I am having a hard time understanding the concept of Imaginary time and how space and time is relevant to it. Pretend you are talking to someone who is not a physicist if you answer lol. From what I understand is that Imaginary time is time not bound by the laws of space time and time can operate separate from space and in theory can cultivate multiple different outcomes from the same points of origin. It is like another dimension of time? I don't know.... It just seems like physicist these days will come up with anything and everything to try to describe what they do not understand.

a finite mathematical line of time with infinite boundaries.......... Sounds like hawking might have done a little LSD at some point.


Now for the graph!!!!! Yay for graphs!


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.N O R M A L T I M E


Yes I know, My graph sucks but you get the idea.

This post was edited by Nazzgul1982 on Sep 27 2012 02:09pm

Its the answer/input to an equation and I don't think 3-dimensional beings like ourselves living in normal time would be able to comprehend experiencing it.

From what I've heard, it helps us explain how particles do strange things like pass through surfaces or experience waveform collapse at seemingly above light speeds so we use it. Otherwise, I doubt there's an observational consensus even among experts.

A good comparison was a metaphorical ant crawling on a mobius loop. Within its usual dimensions the ant has to crawl around the loop in order to get to the other side and would only see time as an infinitely long path leading ahead and behind. Then consider imaginary time, which extends perpendicular to real, which could travel the loop in another direction and would then see time more like loop.

IDK how you do LSD in a wheelchair though.

ez. i wont tell you tho it's fun to figure it out yourself.

This is what theoretical physics is. Unfortunately at this level of physics, what we can discern of reality goes against our common sense, so common sense is no longer a good premilinary test for a hypothesis. To be honest, common sense has never been a good test. Geocentrism makes perfect 'common sense' to someone uneducated.

I personally believe that time doesn't exist at all. Just a human construct.

this can be applied to anything, your point is quite vague

This post was edited by Ocen on Oct 2 2012 01:52pm

He means there's nothing inherent in the universe tying specific states to specific moments in time. The state of the universe in the 'future' is solely a function of what it was now.

You can imagine the world of 1947 in your head, but that world no longer exists and isn't connected to a fixed dimension 'time'.

Yeah, I agree, but I think this debate is rooted in semantics. As far as I can tell we're operating under two different definitions of time: past, present, future: measurable quantities, and the actual phenomenon which eloquently "marches on"

any kind of perception is a 'human construct'

we also perceive time, so its obvious. But this brings us to the broader question: if we dont perceive it, is it there?

Why does it matter? Who cares if there is an imaginary timeling flying somewhere we can't even access.
That's just sci-fi, this theory is not based on anything serious but speculations.