Thread: Whats time?

When you think about it... since you can never say this Moment exists, because by the time you say it the moment is gone, ad infinitum... can we definitively say it existed at all? And if this moment doesn't exist, how does reality based off that moment exist?

This question could take an infinite amount of time to answer, correctly!

Time is the fourth dimension which allows measurement of change to take place, without it nothing would exist as it does.
It is intwined with space and allows direction to be achevied along any of the 3 spacial dimensions or all 3 if you choose. Forwards or backwards - up and down, side to side, in & out or shake it all about. Yet always one direction in time, or so it seems. You could take a ride on a photon, but alas you'd be going nowhere fast.

Well my hang up is on how space and time have no properties of themselves, and only seem to exist so we can rationalize our environment.

I am pleased Ben Franklyn instituted the 24 hour time zone, however I feel it gives people today a conditioned view of what time actually is.

Originally Posted by JFalz1024

When you think about it... since you can never say this Moment exists, because by the time you say it the moment is gone, ad infinitum... can we definitively say it existed at all? And if this moment doesn't exist, how does reality based off that moment exist?

Same with space. It's "gone" too.

At the equator, due to the earth's spin, one would be moving at 1600 km per hour. But that is dwarfed by the earth's motion around the sun, at 100,000 km per hour. And the solar system itself is moving around the galaxy at 900,000 km per hour. Right?

Originally Posted by JFalz1024

I am pleased Ben Franklyn instituted the 24 hour time zone, however I feel it gives people today a conditioned view of what time actually is.

The problem is time zones?

I feel a song coming on -
Galaxy Song - YouTube

not too off topic I hope

Space is the distance between events.
Time is the distance in time between events

Originally Posted by JFalz1024

Well my hang up is on how space and time have no properties of themselves, and only seem to exist so we can rationalize our environment.

I am pleased Ben Franklyn instituted the 24 hour time zone, however I feel it gives people today a conditioned view of what time actually is.

Originally Posted by TaoZero5

I feel a song coming on -
Galaxy Song - YouTube

not too off topic I hope

You can embed the video: by clicking the video icon:

Quirky and informative. Hahah. They should play this for elementary school kids.

Originally Posted by JFalz1024

When you think about it... since you can never say this Moment exists, because by the time you say it the moment is gone, ad infinitum... can we definitively say it existed at all? And if this moment doesn't exist, how does reality based off that moment exist?

The best mental model I have been able to construct for time is that it is an expanding wave front of very short duration, whose velocity defines the speed of light. Nothing can go faster than light because doing so would outrun time. The future does not exist before the wave front arrives, and the past does not exist after the wave front has passed. The initial impetus for the time wave was probably the big bang. I don't see any reason there could not be multiple time waves, but also don't see any way of determining if our perceived present is the first such wave, or the 50,000th. Time could be ringing like a bell, and we would never know.

Larry, very interesting thought. In terms of picturing it as a wave, I would think it would a determination duration based on the velocity of the "carrier." With the discovery of the FTL neutrinos, perhaps light will be determined not to be the stop sign (nothing goes faster than), but rather only a speed limit ( or post ) in which we can gauge all other movement of particular constituents.