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Brian Lee Watson

TPM Coordinator, U S Synthetic Corp

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What is time?

I was thinking the other day that we all measure time by the distance around a center axis. Our earth time is measured by the length of days to orbit the sun as our axis. Our solar system rotates around an axis as do other galaxies. So my thought was how does time get measured at the central point of the measured axis? What is time in the very center of any axis? Can it be measured? Just thinking.

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    Borrah Campbell

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    Aug 17 2011: Time is the progression of the fourth dimension. We measure this in units. The space between any two units of time is an infinity unto itself.

    This will blow your mind. The smallest unit of time varies depending upon where you choose to measure it. This is because the passage of time is the equivalent of a zero-dimensional entity (a photon) crossing one dimension of space. (One Planck unit) Gravitational wells (such as the gravity of a planet... etc.) stretch space causing it to take a little longer for zero-dimensional objects to cross a single dimension of space. In other words, time slows down. This is why you age slower on Earth than you would in space.

    The intimate mechanics of how the forth dimension (time) progresses are outside of my field of knowledge. I have no idea exactly "how" a photon moves. If this knowledge exist maybe someone could shed a little light on it? How does a photon cross an infinite amount of space to reach the next one-dimensional point?

    It hurts just thinking about it.

    • Brian Lee Watson

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      Aug 17 2011: Hello Borrah. You made me smile with your closing sentence. But your definition is profound. Thanks for sharing with me your thoughts and ideas. I believe it is the sharing of thoughts that help us all grow intellectually.
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        Borrah Campbell

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        Aug 17 2011: I actually spent a great deal of time trying to answer this question myself in years past. It is true that forums are a great place to learn!

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