Is the concept of spacetime logical?

[Specforces]

Most of you are quoting classic textbook scientific theory, I am viewing this from a philosophical perspective. Ok here's a scenario that will further explain and expound on my point.

I am imagining 2 houses. I live in one of them. My neighbour in the other. I spend the morning measuring my lounge. I write down the measurements. Then something magical happens. My house suddenly grows bigger. But not only does my house grow bigger, so does everything in it, including me and my ruler. I measure my lounge again and write down the meausrements of the bigger lounge. Then my house and everything in it suddenly shrinks back to normal size again. Then I suddenly notice that the two lots of measurements of the lounge are recorded as being exactly the same on my piece of paper. How could this possibly be so when the lounge was so much bigger the second time round?

The answer is of course because I was using a different sized ruler (ie. a different measurement system - although I wrongly 'perceived it as being the same measurement system). It was the measurement systems that changed, not 'length' itself. Length did not get longer.
If my neighbour was to sneak into my lounge and measure it after the growing had taken place, with his normal sized (small) ruler and measured my lounge, his measurement results would be completely different to my second lot.

A parallel analogy could be made of time. And as with 'length' 'time' cannot cannot speed up. We might percieve it as speeding up if we compare experiences in the changes of physical laws (other than time) like me and my house getting bigger. But neither length nor time themselces can change. Only our perceptions change. Just because our perceptions are 'tricked' doesn't mean want they percieved was correct.

Time cannot speed up. Maybe other laws of nature can change in relation to each other - but not time itself.

This raises a further fascinating question. Does time then really exist at all? Or is it just a figment of our perception? Certainly if time doesn't really exist then it can't be said to be able to speed it. If something doesn't actually exist it can't actually be said to 'do' anything.

[alainbryden]

Time isn't a dimention of it's own. It can be expressed at a function of the 3 actual dimentions. When you consider that time has just always been an expression oif the possition of the earth relative to the sun, time can be expressed as a conceptual three-dimentional vector.

for example, let the center of the sun represent vercto (0,0,0), or the origin.
the time, therefore, is defined as being (x,y,z) depending on it's position relative to the sun.
Depending on the rotational axis to the sun relative to the axis position of the earth, we can get the time of day, as well as year, all expressed through vectors.

Yeah, it's more complicated than V=d/t, but it renders the concept of time travel obsolete because it eliminates all the assumptions created by making time an intangeable dimention of it's own.

[jazzmosis]

Messing around with time is novel, but for real travel a concept of wormholes or "bending space" would be far more efficent to travel around.. that way you don't bugger with time/space continuium. (interesting spelling...)

We'd literally have to freeze time/aging/molecules to travel some distances in space...

[AlbinoLime]

Originally Posted by makaveli121212

yes because everyone knows what going through a blackhole is like...i mnot gonna get off subject, but a black hole basically would atomize you...of course before that actually happened your limbs would be ripped off you, and your head too...

that equation alone does not prove that it is logical...if the equation makes it so logical, care to explain why it makes it so...if we were debating whether or not force existed, F = m*a would hardly be relevant

'people have to make up equations to explain things'...didnt you just say that physicians didnt make things up to explain things and that i had it backwards

Seriously dude. You would be spagettified, not really ripped apart. This is mostly because when you are being sucked into a black hole you will be experiencing different amounts of gravity; the closer you get to the hole, the faster you will move toward it. Since your whole body can't be in one point at a time you will be pulled at different speeds, so you will be turned into human spagetti, only you would be 1 long noodle. Nobody knows what going into black holes will be like, but people have ideas. Ad the idea of you being able to feel the pain if you went head first came up because people compared the speed of the nervous system to the speed you might be entering a black hole. And almost anybody can think of how painful it would be to be rolled out like play-doh.

[VxDx]

Originally Posted by Specforces

Most of you are quoting classic textbook scientific theory, I am viewing this from a philosophical perspective. Ok here's a scenario that will further explain and expound on my point.....*edited out to save space. You know what you said*

Well, if you want to go philosophical, how can you know what you percieve as time exists? Futhermore, how can you know that what you consider reality is as you believe it is?

I posted the equation for the exact reason that the equations exists. It symbolically identifies what effect different variables have on time, and also gives limits as to what the values of those variables can be.

What does it have to do with the discussion at hand? Well it happens to be an experimentally verified equation, and one that is used in countless other higher level equations in physics. It would indicate, then, that the theories proposed by the physicists has some merit, particularly when they have been verified to the best ability of science.

for more of an explanation of special relativity, without offending makaveli by stating something relevant, go here. http://science.howstuffworks.com/relativity.htm

[makaveli121212]

still, as this has been avoided, if i were cloned and one of me lives on a satellite traveling 50000 miles per hour and the other me lives on a satellite going 0 mph and we lived the exact same lives, you would say the me traveling faster would live longer right

[VxDx]

Well, if one of you were traveling 50000 miles per hour and the other weren't, you wouldn't be leading the same lives now would you. Plus, to yourselves, assuming you both live the same amount of time, you would think that you are living the same amount of time, but relative to a body at rest, the person at rest would die earlier in the at rest frame of reference, according to special relativity.

[Specforces]

Originally Posted by Specforces

This raises a further fascinating question. Does time then really exist at all? Or is it just a figment of our perception? Certainly if time doesn't really exist then it can't be said to be able to speed it. If something doesn't actually exist it can't actually be said to 'do' anything.

That's what I was trying to get at here VxDx, thanks for adding merit to your arguements, I have a newfound respect for you.

[Master_of_PARANOiA]

Originally Posted by Specforces

That's what I was trying to get at here VxDx, thanks for adding merit to your arguements, I have a newfound respect for you.

I do too.

I don't believe that time can speed up, however it is a measurement that was created by humans (the system of time: minutes, hours, seconds, year, millenia, etc) so technically we could change it to be faster. For example: one second is 1000 milliseconds, we could change one second to reflect 500 milliseconds and thus make our concept of time "faster".

Just my 3.1415926[insert last _____________ digits of pi] cents

[makaveli121212]

exactly...everything that we know of as physics was basically made up...and not to say made up like it was imaginary, so i dont offend you physics queers, but taking educated statements and aplpying them to explain the world and how and why it works the way it does...the theory makes some sense, but is it logical? i say no, not because i believe it isnt fact...it is fact, but to any human mind it should be illogical or your brain isnt functioning correctly...its really hard to put my thoughts into words, and im sure this postis going to sound pretty poorly, but you can probably see where im coming from

[VxDx]

What you say makes a lot of sense. Physics and math and all that are really just systems. The beauty of them is that they help to define what our environment is. To me, it's almost like the brain cannot accept some fact straight off. The brain wonders why it is true, but the why isn't really asking "why?" in the sense that the brain really wants to know, it's asking "why?" in the sense that it needs some idea of the inner workings, it wants to know how things work together, and the easiest and most logical way to express such complex ideas is with math. Math, in and of itself, is a system whereby one can define certain ideas. The beauty and draw of math, for me at least, is how it builds upon itself, not necessarily because it was designed to do so, but because as an ordered system it has to. For instance, on the surface, you can take what you learn in math and apply it. I'm not most people, but it's my belief that that is what most people do. Then there are the mathematicians, who look further behind to find out why, or who find out why to build up the ideas of mathematics. An example; Calculus was developed out of the fact that it has some very interesting uses and very simple definitions and processes. Most people look at calculus and can understand how to manipulate the numbers, but they don't understand why you manipulate the numbers in that way to get the derivative, or integral, or anything. In this case, it's the really brilliant minds that develop and understand these things.

Getting back on track... as far as the theory being "logical", I say no. It's so far off from any experience that people have that nobody should just blindly say "yeah, that sounds about right" when told about time dilation for the first time. It's almost as though, because no one really knows the "why" of time dilation, they just know the "what", it's harder for the mind to comprehend. I believe, however, that the intent of this post was to discuss whether or not time dilation was thought to actually occur, as in "though the idea cannot really be "seen" by people, does the theory make sense in a that-could-happen kind of way?". As far as this question goes, I do think that time dilation makes sense, and I do believe that this is truly what happens at those high speeds.

[makaveli121212]

exactly...its not only that were asking why, its why were asking why...i think there are certain ideals embedded in each individuals mind from the begining...and whether you want to believe time dilation or not you still cant hlep but get thoughts of it not being true because certain things were told to you over long periods of time

[JustJono]

I personally don't believe in "time". All that time is, is erosion, whatever. It's just the action of *happening*. If you poked a bottle of rat poison and it fell over, that isn't time: that's a bottle of rat poison falling over. I don't understand why there has to be a dimension, or a special name for something so .. so something you don't have to pay attention to. You don't need a whole 'timeline' or a big 'timeframe' to be living. To be living, all you have to do is be living.

I just realized now how hard it is to describe my thoughts on this in words. But hopefully you get my point.

[VxDx]

I see your point, but I think you are looking at it the wrong way. You are looking at the changes that the passing of time creates as being what people think time is. Time, however, is what is passing that creates those occurances. I think that you look at it like this because time is such an abstract idea on the most basic level that it's hard to comprehend, so the common idea of time relates to the effects of time, more specifically it's passing, so you just eliminate time and just take the occurances as happening. This, I don't think, is the correct way of looking at it. Something has to change for those things to happen, and that change is what we commonly call time.

I guess that was a pretty poor explanation of my thoughts, so nevermind it if you don't understand what I'm saying.

[makaveli121212]

time exists because we allow it to exist...and we need time to exist and be measurable so we can get to school and work and partys at the same time...without a constant, measurable amount of time things on earth wouldnt run very efficiently

[Omeganitros]

Its like this: The Rules Of Logic only apply to logic. If you use it on something else, it wont work. Its like using the rules of Chess to play Hungry Hungry Hippos. And as far as Im concerned, reality is not logic. So I dont think spacetime is either.

[makaveli121212]

agreed, its hard to apply logic to something that isnt logical

[jazzmosis]

Originally Posted by makaveli121212

agreed, its hard to apply logic to something that isnt logical

Example: Human idealogy.

[makaveli121212]

well for instance in calc i learned a few months ago a theorem called MVT...Mean Value Theorem...if you trying to find the are under the curve of a function, per se x^2 over the interval (2,6) you cannot simply use algebra because it is a curve...what the mean value theorem states is that if you find the average height of the graph within that interval and mutiply it by 6-2, the width, you would get the correct area...however, there are an infinite number of heights throughout the graph of x^2 where x is between 2 and 6...the theorem works all the time, but the idea of finding an average of an infinite amount of numbers isnt very logical...

this post was too long for the point i was trying to make...i couldnt think of anything better though...you get the point though

[AlbinoLime]

Originally Posted by makaveli121212

but to any human mind it should be illogical or your brain isnt functioning correctly

So....what you're saying is that if the equation makes sense to anybody their brain does not work properly? Maybe it's your brain that does not work.....