So, I’ve gotten into a little debate about the subject of time on another forum, with a guy who claims that time quite literally does not exist… I offered up basic logic (Ever cook an egg?), and then then brought up the atomic clock experiment that showed that gravity affects time. He claimed the experiment was bogus, and could be attributed to magnetic fields effects on the electronics within the clock.
So, basically, I’m looking for a way to prove that time does indeed exist… Other than, you know, waiting 5 minutes and saying “See? Time exists”…
Well, the only way that I can think of to argue against Time’s existence is to simply define it away… that is, give some other “phenomenon” the same properties as Time, with a different name, and say THAT’S what we all think is time.
Time is a construct of the human imagination. Just one of those things that exist in the perception of the human mind, but impossible to prove using the scientific method.
aeropl brings up a good point with the Scientific Method. Can this guy propose an experiment that would, at least in theory, have one result if time does exist, and a different result if time does not exist?
In Scientific American, I read about some theory which describes all four forces of nature…a true unified theory…which works if you just take out time.
It sounds to me like the problem is one of equivocation. Tell your friend to define what he means by time, and then make certain that he uses it in that same sense consistently. In physics, it is merely a dimension; i.e., a variable in an equation.
