Is time linear?

[Screens]

I believe that time moves forward in the direction entropy increases in. If entropy decreased with forward time, then broken cups would rearrange themselves without any outside intervention. Impossible, isn't it?

So yeah, time is linear to me.

 

[Sewblon]

We can only measure time in terms of toward the past and toward the future, so to us time is linear.

 

[Altorin]

I believe that we never WILL know how time functions, because the first person to figure it out will go BAT SHIT INSANE.

Einstein published General Relativity, which proposed exactly how time works in 1916. Scientists have known (or at least had a really good idea) how time works in the large world (some of the rules seem to fall apart in the atomic and subatomic level, but I digress) for 93 years.

I'd say get with the times, but that seems a little... silly considering how far out of the times you were

Okay, jackass, If you can explain WHY the rules break down at the sub-atomic level, I will agree with what you said, but since YOU ADMITTED that we don't know why EVERYTHING works that way in real life, you can just go fuck yourself, alright?

I was making a statement to the OPs suggestion, not to Einstein's physics, which on reading your other post, YOU don't seem to understand all that well either.

Einstein didn't propose time working differently at the subatomic level because the science of quantum mechanics wasn't really around when he developed his theory. It wasn't until later when quantum mechanics came into its stride that Einstein's math (which was almost perfect for explaining how time works in the real world, and in the universe as a whole) came under questioning.

The thing with quantum mechanics, is that everything is based on odds and percentages. In the real world, if you put an apple on a table, and come back in a day, the apple will be there if noone's touched it.

In the subatomic world, everything is so fucked up and crazy that that subatomic apple that you placed on your subatomic table, might be there, or it might be an orange, or it might not be there for 20 years, or it may have been there 20 years before you put it there. The odds of a single subatomic particle doing some totally fucked up shit like that is pretty high. The odds of ALL of the particles in an apple in your hand suddenly being orange particles, or just never having been there are slim to none.

Now that i've explained at least a high school understanding of this studies, maybe you should take a fucking seat and calm the fuck down.

 

[blobus]

At least it can be said that time is not constant and there have been many experiments to back up this theory. It is relative. Speed and gravitational field strength both have effects.

Time is not abstract, hence:

The official SI definition of the second is as follows:
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.

Therefore there are things that always keep the time so to speak.

Clocks display time passing and the time relative to when you last looked at what time it was. It is as much a measurable quantity as mass, volume, velocity (which just so happens to be dependant on time), distance, heat (which could be viewed as a measurement of speed) ect. There are many measurements which are not absolute.

 

[stompy]

"Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you: they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm."

... Sorry, it had to be done.

 

[Zacharine]

We can only measure time in terms of toward the past and toward the future, so to us time is linear.

But it might be possible to bend and twist space so that if you follow a linar path of space-time that bends just right, you end up exactly where you started, before you left.

 

[Jimmydanger]

Time is defined by change. This is why when some scientist when talking about the big bang theorize that time started when the big bang occurred since their was no change before it.

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 cesium 133 atom. -Wikipedia

If you accept this definition of time then you can if fact "see" time and define it. This also shows time to be linear (I'm not sure how it couldn't be.} one event happens and then another, change after change. The only option I could think of that would not be strictly linear that works with our observable universe would be circular time, meaning our universe would start at a big bang, end with a big crunch then start over the beginning.

Also with this definition time is not a human concept and will always exist as long as change exists.

edit: Biobus beat me on some of that

 

[fulano]

Ok, physics coming through.

Time is a way to measure intervals, right? Nope. Not just that, exactly.

Do we know what that is? We know how to properly define it depending on the context we are using it.

Is it linear? It depends on the context. In classic physics, for example, it is linear.

But in relativity things aren't as clear cut. Solvoing Einstein's ecuations using a specific metric one can find that, yeah, time is linear, but if you use another metric, the solutions wind up being closed space-time curves where time is, well, not linear but rather can be cyclic(yes, people timewarps) and one needs a finite amount of energy to open them.

So far we can say that time is linear, but who knows, maybe someone one day can gather enough energy so as to conduct experiments and see if time can be made to be not linear(hey, there's mathematical solutions!).

So there you have it.

Coincidentally, I was having this exact conversation with my dad who is a physicist as he was reading a book on Kurt Godel who came up with a set of solution for Einstein's ecuations, and since he actually was the one who taught the Modern Physics course where my group saw something like that(Einstein's ecuations), he came brought up the conversation.

So, yeah, if you want an actual answer from a theoretical physicist just make a list and I'll ask my old man. He's a pretty swell guy and I'm sure he'd take the time to answer them. This is me just putting it out there if anyone's interested.

As Angela Wright would put it: "peace out, dogs!."

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Time is an abstract concept (as it can't be measured) based on an abstract concept (as it only makes sense in relation to itself).

Given we can't even accurately measure one dimension, given that it already has a velocity, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

So Time could be chocolate shaped and we wouldn't know. Which would explain a lot.

The official SI definition of the second is as follows:
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.

Therefore there are things that always keep the time so to speak.

Unfortunately, we can't measure that to a degree of accuracy any better than the pulsing of quartz. And even if we did, what does it mean to someone a lightsecond away?

 

[Lord Krunk]

Time is not exactly linear, it's more like a ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey... stuff.

 

[crudus]

Time was invented by man to explain cause to effect of an event (i.e. how long it took, when it happen) to unify people. It's the passage of time that is real and curve but appears linear. It's like how if you tried to look along the Earth's path around the sun from where you are it will look like a straight line because it's so damn big (you also see this watching videos about the LHC when they are in the main ring).

A great big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey? stuff.

i was hoping i would get to say that >.>

I'm trying to remember what the area is called. No matter.

I think you are looking for our "third eye" a.k.a. the pineal gland

 

[fuzzball]

I know how time works, but its a secret Ninja Lolcats will kill me if i tellz u

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

All you're doing is dividing up this something into successively smaller intervals.
In fact that's a major area of contention in quantum research : Does the notion of time have any meaning or is it merely the concept of the interval that has relevance ?

Well that is pretty much why the concept of time was created to measure the relevance of events. That and so you know when the hell to plant crops and such. I'll tell you one thing that really bugs me, that is do we experience our lives as a mere recollection of memory or do we actually live in the same time that we are experiencing?

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

Time is not exactly linear, it's more like a ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey... stuff.

Digital awsomeness.

 

[ReZerO]

well one thing to keep in mind is that time varies depending on the speed you're going, i remember reading once that the had two atomic clocks set to count at the exact same speed, and flew one around the world on a concord, the one that flew around the world came back having counted a differant time than the stationary one.

 

[elricik]

All you're doing is dividing up this something into successively smaller intervals.
In fact that's a major area of contention in quantum research : Does the notion of time have any meaning or is it merely the concept of the interval that has relevance ?

Well that is pretty much why the concept of time was created to measure the relevance of events. That and so you know when the hell to plant crops and such. I'll tell you one thing that really bugs me, that is do we experience our lives as a mere recollection of memory or do we actually live in the same time that we are experiencing?

Now I feel like reading Watchmen again since theres a whole chapter about that when Doctor Manhattan leaves Earth.

Anyway my main gripe with time, is that we have no way of keeping it consistent if we were to leave our planet. For instance, if you were to live on Pluto, a foot would still be a foot, and a liter would still be a liter. But we base practical time (clocks) one the Earth's rotation. So if you brought a watch you might as well destroy it, it has no value since the time on Earth is different then on Pluto. We don't age differently on Pluto even though there would be a change in the time period based on our practical laws of time on Earth. If we are truly always living in the past, as in right now, the words I am typing right now are in the past, and as I read them I am merely recalling the memory of writing them, then that would mean that time is linear. The future will always be the past as it happens, that means that there is no "present" their is only what has happened, and what is about to happen.

 

[crudus]

well one thing to keep in mind is that time varies depending on the speed you're going, i remember reading once that the had two atomic clocks set to count at the exact same speed, and flew one around the world on a concord, the one that flew around the world came back having counted a differant time than the stationary one.

This test is flawed. Everyclock measures time differently; the clocks would have gotten off from each other if we let them sit next to each other long enough. The flow of time is also affected by gravity which also would have affected the clock in the plane; I assume they accounted for this though since this has been known longer than velocity.

 

[XJ-0461]

My brain hurts. But I think it appears linear to us, whether or not it is, because our brains can only comprehend it in that way.