Posted on 04/16/2005 4:19:09 PM PDT by beavus
The concept of time is self-evident. An hour consists of a certain number of minutes, a day of hours and a year of days. But we rarely think about the fundamental nature of time.
Time is passing non-stop, and we follow it with clocks and calendars. Yet we cannot study it with a microscope or experiment with it. And it still keeps passing. We just cannot say what exactly happens when time passes.
Time is represented through change, such as the circular motion of the moon around the earth. The passing of time is indeed closely connected to the concept of space.
According to the general theory of relativity, space, or the universe, emerged in the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. Before that, all matter was packed into an extremely tiny dot. That dot also contained the matter that later came to be the sun, the earth and the moon – the heavenly bodies that tell us about the passing of time.
Before the Big Band, there was no space or time.
“In the theory of relativity, the concept of time begins with the Big Bang the same way as parallels of latitude begin at the North Pole. You cannot go further north than the North Pole,” says Kari Enqvist, Professor of Cosmology.
One of the most peculiar qualities of time is the fact that it is measured by motion and it also becomes evident through motion.
According to the general theory of relativity, the development of space may result in the collapse of the universe. All matter would shrink into a tiny dot again, which would end the concept of time as we know it.
“Latest observations, however, do not support the idea of collapse, rather inter-galactic distances grow at a rapid pace,” Enqvist says.
If you want to know more about the topic, visit Kari Enqvist’s website at http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~enqvist/.
Text: Simo Salmela Picture: ESO www.helsinki.fi/digitalcommunications
Translation: Valtasana Oy
I've been thinking deeply about time, and I now believe that were it not for time, everyone would be flatulent simultaneously, and the world would end.
There's lots of steps in music, but the whole structure is the result of the Catholic Church. First it was the greatest impediment to musical advancement and then it was an incubator for such awe inspiring creations such as Hidegard von Bingen and later it led to Bach and so on. Eventually music escaped the bonds of the church and became more "proletarian". It's hard for me to figure which piece of this progression made music I like the best, but it's sometime long before now.
Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
With Newton's definition, probably not, but I don't know about the equivalence of God and Time.
I have wasted time...now time doth waste me.
T.S.Eliot
Not as the Prime Mover
Have the buzzards already returned this year?
Well then, oh great and wise wizard, what fluctuated and for how long?
Other than the abve here's some more:
St. Augustine's comment "If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know"
Schopenhauer said of time that it shows that the "possibility of opposite states (exist) in one and the same thing"
The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said of time and other natural phenomena that "all things flow", a kind of natural dynamism.
Plato called time an amalgamation of "form" and "matter", i.e., men ("matter") come and go but Man ("form") exists throughout time
Aristotle added to Plato's concept that time also has direction
Kant said that time was a "prior form of intuition under which phenomena are perceived"
Samuel Alexander emphasized the space-time continuum, and that matter, life and ultimately the deity emerge in time and evolution. Time and space are both independent and together, and move upward toward a deity (which has not yet been achieved)
All I can say to Schopenhauer and Kant is, "Thanks for clearin' that up".
I could use all the help I can get in that department. With the exception of sleep time, I might spend twenty minutes a day not grapling with issues of human existence. It's a rather tortuous way to be...(:
"186,000 miles per second is not only a very good idea, it's the LAW!"
Ya know time is complicated if we jump to the heights of the Andomeda Galaxy (conceptually) to get to an understanding of it.
In my own experience, time, I find, is something of which I have very little. Foe example, today. I completed one single question on my take-home exam for my metaphysics class. The rest of the time I spent eating, watching TV, and talking to people. Currently I am in need of another period of about ten hours before the next minute strikes. Anyobody got one to give?
Seriously now. I do have a point. It is this: we exist in a "time-reality," a TEMPORAL reality. Our continuous experience is this: an event happens -- some of the jelly in the peanut butter sandwich that we are eating drops onto out white T-shirt for instance -- now the event itself required a SEQUENTIAL DEVELOPMENT of movements. "Sequential development" IS THE EXPERIENCE that beings within in a temporal reality are acqainted with so fully. Now, in your mind, consider the jelly event in its entirety as a SINGULAR event. Just this and nothing else. Put it in brackets. We are aware because of our existence in time of these sequential movements occuring, having already occured, and we have an awareness that sequential movements are in "potentiality," or will possibly occur. It is an awareness of a flow of events. All of this is possible in a temporal reality.
In a non-temporal reality none of these awarenesses are possible. In a NON-TEMPORAL reality "event" is NOT a sequential development. In a non-temporal reality there is then no such thing as more than one event. There is only one event and it is anything present within the non-temoral reality. So if the event of the dropping jelly is understood as a singular event in itself, and it occurs in a non-temporal reality, it is ALWAYS happening. But not in the sens that it is happening over and over again. The occurance "IS," ONLY. Non-temporal "events" ARE. There is no sequence. So ideas like "past" and "future" are irrelavent. Only "present" applies to a reality of which time is not a part.
Well, that comparison is imperfect (and long-winded I admit), but I'd like to hear other thoughts about this.
I am having severe reservations about relativity.
Imagine I sit on my kitchen floor with a baseball. It is sitting on the floor at rest relative to the floor, my house, etc. While it sets there, I reach down and spin it.
Relativity (or rather, a relative perspective) says the ball is (or can be perceived as) being motionless, and in fact the house, the planet, the universe is now spinning.
Even a tiny rotational amount of the ball means the outer reaches of the universe are now spinning at many times greater than the speed of light.
But this is clearly not true. Certainly we have the mathematics to describe it, but we hope we know what's really happening.
Of course there was a before. Time always existed even if space as we know it did not.
I don't think that is what relativity says is going on.
That would be a great FReeper tag line. I may even use it someteime, with your permission of course.
I know, I'm describing it in a non-relativistic, Newtinian framework.
But it can be translated to a relative framework. And there seems to be something out of whack.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.