Time

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

I Just want to know; what do people think time is; a Vector or a Scalar?

Post with your opinion, I want to see what most people think about this.

 

Ok, to avoid confusion:

A Scalar is a quantity that has only magnitude(size); for example: Distance, Speed, Mass.

A Vector is a quantity that has magnitude(size) and Direction(that it acts in); for example: Displacement, Velocity, and Weight.

 

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

What? don't you trust me?

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

Ah I said a 'few' days, please define the term 'few' for me.

[Si Evans]

I think time is neither. I think time is a physical emotion, and Einstein's theory of relativity backs me up. When he gives an example of relativity he says "If you have you hand on a hot stove for a minute, it feels like an hour. If you sit with a pretty girl for an hour, it feels like a minute".

That is my theory on time. (:

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

Ah but that relates to a persons PERCEPTION of time not of time as a physical dimension, although both are very interesting topics.

[Si Evans]

But how can we confirm that time is a physical dimension or has any physical properties? It's different from things like mass or velocity because those have physical properties that can be felt and/or seen.

 

We only see time with clocks, which may not be accurate at all. Plus we don't really see time, we just see the measurement of it.

[Contradiction]

We also see the effects of it.

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

Ah but, mass is no dimension and velocity is a combination of 4 dimensions, and we cannot see Velocity, only it's effect. 

 

another reason that we struggle to view the effects of time is because we only see 3 dimensionally

[Frances]

I think it's a vector, but currently the only direction it is moving is foreward

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

Which is my belief exactly, or at least that is the only direction we are moving through it

[Eystein,]

I think it's a vector, like if time is our movement through a forth dimention or something. The present is a snapshot of the other three at any given point along the forth, maybe...

 

Problem with that for me, as an ignorant fool, is that it implies that the forth dimention is all laid out, and everything is predetermined, unless the forth dimention expands just like space does into nothing, which it probably does.

[Joshua C.D. Harrison Stockley]

Ah! but that isn't necessarily true, if you have heard of the multiverse theory then you will know that is not exactly true, if the theory is true then every variable in the universe creates a new dimension, and so this time line is not let laid out, because each variable creates a new dimension, we will go down one of near infinity possible futures, and so we do not know what will come next, which is the problem with time travel, there is no certainty that you will go down a similar path, it is nearly impossible to get back.

[Eystein,]

That seems a bit wastefull, but who am I to say :) It's just easier for me to think that the future doesn't exist yet until it does, which is what I imagine happens continuously in the present. Space expands into nothing, why shouldn't timedimention?

 

But now as I type, and I think about the past, and the possibility that it in theory could be possible to go backwards...It should mean, that at every point in history or timedimention(s) there are people and stuff living/existing there in their present. And who to say our present is the presentmost? Nevertheless as there are more or less known history between now and back then (doesn't matter when), if their paths (future) are not predetermined by the history known to us, then who's to say it's our past we've travelled too, and could our past really exist then anymore? I guess I get your point, somewhat ;) It wouldn't just be an infinite number of futures, but an infinite number of pasts too.