3 ms·
We can't measure time, at least not in the way that we measure anything else: the measuring device necessarily moves in that dimension in direct relation to wha
by GavinMcG 9y ago
We can't measure time, at least not in the way that we measure anything else: the measuring device necessarily moves in that dimension in direct relation to whatever is being measured.
Analogously, we can use a yardstick to measure space in a "static" way, but don't have a timestick – we have to actually step off each unit.
- contravariant 9y agoBut we do have a timestick? Sort off anyway. The Caesium 133 atom turns out to oscillate at a very consistent frequency, effectively marking equidistant points in time, similar to how a yardstick marks equidistant points in space.
- Koshkin 9y agoWell, the clock's precision plays a very little role here. Still, you are correct, a clock moving through time (while measuring it) is wholly analogous to having to move a yardstick through space in order to measure distance.
- GavinMcG 9y agoYou're right about the equidistance. But we can't measure that oscillation, or anything else that takes place in the dimension of time, without moving through it ourselves. That's what I was getting at with the yardstick analogy: we can plop a yardstick down and look at the number representing the length. We don't need to actually position ourselves at point 0 and move ourselves to point N. That's not the case with time – when we take a measurement, we must start at point 0 and actually move along the time dimension to the point at which the measurement stops. (As a teacher it's always so fun seeing how an example gets interpreted entirely reasonably in way other than you intended.)