So much physics, so little time

One of the concepts which appears mysterious to students first learning relativity is the notion of "spacetime". And indeed, spacetime is the most important and fundamental concept in relativity. Unfortunately, many treatments of relativity present spacetime as something new in relativity that does not exist in the Newtonian mechanics learned in high school. This is unfortunate because space and time certainly exist in Newtonian mechanics and there is, in fact, a "spacetime" in Newtonian mechanics just as there is in relativity. What changes between the two theories is the relationship between space and time and the corresponding geometry. Understanding relativity will be much easier if we first understand the concept of spacetime in Newtonian mechanics, which is the focus of this set. We start with time.

Question 1 : What is a valid definition of time from a physical process perspective? By physical process, we mean that time has to be defined by some real, physical process that happens in the universe.

All of the others. A universal function defined everywhere. The count of ticks on a clock that someone carries. A coordinate that defines when something happens.

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1 solution

Jake Maason
Jun 17, 2014

The only physical event which occurs in the Universe and is also in the choices of possible answers is the ticking of a clock; thus the answer.

how do we know that its just how we measure or indicate it how do we get the time without defining it

Srinivas Kumar - 6 years, 10 months ago

Can you give an example where time is undefined

U Z - 6 years, 5 months ago

Time changes with respect to observor by general relativity. The only way you can be sure of the time that is passing for you is by keeping your own time.

Pratyush Pandey - 4 years, 4 months ago

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