Time Explained

[swansont]

My apologies swansont regarding the atomic clock, I hadn't fully read into the mechanics, but my point is that the clocks operate using mechanics, that are possibly susceptable to other energies that could affect the mechanics should the clock be moved from one location to another. Because of the very high accuracy of measurement this could result in one clock running at a different rate to the other. I was just trying to losely explain how difficult it is to create a base time that can be taken anywhere which we can then rely on as being as accurate as the original, but as I said this is to do my own ideas.

 

And the people that work on frequency standards and clocks spend a lot of time characterizing such effects, and working to minimize them. You can also measure the result by comparing the clocks under different circumstances so that you know just how big/small the effects can be.

 

With regards to the speed of light verses metre derivation or definition. The speed of light is defined as a speed of metres per second, therefore it is reliant on the definition of the metre, which is defined as the distance light travels in x amount of time which means it is reliant on the definition of light and so on. The definitions are circular. It is this circular definition that Farsight is using as is basis for his argument to banish time from the science books.

 

 

<quote>A wavelength is a distance, a thing like a metre:

 

“The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second...”

 

And a velocity is a distance divided by a time. So:

 

A period T is a distance divided by a distance divided by a time. That’s a another period, another time. OK, so that definition of time is circular</quote>

 

You do need a bootstrap to start from, and that is fine, I was merely commenting on his use of the circular definition. The metre used to be defined as "as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole through Paris" which would prevent Farsight from creating the circular definition.

 

The interval of a second (time) is defined. The Speed of light (distance/time) is defined. The distance (the meter) is derived from those two defined values, i.e. you get the meter by knowing that the speed of light has a certain value. There is nothing circular about it.

[Robonewt]

And the people that work on frequency standards and clocks spend a lot of time characterizing such effects, and working to minimize them. You can also measure the result by comparing the clocks under different circumstances so that you know just how big/small the effects can be.

 

Absolutely, I was just saying it is difficult to create clocks that are accurate to the base time, not impossible. I was just saying there is always a chance that the place a clock is taken to has some aspect previiously unencountered. I don't mean to offend, I understand the area of atomic clocks is something you understand in great detail, much more than me, after reading your profile.

 

 

The interval of a second (time) is defined. The Speed of light (distance/time) is defined. The distance (the meter) is derived from those two defined values, i.e. you get the meter by knowing that the speed of light has a certain value. There is nothing circular about it.

 

 

I still disagree to an extent.

 

The Definition of the speed of light is dependant on the meter being a known constant measured by a different means. If we had originally defined the metre as say one tenth the height of nelsons column then when we came to measure the speed of light we would have arrived at a different magnitude of constant C, because it was defined using distance over time with the distance measured in metres, so one metre would equal approx 5.6 of our metres as we know it. C would then have been 5.6 times smaller.

 

We could then reverse engineer the definition to redefine the metre. And the circle would begin again.

 

If we were to discover that the speed of light in a vacuum was slightly wrong, does this then mean the length of the metre would change? or would the speed of light be redefined? But if the speed of light was redefined then the definition of the metre which is dependant on the speed of light would need to change......

 

Both definitions rely on each other so which do we change if one is found to be inaccurate?

[swansont]

I still disagree to an extent.

 

The Definition of the speed of light is dependant on the meter being a known constant measured by a different means. If we had originally defined the metre as say one tenth the height of nelsons column then when we came to measure the speed of light we would have arrived at a different magnitude of constant C, because it was defined using distance over time with the distance measured in metres, so one metre would equal approx 5.6 of our metres as we know it. C would then have been 5.6 times smaller.

 

We could then reverse engineer the definition to redefine the metre. And the circle would begin again.

 

If we were to discover that the speed of light in a vacuum was slightly wrong, does this then mean the length of the metre would change? or would the speed of light be redefined? But if the speed of light was redefined then the definition of the metre which is dependant on the speed of light would need to change......

 

Both definitions rely on each other so which do we change if one is found to be inaccurate?

 

 

The number we use for c depends on the old definition of the meter, but that's a different situation. We wanted the answer for the meter to be a particular value, and that dictated the fraction of c that we use. But any fraction could have been chosen; we would probably have used a different term to avoid confusion, had a different fraction been used.

 

The speed of light is what it is. Since it's defined it can't be wrong. It is the standard by which we then derive length. If you are asking what if it turned out not to be a constant, or it changed, well, you've just overturned all of physics, and there are other problems to deal with then.

 

edit: if there's a need to continue this, I'll request that this be split off so that it does not further sidetrack the thread

[Farsight]

Don't ask for it to be split off, swansont. The definition of c is at the heart of this whole thread. Yes, it's constant, but defining it as the "speed of light" is circular and has to be wrong. Your velocity as a fraction of c defines the very distance and time you use to calculate the speed that you then define c to be.

 

edit: If I misinterpreted you and you don't define c to be the speed of light, what do you define it to be?

[Farsight]

Robonewt, this has turned out to be a long one, but in reply to your earlier post:

 

Re the colour perception, I wanted to start with a surprise to make the reader sit up and notice, and lead in with a few paragraphs pointing out that just about all of our sensory experiences are related to motion. I didn't try to prove colour perception because I rather thought everybody would already understand that colour was our perception of wavelength. Heat is definitely something different to colour, we experience it rather than perceive it, and it burns us. But we do understand the mechanics, and the mechanics are those of motion. Pressure at least for a gas, is explained kinetically, which is motion again. Re kinetic energy, see ENERGY EXPLAINED for more info - nobody "has" kinetic energy, they have mass and.. motion. I didn't actually say sound does not really exist. I just wanted to hammer home the motion.

 

Now to get down to your mathematics regarding time. The problem you are having is down to a problem that physics has with maths, in that they often use a definition to define a measure that itself was defined by the original definition. The meter is now defined as the distance light travels in a period of time, but the speed of light was defined as a distance over time where the distance was measured in meters. This is a wonderful circular definition...

 

Agreed.

 

All dimensions are terms that have been created by the human race in order to try and make sense of the universe by breaking it into manageable bits. This is true for length width height and time. The same could be said of pressure, temperature and other dimension.

 

No problem.

 

If you travel from zero degrees to 50 degrees over 2 seconds, you have still gone through a motion, just one of temperature.

 

Sorry, no. You haven't travelled from zero degrees to 50 degrees. You haven't gone through any motion. The temperatures are merely two different measures of motion. You can't actually travel between the two.

 

I do partly agree with you in that time is different from other dimensions, because like you, I don’t think time can be travelled along like a river.

 

OK.

 

Time will pass if there is movement or not, If nothing happens, you don’t move from a to b, your pressure, temperature and bank account stay at zero for three days, three days will still have passed. Even if your atomic clock has stopped time will still pass at the same rate.

 

You said you can't travel along it like a river, but now it's passing? I'll assume that's a slip of the tongue and pass on it. What's more important is that if everything in the Universe including atoms, light, clocks, your brain, and the earth has no motion, there really can't be any time.

 

With regards to your beans analogy, it does have a direction, one of volume, more beans = more volume.

 

Sorry, it isn't a direction. You can't point to the "more beans" direction and take a step towards it. You can never travel in the "more beans" direction. The only direction is a mathematical one, a counting direction, and it's notional, imaginary, a linguistic sleight. It simply isn't real.

 

As I said, I believe time is different to all other dimensions. Time existed before the beginning of the universe and will exist after, after all nothing still needs time to take place in.

 

OK, it's different, but if it's a measure and there's nothing to measure, how can you say that it exists? And surely the conventional view is that time began with the Universe?

 

We can travel a length of temperature, if you are at 10 degrees for 2 seconds you travel at ten degrees for two seconds, if you go from 5 degrees to 10 in 2 seconds you have accelerated at 2.5 degrees per second.

 

See above. There is no real length/motion/acceleration through temperature. It's just a figure of speech.

 

We travel in time, we travel for a length of seconds, but we can only travel at a fixed rate and we can’t travel for a negative value of seconds.

 

Obviously what I'm saying is that people are too used to thinking in terms of length when they think about time. I'm saying there is no real "length" to time, and no travelling through it because all said and done it's just a measure of motion.

 

If anything time is the only scalar dimension. All other dimensions are vectors. Time has only one direction all others have 2.

 

I know what you mean, but do check your actual words above.

 

If you take time out of all equations nothing could happen because there is no time for it to happen in, if you want to say that time is a human invention and doesn’t exist, then you have to use the same argument to say the other dimensions don’t exist after all every dimension is just a term we use to describe the state of an object therefore you don’t have any equations. Yahoo no science…….

 

No, I didn't say that. Events happen, and we measure the interval between events using other events, and we call this interval time. We all experience time, just as we all experience heat. It's not some figment of our imagination. But the events dictate time, they make the experience. They aren't in time, just as they are not in change. There is no change dimension that we can travel through. And we can't travel through time either.

[Spyman]

Sorry for interrupting the discussion, but I want to sneak in a short question to Farsight...

 

How many dimensions, in your opinion, are contained inside, (or a property of), the Universe ?

[Robonewt]

The number we use for c depends on the old definition of the meter, but that's a different situation. We wanted the answer for the meter to be a particular value, and that dictated the fraction of c that we use. But any fraction could have been chosen; we would probably have used a different term to avoid confusion, had a different fraction been used.

 

The fraction was chosen because the metre was the base unit of all length calculations, if any other fraction was used, and the term called for example the litemetre then all the formulas would have to be rewritten. But they would still have to be compared to the metre for everyday use creating an unnecessary complication.

 

The speed of light is what it is. Since it's defined it can't be wrong. It is the standard by which we then derive length. If you are asking what if it turned out not to be a constant, or it changed, well, you've just overturned all of physics, and there are other problems to deal with then.

 

It could cause problems if the constant of the speed of light in a vacuum were wrong, however the concept isn’t implausible, there are already theories that think the speed of light is slowing over time.

 

In order to define the speed of light you had to know how long a metre was in order to calculate the fraction you wanted to use to define a metre. You have to know that light takes 1/299,792,458 of a second to travel a metre in order to say that a meter is the distance it travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

 

The problem lies in that you are using a velocity to define a measurement when the measurement you are trying to define is a component of the velocity. Try setting the equation up in excel, type “=B1*299792458/A1” in cell C1, then type “1” in cell A1 and finally type “=A1/C1” in cell B1. Excel will tell you it can’t calculate the result because it contains a circular reference.

[Robonewt]

Farsight :- from your original essay

If you don't believe me, if you think I'm wrong, show me the maths. But make sure you kick t out of all of your equations

 

This is why I thought you were trying to take time out of all the equations.

[swansont]

Don't ask for it to be split off, swansont. The definition of c is at the heart of this whole thread. Yes, it's constant, but defining it as the "speed of light" is circular and has to be wrong. Your velocity as a fraction of c defines the very distance and time you use to calculate the speed that you then define c to be.

 

edit: If I misinterpreted you and you don't define c to be the speed of light, what do you define it to be?

 

But you don't calculate what c is. It's a defined quantity. You may do a measurement to realize it, and if you hook it up to your Cs frequency standard you can also realize the meter.

[swansont]

It could cause problems if the constant of the speed of light in a vacuum were wrong, however the concept isn’t implausible, there are already theories that think the speed of light is slowing over time.

 

There are hypotheses that c has changed, but there are no confirmed exoeriments that demonstrate it. Measurements of the fine structure constant (which contains c) based on historical phenomena place a limit on how much the constant could have changed in the past several billion years, and measurements with atomic clocks using different elements place alimit on how fast it can currently be changing. Something like a part in 10^15 per year.

 

In order to define the speed of light you had to know how long a metre was in order to calculate the fraction you wanted to use to define a metre. You have to know that light takes 1/299,792,458 of a second to travel a metre in order to say that a meter is the distance it travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

 

The problem lies in that you are using a velocity to define a measurement when the measurement you are trying to define is a component of the velocity. Try setting the equation up in excel, type “=B1*299792458/A1” in cell C1, then type “1” in cell A1 and finally type “=A1/C1” in cell B1. Excel will tell you it can’t calculate the result because it contains a circular reference.

 

Your analogy is flawed (a strawman) because you have only provided only one defined quantity, and in reality we have two. Both c and the second are defined quantities.

[Robonewt]

Your analogy is flawed (a strawman) because you have only provided only one defined quantity, and in reality we have two. Both c and the second are defined quantities.

 

All three components could be defined from the equation

Speed of light is 299,792,458 metres travelled every second

1 second is the time it takes light to travel 299,792,458 metres

1 Metre is the distance travelled by light in 1/299,792,458 of a second

because, for the situation, all three are fixed values.

 

However, we could also define the second using the atomic clock and we could define the length of the metre in the traditional way. Can the speed of light be defined any other way than as a result of dividing known a known length of the metre by a known value of the second?

 

That we have chosen to define the metre as the distance travelled by light in a set period of time is fair enough. And I am sure it helps when calculating results. All I am saying is that by doing so you open up this argument of a circular definition that Farsight is using to base his premise on.

[Robonewt]

You said you can't travel along it like a river, but now it's passing? I'll assume that's a slip of the tongue and pass on it. What's more important is that if everything in the Universe including atoms, light, clocks, your brain, and the earth has no motion, there really can't be any time.

 

If time was like a river you could go up it, down it or travel along it at different rates. I was trying to say that time passes at the same rate whether motion happens or not. If no one existed to count anything would time no longer exist? Just because something is not recorded does not mean it doesn’t happen.

 

With regards to the traveling through temperature, yes it is a figure of speech, but what I was trying to say is that heat has a direction; you can get hotter or cooler along the heat scale. Ok it’s a measure of the amount of radiation, but you do travel through all the amounts in between, you can’t just jump from one temperature to another. How else would you describe it other than a motion.

 

I was trying to show that time doesn’t relate to heat in the same way. You can only go along with time and you can only travel at a certain rate, whereas you can change your temperature up and down at varying rates.

 

Heat can be touched, experienced and changed. Distance can be seen, experienced and changed. Time can be experienced, but not touched and not changed.

[Robonewt]

And Special Relativity is also trying to tell us something about the speed of light. Speed is distance over time. But light experiences no time, so talking about speed doesn’t make sense. Light doesn’t travel at any speed. It is a constant, because it is constant. And that constant c has its own units of velocity that we should liken to temperature. Velocity should be defined by degrees, not by metres and seconds, because it defines metres and seconds. And because it defines metres and seconds it but a short step from there to telling the children that the speed of light is the speed of time.

 

Light isn’t a constant, the speed of light is a constant. That is for a second as measured by an atomic clock, light will cover a measured distance. It is travelling at a fixed constant speed from A to B. The only way special relativity works is for light to experience a different rate of time. That is, if light were carrying an atomic clock then it would not witness any change in the clock as so would experience no time, as it experiences no time it cannot lose energy and so can travel across a vacuum. For us as observers though we witness a number of ticks in our atomic clock and so for us an amount of time has passed. This would seem to suggest that the rate of time you experience is dependant on the speed you are travelling. Multiple rates of time mean time travel.

 

If C is just a constant number then it has no relevance to anything and is just a figure that is used to give results a magnitude.

 

Your whole argument fails if we choose to no longer define the metre using light. The circular definition disappears and the speed of light, whilst always the same, is a magnitude is dependant on the length we define as a metre. It is not an absolute constant, just constant relative to our definition of the metre.

[Farsight]

Sorry for interrupting the discussion, but I want to sneak in a short question to Farsight... How many dimensions, in your opinion, are contained inside, (or a property of), the Universe ?

 

That's a tough one. To simplify it let's exclude any dimension that is merely some kind of measure, like temperature or mass, with no degree of freedom that you can move in. You know I include time in that category, so that leaves us with three Dimensions of space.

 

However when you look at the forces like gravity you can liken them to the "flatlander" experience, where you travel over a rumple without noticing the third Dimension. But you do notice a mysterious action-at-distance force that makes the uphill portion hard work. I have a concept that says forces are not the result of messenger particles, but are instead somehow geometric in nature. So I'd say we need to add in a Dimension for gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong force. The weak force is maybe different, so I won't include it. Ergo my answer is six. At least. Maybe. And not necessarily.

[Edtharan]

The speed of light is not dependant on the measurement scales that you use. It is really just a ratio between Time and distance. That is for every X distance that light travels, it will take Y time. It doesn't matter weather your distance is in Metres, Inches, Nelson's Columns or if you time is in seconds, or any arbitrary scale. All that matters is the ratio.

 

This means that the speed of light or "C" is not really dependant on our measure of distance (metre) or our measure of Time (second), but can be expressed as a ratio between them which is 300,000,000m:1s.

 

If we choose to measure it in inches and minutes it would be 196,850,393":1minute.

 

If we were were able to establish radio contact with an alien race, we could not just explain to them what a metre or a second is, but we could explain the ratio that is the speed of light and form that explain metres and seconds.

 

This argument about how we define a metre by the distance light travels in a period of time, and then use that measurement to express the speed of light is all just a massive lack of real understanding.

 

We know what the ratio of Distance and Time for the speed of light is. We just use the units that we are familiar with as one form of expression. The "Metre" and the "Second" no more define the "Speed of Light" than the term "100km per hour" define the terms "Kilometre" or "Hour".

 

I have been trying to explain this and you don't seem to be able to understand. Just because we use the word "Metre" as the unit in an equation it does not mean that we use that equation to define anything else in that equation. We usually are not even trying to define any of the unit in that equation.

 

Weather you measure Time by the rotation of the Earth, or the pulses of photons emitted by a caesium atom, neither of these measurement units define the "Speed of Light". The only thing they can do is specify the value on one side of the ratio.

 

Farsight. The main problem you don't seem to grasp, is that you say that the Speed of Light is a velocity, and we can use that ratio to perform calculations that can give us a measure of Time, that this must mean that Velocity defines Time.

 

You gloss over my careful logical explanations, and instead make leaping claims about your own axiomatic "proof".

Again. I did explain this. On one hand you told me to shorten my posts and then you say I do not provide enough explanations and that I am "Glossing" over parts of the explanation. Please be consistent in what you want from me and I will attempt to do so. Until you do, I will do as I see best. So either be clear or live with it.

 

LOL. After everything I've said about now? I don't believe it. Did you read what you just said? What about somebody who is .00000003 light seconds away? What about your own hand?

Yes. you own hand can be in a different frame of reference than other parts of you. Why not?

 

If I move my hand it has accelerated, but my head has not, it has therefore, according to relativity experienced a different frame of reference than my head. My feet are closer to the ground than my head and therefore will "see" my head as moving faster through time and my head will "see" my feet as moving slower through time. This effect has actually been measured and is quite real.

 

This sounds impossible, but that is only if you subscribe to an absolute time. We have measured this effect, we know it occurs, and yet an absolute time can not make sense of it. As this clearly does not leads to a nonsensical world, then some other explanation must be the truth. Only through a relative time can this situation be resolved.

 

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Are you deliberately ignoring the bouncing clocks and parallel mirrors in my explanation above? The motion between two events at the same location can be measured by the zigzag light path leaving and returning to the event location. Or the zigzag light path of photons bouncing around the atoms of an observer or an object.

Yes you might be able to measure the motion, but that still does not mean that motion defines it. You have not provided an explanation. Just a restatement of you axiom (that time is determined by velocity).

 

There's no mistake in my logic. The continued, ongoing, mistake in your logic is that you cannot see your own axiom, yet continue to use it as a "proof". Don't tell me about the definition of time. Look in TIME EXPLAINED and you'll see the definition of a second. Don't tell me I'm wrong because that is not the definition of time. Don't then try to use it as proof of the mistake in my logic.

The units of measurement do not determine what time is. How many time must this be restated. We define the measurement unit of time as a second and then use a periodic event to accurately define that measurement unit. The atomic clock is not defining timer it is marking off points.

 

The only thing it is defining is the scale that we use to measure time, not time its self. You seem to be saying that the units that we define something by, define the thing they are supposed to measure.

 

So in other words, by counting beans we define what a bean is.

 

 

Time travel yes. But not time. Time exists, like heat exists. Both are derived from motion, and neither have any real direction.

But mathematically motion is derived from time. I have presented this formula and it is very well know anyway.

 

I have asked it before and I will ask it again: On what do you base this claim on.

 

You repeatedly make this claim and don't back it up. Back up your claims.

 

I have used observational evidence to back up the claims I have mad. For every "Axiom" that I presented I have provided situations that have been observed (admittedly I have not referenced specific experiments, but these are well observed phenomena so their existence is not in question).

 

Any axioms I have used that I could not provide direct support for, I took the time to explain why those axioms exist (that is if they didn't then the world would not be the way it is). And then you complain that my posts are too long.

 

Please give us this explanation, this reason as this would be the one piece of evidence that would answer all my questions and definitively prove you right.

 

Your essay presents your opinion. But that is all it presents, nothing else. I keep asking for more and you just keep telling me to re-read your essay. No matter how many times I re-read it, if the information I need is not in there, I will never get it.

 

No. My explanation was clear. You're saying something I didn't say, then saying it's wrong. It's a reprise of your "absolute time" straw man argument.

Well, I would disagree then that your explanation was clear. I have an IQ of 140, I have a reading ability of over 700 words per minute at a greater than 90% comprehension rate. I too over 5 minutes reading you explanations and yet I seem to have misunderstood.

 

Based on other "explanations" in this thread I do have trouble understanding what you are trying to say as they seem to me to contradict each other.

 

Either you are being too vague, or are not properly explaining what you mean. If there is a failure in communication, most (not all) of the blame lies with the party that is initiating the message.

 

I take time and trouble to deal patiently with every point you raise, and you just brush it under the carpet. Then you come up with some new straw man to try to discredit me and what I'm saying. All because you will stoop to any means to defend your unshakeable unfounded faith in something you don't even understand. That's not honest, and it's not science. And I've been wasting my time talking to you.

<rant>

Not really most of your answers seem to be: "Re-read my essay" (which I have done so over 10 times).

 

If I have made a mistake in understanding what you are saying in your essay, then instead of just saying "re-read it" you might take the time to actually re-explain it.

 

I haven't just "brushed" you explanations under the carpet. I have questioned them.

 

Any "strawman" you seem to claim that I have made is its self a straw man. I question you claims and try (with the small amount of non contradictory explanations you have given) to work out what conclusions one can make from it. When I ask where I have gone wrong in reaching those conclusions, you brush me off by telling me to re-read you essay.

 

For future reference: I have read that essay several times and not just skimmed through it.

 

I have exercised a lot of patience in the face of some certain comments that are obviously designed to impute my character (if you really want I could quote them). You make claims as to my behaviour without actually know it and have been quite condescending in some of your remarks.

 

I have, until now chose to ignore them and concentrate on the matter at hand, further postings on this I will not be handling with as much patience.

</rant>

Sorry everyone else.

[swansont]

1 second is the time it takes light to travel 299,792,458 metres

 

 

That's not how the second is defined. A second is 9192631770 oscillations between the hyperfine ground states of an unperturbed Cs-133 atom, i.e. the second is defined independently of c.

 

Does that address your issue?

[Edtharan]

All three components could be defined from the equation

Speed of light is 299' date='792,458 metres travelled every second

1 second is the time it takes light to travel 299,792,458 metres

1 Metre is the distance travelled by light in 1/299,792,458 of a second

because, for the situation, all three are fixed values. [/quote']

You can work out the values, but it does not define them. If all you have is 299,792,458 metres/second and you don't know what a metre is, how does that allow you to define what a second is.

 

This is why velocity can not be used as something that defines Time (or Distance), as without the a definition of the other term you can not make any sense out of it. If you don't know what a metre is, then you can not use the speed of light to work out what a second is.

 

There is no mathematical way to go from "M/S" (a velocity) to just "S" without knowing what a metre is (and neither can you get "M" without knowing what a "S" is).

 

Distance and Time must, if we are to actually make any sense of what velocity is, be defined by something else.

 

If we take it that Distance can be defined else where, by other means, then we can derive Time form the equation, but it turns out that the similar methods that were used to determine Distance can be easily adapted to determine and define Time. Velocity is not needed.

 

However, we could also define the second using the atomic clock and we could define the length of the metre in the traditional way. Can the speed of light be defined any other way than as a result of dividing known a known length of the metre by a known value of the second?

 

That we have chosen to define the metre as the distance travelled by light in a set period of time is fair enough. And I am sure it helps when calculating results. All I am saying is that by doing so you open up this argument of a circular definition that Farsight is using to base his premise on.

This is my main argument against Farsight's essay.

 

Farsight is creating this circular argument to disprove Time as we know it, but it is a false circular argument as the method the Farsight uses as the definition of time is not a definition of time at all.

 

The whole essay is a big stawman as the definition that is being argued against is not what is used as the definition of time. It is in fact a ratio between Distance and Time that defines the Speed of Light.

 

The accepted definition of Time has absolutely nothing to do with the speed of light.

[Robonewt]

That's not how the second is defined. A second is 9192631770 oscillations between the hyperfine ground states of an unperturbed Cs-133 atom, i.e. the second is defined independently of c.

 

Does that address your issue?

 

I know it isn't how it is defined by science, I was just saying that you could define it that way. If all three parts are constant for the situation you could use any two to define the third.

 

My point was that seconds and metres can be defined by alternate methods where the value of the speed of light is reliant on the value previously defined for the other two.

[Robonewt]

The speed of light is not dependant on the measurement scales that you use. It is really just a ratio between Time and distance. That is for every X distance that light travels, it will take Y time. It doesn't matter weather your distance is in Metres, Inches, Nelson's Columns or if you time is in seconds, or any arbitrary scale. All that matters is the ratio.

 

This means that the speed of light or "C" is not really dependant on our measure of distance (metre) or our measure of Time (second), but can be expressed as a ratio between them which is 300,000,000m:1s.

 

If we choose to measure it in inches and minutes it would be 196,850,393":1minute.

 

If we were were able to establish radio contact with an alien race, we could not just explain to them what a metre or a second is, but we could explain the ratio that is the speed of light and form that explain metres and seconds.

 

How is a ratio of 196,850,393:1 equal to 300,000,000:1?

 

Yes the speed of light is constant regardless of the units used, but the value we assign it isn't.

 

We could explain the length of a metre by giving them a pole a meter long. We could explain a second by showing the atomic clock and how it works.

 

The only way we could describe the value we use to describe the speed of light would be to show them our metre, show them our second and they could then compare it to their unit of length and time to see how our speed of light value compares to theirs.

[Farsight]

If time was like a river you could go up it, down it or travel along it at different rates. I was trying to say that time passes at the same rate whether motion happens or not.

 

I think language causes big problems when it comes to time. OK the river is a figure of speech, I think we both agree on that. But I'm also saying "time passes" is another figure of speech. Think about how this implies travelling and motion through time, and see if you can really justify it.

 

If no one existed to count anything would time no longer exist? Just because something is not recorded does not mean it doesn’t happen.

 

Time would still exist just like heat would still exist. Both are derived effects of motion. Things move. Things happen, whether anybody's there to see it or not. Whoo, don't put me down as one of these tree-in-the-woods guys.

 

With regards to the traveling through temperature, yes it is a figure of speech, but what I was trying to say is that heat has a direction; you can get hotter or cooler along the heat scale. Ok it’s a measure of the amount of radiation, but you do travel through all the amounts in between, you can’t just jump from one temperature to another. How else would you describe it other than a motion.

 

Heat hasn't got a direction. Really. If we think about an ideal monotomic gas, the atoms are moving in all directions. You measure the average velocity and put it down on a linear scale, then think about moving along]/i] this scale, but it's totally imaginary. The only thing that's moving are the atoms. I'd rephrase travelling from one temperature to another as changing from one temperature to another.

 

I was trying to show that time doesn’t relate to heat in the same way. You can only go along with time and you can only travel at a certain rate, whereas you can change your temperature up and down at varying rates... Heat can be touched, experienced and changed. Distance can be seen, experienced and changed. Time can be experienced, but not touched and not changed.

 

Fair enough, heat and time aren't the same. Maybe the big difference is that time is immersive. The atoms "immersed" in the ideal gas can't experience or touch heat like we can. They just move faster. Maybe if they had little atomic brains they'd be thinking their time was running faster. I'm not sure, but they wouldn't be talking about heat travel. Or time travel. Just travel.

 

Light isn’t a constant, the speed of light is a constant.

 

OK, typo.

 

That is for a second as measured by an atomic clock, light will cover a measured distance. It is travelling at a fixed constant speed from A to B. The only way special relativity works is for light to experience a different rate of time. That is, if light were carrying an atomic clock then it would not witness any change in the clock as so would experience no time, as it experiences no time it cannot lose energy and so can travel across a vacuum. For us as observers though we witness a number of ticks in our atomic clock and so for us an amount of time has passed. This would seem to suggest that the rate of time you experience is dependant on the speed you are travelling.

 

Agreed.

 

Multiple rates of time mean time travel.

 

Naaaaw. I talked about this with Edtharan. You can contrive two clocks travelling at different velocities so that they collide. At the moment of impact one reads 13:49pm and the other reads 14:49pm, because one has experienced one hour less time than the other. But there's no time travel. They didn't miss each other by an hour. One clock didn't visit the other's past. One merely had more forward motion and so less lateral internal motion, and so ticked less.

 

If C is just a constant number then it has no relevance to anything and is just a figure that is used to give results a magnitude.

 

I see it as something like temperature. There's no real units to it, it's just a scale set by a couple of easily-measured marker points divided up into chunks.

 

Your whole argument fails if we choose to no longer define the metre using light. The circular definition disappears and the speed of light, whilst always the same, is a magnitude is dependant on the length we define as a metre. It is not an absolute constant, just constant relative to our definition of the metre.

 

I think my argument is in essence Special Relativity is telling us more than we think. So IMHO if my argument fails, Special Relativity fails. No kidding! Sorry this has been another long one.

[Robonewt]

 

There is no mathematical way to go from "M/S" (a velocity) to just "S" without knowing what a metre is (and neither can you get "M" without knowing what a "S" is).

 

 

The point is you do know what all three are, because C is a constant velocity which is equal to 300,000,000 m per second.

 

Because you know all three, any two can define the third.

[Farsight]

Farsight is creating this circular argument to disprove Time as we know it, but it is a false circular argument as the method the Farsight uses as the definition of time is not a definition of time at all.

 

The whole essay is a big strawman as the definition that is being argued against is not what is used as the definition of time. It is in fact a ratio between Distance and Time that defines the Speed of Light.

 

Oh geddoutofit. I'm not creating a circular argument. I'm challenging it. And I resent the way you stoop to this "false" and "strawman" dishonesty because you can't respond adequately to time is not a length.

[Robonewt]

 

Naaaaw. I talked about this with Edtharan. You can contrive two clocks travelling at different velocities so that they collide. At the moment of impact one reads 13:49pm and the other reads 14:49pm, because one has experienced one hour less time than the other. But there's no time travel. They didn't miss each other by an hour. One clock didn't visit the other's past. One merely had more forward motion and so less lateral internal motion, and so ticked less.

 

This is the heart of it. For the clock travelling at speed to have ticked less, means it has experienced the same amount of time as the stationery one, but the mechanical means of measuring the passage of time was compromised by the motion of the clock.

 

This is where special relativity fails to differentiate between illusion and reality.

 

You are saying both clocks have experienced the same amount of time, but the faster is inaccurate due to the effects of its velocity on its mechanics. Its not a real time difference just an illusion

 

The current interpretation of Special Relativity says that because the faster clock shows a slower time it has travelled slower through time, it’s not an illusion it’s a real time difference.

 

So your theory is only possible if Special Relativity is wrong.

[Farsight]

This is the heart of it. For the clock travelling at speed to have ticked less, means it has experienced the same amount of time as the stationery one, but the mechanical means of measuring the passage of time was compromised by the motion of the clock.

 

No Robonewt. I mean the clock that ticked less experienced less time. We could be talking about a light clock, where the motion means the internal light path between parallel mirrors is like this /\/\/\/\/\ rather than this ||||| so the light has further to go.

 

This is where special relativity fails to differentiate between illusion and reality.

 

No, there's no illusion. I'm an advocate of Special Relativity. I think we just misunderstand it. It tells us time is subjective, but people insist that time is objective.

 

You are saying both clocks have experienced the same amount of time, but the faster is inaccurate due to the effects of its velocity on its mechanics. Its not a real time difference just an illusion.

 

I'm not saying that, see above. The two clocks have experienced different amounts of time. But neither travelled through time. They set off, they travelled through space, they came back, and they collided. All the clock faces ever did was count the number of times the light bounced back and forth. You'll find the same sort of thing in the wikipedia article on time dilation.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

 

The current interpretation of Special Relativity says that because the faster clock shows a slower time it has travelled slower through time, it’s not an illusion it’s a real time difference. So your theory is only possible if Special Relativity is wrong.

 

Here's that language problem again. The faster clock hasn't travelled slower through time. That's where the illusion lies. It travelled faster through space and therefore experienced less time. There is no travelling through time. My theory is only possible if your interpretation of Special Relativity is wrong.

[Edtharan]

I think my argument is in essence Special Relativity is telling us more than we think. So IMHO if my argument fails, Special Relativity fails. No kidding!

No it doesn't. All it means is that your interpretation is wrong or you belief that SR is telling us more (and what exactly you think it is telling us).

 

Oh geddoutofit. I'm not creating a circular argument. I'm challenging it. And I resent the way you stoop to this "false" and "strawman" dishonesty because you can't respond adequately to time is not a length.

Umm, you posted this exact argument to support you claims in you essay. It was this circular argument about velocity and use of time to determine velocity that was at the core of your essay. So if you are not using it, why was it in you essay?

 

And I quote:

A period T is a distance divided by a distance divided by a time. That’s a another period, another time. OK, so that definition of time is circular.

But, Farsight, that is not the actual definition of time. So way on earth are you calling it a definition of time. It is not a definition of time.

 

I see it as something like temperature. There's no real units to it, it's just a scale set by a couple of easily-measured marker points divided up into chunks.

And can;t that just be applied to space as well? What you describe could just as well be applied to a Ruler used to measure space. Again, you have failed to explain what your proposal about time means it is not like space.

 

Naaaaw. I talked about this with Edtharan. You can contrive two clocks travelling at different velocities so that they collide. At the moment of impact one reads 13:49pm and the other reads 14:49pm, because one has experienced one hour less time than the other. But there's no time travel. They didn't miss each other by an hour. One clock didn't visit the other's past. One merely had more forward motion and so less lateral internal motion, and so ticked less.

Yes, but what if the clocks were to pass through that same location in space, but at 13:49pm local time (from their frame of reference)?

 

The would not collide then, even though, according to themselves, they were in the same location in space at the same time.

 

The conclusions you reached in that discussion require a 3rd observer who can give a definitive view on what "Now" is. As I showed, if this 3rd observer is constantly observing one of the clocks, then, as both must (by your claim) constantly be able to agree to a Now. But if they do this then that clock can not experience time dilation as then there must be a discrepancy between the Now that the clock experiences and that of the 3rd observer. Being that the time dilated clock's Now must be shorter than the 3rd observer) or that the 3rd observer would experience "more" nows than the clock.

 

This is the reason that an absolute Now must lead to an absolute Time as the act of observing means that the Nows must constantly match up and if an absolute Now exists then constant observations by one observer means that every Now that occurs must match up with every Now for the subject being observed regardless of either frame of reference.

 

How is a ratio of 196,850,393:1 equal to 300,000,000:1?

Sorry, I meant independent of the units used. Not a unitless value.

 

If I used a ratio of 300,000,000cm in the X dimension to 1 cm in the Y dimension, weather I used metres or inches, you would still get that 300,000,000:1 ratio. So regardless of the measurement scale used you get the same result so long as you use the same conversion multiplier for both sides. Changing the scale on one side means that you must change it on the other side.

 

So if you have a velocity for light in one set of scales, all you need is for the other person to give you a conversion factor for just 1 term and you can derive the units for the other term.

 

But this is a little off topic.