Does time really exist? or is it a human invention and convention? What is the truth? are there time particles? please remember, I'm looking for constructive answers, not condescending and void ones.
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$\begingroup$ Time particles don't exist. The rest of the question is something which Physics can't answer. $\endgroup$– jinaweeJun 20, 2014 at 8:36
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$\begingroup$ The question about existence of time looks more of philosophy than physics. $\endgroup$– RuslanJun 20, 2014 at 8:57
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1$\begingroup$ @Bak1139 If you do not like condescending or void answers, you might like to improve the way you are asking: What do you mean precisely when asking "does time exist"? "Existence" is not a property we usually ascribe to coordinates. What do you even mean by "time particles"? Particles are excitations of fields, and coordinates are not fields. No part of your question is in terms that would be physically well-defined, so you should not expected physically well-defined answers. $\endgroup$– ACuriousMind ♦Jun 20, 2014 at 13:01
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$\begingroup$ Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/69252 $\endgroup$– dmckee --- ex-moderator kittenJun 20, 2014 at 14:38
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1$\begingroup$ This is hardly an answer $\endgroup$– Bak1139Jun 25, 2014 at 11:59
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1 Answer
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There are physicists who have said things about time not existing, such as Julian Barbour. This is a sensationalised way of describing an idea about physics that may or may not be true. It doesn't mean that there are no clocks or that clocks don't measure anything. Rather, it means something like this. If you had the complete series of configurations for all the objects and fields in the universe, at each time but you didn't have the time labels for those configurations there would be a way of arranging them in a series because the contents of configurations with very different contents would be farther separated in time than those with similar contents.
For more on this idea see
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/220/
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/221/
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$\begingroup$ Kurt Goedel showed with the use of General relativity that time might not exist (possibly under some circumstances). It also seems that the scientific community has not really accepted his argumentation. I also admit I have not understood why. So I cannot say much about it. But it shows that the question is not so trivial as it looks like. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2014 at 17:05