Like the tree falling in the woods with nobody to hear it, would time stop if it wasn't measured?
2007-06-13 09:02:21 · 32 answers · asked by Drew 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
No, Time is the forth dimension of the universe. It plays a dynamic role in the workings of the universe. If time didnt exist. Things would just be, they could never change, there would be no motion, nothing.
2007-06-13 09:05:04 · answer #1 · answered by kennyk 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time is one of those aspects of the physical universe that physicists still struggle to understand.
There seem to be basically two kinds of time
(a) time as part of geometry - Einstein's general theory of relativity put time on the same footing as space: so that the combination of 3 spatial dimension and the time dimension together make up the world in which things move and 'happen'.
Einsteins time is like a line along which things move so that within the 4 dimensional space-time even motionless objects move along the time dimension.
In this sense, time exists even when nothing is there to 'measure' it because it is a fundamental part of the universe.
The weird thing is that this geometrical explaination does not tell us that time must move forward ...
which leads to the second 'origin' for time:
(b) time as a property of the second law of thermodynamics - you're probably familar with the law that entropy increases in a closed system. this is the second law of thermodynamics. Paraphrased it means that any system will, over time, go from more ordered to less ordered. This puts an arrow on time.
A split cup of coffee will never go back into the cup. A broken glass will never spring back into one piece.
We can put a direction on time since we know that the coffee was in the cup first and spilt afterward; the glass must have been in one piece first and broken second.
So my idea is that space-time provides the geometrical framework but thermodynamics forces the 'arrow' of time to point in only one direction!
2007-06-13 21:05:45 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time would still exist. It existed in the universe before humans came to be. Although I have never really understood what exactly time is. All I know that it is always measured by objects moving. So if nothing in the universe was moving would that mean that time stopped as well?
I used to think about these things a lot but never got to any real conclusions. Just sore heads.
&-P
2007-06-14 00:49:20 · answer #3 · answered by John D 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This could be explained many different ways as people have many different takes on time.
I recently read an article in Discover Magazine. It basically says that OUR time, human time, is false. Our hours and minutes and seconds and clocks...it's all arbitrary and can't be measured. Spacetime is the real time, since Einstein gave it proof as the 4th dimension, however remember that when in space, spacetime is relative. So life has time...we are born we grow we die. Just as the universe was born, is growing and will eventually come to an end (theoretically, of course...). Time is there, it's just the measurement of time that is wrong. =)
2007-06-13 09:17:24 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your question is more one of philosophy than physics. It is ture enough that time doesn't exist in the common sense, other than by our measurements.
If you imagine, before all clocks were set from the same source, you could set of from one location travel for two hours only to find the time they were using at your destination indicated you had actually travelled for two and a quarter hours.
We now can measure more acurately than by dividing our journey around the sun, by using actomic clocks. These work by using the "frequency" of atoms to give a unit to divide time by. Even so, remove our measurements and there is no usable "time" there. However time still exists and does funny things. For example, wahtever you do to it you can't alter the time it takes for light to travel a set distance. Yet time dilation means if you travel though space, you will experience a slower rate of time than someone who stays on earth. The bigger the distance you travel, the digger the difference in your relative accumulated times. The space traveller could travel for what really to them is two months passing, two months worth of aging, sleeping, dinners, etc. The person left on earth has time to age, eat and sleep for four years. Only when they are in contact again does the difference become apparent.
So unlike the tree falling, where without a source to hear, there is no sound, time needs no hearing or measuring to act upon us and everything else.
In essence we define everything, but what we define; time, gravity, space, mass, etc, is independent of those definitions and it is only are perception and understanding that change.
2007-06-13 12:56:31 · answer #5 · answered by qatpoo 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Nope, it exists---it's measured with speed... read Einstein. Time is the 4th dimension.
Speed of an object = Distance/TIME
You can not measure the speed of something at any particular time because at that particular moment, everything is standing still. So, to measure speed, you would need to measure the speed of something from one moment in time to another moment in time, in the distance it has traveled. If nothing has any speed because time is zero--(speed = distance/zero), then nothing would be moving. Without movement, there would be no existence of any real physical matter, because the initiation of that physical matter would take some form of movement(which would require time).
Also, as you approach the speed of light, time slows to a stop(time stands still at the speed of light)...
2007-06-13 09:09:52 · answer #6 · answered by Nep 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Does the World around us suddenly change when we close our eyes? and change back when we open them? How do you know all you life aint just one realistic dream? What is a dream then if that be the case? And thats the bad point in philosophy, untill you are asked define death and you kill the philosopher, then say, "thats death.".
For you to know you not measuring Time, Time would still have to flow for you to know your not measuring it, or your thought wouldnt exist as they are dependant on time. So Time exists in one sense all the time, defined or not.
2007-06-13 11:13:32 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Like someone said earlier on, ie time is the 4th dimension if we stop measuring it there is still going to be day and night, there is still going to be babies born into this world, growing old then older and then finally death. There is still going to be space between two different occasions. Obviously time is still going to be in existence even if we don't care about it.
I hope this helps.
2007-06-14 00:49:50 · answer #8 · answered by k_reggie 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time existed LONG before anyone invented a way to measure it.
DUH....
It won't stop if you break your watch.
Time is an essential part of a physical universe and the physical universe would have to stop existing for time to stop.
Now we are getting out of the realm of physics ind into philosophy!
2007-06-13 09:51:32 · answer #9 · answered by Philip H 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In a sense, but it would still be passing from moment to moment. It's not like we'd all freeze or become immortal if everyone stopped measuring time.
2007-06-13 09:05:19 · answer #10 · answered by Pfo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋