Time holds a unique place in science and the human consciousness. However, defining its origins or describing what it is extremely difficult. Some define it only in the abstract saying that is an invention of the human consciousness that gives us a sense of order, a before and after so to speak. However many physicists define it in terms of the physical properties of a space-time dimension.
Yet, the observable properties of time are something that most of us can agree upon.
One of the most persistent is that it is perceived only as a measure of the before and after of an irreversible physical, chemical, and biological change in space. In other words it does not appear to have the physical properties of most associate with matter or space.
However many physicists define changes most associated with time in terms of the physical properties of a space-time dimension even though as was just mentioned it is not observe to have any.
Yet this presents a problem because if time is only a non-physical measure of change in an environment as observations indicate how can it interact with the physical properties of space to create the force of gravity and the changes it causes.
In others words how can we integrate the physical properties associated with change in the spatial environments with the non-physical properties of time as was done in the General Theory Relativity.
Einstein gave us a clue when he defined the curvature in a space-time environment responsible for gravity in terms of the equation E=mc^2 and the constant velocity of light because that provided a method of defining the changes he associated with gravity in terms of a curvature or displacement in four *spatial* dimensions as well as one in four dimensional space-time
In other words by defining the changes associated with gravity in terms of E=mc^2 and the constant velocity of light he provided a qualitative and quantitative means of deriving the origin of those changes in terms of the physicality of four *spatial* dimensions.
The fact that one can use Einstein’s equations to qualitatively and quantitatively redefine the curvature or displacement in space-time he associated with gravitational energy in terms of four *spatial* dimensions is one bases for assuming as was done in the article “Defining energy?†Nov 27, 2007 that the energy associated with it can also can be defined in terms of a spatial displacement in a “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.
However defining gravity in terms of its spatial instead of it time properties as was done above provides the physicists with a new perspective on many of the mechanism responsible for the changes most of us associate with time.
For example Einstein believed that change does not exist in the space-time environment as is shown by the following statement he made in his 1952 book Relativity
“Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent “now” objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.”
In other words according to Einstein the structure of space-time is ridge while the changes we perceive are merely an illusion similar to the illusion of change created in a flip book when one rapidly flips through its pages containing series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next.
However if one considered blocks of space-time as the pages of the flip book responsible for the illusion of changes as Einstein did one still must define what is gradually changing on each page of that book.
We know form observations that all physical change that occur involve the transfer of energy from one point in three-dimensional space to another.
Therefore if time is a static or unevolving parameter of the space-time environment defined by Einstein we must assume that there must be another property other than time in the universe’s geometry that evolves to account for why changes occur.
As was shown earlier in the article “Defining energy?†Nov 27, 2007 we can use Einstein’s theory to define the energy responsible for change in terms of a physical displacement in a “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.
This suggests that the gradual changes that must occur in the “flip book” of space-time as one moves through it are spatial displacements of three-dimensional space with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.
In other words one can use Einstein’s theories to define the origin of change in terms of the physicality of the spatial dimensions by redefining his space-time concepts in terms of their spatial properties.
Additionally if Einstein’s belief that space-time is ridge unchanging environment one must assume that the time or what we measure as the before and after event has it origin in the physicality of the spatial dimensions.
Later Jeff
Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2015