Discussion » Questions » Outside the Mug » Physicists say time is an illusion. So if time does not exist -how could you measure speed?

Physicists say time is an illusion. So if time does not exist -how could you measure speed?

Posted - June 29, 2018

Responses


  • 14795
    I think people should make time to measure these things as a rule.....Maybe now England has gone Metric we should at some time Metre it and it wouldn't take a second  :)
      June 29, 2018 3:56 AM MDT
    2

  • 13395
    They say events create the illusion of time so if you jog from point A to point B that is an event that occurred creating the illusion. So how can you measure the speed of the jogger?
      June 29, 2018 4:13 AM MDT
    2

  • 14795
    You need a time lapse watch to look at......it's has no hands and it's not a wind up either.....:)D
      June 29, 2018 4:24 AM MDT
    2

  • 13395
    Ok. Never heard of that kind of watch before. 
      June 29, 2018 4:52 AM MDT
    2

  • 14795
    Not many people have.....:)
      June 29, 2018 5:16 AM MDT
    2

  • 2219
    There isn't such a thing as the absolute speed of the jogger; it's all relative.
      June 29, 2018 1:49 PM MDT
    2

  • 5835
    The first step of the scientific method is "Observe something." If time can't be observed, then it is not scientific and physicists must stop using it to predict things.

    Some modern scientists are saying some really loopy things. For instance, they tell us that 90% of the universe is dark matter, which by definition can't be observed. At 90%, observations become irrelevant.
      June 29, 2018 4:32 AM MDT
    2

  • 13395
    Yeah,  infinity -the entire past and future measures zero elapsed time. You simply cannot measure time. Even the hands rotating around the face of a clock is just another event that gives the illusion of time. Superposition of events -that's how the cat in the box experiment can be dead and alive at the same instant. 
    Might have to just pretend time exists to help make sense of things. 

    I think 6% is dark energy and the observable part of the universe is only 4%. This post was edited by Kittigate at June 29, 2018 10:40 AM MDT
      June 29, 2018 5:06 AM MDT
    1

  • 44659
    Well...you just convinced everyone here God does not exist. Excellent job. No more bible-thumper comments.
      June 29, 2018 3:48 PM MDT
    1

  • 8214
    Tell THAT to the Judge when you go to court for speeding.  

    Have you been speeding again?  Hummmmm? Drive carefully and remember "don't text behind the wheel."  
      June 29, 2018 5:46 AM MDT
    2

  • 13395
    I wasn't really watching my speed nor was I texting but I was ticketed for going through a red light.  So in court I explained to the judge how approaching a red light at a certain speed can cause a color shift in the wavelength to make it appear green. That was not ok with the judge when the prosecutor explained that I must have been doing at least 250,000 mph to cause a color shift. So she fined me for speeding. 
      June 29, 2018 10:52 AM MDT
    1

  • 44659
    Closed minded barristers.
      June 29, 2018 3:49 PM MDT
    1

  • 5614
    Time is a construct we use to measure rate of travel over distance. Without movement through space there can be no time. Imagine everything frozen in its present state. Not moving forward and not decaying. We would perceive it as time standing still. So not so much no speed without time as it is no time without speed. Time is movement through space and often called space/time. This post was edited by O-uknow at June 29, 2018 12:08 PM MDT
      June 29, 2018 5:57 AM MDT
    2

  • 13395
    In a 3D universe time is static; when the univers began that was when events began to happen - giving the illusion of time. Time is static -everything revolves around time in a relative way. If all motion ceased you would lose awareness of time and a billion years could elapse then when motion began again you would be a billion years older but there would be no change in anything. 

    The faster you travel through space the slower events happen until you reach the speed of light then all events stop and there would be no change in anything. Seems to be a law against speed faster than light because then you would be moving backwards in time -or I should say events would start unhappening.

    Earth's relative speed in space is just about right so events happen at a suitable pace -except for some people who are lacking in patience alla time. This post was edited by Kittigate at June 29, 2018 1:27 PM MDT
      June 29, 2018 11:38 AM MDT
    0

  • 53531

    (Comma after the word 'exist'.  Delete the hyphen.)
      June 29, 2018 5:59 AM MDT
    2

  • 44659
    You forgot space/time. It is spacetime. I looked it up.
      June 29, 2018 10:43 AM MDT
    0

  • 53531

    ~
      June 29, 2018 10:25 PM MDT
    1

  • 13395
    I don't like commas.
      June 29, 2018 6:52 PM MDT
    1

  • 44659
    If it weren't for time, everything would happen at once.
      June 29, 2018 10:48 AM MDT
    2

  • 13395
    That would be  superposition of events;  the infinite past and future occur in terms of the present tense. So a person's subconscious could possibly be exposed to a 'future' event in a vision to enable some people to make seemingly accurate (bible) prophecies naturally without requiring a supernatural help. Like Abe Lincoln had the experience of observing his own funeral in a vision- ten days before he was assassinated -as well as Joan of Arc's visions etc. This post was edited by Kittigate at June 29, 2018 3:50 PM MDT
      June 29, 2018 12:03 PM MDT
    1

  • 2219
    For physicists, it's all mathematical equations. For humans, we like to think of past time as fixed and future time as unknown and not yet fixed and in some way subject to our free will. Somehow we lived through last week, which was unknown to us at the start but has now become fixed. This may all be an illusion if time is treated as simply another dimension in the great space-time continuum. 
      June 29, 2018 1:08 PM MDT
    2

  • 22891
    you probably cant
      June 29, 2018 1:43 PM MDT
    2

  • 5835
    Some of you seem to be saying the universe can't be trusted when nobody is looking. Is that what you meant to say?
      June 29, 2018 6:16 PM MDT
    1

  • 13395
    During the infinity of time the universe may or may not be in existence at any given point if big bounce theory is true. Each time the universe gets consumed in a supermassive black hole it needs a period of time out to rest its particles before big banging into a new universe. 
      June 29, 2018 7:08 PM MDT
    1