What is time?

[dad2bkmj]

time is a diminsion. which we are confined to only the forword moving half of a time line. which will end in death. i can walk home but thats it, once its done thats it, i cant get the time back.

[Doctordick]

Well, we still seem to be having posting problems with the server. According to the cover info, "dad2bkmj" made a post here at 10:38 last night; however, if one looks at the thread, it appears that I am the last one to post. I suspect that flaw is also failing to send notification that "new posts" have been made meaning that the fact that I have answered "Pyrotex" isn't known so I will go ahead and post my next thought experiment.

Ok, let's proceed to the next level of this unique "science fiction story". The fellow with the time travel machine, having entertained us with its strange behavior, brings us some toys common in his culture which are based on that same mechanism. They are called "time balls" and built into every time ball is a time machine identical to the one he had. However, the time machines in the time balls have no adjustment stem. Instead, they contain devices which detect the average position of everything in its environment and uses this to estimate any change in its position in that environment. So long as it is sitting at rest in its environment, the time machine is off and the ball appears to be a normal ball. But, if the ball is moved, the time machine is activated and the ball moves one second into the future for every one foot it has been moved. That is, if its center of mass is moved a thousandth of an inch, the ball will move one twelfth of one thousandth of a second into the future.

Now these "time ball" only work for a limited length of time (a few years) so they had a clock face on them which displayed how long they had actually been in existence (so you would know when they were going to "wear out"). After all, as they had the power to go into the future, it was somewhat difficult to keep track of their actual age.

So we have several of these ball in our laboratory. We can perform various tests with them to see how they act. (We can't open them because to do so without understanding the technology is extremely dangerous (I am told they explode like nuclear bombs if their insides are exposed ). Anyway, all we can do is move them around and read their "actual age". Can anyone here figure out how they appear to act? Why would a kid like to play with one?

Pyrotex, you're pretty good, tell me how they seem to act if you play catch with one.

Have fun – Dick

"The simplest and most necessary truths are the very last to be believed."
by Anonymous

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Well, I will agree with you up to here but from then on, I don't think you have thought it out so well. ...But before we conclude that description, we need to look at mass energy effects.
False! The time passage for the traveler must be identical to the length of time he thinks it took to turn the stem. :naughty...
Does anyone out there argue with my comments? ...

Well, duh! I argue with your comments. My model was based on different assumptions than you state above. I assumed the user moves the watch hand and then "triggers" the time machine. He ceases to exist instanteously at that instant and re-exists at the 5-minute mark (or however many he dialed).

But in the meantime, mass and energy must be allowed to conserve. The minimum solution (there are others yielding gigatons of explosive energy and then absorbing gigatons of ambient energy) is simply that his instantaneous passage through time carves out a "shell" of his bodily passage. This shell would behave much like a perfect force field.

If you are going to add more requirements, more assumptions, more constraints, then of course, the problem changes and another solution is needed.

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

...Pyrotex, you're pretty good, tell me how they seem to act if you play catch with one.

hhmmmm... tomorrow...

[Doctordick]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

Well, duh! I argue with your comments. My model was based on different assumptions than you state above. I assumed the user moves the watch hand and then "triggers" the time machine.

The assumption was not only unnecessary but wrong!

Originally Posted by Doctordick

When the stem is turned, the wearer (and the wearer only) is transported to the new time indicated on the device.

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

But in the meantime, mass and energy must be allowed to conserve.

That is an assumption as there is no information as to how the machine works; it may consume energy from some energy source inside the device or the effect could be exothermic and produce energy in operation. At the moment we are ignorant of such things; we only know what it does. Which I described very carefully in the post.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

... his instantaneous passage through time ...

Instantaneous is usually presumed there; that is why I specified that the change is tied exactly to the position of the hands on the display (what the stem was moving). But I am proud of you for realizing that the common perception (that he simply disappears) is physically illogical.

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

If you are going to add more requirements, more assumptions, more constraints, then of course, the problem changes and another solution is needed.

It seems to me that the requirement that the time position of the wearer is exactly the reading on the device is sufficient to require each and every conclusion I put forth. If I am wrong in that, please point it out and explain to me what my error is.

Have fun – Dick

"The simplest and most necessary truths are the very last to be believed."
by Anonymous

[dad2bkmj]

any one else getting 4 e-mails for the same new post

[UV-gap]

Originally Posted by Khan N. Singh

i don't think i'm understanding what you mean about light and time. could you elaborate a little? light (made up of photons) does take time to travel. but i guess that's not what you mean. i thought relativity said time would appear to 'slow down', not stop altogether at light speeds relative to everything else.

Light travels and yet it has no time to travel. (light can travel for billions of years and never lose time, not even a millisecond)

Don't worry ... physicists don't understand it either. If they did then physics would be dead. The absolute is that "Light has no time" And if light has no time then we cannot have time because it is just a thought like light, and distance, space, travel.

The other absolute that physics gives us is the quantum-gap. Focus on the quantum-gap and the particles become just thoughts.
Focus on the particles and physics becomes a wild-goose-chase of one impossibility creating/chasing others.

[ughaibu]

"As the stem is turned" would've been clearer.

[Doctordick]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

"As the stem is turned" would've been clearer.

Ok, I'll go along with that!

Have fun -- Dick

"The simplest and most necessary truths are the very last to be believed."
by Anonymous

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

The assumption was not only unnecessary but wrong! That is an assumption as there is no information as to how the machine works; it may consume energy from some energy source inside the device or the effect could be exothermic and produce energy in operation. At the moment we are ignorant of such things; ...

Gosh, Dick, but I don't think that disagreeing with or misunderstanding you is in violation of any Cosmic Law! Let's just say I was mistaken in my interpretation and leave it at that.

Okay, the traveler advances faster AS the dial is turned. Let's define the start of dialing as Ts and the final stopping point of dialing as time Tf.

To my eyes the Duration between Ts and Tf are Do = (Tf-Ts) seconds apart. To the traveler, it depends on how fast he turned the dial, say it took him a duration of Dt seconds. We are assured that Dt < Do.

The traveler could be a time ball, so I may switch contexts. However, what do I see? I see the traveler (ball) but any movement of the traveler is slowed down by the ratio of Dt / Do. During that period, say the traveler jumped upwards. During my Do seconds, he experiences gravity only for Dt < Do seconds, therefore his upward velocity will be reduced (as seen by me) by deltaVt = g*Dt, which is less than the deltaVo = g*Do I would expect for an ordinary body. Similar argument for the time balls.

To my observation, people or balls in "time-translation" will bounce higher and take longer to come down. A time ball hit hard (fast) enough will fly almost a linear ballistic path, and might escape from Earth entirely.

A small problem exists in your definition of slaving "time-translation" speed to the distance traveled by a time-ball. It would be better to slave it to velocity or even accelleration; makes the math a LOT easier.

So. How close did I get?