[Calexico]

My English teacher is trying to convince us that there is no such thing as time. The past, present, and future are a conception used by humans because we can't comprehend the "truth". This truth is that all things exist at once and all things happen at once. People may think that they are acting on past experience but really aren't. She used Einstein as backing for this. My question is just, has Albert Einstein actually stated this?

The main things I found with a quick Wikipedia search (I am really clueless about Einstein) is the Theory of Relativity and the resulting Relativity of Simultaneity. Relativity of simultaneity, if I understood correctly, means that something that you think is happening at the same time is not happening at the same time depending on the frame of reference. The fact that he would even talk about simultaneity seems to contradict what my teacher tried to use as evidence to support that there is no such thing as time. If Einstein believed that there was no such thing as time, then all is simultaneous regardless of relativity.

So my end question is... does one of Albert Einstein's theories state that there is no such thing as time?

This is from a simple 9th grade Honors English class. We are reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, and she was talking about this because Siddhartha discovers that there is no such thing as time using the metaphor of the river. The stuff that is down the river is there even now. The stuff that is up the river is there at that same moment. I understand the metaphor but I don't see the proof.

PS. This teacher and I share a mutual hatred of each other.
PPS. My understanding of relativity of simultaneity might be overly simplistic or completely wrong. Sorry if it is.
PPPS. I don't mind the book stating this. I can suspend my disbelief for the story. But I don't want my English teacher teaching it unless this is like an accepted idea. I don't want her teaching it anyways because A) She's supposed to be teaching us English and B) I don't like her

Oh yeah, and there's always the possibility that she is also just using suspension of disbelief and is assuming that we are to do the same. Although the way she teaches doesn't really imply that at all and she's never talked to us about it.

 

[tjkurita]

Go to:

WNYC - Radiolab

download the podcasts called:

"Beyond Time"

and

"Time"

and maybe

"The (multi)Univers(es)"

They are all about quantum theory and the (theoretical) possibilities that result.

Also, look at this:

YouTube - Imagining the Tenth Dimension part 1 of 2

Parts 1 and 2.

 

[limpidglitch]

loved those tube vids, mind boggling.

You can also read Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams. It deals with much of the same stuff. In the book it's called the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash

As to wether Einstein had anything to say about this, I don't know, but personally I have no problem with accepting that there is no such thing as 'time', just our perception of it.

 

[Suntory_Times]

I don't know if he expreesivly stated it, but he did suggest its fundemental flaw as we cant really even define what it is. Yet 'we' invented it.

A quick read that whilst a lot of nonsense it times in how its described is 'a brief history through time'. It'll make you think, even if it at times is a bit simplistic.

 

[xnothingpoetic]

Your teacher miss understood Einstein in a few ways. Einstein never said he didn't believe in time. If he did, then his entire life's work would have been for nothing (in his point of view).

Here are some articles that can explain it better than I:
Albert Einstein and the Fabric of Time
NOVA | Einstein's Big Idea | Time Traveler | PBS
Einstein's Relativity

 

[kingkevo25]

I'm an undergrad physics major.

Here's what she might have meant: Time requires a reference frame, and in our case that reference frame is Earth..... For example, say we are in a spaceship speeding across the universe, and we want to calculate how may miles per day we move... here's the problem: how do we know how long a day is? If a day is defined as the time the earth takes to rotate once, an hour defined as that divided by 24, 60 minutes in an hour, etc, it's absolutely pointless to measure our time in space by ANY of these units, because we're not in earth's frame.

Even if you're on this ship looking at a watch or something, you must consider time-dilation, which says that if you're in a different reference frame, time will be acting differently than it is in an other frame. So in that case, time doesn't really 'exist', its just an arbitrary scale. What does exist is "space-time" (not as in "what the time is in space", but as in the model that space AND time aren't independent of each other, but are actually intertwined). Experiencing these relativistic effects requires you to be moving faster than will ever be possible within our lifetimes.

 

[tjkurita]

This is interesting.

They have proven this experimentally even at speeds we can achieve now. By synchronizing clocks and sending one of them at high speed and another standing still. The clocks went out of sync.

However, isn't there also a theory that, in an infinite universe, all possibilities and all times have happened and are already happening at all times. So the question becomes, how can there be time if everything has already happened in the universe? There is this idea that, in an infinite universe made up of a finite number of particles, the inevitable result is an infinite repetition of combinations of particles so that every single combination that is possible already exists. Doesn't this even eliminate space-time curvature as a "universal" constant that can be relied upon, or even be said to "exist" on a Universe-wide level? I am stretching here a bit. But hopefully you get the idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingkevo25 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm an undergrad physics major. Here's what she might have meant: Time requires a reference frame, and in our case that reference frame is Earth..... For example, say we are in a spaceship speeding across the universe, and we want to calculate how may miles per day we move... here's the problem: how do we know how long a day is? If a day is defined as the time the earth takes to rotate once, an hour defined as that divided by 24, 60 minutes in an hour, etc, it's absolutely pointless to measure our time in space by ANY of these units, because we're not in earth's frame. Even if you're on this ship looking at a watch or something, you must consider time-dilation, which says that if you're in a different reference frame, time will be acting differently than it is in an other frame. So in that case, time doesn't really 'exist', its just an arbitrary scale. What does exist is "space-time" (not as in "what the time is in space", but as in the model that space AND time aren't independent of each other, but are actually intertwined). Experiencing these relativistic effects requires you to be moving faster than will ever be possible within our lifetimes.

 

[shubhangam]

I was under the impression that time had been deemed to be the "4th" dimension and Einstein showed using relativity that time and space can change into one another.

I'm not too sure about all this though :|

For What I know, there isn't a 'truth' yet. There are many theories...

Some theories (like the String Theory I think) say that there isn't time but many parallel universes at each different 'time' existing in parallel etc.

@_@

 

[fraseyboy]

Slaughterhouse Five?

 

[patates]

there is also an andromeda paradox, which is amusing: Rietdijk-Putnam argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My grad paper was about "contemporary" and this was one of the parts. your teacher is correct in what he says, but there is time. How we perceive it is also correct, hence relativity. But, it is also possible that for a certain entity, the past and future and present may be simultaneous. This also makes way for great theological discussions.

 

[taylor]

What Einstein discusses is that time is not this universal clock that keeps going tick tock tick tock for everyone, it's malleable.

He proposed an idea of a curved "spacetime", which is an extra dimension of sorts. It's an idea that near massive objects, time slows down.

But, as far as I know, Einstein was a physicist, not a philosopher. The whole idea that time doesn't exist sounds more philosophical than physical. Time passes on, that's how we can observe it. To my [limited] knowledge, Einstein has proven that time can move differently based on your velocity and gravity, either speeding up or slowing down, which is the opposite of proving that time doesn't exist.

 

[eightbitpotion]

Time isn't a line, it's just living reality. The thing that throws people off is the fact that they have a memory- which is a completely different subject all together, but without memory, time would be uncomprehending to humans. The concept of a time line is useful in communication to others, and ultimately I think that's all that matters. -takes some antipsychotics for freethinking-

 

[VicAjax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjkurita /img/forum/go_quote.gif <snip>...However, isn't there also a theory that, in an infinite universe, all possibilities and all times have happened and are already happening at all times...<snip>

actually, it's fairly well-established that the universe is not infinite. it is finite but extremely large and expanding. the fact that the current universe began with a singularity and is always expanding helps establish that there is, as Stephen Hawking calls it, an "arrow of time."

in fact, OP, i would heartily recommend you pick up a copy of Hawking's seminal book, A Brief History of Time. it's a must-read for everyone, and it thoroughly addresses what you're trying to grasp.

 

[chadbang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fraseyboy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Slaughterhouse Five?

My first thought. I think your teacher has real theories on time jumbled up with the life of Billy Pilgrim.

 

[tjkurita]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VicAjax /img/forum/go_quote.gif actually, it's fairly well-established that the universe is not infinite. it is finite but extremely large and expanding. the fact that the current universe began with a singularity and is always expanding helps establish that there is, as Stephen Hawking calls it, an "arrow of time." in fact, OP, i would heartily recommend you pick up a copy of Hawking's seminal book, A Brief History of Time. it's a must-read for everyone, and it thoroughly addresses what you're trying to grasp.

The theory I (poorly) summarized comes from Brian Greene, the guy who wrote The Elegant Universe, a big dude at Columbia University. He said that the Universe is infinite but the number of particles IN the universe is finite. So if there are a finite number of particles, even if the number is HUGE (take 10 to the 29th power and then take 10 to that number), then the patterns MUST eventually repeat, like combinations of heads and tails repeating over many flips. His theory is that in our infinite Universe, there are an infinite number of exact replicas of everything that we know in our "known" universe. If there is a limited number of distinct possibilities, they must repeat, and in an infinite universe, they repeat into infinity. There is a horizon that we cannot see beyond, but from what we can see and from the cosmic background radiation and from the equations, the Universe is infinite, according to Brian Greene in 2008.

He also says that there are other infinitely large bubble Universes, separated by an inflaton field that expands by repulsive gravity, faster than the speed of light (which is possible, under certain circumstances, according to him and einstein, nothing can TRAVERSE space faster than the speed of light, but space can grow at any speed, larger than the speed of light is entirely possible), making contact between the Universes impossible. Not only that, but to anyone inside one of these bubble Universes the Universe is infinite, but to anyone looking from outside of the Universe, the Universe appears finite. Thus, the birth of the Multiverse. It's totally CRAZY! It's called inflationary cosmology.

I don't know, and I frankly don't care. But I find it interesting. More on a philosophical level than anything. I certainly don't understand it fully but this lecture that Brian Greene gave at the 92nd St. Y makes things as understandable as they can be. It's on Radiolab, WNYC and you can download the podcast. It is called the (multi)Universe(s). I have no stake in these arguments (how can anyone have a stake in infinity) so I am not trying to argue. Just present some interesting info that I came across.