Einstein claimed time is part of the fabric of space and called it "space/time. Animals pay no attention to Einstein and are attuned to light and dark. Humans sense time everywhere from the passing of birthdays to the classification of life from youth to middle age to elderly. Humans concepts of life and death are arranged by there concepts of time. The question is: Is it real or an invention that makes life more orderly? What do you think?
Define "time" in the context of your question. In physics space and time are essentially the same thing. But time in that context has no relationship to your perception of the passage of time. Please be more expansive.
"Time" is indeed a human construct but the flow of reality is not. It is important for our brains and civilization to mark intervals and incidents in this reality for many reasons and thus have we developed a means to do so. The passage of time is only important and pertinent to our species and so is exclusive to us. My dog has no idea what time is but knows when to eat and when it gets dark.
Time is real...or at least as real as the rest of the universe is. Minutes are not real, seconds are not real, they're just made up and agreed-upon increments that allow us to measure its passage. Funny story. My angel fish knew when it was 11pm. I would always feed my fish right before I left for work. They would go to the top of the tank and start snapping the water to get my attention I know...they're reacting to the stimuli of my getting ready for work. But how did they know on the weekends? My wife is usually up until the wee hours of the morning. On Friday and Saturday nights, I'm awake right along side of them. So when 11pm rolls around, wife and I could be doing what we started doing at 10pm (usually World of Warcraft while watching a movie) and keep it up until 2am. The fish would between 10:45 and 11:15pm would start trying to get our attention by snapping the water. So while they're not looking at little fishy Rolex watches, they have some concept of the passage of time through some cues that I've not figured out.
No offense about the bold above but your fish did not know the time. They are conditioned to be fed in the intervals you feed them. My cat smacks me when I'm sleeping when the cat sees the sky begin to lighten in the morning but the cat has no idea of the human time system...
Oh I agree...but they have some method of knowing the interval. Between those two times, they're snapping the water demanding food. They may not know it's 11:00pm exactly, but they do have some way of knowing the passage of time. Again when I'm getting ready for work, they're likely watching for the cues. But the weekends when I don't start moving at 11pm...they're still snapping the water at that time.
Whether it's fish and cats, or aliens from outside Earth, Earth time as we know it is only relative to Earthlings. Once we leave Earth, on a solar or galactic trek, if we could communicate with 'others' along the way, don't ask them what time it might be? When did you leave Earth...September 15, 2000 at 9am...would have no meaning to others. If 'others' asked what time will you arrive that time would have no meaning. This is why I said time is a convenience but also a tool when 'locally' we wish to study stuff. Remember on Star Trek?? he would say Star Date 3725.75 or (?) which works locally but doesn't represent 13.7 billion years of Universe time. So I guess we have Universe time, galaxy time, solar time, and planetary time...
I have came to the rather firm belief that time...... is actually an invention....... comparable on some levels to a car or boat or jet or other device that helps us to get from point A to point B....... but the main reason for the invention of time is to assist us to progress philosophically. I believe that time was invented by the most ancient Intelligence that would be composed of fundamental or nearly fundamental energy....... http://www.politicalforum.com/index...begin-in-matter-or-fundamental-energy.465052/ Where did Intelligence begin, in matter or fundamental energy? https://www.amazon.com/Biocosm-Scientific-Evolution-Intelligent-Architect/dp/1930722222 Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe
You seem to refer only to the system of measure, like meters and feet. But we can map one system into the other. We can convert one time reference to another. The real problem is that when you leave earth, clocks don't run at the same rate. Clocks in space sitting at rest relative to the Earth, tick faster than clocks on Earth. And objects moving at different speeds relative to each other have clocks that don't agree on the rate of the passage of time. There is no universal now or a universal second. There is no universal resting state [state of no motion]. But we experience real consequences of time. In the twin paradox, we see real effects that depend on the frame of reference wrt time. We may not have the proper understanding of time. We imagine it as something we are moving through, in much the way we move through space. And perhaps that concept is not real. But it must be a measure of something that is real that we don't understand.
Consider a change in position to a distance D, between two observers. The greater the distance, the greater the temporal displacement. If observer A turns on a light, that information can only be communicated to observer B in time D/C, where C is the speed of light. The don't agree on the time an event occurred. But their clocks agree on the passage of time. If observer A is changing position wrt observer B, their clocks no longer agree on the passage of time. Time seems to be as real as position.
I have given it lot of thought and yes, time is real. I was once young and healthy, flexible and energetic. Now I am old, stiff, sickly, and tired. Yes, time is real.
We suspect there is a minimum increment of time - the Planck second, or 5.39 × 10 −44 s. When a spring is stretched, it isn't continuous. It stretches in quantum steps, where is exists in one state, and then the next, with nothing in between. In much the same way, time may progress in Planck Seconds. In other words, time appears to be quantized.
No, it isn't. About the only clocks that would agree exactly on the length of one minute would be two clocks in deep space, far from any gravitational influences, with no motion between them... or two clocks that are in identical gravitational fields, with no motion between them.
And it is the nature of time, not the nature of clocks. We are talking about perfect clocks here. The natural frequency of atomic processes are used for the most accurate clocks.
I don't think you understood what I was saying. A second passing here will pass quicker in low gravity and slower in higher gravity. But we can't be in both places at once. Therefore, only so much can be done in a second. A second will be a second, an hour an hour, a year a year...no matter where you are.
We can't be in both places at once but we can compare results after some period of time has elapsed. In the twin paradox, one twin returns while still young, only to find the other twin has grown old. Clearly one twin's second is not the same as the other's. Each twin is stuck in their own frame of reference. They each experience normal time from their pov, which I think is your point.
It allows you to age far less quickly than your enemies. You can meet your great-great-great-great-great-great grand kids. You can circumnavigate a black hole and meet yourself at the starting point. You can fall into a black hole and remain frozen in time at the event horizon, as your body is spaghettified by the tidal forces. How cool is that?
Or is increasing entropy simply an aspect of what we falsely perceive as time? Maybe there is only entropy.
