what is the speed of time?

Question

this is a really philosophical question and really complicated too. me and my friends thought of this just talking. we have things like the speed of sound, light, and other stuff like that, but what is the speed of time?

oh, and no crap and no crap answers like the first one

Answer 1

Actually, this is neither philosophical or complicated. Time has no speed...and it also has no definite intervals. In fact, time can change depending on the observer. There is an astrophysical phenomenon known as time dilation. So, according to TD, time will slow down for faster moving objects or objects deeper within a gravitational field. So, the "speed" of time is faster if you're standing still or if you're in outer space.

In other words, there is no way to quantize time and assign it a speed.

Answer 2

Time and speed are relative. The faster you are going in relation to a clock timing it, the faster time will go for you. For instance, If you were standing on Earth with a clock, and I was flying at a very high rate of speed past Earth, my clock would run an hour while yours ran more. However there is no real answer to this question because there are are variables that not only weren't stated, but even if they were mankind (that i know of) doesn't yet understand fully the relationship between the two.

However that being said, there is no speed of time, that's not the correct measurement for time. That's like asking how much a tv show weighs, or how a color tastes....

Answer 3

The speed of time is the speed of light. Because to measure the passage of time you have to measure some kind of change taking place. If no change has taken place (talking on the quantum level here) how can you say for sure that any time has passed? Therefore, since it has been proven (except for in the special case of entanglement) that no interactions between particles can occur faster than the speed of light, then the speed of time can't be faster than the speed of light.

Another way to illustrate this is time dilation. The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time goes. Once you hit the speed of light, you are frozen in time. Therefore, once again, the speed of time is the same as the speed of light.

Or one second per second, that is a good answer too.

Answer 4

Time can't be measured as having speed, it is nothing more than an interval between events. Events follow events but time is still just the interval between them. If you travel at speeds close to the speed of light an odd thing happens, time dilates, it appears to slow down, but what really happens is that the events are slowed down because of a large increase in the mass of the moving matter, there is no longer the same freedom for the particles to move.

Answer 5

Wow...lots of BS, but not much in the way of answers. Okay, here's what scientists "think":

There is a possibility that "time" does not exist. "There is a temporal realm called the Planck scale, where even attoseconds drag like eons (100 attoseconds is to one second as a second is to a million years). It marks the edge of known physics, a region where distances and intervals are so short that the very concepts of time and space start to break down. Planck time, the smallest unit of time with any meaning (10^-43 second, or less than a trillionth of a trillionth of an attosecond). Efforts to break it down further have led to a strange juncture in physics: time my not exist at the most fundamental level of physical reality."

Einstein started this mess, but the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, a possible pathway to the ever-ellusive Grand Unified Theory, shows that time is not a part of the equation!

This may also explain why in a universe of absolutes, "time" is not one of them. If you are in a higher energy field, time "goes" slower; if you're moving faster, are hotter, are higher, in a stronger gravitational field (hence more potential energy)...time "goes" slower. So, in the end, time may be a part of the underlying reality so indivisible that you can't say it has speed, or any other measurable properties...you can only say that "you" see things moving slower or faster.

A clock does not measure time, "you" connect the motion of a clocks hands with other events such as the motion of the sun, etc. "We" create time to explain the interval of inaction between events, but it turns out each observer has a different idea of how long the event took, the distance between parts, etc.

So, consider that regardless of how fast it flies, or how you measure it, the illusion of time is just that...a human explanation of the interval between events, and we've come up with all sorts of ways to describe those intervals...but not explain "why" there are intervals or why we perceive intervals.

Answer 6

Time is not a dimension. Time is the drag of matter upon the expansion of space, very similar to the drag of matter creating the gravitational warp of Einstein. Since space expands into three dimensions, any point within space will experience time no matter the orientation of the POV (point of view). The faster a point (particle, object) travels within space, the more the point experiences the slowing of time, until it reaches the velocity of expansion when time ceases to be experienced. Hence, a photon which would cease to exist in a rest state, can traverse the whole of space without collapsing because it does not experience time.

Answer 7

The speed of time is merly how an individual perceives it time has no limit the brain makes the limit of time. Take a halucinagen forenstance and your senses will slow time could speed it up also the way you perceive feelings emotionally and Physically.Your physical and emotional state of mind makes time.But also time is an eternity so time really cant be measured.

Answer 8

Well,if speed is measured in miles-per-hour (mph) and miles per second,and seconds and hours are periods of time,there is no way to measure the speed of time.

Answer 9

the only way to measure time is to measure a change in something. if time slowed down we wouldn't realise because our brains would work slower too, and so would all the equipment to measure time. so basically there is no such thing as an "absolute time" that we can measure time by. If you do advanced physics you get to learn about time dilation! and effects of gravity on time! you might find it interesting

Answer 10

spiff if you want an answer to this question watch the movie IQ you can get it at walmart for like 5 bucks and it explains Einsteins theory of space, time pretty well in layman's term