# Humanities & Anthropology > Philosophy >  What is time?

## Sensuikan San

Sorry folks - I'm not really responsible for this one - my son is ...!

- But it got me to grinning and thinking _so_ much (with both eyes crossed !) ... I just had to share it if I may ... I do have his permission ...

I received it in an email from him a coupla days ago - and while I agree it's a little "off the wall" - it does pose a few questions. 

(And, BTW - he doesn't smoke _anything_...!)

So ... 'Sensuikan-San Junior' is quoted thus:



> Something I was musing on today which might interest you...
> 
> 
> I was thinking about the nature of Time today while mentally dissecting
> the universe (a result of those Zen-like moments one can sometimes
> achieve during periods of monotonous labour), and had what could best be
> described as a sort of erevelationf on the subject. Bear with me here...
> 
> I think Ifve posed the idea before that Time is not a linear force as
> ...


My mind still boggles at his final concept ... but......_does_ anybody have any thoughts?????

...and don't ask too many questions - I'm still not sure where he's going with this either!

W

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## Tsuyoiko

> Conventional theory would have us believe that Time is a very linear entity which can be concisely measured in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, yearscright through to centuries, and even millennia.


I would rather say that 'layman's theory' sees it this way. 


> I think that sometimes an hour is not necessarily an hour as defined by the clock. Nor is a year a year. A century a century. And so on, and so on, and so on. The observeable ebbs and flows of Time prevent this from being possible. You know what I mean I think; by example, some hours are – despite what any clock says – no way in hell as long or short as other ehoursf. Y'know? This is an observeable fact that more than a few people I've spoken to on the subject will agree to - yourself included. I donft know how one would go about measuring such phenomena, but I do believe it exists.


Einstein taught us that this is in fact how time is - it's relative. It speeds up and slows down depending on the prevailing conditions - called time dilation. When you fly in a plane, time slows down (imperceptibly to us) due to the high speed. It's even possible to measure it using atomic clocks. In 1971 it was proven that time slows down by exactly the amount predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. Here is a good article on the Elasticity of Time

I think the rest of Junior's thoughts are interesting, but like you I haven't quite digested it yet (no pun intended!). It would make a good Sci-Fi story though. It makes me think of Eater by Gregory Benford, although that was about a black hole having us for snacks.

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## Dutch Baka

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." Albert Einstein

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## Clawn

Time, in my opinion, is something that is a constant. Always there, and always changing (even if it does go unoticed by us). These changes are not discernable by us without careful analyzation. I also believe that time is what it is percieved to be by those who are there to percieve it. If we see something that we judge to be too long or short, we do what we can to change it. But who are we to judge what is long and what short? We can't judge time, only time can judge itself. 

P.S. The whole time eating our lives thing _would_ make a good movie/book.  :Cool:

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## -Rudel-

:Sou ka:  Time is irrelevant. Time is something man has created.

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## nurizeko

> (And, BTW - he doesn't smoke anything...!)


No seriously, what is he lighting up?  :Sou ka:  

Lol, from what i gather he thought of all this doing a job?....man, ive been a KITCHEN PORTER!, and even i havnt thought about stuff that deep...

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## Maciamo

The relativity of time is strongly felt by us humans, depending on what we are experiencing. I suppose that everybody has noticed that "time flies" (no pun intended on the slowing doan of time when flying a plane) when we are enjoying ourselves or feel very absorbed by what we are doing (e.g. writing posts on JREF). But time seem desperately long when we are bored, anxious, in pain or ill at ease. 

Outside our minds though, time is linear/constant in a "closed and stable" environment (e.g. sitting somewhere on planet Earth). As Tsuyoiko said, time is disformed by speed, because it is directly related to it. High speed means "less time" - not just from one point to another, but in the absolute. We could say that speed (or kinetic energy) is inversely proportional to time. 

In other words, the more kinetic energy an object gains, and the smaller the time. The more static energy (or "mass") an object gains, and the bigger the factor time becomes. In other words, once energy stops moving, time appears very fast, like an instant (without change, one second and a million year are about the same thing). When energy is highly excited and moves at very high speed, time appears very slow. For us humans, time actually feel just the opposite, because our mind and environment does not stop. We compare the speed of the events to our environment, so when things are happening slower than we expect in our mind, it feels longer.

That's pretty difficult to explain. I think our vocabulary is not well suited to explain about time (words have to broad, and sometimes contradictive meanings).

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## Carlson

ok im going to get back to this 1. i have to get ready for work. another interesting fact came to mind i wanted to bring up from another forum. about it really made you think about what actualy is faster then the speed of light. anywho a little off subject.

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## nurizeko

You guys should visit the Relic community forums, the majority of regulars are taking or have taken some degree or another, now THATS an in-depth discussion about universal matters.  :Cool:  




> http://forums.relicnews.com/

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## Jack

did you know there 2 different times, the standard greenwich one, and atomic which correlates with the earth. You see the earth is slowing down and with it like this, time will not run in parr to the worlds rotation, eventually when the sun is above you(known as noon), it will state on your watch as 1:00pm.
But this time known as atomic time is one which follows the system and will be what is most accurate.

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## Tsuyoiko

> what actualy is faster then the speed of light.


Some things that can travel faster than the speed of light:
A shadowThe spot made by a laser on the surface of the moonAn electromagnetic pulse from a lightning flash hitting the atmosphereThe beam of light from a pulsar sweeping across a dust cloud
but none of these can transmit information.


> did you know there 2 different times, the standard greenwich one, and atomic which correlates with the earth. You see the earth is slowing down and with it like this, time will not run in parr to the worlds rotation, eventually when the sun is above you(known as noon), it will state on your watch as 1:00pm.
> But this time known as atomic time is one which follows the system and will be what is most accurate.


You know how we have leap years? Well because of what you describe here, we also have 'leap seconds'. The last one was added in 1998, and the next one will be added at the end of this year.

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## Dutch Baka

Time is just a word, just like a table and a chair are. 

Just somebody got bored, or was to busy, so he decided to give a name to it.

I am too busy, I dont have ..... for that.
I am bored, what shall I do this.......

Why do they call Time, Time, and not Table  :Doubt: 

.. but serieus.

Time is something that we will probably never can understand, as it is to big for our small minds.

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## Carlson

well i couldnt find the post nor did i try to look hard enough..

Basicaly it went like this

Gravity

The rays of the sun take how many min to reach the earth... but if the sun was to explode we would feel it right away...

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## Pachipro

Interesting thoughts from Junior.

I believe Time is a man-made concept and only exists in the present. Think about it, you go to sleep and wake up 8 hrs later. Does it feel like 8 hrs? No. It feels like you fell asleep and then a second later you are awake. It doesn't matter if you sleep for 8 hrs or 2 hrs. It still feels like only a second when you awake.

I am 50 yrs old, but to me I do not feel I have been alive that long. Sure I have memories of 45 years ago, but they feel like they occured yesterday or just moments ago. Time only exists when I think about, or as Maciamo and Tsuyoiko said, when we are bored and have nothing to do. Then time seems to drag on. 

I have to drive 7 1/2 hrs a night. When I was young, 7 1/2 hrs seemed like a damn long time, now it seems like nothing. A piece of cake. The days and weeks fly by. Is it because I enjoy it? What if I hated it? Would that same 7 1/2 hrs seem like an eternity? Probably so, because when I worked in an office, playing office politics, kissing ass, and having my ass kissed all day, I came to despise what I what was doing and the days seemed to drag on. 8 hrs seemed like an eternity.

When I am on the computer enjoying a game or surfing the internet time seems to not exist. 3 or 4 hrs on the computer seems like a mere few minutes. Is it because I enjoy it so much that I lose all concept of time?

It is being said in some circles that time is speeding up and things are happening at a quicker pace these days and if you really think about it, it seems like it really is. But is it really? I mean, here we are, November 11, 2005 and it seems like just yesterday that it was the turn of the century. Where did the time go?

When I was a kid it seemed like forever until Christmas would come or that the school year would end. Now it seems like Christmas is coming like once a month. I want it to slow down! What is really strange is that even kids today are commenting on how quickly time is flying. Could it be that time is really speeding up and that events are happening at a quicker and quicker pace? Or could it be that, since man is living longer, it just seems that way? Or could it be that we are just so busy these days, what with our jobs, the internet, satellite and cable TV, cell phones, I-pods, etc. that we really don't have the "time" anymore to just sit back and relax and "enjoy the moment?"

I don't have an answer, but I tend believe that time, like life, is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.  :Wavey:

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## Kaminari

> Time is just a word, just like a table and a chair are.


 hmmm... 
I hope the computer doesn't find out 
It might fall to the ground 
The chair I'm sitting on seems to be stout
But maybe it's just sound.

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## shadowcatcher

> I don't have an answer, but I tend believe that time, like life, is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.


I agree with this. The older I get the faster that time seems to slip thru my fingers.

I don't think it's time that speeds up as much as it's the demand for our time. Works always seem to demand more time. The entertainment industry always come sith something new for us to spend our time on, whether it beneficial or not. How many other things are there that pull us in different directions.

Time was something somebody came up with so they would know when to do do something. Like meeting a friend to go catch dinner. It went downhill from there. Use to be after you got home from work you sat around with the family since there wasn't anything else to do. Now we never have enough time because everybody wants a piece of it.

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## Sensuikan San

> No seriously, what is he lighting up?  
> 
> Lol, from what i gather he thought of all this doing a job?....man, ive been a KITCHEN PORTER!, and even i havnt thought about stuff that deep...


LOL ! .... seriously, he doesn't even smoke tobacco ... like I do.

I confess ... I tend to agree with you on the second point! Yes, he does work, as an asistant manager in a warehouse for an international company ... God knows what he must do all day!

... but he did laugh, yesterday, when I recounted your post!

What you have to know is that this all came from the guy who, as a young boy once asked me .... "What would water look like if it wasn't clear - but _plaid_? Can you imagine waves breaking ....?"

I literally couldn't even_ imagine_ it!

W

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## GoldCoinLover

Time is a force in the universe. It is the 4th dimension of the universe.

Time does not really 'flow'. 

Time is relative. According to Einsteins General Theory of Relativity. This states that the speed of light (C), is constant. This means that it does not change. However, time is *NOT* constant. It is relative, despite common sense telling us otherwise. Time Dilation tells us that the faster you go relative to an outside observer that is stationary, relative to the stationary oberserver (The person who is not moving watching you) time slows down for the person who is moving

Normally, the slight change is nearly infinsimial. However, there is an experiment where 2 precise clocks were set. one stationary, the other one in a super sonic jet around the world. Both clocks were EXACT. The one on the plane was slightly less than the one on the ground.

Same goes for astronauts. Some astronauts were a micro-second aged less than the people on earth. This is because how fast they went relative to people on earth, speed is related to time.

However, if you were to approach the speed of light at significant speeds (Getting perhaps, 1/4 the speed of C), speed travels at 186,000 miles per second, you would be significantly younger than those on earth in 5 years. You'd only age 5 years, where people on earth would be 50 to 100 years older. Therefore, you'd 'travel in time'.

This is why time is relative.

Einsteins famous equation stands for the following:
Energy = Mass * the speed of light(C)^2 . (squared)

This is to say you could take a little bit of mass of an object and convert it into enourmous energy.

It also says energy and mass are equivlent. Therefore, not only can you take matter and convert it into energy, but apparently you can take energy and converter it into matter..
Hope this helps.

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## -Rudel-

> Some things that can travel faster than the speed of light:
> *...The spot made by a laser on the surface of the moon...*
> ...but none of these can transmit information


Perhaps not, but think of the way a laser burns a CD or DVD with 1s and 0s. A laser pulse could be sent out to send a 1 or 0 to a receiving machine. then in theory, it could send information  :Smiling:

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## bossel

> Perhaps not, but think of the way a laser burns a CD or DVD with 1s and 0s. A laser pulse could be sent out to send a 1 or 0 to a receiving machine. then in theory, it could send information


But the information wouldn't be faster than light. The information is in the laser beam which does not move faster. The spot on the moon _appears_ to move faster but the photons don't.

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## Brooker

Wow, that's some interesting stuff! I think about that kind of thing too. I've also thought about how the length of an hour varies depending on what you're doing/how you're feeling, but I don't know if I put much into it because it's a pretty egoistic perspective. But your son sounds like someone I'd like to have a long conversation with while camping or something. He's not crazy, just thoughtful. It's a good way to be, but you have to endure being constantly misunderstood and dismissed. Although he reached some conclusions I might not have, I think your son and I are woven from the same cloth. It's good to know there are others out there.

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