are we in the past or in the future..?

Question

consider a star which is 2 light years away from us... and let us say it just vanished or that star just destroyed... we will be still looking at it for two more years... but its already destroyed in the present.. so are we in the past ? or the star is in future ? or what is it ? i am confused,,

Answer 1

don't hurt your brain. just because we didn't see something happen this instant doesn't mean it didn't just happen. If lightning strikes, but you don't hear the sound for a few seconds, does that mean the lightning is in the future, or the thunder in the past? truth is, the lightning happened before we saw or heard it. the physical means of observation is the flaw here.

Answer 2

You can think of an image of a star as a "fossil" or record of its existence at a time in the past equal to its distance in light years from us. Even when we look at the sun, we are seeing an image that is about 9 minutes old. This is because light travels from the object across space to our eyes at the speed of light. We know that there is actually an object behind the image because we understand that light speed is a universal constant.

So what we see of this star is a two year old image. If the star vanished today in 2007, we would have to wait until 2009 to see the star vanish.

Answer 3

We are in the present. The light that you see from that star, exploded or not, began traveling at the speed of light two years ago, it's true, but the light is just now in the present, hitting the cornea of your eye. If I throw a rock at you from fifty feet away, the time I throw it is the present and the time it hits you is the present a few seconds later. Time can and is dilated though as Einstein pointed out in general relativity.

Answer 4

everything in the universe is in the present, but everything we see is in the past... if u look up a star that is like you said 2 light years away, the light from that star would take time to travel to earth, (like the light from the sun which takes 8 minutes to reach us), and also everything you see is in the past, if u see this question it's in the past, because the image we see with our eyes is upside down so our brain takes that image and turns it the right way, then sends it back (that alone takes time even if it's not much) so everthing around you that you see is in the past....

Answer 5

We are in the present. Everything else we see, we see as they were in the past. The time depends on the number of years light traveled to reach us.

Answer 6

We live in the present.

Given finite lightspeed and Lorentz Invariance, all views are into the past for all observers. Events need not be strictly ordered.

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"time-like events" 534 hits
"space-like events" 413 hits

All points in this universe are at its exact center. All four(pi) steradians at every point exactly aim at the Big Bang, which is at the same distance in every direction.

Answer 7

we see the light, the light is traveling in space. the light is always in the present. everything we see is in the present. if you want to take your approach then everything we are seeing has light that has been reflected in the past. but ourselves in this man made thing called "time" is in the present.

Answer 8

This reminds me of one of those questions I used to try to answer at 2am in my college dorm (after a night of 'reflective' drinking).
When you get this answer.... ponder this.... what if our solar system is merely a spec on a flea on the back of a dog in some other larger reality...... dude....

LOL....

Of course this is the present... I mean that was the immediate past..... and this is the pres.... damn.... gone.

I think we live in the immediate past.

Answer 9

If this confuses you, then do yourself a favor, forget about science class for a while and pay attention to english class.

Here and now, where you are is the present. PERIOD

Answer 10

Dark Helmet: When will now be then?
Col. Sanders: Soon