Seriously thoughtful The concept of 'TIME'

[Druid_Elf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel

When in trouble, use wiki
Quantum theory and general relativity say that is possible in theory

[Williamlk]

Awesome responses, such interesting theories to ponder. (In fact, it's making my brain hurt!)

Here is another element of time that I often try to reflect upon. What would an existence be like if there was NO time at all? It's easy to dismiss the proposition as impossible, but.....hmmmmmm???

Side note; Thinking about this for excessive periods of 'time' may require medication and lots of therapy. LOL

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Williamlk

What would an existence be like if there was NO time at all?

We could follow my boss's advice and "make time".

[Roger Parkinson]

Not long back I read something in 'New Scientist' that described using black holes to make something like a wormhole that could allow stuff to go to a different time. It was interesting but there didn't seem to be a way for anything to survive the experience, and definitely no way to get back. So these things may be possible in theory, just, but not practical. But that should never spoil a good story.

The things that do spoil a good story for me involve ignoring the paradoxes. Others have mentioned the issues of changing history, including in a way that the time traveler was never born in the first place. Douglas Adams covered this well in his description of a famous cathedral which was obliterated because they needed to build a factory on the site, a really, really big factory and the only way to complete it on time was to go back to before the cathedral was built and start building the factory.

But the one that I think has not been mentioned is the overcrowding of historic events. The usual examples are Jesus dying on the Cross, or first coming out of the tomb. If we could time travel back to then there would be at least a million people standing around watching, probably many more. How did we not notice? Or how was this prevented?

Personally I'm not so fond of the time branching stories. This is not to be confused with alternate history stories, which I do like. But time branching can get away with anything and the cleverest stories make history work regardless of the time travel.

[TGS]

Suppose you have a meeting arranged for next Wednesday, then you get an email saying, "Sorry to mess you about but we are going to have the move the meeting forward a day." Is the meeting now on Tuesday or Thursday.
Why is this relevant? Well there seem to be two main ways of conceiving of time - either as something we move through or as something that moves past us, and whilst most of us can operate with either conception we do tend to favour one or the other.

[nohmi2]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I can't watch ..... tell me when it's over.

After having made a stupid mistake, I have been duly severely chastised, and as far as I know, there's no pistols at dawn. Can't see any blood on the floor - so far, so good.

That'll l'arn me to do things in haste.

The playground seems safe now.

Cheers.

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by TGS

Suppose you have a meeting arranged for next Wednesday, then you get an email saying, "Sorry to mess you about but we are going to have the move the meeting forward a day." Is the meeting now on Tuesday or Thursday.
Why is this relevant? Well there seem to be two main ways of conceiving of time - either as something we move through or as something that moves past us, and whilst most of us can operate with either conception we do tend to favour one or the other.

Whoa. I've got to think about that one. Very interesting.

[MickeyC]

It's a popular idea among conspiracy theorists that the problems continuing to plague the Large Hadron Collider at Cern are actually being caused by scientists coming back from the future and deliberately damaging it. This because they know that, if the Collider is ever fired up and does bang atoms together at close to light speed, it'll cause a black hole.

Hmmm, wonder if my eBook Reader will work in a black hole. The answer is it probably will since it survives all the trashy detective novels I read on it.

[lene1949]

I think 'Time' is very interesting... We developed Time based on the moon and the sun...

Maybe we're wrong! What if 'our second' equals 1 hour somewhere else?

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by cassidym

It's a popular idea among conspiracy theorists that the problems continuing to plague the Large Hadron Collider at Cern are actually being caused by scientists coming back from the future and deliberately damaging it. This because they know that, if the Collider is ever fired up and does bang atoms together at close to light speed, it'll cause a black hole.

Hmmm, wonder if my eBook Reader will work in a black hole. The answer is it probably will since it survives all the trashy detective novels I read on it.

Assuming you are able to live within a black hole, its unlikely that you'd be able to read anything (or even see) in a black hole. The light reflected from the screen would be pulled to the center of the black hole before it can reach your eyes.

This does bring to mind a related question to the one concerning time, what would life be like within a black hole? Could a black hole be a doorway into another time, to another location in space, or to another dimension?

[Druid_Elf]

LHC can't cause a black hole as it does not generate enough energy.
This is a statement made by people who did not know what LHC was and was it was going to be used for. In worst case the swiss will be blown away, but forget black hole creation.
Should mini black holes be created in high-energy particle collisions, they would evaporate very fast, due to Hawking radiation.
So forget the theory of black holes eating up the earth

[v1k1ng1001]

Originally Posted by Williamlk

Awesome responses, such interesting theories to ponder. (In fact, it's making my brain hurt!)

Here is another element of time that I often try to reflect upon. What would an existence be like if there was NO time at all? It's easy to dismiss the proposition as impossible, but.....hmmmmmm???

Side note; Thinking about this for excessive periods of 'time' may require medication and lots of therapy. LOL

Not so! Christian and Islamic theology have almost always been predicated on the notion that God exists eternally. Here eternity means, not forever as in an infinite stretch of time, but remote from both space and time, both of which are aspects of creation but not of God.

In fact the reason why Christ is so significant has to do with the fact that the Eternal Father touches the time and space of his creation through the Son. In turn, this is one of the reasons Muslims tend to think Christianity is absurd because how could God be eternal and not eternal at the same time?

Anyway, the upshot is that if you're a Christian or a Muslim it is likely that this is what you're already supposed to believe!

[v1k1ng1001]

Originally Posted by cassidym

It's a popular idea among conspiracy theorists that the problems continuing to plague the Large Hadron Collider at Cern are actually being caused by scientists coming back from the future and deliberately damaging it. This because they know that, if the Collider is ever fired up and does bang atoms together at close to light speed, it'll cause a black hole.

Oh wait, am I the only one that believes this???

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by cassidym

And space is what keeps it all from happening to you!

If there is literally 'nothing' separating two objects - does that mean they're touching?
Apparently not, since literally 'nothing' separates an electron from a nucleus, yet they are distant from each other.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

If there is literally 'nothing' separating two objects - does that mean they're touching?
Apparently not, since literally 'nothing' separates an electron from a nucleus, yet they are distant from each other.

I will try to show how I envision that, Sparrow.
Take the film of an event. Like of you getting the prize for best time maker in the office

cut all the frames and put them one on top of the other. Look through them against the proper light and you will see what happens when all the instances of time are collapsed in one space image.

Then just take one frame, the one in which you receive that nice check. Look at it from the side, till the image is collapsed in just a verical line on the right or the left. It resembles the full image but everything that was distributed along is now a just a line.

Everything is touching. Get the check and run.

It is not what actually happens but its representation. That's the key point.