I was watching Neil Degrasse talking about time the other day and was thinking. Unfortunately, I cannot find the exact link to the video. However, argument is presented as following. Having written a book about time I immediately picked up the error in the message and I would elaborate more on this in the following paragraph.
Introduction
Neil first speaks of how wrong it is to measure time in revolutions of earth. Imagine we measured time relative to one revolution of earth. We can say our time is linked to arbitrary number of hours or even 24 hours. Once we do this, imagine the earth starts to slow down on its own rotation. And after some time, we would not know that in reality the 24 hours have increased. Instead for 24 hours now there are 25 hours, except that we would not know. So, what did scientists do? Instead of relying on earth's rotation they started to look at some oscillations of atoms. And linked this information to the definition of time.
Do you see the problem in definition of time?
If you haven't let me, explain, imagine due to some unknown reason the time taken for this oscillation of atoms change from a minute amount. Instead of a constant time, now we have a second which is larger or smaller than the previous second. And still there is no way we can get away from the problem, whatever yardstick we use, we will never be able to be absolutely certain the yardstick we use is not changing over time. This is an unavoidable fundamental error in our scientific method. I have discussed more about the role of philosophy in the era of science in previous article.
Now if you are wise, you would not stop from there. You would ask further questions. What about measuring distance? and what about measuring mass? So, you would understand similar problems occurs in measuring the mass as well as distance. Similarly measuring anything you will see there is no way we can be sure about our measuring method at all.
(Modern definition of second is used in the definition of meter and in turn in the definition of the kilogram, hence whatever the hypothesis we made about the second inherently attributed to modern definition of kilogram as well. Read about definition of kilogram here)
Following is a paragraph from the book from the past to the future or What is time explaining the concept.
Time beyond definitions.
More Scientific views on time.
Let's go back to the question.
What is time?
We are in the era of advanced science. We should be able to answer a simple question as above. However, we fail miserably. Is science wrong? That's why we fail? Answers to the question of time should lead us there.
Let's analyze the definition from physicists.
“Time is a physical quantity that measures the interval over which a change occurs. Time is related to change. It has no direction (is it linear or not?). It's only a magnitude, hence a scalar quantity.”
If we expand on this definition, we can establish our current understanding on time. So, basically the science says, if you measure the interval between two events. That is what the time is. So, time is the measurement. If you look at the clock at the beginning of your reading, and deduct that from the clock's reading now, that is time.
So, what is the tool which we use to measure this change?
Time can be measured in milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, years, light years. And it is a spectrum, from unmeasurably small to unmeasurably large. Then how have we standardized our measurements?
“One second is the time that elapses during 9,192,631,770 (or 9.192631770 x 109 in decimal form) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium-133 atom.”
The measure of time ‘second’ is defined by a physical change in nature. So the measurement tool itself is not absolute. It depends on an event that is observed. There is a caveat. We tend to forget the observer when we define a second. It's time to correct ourselves if one needs to understand, hence the following edited version.
The second is ‘time the observer feels’, during 9,192,631,770 (or 9.192631770 x 109 in decimal form) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium-133 atom.
Now that is strange, isn’t it? Of course, it doesn't look scientific when put that way. But we can’t blame scientists. After all, anything which has significant bias is eliminated in science and handed over to philosophy over and over again.
It all depends on how the observer feels. So, there is a flaw in definition, when it comes back to the observer.
Let’s think there are two observers, and would they feel one second the same? Definitely not! As many observers there are, for each one of them, a second would feel different.
If paraphrased above definition, time is a feeling between two events for an individual observer, him, her, or itself.
Now we can look back at some of the above questions with this new definition and see if we can answer or explain some of these. It may not be perfect yet. But we can say, it is absolutely true when you say, ‘I didn’t feel the time passing so quickly when you are with me’. Or when you feel time slows down on your vacation to the top of the Matterhorn Mountain peak last year. But that truth is only relative to you. All the others will not agree, because time is relative, not absolute. Yet relative differences exist, and nobody can argue otherwise. Because time is observer dependent even by the definition of scientists. (although it was knowingly eliminated from the definition)
In summary Problem of definition of time
Time is defined in terms of a observed change in the nature. Which is observer dependent.
As everything else is dependent on the definition of time, it seems a relative truth.
Comments