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A thought just occurred to me. Our first sentence currently reads:
Time is the continuing sequence of events occurring in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future, and a measure of the durations of those events, the intervals between them, and the rates of changes occurring in them.
This can be broken up into a conjunction of two claims:
Time is the continuing sequence of events occurring in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
and
Time is a measure of the durations of those events, the intervals between them, and the rates of changes occurring in them.
I wonder if some people here who are more partial to the old "Time is part of a measurement system" first sentence might like the current first sentence better if those two claims were reversed (no change of content, just presentation), something like:
Time is a measure of the durations of events, the intervals between them, and the rates of changes occurring in them; and the continuing sequence of them in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
That last part seems long and awkward to me though and if we're going back to "sequence" I think "continuing" loses its value (of clarifying the meaning of "progression"), so I might trim it down to something like:
Time is a measure of the durations of events, the intervals between them, the rates of changes occurring in them; and the apparently irreversible succession of them from the past through the present to the future.
On a slightly different note, I wonder if anyone would object to changing "rates of changes occurring in them" to "frequency of them", since every change is an event in itself and so a rate of change can be stated as a frequency of events (both have the same form of units, something-per-time). If that was OK, I would simplify further to:
Time is a measure of the durations and frequencies of events and the intervals between them; and the apparently irreversible succession of them from the past through the present to the future.
Thoughts? -- Pfhorrest ( talk) 23:32, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I think things common to dictionary definitions are a great place to start, but then we have to take away things which would pronounce some viewpoints as wrong by definition...Well... that's what this NPOV thing is all about, Pf. Who is to say that these "some viewpoints" are correct (neutral) when they contradict the dictionary definition? As to the common or lay definition of the word, what is the most NPOV source of the meaning of the word? So some editor has some viewpoint that is contradicted (or at least not indicated) by the dictionary definition? Does that mean that the dictionary has a non-neutral POV or the editor? Is this editor's authority about the word greater than that of a long-standing and highly regarded dictionary?
I deleted the comments I wrote above, because I wanted to spend more time thinking about the issues involved. 70.109.178.39 undeleted them. I really wish he/she had respected my wishes, but since they've been up all day, I suppose the best thing is to leave them. I'm still thinking and reading and have not reached any final conclusion. Rick Norwood ( talk) 01:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
As an aside the IP seems to have unilaterly stuck his "newest" comments in between Phforrest's and mine [1]. This is not correct. For one thing I was responding directly to Phforrest's comments with my first statement. The second are more general comments but they still build on Phforrest's comments. It seems to me that this takes my comments out of context.I would like to take a vote that we move those "new" comments down in the correct order. The IP claims to have been here since 2004 and does appear to know what is kosure and what is not. Please also note I have had to stop now for about 10 or 15 minutes, distracted from ten main conversation. Also please note, it is not necessary to correct my spelling on a talk page. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 02:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
The inserted comment came in chronologically (speaking of "Time") later than the comment below the inserted pointI posted this paragraph second. Pretend I'm a different person replying to you. -- Pfhorrest ( talk) 07:00, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
To get back on track here -- I can see that Rick has a point about "continuum". I also see that it stands out in the dictionary definitions. Also, I want to compliment Rick on coming up with that parphrase. In addition, Phorrest's reply to me and the other editor shows a grasp of the subtle distinctions involved here, (and anchored in the sources too). Therefore I can really appreciate what I am seeing here. ---- Steve Quinn ( talk) 05:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I think it is time to move on, and focus on editing the article. Rick Norwood ( talk) 14:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Steve, regarding this edit, my intention in "some sense of time" was to be "time, in some sense of the word"; a segue from the preceding sentence which says that precise definitions of time across all fields are contentious... nevertheless many fields just pick one and use it. A word sense. I'm not sure if that was clear and you still object to it or if you didn't see that that's what was meant. Maybe we should wikilink "some sense of time", or just say "time, in some sense of the word"?
we don't seem to be discussing time as a "sense" or "experience" at the moment...The fact is this measurement is simply an extension of this experience; a technological extension. This is quite the same for measuring (or experiencing) any other physical quantity. Rick Norwood's internal clock is just one example. This is why I suggested dealing with both concisely in one compact sentence. 71.169.179.128 ( talk) 02:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
This is unhelpful. Also please note that my internal clock is a) anecdotal and therefore not evidence and b) almost certainly chemical in nature. Let's stick to academic sources that assert a subjective component to time. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
...you'll note none of our recent first sentences say either anything about whether or how time is subjectively experienced, or whether or how time is objectively realized...I'm trying to get us to focus on this. About your "P and Q", I am saying that time has to have some definition (and the dictionary is the NPOV place to get it) of what before we include that this what is measured and/or experienced (and to include either of these measured or experienced aspects of what before the what is not NPOV). And you have made no case that they have to be in the same sentence. There is nothing wrong with saying "Light is a wave and has these wave-like properties. Light is a particle and has these particle-like properties." Do they contradict? Some might say so, but the physics is that light displays both properties in different contexts. They need not be in the same sentence if doing so makes for a cumbersome run-on sentence. 71.169.179.128 ( talk) 16:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
The beginning section seems a bit wooish and metaphysical...
We should keep both relativity and quantum physics in mind, For instance: "Time is a measure of observed electromagnetic change in a locally defined area"
In this way we have both the requirement of an observer which is necessary for both relativity and quantum physics and we have also taken into consideration that time progresses differently in a gravitational field. All biological processes actually slow in colder weather, and we have been able to slow light in certain circumstances by cooling gasses. By this I am inferring that time is actually changed when energy level is changed. This agrees with all modern science that I am aware of. The reason we use calculus in physics is because change defines physics.
The sentence above, however, is just an example of one formulation that I believe concisely and non-circularly defines time. Nemesis75 ( talk) 02:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
The first sentence is not bad,
but it contains the word "sequence," which is rather an objective observable of time, and not actually an intrinsic aspect. Something like this..
would work better. Regards, - Stevertigo ( t | c) 00:00, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
Jacksmart99 ( talk) 20:00, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Time has, I believe, two core, very simple, though subtle, definitions. It is not a phenomenon, nor a force, nor a dimension, nor a flow. Time doesn't "cause" anything, it merely measures the effect that other change agents have. It has two distinct usages. Firstly it is a measurement. Time measures in the same sense that distance measures. Distance measures the gap between two points. Time measure the gap (interval) between two events. (From this core usage, as a measurement, time also has some subsidiary usages as a calibration, referenceing and indexing system). The question is, what is it measuring? Distance measures space. Time measures..? Well, event to event is a reference to change (change occurs when events occur). So time is a measure of change - perhaps more accurately, change rate. Change can either be grouped change, as in a composite object, or specific. So, for example, the Human Body is a composite object. It has an age, as a composite, despite the fact that, for instance, hair and brains - two of the bodies components, age differently - so change s grouped. Or Time can be specific to , say, a quantum particle (i.e non-composite). Each particle will have its own unique event horizon, or change stream. Time, as a measurement, is speficic to each event then, it is not a universal (it might CALIBRATE as a universal, but that's subsidiary and arbitary). Time doesn't cause change. Things don't age because of time. Time merely measures change and change rate.
The second usage of Time is as a collective term. All events and intervals that occur (all change that happens in other words) are grouped together and Time is used as their collective. The idea that "time moves on", is actually describing change as happening. So time is a collective, the underlying element of time being change-events and duration. These, again, are specific, not universal. So the definition of Time, based on these usages, should be:- 1. A measurement of change; 2. A collective term for all change. I have expanded on the reasoning behind these definitions on www.thisistime.co.uk
Jacksmart99 ( talk) 10:11, 30 July 2012 (UTC)I disagree. Time is measurement. The idea that “change cannot exist without Time” is like saying length cannot exists without distance. It doesn’t say anything. Change doesn’t need time. Change may occur over a duration, but that duration is NOT a dimension set, or phenomenon. Change happens (Julian Barbour in The End of Time (Phoenix, London, 1999), says (p231) "All true change in quantum mechanics comes from interference between stationary states with different energies. In a system described by a stationary state, no change takes place".
And you measure the change duration using a calibration system (Time). IF change doesn’t happen, Time doesn’t exist. Change causes time. This is the subtle understanding that I believe you are missing.
Time as a dimension? Mmm. I’ll be bold here...this is where physicist have put up their own red-herring which has become a barrier to clear understanding. The problem is that every event to event happening has its own change characteristics, unique and independent. We use Time to measure these. But each one is unique to the event to event occurence. Like distance is unique to every point to point. You could call each a (time) dimension. There are therefore as many time dimensions as there are event to event occurrences. Time is specific (to every event to event), not general. Which is why Spacetime is, at best, a poor approximation. Jacksmart99 ( talk) 10:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
( talk) 10:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
We shouldn't go looking for sources to support our own ideas, but should report what the sources say, quoted extensively above. The two common views are that time is a continuum, (in mathematics an axis at right angles to three spatial axes) or that time is a measurement. It's fun to talk about, but the article needs to stick closely to the sources. Rick Norwood ( talk) 11:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
While "continuum" is more common, more than one cited source uses "sequence" and others use "progress" or "progression". The objection to "continuum" was not that it is too vague, but rather than it is too specific, implying that time is continuous rather than discrete. "Progress" was objected to on the reasonable grounds that it suggested "improvement". That left "sequence" and "progression". In my view, either of those words is preferable to "continuum" because of the problem I mentioned. Rick Norwood ( talk) 11:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
The planet is in a accelerated state of decay due to the emissions of fossil fuel. This issue being how Time is measured is dependent on isotope decay. You know the saying that Time is money? That is a problem because the more debt we accumulate, the faster the decay. Swiss time is slower than isotope decay, which is an reason the valuation of the dollar is diminished. We know that our planet (and solar system) is moving really fast. Really I care more about the future, and less about the past. Science is experimental. They measure time by cesium isotope decay which is an environmental issue, and has little to do with our velocity. I believe the atomic clock is destructive to the planet, our safety and well being. Whomever controls the definition of Time, ultimately controls the Money. Science does nothing, and neither does the government. It a Global issue that needs to be fixed else we will destroy ourselves. There may be no solution, but slowing time back to Swiss movement would slow that tempo of life and the way we work. I opine that the faster we manipulate time the worst the economy gets. The data from NOAA shows our environment is changing, so we know what we need to do. How do we actually make the world change for the better? Humanity is a slave to time, and there is no freedom. Mapsurfer49 ( talk) 21:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Wow. Interesting viewpoint
Throckmorton Guildersleeve (
talk) 17:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, sorry I've been absent so long, had a ton to catch up on when I got back from vacation.
On the wording that currently stands, I think it's a bit verbose and can be made a little more concise, and that this will resolve some of the above issues. Namely, "progression" and "succession" seem to be redundant, both suggesting a march of one thing after another. Since there has been misinterpretationof "progression" as meaning "improvement" here previously, I would suggest we pick the latter of the two, "succession", and consolidate it down to that: "Time is the apparently irreversible continuing succession of events..."
That gets a little heavy on the adjectives being piled onto "succession" though, which brings us to the issue of "continuing". I understand that this is intended not to mean "continuous", but rather "ongoing" or "indefinite". But whichever of those it is taken to mean, that quality of time is not a defining characteristic of it, but a merely incidental feature, as evidenced by the (minor and very specialized) debates over whether time really is continuous and over whether time really is indefinite. I think it does no harm to remove the word "continuing" (saying less rarely hurts, even if what's omitted is widely accepted), and does the small good of slightly improving neutrality and of streamlining the prose, so I would suggest we remove it, leaving us with the much more concise "Time is the apparently irreversible succession of events..."
As far as the suggestion to add "existence" back in there, I think the debate on that is getting highly tangential. My objection to reinserting it is this: what is a "progression of existence"? (or "succession of existence" if we change the phrasing as I suggest above). A progression or succession of events makes obvious sense; one event follows after another. But what "progression of existence" is intended to mean eludes me. I am not making any statement here about whether or not time exists or whether things exist in different times or anything like you're all discussing above; I think just the words do not convey any coherent meaning.
From the anon's comments above, I think the intended meaning is the same as that captured by the second half of the current first sentence: a measure of the durations of events and the intervals between them. Just preemptively I want to emphasize that that "a measure of" language is not to say that time is a measurement, but rather it is whatever is measured; and I'm happy to work on some other phrase to use there to convey the idea that time is whatever durations span, be they durations of events or of the 'empty' intervals between them as the "progression of existence" phrase apparently intends to convey.
To reiterate my earlier comments on my intended connection between the two halves of this sentence: the first is intended to describe time's role in ordering, arranging, or sequencing things, about pastness vs futureness and so on; the second is intended to describe time's role in (I really can't think of a suitable synonym here) measuring things, about how long events and the gaps between them last. To make the analogy with space again, it would be like saying "Space is the arrangement of objects around each other, and a measure of the size of those objects and the distances between them." -- Pfhorrest ( talk) 01:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
To say that time is a succession of events seems to me to be saying that a stage is the action that takes place upon that stage. The missing word is "continuum", but we have seen problems with that. I suggest: "Time is the dimension along which events occur in apparently irreversable succession." References: "Newton did for time what the Greek geometers did for space, idealized it into an exactly measurable dimension." About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Paul Davies, p. 31, Simon & Schuster, 1996, ISBN-13: 978-0684818221; "It was the minute hand that would in fact propel human time into a new dimension...", About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang, Adam Frank, p. 77, Free Press, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-1439169599; "We might also add: time is the dimension of change...", "Time's Square", Murray McBeath, in The Philosophy of Time, edited by Robin Le Poidevin and Murray McBeath, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN-13: 978-0198239994. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
Stevertigo: the issue with "continuum" is highly technical: quantum time may be discrete rather than continuous. The objection to "dimension" is similarly technical. But these are the two words used most frequently by the sources, and I think the article should use one or the other. I agree with 71.169.181.254 and Pfhorrest that "apparently irreversible" is a good choice. "Apparent" not only softens "irreversible" but also has the sense of "to all appearances" time is irreversible. "The moving finger writes and having writ..." Rick Norwood ( talk) 12:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
Time is the succession of events isn't great, since it could be read as a definition of history. Time is more like the successiveness of events, the tendency of one event to succeed another. Also the "references" generally don't mention "succession". 1Z ( talk) 10:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree. "Time...is the succession of events..." (or sequence of events or progress of events) confuses the events with the dimension (or continuum) along which events happen. My suggestion opened to mixed reviews, but I'm going to suggest it again: "Time is the dimension along which events occur in apparently irreversable succession." References: "Newton did for time what the Greek geometers did for space, idealized it into an exactly measurable dimension." About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Paul Davies, p. 31, Simon & Schuster, 1996, ISBN-13: 978-0684818221; "It was the minute hand that would in fact propel human time into a new dimension...", About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang, Adam Frank, p. 77, Free Press, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-1439169599; "We might also add: time is the dimension of change...", "Time's Square", Murray McBeath, in The Philosophy of Time, edited by Robin Le Poidevin and Murray McBeath, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN-13: 978-0198239994. Rick Norwood ( talk) 14:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Rick Norwood wrote: "Stevertigo: the issue with "continuum" is highly technical: quantum time may be discrete rather than continuous."
As I said before, this issue is not fatal for the purpose of using the term "continuum" - time very well may be quantized at a microscopic scale, but as those particles interact with others, what may be a discrete phenomenon becomes continuous through the sheer complexity of these interactions. Hence, "continnum" can fit. "The objection to "dimension" is similarly technical.
- Can you explain the difficulty with "dimension." The only real apparent snag is in limiting time to a single dimension. But these are the two words used most frequently by the sources, and I think the article should use one or the other."
- Yeah, that seems to be my conclusion as well. I lean towards "continuum," over "dimension." -
Stevertigo (
t |
c) 23:18, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Should not this page refer / link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:6B0:E:2018:0:0:0:207 ( talk) 23:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
My only issue with this is that ISO 8601 is a human based system to represent the recording of time. In other words data format. Whether time is recorded in 24 hour format or 12 hour format really does not add to the discussion on this "time" wiki page. This page is more focuse on what is time as opposed to what is the best way to write time references. Throckmorton Guildersleeve ( talk) 17:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Why does searching for "newtonian time" bring you to "time", when they just aint the same thing??? Newtonian time is where it is universally constant, while this time is in reality a relative quantity. New article needed? I decided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.226.254.178 ( talk) 10:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
I find it quite strange if not downright wrong that Einstein name is not mentioned in the main description of time which is often the only portion of text that most people read. From the start "Time is a dimension ..... " until ".....and in human life spans" Einstein name is not mentioned once whether other scientists are mentioned (Newton, Kant, Leibniz). Einstein has completely changed the way we look at time not in a theoretical way but in a measure proven scientific way. Without Einstein's work we wouldn't be thinking of time the way we are now. He has fundamentally transformed the conception of time itself. Unless his theory of relativity is proven wrong at some point, I believe his name cannot be omitted from the main description of time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadio2007 ( talk • contribs) 09:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
This wiki section on time makes no mention of the concept of time presented by Aristotle, in his work titled 'Physics'. In Book IV, Aristotle states that 'we want to know what time is and what exactly it has to do with movement". He reaches a number of conclusions (1) "time is not movement, but only movement in so far as it admits of enumeration"; (2) "time then is a kind of number"; (3) "every simultaneous time is self-identical; (4) "if there were no time, there would be no 'now', and vice versa"; (5) "time then also is both made continuous by the now and divided by it"; (6) "time is number of movement in respect of the before and after, and it is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous; (7)"time is not described as fast or slow, but as many or few and as long or short" (8) :there is the same time everywhere at once, but not the same time before and after"; (9) "not only do we measure the movement by time, but also the time by the movement, because they define each other"; (10) "time is a measure of motion and of being moved, and it measures the motion by determining a motion which will measure exactly the whole motion"; (11) "to be in time means, for movement, that both it and its essence are measured by time"....clearly then to be in time has the same meaning for other things also, namely, that their being should be measured by time", (12) "since time is number, the 'now' and the 'before' and the like are in time, just as 'unit' and 'odd' and 'even' are in number; (13)"to be in time does not mean to coexist with time, any more than to be in motion or in place means to coexist with motion or place; (14) "since what is in time is so in the same sense as what is in number is so, a time greater than everything in time can be found"; (15) "a thing then will be affected by time, just as we are accustomed to say that time wastes things away, and that all things grow old through time..."; (16)"things which are always are not, as such, in time, for they are not contained by time, nor is their being measured by time"; (17) since then time is the measure of motion, it will be the measure of rest--indirectly, for all rest is in time"; (18)"time is not motion, but number of motion: and what is at rest,also, can be in the number of motion"; (19) "neither will everything that does not exist be in time, i.e., those non-existent things that cannot exist, as the diagonal cannot be commensurate with the side"; (20) the 'now' is the link of time (for it connects past and future time), AND it is a limit of time (for it is the beginning of the one and the end of the other); (21) in time all things things come into being and pass-away".
In book VI, Aristotle offers this operational definition of time: "that which is intermediate between moments is time". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.50.151 ( talk) 12:42, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
The section on time perception was titled as "judgement of time" (and later "temporal judgements" by User:JimWae), but this phrasing is inappropriate and seems rather based on pedantry. What's wrong with simply titling it as "time perception" or "perception of time"? The majority of readers are more familiar with that phrase than one that attempts to achieve a more specific definition of which the difference is trivial at best, and only serves to confuse and be preoccupied in pedantry. - M0rphzone ( talk) 09:37, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
The term "time" is generally used for many closed but different concepts. Speaking exactly, one should distinguish at least between:
From this point of view, the term time can be used as a shorthand or in general sense. Nevertheless, in an exact text like in definitions, proper term should be chosen:
rather than
because Δt is neither name of that interval nor its value (it is its duration - one of more quantities connected to that interval, other quantity being e.g. date of its start instant).
JOb 10:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
JOb 10:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
JavaScript's internal clock starts at 1 January 1970 00:00:00. [1] This can be shown with the getTime()function.
Is this going to be added to the page?
Blehmann1 ( talk) 16:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Under Religion, I have restored the edits for now per WP:RELEVANCE and removed any unreliable/online sources while keeping the text sources.. 71.82.112.140 ( talk) 14:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
It appears that a year actually lasts 365.25 days, or 365 days and six hours. The infomation on this page about a common year is incorrect since it said it lasts only 365 days and to tell the truth, leap years does not exist. The reason that people say that leap years exist because that they forgot to count the remaining 6 hours of the year, and since full days are easier to count, they put a leap year every 4 years(24÷4=6). Please add your thoughts in the section below about if you agree or object this edit.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry.y.ma ( talk • contribs) 01:47, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I said at
Talk:Time (disambiguation)#Issues of lead & overall structure that the lead entry at the Dab page had to closely reflect the lead on the accompany primary topic article, but then got out ahead of myself by composing
-- to replace the IMO clearly unacceptable Dab lead that reads
-- this tentative Dab-page lead entry:
which i regard as also doing a better job of capturing the scope of the accompanying article Time than does its current lead sent (which reads)
(Note that my approach would continue the current partitioning off of a separate article Time in physics (or something with about the same scope, even if with a different title), which, i should think, deserves mention in Time essentially only by a sentence or short 'graph including that link.)
I can imagine meeting some anticipable objections with an odd-looking (but i think well-accepted) structural approach, that may offend users' intuitions less: letting Time redirect to Time (classical conceptions), or Time (pre-relativistic conceptions). That would reflect the fact that while most people don't think about relativity when they say "time", there is an ambiguity between "time" in the sense most people mean and "time" (what is in almost everyone's experience adequately described by classical conceptions, but in a strict sense doesn't exist at all bcz all this/that matter keeps anything from actually behaving exactly as classical dynamics describes.) That classical-time article of course would need a HatNote like
(or even, if you have the guts for it!)
--
Jerzy•
t 09:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
This vapid idea ought to be scrapped rather than perpetuated. Obviously time is a dimension of existence, ( a 3-dimensional object has no detectable physical reality if it does not exist for a finite duration) but not of space. Parrot-fashion repetition of it implies: 1) The Post Office could evaluate the postage of a parcel from the data that it measures 3x4x5 cm, and is scheduled to last 6 hours. Or 2)"Since there could not possibly exist a 4th dimension of space, we must be talking of something else in disguise". A refusal to admit the possibility of what is difficult to conceive. 125.237.122.52 ( talk) 03:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
The section on the history of the calendar is pretty good. Of course how we get 365 days in a year is also simple to understand, as both the day (noon to noon) and year (equinox to equinox) are simple observations that all cultures can make.
The history of why the day is divided into 24 hours and not some other number is not very well described. The article on clocks has a little better description, but still not as good as the calendar portion above.
The article has these sections:
Right there you see the problem. The "History of the Calendar" is about how we came to have our current calendar. Logically there should follow a "History of the clock". It would also be about the abstract ideas (that there are 24 hours, that they are divided into AM and PM, that the counting of them begins with 12 -- these are all very strange things, unlike any other measurement system, and not explained here) and not the devices used to measure it.
Perhaps using the term "History of the Clock" would be confusing so one could label it "History of the Division of the day into smaller units" (And the symetrical "History of the Calendar is logically "History of the Division of the year into smaller units".)
In other words there is both a abstract and physical manifestation of the division of time for both the periods of greater than a day, and those less than a day. (It does not take much technology to "build" a calendar, so there is no need for a separate section on it. Any writing system will do.)
ZeroXero ( talk) 19:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
Timeframe and time frame redirect here, but the article doesn't explain the concept. IMO we should either add a section explaining what a timeframe is, or point the redirect to a page which actually explains the topic (such as Wiktionary:Time Frame). -- Gordon Ecker, WikiSloth ( talk) 06:49, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
I think the later is a good idea: redirect to the wiktionary page. But that may be because I lack insight into what a longer section of this article would say about it. The definition seems complete, and I don't think there is a lot more to say about it. But if there is maybe you could sandbox it here and we could add it.
ZeroXero ( talk) 19:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
I have reverted this edit to the lead by user Jiohdi:
I have left a final warning on user's talk page. Comments welcome. - DVdm ( talk) 06:43, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
User:94.175.0.86, over the last 24 hours you have made two reversions, deleting materials while claiming to be restoring materials in your comments, and also while providing no further explanation for your major reversions. Meanwhile the accuracy of the article has been quite degraded. GMT was agreed to by the International Meridian Conference, not by the Convention of the Metre. Before making any further edits to this article, could you please:
These future courtesies by you would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott P. ( talk) 16:11, 27 June 2016 (UTC
Certainly add a ref, if you can clearly document somewhere that includes any specific wording of the Convention Agreement that includes anything about Time or the Second. Otherwise, It appears to me that your source may have been making the same erroneous assumption that mine did, namely that Time was officially discussed at that conference, as all of the documents that I have thus far found, including the BIPM website itself, say nothing about the second having been defined at that conference. The absence of this info from the BIPM website itself seems to me to be the most telling. Also, I think it is probably a foregone conclusion that until the conversion to the SI-second, which is now based on cesium oscillations, there was no real need to sign any agreement on the exact definition of the second, as that had been defined and agreed upon centuries earlier, with no dissent or controversy.
Essentially it was what most folks now hold it to be, one 60th part of a minute, which is one 60th part of an hour, which is 1/24th part of a day, which is approximately 1/365.25th part of a year. That definition worked well enough for society until the speed-up of the "electronics revolution," when we first discovered all sorts of "nasty little secrets" about our little, supposedly well ordered universe! We uncovered scandalous secrets like the fact that the solar year was inconstant by a good part of a second each year, etc. etc. Our little celestial myth of the "exactitude of the heavenly spheres" slowly crumbled before our very eyes. How sad!
In my time as a Wikipedia editor, it has never ceased to astound me as to how sometimes fiction seems to attempt to make its way into "facthood!" Your source may be an instance of that, who knows? Thanks again for your thoughtful reply, Scott P. ( talk) 19:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm not certain what you mean when you say that I, "appear to be doubting the veracity of the Wikipedia article which describes what was decided at the Convention and confirms that timekeeping was not a matter with which it concerned itself."
I am only saying that it seems to me that unless some new agreement about the definition of what a second might have been was officially defined by that Convention, or unless some other unit of time might have been newly defined by that Convention, then I cannot see why that Convention should be referred to in the article on Time. I've pored over the actual treaty agreements, and have found nothing about any references to definitions of time in any of them. I have found secondary sources that describe the treaty as defining the "CGS" system of measurement, but those documents are all interpretations of the treaty. In the treaty itself I could find no mention of any "time definitions," or of the CGS system of measurements itself, for that matter.
If you insist, without first being willing to discuss the exact cites here, that this treaty did define the second, despite no primary proof of it, and if you insist on incorporating such a claim into the article without such a discussion here first, then I must simply give up, and would then have to simply say "please do as you will". If you would prefer to first attempt to clarify here together with me so that a better mutual understanding might first be reached between us, then please list your supporting cites here on this talk page, and I would then be quite happy to discuss them with you here further, before we both agree to use them in the article. I get the sense that you may prefer to edit the article first. If that is your choice, then I will yield to you. The choice is yours, either:
I will await your decision. Thanks, Scott P. ( talk) 22:01, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Regarding this and this, I agree that "continuous" is mentioned in some of the citations in the second ref, but as it is not mentioned in the first, and as at least in physics mathematical continuity is not required, I reverted to the original "continued". However, if this gets reverted again, no problem with me. - DVdm ( talk) 09:51, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
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The importance of the number 12 is due to the number of lunar cycles in a year and the number of stars used to count the passage of night.
184.177.172.90 ( talk) 22:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Time is the measurement of change — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.207.116.134 ( talk) 08:47, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
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If time gets slower because of speed or gravitation , is it logical to say that time has physical properties ? is time is some sort of energy moving at a speed of light ?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.117.128.250 ( talk) 20:33, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
The 1st sentence uses a source that says time is "the progress...". Progress in most cases suggests or implies IMPROVEMENT. There is no consensus that things are always improving.Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page).
Also "progress" is hyperlinked to article on "sequence". I seem to remember 1st sentence that did not have these 2 problems.--
JimWae (
talk) 11:26, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Time is a parameter in which events are sequenced, have comparative durations and intervals between them; rates of change are quantified using time. The position of events with respect to the transitory present is continually changing; events happen, then are located further and further in the past, while anticipated events in the future get closer & closer to the present. [1] [2] [3]-- JimWae ( talk) 11:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
It seems the great majority of the sources for the lede use "sequence", not "progress" - and so far I see only one having progress (which wiki article links to sequence, not progress). I see no reason to prefer that one (or 2?) source over the others - and several reasons not to prefer it.-- JimWae ( talk) 12:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
What is INDEFINITE progress?-- JimWae ( talk) 12:21, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I do not think we generally need a measured quantity to sequence events - we usually have before & after. We can compare durations quantitatively - with longer & shorter - or with numbered units-- JimWae ( talk) 12:25, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
References
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Please change the "Length, duration and size" for the item, "Lifespan" under the table called "List of units", from "85 or 82 years" to "85 to 84 years". This seems more appropriate as many human's lifespans vary and not all of them are just 85 or 84 years, even though they could live to be that age. Thank you for reading this request. 2602:306:8BAB:2320:F5AE:350F:CD07:2DDA ( talk) 23:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
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In the phrase "Greece around 250 B.C. with a water" please replace "B.C." with "BC" because we normally don't put periods after the letters. 208.95.51.115 ( talk) 13:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I reverted these edits. The thoughts of Julian Barbour are already discussed - much more briefly - in the section headed "Time as 'unreal'". Ghmyrtle ( talk) 17:37, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello. In the first sentence of the lede, the word "irreversible" is wikilinked to Irreversible process. I wonder if it would be better to wikilink that word to Arrow of time. So it would look like
Would that be better? 96.237.136.210 ( talk) 04:32, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
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I am finding it very unsatisfactory, uninformative. Crude. It is generally agreed that a definition is not allowed to use the word being defined, in the definition. Also, the definition should not have words in it that cannot be understood, without first understanding the word. The lead paragraph breaks this rule. You cannot understand "succession from the past through the present to the future" without first understanding "time." What is "past"? What is "present". What is "future"? They are simply points in time. One does not define a "straight line" by saying it is a sequence of previous points, current points, and further points. One defines a straigt line by saying it is the shortest distance between any 2 points. Two points.
Can time have qualities of being straight, or curved? I'm not sure. I would prefer to see the lead sentence define time in terms of an object that moves in space at a constant speed. One "day" is the unit of time between 2 events: the event where the sun is at maximum height in the sky until the next event where the sun is at a position of max height in the sky. Time is what happens when 2 events are not simultaneous. Another definition of time might of called a "second" and be the amount of time it takes light, in a vacuum, to move between 2 points in space when those points are 299 792 458 meters apart. Perhaps we should lead off by defining time in terms of space, and changes in space. Then again, perhaps we are we being circular here - defining time in terms of distance, yet defining distance in terms of time? Yet not understanding the essence of either. Nomenclator ( talk) 01:17, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree there are copy-editing problems with a few of those phrases. However, the body of the article needs more work than the lede at this time. Power~enwiki ( talk) 01:31, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
This is too much like a personal essay to be moved to a separate Mainspace page. The contents are below if anyone wants to try. Power~enwiki ( talk) 01:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Time and the Big Bang theory
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Stephen Hawking in particular has addressed a connection between time and the Big Bang. In A Brief History of Time and elsewhere, Hawking says that even if time did not begin with the Big Bang and there were another time frame before the Big Bang, no information from events then would be accessible to us, and nothing that happened then would have any effect upon the present time-frame. [1] Upon occasion, Hawking has stated that time actually began with the Big Bang, and that questions about what happened before the Big Bang are meaningless. [2] [3] [4] This less-nuanced, but commonly repeated formulation has received criticisms from philosophers such as Aristotelian philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. [5] [6] Scientists have come to some agreement on descriptions of events that happened 10−35 seconds after the Big Bang, but generally agree that descriptions about what happened before one Planck time (5 × 10−44 seconds) after the Big Bang are likely to remain pure speculation.
![]() While the Big Bang model is well established in cosmology, it is likely to be refined in the future. Little is known about the earliest moments of the universe's history. The Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems require the existence of a singularity at the beginning of cosmic time. However, these theorems assume that general relativity is correct, but general relativity must break down before the universe reaches the Planck temperature, and a correct treatment of quantum gravity may avoid the singularity. [7] If inflation has indeed occurred, it is likely that there are parts of the universe so distant that they cannot be observed in principle, as exponential expansion would push large regions of space beyond our observable horizon. Some proposals, each of which entails untested hypotheses, are:
Proposals in the last two categories see the Big Bang as an event in a much larger and older universe, or multiverse, and not the literal beginning. References
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-time-john-gabriel 67.106.126.3 ( talk) 01:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
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Last sentence, first paragraph under History of the calendar These calendars were religiously and astronomically based, with 18 months in a year and 20 days in a month, plus five epagemonal days at the end of the year.[24]
Change epagemonal to epagomenal
[1] Cciolli ( talk) 20:03, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
"Progress" is fancy. The idea of universal physical transformation, or simply, "change," is needed at this point. -Anam — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1:9A0F:FB6C:7D43:7889:5F6E:B606 ( talk) 21:49, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
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In the World time section, can you please add the image Standard World Time Zones.png to show the time zones of the world and how Earth is split up into time zones? Thank you. 2601:183:101:58D0:9C3A:41A8:F09D:1BC8 ( talk) 22:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Where in the article is it linked to? 2601:183:101:58D0:9C3A:41A8:F09D:1BC8 ( talk) 23:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a place for original ideas so I'm asking if anyone is familiar with acceptable sources that may present an alternative to the lead sentence's (common) description as "from the past through the present to the future." Some popular web pages suggest that the current of time brings the future into the present and the present into the past in that objects are not carried by but resist time's flow. Dates on the other hand ride the current of time keeping pace with its flow. Tomorrow's date yields no resistance being suspended in time and so moves with the current and eventually arrives not at a point further into the future but at the present and then it will be carried into the past. The current of time eventually sweeps our entire earthly lives back into the past. Time is not carrying us forward but we are resisting its backward flow. Of course though the perception that "times flows forward" is nearly ubiquitous. Anyone know any such sources? Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host ( talk) 02:31, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Twice have I removed ( [3], [4]) a book from the books list, added ( [5], [6]) by user Temugin ( talk · contribs), whose edits all are related to this author Rovelli—see wp:SPA. The book is not cited as a content reference, so it looks like wp:refspam. Any thoughts? - DVdm ( talk) 20:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I think this sentence "This view is shared by Abrahamic faiths as they believe time started by creation, therefore the only thing being infinite is God and everything else, including time, is finite." should have a reference, or at least specify who it refers to, because 'Abrahamic faiths' is an enormous amount of groups of people over a very long time. They don't all presently have this exact view on time, nor would they have in the past all had this same specific view. Waylah ( talk) 07:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Section 7.1 states:
Such chemicals will either excite or inhibit the firing of neurons in the brain, with a greater firing rate allowing the brain to register the occurrence of more events within a given interval (speed up time) and a decreased firing rate reducing the brain's capacity to distinguish events occurring within a given interval (slow down time).
Aren't the perceptions of time speeding up or slowing down being reversed here? If the brain speeds up, time appears to slow down, and if the brain slows down, then time appears to speed up.
If the brain registers more events within a given interval, then subjectively one would perceive that time slowed. An interval of 1 actual (as measured by a clock) second might feel like 4 seconds. Hence the experience of an accident unfolding in slow motion.
On the other hand, reducing the brain's capacity to distinguish events occurring within a given interval, makes it feel as if things are happening faster than they actually are, in other words it feels as if time is speeding up. e.g.: under the effect of alcohol, reaction times slow, and a driver might not be able to avoid a sudden obstacle. To the driver, it is as if time sped up, leaving them insufficient time to react.
If you concur, then I recommend replacing the original text with:
Such chemicals will either excite or inhibit the firing of neurons in the brain, with a greater firing rate allowing the brain to register the occurrence of more events within a given interval (slow down time) and a decreased firing rate reducing the brain's capacity to distinguish events occurring within a given interval (speed up time). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew seligman ( talk • contribs) 05:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
The phrase "de-Christianize time" appears. The French revolution might have imagined that its efforts would de-Christianise time. The factor 60, often appearing in the current version, such as 60 seconds to the minute, goes back to Sumeria, before Christianity was founded. Of course, the Revolution did not know about the Sumerians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.15.21.214 ( talk) 13:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
"This view is shared by Abrahamic faiths as they believe time started by creation, therefore the only thing being infinite is God and everything else, including time, is finite." This line under the sub-heading 'Philosophy' appeas to be illogical or inconsistent with the paragraph above it. Kindly review it. EVeRYTHiNG 22 ( talk) 20:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
"Modern philosophers asked: is time real or unreal, is time happening all at once or a duration, If time tensed or tenseless, and is there a future to be?"
Review this line under the sub-heading 'Philosophy' for grammatical mistake. EVeRYTHiNG 22 ( talk) 04:16, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Even the sources of nearly all eastern content appears to be a western book or website.
"The Vedas, the earliest texts on Indian philosophy and Hindu philosophy dating back to the late 2nd millennium BC, describe ancient Hindu cosmology, in which the universe goes through repeated cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth, with each cycle lasting 4,320 million years.[63]"
This line under the sub-heading 'Philosophy' has a western source and according to source maybe the information is correct but how authentic the source is?! I have not specifically studied about this from original texts but in the wikipedia article about Hindu units of time and many other sources, the cycle of the universe according to Hindu cosmology is aproximately 3.11 trillion years not 4,320 million years as mentioned in the above line. Kindly research about this and review it. Thanks. EVeRYTHiNG 22 ( talk) 04:26, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Recent edits: [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] have resulted in a change of the first sentence of the article from this:
to this:
Which version is preferred? Note that this subject has been abundantly discussed before: [13]
Attic Salt ( talk) 13:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Time is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Time until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America 1000 11:55, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi guys, there is a need to rewrite this topic even-though it seems comprehensive it is lop sided and doesn't reflect the entire world, going to divide this into western philosophy and eastern philosophy (religious time text would be under eastern philosophy) , if you are watching this page and want to discuss or contribute please do this here now , rather than edit warring at later stage -- Shrikanthv ( talk) 13:50, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
The word "history" in the chronology section could use a link to its page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lmstevens5947 ( talk • contribs) 17:19, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
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Original version: With current understanding of Physics and General Relativity, time can described as a fourth dimension with three spacial dimensions and time, with time being a mathematical constant, this is defined in Milwoskini Space Time. Time as the Forth Dimension is not be confused with a Forth Spacial Dimension in which there is a theoretical W axis.
1. The noun phrase current understanding seems to be missing a determiner before it. Consider adding an article. 2. The verb described after the modal verb can does not appear to be in the correct form. Consider changing the verb form. 3. It appears that the phrase a fourth dimension does not contain the correct article usage. Consider making a change. 4. The word spacial doesn't seem to fit this context. Consider replacing it with spatial. 5. The name Minkowski is incorrectly spelled as Milwoskini. Consider correcting the spelling. 6. The words Space Time does not seem to fit the context. Consider changing to Space-time. 7. The word Forth doesn't seem to fit this context. Consider replacing it with Fourth. 8. The words Forth Spacial Dimension do not seem to fit this context. Consider changing to Fourth Spatial Dimension.
Corrected Version: With the current understanding of Physics and General Relativity, time can be described as the fourth dimension with three spatial dimensions and time, with time being a mathematical constant, this is defined in Minkowski Space-Time. Time as the Fourth Dimension is not to be confused with a Fourth Spatial Dimension in which there is a theoretical W axis. DonDeem ( talk) 20:49, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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The article states that General Relativity is the framework for spacetime when in fact it should read Special Relativity. General Relativity is the framework for gravity. Adam2aces ( talk) 19:37, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Can you please add a timeline of Time measurement history such as by natural events - atomic clocks.
Please also write dates, when they are invented Shikhar3968 ( talk) 06:11, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
an essay pls 112.134.40.66 ( talk) 14:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
MODERATOR: This article should begin with... Time is the measurement of duration, how an event is relative to another event(s) in a non-spatial dimension. 2601:589:4800:9090:1553:35D3:2532:1139 ( talk) 00:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
It's quite unbelievable that the mother of all times, supreme time of universe is not mentioned in the writing, and moreover it got thrown out when tried to add such one. All kind of beliefs, myths and theories in great detail, whether scientific or not, seems to be ok.
The basic definition used "Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future" witnesses well the existence of the time of the universe.
So, adding a chapter of it would improve the Time article significantly. Yoxxa ( talk) 10:57, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
I see in the archives that the word "indefinite" has been disputed multiple times in the past. It seems editors who supported it interpreted it to mean beginning at a fixed point (presumably, the Big Bang) but without a fixed or known end-point. This interpretation certainly didn't spring to my mind and I doubt that it's clear to other readers. Can we use another somewhat clearer word like "unlimited" or "unending"? (We can even modify that with an adverb like "seemingly" or "presumably," though I personally wouldn't recommend doing so.) Wolfdog ( talk) 12:28, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
I do not think the book "The Order of Time" by Rovelli must be deleted from the list of books here. The book is an international best seller, and because of this book, Rovelli has been included in the list of the most influential global thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine. The book summarizes scientific discoveries about time and advances ideas. It is definitely a voice in the debate and should be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Temugin ( talk • contribs) 01:33, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 |
A thought just occurred to me. Our first sentence currently reads:
Time is the continuing sequence of events occurring in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future, and a measure of the durations of those events, the intervals between them, and the rates of changes occurring in them.
This can be broken up into a conjunction of two claims:
Time is the continuing sequence of events occurring in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
and
Time is a measure of the durations of those events, the intervals between them, and the rates of changes occurring in them.
I wonder if some people here who are more partial to the old "Time is part of a measurement system" first sentence might like the current first sentence better if those two claims were reversed (no change of content, just presentation), something like:
Time is a measure of the durations of events, the intervals between them, and the rates of changes occurring in them; and the continuing sequence of them in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
That last part seems long and awkward to me though and if we're going back to "sequence" I think "continuing" loses its value (of clarifying the meaning of "progression"), so I might trim it down to something like:
Time is a measure of the durations of events, the intervals between them, the rates of changes occurring in them; and the apparently irreversible succession of them from the past through the present to the future.
On a slightly different note, I wonder if anyone would object to changing "rates of changes occurring in them" to "frequency of them", since every change is an event in itself and so a rate of change can be stated as a frequency of events (both have the same form of units, something-per-time). If that was OK, I would simplify further to:
Time is a measure of the durations and frequencies of events and the intervals between them; and the apparently irreversible succession of them from the past through the present to the future.
Thoughts? -- Pfhorrest ( talk) 23:32, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I think things common to dictionary definitions are a great place to start, but then we have to take away things which would pronounce some viewpoints as wrong by definition...Well... that's what this NPOV thing is all about, Pf. Who is to say that these "some viewpoints" are correct (neutral) when they contradict the dictionary definition? As to the common or lay definition of the word, what is the most NPOV source of the meaning of the word? So some editor has some viewpoint that is contradicted (or at least not indicated) by the dictionary definition? Does that mean that the dictionary has a non-neutral POV or the editor? Is this editor's authority about the word greater than that of a long-standing and highly regarded dictionary?
I deleted the comments I wrote above, because I wanted to spend more time thinking about the issues involved. 70.109.178.39 undeleted them. I really wish he/she had respected my wishes, but since they've been up all day, I suppose the best thing is to leave them. I'm still thinking and reading and have not reached any final conclusion. Rick Norwood ( talk) 01:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
As an aside the IP seems to have unilaterly stuck his "newest" comments in between Phforrest's and mine [1]. This is not correct. For one thing I was responding directly to Phforrest's comments with my first statement. The second are more general comments but they still build on Phforrest's comments. It seems to me that this takes my comments out of context.I would like to take a vote that we move those "new" comments down in the correct order. The IP claims to have been here since 2004 and does appear to know what is kosure and what is not. Please also note I have had to stop now for about 10 or 15 minutes, distracted from ten main conversation. Also please note, it is not necessary to correct my spelling on a talk page. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 02:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
The inserted comment came in chronologically (speaking of "Time") later than the comment below the inserted pointI posted this paragraph second. Pretend I'm a different person replying to you. -- Pfhorrest ( talk) 07:00, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
To get back on track here -- I can see that Rick has a point about "continuum". I also see that it stands out in the dictionary definitions. Also, I want to compliment Rick on coming up with that parphrase. In addition, Phorrest's reply to me and the other editor shows a grasp of the subtle distinctions involved here, (and anchored in the sources too). Therefore I can really appreciate what I am seeing here. ---- Steve Quinn ( talk) 05:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I think it is time to move on, and focus on editing the article. Rick Norwood ( talk) 14:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Steve, regarding this edit, my intention in "some sense of time" was to be "time, in some sense of the word"; a segue from the preceding sentence which says that precise definitions of time across all fields are contentious... nevertheless many fields just pick one and use it. A word sense. I'm not sure if that was clear and you still object to it or if you didn't see that that's what was meant. Maybe we should wikilink "some sense of time", or just say "time, in some sense of the word"?
we don't seem to be discussing time as a "sense" or "experience" at the moment...The fact is this measurement is simply an extension of this experience; a technological extension. This is quite the same for measuring (or experiencing) any other physical quantity. Rick Norwood's internal clock is just one example. This is why I suggested dealing with both concisely in one compact sentence. 71.169.179.128 ( talk) 02:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
This is unhelpful. Also please note that my internal clock is a) anecdotal and therefore not evidence and b) almost certainly chemical in nature. Let's stick to academic sources that assert a subjective component to time. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
...you'll note none of our recent first sentences say either anything about whether or how time is subjectively experienced, or whether or how time is objectively realized...I'm trying to get us to focus on this. About your "P and Q", I am saying that time has to have some definition (and the dictionary is the NPOV place to get it) of what before we include that this what is measured and/or experienced (and to include either of these measured or experienced aspects of what before the what is not NPOV). And you have made no case that they have to be in the same sentence. There is nothing wrong with saying "Light is a wave and has these wave-like properties. Light is a particle and has these particle-like properties." Do they contradict? Some might say so, but the physics is that light displays both properties in different contexts. They need not be in the same sentence if doing so makes for a cumbersome run-on sentence. 71.169.179.128 ( talk) 16:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
The beginning section seems a bit wooish and metaphysical...
We should keep both relativity and quantum physics in mind, For instance: "Time is a measure of observed electromagnetic change in a locally defined area"
In this way we have both the requirement of an observer which is necessary for both relativity and quantum physics and we have also taken into consideration that time progresses differently in a gravitational field. All biological processes actually slow in colder weather, and we have been able to slow light in certain circumstances by cooling gasses. By this I am inferring that time is actually changed when energy level is changed. This agrees with all modern science that I am aware of. The reason we use calculus in physics is because change defines physics.
The sentence above, however, is just an example of one formulation that I believe concisely and non-circularly defines time. Nemesis75 ( talk) 02:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
The first sentence is not bad,
but it contains the word "sequence," which is rather an objective observable of time, and not actually an intrinsic aspect. Something like this..
would work better. Regards, - Stevertigo ( t | c) 00:00, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
Jacksmart99 ( talk) 20:00, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Time has, I believe, two core, very simple, though subtle, definitions. It is not a phenomenon, nor a force, nor a dimension, nor a flow. Time doesn't "cause" anything, it merely measures the effect that other change agents have. It has two distinct usages. Firstly it is a measurement. Time measures in the same sense that distance measures. Distance measures the gap between two points. Time measure the gap (interval) between two events. (From this core usage, as a measurement, time also has some subsidiary usages as a calibration, referenceing and indexing system). The question is, what is it measuring? Distance measures space. Time measures..? Well, event to event is a reference to change (change occurs when events occur). So time is a measure of change - perhaps more accurately, change rate. Change can either be grouped change, as in a composite object, or specific. So, for example, the Human Body is a composite object. It has an age, as a composite, despite the fact that, for instance, hair and brains - two of the bodies components, age differently - so change s grouped. Or Time can be specific to , say, a quantum particle (i.e non-composite). Each particle will have its own unique event horizon, or change stream. Time, as a measurement, is speficic to each event then, it is not a universal (it might CALIBRATE as a universal, but that's subsidiary and arbitary). Time doesn't cause change. Things don't age because of time. Time merely measures change and change rate.
The second usage of Time is as a collective term. All events and intervals that occur (all change that happens in other words) are grouped together and Time is used as their collective. The idea that "time moves on", is actually describing change as happening. So time is a collective, the underlying element of time being change-events and duration. These, again, are specific, not universal. So the definition of Time, based on these usages, should be:- 1. A measurement of change; 2. A collective term for all change. I have expanded on the reasoning behind these definitions on www.thisistime.co.uk
Jacksmart99 ( talk) 10:11, 30 July 2012 (UTC)I disagree. Time is measurement. The idea that “change cannot exist without Time” is like saying length cannot exists without distance. It doesn’t say anything. Change doesn’t need time. Change may occur over a duration, but that duration is NOT a dimension set, or phenomenon. Change happens (Julian Barbour in The End of Time (Phoenix, London, 1999), says (p231) "All true change in quantum mechanics comes from interference between stationary states with different energies. In a system described by a stationary state, no change takes place".
And you measure the change duration using a calibration system (Time). IF change doesn’t happen, Time doesn’t exist. Change causes time. This is the subtle understanding that I believe you are missing.
Time as a dimension? Mmm. I’ll be bold here...this is where physicist have put up their own red-herring which has become a barrier to clear understanding. The problem is that every event to event happening has its own change characteristics, unique and independent. We use Time to measure these. But each one is unique to the event to event occurence. Like distance is unique to every point to point. You could call each a (time) dimension. There are therefore as many time dimensions as there are event to event occurrences. Time is specific (to every event to event), not general. Which is why Spacetime is, at best, a poor approximation. Jacksmart99 ( talk) 10:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
( talk) 10:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
We shouldn't go looking for sources to support our own ideas, but should report what the sources say, quoted extensively above. The two common views are that time is a continuum, (in mathematics an axis at right angles to three spatial axes) or that time is a measurement. It's fun to talk about, but the article needs to stick closely to the sources. Rick Norwood ( talk) 11:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
While "continuum" is more common, more than one cited source uses "sequence" and others use "progress" or "progression". The objection to "continuum" was not that it is too vague, but rather than it is too specific, implying that time is continuous rather than discrete. "Progress" was objected to on the reasonable grounds that it suggested "improvement". That left "sequence" and "progression". In my view, either of those words is preferable to "continuum" because of the problem I mentioned. Rick Norwood ( talk) 11:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
The planet is in a accelerated state of decay due to the emissions of fossil fuel. This issue being how Time is measured is dependent on isotope decay. You know the saying that Time is money? That is a problem because the more debt we accumulate, the faster the decay. Swiss time is slower than isotope decay, which is an reason the valuation of the dollar is diminished. We know that our planet (and solar system) is moving really fast. Really I care more about the future, and less about the past. Science is experimental. They measure time by cesium isotope decay which is an environmental issue, and has little to do with our velocity. I believe the atomic clock is destructive to the planet, our safety and well being. Whomever controls the definition of Time, ultimately controls the Money. Science does nothing, and neither does the government. It a Global issue that needs to be fixed else we will destroy ourselves. There may be no solution, but slowing time back to Swiss movement would slow that tempo of life and the way we work. I opine that the faster we manipulate time the worst the economy gets. The data from NOAA shows our environment is changing, so we know what we need to do. How do we actually make the world change for the better? Humanity is a slave to time, and there is no freedom. Mapsurfer49 ( talk) 21:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Wow. Interesting viewpoint
Throckmorton Guildersleeve (
talk) 17:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, sorry I've been absent so long, had a ton to catch up on when I got back from vacation.
On the wording that currently stands, I think it's a bit verbose and can be made a little more concise, and that this will resolve some of the above issues. Namely, "progression" and "succession" seem to be redundant, both suggesting a march of one thing after another. Since there has been misinterpretationof "progression" as meaning "improvement" here previously, I would suggest we pick the latter of the two, "succession", and consolidate it down to that: "Time is the apparently irreversible continuing succession of events..."
That gets a little heavy on the adjectives being piled onto "succession" though, which brings us to the issue of "continuing". I understand that this is intended not to mean "continuous", but rather "ongoing" or "indefinite". But whichever of those it is taken to mean, that quality of time is not a defining characteristic of it, but a merely incidental feature, as evidenced by the (minor and very specialized) debates over whether time really is continuous and over whether time really is indefinite. I think it does no harm to remove the word "continuing" (saying less rarely hurts, even if what's omitted is widely accepted), and does the small good of slightly improving neutrality and of streamlining the prose, so I would suggest we remove it, leaving us with the much more concise "Time is the apparently irreversible succession of events..."
As far as the suggestion to add "existence" back in there, I think the debate on that is getting highly tangential. My objection to reinserting it is this: what is a "progression of existence"? (or "succession of existence" if we change the phrasing as I suggest above). A progression or succession of events makes obvious sense; one event follows after another. But what "progression of existence" is intended to mean eludes me. I am not making any statement here about whether or not time exists or whether things exist in different times or anything like you're all discussing above; I think just the words do not convey any coherent meaning.
From the anon's comments above, I think the intended meaning is the same as that captured by the second half of the current first sentence: a measure of the durations of events and the intervals between them. Just preemptively I want to emphasize that that "a measure of" language is not to say that time is a measurement, but rather it is whatever is measured; and I'm happy to work on some other phrase to use there to convey the idea that time is whatever durations span, be they durations of events or of the 'empty' intervals between them as the "progression of existence" phrase apparently intends to convey.
To reiterate my earlier comments on my intended connection between the two halves of this sentence: the first is intended to describe time's role in ordering, arranging, or sequencing things, about pastness vs futureness and so on; the second is intended to describe time's role in (I really can't think of a suitable synonym here) measuring things, about how long events and the gaps between them last. To make the analogy with space again, it would be like saying "Space is the arrangement of objects around each other, and a measure of the size of those objects and the distances between them." -- Pfhorrest ( talk) 01:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
To say that time is a succession of events seems to me to be saying that a stage is the action that takes place upon that stage. The missing word is "continuum", but we have seen problems with that. I suggest: "Time is the dimension along which events occur in apparently irreversable succession." References: "Newton did for time what the Greek geometers did for space, idealized it into an exactly measurable dimension." About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Paul Davies, p. 31, Simon & Schuster, 1996, ISBN-13: 978-0684818221; "It was the minute hand that would in fact propel human time into a new dimension...", About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang, Adam Frank, p. 77, Free Press, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-1439169599; "We might also add: time is the dimension of change...", "Time's Square", Murray McBeath, in The Philosophy of Time, edited by Robin Le Poidevin and Murray McBeath, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN-13: 978-0198239994. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
Stevertigo: the issue with "continuum" is highly technical: quantum time may be discrete rather than continuous. The objection to "dimension" is similarly technical. But these are the two words used most frequently by the sources, and I think the article should use one or the other. I agree with 71.169.181.254 and Pfhorrest that "apparently irreversible" is a good choice. "Apparent" not only softens "irreversible" but also has the sense of "to all appearances" time is irreversible. "The moving finger writes and having writ..." Rick Norwood ( talk) 12:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
Time is the succession of events isn't great, since it could be read as a definition of history. Time is more like the successiveness of events, the tendency of one event to succeed another. Also the "references" generally don't mention "succession". 1Z ( talk) 10:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree. "Time...is the succession of events..." (or sequence of events or progress of events) confuses the events with the dimension (or continuum) along which events happen. My suggestion opened to mixed reviews, but I'm going to suggest it again: "Time is the dimension along which events occur in apparently irreversable succession." References: "Newton did for time what the Greek geometers did for space, idealized it into an exactly measurable dimension." About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Paul Davies, p. 31, Simon & Schuster, 1996, ISBN-13: 978-0684818221; "It was the minute hand that would in fact propel human time into a new dimension...", About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang, Adam Frank, p. 77, Free Press, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-1439169599; "We might also add: time is the dimension of change...", "Time's Square", Murray McBeath, in The Philosophy of Time, edited by Robin Le Poidevin and Murray McBeath, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN-13: 978-0198239994. Rick Norwood ( talk) 14:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Rick Norwood wrote: "Stevertigo: the issue with "continuum" is highly technical: quantum time may be discrete rather than continuous."
As I said before, this issue is not fatal for the purpose of using the term "continuum" - time very well may be quantized at a microscopic scale, but as those particles interact with others, what may be a discrete phenomenon becomes continuous through the sheer complexity of these interactions. Hence, "continnum" can fit. "The objection to "dimension" is similarly technical.
- Can you explain the difficulty with "dimension." The only real apparent snag is in limiting time to a single dimension. But these are the two words used most frequently by the sources, and I think the article should use one or the other."
- Yeah, that seems to be my conclusion as well. I lean towards "continuum," over "dimension." -
Stevertigo (
t |
c) 23:18, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Should not this page refer / link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:6B0:E:2018:0:0:0:207 ( talk) 23:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
My only issue with this is that ISO 8601 is a human based system to represent the recording of time. In other words data format. Whether time is recorded in 24 hour format or 12 hour format really does not add to the discussion on this "time" wiki page. This page is more focuse on what is time as opposed to what is the best way to write time references. Throckmorton Guildersleeve ( talk) 17:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Why does searching for "newtonian time" bring you to "time", when they just aint the same thing??? Newtonian time is where it is universally constant, while this time is in reality a relative quantity. New article needed? I decided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.226.254.178 ( talk) 10:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
I find it quite strange if not downright wrong that Einstein name is not mentioned in the main description of time which is often the only portion of text that most people read. From the start "Time is a dimension ..... " until ".....and in human life spans" Einstein name is not mentioned once whether other scientists are mentioned (Newton, Kant, Leibniz). Einstein has completely changed the way we look at time not in a theoretical way but in a measure proven scientific way. Without Einstein's work we wouldn't be thinking of time the way we are now. He has fundamentally transformed the conception of time itself. Unless his theory of relativity is proven wrong at some point, I believe his name cannot be omitted from the main description of time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadio2007 ( talk • contribs) 09:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
This wiki section on time makes no mention of the concept of time presented by Aristotle, in his work titled 'Physics'. In Book IV, Aristotle states that 'we want to know what time is and what exactly it has to do with movement". He reaches a number of conclusions (1) "time is not movement, but only movement in so far as it admits of enumeration"; (2) "time then is a kind of number"; (3) "every simultaneous time is self-identical; (4) "if there were no time, there would be no 'now', and vice versa"; (5) "time then also is both made continuous by the now and divided by it"; (6) "time is number of movement in respect of the before and after, and it is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous; (7)"time is not described as fast or slow, but as many or few and as long or short" (8) :there is the same time everywhere at once, but not the same time before and after"; (9) "not only do we measure the movement by time, but also the time by the movement, because they define each other"; (10) "time is a measure of motion and of being moved, and it measures the motion by determining a motion which will measure exactly the whole motion"; (11) "to be in time means, for movement, that both it and its essence are measured by time"....clearly then to be in time has the same meaning for other things also, namely, that their being should be measured by time", (12) "since time is number, the 'now' and the 'before' and the like are in time, just as 'unit' and 'odd' and 'even' are in number; (13)"to be in time does not mean to coexist with time, any more than to be in motion or in place means to coexist with motion or place; (14) "since what is in time is so in the same sense as what is in number is so, a time greater than everything in time can be found"; (15) "a thing then will be affected by time, just as we are accustomed to say that time wastes things away, and that all things grow old through time..."; (16)"things which are always are not, as such, in time, for they are not contained by time, nor is their being measured by time"; (17) since then time is the measure of motion, it will be the measure of rest--indirectly, for all rest is in time"; (18)"time is not motion, but number of motion: and what is at rest,also, can be in the number of motion"; (19) "neither will everything that does not exist be in time, i.e., those non-existent things that cannot exist, as the diagonal cannot be commensurate with the side"; (20) the 'now' is the link of time (for it connects past and future time), AND it is a limit of time (for it is the beginning of the one and the end of the other); (21) in time all things things come into being and pass-away".
In book VI, Aristotle offers this operational definition of time: "that which is intermediate between moments is time". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.50.151 ( talk) 12:42, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
The section on time perception was titled as "judgement of time" (and later "temporal judgements" by User:JimWae), but this phrasing is inappropriate and seems rather based on pedantry. What's wrong with simply titling it as "time perception" or "perception of time"? The majority of readers are more familiar with that phrase than one that attempts to achieve a more specific definition of which the difference is trivial at best, and only serves to confuse and be preoccupied in pedantry. - M0rphzone ( talk) 09:37, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
The term "time" is generally used for many closed but different concepts. Speaking exactly, one should distinguish at least between:
From this point of view, the term time can be used as a shorthand or in general sense. Nevertheless, in an exact text like in definitions, proper term should be chosen:
rather than
because Δt is neither name of that interval nor its value (it is its duration - one of more quantities connected to that interval, other quantity being e.g. date of its start instant).
JOb 10:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
JOb 10:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
JavaScript's internal clock starts at 1 January 1970 00:00:00. [1] This can be shown with the getTime()function.
Is this going to be added to the page?
Blehmann1 ( talk) 16:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Under Religion, I have restored the edits for now per WP:RELEVANCE and removed any unreliable/online sources while keeping the text sources.. 71.82.112.140 ( talk) 14:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
It appears that a year actually lasts 365.25 days, or 365 days and six hours. The infomation on this page about a common year is incorrect since it said it lasts only 365 days and to tell the truth, leap years does not exist. The reason that people say that leap years exist because that they forgot to count the remaining 6 hours of the year, and since full days are easier to count, they put a leap year every 4 years(24÷4=6). Please add your thoughts in the section below about if you agree or object this edit.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry.y.ma ( talk • contribs) 01:47, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I said at
Talk:Time (disambiguation)#Issues of lead & overall structure that the lead entry at the Dab page had to closely reflect the lead on the accompany primary topic article, but then got out ahead of myself by composing
-- to replace the IMO clearly unacceptable Dab lead that reads
-- this tentative Dab-page lead entry:
which i regard as also doing a better job of capturing the scope of the accompanying article Time than does its current lead sent (which reads)
(Note that my approach would continue the current partitioning off of a separate article Time in physics (or something with about the same scope, even if with a different title), which, i should think, deserves mention in Time essentially only by a sentence or short 'graph including that link.)
I can imagine meeting some anticipable objections with an odd-looking (but i think well-accepted) structural approach, that may offend users' intuitions less: letting Time redirect to Time (classical conceptions), or Time (pre-relativistic conceptions). That would reflect the fact that while most people don't think about relativity when they say "time", there is an ambiguity between "time" in the sense most people mean and "time" (what is in almost everyone's experience adequately described by classical conceptions, but in a strict sense doesn't exist at all bcz all this/that matter keeps anything from actually behaving exactly as classical dynamics describes.) That classical-time article of course would need a HatNote like
(or even, if you have the guts for it!)
--
Jerzy•
t 09:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
This vapid idea ought to be scrapped rather than perpetuated. Obviously time is a dimension of existence, ( a 3-dimensional object has no detectable physical reality if it does not exist for a finite duration) but not of space. Parrot-fashion repetition of it implies: 1) The Post Office could evaluate the postage of a parcel from the data that it measures 3x4x5 cm, and is scheduled to last 6 hours. Or 2)"Since there could not possibly exist a 4th dimension of space, we must be talking of something else in disguise". A refusal to admit the possibility of what is difficult to conceive. 125.237.122.52 ( talk) 03:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
The section on the history of the calendar is pretty good. Of course how we get 365 days in a year is also simple to understand, as both the day (noon to noon) and year (equinox to equinox) are simple observations that all cultures can make.
The history of why the day is divided into 24 hours and not some other number is not very well described. The article on clocks has a little better description, but still not as good as the calendar portion above.
The article has these sections:
Right there you see the problem. The "History of the Calendar" is about how we came to have our current calendar. Logically there should follow a "History of the clock". It would also be about the abstract ideas (that there are 24 hours, that they are divided into AM and PM, that the counting of them begins with 12 -- these are all very strange things, unlike any other measurement system, and not explained here) and not the devices used to measure it.
Perhaps using the term "History of the Clock" would be confusing so one could label it "History of the Division of the day into smaller units" (And the symetrical "History of the Calendar is logically "History of the Division of the year into smaller units".)
In other words there is both a abstract and physical manifestation of the division of time for both the periods of greater than a day, and those less than a day. (It does not take much technology to "build" a calendar, so there is no need for a separate section on it. Any writing system will do.)
ZeroXero ( talk) 19:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
Timeframe and time frame redirect here, but the article doesn't explain the concept. IMO we should either add a section explaining what a timeframe is, or point the redirect to a page which actually explains the topic (such as Wiktionary:Time Frame). -- Gordon Ecker, WikiSloth ( talk) 06:49, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
I think the later is a good idea: redirect to the wiktionary page. But that may be because I lack insight into what a longer section of this article would say about it. The definition seems complete, and I don't think there is a lot more to say about it. But if there is maybe you could sandbox it here and we could add it.
ZeroXero ( talk) 19:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
I have reverted this edit to the lead by user Jiohdi:
I have left a final warning on user's talk page. Comments welcome. - DVdm ( talk) 06:43, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
User:94.175.0.86, over the last 24 hours you have made two reversions, deleting materials while claiming to be restoring materials in your comments, and also while providing no further explanation for your major reversions. Meanwhile the accuracy of the article has been quite degraded. GMT was agreed to by the International Meridian Conference, not by the Convention of the Metre. Before making any further edits to this article, could you please:
These future courtesies by you would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott P. ( talk) 16:11, 27 June 2016 (UTC
Certainly add a ref, if you can clearly document somewhere that includes any specific wording of the Convention Agreement that includes anything about Time or the Second. Otherwise, It appears to me that your source may have been making the same erroneous assumption that mine did, namely that Time was officially discussed at that conference, as all of the documents that I have thus far found, including the BIPM website itself, say nothing about the second having been defined at that conference. The absence of this info from the BIPM website itself seems to me to be the most telling. Also, I think it is probably a foregone conclusion that until the conversion to the SI-second, which is now based on cesium oscillations, there was no real need to sign any agreement on the exact definition of the second, as that had been defined and agreed upon centuries earlier, with no dissent or controversy.
Essentially it was what most folks now hold it to be, one 60th part of a minute, which is one 60th part of an hour, which is 1/24th part of a day, which is approximately 1/365.25th part of a year. That definition worked well enough for society until the speed-up of the "electronics revolution," when we first discovered all sorts of "nasty little secrets" about our little, supposedly well ordered universe! We uncovered scandalous secrets like the fact that the solar year was inconstant by a good part of a second each year, etc. etc. Our little celestial myth of the "exactitude of the heavenly spheres" slowly crumbled before our very eyes. How sad!
In my time as a Wikipedia editor, it has never ceased to astound me as to how sometimes fiction seems to attempt to make its way into "facthood!" Your source may be an instance of that, who knows? Thanks again for your thoughtful reply, Scott P. ( talk) 19:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm not certain what you mean when you say that I, "appear to be doubting the veracity of the Wikipedia article which describes what was decided at the Convention and confirms that timekeeping was not a matter with which it concerned itself."
I am only saying that it seems to me that unless some new agreement about the definition of what a second might have been was officially defined by that Convention, or unless some other unit of time might have been newly defined by that Convention, then I cannot see why that Convention should be referred to in the article on Time. I've pored over the actual treaty agreements, and have found nothing about any references to definitions of time in any of them. I have found secondary sources that describe the treaty as defining the "CGS" system of measurement, but those documents are all interpretations of the treaty. In the treaty itself I could find no mention of any "time definitions," or of the CGS system of measurements itself, for that matter.
If you insist, without first being willing to discuss the exact cites here, that this treaty did define the second, despite no primary proof of it, and if you insist on incorporating such a claim into the article without such a discussion here first, then I must simply give up, and would then have to simply say "please do as you will". If you would prefer to first attempt to clarify here together with me so that a better mutual understanding might first be reached between us, then please list your supporting cites here on this talk page, and I would then be quite happy to discuss them with you here further, before we both agree to use them in the article. I get the sense that you may prefer to edit the article first. If that is your choice, then I will yield to you. The choice is yours, either:
I will await your decision. Thanks, Scott P. ( talk) 22:01, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Regarding this and this, I agree that "continuous" is mentioned in some of the citations in the second ref, but as it is not mentioned in the first, and as at least in physics mathematical continuity is not required, I reverted to the original "continued". However, if this gets reverted again, no problem with me. - DVdm ( talk) 09:51, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
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The importance of the number 12 is due to the number of lunar cycles in a year and the number of stars used to count the passage of night.
184.177.172.90 ( talk) 22:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Time is the measurement of change — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.207.116.134 ( talk) 08:47, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
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If time gets slower because of speed or gravitation , is it logical to say that time has physical properties ? is time is some sort of energy moving at a speed of light ?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.117.128.250 ( talk) 20:33, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
The 1st sentence uses a source that says time is "the progress...". Progress in most cases suggests or implies IMPROVEMENT. There is no consensus that things are always improving.Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page).
Also "progress" is hyperlinked to article on "sequence". I seem to remember 1st sentence that did not have these 2 problems.--
JimWae (
talk) 11:26, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Time is a parameter in which events are sequenced, have comparative durations and intervals between them; rates of change are quantified using time. The position of events with respect to the transitory present is continually changing; events happen, then are located further and further in the past, while anticipated events in the future get closer & closer to the present. [1] [2] [3]-- JimWae ( talk) 11:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
It seems the great majority of the sources for the lede use "sequence", not "progress" - and so far I see only one having progress (which wiki article links to sequence, not progress). I see no reason to prefer that one (or 2?) source over the others - and several reasons not to prefer it.-- JimWae ( talk) 12:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
What is INDEFINITE progress?-- JimWae ( talk) 12:21, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I do not think we generally need a measured quantity to sequence events - we usually have before & after. We can compare durations quantitatively - with longer & shorter - or with numbered units-- JimWae ( talk) 12:25, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
References
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Please change the "Length, duration and size" for the item, "Lifespan" under the table called "List of units", from "85 or 82 years" to "85 to 84 years". This seems more appropriate as many human's lifespans vary and not all of them are just 85 or 84 years, even though they could live to be that age. Thank you for reading this request. 2602:306:8BAB:2320:F5AE:350F:CD07:2DDA ( talk) 23:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
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In the phrase "Greece around 250 B.C. with a water" please replace "B.C." with "BC" because we normally don't put periods after the letters. 208.95.51.115 ( talk) 13:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I reverted these edits. The thoughts of Julian Barbour are already discussed - much more briefly - in the section headed "Time as 'unreal'". Ghmyrtle ( talk) 17:37, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello. In the first sentence of the lede, the word "irreversible" is wikilinked to Irreversible process. I wonder if it would be better to wikilink that word to Arrow of time. So it would look like
Would that be better? 96.237.136.210 ( talk) 04:32, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
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I am finding it very unsatisfactory, uninformative. Crude. It is generally agreed that a definition is not allowed to use the word being defined, in the definition. Also, the definition should not have words in it that cannot be understood, without first understanding the word. The lead paragraph breaks this rule. You cannot understand "succession from the past through the present to the future" without first understanding "time." What is "past"? What is "present". What is "future"? They are simply points in time. One does not define a "straight line" by saying it is a sequence of previous points, current points, and further points. One defines a straigt line by saying it is the shortest distance between any 2 points. Two points.
Can time have qualities of being straight, or curved? I'm not sure. I would prefer to see the lead sentence define time in terms of an object that moves in space at a constant speed. One "day" is the unit of time between 2 events: the event where the sun is at maximum height in the sky until the next event where the sun is at a position of max height in the sky. Time is what happens when 2 events are not simultaneous. Another definition of time might of called a "second" and be the amount of time it takes light, in a vacuum, to move between 2 points in space when those points are 299 792 458 meters apart. Perhaps we should lead off by defining time in terms of space, and changes in space. Then again, perhaps we are we being circular here - defining time in terms of distance, yet defining distance in terms of time? Yet not understanding the essence of either. Nomenclator ( talk) 01:17, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree there are copy-editing problems with a few of those phrases. However, the body of the article needs more work than the lede at this time. Power~enwiki ( talk) 01:31, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
This is too much like a personal essay to be moved to a separate Mainspace page. The contents are below if anyone wants to try. Power~enwiki ( talk) 01:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Time and the Big Bang theory
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Stephen Hawking in particular has addressed a connection between time and the Big Bang. In A Brief History of Time and elsewhere, Hawking says that even if time did not begin with the Big Bang and there were another time frame before the Big Bang, no information from events then would be accessible to us, and nothing that happened then would have any effect upon the present time-frame. [1] Upon occasion, Hawking has stated that time actually began with the Big Bang, and that questions about what happened before the Big Bang are meaningless. [2] [3] [4] This less-nuanced, but commonly repeated formulation has received criticisms from philosophers such as Aristotelian philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. [5] [6] Scientists have come to some agreement on descriptions of events that happened 10−35 seconds after the Big Bang, but generally agree that descriptions about what happened before one Planck time (5 × 10−44 seconds) after the Big Bang are likely to remain pure speculation.
![]() While the Big Bang model is well established in cosmology, it is likely to be refined in the future. Little is known about the earliest moments of the universe's history. The Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems require the existence of a singularity at the beginning of cosmic time. However, these theorems assume that general relativity is correct, but general relativity must break down before the universe reaches the Planck temperature, and a correct treatment of quantum gravity may avoid the singularity. [7] If inflation has indeed occurred, it is likely that there are parts of the universe so distant that they cannot be observed in principle, as exponential expansion would push large regions of space beyond our observable horizon. Some proposals, each of which entails untested hypotheses, are:
Proposals in the last two categories see the Big Bang as an event in a much larger and older universe, or multiverse, and not the literal beginning. References
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-time-john-gabriel 67.106.126.3 ( talk) 01:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
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Last sentence, first paragraph under History of the calendar These calendars were religiously and astronomically based, with 18 months in a year and 20 days in a month, plus five epagemonal days at the end of the year.[24]
Change epagemonal to epagomenal
[1] Cciolli ( talk) 20:03, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
"Progress" is fancy. The idea of universal physical transformation, or simply, "change," is needed at this point. -Anam — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1:9A0F:FB6C:7D43:7889:5F6E:B606 ( talk) 21:49, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
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In the World time section, can you please add the image Standard World Time Zones.png to show the time zones of the world and how Earth is split up into time zones? Thank you. 2601:183:101:58D0:9C3A:41A8:F09D:1BC8 ( talk) 22:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Where in the article is it linked to? 2601:183:101:58D0:9C3A:41A8:F09D:1BC8 ( talk) 23:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a place for original ideas so I'm asking if anyone is familiar with acceptable sources that may present an alternative to the lead sentence's (common) description as "from the past through the present to the future." Some popular web pages suggest that the current of time brings the future into the present and the present into the past in that objects are not carried by but resist time's flow. Dates on the other hand ride the current of time keeping pace with its flow. Tomorrow's date yields no resistance being suspended in time and so moves with the current and eventually arrives not at a point further into the future but at the present and then it will be carried into the past. The current of time eventually sweeps our entire earthly lives back into the past. Time is not carrying us forward but we are resisting its backward flow. Of course though the perception that "times flows forward" is nearly ubiquitous. Anyone know any such sources? Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host ( talk) 02:31, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Twice have I removed ( [3], [4]) a book from the books list, added ( [5], [6]) by user Temugin ( talk · contribs), whose edits all are related to this author Rovelli—see wp:SPA. The book is not cited as a content reference, so it looks like wp:refspam. Any thoughts? - DVdm ( talk) 20:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I think this sentence "This view is shared by Abrahamic faiths as they believe time started by creation, therefore the only thing being infinite is God and everything else, including time, is finite." should have a reference, or at least specify who it refers to, because 'Abrahamic faiths' is an enormous amount of groups of people over a very long time. They don't all presently have this exact view on time, nor would they have in the past all had this same specific view. Waylah ( talk) 07:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Section 7.1 states:
Such chemicals will either excite or inhibit the firing of neurons in the brain, with a greater firing rate allowing the brain to register the occurrence of more events within a given interval (speed up time) and a decreased firing rate reducing the brain's capacity to distinguish events occurring within a given interval (slow down time).
Aren't the perceptions of time speeding up or slowing down being reversed here? If the brain speeds up, time appears to slow down, and if the brain slows down, then time appears to speed up.
If the brain registers more events within a given interval, then subjectively one would perceive that time slowed. An interval of 1 actual (as measured by a clock) second might feel like 4 seconds. Hence the experience of an accident unfolding in slow motion.
On the other hand, reducing the brain's capacity to distinguish events occurring within a given interval, makes it feel as if things are happening faster than they actually are, in other words it feels as if time is speeding up. e.g.: under the effect of alcohol, reaction times slow, and a driver might not be able to avoid a sudden obstacle. To the driver, it is as if time sped up, leaving them insufficient time to react.
If you concur, then I recommend replacing the original text with:
Such chemicals will either excite or inhibit the firing of neurons in the brain, with a greater firing rate allowing the brain to register the occurrence of more events within a given interval (slow down time) and a decreased firing rate reducing the brain's capacity to distinguish events occurring within a given interval (speed up time). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew seligman ( talk • contribs) 05:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
The phrase "de-Christianize time" appears. The French revolution might have imagined that its efforts would de-Christianise time. The factor 60, often appearing in the current version, such as 60 seconds to the minute, goes back to Sumeria, before Christianity was founded. Of course, the Revolution did not know about the Sumerians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.15.21.214 ( talk) 13:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
"This view is shared by Abrahamic faiths as they believe time started by creation, therefore the only thing being infinite is God and everything else, including time, is finite." This line under the sub-heading 'Philosophy' appeas to be illogical or inconsistent with the paragraph above it. Kindly review it. EVeRYTHiNG 22 ( talk) 20:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
"Modern philosophers asked: is time real or unreal, is time happening all at once or a duration, If time tensed or tenseless, and is there a future to be?"
Review this line under the sub-heading 'Philosophy' for grammatical mistake. EVeRYTHiNG 22 ( talk) 04:16, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Even the sources of nearly all eastern content appears to be a western book or website.
"The Vedas, the earliest texts on Indian philosophy and Hindu philosophy dating back to the late 2nd millennium BC, describe ancient Hindu cosmology, in which the universe goes through repeated cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth, with each cycle lasting 4,320 million years.[63]"
This line under the sub-heading 'Philosophy' has a western source and according to source maybe the information is correct but how authentic the source is?! I have not specifically studied about this from original texts but in the wikipedia article about Hindu units of time and many other sources, the cycle of the universe according to Hindu cosmology is aproximately 3.11 trillion years not 4,320 million years as mentioned in the above line. Kindly research about this and review it. Thanks. EVeRYTHiNG 22 ( talk) 04:26, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Recent edits: [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] have resulted in a change of the first sentence of the article from this:
to this:
Which version is preferred? Note that this subject has been abundantly discussed before: [13]
Attic Salt ( talk) 13:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Time is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Time until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America 1000 11:55, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi guys, there is a need to rewrite this topic even-though it seems comprehensive it is lop sided and doesn't reflect the entire world, going to divide this into western philosophy and eastern philosophy (religious time text would be under eastern philosophy) , if you are watching this page and want to discuss or contribute please do this here now , rather than edit warring at later stage -- Shrikanthv ( talk) 13:50, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
The word "history" in the chronology section could use a link to its page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lmstevens5947 ( talk • contribs) 17:19, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
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Original version: With current understanding of Physics and General Relativity, time can described as a fourth dimension with three spacial dimensions and time, with time being a mathematical constant, this is defined in Milwoskini Space Time. Time as the Forth Dimension is not be confused with a Forth Spacial Dimension in which there is a theoretical W axis.
1. The noun phrase current understanding seems to be missing a determiner before it. Consider adding an article. 2. The verb described after the modal verb can does not appear to be in the correct form. Consider changing the verb form. 3. It appears that the phrase a fourth dimension does not contain the correct article usage. Consider making a change. 4. The word spacial doesn't seem to fit this context. Consider replacing it with spatial. 5. The name Minkowski is incorrectly spelled as Milwoskini. Consider correcting the spelling. 6. The words Space Time does not seem to fit the context. Consider changing to Space-time. 7. The word Forth doesn't seem to fit this context. Consider replacing it with Fourth. 8. The words Forth Spacial Dimension do not seem to fit this context. Consider changing to Fourth Spatial Dimension.
Corrected Version: With the current understanding of Physics and General Relativity, time can be described as the fourth dimension with three spatial dimensions and time, with time being a mathematical constant, this is defined in Minkowski Space-Time. Time as the Fourth Dimension is not to be confused with a Fourth Spatial Dimension in which there is a theoretical W axis. DonDeem ( talk) 20:49, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 01:53, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
The article states that General Relativity is the framework for spacetime when in fact it should read Special Relativity. General Relativity is the framework for gravity. Adam2aces ( talk) 19:37, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Can you please add a timeline of Time measurement history such as by natural events - atomic clocks.
Please also write dates, when they are invented Shikhar3968 ( talk) 06:11, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
an essay pls 112.134.40.66 ( talk) 14:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
MODERATOR: This article should begin with... Time is the measurement of duration, how an event is relative to another event(s) in a non-spatial dimension. 2601:589:4800:9090:1553:35D3:2532:1139 ( talk) 00:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
It's quite unbelievable that the mother of all times, supreme time of universe is not mentioned in the writing, and moreover it got thrown out when tried to add such one. All kind of beliefs, myths and theories in great detail, whether scientific or not, seems to be ok.
The basic definition used "Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future" witnesses well the existence of the time of the universe.
So, adding a chapter of it would improve the Time article significantly. Yoxxa ( talk) 10:57, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
I see in the archives that the word "indefinite" has been disputed multiple times in the past. It seems editors who supported it interpreted it to mean beginning at a fixed point (presumably, the Big Bang) but without a fixed or known end-point. This interpretation certainly didn't spring to my mind and I doubt that it's clear to other readers. Can we use another somewhat clearer word like "unlimited" or "unending"? (We can even modify that with an adverb like "seemingly" or "presumably," though I personally wouldn't recommend doing so.) Wolfdog ( talk) 12:28, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
I do not think the book "The Order of Time" by Rovelli must be deleted from the list of books here. The book is an international best seller, and because of this book, Rovelli has been included in the list of the most influential global thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine. The book summarizes scientific discoveries about time and advances ideas. It is definitely a voice in the debate and should be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Temugin ( talk • contribs) 01:33, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available
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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2019 and 24 April 2019. Further details are available
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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 11:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)