Modern mathematics relies upon the real number, which is bidirectional, for representations in physics. This is a mistake, so when we speak of three dimensional space we should remember that this terminology is couched in the assumption that the real line is one dimensional. Time is considered in modernity to be one dimensional, but this can be disproven by the same experiments which demonstrate three dimensional space. It will be found that there is no freedom to move an object either forward in time or backward in time, yielding the experimental conclusion that time is zero dimensional.
Most accept that time is unidirectional: it always 'marches' forward. From our perspective as objects in space we certainly witness a progression of events of the objects about us. Our best attempts to measure time rely upon these objects, and one of the most primitive is easily constructed by anyone with a piece of string and a mass at the end of the string; the pendulum. All time measuring instruments suffer this issue of being built from objects in space, and there seems to be no resolution other than theoretical constructs.
Modern humans believe that the past is fixed and certain whereas the future is unknown and only partially predictable, and that we exist in the present moment. This belief, particularly of the past as fixed and certain can be challenged. We have no actual access to particular events in the past to verify or amplify their accuracy. In this regard the one dimensional geometrical mapping of time in our heads can be challenged so that even the assumption of past time doesn't hold up.
I have managed to generalize sign, which is a key element within the real value. I call the generalization polysign numbers (
http://bandtechnology.com/PolySigned/index.html ), which is intended to correspond fairly closely to the naming of polygon. For instance we can have a three-sided shape that is a polygon and we can have a three-signed value that is a polysign number. The real numbers are two-signed and fit perfectly into the generalization, though there are some issues with the reuse of the signs as operators(the '+' sign has traditionally indicated both a sign and summation but this does not extend well). The polysign construction does allow for a P1 (one-signed) number, which is both unidirectional and zero dimensional. Polysign also have an interesting behavior that allows them to claim natural support for spacetime, with unidirectional time. Polysign also develop their own version of the complex number as natural in the family as P3 (the three-signed numbers). This means that the complex numbers sit alongside the real numbers (P2) within the family of polysign numbers P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, ... There happens to be a breakpoint beyond P3, where distance is no longer conserved on arithmetic product. I do not believe that polysign numbers are a final modification of the existing system, but they are a strong indication of a step in the correct direction. They are baffling to most humans, but this is because the two-signed assumption had been burned in and enforced from an early age. The simplest challenge to the real value as fundamental is to ask whether the ray is more fundamental than the line, and I affirm that it is since two rays compose the real line. We ought to build more complicated things from simpler things, but in modernity we do not. The only feature of reality that seems well matched to the real number is geometrical, but even here in a big bang universe the real value fails to be well named.
Short answer: yes, time does exist, but it is zero dimensional. We can do some computations with it but they do not render.
- Tim Golden
- By Stoppelmann
- By Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
- By Good_Egg