Understanding Time...?

[Tarantism]

i once had someone tell me that, since time does not exist on an even plane, time sometimes speeds up and slows down. is there any validity to this statement??

[Tormod]

The statement is valid, but not necessarily true. According to relativity theory, time is relative to your position in space-time, or more specifically it is related to your "frame of motion".

There has been a lot of discussion about time here at Hypography.

[questor]

does time have mass, or does it just exist? if time has no mass, how would one know it bends ? if time just exists, why isn't it the same everywhere, how could there be reference
points? if time happened concomitant with the BB, then previous to BB, there was no time?

[infamous]

Originally Posted by Tormod

The statement is valid, but not necessarily true. According to relativity theory, time is relative to your position in space-time, or more specifically it is related to your "frame of motion".

There has been a lot of discussion about time here at Hypography.

Is it Time to have another discussion about Time? Actually; Just trying to generate a little humor there Tormod.

Now that the subject of time has been brought up again, a strange but rather unique thought just occured to me. As human beings, we place a great deal of import on the concept of time. But truly, if one thinks about it, time can only be defined as the passing from one event to another. Scientific experiment has proved that acceleration and gravity can influence the rate at which we pass from one event to the next reducing the concept of time to a variable medium. Science has also incorporated time into the definition for the fabric of space as space/time. Because time is such an abstract concept being variable where acceleration or gravity comes into play, is it really anything of substance? It is true that to figure velocity, 'rate of change in local frame', a measure of time is necessary. But when measuring accelerated bodies or mass associated with a strong gravitational field, this unit of time changes character.

This leads me to wonder: Is this abstraction we call time really well enough defined or are we still missing something very basic here? Because the passage through this medium we call time can be so manipulated by acceleration, gravity, and not to mention our own personal perception, it causes me to wonder if we are not seeing the forest for the trees? If science would prove a quantum value for time, then it would become less abstract. It would be interesting to perform an experiment to determine whether this quantum value for the passage of time also changes with acceleration. Just think what it would do to present theory if this quantum value, 'Plank time', for the passage of time didn't change when experiencing substantial acceleration.

The next time you ask someone if they have time and they say yes, ask them if they could show it to you, I've never had the pleasure to see, hear, touch, smell, or taste it myself. As for the title of this thread, 'Understanding Time', I think we have a long way to go to achieve this lofty goal.

[questor]

if time can be changed by acceleration or any other influence, it is not a dependable presence. can anyone offer a time experiment where this actually happened ,or is this just
theoretical math? if a theorem cannot be actually proved, why should it be accepted even tho' the math dictates the result ? i think some of the elegant math theories may prove to be false as ''time'' goes by. time is perfectly dependable on earth, why should it not be everywhere in the universe ?

[infamous]

Originally Posted by questor

if time can be changed by acceleration or any other influence, it is not a dependable presence. can anyone offer a time experiment where this actually happened ,or is this just
theoretical math? ?

Time dilation has actually been proven, I believe the first test was done on a airliner traveling between continents at an average speed of about 600 MPH. More recently, the space program has added to this verifiable evidence. Time slows down for the accelerating body.

[questor]

does it speed up for a relatively stationary body ?

[questor]

this would lead to variable time throughout the universe. how could we ever know what time it is ? gravity seems to be an absolute , but you're saying time is not ?

[infamous]

Originally Posted by questor

this would lead to variable time throughout the universe. how could we ever know what time it is ? gravity seems to be an absolute , but you're saying time is not ?

There is much we don't know about either; Time or Gravity. If we could understand these two characters better, we would find answers to many other physical mysteries.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by questor

can anyone offer a time experiment where this [time dilation] actually happened ,or is this just theoretical math?

One of the most well known, obvious confirmations or Relativity are the clocks on the Global Positioning System satellite constellation, which lose about 3.8*10^-5 seconds each day, a loss that cause their clocks to be about .25 seconds slow over the usual life of a satellite. This time dilation, which must be arithmetically corrected for by the system’s electronics, is predicted by relativity, and within the precision of satellite and ground clocks to measure.

Although experimental results supporting Relativity were obtained by a 1971 experiment involving precise clocks flown on commercial airliners, the rate of error and the necessity of discarding data from inaccurate clocks renders these confirmations suspect, more of a field test of then state-of-the-art atomic clocks than a rigorous Physics experiment.

Other, more dramatic time dilation evidence involves particles naturally or artificially traveling at high fractions of the speed of light, so are not as intuitive or satisfying as actually putting a precise clock on a fast-moving vehicle, and measuring the discrepancy between it an a precise stationary clock.

A concise, partial list of experimental confirmations of Relativity can be found in this wikipedia article.