After last week’s speculations on time I would like to ask an even deeper question: why is there time?
My 4 year old daughter would be proud. What I mean is, why do things evolve in the first place? It seems to me that fundamental physics has to answer not only ‘what’ questions but also ‘why’ questions if it claims to provide understanding. I think I have an answer, or a glimpse of one.
The answer has to do with quantum anomalies; no not the large (not very quantum, then) things that seem to turn up in every other episode of Star Trek Voyager, but what physicists mean by this, which I am afraid is much more dry and dusty. In fact, I’m going to have to ask you to dust off you high school calculus books, just for a minute.
I explained in a previous post that even if nobody at the moment knows how to reconcile quantum theory and gravity, quantum spacetime should emerge as an effect coming out of any unknown theory. Typically, the coordinates x,y,z of space would also be quantum variables, so space alone should typically form some kind of symbolic algebra. Due to quantum effects, the order of the variables in this algebra will matter, xy will typically not coincide with yx. One says that the algebra is ‘noncommutative’.
Now, what about differential calculus on such a quantum space? If you remember any high school calculus it means things like dx, dy, dz as the ‘infinitesimal differences’. Newton and Leibniz both considered such things as numbers which are then made arbitrarily small. Hands up if your high school calculus class contained a picture like the one shown below. It defines differentiation of a function f in the x direction as a limit of the slope df/dx of the triangle as dx gets small.
So to develop quantum gravity effects in physics we also need ‘quantum differentials’ dx, dy, dz. They should enjoy the properties that differentials enjoy in Newtons theory except, since xy and yx need not coincide, similarly y dx need not coincide with dx y, etc. Now, here is the remarkable thing one finds as you dig deeper into this world of quantum geometry:
Just out of curiosity, I’d like to know..
If only the space of the universe existed, and not the universe itself… Would time still exist?
Is time dependant on matter, or does time exist regardless of matter?
If time is dependant on matter, does it follow similar laws of polarity or shape as magnetism/electromagnetics/and gravity? If time does or doesn’t exits in a void, how would you prove it?
I’ve been thinking about predesitination. Most people think of time as being linear. But if something is unavoidable, then it isn’t just linear, its everywhere. If predestination is however most likely, but not written in stone, then perhaps it isn’t everywhere, but has a shape that takes up most of the universe. But if thats the case, why doesn’t everyone experience the same predestination. If you are destined to be a hero of villain in a given situation, why isn’t everyone you know or near you sharing the same predestination? Or are they? Maybe predesination isn’t a place you go to, but a place within you..that attracts all of the events that happen to/for you. I think the latter makes more sense, because it explains why the things that work for or against your destiny/fate are always around you or circling around you as if there was some gravitational pool centered around you. And it explains best why it was unavoidable.. You can’t avoid something thats already in you.
Anyway, I know I am not really that informed on this stuff, and I am mostly ranting/musing. But I am very curious person, and I am looking for answers that are scientific, but also partially philosphical. When I think of the “Why or how of things” I think not nearly why does it work or how does it work, but why does it work that way, what is the purpose of it working that way, why would whoever designed it want to work that way? Similary, I wonder how something works, but also how its suppose to work, how its suppose to affect everything around it, how its suppose to affect everyone and everything in the universe. And then the last thing I wonder about is what is the long term purpose of the effect, How do the effects interact with other universal mechanisms? What is the result of the interactions?
Maybe I’m oversimplifying or overthinking something simple. But I often find myself frustrated with simplified scientific explanations, because I am not a scientist, mathematician or good at actually practicing science or math. But my curiosity often makes me feel like some scientific explanations are too simple, or don’t fully explain everything that was attempted or proved or disproved by experimentation.
But I am still curious about how matter/gravity/time/magnetisim interact. I know often that math and science is applied to either. But sometimes I suspect that such maths and experimentation is like looking at something with one eye closed and the eye half closed to the point of your vision blurring, because commenting on any one of the forces should be impossible, because they all constantly interact..so its nearly impossible to seperate the forces.. Changing one force changes all the forces in some way shape or form. We might be able to predict what one change will do to the other forces, but I think we are just seeing the 2D effect of those changes. There is much more to it.. Forces mix like trapped gasses, liquids, solids and plasmas in a water balloon. We might know all of those things are in the water ballon, we might know that some things will rise to the top and others will mix, and others will sink to the bottom. But if we shake that balloon up we can’t predict what will rub against what and push what in what direction until everything settles back to the original order. This is how I see all of the forces of the universe. A totally random mix of everything in the universe.
time started with the first bond forming between 2 energy strings, before that everything was the same energy so there was nothing to distiguish a difference (time).
Ok.. I realize I am pushing things a bit here.. But I like to do that.. So bear with me.. I love to split hairs when I might learn something from it or challenge the status quo of thinking.
First of all, distinguishing requires perception. I am not worried about whether time can be perceived, so much as whether it existed.
At some point the energy had to meet.. But in order for energy to meet two things have to happen.. a)the energy has to exist, and b) the energy has to move to meet. Movement requires time. Therefore, time would actually have to exist prior to the intial energy meeting in order for the existance of the energy to begin with and then the meeting to occur.
So I really feel like I am sort of answering my own question.. Because time had to exist before the universe in order for the universe to be able to exist.
MainFragger, I share the same curiosity and position as what you have described in your post.
Lately I have been a little obsessed with the concept of time. In my own personal blog I have contemplated the following (mostly philosophical) :
Is that time is a built in or wrapped around dimension of the matter universe.
In the gravity experiments its been determined that gravity can bend light and time. But that bend is significantly different than the bend that is created by moving fast. Whats more, it seems to be in the opposite direction. With speed you lose time, but with elevation/gravity you gain time.
That means that if you pictures the dip in space caused by gravity, the dip in time is the opposite curve. If gravity causes a convex curve in the universe, then time is concavely curved by the same gravity, and not as drastically.
To me that is a hint that the time is external to the universe, because if it was internal or part of the universe, it would curve more drastically. The closest analogy I can think of is taking a magic marker and drawing a circle on the outside bottom of a balloon. Inflate the balloon, it goes to a certain size. The marker also expands, but not as much as the balloon. Technically the marker is still not part of the baloon, its just on the baloon. To spell it out, time is layered on the universe, but when the universe dips due to gravity, the universe dips much more than time does, but time still stretches a little along the surface of that dip.