Does Time Happen in an Instant

I'm just sat here all alone on a night shift and was pondering a few questions to myself about time and how we perceive it. Einstein quantifies time as part of the fabric of the Universe as something physical that exists around us. This for me poses a few questions as if time is physically part of our Fabric, then there must be a way to observe it, maybe not directly but in-directly. They say that Gravity has an effect on time, with the stronger the gravitational pull the slower time is played out but if you exist in that moment in time then surely your own perspective mis never changed and you will be totally unaware if time has indeed speeded up or slowed down. So back to the question, can time be observed, well it must be able to as if it cannot be observed then it cannot exist so the question is how do we observe it?

One theory I have pondered is that we can sense time before it is played out maybe not too far into the distant future but enough for some people with the right perceptions to be able to change their choices based on the information they have picked up from the near future. How many times have you had that close call where you made an out of the ordinary choice that has saved your bacon? I hypothesise that time does exist and can be detected before it comes into the present and some people are much better than doing this than others. I think one day we will develop a scientific instrument that can quantify and detect time itself.

Does anybody understand me that was quite a ramble? Thanks for listening.

I just love this topic because I'm always trying to get my head around it. We live in a place called "Now" which it seems to me can never be measured, it's so small, a pin point in a pinpoint in a pinpoint going on forever. The tiniest measurement either side of the now we live in is either past or future. I don't think we can even understand the nature of "Now" somehow, at least I have big trouble getting the concept straight in my head. Thanks for putting this forward though...Just hope it flowers, ergo the flag

reply to post by minkmouse


Thats an interesting way of labeling time, the past, now and the future but how can now ever exist as it would have to be infinately small. Does that mean we always have one foot in the past and one foot in the future? Maybe time is not a single element but an entwined footpath?

I also think by the very notion that Gravity has the ability to distort time then time must be something you can catch a hold of. They say time stops in a black hole, with time and Gravity having such a close relationship has anybody ever shed the thought that time is the opposite of Gravity? The ying and yang? That would make an interesting proposition don't you think?

I'm completely ignorant on this topic and when the string theorists show up all I can do is listen and try hard to grasp even the tiniest part of the discussion. Having said that, if I were a betting man, I'd put a large chunk of loot on the notion that time as we perceive it doesn't exist. Everything that has happened and everything that will happen is happening always and will never cease. Somehow I think our perception is mechanical as in biologically contrived, perhaps based in the way the pulses of energy leap from the end of our nerves to the synapse of the brain. Maybe in that tiny nanosecond of transfer comes our concept of time. As for gravity being the Yin or Yang of time, could well be but I have zero idea as to how.

Time has a quantum function. That means that there is a smallest unit of time it is possible to measure. This is called the Planck Constant and is equivalent to approximately 10 to the minus 43rd seconds. Below is a short excerpt from Wikipedia that deals with the Planck Constant and how it is derived. I am going to give a link below the off site quoted text source and one other link to a PDF file on the subject. Be forewarned that the math on these two links is not for the feint of heart math neophyte.

One Planck time is the time it would take a photon traveling at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to one Planck length. Theoretically, this is the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible,[3] roughly 10−43 seconds. Within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, for times less than one Planck time apart, we can neither measure nor detect any change. As of May 2010, the smallest time interval uncertainty in direct measurements is on the order of 12 attoseconds (1.2 × 10−17 seconds), about 3.7 × 1026 Planck times.[4]

Here is the link to the source of the above quoted text

And here is the link to the PDF file.

Therefore time does not flow in a continuous stream but rather in extremely small steps. I hope this helps you to somewhat understand the nature of time.

"Therefore time does not flow in a continuous stream but rather in extremely small steps. I hope this helps you to somewhat understand the nature of time.

Is this theory or proven science? Am I really going to understand the nature of time if I digest this information?

This is my take on it, for what it's worth. Is it scientifically sound? Heck no-- or rather I don't know-- all I can say is I had a little epiphany about this very thing one day, while I was contemplating the movement of the solar system thru the galaxy, galaxy thru the universe, etc...

The passage of TIME equates to our movement thru space. We rotate the sun, but our orbit does not trace the same path over and over (as a science book in elementary school illustrates.) Earth cannot follow it's same path because the Sun is never in the same place, as it is zooming along (orbiting) our galaxy, which in turn is also zooming along.

So you, this human on Earth, are constantly moving thru the universe and you've never once been in the same spot within the universe. Every moment of your life, you are somewhere different in the universe. Your Past is a LOCATION in space! So is your Future. So is Now. (Which is why people say things like "that's too far ahead for me to even think about" and "don't look back, that's all in the past." Think about it. Those are statements related to 'Location.')

I theorize that if you could go to a location in the universe that you inhabited while zooming along on this lovely Rock, you would actually find yourself back in time. Same with future locations. The trick is finding it and getting there of course!

Originally posted by minkmouse
"Therefore time does not flow in a continuous stream but rather in extremely small steps. I hope this helps you to somewhat understand the nature of time.

Is this theory or proven science? Am I really going to understand the nature of time if I digest this information?

It is proven science. The Planck Constant has been known for quite some time now and has been proven in experiments. In efforts to measure time periods shorter than the Planck constant they find that time does not move within the boundaries of a single unit of Planck time. Time only appears to flow in an analog or smooth flow because the quanta of time delineated by the Planck Constant are many orders of magnitude shorter than we can perceive. It is like watching a movie or television picture. The motion is broken up into short enough periods that the function of our retinas known as "persistence of vision" blends them all together in our visual cortex. If you have a DVD player capable of single frame playback you will see that what you perceive as continuous motion is really just a series of rapidly changing still pictures.

But don't get your hopes up too high for fully understanding time since the scientists who study it with their extremely sensitive instruments don't understand it all that well themselves.

For instance, an atomic clock will run measurably faster if it is raised in altitude by only a few feet. This effect has to be taken into account in the GPS system (receivers on the ground and satellites in orbit) for the GPS system to even work. That makes two things that can affect the rate of relative time flow; the first being speed in relation to another object and the second being the gravitational effect described above.

If you are interested click on this link to go to my personal website to read three articles I wrote that deal with an apparent violation of the speed of light limit observed in quantum entanglement. The first article will be found about halfway down the page and is entitled "Some Thoughts on Quantum entanglement". The second and third articles which are spinoffs of the first are the last two on the page and they are entitled "E T Call Home" which presents my opinion as to why the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence") project is a monumental waste of time and money and "Wherefore Art Thou Oh Dark Quark" which postulates a reason for astrophysicists not being able to find the so called "dark matter" that has to exist for the galaxy's to hold their shape and size in spite of there not being enough observable matter to account for the observed gravitational effects.

Time at the present doesn't exist it 'just keeps on slipping into the Future"

youtu.be...

reply to post by michael1983l


i cannot give you a good answer. But i can refer you to look up the term "retrocausality", as it will take you down a path where the answer lies.

You might also want to get a copy of Stephan Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time", it is a short but interesting read.

reply to post by happykat39


available free online. at least, that is how i got a copy.