Is time a physical reality or just a useful concept? In the formulas and theories of physics, we can find time as a physical quantity. ...
Is time a physical reality or just a useful concept?
In the formulas and theories of physics, we can find time as a physical quantity. Emphasizing the importance of time as a determining extent of the universe, we use three space dimensions and a time dimension. The time appears as the fourth dimension. We need the time dimension as a necessity to describe physical processes and the universe as well.
Time appears not just in the physical equations, but also determines our biological life and is entirely built into our consciousnesses too. It became part of our senses. It seems like time is a ubiquitous and essential part of the physical reality.
But what is the time in reality? Is there such a thing? Does it exist by itself? Or perhaps the time is really only a derived physical term and not included in the physical reality? Maybe it is a manifestation of a more fundamental physical phenomenon.
Time is, in fact, the succession of events. (The event is a state change in a system.) No time exists if no activity occurs. And measuring time is a comparison to a smoothly varying series of events (see a watch) to different events in succession. It makes sense to talk about time only when events occur. Time is a well-handled physical measure, but it is not part of the physical reality.
We know from the theory of relativity that the universe is describable most appropriately if we think of space-time. The time coordinate appears in the system as if the universe would have an extension of it. Of course, the universe exists in time too, and time is a powerful tool if you take it as a coordinate, but this is only a method of the description, not part of the physical reality.
Time is a virtual manifestation of a real physical phenomenon: the change in the system.
No comments