I was thinking of something and I couldn't straighten it out, so I posted the question here... Can matter exist without time? What is space without matter? Does time exist? The last two questions came up from the first one. It got me thinking about time and the old argument of whether time was an actual thing, or merely a measurement of what is. However, I tried to define time more clearly and thought about the present. How does our notion of time define the present? I don't think there is one. The present is an infinitessimal value, as far as our conept of time is concerned. It is a point on a numberline, so to speak, in that there can never be an exact point. The point would, invariably, represent a unit of time- no matter how small- that has a beginning and an end. But the present is infinitely precise. If you kept halving and halving and halving the unit of a second to infinity, you will never come across a value that cannot be halved and so which represents and indivisible, individual unit of time. I know that people also point to the "two clocks" example of time commonly known for showing a dialation of time between earth and space. But I wondered, when thinking about time as I had, whether or not they were being a little misled. Time seems to be a description of things that are. Time, itself, does not exist, therefore it is not time that is being dialated. Rather, it is what time is attempting to describe that is being dialated. Therefore, kind of like energy, I think a moe precise view of our universe or existence requires that we find out exactly what it is that time is trying to describe. A precise definition. Unless I am wrong... Is time real?
There's the take that time is just a continuous number of measurements of now. There's also the argument that time is like a location with a past, present, and future and we travel between them. Since you brought up Time Dilation it seems to tell me that time is more like a location. There's more to it than just now. In the Twin Paradox, for instance, there are different rates of the passage of time for each twin, but both twins have a linear passage of time, and they both join up at the end, and, at the end, one is younger than you would think from observation, and one is older than you would think from observation. It's some crazy stuff there. No, matter can't exist without time, and that's because events build on one another. Space without matter is a special topic in its own right where nothingness still has existence and a non-zero value. All things considered, yes time does exist in its own right. The present is still NOW, but it isn't in isolation from the past or future.
Even though time dilates, it's still relative to the observer. To the observer, it's 'real'. Time has been described as all kinds of things, from a product of entropy to a 'layering' of events (if there are no events, there is no time). I think we can just do a thought experiment and imagine a universe of no motion at zero kelvin. Would time exist then?
Technically, time is a man made measurement. We measure it in seconds, hours, minutes because of our path around the sun and the rotation of the earth. Time could be measured differently throughout the universe, just as we measure in feet and inches while others measure in meters. Time can also be warped and bent by forces like acceleration and gravity. The measurement of time is relative to our planet and exists but does not exist.
I'm only a Astro MINOR so I'll try to give you the best answer I can. You're looking at time and space as two different things. All of your questions can be answered looking at a blackholes. Once you reach the singularity, time doesn't exist. Its not that it simply stops, it doesn't exist. If it were possible to remain alive and look back, you would see everything that had ever fallen into the blackhole. The human brain isn't wired to understand these concepts. In our blackhole example matter does exist, but where does it exist? When does it exist? Prior to the Big Bang there was no "time" but something had to exist, somewhere, in sometime. Like I said, our brains struggle to grasp this concept. Perhaps some astrophysicist has it all figured out. A vacuum. Most of the Universe is empty space. Even the atoms that make up your body is basically empty space. I would say our notion of time is somewhat wrong. On Earth we look at time as the passing of events. The Sun rise, the day goes on, the Sun falls etc. In a way our concept of time is correct because time is relative. To somebody else on a distant planet perhaps it works differently. Gravity, speed, etc all affect time.
from the perspective of light, there is no time as it's traveling along at the speed of light, but to us there is time passing, so it's all a mater of perspective .
Yeah, I tried that, which is where the "can time exist without matter" question came from. I think so because, technically, it never existed to begin with. It's simply a measurement of variable "spans of universal momentum" (i'll dare that definition). Even if everything were to cease existing, time would go on and it would be a time where nothing existed, forever. On that note, I've often thought that, according to LOC (law of conserv.), we have an infinite past and an infinite future. Think long enough about an infinite past and it will trouble you and your concept of existence.
I think the things that go on inside black holes are just theory, right. I have a hundred questions about black holes, though, which always confuse me, like if black holes have such a powerful pull, then how can there be those plumes of radiation escaping it poles. Is the gravity of black holes a field, like magnets, that exist on an axis. I've notived how gravity makes disks of matter instead of spherical clutter. Black Holes, our Solar System. It might be that the things that exert such powerful gravity are often more elliptical than circular and that would mean more mas at it's meridian meaning a stronger gravity at it's meridian. And because of this, even though there is powerful gravity present all over, the matter sucked into a black holes field would get swept into a disc, and the current of the disk would sweep other forms of matter along with it. But that still does not explain the plumes which spew straight up instead of being pulled into the black holes meridian. I also had a theory based on the time dialation of the two clocks on earth and the satellite. In that example, the clock in space was slower. I don't think this is "time" slowing down, rather than the physical processes that measure time being slowed down. The question is "why". If it is due to a difference in gravity, that would mean that places with high gravity progess faster than places with low gravity. That means that in a black hole, time would not cease to exist, it would accelerate as far beyond the norm as the proportion of gravities intensity from within and without. "Blinding speed" would be a woefully inadequate term for the pace of change inside a black hole.
As far as physics is concerned, that's what time is, a measurement of physical processes. We can use the revolution of the Earth, the decay of a radioactive atom, an electronic oscillator, etc. Time in physics can also be a dimension, but unlike spatial dimensions we can only move in one direction. It's interesting that many laws of physics have solutions that go backward or forward in time. You've got time dilation backwards. Time slows down in a gravitational potential, i.e. clocks on Earth run slower than those on a satellite. Keep in mind this is a relative measurement. Good question. There are two forms of "radiation" from a black hole. One is Hawking radiation, which doesn't cause the plumes. The other radiation that creates the plumes actually happens outside the black hole (technically the event horizon). When matter is being sucked into the black hole it's subjected to intense tidal forces due to the strong gravitational field. These tidal forces squeeze the matter and it heats up. The generated heat emits radiation, and those are the plumes you see in renderings. For a black hole, those emissions are in the x-ray band so you wouldn't actually see them with your eyes. As far as the disk, not all black holes have an accretion disk. They have to have something massive feeding it, like a companion star. The disk forms due to the angular momentum of the matter heading towards the black hole. Essentially, the matter goes into orbit before falling in. The planarity of the disk forms due to the configuration between the black hole and the feeding system, nothing inherent to the black hole itself.
Hmmm...gotcha....somewhat. I suppose there is a book I can read more about it somewhere. Odd that the plumes would be made outside the black hole, but still along a straight axis, though. Either way, you explained that quite well. I appreciate it.
You need to look into the work of Roger Penrose. He also, AFAICT, has postulated that time itself may have no real existence
A light source does not reach all locations at the same time...if there was no time when a light source is energized or de-energized it would be noticed instantaneously at all locations...
Light still has a finite speed no matter when it was energized. The Sun was energized a long time ago. Light from the Sun is 8 minutes old when it reaches our location, it's 3 minutes old when it reaches a location on the surface of Mercury.
I lean towards "no" on this, especially considering relativity and how time moves at different speeds depending on velocity. "A measurement of what is" seems to capture it fairly well - it's a measure of some action taking place in some setting, the setting being on the face of planet earth but otherwise stationary.
You cannot have speed without time. Take away time and there is no speed. Turn on a single light source and everyone in the Universe sees the light source instantaneously...this assumes there is no time. If you have time then everyone will see the light source at varying times because of the 'time' light takes to travel...
Well...I think it depends on what you consider time to be representing, or how time functions to you. For instance, if time is the progression of instances, than no time means no progression which means you didn't even turn the light on. That would require time. So would the travel of light from soure to reception. So, even if you turned a light on, no one would see it because it never reached their eyes yet. You could say you froze time immediately after the light ingited, but the result is still the same, assuming that time was frozen before the light reached the receptor. If my idea of time is correct, than it is possible, theoretically, that all matter can be perfectly still, but time still progresses, or that no matter can exist at all, but time still progresses, because time is a measurement of instances, not the progression of matter. However, time measures the progression of all existence in which matter exists and so an instance of time is a freeze-frame shot of the progression of the processes of matter and energy and whatever else happens to be in existence at that partiular instance, everywhere.
Well...the Universe is ~13.8 billion years old...so we're pretty sure at least 13.8 billion light years of TIME has passed and continues to pass...
Yes. Empty space No. No, time is a psychological effect. Time is 'our' time, happens to be that way because we happen to be on a planet that orbits around a star (we call 'Sun', our communication/dictionary is full of labels, easier to communicate) So nature (or God, or other believes) is the cause behind how (our) time started to form in our mind. 'We' (nature) have invented the thing we call time, we gave time a name (we labeled time and fractions) time with a magnitude called second (by dividing the number of days between the same season you end up with 365 (counts, or 'days', a label), or every four years 366 days (leap year), we broke it down into smaller fractions, hours, and we broke it down into even smaller fractions, minutes, and again into seconds (because we needed more accuracy, it looks like money plus labour has created seconds, because time is money)
If I stand at the beginning of all things and look back, that would be the "time" before anything existed and it would extend infinitely. If I stand at the end of all things and look forward, that would be the "time" after anything existed and it wold be infinite. So...in a sense...time is an infinite projection- both forwards and backwards and if all of existence had an actual beginning, than the timeline of existence would be a subset of overall time, itself, which would be infinite. Basically, before there was, theoretically, the creation of the universe, there was the time before the creation of the universe.
It's not a fraud, it's a scientific method of measurement or reference. Unless absolutely all of existence is completely immutable, or unchanging, than it is impossible to describe any process in existence without the concept of time. Time, like numbers, themselves, are representatives of actual physical things and processes.
Then why did a post I made 6 weeks ago not show up till today? Its all fake, its nothing more than a statist conspiracy.
