what is the mechanism by which time increases?

Question

at some point t = 0, now t = 6000 or whatever, t = 6 x10^9, our origin is not the point of my question. but rather how did we get here, to this moment in time? what is the mechanism by which time (t) increases, or is it the mechanism by which everything else occurs? I guess it would depend on whether time is constant or a variable.

Answer 1

You've touched on a lot of things that may be beyond the scope of your actual question. I'll take them in order.

'How did we get to this point in time?' is really more of a philosophical question than physics. The world happened in such a way as to enable all of the things that made you ask this question when you did. That's not meant as a half-*** answer, it's the truth. The big-bang to hear answer wouldn't fit in this space. Suffice it to say lots of stuff got us here.

'What is the mechanism by which time increases?' Time does not increase, per se. Time is a function of acceleration, and the "direction" of time is towards the future. Simply put, all things in the universe concede towards maximum entropy (chaos), time points in the direction of more chaos. Figure out why, and you'll get a million dollars from Stockholm (Nobel Prize).

Time is a variable, *and* relativistic. People on Earth measure time by the interval between predictable events. Archaically, a second is the length of time between heartbeats. Nowadays a second is the time it takes a beam of light to travel 299,792,458 meters in a vacuum.

I say time is a variable because the speed of "forward" movement is based on the acceleration of the reference. The faster you accelerate (this doesn't work if you hold a constant non-relativistic speed), the slower time moves. At the speed of light, time stands still. If you were to leave your twin on Earth, and get in a spaceship traveling the speed of light for one year, you'd come back and be 1 year older, your twin would have aged many many decades due to the relativistic (and personal) nature of time.

I encourage you to study Einstein's theory of special relativity for a better understanding of acceleration and time in general. It's theorized time flows like a river, complete with little eddies and whirlpools and standing water. The majority moves at a constant rate, but special circumstances exist to by-pass this constant. A lot of the speculation on time travel centers on faster-than-light travel and what mechanism might make such a thing possible.

Hope that helps,
Odd

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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Answer 4

Time is an aspect of physical reality rather than of mathematical representations, but in most contexts the natural way to represent it is as a variable. Specifically, as a parameter or independent variable. But that's a shallow answer to a deep question.

The directionality of time is associated with two things, in quite different ways. (Two that I know of, anyway. There well may be more.) When you reverse the direction of time in a mathematical description of the reality, i.e. in a physical theory, it almost doesn't make any difference. Ideal pendulums look the same when you run the movie backwards. Planets move the same in forward and reverse. So do atoms and molecules -- almost. You have to switch positive and negative charges, but other than that all nonstatistical physical theories are fully reversible as far as I can think of.

The other difference applies to statistical theories: entropy increases as time goes forward, and decreases as time goes backward. That's what accounts for the difference between a movie run forward and a movie run forward.

The individual little pieces work the same forward and backward, but the big picture doesn't. For a particular way the big picture can look, there are lots of ways the details can be. But for some big-picture options there are lots of possible details, and for other ones there are fewer. The details are reversible, so they can't have any preference about which direction to go from possibilities that make one big picture to possibilities that make another. So they tend to go from rare ones to common ones, and not so much the other way, just because there are more ways to go.

It may be that that's all there is to time. Time may essentially be entropy: asking what time it is may be essentially the same as asking how much entropy has increased by. If so, then time is best represented neither by a constant nor by a variable, but a function of other variables.

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Edit ...

But for that to work, there are four related things that would have to be addressed.

One is, what does it mean for two things to happen at the same time? If you say that "what time is it" really means "how much has entropy increased from the beginning until now", you still have the question of what bits of the universe count as "now". In common sense, you can take that for granted. In relativity, you find out that common sense was wrong. In one frame of reference, something is happening right now on the other side of the galaxy; in another frame of reference, it already happened 50,000 years ago, and in yet another it won't happen for another 50,000 years.

Another question that would need to be addressed in order to explain time as entropy, is what's the connection between energy and time. You usually hear about the uncertainty principle in terms of location and momentum, but it also applies to energy and time. If you can say exactly how much energy a system has in a certain state, then you can say absolutely nothing about when it was in that state, and vice versa.

Yet another is how different rates of entropy increase in different places somehow combine to constitute an aspect of reality that works well as one parameter in a physical theory.

Finally, there's relativistic time dilation. If two people measure how much time passes from here-and-now to then-and-there, they'll get different answers depending on how fast they're going. One way you may have heard of this is the "twin paradox". It's certainly not obvious how to explain that in terms of entropy.

Answer 5

There are many types of time. The past has a beginning but is finite. The presant is temporary and belongs to the past. The future is infinite.

Changes occur daily. Information seems to quicken time. And your right. Time can be sped up or slowed down. While time can be measured, each person experiences a different pace.

Time probably does not exist at all. I think it was given to us by our Creator as a gift. A way to impress upon us of how valuable our lives really are.

Answer 6

What is the mechanism by which time increases?

The mechanism by which time increases is creation. We exist within constant creation.

Everything that does exist, did not exist until it was past. Past is post creation. Time is the creation. Everything happens in time.

(((THINK))) you know this is correct!

You can keep ignoring it, but it is the only explanation! I already know this! I have known this for years. Everybody will eventually know this. It is just so simple, it has been before our eyes all of our lives.

The rest of my information comes as a result of knowing this, and 37 years of effort.

Answer 7

time never had a start and will never stop !! (ofcourse we are talking about 3 dimensions)! thoery of space and time 1!! have u ever heard of it?? go read " a brief history of time" by stephen hawkings !! i know when u say t=0 u mean when time started !! but there is no such a thing (unless u count it as the day you were born which in that case t was zero for only you)!! the only time we can say t is zero and remains zero is when travelling at the speed of light!! there are some other theories about chnage in time in worm holes or black holes , but thats becuz according to stephen hawkings space is not defined perfectly in those places !! PLS read " a brief history of time"

Answer 8

Time is a measure of change. The rate of change depends upon where you are. We measure the rate of change based upon our planet's rotations and the rotation of the earth around the sun. The time can be different depending upon the faster you go with respect to the speed of light. Time actual slows down. Time is different on different planets. Time is variable based upon your relative frame of reference.

Answer 9

Time is a measurement of change. The beginning of change was the beginning of time. What is the mechanism that allows change? This I do not know.

Answer 10

an excellent question, to which i don't really have an answer...
you should look into space-time dimension information.

who knows, really?
time just IS. things happen. you get older. the world goes round.

your question is now driving me mad, thank you very much.