Ahh... since we are going into details, talking about too many things at the same time can be confusing...

Let's focus on one thing first. Let's talk about "time".

Some people say that time is the 4th dimension; this is common acceptance because they perceive time as linear. If time is indeed linear then it's perfectly legitimate to say that time is the 4th dimension (the spatial dimension is the other 3-dimension).

Now why do I believe that time is not linear but rather it's a cycle? Because it is what I observe in day to day life. Take a day for example. A day has 24.25 hours, and it starts again (a full revolution of the earth around the sun). Then there are periods of sleep and awaken and/or dreams. Then there are periods of going to work, going home, and repeat. Then there are periods of eating, drinking, going to the toilet, and repeat, etc... and etc... All of these "events" repeat day to day or time after time (ie: a cycle). Even more so if anyone believes in the cycle of birth and death, etc... and etc...

Some people try to find the beginning of time and the end of time. Unfortunately, nobody could do that. If time was indeed linear, then it should be very easy to find the beginning of time; although if time is linear and is infinite, then the end of time does not exist; but the beginning of time will exist and can be easily found (if time is linear).

However, because time is non-linear, ie: cyclic, there is no beginning nor end. An example is if you look at a circle, where can you say is the beginning and where is the end of the circle?

well... the day has only 23 hours, 56 minutes and 50 seconds (earth rotation relative to fixed stars). And the cyclic form of time you describe is more subjective than relative... I mean you describe time from your or someones point of view regarding it's daily/weekly/yearly routine.
No offense but this is how i interpret what you just wrote...

Time is relative. That is already scientifically proven ie: Einstein's theory of relativity.

That is why when I talk about time, I use the references of where we live ie: planet Earth revolving around its star, the sun.

With this reference, a day has exactly 24.25 hours (1 full earth revolution around the sun).

Subjective is synonymous to relative, ie: it is not objective. While it is true that I was describing those time cycles (daily, weekly, yearly routines) relatively to MY experience (ie: the point of reference is me), it doesn't matter if you change the point of reference, it is still cyclic.

An example, if you change the point of reference to the revolution of the moon around the earth, then the time cycle is now ~30 days. The value of the time duration is now different, but what remained the same is that... it is still a cycle.

Either cycles of 1 hour, 1 min, 24 hour, 30 days, etc... or even 1 nano seconds, etc... they are still a cycle of that amount of duration.

So yes, time is relative... that means... the duration of the time cycles changes according to the point of references. However, one thing remains constant through out... is that they are all cycles of XXX duration.

Hrm, wikipedia is king :P p.s. thanks triss for raising the question i actually ended up looking a number of things (domino effect in my head so-to-speak) and discovered that the conclutions we are reaching have already been reached :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time wrote:

Time is a component of a measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects. Time has been a major subject of religion, philosophy, and science, but defining time in a non-controversial manner applicable to all fields of study has consistently eluded the greatest scholars. Time is used to define other quantities – such as velocity – and defining time in terms of such quantities would result in circularity of definition. An operational definition of time, wherein one says that observing a certain number of repetitions of one or another standard cyclical event (such as the passage of a free-swinging pendulum) constitutes one standard unit such as the second, has a high utility value in the conduct of both advanced experiments and everyday affairs of life.

p.s. the theory of relativity doesn't actually talk about time itself, however, it speaks more about moving bodies and such ... not "time" as we are talking about :P

We can discuss theory relativity at length some times, but it's a bit more technical. I did take 5 advanced modern physics courses when I was still in University and 3 of them are about relativity.

To make it short, "time" is in everything we experience in this world. The moving bodies... of large body motions (planetary) or even small subatomic particles motions... they all depend on time. Einstein's theory of relativity explains two things: relationship between energy vs mass, and how time is relative as opposed to absolute.

Anyway, I'll leave it as that without getting into technical and mathematical details.

what i understand is that you say there are circles of time in the relative time itself. Your described repetitive time circles are within the normal time flow because every circle "starts" at another point in time itself (everyday you get older, every month the moon is older).

Because it get too confusing by now let's start simple with some Q&A:
1. Is time "flowing" in only one direction?
2. Are there more time continuums? (one main and more secondary and more)
3. Can you revert time?
4. If time is "flowing" in one direction, relativity showed us that this flowing occurs at different speeds depending on gravity, velocity and mass, right?

Well you can make time extra-dimensional, why stop at a circle, make it a sphere for start:)

Because time is not an entity (ie: object). All dimensions or anything related, must belong to the space continuum. Time is not a subset of space nor it is confined in it. Time is a separate continuum similar to that of the space continuum.

Your idea of time as a sphere must have arisen when I described the circle. That was just an analogy to show that there is no beginning nor end of a circle shape.

Time is not a circle... it's a cycle :)

That's perfectly valid to say that the repeating cycles are linear. They are linear because it's an increment of 1 whenever a cycle repeats itself.

However, this is the key, every new cycle does not contain the same entities as the previous cycles.

An example to see this; let's use the earth day cycle. Tomorrow, the cycle repeats itself, but tomorrow somebody on this planet might have died, or someone is borned. Therefore, every new cycle is different (ie: contains different events, entities) even though the duration of the cycle is fixed everytime.

Because of this, it is not "valid" to call these time cycles as a linear progression... because there is no "constant" progression; each progression is of something else each time.

An anology is this; every day we call it a "NEW" day. But we don't associate today as yesterday. Yesterday is yesterday; the day before that was another day, and so on. Although we can note that today is the year 2008, etc..., it is just a reminder of how many day cycles have passed. It is important to realize that every day is a different day :)

This is also why I think that time travel is not possible. Time travel is only possible if time is linear. Because it's not linear, time travel is impossible.

To comment on Angelica's...

_Angelica_ wrote:

what i understand is that you say there are circles of time in the relative time itself. Your described repetitive time circles are within the normal time flow because every circle "starts" at another point in time itself (everyday you get older, every month the moon is older). Because it get too confusing by now let's start simple with some Q&A: 1. Is time "flowing" in only one direction? 2. Are there more time continuums? (one main and more secondary and more) 3. Can you revert time? 4. If time is "flowing" in one direction, relativity showed us that this flowing occurs at different speeds depending on gravity, velocity and mass, right?

1. Time does not flow... flowing implies linearity. Time only repeats... the duration of the cycle seems to appear that time is flowing within that duration; but it's important to note the difference. Instead of using the term "flow", it is better to say that time passes.

2. There is only one time continuum and one space continuum. But in the time continuum, there may be infinite number of cycles... ranging from nanoseconds to milleniums or however long they are. Similarly, in the space continuum, there may be infinite number of universes occupying different dimensions inside this infinite space continuum.

3. Time travel is not possible because it's not linear

4. Time is not flowing... rather it just passes; relativity is the concept of object vs observer ie: frame of references. Different point of references will experience different cycles of the passage of time.

Following up on the idea that it is not valid to call the cycles of time as a linear progression, I will give you a more detailed example.

Supposed that I have 10 dimes, 5 quarters, and 3 loonies ($1 coins).

To represent these coins as linear progression, one would divide out 3 piles of coins: dimes, quarters, and loonies.
For the pile of dimes, it is then counted 1, 2, 3 ... 10 dimes. This is a linear progression of 10 same items ie: dimes
For the pile of quarters, it is then counted: 1, 2... 5 quarters. This is a linear progression of 5 same quarters.
And similarly, it is done for the loonies.

That example shows 3 separate linear progressions of the 3 separate types of coins.
It is invalid to combine all 18 coins together and say that it's a linear progression of 18 dimes, quarters and loonies.

The same thing applies to the cycles of time. Because each of the time cycle contains all different events as well as entities, to group them all into one and categorize them as ONE linear progression is wrong.

How do you differentiate one cycle from another?

That's a good question... sounds simple but I'll let someone else tackle it first.

nerds...

so... also in this topic, why do you think that the time continuum exists also outside our own universe?

SuiYun wrote:

nerds...

bored people would fit better... i play these days Homeworld, Homeworld cataclism and Deus ex (the first one). These are really old games so you can imagine how bored i am...

Because otherwise, it would imply that there is only one universe (our universe).

In order for other universes to exist, the time continuum must also exist outside our universe.

To assume that our universe is the ONLY universe is the same as assuming that our planet is the only planet that has life.

well... you see other stars and other galaxies and that's why we assume that there is life out there. The probability is just to big. It's too obvious.
The other universes on the other hand are pure theory.

And regarding the other universes that you mentioned that all have time, i still don't get it... Why must they all have the same laws of physics? Why must the force of gravity be there also the weakest force of all? Must the other universes have time just because we can't imagine a world without it?

about the forces i can say only that i read somewhere some time ago...dun remember where...something like there is somewhere in space a point where all the forces are null...that means that each and every force has to have an opposite with the exact module in order to nullify eachother in that specific point...dunno how true that is...also...ur not sure that the time continuum exists everywhere...time is an "artificial" term...so as far as man can define time it exists...for an example...there were stars that exploded milions of years ago somewhere very far in space and they say that we still see them coz it takes light a massive amount of "time" to reach earth from back there..

Now if i was coherent enough in what i said...my luck...if not...im awake since 4:40 am in the morning :)

No1 wants to take a shot at introducing dimensions into the time continuum? :P

And measure? Impose an ordering upon time continuum in a way that it is clear that t1 > t2.

Ordering? A cycle would suggest there is a succession of 'observable moments' or quantums of time such that every moment within a cycle comes both 'before' and 'after' any other within a cycle?

u can't bring up something that will proove that t1>t2....u can only say that...as u said...any moment comes and also becomes a before and an after...

Nah, I only indulge the idea that if time is linear (ie: have dimensions), then it can only have 1 dimension.

But I still don't think that time has dimension since it's cyclic in nature... and not linear.

you cannot have cyclic time without the 1 dimension, you would have everything happening in any other moment, as there would be no way to tell them apart, everything that shares the same space would interact as there would be no way to be in different time, for a cycle in 1-dimensional space, a 'plastic' example would be a pendulum swinging away from one position to another each both before and after any other, not a cycle but an oscilation, for a genuine cycle, a strict succesion that proceeds into itself you need 2 dimensions as you cant traverse the same segments on your way back... its not a question of physics but rather of perception as you must denote the observed moments in time somehow...

I'm lost... there's a duration in every cycle. So everything won't be happening in the same cycle. Otherwise, it would mean that there is ONLY ONE cycle. However, I already said that in the time continuum, there are infinite cycles of XXX duration happening independently of one another.

It seems that you are trying to visualize or "motion-ize" the passage of time. The problem of visualizing or trying to see how time is "moving" or "flowing" is the tendency to associate time with dimensions. Because all movements are subjected to the space-continuum (ie: occupying space) and therefore must have dimensions.

This is another reason why I do not use the words "time flowing" or "time moving". Using those words will imply that time has dimension; that is why I only use the the phrases "time passes" or the "passage of time", to denote the change of time.

Another way to see that time cannot have dimension is this: time is an event. How do place dimensions in an event?

Dimensions have nothing to do with motion but notation, denote the cycles, tell them apart, you have, effectively, introduced a dimension into the time continuum, everything is within a certain cycle, telling which cycle is a dimension, not alike the spatial dimension, but still, infinity of cycles allows for the 'dimension' view of it, the mention of a duration implies that you can observe different moments within a cycle, so that cycles can further be divided, if cycles cannot be divided they are effectively 'atoms' of time, every cycle is indivisible and only 1 dimension exists - found by the question: which cycle?

1563

and only after 1564 men could finally observe the stars?