The Times They Are A-Changin'

"The present is the coincidence of multiple signals in one point called the observer."

"Spacetime is a correlation of distance and duration using the speed of light as a conversion factor, rather than a fundamental structure of reality."

Bing, you guys have nailed it. I've tried to make these point on several threads, perhaps less eloquently, but it didn't fly with the few people on here who reject special relativity. It seems that some people just need to think of the universe as a giant shooting gallery of photons ontologically zooming from here to there for billions of "universe-years," like tiny wayward space travelers wondering where they will end up. Even most popular-science magazine articles depict the Cosmos this way. The sooner we realize that this is a false, anthropomorphic view of reality -- a human projection of the "true" universe onto a context that makes intuitive sense to us -- the sooner we'll have a realistic, workable definition of time and what it really means.

Karl,

The irony is that the linear narrative that is the dimension of time, is profoundly anthropomorphic.

Basically Einstein rejected Newton's "God's view" of an absolute flow of time for a subjective understanding, where the individual perspective determines what can be observed. What gets overlooked is that since there is no "God's view" in the first place, what was being rejected was an anthropomorphization of objective reality, rather than an actual attempt at objective reality. The presumed universal narrative was being rejected in favor of the individual narrative, without considering that the very quality of narration might not be fundamental. So that "universal flow" from past to future was replaced by a four dimensional spacetime geometry, in order to incorporate the fact that clocks are inherently subjective. The simple basic fact though, is that similar processes will evolve at different rates under different conditions, as opposed to there being some fundamental geometry of spacetime telling them how fast to evolve.

"We agree past and future do not exist, but then we turn around and try to define the present and it becomes this dimensionless point between past and future,"

It only becomes a dimensionless point between the past and the future if we fail to recognize and understand that particular times are identically equivalent to and are completely defined by, and only by, particular configurations of the universe. The universe always has some configuration, and this configuration changes; it evolves. We, as sentient beings, are able to observe this evolution, and we have given it a special name: "the flow of time."

This word "time" is a human invention, and it is the source of a great deal of mischief and confusion. The existence of this word and the ways in which we use it tend to blind us to the fact that we are simply using the word as a tool to describe the environment in which we find ourselves as it rearranges itself. In our sometimes inelegant and imprecise way of communicating with one another, we have all tacitly agreed to describe various arrangements of the universe which we observe by referring to them as various "particular times." The universe is dynamic; its configuration changes in more or less predictable ways which we strive to understand and which we have dubbed the laws of physics. Unfortunately, our word "time" has become inextricably tangled up with physics in ways which ultimately may not serve it, or us, well. We need to rethink our use of this word and the concept with which it is linked.

I have attempted to offer a more thorough explication of this in the essay which may be found here.

Karl, John,

Let's not forget the partition of the different truth systems. That I can see at the same time both the Sun and the Moon in the sky remains a truth for me, the observer and his truth system. What we talked about and agreed with above is another truth system that belongs to the ontology of the universe. What I am saying is that within a specific truth system the truths do not agree with other truth systems, this is normal and logical. No one is wrong if he specifies to which truth system the absence of choice a.k.a. facts a.k.a. truths it belong to. Many arguments and paradoxes are eliminated by recognizing this partition.

Marcel,

flow of time is flow of numerical order of materal change running in a timeless space

M-M,

Innumerable truth systems are very necessary. Often opposing ones even support each other, like opposite sides of the same coin. What would conservatives and liberals be without the other? Reality is a function of distinction and often these distinctions become immensely complex, to where no one mind can encompass the multitude of perspectives without completely melting down. There is quite literally no God's eye perspective on the entire reality.

That said, often opposing perspectives do clash and one might well prevail over the other, because just as new views are born, old ones can die.

J.C,

I pretty much agree with your description. My main point all along is that since this universal configuration we commonly refer to as the present is more fundamental than the units of time being created, then it is the present which is the constant and the units which move. Thus, on this fundamental level, it isn't the present moving from past to future, but future configurations becoming past configurations, due to the universal change.

It seems counterintuitive from our perspective as individual sentient beings, because by comparing it to space, it seems equivalent to moving from one situation to the next, much like walking along a path. But when we consider that we exist totally within our context and are in no way separate from it, then our motion is part of the larger change and the events of our lives recede into the past, as new ones replace them.

"Thus, on this fundamental level, it isn't the present moving from past to future, but future configurations becoming past configurations, due to the universal change."

The problem with phrasing the issue as you've done here is, in my opinion, that it gives an undeserved (and potentially misleading and confusing) ring of substance and reality to "future configurations." Yes, it's true that we can imagine future configurations, and we can even predict with some varying degree of certainty the rough form which some of them undoubtedly will have. But they are no more "real" than ghosts. They do not "become" or "do" anything.

Perhaps a thought experiment will help explain my thinking on this. Imagine for the sake of argument that the universe is a shoebox containing a few billiard balls. Now, the billiard balls will always have some configuration relative to one another and to the shoebox. But where are the past and future configurations? They are nowhere to be seen. They are not objectively real.

Now, if the shoebox were shaken, for example, the configuration would change, and if we have studied our physics textbooks diligently we might even be able to predict how the configuration of our small universe should evolve. We can infer with some varying degree of precision the likely nature of its evolution. But what we refer to as past or future configurations still are nowhere to be seen.

If we are willing to become somewhat speculative at this point we can add that any sentient creatures such as ourselves who might inhabit this small universe might have a "memory" of once-real but no-longer-existing configurations. Those creatures might think of those configurations as the past. And they might imagine possible configurations which they have never observed and imagine them as the future. But where are these past and future configurations? If we peek into the shoebox we will see only one configuration. That configuration is what our sentient creatures probably would think of as their "present."

Your thoughts on this are invited.

Wow! John, Eckard, and Marcel in particular.

Brilliant perception from the misty gloom! May I attempt a floodlight? but be careful as most are blinded; Some time ago I had a moment of inspiration which I'm fearful to share. But in truth I have no choice but to ask those with vision if they can see it.

Eckard, as usual, it's your Localised Observer, in each and every inertial frame, which as Weinstein said we haven't considered well enough. Now bring in Marcels's 'each EM field as just different dynamic dimensions of time.' and consider how each massive particle (or group) in motion has it's own EM field. With local limits. And every point, as John says, is the centre of it's own 3D co-ordinate system, each being one of the essential 'innumerable truth systems.' This is the same as the "infinitely many 'spaces' in relative motion" which Einstein described, but never did quite find the link to his "all mass is spatially extended" .. but with limits, which brings us back to the EM and other fields around all mass, behaving differently with relative motion through it's 'next field up' background.

Marcel again; "Observers on Earth and Mars were never part of the same moment or 'now'. They are in real and physically different inertial fields and thus will have their own local time, as each of the infinitely many spaces in relative motion' does. And EM waves must change speed at each of these EM field limits to maintain 'c' locally as it moves into the next. The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames, including 'c'. And here is where we've been blinded.

Light changes speed moving from, say, water into a vacuum, or from air into ice. All we need to prove is that when we move that ice cube, relative to the air, the light within it passes through it at a constant speed wrt the ice cube, i.e. locally, no matter which vector we choose or which way the planet is moving. Then we have a whole new simple physics. Discrete fields in relative motion resolving anomalies. Acceleration changes frames, and conservation is served in balancing frequency with wavelength.

But wait, we have already proved this! We've just been blinded. We even have both quantum and classic processes for the speed change between inertial frames. Ah! But there is no Lorentz/Fitzgerald contraction, and we'd be able to observe gas jets at 6c or more, and 'lensing' delays of years! (that's observing two 'times' at once!) so of course it can't possibly be correct. Are there any not blinded yet?

Very best wishes

Peter

Marcel again; "Observers on Earth and Mars were never part of the same moment or 'now'. They are in real and physically different inertial fields and thus will have their own local time, as each of the infinitely many spaces in relative motion' does. And EM waves must change speed at each of these EM field limits to maintain 'c' locally as it moves into the next. The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames, including 'c'. And here is where we've been blinded.

..................................

all observations are measured only in space and always in space, time is only numerical order of observation....clocks tick only in space and not in time

yours amrit

Einstein expressed time is numerical order of physical phenomena in a famous sentence: "Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it". In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes: "Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence".

Einstein did not interpreted time as a fourth dimension of space-time. This was and still is misinterpretation of the most physicists which do not distinguish between physical and psychological time. They "project" their inner psychological time into the physical reality although it is not there.

For Einstein there was no division between past, present and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

(out of my comming book)

Anon Peter Jackson,

I see growing consensus with John, J.C. and others: The future is uncertain but the past unchangeable, and this distinction belongs to a real observer. Religion as well as physics have unfortunately been emancipated from this realistic perspective. I doubt that the young Weinstein will have enough courage as to solve the case and separate physics from what is deeply rooted. I rather envision Van Flandern's fellows to succeed.

We all learned to either believe in SR or getting declared stupid. Meanwhile I feel free to rethink the arguments myself. Flandern coined the expression "time desynchronization" by SR. Einstein himself called relativity "seemingly" not agreeable with the constant velocity of light in vacuum. Was he right?

Let's assume four identical clocks, one on earth E, a second one just one second remote on the moon M and a third and fourth on identical shuttles moving towards E and M, respectively. Shouldn't it be reasonable for symmetry reasons that the shuttles can start and arrive simultaneously no matter how fast they move? Wouldn't a synchronization be simply possible in principle by correcting for the time of flight light propagates either from E to M or return? With this one-way method one could make sure that both shuttles will start simultaneously and for symmetry reasons also arrive at the same moment. What time spans the four clocks show is quite a different question. I cannot see any reason for ascribing different times to the same point in space just if there is something moving relative to something at a different point. Be honest, you all do understand it very well: Any light we perceive belongs to the past. It traveled at least one way.

Incidentally, I would like to add a caveat to the thesis that the laws of physics are valid in all coordinate systems: In reality we have to obey the restriction to only positive elapsed time. Negative elapsed time is as unreal as is negative distance.

Those who experienced a blast did first see it and heard it with some delay. Do not infer from this that it happened twice. While I may even respect the many impressive theories that are based on SR and Minkowski's metric, I suggest looking for simpler, honest, and more realistic results from Galilean mathematics and physics too.

Eckard

Eckard

Amrit,

Didn't E. here contradict to his own SR? Future events cannot be measured. Clocks do not show future time. Ergo future time does not exist in reality. This is the opposite of the allegedly only elusive distinction between past and future.

If E. distinguished between physical time and psychological time he perhaps attributed the physical one to the abstract notion but the psychological one to the elapsed time. Isn't this perverse?

Anyway, we should clarify whether or not it is justified to base the notion time on a direct measurement by means of a round trip of light. If I understood Van Flandern correctly, he argued that the multitude of local times is an artifact of SR. I share this view.

Eckard

Eckart

numerical order of events does not exist as a past and does not exist not as a future in a physical sense, it exist only inj mathematical sense.

That's why Einstien put i in X4=ict....imaginary coordinate of motion in a timeless space

The fact is that flow of change and flow of numerical order is running in a timeless space. Universe is NOW.

yours amrit

Amrit,

I understand those like you who attribute existence just to the present as follows: Physical existence of something means it is tangible and it can be influenced. Tangible refers to perception, which strictly speaking belongs to the past. The possibility to influence something belongs to the future. The notion presence is an imprecise overlap of past and future which strictly speaking exclude each other. When we say 'now', 'today', or maybe 'in this century', we are usually doing this if the precise time does not matter much.

Every single idealized moment, in particular the very now, corresponds to one measure out of the continuum of uncountably much real numbers. I maintain even if mediocre physicists tend to deny that : Absolutely infinite accuracy is as fictitious as are the notions point, line, infinity, zero, etc.

The expression sign(x) equals to +1 for positive values of x and to -1 for negative ones. At least common sense and practical implication tell us: There is no approachable value 0 for x=0 in between. From this strictly scientific point of view, the notion present in the meaning of a timespan between past and future does not at all fit into physics. Past and future are sufficient.

We cannot expect sound foundations of physics to be based on Hilbert's denial of the arrow of causality. The late Einstein admitted that the now worried him seriously. While he might have felt that his SR is wrong, he hoped for an explanation outside science.

Incidentally, ict was introduced by Minkowski, not by Einstein, admittedly based on Einstein's - as has been shown by Van Flandern - illusory SR.

Eckard, not Eckart

JCN,

I agree the past and future don't exist in the same way as the present exists, but without those memories and concepts, we would have no ability to make sense of the present. For one thing, how would you specifically define the present? If it's just a dimensionless point between past and future, there would be no duration for even light to move, or atomic activity to function, so nothing would exist, but then when we try to include duration, we get back to past and future. The problem is that time is a bit like temperature, in that the closer we look at it, the more it seems to fade as a clear concept, yet is as real to us as a hot stove, so are we illusionary?

Eckard

"Flandern coined the expression "time desynchronization" by SR. Einstein himself called relativity "seemingly" not agreeable with the constant velocity of light in vacuum. Was he right?"

I say yes, but only due to his need to describe the vacuum as nothing for the purposes of EM wave propagation, and that need can now be removed. 'Space withour aether is unthinkable'. (quote. AE 1921).

This says Van Flandern was absolutely spot on, but never quite worked out why. Time is 'desynchronised' at the boundary of every inertial frame, i.e. at the limits of every EM field around every bit of mass in relative motion. Light does 'c' through each local field. When it reaches an observer it changes to the 'c' of the observers field. (Doppler shifting). That is the true and embarrasing simplicity of why it is always observed at 'c'.

Let me test your Clocks E, M, S1 and S2 with the model. From the PoV of an observer at rest in the heliosphere (wrt the sun). Subject to how far each is away the shuttles can be seen to start similtaneously. But, even with the same d and v, being seen to arrive similtaneously from the same point is tricky due to the disparate motions of earth and moon! The observer could however move to a spot equidistant to E and M on S1 S2 arrival to achieve that.

If he (from there at that moment) observes each clock he'll find they all read the same. (apart possibly from some gravitational time dilation!).

It's as simple as jumping on a bus. Light jumping on the back of the moving bus (being converted to 'cn' at the glass) will get there before light that had to use the pavement.

If the 'bus' is going the wrong way (as light going through MACS J1149.5+2223) it may be delayed by a few nanosecs (or a few years! - as we find). Meaning perhaps the mass of the galaxy derived is not anomalous after all.

And yes; The laws of physics are the same in all buses and galaxies. But, as they all move wrt each other, you observe events occurring in different frames at different times from within each.

If you check you may find this matches (explains) all paradoxical observation. Huygens, E-O extinction merely explain the classic/quantum mechanism.

So. as I say. When we have an 'adjustment' to complete SR as a unified field theory with Locality/Reality and a quantum mechanism, we'll write it off as nonsense as we can't get our heads around it and it's not precisely what we think SR says.

Is it obvious I need help!?

Peter

Eckard

Einstein has told: ""Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." This proverb was guiding us searching into real nature of time: going deeply into the subject one can see that physical time as a numerical order of material change has exclusively "mathematical" nature. One could abandon time in physics definitely and propose only existence of mathematical time as a numerical order of change running in a timeless space. This view would in a perfect accordance with physical reality. Today into most physicists mind's idea of time as a physical reality is still prevalent; because of that we consciously keep term "physical time" knowing real nature of physical time is only mathematical succession of material change running into timeless space. Once you understand change do not run in time, time is only a numerical order of change, you easily progress into comprehension that time as numerical order of change has exclusively mathematical character. Because of that fact Einstein has described fourth coordinate of space-time as imaginary coordinate X4 = ict where i is an imaginary number ( i on square is -1) that does not correspond any element or part of physical reality as for example number 1 corresponds one single thing. (one chair, one person). Imaginary coordinate X4 has exclusively mathematical nature and does not correspond to some real distance in the universe. X4 is a mathematical coordinate of description of photon motion into timeless cosmic space.

You take a stone and left it to fall towards the earth. Stone will fall through space in the present moment only, not in the past or in the future. Measurements of all experiments we carry out always only in the present moment. In physics "past" and "future" exist only in a mathematical sense as a numerical order of material changes which run in a timeless space. Eternity is contained in the present moment. This is the fundamental discovery of the third millennium science that will change human society to the very roots.

yours amrit

mathematical succession = mathemetical order

Amrit,

I was teaching fundamentals of EE including complex calculus for forty years. So you might hopefully be ashamed for lecturing me: "i is an imaginary number ( i on square is -1)". Indeed, Minkowski's metric deserves a plausible explanation. Look at Vukelja as to see how Minkowski's spacetime corresponds to Lorentz transformation. Vukelja also shows that the "mathematical procedure by which Albert Einstein derived Lorentz transformation is incorrect". This is of course hard to swallow from the many physicists who are still idolizing Einstein. However, Petr Beckmann, Louis Essen, Tom Van Flandern, Cynthia Whitney, and many others were or are, respectively serious scientists with compelling arguments: Lorentz contraction is based on wrong reasoning.

The reason for me to also take issue was my suspicion that physicists at least since Heisenberg left the solid ground of using complex calculus just as a tool. This suspicion has been fully confirmed in all details so far.

I agree with you in that "change do not run in time". Nonetheless I consider elapsed time as a most foundational immediate measures while the usual notion of time is restricted to the level of abstraction. In this sense I am distinguishing between the unchangeable measure of all past and an abstracted measure that also includes all future.

Let me add to the question of the notion present that point-like events belong to abstract models. In practice, all events are processes of some duration. This does however not justify the use of the notion present in physics.

Eckard

JM,

I should hasten to add to my previous post that yes, I am familiar with the SI unit for temperature, the Kelvin. I would simply comment that this unit, like the unit for time, is derivative rather than fundamental, in my opinion.

Amrit

I agree with Eckard, but that doesn't require time for anybody to be any more than now. The word time has many interpretations and I consider argument rather semantic.

The importance of its use as a reference for physics can be missed. Now is apparently different for every single observer when judged by events, not just due to different positions but due to different inertial frames.

We could co-ordinate 1,000 clocks at a point in space, and 1,000 people take tham on their travels. When they observe a cosmic event they record the time and return with evidence of their motion and position at that time. We find that each has recorded a different time.

That is what is meant by 'local' time. Events are communicated by light which takes different periods to reach different position. My concept of local time is valid, and important it's just not what you interpret that I mean by it.

The evidence brought back by the 1,000 people and their different recorded times of that event will tell us much about nature. If we use logic it will tell us more about inertial frames than we have understood so far.

Time, i.e. 'c' and the laws of physics, is the same within all inertial frames, but an inertial frame can be a region of space, not only mass in motion but both the mass and the fields around and attached to it.

Only with this model can we finally explain all observation, like how we can observe events years apart across space at the same moment in Einstein Lenses. Two different 'times' at one moment. Do you have an alternative explanation foior this?

Peter

One Universe can only have one dimension. One Universe can only exist one time once. Hawking insists that the proof of the black hole Big Bang occuring 13.75 billion years ago rests entirely on the discovery of background radiation. Question: Does the phenomena in the background have a different commencement and duration than the phenomena in the foreground? Of course it cannot. As the foreground consists of the here and now of pragmatic human sensation, the background radiation can only belong to the here and now. One Universe exists in the one dimension of the here and now.

Joe i give you 5

yours amrit

IN PHYSICE SIMBOL t HAS ONLY MATHEMATICAL VALUE

In physics time is considered to be part of the space and so a medium where material change runs. There is no experimental evidence for such a view. With clocks we measure numerical order of material change running in space. As we have shown in previous article published in Physics Essays (Amrit S. Sorli, Davide Fiscaletti, Dusan Klinar, Time is a measuring System derived from Light Speed, Physics Essays, Vol 23. Num 2. (2010) ), Planck time as a fundamental unit of numerical order is derived from the light speed.

Velocity v of physical object is derived from distance d between A to B that the object has passed and numerical order t of its motion measured with clocks. There is no point to change meter/second (m/s) with some other words. A "second" is the "tick" of clock and is unit of numerical order of material change running in space.

In physical world "past", "present" and "future" exist only in a mathematical sense as a numerical order of material change running in space. Duration of material change exists only as a flow of its numerical order that we measure with a clock. Ticking of the clock experienced into psychological time creates sensation of "duration in time". However material change run and clocks tick only in the space that is timeless.

This "timeless framework" does not exclude existence of "clocks" and "seconds". In timeless space we measure with clocks numerical order of material change. A "tick" of clock that is a "second" is an unit of numerical order.

Physics works better replacing concept of time with timeless space where with clocks we measure numerical order of change because this picture correspond more adequately physical reality.

-This approach resolves time travel into past (they are excluded). One can travel in space only and not in time.

-This approach explains physical phenomenon which have numerical order zero, where t is zero. Such phenomenon is EPR and others where timeless space is an immediate information and energy transfer medium. See our article in Physics Essays: Fiscaletti D. Sorli A.S. (2008) Nonlocality and the symmetrized quantum potential, Physics Essays, December 2008, Vol. 21, No. 4,

-This approach resolves Zeno problems of motion showing that persons and objects move in space only and not in time. Zeno arrow is not moving from the past to the future and is not still in the present. Zeno arrow is moving in space only. Numerical order of its motion we measure with a clock that also tick in timeless space only (not in time).

"Temporal experience" past-present-future is result of experiencing material change i.e. motion in space through psychological time. Once we are aware of psychological time we experience experiment what eyes sees: flow of material change in a timeless space. Numerical order of this flow we measure with clocks.

You take a stone and left it to fall towards the earth. Stone will fall through space only, not through the presence, past or future. "Past", "present" and "future" exist only in a mathematical sense as a numerical order of change n, n+1, n+2....running in a timeless space. "Duration" of physical phenomena exist only in a sense of its numerical order that we measure with clocks. Ticking of a clock experienced into psychological time creates sensation of "duration in time". However physical phenomena run and clocks tick only in the space.

Here Einstein view on time is developed. Einstein use to say: "Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it".

In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes: "Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence".

For Einstein there was no division between past, present and future, there is rather a single existence we define as "timeless space". His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

Amrit,

"Eternity is contained in the present moment"

You would like the movie "Slaughterhouse Five" and the Tralfamadorians ...???

Maybe Billy pilgrim only traveled in his mind. In this sense, our lives do not shrink, they actually expands since we get more and more places to travel to.

Marcel,

Marcel you are not aware about your words.

yous amritAttachment #1: Interrelatedness_of_Space_and_Time.pdf

Dear Amrit,

We do discuss this, you and I, on many thread and websites like FQXI and ISST.

You can never convince real physicists of what you say. Physicists work with the empirical approach and this mean by testing with experiments in our physical reality. In order to do experiments, they need to retain both space and time since the testing of these requires the dimensions of the reality we experience.

Physicists may discover things about the universe, but they always express them in terms of space and time or space-time for the purpose of testing or making their ideas testable. They don't have a choice. So, to say that time does not exist is irrelevant to them. Space-time is a hybrid concept that reflects what they know about the universe but in terms of space and time so it remains testable in our reality.

If you want to tell someone that time does not exist, you have to declare your statement as metaphysical i.e. not of the domain of physics. My essay does that. It declares that physics is right but, under a metaphysical approach there is no time duration and no space. Then, because I declare my statement as belonging to a different system (metaphysical truth system) the testing has to be based on logic, not on some test bench in a lab.

Even at the speed of light, the photon in its travel to the moon is never at the same moment. To call the "distance" or "space" of this travel between Earth and moon is to sum up this journey that took a second as a single moment in time. Space is just our way to integrate or sum up this travel as if it were instantaneous! There is really no space! And there is no block time. The passage of time is universal but the value of its rate is a local property.

So, I would say that YOU are not aware of your words!

All the bests,

Marcel,

"Journey that took a second" -- Photons do not embark on journeys that take time to complete. Photons do not experience proper time. For the photon itself, space traveled and time experienced contract to zero (offsetting each other) according to special relativity.

So, if the photon were the one doing the empirical bench testing, it would find no evidence of time or space. Both are experienced only by non-photon observers.

Karl,

That is true for photons. But for the rest of us sub-luminal entities, as matter, people, observers, the reality is different.

The photon travels at the speed of expansion of time itself and therefore does not experience time. For that very reason, every point along its wavelength is in fact at the same moment and constitutes the only dimension that corresponds to our notion of space; an aligned collection of points all at the same moment. Any other notion of space applied elsewhere is perceptual/conceptual.

Marcel,

Dear Marcel

In Physics Time t is exclusively a Mathematical Quantity

In a few years this will be "main stream physics" fact.

yours amritAttachment #1: In_Physics_Time_t_is_exclusively_a_Mathematical_Quantity.pdf

We have duration and motion in our timeless universe.

Does duration elapsing, have a dimension?

Hailton should be Hamilton

There is no time at all,

and it has two dimensions.

(at least)

It is a deep misunderstanding that time is part of the space.

Time we measure with clocks is only a numerical order of change.

Time we measure with clocks is exclusively a mathematical quantity.

Sincerely Yours Amrit SorliAttachment #1: Time_measured_with_Clocks.pdf

Dear Georg,

I have been playing with F-theoretic models and agree that there are at least two dimensions ("real" and "imaginary") of time (possibly 4, but I don't understand "Quaternionic" time unless it is somehow related to Supersymmetry), but I don't understand how you can also say "There is no time at all". If time is one or more dimensions, then it does exist - it simply has a different sort of metric/ geometry/ Lie algebra from spatial dimensions that may depend on the famously-regular 8-D Gosset lattice or the 24-D Leech lattice, but it still needs to be accounted for. I think that every type of time corresponds to something similar to a photon or graviton, therefore something "real" (at least "real" in the sense of Second Quantization and Feynman diagrams) does arise from time's existence. Consider the fact that the speed-of-light would not be one of our limiting scales if "There is no time at all".

Have Fun!

Ray Munroe

but I don't understand how you can also say "There is no time at all".

Dear "Dr. Cosmic Ray",

You only have to read some popular physics papers like SCIAM

or some blogs. "Time is an Illusion" , "Time does not exist"

are some rather popular statements recently.

And if You read about Pauli and Dirac, You might find some

quip of Pauli on not existing god and who is his prophet.

Dr. Georg

Dear Dr. Georg,

Ouch! You hit close to home talking about Dirac. I attended Florida State University while he was a Prof Emeritus here, and I visit his family grave on occasion (because he is buried within 50 meters of my grandparents and 5 km of my home). In my current work, I am trying to keep Dirac's Large Number of ~10^40 relevant. I have great respect for Dirac's works, but Dirac is not my God.

I am well-aware of the popular philosophical concept that time does not exist. I have had many discussions with my FQXi friend, Steve Dufourny about reality *NOT* being strictly 3-D. I have seen Amrit's claims about "block time" and chose not to counter his claims, but I see significant "structure" that is related to, and may have arisen from, the properties of this "non-existant time" such as the speed of light, the photon, and entropic change.

Personally, I would define time differently from its current negative metric-squared signature. But even if you follow that restrictive definition, the 26-D metric implies 24 space-like (a Leech lattice?), one time-like (TL), and one light-like dimension (LL):

1^2 + 2^2 +3^2 + ... + 24^2 - 70^2 (TL) = 0^2 (LL)

Because the light-like metric is *EXACTLY* zero, the slightest purturbation of this metric could make this light-like dimension behave space-like *OR* time-like depending on the perturbed metric sign.

I am not claiming to be a prophet, but if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it *MIGHT* be a duck (regardless of popular literature and opinion - that just means that more people *MIGHT* be wrong).

Have Fun!

Hi

very interesting all that.

The reality is in strictly in 3D a,d time is strictly also irreversible.

The time is not a dimension but a constant of duration for an evolutive dynamic.

It's totally different.

All these extrapolations,strings, Mtheory, Ex,extradimensions, reversibilities of time,Multiverses and MWI,even the Hawking radiations, all that is purelly hypothetical.

These extrapolations insert maths without any respect of our ultim referential.

The symmetries are bad extrapolated.The time is bad understood.The external cause of mass is not possible.

read the post of Eckard about the causality please Dr Cosmic Ray.We see any cause of these theories and thus any effect.

The dimensions aren't a pueril play of decoherences of our foundamentals.If it exists a 3D of our reality , it exists a cause of these laws.

And all laws are in a dance of harmonization of our constants.

All our experiments,datas, technologies respect this referential in 3D.If the duration of time is a constant,there is a reason !

Ray you know the best way to use maths is when they describe the reality around you ! If you insert the 0 the - and the infinity for your perception , never you shall understand the uniqueness and its pure number.

Regards

Steve