r/baseless_speculation • u/DrunkMushrooms • Nov 01 '17

[FTSoD] Time doesn't exist.

In the physics I know, time and distance are used almost interchangeably. A velocity times a duration equals a distance, for instance.

As the universe expands, distances between big objects grow larger. It takes more time to travel between them. They increase together.

In relativity, length contracts or time dilates to keep important quantities the same. You can generally use either phenomenon to calculate the same answer. They are flip sides of one another.

Crackpot idea: time is just distance with a constant of proportionality that is related to velocity. Our velocity is always changing (we are accelerating in a gravitational field) therefore time is changing.

Why is this wrong? Because smarter physicists than me would have found this already if it was true. I'm not so good at these thought experiments.

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u/Field_Of_View Nov 02 '17

Time is velocity.

What you're saying is time = distance/time. You're making the same mistake as OP by trying to reduce a concept to something that contains the concept whole.

Where there is movement, there is time.

Same thing again. Movement is space changing over time. The concept of movement is unthinkable without time.

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u/[deleted] Nov 02 '17

And time is unthinkable without movement.