# What is time..



## JohnT (Nov 5, 2013)

OK, so you need to have a couple of glasses in you before reading further.. I'll wait......
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OK, so now that you are softened a little, here is my question... Is time real?

This is a rather involved question and there are two theories on this topic. One theory is that time is a real physical entity and part of the fabric of our universe. 

Another theory is that time is something that our brains invent to help put our reality into perspective. In this theory, our brains percieve time as our existance passes through frame after frame of reality. 


Any thoughts folks?


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## jamesngalveston (Nov 5, 2013)

who cares, when it is time to eat i eat
time to sleep i eat
time to drink i drink....
the rest does not matter.


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## Arne (Nov 5, 2013)

Forgot one James, time to make wine so you can drink. Arne.


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## Gwand (Nov 5, 2013)

John T, Deja Vu is a reminder that time is an illusion and that we "were", "are" and "will be" exist simultaneously. A little wine and majic mushrooms proves my point.


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## corinth (Nov 5, 2013)

*What is time*

first of all,

JamesGalveston: spoken like a true Zen Buddhist!

When I eat I eat and when I sleep I sleep!

What is time?

This can get very complicated but there are some known facts.

When an object( gross example) travels at the speed of light , 186 thousand miles per second, we KNOW times slows down. There have been several tests by astronuats to prove this.

I would have to look this up but the bottom line here is that if you were to travel faster than the speed of light, time would slow down. What this means is that if there were two of you, one on earth and the other traveling at the speed of light over a few years. When the other you which was traveling at the speed of light came back on earth, you would be younger!

This is just a beginning. My brain is not moving too fast this morning! I am sure others will add to this as I will give me a little time!

PS: scientist knew the above *theoretically *during the time that cowboys were roaming the southwest


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## sour_grapes (Nov 5, 2013)

Call me a simple direct realist, but I'll take the former position.


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## sour_grapes (Nov 5, 2013)

corinth said:


> When an object( gross example) travels at the speed of light , 186 thousand miles per second, we KNOW times slows down. There have been several tests by astronuats to prove this.
> 
> I would have to look this up but the bottom line here is that if you were to travel faster than the speed of light, time would slow down. What this means is that if there were two of you, one on earth and the other traveling at the speed of light over a few years. When the other you which was traveling at the speed of light came back on earth, you would be younger!




Corinth is referring to the Twin Paradox (which is not really a paradox).

What Corinth is saying is basically, true, except that no object that has mass can travel _at_ or _above_ the speed of light. But that is not needed for his example. It is true that one clock traveling with respect to a second clock will tick more slowly (as observed by someone holding the second clock). It is true that this has been demonstrated by atomic clocks on airplanes. And it is true that if one of two twins rockets off at high speed, turns around, and comes back to Earth, he or she will be younger than the twin who stayed at home.


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## wineforfun (Nov 5, 2013)

JohnT said:


> Another theory is that time is something that our brains invent to help put our reality into perspective. In this theory, our brains percieve time as our existance passes through frame after frame of reality.



I fully believe in this. ^^^^^

Without getting into a religious tangent, our minds or way of life here is only using time or recognizing time as we know it or are taught it. 
God created "xyz" on Day 1. Now our "earthly" minds tell us he did that in 24hrs when in fact it could have been 2400 years. No one knows that for sure.


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## corinth (Nov 5, 2013)

Sour_grapes: nice! Michio Kaku, the famous theoretical physicist would be proud!

Wineforfun: I can easily accept and respect your views as I am one who believes quite strongly.


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## Bartman (Nov 5, 2013)

But if it weren't for time acting as a 'fourth dimension', physical objects would theoretically occupy the same space/location simultaneously. So long as you accept that matter is a physical constant at any given moment (of time!) and matter physical objects cannot occupy the space simultaneously, only time keeps things as discrete objects rather than merging them all into the same hunk of matter. Example: At the intersection of two streets, if it were not for the stoplight that 'controls' traffic flow, your car would collide with other cars crossing the intersection - i.e., if it weren't for time separating the coincidental location of your car and the other one, your car would be 'sharing'/coinciding in the same physical space as that other car. Hence, there would be two objects in the same place which cannot be, given the original assumption.


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## DoctorCAD (Nov 5, 2013)

Ticking away the moments 
That make up a dull day 
Fritter and waste the hours 
In an off-hand way 

Kicking around on a piece of ground 
In your home town 
Waiting for someone or something 
To show you the way 

Tired of lying in the sunshine 
Staying home to watch the rain 
You are young and life is long 
And there is time to kill today 

And then the one day you find 
Ten years have got behind you 
No one told you when to run 
You missed the starting gun 

(Solo) 

And you run and you run 
To catch up with the sun 
But it's sinking 

Racing around 
To come up behind you again 

The sun is the same 
In a relative way 
But you're older 

Shorter of breath 
And one day closer to death 

Every year is getting shorter 
Never seem to find the time 

Plans that either come to naught 
Or half a page of scribbled lines 

Hanging on in quiet desperation 
Is the English way 

The time is gone 
The song is over 
Thought I'd something more to say 

Home 
Home again 
I like to be here 
When I can 

When I come home 
Cold and tired 
It's good to warm my bones 
Beside the fire 

Far away 
Across the field 
Tolling on the iron bell 
Calls the faithful to their knees 
To hear the softly spoken magic spell...

Better with something a bit more leafy than wine, but wine will do.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 5, 2013)

Nothing with mass can travel faster than light, OK. but aren't physicists now able to show that certain quantum particles can affect the motion of another quantum particle across space quite literally, instantaneously? so "something" is "traveling" between the two particles faster than light. And.. If Einstein's understanding of the universe is correct (and so there are no Archimedean fixed points in our universe and everything is simply in motion relative to everything else - (The paradox of the twins is an example))then how can time be thought of as a vector (having both length and direction) independent of everything else?


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## sour_grapes (Nov 5, 2013)

BernardSmith said:


> Nothing with mass can travel faster than light, OK. but aren't physicists now able to show that certain quantum particles can affect the motion of another quantum particle across space quite literally, instantaneously? so "something" is "traveling" between the two particles faster than light.



Ah yes, the EPR Paradox and quantum entanglement. The upshot is that you can have two particles that are created together, but are now separated by a great distance. If you make a quantum measurement on one, it instantaneously affects the probability of the outcome of a measurement on the other one. 

Yes, ladies and gents, it turns out that the universe we live in is demonstrably _non-local._ That is, a measurement at point A instantaneously influences the outcome of a measurement at distant point B.

However, this measurement is not _causal_. It cannot be used to, say, transmit information from point A to point B faster than the speed of light. Nothing is traveling from A to B. Only by later comparing the outcomes of the measurements do the people at A or B know that their measurements were linked.

This is not easy to get your mind around, I readily grant you, but it has  been definitively shown to be true since the '80s.


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## RegionRat (Nov 5, 2013)

DoctorCAD said:


> Ticking away the moments
> That make up a dull day
> Fritter and waste the hours
> In an off-hand way
> ...




Makes me wanna smoke a fattie (Havent smoked weed in YEARS) and watch this


_[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gXvVUg-VAE"]The Dark Side Of The Rainbow[/ame]_


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## pjd (Nov 5, 2013)

wow you guys make my head hurt! Region Rat, i'm with you on that!


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## jamesngalveston (Nov 5, 2013)

holy chit, what you guys do for a living...i am a lowly un educated seafood salesman/carpenter you guys are way over my head..
im going to bed now....when i dream, there is no time....think on that.


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## corinth (Nov 5, 2013)

One or more of you mention the physics.
One of you mentions a spiritual or religious view
One of view quotes a wonderful poem
One adds a visual clip from a movie
One of you adds humor
one of you talks about times gone past
and many people view what has been written and further thought is produced!
It all helps everyone to understand and see how all is infinitely intertwined!


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## corinth (Nov 5, 2013)

*what is time*

Ah c'mon Jamesgalveston!

Don't sell (no pun intended since you are a salesperson) short here!

You mean to tell me that you have never heard about how dreams can transcend reality?

We need some music from the "twilight zone" just about now!

PS: "Holy Chit" also sounds good to me!


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## RegionRat (Nov 5, 2013)

corinth said:


> One of view quotes a wonderful poem
> One adds a visual clip from a movie




see how all is infinitely intertwined! 

RR


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## Runningwolf (Nov 5, 2013)

float in time with open mind...
A quest, a chance of riddled thought: 
Infinity squared; then seek to find 
An answer; pained and overwrought, 
I dodder with an addled head -
Befuddled, merging with a haze of
Mysticism - 
Then to tread a metaphoric swamp - 
A maze of existentialism…

But now for time to tick in rhyme
With ‘tock' - a clock to tell thro' chime
Precisely on the knell
That as I dared to understand, 
I must be deep in Hell…


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## Gwand (Nov 5, 2013)

There is a wonderful book by string theorist Briane Greene called, The elegant universe, which beautifully explains these complex phenomenon.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 5, 2013)

Just got entangled in my computer cables and all the lights in my house went out... Talk about everything being intertwined.


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## TxBrew (Nov 12, 2013)

Time is real. It's a dimension same as the others, but it's one direction. We move froward through it. 

The concept of time is not solely based in observation. The degradation of bonds at an atomic level would happen if observed or not, so time in this regard is a very real concept. We unit it the way we see fit, but there are more scientific methods of measurement, like the Plank length.


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## JohnT (Nov 12, 2013)

TxBrew said:


> Time is real. It's a dimension same as the others, but it's one direction. We move froward through it.
> 
> The concept of time is not solely based in observation. The degradation of bonds at an atomic level would happen if observed or not, so time in this regard is a very real concept. We unit it the way we see fit, but there are more scientific methods of measurement, like the Plank length.


 
Ok, 

So let me ask.. 

If time is real, and is a part of the universe, then did time exist before the big bang? 

If not, then how could the big bang be possible? Time did not exist.

If it did exist before the big bang, then how could it be real (existing before anything could exist)?


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## olusteebus (Nov 12, 2013)

Let me have a glass of two tonight and I will give you my rendition as to why time does not exist. In the meantime, I will be making up something.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 12, 2013)

Ha ! Wouldn't it be funny if there was a sub atomic particle that imparted time into matter in much the same way bosons add mass to matter - so time was created at the same point that matter was and its apparent direction is because the universe is expanding and not because of any inherent quality in time itself. 

I know zip about physics but don't physicists agree that there is nothing inherent about time that prevents the vector moving in any direction (although presumably the second law of thermodynamics would suggest that systems move from order to chaos (from hot to cold) as time progresses and not from disorder to order - except in the case of life itself (perhaps) so at some point in time the expansion of the universe will slow down ... stop ... and then ... what? Contract? So the universe itself will become an unimaginably massive but unimaginably tiny black hole ...


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## sour_grapes (Nov 12, 2013)

JohnT said:


> Ok,
> 
> So let me ask..
> 
> ...



Here is Stephen Hawking's proposed answer to your questions. He posits that, although both the universe and regular time itself had a beginning at the time of the Big Bang, there was a way to imagine this happening _without_ a singularity at which time and the laws of physics broke down. I am afraid the technical issue is over my head. I also don't know how widely accepted Hawking's views are.


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## sour_grapes (Nov 12, 2013)

BernardSmith said:


> I know zip about physics but don't physicists agree that there is nothing inherent about time that prevents the vector moving in any direction (although presumably the second law of thermodynamics would suggest that systems move from order to chaos (from hot to cold) as time progresses and not from disorder to order - except in the case of life itself (perhaps) so at some point in time the expansion of the universe will slow down ... stop ... and then ... what? Contract? So the universe itself will become an unimaginably massive but unimaginably tiny black hole ...



Few comments: Yes, it appears that the universe's expansion will stop, turn around, and contract and implode on itself. ("The Big Crunch.") At least as best as we know now.

About whether "life itself" is an exception to the Second Law: No, it is not. The Earth is not a closed system; energy is being pumped into it by the sun. The total entropy of, say, the sun+Earth is increasing, even if there is a local decrease on Earth having to do with life. This violates the Second Law no more than a rock warming up in the morning sun (i.e., going from cold to hot).


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## tonyt (Nov 12, 2013)

All you smart people and non of you could answer my thread/question of why my Chardonnay has white floatong haze in the bottles.


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## Thig (Nov 12, 2013)

JohnT said:


> here is my question... Is time real?



I just finished reading "The Dragons of Eden." The only "now" there is, is in your mind. Everything else is in the past. We have no problem thinking about a star light years away. If it is 50 light years away we are seeing what it looked like 50 years ago, we are seeing history.

When someone walks into the room it takes a split second for the light to enter your brain and your brain to register that you are seeing someone. You are not seeing it the instant it happened, so you are seeing history. Same thing when someone speaks, you are hearing what they said a split second ago, history.

Time is like a line with no beginning and no end, we just cut out pieces of it and call it a day or a week.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 12, 2013)

tonyt said:


> All you smart people and non of you could answer my thread/question of why my Chardonnay has white floatong haze in the bottles.



But YOUR question is one that is REALLY difficult to answer.. as opposed to the persistent questions we all endure... and shrug off as if they are not serious


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## jamesngalveston (Nov 12, 2013)

when i was young...i had all the time in the world, now as i am 60 i find it is running out......crap, I should have done a lot more partying, and had a lot more girl friends for sure....even the one nighters...now all my girlfreinds want to stay a week, they dont drive at night, and all have pill boxes that have timers in them to tell them to take the dang things....
just saying....time....even my wine is long term aged at 30 days.


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## sour_grapes (Nov 13, 2013)

Thig said:


> I just finished reading "The Dragons of Eden." ....
> 
> Time is like a line with no beginning and no end, we just cut out pieces of it and call it a day or a week.



Except that it DID appear to have a beginning. Why do you say "like a line with no beginning"?


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## Thig (Nov 13, 2013)

sour_grapes said:


> Except that it DID appear to have a beginning.



When was that beginning? If you say the big bang then how did the material for the big bang get there? I don't buy into the thought that something can be created from nothing. It is the old question why is there something rather than nothing. My mind just tells me even if you could go back to the beginning of time, "something" had to be here before that.


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## winointraining (Nov 13, 2013)

I have to agree with James. As James said when I was young I had all the time in the world, holidays took forever, time between birthdays seemed like 900 days instead of 365 days. now in my 60s, birthdays come and go in a couple months seem like. The old saying "if I knew I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself" seems true.

I think time is relative to the individual, but still tied to universe.


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## Floandgary (Nov 13, 2013)

KISS,,,, Time, no matter how we clock it, (seconds minutes, hours, parsecs,,) is the concept we use to be sure our wines develop as is intended!! What else matters???


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## Floandgary (Nov 13, 2013)

doctorcad said:


> ticking away the moments
> that make up a dull day
> fritter and waste the hours
> in an off-hand way
> ...





timeless!!


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## wineforfun (Nov 13, 2013)

Thig said:


> When was that beginning? If you say the big bang then how did the material for the big bang get there? I don't buy into the thought that something can be created from nothing. It is the old question why is there something rather than nothing. My mind just tells me even if you could go back to the beginning of time, "something" had to be here before that.



Exactly. Very well said. 

Something or someone started all of this. 
I truly believe it is way above anything we can comprehend in our "human" world. We try to explain everything with physics, logic, science, etc., and that only explains things the way we were taught or as we know it in "our" world.


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## Rocky (Nov 13, 2013)

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander _time_, for that is the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)


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## JohnT (Nov 13, 2013)

We need to stay off the "let's talk religion" path. Let us just assume that we are here regardless of the cause. (My Belated Birthday Present to Julie)


James brings up a great point. 

Of all of our perceptions on that which is real (temperature or the weight of an object, for example), our perceptions seem to be much more constant that that of time. A heavy object always seems heavy, a hot cup of coffee always seems hot, but time is a different story ... 

Remember how long it took for the end of the school-year to arrive or Christmas to arrive? How long is 5 minutes when you are listening to Rap as opposed to having an interesting conversation with a friend. The old saying "time flies when you are having fun" seems to be much more meaningful that one would expect. 


This Idea of "time flies" really does lend credit to the idea that time is not real and is only a perception of the mind.

On the other hand, how could a person's rate of travel affect one's perception in a predictable manor?


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## JohnT (Nov 13, 2013)

I would also like to bring up the story of flatland... 

Flatland was a plane of only two dimensions. Within flatland, there existed points. One day a sphere happened to come across flatland and befriended one of the points living there. 

"I wonder what you look like" said the point to the sphere. 
"tell you what I will do" said the sphere. "I will pass my body through flatland so that you can see me". 

Over the time that the sphere past his body through the plane of flatland, this is what the point saw..

-, then ---, then -----, then ---, then -.

.. or a line that started small, then grew wider, then shrank. 
The point did not quite grasp the true size and shape of a sphere. He only recognized the sphere as the ebb and flow of a line over time. 

Perhaps this is the nature of time. Time is the only way to describe that which our brains can not easily comprehend. Our perception of the forth dimension is expressed as change of an interval of time, much the same way flatlanders perception of the third dimension is change over an interval of time. 

Make you think that it is time to open another bottle....

johnT.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 13, 2013)

JohnT said:


> We need to stay off the "let's talk religion" path. Let us just assume that we are here regardless of the cause. (My Belated Birthday Present to Julie)
> 
> 
> James brings up a great point.
> ...



Not sure I agree with you. Put one bare foot in a bucket of hot water and one bare foot in a bucket of cold water .. then stand on a tile floor. Is the floor cold or warm? It's the same temperature(or suck on an icecube and then drink a mouthful of hot coffee. then take some melting cheese and then drink that same coffee. Is the coffee hot or cold - it's the same temperature.. Our perceptions always interfere... and as for the perception of time. Think about this for a minute: when you were five years of age a day was about 1/1725 of your life. When you are 60 (James) a single day is now only 1/20,700 of your life. It would be surprising if 24 hours passing when you are 60 seemed to take as long to pass as when you were 5.


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## jamesngalveston (Nov 13, 2013)

after reading all the responses...i have wasted 22 minutes of time.
which i could have used making wine,making love, making dinner.
end of story.
its hard enough to make wine, let alone worrying about what time is..
time..is endless....i will die when its time.
what time is it...i will be on time, what time is dinner, is it time to leave.
what time did you go to bed, what time did you awake...
all of that does not matter, what matters is what you do with the time you have currently./


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## corinth (Nov 13, 2013)

*What is time*

I think we need to THANK JohnT for posting the question!

I think the general "Chit Chat "also allows others to pick and choose at their moment in time to think new thoughts(POSSIBLY), Ideas, music, poetry, whatever, possibly forgotten until they view the thread. They now may well have an "AHA" moment 

When I sit down with someone , I am not nearly as impressed by what they may know about one of their areas of expertise but how they can take the complexity of a subject expand its horizons based upon a new viewpoint that comes full circle and WITH THEIR SON, DAUGHTER OR GRANDCHILD ON THEIR LAP, SEE HOW THE CHILDS EYES BECOME ABLAZE WITH FASCINATION.AND WONDER!

And possibly and often, we have given birth to a new winemaker and a new generation of wine makers.


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## JohnT (Nov 14, 2013)

James, 

My intent was not to have you walk away felling like you wasted your time. Sorry. This topic came up during a "quality control" meeting between me and my brothers. We found that after a little wine (just a little, mind you), this topic was rather interesting. I was hoping that the folks here might like to also partake in it. 

BTW, What part of your winemaking process only takes 22 minutes? Whenever I do anything in winemaking, it always seems to take hours. 



Barnard, 

In your example, you are changing the reference of the test. If you keep the test constant, and not change the "vantage point", then the hot coffee will always be perceived the same. I do not believe that this is so true with time.


Corinth, 

Thank you so much for the kind words. These are exactly my thoughts.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 14, 2013)

"Barnard, 

In your example, you are changing the reference of the test. If you keep the test constant, and not change the "vantage point", then the hot coffee will always be perceived the same. I do not believe that this is so true with time."

Trouble is that you are also always changing the "vantage point" when you think about time. Ten minutes under a dentist's drill is not going to be perceived as brief a period of time as ten minutes snuggling with the love of your life. Remembering what an hour felt like yesterday is not going to be viewed from the same "vantage point" as experiencing this "same" 60 minutes right now..


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## Thig (Nov 14, 2013)

JohnT said:


> My intent was not to have you walk away felling like you wasted your time.



You posted this in Chit-Chat and no one was forced to read it, no apologies needed. I find it interesting.


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## dangerdave (Nov 14, 2013)

JohnT said:


> This Idea of "time flies" really does lend credit to the idea that time is not real and is only a perception of the mind.


 
Let's take that concept one step further...

Time is merely our perception of _change_. That is why we measure it based on how things change around us. Earth rotates, clocks tick, people age. If nothing changed, there would be no perception of time, or way to measure it.

In that case, there was no time before the Big Bang.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 14, 2013)

dangerdave said:


> Let's take that concept one step further...
> 
> Time is merely our perception of _change_. That is why we measure it based on how things change around us. Earth rotates, clocks tick, people age. If nothing changed, there would be no perception of time, or way to measure it.
> 
> In that case, there was no time before the Big Bang.



My brother has a problem with the Big Bang because he cannot get his head around the idea that the universe itself was what came into existence and expanded in the Bang and not that the universe expanded into something that was already there. There was nothing - NOTHING - other than the super point of singularity. That infinitesimally tiny point was the entire universe and all matter and all space was essentially formed in that point.. and we are all dust from that Bang. We are, as the song said, we are all star dust.


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## jswordy (Nov 14, 2013)

The OP was, is there time? Some of the discussion dissembled into explorations of perceptions of time, its directionality, etc. There have been many great observations.

Entropy implies that there must be time, and this is not a perceived state but one common to all in the physical world. It's a natural and elastic state where something once "new" becomes "old" and in the process becomes more "disorganized." Now, quantum physics has proven that there is no such thing as true randomness - that all things have a pattern to them - but the fact of entropy infers time, even if entropy occurs as it does at different rates.

Of course, Einstein in e=mc2 inherently proves time, since the equation doesn't work without it. Even in quantum physics, also touched on in the discussion, time is inherent.

Take the simplest chemical reaction - without a time component, it simply would not occur. Or our wine. Without a time component, it would never age.

As far as the Big Bang, fairly recent research in physics has postulated that there exists in everything a very slight, tiny flaw favoring matter over antimatter. It's way out there in the 0.000000000 etc. realm, out to the thousands of zeroes, and the problem had proven intractable for 75 years until it was finally solved with the aid of supercomputers. It's theorized that this very very tiny imbalance in everything is what kicked off the Big Bang, although all the astrophysicists I have talked personally with here say no one can definitively say whether time started at that moment or not. 

The "flaw" ever so slightly shifts the balance of the universe to matter, or else everything including us would not exist.

What intrigues me most about the current state of physics, as in the point above, is that it is proving more and more the musings of the mystics of the past. For example, American Indians have for 50,000 years believed that only the Creator is perfect and that all else is flawed or imperfect, to the point where they will purposefully put imperfections into their work to reflect that. Now the inherent flaw their mystics speak of is being proven mathematically.

The Bang itself was a rapid expansion of super-dense, super-heavy matter (and yes there's no adequate way in words to say it but it can be said in calculations, since matter came into being at that time), and we're sending up spacecraft all the time to measure the oldest portions of the remnants of that blast to get a handle on what happened. If there were not time, scientists would not be able to age those portions of the universe as opposed to others that are younger, and yet by their features researchers can do that.

Some of the discussion has involved religion or spirituality as it applies to time. My own take on it is that spiritualists and physicists both "talk to God," they just use different means. As an astrophysicist said to me, "My work makes me believe all the more in a Creator. For example, I can take iron ore and I can form it and melt it and make it into many shapes. But I cannot create that iron ore. Only God can do that."

As far as the universe and time, I have asked physicists to explain what the universe is. The best explanation; "I am not smart enough to know what it is, or if there is an 'inside' or 'outside' to it. I can say that a good analogy is a balloon that is being blown up. I am like an ant on that balloon, and I know that time is passing and the balloon is expanding because I know that it takes me longer to travel from one point on it to another than it did before. But I do not know the nature of that balloon. That's why we study the universe."

I thought that was very insightful. Then there are a whole bunch of other factors - like galactic baryons and the degree of their presence - that physicists are using to try to answer these complex and broad questions. See this article I wrote on baryon research: http://www.uah.edu/news/research/63...-universe-may-spawn-new-research#.UoVDj6WYVlI

Anyway, an interesting discussion to read and I hope I've added something to it with my ruminations. I'd like to leave off with this segment of an article I wrote about Voyager 1, the spacecraft that has now broken out of our heliosphere into interstellar space. The person quoted is Dr. Gary Zank, a University of Alabama in Huntsville heliophysicist, and there's an inherent time element involved.



> Truthfully, by now the Voyager 1 spacecraft should be just another burnt out retiree, it's primary work done as of Nov. 20, 1980, floating away out in space somewhere.
> 
> But Voyager refuses to go quietly into that dark night. With most of its sensors still working, it utilizes computer power that's dwarfed by today's smartphones to send sometimes surprising data packets back to Earth *- first recording them on its ancient 8-track digital tape machines before assembling them and blasting them out at a staggering 23 watts for a trip that NASA says now begins in interstellar space.
> 
> ...


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## dangerdave (Nov 14, 2013)

I have never been a big fan of "mystical musings". But I understand entropy. Things must change (time must pass) in order for entropy to occur. Time is our reference for change. No perception, no reference, no time. It's like the tree falling in the woods. If no one is there, does it make a sound? The answer is 'no'.

I like Dr. Zank---I once knew wizard by that name. However, he implies that humans will not exist a few billion years from now, and Voyager will. He is probably right on the former. Humans will likely have evolved---through time---into something else entirely, who knows? And Voyager will only last until some klingon blasts it with a photon torpedo!


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## BernardSmith (Nov 14, 2013)

I don't know about mystical musings but if all matter came from the big bang and if that means that all elements and material in the universe came from that near infinitely massive but infinitesimally tiny point and if life itself evolved from inorganic matter, then we are all connected, humans and rocks and water and stars and planets and grapes and cats and scorpions - all existence is really one... And so for me the Big Bang is what connects science to religious thought. Not because of the awe and wonder of what the Big Bang was all about but the awe and wonder of the idea that all of us and everything came from that point of origin. So Cheers! .


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## Floandgary (Nov 15, 2013)

Dave,,Dave,,Dave,,,, Don't you watch the commercials???? Trees DO make noise even if there is no one there to hear it!! Simply by the laws of physics as to exactly what noise (sound) is.. And the fact that "VEEGER" is still drumming a beat over and above expectations could imply a Greater Hand in the nature of existence. "Our" BIG BANG occured in "our" little tiny spot of the universe and from it all of "our" knowledge to date has precipitated. Everything is relative and like our wines, to our own taste!!


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## JohnT (Nov 15, 2013)

Jim, 

Thank you so much for your latest post! Very interesting take on all of it. So I do have a follow up question for you. 

So let's just accept that the origin of the universe was a point of singularity, and that the universe is expanding much like a balloon. 

If one was to be able to travel fast enough and far enough, would it be possible to reach a "border" between the universe and nothing? Can we travel to the point where time and entropy do not exist?

Before you answer, give me a minute to re-fill my glass


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## jswordy (Nov 15, 2013)

BernardSmith said:


> I don't know about mystical musings but if all matter came from the big bang and if that means that all elements and material in the universe came from that near infinitely massive but infinitesimally tiny point and if life itself evolved from inorganic matter, then we are all connected, humans and rocks and water and stars and planets and grapes and cats and scorpions - all existence is really one... And so for me the Big Bang is what connects science to religious thought. Not because of the awe and wonder of what the Big Bang was all about but the awe and wonder of the idea that all of us and everything came from that point of origin. So Cheers! .



Yes. YES! In the Lakota: Mitakuye oyasin. (We are all related.) There is a HUGE amount of true power when you identify with The One, and oh Bernard, you so eloquently just did.


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## jswordy (Nov 15, 2013)

JohnT said:


> Jim,
> 
> Thank you so much for your latest post! Very interesting take on all of it. So I do have a follow up question for you.
> 
> ...



It's an easy answer. No one knows. I have posited the exact same question to physicists: What exists outside the universe? They say that's too simplistic an approach to viewing the matter. In quantum physics, if two particles can co-exist in the same time and the same state but be in two different places (and this has been done many times experimentally), then there is no boundary to be found. 

Look at it another way: Black holes eat the matter universe and make it into denser material. Elsewhere, new stars and galaxies are being created. In essence, the universe is eating and digesting itself and recreating something new all the time, and it is also expanding. In this it is much like my belly. 

Then when you take into account that what we can see is only 25 percent of the universe and the rest is dark matter, you see the problem. The entire system would like to achieve stasis, at which point it would not exist anymore - it would return to nothing - except that it can't because of this tiny tiny flaw that exists that favors matter over anti-matter. It's not settled science yet, but I believe that little flaw will eventually be found to drive all the processes on the traditional and quantum physics levels. 

If so, that would be the Creator, the One, and so we would have found God by "praying" with calculations.

Now think of this: In a recycling universe, everything is reused. A molecule in your body right now could once have been the rust on a Viking's sword. Or part of a dinosaur's ear. All is recycled, remade. Everything natural is a circle and we are living as a very minute part of that circle. The math behind Pi says that in a circle there is no beginning or end. Look around. A tree has a circle. Spring, new leaves; summer setting seed; fall, dropping seed and leaves; winter, leaves change to soil; spring, soil nourishes tree. There's no "inside" or "outside" that circle for the tree, because it is the circle by its existence. The same with humans, who begin as a baby, advance through puberty, mature into adulthood, and then return in a natural lifecycle to a childlike and then babylike state, after which they die. No inside or outside, as that person IS the circle.


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## sour_grapes (Nov 15, 2013)

JohnT said:


> Jim,
> 
> Thank you so much for your latest post! Very interesting take on all of it. So I do have a follow up question for you.
> 
> ...



Lemme give a shot. Unfortunately, I have to offer you TWO answers (which is not as good as having a single answer) because, as Jim says, this is not settled science. I should say this is not my area of expertise, but I have sat through many a colloquium on these topics, and picked up a little in the process. My understanding is probably garbled.

Answer 1:
Outside the outermost part of the universe, there truly is nothing. Not empty space; that is different. There IS no empty space, or anything else, outside of the universe. Now, if you were to travel to the outermost part of the universe, and then beyond, you would be _creating_ new space. In the absence of any matter, space is simply _ not defined_. As the universe expands, it is not expanding into space that was previously empty, it is creating a larger volume of space than existed before.

Answer 2:
There is some reason to believe that the universe is finite, but not bounded. The best way to try to understand this is to think about a lower dimensionality. Imagine you are an ant, crawling around on the surface of a balloon. If you walk in a straight line, you never come to "the end of the road." However, the surface of the balloon is not infinite: there is a finite amount of surface you can explore. You just keep walking and walking around the same surface. 
There is some reason to believe the universe is like this, but (obviously) in 3+1 dimensions.

Edited to add: In response to a question about this last scenario, I would like to provide some clarification.

The analogy I presented is posed in a lower dimensional space than the one we live it. It would be if there were only two spatial dimensions, instead of three. The surface of the balloon represents the universe. (It is a surface, instead of a volume, because there are only 2 dimensions.) To be accurate, the ant should actually be a two-dimensional figure that is moving IN the surface of the balloon.


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## corinth (Nov 16, 2013)

*What is time*

A bit of History:
Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, (French: He was the first person to propose the theory of the expansion of the Universe, He was also very adamant about separating his religious background(Catholic Priest) out of it and let the Pope know it.
"Should a priest reject relativity because it contains no authoritative exposition on the doctrine of the Trinity? Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes . The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses . . . As a matter of fact neither Saint Paul nor Moses had the slightest idea of relativity"

Just a bit of info to think about, meditate on or have a glass of wine while doing neither!


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## sour_grapes (Nov 16, 2013)

Corinth, very interesting. I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Lemaitre. Interesting story.


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## corinth (Nov 16, 2013)

*What is time*

I found out about him years before while watching" Nightline" and I believe they were talking with a Catholic Astrophysicist about some new discovery which concerned the Big Bang Theory and the Hubbell telescope. 
As of a result of these postings, I went to a Catholic Website and read about Monsignor(Sir) Lemaître . The Pope was going to include his theory in a speech on creation and use Father Lemaître theory and Father Lemaître would have none of it. He pretty much demanded that it not be included. The Pope agreed and did not mention it in his speech. Pretty Gutsy on Father Lemaître part.


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## dangerdave (Nov 17, 2013)

Floandgary: "Trees DO make noise even if there is no one there to hear it!! Simply by the laws of physics as to exactly what noise (sound) is.."

I always love this one! _Sound_ is defined as, "the sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of hearing by vibrations transmitted through the air or other medium." So, if no one is there to _sense_ it, then it is not _sound_, merely mechanical vibration of the medium.

Dave...<takes a spit of wine>

Careful fellas, getting awefully close to a religious discussion. That could get ugly.


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## corinth (Nov 17, 2013)

*What is time*

DangerDave,
"Careful fellas, getting awfully close to a religious discussion. That could get ugly"

I hope not Dave as that was not my intent. If Lemaitre has correlated his theory to his religious beliefs, I would not have included him in this thread. I do appreciate your concern.

Corinth


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## dangerdave (Nov 17, 2013)

Just trying to lighten it up a bit.


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## sour_grapes (Nov 17, 2013)

dangerdave said:


> Careful fellas, getting awfully close to a religious discussion. That could get ugly.



I honestly thought Dave was referring to his own "if a tree falls in the forest" riddle.


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## DoodleBug (Nov 17, 2013)

I want to just interject my wrench into the BIG bang theory.
Maybe it is just a small bang within something larger containing a multitude of bangs some of which may be bigger.
That being said isn't time just a created unit of measure based on perception.
( I have got to stop consuming shoe polish. )


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## JohnT (Nov 18, 2013)

DoodleBug said:


> I want to just interject my wrench into the BIG bang theory.
> Maybe it is just a small bang within something larger containing a multitude of bangs some of which may be bigger.
> That being said isn't time just a created unit of measure based on perception.
> ( I have got to stop consuming shoe polish. )


 
That is the all over question.


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## dangerdave (Nov 20, 2013)

Everything we sense is a perception. All that we perceive is based on and restricted by our limited perceptions. Now follow my thinking, if you will...

Things that we cannot normally perceive (with our five senses) must be converted into a perceivable form. We have sophisticated telescopes and advanced software programs that convert wavelengths of light from distant stars---that we cannot normally see---into visible colors on a screen so that we can study them.

Now, don't let your head explode, but our chronographs are just devices we use to view or measure the passage of time---which is real and quantifiable---but unable to be perceived by us otherwise. We can messure time from the very instant the Big Bang occurred. Was the advent of time a result of the Big Bang, or the cause? Did the Big Bang require time, or did it initiate time?

Oh! My brains!


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## sour_grapes (Nov 20, 2013)

Course: Physics 534: Cosmology.
Final Exam.
Question 1: Define the Universe. Give three examples.


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## sour_grapes (Nov 20, 2013)

DoodleBug said:


> I want to just interject my wrench into the BIG bang theory.
> Maybe it is just a small bang within something larger containing a multitude of bangs some of which may be bigger.




Here is a bit of trouble with this. As best we know, at the time of the Big Bang, there was a singularity in space-time, from which all the present universe sprang. Nothing that is outside of the resultant space-time is accessible to our universe, and hence, has no meaning in our universe.

Here is how Stephen Hawking describes the conventional viewpoint about the Big Bang. (As I stated in an earlier post in this thread, he himself holds a somewhat different viewpoint.)


> At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.
> 
> Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.


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## JohnT (Nov 21, 2013)

dangerdave said:


> Everything we sense is a perception. All that we perceive is based on and restricted by our limited perceptions. Now follow my thinking, if you will...
> 
> Things that we cannot normally perceive (with our five senses) must be converted into a perceivable form. We have sophisticated telescopes and advanced software programs that convert wavelengths of light from distant stars---that we cannot normally see---into visible colors on a screen so that we can study them.
> 
> ...


 
Dave, 

It is times like this when I find another glass of wine really helps!


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## JohnT (Nov 21, 2013)

For the folks that remember Carl Sagan (Mr. "Billions and Billions"), here is the very first line he uttered in his groundbreaking TV series "Cosmos".. 

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” 

For the folks that like apple pie, here is his recipe. I did make this pie and it was great! I found that getting that first ingredient was a bit hard, so I just reused the universe that I already had. Making the pie got a lot easier at the next step.


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## jamesngalveston (Nov 21, 2013)

johnt , i loved the question,,,did not felt i wasted anytime, thanks..


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## Floandgary (Nov 21, 2013)

Just think,,,, if it weren't for WINE, This thread would be on some other forum (or likely it is!!). Whilst on the subject of billions and billions, I'm sure we are all trying to wrap our brain cells around the stats for the Comet ISON. Quite the event..


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## dangerdave (Nov 22, 2013)

I'm very much looking forward to Ison. I remember Hale-Bopp a few years back. We were camping in the mountains of WV during the peak viewing time, sitting around the campfire, just watching the comet.


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## JohnT (Nov 22, 2013)

dangerdave said:


> I'm very much looking forward to Ison. I remember Hale-Bopp a few years back. We were camping in the mountains of WV during the peak viewing time, sitting around the campfire, just watching the comet.


 

Wasn't hale-bopp in actuality the "heaven's gate mother ship"?


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## dangerdave (Nov 22, 2013)

The mother ship was supposed to have hidden behind the comet---or so goes the tale.

I've got the Comet Watch app for iPhone. Very cool!


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