Griffith University researchers are conducting an experiment at ANSTO that will test a revolutionary physics theory that time reversal symmetry-breaking by neutrinos might cause a time dilation at the quantum scale.
With support from the National Measurement Institute (NMI), [Associate Professor] Erik Streed needed a source of anti-neutrinos and some atomic clocks to carry out a preliminary experiment that would test the validity of a new quantum theory of time being developed by his Griffith University colleague Professor Joan Vaccaro.
Vaccaro is an accomplished theoretical physicist, who has developed a fundamental theory that puts time and space on the same footing.
The theory proposes that the dynamics we observe everywhere as changes occurring over time are not fundamental parts of nature but emerge phenomenologically due to time symmetry violations.
It is revolutionary because if it is correct, it will overturn the way we think about time and space, as well as fundamental laws, such as the conservation of mass.
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In this initial experiment, commercially available high-precision clocks are being used. Clocks with much better performance would be used in an improved version of the experiment.
One timing station is placed... 5 [meters] from the [nuclear] reactor, while the reference station is 10 [meters] from the reactor.
Each station comprises a caesium primary clock, three secondary clocks and the measurement systems used to compare the clocks to less than a billionth of a second.
ANSTO = Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
Here's another writeup that starts with a Salvador Dali-inspired image, if the first one isn't to your liking. (Of course, that assumes that this summary isn't already enough for your liking, which strikes me as a very shaky assumption across the boards.)
[QUOTE]In this initial experiment, commercially available high-precision clocks are being used. Clocks with much better performance would be used in an improved version of the experiment.
One timing station is placed about five metres from the [nuclear] reactor, while the reference station is 10 metres from the reactor.
Each station comprises a caesium primary clock, three secondary clocks and the measurement systems used to compare the clocks to less than a billionth of a second.
ANSTO = Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
Here's another writeup that starts with a Salvador Dali-inspired image, if the first one isn't to your liking. (Of course, that assumes that this summary isn't already enough for your liking, which strikes me as a very shaky assumption across the boards.)
It seems to be easy enough to make a simple concept VERY complicated. First ask "what is time?" Then ask "if time can be stalled or reversed, does that reversal affect the entire universe?" Simply put, time is a measurement of how fast the Earth turns. How long a day is and how long seasons are. It isn't complicated. Our Earth time only works on Earth and where we venture out to. For example a day on Saturn is not an Earth 24 hour cycle. Bottom line, no time can not be altered, as evidenced by the fact that we can't change the speed of the Earth's rotation.
If you could go back in time and change something how would you know it changed? Do you think you would remember changing it? Would changing it also remove the need to go back and change it thus you wouldn't recall that need after the change?
Essence or measure of? I have often pondered time, the minutes left in an hour when I am desperately trying to go back to sleep. The last heart beats of a loved one that time will finally come to a stop for. The measure of time that is left before I become irrelevant, or has that mark already been struck.
Think what you will, no one is stopping you. Get enough people to think the same way and you too could be on the cover of Time. In the end to what purpose? I suspect there is some grant money involved somehow.
Time waits for no one. But as we know it today time or the measure of is static and not changeable, if it wasn't I am sure I would have already visited myself several times just to smack the **** out of me.
I like both of the Reply messages here (two more Reply messages than I had come to expect, as this Topic began its inevitable descent, sending it inexorably lower in the front page list of Topics) but at this time I am only of a mind to respond to the first one, from Rick.
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Originally posted by Rickady88GT: It seems to be easy enough to make a simple concept VERY complicated. First ask "What is time?" Then ask "If time can be stalled or reversed, does that reversal affect the entire universe?"
Simply put, time is a measurement of how fast the Earth turns. How long a day is and how long seasons are. It isn't complicated. Our Earth time only works on Earth and where we venture out to. For example a day on Saturn is not an Earth 24 hour cycle.
Bottom line, no time can not be altered, as evidenced by the fact that we can't change the speed of the Earth's rotation.
That was straightforward and to the point. But here's what the Institute for Quantum Computing had to say recently (as recently as August 2017) about Dr. Joan Vaccaro and her Quantum Theory of Time:
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It is a rare situation where we need to cast aside elementary assumptions that underpin our theories in order to advance them further. To be an advance two things are required: (1) any discarded assumption must be accounted for as a consequence of something deeper, and (2) the deeper cause must have consequences (predictions) that show it is necessary.
Dr. Vaccaro suspects that advancing our understanding of the nature of time, and dynamics in particular, is a situation of this kind. Dynamics is conventionally assumed to be an elemental part of nature. It is incorporated axiomatically in physical theories through conservation laws and compliant equations of motion. If, however, the conservation laws and equations of motion were found to be due to deeper causes, the conventional view of dynamics being elemental would need reworking. She will show how a violation of time reversal symmetry (T violation) of the kind observed in K and B meson decay might be such a cause.
Dr. Vaccaro uses a new quantum formalism based on the principle of superposition of multiple paths that treats time and space equally. The states of matter and fields are represented by paths over space and time. If there is no T violation, the formalism allows an object to be localized in both space and time, i.e. it would exist only in some small region of space and in some small interval of time. As the object would not exist before or after the time interval, there is no equation of motion and no conservation laws. The elementary assumption of dynamics has been clearly discarded here.
However, the same formalism with T violation is dramatically different. The T violation induces destructive interference between paths over time which makes it impossible for matter to remain localized at any one position. An equation of motion (the Schrodinger equation) emerges and conservation laws are obeyed. The discarded assumption is replaced with the emergence of dynamics as a consequence of T violation. Requirement 1 is satisfied.
Moreover, local variations in T violation induce corresponding variations in local clock time (like a quantum version of time dilation). I will briefly discuss how this might lead to physical evidence of the necessity of the new formalism and how it might fulfil requirement 2.
This leaves me in a quandary. Should I go with the first and considerably briefer of these two explanations, from one of our very own forum members? Should I try to split the difference?
I've seen the words "Quantum Theory of Time" before, but this experiment that is just getting underway in Australia has piqued my interest. Or, to say it more accurately, the newly published news reports about the experiment have piqued my interest. The experimental setup is so straightforward. Two ultra-precision time keeping devices or atomic clocks and one of the clocks is stationed closer than the other such clock to a nuclear reactor which creates the anti-neutrinos that are the "leading suspect" in Dr Joan's "theory of the case."
I'll try to keep my "eye" on this situation and hope to have more to report at some as yet undetermined time.
This leaves me in a quandary. Should I go with the first and considerably briefer of these two explanations, from one of our very own forum members? Should I try to split the difference?
Now, a more serious response: a useful way to conceptualize time is as another dimension, the forth dimension, if you will.
Time travel is certainly possible. But, we are destined to experience time in one direction, as if we are traversing that dimension as passengers on a train. If we were to travel to last week, we could not possibly know it because last week we did not know anything about this week.
A somewhat humorous, but irrefutable axiom that has been attributed to everyone from Confucius to George Carlin aptly describes time travel: "Wherever you go, there you are."
[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 02-08-2021).]
Bob, a 21st century man, inventor and a history buff, builds a time machine because he would like to witness the signing of the Magna Carta.
Bob steps into his invention, gets comfortable in the Mr Mike’s upholstered seat and turns the dial to 1215.
After the contraption lights up and makes some odd creaks, whines and hisses, everything goes completely dark and silent.
“Where has Bob gone?”, you might be compelled to ask. Well, he has gone to 1215, England, on the banks of the river Thames to be specific. However, Bob did not exist in 1215 and certainly not anywhere near the Thames at any time past or present. Therefore Bob has ceased to exist. Now, if you were to look for Bob in the correct location during the early years of the 21st century, there he would be, standing next to an odd looking contraption, scratching his head, wondering what just happened.
I didn't latch onto this story because I was thinking about Time Travel or about zipping from one place in the universe to some other place umpteen billion light years away through a Wormhole.
I like the story because if there were to be a positive result from the experiment, it would undermine some of the physics community's most traditional or time-honored values, starting with the Conservation of Mass. At least, that's how it is being reported in the two media reports that I cited.
I also like the conceptual simplicity of the experiment. In concept, it's hardly any more elaborate or convoluted than many a high school student's Science Fair project. I have two clocks at almost the same place--just a few meters distant from one another. Do they keep the same time?
I expect it will be at least another year before there's any high quality results from the experiment. Will I even remember this? To go look for it, if I don't accidentally stumble onto another media report about it. I think if the first go-round yields a negative result--no difference in time keeping from one clock to the other--they will want to try it again with higher precision atomic clocks. The reports that I cited leave me with the impression that there are even more accurate atomic clocks that they could use to upgrade the experiment, if the additional funding becomes available to them.
I guess it's time for Captain Obvious to interject that bromide that starts with "A man with two clocks never knows . . ."
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-08-2021).]
The theory proposes that the dynamics we observe everywhere as changes occurring over time are not fundamental parts of nature but emerge phenomenologically due to time symmetry violations.
That sums this up in just one sentence, but "It's Greek to me."
I know I can't hope to understand this in a quantitative way, involving numbers and equations and such, but I think I might get some sense of it IF I were to peruse some of the many YouTube videos that are tagged with the obvious words and phrases like "dynamics" and "time symmetry" and "Quantum Time."
That's a big IF. It's not like I particularly need to be doing that. Unlike a lot of other rinselberg-related tasks that I can think of.
But, because our observation platform, our "frame of reference" is not static but ruled by the very forces that we are attempting to observe, we should not expect a symmetrical appearance of that which we observe.
Another analogy: think of the origin of the word "planet". It comes from the fact that our perspective is distorted even in a three dimensional "universe".
When I was very small, someone explained to me that time is not a straight line, but rather a pool.
From Chicago Transit Authority's very first album which is--wait for it--"Chicago Transit Authority." The group later shortened their band name to "Chicago."
This is the full version with the [commonly omitted] piano intro by Robert Lamm.
~ Chicago Infinity (YouTube channel)
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-10-2021).]
