I was pondering this the other day. How could you work out the mass of a second. I.E What is the weight of time? Any thoughts!!!!!
Intriguing question. Since "time" passes at different rates for different observers, (i.e, traveling out into space at near-light speed for ten years--your time--then returning to earth and finding your past long gone), the idea of a single "mass" time seems problematic. But I am not a physicist, nor a mathematician, so I only can speculate on an intuitive level. Yet time is inextricably bound up with space; this gives it a physical dimension--and regardless of relatively theory, space, being made up of vibrating strings, is clearly a material entity--it must have mass-though existing on the Plank scale it is currently invisible to our most powerful sensors. So how do we contemplate the weight of a vibrating string/ticking second/shard of time? The mathematics must be formidable, but there are probably a few theorists at Princeton hard at work on it. Your question seems to raise a vast slew of theoretical possibilities, none of which I can presently cope with in my existential despair. Good luck in working it out.
Hi Epitectus, Strange but intriguing question indeed. I have no experience whatsoever in string theory (apart from some very introductive studies in supersymmetry), so I cannot comment on how time is treated there. In the other large and common physical theories, time and mass are totally uncorrelated(*). Time is merely an parameter used to describe the evolution of a system. Sidenote: (*) okay, there is a so-called "energy-time" uncertainty relation in QM, but there are various interpretations of this relation and my personal interpretation is that the time that appears there is not the same concept of time as used elsewhere in QM. Now, this is what "the theories" state, and this doesn't necessarily mean that it is correct Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. There still is IMHO a problem in describing time in physics; as einsteinsdream noted, space and time are thightly connected. Personally I wouldn't stress that as much as people do when studying the theory of relativity (in which time is indeed considered as an extra dimension with a strong interaction with the spatial dimensions). The problems arise in the study of elementary particles, where nature appears to have a "time arrow": time always evolves forward, it can never evolve backwards. This means that time cannot be treated plainly as an extra dimension, since you're not free to move around in this dimension the way you like : you can go anywhere in space, but only forward in time. Concerning the mass of time: the first problem you have is to define what time exactly is. Personally, I'd describe the evolution of time as seeing the evolution of systems. Since in the process of "seeing" things, light and hence photons are involved, you could perhaps somehow couple time with fotons (which have a restmass of zero). This picture is far from complete (and note that it is my personal interpretation). But no I come to think of it, why would you want time to have a mass anyway ? This would surely introduce more problems than answers I think Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Bye! Crisp ------------------ "The best thing you can become in life is yourself" -- M. Eyskens.
Thank you very much for replying. I have thought about this a lot and in your reply state that "time always evolves forward, it can never evolve backwards". How about reflecting time back on itself, then time could move in any direction I.E. When u look in a mirror. Many thanks
Hi Epitectus, Yes, that would work in theory. The problem is that it appearently doesn't seem to work with the experiments (I can't go any deeper because I don't know anymore myself atm). It appears to be that the laws of physics change when you count time backwards instead of forwards. You can compare it with a cup of coffee standing on a table (to use a very common example): it is likely that the cup of tea falls on the ground and breaks into pieces - someone has to bump into the table, but is is unlikely that the cup of tea somehow re-materializes on the ground to recreate the original cup of tea (a very simple and naive way of expressing the second law of thermodynamics: systems always evolve toward a state of large entropy or disorder). If you would revert time and play the movie backwards, it would be very probable that the cup of tea rematerializes into the original cup of tea, but very unprobable that the cup of tea falls apart into pieces. The same result (the cup breaking into pieces) has a different probability if you move time forwards or backwards, hence there is a difference. If you would do the test, the process of the cup falling and breaking into pieces is ofcourse the more probable, and hence you are somehow forced to conclude that time moves forwards. Note: I am sure there are more advanced effects that experimentally tell you the direction of time, but I know too little of them to mention them here (yet). This means that when you assume the second law of thermodynamics to be correct (and it still has to be proven wrong after 200 years and many attempts), that timereversal (or projecting time back onto itself) is not something that is real and that happens in nature. Bye! Crisp ------------------ "The best thing you can become in life is yourself" -- M. Eyskens. [This message has been edited by Crisp (edited February 01, 2001).]
Hi Crisp thankyou very much for your reply, I was wondering what type of experiments people had created. If you have any useful links then I would be extremely grateful.
A "second" is a contrived. The observation, by human beings (if I understand you correctly)....... Perhaps it is more to understand the "space/time" between one atom to the nextRA.... ok. Kmagine one point in space/time in it's own "little" set of coordinates (like a xyz*z1)to this known universe!!! ANYhow......where was I?????? The weight of a second?????????ans. twice as much as half a//////today. second.........hmmmmmmm.okokokokokokokokooookokok. What is the weight of a frame of film, which is used to record moment to moment events???????????30's of a second..... Riddle me this: If two points in space/time (separated only by an atoms width) are caused to be one(even in a 21st century laboratory observation), then what does that inevitably state about the previous statements regarding the light speed barriers which were offered over half a century ago??????????????questro....... Feel free to embelish or discuss.......or insult. This is a forum for the discussion of Science. PLEASE VISUALIZE AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK. [This message has been edited by JEHOVAH (edited February 09, 2001).]
Hi Epitectus, Sorry, wasn't able to immediatelly find any useful links on time parity violation, but I'll check again in the near future. Bye! Crisp ------------------ "The best thing you can become in life is yourself" -- M. Eyskens.
Time Time is something used to distinguish now from then. I can not believe that it has mass or weight or our great thinkers of the past would have devised a way to so measure it. After all the early Egyptians knew both that the earth was round and it’s rough radius or they couldn’t have built the pyramids precisely they way they did. Now I not a proponent of aliens helped the Egyptians, but I do think that we don’t give our ancients enough credit for basic smarts. Time does have that tricky property of being able to get away from you. Not only that but if time did have weight or mass than it would show up in the physical universe. There would be a force that was unexplainable causing a reaction that would be noticed. This is the basic way that dark matter has been determined to exist. Something is effecting matter we can not see and it shows by a force pulling on it. Remember that time is another dimension and does not have to follow the rules of the first three.
