What is time?

RDKirk

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Why? I think change is usually a part of what time does. Time is more than just things go whoo whoo around and round I suspect.

The OP question is "What is time?"

So can you answer that question in some way that does not involve the measurement of something changing? If nothing changes, can you measure that time has passed? If every measurement of something is zero, how can you argue that it yet exists?
 
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dad

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God created the Laws and He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
The Scripture is what He fulfilled not physics. The nature of heaven is not the same nor was Eden. I have no reason in Scripture or science to think nature was the same in Noah's day either.

Jesus came to fulfill the law. He was talking about the Law that was given to Moses but this applies to the laws of the natural world also.
False. Name one verse that says physics is the same always. That doesn't even make sense.
""Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
That is about the law and prophets...Noses and the prophets..nothing whatsoever to do with gravity and the electromagnetic forces and etc.
 
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dad

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The OP question is "What is time?"

So can you answer that question in some way that does not involve the measurement of something changing?
It seems to me that is like saying space exists only if it moves. Why not time and space exist and whatever moves moves in time and space?

If nothing changes, can you measure that time has passed?
Ah, the mere measuring of time for man may require stuff moving...clocks. That is one reason why God made the heavens, He spelled that out. To mark time for man. Yet time was here before that, it is just that man would not have had an easy time marking it unless God made the big clocks for us.

If every measurement of something is zero, how can you argue that it yet exists?
If God had not made the stars and sun and moon, that doesn't mean there was no time. We know there was days from the start. That means time. Plants may not have needed the stars and sun to tell time, as they were created before the sun and stars! Yet creatures do, because they came after. One cannot say that the sun moving IS time.
 
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RDKirk

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It seems to me that is like saying space exists only if it moves. Why not time and space exist and whatever moves moves in time and space?

I didn't say "movement." I said "change." Space changes. But then again, what in space does not move? Even when you get to the atomic level, there is always movement.

Ah, the mere measuring of time for man may require stuff moving...clocks. That is one reason why God made the heavens, He spelled that out. To mark time for man. Yet time was here before that, it is just that man would not have had an easy time marking it unless God made the big clocks for us.

I would argue that there was no time before God created the universe--that time literally did not exist until God created it. God created time as a continuum with matter, a dimension of creation.
 
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dad

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I didn't say "movement." I said "change." Space changes. But then again, what in space does not move? Even when you get to the atomic level, there is always movement.
Yet the heavens and earth were created one fine day. Tell us what move or change was there on day one?

I would argue that there was no time before God created the universe--that time literally did not exist until God created it. God created time as a continuum with matter, a dimension of creation.
No way to prove that one. Since He was here forever, and our universe is just a week's work, I see no reason to assume time never existed before this universe. Maybe not the way we know it in our space time, but that is neither here nor there. Time in some form existed because God knew what a day was.
 
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greenguzzi

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Actually, I hardly understand General Relativity at all, as the equations involve tensors and non-linear partial differentials, and I am still working through the math. Einstein took some time and needed help, and I am not Einstein.
But what aspect do you think is most relevant to the discussion?
As I understand it: Matter and energy are just two ways of interpreting the same thing, and how one perceives it depends on relative motion. And space and time also can be interchangeable as long as symmetry is preserved. Am I in error?

:wave:
I have it on good authority that the maths needed is fairly straightforward. There is a difference between proving, mastering, understanding, and comprehending. The difficulty comes in trying to reconcile it with our "common sense" experience of the world. (Because it's probably not possible.)

The most relevant aspect is that matter is not "converted" into energy. It was this point that you disagreed with me, although judging from the quote above you seem to have capitulated.

PS: Sorry for the hiatus, sometimes the real world is more interesting than Internet forums.
 
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lesliedellow

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I have it on good authority that the maths needed is fairly straightforward.

The maths of Special Relativity is fairly straightforward, but I have never heard anybody say that of General Relativity; unless you are a dab hand at non Euclidean differential geometry in four dimensional space. In fact, when somebody asked physicists at a British university, which aspect of modern physics they had the hardest time getting their minds around, to a man they said General Relativity.
 
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greenguzzi

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The maths of Special Relativity is fairly straightforward, but I have never heard anybody say that of General Relativity; unless you are a dab hand at non Euclidean differential geometry in four dimensional space. In fact, when somebody asked physicists at a British university, which aspect of modern physics they had the hardest time getting their minds around, to a man they said General Relativity.

Actually from the beginning of this discussion I was talking about Special Relativity. But there was some confusion along the way. Maybe my fault. I thought I could get away with letting it go.
Right now the only thing I am sure about is that GR is more complex than I realised. I'm not sure where to go from here. Suggestions appreciated.
 
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lesliedellow

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Actually from the beginning of this discussion I was talking about Special Relativity. But there was some confusion along the way. Maybe my fault. I thought I could get away with letting it go.
Right now the only thing I am sure about is that GR is more complex than I realised. I'm not sure where to go from here. Suggestions appreciated.

You could try "The Geometry of Spacetime" by James Callahan. As the name might suggest, it comes at the subject from a mathematician's perspective, and there is a long proof of Gauss's Theorema Egregium to plough through.

For a more physics oriented approach, you could try "Gravity" by James Hartle.
 
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