Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.

Chris pointed out that Jim Grozier comments:
‘An equation such as E = mc2 does NOT mean that energy and mass are ‘two aspects of the same thing’ – as everyday experiences tells us (thankfully, the conversion of mass to energy is not an everyday experience, unless you happen to work in a nuclear power station!)  Time, on the other hand, IS an everyday experience – it ‘flows’ whether or not there is an interchange of mass and energy going on.’

I understand what Grozier is saying, but the everyday conversion of mass to energy I speak of is related to the more gentle processes where photons are emitted from electrons resulting in the creation of waves of electromagnetic energy. BEFORE emission, those photons where part of the mass of an electron, but AFTER emission they become ‘energy in waveform’ by virtue of its motion. So in this sense we have mass being converted to energy. The process Grozier mentioned relating to nuclear processes involves a vastly increased amount of released energy that measures billions of times greater than that found in small atomic processes where electromagnetic radiation is produced. I’m sure you can agree, although the measure of energy is vastly different, the process is the same.

So when you think about it, there IS in fact an everyday conversion of mass into energy, even though the release of energy is as small as it is, but its enough to cause an effect on our time oriented, forward moving existence. This gives us the everyday experience, and product, we call time.

The other point Grozier made was: ‘Indeed, time, in the sense of something changing with time, can be experienced even when we simply see two bodies moving at constant speed relative to each other, a situation where the energy is not changing at all; so I don’t see that there is any logic in assuming a direct link between time and energy.’

He’s not saying there is NO direct link between time and energy; he is saying he can’t SEE any logic in assuming it. But there is logic in assuming a direct link between time and energy. To get some feedback on this very point I approached a few colleagues in the field of physics, mostly in the USA, and the response I received was a mixed one. Some cannot see a direct relationship between time and energy, while others said there is definitely a relationship between the two. So really, I’m not concerned with the fact that you had pointed out Grozier’s remark on this point. It does not cause my hypothesis to fall apart. It would seem there are differing opinions, even between the academics. So it’s down to me to prove my point.

In a situation where energy is constant, therefore unchanging, does not contradict my concept of time and energy being two aspects of the same thing. Re-read an earlier posting of mine where I give an analogy of two clocks. One is assumed to have stored energy that is converted into kinetic energy thereby causing the clock to function in time, therefore having the ability to measure time; yet the other clock that has no energy or its energy is stored but not released puts it in a situation where it does not have the function of measuring time, yet the ‘duration of the existence’ of the clock can be measured in time by the functioning clock.

PS: Have a look in your spam box. You should find an email from me.

I would say that time is a sort of mark. We all have different ''times''. Even if we were born on the same day. It is actualy very simple, we have all moved at different paces througout
our life and therfore slowed down time. We do not consider this in having b-day parties because the difference is so small (like )

Last edited by daphysicist (2006-05-28 12:16:43)

Chris wrote:

A tachyon is the tpye of particle you are describing. They are a theoretical result of the Dirac equation. No evidence for their existence has been shown though. So there is much debate as to whether they actually exist.

Ditto here
I support your point of view /
howerver,i am having terrible trouble with mine.

I would say that time is just a consideration.  The consideration of time occurs by the alteration of particles in space.  We observe the motion of the world around us and we get the idea that it took time for an object to move from point A to point B.
  We are not observing or sensing an outside influence called time.  We observe or sense motion and we create the “experience” of time. We all have memories, these memories are a recording of the  physical universe.  All of these memories contain a time index (when it happened, how long it took).  We put that time index there in our memory.  We do not record this time index from the outside world.  We all can witness an occurrence yet have different ideas when it happened and how long it took.

Now what about remembering a dream the next morning.  The images or memories you have of what happened are of motion that never occurred in the physical universe yet they have a time index.  The events in the dream never happened but some how we have the idea that the dream lasted a certain amount of time.

Ever doze off for a couple minutes and have a dream that seemed to occur longer than when you were asleep.  We considered from the amount of activity in the dream that it had to take a certain amount of time. We are the ones that consider that  time took place. Time is not an outside influence that we record, we observe motion an assign it a time.

Steve

Time is order.

Actually I am talking General Relativity steve. Gravity is massenergy density slowing time.

Mitch Raemsch

The time is long overdue to attempt a definition of what exactly we mean by time,this could be a starting point for any discussion on this interesting topic.We will probably never understand it but it is good fun trying.

To restate/paraphrase something I posted before elsewhere: Time is one of the three "fundamental indefinables" in classical mechanics; distance is the second, and mass (or force—take your pick) the third. In other words, every other quantity in classical mechanics is defined via a set of rules that, ultimately, involves some combination of time, distance, and mass (or force). But those three "fundamental indefinables" are defined only "operationally"—that is, via procedures for their measurement. So, for example, we define the distance between two points as the number of "standard" rigid measuring rods that we can lay end-to-end between those two points.

The point is, physics, and virtually every other field of science, ultimately rests upon a small set of basic concepts that are taken as virtually self-evident (like axioms in mathematics). Time is taken as one of those concepts.

Ron, take a look at thread Time? Speed?:

http://www.ilovephysics.com/forum/t1788 … ed%3F.html

I would say that we share the view that time has something do with energy that 'makes it tick' so to speak.

My theory focuses on probability that two observers can measure time equally.

I postulate that change in clock rate at some speed V is proportional to this probability (that two observes can measure time equally).

And measure of clock is the energy in it.

http://toph.synthasite.com/index.php

Thanks

of course there is a logic in relating time with energy, since both are conjugates of each other according to Noether Theorem. Moreover, Einstiens relativity treats mass and energy on equal footing, thus, energy and space are interconnected - since space is found to have an imaginary vector of time, time and energy simply two fascits of the same coin. Again, you can't have space without energy - every region of spacetime is teaming with energy.

Yes, time and energy are inseperable. But whether time is linear, is up for another discussion. Recent evidence in physics suggests that time has no linearity, and there is no directional arrow either, because big bang never occured from a single point - it simply happened everywhere.

Inerestingly enough, diffeomorphism invariants on General Relativity actually lead to the Wheeler de Witt equation, and suggests itself that there is actually no such thing as a true time quantity.