RangerWickett
Legend
Are you familiar with potential energy? It is energy that could be released. If you lift an object, you give it greater potential energy, because it is higher, with more distance to fall. When it falls, that potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, and so when the object stops falling, it has less potential energy than when it was raised high.
Now, onto the actual musing.
Spacetime is one constant entity. Space and time are the same thing, which can be detected by experiments involving Einsteinian General Relativity.
Gravity causes objects to fall through space, and the objects achieve ever lower levels of potential energy. Objects do not fall up, because gravity attempts to make matter have the lowest possible state of potential energy.
Time flows forward. Why? We have never perceived time to flow backward. Since space and time are united, perhaps matter falls down through space in one direction (toward lowest possible potential energy) just as matter travels through time in one direction (toward the lowest possible potential energy). Since the universe is expanding, and the law of the conservation of energy states that the universe cannot gain or lose energy, only convert it from one form to another, that would mean that as we progress forward in time, and matter becomes less and less dense, and the same amount of energy is spread over an ever-larger volume of space, then would not the potential energy in any given 5-foot cube be continually decreasing?
As space expands, energy is spread over a larger area, and the local potential energy is reduced. Space falls toward the state of lowest possible potential energy. Time and space are the same thing. Thus, the reason time moves forward is that that the universe, as a whole, is moving asymptotically toward the least possible state of energy. Time moving backward is like an object falling up. It just doesn't happen, because the universe seeks to have the least energy possible (even though the sum of energy never changes), and it attempts to do this by expanding.
Cool, huh? I had this thought after being awake for about 20 hours. Neat how 20 seems to be a pretty important number, eh? As in the D20 system.
But, right before I head off, one last thought. Time is supposed to go in one direction, just as matter is supposed to fall in one direction. But we can lift matter, make it move against gravity by increasing its potential energy. If we could increase matter's potential energy in a different way, would it be possible to move matter backward in time? Time and space are the same, afterall, so this really shouldn't be as hard as it looks.
Now, onto the actual musing.
Spacetime is one constant entity. Space and time are the same thing, which can be detected by experiments involving Einsteinian General Relativity.
Gravity causes objects to fall through space, and the objects achieve ever lower levels of potential energy. Objects do not fall up, because gravity attempts to make matter have the lowest possible state of potential energy.
Time flows forward. Why? We have never perceived time to flow backward. Since space and time are united, perhaps matter falls down through space in one direction (toward lowest possible potential energy) just as matter travels through time in one direction (toward the lowest possible potential energy). Since the universe is expanding, and the law of the conservation of energy states that the universe cannot gain or lose energy, only convert it from one form to another, that would mean that as we progress forward in time, and matter becomes less and less dense, and the same amount of energy is spread over an ever-larger volume of space, then would not the potential energy in any given 5-foot cube be continually decreasing?
As space expands, energy is spread over a larger area, and the local potential energy is reduced. Space falls toward the state of lowest possible potential energy. Time and space are the same thing. Thus, the reason time moves forward is that that the universe, as a whole, is moving asymptotically toward the least possible state of energy. Time moving backward is like an object falling up. It just doesn't happen, because the universe seeks to have the least energy possible (even though the sum of energy never changes), and it attempts to do this by expanding.
Cool, huh? I had this thought after being awake for about 20 hours. Neat how 20 seems to be a pretty important number, eh? As in the D20 system.
But, right before I head off, one last thought. Time is supposed to go in one direction, just as matter is supposed to fall in one direction. But we can lift matter, make it move against gravity by increasing its potential energy. If we could increase matter's potential energy in a different way, would it be possible to move matter backward in time? Time and space are the same, afterall, so this really shouldn't be as hard as it looks.
