Time - does it exist?
Posted by: Don Atkinson on 21 November 2008
Time - does it exist?
Picked up a copy of New Scientist today. Headline "...what makes the Universe tick"
Suggestion from some scientists (my interpretation antway) is that our "common-sense" notion that time passes (in a one-way direction), is inconvenient and wrong.
Suggestion is (my interpretation again) that time moves backwards and forwards but with heavy bias in the "conventional" forward direction.
Nevertheless, there is sufficient backwards movement such that the future can influence events in the past...........
Goodbye Newton, goodbye Einstein, goodbye Hawkins, hello Consiousmess....
cheers
Don
Posted on: 24 November 2008 by droodzilla
quote:
Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
Nigel
Are these books more or less free from author bias ie do the authors make it clear where there is peer consent based on verified experimental results and where opinion/theory is divided.
cheers
Don
Smolin comes across as very fair, while arguing his case vigorously. Woit, from memory, is more polemical, and gives less space to opposing viewpoints. Of course, without being immersed in the arguments, it's difficult to tell who's really being fair.
Regards
Nigel
Posted on: 01 December 2008 by Wolf2
I heard of a new concept being theorized that every moment is being split off into all the different possibilities in different dimensions.
Those physicists have nothing better to do than confound us with mind boggling concepts like wave and particle, string theories etc.
If you ever get to LA there's the Griffith Observatory in the park near the Hollywood sign. Leonard Nimoy instigated a great restoration and additional theater. The show in the dome is just fantastic, a ride thru history and scientific discovery and at the end they just blow your mind with the scale of it all.
Posted on: 01 December 2008 by Stuart M
quote:
Originally posted by Wolf2:
I heard of a new concept being theorized that every moment is being split off into all the different possibilities in different dimensions.
Ahh the trousers of time theory!
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Geoff P
This could help... or not.
BBC2 9pm TONIGHT: HORIZON = "Do you know what time it is" by Physicist Brian Cox
regards
Geoff
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Bob McC
I will watch in the hope that things can only get better.
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by droodzilla
quote:
BBC2 9pm TONIGHT: HORIZON = "Do you know what time it is" by Physicist Brian Cox...
... who is a member of this very forum!
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by drbri
And I hope you're all watching
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by manicatel
I was right with you up until the string theory bit. After that, I needed more time (no pun intended) to absorb what was being proposed before the next stretch (for me anyway) came along.
I still reckon that time is what stops everything from happening at once.
Matt.
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Exiled Highlander
WTF are you all talking about....30 seconds has passed since I started typing this...my watch tells me that precisely and I trust it more than I trust you lot!
Jim
PS. Now as to the question do we all exist or not....
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
Interesting range of concepts, nicely explained.
I particularly liked the Cambridge Prof with the membrane theory, time has no begining theory and the "Big Bang" was merely an event that ocurred about 13.7 billion years ago theory.
Cheers
Don
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Bob McC
I shall be watching it, time shifted, on BBC iPlayer later on tonight.
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
quote:
PS. Now as to the question do we all exist or not....
Based on evidence over here, we do. But you probably don't.
Suggest you return to your native beginnings.
Obviously the above comment was said in jest!
The Horizon programme suggested that according to some theories, your "precise" 30 secs would actually have depended on what you and others were actually doing whilst you typed. Also, others would have perceived periods of time other than 30 secs, depending on where they were and what they were doing. Of course, not all scientists would agree with these theories.
Cheers
Don
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by BigH47
Good that's sorted then. Now on to the difficult question "why can't women park a car?"
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
quote:
"why can't women park a car?"
Not enough time since the begining of this universe to explain that........God only knows those sort of answers
cheers
Don
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Exiled Highlander
Don
quote:
Based on evidence over here, we do. But you probably don't.
Suggest you return to your native beginnings.
Alas (for you) I am now in West London so I'm edging ever closer to home.....however London life simply proves that life is one big con though...
Cheers
Jim
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by droodzilla
Yup, interesting programme - although I yearned, at times (hah!), for the less graphics-intensive Horizon style of old.
I liked the explanation of special relativity:
sitting still = moving through time at the speed of light
moving through space involves trading some of that speed
Haven't heard it presented like that before.
It's shocking to realise how little we understand about this fundamental concept. It's almost as if we don't even have the tools yet to frame the correct questions.
A couple of questions for you Brian, if you're reading:
Do you think there's any mileage in interdisciplinary work with consciousness studies. Naybe these two big mysteries (time & consciousness) are related. I think this is Penrose territory, but I'm sure other people have had similar thoughts.
What do you think of Smolin's book, mentioned earlier in this thread? Is he too hard on string theory?
Regards
Nigel
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Chillkram
My brane hurts!
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by BigH47
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Stuart M
quote:
Originally posted by Chillkram:
My brane hurts!
And in another leg of the trousers of time it doesn't!
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by Geoff P
So.. Einstein's time is continuous but latest thinking based on the quantum world says its made up of 'bits' instead.
Oh my gawd...the Hifi debate of Analog vs Digital applies to time
Posted on: 02 December 2008 by u5227470736789439
So the ideal sampling rate for digital would be the same as the shortest discrete period of time that is possible ... perhaps!
Oh dear! My brian 'urts! [sic].
Posted on: 03 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
quote:
mikeeschman
Senior Member
Posted Sun 23 November 2008 03:25 Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
Is time continuous, or discrete?
and what about sound? natural sound, that is, not yer modern digital stuff. Is sound continuous, or discrete?
Do these questions look as if they were written by someone as thick as two short Planks?
Cheers
Don
time is continuous. this is easily proven. for any unit of time you can subdivide it, and then subdivide the result ad infinitium.
analog sound is continuous for the same reason.
digital sound is by definition discreet, it's limit being defined by word length in computer geek terms.
that's the fundamental problem with digital sound - the translation from digital to analog is a translation from a discreet system into a continuous system. it works much better going the other way.
thankfully, hearing is discreet. the little sound receptors in your ear only move when the sound pressure level changes due to a difference in loudness or frequency. when they move an electrical charge is sent to your brain. your brain fills in the blanks between these signals :-)
as far as "Time - does it exist?" there is a simple test that proves it does exist. ask yourself that question on monday morning, just after you get to work. the answer will come to you with a vengeance :-)
George, you're "way behind the times".......
Of course, I doubt whether even Naim could "digitise" their cd manufacture to Plank dimensions (yet)so I think for the moment we are stuck with analogue as our best approximation to pure digital sound.
Cheers
Don
Posted on: 20 December 2008 by TomK
quote:
Originally posted by drbri:
And I hope you're all watching
Finally got to watch it tonight and found it fascinating if completely baffling and counter intuitive. How many people do you reckon REALLY understand it? I sat there much of the time and thought I had some sort of grasp on it but then when my wife asked me what it was all about I was completely unable to clarify anything for her. I guess this means I didn't really understand it at all.
Still good fun though.
Tom.
Posted on: 22 December 2008 by joe90
quote:
Based on evidence over here, we do. But you probably don't.
An existentialist assumption.
Posted on: 22 December 2008 by Ewan Aye
Time only exists as a concept for two reasons:
1) As a reference to organise our lives both short term and long term
2) As subject matter for Hawkwind
