Does time exist?

[No_OnE]

I'll try to clear up the time-travel thing. It's possible to move forward in time but it isn't exactly like the movies depict. You don't just hop into a box and flip a switch. To go forward in time you must travel at the speed of light. If you travel one light year at the speed of light, you will have aged a year whereas the rest of the world will have aged decades and decades. The only reason that this is impossible is because it's impossible to travel the speed of light. It would require an infinite amount of fuel. This factor of impossibility was proven by Einstein's theory of relativity, E=MC2 ( the two means to sqaure it, not multiply by two). Although, it may be impossible to travel the speed of light, it might be possible to travel very close to the speed of light, and seem to go forward in time.

[SLOWSTORM]

I think your basic equation needs to be defined for anyone who doesn't know what it means, as well, because many people just say "E=MCsquared," and others don't know what it means. The E stands for the energy required to move an object. The M stands for the mass of this object. For a person, that would your weight divided by the earth's gravity (9.81 meters/sec/sec or 32.2 feet/sec/sec) the C stands for the speed of light. This is (in english units) approximately 186,282.397 miles/second

 

wikipedia says this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

 

Convert your feet to miles, and your seconds to hours, and just call it infinite. It is impossible to get enough energy to go the speed of light. Just backing up No_OnE. He's right :-)

 

Side note: Hey! the site even talks about the refractive index :-) It's all right there. Also, I think light goes fastest because it is the particle with the least mass :-) argue if you want, but have you ever tried to measure a light particle? It's possible :wink:

[Lionheart_0]

Hmmm....Time without measurement......

 

 

 

Well, there IS a past, present (unidentafiable) and future. In existance, time exist, but out of it, I do beleive it doesn't.

 

 

 

I think time and matter are the only constant in the universe, there for time must exist because its a constant.

 

 

 

I hate to be the one to kick the pot, but we already found out that matter alone is not constant; matter can be converted into energy, and, indeed, has been proven to be only energy packets being held together with particular forces. This is what a nuclear reaction is: matter being turned into energy.

 

Also, time itself is not constant, only measurement of time with respect to the same point of reference at points traveling at the same velocity is constant. When you speed up in relation to a point of reference, time for you travels slower than for it does for that point of reference. However, I believe that in order to once again relate to that point of reference and compare time, you must first "complete the loop," and return to the same time reference. That means that, while time may go faster or slower for people going different speeds, in order for them to compare time flow, they must be in the same time flow, and time will then seem to be the same. For more information on this idea, look up the Texas laser experimental facility which shot laser through Cesium gas. Cesium has a lower index of refraction than pure vacuum, and actually caused the laser to come out the other side several nanoseconds before it was fired. That'll throw a cog into our current understanding of time :-)

 

I do have a theory on that, which I might be tempted to share if anyone wants to know it. You never know :mrgreen:

 

 

 

:shame: A nuclear reaction is not matter to energy, it is the matter being split and the energy being relesed from that matter, matter cannot be dystroyed.*Addon*, fogot to mention about time. Because matter cannot be dystroyed, then time must keep going (for people from theinfinity topic, i have found these two things to be the only infinity). Since both things must stay constant, they do not acutly change. BTW, in all reactions, the products must be equal to the reactants, except for energy

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: after reading the above post, umm for future refrence, dont use wikipedia, cause english units are metric.

[pianofrieak2]

Wow, I LOVE these kinds of topics!!

 

 

 

As for the time question, I would have to say that time exists but our ways of determining it and measuring it are relative. We have tons of exceptions as other smarter-than-I people have shown.

 

 

 

However, when one is talking about light, let me clear this up. Light, you see, is the fastest object in our universe. Why? Well, as someone showed 2 posts above, it is impossible to reach unless you are a mass-less particle. Yes, light has no mass. In fact, all objects without mass travel at the speed of light. And all objects with mass can NEVER travel the speed of light.

 

 

 

So how do you find a mass-less particle? For instance, I tried researching the neutrino which carries away the momentum of matter and anti-matter.

 

 

 

But neutrinos are merely speculative, if I remember correctly. So is the only reason they say a "neutrino" exists because it "has to" for our theories on the conservation of momentum to be correct?

[Guest XplsvBam]

time wasn't made by man, its used by man. erka derka. biological clock... rythim of your heart beat... if time didn't exsist and your heart stopped beating it wouldn't matter, because time dosn't exsist.

[Make7upu101]

Time does exist. What your asking would be like me asking, "What if we never gave a word for computer? Would it still exist?" Time exists because we live. We are consious for periods of time. As for time travel, there is no way to travel back in time but there is a way to travel forward in time. The faster (or closer to the speed of light) you move, the slower time moves for you. It's an actual fact that fighter pilots and airline pilots age less than us normal people because they often travel much faster. Although, the amount less they age is extremely small.

 

 

 

No, that's totally different. I computer is tangible. I can see, touch, lick it. I KNOW its there. lol. Can you show me time? Yes, we do live but is it really for periods of 'time'?

 

 

 

Oh yea. A question for all those 'time-believers' =P Ok I'm sure you all know what time zones are. Well what if every hour, on the hour you traveled back one time zone.

 

(Not sure If somebody has already answered this)

 

 

 

Not really that crazy of a question. You would stay at the same "time," but in 24 hours you would be on the next day.

 

 

 

Hope I understood the question right, I'm pretty tired.

[Death_By_Pod]

 

:shame: A nuclear reaction is not matter to energy, it is the matter being split and the energy being relesed from that matter, matter cannot be dystroyed.*Addon*, fogot to mention about time. Because matter cannot be dystroyed, then time must keep going (for people from theinfinity topic, i have found these two things to be the only infinity). Since both things must stay constant, they do not acutly change. BTW, in all reactions, the products must be equal to the reactants, except for energy

 

 

 

Edit: after reading the above post, umm for future refrence, dont use wikipedia, cause english units are metric.

 

 

 

You are completely wrong. If you add up the mass of everything before the reaction and after the reaction you end up missing/gaining around 0.005u (depends on the reaction), When you convert that missing/extra matter to its energy equivalent you find that it equals the amount of energy given off/absorbed by the reaction (A few MeV). Matter does get created and destroyed, it is not conserved; energy however must be conserved, maybe youÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢re getting matter mixed up with energy.

 

 

 

What are you talking about, Wikipedia is in metric. Are you complaining about a lack of imperial measurements, because if you are you shouldnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t consider a science degree (all equations use metric, basically everyone apart from the US uses metric).

 

 

 

 

But neutrinos are merely speculative, if I remember correctly. So is the only reason they say a "neutrino" exists because it "has to" for our theories on the conservation of momentum to be correct?

 

 

 

Neutrinos are detectable, there are many experiments out there that record neutrino events; There has been enough data which shows that the sun is the source of most neutrinos. ItÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s actually surprisingly easy to detect neutrinos; all you need is huge dark tank, padded with photosensitive cells; then fill it up with water. Most neutrino's will pass through the tank but occasionally one will slam into an electron; the excited electron will release light and will get picked up by the photocells (which can also be used to determine which direction the neutrino came from). The more water we have, the more electrons and more collisions as a result.