda and the other galaxy I will need to do some 3D geometric calculation. If you bring that back to earth scale the distances are very small: from tenth of seconds to nano seconds and smaller. For me every location in space has its own location in time. My 'now' is not the same as your 'now'.

An other thaught in string theory we speek of up to 21 dimension of space! Why does physicist doesn't hesitate to add spatial dimensions, but doesn't want to add time dimension ???

Thanks

[The Peon]

I thought string had 11 dimensions and one of those dimensions was time?

[Xyph]

There seem to be a few possible amounts of extra spatial dimensions in string theory.

 

In any case, it seems to me that different inertial frames can all exist in a single temporal dimension. It's not correct that there's a difference of 2 million years between time in the Andromeda galaxy and time in the Milky Way, by the way - there are probably some relativistic effects on the rate of time's flow, but that wouldn't equate to a 2 million year separation of events. Events in galaxies billions of light years apart could still happen simultaneously, it would just take billions of years for observers from one to observe events in the other (assuming an incredibly powerful telescope).

 

A good way to visualize a temporal dimension, I think, is to imagine a set of frames stretching off into the distance - each frame represents the state of the universe at a certain time - the next frame represents a certain unit of time (say, a second) ahead, etc, etc. To have more than one temporal dimension (say, 2), you'd need to stack multiple rows of these frames, and people would be able to pick which temporal direction to travel in. Not which direction as in whether backwards or forwards in time, either - rather, whether forwards or up. This alone would probably make for a very complicated universe, and three time dimensions would be even worse.

[Severian]

Why 3? Why not 4, or 5, or 573689.4?

[Jacques]

It depend on what you base your criteria of simultaneite What is now ? Is it universal or local ? You can in imagination put yourself halfway between here an Andromeda an say the supernova in the Milkyway exploded at the same time as that one in Andromeda.

The succesion of frame that you describe is exactly what is happening we are running throught space around the sun around the galaxie and what else. Globally on earth we all move in the same direction across space and time that is why we feel a universal now. Take a jump in the air and you just changed your frame stack.

Why 3 ?

I start from the principle that the only thing that exist is motion. Without motion nothing would happen. Space or time wouldn't exist . Motion is space over time v=s/t. v is a 3 vector. Space and time are different aspect of the same entity: motion v. We usualy represent v as an arrow pointing in space but it also point in time. That's my thinking that I tried express here. Does it make sense to you ? I know that some fringe scientist who seem to know alot a bout relativity think that time maight be more than one dimensional.

Excuse my english I don't have my dictionary and I am not sure about the spelling of some word.

[Xyph]

You still don't need any more temporal dimensions than 1 to have motion. Moving upwards in space isn't the same as choosing a different direction in time, because each of these frames already contain 3 spatial dimensions.