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Is time an illusion?

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Plato argued that time is constant - it’s life that’s the illusion. Galileo shrugged over the philosophy of time and figured out how to plot it on a graph so he could get on with the important physics. Albert Einstein said that time is just another dimension, a fourth one to go along with the up-down, side-side, forward-back we move through every day. Our understanding of time, Einstein said, is based on its relationship to our environment. Weirdly, the faster you travel, the slower time moves. The most radical interpretation of his theory: Past, present, and future are merely figments of our imagination, constructs built by our brains so that everything doesn’t seem to happen at once.

Einstein’s conception of unified spacetime works better on graph paper than in the real world. Time isn’t like those other dimensions - for one thing, we move only one way within it. “What’s needed is not to make the notion of time and general relativity work or to go back to the notion of absolute time, but to invent something radically new,” says Lee Smolin, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario.

Others, including famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, note that time is defined by entropy. That is, the universe, in its current expanding direction, is becoming more and more disordered- entropy is increasing and always has been since the inception of the universe, as is time. Thus, time can represented as a measure of entropy in the universe.

Somebody is going to get it right eventually. It’ll just take time.

Erin Biba, San Francisco-based writer

Return to Big Questions: http://www.wired.com/42

Of course, as long as it is not just an illusion, you may go on to ask Is time travel possible?

I don't know if time's an illusion or not - it seems pretty real to me. :-)

Anyway, I have wondered about a related problem: the illusion of time's arrow. If I understand it correctly, the problem is that, why do we perceive a direction of the flow of time if, in all the equations, time always appears raised to an even integral power, so it doesn't matter if it's negative or positive.

However, maybe there's a way out in the origin of mass. I was reading a popular science book (I don't remember which, it was years ago), and the author was discussing Mach's principle. It kind of troubled me a bit, because it pretty much said that mass was the effect of the accumulated gravity of everything in the universe. But, if the universe is pretty much the same everywhere, then the total gravity in one direction is the same as in the opposite direction, and all those vectors would cancel out. At that point I though, what if it's not all the gravity in space, but all the gravity in space-time? If you could express that mathematically, I bet you'd get t**x where x is not an even integer. QED (I hope).

contributed by Guest User on Jan 23 10:07pm

If you flash two lights one after the other, and if both lights are close enough, you will not see two independent events, but a continuous movement from the first position to the second. That's the basic principle of cinema and TV. The funny thing starts when you pick two lights with different colors, let say a red one and then a green one. In addition to the continuous movement you will see a continuous blend from red (at t0) to green (at t1), passing through yellow (at t0.5). This will be different if you have, for example, a blue light instead of the green one. You will see red at t0, magenta at t0.5 and then blue at the end. BUT WAIT!! How can you see yellow at t0.5 in the first case if you haven't see the green yet! This is the future (t1) affecting the past (t0.5)!!. What about cause and effect! Is the effect preceding the cause?

This time and this causality is the one that we have, built in our bodies by massive reciprocal connections between neurones (at least 75% of the input to the cerebral cortex comes from the cerebral cortex itself). The unidirectional time in the equations of physics is constructed from the original, circular time. Francisco Varela (a Chilean-French neurobiologist) called this the "specious time"

Roberto, Nottingham-UK-based guy

Lets first ask the question: does the universe need time for its existence. We humans have a notion of time. But does the universe? JMK

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 3:43am

When you look at your watch just before a TIME BASED event, do you ask yourself, does time really exist? Not in the least. Time is a construct. Created by mankind to assert ourselves over the other dimensions. We have freed ourself from the laws of physics and created a new prison, time. Even if you threw away all time tracking devices right now, It really wouldn't stop this time contuem. As a civilation we now subscibe to the construct and within a short time machines would be in place to track this man made event. After all, Without time, all you are really left with are cycles; The only organic form of anything even resembling TIME!

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 6:00am

Hmmmm - I need a bit of time to think about this one.....

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 8:26am

Time is an illusion.

Lets say a person is 49 going on 50 years old. In no time at all the wedding anniversary, the vacation, football season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a birthday, come and go again in what seems like no time at all.

Now, think of a child of 4 going on 5 years old. The child is in school for the first time. Everything is new. The child is learning numbers, letters, how to interact with peers, teachers etc. The first hour seems like a day, the first day seems like a week, and the first week seems like its going to last forever.

This phenomena is what I call the “Esker Effect”*. When a person is 50 years old and goes through all the experiences during a year, there are not to many things that happen that are new and unique. In fact a year is only equal to 2% of that persons entire life to that point. All future years become a smaller percentage of the life experience. However when when a person is five, almost everything is still new and a year is 20% of that persons life at that point.

So at 50 years of age, a year is equal to 2% of a life, and time flies; but at 5 years of age, the same year is equal to 20% of a life, and time drags.

*Chuck Esker proposed this theory over 20 years ago when I asked him why it seemed that time was going so much faster as we aged.

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 8:27am

So if you constantly do new things, you can in effect slow time? I like it.

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 9:15am

if you ever get the opportunity, use DMT (dimethyltryptamine). you will see far beyond the illusion of time and realize many things that cannot be expained.

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 9:57am

if time is an illusion, than motion must be too. before walking a mile, you have to go .5 miles. before that, .25 miles. before that, .125 miles (and so on). knowing there are an infinite number of steps -- even between .000000001 and .000000002 miles -- it has to take 'forever' to move even a fraction of an inch.

i wonder if beer is an illusion?

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 11:09am

Lets first ask the question: does the universe need time for its existance. ... JMK

Without time, the universe would/could not exist nor anything else for that matter.

contributed by sander@addresshidden on Jan 24 12:58pm
well, than time is something fysical isnt it? but than again, where is it? JMK

Zeno's paradoxes are raised above. In brief theses paradoxes (if they can really be called that) can be resolved in couple of different ways. One is the standard methods from infinitesimal calculus of summing of infinite geometric series. The series of 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + ... + 1/n^2 has a finite sum.

Of course time as an illusion is nothing new. Various philosophers have been dealing with this for ages. See the multi-page dense entry on causal processes at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Remember that time, unlike other things such as mass or gravity, is strictly a human interpretation of the things we observe. It is a convenient tool that lets us talk about causality (but see Humme's Problem of Induction) but in and of itself doesn't seem to be particularly neccessary to the physical processes.

To respond to another person who is asking about the possibiltiy of the universe existing with lack of time, i see it as a possibility. After all universe can be a 4 dimensinal solide with us seeing just 3-d slices of it. However, it can be completely static without relying on anything actually changing.

than the question would be: does the universe need "time" for its changing processes ? we consider the changing processes as time, eg. the burning of a candle in x hours JMK

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 1:21pm

or, an other question: if time is fysical, is there an time "atom"; the undivideble time element? JMK

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 1:28pm

Time is an invention of convenience. Kind of like x^^0 = 1 .

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 1:44pm

Time is real. They proved it by sending a clock up into orbit, that was synched with a clock on earth. when the clock that had been traveling realy fast in orbit came back, it was off by the tiniest of amounts. time was slower inside the rocket relative to time outside the rocket.

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 5:10pm

It's a tautological question. Time is what's measured by a clock, just as intelligence is what's measured by an IQ test.

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 6:42pm

Time is real, like a physical dimension. The flow of time is an illusion. Human sentience requires this illusion to give us the illusion of free will. This is necessary for survival. Like our illusory sense of self, it gives us the will to live.

So the universe is like a set 4-dimensional object. Cause and effect are like physical links in the 4th dimension.

~~Eric

Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so. ---Douglas Adams

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 7:15pm

The cycle of time, mater, energy.

"Weirdly, the faster you travel, the slower time moves."

So the mater at the center of a black hole is aging at an infinite rate and so is Bose-Einstein condensate !!!

Observations that I have made:

1. The Quantum world is not soo counter intuitive if you realize that it is constantly saturated with energy.

2. The marco world is scarce of energy.

3. The Bose-Einstein condensate, BEC, can only exist were there is no light. If there was light the BEC would absorb the light to become quantum material -- Elements.

4. Quantum mater absorbs light to create the quantum world. The saturation of energy within the quantum world forms a grid, this why atoms are so far apart and objects have solid boundaries. This grid can NOT become over saturated, or if it can the energy probably leaks into other universes.

5. The change of light from macro-world light to quantum world energy creates gravity. Light collides with quantum mater, its absorbed, and those two spooky particles move away at right angles to the direction of light, that probably is what creates a small tug of gravity, like a quantum implosion, a string of the same location in space being stretched perpendicular to the direction of light/macro energy to create a substrate that has dimensionality.

The way to create true anti-gravity is to generate your own gravity by creating more BEC in a small location and allowing it to leak out and absorb light at a regular rate -- localized gravity. The direction of light will determine the direction of the localized gravity. Its probably easier and cheaper just to charge things up with high voltages and use the Earths electrical charges to make things float.

6. Quantum mater, BEC, mater with maximal entropy gains the unique ability to absorb light so that it combines with energy, what is this threshold ?

7. Thus, there is no such thing as time, instead it should be thought of as the cycle of mater and energy from light to total entropy to highly energized quantum materials which all together form the macro world, mater is constantly increasing, shifting from dark mater, BEC, to quantum materials so the universe expands, but the real edge of the universe is light traveling at the outer edges.

So the new questions are:

What is BEC, is it constant in the universe or is a new spec of the material created each time light collides with an existing spec of BEC ?

Exactly much light does it take for a BEC to become quantum material ?

How does oxidation really create light and are there small temporal and gravitational effects from this transition that we have not noticed ?

At the center of a nuclear explosion is energy dissipated more rapidly then it normally should be ? If it is then the grid of energy that I hypothesized has been breached and energy is leaking out into some other place then here. If this does occur then suns maybe portals to other dimensions.

Thus, if we can extract information for ordinary light coming from the Sun some it would be images and information of other universes in other dimensions.

Robert Mehlschau -- 1/24/07

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 10:10pm

Oh, I forgot an important question:

Does the size of the grid in the quantum world correspond with the width of photons and what are it limits, is it constant or does in fluctuate ?

Is the grid free to energy breaches or are ripples in time created, certainly ripples in time are created, what is the nature of those ripples -- traveling backwards in time just a bit I bet !!!

Robert Mehlschau -- 1/24/07 #2

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 10:23pm

Oh ya, and one basic important point I forgot is that the quantum materials must keep on absorbing more light on a regular basis, so how often does that happen, certainly it does happen otherwise observation == adding energy would not change the location of quantum materials.

So mater is probably not created when this happens but gravitational pull would be recharged of course. Does the reabsorption of light recharge the string and reconnect the two ends of the string to make them both the same again or does it create a new strings with the same vortex ? Vortexes are probably more important then strings themselves.

Do strings repel each other to create the large spaces seen within the grid/quantum world ?

Robert Mehlschau -- 1/24/07 #3

contributed by Guest User on Jan 24 10:38pm

Mr. Mehlschau, I've got to say, those are some of the most intruiging comments I've read on this site. Smart, thought-provoking, and intelligent. Are you a professor in this field by any chance?

contributed by Guest User on Jan 25 6:00am

Thanks !

No, I am a software tester for 20 years, I have learned how to think in ways that allows the seemingly unquantifiable to be quantified.

And I have a strong general background in science and have done many things through the years to expand my imagination and think horizontally, invent, invent, invent !!!

Robert Mehlschau -- 1/25/07 #4

contributed by Guest User on Jan 25 12:52pm

For example, if you have facts like "Things that travel the speed of light don't age.", "Electrons travel at a mostly constant rate in the quantum world and never seen to tire or age." and you know its true but don't know what to make of it and it is untestable.

Try the converse, "Things that are very difficult to move or don't move and have very low energy also age very rapidly." and see where it gets you.

Most of the time when you do this, if it makes sense then you can start testing again !!!

My people that claim to be very logical are NOT, simply because they insist that logic is only Boolean logic, they fail recognize that if A is true and C is true, and it is true that A+B=C, then B must also be true -- THINK YOU VERY MUCH Mr. Spock !

Live long and exercise your two middle fingers _\\//

Robert Mehlschau -- 1/25/07 #5

_contributed by mac_yoda@addresshidden on Jan 25 2:36pm _

Think about in a very straight forward way, its not complicated.

What is the Bose-Einstein condensate ?

It is simply fundamental mater, where entropy is maximized, it has no energy it is as old as old can be.

This mater has no energy so what happens to, it breaks up and falls apart.

Eventually it becomes small enough that it will combine with light when light strikes it.

And this is the reaction where all the power is, where all new things can be learned.

It creates shock-waves, that is probably gravity, a weak force because it is just shock-waves that are occurring on a regular basis, like a pulse that sucks every time light is absorbed.

So these tiny particles are hit by light and combine with it to make an electron, very similar to light, with all the characteristics of the strong force electromagnetic properties.

Then one or a few electrons have a strong magnetic force so they begin to spin around BEC nearby and that charges it changes it a little and it becomes an atomic nucleus.

Now these bodies have become electromagnetic-ally charged and are connected by the strong force, and the building like this continues until macro world scale objects are created.

Now an important thing to realize here is what creates the quantum world is the small size of these particles, anything that lives in the quantum world must be small enough to absorb and combine with light or perhaps there are rules about what sizes of particles of BEC electrons can orbit, in which case atom nucleuses would be intern to light but not electromagnetism.

These particles constantly and regularly absorb light and that fact is such a constant that it has not been observed in a substantial way. The electromagnetic connections created once a abundant light source hits these particles keeps the energy flowing and everything charged even deep down inside the Earth far away from light.

The strong force becomes saturated very easily in the quantum world and is so strong there are large empty spaces or a matrix created as it repels and attracts itself. And when light combines with a BEC and sends out two apparent particles, these particles might simply be persistent shock waves, perpendicular to each other I think is it likely that this string forms a space where more energy can exist and move without resistance.

Now is there a grid or matrix that makes up space and allows these particles to be very far apart and still joined by their electromagnetic properties, it seems that way to me, but the matrix might actually not be needed.

This appears to be a grand unification theory, GUT.

Why didn't Einstein figure this out ???

Well, he didn't like Quantum Physics very much so when he pursued the GUT he probably thought he had to first reinvent quantum mechanics.

Also, they had not yet observed BEC.

And it was ALL so new then, it was just too big of a leap.

_contributed by mac_yoda@addresshidden on Jan 26 3:29pm _

By the way the things I did to, "expand my imagination", was NOT drugs, THE IDEA THAT DRUGS INCREASE IMAGINATION IS A BIG LIE !!!

If taking drugs created great art we would all be surrounded by great art, but alas we are NOT.

Effective imagination comes from having a good memory which comes from practice, it also comes from not suppressing day dreaming, working hard to mentally visualize ideas that are too hard to visualize, never backing down from problems with high complexity, the burden of choosing focus over awareness is often required, practicing physical exercise because it imparts discipline and it eliminates depression.

Depression leads most people to a kind of endemic negative thinking which kills problem solving and causes twisted thinking similar to what drugs create.

Avoiding alcohol and drugs is also very important because they kill memory and well a developed memory is absolutely required for critical thinking.

Getting lots of sleep builds memory and dreaming is the land of creation.

And above ALL, ALL highly intelligent people are fearless -- intelligence is its own reward !!!

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Jan 27 11:04am _

I tripped over this experiment from a link at Cliff Pickover's RealityCarnival that provides an interesting, and personal, demonstration of time's relativity. I have yet to see an adequate explanation for its effect. The comments I tracked down on it about optical illusion, saccades, etc. were pretty superficial and didn't really describe the experience of the experiment.

contributed by Nathan Crow on Jan 27 2:17pm

Sorry to give you an adequate explanation, but I just went to my mail to reload the page because mail is a BIG LOAD and the second hand was jumping ALL OVER THE PLACE sometimes pausing and starting from where it left off and other times stopping and then jumping when it started again.

THAT clock is just very sensitive to your web connection and browser's processing !

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Jan 27 9:35pm _

Well, on mine it runs flawlessly, until I intend to stop it. And I tried the same technique on a wall clock, as the site suggested, with the same bizarre results(!)

contributed by Nathan Crow on Jan 27 10:57pm

We have so many metaphorical concepts of time, we're in danger of losing track of when we're speaking metaphorically or not. For me, my direct experience of time comes as either experience of motion, or experience of thought. All other concepts, like "moving through" time, giving time "direction" or "dimension" are metaphors for these basic experiences. Does anyone else experience time directly in a different way? Is everyone but me confident that they are aware which of their concepts of time are metaphorical?

contributed by Dylan Kuhn on Jan 28 7:51am

Hi Dylan,

From an experiential point of view, it seems the only actual time we ever directly experience is the "present." Experiencing time in movement appears to be really experiencing through the encoding of memory. "I'm here now, I remember being there before, I remember incremental points between." Experiencing it in thought (for example, thinking about what we are going to do tomorrow) is imagining these intervals but it is still experiencing it in the now. There seems to be some curious ways we encode time information. How do we know a memory comes from something that happened long ago versus something that happened yesterday? I'm sure most people don't rewind the tape and judge this difference by how long it takes to skip through the intervening memories; there seems to be a "time-coding" going on. For many, when they look very closely at their experience, it's coded spatially. Things from my distance past may feel like they are on a line, perhaps stretching behind me, with events that happened more recently being closer to me. The future may extend out in front of me. I think metaphoric coding (or at least phenomenological markers) are intrinsic into how we "store" and "fabricate" events in the context of time. But how we experience the duration of the present moment and what factors extend and contract this experience are pretty fascinating. I have some thoughts on this, but it's taking things on a tangent from your excellent observations.

contributed by Nathan Crow on Jan 28 12:57pm

One of the problems with metaphysical physics generally speaking is that while there have been many movies made about all the empty space in inner-space and expected or presumed mind over mater potentials the required link, mind control of quantum materials has NEVER been observed, even while measurements have been made endlessly.

This is a very GOOD argument for proof of GOD, as if our minds can't control this mind controllable world there must some other superior mind controlling things -- BUT THAT IS AN ARGUMENT FOR ANOTHER DAY !

There are no known links between the quantum world and macro world other then things in the quantum world being moved by the macro world or common chemical reactions initiated in the macro world by conventional macro means.

That is accept for one recent case ...

There is one recently well documented experiment, two articles that I know of in Nature, where as micro-machinery still in the macro world not quite small enough to approached quantum sizes as these machines downsized into the quantum world it was found that they often ran in reverse for MUCH longer periods of time then expected, that is entropy ran in reverse for LONG periods of time.

This would break the machinery.

There was fear that because of this micro-machinery would not work.

But it became an irrelevant concern because as micro-machines got much smaller the reverse action went away, and because of that as far as I know the scientists doing this work stopped worrying about that problem or working on it.

This could mean several things.

First, most scientists would say experimental error, and say much more testing was needed to prove the effect.

I would say, now I can see why photosynthesis is so successfully at producing energy because if you ever saw that monocle you would see that it is relatively huge, and a huge tuning fork that bounces back and forth, with an ATP generator tied to one end.

I would also say THIS IS WHERE THE FREE ENERGY IS and this is why we have not, NOT AT ALL, found free energy, we were looking in the wrong place ever smaller and smaller !!!

But there are these micro-circuits being worked on, attempts to invent, by some of the top groups in academia the single photon transistor, and the single electron transistor, now if you read between the lines in their papers I think these guys are suggesting that once they get it working these circuits will not require any juice to run only to switch, and they will ultimately lead to very efficient solar cells because they will run off free electrons or photons that are very common in nature.

This is NOT free energy but it will seem like it because it will get energy from heat and not need a massive cold side like all current solutions that seem to cheat nature.

By the way any time someone tells you free energy is NONSENSE ask them what a solar cell is ?

By ALL measures solar cells defy conventional physics, they don't have a cold side, direct conversion of energy, technically this not free energy but by ALL measures that free energy people use to define free energy, and they are all general measures, IT IS !!!

And this is why I expect MY very intuitive and simple solution to quantum confusion, it is an energy rich environment where mater has become so small that it has become reactive with light, and combines with light, and as it combines there are unusually effects not understood like gravity. The combination creates particles with the characteristics of light and mater and stops mater from getting any smaller.

This recently observed flow of energy in and out of the macro to micro transition shows that there is a free energy flow between the two, demonstrating that the micro world is energy saturated, and at this transition is where ALL unknown things are explained.

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Jan 29 3:00pm _

I think Brownian motion is the second hand of nature, the clock ticking ...

What is the mechanism of Brownian motion ? When we are taught about it we are simply told that if you add heat to a gas then the monocles bounce against each other faster and harder. The heat is absorbed by the solid elements in the gas. And this idea convinces us because it is a metaphor to boiling liquids which we can visualize. They really say why they bounce fast, does the heat make the solids harder, does it effect the orbits of the electrons, they don't say, they do say the heat makes things move faster. This method of teaching teaches us to be flaky and unscientific because it is a metaphor and NOT a mechanism -- DO THE SCIENTISTS KNOW THE MECHANISM, PROBABLY NOT !

Here is my proposal for the mechanism:

1. An excess of light shines on monocles resulting in an increase of energy as heat.

2. The electrons in the monocles increase in speed because they are reactive to light, the increase in light actually causes light to combine with the electrons more rapidly.

3. The increase in speed of the electrons creates a stronger magnetic attraction and repulsion, the strong force, an electromagnetic force increase. Scientists don't want to commit to this they like to think of this force as static and exactly the amount stated on the Periodical chart, I am saying that it varies within a range around the average stated on the periodical chart.

4. So additional light is absorbed, I don't believe current science takes much about absorbed light it something they sometimes refer to but dance around.

The increase and decrease in the speed of electron spin occurs in nature within a fairly narrow range on Earth and so the flow of energy into the quantum is relatively easily saturated and this is why electrons create new orbital shapes so readily they do not like to occupy the same space.

5. But there is unusual action within the strong force, while circling electrons at the macro and micro level have a strong attraction for each other, electromagnetism when they get very close together they repel each other and this is part of what I refer to as the grid or matrix.

When light combines with mater it gains the characteristics of both, so the repulsion occurs at the level of the wave length of light, waves of light do not like to occupy the same space so this why lasers have lamar flow of light, rather then a plasma, and are resistant to becoming very hot.

This is also why multiple electrons create complex orbital shapes. Additional electrons are attracted until they get close but not too close, ( Somewhere around the size of a wave length of light but probably smaller and electrons have tiny bit of highly energized mater influencing the light so it would smaller then a wavelength maybe 3/4s to 1/4.), to close and they repel and create complex orbitals. Waves of energy do not want to occupy that same space they spread out like water when they contact each other, but they are only as wide as a wave length of light at the most electromagnetism attracts until they get that close.

The larger the orbit around the nucleus the more room there is for additional electrons.

THE SPEED OF THE ELECTRONS VARIES and this is why measurement always moves the electron to unexpected places, measurement requires that energy be added or subtracted, these particles are reactive to energy/light and readily absorb it and conduct to other mater in the quantum so nothing is predictable, it is not counter intuitive at all, it is easy to understand if you give up the idea that mater is solid and inert and realize that the quantum is mostly energy with only a tiny bit of mater spread very thinly and HIGHLY energized, like a ship that is mostly fuel or pure energy and can travel near the speed of light.

So Brownian motion is the second hand of natures clock ticking as entropy runs out, but it may never run out completely because once it has all run out for a bit of mater it becomes BEC, and if the BEC gets hit by light it becomes active mater again which can burn again.

So the clock is a cycle of nature, similar to other cycles of nature.

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Jan 30 12:48pm _

Oxidation Creates an Unnoticed Antigravity Force ...

I propose that when light combines with mater is gives of shock-waves that create gravity.

On large bodies like the Earth the force is directional with a net downward pull because light is falling down around and towards the Earth as it is absorbed, think of the Earth as a large body that is absorbing light all around.

So when mater is oxidized rapidly it burns and gives off light, this must also create gravity, the weak force.

Absorbing and oxidizing light would create positive and negative polarity of gravity similar to electromagnetism.

When burning in a fire it is not directional, it is scattered but mostly up away from the Earth so it joins the electromagnetic ionic and convection heat forces that are going in the same direction up from and within a fire.

When a rocket burns gasses that give off light there is an anti-gravitational force being generated, the weak force, as well as the electromagnetic ionic and convection heat forces which are being pushed away from the Earth which pushes the rocket up.

Using fuels in rockets that tend to created more light will give slightly more then calculations would predict.

This is why the calculations for the locations of the Voyager satellites were incorrect ?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Jan 30 1:14pm _

If we are going to think about time, shouldn't we first ask ourselves "are thoughts real?". And if you think they are ;-) then what is your next thought? And why are we not thinking happy thoughts all day long?

Hmmmm, let's hear what you have to say

Pierre - Dutch based guy

contributed by Pierre Maas on Feb 2 4:50am

It doesn't matter - the question is moot. What DOES matter is whether we can create models (mathematical, philosophical, perceptive, whatever) accurate enough to predict events that we can observe. Speculation on the "true nature" of things is interesting and fun, but unknowable.

contributed by Jeff M on Feb 2 6:23am

I have a interesting thought that is related to dying (apotosis)... time is constant, however, one's perception of time is related to how fast you are dying, be it the cell or the organism.

When we are young and developing time seems like it goes soooo slow... then we get to adulthood and ageing... and as we get older and older... time appears to get faster and faster, ask any older person.

An interesting question to study is if the perception of time is slower in those people who age slower than others (ie., the 50 yr old that looks like a 30 yr old versus the 50 yr old that looks like a 70 yr old.)? The next corallary to study is if we change our perception of time can we change how fast we age?

contributed by pachorazy on Feb 2 6:31am

Modern Poetry - Time by Pink Floyd.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You 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 one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre 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 Id something more to say

_contributed by TapeCutter on Feb 2 6:31am _

There are many interesting points raised in this discussion, so many and so interesting, in fact, that I felt compelled to register with this site to add my two cents. I do not know if time is constant or not (I am leaning toward not at the moment), but it is obvious that it exists: clocks register time through movement and change. There is no way around it, time exists because change exists, at least for now. Will time cease to exist if the universe dies a heat death and all energy everywhere is equal thus preventing any further change or movement? Maybe. But as far as right now goes it exists. I think that the way we conceive of time as the position of hands on a clock confuses the issue. Time itself is never 9:00 a.m., that is only the time of day. 9:00 a.m. by itself has no meaning, but takes on value only relative to say 8:59 a.m., or 9:01 a.m. The way we measure time breaks it up into regular intervals that we can manage, and that measure allows us a "standard rate of change" by which we can measure the rate of change of other phenomenon, and thus it gives us a standard by which we can contrast the phenomena themselves.

So whether or not time itself exists I feel is a moot point, as has been mentioned in the not too distant past of this discussion. (But if I bring it up now is it indeed in the past? And after you read that thought here for a second time, is it again in the past, always-already slipping away.) The fact that space and time are infinitely divisible, which was mentioned early in this discussion, can illustrate why the debate about whether time exists is of little practical value. A theorist will tell you that if you always travel half the distance to a given point (let's say there's a chocolate chip cookie there, or some other infinitely desirable thing at which you really want to arrive), you will never get there; an engineer will tell you that if you always travel half the distance to that cookie, you might never get there, but you will get close enough to be able to do anything to that cookie that you want to do. This discussion seems similar to me. We may never be able to prove conclusively whether or not an entity such as "time" exists independently of its observer, but because all of us can agree that movement and change exist when we are present, what does it matter when we are not there? The realist in me, if he does exist, says that movement/change is a fact of existence with which I must come to terms, therefore in practical terms time _must _exist.

Mr. Mehlschau raises a good many points in this discussion, not all of which I can pretend to understand, but amid all the science he quotes he seems to contradict himself. In one post he says time does not exist, and in another he says "Brownian motion is the second hand of nature..." The two statements are inconsistent. My very limited understanding of what he wrote goes something like, "even really tiny particles move and change position: they absorb light and move faster or slower or change in the very nature of their physical makeup." So if they move then they exist in time. Even if some particle were to stay perfectly still and not change in itself, things are changing around it and thus its relationship to other particles does indeed change. That is, the value of its place in space has changed because the contents of the space around it have altered. Therefore time does indeed exist. The question then seems to be whether it is constant and our perception of it varies, or whether it is not constant and our perception of it is, or perhaps both, or perhaps neither.

Nathan Crow mentioned "time coding" regarding our perception of time, in response to Dylan Kuhn's questioning of one's experience of moving through time. Previously, before a number of Mr. Mehlschau's posts, Eric had mentioned something about the human necessity to build a narrative of the self that is based on a certain (mis)conception about the flow of time. There is a link among these three posts that I think are at the heart of this debate. The real question seems to be does time exist in only one direction, not does it exist at all. And again, I am not sure anyone can answer this question yet.

To me, the "time coding" that Mr. Crow mentions doesn't seem to be quite accurate. When one recalls an event to which one tends to have a very strong physical/emotional reaction, can anyone indeed prove that the consciousness in question does not relive that very event? I know it sounds a little weird, but give me a minute. Sometimes when I recall an intense memory, say one to which I have a very negative reaction like shame or embarrassment, I still blush, feel foolish, and/or get that weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. And sometimes, for an instant, what I see in my mind's eye trumps what is going on around me; that is, I (re)experience the memory more than I experience the sensory input of the "present." I think that the way neurons encode memory may flout the idea that we always experience time as one directional. Perhaps we conceive time as arboreal, but experience it rhizomatically; that is, perhaps we conceive that it starts at the root and grows only upward, but we experience it in multiple directions at once with multiple connections between nodes, so that different times can exist simultaneously, at least within one mind.

I guess what I am getting at is that when an individual recalls something, that individual does not always have a sense that that something is in the past. I think this sense only comes after the recollection is done, but that while one remembers an experience, particularly one to which a strong emotional attachment exists, one is actually there. As far as the physiology goes, to recall an event one causes the neurons in which that memory is encoded to fire in a particular sequence (and I am unsure of the mechanisms here); while they are firing, I wonder whether or not one can actually tell the difference between past and present. Most of us recognize the "time coding" immediately afterward, but I think the physical reaction that can be caused by intense memories belies the fact that we leave the past in the past, and thus we experience time as mutli-directional. But this says nothing when two or more individuals are involved; that is, nobody else experiences my memory, so that my sense of time as multi-directional is not "real" in the sense of a shared reality.

Likewise, I think perception can explain the Grasshopper experiment that Mr. Crow links us to, but I'm not sure how exactly. On my screen the clock runs smoothly, and I do indeed perceive the intended effect. But sound did not stop for me (I heard the construction vehicles outside my window, at least I think I did, it could be that I heard them immediately after the second hand began to move again). Given that sound does stop for some seems to support that the effect is a perception thing: their brains are wired a bit differently than mine. Also, the author of that experiment writes at the bottom that the second hand continues from where it was stopped, but for me it does not: it jumps ahead to catch up to where it "should" be. And again, the fact that I perceived that the second hand stops does not mean that another person perceived that it stopped at the same time, therefore it does not impact a shared reality.

Lastly, I would like to mention the "fact" that young people experience time as moving more slowly than old people. I feel that there is something of truth in this truism, but I am unsure whether it is due to the "newness" of experience or not. It could have something to do with neural connections, but again I am uncertain of how exactly. Could it be that forming new connections means that you perceive "more" of what is happening right now, whereas if the connections already exist the mind seems to say, "been there, done that, let's move on to something interesting"? That could account for the "newness" factor. Evolution couold explain why this is a common observation, in that those members of the species that had the ability to "slow time" and pay attention to minutia could more accurately perceive threats in the environment and take steps to ensure survival. Eventually this became an almost constant trait in our species, thus explaining why most of us experience the "relativity" of time on a somewhat regular basis.

I just thought of something that is inconsistent with the above, and that is the factor of interest. When I become totally absorbed in something, time seems to speed up, not slow down. Writing this post for instance, doesn't seem like it has taken as long as it has, that is a lot of "time" seems to have been crammed into a small interval. Conversely, when I am amped on adrenaline, time seems to slow down. I am thinking of a biking accident I was in last summer. I went over my handle bars b/c I tried to take a corner too fast, my tires both started to skid, and when they stopped, I was airborne. But I can remember it vividly, and it was like it happened in slow motion (thinking about it, my heart begins to race, did I travel back in time), that is a little "time" seemed to spread out over a larger interval. Similar things have happened to me in auto accidents or various sporting events. I think in these instances it is quite apparent that perception is the key, and I think that time does indeed exist, but that its rate and direction depend on the observer's perception, but who knows if that is, was, or will always be the case. In short, it's all relative, man.

~Gordo

contributed by Gordon Green on Feb 2 9:02am

I think time is just an artifact of change.

contributed by Ben on Feb 2 9:57am

Simply put. Yes.

We perceive that the universe is made up of trillions of tiny particles all bouncing around with energy left over from the big bang some 14 billion years ago. The matter and energy are not evenly distributed through out the universe but they become more and more evenly distributed. This is what we call entropy. The perception that there are two extremes of a given energy system one of complete order and one of complete disorder and that we are moving from the former to the latter is what we call time. However what's really happening is this.

There is one thing called the universe which simultaneously exists at all points along of the entropy scale and that universe is static. However because information can only be stored in one direction, where the entropy of the general system increases so that a localized areas entropy decreases, there is only one possible path for perception. Because information isn't stored when you move from the disordered side of the universal entropy gradient to the ordered side (though that seems counter intuitive) there can be no perception in that direction, thus for any perceptive being there can only be a memory of the past and an ignorance of the future. Thus the concept of past, present, and future, and thus time.

So yes there is a movement of energy in a system, but it's like the flatlanders perception of a sphere that passes through his world, it seems to grow from a point into a circle then a larger circle which eventually shrinks back to a point, the perceived dimension of diameter is constant for the sphere but when seen from the two dimensional world of the flatlander there seems to be change.

This is what time is. A slice of a larger static structure which we perceive only poorly.

contributed by Ian on Feb 2 11:39am

I suppose that it does not matter. Time is how we perceive it. What it may theoretically be has no effect on how it IS for us. So... it is what it is.

contributed by Stuart on Feb 2 12:55pm

Time is an allusion and here is why-- our congress can tell us when we need to set our clocks forward or back by an hour. If time was real it would be out of there hands

contributed by letibenson25 on Feb 2 2:53pm

If we break down the question, we have an initial question - what is illusion?

an illusion, as per wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion) is "..a distortion of a sensory perception". So, does time distort your perceptions? That is indeed the question.

Time flies when you are having fun, or slows down when you are waiting for something to arrive... there are thousands of examples of how time seems to change your perception (or is it you change your perception of time?), thereby answering the question.

Time is indeed an illusion.

contributed by tculp on Feb 2 3:01pm

"~Gordo

Mr. Mehlschau raises a good many points in this discussion, not all of which I can pretend to understand, but amid all the science he quotes he seems to contradict himself. In one post he says time does not exist, and in another he says "Brownian motion is the second hand of nature..." The two statements are inconsistent. As far as my limited understanding of quantum mechanics goes, even really tiny particles move and change position: they absorb light and move faster or slower or change in the very nature of their physical makeup. Even if some particle were to stay perfectly still and not change in itself, things are changing around it and thus its relationship to other particles does indeed change. That is, the value of its place in space has changed because the contents of the space around it have altered. Therefore time does indeed exist. The question then seems to be whether it is constant and our perception of it varies, or whether it is not constant and our perception of it is, or perhaps both, or perhaps neither."

I said or intended to say, "time does not exist", in the quantum world, things don't age in the quantum world they just run on and on without loosing energy, this very well accepted by science and the exact reason why has not been explained and I have never even heard a theory as to why or how accept that the quantum world intrinsically has these characteristics, that fact is often stated.

But it is also true that for certain types of particals in the macro world time runs at a differnet pace, for light time is does not exist, or it runs very slowly and this fact comes from the article and is well accepted by phisicals sciences.

On the other hand presuming the converse, which I suggest is NOT accepted, but is very likely to be true and phisists would likely agree that in the core of a black hole aging occures very quickly and is maximized in a short period of time, and BEC probably does not age at all because it is already as old as it can be. These things have no energy at all.

On earth the closest thing to BEC, that we can be perceived is ash from a fire material where enthrupy is maximized, although BEC has recently been created on in laboritories with laser cooling -- A HUGE BREAKTHROUGH !!!

I don't believe anyone has ever suggested that the small particles in the quantum world absorb or interact with light or even energy although in rare cases it is said heat is absorbed, at least when I went to school light interacting with the quantum world was NEVER talked about, accept the one exception of Brownian motion, and I have listened recently to quite a few cosmological physicists in long interviews and they never talked about that although they talked extensively about the quantum world in the conventional way.

The problem with saying that light is absorbed is that when you do that you have to account for how that energy is used, it is never used up just transfered and lowered in protential and there great resistence to saying that light is ever transformed into something else although is can be slowed down and emparted with information buy having its frequencies arranged specifically, this does not require any of the light even disappearing, which is expressly NOT allowed !

And I am pointing out that if it were accepted that light does the things that I suggest with quantum mechanics then a great many more things would explained and that it is testable and makes quantum mechanics easier to understand and teach. Also I don't suggest that light disappears just goes to a slightly lower order temporarily, but when I say shock-wave that could be a real transformation.

Of course, different things are taught in different countries, the USA has a very high standard of facts and many the scientists use this to keep many of the best details up their sleeves.

Like the fact that it was observed in the 1940s, they did not know what was going on, light spontaniously turning into 2 spooky particles that split off into quarks or mesons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark, perpendicular to the ray of light that they originate from, physists never talk about this but I found it in the physics online museum.

The quantum world is mostly considered to be totally seperate from the macro world, and just because particals never show up where researchers expect, people have taken this to mean this is the mechanism for mind over mater, I simply choose to point out that this has been tested to death and the link between the two worlds has been found -- I buy this and I am not interested any mind over mater links or research.

The reason I am not interested in this is because what has supposedly been found is extremely weak in that in the research it is very easy to see how effects are faked or tricks done to show effects that are not really there, TO ME IT IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO STUDY THAT RESEARCH TO BE ABLE TO LEARN HOW TO SEE THROUGH IT, TO SEE EXACTLY HOW THE LIARS LIE, and I pretty much have it all figured out and that is another story I could tell you !!!

Like I have said above, whenever someone was said to find an effect of prayer or phycic powers it was later, sometimes much later, found to be a flawed methodology or just faked results.

So am also not interested in the human precetions of time, this is not science of physics, its the science of psychology and while I am very interested in all sciences the article posses the question as a physical science not human psychology.

Like I said my interest in physiology is more like, how liars lie, what really drove Hitler and after years of studying that I could write a book there was a LOT to his phycology and his psychology probably also made him barbaric. Certain facts also implicate the German people of that time as being effected physically in ways that cause brain damage. So there is much more to that story then most people know.

The fact that measuring the passage of time is so easily done attests to its factual existence and its regularity, the best science is done by machines, any clock is a little scientific experiment if it is compared to other clocks.

It is clearly Man Kind's destiny to surround himself with machines that will force his subjective view of the world to become objective, thus we will eventually build thinking machines and rather then master US they will merely improve us -- AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN LET IT BE AGAIN !

Now when we start to make animals smarter and thinking cockroaches THAT IS DANGEROUS !!

Remember that Trilobites were here way before anything else and for much longer then Dinosaurs and for the most part they were large complex cockroaches, so if we can make cockroaches that are extremely stupid, taste good, and are nutritious that would be a healthy thing the human race !!!

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Feb 2 6:20pm _

"tculp

If we break down the question, we have an initial question - what is illusion?

an illusion, as per wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion) is "..a distortion of a sensory perception". So, does time distort your perceptions? That is indeed the question.

Time is indeed an illusion."

It seems to me that if the question was, "Is time illusory ?", then the question would be the same as you say, "does time distort your perceptions ?"

But the question was "Is time an illusion ?", so that means is time itself FAKE ???

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Feb 2 6:31pm _

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

From the book "Instant Physics"

contributed by eddings48 on Feb 2 6:53pm

The fundamental problem in the original question is not the "illusion" bit. Surely that is a human conceit, suggesting that we concentrate on our perception of the universe, rather than on how the universe actually works.

A more fundamental problem lies in our conceptual framework. Look at some of the phrases used in the question: "move through", "faster you travel, the slower time moves", "to happen", "move only one way", "expanding direction", "becoming", "increasing". These are trying to describe the slippery idea that time is a dimension but that everything seems to be moving along it. They imply sequence and rate of change. But think about it -- that would require another, independent, time framework (say, "T2") against which to measure change in our "4th dimensional" time axis ("T1"). And if you go on to apply the same kind of analysis to T2, you'll need a T3, etc . . .

No, there's a problem here that is not being addressed. Trying to describe time as just another dimensional axis doesn't cut it.

contributed by Noah on Feb 3 4:05am

Is time an illusion?

Two pieces of matter can not be located at the same position in space at the same time.
This matter of fact can only be described with the concept of "before, now and after" or time.

So, if someone would like to call the time an illusion, he also can call the whole universe an illusion.

contributed by Maksym Rosenberg on Feb 3 7:43am

To take a Terry Pratchett view; an instant is the amount of time it takes for the universe is destroyed and created anew but slightly different.

Before I get screamed at for hailing the end of the world, let me clarify. At this moment the universe exists (if you dispute that, then I can safely ignore your argument since you'd have to admit that your argument also did not exist), and because it exists everything, that is every thing, has a position. Where the position is a position from doesn't matter, let us simply assume it is from the centre of my ego. There is an electron, or a focus of energy, or whatever you want, 12 ego-widths away from me. That is where it is, and in this moment that is the only place it can be.

Let us run time on for one instant, and 'lo and behold! its moved. It may have only moved the smallest fraction of a metre, but it has moved. Indeed the smallest unit of measurement would the smallest any object can move between one instant and the next.

To me, a natural sceptic, this seems too good to be true. something is in one place and then, instantaneously its somewhere else. Either this happens according to a complex (in my opinion) set of rules (like charges repel, chemicals react) or it doesn't. If it does happen then a) what is working out the rules, and b) what 'time' is it working them out in?

If things don't move, then time may well be an illusion. If time is an illusion then how come I can remember a time that I will call a couple of seconds ago when I was puzzling over this question and COULD NOT REMEMBER this time now. This instant now, as far as my memory is concerned, has happened, but before it had not.

Consider my brain at the end of my life, or indeed just the information stored in it. There will be (assuming I don't forget it) a recollection of this moment. I never said this moment happened, only that there is information saying it did in my brain. There will also be a recollection of this new moment now. My brain at this moment (m1) has a recollection of the previous moment (m2), moreover, m2 has a recollection of being unable to recall m1 (because that is what I was thinking of at the time).

m0 is at the end of my life. m0 remembers m1 and m2. m0 cannot comprehend the idea that m2 does not remember m1 and this confusion gives rise to what we call time, that is; the changes in the universe organised so that they change as a group from moment to moment. (I'll work on that).

Having thought on this more I realise I need somewhere for my mind to exist. According to my model above it cannot be thinking, since it has not time to think in. I therefore need a place for it to have all its thoughts and processes mapped out, personally I would like to be old fashioned and call this another dimension, although I feel declaring that I have found/characterised a dimension would be slightly presumptuous.

My argument so far:

Time is, indeed, an illusion. I came to this conclusion from the belief that nothing can in fact move in the three dimensions we believe ourselves to be able to move in and since there is no movement there is no time.

I can remember not being able to remember me remembering about not being able to remember. (yes, that does make sense) and it is this confusion that makes my mind believe in 'time' (my mind is at the end of my life by the way, and is looking back from that perspective). In order for this to happen my memory has to exist somewhere, and I would like to dub this the one and only significant dimension. The insignificant ones are the ones in which the pieces of information are stored in.

Think of it as follows:

Memories on the x axis are discreet instants going back from the end of my conciousness.
Along the y axis, in very very very thin writing, is information regarding my perceptions, or, if you want, the information of every single piece of energy (or if you like the matter theory of all things; matter) in the universe.

Now comes the rather interesting question: how could two minds co-exist. In this model there is only room for one mind, (for arguments sake let us call it yours, since mine is rather dull). I sincerely hope, although it may be too much to ask, that more than one person reads this and in this case, which mind is the one in my model? If you think there is only one mind in existence then I suggest you at least pretend there are others, because even non-entities appear to get annoyed if you tell them thy don't exist. If there are two minds then they need to exist in separate points. In order for this to happen I need more dimensions. One more should be enough, and let us have it along the z axis with the origin at the first concious mind, incrementing in god knows what steps. In case you hadn't noticed, I rather enjoy contradicting myself.

Where have I gotten myself? My current view of the universe is that it is a long list of minds, each of which has a record of what it thought happened at each particular moment in an imaginary, three dimensional universe. I also have gained a very large question; where did these minds get the memories from? My only possible explanation is that they interact in some way, which unfortunately would contradict my first point: that things cannot move.

Oh dear.

Hopefully this has been intellectually stimulating for some people, I certainly enjoyed writing it, although I haven't checked through it for spelling and grammar, so apologies in advance. If someone could help me with any of these points I would be most grateful, although preferably not right now, (time to stop thinking for a while).

contributed by Hector M-B on Feb 3 10:11am

Hector M-B I enjoyed your post alot :) Consider this: there is only one mind, with all the memories shared and those memories have 'permission' settings, allowing only you to access your own memories :) Therefore no extra room needed. I agree, that it's better to keep mouth shut, to protect yourself from "other non-entities"' anger.

Anyways guys, great discussion. It has science, philosphy and even a small bit of religion tossed it.. I've checked the test with clock, and don't thing it really proves anything, apart, that human beings relay on their perceptions a lot..

Like it was mentioned before, if time is an illusion the entire universe must be an illusion. And while I'm not saying it's not true (I pretty much beleive so myself), I'd like everyone to keep in mind, that such way of thinking has nothing to do with science. Real or not, time as a concept is INCREDIBLY convinient thing for human being to have, and I'm pretty sure not even the DMT guy from the top of this page will argue with that. Without time there's only insanity..

To digg this question deeper, we shall first ask, what does 'to exist' mean? Then, we'll be able to tell does 'time' exists at all :P

_contributed by driedfruit on Feb 3 12:58pm _

time is a man-made idea, it is a construct of human society used to make life more convenient and easy.

contributed by Alex on Feb 3 7:46pm

Recent science has shown that in old age with the deterioration human brains, memories of childhood are recalled more quickly and retained more easily then current events. I have OFTEN heard old timers speak of their wives saying, "She has an incredible memory, she can remember everything from her childhood !", but these are the symptoms of a brain aging and dementia, loss of brain tissue brings old creases in the cerebellum nearer to the surface.

So I suppose the following could be argued fairly convincingly that is that the fascination that many people have these days with wanting to believe that everything happens all at once, there really is no time. Their failing memories are influencing their judgment, our aging society all of us, and is allowing us to believe things that previously we would not have considered.

The stream of time is not only etched within our memories, but also the stream of light from the depths of the universe, and the log of regular changes etched in our DNA.

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Feb 3 11:34pm _

a thought experiment on time travel and the nature of time:

i believe the minimum requirements for time travel are:

1. a copy of the universe for each point in time.
for each Planck unit of time, there must be one copy of the universe. thus for each second, there must be 1/Planck time copies, i.e. approx. 5 x 10e44 copies.

2. the state of each copy must be fixed.
that is, it must be static in all respects, e.g. no radioactive decay, no change of particle spins, no change of etc.

3. the copies must pre-exist (to allow travel to the future) and be retained (to allow travel to the past).

4. each copy contains all the matter and energy of the universe.

Conclusions:

1. we don't observe the universe increase it's mass by a factor of approx. 5 x 10e44 times each second, therefore there is no past and no future, there is only the present.

2. past, future and the passage of time are illusions, they have no objective reality, they exist only because of the reaction of neurons to sensory input, i.e. they are totally subjective.

Why the illusion of time? There is survival value in having a nervous system with memory. Even the primitive nervous system of flatworms displays memory (as evidenced by their ability to learn) this memory is really the persistence of a state of a neuron. A sense of the passage of time comes from comparing current sensory input with the existing state (memory) stored in the nervous system. The survival value comes about by the ability to recognize a pattern of state changes and calculate a future state based on the pattern and the state currently in memory. Humans perceive state changes of neurons in response to events as the passage of time.

3. each state of the universe is a consequence of the previous state. that is, one "present" leads to the next "present" and so forth.

my approach of looking at the minimum requirements for time travel is to provide clarity. the common approach, e.g. asking what would happen if we could go back in time and kill our grandfather, results in insoluble paradoxes and does not illustrate clearly the nature of "time", "past", "present", "future".

Paul Sagi

contributed by Paul Sagi on Feb 4 6:52am

When I look at the world NOW I don't see time; simply put, I just see things moving.
Some things move quite regularly ... cyclically ... natural clocks ... particularly in the sky. This regular motion, and our innate capacity for seeing patterns, is probably what led us to the notion of time. Certainly it can be a convenient notion.

In addition, as a result of motion, physical and chemical changes are initiated. Some of them are cyclic: the seasons for example.

Is time an Illusion? No. It’s a tool; invented by man to hang past memories on and post notes upon for things to come. As with other tools like distance, weight and speed, time helps make sense of the world around us, but is an illusion? No.

Some people say that time is like a strait line, a string line perhaps, others the string is a loop, that one day we will return to the start of time. I see it as more of a dot, a string loop pulled so tight so it has no hole left and what can be described as now, the present. We are always in the present, passing into the present and passing out of the present at the same time, but always in the present time.

Most scientists today see time as a fluid thing, to be stretched compressed and distorted. This is the only way that they can reconcile what they see in the universe and what their theories would predict. I think that their theories are just lacking a vital piece of information about the universe around them. They cannot see it yet, for like a goldfish swimming in its bowl it cannot see the effect of what the water has on its universe.

It might be time to go back to the Greek philosophical definition of the universe and work our way forward again.

contributed by gary on Feb 4 5:19pm

Time is not an illusion. Time is a multidimensional relationship. Al put it as a fourth dimension relationship L*_*W*D.
Steve included an entropy relationship. These relationships help us know time is related to a few observable LEWD positions.

It is as confusing to me as gravitational force and field positions. Also, without a physics or math degree I am as lost as almost
any politician/dogmatist that spout religious/mythology folly as science fact/truth, but I still enjoy the BS at a high level of
humor.

I consider time a multidimensional relationship not a measure of LEW/D within any single/group-limited dimensional
relationship. It would be very hard to time travel, maybe impossible, because we must unlock a point in existence (all/entirety-
dimensions) that is not present, but locked in a relationship to all other dimensions. I view these relationships as multiple/many
spheres changing shape and color as interactions occur at different energy types/levels (like canvas on silk or diamond on milk).

To time travel is a poor phrase. It is more like taking a single point in existence, then changing enough dimensional
relationships that the single point is now located where it has not been before (no small feat). IOW, if it were an I, me, or you we would be relocated to a specific single point in existence or vise-versa by moving dimensional existence states. We would be unlocking a single point in existence and moving another specific single point in existence to a co-incidental point. It is far more complex than just meeting yourself in time, but the results would be the same I suspect.

Time as a multidimensional event sequence relationship with infinite combinations possible. I suspect a unique combination for each single point in existence ... where is our cosmic safe-cracker.

!HAVEFUN! Reality is self-induced hallucination (for most, maybe all).

contributed by J.D. Bailey on Feb 4 5:31pm

Time as a multidimensional event sequence relationship with infinite combinations possible. I suspect a unique combination for each single point in existence ... where is our cosmic safe-cracker.

!HAVEFUN! Reality is self-induced hallucination (for most, maybe all).

contributed by J.D. Bailey on Feb 4 5:32pm

Is NOW time? Even the Big Bang is happening Now, it just depends on your position in the cosmos. Life is illusion and time comes from life.

contributed by Jim Jardine on Feb 4 9:20pm

Is NOW time? No, not for me, it is a combination of many observed and unobserved macro2micro events. Some label time as event-sequences. Our label of time locks planetary and atomic event sequences as time. Time, for me, is a relationship/combination of all/multi-dimensional single-event, not the sequence of multiple events. So, I cannot consider time or life an illusion.

contributed by J.D. Bailey on Feb 5 3:25am

Time sees
I don’t
But it comes
Then you find out;

Until then
I endure at long
Until time
Has come and gone.

2007-=02-=05 11:25:37 GMT contributed by Paul Anthony Belfiglio

TIME from my book..... "BEYOND UNIVERSAL THOUGHT" by Ric Globus
TIME is the infinite force that powers the universe. Without TIME there would be no universe of creation. The Big Bang was not the beginning or start of TIME, it was caused by TIME and not the other way around. TIME has always existed and always will. It dimensionalized the other three dimensions (X, Y & Z) in our own universe into a living and active entity. Without TIME, there is no space, no matter, no energy, and stating the obvious: no universe. TIME is the essence of life, it is the arena that the universe plays in.
One of the secrets of TIME, which I have realized, is that TIME itself is the constant we call “infinity”. It path goes on forever in both directions, into the past and towards the future. TIME is the only constant that can vary in size and even shape. TIME is a constant because by its own definition it is and has always been eternal. In fact, TIME is the oldest and first constant of reality. It proceeds our universe and the creation event we call Big Bang.
TIME is also the main hidden ingredient in all mathematics, without it, there would be no going from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4 and so on right towards infinity. The sequencing of numbers can only “be” if TIME exists. TIME is the measurement that creates the chain of all mathematical equations of life and reality. These are the basic truths and building blocks of the universe’s very existence. And of course, there is no life without TIME. One can state that TIME is life and life is TIME and can be considered the same or interchangeable. The engine that drives our expanding universe is TIME marching towards its quest of infinity in the far off future. The “now” always instantaneously becomes the “past”, and the “future” always moves towards the now; in that manner, the future is continuously moves into the past.
What would happen if TIME stopped right now? Would the Universe become a “freeze frame” as we see in the movies? No! Light and energy wouldn’t move, atom’s electrons would stop moving, and therefore, the entire universe would vanish at that instant moment. The quantum theories of Planck and Heisenberg would become non-effective and all we know would become non-existent. All of Einstein’s brilliant thoughts of reality of mass and energy would collapse upon itself without TIME and become nil and void. It would not be a movie freeze frame, but a non-frame of total void without any dimension. Space, no matter how vast, would disappear. Sequences of numbers and events would not formulate and a real “uncertainty” would exist of nothingness. TIME is an anamorphic analog constant that moves instantaneously in a single direction towards the future. It has no digital attributes and never ticks or tocks. TIME is seamless constantly flowing through space in an omni directional harmonic. The TIME/space nexus allows for the existence of relativity, and of course, it is TIME that allows for space’s dimensionality to exist; but the subtle characteristic of TIME moves past just these attributes and is the tread or fabric that holds all of the infinities together: connecting all universes, space and whatever exist and doesn’t exist into one unified passage way.
But fortunately, TIME has been eternal and always has been “here”. There is absolutely no evidence of the non-existence of TIME prior to The Big Bang. There was never an event that we can call “the begin of TIME”. TIME is not a line but its own three dimensional blanket that covers the entire universe no matter what size or space that the universe is at that moment. And for these reasonings, the Big Bang only chance of succeeding at all was that TIME did exist. We will later discuss how TIME created the Big Bang and all the matter and energy in it.
TIME is the only dimension that can equate the term infinity. However, in most circumstances, except for universe type creation itself, TIME is quite passive. It has no top or bottom, is neither positive nor negative, has no charge, no spin, or left or right handiness, and of course, no mass or energy. But without TIME, none of the other three dimensions can exist. It has no agenda but to keep moving forward upon itself. It doesn’t affect light except for allowing it to move through it, but without it, light speed has no meaning and can’t transmit itself from location to location.
We cannot discuss the beginning of TIME, because it has been always and always been there from its infinite past far away. We can, however, discuss the beginnings of the universe and how TIME was the main motivator in creating it. There is no chicken & egg problem here. TIME has always been and it existed eons before the events that triggered the Big Bang and the creation of our universe.
Is TIME divisible like the atom? We know we can humanly section off TIME into allotted segments such as seconds, minutes, hours, day, months, seasons, years, decades, centuries, millenniums, eons, etc. We do use an atomic clock that uses the internal vibrations of the cesium atom to split TIME in smaller and smaller segments. But all these terms are humanistic expressions of moments, not a true understanding of the nature of TIME itself. Yes TIME is indivisible towards the infinite, a truly seamless analog dimension.
We understand that TIME is singular directional as its movement towards the future and this did spawn the formation of the universe. There is never a seesaw battle between TIME present and TIME past. The NOW is the important short-lived event that is always happening at that moment. The effects of the TIME past can be felt in the present or in the future; however, no event onto itself can effect the relationship of TIME has upon itself. TIME streams from an infinite past toward the infinite future passing through the present in a continuous harmony of blind truth. That is, the past will never catch the future, except maybe at the events leading up to our own creation, no-mater how old or long the past becomes and/or how the untold future is unfolding. Yes, on the seesaw of TIME, the future and past are always perfectly balanced at the point of the present.
The TIME-space continuum has been the accepted answer to the puzzling question of what is TIME. Even though Einstein proposed TIME/space continuum, it seem to have the some of the right conclusions but without all the meaningful reasoning to answer the true meaning of TIME. TIME and space are linked together in a cause and effect relationship. Each phenomena, TIME & space are the answer to the others existence and its reasoning for being without looking at separately entities. If they were unlinked, would the universe expand into the voids at such a rapid speed? TIME is the messenger boy or harbinger for the rest of the universe telling it to move from the past to the future in an elegant manner. The message is a simple one: “I have started in the infinite past and must keep moving towards the infinite future”. This is the friendly but strong message that TIME tells the universe with its own passive hand, and as it does that, it keeps moving through a brief continuous moment at the present for an infinitesimal instant of almost meaningless grandeur.
If TIME has the infinite qualities of a constant, does that mean other theorems of relativity are incorrect? Of course not. We know and have proven that TIME itself slows down as objects or mass are put into accelerated motion, but TIME never disappears or stops totally. The forces of TIME that created the Big Bang must have approached the infinite on either the past side, the present side or even approach it on the future side to create mass and energy out of TIME. Even in other theories of the creation, like Big Bang, theoretical physicists and mathematicians try to explain to us that the numbers (mathematics) and forces (physics) to create this type of beginning are so massive and bizarre that they are beyond their human understanding and all of their equations and formulas. The past and future merging into a great vortex is as simplistic as any other approach. TIME becomes the catalyst for mass, energy and space. A pure and simple solution to all of our difficult questions.
This is a much more elegant solution or answer to the mysteries of the singularity, without mass or energy, and not the standard reasoning size of nano pin head creating our universe. Indeed, TIME itself was the singularity without dimension in a run away situation reaching critical infinite speed. This would even square with most relativity statements from Einstein. It is a wonderful model of pre-Bang’s singularity void of everything except for TIME being the single and only dimensioned singularity. This would be a fine starting point to the understanding of the universe. TIME either exploding or imploding or did both unto itself. This would therefore create an environment that could create the intense mathematics and physics that is or could be the start of our universe. I understand this concept might be beyond our knowledge and thought patterns, but it is an elegant solution to understanding our beginnings.
It is funny but fitting and perhaps even ironically circumstantial that this revelation came to me while speeding on the sleek bullet train, The Shinkansen, from Kyoto to Tokyo! I was zooming along with my son-san, Morton, seated next to me, while peering out my very clean window; I started to think of Einstein’s classic train example of relativity. I was then struck by the motion of TIME itself and not the relative motion of other masses or objects moving past us at different relative velocities. My mind wandered as our train car sped past the calm waters nearing Yokohama.... First of my future weekend date with the wonderful and almost perfect “wabi sabi”, Koko Nakahara, who lives in central Yokohama, and then of the more cerebral questions: ”What if TIME didn’t exist and we were in this train moving towards our Tokyo destination?” Well those thoughts certainly put me into a very deep contemplation pattern about TIME’s transcendental existence and how it related to the creation. I was then abruptly nudged back to my humanistic reality by Morty-San, as our train was de-accelerating and pulling into the Tokyo Central Railroad Station! We had to depart very quickly from The Shinkansen’s station into the incredibly punctual Tokyo's subway system to return back to our Roppongi apartment to meet my brother, Steve-Sensei, for a wonderful evening of temporal fun and food. Especially in Japan, TIME does not wait for any one individual.

contributed by RIC GLOBUS on Feb 5 7:08pm

Talkin & Walkin the TIMEline

Einstein’s thoughts as a young man were about light and its travelings through the universe. He spent many hours dreaming and conceiving what it would be like to travel on a light beam. This type of thought pattern is also a “out of body” experience that is humanely and scientifically an impossibility. But he was able to replace his physicalness and create a non structured metaphors so that his mind could travel on light’s orderly path. This was and is a true gift that few have. Einstein understood that experiencing events were much more interesting and insightful then just understanding them with numbers and equations of that phenomena from an earthly humanistic viewpoint.
On my revelation train journey in Japan, I too was day dreaming of this type of out of body experience. I wanted to travel on a TIMEline instead of a beam of light! I understood immediately that my life and body DOES travel though TIME and that is what is call “my life”. Again, I thought of a more interesting and novel travel line of traveling on TIME itself without my body and only “being there” with a non bias spiritual self. Well, like yourself, I was and got very confused at that instant moment. TIME is that anamorphic, non pervasive, analog dimension that is quite invisible, even so, we see and feel its effects everywhere and all the TIME. We understand some of its properties but really can only think of it with the dimensionality of space: calling it the Einsteinium phrase of Space-TIME.
TIME is never a line and my belief that all would disappear if TIME stopped “ticking”. So the conceptual idea or thought of traveling on such a bizarre journey is difficult and strange to conceive. We certainly all experience TIME as we journey in an active life interfacing with the other three dimensions that are around us. Maybe we see the effects of time around us as our body shows signs of aging and as we wake up each morning to the sun rising, a cup of coffee, and of course, in my particular TIME reference, an early morning dog walk to allow Albert and Einstein to do what we all do as we get up: a morning pee to relive our bladders! The effects of our earth moving around the sun and seasons changing always reminds us of TIME passing before our eyes, body and soul. These are all comforting events that make our lives fuller and give propose to our existence. As we see our children grow and become adults: TIME is passing before us and we see the effects of it, without any knowledge of its makeup. That is OK! The mysteries of TIME is the mysteries of life and our creator. Most properties of mass, energy; and phenomena are all in the venue of math and physics, but this TIME thing has been left out almost as a tease to make us become aware that even human beings are unknowing creatures as far as understanding the true nature of TIME’s reality.
TIME’s past is forever gone, never to be revisited. Man has been fortunate enough to be able to record the past with different encoded devices. Even film and optics have a bias from their physical nature and manufacturing tolerances. The two dimensionality of film, photography creates a interpretation of what is seen through these machines. Even holograms and other three dimensional instruments or camera create the same “recorded” view decoded in their medium as film or computer. These however are wonderful representation of the past and we are bless for the ingenuity of camera/optics. We do see however the past in the light streaming towards us from distant stars billion of years ago This past TIMEline that we see when we observed the stars are from events that can be separated by billions of years. They reach our eyes and telescopes at the same moment in our “Now” relativity reference. We see them as relative events only from our vantage point of the “here”. Our “Now” is always a blend of past events reaching our brains through our senses.
As we talk of the “Now” it has already moved into the past. The uncertainty principal of Professor Heisenberg is fairly obvious went we describe TIME’s present. Could it be that TIME itself the catalysts that changes physic into the wonderful world of quantum reality?! Once we say “Now” it is already in the TIME past. The briefest moving non-stop is when TIME’s future rapidly moves through the present of the “Now” into the unending past.
There are no chemical, mechanical or electronic method to alter TIME’s characteristics. TIME is and is always infinite, TIME is probably the best description of what infinity is and looks like.
Even though the present and future always moves into the past, the future is always unknown. TIME is always blind to events around it. It is the medium that allows everything to function and exist. The sublime nature of TIME allows energy and matter to interface with the dimensionally of the universe. The future of time is therefore obvious, it will exist forever! The universe might implode back to its beginnings of nothingness or become swallowed up by the infinitiverse but TIME will continue is direct path towards infinite infinity. TIME doesn’t “march on”, it much more passively, moving seamlessly without inferences into the future. It is not a warring enemy or friend to any thing or events/
The rapid expansion and explosion of the singularity of TIME created our three dimensional universe, the by product of this catacimatic events was mass and energy. All expanded and grew as TIME ticked forward in an harmonic sympathetic gesture away from the infinitiverse. Heavy! No? Enough talkin….. Lets do some walkin!
As I said before, we all walk though our lives on our own TIMEline, and, as we have seen, TIME never stops moving forward, so the type of TIMEline we will travel on is only a conceptual vector of TIME. We will move on it as if it was still (not stopped) and be at all the position that the TIME “is” at one instant. First, we should talk about absolute universal TIME, here at each exact moment the TIME is the same no matter where one is located, therefore it would be the same TIME if we are on the island of Manhattan, city of Tokyo, the moon, or any where else in the universe or infinitiverse. The speed of light has nothing to do with this type of TIME, events such as exploding super novas that reach our eyes now, date back to the TIME of the event, not when we see them. When I speak to my son-san by telephone, and he is in Japan and I am in New York, we are basically talking real time to each other (with a small time delay from the signal transmission), however, he is living in a time zone which is twelve hours ahead of me. Our TIMEline is the same, even though our clocks read differently and the position of the sun, stars and moon are rotated almost one hundred and eighty degrees from each other. This is what I would call a “horizontal TIMEline” running latitudinal across the earth. A visual picture or simulation would be quiet interesting.
Viewing or riding this type of limited TIMELINE, one that is only around 6,500 miles or an arc of about 180 degrees of the earth and we could possible “ride” this line toward the infinite, we would see half our image in sun and half in darkness. Actually, if it was a clear day, we would also see the sun setting or warping somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, overhead in New York and a full starry night sky over Tokyo. The sun and moon would be seen as a strange oblong arc shape create by seeing them in many locations at once! The stars would be fixed in the sky, lock stepped with astronomical “star TIME”. Clouds would become white streak because they are both seen from the many TIME locations but are not continuous and would only be partial lines of information. This is different then a normal projection or photograph. The normal picture would show only one sun, but since we are on a TIMEline, we are looking at the space continuously at the same TIME, therefore, because we are traveling on a TIMEline we see the sun and moon as the shape of their relative location above the earth., Time stretches our perception of the earth’s and moon’s rotation, we see these orbital bodies as continuous shape in all positional locations at once over the horizon. The diagram below should give you a fairly good visualization of this type of TIMEline visitation. Distance has no reverence here, all space is on a line as seen through a slit scan camera of TIME: we face south towards the equator.

(The moon is arcing across a distant star field over Japan, the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, and the sun moves across North America in arcing phases as the earth moves below it, clouds streak because they are not continuous, rotating, or at any fixed distance.)

contributed by RIC GLOBUS on Feb 5 7:11pm

How can you all be so flippant!?!?! Don't you know that eternity is at stake here?

Hector M-B, you take the cake and I think should win some sort of prize for your post, it had me rolling.

Keep up the good work all, and refuse to be bounded by time, convention or anything else!

~Gordo

contributed by Gordon Green on Feb 9 8:31am

Time is fake. Have a nice day.
:)

_contributed by jana forbes on Feb 16 12:28pm _

Quote:Robert Mehlschau.
"Recent science has shown that in old age with the deterioration human brains, memories of childhood are recalled more quickly and retained more easily then current events. I have OFTEN heard old timers speak of their wives saying, "She has an incredible memory, she can remember everything from her childhood !", but these are the symptoms of a brain aging and dementia, loss of brain tissue brings old creases in the cerebellum nearer to the surface."

The notion time first entered into my consciousness as a word-thing that was always accompanied by an implicit command: there was bed-time, school-time, dinner-time.
The word itself was just sticking to the command and didn’t seem to have a meaning of its own. And of course the orders always seemed to oppose my own intentions. I don’t remember for instance that I heard the words play-time or chocolate-time shouted at me. So time was just a meaningless word, sticking to unpleasant moments of pressure imposed on little children by impatient adults, apart from the annual birthday or Christmas time but then again it was slowing down and you had to sleep through countless nights before you got that far.
I must have been five when I first became aware of the soothing impact of time as distance after watching a moving picture about a boy that ate some beans and started jumping. My fragile world still looking for secure laws, broke apart. I was just in the middle of coping with death: death was a picture, a swallow lying on its back in my grandmother’s tiny backyard. So a moving picture was a dead swallow starting to fly again. But what was dead could never move again, I had been instructed. So my first experience with film was in itself awful enough. For weeks I was tormented by nightmares. And each day felt literally as if another block had been placed buffering myself from the event until – I remember – after six months its devastating effect had vanished. To exorcise fear I had been counting the months, noticing how it diminished with each passing month.
That was when I discovered that there was not one time but that there were several time forms; next to the torturing tyrant and the nagging little fellow there was this patient, curing nurse. That was when I found out that time was not a thing but a living force that could change shapes, took shelter in other living beings and animated events and non living things, constantly weaving links between all of them. A force that could be manipulated by linking it to intentions as I later found out.
I started asking people – the older the better – about their experiences with time. But they didn’t understand and began telling stories about their youth, like this little fat great aunt with her powdered cheeks, who told me about her youth when young girls were hoping to die young preferably as virgins. With twinkling eyes she used to add that neither wish had come true for her.
But I was immune to her wit and felt frustrated that I couldn’t make my point. I was of course too young to realise that they were in fact answering my question. It took me some time to see that every adult even was obsessed by it, but that they left out the word time and only used what was sticking to it. They just went to sleep or to eat. And they didn’t seem to mind the sleeping and seemed to enjoy the eating. Later I’d find out that things were much more complicated than I thought.
But at the time I just wanted to hear whether they had also experienced the nagging fellow or the healing nurse. Or whether they had ever met other members of the weird family that I didn’t know of.
But people didn’t speak about time in that way. ‘Pure’ non - sticky time was neatly kept in watches and clocks but that had nothing to do with the living creatures I was dealing with. Or they talked about it in an absolutely confusing manner: Time could be made and yet the same time could be lost, taken, given, spent, wasted just like money. .And if it was something substantial why did one never hear conversations like:

Could you spare me a moment?
I’m sorry but I’m running out of moments; I lost quite a lot yesterday. But if you could come back in a few days I might I have made some and if you are lucky I ‘ll have enough for both of us.

And what about killing time? I don’t mind killing the tyrant or the nagging fellow. But what a strange way to kill them: by doing irrelevant, dull things. And to no use as they are always – like bad teeth - coming up again.

There is something demonic in the shape-shifting, elusive ‘concept’ of time, something full of contradictions, because when it comes to (biological) timing it can be an uncompromising force: the hatching of the egg, the unfolding of the wings, the mating, the deterioration. It all happens with only the slightest trigger of will involved. In fact here human intention can be obstructing or should I say has to acknowledge the absolute dominance of time as the ultimate executer deteriorating my brains, as is proved by science.

Or are we dealing here with another member of the time family: the time spirit who plays at leapfrog with other time spirits (the one who is up, is always in charge and controls the talking)?
The actual one obsessively tries to get rid of notions such as eternity. Even science, that used to be eternity’s last stronghold with its eternal laws, is surrendering to the gnawing tooth of the grumpy old man nowadays.

These were just a few reflections out of the old creases of the cerebellum inspired by this very interesting conversation.

_contributed by Erika on Feb 21 3:04am _

See also in wikipedia: Time as 'unreal' (subsection of the Time article)

contributed by klimov on Feb 21 12:37pm

I feel I owe you all an apology: my posting was a bit out of place in this discussion. It didn't fit in the scientific approach that was obviously required, to say the least. Moreover I am not a native speaker, but then you must already have guessed that. I'm from Belgium, from the Flemish (Dutch) speaking part, that is.

_contributed by Erika on Feb 22 12:43am _

Here it is, scientific confirmation of my suspicions, expressed in comments above, from the recent Nobel-lariats in physics ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325954.200

They actually say that there is a matrix that separates fundamental particle and atoms, and there are different kinds of matrices for different kinds of matter which makes sense.

The article even says that electrons may not be a fundamental particle but actually part of the nucleus attached by strings.

The idea of a string is kind lame, artificial, they will NEVER actually find a string the sucks !

So how about looking at it this way:

The condensate, basic matter, in the nucleolus of an atom is just the right size to react with light, capture a photon ! The bit of dust that makes an electron is too small to stop a photon by combining with it but it is the right size to be animated by the combined light and nucleus and does combine with the light halo around the nucleolus where it attracts and concentrates the energy just like the nucleus does but on a smaller scale.

So when matter is created a bit of matter the right size to make a nucleus stops a photon by combining with it, and an energy halo or matrix is created around the nucleus and there is an event horizon around the nucleolus that is enough energy to allow electrons to play with-in area. The bigger the nucleolus the larger the halo and more electrons it can hold, this is how atoms and their complex orbital patterns are made or defined by nature.

Then there is a larger boundary that creates the matrix of the mater and all the dead space that exists in matter, now is this just ordinary electromagnetic polarity that has long ago been observed or is there more to it ? My guess is the photon or photons that have been captured by the nucleolus maintains its width, maintains many of its original characteristics of light and this is a boundary that is hard to see or detect in the state of matter but creates the matrix and electromagnetic strong force, but defines the matrix more directly then just magnetic attraction.

The amount of energy in atoms fluctuates as energy is used and new electrons are attracted and combined with or repelled as the matrix becomes saturated when and right after a new photon is absorbed.

So gravity is created by the small force of that is created when light combines with matter, is stopped by matter, by creating a vacuum of energy just on the other side of the nucleus so light the is falling to earth falls faster into that area where an absence of light or energy has been created. In other words light is pushing on everything all the time at the quantum level around a large body of matter like the Earth as it absorbs light.

Although, if this were the primary mechanism for gravity then there would be a detectable loss of weight at night, when the density of light is created. I suppose it is possible this does actually happen and has just never been noticed because nobody ever thought of looking for it, it would be a very uniform change so it could be difficult to detect, but my guess is that gravitational forces are mostly electromagnetic and the light/energy effects are there but very small, although not so small when light from rapid oxidation, fire, is uniformly dirrected.

Robert Mehlschau STARDATE 3.15.2007 Localized Earth time

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Mar 15 4:20pm _

I think the question that might be more relevant for physics and maybe closer to the information in the article would be, IS THE RATE OF TIME RELATIVE TO OUR SOLAR SYSTEM ?

So that would be asked to theorize things like, does time speed up or run more slowly in a solar systems that contain more relative gravity ie. larger sun and planets.

Would solar a system that contains a large black hole have time that runs faster ?

Are there areas of space that has clouds of elements that cause lights travel more slowly, does this change the rate of time ??

Would being out far away from any stars cause time to slow ???

Does Saturn and Jupiter cause time to speed up slightly when in transit with Earth by pulling a bit on light as it leaves the sun and reducing the effect of gravity from the Earth so the light takes a straighter wrought and might travel very slightly faster !?!?!?

And how would this effect space travels ?

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Mar 22 12:06pm _

So considering high energy physics, what is this thing that is going on with atomic nucleus colliding with each other and SUPPOSEDLY if it is done with enough energy then the fundamental particles begin to split. And when fission happens without question a HUGE amount of energy is given off. And there is another react where fusion occurs which requires even more energy and without a HUGE amount of energy is given off, because both of these are very well tested and documented.

BUT fission is only done with HOT or heavy materials even though the basic theories seem to suggest it can be done with any material, only those that are already have lingering fission are used for sustained reactions.

AND then with fusion it has now been observed with various other reactions that don't necessarily require soo much energy and is not so well understood and we can not make sustainable -- probably because we don't have materials with lingering fusion, or we do scientists have kept this material to themselves.

So I am suggesting that both of these happen all the time with LOW ENERGY PHYSICS, without the huge energy output, fundamental particles are not so fundamental or intransitive as we imagine.

As the Bose-Einstein condensate combines with photons to make electrons and other fundamental particles those particles are inconsistently sized, some hold more, the larger particles, photons and require more on-going absorption of photons to maintain their quantum states. And those may break apart regularly if they should loose too much energy or when passing through a crystalline matrix electron plasma such as a typical metal wire acquire a consistent size that is optimal for passage through the resistance of the material.

Thus, particles of the Bose-Einstein condensate break apart come back together depending on how many photons are around and the reason physics is stuck at this current impasse is because they spend all their time talking about particles when they should be talking about energy, the particles are almost insignificant.

We ARE beings of light !

We are NOT beings of matter.

The reason the things I talk about above have not been observed is because they are low energy, they only happen when particles loose energy and this is hard to observe, observing adds energy.

For example if they are running the electron gun experiment, I may not be remembering this correctly, which fires an electron through a small hole and then hits a metal plate which detects via impact intensity and locality the number of particles, if observed then one particle goes through, if not observed then sometimes a second particle will hit one of the plates to the side, wwwweeeelllll, in another experimental device light hits plates and makes them turn in a medium vacuum or the heat on the hot side of the plates excites the remaining oxygen it is not really certain how it works it just does, so the control of the electron gun experiment would be to do the same test with NO electrons instead just use a pulse from a laser. And do a second control replace the observer with by adding light or radiation similar to the observation device but no observation and see if you EVER get two particles -- I BET YOU DON'T.

What if, what is really going on is that the electron is loosing energy and breaking into two electrons, two stored photons divide and when they do so bust the Bose-Einstein condensate into smaller pieces, which seem to be identical and spooky but really it is not -- I am not saying there is no spooky action I just think that is different then this.

The particles, matter, it is just dust, this is the best metaphor.

So what is an electromagnetic field fundamentally, I think it is a group of electrons, the material, Bose-Einstein condensate, attracted to each other in a conductor, they are conventionally electrons, spaced within a grid, and riding the energy wave of their associated photon or photons. They maintain their associated photon by creating a higher concentration of the photon energy which attracts more photons. The attractions and influence of the field created is the photon energy complying with a much larger grid, similar to laser light, which has a width related to ordinary photons and attracts like or similar energy.

In other words when electricity runs through wires the photon component of the electron continues to follow along but become part of the much much larger field that is magnetism.

We can't see the energy field very easily, it is much easier to see the particle at the center, it is mostly energy NOT mostly particle.

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Mar 27 11:36am _

See, matter reacts to light ...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070327180657.yfh99utx&show_article=1&image=large

"Scientists bend liquid with power of light
Mar 27 02:07 PM US/Eastern

View smaller image
A group of scientists have found a way to bend and direct liquid using only the force of light, according to a study that will be published Friday.

The French and American physicists used a laser beam to produce a surprisingly long and steady jet of soapy liquid that was narrower than a human hair. When directed at a different angle, it pushed the liquid into a hump-like shape.

It is believed to be the first time a laser had been used to generate bulk flow in fluids."

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Mar 27 2:21pm _

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/03/navy_discovers_.html

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/March/22030701.asp

If fusion also occurs in low energy states then it would explain cold fusion reactions.

As I discuss in my previous post 2 posts up, fission and fusion may be very common events as fundamentals particles adjust their sizes according to energy states or, more simply, the number photons and amount of dust.

These reactions simply have not been observed because they occur in unusual conditions that do not allow observation.

Although, the easiest way to think about it is surprisingly simple, say you have 2 single photon electrons with a corresponding perfectly sized of Bose-Einstein Condensate, (BEC dust), and the two collide in an electric wire while it is charged with a current. They just happen to hit with the strength required to fuse. So the two BEC dust become one and that electron particle relatively slowly raises its energy rate to two photons by absorbing energy from the surrounding electrical current, but in the mean time at a very rapid rate when the collision occurred a single photo of energy was released, although the energy is NOT released as a photon but anywhere within the electromagnetic spectrum and that is determined by the surround material, copper wire, in this case. So the resonance and frequencies of surrounding electrons or energies in the copper wire would determine exactly what kind of energy is released. This reaction would create heat in this situation, RESISTANCE, would be what we normally call the reaction.

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Mar 30 2:28pm _

By the way, when I say light I really mean the reactive portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

And in the context that I am referring to is hard to say, some parts probably react differently from others, this needs a LOT of study.

I am extremely intrigued by the way Microwaves react in combination with electrical currents.

I believe this is where many new and important discoveries will be soon made and where energy can easily be observed in all sorts of interesting and important reactions.

If electricity converts to heat when microwaves are present with electrical currents, is there also a way to reverse the reaction, use electricity to radiate heat as microwaves and cause cooling or microwaves and extreme cold to create electricity or superconducting currents ?

For now it is safest to say "light" and to do this to indicate that I have NOT thought most of this through, not anywhere nearly as far as it can go.

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Apr 12 5:23pm _

This could be the big breakthrough and is very much in line with what I have talked about ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

"We have broken the speed of light"

"Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
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The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - traveled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart."

Notice they did this with microwaves, the electromagnetic radiation which I considered to be amongst the most likely to spontaneously raise its energy state rather then lower, but this happens when it combines with surrounding radiation.

Hopefully these researchers have found a consistent way to make this happen.

The laws that we know of and think are immutable, are not, when one law is broken none of the other laws apply in other words another universe's laws apply, so it seems like free energy but it is really not the energy is just coming from a place that does not effect us so essentially the energy is free.

Our universe exists simultaneously next to one other which has a whole set of rules that violate everything that we see and understand. All of the energetic forces in our universe follow the laws of this other universe which violates everything we understand.

It isn't really another universe it is just part of ours but it is the rules in our universe that are soo bazaar they appear to us to be hidden, for example an object existing in one place in this other universe simultaneously exists instantaneously everywhere else.

That universe has the characteristics of consciousness and follows the laws of consciousness!

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Aug 16 12:18pm _

"That universe has the characteristics of consciousness and follows the laws of consciousness!"

I have been reading thru all of the post and this area of science and theorem is certainly something I will be exploring myself in the future. Unfortunately I have only a very basic grasp of some of the scientific theorems that relate to MATTER which appears to be the main argument in relation to how this exists in its relationship with time. Firstly this is something that seems to be common thru out all of the scientific arguments I have read...and their reaction or relationship as they exists or react to external changes....and how this is measured...
I fail to understand why this viewpoint is needed to be addressed, perhaps from a laymen’s point of view, how when the question asked...."Is time an illusion"...relates specifically to the term "time" which is in fact a measure. No more No less. I don’t believe that anything amazing occurred in the world when other measures have been changed, whether that is a measure of distance, weight or the like. All of these measures (of which, apart from organic...seasons etc...) are man made ideals and theories, just as the large part of the scientific discussion is and is concerning itself with.

Theories, rules, and laws. All of which are basically failing to address the threads issue. Now if time is simply a measure that we employ, and is not an object, in the sense of matter, then it is simply the concept of perception which must be addressed. If this perception is one of the effect, that is, in relation to matter, that we can measure via using time as a outcome to judge the effect on matter as an object, and as time is simply a man made assessment of a perception, if you will, it should have no other effect then to give us a reading as it is asked to do.

Time , and I think this is where perhaps a simpleton like myself may differ in their view, is being discussed, when perception, consciousness’ and pre conceived conceptions of the human condition are the key points that could prove to be more fruitful.

Our perception of time as it has been discussed here, it seems, is one of a restrictive limitation that we live surrounded by, which all other matter and the like must obey, rather then simply a term which is used to allows the communication, synchronization, and measurement of one occurrence to another on a universally accepted basis.
The concept of time we currently hold could not be relied upon as it is able to now, to such a finite measurements that are generic regardless of what is being measured, and because of the nature of the concepts our universe revolves around…as Robert cited with the belief that other realms or planes exist concurrently but are random in their interaction with us as our perceived measure and rules are not necessarily able to be applied, using this measure in the first place will only continue to produced flawed and erratic outcomes.
Our human perception that each day has 24 hrs, and 7 days being one week, so on and so forth is the restrictive element which we are all ingrained to believe from our experiences that I mentioned above..., and we all have our own idea as to who long each period of time is, a minute, an hour, from our experiences and learnt beliefs, however take away the measure and these are purely dependant on internal and external variables from ones perception. Consequently we are bound by these ideals....both mentally and physically. These due to the external and internal influences however, time may appear or be perceived by individuals differently in a very short space of existence, for example, five minutes when your rushing out of he door in the morning when your running late, may appear to be perceived as being short, compared to when you take five minutes waiting for a bus later that day. This change in belief does not change regardless of age…remember playing in the park as a child…time still seemed to go faster then! And slower during detention that is for sure. Time, as a measure, simply allows us to use it.

Many times a day, however due to our measuring of this, and learnt beliefs we are unable to allow ourselves to believe anything but time exists as an entity or matter, which it never has been nor will be. Once time is gone, it’s gone. Period. But for it to be gone or disappear it needs to have existed, when in fact the only thing which did was our perception and consciousness of the day and its events.

Before time was measured, the fact that time as such had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the universe or its parts proves, perhaps over simply, that is all it is surely.

Perhaps another question we need to address, is now that we are reliant and dependant on this measure or theory of “time”, and its relationship with matter as we want it to behave, what if this doesn’t react as we expect it to as we created, understand, and rely on it the further we are able to dig and explore our world?...what are we going to do?

And if everything in our universe is not ruled by time, where does it leave this concept as a useful scientific ingredient in finding an answer and gaining an understanding of our universe.

I could go on to discuss my ideas on he human condition in relation to universal consciousness relating to time, knowledge, perception and the relationship we hold in relation to these and the concept of time, both past, present, and future. However I think what I do want an answer to is "if time is simply a measure, how can it exist?” Time is not made of matter, nor is it tangible in the sense of matter. It can be estimated using knowledge that we have about how elements evolve in our universe, like rings on a tree trunk. (I would be happy to be proved wrong)... but the measurement of matter using time as we class it dictates that we must use these outcomes in a way that time was never going to be able to cope with. Minutes, seconds etc when talking about such concepts is nearly irrelevant, as the actual matters’ behavior is the important measurement when looking at this. and the relationship with time is an utterly flawed concept, as it is universal rule that only we humans use in any real way, and we ask of it to be applied to matter that we do not control, own, or think for, let alone obeys our beliefs and theory, therefore it has no relationship, and cant for the long term future,

contributed by Laurence Barr on Sep 15 9:49pm

Heh! Hi everyone!:D I wrote my opinion about "time" on my blog... Il just ctrl+c it here... :D

Dec 7, 2007

Time!?

What is the time? Is that a fourth dimension? Is there an origin of time?
The story I remembered yesterday takes me back to summer of 2006...
Well, while drinking beer up on some building's roof with couple of friends, watching the sky, bright stars and the moon, sitting on the hot aluminum roofing, someone started talking about time... Started asking questions like these above...

I stood up and said a sentence that was just coming through my mind : " * Time is a virtual measurement for describing the change*(motion, state...) of matter! ".
Now I'll try to explain this not so simple time definition that I've made then... We can conclude from this sentence that if there were no change in matter there wont be time! Space, not universe but empty space without matter, is timeless, cause there is no matter and matter always change even we don't see that. Now imagine a matter standing still in that space in a shape of a cube, that is stable and solid, made of atoms and molecules that are fixed (not moving, pure solid material) and atoms made of it's components that are also fixed, that space with that specific theoretical matter is timeless. But if there is other parallel space with changing matter or many more, time starts to run cause metaphorically said "clocks only measure other clocks". So if we cannot stop the motion of matter, we cannot stop the time. If there is no dimension(size) which means that there is no matter to measure so it leads us to an empty space, and without a matter there is no change so there is no time. Then time depends on dimension...

Now, lets define dimension. I am not a theoretical physicist, i only use definitions of my aspect of view. Dimension is a vector and it represents measurement. It would be stupid of me to say that the time is not a measurement, but if it is, then it's also a dimension. So i divided 4 dimensions into 3 "real" (size dimensions: x, y, z) and one "virtual" (time), only to describe the dependence between size and time! We also see now that if there were other parallel spaces or universes with "fixed' matter or no matter at all, and our universe with matter change, the time will exist in other universes cause they will refer to changes in our! And what about the energy? We cannot measure energy with size!? But it also changes in space... But we must consider that there would not be energy if there is no change of matter. You could think that i should add the energy to my sentence above, but i will not, cause energy is bounded to matter and as i said "there would not be energy if there is no change of matter". So we finally come to conclusion that time is as real as size. If we say that there is one "big universe" with one or more parallel universes in it and if we admit the rule that the matter is only state changing, that "big universe" must circle matter and with matter the energy released by the change of matter, we can say that the universe and also the reality is in the shape of number 8. It is a self reproducing system that circles the matter and the energy. And we see that this "big universe" can only exist buy circling the matter and energy and if that universe represents reality, we also see from that that the TIME IS REAL DIMENSION, but still it depends on size. And why does the matter changes? It changes to enable self reproducing of that "big universe" in the shape of number 8. And protons and neutrons have motion to enable the stability of an atom. So like in micro that in macro an reverse... :) And now the big bang theory... maybe in anther post...

p.s. These are only my thoughts about dimensions, size, time, matter, energy and universe and it may not be true, but who knows...

here is the link also: http://n-stamat.blogspot.com/2007/12/time.html#links, drop by and leave a comment please, i will appreciate it :D Bye!

contributed by Nikola Stamatovic on Dec 7 9:44am

Again Though, you use the effect of change on matter to measure "TIME" as the essence. Because of this fundemental ideal, the idea is insuffcient in its definition. The change of matter is ongoing, if no matter exsists, obviously no matter will change. Time has no effect on matter, it is simply a measurement. That we use time to give a meanigful gauge in our perception to further define the change is irrelevant in the change, it plays no part nor affects the matter in any way shape or form. Because of the glaringly obvious arguemrents that time has any physical effect on matter, it agains points to the fact time is no more then a mere mesurement of perception from the eye of the beholder between on event or change in such, to another. And because this is an easily shared, common and comparable experience, commonalities are grouped and used to define such periods. However the variable, being perception, is the great differing, uncontrolable factor, which i will not bother in explaining the enourmous, unpredictable nature of such. If time did exist , as matter does per se, one would be a fool to not harness, harvest and sell such a precious item to those who are in need.

Time is netiher a dimension, as time, being as it is at its purest, a man made measuremnt of perception of matter, has differing and altered effects on differing types of matter, in differing conditions and areas of the universe. For time to be a dimension, this would have needed to be a static outcome, rather then providing a random outcome in differing envirnoments.

contributed by Laurence Barr on Dec 21 5:48pm

HERE IS HOW YOU BUILD A WARP DRIVE ...

The concept of building a warp drive needs to be brought down to Earth made tangible if a drive is going to be built.

Recently scientists have shown an actual electron, photographed it, made a video of it, and they did this with a very low energy camera, photographed it thousands of times doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and then put these images together to create a single short video of an electron traveling in full light, because of the multiple exposure.

The low light/energy filming eliminates the Principle of Uncertainty by maintaining the electron in a low energy state thus the electron moves predictably, no Uncertainty.

The electron looks like a particle riding a beam of light, just as I had predicted, this is what we need to create when building a warp drive vehicle, matter that glows with light, it is in an electromagnetic/gravitational field which is soo strong it absorbs light and energy from its surroundings and causes the ship to glow as it is in an electrical field so energized the monocles of its shell emit light, the metal skin would appear translucent.

Glowing translucent space ships have been observed in some UFO sightings.

The warp drive's task is to surround the entire ship in a huge and powerful electromagnetic field, a field so powerful it saturates the fabric of space and time at the perimeter of the ship, doing so will make the ship essentially weightless and highly reactive to neighboring electromagnetic fields, like planets, this is creating a ship as an electron, bringing the power of the quantum world to marco dimensions and allowing it to ride a beam of light !

The way to do this is to build a special kind of black hole, one that is small but big enough to power a ship.

Black holes have thus-far in their greatest complexity been theorized to be spinning around a relatively stationary poll and these black holes suck in matter, digest it beginning at the event horizon, and then spray it out as pure energy at the polls like a laser beam, instant matter to pure energy conversion.

Now I believe that this view of these spinning black holes is too simple, a black hole that was spinning very rapidly, close to the speed of light, would also produce an immensely powerful electromagnetic field around the black hole and the event horizon of this field would be much larger then the gravitational event horizon !

This concept creates an immense number of possibilities as we look out into space. I believe that these types of black hole could be manufactured and a metal shell could be formed around the black hole near the perimeter of electromagnetic event horizon that would allow the black hole to be contained in the macro world.

Holes like this in nature would have rings like Saturn, and if they had rapidly and widely gyrating polls, not very likely to form in nature, they would form a metal shell or band around the black hole at the magnetic event horizon and this shell would absorb the energy emitted from the polls which would cause the electromagnetic field to grow even more greatly in power.

Although this would be short lived as the shell would probably block matter from moving into the gravitational event horizon thus the black hole would eventually slow and run out of power.

But if this kind of black hole was manufactured it would need to be grown in an atom smasher so that it spins at as high a speed as possible and the polls wobble as much as possible, then when it becomes large enough that the gravitational event horizon converts matter entering the hole directly to energy then a shell should be placed around it at the electromagnetic event horizon also encase the polls so as to reflect the energy to the inside of the ball. This will further power the electromagnetic field.

Tuning the black hole to emit the correct type of energy is important so that the metal ball encasement is not destroyed by the energy emitted at the polls, this will probably be related to the speed that the hole is spinning and its size. The desired emissions are probably light, electrons, and microwaves, this portion of the spectrum.

Now, I believe that when one of these can be build then by putting at least two of them together then it will be possible to build a warp drive.

Picture the engine pods on the ship from science fiction The Starship Enterprise, the arms of the two pods would be designed to hinge slightly so that the distance between the pods are adjustable. Each would contain a black hole at the front of the pod where they would glow just like they did in the ship on TV. The ship and everything on it would be non-metallic but the skin would be conductive and a current would run through it to include it in the magnetic field and increase and control its strength. The black holes would be brought together, closer proximity, to create a larger powerful electromagnetic field around the ship this is how the warp drive is controlled.

This field would suck in ambient energy as well as reflect it depending or how the black holes magnetic polls are oriented to each other, thus all the capabilities that the ship has, shields, tractor bean, photon torpedoes, ect. are created by manipulation of the black holes end their electromagnetic fields.

Another way to build a ship from black holes a design that makes more sense and would be less fragile would be a ship shaped like a triangle where there would be 3 holes, one in each corner, a ship of this design could spin at very high speeds, although I can not decide exactly what that would do other then make more maneuverable. I do not know if spinning creates time travel as it did for Superman, it might as fields powerful to create warped space could do so instantly when oriented relative to each other in the correct way if you don't do that quickly enough spinning just tears you apart. I do not know about this one, I think to travel trough time forward or back you must travel to the primordial center of the universe, spend some time there traveling or rotating around the worm in the correct direction and then return to Earth with the correct path to get to the date that you are interested in, although it is currently beyond me EXACTLY how this works. Never the less I believe that there is very likely a MASSIVE wormhole at the primordial center of the universe.

When this super large wormhole collapses in on itself, THAT is when the big bang occurs, once again, what is going on at the outer edges of the universe is irrelevant to the central wormhole.

The metal shell around these black holes would have a device which allows the injection of matter near the black hole's gravitational event horizon this would be at the center of the wobbling polls where the electromagnetic field is the weakest and at a latitude that would fuel the spin of the hole. Injection of matter into the hole results in the direct conversion of matter to energy -- rapidly spinning black holes are perfectly efficient power plants at the very least.

Traveling in a ship with a warp drive would make the surroundings seem to shrink as the mass of the ship expands seemingly endlessly but ONLY in the direction of travel. If a ship was traveling many light years it could take a some time for the entire ship to arrive at the destination, hours after the front of the ship had arrived.

To outside observers these ships may appear to arrive long before they have completed their journey, they could appear as massive triangles stationary at a location that is the point of the ships arrival, with their appearance of size dependent upon the orientation of travel relative to the observers local plane of space and time. To watch one zip away it would rapidly travel in the direction it was going but also shrink as the orienting of the electromagnetic/gravitational polls of the black holes within the ship are placing its local fabric of space and time perpendicular to the observers fabric of space and time.

Do these ships automatically get sucked into the greater worm hole surrounding our universe and making up the fabric of space and time, perhaps, and does all quantum material exist partially on the other side of the edge of this worm hole which creates the fabric of space and time, very likely, yes.

So how is one of these black holes manufactured ? Take some Bose-Einstein condensate gather up as much as you can, add a little bit of light energy and that will cause it all to become sticky for a little while, finding the exact amount of energy to add is difficult as it is a very small amount. This process may go on for a while, condensing the matter without permanently energizing it. Once it is in a coherent state start to bombard it with an atom smasher hitting it on the edge as to cause it to spin as rapidly as possible, continue to do this until energy starts to emanate from the polls, the faster it spins the smaller the black hole will be when it produces power. Bombarding it once it is started spinning with anti-matter might help to increase the speed of the spin. Then bombard it more at another angle to get the polls to wobble in a stable way, this could be very difficult to do in practice or maybe NOT wobbling might be exactly what is needed as without the wobble the internal matter could become disk shaped, wobble it correctly and it becomes a sphere. Then measure where the electromagnetic fields are the strongest and snap your metal sphere halves of the corresponding size around the black hole.

Oh, and be sure to have many strong electromagnets in the room containing the hole, because otherwise it may just rip a hole in the wall and zip off to the sun or the Earth's polls, it will probably go somewhere else if not contained electromagnetically.

So, YES, if you own a Warp Drive ship TIME IS AN ILLUSION !!!

_contributed by Robert Mehlschau on Apr 14 5:35pm _

I look at time in two parts. The first part is the actual cause and effect of matter and energy. The second part is the perception of this effect by an observer. I believe that time is in-fact quantum. For instance Planck's constant for time. If you drop a ball from point A to point B and look at the path traveled without time then you would see what apears to be a continues stream between the two points. If matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed then that would indicate that the path could not be infinately dense. An infinite density would indicate a creation of new instances for the ball to infinity. I determined that there is a "frame rate" associated with time. Cause and effect are definetely real and provable mathematically however; perception of time is a bit more of a mystery. If we are only percieving events one after another so that our brains can understand them as opposed to all events happening simultainiously then that would almost suggest that our "soul" or just the undefined nature of our being would be timeless and perception of time is only the result of our desire to continue. With time out of the picture then a persons entire life would not end. The birth to death of an individual would always exist in times movie. As far as this debate goes, I guess that the physics of time are not necessarily as important as the philosophical implications of time. Science is great but like a tool, science is not more important than what you can do with it. Really the only way to exist in all points of time from your birth to your death is to simply die and hope that you made a good movie in which to exist.

contributed by Scott Ketter on Nov 25 5:35pm

Hi guys,

I am glad I found this website. It is probably the best one on the web in respect to an issue of time. I spent a lots of time thinking about it. What seems to me to be obvious, time doesn't exist.

There is certain confusion in this matter. To be precise, it is the time as it is used in physics which does not exist. Psychological time, namely the sense of time and its perception does off course exist. This is the mind which creates its illusion because it needs tools to operate the data of the changing world. That's why we have the notion of past and future and present off course and that's OK. The problem lies in belief that this is real. So, time does exist as a mechanism in mind, one of facets of its intelligence. Belief in time, physical time, taking it as real, as belonging to a hard physical world is false.

What is the nature of time? For the mind, time (perception of it as underlying all events) is the way to operate, categorize the data of the changing world. You can replace the word "time" with "change". Change is the true nature of what we call "time". Where there is no change time is loosing its meaning. Clock is used to measure it. What is the clock? It is always a device of the constant change (as the main part) used to compare its changes to other changes, maybe not so constant and measure their rate. If the time in the fast moving rocket is slower it just means that changes in its mechanism are slower than in the one left on earth (same as in human body, which has the same nature of atomic vibrations).

Materialistic science of physics got entangled in the trap of treating time as real. Trap they are trying to get out from. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/1612909/Time-Illusion pg 4 "Single quantum event". My criticism does not mean there is anything wrong with physics in the way it exists. It does the job, is useful. It is only a question of truth.

Is the time travel possible? No, because changes are irreversible. That’s the law of entropy which is directing the time in one only direction. You can have all possible data about the states of the entire world at two moments in time and still you can’t do it because you won’t be able to go back to the same level of energy of the universe as before the change. I believe you can play tricks with the time but this has more to do with magic (which is dealing with mind) and its delusions than with material world.

So, is this convincing? It is convincing to me, but beware, because this has serious consequences. Notion of time and belief in its physical reality lies in the very foundation of our perception and understanding of the world.

Question of existence of time is closely related to a question of physical existence of our world. As you know space is expressed by three dimensions or distances from certain origin. Distance equals time multiplied by speed. If time is not a physical entity, we cannot really get a hard, physical world as a result of this equation. You can also say that if time does not exist, the result of this multiplication – distance and consequently space as being created by those distances - does not exist either (as a base for a physical world). Again, it simply takes time to experience the space (move in space or verify its existence). So, what is happening when you change place (move in space)? Simply, nothing but change in place - there is no time involved in this process. Instead, there is just sequence of events. If we still want to use the notion of time, it became undetermined. One moment is (or equals) the eternity.

Does the time exists for the Universe? No, time is a factor for the mind only. Universe does not think, so it does not need it. Universe just exists.

As you see this all is very simple. Why not?

With best regards,

Janusz C.

P.S.: Mr Robert Mehlshau wrote on August 16:
"That universe has characteristics of consciousness and follows the laws of consciousness". What are those laws, if you can specify?

contributed by Janusz C on Dec 15 8:30am

Janusz,

With regards to entropy, are you saying that the sum of our universe is a closed system? How does a closed system get created without outside intervention? Surely the system could not have always existed as that would require the creation of a time line in the reverse direction and I know that you can not create or destroy energy. If our "known" universe is not a closed system then couldnt the laws of thermodynamic be broken relative to our system. This would kind of be like a freezer. Inside the freezer the system is simplifying but it requires a external force. Is it possible that our physical universe could be part of a close system rather than the system its self?

Peace :)

contributed by Scott Ketter on Dec 19 5:29pm

Hi Scott,

Thank you for your note. Sorry, I can't comment on this. I do not know anything about the world creation. Besides, I do not create a new theory. First, I think this all is too simple and straightforward to make me the first one who found this out. Secondly, I am just sharing my thoughts with others who might be interested in the subject. To be a theory it is too imcomplete and I am certain somebody has already done this. Asking you to comment or ask questions on specifics from my text if you want to help me to go further. That's also my intention in case of my comments relating to other posts.

Thank you for your wish of peace. Same to you and

My Regards,

contributed by Janusz C on Dec 21 11:35am

I believe I understand the nature of our perception of time. There is just a few things that I get hung up on when it comes to time travel. For instance, travel into the past is mostly regarded as impossible because of entropy or causality. But there are to many unanswered questions about time to completely rule out time travel. Take entropy for instance. Does it apply to time travel if the universe that we know is not a closed system. Then there is causality, if you can not change the past because that is not how it happened then wouldnt you have to change it if your change is how it was supposed to happen. I personally believe that you can not change what is supposed to happen, but if that is true then we can no more change our future then a time traveler can change his past. Maybe we cant change our future or our past but would not implicitly rule out time travel. It would just mean that everything you do is supposed to happen. It kind of makes me wonder who is really in control. If everything that happened in the past lead to my life and what I believe today then everything in the future will be changed by my actions today. It almost seams like we are just along for the ride.

contributed by Scott Ketter on Jan 11 9:14pm

TIME IS RUN OF CLOCKS IN ATEMPORAL SPACE

Today in physics there are two fundamental approaches on time. First is that with clocks we measure time that is a consistent part of space. According to this approach clocks run in space-time as a basic physical reality. This approach has no experimental evidence, space-time as a fundamental physical reality in which material change run cannot be experimentally observed. Second approach is that time is not part of space; time is run of clocks in space. Each experiment conforms that with clocks we measure duration and numerical order of material change that run in space. There is no experimental evidence that clocks run in time, clock’s run itself is time. Run of time is relative; speed of clocks depends on strength of gravity force in different areas of space. Space itself is timeless (atemporal).
Key words: time, space, duration, numerical order, information

Introduction
There is no experimental evidence for space-time existing as physical reality. In physical experiments one observes stream of material change in physical space only. Physical space is a medium in which massive bodies and elementary particles move. Space-time is not a physical reality, space-time is merely a mathematical model with which one describe stream of material change in physical space. With clocks we measure duration and numerical order of material change that run in physical space. Here time is defined as: Time is run of clocks in physical space. Physical space itself is timeless (atemporal). Travel into past are out of question.

Discussion
Several researches confirm that space-time as an “arena” of the universe does not correspond to the physical reality. They propose “timeless space” as an arena of the universe.
An article discussing that model of space-time is not corresponding physical universal space and could be replaced with atemporal fractal geometry of state space was recently published on arxiv (1).
An article discussing possibilities that space is timeless was recently published in arxiv: “We illustrate our proposal using a toy-model where we show how the Lorentzian signature and Nordstroem gravity (a diffeomorphisms invariant scalar gravity theory) can emerge from a timeless non-dynamical space” (2).
Time and clocks are man inventions. Motion is primary, time is secondary. Ernst Mach sad: “It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction, at which we arrive by means of the changes of things”(3).
Time is a scientific tool that permits us to build up cosmological models of the universe. Time as a run of clocks plays no role in the universe. Julian Barbour is saying in his article “The Nature of Time”: “I will not claim that time can be definitely banished from physics; the universe might be infinite, and black holes present some problems for the time picture. Nevertheless, I think is entirely possible – indeed likely – that time as such plays no role in the universe” (3).

Relativity of Time
According to this understanding of time in the Special Theory of Relativity in a faster inertial system the speed of clocks (time) and material change in general, is lower than in a slower inertial system. In General Theory of Relativity in physical space with stronger gravity the speed of clocks (time) and material change is lower than in cosmic space with a weaker gravity field.
This understanding of time resolves the problem of twins. They do not live in time; they live in space only. A brother in a high-speed spaceship is getting older slower than his brother on Earth, but both are getting older in a physical space only and not in time. With clocks we measure biological changes in their bodies.

Direct Quantum Information
Some research shows that quantum direct communication is a real phenomenon: “We show how continuous-variable systems can allow the direct communication of messages with an acceptable degree of privacy. This is possible by combining a suitable phase-space encoding of the plain message with real-time checks of the quantum communication channel. The resulting protocol works properly when a small amount of noise affects the quantum channel. If this noise is non-tolerable, the protocol stops leaving a limited amount of information to a potential eavesdropper”(4).
Here it is considered that information does not move in space-time, it moves in physical space only. Physical space itself is immediate information medium between quanta.
Also in the EPR experiment physical space is immediate information medium between elementary particles. There is no information signal in form of photon or some other particle traveling between particles A and B. Time of information transfer between particle A and particle B is zero (5).

Causality problems for Fermi’s two-atom system
Physical space as an “immediate information medium” resolves the causality problem of Fermy two atoms system: “Let A and B be two atoms or, more generally, a ‘‘source’’ and a ‘‘detector’’ separated by some distance R. At t=0A is in an excited state, B in its ground state, and no photons are present. A theorem is proved that in contrast to Einstein causality and finite signal velocity the excitation probability of B is nonzero immediately after t=0. Implications are discussed”(6).
Excitation probability of B is nonzero because space in which atoms exists is an “immediate medium of excitation”. There is no time needed for information or excitation to pass from A to B. Time is only a measure for motion of excitation from atom A to atom B in physical space.

Immediate Physical Phenomena
According to understanding here physical phenomena can be immediate. One can also say “timeless” or “atemporal”. Time t for these phenomena to happen is zero. Experiment from which they conclude that an electron can tunnel through the potential barrier of a He atom in practically no time vas carried out recently (7).
An article on arxiv a system of diagrams is introduced that allows the representation of various elements of a quantum circuit, including measurements, in a form which makes no reference to time (hence ``atemporal'') (8).
According of this understanding of time Eternity is now. We are living in a timeless (atemporal) universe; past and future are existing only in the human mind (9).

Conclusions
Material change does not run in time, they run in physical space only. Physical space itself is timeless (atemporal). Some physical phenomena that run atemporal physical space are immediate. Time for these phenomena to happen is zero. Clocks are scientific tools which measure time as a duration and numerical order of material change that run in timeless physical space.

References:
1. T.N.Palmer, The Invariant Set Hypothesis: A New Geometric Framework for the Foundations of Quantum Theory and the Role Played by Gravity, Submitted on 5 Dec 2008, last revised 17 Feb 2009, http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1148
2. Florian Girelli, Stefano Liberati, Lorenzo Sindoni, Is the notion of time really fundamental? Submitted on 27 Mar 2009 http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.4876
3. Julian Barbour, The Nature of Time, submitted on 20 Mar 2009, http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.3489

4. S. Pirandola and others, Quantum direct communication with continuous variables, A Leters Journal Exploring Frontier of Physics (2008)
5. Fiscaletti D. Sorli A.S. Non-locality and the Symmetryzed Quantum Potential , Physics Essays, 21(4), (2008)

6. Gerhard C. Hegerfeldt. Causality problems for Fermi’s two-atom system, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 596 - 599 (1994) http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v72/i5/p596_1

7. P. Eckle, A. N. Pfeiffer, C. Cirelli, A. Staudte, R. Dörner, H. G. Muller, M. Büttiker, U. Keller, Attosecond Ionization and Tunneling Delay Time Measurements in Helium, Science,
Vol. 322. no. 5907, pp. 1525 – 1529 (2008) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/322/5907/1525

8. Robert B. Griffiths, Shengjun Wu, Li Yu, Scott M. Cohen, Atemporal diagrams for quantum circuits, submitted on 21 Jul 2005, http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0507215

9. Sorli A., Eternity is Now: The Theory of Atemporality, Boloji.com, Submitted January 18, 2009, http://www.boloji.com/perspective/319.htm

contributed by amrit sorli on Apr 10 3:45am

My suggestion: TIME AS A ZIPPER - NOT AN ARROW (and agree with Janusz)

Time is simply an effect created by the ability of the cognitive domain to compare two or more measurements.
The 'present' is always 'now' with a duration of zero, so it is not a number but an undefined form - mathematically speaking.

It is the world that 'flows' through our sensory input (Heraklit's Panta Rhei 'everything flows') and provides our - at heart -
a-temporal consciousness with continuous measurements that we experience as 'time'.

Animals e.g., just 'are', they flow in synchronicity with the universe. As our brain can hold the universe in memory-loops in our neural network
we are 'dropping out' of sync with the universe, so we can both 'remember' the distance between measurements and the change of events that
has occurred between those measurements.

The physical past is ruled by the 'closing' of world-events, the future is ruled by the uncertainty ('openness') of optional outcomes.

The cognitive past is remembered in networks, the future can be planned, statistically anticipated from proceeding values and imagined.

I agree with the concept of entropy creating the flow (reminds me of the line 'neverending dying love that shines around me like a million suns'
from John Lennon'e 'Across the Universe'), thus 'past' / collapsed states (the precise/unprecise position of particles and objects in this world
that have been measured) cannot be undone.

Hawking called it 'chronology protection'. Time is therefore more like an everclosing zipper rather than an arrow.
Each overserver's timeline creates its own 'zipper' we are talking of almost infinite 'time-fields' and contexts (with their respective 'time-zippers')
in human civilization and cultural history.

As physical time, strictly speaking. does not exist time-travel is also not possible into the past.
For the future time-travel is possible by diving into the uncertainty of being temporarily disconnecting from the world's frame of reference.

Short of having a spaceship that can travel close to the speed of light a simple locking-away from civilization deep in the woods may do the trick
as well: just shield yourself from any media and information flow from the civilized world for a few years and ask your best friends to pick you
up after a couple of years - and marvel how strangely the world has developed

Anyhow-even then the experiment only works by joining the common frame of reference for final measurement.

Last comment on Kant and Time: Time is created ad posteriori as the measurement and process of measuring proceeds the perception of a closed time-frame
and observed event. So it is certainly not a priory, BUT, curiously enough, it is an experience exclusively licensed to our cognitive domain so in a way
we could call the experience of time (a better phrase rather then talking about 'time' as a universal entity) 'transcendental'.

I suggest this paradoxical sounding conclusion based on the discreetness of both the physical and cognitive domain and that one cannot be
reduced to another (like a message's meaning, language or the physical media that works as a carrier - the record is not the song and no song without playback media etc.)

Jona Kompa,
Bangkok June 2009

It would seem to me that time is all psychological. Time is occurring all at once and we, as humans, perceive it as one event at a time. Fans of the graphic novel, Watchmen are no doubt familiar with the quote "time is a complex jewel that humanity refuses to more than one side of at a time." So, in theory, couldn't a person force themselves to move forward or backwards through their own existence just by focussing in a radically different way? Is this perhaps why time flies when your having fun? Just because that's the way your mind works?

For some odd reason, there seems to be a lot of such discussion on the internet, be it in some crackpot website, or on various online forums. And the strange thing about it is that, more often than not, such a discussion is based on, of all things, philosophical arguments and not on physical grounds at all! Most argued that time is a construct of the human mind (as if the rest of what we observe isn't), and that it isn't as "fundamental" as space, etc. In almost all cases, these arguments seem to have overlooked (or maybe they are ignorant of them) a large body of knowledge in physics, and inevitably, never try to address the dynamics of the universe without "time".

Now this is not to say that there isn't a legitimate question on this. One of the things that we try to decipher about the universe is the question on how many fundamental constants are there. Constants such as the fine structure constant can be dimensionless, and thus, such a constant is not dependent on our measuring scale. What ever is the most minimum set of constants that we need to completely describe the universe that we are aware of, then the dimension of such constants will require the minimum corresponding scale. For example, if the speed of light is a fundamental constant, then the concept of both space AND time is the most minimum set of dimensions that we require to allow for "c", since it is a measurement of how much space light has moved in a particular period of time. You cannot simply have just space or just time to be able to define "c" as a quantity.

So what would be the impetus for someone to claim that time is an illusion or isn't fundamental? The most common and most feeble argument that I have seen is the application of Special Relativity's consequence that time "can change" with respect to an observer in different inertial frames. This includes the time dilation effect in <a href="http://www.hostseeq.com/c/virtual_private_servers.htm">virtual private server</a>, and the inability to agree on what is "simultaneous". The other most common argument is the notion that time is nothing more than a measure of displacement, and so, space is more fundamental.

Here, I am not going to try and argue that time isn't fundamental, or time isn't an illusion. We still haven't figured out yet what is meant by an "illusion", since such a word seemed perfectly obvious to the people involved in the philosophical discussion (no one asked the definition of the word, at least not that I have seen). It certainly isn't a physics concept. What I will try to do is point out holes and inconsistencies in such an idea, and that most of these people are actually missing huge chunks of physics that they are ignoring in putting forth their argument. So essentially, this could easily be another "Imagination Without Knowledge is Ignorance Waiting to Happen" entry.

1. Time changes in Special Relativity.
Sure it does! But so does space! Time dilation AND length contraction are two of the consequences of the postulates of Special Relativity. So why pick on time alone?

2. Time is simply a measure of displacement.
How would you actually MEASURE spatial distances? How does one determine Point A is at some distance away from Point B? Use a ruler? How did we arrive at that ruler? What if the distance is huge? Inevitably, this will lead to using light (as Einstein did) in DEFINING what we mean by space and time. That the idea of space is based on the distance that light traveled in a particular period of time, and the idea of time also follows in the same manner. So here, space and time are certainly interlocked, and one isn't more fundamental than the other.

3. In Special and General Relativity, time and space occupy the same degree of importance. They share the same platform, and they are interconnected as the Minkowsky spacetime manifold. So someone who claims time is an illusion or isn't fundamental seems to have ignored or dismissed SR and GR, and did so without any explanation.

4. In elementary particle physics, the concept of space and time are contained in the P and T symmetry (for parity and time). The generally accepted idea out of the Standard Model is that CPT (C=charge conjugation) symmetry is conserved, while we have seen CP and T being violated separately. Regardless of whether we eventually see CPT violation, the fact that the time symmetry operation shares the same degree of importance as parity and charge as one of the fundamental symmetries of the universe seems to have been lost in this argument. Why is such an issue never brought up and explained away?

5. In many well-known phenomena, the appearance of violation of time-reversal symmetry indicates the existence of a profound transition. The transition from the normal state into a superconducting state in unconventional superconductors is one such example. The broken time-reversal symmetry is an important clue on the transition point of such a phenomenon. If this is an "illusion", someone has a lot of explaining to do.

6. Radioactive decay doesn't care if we have a "mind" or not. It will take the same amount of time no matter if we designate time as fundamental or an illusion. Considering that at a single nuclear level, this is a random process and yet as a conglomerate of nuclei, they all somehow "know" the decay rate that they have to "obey", I'd say that these nuclei know about "time" and respect it.

These arguments are just the beginning. For some reason, most of those who are involved in such arguments never seem to address any of these issues, but rather seem to think that one can arrive at a conclusion simply based on "logic" and word games. Somehow, evidence and observation of our physical world aren't an important factor in deciding such a thing. Or maybe they know that they can't address these points and decide to ignore them.

contributed by aaronamations on Jul 9 8:00pm

The physicist Bauer Phys. Z. 19 (1918), 4 showed that simple adoption of polar coordinates, instead of Euclidean ones, creates a gravitational force of infinite energy. (W. Pauli, "Theory of Relativity" life insurance, Pergamon Press (1958), Section 61, pp 175-177.)

When the intensity of the global gravitational force reaches a certain threshold, it becomes broken into fragments which loop back upon themselves and form looped superstrings of space. Initially, the looped superstrings are randomly oriented (spherically symmetric). Random arrangement is the least compact arrangement. Gravity strives to compactify the continuum of looped superstrings. Compactness requires order. That is why gravity increases the orderliness of vacuum and causes its nonuniform compactification (the central region of the universe compactifies faster than the periphery, which creates the illusion of an exponentially accelerating expansion).

The human brain is a region of vacuum characterised by the absolutely maximal orderliness. The human brain orchestrates the gravitational implosion of the whole universe. Eventually (by the end of the year 2014), the universe looses its objectivity and becomes a mere extension of the human brain. Psychokinesis, eternal youth "The human brain orchestrates the gravitational implosion of the whole universe atlanta investment property. Eventually (by the end of the year 2014), the universe looses its objectivity and becomes a mere extension of the human brain."

Another sad attempt to try put man at the center of the universe again??

Its like saying "gnats orchestrate the weather on earth"

We are so incredibly miniscule in comparison to the universe, to say that our brains orchestrate the gravitational implosion of the entire universe is ridiculously absurd.

Do you seriously think the universe was built JUST for humans?? I think not.

Unless of course you mean, brains in general/conscious beings dallas homes for sale, of which there could be gajillions of them scattered throughout the universe, which would make your theory a little more believable.

contributed by riyan jason on Aug 27 2:44am

Robert Mehlschau, I love the way your mind works. I know this is not relevant to this thread but what are your thoughts, if any, on self-healing. I have a chronic disease and have been thinking about it in terms of time and entropy and trying to relate that to the uncertainty principle...mere knowledge in the experimenter's mind, etc. I can start a new topic if need be.

contributed by Fred on Sep 10 10:48am