2007-07-21 08:39:23 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
Time is a way of measuring Entropy, with the Big Bang at one end and the heat death of the Universe at the other. It's real and it's a natural phenomenon. The best description I've read of the purpose it serves is, "To keep everything from happening at once."
And yes, we do make time. I made time with a cute cocktail waitress last tuesday.
But, Time isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Near as I can make out of what the physics boys are saying all of Time exists simultaneously, making it the 4th perceived dimension.
Sequential time is a perceptual illusion caused by the fact that human consciousness moves in the direction of entropy at the rate of one second per second--although subjective time may vary according to what you're doing and how fast you're traveling.
"Kissing a pretty girl for a minute can seem like a second. Sitting on a hot plate for a minute can seem like an hour."-- Albert Einstein
2007-07-21 08:56:38 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Madpol1’s answer is pointing in the right direction;
Time as we know it is a man-made phenomenon invented to make some sense of our world.
Entropy is a natural state; (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death). A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
Kissing a pretty girl for a minute can seem like a second. Sitting on a hot plate for a minute can seem like an hour."-- Albert Einstein
The above quote is NOT a description of time…The quote is attributed to Einstein when he was asked to explain Relativity.
2007-07-21 10:25:43 · answer #2 · answered by Devil's Advocate 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Time and space are inter- dependent: you can only exist in a particular time and space. Einstein wrote of the space-time continuum.
Time is like a river flowing in only one direction. At the same time, it is like an endless series of waves breaking on a beach: a repeated movement which is always slightly different.
Time is an essential part of nature, but we invent ways to measure it, from clocks to cups of coffee.
It is also subjectively experienced differently by each person, but obviously it is real because we cannot reverse it, we all grow older, we all die, and all our bodies decay.
The "eternal return" is that the matter of our decayed bodies becomes part of a new living thing, and the cycle continues.
2007-07-23 03:00:40 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time as we know it was invented by Mr Accurist in 1897. He was trying to create a wrist-mounted flying machine, but the clockwork motor he used ran too slow, causing the propeller blade to take a whole day to turn once. Since he'd ordered a thousand already & the factory wouldn't take them back, he simply painted some numbers on the front, and HEY PRESTO! Time was born!
2007-07-21 08:52:55 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Time slows when things move really fast (there are particles that take thousands of years to get to Earth from space and die in a tiny fraction of a second, but are picked up on earth as they move so fast time is slower for them), or are under a lot of gravity pressure (black holes)
2007-07-21 23:18:14 · answer #5 · answered by honourableone 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Trixie Bordello is on the right track.
Time comes from the human ability to recognise that we are ourselves one person, developing from child to adult. And recognising the passage of recurring events such as days and seasons. William James expressed this as a stream of consciousness.
We needed a way to quantify this phenomena, so time became the way to measure it.
2007-07-21 10:00:05 · answer #6 · answered by Trevor h 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No body knows. It is one of the greatest mysteries facing science today. Though we've made great progress in physics, the last great revelation about time was probably in 1905 when Einstein published his theory of relativity and revealed the concept of time dilation.
2007-07-21 08:46:22 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It is dimension of measuring existence.
Therefore to those that exist it is real.
As rocks, sand, planets and stars exist; time is real for them too.
If something doesn't exist, then time is irrelevant as are all the other dimensions.
2007-07-21 09:39:07 · answer #8 · answered by rogerglyn 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes time exists...typified by the beginning and end of cycles. Even if humans didn't exist, there would be cycles on the Earth and universe.
2007-07-21 08:54:17 · answer #9 · answered by GeriGeri 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Of course it is. We just gave it a name. Each animal knows when it is 'time' to eat, to sleep, to breed. They may call it by another word in their mind, but they know! Animals often sit waiting for owners to return ONLY at the specific time of the day. Time has and always will exist; but it is HUMANS who gave it the name 'time' and invented machines and gadgets to monitor its passing.
2007-07-21 08:46:36 · answer #10 · answered by Party_Fants 1 · 3⤊ 0⤋