• Rimu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    74
    edit-2
    20 days ago

    time being purely a consequence of entanglement. It states that the only reason that an object appears to change over time is because it is entangled with a clock.

    Wtf. Which clock is this?

    • @RedditRefugee69@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      3620 days ago

      Yeah. I read that multiple times and still have no idea what he’s talking about but it’s the most important part of the article

      • @ameancow@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        2719 days ago

        They mean something that can be used to mark change, they mean clock in the purely physics sense… but don’t worry, you’re probably not dumb, these articles are so horrible at communicating theoretical physics ideas it might as well be abstract, new-age greeting cards.

        • @Waltzy@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          919 days ago

          I also figured that they meant entangled with some system that can mark change, but change is only possible with a concept of time. So I still don’t follow.

          • @Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            619 days ago

            I think they mean that a quantum system entangled with another quantum system serving as a clock will create the appearance of classical physics including classical notions of time in the system when you observe it from a macro scale?

            That way this theory tries to bridge the gap between quantum notions of spacetime and classical notions of space and time?

            If that’s not what it is then it’s beyond me what they’re trying to say.

            • @ameancow@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              119 days ago

              Science article writers try not to fudge over lack of understanding of physics by writing “quantum” over everything challenge: level - impossible.

        • @RedditRefugee69@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          619 days ago

          “Probably not dumb” love the honest appraisal of unknown variables. I’m like the science fan in big hero 6. Not smart enough to do science but smart enough to enjoy it.

          This clock concept is still so abstract I don’t know what the “clock” could possibly be or look like

          • @skulblaka@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            719 days ago

            In a very basic sense a “clock” is just a fixed oscillation. In CPUs, for instance, all your data is carried by bursts of electricity that you can think of like Morse code. Bits are delineated by the clock, which is one wire that lights up on a regular interval and does nothing else (the “clock signal”). Every other process uses that clock signal as a reference point to know when one piece of data ends and the next begins. Essentially the time between one clock signal and the next is one “frame” of CPU time and you’ll usually have a few million or so of those every second.

            So if we think of this in a physics sense instead of a computer science sense, a physics clock could be any particle or particle interaction that happens repeatedly on a regular schedule. It could even happen on an irregular schedule, there’s no law saying the clock has to be consistent. I think it’s probably on a regular schedule, but for all we know the pico-femto-Planck or whatever the basic unit of time ends up being defined as might have slight variance caused by who knows what. But the important idea to take away is that a “clock” in a fundamental sense is basically just any action that repeats. It could be or look like anything. Maybe time is tied to quantum foam fluctuations, or gravity in a general sense, or specifically the up quark doing something. I have no idea and I think this researcher probably doesn’t either.

    • SkaveRat
      link
      fedilink
      1420 days ago

      The one in my basement. It’s a bit dusty. Should I turn it off?

  • @MonkderDritte@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    29
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    Summary: time is entangled with a clock and appears static from the outside. Why, the article doesnt explain.

  • hopesdead
    link
    fedilink
    1420 days ago

    I thought it was widely agreed that time was a construct?

    • @aleph@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      18
      edit-2
      20 days ago

      It has been a common belief in philosophical circles for centuries, but not among physicists. Both Newton and Einstein thought of time as being one of the fundamental properties of the physical universe.

      However, in the past decade or two, some theoretical physicists have now come back around to the idea that space and time could instead be emergent properties of a deeper, underlying reality.

      If you really want to go cross-eyed, read up on the holographic principle.

      • @Lag@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        420 days ago

        My favorite theory is that time and space are reversed in a black hole which could be at the beginning and the end of the universe.

      • astrsk
        link
        fedilink
        119 days ago

        This is the crux of quantum field theory, no? Where Newtonian and Einsteinian physics are all entirely emergent properties of fields that are governed by quantum principles? I’m in the cross-eyed camp so I’m way out my depth.

        • Richard
          link
          fedilink
          English
          419 days ago

          “Einsteinian” physics do unfortunately not arise from quantum physical principles, which is the major flaw in our current understanding of the universe. Quantum physics is very applicable to the microcosm, but cannot accurately solve for the macrocosm, while it is the opposite for gravitational theory.

    • @Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      1720 days ago

      In relativity time is a real dimension like space , but of a different type, and your speed in time depends on your speed in space and on your proximity to big masses, like planets. This kind of physics is necessary to keep the satellites synchronised otherwise their clocks go at a different speed from those on earth, so this is all very real and confirmed.

        • @ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          10
          edit-2
          19 days ago

          It’s far stranger than that.

          The problem that shows exactly how tangled the problem is, is this: accelerating is the same as gravity.

          Not “they feel the same” or “We can compare them” or " They’re similar in many ways" no, I mean literally. They are the same thing. This has been proven.

          The force that is making you stick the planet is the same as being in a car and driving constantly faster and faster forever.

          If this makes zero sense to you, that’s good, it means you’re human. But it also means that our vision of the universe is radically different than whatever kind of objective reality is out there, if there is one.

          (What gives is time. Time is what’s changing when you move through space AND when in a gravitational field. You can also study this field for decades and barely come closer to being able to visualize it. Our brains were not meant.)

          • @MonkderDritte@feddit.de
            link
            fedilink
            1
            edit-2
            19 days ago

            But this is consistent with what i said? Not moving and no mass = frozen in spacetime. Which is why it needed big bang as external factor to spread spacetime (i.e. change to unchanging environment). Right?

            • @ameancow@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              1019 days ago

              Not moving and no mass = frozen in spacetime

              You’re always moving at the speed of light through time. When you accelerate, you are borrowing from your speed through time and converting it to speed through space. The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. The faster you move through time, the slower you move through space.

                • @ameancow@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  6
                  edit-2
                  19 days ago

                  That’s another great question that unlocks another incredibly strange point about reality.

                  You’re only moving faster/slower through space/time to an outside observer. Your own rate of time and your own velocity through space will always feel centered on you, and it will always look like the rest of the universe that is slowing or accelerating.

                  And in fact, another mind-melty point behind relativity is that if you jump out of a 20th story window, there is no action that says you’re falling, instead the action is saying that you have changed your velocity (or altered Earth’s velocity in respect to your acceleration) and now the rest of the world is passing you very rapidly. It would feel like Earth and the building and everything else is wooshing past you while you stand still. And that’s a correct perspective. It is rushing past you, you are sitting still in space. (The problem comes when that wall of asphalt and dirt swings past and doesn’t miss you.)

                  If you fall into a black hole where spacetime is distorted as far as we can imagine, to you nothing will feel different (at first) you will see the whole universe seem to roll into a tight ball behind you and it will look like it’s in rapid-motion if you pointed a telescope into it, you would see stars being born and galaxies fading and the entire future of the universe will rush past and you will hit the singularity at the death of the back hole, some billions and billions and of years into the future. If you could magically escape right before you get pulled apart, you would find the entire universe has died outside and all the stars have gone out.

                • Richard
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  219 days ago

                  Time passes more slowly for you than for an outside observer, e.g., if you are moving to some place, for someone on the outside, your journey could take decades, while for yourself only minutes pass.

  • @EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    719 days ago

    “What the hell, Jenson?!? This is our firms biggest case in 20 years and you show up two hours late?!?”

    “Oh, haven’t you heard?”

  • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ
    link
    fedilink
    319 days ago

    Can’t even read it.

    We present an implementation of a recently proposed procedure for defining time, based on the description of the evolving system and its clock as noninteracting, entangled systems, according to the Page and Wootters approach. We study how the quantum dynamics transforms into a classical-like behavior when conditions related to macroscopicity are met by the clock alone, or by both the clock and the evolving system. In the description of this emerging behavior finds its place the classical notion of time, as well as that of phase-space and trajectories on it. This allows us to analyze and discuss the relations that must hold between quantities that characterize the system and clock separately, in order for the resulting overall picture to be that of a physical dynamics as we mean it.

    “evolving system and its clock as noninteracting, entangled systems”

    Interesting. Is this related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time) ? (Block Time)

    • @batmaniam@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      1419 days ago

      Bare with me here because I am not an expert. I think what they’re getting is the same as how gravity doesn’t exist. Vsauce did a great video on that, but the general notion is that because space time is curved, objects traveling in streight lines will appear to be drawn closer to one another. “Gravity” isn’t fundamental, warping spacetime is. Nothing changed but our understanding of it, which does matter for some more complicated areas.

      I think this is similar. Just like gravity “doesn’t exisit”, it’s just an emergent phenomenon: they’re saying so is time. They’re saying time isn’t fundemental, except that it’s an expected phenomenon that would arise from other factors, those factors being proposed to be some entanglement crap I have zero ability to talk about.

      And I’m putting some words in their mouth with “time isn’t fundemental”. What they’re really doing is proposing a new definition that better fits observed phenomenon/models.

      And still, none of this explains why we still have daylights savings time.

  • @Paragone@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    018 days ago

    I would suggest, instead, that “Classical Physics” is created by entanglement:

    the non-quantum reality at our scale is just what happens, when everything is entangled, to the point of clogging-up-the-works of quantumness, as it were…

    .: you get things like … as you scale up from quantum-level … the everything-is-discontinuous/everything-is-turbulence … turns into, once enough entanglement is happening, “laminar flow” in fluid-dynamics, even-though NOTHING in QM is laminar-flow, so there’s simply no basis for “laminar flow” at the lower-level…

    I wonder how significant this is, really…

    _ /\ _

    • @PaintedSnail@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      519 days ago

      I would be careful of confusing “reality” (whatever that is) with our model of reality. Relativity, which treats time as a dimension, is a good model that fits well with most of our observations. It’s not perfect, though, and it doesn’t fit well with some other observations. That’s how we know that it doesn’t fully match reality, and why we’re looking for a new model.

      Paraphrasing the old saying: all models of the universe are wrong, but some are useful.

      • What effect does the distinction between that and “the best way we have for our minds to think about it” have on it?

        Also, unless i remember it wrong, I thought it was relativity that showed the flaws explanation quantum physics’ had for time and not the other way round. I mean, I might be but that’s my understanding of it right now.

        • @PaintedSnail@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          4
          edit-2
          19 days ago

          If I interpret your question correctly, you are basically asking what the practical difference is between interpreting a model as a reflection of reality and interpreting a model as merely a mathematical tool.

          A mathematical model, at its core, is used to allow us to make testable predictions about our observations. Interpretations of that model into some kind of explanation about the fundamental nature of reality is more the realm of philosophy. That philosophy can loop back into producing more mathematical models, but the models themselves only describe behavior, not nature.

          A model by nature is an analogy, and analogies are always reductionist. Like any analogy, if you poke it hard enough, it starts to fall apart. They make assumptions, they do their best to plug holes, they try to come as close as they can to mirroring the behavior of our observations, but they always fall short somewhere. Relativity and Quantum Chromodynamics are both good examples. Both are very, very good at describing behavior within certain boundaries, but fall completely apart when you step outside of them. (Both, to expand on the example, use constants that are impericaly determined, but we have no idea where they come from.)

          The danger is in when you start to assume that a model of reality is reality itself, and you forget that it’s just a best guess of behaviors. Then you get statements like you first made. “Relativity assumes time is a dimension. The model for that works. Therefore time must be a dimension in reality. That must mean that not treating time as a dimension anywhere must be wrong.” That line of thinking, though, forgets that a model is only correct within the scope of the model itself. As soon as you introduce a new model, any assumptions made by other models are no longer relevant. That will pigeonhole your thinking and lead you to incorrect conclusions due to mixed analogies.

          That is how you get statements like your first one. “Model A treats time like an illusion, but model B treats time like a dimension. Ergo, all dimensions are illusions .” That is mixing analogies.

          • @undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            3
            edit-2
            19 days ago

            Interesting, I appreciate it thanks. I see what you’re saying and I think you’re right. Its not right to the exclusion of something else. That was too far. I must have gotten way too excited lol.

            You know what it is? I just straight up dont like it. Its about time people started calling out time on its bullshit.

      • @Hugin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        219 days ago

        It absolutely does depend on your reference frame. I remember one of my physics 3 test problems was a ship in it’s own reference frame was a standard 3 4 5 right triangle. We had to calculate what the observed lengths and angles from a reference frame where it was moving at .96c.