Thursday, June 26, 2008

Time momentum

[fyi - I just want to say how peeved I am that I wrote this beautiful post on my iGoogle page and then the thing went and refreshed automatically and erased everything I had written... GRRRRRRR. Let's try this again, through Blogger this time.]

Sometimes I wonder about the physics of time. I get to thinking about it and then have a hard time moving on with my life.

We can mostly agree that time moves, but does it therefore constitute motion? If so, does it follow the physical laws of motion?

Newton's third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I don't really know how this can apply to time, and frankly I don't much care. It's the other laws that make for much more interesting applications to time.

Newton's second law states that the relationship between an object's mass, acceleration, and force is F=ma. Several years ago, Matt came up with a wonderful theory about the relationship between time and gravity (acceleration). I can't recall the exact math, but I remember how elegant and simple it all really was. Sadly, I am unable to get into it on here because it was too long ago to even remember any good details, but it is something that should be shared.

Newton's first law of motion states that any object in uniform motion stays in that motion unless an outside force is applied to it. This is where it gets interesting. When one is born, the force of life acts upon that person's individual time and time begins moving. Time continues moving through one's life until the force of death, when time ceases. There are even some moments in life when time seems to stop. Does shock then act as a force against time?

Because time has this ability to stop and start, there must be some acceleration. There is also force (birth, death, shock, excitement, boredom) that affects it. Does this mean that time may have mass? Does our individual mass affect it? Think about how as one grows older, time seems to speed up. In elementary school, years passed so slow and lazy summers seemed to last forever. As we grow, months feel like weeks and eventually 10 years is insubstantial. I sometimes wonder if time has an absolute velocity. When we reach a certain age, does time not speed up anymore? And what about momentum? Is there such thing as time momentum?

2 comments:

Allison said...

I'll be honest with you, my brain hurts now.

Deborah said...

Whenever, it seems, I fall down a rabbit hole, times doth get screwed up...