time as a condition is space

[36grit]

It has recently come to my attention that space and time are not the same thing. So I'm wondering if time is an energy that occupies space? Does it eleminate the true vacuum of space? is it some kind of force field residing in and disrupting the true vacuum of space? If so does this field have an associated particle like all fields according quantum mechanics?

Are length, width, and depth, dimensions relative to the time field density they occupy?

Do you think virtual particles exist in virtual (nontime) space and that when they hit the surface of a timed space they draw together and pop like and air bubble coming out of a field of water?

could the universe be described as a time field matrix existing in a nontime field vacuum that existed before the universe began?

Is anti-time possible?

Edited May 8, 2011 by 36grit

[ajb]

So I'm wondering if time is an energy that occupies space?

 

Time and energy are related. Energy is the conserved charge associated with time translation symmetry.

[swansont]

Time is not an energy.

[Light Storm]

Time doesn't exist outside the human imagination.

 

There is no set future or past, there is only present, and the present is always changing.

[swansont]

Time doesn't exist outside the human imagination.

 

There is no set future or past, there is only present, and the present is always changing.

 

!

Moderator Note

This is 36grit's speculative thread. Please leave your own speculation out of it. Start your own thread if you wish; I am sure there are those happy to dismantle such a thesis.

[36grit]

Time and energy are related. Energy is the conserved charge associated with time translation symmetry.

 

 

I can imagine the time/energy relationship as it takes energy to move through space and moving objects have a slower time field than a body at rest.

I don't think anybody really knows what time is but I'll predict it'll be the key ingrediant that prooves GLT.

[md65536]

Unless you're speculating otherwise, spacetime usually consists of 3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension, so time and space are hard to compare. If you want to compare time to a 1D aspect of space, comparing time and spatial distance would be easier.

 

Anti-time might be like anti-distance. I don't know how that'd be defined, but I'd expect it to only be abstract, not anything "real".

[ajb]

I can imagine the time/energy relationship as it takes energy to move through space and moving objects

 

I tend to think of time simply as the conjugate variable of time. This is in the same way you should view momentum as being the conjugate variable to space. This means you can understand energy as a canonical coordinate, that is you can define the energy given theLagrangian of the system.

 

You then see that special relativity does not allow us to make such a distinction between space and time and thus energy-momentum is the important thing.

 

Conservation of energy is then due to invariance under time translations. Quite often time does not appear as an explicit variable in the theory and thus energy conservation follows directly.

 

Anti-time might be like anti-distance.

 

I have no idea what anti-time is. Other than it did appear in an Star trek: TNG and an audio episode of Dr Who. But lets for now try to keep within physics as best we can.

[swansont]

Anti-time might be like anti-distance. I don't know how that'd be defined, but I'd expect it to only be abstract, not anything "real".

 

In that neither one is defined, I agree. Both time and distance are abstractions, but for some reason time is the thing that trips people up.

[michel123456]

!

Moderator Note

I am sure there are those happy to dismantle such a thesis.

 

Oh yes.

 

(...)If you want to compare time to a 1D aspect of space, comparing time and spatial distance would be easier.

 

Anti-time might be like anti-distance. I don't know how that'd be defined, but I'd expect it to only be abstract, not anything "real".

 

Oh yes.

Instead of compairing time & distance, try to find the difference.

 

In that neither one is defined, I agree. Both time and distance are abstractions, but for some reason time is the thing that trips people up.

 

Oh yes, "time is the thing that trips people up"

But:

distance is an abstraction?

[swansont]

distance is an abstraction?

 

Can you hand me a bucket of distance?

[lemur]

In that neither one is defined, I agree. Both time and distance are abstractions, but for some reason time is the thing that trips people up.

Having two eyes allows most people to triangulate distance automatically in terms of perceived depth, which makes it seem less abstract. In a sense, the ability to store information as memory provides a subjective way of triangulating durations, but the fact you can remember things of many different time-spans would be comparable to having variable distance between your eyes for interpreting depth. Plus, you can remember something long ago without going through all memories of events between that one and the present, which is different from seeing depth where you must look beyond everything between you and the distant object and integrate everything into the same visual-field image.

 

edit: as for time being a thing with the possibility of anti-time etc., why is it so hard to reduce physics to interactions of the four basic forces and then look at everything that emerges from those interactions as patterns that don't include any other entities than the forces themselves and their various configurations?

Edited May 9, 2011 by lemur

[michel123456]

Can you hand me a bucket of distance?

 

No I can't

 

I will try to fill a bucket with photons instead, it won't take long. Wait...

 

-----------------------

The lever principle shows that distance is not only an abstraction IMHO

Edited May 9, 2011 by michel123456

[lemur]

No I can't

 

I will try to fill a bucket with photons instead, it won't take long. Wait...

All buckets are filled with a constant stream of photons since the molecules comprising the bucket are always emitting some amount of energy, right?

[swansont]

The lever principle shows that distance is not only an abstraction IMHO

 

How does that demonstrate that it isn't an abstraction? Does a picture of a clock somehow show that time isn't an abstraction?

[michel123456]

How does that demonstrate that it isn't an abstraction? Does a picture of a clock somehow show that time isn't an abstraction?

 

Well, I disagree that time is an abstraction too, but i thought it was simpler to discuss distance first. It isn't.

 

So for you distance & time are abstractions.

 

from wiki:

 

Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). In mathematics, a distance function or metric is a generalization of the concept of physical distance. A metric is a function that behaves according to a specific set of rules, and provides a concrete way of describing what it means for elements of some space to be "close to" or "far away from" each other.

 

In most cases, "distance from A to B" is interchangeable with "distance between B and A".

I suppose you are making your point on the "numerical description" while I speak about "how far apart objects are".

I get the feeling it becomes argumentation without meaning.

Edited May 9, 2011 by michel123456

[lemur]

I suppose you are making your point on the "numerical description" while I speak about "how far apart objects are".

I get the feeling it becomes argumentation without meaning.

I think the point is that length/distance involves comparing things. To say that the distance between you and your broken down car is "two counties" requires an abstract process of comparing the size of a county to other indexes of distance. You can say the car exists, the road exists, that they're made up of matter with mass, etc. and those are all direct descriptions of actual physical things. But things like time and distance are generalized abstractions that describe something conceptual that you can't directly describe by empirical observation.

 

ab·stract

   [/url][adj. ab-strakt, ab-strakt; n. ab-strakt; v. ab-strakt for 10–13,ab-strakt for 14] –adjective1.thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, oractual instances: an abstract idea.2.expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specificobject or instance, as justice, , and speed.3.theoretical; not applied or practical: abstract .

- From dictionary.reference.com

 

#2 most directly explains why distance and time are abstractions.

[md65536]

Since "anti-time" doesn't seem to be defined, you might define it as negative time, so that an equal duration of time and anti-time "annihilate" each other when added together.

 

But time and distance are abstractions, as swanstont has pointed out, whether positive or negative. If you push 2 things together, you're not actually physically destroying anything as you reduce the distance to 0.

 

 

Negative values of time and distance are useful for describing differences in the measurements.

If you move something closer to me, my distance to it changes by a negative value.

The difference between today and yesterday is -1 day.

 

Meanwhile, the length or magnitude of any distance or time will be non-negative. It is probably easy to think of physical objects with lengths and events with durations, yet negative values may only come up when speaking of something relative to something else. So it might be easy to confuse distance as "something that is real", but it is only a measurement or a property of something real (or abstract).

Edited May 9, 2011 by md65536

[michel123456]

I think the point is that length/distance involves comparing things. To say that the distance between you and your broken down car is "two counties" requires an abstract process of comparing the size of a county to other indexes of distance. You can say the car exists, the road exists, that they're made up of matter with mass, etc. and those are all direct descriptions of actual physical things. But things like time and distance are generalized abstractions that describe something conceptual that you can't directly describe by empirical observation.

 

[/size][/font][/color][/i][/size][/font][/color][/size][/font][/color][/size][/font][/color][/size][/font][/color][/size][/font][/color][/size][/font][/color]- From dictionary.reference.com

 

#2 most directly explains why distance and time are abstractions.

 

If you take it that way, everything is abstraction, speed, acceleration, charge, mass...

[lemur]

If you take it that way, everything is abstraction, speed, acceleration, charge, mass...

Why is it bad for something to be an abstraction? Why do people have to confound truth with concreteness? It can be true to say that it is 100m from one end of a field to the other without distance being a concrete entity in physical reality? Yet it would be confounding to say that "100m" is as concrete as saying there are "one million blades of grass" on the same field. 100m might be more useful for various purposes, but it is still abstract whereas "one million blades of grass" could be less abstract but not as useful.

[michel123456]

Why is it bad for something to be an abstraction? Why do people have to confound truth with concreteness? It can be true to say that it is 100m from one end of a field to the other without distance being a concrete entity in physical reality? Yet it would be confounding to say that "100m" is as concrete as saying there are "one million blades of grass" on the same field. 100m might be more useful for various purposes, but it is still abstract whereas "one million blades of grass" could be less abstract but not as useful.

 

Nothing bad. The point raises when talking about time as an abstraction, as if it was something that is not part of reality. Some people argue that time does not properly exist, that time is simply a measurement or a human construct imprinted in our memory. I disagree with this point of vue.

 

To me, time is part of reality, as distance is (meaning the fact that objects are far away or close to each other), or mass.

[ajb]

Since "anti-time" doesn't seem to be defined, you might define it as negative time, so that an equal duration of time and anti-time "annihilate" each other when added together.

 

The T-transformation and T-symmetry is already well studied (it does lead to some confusion to "non-physicists").

 

T-transformation is just time reversal [math]T: t \rightarrow -t[/math].

 

Have a look at the Wikipedia entry here.

[lemur]

Nothing bad. The point raises when talking about time as an abstraction, as if it was something that is not part of reality. Some people argue that time does not properly exist, that time is simply a measurement or a human construct imprinted in our memory. I disagree with this point of vue.

 

To me, time is part of reality, as distance is (meaning the fact that objects are far away or close to each other), or mass.

 

I would guess your disagreement with that view arises from the assumption that things abstracted from relations among physical objects are more objective than subjective abstractions that blatantly contradict empirical data. Surely, however, you can recognize the difference between directly observable "concrete" entities and abstractions that can only be explained/described through reasoning? Btw, is this a discussion that is going to take away from this thread?

[DevilSolution]

Time as we know it is only a perception of the change we see, we cant quite comprehend time as it is in truth. Time is relative to energy, if you like time can be seen as energy in as far as it cant exist without change and energy is the source of that change. Shame we dont quite know what Energy is.

[Realitycheck]

Time and space are just dimensions, coordinates on a map.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Realitycheck