What is time?

[altonhare]

(Shame on Mother Nature; she just couldn't get it RIGHT! Do you think if we had had a Father Nature that we would have had only Rational Numbers? Just an "irrational" thought.)

The problem is not with Mother Nature or with the concept of an irrational relation per se. The "rub", as it were, arises when humans forget that they are approximating the measurement of a shape with another more convenient shape. For instance by measuring the circumference of a circle by pretending it is a bunch of connected lines (called a regular polyhedron). Sometimes humans forget that they are using the line as a convenience because we find it difficult to work with anything but lines and things composed of lines. They forget that their measuring device and what they're measuring are fundamentally incommensurate. It is exactly this, that humans forget they are invoking an approximation based on convenience and possibly personal limitation, that they actually impose their own viewpoints of how Mother Nature "should be"! I am doing the opposite Lizzie. The irrational relation is a human invention. Mother Nature is not incessantly morphing n polyhedra into n+1 polyhedra, this is a conceptual activity circumscribed to human mathematicians to approximate spheres and circles. In my opinion you make the mistake of insisting that Mother Nature must conform to mathematics when She doesn't.

Maybe you'll see what I'm thinking, I don't think either of us want to impose our will on Mother Nature.

And the Father is Time and the Mother is Nature! We must keep the male/female distinction very clear or we'll have all kinds of chaos. Men raising children, women working on cars and doing math, it'd be insanity.

[altonhare]

That seems totally irrelevant to my puny mind, I mean, the distance traveled by the clocks hand in, say, one hour, has nothing do with the fact that I have traveled sixty miles, as in 60 mph!

Then quantitatively define velocity another way. What do you mean when you say you travel at 60 mph.

As a digital readout of my clock covers absolutely no distance in the 60 miles that I drove! The sixty miles that I drove in one hour has nothing to do with how much distance was covered by the analog clocks read out. But has everything to do with how many predefined and agreed upon intervals of the clocks have passed during my trip of sixty miles!

The digital clock is just measuring the distance-traveled by a hypothetical electron instead of the distance-traveled by a hand or a pendulum.

So, I ask, what is an "interval" to you?

The clock measures something? The clock is a synchronization system, everything is measured against the clock, What does the clock measure? You said "it measures the distance-traveled by an object" . I thought the odometer did that.

The odometer does that too. They are both measuring distance-traveled.

The speedometer tells you the speed in mph, which are counted intervals of the clock.

Yes, but an "interval" is just the distance-traveled by some reference object. You cannot quantify time another way.

The clock is a monostable vibrator, ideally, one in which the vibrations do not wary from pulse to pulse and are all in sync to a central reference point.

Right, a vibration of something involves that something traveling some distance to return to the same position. You are measuring times in units of the distance-traveled. You cannot define time quantitatively another way.

The clock is a interface to that concept. That is, the clock, whatever shape or form it takes, is a representation of that concept and at the same time an interface!

You're slipping back into your old argument. The readout of a volt-meter is just an interface too.

[Influx]

atonhare said. "The digital clock is just measuring the distance-traveled by a hypothetical electron instead of the distance-traveled by a hand or a pendulum. So, I ask, what is an "interval" to you?

altonhare said. "You're slipping back into your old argument. The readout of a volt-meter is just an interface too.

The "time" is a concept that is not observable in nature, it does not produce any observable phenomena that can be measured by whatever measuring system we might invent! The electron, what it is or what it might be, is irrelevant to this argument, it is an observable or a measurable natural physical phenomena that can be measured by whatever measuring system we have invented! This is the fundamental difference. I abandoned this line of arguing because you failed to see the difference. However it is still very valid.

The interval is a the moment of existence that passes between the counted and synchronized pulses of the reference system, the clock.

altonhare said. "Right, a vibration of something involves that something traveling some distance to return to the same position. You are measuring times in units of the distance-traveled. You cannot define time quantitatively another way.

Okay I see your point, you should say that the specific distance-traveled is the counting system in a arbitrary cycle that resets to zero at the end of the cycle. The distance-traveled by the vibrator in a single pulse is the single most high resolution "event". Still the clock does not measure the distance traveled! The distance traveled could be millions of miles and only seconds have passed, or the distance traveled could be a mile and years have passed during that distance traveled. Its not the distance traveled, but the counted discrete units of that distance that mean something, the distance can and does vary from clock to clock, but, the 60 seconds, for example, stays the same irrelevant of the distance traveled. The distance traveled is the byproduct of the clock not the cause of it. The difference in the distance-traveled by two atomic reference clocks using different atoms could be significant, but the "time" is still the same and both are valid for scientific use.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_55588046

I travel 60 miles in one hour. Or 60 miles in three stone trows, or by the time my pot boils away, or whatever...! It is the meaning that we assign to those pulses.

[Grey Cloud]

As far as I know a standard of time measurement is based on the Sun, Moon, Earth and Spin.
So a "clock" in what ever form, sundial, monolith, atomic clock, its all based on three spin ratios.
The Sun, The Earth, The Moon. I believe they call that frame of reference.

I believe you are mistaken:

The second (abbreviation, s or sec) is the Standard International ( SI ) unit of time. One second is the time that elapses during 9,192,631,770 (9.192631770 x 10 9 ) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium 133 atom.

There are other expressions for the second. It is the time required for an electromagnetic field to propagate 299,792,458 meters (2.99792458 x 10 8 m) through a vacuum.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition ... 77,00.html

The second definition is primarily what I refer to

.

[Sound of goal posts moving] You, the declared doyen of definitions have, as far as I can recall, never mentioned anything about the propagation of EM fields over a set distance in a vacuum.
What do you suppose dictates a) rate of radiation/transition and or b) the rate propagation of the EM field? Could it be anything to do with either Sun, Moon or Earth?

[junglelord]

As far as I know a standard of time measurement is based on the Sun, Moon, Earth and Spin.
So a "clock" in what ever form, sundial, monolith, atomic clock, its all based on three spin ratios.
The Sun, The Earth, The Moon. I believe they call that frame of reference.

I believe you are mistaken:

The second (abbreviation, s or sec) is the Standard International ( SI ) unit of time. One second is the time that elapses during 9,192,631,770 (9.192631770 x 10 9 ) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium 133 atom.

There are other expressions for the second. It is the time required for an electromagnetic field to propagate 299,792,458 meters (2.99792458 x 10 8 m) through a vacuum.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition ... 77,00.html

The second definition is primarily what I refer to

.

[Sound of goal posts moving] You, the declared doyen of definitions have, as far as I can recall, never mentioned anything about the propagation of EM fields over a set distance in a vacuum.
What do you suppose dictates a) rate of radiation/transition and or b) the rate propagation of the EM field? Could it be anything to do with either Sun, Moon or Earth?

Sound of more goal post moving...well your wrong again Alton.
Original clocks were not based on cesium
Far as I know cesium was not a method for measuring time in the days of old.
I guess you did not read my answer very clearly. Your not very careful. I said sundials and monoliths.

As far as atomic clocks, well that too is a three spin ratio device (e- p+ n). So I am still correct as you failed to quote the second part of my post which detailed the switch from the sun, earth and moon to atomic realms. You did a JW rebuttal quote by doing a half quote, not very good work. My definition of quantum time is much more sensible then a cesium atom....

As far as I know a standard of time measurement is based on the Sun, Moon, Earth and Spin.
So a "clock" in what ever form, sundial, monolith, atomic clock, its all based on three spin ratios.
The Sun, The Earth, The Moon. I believe they call that frame of reference.

Now if you re-organize the standard of measurement and start with the Quantum Level, then a Quantum of Time is determinable and is useable....I call that Quantum Resonaces. It is based on the Compton Wavelength, Planck Length, Coloumbs Charge Constant, Quantum Spin Numbers, c. This is the smallest quantum moment. This is the building block of the so called Material World.

Therefore there are and always will be Two Frequency Domains at any one time.

Therefore I will state it again. There are Two Frequency Domains and both are known and both are from spin ratios.

One is Linear Time, that is the Sun, Earth, Moon. That is Einstein Time/Frequency.

Then there is Distributed Quantum Resonance and that is best understood via reorganization of SI Units into Quantum Constants which is a more appropriate constant then the cesium atom. So my atomic clock is derived via APM and Blazelabs SI Unit reorganization because the SI units are organized under the unifying principle of quantum physics. It must be based on Plancks Constant, Plancks Length, Compton Wavelength, Coloumbs Constant, c.

There fore I have clearly laid out the path of both and explained how each dimension of frequency is derived....meanwhile your rebuttal was lame. The thread asks what is time. I have given the answer. Time is best understood via its recipricol, frequency. This is because resonance is the key to the universe. This is the EU. Time means nothing, Frequency means EVERYTHING. There are always two frequencies running, one is linear, one is distributed. That is EU Resonance.

[altonhare]

As far as I know a standard of time measurement is based on the Sun, Moon, Earth and Spin.
So a "clock" in what ever form, sundial, monolith, atomic clock, its all based on three spin ratios.
The Sun, The Earth, The Moon. I believe they call that frame of reference.

I believe you are mistaken:

The second (abbreviation, s or sec) is the Standard International ( SI ) unit of time. One second is the time that elapses during 9,192,631,770 (9.192631770 x 10 9 ) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium 133 atom.

There are other expressions for the second. It is the time required for an electromagnetic field to propagate 299,792,458 meters (2.99792458 x 10 8 m) through a vacuum.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition ... 77,00.html

The second definition is primarily what I refer to

.

[Sound of goal posts moving] You, the declared doyen of definitions have, as far as I can recall, never mentioned anything about the propagation of EM fields over a set distance in a vacuum.
What do you suppose dictates a) rate of radiation/transition and or b) the rate propagation of the EM field? Could it be anything to do with either Sun, Moon or Earth?

No, I have not mentioned the specific case of a specific entity moving a specific distance. The definition I use is general because it does not demand some specific object and/or entity. The SI system picks some specific entities (cesium and EM radiation) as its particular standards. Don't worry, no goal posts have moved, the way I use the word "time" is still exactly as I've laid out before.

a) The structure of the objects/entities involved.

b) The structure of the objects/entities involved.

The reason I told JL he was mistaken could have been a misunderstanding. JL said that, as far as he knew, the "standard definition" is based on the sun, earth, moon, and spin. I made the, possibly mistaken, assumption that by "standard" he was referring to SI, the international standard. The international standard of time measurement never mentions any of these words. As far as SI is concerned, a unit of time is the number of wiggles on an oscilloscope-like device as the beam from a laser traverses a unit distance. It is the distance-traveled that defines the unit time.

So this is the only reason I mention EM or cesium, not to move any goal posts.

[altonhare]

The "time" is a concept that is not observable in nature, it does not produce any observable phenomena that can be measured by whatever measuring system we might invent! The electron, what it is or what it might be, is irrelevant to this argument, it is an observable or a measurable natural physical phenomena that can be measured by whatever measuring system we have invented! This is the fundamental difference. I abandoned this line of arguing because you failed to see the difference. However it is still very valid.

No, I do see the difference, I've been trying to get you to state it yourself because you've been poking around it oh so closely.

An electron is an object, i.e. it has shape. Time does not have shape, it is a concept. A concept is a relationship among objects. "Volt" is a concept. You cannot draw a picture of a volt anymore than you can draw a picture of time. You can draw a picture of an object, though, and name it "electron". You can show pictures of an object at different locations, illustrating the concept motion. A quantitative comparison of the motion of two objects is called time. If the particular object under consideration is one we call an "electron" then we may define a specific spatial arrangement of electrons as 0 volts. We then define all other spatial arrangements of electrons as having voltage equal to some relationship between their locations. Finally we define successive locations of these electrons as watts.

Make sense?

Still the clock does not measure the distance traveled!

What would you have it measure, then?

The distance traveled could be millions of miles and only seconds have passed, or the distance traveled could be a mile and years have passed during that distance traveled.

You do realize that all you said here is that sometimes an object moves really slow, and sometimes it moves really fast?

The ball traverses the distance A, define that as a second. The other ball goes traverses the distance 2*A. The other ball took 0.5 seconds for the distance-traveled A. A third ball traverses the distance 100000000000000000*A. It took the third ball 1/100000000000000000 seconds to traverse A.

Its not the distance traveled, but the counted discrete units of that distance that mean something, the distance can and does vary from clock to clock, but, the 60 seconds, for example, stays the same irrelevant of the distance traveled.

The second is the same because we *define* it that way. If an object traverses A as the reference object traverses A, it took 1 second (or generally, unit) to do so. you talk about the "counted discrete units of that distance". You can chop your distance-traveled up into as many tiny bits as you want, in fact I encourage you to do so.

I travel 60 miles in one hour. Or 60 miles in three stone trows, or by the time my pot boils away, or whatever...! It is the meaning that we assign to those pulses.

But what's an hour? You traveled 60 miles in an hour which is... the distance-traveled by a stone dropped thrown by Superman standing on the moon to hit earth? The distance-traveled by a water molecule as it leaves your pot and hits the ceiling?

The second, hour, etc. it's all just a comparison of distance-traveled. If you'd never ever heard of a second or hour, and someone told you to meet them in an hour/3600 seconds, what would you do? Ask them what an hour is. "Oh, here you go." The person hands you an hourglass. "An hour is how long it takes for all the sand to fall from the top to the bottom". And inherent in that, is the total distance-traveled by each sand particle. Or maybe they pull out a laser with an optics system consisting of many mirrors which bounce the beam back and forth over successive tiny angles. "Start the laser and wait until the beam shoots out the other end, that's an hour". Which is the distance-traveled by the beam.

[junglelord]

Frequency is a inherit fundamental component of reality.
Without Frequency nothing would be in harmonic resonance.

[Influx]

Influx wrote: The "time" is a concept that is not observable in nature, it does not produce any observable phenomena that can be measured by whatever measuring system we might invent! The electron, what it is or what it might be, is irrelevant to this argument, it is an observable or a measurable natural physical phenomena that can be measured by whatever measuring system we have invented! This is the fundamental difference. I abandoned this line of arguing because you failed to see the difference. However it is still very valid.

Altonhare said "No, I do see the difference, I've been trying to get you to state it yourself because you've been poking around it oh so closely.

Perhaps, since I am a product of the modern education system, that does not teach how to use English in proper and clear expression of thought, this is the reason it took this long. Come to think of it, I am still trying to shake of the damage they did to my conceptual faculty, when they exposed me to their brand of "education." All they did was practice the disintegration of my mind.

Influx wrote: Still the clock does not measure the distance traveled!

Altonhare said "What would you have it measure, then?

I thought, it measured our existence. Those who claim that the clock measures motion are right, that be you, , but the measure of motion is a means by which the concept of the clock can be implemented. In other words, when you look at your clock, you can know how long the things around you have existed. Without actually caring how much distance the clocks or whatever, has covered. We are using the time units to measure existence. So I guess, it could actually be said that time measures motion. Circular reasoning?

Influx wrote: The distance traveled could be millions of miles and only seconds have passed, or the distance traveled could be a mile and years have passed during that distance traveled.

Altonhare said "You do realize that all you said here is that sometimes an object moves really slow, and sometimes it moves really fast?

Yes I do, but it makes no sense to take it out of context. What I said is in relation to the distance covered by different size clocks that display the same time unit. The hands of Big Ben in London will cover a lot more distance than a wrist watch in the passage of the same amount of time units.

The clock is used to measure motion, as in physics or timing a sprinter, but we only care about the inherent motion of the clocks workings when that standard becomes unstable against some other clock or some such. That motion is measured by or against the time unit, the fact that the time unit itself is derived by the repetitive motion of something, does not mean that time is motion. Or am I to understand that motion measures motion? Would that not make gibberish? So time is a measure of existence, but we define the time unit by change, and use it to measure the changes in our existence. Okay I guess I will go rest my brain, since time also is the measure of rest. That is, I can use the clock to measure how much time there was no motion, as in, say, my coffee cup, it sat on my table without motion for an hour. See, in this case I did not use the motion to measure the non motion of the coffee cup, but rather the time units, i.e. time, the concept of time... Aww jeez I give up.

[junglelord]

Frequency is a inherit fundamental component of reality.
Without Frequency nothing would be in harmonic resonance.

There is a fundamental quantum resonance that is always at play as well as the linear time we all recognize.
The dual frequency model is the proper model. The recipricol of time is the proper understanding of this dimension.

[altonhare]

So I guess, it could actually be said that time measures motion. Circular reasoning?

Time doesn't measure anything, time is just defined as distance-traveled by one object as a reference standard traverses a unit distance.

Yes I do, but it makes no sense to take it out of context. What I said is in relation to the distance covered by different size clocks that display the same time unit. The hands of Big Ben in London will cover a lot more distance than a wrist watch in the passage of the same amount of time units.

But when we quantify time we use *one* reference standard, a single clock. If we define an hour to be a specific distance-traveled by the hand of Big Ben, that's what it is, by definition.

If, as Big Ben's hand goes from A to 7*A, your wrist watch hand goes from A to 2*A then we say that your wrist watch hand is moving at 1/6 the velocity of Big Ben's hand. In other words, your wrist watch hand takes 6 times as long to traverse the unit distance as Big Ben's hand. Big Ben took 1 unit of time to traverse 6*A, your wrist watch would take 6 units of time to traverse 6*A if it continued moving as it has.

So, time is just defined in terms of unit distances-traveled by an object compared to the distance-traveled by a reference standard.

Or am I to understand that motion measures motion?

No, motion doesn't measure anything either. Motion is "two or more locations of an object". We measure successive locations of an object, call it distance-traveled, and compare it to the successive locations of another object. This comparison yields relative velocity and its mathematical and conceptual inverse, time.

That is, I can use the clock to measure how much time there was no motion, as in, say, my coffee cup, it sat on my table without motion for an hour. See, in this case I did not use the motion to measure the non motion of the coffee cup, but rather the time units, i.e. time, the concept of time... Aww jeez I give up.

First off, the cup is moving by definition. Motion is two locations of an object and location is the set of distances from an object to every other object. If the hand's location is changing the cup's is changing too, by definition.

So let's examine this carefully. We have a universe of two objects, one called a cup and one called a hand. The hand traverses some distance. By definition, the cup is moving too because motion is two or more locations of an object and location is the set of distances between an object and every other object. So as the hand moves the cup's location changes, the cup is moving by definition. As the hand moves a unit distance so does the cup, the distance-traveled by one is always equal to the distance-traveled by the other. So the cup traverses A as the hand traverses A. The time for the cup to traverse A is the same as for the hand to traverse A, and their relative velocity is just 1. The hand traverses 60*A, what does this mean? It means the cup traversed 60*A. We do not get very far trying to quantify time with only two objects.

We need at least a third object, maybe called a person, to measure a difference in velocity, and thus quantify time. As the hand moves, it traverses a distance A away from the cup and a distance 2*A away from the person. As the hand (or the cup) traverses A the person traverses 2*A. We define the "time" for the person to traverse A as A/2*A = 1/2 = 0.5. We define the person's velocity as 2*A/A = 2.

The reason you associate the ticks of a clock, by itself, with time is because it is so very familiar to you. If you tell someone who knows nothing of your clocks that the clock ticked 14 times they have no idea what you're talking about. If you pull it out and let it tick 14 times the only way the person understands this is due to the motion of objects around him which s/he is familiar with. Additionally the person's brain has something like an internal timer. The distance-traveled by various signals in the brain are associated with events in the person's past. This does not have be be a conscious activity.

In the end, to quantify time you will have to deal with the motion of at least two objects. To do anything useful you will have to talk about the motion of at least three objects. Defining time will involve comparison of distances-traveled.

[Influx]

So what you are saying, if I understand correctly, is this, that motion measures motion? We define a cyclical repeating motion as a measuring standard, and then use that to measure motion?

[junglelord]

Motion is not two locations of an object. A - B.


WOW thats really narrow minded. Like modern math...some set of false reality.
How in the world can motion be only two locations of an object?
It cannot. Thats the problem. Angular Momentum, which is motion inherit, is not defined as two locations.
Motion is motion. Two locations are two locations...they are not the same.
I can have two locations and not have any motion.


Alton you say

So let's examine this carefully.

Frequency is a inherit fundamental component of reality.
Without Frequency nothing would be in harmonic resonance.

There is a fundamental quantum resonance that is always at play as well as the linear time we all recognize.
The dual frequency model is the proper model. The recipricol of time is the proper understanding of this dimension.

[Sovereign]

How in the world can motion be only two locations of an object?

I think the definition was two or MORE locations of an object.

It cannot. Thats the problem. Angular Momentum, which is motion inherit, is not defined as two locations.

I looked on wiki and it says that angular momentum is a mathematical concept. So I'm not really sure what is has to do with motion. Unless you define it differently for me.

I can have two locations and not have any motion.

So if a ball was at location A then it was at location B it didn't move?

[Grey Cloud]

Hi sovereign,
junglelord wrote:

I can have two locations and not have any motion.

You wrote:

So if a ball was at location A then it was at location B it didn't move?

Location A and location B didn't move. The object ball moved.