I often wondered if time was directional. I found a site where the author ( David Barwacz) makes an excellent argument that time is a vector. I researched the author and found that he presented three papers at a conferrence at Imperial College in London. The site is: http://members.triton.net/daveb Has anyone else heard of the theory?
Hum, imho, Time is directional due to the boundary conditions of the universe. (<i>According to the Wheeler-Feynman Absorber Theory</i>) http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/dtime/node2.html <b>< Think of just multi-spatial dimensions ></b> It basically means that one end is closed (the big bang) and the other end (the bit that expands forever) is open; and particles/waves can bounce from the big bang side causing constructive interference – causing a direction of time. <b>< /Think of just multi spatial dimensions ></b> This basically means that time is ultimately just the same as a spatial dimension.
Time does have a direction. It moves forward from the big bang and is shaped by gravitational forces. However, It has no magnitude that I can think of. That is one component of a vector. Can there really be "really intense" time? Or "faster" time? Oh, wait, I just inadvertantly answered my own question! Time slows down in gravitational fields. So the [BOLD]magnitude[/BOLD] is what changes, not the direction. So I guess time is a vector. It has a direction, but I do not believe the direction of one's travel can change. Whatever direction one is travelling through time, he stays moving in the same direction. So I wonder if some other universe is travelling backward along the same timeline as us. They wouldn't know the difference themselves. On one end, there is a big bang, and on the other, a big crunch. When the universe hits one end, it travels the other direction. My theory is doubtful, but hey, I came up with it off the top of my head!
@RubiksMaster The advancing /retarding waves move through, say, a 4th spatial dimension. And because the waves move `outside` of our space-(time), the particle that emitted them will know <i>instantly</i> which direction the big bang is; and which direction the `open end` is, (because those waves that were emitted in that direction do not return....) As for Time `slowing down` in gravitational fields, that would be a product of the warping of spatial dimensions and the interaction of those waves with the particles. <b>The question is, are higher dimension distorted as well by localised gravity?</b> (<i>The idea being that the big bang reflects those retarded waves back, rather than swallowing them up in it’s gravity-well</i>) The point is that particles can experience the absorber waves instantly. So, to clarify, the temporal dimension is, imho, not truly a spatial dimension (<i>aka 4<sup>th</sup>dimension</i>) but somehow separated from our 3 d space.
Time is the metric of change. I'll agree with Barwacz on that. But the reverse is a stretch. "Hour" cannot cause change anymore than "mile" can cause distance. Hour and mile are both simple and convenient metrics.
Hum, Barwacz uses time as a vector to solve a few mathematical problems. Nothing wrong with that…and quite useful as well… And as you imply `miles` don’t create dimensions. So using a vector may hint to that we are dealing something that can be simplified to a spatial dimension (in an equation on paper); but it’s just a tool, similar to using a Riemann sphere. It doesn’t really give us a deeper insight into time. (Or did i miss something?)
As I see it, Barwacz is crafting a different idea of what time is. It isn't the measure on a clock (ie. hour). He makes it clear that this clock increment is just one possible component of time. He makes it clear in his first paper that he is not using the conventional deffinition of time. Perhaps what we preceive as time is just one component of some space/time vector. Anyways, I like the fact that both the Lorentz transforms and the Dirac matrices can be derived from his vector geometry. He laso has an interesting paper on noetic science. Click on the link at the bottom of the column.
