digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

Newsflash: Time May Not Exist

discovermagazine.com — Physicists are confounded about how time actually fits into the universe. One theory is that “time may be an approximate concept that emerges at large scales—a bit like the concept of ‘surface of the water,’ which makes sense macroscopically but which loses a precise sense at the level of the atoms."

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 13, 2008

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

465 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • inactive, on 01/13/2008, -6/+341this is great news for arguing with your boss about how you're not really "late"...
  • Schneckehaus, on 01/13/2008, -21/+226This is like saying inches don't exist.

    Ofcourse inches don't "exist", they're an idea.
    But they're a damn useful one.
    Just like time.
  • RobsaysHello, on 01/13/2008, -1/+152Stop trying to weasel out of your mortgage.
  • Haecceity, on 01/13/2008, -0/+140Time doesn't exist. More at 11:00.
  • praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+118Though it kinda sucks if you're getting paid hourly.
  • baron1703, on 01/13/2008, -2/+85and hammer time
  • Rheic, on 01/13/2008, -8/+85Things were occurring in a particular order for billions of years before we were around.
  • kpaphysicist, on 01/13/2008, -5/+75and that's why physics is such a mind *****.
  • cplusplus, on 01/13/2008, -2/+63So now we can ask the presidential candidates if they believe in time.
  • LeeSoong, on 01/13/2008, -17/+68"And lunch time, doubly so..."

    - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Rheic, on 01/13/2008, -6/+56No it isn't. Inches are just a way of measuring physical properties that do exist. Your example is more like if the article was saying seconds don't exist.
  • h3lx, on 01/13/2008, -3/+52I spent my entire lunch mindlessly following informative leads generated by this article and I'm no closer to grasping a universe without time than I was when I started... I did find this though-
    - "You got your Quantum Physics in my Relative Universe! You got your Relative Universe in my Quantum Physics! Ugh, this taste like *****."
    -I can't say it was a waste of 'Time' since it really does not exist.
  • Rheic, on 01/13/2008, -0/+48(Except the weasel)
  • zanzzz, on 01/13/2008, -1/+40Buried as dupe. This was posted already many weeks from now.
  • inactive, on 01/13/2008, -0/+39So where is yesterday now?
  • rhinopig, on 01/13/2008, -1/+39According to Einstein, time is relative, but that doesn't mean it's subjective.

    Of course the real question is, If time doesn't exist, how can there really be a 'news' flash.
  • Cupantae, on 01/13/2008, -3/+37Who knows, though, youmightbewrong
  • fultonla, on 01/13/2008, -4/+34I prefer the metric system.
  • Schneckehaus, on 01/13/2008, -2/+25Time is just a graph between two states, nothing more.
    It's an abstract representation of physical change.

    If my hand is 5 inches away fromface, the distance in and of itself is not a THING, but rather a concept defining a state. Inches are a mere aspect of the abstract, jsut how seconds are only an incremental aspect of time. But their status is inseperable when referring to their bearing on physical flux. Tims is just a direction like right or left. But, like all other dimensions, it exists in states.
    Kinetic energy is just math, sir, when you "travel" between two places, all you are doing is completing the algorithm already set in motion by the infintely complex universe we live in.

    Arguably, if all life is a math equation playing itself out like some terrible Rube Goldberg machine we live in, does that mean fate exists? And if fate exists, that supports the argument of every philosophical epiphenominalist ever in history, and the quiet submission to unavoidable conflict. Infact, this is what caused Ablert Camus to write his essay on absurdism in the early 1940s (Le Mythe de Sisyphe), about the fact that life is pointless and absurd, and that ultimate cosmic joke is THE purpose for existence, and one ought to enjoy it, although whether they enjoy it or not might as well be predestined. You are living an illusion, but that is NO reason to think that the illusion can not be enjoyed in lieu of some other absolutist reality propagated by some sort of ancient mythos and metaphysics. Time is nothing. But that doesn't mean that it is not important.
    It's only a contradiction if you try to think of it in familiar terms, you need an alien approach for this one.




    ...sorry, the philosophy buff in escaped for a moment :P
  • Cwicseolfor, on 01/13/2008, -1/+24I don't have time to think about this.
  • Wilson, on 01/13/2008, -1/+24But weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals.
  • dsmx, on 01/13/2008, -0/+21However time slows down under extreme gravity and speed maybe other factors we don't know about yet. So even the fusion of atoms which takes time is not at a constant rate everywhere in the galaxy relative to where we are observing them from. The universe is a strange place.
  • Ramble, on 01/13/2008, -4/+24If time doesn't exist, what are we measuring?
  • mnocket, on 01/13/2008, -1/+20Well let's see...... correct me if I'm wrong, but without time there is no velocity, acceleration or even movement. These are all time-dependent constructs. There is not much left to physics without time-dependent constructs. Perhaps physics is an illusion too? Also, I'm not sure I understand the 'human concept" argument. Could you give me some examples of what you consider to be human and non-human concepts?
  • crunchyeyeball, on 01/13/2008, -0/+18No, no, and no. Just as (FTA) Planck time is the smallest unit of time that has any physical meaning, so the Planck length is the smallest meaningful unit of length. Neither, it seems, are infinitely divisible.
  • MrZaiko, on 01/13/2008, -1/+18this may help you Understand TIME http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvd3kaupZ60
  • Schneckehaus, on 01/13/2008, -2/+19We are measuring comparisons.

    Relativity, duh?
  • Elliuotatar, on 01/13/2008, -1/+17I wonder if he realises that the transistors and things on computer chips are now so small now that we need to know how quantum mechanics works to continue to make them smaller, and that making the connections smaller is how you make PC's faster, and that faster PC's are deperately needed for that medical research he wants scientists to do so badly?
  • UrinalPooper, on 01/13/2008, -1/+17How can something be old if there is no time?
  • mulletmusketeer, on 01/13/2008, -0/+16Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
  • Synova, on 01/13/2008, -1/+16Well, that's one theory. Then there's those that people actually research and don't just make up in their head.
  • crunchyeyeball, on 01/13/2008, -0/+15"Perhaps at the quantum level there is some fundamental time base at which matter operates but I have never heard of such a thing."

    Then I'm guessing you didn't even get as far as the second paragraph in the article. FTA: "...Planck time—the smallest unit of time that has any physical meaning—is 10-43 second..."
  • robdiggity, on 01/13/2008, -0/+15and time to make the donuts.
  • speezer, on 01/13/2008, -0/+14and that time of the month.
  • pateo, on 01/13/2008, -1/+14Yeah, GOD forbid someone didn't live according to social constructs.
  • Schneckehaus, on 01/13/2008, -2/+15You realize that physics is the fundamental science that gives us the most basic understanding of our other sciences?
    Do you think that the molecular processes of the body could be proerply comprehended with physics?

    You sir, are an idiot.
  • kirushik, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1325920000000 (=300000*24*60*60) kilometers away
  • JakeDeathless, on 01/13/2008, -3/+15I'll stick with the metric system.
  • JasonCox, on 01/13/2008, -0/+12Ah-ha! Take that 8-5 job!
  • booshack, on 01/13/2008, -0/+12face: palm
  • Jahweh, on 01/13/2008, -1/+12I've never been harsh in a comment before, but.. You Idiot
  • abhorsen666, on 01/13/2008, -0/+11its called plank time, whilst not really a base unit of time, the intervals between 1 plank time and the next are erratic
  • maanwi, on 01/13/2008, -1/+11The belief that time is infinitely divisible seems to be a logic problem akin to Zeno's paradox. At some point, no matter how ridiculously small, there must be a smallest unit of measure; without it there can be no movement that would ultimately arrive at a defined boundary.
  • 0zymandias, on 01/13/2008, -1/+11I'll say - first saw this on digg a year from now.
  • JakeDeathless, on 01/13/2008, -4/+14Does that mean we're never getting out of Iraq?
  • Fordi, on 01/13/2008, -1/+11Actually, the series 1/2:1/4:1/8... CAN be solved using simple algebra - if you're using binary.
    1/2 = 0.1; 1/4 = 0.01, etc.
    so, the sum of the series is 0.111111... repeating.

    x = 0.11111...
    10(2 dec)x = 1.11111...
    10x - x = 1.00000...
    x = 1
  • codyman, on 01/13/2008, -1/+11sweet... can we please now change each day to 30 hours then? I still feel like I don't have enough free time / sleep each day and that extra six hours would rock
  • sk11, on 01/13/2008, -1/+10Much of the technology employed to detect cancer was founded by physicists figuring "stuff like this out!" Do you think microbiologists invented CAT/PET/MRI scanners, was it they who discovered and worked to understand radiation?
  • GeekyGerge, on 01/13/2008, -2/+11IT'S HAMMER TIME
  • mukestar, on 01/13/2008, -0/+9who the hell is tom arrow?
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 100 of 465 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.