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Physics Essays

Time as the result of the observer’s measurement

Amrit Šorli, Štefan Čelan

Published Dec 30, 2021• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Since the beginning of physics, time is the duration of material changes. We measure time with clocks. The notion of time in Newton physics, Einstein’s relativity, and quantum physics are different despite we always measure the same time with the same apparatuses that are clocks. We showed in this article that the act of the measurement done by the observer is generating duration. Time as duration is the result of the interaction between the observer and physical reality via clocks. In the universe, only changes exist. Changes have no duration on their own. Time as duration is born with the measurement done by the observer. Duration is relative and depends on the variable energy density of time-invariant superfluid quantum space that is the carrier of EPR-type entanglement.

DOI
10.4006/0836-1398-34.4.583

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Since the beginning of physics, time is the duration of material changes. We measure time with clocks. The notion of time in Newton physics, Einstein’s relativity, and quantum physics are different despite we always measure the same time with the same apparatuses that are clocks. We showed in this article that the act of the measurement done by the observer is generating duration. Time as duration is the result of the interaction between the observer and physical reality via clocks. In the universe, only changes exist. Changes have no duration on their own. Time as duration is born with the measurement done by the observer. Duration is relative and depends on the variable energy density of time-invariant superfluid quantum space that is the carrier of EPR-type entanglement.
Time is what we measure with clocks. We measure the duration of material change running in superfluid quantum space with clocks. Material change runs in space only; time, as duration, enters existence when measured. Time is an emergent physical reality that enters existence when measured by the observer. No measurement means no time. The motion does not require time. Motion requires only space and the physical object that moves in superfluid quantum space, which is time-invariant. There is no physical past; there is no physical future. Past and future exist only in the human mind. Humans experience time-invariant superfluid quantum space as NOW. The entire universe exists and develops into NOW.
Most physicists today still conceptualize time as a part of the physical space in which material objects move, although time has never been observed and measured as a part of the space. The concept of time here presented is that time measured with clocks is merely the numerical order of material change, i.e. motion in a three-dimensional space. In special relativity the Minkowskian four-dimensional space-time can be replaced with a three-dimensional space where time does not represent a fourth coordinate of space but must be considered merely as a mathematical quantity measuring the numerical order of material changes. By quantum entanglement the three-dimensional space is a medium of a direct information transfer between quantum particles. Numerical order of non-local correlations between subatomic particles in EPR-type experiments and other immediate quantum processes is zero in the sense that the three-dimensional space acts as an immediate information medium between them.
Clocks are systems for measuring frequency, velocity, duration and numerical order ntttt.......,, 210 of physical events. Time t obtained with clocks is not a forth dimension 4X of space, time t is only a component of tciX ∗∗=4. This view of clock/time as a measuring system sees physical phenomena running exclusively in space and not in time. This view is supported with several experiments which confirm that time t of physical event can be zero. Time is not part of space; time is run of clocks in space. Past, present and future exist as a psychological time in the mind only not in the universe. We experience motion i.e. change in the space through the frame of psychological time. We “project ” linear psychological time “past-present-future ” into the space, however it is not there. Observer who distinguishes between space-time, physical time and psychological time is aware that in quantum measurement he only measures physical events in space and not in time. Clock/time is merely a measuring device. With this understanding observer’s observation, measurement and experience of quantum phenomena are closer to their real nature. Stream of numerical order of quantum phenomena ntttt.......,, 210 runs in space only and not in time. Stream of quantum phenomena has no duration on its own. Duration is result of measurement.
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of quantum uncertainty lies with the absence of infinities or infinitesimals in observational data and that our concept of time derives from observing changing data (events). We argue that the fundamentally important content of the Superposition Principle is not the "probability amplitude" of posterior state observation but future state availability conditional only on prior information. Since event detection also implies posterior conditions (e.g. a specific type of detectable event occurred) as well as prior conditions, the probabilities of detected outcomes are also conditional on properties of the posterior properties of the observation. Such posterior conditions cannot affect the prior state availabilities and this implies violation of counter-factual definiteness. A component of a quantum system may be chosen to represent a clock and changes in other components can then be expected to be correlated with clocks with which they are entangled. Instead of traditional time-dependent equations of motion we provide a specific mechanism whereby evolution of data is instead quasi-causally related to the relative \availability\ of states and equations of motion are expressed in terms of quantized clock variables. We also suggest that time-reversal symmetry-breaking in weak interactions is an artifice of a conventional choice of co-ordinate time-function. Analysis of a "free" particle suggests that conventional co-ordinate space-time emerges from how we measure the separation of objects and events.
A clock is a dynamical system which passes through a succession of states at constant time intervals. If coupled to another system, it can measure the duration of a physical process and even keep a permanent record of it, such as in a time-of-flight experiment or in observing the lifetime of an unstable atom. A clock can also be used to control the duration of a process, e.g., the precession of a spin in a magnetic field which is turned on and off at prescribed times. This article shows how to construct time-independent Hamiltonians describing these possible uses of a quantum clock. As expected, a good time resolution entails a large energy exchange between the clock and the other system, thereby modifying the evolution of the latter. This evolution may even be halted by using a clock which is too precise (this is the quantum analog of Zeno’s paradox).
This paper introduces the concept of time as a count of a count of changes or events that set up a local "clock" in each system. Time does not exist without changes in the system and every system runs its own local time. In interaction, systems generate a sequence of interaction events that are being added to the internal pool of events in each system. Any observation is made with the local time of the observer system and changes the observer's local time by adding observation events to the observer's time count. Local time in any "nite and closed system is "nite and obeys the saturation principle due to limitations of the event counting capacity of the system. Traditional continuous time is just a convenient approximation for the enormous number of events occurring in our world that set up our local "clock". !e event-based approach does not conflict with modern physics but proposes a new view of the fundamental notion of time and brings us one step closer to understanding the world in which we live. The greatest mystery of the notion of time is that there is no time at all.