what is time?

Question

somebody must have made it up, so the time could be totally different to what people say it is, it could be seconds faster or slower than what the time actually is!!
i'm confused by this, help me!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

Nothing confusing about it except the confusion between time as a constant and time measurement with a clock.

Measurement is entirely man made and has no real relation to time as a constant quantity. And Time as a constant quantity only exists in real time if there is an observer. Got all that?

Answer 2

First, *measuring* time is made up (just like any other measurement), but time itself is an actual dimension. All matter (that we know of) exists in 4 dimensions. In other words, it has four properties: length, width, height, and time. A physical object cannot exist without having all of these things. A physical object can exist for a short time (burning rocket fuel), or a very long time, but time is a necessary property of the existence of matter.



The *measuring* of time probably originated with the Babylonians, who divided their time measurements into 60s. As far as *actual* time, that is entirely dependent upon the angle of the earth at the point you are at with relation to the sun. When the sun is directly overhead (east - west, not north - south), then it is exactly noon. When the sun is directly beneath, then it is exactly midnight. For the sake of convenience, we have time zones which allow large areas to set their clocks to the same time and so be on the same page, so to speak.



This site (loads slowly) will display actual (true) time if you have java enabled. At least, it's really close - there is some less than one second delay during display update. http://www.jgiesen.de/SiderealTimeClock/



Jim, http://www.life-after-harry-potter.com

Answer 3

The unit of time (the second) is tied to the earth's orbit around the sun. The Gregorian calandar gives us 365 days in a year with a leap year every 4 years and we skip a leap year every .... um .... I'm not sure, but every couple hundred years we ignore that skip a leap year ... and now we even have leap *seconds*, since we have the instruments to adjust time signals such as WWV, WWVH (US), CHU (Canada) and other countries time/ frequency standard broadcasts. All to keep things in sync with the arbitrary standard of the earth's orbit around the sun.



Yes, it is a man-made unit, but it ties in with other man-made units such as mass (kilogram) and distance (meter) and force (Newtons). All of these are tied in so that we can calculate how far a projectile will travel (or a rocket). We can, with these man-made units, send human beings into space and back again (not to mention the moon). Should we change the unit of time, other units or equations would also have to be changed to keep things in proper order.



Of course, we shan't delve into the mysterious realm of travel near the speed of light or in a strong gravitational field where everything, including time itself, changes. Trust me, they do. Lengths shorten, time slows (really), and we even have to take into account earth's gravity and the affect it has on light to obtain accurate positions from the global positioning satellites!







Best regards,

Jim

Answer 4

You are tending to confuse the physical concept of time, which is the fourth dimension of space-time, and the human experience of time, which is the accumulation of events.



Though related, they are not the same. Time in the physical sense, is just a dimension like length, width, and height. These are all inter-related, and as Einstein showed with his theory of relativity, they depend on your point of view (i.e. are relative).



Time moves more slowly for objects in motion, but ONLY to other objects. To the object itself, time continues to move normally. Distance shrinks as an object moves faster, but ONLY to the object itself. To other objects, the distance remains the same.



Humans experience time as the accumulation of events, in a linear fashion. X happened before Y, so X happened earlier in time. This is not necessarily true in the physical sense of time, simply because physical time is relative. Human time is strictly linear.



So humans experience the "passing" of time as being the rate at which events accumulate. And human time, too, is variable, as anyone who has spent a year sitting through a one-hour physics lecture can attest.

Answer 5

Time is often referred to as the "fourth dimension". It is, in essence, one way to measure physical change. It is perceived differently from the three spatial dimensions in that there is only one of it, and that movement seems to occur at a fixed rate and in one direction.



The equations used in physics to model reality often do not treat time in the same way that humans perceive it. In particular, the equations of classical mechanics are symmetric with respect to time, and equations of quantum mechanics are typically symmetric if both time and other quantities (such as charge and parity) are reversed. In these models, the perception of time flowing in one direction is an artifact of the laws of thermodynamics (we perceive time as flowing in the direction of increasing entropy).



The best-known treatment of time as a dimension is Poincaré and Einstein's special relativity (and extended to general relativity), which treats perceived space and time as parts of a four-dimensional manifold.

Answer 6

Time is relative. There is no grand clock that keeps an official time. The only real indicator of time is the direction of increasing entropy.

Answer 7

time is an observed object, re we have time zones throughout the world. beyond that time is splittable

Answer 8

i think it was Einstein that said "it's what is shown on the face of a clock"

Answer 9

everything arounds us changes at every moment, time just records it.

Answer 10

don't worry about it, just worry about the time that ticks inside of you (heart)