What is spacetime?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

my favorite Einstein quote: "Who took my comb?"

-Imp

My favorite quote about Einstein: ''During our crossing, Einstein explained his theory to me every day,
and by the time we arrived I was fully convinced he understood it.''
/ Chaim Weizmann, 1921, after he escorted Einstein to the United States./

He was always being hit on by women, and he said to one at a party, 'Madam, are you aware that I am not wearing any socks?'. Which could have gone either way I suppose.

[Age]

What is spacetime?
Everything in SRT, GRT and quantum mechanics is done in so-called "space-time",
which is a kind of virtual 4D geometry.
But if SRT is correct and if QM is the basis for successful modern technology,
then space-time cannot be a virtual, abstract structure.
Space-time must be a real structure, real a frame of reference.
What is it? ....
1) Everything exists in the infinite, eternal, flat, cold cosmic vacuum. ...
2) Only in the cosmic vacuum are space and time one inseparable system (as is space-time) ...
3) One of Einstein's special relativity states: the speed of light in a vacuum is
constant and independent (as in space-time) ...
4) Dirac's formula E= ± mc² belongs to the system of "vacuum sea" ...
Spacetame is the cosmic vacuum.
‘'The problem of the exact description of vacuum, in my opinion, is the basic problem
now before physics. Really, if you can’t correctly describe the vacuum, how it is possible
to expect a correct description of something more complex?'' /Paul Dirac/
Book ''The Fermi Solution'':
''. . . something seems wrong with our idea of the vacuum. It is we who abhor a vacuum,
who recoil from the stillness of the void as from an open grave.''
/page 37-38, by Hans Christian von Baeyer /

'Dirac's formula'? Really?

Btw, Einstein said, 'You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother'. Sexist I know but then Einstein lived by his own rules

Is that, exactly, what "albert einstein" said?

And, how often do you 'look at' words and not put a sexiest perspective on them?

[Age]

when there is no human to measure it, does time actually exist?

-Imp

The word 'time' is in direct relation to the behavior of human beings measuring 'duration'.

Human beings do not so-called 'measure time' because there is no such thing as some thing call 'time', to be measured.

What human beings are actually measuring is some thing, and it is just the very act of measuring 'duration', between perceived events, which is what the word, 'time', is in relation to, exactly.

[Age]

Time is the dimension of space expanding or contracting relative to another space. ....
That is one of many ways of looking at it.

"The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics,
and therein lies their strength.

If there were some so-called 'strength', here, then it could be and would be very easy and simple for those who partake in so-called 'experimental physics' to just explain what 'space' and/or 'time' are, exactly.

If those people can not explain those things simply, then how well do those people really know those things?

They are radical. Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed
to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
/Hermann Minkowski /

Well 'this' is obviously 'this one's' own independent view of things, here.

[Age]

Time is the dimension of space expanding or contracting relative to another space. ....
That is one of many ways of looking at it.

"The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics,
and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed
to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
/Hermann Minkowski /

Time is merely the division of space through space as a space.

Is this assertion unorthodox? Yes....oh well...

That assertion is also nonsensical, illogical, irrational, and just plain absurd and foolish.

[Will Bouwman]

It depends whether you are doing maths or philosophy. For maths, it's just a set of coordinates: x, y, z and t, left or right, up or down, forward or backwards and before or after, using which you can locate any event, at least that we can engage with. Philosophically, it is the 'fabric' that the universe either exists in, or is the stuff the universe is made of, depending on your preferred flavour and assuming you believe there is a material universe. I don't pretend to know the answer, but if you're interested in my best guess, it's all in my comic book: https://willybouwman.blogspot.com/2024/ ... ation.html

[Age]

It depends whether you are doing maths or philosophy. For maths, it's just a set of coordinates: x, y, z and t, left or right, up or down, forward or backwards and before or after, using which you can locate any event, at least that we can engage with. Philosophically, it is the 'fabric' that the universe either exists in, or is the stuff the universe is made of, depending on your preferred flavour and assuming you believe there is a material universe. I don't pretend to know the answer, but if you're interested in my best guess, it's all in my comic book: https://willybouwman.blogspot.com/2024/ ... ation.html

Well it is certainly not the 'stuff' the Universe is made up of and out of. As that is very different, indeed.

[Eodnhoj7]

It depends whether you are doing maths or philosophy. For maths, it's just a set of coordinates: x, y, z and t, left or right, up or down, forward or backwards and before or after, using which you can locate any event, at least that we can engage with. Philosophically, it is the 'fabric' that the universe either exists in, or is the stuff the universe is made of, depending on your preferred flavour and assuming you believe there is a material universe. I don't pretend to know the answer, but if you're interested in my best guess, it's all in my comic book: https://willybouwman.blogspot.com/2024/ ... ation.html

What if both?

I mean lets face the obvious, time is rhythmic change where rhythm is a repeated symmetrical space between distinctions and change is the occurence of one distinction relative to another.

It is the measurement of one change relative to another change where the focal point of change by which other changes are measured is the measurement of a distinction, then another distinction where the space between said distinctions is time. Proof is the hand moving on a clock. A hand is in one space, then another. The position is the hand repeating across space as a space itself. The repetition of new positions, as the hand which is a space in itself, requires a space between them. The manifestion of the space, ie the past position, relative to another, ie the previous position is time. Now the movement of the hand is one rhythmic change and it is used as the starting point of measurement by which another set of changes occurs, for example the number of repetitions of an exercise, a rhythmic change. Time is a set of changes by which other changes are observed.

Now to the specific nature of time:

Time is merely the space between distinctions as the new distinction being the central point of observation. Given the new distinction is without time, as the central point of now contains no change on its own, it contains change only when observed relative to past changes. These past changes are observed relative to what was once current, as comparison requires an observation of the past at the current time, thus relegating the once current time as a past event relative to another past event. An example would be the hand of a clock, the hand is always currently seen only where it is at through the senses, where it was at one point is a past event only observed in the mind as memory. The current position of the hand is only seen as change relative to the past thus as the focal point of the present the present hand contains no change without a comparison to the past hand, thus time becomes a relation of occurences. To compare it to the past would effectively observe the past as a current perception where one past occurence is observed relative to another. In these respects the past, by memory, becomes a current occurence as it is what is being percieved as reality for the current moment.

Time is thus a process of perception by nature of space within and between percieved occurences of distinctions as events. To observe change is to observe the space of events, where events are spatial by nature of containing and being within distinctions as a distinction itself (example a human form is a form like any other and forms are fundamentally space within limits and these limits are the spaces between the space within and without them), thus the space of time (a space) occurs through the space as the distinctions, thus resulting in time being a space between space as a meta space where the conclusion occurs that only space exists and time is merely a meta space that provides a foundation structure to things by being the manifestation of distinction with these distinctions being necessary for limits and limits necessary for perceivable structure.

Time is the relation of distinctions, with these distinctions being space by nature of being forms, with the relationship of these distinctions being a space as time a distinction by which further distinctions occur.

In other terms the occurence of a distinction is change for with the occurence of a distinction a previous distinction is dissolved so that what occurs is distinct by its very nature of being. Change is to create distinctions as a form occurs. One distinction relative to another necessitates a difference by nature of being distinct. This movement is relative, as a fixe point is observed and movement occurs around it. For example one can stay still and observe the distinction of the clouds occuring, one can move and see new distinctions of a supposed fixed thing occuring, or one can move and see both the distinctions of another thing occuring while the new distinction occuring as the thing moving as well. If a thing is not distinct it does not occur, for by distinction a thing exists. Without distinction there is nothing.

Now to cycle back an observe the notion of time as a space within space this space by which times exists by relationship of distinctions observes the distinction fundamentally being forms. Forms are purely space by nature of a simple boundary, or a limit, seperating spaces with this seperation being a space between spaces. Form, as a space between spaces, and time being the space between the space between these spaces, results in a paradoxical notion of existence where the repetition of spaces, as the repetition of distinctions, shows not only a recursive quality to existence but simultaneously an alternation of distinctions between existing and not existing.

Now given that time is recursive, and recursion results in order as by repetition that allows symmetry, order as previously stated, a form is an occurence or the manifestation of change. Thus a form is a localized event of time, and time is observed relative to other times in this respect but also in the respect that to observe the passing of time is to observe an event, a distinction, and the event is effectively a form in this regard. In simpler terms a form is an event, an event is change, and change is time thus forms are not only temporal events but effectively is localized time.

Time, given is necessity of comparison of past to present, is not only recursion where distinctions are repeated, but has a simultaneous dual nature of alternation of distinctions occuring in and out of perception thus observes space as recursive alternation as the act of perception itself where time is fundamentally a paradox: it is the space between spaces. that are spaces between spaces in one respect, while dually being alternation of existence and non existence as recursion where the alternation in and out of existence requires a space between the existences.

Given the current moment is empty in itself without comparison to other moments causality is an everpresent medium where any conception of past or future is merely an observation occuring in the present, by which they arise, thus resulting in the relationship of now being a fixed ever present cause, akin to an empty point when it is without comparison, where one present moment, cause, and another present moment, cause as an empty point, results in a causality that manifests as effects as the comparison of one now to another now, one cause compared to another, gives rise to a form as effect and further cause.

An example of this is a line. There is a 0d point, the absolute cause in one respect as nothing is unchanging by nature of the inability to change for there is nothing to change and the absolute cause in another respect as it is everpresent within a line composed of infinite 0d points. The 0d point is divided into another 0d point as the line itself. This is a paradox as the division of nothingness is pure form by degree of an absence of absence, the negation of negation, by further of inherent contradiction by tension in the respect that the line is the opposition of nothing, 0d point, by virtue of existence, the line. The line is a paradox by nature and the line is a foundational form in observation due to its simplicity. The same cause exists in two different places and the places exists as the negation of nothingness where the line is merely a space dividing space as a paradox in itself, the line in otherwords is the creation of positions. Not only is the cause both beginning an end but effectively results in the line as a loop, a cycle, by virtue of the repetition of the 0d point being a 0d point and the space between the 0d point being the form which comes from it (the line in this case). Form is purely paradox as evidenced by the line. Now in regards to time, it shares this same nature as the line due to its perceptual integrity being the same as it. The "now" is but an everpresent cause, by interpretation and comparison of past and future through it, while dually time is the distinction of one now to another, one cause to another and yet the cause is everpresent just like a 0d point is everpresent in a line, where time becomes the division of the now as the form of things themselves that exist in multiple "nows", given each form existed in a relative "now" when compared. Time is the comparison of multiple "now" thus reflects an everpresent causality where cause becomes effect by the paradoxical negation of itself, the opposition of nothing (which is absolute given nothing cannot change for there is nothing to change) as being. Under these terms existence as distinction is purely time and time is a paradox.


Paradox is fundamentally the act of transformation and transformation is empty in itself.

[Cerveny]

Time and structure are not separate phenomena. Time is the way in which structure arises. And structure is the trace that time has left.
In other words:
• Without order, without sequences, there would be nothing to call “time”.
• Without time, structure could not arise, because there would be no “gradually”.

[Eodnhoj7]

Time and structure are not separate phenomena. Time is the way in which structure arises. And structure is the trace that time has left.
In other words:
• Without order, without sequences, there would be nothing to call “time”.
• Without time, structure could not arise, because there would be no “gradually”.

Simple and effective way of wording it.

[Cerveny]

Time and structure are not separate phenomena. Time is the way in which structure arises. And structure is the trace that time has left.
In other words:
• Without order, without sequences, there would be nothing to call “time”.
• Without time, structure could not arise, because there would be no “gradually”.

So, there was no BB, the beginning of matter, but the beginning of time, of causality. Formless, timeless matter began to take structure. In the beginning was the word:) The DNA of space…

[Skepdick]

What is spacetime?

A smooth (read: infinitely differentiable) manifold.

[Will Bouwman]

It depends whether you are doing maths or philosophy. For maths, it's just a set of coordinates: x, y, z and t, left or right, up or down, forward or backwards and before or after, using which you can locate any event, at least that we can engage with. Philosophically, it is the 'fabric' that the universe either exists in, or is the stuff the universe is made of, depending on your preferred flavour and assuming you believe there is a material universe. I don't pretend to know the answer, but if you're interested in my best guess, it's all in my comic book: https://willybouwman.blogspot.com/2024/ ... ation.html

What if both?

I mean lets face the obvious, time is rhythmic change where rhythm is a repeated symmetrical space between distinctions and change is the occurence of one distinction relative to another.

Ah well, now you are talking time, not spacetime. I don't know that I would call what you say above obvious, and what followed certainly isn't. Whatever time might be in the grand scheme of things, to our perception, it is just the passage of events, which I guess is what you mean. So yeah, a year is how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun, which we measure in days, which is how long it takes the Earth to spin on its axis. The Ancient Egyptians divided days into 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds. Currently the definition of a second is something like 8 billion something, something of the hyperfine blahdee-blah of caesium atoms. When Einstein said that at the speed of light time stops, in practice it means things stop happening. That's because everything is going as fast as it possibly can, except anything with rest mass can't reach the speed of light, of course. That aside, imagine two atoms, any interaction, an exchange of photons for example, will take longer to happen the faster they are travelling, because the photons will have to travel further not to miss the target atom. If atoms could travel at the same speed as photons, there would be no exchange because the photons would be using all their velocity just to keep up, nothing would happen. You wouldn't notice though, because nothing would happen between yours ears either.

[Cerveny]

What is spacetime?

A smooth (read: infinitely differentiable) manifold.

Reality is granular, quantized. Has anyone ever seen half an electron, for example? Smooth space-time is a mathematical idea, extrapolation…

[Skepdick]

What is spacetime?

A smooth (read: infinitely differentiable) manifold.

Reality is granular, quantized. Has anyone ever seen half an electron, for example? Smooth space-time is a mathematical idea, extrapolation…

That's a meaningless statement in context of the mathematical description of electrons.

The wavefunction ψ(x,t) is defined over continuous spacetime coordinates (x,t). The position operator x̂ has continuous eigenvalues from -∞ to +∞. The Schrödinger equation involves continuous derivatives ∂/∂t and ∂/∂x, and the robability density |ψ(x)|² is a continuous function over continuous space

Discreteness (if it were true) would be a property of the geometry/field in which electrons are found. It's not a property of the electrons.

Electrons are always whole, indivisible units that exist as continuous probability clouds in space, with quantized intrinsic properties (charge, mass, spin) and quantized energy levels. You are conflating the particle wholeness with space discreteness.