What is time?

Prophet

Temporal Novice
I am writing a book on time, what it is, and how it works. I am looking for the opinions of some of others. So if you don't mind answering those two questions - you can get as detailed as you like - I would be grateful.

Prophet
 
Time02112: thanks for the link, I did find some very interesting and insightful information.

Shadow: could you further explain your mind/matter concept for me? And yes, I anticipate that the book will be quite long!

Prophet
 
Thanks, those site were both helpful - they fit in with my theme, how different religions, and/or worldviews, view time.

Prophet
 
Sorry to didn't answer before.

What is time? First of all, time is 4 letters that represent the meaning of the small numbers changing on your watch. Second, it's something that we've threat until now as the same paradox as the earth being flat. In third place come all the calculation to make you believe that time exist and what is there for.

Here we want to use time in a non-common sens and utilisation. The invention of video have change the men's mind about time, now he wants the "remote-control" to fastforward his life, or rewind it, or change his universe. Why not?

<This message has been edited by dob (edited 08 May 2001).>
 
Prophet

I wish you well in your bold plans. But in my opinion the subject of time is just too big to put between the covers of one english language book. If you go heavy on the math you might squeeze it down to some 'cutesy' formula like E=MC^2 or T= Space/Mass (as in Space=Mind). But then, as you pointed out, one would have a lot of explaining to do.

In other words (IMHO) a good discription of time would also be a complete discription of the entire universe......because it IS the entire universe. Time is not only the material of creation but also the soul and functional mechanisms of it.

To put it yet another way you can't explain a little portland cement with out adding a whole lot of water and gravel to it. Have fun.

Oh yeh, by the way, if you haven't mixed cement by hand you should try it. Very theraputic and mentally satisfying. Time well spent: you get concrete results every time.
 
Shadow: you're convinced that explaining "time and how it work" would take more then one book? I agree with you, to explain it proprely it will certainly take at least 12 encyclopedias. But I believe that you're able to write down few pages and get the interest of the amateur and make a best-seller. Anyway, who can explain something like time (from point a to point b to point x,y,z?)...

Is your name Shadow because there is something between you and the source of light? joking
happy.gif
!
 
Maybe Douglas Adams said it best in HITCHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY:

"The answere to life, the universe and everything is 42" (and I can prove it ha ha)

dob, I'm glad you agree with me, it saves keystrokes.

A shadow can be many things, unfortunatly none of them are very bright.
 
not that this is important or anything, but check out the opening statement for my game:

Time. What is it REALLY? Someone once said that time is the mesurement of exsitance.
If this is true, are we saying that we mesure time by our lifes exsitance, waiting for our deaths? Someone else said that time is a mesurement of movement. So far this has held true. Would you not die if you body stopped moving? The problem with these theroys is the lack of common sense.
And besides, me and my friends know what time really is. And its more terrifying then you think.

i wrote this for the opening, and i thought i did a good job.
 
Shadow: I also agree that I could never get everything about time in one book, but as dob said, I can get enough in there to pique the interest of others.

VERTIGO: That was a pretty good start, certaintly gets one thinking.

As of right now I have recieved/studied over 15 different theories/views on time, each one in and of itself quite interesting. Some appeal more to the masses as exciting, hard to explain, almost sci-fi like, theories while others appeal more to the intellectual as strictly scientific in all of its breadth, and then there are, of course, those in the middle - those that combine elements of both.

I hope to condense what I discover into 3-5 main views and give enough on each to encourage the reader to do research of the topic on their own, to provide mathematics and scientific principles, but not so many as to make uninteresting or cumbersome to the common reader (like A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking).

Prophet
 
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