Time holds a unique place in science and the human consciousness. Some say it is only an invention of the human mind that gives us a sense of order, a before and after so to speak while many physicists define it in terms of the physical properties of a space-time dimension.
Both of these definitions have one thing in common in that they assume that there exists entity called time whether it has the physical properties many physicists associate with a space-time dimension or only abstract ones given to it by our consciousness.
However, they also have another thing in common in that they assume time has an effect on our environment and therefore because modern scientific theories assume all effects have a cause we must assume that it does to.
For example Albert Einstein, in his General Theory of Relativity derived gravity in terms of a physical interaction of a time dimension with the three spatial dimensions. He showed that one can understand it by assuming that it is a result of a curvature in a space-time dimension but he was unable to define how it physically interacts with space to cause that curvature.
This fact is made evident by the circular definition of gravity that Physicist John Wheeler gave when asked how it affects space and time “Matter tells space and time how to curve, while space and time tells matter how to move.
However, the most notable problem in assigning time the physical properties of a dimension, as Albert Einstein did is that most of us do not observe or perceive it as having any of them. For example we all associate the physical properties of a volume with space. However, there are no observations that suggest that time has the physical properties many physicists associate with it. Yet, as mentioned earlier there are many that suggest it is only a means of determining a before or after or a way of measuring the sequential ordering of change in our temporal environment. Therefore, based on those observations one would assume that it has the nonphysical properties of all measurements.
For example length is only a measure of the position of an object relative to another in space and therefore is not associated with any of its physical properties.
Additionally the universal observation that time is irreversible or that it always moves in one direction forward also appears to contradict the concept that it has physical properties because we observe that it is possible to physically reverse the position of an object in space while, as just mentioned we cannot in time. For example, one can move an object to a different position, reverse the process and move it back to its original position. However one cannot reverse time or move an object back to its original position in temporal space.
Yet these same observations support the definition given in the article “Defining what is time?“ Sept. 20, 2007 that it is only a measure of the sequential ordering of change or the temporal “distance” between the casualty of events in our environment. This would make it consistent with our perception of the irreversibility of time because one cannot reverse the causality of an event without creating a new event. Therefore, it could never be reversed or moved back to a previous event because the sequential ordering of the causality of all events in the universe is unique.
This also provides the reason why events always appear to move forward in time even thought the laws physics indicate that they should be reversible because the act of reversing an event would define the next event in that sequence.
Therefore, defining it only in terms of a measure of the temporal “distance” between the sequential ordering of a change in our environment as was done in that article would seem to provide an unambiguous definition of time that is more consistent with both physical and mathematical observations of it than defining it in terms of the physical properties of a dimension.
Hence, because there is absolutely no observational evidence suggesting that time has any physical properties shouldn’t we require those who believe that an interaction of time with space is the causality of gravity to define a mechanism that can explain how a non-physically entity such as time can interact with the physical properties of a spatial dimension.
Einstein gave us the ability to do this when he use the equation E=mc^2 and the constant velocity of light to define the geometric properties of space-time because that provided a method of converting a unit of space-time associated with energy to unit of space associated with position in four spatial dimensions. Additionally because the velocity of light is constant he also defined a one to one quantitative correspondence between his space-time universe and one made up of four *spatial* dimensions.
However the fact that one can use Einstein’s equations to qualitatively and quantitatively redefine the curvature in space-time he associated with energy in terms of four *spatial* dimensions is one bases for assuming, as was done in the article “Defining energy?†Nov 27, 2007 that all forms of energy and forces including gravitation can be derived in terms of a spatial displacement in a “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.
This allows one to understand the causality of change is in an environment in terms of the observable properties of the spatial dimensions instead of the non physical one of a time or space-time dimension.
In other words by defining change in terms of a displacement in the geometry of four *spatial* dimensions instead of four dimensional space-time allows one to not only understand the causality of time in terms that more closely agrees with its observable properties but also allows one define all forces responsible for changes in terms of the physically observable properties of the spatial dimensions.
Later Jeff
Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2011