What is time?
Albert Einstein defined time as “that which a clock
measures”. The definition of time is traditionally
considered ‘on the fence’ between physics and philosophy.
How can we define what it is?
Time quantifies or measures the interval between events, or
the duration of events. Time has long been perceived as a
dimension in which each event has a definite (but not
necessarily unique) position in a linear sequence, but as
differing from spatial dimensions in that "motion" through
time appears restricted to having only a forward direction.
For everyday purposes, and even for quite accurate
measurements, this view is sufficient. However, the
Oscillators – a basis for time
To measure the length of a physics poster, we place a meter stick
against it and compare its endpoints with the marks of the meter
stick. To measure a length of time, we need a corresponding ‘time
yardstick’. Ancient humans used the dawn and sunset as markers
of time; later, the cycle of seasons and the phases of the moon.
These, of course, are all examples of oscillations, and oscillations
are still the source of human timekeeping, in every form from quartz
crystals to cesium clocks.
The steady swing of
an oscillating
pendulum, provides
a basic yardstick for
measuring time
Keeping Time
In the light of Einstein's theory of relativity, it is a truism to say that
humanity had previously seen time as uniform, regardless of
position or velocity. However, in practical terms time was more
relative five hundred years ago than today. Although mechanical
clocks had been in use since at least 12831, primarily for the
purpose of religious observance, time standards were still
dependent on the location at which they were measured. Towns
used the position of the sun to directly determine the time; since
noon differed from place to place, so did the time. It was not until
the development of railroad that there grew a need for a
standardised time, the first such standard being laid down in
Harvard University Observatory in 1851, followed closely by the
Royal Observatory's standard time for Britain. This increasingly
arbitrary interpretation of time dissociated it from the sun and
stars, culminating in the worldwide standardisation to Greenwich
Mean Time, at the 1884 International Meridian Conference. &
Measurement of Time
Before the dawn of civilisation a natural time divide existed – Night
and Day. Upon the arrival of organised civilisation and government,
a time measurement system was developed unique to each distinct
culture. The Babylonian and Roman systems certainly have had an
effect on the system used almost worldwide today. The Romans,
for instance, re-named the months July and August after Julius
Caesar and Augustus respectively.
In 1967, at the Thirteenth General Conference on Weights and
Measures, it was agreed to define the second within the SI
(Systeme International d’Unites) System as the duration of
9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the
transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the
cesium-133 atom. It follows that there are then 60 seconds in a
minute, 60 minutes in an hour and a day is the time it takes for the
earth to spin on it’s axis, or 24 hours. Seven days make a week.
A month is the approximate time needed for the moon to
revolve once around the earth. The lunar month actually takes
29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3 seconds. There is another
natural time divide in the form of the cyclic change in weather:
the changing seasons. The cycle lasts for one year - now
defined as the time for one revolution of the earth around the
sun equal to 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds or
approximately 365¼days. In order that we have our nice 365
days in one calendar year we introduce an extra day to the year
every 4 years in what has become known as a leap year. To
account for the minute difference of 11minutes and 14 seconds
less than 365¼days we make a century year a leap year if and
only if it is divisible by 400. This gives us an extra 3,300 years
before the calendar and solar year again differ by one day.
The earth is undergoing a slight deceleration caused by breaking
action of tides and other effects. Civil time must be adjusted by
one second to ensure that the difference between a uniform
time scale defined by atomic clocks does not differ from the
earth’s rotational time by more than 0.9 seconds. This has
become known as a leap second.
References :
• "Time Reversal Symmetry Violation and the H-Theorem“ - A. Aharony, Physics Letters Vol 37A No1.
• "The Enigma of Time“ - P. T. Landsberg.
• "Physics of Time Asymmetry“ - PCW Davies.
• "A Chronicle of Timekeeping“ - W. Andrews, Scientific American Vol.287 No.3
• “Cosmology, a Very Short Introduction” – Peter Coles
scientific understanding of time underwent a revolution in
the early part of the twentieth century with the
development of relativity theory. Modern physics treats
time as a feature of spacetime, a notion which challenges
intuitive conceptions of simultaneity and the flow of time in
a linear fashion.
Also, from ubiquitous practical, and some key theoretical
evidence, we can say that there is some sort of orientation
of time that qualitatively distinguishes ‘future’ from ‘past’.
So, much like many other quantities, we may try to define
time by giving:
1) a basis for an orientation, or arrow of time, and
2) an ability to measure the magnitude of a time interval.
Classical Physics and Time Asymmetry
It is a common statement that Newtonian physics is invariant under time
reversal. This symmetry essentially comes from the fact that the
fundamental Newtonian equation,
F = dp/dt
remains unchanged when subjected to the map
x -> x
t -> -t
v -> -v
This symmetry would seem to be at odds with thermodynamics, which
violates time-symmetry via the total increase in entropy of a system with
increasing time. In a world governed entirely by time-symmetrical laws,
could the second law of thermodynamics be valid, or is it the product of an
implicit assumption of the arrow of time?
Time, Relatively Speaking
By the end of the 19th century, people thought that time flowed uniformly,
independent of our intrinsic existence. In 1905, a young patent clerk
named Albert Einstein wrote a scientific paper that changed the way we
look forever.
He hypothesized that the passage of time is relative to the person
measuring it. He stated that there exists a “time-dilation” when one is
moving relative to another which is quantitavely given by the Lorentz
transformation:
where t,t’ are the times measured by each observer in their respective
inertial reference frames, x the position of the unprimed observer, v is
their relative velocity and c is the speed of light. We can see from this
transformation that as a body speeds up, the time measured in its frame
dilates in comparison to that of the other. In 1915, Einstein published
another ground breaking paper in which he incorporated gravity into his
theory of relativity. He showed that in a strong gravitational field, time
also slows down for relative observers. The fabric of Einstein’s universe is
a 4 dimensional space-time, where gravity is described not as a force, but
as a curvature of this space-time. A body in gravitational orbit is simply
following a geodesic (the path of shortest distance) in 4 dimensional
space-time.
The large mass
of the planet
‘curves’ its local
space-time
We therefore see that time can be considered as a quantity which
can be changed, manipulated and perhaps reversed. The tests of
Einstein’s theories have been thorough and very successful over the
past century showing that time is not just a concept invented by
human civilization, but something we feel by virtue of our existence
and maybe someday, something we can touch.
• “The Road to Reality” – Roger Penrose
• “Black Holes & Time Warps - Kip S. Thorne
• “A Brief History of Time” Chapter 9, “Arrow Of Time” - Stephen W. Hawking
• http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/timeline/ (for universe timeline timeline)
• http://www.tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
• http://www.big-bang-theory.com
John Tracey
Simon Hall
Michael Stewart
Stephen Hardiman
supervised by Dr. Stefan Hutzler
Time Reversible Not exactly Time reversible
In a simulation under classical laws, it is found that by reversing
the velocities of all of the particles in a simple gaseous system
simultaneously, a net decrease in entropy did indeed result.
However, any small random deviation from these ‘backward path’
velocities put the system onto an upward entropy climb once more.
It is postulated that random influences are the source of the
appearance of the arrow of time from statistical mechanics. This
idea poses some interesting questions if true: for a closed system,
such as the universe as a whole may be, would classical mechanics
then produce a direction of increasing entropy? And, if
randomness is the key, where does the asymmetry lie that causes
randomness to be generated in one direction of time, and not the
other?
Time
Ice – Puddle –
Low Entropy High Entropy
Arrow of Time
A property one can look at with time is something called the
“Arrow Of Time”. When real time is discussed, it has a forward and
backward direction. The laws of science do not distinguish
between the past and the future but you can see the sharp
contrast in everyday life. Imagine recording a glass falling off a
table, you could easily tell, while watching it, when the tape is
being played backward or when been played forward. This is
because it would be very strange to see a glass reforming while
defying gravity!
The universe tends
towards disorder
This is because everything must obey the second law of
thermodynamics which states that in a closed system, disorder
{entropy} must always increase with time. This is one example of an
“Arrow Of Time”. Another is ones own personal arrow of time. This is
an arrow that everyone feels time pass. The third arrow of time is one
associated with the expanding/contracting of our universe. All three
arrows point in the same direction defining our life of “remembering
the past, not the future”
Why do we see all three arrows pointing in the same direction? One
looks to the anthropic principle, which states that “We see the
universe the way it is because if it were different, we would not be
here to observe it” This answer stems from various arguments
producing the result that if one arrow were pointing opposite to
another, life would not be possible due to uncertain results of non-
standard rules of thermodynamics in this hypothetical universe. So
whichever arrow of time you feel most intrinsic to you, rest
assured its pointing the right way.
The Beginning and End of Time
Most physicists agree on the ‘Big Bang’ theory which states that
the universe exploded out of a single point or singularity
sometime between 13 and 15 billion years ago. It was initially
suggested because it explains why distant galaxies are receding at
such great speeds. ‘Time’, as it is, was created in this singularity
and ends in a singularity cloaked behind the event horizon of a
black hole. When we observe very distant galaxies we are in fact
looking back in time at the early universe. The more red shifted
the spectrum of their light, the quicker they are receding from us,
the further away they are and the further back in time we are
seeing. The theory also predicts the cosmic background radiation,
the afterglow of the early universe. In the very earliest fractions
of a second after time t=0, the basic constituents of matter still
hadn't come into existence, and the fundamental forces of nature
were unified into one force.
And the future of the universe? Well that depends on the
gravitational mass of the matter in the universe. If it is great
enough to halt the universe's expansion, then Universe is said to
be closed, and time will end in a Big Crunch just like it started
with a Big Bang. Otherwise the Universe is said to be open and
galaxies will continue receding until eventually even single
elementary particles will be separated by vast distances.