Time

[draco]

i was watching a movie just now in which time was moving faster than real time (irl). yet it seemed like i was in the movie time. ex: three hours passes in the movie but irl only half an hour passed by and it seemed like three hours actually did pass while i was so into the movie instead of the actual half hour.

so this got me thinking, what does that say about time? if i did not have a clock how would i know three hours didnt actually pass? i mean...they say time is an illusion, what would this mean?

just a little idea i was tossin around.

[ButterflyWoman]

Einstein knew about this. Time is relative. ;)

[White Wolf]

We all move at the speed of light. Every moment, even while at relative rest. The only thing that changes when we move through the 3 dimensions of space is that less of our movement is through time. When you are abslutely still all of your moment is through the time dimension. As a result, time for you relative to everyone else, is as fast as its gonna get. As you move around the world, the faster you move, the less your component through time, and therefore, time slows down for you, while everyone else remains the same. The faster you move (through the three space dimensions), the greater this difference in time is.

If you could go at the speed of light, time would completely stop for you. You can't because of the energy it requires, but in princicple, if you could get the energy, you could stop time for yourself. You just have to move really fast. A particle of light, called a photon, moves through a vacuum at exactly the speed of light. (I'm lying, but its a simplification.) It can do so, without all that energy because it has no mass. (Here's the simplification: Physicists think it may a small amount of mass now.) Its interesting to note that most all the various particles, be it an electron, neutron, proton and the more exotic ones, have mass. Because of this, they all decay into other forms of particles eventually. Its also limits how fast they can go. So that, they all have a range so to speak. The more massive the particle, the slower and shorter lived they are.


Here's a simple diagram of what is happening when you move:

Say the speed of light is these five "x"'s.

x x x x x

Now we split those x's into components that tell us how much of the whole is moving through 2 dimensions, space and time. We will put them on 2 different axis.

time
x
x
x
x
x
0 - - - - space

That is what you speed through spacetime looks like when you are at absolute rest.

When you are moving fast, your speed through spacetime starts to look like this.

time
-
-
x
x
x
0 x x - - - space

If you go at the speed of light through space, then your components look something like this:

time
-
-
-
-
-
0 x x x x x space

Notice, you are still moving at the same toal speed through spacetime (5 x's), but it is completely along the space dimension, so that you aren't moving at all through time. Time does not just pass slowly. It completely stops.

Keep in mind that this is you speed relative to spacetime. Not just to an observer, who may or may not be at rest. For instance, we are not at rest. At the very least. are in a gravitation field and therefore, under acceleration. Not to mention whizing around the rotation of the earth, orbitng the sun, and flying through the milkyway.


Relativity in a nutshell.

[Psychotronic]

Time is only concern of consciousness. It percieve material informations in a time, but the real fact, real principle is immaterial. So we are only improving our psychic abilities to percieve informations and situations in no time. Time depends on relative matter and your perception of that. Higher principles is more immaterial, so we must tune our consciousness in spheres with no time. We want to release the time for higher immaterial perception and understanding.

Movies can change our perception of time, because they often change work of our consciousness and tune it into another sphere of thinking. :D

[johnbrent]

huh? that was a little confusing. wasn't it as simple as you got entertained and forgot about time..

[Hibby]

Well lets just put it this way, everyone lives in a different speed of time because everyone is moving at a different velocity relative to each other. However the difference is actually very small because you would require great amounts of difference in velocity to notice this change. This is the physical time btw.

The other time is the mental time. lets just say your mind ticks five times a second on it's mental clock in its normal state, each time it ticks, packages of information is delivered to your conscious mind. when time seems to be faster for you or when your mind slows down you receive less ticks per second, like one every second. In this example, 5 seconds in the real world would seem like 1 second to you, because normally you'd be experiencing 25 but now you've only experienced 5.

Or when time seems to be slower, your mind is working faster and so you receive more of these ticks per second, like 10 every second. So for this example, 5 seconds would seem like 10 seconds for you.

I think they say time is an illusion because it is all relative to the individual. However the measurement of time was created so we all live in the same time, and thus communicate correctly and accurately. Such that the cells in our body need to be in time synchronisation. And how the skies tells animals what time it is.

Time is always measured by how many of an object of fixed velocity is able to cross over a certain point, it is only natural to think that time affected by velocity as velocity is used to measure time.
So what is a second? a second is how long it takes for the sun to move 0.00417 degress in the sky. So by the time the sun has moved a whopping 0.00417 degress to you and me, i could have pressed a button and you go have finished reading this sentence.