Change and time.

[michel123456]

Time has been presented by some as a measure of change.

So the question goes like this:

can change happen without time?

That is not a question about simultaneity (can a change happen in zero time), that's another question.

 

The question is: if you take an event A and say it changes into an event B, do we need time for the change to happen?

 

For example, in mathematics, one can take an equation and make it evolve in a full page of equations following a sequence that can go forward and backward. Isn't it an example of change without time?

[owl]

Time has been presented by some as a measure of change.

So the question goes like this:

can change happen without time?

That is not a question about simultaneity (can a change happen in zero time), that's another question.

 

The question is: if you take an event A and say it changes into an event B, do we need time for the change to happen?

 

For example, in mathematics, one can take an equation and make it evolve in a full page of equations following a sequence that can go forward and backward. Isn't it an example of change without time?

It seems to me that the meaning of time is that which is required for change to happen. The universe would be a "frozen in time" snapshot without time, which is required for any and all movement. ("Elapsed time" for all movement is a concept, not an entity.)

It "takes time" to create the equation and to "make it evolve."

[studiot]

To say time is the only measure of change is nonsense.

 

Take a ruler and paint one end blue and the other red.

 

I can see red or blue depending solely upon a chage to spatial coordinates, further the red and blue exist simultaneously, which brings me to another observation.

 

Consider an event on Earth (event A) and a disconnected event on the planet Zog (event B). Because they are disconnected no amount of time will morph A into B.

[md65536]

I can see red or blue depending solely upon a chage to spatial coordinates, further the red and blue exist simultaneously, which brings me to another observation.

 

Consider an event on Earth (event A) and a disconnected event on the planet Zog (event B). Because they are disconnected no amount of time will morph A into B.

 

In the examples given (a colored ruler, or a page of math that you can "go backward or forward through") you're mapping the measurement of "change" to a 1-dimensional value, whose main property is a consistent ordering, and may or may not imply a metric or consistent measure of distance between different values.

 

Change usually refers to a transformation from one thing to another, not the difference between two independent objects or concepts.

 

I think it is a question of simultaneity. If two measured values can exist simultaneously (as in red and blue, or the first and second equation on a page), then the measurement of change between the two is not time. If two measured values cannot exist simultaneously, then I don't think you can describe a change from one value to another without there being a measure of time between the two.

 

For physical objects, I don't think it's possible for an object to exist in two different states simultaneously, so I don't think an object can change without time (or at least there is a sequential ordering to its states, unless time also requires a metric in which case I don't know). But then again, it depends on what "object" means, and it may not be true for eg. particles, which might be able able to occupy multiple states simultaneously...

[studiot]

Can't see whether you have picked my examples out to agree with or disagree with but they are offered as examples of change without time.

 

If, however you insist on the same object, how about this example, still keeping with colour.

 

What colour is a blue ball viewed under

 

A) a strontium light

 

b) a sodium light

 

c) a magnesium light

Edited May 30, 2012 by studiot

[md65536]

Can't see whether you have picked my examples out to agree with or disagree with but they are offered as examples of change without time.

 

If, however you insist on the same object, how about this example, still keeping with colour.

 

What colour is a blue ball viewed under

 

A) a strontium light

 

b) a sodium light

 

c) a magnesium light

 

I think the examples are describing a change without time because they're describing the change between things or concepts that exist simultaneously (using some measure of change other than time)

 

Hrm... I guess the other main property of the "measure of change" between two values is that there is a (continuous?) transformation from one value to another (and possibly vice-versa). So I'm not sure how you're describing the change between A b and c.

 

The color of an object at a single instant can appear different to different observers, so an object appearing different colors does not necessarily require time (though... color may not make sense at all without time). But it also might not be a change because there might not be a transformation from one observed color to the other, and there may not be an ordering.

 

 

Edit: Like, you could describe the ball being lit by all 3 lights simultaneously and describe the "change" in appearance across the surface of the ball, which is not a measure of time. You could say the color is changing across its surface. I don't think you would say the object is changing though. Yes, I suppose you could describe an object changing along some non-time dimension.

Edited May 30, 2012 by md65536

[studiot]

I suggest we are (all) conditioned to associate change with time by the oft used phrase "rate of change"

[michel123456]

In the examples given (a colored ruler, or a page of math that you can "go backward or forward through") you're mapping the measurement of "change" to a 1-dimensional value, whose main property is a consistent ordering, and may or may not imply a metric or consistent measure of distance between different values.

 

Change usually refers to a transformation from one thing to another, not the difference between two independent objects or concepts.

I think it is a question of simultaneity. If two measured values can exist simultaneously (as in red and blue, or the first and second equation on a page), then the measurement of change between the two is not time. If two measured values cannot exist simultaneously, then I don't think you can describe a change from one value to another without there being a measure of time between the two.

 

For physical objects, I don't think it's possible for an object to exist in two different states simultaneously, so I don't think an object can change without time (or at least there is a sequential ordering to its states, unless time also requires a metric in which case I don't know). But then again, it depends on what "object" means, and it may not be true for eg. particles, which might be able able to occupy multiple states simultaneously...

 

Bolded mine.

 

I agree.

Question:

When time itself changes, does time change in time?

[owl]

Bolded mine.

 

I agree.

Question:

When time itself changes, does time change in time?

What do you think "time itself" is besides event duration?

When a clock gains velocity and there is more duration (elapsed time) between "ticks" we can say that the time between ticks has changed. What else changes? Some sort of meta-time?

[michel123456]

What do you think "time itself" is besides event duration?

When a clock gains velocity and there is more duration (elapsed time) between "ticks" we can say that the time between ticks has changed. What else changes? Some sort of meta-time?

 

That's my question.

 

If time can change , does it change into "meta-time" as you said?

[owl]

That's my question.

 

If time can change , does it change into "meta-time" as you said?

 

You asked:

"When time itself changes, does time change in time?"

 

But you didn't answer my question:

"What do you think "time itself" is besides event duration?" My implication was that "time changing in time" makes no sense if time is just event duration, like between "ticks" of a clock or "a day" or "a year." If time is just the concept of that which elapses as things move, that can be longer or shorter duration depending on the physical process involved (and velocity/gravity situation for a clock.)

But that is just change in duration. What would a meta-duration mean?

[michel123456]

I don't know.

Describing time as duration seems silly. Tautology.

 

Anyway change in duration is some kind of change.

If change can only happen in time, then change in time must happen in a sort of "other time"(or maybe the same time). Maybe what we call "time" is emergent. When time changes, another "time" emerges.

Putting things a step further, maybe change in time can change, and a time^3 will emerge.

Ad infinitum.

In a similar way, change in speed is called acceleration, change in acceleration is called jerk, and so on. There is no end to this game.

[owl]

I don't know.

Describing time as duration seems silly. Tautology.

 

Anyway change in duration is some kind of change.

If change can only happen in time, then change in time must happen in a sort of "other time"(or maybe the same time). Maybe what we call "time" is emergent. When time changes, another "time" emerges.

Putting things a step further, maybe change in time can change, and a time^3 will emerge.

Ad infinitum.

In a similar way, change in speed is called acceleration, change in acceleration is called jerk, and so on. There is no end to this game.

My point is that "time" has erroneously become an entity of some kind, a "thing" which can slow down, etc. (Some even believe it is a "timescape" through which one can travel... into the future or into the past.

 

So I attempt to clarify that it is only the concept of "duration" of any event, like between clock "ticks" (variable, for sure) or naturally occurring movement of any kind like the year or the day or the age of the known cosmos since the "Bang."

 

How does that seem like a silly tautology to you?

 

Yes, "... change in duration is some kind of change."

A faster moving clock "ticks" more slowly. That is a change in the duration or elapsed time between ticks. How does that require some kind of meta-time?

 

You say, "If change can only happen in time, then change in time must happen in a sort of "other time"(or maybe the same time)."

 

This makes no sense to me. The universe would be a still snapshot, "frozen in time" with nothing "happening" without 'how long it takes for anything to happen'... which is the concept of time.

A change in the time it takes anything to happen can be due to a wide variety of influences. It takes me a lot longer to take a pee than when I was a younger man. That is a change in the duration, or elapsed time, for that event to happen.

No "meta-time" required. Same for clocks slowing down in rate of "time keeping" at higher speeds or in a deeper gravity well. I know of no one who understands the actual dynamics of that fact, but it happens.

"How does higher velocity make clocks slow down?"*... is not a question for science, they tell me here. But I am very curious and still want to know!

*Edit: It's not like clocks detect and measure something called "time" which slows down. It is simply that clocks slow down.

"Why" is not a question for science? Why not?

Edited June 6, 2012 by owl

[md65536]

In a similar way, change in speed is called acceleration, change in acceleration is called jerk, and so on. There is no end to this game.

Acceleration is the derivative of velocity with respect to time... dv/dt.

dt/dt would be always 1... ie. proper time of functioning clocks always passes at a rate of 1 second per second. All higher derivatives would be 0.

 

You could speak of [math]dt/d\tau[/math], I guess the change in one clock's time with respect to another's...

 

At least in special relativity:

...that's the Lorentz factor... it tells you how many times a local clock (t) ticks per tick of another clock (proper time [math]\tau[/math]). http://en.wikipedia..../Lorentz_factor

 

The derivative of that would be the change in Lorentz factor. It would correspond to a change in velocity, with a change in relative simultaneity. (In GR it would correspond to a change in relative gravitational potential.) I don't know if it has special meaning (as velocity, acceleration, jerk etc do) or what higher derivatives might mean. They're useful, eg. http://www.sciencech...php?f=84&t=8584

 

 

 

So, "the change in my time relative to (a change or period in) your time" refers to time dilation, ie. the value of the Lorentz factor.

A change in that over your time, is the rate of change of the Lorentz factor. With a non-zero acceleration (and non-0 v), it would be non-zero.

A change in that over your time, would be... ??? I dunno. But note that with a fixed positive acceleration (and positive v), this value (the rate at which the rate of change of the Lorentz factor changes -- ugh, confusing) increases as v increases...

Edited June 6, 2012 by md65536

[md65536]

'how long it takes for anything to happen'... which is the concept of time.

Duration addresses the "metric" of time... the measure of the temporal "distance" between events, but it throws away the "ordering" of time. If one pair of events has a duration of 1 s and another has a duration of 1 s, that doesn't tell you anything about what time the events happened. Did the former start before the latter, or vice versa, or were they simultaneous?

 

 

If we say v = d / t, the t there is a duration. It is like saying v = x / t, where x = 0 when t = 0. Or, v = delta x / delta t. So, yes, you can consider any instant t as a duration from time's "origin" of 0, just like a location x can be considered the distance from a spatial origin. You can choose an origin in space and time (eg. let's call midnight t=0 and then any given time today is a duration since midnight).

 

If change can only happen in time, then change in time must happen in a sort of "other time"(or maybe the same time). Maybe what we call "time" is emergent. When time changes, another "time" emerges.

How did you conclude that change can only happen in time? Time's not an object... if you imagine an infinite number of imaginary clocks at the same location ticking at the same rate, is that any different from a single imaginary clock marking the same time as all the others?

 

What you're talking about is like asking: What is the change in distance from the end of a ruler relative to the number of tick marks?

The distance changes at a rate of 1 m per meter tick on the ruler. You don't need to have "emerge" another measure of distance on a ruler... you use the ruler's measure of distance.

Edited June 7, 2012 by md65536

[tavonga]

I personally believe that for change to take place it does not does not require time whilst the two are also not mutually exclusive. unlike forces such as gravity and reaction to action which by the principles of physics are required before ANY change can occur, time is simply a measurement of the rate of change which is a derivative of the rotation of the earth(days, nights, hours, minutes e.t.c) like frames per second in a video game. Therefore by this standard it is believable that change does not happen in time as it is not one of the fundamental forces participating in a reaction, UNLESS in the event of a change that is a Reaction to action which requires time (for example a chemical reaction that requires five minutes for visible change to occur)

[tavonga]

In that case time would be required

[owl]

Title: "Change and time... can change happen without time?"

No. Change is movement on whatever scale, whatever the event or events. Movement takes time. Whether movement happens faster or slower is another question, depending on a wide variety of factors.

 

Duration addresses the "metric" of time... the measure of the temporal "distance" between events, but it throws away the "ordering" of time. If one pair of events has a duration of 1 s and another has a duration of 1 s, that doesn't tell you anything about what time the events happened. Did the former start before the latter, or vice versa, or were they simultaneous?

 

Agreed, however obvious. The year 2002 was about the same duration as the year 2012 will be, and the former happened ten years ago. But the OP is not about the ordering of time... rather "can change happen without time." (No.)

[Aethelwulf]

Time has been presented by some as a measure of change.

So the question goes like this:

can change happen without time?

That is not a question about simultaneity (can a change happen in zero time), that's another question.

 

The question is: if you take an event A and say it changes into an event B, do we need time for the change to happen?

 

For example, in mathematics, one can take an equation and make it evolve in a full page of equations following a sequence that can go forward and backward. Isn't it an example of change without time?

 

According to Julian Barbour, all there is, is change without time.

 

This comes from the timeless interpretation of GR, where the Wheeler de Witt equation permits a vanishing time derivative.

 

 

 

[md65536]

Agreed, however obvious. The year 2002 was about the same duration as the year 2012 will be, and the former happened ten years ago. But the OP is not about the ordering of time... rather "can change happen without time." (No.)

I disagree. If it's about time then probably (and certainly in this case) it's about the ordering of events.

 

 

Since you're using a non-standard, personal definition of time, the meaning you assign to the phrase "change in time" is different from what others mean. The phrase might be left up to interpretation as is, but I don't think anyone else thinks it means the difference between how long it takes you to pee at different ages (though I can't speak for everyone and may be wrong).

 

The ordering of events is maybe the essential aspect of time. The metric is perhaps just one of its properties. Having studied special relativity, you know that the "duration of a physical process" isn't constant, let's say. Knowing that, how can you prove that there must be a duration between any pair of connected events (connected via some process of "change")?

 

You say "No." Please explain.

 

Here are some examples to get into:

1) If you think of the first conceivable moment, say t=0 of the Big Bang. Can you say that involved the result of some change? And if so, was there any duration ending in that moment? Or if not, what might be the duration of the very first possible change? --- This proves nothing and I don't know the answers or if the questions even make sense, but it's something to think about instead of thinking that what applies to 2012 vs 2002 applies to all possible events.

 

2) If you consider a change in some point-like particle, is there a definite ordering to it, and is there a duration for that change to happen? Consider a muon decay http://en.wikipedia....Muon#Muon_decay

In the diagram in the link (or see below), consider the change between the muon and the muon-neutrino. How long does that change take? Say it takes a duration of ε. What happens during that time? Is the particle in some sort of intermediate state?

 

Is the ordering of all the transitions shown certain? My limited understanding of quantum mechanics is that they are not. My guess is that these transitions cannot be said to take time. Perhaps someone with a good understanding of QM can weigh in on that????

 

Anyway, I may be wrong. I've given an explanation of why the answer "No" may be wrong. Please show your reasoning for why the answer is "No", not just in a given example, but in all cases.

 

Edit: Sorry I missed your earlier explanation, plus another definition, that "Change is movement". In that case what is the movement involved in the transitions between the particles? Thanks.

 

 

 

Edited June 9, 2012 by md65536

[Joatmon]

This is probably a "red herring", but patterns can be set up that "travel" at any speed you like - even instantaneously.

For example a pattern travels down a waveguide faster than the speed of light. It cannot carry information as it has no real substance.

 

 

Phase velocity

Phase velocity is an almost useless piece of information you'll find in waveguide mathematics; here you multiply frequency times guide wavelength, and come up with a number that exceeds the speed of light!

 

 

By the same argument consider a long pair of scissors. As you close the blades you will see the point of intersection travel along the blades faster than the speed the handles are pulled together. Now, consider a pair of scissors so designed that the two blades come together at the same time for their whole length. Could you not say the point of intersection travels instantaneously from one end to the other?

http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/waveguidemath.cfm

 

Edited June 10, 2012 by Joatmon

[swansont]

This is probably a "red herring", but patterns can be set up that "travel" at any speed you like - even instantaneously.

For example a pattern travels down a waveguide faster than the speed of light. It cannot carry information as it has no real substance.

 

 

Phase velocity

Phase velocity is an almost useless piece of information you'll find in waveguide mathematics; here you multiply frequency times guide wavelength, and come up with a number that exceeds the speed of light!

 

 

By the same argument consider a long pair of scissors. As you close the blades you will see the point of intersection travel along the blades faster than the speed the handles are pulled together. Now, consider a pair of scissors so designed that the two blades come together at the same time for their whole length. Could you not say the point of intersection travels instantaneously from one end to the other?

http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/waveguidemath.cfm

 

 

Very fast, even exceeding c, is still not instantaneous.

 

But this does bring up another example: when you measure the state of an entangled particle, you instantaneously know the state of it's partner. So the transition from unmeasured to measured takes no time. Even though the measurement and acquisition of the state of the first particle takes time, the second bit of information does not.

 

I think it's largely because the question is ambiguous, since it doesn't state what change is being discussed. What of you recast it as "can a system be in two distinct states at once?" Entangled systems are part of a special case, and open a loophole because they still represent a single system up until you make a measurement, and the answer to the question is yes. If you look at the state of a system that cannot be put into a superposition, then you don't accept a multi-valued function — if you are in a state, you only get one answer. To change must allow for a different time tag, and thus it does take time, even if it is small.

 

Ordering of events is another aspect of not accepting a multi-valued function.

[md65536]

I think it's largely because the question is ambiguous, since it doesn't state what change is being discussed. What of you recast it as "can a system be in two distinct states at once?" Entangled systems are part of a special case, and open a loophole because they still represent a single system up until you make a measurement, and the answer to the question is yes. If you look at the state of a system that cannot be put into a superposition, then you don't accept a multi-valued function — if you are in a state, you only get one answer. To change must allow for a different time tag, and thus it does take time, even if it is small.

Those are some interesting points to deepen the discussion.

 

I think that superposition does not apply here, because even if you could say that the system was in two states at once (in some instant), you wouldn't describe it "changing" between those superposed states in that instant, would you?

 

The words "at once" may or may not imply timing, and it's hard to phrase this to avoid loading the question. What prevents the possibility of some system that always is in a distinct state, and yet can have two such states share a single instant? I can't think of any real example, only an analogy: It's like if you pause a VHS tape and there's a line of noise at the bottom of the screen, and the pixels of the noise can be changing, and they're always a distinct color, yet each state maps to only one time on the tape. This is not the best example because while "VHS time" is stopped, our time continues, and the pixels are changing in our time.

 

Another way to think of such an example is to borrow from Schrodinger's cat: Imagine determining the "instant" of death in a given reference frame, and having many observers in that frame all "measure" the cat at that particular instant, and suppose it is either alive or dead but that some of them find it's alive at that instant and others find it is dead --- there must be some subatomic phenomena that behaves like this???

 

But do you need a different time tag for different states in such a case? As another analogy, consider the real number line from -1 to +1, and "the change" from negative to positive numbers. What is the distance between the negative and positive numbers? Why can't the duration between time tags of two different states be zero?

 

 

Edit: If time is discrete, and you can meaningfully describe a minimum duration between two instants, and the state of some system must be in exactly one distinct state at each instant, and the state is different for some such pair of instants, then the answer to the question is "No", because the difference in the two states is associated with the duration between the two instants. If any of those conditions are not true, then I think the answer might be "Yes", because...

- If there is no difference in states there is no change,

- If the state can be two different distinct states in a single instant then you can describe a change in 0 time (though superposition might throw a wrench in here)

- otherwise, if you describe the change between different distinct states A and B over some small duration ε, then consider the state C halfway through ε. Either C != A or C != B. Since there is no minimum duration, you can keep repeating this. For the same reason that there is no smallest number greater than 0, there must be no smallest duration between different states with continuous time, and so the duration between different states must be possibly 0. (This argument might fail though, as the duration becomes 0 only after halving it an infinite number of times, and A/B/C would become identical if the states of the system were also continuous).

 

So perhaps the question can be rephrased in terms of whether or not time is quantized and/or whether possible states are quantized?

Edited June 11, 2012 by md65536

[pantheory]

"Can change happen without time?"

 

For the mainstream model as well as all the theories of time that I know of, the answer to this question is NO.

 

The duration of changes in matter or EM radiation, can be measured and quantified by time when using a clock to measure the duration of an interval of change.

 

"No" is the correct answer to your question. But the other side of the coin is more debatable. That flip-side question would be "Can time pass without any change happening?"

 

This question gets into the different theories of time. There accordingly is no standard theory of time, but instead there are different hypothesis concerning the nature of time. In my opinion the correct answer to this question also is NO, but many believe that time or spacetime is a dimension independent of matter and energy. But others like Einstein believed that space, time, and gravity could not exist without the existence of matter.

Edited June 11, 2012 by pantheory

[swansont]

Another way to think of such an example is to borrow from Schrodinger's cat: Imagine determining the "instant" of death in a given reference frame, and having many observers in that frame all "measure" the cat at that particular instant, and suppose it is either alive or dead but that some of them find it's alive at that instant and others find it is dead --- there must be some subatomic phenomena that behaves like this???

 

Observers have to agree on the measurement.