Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
UPDATEA Science Without Time by Gene Tracy, Aeon, April 25, 2016
Did Time Begin With A Bang? by Raymond Tallis, Tallis in Wonderland in Philosophy Now, September/October 2012
ORIGINAL POST
Scientists Suggest Spacetime Has No Time Dimension, PHYSORG.COM, April 25, 2011
The implications of these ideas are amazing! I'm not sure I understand the contents of the link, but here is what I think the researchers are talking about:
Think of our expanding Universe - galaxies are becoming further and further apart from each other. Scientists can measure the distance one galaxy moves relative to another. We typically give one location a number, say, 1, and observe that the galaxy is moving away from location 1 relative to another galaxy. We assign the number 2 to the location of the galaxy after it has moved from location 1.
What happened between the two locations - time? No, says new research, only movement or change. But, you say, the velocity of matter's movement or the duration of its change between locations varies. Yes, but that variation in duration is what we humans observe and count or measure using time. Without us observing, counting and comparing the duration of movement of matter or its change, there would be no time. Or would there?
Without our labeling points A & B with a number, the galaxies still move. We can accurately say that points A & B exist(ed) but what happened between A & B was only movement. The duration of that movement we call time, and time is based on the rotation of our planet and its orbit around the sun. Time is therefore an artifact of humankind, not a separte 4th dimension. We measure the duration of matter's movement using something we invented called time. Thus, there is really only matter and its movement in three dimensions at varying velocities. Time, is our composite measure of the velocity of matter and its change in 3D space.
So, if it is true there really is no such thing as the independent, objective existence of time, only matter and its varying rates of movement or change, "time-travel" to the past and future will never happen, says the article. To do so, you would have to reverse or speed up the movement of matter - lots of it, very significantly. Though a theoretical possibility, it is currently a practical impossibility.
If you have more time to spend on this...: Time
