Comprehending Time

#30 writes <<< I would agree with davies you need chronology - that is time has to have a direction - and you cannot alter the positions of points along this direction - other the likes of our religious and fundementalist firends would invoke djinns and arch-angels to change what they do not like! >>>

Instead of throwing up ``fundamentalist``, djinn and arch angels for the purpose of mocking meaninglessly, try to rephrase your question which really hides your ignorance of the issue. Firstly Davies is not proposing anything, that quote talks about Hawkings proposing something based on whim on the non-quantum level. Singularities exist at the Quantum level and there time ceases to exist, he knows that being a black hole researcher. Here is a different quote,

What does a black hole do to spacetime? ,Relativity predicts that at the centre of a black hole is an infinitely dense point, called a singularity, within which all the normal laws of physics no longer apply. Time, space, matter and energy no longer have any well-defined meaning. Einstein`s equations show that such a singularity doesn`t just make a dip in the imaginary rubber sheet of spacetime, it makes a tunnel that goes right through and momentarily opens out on the other side.Shaping the Future by Neil Johnson

Re: # 6 by echoboom on September 9, 2006 1:27am PT

Dear Squeaker:

No need to pray to your Allah....{May Allah bring them disgrace in their futile attempts to lead muslims astray.}

Nobody is leading Musilims anywhere, they are doing a fine job of going astray by themselves.

Respectfully submitted,

#31 masadi you need to chill out. Please go to the nearet bar and have a Gin and Tonic (pink gin is great) and please send me the bill for its on me!

Heres to looking forward to the day we see a post from you guys which is not brimming with abuse, and fire-brim-stone!

#28 behram, the period, yaum (day) is defined as 1000 years of what you count, read the verse, nothing ambiguous in it, but mirasis wouldn`t know. I know what you are trying desperately to do, your bigotry, which has coverted you into a mirasi always wins out when it comes to your reasoning ability. Note that I am not interested in meaningless wrangling with mirasis.

Re: # 24

freethinker and others -- -- a quick question: if we assume some sort of a symmetry (yes even in time) then around t=0, i.e t=+0 and t=-0 say the two events should be similar and soo on.....which then would imply that on the other side of the biggest bang the universe is contracting (just as we are/were expanding). Would then mean that the biggest singular point is infact t=0 and that blackholes are just singular points in space (not time). Would sucha symmtery be possible/acceptable? What are its implications? And would it result in some thing along the lines of the chronology of events theorem davies is talking about?

I would agree with davies you need chronology - that is time has to have a direction - and you cannot alter the positions of points along this direction - other the likes of our religious and fundementalist firends would invoke djinns and arch-angels to change what they do not like!

Re: # 21 by hamidm2 on September 9, 2006 1:46pm PT

Dear Hamid:

{...... i don`t know much about science, but years ago i was able to slow down time and sometimes, when i felt like it, i could also speed it up ...........}

That is an interesting way of spending your time. When interacting with masadi, what happens to your methodologies of spending time?

Do you use {a couple of reefers of good chitrali peeli pati} or do you {take some pink pills}? Please enlighten us.

Respectfully submitted,

Re: # 2 by masadi on September 8, 2006 4:57pm PT

Dear Masadi:

{The verse in question that mentions 1000 years, is this (32:5) }

Could this also be translated as a period instead of an actual number of 1000?

Respectfully submitted,

Re: # 23 by hamidm2 on September 9, 2006 5:07pm PT

Dear Hamid:

You ask {......... just look around you - where do you think masadi came from ?..........}

Uum...That is a very interesting question that my need somebody to do a dissertation on.

Respectfully submitted,

Let me add a social component to how time is subjectively felt by humans and how in certain societies, the ones with a bureaucratized social structure, time passes by extremely fast and in other more traditional societies time is felt more slowly. Life under standardization (bureaucracy) is narrow, everything is ``in the box`` so to speak, it prevents you from looking outside-therefore it stifles true freedom; if everything is ``in the box`` which prevents most from transcending it due to adaptation, then memories and experiences are narrow, everyday is almost the same and predictable, when memories are insignificant time passes fast, because how you subjectively feel time is based upon the unique among past memories.

Bureaucratic societies like the US, rob a person of a human life experience. Life in a bureaucracy is narrow, so people to be “alive” as humans, live vicariously through the world of fiction- movies are big business- or they try to escape this robotic existence by drinking themselves to a frenzy- the alcohol industry capitalizes on this, which further prevents memory formation.

It is fascinating how the mirasis on here like #23 hamidm will go to great lengths to make damn fools of themselves. Chowk-Staff I think it is time to update your ``relevancy`` database, all these viruses are falling through your current definitions.

Netizen:

Let me confess at the outset that although I am familiar with the broader concept of wormholes, I do not know much about their physics.

The physics of wormholes is paradoxical and implies transmission of information at a speed greater than that of light. Hence the possibility of time travel. Many physicists are engaged in discovering ``a physically realistic example of how to beat the clock - and survive,`` (Paul Davies).

Allow me to quote from Paul Davies, ``So horrendous are the physical and philosophical problems with time travel that Stephen Hawking has proposed a `chronology protection hypothesis,` according to which nature will always find a way to prevent wormholes and other contrivances from permitting travel into the past. That way, remarks Hawking, the universe can be made safe for historians. There is no general agreement about whether chronology protection is valid, and if so whether it is contained in existing physics or requires something new. All the known examples of time travel have pathological features that would render them unphysical or unstable in practice. But without a general theorem to rule out all loopy spacetimes, there is always a chance that some clever researcher will come up with a physically realistic example of how to beat the clock - and survive.``

Mohammad Gill

netizen,

.......... while mr gill is pondering this question, let me assure you that whie i am not sure about intra-universe holes that would allow you to go back and prevent people like urstruly from being born, inter-universe wormholes do exist ......... just look around you - where do you think masadi came from ?.......... it is time we did something about shutting down these wormholes through which all kinds of worms, djinns and fairies are crawling into our universe .........

mr. gill:

you talk about time being unidirectional and irreversible.

what about when people tak about worm-holes(?) whereby a person could go back to the past or the unknown future.

any thoughts?

...... i don`t know much about science, but years ago i was able to slow down time and sometimes, when i felt like it, i could also speed it up ........... it was quite simple really - all you had to do was smoke a couple of reefers of good chitrali peeli pati and you could bring the world to a grinding halt ...... one day it took me fifty hours to drive the six or seven miles from charing cross to fortress stadium at thirty miles an hour - it was a a frightening experience ......... i thought i`d never get there !

........ to speed up time all you had to do was take some pink pills - if you took one before dinner it would be time for breakfast in less than half an hour ......... time has some strange properties: i discovered that, depending on the quality of chitrali and the potency of pink pills it wasn`t really linear and followed a logrithmic scale - simply amazing !

It is necessary to separate religious and literary rigmarole from a defensible and rational definition of time. Time does not exist. It is simply a device to explain the occurrence of events in the universe.
The more difficult and realistic mode of explanation of the events in the universe is in terms of energy and quasi-static equilibria. Due to various physical interactions between various relatively isolated quasi-equilibria the universe locally as well as as a whole is a dynamical system.
If we carry out an intensive discussion of the interactions we can explain the various events in the universe, however, the system is very much simplified if we assume the various potentials of action in the universe as implicit functions of time. The scientists are always interested in a simple explanation.
An interactive analysis of the local quasi equilibria with time as the implicit - BUT ASSUMED _ independent varable lead s to the present day physics.

No need to worry about the historians, mesiahs and literary figures!

Re: # 18

dear nasah....you will make the word `reactionary`...very respectable...

aik sheyr...about TIME....

waqt ik ber-e-baykaran khalid

har mulaqaat ik jazeera hay

sincerely sohail