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Saint Augustine said, "What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled."
...and is time, by definition, linear?
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I have never heard any suggestion that time is demonstrably lacking in uniformity. The Almighty seems to have a steady foot on the accelerator pedal.
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Is time linear? I'd have to back up a step and ask if time actually exists. Might it be an articifial construct of our meager minds? I also think we'd be hard pressed to actually find much in nature that is linear.
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The notion that time does not exist is one of the hot topics in physics these days. See The End of Time : The Next Revolution in Physics by Julian B. Barbour.
I had started it but laid it aside for other pursuits. I intend to get back to it as time permits.
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But if time does not exist, how will you get back to it?
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if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffledAccording to Prof Urban Chronotis, of St Cedd's, Cambridge (UK) time is something that humans invented in order to stop everything happening at the same time. 
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Was that Prof's mother named Chronometer?
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"If you’d like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there’s all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you wouldn’t want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place."
_Mostly Harmless_
Douglas Adams {mhrip)
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Time is a reflection of mathematics and a function of perspective (amongst others), so it can be linear.
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Musick writes that time can be linear. I don't dispute this point at all. To assert that something cannot have a certain attribute defies conventional rules of logic and proofs. I don't mean to defy probability by saying that time is not linear. I merely point out that we'd have a heck of a time proving anything about something we aren't sure exists in the first place. But then again, after rereading a little Rene Descartes, I think perhaps this Internet/internet is just a boogeyman and the great master is tricking me into thinking I'm typing. 
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the concept of time existing--at least in abstract terms--is as integral to our existence as it is receptary. i'm not sure i understand, though, what time could conceivably be if *not linear? is it ever not quantifiable? and even if we do buy into the many worlds theories, would it not still be a [myriad of] linear function[s]?
btw, being partially of native american descent myself, i once read about an [N.A.] indian culture whose language included absolutely no provisions for the concept of past, present or future... anyone know something about this?
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Brandon PM'd me to clarify my previous statement in this thread, and after reviewing my answer, I thought it best to regurgitate it here for ya'll, and I wanted our Bean to know that my intent of "thanking her for making my point" was with tongue firmly planted in cheek (the first time, anyway).
In a recent thread called "Defining the Beatles", Bean offered a number of (pardon the pun) "examples" of how music may be interpreted by mathematics (and I'm not sure why since she was really "proving" my point, not the one she intended), and that music is not an application of mathematics but a reflection.
The idea is about the same... that mathematics reflects that which exists... a way for us to understand... a definition for us to exist in... time is how we understand it. Of course, time actually is defined by the relativity of the planets within our solar system, the relationship of Earth to Moon orbits (with some minor mathematical adjustments every four years) blah, blah...
BTW - as a performer there is little point to reflecting music as mathematics, but as a teacher or student it is invaluable to do so. However, it is always definitive of a humans concept of time.
Time is a context is this case, one of many. There are "times" (all puns intended) when the value of this reflection is stronger, requires more concentration, communicates more intensely... as a performer fighting it or losing it is more obvious (to me) than a wrong note (not that there are any... but that is a whole other thing).
I thought it was possible that I was not clear in the formation of that little word construct, especially the "(amongst others) which was referring to: there are more functions than only perspective that effect its definition, not that the being amongst other (things/peoples) perspectives is part of the function of time (even so much as it actually is).
I love this line of thought and would be happy to hear about it more....
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"What time is it?" someone asked Yogi Berra, and he replied, "You mean now?" And this from legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who some claimed broke into the Big Leagues from the old Negro Leagues when he was close to 50 and still pitched his way to a Hall-of-Fame career!: "How old would you be," Paige asked, "if you didn't know how old you was?" Source: "Living Legends," Sports Illustrated, July 30, 2001 (current issue)
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Thanks, Musick, for the public post. I'll respond in kind.
Musick writes that the value of this reflection is stronger, requires more concentration, communicates more intensely....
Maybe this is why it is so difficult to actually discuss. I'm also a devil's advocate who learns more fleshing out arguments by taking opposing views. One could doubt the existence of time because there isn't any empirical proof that it exists. Yes, what we measure as time is tied to the order of celestial bodies, but nature knows no time, really. Think of Heracleitus' idea of the omnipresence of change. Doesn't that only exist in our minds? Isn't it our memory alone that preserves the past and nothing physical?
Once upon a time I had a point worth making...
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perhaps it's time to post what is considered by lexicographers to be an excellent definition of the word time, in our sense, from MW10:
a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future
how helpful St. Augustine might have found this is left as an exercise for the student.
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<<a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future>>
In other words,
"a non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of a spatial continuum," or "a non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of a spacial continuum which is itself susceptible to being measured through its existence in time"
*As I remember, with reference to time, Augustine allowed for the measurement of time--of "its" passing. He considered the present moment, in which time *passes, could be measured and time (at least the *concept") of time to be impossible.
On the other hand, Kant rejects time as a concept, a faculty of understanding, and describes it as an intuition, or, rather, as one of intuitions two forms of appearance--the other is space--which form the *subjective possibility of appearance. Time and space are the possibility of objective appearance: of events, both in terms of the object in flux and the flux in the object.
On the other hand, subject/object is itself concept.
Extrapolating from some Neoplatonism, time is not only linear and non-linear, it is a reciprocation of time and not-time.
Time for breakfast
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Extrapolating from some Neoplatonism...
I wonder what kind of shadow *time would cast on the cave wall. And could somebody please loosen my chains, they are getting a little uncomfortable.
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And could somebody please loosen my chains
There you go, dear, is that better?
It's all very simple, dear friends, time is all around you, it is how you move through it that makes all the difference!
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Dear caradea (tautology of not) looking for your word "receptary" I found a bunch of contrived definitions that are mildly amusing:
PRAVITY: physical deformity ("no amount of make-up can help you
defy the Law of P.")
PREANTEPENULTIMATE: the fourth from last ("please hand me the p.
bottle from that shelf")
PREPUCE: foreskin ("the protein was painstakingly isolated from
10,000 kilo of p.")
PROLEGOMENA: preliminary remarks; long introductions ("writing
original p. to an article is quite difficult")
PROTEAN: infinitely variable ("there are indications that protein
folds are not p.")
PSILOSOPHER: superficial philosopher ("... and someone who has
limited knowledge of protein folds is a phi-psi-losopher")
PTARMIC: snot-promoting, sternutatory, errhine ("this protein
causes the p. symptoms in allergic reactions")
PURPURACEOUS: purple, purpurescent ("the heavy-metal derivative
had a deep p. colour")
PYGOPHILOUS: buttock-loving ("she's the living proof that fat is
a p. substance")
PYRIFORM: pear-shaped ("p. women get pregnant more easily than
apple-shaped ones, I read in the newspaper")
QUADRIGAMIST: someone who has married four times ("I say, is that
fellow really a q. ?")
QUAESITUM: objective; true value ("the ultimate q. is to measure
the q. of this quantity")
QUANTULUM: small quantity ("I always add a q. of BOG to my
crystallisation solutions")
QUASIHEMIDEMISEMICENTURY: one 16th of a century ("a typical PhD
takes a q.")
QUIDDITY: essence or nature of a thing ("once you've built your
skeleton, you've uncovered the q. of your protein")
QUIRE: set of folded sheets fitting one within another; collection
of 24 sheets of the same size ("the structure can best be described
as a beta-q.")
RECLIVATE: sigmoid, S-shaped ("if we plot X versus Y, we obtain
a r. curve")
RECREMENT: waste product, impurity; something secreted from the
body, then reabsorbed ("saliva is the best example of a r., for
most people anyway")
REDARGUTION: refutation ("if there doesn't exist a r. of a receptary
(unproved fact; postulate), that doesn't mean it's true")
REDDITION: translation, explanation ("could you render a r. of this
paragraph ?")
REPAND: having a wavy or undulating outline ("look how nicely r. my
mask has turned out")
RETICULUM: network ("thanks to Castor the whole bloody r. is down
again")
RETRAD: backward ("dummy, you've traced the whole chain r. !")
RETRORSE: bent backward or downward ("two of the sheets were r.")
RETROUSSE: turned up ("two of the sheets were r.")
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<<I wonder what kind of shadow *time would cast on the cave wall. And could somebody please loosen my chains, they are getting a little uncomfortable. >>
<<There you go, dear...>>
Hold it, Wow! Brandon's teasing us! Since *he's the one in chains, perhaps he should tell us all about the shadow of time... But I can tell him *this, sooner or later it is cast on each of us.
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<<I wonder what kind of shadow *time would cast on the cave wall. And could somebody please loosen my chains, they are getting a little uncomfortable. >>
<<There you go, dear...>>
Hold it, Wow! Brandon's teasing us! Since *he's the one in chains, perhaps he should tell us all about the shadow of time... But I can tell him *this, sooner or later it falls on each of us.
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>I found a bunch of contrived definitions...
some of those are not so contrived. for an example, the root for protean (defined here as infinitely variable) is Proteus, a lesser god who had the ability to change form. quasihemidemisemicentury, on the other hand....
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And the symptoms of syphilis are said to be Protean, because they can suggest so many other diseases. The
guy who wrote those was a scientist specializing in crystallography. Regrettably it is over a year since his last update.
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What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries - these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the life of the soul.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Modern man thinks he loses something--time--when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains--except kill it.
- Erich Fromm
God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.
- Marianne Williamson
"Time takes too much time"
- 'The time is now', Moloko
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The scale of things can make unexpected changes. First it was learned that Euclidean geometry was not reliable in infinite space, then it was found even less applicable in the ultraminute.Perhaps something similar applies to time. in our lives it is linear, but if we try to go backwards towards the beginning of time, we see it is impossible to speak of a beginning of time, because if there had been a "time" when there was no time, how could it have been created out of nothingness The same applies to God. If He has not always existed, how could He have been created? No use thinking about it.
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No use thinking about it.
Oh, but Dr. Bill, it's such fun to think about it. I love wondering about things. Especially if I can't imagine myself getting the answer in the near future.
I just finished reading Sophie's World, and it made me start wondering about a lot of old things that I'd forgotten about.
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i once read about an [N.A.] indian culture whose language included absolutely no provisions for the concept
of past, present or future...I've been passively searching for a language that is without tense. I've found several references that show that Chinese / Mandarin does not have tense in the way we think about it. Anyone here know about how Chinese handles tense? I've also found references that the Hmong language has no past or future tenses and that ancient Hebrew has no tense. There seems to be a lot of research floating about where linguists search for tense markers in tenseless texts (whereas readers of my writing are looking for sense markers in my senseless texts). And if you want to learn more about detensing languages (tensed language, this site notes, is responsible for this mistaken metaphysical picture of temporal reality; therefore we ought to divest language of tenses so that we may conceive of temporal reality as it really is), check this site out: http://www.otago.ac.nz/philosophy/459/oldBtheory.html
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ancient Hebrew has no tense
I thought they lived in them, out in the desert and all.
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I just realized something while reading this thread that I never noticed before...time backwards is emit...hmmm.
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time backwards is emit...hmmm
Mmmh. Time, sis? Draw, k. Cab, emit!
Okay, back to "Another One Bites the Dust"
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(whereas readers of my writing are looking for sense markers in my senseless texts).
bloody hilarious, brandon =)
_____________________________________
i saw this in a magazine today, thought it was interesting:
"Has it occurred to anybody yet that ours may be the last generation to die? What a gyp! But think about it: We know what makes cells die, we know of cells that resist death (example: cancer), and we're learning fast how to manipulate cells. How long can it be before some bright MIT dork[sic] strings all that together and produces the line-edit in our genetic code that lets us theoretically live forever? Could be less than a generation away. Amazing. Our immortal descendants will be fascinated by us, will wonder what it was like knowing your story would have to end, what it was like to have to squeeze your entire life into just 100 years...then again, it may be the very imminence of death that forces us to step up the pace. Would you learn all earth's languages if you had an extra millenium, or would you play more Play-Station 2? Tortoises live significanly longer than we do, and look how they squander their extra time. Giant redwoods live for centiries, and what could be more sedentary? Death may be the best thing that ever happened to us...."
so much for "time is the fire in which we all burn" (who said that first, anyhow??)
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Interesting post, caradea. I might brag to these immortal descendents that we enjoyed living in a world of plenty, whereas unless this MIT dork [sic] comes up with interplanetary travel, all these billions of timeless tenants will be living in Hong Kong-like apartments crammed to the limit.
Time is the fire: John Oliver???
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I do not suffer boredom very often. But I cannot imagine eternal life being sufficiently free of boredom to avoid becoming a curse, not a blessing.
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Oh, I just made sense of all this : You are all talking about one dimensional time, aren't you?
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I'd go for the language learning option. It would be more fun than play station.
come and see the only teenager who prefers languages to stupid computer games.
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Mmmh. Time, sis? Draw, k. Cab, emit!
Ah!...the Eternal Return.... ...time...emit...
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Death may be the best thing that ever happened to us
I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's
compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.
I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or to be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
after all.)
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is
myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.
--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, verse 20, lines 404-421
There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage,
If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,
were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would
not avail in the long run,
We would surely bring up again where we now stand,
And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther. --W.W., Song of Myself, 45: 1191-95
from Song of Myself (6-What is the grass?)
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly I will use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon
out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless breasts of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and the old?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
from Passage To India (8: 185-211)
Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.
O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like
waters flowing,
Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.
O Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
Thou moral, spiritual fountain--affection's source--thou reservoir,
(O pensive soul of me--O thirst unsatisfied--waitest not there?
Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
Thou pulse--thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if
out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
--Walt Whitman, all selections from Leaves of Grass.
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It's a questionable command from Dylan; to not go gently into the night, is to try to avoid what seems right.
In the most expensive shopping area in Germany a 'clinic' opened recently where anti-aging professionals use the latest in age-reversal technology to try to slow down those nasty free-radicals in the body. This midlife obsession with holding up the hands of time is awful. How can one fear gracefully aging, topped off by a momentous event - being 'untethered'. After all, it's the chance catch more than a glimpse. People spending all their time thinking about how everyone is dying, should just live.
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a questionable command from DylanThanks Max for posting this, and for another perspective on a favourite poem, BY. I have tended to parse this as "rage against death, because the possibilities of life are so rich and varied" - in other words, very much along the lines of argument already discussed as to how the limiting function of death sets the premium by which we hold life dear. If chickens laid diamonds we'd all be toothless millionaires
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If chickens laid diamonds we'd all be toothless millionaires
C'mon, Mav... you know full well that if chickens laid diamonds, we'd all covet eggs.
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yeahbut. There's hard-boiled and hard-boiled!
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These posts reminded me of a poem that i learned in my AP english class (which remains to this day the only class--and the only teacher--that i believe was worthwhile...), but for the life of me i cannot remember the title, the author, or even a line sufficient to googlize it. perhaps someone can help:
in a nutshell, it was spoken by a lover to his fair maiden, with several stanzas detailing the ways he'd love to spend a thousand years on each part of her body, but the final stanza basically says "but hey, we're short on time, so let's get to the meat and potatoes".
the only thing that came to mind was "time is still a-flying", but it's not Herrick's work that i'm looking for.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in response to Dylan, isn't it wonderful how for each and every perspective so effortlessly and artfully laid out before us, there's another offering a diametrically opposed point of view? i'll submit this, from one of my favorite poets:
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder high-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It whithers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echos fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
~AE Houseman
OTOH, i've always thought that he had his tongue firmly planted in cheek when he wrote this, so maybe it's not so different from _Do Not Go Gentle_ after all.
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belligerentyouth>>>
People spending all their time thinking about how everyone is dying, should just live.
Amen, I say, but judging from the proliferation of self-help books on this subject, and the size of the bank accounts of their authors, I assume many find it hard to do so.
which brings to mind Pascal's observation, which I quote here:
"We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching.
Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end.
Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."
Pascal was born in 1623 and died after a long illness in 1662.
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Thanks for that quote, wordcrazy. It's a new one on me, and very interesting.
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I try not to bring days-old threads back to the top, but I am now starting my real catching-up, and I have to say that I think this is one of the best threads we've ever had. I loved it all, from Dr. Bill's contrived quotations, to peoples' opinions, to the wonderful citations!
To Brandon: of course time exists, if the earth does!
Geez--all you have to do is observe changes all around you, in organic life, and geology, too!
To tsuwm: what would or could time be, if not linear?
(Please Send Private if you're ready for this thread to end.)
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what would or could time be, if not linear?
Spatial.
And I don't care if the OED does say "spatial as opposed to time" ... what do they know, anyway, except what we tell them.
If time isn't spatial then why do authors and scientist talk about the space-time continuum and doors to other times and space portals and E =MC squared and all that stuff?
Huh? Huh?
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>I found a bunch of contrived definitions...
>some of those are not so contrived ...
For another example, "quiddity". Some Gilbert and Sullivan song (can anyone help me recall which one?) rhymes it with avidity and rapidity. I wonder if quiddity was a word in ordinary use in those days, one the then-audience would recognize.
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Quiddity is in my dictionary, but no date given. I am sure however that it is much older than Gilbert & Sullivan.
Two of the words you quote are in G&S "Patience"
BUNTHORNE
To stuff his conversation full of quibble and of
quiddity,
To dine on chops and roly-poly pudding with
avidity--
He'd better clear away with all convenient
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quasihemidemisemicentury, on the other hand....(1/16 century, per wwh's definition) British musicians call an 8th note a "quaver". I undersatnd the terms for shorter notes (1/16th, 1/32nd, 1/64th, and 1/128th) are semiquaver, demisemiquaver, hemisimidemiquaver, and quasihemidemisemiquaver (whew). So the last would be 1/16th of a quaver.
(Edit: which fits right into our "time" subject.)
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In reply to:
what would or could time be, if not linear?
Spatial.
And I don't care if the OED does say "spatial as opposed to time" ... what do they know, anyway,
except what we tell them.
If time isn't spatial then why do authors and scientist talk about the space-time continuum and doors
to other times and space portals and E =MC squared and all that stuff?
Huh? Huh?
the space-time continuum refers to the four "standard" dimensions; i.e., the three dimensions of space plus time, but. there appear to be "discontinuities" in the space-time continuum, such as the origin of space-time (the Big Bang, if you like). one explanation for this comes from Stephen Hawking (see 'A Brief History of Time') in the form of "imaginary time", which flows at right angles to ordinary time!
http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/time.htm
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There is *nothing like a theory about an imaginary existence based on a relationship (ie. right angles) to a presumption of time being linear. 
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Musick : Welcome to my timeless world. wow
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On Sunday last, we sang in church that great classic hymn with words by Isaac Watts with the stanzas, A thousand ages in thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day. There was originally asnother stanza, now always omitted, between these two: The busy tribes of flesh and blood With all their lives and cares Are carried downwards by thy flood, And lost in following years.
An interesting conceit in this poetry, that it is Time that takes us off this mortal coil, rather than Death, or, eschewing abstraction, sickness, accident, or homicide or the instruments of the same. A rather deep metaphysical device, this transference of the agency of Death to Time.
Raising you one D, how about this expression, at once more down to earth and still theologically and metaphysically challenging, by Dr. Donne:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Philosophy aside, would you agree with me that the 8th line of this is a masterpiece? It's one of my favorite lines in all literature.
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or if you'd like a graphic explaination about time-- and the big bang, try this..
long url has been deleted-- see tsumw post below for a shorter url to same url....
oh no, that's going to make the threads go wide...ok, I'll leave it up for a day or two, and then ditch it.
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>the total cessation of existence
this thread may have set some sort of standard for staying on topic... but it has probably just been quordlepated.
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>the total cessation of existence
this thread may have set some sort of standard for staying on topic... First I read straying in place of "staying" . But more seriously: To ask whether time exists is to ask for begging the question, since existence can hardly be considered without implying time (and vice versa). And time approaches linearity, like all continuously differentiable functions, at the infinitesimally short limit. Where human age is concerned, I favor logarithmic time.
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Logarithmic time? Further explanation, please? Thank you.
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since existence can hardly be considered without implying time (and vice versa).
Surely this is not so?
I am able to imagine an entity that ceases to exist at the identical point at which it is created. It would have existed for no time whatsoever, but that doesn't mean that it did not exist
Such an entity might, perhaps, find it necessary to invent time in order to make sense of its situation, but such an invention could only be a convention, without real existence, or real meaning outside the experience of the entity.
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an entity that ceases to exist at the identical point at which it is created
I don't think I can agree with this. If something exists, it is. And if something is, then there has to be a time in which it exists, no matter how brief.
The situation you imagine may certainly be possible, but from my understanding, knowledge, and beliefs, I don't think you can say that something ceases to exist, unless it has already in fact existed.
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[speculation alert] here's a theory, and it's my theory: before the big bang there was no time (actually, there was virtually nothing). the big bang happened in no time at all. time started with the big bang and has been expanding (but you can't tell because everything is relative to the obvious observer) as the universe expands to fill the big void (see New Yorker link below). one day the universe will begin to contract and time (as we know it) will stop (this will also be the beginning of the end of the universe as we know it). that's the theory, and it's my theory. the fact that it makes no sense is a moot point and totally begs the question; ask a quantum mechanic. ot, here is a shortened link if you want to remove that wiiiiiiiiide one...
http://www.cartoonbank.com/cartoonissue_closeup.asp?pf_id=46122&dept_id=1001
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Actually it make as much sense as anything about the subject-- it sounds like you read the article in NYTimes science section yesterday-- (or came to NY and saw the show at the planeterium) i have done both, and the only meaning i find to time is either -- I am on time or late..
so time is, must be, three dimentional or else how could i , a three dimentional being, be on time!
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Where human age is concerned, I favor logarithmic time.
That's a good term for it, wseiber. I've always thought of it as telescoping time, but logarithmic says it better.
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Jackie: If something exists, it is. And if something is, then there has to be a time in which it exists, no matter how brief.
My whole point is that, if something exists, it is. My hypothesis is something that comes into existence and ceases to exist at exactly the same point. The very fact that one can postulate the fact that it comes into being, and them ceases to be is a clear statement of its existence. But time isn't part of my hypothesis! I see no reason why time has to be part of it. If so, how long does something have to exist in order for it to be said to have existed? The very fact that this question is, in practical terms, unanswerable* is part of the reason why I am prepared to accept the possibility that time does not realy exist. (*name any amount of time, and you can always halve it!) There has to be a possibility that the "big bang" which started "time" (as per tsuwm) and that which ends "time" are an example of exactly the phenomenon that I have postulated. In which case, "time" is, indeed,© a convention of ours, invented, as Prof. Chronotis stated, to stop everything from seeming to happen at the same time! 
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[clarification alert]
one day the universe will begin to contract and time (as we know it) will stop
tsuwm - I think I buy your theory, but I wanted to be sure how you meant the above. Following your description, I see time beginning after that big ol' bang, and expanding as the universe does. But does time stop when the universe begins contracting, or does time just begin to contract at that point, only stopping when we get to the final Big Squeeze? If time stops when the universe begins contracting, when does the contraction happen?
[flashback alert] when does the contraction happen? how far apart are the contractions? how long do they last? Hey - maybe it's all just one very, very long birthing process - but what's being born?
And after the Big Squeeze, where the hell are we all going to find parking spaces?
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I've always been wary of Western Civilization's perspective on the existence of time. I'm not sure it exists or not. If it does exist, I'm not sure its linear (some people, while looking across their flat fields, figured the Earth was flat, too). But I do have a much surer sense (within myself, mind you; I've got no empirical support to provide) that if something has a beginning, it *must have an ending. The only things eternal, I figure, are things that always have been. Something cannot begin existence and then last forever. If time began, it surely will end. If time is forever, it must have existed forever.
(I feel the same about my own existence; I (my soul) was created at birth and will cease to exist sometime in the future OR I've always been around but, like everyone else, have a lousy memory of my pre-birth existence. As an optimist, I prefer the latter idea.)
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But time isn't part of my hypothesis! I see no reason why time has to be part of it. If so, how long does something have to exist in order for it to be said to have existed? The very fact that this question is, in practical terms, unanswerable* is part of the reason why I am prepared to accept the possibility that time does not realy exist.AUGH! The question "how long does something have to exist in order for it to be said to have existed? " isn't unanswerable! Just because we may not be able to measure it or name it, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist! Mercy-- if we based our theory on that, we'd have to say that anything shorter than the shortest duration we have a name and measuring capability for, doesn't exist! That is-- let's say that a second was the shortest amount of time that we have named and measured. Would we then say that any length of time shorter than a second does not exist? Given what we know now, no! So, I am extrapolating that, down beyond what we know of measuring time today. And besides, if time truly isn't part of your hypothesis, then there is no need to have asked that question. I still say that if something exists, it exists in a period of time. And that goes for tsuwm's Before the Big Bang theory, too: there was something there, that all of these celestial (isn't that a lovely word? ) bodies were formed from. So, I think there was time, then, and probably also changes of some kind, that marked the passage of time. Even if it was nothing more than all the little electrons and quarks and things moving in their little orbits, something happened. I think that if anything changes, that is indication that time has passed. Hmm--I was going to say that if a true vacuum existed, then perhaps there wouldn't be time inside it. But as far as the Big Bang theory goes, all this mass couldn't have suddenly sprung into being from a vacuum! It just couldn't have. But since I can't quite get my mind around the concept of a universe that contains a vacuum, with...something...affecting it from outside, let me go here: let's say that scientists have created a perfect vacuum inside a container. Is there time inside that container? I say yes! If light falls on it, and changes with the turning of the earth, that's a change inside the container. Okay, let's say the container is opaque: what about changes in temperature, or in whatever the container is resting on? Gravity shouldn't affect the vacuum, but changes in temperature might, if they affect the container by altering its size slightly. I don't think we can stop time. Not today, but possibly in the distant future. I don't think time will ever run backward, though it may eventually become possible for humans to travel back through it. Whew, what an exercise! Cool discussion!
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jackie jobates there was something there...
yes, but it wasn't spatial, and it follows there was no time. it was pure energy. this is where Einstein led us, but even he didn't want to believe it -- he introduced a cosmic fudge factor... the "greatest blunder" of his scientific career.
In the very beginning, there was a void, a curious form of vacuum,
a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no
sound. Yet the laws of nature were in place and this curious
vacuum held potential. A story logically begins at the beginning,
but this story is about the universe and unfortunately there are no
data for the very beginnings--none, zero. We don't know anything
about the universe until it reaches the mature age of a billion of a
trillionth of a second. That is, some very short time after creation in
the big bang. When you read or hear anything about the birth of
the universe, someone is making it up--we are in the realm of
philosophy. Only God knows what happened at the very
beginning.
- Leon Lederman, Nobel Prize winning physicist
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Hyla hectors But does time stop when the universe begins contracting, or does time just begin to contract at that point, only stopping when we get to the final Big Squeeze?
the Big Crunch could be very messy, so time may well stop when the contraction starts. parking will be the least of our concerns at that point.
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time may well stop when the contraction starts. parking will be the least of our concerns at that point
Logically, as most parking lots charge by the hour.
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most parking lots charge by the hour.
that's where those that charge by the event will have the advantage.
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Pure energy only = no time. ?
Okay, that I might concede, L.
The "Big Crunch": do you reckon that everything, every last little particle of anything, will be---what? Swallowed
by black holes? Turned into what is labeled as dark matter, but which may not be matter as we know it at all?
Your word 'crunch' to me implies some kind of impact/implosion--though to sure it could be followed by an explosion. I'd always entertained the notion that eventually most of the spacial bodies will explode,
without necessarily having had a collision.
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Ok, I'm coming in a little late because I just got to this thread, but here's my thoughts. I think time is a concept, just as distance is. The measurement of both are human creations. We don't know what is at both ends of time and we don't know what's way out there. They are both infinite continuums and our measurements give them some sense of sanity. Time is measured by events. Sometime happens and it takes a certain amount of "time" so we can compare that measurement to other events. As long as something is happening, there is time. That's why when something takes a long time, it seems relative because you don't have smaller intervals with which to measure it. It's the same for travelling long distances. You can't really tell the difference between 1000 km and 10000 km without something else to measure it. Using a meter to measure something is just like using a minute. You can say that there is a meter between this and this in the same way that you can say that there is a minute between that and that. They are both events in their respective dimensions. A meter is an event that measures distance, a minute is an event that measures time. As for there being no time before the Big Bang, I guess I can agree with that, until we determine what was there before. With the universe being as big as it is, it's fully possible that there are other galaxy clusters just like our "universe" farther away than we can perceive. And who says there wasn't anything in this locality long before the Big Bang. The matter for the Bang had to get here somehow. Saying that it just appeared is just as futile as saying that some god just materialized from nothing and created everything. Both are against the laws of physics. I don't really think there will be an end to time either. Right now the current speculation to the end of the universe is not a big crunch, but just a continued expansion until everything is so far apart it's like it's not there at all. Time had a feature about this a few months ago. As T.S. Eliot said: "This is the way the world ends, and not with a bang, but a wimper." This doesn't necessarily mark the end of time though, because a planet floating away is still something happening. I'm not really sure how much of this makes sense, because I'm not totally sure what I'm trying to say, but there it is anyway.
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*now* this thread has been quordlepated -- that other event was just a wrinkle in time....
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Brandon notes the possibility that Ive always been around but ... have a lousy memory of my pre-birth existence.
Since JazzO quoted T.S. Eliot, let me supply an elegant passage which bears out Brandon's idea perfectly:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
- Wm. Wordsworth from Intimations of Immortality
BTW, I don't believe Ive ever seen so large a number of posts on one thread in a single day. Kudos to tsuwm for introducing it.
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In reply to:
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with.
There is a story by Robert Heinlein called something like "By His Bootstraps", where somebody becomes his/her own father and mother, having been born with gonads of both sexes.
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entity that ceases to exist at the identical point at which it is created.
The very word cease would not exist without the notion of a time continuum... and an identical point in what?
People also all to glibly speak of "before the Big Bang".. When there is no time, there is no "before" nor "after".
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Logarithmic time? Further explanation
It means that in terms of my subjective experience, the age points 1 year, 2 years, 4, 8, 16, 32 years... appear roughly equally spaced, i.e. the intervals hold similar quantities of time-bound material. When I try to recount my life, I spend similar amounts of time for each of these intervals, even though they were lengthening in terms of calendar time..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Even though I am not a huge fan of T.S. Eliot I loved this one work of his which I copied to hang on my wall in my young adulthood, either it is untitled or I don't recall it (and I could be a little off from the original):
If Time and Space as sages say
Are things that cannot be,
The sun which never feels decay
No greater is than we.
So why, love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
The butterfly that's lived a day
Has lived eternity.
--T.S. Eliot
>The Big Bang<...so what exploded?
>Time Travel<... While believing in the possibilities of extra-dimensional travel, I also find it difficult to believe that if indeed, time travel exists in some "future" society (and even with a sworn and heightened wisdom toward the non-tampering of history), that someone could resist going back to WWI and making sure that Adolph Hitler was killed in the trenches.
>I'll see your Dylan and Donne and Wordsworth and raise you a Eugene O'Neill -- from his play Long Day's Journey Into Night -- Edmund Tyrone's monologue in conversation with his father, James Tyrone (note: Edmund is sick with tuberculosis):
EDMUND
You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea. Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself--actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. Then another time, on the American Line, when I was lookout on the crow's nest in the dawn watch. A calm sea, that time. Only a lazy ground swell and a slow drowsy roll of the ship. The passengers asleep and none of the crew in sight. No sound of man. Black smoke pouring from the funnels behind and beneath me. Dreaming, not keeping lookout, feeling alone, and above, and apart, watching the dawn creep like a painted dream over the sky and sea which slept together. Then the moment of ecstatic freedom came. The peace, the end of the quest, the last harbor, the joy of belonging to a fulfillment beyond men's lousy, pitiful, greedy fears and hopes and dreams! And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see--and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand let's the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!
He grins wryly
It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!
TYRONE
Stares at him--impressed.
Yes, there's the makings of a poet in you all right.
Then protesting uneasily
But that's a morbid craziness about not being wanted and loving death.
EDMUND
Sardonically
The makings of a poet. No, I'm afraid I'm like the guy who is always panhandling for a smoke. He hasn't even got the makings. He's got only the habit. I couldn't touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That's the best I'll ever do. I mean, if I live. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.
(c) 1955 by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill, All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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>Sooo. …?
>Well, I stood for what seemed an infinite time upon the edge of the ridge panting and gazing off into the distance then slowly cast my view downwards. The tremendous drop left me breathless. The slope ran from below my feet, in a sheer drop to the sleepy valley below. It was then I realized, that such a four-minute moment represented one of the most sublime experiences a human can have. The perspective, the point of view, was strictly mine.
Huddled in the valley below, dotting the grassy floor were numerous sleepy farmhouses and cottages where fires were being stoked, and things slowly stirring. Previously, I had never dared ask why I was, or who I was, but that day brought me some resolve, or at least the knowledge not to need to ask. Fulfilment always comes in petite, bite-sized doses – occurring passim. Those who attempt to gain more than their share at any one time have no way to use or channel it; they merely feel the fleeting instant slip through their grasp. As such things continue, and, bit-by-bit, we learn the windings of the road.
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Pooh-Bah
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Rhub. entity that ceases to exist at the identical point at which it is created.
wseiberThe very word cease would not exist without the notion of a time continuum... and an identical point in what?
which does, perhaps, demonstrate the paucity of the language we have at our command to describe what is, to us poor beasts, the indescribable.
W'ON - a wonderful passage - thank you for that
b-y - also very moving
The two of you have gone a long way to disproving my remarks, above, about the paucity of our language!
Jackie - Curses - you spotted my red herring straight away! It doesn't actually™ affect my baisc argument, though!
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btw, being partially of native american descent myself, i once read about an [N.A.] indian culture whose language included absolutely no provisions for the concept of past, present or future... anyone know something about this?
Wow, Caradea. Which nation do your ancestors come from?
I have no idea of which nation uses only one tense but it is quite similar to to the Japanese language. It has no tenses either. Einstein's Theory of Relativity must have been hell for them to translate!!!
It sounds plausible that there was a common belief that crossed the Pacific rim over the millenia and embedded itself into the many developing languages of the time.
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Carpal Tunnel
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the Japanese language...has no tenses either
My memory of this is a little unclear, mostly because there's not too much for me to remember, but.
(And a little googling seems to have bolstered my paucitic memory) Japanese has more or less two tenses, past and non-past. Usage is not through changes made directly to the verb (and this can be a source of confusion for those of us who do change the form of words for grammatical purposes) but by use of particles. This technique is used for most grammatical functions in Japanese, including markers showing what we, with our dependency on the ancient Latin grammarians, would call case structure. The failure(sic) of a language to change the form of a verb to recognize past/present/future or perfection/imperfection does not necessarily imply that the speakers of that language have a sense of time radically different from (than, nor) ours. We could, for example, in English say "I go to the store yesterday/tomorrow" and get across the idea of past or future without changing the form of the verb to go. Such things are accomplished in other languages that do not feel the need to change the form of the verb in the process.
I suppose one could define tense as the alteration of the form of a word for the grammatical purpose of indicating relative time, but to extrapolate a lack of time sense in the speakers of a language from
the lack of tense in that language is, in my opinion, unwarranted.
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>The Big Bang<...so what exploded? one more <ahem> time... pure energy >Time Travel< There was a young lady of Wight
who travelled much faster than light.
She departed one day,
in a relative way,
and arrived on the previous night.it almost certainly isn't possible... no matter how far in the future it might be invented, someone will have finally traveled back and spilled the beans. unless the alternate histories theory is true....
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alternate histories
Ooh! Multiverses! Way cool, tsuwm!
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Pooh-Bah
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! Multiverses
Like The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner d'ye mean?
or Eskimo Nell ?
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If someone in the future travels back in time and alters history we couldn't know about (the alteration) it if it happens(ed)... Since the "first time" could possibly erase the potential for it to happen again (or at all)... the suggestion that time is not linear by nature, only perspective, and that time travel (backward) is impossible, must follow. ...alternate histories theory...Given the constant proof of "perception is reality" that flies in the face of logic... I'm starting to believe it... edit-How fitting it was that the e-mail I had waiting for me after posting this was tsuwm's wwftd...
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Re: tsuwm little limerick...
i did that-- really-- when i flew home to NY from Norita, i left Japan at 3PM on a sunday afternoon, and got to NY at 1PM the same sunday-- after flying for 14 hours! (and let me tell you it is very disconcerting!) so i got home to NY, 2 hours before i left japan.
and as for multiverses-- they have pretty much been proven by quantum physics.. but i know enough about that to know i don't understand it-- but some times i think i do (which proves i can't possible understand it!)
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> I have never heard any suggestion that time is demonstrably lacking in uniformity. The Almighty seems to have a steady foot on the accelerator pedal.
To get back to the original idea behind this thread, there was a story in the paper yesterday that some physicists have "determined" that certain constants may not be constant after all. The constant in question, which I cannot remember having heard of before, is alleged to have changed by one part in a couple hundred thousand during the life of the universe. There was speculation that this may mean that, for instance, the speed of light may change or that pi might be something more or less than 3.14159.................. Had to do with the aging of the universe, I think, though I couldn't follow as much of it as I would have liked.
TEd
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enthusiast
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This has been the best thread to read in AWADtalk for months. I am pretty convinced that despite the obvious intelligence, forethought, and cerebral fortitude of the AWADcrowd, we are probably missing what is TRUE by about 3.14 lightyears. I envision that when we wake from the sleep of this life, we will look around in amazement at how far off our greatest minds were.
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>...we will look around in amazement at how far off our greatest minds were. wassamatta-u, has the superstring theory thrown you for a loop? http://www.superstringtheory.com/
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>there was a story in the paper yesterday that some physicists have "determined" that certain constants may not be constant after all. this isn't the whole story that is in the NYTimes (e.g.), but it gives you a taste. (for those of you who've registered at the Times, search for "speed of light") http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/wed/news/docs/110749.htm
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The Superstring link: thank you, tsuwm, thank you!!!
Immediate bookmark! Grand, just GRAND! Perfectly easy to comprehend for non-scientists. Ex: The so-called "Newton's Laws of Motion" are not abstract laws that Nature is somehow forced to obey, but the observed behavior of Nature that is described in the language of mathematics. In Newton's time, theory and experiment went together.And this: General relativity has had many observational successes that proved its worth as a description of Nature, but two of the predictions of this theory have staggered the public and scientific imaginations: the expanding Universe, and black holes. Both have been observed, and both encapsulate issues that, at least in the mathematics, brush up against the very nature of reality and existence. And, In order to include fermions in string theory, there must be a special kind of symmetry called supersymmetry, which means for every boson (particle that transmits a force) there is a corresponding fermion (particle that makes up matter). Is this cool, or what?? I'm going to stop and post this now, before I quote the entire link. Bless you,
my dear, for showing me how to find this.
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enthusiast
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no matter how far in the future it might be invented, someone will have finally traveled back and spilled the beans.
Don't you know, Earthman, that Time fits together like a jigsaw puzzle? Lucky for you I took Time in college back in 1705.
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unless the alternate histories theory is true...*This was the subject of a recent Discover article. http://www.discover.com/science_news/Current Issue ...Best Kept Secret Quantum Shmantum
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Dear RC: your ballad of Eskimo Nell begins a bit like the Ancient Mariner, but the allusions are quite different. Thoxe who wish to may check it out at: http://www.allegedlyfunny.com/eskimo.html Not parlor talk.As a matter of fact it is so vile I probably should have erased the URL. You have been warned.
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I was reading the string theory link, and decided I'd better try to find a good def. of quantum mechanics, so I looked in the Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology, available on-line thru RefDesk.
quantum mechanics Physics. a modern field in physics that is based on the premise that energy and momentum are quantized and that, at the atomic and subatomic levels, the effects of quantization are significant; this theory apparently supersedes classical theory.
The use of the word momentum aroused my curiosity, and I wondered what the difference between that and motion was.
Culling through no less than 125 entries for different types of motion and 25 for momentum, I got from the same dictionary:
motion Science. 1. the act of moving; the passage of a body from one place to another.the act of moving; the passage of a body from one place to another. 2. a bodily movement.a bodily movement. 3. the ability to move.the ability to move. Mechanics. a change in the position of a physical system over time.
momentum plural, momenta. Science. the general effect of an ongoing motion or process. Mechanics. a vector quantity that is conserved in collisions between particles and in closed systems; in classical mechanics it is equal to the mass times the velocity of a body, or the vector sum of this product over all the components of a system.
So--does time have motion or momentum? Are there other def.'s that are better suited for Time? Time certainly moves (so say I), yet has no body. If it has momentum, where is the effect shown? On Time, or on...us and our world? Oh, I think this one is beyond me... [hand feebly waving above the morass e]
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> If it has momentum, where is the effect shown?
The effect shown is relative to your perspective :-)
Stumbling further into the realm of abstract thought, I'll offer this up for scrutiny:
The universe we mold around this, one of a multi-dimensional speckles of reality resonates,
or you might say it creates, an interference pattern within the fabric of space.
If we were to look closely at an individual human being,
we would find that the body is made up of a mass resonalting particles and is in itself a universe.
All information exists here and now within are own consciousness.
There are places we can go within our consciousness that unite our being with the cosmos.
We need to align our minds with the cosmic mind, if we are going to find any of the purposes of our existence,
or to find answers to some of the unexplained problems,
especially now, as we are heading towards one of the most important increments in the history of our time here.
(a guy called gerald)
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What about the quantum foam theory? This postulation suggests that time can be discontinuous in very small packets (10 to the minus 43rd of a second - Plank time) and that time turns back on itself (thus stopping). At this point there supposedly is enough energy from quantum fluctuations to break down space and time into "foaminess" that could possibly be navigated from one bubble to the next.
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Google turned up this, a portion of a lecture from the physics dep't. at UT (the U. of Tennessee):
The Planck Scale
But we have already seen that if the distance scales become short enough (of atomic dimensions or smaller), the theory of quantum mechanics must be used. Therefore, as we extrapolate back in time to the beginning of the Universe, eventually one would reach a state of sufficient temperature and density that a fully quantum mechanical theory of gravitation would be required. This is called the Planck era, and the corresponding scales of distance, energy, and time are called the Planck scale.
The Planck Scale
Quantity Value
Planck Mass 1.2 x 1019 GeV/c2
Planck Length 1.6 x 10-33 cm
Planck Time 5.4 x 10-44 s
Planck Temperature 1.4 x 1032 K
The Planck scale corresponds to incredibly small distances (or equivalently, incredibly large energies).
I am not capable of interpreting the numbers. I just thought you all might like a def. of the Planck scale.
Quantum foam, Mary? Whoa, I never heard that one--thanks!
Sounds weird, but I am in no position to argue against it.
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Depends on how high the pirate ship is.
TEd
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"Time does not flow. Other times are just special cases of other universes." - David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality
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Really old thread: ten years.
The concept of alternate universes is dealt with in
the TV show "Fringe", not too well, but it is the
subject matter, and quite a concept.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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five years on from this thread: the flow of time
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Haha alternative universes are a pet interest of mine (along with numerous other SF related things) watched a great program a few years back about all the different theories of them; in an hours program they covered the "Big Five" in general detail...always brings to mind the Kerr solution and the possibility that that could lead to visiting an alternate universe...
----The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is false----
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Or the concept that in a drop of rain water there could
be a whole other universe. Or this universe is in, say,
a drop of water, being watched by others.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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I always liked the end of Men In Black films, where they are a universe in a marble or in a locker...always made me laugh
----The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is false----
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I never really paid much attention to the MIB movies, but
what you say about the universe in a marble could be apt
for a number of movies. Perhaps the Mad Max bunch, or
even LOTR.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Pooh-Bah
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I always liked the end of Men In Black films, where they are a universe in a marble or in a locker...always made me laugh And in the book Horton Hear A Who! by Dr Seuss. Remember, a whole planet of people existing on a speck of dust on a flower...."even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small."
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I always liked the end of Men In Black films, where they are a universe in a marble or in a locker...always made me laugh And in the book Horton Hear A Who! by Dr Seuss. Remember, a whole planet of people existing on a speck of dust on a flower...."even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small." Well, that is my idea of the raindrop in literature form. Never read Seuss, however.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Never read Seuss, however.
really? O.o
formerly known as etaoin...
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....
Never read Seuss...... OMG...how could you not have. This was one of my kids favourite.... Green Eggs and Ham
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Well......sorry, still am not going to read it, unless that
was the whole of it.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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I read "Hop on Pop" to my kids dozens and dozens and dozens of times - along with "Red Fish, Blue Fish" and "The Butter Battle Book." I sometimes still call my youngest (now 18) "My Daisy Head Maisy." http://www.mfwi.org/mfwi/Recordings/HopOnPop.pdfOTOH, "The Sneetches" is prophecy. While I usually tutor several hours a week in math, I had about 15 minutes of tutoring an ESL student on an essay a month or so ago. Her assignment was to write a persuasive essay with supporting evidence to support or reject "Designer Babies." She had been working on the essay for days and had only written half a paragraph on the con side, her supporting evidence being that it is "against god." I suggested she first write an outline of her paper and made a reference to "Sneetches" which she did not understand. I then recommended she read it. In fact, I think every HS graduate ought to have read it (though I had until years later myself).
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Well......sorry, still am not going to read it, unless that
was the whole of it. try "The Lorax". a bit more depth...
formerly known as etaoin...
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I guess in my old age I am going to have to go back
to Seuss. I am feeling my age with that statement.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Well......sorry, still am not going to read it, unless that
was the whole of it. try "The Lorax". a bit more depth... OK, next time I'm in Children's section of Borders.....
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Pooh-Bah
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Don't feel pressured Luke, only if you have time on your hands LOL. The Dr Seuss books may not even be popular with kids today, I'm talking 25 yrs ago.
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I just did the Seussical Musical with my middle school kids (ages 10-14) and they loved it! Seuss is still cool.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Jun 2008
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,936 Likes: 3 |
I just did the Seussical Musical with my middle school kids (ages 10-14) and they loved it! Seuss is still cool. Nice to know some things remain the same.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,936 Likes: 3
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,936 Likes: 3 |
Don't feel pressured Luke, only if you have time on your hands LOL. The Dr Seuss books may not even be popular with kids today, I'm talking 25 yrs ago. No, it is still popular, as a teacher I heard about it many times, I just never got around to it. Probably have it out on video games soon anyway, and that will certainly influence a comeback.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
A classic almost always gains that distinction for a reason, even among children's books. A big chunk of Geisel's collected works is I'm sure destined for the same greatness and eventual cultural longevity as Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and Wrinkle in Time. (Probably Where the Wild Things are will have the same fate.)
I think maybe a 1000 years from now, children and their parents will still savor them.
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,936 Likes: 3
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,936 Likes: 3 |
I, for one, certainly hope so. As a youngster, other than
the school library, I did not have access to books of
the Seuss vintage. And I did not have teachers to steer
me in their direction. More's the loss.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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