Does Spacetime Have Any Time Dimension?

Follow

The concept of time as a way to measure the duration of events is basically intuitive. Some researchers believe that this Newtonian idea of time as an absolute quantity and fourth dimension in spacetime is incorrect. They propose to replace these concepts of time with a completely new view: time as a measure of the numerical order of change.

Einstein never interpreted time as a fourth dimension of space. By this theory, space is not 3D + T, space is 4D. With clocks we measure numerical order of material change. This numerical order is the only time that exists in a physical world. 4D space is a medium of quantum information transfers.

Scientists at the Scientific Research Centre Bistra in Ptuj, Slovenia, theorize that this Newtonian idea of time as an absolute quantity, along with the idea that time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, are not accurate. They propose to replace these concepts of time with a view that say that time is a measure of the numerical order of change.

This view doesn’t mean that time does not exist, but that time has more to do with space than with the idea of an absolute time. So while 4D spacetime is considered to consist of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, this view suggests that it’s more correct to imagine spacetime as four dimensions of space. In other words, the Universe is “timeless.”

The concept of time as the fourth dimension of space – as a fundamental physical entity in which an experiment occurs – can be falsified by an experiment in which time does not exist.

An example of such an experiment is the Coulomb experiment. Mathematically, this experiment takes place only in space. On the other hand, in the concept of time, space is the fundamental physical entity in which a given experiment occurs. Although this concept could be falsified by an experiment in which time is not the numerical order of material change.

In addition to providing a more accurate description of the nature of physical reality, the concept of time as a numerical order of change can also resolve Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. The researchers explain that the paradox can be resolved by redefining velocity, so that the velocity of both runners is derived from the numerical order of their motion, rather than their displacement and direction in time.

In conclusion, the researchers also briefly examine how this new view of time fits with how we intuitively perceive time. Many neurological studies have confirmed that we do have a sense of past, present, and future. Some recent studies have challenged this traditional view, and suggest that the brain represents time in a spatially distributed way, by detecting the activation of different neural populations. Although we perceive events as occurring in the past, present, or future, these concepts may just be part of a psychological frame in which we experience material changes in space.