What is Time?

[klaus54]

In QM, photon doesn't have a trajectory (in 3D). Light, photon, radiation are not synonymous. Electromagnetic waves are built up of a lot of photons. But you can't talk of a motion of a single photon, because you can't distinguish one photon from the other. Is it the same photon or the copy?.. As if a photon leaves the 3D surface, the detector loses track of it. If detector can't keep track of a thing, and can't distinguish one thing from the other, whose motion can it track? Maybe about motion of a electromagnetic wave as a whole only we can talk. But, both SR and QM are phenomenological models, they only say how certain things look like. We can have infinite number of contradictory phenomenological models, so take them all easy.

For being a "phenomenological model" SR works pretty dang well. Can you name another phenomenological model that explains what SR does and yet is contradictory?

[klaus54]

Like this!

???

Do you think X6 is on the right track (what track that is I sure can't tell) or are you being facetious?

[seer]

Each frame of reference carries its own clock. Perhaps an experiment starts with synchronizing the clock in frame A and the one in B. Perhaps in the course of the experiment the clocks become unsynchronized as in the twins paradox.

Now, do we say that A's clock's tick-tocks are relative to . . . which frame of reference, A or B? That question is worthless. All we can say is, each frame of reference carries its own system of clocks. ToR experiments always involve more than one frame of reference, because ToR predicts differences between at least two frames of reference, e.g., B's ticktocks may differ in interval from A's ticktocks. Length measurement in A may differ from B.

Why do you think it's possible to infer from those experimental data that time is not relative? Maybe such a concept is not meaningful in ToR.

My original question had to do with the age of the universe (post 213). If time is relative what frame of reference do we use to determine the age of the universe? Is time as applied to the universe as a whole something more fixed and not relative?

[oxmixmudd]

For being a "phenomenological model" SR works pretty dang well. Can you name another phenomenological model that explains what SR does and yet is contradictory?

I'll agree that's a bad use of the term. Theologically we use phenomenological to explain why certain physical descriptions in scripture are at odds with the physical reality as understood through science. We explain that by saying the writers were simply recording what they saw without reference to an underlying explanation.

That is NOT the case with SR and GR. These theories tell us what we will observe through equations that relate mass and energy, space and time. Equations that owe their origins to other equations describing the behavior of EM. There is really nothing 'phenomenological' about it.


Jim

[Truthseeker]

My original question had to do with the age of the universe (post 213). If time is relative what frame of reference do we use to determine the age of the universe? Is time as applied to the universe as a whole something more fixed and not relative?

"The age of the universe" certainly does seem to imply that we can observe phenomena that would serve as the key mechanism in "cosmic clocks," like clocks based on Earth's daily revolution on its axis or the annual time span of Earth's "orbit" about the sun, all measured relative to the "distant stars." Here permit me to skip over many details and answer your question with the point that the standard second is defined:

The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.

Such a standard must necessarily require the operation and maintenance of equipment by workers nearby enough so that the operation and maintenance can be done as called for. Certainly timing signals can be transmitted to a space ship that is moving away from Earth so that the ship clocks can run on the signals.

Is that time system (a network including the ship clocks and the terrestrial time network) a good way to keep the universal time? No. All these clocks can be kept synchronized, but whether the big network ("the time system") keeps the universal time, the ToR is silent.

***unfortunately, I need plenty of time to finish. I think I'll just go ahead and post the above now.

[klaus54]

...
Certainly timing signals can be transmitted to a space ship that is moving away from Earth so that the ship clocks can run on the signals.

Is that time system (a network including the ship clocks and the terrestrial time network) a good way to keep the universal time? No. All these clocks can be kept synchronized, but whether the big network ("the time system") keeps the universal time, the ToR is silent.

***unfortunately, I need plenty of time to finish. I think I'll just go ahead and post the above now.

You'll need to flesh out how that would work. The "time signals" sent back and forth Earth <=> spaceship are subject to relativistic adjustment.

[Jorge]

Ok, so you're not interested in answers, you're just doing your usual dishonest schtick of asking questions until some-one says something you can twist to support your predetermined conclusion.

I see you reverted to your dishonesty by placing my way-out-of-context quote in your sig.

Oh well, what else should I have expected? You can take the ape out of the jungle but you absolutely cannot take the jungle out of the ape.

Carry on, Rrrrrroy ... carry on.

Jorge

[Roy]

Go here Jorge

[Jorge]

Okay, okay, so can anyone define time as a thing in itself? Does it move from past to future, does it stand still, or does it even, as a thing in itself, exist? If it stands still, if it is just a coordinate of space, then what exactly is meant by the "passage of time"?

I was in my mid-teens when I "proved" that time cannot exist.¹ Yet, there I was, thinking and writing my proof IN time. Reminiscent of Zeno's paradoxes... Time remains a mystery for me to this day.

¹ In the old TWeb years back I posted a recollected version of that "proof" which you may have seen. I know others here saw it because I received a dozen or so comments.

Jorge

[Jorge]

Go here Jorge

WOW !!!

Since my last visit to TWeb you have obviously gone from "mildly insane drunkard"
to "full-blown, alcohol-guzzling, glue-sniffing, drug-crazed, , wacko-lulu schizophrenic".

Here, try this: 1 - 800 - GET - HELP. Dial it NOW !!!

Jorge

[seer]

"The age of the universe" certainly does seem to imply that we can observe phenomena that would serve as the key mechanism in "cosmic clocks," like clocks based on Earth's daily revolution on its axis or the annual time span of Earth's "orbit" about the sun, all measured relative to the "distant stars." Here permit me to skip over many details and answer your question with the point that the standard second is defined:

The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.

Such a standard must necessarily require the operation and maintenance of equipment by workers nearby enough so that the operation and maintenance can be done as called for. Certainly timing signals can be transmitted to a space ship that is moving away from Earth so that the ship clocks can run on the signals.

Is that time system (a network including the ship clocks and the terrestrial time network) a good way to keep the universal time? No. All these clocks can be kept synchronized, but whether the big network ("the time system") keeps the universal time, the ToR is silent.

***unfortunately, I need plenty of time to finish. I think I'll just go ahead and post the above now.

I have no idea what this means.

[little_monkey]

Now, do we say that A's clock's tick-tocks are relative to . . . which frame of reference, A or B? That question is worthless.

There's a little confusion on your part. That question is NOT worthless considering what you say following that:

All we can say is, each frame of reference carries its own system of clocks. ToR experiments always involve more than one frame of reference, because ToR predicts differences between at least two frames of reference, e.g., B's ticktocks may differ in interval from A's ticktocks. Length measurement in A may differ from B.

So it is important when you specify what time it is. Observer A will say that his clock says time Ta, while B will say, it's time Tb, and Ta is different than Tb. Not knowing which frame we're measuring time means we don't know how to proceed to measure time.

Why do you think it's possible to infer from those experimental data that time is not relative? Maybe such a concept is not meaningful in ToR.

Again confusion on your part: time is relative to which frame you are using to measure it. There is NO escape from that reality.

[seer]

Again confusion on your part: time is relative to which frame you are using to measure it. There is NO escape from that reality.

Then how do we come to a non-relative age for the universe?

[Roy]

WOW !!!

Since my last visit to TWeb you have obviously gone from "mildly insane drunkard"
to "full-blown, alcohol-guzzling, glue-sniffing, drug-crazed, , wacko-lulu schizophrenic".

Here, try this: 1 - 800 - GET - HELP. Dial it NOW !!!

Jorge

You challenged me, Jorge, and I accepted. You failed to deliver. You owe me $150.

[_X6]

For being a "phenomenological model" SR works pretty dang well. Can you name another phenomenological model that explains what SR does and yet is contradictory?

SR has mass, velocity, energy as key concepts. I think to show a completely different model, we need completely different key concepts, or elementary things. There are at least 3 different masses (inertial, gravitational and energy). Now by experimant I hope I see: waves and particles are not elementary. Usual motion and speed concepts are not elementary either. Maybe increase number of spatial dimensions at least by 1 and get SR as a projection of our new model, organically? (Eg, to place a thing into a closed 3D room, the room should be open in 4D. ) Also increase number of time dimensions by 1. (In order to travel in time you have to have at least 2 time dimensions, or else time will run backwards for you while you travel). Speed of light is just an illusional speed, similar to the speed of visible connection points between 2 planes falling at each other. I know by mathematician experiment, that there are infinite number of 2D pictures in the world. A photo of you in front of a building, a painting of ocean, a photo of a main building in your town without you... Each painting is good. We can feel only large complicated systems by man-made detectors. I think this is because we can't rule our natural detectors, but instead, those detectors are usually one way detectors, to rule us. You can receive thought, but can't emit it whereever you want, by will, at least I can't.