Does Distance exist without time?

Quantum Quack said:
well SRT states this if I am not mistaken...
I just wanted to learn if the board could supply proof that distance requires time. And so far I have found that if anyting SRT has said it does.
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QQ, in Special Theory, the distances measured are usually great, impossible to measure with an ordinary ruler. So, how does the theory get around this handicap? It uses speed and a clock to measure distances in lightyears, lightseconds, etc. The 'distance' is based on the speed of a photon multiplied by a duration as measured by a clock, such as a certain number of ticks to equal one second. So, without a ticking clock to measure the travel time of the photon, we have no mechanism by which to measure a distance based on speed and those ticks of a clock. Suppose you walk into a very large, but completely dark room. You can carry a very accurate clock with you to determine the distance to a distant wall. You still cannot measure the distance to the wall without a photon to bounce off the distant wall and back to you. You have to have both a photon and a ticking clock. You cannot state that distance doesn't exist in the room just because you lack an essential part of the measurement process.
 
2inquisitive said:
QQ, in Special Theory, the distances measured are usually great, impossible to measure with an ordinary ruler. So, how does the theory get around this handicap? It uses speed and a clock to measure distances in lightyears, lightseconds, etc. The 'distance' is based on the speed of a photon multiplied by a duration as measured by a clock, such as a certain number of ticks to equal one second. So, without a ticking clock to measure the travel time of the photon, we have no mechanism by which to measure a distance based on speed and those ticks of a clock. Suppose you walk into a very large, but completely dark room. You can carry a very accurate clock with you to determine the distance to a distant wall. You still cannot measure the distance to the wall without a photon to bounce off the distant wall and back to you. You have to have both a photon and a ticking clock. You cannot state that distance doesn't exist in the room just because you lack an essential part of the measurement process.
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agreed.
However if I am not mistaken SRT places our "moving" photon always in the center between past and future, therefore the photon is time and not with time.

So therefore according to SRT space cannot exist without time. [ in time and not with time ] sheesh! hard to explain.

The photon is time. Thus space is 4 dmensional. spacetime. sort of thing.
The whole universe is wrapped up with the photon granting it 4 dimensions or should I say 3 dimensions because technically the photon is time and not with time. If it was with time then 4 dimensions as a description would be more appropriate i think.
As the photon moves 10 seconds the universe has aged and changed 10 seconds as a whole.
The empty room if measured using a photon may give you a correct measurement of room size but it will also demonstrate spacetime according to SRT.
 
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I was thinking about this more today. Don't really know why. I don't really reject the idea that distance is related to time.

However, distance so far in equations, like most equations, contain the universal measurement of a constant speed. Whilst Einstein personally did not believe in the existence of faster than light objects, (and i speculate this might have to do with his displeasure of spooky actions at great distances), but nevertheless, his theory did allow them, so long as these objects moving at superluminal speeds did not have to accelerate to that speed.

If distance to the posters here, being related to time, is not a real thing, then consider two tachyons moving away from each other. Not only are they moving at infinite speeds, but the distance between them is also infinitely large. And these particles spend very little time, in the space dimension, but they, nevertheless, do have a bit of oscillation throughout the time dimension, moving in a sinusoidal pattern. They spend more time in the imaginary time, or real space, just as a photon is seen to move in zero time, and bradyons seen to move in imaginary space, or real time.

They do not experience real time, do these tachyons, which have an infinite amount of energy at their lowest speeds possible, ''c'', which would be defiant of the laws of physics, and contain infinite speeds using the smallest, or ground state of energy possible.

Therefore, the infinite speeds, if two where produced as a particle antiparticle pair, and rushed away from each other, we know that their velocity is certainly not zero, so there must be a distance between them, no matter what way you look at it.
 
Reiku said:
I was thinking about this more today. Don't really know why. I don't really reject the idea that distance is related to time.

However, distance so far in equations, like most equations, contain the universal measurement of a constant speed. Whilst Einstein personally did not believe in the existence of faster than light objects, (and i speculate this might have to do with his displeasure of spooky actions at great distances), but nevertheless, his theory did allow them, so long as these objects moving at superluminal speeds did not have to accelerate to that speed.

If distance to the posters here, being related to time, is not a real thing, then consider two tachyons moving away from each other. Not only are they moving at infinite speeds, but the distance between them is also infinitely large. And these particles spend very little time, in the space dimension, but they, nevertheless, do have a bit of oscillation throughout the time dimension, moving in a sinusoidal pattern. They spend more time in the imaginary time, or real space, just as a photon is seen to move in zero time, and bradyons seen to move in imaginary space, or real time.

They do not experience real time, do these tachyons, which have an infinite amount of energy at their lowest speeds possible, ''c'', which would be defiant of the laws of physics, and contain infinite speeds using the smallest, or ground state of energy possible.

Therefore, the infinite speeds, if two where produced as a particle antiparticle pair, and rushed away from each other, we know that their velocity is certainly not zero, so there must be a distance between them, no matter what way you look at it.
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Maybe they have separation but is it distance...hmmm new language needed I think.
Distance over what? space if it is empty of substance can not be measured for distance I tend to think as youare measureing something that isn't there. However the word separation might be better.
Distance over land and sea or air is one thing but distance over "nothing" or "non substance" is another.
We are after all attempting to measure the distance "between" two objects. And what is between our two object?
Any ways I do not think this is going to be resolved but certainly food for thought all the same.
 
And spacetime is actually not-empty at all. There is no such thing as free space. Every planck area of spacetime is filled with negative potential particles. If it wasn't, the zitterbugging action of electrons would not be effected. Spacetime, is an infinite physical sheet, potential and real.
 
Explain? Ok... i will try and simplify that very simple notion more.

Take any example, of two physical systems that are real, and say they are seperated. If they are seperated, then that would imply they have some kind of space between their physical frames of reference.
 
And that, MUST BE some kind of distance. But distance is observer-dependant, so... ... this has evolved. The notion is, take any two systems, that are either human, or being observed by a human(s).
 
What attracted me to SRT in the first place was teh sheer brilliance of placing the photon in the center of time. AE managed to describe teh change rate of the entire universe by doing so. All energy moving at the same rate an invariant 'c'.

This in itself IMO is an indicator of what inertia is in that this rate of change is invariant. So if mass is energy then mass must also have this inertia or fixed rate of change. Time dilations are then understandable when an object is given energy thus exceeding the rate of change by velocity therefore time dilates to maintain the invariance of universal change [ thus we have invariance of inertia.]
However the mechanism that allows all mass to share the same change rate [ inertia ] is not able to be understood until we are able to get all masses touching so to speak. Or understand how the universe is essentially just one mass with out any real distance between indiivdiual masses within it.

why the constants I used to ask....How come we have constants or uniformity throughout a massively huge universe of seemingly unconnected masses and pheno?
How does this co-incide with self animated life forms and works with "soft" masses such as humans?
 
Reiku said:
And that, MUST BE some kind of distance. But distance is observer-dependant, so... ... this has evolved. The notion is, take any two systems, that are either human, or being observed by a human(s).
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Distance = temperature ?
 
That's the thing though. Its not such a mental thought process. I can understand why people would like to call a photon time, since its speed is a universal invariant, ultimate in many theories of respect, ethereal, and zero-time and zero-space particle. But, it would only exist for a single chronon, if any age at all. I speculate a chronon, because it still had to bubble out of the vacuum as an energy, and create the form of any notion of a zero-time particle.

So qq may not be so daft, because in effect, time, according to some physicists, can resemble a reality that is squeezed in and out of existence in a planck time, or a single value of the chronon.
 
Enmos... yes. And you meant that as a joke, because temperature can relate to the entropy in a radiative system, like a gas of light, and they will displace, and as they do, a distance is formed between the subatoms, as the density weakens.
 
So you say EM-radiation = time = temperature = distance ?

Wtf ? Are you serious ?
 
Reiku said:
And that, MUST BE some kind of distance. But distance is observer-dependant, so... ... this has evolved. The notion is, take any two systems, that are either human, or being observed by a human(s).
Click to expand...
so Reiku:
do you believe the universes existance is dependant of human observation or observation by a humanoid?
 
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