In what context does time exist?

[quantum]

There was the big bang, and we suspect there to be a big crunch.  But in what realm do these events exist?

[prometheus]

Time started with the big bang and if there will be a big crunch, which is generally not suspected to happen, then time will end with the big crunch.

[counterpoint]

Time started with the big bang

Scientists claim that, because - if time was indepent of the big bang - they had to explain, what was before the big bang, where does all that matter come from and what was the cause of the "big bang". It's a clever trick to say time did start with the big bang. At least there never will be any timeless time in the future. Because there is time now, anything that happens in the future can be related to the time before 

[quantum]

Well I guess another way to put it is: does time exist inside of something bigger?  Is time a microcosom of a larger entity?

[prometheus]

Scientists claim that, because - if time was indepent of the big bang - they had to explain, what was before the big bang, where does all that matter come from and what was the cause of the "big bang". It's a clever trick to say time did start with the big bang.

I don't understand what you mean with 'a clever trick' but as we humans understand and define time time just started at the big bang. Because without space-time there can't exist any time.

Even if you define time as such as being there before the big bang as well, you still can't explain where the matter and energy in the universe came from. So I don't understand.

[counterpoint]

Because without space-time there can't exist any time.

Why can't time "exist" without space-time?

Does time depend on someone who measures it?

Did time begin with the invention of the clock?

[pianistimo]

i think time began with the first evening and morning.  but, be that as it may - i would like to think that God will not crunch us - if he banged us first into existence.   as i see it - the big 'bang' = the first words of God.  'let there be light.'  i'm wondering if it was a noisy thing or just something quiet.  in which case - the 'bang' would be the suddenness and not the noise.   

[pianowolfi]

There was (is) probably no big bang. There was (is) sound. There was (is) the sound of the sun. Sound of the cosmos. "Bang" implies something destructive, IMO. Not "creative".  There was(is) music. There was (is) the Logos. The Logos is sound, is music, is word. You can go "back" in time and listen to it, maybe . Why should we depend of other sources than our own unique perception and thinking? As musicians we are every single day "close to the sources". even if we are only able to play two or three different notes yet, as a "beginner". Why should we be slaves of a dogma, wherever it may come from? Why don't we relate to the obvious? The obvious truth within our hearts? Music? Music! Why should we always listen to music only with our head and not with our heart? Why should we believe in a system of "belief" that teaches us a "big bang"? Well I like the "big bang" idea, somehow. I used like firecrackers very much when I was a child. Now I am more afraid of ear damage when these are around

 I think, after all, a few very intensely played notes can have a bigger effect, well......not than "big bang" but at least more than a fire cracker. Lol

[pianistimo]

but, surely chaos was more noise.  i think it was noisy to start out - and then became quiet.  then, there was 'laaaaaaaa'  one long note - light.  it was in C major.  it was C itself.

*must check haydn's 'creation' to verify this.

[pianowolfi]

*must check haydn's 'creation' to verify this.

Very good idea, I think . Haydn's "creation" is more convincing to me than so many "theories" .

[prometheus]

Why can't time "exist" without space-time?

For the same reason as space cannot exist without space-time. If you lack this geometry then there is nothing which has a position within this geometry. There is nothing that moves within this geometry. There is nothing on which time can act.

What is time if it can't be what it is? What is time if there is nothing that can 'age'?


Time is merely a geometry, an element of spacetime.

Just as matter or energy can't exist if there is no position in spacetime it can occupy, spacetime cannot exist if there is no matter for which spacetime can be the geometry.

The big bang was not an explosion in a vacuum. It was the spacetime we have now expanding from a single point. You can't be outside spacetime because if you are you no longer exist. So there is no vacuum outside the universe. There is just 'nothing', a lack of everything.

Don't interpret scientific theories using your own concepts rather than those used in science.

[prometheus]

And for those that are too lazy to actually read up science.


There is nothing about a big bang in the 'big bang'-theory. There is no bang, no explosion.

The theory was named 'big bang' to ridicule it because at that time to many scientists it was 'creation in disguise' and 'a religious theory' because it failed to explain where the singularity came from.

[counterpoint]

There is nothing on which time can act.

What is time if it can't be what it is? What is time if there is nothing that can 'age'?

Time doesn't "act". kilometers don't drive 

Time is a method of measuring.  If there doesn't change anything in time, the time does run same tempo as otherwise.

Here we shouldn't confuse the human experience of "long" or "short" time, which is subjective, with the time as a scientific measure. Same as vacuum has it's size, changelessness has its time.

[counterpoint]

There is nothing about a big bang in the 'big bang'-theory. There is no bang, no explosion.

They say, that the matter and the energy from the whole universe as it is now, was concentrated in a "point" that was smaller than an atom. How crazy is this. You can tell people what you want, if you're a scientist. 

In comparison to this, Scriabin's idea, that he has created the whole world, the universe and all the history by himself, sounds much more logical to me 

[prometheus]

Of course it is an absurd idea, most ideas in modern physics are absolutely ludicrous, the problem is that the observations we make support them. The universe looks like a universe that emerged from a singularity. No matter how strange and puzzling this is to us humans we can only assume that this is actually what happened.

And these absurd notions of modern science now make it possible for you to read this message.


Again, your notion of time may not be the same as the notion of time in science.

[fiddes]

there is no such thing as time!!!!

it is a human concept designed to help understand the place we live in!!!! if time existed would it not be the same everywhere?

[pianistimo]

without the sun and moon and seasons - we'd have no concept of time.  we would be outside time - like astronauts in space.  maybe space is the closest 'feeling' of timelessness.  to be 'like' God - but not yet. 

i think the concept of eternity is slightly understood by humans.  it would be living without constraints.  the need for sleep, for instance.  to never get sick.  to never die.  for disabled people to suddenly have regenerating capabilities for limbs, etc.  for the world to be at peace.

i think the closest people come to timelessness is to experience a death of someone close.  you forget you are living.  you are suddenly in timelessness.  time doesn't matter.  the doctor or nurse may record the time of death.  it is unnoticed by the loved ones who survive.  only the entirety of the person's life lives on timelessly.  the clock cannot be stopped by death.  the clothes in the closet will be there in perpetuity.  the shoes will take on a musty odor and only be replaced by the occasional spray of glade 'springtime.'  the pictures will be kissed over and over and placed back in exact locations.   a big gong or chime will sound midnight every night after that.  the cuckoo clock that records every hour will be broken on the neck and continue dangling out the clock until the spouse dies.

[prometheus]

...if time existed would it not be the same everywhere?

Well, it is not the same everywhere. Time depends on your 'frame of reference'. And still time exists.


But time is not a force or something like that. It is a dimension, an axis on which objects have a position, a geography.

[prometheus]

without the sun and moon and seasons - we'd have no concept of time.  we would be outside time - like astronauts in space. 

The definition of a second is 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at 0 K.

So without the moon or without seasons we would sill have caesium-atoms. So you are obviously wrong.

[fiddes]

prometheus,

What you put is a very sceintific approch to it and is most likely correct but somethings in life are not understandable through logic but need to be looked at in a different perspective,

time is one of those things, you say 'a second is 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at 0 K.' but how long does it take for 1 period time is a human conception,

what is to stop a second being longer or shorter it isnt written in stone and im pretty sure 1000 years ago they couldn tell how long a second was so how did they tell the time

[bench warmer]

 Sound of the Big Bang

Tangent to this discussion has been the topic of the B.Bang

Here's a link to an emulation/simulation if anybody's interested and HAS THE TIME to listen:

https://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/BBSound.html
(about 4 paragraphs from the the end of the article if you just want to play the sounds and not read the article)

[prometheus]

No, the way we define a second can be changed easily. It is in itself meaningless. It is just an unit of time.

Now I don't even know what exactly a 'period of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state' means exactly. But what  I do know is that this will stay the same. So if we want to make sure we are both using the same second we can use this definition to 'sync up'.


But the point being, time is there as long as things happen. If there are no seasons then there are still reactions going on in our bodies. Matter and energy still have different positions in the time geography.

If there is only one position in time any object can ever have then yes, we have no time. So this is exactly the same as a single frozen 'time-frame'. So time is then standing still.


Time as an arrow or a flow has long ago been abandoned.




Someone asked what time is and in what context it exists. So I explain. And when someone proposed ideas that are obviously incorrect I correct them because this is what the TS asks for.


But I don't get your point. One thousand years ago there were also caesium-133 atoms.

[fiddes]

ok your not wrong you just view it differently to me i find that time is only applicable if there is something that it applies to.

If you are in space im pretty sure there is no time, if you are a rock in the middle of an island i again doubt there is time,

im most likely not making any sense, i understand it in my head but finding the words for it is different

[pianowolfi]

Sound of the Big Bang

Tangent to this discussion has been the topic of the B.Bang

Here's a link to an emulation/simulation if anybody's interested and HAS THE TIME to listen:

https://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/BBSound.html
(about 4 paragraphs from the the end of the article if you just want to play the sounds and not read the article)

That sounds very interesting Sort of inspiring, too But, prometheus, perhaps you will say that this is just a hypothetic sound? I just have not enough clue of astrophysics .

[prometheus]

If you read the article you will see that it is a representation of the ripples in the plasma that was dominating the very early universe.


So it is not the sound of an explosion, if you mean that.

[pianogeek_cz]

As far as I know, time is just one of the dimensions. It's a coordinate for things. If we simplify A LOT, time is essentialy the same as depth, for example. Imagine there's no depth. You'd be just a flat something. Definitely not a very viable existence. It's roughly the same thing with time - if it wasn't for time, the universe would lack one of these "frames" (NOT to be taken literally!) of existence. It would simply not work, just as we wouldn't be able to survive flat. So basically I'm with Prometheus on this.

Just a very tiny comment,

You can't be outside spacetime because if you are you no longer exist. So there is no vacuum outside the universe.

it's irrelevant to talk about "outside", because there is no such thing.

I would strongly recommend reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

[prometheus]

I am just echoing his words.


Before the big bang or outside the universe is like south of the south pole. I tried to explain why it is irrelevant.

[pianistimo]

stephen hawkings theories are unprovable.  scientists have even complained of this and wish he would not be so dogmatic about some things he says that are unprovable by science alone.  it is astrophysics at it's best.  SPECULATION.  prometheus...you can't say UNTRUE unless you are God.  and you're not.

[prometheus]

Just S T F U.

[quasimodo]

Just S T F U.

[pianogeek_cz]

stephen hawkings theories are unprovable.  scientists have even complained of this and wish he would not be so dogmatic about some things he says that are unprovable by science alone.  it is astrophysics at it's best.  SPECULATION.  prometheus...you can't say UNTRUE unless you are God.  and you're not.

Haha. This might be actually a fun point to play devil's advocate.

"you can't say untrue unless you are God" - so how can you specifically be sure that those who say there is no God are wrong? Or, for that matter, how can you be sure Prometheus is not God, unless you are God? Are you God, then? How can you be sure you're -not- God?

Please, pianistimo, I'm eagerly awaiting a reply.

By the way, I don't second the S. T. F. U. motion. I like my daily dose of dada served for me, don't want to go looking through individual boards when I can just click the Unread posts button.