Does time stop at the speed of light?

CockRoach · 2003-03-17, 09:49 AM

what is time?

is time the speed of light?

if you went the speed of light would time stop?

if you went faster then the speed of light would you enter the future?

can you go a negative speed?

if you went negative speed would you go backwards in time?

does anything exist in the future or the past?

just a little something to get everyone thinking...

diluted · 2003-03-17, 10:15 AM

read some of stephen hawking's books.

i think i could answer some but im not 100 percent so i wont.

Navaron · 2003-03-17, 10:43 AM

Einstein thought that all matter was light in different forms and stages. Time doesn't exist anyway, when you put people in all different enviroments, they age differently.

�io · 2003-03-17, 10:48 AM

I have trouble believing in time travel, if you believe you can travel to the future than you believe everything is pre destined and already done which means your life isn't yours it's the universes and you can't do anything about it.

Mtx · 2003-03-17, 10:53 AM

You could defy the clock but not time itself.

MrVicchio · 2003-03-17, 11:46 AM

Time travel is theoretically possible, but all the ways to do it require technology we don't have.

Mauser101 · 2003-03-17, 12:32 PM

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." -Ford Prefect

Lexington_Steele · 2003-03-17, 12:33 PM

Originally posted by CockRoach
what is time?

is time the speed of light?

if you went the speed of light would time stop?

if you went faster then the speed of light would you enter the future?

can you go a negative speed?

if you went negative speed would you go backwards in time?

does anything exist in the future or the past?

just a little something to get everyone thinking...

1) The first one is tough. Some see it merely as a marker to be used to plot points in the universe, others see it as a spacial dimension (similar to lenght width and height). The word time carries alot of weight with it. It is hard to define time in the same way it is hard to define love.

2) Time is not the speed of light.

3) You would be in an inertial reference frame. For you time would seem to progress normally. To others it would seem like time slowed down for you.

4) Yes, however it does not mean what you think. Right now you are traveling into the future. You are always travleling into the future. Traveling at high speeds or high gravity propel you into the future faster (however time seems to pass normally for you).

5) Negative indicates direction, not magnitude. Conventionally negative speed would indicate the direction an object was traveling in reference to some reference point. Now the concept of anti-speed is interesting although I have never head of it before. I am not sure what anti-speed would be. That seems to a concept that is worth thinking about.

6) Why not?

7) Who knows?

Hamma · 2003-03-17, 12:41 PM

My brain hurts.

PR24 · 2003-03-17, 12:45 PM

If time is an illusion why do I have to remain at work for 8 hours then?

Lexington_Steele · 2003-03-17, 12:45 PM

Originally posted by Dio
I have trouble believing in time travel, if you believe you can travel to the future than you believe everything is pre destined and already done which means your life isn't yours it's the universes and you can't do anything about it.

Traveling into the future does not mean life is predestined.

Think of travel into the distant future as being put into hybernation and sleeping while the rest of the world goes on. You wake up and it feels like one day has passed for you but you are hundreds of years into the future.

It is traveling back in time that raises questions like is life predestined.

Time travel into the future exists right now.

Did you know that time moves slower for people at sea level than it does at high altitudes?

mistled · 2003-03-17, 01:15 PM

"the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent." - Einstein

Objective time only actually exist in your mind anyway, since all time is all actually now. It's only when your mind tries to make sense of it that the ideas of past and future come into play.

Navaron · 2003-03-17, 01:27 PM

Here's a little fact, when a human is put is a room with constant light, no clocks and no windows - essentially no way to tell the time, the human body sets itself on a 36 hour day. This is interesting for many ways, however, the body becomes more efficient and has shown the signs of slower aging. They of course can't do this on a long term test of years, but how cool would that be?

CockRoach · 2003-03-17, 01:32 PM

Originally posted by {BOHICA}Navaron
Here's a little fact, when a human is put is a room with constant light, no clocks and no windows - essentially no way to tell the time, the human body sets itself on a 36 hour day. This is interesting for many ways, however, the body becomes more efficient and has shown the signs of slower aging. They of course can't do this on a long term test of years, but how cool would that be?

YAY lets all live in a small box with no clocks for 200 years!!!
i could play planetside forever!!!

Mauser101 · 2003-03-17, 01:38 PM

One thing that may be of intrest is the idea of the omniscience of God. Mostly because we think of God as a being that has a lot of time. When you theorize that God exists outside of our time domain things get really interesting.

Another cool theory I once read about (probably in popular science) was research into deminsiality. The article stated that researchers currently believe their may be as many as 10 dimensions. Four that are knowable (4th being time) and and 6 that are currently inperciveable except by how they effect the 4 we can percieve.

Lexington_Steele: Concerning altitude/gravity and its effect on time. I heard that experiment was conducted by placing an atomic clock in an airplane and taking it into high sub orbit (like U2/SR71 altitudes) and then bringing the plane down and watching the readout adjust up and down as you ascend from and descend to the surface. Pretty cool. The idea would be that time can be effected by gravity. Thus, something with a great deal of gravity (like a black hole) can swallow time as well as light.