What is time?

[masta247]

Yes, a thread like this again.

What is time? How do you perceive it?
Is it a static, constant value? Do you think that your perception of time is in your mind or is it equal for everyone? Does everything seem to be faster for a tortoise and slower for a fly?
Why is one day for children like a whole week for an adult? Why does time run faster once you get older? Is it only some kind of illusion because you get more busy?
Do you remember looking at any analog clock when you were really small, do you remember how long each second took?

 

[masta247]

This is very interesting and simply put from a scientific point of view:
What is Time?

But from that point we can only see time in theory as a countable value. You can count nanoseconds, minutes etc. but you can't say that one second equals that very same one second but for someone else, elsewhere and under different circumstances even if it's the very same second in theory. In theory it's the very same thing but you can't measure it properly in practice. That's pretty cool that it's so unknown and unproven.

I think that the theory of time is one of the most interesting things and the only way we can understand time is because we use clocks. If there were no clocks most of us probably wouldn't understand the meaning of time.

 

[S O F I]

Time is money nucca.

 

[2Pax]

Who invented the concept of time? Who came up with all the sub categories such as seconds and hours? Who decided how long a second is? Why does there have to be 60 minutes in a hour?

 

[Duke]

I disagree with the idea we wouldn't understand time without clocks. I'm sure early man had a good idea about it and they didn't rock Swiss watches back then.

 

[2Pax]

Who needs clocks when you've got Sundials.

 

[S O F I]

I disagree with the idea we wouldn't understand time without clocks. I'm sure early man had a good idea about it and they didn't rock Swiss watches back then.

Well, we don't understand time WITH clocks, hence the need for a discussion on it.

But I agree with what you meant. Early man knew the concept of time, but not how time is measured.

 

[masta247]

Yeah after all I agree. They knew what it is because there's day and night, other people are getting older and they were able to recall what happened and when did something happen - they knew what happened 2 nights ago, 3 nights ago and were able to tell a difference in a very primitive way.
What I mean is that it's hard to visualise what is time with clocks, it would be much harder to understand without them. If you ask a child what is time he will most probably show you his clock which means that he's getting familiar with the concept of time from his early years. That is very important in this matter. It begins his process of noticing time, understanding how it works/flows and then learning how it works for the rest of his life.
If there were no clocks we wouldn't be able to quite precisely describe it and maybe wouldn't even notice its existence in a way we do now. There are other ways of telling how much time has passed without using a clock but.. I hope that you know what I mean. I think nobody would have any idea that it's some sort of a physical phenomenon without being able to measure it. It probably wouldn't be seen as a constant value but rather a matter of individual perception.

 

[Prize Gotti]

Time does not exist, if it did, there would be a starting point.

What you are referring to is really Duration, time is the unit used to measure duration. For example the duration of the rotation of the earth, the duration of the earths journey around the sun, the duration of how long it takes light to reach 1 point to another, etc etc.

 

[masta247]

That depends on your definition. According to various popular theories it started with our universe so it is limited but still it's called 'time'.
By 'time' people don't mean an infinite duration. You can somehow measure time by comparing two durations of some sort though or feel how long it took for one to end. I probably mixed time with duration somewhere in this thread though.

Time is an occurance and it's sort of proven that it's opposed to space.
It's fascinating how it really works. The faster you move the slower time flows around you, even though you feel like it does flow in a normal fashion.
For example time stands still for light or anything else traveling at the speed of light. If you could somehow move faster you would move in a normal direction, everything would feel normal to you but everything that is moving slower than you would move backwards with time. It's still unknown if it's possible though but some yet uncontrolled objects in our universe have a potential to pass that barrier. Seeing that we don't observe any strange paradoxes we can tell that probably nobody will ever move backwards with time.
It also works the other way around. The time flows at its maximum speed for static objects. At least that's how I understand it.
In this case time is a physical occurance but our perception of it might vary. On the other hand our perception of space also does vary.

 

[Jokerman]

Not time, spacetime. Can't be one without the other. But time for us is merely process, change.