A point can exist.

Even a point has one unit of width, one unit of height, one unit of length, and a duration of its existence.

Sure, a 2 or 3 dimensional square. A point however does not have a length or width. A segment can also exist in 1D.

One dimension would be a line a line. Two dimensions would be a plane. Three dimensions would be a space.

Time is not the fourth dimension. Repeat this over and over again until you stop believing in this pseudo-philosophical fallacy

Then get a taste of this and this.
Also, I just saw the string theory, so yeah, an object CAN exist in just 1 space dimension. But it must also exist in the dimension of time, because the concept of something existing "instaneously" defies all the laws of physic that we know now.

There is a tremendous difference between 'the' 4th dimension and 'a' 4th dimension. Any manifold represented by 4 axises is considered a fourth dimension. So if you put a time axis on a 3 dimensional manifold, then you have a 4th dimensional representation.

I wouldn't say an object can exist ONLY in one space dimension. It can intersect a single dimension, but it would be in the other dimensions as well.
Every dimension exists within all other higher dimensions so yes a line would have to exist in time, just as it exists in a space, and in a plane.

For example an image on a piece of paper might be 2 dimensional, but it is on a table in 3 dimensional space. It is also existing in a time; It wasn't there a thousand years ago.

A point has a height, width, and length of 0. The point however, with reference to another point, has a position in space.

Food for thought.

Have you all heard about the whole "The universe bends in on itself" thing?
Like where you start heading in one direction for a super super super super super long time you end up hitting where you started again.
(Also! Thought. Some scientists theorized that there have been tons of big bangs... that they reoccur every X quadrilaahecxillion years or something along those lines. What if the big bang was at the center of the universe? Then all the matter would eventually reconvene at the center by the "Universe bends on itself" thing)
But yeah back to the universe bending on itself thing.
Maybe that's analogous to how time works in a way? Of course, I'm leaving all of this up for interpretation.

I believe the time space bending stuff you're talking about actually happens with time, but it happens because of gravity, and it's called time dilation. Time dilation has really been observed, but so far it hasn't even bent to a recent past yet, so we can never know how hard it can bend :3

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 21 2011, 7:38 pm by Raitaki.

I didn't say anything about time bending, I talked about space bending.

Imagine the universe as a big sphere, the closer you get to the edge, your direction changes and diverts you back towards the center. No matter how hard you try you cannot hit the "edge" of the sphere. Sorry if I forgot to actually EXPLAIN the thing I was talking about (lol)

I would like to remind everyone here that time is man's invention. Try to prove what time is, and then go from there.

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Time cannot be energy, because of wave-matter duality.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 22 2011, 3:32 pm by Sacrieur.

I'm pretty sure that out of physics, time usually refers to clock time or time perception :3

If only it were so easy. Many people assume that "stopping time" means people and things would stop moving. They would be frozen in place. Why? Why must this occur? My body is nothing but biological animation governed by the four forces of the Universe. Removing all four forces from the Universe would cause what is known as time stop-- maybe, if wave-matter duality doesn't cause something crazy to happen.

Things only move when acted on by these four forces. Yet we have it in our heads that if something is not moving... Say suspended indefinitely within a vacuum with no external energy, then time is still acting on it. There would be no visible effects to speak of, yet we still claim it is moving through time.

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Time is nothing but an invention of man, but it does not help explain the world around us, nor has it been proven to exist. Clocks are merely a frame of reference of mechanical animation, nothing more, nothing less.

It's not an invention. Time is an almost natural concept in which we perceive the world's passing events with.
The concept of time has existed through out all of History, and we can assume that the concept has existed long before anything written. The thing is, we cannot explain our surroundings without the use of time.
So will you please explain how you will describe a moving object without using time?

And. There are no 'four forces'. Force is force. The only definition of force is that it is the cause of change in shape and of change in velocity. There's nothing more. There are no two different kinds of force.

Gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force. Sounds like four to me...

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Within a frame of reference of what we call "seconds" we can measure the speed of something's movement. Claiming that it is flowing through some special "time" gives us no insight as to its movement. Nor is there any proof that it is, it is all merely speculation. Can you prove that dimensional time exists without first assuming there is time? This is what would be required to convince me otherwise. As of now we run off of the assumption that time does exist, and use that to theorize about how time might exist. It's all one big logical fallacy.

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Invoking time does not help solve any serious problems either. Time dilation is still a curious property, as is functions on the subatomic level.

You bring up an interesting point Sacriuer, though I disagree. You state that time is an invention used as a point of reference. Maybe. But what you say is simply speculation. To me, time dilation in essence proves that something moves through some axis of "time" because if it is capable of varying, how should it not exist? Poor explanation, I know. But it's hard to verbalize what I'm thinking. The whole logical fallacy point is interesting too.

Ultimately, though, as I said, what you are stating is not fact, just as what I said is not fact. It is mere speculation.

But lets say there is no "time" axis. It would change nothing and is highly irrelevant in my eyes, as it would simplify it to just being a mechanical reference point.

Thought: with the vacuum with a particle in it with no forces acting upon it. If it didn't travel through "time" it would cease to exist. Lol. I can't tell if I'm serious.

Provide an argument for time dilation please, if it isn't differences in the rate of time (Wait that would be change of time as time progresses dt/dt... mindfuck), what is it?

Seriously, dt/dt... does that even make sense?

I get the feeling I'm not understanding what you are saying.

I'd like to say that time has always existed, though people have invented a way to measure it and thusly create patterns of organised actions based off of their measurements.

I have not speculated because I make few claims. When you measure time, you're simply using some mechanism that operates in patterns correct? Claiming that this pattern is helping measure something metaphysical is the speculation.

The particle would cease to exist? Are you sure? What if it were traveling backwards in time?

Suppose you have a particle bouncing between two plates. Assume the system loses no energy (the ball will always be the same speed). Let's say you apply a force a point in time to that particle, so that it doesn't reach other plate, and bounces back to its origin. You say that force caused the particle to move in the opposite direction, but what if time were reversed soon after? You would see the particle hit the force, and then bounce back -- precisely what you would expect. There would be no indication you are traveling backwards or forwards. Any instruments to measure the force would confirm your suspicions.

How do you know we're not living backwards through time?

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It's curious to note that I am not alone in this viewpoint, several other philosophers agree or have agreed, such as Immanuel Kant and Gottfried Leibniz.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2011, 5:51 pm by Sacrieur.

I would say that time moves forwards. I don't think we are observing time backwards. If we did, biological processes wouldn't make any sense. By our definition of forwards we are moving forwards. It's like me saying that although we observe the sky to be blue, it is impossible to prove that blue exists. Obviously it exists or you wouldn't observe it.
Energy cannot exist without time, because energy can only be measured if time exists. If time did not exist, matter would not move.

If time moves backwards, then for us to exist and interact with the environment, we must also perceive time backwards and all processes would also work backwards. Therefore there is really no way to determine the direction of time. Therefore the only logical way to describe the direction of time is to assume what is ahead of us is "forward", and everything that has passed "behind".