Is Time a constant?

[vandivx]

I was going to mention the futile quest for underlying causal machinery - so called hidden variables - in quantum mechanics as an example of what you are trying to get at regarding time<br /><br />my point is the passing of the buck always ends somewhere and I think with time it ends pretty fast (although I can think of many interesting things that could be said about it) because it is really a simple thing but typically it is the simple things that are least understood as a rule<br /><br />"My basic attitude is that nothing is "given". Everything has explanations and reasons for working the way it does."<br />---------<br />that sounds like virtue every scientists should have but there are certain truths about existence that wise man accepts as given such as that existence exists and he doesn't ask why it exists and time is one aspect of existence that is given like that (it is one of the major attributes of existence) - one can't say if there wasn't time things would go willy nilly backwards and what have you because time is, period, and it is nonsensical to allow oneself such considerations<br /><br />of course time is not absolute, its rate of change is affected by acceleration/gravitations and and other influences, special and general relativity theories tell us that, so there is machinery that could still be discovered (and is waiting to be discovered and made clear) but not any machinery about the time phenomenon itself, time as such, existence of time is given once and for all time <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />still it is not my business to stop anybody inquiring and you should go ahead where your ideas will lead you, I think we also may be talking at cross purpose as they say<br /><br />"it is wrong approach to decide beforehand what questions cannot be answered"<br /><br />well, it is not beforehand without any inquiry, stopping points of science are determined by philosophy of science, not physical science as such because how would you know that you r <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

'self evident' is something that every single man living in normal healthy condition would perceive with unaided senses (but of course not everything one perceives is an axiom)<br /><br />'expanding universe' is not something one perceives with one's unaided senses, also if you had any sense of selfcriticism you would figure out that axiomatic truths we or at least those I talk about here are not produced on the fly during figuring up one's post on forum, with all respect to you I don't see you as somebody coining such fundamental (if any) axioms at any forseeable time, neither do I see myself doing that if only because I believe the ground have been already well covered by the source I mentioned and it would be presumptious to extreme on my part<br /><br />for your information axioms are not subject of experimental science or derived from its results, that's why there is such a thing as philosophy of science which precedes physical science which is based on it as well as on experiments (which philosophy of science is not and therefore it can't know and work with any experimental observations) and not the other way around, that's why your expanding universe simply doesn't apply here<br /><br />so in short I don't agree<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

reply to original post on this thread<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>since the universe is expanding, and more distant galaxies are expanding at a higher velocity, then would the distant galaxies experience a higher amount of time dilation than us? Or do we experience the same amount of time dilation as even the most distant galaxies?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />time dilation as absolute effect doesn't apply to expansion of space as such, those distant galaxies may be carried away from us at very great speeds due to space expansion but time dilation as absolute effect is only caused by 'motion through space', i.e. not when you get carried by space due to its expansion, that can only result in relative time dilation (apparent dilation such as change of perspective when you see your neigbours house smaller and he yours in turn when you are separated by some distance)<br /><br />that's also the reason why the space expansion can result in superluminal recession speeds without contradicting SR as had been discussed several time here on forums previously<br /><br />absolute time dilation which you have in mind here because you talk about different aging really implies absolute space and that takes us out of official physics bounds even if differential aging (absolute clock time differences) are part of SR, that's because SR does not admit the idea of absolute space and that is its contradiction which it more or less successfully smothers over<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Is time ticking at the same pace for all of the universe? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />if we take out of equation the universal space expansion and admit to the idea of absolute space (I asume we only talk about time dilation due to differing speeds, not due to acceleration such as obtains in differing gravitational fields), then the answer would be that "time is NOT ticking at the same pace for all of the universe" meaning that you would <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I believe that when synchronized clocks move at different velocities and on account of that show different times when they come back together, that that implies the existence of absolute space and the reason I talk about it is because it is not quite clear where the differential aging (or real time clock difference) comes from in SR (such as in that famous 'twin paradox'), whether it is due to acceleration or to uniform motion<br /><br /><br />if it is the latter then pple age at different rate in differently moving systems (moving relative to absolute space), however if the time difference is due to acceleration (or due to some kinky switching of reference frames) then you wouldn't age slower in faster moving star system<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Oooooh I want to make a long post!! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />Your post was put very well indeed, and covers pretty much everything but this particular issue does seem to require further examination. Where does the difference in ageing actually occur? When is someone's clock <i>actually</i> running slower than someone else's clock? (sorry for mentioning those clocks!)<br /><br />Well SR tells us that time dilation is symmetrical between observers in inertial frames of reference. Just as a spacecraft moves away from the Earth, so the Earth moves away from the spacecraft. SR predicts that for objects in <i>constant</i> motion, the larger the relative difference in speed, the more difference <i>each</i> sees in the rate of the others clock relative to their own and they both see the same difference. <br /><br />If we include GR too, the implication is that for objects in relative <i>constant</i> motion, the only difference in their experience of time would come from the gravity in their local area, but if one object accelerates and the other one does not, the object that accelerated would experience less time than the object that did not.<br /><br />So it w <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

SR as theory is 'symmetrical' theory and hence the term relativity in its name<br /><br />however pesky experimental findings throw monkey wrench into so nice works of Einstein <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />like that muon which manages to travel much further than it should have before it decays and clearly what is at work here is the (high) velocity derived from that of cosmic particle showers of which the muon is born... <br /><br />then we have actual experiments in which synchronized clocks are no longer synchronized after being taken on a journey 'through space'<br /><br />even equations of SR predict differential aging as in that famous twin paradox and efforts are being made to explain that away by claiming that the difference happens when ref frame is switched during one of the twins stopping somewhere in far regions of space and then changing direction to return home...<br /><br />simple explanation would be to take equations of SR at their face value and say that the difference in aging comes from moving at high velocity but that can't be unless motion is absolute (real) same as acceleration is and absolute motion means absolute space<br /><br />thing is the part of the journey that one of the twins spends traveling at uniform velocity can be made arbitrarily long (by making him travel farther) and so the difference in aging can be made correspondingly larger while at the same time the acceleration and changing of reference frames stays exactly the same given that he will travel at some given velocity on the trip only making it longer... and so I can't help it but say the king has no clothes and there is absolute space so help me God<br /><br />else if the duration of the part of the trip which he travels at uniform velocity has no effect on aging (since uniform motion is relative phenomenon) then why have any such part of the trip at all, why we could only accelerate up to some speed and immediately begin decellerating and turning around and repeating t <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

I'm not denying that time-dilation occurs and is not symmetrical. I know we have actual experiments with synchronised clocks losing their synchronisation. Consider the GPS satellites whose internal clocks are set to run at a slightly different rate before take off (in accordance with both SR and GR) so that once in orbit they run at the same speed as ours down here. Their clock rates then changed as they accelerated from Earth into their orbit, and now run at the same speed as our own, constantly. Both GR and SR are involved, as they have accelerated and now experience different gravity due to their location. All I was saying is that in SR, time dilation is symmetrical between inertial frames of reference, which you alluded to anyway.<br /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">simple explanation would be to take equations of SR at their face value and say that the difference in aging comes from moving at high velocity but that can't be unless motion is absolute (real) same as acceleration is and absolute motion means absolute space </font><br /><br />But with constant motion, each can consider themselves at rest and the other in motion when they make their measurements relative to <b>the speed of light</b>, which they have to in order to work out the others velocity! They would therefore both be ageing at the same rate during the whole period they were in relative <b>constant</b> motion and <i>each would calculate the same change for the other.</i> Neither changes reference frames if both are in constant inertial motion. That's relativity! If A measures the clock of B to be running at half the speed of their own, and B measures the same for A, are both of them right, only one of them or neither of them? <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">thing is the part of the journey that one of the twins spends traveling at uniform velocity can be made arbitrarily long (by making him travel farther) and so the difference in aging can be made</font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<font color="orange">I'm not denying that time-dilation occurs and is not symmetrical.</font>don't take my post as some attack on yourself, most of it was meant as argument with traditional defenders of SR in general<br /><br /><font color="orange">If A measures the clock of B to be running at half the speed of their own, and B measures the same for A, are both of them right, only one of them or neither of them? </font><br />both of them are right because it is exactly as in that perspective example when you see a house mile off smaller than the one you stand next to and the guy next to that house mile away sees your house smaller - and if they brought the houses together they would see its only apparent change in size - and both were right in what they saw but wrong if they assumed what they see is real change in the house sizes... and that is ideally how SR should be, the word 'relative' means that you don't have any real differences happening, only apparent ones and so it doesn't (that is it shouldn't) matter who is moving and who is at rest, however it turns up that actually isn't so in SR, unfortunately for its defenders and for Einstein<br /><br />I don't think any of us has any problem with clocks running differently depending on gravitational potential or acceleration (which is really the same condition), the issue is whether the uniform motion has any effect on the rate of clocks<br /><br /><font color="orange">Did you consider that the amount of acceleration affects the amount that time is dilated, and then the duration of that journey is experienced with that amount of time dilation throughout. So while the difference in age becomes larger the longer they travel at constant speed, the amount that they age by is defined by the amount their velocity has changed.</font><br />well, if it was as you say then any acceleration would always only act to slow down the rate of clock and it would be cumulative clock time slowdown because dec <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

I'm beginning to suspect that I am wrong in at least 1 respect, and that in star systems travelling in space at high speed relative to ourselves, an observer <i>would</i> experience time at a slower rate. But it seems your conclusion of absolute space still might not stand up as SR actually sits within a frame-work of absolute <i>space-time</i>, in which the speed of light is a constant, but all velocities, distances and time durations are <i>relative</i>.<br /><br />I'm sure length contraction has got something to do with it, but I will have to get back to you when I have looked into this some more. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

Please do (get back). I find this thread so [Spock_voice] intriguing.[/Spock_voice]<br /><br />Like vanDivx I can't quite get past the notion that time is somehow different in SR and GR. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

Well this is where I am at so far (and please feel free to tell me if I have this wrong). It seems like Special Relativity <i>is</i> valid within General Relativity, but only in very specific circumstances. GR seems to redefine SR, due to the equivalence principle.<br /><br />Acceleration and gravity are equivalent. The gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on a massive body (such as the Earth) is actually the same as the pseudo-force experienced by an observer in a non-inertial (accelerated) frame of reference. <br /><br />According to GR, we are constantly accelerating as we sit here at our computers, with a force of 1<i>g</i>. We are being pressed against our chairs at 1<i>g</i> in the same way that an astronaut is pressed into his acceleration couch whilst accelerating at 1<i>g</i>.<br /><br />An observer who is experiencing no gravity will experience time at its fastest, and this means an observer who is in "free-fall" and is not resisting or acting against gravity.<br /><br />I have edited the rest of this post as it was patently in error (it <i>was</i> late when I posted it!). The more I look into this the more it confuses me! <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<font color="orange">SR actually sits within a <font color="red">frame-work of absolute space-time</font> in which the speed of light is a constant, but all velocities, distances and <font color="yellow">time durations are relative</font></font><br /><br />problem with such 'absolute framework' is that it is contradictory in the sense that nobody knows how such a thing can be possible at all (speed which is the same for everybody regardless how they move which fact contradicts all we know of physics), Einstein took the constancy of speed of light as a postulate and sidestepped the problem that way <br /><br />also it seems that 'time duration' is not always relative under constant velocity condition within this framework or so it would seem<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[siarad]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>An observer who is experiencing no gravity will experience time at its fastest, and this means an observer who is in "free-fall" and is not resisting or acting against gravity.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Not thought of it that way but it's tied to the speed of light, which measurement always gives the same damn answer, so we can't work out the speed of time <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

 

[SpeedFreek]

Then it seems to me that even with absolute space-time you have no way of knowing whether you are experiencing time at its slowest or what your velocity is, relative to that absolute framework. SR uses inertial frames of reference and we infer that either your acceleration or your velocity relative to another observer changes your perception of time and distance relative to that observer. GR uses gravity in a similar way.<br /><br />SR <i>does</i> tell us that we would <i>observe</i> time-dilation in other star systems moving at high relative speeds to ourselves and that they would observe the same dilation for us.<br /><br />We <i>see</i> them as slower than us, resting within <i>their</i> inertial frame. They <i>see</i> us as slower than them, resting in <i>our</i> inertial frame. <b>Both</b> are right, and that is what we have to accept. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />A way to <i>actually</i> check would be if you could move from here to there, but to do so you would have to accelerate until you were in their frame of reference, and of course, if we watched you do that we would see your time dilated to match theirs when you got there as you would then be moving at that same high relative speed. <br /><br />If we watched a ship from one of those high speed star systems coming towards us, we would see them speeding up to match our speed when they got here in the same way.<br /><br />Both systems measure the speed of light as the same, so everything is relative. Arrrrrrggh! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

you are right about gravity and its effects on time<br /><br />as to what's causing time to run at different rates in gravitational field I have the following theory<br /><br />- we all know those coiled springs with handle at each end for excercising arms and the idea is that the time passes slower for the material of which the springs are made when the springs are in stretched state<br /><br />I imagine that gravitation such as exists on Earth's surface is subjecting us the analogous static stretch and thus we age slower when subjected to its field of force and the aging comes about because of the stressed condition which creates higher energy condition - higher relative to when the grav field is weaker or absent such as in the freefall you talked about<br /><br />in freefall in grav field that spring analogy is equivalent to the spring being held only by one hand and this hand acts as if it wants to stretch the spring but because you don't hold the other spring handle it gets pulled along without stretching and no stretch implies the faster time passage <br />for the matterial of the spring (the analogy is not good because the single hand pulling the spring in accelerated motion would act to stretch the spring a little (because of the inertial of the spring material) in contrast to grav field which acts on the spring in all its parts and so the stretching due to acceleration wouldn't happen)<br /><br />a body in freefall in grav field is not subjected to the static stretch of the grav force and so its clock runs faster - time passage generally depends on the energy conditions, for example heated matterial's clock runs slower because being heated is higher energetic condition for the matterial <br />then when it is left at normal temperature<br /><br />problem with such intuitive interpretation is that gravitation is seen nowadays not as some real force but as being due to space curvature and thus bereft of all such physical effects such as stressing matter and thus brining abo <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

there are indication (real clocks slowdown experiments in SR) that not everything is relative, don't despair <br /><br />in times long past everything was thought absolute, then it became relative with Galileo and went all out relative with Einstein, however lets recall how things went in physics for example with particles which were particles and then waves and then particles again (with Einstein and his photoelectric effect) and finally with QM they are neither and both (but not at the same time of course)<br />I believe the same will happen with velocity having been absolute and then relative - that eventually it will be both absolute and relative viewed in certain respect<br /><br />to refuse such possibility (of absolute space with certain role for relativity within it) strikes me as arogant view that we know it all and for all times - that physics progressed in this area as far as it ever will proceed, such view was held before Einstein's relativity theories by scientists and many never got reconciled to them and the same will repeat with those who laugh today at absolute space (and who again will have to die out again to make place for new ideas)<br /><br />I should add that you don't belong to this category of those willfully blind to absolute space, again this is my rant at general views on the subject today among mainstream official physics community (that includes pros as well as interested amateurs)<br /><br />as to those star systems, we could agree to meet in spaceships somewhere halfway btw the two systems and compare our clocks at this waypoint and see whose clock if anybody's gained or lost time on the other - that would I think require first to meet at this waypoint and synchronize clocks, journeying back to respective star systems and later on meeting at this waypoint again and see if the clocks agree<br /><br />that halfway waypoint would have to be carefully chosen so as getting there would require equal acceleration and travel at constant velocity for bot <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

Just to let you know I have been reading your posts and considering their implications. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Also, I have been finding out about the various conceptions of space from Newton through Leibniz, Mach and Einstein. Interesting views indeed.<br /><br />Newton thought that space is absolute and accelerated motion is not relative.<br /><br />Leibniz thought that space is not absolute and that <i>all</i> forms of motion are relative.<br /><br />Mach thought that space is not absolute and that accelerated motion is relative to the mass distribution of the universe.<br /><br />Einstein thought that space and time are individually relative but space-time is absolute.<br /><br />Your thought experiment where two ships meet in the "middle" from star systems with different relative velocities is interesting - I wonder how we (or more to the point <i>they</i>) could establish where the halfway point would be? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

thanks, I appreciate it, threads with 'real physics' don't get much notice here as subjects like black holes and other such sexy areas of physics do for example (I suspect people turn to such subjects motivated by sort of sci-fi like speculations which don't demand of them real physics which bore them...), the whole board is strongly oriented on astronomy anyway and that is logical I suppose given its name<br /><br />"Einstein thought that space and time are individually relative but space-time is absolute."<br />----<br />how can two relatives make up absolute, this usage of absolute would seem to be different from what the others meant by it<br /><br />relativity theories are all out relativistic even if Einstein himself was ambivalent about it and opposed people around him who would outright deny any physical reality of some kind of ether by saying that spacetime manifold (as he put it) and space curvature would seem to indicate that there is something physically real in space (or some words to that effect) but he said that more on the basis of some kind of intuition he had about this issue and because he was too wise to close the door completely on some future development and possibilites even if currently he couldn't come up with theory based on that supposition (that spacetime manifold is real, absolute)<br /><br />in the same spirit he said in one of his lectures that his relativity theories do not need ether as they stand but that shouldn't be taken to mean that they are some sort of proof that ether can't exist (again as many would have it out of their yahoo mentality that wants to go overboard and whole hog out of some sort of youthfull revolutionary enthusiasm of overthrowing everything old like ether once and for all times), just that if it (ether) exists that they (his relativity theories) wouldn't allow motion to be determined relative to it...<br /><br />so with Einstein admitting that something absolute could be out there was just leaving the door open on the <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

I am sure we can because absolute space implies some stuff forming backdrop to everything (incl. space itself) which is the old idea of ether and I can well imagine some kind of stuff expanding (and I can conceive the driving force behind the expansion)<br /><br />it is much easier to account for accelerated space expansion (Dark Energy) given some stuff that makes up absolute space then when you just have bodies in empty void that 'somehow' accelerate appart, that strikes me almost like magic<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[xmo1]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Quick question. Is time ticking at the same pace for all of the universe?Posted by weeman</DIV><br /><br />Quick Answer:</p><p>The universe: time (eternity), space (infinity), existence (imaginary).<br />&nbsp;- That's my concept.</p><p>We vibrate, therefore we are. Anything after that is a schoolboy's dream.</p><p>Here's a how'd they do that: In the movie "Forbidden Planet," how did they make that huge hallway inside the house where the scientist and the captain were walking? It seemed immense, and I've never figured out how it was done.</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>DenniSys.com</p> </div>

 

[starsruul]

so in all....is time constant?(i personally believe so)does not relativity come down to individual perception?say when two totally seperate events take place at totally unfathomable distances apart in the universe at the same time.regardless of gravitational field or any other variables they still happen at the same time right?