Understanding time and space

"Truth" is "what works".
"Infinity " is " that beyond which what we cannot picture".
"Time" is "that medium in which prediction and control operate".

These are all parochial by-products of human cognition which has allowed us to emerge as the most successful of adaptive species yet to have evolved.

It is no accident that the words heart and hear are part of the same word.

Every time I think of time and space it boggles my mind. The universe is believed to be billions of years old, yet the light is traveling to us just now from the beginning of time.

How can this be? If light travels in a straight line it would seem the sky would be a blur of light? What makes the light seem to stand still? Why is the speed of light a constant? Why does the elemental universe of energy and mass dictate this?

Einstein talks about relativity, objects relative to light sources. space/time travel and dimensions seem like fantasy.

How are space and time interlinked?

Is it some sort of equation that has not been discovered yet?

The elements seem so stable to only be constructs of a smaller sub atomic world and that part of an even smaller world of quarks and black holes. Who knows how many magnitudes of order the particles and energy descend down into the vortex of physics.

It is inconceivable to think there was once no time. Will future people laugh at us for thinking such a thing? Like believing there are no microbes and that biology spontaneously comes into existence, like creation.

How many evolutions will the collective human mind go through, will we ever believe in eternity again? World without beginning or end.

It seems there are many beginnings in a long continuum that never starts or stops. Universes come and go but time in it most rudimentary sense never begins or ends. Suns, matter, light, energy etc all seemingly exist within the isness of all that is.

For science to declare such a ridiculous theory that ultimate time has a beginning seems to be the point where science becomes a religion.

Yes there seems to have been a "big bang" where our universe began but it began within a vacuum that had its own existence and reckoning of time and so on.

So the big bang was relative to the empty space it occupied. So the particle that started the big bang must have paled to the immense empty void that surrounded it. Thus our speed of light must be slow compared to the speed of the void. Is our speed of light likened to a piece of matter when it comes to the relative speed of the void?

And where does this get us? One day older and one moment closer to the great beyond.

It seemed science was on the verge of declaring the universe infinite when Einstein came along and through science theorized that time and space had a beginning. This gave credence to the Bible and its view on time also. In doing so it makes science seem somewhat fanciful and unreliably speculative.

Any thoughts?

Quote:
This century will see a return to classical physics.

For those of us uneducated in classical physics - what exactly does it posit in terms of the universe and its origins?

I'd sincerely like to learn something about it.

RexRed wrote:

Every time I think of time and space it boggles my mind. The universe is believed to be billions of years old, yet the light is traveling to us just now from the beginning of time.

How can this be? If light travels in a straight line it would seem the sky would be a blur of light? What makes the light seem to stand still? Why is the speed of light a constant? Why does the elemental universe of energy and mass dictate this?

Einstein talks about relativity, objects relative to light sources. space/time travel and dimensions seem like fantasy.

How are space and time interlinked?

Is it some sort of equation that has not been discovered yet?

The elements seem so stable to only be constructs of a smaller sub atomic world and that part of an even smaller world of quarks and black holes. Who knows how many magnitudes of order the particles and energy descend down into the vortex of physics.

It is inconceivable to think there was once no time. Will future people laugh at us for thinking such a thing? Like believing there are no microbes and that biology spontaneously comes into existence, like creation.

How many evolutions will the collective human mind go through, will we ever believe in eternity again? World without beginning or end.

It seems there are many beginnings in a long continuum that never starts or stops. Universes come and go but time in it most rudimentary sense never begins or ends. Suns, matter, light, energy etc all seemingly exist within the isness of all that is.

For science to declare such a ridiculous theory that ultimate time has a beginning seems to be the point where science becomes a religion.

Yes there seems to have been a "big bang" where our universe began but it began within a vacuum that had its own existence and reckoning of time and so on.

So the big bang was relative to the empty space it occupied. So the particle that started the big bang must have paled to the immense empty void that surrounded it. Thus our speed of light must be slow compared to the speed of the void. Is our speed of light likened to a piece of matter when it comes to the relative speed of the void?

And where does this get us? One day older and one moment closer to the great beyond.

It seemed science was on the verge of declaring the universe infinite when Einstein came along and through science theorized that time and space had a beginning. This gave credence to the Bible and its view on time also. In doing so it makes science seem somewhat fanciful and unreliably speculative.

Any thoughts?

Well you are wrong on some accounts. Some physicists have been trying to reconcile QM and Relativity theory by denying time completely.

I do not think that the idea of spacetime beginning at the big bang points to God; in fact it points to, if anything, an infinite timeless point. By an inductive process, the notion of a timeless point prior to the big bang is far more appealing than a God who has unnecessary properties to carry out the beginning of the universe.

I do not understand what you mean by 'ultimate time'. If anything, space and time are inextricably bound up together (hence spacetime). But there are varying theories about the Big Bang. Take, for example, the oscillating theory, where the universe expands at some point in time, then contracts, and does so all over again.

Also, where does Einstein say that time and space had a beginning?

And another thing; instead of simply saying that the notions of space and time in physics seem "like fantasy", why not take some physics courses or read up on your physics. Im sure, if you understand Calculus, that you can start of with Newton's Principia Mathematica, and work your way up to Einstein, instead of rambling on about how the subject boggles your mind and you think it seems like some sort of religion. Just a suggestion.

In the beginning god created space and time. In other words zero created one.

Of course, the results of Edwin Hubble confirmed that the universe was expanding and had a beginning at some point in the past.....

Your link emphasizes my point above..that models are subject to constant revision. What suprises me is that any physicist might think they have arrived at an ultimate model. Godel's incompleteness theorem although "mathematical", suggests that all systems/models must contain at least one unsupported axiom. This does not involve "faith", merely "working hypotheses".

You are correct that your aspirations to "understand" are doomed, because you fail to analyse the usage of that word. The child who asks an infinite regress of "why ?" questions is a fair analogy.

No. That's a bit of "word magic" again. What it might suggest, as one of a multitude of interpretations, is that it has always been a human trait to speculate "child-like", on "the unknown", but you are dressing it up as a heroic or romantic aphorism. You might equally come out with "curiosity killed the cat".