Is time a real thing or just a meter?

[Klaynos]

Would you care to define what you mean by physical?

[Phi for All]

Would you care to define what you mean by physical?

 

Good call. I think his definition creates a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation.

[zbigniew.modrzejewski]

 

Photons are not made of energy any more than they are made of momentum, or angular momentum, which are two additional properties they possess

 

 

So, what photons are made of, then .... ??

Would you care to define what you mean by physical?

 

 

Well, my definition of "physical" is all that is empirically detectable and is the subject matter of experimental Physics.

[Klaynos]

 

Well, my definition of "physical" is all that is empirically detectable and is the subject matter of experimental Physics.

Then trivially, yes, time is physical. We have empirical measurements of it (clocks) and many equations in the physical sciences which include it.

 

(On what are photons made of, they're fundemental, a photon is made of a photon. The same can be said for electrons etc...)

[Strange]

So, what photons are made of, then .... ??

 

 

What a bizarre question.

 

 

 

Well, my definition of "physical" is all that is empirically detectable and is the subject matter of experimental Physics.

 

So photons, time, length, mass, etc are all physical. Good.

[zbigniew.modrzejewski]

 

On what are photons made of, they're fundemental, a photon is made of a photon. The same can be said for electrons etc...)

 

Yes, photons are called elementary particles in quantum physics.

Photon is made of a photon. Well, who could disagree with that?

Time is made of time, and space is made of space ....

 

 

" Photons are not made of energy any more than they are made of momentum,

or angular momentum, which are two additional properties they possess "

 

Are photons particles of matter? Do they have energy, and/or mass?

[Strange]

Photon is made of a photon. Well, who could disagree with that?

 

 

Indeed. After all, what would you expect them to be made of? Brass?

 

 

 

Are photons particles of matter? Do they have energy, and/or mass?

 

No, they are quanta ("particles") of electromagnetic radiation. They do have energy. They do not have mass.

[Over 9000]

"Transcendental Aesthetic": space, time, and transcendental idealism. Despite its brevity - a mere thirty pages in the first edition and forty in the second - the "Transcendental Aesthetic" argues for a series of striking, paradoxical and even revolutionary theses that deter­mine the course of the whole remainder of the Critique and that have been the subject of a very large proportion of the scholarly work de­voted to the Critique in the last two centuries. '3 In this section, Kant at­tempts to distinguish the contribution to cognition made by our receptive faculty of sensibility from that made solely by the objects that affect us (A 2 1-2 /B 36), and argues that space and time are pure forms of all intuition contributed by our own faculty of sensibility, and therefore forms of which we can have a priori knowledge. This is the basis for Kant' s resolution of the debate about space and time that had raged be­tween the Newtonians, who held space and time to be self -subsisting entities existing independently of the objects that occupy them, and the Leibnizians, who held space and time to be systems of relations, con­ceptual constructs based on non-relational properties inhering in the things we think of as spatiotemporally related. '4 Kant's alternat ive to both of these positions is that space and time are neither subsistent be­ ings nor inherent in things as they are in themselves, but are rather only fo rms of our sensibility, hence conditions under which objects of expe­rience can be given at all and the fundamental principle of their repre­sentation and individuation. Only in this way, Kant argues, can we adequately account for the necessary manifestation of space and time throughout all experience as single but infinite magnitudes - the fea­ture of experience that Newton attempted to account for with his meta­ physically incoherent notion of absolute space and time as the sensorium dei - and also explain the a priori yet synthetic character of the mathe­matical propositions expressing our cognition of the physical properties of quantities and shapes given in space and time - the epistemological certainty undercut by Leibniz' s account of space and time as mere rela­ tions abstracted fr om anteced ently existing objects (A 22-5 I B 37-4 1, A 30--2 IB46-9).

 

Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empiri­cally real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in !hem. Although the precise meaning of this claim remains subject to debate ,'5 in general terms it is the claim that it is only from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, time, and the spatiotemporality of the objects of experience, thus that we cognize these things not as they are in themselves but only as they appear under the conditions of our sensibility (A 26-30/B 42-5, A 32-48 /B49-73). This is Kant's famous doctrine of transcendental idealism, which is employed throughout the Critique of Pure Reason (and the two subsequent critiques) in a variety of ways, both positively, as in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" and "Dis­cipline of Pure Reason," to account for the possibility of synthetic a pri­ori cognition in mathematics, and negatively, as in the "Transcendental Dialectic," to limit the scope of our cognition to the appearances given to our sensibility, while denying that we can have any cognition of things as they are in themselves, that is, as transcendent realities con­stituted as they are independently of the constitution of our cognitive capacities.

 

http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-first-critique-cambridge.pdf

[Strange]

How does that relate to physics?

[zbigniew.modrzejewski]

 

 

Then trivially, yes, time is physical. We have empirical measurements of it (clocks)

 

 

Well, I have not been aware that clocks actually

empirically detect physical existence and the velocity

of the flow of time, which is one second per second.

[Over 9000]

How does that relate to physics?

 

No idea. Thanks for the penetrating response. It relates to the OP. How does Kant resolving (or attempting to) a debate between Newtonians and Leibnizians relate to physics. No idea dude. Would be happy if you could think about it and let me know if you work it out. Now I think about it it has absolutely nothing to do with physics. I might as well have just copy pasted from a basketweaving handbook.

 

I'm feeling pretty silly about my stupid post.

 

"Is time a real thing"

 

"Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empiri­cally real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in !hem."

 

Damn, why I can't I make relevant and useful posts? Why do I waste everybody's time?

Edited November 10, 2016 by Over 9000

[Strange]

 

 

Well, I have not been aware that clocks actually

empirically detect physical existence and the velocity

of the flow of time, which is one second per second.

 

 

That is exactly what clocks do. As they measure time and your definition of "physicality" is something that can be measured, then by your definition time is physical.

 

No idea. Thanks for the penetrating response. It relates to the OP.

 

I agree that the OP seems to have been more of philosophical question than a physics one. But as he asked it in Physics, rather than Philosophy, I think most people have attempted to give answers based on physics. Hopefully, your response is closer to what he is looking for.

[Klaynos]

 

 

Well, I have not been aware that clocks actually

empirically detect physical existence and the velocity

of the flow of time, which is one second per second.

I was using your definition of physical, which didn't include existence not velocity of flow. Could you define existence, what on earth a fire if time is (1 second per 1 second is pretty much meaningless). And perhaps not change the goalposts? You gave a definition how about sticking to it rather than deciding you don't like the answer your own definition have.

[Randolpin]

Time is an illusion.

[Endy0816]

What do you find illusionary about it?

[Strange]

Time is an illusion.

 

 

There are posts before yours and some after. So probably not an illusion.

[StringJunky]

Time is an illusion.

Two massive objects cannot occupy the same spatial co-ordinates at the same time but they can at different times.

[swansont]

Two massive objects cannot occupy the same spatial co-ordinates at the same time but they can at different times.

Yes, precisely. It's why you can cross the street without being hit by a bus

[StringJunky]

Yes, precisely. It's why you can cross the street without being hit by a bus

You mentioned it once and I've never forgotten it. Rather irrefutable logic on the macro level, it seems.

[Strange]

Reminiscent of Johnson's refutation of Bishop Berkeley's claims about the nonexistence of matter:

 

 

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."

http://www.samueljohnson.com/refutati.html

[geordief]

Reminiscent of Johnson's refutation of Bishop Berkeley's claims about the nonexistence of matter:

http://www.samueljohnson.com/refutati.html

Heard that before and I thought it was Churchill.

 

Did I also hear that Johnson was a really despicable character?

 

A very good retort no matter who it was ,but it would not work on the internet

[zbigniew.modrzejewski]

So, is there an elementary particle of time, or of space?

Or, perhaps, time and space are waves?

Does time, or space, have energy, like photon or a wave?

Does a merry-go-around measure time also, like a clock?

 

[StringJunky]

 

Does a merry-go-around measure time also, like a clock?

 

Yes. It's no different to using the sun as a clock. Anything that changes predictably can be used as a clock.

Edited November 12, 2016 by StringJunky

[geordief]

Yes. It's no different to using the sun as a clock. Anything that changes predictably can be used as a clock.

Do we know why atomic clocks are predictable (there is no "internal mechanism" is there?)

 

Is it because all the different types of atomic clocks are all identical to each other and so , in the same environment they all run to the same beat?

[StringJunky]

Do we know why atomic clocks are predictable (there is no "internal mechanism" is there?)

 

Is it because all the different types of atomic clocks are all identical to each other and so , in the same environment they all run to the same beat?

Swansont is your man for that one.