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The Forum > General Discussion > Does Time Exist?

Does Time Exist?

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Einstein said: "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
What does he mean by that?
Posted by Poirot, Monday, 5 July 2010 1:15:03 AM
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Einstein was obviously a daftarse!! (:>/

He never really got old and grey. He was always young and youthful. His aging was only a figment of his and everyone else's imagination.

Hmmmm.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 5 July 2010 8:42:28 AM
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Dear Ludwig,

You'll have to forgive me here as I have no science background - just doing the best with what I've got....
Perhaps he is saying that what we refer to as the dimension of time is merely our way of measuring the interchange of the particles of matter as they move through space.
I'm rather intrigued about the issue of time - hoping for enlightenment.
Posted by Poirot, Monday, 5 July 2010 8:53:37 AM
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Poirot, judging by the opinions of renowned physicists around the world, there seems to be some truth in Einstein’s assertion that time and atomic physics are interrelated. But it is so ethereal at the level of our everyday lives or to anything that could ever significantly affect us as to be virtually meaningless.

No matter how much we may wish time to be an illusion, and hope that we will wake up in the morning 20 years younger and live forever, we all know that it inescapably dominates our lives, dammit!

Alright, delving into the ethereal a bit – apparently if some astronaut were to travel at the speed of light or thereabouts to a planet orbiting a star thirty light-years away for example, he/she would arrive there considerably younger than the length of the journey would suggest. Beats me how that could be.

How can speed be related to the passage of time, especially when speed is only relevant to a particular body? For example, you are (presumably) not moving at the moment relative to the Earth. But you are hooting along relative to the sun and absolutely bottling along relative to some far-distant galaxy!

Does that mean that if you are an old fart to fellow earthlings you would appear to be a gilded youth to a visitor from a far-distant planet?? (:> |
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 5 July 2010 9:42:29 AM
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Given the character of his contributions, I think Einstein is saying that there is no “now”. Two observers cannot simultaneous occupy the same space-time, because the experience of each observer is particular and is related to the independent motion of each observer. Individuals may expereince their own historical time, yet their is no past, now or future in an absolute sense.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 5 July 2010 9:53:15 AM
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"... yet there is no past, now or future in an absolute sense."
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 5 July 2010 9:56:44 AM
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