atrahasis

How right you are!

ohwilleke

Time can be measured on a consistent and precise basis. Many physical phenomena can be explained with great accuracy using the concept of time. Given this observational fact, I think it is hard to argue that time does not exist. Indeed, more than that, time behaves experimentally and observationally like a dimension.

GR and SR may address properties of time, but they don't say that time doesn't exist either; indeed, the notion of time is a necessary and central element of both theories.

Trying to change well observed components of a great many physical theories that are will proven, in order to make an obscure quantum theory work, seems like letting the tail wage the dog in my opinion.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>

Friar Bellows

This paper...

<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9903045" target="_blank">Quantum Spacetime: What Do We Know?</a>

...by Carlo Rovelli has an excellent section on the notion of time in general relativity. It's worth your time reading it.

Liquidrage

And you think those times you debated it were the first?
Let people learn and discuss for themselves.

echidna

Heh, if repetition was censored here II could reduce its bandwidth to a postage stamp.

galiel

Answerer

Apparently not, but someone had said the same thing as I'm saying now in the similar past trend. Anyway, there are no new arguments and explanations being brought out. Everything just remains the same.

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

Stephen T-B

Is it the case that Time only exists where there is movement and change?
If so, what is the connection?

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: Stephen T-B ]</p>

atrahasis

Hey guys,

Why do we talk of a new day? is it that 'tommorrow' is somewhere out there?
Whats makes us think that time is property of the universe? This would mean that even the universe itself exists in time,,,coz (1) I beleive that the universe has a boundary(otherwise it would not be expanding)and if so, there is an 'out there' (i.e Outside the universe) i will go on and ask, where does what is out there exist? or rather when? does it have a different time?

I know what i have said seems confused and mixed up, this even better, coz if i were to start saying what i think about the universe, i would look crazy and i would take a week to say it, so lets first digest this!!

Was einstein right when he said that the past, the present and the future exist concurrently...

Time and change,,, lets think about this very carefully before we jump into conclusions...

Stephen T-B

No doubt it’s to do with my abysmal lack of knowledge and understanding, but as far as I can see, human beings are conscious of Time because we are aware of things that were, and we are aware of things that are, and we anticipate things that will be - ie, change. Thus I am aware that I sat down at my desk and then switched on this computer and then hit a key; I am aware of hitting a key now, and I am aware of the fact that in another moment I shall hit another one. Past, Present and Future: for me and most human beings, that is what Time consists of, its passage being marked by divisions based on the speed of the Earth’s rotation, and to that extent quite arbitrary.
On the scale at which we operate in our day-to-day lives, Time is sequential because everything we see with the naked eye can only be in one place at one time, and it is tempting to assume that a totally stable system of no change and no movement would be stuck in an everlasting Now.