The Many Directions of Time

http://www.stanford.edu/~afmayer/ ^ | 1 February 2006 | Alexander Franklin Mayer

[R. Scott]

Imagine that 'the arrow of time' in the Universe, like gravity on Earth, is pretty much the same everywhere, yet also different everywhere relative to everywhere else. That means that the 'arrow of time' points in different directions in spacetime depending on where you are, so time has a geometry just like space has a geometry.

A natural progression of relativity?

[RightWhale]

Not only that, but this Arrow of Time business must cease forthwith. Even in physics, where time is memorialized as a dimension, and unnecessarily, it makes no difference at all if events move forward or backward in time.

[inquest]

There is nonuniformity, but space and time are not the real dimensions.

What causes us to think that they are?

[Bear_Slayer]

Everything that is happening right now and now and now is happening at once, but everything that has ever happened and will ever happen can not happen at once.

This process we call time and it is measured by the rotation of the earth and its revolution around the sun.

Time isn't a perception. It really exists.

[inquest]

Even in physics, where time is memorialized as a dimension, and unnecessarily, it makes no difference at all if events move forward or backward in time.

Isn't there something in one of the laws of thermodynamics about entropy increasing over time?

[RightWhale]

Some of the people who think that are the ones who never got beyond freshman physics. But, we need some fresh insight because this old business is getting us nowhere.

[RightWhale]

Entropy has nothing to do with time, mythology aside.

[RightWhale]

We aren't seeing with startling clarity this morning. Just a bunch of tired analogies.

[Bear_Slayer]

We aren't seeing with startling clarity this morning

We, as in you?

let me quote you, "it does." and I've already quoted you above.

Is there some thing you think I'm missing? Tell me so or bugger off.

[RightWhale]

Quote this: time is not a necessary dimension in physics.

[inquest]

If by "mythology" you mean currently accepted physics, then I remind you that your point at #22 specifically allowed for that. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states: "The total entropy of any thermodynamically isolated system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value".

Now if you want to say that that statement is wrong, that's fine. But you specifically said that "even in physics" the directionality of time is irrelevant. According to the currently accepted understanding of physics, your statement is false, unless you can cite an authority in physics that says that that law I quoted is no longer considered valid.

[Jonah Johansen]

I heard about this theory a couple years ago in the future.

[inquest]

[[There is nonuniformity, but space and time are not the real dimensions.]]

[What causes us to think that they are?]

Some of the people who think that are the ones who never got beyond freshman physics.

I'm not talking about people with an insufficient education in physics. What I was asking is what causes us instinctively to view space and time as real dimensions, if in fact they're not.

[RightWhale]

Got pressure, volume, temperature in gases. Got heat and temperature in entropy. The statement cited is faulty.

[AD from SpringBay]

I read this article before I decided not to open it.

This explains John Kerry - he does not live in time as the rest of us understand it.

[RightWhale]

That's a more productive approach. It might be that time and space are not instinctive at all. Until Mersenne they were hardly known at all. Even in the Bible, to get an idea of how these things were thought of, time was not linear but cyclical, and in popular thought Persephone was kidnapped every year.

[inquest]

Got pressure, volume, temperature in gases. Got heat and temperature in entropy.

Don't got heat in gases?

[RightWhale]

Not in Boyle's law. You'd think that with a name like Boyle there would be some mention of heat.

[InterceptPoint]

I am such a sucker for this stuff. I will buy this guy's book sight unseen.

[Hootowl]

Ah, yes, time flies like an arrow. On the other hand, fruit flies like a banana.