2025 RationalWiki 'Oregon Plan' Fundraiser

There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff—we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity.

Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can today with PayPal Logo.png!
Donations so far: $1675.86Goal: $10000
Information icon.svg At the chicken coop, we are currently voting on a change to the blocking policy to clarify when offsite behavior such as harassment and brigading can get someone banned from RW. A reminder that you need at least 75 edits and to have had an account for at least 3 months to vote.

Timeless physics

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The facts of the matter
Physics
Physicon.png
May the mass times acceleration be with you
Let's get physical!
Atoms trying to understand atoms

Timeless physics is an attempt to construct a useful formulation of physics that does not rely on a "t" term as fundamental, but rather has what we perceive as "time" emerge from the model.

Its main proponent is Julian Barbour, in his 1999 book The End Of Time.[1] Barbour says that time is only an illusion, and that problems arise from assuming that it does exist: "Change merely creates an illusion of time, with each individual moment existing in its own right, complete and whole." He notes that Einstein, in one of his last letters, writes: "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion."

The notion is very fringe, but is regarded by serious physicists (including such diverse people as Lee Smolin and Luboš Motl[2][3]) as "interesting" rather than "crank." Timelessness would obviously be more elegant, so the idea appeals to physicists. There just isn't much of practical use for it as yet.

LessWrong also endorses the idea and develops a few of its odder local ideas from it.[4]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. Julian Barbour. The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195145925. First chapter.
  2. Timeless physics (Luboš Motl, The Reference Frame, 08 April 2006)
  3. Timeless physics 2009 (Luboš Motl, The Reference Frame, 20 June 2009)
  4. Timeless Physics (Eliezer Yudkowsky, LessWrong, 27 May 2008)