Relativity Of Time (Psychologically Speaking) and my theory about it that might just be true

[Shahrukh 0]

I was thinking one day, sometimes when we are doing something, time passes by very quickly. Hours might have been spent and yet we feel like only a few minutes were used.

At other times, even five minutes passed so slowly. So, I posed a question:

 

Q.

Does time passes by at a relative speed? If yes, then what is it related to?

 

That is for everyone to answer.

Note before that though, I am not about how long a second is relative to the speed of light. Rather the psychological feeling of time.

Here is my answer:

 

If you notice, you'll see that time passes by more quickly when you are doing some work. And even more quickly if that is interesting work.

By work, I mean an activity; it could be playing a video game, writing a business report or eating.

 

At the times when you are not doing any work, time passes by slowly. And even more slowly when you actually want time to pass quickly.

For example, when waiting for some one to arrive or a show to come on. TV ads look especially longer too this way.

 

Now, when we are working, we are using our brain on some task.

Lets assume the brain can handle 100% work. And we are currently using 50% on the work. 30% is being used on our inner thoughts. The rest is observing the environment and, more importantly, the passage of time.

This is so because the work we were doing was not THAT interesting.

 

Lets stop that work and move on to something we like more. Now we are using up 85% of our brain on the work. This gives less room, 25%, for inner thoughts; explains why you forget lunch during a hard day at work.

There is no room left for the environment and time.

 

Third scenario: you are sitting on your couch, nothing good is on the TV, you aren't hunger, thirsty, sleepy, talkative or 'anything else' and there is no one with you.

All your brain can think of is the environment and time. And some inner thoughts when any pops up.

 

Now, lets see how we would observe time in the three cases:

Case 1: You looked at the time at 12:00 and worked for an hour, noticing the time now and then; hence. keeping a normal speed of time.

Case 2: You looked at the time at 12:00 and worked your butt off till evening. You looked out the window and said, "Wow! Darkness already!" You totally lost track of time there.

Case 3: You looked at the time at 12:00:00 and then at 12:00:05 and then at 12:00:12 and then at 12:00:21 and so on. You notice every second tick by and keep a very 'accurate' speed of time.

This means in case 1, speed of time, according to you was normal but, in fact, it was faster than actual, like in case 3. And in case 2, you just lost track and time flew above your head.

 

Therefore, I conclude that:

A.

Time is relative to our brain activity.

[Bikerman 2]

This 'theory' has been around for a long time, so sorry to disappoint you but this is not new.

It is also wrong in anything other than a subjective sense. You are talking about perceived time and mixing it up with real measured time. Time does not change with brain activity, merely the perception of time intervals. neither does it change in linear proportion with the activity of the brain - nothing so obvious :-)

You may find the following interesting reading:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/

http://4mind4life.com/blog/2008/07/23/time-perception-how-the-brain-controls-time/

 

Time is relative in actual fact, in the sense that it is your relative motion that decides at what rate it 'ticks'.*

 

 

 

* If you move away from me at any speed then our clocks are then different. This is only tiny and would not be noticable, but when you start going really fast then it becomes obvious. If you could go at about 70% of the speed of light and you departed now for a journey of 12 months, then the difference in our clocks would mean that you would return not next July but next September. Your clock would show July, but here on earth it would be september....

Edited July 31, 2010 by Bikerman (see edit history)

[Shahrukh 0]

This 'theory' has been around for a long time, so sorry to disappoint you but this is not new.

 

So, I wasn't the only one who though about this.

I did think of it by myself though.

 

It is also wrong in anything other than a subjective sense. You are talking about perceived time and mixing it up with real measured time. Time does not change with brain activity, merely the perception of time intervals. neither does it change in linear proportion with the activity of the brain - nothing so obvious :-)

 

I think I did mention that I was talking about the perception of time passing by and not the actual second length.

 

Time is relative in actual fact, in the sense that it is your relative motion that decides at what rate it 'ticks'.*

 

* If you move away from me at any speed then our clocks are then different. This is only tiny and would not be noticable, but when you start going really fast then it becomes obvious. If you could go at about 70% of the speed of light and you departed now for a journey of 12 months, then the difference in our clocks would mean that you would return not next July but next September. Your clock would show July, but here on earth it would be september....

 

Ok. Now you are talking about time zones, like the difference of time between countries. That isn't what I meant. Time zones are a totally different thing. They are there because of the different times the sun shows up on a specific part of Earth.

As for going at 70% the speed of light, you are still considering clock times. I meant the passage of time.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

The perception definitely changes depending on what is going on. I just lost track of time two nights ago in fact, while playing a game, and ended up playing for almost 5 hours without noticing.It's also where the term "time goes faster when you're having fun" comes from (which is a very old saying, I might add).

[Bikerman 2]

Ok. Now you are talking about time zones, like the difference of time between countries. That isn't what I meant. Time zones are a totally different thing. They are there because of the different times the sun shows up on a specific part of Earth.As for going at 70% the speed of light, you are still considering clock times. I meant the passage of time.

No I am not. Nothing to do with time zones or the sun. This is the passage of time - the tick of the clock. The clocks actually tick at different rates when they are moving apart. It is called Time Dilation.

[mahesh2k 0]

Time is relative to our brain activity.

Sounds like inception lol. Other than the scale with which we measure time there is actual expansion of universe and events occur wrt time. Our perception of time may be related to brain activity and it does help us to get around universe but other than that, one can really experience time wrt to environment. Let's take example of species who can't perceive time, in that case whether they lie or die, time continues to move ahead. I'm not into tunnel theory of time but still, it's not just about brain,it's actually moving ahead.

[Bikerman 2]

Sounds like inception lol. Other than the scale with which we measure time there is actual expansion of universe and events occur wrt time. Our perception of time may be related to brain activity and it does help us to get around universe but other than that, one can really experience time wrt to environment. Let's take example of species who can't perceive time, in that case whether they lie or die, time continues to move ahead. I'm not into tunnel theory of time but still, it's not just about brain,it's actually moving ahead.

We could now get into the topic of whether time actually flows or whether it is an illusion. Related and introductory to that would be the question - is there a smallest possible unit of time (a 'quantum' of time) ? This is pretty important in physics at the moment because the answer will determin whether General Relativity is fundamentally flawed in concept, rather than simply being incomplete.
It is worth thinking about the 'childish' stories from Xeno and other ancient Greeks who thought about this matter.
Remember - the tortoise and the hare? If there isn't a shortest unit of time then what connects 'now' to 'past' and 'future'? If there IS a smallest unit of time then imagine two objects side by side. The first object moves North for the smallest possible unit of time. The second moves south for the same period. After 1 unit of time they are therefore 2 units apart. Whoopsie...

If General Relativity is actually correct and time does NOT quantise (divide into units) then the implication is, I think, that time does not flow. Everything is just 'there' - past, present, future. Since we know that ideas like 'simultaneous', 'absolute time' and 'absolute distance' are not real - they change for different observers - then it also follows that my past is someone else's present. Anyone on the moon sees me (if they could) in me past, not my present. Likewise the astronaut returning to earth after a 10 year voyage and finding that 100 years have passed on earth has things to say about the future already 'written'.
Fascinating subject time - it can give you a headache when you think about it deeply though.. :-)

[zanzibarjones 1]

Time is a fabrication of man.Relativity is that as well.Einstein said that if you went fast (99.9% the speed of light) you would slow down. He also says that if you travel from earth for 5 years at near the speed of light, then when you got back everyone her on earth would be older while you were still young. This again is just perception of the mind. You slow down. You don't travel through time. Time travels at the same speed as it always has, a constant speed. There is no future nor past, there is only the present. yes at some point the present will become the past, but the present will never be the future, because when it is the future, it is now the present.Time is not a physical object. It is not something that can truly be measured, it merely is.If you think about it, all the future is, are events that are yet to happen. The area of space which is the future is the same as the area of space that was the past. Matter is matter, it exists. Matter can not be destroyed nor made, therefore, the future is just a matter of a different rearrangement of mattter that has yet to be arranged.