When did time begin?

Hey all.... The other night in IRC we were having a discussion of when we believe time in our universe/cosmos etc... began. In todays theories we have come to understand that time must have had a beginning. Why? Well if time has just always exsisted and been infinit, then the universe would have come to a temperture equilibrium and the cosmos/universe would be the same temperture throughout. Obviously we are not all the same temperature... So.... When did it begin?

What do you guys think?

Try to give a good logical explanation of your thought.. :)

x

Welp, apparently in this Month's Issue of Discover Magazine (April 2002) they have come to a conclusion:

http://www.discover.com/current_issue/index.html

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni.html

time doesent exist, we made it up to define the distance between 2 points of existence.

Well I think that time has to exist. If it doesn't exist then that means that if i jump into my car to drive somewhere, then i will meet my past self, and future self there every time i get into the car. The time you may be thinking bout is our concept of hours days minutes etc... But the time i'm talking about is the grand "spacetime" that causes a natural progression through space and time. yesterday certainly isn't today... and today certainly isn't tommorow....

I'm going to have to look up that mag and see what it says

it does exist, but its not something that passes, as everyone thinks, (this is my personal opinion) Its more of a measurement of distance between 2 events during existence.

so in this thinking.. if I weren't moving, then time wouldn't exist. That means that one wouldn't age so long as he weren't moving?

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time doesent exist, we made it up to define the distance between 2 points of existence.

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I think I know what you mean, but does that mean that speed, length, weight, etc. all don't exist, cos we did make them up too.

- We made up time to be a measure of how long somthing takes to do something, or travel somewhere.
- We made up speed to measure how fast something is.
- We made up length to measure how far something spans.
- We made up weight to measure how heavy something is.
- etc.

Basically, all I'm saying is that I think it does exist, it's simply a measure of something, like the others things are (speed, weight, length).

Greg

Hot ice is very correct with the fact that time does exist.... it is the passing of days and seasons... the name time (hours and minutes and such) is just the name we gave for the earth going around the sun in that sense. it is also a measurement for existance along a continuing line. this is true because of what xmaddness said

i will try to explain the beginning of time for both of the major theories of the beginning of the universe

now... assuming creation is correct. time began on the first day of creation... as we can see here...

Genesis 1:5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.

so there is creation and the beginning of time. that one is pretty simple.

now assuming the big bang is correct, (and bear with me, this one is less simple)
if there was nothing before the big bang, than the entire universe came from nothing. for that kind of spontaneous vacuum genesis to occur, it would take nearly INFINITE amounts of time...but, since nothing was there before the big bang, time is irrelevant, so we can assume that the big bang pretty much happened right away. thus time did not exist before the big bang.

also... if you use the assumption that time is no more then the earth going around the sun, then time existed when the earth did.... but that assumption can't be made. the assumption has to be made tat time existed once something existed, because once something existed there was a reason for a line of existance to be, thus keeping past and future apart...

yes it exists, but its nothing more than a measurement... not a "dimention" (i cnat spell) or somehting like that, (i get a lot of people arguing that to me.)

Lets talkabout time itself while were on the topic. Really, all time is, is a measurement of how long it takes our earth to spin on it axis. So Time on another planet would be totally different.
Also time from a Biblical stand point was different as well.

The structure of the Bible's internal calendar is not given directly. The various references to time found within its pages can be used to reconstruct the Bible calendar. That calendar provides the structure for counting precise days all the way from Adam to the present. It is also the calendar used in prophetic passages dealing with days months and years.

The Bible's definition of a day is unclear. Likely candidates include Sunrise and Sunset. This leaves all final date references, especially for predicted dates, with a tolerance of 1 day.

Bible months are a predictable 30 days each. No exceptions. There is no attempt to make the month synchronize with the movements of the earth's moon. It also makes time counted with months quite precise.

Biblical years come in two lengths with three different names. Years are either 360 days or 390 days, 12 or 13 months. The long years fall on the Sabbath and Jubilee years within a 50 year cycle.

Time is irrelevant...based on how one percieves it...
A measurement between one point of existence and another, certainly...a succession of points of 'now', certainly...
The big bang(however untrue it is) or the creation(however untrue it is) only give reference points in the flow of time...'time' being a key factor in the realm of 'entropy'...
I would rather see things referenced to the scale of eternity...this happens, then this, then this...taken from a personal scale...counting down the days between events is an archaic thought process, in my opinion...
Whatever happened to 'i remember when...', and not 'on xx/xx/xxx this thing happened'...
The measurement of time was created by beings that seem to need reference points, however irrelevant...case in point, i am over xx years old, but don't remember WWII...dates and times don't relate anything special to me, no matter what my schooling or the History Channel says...i can't relate to things that way, since i have no memory of them. My biological age doesn't mean much to me either, come to think of it. But if someone can tell me about the past(past, present, and future being subjective terms), i'll listen and try to understand, but don't overwhelm me with dates and times...they are irrelevant...see my point?

Ouroboros

I do think time exists, even though you can't put it into a can... And time continues to exist after we have died.
SarinMage: It's not a dimension? But space is 4-dimensional. Light travels so slow that scientists need to know the time-space coordinates of events to measure them and so on, you know...

-ZeroOne :cool:

"Time is an illusion. Especially the lunch time." -Ford Prefect

time is a creation. Currently we live in it. Does that make sense? It seems that time can be relative, especially in distance.

yes time is relative in the measurement sense, but there is definitely a passing of something. there is definitely a forward progress that only goes in that one said directoin and it effects all that is around it. which is why while i am typing this, someone is making lunch or going to sleep. in a little while, i may no longer be typing this, but i can not walk over and see them doing the things they were doing while i typed this, because "time" passed. see what i am getting at?

time is something that is used to describe a passing of an event or measurement. Don't believe that? Go look up how the one second measurement is done. We describe time in increments, note that all measuring is done in increments as well. Where am I going with this? Um.
The others said similar things in any case.

one second is the time it takes for one photon of light to travel 2.98*10^8 metres (approx) That's quite irrelevant though. The Concept of time is somethign that started along with the universe and runs alongside it. Now a few theorists predicted that time and space intermingled at some points, which led Einstein to show how time slows down with speed (the experiments with the Atomic Clocks in the aeroplanes). So we can see that time is the so called 4th-dimension. Hence, it started with the creation of the (current) universe, and will end IF our universe ever ends (the Big Crunch, but that's looking quite unlikely at the moment). For more info read The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings.

time is not a constant. That second measurement - is that not with only the blue light spectrum? Time can be flexible.

Well I'm happy to see such a response from everybody.. Well here is some info on the theory of time from the physics aspect. Some of this is directly taken from Stephen Hawkings book The Universe in a Nutshell and will be quoted accordingly. ;)

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Quoted from The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking

Einsteins general theory of relativity combines the time dimension with the three dimensions of space to form what is called spacetime. The theory incorporates the effect of gravity by saying that the distribution of matter and energy in the universe warps and distorts spacetime, so that it is not flat. Objects in this spacetime try to move in straight lines, but because spacetime is curved, their paths appear bent. They move as if affected by a gravitational field. By curving space and time, general relativity changes space and time from being a passive background against which events take place to being active, dynamic participants in what happens.

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Dam this guy knows how to put it into words. I could try but I would probably just confuse myself and others.

Okay so this means that time is in fact a viable, tangible object. If it can affect objects in space, then it must exsist. Time as descibed in this way as having a shape means that there are several different possibilities of what shape it has. Some possibilities may be that it is flat, round like earth, or some other type of shape.

Well lets go ahead and discuss this part of the time equation.

Questions:

1) Is time a tangible thing. Alot of you have said that it is just a measurement that we have made up. Does this quote change your view or reinforce it?

2) If in fact time is as descibed as having a shape, what shape is it? Does it have edges that we can "fall off", or is it round like a sphere and we simply just keep circulating around it? Perhaps it is some completely random shape.

If anyone doesn't understand any of this please, please ask me too elaborate on it either by posting or PM'ing me. I would like everybody to come along for the ride.

Let's do it! :)

xmaddness

Fine, but...spacetime is not 'time' as most measure it. Most people have no knowledge of the curvature of space-time, nor how matter changes it. From the eyes of an 80 year existence, it becomes irrelevant. The weight of thought changes nothing...'time' passes...and entropy degrades everything...except for the passage of moments....

Everything is relative in a closed frame...

Ouroboros

Okay I can see some of you have a very valid point here. Time is simply a product that began with the universe. Stephen has actually addressed this same point in his book and I will display it here.

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Quoted directly from The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking

Time and space are defined by measurements within the universe, such as the number of vibrations of a quartz crystal in a clock or the length of a ruler.

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detector, SarinMage, Hot_ice, lord_darkside_x, and Dr Toker have a valid point. What if time IS simply somthing human thought has made up to define the distance between two objects.

Okay the question is this.

Flibberdy brought up the two planes experiment that was conducted. Two different times were recorded.

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Originally posted by Flibberdy on 03-30-2002 at 04:27 PM

Now a few theorists predicted that time and space intermingled at some points, which led Einstein to show how time slows down with speed (the experiments with the Atomic Clocks in the aeroplanes).

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So now... How do we decide which time frame to use? (let that sink in really quick)

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Quote continued from The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking

It is quite conceivable that time defined in this way, within the universe, should have a minimum or maximum value--in other words, a beginning or an end. It would make no sense to ask what happened before the beginning or after the end, because such times would not be defined.

It was clearly important to decide whether the mathematical model of general relativity predicted that the universe, and time itself, should have a beginning or end.

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So... What do you guys think. This brings me back to the beggining.. Did time exist before the big bang? :)

xmaddness

P.S. MsMittens.... I'm still looking for that mag.. lol

I'll vote that time did not exist before the beginning.

I'll vote that time existed before and after the now defunct "Big Bang"(see the March issue of Scientific American...can't remember the title). But it still remains irrelevant, due to the lack of observers...'time' at least how mortal beings see it, is framed and counted...but in essence, I think, is that the question of 'the beginning' and the 'beginning of time' are codependant, since mortal beings are pondering it. Their only relevance resides in our own perception, and is thusly fitted to our own frame...

Ouroboros

edit...it's the march issue of SciAm, page 60...called "the Cosmic Reality Check"...also an article in there about an ISOS(Internet-scale Operating System) that doesn't fit into this conversation, but is interesting nonetheless...

O

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Originally posted by Ouroboros
I'll vote that time existed before and after the now defunct "Big Bang"(see the March issue of Scientific American...can't remember the title). But it still remains irrelevant, due to the lack of observers...'time' at least how mortal beings see it, is framed and counted...but in essence, I think, is that the question of 'the beginning' and the 'beginning of time' are codependant, since mortal beings are pondering it. Their only relevance resides in our own perception, and is thusly fitted to our own frame...

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Afaik, time is the fourth dimension... You can't have the first three dimensions without the fourth, you can't have the fourth without the first three. The lack of observers is irrelevant (it's like saying "that three around the corner doesn't exist because no-one's looking at it at the moment").

Time is not fitted to our own frame... the way we experience time is, but that doesn't say a thing about the concept of time itself....

I'll vote that their is no beginning...

lack of observers is essential. If somthing cannot conseve time, then things are jsut happening. Time isent an object, its a refrence. Time is just something we use for ourselves as a refrence, to help us understand whats going on around us. it doesent have any type of energy. it just is. Conceptually it does exist, but, it in all actuality, its jsut a concept, not an actual "thing" that exists.

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Originally posted by SarinMage
Time isent an object, its a refrence.

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The way we experience time is a reference, time itself is not just a reference. By saying otherwise, you say that time didn't start untill humans came to this world ( time would start with Adam and Eve - or time would start with the first conscious humans then - kinda weird if you ask me...). You can't have space (the first three dimensions) without time (the fourth dimension).
'If something cannot conceive time, things are just happening'? Things don't happen if there's no time, whether there's an observer or not... Time happens all the time, whether there's an observer or not...

time is our way of measuring length of existence. maybe im going about this in the wrong way.... perhaps Time has too broad of a meaning

i wouldent call time the 4th dimension, 4 deminsion is something a bit more complex i believe

I'll go with Neg on this one. Logical.

If a tree in the forest falls... and nobody is there to see it fall... did it actually fall? Of course it did. Just because no one was there to observe it doesn't mean it doesn't exsist.

gah....... im saying that the word TIME as i use it, means a refrence of points in existence. i dont think that the 4th dimension is time, theres more to it then that, jsut saying its time seems too simple to me.

All we can do is observe the effects of time. Time in and of itself doesn't 'exist'. I would go off on some tangent but I'm pretty much in agreement with Dr Hawking on this one.

"The theory of relativity does, however, force us to change fundamentally our ideas of space and time. We must accept that time if not completely separate from and independent of space, but is combined with it to form an object called space-time."

-quoted from http://www.generationterrorists.com/.../abhotswh.html

THANK YOU thats what im trying to say......

what if time it self is a loop with no start or end point .and our daily time is a human concept so we can deal with this reality

Funny how the concept of 'time' wavers through ANY perception...nobody's sure, noone disagrees...no matter the context...

Time is eternal(or so some say)...one of the unbeheld mysteries of existence...it just IS, and even those who know things cannot seperate themselves from it,... because they are a part of it...

Ouroboros

Just thinking...