How can i define Time? I tried to define Time but could not do it without using words like "moments" which in itself means time. Can someone give a definition of Time ???
2006-09-11 07:05:37 · 22 answers · asked by venkat Subramaniam 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
endless...
2006-09-11 07:06:48 · answer #1 · answered by Inquirer 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think Stephen Hawkins associated with the flow of time with the way entropy increases in the universe. That is, of the various possibilities of which way time can progress (forward, backward, standing still), the direction that correlates with an increase of the entropy in the universe is defined as "forward." And the units of hours and minutes and seconds and so forth are just that--units of measurement that provides finer and finer periods of this flow. The word moment, as used in most speeches--unless it's borrowed and redefined in some scientific contexts, is just an abstract snapshot of time (e.g. "the first moment I saw her....").
So I guess you can say something like time being an indicator that tracks changes in the sign (positive, negative, or zero) of entropy in the universe. Unfortunately, once you've said this someone will inevitably ask for the definition of entropy.
Would that be the next question posted?
2006-09-11 14:43:10 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time may be defined as our universe's one bounded dimension.
A dimension, meanwhile may be defined as a dynamical degree of freedom of an isolated event.
An isolated event is defined as any processes having an arbitrarily small extent in all its degrees of freedoms.
That's it. The point here is that, finite or otherwise, the universe in unbounded in its three spatial dimensions. Only time appears to have a bound, beyond which it is underfined (namely -13.7 billions before the present). There may be a second one defining the end of time, but that's beside the point. This bound is its defining distinction and is much more than a technicality because of the importance of entropy growth in the progression of time from a very low entropy initial state. Time's one bound is intrinsically necessary for the curious properties that distinguish from the other three dimensions.
2006-09-12 00:01:23 · answer #3 · answered by Dr. R 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some definitions for you:
- Time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence.
- The Oxford English Dictionary defines time as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole."
- an instance or single occasion for some event
- an indefinite period
- the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past
2006-09-11 14:16:34 · answer #4 · answered by friedpaw 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The words don't matter.
Time does not exist.
Time is a convention, not a reality.
Think about it a bit, and it is obvious. Things exist. Things move, things decay, things change, things coalesce, things grow, things evolve, things...
The hands on the clock move, the sun moves across the southern sky, we grow, then age...we talk about "time" because others have accepted the concept before we have.
Any theory based on time as a reality is obviously erroneous, which is why a lot of our ideas are erroneous.
don't ya think?
You could talk about "rate of change" but such an idea is based simply on accepting conventional measure of certain movements/changes...such as the earth's spin, the decay of radioactive matter, the vibration of a crystal, etc.. I'd choose "consciousness of change" for my definition of "time" if you forced me to make a choice.
2006-09-11 14:27:53 · answer #5 · answered by Go Tech 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time is the subjective preception that we use to measure the speed of anything, matter, energy, light. There really is no such thing as time. There is only the infinit now. We create time to mark the passage of events. The past does not exist, it is over with and finished. The future does not exist, it hasn't happened yet. The only time that exists is now, this very moment, and as soon as you try to grasp now, it is gone.
2006-09-18 13:59:16 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It appears that 'time' is just our way of saying 'dependancy'. It could be considered a dimension, but it is unlike the other spacial dimensions in that it is the direction in which causality happens. A cause can have an effect anywhere in space, but (presumably) always forwards in time. Someone observing our universe from the outside might be able to represent it as a static, four-dimensional model (just as we could represent a two-dimensional universe as a static three-dimensional model), making time into a dimension of space, but the time dimension would differ in that the laws of physics apply from one frame to the next in time, but not in space. What happens at one frame of time depends on what was happening during the frame before it, not on what is happening in some other place in space.
I hope you understand what I'm saying, it's hard to express in words. :\
2006-09-11 14:11:34 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's a yardstick that man created in order to more easily survive and then used to advance his technology. It relates events to each other and keeps track of events relative to each other. It is based on sand.
2006-09-11 14:40:50 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time is Time
2006-09-11 14:06:52 · answer #9 · answered by Dr M 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
A spand of distance through life
2006-09-15 22:14:13 · answer #10 · answered by T diddy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The fourth dimension.
The first three dimensions are cartesian points x, y and z or they can be thought of as length, width and depth.
The fourth dimension is time.
2006-09-11 14:15:13 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋