What is Time?

Question

I've recently had this nagging question bouncing around in my head. What is time? Is it an illusion? Or is it existent, like a boundary where events can flow?

Answer 1

Time is best defined through the science of Quantum Mechanics. Though it is, currently, thought of as science, Philosophers as well have been pondering this question for centurys.

Science:
According to relativity and quantum mechanics, spacetime is, loosely speaking, a collection of points called "spacetime locations" where the universe's physical events occur. Spacetime is four-dimensional and a continuum, and time is a distinguished, one-dimensional sub-space of this continuum. Any interval of time--any duration--must be a linear continuum of instants in which one event follows another from past to present to future. So, a duration has a structure like an interval of real numbers. General relativity theory allows the geometry of space to change with time as the distribution of matter-energy changes.
-or-
The most popular "deep" answer to the question "What is physical time?" is that it is a special system of relations among instantaneous events.

Philosophy:
Philosophers of time are deeply divided on the question on what sort of ontological differences there are among the present, past and future. There are three competing theories. Presentists argue that necessarily only present objects and present experiences are real; and we conscious beings recognize this in the special "vividness" of our present experience. According to the growing-universe theory, the past and present are both real, but the future is not. The more popular theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past and future. This view is called "eternalism" or "the block universe theory."

Now, I am not this smart. Your question made me curious so I looked it up. I bagged all this info from:

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/t/time.htm#H4

If you want to know more, check out the link. There are pages upon pages of physical and philisophical theory.

Answer 2

Physical time is a velocity. Were you to determine the basis of the physics trilogy: E = mc2, m = E/c2, and c2 = E/m, you would find that the only unchanging value is that of the "c2" factor. It is this value (which is one of speed) that forms mass and is the basis of all energy. We, ourselves, then, are composed of physical time, which is the reason all events pass from the present into the past at the same rate, and is why time is so elusive.

The "c2" concept shows time to have a duration of the speed of light - this being how long any event actually exists. It also shows that mankind, being composed of physical time, has no manner by which he is able to interact with either the past or future - they do not exist. Were a person to say that we do not physically exist, they would be closer to the truth than a person who believed mankind to have any kind of duration.

Answer 3

There are several theories that attempt to address this, you'd better check any of the books on the subject ("A brief chronicle of time" come to mind, by Stephen Hawking). In my (humble) opinion, time is the fourth dimension, on which movement is much more likely on one direction than on the other one (time travel forward is theoretically feasible at different speeds, while time travel backwards is highly improbable).

I am not a physicist, but I find this question interesting. Good luck finding an answer.

Answer 4

Here is a fundamental way to concieve of time: Imagine the universe - vast "empty" space in which there is one and only one object. Now how can you measure time in relation to that one object? Ok, you could say it moved from here, to over here. Except that that makes no sense since the here and the here it moved to cannot be distinguished from each other. Thats because there is no other object from which you can reference this object's position. With out at least two objects in the universe, there is no way to measure time. Time is the measurement of a kind of distance between one event and another event. A single object can have only one event and thats it. The universe is in fact made up of a myriad of objects and events happening. Time is a measurement of the intervals of these events. According to Einstein it is also bound up inextricably with "Space".

Answer 5

Time is one among the four dimensions on which this universe is based. Say you have a meeting at a particular place in a particular building. To reach that building you should know how far it is from where you are now. You need two dimensions to figure that out. Once you are at the spot, you should know how far you have to go upwards or downwards. What I mean is you should know on which floor is the meeting. So you now have three dimensions. Finally, to make it to the meeting successfully, you should know what 'TIME' is the meeting. That is the fourth dimension. Now to reach that spot at that time, you can travel along the spatial dimensions (as all of us do) or you can travel through the dimension of time. That is time travel.

Answer 6

For physics it is merely a parameter for the math equations, that comes from the comparison betwen changing processes to a specific one chosen as a pattern, usually a periodic process.
But there is a human and psicological perception of time, as something going from past to future. This is something not known. Sometimes it has been explained as our perception of the second law of thermodinamics, for chemical processes in our brain always produce an entropy growing.

Answer 7

According to the dictionary,

A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

It is also a magazine.

Answer 8

Tough question. The best answers I've heard are:

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once (in the same way that distance keeps everything from being at the same place).

Time is what clocks measure.

Answer 9

time is associated with the motion of the earth, at it ' s simplest level, the earth turns on it's axis and this is called a day. from there, it is multiplied or divided into larger or smaller units.
not an illusion.

Answer 10

it's the corelation with the standard between two or more events. it's just the reference which we have as sec or min or hour.....