TIME- A CONVERSATION

(The following can be read as an entertaining conversation between an amateur physicist and his friend. Please note that the statements made here need not be true as the physicist himself is an amateur and these need to be understood as his own ideas.*)

We were in a playground. My friend had a stone in his hand. He said he could throw it up at an angle of 60^o to the ground with a velocity of 10ms^-1. After a few calculations I told him that the stone would rise to about 3.823 m above ground and would take 1.766 seconds to come back to ground traveling 8.828 m horizontally.

After sometime I asked him, “Was I predicting future?”

And hence started the dialogue…

What is time?
The word “change” owes everything to time. Time is THE only means of accomplishing change in the universe.

Is time like a river that flows? What do we mean by the movement of time?

The whole of realizable Universe can be described successfully by the concept of “events”. Like a series of pictures that stand in a line, we tend to associate an incrementing real number to every frame (event) arbitrarily. And with this notion originates the concept of “before” and “after”. By convention, the “after” event has a higher time value than the “before” event. We have been used to measuring this time with the aid of a singular repeatable event, like say, the tick of a clock. Every time the clock moves, we increment our arbitrary measure of the flow of time by one. (I was beginning to have a smile on my face as I was dragging him into difficult times. He was now searching for tougher questions for me.) It all seems troublesome because we have life, we are alive, intelligent and inside the picture.

What do you mean? Me, my home, my life, my continuous life…how can you say that they come in bits and pieces? I see it as a continuous flow.

Though it sounds that time has to be, in principle, continuous, at the quantum level, time has a resolution. We cannot describe events beyond a particular interval of time. Nature is a careful genius. It shows, but it doesn’t show all. Rather, it could be its own flaw that it can’t show to its own creation. (I was bringing in philosophy to please him)

Why should time move? Why not remain static?

Now that we have our Universe, by default it will try to “STABILIZE” itself. Note that the word stabilize here is very vague and needs further description. Let us define an abstract quantity X which needs to be stabilized. I am very careful here by not defining the quantity X mathematically and by not mentioning what the operation “stabilization” is. It could be maximization of X, minimization of X, integration of X, etc.

I can only say… U = STABILIZE (X) .

Now, U requires time; this is because, we need to alter X to alter U. We need to change X until U reaches the value of STABILIZE (X). We need to approach that value. By default, there will be a flow, a flow in the right direction, a correct method that will happen which will ensure that (U - STABILIZE (X)) is tending to 0. Many physicists believe that X is entropy of the universe and that STABILIZE is the maximization function. The entropy of the universe keeps on increasing. Time now gets a direction. The “arrow of time”, as Stephen Hawking puts it, travels in the direction of increasing entropy. Time WILL stop (to please you) when the entropy of the universe reaches a maximum and there cannot be any increment whatsoever possible. The requirement of a moving time will be over then.

I disagree. You are only using vague mathematics to fool me. You are not even defining your variables and functions accurately. Your analysis lacks mathematical rigor.

My friend, I have always used the example of the potter and the sheet metal worker to describe math. The potter makes a pot. The metal worker makes a sheet to cover the pot. The potter makes a more complicated shape. The worker sweats even more, and with much effort manages to cover up the surface of the pot with the sheet. THE METAL WORKER SHIELDS THE SURFACE OF THE POT METICULOUSLY WITH HIS SHEETS. The mathematician describes the universe with his math. (I was now feeling victorious having downsized the mathematician.) Do you think that all atoms of a radioactively decaying metal sit together and then calculate the exponential variation and then say to each other, now, two of you decay, now ,three of you decay? Do you think that the earth, owing some credit to the dear mathematician, calculate its path and deliberately travel in an ellipse? Do you think the Universe functions the way the mathematician says? In fact, it’s the other way…Says nature to the math man…with your inefficient tools you try to describe me. The metal worker tries to cover the pot…

Don’t confuse me with what math is. Tell me if our destiny is already determined.

We don’t realize that most of the equations we know in physics require time though they don’t incorporate it explicitly. For example, the famous Newtonian gravitation equation does not have time in it. This doesn’t mean that gravitation is independent of time. Gravitational effect is not felt instantly infinitely all over the space. The effect requires time to propagate through space. Hence, all the things that can happen in that time need to be taken into account in order to completely describe the equation. We need to take care of every possible variation. Imagine, the time taken for a drop of water falling down in a busy street. The breathing patterns of all the people in the surrounding alter the velocity and acceleration of the drop, the humidity in the atmosphere, the air friction, the air velocity, the air composition, the tsunami hitting the coasts of Chennai, the desert storms of Dubai, the possibility of someone destroying the drop in between, so many so many things can change it. If you could determine the behavior of every single human being, if you could tell why a particular person did not breathe at a particular instant but did at the other, if you could, in principle determine every variable, which are definitely infinite in number, you could have a deterministic evaluation of the time. You could then, be predicting future. If the inefficient sheet metal worker succeeds to stop approximating and learns to completely cover the pot avoiding the conventional methods and approximations, if he can REALIZE the cover rather than practically and unsuccessfully try and cover it, then, the Universe can be completely described. If mathematics can completely model deterministically, the human behavior and every other thing that can ever happen, then it can be possible to describe the future. The number of variables involved, the level of complexity involved, the amount of effort required to realize it all is so exceedingly high that it is better, as earthly mortals, to understand the future as a completely unpredictable, unknown territory and only expect the best as U approaches STABILIZE (X) .

We have established the probability theory and the chaos theory very well I suppose…

Comfort from the lack of knowledge? Measure of ignorance? What is the name of your theory, Mr. Mathematician?

I am totally lost. Where do we stand, as humans?

Now that is a good question. We have to orient our discussion towards the next interesting topic…reality. What is reality? (I somehow loved the way I asked this question). The persistence of an object in time… is it a way to identify REAL objects? The fact that if an object ACTUALLY existed there or not “AT THAT PARTICULAR INSTANCE OF TIME”. Now, time is not absolute, unfortunately, as the Special theory of Relativity puts it and this destroys the very concept REALITY. The next thing to realize is that the entire math, all the science, all the understanding of the Universe is happening in our brains. The fact if the drop is actually falling in the street can only reach the thought execution centre (brain, for short) through the limited input of our senses. The execution centre resides closed inside petite boxes called “self” or “individual” or “human being”. All our conception that we live, we have a home, we have a life, we live in a galaxy called the Milky Way can all be false data fed into the execution centre by the inputs (for fun, or for some unknown purpose). We can only say if a box present in front of us is ACTUALLY there or not only if we could come out of our self, take in an input other than the senses of vision, sound, taste, touch and smell and then analyze. If we could confirm if the way we receive information into the execution centre is the way it actually is, then that actuality can be the reality. The car analogy works pretty well in this context. The life we lead is rather like traveling in a car. We maneuver the car (we move in the world) and we see through the windshields (we see with our eyes) , etc. We can only tell about the road we are traveling on by looking through the glass, our input is limited to the input of the car. If we could step out and SEE…

Think about this…

Our whole world, us, the people around us, the objects, everything could just be the fake inputs of our senses. The instance of an external intelligence that of another human surrounding us, could still only be a trick of the inputs. It is possible that your execution centre and its funny input sources can be the only reality of the universe. This conversation that I am having with you could just be an input your ears and your eyes are giving you, as if I am standing in front of you and speaking to you, it could all be false. It could all be a trick…imagine…Now you can claim that you LEARNT many facts today and that you didn’t know them before and hence it could not be a false input and that I do exist. What if?

What if I say that you already knew everything that there is to ever know and you realize that you know everything slowly as the false inputs of a WORLD around you, full of other people and that you have a body yourself and that you are one among them and that you live in this Universe. The death of an external human being only implies the termination of input data from that source or regarding that source. It does not mean your end. You are the only reality of the universe, you are your execution centre… think about it… (He had enough). The learned never teaches…the learned only knows that he knows.

* Note that this is a very clever way that the author uses to establish his ideas and at the same time run away without claiming responsibilities in case any data is erroneous.