Where am I at with this hypothesis (the thermal time one)?
so far:
Photons propagate in a time-independent way; entangled photons interact in a space-independent way, as long as the state is known about. But dispersal is what distance, or space, derives from, and time is the virtual, but apparent part of it.
Time isn't what goes, it is go.
We don't imagine the existence of Time, like we imagine the Easter Bunny; Time is imagination --observation makes time appear.
Rovelli and Connes have described time as the effect of what we don't know (our ignorance) of some system, or the world around us.
Our approximate knowledge (measurement) of reality is what appears to flow, or move. Patterns change, but we only notice some of that change. This is what Rovelli means with: "time is the effect of our ignorance".
"Imagine a gas in a box. In principle we could keep track of each molecule ...and have total knowledge of the microscopic state... In this scenario, no such thing as temperature exists; instead we have an ever-changing arrangement of molecules. Keeping track of all that information is not feasible in practice, but we can average the microscopic behaviour to derive a macroscopic description. We condense all the information about the momenta of the molecules into a single measure, ...temperature.
According to C & R, the same [principle] applies to the universe at large. There are many more constituents to keep track of: ...we have particles of matter [and] we also have space and therefore gravity. When we average over this vast microscopic arrangement, the macroscopic feature that emerges ...is time."
--New Scientist 19 Jan 2008 p28
They are claiming that time is something that looks quite different at fundamental scales. The thermodynamics is an analogy (or, it's the thermal part of the "explanation": temperature tracks the flow of heat).
Mixing metaphors and the use of "illusory", as in : "time is illusory", isn't helpful, really, when what they mean is: "time is perceived because of what we don't see". It's kind of unfortunate that it has the name it does, but I can live with it.
Time is the gaps in our measurement, but we need the gaps, or there wouldn't be any change to observe. Relativity equates time and distance-the theory requires the existence of both; this doesn't mean that the non-existence of time, or time-free interactions, involving only space, are impossible (in fact, we already know about this).
If Time tends to a limit, in the classical sense, or disappears at, say the Planck limit (because there is no noticeable "change" at that level, or at whatever remove all detail looks smooth), that does not mean space ceases to exist, necessarily, or that covariance is violated.
P.S. Why do I "need" to jump through some hoop and construct a summary of some article in a magazine? Please explain.
