Why Time is More Than Real

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."--Albert Einstein

It is apparent from the above quote that reality distinguishes itself from ordinary illusions by its persistent nature. Reality is true even if you choose not to believe in it. Thus, if we are trying to settle the question whether time is real, we should examine time to see, if like reality, it too is a persistent illusion.

The time variable is very persistent and ubiquitous in so many physics equations. On that basis we can claim it's real, but just how real is it compared to things like matter, energy, mass, distance, force, your neighbor's barking dog? It's not like we can grab time out of the air, hold in hand and look at it like a hunk of clay. However, like clay, time can be stretched or compressed depending on how close to the speed of light you are traveling. How is that possible if time is just a product of human imagination? Surely any relative differences in time would also be limited to the human imagination and not an empirical reality.

When examining time, one has to make the distinction between how we measure time and time itself. One popular argument claims that if all particles in the universe stopped changing their states and came to rest, time would stop and cease to exist. This seems reasonable. If nothing happens, how would we experience the "flow of time"?

But what if the "flow of time" is just our experience when we measure time? If your watch stops, you don't assume that time has stopped. You only assume your ability to measure and experience "the flow of time" has stopped. So it seems reasonable to assume that time continues even if every particle comes to a grinding halt. Think of a stalled universe as one big watch that stopped.

So what exactly is time if not a flowing, evolving, ever-changing environment of entropy? The following equation, for me, is a real eye-opener and has forced me to rethink time:

E is energy and psi is the wave function, tp is the Planck time, G, c, and h-bar are the gravitational constant, light speed and Planck's constant, respectively. The above equation shows that it doesn't matter how much or little energy there is, or whether states change frequently or not at all, whether they go forward or backward. No matter what values you plug in for E and psi, you get forward time, specifically, the Planck time. Imagine having zero energy, zero change and still having a Planck time. How is that possible? Thought experiment time:

Imagine a universe with no energy, no distance or space, no charges, no masses, no momentum, no oscillators--just a single zero-dimensional point, a singularity. According to the above equation, time still exists. Why? Because the singularity is persistent--it is real. What exactly is this singularity? It's literally nothing ... except time at a single reference frame, at a single point. No clocks, no observers, just pure time.

Time is so essential to reality, that no "persistent illusion" can persist without it. Time can persist without anything else we would deem real, but nothing we deem real can persist without time. The words "reality," "existence," "persistence," "presence" all imply the passage of time. At this juncture, one could argue that time is not only real, but reality's most essential component. And, when we perform the above thought experiment, we witness time in its purest form.

So if you ever encounter a skeptic who believes time isn't real, that particles exist without time, ask the following question (but don't hold your breath):

"How long do particles exist without time?"

Uncertainty Principle for Black Holes

The above video discusses black-hole mathematical singularity problems. The current laws of physics seem to break down once a particle crosses a black hole's event horizon. One mathematical singularity occurs at the Schwarzschild radius; another occurs at the black hole's center. That being said, we will show if Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is employed, the singularity problems vanish and the laws of physics are restored. First, we define the variables we will use:

Before we examine a black hole, let's look at an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus. If we know the electron's mass and its approximate velocity (close to light speed c),i.e., its momentum, then we don't know its exact position. Its position could be anywhere within the Bohr radius. The product of its uncertain position and momentum gives us a number close to Planck's reduced constant:

We can imagine the electron being anywhere within a spherical cloud extending as far as the Bohr radius:

Now, let's take the mass of a black hole. Let's assume it is greater than the Planck mass. At the black hole's Schwarzschild radius, equation 3 is true:

Next, we add a pinch of algebra to get equation/inequality 5--an uncertainty principle for the black hole.

So far, so good, but we run into a problem when we reduce radius r to, say, the Planck length:

The inequality at 6 clearly violates the uncertainty principle. The left side is required to be greater or equal to the right side--not less! The problem is caused by the momentum term containing nothing but constants (the Planck mass, c, and m).

If we are more certain about the position or size of the black hole's physical singularity, we need to be more uncertain about its momentum, so we need a momentum uncertainty factor represented by the Greek letter eta:

At 8 we see the uncertainty principle is restored. When radius r shrinks to a Planck or even a zero limit, eta blows up as it should.

Below we do some more algebra and derive 14:

At 14 we see the total energy on the right side never exceeds the total finite energy on the left side. A large momentum uncertainty (eta) cancels position certainty due to a small or zero radius. The inequality/equation at 14 also implies the black hole's singularity position is uncertain if the momentum is known. It could be located anywhere within a sphere bounded by the Schwarzschild radius. The most probable location being the center.

We can take what we have developed so far and apply it to an energy conservation technique used within a previous post titled "High Energy Quantum Gravity." At 15 below we take the total energy between two orbiting bodies and subtract the strong, weak and electromagnetic energies.

The gravitational energy that remains will have a radius (ro) independent of radius r. The total gravitational energy remains constant no matter the distance r. However, we've factored in eta to conserve the Heisenberg uncertainty principle if r shrinks below the Scharzschild limit. Equation 15 reveals that a small force over a large area is equal to a large force over a small area.

Now, let's take what we now know and apply it to the singularity problems that crop up in the Schwarzshild metric below:

At 16, the right side's first term is infinity if r = rs. This implies the spacetime interval (ds) is infinite at the Schwarzschild radius--which is ridiculous. If r = 0, the last term, proper time, is infinite--also ridiculous. But of course, we have the tools to vanquish these mathematical singularities. We know the following Lorenz equations are true:

From 19 to 23 we make some substitutions and simplify the metric at 24:

At 25 we factor in eta:

Now, the only time we get infinity is when r is infinity and kappa is greater than zero. This makes sense if you stop and think about it (see results below).

When the radius is equal to the Schwarzschild radius, the spacetime interval is finite and the proper time is zero. When the radius is zero, the spacetime interval is only the outside observer's time, which makes sense, since nothing can move through zero space (a single point). The proper time is also zero, which makes sense, since it implies that time began after the universe expanded beyond a single point. Thus the current laws of physics that previously broke down are now at least partially fixed.

Special thanks to Cosmological {Prime} Causality for linking this post. Click here to read their blog.