Richard Muller on why the flow of time is not an illusion

Physics Today ^ | 10 Feb, 2017 | Melinda Baldwin

[IronJack]

Does time exist independent of space? Is there any relationship between the two?

[loungitude]

It’s time to cross the line from later on to way back when.

[BikerTrash]

bump for later

[Moonman62]

He set up a ‘foundation’ to ‘examine’ it. Refuses to acknowledge that bad data produces bad results.

Theoretical physicists think they know everything....

...

Yep. He’s past his prime and going outside his area of expertise.

[BlueLancer]

"Theoretical physicists think they know everything...."

[dhs12345]

Exactly.

[ETL]

Does time exist independent of space? Is there any relationship between the two?

Time and space are intimately locked together into what Einstein called "space-time". The distance one has yet to travel during a trip increasingly contracts with increasing speed. This is entirely apart from the obvious shortening due to their having already traveled some of the distance.

[dhs12345]

Scientists refer both as one as in “spacetime.” Time is simply the fourth dimension and like the other three dimensions, is affected gravity and velocity.

[RegulatorCountry]

Moreover, there is a special moment in time we call “now.” No such special location exists in the dimensions of space.

Uh, how about "here?"

[BitWielder1]

So that everything wouldn’t happen all at once!

I've had days when that didn't work.

[ETL]

...to put it another way, a moving clock ticks out time more slowly than a stationary one at your side. In fact, it has been experimentally verified that people aboard fast-moving air or space craft actually experience a shorter length of time than the counterparts on the ground. In other words, to a very minute degree, they’ve actually moved ahead in time, vs earthbound folks. They used an atomic clock to measure.

[BitWielder1]

Every point in time along your lifeline is "now", just like everywhere you go is "here", to you.
And then it immediately changes to a new "now" and a new "here".
And each observer has his own here and now. Always and ever changing.

[ETL]

That ridiculously stupid show and Modern Family make me very happy I gave up popular television several decades ago.

[stylin19a]

Drunk goes to the doctor for a checkup.
doctor tells drunk, I have some good news and some bad news.
Bad News: your liver is shot and you have 6 months to live.
Good News: Your wife has joined Al-Anon. It’s going to be the longest 6 months of your life.

[blueunicorn6]

He’s going to create some time?

Wow.

When is he going to do this?

[TexasTransplant]

*** “It isn’t an illusion if it’s a shared perception” ***

Magic ;^0

[RegulatorCountry]

Recto-cranial insertion should be renamed the Mullerian Here. Once he extricates himself, he’ll make time for it.

[ETL]

each observer has his own here and now. Always and ever changing.

"Here", in relation to what? Everything in the universe is in motion, except perhaps for the Microwave Background Radiation, a supposed remnant leftover from the Big Bang which (more or less) uniformly fills the universe.

With respect to it, we can actually detect the motion of our Milky Way galaxy, as one side of the MBR map is redshifted, the other blueshifted. Redshifts indicates we are moving away from that portion, while blueshifts indicates the opposite, moving towards.

[RegulatorCountry]

"Here", in relation to what?

Now.

[ETL]

But “here” is a location. How can a location be defined in terms of absolute? You can only define a location in relation to something else. And there is nothing, except perhaps for the MBR I mentioned above, that can be considered stationary, in the grand scale of things. Ultimate absoluteness.