How long is "now"?

[asprung]

Events have allready occured in the past,and have not yet occured in the future. They can only occur "now". But how long is "now" ?

[ydoaPs]

The duration of "now" is as close to 0seconds as a duration can be without being 0seconds.

[Riogho]

On a side note, is there a quanta of time?

[insane_alien]

as far as we know plank time is the smallest unit of time that will make any sort of physical sense something like 5.3910^-44 seconds.

 

damn close to zero.

[Riogho]

So... time dilation actually works in little chunks of planck time?

[iNow]

Events have allready occured in the past,and have not yet occured in the future. They can only occur "now". But how long is "now" ?

 

Asprung,

 

Your question here is a philosophical one, not really scientific. Some would call it "metaphysical," but philosophical works for me.

 

 

You've setup your statement with the premise that "it's always right now."

 

You then asserted as maxims that:

a) the past is included in the present, and

b) the future is included in the present.

 

 

Again, this is not a scientific question, more philosophical, but if you follow your logic to fruition, the only available answer to:

 

"How long is "now?" ... is that it's "eternal."

 

 

Science doesn't help us with this particular question, unless, perhaps we are studying the mind and the perception of time in the human psyche.

[thedarkshade]

It's always now!

[Mr Skeptic]

Events have allready occured in the past,and have not yet occured in the future. They can only occur "now". But how long is "now" ?

 

I'll start my timer now, and stop it when it stops being now. Then I'll report how long it took...

 

Still waiting...

[Daecon]

"Now" is perpetual. Anything that is currently happening, is happening now.

[Klaynos]

Considered experimentally "now" is the integration time of your detector, whether that be your eye, your finger, or a thermometer, they all have some time over which they average their results...

[pioneer]

Say we start our clock, now. To measure time, until later, we need to use energy. If we run out of energy, the clock will stop, somewhere between the old now (then) and the new, now. The clock can't keep up with the flow of time we are trying to measure, unless we add energy to it.

 

Distance doesn't work this way. Rulers do not need a power source to measure from here to there. The observer is a wash for these two experiments. Only time needs energy to be measured because it has a connection to energy. The connection is in the timed spin we call the frequency. Without adding these little time quanta to the clock, we not can create the changes in state in the clock needed to measure the changes in state from now until then. The energy allows us to compare changes of state and then normalize it. If our clock is not keeping good time, due to low battery, we can't successfully normalize time.

 

Try to measure time with a ruler. It will be like the joke; taking a ruler to bed to see how long you slept. But if we use an energy powered ruler such as a laser ruler, we can measure time in terms of motion. But this only works because we have a power supply.