Scientific Mysteries

LordOfWizards said:
We record events we experience with our brains. Without that ability, I don't think we would have a concept of time.
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I re-read this and started laughing heftily. With out that ability, we would have no concepts. What I mean is we experience things changing more or less the same as the next human - sun goes up, sun goes down* Time is a human experience.


* but in the end its only round and round.
 
Ray Zdybrow said:
But we effortlessly move through time, yet to move through space does take effort, ie the expenditure of energy. Why?
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Movement, though, does not require effort, either. It is only change of direction that requires effort. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

Time and motion are inextricably linked. Neither can stand alone.
 
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Wayne Mack said:
Movement, though, does not require effort, either. It is only change of direction that requires effort. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

Time and motion are inextricably linked. Neither can stand
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Wayne Mack said:
Movement, though, does not require effort, either. It is only change of direction that requires effort. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

Time and motion are inextricably linked. Neither can stand alone.
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Ok, but if I go to the shops it requires effort. If I go to tomorrow it doesn't. I think it's down to a "frame of reference" but at the "moment" I can't see it clearly!
 
@Wayne Mack ~ Sounds like Newton's first law. Inertia says object in motion stays in motion but object not moving stays at rest.

@Ray Zdybrow ~ It does require energy. You are overcoming the inertia of being at rest, so exerting a force so doing work so using energy. (Physics jargon) The point is - I agree.
 
I think it could be argued that it does take energy to reach tomorrow because you have to exist within the time period of today until tomorrow. Every second of every day we exist, we expend energy just to be here.

I’m also expending energy on this thread because it’s beginning to do my head in:)
 
Ray Zdybrow said:
But we effortlessly move through time, yet to move through space does take effort, ie the expenditure of energy. Why?
Click to expand...

Space and Time are inextricably linked. It still takes energy to travel forwards through SpaceTime even if you keep your spatial co-ordinates the same, your body still expends energy, you still need to eat and to breathe. So the premise of this question is not actually valid, because it pre-supposes conditions which are not true.
 
paranoid marvin said:
The other fascinating one are black holes; it looks as though there are a vast number of them. If and when we understand black holes better, we may find that our understanding of time and movement through the universe will alter significantly.
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I think we understand Black Holes relatively well, it's the singularity we don't really understand.
 
This article helps a little in understanding the singularity.
www.universetoday.com

What Is A Singularity?

The concept of a space-time singularity - where time and space itself become infinite and undifferentiated - is one of the most fascinated and confounding problems of modern physics.
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com
 
Ray Zdybrow said:
But we effortlessly move through time, yet to move through space does take effort, ie the expenditure of energy. Why?
Click to expand...
On our current understanding of physics there are deep connections between some fundamental concepts. One of these is that every physical symmetry leads to a conservation law.

So the symmetry of time-translation i,e. we assume that a closed system experiment will produce the same results at different times, keeping other factors the same, implies the conservation of energy.

And the symmetry of spatial-translation i.e. moving a closed system experiment in space, keeping other factors the same, does not affect the result of the experiment and implies the conservation of momentum.

See Noether's theorem for details. It's all Lagrangians and differential calculus.

If you know anything about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle this 'checks out'! Namely where the fundamental limit in accuracy is linked between momentum and position, and also there is a similar relationship between energy and time.

Add these conservation laws to our fundamental understanding of forces (which are essentially built into Noether's theorem, anyway) led to the basic physics we observe. So to answer your question. If there is an object at rest and you move it to another position you have to apply a force. The object reacts to this force 'obeying' both the conservation of momentum and energy, the initial force applied being your 'expenditure of energy'.

However, you'll note for the cosmos as a whole, if we assume the big bang theory, time had a beginning thus time-invariance is fundamentally broken. (the above conservation laws apply to closed systems inside the universe.) Hence for the cosmos there is no conservation of energy - for example as our universe expands the amount of 'dark energy' increases, the universe doesn't need to borrow energy from elsewhere.

Anyway

Finally, I think I would disagree with your statement that we 'move effortlessly through time'. Only an object that does not change state and is not influenced by any external forces will demonstrate 'effortless chrono-mechanics'. But such objects are 1) uninteresting 2) Essentially not present in our current universe - note that everything we see is definitely influenced at the very least by the gravitational force - local bodies such as planets, the Milky Way, galaxy clusters etc.

Thus assuming we believe that there is a relationship between our consciousness and the physical state of our brains, just to think we move electrons and other molecules around our brain, causing our state to change. Thus to be us we must expend energy to move physical objects. Progressing through time needs energy and interactions to change states to give rise what we experience.
 
Ray Zdybrow said:
Ok, but if I go to the shops it requires effort. If I go to tomorrow it doesn't.
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One must also be aware of the vast amount of changes that make tomorrow different from today. These changes, from the subatomic to the cosmic require energy. Even as an individual, one does not simply teleport from today to tomorrow, but instead expends energy just to survive. It is not an effortless transition.
 
Wayne Mack said:
One must also be aware of the vast amount of changes that make tomorrow different from today. These changes, from the subatomic to the cosmic require energy. Even as an individual, one does not simply teleport from today to tomorrow, but instead expends energy just to survive. It is not an effortless transition.
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Yes, that occurred to me after I posted! On the other hand, I would still persist into the next day even as a corpse. So it's not really the same thing imo
 
Venusian Broon said:
On our current understanding of physics there are deep connections between some fundamental concepts. One of these is that every physical symmetry leads to a conservation law.

So the symmetry of time-translation i,e. we assume that a closed system experiment will produce the same results at different times, keeping other factors the same, implies the conservation of energy.

And the symmetry of spatial-translation i.e. moving a closed system experiment in space, keeping other factors the same, does not affect the result of the experiment and implies the conservation of momentum.

See Noether's theorem for details. It's all Lagrangians and differential calculus.

If you know anything about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle this 'checks out'! Namely where the fundamental limit in accuracy is linked between momentum and position, and also there is a similar relationship between energy and time.

Add these conservation laws to our fundamental understanding of forces (which are essentially built into Noether's theorem, anyway) led to the basic physics we observe. So to answer your question. If there is an object at rest and you move it to another position you have to apply a force. The object reacts to this force 'obeying' both the conservation of momentum and energy, the initial force applied being your 'expenditure of energy'.

However, you'll note for the cosmos as a whole, if we assume the big bang theory, time had a beginning thus time-invariance is fundamentally broken. (the above conservation laws apply to closed systems inside the universe.) Hence for the cosmos there is no conservation of energy - for example as our universe expands the amount of 'dark energy' increases, the universe doesn't need to borrow energy from elsewhere.

Anyway

Finally, I think I would disagree with your statement that we 'move effortlessly through time'. Only an object that does not change state and is not influenced by any external forces will demonstrate 'effortless chrono-mechanics'. But such objects are 1) uninteresting 2) Essentially not present in our current universe - note that everything we see is definitely influenced at the very least by the gravitational force - local bodies such as planets, the Milky Way, galaxy clusters etc.

Thus assuming we believe that there is a relationship between our consciousness and the physical state of our brains, just to think we move electrons and other molecules around our brain, causing our state to change. Thus to be us we must expend energy to move physical objects. Progressing through time needs energy and interactions to change states to give rise what we experience.
Click to expand...
I can only address your last paragraph (due to my own ignorance) but I don't need to experience, or even be alive, to persist from one day to the next. Longer term, I will eventually decay to the point you could say I don't persist (barring fossilization, of course)
 
Here’s what really curves my space-time continuum…

Stephen Hawking (and others) say that time did not exist before the Big Bang. The article link I posted on the singularity says that physical laws either cease to exist or become indistinguishable from each other within a singularity. This kind of agrees with the Hawking view.

But, to my simple thought process, if the BB was an event the surely there had to be something prior…a kind of pre-state that caused that event to happen. But there couldn’t have been because that would indicate the existence of time.

I feel like that supercomputer when asked the simple question ‘Why?’ by Kirk.

Does not compute..does not compute….does……..not…….com……(boom)
 
Ray Zdybrow said:
Ok, but if I go to the shops it requires effort. If I go to tomorrow it doesn't. I think it's down to a "frame of reference" but at the "moment" I can't see it clearly!
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It is more complicated than that. Visiting the off-licence or the pub requires relatively little energy and in fact appears to decrease entropy (subjectively.) Going clothes shopping with my wife and daughter is absolutely draining, and I would argue that the prospect of such an expedition this coming weekend itself requires an extra advance visit to the offy.
 
Foxbat said:
But, to my simple thought process, if the BB was an event the surely there had to be something prior…a kind of pre-state that caused that event to happen. But there couldn’t have been because that would indicate the existence of time.
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Oddly enough, I was thinking this just the other day, while out for a walk.

Obviously, whatever time is (or is a signifier of) in the/our universe would have begun with the/our universe, but at the very least, the "rules" that allowed the/our universe to come into existence in the first place had to exist. If our universe did not arrive simultaneously with those rules, then time must have already existed (between the rules appearing and the universe appearing)...

...but unless the rules have always been there (which begs the question of how), their coming into existence must have happened along some sort of timeline, as change seems (at least to this bear of little brain) to require the presence of time.

Even those models of time that suggest that everything, at every time, exists simultaneously -- and that we merely navigate our way through it in order to experience time -- suffer from this same problem: has this always existed (how?) or did it come into existence (meaning a change, and therefore a timeline)?

Frankly, I'm not sure either philosophers or scientists, independently or in concert, are capable of understanding this even in principle. I'm certainly not.
 
Foxbat said:
Here’s what really curves my space-time continuum…

Stephen Hawking (and others) say that time did not exist before the Big Bang. The article link I posted on the singularity says that physical laws either cease to exist or become indistinguishable from each other within a singularity. This kind of agrees with the Hawking view.

But, to my simple thought process, if the BB was an event the surely there had to be something prior…a kind of pre-state that caused that event to happen. But there couldn’t have been because that would indicate the existence of time.

I feel like that supercomputer when asked the simple question ‘Why?’ by Kirk.

Does not compute..does not compute….does……..not…….com……(boom)
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that time did not exist before the big bang. I would say that the big bang, as a model, tells me that the extrapolation of our current state backwards must stop at some point. At that point I cannot say with any certitude what 'came before' or even if there was a before. (I'm pretty sure Hawking and others say approximately the same.)

Some have suggested that the cosmos is an eternal recurring one that has lasted forever, which if you find there being a start of time tough, I find equally as monstrous. Yet may be true. BUT currently everything seems to point to the universe beginning, as recurring universes should show up in the structure of our current version somehow.

Even 'Eternal' Inflation (that theory that spits out mindbogglingly large numbers of universe in an eye-watering large multiverse) has been shown to need to start at some point via its own mathematics, although some proponents state that 'it started so far back in time, it might as well be eternal for us'!

But our models are definitely not perfect and our theories not quite right, who knows what might be surmised with better understanding?

Ray Zdybrow said:
I can only address your last paragraph (due to my own ignorance) but I don't need to experience, or even be alive, to persist from one day to the next. Longer term, I will eventually decay to the point you could say I don't persist (barring fossilization, of course)
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Decay is a change of state. Things that are not alive change state constantly. Nothing remains exactly as it is. The atoms that made up you will all eventually be incorporated into other things. Which will also change state constantly. Hence moving in time costs energy!
 
Has anybody wondered how our current thinking on the universe works bolts with the notion of immortality? In other words, isn't the quest for immortality somewhat futile if the Universe is mortal?
 
Foxbat said:
In other words, isn't the quest for immortality somewhat futile if the Universe is mortal?
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Essentially I agree!

Although, is the universe mortal? It might exist forever. (Although I can't see a present day human having much fun if the end state of the universe is Heat Death.) Maybe there actually are multiverses, and one can hope from an old stale universe to a nice, fresh one?

But then is the multiverse mortal?

This is turtles all the way down now :giggle:
 
If traveling through time was effortless maybe we would be immortal. Immortal might just be not disappearing for a very long time. We could have some immortality in us. Depending on who you ask, electrons could be considered to be immortal. Electrons are everywhere, they have an interesting life, stuck in bodies, momentarily forming streams of lightning only to quickly disperse, hanging out, maybe just sitting there, or zipping along at almost the speed of light.

There is the past, it exists all around us, solid, intact, mostly measurable. The present is hard to measure, it only lasts less than an instant. We like to think the present time lasts long enough for us to see it, a minute, a day, whatever, but that is only a humans concept of time. The future turns straight into the past, the present is just a plane with no thickness separating the past from the future. Crudely speaking it isn't a flat plane, in some places it extends into the future and in other places it extends into the past. Somehow the future exists but that gets really hazy, though it might not be able to exist without the past.
 
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